This is the first post since July. It’s time for a quick survey.
In a word, the future is way too interesting.
Species are disappearing, flames of war are spreading throughout the Middle East, and the seas are rising.
The United States, as Naomi Wolf has remarked, has already gone through the 10 steps that nations must go through to metamorphose from democracy to fascism: 1) Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy; 2) Create a gulag; 3) Develop a thug caste; 4) Set up an internal surveillance system; 5) Harass citizens’ groups; 6) Engage in arbitrary detention and release; 7) Target key individuals; 8) Control the press; 9) Dissent equals treason; 10) Suspend the rule of law.
Barbarians (i.e. ourselves) are breaking through the gates of the great civilizations of the world. Is this a nightmare from which we can wake up?
From slavery to Jim Crow to the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s, the arc of history, as Martin Luther King liked to say, bent toward justice. But has history since then gone into reverse, or into a downhill spiral, or perhaps over a cliff?
William Blum suggested the other day that if we don’t get our act together, George Bush may be president for the rest of our lives. He meant this metaphorically.
Since July, the imperial consensus, as Norman Birnbaum termed it, has asserted itself, and it is plain to see that help is not coming from the congressional Democrats. However much less repugnant to our forebrains and noses they may be than the Republicans, and however much we might wish to deny it, the Democrats, are a part of this consensus. The imperial consensus:
* favors the indefinite occupation of Iraq;
* is divided regarding extending the war to Iran;
* is acquiescent about, and is in fact enabling, torture and the indefinite detention of citizens without charges or recourse to the courts;
* feeds at the trough of the military economy that has been ascendant for a half century, and that favors the “projection” of military power throughout the world;
* favors an executive branch unrestrained by other branches of government or by criminal law.
* favors the continued contraction of the public sector: social security, public health and education, housing, transportation and infrastructure, environmental protection and restoration, etc;
* opposes single-payer health care;
* favors the contined contraction of the rights of labor that has been going on for 50 years.
Anyone who wants to bring your convictions to bear on this, see
A Portal to Activism or email me.
Here are some of the items I have neglected to post since June. Not included among the links below are items pertaining to one of the biggest ongoing stories of these months: the failure of congressional Democrats fo oppose the crimes of the Administration.
Russia Issues Warning on Missiles
Published: July 4, 2007
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will take steps to ensure its security if Washington rebuffs its offer of cooperation on missile defense, local media quoted First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying on Wednesday.
It’s worth noting that Russian and American intercontinental missiles remain on hair-trigger alert.
July 5th, 2007
Jonathan Schwarz:
Estimated Iraqi deaths due to U.S. invasion nears one million
Last year Johns Hopkins researchers produced a study estimating that 650,000 Iraqis had died as of July, 2006 as a result of the U.S. invasion. The organization Just Foreign Policy has now created a very rough new estimate, based on the original study, of deaths to the present day. The number they came up with is just under one million.
Also: The head of Iraq’s main humanitarian group, Red Crescent, said her organization has the monumental task of treating and feeding more than 1.6 million children under the age of 12 who have become homeless in their own country. That’s roughly 70 percent of the estimated 2.3 million Iraqis who are homeless inside Iraq.
Associated Press
Air Force Quietly Building Iraq Presence
By CHARLES J. HANLEY 07.14.07, 12:23 PM ET
Away from the headlines and debate over the “surge” in U.S. ground troops, the Air Force has quietly built up its hardware inside Iraq, sharply stepped up bombing and laid a foundation for a sustained air campaign in support of American and Iraqi forces.
Squadrons of attack planes have been added to the in-country fleet. The air reconnaissance arm has almost doubled since last year. The powerful B1-B bomber has been recalled to action over Iraq.
The escalation worries some about an increase in “collateral damage,” casualties among Iraqi civilians. Air Force generals worry about wear and tear on aging aircraft. But ground commanders clearly like what they see.
“Night before last we had 14 strikes from B-1 bombers. Last night we had 18 strikes by B-1 bombers,” Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said approvingly of air support his 3rd Infantry Division received in a recent offensive south of Baghdad.
Statistics tell the story: Air Force and Navy aircraft dropped 437 bombs and missiles in Iraq in the first six months of 2007, a fivefold increase over the 86 used in the first half of 2006, and three times more than in the second half of 2006, according to Air Force data. In June, bombs dropped at a rate of more than five a day.
It’s worth noting that many of the 3 to 4 million people killed in the Indochina Wars were killed by more bombs than the total dropped on Germany and Japan in World War II.
There has been a slew of reports about the desire of Cheney and others in and out of the Administration to make war on Iran, and about the military buildup for that purpose. Here is one of the ones from July. Since then the temperature has gone up and down.
Published on Monday, July 16, 2007 by the Guardian/UK
Cheney Pushes Bush to Act on Iran
by Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Julian Borger
WASHINGTON - The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.
The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.”
The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.
Here is a report of an article by Hersh in October:
September 30th, 2007
Jonathan Schwarz:
New Seymour Hersh article on Iran
“The revised bombing plan for a possible attack, with its tightened focus on counterterrorism, is gathering support among generals and admirals in the Pentagon. The strategy calls for the use of sea-launched cruise missiles and more precisely targeted ground attacks and bombing strikes, including plans to destroy the most important Revolutionary Guard training camps, supply depots, and command and control facilities.
I bolded the sentence about Pentagon support for this plan because that’s critical. I’m working on a piece about congressional opposition to an attack on Iran, and let me tell you, there is essentially none. The only thing that might stop Bush and Cheney is the military. It’s extremely significant if their resistance is weakening.”
Re: the opposition of the military to a strike on Iran:
“It is a stunning testament to the political devolution of this country that the most effective anti-war movement in America is inside the walls of the Pentagon or buried deep in the bowels of the CIA! But that is the reality…” Billmon
Time Magazine political columnist Joe Klein reported in May that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were unanimously opposed to making war on Iran, and that they were joined by the new CentCom commander Admiral Fallon.
There’s more from Admiral Fallon here (”CentCom Commander Fallon: Attack On Iran ‘Will Not Happen On My Watch’“) and here. (”CentCom Chief Fallon: Petraeus Is ‘An Ass-Kissing, Little Chickenshit’“)
More recently Fallon was quoted in the Financial Times as saying that an attack on Iran is “not being prepared” and is “not in the offing,” and that “generally, the bellicose comments are not particularly helpful”.
In October, Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq shortly after the fall of Baghdad, said the US mission in Iraq is a “nightmare with no end in sight.” He said this week that he supports Democratic legislation that calls for most troops to come home within a year.
Further note: Here is a clip of a video of Noam Chomsky speaking to a hall full of cadets at West Point last year.
There are reports of more countervailing opposition to the Iran adventure from the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of the CIA, and from within the White House itself. In his blog entry of November 12, Jim Lobe cites an article and an analysis in the Financial Times. Lobe quotes a discouraged hawk cited in the FT article complaining that “The national intelligence director is saying we have time before the Iranians get the bomb, the secretary of state is saying diplomacy still has a chance, the secretary of defence is saying the military is at breaking point and the [White House] political advisers are saying another war would probably not be a good idea.”
And Lobe adds, “I would add that the last week’s events in Pakistan — not to mention the continuing rise in oil prices and rapid decline in the U.S. dollar — have also probably set back the hawks’ hopes of confrontation with Iran.”
See however an October update on Cheney’s pressure for an attack on Iran that appeared in the Rolling Stone.
UPDATE (November 23) From David Lindorff
It may be that Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his generals, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and the leaders of many of America’s Fortune 500 companies are opposed to an attack on Iran, knowing that it will be a military disaster and that it would cause a global economic collapse, but the US today is being led by two insane and desperate men, who may not care what any of those people think. With their domestic and international policies in ruins and their legacy a disaster, they may have decided to double up on their bet and just throw everything in with an air assault on Iran.
“U.S., British, and other coalition forces are trying to govern apparently ungovernable postwar states in Afghanistan and Iraq, while simultaneously fighting growing Islamist insurgencies in each – a state of affairs our leaders call victory. In conducting these activities, and the conventional military campaigns preceding them, U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s. As a result, I think it fair to conclude that the United States of America remains bin Laden’s only indispensable ally.“
Michael Scheuer, Former senior CIA officer who headed the Agency’s hunt for bin Laden
From Daniel Ellsberg:
“One essential demand is for Pelosi to encourage, rather than to block, Congressional investigations of past and ongoing administration deception, unwisdom, illegality and unconstitutionality in pursuing an aggressive war and in curtailing our rights. Such investigations, calling forth testimony under oath of current and former officials many of whom are eager to tell the truth at last, as well as demonstrating continued administration stonewalling, will almost surely lead to what does not yet exist: irresistible pressure from a belatedly-informed public for the impeachment and removal of Bush and Cheney.
“Further, we need Pelosi’s leadership in rescinding the unconstitutional parts – which will not leave much – of the Patriot Act, the Military Commisions Act and the recent, outrageous legislation purporting to legalize warrantless wiretaps and data mining. And – absolutely essential to ending our war in Iraq – public pressure is needed to demand that Congress defund our indefinite occupation, providing funds only for the orderly, safe withdrawal of all our troops, contractors and bases on an announced time-table.”
PAKISTAN ERUPTS
“Is Pakistan Displacing Iran as Crisis of ‘08?” See Jim Lobe’s November 19 entry in the Antiwar.com blog, which discusses scenarios the Administration may be considering to secure Pakistani nuclear weapons.
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And finally, there’s this:
Published on Thursday, September 27
Fertilisers Blamed As Researchers Solve Mystery of Deformed Frogs
by Rachel Shields
American researchers claim to have answered the riddle of the deformed frogs that have been appearing in increasing numbers around the world.
Run-off from farmland drenched in fertilisers is behind the explosion in amphibians missing legs, or having extra legs and other deformities, according to the scientists.
Nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilisers are leaching into rivers, causing significant changes to the aquatic ecosystem. This prompts algae growth and increases numbers in the snail population, animals which play host to parasitic flatworms called trematodes. These parasites infect birds, snails and amphibian larvae, causing severe limb deformities and an increase in mortality.
“This is the first study to show that nutrient enrichment drives the abundance of these parasites, increasing levels of amphibian infections and subsequent malformations,” said Pieter Johnson of Colorado University, who led the study.
These malformations include the growth of extra limbs, partly formed or missing limbs, skin webbing and bone defects. When examined, amphibians with these defects were often found also to suffer from life-threatening eye abnormalities and tumours.
Reports of these abnormal amphibians have risen sharply since the mid-1990s, when some Minnesota schoolchildren found a pond where more than half of the frogs had missing or extra legs. This has generated increasing concern from scientists and ecologists, who have since established that parasite infection is a major cause of these deformities. . . .
With many of the causes of amphibian decline still poorly understood, this research, which appears in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, may be a major breakthrough. “Our results have broad ecological significance,” said Mr Johnson.