(author's note: This essay was originally posted as a six-part series at P! between February 3 and March 1, 2007. It has been minimally edited to compensate for the formatting limitations of this website and to include a leading graphic. Otherwise, the text is reproduced verbatim.)

Part 1, Guest Editorial: A Prologue

(Guest Editorial by Jason Miller. Jason is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He writes prolifically, his essays have appeared widely on the Internet, and he volunteers at homeless shelters. He welcomes constructive correspondence at willpowerful@hotmail.com or via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.)

Humanity, meet your oppressor

On 6/3/05, the Bush administration lacked the courage to face its accuser directly. Jim Lehrer of Newshour on PBS moderated a discussion between Amnesty International and the Bush administration. The topic was Amnesty's recent allegations concerning prisoner abuse in the American version of Stalin's Gulag Archipelago. Amnesty sent William Schulz, their executive director in the United States . Lehrer invited the Pentagon to send a representative. Instead, they sent their proxy, Neil Livingston, CEO of Global Options, a security firm with expertise on the subject of terrorism. Competing emotions swelled within me as I watched Schulz and Livingston speak. Elation and anger wrestled violently as they struggled to become my predominant emotion.

With clinical detachment, Livingston gave a typical Neocon justification for the "Gulag of our Times" in Guantanamo Bay and other locations. Taking umbrage to Amnesty's gall in leveling charges of human rights abuses against the morally superior United States ; he coolly stated that Guantanamo was not even remotely similar to the Gulags under Stalin. Holding the Neocon line, he denied that there was a problem with the US system of detention in the "war on terror". He stated that the men confined in Cuba were dangerous terrorists, and therefore were not entitled to rights afforded under the Geneva Convention. He admitted that there were some abuses, but minimized them, stating that they were rare and minor. Livingston further justified the American Gulag with the fact that we are at "war" and cannot risk freeing these prisoners until the "war" is over.

My joy and hope surged as Schulz cast a very different light on the situation. He reminded viewers that the US military has committed 27 homicides throughout its network of prisons, including Guantanamo . Schulz exposed the fact that prisoners in the US Gulag system are not confirmed terrorists because they have had no access to an objective tribunal to rule on their culpability. He also spoke of the "ghost detainees" who have disappeared, the US practice of transferring prisoners to nations which condone torture, and the fact that most of the prisoners in the "war on terror" have been held without formal charges for over two years.

Pointing out that the US is in direct violation of the Geneva Convention, he defended Amnesty's report condemning US human rights abuses. He also addressed Irene Kahn's characterization of Guantanamo as the "Gulag of our Times". Explaining that while it was not a direct analogy, Shulz affirmed that there are many similarities between Stalin's Gulag Archipelago, and the terrorist prison network of the US . As Schulz declared, Irene Khan, the London-based director of Amnesty International, is a native of Bangladesh . Khan and Amnesty represent the viewpoints of the international community, and their condemnation of the war crimes of the US government is not a politically-motivated attack. Schulz conveyed that Amnesty applies the "gold standard" of respect for human rights to each nation which it investigates. According to Schulz, the vehement denials of wrongdoing by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld closely resembled those of countries such as Iran and North Korea, members of Bush's so-called "Axis of Evil".

What gives Amnesty International the credentials to challenge almighty America?

Amnesty International came to be in 1961 as a result of a year long media campaign initiated by Peter Benenson, a British attorney. He sparked a year long publicity campaign by The Observer, a British newspaper. The effort influenced people to launch protests against the detention of prisoners of conscience. From these humble beginnings, Amnesty has grown to a world-wide organization with more than a million members. Acting on bedrock principles of independence and impartiality, the group now champions the rights of prisoners of social conscience, people facing torture and the death penalty, and individuals who have "disappeared" for political reasons. Amnesty won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 and in 1978 received a United Nations Human Rights Award. Over the years, they have achieved a sterling reputation as an activist organization shining the light of humanity on the ugly violations of individual human rights throughout the world.

In Irene Kahn's own words:

"Human rights violations are not committed against the 'other side' but against a mother, a sister, a brother, a son.

"Our challenge is to [stand] in solidarity with the victims, to know their names, their faces, their identities, their stories.

"No cause can justify the abuse of human rights."

Listen to them tap dance....and "flip flop"

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has responded to Amnesty's allegations with vehement and terse denials. In light of Amnesty's credibility and the body of evidence against them, their words ring quite hollow.

Dick Cheney:

"For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously."

Scott MClellan, the White House Press Secretary and spin-master:

"I think the allegations are ridiculous and unsupported by the facts. The United States is leading the way when it comes to protecting human rights and promoting human dignity."

George W. Bush:

"When there's accusations made about certain actions by our people, they're fully investigated in a transparent way. It's just an absurd allegation.

"It seemed like [Amnesty] based some of their decisions on the word and allegations by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people who had been trained in some instances to disassemble - that means not tell the truth.

"And so it was an absurd report. It just is."

Holding true to form, when the White House needed Amnesty to promote the war in Iraq in 2003, they offered a much different opinion on Amnesty and their findings concerning human rights abuses.

Before Amnesty leveled their charges against the US administration, Donald Rumsfeld had this to say:

"We know that it's a repressive regime...Anyone who has read Amnesty International or any of the human rights organizations about how the regime of Saddam Hussein treats his people..."

AND

". . . It seems to me a careful reading of Amnesty International or the record of Saddam Hussein, having used chemical weapons on his own people as well as his neighbors, and the viciousness of that regime, which is well known and documented by human rights organizations, ought not to be surprised."

The simple fact is that Amnesty International has an established reputation as an independent watchdog of human rights around the world. They have not exhibited a pattern of targeting specific countries to further a political agenda. Rumsfeld's statements provide evidence that the Bush administration recognized Amnesty's authority on the matter of human rights abuse when it suited their purposes. Now that Amnesty has trained their cross-hairs on them, they are lashing out like cornered animals. America 's leaders deride or attempt to discredit virtually every organization or individual that has the audacity to challenge them. Smells like tyranny to me.

In 1974 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (a man who knew a bit about tyranny, Stalin and the Gulag Archipelago) might as well have been talking about the Bush administration when he said:

"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle."

Fear lies beneath their ire

Bush and his cohorts are sweating. Amnesty has them in an angry, defensive mode because they are afraid. Why do they fear? They know the allegations are true. They also recognize that even the leaders of the mighty United States are subject to international law. The international court of public opinion has already found them guilty, which does not bode well for the Neocons. Gandhi's perpetuation of a large civil disobedience movement in colonial India swayed world opinion to the degree that the British finally relented and left India a sovereign nation. The Bush regime comprehends that the movement against their corrupt abuses of power is gaining momentum both domestically and abroad, and they are feeling the heat.

As Joseph Kay and Barry Grey asserted so well at (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/may2005/amne-m28.shtml):

"The statements made by Amnesty International are, in fact, only mild expressions of the deep-seated feelings of hundreds of millions of people around the world, including many millions within the United States . The position taken by the US media in response to Amnesty's charges will only further discredit an institution that already stands condemned in the eyes of the world. The US media is waist deep in blood, filth and lies. It has been instrumental in promoting and defending the policies of the most reactionary government in American history and is irreversibly implicated in its crimes."

Amnesty leveled specific and credible charges against the administration in this open letter to George Bush (http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engamr510782004)on 5/7/04. They went even further with recent statements by William Schulz:

"If the U.S. government continues to shirk its responsibility, Amnesty International calls on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior U.S. officials involved in the torture scandal . . .

"If those investigations support prosecution, the governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them . . .

"The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998."

Between Amnesty International exerting international pressure, the ACLU applying domestic legal pressure, and Representative John Conyers pushing for Congressional action based on the Downing Street Memo, the Bush regime has its hands full. Their fear is masked by anger as they continue to lash out at their detractors, but they are beginning to look and sound flustered.

The Cost of American Conquest

While Amnesty commented that the Gulag analogy is not direct, there are distinct parallels between Stalin's infamous "Gulag Archipelago" and the American Gulags. The American system of confinement for detainees in the seemingly boundless and endless "war on terror" consists of an "archipelago" of at least 24 keeps, some of which are clandestine. According to Human Rights First (http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/statements/abu-yr-042605.htm), at least 108 prisoners have died in US Gulags, including 63 outside of Abu Gharib. They also validate through a CIA source that at least 100 "ghost detainees" exist, meaning the administration keeps them from the "prying eyes" of the monitors of the International Red Cross. The US now detains 11,000 prisoners in the American Gulag and, until recent rulings by the American judiciary, has given them no opportunity to prove their innocence. Torture, disappearances, murder, secrecy, and paucity of justice..... Sounds like a track record that would fill Joseph Stalin with pride!

Bush and his fellow Neocons are avaricious, power-mad, and short-sighted. They lack the spiritual vision to realize that they are grossly abusing the awesome power they wield. Consumed by self-absorption and a compulsion to continue the morally repugnant policy of Manifest Destiny, they fail to realize that America 's ways are not superior to the ways of the rest of the world. Sadly, America 's rulers believe they are justified in using invasion, occupation and torture to impose "democracy, capitalism and Christianity" on other nations, just as their predecessors did with Native Americans. Amnesty International has given them a painful reminder of their immoral, illegal acts, and of the limitations of their power. They also reminded the Neocons that the world does not share their zeal for American "democracy". As evidenced by its response, America 's elite ruling class is most displeased.

All "good" things must come to an end

With the fictitious carte blanche moral authority that they derive from their cleverly contrived "war on terror", the Bush administration has acted with impunity far too long. Amnesty International has taken a bold stance against their despotism. They have shed a glaring light into the shadows, exposing the dark deeds of America 's leaders. Undoubtedly, repulsion ripples through the bodies of decent human beings as they discover the injustices and human rights violations taking place in the American Gulag Archipelago.

Now is the time for people of conscience to stand with Amnesty International in their support of human rights. Opposition to the Bush administration is strong in America , but needs to become stronger. I recently joined Amnesty International and fully support their bold charges against the Bush administration. Despite the fact that much malevolence emanates from America , there are many Americans who want no part of the Bush government, the true source of the malice. Humanity around the globe is vulnerable to the ruthless ambitions of the powerful nexus of plutocrats and corporations that comprise the American Oligarchy. They possess the potency of immense wealth and an unparalleled military arsenal, but are spiritually bankrupt. Therefore, the answer does not lie in other nations waging war against the US , or in American dissidents perpetrating acts of violence. Protests; education of our children, ourselves, and the uninformed; shining the light of truth into the shadows in which the Oligarchs lurk; verbal and written dissidence; moral and financial support of organizations like Amnesty International; acts of civil disobedience; boycotting the products of the administration's corrupt corporate allies; legal pressure and prosecution; and the impeachment process are the weapons we can use as we wage peace against the Oligarchs of the United States of America. As citizens of Earth, we share a common blight on our existence, and Washington DC is its epicenter. Waging peace will put this abomination in its place.



Part 2, Morons and Oxymorons

There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for . . .

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent . . .

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary. -- Mohandas Ghandi

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. -- Dwight Eisenhower

War does not end strife - it sows it. War does not end hatred - it feeds it. For those who argue war is a necessary evil, I say you are half right. War is evil (where strife, there every evil work: Bible, James 3:16). But it is not necessary. War cannot be a necessary evil, because non-violence is a necessary good. The two cannot co-exist. -- Congressman John Lewis

Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. -- Hermann Göring

A pre-emptive war in 'defense' of freedom would surely destroy freedom, because one simply cannot engage in barbarous action without becoming a barbarian, because one cannot defend human values by calculated and unprovoked violence without doing mortal damage to the values one is trying to defend. -- J. William Fulbright

Waging war to produce peace is a fantastic and ultimate contradiction in terms. At its most essential and spiritual levels, victory does not exist. It is at best a fleeting illusion.

The author Chalmers Johnson (Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire), among many others, has more than convincingly shown how war only seeds more war by, at least, creating resentment and the roots of revenge; by dividing peoples and nations arbitrarily with imposed new borders; by seeing and implementing short-term "strategic solutions" that ignore and/or create longer-term disastrous consequences.

Much of humanity shrugs, claiming that war is inevitable and "a fact of human nature." I absolutely reject that belief. It is not so "black and white". I do believe that humans do carry a tendency to resort to violence, but at the same time ontologically wish and hope for peace. In this context, it is possible to nurture the spirit of peace and starve the appetite for war. Where I am called "naive" in believing this, I wear the appellation proudly as a badge of honor. I say that those who promote war as a solution for anything are ignorant morons.

I submit that "victory" in war is always at the cost of thousands, perhaps millions, of souls, the elimination of nations and cultures, the laying waste of the earth, the expenditure of wealth and resources that could otherwise be used to construct and defend peace, elevating the lives and security of all peoples. Peace without war is by contrast cheap, in some cases free. It is certain that the maintenance of peace is always less costly than the waging of war.

Göring's quote, above, is perfectly true. War and the conditions of war are manufactured by the few, who imagine that they have something to gain for themselves (power and riches). These few generally do not reveal the true motivation for war, but sell war to the many by lies, deceit, and fear. The few rarely actually fight. The waging of war is the task of the many.

On February 6, 2007 Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced in the US House H.R. 808 [PDF], which would establish a cabinet-level US Department of Peace and Nonviolence.

In the "Findings" section of the legislation, we find:

. . . (7) During the course of the 20th century, more than 100,000,000 people perished in wars, and now, at the dawn of the 21st century, violence seems to be an overarching theme in the world, encompassing personal, group, national, and international conflict, extending to the production of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction which have been developed for use on land, air, sea, and in space.
(8) Such conflict is often taken as a reflection of the human condition without questioning whether the structures of thought, word, and deed which the people of the United States have inherited are any longer sufficient for the maintenance, growth, and survival of the United States and the world.

Here, from the Congressional Register, are some of the remarks by these members in support of the bill:

Congresswoman Barbara Lee:

We are now spending $8 billion each month on the occupation of Iraq. Imagine if a small portion of that money was invested, instead, in conflict resolution, diplomacy, weapons reduction, and human rights. As the drum beats of war against Iran are now heard, imagine if the debate included not only the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, but a Secretary of Peace. Guaranteed the military option would be taken off the table and our world would not be led again into another useless, senseless war.

Imagine if we were to direct a small portion of the $583 billion Pentagon budget to promoting nonviolence here at home by investing in efforts to stop domestic violence, gun violence, child abuse, gang violence, violence in schools, hate crimes, racial violence, religious intolerance and the mistreatment of the elderly.

Congressman John Conyers:

My first campaign for Congress, following the teaching of Dr. King, was based on "jobs, peace and justice." That remains my priority agenda. So I am proud to be an original cosponsor of H.R. 808 , Representative Kuchinich's bill to establish a US Department of Peace and Non-Violence. At a time when the world is awash in war, he and Marianne Williamson, founder of the Peace Alliance, offer this modern vision of healing and preventing violence.

It could not be more timely. According to all reports, the Bush administration is debating whether to attack Iran or to find peaceful ways to deal with its nuclear program and its intervention in Iraq. The prospect of President Bush starting a "pre-emptive war" with Iran, on top of the tragedy in Iraq, is frightening. If that is not a compelling argument for creating a Peace Department, then I do not know what is.

We attacked Iraq because President Bush would not pursue peace and let U.N. inspectors complete their work. Instead, he distorted intelligence and failed to foresee the terrible consequences of that war. We must not repeat those mistakes in Iran, or anywhere else.

Last night, I spoke to an overflowing crowd that supports this measure and I told them what I tell my colleagues now. The best way to stop the war in Iraq is for the Congress to end our fighting there as soon as possible, and the best way to prevent wars with Iran and other adversarial nations is to establish a Department of Peace. We need a Cabinet Secretary focused like a laser on how to keep peace with Iran and President Bush has already spent some $2 trillion on the war in Iraq. Just think what we could have done with $2 trillion spent on health care and education. That is another strong reason for the Department of Peace. A small fraction of that amount could also have funded a robust, proactive Department of Peace to analyze looming conflicts and to advise the President on how to diffuse them without war.

H.R. 808 has 51 cosponsors: Conyers, John, Jr. [MI14] Cummings, Elijah E. [MD7] Davis, Danny K. [IL7] Davis, Susan A. [CA53] DeFazio, Peter A. [OR4] Ellison, Keith [MN5] Farr, Sam [CA17] Filner, Bob [CA51] Green, Al [TX9] Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ7] Hirono, Mazie K. [HI2] Holt, Rush D. [NJ12] Honda, Michael M. [CA15] Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. [IL2] JacksonLee, Sheila [TX18] Johnson, Eddie Bernice [TX30] Jones, Stephanie Tubbs [OH11] Kaptur, Marcy [OH9] Kilpatrick, Carolyn C. [MI13] Lee, Barbara [CA9] Lewis, John [GA5] Maloney, Carolyn B. [NY14] McDermott, Jim [WA7] McGovern, James P. [MA3] Meeks, Gregory W. [NY6] Miller, George [CA7] Moore, Gwen [WI4] Moran, James P. [VA8] Nadler, Jerrold [NY8] Norton, Eleanor Holmes [DC] Payne, Donald M. [NJ10] Rangel, Charles B. [NY15] Rothman, Steven R. [NJ9] Ryan, Tim [OH17] Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL9] Scott, Robert C. [VA3] Serrano, Jose E. [NY16] Sherman, Brad [CA27] Tauscher, Ellen O. [CA10] Towns, Edolphus [NY10] Waters, Maxine [CA35] Watson, Diane E. [CA33] Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA6] Wu, David [OR1] Wynn, Albert Russell [MD4].

In addition, The Peace Alliance Campaign to Establish a US Department of Peace has been recently formed.

This is heartening. But even if the Department comes into existence, its task is enormous. In spite of over two hundred years of propaganda to the contrary, we have not been either a peaceful people or nation. We conquered this land by violent genocide and imperialist wars against other nations who held portions of the continent we sought to control. Since the dawn of the 20^th century, and especially since WWII, we have overtly and covertly expanded "national interests" abroad and charged our military with with defending those "interests". We now have approximately 800 military bases in other countries.

We are really no more than a country of symbols. From Betsy Ross and the Stars and Stripes, George Washington owning up to chopping down the cherry tree and crossing the Delaware, and The Minutemen and Paul Revere, to Old Ironsides and Bunker Hill, to Lincoln as the "Great Emancipator", to Teddy Roosevelt and his Great White Fleet, to the dough boy "making the world safe for democracy", to "American Gothic" and "Uncle Sam", to the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Memorial, the White House, and the Lincoln Memorial, to Iwo Jima and D Day, and now to the Chevy Corvette, Father Knows Best, McDonalds, Mickey Mouse, Microsoft Windows, and all that comes out of Hollywood and Las Vegas, we have shrouded our national aggressiveness and hubris in a PowerPoint/sound-bite myth. "We're the greatest", we say. We could also point to the mushroom cloud as a symbol of our strength. These symbols of American might and righteous good will have been eagerly consumed by the American people, but only by part of the peoples of the rest of the world.

Our unsuccessful adventurism from the 1950s through the 1970s in Southeast Asia all but ripped apart this curtain. Many of us realized that our benevolent symbols were balanced by symbols of a powerful reality, such as beatings of civil rights demonstrators and burnings of churches, lynchings, My Lai, wide-spread poverty and hunger, urban race riots, rivers on fire spewing toxic death, CIA-funded death squads.

Many of us began to see that our military actions were taken up in service to capitalism, rather than freedom and democracy; profit, rather than peace. We devised some our own symbols: the Peace Sign, the Yellow Submarine, psychedelia, flowers, the MLK March on Washington, paisley shirts and long hair.

Reactionary conservatism was vicious and late capitalism was voracious, however. What the ruling class could not co-opt by turning resistance into fashion, entertainment, or recreation, it tried to crush. "Laugh-In", "All in the Family", "Apocalypse Now", and "**Mash** did raise consciousness, yes, but at the same time just mollified the masses' cries for change. Commercialization of the anti-establishment, anti-war culture killed it. That movement was one of collectivism, cooperation, compassion, and non-violence. What's left of it has been discredited, assimilated, assassinated, or marginalized.

However, before it unraveled, the movement revealed that our education system had been transformed in the 1950s and 1960s from an institutional system of true learning, investigation, and creativity to a system of training camps for soldiers of the advance of worldwide capitalism. It revealed that our ruling class and the burgeoning military-industrial-academic (MIA) complex has, more often as not, supported the bad guy with money, weapons, and technology, while directly or covertly undermining popular revolutions and democratic-socialist regimes.

These are cold, hard facts. They are indisputable matters of record. But many Americans, out of fear, ignorance, laziness, or comfort with what has become the status quo, allow themselves to ignore the truth of history and are addicted to the mainstream media version of who we are.

Modern war is rarely about ideology. Even though often characterized as "wars of culture" or values or freedom/democracy, they are wars about resources, hegemony, and power. And about wealth and its distribution. As Mick Youlter, writing " . . . And by the way, It was about Oil" at OpEd News points out:

The Bush Administration has long claimed that the war in Iraq is not about oil . . .

Our first hint came on the eve of the Iraq War, when Bush spoke directly to the Iraqi people. Bush didn't say, "Don't harm the troops." He warned them, "...your fate will depend on your action. Do not destroy oil wells." . . .

"US-UK forces invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003, seizing the major oilfields and refineries almost immediately. When coalition forces later entered Baghdad, they set a protective cordon around the Oil Ministry, while leaving all other institutions unguarded, allowing looting and burning of other government ministries, hospitals and cultural institutions." -- James A. Paul, Global Policy Forum, November 2003 . . .

"Half of the oil the US consumes is produced domestically. Of the remaining half, the bulk, 80 percent, comes from two neighbors, Canada and Mexico. ...Only a small fraction comes from the Middle East, and most of that, from Saudi Arabia." -- Stephen Gowans, uruknet.info, 3/14/06

More than two thousand years ago, the Greek Philosopher Socrates said, "All wars are fought for money"; and the war on Iraq War is no different. It is all about the money. Americans are fighting and dying and we are mortgaging our grandchildren's futures--so Big Oil can seize control of Iraq's oil and increase their bottom line.

"Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company - $39.5 billion ...The 2006 profit topped Exxon Mobil's own previous record of $36.13 billion set in 2005." --AP, 2/1/07

That is $4.5 million profit for every hour of the year--but that is not enough. They want Iraq's oil too . . .

So yes, it's about oil. But it's also about much more.

The current US government envisions Iraq and Afghanistan as the first tiles in a neo-dominoes game of conquering and/or destroying all states which resist its agenda of total world domination. Most important to them is the eventual dismantling of our own nation. This country, in fact all countries, is an obstacle to world-wide corporatism. At the heart of neoconservatism is the notion that nationalism is contrary to the goals of international finance.

A "must read" is Who Rules America?" by James Petras at Dissident Voice (published at Third World Traveler. Excerpts:

Neither the Democratic Party majority in Congress, nor the Republican-controlled Executive offer any proposals to challenge the financial ruling class's dominance nor are there any proposals to reverse its most retrograde policies causing the growing inequalities, wage stagnation and the increasing rigidity of the class structure. The reason has been reported in the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times: An overwhelming chunk of the funds that Democrats raise nationally for election campaigns comes either from Wall Street financiers or Silicon Valley software entrepreneurs. (FT November 3, 2006 p. 13). The Democratic congressional electoral campaign was tightly controlled by two of Wall Street's favorite Democrats, Senator Charles 'Israel First' Schumer and Congressman Rahm Immanuel, who selectively funded candidates who were pro-war, pro-Wall Street and unconditionally pro-Israel. Democrats slated to head strategic Congressional committees like Zion-Lib Barney Frank have already announced they have 'good working relations' with Wall Street.

The Financial Ruling Class Also Governs

Ruling classes rule the economy, are at the top of the social structure and establish the parameters and rules within which the politicians operate. More often than not few actually engage directly in congressional politics, preferring to build economic empires while channeling money toward candidates prepared to do their bidding. Only when an apparent division occurs, especially within the Executive, between the interests of the ruling class and the policies of the regime will elite members of the ruling class intervene directly or take a senior executive position to 'rectify' policy.

Ruling Class Political Power: Paulson Takes Over Treasury

Several sharp divergences occurred during the Bush regime between finance capital and policymakers. These policies prejudiced or threatened to seriously damage important sectors of the financial ruling class. Theses include: 1) the aggressive militarist and protectionist policies pursued by senior Pentagon officials and 'Zion-con' Senators toward China; 2) the political veto by Congress of the sale of US port management to a Gulf State-owned company and of a US oil company to China; 3) the failure of the Bush regime to secure the privatization of social security and to weaken the regulatory measures introduced in the aftermath of the massive corporate (Enron and World Com) and Wall Street swindles, and 4) the need to put a check on the uncontrolled growth of fiscal deficits resulting from the Middle East wars, the ballooning trade deficits and the weakening dollar.

The headlines of the financial press (FT December 4, 2006 p.3) spell out finance capital's direct intervention into key White House policy making:

"Goldman Sachs Top Alumni Wield Clout in White House" and "Former Bank Executives Hold Unprecedented Power within a US Administration."

US financial and manufacturing ruling classes have long influenced, advised and formulated policy for US Presidents. But given the stakes, the risks and the opportunities facing the financial ruling class, it has moved directly into key government posts. What is especially unprecedented is the dominant presence of members from one investment bank -- Goldman Sachs. In late November 2006, Goldman Sachs (GS) senior executive William Dudley took over the Federal Reserve Bank of New York markets group. Hank Paulson, ex-CEO of GS is Treasury Secretary -- explicitly anointed by President Bush as undisputed czar of all economic policies. Reuben Jeffrey, a former GS managing partner is the chief regulator of commodity futures and options trading, Joshua Bolten, White House Chief of Staff (he decides who Bush sees, when and for how long -- in other words arranges Bush's agenda) served as GS executive director. Robert Steel, former GS vice chairman, advises Paulson on domestic finance. Randall Fort, ex-GS director of global security, advises Secretary of State Rice. The ex-GS officials also dominate Bush's working group on financial markets and financial crisis management. The investment bankers wielding state power will control the Bush regime's biggest housing giants (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), tax policy, energy markets -- all issues that directly affect the investment banks. In other words, the financial banks will be 'regulated' by their own executives. The degree of finance capital's stranglehold on political power is evidenced by the total lack of criticism by either party. As one financial newspaper noted: "Neither Mr. Bush nor Goldman have been criticized by Democrats for holding too many powerful jobs in part because the investment bank (GS) also has deep ties to Democrats. Goldman represented the biggest single donor base to the Democrats ahead of this (2006) year's mid-term election." (FT December 4, 2006) . . .

The paradox is that some of the most wealthy and powerful beneficiaries of the ascendancy of finance capital are precisely the same class of people who are financing their own self-destruction. While cheap finance fueling multi-billion dollar mergers, acquisitions, commissions and executive payoffs, heightened militarism operates on a budget plagued by tax reductions, exemptions and evasions for the financial ruling class and ever greater squeezing of the overburdened wage and salary classes. Something has to break the cohabitation between ruling class financiers and political militarists. They are running in opposite directions. One is investing capital abroad and the other spending borrowed funds at home. For the moment there are no signs of any serious clashes at the top, and in the middle and working classes there are no signs of any political break with the two Wall Street parties or any challenge to the militarist-Zionist stranglehold on Congress. Likely it will take a catastrophe, like a White House-backed Israeli nuclear attack on Iran to detonate the kind of crisis which will provoke a deep and widespread popular backlash of all things military, financial and made in Israel.

In this context, it becomes clearer that international finance has decided that the Bush government can't get the job done and is hedging its bets by funding the Democratic Party. It also explains why the DP leadership will resist any movement to impeach Bush and Cheney, roll back the Patriot Act, abolish tax cuts for the rich, and begin to dismantle the MIA complex. The Democrats will rework some of the cosmetics, mollify the middle class with education, senior social support and health schemes, and move away from the disaster in Iraq. The next ten years of Democratic Party leadership will not see the government breaking away from the interests of global capital. It would take a popular tsunami to accomplish that. Unfortunately, we are most likely to be drowned ourselves.

Part 3, MIAsma

The insurmountable, fatal "enemy", the obstacle to "victory", in waging peace against war, is the degree to which militarism is an accepted fact of American society and culture. Yes, "accepted". Militarism is ubiquitous and monolithic, the ultimate given.

Before Eisenhower warned us about the MIA (military-industrial-academic) complex as he was leaving office, the MIA had dug its tentacles into every facet of American life. I'm sure that Lockheed, FMC, GE, Martin-Marietta, General Dynamics, Boeing, Raytheon, TRW, SAIC, Halliburton, Carlyle, Bechtel, and the rest just chuckled up their sleeves at the speech. Too late.

Interestingly enough, the draft farewell speech Eisenhower gave in February of 1961 said "military-industrial-congressional" complex. I have seen lately that many refer to the "military-industrial-academic complex. I would add the term "media" to the mix, and/or "media-entertainment-pharmaceutical-health care-prison-security-surveillance-think-tank" complex. You get the picture, I'm sure.

If you want to get a migraine, read the Wikipedia/Source Watch piece here. Some excerpts:

The military-industrial complex is generally defined as a "coalition consisting of the military and industrialists who profit by manufacturing arms and selling them to the government." (War profiteering) Eisenhower related, however, that until World War II, the United States did not have an armaments industry. Even though "American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well," the United States could "no longer risk emergency improvisation" of the country's national defense.

The United States, he continues, had been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. At that time, the U.S. was annually spending more on military security "than the net income of all United States corporations." This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry, he said, was "new in the American experience" and that there was an imperative need for this development . . .

Writing for the March 2003 issue of Business2.0, Ian Mount, David H. Freedman, and Matthew Maier address what is now called the New military-industrial complex. As anyone who has been following the current war in Iraq is well aware, "the nature of the battle" is "unlike anything the world has ever known." Afghanistan, the writers say, "provided a glimpse of the latest generation of high-tech weaponry, but it was only a glimpse. A major assault by combined American forces will provide a full demonstration of the military's new doctrine of faster, lighter, smarter warfare -- combat in which cutting-edge technology becomes U.S. troops' deadliest weapon. The Pentagon calls this new doctrine RMA, for revolution in military affairs, and it's made possible not just by fresh thinking in the Pentagon but also by a subtle shift in the ranks of U.S. defense contractors. In building its new high-tech arsenal, the United States has also created a new military-industrial complex." . . .

"When it comes to military spending, the tradition of the iron triangle—Congress, the Pentagon, and defense industries—joining to push costly weaponry is nothing new." In his speech, Eisenhower said that "The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." . . .

A few years ago Mother Jones/MOJOwire, in "US Arms Sales", noted:

Arms Around the World

It was the early 1990s and then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton was on the campaign trail making promises: "I expect to review our arms sales policy and to take it up with the other major arms sellers of the world as a part of a long-term effort to reduce the proliferation of weapons."

Ah, campaign promises. But the economy was in the doldrums, and the prospect of cutting arms sales -- sugar daddy to one of the nation's largest industries -- didn't thrill either labor or corporate America. What's more, the Gulf War had just ended the previous year, and it was the best extended commercial an arms salesman could ask for. (Indeed, some arms manufacturers incorporated bombing videos into their promotional materials.) Countries were clamoring for the high-tech weapons that made for such good TV.

So, once elected, Bill Clinton did what he does best: He took advantage of the opportunity. Rather than insert human-rights concerns into the arms-sales equation, as did his Democratic predecessor President Carter, Clinton decided to aggressively continue the sales policies of President Bush, himself no slouch when it came to selling U.S. arms . . .

Early on, Clinton required our diplomats to shill for arms merchants to their host countries. The results were immediate: During Clinton's first year in office, U.S. arms sales more than doubled. From 1993 to 1997, the U.S. government sold, approved, or gave away $190 billion in weapons to virtually every nation on earth.

The arms industry, meanwhile, has greased the wheels. It filled the Democratic Party coffers to the tune of nearly $2 million in the 1998 election cycle.

To examine the Clinton administration's eagerness to arm the world, the MoJo Wire has compiled a detailed look at America's top weapons customers during the Clinton years, tallying their total 1993-97 purchases through both the Pentagon (so-called "Foreign Military Sales," or FMS) and U.S. manufacturers ("Direct Commercial Sales," or DCS).

What we found is that while the U.S. obviously sells weapons to NATO countries and relatively "democratic" allies like Japan and South Korea, it also has a nasty habit of arming both sides in a conflict, as well as countries with blighted democracy or human-rights records, like Indonesia, Colombia, and Saudi Arabia . . .

In 1999, the Arms Control Association stated that the Pentagon sold some $13 billion dollars worth of arms globally.

This gets very complex - the stats and configuration of the matrix are way over my head. But trying to think about it quietly, I figure . . .

• American citizens pay megabucks to their government


• somewheres around half of this money goes to "defense" (DOD/Pentagon)


• a sizable chunk of this is paid by the Pentagon to arms manufacturers


• arms manufacturers make and sell weapons of all sorts not only to the US government, but also to everyone else, including states and groups who are sworn to eliminate the US


• DOD/Pentagon also sells weapons, at a profit, to foreign entities, also often regardless of their alliances

I humbly admit that I know I'm missing something in this matrix. Maybe uggabugga has a chart on it somewhere.

Of course, arms sales may be only the tip of the iceberg. I mentioned recently that the US government maintains in the order of 800 military bases around the globe. Most of these were established in the twenty or so years after WWII in the "cold war" against the "expansionist" USSR. It was widely thought that the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1989 would occasion the significant reduction of US force abroad and the transfer of these bases to the host countries or their outright closure.

But, at the risk of insulting your intelligence, I point out that the MIA had become a major pillar of the US economic system. Objectively, this means that a drawdown might precipitate an economic calamity. The threat of a base closure either domestically or on foreign soil is always met by loud protests that the local economy absolutely depends on the base and will be devastated by its disappearance.

I live in a state which has eight military bases. Several of these bases house personnel, vehicles, weapons, and other materials critical to the government's wars in Afghanistan and against Iraq (and, of course, the imminent wars in several other places). The recent base realignment effort scared the hell out of the state and the local communities which depended on these bases for employment.

Note well that the employment I refer to here includes not only people who work on the bases, but the restaurants, hotels, bars, auto dealers and maintenance businesses, schools, retail stores realtors/landlords, tailors, laundromats, gas stations, and so forth, but also military surplus stores, bars, nightclubs, strip joints, tattoo parlors, drug dealers, and prostitutes. Shutting down Fort Bragg in North Carolina would do more damage to Fayetteville, NC and the 400 square mile perimeter than a direct "Jericho" strike.

For example, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of North Carolina tax and local lobbyist dollars were spent in blunting North Carolina base closures. The senior Senator, Libby Dole, a staunch Republican conservative, ensured her reelection in 2008 to a second six-year term (as did the junior Senator Richard Burr) by tirelessly reducing the potential harm of base realignment to nothing more than a mosquito bite for the state. Extend this same situation to tens of other states, hundreds of localities, thousands of citizens throughout the country. Extend it further to the eight or so hundreds of military bases around the world and the communities dependent on them.

So, the evil conundrum: we can't abandon militarism without destroying the livelihood of millions; we can't "wage peace" unless and until we eliminate militarism, for without doing so we endanger the same millions of lives through the perpetration of endless blowback, terrorism, and major wars.

Although Americans are only now beginning to see this situation as a form of international slavery, there is much evidence and data for mass education.

Radical Left, 2/7/2007, "The Size of America's Defense Budget Is Obscene":

Totaling US$623bn, it is an obscene amount. It's not only the largest defence budget in the world, but nearly all other national defence budgets combined and larger than most overall national budgets, including those of the developed world . . .

Vanity Fair, March, 2007, "Washington's $8 Billion Shadow":

Mega-contractors such as Halliburton and Bechtel supply the government with brawn. But the biggest, most powerful of the "body shops"—SAIC, which employs 44,000 people and took in $8 billion last year—sells brainpower, including a lot of the "expertise" behind the Iraq war . . .

Unlike traditional wars, which eventually come to an end, the Global War on Terror as defined by the Bush administration can have no end: it is a permanent war—the perfect war for a company that has become an essential component of the permanent government. Political change causes scarcely a ripple. As one former SAIC manager observed in a recent blog posting: "My observation is that the impact of national elections on the business climate for SAIC has been minimal. The emphasis on where federal spending occurs usually shifts, but total federal spending never decreases. SAIC has always continued to grow despite changes in the political leadership in Washington."

And the revolving door never stops spinning. One of the biggest contracts ever for SAIC is in the works right now. It's for a Pentagon program called Future Combat Systems, which is described as "a complex plan to turn the U.S. Army into a lighter, more lethal, more mobile force" and also as "the most difficult integration program ever undertaken by the U.S. Department of Defense." The contract runs into the billions of dollars. The man who helped craft this program at the Pentagon was Lieutenant General Daniel R. Zanini. Zanini recently retired from the army, and he now has a new job. Can you guess where it might be?

While there was, to be sure, much cause (or at least probable cause), for celebration at the Soviet Union's demise, in fact you couldn't find many happy faces at the Pentagon or in the boardrooms of arms manufacturers and military contractors in the US. They can't make money without wars, and you can't make wars without enemies. What to do, what to do? Why, make new enemies and make new wars, of course.

Therefore, Yugoslavia and the rest of the Balkans; Afghanistan and Iraq; Iran and Syria and Lebanon. Whoever, whatever is next.

Whew!! Dodged a bullet!!



Part 4, These Aren't Your Daddy's Rent-A-Cops

When I was a college freshman (a helluva long time ago, believe me), I lived with three no-neck football players on the third floor of an old dorm. The hall was about 150 feet long from entrance to entrance, straight, the floor highly-waxed ancient tile.

Beginning at 10 pm every night, at lights out, an old guy named Hermie, dressed in a gray uniform, a gray badge, a military style patent leather cross-belt, and armed with a wood baton, a flashlight, and a clock-key, would push open the door at one end of the hall and stagger down the hall to the security clock at the other end, punch in, push open the door and disappear up the stairs to the fourth floor. Poor Herm was drunk every damn night (well, for that matter, so were we, almost).

One night, as he passed my room, my roommates doused a ten-pin bowling ball with a can of lighter fluid. They waited until Herm was almost at the security box, carefully opened our door, lit the ball, and rolled the flaming orb rumbling down the blacked-out hall. Herm turned slowly, blinked, and bolted screaming and crashing through the door and down the stairs (thankfully not followed by the ball).

We never saw Herm again. The whole dorm corridor (this was in 1966 and the school was old-time Jesuit) got dorm restriction for four consecutive weekends . . . and I requested transfer to another room. I'm sorry, but I still think this is the funniest thing I've ever seen. So sue me. Don't try it at home.

We used to call these guys "rent-a-cops", remember? Well, it just ain't so funny any more.

Depending on who you read, there are now somewhere between thirty and forty thousand private military personnel just in Iraq. That makes them the second biggest army in that beleaguered country. And you're not only paying for them, but they're making big bucks, especially when you add waste and corruption to the profits. And not only are they not subject to congressional oversight, they're also not accountable for any war crimes they commit.

These folks not only provide security for the multinational corporations trying to do business in Iraq, they also are hired and deployed by private companies to fight right along side government forces. We used to call these people "mercenaries".

As we'll see in an up-coming part of this series, Iraq is not the only place these forces work. They're all over the place . . . Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, South America, Ethiopia . . . you name it. Some of these people provide fire-power on the battle field, where we see them; others run the high-tech deadly weapons we and the arms-merchants sell to countries and NGOs; still others plan and provide black ops events and campaigns for whoever will hire them.

Since these forces are in business only to make a profit, their companies are not real picky about who hires them. They are loyal to whoever they've contracted with. Their employees are accountable on to the company. Even when their company is contracted by the US government, individual "soldiers" and their actions are subject to no US congressional oversight. it is both possible and probable that PMF operatives may be engaged on both sides of a conflict. Imagine an employee of Blackwater, paid by Sunni insurgents, shooting down an unmarked helicopter piloted by and filled with Blackwater employees because of a concurrent contract with Shi'ite insurgents. It is quite probable to find a tech-geek kid from Wisconsin, working for X Company, contracted by one side of an insurgency directing lethal drone fire against a fifty year old retired Marine from Brooklyn who's working for Y Company, contracted to the other side in the insurgency. Sort of like Wal-Mart battling Costco on a desert in Yemen. Not so far-fetched. Kinda makes "friendly fire casualties" pretty meaningless, n'ést-çe pas?

Before continuing, I most strongly recommend that you read Corporate Warriors by P.W, Singer [direct link available at original post at P!]. Reviews of Singer's book identify it as a seminal analysis of corporate and other Private Military Forces (PMFs). The detail is incredible. If you read it you get a sense that Singer has a pro-PMS bias, but this doesn't at all detract from the educational value of the work.

First, it's important to distinguish between PMFs which are hired by corporations to provide non-combat logistical services to both foreign states and multinational corporations and those which deploy in-the-field "advisors" or small to very large combat forces. An example of the former, Kellogg, Brown and Root, a notorious and allegedly criminal (US government auditors have documented several instances of fraud, totaling millions of dollars of fraud, including over-billing, shoddy work, and charges for services they've never delivered) subsidiary of Halliburton. Blackwater, Inc. is a good example of the latter. It deploys military units, comprised of "retired" soldiers, in "fire-fight" situations for anyone who hires them. Note that the cover page of Miller's book is a photo of three men in full combat gear. If you look closely, you see that the uniforms are without signatures of any kind (except a small US flag - which could be a French flag or a corporate logo, depending on who hired them.

Singer (pp. 91-100) distinguishes among three types of PMF services in a "Tip of the Spear" matrix: Military Provider Firms (actual battlefield engagement), Military Consulting Firms (advisers and trainers in strategic, operational, and organization analysis), and Military Support Firms (non-lethal intelligence, logistics, technical support, supply, and transportation). As the industry grows, however, it is not uncommon for one company to offer some combination of all these services to one client or a number of clients at the same time. Singer notes that the internal structure of PMFs has become extremely "virtual", flexible, and fluid, in order to respond quickly to the specific client needs. In other words, the owners and number of "full-time" personnel of a PMF are usually very small, but the companies can quickly and easily employ highly trained and seasoned personnel on a contract by contract basis. The labor pool is enormous.

Service in the US military is now increasingly seen as only a training ground for soldiers to learn skills which they eventually market to PMFs after discharge. In this context, the PMFs avoid the costs of training.

It is not uncommon for a "private soldier" to work for several competing PMFs in a year. He or she may easily work for a while on a contract on one side of a conflict, then a month or two later for another company contracted on the other side of the same conflict. As I've noted elsewhere in this series, some PMFs selling weapons are not afraid to sell weapons to operatives on each side of a conflict.

Some have even suggested that 9/11 was surely not a US government operation, but was carried out by a black-ops unit of a PMS contracted ultimately by rogue entities in or working for our government. Some have claimed that several "Al Qaeda terrorists" identified by the government as having piloted the 911 planes have been seen alive since then, hiding in various Middle East countries. I would caution you to not reject these allegations out of hand because they smack of "conspiracy theory."

Mother Jones, in their May/June, 2003 edition, published "Soldiers of Good Fortune" by Barry Yeoman. Excerpts:

When Blackwater opened in 1998, the business of war didn't look like such a sure bet. "This was a roulette, a crapshoot," recalls Jackson, a former Navy seal. During the Gulf War, the Pentagon had begun replacing soldiers with private contractors, relying on civilian businesses to provide logistical support to troops on the front lines. Blackwater's founders were banking on predictions that the military was eager to speed up the process, privatizing many jobs traditionally reserved for uniformed troops. Their investment paid off: Since the attacks of September 11, the company has seen its business boom -- enough to warrant a major expansion of its training facility this year. "To contemplate outsourcing tactical, strategic, firearms-type training -- high-risk training -- is thinking outside the box," Jackson says. "Is this happening? Yes, this is happening."

As the U.S. military wages the war on terrorism, it is increasingly relying on for-profit companies like Blackwater to do work normally performed by soldiers. Defense contractors now do more than simply build airplanes -- they maintain those planes on the battlefield and even fly them in some of the world's most troubled conflict zones. Private military companies supply bodyguards for the president of Afghanistan, construct detention camps to hold suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, and pilot armed reconnaissance planes and helicopter gunships to eradicate coca crops in Colombia. They operate the intelligence and communications systems at the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado, which is responsible for coordinating a response to any attack on the United States. And licensed by the State Department, they are contracting with foreign governments, training soldiers and reorganizing militaries in Nigeria, Bulgaria, Taiwan, and Equatorial Guinea . . .

Indeed, the Bush administration's push to privatize war is swiftly turning the military-industrial complex of old into something even more far-reaching: a complex of military industries that do everything but fire weapons. [Editor's note: they now do fire weapons] For-profit military companies now enjoy an estimated $100 billion in business worldwide each year, with much of the money going to Fortune 500 firms like Halliburton, DynCorp, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon. Secretary of the Army Thomas White, a former vice chairman of Enron, "has really put a mark on the wall for getting government employees out of certain functions in the military," says retired Colonel Tom Sweeney, professor of strategic logistics at the U.S. Army War College. "It allows you to focus your manpower on the battlefield kinds of missions."

Private military companies, for their part, are focusing much of their manpower on Capitol Hill. Many are staffed with retired military officers who are well connected at the Pentagon -- putting them in a prime position to influence government policy and drive more business to their firms. In one instance, private contractors successfully pressured the government to lift a ban on American companies providing military assistance to Equatorial Guinea, a West African nation accused of brutal human-rights violations. Because they operate with little oversight, using contractors also enables the military to skirt troop limits imposed by Congress and to carry out clandestine operations without committing U.S. troops or attracting public attention. "Private military corporations become a way to distance themselves and create what we used to call ‘plausible deniability,'" says Daniel Nelson, a former professor of civil-military relations at the Defense Department's Marshall European Center for Security Studies. "It's disastrous for democracy."

The push to privatize war got its start during the administration of the elder President Bush. After the Gulf War ended, the Pentagon, then headed by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, paid a Halliburton subsidiary called Brown & Root Services nearly $9 million to study how private military companies could provide support for American soldiers in combat zones. Cheney went on to serve as CEO of Halliburton -- and Brown & Root, now known as Halliburton KBR, has since been awarded at least $2.5 billion to construct and run military bases, some in secret locations, as part of the Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program. In March, the Pentagon hired Cheney's former firm to fight fires in Iraq if Saddam Hussein sabotages oil wells during a U.S. attack . . .

In December, 2005, Mountain Runner had a piece entitled "Accountability of Non-State Force". Slices:

The participation of the subcontractors is generally not enjoined with a direct political or national calling of the contracted state. PKF troops are not acting on their national identity, defending their state’s territory or interests, but social demands that shaped and created the interests or otherwise led their leaders to promise soldiers for political or financial reasons. These contractor states, wearing the Blue Helmet of the UN, generally have nothing more invested in the project than their relationship in the international community. Are Pakistan (13% of total military and civilian police manpower), Bangladesh (12%), India (7%), Ethiopia (5%), and Ghana (5%) more altruistic than others because they volunteered over forty percent of the total military and civilian police staffing of these complex missions? The prevalence of these troops in PKFs does not stem from a higher concern about global society but because their governments receive compensation for their participation. Remuneration received by the Blue Helmets blurs the distinction between private and public military forces, between corporate services and participation in the global economy or society. There is clear evidence from past peacekeeping operations that this arrangement of “contracting parties lack[s] verification and mandatory evaluation safeguards to deliver promised results”. Ironically, Kofi Annan at one time “bristled at the suggestion that the United Nations would ever consider working with ‘respectable’ mercenary organizations, arguing that there is no ‘distinction between respectable mercenaries and non-respectable mercenaries’” when in fact these “subcontractor” states function as hired organizations and enjoying the same accountability . . .

We're all aware of the "conservative" policies of government privatization, first implemented in the US and other countries, such as Britain, in the Reagan-Thatcher years. Wikipedia notes:

Privatization (alternately "denationalization" or "disinvestment") is the transfer of property or responsibility from the public sector (government) to the private sector (business). The term can refer to partial or complete transfer of any property or responsibility held by government. A similar transfer in the opposite direction could be referred to the nationalization or municipalization of some property or responsibility.

In the US, we may be most familiar with the privatization of healthcare, national property, infrastructure building and maintenance, corrections (prisons), and security (such as airport screeners).

The rationale behind privatization has been that government services have had little, if any, incentive to operate efficiently and inexpensively. Private companies,however, driven by profit motive, market economy, and competition are much more likely to provide goods and services more cheaply and efficiency.

Even though this may be true sometimes, the track record is so far not so good. One need only point to the waste, inefficiency, and downright fraud perpetrated by Halliburton/KBR, Bechtel, and others contracted by the US government to "reconstruct" Iraq. It should be further noted that many of these often "cost-plus" contracts were awarded by the US government in a "no-bid" process. In addition to all the flak about Halliburton's ties to Vice President Cheney, another example is that US Senator Diane Feinstein's husband has a considerable stake in URS Corporation one the fasted growing contractors in the world, which saw its market share and stock take off when the US got into Afghanistan and then invade Iraq. Should the US attack Iran, Feinstein and her husband can retire to Costa Rica (or maybe just buy the place. You can be certain that Cheney and Feinstein are by far not the only members of Congress who stand to gain from our present and future wars. The obvious conflict of interests virtually ignored.

As an aside . . . the US government admits to 3000+ deaths and thousands of other casualties of US troops in Iraq. It does not publicly keep of US-based PMF fatalities and injuries. Nobody seems to even be able to estimate. The PMFs rarely report these events; they don't have to. And the MSM doesn't either. Yes, there've been occasional graphic stories of PMF employees losing their heads after being captured and probably tortured. But you can bet these reports don't come close to the whole, real story. [Update: On 2/24, AP reporter Michelle Roberts, in "Nearly 800 contractors killed in Iraq" writes:

In a largely invisible cost of the war in Iraq, nearly 800 civilians working under contract to the Pentagon have been killed and more than 3,300 hurt doing jobs normally handled by the U.S. military, according to figures gathered by The Associated Press.

Exactly how many of these employees doing the Pentagon's work are Americans is uncertain. But the casualty figures make it clear that the Defense Department's count of more than 3,100 U.S. military dead does not tell the whole story.

"It's another unseen expense of the war," said Thomas Houle, a retired Air Force reservist whose brother-in-law died while driving a truck in Iraq. "It's almost disrespectful that it doesn't get the kind of publicity or respect that a soldier would."

Employees of defense contractors such as Halliburton, Blackwater and Wackenhut cook meals, do laundry, repair infrastructure, translate documents, analyze intelligence, guard prisoners, protect military convoys, deliver water in the heavily fortified Green Zone and stand sentry at buildings — often highly dangerous duties almost identical to those performed by many U.S. troops.

The U.S. has outsourced so many war and reconstruction duties that there are almost as many contractors (120,000) as U.S. troops (135,000) in the war zone.

The insurgents in Iraq make little if any distinction between the contractors and U.S. troops.

In January, four contractors for Blackwater were killed when their helicopter was downed by gunfire in Baghdad. In 2004, two Americans and a British engineer were kidnapped and decapitated. That same year, a mob of insurgents ambushed a supply convoy escorted by contractors, burning and mutilating the guards' bodies and stringing up two of them from a bridge.

But when contractors are killed or wounded, the casualties are off the books, in a sense.

While the Defense Department issues a press release whenever a soldier or Marine dies, the AP had to file a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain figures on pre-2006 civilian deaths and injuries from the Labor Department, which tracks workers' compensation claims.

By the end of 2006, the Labor Department had quietly recorded 769 deaths and 3,367 injuries serious enough to require four or more days off the job.]

Earlier this month, Challenge: Liberty and Security's Olsson Christian wrote "Private Military Companies in Iraq: a Force for Good?". Excerpts:

Their names are Global Risk International, Dyncorp, Vinnel, Blackwater Security Consulting, or Erinys International to name but a few. It’s a secret to nobody: so-called private military companies (PMCs) operate extensively in Iraq, sometimes with highly sophisticated military means including helicopters and advanced computer systems allowing them to engage in direct combat as shown during the operations against the Army of Mahdi in May 2004 in the city of Nadjaf. The number of PMCs involved in Iraq, their often «mission critical» activities and the fact that they are operating alongside the forces of a multinational coalition, confer a specific salience to the issue today. The «services» they offer to the occupation forces include military activities (the protection of the provisional authority, the management of the weapon systems of drones, security consulting, intelligence gathering...), non-military functions (policing, logistics, catering...) as well as activities more difficult to categorize (training of the Iraqi security forces, the guarding of pipelines and of ministries...). In fact, through this massive intervention of military professionals with civilian status, it’s the very distinction between the military and the civilian that has become blurred. Indeed, the PMCs in Iraq are very often controlled by the Coalition Provisional Authority ( - the CPA was however dissolved in June 2004 - ) of Paul Bremer, and not by the military command . . .

. . . the intervention of PMCs in Iraq also raises three more fundamental political issues concerning the use of commercialised means of coercion. The first issue is regulation. Many analysts seem to agree on the fact that PMCs have to be tightly regulated by governments in order to limit their potential for waywardness. But they frequently overlook the fact that this potential, and even the very existence of PMCs, is often inseparable from the interests and the professional networks of governmental bureaucracies (security agencies, military services...). These companies, far from being the rivals of state forces, are an important asset for state-policies (and vice versa). PMCs are often tightly linked to political interests as shown for example by the relations between Kellog, Brown & Root, recently involved in a financial scandal in Iraq, and the US Republican Administration. This means that subordinating PMCs to governments through regulations will not suffice: it will only institutionalise ties that existed prior to regulation. For example, whereas the US is often cited as an example of tight control of PMCs though its licensing system, it is this precise system that allows for the Department of State and the Pentagon to circumvent Congress for contracts less than 50 million dollars, thus giving themselves substantial autonomy from democratic control in military affairs. Hence, the issue is far more how to maintain democratic control on governments resorting to PMCs, than how to create mechanism allowing for the discretionary control of PMCs by the governments themselves. As shown by the intervention in Iraq, such democratic control is very difficult to achieve...

The second issue concerns accountability. To whom are these firms accountable in the case of grave violations of international standards and norms? It is not clear at all how international law (that proscribes mercenary activities) applies to PMCs. Whereas public soldiers are submitted to judicial military codes and international law, the employees of PMCs are not. They operate in a judicial grey-zone. Hence when employees of Dyncorp got involved in a child prostitution scandal in Bosnia, they were merely fired but never prosecuted. This issue is currently brought up by the fact that a company, hiring so-called «debriefers», seems to be directly involved in the acts of torture committed in the prison of Abu Ghraib. It’s important to note that this judicial grey-zone is not only a side effect of the recourse to PMCs, it is part of their very raison d’être: in many cases PMCs allow for governments to free themselves of the constraints imposed by international regulations. Indeed, they have been used to circumvent international arms embargos (Sierra Leone, Rwanda...) and international norms on the neutrality of peacekeeping forces. For example, the firm MPRI allowed the US government to help training and rearming the armed forces of the Muslim-Croat federation in Bosnia, in a context in which the engagement of US forces in peacekeeping in Bosnia-Herzegovina should have obliged the government to adopt a more neutral stance.

The third issue concerns their potentially destructive consequences. Can one really expect lucrative companies benefiting from the business of war to be efficient in the effective restoration of peace? The answer seems to be negative when considering that in many cases they are used by states to intervene in local conflicts without being suspected of interference or of acts of aggression. This was the case when the US government used the firm MPRI to support and train the Croatian Armed Forces after the collapse of Yugoslavia. This program led up to the lethal Operation Storm in 1995 that saw the ethnic cleansing of the Krajina region killing hundreds of civilians and leaving more than 170 000 homeless. This could never have been achieved directly by the US government without provoking a massive outcry in the international community. In many other instances PMCs have been used to pour small arms into war-torn societies, to train local militias and even to engage directly in combat, thus durably intensifying local conflicts.

From this perspective, the apparently seamless training of Iraqi police forces by Dyncorps and of Iraqi defence forces by Vinnel have also to be scrutinized. To train security forces is not only to prepare them to face an existing threat, it is also to a certain extent to «teach» them what ought to be considered a threat. In other words, it is not a matter of security-providers meeting a security-demand, but on the contrary a highly political matter. In a very conflictual and complicated political environment, it should be considered foolish to delegate such a function to private companies motivated primarily by profit and not by political considerations. In fact all of these three issues raise worrying questions as to the deep structural consequences that the current military policy in Iraq might have in the future . . .

The implications of all this are frightening, of course. It almost goes without saying that the ramifications to either a national or international peace movement are dire. These companies, driven only by the "ethics" of the post-capitalist market, virtually unregulated, will be increasingly desirous of and able to engage in "push-market" activities. Since their interests are served mainly by the existence of war, they will lobby for war. They really cannot be stopped. Even a few hundred thousand anti-war protesters on American streets make a dent in either their greed or their power.

As another aside . . . former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld's public demonization is nothing more than political theater. In fact, he was able to conduct and maintain the government's mission to privatize much of the US military capability, reducing both budget and accountability. He, in fact, did his job just fine. Even though he'll never be found in a US government office again (unless as a "consultant"), he will surely continue to sell his skills and influence in the private sector.

The anti-war movement is no longer up against just the power of liberal and conservative hawks in our and other nation-state governments. The foe is a gigantic ugly monster created by the capitalist system. It does not bode well for the future of peace.



Part 5, Looking the Beast in the Eye

Courage, it is said, is not the absence of fear. It is acting in spite of the fear.

Yes I'm scared. There's good reason to be. Even if I don't see them, there are snipers on the roof across the street and several drones on the way. But I insist on truth. I'm gonna fill in some of the blanks here, and I pray you'll look The Beast right in the eye.

The United States government has not formally declared war in over fifty years. The US Constitution confines that responsibility to the Congress. President Bush ignores that (because he prides himself on his ignorance), but screw him, y'know?

And Vice President Cheney, over the past week, has snarled his snarl in support of the President like the rabid bulldog that his truly is. Screw him, too, y'know? I realized that I, nearly sixty and weighing only a hundred-fifty pounds, could take the SOB on and knock him silly in a fair fight. Leave the shot gun home, Dick. You're a damn coward, slinking around in your "undisclosed locations." Come out, come out, wherever you are. You do scare me, but you don't intimidate me. You're out there snarling these days because more and more of the truth is seeping though the cracks and it looks like your game may be lost, the jig may be up, and your and Doubleduh's position may be overrun before 2008. I think these days you're more scared than we are.

OK, citizen, turn off "24" or "The Unit" or whatever the hell you're watching with the Miller Lite in your fist, and give me just a few minutes. Treat this like a commercial . . . I know you can do it. It might sting a little bit, because "the truth will set you free, but first it'll drive you crazy." You can take it, right? You're not a coward, right?

The US government hasn't declared war because the independent war-mongers and -profiteers are in charge and they both own the government and don't really need such a declaration. Even if they did, Capitol Hill is replete with sycophants, Democrat and Republican alike. In the absence of declared war, citizens of the United States and the citizens of a minority (yes, m i n o r i t y) of other nations, working for multinational corporations, are gleefully engaged in armed conflict. It's a condition and necessity of post-capitalism, so why the hell are we surprised?

The Middle East and East Asia. In Afghanistan, we're involved in a shoot'em up with the Taliban and some Shi'ite upstart "insurgents" and some Al-Qaeda fighters. Funny, we were there before we took on Hussein and Iraq, but we're not paying attention very much. Pass the poppies, please, we're about regain consciousness. The MSM can't find enough air-time to cover Afghanistan and Iraq and Britney and Anna Nicole and the Oscars all in a half hour (excuse me, in the seventeen minutes alloted to "news" among commercials), so something has to go.

Iraq? You think I'm gonna waste any time on that here? Fuggedaboudit! (Heh. I'm starting to sound like I did when I was writing ddjangoWIrE).

Africa. Semi-overtly, the US is involved in Somalia. And covertly in Nigeria and several other countries who think they own our oil which just happens to be under their soil. Just who do those darkies think they are, ovah deah??

Recently, from NPR:

Pentagon Creates Military Command for Africa by Jackie Northam.

Morning Edition, February 7, 2007· The Pentagon says it is creating a new unified military command for its operations in Africa. Africom, will cover all parts of the continent except Egypt, which will continue to fall under Central Command. Pentagon officials say the move signals Africa's growing importance to U.S. interests.

The idea for an Africa command has kicked around the halls of the Pentagon for more than a decade.

Last summer, then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld formed a planning team to examine what it would take to get an Africa command up and running. In early December, Rumsfeld made the recommendation to President Bush, who authorized a new command on the same day Rumsfeld left office.

Tuesday, Rumsfeld's successor, Robert Gates, announced the decision to Congress.

"This command will enable us to have a more effective and integrated approach than the current arrangement of dividing Africa between Central Command and European Command," Gates said.

Those two commands are overloaded because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the decision to create an Africa Command also reflects the rise in U.S. national security interests on the continent. [Editor's note: "rise in U.S. national security interests" means "oil" not "Al-Qaeda".]

U.S. intelligence agents — and terrorism experts — have long been concerned about the increasing infiltration of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations, especially in the northern trans-Saharan region.

The U.S. has launched a number of initiatives to counter the threat, including military and intelligence training missions by Special Forces units . . .

Indonesia and western Asia. The CIA and contracted PMFs are crawling all over those islands and peninsulas. East Timor, East Sheemore, that's what I say. See Mojo, last year, for more details about how the US has sponsored and supported the Indonesian government against the East Timorian people in their struggle to remain independent.

Central and South America. Speaking of spooks, I betcha you can't walk into a bar anywhere in Honduras without buying a beer and a ball for a Blackwater or SAIC employee.

In February, 2006 The Wayne Madsen Report had this (excerpted):

Deja vu for the Bush administration in Central America. The Bush administration is wasting no time in precipitating a military confrontation with the Nicaraguan government of President Daniel Ortega. The Bush administration is demanding that Nicaragua destroy 651 Soviet-era surface-to-air missiles obtained during the country's war with the U.S. backed contras in the 1980s. The Bush administration claims the missiles could wind up in the hands of the neocons' favorite bogeyman and likely contrivance, "Al Qaeda." Nicaragua insists the missiles are necessary because of neighboring Honduras's acquisition of military aircraft from the Bush administration. Nicaragua and Honduras are locked in a Caribbean Sea border dispute. The U.S. maintains a large airbase in Honduras. The Soto Cano base in Palmerola hosts Joint Task Force Bravo, comprised of U.S. Army, Marine, and Air Force personnel. Former U.S. ambassador to Honduras and de facto death squad commandante John Negroponte is now the Deputy Secretary of State. He is rejecting Nicaragua's demands that it be financially compensated for the destruction of the remaining Soviet SAM7s.m [Editor's note: Sine.Qua.Non yesterday noted, a year later, what John Negroponte is up to now.]

Its back to the future for Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega: Bush administration building up military forces and equipment in Honduras.

Meanwhile, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa is demanding that the U.S. vacate its Manta military and spy base on the Ecuadorian coast when the base's lease expires in 2009. The base's aircraft are involved in counterinsurgency operations directed against leftist rebels in neighboring Colombia. Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, and Brazil have all rejected U.S. overtures for basing and over flight rights. However, the recent arrival of former New York City Police Chief and failed Homeland Security Secretary nominee Bernard Kerik in Guyana to head up a national security contract may indicate that Guyana is the preferred choice to lace the U.S. base in Ecuador . . .

The White House is terrified by the resurgence of democratic socialism in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. Terrified.

Negroponte killed thousands in Nicaragua in the 80s using death squads organized by contras in exile in Honduras and funded by Iran-Contra. What better person than Negroponte to pull the same sleight of hand stunt in Iraq?

Iran. A planted headline here, a planted headline there. It's so easy, ain't it George? Just your speed. All you have to do is change the "q" to "n" and let Cheney carry the load. But . . .

Axis of Logic, two weeks ago, excerpted from John Pilger's "Iran: The War Begins":

As opposition grows in America to the failed Iraq adventure, the Bush administration is preparing public opinion for an attack on Iran, its latest target, by the spring.

The United States is planning what will be a catastrophic attack on Iran. For the Bush cabal, the attack will be a way of "buying time" for its disaster in Iraq. In announcing what he called a "surge" of American troops in Iraq, George W Bush identified Iran as his real target. "We will interrupt the flow of support [to the insurgency in Iraq] from Iran and Syria," he said. "And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

"Networks" means Iran. "There is solid evidence," said a State Department spokesman on 24 January, "that Iranian agents are involved in these networks and that they are working with individuals and groups in Iraq and are being sent there by the Iranian government." Like Bush's and Tony Blair's claim that they had irrefutable evidence that Saddam Hussein was deploying weapons of mass destruction, the "evidence" lacks all credibility. Iran has a natural affinity with the Shia majority of Iraq, and has been implacably opposed to al-Qaeda, condemning the 9/11 attacks and supporting the United States in Afghanistan. Syria has done the same. Investigations by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and others, including British military officials, have concluded that Iran is not engaged in the cross-border supply of weapons. General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said no such evidence exists.

As the American disaster in Iraq deepens and domestic and foreign opposition grows, "neo-con" fanatics such as Vice-President Dick Cheney believe their opportunity to control Iran's oil will pass unless they act no later than the spring. For public consumption, there are potent myths. In concert with Israel and Washington's Zionist and fundamentalist Christian lobbies, the Bushites say their "strategy" is to end Iran's nuclear threat.

In fact, Iran possesses not a single nuclear weapon, nor has it ever threatened to build one; the CIA estimates that, even given the political will, Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon before 2017, at the earliest. Unlike Israel and the United States, Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it was an original signatory, and has allowed routine inspections under its legal obligations - until gratuitous, punitive measures were added in 2003, at the behest of Washington. No report by the International Atomic Energy Agency has ever cited Iran for diverting its civilian nuclear programme to military use.

The IAEA has said that for most of the past three years its inspectors have been able to "go anywhere and see anything". They inspected the nuclear installations at Isfahan and Natanz on 10 and 12 January and will return on 2 to 6 February. The head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, says that an attack on Iran will have "catastrophic consequences" and only encourage the regime to become a nuclear power.

Unlike its two nemeses, the US and Israel, Iran has attacked no other countries. It last went to war in 1980, when invaded by Saddam Hussein, who was backed and equipped by the US, which supplied chemical and biological weapons produced at a factory in Maryland. Unlike Israel, the world's fifth military power - with its thermo nuclear weapons aimed at Middle East targets and an unmatched record of defying UN resolutions, as the enforcer of the world's longest illegal occupation - Iran has a history of obeying international law and occupies no territory other than its own.

The "threat" from Iran is entirely manufactured, aided and abetted by familiar, compliant media language that refers to Iran's "nuclear ambitions", just as the vocabulary of Saddam's non-existent WMD arsenal became common usage. Accompanying this is a demonizing that has become standard practice. As Edward Herman has pointed out, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "has done yeoman service in facilitating [this]"; yet a close examination of his notorious remark about Israel in October 2005 reveals how it has been distorted. According to Juan Cole, American professor of modern Middle East and south Asian history at the University of Michigan, and other Farsi language analysts, Ahmadinejad did not call for Israel to be "wiped off the map". He said: "The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." This, says Cole, "does not imply military action or killing anyone at all". Ahmadinejad compared the demise of the Israeli regime to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Iranian regime is repressive, but its power is diffuse and exercised by the mullahs, with whom Ahmadinejad is often at odds. An attack would surely unite them . . .

All this is happening very quickly, beyond the speed of sound, approaching the speed of light total darkness. Remember that a black hole sucks in all light (therefore truth) and our government is a black hole.

Not only will the Iranian people suffer the deadly consequences. Because this adventure in Iran will further drain resources from "Homeland Security" increases the possibility of another 911. By the way, don't you miss the rainbow "terrorist alert" thingy? Quickly now: name the current Secretary of Homeland Security. Time's up. Time's up. Time's Up.

Aw, c'mon ddjango. Such gloom and doom! Relax. Lighten up fer godsake. We're the greatest, most powerful country on earth. A buncha towel heads ain't gonna duhfeet the forces of democracy.

Oh, sorry folks. Don't know what got into me. I mean the Dow Jones is still riding above 12K. [UPDATE. OOOPS: Dow crashed 400+ points after China skid.] I'm willing to bet this was engineered by the Chinese as an outcome of the weakness of the US dollar. So, did you get wiped out? Anybody? Anybody?]

Microsoft just released Vista. Cingular and AT&T just merged. All is well on Fantasy Island. I guess I shouldn't be bothering you with this stuff. I mean, it's only The Beast, right?



Part 6, Being at Peace

In the Wikipedia, peace is defined as follows:

Peace is a state of harmony, absent open hostility. This term is applied to describe a cessation of or lapse in violent international conflict; in this international context, peace is the opposite of war. Peace can also describe a relationship between any parties characterized by respect, justice, and goodwill.

More generally, peace can pertain to an individual relative to her or his environment, as peaceful can describe calm, serenity, and silence. This latter understanding of peace can also pertain to an individual's sense of himself or herself, as to be "at peace" with one's self would indicate the same serenity, calm, and equilibrium within oneself . . .

There are many different definitions and interpretations of "peace". The definition given here is most attractive, I think, because it speaks to both a global aspect and a personal aspect

In these pages, I have written often about the necessity of personal action and practice being the foundation of global peace, rather than the other way around. In the US, unfortunately, government in general, and peace specifically, seems to be something that is something that someone else or something else does while we are going about our lives. We appoint/hire "representatives" to make them happen, then express our satisfaction/praise or anger/disappoint every two years in the electoral process.

I hope it is obvious that this just isn't working for us. In the previous five parts of this series I have only briefly laid out evidence that the forces of war have continuously outpaced those of peace and have created a more sturdy framework for escalation of the former. At the same time, because many of us (including yours truly) have received rewards from the pursuit of war, militarism, and capitalism, those same "many of us" sense the pursuit of peace must needs the sacrifice of much of that comfort and convenience.

Creeping into the middle of all this is a pervasive sense that war and its tragedies are inevitable, so "what's the use?" "Why should I risk the material comforts I have if no body else will risk them; I'll just keep what I have until the inevitable apocalypce takes place."

Again, let me say that I personally am easily the victim of this thinking. I'm white, American, and, all things considered, pretty comfortable. I'm also nearly sixty years old, so I won't have to endure war much longer. Why shouldn't I reap the benefits of post-capitalism and -militarism in my final years. I've worked hard for many years and deserve to keep what I've gained.

My personal response to my own fear - for that is what it truly is - must be a moral and spiritual one. It has nothing to do with whether I think I'll achieve heaven. I actually have no idea whether heaven or god exists. All I really know is that I must take personal responsibility for myself insofar as it benefits not just me but all other human beings. For me, this not a "tit for tat" position. It is not because I hope that other humans will do unto me as I do undo them. I can't guarantee that. But I do guarantee that taking such responsibility gains more spiritual comfort than the material rewards do. I find that I am at peace and such peace is never at the expense of anyone else's.

What I wish to do with these words and with my own spiritual practice is lay out some alternatives to war. I cannot judge. I cannot convince you to follow these ideals. That's your choice, and, if you take it, your responsibility . . .

First, I beg your indulgence while I tie the themes of my prior parts to this part of my series.

On February 8th of this year, former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney made a speech before the assembly of the Kuala Lumpur Peace Conference, entitled "The World Can't Wait, Won't Wait, Isn't Waiting." Before I excerpt it, I remind you that it was McKinney who filed a bill in the US House of Representatives, just before she left Conress, calling for President Bush's impeachment:

It is among the greatest pleasures of my life to have been invited to participate in this Conference dedicated to peace. I look forward to joining the international community of activists dedicated to change based on the principles of dignity, justice, self-determination, and peace for all the peoples of the world.

Everyone in this room and every participant in this Conference is here because we want peace. Peace and justice.

And these principles of peace and dignity, justice and self-determination were embodied in the policies pursued by our host, The Honorable Tun Mahathir, while he was Prime Minister of Malaysia. In fact, it was Tun Mahathir who put Malaysia on the map for me when he stood up to the world's economic powers and refused to cash their check of dependency. Instead, Tun Mahathir returned their check and said out loud for the entire world to hear that Malaysia would chart its own course. As a result of that singular act of pride, self-determination, confidence, and independence, Malaysia boasts a strong economy and a legacy of uncommon independence.

But, Tun Mahathir has also learned that such independent thinking, and confidence in the people comes at a personal price. For while his message ricocheted around the world and struck me, an African American woman steeped in the Old Confederate South of the United States, the people we fight for are rarely in a position to reward such acts of courage. Yet the powers that be always seem to be able to exact their punishment. So oftentimes, where there is courage, truth, compassion, belief in the people, and a solid sense of right and wrong, there is also aloneness, vulnerability, or deep disappointment.

But instead of abandoning the struggle, we come together at this important Conference to commune with each other, learn from each other, give love and support to each other, recharge our batteries, and continue our work on behalf of what is right in a world currently filled with so much wrong.

Not too long ago, I was asked by Debra Sweet to endorse the activities of the American peace-seeking organization named World Can't Wait. They advocate the impeachment of George Bush and other Members of his Administration because in their view, the World Can't Wait.

I agree with them . . .

One way for the American people to demand accountability from their leaders and a return to respectability is to impeach the Bush Administration. However, the complicity of both major U.S. parties in this intensifying debacle is clear now that the Democrats have taken impeachment "off the table." And if the Democratic Congress, that owes its majority status to antiwar voters, votes to fund the war, then our mission will become very clear.

We will have to change the structure of U.S. politics because changing the people, clearly, isn't enough.

This is quite possible with the right set of circumstances. And the current elected leadership is helping to create those circumstances.

When the Presidential election was stolen in Mexico, defenders of democracy shut Mexico City down for weeks until the unrightful, new Mexican President was sworn in. After that, they formed a "parallel" government. And if Mexican defenders of democracy can do it, certainly American defenders of democracy can do it, too.

For us, nothing less than the soul of our country is at stake. But for the world, nothing less than the fate of mankind is at stake . . .

The day before that speech, Lee Hall, writing for Dissident Voice submitted "Homeland Security is Neither Ecology, Justice and [sic] the Politics of Borders." Clips:

In a song often called one of the past century's greatest, John Lennon sang, "Imagine there's no country."

Is it easy? Should we try?

As it is, we interact with the world as citizens of countries, rarely questioning the nation's existence. The sacrifice of our children's blood proves it. Leaders talk of vanquishing evil, and we agree that outsiders officially constitute enemies. "We wish so desperately to split apart evil from good," explains Holocaust psychologist Richard Koenigsberg, "and that's when the killing begins." As an industry of news and foreign policy analysis steps in, treating the slaughter of human beings as a normal and inevitable part of politics, we learn to brush aside our natural reaction -- war is insane!

In October 2001, Donald Rumsfeld called terrorism "a cancer on the human condition" to explain the beginning of the massive bombing of Afghanistan, in which villagers were mutilated and killed in droves. Since the invasion of Iraq three years ago, hundreds of thousands have been killed; torture has proliferated and children have been jailed. Fear of the "cancer" allowed a critical mass of North Americans to accept diminished civil liberties, mass detentions, and cutbacks in basic services -- such as public transportation, needed to lessen our strain on fossil fuels.

Imagine people from varied areas of social activism investing our collective energies into humanity's prospects for transcending this cycle.

But how? When activists go forth to debate with positions that are not sane -- "Speak truth to power," goes the slogan -- they're arguing with the artificial power of authority, and they immediately feel oppressed. Perhaps the better way, rather than to oppose this artificial power, is to propose an alternative way of thinking. One by which we might cultivate our own power.

Organized human warfare appears to comprise a mere fraction of one percent of humanity's three million-year existence. Granted, this recent period fashioned our current social structure, with all its pressure to equate domination with success. Our treatment of other animals provides a harrowing model in this regard, for today they are objects of a dominion so complete we rarely think of ourselves as vanquishers even as we consume them. Laws constructed by and for the people refer to other animals as natural resources, scientific models, pets, food or entertainment. We've systematically obstructed our ability to perceive them as beings with their own interests and experiences.

Our schoolbooks are full of generals and cowboys, action figures who overwhelm the terrain, its inhabitants, and history itself. We exalt the pioneering spirit of the ranchers-these days, more accurately called the profiteering spirit of corporations -- while clear-cutting and predator control schemes wipe out countless animals. In a culture that takes violence for granted, no wonder we're so concerned about our rights. Yet we lack even the simple right to move freely across our own habitat . . .

You may say I'm another dreamer. But if we can imagine taking down our fences, we may well be capable of ensuring continued life on Earth . . .

I can imagine that. Can you? Please try. (Lee Hall, by the way, is best known as an ecologist and animal rights activist.

In one more "negative" incentive, here is some of Prison Planet's Alex Jones' "This Disaster is coming... and FEMA won't be there to save you!" . . .

Today, a strange paradox exists. The threat of terrorism has escalated, rogue nations are developing the bomb, weather patterns are behaving irregularly and gateways through biotechnology could unleash upon earth pestilence of biblical proportions. People around the world feel uneasy about what tomorrow might bring.

Yet many people, especially in America, are indifferent to the need to prepare for the unexpected.

One reason some neglect preparedness is a peculiar defeatism that says, "If bad things are going to happen, there's nothing we can do about it anyway." In a word -- dumb.

A second, more likely reason for failing to prepare has to do with how well off we are in the United States. We trust in our bank accounts to sustain us. Unfortunately, money sitting in savings and investments are useless if one becomes stuck in a landslide or other crisis.

Perhaps the greatest reason why some people never plan for disaster is that they view the need to prepare for the unexpected as too complicated and costly. They imagine the back yard being dug up for construction of a massive bomb shelter and the basement crammed with row after row of dry grains and large containers filled with backup water . . .

Indeed, Prison Planet is a survivalist entity. I quoted it here, because war seems much more inevitable than peace, and, as Alex suggests, one should be prepared. After all, this is by far not an "either/or" situation, any more than George's Bush's "with us or with out us".

One of P!'s editors, Michael Sky, at Thinking Peace last December, wrote "Doing the Right Thing":

More than 3,000 young men and women have died in Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11, and thousands more have been permanently scarred by the wars. All were volunteers, and for many 9/11 was the reason they enlisted. Because of that attack on America and the loss of so many innocent lives, a wave of young Americans were inspired to do their duty, go in harm's way, serve and protect, kill the enemy, do the right thing.

I guess most Americans feel a stirring combination of pride and appreciation when they hear such stories. I feel a depressing mix of fear and doom. Here's why:

Post-9/11 we consider it noble to track down and kill those responsible. We accept that in the process we will also take many entirely innocent lives. The price of war, we say, the blame lies with the terrorists for attacking us.

Once we accept that the events of 9/11 totally justify that thousands of young Americans enlist into the armed forces, train in methods of death and destruction, develop hatred for certain nationalities, races, religions, and/or ethnic groups, and then fly off to some other land where they can serve us by inflicting death and destruction on them, including, inevitably, the murder of obscene numbers of innocents and the mass demolition of civilian infrastructure, then we have assured, and justified, the next attacks on us.

Why is this so hard for Americans to understand? The people of Afghanistan and Iraq have suffered through an unending string of 9/11s inflicted for the most part by Americans and other outsiders. Should we just assume that their young men and women are so cowardly and ignoble that they won't do the right thing? . . .

An imperative, from Worker's World, "Opposition grows to U.S. militarism" by Sara Flounders:

Growing opposition to U.S. militarism is having an impact on the Pentagon’s aggressive war plans far beyond Iraq.

An example of the changing mood can be seen in the mass movement opposing proposed new U.S. bases in the Czech Republic and Poland.

In recent polls a clear majority of the population of those countries is opposed to U.S. bases there. By an overwhelming majority, people are demanding the right to decide on this dangerous escalation in a national referendum.

Thousands have signed their names to petitions and participated in rallies and demonstrations demanding “No to the Bases.”

The petition in Czech Republic states that the bases “would serve to reawaken the Cold War in Europe and could reignite a new arms race. It is unthinkable that a democratic country should make such a decision of such long-range impact, as the acceptance of foreign military bases on its soil, without an open debate. Neither the government nor the Parliament has the mandate to make such a decision alone.”

More than 40 organizations are part of the No to the Bases Campaign formed last July in the Czech Republic.

The approval of the bases seemed a foregone conclusion when the U.S. military started surveying for sites in Poland and Czech Republic four years ago. The missile shield would consist of radar sites and large missile interceptor silos. The radar would have the ability to monitor almost the entire territory of Russia . . .

Growing opposition to U.S. militarism is having an impact on the Pentagon’s aggressive war plans far beyond Iraq.

An example of the changing mood can be seen in the mass movement opposing proposed new U.S. bases in the Czech Republic and Poland.

In recent polls a clear majority of the population of those countries is opposed to U.S. bases there. By an overwhelming majority, people are demanding the right to decide on this dangerous escalation in a national referendum.

Thousands have signed their names to petitions and participated in rallies and demonstrations demanding “No to the Bases.”

The petition in Czech Republic states that the bases “would serve to reawaken the Cold War in Europe and could reignite a new arms race. It is unthinkable that a democratic country should make such a decision of such long-range impact, as the acceptance of foreign military bases on its soil, without an open debate. Neither the government nor the Parliament has the mandate to make such a decision alone.”

More than 40 organizations are part of the No to the Bases Campaign formed last July in the Czech Republic.

The approval of the bases seemed a foregone conclusion when the U.S. military started surveying for sites in Poland and Czech Republic four years ago. The missile shield would consist of radar sites and large missile interceptor silos. The radar would have the ability to monitor almost the entire territory of Russia.

I'm going to finish this piece, and this "Waging Peace" series, by pointing you to several sites and voices which lay out some resources for practicing peace at the individual/personal level.

Using these resources presumes that "these are not the end times."

Bob Koehler's "A World That Works for Everybody" at OpEd News:

Peace is a chant, a vibration, a leap of the human spirit into the 21st century and beyond. It's also HR 808 - radical common sense crafted into a bill and introduced this week into the new Congress by Dennis Kucinich.

Let me describe for you, as best I can in this brief space, the heave of emotion this piece of legislation and the campaign to support it have set off in me the past few days. For this I thank and blame the Peace Alliance, which held a conference in D.C. over the weekend in support of the bill - well, it was half conference, fact-dense and nitty-gritty, brimming with info on bullying and suicide and war; and half revival, alive with music and global religion, full of God and Buddha and the spirit of the Founding Fathers and Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Jane Addams and Susan B. Anthony and many others . . .

Huffington Post, "Tens Of Thousands Protest Bigger US Military Base In Italy", February 17, excerpted:

Tens of thousands of Italians under heavy police guard protested on Saturday against the expansion of a U.S. military base that has divided the center-left government.

Leftists who last year voted for Prime Minister Romano Prodi, an Iraq war opponent, turned out in droves to decry his approval for U.S. plans to expand the military base in the city of Vicenza, home to the 173rd Airborne Brigade . . .

From The Times Online (UK), February 7, "Giants meet to counter US power "Giants meet to counter US power":

India, China and Russia account for 40 per cent of the world’s population, a fifth of its economy and more than half of its nuclear warheads. Now they appear to be forming a partnership to challenge the US-dominated world order that has prevailed since the end of the Cold War.

Foreign ministers from the three emerging giants met in Delhi yesterday to discuss ways to build a more democratic “multipolar world”.

It was the second such meeting in the past two years and came after an unprecedented meeting between their respective leaders, Manmohan Singh, Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin, during the G8 summit in St Petersburg in July.

It also came only four days after Mr Putin stunned Western officials by railing against American foreign policy at a security conference in Munich . . .

I have quoted these do suggest that there is a groundswell of global movement of opposition to militaristic US governmental policies and in that a resource for pacifist Americans. We may be able to join that movement if we can ignore our own spiritual narcissism and realize we can't go it alone . . . but maybe we don't have to. Where declining reliance on American materialism occurs, we may find strength in global pacifism.

Briefly:

At Tom Paine, excerpted from Alternet February 8, by Phyllis Vennis, "How to Prevent a War with Iran":

To stop the looming war with Iran, Congress needs to pre-empt the possibility of the White House launching an attack. The secret weapon is the Boland Amendment . . .

In 1982, angered by a White House secretly escalating an unpopular war in Central America, the House passed the Boland Amendment, a rider to the Defense Appropriations Act of 1983.

The amendment was crafted by Massachusetts Congressman Edward Boland, and was designed to cut off funds the CIA and other intelligence agencies were using to carry out sabotage attacks in Nicaragua and to support the anti-government Contra guerrillas. The Senate had a Republican majority at the time, but even members of President Reagan's own party were outraged when he launched his Contra-backing warfare without even notifying Congressional oversight committees . . .

I'm going to end here. You need to do some work on your own. I will mention that there are many resources for study and action for peace. There are several on P!'s sidebar here. Some others are easily accessible: American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Antiwar.com, and War Resisters League, to name a few. I can only hope and encourage you to join them and the millions of Americans and movements in other countries and . . .

As always,
Be at peace.