Pigs at the trough

"You can't hold a board accountable if it's not transparent about what it's doing."

So said former Federal Reserve governor Larry Meyer at a conference in Washington, DC, that I attended this past March. Now consider that remark as you read this:

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

Writing in his blog for the American Prospect, economist Dean Baker asks the obvious question: "Are Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson Crony Capitalists?"

"After all, they are trying to hide which banks are in trouble and refusing to give out information about who is borrowing from the Fed. This is exactly the behavior that the IMF and widely cited economists denounced when it was done by the East Asian countries during their financial crisis in the late 90s. Are these practices now good economics because our government is doing them?"

Meanwhile, more and more corporate executives are lining up to beg for federal tax dollars -- or in the case of American Express, openly positioning themselves to do so in the near future:

Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- American Express Co. won U.S. Federal Reserve approval to become a commercial bank, gaining access to government funds as credit-card defaults climb with economies slowing around the world.

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"Given the continued volatility in the financial markets, we want to be best positioned to take advantage of the various programs the federal government has introduced,'' American Express Chief Executive Officer Kenneth I. Chenault said in a statement yesterday.

When Congress debated the Wall Street bailout, those who objected to using tax dollars to line the pockets of the executives who bankrupted their companies -- and who argued that taking money from the lower and middle class to prop up unsustainable, behemoth corporations might not be the best way to fix a fundamentally flawed U.S. economy -- were dismissed as cranks by all respectable pundits and politicians. Two months later, however, critics of the bailout look more and more prescient as the bailout devolves into an open grab for money by the incompetent corporate elite, while the economy shows no signs of a recovery in the near future.

It kind of makes one think that, instead of disgraced financial pundits and CEOs who just a year ago were predicting perpetual economic bliss, politicians and the mainstream press should start looking for guidance from those who haven't been wrong about everything over the last decade.

The chances of that happening? Not so good. People who rightly predict negative outcomes based on evidence that was readily available before the fateful decision was made tend to annoy those in power, as well as the large segment of the media that grovels before those in charge. 

People who were wrong, but for all the "right" reasons, according to the establishment consensus? Nothing less than sainthood -- as witnessed by Colin Powell's name being favorably (and inexplicably, based on actual performance) mentioned as a possible Obama cabinet official. Hell, I won't be the least bit surprised if, after leaving office, Dick Cheney gets a column for the New York Times. 

Nancy Pelosi thinks you're stupid

H.L. Mencken once remarked that, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in an op/ed she "wrote" for USA Today, seems determined to test that statement with a serious of ludicrous assertions that appear designed to test America's capacity to believe unadulterated bullshit.

Consider:

In September, as we moved quickly to help rescue Wall Street and our financial system, the House also passed an economic recovery package for Main Street that would create and save jobs by building a 21st century infrastructure, providing extended unemployment assistance and preventing the loss of crucial health services.

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In the weeks since, the need for responsible action to strengthen our economy has become more urgent. I have asked the chairmen of the relevant committees in the House to review the economic impact of a larger recovery package and, because of the Congress' commitment to fiscal responsibility, the effect on the budget.

Catch that? Pelosi and her fellow Democrats acted decisively in September to "rescue Wall Street and our financial system" by granting the Bush administration the unilateral authority to seize/nationalize any assets they so desire, to the dismay of the banks that actually had competent leadership. Yet after this bold, courageous action, "the need for responsible action to strengthen our economy has become more urgent." Wait, you mean that $700 billion (and counting) taxpayer-funded bailout for Wall Street -- which the political/media elite claimed was absolutely vital to prevent another Great Depression, ridiculing anyone who dared to say otherwise -- hasn't fixed the U.S. economy? You don't say.

Remember also that after Congress -- in a rare act of commonsense -- initially rejected the bailout plan, the likes of Pelosi and Barney Frank all bemoaned their fellow lawmakers' economic ignorance, linking the rejection to the stock market's dramatic 700-plus point fall that day. And what has happened since Congress caved and passed the bailout? The stock market has fallen almost continually, including 733 points just today.

But it gets better:

Democrats have made fiscal responsibility a top priority, reinstating pay-as-you-go budget rules on the first day we took control of Congress in 2007. In keeping with these principles, each component of our recovery package will be justified in terms of creating good-paying jobs, stimulating our economy and returning revenue to the Treasury.

So the Democratic Congress that approved the very spending that, as Reuters reports, has resulted in a record-high $455 billion budget deficit this year -- and a record-high, $10 trillion-plus national debt -- is committed to "fiscal responsibility"? The same Democratic Congress that has approved hundreds of billions of dollars in "emergency" funding for a war in Iraq that they claim to oppose -- and campaigned in 2006 on ending -- is supposed to be a model in fiscal conservatism? Are we to believe that mean old George W. Bush just did this all on his own, and not with the help of a complicit and corrupt class of politicians collectively known as the Democratic Party?

It shouldn't have to come to this, but let me point out the obvious: one can't approve $700 billion in corporate welfare, hundreds of billions more for failing military occupations, another $300 billion in a "stimulus" package aimed at bribing the masses with their own money (that is, the money that isn't merely printed by the Fed or borrowed from China), and still claim to be the defender of the U.S. taxpayer. Sorry, you just can't.

Finally:

When Americans are worried about losing their jobs, their savings, their homes and their chance at the American Dream, Congress and the president must work together to lift our economy and restore hope. That is the course the New Direction Congress will continue in the days and weeks ahead.

Is the phrase, the "New Direction Congress", not the perfect embodiment of the Democratic Party's devolution into mindless sloganeering as a substitute for actual policies, or thought? The focus group-tested "New Direction" slogan is nothing more than an attempt to obfuscate the fact that the United States is headed in the same direction that it was before Democrats took over Congress -- down -- except now, perhaps, at a faster pace.

Now, if Ms. Pelosi or one of her underpaid aides is reading this, let me pose a few questions to the esteemed leader of the most unpopular Congress in recent history: 1) how does it feel living the lifestyle of jet-setting cosmopolitan as you deplete the wealth of the average American in the name of the twin gods of corporatism and imperialism?; 2) do you believe the American public will believe whatever b.s. you spout so long as you have a 'D' and not an 'R' after your name?; and 3) have you no shame?

You'd be laughing too

In this instance, a picture truly is worth a thousand words.

The U.S. Congress, just as it did in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, appears set to grant the Bush administration everything it wants in response to a phony, manufactured "crisis" being drummed up by the same corrupt politicians and businessmen that assured the American public that, soon, everyone could have a McMansion and a endless supply of easy credit. And brazenly enough, the $700 billion bailout -- which, sorry, Obamaphiles, pretty much rules out any fancy new social programs -- is being openly crafted by this very same incompetent elite that ran their companies -- and this country -- into the ground and that stand to gain the most from this massive transfer of wealth:

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will have broad authority to hire financial managers quickly to help manage a $700 billion asset-purchase plan, according to the draft legislation under consideration.

The bill would allow the Treasury chief to waive federal acquisition procedures ``where compelling circumstances make compliance contrary to the public interest,'' according to a summary of the draft law. The Treasury would have to notify Congress of such waivers within seven days, and also ensure procedures are in place to reach out to minorities.

If the plan is enacted, the Treasury likely will need a lot of Wall Street expertise to manage the assets it acquires, said Tim Ryan, head of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Ryan also is former director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, which oversaw the Resolution Trust Corp., the agency that liquidated failed thrifts after the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s.

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Paulson has already recruited from Wall Street to help manage the current financial crisis, the worst since the Great Depression. He hired Morgan Stanley on a $95,000 contract awarded under emergency procedures to help assess options for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that ultimately ended up in government conservatorship.

Goldman Sachs

Paulson also last week hired former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. colleague Edward C. Forst, now executive vice president at Harvard University, on a $5,000 contract to help with the plan.

I could be wrong, but to me this all sounds an awful lot like this:

Corporate Statism is an approach to state organization, the likes of which Othmar Spann, Benito Mussolini and others are credited with developing. Corporate Statism involves the ruling party acting as a mediator between the workers, capitalists and other prominent state interests by institutionally incorporating them into the ruling mechanism. 

Essentially, corporatism is rule by a political and economic elite, with nominally "private" corporations working hand-in-hand with the state for the benefit of the well-connected capitalists and politicians at the top. But, as Wikipedia assures us:

However, both in academia and practice, Corporate Statism (or Corporatism as it is also sometimes known) has fallen out of favour.

Yeah, someone might want to rewrite that.

Interview with Mike Gravel

Last Friday, I spoke with former Senator Mike Gravel at an event here in Washington aimed at drawing attention to the case of Sami al-Arian. While some comments that Gravel made at the event seem to have attracted some of the wrong kind of attention, I thought I'd share the transcript of a brief interview  I had with Gravel following Friday's event at Busboys and Poets about al-Arian's case and the upcoming presidential election:

DAVIS: I was just wondering how you got involved in this case?

GRAVEL: It started at the beginning of the year, I was in New York and I met Leila [al-Arian]. I was on TV being interviewed and she was being interviewed also and I listened to the case and I couldn’t believe it. And so I got more involved, and then so I cut a couple spots… and then I got more and more involved, so now I’m absolutely outraged over the injustice. Outraged, I think you can tell.

DAVIS: I talked to Senator Leahy’s office earlier this week, and the person I was speaking with on the phone was immediately familiar with the case, but they wouldn’t say anything about what Senator Leahy was doing…

GRAVEL: So they are familiar with the case?

DAVIS: They are very familiar -- they said they’re still getting calls on it. But what do you make of the fact that they haven’t really done anything about it?

GRAVEL: Gutless. This is a great injustice. This a great, great injustice. And they’re afraid to get tagged with respect to the jewish community, AIPAC, you know. This all stems from AIPAC. This guy is just speaking out very effectively for the Palestinian cause, that’s what’s the root of this. And they’re trying to stifle that.

DAVIS: You know, coming in here you see people with Obama shirts out front and they’re selling Obama merchandise, and I’m sure a lot of people here think that if there’s a President Obama that injustices like this may not happen, or that he’ll fix them. Are you as confident as some people?

GRAVEL: No, no. There’ll be some improvement. I don’t think the Justice Department will as bad as it is right now, but don’t hold your breath for big change.

DAVIS: And just unrelated, who are you voting for?

GRAVEL: Well first off, not McCain, he’s a nutcase... It’s very difficult, very difficult.

DAVIS: What do you make of Bob Barr? I know you were running for the Libertarian nomination…

GRAVEL: Don’t ask me about that (laughing).

The covert war on Iran

In my last post regarding allegations of U.S. support for the anti-Iranian terrorist group, Jundullah, I noted that since the likes of Senate Intelligence Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) were unable to -- or more likely, unwilling to -- investigate the charges, it would probably be best to rely on The New Yorker's Sy Hersh for information on what's really going on. As it would happen, Hersh has a new article out today that finds:

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations.

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The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others. “The oversight process has not kept pace—it’s been coöpted” by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. “The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing.”

When I asked Senator Rockefeller about these allegations last year, he responded that, gosh darn it, he just couldn't do anything about it. Of course, if Hersh's reporting is right, then Rockefeller has not only failed to adequately exercise his oversight responsibilities -- you know, basic things like actually issuing a subpoena over credible allegations of U.S.-backed terrorism -- but has been actively complicit in the ongoing covert war on Iran.

But should anyone be surprised? If the United States or Israel attacks Iran, it will be because there is broad, bipartisan support in Washington for such an attack. While Democratic partisans can go ahead and try to convince themselves that an attack on Iran will be the fault of all those dastardly neocons in the White House, it's increasingly obvious that the Democratic Party -- which took control of Congress based on broad antiwar sentiment in 2006 -- fully embraces the same imperial foreign policy objectives of the Bush administration. It was, after all, Democrat Harry Truman who dropped two nukes on Japan, fought a war in Korea without congressional approval, and ushered in the Cold War (and the accompanying military-industrial complex), so it's not as if Republicans have a monopoly on militarism and the willingness to commit war crimes.

A wide number of Democrats are also backing a resolution that calls for a de facto war on Iran -- a complete naval embargo and prohibition on the movement of Iranian officials -- for its "pursuit of nuclear weapons", despite the fact that the IAEA and all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies have come to the conclusion that Iran is, in fact, not pursuing nuclear weapons. But in Washington, people don't let little things like the "facts" get in the way of America's implacable demand for foreign enemies.

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For those interested, Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio fame aired a portion of my exchange with Senator Rockefeller during a recent interview of former CIA intelligence analyst Melvin Goodman. Go here to listen -- the discussion of Rockefeller begins around the 16:30 mark.

U.S. support for Jundullah in the news

The Washington Post reports (via Scott Horton):

TEHRAN, June 20 -- An armed Sunni group said Friday that it had executed two Iranian policemen, and it threatened to kill 14 others abducted a week ago in an area near the border with Pakistan.

Iranian authorities did not immediately react to a videotape purporting to show the killings, part of which was aired Friday by the al-Arabiya satellite channel, based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Iran has accused the United States of assisting the group, known as Jundallah, or God's Brigade.

In 2007, ABC News quoted U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials as saying that Jundallah members have been "encouraged and advised" by American officials since 2005. A CIA spokesman told ABC that the United States provides no funding to Jundallah.

Alleged U.S. support for Jundullah is something that I noted in April 2007, when the story from ABC News supporting charges that the Bush administration was backing anti-Iranian terrorist groups was met with a collective yawn by the rest of the mainstream media. As I wrote at the time:

Outside of ABC News, it’s a struggle to find any discussion of U.S. support for anti-Iranian extremist groups in the major media outlets. While the New York Times was quick to speak about the Imus affair in an April 11th editorial, there has been not so much as a mention of the Jundullah story in their paper, much less a critical look at how the story undermines the White House’s moral authority to criticize Iran for its supposed "meddling" in Iraq. The same goes for the Washington Post, where a search for "Jundullah" reveals only two wire articles on the subject. One finds no editorials questioning the policy, no reaction from lawmakers, no introspective takes on the morality of such a policy – one finds next to nothing.

I was led to write an article on alleged U.S. support for Jundullah after engaging in a revealing interview with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) that Jonathan Schwarz described as "an amazing statement of congressional impotence". Here's an excerpt of the interview, which took place as Rockefeller was walking out of the Senate chamber (click here to listen to an mp3 of the exchange):

DAVIS: I wonder if you've heard some of these news reports that the Bush administration is backing extremist groups in Pakistan to launch attacks against Iran? Are you familiar with those news reports?

ROCKEFELLER: I've seen no intelligence that would verify that.

DAVIS: Reports quote administration officials as saying this is going on and it's being done in a way to avoid oversight of the Intelligence Committee. Is there any way—

ROCKEFELLER: They'll go to any lengths to do that, as we've seen in the last two days [during hearings on FISA].

DAVIS: Is there anything you could do in your position as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee to find answers about this, if it is in fact going on?

ROCKEFELLER: Don't you understand the way Intelligence works? Do you think that because I'm Chairman of the Intelligence Committee that I just say I want it, and they give it to me? They control it. All of it. All of it. All the time. I only get, and my committee only gets, what they want to give me.

DAVIS: Is there any way someone, maybe not you, they can somehow press the administration to find something—if they're doing something that may be illegal—

ROCKEFELLER: I don't know that. I don't know that. I deal with Intelligence. That's it. They tend to avoid us.

DAVIS: Well, what do you think about these allegations?

ROCKEFELLER: I'm not—I don't comment on allegations. I can't. I can't afford to.

If anyone believes that Democrats in Congress are going to investigate credible allegations that the U.S. is supporting terrorism, think again. If one of the most powerful -- and one of the richest -- senators is too timid to so much as issue a subpoena on the topic, then it's probably best to rely on the likes of Seymour Hersh for evidence of what's really going on.

The week in review

On Friday, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives capitulated to White House demands and passed a bill that essentially legalizes -- retroactively -- the Bush administration's covert spying program on Americans (see Salon's Glenn Greenwald on the many ways in which the bill violates the rule of law. I wrote about Bush's illegal "warrantless wiretapping" back in 2006.)

Meanwhile, Republican Senator Kit Bond displayed the modern GOP's view of the appropriate relationship between a citizen and the State in explaining why telecommunications companies that colluded with the illegal spying program were in the right:

"I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do."

Also this week, the House Democratic leadership brought to the floor a $162 billion bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that -- surprise! -- contained not even the weakest language regarding a timeline for withdrawal (not even the non-binding "targets" they initially included in 2007's war supplemental).

Here is Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who in a stunning act of political courage voted against the war funding bill she chose to bring to the floor (fully aware that it would pass and continue the Iraq occupation well into the next administration), explaining why opponents of aggressive warfare should not believe their own eyes:

"I don't consider it a failure," Pelosi told reporters Thursday. "We never sent them a bill that did not have deadlines, conditions and the rest." She blamed Republicans in the Senate. "They are complicit with the president to make sure he never has to get a bill on his desk with a timeline, because the American people want a timeline," she said.

Just a small note of clarification: in the bolded section above, Pelosi is talking about Republicans who are complicit in funding an illegal war of aggression -- not Democrats like herself. Hope that helps.

On the campaign trail: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama released a list of his foreign policy advisors that consists almost entirely of near-dead warmongers and Clinton-era imperialists. Of course, most people won't pay attention to these types of things, but Obama's point is merely to signal to the ruling elites that he has no plans to threaten the status quo in any way.

More and more, Obama's lukewarm opposition to the Iraq war (he has voted to fund it while in the Senate and has no plans to withdraw all U.S. troops before 2013) is looking as if it were a fluke based not on any principled opposition to empire or aggressive warfare, but solely on consideration of U.S. strategic interests; that is, I think it's fair to say Obama would have supported invading Iraq had he been convinced the United States could have done so under the auspices of the United Nations and with more international allies -- murder being more respectable if you bring more friends along, of course.

If one needs any further proof of Obama's establishment-bonafides, consider the fact that one of his chief foreign policy advisers, Bill Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, was primarily responsible for perpetuating a low-grade war on Iraq, in the form of economic sanctions and continual aerial bombing, that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. and engendered much of the hatred toward the United States that is prevalent in the Middle East today.

Albright, it should be remembered, also dismissed the deaths of Iraqi's as a price that was "worth it", despite the fact that the sanctions neither resulted in Saddam Hussein's overthrow nor prevented a war. And as the Institute for Public Accuracy recounts in an overview of Obama's newly minted group of advisers:

When Lesley Stahl asked "We have heard that a half million children have died [in Iraq from the sanctions]. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And -- and you know, is the price worth it?" Albright replied: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." (CBS News, May 12, 1996).

Finally, Obama's audacious list of establishment foreign policy advisers leads the The American Conservative's Kelley Vlahos to write:

'“Anti-war” candidate Barack Obama came out with a list of national security advisors mostly resembling the moldy contents of a closet in Georgetown. At this rate, the potentially painful lessons of Iraq will have been anesthetized by Election Day, moving artfully into another foreign policy chapter and potentially leaving another festering human disaster behind.'

The Merida Initiative

My latest piece for Inter Press Service regarding the Bush administration's so-called "Merida Initiative" -- a three-year plan to further the "war on drugs" in Mexico and several other Central American countries through military training and equipment -- is now available online.

An excerpt:

WASHINGTON, May 19 (IPS) - Funding for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan may be temporarily stalled in the U.S. Congress, but last week lawmakers here did approve 400 million dollars in spending for another controversial war, this one aimed primarily at cutting off the transport of illicit drugs from Latin America into the United States.

Read the rest (subscription required).

The state of Intelligence

By now you're probably familiar with the sordid details of the Vito Fossella story; a moralizing (and married) Republican congressman from New York fathers a child with his mistress, former Air Force lieutenant colonel Laura Fay, with whom he leads a secret double life -- a fact revealed after Fossella was arrested for a DWI three miles from her house. But what stood out to me was this aspect of the story:

The two met while she was the Air Force's House liaison - a position she held from July 2001 until her retirement in September 2006.

Fay is an intelligence officer by trade; her last duty assignment was as chief of the intelligence applications division at the Pentagon.

Now, keep that part of the story in mind when you read this:

Fossella repeatedly lied to Fay, telling her he had separated from his wife, Mary Pat, his former high school sweetheart and the mother of his three children in Staten Island, a source said.

Fay only realized the extent of his deception when he confessed to fathering a love child last week, but made no mention of leaving his wife.

Catch that? A top Pentagon intelligence official apparently believed a congressman -- never a wise decision -- when he told her that he was separated from his wife, but made no attempt to research whether that was true. Of course, she very well may have known but doesn't want to admit it, but let's assume for a moment that this account is accurate and that she really was unaware.

Searching that top-secret research tool, Wikipedia, Fay could have learned this:

In 1990, Fossella married Mary Patricia Rowan. They have three children and live in the Great Kills neighborhood on Staten Island.

That information was freely available on Fossella's Wikipedia page earlier this year. And if Fay had been using her intelligence skills even earlier, she could have found out this interesting tidbit from an earlier version of the page:

In 1990, he married Mary Patricia Rowan. Their first son, Dylan Michael, was born on September 30th, 1995, their second son, Griffin Thomas, on November 21st, 1997 and their first daughter, Rowan Frances, on September 12th, 2003.

According to press accounts, Fossella and Fay's relationship really started developing in the summer of 2003 -- when Fossella's wife was pregnant with the couple's first daughter. The fact that Fay didn't know this is evidence of a startling naivety or willful ignorance.

Either way, does that not tell you everything you need to know about the state of the intelligence services in the United States?

The difference between you and the State

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK - Three detectives were acquitted Friday in the 50-shot killing of an unarmed groom-to-be on his wedding day, a case that put the NYPD at the center of another dispute involving allegations of excessive firepower.

You see, if you attend a few months of police training and receive a nice, shiny badge, then you effectively become not just above the law, but you become the law. Justice and responsibility for one's actions? Why, that's something best left to the proles. And that reality isn't lost on those most familiar with police brutality:

William Hardgraves, 48, an electrician from Harlem, brought his 12-year-old son and 23-year-old daughter to hear the verdict. "I hoped it would be different this time. They shot him 50 times," Hardgraves said. "But of course, it wasn't."

The officers, complaining that pretrial publicity had unfairly painted them as cold-blooded killers, opted to have the judge decide the case rather than a jury.

The judge, Justice Arthur Cooperman, indicated when he delivered the verdict that the officers' version of events was more credible than the victims' version. "The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified" in firing, he said.

And doesn't that just say it all? The police needn't prove that the man they shot dozens of times on his wedding day was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt -- oh no. Why, they merely had to argue that they were scared that something might happen to them, never mind the fact that none of the men they shot at were armed.

In effect, the men who were shot at -- and in one case, murdered -- were forced by the court to prove they were innocent, rather than requiring the agents of the State to justify shooting at them without evidence of a crime having been committed. At no point did the police need to demonstrate "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the men posed a dangerous threat, just merely that they felt they could be a threat. That's the difference between having a badge and being a mere serf; what would be murder if perpetrated by you or I is just an unfortunate incident with no repercussion's for New York's finest.

Now, you might think that this case demonstrates that the U.S. criminal justice system is broken beyond repair. Police officers can murder with impunity, while possession of a controlled substance can land you an extended prison sentence -- and in some cases, the death penalty.

The sad fact is the United States is home to the largest prison population in the world -- the vast majority nonviolent drug offenders -- and an African-American male is more likely to be convicted of a felony than to graduate college. And no amount of rationalization on the part of defenders of the State can defend the horrendous human rights violations perpetrated in U.S. prisons, where rape is joked about by officers and prison guards and condoned as a mere added punishment for the deserving.

But to some, namely those who benefit from the status quo, the U.S. criminal justice system is beyond reproach.

The U.S. attorney's office said after the verdict that it had been monitoring the state's prosecution and would conduct an independent review of the case. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who represents Bell's family, called for a federal investigation.

"This verdict is one round down, but the fight is far from over," Sharpton said on his radio show. "What we saw in court today was not a miscarriage of justice. Justice didn't miscarry. This was an abortion of justice."

Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association, responded angrily to Sharpton's suggestion that the verdicts were unfair.

"That's despicable for him to say that because we have the greatest criminal justice system on earth," he said.

Of course it comes as no surprise that Palladino also came to the defense of the four NYC police officers who shot Amadou Diallo 41 times because they mistook his wallet for a gun. As he told the Austin American-Statesman in an October 26, 2003, article on police shootings (which is available on LexisNexis but not online)

"They just become political pawns," said Detective Michael Palladino, the organization's executive vice president and the vice president of the Detectives Endowment Association of New York, which closely monitored the trials of the four officers involved in the 1999 incident. "It is gut-wrenching for the officers."

Poor guys; the stress of standing trial for murdering unarmed individuals is absolutely gut-wrenching.

Just imagine the stress they would feel if there was actually a chance they would ever be convicted (emphasis on "imagine").

Congress: Making a killing

It should go without saying that in times of war, those people who manufacture the tools of death and destruction stand to benefit the most. That basic point was perhaps most notably addressed by infamous Chomyskite America-hater, former U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower, when in his 1961 farewell address he warned Americans that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

As a new study from the Center for Responsive Politics finds, the huge profits one can make from foreign military interventions and the "homeland security" ruse hasn't been lost on Congress, the legislative body that chooses to fund wars and -- theoretically -- has the sole responsibility to declare them:

According to the most recent reports of their personal finances, 151 current members of Congress had between $78.7 million and $195.5 million invested in companies that received defense contracts of at least $5 million in 2006. In all, these companies received more than $275.6 billion from the government in 2006, or $755 million per day, according to FedSpending.org, a website of the budget watchdog group OMB Watch.

The minimum value of Congress members' personal investments in these contractors increased 5 percent from 2004 to 2006, but because lawmakers are only required to report their assets in broad ranges, the value of these investments could have risen as much as 160 percent—or even dropped 51 percent. It is also unclear how many members still hold these investments, since reports for 2007 are not due until May 15, 2008. In 2004, the first full year after the Iraq war began, Republican and Democratic lawmakers—both hawks and doves—had between $74.9 million and $161.3 million invested in companies under contract with the Department of Defense.

This revelation should come as no surprise. War is a pretty sound investment in a country that has military bases in more than 130 nations, from South Korea to Germany, and that spends more on the military than does the entire rest of the world -- and more than the entire economies of 47 sub-Saharan African countries combined.

As Justin Raimondo points out in his April 4th column, the draft of Eisenhower's farewell address actually used the phrase "military-industrial-congressional complex", noting the crucial role that members of Congress play in self-servingly perpetuating an imperial foreign policy. Congressional proponents of interventionism prefer to speak in vague, euphemistic language about "America taking action" or some other such attempt to disguise the vicious nature of what war actually is -- killing lots and lots of people, from 2,000 feet above to 20 feet away, more often than not innocent civilians. In reality, the decision to go to war is never profound -- the people who decide when to bomb a country are not fundamentally different than you or me. Oh, they may be richer, but they certainly aren't smarter, and they definitely aren't braver, and as former congressman Mark Foley's (R-FL) cyber-sexing during a vote on funding the Iraq war illustrates, they don't gravely consider sending other people's children into war.

But what about all those anti-war Democrats?

While Democrats are more likely to advocate for ending the Iraq war sooner than Republicans, as a group they have more of their own money invested in America's military efforts. In 2006 Democrats had at least $3.7 million invested in the defense sector alone, compared to Republicans' $577,500. More Republicans, however, held stock in defense companies in 2006—28 of them, compared to 19 Democrats.

According to a spokesman for one of these investors, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who held at least $15,000 in Lockheed Martin stock in 2006, it's "insulting" to make a connection between personal investments and a lawmaker's job. "Congressman Blunt does not consider his personal finances when voting for legislation, especially on issues as weighty as sending our troops into harm's way," Blunt spokesman Nick Simpson said.

How... completely unsurprising? To be fair, as Rep. Blunt's spokesman states (rather unconvincingly), personal investments aren't enough of a reason why a congressman would vote for war. After all, according to the study the majority of lawmakers are not heavily invested in the defense industry, yet they also continue to vote for militarism at every turn. So what gives?

I think the answer to that is fairly easy: just as oil was clearly a factor in why Iraq was even on the minds of U.S. policymakers (as opposed to, say, Rwanda in the mid '90s), money plays a part in why lawmakers vote for aggressive war -- but neither factors can fully explain the respective decisions. Though most congressional districts likely have some connection to the defense contracting industry (by no coincidence, either), it's too simple to say that that is the only reason why Congress votes the way it does.

Much I'm sure has to do with nothing more than basic nationalist, jingoistic ideology -- what is sometimes loftily referred to as "American exceptionalism", and can be boiled down to "we (the USA) can do what we want -- invade, torture and kill, kill, kill -- and you (the non-Western world) can't." Not to say that these lawmakers are conscious of this -- oh no. Most people think of themselves as good, and it's a safe bet that those same people leading the United States into one disastrous war after another believe that they are Fine American Patriots, just as those who killed "witches" in New England undoubtedly had a feeling of pure self-righteousness when they fastened the rope around a young woman's neck.

It is important to keep in mind that the perpetuation of the military-industrial complex is not (necessarily) a result of nefarious plotting in dark alleys and the ritualistic drinking of the blood of virgins. The reality of evil tends to be much more banal. Think more along the lines of a career bureaucrat in some anonymous office building in Anywhere, USA -- stamping form 1024a day in and day out becomes a mundane routine, just as stamping out obstacles to U.S. hegemony becomes so for a defense contractor (or Senator) who thinks of their job as nothing more than a paycheck and, if their lucky, maybe a little prestige.

Recommended Reading

First off: I apologize for the lack of posting. Between coming down with the flu and starting a new job (in the same week), I haven't had much motivation to blog about the happenings in the world. So to make up for the lack of posting, here are three recent articles that I found interesting.

The first is from Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector in Iraq (who I interviewed in April 2006 for Alternet). In an article for Truthdig entitled, "Iraq's Tragic Failure", Ritter examines the state of the U.S. occupation and the complete disconnect in the way it is portrayed here in the United States. His depressing (and probably right) conclusion?

If there is any winner in all of this it will be the Sunni resistance, or at least its leadership hiding in the shadow of the American occupation, as it continues to exploit the chaotic death spiral of post-Saddam Iraq for its own long-term plan of a Sunni resurgence in Iraq. That the Sunni resistance will continue to fight an American occupation is a guarantee. That it will continue to persevere is highly probable. That the United States will be able to stop it is unlikely. And so, the reality that the only policy direction worthy of consideration here in the United States concerning Iraq is the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of American forces continues to hold true. And the fact that this option is given short shrift by all capable of making or influencing such a decision guarantees that this bloody war will go on, inconclusively and incomprehensibly, for many more years. That is the one image in my crystal ball that emerges in full focus, and which will serve as the basis of defining a national nightmare for generations to come.

The next piece is by Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, who examines the Democratic Party's complete failure to end the war in Iraq -- despite promising to do so in 2006, and despite (rightfully) trashing President Bush's Iraq policy. With the liberal blogosphere all aflutter over their next messiah, Barack Obama, it's nice to see that some people still judge politicians not just by their rhetoric, but what they actually do. As Taibbi writes:

Democrats insist that the reason they can't cut off the money for the war, despite their majority in both houses, is purely political. "George Bush would be on TV every five minutes saying that the Democrats betrayed the troops," says Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an Independent who voted against the war but caucuses with the Democrats. Then he glumly adds another reason. "Also, it just wasn't going to happen."

Why it "just wasn't going to happen" is the controversy. In and around the halls of Congress, the notion that the Democrats made a sincere effort to end the war meets with, at best, derisive laughter. Though few congressional aides would think of saying so on the record, in private many dismiss their party's lame anti-war effort as an absurd dog-and-pony show, a calculated attempt to score political points without ever being serious about bringing the troops home.

"Yeah, the amount of expletives that flew in our office alone was unbelievable," says an aide to one staunchly anti-war House member. "It was all about the public show. Reid and Pelosi would say they were taking this tough stand against Bush, but if you actually looked at what they were sending to a vote, it was like Swiss cheese. Full of holes."

Finally, we come to this article by Christopher Ketcham over at the Huffington Post regarding the burgeoning secessionist movement in Vermont. An excerpt:

Here's how it will be with Vermont: The leaders of its secessionist movement, the Second Vermont Republic, want to feed, shelter, clothe, and fuel a free republic broken from the empire. This doesn't mean the little country will sink into Albanian isolation, its citizens ceasing to trade with China or refusing to watch the rot beamed on DirecTV satellites. It will continue to be a tourist destination, its slopes welcoming New Yorkers and Quebecois equally. But the state's secesh want to keep their tax dollars at home and put them toward localized food economies (calling it "food sovereignty"), energy supplies based on wind and water, and credit lines out of community lenders freed from the distant tyrannical rate controls of central banks.

And about that job: I'm now covering climate change policy full-time, though I will be continuing to report on foreign policy -- my first love -- for Inter Press Service as often as I can. And so you know.

An Unreasonable Man

Last night I was watching the 2006 documentary on the career of Ralph Nader, "An Unreasonable Man," when I heard something that almost made me fall out of my chair. In order to present a counterpoint to Nader's anti-corporatism, the filmmakers interviewed Daniel Mitchell, a former senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation currently employed by the Cato Institute. In what could have passed as satire straight from the lips of Stephen Colbert, Mitchell echoed Ayn Rand's view that big business is really just a poor, persecuted minority with little influence on government policy:

"Corporations don’t have that much power in Washington. They tend to be ineffective, especially on the big-picture issues. They might be able to get a little special loophole in some bill, or a special handout in another bill. But especially in a globalized economy, where you have foreign companies penetrating the U.S. market, U.S. companies are probably the most helpless entities out there."

Now, one needn't be a Nader's Raider to find that statement a little, shall we say, unbelievable. Whether one thinks the influence is good or bad, it's simply an indisputable fact at this point that major corporations play a huge role in not only what laws get passed, but on who gets elected to office. To say otherwise is either incredibly naive or incredibly dishonest.

The following is a brief, painfully incomplete list of government policies that Mitchell would have you believe were not shaped by corporate interests:

• U.S. Energy Policy -- The Democratic Congress is set to pass another Energy Bill that includes tax breaks for oil companies and subsidies for everything from nuclear power to ethanol. As the Washington Post describes, it was no different when Republicans controlled Congress in 2005 when they passed an Energy bill that "exempts oil and gas industries from some clean-water laws, streamlines permits for oil wells and power lines on public lands, and helps the hydropower industry appeal environmental restrictions...
It also includes an estimated $85 billion worth of subsidies and tax breaks for most forms of energy -- including oil and gas, "clean coal," ethanol, electricity, and solar and wind power. The nuclear industry got subsidies for research, waste reprocessing, construction, operation and even decommission. The petroleum industry got new incentives to drill in the Gulf of Mexico -- as if $60-a-barrel oil wasn't enough of an incentive. The already-subsidized ethanol industry got a federal mandate that will nearly double its output by 2012 -- as well as new subsidies to develop ethanol from other sources."

• U.S. Agriculture Policy -- As with energy policy, the U.S. Congress regularly approves massive farm bills that include billions in subsidies for mega-agribusinesses, as well as protectionist policies, such as the tariff on imported sugar, that benefit certain producers at the expense of overall consumers and industries in the developing world.

• The overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala -- In 1954, the government of Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán was overthrown by a group of Guatemalan military officers in league with the Central Intelligence Agency, which had gained valuable experience overthrowing democratic governments the year before in Iran with Operation Ajax. U.S. involvement had been strongly pushed for by United Fruit, which was unhappy with the Guatemalan government's plan to nationalize part of the company's large land holdings. At the time, the assistant U.S. Secretary of State for InterAmerican Affairs was John Moors Cabot, former president of United Fruit. The Secretary of State was John Foster Dulles, whose law firm had previously represented the company. His brother, Allen Dulles, headed the CIA.

• NAFTA, CAFTA, and other "free trade" agreements -- Portrayed by the the United States and other governments as simple "free trade," these agreements are anything but. CAFTA, for instance, requires countries to enforce U.S. copyright laws. That includes banning certain generic prescription drugs, forcing poor Central American countries to pay much more for expensive pharmaceuticals from U.S. drug companies (see this article by Adam Graham-Silverman in Salon).

• The Military-Industrial Complex -- Coined by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address, the military-industrial complex is thriving in these here United States. The U.S. military budget accounts for more than half of federal spending, and is roughly equal to what the rest of the world's military spending combined. Despite the lack of a traditional military threat, ala the USSR in the Cold War (at least how it was portrayed in the United States), the Bush administration continues to press for a multi-billion dollar missile defense shield that doesn't actually work. Though it seems quite capable of stoking Cold War-era tensions with Russia, it remains unclear how a working missile defense shield would stop 19 hijackers with box-cutters. Meanwhile, nominally "private" defense contractors, who depend entirely on government spending for their existence, seem to be doing quite well.

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This is about all I can handle now as far as examples go, but feel free to add your own in the comments section.

13 Lawmakers Subpoenaed in Defense Contractor Bribery Case

The Associated Press reported earlier today that 13 congressmen have been subpoenaed to testify by the defense attorneys for Brent Wilkes, the California contractor charged with bribing disgraced former Congressman Duke Cunningham (R-CA) for millions of dollars in defense contracts. But those lawmakers who were subpoenaed say the reason is a mystery to them, and all are refusing to testify until Mr. Wilkes' defense gives them a specific reason as to why they their testimony is needed.

As I reported for KPBS in San Diego, California, several of the lawmakers, including Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA), took campaign contributions from Wilkes, though there is no evidence that they did anything improper. That said, Rep. Issa was defensive when I asked him why he wasn't going to honor his subpoena:

"I didn't work with Mr. Wilkes, I didn't have any kind of contact with him at all. I met him before I was a congressman. I went to a foundation event while I was a congressman in which I contributed to a warrior foundation. So I don't have the kind of link that would ever be appropriate, as far as I know."

To read and/or listen to the story, click here.