"damming the flood: haiti, aristide, and the politics of containment," peter hallward


take-home: primarily, the book is a thoroughly convincing chronicle of the savage, imperial war waged by haiti's comprador elites (and their foreign backers in the US, France, Canada, and the UN) against the haitian people. much of the narrative centers on the person of jean-bertrand aristide--but as aristide himself insists in the interview first published in the LRB and reproduced in the back of the book, this framing of the destabilization campaign(s)--the marketing of the interventions as "humanitarian" and "popular" and directed surgically against only his person--serve to deflect attention from the real issues at-hand: namely, the indisputable fact that this campaign sought to protect, primarily, the thoroughly corrupt morphology of haitian society. it was an expression of the tragic power wielded by the landed elite and their bourgeois comrades-in-arms, arrayed as it was against the simple popularity and resounding base of lavalas ("the flood").

naturally, for a narrative as unfamiliar to the mainstream as this one, much of what hallward writes is deconstructive--his primary task is to expose the well-worn narratives of the coup-makers, according to which aristide embodies exactly what he and his movement have spent their political lives fighting (illegitimate authority, unjustifiable violence, and so on). here, i suppose, it is appropriate to note the critical reviews of hallward's book, which argue he has been too kind to aristide. but his critic (i speak here of the deibert review), let's be honest, has missed the point: hallward's book is not a "defense" of the aristide regime, insofar as defense requires deification (as deibert seems to believe--hence his logic that the several crimes committed by pro-aristide groups put aristide beyond redemption) . rather, it is an attempt to understand the ways in which this indisputably popular movement (was) collapsed. this is where hallward is triumphant, in my estimation.

his argument, approximately, is that we cannot make sense of the scandalous history told here unless we appreciate these few facts: (a) aristide and lavalas were overhwelmingly popular, as proved by the results of the 1990, 1996, 2000 (2x), and 2006 elections; (b) aristide and lavalas were constrained by the political and economic exigencies of the age (haiti's dependence on foreign aid for its budget, the 1994 compromise with clinton, the "impossibility" of fighting the elite on their own terms (i.e., violently and with weapons); (c) aristide, though linked to the violence in slums (which hallward rightly, against deibert's myopia, insists on contextualizing and politicizing), was far, far, far less repressive/violent than the regimes that preceded or succeeded him, or the "opposition" that "resisted" him; (d) aristide, qua radical theologian of liberation and leader of lavalas, was an uncompromising threat to the privileges of the haitian and international elite.

all of this, it needs repeating, is backed by copious statistics, research, and analysis. it is somewhat ironic that deibert's review targets precisely this element of hallward's book, given that deibert's central rebuttal, weak as it is (in the review, at least; i have not read the book), is backed first and foremost by information gleaned from interviews he himself conducted. in general, deibert's principal charge that a voyeuristic and naive hallward interviewed only aristide partisans is patently false. they inform the narrative of the book, of course, but this only complements the research. after all, hallward's insistence on remaining political is critical, i would say; it is precisely his insistence on understanding aristide as an activist--with the critical sympathy borne of solidarity--that makes this book. deibert, it seems, instead takes refuge under the (surreptitiously political) umbrella of a-politics: at best, "they're all bad, everyone's violent, it's all a mess." at its worst, of course, this conscience is activated inconsistently (or, rather, when the Empire comes calling), thereby never becoming more than a hackneyed cover for reactionary politics.

in other words, hallward's insistence on foregrounding structural violence, the changing contours of this violence owing to the elite and imperial insistence on neo-liberal compromises and state under-funding, the political history of haiti's repressive arms--all this informs the discussion of aristide's relationship to the "chimeres", as it must. without it, one will invariably lose themselves in deibert's journalistic moralizing.

that is the crux, and it is highly invigorating reading. a few points of interest, beyond this, though:

(1) exculpation--as already alluded to, hallward tries to balance, in his book, the rightly political nature of his work (qua defense of aristide against Empire and Reaction) with the equally appropriate (and tactical) character of his disagreements with some of aristide's individual decisions. the fact that these criticisms are generally articulated through his interviews with lavalas' activists adds a commendable layer of authenticity and honesty to his critique (though, against deibert, we have to insist that this is not, nor should it be, necessary). in particular, i think, aristide's 1994 decision to grant bill clinton his post-somalia "foreign policy victory" and return to haiti in a neoliberal straightjacket must be scrutinized--not, again, as a decision made by a power-hungry despot deserves to be decried, but rather as the tortured calculus of a comrade might be criticized. (in some sense, in the difference between these two attitudes, i think, lies everything worth fighting for--as soon as we abandon all attempts at making this distinction, it is over.) at some point in the book hallward mentions, through a FL activist, that it may have been better to prolong the democratic struggle than to return with clinton. this is important--though, again, simultaneously a decision that ought not to be pretentiously made by us, as readers, external to the struggle (again: hallward balances these twin necessities--of critique and of hostility to pretense--very, very well in the book).

(2) foreign conniving (USAID, UN, NGOs)--hallward, too, is tireless in his attempt to expose today's civilizing mission ("democracy promotion"). we are obligated, as everyone but the fools these days understands, to reject a priori the Empire and its military tentacles--to remain forever opposed to "hard power." but the theoretically-sophisticated and empirically-rich rebuttal of "soft power", here, is very valuable for reasons sometimes (though not very often, i guess) forgotten. it was, in haiti, this that stands out: (a) the all-too-obvious ways in which the ambitions and agenda of "soft power" are always constituted by "hard power"--it was the agenda and priorities of the US government that USAID and these NGOs towed; (b) the theoretical bankruptcy of "soft power," itself, when counterposed to the overwhelmingly popular force being deemed anti-democratic (here, again, we have the people--in whose name this treachery is being conducted--stripped of their subjectivity in order to be cast as objects fit for intervention and re-education).

as a critique reproduced by hallward emphasized, the bourgeois civil society "trained" and "constituted" by this bevy of NGOs is aristocratic, in form and inspiration. this comprador elite mobilize to tame politics precisely when their world is called into question. they then discover "democracy" and "human rights" and "student movements." "democracy promotion," as hallward argues, therefore represents the calling card of those who can afford to have discovered politics only once they're challenged by the consequences of its genuine flourishing. and the democracy promoters they enlist, of course, are precisely those who live off of politics, without living in it.

(3) reparations--the stunningly bankrupt story behind aristide's failed call for reparations needs to be made more widely known. in 1825, in order to lift the crippling blockade imposed on the newly free colony, haiti paid france 150 million francs (equivalent to france's annual revenue at the time; later the indemnity was reduced, generously, to 90 million ) as punishment for having freed itself. aristide, once it was clear that the international community was intent on suffocating his government by denying him aid, made this the rallying point of the bicentennial celebrations in 2004. haiti calculated that it was owed $21 billion dollars, give or take (at 5% interest). regis debray(!) headed the "commission on reflection" that recommended, to chirac, that they were NOT obligated to pay haiti back. hasta la victoria siempre, regis? (credit where credit is due: paul farmer delivered a brilliant speech to this committee, urging them to fork it out)

(4) populism, popularity, and the Party--hallward's correct insistence on the unremitting popularity of aristide does raise the spectre of populism. but perhaps it's sufficient to defer to his parallel observations about the strength of the people's self-organization, which is perhaps what defines the distinction between genuine and false popularity. after all, as laclau probably suggested in that book i never read, invoking the label of populism is as good (or rather, as bad) as calling the people stupid--and invariably tells us more about the sectarian doing the labeling, than the people. (the next step, of course, is to run off and become a hitchens or horowitz.)

more importantly, i'd argue, aristide raises some critical points about the party and "discipline," in the concluding interview. it is striking, in particular, to note the way in which he insists on the spontaneous, decentralized origins without presenting them as antithetical to the goal of "internal discipline" that he later introduces. it was refreshing to hear this--namely, that someone with years of experience with a genuinely popular politics understands, still, that we need not counterpose self-emancipation to discipline. in this fine balance, i think, lies our salvation.

(5) hope--only a direct quote will do:

[ARISTIDE:] No, I'm not discouraged. You teach philosophy, so let me couch my answer in philosophical terms. You know that we can think the category of being either in terms of potential or act, en puissance or en acte. This is a familiar Aristotelian distinction: being can be potential or actual. So long as it remains potential, you cannot touch it or confirm it. But it is, nonetheless, it exists. The collective consciousness of the Haitian people, their mobilization for democracy, these things may not have been fully actualized but they exist, they are real. This is what sustains me. I am sustained by this collective potential, the power of this collective potential being. This power has not yet been actualized, it has not yet been enacted in the building of enough schools, of more hospitals, more opportunities, but these things will come. The power is real and it is what animates the way forward.

for future reference, an abridged timeline (see page 155 for statistics on violence):

1915-1934: US invasion and occupation of Haiti; moulding of the army to serve imperial and elite interests.

1957-1971: Papa Doc / 1971-1986: Baby Doc (--> together, an estimated 50,000 Haitians were killed by the Duvaliers.)

1986-1990: Baby Doc deposed, Haiti ruled by the ruthless General Henry Namphy and then Prosper Avril. Elections postponed, but finally happen in 1990. (an estimated 700 to 1,000 were killed dead under Namphy/Avril).

December 1990-September 1991: Aristide elected with 67% of the vote. Rules till coup.

September 1991-September/October 1994: Brutal rule of Cedras and soon the infamous FRAPH (4,000 killed under Cedras).

October 1994-February 1996: Aristide finishes term. In December 1995, Rene Preval is elected with 88% of the vote (with Aristide's blessing).

February 1996-May/November 2000: Preval in power; Aristide, meanwhile, has formed Fanmi Lavalas, which wins landslide victories in the legislative/local elections in May (disputed, but Hallward exposes this propaganda) and then the presidential elections in November (92%).

February 2001-February 2004: Aristide rules in the face of mounting opposition from elite opposition groups (G184 and Convergence Democratique) and an "insurgency" of ex-army officers (begins in February 2004 in Gonaives). Destablization hurts, but doesn't do the trick. In sweep the US and French usurpers. (at most, Hallward says, human rights organizatons have pinned 30 political killings on the PNH and/or pro-Lavalas groups; he writes in great detail, also, about the individual massacres they have (mis)reported. as always, the devil is in the context).

March 2004-February 2006: Gerard Latortue appointed prime minister (in absurd move demonstrating the "democracy" being promoted, US ambassador stands in for the non-existent legislative branch and approves his appointment.) Thoroughly brutal rule, complemented by roving, vengeful paramilitaries (in the form of police and ex-army) and an unforgiving, corrupted occupation by the UN. (at least 3,000 killed under Latortue and the UN mission)

February 2006-: The people will not be vanquished. Preval wins an overwhelming majority, reduced to 51% by widespread, acknowledged voter fraud. But Aristide still in exile.

Pakistan needs scrutiny not charity
In October 2005, upon learning of the devastation that had been caused in Northern Pakistan by a massive earthquake, many of my British friends promptly emailed me with offers of help, ranging from money to filling in my duties at Cambridge while I visited the earthquake stricken region. At the time, I suggested to them that what countries like Pakistan need, even in the face of such calamities, is not charity but scrutiny. Pakistan is a rich country, with abundant natural as well as human resources. What keeps Pakistan from developing is not a lack of resources but the presence of an illegitimate, highly corrupt government, which is sustained not by the people of Pakistan but by powerful developed countries in the vanguard of movements for ‘good governance’, democracy and transparency. 160 million Pakistanis do not need charity from the British public. They need their scrutiny. They need them to deny oppressive governments legitimacy. And they need them to expose the double standards of their own government.

put away the flags:
On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed. Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?
(...) Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.
(...) On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our "Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence." After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: "We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country."
(...) We invaded Cuba in 1898 to liberate the Cubans, and went to war in the Philippines shortly after, as President McKinley put it, "to civilize and Christianize" the Filipino people.
(...) One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.
(...) We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history. We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

finding lessons in gaza's bloodshed:
Gaza has exposed, like no other experience in modern history, the hypocrisy of the US government's democracy charade; if it was true democracy that the United States was seeking, it would have acknowledged the Palestinian people's collective will and fostered dialogue with their representatives, as opposed to starvation and blockade and covert operations to topple the government.

fisk on "palestine":
How troublesome the Muslims of the Middle East are. First, we demand that the Palestinians embrace democracy and then they elect the wrong party - Hamas - and then Hamas wins a mini-civil war and presides over the Gaza Strip. And we Westerners still want to negotiate with the discredited President, Mahmoud Abbas. Today "Palestine" - and let's keep those quotation marks in place - has two prime ministers. Welcome to the Middle East.
(...) No one asked - on our side - which particular Israel Hamas was supposed to recognise. The Israel of 1948? The Israel of the post-1967 borders? The Israel which builds - and goes on building - vast settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, gobbling up even more of the 22 per cent of "Palestine" still left to negotiate over?
(...) And so today, we are supposed to talk to our faithful policeman, Mr Abbas, the "moderate" (as the BBC, CNN and Fox News refer to him) Palestinian leader, a man who wrote a 600-page book about Oslo without once mentioning the word "occupation", who always referred to Israeli "redeployment" rather than "withdrawal", a "leader" we can trust because he wears a tie and goes to the White House and says all the right things. The Palestinians didn't vote for Hamas because they wanted an Islamic republic - which is how Hamas's bloody victory will be represented - but because they were tired of the corruption of Mr Abbas's Fatah and the rotten nature of the "Palestinian Authority".
(...) Palestinians wanted an end to corruption - the cancer of the Arab world - and so they voted for Hamas and thus we, the all-wise, all-good West, decided to sanction them and starve them and bully them for exercising their free vote. Maybe we should offer "Palestine" EU membership if it would be gracious enough to vote for the right people
(...) All over the Middle East, it is the same. We support Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, even though he keeps warlords and drug barons in his government (and, by the way, we really are sorry about all those innocent Afghan civilians we are killing in our "war on terror" in the wastelands of Helmand province). We love Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, whose torturers have not yet finished with the Muslim Brotherhood politicians recently arrested outside Cairo, whose presidency received the warm support of Mrs - yes Mrs - George W Bush - and whose succession will almost certainly pass to his son, Gamal. We adore Muammar Gaddafi, the crazed dictator of Libya whose werewolves have murdered his opponents abroad, whose plot to murder King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia preceded Tony Blair's recent visit to Tripoli - Colonel Gaddafi, it should be remembered, was called a "statesman" by Jack Straw for abandoning his non-existent nuclear ambitions - and whose "democracy" is perfectly acceptable to us because he is on our side in the "war on terror". Yes, and we love King Abdullah's unconstitutional monarchy in Jordan, and all the princes and emirs of the Gulf, especially those who are paid such vast bribes by our arms companies that even Scotland Yard has to close down its investigations on the orders of our prime minister - and yes, I can indeed see why he doesn't like our coverage of what he quaintly calls "the Middle East". If only the Arabs - and the Iranians - would support our kings and shahs and princes whose sons and daughters are educated at Oxford and Harvard, how much easier the "Middle East" would be to control.
(...) If only Lebanon was a home-grown democracy like our own little back-lawn countries - Belgium, for example, or Luxembourg. But no, those pesky Middle Easterners vote for the wrong people, support the wrong people, love the wrong people, don't behave like us civilised Westerners.
(...) So what will we do? Support the reoccupation of Gaza perhaps? Certainly we will not criticise Israel. And we shall go on giving our affection to the kings and princes and unlovely presidents of the Middle East until the whole place blows up in our faces and then we shall say - as we are already saying of the Iraqis - that they don't deserve our sacrifice and our love.

chronicling obscene politics:
In the May 15 Republican debate in South Carolina, Senator John McCain of Arizona suggested that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would "follow us home" from Iraq -- a comment some viewers may have taken to mean that bin Laden was in Iraq, which he is not.
(...) Former New York mayor Rudolph Guiliani asserted, in response to a question about Iraq, that "these people want to follow us here and they have followed us here. Fort Dix happened a week ago." However, none of the six people arrested for allegedly plotting to attack soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey were from Iraq.
(...) "They want to bring down the West, particularly us," Romney declared. "And they've come together as Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, with that intent."
(...) The belief that there is a clear connection between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks has been a key determinant of support for the war. A Harris poll taken two weeks before the 2004 presidential election found that a majority of Bush's supporters believed that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks -- a claim that Bush has never made. Eighty-four percent believed that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had "strong links" with Al Qaeda, a claim that intelligence officials have long disputed.
(...) Romney said Friday: "You see, the terrorists are fighting a war on us. We've got to make sure that we're fighting a war on them."
(...) Romney's national press secretary, Kevin Madden, said the former governor's linking of Shia, Sunni, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood was based on their common hostility to the West. "I think [Romney's statement] was much more directed at intent -- they all share a common ideology or intent to bring down Western governments," Madden said. "There's a shared attempt to fight any beachhead of democracy in that region."

well, at least these troops spread democracy:
A federal judge said Friday that the U.S. Army's military academy at West Point can refuse to let outsiders on campus for an anti-war demonstration during Vice President Cheney's commencement speech.
(...) The commander, Brian Crawford, said in a written statement that protests had never been allowed on the grounds and could be "inconsistent with the military mission and can detract from the good order, discipline, security, morale or loyalty of the soldiers." The would-be protesters argued that Cheney is likely to speak in support of the war in Iraq and they should be allowed to express an opposing view.

new imperial strategy, same imperial imperative:Whereas military invasions and installing dictatorships have traditionally been the way to control foreign populations and keep them out of the way of business, the U.S. government has now developed a new strategy that is not so messy or brutal, and much more sleek; so sleek, in fact, that it’s almost invisible.
(...) It was so invisible in Serbia that no one seemed to notice in 2000 when a regime was toppled, the country was opened to massive privatization, and huge public-sector industries, businesses, and natural resources fell into the hands of U.S. and multinational corporations. Likewise, few have noticed as countries in the former Soviet-bloc have recently been victims of the same strategy, with the exact same results.
(...) Nations that do not give in to the demands of the empire and the expansion of global capitalism are targeted by an undercover, well-designed plan to change the political situation in the country, and open it up to corporate investors. U.S.-supported groups inside the country overthrow the president, making it seem like there is no outside intervention. And now, Washington has turned toward its new biggest threat: Latin America, and more specifically, Venezuela.
(...) The Rise of the New World Order: During the second half of the twentieth century, capitalists in the first world began to saturate domestic opportunities for investment and growth. Big business reached a point where possibilities for expansion within national borders were mostly exhausted, and the only option for growth was to look for new opportunities abroad. Growing corporate conglomerates looked to expand their operations throughout the world, investing, privatizing, and buying up everything they could get their hands on. National capital was looking to go international, and by the end of the century, capitalism had become truly global. "Get big, or get eaten," was their new philosophy, and they decided to get big by eating whole nations. With the help of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, economies everywhere were opened up to privatization. The phone systems, electrical grids, water systems, and natural resources were bought up by wealthy capitalists in countries around the world. Free-market capitalism now ruled the day; a paradise for international capital as the world’s wealth became more and more concentrated in their hands. [1] Some nations, however, were determined to not be eaten. Privatization was an unpopular idea among populations who had developed the crazy idea that their natural resources belonged to them, and not foreign corporations. Resistance developed in several areas of the world, and some nations would not consent to the logic of global capitalism. Washington, however, was determined to open the world up to corporate expansion. They would oblige those countries that didn’t comply, either by force or by cunning.
[yugoslavia as case-study]
(...) And it’s not hard to see why. After the toppling of the Milosevic regime allowed for mass privatization, all that remained of the formerly socialist country, including some of Europe’s largest reserves of natural resources, soon fell into the hands of U.S. and international investors.
(...) [good history, but hardly a new strategy, right?] As implausible as it might sound, it was exactly this strategy that toppled Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia in 2000. After the war in Kosovo and NATO bombing had failed to produce regime change, the United States worked to strengthen Milosevic’s internal opponents by uniting them behind one candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, and pumping about $40 million into his election campaign. [3] U.S.-funded NGO’s and electoral consultants helped create a propaganda campaign surrounding the elections, and worked behind the scenes to help organize mass resistance to the Milosevic regime. [4] U.S.-trained “election helpers” were deployed around the country on election day to monitor results. The U.S. even provided young activists with thousands of cans of spray paint and campaign stickers to cover the country with anti-Milosevic slogans. [5]
(...) According to official results of the first round elections neither candidate had won a majority of the vote, and so it would require a second round run-off. But U.S. consultants published their own “exit polls” giving Kostunica a huge victory and Milosevic refused to recognize them. [6] The opposition claimed fraud and U.S.-backed groups staged acts of non-violent resistance to put pressure on the government. Armed groups stormed the Federal Assembly and the state television headquarters. [7] Massive protests and rebellion forced Milosevic to step down. There would be no second round election, and Washington’s candidate Vojislav Kostunica took power. The strategy had worked.
(...) The US government had worked on dismantling and dividing the socialist Yugoslavia for years, supporting any and all independence movements within the individual provinces, including the 1999 military intervention to help the province of Kosovo break away. What was once a relative economic success under the famous Josip Tito, the socialist economy, based on socially-owned, worker-controlled companies, did not allow for foreign investment or US capital. This was a mortal sin in modern global capitalism. As Michael Parenti put it: “Yugoslavia was the only country in Eastern Europe that would not dismantle its welfare state and public sector economy. It was the only one that did not beg for entry into NATO. It was - and what's left of it, still is - charting an independent course not in keeping with the New World Order.” [9]
(...) The rewards for their work were substantial. Once Milosevic was gone, one of the first actions taken by the new government was the to repeal the 1997 privatization law and allow 70% of a company to be sold to foreign investors. [10] In 2004 the UN Mission in Kosovo announced the privatization of 500 enterprises, and U.S. corporations came out the big winners. Phillip Morris bought up a $580 million tobacco factory, U.S. Steel got a $250 million deal on a steel producer, Coca-Cola grabbed a bottled water producer for $21 million, and the list goes on. [11]
(...) In addition, western investors now had access to what the New York Times called the “war’s glittering prize,” the second largest coal reserves in Europe and large reserves of lead, zinc, gold, silver, and, even petroleum. [12] And the real gem was located in the province of Kosovo; the huge Trepca mine complex, valued at over $5 billion, now open to the highest bidder. [13]
(...) The success of the strategy in Serbia was an important lesson for the Washington policy makers. They would repeat it several more times throughout Eastern Europe in places like Georgia (2003), the Ukraine (2004) Kyrgyzstan (2005), and Belarus (unsuccessfully in 2001). In what became known as the “Color Revolutions,” each U.S.-aided movement would remove a regime in exchange for one more favorable to the “free-market” policies promoted by Washington. [14] The preferred strategy for regime change became this new sort of non-violent resistance, and now the empire turned its gaze on South America, where a new threat to global capitalism had suddenly emerged.
(...) You can be sure that corporate investors would love to get their hands on the PDVSA company, along with other public sector companies in Venezuela. In fact, they were doing just that throughout the 1990’s. By 1998, multinational corporations had already bought up the national phone company, the largest electricity company, and PDVSA was going through what they called an “opening” to international capital; a prettier way of saying privatization. [16]
(...) But that same year, Hugo Chavez was elected president on an anti-imperialist platform, and the auctioning-off of Venezuela came to an abrupt halt. In fact, Hugo Chavez has become a real problem for the corporate imperialists and their servants in Washington. Not only has he stopped privatization, but he is reversing it by re-nationalizing all that was once privatized. The privatization of the state oil company is now prohibited by law, and his government has taken complete control of it, using it to finance the country’s development.
(...) And so, just as they did in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and others, Washington has deployed its forces in Venezuela with the intention of getting rid of the Chavez menace. After trying many things over the years including a short-lived coup, electoral manipulation, and mass protests, Washington has not been able to topple the popular leader. But they haven’t given up. To the contrary, they’ve actually just continued to increase their level of involvement.
(...) The new imperial strategy includes something called “American Corners.” These “corners” are small offices set up by Washington throughout the target country that basically serve as mini-embassies. It is not completely clear what exactly these “corners” do, but inside you will find an array of information about the United States, including study abroad opportunities, English classes, and pro-U.S. propaganda. On top of this, the mini-embassies also organize events, trainings, and lectures for young students. Interestingly, they seem to be very abundant in countries that Washington seeks to destabilize.
(...) As reported by Reuters, the Venezuelan opposition is already learning the Serbian tactics to overthrow a regime from a retired U.S. army colonel named Robert Helvey: “Helvey, who has taught young activists in Myanmar and Serbian students who helped topple the former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, is giving courses on non-violent opposition tactics this week at an east Caracas university,” said the article. “Neither Helvey nor the organizers of the Caracas seminar would give details of exactly what opposition tactics were being taught. But in his work in Serbia before Milosevic’s fall, Helvey briefed students on ways to organize a strike and on how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial regime,” reported Reuters. [19]
(...) I attended one of Foley’s speeches and, as expected, it was a complete pro-U.S. propaganda campaign imposed upon the university students. The professor gave exactly the message that the U.S. Embassy had paid him to give, speaking wonders about American society and “American democracy.” According to Foley, the United States solves all of its problems by tolerance for others and an all-inclusive “dialogue,” between opposing parties. And sending a clear hint to the Venezuelan students, Foley implied that any government that does not live up to these standards “must be overthrown.” [21]
(...) The same “electoral consultants” that were used in Serbia, the Washington-based Penn, Schoen and Berland, have also been used in Venezuela to publish fake exit polls in an effort to cast doubt on Venezuelan elections. This strategy of electoral manipulation was used during the 2004 recall referendum when the U.S.-funded NGO Sumate and the Penn, Schoen and Berland firm released false exit polls claiming that Chavez had lost the referendum. They did the same thing before the 2006 elections, claiming that Chavez’ opponent “clearly has the momentum.” [23] Both in 2004 and 2006 the fake polls would give credence to the opposition’s claims of fraud with the hope of producing massive protests against the government. The strategy mostly failed, but it did cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Chavez government and weakened its image internationally.
(...) It was exactly this kind of protest in 2002 that led to dozens of deaths, hundreds wounded, and the temporary overthrow of the Chavez government. Private media channels like RCTV manipulated video footage to blame deaths on Chavez supporters, and condemned the government for human rights abuses. So this time government officials have called on pro-government activists to monitor the opposition protests with photos and video on May 27th and May 28th in order to avoid a situation similar to the 2002 coup.
(...) What most protesters probably do not know is that they are simply pawns in a larger strategy to open up the world to “free-market” global capitalism and corporate-dominated privatizations. While huge multinational corporations carve up the world among themselves, small nations like Serbia and Venezuela are simply unfortunate obstacles to their objectives. In the worldwide scramble to see who will get bigger, and who will get eaten, the fact that some countries would prefer not to be eaten simply doesn’t matter to the bureaucrats in Washington.

US meddling in gaza:But the news that really upset many here was word of the Israeli government briefly opening the Rafah crossing with Egypt, which it has shut down 50% of the year to average residents here, to allow US-funded, Jordanian-trained, Fatah reinforcements (450 members of the elite Badr Brigade) inside.
(...) To quote Alistair Crooke, "the US is not only not interested in dealing with Hamas, it is working to ensure its failure" - a policy promoted and openly acknowledged by the American deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams.
(...) It has become a city decaying, debilitated, and on the verge of implosion; its people exposed to the most violent form of subjugation, collectively sentenced to a life in prison by global power colluding to unwind the very fabric of their society, punishing them where no crime existed.
(...) The US has allocated as much as $84 million to this end, directly funding president Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah strongman Mohammad Dahlan and their security forces, which are often one and the same as the Fatah militias engaged in bitter battles with Hamas and even firing missiles at Israel.
(...) "We all know what's going to happen next," he continued. "Government officials will convene with the military commanders, and ask them to show restraint. The gunmen will withdraw from the streets. And for a few more weeks, things will be calm again. We're in a maelstrom and I can't really see a way out. Gaza is burning. And the world is watching."

extremism in palestine:
For sometime, Palestinian Islamic and nationalist leaders have been warning that the Israeli, American and European economic embargo against the democratically-elected Palestinian government, including the recently formed broad-based government of national unity, is driving Palestinian society towards extremism.
(...) Hamas called the attackers "misguided" people who "lightly and easily spill the blood of Palestinians". Fatah called the perpetrators "representatives of dark forces" and "murderers".
(...) It is difficult to ascertain the numerical strength of the Salafis, especially those who are militant, in the occupied territories. However, it is well known that they are concentrated in the Gaza Strip and are spreading to the West Bank as well.
(...) And when the US, Israel, the EU and most Arab regimes imposed an exceptionally harsh economic, financial and political blockade on the Hamas-led Palestinian government, which pushed the bulk of Palestinian society on to the brink of poverty, the Salafis and others, like Hizb Al-Tahrir, confronted erstwhile proponents of Hamas's participation in elections, telling them "didn't we tell you so?"
(...) It is thus widely presumed that many, if not most, of those joining the ranks of Al-Qaeda, particularly in the Gaza Strip, are actually former Hamas supporters and members who have come to the conclusion that the West's real purpose is to destroy Islam, not to promote democracy, and that the only way to stop this is through Jihad.
(...) Moreover, it is an almost foregone conclusion that Israel stands to benefit from the strengthening of Al-Qaeda amongst Palestinians, especially in the short run, as it will enable Israel to claim that it has a common cause with the West in combating "Islamic terror", thus obtaining an additional excuse to consolidate its occupation and theft of Palestinian land.
(...) In any case, what is abundantly clear is that the betrayal by the West of the Palestinians, and the continuation of the blockade on the Palestinian government is driving many Palestinians towards Al-Qaeda. This should be taken as a serious warning of things to come, if the present trend continues, and if American, Israeli and European policies continue to nourish the root causes of extremism and terrorism in the Middle East by narrowing Palestinian horizons and effectively giving Israel a carte blanche to finish its goal of dispossession, at the expense of the Palestinian people.

interview with john pilger:
"It is too easy," Pilger says, "for Western journalists to see humanity in terms of its usefulness to 'our' interests and to follow government agendas that ordain good and bad tyrants, worthy and unworthy victims and present 'our' policies as always benign when the opposite is usually true. It's the journalist's job, first of all, to look in the mirror of his own society."
(...) For many of your readers, this is known. However, for others in the West, the propaganda that has masked Washington’s ambitions has been entrenched, with its roots in the incessant celebration of World War Two, the “good war”, then “victory” in the cold war. For these people, the “goodness” of US power represents “us”. Thanks to Bush and his cabal, and to Blair, the scales have fallen from millions of eyes. I would like “The War on Democracy” to contribute something to this awakening.
(...) Read Greg Grandin’s recent, excellent history (I interview him in the film) in which he makes the case that Latin America has been Washington’s “workshop” for developing and honing and rewarding its imperial impulses elsewhere. For example, when the US “retreated” from Southeast Asia, where did its “democracy builders” go to reclaim their “vision”? Latin America. The result was the murderous assaults on Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, and the darkness of “Operation Condor” in the southern cone. This was Ronald Reagan’s “war on terror”, which of course was a war of terror that provided basic training for those now running the Bush/Cheney “long war” in the Middle East and elsewhere.
(...) It’s humbling for someone coming from prosperous Europe to witness the poorest taking charge of their lives, with people rarely asking, as we in the West often ask, “What can I do?” They know what to do. In Cochabamba, Bolivia, the population barricaded their city until they began to take control of their water. In El Alto, perhaps the poorest city on the continent, people stood against a repressive regime until it fell. This is not to suggest that complete independence has been won. Venezuela’s economy, for example, is still very much a “neo-liberal” economy that continues to reward those with capital. The changes made under Chavez are extraordinary – in grassroots democracy, health care, education and the sheer uplifting of people’s lives – but true equity and social justice and freedom from corruption remain distant goals. Venezuela’s well-off complain endlessly that their economic power has been diminished; it hasn’t; economic growth has never been higher, business has never been better. What the rich no longer own is the government. And when the majority own the economy, true independence will be in sight. That’s true everywhere.
(...) doubt that he began as a socialist when he won power in 1998 – which makes his political journey all the more interesting. Clearly, he was always a reformer who paid respect to his impoverished roots. Certainly, the Venezuelan economy today is not socialist; perhaps it’s on the way to becoming something like the social economy of Britain under the reforming Attlee Labour government. He is probably what Europeans used to be proud to call themselves: a social democrat. Look, this game of labels is pretty pointless; he is an original and he inspires; so let’s see where the Bolivarian project goes. True power for enduring change can only be sustained at the grassroots, and Chavez’s strength is that he has inspired ordinary people to believe in alternatives to the old venal order.

recent nigerian history:
Even the European Union observer mission stated that the "elections have not lived up to the hopes and expectations of the Nigerian people and the process cannot be considered to have been credible,". This is a departure from 1999 and 2003 when the team leaders of EU observers in Nigerian elections noted irregularities, but did not condemn the process. In the weeks following the elections in 1999, I attended a forum on Nigeria in Bonn and had to confront the leadership of the EU observer mission that argued that though the elections of 99 were rigged, the outcome reflected the wishes of the Nigerian people. Such warped conclusion only reflected the policy of the EU at the time: to play safe with the Nigerian ruling clusters with the expectation that the new government would work to maintain stability at a level necessary to guarantee continued profits from Niger Delta oil and gas supplies, and the revenue for debt servicing.
(...) It did not matter much to the "international community" at the time that the mass of the Nigerian people had been disenfranchised by a military transition programme that denied pro-democracy groups and others the right to participate in the elections. General Abdusalami Abubakar (who became Head of State after his colleague, General Sani Abacha dropped dead in unclear circumstances) had decreed elaborate conditions and criteria for political parties to meet for participation in elections. Some of the criteria included having offices and staff in Abuja and in the over 700 local government councils across the country. Only retired soldiers and politicians that had participated in the grand looting of Nigerian oil revenues could cough up the money and hire people to meet those conditions.
(...) In 1999, the Clinton administration of the United States was more comfortable with the military plan than the popular alternative being proffered by groups like the United Action for Democracy, National Conscience, Democratic Alternative, Campaign for Democracy, Chikoko Movement, Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) etc. As a part of the Nigerian pro-democracy movement in the late 90's the IYC in its Kaiama Declaration had condemned the General Abdusalami transition programme as being undemocratic while demanding for an SNC. With mass protests in the streets and creeks of the Niger Delta, the youths of Ijawland insisted on justice and made it impossible for the soldiers to conduct their elections in Bayelsa state, for a month. In the heat of the moment, President Clinton had sent ex President Jimmy Carter to meet with Ijaw Youth leaders in Port Harcourt. Carter said that the US government supported the conduct of elections as planned by the military while rejecting all the key democratic demands from the Niger Delta peoples, as indeed the demands for free multi party democracy and SNC.
(...) If the EU and the US expected the new regime of General Obasanjo, which emerged after the elections of 1999, to maintain social stability, they got it wrong. With Nigerian peoples cut off from political representation as a result of rigged elections, corruption and increasing impoverishment flamed anger among the people. And months after those elections, thousands of Nigerian had perished in ethnic violence in the north of the country. In the south, marginalized Niger Delta youths got armed and attacked the oil and gas industry while challenging the legitimacy of the state. This brought panic to the global oil market and threatened the energy security of the international community.
(...) Taking oil workers hostage in the oil fields of the Niger Delta is merely symptom of a system in collapse. The entire Nigerian people have been held hostage by criminal gangs occupying the State House at Abuja.

statement from RAWA:
The American forces act so reckless and hasty in killing innocent civilians everyday, that they seem to have come here for taking revenge of the 3,000 victims of the 9/11 from the people rather than to targeting the terrorist of their own creation, the Taliban. The death toll of these innocents throughout Afghanistan is now much higher than that of 9/11. This has indeed provoked and enraged the wrath of the people, encouraging the Taliban terrorists, who definitely receive the maximum benefits.
(...) The US first installed the Northern Alliance criminals. Now they find ways to share power with Gulbaddin, Taliban terrorists, using Mojaddedi, their former godfather as the mediator just to get out from the current swamp. This indicates more than ever the dependency of the Afghan government and the true nature of the so called "War on Terrorism." As has been proven again and again, the US and the UN look only for their vested interest in Afghanistan and do not care for the freedom, democracy and prosperity of Afghan people. The Bush Administration and the UN bring the most insane fundamentalists and Khalqies and Purchamies traitors to one table, and once they grind their teeth to each other, they will use one against another.
(...) The pro-government intellectuals and politicians cry, blaming Pakistan as the only cause of Afghanistan's ongoing tragedies. Yet they forget that many of their lords like Rabbani, Massoud, Sayyaf, Qanoni and others grew up, were nurtured and became "leaders" through the ISI with some still continuing to worship this agency. On the other hand, suppose this or that circle in Pakistan stopped supporting the Taliban, will the current crisis end? Will the barbaric rule of the Northern Alliance criminals cease? Afghanis who love their country know the answer: "No!" With the Iranian regime's interference obviously being far more dreadful than that of Pakistan's, Karzai cannot wrap his government's failures in this garb any longer.
(...) The last five years have given a clear message to our people, particularly the anti-fundamentalists and democratic forces, that neither the US nor any outside force can liberate this ill-fated nation from the fetters of the fundamentalists. Instead we require a decisive and united struggle, relying on our own power, courage, and daring sacrifice as we unite with freedom-loving people around the world.

azmi bishara on implanting democracy:
When you consider that the invasion was preceded by 10 years of war followed by 15 years of sanctions, the fall wasn't "easy" by any count. The importance of studying the fall of Baghdad resides in the insight it gives into how a regime that rested on a personality cult grew hollow. It sheds light on a type of regime that disengaged itself from the concerns, rights and interests of the people, that lumped its citizens into an amorphous body called "the masses", and that believed that slogans were enough to make this body move, as though it had a single head to process the information it was fed.
(...) In Iraq, the eruption of popular energies came after the collapse of the regime that had kept such a tight cap on them. The explosion took two trajectories: one directed inwards, as previously repressed conflicts between diverse social forces erupted; the other directed outwards, in the form of resistance against the occupation. Both trajectories influence and feed off each other, of course. Resistance under conditions of an intense and bloody domestic power struggle quickly descends to a conflict over the reading of the past and, hence, the definition of the future. This conflict, in turn, contributes to the deconstruction of existing identities and the reconstruction of new identities shaped by the current political struggle and by attendant images of the self as victim and the other as interloper or proxy of the interloper, all reinforced by the spiralling cycle of violence, vengeance and retribution. These volatile forces may inflict great moral and material damage on the occupation, as they are doing in Iraq, but they do not offer a viable national alternative to a united Iraq.
(...) Democracy is an expression of the sovereignty of a nation and a form of exercising this sovereignty -- the most ideal form of exercising sovereignty, according to advocates of democracy, because it reflects the will of the people. Democracy cannot come into effect by manacling the sovereignty of a nation and dismantling a country as is currently taking place in Iraq and as some mad theorists had envisioned.
(...) No Arab state, at present, is immune to the spectre of fragmentation if it is subjected to the type of pounding visited upon Iraq.

blood for oil (paul street):
Just as both sides of the Cold War possessed their own very different interests in incorrectly calling the Soviet Union “socialist,” both sides in the current U.S. war-funding and timetable debate have an interest in falsely describing the Congressional votes as “antiwar.”
(...) For their part, the Democrats wish to exploit the moral prestige of antiwar sentiment. Sixty percent of U.S. citizens oppose the increase of U.S. troop levels in Iraq. The occupation is now opposed by two-thirds of Americans. Nearly three fourths (72 percent) of Americans polled last year said that all U.S. in Iraq should come home by the end of 2006. Democrats rode this antiwar sentiment into Congressional majority power last November.
(...) The Democratic Congress has not exercised its power to end the war. It has not passed an antiwar bill.
(...) In the March 23rd House vote, all but eight of the Democrats (Dennis Kucinich, John Lewis, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, Diane Watson, Lynn Woolsey, Mike McNulty and Mike Michaud) basically gave Bush the money
he needs to continue and expand the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and possibly to initiate an assault on Iran. If the Congressional bill was enacted tomorrow, without a Bush veto, it would fund Bush’s audacious, democracy-defying Surge (escalation) to the supplemental tune of $124 billion – considerably more than the White House actually requested.
(...) The distant troop withdrawal proposed by the House bill is hitched to the same Iraqi government “benchmarks” that Bush announced in his nationally televised escalation speech of January 10, 2007. The benchmarks for “withdrawal” include the passage by the Iraqi parliament of an imperialist, neoliberal petroleum law. Hidden beneath largely diversionary language about “revenue-sharing” across Iraq’s regions, this law will try to help subject Iraq’s stupendous oil reserves to domination by Western capital and the American Empire. The “withdrawal” envisioned by Congress would only remove combat troops and only on the eve of the 2008 elections. In the names of “diplomatic protection,” “counter-terrorism,” and the “training and advising of Iraqi Security Forces” (translation: OIL protection), it would leave U.S bases and forces in Iraq for an indefinite period. However much they claim to oppose permanent military bases in Iraq, leading Democrats within and beyond Congress imagine an American military presence in Iraq for decades to come.
(...) Saddest of all, perhaps, 90 percent of the House’s 71 Progressive Caucus voted for the supplemental authorization bill. This was a truly depressing “progressive” performance, one that speaks volumes about the absence of anything that deserves to be considered a relevant “Left” inside the narrow-spectrum U.S. political system.
(...) Deeply committed to the doctrinal notion that the U.S is an inherently noble, benevolent and democratic force in the world, top Democrats insist on combining their calls for (partial and qualified) “withdrawal” with preposterous and offensive claims that the U.S. has done everything it can “for the Iraqis.” As leading “Blue Dog” (right-wing) Democratic Rep. John Tanner (D-TN) told the Public Broadcasting System a few weeks ago:

“We…need to send a message to the Iraqis. Look, this has been four-plus years now, four years and three days. We have lost over 3,000 people. We have lost over 25,000 wounded. The Iraqis have had Saddam Hussein taken out. They have had two elections. They have had a government now for over a year. And we see no progress on them….it's time for them to step up. I am past the point of asking young military families in this country to continue to die and the American taxpayers to spend $2.5 billion a week in Iraq to help people who are seemingly unwilling or unable to get along. And, while they're shooting at each other, both sides are shooting at us.”

“I don't -- I think it's time for us not to be the policemen on the beat in the city of Baghdad. We're not talking about leaving the area. We're not going to leave the area. But I think that a timeline and a message to the Iraqis: Look, it's time for you people to get along. We're not going to stay here open-endedly, shedding our blood and our taxpayer money forever.”

(...)This by now standard Democratic Party rhetoric advances an interesting take on the U.S. assault on Mesopotamia four years after world history’s most powerful military state invaded that country, sacked its civil society, and essentially disbanded its state. The U.S. has deliberately provoked and fueled the very internal Iraqi factional and religious strife that leading Democrats cite as an example of Iraqis’ hopeless division.
(...) Top Democrats are just as committed as the Republicans to preventing what would amount to a geopolitical, world-systemic catastrophe for the American Empire: the loss of U.S. control over Middle Eastern oil. The notion of the people and/or states of that region doing whatever they wish with the remarkable, economically and geopolitically super-strategic oil that sits under the nominally sovereign soils – possibly even forming production and sales agreements with the Asian Security Grid (thereby accelerating the United States’ devolution to the status of a second-rate world power) – is anathema to the good Men and Women of Empire atop both wings of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Party.
(...) [oil privatization details] Iraq’s oil wealth, by the way, is significantly greater than often assumed. Its proven reserves of 115 barrels make it the third largest oil state in the world (behind Saudi Arabia and Canada). But recent reports suggest that it may possess an additional 200 million barrels, making it home to one fourth of the world’s petroleum. Thanks to three decades of largely U.S-imposed chaos (war, sanctions, civic collapse, government dissolution and the like), moreover, Iraq’s spectacular oil reserves are remarkably “underdeveloped.” They are exceptionally “virginal” – close to the surface, and thus accessible for rapid and cheap extraction some day (A.K. Gupta, “Oil, Neoliberalism and Sectarianism in Iraq,” Z Magazine, April 2007)
(...) Next May, the Iraq National Assembly is likely to finalize petroleum legislation worked up by the Iraq cabinet in “consultation” with the White House, the world’s leading petroleum corporations (the “majors”) and the U.S.-based neoliberal consulting firm BearingPoint – the proud recipient of a $240 million federal grant to help create “a competitive private sector” in Iraq (Gupta, “Oil, Neoliberalism and Sectarianism in Iraq”)
(...) the final bill will certainly mandate “Production Sharing Agreements” (PSAs) that could (some day) confer astonishing profits on giant Western oil corporations at the expense of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government. Currently used in relation to just 12 percent of the world’s oil reserves, PSAs leave ultimate oil ownership with the governments under whose soil petroleum sits. But they abolish the state’s monopoly over oil production, something that is more than sufficient to satisfy the profit lust of Western capital. Consistent with Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller’s famous managerial-capitalist maxim “own nothing, control everything,” PSAs reserve the oil industry’s leading profit centers – exploration and production – for private, generally multinational firms on terms that are highly favorable to those companies (see Antonia Juhasz, “Spoils of War: Oil, the U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area and the Bush Agenda,” In These Times, January 2007).
(...) the “majors” and a number of other giant global firms will be permitted to recoup 60 percent or more of their Iraqi oil revenues during the initial “cost recovery” phase of militarily imposed Mesopotamian oil privatization. Profit rates will then fall to 20 percent, still double the PSA norm, with a special provision permitting transnational firms to “transfer any net profits from petroleum operations to outside Iraq.” Another part of the draft legislation requires any dispute between external oil corporations and the Iraq government to be resolved through international arbitration – something that will certainly favor Western (chiefly Anglo and U.S.) capital over “sovereign” Iraq.
(...) The draft law provides no guarantees for Iraqi state participation, requiring the Iraqi state oil company to compete against global firms for the right to explore and produce new oil fields in occupied Iraq. Depending on how relevant authorities interpret the draft law’s call for “the speedy and efficient development of the fields discovered but partially or entirely not yet developed,” the proportion of the Iraqi oil prize that could be open to neoliberal “privatization lite” ranges from two-thirds to one hundred percent. Not surprisingly, the official U.S. position is that none of Iraq’s oil fields are fully developed, something that will permit the big transnationals to move into any and all of the nation’s oil fields.
As the New York–based Global Policy Forum noted last year:

“According to oil industry experts, new exploration will probably raise Iraq’s reserves to 200+ billion barrels of high-grade crude, extraordinarily cheap to produce. The four giant firms located in the US and the UK have been keen to get back into Iraq, from which they were excluded with the nationalization of 1972. During the final years of the Saddam era, they envied companies from France, Russia, China, and elsewhere, who had obtained major contracts. But UN sanctions (kept in place by the US and the UK) kept those contracts inoperable. Since the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, everything has changed. In the new setting, with Washington running the show, ‘friendly’ companies expect to gain most of the lucrative oil deals that will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars in profits in the coming decades. The new Iraqi constitution of 2005, greatly influenced by US advisors, contains language that guarantees a major role for foreign companies. Negotiators hope soon to complete deals on Production Sharing Agreements that will give the companies control over dozens of fields, including the fabled super-giant Majnoon. However, despite pressure from the US government and foreign oil companies, the current Iraqi government has not passed a national oil law” (Global Policy Forum, “Oil and Iraq,” http://www.global policy.org/security/oil/irqindx.Htm).

(...) [on democracy?] Washington’s close alliance with the arch-reactionary oil-rich state of Saudi Arabia and the administration’s sponsorship of an attempted coup against the popularly elected government of oil-rich Venezuela are two excellent examples – the Empire’s assertion that it is promoting democracy in Iraq is coldly contradicted by the curious fact that Iraq’s draft oil law has received input from the majors, the White House, the International Monetary Fund and BearingPoint, but NOT the Iraqi public.
(...) According to a 2006 poll, 76 percent of Iraqis think the real reason for the invasion was a U.S. desire “to control Iraqi oil.” Nobody who wishes to be a member in good standing of the U.S, political class can afford to “sound like” three fourths of the “liberated” nation’s people, less than 1 percent of who think the U.S. invaded to “export democracy.” As Chomsky likes to say, Orwell would be impressed.
(...) Meanwhile we continue to incredulously wonder “Why Do They Hate Us?” Yes, after we’ve “sacrificed” so much “blood and money,” as top Democrats like to say, so much “for them.”

on what follows from spreading democracy, the American way:
(...) "Later, I learned how the Americans helped create the SAVAK, trained the Shah's torturers, advised the Shah, and closed their eyes to everything that happened in his political prisons. I was told how young men and women were tortured in these jails and I came to agree with my father; politics was not any of my business.
(...) In college in the early 1970s, some of my classmates would disappear for weeks or months at a time. No one asked why. Everyone knew they had been taken away by the SAVAK. When they returned, we still did not ask questions.Anyone who challenged the government was accused of helping the United States to undermine the Islamic Republic, the cold war with the Great Satan was now a convenient pretext for imprisoning journalists, writers, and student activists – anyone, in fact, who dared to disagree with the reining theocrats. "
(...) "A few days after the interview was published, in a letter to the paper's editor, a group of students wrote, "The Iranian student must watch his back when he walks home alone late at night." Similar threats continued, along with occasional physical harassment. Meanwhile, Iranian students in southern states were reportedly denied service at restaurants and gas stations – "No Gas for Iranians," was a gas-station sign of the times; some were even beaten up."
(...) Four years after Khatami was elected president, a poll administered by Abbas Abdi, one of the student leaders of the hostage-taking, revealed that 75% of Iranians favored dialogue with the American people. Abdi was subsequently jailed. Despite resistance from conservatives, an independent press was emerging; old taboos were being questioned. There were political rallies that not long before would have led directly to jail; there were informal meetings, debates, protests, art exhibits, theater openings, and a burst of other forms of political and artistic expression.
(...) On July 8, 1999 – just as in my youth – a small contingent of students left the housing compound of Tehran University, marching in protest this time against the closure of the reformist newspaper Salam. It was a peaceful demonstration which ended without a confrontation with the authorities as the protesting students returned to their rooms that evening. In the early morning hours of July 9, however, the anti-riot police and plainclothes thugs burst into the housing compound, assaulting sleeping students with chains and batons, even setting rooms on fire. One student was killed; many were injured and taken away to jail.
(...) On July 10, thousands of students and youths gathered at the entrance of Tehran University, chanting slogans against the Supreme Religious Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shouting "Death to the Dictator" and "Freedom Now."
(...) Many things have changed in Iran since 1999. The reformists have largely been pushed out of the government. The new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the people around him have been working hard to reverse whatever progress was made in the areas of foreign policy and civil liberties during Khatami's presidency.
(...) Is it truly possible that this administration could launch such a war against my childhood home, creating a new, more horrific version of 1953, another half-century-plus of bitterness, another half-century-plus of an Iranian obsession with America?