Argentina, Brazil to drop U.S. dollar in bilateral commercial transactions
 

Xinhua  17.03.2008

 

BUENOS AIRES, March 15 (Xinhua) — Argentina and Brazil are to scrap bilateral commercial transactions in U.S. dollars and start using their own currencies from August, an official in charge of currency settlement at the Argentine Central Bank said here Saturday.

The new payment system is aimed at reducing costs in commercial transactions and would benefit small and medium-sized enterprises, the official said.

Under the new system, there will be a unified exchange rate between the real and peso, the so-called reference rate, which will be applied by Brazilian and Argentine central banks at the end of each day.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reached an agreement to establish a new payment system with his Argentine counterpart Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner during his visit to Argentina in February.

Technical preparations are underway for the new system, which the two countries will adopt in several steps due to the large amount of bilateral trade.

Brazil is Argentina’s largest trading partner, while Argentina is Brazil’s second-biggest trading partner after the United States.

Bilateral trade stood at around 23.6 billion U.S. dollars last year.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-03/16/content_7800121.htm

Imposing the New World Order

 

Review of F. William Engdahl’s  ”A Century of War” (Part II)
Stephen Lendman

February 15, 2008

Part II continues the story of “A Century in War” in Part I. It’s breathtaking in scope and content, and a shocking and essential history of geopolitics and the strategic importance of oil. Part I covered events from the late 19th century through the end of the 1960s. Part II completes the story to the present era under George Bush.

Running the World Economy in Reverse: Who Made the 1970s Oil Shocks?

In 1969, the US was in recession, interest rates were cut, dollars flowed abroad, and the money supply expanded. In addition, in May 1971, America recorded its first monthly trade deficit that triggered a panic US dollar sell-off. Things were desperate, gold reserves were one-quarter of official liabilities, and Nixon shocked the world on August 15. He unilaterally imposed a 90 day wage and price freeze, a 10% import surcharge, and most importantly closed the gold window, suspended dollar convertibility into the metal, and shredded the Bretton Woods core provision. He also devalued the dollar by 8%, far less than what US allies wanted.By this action, Nixon “pulled the plug on the world economy” and set off a series of events that shook it. Further deterioration followed with massive capital flight to Europe and Japan. It forced Nixon to act again on February 12, 1973. He announced a further 10% devaluation, major world currencies began a process called a “managed float,” and world instability was the worst seen since the 1930s.

Unknown was the reason behind the August, 1971 strategy. It was to buy time before initiating a bold new monetary “paradigm shift” – to revive a strong dollar and US world power with it. In May 1973, the scheme was hatched – to initiate a “colossal assault” on world industrial growth through a 400% increase in oil prices. In addition, the resulting petrodollar flood had to be managed. A global oil embargo was the scheme to rocket up its price and create an equally great demand for dollars.

Kissinger’s Yom Kippur war began it when Egypt and Syria invaded Israel on October 6, 1973. It wasn’t by accident as Washington and London carefully orchestrated the conflict while Kissinger controlled Israel’s response. An oil embargo followed, OPEC prices skyrocketed 400% overnight, panic ensued, Arab oil producers were scapegoated, and the key part of the scheme took shape. It was for much of the windfall oil revenue (mainly Saudi, the world’s largest producer) to be recycled into US investments.

Following a Tehran January 1, 1974 meeting, a second price increase doubled the price of oil for even more recycling. The net effect – the worst American and European economic crisis since the 1930s with bankruptcies, unemployment, and in the US, a bonus of stagflation. The fallout was horrific. It brought down most European governments but its effects on developing states were devastating. Nixon as well got caught in the “Watergate affair” that benefitted Henry Kissinger hugely. He became de facto president throughout the period while his boss battled to survive and lost. For Big Oil and major US and London banks, it was even sweeter. They profited handsomely.

Other issues were at stake as well, one of which was potentially cheaper nuclear electricity as an alternative energy source. By the early 1970s, it was viewed favorably, and European governments favored building 160 to 200 nuclear plants by 1985. For the first time, America’s nuclear export market was threatened as well as Big Oil’s overall energy dominance. It got Anglo-American think tanks and journals to launch an “awesome propaganda offensive” to ensure the oil shock strategy’s success. The scheme was an “Anglo-American ecology agenda” (strongly anti-nuclear) that became “one of the most successful frauds in history.”

A second Malthusian plot was also hatched through a classified Kissinger April 1974 memo. It was a secret project called National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200) that called for drastic global population reduction. It reasoned that many developing nations are resource rich and vital to US growth. If Third World populations grow too fast, their domestic demand will as well, and that will pressure price rises for their goods. Curbing population growth was the counter strategy. It’s also self-defeating along with horrific fallout for targeted countries.

Europe, Japan and a Response to the Oil Shock

By late 1975, industrial countries began recovering but not developing ones. The oil shock was crushing and prevented their ability to finance industrial and agricultural growth and the hopes of their people for a better life. Perversely, it was also at a time the worst global drought in decades hit Africa, South America and parts of Asia especially hard. The fourfold increase in oil prices exacerbated conditions and increased developing states’ current account deficits sevenfold by 1976. They halted internal development to preserve revenue for debt service and to buy oil. Conditions also let foreign banks and later the IMF provide loans that became an onerous debt bondage cycle.

At the same time in 1974, 70% of surplus OPEC revenues were recycled abroad into equities, bonds, real estate and other investments as part of an exclusive OPEC decision to accept only US dollars for oil. It forced world nations to buy enormous amounts of dollars and do it when the currency was weak. This effectively replaced the gold standard with a “highly unstable (petrodollar) exchange system.” Washington and New York banks planned to control it and thus benefit from artificially inflated oil prices.

The scheme transformed the world economy and began an unprecedented transfer of wealth to an elite minority. Engdahl called it “a perverse variation on the old mafia ‘protection racket’ game.” Third World agricultural and industrial development suffered so a select few could prosper. It sent shock waves through the developing world and got a Colombo, Sri Lanka gathering to confront it.

Officials from 85 Non-Aligned Nations met in the Sri Lankan capital in August, 1976 and produced a document unlike any others by developing states post-war. Its theme was “A fair and just economic development, and its contents stated that “economic problems have become the most difficult aspect of international relations (and) developing countries have become the victim(s) of this worldwide crisis.” Steps were proposed to address it, and they called for a “fundamental reorganization of the international trade system to improve” its terms. They also wanted the international monetary system overhauled and the “explosive issue” of foreign debt raised for the first time.

The proposal was then presented at the annual UN General Assembly meeting in New York. It was a “political bombshell,” and financial markets reacted sending bank shares and the dollar lower. The fear was a potential alliance between key oil producing states and continental Europe and Japan. If in place, it could challenge Anglo-American dominance, had to be confronted, and Henry Kissinger got the job with “the full power and force of the US government.” He warned EEC foreign ministers and disrupted any efforts they were considering to ally with OPEC and the non-aligned group.

Coordinating with Britain, he also forced key non-aligned nation strategists out of office within months of their declaration. The threat was thwarted and leading New York and London banks took full advantage. They turned on the spigot and increased lending to developing nations under draconian IMF terms.

Down but not out, North-South cooperation resurfaced in new ways. In late 1975, Brazil contracted with Germany to build a nuclear power plant complex. A similar deal was made with France for an experimental fast breeder reactor. Mexico as well decided to go nuclear for part of its electricity to conserve oil and so did Pakistan and Iran. The Shah’s oil revenues were substantial, and his idea was “to realize an old dream” – to create a modern energy infrastructure, built around nuclear power generation, that would transform the entire Middle East’s power needs. In 1978, Iran had the world’s fourth largest nuclear program, the largest among developing states, and the plan was for 20 new reactors by 1995.

The idea was simple – to diversify from Iran’s dependence on oil and weaken Washington and London’s pressure to recycle petrodollars. Also involved was investing in leading European companies to ally with the continent. Washington was alarmed and tried to block the plan but failed. Nonetheless, the Carter administration continued Kissinger’s strategy behind a phony “human rights” mask. In reality, the game was unchanged – limit Third World growth and maintain dollar hegemony. It failed miserably but threats to dollar dominance were stalled for a time.

They resurfaced in June, 1978 on the initiative of France and Germany. Responding to policy disagreements and a fluctuating dollar, they took steps to create a European currency zone and proposed Phase I of the European Monetary System (EMS) under which central banks of EEC countries agreed to stabilize their currencies relative to each other. EMS became operational in 1979 with notable positive results. This worried Washington and London as a threat to petrodollar supremacy, Britain refused to be an EMS partner, and Carter was unable to dissuade Germany from pursuing a nuclear option. The situation required drastic action.

It began in November 1978 with a White House Iran task force that recommended Washington end support for the Shah and replace him with Ayatollah Khomeini, then living in France. It would be by the same type coup that overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 along with broader aims that again are in play in the region.

Key then (and now) was to balkanize the Middle East along tribal and religious lines – a simple divide and conquer strategy that worked in the 1990s Balkan wars. The aim was to create an “Arc of Crisis” that would spread to Central Asia and the Soviet Union. Another 1978 event highlighted the urgency. At the time, the Shah was negotiating a 25-year oil agreement with British Petroleum (BP), but talks broke down in October. BP demanded exclusive rights to future Iranian output but refused to guarantee oil purchases. The Shah balked and was on the verge of independently seeking new buyers with eager ones lined up in Germany, France, Japan and elsewhere.

Washington and London were alarmed and acted. They implemented destabilization plans, starting with cutting Iranian oil purchases. Economic pressures followed, and trained US and UK agitators exacerbated them by fanning religious discontent and overall turmoil. Oil strikes as well were used. They crippled production and made things worse. American security advisors recommended Iran’s Savak secret police use repressive tactics to maximize antipathy to the Shah. The Carter administration cynically protested human rights abuses, and BBC correspondents exaggerated anti-Shah protests to rev up hysteria against him. At the same time, it gave Khomeini an open platform to speak and prevented the Shah from replying.

Things came to a head in January, 1979 when he fled the country, and Khomeini returned to Tehran and proclaimed a theocratic state. Chaos was unleashed, and by May the new regime cancelled plans for further nuclear reactor development. At the same time, Iran’s oil exports were cut off, and the Saudis inexplicably cut their own in January. Spot prices skyrocketed, and a second oil shock ensued that was as deviously conceived as the first one. Then it got worse. In October, newly appointed Fed Chairman Paul Volker unleashed a new scheme that turned calamity into catastrophe by design.

It was a radical new monetary policy on the pretext of “squeezing inflation out of the system.” In fact, it was made-in-Washington fraud to preserve dollar hegemony, make it the world’s most sought currency, and crush industrial growth to let political and financial power prop up dollar strength. Volker succeeded by raising interest rates from 10% to 16% and finally 20% in weeks. World policy makers were stunned, economies plunged into the deepest recession since the 1930s, and the dollar began an extraordinary five year ascent.

The combined effect of oil and Volker shocks took “the bloom off the nuclear rose” and ended its threat to Anglo-American oil supremacy. And if more was needed it came on March 28, 1979 in the middle of Pennsylvania at a place called Three Mile Island. Conveniently, at the same time The China Syndrome was released that fictionalized the ongoing event. The combined effect was public hysteria, and later investigation revealed critical valves had illegally been closed. In addition, FEMA controlled all news to create panic. The scheme worked, and Anglo-American supremacy was reasserted over the industrial and financial world. Nothing is stable forever, however, and within a decade new rumblings would be felt.

Imposing the New World Order

The combined effects of two oil shocks and resulting inflation created a new US “landed aristocracy” while the vast majority of Americans saw their living standards sink. It was the same type scheme Margaret Thatcher imposed on Britain when she declared “there is no alternative.” Preaching free market hokum, she claimed deficit spending was the culprit, not two oil shocks causing 18% UK inflation. Her remedy – kill the patient to save it by cutting the money supply and government spending while sharply hiking interest rates to 17% in weeks, thereby causing depression she called the “Thatcher revolution.” Engdahl had another view saying: “Never in modern history had an industrialized nation undergone such (a counterproductive) shock” in so short a time, except in wartime emergency. Thatcher crushed the economy by design the way Volker did in America.

At the time, Britain’s problem wasn’t government ownership. It was lack of investment in public infrastructure, in educating a skilled work force, and in enough scientific research and development. Government isn’t the problem. Misguided policy is, and Thatcher and Volker excelled at it with one mutual aim – benefit their banks and Big Oil interests by cutting taxes and spending, reducing social services, privatizing and deregulating business, and breaking the back of organized labor in their brave new world order.

President Carter knew nothing about finance and economics and was duped into signing an “extraordinary piece of legislation” – the Depository Institutions Deregulation Monetary Control Act of 1980. It let the Fed impose reserve requirements on banks and be able to choke off credit to them. It also phased out interest rate ceilings banks could charge customers. Reagan continued the policies and was bamboozled by Chicago School ideologues like Milton Friedman. Engdahl called his radical monetarism “one of the most cruel economic frauds ever perpetrated.” It was that and more because of all the human wreckage it caused.

It led to the Third World debt crisis and its horrific fallout. It willfully immiserated millions of people, and events came to a head in the summer of 1982 with debtor states struggling to repay. Their burden was too onerous, and Reagan and Thatcher planned an example of what happens when nonpayment is an option. The Malvinas (or Falkland) archipelago was the targeted choice. It’s off Argentina’s coast but was hardly a reason for war. The issue wasn’t Argentina’s sovereignty. It was to enforce the principle that Third World debts must be paid by a “new form of 19th century gunboat diplomacy.” Two-thirds of Britain’s fleet was dispatched, a shooting war ensued, and Argentina became a test case.

Reagan backed Thatcher, and it soured relations with Latin American states like Mexico that also became a target. President Jose Lopez Portillo favored a modernization and industrialization policy and planned to use his oil revenue to implement it. The prospect of a strong Mexico was intolerable, Washington had other ideas, and a scheme was hatched to sabotage the plan by demanding rigid repayment of Mexican debt at exorbitant rates.

It began with an orchestrated run on the peso in the fall of 1981. Claims of an impending devaluation followed, and stories were planted of impending capital flight. An unavoidable austerity program followed, and the Portillo government cracked under pressure. It devalued the peso 30%, Mexican industry was devastated, many businesses were bankrupted, industrial production was cut and so were living standards for the majority of the people under conditions of orchestrated chaos.

Mexico effectively became insolvent at a time the US was in deep recession. Nonetheless, the Reagan administration hatched a plan to solve the debt crisis and save New York banks. Ignoring the root cause of the crisis, Secretary of State George Schultz offered IMF medicine combined with stimulating US consumer purchases as a way to increase Third World exports.

It would be “the most costly recovery in world history (and what followed) was almost beyond belief.” Lopez Portillo failed to rally Latin American support, and his term expired two months later. US officials then blackmailed Brazil and Argentina to back down, and debtor countries had to accept IMF terms that became “the most concerted organized looting operation in modern history,” far exceeding the worst of Versailles.

New York and London banks profited hugely the way they do today. First, they “socialize(d) their debt crisis” by getting unprecedented international repayment support. Working through governments and the IMF, they spun off their debt to taxpayers, privatized gains for themselves, and pummeled debtor countries by structural adjustment looting.

That was Step One. Next came Step Two – restructuring debtor nations’ repayment schedules that included onerous interest on top of oppressive principal. It caused mounting debt no matter how much was paid in an unending looting daisy chain still in play today and bigger than ever.

Back in the 1980s, here are the numbers. Between 1980 and 1986, 109 debtor countries were charged $326 billion in interest. They paid an additional $332 billion in principal for a total of $658 billion on original debt of $430 billion. In spite of it, in 1986 they still owed $882 billion, an impossible debt trap, and Engdahl attributed it to “the wonders of compound interest and floating rates” with a little gunboat diplomacy thrown in. Only one way out was possible – surrender economic sovereignty and valued raw materials, or else. Capital flight in the tens of billions followed, and it became a profit-making bonanza for major US banks.

In the 1980s, Americans also suffered. Reaganomics victimized them by structuring big gains for banks, oil and defense giants while ignoring the greater good and long-term economic health. The plan was nonsensical and built around the largest post-war tax cut until the combined three George Bush ones (with another coming) may have topped it. They did in nominal dollars, but Reagan’s was much bigger as a percent of GDP in an economy half today’s size.

Reagan and Bush had the same scheme in mind. Some call it “supply-side economics,” others a “voodoo” variety on the idea that tax cuts release “stifled creative energies,” stimulate higher economic growth and produce greater government revenue. The Reagan one signaled “anything goes.” Besides generous benefits for the rich and business, it encouraged speculative real estate investment, especially for commercial ventures. It also removed restrictions on corporate takeovers.

A year later, interest rates headed down, stock and bond prices shot up, a speculative bonanza was unleashed, and here’s the bottom line. Reaganomics failed to encourage productive investment, except for selected defense contractors. Money instead poured into equities and debt instruments, high-risk real estate, junk bond-financed leveraged buyouts, and tax-sheltered oil well and other development.

At the same time, infrastructure needs were ignored, organized labor was targeted, government became the problem, and deregulation the solution to get it off our backs. Throughout the 1980s and since: organized labor ranks declined, high-paying manufacturing jobs were lost, working American living standards declined, and an astonishing generational shift began – the annual wealth transfer of over $1 trillion from 90 million working class households to for-profit corporations and the richest 1% of the population to create an unprecedented wealth disparity. It continues unabated and is destroying the bedrock middle class without which democracy can’t survive and is already on life support and sinking.

Simultaneously, by the mid-1980s, the US went from being the world’s largest creditor to a net debtor nation for the first time since 1914. Budget deficits as well skyrocketed along with the national debt, and the true economic condition was revealed. “It was sick.” Today, it’s much sicker and depends on “the kindness of strangers” the way it did in the roaring twenties until the 1929 market crash smashed it.

At the end of the 1980s, a lesser version of it occurred from the savings and loan industry (S & Ls) collapse. During the decade, almost $1 trillion went into speculative real estate, and for the first time banks were allowed to participate. S & Ls took full advantage in an anything goes, deregulated environment. The 1982 Garn-St. Germain Act let them invest in anything they wished with government-backed $100,000 per account insurance. It allowed reckless speculation, massive fraud, and was an ideal way for organized crime and CIA to launder billions in drugs-related funds.

The 1980s ended the Reagan era when George HW Bush became President in 1989. It coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November and breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Around the same time, it was decided to target the Middle East and its vast oil reserves to counter the fear of a united Germany and economically expanding continental Europe that could threaten US dominance. Saddam would be the victim and an easy target after being weakened by the 1980 – 1988 Iran-Iraq war and a $65 billion debt to foreign creditors.

The scheme was to lure him into a trap (with Kuwait as bait) to provide a pretext for US military intervention. The rest is history:

– Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990;

– four days later Operation Desert Shield was launched; harsh economic sanctions were imposed and a large US troop deployment began;

– Operation Desert Storm began on January 17, 1991 and ended six weeks later on February 28;

– Next came 12 years of the most comprehensive genocidal sanctions ever imposed on a country that included a crippling embargo; hundreds of thousands died and millions suffered;

– Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched on March 19, 2003 and is still ongoing nearly five years later; the “cradle of civilization” was erased, a free market paradise created, and the death, human misery and displacement toll is incalculable for an impossible to win guerilla war.

From the Evil Empire to the Axis of Evil

In his 1991 State of the Union address, GHW Bush proclaimed a New World Order, quickly dropped the term but pursued the policy. The younger Bush does as well with focus shifted from the “Evil Empire” to the “Axis of Evil.” It was a vague construct that conveniently encompassed the Eurasian continent and its oil riches. To ensure US dominance, they had to be controlled, especially against key Japanese, European Union (EU) and emerging Chinese rivals.

A threefold scheme was hatched to do it:

– target Russia, eastern Europe and all parts of the world to ensure IMF rules and US dollar hegemony are maintained;

– control every country with significant energy or other vital raw material resources; and

– maintain unchallengeable military supremacy to deter opposition to US-imposed rules.

The catch word was “globalization.” It denies global justice, globalizes US dominance, and consolidates it by political, economic and military enforcement. At the start of the 1990s, however, Japan had become the world’s economic and banking leader and had to be confronted. A reckless speculation decade left American banks in deep crisis. Japan operated differently, prospered and challenged US supremacy. Its influence was recognized and had to be undercut.

Treasury Secretary James Baker laid the trap through the 1985 Plaza accord and the Baker-Miyazawa month later agreement. He got Tokyo to exercise monetary and fiscal measures to expand domestic demand and reduce Japan’s external surplus. At the same time, the Bank of Japan cut interest rates to 2.5% in 1987 and held that level until May, 1989. The plan was for lower rates to stimulate US goods purchases. Instead, cheap money went into Japanese stocks and real estate and led to colossal twin bubbles still deflating today.

The yen was also affected. Within months, it shot up 40% against the dollar, and overnight Japan became the world’s largest banking center, surpassing London and New York. As the country’s twin bubbles inflated, Japan became home to the world’s 10 largest banks, an astonishing achievement for a country its size or any country. Things were so extreme at the bubble’s peak that the value of Tokyo real estate, in dollars, exceeded all of it in the US, and the nominal value of Japanese stocks amounted to 42% of the world’s total – but not for long.

Tokyo equities peaked in December, 1989. Three months later, the Nikkei dropped 23% or over $1 trillion in value, and it was just the beginning. From its 38,915 peak, Japanese stocks plunged to 7831 in April, 2003 with no assurance that’s a bottom. Why and how could this happen? Japanese officials speculated on the reason.

In 1990, Japan proposed financing the former Soviet Union’s reconstruction and drew strong US opposition. In addition, Japan’s MITI model was suggested for former communist countries with Washington dead set against it for two reasons: it might exclude US companies, and it would rely on state economic guidance that impressively fueled Japanese and Asian Tiger growth. It had to be stopped as America had other ideas for the post-Cold War era.

Pressure was applied with threats of drastic US troop cuts that would endanger Japan’s security. The message was abandon economic plans or provide your own defense. At the same time, Japan’s twin bubbles kept deflating, months later the Nikkei had lost $5 trillion in value, the country was badly hurt, and its challenge to America was dropped.

That was Phase One. Phase Two confronted Asian Tiger countries because (like Japan) their economic model bested the US and threatened it. It was a major embarrassment to IMF rules that exploit developing states for America’s gain. In the 1980s, East Asia boomed with 7 – 8% annual growth rates compared to half that in the US. Their market economy followed state guidance and planning and it worked. They were also debt-free and unhampered by IMF restrictions. In addition, their model enhanced social security and productivity, promoted universal education and set limits on foreign investment and imports. Washington had other ideas.

In 1993, demands were made to deregulate, open financial markets, and allow free capital flows. Easing followed and trouble began. From 1994 to 1997, hot money flooded in and created speculative real estate, stock and other asset bubbles. Hedge funds (including George Soros’ billions allied with major international banks) forcefully acted. They attacked the weakest regional economy and its currency – Thailand and its baht. The aim? Force devaluation, and it worked. Thailand capitulated, floated its currency and turned to the IMF for help it never before needed.

Next came the Philippines, Indonesia and South Korea as their “populations sank into economic chaos and (mass) poverty.” Prosperous Asian Tigers were humbled, they were forced into IMF debt bondage, and Russia got the same medicine plus a bonus. A sole superpower remained under US dollar supremacy, and US military bases encircled its former adversary, were closing in, and targeted an emerging China as well.

Russian shock therapy was especially tragic. Washington wanted to deindustrialize the country to permanently destroy the old Soviet economic structure. Boris Yeltsin complied, and IMF wreckage was the scheme. A corporatist state replaced a communist one, and its apparatchiks were winners along with a handful of mutual fund managers who made dizzying returns from newly privatized Russian companies. In addition, 17 nouveau billionaires (called “the oligarchs”) emerged overnight, strip mined the country’s wealth, and shipped it overseas to safe havens.

Russia’s people were devastated and still suffer. Unemployment is epidemic, well over half the population is impoverished, 80% of farmers were bankrupted, and 70,000 state factories were shuttered. And it got worse. Social services ended, diseases like HIV/AIDS became rampant, suicides rose, violent crime jumped fourfold, and the population now declines by about 700,000 a year with free market medicine already having killed over 10% of it. Outside a select elite, the former superpower was humbled, reduced to Third World status, and it created potential for Big Oil to exploit Russia’s energy riches that were given away for kopecks on the ruble.

Seven oligarchs grabbed off half the country’s natural resources. Their hard currency profits were dollarized, but by summer 1998 things got out of hand. With the economy in trouble, the IMF extended an emergency $23 billion loan to support the ruble and protect speculative western investments, but it came too late. On August 15, Russia did the unthinkable. It defaulted and, for a time, shock the dollarized world. The largest of all hedge funds (LTCM) bet on the country and leveraged up manyfold. A financial disaster loomed, the Fed intervened, Russia’s default was quietly forgiven, and dollarization resumed.

Earlier, the Balkans got shock therapy and became a target for dismemberment with a simple idea in mind – destroy its mixed socialist economy that was independent of the West and couldn’t be tolerated. Europe’s soft underbelly also lies between central Asia’s oil and the route over which Washington wants it transported. It had to be brought to heel, and a US-led NATO was the way. Softening up began by the late 1980s, continued into the new decade, and George Soros was at it again. IMF medicine was employed, living standards plunged, and economic chaos resulted. Breakup began, each region was on its own, and a lot of pushing came from the West.

Croatia and Slovania seceded first in 1991. That lit the fuse that exploded in a series of Balkan wars. Slobadan Milosevic became the fall guy, was targeted for removal, conflict lasted the decade, and it culminated with US-NATO’s merciless 79 day 1999 Serbia bombing that caused an estimated $40 billion of destruction to the country’s economy and infrastructure. The US moved in and set up shop in one of its largest military bases in the world – Camp Bondsteel near Gnjilane in southeast Kosovo. It’s a Serbian province that was split off and occupied by design. The West’s divide and conquer strategy is in play, Kosovo heads for independence, and the mother country’s objections don’t matter.

At war’s end, US Eurasian control was enhanced but not guaranteed as the contest for Caspian riches is still in play with Russia, China and others vying for them.

A New Millennium for Oil Geopolitics

A new president accompanied the new millennium with a changed Washington focus – oil is at its core, controlling it is key, and Dick Cheney’s first job as vice-president was working with the (James) Baker Institute to draft the April 2001 National Energy Policy Report. It projected a growing dependency on foreign oil, highlighted Iraq’s “de-stabilizing influence,” and recommended “restat(ing) goals with respect to Iraq policy.” It also linked the Pentagon with future energy policy plans.

Core report recommendations signalled how with a crystal clear message:

– securing foreign sources is key;

– less than cooperative governments in volatile parts of the world control some of the largest sources; and

– Cheney highlighted concern at a private 1999 London Institute of Petroleum meeting saying: “by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day.”

He didn’t flinch saying where we’d get it: “the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies….” and Iraq is the potential crown jewel with the largest of all untapped low-hanging fruit. Immediately on entering the White House, Cheney & Co. swung into action. They focused on Iraq like a laser, targeted Saddam Hussein, and removing him from office became top goal.

Washington teems with schemes and intrigue, but a neoconservative think tank was particularly diabolical. Established in 1997, it was called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), its goal was unchallengeable US dominance, and a policy paper was drafted to achieve it. It appeared in 2000 and was called “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century.” It stated that “America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of US military forces.” It further called for “American hegemony” and “full-spectrum dominance,” and believed achieving it would be long-term “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

A rogues gallery of PNAC members joined the Bush administration in 2001, key among them Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, and topping their goals was removing Saddam Hussein. September 11 obliged, the “war on terror” was born, “terrorism” replaced communism as the new enemy, its core was in the oil-rich Middle East, and its headquarters was in Iraq. Removing the Taliban was just a warm-up for the main event ahead. It was conceived before bin Laden was “Enemy Number One” and overnight Al-Queda became western civilization’s greatest threat.

On October 7, 2001 (four weeks after 9/11), America went to war. Target One was Afghanistan, controlling Central Asian oil was the goal, transporting it through Afghanistan was the plan, and the Taliban had to go because they rejected one-way Washington (double) deal making. They fled Kabul five weeks later, Northern Alliance warlords took over, a puppet president was installed, war ended (for a time), and the focus shifted to Iraq.

Prepping the public began, Saddam became another Hitler, his WMDs threatened western civilization, so he had to go. “Shock and awe” began on March 19, 2003, and Baghdad fell three weeks later. Saddam was removed, fighting “officially” ended in May, and to almost no one’s surprise, no WMDs were found because they’re weren’t any, and that was known by the mid-1990s or earlier.

Paul Wolfowitz attended an unreported Singapore security conference in June. He was asked why America chose WMDs as a causis belli when none existed. He answered it was “the only thing we could agree on.” He was also asked why Iraq was targeted, not North Korea and its nuclear threat, and he explained: “The country swims on a sea of oil” so there was no other choice with world supply running out.

That conclusion came out of an alarming September 9, 2001 Oil Depletion Analysis Centre energy policy memo to Tony Blair. It highlighted “hydrocarbon difficulties,” declining output, and importance of Iraq as the one remaining untapped oil-rich country. Securing it was key because credible geological reports argued that easy cheap oil was dramatically declining while global demand was rising, especially in emerging China and India. For almost a century, world economic growth needed cheap, plentiful oil. No good substitute exists so controlling what’s left is essential.

Further, if “peak oil” has been reached, as many believe, its cost will explode, and one analyst predicted: “Beyond 2005, the energy required to find and extract a barrel of oil will exceed the energy contained in the barrel.” Further, he estimated most major oil sources are near or at peak, for every new barrel discovered, four are being used, and the only cheap untapped supply left is in the Middle East where around two-thirds of proved reserves remain. Five regional countries are key – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, the Gulf Emirates (notably Qatar) and Iraq above all with estimates that its potential may be 432 billion barrels or around two-thirds more than Saudi Arabia’s proved reserves.

If true, Iraq’s importance is vital, its real estate is the world’s most valuable, and controlling it unchallenged means “Washington (holds) the trump cards over all potential economic rivals,” friends and foes. Even more grandiose would be to control every major and potential worldwide oil source and transport route to achieve unimaginable omnipotence. It would be a global-scale chokehold to decide who gets supply, who doesn’t, how much and at what price. It would thereby assure who controls world economic development and remains Number One.

Unchallengeable military power is key and the reason the Bush administration repositioned its global presence through a web of new bases. They’ve been strategically placed where Cold War geopolitics didn’t permit. Unsurprisingly, they target Eurasia and its importance Zbigniew Brzezinski highlighted in his 1997 book, “The Grand Chessboard.” He referred to the region as the “center of world power extending from Germany and Poland in the East through Russia and China to the Pacific and including the Middle East and Indian subcontinent.” Dominating it assures the US access to and control of its vast energy reserves, so that becomes Goal One.

But it doesn’t exclude broader aims, including Africa that will supply around one-fourth of future US oil supply, according to some analysts. It explains the Pentagon’s AFRICOM presence that’s expected to be fully operational by late summer and be responsible for the entire continent and its valued resources that include more than energy.

Swing over to Latin America and its energy potential. Countries like Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and Mexico are very much in US plans with the Bolivarian Republic far and away most important. According to Hugo Chavez and some US estimates, the country has more potential reserves than Saudi Arabia when its heavy oil is included. It explains SOUTHCOM’S mission and command over 30 regional countries with a growing presence in a number of them and ongoing operations (some covert) throughout Latin America.

Engdahl ends his book discussing oil’s importance to US “full spectrum dominance.” Controlling it directly or indirectly through client regimes means holding “a true weapon of mass destruction (and) potential blackmail over the rest of the world. Who would dare challenge the dollar” as the world’s reserve currency? And if IMF rules keep restraining developing countries’ growth, their oil demand will be curbed, so all the more for America and its key Global North allies at a time when most world oil sources have peaked. More than ever then, controlling world energy reserves is crucial to maintaining economic growth.

The 1970s oil shocks were warning shots. Today, threatened shortfalls are real and worsening. We call controlling world supply promoting democracy, others see the subterfuge, and some critics feel our imperial arrogance defines our weakness. Today, America is unrivaled in global power, and Engdahl quoted the late Edward Said after Iraq’s invasion saying: “Every single empire (says) it is not like all the others, that (it’s special), that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy (and only use) force as a last resort.” It remains to be seen what’s ahead in “the New American Century,” but the evidence so far isn’t encouraging, and that’s putting it mildly.

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/

Venezuela cuts oil sales to Exxon Mobil

 

Venezuela’s state oil company has stopped selling crude to Exxon Mobil and suspended commercial relations with the US-based oil Corp.State-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, said in a statement that it “has paralyzed sales of crude to Exxon Mobil, in response to the company’s judicial-economic harassment. “PDVSA will completely honor the existing contractual commitments relative to common investments with Exxon Mobil abroad, reserving the right to terminate those contracts whose terms permit them to be rescinded,” the state oil company said.

“The legal actions carried out by the US transnational are unnecessary … and hostile,” PDVSA said of Exxon’s attempts to seize Venezuelan assets in US, British and Dutch courts. Exxon is challenging President Hugo Chavez government’s nationalization of one of four heavy oil projects in the Orinoco River basin, one of the world’s richest oil deposits.

Last month, a British court issued an injunction, temporarily freezing up to $12 billion in PDVSA assets abroad. Exxon is also challenging the nationalization in a US court in New York. President Hugo Chavez has already shaken oil markets with recent threats to entirely cut supply to the US, in retaliation for Exxon’s legal drive to freeze Venezuelan assets in a dispute over nationalized oil ventures.

It was not immediately clear what impact PDVSA’s decision to cut supply to Exxon would have.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=42857§ionid=351020704

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Oil rises as Venezuela cuts off Exxon Mobil

Tue Feb 12, 2008 7By Rebekah Kebede

NEW YORK, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Oil prices rose late on Tuesday after Venezuela announced it was stopping sales of crude oil top U.S. oil company Exxon Mobil Corp.

The move came in response to a legal challenge by Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) against Venezuela’s nationalization last year of a heavy oil project.

U.S. crude CLc1 rose 24 cents to $93.02 a barrel by 6:50 p.m. EST (2350 GMT), climbing into positive territory after settling the trading session 81 cents lower at $92.78 a barrel. London Brent crude LCOc1 settled 67 cents lower at $92.86 a barrel.

“This is a little bit more saber-rattling from Venezuela and the market is just beginning to realize that it is going to see more sparks from Venezuela and Exxon Mobil,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates.

On Monday, oil prices rose as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened a stoppage after Exxon won court rulings freezing $12 billion in Venezuelan assets in a fight over compensation for a nationalized project. The U.S. government has received assurances that the world’s top oil producers could compensate for any Venezuelan disruption, a U.S. government official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

“While a disruption in short-haul Venezuelan supplies would be a blow to the U.S. economy, it would arguably be much more devastating to Venezuela itself,” said energy analyst Antoine Halff of Newedge Group.

Before Venezuela’s announcement, oil prices had been pressured by forecasts that U.S. government inventory data to be released on Wednesday would show a 2.7 million-barrel build in crude stocks in the week to Feb. 8. That would mark the fifth consecutive weekly rise in crude stocks amid concerns that the slowing U.S. economy was damping oil demand.U.S. crude prices have tumbled from record highs above $100 a barrel struck in early January as the credit crisis keeps dragging on the U.S. economy.

Analysts also forecast a 1.4 million-barrel decline in distillate stocks and a 1.8 million-barrel build in gasoline inventories. (Reporting by Matthew Robinson in New York, James Topham in Tokyo and Alex Lawler in London; Editing by David Gregorio)

reuters

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Iran to open oil bourse next Sunday

 

Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said on Wednesday that Iran’s Oil Bourse is to start operation from next Sunday. Speaking to reporters after a cabinet session, he said Minister of Economy and Financial Affairs Davoud Danesh Jaafari is to attend the opening ceremony.

Iran’s national currency, rial will be the base of hard currencies for all transactions in Tehran Oil Bourse, he said. The country’s oil revenue is to hit dlrs 63 billion this year, said the minister.

On construction of Peace Pipeline between Iran, Pakistan and India, he said China can join the project if it desires so. “Iran and India are now working on the plan and involvement of China does not mean that India has to be excluded from the project,” he said.

On invitation extended by Turkey to India for cooperation in ‘Valve Oil’ in Central Asia and impacts on such cooperation on Iran-India joint cooperation in Peace Pipeline, he said these are some assumptions which are not true.

The Oil Ministry is to drill ten oil wells which is expected to raise the volume of gas production by another 20 to 25 million cubic metric next year, he said. On formation of a gas cartel like OPEC, he said the plan is very time consuming and requires collective cooperation among gas producing countries.

 

http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-237/0802135267165148.htm

 

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Note: Recall that the OPEC secretary general stated that OPEC is going to gradually wean itself away from the dollar. That’s not just in pricing, but in purchasing also.

LETTRE OUVERTE A TOUS LES PEUPLES DU MONDE

La dissémination volontaire d’OGM, orchestrée par les multinationales biotech, fait partie d’un ensemble d’orientations plus larges qu’il serait imprudent de perdre de vue.

La mainmise d’une minorité sur l’alimentation mondiale et les semences, avec toutes ses conséquences, n’est que la partie émergée d’un iceberg de cynisme et de démence. Afin que rien ne vienne contrecarrer les plans de la minorité au pouvoir qui entend dominer le monde, tous les moyens sont non seulement considérés comme utilisables mais sont aussi utilisés.

Aussi l’actualité de la « guerre des OGM » pourrait se trouver soudain occultée par une actualité bien plus sinistre encore: celle d’une guerre véritable dans laquelle nous serons entraînés bien malgré nous contre l’Iran.

L’initiative récente de hautes personnalités états-uniennes – une lettre publique adressée au peuple états-unien, mais aussi à tous les peuples du monde, pour les mettre en garde contre la préparation avancée d’une provocation terroriste organisée par Dick Cheney et le cercle de GW Bush pour justifier l’attaque de l’Iran—doit être prise très au sérieux. D’autant plus au sérieux que le président français prépare l’opinion à la « nécessité » des bombardements sur l’Iran pour contrer la nucléarisation de ce pays, nonobstant les gestes de bonne volonté accomplis par ce dernier (voir www.acdn.net.)

Selon Steve Watson de infowars.net, (27 août 2007), « Un groupe d’anciens responsables du gouvernement avec des candidats au Congrès, des auteurs et des activistes a publié une alerte urgente selon laquelle une faction du gouvernement alliée à Dick Cheney projette de mettre en scène un événement ou une provocation terroriste en prétexte au lancement d’attaques militaires contre l’Iran et à la mise en application de pouvoirs d’urgence aux USA.

L’ancienne député Cynthia McKinney, avec l’ancien diplomate et colonel de réserve de l’armée Ann Wright ont apposé leur signature sur une lettre publique avertissant que d’énormes indications signalent un événement prochain.

Les actuels candidats députés Cindy Sheehan et Craig Hill sont aussi parmi les signataires à la lettre que voici, intitulée Aux Américains, et aux individus pacifiques de partout : « De grands indices portés à notre attention prouvent que les partisans, les contrôleurs, et les alliés du vice-président Dick Cheney sont déterminés à orchestrer et à fabriquer un nouvel incident type 9/11, et/ou une nouvelle provocation de guerre type Golfe du Tonkin, dans les semaines ou les mois à venir.

Cet événement servirait de prétexte à l’administration Bush pour lancer une offensive de guerre contre l’Iran, très probablement avec des armes nucléaires, et pour imposer un régime de loi martiale ici aux États-Unis. Nous invitons la Chambre des députés à procéder immédiatement à la mise en accusation de Cheney, en mesure d’urgence pour éviter une guerre plus étendue et plus catastrophique. Dès que l’impeachment sera en route, il sera plus facile aux officiers militaires dévoués et patriotes de refuser les ordres illicites venant de la faction de Cheney.

Nous avertissons solennellement les peuples du monde que toute attaque terroriste avec des armes de destruction de masse ayant lieu à l’intérieur des États-Unis ou ailleurs dans l’avenir immédiat doit être considérée à première vue de la responsabilité de la faction de Cheney. Nous invitons les dirigeants politiques responsables partout à commencer immédiatement à immuniser l’opinion publique de leurs pays contre une opération terroriste sous fausse bannière.

Signé: Un groupe de leaders de l’opposition politiques US rassemblés dans la manifestation au domaine de Bush à Kennebunkport dans le Maine, du 24 au 25 août 2007,

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY, ancienne député de Géorgie,

CINDY SHEEHAN, candidate au Congrès de Californie,

CRAIG HILL, candidat au Congrès du Parti Vert du Vermont,

BRUCE MARSHALL, délégué syndical, Tribune de Philadelphie,

JAMILLA EL -SHAFEI, Département de la Paix de Kennebunk,

WEBSTER G. TARPLEY, auteur, ANN WRIGHT, colonel de réserve de l’armée US, ancien diplomate, Dr. DAHLIA WASFI,

www. liberatethis.com, GEORGE PAZ MARTIN, JOHN KAMINSKI, président des avocats pour la démocratie du Maine. »

La lettre a été signée par le groupe de protestation contre la guerre ce week-end (24-25 août) durant lequel quatre mille personnes ont manifesté près de la résidence de la famille Bush à Walker’s Point à Kennebunkport.

L’avertissement suit de près une avalanche récente de bulletins d’informations et de rumeurs sur un événement terroriste.

Des indices supplémentaires de l’imminence de quelque forme d’événement ont surgi avec l’étrange activité du marché boursier se produisant exactement comme dans les semaines et les jours précédant le 9/11. (http://infowars.net/articles/august…) ou http://www.alterinfo. net/USA-D-anci…

Comprendre les enjeux La résistance à la dissémination volontaire des OGM s’inscrit dans la résistance active à cette dictature.

Au-delà des problèmes réels graves que suscitent cette dissémination, il s’agit bien en effet de refuser une décision prise par des représentants du peuple, de refuser l’étau de la légalité au nom de laquelle ces décideurs prétendent pouvoir nous imposer une technologie, une conception de la science et du progrès, et ce en dépit des conséquences réelles.

De la même façon qu’on cherche à nous imposer les applications sauvages de cette technologie, en agitant le spectre des nuisibles, de la famine, de la sécheresse, etc… et en présentant ces applications comme la seule solution ou comme une panacée, on cherche à nous imposer des guerres sordides, en agitant le spectre du terrorisme, du fanatisme, etc…et en présentant la guerre comme la seule solution.

A chaque fois, au coeur du dispositif, se trouvent les médias qui préparent efficacement l’opinion à accepter l’inacceptable en présentant les décisions à venir comme les seules décisions possibles.

Si les décideurs prennent la peine de « gagner » l’opinion en leur faveur, et d’acheter les médias pour ce faire, c’est bien parce qu’ils la redoutent. Mais que redoutent-ils au juste?

Ils redoutent avant tout que les gens ne découvrent qu’ils naviguent sur le même bateau qu’eux. Et que, découvrant cela, ils réalisent la facilité et la portée d’une mutinerie : la tête de l’équipage ne peut rien sans ses matelots.

Aussi, tout l’art de leur communication consiste t’il à faire oublier au peuple cette simple vérité. Toutes les institutions emploient leur énergie essentiellement à maintenir l’illusion d’une séparation entre les décideurs et le peuple, l’illusion qu’il existerait deux bateaux distincts, l’un dirigeant l’autre, tout en restant hors de portée.

La multiplication des moyens de communication menace néanmoins l’édifice de duperie soigneusement entretenu. Aussi est-il apparu nécessaire aux décideurs de veiller à prévenir une éventuelle mutinerie en commençant à installer de véritables entraves juridiques, en guise de chaînes, pour pouvoir éventuellement ligoter les matelots trop éveillés.

Notre vieille tradition légaliste en France nous empêche de questionner pertinemment l’activité permanente qui se déploie dans le sens d’un verrouillage consciencieux de toute protestation au moyen de lois votées à la hâte, et par un Parlement composé en majorité de gens qui ne sont pas en capacité de mesurer les enjeux véritables.

Elle nous contraint de même à accepter le jeu de négociations sans fin destinées principalement à épuiser notre énergie, reprenant sans cesse ici ce qui a été octroyé là-bas.

Avant de nous retrouver définitivement ligotés à fond de cale, il paraît donc nécessaire maintenant de nous comporter selon ce que nous sommes : libres de mener le bateau où nous le voulons.

What Is He Capable Of ?
    The Presidential Psychology at the End of Days
    

By John P Briggs, M.D. and JP Briggs II, Ph.D.
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Thursday 10 January 2008

The true rule in determining to embrace, or reject anything, is not whether it has any evil in it, but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded. – Abraham Lincoln, June 20, 1848

    In defiance of his circumstances as an unpopular, lame duck president with a minority party in Congress, George W. Bush pursues a sharply autocratic tone. He has intimidated both parties in Congress and violated the Constitution. Through dissimulation and delay, he has forced the nations of the world to conclude they must wait until his term ends to negotiate any serious treaty on the imminent perils of climate change.

    A sort of thousand-mile stare has descended on the country. Frank Rich writes, “we are a people in clinical depression” as a result of Bush’s leadership. Perhaps, a more apt diagnosis would be “dissociation.” Like a child or spousal victim of a psychological abuser, Bush’s “victims” try to mentally compartmentalize him; they attempt to get on with their lives – even as he keeps on being abusive. You can hear the dissociation when Congressional leaders talk about their inability to make Washington work as it should.

    Some, including Daniel Ellsberg, who challenged the autocratic aspirations of Richard Nixon by releasing the Pentagon Papers, suggest Bush has already created a “presidential coup.” Ellsberg has said, “If there’s another 9/11 under this regime, it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed.”

    We would like to answer several questions here. Is the president psychologically capable of such treasonous behavior? Why and how does his psychology make it so difficult for Democrats and others to stand up against his negativity and destructiveness (what he thinks of as his optimism)? How might they neutralize his psychology, which seems geared to inflict harm?

    Behind the Torture, All That Stuff He Can’t Admit

    The president’s reflex to justify his right to use torture, even as he insists “we don’t torture,” illuminates how his psychology works and provides a glimpse into its dark potential.

    The man who campaigned in 1999 as a “uniter not a divider” constructs and maintains a polarized world. In his book, “A Tragic Legacy,” Glen Greenwald, observes polarizing reality “explains the president’s personal approach to all matters – his foreign policy decisions; his relations with other countries; his domestic programs; the terms he adopts when discussing, debating, and analyzing political matters; his attitude toward domestic political opponents … and his treatment of the national media. For the president, there always exists a clear and identifiable enemy who is to be defeated by any means, means justified not only by the pureness of the enemy’s Evil but also by the core Goodness that he believes motivates him and his movement.” (48)

    Those who question the president’s policies are either part of the evil or dangerously unaware of its threat. His dictum,“you’re either with us or against us,” sums up his closed psychological system. As Greenwald says, because Bush believes he is on the side of Good and Right in a struggle with Evil, he construes even his unpopularity as not “an impediment, but a challenge, even a calling, to demonstrate his resolve and commitment by persisting even more tenaciously in the face of almost universal opposition.” (37)

    So, torture by his administration is justified – in fact is not even torture – because it is used by Good Americans in a war against Satanic forces.

    Bush’s torture rationale echoes that of an extreme form of Christianity found among his personal “spiritual” advisers and the prominent televangelists he regularly consults. The religious justification for his worldview has prompted him to bestow billions of dollars on radical “faith-based” activities and to sanction an extremist Christian transformation of the military – actions that foster the idea of the US as a theocratic state called on “to rid the world of evil,” as the president has asserted.

    As reported by Truthout last June, many of the religious figures associated with Bush believe the final battles of the apocalypse are near, with fires that will spread from the Middle East. Where James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye and John Hagee once pressed Bush hard for war with Iraq, they now clamor for one with Iran. The president cloaks himself in the innocuous terms “Christian,” “evangelical” and “born again,” and carefully avoids stating his beliefs specifically. But the type of Christianity most influential on his thinking is clearly radical or extremist rather than evangelical; it has an authoritarian, punishing, us-versus-them flavor; it views Christ less as a figure of tolerance and forgiveness than as a five-star general coming to wreck vengeance on anyone who has failed to join His army.

    Former President Jimmy Carter’s faith, like that of many evangelicals, involves a powerful commitment to love and tolerance. We do not detect a similar commitment in Bush. Spiritual issues and political motives appear secondary to Bush’s subconscious use of his faith as a psychological defense. That defense “resolves” and protects him from the pain of a core inner conflict. The drinking and alleged drug taking of his younger years once resolved that same conflict. The supposed spiritual awakening Bush underwent in the mid-1980s allowed him to trade one defense for another. (Author Craig Unger has shown Bush’s famous “mustard seed” moment with the Rev. Billy Graham – widely celebrated by the president – never happened; at the same time, Bush carefully avoids mentioning the faith awakening moment he probably really did have with radical evangelical preacher Arthur Blessitt.) In one sense, a half-hidden Manichean Christianity was more effective than alcohol in masking Bush’s inner conflict. It made it possible for him to be president.

    The Core Conflict

    The central, secret conflict that consumes George W. Bush and motivates much of his action can be summed up in a few words: the desperate need to avoid, contain and disguise disabling fears about his competence and adequacy in a context where he expects to feel superior. Out of this core conflict have arisen his good and evil worldview, his lack of empathy, even cruelty, his competitiveness, his bullying, his inability to make a rational decision (despite styling himself “the decider”), his tendency for deception and self-deception, his proclivity for unconsciously sabotaging the success of his own projects.

    Bush’s biography is well known by now: growing up in family circumstances with a mother who was a “bully,” and a father who, though passive, seemed effortlessly successful and talented as an athlete, war hero, businessman and politician. The younger Bush, expecting to demonstrate these same gifts, discovered quickly he couldn’t measure up. The discovery probably began early, for example, when he wanted to be the catcher on his little league baseball team but couldn’t do well because he reflexively blinked every time a batter swung (Unger, “The Fall of the House of Bush” 81), or his slowness in school, perhaps due to undiagnosed dyslexia or anxiety.

    Biographer Bill Minutaglio described a moment at Yale when young Bush apparently tried to take another direction from his father, but couldn’t pull away. (Minutaglio, “First Son” 104) Instead, he imitated (to the point of parody) his father’s career, compiling failure everywhere his father found success: a C-student at Yale, a desultory pilot, a money-losing businessman. The fact his father or his father’s friends needed repeatedly to rescue him from his failures (with Defense Secretary Robert Gates the latest rescuer) would have only increased the conflict between his sense of entitlement and expectation on the one hand, and his sense of insufficiency and incompetence on the other. Bush’s sensitivity to his father’s approval and disapproval is well established. Younger brother Marvin said the elder Bush could, intentionally or not, make his older son feel he alone had “committed the worst crime in history.” (Minutaglio 148). And younger brother Jeb once speculated the attempt by George junior to live up to his disapproving father was the kind of thing that “creates all sorts of pathologies.” (Minutaglio 101)

    So, Bush indulged in pure wishful thinking when he recently told journalist Robert Draper, “I’ve never had a fear of losing. I don’t like to lose. But having parents who give you unconditional love, I think it means I had the peace of mind to know that even with failure there was love. So I never feared failure.” (Draper, “Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush” 36)

    In fact, failure has been George W. Bush’s single greatest fear.

    Substance abuse would have numbed the feelings of inadequacy and given license to his hidden anger about his circumstances. He probably understood in a family as hermetically sealed from self-reflection as his, he could never openly admit feelings that he was a child “left behind” emotionally.

    Then, George W. Bush accepted Jesus as his personal savior and the drinking – and presumably those painful feelings the drinking needed to numb – disappeared. The failure-shriveled Bush of the past was replaced by a new God-filled Bush of the future, armed against his inadequacies with the defense of “faith.” But his sense of his inadequacy continued beneath the surface.

    For example, the president tries to control his environment (speaking only to friendly audiences), and consistently seeks to avoid or deflect definitive “tests” of his competency (though he is eager to test the competency of school children). His plain speaking style, rigidly on message, or laced with platitudes and moralistic bromides, compensates to cover his fear that he is unable to cogently think through an argument. He often looks as if he is trying to remember what he’s supposed to say because he’s fears he’ll say the wrong thing.

    His biography strongly suggests it was difficult for him to engage in activities involving the ambiguity, uncertainty and mistakes that normally lead to learning and growth. Instead, he put his energies into defenses and avoidance. He undermined his own ability to think about complex issues. He currently likes to imagine he’s living a presidential life similar to Abraham Lincoln’s, with a war and religious fervor he imagines is like the Second Great Awakening of Lincoln’s time. He thinks of himself making decisions in a similar fashion to Lincoln. (Greenwald 64-65) The problem is Bush lacks precisely the characteristic that made Lincoln a profound decision-maker: an ability to tolerate the ambivalence of situations long enough to perceive the shades of positive and negative, and emerge with what Lincoln called “our best judgment of the preponderance between them” (see epigraph).

    In place of a Lincolnesque decision process, Bush’s Christian defense supplies divine inspiration in the form of what he calls “gut” feelings that tell him, without much thought, what’s right and wrong, good or evil. He feels this form of magical thinking absolves him of the fear that his incompetence or confusion might lead to a wrong or “stupid” choice. In his glaring reluctance to admit mistakes, he’s like a child confronted by his parents. But for him, admitting a mistake may be even more threatening than the child’s fear of losing his parents’ love. By admitting a mistake, he would acknowledge the deep inadequacy he secretly believes defines him. So, he assures himself his spiritual gut feelings can never be mistakes or failure because they come from his attunement with God. But what Bush hears in his gut is not the divine; it is the workings of his own psychology organized to deny and transcend the family image of him as a failure that circulates in his head and has become his image of the world.

    As part of his Christian defense, the president has developed strategies that substitute for rational evaluation. To decide whether someone is competent, for example, the president believes he needs only to approve (from his gut) that an individual is a “good person” - Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzales, Nouri al-Maliki are some examples. Their actual abilities and performance don’t matter. If the president gives his stamp of “good person” approval, then it is “unfair” to quibble about performance or qualifications.

    Bush’s “Christian defense” also allows him to cope with failures by reassuring him that his divinely inspired decision will prove right in the long run. Seeing himself as Good and those who oppose him as Evil or dangerously naive, Bush can justify using any means at his command to defeat them. In this way, he can also give reign to his underlying anger and his desire to inflict harm on a world that had considered (and, he knows, still considers) him inadequate. He can vent his rage at being shackled to a father he has to endlessly compete with. Because he feels weak himself, the weaker are often his targets: children needing medical insurance, endangered species. Meanwhile, he gives uncritical affirmation to authoritarian (“good father”) figures who he thinks approve of him: former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Despite his best efforts, his feelings of anxiety about his own inadequacy constantly spill over. Spillage through his body language is notorious among reporters. In a Washington Post article following his failures to respond to Katrina, Dana Milbank closely observed movements as Bush underwent pointed questioning by NBC’s Matt Lauer. “The president was a blur of blinks, taps, jiggles, pivots and shifts … He had the body language of a man wishing urgently to be elsewhere,” he wrote. When Lauer asked Laura Bush about the strain on her husband, he jumped in with a mocking third-person statement about himself: “He can barely stand! He’s about to drop on the spot.” In this abrupt defensive reflex, Bush denied his inner feelings by aggressively ridiculing thoughts he was afraid the viewer might just have had. Explaining his need to have Cheney with him at the 9/11 Commission interview, he said he wanted commission members to “see our body language … how we work together.” Another unconscious leak. What exactly did he think the commission would see except his own exposed inadequacy? His attempt to hide it, revealed it.

    From the beginning of his December 4, 2007, press conference, the president offered a display of goofy facial grimaces, scowls, shifting stances, nervous and inappropriate chuckles accompanying serious statements, winking while reporters asked questions as if to indicate that the questions were foolish and that he was in cahoots with other reporters who appreciated the joke. The president had come to explain the fact he had recently trumpeted Iran ready to start “World War III,” or a “nuclear holocaust,” though the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) had recently concluded that Iran had, in fact, abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

    At first, the president claimed (an obvious lie) that he hadn’t known about the NIE conclusions when he issued his dire warnings about Iran. (Later the White House had to clarify he had indeed known.) Then, he said the NIE didn’t make any difference to his opinion. Bush is famously adverse to attempts to probe his psychology, and so, after about 40 minutes, when a reporter questioned him about his body language and thought it indicated he was depressed, the president lashed back, “And so, kind of Psychology 101 ain’t working. It’s just not working. I understand the issues, I clearly see the problems …” – and in a gesture of angry denial, ended the news conference.

    A year prior, however, in a more relaxed and expansive context with friendly journalist, Robert Draper, Bush did indicate curiosity about his own inner workings. “I really do not feel comfortable in the role of analyzing myself,” Bush told Draper, but then he emphasized. “I’ll try.” He didn’t get far, though. Immediately after saying that he would “try,” he launched into how the primaries are a test of will, then insisted (“eyes clenched, like little blue fists,” Draper writes) that he felt constantly watched: “I fully understand that the enemy watches me, the Iraqis are watching me, the troops watch me, and the people watch me. The other thing is that you can’t fake it. You have to believe it. And I believe it,” he told Draper, leaving ambiguous whether the “it” referred to Iraq or something more deeply personal. “I believe we’ll succeed.” (“Dead Certain” x)

    Of course, his feeling watched and “faking it” (faking certainty, faking competence) is exactly what George Bush is doing.

    When the Defenses Become the Reality

    We have noted in previous articles other prominent defenses Bush employs to cover his feelings of inadequacy: He is a classic emotional bully. Bullies disguise sensations of their own weakness by splitting the weakness off and casting it out of their own conscious awareness – projecting it – onto the consciousness of others. They generate a stream of signals and behaviors that keep others on guard and seek to enfeeble them. Bush’s signing statements where he reserves the right not to abide by the law he’s just adopted, his foreign policy asserting his right to preemptive strikes, his denial of Habeas Corpus, his fixation on retaining the torture option, his rejection of subpoenas from Congress, his diminishment of people by giving them nicknames – at different scales, these are emotional bullying tactics. Friends from his younger days remember that in basketball and tennis games Bush would force opponents who had beaten him to continue playing until he had worn down their will so he could beat them. Bush emotionally bullies his White House staff, making them afraid to tell him any news that doesn’t fit his “optimistic” expectations. Draper reports senior staffer Josh Bolton greeting Bush each morning with the line, “Thank you for the privilege of serving.” (397)

    In January 2000 – and more decisively after September 11, 2001 – Bush came into possession of what we have called his “presidential defense.” He became “the decider,” the “commander guy,” leader of the most powerful nation on earth overseeing a war he imagines is without end. Bush feels that his powerful office means – magically – that reality is his to define. Many have noted that the president is convinced that just because he says a thing will be so, it will be so.

    As “the decider,” Bush regularly asserts that he alone is the one who has to make the “tough” decisions, his primary job as president. At the same time, he has often declared that he loses no sleep and suffers no anxiety over his decisions. What does he mean by “tough,” then? The statements are actually the paradox of how he avoids his inadequacy: he can be supremely competent on the grounds that he’s the decider who decides what is competent; but since his competent decisions come magically, he doesn’t lose sleep over them. In talking about why he never gets advice from his former president father, he says they both understand that as president he knows what his father doesn’t know. That statement also doesn’t make much logical sense; but it makes great psychological sense: a form of “I’m the daddy now, and daddy’s not; daddies don’t need advice.”

    Bush clings to a bad decision and can’t change it because he had no rational basis for making it, or any decision, in the first place. Sticking with his decisions stubbornly – what he calls “leadership” – is all he really feels he has to offer as the nation’s chief executive.

    Absorbed in keeping up his psychic deflector shields, Bush seems shockingly unempathetic, even sadistically cruel about the pain of others. He is callous about torture; he takes pride in executions. His empathy for Katrina victims was clearly forced. He’s a man who can put on a jacket of compassion or outrage when he needs to, but then takes it off and can’t remember where he left it when a new need for empathy arrives. He’s too busy expending that energy on his own situation.

    Former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan has puzzled in her Wall Street Journal column at “the president’s seemingly effortless high spirits” these days, at his “jarring peppiness” in circumstances that call for a sober demeanor. Bush’s inappropriate affect connects with his inability to feel empathy and shows that he is disowning his depression about his failures and projecting it elsewhere. At the same time, he wants desperately to be liked. That explains the often inappropriate clowning and joking.

    Bush’s “presidential defense” traps him in a difficult paradox: It dramatically escalates the potency of his protection against being decisively (in his shifting terms) “found out” as inadequate. But it also dramatically escalates the psychically devastating consequences to him if he were to be found out (or find himself out).

    As president, Bush is surrounded by what critics have taken to calling “enablers,” a term that alludes to Bush’s years of drinking and implies that the alcoholic’s dynamic remains in force. Cheney is perhaps the chief enabler. As we’ve discussed previously, the vice president fulfills his need for personhood and power through taking on the wishes of his “patron” and serving as what Sidney Blumenthal calls “the pluperfect staff man.” To do this, Cheney operates behind the scenes, where he is comfortable. His strategy translates into an obsessive secrecy for the administration as he carries out Bush’s agenda of disguising weakness through bullying and authoritarianism. Doing the boss’s dirty work has turned Cheney into a man who is amoral, paranoid and resentful at having framed himself as always second man. He likes the idea of being considered “the evil genius” who operates from the shadows. A deeply passive character with little sense of his own agency apart from a patron, Cheney makes himself, as he has said, “indispensable.” He has worked his whole career to establish the presidency as an almost totalitarian “unitary executive,” the ruler above all. His effort strikes us as a metaphor of his own internal struggle to be “the man”: the paradoxical attempt to exercise his own will by exercising the will of his patron.

    Other enablers include the women who surround Bush, principally Laura Bush, Karen Hughes and Condoleezza Rice. These women probably function for him as “good mothers” in contrast to his own mother. They seem to sense his distress, his inner fragility, and his extensive anxiety on a subconscious level, and try to sooth it. In his observations of Bush during the interview with Matt Lauer, reporter Milbank noted that “the first lady had a calming influence on the presidential wiggles. When Laura Bush spoke about her husband’s ‘broad shoulders,’ the president put his arm around her – and the swaying and shifting subsided. The president, now on more comfortable terrain, delivered a brief homily about the decency of others. Through the entire passage, he blinked only 12 times” (down from 37 blinks the reporter counted during Bush’s previous statement). The women may help him control his anxiety, but he would not be able to talk to them about it. They have their own issues with him. Rice revealed much about her psychology as enabler and victim of the administration’s Stockholm syndrome when she told a friend, “People don’t understand. It’s not my exercising influence over him. I’m internalizing his world.” (Draper 286) Like the alcoholic he once was, Bush has nobody to genuinely confide his anxieties to, not even Laura, who threatened to leave him if he didn’t stop drinking. So, even in his most intimate friendships and relationships he is on stage, on message, exerting self-control (not always successfully), riding his bike to distract himself, keeping up his facade.

    Bush’s psyche throws out a fog of opposites as he attempts to control his ambivalence by disowning and splitting off parts. He can see himself only as Good, Successful, Loyal, Strong. The opposites of those must be cast outside him. He has negligible capacity to explore and draw nourishment from the fertile ground that exists in all of us between the poles of our conceptions and emotions. Insight grows from that ground. There he might discover, for example, that success and failure have many shades. In place of shades, Bush’s character decompensates into stark contradictions. Claiming he is not a divider means the opposite, a “compassionate conservative” means the opposite. When his administration holds conferences to help resolve climate change or the Palestinian issue, his internal fragmentation dictates that he really doesn’t want these things resolved – he wants the opposite. When he urges the success of an enterprise, it is likely that he has implanted somewhere the seeds of its failure. In the “surge” plan of last January there were several, for example: one flaw – vigorously warned against by the surge plan’s supporters – would have created independent command structures for American and Iraqi forces. The command structures idea has been quietly scuttled by the military, which explains that “there are limitations preventing the Iraqi Security Forces from operating fully independently from Coalition forces.” Another flaw involved Bush’s remarkable failure to press the Iraqi leadership for the political reconciliation he said last year was the whole point of the surge’s improvement of security in Baghdad. Thus, the surge has failed to accomplish its central purpose.

    Because he unconsciously expects to be seen by the world as a failure, Bush feels a strange comfort and familiarity in failing and then in denying that he is failing. He can never learn from mistakes. Worse, his psychodynamics ensure that his efforts to avoid his failures inevitably produce more failures.

    Bush’s administration has become famous for the hubris of believing it would create its own reality; that fantasy inflated an expanding bubble of self-deception that left the White House increasingly out of touch with reality in every political dimension, except for intimidation. The cause of this is clear: To an unprecedented scale, a president’s entire administration has been focused on the service of his psychological defense system.

    Then, What Is He Capable of?

    After previous articles about Bush’s psychology, we received a number of emails from clinicians agreeing with our description of Bush’s basic psychodynamic, and offering their diagnoses. These varied from one another, sometimes substantially, as might be expected, since no one we know of has had access to a first-hand psychiatric evaluation of Mr. Bush. What can we say about his psychopathology? We find no evidence in the public record that the president hears voices or is mentally ill in a way that would require hospitalization or medication, though some psychiatrists or psychopharmacologists might prescribe medication if he came in for treatment of his own accord. We think Bush’s psychological dysfunctions are profound, but they are of the sort that would probably not arouse notice if he were, say, the owner of the Texas Rangers, a job he apparently enjoyed. (Draper 42) (Of course, being a baseball team owner replayed his central theme: his father had the baseball talent and he lacked it.) That said, we believe the effect of the presidency on Bush’s psychodynamics and the effect of Bush’s psychodynamics on the presidency have created a situation where his personality is as genuinely dangerous to the nation as if he were delusional.

    Psychologically, Bush’s one non-negotiable position is that he must never have to face his failures because once he found Jesus as his personal savior, he put all his failures (and failings) behind him. But now, after seven years as president, his failure is everywhere. Unlike presidents Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson and even Richard Nixon, Bush seems incapable of coping with his defeats by taking some redeeming direction. In the next year, we believe his behavior will continue to be guided by his need for massive avoidance of his feelings of inadequacy, particularly with regard to Iraq. Success in other areas means little to him and he gives them scant concern for his “legacy.” He has identified himself as “a war president.” The war is linked to his vague sense of divine mission, his internal aggression, his never-ending competition with his father.

    We believe the great foreseeable peril of Bush’s remaining year in office is the intersection of his Christian defense with Iran. In recent months, when Bush warned that Iran sought to launch World War III, he seems to have unconsciously told us it is he who wants war. The neo-conservative agenda to capture the Middle East for its oil, only reinforces Bush’s own psychological reasons for attacking Iran: 1) to certify his biblical mission, and 2) to avoid facing the colossal incompetence of the Iraq war by bequeathing a widened and inextricable conflict to his successor. We believe Bush is aware that the long-term chaos that might result from an attack on Iran could confound the historical image of his administration enough to make his own failures harder to see. In 50 or 100 years – after he is dead, anyway – historians might even see his worldview in a favorable light. After all, they’re still debating George Washington. That’s what he thinks. The presidency has become for Bush like the popular “global domination” board game he played with fellow undergrads at Yale. There, he was known as the player willing to take the most risks.

    Despite the mainstream press’s inclination to construe the president’s position euphemistically as a “hard line” on Iran, anyone who followed other reports, including Seymour Hersh’s in The New Yorker, could reasonably conclude that the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate was a serious blow to Bush and Cheney’s long-standing effort to provoke, create or discover a pretext to attack Iran and expand the Middle East wars. Hersh reported that in 2006 the president and vice president had pressed for use of nuclear weapons against Iranian facilities but were rebuffed by the military. We believe the president is probably already committed internally to pursue this belligerent course for his legacy. Vague fantasies of an “end-of-days” mission may be in his mind, as well.

    It remains to be seen whether Secretary of Defense Robert Gates – Bush’s father’s designated new “minder” inside the administration – or senior military commanders can prevent Cheney from finding a way to operationalize the decision. So far they’ve succeeded. Meanwhile, the Democrats appear to be in denial about the risk of Bush’s intentions. They know that almost everyone in authority who is rational actor believes taking on Iran at this time would be a colossal blunder, and they assume – though they must know better – that Bush will be persuaded by that rationality. We think this “misunderestimates” his psychology. The Democrats should overcome their denial and take their own preemptive action to block him from such an attack.

    Some have imagined a worse scenario. In 2007, a statement to a small group of constituents by Democratic representative John Olver of Amherst, Mass., made the rounds on the Internet. Olver worried that Bush would attack Iran, declare a national emergency and suspend the 2008 elections. A clarifying email from Olver’s press secretary to us said the congressman had no evidence that any of this would happen but that he had worried about a “thought crime” on the part of the president.

    Is Bush psychologically capable of acting out such a “thought crime,” maneuvering to remain in power? Would Bush ever actually move to suspend the Constitution? Unfortunately, he’s done just that already, in significant ways. How committed is he really to the idea of democracy he talks about incessantly? Psychologically these are interesting questions. Given his tendency to polarize and split his ambivalence, we’d have to say that his constant pieties about democracy suggest the opposite is significantly at work in his consciousness. He’s even joked about it: “If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” Of course, he would vehemently deny that he is dictator even if he became one.

    When Draper asked Bush about what plans he had after leaving the White House, they appeared vague, shiftless: making more money than his father on speaking engagements, setting up some foundation or something for encouraging democracy. “I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.” (406) His fantasies suggest his polarized ambivalence. He may yearn to escape into his old drinking days shiftlessness to get out from under the constant anxiety he feels about being competent as president; yet, he also seems keenly aware of the narcotic feeling of being a “consequential” person with a biblical mission, surrounded by the most powerful psychological defenses in the world. (Once out of office, how will he return to the family that knows his secret?) Is Bush capable of wanting to take the nation down an authoritarian road (a different question from whether he could get away with it)? If there were a terrorist attack on US soil or the assassination of a candidate, he could claim he is defending America by postponing the election. Cheney’s office could provide the Constitutional rationale. With Bush’s psychohistory, it’s easy to become paranoid. Purely speculating: We think that Olver’s “thought crime” is not the first thing on the president’s mind and that he is not so out of touch with reality that he wouldn’t have serious pause at such an action. (Martial law hasn’t worked well for Pakistani strong man Pervez Musharraf.) That said, we believe Bush’s psychodynamics could propel him in that direction if certain conditions arose.

    As Greenwald observes: “The most dangerous George Bush is the one who feels weak, impotent, and under attack. Those perceptions are intolerable for him and it is doubtful if there are many limits, if any, on what he would be willing to do in order to restore a feeling of potency and to rid himself of the sensations of his own weakness and defeat.” (95)

    Responding to the Bush Psychology

    It’s likely that members of Congress in particular have experienced the subliminal shockwaves of what Greenwald describes. When the president feels weak, you don’t know what he’ll do. You sense that somewhere beneath your feet lie tripwires, which are his psychological defenses. Step on one, and you feel he’ll react in a way that will be time consuming, unpleasant, distracting and possibly personally humiliating. He will pretend that his assault on you will be about important matters of national concern, but it will be really about himself. It will be hard to explain all that to the public, however. The president gives off subtle, angry irrationality that takes the air out of individuals of either party who might want to challenge him. They’d rather not deal with him if he can be avoided. They try to evade his polarizations. In that way they, too, become his enablers.

    Unfortunately, there’s no magic formula countering the psychology of the kind discussed here in the unique circumstance where the owner of that psychology is the president. But here are some things to consider:

    Bush-type personality operates in a defensive, binary mode. Greenwald observes that the president’s neocon advisers have found they can manipulate him by casting the policy they’re advancing in a binary, good-evil terms. Then Bush manipulates others using such polarizations. When he says some variation of, “You’re either with us or against us,” he makes you feel angry and weak. You want to strike back, but you can’t if you wish to remain rational. So you want to say logically, “No, I’m not against you, but I’m not with you, either.” But that requires explaining, which is immensely difficult in our media environment. Reporters have become addicted to conflict-based storytelling as a way of getting audience attention. They prefer a polarized fight and will even try to start one if it doesn’t exist. They tell stories by juxtaposing antagonistic sound bites. A politician trying to articulate a position that is non-polarized, nuanced and non-conflictual is at a disadvantage. Perhaps, serious politicians need to develop some tactics that can directly confront polarizing. “There you go again, Mr. President, creating a false division. There are third and forth options here.” Whenever possible, the mainstream press should be chastised and educated about its addiction to this kind of conflict-based reporting, which creates a free fire zone, an information free environment that destroys public discourse.

    A person polarizing the world as Bush does is like a small, weak animal that puffs itself up in order to scare off attackers. In Bush’s case, the presidency has frequently led him into the illusion that he actually is his puffed up size. It might help to remember that he’s not.

    Polarizing tactics work because they provoke and rely on fear in those at the receiving end – fear of being wrong, fear of what the other guy will do, fear of uncertainty, fear of mistakes. Fear these things less and the tactics will work less. Such fears make us feel like children again. But we’re adults. Binary, absolutist categories are always an inadequate description of the real world, which is, as Lincoln said, an “inseparable compound” of various polarities. As adults, we can think and speak about subtleties and complexities. If we do, fear will go down, not up. Most adults implicitly understand that the real world is, more often than not, nuanced, and an appeal to the truth of shades has its own strong power.

    The Democrats have recently tried to operate in the grand American tradition that opposition and diversity must be accompanied by a willingness to negotiate. That is the message of the Constitution, a document that embodies a psychologically very deep understanding of the give-and-take of creative process. The Democrats attempted to work with the president and their Republican colleagues in this spirit after they won the Congress in 2006. Psychologically, it was the right thing to do. They tried to heal the wounds the president had inflicted and draw him into a creative collaboration. But the president’s massive defensiveness over his failures has kept him truculently binary. He has obviously intimidated his fellow Republicans so that they, too, have continued in a merely oppositional mode and are supporting his vetoes. The president is dismissing Congress as incidental to his authority.

    At this point, it appears that the Democrats and moderate Republicans are succumbing to their fear of direct confrontation with his psychology. They seem afraid the president might be vindicated by another terrorist attack on US soil (as though the attack would prove that polarizing the world is the true path). They want to avoid a constitutional crisis in the months until Bush leaves office. They haven’t wanted their legislative time consumed with investigations of administrative corruption and usurpation of power. They haven’t wanted to alienate the electorate during an election season. Their own ambivalence has been set off by his, but with a different result. They waffle: one minute resisting him, the next backing down. All this is understandable, but it misses the point that corruption and usurpation of the sort that has been unleashed by the president’s psychology may have already seriously damaged our national institutions. What is the message to the future if we allow this president’s psychological defenses against his failures to inflict such damage and then evade our responsibility to hold him accountable for it?

    Members of Congress can stop being victims of the president’s abusive psychology. You can confront a polarizer about his behavior without yourself becoming a polarizer. Instead of splitting ambivalence as Bush does, ambivalence can be used it to think through a clear course of action . The Constitution helps, in this case. The Democrats might, for example, articulate their balancing duties under the Constitution and carefully and firmly distinguish them from acts of partisan opposition. They might publicly acknowledge that this president, with the past complicity of Congress, has damaged our institutions. They could insist on the investigative and deliberative process called for by our system of government. Methodically holding Bush and his administration to account for his abuses (such a thing has never before happened to him) may be the most effective way to neutralize the further acting out of his dangerous psychology. It would empower others in his administration to resist him. It would refocus Congress on its own responsibilities in the constitutional process. Of course, to accomplish this would require some adults and “profiles in courage.”

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    John P. Briggs, M.D. is retired from over 40 years of private practice in psychotherapy in Westchester County, New York. He was on the faculty in psychiatry at the Columbia Medical Center in New York City for 23 years and was a long-time member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis. He trained at the William Alanson White Institute in New York. For 20 years he practiced co-therapy for married couples with his late wife, Muriel.    JP Briggs II, Ph.D. is a distinguished CSU professor at Western Connecticut State University, specializing in creative process. He is the senior editor of the intellectual journal, “The Connecticut Review” and author and co-author of books on creativity and chaos, including “Fire in the Crucible” (St. Martins Press); “Fractals, the Patterns of Chaos” (Simon and Schuster); “Seven Life Lessons of Chaos” (HarperCollins); and a collection of short stories, “Trickster Tales” (Fine Tooth Press). He is currently at work on a book about the power of ambivalence with Philadelphia psychologist John Amoroso. Email: profbriggs@comcast.net Source : http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011008A.shtml

Corn, milk, bread, and other farm products hit record high prices in 2006

– and will likely keep rising in 2008.

from the December 31, 2007 edition

The rise and rise of world food prices

Read the full seriesFood prices worldwide hit record highs in 2006, and all the signs are that they will go on rising this year, and for the foreseeable future. The era of cheap food, the experts say, is over and we are going to have to get used to it. This is easier said than done for millions around the world, as evidenced by protests in Mexico over the cost of corn tortillas, and in Italy last September about the price of (wheat) pasta. Staff writer Peter Ford looks at why.

What is behind the increases in food prices?

Certainly not bad harvests. Although a drought hit the traditionally bountiful Australian wheat harvest this past year, world cereal harvests hit 2.1 billion metric tons, a record production level, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Two major trends have been pushing prices up faster than they have risen for more than 30 years. One is that increasingly prosperous consumers in India and China are not only eating more food but eating more meat. Animals have to be fed (grains, usually) before they are butchered. The other is that more and more crops – from corn to palm nuts – are being used to make biofuels instead of feeding people.

At the same time, the world is drawing down its stockpiles of cereal and dairy products, which makes markets nervous and prices volatile.

The result, says Joachim von Braun, who heads the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, is that “the world food system is in trouble. The situation has not been this much of a concern for 15 years.”

How big a factor is the biofuels boom?

It is significant enough for the FAO to be warning about the dangers of turning too much food into fuel, and for the Chinese government, for example, to ban the construction of new refineries that use corn or other basic foods. In fact, earlier this month Beijing announced tax breaks and subsidies to encourage the use of cellulose, sweet sorghum, and cassava (nonfood crops in China) for biofuels.

Some analysts estimate that as much as 30 percent of the US grain crop will go toward producing ethanol this year, a doubling from 2006. IFPRI forecasts that if the world sticks to current biofuel expansion plans, the price of corn will go up 26 percent by 2020, and the price of oilseeds (such as soybean, sunflower, rapeseed) by 18 percent. If governments double efforts to produce this alternative fuel source, corn prices are expected to go up 72 percent and oilseeds by 44 percent in 12 years’ time.

Who gets hit hardest? Does anyone benefit?

As usual, it is the poorest people in the world who suffer most, because food takes up a bigger share of their daily shopping bill than it does for richer people. A family in Bangladesh, for example, living on $5 a day, typically spends $3 of that on food. The 50 percent rise in food prices the world has seen in recent years takes a $1.50 chunk – nearly 30 percent – out of the family budget.

Even farmers are not immune. On the whole, small-scale farmers in developing countries buy more food than they sell, so they, too, are net losers. Relatively few peasants have holdings large enough to benefit from price increases.

Big farmers in the rich countries, however, are doing well: US corn farmers have seen the price their crop fetches jump by 50 percent since 2000. Other net food exporters, such as India, Australia, and South Africa, will also do well out of rising prices. Major dairy producers, such as New Zealand, have done well as consumption of milk, yogurt, and cheese rises in Asia. As a result, while property values in New Zealand are generally expected to soften, flat rural land, where cows can graze, is expected to continue to rise in price, according to a survey by Massey University in New Zealand.

Will market forces correct the situation, as farmers switch to the high-earning crops?

Not as quickly as you might expect, though the European Union, the largest food exporter in the world, has suspended a “set-aside” program that had paid its farmers to leave 10 percent of their land fallow (so as to prevent oversupply).

Cereal prices are considered “inelastic,” meaning that a 10-percent price increase tends to boost supplies by only one or two percentage points. While prices are high, they are also very volatile at the moment, which scares a lot of farmers off making the investments they would need to switch crops.

At the same time, the food market overlaps with the fuel market. Farmers can now sell their corn, their palm nuts, or their sugar to biodiesel refineries. So the price of palm oil, for example, traditionally the cheapest in Africa, is now set not by the cooking oil market, but by the fuel market.

It will not help that climate change and the accompanying floods and droughts will reduce cereal output in more than 40 developing countries, mainly in Africa, according to recent studies.

Where will food shortages be most acute?

Wherever the underlying trends of rising prices and scarcer supplies are compounded by special problems. Sometimes they are natural disasters, such as the cyclone and flooding that hit Bangladesh last November, wiping out many people’s stocks of food. Sometimes they are man-made, as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where continuing civil conflict and mismanagement disrupt the market, or in Zimbabwe, where inflation of more than 7,000 percent and a crumbling economy are threatening people already short of food.

“The hot spots of food risks will be where high prices combine with shocks from the weather or political crises,”, says Dr. von Braun. “These are recipes for disaster.”

What effect will high prices have on hunger-prevention programs?

A big one says the World Food Program (WFP), the UN agency in charge of emergency food aid, which reported last year that food aid flows had reached their lowest levels since 1973.

Food prices “are an incredible concern for us at the moment” says WFP spokesman Robin Lodge. “The same dollars don’t buy the same amount of food as they used to,” and donations to the agency are flat.

The WFP has been making a big effort to buy food from countries as near as possible to crisis zones, to cut transport costs, and in 2007 it had 15 million fewer people to feed than in 2006 because there were fewer major emergencies.

“But we are now about as tight as we can get, so unless donations go up there is no doubt about it, we will have to reconsider who we are feeding and the rations” says Mr. Lodge. “There is no other way around it.”

Many food aid organizations are trying to buy more food locally. The FAO is reportedly working on a program to offer poor farmers vouchers for seeds and fertilizer to help them adapt to changing climate conditions.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1231/p13s01-wogi.html?page=2

Appeal of solidarity with the people, the government, the communist and progressive forces of Bolivia

The political process in Bolivia faces a critical moment.

The reactionary forces, the oligarchy, the US government and some European forces promote a large scale campaign aiming to reverse the progressive processes in this Latin American country.

The goal of all these forces is to block the changes promoted by the Constitutional Assembly for a democratic Constitution for the benefit of the popular demands.

The retrograde forces, defeated on October 2003 and during the elections in 2005 try again to reorganize their ranks, to stop any change and to undermine President Evo Morales.

In order to achieve their goals they use any means, including armed groups.

The consequent progressive forces of the country, the social movements and organizations, after great and heroical battles, alongside with the Moviemento al Socialismo MAS under the presidency of Evo Morales, were the winners with big majority in the elections.

Now these forces try to valorize this victory in order important demands of the working people to be adopted and further promoted.

We, the signatories of this appeal, sharply denounce the support provided by the US government as well as its direct involvement in the subversive actions in Bolivia.

We also denounce the scandalous tolerance showed by other imperialist states and international organizations towards such inadmissible actions.

There is an urgent task the reactionary forces to be unequivocally condemned, isolated and defeated both on national and international level.

We stand on the side of the people of Bolivia and fully support the great mobilizations against the plans for a coup d’etat.

We support the alliance between the people and the government of Bolivia against the machinations of the oligarchy.

We express our full solidarity to the Bolivian people, to the government of the President,Evo Morales, to the Communist Party of Bolivia, to MAS-IRSP and to all other progressive and anti-imperialist forces and movements in their great battle in defense of the progressive gains, in the struggle for deeper changes.

We call on for the development by all means of a large solidarity movement with the anti-imperialist forces and the people of Bolivia.

The parties

* PADS, Algeria
* Communist Party of Argentina
* Democratic Progressive Tribune – Bahrain
* Communist Party of Bangladesh
* Communist Party of Belarus
* Workers’ Party of Belgium
* Communist Party of Bolivia
* Communist Party of Brazil
* Communist Party of Britain
* New Communist Party of Britain
* Party of the Bulgarian Communists
* Communist Party of Canada
* Communist Party of Chile
* AKEL, Cyprus
* Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
* Communist Party in Denmark
* Communist Party of Egypt
* Communist Party of Estonia
* Communist Party of Finland
* German Communist Party
* Communist Party of Greece
* Communist Party of India
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* Communist Party, USA
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__There is no “Globalism”
It’s just IMPERIALISM!
And that’s the enemy for everyone, in every place on the planet !..__

Communist Party of Greece
..in English: http://www.kke.gr/kke_en.html

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Coup In Bolivia: Military on alert

Bolivia’s military is on alert as four provinces prepare to formally declare their autonomy Saturday.Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando, relatively wealthy states in the eastern lowlands, have announced they intend to create largely independent regional governments.Authorities have sent 400 police officers to Santa Cruz to ensure security during the challenge to the Bolivian government.

The provinces object to President Evo Morales’s moves to overhaul the constitution to boost presidential powers and increase the rights of Bolivia’s indigenous majority. Indigenous Bolivians live mainly in the more impoverished western highlands and form the core of Mr. Morales’s support.

Mr. Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, wants to break up the large landholdings of the eastern farmers, many of whom are of European descent, and redistribute the property among indigenous groups.

He also wants to redistribute the nation’s oil and gas wealth, which is centered in the east.

The four provinces are seeking to keep much of the tax revenues they generate. They say they do not want independence, but to retain control of their wealth.

Leaders in the region object to a Morales-backed constitution, approved Sunday in a vote boycotted by opposition lawmakers. The constitution would be put to a referendum next year.

The United States has urged Americans to defer travel to Bolivia.

http://ionglobaltrends.blogspot.com/2007/12/bolivia-military-on-alert.html

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Bolivia tense amid autonomy push Several of Bolivia’s nine regions want more autonomy
Security forces are on alert in Bolivia, ahead of rallies planned in four of the country’s richest regions.
The four provinces are set to declare autonomy at the demonstrations, after the wealthiest province, Santa Cruz, passed a key tax reform measure.The regions are angry at a new draft national constitution that includes greater state control of the economy.But the president has warned against taking steps towards autonomy and extra police and soldiers have been deployed.

The draft constitution has already been the trigger of violence, with at least three people killed in the central city of Sucre in clashes in November.

Natural resources

The Santa Cruz assembly backed a statute under which the region would keep two-thirds of its tax revenues on Thursday.

Will Bolivia’s splits widen?

Three other regions – Tarija, Beni and Pando – are planning similar declarations at rallies on Saturday. Once the autonomy charters are declared, they will be put to the local populations for approval.Four hundred extra police have been sent to Santa Cruz, and the army has been told to prepare to protect public buildings.The moves towards autonomy come after an assembly dominated by supporters of President Evo Morales adopted the new national charter article by article last weekend.

It must still be put to a national referendum.

Mr Morales made rewriting the constitution a key part of his reform agenda to give the indigenous majority greater political power, but the issue has deepened regional and ethnic divisions in the country.

Indigenous rights

Low-lying Santa Cruz is the most prosperous part of South America’s poorest country, having major agricultural businesses and much of Bolivia’s oil and gas wealth.

Pro-autonomy supporters object to the new constitution, which would allow consecutive five-year presidential terms, increase indigenous rights and redistribute wealth to the poorer highland areas of Bolivia.

On Thursday, Mr Morales called for dialogue, but warned that the unity of Bolivia was inviolable.

“The unity of the country is untouchable, it is not up for discussion. There is no referendum to be held on the country’s unity,” Mr Morales said.

There were frequent demonstrations – both for and against – during the debate over constitutional reforms, with protests sometimes turning violent.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7144447.stm

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Four Bolivian regions declare autonomy from government
The natural-gas-rich districts seek to distance themselves from Bolivia’s constitutionConstitution calls for heavier taxes on the regions to help finance social programsAP: “We won’t permit Bolivia to be divided,” President Evo Morales warns

Pro-Morales groups: Richer regions want to control Bolivia’s natural resources

(CNN) — Tensions were rising in Bolivia on Saturday as members of the country’s four highest natural gas-producing regions declared autonomy from the central government.Ruben Costas, center, governor of Santa Cruz, celebrates as the Bolivian region declares autonomy Saturday.
1 of 2 Thousands waved the Santa Cruz region’s green-and-white flags in the streets as council members of the Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando districts made the public announcement.The officials displayed a green-bound document containing a set of statutes paving the way to a permanent separation from the Bolivian government.

Council representatives vowed to legitimize the so-called autonomy statutes through a referendum that would legally separate the natural-gas rich districts from President Evo Morales’ government.

The move also aims to separate the states from Bolivia’s new constitution, which calls for, among other things, a heavier taxation on the four regions to help finance more social programs.

“The statutes will be ratified,” said Oscar Ortiz, Santa Cruz senator. “With a public referendum, the people of our region will legitimize their will.”

About 35 percent of Bolivia’s 9.5 million people live in the four states, according to The Associated Press.

South America launches own bank
In the meantime, Bolivian network ATV showed what appeared to be armed, pro-government protesters creating blockades around the town of Yapacani, on the outskirts of Santa Cruz.

Some indigenous pro-Morales groups claim Bolivia’s richer, white-ruled Eastern regions want to control the country’s natural resources. Bolivia has South America’s second-largest natural gas reserves, behind Venezuela. Most of it is produced in the Eastern regions. Watch Bolivian leader speak out »

In the capital city La Paz on Saturday, Morales addressed thousands of flag-waving supporters in the Plaza Murillo, defending the new constitution and lashing out against what he called the racist policies of Bolivia’s elite.

“They must give back the money they took from us,” he told a cheering crowd, which included members of the Quechua and Aymara tribes. “We will retroactively investigate all the big fortunes, and the corrupt are now trembling with fear.”

Morales also cautioned those who he said want a “a division, a coup d’etat,” the AP reported.

“We won’t permit Bolivia to be divided,” he warned.

Morales — who belongs to the Aymara indigenous group — nationalized the country’s oil and natural gas reserves when he took power in 2006, creating what became known as the “gas wars.”

Running on a platform of redistribution of wealth among Bolivia’s poor, Morales has defied countries such as Brazil and the United States for the exploration of Bolivia’s natural reserves.

He has also protested the country’s racial divide.

“Bolivia is a nation among nations,” he said Saturday, referring to the diversity of Indian nations whose traditions date back centuries.

“We are not a country of blue-eyed, green-eyed folks only. It’s a plurinational country made of dark-skinned and white-skinned. This new constitution will unite us.” E-mail to a friend

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/12/15/bolivia.unrest/?iref=mpstoryview

The Unholy Trinity : Death Squads, Disappearances,Torture

- from Latin America to Iraq

by TomDispatch.com

by Greg Grandin

The world is made up, as Captain Segura in Graham Greene’s 1958 novel Our Man in Havana put it, of two classes: the torturable and the untorturable. “There are people,” Segura explained, “who expect to be tortured and others who would be outraged by the idea.” Then — so Greene thought — Catholics, particularly Latin American Catholics, were more torturable than Protestants. Now, of course, Muslims hold that distinction, victims of a globalized network of offshore and outsourced imprisonment coordinated by Washington and knitted together by secret flights, concentration camps, and black-site detention centers. The CIA’s deployment of Orwellian “Special Removal Units” to kidnap terror suspects in Europe, Canada, the Middle East, and elsewhere and the whisking of these “ghost prisoners” off to Third World countries to be tortured goes, today, by the term “extraordinary rendition,” a hauntingly apt phrase. “To render” means not just to hand over, but to extract the essence of a thing, as well as to hand out a verdict and “give in return or retribution” — good descriptions of what happens during torture sessions.In the decades after Greene wrote Our Man in Havana, Latin Americans coined an equally resonant word to describe the terror that had come to reign over most of the continent. Throughout the second half of the Cold War, Washington’s anti-communist allies killed more than 300,000 civilians, many of whom were simply desaparecido — “disappeared.” The expression was already well known in Latin America when, on accepting his 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature in Sweden, Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez reported that the region’s “disappeared number nearly one hundred and twenty thousand, which is as if suddenly no one could account for all the inhabitants of Uppsala.”

When Latin Americans used the word as a verb, they usually did so in a way considered grammatically incorrect — in the transitive form and often in the passive voice, as in “she was disappeared.” The implied (but absent) actor/subject signaled that everybody knew the government was responsible, even while investing that government with unspeakable, omnipotent power. The disappeared left behind families and friends who spent their energies dealing with labyrinthine bureaucracies, only to be met with silence or told that their missing relative probably went to Cuba, joined the guerrillas, or ran away with a lover. The victims were often not the most politically active, but the most popular, and were generally chosen to ensure that their sudden absence would generate a chilling ripple-effect.

An Unholy Trinity

Like rendition, disappearances can’t be carried out without a synchronized, sophisticated, and increasingly transnational infrastructure, which, back in the 1960s and 1970s, the United States was instrumental in creating. In fact, it was in Latin America that the CIA and U.S. military intelligence agents, working closely with local allies, first helped put into place the unholy trinity of government-sponsored terrorism now on display in Iraq and elsewhere: death squads, disappearances, and torture.

Death Squads: Clandestine paramilitary units, nominally independent from established security agencies yet able to draw on the intelligence and logistical capabilities of those agencies, are the building blocks for any effective system of state terror. In Latin America, Washington supported the assassination of suspected Leftists at least as early as 1954, when the CIA successfully carried out a coup in Guatemala, which ousted a democratically elected president. But its first sustained sponsorship of death squads started in 1962 in Colombia, a country which then vied with Vietnam for Washington’s attention.

Having just ended a brutal 10-year civil war, its newly consolidated political leadership, facing a still unruly peasantry, turned to the U.S. for help. In 1962, the Kennedy White House sent General William Yarborough, later better known for being the “Father of the Green Berets” (as well as for directing domestic military surveillance of prominent civil-rights activists, including Martin Luther King Jr.). Yarborough advised the Colombian government to set up an irregular unit to “execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents” — as good a description of a death squad as any.

As historian Michael McClintock puts it in his indispensable book Instruments of Statecraft, Yarborough left behind a “virtual blueprint” for creating military-directed death squads. This was, thanks to U.S. aid and training, immediately implemented. The use of such death squads would become part of what the counterinsurgency theorists of the era liked to call “counter-terror” — a concept hard to define since it so closely mirrored the practices it sought to contest.

Throughout the 1960s, Latin America and Southeast Asia functioned as the two primary laboratories for U.S. counterinsurgents, who moved back and forth between the regions, applying insights and fine-tuning tactics. By the early 1960s, death-squad executions were a standard feature of U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Vietnam, soon to be consolidated into the infamous Phoenix Program, which between 1968 and 1972 “neutralized” more than 80,000 Vietnamese — 26,369 of whom were “permanently eliminated.”

As in Latin America, so too in Vietnam, the point of death squads was not just to eliminate those thought to be working with the enemy, but to keep potential rebel sympathizers in a state of fear and anxiety. To do so, the U.S. Information Service in Saigon provided thousands of copies of a flyer printed with a ghostly looking eye. The “terror squads” then deposited that eye on the corpses of those they murdered or pinned it “on the doors of houses suspected of occasionally harboring Viet Cong agents.” The technique was called “phrasing the threat” — a way to generate a word-of-mouth terror buzz.

In Guatemala, such a tactic started up at roughly the same time. There, a “white hand” was left on the body of a victim or the door of a potential one.

Disappearances: Next up on the counterinsurgency curriculum was Central America, where, in the 1960s, U.S. advisors helped put into place the infrastructure needed not just to murder but “disappear” large numbers of civilians. In the wake of the Cuban Revolution, Washington had set out to “professionalize” Latin America’s security agencies — much in the way the Bush administration now works to “modernize” the intelligence systems of its allies in the President’s “Global War on Terror.”

Then, as now, the goal was to turn lethargic, untrained intelligence units of limited range into an international network capable of gathering, analyzing, sharing, and acting on information in a quick and efficient manner. American advisors helped coordinate the work of the competing branches of a country’s security forces, urging military men and police officers to overcome differences and cooperate. Washington supplied phones, teletype machines, radios, cars, guns, ammunition, surveillance equipment, explosives, cattle prods, cameras, typewriters, carbon paper, and filing cabinets, while instructing its apprentices in the latest riot control, record keeping, surveillance, and mass-arrest techniques.

In neither El Salvador, nor Guatemala was there even a whiff of serious rural insurrection when the Green Berets, the CIA, and the U.S. Agency for International Development began organizing the first security units that would metastasize into a dense, Central American-wide network of death-squad paramilitaries.

Once created, death squads operated under their own colorful names — an Eye for an Eye, the Secret Anticommunist Army, the White Hand — yet were essentially appendages of the very intelligence systems that Washington either helped create or fortified. As in Vietnam, care was taken to make sure that paramilitaries appeared to be unaffiliated with regular forces. To allow for a plausible degree of deniability, the “elimination of the enemy agents must be achieved quickly and decisively” — instructs a classic 1964 textbook Counter-Insurgency Warfare — “by an organization that must in no way be confused with the counterinsurgent personnel working to win the support of the population.” But in Central America, by the end of the 1960s, the bodies were piling so high that even State Department embassy officials, often kept out of the loop on what their counterparts in the CIA and the Pentagon were up to, had to admit to the obvious links between US-backed intelligence services and the death squads.Washington, of course, publicly denied its support for paramilitarism, but the practice of political disappearances took a great leap forward in Guatemala in 1966 with the birth of a death squad created, and directly supervised, by U.S. security advisors. Throughout the first two months of 1966, a combined black-ops unit made up of police and military officers working under the name “Operation Clean-Up” — a term US counterinsurgents would recycle elsewhere in Latin America — carried out a number of extrajudicial executions.Between March 3rd and 5th of that year, the unit netted its largest catch. More than 30 Leftists were captured, interrogated, tortured, and executed. Their bodies were then placed in sacks and dropped into the Pacific Ocean from U.S.-supplied helicopters. Despite pleas from Guatemala’s archbishop and more than 500 petitions of habeas corpus filed by relatives, the Guatemalan government and the American Embassy remained silent on the fate of the executed.Over the next two and a half decades, U.S.-funded and trained Central American security forces would disappear tens of thousands of citizens and execute hundreds of thousands more. When supporters of the “War on Terror” advocated the exercise of the “Salvador Option,” it was this slaughter they were talking about.

Following U.S.-backed coups in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina, death squads not only became institutionalized in South America, they became transnational. Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, the CIA supported Operation Condor — an intelligence consortium established by Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet that synchronized the activities of many of the continent’s security agencies and orchestrated an international campaign of terror and murder.
According to Washington’s ambassador to Paraguay, the heads of these agencies kept “in touch with one another through a U.S. communications installation in the Panama Canal Zone which covers all of Latin America.” This allowed them to “co-ordinate intelligence information among the southern cone countries.” Just this month, Pinochet’s security chief General Manuel Contreras, who is serving a 240-year prison term in Chile for a wide-range of human rights violations, gave a TV interview in which he confirmed that the CIA’s then-Deputy Director, General Vernon Walters (who served under director George H.W. Bush), was fully informed of the “international activities” of Condor.

Torture: Torture is the animating spirit of this triad, the unholiest of this unholy trinity. In Chile, Pinochet’s henchmen killed or disappeared thousands — but they tortured tens of thousands. In Uruguay and Brazil, the state only disappeared a few hundred, but fear of torture and rape became a way of life, particularly for the politically engaged. Torture, even more than the disappearances, was meant not so much to get one person to talk as to get everybody else to shut up.

At this point, Washington can no longer deny that its agents in Latin America facilitated, condoned, and practiced torture. Defectors from death squads have described the instruction given by their U.S. tutors, and survivors have testified to the presence of Americans in their torture sessions. One Pentagon “torture manual” distributed in at least five Latin American countries described at length “coercive” procedures designed to “destroy the capacity to resist.”As Naomi Klein and Alfred McCoy have documented in their recent books, these field manuals were compiled using information gathered from CIA-commissioned mind control and electric-shock experiments conducted in the 1950s. Just as the “torture memos” of today’s war on terror parse the difference between “pain” and “severe pain,” “psychological harm” and “lasting psychological harm,” these manuals went to great lengths to regulate the application of suffering. “The threat to inflict pain can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain,” one handbook read.“Before all else, you must be efficient,” said U.S. police advisor Dan Mitrione, assassinated by Uruguay’s revolutionary Tupamaros in 1970 for training security forces in the finer points of torture. “You must cause only the damage that is strictly necessary, not a bit more.” Mitrione taught by demonstration, reportedly torturing to death a number of homeless people kidnapped off the streets of Montevideo. “We must control our tempers in any case,” he said. “You have to act with the efficiency and cleanliness of a surgeon and with the perfection of an artist.”Florencio Caballero, having escaped from Honduras’s notorious Battalion 316 into exile in Canada in 1986, testified that U.S. instructors urged him to inflict psychological, not “physical,” pain “to study the fears and weakness of a prisoner.” Force the victim to “stand up,” the Americans taught Caballero, “don’t let him sleep, keep him naked and in isolation, put rats and cockroaches in his cell, give him bad food, serve him dead animals, throw cold water on him, change the temperature.” Sound familiar?

Yet, as Abu Ghraib demonstrated so clearly and the destroyed CIA interrogation videos would undoubtedly have made no less clear, maintaining a distinction between psychological and physical torture is not always possible. As one manual conceded, if a suspect does not respond, then the threat of direct pain “must be carried out.” One of Caballero’s victims, Inés Murillo, testified that her captors, including at least one CIA agent — his involvement was confirmed in Senate testimony by the CIA’s deputy director — hung her from the ceiling naked, forced her to eat dead birds and rats raw, made her stand for hours without sleep and without being allowed to urinate, poured freezing water over her at regular intervals for extended periods, beat her bloody, and applied electric shocks to her body, including her genitals.

Anything Goes

Inés Murillo was definitely a member of Greene’s torturable class. Yet Greene was writing in a more genteel time, when to torture the wrong person would be, as he put it, as cheeky as a “chauffeur” sleeping with a “peeress.” Today, when it comes to torture, anything goes.

Ideologues in the war on terror, like Berkeley law professor John Yoo, have worked mightily to narrow the definition of what torture is, thereby expanding possibilities for its application. They have worked no less hard to increase the number of people throughout the world who could be subjected to torture — by defining anyone they cared to choose as a stateless “enemy combatant,” and therefore not protected by national and international laws banning cruel and inhumane treatment. Even former Attorney General John Ashcroft has declared himself potentially torturable, telling a University of Colorado audience recently that he would be willing to submit to waterboarding “if it were necessary.”

Things are so freewheeling that Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz — who, at his perch at Harvard would undoubtedly be outraged if he were to be tortured — thinks that the practice needs to be regulated, as if it were a routine medical act. He has suggested empowering judges to issue “warrants” that would allow interrogators to insert “sterile needles” underneath finger nails to “to cause excruciating pain without endangering life.”

Pinochet, who didn’t shy away from justifying his actions in the name of Western Civilization, would never have dreamed of defending torture as brazenly as has Dick Cheney, backed up by legal theorists like Yoo. At the same time, revisionist historians, like Max Boot, and pundits, like the Atlantic Monthly’s Robert Kaplan, rewrite history, claiming that operations like the Phoenix Program in Vietnam or the death squads in El Salvador were effective, morally acceptable tactics and should be emulated in fighting today’s “War on Terror.”

But this kind of promiscuity has its risks. In Latin America, the word “disappeared” came to denote not just victimization but moral repudiation, as the mothers and children of the disappeared led a continental movement to restore the rule of law. They provide hope that one day the world-wide network of repression assembled by the Bush administration will be as discredited as Operation Condor is today in Latin America. As Greene wrote half a century ago, on the eve of the fall of another famous torturer, Cuba’s Fulgencio Batista, “it is a real danger for everyone when what is shocking changes.”

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/11/5772/

Lula and Chavez, building a stronger and Independent South America

Brazilian and Venezuelan presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Hugo Chávez, respectively, Thursday met in Caracas to assess a number of bilateral agreements

Hugo Chavez and leaders of six other South American nations launched a regional development bank that they tout as the continent’s answer to U.S.-influenced international lenders.

Venezuela, with South America’s largest known oil reserves, is expected to be a leading financier along with Brazil.

Finance ministers of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela will sit on the bank’s board. Officials say it will dispense loans for projects from road-building to anti-poverty programs and regional integration plans.

 

Chavez, allies launch Bank of the South

By BILL CORMIER, Associated Press Writer
Sun Dec 9, 10:19 PM ET

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Hugo Chavez and leaders of six other South American nations launched a regional development bank that they tout as the continent’s answer to U.S.-influenced international lenders.

With as much as $7 billion in expected startup capital, backers say the Banco del Sur, or Bank of the South, will offer Latin American countries loans with fewer strings attached than those given by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or the Inter-American Development Bank.

The leaders signed the “founding act” Sunday at a ceremony at Argentina’s presidential palace hosted by President Nestor Kirchner and his wife, President-elect Cristina Fernandez, who takes office Monday.

“Not long ago there was a general chorus singing the praises of neoliberalism” in the region, Chavez said in a speech. “But we are now hearing the great voice of our nations.”

Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose country is the continent’s poorest, praised the bank as a new tool to fight poverty and ease inequalities, and criticized what he characterized as the heavy-handed practices of international lenders who demand austerity prescriptions as conditions for extending credit.

“Only strong and united can South America occupy its rightful place among nations,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said. “This will be the first international bank truly controlled by the nations of our continent.”

The institution is one of several proposals under Chavez’s ambitious call to unite Latin American countries in a “confederation of republics.” His vision also includes a transcontinental natural gas pipeline and trade alliances.

Venezuela, with South America’s largest known oil reserves, is expected to be a leading financier along with Brazil.

But critics note much remains to be determined about how the bank will operate and say it might turn out to be a largely symbolic project used by Chavez to spread his oil-financed influence.

“Chavez has very large resources at his disposal and will continue to promote his vision for the hemisphere,” said Peter DeShazo of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But he said it remains to be seen “whether it’s going to be a politically oriented gesture or if it’s going to be a real regional development bank.”

Others call it a bold stroke for Latin America’s financial independence.

“What you had in the past decade was the collapse of a very powerful creditors’ cartel headed by the IMF,” said Mark Weisbrot of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. “This is the first step in creating an alternative.”

Finance ministers of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela will sit on the bank’s board. Officials say it will dispense loans for projects from road-building to anti-poverty programs and regional integration plans.

Venezuelan officials say the bank’s loans will be issued at interest rates similar to those of other international lenders.

Rodolfo Sanz, a Venezuelan state bank official, said initial capitalization is expected between $5 billion and $7 billion depending on final pledges. The institution will be headquartered in Caracas.

“It’s a very interesting initiative which I think expresses the desire to find stronger cooperation between Latin American governments,” the World Bank’s chief economist for Latin America, Augusto de la Torre, said in a recent interview. “As far as the World Bank is concerned, this new initiative is not perceived as a competitor.”

IMF-watcher Paul Blustein at Washington’s Brookings Institution said the project highlights Latin America’s yearning for greater autonomy after decades of financial crises and imposed austerity measures.

“It’s really emblematic of how Latin America has become disillusioned with the model that the IMF and the World Bank and the U.S. Treasury promotes — the so-called Washington consensus,” he said.

But he noted the IMF and World Bank have decades of know-how.

“I’m not so sure this institution is going to be any more successful,” he said.

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Chavez, Lula sign agreements, oil cooperation projects

CARACAS (Thomson Financial) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have signed nine cooperation agreements between their countries covering the energy, industry and agricultural sectors.

During a visit to Caracas ahead of a Mercosur summit next week in Montevideo, Lula told reporters that Brazil’s current commercial ties with Venezuela have reached a value of around 4 bln usd, up from 400 mln usd in 2002.

Chavez said the agreements include a deal to build an oil refinery with a capacity of 200,000 barrels a day in Pernambuco in Brazil’s Northeast, and Petroleo Brasilairo operating an oil field in Venezuela’s Orinoco basin where a 100,000 bpd of heavy crude oil will be extracted

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Lula arrives in Venezuela to initial deals with Chávez

Brazilian and Venezuelan presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Hugo Chávez, respectively, Thursday met in Caracas to assess a number of bilateral agreements and initial new instruments, as well as to evaluate their unbalanced bilateral trade.

Chávez welcomed in the presidential palace of Miraflores one of his major political allies at a complicated time, a few days after his draft constitutional reform was rejected in a referendum and after Colombia terminated his mediation in efforts to achieve a humanitarian swap of hostages for guerrilla troops.

Lula arrived in Miraflores at 10 am (local time), where he was accorded the honors of a Head of State. The two rulers are scheduled to initial bilateral agreements following their meeting, Reuters reported.

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