Archive for April 5th, 2008
No Munich in Bucharest
No Munich in Bucharest
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev)
Those who followed the NATO summit in Bucharest had every reason to expect a “second Munich,” that is, one more address in which President Vladimir Putin would tell the global audience what Russia thinks of the West’s attitude to it.
But there was no Munich in Bucharest, and it had not been planned. Drafting his last presidential speech before a major world forum, Putin intended from the very start to balance out Russia’s discontent with NATO’s actions with its proposals on future relations between the two sides.
The Munich conference was a relatively open forum unlike the Bucharest meeting. This time, Putin did not deliver a public speech. He addressed the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, which his presence turned into a summit. The media were groping for information about Putin’s speech. One of the sources was NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer; others were from the Russian delegation.
So, what did the Russian president talk about? Here is the first half of his speech about Moscow’s grievances. He called the extension of the alliance a “direct threat” to Russia – a very serious warning. Russia does not have the right of veto, and it is not seeking it. States should be able to hear each other’s concerns without any vetoes. NATO should not ensure its security at the expense of the security of other countries, Russia included. NATO is a military alliance, and as such it should display restraint it the military sphere. If NATO continues approaching the Russian borders, Moscow will take “necessary measures.” Russia has seen repeated violations of international law – it is enough to mention the bombing of Yugoslavia, or Kosovo’s unilateral recognition.
As we see, there are no sensations, everything is obvious. Now let’s turn to the second half of the speech, where Putin voiced Russia’s proposals for cooperation with NATO. Having suspended the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) last December, Russia is ready to resume it on the basis of reciprocity. The Iranian problem should be resolved on the basis of transparency – hardly anyone can imagine Iran attacking the United States. Instead of cornering the Iranians, the world community should find another approach. NATO and Russia could cooperate on Afghanistan. He spoke highly about the participation of warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Operation Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean, and pointed out that for Moscow cooperation with NATO is an informed choice.
This is about all, or at least the main points. Not a single sensation – Russia has been telling NATO about these things for many years, but NATO has turned a deaf ear to them, and has been implacably moving towards the Russian borders.
Moscow should not feel any triumph about the Bucharest summit’s previous decisions – to suspend the Membership Action Plan for Ukraine and Georgia. This is a trifle because in December this process will be resumed. But Scheffer’s words about NATO’s inevitable expansion are important, and NATO’s decision to regard the missile defense system as its own brainchild rather than an American idea imposed on Europe is a serious symptom.
The Bucharest summit has shown that NATO and Europe or the West in general, have even more problems than it seems at first sight. Muslim Albania’s NATO entry is part of the conflict between the West and the Muslim world, and its solution is nowhere in sight. The well-concealed contradictions about NATO’s participation in missions in Afghanistan point to Alliance’s military insolvency, and its ambiguous position of an accessory for the American war machine.
The Bucharest summit is the hardest of all. NATO is beset with problems – Paris and Berlin feel Iraq-related mistrust of Washington (despite the change of leaders in France and Germany), Polish-German and Greek-Macedonian relations remain complicated; NATO is reluctant to aggravate relations with President-Elect Dmitry Medvedev; and Ukraine and Georgia do not fit NATO’s criteria in a whole number of parameters.
It is hard to be an American or European today. For several centuries, the Western civilization nurtured illusions about its eternal leadership and supremacy over all other cultures. But this era is coming to a close, and it is time for the West to adapt to a new reality.
But for the time being this adaptation is more in the nature of panic in front of the imminent invasion of a poorly reinforced fortress – “All those who can bear arms should come inside, and the bridge should be lifted. There is no point in reacting to the signals from the aliens, no matter what they suggest.” This is how NATO behaved with Russia under Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. No internal NATO problems matter when it comes to relations with Russia. NATO has never listened to Russia. Nor does it heed Russia’s concerns now. This was the argument of those in Moscow who opposed Putin’s visit to Bucharest, but the other view prevailed despite all skepticism.
This is why there was no “new Munich” in Bucharest – one was enough.
Corn Hits $6 a Bushel on Tight Supplies
Corn Hits $6 a Bushel on Tight Supplies
NEW YORK (AP) — Corn prices jumped to a record $6 a bushel Thursday, driven up by an expected supply shortfall that will only add to Americans’ growing grocery bill and further squeeze struggling ethanol producers.
Corn prices have shot up nearly 30 percent this year amid dwindling stockpiles and surging demand for the grain used to feed livestock and make alternative fuels including ethanol. Prices are poised to go even higher after the U.S. government this week predicted that American farmers — the world’s biggest corn producers — will plant sharply less of the crop in 2008 compared to last year.
“It’s a demand-driven market and we may not be planting enough acres to supply demand, so that adds to the bullishness of corn,” said Elaine Kub, a grains analyst with DTN in Omaha, Neb.
Corn for the most actively traded May contract rose 4.25 cents to settle at $6 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, after earlier rising to $6.025 a bushel — a new all-time high.
Worldwide demand for corn to feed livestock and to make biofuel is putting enormous pressure on global supply. And with the U.S. expected to plant less corn, the supply shortage will only worsen. The U.S. Department of Agriculture projected that farmers will plant 86 million acres of corn in 2008, an 8 percent drop from last year.
Moreover, cold, wet weather in parts of the U.S. corn belt may force farmers to delay spring planting, potentially sending prices even higher.
While corn growers are reaping record profits, U.S. consumers can expect even higher grocery bills — especially for meat and pork — as livestock producers are forced to pass on higher animal feed costs and thin their herd size.
“Higher corn prices is going to affect meat prices. If you’re feeding with $6 corn, you’ll definitely have some (cost) pressure,” Kub said.
In addition, corn and corn syrup are used in an array of products, meaning the price of everything from candy to soft drinks will eventually go up, analysts say. It’s the latest dose of bad news for U.S. consumers, who are already struggling with higher food costs from record increases in the price of wheat, soybeans and other agriculture products.
Another loser in higher corn costs is ethanol producers, who are struggling to squeeze out gains as corn’s record-setting run outpaces the price of ethanol, currently at around $2.50 a gallon.
“For years, corn was cheap and fermentation processes for ethanol production came to completely dominate the biofuel industry in North America,” Michael Jackson, president and chairman of Vancouver-based ethanol maker Syntec Biofuel, said this week. “Now, with corn prices well over $5 a bushel, corn ethanol economics have gone out the window.”
The nation’s 147 ethanol plants now have the capacity to produce 8.5 billion gallons of fuel a year, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. Corn is the basic feedstock for most of the plants and about 20 percent of last year’s 13 billion bushel corn crop was consumed by ethanol production. That percentage is expected to increase to 30 percent for the next crop year, which ends Aug. 31, 2009, according to Terry Francl, a senior economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation.
There are still plans to build or expand another 61 plants, which will add about 5.1 billion gallons of capacity. However, as corn prices have climbed over the past year or so, construction of several plants has been halted or delayed, shaving about 500 million gallons worth of capacity off the original figure, according to Broadpoint Capital analyst Ron Oster.
At least one facility, the Alchem plant in Grafton, N.D., shut down late last year because of high prices.
A new plant hasn’t broken ground over the past couple of quarters, Oster said, and while producers can have positive gross margins with ethanol at $2.50 a gallon and corn at $6 a bushel, that doesn’t mean companies are profitable.
“Bottom line earnings are near break-even or modestly below break-even,” he said.
Looking ahead, only the strongest ethanol producers will survive in an era of ever-rising corn prices, said Soleil Securities analyst Ian Horowitz.
“There are going to be some particular companies that definitely have the balance sheet and efficiencies that will be able to eke out a positive return in this kind of environment,” Horowitz said. “And then there will be others that will suffer at the hands of $6 corn.”
Associated Press Business Writer Lauren LaCapra contributed to this report.
U.S. soldiers move into Sadr City
U.S. soldiers move into Sadr City
By BRADLEY BROOKS
U.S. forces are pushing Shiite militias farther from the Green Zone in an attempt to put the area out of range for rockets and mortars that have recently pounded the diplomatic and government enclave.
The strategy – which targets the southern outskirts of the Shiite district of Sadr City – began as part of a wider crackdown on armed Shiite groups that left Iraqi leaders in disarray after strong resistance and protests from the powerful Mahdi Army militia.
But for American commanders, the showdowns offered an opportunity to move against the launch sites, known as “rocket boxes,” which soldiers previously had not reached through the teeming Sadr City streets.
U.S. troops reinforced positions on the edges of Sadr City – an 8-square-mile slum with about 2.5 million people – and have battled their way into suspected launch sites.
“We’ve seized the ‘rocket boxes’ and pushed them north,” said Col. John Hort, commander of the Third Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division.
The 107 mm rockets typically used by the militiamen could hit the Green Zone if fired from the southern edges of Sadr City, about 3.5 miles northeast of the zone. The rockets can be launched from mobile platforms. Mortars, too, can be done in a fire-and-hide style.
Militants used a few 122 mm rockets, which can be fired from far deeper inside Sadr City where there is no American presence, but they seem to have few of those weapons.
Trying to stop such attacks has “driven us mad,” Hort said.
Dozens of salvos have poured into the Green Zone since Iraqi forces opened a campaign against Shiite gangs in the southern city of Basra. The Mahdi Army, led by anti-American cleric Mutqada al-Sadr, fought Iraqi police and soldiers to a stalemate in Basra and staged protests and attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere.
The Green Zone strikes killed at least two American government workers inside the U.S.-protected district, which includes the American and British embassies and key Iraqi government offices. More than a dozen Iraqi civilians were killed by short-falling volleys outside the zone.
Hort said U.S. forces faced relentless militia attacks in Sadr City, but were able to establish patrol bases overlooking the launch sites.
The militiamen, he said, were “entrenched and determined to fight.”
And they haven’t yet surrendered the territory.
Capt. David Uthlaut was sprawled on his back on the roof of Patrol Base Texas on Thursday afternoon along with seven other American soldiers after snipers opened fire from a nearby building on the southern edges of Sadr City.
“Whatever happened to chai time?” he said in his Charleston, S.C., drawl, wryly referring to the time of day many Iraqis take a tea break and the hour that snipers have targeted his outpost for the past five days – around 4:30 p.m.
The base – nothing but an abandoned, four-story cold-storage warehouse – overlooks a dusty, trash-littered soccer field that days before was the insurgents’ main rocket launching site, commanders said.
The push against the launch site also displays internal tensions on how to maintain the footholds.
Hort and other U.S. commanders want Iraqi forces to quickly take charge of the mission, seeking to limit the direct U.S. presence in Sadr City, even on its edges, and avoid long-running confrontations with the Mahdi Army.
But Iraqi troops appeared to have a sideline role in Patrol Base Texas.
Even as snipers targeted the base, some Iraqi soldiers were inside sipping tea or eating bread. Some snoozed away the afternoon’s heat. None was carrying his weapon.
Last week, the Mahdi Army overran two Iraqi army checkpoints near Sadr City. Other Iraqi checkpoints held their ground after American reinforcements arrived. While U.S. soldiers were happy that some Iraqi checkpoints held, they wish it wouldn’t require American reinforcements for them to do so.
Which was a theme at Patrol Base Texas – the Iraqis’ reluctance to take the initiative and their reliance on American troops for all decisions.
For instance, the highest ranking Iraqi commander at Patrol Base Texas asked Uthlaut to send an American patrol to a nearby Iraqi army checkpoint. Iraqi national police had previously set up the checkpoint but were now going to tear it down. The Iraqi wanted the Americans to stop the police from doing that.
“What can I tell them?” Uthlaut said to the Iraqi. “Can you not tell your Iraqi brothers that you’re all on the same team?”
Eventually Uthlaut convinced the commander that an American patrol was not needed to sort the situation out. The checkpoint was still standing as of early evening.
Despite the hurdles of working with the Iraqis, the captain wanted to make one thing clear.
“I don’t want you walking away from here thinking that we didn’t accomplish our mission,” Uthlaut told a reporter at dusk after going to a nearby U.S. base to attend some briefings.
“We did accomplish our mission,” he said. “We held the high ground, we’ve kept the roads clear and they aren’t firing any more rockets.”
Flashback: The Liquid Bomb Hoax: The Larger Implications
Flashback: The Liquid Bomb Hoax: The Larger Implications
An analysis of the current state of the investigation raises a series of questions regarding the governments’ claims of a bomb plot concocted by 24 Brits of Pakistani origin.
The arrests were followed by the search for evidence, as the August 12, 2006 Financial Times states: “The police set about the mammoth task of gathering evidence of the alleged terrorist bomb plot yesterday.” (FT, August 12/, 2006)
In other words, the arrests and charges took place without sufficient evidence — a peculiar method of operation — which reverses normal investigatory procedures in which arrests follow the “monumental task of gathering evidence.” If the arrests were made without prior accumulation of evidence, what were the bases of the arrests?
The government search of financial records and transfers turned up no money trail despite the freezing of accounts. The police search revealed limited amounts of savings, as one would expect from young workers, students and employees from low-income immigrant families.
The British government, backed by Washington, claimed that the Pakistani government’s arrest of two British-Pakistanis provided “critical evidence” in uncovering the plot and identifying the alleged terrorist. No Western judicial hearing would accept evidence procured by the Pakistani intelligence services that are notorious for their use of torture in extracting ‘confessions’. The Pakistani dictatorship’s evidence is based on a supposed encounter between a relative of one of the suspects and an Al Qaeda operative on the Afghan border. According to the Pakistani police, the Al Qaeda agent provided the relative and thus the accused with the bomb-making information and operative instructions. The transmission of bomb-making information does not require a trip half-way around the world, least of all to a frontier under military siege by US led forces on one side and the Pakistani military on the other. Moreover it is extremely dubious that Al Qaeda agents in the mountains of Afghanistan have any detailed knowledge of specific British airline security, procedures or conditions of operations in London. Lacking substantive evidence, Pakistani intelligence and their British counterparts touched all the propaganda buttons: A clandestine meeting with Al Qaeda, bomb-making information exchanges on the Pakistani-Afghan border, Pakistani-Brits with Islamic friends, family and terrorist connections in England . . .
US intelligence claimed, and London repeated, that sums of money had been wired from Pakistan to allow the plotters to buy airline tickets. Yet air tickets were found in only one residence (and the airline and itinerary were not stated by the police). None of the other suspects possessed plane tickets and some did not even have passports. In other words, the most preliminary moves in the so-called bomb plot had not been taken by the accused. No terrorist plot to bomb airplanes exists when the alleged conspirators are lacking travel funds, documents and tickets. It is not credible to argue that the alleged conspirators depended on instructions from distant handlers ignorant of the basic ground level conditions.
Initially the British and US authorities claimed that the explosive device was a “liquid bomb,” yet no liquid or non-liquid bomb was discovered on the premises or persons of any of the accused. Nor has any evidence been produced as to the capability of any of the suspects in making, moving or detonating the “liquid bomb” — a very volatile solution if handled by unskilled operatives. No evidence has been presented on the nature of the specific liquid bomb question, or any spoken discussion or written documents about the liquid bomb, which would implicate any of the suspects. No bottle, liquid or chemical formula has been found among any of the suspects. Nor have any of the ingredients that go into making the “liquid bomb” been uncovered. Nor has any evidence been presented as to where the liquid was supposed to come from (the source) or whether it was purchased locally or overseas.
When the liquid bomb story was ridiculed into obscurity, British Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clark claimed that, “bomb making equipment including chemicals and electric components had been found,” (BBC News, 8/21/2006)
Once again there is no mention of what “electronic components” and “chemicals” were found, in whose home or office and if they might be related to non-bomb making activities. Were these so-called new bomb-making items owned by a specific person or group of persons, and if so were they known by the parties implicated to be part of a bombing plot. Moreover, when and why have the authorities switched from the liquid bombs to identifying old fashion electronic detonators? Is there any evidence — documents or taped discussions — that link these electronic detonators and chemicals with the specific plot to “blow up 9 US bound airliners”?
Instead of providing relevant facts clearing up basic questions of names, dates, weapons, and travel dates, Commissioner Clark gives the press a laundry list of items that could be found in millions of homes and the large number of buildings searched (69 so far). If stair climbing earns promotions, Clark should be nominated for a knighthood. According to Clark the police discovered more than 400 computers, 200 mobile telephones, 8,000 computer media items (items as catastrophic as memory sticks, CDs and DVDs); police removed 6,000 gigabytes of data from the seized computers (150 from each computer) and a few video recordings. One presumes, in the absence of any qualitative data demonstrating that the suspects were in fact preparing bombs in order to destroy nine US airliners, that Commissioner Clark is seeking public sympathy for his minions’ enormous capacity to lift and remove electronic equipment from one site to another in up to 69 buildings. This is a notable achievement if we are talking about a moving company and not a high-powered police investigation of an event of “catastrophic consequences.”
Some of the suspects were arrested because they have traveled to Pakistan at the beginning of the school year holidays. British and US authorities forget to mention that tens of thousands of Pakistani ex-pats return to visit family at precisely that time of year.
The wise guys on Wall Street and The City of London never took the liquid bomb plot seriously: At no point did the Market respond, nose-dive, crash or panic. The announced plot to bomb airlines was ignored by all Big Players on the US and London stock markets. In fact, petrol prices dropped slightly. In contrast to 9/11 and the Madrid and London bombings (to which this plot is compared) the stock market ‘makers’ were not impressed by the governments’ claims of a ‘major catastrophe.’ George Bush or Tony Blair, who were informed and discussed the “liquid bomb plot” several days beforehand, didn’t even skip a day of their vacations, in response to the catastrophic threat.
And each and every claim and piece of ‘evidence’ put forth by the police and the Blair and Bush security authorities runs a cropper. Some of the alleged suspects are released, and new equally paltry ‘evidence’ is breathlessly presented: two tape recordings of “martyr messages” were found in the computer of one suspect, which, we are told, foretold a planned terrorist attack. The Clark team claimed with great aplomb that they found one or a few martyr videotapes, without clarifying the fact that the videos were not made by the suspects but viewed by them. Many people the world over pay homage to suicide martyrs to a great variety of political causes. Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan visits a shrine dedicated to World War II military dead — including kamikaze suicide pilots, defying Chinese and Korean protests. Millions of US citizens and politicians pay homage to the war heroes in Arlington cemetery each year, some of whom deliberately sacrificed their lives in order to defend their comrades, their flag and the justice of their cause. It should be of no surprise that Asians, Muslims and others should collect videos of anti-Israeli or anti-occupation martyrs. In none of the above cases where people honor martyrs is there any police attempt to link the reverent observer with future suicide bomb plots — except if they are Muslims. Hero worship of fallen fighters is a normal everyday phenomenon — and is certainly no evidence that the idolaters are engaged in murderous activity.
A “martyr message” is neither a plot, conspiracy nor action, it is only an expression of free speech — one might add, ‘internal speech’ (between the speaker and his computer) which might at some future time become public speech. Are we to make private dialogue a terrorist offense?
As the legal time limit expires on the holding of suspects without charges, the British authorities released two suspects, charged eleven, and eleven others continue to be held without charges, probably because there is no basis for proceeding further. As the number of accused plotters thin out in England, Clark and company have deflected attention to a world-wide plot with links to Spain, Italy, the Middle East and elsewhere. Apparently the logic here is that a wider net compensates for the large holes. In the case at hand, of the eleven who have been remanded to trial, only eight have been charged with conspiracy to prepare acts of terrorism; the other three are accused of “not disclosing information” (or being informers . . . of what?) and “possessing articles useful to a person preparing acts of terrorism.” (BBC News, 8/21/06) Since no bombs have been found and no plans of action have been revealed, we are left with the vague charge of ‘conspiracy’, which can mean a hostile private discussion directed against US and British subjects by several like-thinking individuals. The reason that it appears that ideas and not actions are in question is because the police have not turned up any weapons or specific measures to enter into the locus of attack (air tickets to board planes, passports and so on). How can suspects be charged with failing to disclose information, when the police lack any concrete information pertaining to the alleged bomb plot. The fact that the police are further diluting their charges against three more plotters is indicative of the flimsy basis of their original arrests and public claims. To charge a 17 year-old-boy with “possessing articles useful to a person preparing acts of terrorism” is so open-ended as to be laughable: Did the article have other uses for the boy or for his family (like a box cutter). Did he ‘possess’ written articles because they were informative or fascinating to a young person? Since he still possessed the article, he had not passed these articles to any person making bombs. Did he know of any specific plans to make bombs or any bomb-makers? The charges could implicate anyone possessing and reading a good spy novel or science fiction thriller in which bomb making is discussed. The eleven have already pleaded innocent; the trial will begin in due time. The government and mass media have already convicted the accused in the electronic and print media. Panic has been sown. Fear and hysterical anger is present in the long security lines at airports and train stations . . . Asian men quietly saying prayers are being pulled off of airplanes and planes diverted or airports evacuated.
The bomb plot hoax has caused enormous losses (in the hundreds of millions of dollars) to the airlines, business people, oil companies, duty free shops, tourist agencies, resorts and hotels, not to speak of the tremendous inconvenience and health related problems of millions of stranded and stressed travelers. The restrictions on laptop computers, travel bags, accessories, special foods and liquid medicines have added to the ‘costs’ of traveling.
Clearly the decision to cook up the phony bomb plot was not motivated by economic interests, but domestic political reasons. The Blair administration, already highly unpopular for supporting Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was under attack for his unconditional support for Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, his refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire and his unstinting support for Bush’s servility to US Zionist lobbies. Even within the Labor party over a hundred backbenchers were speaking out against his policies, while even junior cabinet ministers such as Prescott stated that Boss Bush’s foreign policy smelled of the barnyard. Bush was not yet cornered by his colleagues in the same way as Blair, but unpopularity was threatening to lead his Republican party to congressional defeat and possible loss of a majority of seats.
According to top security officials in England, Bush and Blair were “knowledgeable” about the investigation into a possible “liquid bomb” plot. We know that Blair gave the go-ahead for the arrests, even as the authorities must have told him they lacked the evidence and at best it was premature. Some reports from British police insiders claim that the Bush Administration pushed Blair for early arrests and the announcement of the ‘liquid bomb’ plot. Security officials then launched a massive, all-out ‘terror propaganda’ campaign designed to capture the attention and support of the public with the total support of the mass media. The security-mass media campaign served its objective — Bush’s popularity increased, Blair avoided censure and both continued on their vacations.
The bomb plot political ploy fits the previous political pattern of sacrificing capitalist economic interests to serve domestic political and ideological positions. Foreign policy failures lead to domestic political crimes, just as domestic policy crises lead to aggressive military expansion.
The criminal frame-up of young Muslim-South Asian British citizens by the British security officials was specifically designed to cover up for the failed Anglo-American invasion of Iraq and the Anglo-American backing for Israel’s destructive but failed invasion of Lebanon. Blair’s “liquid bombers” plot sacrificed a multiplicity of British capitalist interests in order to retain political offices and stave off an unceremonious early exit from power. The costs of failed militarism are borne by citizens and businesses.
In an analogous fashion Bush and his Zioncon and other militarists exploited the events of 9/11 to pursue a militarist multi-war strategy in Southwest Asia and the Middle East. With time and scientific research, the official version of the events of 9/11 have come under serious questioning — both regarding the collapse of one of the towers in New York, as well as the explosions in the Pentagon. The events of 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq sacrificed major US economic interests: Losses in New York, tourism, airline industry and massive physical destruction; losses in terms of a major increase in oil prices and instability, increasing the costs to US, European and Asian consumers and industries.
Likewise the Israeli military invasion of Gaza and Lebanon, backed by the US and Great Britain, were economically costly destroying property, investments and markets, while raising the level of mass anti-imperial opposition.
In other words, the politics of US, British and Israeli (and by extension World Zionist) militarism has been at the expense of strategic sectors of the civilian economy. These losses to key economic sectors require the civilian-militarists to resort to domestic political crimes (phony bomb plots and frame-up trials) to distract the public from their costly and failed policies and to tighten political control. On both counts, the civilian militarists and the Zioncons are losing ground. The “liquid bomb” plot is unraveling, Israel is in turmoil, the Zioncons are preaching to the converted, and the US is, as always, the United States: The Democratic civilian militarists are capitalizing on the failures of their incumbent colleagues.
James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). His latest book is, The Power of Israel in the United States (Clarity Press, 2006). He can be reached at: jpetras@binghamton.edu.
James Petras
e-mail: jpetras@binghamton.edu
Homepage: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/08/349150.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/04/395618.html
