A Brief Reminder About the Libby Trial and the Coming Attack on Iran

Before this gets completely lost in the shuffle of our inexorable drive towards another war, I thought I should at least make a passing reference to this well-documented but little discussed fact. The very people who are now telling us that the supposed nuclear weapons threat posed by Iran is the most important thing in the world right now are the same people who saw fit to blow the cover of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, who's main area of concentration was on, guess what, WMD proliferation issues in Iran.

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.

The Libby trial has revealed, in detail that would be shocking if we hadn't already been numbed beyond the capacity to feel shock by this administration, that there was a concerted effort to blow this agent's cover for purely political purposes (as opposed to some frivolous purpose like protecting the nation or something).

So how do we reconcile this? On the one hand we have a White House that tells us that Iran's nuclear program poses the gravest of threats to the safety of the US and the world. On the other hand, they seem to have felt perfectly at ease tossing out the window a CIA operation to counter Iran's efforts, outing not just Ms. Plame, but her entire under-cover operation, endangering the lives of any agents or cooperating individuals known to be associated with her and spoiling those assets for any future operations that may start up.

So, it seems Iran's programs are important enough to start a war over today, but they're not so important that we'd want to protect federal agents working to track them or anything. No, we can feel free to sacrifice them to BushCo's political calculus.

I find that so interesting. Maybe folks should talk about that more.

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Palestine & Apartheid

Whenever the subject of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is raised much is made of what is called "Israel's right to exist" and the justification for its actions in light of this right. But much less is made of either the Palestinian right to exist or the fact that Israel is largest military power in the "middle-east" region today while Palestine has no military to think of. With that in mind, a brief glance at the map of Israeli settlements into Palestinian territory since 1967, pictured here, gives a clear picture of exactly whose existence is truly imperiled.

After studying this map closely imagine if someone decided to build a system of long continuous walls for the purpose of cutting off the most valuable of these areas represented by the red dots from the rest of the country, like so (the brown part goes to Israeli settlers in this scenario):



What kind of viable, livable, autonomous and sovereign country would be left for Palestinians? Who really faces an immediate existential threat?

Via The Black Commentator comes this relevant follow up to the previous posts on Palestine and Apartheid...

At a 1 December 2006 Palestine Center briefing, William Fletcher discussed the similarities and differences between Israeli-occupied Palestine and apartheid-era South Africa focusing on the logic, objectives and strategy of settler states. He also addressed the opposition to Jimmy Carter's new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, and urged a continued mobilization around the issue of Palestine.

“Two Walled Cities: Jerusalem and Johannesburg, Apartheid and Palestine”
Transcript of Remarks by William Fletcher
“For the Record” No. 269 (19 December 2006)

Thank you and it’s an honor and a pleasure to be here.

When I was invited, I was asked to speak in terms of what was called “Two Walled Cities: Jerusalem and Johannesburg.” I thought that was a very good metaphor to look at the issue of apartheid and the occupation. But before but I get into that, I want to preface it by actually speaking about some differences between Israeli-occupied Palestine and apartheid-era South Africa, in fact, a very dramatic difference.

Within a few months of my taking over as President of TransAfrica Forum in January 2002, I received a call from none other than the Israeli Embassy congratulating me on the appointment. This came as an incredible shock. I said to myself, do they know who I am? They then went on to propose a meeting with me to discuss a cultural program that the Israeli Embassy wished to jointly sponsor with TransAfrica Forum that focused on Ethiopian Jews. The meeting never happened. They called me and claimed that someone on their staff had gotten sick. I guess they’re still sick because the meeting was never rearranged. But in any case, I concluded that they probably did a little investigation and just said that there wouldn’t be much of a point to having the meeting.

I raise this for two reasons. One is that I never received a congratulatory call from an Arab Embassy. And this is not an attack on Arabs, but it is something I’ve noticed in terms of the unwillingness or inability to carry out outreach in the USA in order to promote an Arab viewpoint. The Israelis, on the other hand, are phenomenal in terms of outreach. The South Africans during the apartheid era were not. I’ll get into that in a second, and it’s a very, very big difference in the approaches of the two countries. So the approach of the Israelis really does contrast remarkably with the approach that the South African apartheid regime took towards the whole notion of developing allies and constituencies externally. The Israelis have always had an active outreach program, and while they have consistently portrayed themselves to be victims, they have done so in a way that constantly seeks international support. Interestingly, other settler states like South Africa and Australia took a very, very different view when it came to this matter and did not, by and large, seek non-governmental constituencies, even though both of these other settler states, in their own ways, portrayed themselves as victims. The South African apartheid regime obviously had a close alliance with the United States but did not spend a lot of time trying to cultivate a relationship in the United States. The slight exception to this was the effort, backed by the Reagan administration, to promote the South African-aligned Angolan movement of Jonas Savimbi (called the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola [UNITA]) in the USA in connection with certain right-wing African American churches. Even here, however, while UNITA was aligned with South Africa, it was not the South Africans who were trying to develop a constituency in the USA.

The logic of both Israel and apartheid-era South Africa can be found in their common origins as settler states. In both cases, the settlers created myths, semi-religious or explicitly religious, including that God had provided the land for them and that the land was unoccupied upon arrival, a very, very common theme in every settler state, whether it’s the United States, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc. In both cases, the settlers portrayed themselves to be victims against natives who were described as semi-barbaric and/or intolerant. Given the permanent state of siege, every settler state aggression came to be described as a defensive act, an approach also common with the United States. By way of example, for South Africa, incursions into Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe or anywhere else always against alleged terrorists were justified as alleged defensive actions.

For the settler state, there is a zero sum calculation when it comes to the natives. This does not necessarily mean that the natives must be annihilated, but it does mean that the natives can never be allowed to prevail. In this context, one can look at Jerusalem and apartheid-era Johannesburg as emblematic of settler strategy and the settler state as a whole. Though there are significant differences between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa, for example, the religious significance of Jerusalem, the settler approach in both cases with these cities shared much in common. In the case of Jerusalem, the entire city has been seized by the settlers who have no intention of sharing it with the Palestinians. The settler plan is one of driving out the Palestinians through a combination of intimidation and inconvenience, otherwise known as psychological warfare. By inconvenience I mean the painful difficulties encountered by Palestinians living in occupied East Jerusalem.

Johannesburg, however, was constructed to be for whites only. Blacks could enter the city during the days to work but had to clear out at nightfall unless they had explicit permission to stay. Blacks lived in what can only loosely be described as suburbs or townships, the most well known being Soweto, which is an acronym for South-West Township. It’s not a name in and of itself. Security, as in occupied Palestine, was ever present in Johannesburg and Soweto. Blacks carried passes and travel was always limited. Johannesburg stood as a top of the line First World city while townships like Soweto were Third World and often-quite marginal.

The walls in the case of Johannesburg were actually around Soweto and other townships as opposed to being around Johannesburg itself. In fact, one of the remarkable things in going to Soweto is that there is only one road and gate in and out. As apartheid crumbled, so too did much of Johannesburg. Whites left the city in mass and they abandoned their often-luxurious high rises to squatters or general squalor. They retreated to their nearly always heavily militarily guarded and gated communities. And there was a remarkable reversal that unfolded. Whites would be in the city by days, and then they would be in their communities at nights. But they would not stay in Johannesburg during the evening.

The apartheid plan was for the removal of blacks from the best of land. In this case, it followed the model that was established by the British in Ireland in the 1500s when they drove the Irish out of the best lands in the north and forced them south and settled the north with Welsh, Scots and some poor English. It also follows what we see in other settler states, such including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and obviously Israel.

Yet each settler state has handled its indigenous population somewhat differently. In Australia, New Zealand and the United States, there was an overt effort at extermination. Case in point, there are no Tasmanians left on this planet. Not only were the indigenous removed from the land, they were removed from the living. In Ireland, South Africa and to some extent Canada, the premium was placed on the removal of the natives from the land and their socio-political marginalization. In the case of Palestine, I’d argue, a bit of both seems to be underway, though the emphasis seems to be on the removal from land.

In both the Occupied [Palestinian] Territories and apartheid-era South Africa, the settler state wishes (or in the case of South Africa, wished) to make the situation so inhospitable that the indigenous people leave on their own. It combines violent coercion with what can be described as hassling, or what I said earlier, psychological warfare. In the case of South Africa, the apartheid regime created those fictitious homelands like the Transkei and Ciskei. These were actual large territories with limited resources and limited anything with the exception of sources of entertainment such as Sun City. The key land always remained in the hands of the whites. The Occupied [Palestinian] Territories are replicating this pattern. And just as the apartheid regime presented itself to the world as visionary by allegedly “liberating” the homelands, so too do the Israelis in their vision of a Palestinian state or statelet. The situation raises some uncomfortable strategic questions. For the black South Africans, the struggle was not one to build legitimate and self-sustaining homelands. The objective was not to take over the Transkei and Ciskei and make those viable states. It was instead to destroy apartheid and create a democratic South Africa. In that sense, it’s interesting to see discussions under way in the Palestinian movement regarding the viability of the two-state solution in light of what Israeli practice has been.

Finally, the Holocaust separates Israel from apartheid-era South Africa largely in terms of the perspective of the rest of the world. The treatment received by the Boers (what are now known as Afrikaaners), in the original British concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer war, may have helped to shape Afrikaaner consciousness, but it had little impact on the way that the rest of the world viewed the Boers as a people or their efforts to eventually justify the apartheid state. The Holocaust, however, shuts down much discussion. This is not helped by comments such as the contradictory and rhetorically provocative, if not stupid, statements by the Iranian President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad questioning the reality of the Holocaust. Yet the Holocaust, a horrific act committed by one group of Europeans against another, is presented in a white supremacist framework in order to trump any and all discussions regarding Palestinian sovereignty and the legitimacy of any settler state.

The struggle against apartheid carried with it many valuable lessons for the Palestinian movement. Yet I would suggest that the struggle of the First Nations, or the Native Americans (here in the USA), also carries invaluable lessons. The First Nations in the United States and Canada were demonized, dehumanized and, ironically, romanticized by the settler state. The settler myth was used to justify continuous expansion, the breaking of treaties, murder and land removal—actually the removal of the people from their land. The settler state justified its atrocities by reference to what eventually came to be known as the “facts on the ground.” In other words, from the standpoint of the settler, it does not ultimately matter whether ‘we’, that is the settler, robbed ‘you’ of your land and dignity. ‘We,’ meaning the settler, possess all the cards. That is, the settler possesses all or most of the weapons and, therefore, from the standpoint of the settler, the game is over and, as the bumper sticker says, “Things just happen.”

Thank you...

William Fletcher is Belle Zeller Visiting Professor at Brooklyn College-City University of New York and former President and Chief Executive Officer of TransAfrica Forum, a national non-profit organization organizing, educating and advocating for policies in favor of the peoples of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.

This “For the Record” transcript may be used without permission but with proper attribution to The Palestine Center. The speaker's views do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jerusalem Fund.

To read the question and answer session that followed Mr. Fletcher's speech, click here.

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"Surging" Into a Self-Sustaining Loop

Whenever I read Chris Floyd's Empire Burlesque I get a strange feeling of deja vu, as if I'm reading my own thoughts penned by a better writer. Writing about the latest Milleresque propaganda -- crying out for Iranian blood -- splashed across the pages of the New York Times, Floyd touches on a point about the "surge" that I've been stuck on for some time. Floyd writes:

But what's most notable about the unsourced story is the way it -- and the White House -- are now trying to conflate the Iranians with the Iraqi insurgency, in much the same fashion as they merged Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda in the public mind. Here, the trick is to focus on Iran's alleged supply of IEDs to Iraq's Shiite militias, talking of their deadly effectiveness against American soldiers -- while scarcely noting the fact that the overwhelming number of attacks against the "Coalition of Aggression" come from the Sunni insurgents. What then are the headlines, the soundbites for the public? Iran... IEDs... deadly... insurgency... kill Americans." The intended effect, of course, is to convey the impression that Iran is driving the Iraqi insurgency that is now killing Americans in record numbers.

But the story is also significant for what it doesn't spell out, but clearly implies. Assuming for a moment the highly unlikely possibility that the Bushist security organs are actually telling the truth or even something like it in this instance -- given their repeatedly demonstrated propensity to lie and lie and lie again when the Bossman wants a war -- we are left with an extraordinary claim by the Bush Administration: that their own allies have turned against them and are now killing American soldiers with sophisticated weapons.

For who are the "Shiite militias"? They are the armed wings of the political factions that now run the Bush-backed Iraqi government, elected in an electoral process designed by the Bush Administration that guaranteed the rise of these extremist sectarian armed cliques to power. The Shiite militias ARE the Iraqi government -- or at least, they are part of that government's many contentious factions. If they have power, if they operate with impunity -- with or without weapons supplied by the long-time allies in Iran, with which most of the Iraqi Shiite factions have a relationship going back decades -- then it is because these factions have been and are now being empowered, armed, funded, trained and supported by the Bush Administration.

This is what the Bushists are tacitly admitting when they claim that the Shiite militias are fragging their ostensible American allies with Iranian weapons. They are saying that even the factions "liberated" and empowered by the American invasion are now attacking and killing U.S. soldiers, with even more virulence than the Sunni insurgents. They are saying that Bush is now "surging" more soldiers into a situation where every single armed faction in the Iraqi conflict is targeting and killing Americans, including those factions armed and funded by the Americans themselves.

This is a remarkable confession. And it represents yet another of the many overwhelming reasons to bring Bush's bloody Babylonian escapade to a halt without further delay. The most compelling reason, of course, is the fact that the invasion was a war crime from the word go and every second that it continues is a furtherance and compounding of that original sin. But even by the viscera-smeared lights of the war's own proponents, to have reached the place where the very people you have empowered are killing your troops is surely the end of the road.

What's wrong with this picture?

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Iraq Redux

Gary Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud upon which much of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was based, has written an extensive essay for Vanity Fair dealing with the parallels between the propaganda leading to the invasion of Iraq and what we're hearing today about Iran. I don't have much to add because Unger lays it all out so plainly. I'll let this extended excerpt speak for itself. All emphases, of course, are mine...

From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq

The same neocon ideologues behind the Iraq war have been using the same tactics—alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on W.M.D.—to push for the bombing of Iran. As President Bush ups the pressure on Tehran, is he planning to double his Middle East bet?

by Craig Unger March 2007

In the weeks leading up to George W. Bush's January 10 speech on the war in Iraq, there was a brief but heady moment when it seemed that the president might finally accept the failure of his Middle East policy and try something new. Rising anti-war sentiment had swept congressional Republicans out of power. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had been tossed overboard. And the Iraq Study Group (I.S.G.), chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, had put together a bipartisan report that offered a face-saving strategy to exit Iraq. Who better than Baker, the Bush family's longtime friend and consigliere, to talk some sense into the president?

By the time the president finished his speech from the White House library, however, all those hopes had vanished. It wasn't just that Bush was doubling down on an extravagantly costly bet by sending 21,500 more American troops to Iraq; there were also indications that he was upping the ante by an order of magnitude. The most conspicuous clue was a four-letter word that Bush uttered six times in the course of his speech: Iran.

In a clear reference to the Islamic Republic and its sometime ally Syria, Bush vowed to "seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies." At about the same time his speech was taking place, U.S. troops stormed an Iranian liaison office in Erbil, a Kurdish-controlled city in northern Iraq, and arrested and detained five Iranians working there.

Already, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on the war in Iraq. Tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people have been killed. Countless more are wounded or living as refugees. Launched with the intention of shoring up Israeli security and replacing rogue regimes in the Middle East with friendly, pro-Western allies, the war in Iraq has instead turned that country into a terrorist training ground. By eliminating Saddam Hussein, the U.S.-led coalition has sparked a Sunni-Shiite civil war, which threatens to spread throughout the entire Middle East. And, far from creating a secular democracy, the war has empowered Shiite fundamentalists aligned with Iran. The most powerful of these, Muqtada al-Sadr, commands both an anti-American sectarian militia and the largest voting bloc in the Iraqi parliament.

"Everything the advocates of war said would happen hasn't happened," says the president of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist, an influential conservative who backed the Iraq invasion. "And all the things the critics said would happen have happened. [The president's neoconservative advisers] are effectively saying, 'Invade Iran. Then everyone will see how smart we are.' But after you've lost x number of times at the roulette wheel, do you double-down?"

By now, the story of how neoconservatives hijacked American foreign policy is a familiar one. With Vice President Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld leading the way, neocons working out of the office of the vice president and the Department of Defense orchestrated a spectacular disinformation operation, asserting that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction posed a grave and immediate threat to the U.S. Veteran analysts who disagreed were circumvented. Dubious information from known fabricators was hyped. Forged documents showing phony yellowcake-uranium sales to Iraq were promoted.

What's less understood is that the same tactics have been in play with Iran. Once again, neocon ideologues have been flogging questionable intelligence about W.M.D. Once again, dubious Middle East exile groups are making the rounds in Washington—this time urging regime change in Syria and Iran. Once again, heroic new exile leaders are promising freedom.

Meanwhile, a series of recent moves by the military have lent credence to widespread reports that the U.S. is secretly preparing for a massive air attack against Iran. (No one is suggesting a ground invasion.) First came the deployment order of U.S. Navy ships to the Persian Gulf. Then came high-level personnel shifts signaling a new focus on naval and air operations rather than the ground combat that predominates in Iraq. In his January 10 speech, Bush announced that he was sending Patriot missiles to the Middle East to defend U.S. allies—presumably from Iran. And he pointedly asserted that Iran was "providing material support for attacks on American troops," a charge that could easily evolve into a casus belli.

"It is absolutely parallel," says Philip Giraldi, a former C.I.A. counterterrorism specialist. "They're using the same dance steps—demonize the bad guys, the pretext of diplomacy, keep out of negotiations, use proxies. It is Iraq redux..."

This is but a sample. I strongly recommend reading the article in its entirety. At the risk of seeming redundant...

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Budgeting for a Permanent Occupation

"Bush's new budget asks for an astounding $745 billion in defense spending. Will Congress give it to him?"

Continuing on our occupation theme, Ari Berman at The Nation magazine has written a very relevant piece about the new budget released by His Majesty this week.

Need proof that George W. Bush is not planning to withdraw US troops from Iraq on his watch? Just look at his latest budget.

The Bush Administration will ask Congress for $100 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan this year--on top of the $70 billion already allocated--and $145 billion for 2008. Why ask for the money if you're not planning to use it?

Administration officials, according to the Washington Post, "warned that even more money will probably will be needed." The Los Angeles Times says the military wants "even larger defense budgets."

Are you kidding me?

The costs of Iraq and Afghanistan aren't even included in the $481 billion the Pentagon demands for 2008, a 10 percent raise over this year. Total these figures up and Bush is asking for roughly $745 billion in defense spending, a higher number, when adjusted for inflation, than the entire cost of the Vietnam War.

Just pause and consider the size of that number. Three-quarters of a trillion dollars and Osama bin Laden is still at large, the Taliban are regrouping in Afghanistan and the US military is stuck in a civil war in Iraq.

"We have the largest Pentagon budget since World War II, but we are losing to an opponent in Iraq that spends less over an entire year than what we spend in one day," says Winslow Wheeler, a longtime defense expert at the Center for Defense Information.

That sounds about right to me. They're budgeting for increased expenses over the next 2 years while, at the same time, telling us that "the surge" should improve things within 60-90 days and allow us to begin drawing down troops by the summer.

Why is that? Maybe it has something to do with the part they're not telling us. This couldn't have anything to do with the PNAC-inspired "core mission" of fighting and decisively winning "multiple, simultaneous multi-theatre wars" (Iran anyone?), could it? It wouldn't have anything to do with an "essential element of US strategy" that "transcends the issue of Saddam Hussein" would it? Hmmm....

Yeah, I think it does.

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Rule By Decree

I quote him again:

---

"As anyone who studies the behavior of the U.S. empire during the last century discovers a common factor; every time the US are going to attack someone, they don’t do it right away, they start by preparing the terrain of their internal public opinion, one of the things that worries them the most....That way, when they launch the attack, they obtain the support of a big part of their internal public opinion. Almost all media in the country support them... they look for allies in Europe, from the U.N., they start preparing the terrain..."

Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela
February 20, 2005

---

I was scanning news stories on the internet a couple of days ago when I ran across the following headline:

Chavez Gains Free Rein In Venezuela

The report describes how the Venezuelan congress has ostensibly given it's President, Huge Chavez Frias, dictatorial powers to "rule by decree". Well, that certainly does sound like an alarming development when it's put that way. As if to ensure your alarm, the reporter begins as follows:

Convening in a downtown plaza in a session that resembled a political rally, lawmakers unanimously gave Chavez sweeping powers to legislate by decree and impose his radical vision of a more egalitarian socialist state.

"Long live the sovereign people! Long live President Hugo Chavez! Long live socialism!" said National Assembly President Cilia Flores as she proclaimed the "enabling law" approved by a show of hands. "Fatherland, socialism or death! We will prevail!"

The law gives Chavez, who is beginning a fresh six-year term, more power than he has ever had in eight years as president, and he plans to use it during the next 18 months to transform broad areas of public life, from the economy and the oil industry in particular, to "social matters" and the very structure of the state.

His critics call it a radical lurch toward authoritarianism by a leader with unchecked power — similar to how Fidel Castro monopolized leadership years ago in Cuba.

"If you have all the power, why do you need more power?" said Luis Gonzalez, a high school teacher who paused to watch in the plaza, calling it a "media show" intended to give legitimacy to a repugnant move. "We're headed toward a dictatorship, disguised as a democracy."

Oh, things certainly seem dire down there for each and every American trapped inside a Venezuelans body, screaming to get out, doesn't it? "It's the end of democracy", we're led to believe.

Of course, buried near the bottom of the story is this surprisingly reasonable statement from one State Department official in nearby Columbia:

"It's something valid under the constitution," said Shannon, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, told reporters in Colombia. "As with any tool of democracy, it depends how it is used," he added. "At the end of the day, it's not a question for the United States or for other countries, but for Venezuela."

What happened here? Did someone forget to fax the day's theme to this guy? What does he mean it's "valid under the constitution?" How are we supposed to paint Chavez as an anti-constitutional tyrant if we've got this guy down there citing facts about the Venezuelan constitution? Isn't he "emboldening the enemy"?

Let's delve further into this because I think we may be on to something. Eric Wingerter has penned what seems to be the definitive breakdown of what's behind this "enabling law" in Venezuela and the shrieking "rule by decree" headlines we're seeing in the US news media.

Mr. Wingerter, what say ye?

Did you hear that President Chavez is going to Rule by Decree for the next 18 months? The very idea evokes a picture of a not-too-distant South American past, one in which all-powerful executives live out their capricious whims and mete out brutal retribution against political enemies. It's all so dramatic and perverse and larger than life. Somewhere Andrew Lloyd Webber is already mapping out the musical score.

But in this case, it's just not true. Of course, if you've been reading the newspapers lately, you'd have a hard time figuring that out. The Miami Herald headline blares: "Chavez Granted Power to Rule by Decree." Time Magazine asks "Is Chavez Becoming Castro?" And those are the restrained ones. The right-wing rags have headlines like "A Dictatorship Rises," and "Hugo Chavez Kills Democracy." So you'd be forgiven for not getting the nuances in this storyline.

Here's what's actually happening: The Venezuelan assembly is poised to pass a law that will give the executive branch greater leeway to establish norms on a certain range of issues. Most of these involve guidelines for the president's own cabinet-level agencies. In other words, the Venezuelan version of the IRS will map out the country's tax structure; the Transportation department will devise its own strategic plan for public transit nationwide, etc. This represents a shift of certain powers from the legislative branch to the executive, to be sure, but on paper they don't seem to stray too far from the powers that the executive branch in the United States already has. Venezuelanaysis.com has a full listing of the ten issue areas that are affected.

It is important to note that this type of power-transfer is allowed under the Venezuelan constitution of 1999, which expressly permits the President to issue executive orders specifically within these issue areas. Of course, the constitution continues to guide the country's overall legal framework, which is to say that no "decree" can supercede constitutional law.

What's more, this "enabling law" is not new to the current constitution. Venezuela's previous constitution allowed for similar powers shifts to the executive, and you can be sure that past presidents took advantage of this authority on multiple occasions throughout the 70's, 80's and 90's.

OK, so it's not anything new and, contrary to rumor, Chavez hasn't been granted the power to "rule by decree" at all. Yet here we are being subjected to these screaming headlines described above in virtually every corner of the US media if not the world.

I find that particularly interesting because the nature of these new powers -- i.e. executive branch agencies being granted the right to write the rules governing their particular area of responsibility independent of legislative approval -- sounds eerily familiar.

Bush Directive Increases Sway on Regulation
[Registration req'd; Alternative link]
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: January 30, 2007 [New York Times]

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.

[Snip]

Consumer, labor and environmental groups denounced the executive order, saying it gave too much control to the White House and would hinder agencies’ efforts to protect the public.

Typically, agencies issue regulations under authority granted to them in laws enacted by Congress. In many cases, the statute does not say precisely what agencies should do, giving them considerable latitude in interpreting the law and developing regulations.

The directive issued by Mr. Bush says that, in deciding whether to issue regulations, federal agencies must identify “the specific market failure” or problem that justifies government intervention.

Besides placing political appointees in charge of rule making, Mr. Bush said agencies must give the White House an opportunity to review “any significant guidance documents” before they are issued.

[Snip]

Peter L. Strauss, a professor at Columbia Law School, said the executive order “achieves a major increase in White House control over domestic government.”

“Having lost control of Congress,” Mr. Strauss said, “the president is doing what he can to increase his control of the executive branch.”

So, in what way does this differ from what is being done in Venezuela, one might ask. Allow me to suggest some important distinctions:

1) In Venezuela the measure is temporary, with the powers set to expire after 18 months. Not so in the US where the change is permanent.

2) In Venezuela the measure was adopted after a vote of the duly-elected representatives in that nation's legislature. In the US it happened by Executive Order, quietly and without the consultation of any other branch of government -- a decree, if you will.

3) In Venezuela the measure applies to a President who does not subscribe to a Unitary Executive Theory, unlike the President of the United States.

One can only wonder why a temporary legislative measure in the distant land of Venezuela sets off more alarm bells and feigned concern for the state of democracy than does the odious Unitary Executive Theory, the avowed philosophy of its own President, in the American news media.

Is that sulfur I smell?


More:

Bush Seizes Power While Media Fixates on Chavez
Eric Wingeter on Chavez' "Rule by Decree"

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Carter Defends "Peace, Not Apartheid"

I'm a little late posting this one but it's worth a look anyway. Former President Jimmy Carter appeared on NPR recently to defend his new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter has predictably come under attack from supporters of Israel's government and its policies over his use of the term "Apartheid". Carter defends himself well against these attacks and certainly doesn't seem to need my help. But, as you listen to the interview in its entirety (I highly recommend that you do) consider how instructive this whole episode is on the nature of the Israel/Palestinian debate in America.

Carter presents a valid and important argument that for years has been considered fairly obvious outside of the United States. In fact, as has been noted elsewhere, he may not have gone far enough, censoring himself as a preemptive measure against these kinds of attacks. For instance, Carter insists in the NPR interview that nothing in his book suggests that Apartheid is practiced inside of Israel but that it is very much the case in the Palestinian territories Israel occupies. He bends over backwards (too far, in my opinion) to portray the domestic policies of Israel as democratic and fair, limiting his critique to it's behavior in Gaza and the West Bank.

Nevertheless, inside the US he is being vilified as, of all things, an anti-Semite, consistent with the well-worn construct that any criticism of Israel's government, regardless of its accuracy, is tantamount to launching a second Holocaust. In the firestorm that has erupted Carter's main point -- that peace is impossible if the legitimate, long-standing grievances of the Palestinian people continue to be ignored and literally paved over -- is completely obscured by all the hand-wringing over the use of the word "Apartheid".

In observing any debate, even if one is not up-to-speed on the issue at hand, there are things one can look for in order to ascertain which side is being, shall we say, less-than-candid and which isn't. And the Lord said "Ye shall know them by their fruits".

The fruits in this case are the methods used by Carter's critics to carry their side of argument, the vast array of intentional fallacies designed to obscure the weakness of their position. Using these techniques they have managed to remove the merits of his arguments from the discussion completely. From their perspective there is a good reason for this. Carter's arguments are unassailable. So, instead they've chosen obfuscation and fallacy as their primary weapon, focusing on a single word as a springboard for ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments.

With these tools they've managed to create a media environment in which all the focus is on whether Israel is exactly like South Africa, or whether Carter is anti-Semitic. These are, of course, wholly irrelevant but they serve the purpose of diverting attention away from facts that, again, are already considered well-established in the rest of the world but don't serve the interest of continuing the status quo.

These cynics are aided in no small part by the US media's long-standing embargo against any suggestion that Palestinians are rational human beings who are actually suffering unjustly under a 40-year Israeli occupation that denies them the basic human rights and dignity we ourselves insist upon. Only in such a media environment, built on a foundation of fallacy, can a situation in which the land is being literally pulled out from under the Palestinians' feet, where Palestinians are literally being walled off from their own homes, workplaces, families and assets be described as a threat to Israel's existence and not that of the Palestinians.

I have long argued privately that the use of such tactics represents an tacit admission by the user not only that their argument is weak on merit but that they know it and don't care. They don't want peace. They want Apartheid and they'll say anything to keep it. They'd just prefer you call it something else.

See also:

Carter Wins Applause at Brandeis

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We Don't Need to Escalate

A voice from the past. Is anyone listening? What's going on?

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The Battle for Haifa Street

This is being posted, if for no other reason, because CBS refuses to air it and all the sad and sorry truths about our media that their refusal symbolizes.

The segment in question -- "Battle for Haifa Street" -- is a piece of first-rate journalism but one that appears only on the CBS News website -- and has never been broadcast. It is a gritty, realistic look at life on the very mean streets of Baghdad and includes interviews with civilians who complain that the U.S. military presence is only making their lives worse and the situation more deadly.
"They told us they would bring democracy, they promised life would be better than it was under Saddam," one told Logan. "But they brought us nothing but death and killing. They brought mass destruction to Baghdad."

Several bodies are shown in the two-minute segment, "some with obvious signs of torture," as Logan points out. She also notes that her crew had to flee for their lives when they we were warned of an impending attack. While fleeing, another civilian was killed before their eyes.

Logan's email, with the one-word subject line of "help," was sent to friends and colleagues imploring them to lobby CBS to highlight that people are interested in seeing the piece. In it, Logan argues that the story is "not too gruesome to air, but rather too important to ignore … It should be seen. And people should know about this."

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Straight to the Good Part

I think this AP story serves as a good follow-up to the "The" vs "A" post from a few days ago. That earlier post dealt with the use of language to control the terms of a debate, focusing on the use of indefinite article "the" to reinforce false assumptions (e.g., "What are we to do about the WMD in Iraq"). The following excerpt is an example of same technique applied this time by the use of the adjective "its"...

U.S. Warns Iran to Back Down

By Jim Krane, Associated Press Writer | January 23, 2007

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates --A second U.S. aircraft carrier strike group now steaming toward the Middle East is Washington's way of warning Iran to back down in its attempts to dominate the region, a top U.S. diplomat said here Tuesday.

Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, ruled out direct negotiations with Iran and said a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran was "not possible" until Iran halts uranium enrichment.

"The Middle East isn't a region to be dominated by Iran. The Gulf isn't a body of water to be controlled by Iran. That's why we've seen the United States station two carrier battle groups in the region," Burns said in an address to the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center, an influential think-tank...

So what has happened here? It seems that we have completely skipped over the most important part of the debate, the part where we actually establish as a fact the idea that Iran is attempting to dominate the region or that it's nuclear program is for anything other than energy production. We haven't bothered with that at all. Instead we've gone straight to the good part, the fun part, the part where we decide what to do about this unconfirmed threat.

This is how simple, subtle choices of words can change the entire dynamic of the debate. The US official quoted here could have warned Iran to not attempt to dominate the region. He could have made reference to Iran's suspected desire to dominate the region. He could have used any number formulations that more accurately portrayed state of knowledge on Iran's intentions, characterizing them as uncertain or unclear. But, alas, that doesn't the serve the purpose of justifying the war that's already been decided upon. So he chose not to use any of those. Instead he baselessly gave us a definitive reference to "it's attempts" to dominate the region as if they were already documented and agreed upon.

That possessive adjective, "it's", carries with it the implicit assumption that thing that is possessed actually exists. How can it be possessed if it doesn't exist, right? Good, no need to prove it then.

Naturally, it follows that the only question that remains now is what to do about "it's attempts" and it follows very nicely from there that we have our warships in place.

So, as you can see, if we accept this spokesman's framing of the issue we have unwittingly conceded the point completely. The decision to take some action against Iran has already been made for us before a single countering argument can even been made because the issue has come to us pre-packaged with a ready-made concession to the warmongers. If we accept it as-is then, just as was with Iraq, they may fire when ready.

"Can't get fooled again!"

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