Re: No to Will, Yes to Peace
On Saturday, March 1, 2003 at 02:00:46 (+) Seth Sandronsky writes: No to Will, Yes to Peace http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0227-10.htm Ah, good old George Will, who remarked in manly prose that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a profoundly moral deed. Bill
Red Ken Congrestion Charges
Question to any list-Brits: how's that congestion thing in London going? Interesting that it has taken someone on the extreme left of political acceptability to implement a thoroughly neo-classical economic scheme. The visionary Bill Vickrey wrote about this in I believe the 1950s or 60s. mbs
Re: Confronting the empire - Samir Amin
stopping hitler may be easier than stopping bush now. the carnage is waiting to happen and in some scenarios US miltary analysts are aware of the time dimension and therefore winning requires a massive very massive bombing campaign. war is somehow the realisation of the military commodity. the more capital accumulation becomes centered on military spending the more natural it becomes to consume the bombs in wars. Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/627/sc12.htmDo you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more
RE: Re: No to Will, Yes to Peace
Title: RE: [PEN-L:35164] Re: No to Will, Yes to Peace On Saturday, March 1, 2003 at 02:00:46 (+) Seth Sandronsky writes: No to Will, Yes to Peace http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0227-10.htm Bill Lear: Ah, good old George Will, who remarked in manly prose that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a profoundly moral deed. - isn't Will one of the chickenhawks, never having served in war? (BTW, for purposes of full disclosure, I'm a chicken dove.) there seems to be a demented logic to what Will says: 1) whatever Israel does or says is good for the Jews, even when it's run by a sociopath such as Sharon and swept away in a storm of settler expansionism. 2) thus, opposition to Israel and its policies is thus anti-semitic (ignoring the fact that Arabs are semites, too) and complicit with Hitler. 3) since Israel is an enemy of Saddam Hussein, opposition to the war on Iraq is opposition to Israel is thus complicit with Hitler. 4) since Hitler and Stalin were basically the same thing, being complicit with either one makes you complicit with the other. QED JD
news of the world: Philipines Iraq
Title: news of the world: Philipines Iraq From SLATE's on-line survey of big US newspapers: The Los Angeles Times leads [with] ... that the U.S. and the Philippines have been unable to reach an agreement in an increasingly embarrassing argument about how to describe U.S. troops' role in battling Islamic militants there, and the whole plan is now on hold. As everyone reports, even though the Pentagon made the plan to send U.S. special forces and marines to the Philippines sound like done deal last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his Philippine counterpart emerged from a meeting yesterday unable to agree on language to characterize the operation. The Philippine government, facing stiff domestic opposition because of a constitutional ban foreign troops carrying out combat missions, wanted to call the operation against Abu Sayyaf militants an exercise, but U.S. officials wanted to call it a military operation to cover themselves in case Americans died. The LAT piece gets the juiciest quote: If Americans were to die, a senior Filipino military official had suggested before Friday's meeting, We could always cover it up. there's a man who understands the American way! on Iraq: Everyone except the NYT notes up high that Iraq's decision to destroy its missiles will only exacerbate the existing divide between the pro-inspection and pro-war camps in the Security Council. The LAT also devotes an entire piece to Russia's threat to veto the U.S.-British-Spanish war resolution; it looks like some serious horse-trading is going on. Not only did the U.S. finally label three Chechen groups as terrorist organizations, but an unnamed administration official said the U.S. has linked the $8 billion Iraq owes Russia to the discussion. the NY [TIME's] lead and an accompanying news analysis piece call attention to an apparent shift in U.S. policy: Saddam still must go, even if he does completely disarm The NYT's lead emphasizes a change in the meaning of the ever-malleable term, regime change. Since Bush's speech before the U.N. last year, the White House has said that Iraq's complete disarmament would constitute a regime change; now, Saddam must go, too, for it to count. According to White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, both are necessary conditions because disarmament is the U.N.'s goal, while changing the Iraqi government is Bush's goal. Question: Isn't this policy shift moot since Iraq will never satisfy Bush's definition of disarmament? This is of course reminisicent of Reagan's policy toward Nicaragua: if the Sandinistas complied with a US demand, RR would raise the bar... JD
Ashcroft's follies
I did not know that Tommy Chong was part of the drug paraphanalia bust. http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-mariecocco,0,1363786.columnist?coll=ny%2Dnews%2Dcolumnists -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Turkey: Democracy functioning! No more US soldiers...
The government's resolution was not able to get the simple majority vote in the parliament; hence it was rejected. Out of 534 parliamentarians only 264 supported the resolution when at least 268 supporters were needed --251 opposed, 19 abstained. As the parliament was in this 5 hour, rather turbulent closed session, hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters were on the streets of Ankara. E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics Simon's Rock College of Bard 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, MA 01230 Tel: 413 528 7488 Fax: 413 528 7365 www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (a film about Hugo Chavez)
* The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a feature length documentary on Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela [directed by Kim Bartley Donnacha O'Brien]. Over the course of 7 months, from January to July 2002, we secured unprecedented access to film Chavez in his daily life. During this time, there was a coup. We [Kim Bartley Donnacha O'Brien] were the only crew inside the presidential palace at the time. We were also the first there for his triumphant return some 48 hours later On the 11th April 2002, the world awoke to the news that President Hugo Chavez had been removed from office and had been replaced by a new self-appointedinterim government. News report after news report carried stories of the mayhem in Caracas, where 11 people had been killed in what were alleged to have been bloody street battles between Chavez supporters and an opposition march. Viewers all over the world were led to believe that Chavez had ordered the killings, and had therefore been forced to resign. What had in fact took place was the first coup of the twenty first century, and the world's first media coup. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a thrilling insight into President Chavez and the power of globalized media. The site will be fully updated shortly. you can contact us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.chavezthefilm.com/ * -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://solidarity.igc.org/
Re: re: Sen on Famine
Yes, the article was interesting. But even if there IS famine in India, it does not necessarily invalidate the Sen thesis. Sen's point is that in general, famines have been caused by lack of responsiveness to public needs, which is something undemocratic states are generally worse on than democratic ones. It's not an iron law that posits a mystic link; the mechanism is simple and obvious. I am very far from being an expert on famines or agricultural policy generally, but if Mike Davis' book on 19th century famines is reliable, the Sen thesis has a lot of empirical support. A single disconfirmation will not destroy it, particularly if these is good reason to think that for various reasons Indian democracy has been compromised, for example by corruption or structural adjustment policies. jks Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The article was very interesting. I believe that Brad de Longwas arguing on pen-l about how well India was doing. My take wasthat heaping up riches at the top was impoverishing the bottom.In addition, the article suggests the ways that India'smarketization has made the poor more vulnerable.--Michael PerelmanEconomics DepartmentCalifornia State UniversityChico, CA 95929Tel. 530-898-5321E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more
Re: Turkey: Democracy functioning! No more US soldiers...
Congratulations on the courage and perseverance of those inside and outside the Turkish parliament. This is real internationalism! Chris Burford London
Re: Re: re: Sen on Famine
- Original Message - From: andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes, the article was interesting. But even if there IS famine in India, it does not necessarily invalidate the Sen thesis. Sen's point is that in general, famines have been caused by lack of responsiveness to public needs, which is something undemocratic states are generally worse on than democratic ones. It's not an iron law that posits a mystic link; the mechanism is simple and obvious. I am very far from being an expert on famines or agricultural policy generally, but if Mike Davis' book on 19th century famines is reliable, the Sen thesis has a lot of empirical support. A single disconfirmation will not destroy it, particularly if these is good reason to think that for various reasons Indian democracy has been compromised, for example by corruption or structural adjustment policies. jks == The excerpt below is, by far, the most troubling of the entire piece: T. N. Srinivasan, a professor of economics at Yale University, says that political freedoms, to work, need to be complemented by economic freedoms. Mr. Sen, he said, doesn't emphasize enough the importance of free markets, trade and access to world markets and capital. The reason authoritarian China has grown more rapidly than democratic India, he said, is its embrace of economic liberalization. My guess is that Srinivasan thinks that 'free markets' will eventually undermine the authoritarian regimes of not only China, but the rest of the world. The authoritarian drift of the USA should make him think twice, as should the authoritarianism embedded in the corporate form of business organizations that are the result of putatively democratic lawmaking. Neoliberal economic theory is as anemic in it's theorizing of human freedoms as it is in theorizing the meanings of power. Sad and angering. Ian
shouting match
Arab Summit Shows Sharp Divisions on Iraq By SARAH EL DEEB The Associated Press Saturday, March 1, 2003; 12:58 PM An Arab summit aimed at finding unity over the Iraq crisis showed sharp divisions Saturday as Saudi Arabia's crown prince and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi shouted insults at each other and the United Arab Emirates called on Saddam Hussein to step down. The Emirates' proposal marked the first time an Arab nation has openly proposed the Iraqi leadership quit to spare the region war. Other nations did not discuss the proposal - because they didn't have the courage, the Emirates information minister said, in a further sign of the summit's bitterness. After the angry exchange between the Libyan and Saudi leaders, a live international broadcast of the summit was cut off, and diplomats said other leaders had to persuade Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah not to leave the gathering. The one-day summit ended soon after with a declaration expressing complete rejection of any aggression on Iraq and calling for giving inspections more time. It also urged Baghdad to abide by U.N. demands it surrender weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. Leaders had come into the 22-member Arab League summit in the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheik already deeply split. Some countries - particularly in the Persian Gulf - argue war is inevitable and say the region should be planning for the aftermath. A second camp, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, insist war can be avoided if Iraq cooperates fully with U.N. weapons inspectors. A third camp - led by Syria - wanted the summit to make an unequivocal anti-war declaration. UAE President Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan proposed that Arab states press Saddam and his leadership to give up power in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Al-Douri, speaking to CNN from New York, repeated that Saddam would not resign. Observers emerging from the Arab leaders' closed discussions said without elaboration that Iraqi delegates reacted angrily to Sheik Zayed's proposal. During an open session, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam's top deputy, ignored the proposal and accused the United States of wanting to destroy and colonize the Arab world. A U.S. ally, Sheik Zayed issued his proposal one day after White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the only way for Iraq to avoid war is disarmament and regime change. In contrast, Syrian President Bashar Assad, during the summit's opening session, accused the United States of seeking not to topple a dictatorial regime but to secure Iraq's oil and redrawing the region's map and destroying Iraq's infrastructure. We are all targeted ... we are all in danger, Assad said. Later, Gadhafi, a sharp critic of what he calls lack of Arab unity, said in his speech that Saudi Arabia had formed an alliance with the devil when it asked U.S. troops to protect it from Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. Abdullah interrupted angrily from across the room, calling Gadhafi an agent for colonizers. Don't talk or get involved in things which are not your business, Abdullah told the Libyan. The final statement, released after the session, made no mention of ideas floated before the session for sending a delegation to Baghdad to deliver a message to Saddam - either vaguely suggesting he quit or pressing him to cooperate with inspectors. Instead, the statement said Arab leaders agreed to form a committee to explain the Arab position to the United Nations and to consult with Iraq. It said U.N. weapons inspectors should be given enough time to carry out their mission. The communique stressed Arab countries should refrain from carrying out any military action against Iraq. It did not address the issue of tens of thousands of U.S. troops being given logistical support in the region, mostly in Kuwait, ahead of a possible war. Countries hosting U.S. forces are not expected to actively participate in any war. The communique added political change in the Arab world is a matter to be decided by the people of the region according to national interests, away from outside interference. Emirates Information Minister Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan told reporters the proposal made by his father, Sheik Zayed, was not seriously considered because the Arab League doesn't have the courage to discuss it. The Emirates' Sheik Zayed, in his 80s and in poor health, did not attend the summit but sent his vice president with a letter proposing that the Iraqi leadership step down and leave Iraq ... within two weeks of adopting this Arab initiative. He said Arabs should play a major role in (persuading Saddam to step down), something which might amount to the miracle needed to overcome this looming danger of war. Iraq should then be governed by the Arab League and the United Nations until it could return to its normal situation according to the will of the brotherly Iraqi people. Sheik Zayed said the Iraqi leadership should be given
Turkey: Democracy functioning! BUT US MEDIA ARE NOT!!!
The US media bias recognizes no limits: read the following two statements regarding the size of the demonstration in Ankara from CNN's web site --both are on the same page!!! http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/01/sprj.irq.main/index.html Meanwhile, TENS of thousands of Turks holding anti-war banners were protesting at a square 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from parliament. http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/01/sprj.irq.main/index.html The proposal has little popular support -- HUNDREDS of thousands of Turks protested on the streets of Ankara, and public opinion polls show that more than 90 percent of the population opposes war. Hi Ahmet, Thanks for the good news, and congrutulations and thanks to all your Turkish comrades! Comradely, Fred ..
[Fwd: Turkey: Democracy functioning! BUT US MEDIA ARE NOT!!!]
My apologies; the correct second link should have been the following: http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/01/sprj.irq.turkey/index.html Original Message Subject: [PEN-L:35179] Turkey: Democracy functioning! BUT US MEDIA ARE NOT!!!From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, March 1, 2003 2:07 pm To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The US media bias recognizes no limits: read the following two statements regarding the size of the demonstration in Ankara from CNN's web site --both are on the same page!!! http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/01/sprj.irq.main/index.html Meanwhile, TENS of thousands of Turks holding anti-war banners were protesting at a square 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from parliament. http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/01/sprj.irq.main/index.html The proposal has little popular support -- HUNDREDS of thousands of Turks protested on the streets of Ankara, and public opinion polls show that more than 90 percent of the population opposes war. Hi Ahmet, Thanks for the good news, and congrutulations and thanks to all your Turkish comrades! Comradely, Fred ..
Nation Magazine
I just posted an article on Marxmail which tries to come to grips with the Nation Magazine's well-publicized clashes with a wing of the antiwar movement: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/tainted_nation.htm I mention this not to start a thread on this question on PEN-L, but only to inform those subscribers who might be interested in such matters that such an article exists. As should be obvious by now, I am not interested in stirring up controversies on this mailing list which has been a useful resource for me and others.
Photos from Ankara demonstration-March 1st
http://istanbul.indymedia.org/news/2003/03/408.php E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics Simon's Rock College of Bard 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, MA 01230 Tel: 413 528 7488 Fax: 413 528 7365 www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
Re: Re: Re: re: Sen on Famine
This exchange, together with Jim's remark, remind us that there are different kinds of democracies. Sen touched on this in comparing Keralla with other states in India, but he never followed up by showing the antagonism means neoliberalism and the kind of democracy that Ian and Jim suggest. A contradiction that Srinivasan completely ignores. Ian Murray wrote: - Original Message - From: andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes, the article was interesting. But even if there IS famine in India, it does not necessarily invalidate the Sen thesis. Sen's point is that in general, famines have been caused by lack of responsiveness to public needs, which is something undemocratic states are generally worse on than democratic ones. It's not an iron law that posits a mystic link; the mechanism is simple and obvious. I am very far from being an expert on famines or agricultural policy generally, but if Mike Davis' book on 19th century famines is reliable, the Sen thesis has a lot of empirical support. A single disconfirmation will not destroy it, particularly if these is good reason to think that for various reasons Indian democracy has been compromised, for example by corruption or structural adjustment policies. jks == The excerpt below is, by far, the most troubling of the entire piece: T. N. Srinivasan, a professor of economics at Yale University, says that political freedoms, to work, need to be complemented by economic freedoms. Mr. Sen, he said, doesn't emphasize enough the importance of free markets, trade and access to world markets and capital. The reason authoritarian China has grown more rapidly than democratic India, he said, is its embrace of economic liberalization. My guess is that Srinivasan thinks that 'free markets' will eventually undermine the authoritarian regimes of not only China, but the rest of the world. The authoritarian drift of the USA should make him think twice, as should the authoritarianism embedded in the corporate form of business organizations that are the result of putatively democratic lawmaking. Neoliberal economic theory is as anemic in it's theorizing of human freedoms as it is in theorizing the meanings of power. Sad and angering. Ian -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
differential accumulation and the State [ protection rents via 'discipline' ]
[ 2 pieces, both consistent with some of the hypotheses laid out in the first two chapters of The Global Political Economy of Israel] GOP Aides Revise Bill To Help Big Firms Lobbyists See Opening For Special Favors By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 1, 2003; Page E01 Even before Congress begins debating President Bush's tax cut plan, Republican tax-writing aides have inserted a generous new provision for major corporations and their shareholders that some fear could open the legislation to a tidal wave of loopholes. The provision would be of tremendous benefit to such blue-chip giants as International Business Machines Corp., Ford Motor Co. and General Electric Co., which otherwise would have had the value of billions of dollars in tax credits radically reduced by the president's plan to end the double taxation of dividends. Tax writers were expected to simply translate Bush's tax plan into legislative language for introduction on Thursday, but they wrote the potentially significant change after Treasury Department officials concluded that it was needed, said Pamela F. Olson, assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy. Bush proposed to make dividends on fully taxed corporate income tax-free to shareholders. Under the draft legislation, businesses could continue to deduct past payments of the corporate alternative minimum tax from their current tax burdens, but the use of those credits would not reduce the amount of money they could offer shareholders as tax-free dividends. Olson said the Bush proposal had already stipulated that refunds from corporate income taxes paid before 2001 would not count against tax-free dividends, so the AMT change would merely keep the treatment of past tax payments consistent. The cost to the Treasury may be minimal -- $2 billion a year or less -- said Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal tax watchdog group. But, he said, it could open the floodgates to lobbyists already seeking to protect their favorite tax credits from the impact of the president's plan. This is sort of the camel's nose in the tent, said William G. Gale, an economist at the Brookings Institution. They just blew the barn door off this bill, a Republican tax lobbyist said. The centerpiece of Bush's economic growth package -- which would cost the Treasury $637 billion through 2012 -- is the $335 billion dividend proposal. Under the plan, corporations would record fully taxed income in a special account, out of which they could offer their shareholders dividends that would not be taxed as income. Any tax credits that a company used to reduce its income taxes would also reduce the amount of tax-free dividends available to shareholders. If shareholders pressure companies to maximize the amount of tax-free dividends, some businesses and advocacy groups fear that companies would avoid activities that now are encouraged through tax credits, such as investing in the inner city, hiring welfare recipients, refurbishing historical buildings, building low-income housing or engaging in research and development. But the Bush administration has argued that corporate income should be taxed only once. If a company were allowed to take a tax credit for $1,000, then pass on that $1,000 to shareholders as a tax-exempt dividend, that profit would never be taxed. Republican tax aides say the new corporate alternative minimum tax loophole does not violate that philosophy but simply makes sure that companies get credit for past taxes paid. McIntyre said the proposal is unfair because it would in effect make the Bush dividend tax cut retroactive. Because companies are allowed to carry AMT credits indefinitely, shareholders could benefit from taxes paid as far back as 1987, when the corporate AMT went into effect. For some companies' shareholders, the provision would be a windfall. A 2001 Congressional Research Service report said companies held more than $26 billion in AMT credits. By the end of 2000, 16 companies had accumulated AMT credits worth more than $100 million, and most of them are generous dividend payers, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. IBM had collected $1.4 billion in AMT credits, Ford $1 billion, General Motors Corp. $833 million and GE $671 million. If the dividend proposal passes as drafted, all that money could be deducted from future tax liabilities without diminishing those companies' stock of tax-free dividends. The provision also would make it more difficult to resist lobbyists seeking to protect other tax credits. Housing advocates met with Treasury officials this week seeking to preserve the value of the low-income housing credit, which encourages developers to build affordable apartments. The advocates hope to persuade the administration and Congress to stipulate that the use of low-income housing credits would not diminish a company's pool of tax-free dividends. But according to meeting participants, Treasury officials
Re: Turkish Speaker Nullifies U.S. Troop Vote
Although it was not at the time when pen-l discussed Turkey's financial crisis, but when we were specifically asked about this parliamentary vote by Ian Murray I anticipated this possibility, i.e. Turkey's capacity to resist, (Sabri also agreed with me) by writing the following: It will be a good step forward for the establishment of democratic processes and institutions in Turkey. It seems to me there is a possibility for that, albeit a slim one. Today even the deputy prime minister commented on this possibility by saying that the rejection of the government's motion in the parliament would be good for the future of democracy in Turkey ... And quantitatively speaking today's result was achieved only by a slim margin. That is exactly what I meant by a slim possibility in my earlier message. After all we are talking about political analyses of a very speedy, intense set of conditions which did not exist even several months ago. Michael Perelman wrote: What wonderful news! Sometime ago on pen-l we discussed Turkey's financial crisis in a way that is implied that Turkey would be impotent in resisting Western demands. Nobody, I recall, including Sabri, seem to think that Turkey would be able to show any backbone whatsoever. E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics Simon's Rock College of Bard 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, MA 01230 Tel: 413 528 7488 Fax: 413 528 7365 www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
Photos from Ankara demonstration-March 1st
Let me publicly thank three young men, Baris, Barkin and Balaban, who worked very hard to put istanbul.indymedia together. Without their efforts, we wouldn't have these photos from Ankara. Best, Sabri
US dept of Dirty Tricks
Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members Martin Bright, Ed Vulliamy in New York and Peter Beaumont Sunday March 2, 2003 The Observer The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq. Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer. The disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official at the National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts communications around the world - and circulated to both senior agents in his organisation and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking for its input. The memo describes orders to staff at the agency, whose work is clouded in secrecy, to step up its surveillance operations 'particularly directed at... UN Security Council Members (minus US and GBR, of course)' to provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for Bush officials on the voting intentions of UN members regarding the issue of Iraq. The leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York - the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations whose votes are being fought over by the pro-war party, led by the US and Britain, and the party arguing for more time for UN inspections, led by France, China and Russia. The memo is directed at senior NSA officials and advises them that the agency is 'mounting a surge' aimed at gleaning information not only on how delegations on the Security Council will vote on any second resolution on Iraq, but also 'policies', 'negotiating positions', 'alliances' and 'dependencies' - the 'whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises'. Dated 31 January 2003, the memo was circulated four days after the UN's chief weapons inspector Hans Blix produced his interim report on Iraqi compliance with UN resolution 1441. It was sent by Frank Koza, chief of staff in the 'Regional Targets' section of the NSA, which spies on countries that are viewed as strategically important for United States interests. Koza specifies that the information will be used for the US's 'QRC' - Quick Response Capability - 'against' the key delegations. Suggesting the levels of surveillance of both the office and home phones of UN delegation members, Koza also asks regional managers to make sure that their staff also 'pay attention to existing non-UN Security Council Member UN-related and domestic comms [office and home telephones] for anything useful related to Security Council deliberations'. Koza also addresses himself to the foreign agency, saying: 'We'd appreciate your support in getting the word to your analysts who might have similar more indirect access to valuable information from accesses in your product lines [ie, intelligence sources].' Koza makes clear it is an informal request at this juncture, but adds: 'I suspect that you'll be hearing more along these lines in formal channels.' Disclosure of the US operation comes in the week that Blix will make what many expect to be his final report to the Security Council. It also comes amid increasingly threatening noises from the US towards undecided countries on the Security Council who have been warned of the unpleasant economic consequences of standing up to the US. Sources in Washington familiar with the operation said last week that there had been a division among Bush administration officials over whether to pursue such a high-intensity surveillance campaign with some warning of the serious consequences of discovery. The existence of the surveillance operation, understood to have been requested by President Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is deeply embarrassing to the Americans in the middle of their efforts to win over the undecided delegations. The language and content of the memo were judged to be authentic by three former intelligence operatives shown it by The Observer. We were also able to establish that Frank Koza does work for the NSA and could confirm his senior post in the Regional Targets section of the organisation. The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to extension 6727 at the agency which was answered by an assistant, who confirmed it was Koza's office. However, when The Observer asked to talk to Koza about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at the United Nations, it was then told 'You have reached the wrong number'. On protesting that the assistant had just said this was Koza's extension, the assistant repeated that it was an erroneous extension, and hung up.
Re: Confronting the empire - Rosa Luxemburg
We need Rosa Luxemburg, now more than ever. Her *Accumulation of Capital* is now reprinted in a new (paper) edition with a fine 'Introduction' by Tadeusz Kowalik, Routledge Classics, 2003, 9.99 pounds, $14.95 U.S. On Sat, 1 Mar 2003, soula avramidis wrote: ...war is somehow the realisation of the military commodity. the more capital accumulation becomes centered on military spending the more natural it becomes to consume the bombs in wars. Paul *** Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists, Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
A Russian Veto?
Russian parliament speaker blasts U.S. From the International Desk Published 3/1/2003 7:58 PM TUNIS, Tunisia, March 1 (UPI) -- Russia's parliamentary speaker Saturday blasted the United States' policy towards Iraq, the region, and the world, warning that his country would use its veto power in the U.N Security Council to prevent a war on Iraq. Duma Speaker Gennadii Seleznev said at a news conference that proposals calling for the Iraqi leadership's ouster were ridiculous. Unilateral U.S. action against Iraq would represent radical political changes on the global level and would lead to the destruction of international law, the U.N and the Security Council, Seleznev said. Speaking at a news conference in Tunis after a three-day visit, Seleznev said these actions called for serious thought for establishing alternative international bodies to the U.N. that could guarantee global security, especially that Russia and the rest of the world strongly reject the return to the laws of the jungle where the strong eats the weak. Countries cannot change regimes just because they don't like them, Seleznev told reporters. The current U.S. unilateralist slant is a serious trend that needs to be confronted and to affirm that the people alone have the right to change their own regimes, he said. The Russian legislator said his country would use its veto power as one of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members to knock down any U.S. resolution allowing the use of force against Iraq for its failure to disarm. He also criticized the United States for adopting double standard policies, where Iraq is asked to apply Security Council resolutions while Israel publicly rejects implementing resolutions regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. He added that Washington does not hesitate in imposing sanctions on Iraq on the excuse that it possesses weapons of mass destruction, and does not do the same to Israel, which does own WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and refuses to accept U.N. resolutions. Former U.S. administrations, displeased with Cuban President Fidel Castro's regime, had to eventually tolerate his presence and were able to co-exist with his authority. So this suggestion (to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein) is ridiculous and does not deserve discussion, Seleznev added. Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
Kazem Al Sahir: Iraqi Star Tours U.S. and Sings of Baghdad
Kazem Al Saher -- Singing for Iraq and Its Children: http://www.cairotimes.com/content/people/kazart.html * New York Times February 26, 2003 Iraqi Star Tours U.S. and Sings of Baghdad By NEIL STRAUSS LAS VEGAS, Nev., Feb. 23 - In Beauty and His Love, the singer Kazem al-Sahir confesses to his girlfriend that there is someone he loves more than her, someone whom he sleeps with every night, someone whom he dreams of daily. His distraught girlfriend begs him to reveal the name of this lover. Her name, he finally tells her, is Baghdad. It is one of my most popular songs, Mr. Sahir said, sitting in a restaurant at the Palms Casino Resort here for his first in-person interview since arriving in the United States from a video shoot in Morocco. Whenever I sing it, the audience asks that I repeat it, again and again. But I will only sing it twice in a concert. Mr. Sahir, 41, is not only Iraq's biggest pop star but also one of the most popular singers in the Arab world, a dashing romantic who has sold about 31 million albums [Yoshie: Yeah, he's really cute! -- http://www.romanysaad.com/kazemelsaher/pictures/elhobelmostaheelcdpage01.jpg] . And as Iraq and the United States prepare for war, he has chosen to do something that almost any thinking person would say was foolish. He is starting an American tour. It began on Saturday night with a private performance for the Maloofs, the Lebanese-American family that owns the Palms, and their guests. Mr. Sahir is scheduled to perform in Manhattan on Friday night at the Beacon Theatre. My friends, they didn't want me to come here now, Mr. Sahir said, conducting his first interview mostly in English since hiring a tutor two years ago. It's a difficult time. Brian Taylor Goldstein, the arts attorney who obtained Mr. Sahir's work visa, said: Getting an Iraqi singer in right now was not the easiest thing in the world. And the V3 category of visa, for culturally unique performers like Kazem, has been especially difficult, because it often means the artist is coming from a non-Western culture. It helped that Mr. Sahir had a Canadian passport, because his children and his wife, from whom he is separated, live there. Though he left Iraq in the early 1990's and has become a Canadian citizen (he has homes in Cairo, Dubai, Paris and Toronto), he still says that Iraq will always be his home. He said he felt compelled to tour so that he could show another face of my country and inspire Americans to think good thoughts - not all bad thoughts - of my people. When he sat next to Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, on a flight recently, Mr. Sahir said, he handed him a CD and wrote on it, Don't forget about Iraqi children. Fans of his long, symphonic, sinuous songs of romantic love include two Grammy winners: Carlos Santana, who has arranged to meet Mr. Sahir after the Iraqi singer's Berkeley show next week, and the soprano Sarah Brightman, who sang a duet with him, The War Is Over, for her next album. When the BBC World Service asked its listeners to come up with the world's Top 10 favorite songs, Mr. Sahir's Ana wa Laila (Me and Laila') was No. 6, two places above Cher's Believe Iraq is considered by some to be the cradle of classic Arabic poetry and music, a tradition carried on by the Musical Institute of Baghdad, where Mr. Sahir studied. Born in northern Iraq, he lived in austerity with nine siblings. At age 10 he sold his bicycle to buy a guitar and started inventing romantic stories for his girlfriends. By age 13 he was not only writing love letters for his older brothers to send to girlfriends but also composing classical-based songs for his own girlfriends. Known primarily as a songwriter for other musicians, he worked for several years to persuade the music establishment there to let him both compose and sing his own songs. And when he finally appeared on television with his own Ladghat el Hayya (The Snake Bite) in 1987, it was banned for lyrics that discussed Baghdad's atmosphere of fear and restriction near the end of the Iran-Iraq war. He soon earned a reputation for being an exacting, detail-oriented composer with one foot in the classical world and the other in the pop world. He revived traditional romantic classical music and incorporated out-of-use Arabic musical scales, paved the way for other contemporary Iraqi singers to seek fame outside the country, collaborated with some of the Arab world's finest poets and refused to replace his large orchestra with synthesizers. He is composing an opera based on the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Persian Gulf war and the ensuing embargo, however, had a heavy impact on his art and career, which was derailed for several years. There was no electricity and no petrol, he recalled. I had to bike two or three hours to see my friends. But I composed my best songs in this time. During the bombings, he continued, he put all his music in a
UN-Gate
At 2003-03-01 20:02 -0600, Ken wrote: Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members Martin Bright, Ed Vulliamy in New York and Peter Beaumont Sunday March 2, 2003 The Observer This is a brilliant piece of investigative journalism by Ed Vulliamy of the Guardian/Observer group, who has proved again his ability to use authoritative contacts in the USA. Tactically this report is absolutely crucial as we come up to the decisive Security Council vote. Not only must we expect and hope the French to make full use of it, but even the timing of its release is probably part of such a campaign. It is absolutely clear from the report that other security agencies (such as the French) know the US has been bugging delegates for some time. The confirmation that a friendly security agency has been approached almost certainly means that Vulliamy has put the evidence to contacts in MI5 or its equivalent, who have not denied it. What we are seeing is that under the mass protests across the world, the ever-latent contradictions between the security agencies of the imperialist powers are cracking open. Even if there is a degeree of inter-imperialist collusion, the security agencies are the equivalent of rival imperialist armies. Cracking the security agencies rivalry open is a role essentially for a sustained team of investigative journalists backed through all the flack and the real dangers at the highest level by the top executive in their company, such as the head of the Washington Post in Watergate, or the Guardian/Observer newspaper groups now (owned by non-profit making trust with its roots back in Manchester non-conformist Christian socialism). Strategically this story is enormous. If the fight gets rougher we can expect the French and at least some of the spied-upon delegations to be close to objecting in public and asking how the UN can safely carry out its duties in New York. That little question which may be first asked tactically, is actually a strategic question. Just as Watergate challenged the boundaries of whether the two party system of democracy could have legitimacy if one party spies illegally on the other, so UN-Gate challenges how there can be any appearance of a just decision about unleashing war by the Security Council if such methods are used to pressurise and buy delegates. Of course many of us on this list would be sceptical about any claims for the UN or the Security Council to be the virtuous custodians of global justice, composed as they are of imperialist, capitalist, and other compromised regimes, guided by realpolitik. But the world has reached a stage where global protests are demanding some sort of legitimacy for this war by insisting it takes place only if sanctioned by the United Nations. What then, is the legal basis for decisions of the United Nations, and the due process for evaluating evidence, and what is the threshhold for evidence? It has become a legal question of the legitimacy of a world system of government that is being fought over in front of our eyes. Strategically this drama poses the question, of whether the United Nations can have adequate appearance of legitimacy if it is situated in the territory of the military and technological hegemon of the world This is UN-Gate. Bush is in big trouble. He will either have to retreat with all the enormous risks of retreat at a time of impending recession, or things could blow up in his face even more. Global contradictions are sharpening politically and economically. UN-Gate is a legal focus of those contradictions. Chris Burford
Re: Turkish Speaker Nullifies U.S. Troop Vote
What wonderful news! Sometime ago on pen-l we discussed Turkey's financial crisis in a way that is implied that Turkey would be impotent in resisting Western demands. Nobody, I recall, including Sabri, seem to think that Turkey would be able to show any backbone whatsoever. Sabri Oncu wrote: There are 550 MPs in the National Assembly and yes votes were less than 275. Now I am proud of Turkey. Sabri + Turkish Speaker Nullifies U.S. Troop Vote 3 minutes ago By SUZAN FRASER, Associated Press Writer ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's parliament speaker nullified the legisature's vote Saturday to allow deployment of 62,000 U.S. combat troops to open a northern front against Iraq (news - web sites), saying a majority of those in the chamber had not voted in favor. The vote was 264-250 with 19 abstentions. Speaker Bulent Arinc said nullified the vote after it was challenged by the opposition. The Turkish constitution demands a majority of those present must vote in favor for a bill to pass. The vote Saturday was four short of a simple majority. Arinc closed parliament after the vote until Tuesday. The bill's rejection is likely to seriously increase tensions with the United States which had been expecting a positive vote. The motion would have empowered the government to authorize the basing of up to 62,000 troops, 255 warplanes and 65 helicopters. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behind Turkey's opposition to war
Photo taken by Mine Doyran in Foca (pronounced Focha), a seaside resort near Izmir. On Ali Baba's kofte (Turkish hamburger) stand, you can see the banner with the words SAVASA NO, which means no war. http://www.marxmail.org/foca.jpg Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Turkish Speaker Nullifies U.S. Troop Vote
There are 550 MPs in the National Assembly and yes votes were less than 275. Now I am proud of Turkey. Sabri + Turkish Speaker Nullifies U.S. Troop Vote 3 minutes ago By SUZAN FRASER, Associated Press Writer ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's parliament speaker nullified the legisature's vote Saturday to allow deployment of 62,000 U.S. combat troops to open a northern front against Iraq (news - web sites), saying a majority of those in the chamber had not voted in favor. The vote was 264-250 with 19 abstentions. Speaker Bulent Arinc said nullified the vote after it was challenged by the opposition. The Turkish constitution demands a majority of those present must vote in favor for a bill to pass. The vote Saturday was four short of a simple majority. Arinc closed parliament after the vote until Tuesday. The bill's rejection is likely to seriously increase tensions with the United States which had been expecting a positive vote. The motion would have empowered the government to authorize the basing of up to 62,000 troops, 255 warplanes and 65 helicopters.
Amartya Sen thesis challenged
NY Times, Mar. 1, 2003 Does Democracy Avert Famine? By MICHAEL MASSING Few scholars have left more of a mark on the field of development economics than Amartya Sen. The winner of the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, Mr. Sen has changed the way economists think about such issues as collective decision-making, welfare economics and measuring poverty. He has pioneered the use of economic tools to highlight gender inequality, and he helped the United Nations devise its Human Development Index today the most widely used measure of how well nations meet basic social needs. More than anything, though, Mr. Sen is known for his work on famine. Just as Adam Smith is associated with the phrase invisible hand and Joseph Schumpeter with creative destruction, Mr. Sen is famous for his assertion that famines do not occur in democracies. No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy, he wrote in Democracy as Freedom (Anchor, 1999). This, he explained, is because democratic governments have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes. This proposition, advanced in a host of books and articles, has shaped the thinking of a generation of policy makers, scholars and relief workers who deal with famine. Now, however, in India, the main focus of Mr. Sen's research, there are growing reports of starvation. In drought-ravaged states like Rajasthan in the west and Orissa in the east, many families have been reduced to eating bark and grass to stay alive. Already thousands may have died. This is occurring against a backdrop of endemic hunger and malnutrition. About 350 million of India's one billion people go to bed hungry every night, and half of all Indian children are malnourished. Meanwhile, the country is awash in grain, with the government sitting on a surplus of more than 50 million tons. Such want amid such plenty has generated public protests, critical editorials and an appeal to India's Supreme Court to force the government to use its surpluses to feed the hungry. All of which has raised new questions about Mr. Sen's famous thesis. In an article critical of him in The Observer of London last summer, Vandana Shiva, an ecological activist in India, wrote that while it is true that famine disappeared in India in 1947, with independence and elections, it is making a comeback. The problem, she added in an interview, has not yet reached the scale seen in the Horn of Africa, but if nothing is done, in three or four years India could be in the same straits. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/arts/01HUNG.html Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
re: Sen on Famine
The article was very interesting. I believe that Brad de Long was arguing on pen-l about how well India was doing. My take was that heaping up riches at the top was impoverishing the bottom. In addition, the article suggests the ways that India's marketization has made the poor more vulnerable. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: re: Sen on Famine
I may be too ideolological but i have always ridiculed Sen's notion of democracy as some form of neo liberal hogwash. democracy without working class rule appears in his writing as some abstarct freedom notion devoid of real substance.in an interview about food secrurity a year ago, ramsey clark said that if the US embargos egypt, they will only have for 90 days. iraq was embargoed and that killed hundred of thousands. the very agricultural trade system uproots subsitence farmers everywhere and hiehtens food insecurity. indeed next to a weapon of mass destruction, a food embargo by the west on some develoing country could wipe out thousands, democracy or not. what sen should have said is that western dmocracies use hunger to kill of a huge part of the world population. Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This exchange, together with Jim's remark, remind us that there are differentkinds of democracies. Sen touched on this in comparing Keralla with otherstates in India, but he never followed up by showing the antagonism meansneoliberalism and the kind of democracy that Ian and Jim suggest. Acontradiction that Srinivasan completely ignores.Ian Murray wrote: - Original Message - From: "andie nachgeborenen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Yes, the article was interesting. But even if there IS famine in India, it does not necessarily invalidate the Sen thesis. Sen's point is that in general, famines have been caused by lack of responsiveness to public needs, which is something undemocratic states are generally worse on than democratic ones. It's not an iron law that posi! ts a mystic link; the mechanism is simple and obvious. I am very far from being an expert on famines or agricultural policy generally, but if Mike Davis' book on 19th century famines is reliable, the Sen thesis has a lot of empirical support. A single disconfirmation will not destroy it, particularly if these is good reason to think that for various reasons Indian democracy has been compromised, for example by corruption or structural adjustment policies. jks == The excerpt below is, by far, the most troubling of the entire piece: T. N. Srinivasan, a professor of economics at Yale University, says that political freedoms, to work, need to be complemented by economic freedoms. Mr. Sen, he said, "doesn't emphasize enough the importance of free markets, trade and access to world markets and capital." The reason authoritarian! China has grown more rapidly than democratic India, he said, is its embrace of economic liberalization." My guess is that Srinivasan thinks that 'free markets' will eventually undermine the authoritarian regimes of not only China, but the rest of the world. The authoritarian drift of the USA should make him think twice, as should the authoritarianism embedded in the corporate form of business organizations that are the result of putatively democratic lawmaking. Neoliberal economic theory is as anemic in it's theorizing of human freedoms as it is in theorizing the meanings of power. Sad and angering. Ian--Michael PerelmanEconomics DepartmentCalifornia State UniversityChico, CA 95929Tel. 530-898-5321E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more
