[Mb-civic] Quick action + Breaking Free + Day of Reckoning

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Congress is considering legislation approving another $75 billion for 
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this week. I just e-mailed my 
Representative to say that it's time to change course in Iraq. You can 
e-mail your Representative here:

Take action now at 
http://www.democracyinaction.org/clw/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=
3010

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1731009,00.html

The Guardian   Wednesday March 15 2006

Latin America and Asia are at last breaking free of Washington's grip

The US-dominated world order is being challenged by a new spirit of
independence in the global south

By Noam Chomsky

The prospect that Europe and Asia might move towards greater independence
has troubled US planners since the second world war. The concerns have
only risen as the "tripolar order" - Europe, North America and Asia - has
continued to evolve.

Every day Latin America, too, is becoming more independent. Now Asia and
the Americas are strengthening their ties while the reigning superpower,
the odd man out, consumes itself in misadventures in the Middle East.

Regional integration in Asia and Latin America is a crucial and
increasingly important issue that, from Washington's perspective, betokens
a defiant world gone out of control. Energy, of course, remains a defining
factor - the object of contention - everywhere.

China, unlike Europe, refuses to be intimidated by Washington, a primary
reason for the fear of China by US planners, which presents a dilemma:
steps toward confrontation are inhibited by US corporate reliance on China
as an export platform and growing market, as well as by China's financial
reserves - reported to be approaching Japan's in scale.

In January, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah visited Beijing, which is
expected to lead to a Sino-Saudi memorandum of understanding calling for
"increased cooperation and investment between the two countries in oil,
natural gas and investment", the Wall Street Journal reports.

Already much of Iran's oil goes to China, and China is providing Iran with
weapons that both states presumably regard as deterrent to US designs.
India also has options. India may choose to be a US client, or it may
prefer to join the more independent Asian bloc that is taking shape, with
ever more ties to Middle East oil producers. Siddharth Varadarjan, the
deputy editor of the Hindu, observes that "if the 21st century is to be an
'Asian century,' Asia's passivity in the energy sector has to end".

The key is India-China cooperation. In January, an agreement signed in
Beijing "cleared the way for India and China to collaborate not only in
technology but also in hydrocarbon exploration and production, a
partnership that could eventually alter fundamental equations in the
world's oil and natural gas sector", Varadarjan points out.

An additional step, already being contemplated, is an Asian oil market
trading in euros. The impact on the international financial system and the
balance of global power could be significant. It should be no surprise
that President Bush paid a recent visit to try to keep India in the fold,
offering nuclear cooperation and other inducements as a lure.

Meanwhile, in Latin America left-centre governments prevail from Venezuela
to Argentina. The indigenous populations have become much more active and
influential, particularly in Bolivia and Ecuador, where they either want
oil and gas to be domestically controlled or, in some cases, oppose
production altogether.

Many indigenous people apparently do not see any reason why their lives,
societies and cultures should be disrupted or destroyed so that New
Yorkers can sit in their SUVs in traffic gridlock.

Venezuela, the leading oil exporter in the hemisphere, has forged probably
the closest relations with China of any Latin American country, and is
planning to sell increasing amounts of oil to China as part of its effort
to reduce dependence on the openly hostile US government.

Venezuela has joined Mercosur, the South American customs union - a move
described by Nestor Kirchner, the Argentinian president, as "a milestone"
in the development of this trading bloc, and welcomed as a "new chapter in
our integration" by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president.

Venezuela, apart from supplying Argentina with fuel oil, bought almost a
third of Argentinian debt issued in 2005, one element of a region-wide
effort to free the countries from the controls of the IMF after two
decades of disastrous conformity to the rules imposed by the US-dominated
international financial institutions.

Steps toward Southern Cone [the southern states of South America]
integration advanced further in December with the election in Bolivia of
Evo Morales, the country's first indigenous president. Morales moved
quickly to reach a series of energy accords with Venezuela. The Financial
Times reported that these "are expected to underpin forthcoming radical
reforms to Bolivia's economy and energy sector" with its huge gas
reserves, second only to Venezuela's in South America.

Cuba-Venezuela relations are becoming ever closer, each relying on its
comparative advantage. Venezuela is providing low-cost oil, while in
return Cuba organises literacy and health programmes, sending thousands of
highly skilled professionals, teachers and doctors, who work in the
poorest and most neglected areas, as they do elsewhere in the third world.

Cuban medical assistance is also being welcomed elsewhere. One of the most
horrendous tragedies of recent years was the earthquake in Pakistan last
October. Besides the huge death toll, unknown numbers of survivors have to
face brutal winter weather with little shelter, food or medical
assistance.

"Cuba has provided the largest contingent of doctors and paramedics to
Pakistan," paying all the costs (perhaps with Venezuelan funding), writes
John Cherian in India's Frontline magazine, citing Dawn, a leading
Pakistan daily.

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan expressed his "deep gratitude" to
Fidel Castro for the "spirit and compassion" of the Cuban medical teams -
reported to comprise more than 1,000 trained personnel, 44% of them women,
who remained to work in remote mountain villages, "living in tents in
freezing weather and in an alien culture", after western aid teams had
been withdrawn.

Growing popular movements, primarily in the south but with increasing
participation in the rich industrial countries, are serving as the bases
for many of these developments towards more independence and concern for
the needs of the great majority of the population.

• Noam Chomsky, the author, most recently, of Imperial Ambitions:
Conversations on the Post-9/11 World, is a professor of linguistics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

www.chomsky.info

-------

Day of Reckoning for the Current Occupant
    By Garrison Keillor
    The Chicago Tribune
    Wednesday 15 March 2006

    Spring arrived in New York last week for previews, a sunny day with
chill in the air, but you could smell mud, and with a little imagination
you could sort of smell grass. I put on a gray jacket, instead of black,
and went to the opera and saw Verdi's "Luisa Miller," a Republican opera
in which love is crushed by the perfidiousness of government. A helpful
lesson for these times. I am referring to the Current Occupant.

    The Republican Revolution has gone the way of all flesh. It took over
Congress and the White House, horns blew, church bells rang, sailors
kissed each other, and what happened? The Republicans led us into a
reckless foreign war and steered the economy toward receivership and
wielded power as if there were no rules. Democrats are accused of having
no new ideas, but Republicans are making some of the old ideas look
awfully good, such as constitutional checks and balances, fiscal
responsibility, and the notion of realism in foreign affairs and taking
actions that serve the national interest. What one might call
"conservatism."

    The head of the National Security Agency under President Ronald
    Reagan,
Lt. Gen. William Odom, writes on the Web site NiemanWatchdog.org that he
sees clear parallels between Vietnam and Iraq: "The difference lies in the
consequences. Vietnam did not have the devastating effects on US power
that Iraq is already having." He draws the parallels in three stages and
says that staying the course will only make the damage to US power
greater. It's a chilling analysis, and one that isn't going to come from
the Democratic Party. It's starting to come from Republicans, and they are
the ones who must rescue the country from themselves.

    I ran into a gray eminence from the Bush I era the other day in an
airport, and he said that what most offended him about Bush II is the
naked incompetence. "You may disagree with Republicans, but you always 
had
to recognize that they knew what they were doing," he said. "I keep going
back to that intelligence memo of August 2001, that said that terrorists
had plans to hijack planes and crash them into buildings. The president
read it, and he didn't even call a staff meeting to discuss it. That is
lack of attention of a high order."

    Over the course of time, the Chief Occupant has been cruelly exposed
over and over. He sat and was briefed on the danger of a hurricane wiping
out a major American city, and without asking a single question, he got up
from the table and walked away and resumed his vacation. He played guitar
as New Orleans was flooded. It took him four days to realize his
responsibility to do something. When the tsunami killed 100,000 people in
Southeast Asia, he was on vacation and it took him 72 hours to issue a
statement of sympathy.

    The Republicans tied their wagon to him and, as a result, their
revolution is bankrupt. He has played the terrorism card for all it is
worth and campaigned successfully against Adam and Steve and co-opted
whole vast flocks of Christians, but he is done now, kaput, out of gas,
for one simple reason. He doesn't represent the best that is our country.
Not even close.

    He openly, brazenly, countenanced crimes of torture at Guantanamo, Abu
Ghraib and Bagram. He engaged in illegal surveillance, authorized the
arrest of people without charge and "disappeared" them to foreign jails.
And he finagled this war, which, after three years of violence, does not
look to be heading toward a happy ending. And now it's up to Republicans
to put their country first and call the gentleman to account.

    The Current Occupant is smart about handling a political mess. The
    best
strategy is to cut and run and change the subject. You defend the Dubai
ports deal in manly terms until you lose a vote in a House committee and
then you retreat - actually, you get the Dubai people to do it for you -
and that's it, End of Story.

    Harriet Miers was fully qualified one day and gone the next. Social
Security was going to be overhauled to give us the Ownership Society, and
then the stock market went in the toilet and Republicans got nervous, and
suddenly it was Never Mind and on to the next new thing.

    Let's bring the boys home. Otherwise, let's send this man back to
    Texas
and see what sort of work he is capable of and let him start making a
contribution to the world.



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------

    Garrison Keillor is an author and the radio host of "A Prairie Home
Companion."

***

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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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