[PEN-L] More US gov interference in justice - after court orders Exxon to answer Aceh suit

[Rui Correia]

About this lawsuit, it talks of US State Department arguments that the case
could undermine the war on terrorism; yet lower down, it says "State
Department attempts to bring a similar case against Rio Tinto" - somehow it
appears contradictory or was there such a huge shift in policy?

Rui

Financial Times (UK)
January 18, 2007

US court orders Exxon to answer Aceh suit

By John Aglionby, Jakarta correspondent

ExxonMobil must respond to a lawsuit alleging Indonesian soldiers
under its control at a natural gas plant in Aceh province abused
and murdered local people, a US appeals court has ruled.

Judges in Washington rejected the energy giant's second request
to dismiss the suit brought by 11 Indonesians who claim the Texas-based
company is responsible for the conduct of soldiers guarding its
sprawling Arun facility on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

Their lawsuit, filed in 2001, says soldiers kidnapped, abused,
sexually assaulted and killed people on ExxonMobil property in
a region which at the time was mired in a separatist insurgency.
The suit could be filed in Washington under a law that holds
US companies liable for violations of international law overseas.

The court rejected US State Department arguments that the case
could undermine the war on terrorism in Indonesia, which Washington
regards as a key battleground. The government's protests have
lost much of their credibility since Jakarta and Free Aceh Movement
rebels signed a peace deal in 2005.

Agnieszka Fryszman, the Acehnese's head lawyer in Washington,
expressed delight that the court vindicated her clients' position
that ExxonMobil "essentially privatised" the soldiers, "in spite
of their well-documented history of abusing Indonesian citizens".

"It means the plaintiffs will be able to continue to gather evidence
to prove their claims," she said.

ExxonMobil staff in Jakarta referred all inquiries on the case
to the company's corporate headquarters.

Faisal Hadi, coordinator of the Aceh Human Rights Foundation,
said the plaintiffs were by no means guaranteed success. "But
this case will act as a very important precedent to push the
Indonesian government to take action on the thousands of human
rights cases that are pending."

Under the autonomy arrangement granted to Aceh as part of the
peace process, all human rights cases from the 29-year insurgency
will be heard in a special court. This is to be set up by July
under the autonomy law passed last year.

State Department attempts to bring a similar case against Rio
Tinto, the mining company, were dismissed in 2002 after Washington
warned it could harm US interests in Papua New Guinea.

--

Terjemahan (atas jasa "Kataku"):
http://66.114.70.144/cgi-bin/terjem.rex?FT__US_court_orders_Exxon_to_answer_
Aceh_suit-70118001


--
Joyo Indonesia News Service
--

etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan

Read what Noam Chomsky says about ETAN:
http://www.etan.org/etan/2006appl.htm

John M. Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED]
East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN)

Your contribution makes ETAN's work possible. Donate at 
http://etan.org/etan/donate.htm



Send a blank e-mail message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to find out  how to 
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[PEN-L] geopolitical rents are more important than oil rents

[soula avramidis]

Below you will find para 132 and 133 of RECOVERY, RECONSTRUCTION, AND REFORM 
"International  Conference  for  Support  to  Lebanon" 25 January 2007 
http://www.finance.gov.lb/NR/rdonlyres/89C37627-828E-4626-9F00-9A6498BB4082/0/ParisIIIEngVersion.pdf
As you can very well see that six families owning the domestic banking sector 
have lent to the state at exorbitant rates and accumulated amount of 40 b$
And now they say to the international donors give the governemnt money to pay 
back our interest or the country will go hell. of course the banks are in the 
governemnet as well
of course many cannot afford to see another blood bath in the near east so they 
pay
now project these gains on US meddling in the security of the enar east and 
discern from that how they can earn 2b$ a day in inflows and issue world cash 
with no end in site
that is all the more argument for oil as not only valuable by itself but more 
so much more so as a means of control

132. Assuming no adverse developments occur and provided the government 
delivers on all its reform measures, the domestic effort will lead to 
significant reductions in the budget deficits and improvement in the primary 
surplus amounting to about 10% of GDP; nevertheless, these efforts alone will 
not be sufficient to reverse the debt dynamics. All things being equal, the 
debt-to-GDP ratio will remain at best at about 145% of GDP and the debt service 
will still eat up about 50% of total revenue—a very high level of debt by 
international standards that could not be sustained in the long term. 
Generating larger primary surpluses over the long term would not be possible 
without upsetting the delicate social and political balance in the country. 
133. Hence to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio over time, support the efforts of 
the Lebanese government, and improve the chances of success of the economic 
reform program, Lebanon will need the support of the international community. 
Lebanon hopes to receive financial assistance mainly in grants and highly 
concessional loans to bring down the debt-to-GDP ratio to a sustainable level, 
placing Lebanon on a promising and sustainable path out of the debt overhang.


 

Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check. 
Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta.
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Re: [PEN-L] Socialism and Islam

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 1/17/07, Marvin Gandall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Yoshie wrote:
>
> Fatah is no longer fighting Tel Aviv but is siding with and getting
> material support -- money and weapons -- from it and Washington in its
> war against Hamas.  By doing so, Fatah essentially ceased to be an
> organ of a national liberation movement.  The ANC and the Sandinistas
> never sided with and took support from Pretoria and Washington
> respectively to attack those who are opposed to Apartheid and
> imperialism respectively.

Sure, but there is no armed movement like Hamas standing in the way of US
interests in either Nicaragua or South Africa as there is in Palestine, and
if there were, I'm not convinced that the Mbeki and Ortega governments would
side with their rivals in the face of pressure from the US, EU, and others
if forced to choose. I think all three organizations - not only Fatah - have
ceased to be "organs of a national liberation movement", and their
respective behaviour is dictated more by circumstance than by any real
difference in political outlook.


In the case of the ANC, it accomplished the most immediate and
important goal of national liberation: the end of Apartheid.  (The
FSLN didn't face an apartheid problem comparable to what the South
Africans did and what the Palestinians still do.)  Fatah has not.
Ceasing to be a national liberation movement before the chief task of
national liberation is over won't do.
--
Yoshie

[PEN-L] Lebanon's New Battleground: Economy

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Lebanon's new battleground

As the opposition shifts its protest campaign to "Plan B", the
pro-Western government's economic plans are the latest focus of
dispute, reports Lucy Fielder from Beirut

Beirut's immaculately rebuilt Downtown was the centrepiece of
assassinated former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri's neo-liberal
economic policies. Now, a projector beaming slogans on the wall of a
central building housing the posh Buddha Bar sums up the protest
against them. "The government o f VAT, the government of public debt,
the government of corruption," they read. Below them in Riad Al-Solh
Square, youths mill around in the encampment that has mushroomed over
the last month. Some dance the traditional dabke while others smoke
water pipes. Many have never set foot in Downtown Beirut before, let
alone hung around there on a Friday night.

Economic reform plans unveiled by Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora at
the start of the month have become a new rallying point for the
opposition, led by Shia group Hizbullah, along with popular Maronite
Christian leader Michel Aoun, and smaller Druze, Sunni and leftist
parties. Having achieved no concrete gains in their campaign for a
unity government that would give them the right of veto, the
opposition looked to be losing momentum. But although the protests
outside government offices last week fell flat, with only a few
hundred turning up, the debate is now focussing on the neo-liberal
economic policy of the government that is holed up on the hill above,
in the Grand Serail.

"O Siniora, listen, listen, this country is not for sale," crowds
chanted at a protest outside the VAT office called by the General
Labour Federation and joined by the opposition. One man held a placard
saying, "Where are development, agriculture and industry in Siniora's
paper?"

Saad Al-Hariri, head of the parliamentary majority, has called the
opposition protests "political and intellectual terrorism" aimed at
hurting the economy.

Siniora's paper promising reforms aims to secure foreign aid for
Lebanon at a meeting dubbed Paris III in the French capital, due to be
held on 25 January. Over and above reconstruction after Israel's war
on Lebanon last summer, the aid will be used to exchange Lebanon's
expensive debt for cheaper loans, proponents say. The country of four
million people struggles beneath a debt burden of $41 billion, one of
the world's largest per capita.

Siniora toured Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait in the weekend to
garner support for the conference. Most of the expected assistance
will come from Arab countries, not the West. Saad Al-Hariri said,
after a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac, that Paris III
was not exclusively for his 14 March camp or the opposition. "The
conference represents the hopes of the Lebanese youth and the rights
of every Lebanese citizen who wants Lebanon's economy to develop and
advance," he said.

The reforms outlined are vague, but include, most controversially,
raising VAT by two per cent next year and later up to five per cent,
along with privatisation and "corporatisation" of state-owned
enterprises, particularly the wasteful Electricite du Liban, estimated
to cost the government about $1 billion a year. With the flat rate of
income tax expected to remain unchanged at 10 per cent, regardless of
earnings, the plan's detractors claim that the government's indirect
taxes -- through VAT that will raise already inflated prices up by14
per cent -- will hurt the working class, and prise ever wider the gap
between rich and poor.

Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah told the Kuwaiti daily
Al-Anbaa that the government proposals would lead to "more debt, taxes
and corruption". In an interview, parts of which were carried in
Lebanon's Daily Star, he said that two-thirds of the Lebanese
currently live on, or below, the poverty line and so cannot support a
rise in taxes. "When it comes to taxes, the paper outlines set agendas
and schedules, timetables, numbers and percentages. However, all those
numbers disappear when it comes to social services."

Nasrallah said the government should have consulted the opposition on
the proposals. Echoing other critics, he stressed that he took issue
with the document, not the Paris III conference. Without opposition
agreement, reform plans are a pipedream, observers say. Siniora's
detractors point out that when he was finance minister under Rafik
Hariri, during much of the era of rebuilding following the 1975- 1990
Civil War, Siniora oversaw Lebanon's debt accumulation.

A middle-aged woman, who gave her name as Souad, came from the remote,
deprived Hermel region to demonstrate outside the tax office. "The
Lebanese people are poor, and the taxes are already too high. We can't
afford to pay them. I've got four sons and only one of them is
working. I came all the way from Hermel hoping that Siniora would hear
my voice. We are Lebanese citizens and we have nothi

[PEN-L] Q&A with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani - Reuters

[Leigh Meyers]

In case you were wondering about peak oil and Iraq/Iran's future as a
glass covered nuclear wasteland (fused sand) with holes punched in the
glass to extract the oil...

It's not there... Oil going... going... gone.
:
Q: What is your view on the future of Iraq's oil sector?

A: The oil in Iraqi Kurdistan exceeds that produced in Kirkuk, which is
starting to run out.



TEXT-Q&A with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani
18 Jan 2007 16:31:17 GMT
Source: Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/OWE858789.htm

DAMASCUS, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Iraqi leader Jalal Talabani told Reuters on
Thursday that Iraq will ask Syria to hand over senior Saddam Hussein
aides suspected of stealing millions of dollars and helping the
anti-U.S. insurgency.

Following are excerpts from Reuters' interview with Talabani, who is on
a visit to Damascus, the first by an Iraqi president to Syria in decades.

Q: Could your visit lead to a change in Syria's position toward Iraq?

A: I expect Syria to affirm its declared positions toward Iraq. Syria
has previously said it supports the political process and democratic
march and it stands against terrorism and killing innocent citizens. It
wants security and stability for Iraq. This public position represents a
moral contribution toward strengthening security in Iraq.

We expect that Syria will take all measures to stop terrorists from
crossing and put a stop to their activity inside its territory. There is
already an agreement to share intelligence, which will help improve the
security situation in Iraq. President Bashar al-Assad is very responsive
to our requests and supports our goal for peace and stability.

Q: Have you asked Syria to hand over former Baathists?

The Iraqi officials concerned will ask Syria to hand over all those
wanted by the Iraqi judiciary, including those suspected of committing
non-political crimes, such as theft and corruption. I didn't personally
ask for any suspects to be handed over but there is an extradition
agreement between Iraq and Syria.

Q: Have you met figures in Syria linked to the insurgency in Iraq?

I haven't, although I am willing to do so. I am not sure how many are in
Syria. It had been said that Izzat al-Douri was in Syria but he is in
Yemen. The government has not yet discussed requesting from Yemen to
hand him over. We have had this information for a while. We have been
tracing his movement.

Q: What is your view on the future of Iraq's oil sector?

A: The oil in Iraqi Kurdistan exceeds that produced in Kirkuk, which is
starting to run out. The issue of this city must be resolved according
to the constitution. It should be turned into a city of tolerance
between the Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds and Assyrians. Oil revenue has always
gone to the central government and should remain a part of the general
budget of the Iraqi state and not belong to a certain province or
administration.

Management of the fields would be an issue to be concluded between the
central government and the provincial government so the inhabitants of
the province are treated fairly. We should not repeat the example of
Kirkuk where the Northern Oil Company hired 15,000 workers, who included
only 450 Kurds.

Approval by the central government is crucial to pass any oil deal. A
provincial government can negotiate with foreign companies, but the
centre has to approve the deal. (Editing by Samia Nakhoul)

[PEN-L] Hossein Derakhshan, King of the Iranian Bloggers

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Hossein Derakhshan is an interesting man.  If the Islamic Republic
were to survive, it must make room for contradictions like his ideas.
--Yoshie


Last update - 11:56 12/01/2007
King of the Iranian bloggers
By Meron Rapoport

Hossein Derakhshan's T-shirt is the only thing that gives him away. "I
love Tehran," it says. Actually the shirt is the only thing that would
lead one to guess that the affable, young-and-restless technology
aficionado is not from here. He's from Iran, and proud of it. He was
born in Tehran, grew up there and thinks it's the most fantastic city
in the world. Even today, even now. Because even though Derakhshan
cannot live in Iran at present, he is still an Iranian patriot. He
despises Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but admires Khomeini; he's a total
atheist, but thinks that an Islamic republic is the solution for the
future; he's a friend of Israel, who thinks that Ahmadinejad's
anti-Israeli policy is the leader's stupidest mistake, but he's also
an enthusiastic supporter of the Iranian nuclear program and believes
it would be very good for Iran to have an atom bomb. Good for Iran -
and good for Israel.

Based on all we think we know about Iran, Canada-based Derakhshan
ought to be totally out of the ordinary, an endangered species. He's a
journalist who never misses an opportunity to say that his president
is stupid, a well-known blogger who preaches to a cyberspace that is
free of censorship and oversight. But these two qualities, explains
Derakhshan, are not unusual in Iran. The Iranian press slaughters
Ahmadinejad on a daily basis, and blogs are a big hit. Some 700,000
bloggers are active in Iran today, he estimates, from radicals who
curse spiritual leader Ali Khamenei to madrasa students in the holy
city of Qum. Even Ahmadinejad himself started his own blog a little
while ago.

It's not by chance that Derakhshan speaks about blogs as if he were
talking about religion. Dr. Michael Dahan of Sapir Academic College,
who studies the phenomenon of blogs in general and of those in the
Middle East in particular, says that Derakhshan could be considered
the spiritual father of the bloggers in Iran. This is the man who also
found a technological solution to writing blogs in Farsi and also gave
the blogger movement its ideological cast - promoting a free space for
discussions about everything that's happening in Iranian society.

Thus, it was not surprising to find him as a guest at the conference
held this week at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Be'er Sheva,
entitled "Reform, Opposition and Conflicts in the Middle East."
Derakhshan spoke during the session led by Prof. Yoram Meital about
"Blogging as a Realm of Opposition in the Middle East." Derakhshan's
visit to Israel, his second within a year, had two purposes: to show
his Iranian readers that Israel is not an enemy, and to explain to
Israelis that the terrible image they have of Iran is distorted and
without connection to reality.

Two freest countries

Hossein Derakhshan was born into the Islamic Revolution. He is 31,
meaning he was four years old when millions of Iranians toppled the
shah's regime and eagerly welcomed Khomeini upon his return from
exile. Derakhshan grew up in a religious family and received a
religious education, though this did not stop him from working at one
of the popular liberal newspapers, Asr-e Azadegan (Hour of
Liberation). The newspaper was closed under the reformist president
Mohammed Khatami, but Derakhshan easily found work at another paper.
In 2000, his wife received a visa to emigrate to Canada and Derakhshan
emigrated with her (they have since divorced).

Even though the newspaper where he worked closed, Derakhshan describes
the press in Iran in a surprisingly positive light. "During the time
of President Khatami, the conservatives feared that the reformists
were really America's emissaries, who wanted to topple the regime
without a battle, and therefore they closed down newspapers then," he
explains. "Today, this fear has passed. Except for criticism of the
spiritual leader Khamenei, you can write criticism of anyone. The
press is so rough on Ahmadinejad that not long ago, he went to
Khamenei and complained to him about the criticism. Khamenei told him
that it was true that he was getting some harsh criticism, but that
there was nothing to be done about it, that that's how the game
works."

With the exception of Israel, asserts Derakhshan, Iran is the freest
country in the Middle East. He cites a recent event at Tehran
University, where the students greeted President Ahmadinejad with
boos, and one student even burned a picture of the president right in
front of him. Not a single student was arrested. "You couldn't do that
in any other Middle Eastern country," he says.

His description of life in Tehran is surprising, too. "I love Tehran,"
says Derakhshan, who has made his home in Toronto in recent years, but
also travels fre

[PEN-L] Just Foreign Policy News, January 18, 2007

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
January 18, 2007

Ask your Rep. to Co-Sponsor the DeFazio & Jones "Iran War Powers" Resolutions
Representative DeFazio (D) and Representative Jones (R) have
introduced resolutions re-affirming that President Bush cannot attack
Iran without Congressional authorization. Ask your Representative to
support them.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/warpowers.html

Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Representative Lynn Woolsey introduced a legislative proposal to
end the occupation of Iraq. In an op-ed in the San Francisco
Chronicle, she outlined the main provisions, including the withdrawal
of all U.S. troops within six months, prohibition of permanent U.S.
bases in Iraq, funding for reconstruction in Iraq and full funding for
veterans' benefits.

2) A bipartisan group of senators announced a formal resolution of
opposition yesterday to President Bush's buildup of troops in Iraq,
the Washington Post reports. The resolution urges the administration
to "engage nations in the Middle East to develop a regional,
internationally-sponsored peace and reconciliation process."

3) A strong majority of Americans opposes President Bush's decision to
send more troops to Iraq, and about half of the country wants Congress
to block the deployment, the Los Angeles Times reports. Despite the
widespread opposition to the troop escalation, Americans divide more
closely on whether lawmakers should try to stop it.

4) Sen. John Kerry called for an investigation into security
weaknesses in the Defense Department's surplus sales that have let
buyers for Iran and China acquire aircraft parts and other valuable
military gear, AP reports.

5) Senator Clinton called President Bush's plan to send more troops to
Iraq "a losing strategy" and proposed placing new limits on the White
House's conduct of the war, the New York Times reports. Her comments
amounted to her latest effort to bolster her credentials as a critic
of the war at the outset of the presidential race. Her political
offensive on Iraq came a day after Senator Obama announced he had
formed an exploratory committee for a presidential bid and three days
after John Edwards took a swipe at Clinton for not doing more to
oppose the war in Iraq. Hours after Clinton's announcement, Obama said
he, too, would support a cap on troop levels.

6) The Christian Science Monitor has a quiz testing your knowledge of
whether key Muslim leaders are Sunni or Shiite. Just Foreign Policy is
confident that readers of the Just Foreign Policy News will do fine.

Iran
7) Iran's president appears to be under pressure from the highest
authorities in Iran to end his involvement in the country's nuclear
program, the New York Times reports.

8) Iran offered the US a package of concessions in 2003 corresponding
closely to what the US is demanding today, but the offer was rejected,
the BBC reports. Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Secretary of State
Colin Powell, told the BBC the State Department was keen on the plan,
but was over-ruled by the Vice-President's office.

Iraq
9) U.S. commanders have signaled that they will shy away from an
assault on the Baghdad stronghold of Iraq's biggest Shiite militia -
even though President Bush insists that driving armed groups from the
capital is key to his plan for success, AP reports.

Pakistan
10) A captive Taliban spokesman told Afghan agents the militia's
chief, Mohammad Omar, lives in Pakistan and is protected by Pakistan's
intelligence service, AP reports. Pakistan called the claim "totally
baseless."

Bolivia
11) Bolivia's central government said it will not recognize a parallel
administration set up by protesters in Cochabamba, BBC reports.

Contents:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/newsroom/blog/
-
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org

Re: [PEN-L] Why did Saddam become expendable?

[Leigh Meyers]

If you were going to blackmail to protect yourself from someone who
you knew might kill you, you'd turn the incriminating evidence over to
someone who could 'execute'(sic) on execution, so to speak.

That hasn't happened. It's still within a conceivable time-frame though.

Leigh



On 1/18/07, Peter Hollings <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Well, if you read an earlier WMR posting, you'll find that Saddam had a
feeler out to western journalists to whom he was offering a package of
evidence implicating the US government (e.g., supplying poison gas,
etc.) in the crimes that were coming to trial -- trials that were
aborted by his hanging. The problem, according to WMR, was that any
journalist traveling with these materials on the way out of Iraq would
have been a very prominent target (for US forces).

".  .  .  would Saddam be the only one privy to this information?"  I
think the issue is not so much the existence of this information --
after all we have all seen the pictures of Rumsfeld with Saddam and I
think it was Byrd or Leahey who had the shipping manifests for the
pathogens introduced on the Senate floor. I think the salient issue,
given Saddam's demonstrated ability to get on the front pages, is that
the introduction of evidence incriminating Bush I, etc., during Saddam's
trial for the same crimes would have been very embarrassing and the
trials themselves would be shown to be hypocritical. Hanging Saddam
prevented this process and the urgency of this was emphasized in that
there was a 30-day deadline for the hanging as a provision in his
sentence. It was rigged, and, although Bush blames the Iraqi government
for this, it seems the primary beneficiary of the way it was rigged was
himself and the USG.

Peter Hollings

-Original Message-
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rui
Correia
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 5:55 AM
To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did Saddam become expendable?


Very good and plausible - but would Saddam be the only one privy to this
information? Surely some of Saddam's closest would also be aware of this
information - or have all of them been eliminated since the 52-card pack
marked heads went public? And yes, surely Saddam would have enough means
to
ferret the information out of Iraq


Peter Hollings

Wayne Madsden has the best answer I've seen to date:

"January 15, 2007 -- WMR previously reported that the Bush regime wanted
Saddam Hussein hanged quickly before he could testify about his
knowledge about arms deals, including weapons of mass destruction
transfers, agreed to with the Reagan-Bush I administrations.

Re: [PEN-L] Iraq and Afghan Wars: Working and Ruling Classes

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 1/18/07, Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Afghan. is off the radar.  I have neither heard our "leaders" or ordinary people
that I encounter in my everyday life question that war, which is supposed to be 
the
"good" war.


I think people are not exactly happy about the Afghan War either,
because a lot of big coverage about the Taliban resurgence came out in
the latter half of last year, but many liberals think that "we could
have been winning in Afghanistan if we hadn't done Iraq" or things
like that.  Just recently Paul Krugman said as much.


Have Lee, Woolsey, Kusinich spoken out against that war?


Can't remember any recent statement from any of them, though I do
recall Kucinich calling for an end to bombing Afghanistan some years
ago.
--
Yoshie

Re: [PEN-L] Iraq and Afghan Wars: Working and Ruling Classes

[Michael Perelman]

Afghan. is off the radar.  I have neither heard our "leaders" or ordinary people
that I encounter in my everyday life question that war, which is supposed to be 
the
"good" war.

Have Lee, Woolsey, Kusinich spoken out against that war?
 --
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
michaelperelman.wordpress.com

Re: [PEN-L] Why did Saddam become expendable?

[Peter Hollings]

Well, if you read an earlier WMR posting, you'll find that Saddam had a
feeler out to western journalists to whom he was offering a package of
evidence implicating the US government (e.g., supplying poison gas,
etc.) in the crimes that were coming to trial -- trials that were
aborted by his hanging. The problem, according to WMR, was that any
journalist traveling with these materials on the way out of Iraq would
have been a very prominent target (for US forces).

".  .  .  would Saddam be the only one privy to this information?"  I
think the issue is not so much the existence of this information --
after all we have all seen the pictures of Rumsfeld with Saddam and I
think it was Byrd or Leahey who had the shipping manifests for the
pathogens introduced on the Senate floor. I think the salient issue,
given Saddam's demonstrated ability to get on the front pages, is that
the introduction of evidence incriminating Bush I, etc., during Saddam's
trial for the same crimes would have been very embarrassing and the
trials themselves would be shown to be hypocritical. Hanging Saddam
prevented this process and the urgency of this was emphasized in that
there was a 30-day deadline for the hanging as a provision in his
sentence. It was rigged, and, although Bush blames the Iraqi government
for this, it seems the primary beneficiary of the way it was rigged was
himself and the USG.

Peter Hollings

-Original Message-
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rui
Correia
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 5:55 AM
To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did Saddam become expendable?


Very good and plausible - but would Saddam be the only one privy to this
information? Surely some of Saddam's closest would also be aware of this
information - or have all of them been eliminated since the 52-card pack
marked heads went public? And yes, surely Saddam would have enough means
to
ferret the information out of Iraq


Peter Hollings

Wayne Madsden has the best answer I've seen to date:

"January 15, 2007 -- WMR previously reported that the Bush regime wanted
Saddam Hussein hanged quickly before he could testify about his
knowledge about arms deals, including weapons of mass destruction
transfers, agreed to with the Reagan-Bush I administrations.

[PEN-L] Iraq and Afghan Wars: Working and Ruling Classes

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

The working class of America are discontent about the Iraq and Afghan
Wars, but the ruling class of America are doing nothing to rein in the
White House, which is intensifying its campaign to economically
sanction Iran, preparing for missile attacks against Iran, organizing
a proxy war in Somalia, etc.  The working class look at the war costs
and think, what could $600 billion have bought us?  The ruling class
look at the war costs and think, well, the total is still a tiny
percentage of the GDP -- we can afford it.


from the January 16, 2007 edition
How US is deferring war costs
As war spending on Iraq and Afghanistan nears the levels for Vietnam
and Korea, concern is rising over the 'borrow now, pay later'
approach.
By Ron Scherer | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The US is spending about $10 billion a month on Iraq and Afghanistan.
By the end of this year, the total funds appropriated will be nearly
$600 billion – approaching the amount spent on the Vietnam or Korean
wars, when adjusted for inflation.

However, the actual impact of the war on the economy is different than
in the past, largely because the US economy is so much bigger now.
During World War II, some analysts calculate that the US spent as much
as 30 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on the war effort.
The Korean War, at its spending peak in 1953, represented 14 percent
of GDP; Vietnam was about 9 percent. The current war, however, is less
than 1 percent of America's annual $13 trillion GDP.


January 17, 2007
Economix
What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy
By DAVID LEONHARDT

The human mind isn't very well equipped to make sense of a figure like
$1.2 trillion. We don't deal with a trillion of anything in our daily
lives, and so when we come across such a big number, it is hard to
distinguish it from any other big number. Millions, billions, a
trillion — they all start to sound the same.

The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the
number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the
money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like
millions or billions.

For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public
health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for
every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged
and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children's
lives.

Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn't use
up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and
education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and
4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could
also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.

The final big chunk of the money could go to national security. The
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have not been put in place
— better baggage and cargo screening, stronger measures against
nuclear proliferation — could be enacted. Financing for the war in
Afghanistan could be increased to beat back the Taliban's recent
gains, and a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in
Darfur.

All that would be one way to spend $1.2 trillion. Here would be another:

The war in Iraq.

In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon
estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff
members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House
economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost
could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part
for saying so.

These estimates probably would have turned out to be too optimistic
even if the war had gone well. Throughout history, people have
typically underestimated the cost of war, as William Nordhaus, a Yale
economist, has pointed out.

But the deteriorating situation in Iraq has caused the initial
predictions to be off the mark by a scale that is difficult to fathom.
The operation itself — the helicopters, the tanks, the fuel needed to
run them, the combat pay for enlisted troops, the salaries of
reservists and contractors, the rebuilding of Iraq — is costing more
than $300 million a day, estimates Scott Wallsten, an economist in
Washington.

That translates into a couple of billion dollars a week and, over the
full course of the war, an eventual total of $700 billion in direct
spending.

The two best-known analyses of the war's costs agree on this figure,
but they diverge from there. Linda Bilmes, at the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard, and Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate and
former Clinton administration adviser, put a total price tag of more
than $2 trillion on the war. They include a number of indirect costs,
like the economic stimulus that the war funds would have provided if
they had been spent in this country.

Mr. Wallsten, who

Re: [PEN-L] US wants five fold increase in Canadian Oil Sands prodction.

[ken hanly]

27 degrees F! I would consider that a heat wave. The
Prairie provinces are much colder than that on average
and the north is cold still.
Many people around here do use wood but only if
they can cut it themselves as the cost of buying it
cut and split would be just about as expensive as
electric power in Manitoba. I use an electric furnace
but in my original house I used a modern air tight
woodstove supplemented by wall heaters. In cities many
people use natural gas. Oil is being less and less
used as it is more expensive than any other
alternative except maybe propane!

Cheers, Ken Hanly


--- Leigh Meyers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

> They aren't making gasoline from this crud, it's
> fuel oil, bunker oil...
> low grade stuff.
> The cost of making gasoline from this stuff is
> astronomical, whereas
> making fuel oil is just outrageously expensive
> compared to cracking it
> from "Brent Light Crude".
>
> Who suffers when the price of #2 fuel oil goes up
> due to your suggested
> reduction in supply... to homes that were built to
> NEED this kind of
> heating source?
>
> Poor people, at least the ones who use #2 for
> heating, with government
> heating assistance subsidies in many parts of the
> country all spent.
>
> The average heating bill in California this year is
> $200 a month
> according to the SF Chronicle/PG&E. Almost a full
> week's pay for a
> minimum wage worker, and rent? Another 2-3 weeks
> pay, and you have a
> warm place to sleep... That's it.
>
> What about the folks where it's 27 degrees farenheit
> all winter long?
> That's Canada, most of it...
>
> I hope they all have high paying jobs (unlikely for
> any rural resident)
> or they'll be mortgaging their homes to heat them.
>
> Burn wood?
>
> Strip the land for every piece of scrap wood, bark,
> and peat until
> nothing remains except mineral earth?
>
>
>
>
> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >
> > Canada is the number one petroleum exporter to the
> USA: "Canada
> > remained the largest exporter of total petroleum
> products in November,
> > exporting 2.584 million barrels per day to the
> United States, which
> > was a large increase from last month (2.144
> thousand barrels per day)"
> > (at
> >
>
).
> >
> > If Canadian leftists could do something about
> Canada's oil industry,
> > reduce production for conservation, restrain the
> development of oil
> > sands for environmental protection, step up class
> struggle in Canadian
> > oil industry, or whatever, that would greatly
> help.
> > --
> > Yoshie
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >
>


Blog:  http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html

[PEN-L] work work work (continued)

[Jim Devine]

SLATE moneybox

The Unwilling Americans
More jobs the native-born won't do.
By Daniel Gross

Posted Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007, at 6:38 AM ET

Last week, I wrote about the phenomenon of jobs Americans aren't
willing to do. If companies can't hire the number of people they want
to hire at the wages they want to pay, the reasoning goes, it must be
because lazy, soft-handed Americans simply aren't willing to roll up
their sleeves and do difficult jobs. Managing hedge funds and starring
in reality TV shows? Absolutely. But, by this logic, not landscaping,
picking fruits and vegetables, meat processing, manufacturing carpets,
soldiering, or working in information technology.

In fact, the perceived shortages have less to do with a declining
American work ethic and more to do with managerial stinginess. In many
industries, employers—and, ultimately, their customers—simply aren't
willing to pay the prices that legal American labor demands in
exchange for performing the work—or for going through the expense and
trouble of obtaining the skills and credentials necessary to ply
certain trades. In today's Wall Street Journal, Evan Perez and Corey
Dade offer support for this contention. Last September, a
chicken-processing plant (one of those industries we're told Americans
reject) in Stillmore, Ga., lost three-quarters of its work force after
an immigration bust. In response, the company, Crider, "suddenly
raised pay at the plant" by more than a dollar per hour and began
offering better benefits: "free transportation from nearby towns and
free rooms in a company-owned dormitory near to the plant."
Miraculously, American workers materialized to accept the jobs.

Last week, we asked readers to send in other examples of jobs
Americans apparently aren't willing to do. (At Slate, we're big
believers in user-generated content, especially in holiday-shortened
weeks.) More than one reader suggested that enforcing immigration laws
is one job Americans are clearly unwilling to do. Another, noting
David Beckham's latest career move, suggested playing soccer in Los
Angeles.

We received anecdotal confirmation of the trends we cited. A Los
Angeles-based hiring manager in the software business reported that he
had plenty of high-paying technical jobs. "Every single candidate is
either an Indian national or a recent Russian immigrant," he said.
"There are no longer any American candidates for these jobs."

Thanks to our readers, we've also discovered some more jobs Americans
apparently don't find attractive. A social worker for an agency in the
San Jose, Calif., area that provides services to children and adults
with mental retardation, autism, and cerebral palsy, reported that the
region's group homes and intermediate-care facilities "are staffed
almost exclusively by Filipinos." The same holds for many "special
education teachers and school aides, nurses working with those with
delays or the elderly, respite workers, day program staff." These
jobs, like many of the other jobs Americans won't do, require a high
degree of skill and dedication—and yet they don't pay particularly
well.

Transportation is another area in which demographics, the desire to
hold down costs, and rising demand are combining to create a
"shortage." Two readers pointed me to a 2005 report released by the
American Trucking Association and economic consulting firm Global
Insight, which concludes that Americans' unwillingness to work as
long-haul truckers could have dire consequences for the U.S. economy.
As the press release notes, in 2005 the United States had a shortage
of 20,000 truck drivers. Given economic growth and the graying of
today's drivers, the industry will need 539,000 new drivers over the
next decade. The study notes that if U.S. companies want to continue
to enjoy cheap, reliable truck-based shipping, the industry will have
to recruit more women and minorities, boost wages so that trucking
pays more than construction, and address quality-of-life issues.

But that sort of thinking—raise wages to attract domestic workers into
your field—is so last century. In today's flat world, employers can
choose from a global labor pool, apparently even for driving big rigs
down I-95. Meet Gagan Global, which trains Indian drivers in India to
drive American trucks in America.

How do you say "10-4, good buddy" in Hindi?
Daniel Gross (www.danielgross.net) writes Slate's "Moneybox" column.
You can e-mail him at [EMAIL PROTECTED]

--
Jim Devine / "Doubt is uncomfortable, but certainty is ridiculous." -- Voltaire.

[PEN-L] I Remember The Helicopters... Revisited

[Leigh Meyers]

...From The Embassy Rooftop.



The exodus begins, and it seems to be an organized movement this time.
However... Economic refugees need not apply.

We are currently accepting thugs and apparatchik only, sorry.

The MGT.


   SF Gate
   U.S. hopes to allow 20,000 Iraqi refugees this year, senators told
   - Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
   Wednesday, January 17, 2007

   (01-17) 04:00 PST Washington -- The State Department wants to
allocate as many as 20,000 U.S. refugee slots to Iraqis fleeing the
war-ravaged country, Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary for the
government's refugee operations, said at a Senate hearing Tuesday.

   The federal government has authority to accept 70,000 refugees from
across the world this year, she said, but has an unallocated reserve of
20,000 for emergencies. Sauerbrey said she expects the vast majority of
these to go to Iraqis if the plan can be accomplished.

   Sauerbrey said serious hurdles remain, however, including the
difficulty of even setting up places in Iraq where Iraqis can apply for
asylum. "I have to tell you it is a very difficult issue to try to do
this in Iraq in the Green Zone," Sauerbrey told the Judiciary
subcommittee on immigration, chaired by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

   Kennedy held the hearing to call attention to the growing plight of
Iraqi refugees, especially those threatened because they have worked for
the U.S. government or other Western organizations. The Green Zone is
the protected area in Baghdad where the United States and the Iraqi
government operate. Iraqi workers going in and out of the Green Zone
have been targeted for attack.

   The rapidly growing number of refugees and internally displaced
people fleeing persecution within Iraq is swamping neighboring countries
and soon threatens to spill out of the region, said Ken Bacon, head of
Refugees International, which has surveyed the refugees.

   Although no one has firm numbers, the United Nations estimates that
nearly 2 million Iraqis have fled the country and another 1.7 million
have fled violence inside Iraq. The United Nations appealed last week
for $60 million in emergency funding for humanitarian relief.

   Bacon said that by the best estimates now, 1,300 Iraqis are fleeing
their homes inside the country each day, and 100,000 are leaving the
country each month, mainly over the border to Syria and Jordan. Women
are resorting to prostitution to support themselves, and children are
being forced into labor, he said.

   For now, the refugee flood is a regional problem, but that won't
last long, he said, noting signs that refugees are poised to spill over
to Europe and the United States, where the vast majority say they want
to go. Unlike most refugees, few Iraqis express a desire ever to return
to Iraq.

   Conditions for Iraqis in Jordan and Syria are deteriorating under
the weight of the numbers of people being absorbed, Bacon said. Jordan
now excludes men ages 17 to 35, Bacon said. Sauerbrey said the State
Department is pressuring Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon to keep their borders
open to Iraqis.

   Since the U.S. invasion in 2003, just 466 Iraqis have been admitted
to the United States, and many of those were claims left over from the
Saddam Hussein era. New anti-terrorism laws passed by Congress after
Sept. 11, 2001, including the Patriot Act, have made the screening
extremely cumbersome, Sauerbrey said.

   Experts familiar with the situation said there is resistance to
refugee admissions from officials in the departments of Homeland
Security and Justice who are responsible for keeping terrorists out of
the United States.

   An Iraqi translator for the U.S. military who escaped to the United
States and still fears for his life and an Iraqi driver who delivered
water to a U.S. base testified anonymously at Tuesday's hearing behind a
wooden panel.

   The translator recounted a harrowing existence after serving as a
vital public link between U.S. soldiers and Iraqis in Mosul, making him
a visible target for extremists who tried to kill him and did kill many
of his friends. He was the first Iraqi translator to gain U.S. residence
through a special program Congress passed last year allotting 50 spaces
for translators from Iraq and Afghanistan.

   Iraqis who worked with U.S. forces -- from provincial governors to
truck drivers -- have been relentlessly singled out for execution, he said.

   "Many Iraqis were purposely killed in public market squares in front
of hundreds of people in broad daylight as cruel examples of what could
happen to local Iraqis" who helped U.S. soldiers, the former translator
said.

   E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at [EMAIL PROTECTED]

   Page A - 11
   URL:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/17/MNGFLNJV0O1.DTL

Re: [PEN-L] US wants five fold increase in Canadian Oil Sands prodction.

[Leigh Meyers]

They aren't making gasoline from this crud, it's fuel oil, bunker oil...
low grade stuff.
The cost of making gasoline from this stuff is astronomical, whereas
making fuel oil is just outrageously expensive compared to cracking it
from "Brent Light Crude".

Who suffers when the price of #2 fuel oil goes up due to your suggested
reduction in supply... to homes that were built to NEED this kind of
heating source?

Poor people, at least the ones who use #2 for heating, with government
heating assistance subsidies in many parts of the country all spent.

The average heating bill in California this year is $200 a month
according to the SF Chronicle/PG&E. Almost a full week's pay for a
minimum wage worker, and rent? Another 2-3 weeks pay, and you have a
warm place to sleep... That's it.

What about the folks where it's 27 degrees farenheit all winter long?
That's Canada, most of it...

I hope they all have high paying jobs (unlikely for any rural resident)
or they'll be mortgaging their homes to heat them.

Burn wood?

Strip the land for every piece of scrap wood, bark, and peat until
nothing remains except mineral earth?




Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:


Canada is the number one petroleum exporter to the USA: "Canada
remained the largest exporter of total petroleum products in November,
exporting 2.584 million barrels per day to the United States, which
was a large increase from last month (2.144 thousand barrels per day)"
(at
).

If Canadian leftists could do something about Canada's oil industry,
reduce production for conservation, restrain the development of oil
sands for environmental protection, step up class struggle in Canadian
oil industry, or whatever, that would greatly help.
--
Yoshie

Re: [PEN-L] US wants five fold increase in Canadian Oil Sands prodction.

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 1/18/07, ken hanly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Just in case things continue badly in the Middle East
Plan B is to drain Canada's natural resources--to the
applause of Stephen Harper and countless others no
doubt. The governments concern about the environment
obviously takes a back seat to resource development.
Canadians obviously are not hewers of wood and drawers
of water we are a country of Albertan oil sheiks.
The oil sands is a very costly and polluting source of
oil compared to the Middle East.

U.S. urges 'fivefold expansion' in Alberta oilsands
production
Last Updated: Thursday, January 18, 2007 6:31 AM ET
CBC News
The U.S. wants Canada to dramatically expand its oil
exports from the Alberta oilsands, a move that could
have major implications on the environment.


Canada is the number one petroleum exporter to the USA: "Canada
remained the largest exporter of total petroleum products in November,
exporting 2.584 million barrels per day to the United States, which
was a large increase from last month (2.144 thousand barrels per day)"
(at
).
If Canadian leftists could do something about Canada's oil industry,
reduce production for conservation, restrain the development of oil
sands for environmental protection, step up class struggle in Canadian
oil industry, or whatever, that would greatly help.
--
Yoshie

[PEN-L] The Mahdi Army's Italian shoes

[Louis Proyect]

NY Times, January 18, 2007
Shiite Fighters Are Arrested, Iraq Says
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Jan. 17 — Facing intense pressure from the Bush administration to 
show progress in securing Iraq, senior Iraqi officials announced Wednesday 
that they had moved against the country’s most powerful Shiite militia, 
arresting several dozen senior members in the past few weeks.


(clip)

In an interesting twist, the militia’s leadership has not visibly fought 
back against the crackdown. American commanders say that the arrests do not 
draw the howling objections they used to in 2004, because Mr. Sadr’s 
militia has splintered so deeply since then that the members they are 
arresting are more criminal than political and considered by Mr. Sadr to be 
disloyal renegades.


In that assessment, Mr. Sadr could even be using the government and the 
American military to purge his own ranks of undesirables.


Mr. Maliki, in the meeting on Wednesday, denied he was influenced by Mr. 
Sadr, and he offered as proof the fact that his government was finally 
taking painful action against his own Shiite constituency.


“In the entire four years I only talked to him twice,” he insisted.

Iraqis who live in the neighborhoods where the Mahdi Army is strong say the 
primary motivation for avoiding full-scale confrontation with the Americans 
is money. Members have grown rich on political channels of financing from 
Iran as well as from Iraqi government ministries, the residents say, and 
the militiamen do not want to fight the Americans directly for fear of 
losing their newfound status.


Ali, the merchant, said the reluctance to fight could be summed up in two 
words: “Italian shoes.”


“They know they will lose everything if they fight,” he said.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/world/middleeast/18mahdi.html

The Iraqi official, for his part, attributed the ease of the arrests to the 
government’s intensive political efforts with Mr. Sadr through the fall.


“As soon as he distanced himself from these death squads, we started 
hitting them really hard,” the official said.


--

www.marxmail.org

[PEN-L] US wants five fold increase in Canadian Oil Sands prodction.

[ken hanly]

Just in case things continue badly in the Middle East
Plan B is to drain Canada's natural resources--to the
applause of Stephen Harper and countless others no
doubt. The governments concern about the environment
obviously takes a back seat to resource development.
Canadians obviously are not hewers of wood and drawers
of water we are a country of Albertan oil sheiks.
The oil sands is a very costly and polluting source of
oil compared to the Middle East.


U.S. urges 'fivefold expansion' in Alberta oilsands
production
Last Updated: Thursday, January 18, 2007 6:31 AM ET
CBC News
The U.S. wants Canada to dramatically expand its oil
exports from the Alberta oilsands, a move that could
have major implications on the environment.
U.S.and Canadian oil executives and government
officials met for a two-day oil summit in Houston in
January 2006 and made plans for a "fivefold expansion"
in oilsands production in a relatively "short time
span," according to minutes of the meeting obtained by
the CBC's French-language network, Radio-Canada.
The meeting was organized by Natural Resources Canada
and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Canada is already the top exporter of oil to the
American market, exporting the equivalent of one
million barrels a day — the exact amount that the
oilsands industry in Alberta currently produces.
A fivefold increase would mean the exportation of five
million barrels a day, which would supply a quarter of
current American consumption and add up to almost half
of all U.S. imports.
But the current extraction of oil from the tarsands
results in the spewing of millions of tonnes of
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere: it's already the
biggest source of new greenhouse gas emissions in
Canada.


The news of the call for the massive boost in oil
production comes as Prime Minister Stephen Harper has
pledged to make the environment one of his top
priorities, vowing that Canadians deserve more action
on climate change. Polls show the environment is the
number one concern of Canadians.
Yet, according to the minutes of the Houston meeting,
to multiply its output by five and to do it quickly,
Canada would have to "streamline" its environmental
regulations for new energy projects.
"We need to look at additional pipelines from Canada
to the U.S. as a new source of supplier, a growing
source of supply," said Bob Greco of the American
Petroleum Institute.
In his state of the union address in 2006, U.S.
President George W. Bush set out a goal to drastically
reduce oil imports from the Middle East and make
American dependence on Middle Eastern oil "a thing of
the past."
"America is addicted to oil which is often imported
from unstable parts of the world," Bush said then.
Paul Michael Weaby, a Washington insider and an expert
on the geo-strategic aspect of the oil industry, said
Bush is counting on Canada to help wean the United
States off Middle Eastern oil — a goal now defined as
a national security objective.
"He wanted to have a reduction of 1.5 million barrels
a day by 2015 from the Middle East. Although he did
not mention Canada, that is in fact where the
replacement supply will come from."




Blog:  http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html