Were They Planted?

After the United States and Britain were shown to be providing bogus and plagiarized "intelligence" documents to the UN Security Council that supposedly "proved" Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program, the world's media is now being fed a steady stream of captured Iraqi "intelligence" documents from the rubble of Iraq's Mukhabarat intelligence headquarters.

The problem with these documents is that they are being provided by the U.S. military to a few reporters working for a very suspect newspaper, London's Daily Telegraph (affectionately known as the Daily Torygraph" by those who understand the paper's right-wing slant).

Conservative news source News Max lists French companies to boycott. Who wants to counter-strike and support these companies?

"Syria Detains, Frees 2 British Commandos who had entered the country from Iraq, detaining them for five days before releasing them, a British news agency reported Monday." Guardian/UK

Rumsfeld reassures Arab world US has no intention to establish long term bases in Iraq

US and UK reveal plans to set up bases in Iraq

I'm tending to think 'message dissonance' is part of their strategy...

For years, Ben & Jerry's has touted liberal causes. Now there's an ice cream for conservatives.
Star Spangled Ice Cream offers I Hate the French Vanilla, Iraqi Road, Nutty Environmentalist and Smaller Governmint.

The ice cream is made and shipped by Baltimore ice cream maker Moxley's, although Moxley's owner Tom Washburn says his company remains neutral in political matters. "We're just hired to fill an order," Washburn said, noting he'd be happy to make ice cream for liberal causes as well.

Star Spangled Ice Cream is the brainchild of New Jersey corporate lawyer Andrew Stein and two Washington consultants, Frank Cannon and Richard Lessner.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rarely keeps his opinions to himself. He tends not to compromise with his enemies. And he clearly disdains the communist regime in North Korea. So it's surprising that there is no clear public record of his views on the controversial 1994 deal in which the U.S. agreed to provide North Korea with two light-water nuclear reactors in exchange for Pyongyang ending its nuclear weapons program. What's even more surprising about Rumsfeld's silence is that he sat on the board of the company that won a $200 million contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors.

Goddamn it, which of our enemies didn't Rummy sell arms to?

Daniele Buetti... Good Fellows - Looking For Love. Works by Daniele Buetti at Aeroplastics.

I'm sure many others would like to join me right now in giving big thanks to John Emerson of Social Design Notes for giving the Samizdat such a cool new look: thanks, John!

"Fundamentalism means sticking strictly to the script, which in turn means being deeply fearful of the improvised, ambiguous or indeterminate...Since writing is meaning that can be handled by anybody, any time, it is always profane and promiscuous. Meaning that has been written down is bound to be unhygienic...Fundamentalism is the paranoid condition of those who do not see that roughness is not a defect of human existence, but what makes it work."

Terry Eagleton
--The Guardian 22 Feb. 2003

The Better Rhetor on attempts to silence student poets in New Mexico. Note the literary allusion to Oliver Twist in the fifth line. These kids must be getting educated or something, must be time to fire the teacher.

Bush said no child would be left behind
And yet kids from inner-city schools
Work on Central Avenue
Jingling cans that read
Please sir, may I have some more?
They hand out diplomas like toilet paper
And lower school standards
Because
Underpaid, unrespected teachers
Are afraid of losing their jobs
Funded by the standardized tests
That shows our competency
When I'm in detox. [ . . . ]

"'If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything', Santorum said in an interview published on Monday by the Associated Press."

One can admire the logical consistency of the Senator's position. Bear with me--there's actually a great insight about the nature of sexuality here, though the Senator has it inside out. The problem with the logical consistency in this case is its divorce from historical, legal & political reality, but the insight that lit up the Senator's cortex is that once you admit that sex is a pleasure removed from strictly biological processes, then anything goes. Even "man on dog," to use the solon's memorable language. Freedom is dangerous, Santorum is right in this, but he leaps to the wrong conclusion & his leap is motivated by the fear of sex as pleasure & the desire to impose state control over private behavior. It is a fear that generates all kind of emotional & thus political static, spinning fantasies of fecund welfare queens & hipster sex dens that bear no relation to reality, but rev up social anxieties & the fear of freedom. The philosophical problem is how, once sex is admitted to be pleasurable, does one prevent this from becoming a license for abuse. The answer is simple, really & mostly straightforward in practice. The key is consent. In any reasonable sense of the word consent, animals cannot consent to sex with humans; spouses married illegally & secretly cannot consent to the arrangement; children cannot consent to sex with parents; children cannot in most cases consent to sex with adults; but adults of the same gender can easily & naturally consent to sex with each other. But the Senator is right, once the state sanctions gay sexual pleasure, all sorts of freedoms might blossom. And that would be intolerable to men like Senator Santorum. Pleasure is dangerous to power.

It's amazing how right-wing academics get a pass from critics on the old ivory tower accusation. Left-wing professors are routinely dismissed for being muddle-headed, ideologically drive, & cut off from the real world; but here we have a professional ethicist, Jean Bethke Elshtain, of the University of Chicago, who argues for an imperialist American foreign policy & who dismisses our own government's attack on civil rights as trivial praised by Paul Berman in the Pages of the New York Times Book Review. Professor Elshtain is presented as an intellectual who cuts through the soft-headed balderdash of the left. Now, I am responding to a book review, not the book itself, but if Berman's characterization of the book is accurate, I detect two problems, both logical. The first is Elshtain's characterization of "the left"--in short, her left is a caricature based on selective generalization. That is, the picture she paints of the left is convenient to her purposes. The second logical problem is endemic to academic philosophy--it is called reasoning in a vacuum. In this case the vacuum is historical. Elshtain's reasoning appears to be completely removed from a century of American foreign policy. This is the worst sort of ivory tower intellectualizing, but it's all perfectly legitimate, apparently, when it comes from the right.

Bush lies and manipulates public and Congress
by Carla Binion
See link for a list of links to articles that detail the Bush administration's lies.

Both Orwell and Aldous Huxley have written about dictatorial leaders and their methods of managing public opinion. In Brave New World Revisited, Huxley wrote that tyrants often use propaganda techniques that rely on the following. (1) Repetition of catchwords, (2) Suppression of facts the propagandist wants the public to ignore. (3) Inflaming mass fear or other strong emotional reaction for the purpose of controlling public opinion and behavior.

Huxley talks about Adolf Hitler's propaganda efforts to appeal to the emotions of the masses instead of reason. He notes that Hitler systematically exploited the German people's hidden fears and anxieties. The Bush administration has clearly exploited the American people's fears of terrorism since September 11.

I know the left-blogosphere is all over this with appropriate cynicism, but I just really wanted to scrawl LYING BASTARDS in a public place & this is the most my middle-class upbringing would allow me to do. I don't know, maybe I've got a can of spray paint in the shed.

Found by way of Body & Soul. Read it & weep.

Messianic Jewish terrorists have been using toy-bombs to kill and maim as many Palestinian children as possible, according to a report published in the Ramallah-based al-Ayyam newspaper Monday.

The report quoted an official from the Ramallah-based Jurist organization, Haq, as saying that the Jewish terrorist group, Niqema (Hebrew for revenge), has carried out several bombings in Jerusalem, Sur Baher, Yatta, Jenin and Hebron. [more]

Link via New World Disorder.

A global coffee crisis caused by overproduction and a slump in wholesale prices is having a devastating impact on some of the world's poorest communities and the Earth's most endangered wildlife, a study published yesterday suggests.

Coffee farmers are being forced into poverty by falling prices and many are trying to maintain their livelihoods by increasing production of cheaper varieties of coffee at the expense of the environment. [more]

A tactic of the Palestinian intifada has spread ominously to Iraq, less than three weeks after US tanks rolled into the middle of Baghdad.

American troops are coming under attack from Iraqi children throwing stones, replaying scenes from the West Bank and Gaza Strip that were broadcast on state-run television before the fall of Saddam Hussein. [more]

. . . via Jorn, venerable blog-godfatha.

Is Bush taking lessons from Julius Caesar? Apparently so. When Caesar's short but bloody conquest of the Celtic tribes led to the founding of the Roman province of Gaul (modern France) in 52 B.C. he divided the country into three parts. Well-connected sources tell us that Bush plans to divide Iraq into three parts as well: Premium, regular and unleaded.
Katrina vanden Heuvel at the The Nation

On the chests of the men had been scrawled an Arabic phrase that translates as "Ali Baba - Thief."

A military officer states that the men are thieves, and that this technique will be used again.

No word yet from the newly liberated Iraqi people about some of them being summarily found guilty of theft, forced at gunpoint to strip, having a racist phrase written on their bodies, and then made to walk naked in public. No doubt the Arab/Muslim world is impressed by this display of "democracy," "freedom," "due process," and "no cruel or unusual punishment."

We wonder if the soldiers will be using this technique on their comrades who stole $13.1 million in Iraq. Or the journalists who looted Iraq's art. [more]

I'm guessing the administration has its hands so full of problems of its own making, this is the last sort of thing it can afford to respond to right now: a real humanitarian crisis in the making. Not that they would do anything anyway.

The Zimbabwean government has turned piecemeal repression of opposition activists into a campaign of full-scale systematic violence in recent weeks, taking advantage of the world's focus on the Iraq war.

Human rights organisations have documented a startling rise in attacks on supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change. In the past month, doctors have reported hundreds of patients seeking treatment for injuries they claim were sustained at the hands of state officials.

...

The home of Margaret Kulinji, secretary of the MDC's women's league, was invaded by 16 soldiers in uniform at about 1am on March 22. Armed with AK-47 automatic rifles, truncheons and lengths of hosepipe, the men carried a list of MDC officials who were their targets. They beat Ms Kulinji with their fists and rifle butts, kicked her and whipped her with the cord of her iron. They also beat her mother.

"They forced my mother to open her legs and they abused her with the mouthpiece of the AK rifle," said Ms Kulinji, grimacing as she looked at her sleeping in the next hospital bed.

...

Local campaigners say the army and police, working from lists of MDC members and officials, went from house to house, subjecting them and their families to savage beatings and torture. Often the squads had informers with them who pointed out the MDC supporters, they say.

Willamette Weekly has a long story on how Portland IndyMedia has been taken over by "a radical clique."

Less than an hour after the "See you on the streets" threat was posted anonymously, a response came from "Jed Duncan," who called the threat-maker a "wingnut" and a possible police provocateur.

The response, with its anti-violence message, soon disappeared--apparently removed by someone operating the website.

Only the threat remained.

I see this sort of thing frequently in the Pacific Northwest: small groups of black Carhart clad violent anarchists drowning out all other messages and generally giving activism a bad name. Does this sort of thing happen elsewhere? Any Harbingers from Portland out there care to comment?

Update

Deva's Response.

"American Psycho, it pretty much sums up what's going on," said Scott Matthews, a clerk at Toronto's Exile where the shirt also has sold out several times in the last two weeks. The $10-decal, which can be ironed onto an array of clothing items, officially became the shop's hottest seller when Susan Sarandon sauntered in and bought one, he said.

The executive Council of Edo Okpamakhin summoned an emergency meeting this past weekend to evaluate the inscrutable act of violence that marred the Saturday April 12 National Assembly elections in Nigeria. It has been widely reported in the news media that the elections were marred with violence, intimidation and killings. It will be recalled that Edo Okpamakhin recently issued a warning to INEC concerning the need to ensure free and fair elections for the survival of our nascent democracy. The violence that marred last Saturday’s elections forced an emergency meeting of the leaders of Edo Okpamakhin resident in the United States to evaluate all options open to Nigeria to make sure that the violence and killings are not repeated in subsequent elections, beginning next Saturday April 19. The continued slip of Nigeria into lawlessness, anarchy, and violence is certainly not conducive for a smooth democracy.

The Bush administration has made far-reaching but low-visibility civil rights policy decisions through regulation, litigation, and budgetary activity—reversing longstanding civil rights policies and impeding civil rights progress, according to a new report from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund.

"The Bush Administration Takes Aim: Civil Rights Under Attack," catalogues the various policy decisions of the administration which, in the aggregate, illustrate a pattern of hostility toward core civil rights values and signal a diminished commitment to the ideal of non-discrimination. [more]

Undercover among America's secret theocrats

In the process of introducing powerful men to Jesus, the Family has managed to effect a number of behind-the-scenes acts of diplomacy. In 1978 it secretly helped the Carter Administration organize a worldwide call to prayer with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, and more recently, in 2001, it brought together the warring leaders of Congo and Rwanda for a clandestine meeting, leading to the two sides' eventual peace accord last July. Such benign acts appear to be the exception to the rule. During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand "Communists" killed marks him as one of the century's most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise. "We work with power where we can," the Family's leader, Doug Coe, says, "build new power where we can't."

...they forge "relationships" beyond the din of vox populi (the Family's leaders consider democracy a manifestation of ungodly pride) and "throw away religion" in favor of the truths of the Family. Declaring God's covenant with the Jews broken, the group's core members call themselves "the new chosen."

On this Friday evening, Wiser is surrounded by wealthy folks who think similarly. The occasion is the annual meeting of a Boston-based group called Responsible Wealth, whose 700 members belong in the top 5 percent of wealth nationally and whose mission is to close the economic divide that it says has created a “second Gilded Age.” After a round of applause for the waitstaff and an MC’s mention of how the Westin was picked because it’s a union hotel, Bill Gates Sr. delivers a keynote address on the subject about which he has been stumping across the country: his opposition to repealing the estate tax. Over the following weekend, the crowd will go on to attend workshops with titles like “Freeze the Tax Cuts” and “Corporate Accountability.”

Here’s a question: what if the Wachowski brothers’ 1999 film The Matrix was not just an entertaining piece of sf-action-adventure hokum. What if, instead, it is all true? Imagine it as a message sent via the medium of the Matrix itself (Hollywood cinema) from someplace outside the Matrix, to wake us up to our human condition, to alert us all to the fact ‘that we are slaves’. If so, then we are not living the lives we thought we were living; we are instead inhabiting a virtual reality composed by oppressive machine-intelligences. What if this were literally true? How would it appear to us? Well, clearly, it would appear exactly as our lives presently appear to us. Unless we get ‘unplugged’, unless we become enlightened, we cannot see past the illusion that has been created for us.

What should we do in this circumstance? Should we collaborate with the machines and not rock the boat? Or should we fight, free ourselves and eventually free everybody else? Clearly, says The Matrix Warrior, this latter. This is a book that proceeds from the assumption that the situation described in The Matrix is real, and tells you where to go from there.

Another: Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix

This thought-provoking examination of The Matrix explores the technological challenges, religious symbolism, and philosophical dilemmas the film presents. Essays by renowned scientists, technologists, philosophers, scholars, social commentators, and science fiction authors provide engaging and provocative perspectives. Explored in a highly accessible fashion are issues such as the future of artificial intelligence and virtual reality. The symbolism hidden throughout The Matrix and a few glitches in the film are revealed. Discussions include "Finding God in The Matrix," "The Reality Paradox in The Matrix," and "Was Cypher Right?: Why We Stay in Our Matrix." The fascinating issues posed by the film are handled in an intelligent but nonacademic fashion. Link to Slashdot Article with more links.

Also see: Our former articles on more "Matrix Philosophy"

How to live in a simulation.

Are you living in a computer simulation?

We're living in a Matrix...possibly.

(A Disembodied Voice Speaks to a Burning Bush)





"The Conversion of St. George" by Caravaggio and Daintily Dirty

A choir of angels sings Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! (and then to the tune of the Who’s My Generation) Talking about my Revelation! People try to put us down, just because we Mow them Down…Talking about My Revelation (and back to Halleleujah Halleleujah!)


Bush: I’m blind! I’m blind! Once I could see! Now, I’m blind! Help! Help!

Fleischer: Oh sorry, Mr. President! Let me remove these 7 lamp posts!

(Fleischer exits with lamp posts; Bush rubs his eyes as one mysterious light source still shines on him. An eerie Disembodied Voice speaks from somewhere)

more

Who is James R. Bath?

A nodal point in Mark Lombardi's drawing George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens c. 1979-90, 5th Version, 1999, James R. Bath appears in the upper lefthand corner of the 16 1/2" x 41" piece of paper. The spatial syntax of Lombardi's drawings—which map in elegantly visual terms the secret deals and suspect associations of financiers, politicians, corporations, and governments—dictates that the more densely lines ray out from a given node, the more deeply that figure is embroiled in the tale Lombardi tells. Thirteen lines originate with or point to James R. Bath, more than any other name presented. Among those linked to this obscure yet central character are George W. Bush, Jr., George H.W. Bush, Sr., Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, Governor John B. Connally of Texas, Sheik Salim bin Laden of Saudi Arabia, and Sheik Salim's younger brother, Osama bin Laden.

Loaded Images: Dead heroes, living lessons, Black Panthers, and The Murder of Fred Hampton
By J.H. Tompkins

I DEEPLY ADMIRED Fred Hampton during the late 1960s, when he was a charismatic Black Panther leader from Chicago. A brilliant speaker, he could transform an unruly crowd into a rapt congregation with the turn of a phrase. Or so it was said; I never met him, but he was my age, and from the sound of things, as streetwise and tough as I was not. The 2,000 miles between Oakland and Chicago only enhanced a presence I'd fashioned from news clippings, photos, rumors, and stories. When the Chicago police murdered Hampton years before the Panthers self-destructed, they spared him and me the complications of the future – dead heroes won't let you down. [more]

We are pleased to welcome J.H.Tompkins to our ever-growing, ever-outstanding list of Samizdat Harbingers.

The cost of the war.

Our very own Grady Olivier writes Donald Rumsfeld a letter.

Art Church. "...After sometime of writing a daily journal with prayer and scripture, I feel led to put this daily devotional on the web-site for the entire world to see and read. I paint Christian art and I believe this is the best way to illustrate the Bible to Christians and non-Christians by a universal means of the Internet. My art has become a Ministry; a last days Ministry in Revelation revealed 300 ft. and Revelation Revealed II in Europe. A church carries a lot of responsibility, yet to identify a church is I believe a number one priority."

Bush Is No Nazi

Telephone conversation between George Bush and Al Jazeera after the recent unpleasantness in Baghdad.

AJ: George
G: Yes, who is this? How did you get this number?
AJ: Never mind about that. This is Al Jazeera
G: Al who. Is that you Gore?
AJ: No George, this is Al Jazeera the television network
G: You guys still around I uh I mean what do you want?
AJ: George, we just want you to know that we are willing to let bygones be bygones.
G: Yeah, well okay.
AJ: George we have new GPS coordinates.
G: GPS what?
AJ: GPS coordinates of our new location so there will be no more mistakes.
G: You've got my attention.
AJ: Are you ready to write down the coordinates.
G: Ready
AJ: Okay here they are Latitude: 38.898556 degrees Longitude: -77.037852
G: Hey thanks I got ya.

Reuters

Saddam Hussein's top scientific adviser, one of 55 people on America's most wanted list of Iraqi leaders, has surrendered to U.S. forces, German public TV station ZDF reported on Saturday.

General Amer Hammoudi al-Saadi, who liaised with U.N. weapons inspectors before war broke out, gave himself up to U.S. forces in Baghdad on Saturday, ZDF said.

The station said one of its camera crews had accompanied al-Saadi at his request. His surrender would be the first from the group of 55 the United States wants pursued, killed or captured, ZDF said.

Al-Saadi told ZDF he did not know where Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was. He also insisted Iraq did not possess chemical or biological weapons and denied being a member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

He told ZDF he had stayed at home even after U.S. forces arrived in Baghdad. He said he felt in no way guilty and had therefore voluntarily surrendered to U.S. forces.

The United States is planning to issue decks of playing cards to its troops depicting the 55 most wanted leadership figures. Al-Saadi, number 55, appears on the seven of diamonds card.

How neoconservatives conquered Washington -- and launched a war First they converted an ignorant, inexperienced president to their pro-Israel, hawkish worldview. Then 9/11 allowed them to claim Iraq threatened the U.S. By Michael Lind

April 9, 2003 | America's allies and enemies alike are baffled. What is going on in the United States? Who is making foreign policy? And what are they trying to achieve? Quasi-Marxist explanations involving big oil or American capitalism are mistaken. Yes, American oil companies and contractors will accept the spoils of the kill in Iraq. But the oil business, with its Arabist bias, did not push for this war any more than it supports the Bush administration's close alliance with Ariel Sharon. Further, President Bush and Vice President Cheney are not genuine "Texas oil men" but career politicians who, in between stints in public life, would have used their connections to enrich themselves as figureheads in the wheat business, if they had been residents of Kansas, or in tech companies, had they been Californians.

Equally wrong is the theory that the American and European civilizations are evolving in opposite directions. The thesis of Robert Kagan, the neoconservative propagandist, that Americans are martial and Europeans pacifist, is complete nonsense. A majority of Americans voted for either Al Gore or Ralph Nader in 2000. Were it not for the
overrepresentation of sparsely populated, right-wing states in both the presidential electoral college and the Senate, the White House and the Senate today would be controlled by Democrats, whose views and values, on everything from war to the welfare state, are very close to those of western Europeans.

Both the economic-determinist theory and the clash-of-cultures theory are reassuring: They assume that the recent revolution in U.S. foreign policy is the result of obscure but understandable forces in an orderly world. The truth is more alarming. As a result of several bizarre and unforeseeable contingencies -- such as the selection rather than election of George W. Bush, and Sept. 11 -- the foreign policy of the world's only global power is being made by a small clique that is unrepresentative of either the U.S. population or the mainstream foreign policy establishment.

The core group now in charge consists of neoconservative defense intellectuals. (They are called "neoconservatives" because many of them started off as anti-Stalinist leftists or liberals before moving to the far right.) Inside the government, the chief defense intellectuals include Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense. He is the
defense mastermind of the Bush administration; Donald Rumsfeld is an elderly figurehead who holds the position of defense secretary only because Wolfowitz himself is too controversial. Others include Douglas Feith, No. 3 at the Pentagon; Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a Wolfowitz protégé who is Cheney's chief of staff; John R. Bolton, a right-winger assigned to the State Department to keep Colin Powell in check; and Elliott Abrams, recently appointed to head Middle East policy at the National Security Council. On the outside are James Woolsey, the former CIA director, who has tried repeatedly to link both 9/11 and the anthrax letters in the U.S. to Saddam Hussein, and Richard Perle, who has just resigned his unpaid chairmanship of a defense department advisory body after a lobbying scandal. Most of these "experts" never served in the military. But their headquarters is now the civilian defense secretary's office, where these Republican political appointees are despised and distrusted by the largely Republican career soldiers.

Most neoconservative defense intellectuals have their roots on the left, not the right. They are products of the influential Jewish-American sector of the Trotskyist govement of the 1930s and 1940s, which morphed into anti-communist liberalism between the 1950s and 1970s and finally into a kind of militaristic and imperial right with no precedents in American culture or political history. Their admiration for the Israeli Likud party's tactics, including preventive warfare such as Israel's 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, is mixed with odd bursts of ideological enthusiasm for "democracy." They call their revolutionary ideology "Wilsonianism" (after President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism. Genuine American Wilsonians believe in self-determination for people such as the Palestinians.

The neocon defense intellectuals, as well as being in or around the actual Pentagon, are at the center of a metaphorical "pentagon" of the Israel lobby and the religious right, plus conservative think tanks, foundations and media empires. Think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) provide homes for neocon "in-and-outers" when they are out of government (Perle is a fellow at AEI). The money comes not so much from corporations as from decades-old conservative foundations, such as the Bradley and Olin foundations, which spend down the estates of long-dead tycoons. Neoconservative foreign policy does not reflect business interests in any direct way. The neocons are ideologues, not opportunists.

The major link between the conservative think tanks and the Israel lobby is the Washington-based and Likud-supporting Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa), which co-opts many non-Jewish defense experts by sending them on trips to Israel. It flew out the retired general Jay Garner, now slated by Bush to be proconsul of occupied Iraq. In October 2000, he cosigned a Jinsa letter that began: "We ... believe that during the current upheavals in Israel, the Israel Defense Forces have exercised remarkable restraint in the face of lethal violence orchestrated by the leadership of [the] Palestinian Authority."

The Israel lobby itself is divided into Jewish and Christian wings. Wolfowitz and Feith have close ties to the Jewish-American Israel lobby. Wolfowitz, who has relatives in Israel, has served as the Bush administration's liaison to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Feith was given an award by the Zionist Organization of America, citing him as a "pro-Israel activist." While out of power in the Clinton years, Feith collaborated with Perle to coauthor a policy paper for Likud that advised the Israeli government to end the Oslo peace process, reoccupy the territories, and crush Yasser Arafat's government.

Such experts are not typical of Jewish-Americans, who mostly voted for Gore in 2000. The most fervent supporters of Likud in the Republican electorate are Southern Protestant fundamentalists. The religious right believes that God gave all of Palestine to the Jews, and fundamentalist congregations spend millions to subsidize Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

The final corner of the neoconservative pentagon is occupied by several right-wing media empires, with roots -- odd as it seems -- in the British Commonwealth and South Korea. Rupert Murdoch disseminates propaganda through his Fox television network. His magazine, the Weekly Standard -- edited by William Kristol, the former chief of staff of Dan Quayle (vice president, 1989-1993) -- acts as a mouthpiece for defense intellectuals such as Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith and Woolsey as well as for Sharon's government. The National Interest (of which I was executive editor, 1991-1994) is now funded by Conrad Black, who owns the Jerusalem Post and the Hollinger empire in Britain and Canada.

Strangest of all is the media network centered on the Washington Times -- owned by the South Korean messiah (and ex-convict) the Rev. Sun Myung Moon -- which owns the newswire UPI. UPI is now run by John O'Sullivan, the ghostwriter for Margaret Thatcher who once worked as an editor for Conrad Black in Canada. Through such channels, the "gotcha!" style of right-wing British journalism, and its Europhobic substance, have contaminated the US conservative movement.

The corners of the neoconservative pentagon were linked together in the 1990s by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), run by Kristol out of the Weekly Standard offices. Using a P.R. technique pioneered by their Trotskyist predecessors, the neocons published a series of public letters whose signatories often included Wolfowitz and other future members of the Bush foreign policy team. They called for the U.S. to invade and occupy Iraq and to support Israel's campaigns against the
Palestinians (dire warnings about China were another favorite). During Clinton's two terms, these fulminations were ignored by the foreign policy establishment and the mainstream media. Now they are frantically being studied.

How did the neocon defense intellectuals -- a small group at odds with most of the U.S. foreign policy elite, Republican as well as Democratic -- manage to capture the Bush administration? Few supported Bush during the presidential primaries. They feared that the second Bush would be like the first -- a wimp who had failed to occupy Baghdad in the first Gulf War and who had pressured Israel into the Oslo peace process -- and that his administration, again like his father's, would be dominated by
moderate Republican realists such as Powell, James Baker and Brent Scowcroft. They supported the maverick senator John McCain until it became clear that Bush would get the nomination.

Then they had a stroke of luck -- Cheney was put in charge of the presidential transition (the period between the election in November and the accession to office in January). Cheney used this opportunity to stack the administration with his hard-line allies. Instead of becoming the de facto president in foreign policy, as many had expected, Secretary of State Powell found himself boxed in by Cheney's right-wing network, including Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Bolton and Libby.

The neocons took advantage of Bush's ignorance and inexperience. Unlike his father, a Second World War veteran who had been ambassador to China, director of the CIA, and vice president, George W was a thinly educated playboy who had failed repeatedly in business before becoming the governor of Texas, a largely ceremonial position (the state's lieutenant governor has more power). His father is essentially a northeastern moderate Republican; George W, raised in west Texas, absorbed the Texan cultural combination of machismo, anti-intellectualism and overt religiosity. The son of upper-class Episcopalian parents, he converted to Southern fundamentalism in a midlife crisis. Fervent Christian Zionism, along with an admiration for macho Israeli soldiers that sometimes coexists with hostility to liberal Jewish-American
intellectuals, is a feature of the Southern culture.

The younger Bush was tilting away from Powell and toward Wolfowitz ("Wolfie," as he calls him) even before 9/11 gave him something he had lacked: a mission in life other than following in his dad's footsteps. There are signs of estrangement between the cautious father and the crusading son: Last year, veterans of the first Bush administration, including Baker, Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger, warned publicly against an invasion of Iraq without authorization from Congress and the U.N.

It is not clear that George W fully understands the grand strategy that Wolfowitz and other aides are unfolding. He seems genuinely to believe that there was an imminent threat to the U.S. from Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction," something the leading neocons say in public but are far too intelligent to believe themselves. The Project for the New American Century urged an invasion of Iraq throughout the Clinton years, for reasons that had nothing to do with possible links between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. Public letters signed by Wolfowitz and others called on the U.S. to invade and occupy Iraq, to bomb Hezbollah bases in Lebanon, and to threaten states such as Syria and Iran with U.S. attacks if they continued to sponsor terrorism. Claims that the purpose is not to protect the American people but to make the
Middle East safe for Israel are dismissed by the neocons as vicious anti-Semitism. Yet Syria, Iran and Iraq are bitter enemies, with their weapons pointed at each other, and the terrorists they sponsor target Israel rather than the U.S. The neocons urge war with Iran next, though by any rational measurement North Korea's new nuclear arsenal is, for the U.S., a far greater problem.

So that is the bizarre story of how neoconservatives took over Washington and steered the U.S. into a Middle Eastern war unrelated to any plausible threat to the U.S. and opposed by the public of every country in the world except Israel. The frightening thing is the role of happenstance and personality. After the al-Qaida attacks, any U.S.
president would likely have gone to war to topple bin Laden's Taliban protectors in Afghanistan. But everything that the U.S. has done since then would have been different had America's 18th century electoral rules not given Bush the presidency and had Cheney not used the transition period to turn the foreign policy executive into a PNAC
reunion.

For a British equivalent, one would have to imagine a Tory government, with Downing Street and Whitehall controlled by followers of the Rev. Ian Paisley, extreme Euroskeptics, empire loyalists and Blimpish military types -- all determined, for a variety of strategic or religious reasons, to invade Egypt. Their aim would be to regain the
Suez Canal as the first step in a campaign to restore the British empire. Yes, it really is that weird.

A version of this story appeared in the New Statesman. About the writer Michael Lind, the Whitehead Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, is the author of "Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics."

God Bless America plays. The present, past and future seem to be having a jamboree, merging into a blur. Bashar of Syria, Khatami of Iran, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Li’l Kim of N. Korea, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are all marching around a set of chairs, hoping to sit in one when the music stops. There's one chair too few and the last one to claim one is out. Each time someone loses, a chair is taken away and a huge mysterious beanbag falls from the sky next to the loser.


Unembedded Reporter (as bullets whiz by his head): Who’s got the Wmds?

The music stops. Saddam is out. The mysterious bag falls next to him. He's left holding it, so to speak.

Saddam: Not me! I never had them! Except the ones I purchased from the US and European companies many years ago. (Suddenly, bullets whiz by his head) Ok, Ok..everyone knows I have them…but I whisked them off to Syria just in time to be unable to use them against the US!

Rumsfeld: You’re out, Saddam. We don’t need you anymore. Now get out of here before we use our expert intelligence on your ass and blow up several innocent citizens with our precisely precise well-placed bunker busters.

The music starts again….God Bless America…..and stops. Bashar of Syria stands, holding the bag, so to speak.

Bahar: No, not me! I don’t have the WMDS! (Bullets whiz by his ears) Ok, Ok, I have them now. But I got them from Hussein! And I whisked them off to Iran just in time to be unable to use use them against the U.S. invasion.

Rumsfeld: You’re out, Syria. We don’t need you anymore. Now get out before we use our expert intelligence on your ass and blow the rest of your country away...(Much of Syria is in flames and several Syrians are seen thanking Marines for liberating them)

The music starts again. ..God bless America…it goes on a while and stops. The men scramble for the empty chair.

Khatami of Iran is left standing, holding the bag, so to speak.

Khatami: No, not me! I don’t have the WMDS! (Bullets whiz by his head) Ok, Ok, I have them now!
But I got them from Syria and whisked them off to Osama bin Laden just before we were able to use them against the U.S. Invasion.

(Bullets whiz by his ear) I mean Liberation…sorry.

Rumsfeld: You’re out, Iran…We don’t need you anymore. Now get out before we destroy more of your country with our......(Much of Iran is in flames and several Syrians are seen thanking Marines for liberating them.)


The music starts…God bless America..It goes on awhile...

Hey, stop pushing.

I'm not pushing.

Who farted?

I didnt fart.

You farted.

Good God, was that the smell of human flesh coming out your ass?

I'm not a cannibal!

You are too!

Who's the cannibal here?

The president's men giggle. The music stops. They scramble for the lone chair.

Osama bin Laden is left standing, holding the bag.

Osama: Not me! No, I’ve never had WMDs. I didn’t need them to take down America. Just a little looking the other way and some finely trained killers with 17 virgins on their mind. (A bullet whizzes by his ear) Ok! Ok! I have them now! But I got them from Iran and whisked them off to Saudi Arabia just before I could use them against the U.S…..(bullets) liberation.

Rumseld: You’re out, Osama. We’ll let you know when we need you again. Now go work on a tape. That last one was pathetic.

The music starts…God bless America…it stops.

Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is left holding the bag.

Saudi Arabia: Hmmm…wait…we don’t have…we never had…We are allies.

Rumseld: It’s ok, Saudi Arabia…we no longer need you. You’re not nearly as powerful as you were. Your oil is no longer worth what it used to be. Now that everyone has been liberated. So get out of here before we decide to liberate your women.

The music starts…God bless America…it stops.

Mugabe of Zimbabwe is left holding the bag.

Mugabe: No, not me.

Rumsfeld: Who the hell’s this guy?

Cheney: Not sure. Do you have WMDs?

Mugabe: No, sir. But I do have an impressive resume of atrocities against civilians. I think if you hold it up to Hussein’s that….

Rumsfeld: Get out of here! (Bullets whiz by and Mugabe runs out)

Cheney: How the hell did he get in here?

Rumsfeld: I don’t know…some dictator from some African country.

Cheney: Wolfowitz? Is he on the map?

Wolfowitz: Not yet, Dick. We have our guys working on just how we might exploit the African situation.
At the moment, we’re making a lot of money on selling weapons…

The music starts up….God Bless America…the cd begins to skip. Castro and Lil Kim look at each other, confused.
No, it's a DJ sampling a hip hop version...Castro and Lil Kim eye each other, but keep walking, circling the lone chair.
Finally, the music stops. Castro lands in Kim's lap. The mysterious bag hits him in the head.

Everybody starts laughing, wondering what Castro is doing there.

Kim: You can get off me anytime, Fidel.

Castro: Wow...whoever called you Lil Kim never played Musical Chairs with you.

Kim: Get off me, Castro!

Castro: talk about the Battle of the Bulge.

Kim: Get off me or I'll call China!

Castro: We should stick together! Just like the old days.

(The President's Men are still laughing)

Rumsfeld: Castro, are you still alive?

Castro: No sir. (he rises; bows and leaves quietly.) Think about it, Big Kim (winks)...

North Korea is the only one left; surrounded by the mysterious bags.

Unembedded Reporter (bullets whiz by his ear, just for the fun of it): Do you have WMDs?

Li’l Kim: Yes, I believe we do.

Cheney: Hmmm…diplomacy or liberation?

Powell: Diplomacy!

Rumsfeld: Liberation!

Powell: Diplomacy!

Rumsfeld: Liberation!

Powell: Diplomacy!

Rumsfeld: Liberation!!!!

Powell (getting in his face) Liberation!

Rumsfeld: Diplomacy!!!!!!!!

The two begin to scuffle. Victoria Clarke, dressed in full Dominatrix garb, with a pretty little pink sweater over it; apparently, she’s just come from a Pentagon briefing to the Media.

Victoria Clarke: Ok, boys…who wants to show me their MOAB?

All the President's Men immediately fall to their knees, waiting to be liberated.

Unembedded Reporter (bullets whiz by his heads just for the fun of it): Victoria, what’s your secret?

Victoria: (shoots him) Oops… I’m not at liberty to say. We wouldn’t want to put the troops in harm’s way, would we? And don't worry about the silly WMDs...I've already planted a few. Now, heel, boys…

All the President's Men: Yes, Ma’am!

(Inspired by comments by Mike; don't have his webpage at the moment)

Politically active artists have been shaken by the alleged visit of military investigators to the family of an outspoken San Francisco hip-hop band member, calling it one in a series of moves aimed at silencing dissenting musicians and actors.

The incident surfaced a week ago when Michael Franti, the front man for the band Spearhead, told Pacifica Radio network's "Democracy Now" that military investigators visited the mother of an unnamed band member in Boston. The woman also has a daughter stationed with U.S. military forces in the Middle East.

The mother, whom Franti also declined to name for her safety, said plainclothes investigators appeared at her door on March 16, showing pictures of the band performing at an anti-war demonstration the previous day in San Francisco, Franti said. They questioned her about entries made in her son's checking account, his travel records for the past several months, and his general whereabouts, Franti said.

...(R)esearchers announced yesterday that numbers of great apes in Gabon have declined by more than half in less than 20 years. Experts fear the decline is even greater outside Gabon and that, unless trends are reversed, great apes could become effectively extinct in as little as two generations. National Geographic

Right now I know that the template for the samizdat is a bit messed up--will work on fixing it tonite, but also--if there are any generous, talented designers out there, we would, of course, be incredibly appreciative if you wanted to gift us with some new, unbelievably cool samizdat template. Well, beyond appreciative, actually--let's say completely bowed over--how's that? Any takers please email me: drmenlo -at- well.com . . .

Also, some harbingers (samizdat participants) might have noticed 2 new slots in the posting page at blogger--these title and url slots are for xml, which basically means on another page somewhere somebody can just run the headlines from American Samizdat. As it is, if you fill these slots out, these are also published on the blog as the title--perhaps this complicates things and I will change that so the xml part of the posting is completely separate from the xml-publishing? Unfortunately the comments section seems to be disabled as a temporary fix to the template problems, so email me if you have any opinions. You will also notice I added a 'blogroll' over the old harbinger list (which was in order of invite acceptance)--this is randomized to help give some of the blogs who joined later some more even attention. This has also been added to SLA, and will soon be added to Menlo from Space!

Moving along on samizdat matters, we passed the one year anniversary of American Samizdat last January. Those who know me in my flesh know that I am bad about birthdays and such in that realm, so I suppose this carries over into my internet life as well. Traditional celebrations aside, I want to thank each and every Harbinger for joining, and give special thanks to the posters too voluminous to go into now (on my lunch hour). Especially now, the American Samizdat is badly needed. Any recommendations on how to make it grow are also welcome, as well as recommendations for additional harbingers! This ain't no country club, folks! It's near impossible to keep up with all the great progressive blogs that spring up as of late--if you or anyone you know is interested in helping to make the Samizdat even better, don't hesitate to let me know (drmenlo -at- well.com). And please know I read all email and will get back to you asap--although sometimes there are delays to my best intentions.

best, 'dr. m.'

Iraqwar.ru : news and analysis on the American invasion of Iraq from Russian journalists and military experts. See also: aeronautics.ru for more on the Russian perspective.

Thanks to Philip Shropshire and his Changesurfer Radio interview for the nods.

Well, Andre, you stumbled onto an illegal surveillance operation.

In the U.S., 434 megacycles is ILLEGAL to use for surveillance. That frequency is an amateur radio (ham radio) frequency, legal ONLY for hobby operation.

No local, state or federal agency can use it for surveillance.

[O]peration [I]raqi [L]iberation: A lot of people don't really understand how much money is at stake with the Iraq "crusade". This diagram could help you to understand what the USA is doing, and what are its main goals. [via walker]

"Every time any media outlet mentions the Iraqi Republican Guard they always preface it by calling it elite. However, there is no internationally accepted definition for 'elite.' I think we face the real possibility of cheapening the use of the word if standards aren't set," said United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Powell continued, "I think it's sad that we've degenerated into some sort of elite relativism where you only have to be better than the next guy to be considered elite even if that next guy sucks. Any person that goes through two weeks of training shouldn't be called elite."

As part of the standard settings procedure the U.N. plans to send in an elite team of inspectors to measure the Iraqi troops' eliteness level. BBSpot

Who ever said that impassioned political discourse can't be zany fun?!! SpazOut NY [thanks to Thomas Schmidt]

Introducing: PNAC.info - Exposing the Project for the New American Century

Site creator Lance Brown: "I think exposing the PNAC to the general public is the best way to challenge this war (and the subsequent wars that are coming up down the road)."

I couldn't agree more. In addition to targeting PNAC, I think we should also compile extensive dossiers on all the key players in the Bush admin now (Blair and Sharon included). The bottom line is we cannot let these 20 or so evil men commit mass murder, snub international law and continue to attempt to reshape the world into their delusional fundamantalist vision. It's not America against the rest of the world--it's the PNAC and their golem. It's the PNAC and their golem who are sending American kids to die overseas. It's the PNAC and their golem who are murdering Iraqi civilians. It's the PNAC and their golem who are also conducting a War on America as they pursue their international imperialism: enlargening the gap between rich and poor, cutting social programs including health benefits for vets, and giving millionaires generous tax breaks (and this is just a thumbnail). It's time to stop these truly evil fucks.

See also: Lance Brown's How To Stop The War.org

"The Bush administration has devised a strategy to declare victory in Iraq even if Saddam Hussein or key lieutenants remain at large and fighting continues in parts of the country, officials said yesterday."

Apparently, saying makes it so. With this in mind, I'm declaring myself President for Life of the Empire of America. All hail me.

Mr. Bush You Are Not The President of This World

An anti-war song from the a cappella-band Llittle Big Men from Switzerland You'll find it near the bottom of the page.

The masters of social control:

When the NICA (National Identity Card Act) gets passed, the Posse Comitatus Act gets overturned, a few other pieces of legislation yet to be proffered get passed, the White House will have more control over the American people than the Kremlin had over the Russian people when Stalin was alive. He said that and then he laughed.

Primakov continued by saying that he had been hired as a consultant and he was consulting on other "security" matters, an ongoing policy in various agencies of government (some of these offices haven't even been created yet) to consistently narrow the rights of the American people and to expand the power of government. He professed not to know why, the reason for all this was, other than he admitted that "it doesn't have much to do with 'fighting terrorism.'"

Marine who said no to killing on his conscience
The first American conscientious objector from the Iraq war will give himself up at a marine base in California this morning. He said he believed the war was "immoral because of the deception involved by our leaders".

Fighting not to fight
Of 2.7 million men and women in the active and reserve forces in the US, 29 were discharged as conscientious objectors in 2002.

The Center on Conscience and War in Washington, which counsels prospective COs, reported 3,500 calls for advice in January, twice the normal rate.

Raetgers - In a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House today, George W. Bush announced that Vice President Dick Cheney would serve as Chairman and Poster Boy for National White Imperialist Month.

"We have tolerated National Black History Month in February, and National Women's Month in March, so it's only fitting that us white imperialists finally get their own month," the commander-in-chief said today, reading off a teleprompter. "And when it comes to white imperialism, Dick Cheney is 'Da Man!"

Cheney, wiping a tear from his eye in an undisclosed location, said via remote satellite hook-up that he was proud to accept this honor, and kickback from Halliburton for the reconstruction of Iraq contract.

"I pledge to do everything i can to bring the problems of white imperialists everywhere to the forefront of Freepers all across this great land of ours, except for New York, California and parts of Wisconsin," the Vice President said.

For other great celebrations of "make fun of Dick Cheney" day, see neal pollack's the maelstrom (including links to suckful's and maxspeak's entries)!

In solidarity with Make Fun of the Cheneys day, we bring you the Ask Dick Cheney! Unofficial Official Simulator. It’s as plausible as the man himself:

Sample question: Isn’t this war a complete fiasco?

I think from the standpoint of this basic proposition, we are right I think people know we’re right and we’ll do everything we can to sustain that position. Containment is not possible when dictators obtain weapons of mass destruction, and are prepared to share them with terrorists who intend to inflict catastrophic casualties on the United States. The President has asked Congress for a one-year increase of more than $48 billion for national defense, the largest since Ronald Reagan lived in the White House. Great decisions and challenges lie ahead of us. He has not complied with the Resolution, he’s now kicked the inspectors out, there’s a lot of evidence that he does in fact have and is continuing to develop weapons of mass destruction.

The Unofficial Official Simulator also comes in four other exciting fruit flavors: Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Condi Rice, and Paul Wolfowitz.