Elsewhere Today (410)
Aljazeera:
Air raid follows Sri Lanka port attack
Wednesday 18 October 2006, 19:08 Makka Time, 16:08 GMT
One civilian has been killed in airstrikes by Sri Lanka's military on Tamil Tiger targets in eastern Batticaloa hours after a naval base in the south of the country was attacked, a Tiger statement said.
Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe confirmed the air strikes on Wednesday, but denied they had targeted civilian areas.
Two civilians were reportedly injured.
The raid came just hours after a Tiger attack on a navy base in the tourist city of Galle, which killed one navy sailor and at least 10 Tamil Tiger fighters, a navy spokesman said.
The spokesman said: "They came in three boats and we blew up all three of them. Two small crafts of the navy were damaged in the fighting."
According to the the same source, the Tiger boats sneaked into the base hiding between fishing boats in the adjoining harbour before attacking naval facilities.
"One sailor was killed, 11 wounded and one missing in the fierce fighting that followed," a senior military official said.
Five Tamil boats
The Tamilnet.com website said that a group of 15 Tamil Tigers in five boats carried out the attack.
The separatists used three boats laden with explosives to ram vessels of the Sri Lanka navy, Tamilnet said, adding the other two rebel boats landed and launched attacks against the navy.
Police said they believed four or five fighters had escaped alive.
The attack on the navy is the second in three days. Nearly 100 people, mostly sailors, were killed when a Tiger rebel detonated a bomb killing himself and those on a naval convoy in a north-central district on Monday.
Attacks have been spreading throughout the country far from the northern and eastern Tamil strongholds where much of the violence has been concentrated. Galle is located about 113km south of the capital, Colombo.
A riot broke out in the town after the attack according to local police reports and residents. A police curfew was immediately put into place after the 7.45am attack.
Criminal gangs attacked shops belonging to the minority Tamil community in Galle before the police fired into the air to disperse the crowds.
Peace talks
The raid came a day after the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) reiterated their commitment to planned peace talks in Geneva on October 28 and 29.
Few expect the talks to achieve a breakthrough in the face of continued fighting and deep distrust. Hundreds of people have been killed in spiralling violence since late July that shattered a truce brokered in 2002.
The ongoing fighting has left thousands of Sri Lankans displaced and living in camps afraid to go home as fighting has continued on the island.
Last week, dozens of troops and rebels were killed and hundreds wounded in one of the deadliest battles since the truce.
Fuelling the fight
The Sri Lankan authorities are exhuming the bodies of 15 aid workers who were massacred in the northeast of the country in August to try to establish who killed them, their French employer said.
The 15 were among 17 mainly Tamils who worked for Paris-based voluntary group Action Contre la Faim (ACF) and were found killed execution-style in their office compound in Muttur town after a battle in the area between the army and Tamil Tiger rebels.
An ACF statement said on Saturday: "The bodies should be transferred to Colombo the same day ... Australian experts are expected in Colombo next week to be present at the post mortem, principally as advisers and observers."
Nordic monitors of the tattered truce between the Sri Lankan army and Tamil Tiger rebels have formally accused government soldiers of being behind the Muttur killings.
The government has said that an earlier autopsy was inconclusive, and denies it was involved in the killings. Officials have accused the monitors of being biased in favour of the rebels. The inquest began in Muttur, but has since been transferred twice.
More than 65,000 people have been killed since 1983 when the rebels began fighting for an independent Tamil homeland.
Reuters
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2AEC2D4A-6588-4BD9-8E90-6267C7CE454F.htm
allAfrica:
Why I'm On the Run – Fayose
By SINA FADARE, SUNDAY KUDAISI and KOLA ADEPOJU
Ado Ekiti/Abeokuta
Daily Champion (Lagos) NEWS
October 18, 2006
IMPEACHED Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State yesterday spoke from his hideout in Ado-Ekiti, the capital, saying he went into hiding for his safety.
Fayose who spoke on telephone for about five minutes with Lagos-based Channels Television last night said "I am still in charge and any moment from now, I will be out on the streets of Ado-Ekiti."
According to him, "I went into hiding because it's only one who is alive that can fight for his right," adding that if he had remained in Government House, Ado-Ekiti, he would have been killed.
Fayose, who said he left the Government House for his hide-out in the state capital at about 5 am Monday stated: "I remain the authentic Governor of Ekiti State. I never left Ado-Ekiti not to talk of Nigeria. I will come out any moment from now. I can't lie to you and any moment from now, I will be out on the streets."
He further said that he supported his deputy, Mrs Abiodun Olujimi, for going to court to contest her removal, adding that "two of us won the election on the same day. The woman has my full support to go to court."
Fayose who said he left over N5 billion in the coffers of Ekiti State government, stated that the issue of whether his deputy betrayed him was in the past, vowing to do everything in his power to regain his mandate.
He described his purported removal as "a coup against my government" urging President Olusegun Obasanjo to intervene in the protracted political crisis in the state.
"President Obasanjo should do in Ekiti State what he did when there was crisis of this nature in Sao Tome and Principe", Fayose further stated.
However, reacting to Fayose's remarks, the Acting Governor, Mr Friday Aderemi said: "as far as I am concerned, Fayose and his Deputy remained impeached and I remain in control and tomorrow (that is to day), I'm going to summon the state Executive Council (Exco) meeting and it is only the court that can decide otherwise."
Aderemi said that he did not envisage any declaration of a state of emergency even if the crisis escalates, citing the cases of Plateau State and Niger Delta area where despite the burning of houses and hostage takings, respectively, no state of emergency was imposed on them.
Meanwhile, Deposed Ekiti State Deputy Governor, Chief (Mrs) Abiodun Olujimi yesterday declared the government of Acting Governor, Chief Friday Aderemi as illegal, while setting up a parallel government.
"I am still the deputy governor and the action of the Assembly is illegal, ultra-vires, null and void," noted Olujimi who resurfaced in Ado Ekiti, the state capital with heavy security protection to summon the State Executive Council meeting for 4 p.m.
This is as the state lawmakers moved a motion ordering the removal of the state Chief Judge, Justice Kayode Bamisile.
Daily Champion recalls that this unfolding confusion is coming on the heels of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Chief Bayo Ojo's declaration on Monday that the Ekiti State lawmakers erred in law in suspending the State Chief Judge (CJ) and appointing an acting CJ.
Justifying her parallel government, Chief (Mrs) Olujimi said Chief Ojo's declaration of the action of the lawmakers as illegal strengthened her resolve to hold onto power.
She went ahead to summon State Executive Council meeting urging all commissioners and other top officials to attend.
However, Chief Aderemi boasted yesterday that he was in control.
He too, summoned a SEC meeting for today.
Moving a motion for the removal of Justice Bamisile, the Majority leader of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Hon Kayode Babade said the jurist should be sacked over his role in trying to frustrate the impeachment of Fayose.
He was seconded by Hon. Bunmi Olugbade and the motion was adopted by 20 out of the 26 lawmakers.
Speaking with newsmen, Chief Aderemi described as unfortunate the comment of the Minister of Justice of the Federation, Chief Bayo Ojo that the action of the Assembly, was illegal.
According to him, "all of them commenting are expressing their personal views; there is a body which has the power of last say. These people commenting are only pre-empting what the court would say, they should have tarried a while and see what the court will declare." "It is very unfortunate, it is bad to hurriedly conclude and comment on what happened like that.
On justice Bamisile, Aderemi said: "yes, the Chief Judge has the power to appoint panel on the condition that they are men of unquestionable character.
"If out of seven members, six were faulted having questionable characters why did he not stop and set up a credible panel or how would you expect a cousin of somebody due for impeachment in a panel to give sound judgment or a permanent secretary dismissed from office.
On the statement of impeached deputy governor that the status-quo remains, Aderemi said "I have not received such statement, I am here in the seat of power of Ekiti today any other thing or statement that is not brought to the knowledge of this government is not in the interest of the people and government of this state.
Meanwhile, Ogun State Police Command have described as blatant lie report (not in Daily Champion) that former Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State was arrested at Idi-Iroko border town of the state by "a combined team of Customs men and operatives of the State Security Services (SSS)."
Police's denial came just as newsmen spotted close aides of Fayose late Monday night at Iwe Irohin Press Centre of the Ogun State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) at Oke-Ilewo, Abeokuta.
In a telephone chat with our correspondent in Abeokuta, the state command Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Femi Awoyale described the newspaper report as another "April fool" in October.
He said the Command has combed everywhere for Fayose in the state and have found out he was nowhere therein.
Copyright © 2006 Daily Champion. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
http://allafrica.com/stories/200610180015.html
AlterNet:
Fighting the 'Imperial' Internet
By Bill Moyers and Scott Fogdall, TomPaine.com
Posted on October 18, 2006
It was said that all roads led to Rome. However exaggerated, the image is imprinted in our imagination, reminding us of the relentless ingenuity of the ancient Romans and their will to control an empire.
For centuries Roman highways linked far-flung provinces with a centralized web of power. The might of the imperial legions was for naught without the means to transport them. The flow of trade - the bloodstream of the empire's wealth - also depended on the integrity of the roadways. And because Roman citizens could pass everywhere, more or less unfettered on their travels, ideas and cultural elements circulated with the same fluidity as commerce.
Like the Romans, we Americans have used our technology to build a sprawling infrastructure of ports, railroads and interstates which serves the strength of our economy and the mobility of our society. Yet as significant as these have been, they pale beside the potential of the Internet. Almost overnight, it has made sending and receiving information easier than ever. It has opened a vast new marketplace of ideas, and it is transforming commerce and culture.
It may also revitalize democracy.
"Wait a minute!" you say. "You can't compare the Internet to the Roman empire. There's no electronic Caesar, no center, controlling how the World Wide Web is used."
Right you are - so far. The Internet is revolutionary because it is the most democratic of media. All you need to join the revolution is a computer and a connection. We don't just watch; we participate, collaborate and create. Unlike television, radio and cable, whose hirelings create content aimed at us for their own reasons, with the Internet every citizen is potentially a producer. The conversation of democracy belongs to us.
That wide-open access is the founding principle of the Internet, but it may be slipping through our fingers. How ironic if it should pass irretrievably into history here, at the very dawn of the Internet Age.
The Internet has become the foremost testing ground where the forces of innovation, corporate power, the public interest and government regulation converge. Already, the notion of a level playing field - what's called network neutrality - is under siege by powerful forces trying to tilt the field to their advantage. The Bush majority on the FCC has bowed to the interests of the big cable and telephone companies to strip away, or undo, the Internet's basic DNA of openness and non-discrimination. When some members of Congress set out to restore network neutrality, they were thwarted by the industry's high spending lobbyists. This happened according to the standard practices of a rented Congress - with little public awareness and scarce attention from the press. There had been a similar blackout 10 years ago, when, in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress carved up our media landscape. They drove a dagger in the heart of radio, triggered a wave of consolidation that let the big media companies get bigger, and gave away to rich corporations - for free - public airwaves worth billions.
This time, they couldn't keep secret what they were doing. Word got around that without public participation these changes could lead to unsettling phenomenon - the rise of digital empires that limit, or even destroy, the capabilities of small Internet users. Organizations across the political spectrum - from the Christian Coalition to MoveOn.org - rallied in protest, flooding Congress with more than a million letters and petitions to restore network neutrality. Enough politicians have responded to keep the outcome in play.
At the core this is a struggle about the role and dimensions of human freedom and free speech. But it is also a contemporary clash of a centuries-old debate over free-market economics and governmental regulation, one that finds Adam Smith invoked both by advocates for government action to protect the average online wayfarer and by opponents of any regulation at all.
In The Wealth of Nations, Smith argued that only the unfettered dealings of merchants and customers could ensure economic prosperity. But he also warned against the formation of monopolies - mighty behemoths that face little or no competition. Our history brims with his legacy. Consider the explosion of industry and the reign of the robber barons during the first Gilded Age in the last decades of the 19th century. Settlements and cities began to fill the continent, spirited by a crucial technological advance: the railroad. As railroad companies sprang up, they merged into monopolies. Merchants and farmers were often charged outlandish freight prices - until the 1870s, when the Granger Laws and other forms of public regulation provided some protection to customers.
At about the same time, chemist Samuel Andrews - inventor of a new method for refining oil into kerosene - partnered with John D. Rockefeller to create the Standard Oil Company. By century's end Standard Oil had forged a monopoly, controlling a network of pipelines and railways that spanned the country. Competition became practically impossible as the mammoth company manipulated prices and crushed rival after hapless rival. Only with the passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890 did the public have hope of recourse against the overwhelming might of concentrated economic and political power. But, less than a century later a relative handful of large companies would assemble monopolies over broadcasting, newspapers, cable and even the operating system of computers, and their rule would go essentially unchallenged by the U.S. government.
Now we have an Internet infrastructure that is rapidly evolving, in more ways than one. As often occurred on Rome's ancient highways, cyber-sojourners could soon find themselves paying up in order to travel freely. Our new digital monopolists want to use their new power to reverse the way the Internet now works for us: allowing those with the largest bankrolls to route their content on fast lanes, while placing others in a congested thoroughfare. If they succeed in taking a medium that has an essential democratic nature and monetizing every aspect of it, America will divide further between the rich and poor and between those who have access to knowledge and those who do not.
The companies point out that there have been few Internet neutrality violations. Don't mess with something that's been working for everyone, they say; don't add safeguards when none have so far been needed. But the emerging generation, which will inherit the results of this Washington battle, gets it. Writing in The Yale Daily News, Dariush Nothaft, a college junior, after hearing with respect the industry's case, argues that:
Nevertheless, the Internet's power as a social force counters these arguments. … A non-neutral Internet would discourage competition, thereby costing consumers money and diminishing the benefits of lower subscription prices for Internet access. More importantly, people today pay for Internet access with the understanding that they are accessing a wide, level field of sites where only their preferences will guide them. Non-neutrality changes the very essence of the Internet, thereby making the product provided to users less valuable.
So the Internet is reaching a crucial crossroads in its astonishing evolution. Will we shape it to enlarge democracy in the digital era? Will we assure that commerce is not its only contribution to the American experience?
The monopolists tell us not to worry: They will take care of us, and see to it that the public interest is honored and democracy served by this most remarkable of technologies.
They said the same thing about radio.
And about television.
And about cable.
Will future historians speak of an Internet Golden Age that ended when the 21st century began?
Bill Moyers is president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/43127/
AlterNet:
Howard Zinn on Our 'Addiction to Massive Violence'
By Yuri Loudon, The Internationalist
Posted on October 18, 2006
Howard Zinn has changed the way we read history. The People's History of the United States pulled the mask off some of the enduring, and damaging myths about America. His writings and teachings encourage us to look beyond what we've been spoonfed and to question the "need" for violence. He continues to be an outspoken critic of war and political coruption and a vocal proponent of grassroots activism. The Internationalist caught up with him for our Worldly Advice Issue.
You argue that governments must convince the public to go to war; that war is not inherent of human nature. How did this happen with the Iraq war?
The government set out to present false information. Colin Powell presented a detailed account of Hussein's WMDs, probably the most compact assembly of falsehoods that have ever been uttered in front of the United Nations. They then bombarded the public, aided by an uncritical press, with information that led them to believe that the United States was somehow in imminent danger and that we had to go to war. There was a barrage of information given to the public by the government, and then repeated by the press. This is clear evidence that the government cannot depend on the public's natural instinct to go to war; they have to work very, very hard; they have to propagandize and persuade them [the public] that war is necessary.
In a recent article in The Progressive, you say that we have an "addiction to massive violence." How can we shake this addiction?
It isn't that the people are addicted to massive violence, but they can become addicted. That is, they can become accustomed to the idea that the only solution to a problem, when someone crosses a boundary or when a tyrant exists, war is the solution.
The wars are poisoning minds of the people engaged in them, and the answer is to look back in history, to look at the outcomes of war. Can you find that when you kill millions of people and maim hundreds of thousands, is there more democracy? More liberty? To learn about history is to kick the habit of violence and show that war is futile and addiction is a consequence of engagement in it.
How do you look back on your time as a WW2 bombardier?
Now I am very regretful and very sad. I indiscriminately killed, which is what bombing is, and it was acceptable. It was only afterward that I began to think about what I was really doing to human beings. I was participating in atrocities. Over half of those dead were not soldiers, but civilians. So, I look back regretfully at that experience and have since tried to make up for it by educating people and by participating in the anti-war movement.
What is an issue on which your opinion has changed, and what have you learned from the change?
Certainly my opinion changed from the time I was a bombardier that there was such a thing as a good war, and I now know that there is no such thing. I also thought we had a democratic society and government, with checks and balances. I now believe only in the movements of the people that can change history.
Are popular resistance movements different now than in the past?
I think that the mobilization of people is not fundamentally different. Very often, people will get frustrated that the movement isn't succeeding in stopping the war. They think there must be a better way, that there must be some magic new way to organize, but it takes time and patience; there's no magic to it. There's no cause for despair that we have not yet seen results yet; it's a matter of continuing to do it because people are basically decent and don't want war.
Should there be limits on free speech in higher education?
Professors and students should be express whatever opinions they want. Our culture is dominated by certain ideas: the ideas of patriotism, nationalism, ideas of capitalism and success in terms of wealth and prestige; students are already exposed to all sorts of ideas. Professors should be free to express their ideas because it serves as an example to students. For them to bring their ideas into the classroom is to bring their own cart to the marketplace of ideas. Professors need to express those opinions; when a professor holds back and is timid, he is setting an example of timidity in the classroom.
How can students contribute to and encourage the marketplace of ideas?
Students shouldn't simply accept the authority of their teacher; they should go outside of the reading lists and outside the syllabus to bring into the class challenging ideas. They must be willing to speak up and argue with the professor and not worry about being put down.
What would the 20-year-old you say to the current you?
Wow, I didn't realize you would turn out this way! I didn't realize that you would turn from an eager young bombardier to an anti-war protester. And the 20 year old would say, "I didn't think you would last this long!"
Any advice for readers?
Go to the library. Don't watch TV! Every time you are tempted to watch TV, pick up a book. Pay attention to independent news sources and independent magazines!
What's your biggest guilty pleasure?
Watching baseball games.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/43138/
Asia Times:
Beware empires in decline
By Michael T Klare
Oct 19, 2006
The common wisdom circulating in Washington these days is that the United States is too bogged down in Iraq to consider risky military action against Iran or - God forbid - North Korea. Policy analysts describe the US military as "over-burdened" or "stretched to the limit". The presumption is that the Pentagon is telling President George W Bush that it can't really undertake another major military contingency.
Added to these pessimistic assessments of US military capacity is the widespread claim that a "new realism" has taken over in the administration's upper reaches, that cautious "realists" like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have gained the upper hand over fire-breathing neo-conservatives. Ergo: no military strike against Iran or North Korea.
But I'm not buying any of this.
Just as an empire on the rise, like the United States on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, is often inclined to take rash and ill-considered actions, so an empire on the decline, like the British and French empires after World War II, will engage in senseless, self-destructive acts. And I fear the same can happen to the United States today, as it too slips into decline.
The decline of an empire can be a hard and painful thing for the affected imperial elites. Those who are used to commanding subservience and respect from their subjects and from lesser powers are often ill-prepared to deal with their indifference and contempt. Even harder is overcoming the long-inbred assumption that one's vassals are inferior - mentally, morally and otherwise.
The first malady makes the declining elites extraordinarily sensitive to perceived slights or insults from their former subjects; the second often leads elites to overestimate their own capabilities and to underestimate those of their former subjects - an often fatal error. The two misjudgments often combine to produce an extreme readiness to strike back when a perceived insult coincides with a (possibly deceptive) military superiority.
The Suez blunder
One of the most spectacular examples of such miscalculation in modern times - and an especially illuminating one - was the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. The crisis began in July 1956 when Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, angry at the West's failure to support construction of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile, nationalized the Suez Canal, then owned principally by a British-French company and long regarded as a pre-eminent symbol of the British Empire.
A reasonable Anglo-French response to Nasser's move might have been to negotiate a dignified turnover of the canal (as president Jimmy Carter did in 1977 with the Panama Canal, thereby removing a major irritant in US-Latin America relations). But no: it was beneath their dignity to negotiate with rabble like Nasser. Instead, with images of imperial grandeur still fresh in their minds, the British and French embarked on October 29, 1956 on an invasion of Egypt (wisely bringing in the Israelis for a little backup).
Then the second malady kicked in. From what can be reconstructed today, it never occurred to British and French leaders that their former subjects would even consider putting up any resistance to modern European armies, and so victory would occur swiftly. Instead, it was pure debacle. The British and French were far too few on the ground to win any military victories, and the Egyptians didn't cry "uncle" at the first sight of the Union Jack.
Desperately, the British and French - who had first dismissed any need for American help - pleaded with then-president Dwight D Eisenhower for American assistance. But Ike wasn't in a mood to help. Having seen which way the wind was blowing in the Middle East, he decided it was better to abandon his North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies than support the old imperialists in a battle with pan-Arab nationalism (which might then choose to align with Moscow). And so the British and French were forced to withdraw in utter humiliation.
Much in this extraordinary episode bears on the situation in Washington today. Once again, a former subject state - in this case, Iran - is thumbing its nose at its former imperial overlords - Britain and the United States (which together put the megalomaniacal Shah in power there in 1953). Once again, extreme discomfort and distress has been the result. Yes, I recognize that Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology poses a different sort of danger than Egypt's seizure of the Suez Canal (though to hear the British tell it, that was no less of a strategic peril).
But there nevertheless remains a symbolic aspect to this whole crisis that cannot be entirely ignored. A once subservient Third World nation confronts the Greatest Power the World Has Ever Known on something approaching equal terms. It is precisely these sorts of circumstances that are likely to trigger rash, ill-considered action on the part of the declining power.
"How dare they stand up to us in that way?" British and French officials must have been muttering to themselves in 1956. And: "We'll teach them a thing or two! - Just you watch!"
"How dare they stand up to us in that way?" White House officials must be saying to one another in private today. And: "We'll teach them a thing or two! - Just you watch!"
Overcoming objections to war
But what about the problem of the overstretched US military and all those American soldiers now bogged down in Iraq? This is where the second post-imperial malady comes in. Yes, American ground troops are bogged down in Iraq, but American air and sea power, currently under-utilized in the Iraq conflict, can be used to cripple Iranian military capabilities with minimum demand on US ground forces.
Despite the Israeli inability to emasculate Hezbollah with airpower during the Lebanon fighting this summer, American air and naval officers, I suspect, believe that they can inflict punishing damage on the Iranians with airpower alone, and do so without suffering significant casualties in return. I also suspect that well-connected neo-conservatives and, no doubt, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, are whispering this message into the ear of Bush.
And what about all the forms of retaliation one might expect from the Iranians, like an upsurge in Shi'ite disorder in Iraq and chaos in the oil markets? These and other likely Iranian responses are also said to be deterring a US military strike. But the Iranians will be incapable of such coordinated action after the US Air Force subjects them to "shock and awe", and, anyway, there are contingency plans in place to deal with the fallout. Or so say the neo-cons, I would imagine.
So I believe that the common wisdom in Washington regarding military action against Iran is wrong. Just because American forces are bogged down in Iraq, and Rice appears to enjoy a bit more authority these days, does not mean that "realism" will prevail at the White House. I suspect that the response of declining British and French imperial elites when faced with provocative acts by a former subject power in 1956 is a far more accurate gauge of what to expect from the Bush administration today.
The impulse to strike back must be formidable. Soon, I fear, it will prove irresistible.
Michael T Klare is a professor of peace and world-security studies at Hampshire College, a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist, and the author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum (Metropolitan Books, 2004).
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus )
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ19Ak01.html
Asia Times:
Why this military coup is different
By Rodney Tasker
CHIANG MAI, Thailand - The conventional Western perception of coups is of a military faction or individual seizing power for selfish, often anti-democratic reasons. There is little flexibility in this mindset - hence the uniform denunciation of Thailand's latest military coup by the US and other Western democracies.
Western media op-ed writers, apparently relying on precious little on-the-ground background, have highlighted the fact that ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was a democratically elected leader and therefore any non-elective move against him was necessarily bad for the future of Thailand's democracy.
Such simplistic interpretations, however, just don't fit with the current Thai situation and woefully ignore the reform mentality of professional generals in today's Thai army, including coup-leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin and former army commander, now interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont. Professional in the Thai context translates to military officers who take their oath of allegiance to protect the monarchy and state seriously, overriding any lure of power and money.
Most of Thailand's 18 previous coups since the constitutional monarchy was established in 1932 fell into the latter category and badly stunted the country's democratic development. But there has been no indication so far that Sonthi and his coupmaker associates had any selfish or corrupt motives in launching their September 19 coup, which they have painted and the public has accepted as a last-resort strike to remove the scourge of Thaksin's government, accused of rapacious, corrupt and politically divisive ways.
Because of its overtly patriotic motives to protect rather than undermine Thailand's democracy under a constitutional monarchy, Sonthi's coup marks a watershed in Thai military affairs. Historically, Thai generals have been heavily political, and coups have often reflected their views that only the army was capable of effectively running the country. The financial perks, of course, came with the job.
Military rule in the 1940s and early 1950s under fascist Field Marshal Pibul Songkhram, the late 1950s and early 1960s under Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat, and throughout the 1960s into the 1970s under Field Marshals Thanom Kittikachorn and Prapat Charusathien was invariably justified by the ruling generals that they were bastions against the threat of spreading communism, which eventually took root in neighboring Indochina.
After a brief period of civilian rule from 1973-1976, conservative military domination came back with a bang in 1976 when the army unleashed the right-wing paramilitary Village Scouts and Red Gaur groups on militant students at Bangkok's prestigious Thammasat University. Scores of students were tortured and killed by these military-backed groups in the infamous university bloodbath. From the chaos the army appointed an ultra-right wing civilian, Thanin Kraivixien, as prime minister.
In the 1980s, the communist threat became less of a bogey - particularly after a successful military-led political approach to draw members of the insurgent Communist Party of Thailand back into the national fold - and Army Commander General Prem Tinsulanond followed General Kriangsak Chomanand as appointed prime ministers. Still, it was an era rife with intra-military rivalry.
A group of officers led by Colonel Manoon Roopkachorn from Chulachomklao Defense Academy's Class 7, popularly known as the "Young Turks", launched two abortive coup attempts against Prem in 1981 and 1985. Motivated by a convoluted nationalist ideology, the upstart officials even attempted a bungled assassination attempt on Queen Sirikit at a Bangkok football game in 1982.
The coup in 1991 was at first a smooth affair as it was widely regarded by Thais as removing a hugely corrupt democratically elected government led by former General Chatichai Choonhavan. Only later did the truth sink in that the successful coup-makers from Chulachomklao's Class 5, led by General Suchinda Kraprayoon, were intent on maintaining political power for themselves. As one Western military analyst in Bangkok put it at the time: "Class 5 officers feel they have a divine right to rule. They are a law unto themselves."
Burnishing the brass
Since the downfall of the Class 5 coup leaders in 1992, two army commanders in particular have successfully burnished the army's image. The first was General Vimol Wongwanich, whose promotion to army chief in October 1992 coincided with a return to democracy under prime minister Chuan Leekpai. The second, current interim premier Surayud, served as army commander from 1998 to 2002, over which he oversaw a sweeping reform program aimed at permanently pushing the military out of business and politics.
Sonthi, a former Surayud subordinate, arguably represents a new breed of Thai brass. Western governments have only reluctantly accepted this and will keep on the new military-appointed government's back to first remove martial law and then bring forward the planned October 2007 date for new general elections. According to one analysis quietly making the rounds in Bangkok, new democratic polls have been set in the distant future for a reason - to allow the Thai military's professional soldiers the power and space to defend the monarchy from any potential threats.
Many Western observers still fail to appreciate the essential role played by King Bhumibol Adulyadej in maintaining Thailand's enviable political stability, economic progress and social harmony. Look across Thailand's borders to the comparative political repression and economic deprivation in neighboring Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia and one striking historical difference is those countries' lack of a figure of moral authority that genuinely looked after national rather than particularistic interests.
Still, outsiders wonder why in this modern era a king can be so highly idolized by his people and the palace so widely regarded as the one institution that will keep the country on track in times of trouble.
Thailand's current generation of ruling generals are fully aware of this, of course, and remain mindful of their oath of allegiance first to the crown and second to elected politicians. They may also be aware of one of King Bhumibol's main priorities - to perpetuate into the future the integrity and centrality of the monarchy in Thai society. A popular international view in the aftermath of the bloody Bangkok street confrontations of May 1992, when troops opened fire on pro-democracy protesters, was that Thailand's military was at last being marshaled back to its barracks.
But that can't realistically happen in Thailand's political culture so long as King Bhumibol plays such a prominent role in holding the nation together. To be sure, many professional military officers are still not happy to be subservient to a civilian leadership run by political parties who often exploit the trappings of democracy for their own personal gain. For good reason, Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai ruling party fatally fell into that category.
So if the current generation of coupmaker generals is as professional as they are now widely viewed by Thais, they will likely want to play a central political role as long as King Bhumibol, who turns 79 on December 5, is seen to be in fragile health. The highly revered monarch recently underwent serious surgery on his spine, and while he emerged from hospital looking in good health, it is significant that he will not personally open the new National Legislative Assembly (NLA) on October 20.
Speculation has centered not only on his health, but also on the apparent current process of rehabilitating his son, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, who will stand in for King Bhumibol at the NLA's opening ceremony. While the Crown Prince is next in line to the throne, he does not enjoy anything like the genuine adulation and near religious respect most Thai people have for King Bhumibol. Therefore, one theory goes, if the king's health deteriorates in the near future, it would be better to have the military in a central political role to cope with any instability which may occur.
This may also be a reason why the generals decided to appoint Surayud as interim prime minister, even knowing that his military background would inevitably draw flak from Western governments. Surayud is widely respected as a professional soldier and strong nationalist, who introduced bold reforms aimed at depoliticizing the army and root out corrupt elements.
On his retirement from the armed services, he was selected a leading member of the Privy Council, the prestigious body which advises King Bhumibol. He is seen as a more powerful administrator than, say, a brilliant economist or banker, as were a handful of the other prospective candidates for the top post. As some political analysts see it, Surayud will not only serve as a staunch guardian of the throne, but also a formidable obstacle to any mischievous attempts by ousted prime minister Thaksin to return to power aided by his wealthy cronies, who still wield considerable financial, if not political, power.
Rodney Tasker was a long-time correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, where he covered the ins and outs of the Thai military throughout the 1980s and 1990s and famously predicted the 1991 coup. He is currently semi-retired in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai.
Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HJ19Ae01.html
Guardian:
America has finally taken on the grim reality of Iraq
The US is radically rethinking its exit strategy, while Britain waits zombie-like for new instructions
Simon Jenkins
Wednesday October 18, 2006
The Baker report on an exit strategy from Iraq, leaked this week in the US, is as sensible as it is sensational. It rejects "staying the course" as no longer plausible and purports to seek alternatives to just "cutting and running". Stripped of political sweetening, it concludes that there is none. America must leave Iraq without preconditions and hope that its neighbours, hated Syria and Iran, can clear up the mess. This advice comes not from some anti-war coalition but from the Iraq study group under the former Republican secretary of state, James Baker, set up by Congress with President George Bush's endorsement. Students of Iraq studies should at this point sit down and steady their nerves. Kissinger is in Paris. The Vietnam moment is at hand.
Earlier this week Bush telephoned the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, to reassure him about rumours swirling through Washington that the Pentagon was about to topple him for being useless. It was reported that Maliki had just two months to get both his army and the escalating violence - running at some 100 deaths a day - under control. Washington was allegedly searching for a new "strong man" to pull the militias into line and assert the power of central government over Iraq's catatonic insecurity.
Lending force to these rumours, Republican Senator John Warner has spoken of a deadline for withdrawal and some version of a "three-state" solution. The Kurds are already autonomous. Let the same apply to the Sunnis and Shia. In the west of the country a Sunni body, the Mujahedin Shura, has come out for a six province western region under Prince Abu Omar Baghdadi. In the south the Iranians are watching as the British cede control and a possible eight-province "confederacy" slides effortlessly under their de facto aegis. Every US thinktank is now busying itself (at last) with alternative futures for Iraq.
Since accurate reporting is near impossible, the scale of that country's collapse under three years of US and UK occupation is hard to measure. Civil war is normally indicated by death rates and population movements. Whether the figure of civilian deaths is 50,000 or ten times that number is immaterial; either is a horrific comment on the impotence of the occupation. The UNHCR estimates 365,000 internal refuges in Iraq this year alone. More are seeking asylum abroad than from any other nation.
A third of Iraq's professional class is reported to have fled to Jordan, a flight of skills worse than under Saddam. UN monitors now report 2,000 people a day are crossing the Syrian border. Over a hundred lecturers at Baghdad university alone have been murdered, mostly for teaching women. There are few places in Iraq where women can go about unattended or unveiled. Gunmen arrived earlier this month at a Baghdad television station and massacred a dozen of the staff, an incident barely thought worth reporting. The national museum is walled up. Electricity supply is down to four hours a day. No police uniform can be trusted. The arrival anywhere of an army unit can be prelude to a mass killing and makes a mockery of the American policy of "security transfer". All intelligence out of Iraq suggests this is no longer a functioning state.
For all the abuse which Europeans regularly heap on the American political process, it has one strength, its capacity for course-correction. A constitution heavy with checks and balances enables it to respond to new circumstances with brutal pluralism. Three years ago America went to war on a lie, a wing and a prayer. That war has clearly failed and consensus is disintegrating. Congress subjects serving and retired generals to searing cross-examination. Senior figures go to Baghdad and, when they break free of their minders, report independently. There is none of the executive deference of Britain's parliamentary committees and tongue-tied "loyal opposition". America's debate on Iraq is now a grim, grinding encounter with reality.
The debate must contemplate the painful but not unfamiliar experience of imperial retreat. As in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia the moment is delayed but the deed will be efficient. The Baker commission, appearing in full after November's congressional election, realises the senselessness of the present bloodbath. It reportedly accepts that the continued presence of foreign forces does not prevent but adds to the chaos. American troops are in occupation but not in control. Their departure can hardly undermine security, except possibly that of Baghdad's green zone, and that is largely privatised.
A measure of the collapse is the astonishing suggestion that America find a new regime in consultation with Iran and Syria. This can only mean accepting some degree of confederacy, looking to the shadowy militias, warlords and sheikhs for provincial and regional leadership. Last year's Iraq constitution negotiated by the American ambassador in Baghdad, Zelmay Khalilzad, remains the best template for this. It is significant that Maliki, in a recent interview with US Today, referred to the possibility of giving Sunnis and Shia muslims some of the autonomy enjoyed by the Kurds. Given the sheer scale of civil violence rife in and around Baghdad the price of such autonomy may be population migration, but that is happening on a massive scale already: Iraq is partitioning itself. It might at least presage a sort of political reconstruction, without which peace and prosperity are inconceivable.
What is humiliating for Britons is that not a whisper of such lateral thinking can be heard from the government. Downing Street is intellectually numb, like a forgotten outpost of a crumbling Roman empire. It can see the barbarians at the gates yet it dare not respond as it knows it should because no new instructions have arrived from Rome. As for parliament, the opposition, academics, thinktanks and most of the media, a zombie-like inertia is all. Last week's row over controversial remarks by the army chief, Sir Richard Dannatt, was concerned not with what he said but whether he should have said it. Every one is waiting for the US to move.
Blair's last comment on Iraq was that any withdrawal would be "craven surrender" and would endanger British security. This is mad. Even Bush can admit to be "open to new ideas on Iraq". Blair has clearly not heard of Baker's report. Perhaps he should hurry to Washington for new instructions from the boss.
simon.jenkins@guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1924736,00.html
Guardian:
Tamil Tigers use attacks as show of strength
Sri Lankan leaders accuse rebels of trying to provoke backlash before peace talks
Randeep Ramesh, south Asia correspondent
Wednesday October 18, 2006
Tamil Tiger guerrillas opened a new front against the Sri Lankan government today when rebels posing as fisherman blew up their boats in an ambush on a naval base on the island’s southern tourist belt.
It is believed three sailors were killed and a dozen injured in the attack on the navy in Galle harbour. Fourteen civilians were also wounded. The authorities imposed an open-ended curfew on the town after mobs began to target Tamil-owned shops. Police brought the situation under control by firing on the crowds.
Most analysts agree that Sri Lanka is now at war in all but name. However, they say that both sides are likely to sit down for face-to-face talks in Switzerland at the end of the month to revive the peace process.
Keheliya Rambukwella, the Sri Lankan government’s defence spokesman, accused the rebels of attempting to provoke a backlash against ethnic Tamils that could help them win international sympathy ahead of the peace talks. “We ask the people not to fall into the trap that has been laid by the LTTE [Tamil Tigers],” he told reporters.
A violent backlash by the majority Sinhalese against Tamil civilians could strengthen the Tigers’ claim that the Tamil people can live in peace only if they achieve a separate homeland.
Since the rebels and government last met in February, Sri Lanka has been shaken by daily violence. The attack in Galle came two days after a rebel bomber killed at least 95 sailors 100 miles north-east of the capital, Colombo, the most devastating suicide attack against the country’s military since the two sides agreed to a ceasefire in 2002.
In targeting Galle, the Tigers have displayed an unexpected reach. The port is 70 miles south of Colombo and far from the rebels’ northern and eastern strongholds where much of the bloody violence in the Indian Ocean island has taken place.
The blasts may also seriously affect tourist numbers as Galle is on a well-trodden beach trail; Sri Lanka expects 600,000 visitors this year. “What the Tigers are trying to do is demonstrate to the government that they are not a spent force. The government has won some military battles but this is the Tigers’ way of saying they have not been weakened,” said Saravanamuth Paikiasothy, director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives.
For more than two decades the Sri Lankan government has been fighting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to thwart their ambition for an independent homeland, or “Eelam”, for the island’s Tamil minority in the north and east.
The rebels say the Buddhist Sinhalese majority discriminates against the Tamils. The upsurge in violence has seen air strikes and ground offensives launched by the Sri Lankan military in the last few months. Last week, fierce fighting around the town of Jaffna killed at least 129 soldiers and a similar number of rebels.
There is increasing international pressure to return to the negotiating table. American, Japanese and officials from Norway - which brokered the last peace deal - will be attempting to drag the two sides back from the brink of all-out war.
Experts say that the hardline nationalist strategy of President Mahinda Rajapakse has effectively failed. Instead he has now sought the support of the main opposition party that advocated talks with the Tigers and economic liberalisation to defuse tensions.
“The opposition wanted market-led development, international assistance and open borders to solve [the conflict]. The president has come to accept that a military-only strategy could not deliver,” said Jehan Pereira of Sri Lanka’s National Peace Council.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1925245,00.html
Harper's Magazine:
Weekly Review
Posted on Tuesday, October 17, 2006. By Rafil Kroll-Zaidi
Research by U.S. epidemiologists and Iraqi physicians found that 654,965 Iraqis have died as a result of the Iraq war, though half of households surveyed were unsure of who to blame for the deaths of their family members. President George W. Bush said that he did not consider the study “a credible report.”[Johns Hopkins University] The United States Army was planning to maintain current troop levels in Iraq through 2010, and to replace its advertising slogan, “An Army of One,” with a new slogan, “Army Strong.”[Reuters][AP] Insurgents in Baghdad fired a mortar round at an ammunition dump on a U.S. military base, setting off large explosions that were felt miles away,[Army Times][China Daily] and the judge in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial once again expelled Hussein from the courtroom; one of Hussein's co-defendants then called the prosecutors “pimps and traitors” and punched a bailiff. Another defendant declared, “I wish to be executed and finish with this court.”[AFP via Breitbart] North Korea's Dear Leader Kim Jong Il was said to be at risk of losing his access to McDonald's hamburgers and Hennessy cognac if sanctions on luxury goods are imposed in response to his country's recent nuclear testing.[All Headline News] U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld showed reporters a satellite image of North Korea. “Except for my wife and family,” said Rumsfeld, “that is my favorite photo.”[Daily Mail] Canadian troops in Afghanistan were finding it difficult to destroy forests of ten-foot-tall marijuana plants where the Taliban hide. “That damn marijuana,” said one soldier.[Reuters via CNN.com] Right-wing columnist Christopher Hitchens confessed that he had eaten a dog.[Daily Mirror]
Two trains collided while traveling in opposite directions between the French city of Nancy and the grand duchy of Luxembourg, killing six people.[AFX via Hemscott.com] Floods killed 37 people in Thailand, and Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed nine people.[AFP via Yahoo! News] Libya announced that it would provide laptop computers for 1.2 million schoolchildren,[AP via CBS News][AP via local6.com] and Chinese Wal-Mart workers unionized.[International Herald Tribune] Americans were claiming political asylum in Britain.[Sun Online] In China's Shanxi and Shaanxi Provinces, families with dead sons complained that corpse brides were in short supply.[scotsman.com] A study suggested that an increasing number of British students are working as prostitutes in order to pay their university tuition,[timesonline.co.uk] and California researchers found that women dress more fashionably when they are ovulating.[Reuters] A Vietnamese death-row inmate convicted of possessing heroin worth more than one billion dong had her sentence commuted to life in prison when she was discovered to be pregnant.[BBC] A Virginia couple were trying to give back their fifteen-year-old adopted son, who turned out to be a sexual predator. “They just told me he was hyperactive,” said the boy's mother. [Washington Post] A Pennsylvania woman was arrested for beating her baby's father with the baby.[AP via New York Times] In Bombay, where the city courts faced a backlog of 16,234,223 cases, police arrested a drunk three-foot-tall man for extorting money from people with a meat cleaver. “Everyone pampered him because he was so small and cute,” said the man's brother. “But he has brought great misfortune for the family.”[Mumbai Mirror] A Minnesota school principal resigned after shooting two orphaned kittens on school property.[Mumbai Mirror][AP]
In Israel, four doctors were arrested for carrying out illegal, non-consensual medical experiments on their patients;[Haaretz] the U.S. Department of Justice accused blacks of suppressing the white vote in Mississippi;[New York Times] and Adam Pearlman, the “American Al Qaeda,” was charged with treason, making him the first U.S. citizen so indicted since World War II.[CBS News] Dubai's ruling family was sued for enslaving children as camel jockeys. A family representative argued that the suit was spurious, since Dubai has replaced child camel-jockeys with robots.[BBC] India's Supreme Court ordered the seizure of 300 macaques who had terrorized bureaucrats and destroyed top-secret defense documents,[BBC] and the Philippines rejected a plan to help a monkey-infested island by importing monkey-eating eagles.[gulfnews.com] In Uganda, a mob armed with spears, machetes, and clubs killed a lioness, mutilated the carcass, and imprisoned the remains.[The Monitor via allAfrica.com] Thousands of villagers in the Indian state of Jharkhand fled their homes in order to avoid a herd of rampaging elephants. “The elephants,” said a forestry official, “are out to avenge.” “They destroy our crops in the field,” complained a farmer. “Sometimes they damage our houses also.” [Reuters] Donkeys were increasingly popular with Mexican farmers.[ANI via DailyIndia.com][Christian Science Monitor via Arizona Daily Star] Swiss researchers in Syria discovered the remains of an extinct species of giant camel, [iol.co.za] and a Virginia biology teacher was suspended after compelling her students to pose with the bones of a century-old corpse in Pocahontas Cemetery.[North Country Gazette] Walnut-related crimes were on the rise in the United States,[Appeal-Democrat] and a pile of jelly left over from a wedding party's jelly-fight sparked a terrorism alert near Leipzig, Germany.[One Bakersfield Online][Mumbai Mirror] An Italian sociologist moved into a cave, where he plans to spend the next three years;[BBC] two Indianapolis morticians ran into a burning building to save three corpses;[Metro.co.uk] and fish leapt from the ocean near Hawaii in anticipation of an earthquake.[local6.com]
This is Weekly Review by Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, published Tuesday, October 17, 2006. It is part of Weekly Review for 2006, which is part of Weekly Review, which is part of Harpers.org.
Written By
Kroll-Zaidi, Rafil
Permanent URL
http://harpers.org/WeeklyReview2006-10-17.html
Jeune Afrique: L'UA reconduit pour un an maximum
Gbagbo et Konan Banny
CÔTE D'IVOIRE - 17 octobre 2006 – AFP
L'Union africaine (UA) a "décidé" de reconduire pour une période "n'excédant pas douze mois" le président ivoirien Laurent Gbagbo et le Premier ministre Charles Konan Banny qui bénéficiera de pouvoirs encore plus élargis, a annoncé mardi le président de l'UA, Denis Sassou Nguesso.
Ces décisions vont maintenant être transmises au Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies, qui se penchera le 25 octobre sur la crise en Côte d'Ivoire et décidera des modalités de la nouvelle transition dans ce pays coupé en deux depuis 2002
"Il est clairement établi que malgré tous les efforts déployés, il n'est pas possible d'organiser des élections en Côte d'Ivoire (d'ici le 31 octobre 2006), comme cela avait été prévu l'année dernière", a déclaré M. Sassou Nguesso lors d'une conférence de presse à Addis Abeba, au terme d'une réunion du Conseil de paix et de sécurité (CPS) de l'UA, consacrée à la Côte d'Ivoire.
"Nous avons décidé d'une autre période de transition n'excédant pas douze mois, au cours de laquelle Laurent Gbagbo est confirmé dans ses fonctions de chef d'Etat et le Premier ministre Charles Konan Banny dans ses fonctions de Premier ministre de la transition", a-t-il poursuivi.
"Et puisque le CPS de l'UA a analysé les différents blocages constatés, il a pris une série de décisions, notamment de renforcer les pouvoirs et les moyens du Premier ministre pour qu'il conduise à bon port sa mission", a ajouté le président en exercice de l'UA et chef de l'Etat du Congo.
"En conseil des ministres, il sera possible de procéder par ordonnance et décret loi", a-t-il précisé au siège de l'UA où s'est tenu pendant envuiron neuf heures le CPS, réuni au niveau des chefs d'Etat.
"Le Premier ministre disposera également de l'autorité nécessaire sur toutes les forces intégrées de défense et de sécurité ivoiriennes pour lui permettre d'exécuter les tâches qui lui sont assignées", selon le communiqué final du CPS.
L'UA a de fait repris les recommendations faites le 6 octobre par la Communauté économique des Etats d'Afrique de l'Ouest (Cédéao).
Elle soumettra "la présente décision au Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies pour recueillir son soutien". L'ONU a cependant d'ores et déjà annoncé qu'elle allait accorder à la Côte d'Ivoire un nouveau délai d'un an pour organiser des élections, les modalités de la nouvelle transition politiques devant être arrêtées le 25 octobre.
Un proche de M. Gbagbo, qui a requis l'anonymat, a affirmé qu'"il n'y a pas de déception après cette décision du CPS. On va de l'avant, l'atmosphère était très cordiale et c'est le plus important".
Cependant dans la délégation ivoirienne à Addis Abeba, certains assuraient que le Premier ministre ne pourrait de toute façon pas prendre de décrets-lois.
La Côte d'Ivoire est coupée en deux depuis la tentative de coup d'Etat ratée de la rébellion des Forces nouvelles (FN) contre le président Gbagbo en septembre 2002. Le camp présidentiel contrôle le sud, alors que le nord est aux mains des FN.
Interrogé pour savoir quels étaient les éventuels gardes-fous pris pour s'assurer que les élections aient bien lieu dans un an, M. Sassou Nguesso a répondu : "Nous n'irons pas de report en report. C'est une question de crédibilité pour l'Afrique."
Enfin, l'UA a décidé de "décharger" le président sud-africain Thabo Mbeki de la médiation dans la crise en Côte d'Ivoire, alors qu'il était très critiqué par l'opposition ivoirienne.
La médiation a été confiée à M. Sassou Nguesso, au président de la Commission de l'UA, Alpha Oumar Konaré, et au président en exercice de la Cédéao, Mamadou Tadja.
Au moins sept chefs d'Etat et de gouvernement sur les 15 pays membres du CPS ont participé mardi à la réunion de cet organe de l'UA, qui a aussi accueilli MM. Gbagbo et Konan Banny.
© Jeuneafrique.com 2006
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_depeche.asp?
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Página/12:
Lo patético, visto en directo
Por Mario Wainfeld
Miércoles, 18 de Octubre de 2006
Es difícil elegir una sola escena como la más patética de las de ayer. Puesto en ese brete, el cronista se inclina por los abrazos de los organizadores del acto en torno del féretro, después de las tres recidivas de violencia futbolera, como si nada hubiera pasado. Eran guionistas e intérpretes de ese libreto y se aferraron a él como autómatas, como si nada hubiera pasado, como si nadie hubiera visto.
También fue notable el desfase entre los discursos de Hugo Moyano y de Gerónimo “Momo” Venegas en medio de la refriega, con una carencia de reflejos que revivió la de Lorenzo Miguel en la cancha de Vélez, en la campaña electoral del ’83, cuando se empacó en seguir hablando, tapado por los chiflidos de miles de peronistas.
En un plano menor se ganaron el bronce de la machietta las declaraciones de Antonio Cafiero, quien comedido a explicar el escándalo retrucó con un arcaísmo, evocando el asesinato de Darwin Pasaponti. Pasaponti murió en las calles porteñas, otro 17 de octubre hace 61 años. Es un tiempito, más que los 32 años largos que lleva muerto Juan Domingo Perón, sobre quien algunos vivos alegan que sigue vivo. “Es el conductor de los argentinos”, sintetizó José Luis Lingeri, cuya praxis en las últimas décadas lo hizo plegarse a otras conducciones tácticas, las del presidente peronista de turno.
La discordancia entre el discurso y los hechos fue anterior a los incidentes. El anacronismo integraba el código genético de la convocatoria, que pretendía vampirizar la memoria de quien fuera elegido tres veces presidente por el voto popular, un honor superior al de haber revistado como general.
Dicen en Palacio que el Presidente siempre cuestionó la movida y que advirtió desde el vamos a Moyano que era un error. Lo disuadió sólo en parte, evitando que el ataúd fuera trasladado a pulso, una sobreactuación que hubiera insumido tres días. Agregan allegados a Néstor Kirchner que se trataba de una jugada que también buscaba incordiarlo, forzarlo a ponerse sin más la camiseta peronista, desbaratando el ejercicio de complejizarla y resignificarla que ensaya el Presidente. Esa versión, más que verosímil, no excusa al Presidente por aceptar el envite. Y mucho menos lo despega de quienes son sus aliados: Moyano, Lingeri, Andrés Rodríguez, algunos de los que se abrazaban en el mausoleo, mientras afuera volaban los palos..., frase que suena a chicana pero es pura descripción.
En la excitación de la transmisión en vivo, la señal TN tuvo un acierto de edición, que fue callar las voces en off mientras la cámara mostraba la batalla campal y el Himno Nacional resonaba por encima de la refriega. El efecto rememoraba la escena de Good Morning Vietnam, que amenizaba escenas bélicas con el tema “A Wonderful World” en la voz de Louis Armstrong. El resultado era similar, un subrayado de la irrealidad que se estaba viviendo, por tevé, en directo porque estamos en el siglo XXI, detalle que muchos protagonistas parecen desdeñar.
La primera pregunta: Dos preguntas se reiteraban en la Casa de Gobierno. La primera era por qué Kirchner –cuyos radares siempre están encendidos para detectar lo “que quiere la gente” y lo que la aleja– “compró” un evento que apestaba a naftalina, a mala fe, a apropiación del pasado. Y por qué, desconfiado como es, lo compró llave en mano. Las hipótesis más sensatas se hacían cargo de la cuerda floja que pisa el Presidente con el peronismo real, que es la base de su coalición de gobierno. La segunda, que nadie dice en voz alta, es que tal vez Kirchner se engolosinó con lo que podría haber sido el acto, con la imagen congelada ayer a las tres de la tarde: un día de solcito, miles de personas en la calle, el fervor popular, la leyenda que continúa.
Por lo que fuera, el Presidente se equivocó, emparentado con aliados cuya imagen pública poco puede deteriorarse porque ya es bajísima. No es el caso de Kirchner, lo que duplica el desagio que sufrió ayer, originado desde sus propias filas.
La segunda pregunta: La segunda pregunta que se formulaba, con distintos énfasis, en la primera línea del oficialismo es si el desmadre de la movilización era doloso o culposo. Esto es, si las golpizas y los tiros fueron consecuencia de la brutalidad de algunos concurrentes o de un designio de sus organizadores, una cama armada para el Presidente.
El diputado Carlos Kunkel fue el primero en argumentar que “volvió el matrimonio Duhalde”, imputándole una acción deliberada. No se puede dar por desbaratada una sospecha cuando recién se han producido los hechos, pero la impresión primera de este cronista (con la que concuerdan funcionarios nacionales y provinciales de alto nivel) es que la violencia fue consecuencia de una serie de factores imputables a sus organizadores, pero no de su voluntad de armarle un escenario nefasto al Presidente. La carencia de intención no exime de responsabilidad. Tampoco propone que los enfrentamientos fueron hijos del azar, sino que derivan del modo y de las gentes que suelen movilizar los jefes sindicales involucrados. “Ya casi no llevan afiliados o laburantes comunes. Salen con puro aparato, puro barrabrava, puros matones”, dice un integrante del gabinete nacional, conocedor del paño.
Muy cerca de Felipe Solá y de León Arslanian, un funcionario bonaerense disecciona el fenómeno: “La experiencia de estos años comprueba que las máquinas sindicales no pueden garantizar la seguridad de los actos. Las organizaciones sociales armaron miles de cortes de ruta. ¿Cuántos incidentes, cuántos heridos hubo? Los actos sindicales, en cambio, casi siempre terminan con goma. Los que manejaban ayer la organización eran improvisados totales. Y los dirigentes fueron irresponsables, se ne fregaron de lo que pasaba, cerraron sus celulares durante la caravana, no atendían llamadas de la gobernación”. Furioso, el confidente agrega desde La Plata: “Arslanian les pidió a Moyano y al Momo que suspendieran el acto o que, al menos, evitaran los discursos, pero los tipos siguieron adelante”.
Goles en contra: “Ojo con Arcuri, que jugaba su propio partido. Ojo con Graciela Giannettasio, que quiso convencer a Felipe de ir al palco cuando todo era un desastre”. En algunos pasillos de la Rosada, la hipótesis del complot paga unos boletos a ganador.
Otros oficialistas optan por ver la viga en el ojo propio. “Pasamos la huelga del Garrahan, la de los subtes, las marchas piqueteras sin reprimir, las elecciones del año pasado sin escándalos. Y en una semana nos hacemos dos goles en contra, en el Hospital Francés y en San Vicente”, meneaba la cabeza una prominente figura del Gobierno. Los goles en contra valen lo mismo que los otros y, en algún sentido, deberían enseñar más. Las teorías conspirativas, que sobrevivían al cierre de esta edición, son confortantes pero usualmente engañosas.
Remembranzas: Cualquier diálogo de estas horas incluye la remembranza de Ezeiza y rescata aquello que la historia se repite, la primera vez como tragedia, la segunda como parodia. La asociación es ineludible, aunque para ser certera no debería extremarse. En Ezeiza la violencia fue una herramienta utilizada para dirimir un conflicto político. Las lecturas de época son controversiales y ahora pueden parecer delirantes, pero lo cierto es que los bandos estaban claros y la apelación a la pólvora era un recurso.
Una primera ojeada sobre San Vicente sugiere que la escena habla más de la situación cultural y social de la Argentina que de su lógica política. Miles de movilizaciones se realizan en este suelo, con objetivos precisos y en muchos casos desafiantes, sin que brote la violencia patoteril, de cancha, que se vio por la tele. Más allá del visible tirador filmado en detalle, los que pelearon (por suerte cabría añadir) lo hacían a puño limpio o con piedras o palos. No portaban armas, no daban la sensación de estar pertrechados para la pelea.
Seguramente un primer sesgo del debate cargará en la mochila del peronismo, tout court, lo patético y lo brutal que se vio en la quinta-museo. Lo patético le concierne en un ciento por ciento. Lo brutal se repite todas las semanas en casi cualquier cancha, no en nombre de la patria peronista o la socialista sino de Claypole o Villa San Carlos. O en cualquier esquina donde un colectivo roce a un motoquero. Una violencia transida, incontenible y acumulada forma parte de la realidad cotidiana, en especial cuando convergen ciertos núcleos de marginales. Un acto político masivo la congrega, la exacerba, posiblemente no la explica.
Volviendo a la política, valdría la pena agregar que la instalación de los restos de Perón en un lugar histórico debió ser una tarea del Estado y no de una central gremial, mucho menos de una ONG de imprecisa tipificación como son las 62 Organizaciones. Prendarse de la frase “para un argentino no hay nada mejor que otro argentino” y luego privatizar el homenaje es otra de tantas incongruencias patéticas puestas en evidencia en un 17 de octubre que será memorable por sus peores contingencias.
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La ONU va de Guatemala a Guatepeor
LA ETERNA ELECCION PARA SUCEDER
A LA ARGENTINA SIGUE MAÑANA
Con las de ayer sumaron 22 las rondas de votaciones en las que ni Venezuela ni Guatemala lograron los dos tercios de votos para quedarse con la banca no permanente del Consejo de Seguridad. En la última votación Caracas obtuvo 77 votos y su rival, 102.
Miércoles, 18 de Octubre de 2006
La lucha entre Venezuela y Guatemala por la banca no permanente en el Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU continúa. Y parece que tiene para rato. Tras 22 rondas de votación infructuosas –10 el lunes y 12 ayer–, la elección del representante latinoamericano que reemplazará a la Argentina a partir del 1º de enero de 2007 en el Consejo de Seguridad se aplazó hasta mañana, para dar tiempo a los dos candidatos a buscar soluciones al bloqueo que sufre el proceso. La posibilidad de un candidato de compromiso parece estar lejos, sobre todo porque la batalla entre Venezuela y Guatemala evocó la situación que se vivió en 1979, cuando Colombia y Cuba fueron a 154 votaciones antes de retirarse en favor de la candidatura de México.
Para ganar el puesto en el Consejo se necesita el apoyo de dos tercios de la Asamblea General. Pero tras dos intensas jornadas de votación, ni venezolanos ni guatemaltecos lograron reunir la cantidad necesaria de votos para hacerse de la banca. La presidenta de la Asamblea General, Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, anunció la decisión de pasar a un cuarto intermedio hasta mañana a las 10 de la mañana tras consultar a los dos países protagonistas de la elección. En la ultima votación, Guatemala obtuvo 102 votos y Venezuela 77, en tanto que se produjeron 12 abstenciones, la cifra más alta hasta el momento.
Las acusaciones entre ambos países no se hicieron esperar. El canciller guatemalteco, Gert Rosenthal, acusó a Venezuela de mantener “secuestrada” a la Asamblea General de la ONU, responsabilizando a Caracas del bloqueo en que se halla la elección. “Creemos que la Asamblea General no debería estar secuestrada por la posición de un país”, dijo Rosenthal después de haberse impuesto en todas las votaciones menos una –en la que ambos países empataron–, pero sin haber logrado la mayoría necesaria de dos tercios.
Ante la incapacidad de declarar a un ganador, ya hay presiones de algunos países en pos de buscar un nuevo candidato de consenso que pueda romper este estancamiento. En este sentido, el embajador de Ecuador, Diego Córdovez, convocó para hoy una reunión informal del grupo de países de Latinoamérica y el Caribe de la ONU (Grulac), con el objeto de evaluar la situación y buscar posibles soluciones.
Sin embargo, para que se presenten terceros países a la elección, los candidatos deben deponer sus candidaturas. Algo que no está en los planes de Venezuela o Guatemala. “Guatemala continúa pensando que es muy prematura esa posibilidad”, dijo la vocera de la presidencia guatemalteca, Rosa María de Frade, en referencia a buscar un candidato de consenso. “Siempre estamos adelantando a Venezuela por 30 o 32 votos”, explicó la portavoz. De Frade aseguró además que la nación centroamericana mantendrá la candidatura para lograr el puesto en el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas (ONU). “Guatemala continuará en la ronda de votaciones para ver si logramos alcanzar esa mayoría calificada que es necesaria para que Guatemala sea electa como miembro no permanente del Consejo”, aseguró.
Venezuela piensa seguir el mismo camino. “Tenemos la esperanza de que la constancia, que es siempre una manera de mantenerse frente a la vida y de obtener triunfos, va a acompañar a Venezuela”, dijo el embajador venezolano Arias Cárdenas a la cadena estatal VTV. “El presidente Hugo Chávez nos dio una orden y la vamos a cumplir: el presidente nos dijo ‘rodilla en tierra’, (...) es soportar todas las cargas y salir con las bayonetas a hacer nuestra tarea. La misión está muy clara”, dijo el funcionario y ex teniente coronel del ejército.
Mientras Estados Unidos –que apoya la candidatura de Guatemala– sugirió a Venezuela que se retire de la contienda, los venezolanos exigieron a Washington que abandone las presiones. “Para que se produzca el consenso tenemos un requerimiento importante. Que se pare en este micrófono el señor (John) Bolton y les diga a todos los países que ha presionado que les deja libertad de conciencia para elegir”, dijo Arias Cárdenas en alusión al embajador estadounidense. Bolton declinó la invitación. “La posición de Estados Unidos está motivada por la inquietud que genera entre nosotros la conducta de Venezuela, y eso (las palabras de Cárdenas) es un ejemplo de ello, así que no voy a responder”, afirmó el embajador norteamericano. Bolton además dio a entender que hay votación para rato. “El antecedente más largo es 154 rondas y nosotros vamos por la número quince”, indicó el embajador norteamericano.
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Festival antiimperialista y plan nuclear en Norcorea
Mientras las potencias y los vecinos buscan frenar una nueva prueba nuclear, Pyongyang denunció que las sanciones son una declaración de guerra y que su bomba atómica es para la paz.
Por Anne Penketh*
Miércoles, 18 de Octubre de 2006
Corea del Norte puso en escena anoche una escalofriante demostración de desafío “antiimperialista”, en medio de las advertencias de Estados Unidos y Japón de que el aislado gobierno comunista podría estar preparándose para una segunda prueba nuclear. Miles de artistas, encerrados en un gran estadio en la capital, Pyongyang, tomaron parte en un espectacular despliegue con linternas sincronizadas, en escenas que recordaban los días del Tercer Reich. El hecho fue orquestado para celebrar el 80º aniversario de Abajo con la Unión Imperialista, una organización partidaria del líder de Norcorea, Kim II-sung.
Un importante líder del partido, Kim Yong-nam, elogió la “reciente exitosa prueba subterránea”. Dijo que “contribuiría para preservar la paz y la estabilidad en la península”. Pero según Estados Unidos, la explosión de plutonio produjo un resultado de menos de un kilotón. Fuera de Corea del Norte, crecieron ayer las expectativas de que Pyongyang hiciera explotar un segundo dispositivo nuclear debido al frustrante resultado de la primera explosión, el 9 de octubre. “Casi seguro que estamos hablando de un fracaso”, comentó el experto nuclear Paul Ingrams, del Consejo Británico Estadounidense para la Seguridad de la Información. Los norcoreanos “probablemente estén más dispuestos a llevar a cabo una segunda prueba para demostrar a los estadounidenses que pueden explotar algo con un rendimiento mayor”, añadió.
La Casa Blanca dijo que no sería sorprendente que el gobierno intentara otra prueba nuclear “para ser provocativo”. El secretario de prensa de la Casa Blanca, Tony Snow, dijo: “Creo que es razonable esperar que el gobierno de Corea del Norte haga lo posible para poner a prueba la voluntad, la determinación y la unidad de las Naciones Unidas”.
Christopher Hill, enviado estadounidense en las negociaciones a seis bandas para el desmantelamiento del programa nuclear norcoreano, aseguró en Seúl que, en caso de que Pyongyang dé este paso, la comunidad internacional “responderá muy claramente”. “Todos veríamos una segunda prueba como un acto de beligerancia. La República Democrática Popular de Corea tiene que comprender realmente que la comunidad internacional no va a aceptar que sea un estado nuclear.”
El Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU ordenó el sábado pasado sanciones contra Corea del Norte, en un voto unánime aprobado por el aliado regional más grande del estado ermitaño, que es China. El canciller norcoreano, en una agresiva declaración emitida ayer, dijo que “la resolución no puede interpretarse de otra manera que como una declaración de guerra”, contra el Norte.
La secretaria de Estado de Estados Unidos, Condoleezza Rice, llegaría a Japón hoy en una gira regional para reforzar el apoyo al régimen de sanciones que consisten en un virtual bloqueo militar. Incluye el registro de los barcos que transportan carga que pudiera usarse en programas de misiles o nucleares de Corea del Norte y una prohibición de exportación de los bienes suntuarios hacia Corea del Norte.
Los funcionarios británicos negaron que se estuvieran considerando medidas similares contra Irán, que se enfrenta a una perspectiva de un “incremento de sanciones” sobre su programa nuclear. Una primera versión de la resolución de la ONU patrocinada por Gran Bretaña, Francia, Alemania y Estados Unidos será discutida probablemente esta semana en Nueva York con Rusia y China, que han sido reticentes a autorizar las sanciones contra Irán en esta etapa, a pesar de las presiones del gobierno estadounidense, que cuenta con el apoyo de las potencias europeas en este tema.
* De The Independent de Gran Bretaña. Especial para Página/12
Traducción: Celita Doyhambéhère
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Vaya valla china
EN LA FRONTERA CON COREA DEL NORTE
Por José Reinoso*
Desde Pekín, Miércoles, 18 de Octubre de 2006
China está construyendo una valla en algunos tramos de su frontera con Corea del Norte para impedir el paso de refugiados, según reconoció ayer el Ministerio de Exteriores chino que, sin embargo, dijo que se trata de un proyecto que data de hace varios años. Pekín teme que un agravamiento de la crisis nuclear pueda provocar una llegada masiva de norcoreanos a su territorio. Pyongyang rompió su silencio tras la adopción de sanciones por parte del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU por la prueba atómica del lunes de la semana pasada y aseguró que equivalen a “una declaración de guerra”.
“El objetivo de estas instalaciones es mejorar la gestión y las condiciones de control y asegurar el buen orden en las fronteras”, afirmó Liu Jianchao, portavoz del Ministerio de Exteriores chino, sobre la barrera. Liu dijo que el proyecto data de los años noventa. Algunas fuentes aseguran que las obras se han acelerado los últimos días. Según expertos del Instituto de Estudios Orientales y Occidentales, en Seúl, Pekín comenzó a construir vallas con alambres de púa en las zonas más frecuentes de huida a lo largo del río Tumen –que separa Corea del Norte y China en su lado noreste– en 2003. Y en septiembre pasado empezó a hacer lo mismo a lo largo del río Yalu, que delimita la frontera en el lado suroeste. Muchos refugiados aprovechan que en invierno se hielan las aguas para cruzar.
Pyongyang reaccionó ayer con su retórica habitual, aunque con dureza, a las medidas adoptadas por la ONU, e insistió en un comunicado en que no se plegará, y mucho menos ahora. “No tiene sentido esperar que la República Democrática Popular de Corea, que ha permanecido imperturbable ante cualquier tormenta y tensión en el pasado, cuando no tenía armas atómicas, vaya a doblegarse a las presiones y amenazas ahora que se ha convertido en un estado con armamento nuclear.”
La frontera nororiental china preocupa especialmente a Pekín desde hace una década, ya que por ella han salido decenas de miles de norcoreanos, huyendo de la ruinosa situación económica y de la dictadura de Kim Jongil. Se calcula que hay entre 60.000 y 300.000 refugiados en el noreste chino, mezclados entre los habitantes locales de etnia coreana, que suman más de dos millones entre las provincias de Heilongjiang, Jilin y Liaoning.
El muro, que en algunos tramos es de hormigón, podría tener una segunda utilidad: marcar claramente la línea de demarcación entre los dos países vecinos. Pekín y Pyongyang fijaron su frontera común –que se extiende a lo largo de 1400 kilómetros– en un tratado secreto, que no fue llevado ante la ONU, por lo que no aplica a un tercer país, como Corea del Sur. China teme que Seúl pueda reclamar una línea separatoria distinta si se produce una futura unificación del Norte y el Sur.
* De El País de Madrid. Especial para Página/12.
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De Quincey, opiófago minucioso
Por Juan Sasturain
Miércoles, 18 de Octubre de 2006
Una de las virtudes más aparatosas del escritor inglés Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) es el vigor con que titulaba. Textos como Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (“Confesiones de un opiófago inglés”) o On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts (“Del asesinato entendido como una de las bellas artes”) tienen la cualidad nada frecuente de ser inolvidables. Incluso para quienes no los hayan leído. Revisitado en estos últimos meses por una nueva selección de ensayos inéditos –La farsa de los cielos, Ediciones Paradiso–, De Quincey ratifica ésa y otras virtudes. Chesterton –que lo admiraba desde otra vereda– comparte la misma intuición para poner rótulos sugestivos: El hombre que fue Jueves es casi excesivo para demostrarlo. Y hay varios más que de algún modo y muchas maneras se le pusieron, afines, a la cola. Porque las Vidas imaginarias de Marcel Schwob y el Borges que exageraba con la Historia Universal de la Infamia también evocan a De Quincey.
Sin embargo, esas cualidades aparentes han servido para darle aire a un equívoco: asimilar su figura y su vida a la de un adelantado de cierta corriente de esteticismo bohemio y decadente. Y nada más lejano a la (plena) verdad. La biografía de Thomas de Quincey –un escritor amable en todos los sentidos de la palabra que tuvo una vida que no lo fue– da cuenta de otras riquísimas y cambiantes circunstancias.
Thomas De Quincey nació en 1785 en una familia de clase media de Manchester, perdió a su padre a los siete años y a su hermanita más querida también de muy chico. No se llevó bien con los tutores. Fue un precoz y brillante frecuentador de los clásicos griegos y latinos, estudiante con vocación literaria precisa y decisiones extremas. Se fugó del colegio, vagabundeó por Gales y terminó en Londres, a los diecisiete años, viviendo casi en la calle e inaugurando, con la pequeña Ann, la figura de la joven compañera prostituta que anuncia a la Monelle de Schwob. Pasó por Oxford –donde comenzó, a los 19 años, su larga y variada relación con el opio– y después tuvo su soñada etapa de vida natural y de retiro entre libros, con la frecuentación de los poetas lakistas –fue amigo muy cercano de Coleridge y, sobre todo, de los Wordsworth– prácticamente hasta los treinta años.
Es a partir de ese momento que su vida da un vuelco. En 1813 cayó en el consumo descontrolado de la droga y cuatro años después, a partir de su apresurado casamiento con Margaret Simpson, comenzó un largo período marcado por tres factores recurrentes: la penuria económica (tuvo ocho hijos), el trabajo intelectual a destajo para las publicaciones de la época y los cambios frecuentes de domicilio –Londres, Edimburgo– buscando siempre la cercanía de los editores y el despiste de los acreedores.
Si De Quincey hizo del opio una marca de oscura identidad y de los libros el objeto de un fervor inagotable, su vocación fue la escritura. Los avatares de su vida hicieron que no escribiera jamás (y por suerte) las obras –poemas, novelas, extensos tratados filosóficos– que le darían supuesta gloria literaria. Nada de eso pudo hacer. A los treinta y cinco años debió comenzar a publicar ya no para sí y la fama eventual sino para (mal) vivir. Toda la cultura humanista acumulada en sus años estudiantiles, toda la información que una curiosidad intelectual desaforada habían hecho de De Quincey un erudito todo terreno se vertió –durante tres décadas– en artículos y ensayos de inconfundible manera y rara sagacidad.
La tendencia digresiva, el énfasis en los detalles, las reflexiones abiertas, las asociaciones inesperadas y siempre pertinentes, la escritura fluida y laboriosa. Leer a De Quincey es un placer. Y leerlo cuando se ocupa de sí mismo, una aventura incomparable.
Precisamente, se cumplen ahora 150 años de que culminara, en 1856, la redacción definitiva de las Confesiones... y de Suspiria de Profundis, textos autobiográficos e introspectivos que fueron diseminados, adicionados, complementados, escritos y reescritos a lo largo de muchos años a partir de 1821, y que constituyen un ejercicio reflexivo ejemplar, un monumento estilístico de soberano rigor. Célebres, traducidas primero por Alfred de Musset y luego –famosamente glosados– por Baudelaire en Los paraísos artificiales, estas pormenorizadas crónicas son mucho más y considerablemente menos que lo que el morbo espera. De Quincey encuentra en el opio el pretexto, por un lado, para contar en sucesivas aproximaciones, su infancia y adolescencia; después, para describir el funcionamiento de su propia mente, el trabajo de la memoria y, sobre todo, sus descubrimientos sobre los mecanismos del sueño. La terrible experiencia del opio –minuciosamente descripta y evaluada– es apenas el disparador para poner su inteligencia y sensibilidad en movimiento. Quien haya leído, sobre el final, entre las evocadas ensoñaciones, la descripción de Savannah-la-Mar, la ciudad sumergida, quedará marcado como él, para siempre.
En la Argentina se lo ha querido bien y sin equívocos. Se lo ha puesto en su lugar, que en este caso es una manera de respetarlo. Hace ya cuarenta años, Jaime Rest escribió un hermoso ensayo sobre De Quincey; lo recogió en libro recién en 1978, en Mundos de la imaginación. Hasta entonces, excepto las reiteradas declaraciones de amor y fidelidad de Borges y el sensible comentario de Bioy en su prólogo a la selección de Ensayistas ingleses de Jackson, no se había publicado en castellano nada tan inteligente sobre el digresivo maestro de la prosa. Porque, como bien puntualizaba Rest siguiendo sobre todo a su admirada Virginia Woolf, el penoso De Quincey no escribía ensayos del mismo modo que Raymond Chandler, un siglo después, decía que él no escribía novelas ni cuentos sino “prosa inglesa”. Exactamente eso: la idea de que escribir es esencialmente un acto intransitivo, independiente del tema, el asunto o el argumento ocasional, está en el centro de su arte. Eso y un amplísimo registro sensible.
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The Independent:
Bush and Blair isolated as criticism of war grows
By Colin Brown and Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 18 October 2006
George Bush and Tony Blair were looking more isolated than ever last night as the ground shifted further under their strategy of remaining in Iraq "until the job is done".
The President and the Prime Minister were left clinging to the dream of establishing a lasting democracy in Iraq as their advisers urged them to look for a new, more realistic, exit strategy.
A leaked report by the Iraq Study Group, chaired by former US secretary of state James Baker, a close friend of the Bush family, paved the way for a large-scale withdrawal of US forces and a dramatic shift of US policy.
It suggested that instead of the "stay the course" policy, President Bush could extricate the US from the quagmire of Iraq by removing US forces to bases outside Iraq. In an even more spectacular U-turn, they are believed to suggest that Iran and Syria could be invited to co-operate in the stabilisation of lawless Iraq.
That was implicitly rejected by the White House spokesman Tony Snow, who said the administration would not "subcontract" management of the war to outside advisers. But two high-profile Republican senators separately called for a change of course.
"We clearly need a new strategy," said Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a possible 2008 presidential candidate.
John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Iraq was "drifting sideways" and that if there was no improvement within two or three months, then policy would have to change.
That deadline coincides with the expected publication of the conclusions of Mr Baker's Iraq Study Group around the end of the year.
Support for the war is at its lowest ebb and top Republicans warned that the present state of affairs could not continue.
With the carnage on the ground mounting daily, and American military losses approaching 2,800, a new CNN poll found 64 per cent of the public believing the war was a mistake - more than at any time since the invasion in March 2003.
Mr Bush's approval rating is close to all-time lows, three weeks before mid-term elections at which the Republicans face the loss of one or both Houses of Congress.
Senior Labour figures in Britain are hoping a shift of opinion in the highest reaches of the US administration could signal a turning point to force Mr Blair to revise his own approach to Iraq where Allied forces have failed to establish the rule of law, in spite of the promises that followed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Last week, Mr Blair was urged by the chief of Britain's armed forces, General Sir Richard Dannatt to scale down his ambitions for Iraq. Warning that the Army could be broken if it was forced to stay in the country, Sir Richard said: "The original intention was that we put in place a liberal democracy that was an exemplar for the region, was pro-West and might have a beneficial effect on the balance within the Middle East... I think we should aim for a lower ambition."
Sir Richard said the presence of British troops in Iraq was exacerbating the security situation. On Monday night, the Home Secretary, John Reid also broke ranks by admitting for the first time at a private meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party that foreign policy was contributing to the radicalisation of young Muslims in Britain.
Yesterday, at his first Downing Street press conference since he announced that he will be gone within a year, Mr Blair resisted the calls for a change of strategy. He appeared to contradict Mr Reid, describing such arguments as absurd.
"You can't end up in a situation where you say, when we are on the side of ordinary, decent Muslims in Iraq or Afghanistan who want their own democratic government, when we are there at the behest of those governments with a full UNresolution, that we, when we are protecting those against people who are driving car bombs into markets and mosques and so on, that we somehow are causing their extremism.
"It's absurd and you won't defeat this extremism until you take that argument head on. And the real problem we've got is it has got to be taken head on in the Muslim community as well."
Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic believe there is an endgame being played out for Mr Blair and Mr Bush and a policy shift is growing nearer. Labour MPs said privately last night that Mr Blair may be the last one standing by the President.
Meanwhile, his most likely replacement - Gordon Brown - who admitted last month that mistakes had been made in Iraq, is left watching anxiously as more soldiers' lives are lost in Iraq.
How the big wheels in the Bush administration have turned full circle
The CIA Man
"Iraq is now what Afghanistan was in the late-1970s and throughout the 80s into the 90s, and that's an insurgent magnet, if you will, a mujahedin magnet, only much, much worse."
Michael Scheuer, Former Head of the CIA's Bin Laden Unit
The Neo-Con
"The US objective in Iraq has failed... Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000. And the administration has, now, to cope with failure."
William Buckley, Conservative Editor of The National Review
The General
"The commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions - or bury the results."
Retired Marine Lt Gen Gregory Newbold
The Administration Man
"We didn't have enough troops on the ground. We didn't impose our will. And as a result, an insurgency got started and... got out of control."
Colin Powell, Former Joint Chief of Staff and US Secretary of State
The Adviser
"There'll probably be some things in our report that the administration might not like... I personally believe in talking to your enemies. Neither the Syrians nor the Iranians want a chaotic Iraq."
James Baker, Former US Secretary of State
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1886648.ece
The Nation:
The Killing Fields of Iraq
by Robert Scheer
[posted online on October 18, 2006]
Martin Luther King Jr., shortly before his assassination, grieved that his own nation was "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." He was referring to the US quagmire in Vietnam, but were he alive today, his prophetic voice would no doubt similarly question the bloodbath in Iraq. In response to the 9/11 killing of 3,000 Americans by a gang of mostly Saudi Arabian terrorists with no links to Iraq, the President has rendered that country a veritable killing field. An occupation initially advertised as a "cakewalk" war to disarm a tyrant is now, according to our politically desperate President, a fight for the soul of the world-good versus evil, democracy versus tyranny.
But the carnage we have visited upon Iraq represents nothing of the sort. We are not building democracy, we are creating mayhem.
The evidence arrives daily in the form of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of mutilated bodies. But even the few ghastly images that actually make it onto the television actually underestimate the horror. And it is getting worse, not better: The killing of innocents is now ten times higher than a year ago.
The most thorough appraisal of Iraqi deaths, done by British and American epidemiologists using accepted norms for public health research and published in the respected medical journal The Lancet, puts the number of war- and occupation-related dead at an appalling 650,000.
The authors, being serious scientists, concede that counting the dead in a country turned into a war zone is a difficult enterprise, but even the lowest figure in their estimate, more than 300,000 dead, is shocking enough.
Perhaps most important, it is not only the derided "cut and run" domestic critics of the President's policy who recognize that our continued presence is part of the problem rather than of the solution, but 90 percent of the Iraqi people we are supposedly trying to help, according to recent US government and scholarly public-opinion surveys.
Even more shocking: Six in ten believe it actually is acceptable to target US troops for assassination. And while President Bush on Monday once again reassured the impotent puppet government in Baghdad that the United States is prepared to "stay the course," the vast majority of both Shiite and Sunnis want us to leave within the next year.
That is not because, as the President insists, they want the outcome of an Al Qaeda-dominated Iraq; on the contrary, all of the polling data shows that Osama bin Laden remains enormously unpopular in Iraq. It is rather that they feel strongly that they could do a better job of providing security on their own, and they are afraid that the destabilizing US presence, the main recruiting poster for terrorists, threatens to be permanent.
This makes the relevance of King's earlier condemnation of a pigheaded stay-the-course policy in Vietnam all the more relevant. The point is that it is time for the Iraqis, like the Vietnamese, to make their own history. They can hardly make a worse mess of it.
One cannot predict with any certainty the future of Iraq, or the region, in the face of a US military withdrawal, but clearly Bush is wrong in insisting that our continued occupation of Iraq lessens rather than increases the likelihood of future terrorist attacks on the United States. Iraqis, like the Vietnamese, are most of all nationalists, preoccupied with the future of their own country rather than, as the President insists, challenging America's way of life. We still have not a single example of a disgruntled Iraqi carrying the battle to US soil, but the longer we stay, the greater the likelihood of just such blowback.
Staying the course is a prescription for disaster. That is why a commission backed by Bush and led by the former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican and a longtime aide to the Bush family, intends to propose-against the repeatedly stated wishes of the President-significant changes in the Administration's strategy by early next year, according to the Los Angeles Times and other papers. "Two options under consideration would represent reversals of US policy: withdrawing American troops in phases, and bringing neighboring Iran and Syria into a joint effort to stop the fighting," reported the paper. At least one commission participant says they have already decided Bush is dead wrong: "It's not going to be 'stay the course,' " the participant told the Times. "The bottom line is, [US policy] isn't working.... There's got to be another way."
In other words, Bush's critics were right all along.
Copyright © 2006 The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061030/truthdig
ZNet | Iran
Target Iran:
The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change
by Scott Ritter and Amy Goodman;
Democracy Now!; October 18, 2006
AMY GOODMAN: A new book by former weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, claims the Bush administration is determined to wage war against Iran. In Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change, Scott Ritter examines the administration’s regime change policy and the potential of Iran to threaten U.S. national security interests. He writes, “The path the United States has currently embarked on regarding Iran is a path that will inevitably lead to war. Such a course of action will make even the historical mistake we made in Iraq pale by comparison,” he writes. Scott Ritter joins us in the studio now. Welcome to Democracy Now!
SCOTT RITTER: Well, thanks.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think is the key to understand about Iran right now, about the U.S., well, about your title targeting - Target Iran?
SCOTT RITTER: Well, the most important thing is to understand the reality that Iran is squarely in the crosshairs as a target of the Bush administration, in particular, as a target of the Bush administration as it deals - as it relates to the National Security Strategy of the United States. You see, this isn’t a hypothetical debate among political analysts, foreign policy specialists. Read the 2006 version of the National Security Strategy, where Iran is named sixteen times as the number one threat to the national security of the United States of America, because in the same document, it embraces the notion of pre-emptive wars of aggression as a legitimate means of dealing with such threats. It also recertifies the Bush administration doctrine of regional transformation globally, but in this case particularly in the Middle East. So, we’re not talking about hypotheticals here, regardless of all the discussion the Bush administration would like you to believe there is about diplomacy. There is no diplomacy, as was the case with Iraq. Diplomacy is but a smokescreen to disguise the ultimate objective of regime change.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the difference in approach the U.S. takes to North Korea, which has, according to their own reports, set off a nuclear bomb, and Iran?
SCOTT RITTER: Well, the only thing that the Bush administration’s approach towards North Korea and the Bush administration’s approach towards Iran have in common is that the endgame is regime change. Other than that, what you see - I guess the other thing they have in common is the total incoherence of their approach. Look, North Korea and Iran, you can’t compare; it’s apples and oranges.
North Korea is a declared nuclear power. They even declared their intent to have nuclear weapons. They haven’t hidden this from anybody. They withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in total conformity with the rule of law. They put the world on notice. They said, we will not participate. They gave them the appropriate timeline. They invited the inspectors out. And then, surprise, surprise, despite the fact that the Bush administration said, “Well, they’re just bluffing,” well, they’re not bluffing. They just popped one off. And guess what. If we continue to push North Korea irresponsibly - because again, what are we talking about here?
What do we want to achieve in North Korea? Do we really care about the North Korean people, want human rights to - no, regime change. This is all about regime change. This is about the United States being able to dictate the terms of coexistence with everybody else in the world. Do people understand that our policy towards China is regime change? Do they understand what the ramifications of that is? That’s what’s going on with North Korea. And we shouldn’t be surprised that they did exactly what they said they were going to do.
Now, we take Iran. Iran is a nation that says, “We don’t have a nuclear weapons program. We have no intention.” In fact, when North Korea exploded their device, the Iranians condemned it. They said nuclear weapons cannot be part of a global equation. And yet, we continue to try and lump them together as if North Korea and Iran are part and parcel of the same policy. Well, maybe they are part and parcel of the same incoherent approach that the Bush administration has taken to dealing with nuclear proliferation.
AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter, you just returned from Iran?
SCOTT RITTER: I came - I was in Iran in early September, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And what did you do there?
SCOTT RITTER: I went there as a journalist for Nation magazine. I was there to research an article that hopefully will come out some time in November. You know, it was funny, the Iranian government, like many governments, says one thing, does another. I had a whole agenda that had been agreed upon in advance, that I was going to go and interview X, interview Y, visit sites, see etc. And I got there to find out that the Iranian government, regardless of what we had coordinated here in the United States, had no clue (a) that I was coming and (b) that I had an agenda. So, I show up in Iran, and I’m on my own.
What an eye-opening experience to be on your own in a nation that has been called an Islamic fascist state. I have been to dictatorships in the Middle East. I have been to nations that have a high security profile. Iran is not one of these nations. I’m a former intelligence officer who has stated some pretty strong positions on Iran, and yet I had full freedom of movement in Iran with no interference whatsoever. And as a result, although I didn’t have the approved agenda, I had my own agenda, which allowed me to interview senior government officials, senior military officials, senior intelligence officials, and to visit sites that were deemed sensitive. The conclusion is that the American media has gotten it wrong on Iran. It’s a very modern, westernized, pro-Western, and surprisingly pro-American country that does not constitute a threat to the United States whatsoever.
AMY GOODMAN: You’re a former weapons inspector in Iraq.
SCOTT RITTER: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about similarities or differences you see between the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and what’s happening now with Iran?
SCOTT RITTER: The biggest similarity that we need to point out is that in both cases no evidence was put forward to sustain the allegations that are being made. Iraq was accused of having weapons of mass destruction programs, reconstituting chemical, biological, nuclear, long-range ballistic missile programs. There was an inspection process in place that had access, full access to the facilities in question, and no data was derived from these inspections that backed up the Bush administration's allegations. And yet, Iraq was told, it’s not up to the inspectors to find the weapons. It’s up to Iraq to prove they don't exist. Iraq had to prove a negative. And they couldn't. We now know that in 1991, Saddam Hussein had destroyed the totality of his weapons programs. There weren’t any left to find, discover. There was no threat.
We now have Iran. It’s alleged to have a nuclear weapons program. And yet the International Atomic Energy Agency, the inspectors who have had full access to the sites in Iran, have come out and said, “Well, we can’t say that there isn’t a secret program that we don’t know about. What we can say, as a direct result of our investigations, there is no data whatsoever to sustain the Bush administration's claims that there is a nuclear weapons program.” And yet, the Bush administration once again is putting the onus on Iran, saying, “It’s not up to the inspectors to find the nuclear weapons program. It’s up to the Iranians to prove that one doesn’t exist.” Why do we go down this path? Because you can’t prove a negative. There’s nothing Iran can do that will satisfy the Bush administration, because the policy at the end of the day is not about nonproliferation, it’s not about disarmament. It’s about regime change. And all the Bush administration wants to do is to create the conditions that support their ultimate objective of military intervention.
AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter, one of the things you talk about in your book is that no attention has been paid to the Supreme Leader's pronouncement in the form of a fatwa, that Iran rejects outright the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
SCOTT RITTER: Well, when we say “Supreme Leader,” first of all, most Americans are going to scratch their head and say, “Who?” because, you see, we have a poster boy for demonization out there. His name is Ahmadinejad. He’s the idiot that comes out and says really stupid vile things, such as, “It is the goal of Iran to wipe Israel off the face of the world,” and he makes ridiculous statements about the United States and etc. And, of course, man, he - it’s a field day for the American media, for the Western media, because you get all the little sound bites out there, Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad, president of Iran. But what people don't understand is, while he can vocalize, his finger is not on any button of power. If you read the Iranian constitution, you’ll see that the president of Iran is almost a figurehead.
The true power in Iran rests with the Supreme Leader. The Supreme Leader is the Ayatollah Khamenei. He is supported by an organization called the Guardian Council. Then there’s another group called the Expediency Council. These are the people that control the military, the police, the nuclear program, all the instruments of power. And not only has the Supreme Leader issued a fatwa that says that nuclear weapons are not compatible with Islamic law, with the Shia belief system that he is responsible, in 2003 he actually reached out to the Bush administration via the Swiss embassy and said, “Look, we would like to normalize relations with the United States. We’d like to initiate a process that leads to a peace treaty between Israel and Iran.” Get this, Israel and Iran. He’s not saying, “We want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.” He is saying, “We want peace with Israel.” And they were willing to put their nuclear program on the table.
Why didn’t the Bush administration embrace this? Because that leads to a process of normalization, where the United States recognizes the legitimacy of the theocracy and is willing to peacefully coexist with the theocracy. That’s not the Bush administration's position. They want the theocracy gone. They will do nothing that legitimizes that, nothing that sustains peace. They rejected peace. So, it’s not Ahmadinejad that represents the threat to international peace and security when it comes to American-Iranian relations. It’s the Bush administration, because the Bush administration refuses to put peace on the table. Bush talks about diplomacy. There will not be diplomacy, true diplomacy, until he puts Condoleezza Rice on an airplane, sends her to Tehran to talk to the Supreme Leader.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Scott Ritter. He has written a new book. It’s called: Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change. And the picture on the cover has an image of a U.S. gun, of a gun with an American flag. Talk about the image you have here and the backdrop of it.
SCOTT RITTER: You know, I wish I could take credit for that image. But unfortunately, that is the work of - not unfortunately, fortunately that’s the work of a really good graphic designer with Nation Books who came up with, I think, a cover that is not only attractive but symbolic. But I think the point is here that Iran is the target. You know, we talk about America and the symbols of America. And yet, we have an American flag transformed into a symbol that the world recognizes when you say the United States: a weapon. And it’s very sad to think of the United States, the nation that’s supposed to espouse human rights, individual civil liberties, that when you talk about the United States around the world today, they think about us only in terms of violence, violence brought on by guns, because that’s what we’ve become, a nation of violence.
AMY GOODMAN: The scenario you envision around the U.S. and Iran?
SCOTT RITTER: War. The bottom line is that the Bush administration has two more years left to govern here in the United States. They have a policy of regional transformation in the Middle East: regime change. We see that policy in play today in Iraq with all of its horrible manifestations. You’d think that they would have learned something, but they haven’t. They continue to articulate that Iran needs to be transformed into a viable democracy, although, according to your news broadcast today and then other news coming out, it looks like we’re going to give up on democracy in Iraq.
Look, Bush has already said that he doesn’t want to leave Iran to the next president, that this is a problem he needs to solve now. And the other factor that we haven’t woven in here that we need to is the role played by Israel in pressuring the United States for a very aggressive stance against Iran. Israel has drawn a red line that says, not only will they not tolerate a nuclear weapons program in Iran, they will not tolerate anything dealing with nuclear energy, especially enrichment, that could be used in a nuclear program. So, even if Iran is telling the truth - Iran says, “We have no nuclear weapons program. We just want peaceful nuclear energy” - Israel says, “So long as Iran has any enrichment capability, this constitutes a threat to Israel,” and they are pressuring the United States to take forceful action.
AMY GOODMAN: In what way?
SCOTT RITTER: Oh, it’s diplomatic pressure. We see - starting in 2002, you saw the Israeli prime minister and the defense minister come running to the United States in the lead-up to the war with Iraq, saying, “Hey, let's not worry too much about Iraq. That’s not really a big problem. I know we’ve got a lot of rhetoric going on about weapons of mass destruction, but the big problem’s Iran.” And the Bush administration said, “We don't want to talk about Iran right now. We’re dealing with Iraq.” In the immediate aftermath of the war, Israel came and said, “Alright, thank you for getting rid of Saddam. We now want you to focus on Iran.” And the United States continued to put Iran on the back burner. And it wasn’t until the Israeli government leaked some intelligence to an Iranian opposition group, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, who came out and said, “Hey, look, there’s this site in Natanz. They’re doing enrichment there.” And suddenly the United States was forced to say, “Oh, we’ve got to put Iran back on the front burner.” And it’s been Israel that’s been dictating the pace of media operations, let’s say, on Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Something the media says is that Iran doesn’t need nuclear power - it has plenty of oil - that nuclear power is just its way of getting nuclear weapons.
SCOTT RITTER: Well, there can be no doubt that Iran has plenty of oil, but that oil is the only thing Iran has going for it, in terms of a viable world-class economy. In 1976, the Shah of Iran came to the United States, sent his representatives to intercede and say, “Look, we’ve done an analysis, and we’ve got a finite amount of oil. And right now we need to export it. And if we don't export it, we don't make money, etc. We don't have enough oil to sustain this. We need to come up with an indigenous energy policy that frees up our oil for exportation. We want to use nuclear energy.” And the U.S. government went, “Good idea, Shah. We're all for it.” That was Gerald Ford.
The chief of staff of the White House at the time was Dick Cheney. The Secretary of Defense was Donald Rumsfeld. So, this argument that both Cheney and Rumsfeld put out today that Iran is a nation awash in a sea of oil, there is no need for a nuclear energy program, they both supported Iran's goals of achieving nuclear energy in 1976. Not only nuclear energy, but they also supported the Shah when he said, “We cannot allow a nuclear energy program’s fuel to be held hostage by the vagaries of sanctions and war. We need an indigenous fuel-manufacturing capability inclusive of the full uranium enrichment process.” And guess what the U.S. government said in 1976. “No problem, Shah. Good deal.” Of course, in 1979, the Islamists come in and suddenly we change our opinion. The bottom line is, Iran has every right legally to a nuclear energy program, and economically, we’ve already deemed it a responsible way to go.
AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter, both the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner have said covert actions have already begun in Iran, U.S. military. Do you think that is true?
SCOTT RITTER: I respect the reporting of Seymour Hersh. I respect the analysis of Sam Gardiner. And I respect the integrity of people who have talked to me who are in a position to know. Look, we’re already overflying Iran with unmanned aerial vehicles, pilotless drones. On the ground, the CIA is recruiting Mojahedin-e-Khalq, recruiting Kurds, recruiting Azeris, who are operating inside Iran on behalf of the United States of America. And there is reason to believe that we’ve actually put uniformed members of the United States Armed Forces and American citizens operating as CIA paramilitaries inside Iranian territory to gather intelligence.
Now, when you violate the borders and the airspace of a sovereign nation with paramilitary and military forces, that’s an act of war. That’s an act of war. So, when Americans say, “Ah, there’s not going to be a war in Iran,” there's already a war in Iran. We’re at war with Iran. We’re just not in the declared conventional stage of the war. The Bush administration has a policy of regime change. They’re going to use the military, and the military is being used.
AMY GOODMAN: We only have a minute, but the role of the media in all this. In the lead-up to the invasion, they slammed you, they smeared you, as you were a UN weapons inspector who was opposed to the invasion.
SCOTT RITTER: Well, you know, they can come at me again all they want. I could care less. It’s like water off a duck's back. The problem’s not me. The issue is not me. The issue is truth and facts. I think it’s clear today that we weren’t given the truth and the facts about the reality of Iraq in the lead-up to the war, and it's clear the media is not doing the same with Iran. We are being preprogrammed to accept, at face value, true anything negative about Iran. That’s one of the reasons why I wrote the book, to put it into a proper perspective.
AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter. His book is Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change. He is a former UN weapons inspector. And tonight, you will be at the Ethical Culture Society in New York City, along with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=67&ItemID=11209
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