Lucky White Girl

Colombian gov't launches new "diplomatic offensive" to regain $55 million dollars in US military aid

The Colombian government yesterday said they will launch a new "diplomatic offensive" to urge the passing of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas and to regain the $55 million dollars in military aid that the US Senate froze because of alleged human rights abuses in that country.  The Senate was responding to recent scandals that have linked several high-level members of the Colombian government with right-wing paramilitary forces.  Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont lead the action as chairman of the foreign operations committee.  The halt in aid was recommended by several international human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.  Three weeks ago the LA Times published reports that the CIA received information regarding links between the head of the Colombian military General Mario Montoya and paramilitary groups.  Story in the Christian Science Monitor.

Control of resources

Interesting editorial in today's New York Times by Antonia Juhasz: Whose Oil is it, anyway? 

In March 2001, the National Energy Policy Development Group (better known as Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force), which included executives of America’s largest energy companies, recommended that the United States government support initiatives by Middle Eastern countries “to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment.” One invasion and a great deal of political engineering by the Bush administration later, this is exactly what the proposed Iraq oil law would achieve. It does so to the benefit of the companies, but to the great detriment of Iraq’s economy, democracy and sovereignty.

Juhasz' editorial is a good one pointing out the colonialist nature of this law without using the i-word  (imperialism) but the first sentence started me thinking along different lines.  She says

TODAY more than three-quarters of the world’s oil is owned and controlled by governments. It wasn’t always this way.

Until about 35 years ago, the world’s oil was largely in the hands of seven corporations based in the United States and Europe [since merged into these four: ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP].

Wow.  How did that happen???  That governments wrested control of this crucial natural resource away from corporations?  And they did this during a period of time that has seen the power of corporations skyrocket to unprecedented levels in human history?  How did it happen and also what does that mean? Is it a good thing? 

I have no idea about the first but think it would be worth our while to find out (meaning in the interest of people-lovers and those who want to globalize human dignity and social justice rather than profits).  As for the second --what does it mean/ is it a good thing?-- I'm not sure either but my initial reaction would be that depends.  On the particular government that has control.  If that government is of the people, by them and for them [e.g. Venezuela] and the benefits of that resource is distributed to the people, or if the government uses the people (and the resources for that matter) for its own ends [e.g. some oil-dictatorships in the middle east]. 

But how interesting that starting out like that, the author of the editorial  --which is otherwise an excellent editorial -don't get me wrong-- but she immediately set up a certain dichotomy with governments on one hand and corporations on the other.  Which of the two controls the resources?  See how it limits us right from the start to those two choices?  There's no alternative presented; we have to stick it in there ourselves: hey! what if the people controlled the resources?  You know, the people who work with and use those resources?  Is it so radical to think that the resources of the Earth should be used to the benefit of humanity (and a healthy earth is to the benefit of humanity mind you, lest I be accused of being species-centric! haha).

Anyway it's just an interesting thing to think about what different kinds of globalizations mean for control of resources: neoliberal economic globalization puts the control of resources into the hands of the corporations [in which case what she says about more governments being in control of the oil fields than corporations is a great indication that this sort of globalization is not unresisted].  Non-globalization -or say, a less-globalized world where nation-states reign supreme-- would put the control of resources into the hands of governments which may or may not be a good thing.  Or you could have a people-centered kind of globalization (centered around internationalized social movements and the like) that could put the control of the resources into the hands of the people.  These are the options I see. 

So don't fall into that trap of letting them make you think you can either have rule by the governments or rule by the corporations.  Rule by the people is a possibility if we make it one.  Let's not rule it out!

Chomsky on foreign affairs

Okay after doing a complete system overhaul, including new memory and a clean reinstall of Windows, my computer is up and running again and LWG is back.  One minor note, I forgot to record the password to one of my email addresses --the one linked to on this blog-- and it's been wiped out and I can't get it back.  So anyone using that old gotasdeagua lycos address, please note, I can't access the account and will setting up a new one soon.

Meanwhile check out this great interview with Noam Chomsky on Alternet this morning.  Explaining US antagonism towards countries like Cuba [and Venezuela] he says

International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience otherwise the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders and it can spread to important places.

This overrides even pressure from the business community to pursue economic gains in a particular area.  Because in the long run ensuring that the system works, that all the world bow down to Dear Old US, is more important than short term profit. 

Paul Krugman on the allegations about Iran

I tried to post this yesterday but Typepad was down most of the day. 

Paul Krugmans column on Tuesday about the allegations by anonymous US military officials that Iran is backing much of the violence in Iraq is just excellent.  I was going to write a snarky post about how many US made weapons are also found in Iraq (in probably even greater numbers) and that a rational person would have much more evidence to believe that the US government is actually behind those weapons than she would to believe than the government of Iran is behind the Iranian weapons.  But Krugman is much more diplomatic about it. 

Because you have to be a paid subscriber to see it on the NY Times website, you can read most of the column here.

The world is horrified by US

The new torture bill legalizes secret prisons and unlimited detentions, it's "shaky" on the torture issue... and the Republicans think this is going to help them electorally???  Sorry I can't seem to let this one go.  It's really disturbing.. and the rest of the world can't stop talking about it either:

“Not a month has gone by without the media exposing abuses in thepursuit of the 'War on Terror.'” --Guy Taillefer, writing for Le Devoir (Canada).  Read the entire editorial here.

Congress capitulates to Bush on Torture, Le Monde (France)

"A partir de la nueva ley para los tribunales y autoridades de los Estados Unidos la Convención de Ginebra que prohíbe el maltrato y los vejámenes a los detenidos resulta obsoleta y hasta inconveniente."--Contemporary Fascism in the US,(en espanol) Argenpress (Argentina).  (NEW TRANSLATED VERSION!)

"America's Great Shame: The Legalization of Torture" -- The Age (Australia)

It's really embarrassing, this.

The rest of the world has so much to teach us

I learn so much from other people.  Especially from people in other countries.  I was just talking to a friend of mine in Colombia and I was telling him about a dream I had the other night in which there was another terrorist attack and the affected area stretched from Bogota to Tulsa, Oklahoma (so yes, straight up through Central America and not affecting the east coast of the U.S.) and at the same time (or maybe it was part of the terrorist attack) the US invaded Cuba and Colombia both.  He laughed and said your country, always looking for enemies!  And I told him it makes sense that we'd invade Cuba but Colombia?? no way and he said he didn't think that the US would invade Cuba either and I said why not? He said like Iran and North Korea, it's not as weak as Iraq was and the US only invades very weak countries that won't put up much of a fight.  And I said yes, of course but why do you say Cuba is not an easy target?  And he said oh they have a good navy!  I laughed. 

Well that may be but we're talking about the military of the most powerful country in the world, the only remaining hegemon.  The US probably spends more on the military budget here than all of Cuba's GNP en total.  Venezuela would come to their defense, sure but Cuba alone wouldn't stand a chance.
And he said well it wouldn't be Cuba alone Venezuela would cut off the oil to the US and then they'd call in the rest of OPEC too and all together they'd compose a formidable front, [one that the US wouldn't want to take on, even if they weren't already bogged down in Irak, because the US likes easy targets].

And he's totally right of course (I have smart friends) but it made me realize something really interesting.  Or several interesting things actually that are all connected...

1.) that when you think about the power of countries individually, it's not the same as thinking about the power of countries in the context of the global comunity.  If we just look at the US it can knock us off our feet in terms of the overwhelming power they have militarily.  The world's only super power etc.  The amount of money we spend on our military to maintain our privileged position in the world that dwarfs what other countries spend in their entire budgets.  Now it's good not to be illusioned and to recognize that it is a very powerful country but I think the danger lies in the fact that when you only look at the US this way it can get very discouraging and lead to a sense of hopelessness and despair.  Hopelessness and despair are essentially conservative states of being because they lead to inaction.  That's why they say "hope is revolutionary".  Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. had a lot of hope in the face of some very despairing political situations.  Where would we be if they had despaired?

So I think we make a big mistake when we try to look at the power of countries individually without putting them into their contexts.  If you look at Cuba individually it is a David against our Goliath.  But if you look at Cuba with all their allies in the world suddenly that David grows very strong, and Goliath hesitates.

I think that during all my time studying international relations I have had a tendency to look at countries individually and with the exception of China I've despaired of any other country ever being a match for the US.  After that conversation with my friend I realized well, duh.  If the US really thought we could invade Cuba we'd have done so a long time ago.  And even after Castro dies we won't do it (that part of the dream reflected a real preocupation on my part).  There *are* limits to this hegemon's power.

2.) that even though I try to be progressive and think outside the box and not see the world only from the vantage point of being inside the Empire that I still have tendencies towards some very hegemonic ways of thinking like overlooking the power of collective action.

3.) what are hegemonic ways of thinking anyway?  It's the habit of viewing the world from a particular (hegemonic) vantage point.  So in that case, it makes me want to re-examine a discussion I had a long time ago on this blog about whether or not there is such a thing as white culture.  Maybe there is such a thing as hegemonic culture that affects all the members of a particular privileged group or ruling class. 

I'm not sure how much anyone who grows up within a particular Empire can ever completely purge themselves of hegemonic thinking but I think we can try and get close and one of the ways we can do it is by expanding our circles of input.  Meaning visiting or living in other countries, talking with friends or families members in other countries and reading on a regular basis foreign media.  Anything you can do to get non-hegemonic viewpoints will help.  That was a very long segueway into this: there is a website called WatchingAmerica.com that regularly scours the foreign press from all over the globe for articles related to the US and collects them in one place and translates them into English so that we can expand our circle of information a little bit farther than the domestic media.  There's a whole world out there that doesn't take the same things as givens that we do.  So check it out, see what the rest of the world is saying about us.  Here's an example

Scott Ritter kicks ideological ass!

I almost didn't go to hear former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter talk tonight at my university.  I had seen him in 1998 at Eckerd College in St. Pete.  A student group there organized to get him to come talk and at the time I was involved in the (discouragingly quiet) movement to end the economic sanctions against Iraq.  Even though Mr. Ritter is a former Marine and "counterintelligence officer" (aka a spy) as well as a weapons "specialist" (he dislikes the term expert) we who were concerned about our country's obsession with Iraq went to hear him talk.  He was good.  For someone whose background suggested that he would've been as opposed to our point of view as the General in charge of the airforce base we vigiled at, Mr. Ritter's position mostly agreed with our own (although, I thought then, for different reasons): lift the sanctions on Iraq.

So I almost didn't go hear him again tonight.  He was good; but not that good.

I am so glad I did.  I was so wrong! [Prepare yourself for some serious gushing here]

Mr. Ritter, card-carrying Republican, just gave the best talk I've encountered in years.  YEARS.  That's *counting* Howard Zinn (only because he's old probably and not as good a public speaker) and other big name lefties.  Why?  Because here's a guy who explained straight up WHY we're in Iraq today.  'Cause if you wanna talk about getting out, you gotta understand why we're there.

Unfortunately there seems no one made a decent recording of his talk, not even the college radio station (how sad is that?) but fortunately I have a bad habit of taking notes on everything so I can recap *some* of it here, but even my obsessive note-taking will not do his talk justice.  I cannot for example capture the tone of moral outrage, of righteous indignation combined with a down-to-earth realpolitik about why this country does the things it does.  I cannot capture the passion with which he spoke about citizenship, about the Constitution, about holding our leaders accountable. 

I have never before encountered real patriotism before.  It just now dawns on me, that.  I have of course encountered the obnoxious flag-waving, my-country-right-or-wrong kind of false patriotism which is probably why I talk about not having an ounce of it in my body but I really think I have never truly encountered someone like Mr. Ritter before.  This is what it must be like to meet oh, say, Tom Paine, for example.  This man truly loves -I mean LOVES- the Constitution.  He says to be a good citizen you need to know it backward and forward.  He says it's the only thing worth fighting for.  I don't know if I'd go that far.  For me, the only piece of paper I could say that about would be the UN Declaration of Human Rights or maybe the Charter.  But that's the difference between him and me, I guess.

Ok, it's late.  Maybe tomorrow I will transcribe my notes, but if not, I am happy that you know this: if you ever, EVER get a chance to see this man speak, GO!  You won't regret it.  I promise.

p.s. I am thinking of doing the opposite of a googlebomb (what would that be? a googlegift?).  I would like Mr. Ritter's picture to come up if one googles the words "true patriot" or "real American patriot" (I hate for grammatical reasons to use the word "American" instead of U.S. but hey... people do it.)

"Or do we want to make it so?": Robert Frisk on the Danish cartoons

"It's not about whether the Prophet should be pictured. The Koran does not forbid images of the Prophet even though millions of Muslims do. The problem is that these cartoons portrayed Mohamed as a bin Laden-type image of violence. They portrayed Islam as a violent religion. It is not. Or do we want to make it so?"  full editorial by Robert Frisk on Znet.

Understanding violence: Why a nonviolent response to rioting entails listening and understanding

[This is an editorial I wrote on our response to the reactions in the Muslim world to the Danish cartoons.]

Understanding violence: Why a nonviolent response to rioting entails listening and understanding

by barb howe

Whenever there are riots and violent disturbances, whether in the middle east or in south central LA, many people (usually much more privileged and in very different circumstances) shake their heads and say they just can't understand why people react in an “out of control” fashion and then --without even trying to understand that which they admit they don’t understand-- they judge the rioters as "naturally violent" or they judge the riot as being “unjustified” and they do this in the name of nonviolence.  Not to mention that this portrayal of the protests is somewhat of a distortion by the Western media, our reaction in the West even to these distorted images of an enraged violent Muslim world is problematic.

It’s easy for those of us who have a more privileged position in this world to talk about nonviolence.  We have other options.  Not so the poverty-ridden, economically dispossessed communities in urban ghettos or the masses of people in Muslim countries who daily live in fear of US and Western aggression.  Although the majority of the protesters were not violent, we in the West still fail to understand their anger.  This is not just about a cartoon. As recent editorials by Rami Khouri of the Beruit Star and Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada point out, the context is that these cartoons come at a time when the Muslim world feels very much under siege from the West. “The cartoons,” as Mr. Khouri points out, “...are anchored in a much wider array of problems. These problems include... provocative and arrogant European disdain for Muslim sensitivities about the prophet Muhammad, attempts by some Islamist extremists and criminal-political elements to stir up troubles, the Europeans' clear message that their values count more than the values of Muslims and a wider sense by many citizens of Islamic societies that the West in general seeks to weaken and subjugate the Muslim world.” Statements claiming that the violence is an overreaction, which have been reiterated repeatedly throughout the mainstream media, do nothing to help those of us here in the West to understand the larger reality the cartoons represent.

Similarly, condemning the rioters as “naturally violent” people is also problematic. To state the obvious, no one is "naturally violent". Talking about people being "naturally violent" (or saying that "violence is the only language they understand") is a cop out. It's a simple-minded concept of human nature. This should be common sense and yet our leaders often invoke such juvenile language just before they employ their own violence, as a way of dehumanizing their targets. We, as responsible citizens, should call them on it and demand a more nuanced response.

Such a response entails an obligation to understand violence whenever and wherever it occurs. Critics of US foreign policy understand the importance of understanding the why behind the violence of the US government and if we are to be consistent, likewise we also need to try to understand the why behind the violence of dispossessed groups when riots and violent disturbances happen. Even when we think it's silly. Especially when we think it's silly. This is not to say that we can’t condemn the violence of mass protests, just as we condemn the violence of the US government but we must attempt to understand both and look at them with some perspective. The force behind the US military or any military of an industrialized Western country is hugely out of proportion to the force of a crowd of thousands and even hundreds of thousands.

For those of us on the left who believe in nonviolence, this is crucial. A bonafide nonviolent response to violence entails looking at the causes that spark the violence. It is not enough to simply put out a blanket condemnation. That is an inherently violent response because it does not seek the truth. The philosophy of nonviolence is rooted in understanding. To get to that understanding we must be able to listen. And listening means you must be able to place any specific event within the context of its larger socio-political reality. Condemning "violence" per se, without problematizing the violence and without looking at the context of it and trying to understand it, is not a nonviolent response. It’s the kind of response that encourages more violence, not less. We can do better.

Understanding violence: Khouri on the Danish cartoons

Along with Abunimah, Rami Khouri has an even better editorial you can check out, especially if you don't have video to watch Abunimah's interview.  Both provide much-needed context to this whole snafu. 

Abunimah gives healthy perspective on Muslim reaction to Danish cartoons

If you didn't catch it on the McNeil/Lehrer Newshour last night and you don't understand why the Muslim world is going crazy over a coupla cartoons, click here and listen to Ali Abunimah being interviewed along with some lame apologist for the other side. 

"The same Danish newspaper that published [the offensive cartoons] had previously rejected caricatures of Jesus Christ precisely on the grounds tht they knew many of their Christian readers would find them offensive"

"We need to look at the broader context in which this incident occurs... we need to understand... how people in the Arab world are seeing this and not put it down to some  kind of amorphous rage which has no explanation"

Technorati tag [Mohammed cartoon]

Authentic help: I hold your photo, you hold mine

There's a new video of the kidnapped CPTers.  They're still alive!  Here's the CNN story.  I think this is really hopeful.  The kidnappers have had plenty of time to find out about CPT and their opposition to the occupation and hopefully they've all  been talking and making human connections during all this time (I think the most dangerous time is the first 24-48 hours for kidnappings of this sort). 

Did you see the photos of the Iraqi kids holding posters with the pictures of the CPTers, calling for their release?  Wow.  I gotta say something about this.  I've held a lot of photos of Iraqi kids in over the past several years, going back to the time of the sanctions that everyone knew impacted the civilian population way more than it ever impacted the government there.  We used to have these vigils and pass out pamphlets about the humanitarian toll the sanctions were having on the people of Iraq.  At that time Iraq wasn't in the news much, even though we were quietly bombing them every couple of weeks.  We were often discouraged and felt like no one was listening but we kept going out there.

Anyway, now it's all Iraq all the time and then the CPTers got taken and I'm looking at photos of Iraqi kids holding pictures of Westerners and it's just a beautiful thing.  It's so beautiful... (forgive me, I'm crying now)... Just as we (Western peace activists) used to hold photos of them, now they (Iraqi kids) hold photos of us.  It's people saying hey, these other people are not demons; they're just like us and they deserve to live.  That's the gist also of this editorial written by a friend of Jim Loney's in Toronto.  Go read it.  It's really good.  This is what real activism is all about.  It's not "us" helping "them"; it's all of us helping each other, realizing we're all in this together.  It reminds me of this quote by Paulo Freire:

Authentic help means that all who are involved help each other mutually, growing together in the common effort to understand the reality which they seek to transform

This is how we will change the world.  This is the revolution.  It comes from places like this when people come together across cultures and something strikes a spark in the common area within all of us.  When we hold each other's photos up and say I'll stand with you.  I'll hold your hand.  I'll hold the line with you.  I'll face the firehoses, the teargas, the police dogs with you.  I'll be your ally.  And we will change the world.

[See also: More on Authentic help]

Close the SOA/WHISC: School of Assassins

For years every November a caravan of students, activists, retirees, parents and concerned citizens travel up to Fort Benning, GA to commemorate the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her teenage daughter in El Salvador 16 years ago.  Their assassins, members of El Salvador's death squads  were trained at the US Army's School of the Americas, (you can find a more detailed history of the school here from SOA Watch).  It's been located at Fort Benning, GA ever since it was kicked out of its orginal home in Panama for being unconducive to the principles of democracy. 

The purpose of the school is to train the leaders of foreign militaries, specifically those of Latin America.  Now bear in mind that inter-state warfare in Latin America is not the main concern/motivation here.  Bolivia does not fear an invasion by Brazil.  Costa Rica has no designs on Nicaragua.  The militaries of Latin America overwhelmingly exist to control their own populations.  Their targets are their own people and insurgent populations. 

The School of the Americas (SOA) has for years been the target of immense political pressure here in the US because of its dismal track record in human rights; many of the graduates of this school go on to commit human rights abuses in their own countries (click here for more info on the graduates of the school). 

During a time when the rhetoric coming out of Washington is all about hunting down terrorists and those who harbor and train them it is immensely hypocritical to maintain such a school, under whatever name (the SOA was renamed a few years ago to the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation), whose very raison d'etre is repugnant.  This year a record number of 16,000 people gathered outside the gates of the school to mourn the dead and call for an end to a US training school for Latin American terrorists.  Thanks to all those folks who made the pilgrimmage to the SOA this year.  Your witness speaks volumes about real American values.

You've come a long way, baby

By the way, I remember once watching some movie like Braveheart or something with my parents who remarked during one of the battle scenes on the goriness of ancient warfare, implying that the contemporary version is much "nicer".  If that comment doesn't locate them in a specific socio-economic location in time and space, I don't know what would. So, since I just ran across the following statistic again, I'm reprinting it here.  If you didn't know this, you should and if you did, here's where it comes from. 

"According to the United Nations' Human Development Report, there has been a sharp increase in the porportion of civilian casualities of war --from about 10 percent at the beginning of the century to about 90 percent today."

--From an article by J. Ann Tickner explaining some of the differences between the way feminists see the world and the way conventional IR theorists see it.

Oh yeah, war's come a looooong way!

One Step Closer to Official Thugdom

"The Geneva Convention III on the treatment of prisoners of war (GPW) does not apply to the conflict with al-Qaeda...I also advised you that there are reasonable grounds for you to conclude GPW does not apply with respect to the conflict with the Taliban... al Qaeda and Taliban detainees are not prisoners of war" -memo from Gonzalez to Mr. Bush, Jan.25, 2002.

So for the U.S. to liberate itself from the burdens of conforming to the protocol of civilized societies restricting the barbaric use of torture (embodied in the Geneva Conventions), all we have to do is declare the other people "unofficial" (that is, non-state) combatants and therefore basic rules of warfare do not apply to them. 

First, it'd be interesting to ask what's considered a nation-state?  A nation-state is defined as "a politically organized territory that recognizes no higher law and whose population politically identifies with that entity".  Well Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are certainly politically organized.  They certainly have their territory (it might overlapp with other people's claims to territory but it doesn't say that it has to be non-disputed territory.  If it did it would certainly reduce the number of nation-states we consider to exist in the world today.)  "Recognizes no higher law" means they consider themselves sovereign; I think both groups would argue that they consider themselves to be sovereign.  A "population [who] politically identifies with that entity" means they have some people who view them as their leaders.  Both certainly have that.  The point is that who and what is a nation-state is a sticky business.  It's hardly a clearly defined concept. 

But even if you skip that question, and you declare the opposing side of your war to be NOT nation-states and therefore NOT covered under the Geneva Conventions --a treaty between nation-states-- and therefore illegit, what's to stop THEM from doing the same to you?  The U.S. had a flawed election process.  Therefore, it could be argued that we have an illegit government, therefore, it could be argued we do not fit some people's definitons of nation-states and that as such WE are not covered under the Geneva Conventions either (nor would any country anywhere in the world which anyone anywhere viewed as illegitimate!)  Absurd, right?  THAT'S MY POINT!

You don't even have to use such an intellectual argument to come to this conclusion.  Any third-grader (including our sitting president) knows this logic.  "You say it's fair for you to hit me, I'm gonna say it's fair for me to hit you,".    We torture them; they're gonna torture us (and they are).

Do you see where this is going?  We are essentially SCRAPPING THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS!  This is a historic moment folks.  We slip further back into the dark ages.  Maybe the Republicans will be happy when we grow excess body hair and walk on our knuckles again?

I've about had enough of listening to this shit.  Amen to what Richard Durbin just said: "I want to win the war against terrorism but not at the expense of our soldiers who may someday find themselves prisoners of war [of the opposing side]".  Finally a voice of reason!  I'm turning off the radio now and going to do my laundry.