Slovenian diplomat quits after report of US meddling in EU presidency
(LJUBLJANA) - The Slovenian foreign ministry announced the resignation of a top Slovenian diplomat Tuesday who press reports claimed had taken orders from the United States about Slovenia's EU presidency.
The Foreign Ministry announced on its website that political director Mitja Drobnic had resigned and would be replaced by state secretary Matjaz Sinkovec during Slovenia's six-month term as EU president.
Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel "has accepted the resignation of political director Mitja Drobnic", the ministry said in a statement.
The resignation comes after a report in the daily newspaper Dnevnik last week which said that Slovenia had been taking orders from the US.
According to the newspaper, which quoted an internal foreign ministry report, Drobnic had met in December with US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried, who allegedly suggested to the Slovenian side what their priorities should be during the EU presidency.
Fried encouraged Slovenia to be among the first to recognise the independence of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, the newspaper claimed.
Fried had also reportedly told Drobnic that there was "no need to worry" about the recognition of Kosovo's independence by all EU members, but that the most important thing was for an EU mission of police and lawyers to be sent to the province "despite critical positions of Russia and Serbia," the newspaper said.
Following 18 months of failed negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, the majority ethnic Albanian province has vowed to declare independence.
The United Nations has run Kosovo since 1999, when a NATO bombing campaign drove out Belgrade's forces waging a crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians who make up 90 percent of the population.
Foreign Minister Rupel has not so far denied the existence of the internal report, nor its content, but said earlier this week that an investigation had been launched to find the source of the leak.
In view of the leak, "we are having some difficulties with our interlocutors, especially from the US," Rupel told Slovenian state television late Monday.
Slovenia, a former Yugoslav state that declared independence in 1991, is the first new EU member to take over the EU presidency and it has made Kosovo one of its priorities during its six-month term.
Original article posted here.
Showing posts with label US. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Friday, November 02, 2007
Not making friends and finding new ways to lose money
'Unwelcoming' US sees sharp fall in visitors since 9/11
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The number of foreign visitors to the United States has plummeted since the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington because foreigners don't feel welcome, tourism professionals said Thursday.
"Since September 11, 2001, the United States has experienced a 17 percent decline in overseas travel, costing America 94 billion dollars in lost visitor spending, nearly 200,000 jobs and 16 billion dollars in lost tax revenue," the Discover America advocacy campaign said in a statement.
Chairman Stevan Porter lamented the "extraordinary decline" in the number of overseas visitors to the United States, while the advocacy group's executive director, Geoff Freeman, blamed the slump on the shabby welcome many foreigners feel they get in the United States.
"It's clear what's keeping people away in the post-9/11 environment: it is the perception around the world that travelers aren't welcome," Freeman told AFP.
"Travelers around the world feel the US entry experience is among the world's worst," Freeman said, calling on the US government to work with the private sector to make visa acquisition more efficient, the entry process traveler-friendly, and to improve communication.
The head of the Travel Industry Association, Roger Dow, at a recent briefing for reporters also stressed the importance "of the welcome we issue to people.
"What affects travel and tourism affects our economy and our image around the world. Travel and tourism is the face of America, whether it's people coming here or Americans going elsewhere," he said.
"It's the person coming from India to look at a company in America for parts, or a person from South America who can't get into the country for a conference because he can't get a visa," Dow said.
The Discover America Partnership was set up by US business leaders last year to try to redress the flagging image of the United States through a campaign of public diplomacy, waged equally by the government, business and public.
"The greatest public diplomacy tool America has is her people. Those who have visited the US and interacted with the American people consistently feel more positive about the US than those who have not visited," the advocacy group says on its website, citing the Global Attitudes Project of the Pew Research Center, a think tank based in Washington.
Last year, only 56 percent of Britons had a positive opinion of the United States compared with 83 percent in 2000, the Pew Global Attitudes report for 2006 shows.
Thirty-nine percent of French people saw the United States in a positive light last year, compared with 62 percent in 2000.
In Turkey 12 percent had good things to say about the United States last year -- 40 percentage points down on 2000.
"The United States has to do what every other nation in the world does, and that is to promote itself to visitors," Freeman said.
"If you look at visitor numbers from the UK before 9/11, we had 4.8 million visitors. Last year, the number was 4.1 million.
"Looking to 2010, the Department of Commerce is projecting an increase in those numbers, but only of one percent over the course of 10 years.
"If I ran a business that had one percent growth in 10 years, I'd be fired," Freeman said.
Original article posted here.
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The number of foreign visitors to the United States has plummeted since the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington because foreigners don't feel welcome, tourism professionals said Thursday.
"Since September 11, 2001, the United States has experienced a 17 percent decline in overseas travel, costing America 94 billion dollars in lost visitor spending, nearly 200,000 jobs and 16 billion dollars in lost tax revenue," the Discover America advocacy campaign said in a statement.
Chairman Stevan Porter lamented the "extraordinary decline" in the number of overseas visitors to the United States, while the advocacy group's executive director, Geoff Freeman, blamed the slump on the shabby welcome many foreigners feel they get in the United States.
"It's clear what's keeping people away in the post-9/11 environment: it is the perception around the world that travelers aren't welcome," Freeman told AFP.
"Travelers around the world feel the US entry experience is among the world's worst," Freeman said, calling on the US government to work with the private sector to make visa acquisition more efficient, the entry process traveler-friendly, and to improve communication.
The head of the Travel Industry Association, Roger Dow, at a recent briefing for reporters also stressed the importance "of the welcome we issue to people.
"What affects travel and tourism affects our economy and our image around the world. Travel and tourism is the face of America, whether it's people coming here or Americans going elsewhere," he said.
"It's the person coming from India to look at a company in America for parts, or a person from South America who can't get into the country for a conference because he can't get a visa," Dow said.
The Discover America Partnership was set up by US business leaders last year to try to redress the flagging image of the United States through a campaign of public diplomacy, waged equally by the government, business and public.
"The greatest public diplomacy tool America has is her people. Those who have visited the US and interacted with the American people consistently feel more positive about the US than those who have not visited," the advocacy group says on its website, citing the Global Attitudes Project of the Pew Research Center, a think tank based in Washington.
Last year, only 56 percent of Britons had a positive opinion of the United States compared with 83 percent in 2000, the Pew Global Attitudes report for 2006 shows.
Thirty-nine percent of French people saw the United States in a positive light last year, compared with 62 percent in 2000.
In Turkey 12 percent had good things to say about the United States last year -- 40 percentage points down on 2000.
"The United States has to do what every other nation in the world does, and that is to promote itself to visitors," Freeman said.
"If you look at visitor numbers from the UK before 9/11, we had 4.8 million visitors. Last year, the number was 4.1 million.
"Looking to 2010, the Department of Commerce is projecting an increase in those numbers, but only of one percent over the course of 10 years.
"If I ran a business that had one percent growth in 10 years, I'd be fired," Freeman said.
Original article posted here.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
If the book is as informative as the book review, it is well worth reading
"Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire"
Review of James Petras' most recent book
by Stephen Lendman
James Petras is Binghamton University, New York Professor Emeritus of Sociology, whose credentials and achievements are long and impressive. He's a noted academic figure on the left, a well-respected Latin American expert, and a longtime chronicler of the region's popular struggles as well as being an advisor to the landless workers (MST) in Brazil and unemployed workers in Argentina. Petras is also a prolific author. He's written hundreds of articles and 63 books (and counting), published in 29 languages, including his latest one and subject of this review - "Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire."
The book is information rich on a core issue of our time. It discusses the US empire's "systemic dimensions," evolving changes in its ruling class, its corporatist system, myths about its coming collapse, contradictions in the current debate on immigration and market liberalization policies, the use of force and genocidal carnage, corruption as a market penetrating tool, the Israeli Lobby's power and influence, Latin American relations and events in the region, social and armed resistance, and much more in four power-packed parts under 17 subject chapter headings.
It's all covered below giving readers a detailed sampling of Petras' thoroughly documented, powerful and insightful account of his subject - who rules America, who's ruled, the US imperial role in the world economy and politics, and challenges to it in China, Latin America and the Middle East. This is another must-read book by a distinguished intellect and major figure on the left who writes dozens of them. This is his latest.
Part I: The US Empire As A System
Petras distinguishes between who sets policies and rules America and whose interests are served. He defines the ruling class as "people in key positions in financial, corporate and other business institutions" with rules "established, modified and adjusted" as the composition and "shifts in power" within the ruling class change over time. One example is manufacuring's decline (from outsourcing to low cost countries) as a "multidimensional financial sector" (finance capital) rose in prominence with Wall Street's influence especially dominant.
Petras defines "finance capital" to include investment banks, pension funds, hedge funds, saving and loan banks, investment funds and many other "operative managers" of a multi-trillion dollar economy they've all benefitted hugely from. They've been the driving force powering real estate and financial markets speculation, agribusiness, commodity production and manufacturing. Petras calls "finance capital" the "midwife" of wealth and capital as well as a "direct owner of the means of production and distribution."
He stratifies it into three sub-groups from top to bottom in importance: big private equity bankers and hedge fund managers, Wall street executives, and senior officials of private and Wall Street public equity funds as well as major figures in top law and accounting firms. Political leaders are drawn from their ranks with Wall Street in the lead and one firm in particular standing out - Goldman Sachs. Today, its former CEO Henry Paulson is the de facto US economic czar in charge of proving doomsayers wrong about the US economy with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's money creation power partnered with him. Both of them must also navigate around the powerful Israeli Lobby and its pro-war agenda that could lead to catastrophic consequences if the US and/or Israel attack Iran and the Middle East explodes and disrupts oil flows.
Petras sees an inevitable split between wealth-first financial ruling class objectives and militarists in the Bush administration, their counterparts in Israel, and the Lobby representing Israeli interests with a stranglehold on most of Congress. The battle lines shape up over Israeli Middle East dominance at the cost of imperial overreach, an escalating trade deficit, a ballooning national debt, decreasing capital inflows to offset it, and a declining dollar as other nations move to euros, yen and pounds sterling. Something has to give, says Petras, as both sides support opposing agendas that only a crisis-provoking widespread backlash may resolve.
For now, however, things couldn't be better for the ruling class (despite their disrupted plans in Iraq and Afghanistan) with the top 2% of adults in the world owning half its wealth, the top 10% with 85% of it, and the bottom half with just 1%. The result is an unprecedented wealth disparity with corporate CEO's on average earning over 400 times the median income of wage and salaried workers, and for top-earning speculators and hedge fund managers the ratio is 1000 to one with some having incomes topping a billion dollars a year. In addition, corporate wealth was at a record 43% of 2005 national income accruing to profits, rents and other non-wage/salary sources compared to a declining percentage of it to individuals, except for those at the top gaining hugely.
Petras states: "The growth of monstrous and rigid class inequalities reflects the narrow social base of an economy dominated by finance capital" with the US redistributing far less to its people than other developed nations like those in Western Europe. Democrats are as culpable as Republicans with both parties tied to big monied interests through campaign funding and the power of lobbies. It makes everyone in the political power structure unwilling to change things so they don't. The result is working Americans suffer hugely while those at the top never had it so good. It signals warnings of a potential worker backlash ahead that for now have gone unheeded. Elitists ignore it at their peril, so far without negative consequences to their dominance, but watch out.
Capitalism or US Workers in Crisis?
Petras notes how for years many on the left and some in the financial community have been predicting the "coming collapse, decline or demise of capitalism" as though (for some) wishing would make it so. They're still predicting, but it hasn't happened, and Petras explains why not. It's because business and government partnered (especially since the 1980s) to let workers take the pain so business could gain and prosper. It's done it hugely and continues to despite the resurgent summer doomsday predictions still ongoing.
In a letter to clients, noted investment manager Jeremy Grantham explained why business is resilient by comparing the global financial system (with its US anchor) to a giant suspension bridge. Thousands of bolts hold it together, so when some of them fail, even a lot of them, it's not enough to bring it down. Short of "broad-based....financial metal fatigue," even more bolts may fail, but he's betting the bridge will hold, supported by amazing "animal spirits," at least for now.
Grantham is likely right in the near term, while Petras takes a longer view, and his arguments are compelling. He sees labor today in crisis with living standards declining the result of reduced or eliminated business benefits, government services and stagnating wages. He also lists popular myths predicting doom ahead - the growing budget and current account deficits; ballooning national debt; excess speculation; weakening dollar; high energy costs; outsourcing of jobs at all levels, and more. Petras maintains these problems aren't as serious as claimed because:
-- budget deficits declined in 2006 as tax revenues rose from high-end earners' greater income at the expense of labor getting less;
-- foreign investment in the US remains high;
-- the dollar remains the world's reserve currency; over time, it weakens and strengthens based on interest rates, political events, and the overall level of economic activity; nonetheless, the dollar weakened considerably after the Fed cut interest rates and depreciated to an all-time low against a basket of six of its major peer currencies that include the euro, pound and yen; in addition, the New York Board of Trade index hit its weakest level since it came out in 1973, and the same is true for the Fed's trade-weighted dollar index since its creation in 1971; what's ahead? Likely more of the same until everyone believes the dollar is dead; then, watch out;
-- a decade-long trade deficit hasn't caused apocalypse;
-- strong economic underpinnings (Grantham's giant suspension bridge) offset excess speculation, and workers, not capital, take the pain;
-- high energy profits overseas are recycled back into dollar-based investments and have been for years although countries like Iran, Venezuela and others are moving away from the dollar at least for now;
-- the potential of new technologies is underestimated;
-- corporate profits have had their longest ever run of double-digit gains; the number of millionaires and billionaires is growing; the rich are becoming super-rich; and the beneficiaries are largely in North America, Western Europe (plus Russia) and Asia.
Petras concludes that as long as worker exploitation continues, the fundamental law of "casino capitalism" applies - the house never loses, or in this case the neighborhood (of developed nations) with some in it doing better than others and the US their anchor. The weakness of US labor and its history of overpaid, underperforming, corrupted leaders explains why with only 7.4% today in the private sector organized compared to 34.7% in the 1950s. Unless new social and political movements surface under activist leaders, Marx's "dirty secret" and Adam Smith's "vile maxim of the masters of mankind" will continue proving "the wealth of all nations" depends on the rich taking it "all for ourselves and (leaving) nothing for" the working class.
Market Liberalization and Forced Emigration
Migration and so-called illegal immigrants make headlines but never the reasons why that are two-fold: fleeing political strife (as in Iraq) or for economic reasons that the imperial globalized market system causes horrifically. The latter forces millions of Mexicans el norte because of NAFTA. Its disastrous effects on their lives leaves them no choice - emigrate or perish.
Petras explains when protective trade barriers come down, millions of small farmers and entrepreneurs are no match for the power of subsidized agribusiness, big manufacturers and corporate service providers. They're displaced when their livelihoods are lost, and that creates a huge surplus army of labor on the move and an opportunity for business to exploit for profit. It affects all skill types and levels (farm workers to computer specialists to doctors), undermines unions, and allows management to replace higher-paid US workers with low-wage immigrants at their mercy and getting little. Pay is kept low, benefits few or none, working conditions unsafe, unions weakened, and dare complain and be sent home.
Petras notes that as imperial power grows, "the massive movement of dislocated workers toward the imperial center multiplies," and there's no end in sight nor will there be as long as highly exploitative sectors like agriculture, construction and low-end manufacturing and services thrive on it. Workers lose and so do "sender" countries. They bore the costs of raising, educating, training and providing services for millions with "receiver" nations getting the benefits. It amounts to multi-billions in the form of critically needed skilled areas lost that include professionals like doctors, nurses, teachers and others. This won't ever change unless worker movements unite against it.
Empire-Building and Corruption
Petras notes how empire-building "is the driving force of the US economy (especially post-9/11)," corruption a key corporate predator tool to re-divide the world, and nations with the greatest firepower get the choicest slices. Business profit growth depends on exploiting overseas opportunities for their resources, markets and cheap reserve armies of labor with four so-called "BRIC" countries especially targeted:
-- China for its cheap labor and opportunities in finance, insurance and real estate;
-- India for its low cost information technology services;
-- Brazil for its high interest rates that hit 19.5%, were then greatly cut, but are still around 11%; and
-- Russia for its high profit oil and gas reserves, transport and luxury goods markets with booming opportunities in real estate once political leaders are bought off in a country rife with corruption as is China.
Petras notes that today over half the top 500 transnational corporations earn most of their profits overseas, and for many it's 75% of it. This trend will continue, he says, as these companies shift most of their operations abroad for greater cost savings. In addition, "political corruption, not economic efficiency, is the driving force of economic empire-building (with) the scale and scope of Western pillage of the East....unprecedented in recent world history." It's from business-friendly legislation on low wages, pensions, job tenure, land use, worker safety and health, all designed for maximum profit. Political leaders are bought off to get state-owned businesses privatized, markets deregulated, wages kept low, with a huge reserve army of exploitable labor the payoff for "the US Imperial System."
Hierarchy of Empire and Use of Force
Petras explains the US imperial system in terms of its "hierarchy of empire" rankings. Imperial powers top it (the US, EU and Japan) followed by emerging powers (China, Russia, India), semi-autonomous client regimes (Brazil, South Korea, South Africa), and collaborator regimes on the bottom (Egypt, Mexico, Colombia). Then come independent "revolutionary" (social democratic) states like Venezuela and nationalist ones like Iran as well as "contested terrain and regimes in transition (Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestine)." Client regimes provide "a crucial link in sustaining imperial powers" by allowing them to project and extend their state and market reach.
One "anomaly" in the hierarchy is Israel. It's a colonialist and nuclear power and world's fourth largest military power and arms exporter that's breathtaking for a country of 7.1 million and 5.4 million Jews. It's influence over US Middle East policy, however, inordinately outweighs its size with Iraq exhibit A and Iran moving up fast. More on this below.
Petras notes the constant flux within the imperial system the result of wars, national struggles and economic crises. They bring down regimes and elevate others with examples like Russia, the Eastern European states, South Africa and Venezuela. It shows "no singular omnipotent imperial state....unilaterally defines the international or....imperial system (that in the case of the US) proved incapable of....defeating popular....resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Even in Somalia, a US proxy war is in trouble, but it's too early to predict the outcome. The easy 2006 overthrow of the popular Islamic Courts Union (ICU) put an unsupported warlord regime in charge (that plundered the country from 1991 - 2005) with predictable results - strong resistance against the US puppet regime and its deeply corrupted Transitional Federal Government (TFG) "president," Abdullahi Yusuf.
Washington backed a hated regime and an equally detested Ethiopian government that's been "prop(ping) up its Somali puppet" with a lift from US-supported force. Earlier in 1993-94, the Clinton administration's intervention failed. It spawned mass opposition, took thousands of Somali lives in retaliation, and ended in defeat and a humiliating US pullout. That may repeat despite Washington's establishing an African Command (AFRICOM) to solidify its hold on the continent and its strategically important Horn. So far, it's very much up for grabs with US presence in the region unwelcome and greatly destabilizing. The "empire" never learns, so it's on to the next target that looks like Iran. More on that below.
Imperialism and Genocide
Petras explains how Korea, Vietnam and other wars hid their true cost in lives, devastation and human wreckage. It's the way of all empires sweeping over populations like crabgrass. It becomes "an accelerating predisposition to genocides to accomplish political aims," and in an age of "shock and awe," it can come with "awesome" speed. An example is from the latest O.R.B. British polling data reporting 1.2 million Iraqi deaths since March, 2003 alone plus another 1.5 million up to that date. The true toll may be even higher with huge uncounted numbers of daily violent and non-violent deaths that one estimate by Gideon Polya places at 3.9 million from 1990 to the present. No one knows for sure, and his estimate may be as good as any other. All of them are horrific.
Petras notes the "quantity" of killings elsewhere - six million Jews and 20 million Soviet civilians in WW II as well as 10 million Chinese civilians in Asia. He explains genocide as policy from a "state (promoted) racialist-exterminationist ideology (as well as from) an historical antipathy of one culture to another." This allows ruling classes to legitimize their ideology and achieve "uncontested dominance" and ability to economically exploit domestic and overseas markets. An omelet requires breaking eggs. Mass human slaughter is the frequent fallout from consolidating empires with living beings having no more worth than egg shells.
Genocides also result from revolutionary challenges to unpopular puppet rulers with Korea, Indo-China and Iraq Exhibits A, B, and C. Up to eight million perished in Asia, and three (or maybe four) million could be reached in Iraq in 2008 at the present pace. There's no end to it in sight with billions funding it, and no reporting on the carnage in the mainstream.
Petras reviews examples of imperialism becoming genocide with the Reagan administration alone responsible for its share. It committed multiple proxy genocides in Africa, Afghanistan and Central America, but you'd never know it from reports at the time about a president being prepped for Mount Rushmore with a spot for George Bush beside him until Iraq got him in trouble.
Another unreported genocide is Israel's six decade-long crusade against the Palestinians with predicable results. It caused many thousands of deaths, mass population displacement, and excessive use of detentions and torture to deny a people freedom and justice in their own land. The policy continues because Israel has a powerful ally in Washington and an even more influential Lobby working on its behalf. More on that below.
Petras notes genocides are "repeated, common practices," impunity for committing them the norm, and no effective international order is in place to stop them. Victors justice prevails so victims face kangaroo tribunals like the ICTY for Yugoslavia and the equally corrupted one for Iraq. Genocides will only end when imperial powers are defeated and their leaders held to account for their crimes, but that goal is nowhere in sight.
The Global Billionaire Ruling Class
The number of world billionaires reached 946 in March, 2007, they have an estimated combined wealth of $3.5 trillion, and over half of them are in three countries - 415 in the US, 55 in Germany and 53 in Russia where never did so many people lose more so a handful of others could gain so hugely in so short a time. India ranks high as well with 36 billionaires with China next in the region at 20. The number of millionaires exploded as well with close to 10 million in 2007, and in 2006 their numbers grew by an estimated 8.3%.
Balzac was right saying behind every great fortune is a crime (and most often a small fortune as seed money) but likely nowhere more rapaciously than in Russia. Petras notes "Without exception, the transfers of (state) property were achieved through gangster tactics - assassinations, massive theft, and seizure of state resources, illicit stock manipulation and buyouts." They strip mined over a trillion dollars of Russia's wealth into private predatory hands who, in turn, stuffed them in offshore accounts. It happens everywhere with the US exhibit A. The Rockefellers, Morgans, Fords and Carnegie's didn't amass wealth by being neighborly or nice. They got it the old-fashioned way - by strong-arming and stealing.
In developing countries, it came faster under Washington Consensus rules favoring capital over people with billionaires coming out on top. Latin America has 38 of them, mostly in Brazil (with 30) and Mexico (with industrialist Carlos Slim Helu now the world's third richest man). These "two countries.... privatized the most lucrative, efficient and largest public monopolies," and benefitted hugely from regressive taxes, tax exemptions, deregulation, big subsidies, and the ability to hike prices and make vital services unaffordable to millions who can't pay for them.
"How to become a billionaire," Petras asked. No need for an MBA or market savvy when the "interface of politics (aka friends in high places) and economics" works much better. The road to super-riches came from privatized state assets that began with bloody military coups in Latin America. In countries like Chile, Colombia and Argentina, results were always the same - great riches at the top, stagnant economies, vast poverty, high unemployment, two-thirds of the region's population with "inadequate living standards," and the long shadow of US involvement backing military dictators, business elites, and neoliberal politicians to assure lucrative ties to corporate interests in America. More on this below.
Part II - The Power of Israel and Its Lobby in the US
Petras covered how the Israeli Lobby defeated the Jim Baker Iraq Study Group's (ISG) proposal released December 6, 2006. Its alternative US Middle East agenda lost out to the Israeli Lobby's influence on Congress, a massive supportive propaganda campaign in the major media, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert being as able to "have the US president under our control" as Ariel Sharon once boasted.
For a time it looked like the ISG plan would prevail with top Bush advisors recommending dialogue with Iran; high-ranking military, active and retired, wanting a phased withdrawal for a failed effort; and the Army, Navy and Marine Corps weekly publications wanting Defense Secretary Rumsfeld sacked shortly before he resigned. Even Big Oil interests backed Baker because stable conditions favor business more than conflict (at least to pump oil), and that won't happen without a change of course now off the table.
Iran wants rapprochement as well but not on the usual US terms - making demands and offering nothing in return. Iran's objectives are simple and reasonable - normalized relations and an end to Washington's confrontational stance and military threats. They're off the table because the "Israel-First power structure (Lobby-Congress-Mass Media-Democratic Party Donors)" reject them. Syria is just as compliant, but its overtures are also rebuffed for the same reason.
Petras explained that AIPAC wants war with Iran as its top priority objective. In addition, the publications, conferences and press releases of the Conference of Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO) asked their members "to go all-out to fund and back candidates (mostly Democrats) who supported Israel's military solution to Iran's nuclear enrichment program" even though IAEA agrees it's in total compliance with Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty rules while Israel violates them with impunity.
In the end, Prime Minister Olmert co-opted George Bush, got him to reject the ISG proposal and ally with Israel's aim to solidify its Middle East dominance by removing a non-existent Iranian threat with Syria also targeted. In many respects, this flies in the face of logic as many influential US figures know. Petras believes Iran is a key interlocutor for a Middle East settlement that might let Washington retain its strategic Arab allies. Tehran is willing to cooperate but not when its government is lumped with Al-Queda, the Taliban and Iraqi resistance and is being threatened with war. That's the current condition with renewed Bush administration efforts to prep the public to accept more of it if it comes.
Hamas also has been conciliatory. Its leaders made two peace proposals as a show of good faith, is willing to recognize Israel if Palestinians get justice, pledged a cease-fire in the face of Israeli attacks, and was rebuffed with rejection and an Israeli blockade of Gaza along with frequent hostile incursions. Conflicts rage in Iraq and occupied Palestine, more war threatens in Iran, and the road to peace in the region runs through Jerusalem providing Washington concurs. But it's not possible, in Petras' judgment, unless foreign military bases are closed, there's public control or nationalization of the region's resources, and Israel ends its colonial occupation of Palestine. So far, those objectives are nowhere in sight.
The Lobby and Media on Lebanon
In Petras' powerful 2006 book, "The Power of Israel in the United States," he documented how this power derives from a vast pro-Israel Lobby in the country supporting all aspects of its agenda. It's position is firm - "Israel is always right, Arabs and Muslims are a threat to peace," and the US should unconditionally support Israel across the board. In Petras' view, that's the main reason why the Bush administration attacked Iraq and may now target Iran and Syria. Israel perceives these countries as threats, Washington seems willing to remove them, and a chorus of media-driven propaganda approves.
They always support Israel and jumped right in last summer backing "Operation Change of Direction" against Hezbollah and "Operation Summer Rain" against Hamas that caused many hundreds of deaths and mass destruction. It was all papered over in the major media and characterized as Israel's "defensive, existential war for survival against Islamic terrorists." It was pure baloney. In fact, and unreported, Israel launched dual long-planned aggressive wars with Hezbollah's capture of three IDF soldiers in Lebanon the pretext and Hamas taking one Israeli corporal the justification in occupied Palestine. Never mentioned are the many thousands of Palestinians illegally abducted, imprisoned and tortured, and that unprovoked aggressive wars and their fallout are war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Also unmentioned is that if Hezbollah and Hamas hadn't provided the pretexts, Israel (as it's often done) would have manufactured them to launch its summer aggression. With full US support and backing from its Lobby and dominant media, these type actions continue at the expense of their victims with US taxpayers duped into funding them generously.
US Empire and the Middle East
Petras notes key factors help explain US Middle East policy that in his judgment are "challenged from within and without, are subject to sharp contradictions," and are likely to fail.
First, is the influence of the Israeli Lobby he documented powerfully as have Mearsheimer and Walt in their work. It's likely the most potent lobby in Washington and can practically mobilize the entire Congress, every administration and the dominant media to back pro-Israeli policies even when they run counter to US corporate interests that in Middle East means those of Big Oil primarily.
The Lobby wanted war with Iraq and got it. Now its top priority is stiff sanctions and war on Iran, and if the orchestrated media hate frenzy targeting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Columbia University address September 24 is an indication, it may get it. As Petras notes, the Lobby's fanatical support for Israel is so extreme and uncompromising, it's even willing to risk world war and economic collapse to get its way.
Another key factor is the US ability to enlist and co-op client states and proxy forces to serve our interests - the Kurds in Northern Iraq; the Abbas-Dahlan Fatah militants in Palestine; the Sinoria-Hariri-Jumblat pro-US/Israel, anti-Syria/Hezbollah/Hamas alliance in Lebanon; Mubarak in Egypt; King Hussein in Jordan; pro-US regimes in Turkey; the Saudis and others.
Petras then explains how the Israeli Lobby's influence runs counter to the US "Arab agenda." It shows up in Washington's failure to construct a NATO-style power-sharing alliance in the region, except for Turkey and Israel, and the former may not prove solid. The Iraq policy has been disastrous, each tactic tried failed, resistance is unabated, the Arab street overwhelmingly rejects occupation, and Arab leaders offer tepid support.
Petras calls Washington's permanent war strategy (next targeting Iran and Syria) "an irrational gamble comparable to Hitler's attack on Russia" that doomed him. Today in the Middle East, attacking these two countries may only compound the Iraq failure with "greater defeats, greater domestic rebellion" and still more wars without end promising gloomy prospects ahead.
Part III - The Possibility of Resistance
Petras discusses China and the "general consensus (it's) emerging as the next economic superpower" to challenge US dominance. Petras expresses doubts that can only be summarized briefly. He notes Chinese capitalism not only depends on growth and the ability to generate jobs, but also on "the social relations of production, circulation and reproduction." They come at a high price - ferocious labor exploitation, rampant corruption and nepotism, mass small farmer displacement, firing millions of workers from state-owned and bankrupt enterprises, ending social services, and higher living costs increasing class warfare in the streets against billionaire kleptocrats and foreign investors profiting hugely at the expense of most Chinese.
Petras then distinguishes between "made in China" and Chinese-owned and whether the former enhances China's growth or foreign investor profits instead. He sees China taking on "features of both a neo-colony and an emerging imperial power," but mostly the former. He notes the standard of living for most Chinese "declined precipitously;" air, water and ground pollution greatly increased; the quality of life for most Chinese suffers; class inequalities are vast; and gains from a consumerist society for a minority of the population are offset by dirty air, loss of leisure, job security, near rent-free housing, state-provided health care and education, deteriorated working conditions and more. Paradise it's not, at least for workers, and conditions aren't improving.
Petras then discusses China's transition from state to "liberal" capitalism. As it deepened, trade barriers were dismantled; protective labor laws abolished; price controls lifted; the countryside ravaged; a massive new army of unemployed workers created; and an export-driven market strategy followed. The result today is a new class of billionaires and about 2900 former party "princelings" who control around $260 billion of wealth. In addition, property, real estate and construction boomed, an export strategy concentrated development on coastal regions, and domestic consumption is relatively constrained.
In contrast, "millions of construction workers, miners, domestic servants and assembly-line workers (labor) under the most abominable conditions" - long hours, low pay, awful sanitary conditions and little regard for safety in an unregulated environment structured for maximum profit. China today is a "magnet for capitalists and investors worldwide," a free market paradise that's hell on workers paying hugely for the country's marketplace "success."
Petras envisions China's capitalism deepening and mainly benefitting foreign investors. He sees their "initial beachheads as minority shareholders" extending into production, distribution, transport, real estate,
telecommunications, consumer goods and services, entertainment, finance and more and eventually gaining more control. As a result, he believes China's next great leap forward will be from liberalism to neoliberalism, the country will lose its national identity, it will become a "territorial outpost" for foreign-owned transnationals, and the country's bid for world power status will be subverted.
Petras sees 21st century China emerging as a "gigantic proxy for imperial powers," but China won't be one of them. Its "Great Leap Backwards" will be consummated when the nation's "share of profits shifts from the national bourgeoisie" to foreign investors in a process now accelerating.
But it won't come easily as a new generation of China's leaders may stop or curtail it. In addition, growing mass resistance has now emerged for obvious reasons cited above. Already, close to 100,000 mass demonstrations have occurred involving millions of Chinese protesting a workers' hell. Social crisis is deepening, class struggle has returned, and the government has taken note. It's beginning to address concerns but giving back pathetically little considering China's massive population. Petras calls these remediating actions "too little and too late." Ahead he sees decentralized protests becoming organized urban worker movements that when joined with displaced farmers may set off a new rebellious period. This may then blossom into "a new revolutionary struggle" that will determine China's future and its climate for investors.
The US and Latin America
Petras has studied Latin America for decades and knows the region as well as anyone. Here he dispels notions of a revitalized regional populism with US dominance waning. His case is compelling as he argues Washington's influence has increased in recent years (though not to the level of the 1990s) despite the success of Hugo Chavez and his ability to thwart US efforts to unseat him.
The Bush administration lost out on FTAA but has had other successes:
-- bilateral trade agreements with numerous Latin American states from the Caribbean to Chile;
-- an expanded number of military bases despite the possible loss of one in Ecuador ahead;
-- US business interests in the region flourishing, including in Venezuela where they're booming; and
-- neoliberal free market policies intact despite campaign rhetoric promising change.
Aside from Venezuela and maybe Ecuador (where it's too soon to tell), the left's appraisal of progressive change is nowhere in sight, so what are they seeing that's not there.
Petras assesses the current state of things in the region after reviewing its recent history readers can get from the book. He notes signs of Washington's declining influence that's had no adverse affect on corporate interests except in Venezuela where taxes are now fair compared to earlier when they were too low. He also explains so-called center-left regimes in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay and elsewhere tamed mass social movement demands while embracing 1990s neoliberalism. In Brazil, if fact, President Lula da Silva actually deepened and extended the privatization and restrictive budget policies of the preceding Cardoso regime, and despite his Workers Party background, demobilized mass movements and trade unions instead of supporting them as people expected. Many now see him for what he is - a traitor, but sadly, he's got company, too much of it.
Of great significance is the way Petras explains four competing regional power blocs representing varying degrees of accommodation or opposition to US policies and interests.
1. The Radical Left
It includes:
-- the FARC guerillas in Colombia (active since 1964); some trade union sectors; and peasant and barrio movements in Venezuela;
-- the labor confederation CONLUTAS and sectors of Brazil's Rural Landless Movement (MST);
-- sectors of the Bolivian Labor Confederation (COB) and the Andean peasant movements and barrio organizations in El Alto;
-- peasant movement sectors (CONAIE) in Ecuador;
-- teachers and peasant-indigenous movements in Oaxaca, Guerrero and Chiapas, Mexico;
-- nationalist-peasant-left sectors in Peru;
-- trade unionist and unemployed sectors in Argentina; and
-- other Central and South American social movements and some Marxist groups in several countries.
2. The Pragmatic Left
-- Hugo Chavez in Venezuela who combines grassroots participatory democracy and redistributive social policies with support for business interests;
-- Evo Morales in Bolivia;
-- Fidel Castro in Cuba;
-- various large electoral parties and major peasant and trade unions in the region; leftist parties including the PRD in Mexico, FMLN in El Salvador, CUT in Colombia, Chilean Communist Party, Peru's nationalist parliamentary party, sectors of Brazil's MST, Bolivia's MAS governing party, CTA in Argentina, and PIT-CNT in Uruguay.
3. The Pragmatic Neoliberals (the most numerous political block)
-- Lula in Brazil;
-- Kirchner in Argentina;
-- the major trade union confederations in Brazil and Argentina;
-- business and financial elite sectors providing subsistence unemployment doles and food aid; and
-- similar groups in Ecuador, Nicaragua (the Sandinistas and their split-offs), Paraguay and other countries.
4. The Doctrinaire Neoliberal Regimes
-- Calderon in Mexico;
-- Uribe in Colombia;
-- Bachelet in Chile (in spite of her being imprisoned and tortured under Pinochet);
-- the Central American countries: El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Guatemala;
-- Garcia in Peru;
-- Paraguay with the region's largest military base;
-- Uruguay's ex-leftist regime now rightist;
-- US-occupied Haiti through proxy thuggish paramilitary UN peacekeepers; and
-- the Dominican Republic.
The notion that populism swept Latin America in the new century is pure fantasy. In fact, there's a "quadrangle of competing and conflicting" regional forces with Washington having less market leverage than in the 1990s "Golden Age of Pillage" but still enough to be dominant and able to keep business flourishing.
Petras continues his analysis with detailed examples of key center-left regimes in Brazil under Lula, Argentina under Kirchner, Uruguay under Vazquez, Bolivia under Morales plus some comments on Peru and Ecuador under leaders preceding their current ones. Each case substantiates the fantasy that these regimes represented "new winds from the Left" sweeping the region. Hot air maybe, but little, if anything, in the way of progressive change despite the beliefs of many intellectuals on the left.
However, that's not to say leftist forces aren't strong enough to bubble up and bring change. Insurrectionary forces brought Evo Morales to power in Bolivia and can take him down if he fails them as he's now doing. The same is true in other countries with Hugo Chavez their model. He challenged US imperialism, brought real social change, has mass public support and thus far withstood US efforts to oust him. In Cuba, Fidel Castro thwarted every Washington effort against him since 1959 and is still in charge, larger than life, although frail and weak following his protracted illness from which he's still recovering. Petras sees a new generation of young committed leaders emerging in the region. "They are the 'Left Winds' of Latin America," and it's in them that hope lies.
Foreign Investment (FI) in Latin America
Petras demystifies FI's impact, explains the risks in attracting it, and exposes six myths about its benefits.
Myth 1.
It's untrue FI creates new enterprises, market opportunities and more. Most, in fact, aims to buy privatized and other enterprises while crowding out local capital and public initiative.
Myth 2.
FI doesn't increase export competitiveness. It buys mineral resources for export with little done to create jobs or stimulate the local economy.
Myth 3.
It's false to think FI provides tax revenue and hard currency. An FI export model creates more indebtedness and a net loss.
Myth 4.
It's false believing debt repayments to international lenders is key to a good financial standing. Much foreign debt is odious and repaying it harms borrower countries.
Myth 5.
It's false believing FI provides developing countries needed capital. It's used instead to buy local companies and control a country's markets.
Myth 6.
It's false believing FI attracts further investment. Capital freely moves to wherever it gets the best returns and is anchored nowhere.
Developing countries benefit most by relying less on FI and more on national ownership and investment. The former is predatory. The latter accrues profits to the national treasury and grows the country's economy. FI demands conditions favoring capital over labor that results in a widening economic gap and greater inequalities in political and social power. The 20 year (1980 - 2000) record of Latin American FI is socially disastrous. Living standards plunged while unemployment and poverty soared. Hardly reasons to attract it and clear ones to stay away or restrict it.
Part IV - An Agenda for Militants
Petras considers FI economic alternatives and ways to buck its strategic countermeasures. FI generally threatens disinvestment when a country wants to enhance its own economy and benefit popular living standards. Hardball tactics cut both ways, and the state can use its own effectively to counter capital flight threats as well as adopt policies in advance serving its needs first ahead of those FI wants to have things its own way.
Petras notes that FI "is incompatible with any notion of an independent, socially progressive country" even though at times it can be useful in a regulated environment controlling it. He explains a country's own financial and economic resources can be used instead of FI to enhance its internal development and technological advance by reinvesting profits from export industries; controlling foreign trade to increase retention of foreign exchange; investing pension funds productively; imposing a moratorium on debt payments; recovering stolen public treasury funds and unpaid taxes; maximizing under-employed labor, and more.
Most countries can avoid FI by relying on multiple sources of its own capital. They can also employ alternative effective strategies when outside help is needed by minimizing its ownership, employing short-term contracts on favorable terms, imposing stiff penalties on capital flight, and barring it from returning if it leaves. Petras concludes: "The historical and empirical evidence demonstrates that the political, economic and social drawbacks of (FI) far exceed any short-term benefits perceived by its defenders."
The Middle Class and Social Movements in Latin America
Petras observes that middle class attitudes in the region depend on the "political-economic context" confronting it. It's attracted to the right under expanding right-wing regimes and to the left in times of economic crisis. On the other hand, under a "popular, anti-dictatorial, anti-imperialist populist government, the middle class supports democratic reforms" but not radical policies harming it for the benefit of the working class. Three examples make his case - in Brazil under Lula when it took over his Workers Party; in Argentina when it benefitted under Menem and Cardoso and later under Kirchner; and in Bolivia under Morales who combines "political demagogy" to his base and neoliberal IMF austerity in his policies attractive to middle class and business interests.
Petras notes social movements failed by not developing political leadership or a program for state power and depended instead on "electoral politicians of the upwardly mobile professional middle class." The Left's key challenge, he believes, is to "convert the public sector middle class from anti-neoliberalism to anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism, and to combine urban welfare (with) agrarian reform."
Iraq and Afghanistan's Importance in Defeating the Empire
Petras concludes by noting Washington's imperial wars were stopped in their tracks in Iraq and Afghanistan by resistance too powerful to contain. A "shock and awe" blitzkrieg failed when Iraqis wanted a say in running, rebuilding and transforming their country and rejected its US-installed puppet regime. The country is a wasteland, the nation creation project bankrupt, and the prospect for success bad and worsening with multi-billions expended and nothing gained except huge profits for administration favored contractors that always benefit whoever wins or loses.
The same situation holds in Afghanistan. An easy five week walkover turned into an endless debacle with no end in sight. Washington planned successive wars for unchallengeable world dominance, but local resistance in two countries stopped it cold (so far), may defeat its proxies in Somalia, and resilient opposition in Palestine and South Lebanon may prove equally formidable as well.
The US is now over-extended and its "imperial grand strategy" weakened. It's made preemptive wars against Iran and Syria and trying again to topple Hugo Chavez less likely, but none of these possibilities are off the table. Cornered and facing defeat, rhetoric is heated making anything possible, and the September 20 Lieberman-Kyl "Sense of the Senate" (no legal force) resolution/amendment to the FY 2008 Defense Authorization bill ratchets up the possibility of attacking Iran and its regional "proxies" with potentially catastrophic fallout the risk.
For now, emboldened resistance and strong anti-war opposition are matched against an administration desperate to turn things around and willing to try anything to do it. How this may end is a crapshoot, the stakes on its outcome too great to risk but may be waged anyway, and the world trembles as it waits and watches. Stay tuned and hope Petras is right believing Iraq and Afghanistan thwarted the empire and prevented further aggression against Iran and beyond, now off the table. Or maybe not. When wounded and cornered, desperate animals and politicians may try anything with nothing to lose. Keep a close watch.
Stephen Lendman is Research Associate of the center for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Original article posted here.
Review of James Petras' most recent book
by Stephen Lendman
James Petras is Binghamton University, New York Professor Emeritus of Sociology, whose credentials and achievements are long and impressive. He's a noted academic figure on the left, a well-respected Latin American expert, and a longtime chronicler of the region's popular struggles as well as being an advisor to the landless workers (MST) in Brazil and unemployed workers in Argentina. Petras is also a prolific author. He's written hundreds of articles and 63 books (and counting), published in 29 languages, including his latest one and subject of this review - "Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire."
The book is information rich on a core issue of our time. It discusses the US empire's "systemic dimensions," evolving changes in its ruling class, its corporatist system, myths about its coming collapse, contradictions in the current debate on immigration and market liberalization policies, the use of force and genocidal carnage, corruption as a market penetrating tool, the Israeli Lobby's power and influence, Latin American relations and events in the region, social and armed resistance, and much more in four power-packed parts under 17 subject chapter headings.
It's all covered below giving readers a detailed sampling of Petras' thoroughly documented, powerful and insightful account of his subject - who rules America, who's ruled, the US imperial role in the world economy and politics, and challenges to it in China, Latin America and the Middle East. This is another must-read book by a distinguished intellect and major figure on the left who writes dozens of them. This is his latest.
Part I: The US Empire As A System
Petras distinguishes between who sets policies and rules America and whose interests are served. He defines the ruling class as "people in key positions in financial, corporate and other business institutions" with rules "established, modified and adjusted" as the composition and "shifts in power" within the ruling class change over time. One example is manufacuring's decline (from outsourcing to low cost countries) as a "multidimensional financial sector" (finance capital) rose in prominence with Wall Street's influence especially dominant.
Petras defines "finance capital" to include investment banks, pension funds, hedge funds, saving and loan banks, investment funds and many other "operative managers" of a multi-trillion dollar economy they've all benefitted hugely from. They've been the driving force powering real estate and financial markets speculation, agribusiness, commodity production and manufacturing. Petras calls "finance capital" the "midwife" of wealth and capital as well as a "direct owner of the means of production and distribution."
He stratifies it into three sub-groups from top to bottom in importance: big private equity bankers and hedge fund managers, Wall street executives, and senior officials of private and Wall Street public equity funds as well as major figures in top law and accounting firms. Political leaders are drawn from their ranks with Wall Street in the lead and one firm in particular standing out - Goldman Sachs. Today, its former CEO Henry Paulson is the de facto US economic czar in charge of proving doomsayers wrong about the US economy with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's money creation power partnered with him. Both of them must also navigate around the powerful Israeli Lobby and its pro-war agenda that could lead to catastrophic consequences if the US and/or Israel attack Iran and the Middle East explodes and disrupts oil flows.
Petras sees an inevitable split between wealth-first financial ruling class objectives and militarists in the Bush administration, their counterparts in Israel, and the Lobby representing Israeli interests with a stranglehold on most of Congress. The battle lines shape up over Israeli Middle East dominance at the cost of imperial overreach, an escalating trade deficit, a ballooning national debt, decreasing capital inflows to offset it, and a declining dollar as other nations move to euros, yen and pounds sterling. Something has to give, says Petras, as both sides support opposing agendas that only a crisis-provoking widespread backlash may resolve.
For now, however, things couldn't be better for the ruling class (despite their disrupted plans in Iraq and Afghanistan) with the top 2% of adults in the world owning half its wealth, the top 10% with 85% of it, and the bottom half with just 1%. The result is an unprecedented wealth disparity with corporate CEO's on average earning over 400 times the median income of wage and salaried workers, and for top-earning speculators and hedge fund managers the ratio is 1000 to one with some having incomes topping a billion dollars a year. In addition, corporate wealth was at a record 43% of 2005 national income accruing to profits, rents and other non-wage/salary sources compared to a declining percentage of it to individuals, except for those at the top gaining hugely.
Petras states: "The growth of monstrous and rigid class inequalities reflects the narrow social base of an economy dominated by finance capital" with the US redistributing far less to its people than other developed nations like those in Western Europe. Democrats are as culpable as Republicans with both parties tied to big monied interests through campaign funding and the power of lobbies. It makes everyone in the political power structure unwilling to change things so they don't. The result is working Americans suffer hugely while those at the top never had it so good. It signals warnings of a potential worker backlash ahead that for now have gone unheeded. Elitists ignore it at their peril, so far without negative consequences to their dominance, but watch out.
Capitalism or US Workers in Crisis?
Petras notes how for years many on the left and some in the financial community have been predicting the "coming collapse, decline or demise of capitalism" as though (for some) wishing would make it so. They're still predicting, but it hasn't happened, and Petras explains why not. It's because business and government partnered (especially since the 1980s) to let workers take the pain so business could gain and prosper. It's done it hugely and continues to despite the resurgent summer doomsday predictions still ongoing.
In a letter to clients, noted investment manager Jeremy Grantham explained why business is resilient by comparing the global financial system (with its US anchor) to a giant suspension bridge. Thousands of bolts hold it together, so when some of them fail, even a lot of them, it's not enough to bring it down. Short of "broad-based....financial metal fatigue," even more bolts may fail, but he's betting the bridge will hold, supported by amazing "animal spirits," at least for now.
Grantham is likely right in the near term, while Petras takes a longer view, and his arguments are compelling. He sees labor today in crisis with living standards declining the result of reduced or eliminated business benefits, government services and stagnating wages. He also lists popular myths predicting doom ahead - the growing budget and current account deficits; ballooning national debt; excess speculation; weakening dollar; high energy costs; outsourcing of jobs at all levels, and more. Petras maintains these problems aren't as serious as claimed because:
-- budget deficits declined in 2006 as tax revenues rose from high-end earners' greater income at the expense of labor getting less;
-- foreign investment in the US remains high;
-- the dollar remains the world's reserve currency; over time, it weakens and strengthens based on interest rates, political events, and the overall level of economic activity; nonetheless, the dollar weakened considerably after the Fed cut interest rates and depreciated to an all-time low against a basket of six of its major peer currencies that include the euro, pound and yen; in addition, the New York Board of Trade index hit its weakest level since it came out in 1973, and the same is true for the Fed's trade-weighted dollar index since its creation in 1971; what's ahead? Likely more of the same until everyone believes the dollar is dead; then, watch out;
-- a decade-long trade deficit hasn't caused apocalypse;
-- strong economic underpinnings (Grantham's giant suspension bridge) offset excess speculation, and workers, not capital, take the pain;
-- high energy profits overseas are recycled back into dollar-based investments and have been for years although countries like Iran, Venezuela and others are moving away from the dollar at least for now;
-- the potential of new technologies is underestimated;
-- corporate profits have had their longest ever run of double-digit gains; the number of millionaires and billionaires is growing; the rich are becoming super-rich; and the beneficiaries are largely in North America, Western Europe (plus Russia) and Asia.
Petras concludes that as long as worker exploitation continues, the fundamental law of "casino capitalism" applies - the house never loses, or in this case the neighborhood (of developed nations) with some in it doing better than others and the US their anchor. The weakness of US labor and its history of overpaid, underperforming, corrupted leaders explains why with only 7.4% today in the private sector organized compared to 34.7% in the 1950s. Unless new social and political movements surface under activist leaders, Marx's "dirty secret" and Adam Smith's "vile maxim of the masters of mankind" will continue proving "the wealth of all nations" depends on the rich taking it "all for ourselves and (leaving) nothing for" the working class.
Market Liberalization and Forced Emigration
Migration and so-called illegal immigrants make headlines but never the reasons why that are two-fold: fleeing political strife (as in Iraq) or for economic reasons that the imperial globalized market system causes horrifically. The latter forces millions of Mexicans el norte because of NAFTA. Its disastrous effects on their lives leaves them no choice - emigrate or perish.
Petras explains when protective trade barriers come down, millions of small farmers and entrepreneurs are no match for the power of subsidized agribusiness, big manufacturers and corporate service providers. They're displaced when their livelihoods are lost, and that creates a huge surplus army of labor on the move and an opportunity for business to exploit for profit. It affects all skill types and levels (farm workers to computer specialists to doctors), undermines unions, and allows management to replace higher-paid US workers with low-wage immigrants at their mercy and getting little. Pay is kept low, benefits few or none, working conditions unsafe, unions weakened, and dare complain and be sent home.
Petras notes that as imperial power grows, "the massive movement of dislocated workers toward the imperial center multiplies," and there's no end in sight nor will there be as long as highly exploitative sectors like agriculture, construction and low-end manufacturing and services thrive on it. Workers lose and so do "sender" countries. They bore the costs of raising, educating, training and providing services for millions with "receiver" nations getting the benefits. It amounts to multi-billions in the form of critically needed skilled areas lost that include professionals like doctors, nurses, teachers and others. This won't ever change unless worker movements unite against it.
Empire-Building and Corruption
Petras notes how empire-building "is the driving force of the US economy (especially post-9/11)," corruption a key corporate predator tool to re-divide the world, and nations with the greatest firepower get the choicest slices. Business profit growth depends on exploiting overseas opportunities for their resources, markets and cheap reserve armies of labor with four so-called "BRIC" countries especially targeted:
-- China for its cheap labor and opportunities in finance, insurance and real estate;
-- India for its low cost information technology services;
-- Brazil for its high interest rates that hit 19.5%, were then greatly cut, but are still around 11%; and
-- Russia for its high profit oil and gas reserves, transport and luxury goods markets with booming opportunities in real estate once political leaders are bought off in a country rife with corruption as is China.
Petras notes that today over half the top 500 transnational corporations earn most of their profits overseas, and for many it's 75% of it. This trend will continue, he says, as these companies shift most of their operations abroad for greater cost savings. In addition, "political corruption, not economic efficiency, is the driving force of economic empire-building (with) the scale and scope of Western pillage of the East....unprecedented in recent world history." It's from business-friendly legislation on low wages, pensions, job tenure, land use, worker safety and health, all designed for maximum profit. Political leaders are bought off to get state-owned businesses privatized, markets deregulated, wages kept low, with a huge reserve army of exploitable labor the payoff for "the US Imperial System."
Hierarchy of Empire and Use of Force
Petras explains the US imperial system in terms of its "hierarchy of empire" rankings. Imperial powers top it (the US, EU and Japan) followed by emerging powers (China, Russia, India), semi-autonomous client regimes (Brazil, South Korea, South Africa), and collaborator regimes on the bottom (Egypt, Mexico, Colombia). Then come independent "revolutionary" (social democratic) states like Venezuela and nationalist ones like Iran as well as "contested terrain and regimes in transition (Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestine)." Client regimes provide "a crucial link in sustaining imperial powers" by allowing them to project and extend their state and market reach.
One "anomaly" in the hierarchy is Israel. It's a colonialist and nuclear power and world's fourth largest military power and arms exporter that's breathtaking for a country of 7.1 million and 5.4 million Jews. It's influence over US Middle East policy, however, inordinately outweighs its size with Iraq exhibit A and Iran moving up fast. More on this below.
Petras notes the constant flux within the imperial system the result of wars, national struggles and economic crises. They bring down regimes and elevate others with examples like Russia, the Eastern European states, South Africa and Venezuela. It shows "no singular omnipotent imperial state....unilaterally defines the international or....imperial system (that in the case of the US) proved incapable of....defeating popular....resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Even in Somalia, a US proxy war is in trouble, but it's too early to predict the outcome. The easy 2006 overthrow of the popular Islamic Courts Union (ICU) put an unsupported warlord regime in charge (that plundered the country from 1991 - 2005) with predictable results - strong resistance against the US puppet regime and its deeply corrupted Transitional Federal Government (TFG) "president," Abdullahi Yusuf.
Washington backed a hated regime and an equally detested Ethiopian government that's been "prop(ping) up its Somali puppet" with a lift from US-supported force. Earlier in 1993-94, the Clinton administration's intervention failed. It spawned mass opposition, took thousands of Somali lives in retaliation, and ended in defeat and a humiliating US pullout. That may repeat despite Washington's establishing an African Command (AFRICOM) to solidify its hold on the continent and its strategically important Horn. So far, it's very much up for grabs with US presence in the region unwelcome and greatly destabilizing. The "empire" never learns, so it's on to the next target that looks like Iran. More on that below.
Imperialism and Genocide
Petras explains how Korea, Vietnam and other wars hid their true cost in lives, devastation and human wreckage. It's the way of all empires sweeping over populations like crabgrass. It becomes "an accelerating predisposition to genocides to accomplish political aims," and in an age of "shock and awe," it can come with "awesome" speed. An example is from the latest O.R.B. British polling data reporting 1.2 million Iraqi deaths since March, 2003 alone plus another 1.5 million up to that date. The true toll may be even higher with huge uncounted numbers of daily violent and non-violent deaths that one estimate by Gideon Polya places at 3.9 million from 1990 to the present. No one knows for sure, and his estimate may be as good as any other. All of them are horrific.
Petras notes the "quantity" of killings elsewhere - six million Jews and 20 million Soviet civilians in WW II as well as 10 million Chinese civilians in Asia. He explains genocide as policy from a "state (promoted) racialist-exterminationist ideology (as well as from) an historical antipathy of one culture to another." This allows ruling classes to legitimize their ideology and achieve "uncontested dominance" and ability to economically exploit domestic and overseas markets. An omelet requires breaking eggs. Mass human slaughter is the frequent fallout from consolidating empires with living beings having no more worth than egg shells.
Genocides also result from revolutionary challenges to unpopular puppet rulers with Korea, Indo-China and Iraq Exhibits A, B, and C. Up to eight million perished in Asia, and three (or maybe four) million could be reached in Iraq in 2008 at the present pace. There's no end to it in sight with billions funding it, and no reporting on the carnage in the mainstream.
Petras reviews examples of imperialism becoming genocide with the Reagan administration alone responsible for its share. It committed multiple proxy genocides in Africa, Afghanistan and Central America, but you'd never know it from reports at the time about a president being prepped for Mount Rushmore with a spot for George Bush beside him until Iraq got him in trouble.
Another unreported genocide is Israel's six decade-long crusade against the Palestinians with predicable results. It caused many thousands of deaths, mass population displacement, and excessive use of detentions and torture to deny a people freedom and justice in their own land. The policy continues because Israel has a powerful ally in Washington and an even more influential Lobby working on its behalf. More on that below.
Petras notes genocides are "repeated, common practices," impunity for committing them the norm, and no effective international order is in place to stop them. Victors justice prevails so victims face kangaroo tribunals like the ICTY for Yugoslavia and the equally corrupted one for Iraq. Genocides will only end when imperial powers are defeated and their leaders held to account for their crimes, but that goal is nowhere in sight.
The Global Billionaire Ruling Class
The number of world billionaires reached 946 in March, 2007, they have an estimated combined wealth of $3.5 trillion, and over half of them are in three countries - 415 in the US, 55 in Germany and 53 in Russia where never did so many people lose more so a handful of others could gain so hugely in so short a time. India ranks high as well with 36 billionaires with China next in the region at 20. The number of millionaires exploded as well with close to 10 million in 2007, and in 2006 their numbers grew by an estimated 8.3%.
Balzac was right saying behind every great fortune is a crime (and most often a small fortune as seed money) but likely nowhere more rapaciously than in Russia. Petras notes "Without exception, the transfers of (state) property were achieved through gangster tactics - assassinations, massive theft, and seizure of state resources, illicit stock manipulation and buyouts." They strip mined over a trillion dollars of Russia's wealth into private predatory hands who, in turn, stuffed them in offshore accounts. It happens everywhere with the US exhibit A. The Rockefellers, Morgans, Fords and Carnegie's didn't amass wealth by being neighborly or nice. They got it the old-fashioned way - by strong-arming and stealing.
In developing countries, it came faster under Washington Consensus rules favoring capital over people with billionaires coming out on top. Latin America has 38 of them, mostly in Brazil (with 30) and Mexico (with industrialist Carlos Slim Helu now the world's third richest man). These "two countries.... privatized the most lucrative, efficient and largest public monopolies," and benefitted hugely from regressive taxes, tax exemptions, deregulation, big subsidies, and the ability to hike prices and make vital services unaffordable to millions who can't pay for them.
"How to become a billionaire," Petras asked. No need for an MBA or market savvy when the "interface of politics (aka friends in high places) and economics" works much better. The road to super-riches came from privatized state assets that began with bloody military coups in Latin America. In countries like Chile, Colombia and Argentina, results were always the same - great riches at the top, stagnant economies, vast poverty, high unemployment, two-thirds of the region's population with "inadequate living standards," and the long shadow of US involvement backing military dictators, business elites, and neoliberal politicians to assure lucrative ties to corporate interests in America. More on this below.
Part II - The Power of Israel and Its Lobby in the US
Petras covered how the Israeli Lobby defeated the Jim Baker Iraq Study Group's (ISG) proposal released December 6, 2006. Its alternative US Middle East agenda lost out to the Israeli Lobby's influence on Congress, a massive supportive propaganda campaign in the major media, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert being as able to "have the US president under our control" as Ariel Sharon once boasted.
For a time it looked like the ISG plan would prevail with top Bush advisors recommending dialogue with Iran; high-ranking military, active and retired, wanting a phased withdrawal for a failed effort; and the Army, Navy and Marine Corps weekly publications wanting Defense Secretary Rumsfeld sacked shortly before he resigned. Even Big Oil interests backed Baker because stable conditions favor business more than conflict (at least to pump oil), and that won't happen without a change of course now off the table.
Iran wants rapprochement as well but not on the usual US terms - making demands and offering nothing in return. Iran's objectives are simple and reasonable - normalized relations and an end to Washington's confrontational stance and military threats. They're off the table because the "Israel-First power structure (Lobby-Congress-Mass Media-Democratic Party Donors)" reject them. Syria is just as compliant, but its overtures are also rebuffed for the same reason.
Petras explained that AIPAC wants war with Iran as its top priority objective. In addition, the publications, conferences and press releases of the Conference of Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO) asked their members "to go all-out to fund and back candidates (mostly Democrats) who supported Israel's military solution to Iran's nuclear enrichment program" even though IAEA agrees it's in total compliance with Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty rules while Israel violates them with impunity.
In the end, Prime Minister Olmert co-opted George Bush, got him to reject the ISG proposal and ally with Israel's aim to solidify its Middle East dominance by removing a non-existent Iranian threat with Syria also targeted. In many respects, this flies in the face of logic as many influential US figures know. Petras believes Iran is a key interlocutor for a Middle East settlement that might let Washington retain its strategic Arab allies. Tehran is willing to cooperate but not when its government is lumped with Al-Queda, the Taliban and Iraqi resistance and is being threatened with war. That's the current condition with renewed Bush administration efforts to prep the public to accept more of it if it comes.
Hamas also has been conciliatory. Its leaders made two peace proposals as a show of good faith, is willing to recognize Israel if Palestinians get justice, pledged a cease-fire in the face of Israeli attacks, and was rebuffed with rejection and an Israeli blockade of Gaza along with frequent hostile incursions. Conflicts rage in Iraq and occupied Palestine, more war threatens in Iran, and the road to peace in the region runs through Jerusalem providing Washington concurs. But it's not possible, in Petras' judgment, unless foreign military bases are closed, there's public control or nationalization of the region's resources, and Israel ends its colonial occupation of Palestine. So far, those objectives are nowhere in sight.
The Lobby and Media on Lebanon
In Petras' powerful 2006 book, "The Power of Israel in the United States," he documented how this power derives from a vast pro-Israel Lobby in the country supporting all aspects of its agenda. It's position is firm - "Israel is always right, Arabs and Muslims are a threat to peace," and the US should unconditionally support Israel across the board. In Petras' view, that's the main reason why the Bush administration attacked Iraq and may now target Iran and Syria. Israel perceives these countries as threats, Washington seems willing to remove them, and a chorus of media-driven propaganda approves.
They always support Israel and jumped right in last summer backing "Operation Change of Direction" against Hezbollah and "Operation Summer Rain" against Hamas that caused many hundreds of deaths and mass destruction. It was all papered over in the major media and characterized as Israel's "defensive, existential war for survival against Islamic terrorists." It was pure baloney. In fact, and unreported, Israel launched dual long-planned aggressive wars with Hezbollah's capture of three IDF soldiers in Lebanon the pretext and Hamas taking one Israeli corporal the justification in occupied Palestine. Never mentioned are the many thousands of Palestinians illegally abducted, imprisoned and tortured, and that unprovoked aggressive wars and their fallout are war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Also unmentioned is that if Hezbollah and Hamas hadn't provided the pretexts, Israel (as it's often done) would have manufactured them to launch its summer aggression. With full US support and backing from its Lobby and dominant media, these type actions continue at the expense of their victims with US taxpayers duped into funding them generously.
US Empire and the Middle East
Petras notes key factors help explain US Middle East policy that in his judgment are "challenged from within and without, are subject to sharp contradictions," and are likely to fail.
First, is the influence of the Israeli Lobby he documented powerfully as have Mearsheimer and Walt in their work. It's likely the most potent lobby in Washington and can practically mobilize the entire Congress, every administration and the dominant media to back pro-Israeli policies even when they run counter to US corporate interests that in Middle East means those of Big Oil primarily.
The Lobby wanted war with Iraq and got it. Now its top priority is stiff sanctions and war on Iran, and if the orchestrated media hate frenzy targeting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Columbia University address September 24 is an indication, it may get it. As Petras notes, the Lobby's fanatical support for Israel is so extreme and uncompromising, it's even willing to risk world war and economic collapse to get its way.
Another key factor is the US ability to enlist and co-op client states and proxy forces to serve our interests - the Kurds in Northern Iraq; the Abbas-Dahlan Fatah militants in Palestine; the Sinoria-Hariri-Jumblat pro-US/Israel, anti-Syria/Hezbollah/Hamas alliance in Lebanon; Mubarak in Egypt; King Hussein in Jordan; pro-US regimes in Turkey; the Saudis and others.
Petras then explains how the Israeli Lobby's influence runs counter to the US "Arab agenda." It shows up in Washington's failure to construct a NATO-style power-sharing alliance in the region, except for Turkey and Israel, and the former may not prove solid. The Iraq policy has been disastrous, each tactic tried failed, resistance is unabated, the Arab street overwhelmingly rejects occupation, and Arab leaders offer tepid support.
Petras calls Washington's permanent war strategy (next targeting Iran and Syria) "an irrational gamble comparable to Hitler's attack on Russia" that doomed him. Today in the Middle East, attacking these two countries may only compound the Iraq failure with "greater defeats, greater domestic rebellion" and still more wars without end promising gloomy prospects ahead.
Part III - The Possibility of Resistance
Petras discusses China and the "general consensus (it's) emerging as the next economic superpower" to challenge US dominance. Petras expresses doubts that can only be summarized briefly. He notes Chinese capitalism not only depends on growth and the ability to generate jobs, but also on "the social relations of production, circulation and reproduction." They come at a high price - ferocious labor exploitation, rampant corruption and nepotism, mass small farmer displacement, firing millions of workers from state-owned and bankrupt enterprises, ending social services, and higher living costs increasing class warfare in the streets against billionaire kleptocrats and foreign investors profiting hugely at the expense of most Chinese.
Petras then distinguishes between "made in China" and Chinese-owned and whether the former enhances China's growth or foreign investor profits instead. He sees China taking on "features of both a neo-colony and an emerging imperial power," but mostly the former. He notes the standard of living for most Chinese "declined precipitously;" air, water and ground pollution greatly increased; the quality of life for most Chinese suffers; class inequalities are vast; and gains from a consumerist society for a minority of the population are offset by dirty air, loss of leisure, job security, near rent-free housing, state-provided health care and education, deteriorated working conditions and more. Paradise it's not, at least for workers, and conditions aren't improving.
Petras then discusses China's transition from state to "liberal" capitalism. As it deepened, trade barriers were dismantled; protective labor laws abolished; price controls lifted; the countryside ravaged; a massive new army of unemployed workers created; and an export-driven market strategy followed. The result today is a new class of billionaires and about 2900 former party "princelings" who control around $260 billion of wealth. In addition, property, real estate and construction boomed, an export strategy concentrated development on coastal regions, and domestic consumption is relatively constrained.
In contrast, "millions of construction workers, miners, domestic servants and assembly-line workers (labor) under the most abominable conditions" - long hours, low pay, awful sanitary conditions and little regard for safety in an unregulated environment structured for maximum profit. China today is a "magnet for capitalists and investors worldwide," a free market paradise that's hell on workers paying hugely for the country's marketplace "success."
Petras envisions China's capitalism deepening and mainly benefitting foreign investors. He sees their "initial beachheads as minority shareholders" extending into production, distribution, transport, real estate,
telecommunications, consumer goods and services, entertainment, finance and more and eventually gaining more control. As a result, he believes China's next great leap forward will be from liberalism to neoliberalism, the country will lose its national identity, it will become a "territorial outpost" for foreign-owned transnationals, and the country's bid for world power status will be subverted.
Petras sees 21st century China emerging as a "gigantic proxy for imperial powers," but China won't be one of them. Its "Great Leap Backwards" will be consummated when the nation's "share of profits shifts from the national bourgeoisie" to foreign investors in a process now accelerating.
But it won't come easily as a new generation of China's leaders may stop or curtail it. In addition, growing mass resistance has now emerged for obvious reasons cited above. Already, close to 100,000 mass demonstrations have occurred involving millions of Chinese protesting a workers' hell. Social crisis is deepening, class struggle has returned, and the government has taken note. It's beginning to address concerns but giving back pathetically little considering China's massive population. Petras calls these remediating actions "too little and too late." Ahead he sees decentralized protests becoming organized urban worker movements that when joined with displaced farmers may set off a new rebellious period. This may then blossom into "a new revolutionary struggle" that will determine China's future and its climate for investors.
The US and Latin America
Petras has studied Latin America for decades and knows the region as well as anyone. Here he dispels notions of a revitalized regional populism with US dominance waning. His case is compelling as he argues Washington's influence has increased in recent years (though not to the level of the 1990s) despite the success of Hugo Chavez and his ability to thwart US efforts to unseat him.
The Bush administration lost out on FTAA but has had other successes:
-- bilateral trade agreements with numerous Latin American states from the Caribbean to Chile;
-- an expanded number of military bases despite the possible loss of one in Ecuador ahead;
-- US business interests in the region flourishing, including in Venezuela where they're booming; and
-- neoliberal free market policies intact despite campaign rhetoric promising change.
Aside from Venezuela and maybe Ecuador (where it's too soon to tell), the left's appraisal of progressive change is nowhere in sight, so what are they seeing that's not there.
Petras assesses the current state of things in the region after reviewing its recent history readers can get from the book. He notes signs of Washington's declining influence that's had no adverse affect on corporate interests except in Venezuela where taxes are now fair compared to earlier when they were too low. He also explains so-called center-left regimes in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay and elsewhere tamed mass social movement demands while embracing 1990s neoliberalism. In Brazil, if fact, President Lula da Silva actually deepened and extended the privatization and restrictive budget policies of the preceding Cardoso regime, and despite his Workers Party background, demobilized mass movements and trade unions instead of supporting them as people expected. Many now see him for what he is - a traitor, but sadly, he's got company, too much of it.
Of great significance is the way Petras explains four competing regional power blocs representing varying degrees of accommodation or opposition to US policies and interests.
1. The Radical Left
It includes:
-- the FARC guerillas in Colombia (active since 1964); some trade union sectors; and peasant and barrio movements in Venezuela;
-- the labor confederation CONLUTAS and sectors of Brazil's Rural Landless Movement (MST);
-- sectors of the Bolivian Labor Confederation (COB) and the Andean peasant movements and barrio organizations in El Alto;
-- peasant movement sectors (CONAIE) in Ecuador;
-- teachers and peasant-indigenous movements in Oaxaca, Guerrero and Chiapas, Mexico;
-- nationalist-peasant-left sectors in Peru;
-- trade unionist and unemployed sectors in Argentina; and
-- other Central and South American social movements and some Marxist groups in several countries.
2. The Pragmatic Left
-- Hugo Chavez in Venezuela who combines grassroots participatory democracy and redistributive social policies with support for business interests;
-- Evo Morales in Bolivia;
-- Fidel Castro in Cuba;
-- various large electoral parties and major peasant and trade unions in the region; leftist parties including the PRD in Mexico, FMLN in El Salvador, CUT in Colombia, Chilean Communist Party, Peru's nationalist parliamentary party, sectors of Brazil's MST, Bolivia's MAS governing party, CTA in Argentina, and PIT-CNT in Uruguay.
3. The Pragmatic Neoliberals (the most numerous political block)
-- Lula in Brazil;
-- Kirchner in Argentina;
-- the major trade union confederations in Brazil and Argentina;
-- business and financial elite sectors providing subsistence unemployment doles and food aid; and
-- similar groups in Ecuador, Nicaragua (the Sandinistas and their split-offs), Paraguay and other countries.
4. The Doctrinaire Neoliberal Regimes
-- Calderon in Mexico;
-- Uribe in Colombia;
-- Bachelet in Chile (in spite of her being imprisoned and tortured under Pinochet);
-- the Central American countries: El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Guatemala;
-- Garcia in Peru;
-- Paraguay with the region's largest military base;
-- Uruguay's ex-leftist regime now rightist;
-- US-occupied Haiti through proxy thuggish paramilitary UN peacekeepers; and
-- the Dominican Republic.
The notion that populism swept Latin America in the new century is pure fantasy. In fact, there's a "quadrangle of competing and conflicting" regional forces with Washington having less market leverage than in the 1990s "Golden Age of Pillage" but still enough to be dominant and able to keep business flourishing.
Petras continues his analysis with detailed examples of key center-left regimes in Brazil under Lula, Argentina under Kirchner, Uruguay under Vazquez, Bolivia under Morales plus some comments on Peru and Ecuador under leaders preceding their current ones. Each case substantiates the fantasy that these regimes represented "new winds from the Left" sweeping the region. Hot air maybe, but little, if anything, in the way of progressive change despite the beliefs of many intellectuals on the left.
However, that's not to say leftist forces aren't strong enough to bubble up and bring change. Insurrectionary forces brought Evo Morales to power in Bolivia and can take him down if he fails them as he's now doing. The same is true in other countries with Hugo Chavez their model. He challenged US imperialism, brought real social change, has mass public support and thus far withstood US efforts to oust him. In Cuba, Fidel Castro thwarted every Washington effort against him since 1959 and is still in charge, larger than life, although frail and weak following his protracted illness from which he's still recovering. Petras sees a new generation of young committed leaders emerging in the region. "They are the 'Left Winds' of Latin America," and it's in them that hope lies.
Foreign Investment (FI) in Latin America
Petras demystifies FI's impact, explains the risks in attracting it, and exposes six myths about its benefits.
Myth 1.
It's untrue FI creates new enterprises, market opportunities and more. Most, in fact, aims to buy privatized and other enterprises while crowding out local capital and public initiative.
Myth 2.
FI doesn't increase export competitiveness. It buys mineral resources for export with little done to create jobs or stimulate the local economy.
Myth 3.
It's false to think FI provides tax revenue and hard currency. An FI export model creates more indebtedness and a net loss.
Myth 4.
It's false believing debt repayments to international lenders is key to a good financial standing. Much foreign debt is odious and repaying it harms borrower countries.
Myth 5.
It's false believing FI provides developing countries needed capital. It's used instead to buy local companies and control a country's markets.
Myth 6.
It's false believing FI attracts further investment. Capital freely moves to wherever it gets the best returns and is anchored nowhere.
Developing countries benefit most by relying less on FI and more on national ownership and investment. The former is predatory. The latter accrues profits to the national treasury and grows the country's economy. FI demands conditions favoring capital over labor that results in a widening economic gap and greater inequalities in political and social power. The 20 year (1980 - 2000) record of Latin American FI is socially disastrous. Living standards plunged while unemployment and poverty soared. Hardly reasons to attract it and clear ones to stay away or restrict it.
Part IV - An Agenda for Militants
Petras considers FI economic alternatives and ways to buck its strategic countermeasures. FI generally threatens disinvestment when a country wants to enhance its own economy and benefit popular living standards. Hardball tactics cut both ways, and the state can use its own effectively to counter capital flight threats as well as adopt policies in advance serving its needs first ahead of those FI wants to have things its own way.
Petras notes that FI "is incompatible with any notion of an independent, socially progressive country" even though at times it can be useful in a regulated environment controlling it. He explains a country's own financial and economic resources can be used instead of FI to enhance its internal development and technological advance by reinvesting profits from export industries; controlling foreign trade to increase retention of foreign exchange; investing pension funds productively; imposing a moratorium on debt payments; recovering stolen public treasury funds and unpaid taxes; maximizing under-employed labor, and more.
Most countries can avoid FI by relying on multiple sources of its own capital. They can also employ alternative effective strategies when outside help is needed by minimizing its ownership, employing short-term contracts on favorable terms, imposing stiff penalties on capital flight, and barring it from returning if it leaves. Petras concludes: "The historical and empirical evidence demonstrates that the political, economic and social drawbacks of (FI) far exceed any short-term benefits perceived by its defenders."
The Middle Class and Social Movements in Latin America
Petras observes that middle class attitudes in the region depend on the "political-economic context" confronting it. It's attracted to the right under expanding right-wing regimes and to the left in times of economic crisis. On the other hand, under a "popular, anti-dictatorial, anti-imperialist populist government, the middle class supports democratic reforms" but not radical policies harming it for the benefit of the working class. Three examples make his case - in Brazil under Lula when it took over his Workers Party; in Argentina when it benefitted under Menem and Cardoso and later under Kirchner; and in Bolivia under Morales who combines "political demagogy" to his base and neoliberal IMF austerity in his policies attractive to middle class and business interests.
Petras notes social movements failed by not developing political leadership or a program for state power and depended instead on "electoral politicians of the upwardly mobile professional middle class." The Left's key challenge, he believes, is to "convert the public sector middle class from anti-neoliberalism to anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism, and to combine urban welfare (with) agrarian reform."
Iraq and Afghanistan's Importance in Defeating the Empire
Petras concludes by noting Washington's imperial wars were stopped in their tracks in Iraq and Afghanistan by resistance too powerful to contain. A "shock and awe" blitzkrieg failed when Iraqis wanted a say in running, rebuilding and transforming their country and rejected its US-installed puppet regime. The country is a wasteland, the nation creation project bankrupt, and the prospect for success bad and worsening with multi-billions expended and nothing gained except huge profits for administration favored contractors that always benefit whoever wins or loses.
The same situation holds in Afghanistan. An easy five week walkover turned into an endless debacle with no end in sight. Washington planned successive wars for unchallengeable world dominance, but local resistance in two countries stopped it cold (so far), may defeat its proxies in Somalia, and resilient opposition in Palestine and South Lebanon may prove equally formidable as well.
The US is now over-extended and its "imperial grand strategy" weakened. It's made preemptive wars against Iran and Syria and trying again to topple Hugo Chavez less likely, but none of these possibilities are off the table. Cornered and facing defeat, rhetoric is heated making anything possible, and the September 20 Lieberman-Kyl "Sense of the Senate" (no legal force) resolution/amendment to the FY 2008 Defense Authorization bill ratchets up the possibility of attacking Iran and its regional "proxies" with potentially catastrophic fallout the risk.
For now, emboldened resistance and strong anti-war opposition are matched against an administration desperate to turn things around and willing to try anything to do it. How this may end is a crapshoot, the stakes on its outcome too great to risk but may be waged anyway, and the world trembles as it waits and watches. Stay tuned and hope Petras is right believing Iraq and Afghanistan thwarted the empire and prevented further aggression against Iran and beyond, now off the table. Or maybe not. When wounded and cornered, desperate animals and politicians may try anything with nothing to lose. Keep a close watch.
Stephen Lendman is Research Associate of the center for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Original article posted here.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Friday, September 14, 2007
Excellent article about Osama Chimera
Fighting a Ghost War Against a Spook Army
by Peter Chamberlin September 11 has come and gone, again without incident, despite the new warning videos that have been released by the new improved version of a left-wing "bin Laden." Whoever this Osama double is, he fails to inspire the fear and hatred associated with the original author of 9/11 terror, or the covert co-authors of the piggyback attack that finished the job. The focused fear, hatred and anger that were let loose on that fateful day seems to have diminished, as our trusted leaders took advantage of our trust and used it as a weapon against us and the world. The American outrage and desire for vengeance, which united much of the world behind us, was twisted into a license to kill indiscriminately and a mandate for dictatorship.The diffusing of our focused emotional response did not diminish these negative emotions and desires, it merely scattered them, making it easier for the bigots and racists to redirect them, in order to stoke the primitive fires of hatred for all that is "different." The world was forever changed on that day, as the darkness of the human soul was released unto the world, giving hope to those who sought to kill all who are different, in a vain effort to enslave whoever survives the great worldwide ethnic cleansing of all mankind. The fear mongers on both sides of the slowly building "clash of civilizations" have an easy job, pumping-up the hatred and the fear levels. Conspiracy theories abound on both sides, gaining more credibility with every insane act of violence committed by evil governments, corrupt leaders and various genocidal madmen. All conspiracy theories are based on partial truths and the illusion of truth. They are created by charting these patterns of violence and postulating the hidden goals of the leaders behind them. "Coincidence" can never fully explain the motives of those who conspire to give life to their hate-filled visions of death and glory. If, by their words and deeds, they appear to confirm that things are going according to their secret plans, does this not prove conspiracy? Or does it merely confirm that the leaders are very effective in spreading their hatred? Grand theories that seek to provide one all-encompassing answer, linking one race, or one religion to all the world's complex problems all lead to the darkest, most suspicious and devious parts of the human soul. This is why those of us who seek to free mankind from the chains which he has bound himself with must fight racism in all its ugly incarnations. The truth is that the comprehensive collusion between nefarious members of all groups has been necessary to bring us to the edge of this precipice. We are consumed with finding and naming the one great, compact conspiracy that sits atop all things, letting this one live, while the next one becomes cannon fodder. The cold truth is that our government is the great conspiracy which controls all things. The concept of little conspiracies of little "big men" waiting in the wings to continue the ongoing domination of our lives is but another ruse, meant to distract us. We waste our time and scatter our efforts, by trying to nail the one conspiracy that is behind all smaller plots. There is no one conspiracy that is behind all things; there is only total government, and with it, total power. "Globalism" is a euphemistic description of the plan for total world government. It's a nicer sounding way to say that we intend to conquer the world, with our markets and our military forces. Total government is an end unto itself, the one true perpetual motion machine, the self-sustaining prophecy. It is only natural that government (based on fear and brutal force) comes to see itself as the solution to all things. If only the "guiding hand" of the "benevolent dictatorship" could organize the world, as it saw fit, would not peace and prosperity for all be certain to follow? If not for the dual nuisances of free will and self-determination, then could not the government plan a true utopia for us? The fascist utopians have raised their ugly heads on the world stage once more; only this time, they are here in America. The utopian fascists here in America have a distinct advantage over those prior incarnations in Germany and Soviet Russia, they have TV. The religion of television has opened all minds to the patriotic lie. "Peer pressure" takes on a whole new meaning, when the television god tells you about all the good Americans, who are dying by the thousands to "save" you and your family, and to "defend freedom." The patriotic lie tells you that it is your "duty" to support the government's plans, even when those plans are for mass-murder on a scale that the world has never seen, all in the name of profit and the "New World Order." The patriotic lie is the omission of the hidden truth that it is our own corrupt government that is the only credible threat to our families and to freedom itself. If the hidden truth was known, it would expose the lie that supporting our troops means supporting our government's abuse of those troops. If the American people only realized what the government had planned for their sons and daughters, they would take to the streets by the millions to end the perpetual war of Muslim extermination, before Bush can escalate it beyond anyone's control. The government wants our children to willingly enter into the third war that will finish-off our volunteer forces and usher back in the era of the draft. The government wants American pilots to willingly destroy entire nations for the sake of increasing profits and giving total control to our overlords. Planned wars are the path to total control. No other force on earth can reshape the world and control the people's thoughts. World War II did not end; it merely mutated into a perpetual covert form. The great "enemies" of the western powers are mere constructs, built with American and British money, supplied by our overlords, under the guidance of the American government, to create the dialectic of "opposing forces." There is no real "enemy," when both sides are created and controlled by the same entities. The reason for creating a state of permanent war is to decimate and destroy, in order to make the people want to be controlled. War is the great persuader; making all men want the "security" that only big government can offer. The bigger the perception of "threat," the greater the clamor becomes for even more security. The ongoing "clash of civilizations" (just like the war against Nazism and the Cold War against Communism) is a total fabrication, created by our secretive government, to justify the neutering of the American people and our Constitution. The "war on terrorism" is a euphemism for a new race war, inspired and led by the same type of fascists who are always behind them, only this time the master-planners are American. What began as American self-defense has been morphed into a dark storm that threatens all life on this planet. The storm that is brewing is apocalyptic by design. They have purposely created the straw man of "Islamic terrorism," over many decades, to create an implacable enemy from a non-threatening people and their scary "pagan" religion. The "war on terrorism," built around this mythology and the events of September 11, hyped without end by the television idol, is desensitizing us to the necessary killing, by pumping-up the volume of unthinking fear. The illusion of "Islamofascism" was fabricated by the (neocon) neo-fascist conspirators from the American foreign policy programs of the CIA. They took the forces that had been created and directed by the CIA in our covert wars and successfully turned them against America. The real clash is taking place within our own civilization, as our real army is being pitted against our secret army, to justify the taking of Muslim oil resources and the wholesale genocide of the Muslim world that will make it possible. This war is more than the capitalist hunger for conquest of more territory and more resources. This war is about the conquest of souls. War that is about anything less than real self-defense is the evil that goes by a thousand names. This war is the all-consuming hunger. The "Beast from the pit" resides in our nation's capital. The great evil that masquerades as "patriotism" has brought us the "strong delusion," of which we have clearly been warned. Brother has been set against brother, by the great deception, as those with consciences stand-up to the murderous plans of those who defend our government's right to multiply the murder and destruction exponentially. We are the unfortunate generation who are the mute witnesses to something so horrendous that it can only be described as the "end of time," for this planet, anyway. The American people, the true patriots, are the only potential obstacle to this "brave new world," since God Himself is obviously sitting this one out. He has left this world in our hands; it is for good men of freewill to right this world, or to surrender it into the hands of evil. If we cannot convince our brothers and sisters to stand with us, in opposing the triumph of this all-consuming evil, then we will not deserve to live in a better world. It remains true for all time, that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. The collapse of the Democratic opposition in Congress and the surrender of the real conservatives to the neo-conservatives are proof that We the People have no one but ourselves to count on in this, our Republic's hour of greatest need. If the survival of freedom and democracy mandates that there be at least two separate parties to fulfill the "separation of powers" requirements, then the people must serve as that other party. It is We the People, who must stand against the one party government, in this political fight to the finish, and it will be a fight to the finish. In the end, we will either live freely in a democratic-republic, or we will merely exist in this one party dictatorship. "The Party" (which pretends to be two parties) is hostile to Constitutional democracy. The two faces that the Party projects to the people speak in seductive voices, saying the things that the people seem to want to hear. Between the two, often contradictory voices, the people are misled into giving-up the rights and powers that the Constitution has given them. Our government, like everything about our culture, is based on our desire to be deceived. A culture that is based on voluntary self-deception is a sick culture that seeks to escape the truth about ourselves. Our escapist culture thrives on illusion. We voluntarily herd ourselves into the sheltering arms of the police state, for the safety and security that comes with the government's control. This is the real cruelty of our delusional trap. For the rest of our lives the greatest war of all time is what really awaits us, But very few of us can see past the present little wars and the losses of freedom that are becoming apparent with them. The true path to defending freedom and our lives is in ending the war on terror, one war at a time, beginning with the war that is about to start. Original article posted here. |
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Goodbye World Leadership
World Publics Reject US Role as the World Leader
Majorities Still Want US to Do Its Share in Multilateral Efforts,
Not Withdraw from International Affairs
Mixed Views on US Overseas Bases
Full Report (PDF)
Questionnaire (PDF)
Methodology/Research Partners (PDF)
A multinational poll finds that publics around the world reject the idea that the United States should play the role of preeminent world leader. Most publics say the United States plays the role of world policeman more than it should, fails to take their country’s interests into account and cannot be trusted to act responsibly.
A US Navy CVN-69 Nimitz-class aircraft carrier (US Navy photo)
But the survey also finds that majorities in most countries want the United States to participate in international efforts to address world problems. Views are divided about whether the United States should reduce the number of military bases it has overseas. Moreover, many publics think their country’s relations with the United States are improving.
Americans largely agree with the rest of the world: most do not think the United States should remain the world’s preeminent leader and prefer that it play a more cooperative role. They also believe United States plays the role of world policeman more than it should.
This is the fourth in a series of reports based on a worldwide poll about key international issues conducted by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org, in cooperation with polling organizations around the world. The larger study includes polls in China , India, the United States, Indonesia, Russia, France, Thailand, Ukraine, Poland, Iran, Mexico, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Argentina, Peru, Israel and Armenia—plus the Palestinian territories.
The publics polled represent about 56 percent of the world’s population. Not all questions were asked in all countries.
Steven Kull, editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org notes that this poll reinforces the conclusions of other recent global surveys, which have found that the United States’ image abroad is bad and growing worse. But he added that it goes further, exploring what kind of role the international community would like the United States to play in the world.
“This survey shows that despite the negative views of US foreign policy, publics around the world do not want the United States to disengage from international affairs, but rather to participate in a more cooperative and multilateral fashion,” Kull said.
The United States’ Role in the World
Majorities in all 15 of the publics polled about the United States’ role in the world reject the idea that “as the sole remaining superpower, the US should continue to be the preeminent world leader in solving international problems.” However majorities in only two publics (Argentina and the Palestinian territories) say that the United States “should withdraw from most efforts to solve international problems.” The preferred view in all of the other cases is that the United States “should do its share in efforts to solve international problems together with other countries.”
In Asia, large majorities embrace the idea that the United States should play a cooperative role in South Korea (79%) and China (68%). A majority of Filipinos (55%) and a plurality of Indians (42%) also take this view, but they are among the few publics with substantial numbers saying the United States should play the role of the preeminent world leader: 20 percent in the Philippines and 34 percent in India. Thais are also relatively reluctant to support a cooperative role (47%), but very few endorse a preeminent role (8%) or disengagement (18%), while 27 percent declined to answer.
In Europe, the French are those most emphatic in their support for a cooperative role (75%), followed by Armenia (58%). A majority of Ukrainians (52%) also support this position, but an unusually high number (34%) supports US disengagement. In Russia, a plurality (42%) favors a cooperative role, but this is barely more than the percentage (38%) that favors disengagement.
In Latin America, about six in ten Peruvians (61%) and Mexicans (59%) believe the United States should cooperate with other countries to solve international problems. However, as mentioned above, Argentines are one of only two publics favoring US withdrawal from international efforts with 55 percent taking this position and 34 percent in favor of cooperation.
In the Middle East, Israelis and Palestinians differ sharply. A majority of Palestinians favor US disengagement (55%) while more than a third (36%) prefers cooperation. Israelis are more in line with most other publics in that 62 percent favor US cooperation, but they also show the second highest level of support (after India) for the US taking the role of preeminent leader (24%).
Americans match the French in their support for the United States doing its share together with other nations (75%), with small numbers favoring a preeminent role (10%) or isolationism (12%).
United States as World Policeman
Majorities in 13 out of 15 publics polled say the United States is “playing the role of world policeman more than it should be.” This is the sentiment of about three-quarters or more of those polled in: France (89%), Australia (80%), China (77%), Russia (76%), Peru (76%), the Palestinian territories (74%) and South Korea (73%).
The US public is also among those most convinced that United States too often plays the role of world policeman. Seventy-six percent of Americans agree that their country is overdoing such activities.
In only one country does a majority disagree with the idea that the United States tends to take on the role of international enforcer more than it should: the Philippines. Fifty-seven percent of Filipinos reject the idea that the United States plays a police role too often, while only a third (31%) agrees that it does.
Israelis, who are the United States’ closest allies in the Middle East, are divided over whether the United States plays the global policeman role too often. Forty-eight percent of Israelis agree and forty-eight percent disagree.
The five other countries where majorities believe the United States is too often acting as world policeman are: Indonesia (68%), Ukraine (67%), Armenia (63%), Argentina (62%) and India (53%). In India, a country which has been among the most positive about the United States in recent years, a third (33%) disagrees.
The survey also asks respondents in nine countries whether the United States has the “responsibility to play the role of ‘world policeman,’ that is to fight violations of international law and aggression wherever they occur.” Majorities in eight of the nine countries say the United States does not have the responsibility to fight aggression and enforce international law. The exception is India, where a slight majority (53%) says the US does have this responsibility while a third (35%) says it does not.
Palestinians (76%) are the most likely of the publics surveyed to answer that the United States does not have such a responsibility. The next most likely are Americans themselves. Three-quarters of Americans (75%) reject the idea that their country has a duty to enforce international law.
Strong majorities of Armenians (70%), Australians (70%), Indonesians (69%), and Ukrainians (69%) also agree that the United States does not have this responsibility.
The United States’ greatest economic and military rival in Asia—China—and one of its closest allies—South Korea—are equally likely to reject the idea that the US government has a duty to enforce international law. Sixty-one percent of Chinese and60 percent of South Koreans answer no. South Koreans are only somewhat more likely to say yes (39%) than the Chinese (30%).
Trust in the United States to Act Responsibly
In 10 out of 15 countries, the most common view is that the United States cannot be trusted to “act responsibly in the world.” Respondents were allowed to choose whether the United States could be trusted “a great deal,” “somewhat,” “not very much” or “not at all.”
Two Latin American countries show the least trust in the United States. An overwhelming 84 percent of Argentines answer that they have little confidence in the United States, including 69 percent who think the United States cannot be trusted at all. Eight in ten Peruvians (80%) also think the US cannot be trusted (23% not at all).
Most Russian and French respondents agree. Nearly three-quarters of Russians (73%) express little trust and a third (31%) says the United States cannot be trusted at all. The French are almost equally skeptical: 72 percent do not trust the United States to behave responsibly, including 30 percent who do not trust it at all.
Also among those who believe the United States generally cannot be trusted are: Indonesians (64%), Armenians (59%), Chinese (59%), Thais (56%) and South Koreans (53%). Half of Indian respondents (50%) also express little or no confidence.
In four countries, majorities or pluralities say the United States can be at least somewhat trusted to act responsibly. Filipinos (85%) are the most willing to trust the United States and half of them think the United States can be trusted a great deal (48%). Eight in ten Israelis (81%) also believe this. They are also the most willing to say the United States can be trusted a great deal (56%). Australians (59%) also tend to trust the United States (18% a great deal).
In two eastern European countries, about half believe the United States can be trusted: 51 percent in Poland—though most of these (44%) think the United States can only be trusted somewhat—and 49 percent in Ukraine, 31 percent of whom answer somewhat. About a third of Poles (32%) and Ukrainians (37%) say the United States cannot be trusted and large numbers are uncertain (17% and 24% respectively).
US Willingness to Consider Other Interests
Of the seven countries polled on this question, five believe the United States does not take their interests into account when making foreign policy decisions. Only in Israel does a large majority believe that the United States takes their interest into account. Indians are divided. In the other five countries, majorities or pluralities answer “not very much” or “not at all” when asked whether the United States takes their interests into account.
Three former Soviet-bloc countries are the most likely to think that the United States fails to consider their concerns. Although Poles tend to have fairly positive views of the United States, three-quarters (76%) think that the United States does not take their interests into account very much (57%) or does not do so at all (19%).
Two-thirds of Russians (66%) also think the United States ignores their interests, including a third who think it ignores them entirely (33%). Ukrainian feelings are similar: 63 percent say the United States tends not to take their interests into account, including 38 percent who say it does not take them into account at all.
In Asia, the most common view in two countries (China and Thailand) is that their interests are not considered by the United States when making foreign policy decisions. A majority of Chinese (58%) believe this, of whom 23 percent say the US does not do so at all. A plurality of Thais (49%) say the United States does not take their interests into account (30% not very much, 19% not at all) compared to 23 percent who believe it does (15% somewhat, 8% a great deal).
However Indians are divided. Forty-six percent say the United States does not take their interests into account (23% not at all), while 44 percent say that it does take their interests into account (24% somewhat, 20% a great deal).
The Israelis stand out as the only country where a strong majority (57%) says that the United States takes their interests into account a great deal while an additional 25 percent say that it does so somewhat. Thus a remarkable total of 82 percent of Israelis say that the United States takes their interests into account. A mere 14 percent disagree.
US Overseas Military Bases
Despite the widespread belief that the United States should not be the world’s preeminent leader and that it plays the role of world policeman more than it should, countries express mixed views about whether the United States should reduce its military presence around the world. Nonetheless, very few support increasing the number of bases.
Twelve publics were asked whether the United States should have more, fewer or the same number of long-term bases overseas. In six of them, including the US public, majorities or pluralities think the United States should maintain or increase the number of bases it maintains overseas. In five countries, majorities call for reductions. One country—India, again—is divided.
Those most in favor of the United States’ at least maintaining its overseas military presence are Filipinos, Americans Israelis and Poles. Those most likely to support a decreased presence are Argentines, Palestinians, the French and the Chinese.
Filipinos—whose government forced the United States to shut down its last base on Philippine territory 15 years ago—are the most likely to say that the United States should maintain its long-term overseas military presence. Nearly four in five respondents in the Philippines (78%) say the United States should either keep “about as many” bases as now (60%) or add more bases (18%).
Sixty-eight percent of Americans think the United States should either keep as many bases as now (53%) or add bases (15%). Only 27 percent say the United States should have fewer bases.
A majority of Israelis (59%) believe the United States should maintain a strong military presence overseas. Of these, 39 percent say the United States should keep its current number of bases and 20 percent say it should have more.
Respondents in Poland —one of the United States’ staunchest allies in Europe—also believe the United States should keep as many or more military bases overseas as it has today (54%). Most of these (45%) believe the United States should maintain the same number of bases and 9 percent believe there should be more.
Pluralities in Armenia and Thailand favor keeping or increasing US overseas bases over decreasing them. Armenians are in favor of maintaining the US military presence abroad by a margin of 42 percent to 37 percent. Thais support it by a margin of 34 percent to 25 percent, with 41 percent not answering.
Of the twelve publics polled, Argentines are those most in favor of shutting down US bases overseas (75%). Palestinians and the French are next with seven in ten (70% and 69% respectively) saying the United States should reduce its military presence abroad.
A majority of Chinese—an emerging military and economic power in Asia—also thinks the United States should have fewer bases. Three in five (63%) say it should reduce its overseas presence.
A majority of Ukrainians (62%) think that the United States should have fewer bases while 13 percent say it should keep the current number. Only 3 percent think it needs more and 22 percent are unsure.
Indians are evenly divided between those who say the United States should increase or maintain its bases overseas and those who believe it should decrease them. Thirty nine percent believe the US needs more (26%) or the same number (13%) and 39 percent say it should have fewer. About a fifth of Indian respondents (22%) are unsure.
Some Improvement in Bilateral Relations
Also contrary to the largely negative views of the United States’ role in the world is the perception in some countries—including some that are highly critical of the United States—that bilateral relations with the United State States are improving. Eleven countries were asked whether relations of their country with the United States were “improving, worsening, or staying about the same.”
Six of the eleven countries say their relations with the United States show signs of improvement, including majorities in India (58%) and China (53%) and pluralities in Australia (50%), Armenia (48%), Indonesia (46%) and Thailand (37%).
In the remaining five countries, majorities or pluralities say relations with the United States are staying about the same: 60 percent in Poland, 56 percent in South Korea, 52 percent in Israel, 52 percent in the Ukraine, and 45 percent in Russia.
In no country, does even a plurality think relations are getting worse. South Korea has the largest minority saying that relations with the United States are worsening (34%), followed by Thailand (28%) and Indonesia (23%). Among the other eight countries, only 8 percent to 20 percent feel this way.
“The publics in many countries differentiate between their negative views of the US international role and their perceptions of bilateral relations, which are seen as improving in a significant number of countries, even some that are highly critical of the United States,” said Christopher Whitney, executive director for studies at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
To read more about opinion in the individual countries surveyed, click here to view the full report (PDF).
Original article posted here.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Apartheid in Israel? Surprised? Why? Wasn't the US South Africa's closest ally, too (under apartheid)?
“Yes, there is Apartheid in Israel!”
The former American President and the Nobel Peace Prize Winner Jimmy Carter angered the U.S. Jewish Establishment for having dared to use the term "apartheid" while describing Israel's policies in the West Bank.
The former American President and the Nobel Peace Prize Winner Jimmy Carter angered the U.S. Jewish Establishment for having dared to use the term "apartheid" while describing Israel's policies in the West Bank.
However, none of the critics of Carter’s new book titled “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” was able to provide one convincing argument to justify such outcry, or reason to reject the fact that Israel bestows rights on Jewish settlers at lands they illegally confiscated from Palestinians, while it denies the same rights to the Palestinians, the indigenous residents and the true owners of the lands.
Israel’s simply refusing to accept reality. It rejects Carter’s Apartheid claim although it maintains two separate road networks in the occupied West Bank: one for the Jewish settlers, and one for Palestinian natives. Is that not apartheid?
Also Palestinians are denied the right to drive their own cars in much of the West Bank. And while their public transportation is frequently interrupted or blocked by Israeli army checkpoints, Jewish settlers are allowed to move freely in their own cars.
Is that not apartheid?
And most recent evidence is the Israeli government’s decision to approve plans making some site at Maskiot, which is a former military base, the first new Israeli settlement to be authorized in the occupied Palestinian territories since 1992.
True, the Maskiot settlement existed before as an army base, and Israel may claim it is only "firming up" an existing settlement, but the new pre-fabricated homes in Maskiot shed more light on the true policy of the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. It is probably the first new settlement to be created outside Jerusalem, with full government approval, since the Oslo agreements.
Although the new settlement violates two orders by the United states: Not to establish new settlements and not to settle evacuees from Gaza in them, it shouldn’t really be a surprise to those who have been following Israeli policies since Olmert became the Prime Minister. In February last year, while Olmert was still campaigning, he said that Israel would retain control of the Jordan Valley. His words however were misinterpreted by some as preparations to annex the Jordan Valley, while others understood that Olmert was planning to seize control over the routes leading to the Jordan valley. At that time reports emerged suggesting that Israel began tightening up checkpoint entries to the Jordan Valley, blocking entry of Palestinian Arabs who don’t live in the territories.
And Betselem, an Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, announced in February that Israel had "annexed" the Jordan Valley de facto.
In an article by Shulamit Aloni, the former Education Minister of Israel who has been awarded both the Israel Prize and the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Aloni criticised acts by the Israeli army who has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp, with the aim of keeping an eye on the Palestinians’ movement, making their lives more difficult and adding to their woes.
On events where the Jewish settlers, the occupiers and the usurpers of the Palestinian lands, celebrate their holidays, Israel imposes a total curfew to protect them.
And now Israelis are grabbing more lands to establish wonderful, wide, and well paved roads to be used only by Jews on the Palestinians’ stolen lands, where Palestinians themselves are not allowed to drive their own cars.
If any Palestinian driver dares pass on such roads, his vehicle gets immediately confiscated.
Aloni narrates that she witnessed a Palestinian driver while an Israeli soldier was taking down the details before confiscating his vehicle and sending him away.
She says when the Palestinian man asked the soldier why his vehicle was being taken from him, the soldier bluntly replied to the man telling him that “it's an order--this is a Jews-only road.”
However there’s no sign telling Palestinians that they shouldn’t use those roads so as to avoid having their cars confiscated.
The soldier told the man that “it is his responsibility to know it, and besides, what do you want us to do, put up a sign here and let some antisemitic reporter or journalist take a photo so he that can show the world that Apartheid exists here?"
“Indeed Apartheid does exist here,” Aloni agreed, adding that the Israeli army is not "the most moral army in the world" as claimed.
Every town and every village in the territories has become a detention camp and Israeli soldiers have blocked almost each and every entry and exit, cutting it off from arterial traffic. Now Palestinians are not allowed to travel on the roads paved “for Jews only”, on their land.
A new Israeli order, expected to be implemented on 19 January, prohibits transporting Palestinians in an Israeli vehicle, unless having a permission that relates to both the driver and the Palestinian passenger.
Is that not Apartheid?
Isn’t depriving people of their human rights, including freedom of travel, considered a crime?
“We limit ourselves to denying the Palestinian people human rights. We rob them of their freedom, land and water, and we apply collective punishment to millions of people and even, in revenge-driven frenzy, destroy the electricity supply for one and half million civilians,” she said.
“Employees cannot be paid their salaries simply because Israel is holding 500 million shekels that belong to the Palestinians. And after all that we remain pure as the driven snow,” she added.
Original article posted here.
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