Category: News

This perfectly exemplifies the intensity of American nationalism, which makes U.S. officials incapable of recognizing the principle of universality. Hypocrite is a much simpler term: focus on the crimes of others, ignore your own.

During an hour and 40 minute meeting Friday with Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, [California Rep. Dana] Rohrabacher informed the Iraqi leader that his House subcommittee was investigating the killing by Iraqi troops of 35 Iranian dissidents on Iraqi soil in April…

The Orange County conservative, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on oversight and investigations, later told reporters that the “massacre” was probably a crime against humanity. The charge, which often refers to a massive crime against civilians, was first leveled against accused Nazi war criminals during the Nuremburg Tribunal after World War II.

Rohrabacher also asked Iraq to consider at a later stage repaying some of the costs of the 2003 U.S. invasion and the occupation that followed. Iraq’s government spokesman publicly responded that Iraq would pay not “a cent.”

So as we invade, overthrow and occupy Iraq, ravaging the country with careless savagery in countless instances and kill – by conservative estimates – well over one hundred thousand people, the Iraqi troops (trained, funded and equipped by us) are the ones who have committed a crime against humanity on 35 Iranians and additionally need to pay reparations to their dominating military occupiers. What a world…

Glenn Greenwald has a brilliant piece up today on what seem to be the real reasons behind the war in Libya: oil.

Much of the war has actually seemed extremely odd, as if it didn’t match up. There seemed to be many more reasons for the administration not to get involved. Why, Greenwald asks, in the middle of debt crises “and when polls show Americans solidly and increasingly opposed to the war — would the U.S. Government continue to spend huge sums of money to fight this war?” Wasn’t there a big risk in not seeking congressional approval, thus going forward with an illegal war? Why, in an Arab Spring which makes this contradiction so obvious, would we attack Qaddafi for behaving exactly the way we pay other allies to behave? Didn’t Washington see considerable risk in engaging in a third/fourth outright war in against a Muslim country? Wasn’t there some concern, even if only for PR purposes, within the administration that the rebels on whose behalf we would ostensibly fight this war have direct ties to al-Qaeda? Did Obama not calculate a future political vulnerability of engaging in what he knew would be deliberate mission creep, or as Greenwald says, that the real goal of the war was “exactly the one Obama vowed would not be pursued — regime change through the use of military force”?

Well, the Washington Post published a story yesterday describing the newfound relationship the Bush administration began to form with Qaddafi since 2004, one that included reviving the presence and cooperation in Libya of U.S. oil companies who had been eager to capitalize on the expected 43.6 billion barrels of oil in reserves there. Starting a few years ago, however, the relationship began to sour as Qaddafi gradually took national control of the production and business of oil.

Even before armed conflict drove the U.S. companies out of Libya this year, their relations with Gaddafi had soured. The Libyan leader demanded tough contract terms. He sought big bonus payments up front. Moreover, upset that he was not getting more U.S. government respect and recognition for his earlier concessions, he pressured the oil companies to influence U.S. policies.

In late February 2008, Mulva was “summoned to Sirte for a half-hour ‘browbeating’?” from Gaddafi, according to aU.S. State Department cable made available by WikiLeaks. Gaddafi “threatened to dramatically reduce Libya’s oil production and/or expel … U.S. oil and gas companies,” the cable said.

Now, this troubled marriage and the promise of billions of barrels of oil have been dashed by the fighting and Gaddafi’s refusal to relinquish power. Much is at stake; oil industry executives say companies such as ConocoPhillips and Marathon have each invested about $700 million over the past six years.

This shouldn’t be a particular surprise to anyone. This is how U.S. policy has been implemented for a very long time. Since the very realization that the U.S. had toppled Saddam in Iraq, oil companies pounced on their gift from Bush war policy (some headlines: Oil Companies Look to Future in Iraq; Foreign Oil Giants Bid on Iraq’s Resources; Oil Companies Reject Iraq’s Contract Terms; Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back; Exxon, Dutch Shell Win Iraq Oil Contract). In a momentary lapse, the Bush administration’s 2007 draft of the Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq (eventually rejected) was explicit as it detailed a prolonged and continued US troop presence in Iraq and called for “facilitating and encouraging the flow of foreign investments to Iraq, especially American investments.”

U.S. imperialism in Iran is an even more dramatic parallel with Libya. In 1951, when the democrat prime minister Mohamed Mossadegh made moves with the Iranian parliament to nationalize the oil industry which had been previously spearheaded by British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (British Petroleum’s precursor), relationships similarly began to sour. So in 1953 through a process of murder, bribery, secrecy, propaganda, and terrorism, the United States through the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government and installed the Shah who ruled with authoritarian brutality for nearly three decades. The motives were similar: to use force to ensure and facilitate the exploitation of Iranian energy markets, with priority towards rent-seeking American corporations.

Other directly analogous examples abound throughout the history of U.S. foreign policy. And now its Libya’s turn, and the American people await the end of combat operations and the beginning of the selection process by which imperial policy decides who shall rule Libya (that is, who will be most friendly to American interests). Yet, as Greenwald explains,

one WikiLeaks “diplomatic” cable after the next reveals constant government efforts to promote the interests of Western corporations in the developing world.  Nonetheless, the very notion that the U.S. wages wars not for humanitarian or freedom-spreading purposes, but rather to exploit the resources of other nations for its own large corporations, is deeply “irresponsible” and unSerious.  As usual, the ideas stigmatized with the most potent taboos are the ones that are the most obviously true.

Update: I should have popped this link in here as well. Last month McClatchy reported on Wikileaks cables which revealed an oil deal emerging in the last few years in Libya that U.S. officials didn’t like. The Italian oil company Eni, the largest corporation in Italy and one in which the Italian government holds a 30 percent stake, was wagering a deal with the Russian oil company Gazprom, with which Vladimir Putin is connected. In the deal, Eni would have given Gazprom access to Libyan oil and helped Gazprom build a pipeline across the Black sea. The leaked cables reveal U.S. officials plotting ways to prevent such a success from a Russian oil giant. War was never mentioned in the cables, but since the start of Obama’s intervention in Libya, the deal has officially been put on hold.

The horror the Assad regime is unleashing on the Syrian people is the culmination of some of the worst atrocities in this Arab Spring. Details like body counts are occasionally available from elsewhere in Syria, but in Jisr al-Shughour, where thousands of Syrian troops have amassed to quell an uprising after an alleged conflict with security forces, little information is getting out. Tanks, heavy gunfire, and mass arrests have descended upon the town as refugees flee to Turkey in droves. The reality on the ground is almost surely worsening since Human Rights Watch released a report last week, the title of which was self explanatory: “We’ve Never Seen Such Horror“.

European leadership is reportedly building a case for a UN resolution against Syria. There are some calls for the U.S. to intervene as well. Steve Coll walks the line in calling for the U.S. to “press hard” on Assad, seeming to lean more towards the international route, specifically suggesting an investigation by the International Criminal Court, as they’ve done with Qaddafi.

There are a few considerations which should preclude any mention of a direct U.S. military intervention in Syria. First, we should consider the negative consequences of our latest direct (covert) intervention there, and consider to what extent that would be multiplied if we were to fully engage (let history be some guide here). Second, unless and until the U.S. government halts its own support of such atrocities in Yemen, in Bahrain, in Iraq, in Afhganistan, in Pakistan, in Palestine, and elsewhere, we have no moral or practical standing to intervene in Syria.

With the 40-year-late full release of the Pentagon Papers, CNN conducted an interview with the famous whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg. To me, this was the central question:

On June 23, 1971, in an interview with CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, you said,  “I think the lesson is that the people of this country can’t afford to let the President run the country by himself, even foreign affairs, without the help of Congress, without the help of the public. I think we cannot let the officials of the Executive Branch determine for us what it is that the public needs to know about how well and how they are discharging their functions.” How concerned are you that elected officials haven’t learned those lessons?

The implication behind the question is obvious to antiwar readers. Our current political leaders and national security state are acting out secretive, unaccountable, unconstitutional, and dangerous political careers and the Imperial Presidency has garnered so much concentrated power and become so natural a characteristic of our system that few question its authority or prerogative. They have learned absolutely nothing from the lessons of 40 years ago.

So it makes sense that Obama is implementing a war on whistle-blowers from Julian Assange to Bradley Manning to Thomas Drake. It’s obvious though, that this war is not being waged for the stated reasons.

What is clear is that major leaks of secret government behavior or operations – while extremely important for the public to know – almost never threaten the so called national security or the safety of American citizens. It wasn’t long ago at all that crazed establishment types were hysterically calling Assange a terrorist for having released the diplomatic cables. Funny that they seemed to have quieted. Could it be that the transparency-terrorism they accused Assange of actually didn’t put any U.S. officials or citizens in danger, despite their initial claims and reactions?

The primary reason for government secrecy is to protect the government from their own populations, not monsters abroad. To classify in modern American government means essentially to hide government missteps, crimes, and wrongdoing and avoid the accountability that the public may demand if they were made aware of such activity.

There are too many examples to point to, but take just the last one I’ve read about. In one of the cables obtained by Wikileaks, and just reported on by the Nation among other publications, it was shown that the U.S. supported a fraudulent election in Haiti.

The United States, the European Union and the United Nations decided to support Haiti’s recent presidential and parliamentary elections despite believing that the country’s electoral body, “almost certainly in conjunction with President Preval,” had “emasculated the opposition” by unwisely and unjustly excluding the country’s largest party, according to a secret US Embassy cable.

…Haiti’s electoral body, the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), banned the Fanmi Lavalas (FL) from participating in the polls on a technicality. The FL is the party of then-exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was overthrown on February 29, 2004, and flown to Africa as part of a coup d’état that was supported by France, Canada, and the United States.

…Less than 23 percent of Haiti’s registered voters had their vote counted in either of the two presidential rounds, the lowest electoral participation rate in the hemisphere since 1945, according to the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Now, it’s not that the U.S. government keeps this secret because of sensitive war policy that if made public might induce an invasion or leave U.S. troops vulnerable. It’s because the U.S. wants to hold a reputation (based on pure myth) that it stands for freedom, democracy, and peace. This latest piece of undemocratic imperialism the U.S. has imposed on Haiti is barely a fraction of the whole: there is a very long U.S. history of secret coups, support for butchers and terrorists, invasions, and general savagery toward Haiti. But Haiti doesn’t represent any sort of threat to America. The classification of U.S. policy in this regard is to prevent the U.S. population from knowing about it. When people know about the criminal and murderous nature of U.S. imperialism, it’s harder to get away with it. Therefore, classify it.

One of the amazing things to me is that Dan Ellsberg is widely considered a hero nowadays. Even political leaders will laud and praise him. I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before accusations of terrorism recede into the ashamed dustbin of history, and Assange and Manning are equally thought of as heros. But I’m sure the political class will still condemn whatever contemporary is leaking their crimes.

Update: See here for how absurd government secrecy attempts have become post-Wikileaks:

In spite of the cables’ widespread availability, the government has continued to maintain that documents released by WikiLeaks and published by national and international newspapers are classified. The government’s decision to cling to a legal fiction rather than conform its secrecy regime to reality has led to absurd consequences. Congressional Research Service (CRS) analysts are blocked by the Library of Congress from using these widely available documents, even as Congress relies on CRS reports to inform new legislation. The Air Force blocked the entire websites of the New York Times and other major media outlets that posted the leaked cables. Perhaps the most troubling consequence of the government’s adamant refusal to incorporate common sense into its secrecy regime is that lawyers for Guantánamo detainees have been barred from reading or discussing leaked documents concerning their clients, even though these documents are posted on the websites of major national and internationalnewspapers and available to anyone in the world. The government has gone so far as to claim it is unable to comply with a court order that it provide guidance to lawyers representing Guantánamo detainees regarding how the lawyers may use those documents that are already publicly available.

The decision to make Leon Panetta Secretary of Defense was a very conscious one. Fundamentally, it wasn’t so much a strategic change in personnel, but rather a calculated decision to expel the American people from any consciousness of foreign policy. It is easier to conduct broad, intricate campaigns of international terrorism without having to deal with the meddling public (who are supposed to shut up and give their betters in Washington free reign).

Spencer Ackerman on Panetta’s new plans:

At his Thursday confirmation hearing to become secretary of defense, CIA Director Panetta made a broad case for expanding the U.S.’ already extensive shadow wars. Now that bin Laden is dead, “we’ve got to keep the pressure up,” Panetta urged senators. Expect a lot of drone strikes and a lot of special ops raids — some conducted by future CIA Director David Petraeus. In a lot of places.

…In his written responses to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Panetta endorsed a command scheme that would place select U.S. military personnel temporarily under the authority of the CIA director for the most sensitive counterterrorism operations. Panetta told the committee that it’s “appropriate for the head of such department or agency [read: CIA] to direct the operations of the element providing that military support while working with the Secretary of Defense.” A “significant advantage of doing so,” he continued, “is that it permits the robust operational capability of the U.S. Armed Forces to be applied when needed.”

That’s contentious: it would put the military in the territory of performing operations that the government can legally deny all knowledge of ordering, something obviously problematic for uniformed military personnel. ”A potential disadvantage,” Panetta conceded, “is that the department or agency receiving the support may not be specifically organized or equipped to direct and control operations by military forces.”

This fits a trajectory of increasingly secret shadow-government defense policy that Panetta leans toward:

Panetta expanded the list of targets that Predator drones could hit far beyond the seniormost al-Qaida operatives. Already, the skies above Yemen are filled with armed planes hunting terrorists — a JSOC mission “closely coordinated” with the CIA, according to the New York Times.

The U.S. military and intelligence agencies already operate essentially as a private security force for the personal use of the President. I think we can expect to see this all increasing as Panetta moves to the Defense Secretary and Patraeus  moves to CIA. Obama doesn’t want any more of this haranguing or discussion about his imperial dictates. So he’ll keep it in the shadows.

In Singapore last week, Defense Secretary Gates spoke at an International Institute for Strategic Studies meeting and argued for “sustaining a robust [U.S.] military presence in Asia.” He spoke of overcoming “anti-access and area denial scenarios” that the U.S. military faces in Asia, which threatens America’s access to strategic markets and resources. Predominantly, Gates explained, U.S. military presence in Asia-Pacific is important in “deterring, and if necessary defeating, potential adversaries.”

While perhaps more straightforward than reigning politicians and diplomats, Gates’ explanation of U.S. military strategy was nothing new. As was reiterated in the 2002 National Security Strategy, it was of foremost importance that “our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.” Similarly, in former Secretary of Defense William Cohen’s 1999 annual report to President Clinton the crucial task was to “retain the capability to act unilaterally” to prevent “the possibility that a regional great power or global peer competitor may emerge” and to ensure “uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources.” Under the subheading Additional Security Concerns was mention of China and its “potential to assert its military power in Asia.”

Maintaining global hegemony through the threat or use of military force has been the singular approach in American foreign policy for some time. Keeping Europe dependent on our military through NATO was effective in preventing any competitors, but also in extending the jurisdiction of U.S. security interests to the entire continent.

The general approach in the Middle East was to implement a vast array of proxies, peppering the region with military troops and permanent installations, but balancing them against each other to prevent any one state from gaining too much power or influence. Only America is supposed to have power and influence, and if it means propping up dictatorships throughout an entire region and making the lives of millions of innocent people utterly miserable, so be it. Tyranny and war are legitimate tools to prevent competitors and to ensure “uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources,” according to the doctrine. After all, the world is our jurisdiction, so they’re our resources.

With America losing its grip on many proxies in the Middle East with the eruption of the current independence movement, and with NATO increasingly seen as antiquated, Gates of course is placing our crosshairs over Asia. That’s a region of emerging markets that the U.S. national security state wants command over. It’s also one where attempts to terrorize the world into deference to U.S. hegemony has failed to prevent a rising military rival like China. We can only hope that signs of the American empire ripping at the seams in Europe and the Middle East are indications that another half century of ruling the world by force and aggression fails when we attempt to make all of Asia our jurisdiction as well.