Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators

Sen. John McCain walks with Lt. Gen. William Caldwell at Camp Eggers in Kabul, Afghanistan on January 6, 2009.

Senior Airman Brian Ybarbo/U.S. Air Force (Homepage image: AP)

By Michael Hastings

February 23, 2011 11:55 PM ET

The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.

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The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as "information operations" at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation.

"My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave," says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. "I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line."

Photos: Psy-Ops and the General

The list of targeted visitors was long, according to interviews with members of the IO team and internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone. Those singled out in the campaign included senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin; Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee; Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts.

The incident offers an indication of just how desperate the U.S. command in Afghanistan is to spin American civilian leaders into supporting an increasingly unpopular war. According to the Defense Department’s own definition, psy-ops – the use of propaganda and psychological tactics to influence emotions and behaviors – are supposed to be used exclusively on "hostile foreign groups." Federal law forbids the military from practicing psy-ops on Americans, and each defense authorization bill comes with a "propaganda rider" that also prohibits such manipulation. "Everyone in the psy-ops, intel, and IO community knows you’re not supposed to target Americans," says a veteran member of another psy-ops team who has run operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It’s what you learn on day one."

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When Holmes and his four-man team arrived in Afghanistan in November 2009, their mission was to assess the effects of U.S. propaganda on the Taliban and the local Afghan population. But the following month, Holmes began receiving orders from Caldwell’s staff to direct his expertise on a new target: visiting Americans. At first, the orders were administered verbally. According to Holmes, who attended at least a dozen meetings with Caldwell to discuss the operation, the general wanted the IO unit to do the kind of seemingly innocuous work usually delegated to the two dozen members of his public affairs staff: compiling detailed profiles of the VIPs, including their voting records, their likes and dislikes, and their "hot-button issues." In one email to Holmes, Caldwell’s staff also wanted to know how to shape the general’s presentations to the visiting dignitaries, and how best to "refine our messaging."

Congressional delegations – known in military jargon as CODELs – are no strangers to spin. U.S. lawmakers routinely take trips to the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they receive carefully orchestrated briefings and visit local markets before posing for souvenir photos in helmets and flak jackets. Informally, the trips are a way for generals to lobby congressmen and provide first-hand updates on the war. But what Caldwell was looking for was more than the usual background briefings on senators. According to Holmes, the general wanted the IO team to provide a "deeper analysis of pressure points we could use to leverage the delegation for more funds." The general’s chief of staff also asked Holmes how Caldwell could secretly manipulate the U.S. lawmakers without their knowledge. "How do we get these guys to give us more people?" he demanded. "What do I have to plant inside their heads?"

According to experts on intelligence policy, asking a psy-ops team to direct its expertise against visiting dignitaries would be like the president asking the CIA to put together background dossiers on congressional opponents. Holmes was even expected to sit in on Caldwell’s meetings with the senators and take notes, without divulging his background. "Putting your propaganda people in a room with senators doesn’t look good," says John Pike, a leading military analyst. "It doesn’t pass the smell test. Any decent propaganda operator would tell you that."

At a minimum, the use of the IO team against U.S. senators was a misuse of vital resources designed to combat the enemy; it cost American taxpayers roughly $6 million to deploy Holmes and his team in Afghanistan for a year. But Caldwell seemed more eager to advance his own career than to defeat the Taliban. "We called it Operation Fourth Star," says Holmes. "Caldwell seemed far more focused on the Americans and the funding stream than he was on the Afghans. We were there to teach and train the Afghans. But for the first four months it was all about the U.S. Later he even started talking about targeting the NATO populations." At one point, according to Holmes, Caldwell wanted to break up the IO team and give each general on his staff their own personal spokesperson with psy-ops training.

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It wasn’t the first time that Caldwell had tried to tear down the wall that has historically separated public affairs and psy-ops – the distinction the military is supposed to maintain between "informing" and "influencing." After a stint as the top U.S. spokesperson in Iraq, the general pushed aggressively to expand the military’s use of information operations. During his time as a commander at Ft. Leavenworth, Caldwell argued for exploiting new technologies like blogging and Wikipedia – a move that would widen the military’s ability to influence the public, both foreign and domestic. According to sources close to the general, he also tried to rewrite the official doctrine on information operations, though that effort ultimately failed. (In recent months, the Pentagon has quietly dropped the nefarious-sounding moniker "psy-ops" in favor of the more neutral "MISO" – short for Military Information Support Operations.)

Under duress, Holmes and his team provided Caldwell with background assessments on the visiting senators, and helped prep the general for his high-profile encounters. But according to members of his unit, Holmes did his best to resist the orders. Holmes believed that using his team to target American civilians violated the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which was passed by Congress to prevent the State Department from using Soviet-style propaganda techniques on U.S. citizens. But when Holmes brought his concerns to Col. Gregory Breazile, the spokesperson for the Afghan training mission run by Caldwell, the discussion ended in a screaming match. "It’s not illegal if I say it isn’t!" Holmes recalls Breazile shouting.

In March 2010, Breazile issued a written order that "directly tasked" Holmes to conduct an IO campaign against "all DV visits" – short for "distinguished visitor." The team was also instructed to "prepare the context and develop the prep package for each visit." In case the order wasn’t clear enough, Breazile added that the new instructions were to "take priority over all other duties." Instead of fighting the Taliban, Holmes and his team were now responsible for using their training to win the hearts and minds of John McCain and Al Franken.

On March 23rd, Holmes emailed the JAG lawyer who handled information operations, saying that the order made him "nervous." The lawyer, Capt. John Scott, agreed with Holmes. "The short answer is that IO doesn’t do that," Scott replied in an email. "[Public affairs] works on the hearts and minds of our own citizens and IO works on the hearts and minds of the citizens of other nations. While the twain do occasionally intersect, such intersections, like violent contact during a soccer game, should be unintentional."

In another email, Scott advised Holmes to seek his own defense counsel. "Using IO to influence our own folks is a bad idea," the lawyer wrote, "and contrary to IO policy."

In a statement to Rolling Stone, a spokesman for Caldwell "categorically denies the assertion that the command used an Information Operations Cell to influence Distinguished Visitors." But after Scott offered his legal opinion, the order was rewritten to stipulate that the IO unit should only use publicly available records to create profiles of U.S. visitors. Based on the narrower definition of the order, Holmes and his team believed the incident was behind them.

Three weeks after the exchange, however, Holmes learned that he was the subject of an investigation, called an AR 15-6. The investigation had been ordered by Col. Joe Buche, Caldwell’s chief of staff. The 22-page report, obtained by Rolling Stone, reads like something put together by Kenneth Starr. The investigator accuses Holmes of going off base in civilian clothes without permission, improperly using his position to start a private business, consuming alcohol, using Facebook too much, and having an "inappropriate" relationship with one of his subordinates, Maj. Laural Levine. The investigator also noted a joking comment that Holmes made on his Facebook wall, in response to a jibe about Afghan men wanting to hold his hand. "Hey! I’ve been here almost five months now!" Holmes wrote. "Gimmee a break a man has needs you know."

"LTC Holmes’ comments about his sexual needs," the report concluded, "are even more distasteful in light of his status as a married man."

Both Holmes and Levine maintain that there was nothing inappropriate about their relationship, and said they were waiting until after they left Afghanistan to start their own business. They and other members of the team also say that they had been given permission to go off post in civilian clothes. As for Facebook, Caldwell’s command had aggressively encouraged its officers to the use the site as part of a social-networking initiative – and Holmes ranked only 15th among the biggest users.

Nor was Holmes the only one who wrote silly things online. Col. Breazile’s Facebook page, for example, is spotted with similar kinds of nonsense, including multiple references to drinking alcohol, and a photo of a warning inside a Port-o-John mocking Afghans – "In case any of you forgot that you are supposed to sit on the toilet and not stand on it and squat. It’s a safety issue. We don’t want you to fall in or miss your target." Breazile now serves at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where he works in the office dedicated to waging a global information war for the Pentagon.

Following the investigation, both Holmes and Levine were formally reprimanded. Holmes, believing that he was being targeted for questioning the legality of waging an IO campaign against U.S. visitors, complained to the Defense Department’s inspector general. Three months later, he was informed that he was not entitled to protection as a whistleblower, because the JAG lawyer he consulted was not "designated to receive such communications."

Levine, who has a spotless record and 19 service awards after 16 years in the military, including a tour of duty in Kuwait and Iraq, fears that she has become "the collateral damage" in the military’s effort to retaliate against Holmes. "It will probably end my career," she says. "My father was an officer, and I believed officers would never act like this. I was devastated. I’ve lost my faith in the military, and I couldn’t in good conscience recommend anyone joining right now."

After being reprimanded, Holmes and his team were essentially ignored for the rest of their tours in Afghanistan. But on June 15th, the entire Afghan training mission received a surprising memo from Col. Buche, Caldwell’s chief of staff. "Effective immediately," the memo read, "the engagement in information operations by personnel assigned to the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan is strictly prohibited." From now on, the memo added, the "information operation cell" would be referred to as the "Information Engagement cell." The IE’s mission? "This cell will engage in activities for the sole purpose of informing and educating U.S., Afghan and international audiences…." The memo declared, in short, that those who had trained in psy-ops and other forms of propaganda would now officially be working as public relations experts – targeting a worldwide audience.

As for the operation targeting U.S. senators, there is no way to tell what, if any, influence it had on American policy. What is clear is that in January 2011, Caldwell’s command asked the Obama administration for another $2 billion to train an additional 70,000 Afghan troops – an initiative that will already cost U.S. taxpayers more than $11 billion this year. Among the biggest boosters in Washington to give Caldwell the additional money? Sen. Carl Levin, one of the senators whom Holmes had been ordered to target

The Empire of Lies: Why Our Media Betrays Us

An Empire of Lies

Why Our Media Betrays Us

by Jonathan Cook / February 28th, 2011

Last week the Guardian, Britain’s main liberal newspaper, ran an exclusive report on the belated confessions of an Iraqi exile, Rafeed al-Janabi, codenamed “Curveball” by the CIA. Eight years ago, Janabi played a key behind-the-scenes role — if an inadvertent one — in making possible the US invasion of Iraq. His testimony bolstered claims by the Bush administration that Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, had developed an advanced programme producing weapons of mass destruction.

Curveball’s account included the details of mobile biological weapons trucks presented by Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, to the United Nations in early 2003. Powell’s apparently compelling case on WMD was used to justify the US attack on Iraq a few weeks later.

Eight years on, Curveball revealed to the Guardian that he had fabricated the story of Saddam’s WMD back in 2000, shortly after his arrival in Germany seeking asylum. He told the paper he had lied to German intelligence in the hope his testimony might help topple Saddam, though it seems more likely he simply wanted to ensure his asylum case was taken more seriously.

For the careful reader — and I stress the word “careful” — several disturbing facts emerged from the report.

One was that the German authorities had quickly proven his account of Iraq’s WMD to be false. Both German and British intelligence had travelled to Dubai to meet Bassil Latif, his former boss at Iraq’s Military Industries Commission. Dr Latif had proven that Curveball’s claims could not be true. The German authorities quickly lost interest in Janabi and he was not interviewed again until late 2002, when it became more pressing for the US to make a convincing case for an attack on Iraq.

Another interesting disclosure was that, despite the vital need to get straight all the facts about Curveball’s testimony — given the stakes involved in launching a pre-emptive strike against another sovereign state — the Americans never bothered to interview Curveball themselves.

A third revelation was that the CIA’s head of operations in Europe, Tyler Drumheller, passed on warnings from German intelligence that they considered Curveball’s testimony to be highly dubious. The head of the CIA, George Tenet, simply ignored the advice.

With Curveball’s admission in mind, as well as these other facts from the story, we can draw some obvious conclusions — conclusions confirmed by subsequent developments.

Lacking both grounds in international law and the backing of major allies, the Bush administration desperately needed Janabi’s story about WMD, however discredited it was, to justify its military plans for Iraq. The White House did not interview Curveball because they knew his account of Saddam’s WMD programme was made up. His story would unravel under scrutiny; better to leave Washington with the option of “plausible deniability”.

Nonetheless, Janabi’s falsified account was vitally useful: for much of the American public, it added a veneer of credibility to the implausible case that Saddam was a danger to the world; it helped fortify wavering allies facing their own doubting publics; and it brought on board Colin Powell, a former general seen as the main voice of reason in the administration.

In other words, Bush’s White House used Curveball to breathe life into its mythological story about Saddam’s threat to world peace.

So how did the Guardian, a bastion of liberal journalism, present its exclusive on the most controversial episode in recent American foreign policy?

Here is its headline: “How US was duped by Iraqi fantasist looking to topple Saddam”.

Did the headline-writer misunderstand the story as written by the paper’s reporters? No, the headline neatly encapsulated its message. In the text, we are told Powell’s presentation to the UN “revealed that the Bush administration’s hawkish decisionmakers had swallowed” Curveball’s account. At another point, we are told Janabi “pulled off one of the greatest confidence tricks in the history of modern intelligence”. And that: “His critics — who are many and powerful — say the cost of his deception is too difficult to estimate.”

In other words, the Guardian assumed, despite all the evidence uncovered in its own research, that Curveball misled the Bush administration into making a disastrous miscalculation. On this view, the White House was the real victim of Curveball’s lies, not the Iraqi people — more than a million of whom are dead as a result of the invasion, according to the best available figures, and four million of whom have been forced into exile.

There is nothing exceptional about this example. I chose it because it relates to an event of continuing and momentous significance.

Unfortunately, there is something depressingly familiar about this kind of reporting, even in the West’s main liberal publications. Contrary to its avowed aim, mainstream journalism invariably diminishes the impact of new events when they threaten powerful elites.

We will examine why in a minute. But first let us consider what, or who, constitutes “empire” today? Certainly, in its most symbolic form, it can be identified as the US government and its army, comprising the world’s sole superpower.

Traditionally, empires have been defined narrowly, in terms of a strong nation-state that successfully expands its sphere of influence and power to other territories. Empire’s aim is to make those territories dependent, and then either exploit their resources in the case of poorly developed countries, or, with more developed countries, turn them into new markets for its surplus goods. It is in this latter sense that the American empire has often been able to claim that it is a force for global good, helping to spread freedom and the benefits of consumer culture.

Empire achieves its aims in different ways: through force, such as conquest, when dealing with populations resistant to the theft of their resources; and more subtly through political and economic interference, persuasion and mind-control when it wants to create new markets. However it works, the aim is to create a sense in the dependent territories that their interests and fates are bound to those of empire.

In our globalised world, the question of who is at the centre of empire is much less clear than it once was. The US government is today less the heart of empire than its enabler. What were until recently the arms of empire, especially the financial and military industries, have become a transnational imperial elite whose interests are not bound by borders and whose powers largely evade legislative and moral controls.

Israel’s leadership, we should note, as well its elite supporters around the world — including the Zionist lobbies, the arms manufacturers and Western militaries, and to a degree even the crumbling Arab tyrannies of the Middle East — are an integral element in that transnational elite.

The imperial elites’ success depends to a large extent on a shared belief among the western public both that “we” need them to secure our livelihoods and security and that at the same time we are really their masters. Some of the necessary illusions perpetuated by the transnational elites include:

– That we elect governments whose job is to restrain the corporations;

– That we, in particular, and the global workforce, in general, are the chief beneficiaries of the corporations’ wealth creation;

– That the corporations and the ideology that underpins them, global capitalism, are the only hope for freedom;

– That consumption is not only an expression of our freedom but also a major source of our happiness;

– That economic growth can be maintained indefinitely and at no long-term cost to the health of the planet; and,

– That there are groups, called terrorists, who want to destroy this benevolent system of wealth creation and personal improvement.

These assumptions, however fanciful they may appear when subjected to scrutiny, are the ideological bedrock on which the narratives of our societies in the West are constructed and from which ultimately our sense of identity derives. This ideological system appears to us — and I am using “we” and “us” to refer to western publics only — to describe the natural order.

The job of sanctifying these assumptions — and ensuring they are not scrutinised — falls to our mainstream media. Western corporations own the media, and their advertising makes the industry profitable. In this sense, the media cannot fulfil the function of watchdog of power because, in fact, it is power. It is the power of the globalised elite to control and limit the ideological and imaginative horizons of the media’s readers and viewers. It does so to ensure that imperial interests, which are synonymous with those of the corporations, are not threatened.

The Curveball story neatly illustrates the media’s role.

His confession has come too late — eight years too late, to be precise — to have any impact on the events that matter. As happens so often with important stories that challenge elite interests, the facts vitally needed to allow western publics to reach informed conclusions were not available when they were needed. In this case, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are gone, as are their neoconservative advisers. Curveball’s story is now chiefly of interest to historians.

That last point is quite literally true. The Guardian’s revelations were of almost no concern to the US media, the supposed watchdog at the heart of the US empire. A search of the Lexis Nexis media database shows that Curveball’s admissions featured only in the New York Times, in a brief report on page 7, as well as in a news round-up in the Washington Times. The dozens of other major US newspapers, including the Washington Post, made no mention of it at all.

Instead, the main audience for the story outside the UK was the readers of India’s Hindu newspaper and the Khaleej Times.

But even the Guardian, often regarded as fearless in taking on powerful interests, packaged its report in such a way as to deprive Curveball’s confession of its true value. The facts were bled of their real significance. The presentation ensured that only the most aware readers would have understood that the US had not been duped by Curveball, but rather that the White House had exploited a “fantasist” — or desperate exile from a brutal regime, depending on how one looks at it — for its own illegal and immoral ends.

Why did the Guardian miss the main point in its own exclusive? The reason is that all our mainstream media, however liberal, take as their starting point the idea both that the West’s political culture is inherently benevolent and that it is morally superior to all existing, or conceivable, alternative systems.

In reporting and commentary, this is demonstrated most clearly in the idea that “our” leaders always act in good faith, whereas “their” leaders — those opposed to empire or its interests — are driven by base or evil motives.

It is in this way that official enemies, such as Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic, can be singled out as personifying the crazed or evil dictator — while other equally rogue regimes such as Saudi Arabia’s are described as “moderate” — opening the way for their countries to become targets of our own imperial strategies.

States selected for the “embrace” of empire are left with a stark choice: accept our terms of surrender and become an ally or defy empire and face our wrath.

When the corporate elites trample on other peoples and states to advance their own selfish interests, such as in the invasion of Iraq to control its resources, our dominant media cannot allow its reporting to frame the events honestly. The continuing assumption in liberal commentary about the US attack on Iraq, for example, is that, once no WMD were found, the Bush administration remained to pursue a misguided effort to root out the terrorists, restore law and order, and spread democracy.

For the western media, our leaders make mistakes, they are naïve or even stupid, but they are never bad or evil. Our media do not call for Bush or Blair to be tried at the Hague as war criminals.

This, of course, does not mean that the western media is Pravda, the propaganda mouthpiece of the old Soviet empire. There are differences. Dissent is possible, though it must remain within the relatively narrow confines of “reasonable” debate, a spectrum of possible thought that accepts unreservedly the presumption that we are better, more moral, than them.

Similarly, journalists are rarely told — at least, not directly — what to write. The media have developed careful selection processes and hierarchies among their editorial staff — termed “filters” by media critics Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky — to ensure that dissenting or truly independent journalists do not reach positions of real influence.

There is, in other words, no simple party line. There are competing elites and corporations, and their voices are reflected in the narrow range of what we term commentary and opinion. Rather than being dictated to by party officials, as happened under the Soviet system, our journalists scramble for access, to be admitted into the ante-chambers of power. These privileges make careers but they come at a huge cost to the reporters’ independence.

Nonetheless, the range of what is permissible is slowly expanding — over the opposition of the elites and our mainstream TV and press. The reason is to be found in the new media, which is gradually eroding the monopoly long enjoyed by the corporate media to control the spread of information and popular ideas. Wikileaks is so far the most obvious, and impressive, outcome of that trend.

The consequences are already tangible across the Middle East, which has suffered disproportionately under the oppressive rule of empire. The upheavals as Arab publics struggle to shake off their tyrants are also stripping bare some of the illusions the western media have peddled to us. Empire, we have been told, wants democracy and freedom around the globe. And yet it is caught mute and impassive as the henchmen of empire unleash US-made weapons against their peoples who are demanding western-style freedoms.

An important question is: how will our media respond to this exposure, not just of our politicians’ hypocrisy but also of their own? They are already trying to co-opt the new media, including Wikileaks, but without real success. They are also starting to allow a wider range of debate, though still heavily constrained, than had been possible before.

The West’s version of glasnost is particularly obvious in the coverage of the problem closest to our hearts here in Palestine. What Israel terms a delegitimisation campaign is really the opening up — slightly — of the media landscape to allow a little light where until recently darkness reigned.

This is an opportunity and one that we must nurture. We must demand of the corporate media more honesty; we must shame them by being better-informed than the hacks who recycle official press releases and clamour for access; and we must desert them, as is already happening, for better sources of information.

We have a window. And we must force it open before the elites of empire try to slam it shut.

• This is the text of a talk entitled “Media as a Tool of Empire” delivered to Sabeel, the Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre, at its eighth international conference in Bethlehem on Friday February 25. 

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). Read other articles by Jonathan, or visit Jonathan's website.

This article was posted on Monday, February 28th, 2011 at 8:00am and is filed under Disinformation, Empire, GWB, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Media.

U.S. Continues to Bully The Palestinians

Obama & Clinton Undermine the Palestinians Once Again

It's not such a surprise--once the Obama Administration decided to stay true to the traditions of our State Department from the Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush days, it gives priority to the wishes of the Christian Zionists and AIPAC--at the expense of the continued suffering of the Palestinian people. M.J. Rosenberg analyzes it, and then the news story of the US actually vetoing the resolution confirms it. What seems obvious (and sadly disappointing) is that the initial promise of the Obama Administration for a more balanced position in the Israel/Palestine conflict (a balance that actually would be more in Israel's long-term interest than capitulating to the self-destructive policies of the Netanyahu government) has been abandoned. It makes no more sense in this situation for anyone concerned about peace to focus on gently nudging the Obama Administration to live up to its promise on Middle East matters. Instead, it must be publicly and unequivocally challenged.

Now We Are Bullying The Palestinians by M.J.Rosenberg
It appears that U.S. dealings with the Palestinians have entered a new phase: bullying.

On Thursday, President Obama telephoned Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to urge him to block a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning settlements. Obama pressed very hard during the 50-minute call, so hard that Abbas felt compelled to agree to take Obama's request to the PLO executive committee (which, not surprisingly, agreed that Abbas should not accede to Obama's request).

But what a request it is!

For Palestinians, Israeli settlements are the very crux of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After all, it is the gobbling up of the land by settlements that is likely to prevent a Palestinian state from ever coming into being.

Asking the Palestinian leader to oppose a resolution condemning them is like asking the Israeli prime minister to drop Israel's claim to the Israeli parts of Jerusalem.

In fact, the U.S. request for a mere 90-day settlement freeze (a request sweetened with an offer of $3.5 billion in extra aid) outraged the Netanyahu government. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu couldn't even bring himself to respond (probably figuring that he'll get the extra money whenever he wants it anyway). The administration then acted as if it never made the request at all, so eager is it to not offend Netanyahu in any way.

But it's a different story with Palestinians, for obvious reasons (they have no political clout in Washington). Even when they ask the U.N. to support them on settlements, the administration applies heavy pressure.

But why so much pressure? After all, it's a big deal when the president calls a foreign leader and, to be honest, the head of the Palestinian Authority is not exactly the president of France or prime minister of Canada.

The reason Obama made that call is that he was almost desperate to avoid vetoing the United Nations Security Council Resolution condemning illegal Israeli settlements. And it's not hard to see why.

Given the turbulence in the Middle East, and the universal and strong opposition in the Arab and Muslim world to U.S. vacillating on settlements, the last thing the administration wants to do is veto a resolution condemning them. That is especially true with this resolution, sponsored by 122 nations, which embodies long-stated U.S. policies. All U.S. interests dictate either support for the resolution or at least abstention.

But the administration rejected that approach, knowing that if it supported the resolution, AIPAC would go ballistic, along with its House and Senate (mostly House) cutouts. (Here are some of them issuing warnings already.)

Then the calls would start coming in from AIPAC-connected donors who would warn that they will not support the president's re-election if he does not veto. And Prime Minister Netanyahu would do to President Obama what he did to former President Clinton — work with the Republicans (his favorite is former Speaker Newt Gingrich) to bring Obama down.

What was an administration to do? It did not want to veto but was afraid not to.

Earlier in the week, it floated a plan which would have the Security Council mildly criticize settlements in a statement (not a resolution). According to Foreign Policy, the statement:

"...expresses its strong opposition to any unilateral actions by any party, which cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community, and reaffirms, that it does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, which is a serious obstacle to the peace process." The statement also condemns "all forms of violence, including rocket fire from Gaza, and stresses the need for calm and security for both peoples."
Did you notice where settlements are mentioned? Read slowly. It's there.

Reading the language, it is not hard to guess where the statement was drafted. Rather than simply address settlements, it throws in such AIPAC-pleasing irrelevancies (in this context) as "rocket fire from Gaza," which has absolutely nothing to do with West Bank settlements. In other words, it reads like an AIPAC-drafted House resolution, although it does leave out the "hooray for Israel" boilerplate, which is standard in Congress but the Security Council is unlikely to go for.

All this to avoid vetoing a resolution which expresses U.S. policy. Needless to say, the U.S. plan went nowhere. Hypocrisy only carries the day when it isn't transparent.

As I wrote earlier this week, this is what happens when donors and not diplomats are driving U.S. policy. It's too bad that they don't care that they are making the United States look like Netanyahu's puppet in front of the entire world.

Foreign Policy Matters is now updated daily..

From Ha'aretz:

Utterly Wrong: U.S. Will Veto The UN Resolution Condemning

MJ Rosenberg shows how crazy US policy toward Israel and Palestine continues to be under Barack Obama. Anyone who believes that Obama has moved away from the policies of the past is simply not following the actual policies of the US, which were unveiled clearly when it refused to back UN consideration of Justice Goldstone's Gaza report. This is the next crazy step--and also shows how wild are the conservatives in the Jewish world who portray Obama as not being adequately supportive of their version of what it means to be pro-Israel, when in fact he is all too willing to be their lap dog.

Settlements
Anyone who thought that the United States has learned anything from the various revolutions upturning the Arab world has another think coming. We didn't.

On Thursday, as the Egyptian revolution was culminating with the collapse of the Mubarak regime, the Obama administration announced that it intends to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution, sponsored by 122 nations, condemning Israeli settlement expansion.

This is from AFP's report on what Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

"We have made very clear that we do not think the Security Council is the right place to engage on these issues," Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg told the House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee.

"We have had some success, at least for the moment, in not having that arise there. And we will continue to employ the tools that we have to make sure that continues to not happen," said Steinberg.

There is so much wrong with Steinberg's statement that it is hard to know where to start.

First is the obvious. Opposition to Israeli settlements is perhaps the only issue on which the entire Arab and Muslim world is united. Iraqis and Afghanis, Syrians and Egyptians, Indonesians and Pakistanis don't agree on much, but they do agree on that. They also agree that the U.S. policy on settlements demonstrates flagrant disregard for human rights in the Muslim world (at least when Israel is the human rights violator).

Accordingly, a U.S. decision to support the condemnation of settlements would send a clear message to the Arab and Muslim world that we understand what is happening in the Middle East and that we share at least some of its peoples' concerns.

The settlement issue should be an easy one for the United States. Our official policy is the same as that of the Arab world. We oppose settlements. We consider them illegal. We have repeatedly demanded that the Israelis stop expanding them (although the Israeli government repeatedly ignores us). The administration feels so strongly about settlements that it recently offered Israel an extra $3.5 billion in U.S. aid to freeze settlements for 90 days.

It is impossible, then, for the United States to pretend that we do not agree with the resolution (especially when its language was carefully drafted to comport with the administration's official position).

So why will we veto a resolution that expresses our own views?

Steinberg says that "we do not think the Security Council is the right place to engage on these issues."

Why not? It is the Security Council that passed all the major international resolutions (with U.S. support) governing Israel's role in the occupied territories since the first one, UN Resolution 242 in 1967.

He then adds, with clear pride, that "We have had some success, at least for the moment, in not having that [the settlements issue] arise there."

Very impressive. The United States has had no success whatsoever in getting the Netanyahu government to stop expanding settlements — to stop evicting Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem to make way for ultra-Orthodox settlers — and no success in getting Israel to crack down on settler violence, but we have had "some success" in keeping the issue out of the United Nations.

The only way to resolve the settlements issue, according to Steinberg, "is through engagement through the parties, and that is our clear and consistent position." Clear and consistent it may be. But it hasn't worked. The bulldozers never stop.

Of course, it is not hard to explain the Obama administration's decision to veto a resolution embodying positions that we support. It is the power of AIPAC, which is lobbying furiously against a U.S. veto (actually not so furiously; AIPAC doesn't waste energy when it knows that its congressional acolytes — and Dennis Ross in the White House itself — will do its work for them).

The power of the lobby is the only reason we will veto the resolution. Try to come up with another one. After all, voting for the resolution (or, at least, abstaining on it) serves U.S. interests in the Middle East at a critical moment and is consistent with U.S. policy.

But it would enrage the lobby and its friends who will threaten retribution in the 2012 election.

Simply put, our Middle East policy is all about domestic politics. And not even the incredible events of the past month will change that.

That is why U.S. standing in the Middle East will continue to deteriorate. We simply cannot deliver. After all, there is always another election on the horizon and that means that it is donors, not diplomats, who determine U.S. policy.

Revealed: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people

Revealed: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people

By Stephen C. Webster

Friday, February 18th, 2011 -- 3:07 pm

Tags: Base, contract, contract description, facebook, federal contract, firm, gaming, MacDill, media accounts, mob, myspace, person, persona management, protest group, secure virtual private networks, virtual private networks, Wikileaks

Update (below): HBGary Federal among bidders

These days, with Facebook and Twitter and social media galore, it can be increasingly hard to tell who your "friends" are.

But after this, Internet users would be well advised to ask another question entirely: Are my "friends" even real people?

In the continuing saga of data security firm HBGary, a new caveat has come to light: not only did they plot to help destroy secrets outlet WikiLeaks and discredit progressive bloggers, they also crafted detailed proposals for software that manages online "personas," allowing a single human to assume the identities of as many fake people as they'd like.

The revelation was among those contained in the company's emails, which were dumped onto bittorrent networks after hackers with cyber protest group "Anonymous" broke into their systems.

In another document unearthed by "Anonymous," one of HBGary's employees also mentioned gaming geolocation services to make it appear as though selected fake persons were at actual events.

"There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas," it said.

Government involvement

Eerie as that may be, more perplexing, however, is a federal contract from the 6th Contracting Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, located south of Tampa, Florida, that solicits providers of "persona management software."

While there are certainly legitimate applications for such software, such as managing multiple "official" social media accounts from a single input, the more nefarious potential is clear.

Unfortunately, the Air Force's contract description doesn't help dispel suspicions. As the text explains, the software would require licenses for 50 users with 10 personas each, for a total of 500. These personas would have to be "replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent."

It continues, noting the need for secure virtual private networks that randomize the operator's Internet protocol (IP) address, making it impossible to detect that it's a single person orchestrating all these posts. Another entry calls for static IP address management for each persona, making it appear as though each fake person was consistently accessing from the same computer each time.

The contract also sought methods to anonymously establish virtual private servers with private hosting firms in specific geographic locations. This would allow that server's "geosite" to be integrated with their social media profiles, effectively gaming geolocation services.

The Air Force added that the "place of performance" for the contract would be at MacDill Air Force Base, along with Kabul, Afghanistan and Baghdad. The contract was offered on June 22, 2010.

It was not clear exactly what the Air Force was doing with this software, or even if it had been procured.

Manufacturing consent

Though many questions remain about how the military would apply such technology, the reasonable fear should be perfectly clear. "Persona management software" can be used to manipulate public opinion on key information, such as news reports. An unlimited number of virtual "people" could be marshaled by only a few real individuals, empowering them to create the illusion of consensus.

You could call it a virtual flash mob, or a digital "Brooks Brothers Riot," so to speak: compelling, but not nearly as spontaneous as it appears.

That's precisely what got DailyKos blogger Happy Rockefeller in a snit: the potential for military-run armies of fake people manipulating and, in some cases, even manufacturing the appearance of public opinion.

"I don't know about you, but it matters to me what fellow progressives think," the blogger wrote. "I consider all views. And if there appears to be a consensus that some reporter isn't credible, for example, or some candidate for congress in another state can't be trusted, I won't base my entire judgment on it, but it carries some weight.

"That's me. I believe there are many people though who will base their judgment on rumors and mob attacks. And for those people, a fake mob can be really effective."

It was Rockefeller who was first to highlight the Air Force's "persona" contract, which was available on a public website.

A call to MacDill Air Force Base, requesting an explanation of the contract and what this software might be used for, was answered by a public affairs officer who promised a call-back. No reply was received at time of this story's publication.

Other e-mails circulated by HBGary's CEO illuminate highly personal data about critics of the US Chamber of Commerce, including detailed information about their spouses and children, as well as their locations and professional links. The firm, it was revealed, was just one part of a group called "Team Themis," tasked by the Chamber to come up with strategies for responding to progressive bloggers and others.

"Team Themis" also included a proposal to use malware hacks against progressive organizations, and the submission of fake documents in an effort to discredit established groups.

HBGary was also behind a plot by Bank of America to destroy WikiLeaks' technology platform, other emails revealed. The company was humiliated by members of "Anonymous" after CEO Aaron Barr bragged that he'd "infiltrated" the group.

A request for comment emailed to HBGary did not receive a reply.

Update: HBGary Federal among bidders

A list of interested vendors responding to the Air Force contract for "persona management software" included HBGary subsideary HBGary Federal, further analysis of a government website has revealed.

Other companies that offered their services included Global Business Solutions and Associates LLC, Uk Plus Logistics, Ltd., NevinTelecom, Bunker Communications and Planmatrix LLC.

Robin Hood Is Dead

Robin Hood Is Dead

Saturday 12 February 2011

by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: krnlpanik, Alex Thompson, Angela Wolf)

The streets of Cairo were alive with jubilation on Friday after the announcement that Hosni Mubarak had finally surrendered to the inevitable and lit out of town. After more than two weeks of protest, tension and sheer grit, the deal went down and the air rang with shouts of victorious joy.

In America, by contrast, all was quiet. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, millions of people went without work, and the “news” media kept everyone up to date on the latest criminal doings of Lindsey Lohan.

...but but but...

Things are better in America than they are in Egypt.

Right?

Right?

Well, let’s see.

Corporations are people, and they own the news. Money is speech. We are fighting wars in Eurasia and Eastasia simultaneously. It’s cheaper to die if you get sick, unless you’re a car, in which case you are required to have insurance. Rape isn’t rape anymore, if you ask the right people. Being gay means the Bill of Rights isn’t for you. Having brown skin is original sin. Guns don’t kill people. Keep your damn government hands off my Medicare. Clean water is a socialist plot. The polar caps totally aren’t melting and stuff. Have some seafood from the Gulf of Mexico. Visit the 9th Ward in New Orleans. Your vote counts, especially in Ohio and Florida. American citizens don’t get “disappeared,” except for Jose Padilla...remember him? He doesn’t.

...but but but...

Hosni Mubarak was a dictator who stole elections and reigned with an iron fist for 30 years. America isn’t like that.

Right?

Right?

Ronald Reagan took office thirty years ago. He was a product of General Electric and the “defense” industry, right down to his dyed roots. George H.W. Bush, a subsidiary of the Carlyle Group, followed. Clinton took him down so as to deliver NAFTA, GATT, and The Telecommunications Act. Then came Al Gor…oh, wait, right, another Bush, who was his own man, the kind of guy you’d like to have a beer with, because he wasn’t running anything. Cheney, on the other hand, was still getting paid by Halliburton/KBR while in office, and yeah...he was the boss. Or was he?

So, yeah, who’s been in charge?

Hm.

Nobody knows Pharaoh better than Egyptians. Those nifty stone triangles soaring out of the soil give testament to the benefits of absolute power, slave labor, and why it’s good to be the king. Everyone thinks Pharaoh went away thousands of years ago – it’s in the textbooks, so it must be true – but the fact of the matter is Pharaoh yet remains, and has no interest whatsoever in letting his people go. Pharaoh is ExxonMobil, BP, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon…yeah, any corporate entity dealing in oil, bombs and/or bullets is rich beyond the dreams of avarice, even in the current crummy economy…or should I say thanks to the current crummy economy.

Yes?

Indeed.

Who runs America?

Not you. Not me.

Know how I know?

I know because Barack Obama is the President of the United States. Like Bush, Clinton, Bush and Reagan before him, Barack Obama is running the show. He is in charge. He spoke oh so eloquently on Friday about Egyptian freedom, change, and the new normal in the Middle East. Barack Obama is the place where the buck stops. Hope and Change and all that good stuff.

So, yeah, “This is the way democracy works,” he said. Like he would know. Like any of us would know. Ours is a tepid, controlled, managed failure of a democracy, if the streets of Cairo are any clue.

Know how I know?

President Obama is preparing to slash home heating aid to the poorest of the poor in order to get an “Atta boy!” from the GOP that will never, ever, ever, ever, ever come. He is likewise preparing to slash environmental protections while on bended knee to economic fallacies proffered by right-wing fools. He has done nothing, but nothing, but nothing, except to give long luxurious back-rubs to the criminal bastards who stripped us of our future. He has made sure those with money will keep their money and make more besides, but for those with no job and no hope and no heat, well…there’s always suicide, I suppose. Maybe you can move to Egypt, if Pharaoh lets you.

Who runs America?

Yeah.

I thought so.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

The “Pyramid Schemes” of Empire Inc.

by Jennifer Matsui and Stella LaChance / February 11th, 2011

The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt forced have Obama into an uncomfortable but familar posture: On the one hand, in order to preserve at least the appearance of credibility, the candidate of hope and change has to at least feign solidarity with the people who expressed their hope by flooding into the streets of Tunisia and Cairo demanding change in leadership of their US-sponsored tyrannies. On the other hand, as the man charged with the responsibility of prolonging the death-gasp of a doomed Empire, Obama had to work overtime behind the scenes to make sure that any political changes forced upon America’s satraps in the Middle East remain cosmetic and trivial. This dilemma accounts for the mixed messages being issued from the White House throughout the crisis as each mangled response contradicts an earlier stance.

More recent developments on Mubarak’s “dignified” exit reveal even more cynical contempt for Egypt’s long suffering people on the part of the Obama administration as Egypt’s recently appointed VP Omar Suleiman, the CIA’s ‘go to guy’ for its offshore torture enterprises has reportedly been installed as Mubarak’s successor.

What better illustrates Obama’s flailing and ineffectual leadership style than a comparison of his rhetoric in Cairo shortly after taking office with his current posture regarding developments in Egypt? In his 2009 Cairo speech, Obama affirmed his “unyielding belief” in the universality of democratic struggle, and the “yearning” of all people to live “under the rule of law and the equal administration of justice, towards government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people”. Words that in retrospect reveal the insincerity behind them as his administration attempts to downplay the “government by the people, of the people . . . ” stuff as it applies to the Arab world, and push forward a more moderate and “realistic” solution to what they consider an unfolding ”crisis” in Egypt and beyond: Millions of people peacefully united in a struggle to break free from a brutal, authoritarian regime headed by a corrupt tyrant.

His audience at the time could be forgiven if they chose to ignore the dramatic, chest-puffing pauses, the Il Duce tilt of the chin and the somewhat condescending tone as he hectored his Muslim non-brethren about that silly tendency of theirs to view the US as a “self-interested Empire”. His reassurances that “government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power” struck just the right note after eight years of his predecessor’s gaffe-ridden and tone deaf rhetoric. In hindsight, “Democracy”, like the ill-fated “Mission Accomplished”, has a similar slip of the tongue quality. American politicians and pundits remain entwined in an intimate spooning position on their shared bed, perfecting the necessary linguistic contortions to condemn the violence Mubarak’s paid goons are inflicting upon demonstrators and journalists, without implicating themselves for their enduring support for Egypt’s state-sponsored terrorism.

“Democracy” was Obama’s theme when Mubarak was apparently secure, cashing America’s yearly $1.3 billion hush money check with its boot heel firmly set on the neck of the Egyptian people. Now, however, when those people are in the streets demanding that political realities be reshaped according to Obama’s rhetoric, the offending word has disappeared from the President’s vocabulary. Instead we hear the familiar refrains centered around “stability,” and “reform”. His calls for a “peaceful transition” of power are merely a stalling tactic meant to buy time until a neoliberal carpetbagger is eventually installed to carry out the IMF’s failed policies, and to pre-empt any future resistance outside Israeli-controlled territory to these externally imposed measures of poverty and oppression. That Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt hinges on the regime’s complicit support for Israel’s permanent occupation of Palestinian land does not factor in to the official argument that this “strategic alliance” is somehow “vital” to US interests. Instead Mubarak, the much vaunted “strategic ally” is trotted out whenever his complicit cohorts in Washington need to justify their feet dragging.

An especially comic moment was barely mentioned in the American media that involved the dispatch of former ambassador Frank Wisner as Obama’s “envoy” to read the riot act to his good friend Mubarak once it became clear that the dictator’s exit was inevitable. Is it possible that Hillary Clinton didn’t know that Wisner is a partner at the Washington law firm of Patton Boggs, which for years has proudly represented Egypt’s political and economic elite? According to the firm’s website:

Patton Boggs has been active in Egypt for 20 years. We have advised the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and have handled arbitrations and litigation on the government’s behalf in Europe and the US. Our attorneys also represent some of the leading Egyptian commercial families and their companies, and we have been involved in oil and gas and telecommunications infrastructure projects on their behalf. One of our partners also served as the Chairman of the US-Egyptian Chamber of Commerce, promoting foreign direct investment into targeted sectors of the Egyptian economy. We have also handled negotiation of offset agreements and managed contractor disputes in military sales agreements arising under the US Foreign Military Sales Act.

Patton Boggs maintains a correspondent affiliate relationship with one of Egypt’s most prominent firm of lawyers in Cairo, the law firm of Zaki Hashem.

Could Wisner realistically be expected to violate the rules of legal ethics by strong-arming his own client? No. Wisner proceeded to further embarrass his already confused boss by going “off message” and announcing in Munich that Mubarak’s “continued leadership is critical; it’s his opportunity to write his own legacy …” This prompted a spasm of clumsy backtracking by the Secretary of State, who immediately informed the groveling press that “He does not speak for the administration … So you would have to ask him what he meant, and how it fits into his view of what’s going on.” However, Wisner’s statement was perfectly consistent with Joe Biden’s assertion a few weeks ago that Mubarak is “not a dictator”, and the Vice President certainly spoke for the Obama administration. But that was then – before it became obvious that Mubarak’s days were numbered – and this is now, when the administration is supposed to be forcing Mubarak out in favor of his freshly appointed stand-in, CIA asset and torturer Omar Suleiman. Someone forgot to tell Wisner to update his file.

Recent statements coming from the Israeli leadership warning the world of the dangers of a democratized Middle East and how threatens Israel’s apartheid state reveal Netanyahu’s fingerprints in glaring relief all over the rhetorical playbook US politicians and pundits refer to when “condemning” their man in Cairo. The US (firmly under the boot of its largest recipient of military aid) remains convinced that its “strategic interests” lie in preventing the imprisoned segment of Israel’s population funny ideas about self-determination, even if this failed policy is at the heart of anti-American sentiments in the region. The failure of the US to adequately gauge the level of anger Egyptians felt over the their government’s betrayal of the stateless Palestinian people, including Mubarak’s active role in enforcing the Israeli blockade of Gaza before and after Israel’s 2008 blitzkrieg, remains a still unacknowledged factor leading to the present uprising. As Obama Inc. is forced to confront this swelling human tsunami of discontent, one thing has become disturbingly clear: US leadership is a wholly illusory facade that masks a rudderless system of entrenched interests, all profiting from endless armed conflict, and all seeking to maintain the political and economic imbalances necessary to procure the cheap resources to sustain it.

The Empire is at the stage when corporal decomposition briefly mimics life-like functions before dissolving into an unsalvageable heap of toxic waste, eventually collapsing in on itself. From this worm ridden detritus we continue to mold Golem-esque monsters like Mubarak, imposing, larger-than-life clay figures programmed to carry out Israel’s vengeance-seeking imperatives and crushing domestic and regional resistance to its land grabbing ambitions. Like Golem, the obedient, brute stupid clay automatons of Jewish mythology, created in the primitive laboratories of holy men to protect the Jewish ghetto from torch bearing mobs, Mubarak and his cohorts were similarly dreamt up in squalid think tanks in DC suburbs and unleashed upon the world with the same unintended consequences. According to one telling of this hubris-themed legend, the monster was only deactivated when the rabbi removed the first letter of the Hebrew word “emet” (truth or reality) from the creature’s forehead, leaving the word “met,” meaning dead. In a similar attempt to defang a useful-idiot-turned-liability, Washington and Tel Aviv are hoping to defuse a genuine democratic movement with similar sleight of hand techniques, removing trace evidence of their handiwork on Egypt’s internal affairs as they select Mubarak’s remodeled clay replica as his successor.

The timing of the Arab uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt could hardly be more propitious. They occur just now as if to confirm the basic message of the leaked Palestine Papers several weeks ago, which is that the US-sponsored “peace process” is a fraudulent charade and the United States, along its European allies are irrelevant to resolution of the conflict in Palestine — the subtext for the dissolution of proxy dictatorships in the Middle East. Whatever else they may represent, these uprisings offer a rumbling signal to the feckless “international community” that this conflict, will ultimately be solved not by bureaucrats in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin, but by the people who must bear the burden of its irresolution, and the hopelessness and indignity it spawns, every day of their lives.

The US’s duck-and-cover response to Egypt’s spontaneous regime combustion reveals a woeful lack of preparedness and foresight on the part of its policy makers. It is obvious that Obama has spent the larger part of his presidency inhaling the sulfurous ‘dutch oven’ fumes within the fetid, airtight think tanks where the overlapping emissions of policy wonks, strategists and drab Generals mingle with the clean banknote scent of Wall Street money launderers. His administration’s failure to anticipate the inevitable blowback from its continuation of decades of failed foreign policy is evident in their floundering attempts to evoke a “clash of civilizations” scenario to justify its hypocritical about-face on the subject of a democratized Middle East. In an attempt to further distance himself from his own rhetoric, Obama has left the more brutal assessments of the situation unfolding in Egypt to his Republican cohorts to deliver the message that “stability” under a tyrant’s boot is the best case scenario for the people of the Middle East – a view that is echoed across the political spectrum on both sides of the Atlantic in varying degrees of overt racism by politicians, pundits and “experts” alike. Consensus opinion among the people who are paid handsomely to get it wrong every time insists that Egyptians are only incapable of filling the political vacuum left in Mubarak’s wake with a bomb laden Mullah intent on draining the Suez Canal. Notice how little has been made of the sewer monsters that have emerged from the political vacuum of Obama’s flailing leadership at home.

To the chagrin of the mob-fearing, democracy-thwarting leaders of the ‘free’ world, the Egyptian people are overwhelmingly unwilling to settle for an interim government led by a defanged and temporarily hobbled ruling party bureaucrat, even if it means sacrificing the the meagre, short-term benefits a return to “stability” would bring. Enter the Muslim Brotherhood whose gains in Egypt’s 2005 parliamentary elections posed a genuine democratic challenge to Mubarak’s authoritarian ‘secular’ regime and not the hoped for theological “threat”, without which Israel and its allies in the west remain hamstrung in their attempts to summon the specter of Bin Laden to hover ominously over Tahrir square where tens of thousands of demonstrators remain steadfast in their demands for Mubarak’s removal. Despite the Brotherhood’s deliberately low profile presence in the ongoing demonstrations and their stated willingness to work within a legitimately elected government, Washington and Tel Aviv’s official storytellers are spinning a Crusade-era yarn with the requisite, turban wearing villains on a suicide mission from God to illustrate the Brotherhood’s moderate aims to reform Egypt’s political institutions.

Thinking back to all the bellicose rhetoric of war in recent years, combined with the vacuous windbaggery of Obama’s preening oratory, you realize those ominous rumblings of fighter jets and unmanned aircraft audible over his finely pitched spoken anthems are just the sound a corpse emits as accumulated gases seek release. As events unfold in Egypt, with millions of its citizens publicly unshackling themselves from a brutal and ruinous status-quo, we are not only witness to a spontaneous irruption of emboldened citizens demanding an end to decades of tyrannical rule, but an insurrection on a global scale that promises to upend Empire and the corrupt institutions that sustain it.

How fitting that the Egyptian people once condemned to eke out a meagre existence among the monuments and relics of another dead Empire have risen en masse from the ruins, bringing down not only a stooge Pharaoh, but revealing American power as little more than a gold-plated hologram carcass signifying the brief reign of its last little emperor.

Jennifer Matsui is a freelance writer living in Tokyo. "Stella LaChance" is a former Federal Communications Commission attorney, now practicing law in Dallas, Texas. Read other articles by Jennifer Matsui and Stella LaChance.

This article was posted on Friday, February 11th, 2011 at 8:02am and is filed under Blowback, Democracy, Egypt, Empire, Obama, Revolution.

Hey, Obama, Read WikiLeaks

Hey, Obama, Read WikiLeaks

Wednesday 09 February 2011

by: Robert Scheer | Truthdig | Op-Ed

Egyptian protesters chant anti-government slogans and hold signs denouncing the NDP political party outside the gates of the Parliament building in Cairo on February 8, 2011. (Photo: Scott Nelson / The New York Times)

After a good start, the Obama administration's response to the democratic revolution in Egypt has begun to exude the odor of betrayal. Now distancing itself from the essential demand of the protesters that the dictator must go, the administration has fallen back on the sordid option of backing a new and improved dictatorship.

Predictably, it is one guided by a local strongman long entrusted by the CIA, Vice President Omar Suleiman, described by U.S. officials in the WikiLeaks cables as a "Mubarak consigliere." The script is out of an all-too-familiar playbook: Pick this longtime chief of Egyptian intelligence who has consistently done our bidding in matters of torture, and retrofit him as a modern democratic leader. But this time the Egyptian street will not meekly go along.

The first test was on Tuesday, after the weekend theatrics of Suleiman making a show of meeting with the opposition but rejecting its demands. A huge crowd -- inspired by a most modern protest figure, a Google executive -- showed up to reject defeat as a compromise. Defeat, because under Suleiman's plan all of the levers of oppressive power would remain, including Hosni Mubarak as president and a state of emergency denying fundamental freedoms that dates back four decades. Conning the masses with fears of a foreign enemy is a political art form in Egypt going back to the pharaohs, but this time, perhaps thanks to new empowering technology, or just too much suffering, it is not working.

The scenes of the demonstrators in recent weeks have in some ways been reminiscent of those I witnessed in Cairo back in 1967, but their significance is exactly the opposite. Back then, when huge crowds took to the streets, their anger got perversely twisted by nationalist rage into the demand that Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had presided over a humiliating defeat in the Six-Day War, not make good on his threat to resign. The failure of the Egyptian street to hold Nasser accountable for the stark failures of his dictatorship ushered in a 44-year reign of tyranny, corruption and stagnation at the heart of the Arab world.

Mubarak is the final inheritor of that era, the heir to the military rebels who toppled King Farouk and, instead of implementing a too-long-promised enlightened view of pan-Arab nationalism, turned vile bureaucratic corruption into an Egyptian way of life -- a corruption that the U.S., Israel and the oil-rich Arab monarchies found very much to their liking.

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That attitude continues, as The New York Times reported on Tuesday: "Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have each repeatedly pressed the United States not to cut loose Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, too hastily, or to throw its weight behind the democracy movement." Once again, as in 1967, the argument is being made that the secular military dictatorship in Egypt is needed to combat radical Islam, as represented by the Muslim Brotherhood, and that democracy might be "hijacked," as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned.

The U.S. presidents whose military aid purchased the Egyptian government as America's lackey have known the cost to Egyptians in omnipresent corruption, bribes, torture and political oppression. On the surface, it seemed like a good deal: For a couple of billion dollars per year in military and other assistance, Egypt lined up with Israel in making the post-Six-Day-War occupation of Palestine permanent, and pan-Arab nationalism descended into a bargain between the oil sheikdoms and those without petrol to preserve the bizarrely skewed class divisions in the region.

That the suffering of ordinary folks was well known to American policymakers right up to the moment of the current explosion is documented in the WikiLeaks cables and stands as an expose of our foreign policy cynicism. But it was blithely assumed that the dictatorship would continue in the person of Mubarak's son Gamal because, as one cable said, "due to the paranoia of the Egyptian dictatorship, no other name can safely or respectfully be bruited as a candidate."

In the cables, there is no sense of alarm that something might be awry with this planned succession in the Mubarak dictatorship from father to son because the Egyptian elite was quite happy with the arrangement: "Many in the Egyptian elite see his (Gamal's) succession as positive, as his likely continuation of the current status quo would serve their business and political interests."

That the young -- many of them overeducated for the stagnant job market -- and the Egyptian majority that lives in abject poverty, along with all those fed up with life in a police state endured for half a century, might complicate the U.S. alliance with the Egyptian dictatorship was dismissed by the deep cynics who run our foreign policy.

A key cable discussing the enormous unpopularity of both Anwar Sadat and Mubarak, who replaced him 30 years ago, states: "Mubarak seems to have managed the dilemma better in at least one key area: He has systematically and 'legally' eliminated virtually all political opposition."

Our kind of guy?

Robert Scheer is editor of truthdig.com, where this column originally appeared. E-mail Robert Scheer at rscheer@truthdig.com.

Copyright 2011 Creators.com

All republished content that appears on Truthout has been obtained by permission or license.

AlterNet.org

WORLD

AlterNet / By Joshua Holland

It Ain't Just Mubarak -- 7 of the Worst Dictators the U.S. Is Backing to the Hilt

From Saudi Arabia to Uzbekistan to Chad, the U.S. keeps some very bad autocrats in power.

February 5, 2011 |

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Embattled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, whose regime has received billions in U.S. aid, has been in the global media spotlight of late. He's long been “our bastard,” but he's not alone.

Let's take a look at the other dictators from around the planet who are fortunate enough to be on Uncle Sam's good side.

1. Paul Biya, Cameroon

Biya has ruled Cameroon since winning an “election” in 1983. He was the only candidate, and did pretty well, getting 99 percent of the vote.

According to the country's Wikipedia entry, “The United States and Cameroon work together in the United Nations and a number of other multilateral organizations. While in the UN Security Council in 2002, Cameroon worked closely with the United States on a number of initiatives. The U.S. government continues to provide substantial funding for international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, IMF, and African Development Bank, that provide financial and other assistance to Cameroon.”

Amnesty International details unlawful executions, journalists being thrown in jail and a host of other nasty business.

As part of a strategy to stifle opposition, the authorities perpetrated or condoned human rights violations including arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions and restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly. Human rights defenders and journalists were harassed and threatened. Men and women were detained because of their sexual orientation.

2. Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov (or Berdymukhamedov), Turkmenistan

Berdymuhammedov came to power in 2006 when his predecessor died and the constitutionally mandated successor was thrown in jail.

According to the State Department, “For several years in the 1990s, Turkmenistan was a key player in the U.S. Caspian Basin Energy Initiative, which sought to facilitate negotiations between commercial partners and the Governments of Turkmenistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey to build a pipeline under the Caspian Sea and export Turkmen gas to the Turkish domestic energy market and beyond--the so-called Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCGP).” Parade Magazine's list of the world's worst dictators notes that “the U.S. continues to import oil from Turkmenistan ($100 million worth in 2008), while Boeing provides airplanes to the Turkmen government. Chevron ... opened an office in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat.”

Human Rights Watch says that while Berdymuhammedov has taken some steps “to reverse some of the most ruinous social policies” of his predecessor's rule, “the government remains one of the most repressive and authoritarian in the world.”

3. Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Equatorial Guinea

Thirty-two years ago, Obiang Nguema deposed – and then executed -- his uncle, Francisco Macías, in a bloody coup. Peter Maas called him not only “Africa's worst dictator,” but a man whose life “seems a parody of the dictator genre.”

Obiang ... had promised to be kinder and gentler than his predecessor, but in the 1990s, even the U.S. ambassador to Equatorial Guinea received a death threat from a regime insider, the ambassador has said, and had to be evacuated. Not long after that, offshore oil was discovered, but the first wave of revenues—about $700 million—was transferred into secret accounts under Obiang's personal control.

According to Parade, “The U.S. imported more than $3 billion in petroleum products from Equatorial Guinea” in 2008.

4. Idriss Deby, Chad

We also imported $3 billion worth of oil from Chad that year. According to the State Department, “The United States enjoys cordial relations with the Deby government. Chad has proved a valuable partner in the global war on terror, and in providing shelter to approximately 200,000 refugees of Sudan's Darfur crisis along its eastern border.”

Amnesty International's 2010 report on Chad paints quite a picture:

Civilians and humanitarian workers were killed and abducted; women and girls were victims of rape and other violence; and children were used as soldiers. The authorities failed to take adequate action to protect civilians from attacks by bandits and armed groups. Suspected political opponents were unlawfully arrested, arbitrarily detained and tortured or otherwise ill-treated. Harassment and intimidation of journalists and human rights defenders continued. Demolition of houses and other structures continued throughout 2009, leaving thousands of people homeless.

Despite the fact that Chad's military has been accused of using child soldiers, Parade notes that “the U.S. continues to train Chadian commandos.”

5. Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan

The thing that makes Karimov so special is his (alleged) penchant for boiling his political opponents to death.

Karimov has been president of Uzbekistan since 1990, when he won the first of a number of rigged elections by a huge margin. Torture, arbitrary detentions and massive roundups of religious minorities are commonplace in Uzbekistan, according to Human Rights Watch. But the country has been a key partner of the U.S. in its “war on terror,” hosting U.S. troops at the Karshi-Khanabad airbase until 2005. Relations cooled somewhat after Karimov encouraged the U.S. to abandon the base, but as Parade notes, “U.S. trade with Uzbekistan doubled in 2008, as Americans continue to import huge amounts of Uzbek uranium, which is used for nuclear power plants and weapons.” The following year “Uzbekistan Airways ordered Boeing jetliners worth about $600 million.”

6. Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia

Zenawi has ruled Ethiopia for 20 years. Just last year, after what Human Rights Watch called “months of intimidation of opposition party supporters,” Zenawi's party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, won 99.6 percent of the vote. Legitimacy!

Ethiopia is a key strategic partner in the “war on terror,” and contributes significantly to African peace-keeping operations. According to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the United States is the largest donor to Ethiopia. Congress passed a law, over the objections of the Bush administration, that restricts military aid to the country until it has a free press and the Zenawi regime improves its human rights record, but – and this is a big but – it exempts aid for “counter-terrorism.” So despite the fact that, according to Amnesty International, Ethiopian opposition groups are illegal, NGOs have been banned and Ethiopians often disappear without trial, the U.S. continues to train Ethiopian troops.

7. King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz, Saudi Arabia

Apparently, when a theocratic Islamic state does horrible things to its citizens, it's only a big deal if that state is named Iran. Saudi Arabia, of course, is among the United States' most important allies – the U.S. government has provided security for the Saudi royal family for decades, in exchange for which … oil.

Abdullah has instituted some reforms since taking power in 2005, but Human Rights Watch says the “initiatives have been largely symbolic, with only modest concrete gains or institutional protection for rights.” Amnesty International's 2010 report charges that the Saudi authorities continue to use ”a wide range of repressive measures to suppress freedom of expression and other legitimate activities.”

Hundreds of people were arrested as suspected terrorists. Thousands of others arrested in the name of security in previous years remained in jail; they included prisoners of conscience. Some 330 security suspects received unfair trials before a newly constituted but closed specialized court; one was sentenced to death and 323 were sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

There you have it -- a grand collection of bastards, yes. But remember: they're our bastards!

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy (and Everything else the Right Doesn't Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America). Drop him an email or follow him on Twitter.

CULTURE

Tomdispatch.com / By Robert Lipsyte

Why Our National Superbowl TV Party Has Become the Last Supper for the US Empire

Never before have so many loose strands of an unraveling empire come together in a single event accessible to those who mourn or cheer America.

February 5, 2011

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If you are still passionately following football or, worse, allowing your kid to play, you may just be an old-fashioned imperialist running dog. Not that all football fans are bloodthirsty hounds feeding off the crippled hindquarters of the dying animal of empire. Some are in a vain search for a crucible of manhood that no longer exists. Others are in pursuit of a ticket out of a dead-end life.

Whatever your reason, this is the Super Bowl to watch, even if you are among those who have made an effort to disregard the game since high school jocks shouldered you in the halls.

This is the Big One. Maybe the Last Big One. Never before have so many loose strands of an unraveling empire come together in a single event accessible to those who mourn or cheer America.

Let’s start with the conceit that this game is the only super thing we have left. Super power, super economy, super you-name-it… gone. You can beat the Bushes for that, but we’re all out of super -- except for the Super Bowl. That celebration of an all-American $9 billion industry (estimated because the National Football League has never opened its books), not to mention millions more in subsidiary and dependent businesses, offers us a national holiday that has arguably superseded Thanksgiving (thanks for what?) and Christmas (electronic excess and obsolescence).

Even little Everytrader has a shot here. Without insider connections, you undoubtedly have a far better shot at winning a football wager than gambling in the stock market.

The Big Four

Here are the four biggest reasons to watch this Super Bowl.

1. It’s Not Soccer

American exceptionalism is alive and thriving on Super Bowl Sunday. National Football League franchises are overwhelmingly owned, managed, and manned by American citizens. Neither immigration nor foreign capital has made a perceptible dent in the game. And you and I have proudly subsidized all this. American taxpayers have built many NFL stadiums. Most American universities, with their government grants, have sports schools attached; those multi-million-dollar athletic departments (despite claims, they are rarely profitable) train the players and one of academia’s latest revenue-producing innovations -- sports management departments -- train the front-office personnel.

American football is barely played outside the country. Call it a failure of colonialism (as baseball and basketball might), but it’s really a tribute to good old-fashioned protectionism. Those other major sports, even ice hockey, are increasingly being taken over by Latin American, Asian, or Eastern European guest workers. Pro football remains a native game.

The “futbol” that most of the rest of the world plays is a game that American male athletes and sports fans have never found compelling. Why? What’s not to like? The so-called “beautiful game” is exactly that, and the past several generations of American school-age girls and boys were lucky to have recreational soccer programs. But there was no room on the sports “shelf” for a game so poorly suited to commercial TV interruption and American domination.

(It’s not as if soccer is in any way effete. Its fans are famously thuggish. In fact, currently, the nationalistic Russian mobs who roam cities beating up people who do not look Slavic have taken to calling themselves “Soccer fans.”)

2. No Dogs Were Harmed in the Making of It

The controversy over allowing Michael Vick back into the select company of other NFL felons -- reportedly about one-fifth of the playing population -- faded after the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback showed contrition, spoke to schoolchildren, proved to be one of the most electrifying performers in the game, and then lost early in the play-offs, avoiding the embarrassment of PETA demonstrating at the Super Bowl.

At 30, Vick was clearly better than he had been before his 21-month imprisonment. He had added a previously missing work ethic and level of concentration. One wonders if the sharpening of Vick’s focus had to do with losing what might have been his primary outlet for sadism and violence: the brutal world of training fighting dogs and then killing the losers in often unspeakably cruel ways.

There is no question that violence stirs fan blood. Football players know this; they have been remarkably hostile to attempts to soften the mayhem, especially those ringing helmet-to-helmet shots, an offspring of the modern technique learned in PeeWee leagues of “putting a hat on him” (which means tackling headfirst rather than the more traditional style of wrapping one’s arms around the ball carrier’s legs and dragging him down).

Most pro football players seem to be on the side of the hats. A more careful game won’t be football anymore, they say. It won’t be the American game -- even for some of the doctors watching who treat the “epidemic of concussions blazing through schoolboy football.”

3. But No Chicks

The title of Mariah Burton Nelson’s 1994 book, The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football, seems ever more prescient. The so-called feminization of America (really the slow movement toward equality) is reflected in most sports, many boardrooms, and the military. Resistance is stiff, from human resources violations to rape. Conservatives keen over the suffering of the average male. It’s tough when you suddenly have to compete against an expanding talent pool that includes women who are better than you. Mr. Average Mediocre can no longer count on his members-only credential to keep him in the game. Unless, of course, the game is football.

Football is the last estrogen-free zone. No wonder high school and college teams have such bloated rosters. (College teams routinely “dress” 85 men, compared to a pro team’s 53.) This gives more boys the chance to imagine themselves in the testosterone club, even if many of them hardly ever get into a game. Later, as jock alums, they will donate to alma mater and speak reverently of how old coach taught them to be men -- or at least not women.

Yes, there are girls playing in some youth and high school games, even in college, mostly as kickers. But the freakishness of it is still the story. The NFL is so relentlessly misogynistic that off-field incidents like those involving Brett Favre when he was a Jet and Super Bowl-bound Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger tend to be dismissed as boys-will-be-boys antics. Unfortunately, there’s a certain logic to this: since they began playing the game, they’ve been told they can be real men, not girls, not sissies -- if they submit to Coach, play hard, and play in pain. In return, their perks and entitlements will be those of conquering warriors.

4. The Faux Volunteer Army

If football really is the bread and circuses of this dying empire, the injuries suffered by the gladiators (disproportionately African-American) make the game more real, more urgent. And their willingness to take the risks absolves us from blame. After all, they volunteered. They really want to play this game, the media reminds us. These aggressive, competitive men have an intrinsic need to prove themselves to themselves, each other, and us. And where else, the media asks us, would they make so much money and find so much acclaim?

At Goldman Sachs? The Mayo Clinic? Skadden, Arps? No, no, these sturdy lads are often from the underclass and they have leveraged their skill and dedication into some college studies and a job in football. That many of these gladiators, clearly smart enough to absorb complicated game plans, feel that football is their only shot seems to be an indictment of American opportunity. What about all those high school and college football players who put all their chips in their hat and still didn’t make it to the pros?

Maybe some of them joined the National Guard.

It’s here, of course, that the entire metaphor may go offsides for you. Or at least become uncomfortable. Football -- Army? Gladiators -- mercenaries? What about all the strong young men and, increasingly, women who feel that their only shot at getting an education and a meaningful life is joining the military during wartime?

The author and journalist Richard Reeves made the connection neatly when he wrote: “We have a volunteer army, the National Football League with guns, and we are the spectators.”

As spectators we rarely see the young people die in either volunteer legion.Restrictions during the Bush years on journalists filming combat deaths or even showing returning caskets kept the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at a comfortable remove until they became distant and routine. Old news. Maybe even a little boring for people without loved ones on active duty.

On NFL broadcasts, players with broken bones and torn tissues are quickly carted off lest their teammates lose heart. For those of us watching on TV, the collisions seem almost like cartoon hits. How can those players just pop back up? Is it the pride, the adrenaline, that allows them to pretend they are made of steel? Of course, the real damage, the dementia brought on by head trauma, is years, even decades, away.

It’s hard to believe how recently the concussion discussion began in earnest, as if players hadn’t been hit in the head for more than a century. It was launched several years ago by the revelation that former pro football players were being diagnosed with dementia, and even dying from suspected long-term brain trauma, at disproportionate rates for their age. It was helped along by a number of workers’ compensation cases and the superb reporting of Alan Schwarz of the New York Times.

The concussion discussion has replaced steroids as the NFL health topic, although the issues are joined: larger players seem to be at greater risk for early death, and bulking up via steroids probably contributes to harder hits. The discussion has also raised the question of whether parents should allow their children to play the game -- years of small, unreported traumas to the head can’t be good for developing brains. It even occasioned a rare but telling ESPN column on abolition.

Lest you consider this enough piling on the all-American game, labor troubles loom with a lock-out possible in March. Because the main issue is money -- the teams want to share less revenue (currently 60%) with the players -- the media tends to characterize the conflict as “billionaires versus millionaires.” Actually, most owners are rich from other businesses and would not have been allowed into the NFL unless they were financially secure, while few players survive more than about three years in the league. The owners also want to increase production (adding two games to the regular season) without taking more responsibility for health-care costs.

If any of this sounds depressingly like real life, how could you not watch what might be the last Super Bowl, the endgame of empire, the two-minute warning before America finally beats itself?

Robert Lipsyte, the Jock Culture correspondent for Tomdispatch.com, is author of a forthcoming memoir, An Accidental Sportswriter (May, Ecco-HarperCollins). To listen to Timothy MacBain's latest TomCast video interview in which Lipsyte discusses what makes football all-American, clickhere, or download it to your iPod here.