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Truth in Media's GLOBAL WATCH Bulletin
2000/7-5
26-July-2000
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Topic: NORTH AMERICAN AFFAIRS
-------------------------------------------------
Phoenix
1. Weep Mankind: “Dubya” Chooses
Warmonger/
“Death Merchant” for Veep (by Justin Raimondo)
Washington
2. Albright’s State - Soros’ Estate,
Act II: Now Soros Get
His Paws on $100 Million of Public Funds
Washington
3. New Internet e-Mail Tax Proposed? Not!
Beware of False Rumors
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1. Weep Mankind!
“Dubya” Picks Warmonger/”Death
Merchant” for Veep (by Justin Raimondo)
PHOENIX, July 26 - Shortly after Bill Clinton
had defeated George Bush Sr. in the 1992 presidential elections, the TiM
editor had to travel to Europe on business. Wherever he went, and
especially in the former Yugoslavia, people wanted to know what sort of a
change in foreign policy they could expect?
“None whatsoever,” the TiM editor would reply. “Both Clinton and
Bush are in the race for the same stable owners. Things may only
change for the worse.” (since many recent wars had been either started or
escalated when a Democrat sat in the White House).
Nearly eight years later, people are asking the same question. Only
in reverse. What sort of a change can they expect if George W. Bush
Jr., “Dubya,” wins the presidency next November.
And our answer is the same as in 1992. “None whatsoever. Both
Gore and ‘Dubya’ are in the race for the same stable owners.”
After yesterday’s official selection of Dick Cheney as the Veep by
“Dubya,” we can again add to it that, “things may only change for the
worse.” As we did in 1992. (As if things can get any worse,
especially in the Balkans, right?).
This time, however, you don’t have to take just our word for it.
Justin Raimondo, the editorial director of
www.Antiwar.com,
has just about said the same thing in his article “Dick Cheney and Bush's
Other Warmongers,” which we bring you below with the Antiwar.com
permission.
For those of the TiM readers who may not be familiar with Raimondo, he is
also the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the
Conservative Movement (with an Introduction by Patrick J. Buchanan),
(1993), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention
in the Balkans (1996). He is an Adjunct Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises
Institute, in Auburn, Alabama, a Senior Fellow at the Center for
Libertarian Studies, and writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine of
American Culture. He is also the author of An Enemy of the State: The
Life of Murray N. Rothbard.
And now, with that as the sizzle (intro), here’s Raimondo’s steak (take)
on “Cheney et. al.”:
- Dick Cheney and Bush's Other Warmongers
- “Dick Cheney's ascension to the number two spot on the Republican
ticket tells us much about the kind of foreign policy we can come to
expect if Dubya makes it to the White House. To begin with, it means that
the US will be in the Balkans forever. As CEO of the Halliburton Company,
Cheney was among the chief profiteers of the Kosovo war: Brown &
Root, a Houston subsidiary of Halliburton, was awarded the engineering
contract to house, feed, and otherwise amuse the US
"peacekeepers" plonked down in the middle of that
quagmire.
(TiM Ed.: Indeed, also see, “The Pentagon Was in for Long Haul,” our
wartime Bulletin S99-45, Item 3, Day 23, Apr. 15, filed from Belgrade
about a $1 billion, 3-5 year services contract the Pentagon had awarded
Dick Cheney’s company BEFORE NATO’s bombing -
http://www.truthinmedia.org/kosovo/war/day23.HTML
):
- But engineering is just a sideline for Halliburton, which is
primarily a company that provides services and infrastructure for oil
extraction operations. Halliburton's interest in the oil fields of the
Caucasus cast Cheney in the role of a lobbyist, angling for the repeal of
legislation that forbids foreign aid to undemocratic regimes. The
government of Azerbaijan, ruled by an ex-Stalinist despot, has long
sought to get on the foreign aid gravy train, and Cheney has been one of
their chief advocates: with Halliburton's man in the VP's mansion, this
will no longer be a problem and the door to US intervention in the
region will swing wide open. The Bush Team is sure to go marching
through.
- Many Republicans hope that the incoming Bush administration and
that's an assumption that may be very transitory will pull troops
out of the Balkans, and start to pull back from our global
commitments which multiplied beyond all reason during the Clinton
interregnum. The elevation of Cheney should strip loyal GOPers of their
illusions.
- DUBYA DUBYA DUBYA DOT WARMONGER DOT COM
- Divining the foreign policy positions of George "Dubya"
Bush, the Republican "frontrunner," based on his own
statements, is an impossible task since those statements are so few
and far between that, taken together, they amount to no more than a few
sentences. And these are not exactly oracular words of wisdom but vague
sentiments that do not easily translate into policy. What does translate
into policy, however, is his choice of foreign policy advisors and
the news is not good.
- DUBYA'S POTEMKIN VILLAGE
- The three foreign policy mavens always mentioned in news stories
about Dubya's shadow Cabinet are: Condoleeza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, and
Dick Cheney. Ms. Rice, former Stanford University provost and a low-level
advisor to Dubya's father, is often cited as the chief of this policy
group, a future Secretary of State but this is the story being told
by the Bushies, and it doesn't quite add up. Like everything else in the
Bush campaign, the foreign policy "team" assembled by the
candidate and his campaign staff has all the earmarks of a classic
Potemkin village a phony façade put up to impress those who don't
bother looking too closely. Well, then, let's look a little more closely
at the Bushies' answer to Mad Madeleine.
- ALL IN THE FAMILY
- Rice started out as a music major at Stanford but almost flunked out,
whereupon she switched to Soviet studies. Rice became interested in her
specialty of Soviet studies as a student of Joseph Korbel, the father of
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Now there is an interesting
coincidence, one that underscores the inbred nature of the foreign
policy-making elite: how different from Mad Madeleine will Secretary of
State Rice turn out to be? Two years from today will we be calling her
Crazy Condoleeza?
- HISTORY OF A MEDIOCRITY
- Having found her niche, Ms. Rice was quickly taken in hand by the
Hoover Institution, a redoubt of the George Shultz/Bechtel wing of the
Republican foreign policy elite, where she rose quickly through the
ranks. As the sole person of color, and a female to boot, in an
administration devoted to "affirmative access" (if not action),
her visibility was high. But there is nothing in Rice's resume to suggest
that she is the heavyweight the Bushies are describing. The apex of her
academic career was reached with the 1984 publication of her magnum opus,
The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948-1983 : Uncertain
Allegiance, a dissertation no more indicative of her capabilities as a
future Secretary of State than her more recent unimpressive contribution
to an anthology on German reunification.
- WHAT GIVES?
- In the first Bush administration Ms. Rice was the author of no known
policy initiatives, and in the interim her career as provost at Stanford
has not exactly catapulted her into the international spotlight. So what
gives? How can we explain this strange gap between Rice's real
achievements and the grandiose future planned for her by Bush campaign
operatives?
- THE RACE FACTOR
- It is probably unkind, and no doubt a hate crime, to call attention
not only to Ms. Rice's curious lack of qualifications but also to her
race to the likelihood that she is an affirmative action
"front." In the same way that many companies nowadays get
government contracts under affirmative action rules, with a bunch of
white guys getting blacks (or whomever) to front for them, so it works
the same way in politics, where identity politics and
"diversity" are the political coin of the realm. The disparity
between Rice's resume and her projected status in Dubya's administration
is otherwise inexplicable. In an age where political correctness has even
infected the Republican Party, race is always a key factor, not only in
getting Ms. Rice where she is, but where perhaps she is
going.
- SELLING WAR TO MINORITIES
- The great advantage of having an African American Secretary of State,
who would forevermore be known as the First Black Secretary of State, is
that it will help sell interventionism among American blacks and other
minorities of color. Polls show that blacks are among the most skeptical
when it comes to overseas intervention, generally agreeing with the
proposition that we ought to take care of our problems right here at
home. A black Secretary of State would help an administration
hard-pressed to sell a war for oil in the far-off Transcaucus, or a
Vietnam-style intervention against Colombian
"narco-terrorists." Another big factor is motivating the
troops, what with blacks and other minorities now making up a majority of
the military rank-and-file.
- BEHIND THE FACADE
- But if Ms. Rice is a front, then who or what is she fronting for? Who
or what is behind the Potemkin village façade of George Dubya's foreign
policy task force? The other two members of the team, former Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, make up the two major components
of the Bushian foreign policy coalition: Big Oil and the
neoconservative/Weekly Standard wing of the GOP. While the goals of the
former are relatively coherent, and well-known the desire for
profits is universal and easily understood the obscure ideological
motivations of that exotic sect known as the neocons is not so easily or
succinctly explained.
- NEOCON POINT MAN
- For those interested in a detailed explanation, I refer you to my
1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the
Conservative Movement, which traces in detail the evolution of this
obscure sect from far Left to the ostensible Right. Suffice to say here
that these Cold Warriors in search of a new enemy, have now fixated on
China, and Wolfowitz, Dean of the Paul Nitze School of Advanced
International Studies, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs under President Reagan, and undersecretary of Defense in
the Bush administration, is their ideological point man. If there is a
war, anywhere at any time, that Paul Wolfowitz has opposed: if there is a
single concession he ever endorsed, even one instance where he speculated
that any degree of mutual disarmament or easing of tensions ought to take
precedence over military action and preparations for war, then it has
gone unrecorded. His emergence as the policy guru on George Dubya's team
signals the complete takeover of the Bush campaign by the War
Party.
- THE HATE CHINA LOBBY
- More specifically, Wolfowitz represents that wing of the War Party
that is focused on the alleged "threat" of China. For
Wolfowitz, a former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, is convinced that the
locus of power is shifting definitively in the direction of Asia. With
the freeing up of the Chinese economy, and the growth of Asian markets in
general, sheer numbers, he avers, will soon point to the possibility of
Asian hegemony in the world. He compares 21st century China to 19th
century Germany, and speculates that Chinese nationalism spurred on by
national resentment over past wrongs will spur Chinese belligerence. He
warns that those who ignore the Yellow Peril are in danger of making the
mistake of Neville Chamberlain whom "lamented that his countrymen
were preparing bomb shelters because of 'a quarrel among faraway peoples
about whom we know nothing.' Of course, that attitude of Chamberlain's
led to a terrible war that could have been prevented, a war that Winston
Churchill called 'The Unnecessary War.'"
- THE CONFERENCE OF CONSERVATIVE ANGLOPHILES
- All these references to Great Britain, and particularly Wolfowitz's
World War II analogy, were meant as crowd-pleasers, for
- this was said in a speech to the Atlanticist Initiative, the
"conservative" equivalent of the old "Union Now"
movement of Clarence Straits. Just as the Union Now organization used to
push for a formal merger of the US and Great Britain, so the new
"Atlanticists" are the chief spokesmen for the cohesion of
American and British foreign policy with the latter invariably
taking the lead and stiffening the spine of the often reluctant Uncle
Sam. The spirit of this conference of prominent American conservatives,
and their special relationship to the Mother Country, was symbolized by
the featured speaker, Lady Thatcher, that icon of right-wing Anglophilia.
It was, in short, a meeting of the Anglophile Caucus of the War Party,
convened to discuss their relevance in the post-Cold War world.
Wolfowitz's message to them was simple and direct: the end of the Cold
War does not and cannot mean peace. War, war, and more war that is
the inevitable albeit tragic fate of the human race, and we had better
prepare for it.
- THE THIRD WORLD WAR
- In an extraordinarily revealing attack on Francis Fukuyama, Wolfowitz
attacked the idea that we are in an era of peace, openly ridiculing the
thesis that we are at "the end of history," and comparing the
present era to the prewar years of 1917 and the 1930s. War is not only
probable, but also imminent, and we must prepare. The role of the NATO
alliance is key: to make sure that Russia stays out of Central Asia. To
underscore the seriousness of the alleged threat from China, he even
raises the possibility of a Russo-American alliance against Beijing. Of
course, this is all discussed in the manner of the value-free
"scientist" examining the unfolding of historical trends, but
the policy implications are clear and ominous enough.
- NEOCONS FOR KOSOVO
- As a staunch member in good standing of the neocon foreign policy
brain trust, Wolfowitz was naturally a cheerleader in Clinton's war
against the Serbian people. He was early on associated with the Balkan
war lobby, notably the Balkan Institute and the Balkan Action Council,
both funded in large part by George Soros. He signed two newspaper ads
run by the neocons in the New York Times: one full-pager calling for
extended and massive intervention early on [September 20, 1998], and
another criticizing the Clintonians for not doing enough to
"win" in Kosovo once they were involved. Among his co-signers
were the usual suspects, a motley collection of Right-wing Social
Democrats from the Lane Kirkland wing of the War Party, to
neoconservative Republicans such as William Kristol and Jeanne
Kirkpatrick. The ascension of Wolfowitz to the top policy spot means that
a policy vigorously opposed by the majority of congressional
Republicans and primary voters is going to be embraced by the
party's likely nominee. This is how our nation's "bipartisan"
foreign policy of global interventionism has managed to stay in place for
half a century, without any significant challenge the people never
get to vote on it.
- DICK CHENEY AND THE SPIRIT OF MERCANTILISM
- The other member of the Bushian foreign policy triumvirate, Dick
Cheney, plays a different if by no means subordinate role. As a former
Secretary of Defense, now the president of the Halliburton Company, the
biggest provider of products and services to the petroleum industry,
Cheney represents the alliance of Big Oil money and the
military-industrial complex. After presiding over the Defense Department,
Cheney graduated to the world of big business, where he became President
of Halliburton. Under Cheney's leadership, Halliburton has expanded the
range of services it offers and has spent about $1 billion acquiring
companies with different niche specialties. The company bought Landmark
Graphics Corp., in 1996, a company that makes software for seismic
evaluations of petroleum reservoirs. Last year, it gobbled up Numar
Corp.: their software enables drillers to analyze subsurface rock
formations in newly drilled wells using magnetic resonance imaging. The
recent acquisition of the Dresser Company means that Halliburton has
acquired strong engineering capabilities and drilling systems to
complement its strength in energy sector construction and maintenance.
Reemerging onto the political stage, Cheney is playing a major role in
what may become the biggest and most profitable deal of his private
sector career the coming war for oil in the troubled
Transcaucasus.
- WHOSE NATIONAL INTEREST?
- With his links to Texas oil barons, and his political connections,
Cheney is gearing up with the rest of the oil industry to cash in on the
Great Caspian Oil Bonanza. Cheney has been in the forefront of the effort
to repeal US legislation that forbids foreign aid to undemocratic regimes
such as the government of Azerbaijan. That central Asian nation, ruled by
a neo-Stalinist dictator, is where a good deal of the oil is located; it
is also a key link in the oil companies' scheme to build a
trans-Balkan/Transcaucasian oil pipeline to bring its product to market
in Western Europe. Can anyone doubt that "a quarrel among faraway
peoples about whom we know nothing" in that tumultuous region will
suddenly involve "vital" US "national interests"? As
Russian troops fight Islamic rebels in Dagestan, and the Armenians and
Azeris call for the US and/or NATO to intervene, the prospect of George
Dubya in the White House begins to take on a distinctly ominous
aspect.
- THEORY AND PRACTICE
- It used to be, not so long ago, that the interface of corporate
interests and US foreign policy was far subtler. In these decadents days
of imperial excess, however, there is a pagan shamelessness in the
unseemly spectacle of revolving doors between corporate and government
institutions. A man like Cheney, who segues so rapidly and easily from
chief warmaker to chief executive officer of a major international
corporation, is the perfect symbol of the Republican foreign policy
establishment in the age of George Dubya. If Wolfowitz is the chief
theoretician of this mercantilist dogma that equates untapped oil fields
with "the national interest," then Cheney is its chief
practitioner and among the most successful.
- GETTING TO THE ROOT OF THE MATTER
- The oil companies envision a pipeline that will carry their product
across Eastern Europe to customers in the West and the Albanian end
of that trans-Balkan route is already being taken care of. It was the
Houston engineering firm of Brown & Root, a subsidiary of
Halliburton, that won the contract to build barracks not only in Bosnia,
but also in Kosovo and Albania; they were one of the biggest direct
beneficiaries of the war. As Wolfowitz was signing newspaper ads
demanding the introduction of US ground troops into Kosovo, Halliburton
was busy building and outfitting the Albanian staging areas.
- FOLLOW THE MONEY
- The neo-conservative intellectuals, like Wolfowitz, expend millions
of words to prove and reprove the necessity of their policies, of the
inevitability of perpetual war for perpetual peace, while
second-and-third tier activists like William Kristol proclaim the virtues
of a "benevolent world hegemony." But in the end it boils down
to such vulgar matters as Halliburton's profit margins and the price of
oil. In an era in which wars are fought in the name of vague and
improbable ideals, such as "human rights" and
"multiculturalism," it is a safe bet to follow the money. It
works almost every time.”
---
TiM Ed.: You can check out this an other Raimondo columns at -
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/justincol.html
-------------
2. Albright State - Soros’ Estate,
Act II
Soros Get His Paws on $100 Million
of Public Funds; Montenegro - Now a “Country”
WASHINGTON, July 26 - Regular TiM readers may
recall our comment, “Albright’s
State - Soros’ Estate,” published last December,
about the Secretary of State invoking U.S. national interests to block a
$500 million loan by the U.S. Export-Import Bank to a Russian oil
company, with which financier George Soros had been in a commercial
dispute.
Well, “Albright’s State - Soros’ Estate, Act II” has just unfolded.
The Clinton administration has selected George Soros to manage a $150
million investment fund for the Balkans, according to today’s (July 26)
Wall Street Journal story, “U.S. Chooses Soros to Run Balkans
Fund.” Soros will invest $50 million himself, while the Overseas
Private Investment Corp. (OPIC), a federal government agency, will
contribute $100 million.
But OPIC (read the U.S. taxpayers) will serve only as a lender, not an
investor. All investment decisions will be made by Soros Private
Fund Management.
How’s that for a sweet deal? The Clinton administration has
basically outsourced its Balkans economic policy to Soros. Judging
by early indications, however, Washington’s anti-Serbian stance will be
continued, if not strengthened, under the Soros management. Not
only is Serbia excluded from the Balkans countries eligible to receive
proceeds from the new fund, but a state that doesn’t exist has been
included. Montenegro, Yugoslavia’s southern province whose leader
is a Washington stooge, was listed as an eligible “country.”
Other countries that can qualify for investments under this Soros-OPIC
project are Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania,
Slovenia and Turkey.
Greece’s absence from the list of eligible Balkans countries is also
curious, especially considering the inclusion of ALL of its neighbors,
including Turkey. Now, you don’t suppose that might have something
to do with the anti-Orthodox Christian stance of the Washington-led New
World Order, do you? (see
“Anti-Christian Crusades of the
20th
Century”).
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3. New Internet e-Mail Tax
Proposed? Not!
Beware of False Rumors
WASHINGTON, July 18 - A TiM web site visitor
sent us the following information last week about a supposedly new
proposed tax on Internet e-mail. Here’s an excerpt:
- Say "NO" to Bill 602P
- “The last few months have revealed an alarming trend in the
Government of the United States attempting to quietly push through
legislation that will affect our use of the Internet.
- Under proposed legislation, the US Postal Service will be attempting
to bill E-mail users out of "alternative postage fees". Bill
602P will permit the Federal Government to charge a 5 cent surcharge on
every E-Mail delivered, by billing Internet Service Providers at
source.
- The consumer would then be billed in turn by the ISP. Washington DC
lawyer Richard Stepp is working without pay to prevent this legislation
from becoming law. The US Postal Service is claiming lost revenue, due to
the proliferation of E-mail, is costing nearly $230,000,000 in revenue
per year. […]
- If the US Postal Service is allowed to tinker with E-mail, it will
mark the end of the "free" Internet in the United States.
Our congressional representative, Tony Schnell (R) has even suggested a
"$20-$40 per month surcharge on all Internet service" above and
beyond the governments proposed E-mail charges.[…]”
But when we went to the House of Representatives Web site to verify
this information, and find out the status of the bill, we discovered that
the “news” about this bill was a hoax. Here’s for example, what an
Ohio Representative, Michael
Oxley, had to say about this “bill,” among many other denials like
it:
- “Congressman Michael G. Oxley, Fourth Ohio District
- Statement on "Bill 602P" and E-Mail Surcharges
- As you may know, it was reported that a "Congressman Tony
Schnell" recently introduced "Bill 602P," which would
allow the federal government to impose a five-cent surcharge on every
e-mail sent. The money collected would be given to the United
States Postal Service. This rumor has been widely spread via e-mail
throughout the country.
- This rumor is absolutely false. No such legislation
exists. In fact, no "Congressman Tony Schnell"
exists. The Postal Service has no authority to collect fees for
e-mail, and has indicated that it would not support legislation to allow
such fees to be imposed. You can find more information about this
rumor at the Postal Service's website.
- As Vice Chairman of the Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on
Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection, know that I will work
hard to ensure that no such Internet fees are imposed.”
---
TiM Ed.: We do not know who and why is spreading such false rumors, but
we thought it was important to warn the TiM readers about this one.
There are certainly enough real government efforts that may endanger our
liberties and wallets (such as Echelon, Carnivore, for example) that we
should not allow ourselves to fall for such cheap tricks as the above
“bill,” and waste our energies swinging at the windmills, like Don
Quixote.
-------------
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UNSUBSCRIBE, followed by your e-mail address.
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----
Bob Djurdjevic
TRUTH IN MEDIA
Phoenix, Arizona
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Visit the Truth in Media Web site
http://www.truthinmedia.org/
for more articles on geopolitical affairs.