Clinton campaign undermined on the streets of Tegucigalpa

HONDURANS denounce corruption.  

WITH all eyes on Greece, and how far its people can defy the bankers, the IMF, the European Union's commissioners, and those Germans who insensitively forget how their occupation robbed Greece blind during World War II, and how the Federal Republic was rewarded with massive aid when it began re-armament in 1953....I wonder if I might be forgiven for trying to catch up on some events on the other side of the world?

The Greeks, of course, have experienced the limits of Western democratic tolerance before. In 1944, before the Nazis had finally been defeated, the Allies turned their guns on the main Greek Resistance movement, ELAS, because it was Communist-led, and Greece had to endure four years of civil war. Then in 1967 the colonels staged their coup, in accordance with a NATO contingency plan -though they might not have been the intended military group - rounded up opponents, and ruled for the next seven years.

If that was a shock for Europe, people in Latin America have been used to such interventions over the years, from US marines landing on their shores in the earlier half of the 20th century to recoup the bankers' losses, to the coup which overthrew Salvador Allende's government in Chile in 1973, and the US-armed Contra terror against Nicaragua through the 1980s and early 1990s.

So it is all the more remarkable today that not only are a number of countries refusing to be bullied by the great power to the north, and attempting policies of independence and social reform, but even people in some of the little 'banana republics' are gaining confidence, and getting results. Here's a report from a week ago: 


TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – After weeks of thousands of people marching against the corruption in Honduras arrest warrant has been issued for vice-president of Congress, Lena Gutierrez, by the supreme court of Honduras. Gutierrez, along with 16 others, including her father and two brothers, have been charged with fraud, crimes against public health, and falsification of documents.
According to UPI: “Gutierrez and her family are linked to the AstroPharma Company that allegedly embezzled and defrauded the government out of about $120 million by selling poor-quality medicine at inflated prices.”

Gutierrez, who is a member of the governing National Party, has of course claimed innocence. She had previously made the statement that she will prove her and her family are not guilty of the accusations, however now that proceedings are underway, she has been advised to remain silent. Hernandez has also been accused in a corruption scandal dealing with social security. During his 2013 election campaign, he allegedly received about $90 million out $300 million that was skimmed from Honduras’s public health system. It is not yet known if President Hernandez will resign despite the protests.

http://anonhq.com/corruption-in-honduras/

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2015/07/02/Honduras-court-orders-corruption-arrest-of-Congress-vice-president/9321435848094/

An earlier report from Associated Press carried in the Guardian had said that "The protesters are upset over a scandal involving a purported multimillion-dollar embezzlement of social security funds, with some of the money allegedly going to finance the governing political party. Among other things, they are calling for President Juan Orlando Hernandez to resign.
.........
"Organized via Twitter with hashtags including one that translates as “resign JOH” – a reference to the president’s initials – the movement began recently as just a couple of dozen people at a torchlight vigil in the capital.

"It gradually picked up steam, and thousands marched through Tegucigalpa on Friday with similarly large protests in San Pedro Sula, Siguatepeque, Choluteca and Comayagua during the weekend.
The Honduran Public Ministry has said a network led by the then director of the Social Security Institute, Mario Zelaya, fraudulently misspent at least $120m during the 2010-14 presidency of Porfirio Lobo.

"The scheme allegedly relied on mark-ups topping 100% on goods and services such as medicines and pensions, with kickbacks then being paid by businesses that benefited. At least part of the money purportedly ended up in the hands of the National Party, which counts both Lobo and Hernandez as members."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/01/honduras-protests-social-security-embezzlement

The Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign and others this week circulated a message saying "
 Honduras' people are currently marching in the largest protests their country has ever seen, demanding an end to corruption in their country. These demands are growing week on week, but they need international support to pressure their government to acquiesce".

https://www.change.org/p/uk-government-and-un-support-honduras-people-s-demands-for-an-end-to-corruption

James Watson, a member of the very small UK-based NGO the Environmental Network for Central America, who is in Honduras at the moment, writes:
"Our press is increasingly reporting on this issue, but it is still receiving little attention. Honduras has been suffering repression since 2009 when a military coup brought its current National Party to power. The country is known as the murder, repression and corruption capital of the Americas. This year, Honduran press revealed evidence of millions of dollars stolen from their social security institute, and used partially to fund the last National Party election campaign. They have demonstrated that at least 3,000 people have died as a result, from lack of health care. This has ignited the "Indignados" movement, which represents a call from the people of Honduras for change. They are demanding a UN-backed International Commission against Corruption, but the corrupt president Juan Orlando Hernández is refusing calls. The UN has responded with a fact finding mission, but international pressure is required to press the National Party to listen to the protests, and to end the scandalous financial and military support that the UK, Europe, the US and Canada provide Juan Orlando.


www.enca.org.uk

In the background to what is happening in Honduras now are the circumstances in which the government came to power.

In the 5 a.m. darkness of June 28, 2009, more than two hundred armed, masked soldiers stormed the house of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya.  (no relation to the fraud accused Mario Zelaya - CP) Within minutes Zelaya, still in his pajamas, was thrown into a van and taken to a military base used by the U.S., where he was flown out of the country.
It was a military coup, said the UN General Assembly and the Organization of American States (OAS). The entire EU recalled its countries’ ambassadors, as did Latin American nations. The United States did not, making it virtually the only nation of note to maintain diplomatic relations with the coup government. Though the White House and the Clinton State Department denounced only the second such coup in the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War, Washington hedged in a way that other governments did not.
“If you want to understand who the real power behind the [Honduran] coup is, you need to find out who’s paying Lanny Davis,” said Robert White, former ambassador to El Salvador, just a month after the coup. Speaking to Roberto Lovato for the American Prospect, Davis revealed who that was: “My clients represent the CEAL, the [Honduras Chapter of] Business Council of Latin America.”
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/08/exclusive_hillary_clinton_sold_out_honduras_lanny_davis_corporate_cash_and_the_real_story_about_the_death_of_a_latin_america_democracy

President Zelaya had been promising measures to assist the poor in Honduras. He had also been moving too close to states like Bolivia and Venezuela for the US liking. Nevertheless the official US position was against the coup.

Press Statement
Ian Kelly
Department Spokesman
Washington, DC
November 27, 2009
The United States remains committed to help restore the democratic and constitutional order in Honduras in the wake of the June 28 coup d’état that removed President Zelaya and led to the suspension of Honduras from the Organization of American States. As part of that effort, we expect the parties in Honduras to implement the measures they agreed to in the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord, including steps toward national reconciliation and the December 2 Congressional consideration of President Zelaya's restitution. We look forward to the Congressional deliberations getting underway as announced.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/nov/132501.htm 

But e-mails obtained between top Washington officials reveal a different picture. In the run-up to Honduras elections in 2009, with Zelaya exiled, anti-coup opponents were murdered, rallies and newspapers suppressed, and there was suspicion of widespread rigging. But here was then Assistant US Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, who had been in Honduras before the coup, in an email to Hilary Clinton just after the November 29 election results were announced, which brought Porfirio Loba Sosa's National Party into office.

    The turnout (probably a record) and the clear rejection of the Liberal Party shows our approach was the right one, and puts Brazil and others who would not recognize the election in an impossible position. As we think about what to say, I would strongly recommend that we not be shy. We should congratulate the Honduran people, we should connect today's vote to the deep democratic vocation of the Honduran people, and we should call on the community of democratic nations (and especially those of the Americas) to recognize, respect, and respond to this accomplishment of the Honduran people.
   Finally, this Administration, which worked so hard to manage and resolve this crisis, should be the one who defines the results and perceptions of today's vote, and not our critics on the Hill (who had no clear pathway to elections) or our adversaries in the region (who never wanted this day to happen).

http://www.cepr.net/blogs/the-americas-blog/newly-released-clinton-emails-reveal-state-department-s-celebration-over-honduras-flawed-elections-following-military-coup

In her book “Hard Choices,” Clinton admits that she used the power of her office to make sure that Zelaya would not return to office. “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico,” Clinton writes. “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.” http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hillary-clinton-honduraslatinamericaforeignpolicy.html

Clinton reports that Zelaya was arrested amid “fears that he was preparing to circumvent the constitution and extend his term in office.”  But others say this was simply not true. As Clinton must know, when Zelaya was kidnapped by the military and flown out of the country in his pajamas on June 28, 2009, he was trying to put a consultative, nonbinding poll on the ballot to ask voters whether they wanted to have a real referendum on reforming the constitution during the scheduled election in November. It is important to note that Zelaya was not eligible to run in that election. Even if he had gotten everything he wanted, it was impossible for Zelaya to extend his term in office. But this did not stop the extreme right in Honduras and the United States from using false charges of tampering with the constitution to justify the coup.
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hillary-clinton-honduraslatinamericaforeignpolicy.html

More details of Hilary Clinton's role in Honduras have come out.

 A new round of emails from Hillary Clinton’s time as U.S. Secretary of State released last week, reveals her connection with backers of the 2009 military coup that toppled Honduran president Manuel Zelaya. According to an email exchange in the aftermath of the coup, Clinton requested the assistance of a prominent PR advisor Lanny Davis as a back-channel to Roberto Micheletti, the interim president after the coup. Davis was also an adviser to a group of Honduran businessmen who had supported Zelaya's ouster . The request came a week before Clinton brokered a deal to reinstall Zelaya through a national unity government. According to the Intercept, this was an attempt at undermining the democratically elected left-wing president while not explicitly endorsing the coup. The plan failed however as the legal vacuum left by the coup made the return of Manuel Zelaya impossible. The U.S. State Department continued to support and recognize what many considered fraudulent elections by the post-coup government, saying they were “free, fair and transparent.” http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Hillary-Clinton-Implicated-in-Honduras-Coup-Emails-Reveal-20150707-0022.html.

The renewed wave of popular demonstrations in Honduras have caused the first crack in the regime just as Thomas Shannon, now a Counsellor to Secretary of State John Kerry, was starting a visit to Central America, including Honduras.

And though too late to affect former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in a post she no longer holds, the latest revelations of her duplicity, as well as the signs that what she helped put together is starting to crumble, should surely damage her campaign to run as the Democrats nomination for President?.  Of course she would not be the first liar in the White House. But the others were elected before they were found out.


*****************************************

By way of  a personal confession

BACK in the mid-Seventies, when I was briefly employed as a journalist on the "Foreign"(sic) Desk at News Line, I was instructed to always put datelines at the head of any story, just as they came in from Reuters or Interpress. Having seen my by-line "Charles Parkins" apparently reporting from ADDIS ABABA, TOKYO or PARIS, a comrade visiting from Up North complimented me on the amount of travel I was getting in, so soon after joining the paper. I expected to see a bigger than normal twinkle in her eye, thinking she must have noticed how the day before I seemed to be filing reports from two distant locations on the opposite sides of the world, on the same day. Not even Phineas Fogg could have managed it.
In reality, unlike my senior comrade Jack Gale who was dodging bullets in the hills of Lebanon at the time, I rarely got out of the Clapham office, and the nearest I got to exotic parts was when I was despatched to rural Ayrshire to find a bunch of Glasgow lads on a jobs march, and join them on the road to London.
I did on one occasion decide to use a story about Honduras, and confidently datelined it TEGUCIGALPA.  Alas our editor, a no-nonsense Aussie called Alex Mitchell (well, except when he was fed nonsense by Gerry Healy, which he pretended to almost believe), spotted it, and shook his head. I suppose the Vimto book, from which we educated Manchester and Salford lads had learned world capitals as boys, never penetrated his remote corner of Queensland. So out it came, and I was supposedly filing my story from MEXICO CITY.  Which was probably safer in those days.
Having reached a ripe old age without ever visiting Tegucigalpa, and not having an editor to tell me what I can and cannot put in my blog, I can at least fulfil an ambition, by quoting an item datelined TEGUCIGALPA, and putting it in my headline. Ah, freedom!  

Guns and Race in Florida

TWO stories from America, and specifically the State of Florida:

Yesterday evening a man called George Zimmerman walked free from court after a jury, having deliberated for more than 16 hours, had found him not guilty of murder.

Zimmerman had admiited to shooting 17-year old Trayvon Martin, on the night of February 26, 2012, but claimed he was acting in self-defence after the black teenager attacked him.

That night, Trayvon had just gone to a local 7- Eleven convenience store and was walking back through the Retreat at Twin Lakes to the home of his father's fiance, where he and his father were staying. He was unarmed, unless one counts the can of iced tea and bag of Skittles which he had just purchased.

Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch volunteer, said he thought the youth looked suspicious because of his slow and meandering gait. Phoning the police, he then set out after the boy, there was a confrontation, and Zimmerman shot him. 

After six weeks, and numerous protests, police arrested Zimmerman and charged him with second-degree murder. Later they released tapes of neighbours' 911 calls in which can be heard screams and then gunfire. From these it is not clear who is screaming for help, or who is attacking whom. What is clear is that  only one man was armed, and only one lay dead afterwards.

From character witnesses and other evidence it would appear hard to see what Trayvon Martin was guilty of beyond being black, and a teenager. Whereas Zimmerman did have a gun, and followed him, and did have a criminal record.

But now Zimmerman walks free, and whether or not he was racially prejudiced, he has already become a hero to those who are.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/13/george-zimmerman-not-guilty_n_3588743.html?1373767350&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

We might take that as just another case of America's lax attitudes to gun crime were it not for the next case, which comes from not far away:

Marissa Alexander was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for firing a pistol in the air, hoping to scare away a physically abusive ex-husband, Rico Gray. Marissa, five feet, two inches tall and slightly built, had been no match for her trucker ex-partner, who admitted that twice he had thrown her out of the house.   “She’s a little person so it doesn’t take much for me to pick her up and tote her out my front door . . . You know, I pretty much picked her up and throwed her out.”

In the months before the incident that sent Marissa to prison, in addition to bodily heaving her out the door, Gray had beaten her, head-butted her in the face while she was pregnant, sent her to the hospital. One of his three arrests on domestic violence charges had been for an attack on Alexander that led to a conviction and probation. He had other convictions for violence against women.

On August 10, 2010, as Gray approached her in a rage, Alexander (a software firm employee with an MBA and no previous criminal record) fired warning shots with a pistol. As Gray admitted in a deposition to the District Atormey,  he had already attacked her and chased her into the garage, before she came out with the gun.

“I honestly think she just didn’t want me to put my hands on her anymore so she did what she feel like she have to do to make sure she wouldn’t get hurt, you know. You know, she did what she had to do.”

 “The gun was never actually pointed at me. When she raised the gun down and raised it up, you know, the gun was never pointed at me. The fact is, you know . . . she never been violent toward me. I was always the one starting it. If she was violent toward me, it was because she was trying to get me up off her or stop me from doing.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/28/v-print/2821403/you-call-this-justice-not-if-its.html#storylink=cpy

The bullets went into the wall. No one was hurt. Nevertheless a jury convicted Marissa of aggravated assault with a firearm and, under Florida’s draconian mandatory minimum sentencing laws, the presiding judge was left with no discretion. So she got 20 years. Her thug husband got custody of their baby son.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/28/v-print/2821403/you-call-this-justice-not-if-its.html 

That Marissa Alexander had a similar complexion to Trayvon Martin, rather than his killer, cannot possibly have influenced a court in Florida, US of A, can it? Nor the fact that she is female.

And whatever this says about the state of Florida, I should not think it will influence any one's holiday plans. 

BUT along with the demonstrations in many American cities, someone has taken a lead:
http://blog.blacknews.com/2013/07/stevie-wonder-boycotts-florida-wont-perform-until-stand-your-ground-law-abolished101.html#.UejvHG3Guzk

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/28/v-print/2821403/you-call-this-justice-not-if-its.html#storylink=cpy

Guardian does the right thing but is it the right way?

TEXAS "TRIGGER" must hit the trail

THIS is Joshua Trevino, whom the Guardian newspaper had lined up recently to reinforce its US political coverage, tweeting on 31 May 2011: 'Today is the one-year anniversary of the Gaza flotilla, on which I salute the IDF for doing the right thing, the right way.'

Here is a reminder, from the Guardian itself, June 4, 2010, of what he was talking about:

Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which carried out the autopsies for the Turkish ministry of justice today.

The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, said Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the council of forensic medicine.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/04/gaza-flotilla-activists-autopsy-results

Furkan Dogan had been armed with a video camera when he was shot.

Over in Texas, Joshua Trevino tweeted on June 3 2010:
“There are some Americans we’re better off without. Furkan Dogan is one of them'.

Then to make sure we -and the Israeli military - got the message, in June 2011, as several dozen Americans, including author Alice Walker and Kindertransport refugee Hedy Epstein attempted to set sail from Greece to Gaza, to break Israel’s blockade along with boats from other countries, Treviño tweeted, “Dear IDF: If you end up shooting any Americans on the new Gaza flotilla – well, most Americans are cool with that. Including me.” Joshua Treviño @jstrevino

Well now, after a boatload of protests about Trevino's appointment, which the Guardian had "explained" was to reflect the rise of the Republican right in US politics, the liberal newspaper has apparently realised that this is one American it could do without. It has decided to drop Trevino. You might say that it is doing the right thing; but is it doing it the right way?

Here, in contrast to the background we have described, is the official explanation:

Joint statement from the Guardian and Joshua Treviño

Joshua Treviño wrote a piece for the Guardian on February 28, 2011 titled "Peter King has hearings, but is he listening?" The Guardian recently learned that shortly before writing this article the author was a consultant for an agency that had Malaysian business interests and that he ran a website called Malaysia Matters. In keeping with the Guardian's editorial code this should have been disclosed.

"Under our guidelines, the relationship between Joshua and the agency should have been disclosed before the piece was published in order to give full clarity to our readers," said Janine Gibson, editor-in-chief, Guardian US."

I vigorously affirm that nothing unethical was done and I have been open with the Guardian in this matter. Nevertheless, the Guardian’s guidelines are necessarily broad, and I agree that they must be respected as such," said Joshua Treviño.

We have therefore mutually agreed to go our separate ways and wish each other the best of luck.

So, Trevino has to go, but it's nothing to do with his enthusiasm for seeing people murdered when they are trying to take aid to Gaza! Ironically, it seems this cheerleader for the Israeli forces had a daytime job working for the business interests of the government of Malaysia, which likes to keep its Muslim credentials and does not recognise the State of Israel. It was Malaysia in fact which wanted Israel taken to the International Court of Justice for its criminal action on the Mavi Marmara.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/6/7/nation/20100607121340&sec=nation


Oh well, that is journalism for you!

Perhaps like the US authorities jailing Al Capone on charges of tax evasion, or conversely, the British government digging up the Official Solicitor to provide a legal formula by which the Pentonville Five dockers could be freed, the Guardian wanted to do the right thing but felt it had to find a face-saving method for doing so.

This way it can ease some of the pain and protest from readers and Palestinian supporters, without admitting they were right, and try to assure the Zionist Lobby that it is not giving in to the protesters. I suspect that trying to avoid the issues this way is only at best postponing them. One might almost sympathise if the newspaper had not been responsible in the first place for getting itself into the mess.

A great life if you don't weaken

WE often hear that "America Leads the Way", which can be a worrying thought in several contexts. And here is one of them. In the world's richest country - and sure, we don't deny that people from poorer places desperately try to get in there to work for a piece of that wealth - millions of people cannot afford to go sick, or take time off to take care of their children.

That's on top of the fact that millions - possibly the same folks by and large - have no healthcare provision nor access to treatment.

For anyone who thinks it does not matter, because they are covered, here's a thought from Brooklyn councilman Brad Lander, taken from his election address:
Today, over a million working New Yorkers have no paid so sick days. Many work in places where disease is most likely to spread -- one survey showed that 84% of restaurant workers have no paid sick days, and more than half report going to work sick. Its bad for workers, bad for families, and bad for public health.

Brad was taking up the issue at city level, but of course it is a nationwide question.

Civic Engagement campaigners who are campaigning for paid sick leave say:

According to a "recent report" by the Center for Economic Policy and Research, the United States is the only industrial nation that does not guarantee paid sick leave for workers suffering from either short-term or long-term illnesses. This shocking finding means that forty million Americans – 40% of private-sector workers and more than 80% of low-wage workers — do not get paid sick days to care for their own health or that of a loved one. Not only does this injustice force caregivers to choose between their work lives and their family's well-being – it also poses a threat to public health. The same study revealed that adults without paid sick days are more likely than their counterparts with paid sick days to report going to work with a contagious illness (like the flu or a viral infection), risking infecting others.

Paid sick days would benefit the 66 million American adults who are unpaid caregivers for family members or friends, allowing them to manage both their caregiving responsibilities and the jobs they need to support their families. Furthermore, it would also save employers money. The cost of replacing workers - including advertising positions, interviewing, and training replacements - are in many cases greater than the cost of granting paid sick time in order to keep existing workers.

In 2009, Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro introduced The Healthy Families Act - a measure that would require employers with 15 or more workers to grant their employees up to seven paid sick days a year to care for a child, a parent, a spouse or someone else close who became ill. A coalition of approximately 150 women's, civil rights, health, faith-based, and labor organizations (including the AFL-CIO, American Civil Liberties Union, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Economic Policy Institute, Families USA and many others) has since formed to support the bill's passage. However, corporate lobbyists have taken great strides to block the legislation, causing the Healthy Families Initiative to languish in committee for the past three years.

We need your help to pressure our elected Representatives to salvage this crucial bill! In order to strengthen jobs and the economy, protect public health and give working families a helping hand - support the passage of paid sick days for all!

http://www.causes.com/causes/621636-civic-engagement-make-our-voices-heard/actions/1672689?recruiter_id=93606826&utm_campaign=invite&utm_medium=wall&utm_source=fb

And here are some facts about US health care provision and the affects of lack of it:

The U.S. Census Bureau reported that 49.9 million residents, 16.3% of the population, were uninsured in 2010 (up from 49.0 million residents, 16.1% of the population, in 2009).^[1][2]

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States spent more on health care per capita ($7,146), and more on health care as percentage of its GDP (15.2%), than any other nation in 2008.^[3] The United States had the fourth highest level of government health care spending per capita ($3,426), behind three countries with higher levels of GDP per capita: Monaco, Luxembourg, and Norway.^[3]

A 2001 study in five states found that medical debt contributed to 46.2% of all personal bankruptcies and in 2007, 62.1% of filers for bankruptcies claimed high medical expenses.^[4] Since then, health costs and the numbers of uninsured and underinsured have increased.^[5]

Active debate about health care reform in the United States concerns questions of a right to health care, access, fairness, efficiency, cost, choice, value, and quality. Some have argued that the system does not deliver equivalent value for the money spent. The USA pays twice as much yet lags behind other wealthy nations in such measures as infant mortality and life expectancy.

Currently, the USA has a higher infant mortality rate than most of the world's industrialized nations.^{[nb 1][6]} In the United States life expectancy is 42nd in the world, after some other industrialized nations, lagging the other nations of the G5 (Japan, France, Germany, UK, USA) and just after Chile (35th) and Cuba (37th).^[7]

Life expectancy at birth in the USA, 78.49, is 50th in the world, below most developed nations and some developing nations.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States

That's extracted from the Wikipedia article on US health care provision which also tells us that:

In the United States, ownership of the health care system is mainly in private hands, though federal, state, county, and city governments also own certain facilities.

And of course:

As in most other countries, the manufacture and production of pharmaceuticals and medical devices is carried out by private companies.

So when Republican Mitt Romney boasts that the United States spends more of its GDP on health care than most other countries, you need not be a genius to figure out possible reasons why there's a wide gap between what is spent and what is provided, besides the difference between the care you can get if you are rich and what others receive, if they are lucky.

US Republicans, neo cons and Tea Party nutters have been trying to terrify Americans with horror stories about Britain's NHS, socialised health care and supposed "rationing". Sometimes the scare stories may be boosted by British hacks who are in the pocket of private health insurers or providers.

Having worked in, as well as used, our National Health Service, I do think it has rooms for improvement.

But what we are scared of here is that our government admires the American way, and is intent on privatising as well as attacking benefits.

Another bloody Page in US history

WHAT kind of society is the United States of America? What kind of culture? Merely calling it capitalism, or describing it as Western, would tell us very little. As for being Christian, perhaps a majority of Americans are. Certainly the various denominations, and all kind of gospel preachers, do a roaring trade.

But more than a century after the OK Corral, modern America, or sections of it, not just hoodlums but supposedly respectable middle class citizens, are still a gun totin' society. It seems to be the minorities who are expected to "turn the other cheek".

Last night hundreds of people, decent folk of all religions and none, gathered for a candlelit vigil in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, to pay respects to six members of the Sikh community, shot dead in their temple by white supremacist Wade Michael Page.

Some felt guilty that they had not known anything about the Sikhs in their town.

"We didn't know about them," said Loren Bauer, a retired machinist. "We see them but we don't pay much attention. A lot of them drive cabs and have gas stations and convenience stores. The only thing I ever heard about them was that a lot of people thought they were Muslims after 9/11."

Teri Pelzek, too, had barely heard of Sikhs. "I knew nothing about them at all. I don't think a lot of people did. When we don't know about somebody's religion we assume the worst," she said

Police and others remarked on the Sikh's willingness to show forgiveness to their assailant. Page was shot dead (or shot himself, according to some reports)after also shooting a police officer,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/08/sikh-forgiveness-oak-creek-vigil

Americans' ignorance of other people and religions has been blamed for attacks on Sikhs, who with their turbans have been mistaken for Muslims by those with only a hazy idea of eastern religions. The implication of some comments would suggest that killing Muslims is OK. A more pertinent suspicion might be that the killers go looking for handy targets, and are not fussy whom they hit. Shocking as the temple shooting was, it was not entirely new, as Sonny Hundal has poited out:

On 15 September 2001, 52-year-old Balbir Singh Sodhi, a gas-station owner in Arizona, was shot five times by Frank Roque. While Sodhi died instantly, Roque went on to shoot at other ethnic minorities before going to a local bar and boasting: "They're investigating the murder of a turban-head down the street."

Yesterday, a gunman opened fire on a Sikh congregation in Wisconsin, killing six people in what is now being treated as an act of "domestic terrorism". Some witnesses say the shooter had a tattoo marking the September 11 attacks, though this is not confirmed by the authorities.

While the "war on terror" that followed September 2001 badly affected Muslim families in the west, it is sadly less well-known that Sikhs have also faced significant harassment as a consequence. The Sikh Coalition of Washington said yesterday that Sikhs in the US have faced more than 700 such incidents since 9/11; authorities still do not officially collect data on religious hate crimes against them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/06/wisconsin-temple-shooting-sikh-scapegoats?INTCMP=SRCH

Not all shootings have any rationale. It would have been hard to predict that a man would enter a cinema complex in Aurora, Colorado, and start shooting at random, killing a dozen people inlcuding a six year old child, and wounding 59 more. Nevertheless, it seems remarkable not only that the man could buy the hardware and ammunition he did (thanks to freedoms protected by the National Rifle Association) but that nobody thought to ask him what he had in m mind. As the police chief told the press:

The suspect had legally purchased four weapons in the last 60 days from gun shops, including an assault rifle, a shotgun and two Glock handguns, Oates said. Holmes had also purchased more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition -- 3,000 for the assault rifle, 3,000 for the two handguns and 300 rounds for the shotgun.

“All weapons he possessed, he possessed legally. All clips he possessed, he possessed legally. All ammunition he possessed, he possessed legally,” Oates said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-colorado-shooting-20120720,0,5725827.story

Such shootings are not confined to the United States. Here in Britain, notwithstanding gun control laws, we've had Hungerford and Dunblane. Norway has the crazed Nazi mass murderer Breivik. The Wisconsin temple shootings particularly bring to mind the action of Baruch Goldstein, who as a doctor was presumably familiar with the Hippocratic Oath to save lives, but as a religious Zionist felt it right to enter the mosque at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron with an automatic weapon, and murder 29 Muslim worshippers, wounding over 120 more. But Goldstein too was an American, born in Brooklyn, and joined Meir Kahane's Jewish Defence League, before he emigrated to Palestine, and joined Kahane's fascist offshoot, the Kach party.

It may not always be possible to point to an ideological motivation for these murders. I have friends who died of cancer without ever having smoked a cigarette. But enough evidence has been found of a link between smoking and cancer for tobacco advertsing to be restricted, fag packets to carry a government health warning, and pubs to ban smoking. Somehow whenever a right-wing bomber or killer is identified he is always an "ex-member" of racist and fascist organisations, rather as a lung cancer victim may have given up smoking.

Wane Michael Page was known as a white supremacist, and associated with far right parties and the Nazi rock scene. He seemed unable to hold a job. Neighbours found him a little "creepy" . None of this seems to have interfered with his acquiring firearms. But then he had an interesting background.

"Page's stepmother, Laura Page, said it wasn't always that way. She described him as a "normal little boy" and struggled to explain how he came to be a mass murderer with a Facebook picture of him in front of a Nazi swastika.

Laura Page said that joining the military had appeared to be good for her stepson because it "gave him focus".

"Now I greatly question that direction. I don't know if the military was good for him. I don't know. I wish I had some answers. And we're not going to have answers because he's dead," she said.

Some reports have described Page as a "failed" soldier, but he did well enough after joining in 1992 to be assigned to a psychological operations unit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the Green Berets' birthplace. The psy ops unit is regarded by the Army as exclusive.

But at the time Fort Bragg was also a recruiting centre for white hate groups including the National Alliance, once regarded as one of the most effective such groups and also among the most extreme because it openly glorified Adolf Hitler. The Military Law Review at the time reported that National Alliance flags were openly hung in barracks and, out of uniform, soldiers sported neo-Nazi symbols and played records about killing blacks and Jews.

"White supremacists have a natural attraction to the army," the Military Law Review said. "They often see themselves as warriors, superbly fit and well-trained in survivalist techniques and weapons and poised for the ultimate conflict with various races."

When I first met Page he was new to Southern California but he'd been around the white supremacist movement for a while. In Southern California he was spending time with a lot of different groups and was very involved in the white power music scene playing guitar in bands and trying to help promote shows. He had contacts with the National Alliance, Hammerskin Nation, different Klan groups, Volksfront and various other groups active in the white supremacist movement.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/07/wade-michael-page-wisconsin-shooting

Not only were Page and his politics known, they were studied. Brian Levin, J.D. of the University of California, has interviewed Criminology professor Pete Simi, whose study focused on the Nazi hate bands in southern California. Dr. Simi recently co-authored (with Robert Futrell, University of Nevada, Las Vegas) the book American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement's Hidden Spaces of Hate. His research on extremist movements has been funded by the National Institute of Justice,

Here are some extracts from that interview:

When did you first meet Wade Page and what was he generally like at that time?

I met Page in 2001 while I was conducting fieldwork studying white supremacist groups in Southern California. Page had recently moved to Orange County, California and was living with another research subject I already knew. Wade was immediately friendly and didn't seem to have any problems with me hanging around doing research. He actually seemed to enjoy talking about his beliefs and at times I think he hoped to convert me. There were times when he was a little quiet and awkward but other times he seemed to loosen up and would joke around a lot. He definitely had a drinking problem and would pass out regularly. His heavy drinking made it hard for him to get to work.

Who was Page affiliated with and what types of activities was he involved in?

When I first met Page he was new to Southern California but he'd been around the white supremacist movement for a while. In Southern California he was spending time with a lot of different groups and was very involved in the white power music scene playing guitar in bands and trying to help promote shows. He had contacts with the National Alliance, Hammerskin Nation, different Klan groups, Volksfront and various other groups active in the white supremacist movement.

How long did you know Page and when was the last time he contacted you?

Approximately two years between 2001 through 2003. My last contact with him was a phone conversation in 2003 while he was still in Southern California and while I was still in graduate school in Las Vegas.

What is Hate Rock?

Hate rock spans several different types of music but is connected by an underlying commitment to white supremacist and neo-Nazi ideology. The bands and shows can be found across the globe but are most prominent in Europe and the United States.

What are the most important aspects of hate music?

Hate music is important for a number of reasons. The music is used to recruit new members and generate revenue for organizations. Most importantly the music brings like-minded individuals together in terms of smaller music shows at bars and larger music festivals held on private property. The music helps members feel like they are part of something bigger and there are others out there who feel the same way they do.

What were some of his favorite websites or social networks?

He talked about Radio White, a local Orange County, California white power radio website, and even helped host some of the shows. He also talked about Resistance Records and Panzerfaust Records websites, and the National Alliance website. I also remember Stormfront coming up but I don't recall if he talked much about posting on the site. During that time I knew him he would spend time on the Internet but wasn't on there all the time like some people involved in these groups.

How would you categorize Page?

I would say he was an independent neo-Nazi skinhead who saw his musical involvement as his main form of activism.

How did Page speak about Muslims, Sikhs, other groups and 9/11?

I distinctly remember an email exchange with him shortly after 9/11 and he was very angry about Muslims and said something to the effect of America needing to go over to the Middle East and bomb 'em all. Aside from that, most of his rhetoric was not specifically targeted toward Muslims or Sikhs. Most of his rhetoric was directed more generically about "nonwhites" or more specifically about Blacks and Jewish people. Of course he didn't use these terms but instead referred to "ZOG" (Zionist Occupational Government) or "niggers" etc.

What was your response when you found out that Page was a subject of your research and an acquaintance?

When I saw his photo on the Southern Poverty Law Center website Monday afternoon I literally felt sick. It actually took me a couple minutes to actually be able to say, "That's Wade, I knew him."

How did Page get involved in the world of hate?

He explained to me that growing up in the Denver area he was aware of skinheads including white power folks after he got involved in the local punk rock scene in the late 1980s. But he said that his real interest started during his time in the military. He once told me, "If you don't go into the military as a racist, you definitely leave as one." He also talked about meeting neo-Nazis in the military and being exposed to neo-Nazi literature while in the military. Once he left the military he went to a music show where he met members of the band Youngland and shortly after that he drove his motorcycle across country relocating to Southern California with not much more than the clothes on his back.

He was stationed at Fort Bragg where the National Alliance actively recruited and where neo-Nazi soldiers were convicted of murdering a Black couple just off base. What did he think of those killings?

We talked about the murders once and James Burmeister and he certainly didn't condemn the violence. He didn't come out and say, "yeah that's what needs to happen" but he didn't seem bothered at all by it either. Like a lot of the violence that comes from the movement there's this attitude of you gotta do these things to survive. It's a twisted way of turning unprovoked violence into self-defense.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-levin-jd/exclusive-interview-with_b_1751181.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=3136701,b=facebook

Las Vegas Big Money Behind Big Mouth and Bibiton

"HOW MUCH IS HE PAYING YOU?" Romney and Netanyahu both get backing from Sheldon Adelson.

LEADING BACKER FOR ROMNEY. Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson with his wife Miriam Ochsorn.

"If Romney gets tough on Israel’s defense and continues to repeat his small government, free market message, he could find that the war chest backing his efforts is, well, limitless. It will be interesting to see how Obama’s billionaire backers –who have so far been reticent to match GOP efforts–will respond."

Forbes Business Magazine

IT seemed like Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney could not open his mouth without putting his foot in it. Either that or he is playing to a rich but lumpen-minded gallery at home.

First stop on his electioneering from abroad tour was London, where he managed to elicit ridicule and tart replies from such presumed allies as Boris Johnson and Dareavid Cameron by suggesting the country is past it, makes stuff nobody wants, and worst of all, was not ready for the Olympics. Incidentally, he nevertheless thinks his Republicans are better qualified than Barack Obama to sustain the transatlantic relationship with the UK because of a shared "Anglo-Saxon heritage". Not that he's a racialist, mind ....

Interesting that in these cash-strapped times the man was over for a fund-raising dinner, though apparently they had to lower the price of tickets, and questions were asked about Barclays Bank finding time from its troubles to come up with some funding.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9428249/Barclays-told-to-stop-fundraising-for-Mitt-Romney.html

Romney also boasted of having met the head of MI6 and discussed Syria. It's not the done thing to talk about such meetings. But what's more worrying is what the spy chief might have told him and whether it registered.

Takeh it's Tacky, What do you expect?

From here it was on to Jerusalem where the Mormon Romney posed for pictures by the Western ("Wailing") Wall, where the black-clad Orthodox were saying their prayers, prompting this comment in the Atlantic Monthly:

Temple Mount Tackiness By Jeffrey Goldberg

Jul 29 2012, 8:48 AM ET Today is Tisha b'Av, the ninth of Av, a Jewish day of fasting and mourning. It is on this day that the First and Second Temples were destroyed. The Western Wall, in Jerusalem, is a retaining wall of the Second Temple. It is, especially on this day, a locus of prayer and reflection. It is also, on this particular Tisha b'Av, the location of a very important photo opportunity for an American presidential candidate.

How vulgar is this?

Very.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/temple-mount-tackiness/260460/

Well, whoever advises Romney and made the arrangements had originally scheduled a $50,000 a plate fund-raising dinner for the fast day, too, which had to be moved on to the next day when someone pointed out it might embarass some guests otherwise.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/mitt-romney-jerusalem-fundraiser_n_1668271.html

We don't know whether anyone -apart from US diplomats in the Middle East - was embarassed by Romney's pledge to support Israel if it decided to wage war on Iran, or his support for Jerusalem as the "undivided" capital of Israel - which is not official US policy.

Nor by his praise for Israeli economic success, in contrast to low Palestinian productivity, which he attributed to "cultural" differences and the "hand of providence". "As I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognise the power of at least culture and a few other things, " he told dinner guests, citing a climate of innovation, the Jewish history of thriving in adversity, and the "hand of providence".

If any Jewish listeners were reminded of the old "friendly" antisemitic remark "You people are so clever at making money", those who'd paid for the dinner did not say so.

Nor did they remark on the American's modesty in referring to "the hand of providence" when it is the hand of the United States that makes Israel its biggest aid recipient. Or acknowledge that for the neighbours, having your utilities bombed and coast blockaded, or settlers uproot your olive groves and take your water, cannot be good for economic growth.

But Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, recognised Romney's comments for what they were. "It is a racist statement, and this man doesn't realise that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation," he said.

"It seems to me this man lacks information, knowledge, vision and understanding of this region and its people. He also lacks knowledge about the Israelis themselves. I have not heard any Israeli official speak about cultural superiority."

Although hundreds of millionaires are backing Romney, his most generous benefactor is a Las Vegas real estate developer and hotel billionaire who had previously given his backing to Newt Gingrich. Sheldon Adelson has reason to be grateful to politicians. Having purchased the Sands Hotel -- the decrepit former home of the Hollywood Rat Pack and location where Oceans 11 was filmed-- he turned the site into a massive convention centre, bringing in lots of high-spending convention delegates to fill the Vegas hotels. He expanded his empire with two high-end hotel-casino-resorts, the Venetian (1999) -- complete with gondoliers ferrying tourists down fake canals -- and the Palazzo, which opened in 2007.

Though Adelson liked to be known as "liberal" on some issues - he doesn't mind your money, whether or not you are black, or gay - he has his hatreds. One is social health care, such as Britain's NHS or what Obama is promising. Another is unions. The Venetian opened in 1999 as the only non-union casino on the Strip and has been the target of protest from the hotel workers union, Culinary 226, ever since. Many Democratic politicians in the state continue to observe the union's boycott of Adelson's properties.

Adelson's right-wing views have not stopped him doing business in 'People's China', just like Murdoch. He has casinos in Macao, and is said to have helped Beijing's bid for the 2008 Olympics. But now his man Romney is in Poland, and stirring up the Cold War again.

Mitt Romney is not the only politician Sheldon Adelson is supporting. In 2007 he launched the newspaper Israel Hayom to support a politician he fancied, Binyamin Netanyahu, 'Bibi' as he is widely called, and though it can't be cheap to have a freeby newspaper competing with the paid titles, the 'Bibiton' as many call it has become Israel's biggest circulation daily and Netanyahu of course is prime minister.

If Romney succeeds in making it to the White House that will be two government leaders in the pocket of the man from Vegas. And it might not be just his mouth that Mitt is shooting off.


http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/03/sheldon-adelson-gingrichs-money-man-doesnt-hate-mitt-romney/#ixzz229E8ltNS

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2012/06/13/exclusive-adelsons-pro-romney-donations-will-be-limitless-could-top-100m/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/who-is-sheldon-adelson-the-gingrich-super-pacs-billionaire-backer/252003/

http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/03/sheldon-adelson-gingrichs-money-man-doesnt-hate-mitt-romney/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/02/1061048/-Sheldon-Adelson-already-bought-a-politician-Israel-s-Prime-Minister-UPDATES

Costs of the Newt's Crusade

ALTHOUGH US Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is thankfully still a long way from the White House, let alone the war that he would like to wage, some Americans may already be counting the cost - for themselves - of getting caught up in the Newt's Crusade.

New York City police commissioner Raymond W. Kelly issued an apology through a top aide, on Tuesday. regretting that he cooperated with the makers of “The Third Jihad”, a film which purports to expose a Muslim conspiracy to “infiltrate and dominate America.”

Although not officially adopted by the police department, the film was shown on continuous loop in a room where police officers were filling out paper work or were on break from training, for an extended period in 2010, Kelly acknowledged in a statement. More than 1,400 officers may have seen it. It was stopped after an officer complained.

The anti-Muslim film shown to police officers was first reported a year ago in the Village Voice. But it has become a topical and controversial issue because it is being linked to those financing Newt Gingrich's campaign, and because Ray Kelly, who appears in the film,been interviewed for the film has not made a good job of dissassociating himself from it.

In fact Kelly denied at first having been interviewed for the film, claiming that clips of him had ben culled from elsewhere. That was on Monday, after the New York Times ran the story. But on Tuesday, after the film makers said they had met the police commissioner, Kelly's spokesman Paul Browne revised that earlier statement, saying he was approached in 2007 by Erik Werth, a reporter and former policy adviser under President Bill Clinton, to interview Kelly about “foiled terrorist plots and the current threat matrix” for a video Werth was making for cable TV"

Also on Tuesday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a longtime Kelly ally, said that in showing the film, “Somebody exercised some terrible judgment. Bloomberg, who has been under fire for some of his associates and appointees, may be under pressure to dump Kelly.

The New York Police Department was already facing criticism from Muslim and civil liberties groups over a CIA-advised program that involved "mapping" the city's Muslim enclaves, and some reports say 'The Third Jihad', which depicts even moderate Muslims as taking part in a centuries-old plan for world domination, was shown to thousands of officers as a training video.

The New York Times' report connects The Third Jihad, and its shadowy sponsor, The Clarion Fund, to the 2012 election:

The 72-minute film was financed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group whose board includes a former Central Intelligence Agency official and a deputy defense secretary for President Ronald Reagan. Its previous documentary attacking Muslims' "war on the West" attracted support from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a major supporter of Israel who has helped reshape the Republican presidential primary by pouring millions of dollars into a so-called super PAC that backs Newt Gingrich.

The United States, though opposing Palestinian recognition in the UN, is still officially committed under President Obama to the so-called Two State solution meaning that a Palestinian state would be set up alongside Israel. But Gingrich has come out as a champion of the extreme Zionists' belligerent line that Palestinians are just an "invented" nation. The suspicion is that those who start by denying a people's existence move on to trying to wipe them out physically.

Gingrich isn't the only candidate with links to the Clarion Fund. One of Mitt Romney's Middle East advisers, Walid Phares, was a political adviser to the right-wing Christian Lebanese Forces which carried out atrocities during Lebanon's long civil war, before going on to be an "anti-terrorism" expert in the United States, and he remains on Clarion's adisory board.

The former Massachussetts governor has made an effort to quietly acknowledge those who believe American Muslims are quietly working to replace the Constitution with Taliban-style Islamic law (and force all of us to eat halal turkeys at Thanksgiving) by picking one of their more scholarly cohorts as an adviser on the Middle East, according to Mother Jones magazine's Washington DC correspondent Adam Serwer.

Neverthess, Gingrich's links with the Islamophobes and far Right Zionists seem strongest, and underwritten with financial backing. A report by Gal Beckerman in the Jewish daily Forward
says:

"It is safe to say that without multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson’s help the chances of Newt Gingrich becoming the Republican nominee for president would be zero — and consequently the race itself, going into Florida at the moment, would not be the competitive, drag-out fight it has become. Adelson, the hotel and casino magnate, has kept Gingrich alive, first through an infusion of $5 million into a super PAC, which allowed the former speaker to defend himself against attacks by Mitt Romney and led to Gingrich’s thumping victory in South Carolina. And now we know that Adelson’s wife, Miriam, has committed another $5 million to the cause of Newt.

"One of Adelson’s passions — and a reason for his desire to play such a big role in American politics — is undoubtedly Israel. And his positions are unambiguously right-wing and hawkish to the extreme. When it comes to the Palestinians, there is no one to be trusted. The New Yorker quotes him as calling Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister widely respected in the West, as being one of the “terrorists” running the Palestinian Authoriy. Even AIPAC was not far enough to the right for him. After being a diehard supporter — funding a new building in Washington, D.C. — he split with the group in 2007 when it decided to support a congressional initiative, backed by the Israelis, to increase economic aid to the Palestinians. “I don’t continue to support organizations that help friends committing suicide just because they want to jump,” he said at the time by way of explanation. He had the same reaction when Ehud Olmert, whom Adelson had once befriended, came to the conclusion that he had to pursue negotiations with the Palestinian leadership.

"In short, Adelson does not believe in the two-state solution. As he told The Jewish Week last year, 'The two-state solution is a stepping stone for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.'

"What does it mean to have someone with these views have such an outsized influence on a candidate and the race he is in? Well, for Gingrich it seems this has translated into him tripping over himself to prove his pro-Israel bona fides, to the point where he was willing to say, this past December in an interview with the Jewish Channel, that the Palestinians were an “invented” people who “had the chance to go many places.’’ No Palestinians, no need to negotiate a state. And Adelson clearly showed his satisfaction with Gingrich’s line. As he told a group of Birthright participants at a Hanukkah party a few weeks later, 'Read the history of those who call themselves Palestinians, and you will hear why Gingrich said recently that the Palestinians are an invented people'.

"As Wayne Barrett recently reported in The Daily Beast, there has been a marked turn in Gingrich’s positions on Israel since his political life began depending on Adelson. Not that long ago, in a 2005 Middle East Quarterly article, Gingrich urged the “Palestinian diaspora” to invest in “their ancestral lands,” and even proposed that Congress “establish a program of economic aid for the Palestinians to match the aid the U.S. government provides Israel.”

"You will not hear anything like this from Gingrich again any time soon.

"But the greater concern is that because of his influence on Gingrich, Adelson has turned the Republican contest into a competition of extreme rhetoric, in which there is no room for compromise or diplomacy, and the only answer to any international problem is unmitigated toughness. No one wants to be outflanked by the right when it comes to foreign policy (no one, I should say, besides Ron Paul) and so Gingrich’s apparent parroting of Adelson’s hardline attitudes about Israel — and, I should add, Iran — means that the whole tone of the race is affected."

Like George Dubya before him, the Newt seems eager to afford other Americans the opportunity to participate in war, without having himself experienced it. Though raised partly by a stepfather who was in the military, Gingrich went to France, obtained deferment as a student, did not enlist and was not drafted during the Vietnam war. "Given everything I believe in, a large part of me thinks I should have gone over," he declared in 1985.

Still that dues not prevent him advocating war now, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere. In a recent debate in Florida, Gingrich advocated a war with Cuba to deal with the problem of Fidel Castro. Romney, keeping up with the spirit of the game, asserts that he would not be negotiating with the Taliban. When asked by Brian Williams, “Governor, how do you end the war in Afghanistan without talking to the Taliban?” Romney simply said, “By beating them.”

Rick Santorum, a former lawyer putting himself as the "True Conservative" said recently that he would demand the Iranians open up their nuclear facilities, “or we will degrade those facilities through air strikes — and make it very public that we are doing that.” This is one of the implicit options in Obama's repeated threat that “all options are on the table.” But for Santorum there seems to be no other option. Like the Islamophobes training for war at home, Santorum too has pointed to a domestic enemy, denouncing left-wing academics whom he alleges are "indoctrinating students".

Romney says that “if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” and calls for regime change as well as “covert and overt” actions. Gingrich says he would “break the Iranian regime” within a year by “cutting off the gasoline supply to Iran and then, frankly, sabotaging the only refinery they have.”

Talk is cheap, though in America it is also very expensive. Were any of these gentlemen to gain office ordinary Americans, as well as people in other countries, could find themselves paying a much higher price than officials careers or the millions that have gone into the candidates' coffers. Hopefully anough Americans will sober up to see the danger when the war hysteria primaries are over.

Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/150258/#ixzz1ka2Q3Cvw

http://online.wsj.com/article/AP49ec28cdf38a4361beea1ff00a170c49.html

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/01/gingrich-anti-muslim-adelson-clarion

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/nyregion/police-commissioner-kelly-helped-with-anti-islam-film-and-regrets-it.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Third%20Jihad&st=cse

http://www.metro.us/newyork/local/article/1080575--ray-kelly-nypd-police-chief-regrets-role-in-the-third-jihad-controversial-islamic-film

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/bloomberg-assails-showing-of-anti-muslim-film-to-police/?ref=islam

Witness faces trial by War Criminals

AMERICAN soldier BRADLEY MANNING is the subject of a pre-trial hearing to decide whether he should face a full court martial on charges of taking classified material, and disclosing secrets that could "assist an enemy".

After months of being held in military cells, regularly stripped and treated like some dangerous terrorist, the former technician is having his supposed mental state, sexual inclinations and personal identity toosed around in public, before an investigating officer who must be impatient to proceed with the real business. Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, a reserve military judge who has also worked as a career prosecutor with the Department of Justice since 2002 until he went on reservist military leave to devote himself to the Manning case.

The military accuse Bradley Manning of "treason", which could incur the death penalty. Some politicians have been calling for his execution ever since he was identifed. But the information which Manning is accused of leaking through Wikileaks concerned actions by US forces in Iraq, which were hardly a secret to those at the receiving end, and diplomatic reports. They may have endangered America's reputation, but they assisted the American and allied public to know what has been done in our name. We are "the enemy".

The US colours were lowered in Iraq this weekend, and the "Last Post" played, before Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told troops: "You will leave with great pride, lasting pride, secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people to cast tyranny aside and to offer hope for prosperity and peace to this country's future generations."

The US forces are leaving behind some 700 "advisers" with Iraqi forces, and mercenary contractors no doubt to help look after the oil interests which Western companies have obtained. They are also leaving what was once among the more developed countries of the Arab world, but has been devasteated by sanctions and war, and torn apart by armed gangs, some imported, some covert foreign units, unleashed by the conquest.

Many educated Iraqis, doctors and engineers, have been killed or terrorised into leaving. along with Palestinian and others who had made their living there. "Aid" dollars and art treasures have gone missing from the country. And as American service personnel go home, many Iraqis have no homes left.

"Not far from where the speeches were taking place lay grim evidence which refuted the claims that the Americans were leaving behind a land of stability and prosperity. More than 8,000 people are living in squalor in a field of mud and foetid water, with huts made of rags and salvaged pieces of wood.

"The residents of Al-Rahlat camp are among 1.3 million refugees in their own country; families driven out of their homes by the sectarian violence spawned by the war. Another 1.6 million fled Iraq for neighbouring states, mainly Jordan and Syria. Those in Syria, with its escalating violence, are now having to seek another place of safety.

"Around 450,000 of the IDPs (internally displaced persons) are living in the worst conditions, crammed into 380 street settlements scattered around the country. They have little or no access to clean water, sanitation or medical care. Many of these people, deemed to be illegally squatting, cannot get the documents necessary to register for welfare relief or take up jobs, or enrol their sons and daughters in schools. The tension and claustrophobia of such an existence has led to psychological problems, especially among children. Domestic violence is rife.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/will-iraqs-13-million-refugees-ever-be-able-to-go-home-6277667.html

In the speeches at the leaving ceremeny particular tribute was paid to the bravery of US troops who went into Fallujah. For many that name evokes other memories, and living reminders:

"FPIF reports (November 23rd): Seven years after the U.S. invasion of Fallujah, there are reports of an alarming rise in the rates of birth defects and cancer. But the crisis, and its possible connection to weapons deployed by the United States during the war, remains woefully under-examined. "Thirty to fifty thousand people were still inside the city when the U.S. military launched a series of airstrikes, dropping incendiary bombs on suspected insurgent hideouts. Ground forces then combed through targeted neighborhoods house by house. Ross Caputi, who served as a first private Marine during the siege, has said that his squad and others employed "reconnaissance by fire," firing into dwellings before entering to make sure nobody inside was still alive. "By the end of the campaign, Fallujah was a ghost town. Though the military did not tally civilian casualties, independent reports put the number somewhere between 800 and 6,000. As The Washington Post reported in April 2005, more than half of Fallujah's 39,000 homes were damaged, of which 10,000 were no longer habitable. "Of the current problems in Fallujah, the most alarming is a mounting public health crisis. In the years since the invasion, doctors in Fallujah have reported drastic increases in the number of premature births, infant mortality, and birth defects-babies born without skulls, missing organs, or with stumps for arms and legs. Fallujah General Hospital reported that, out of 170 babies born in September 2009, 24 percent died within the first seven days, of which 75 percent were deformed".

That's an article from Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a project of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. FPIF describes itself as a "Think Tank Without Walls"^[1] that brings together over 600 writers, scholars, academics, artists and activists seeking to make the United States a more responsible global partner. FPIF believes that "U.S. security and world stability are best advanced through a commitment to peace, justice and environmental protection as well as economic, political, and social rights".

But reports like their's on Falluja must surely be of assistance to the "enemy".

The high incidence of birth defects in Falluja has led some to wonder if it was linked to US chemical weapons or phosphorus, or depleted uranium munitions which the Western military leaders denied using in Iraq. But one authority has suggested that the culprit may not be depleted uranium.

"Professor Chris Busby, from the School of Biomedical Science, University of Ulster, believes that the United States severely overstepped the boundaries of international law and is the likely suspect in the use of not just deadly depleted uranium, a growing subject in the world, but actual U-235 enriched weapons-grade uranium from a neutron bomb.

Those are the weapons that kill biological life but leave structures and landscape otherwise intact. You could call it the ultimate irony; discovering that illegal nuclear weapons were used in Fallujah, Iraq by the United States; the country that led the world down the trail of deceit by falsely declaring that Iraq had 'weapons of mass destruction'

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/november042011/nuke-weapons-bn.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd6ix6swkXs

Some commentators have seemed in a rush to discredit Professor Busby and his findings.

We don't know how well-founded his research was or what motives he is supposed to have had for coming up with his version.

But of Bradley Manning's evidence on one incident there is little room for doubt. He provided an official video from a US helicopter gunship of the airstrike in which it killed eleven individuals on the ground, two of them being Reuters news correspondents, as well as firing rockets into a residential block, and destroying a van in which two children were passengers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike

The crew remarked that people should not have brought kids into a "battle zone" - a Baghdad street, They don't appear to have faced any recriminations let alone trial. But then it would appear they were only following orders and acting in line with the procedure they had been given.

All the same it is some "justice" that ubjects the man who exposed such actions to an ordeal and threatens this witness with the death penalty.

The same "justice " that leaves George Dubya Bush with a grin, and Tony B-Liar Blair getting richer than ever from the war that the two of them started.



By way of a follow up:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/world/middleeast/united-states-marines-haditha-interviews-found-in-iraq-junkyard.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all

History that's haunting America

FRONTLINE TO PICKET LINE. US war vets line up to protect Oakland occupation.


AMERICA'S Occupy Wall Street movement has not only spread across the continent from shore to shining shore, but taken on new seriousness in the West Coast port city of Oakland, where police attacks on the protesters have widened their support, and led to a general strike action stretching from school teachers to longshoremen (port workers).

People were not placated by an apology from the mayor after an ex-marine was injured when police officers fired tear gas canisters into the crowd. As the Marine Corps paper reported:

OAKLAND, Calif. — A clash between Oakland police and Occupy Wall Street protesters left an Iraq War veteran hospitalized Wednesday after a projectile struck him in a conflict that came as tensions grew over demonstration encampments across the San Francisco Bay Area.

Scott Olsen, 24, suffered a fractured skull Tuesday in a march with other protesters toward City Hall, said Dottie Guy, of the Iraq Veterans Against the War. Olsen’s family members said the Marine Corps corporal served two tours of duty in Iraq.

The demonstrators had been making an attempt to re-establish a presence in the area of a disbanded protesters’ camp when they were met by officers in riot gear.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2011/10/ap-iraq-vet-critically-injured-oakland-protest-102711/

Fortunately Scott Olsen recovered. But news of the attack brought more ex-servicemen out to line up in protection of the protest camp, and stirred expressions of support from among serving military personnel.

Although some wild rumours had been flying around about "the marines coming", there is no doubt that ex-marines and other veterans have been turning up at occupy protests, not just on the West Coast but at Wall Street itself. Their participation is at least partly motivated by experience of the jobs market and health issues after the military has dispensed with their services, and has apparently taken extra encouragement since the AFL-CIO unions voiced support.

http://www.care2.com/causes/u-s-marines-protect-occupy-wall-street-protesters-video.html

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/more-veterans-on-the-way-to-occupy-wall-street.php

We might also note that in a week when politicians and the media have been trying to turn poppy-wearing and Armistice Day into their own propaganda stunt, a group of ex-servicemen turned up at St.Paul's cathedral to meet with the Occupy LSX campers.

Although the British Legion and American Legion are different, both originated in the period after the First World War and Russian Revolution, when the ruling classes grew frightened that returning servicemen facing unemployment and hardship would form dangerous revolutionary material. One only has to look at photographs of the original Jarrow Crusade to see that these marchers with neatly folded capes over their shoulders were marching in step and used to it.

But for the United States, supposed land of safe and successful capitalism, the news of ex-servicemen siding with the people against the bankers, and coming into potential conflict with the very forces they served has a haunting echo of history. Next year will be the 80th anniversary of the Bonus March when unemployed ex-servicemen went to Washington to demand payment of money owed them from their First World war service.

The Bonus Expeditionary Force, as they called themselves, numbered 43,000 marchers, 17,000 First World War veterans. their families, friends and supporters, who assembled in Washington, D.C., in the spring and summer of 1932. Many had been out of work since the onset of the Depression.

Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, who became famous for his frank and outspoken criticisms of US policy and the use made of the military to serve big business interests by intervening overseas, visited the marchers' camp to show support.

But on July 28 US. Attorney General William D.Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. First the Washington police moved in, and meeting resistance, opened fire. Two veterans were wounded and later died. Then President Hoover ordered the army to clear the campsite.

At 4:45 p.m., commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of civil service employees left work to line the street and watch. The Bonus Marchers, believing the troops were marching in their honor, cheered the troops until Patton ordered the cavalry to charge them—an action which prompted the spectators to yell, "Shame! Shame!"

After the cavalry charged, the infantry went in with fixed bayonets and adamsite gas, an arsenical vomiting agent. Driven out, veterans, families, and supporters retreated across the Anacostia River to their largest camp. Hoover ordered the assault stopped. But General MacArthur, who regarded the Bonus March as a Communist attempt to take power, ignored the President and ordered a new attack.

(Perhaps a later President Truman was mindful of this episode when, fearing war with China, he relieved General MacArthur of his command in Korea, and MacArthur came home to a ticker-tape reception on Wall Street).

Fifty-five veterans were injured in the onslaught and 135 arrested. A veteran's wife miscarried. When 12-week-old Bernard Myers died in the hospital after being caught in the tear gas attack, a government investigation reported he died of enteritis, though a hospital spokesperson said "the tear gas did not do it any good".

The US public showed what it thought by dumping Hoover and giving a landslide electoral victory to Franklin Delano Roosevelt that year. In 1933 there was another veterans' march, which Roosevelt tried to defuse with a more compromising approach, though it was to be some years before he was forced to agree the bonus.

On the labour front, 1934 saw a West Coast maritime strike, which became a general strike in the San Francisco bay area, including Oakland. There was also the widely supported teamsters' strike in Minneapolis.

The two men killed when police opened fire on the Bonus Marchers in Washington were William Hushka , a Lithuanian immigrant who had served in the US Army in World War I, and Eric Carlson a veteran from Oakland, who had served in the trenches in France during that war. Both men are buried at Arlington.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army

Studs Terkel's Hard Times, an oral history of the Great Depression, has accounts of the Bonus March and its repression.