http://williamblum.org/aer/read/122
The Anti-Empire Report #122
By William Blum - Published November 7th, 2013
National Security Agency - The only part of the government that
really listens to what you have to say
The New York Times (November 2) ran a long article based on NSA
documents released by Edward Snowden. One of the lines that most
caught my attention concerned "Sigint" - Signals intelligence, the
term used for electronic intercepts. The document stated:
"Sigint professionals must hold the moral high ground, even as
terrorists or dictators seek to exploit our freedoms. Some of our
adversaries will say or do anything to advance their cause; we will
not."
What, I wondered, might that mean? What would the National Security
Agency - on moral principle - refuse to say or do?
I have on occasion asked people who reject or rationalize any and all
criticism of US foreign policy: "What would the United States have to
do in its foreign policy to lose your support? What, for you, would
be too much?" I've yet to get a suitable answer to that question. I
suspect it's because the person is afraid that whatever they say I'll
point out that the United States has already done it.
The United Nations vote on the Cuba embargo - 22 years in a row
For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling
Cuba an "international pariah". We haven't heard that for a very long
time. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the United Nations
General Assembly on the resolution which reads: "Necessity of ending
the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United
States of America against Cuba". This is how the vote has gone (not
including abstentions):
Year Votes (Yes-No) No Votes
1992 59-2 US, Israel
1993 88-4 US, Israel, Albania, Paraguay
1994 101-2 US, Israel
1995 117-3 US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1996 138-3 US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1997 143-3 US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1998 157-2 US, Israel
1999 155-2 US, Israel
2000 167-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2001 167-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2002 173-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2003 179-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2004 179-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2005 182-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2006 183-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2007 184-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2008 185-3 US, Israel, Palau
2009 187-3 US, Israel, Palau
2010 187-2 US, Israel
2011 186-2 US, Israel
2012 188-3 US, Israel, Palau
2013 188-2 US, Israel
Each fall the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not
completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not
completely control the opinion of other governments.
Speaking before the General Assembly, October 29, Cuban Foreign
Minister Bruno Rodriguez declared: "The economic damages accumulated
after half a century as a result of the implementation of the
blockade amount to $1.126 trillion." He added that the blockade "has
been further tightened under President Obama's administration", some
30 US and foreign entities being hit with $2.446 billion in fines due
to their interaction with Cuba.
However, the American envoy, Ronald Godard, in an appeal to other
countries to oppose the resolution, said:
"The international community cannot in good conscience ignore the
ease and frequency with which the Cuban regime silences critics,
disrupts peaceful assembly, impedes independent journalism and,
despite positive reforms, continues to prevent some Cubans from
leaving or returning to the island. The Cuban government continues
its tactics of politically motivated detentions, harassment and
police violence against Cuban citizens." 1
So there you have it. That is why Cuba must be punished. One can only
guess what Mr. Godard would respond if told that more than 7,000
people were arrested in the United States during the Occupy
Movement's first 8 months of protest 2 ; that their encampments were
violently smashed up; that many of them were physically abused by the
police.
Does Mr. Godard ever read a newspaper or the Internet, or watch
television? Hardly a day passes in America without a police officer
shooting to death an unarmed person?
As to "independent journalism" - what would happen if Cuba announced
that from now on anyone in the country could own any kind of media?
How long would it be before CIA money - secret and unlimited CIA
money financing all kinds of fronts in Cuba - would own or control
most of the media worth owning or controlling?
The real reason for Washington's eternal hostility toward Cuba? The
fear of a good example of an alternative to the capitalist model; a
fear that has been validated repeatedly over the years as Third World
countries have expressed their adulation of Cuba.
How the embargo began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, US Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an
internal memorandum: "The majority of Cubans support Castro The
only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through
disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and
hardship. every possible means should be undertaken promptly to
weaken the economic life of Cuba." Mallory proposed "a line of action
which makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to
Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger,
desperation and overthrow of government." 3 Later that year, the
Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo against
its everlasting enemy.
The Cold War Revisited
I've written the Introduction to a new book recently published in
Russia that is sort of an updating of my book Killing Hope. 4 Here is
a short excerpt:
The Cold War had not been a struggle between the United States and
the Soviet Union. It had been a struggle between the United States
and the Third World, which, in the decade following the dissolution
of the Soviet Union, continued in Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, Yugoslavia
and elsewhere.
The Cold War had not been a worldwide crusade by America to halt
Soviet expansion, real or imaginary. It had been a worldwide crusade
by America to block political and social changes in the Third World,
changes opposed by the American power elite.
The Cold War had not been a glorious and noble movement of freedom
and democracy against Communist totalitarianism. It had typically
been a movement by the United States in support of dictatorships,
authoritarian regimes and corrupt oligarchies which were willing to
follow Washington's party line on the Left, US corporations, Israel,
oil, military bases, et al. and who protected American political and
economic interests in their countries in exchange for the American
military and CIA keeping them in power against the wishes of their
own people.
In other words, whatever the diplomats at the time thought they were
doing, the Cold War revisionists have been vindicated. American
policy had been about imperialism and military expansion.
Apropos the countless other myths we were all taught about the Soviet
Union is this letter I recently received from one of my readers, a
Russian woman, age 49, who moved to the United States eight years ago
and now lives in Northern Virginia:
I can't imagine why anybody is surprised to hear when I say I miss
life in the Soviet Union: what is bad about free healthcare and
education, guaranteed employment, guaranteed free housing? No rent
or mortgage of any kind, only utilities, but they were subsidized
too, so it was really pennies. Now, to be honest, there was a
waiting list to get those apartments, so some people got them
quicker, some people had to wait for years, it all depended on where
you worked. And there were no homeless people, and crime was way
lower. As a first grader I was taking the public transportation to
go to school, which was about 1 hour away by bus (it was a big city,
about the size of Washington DC, we lived on the outskirts, and my
school was downtown), and it was fine, all other kids were doing it.
Can you even imagine this being done now? I am not saying everything
was perfect, but overall, it is a more stable and socially just
system, fair to everybody, nobody was left behind. This is what I
miss: peace and stability, and not being afraid of the future.
Problem is, nobody believes it, they will say that I am a
brainwashed "tovarish" [comrade]. I've tried to argue with Americans
about this before, but just gave up now. They just refuse to believe
anything that contradicts what CNN has been telling them for all
their lives. One lady once told me: "You just don't know what was
going on there, because you did not have freedom of speech, but we,
Americans, knew everything, because we could read about all of this
in our media." I told her "I was right there! I did not need to read
about this in the media, I lived that life!", but she still was
unconvinced! You will not believe what she said: "Yes, maybe, but we
have more stuff!". Seriously, having 50 kinds of cereal available in
the store, and walmarts full of plastic junk is more valuable to
Americans than a stable and secure life, and social justice for
everybody?
Of course there are people who lived in the Soviet Union who
disagree with me, and I talked to them too, but I find their reasons
just as silly. I heard one Russian lady whose argument was that
Stalin killed "30, no 40 million people". First of all it's not true
(I don't in any way defend Stalin, but I do think that lying and
exaggerating about him is as wrong)*, and second of all what does
this have to do with the 70s, when I was a kid? By then life was
completely different. I heard other arguments, like food shortages
(again, not true, it's not like there was no food at all, there were
shortages of this or that specific product, like you wouldn't find
mayo or bologna in the store some days, but everything else was
there!). So, you would come back next day, or in 2-3 days, and you
would find them there. Really, this is such a big deal? Or you would
have to stay in line to buy some other product, (ravioli for
example). But how badly do you want that ravioli really that day,
can't you have anything else instead? Just buy something else, like
potatoes, where there was no line.
Was this annoying, yes, and at the time I was annoyed too, but only
now I realized that I would much prefer this nuisance to my present
life now, when I am constantly under stress for the fear that I can
possibly lose my job (as my husband already did), and as a result,
lose everything else - my house? You couldn't possibly lose your
house in Soviet Union, it was yours for life, mortgage free. Only
now, living here in the US, I realized that all those soviet
nuisances combined were not as important as the benefits we had -
housing, education, healthcare, employment, safe streets, all sort
of free after school activities (music, sports, arts, anything you
want) for kids, so parents never had to worry about what we do all
day till they come home in the evening.
* We've all heard the figures many times 10 million 20 million
40 million 60 million died under Stalin. But what does the number
mean, whichever number you choose? Of course many people died under
Stalin, many people died under Roosevelt, and many people are still
dying under Bush. Dying appears to be a natural phenomenon in every
country. The question is how did those people die under Stalin? Did
they die from the famines that plagued the USSR in the 1920s and 30s?
Did the Bolsheviks deliberately create those famines? How? Why? More
people certainly died in India in the 20th century from famines than
in the Soviet Union, but no one accuses India of the mass murder of
its own citizens. Did the millions die from disease in an age before
antibiotics? In prison? From what causes? People die in prison in the
United States on a regular basis. Were millions actually murdered in
cold blood? If so, how? How many were criminals executed for
non-political crimes? The logistics of murdering tens of millions of
people is daunting. 5
Let's not repeat the Barack fuckup with Hillary
Not that it really matters who the Democrats nominate for the
presidency in 2016. Whoever that politically regressive and morally
bankrupt party chooses will be at best an uninspired and uninspiring
centrist; in European terms a center-rightist; who believes that the
American Empire - despite the admittedly occasional excessive
behavior - is mankind's last great hope. The only reason I bother to
comment on this question so far in advance of the election is that
the forces behind Clinton have clearly already begun their campaign
and I'd like to use the opportunity to try to educate the many
progressives who fell in love with Obama and may be poised now to
embrace Clinton. Here's what I wrote in July 2007 during the very
early days of the 2008 campaign:
Who do you think said this on June 20? a) Rudy Giuliani; b) Hillary
Clinton; c) George Bush; d) Mitt Romney; or e) Barack Obama?
"The American military has done its job. Look what they accomplished.
They got rid of Saddam Hussein. They gave the Iraqis a chance for
free and fair elections. They gave the Iraqi government the chance to
begin to demonstrate that it understood its responsibilities to make
the hard political decisions necessary to give the people of Iraq a
better future. So the American military has succeeded. It is the
Iraqi government which has failed to make the tough decisions which
are important for their own people." 6
Right, it was the woman who wants to be president because because
she wants to be president because she thinks it would be nice to be
president no other reason, no burning cause, no heartfelt desire
for basic change in American society or to make a better world she
just thinks it would be nice, even great, to be president. And keep
the American Empire in business, its routine generating of horror and
misery being no problem; she wouldn't want to be known as the
president that hastened the decline of the empire.
And she spoke the above words at the "Take Back America" conference;
she was speaking to liberals, committed liberal Democrats and others
further left. She didn't have to cater to them with any flag-waving
pro-war rhetoric; they wanted to hear anti-war rhetoric (and she of
course gave them a bit of that as well out of the other side of her
mouth), so we can assume that this is how she really feels, if indeed
the woman feels anything. The audience, it should be noted, booed
her, for the second year in a row.
Think of why you are opposed to the war. Is it not largely because of
all the unspeakable suffering brought down upon the heads and souls
of the poor people of Iraq by the American military? Hillary Clinton
couldn't care less about that, literally. She thinks the American
military has "succeeded". Has she ever unequivocally labeled the war
"illegal" or "immoral"? I used to think that Tony Blair was a member
of the right wing or conservative wing of the British Labour Party. I
finally realized one day that that was an incorrect description of
his ideology. Blair is a conservative, a bloody Tory. How he wound up
in the Labour Party is a matter I haven't studied. Hillary Clinton,
however, I've long known is a conservative; going back to at least
the 1980s, while the wife of the Arkansas governor, she strongly
supported the death-squad torturers known as the Contras, who were
the empire's proxy army in Nicaragua. 7
Now we hear from America's venerable conservative magazine, William
Buckley's National Review, an editorial by Bruce Bartlett, policy
adviser to President Ronald Reagan; treasury official under President
George H.W. Bush; a fellow at two of the leading conservative
think-tanks, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute - You get
the picture? Bartlett tells his readers that it's almost certain that
the Democrats will win the White House in 2008. So what to do?
Support the most conservative Democrat. He writes: "To right-wingers
willing to look beneath what probably sounds to them like the same
identical views of the Democratic candidates, it is pretty clear that
Hillary Clinton is the most conservative." 8
We also hear from America's premier magazine for the corporate
wealthy, Fortune, whose recent cover features a picture of Clinton
and the headline: "Business Loves Hillary". 9
Back to 2013: In October, the office of billionaire George Soros, who
has long worked with US foreign policy to destabilize governments not
in love with the empire, announced that "George Soros is delighted to
join more than one million Americans in supporting Ready for
Hillary." 10
There's much more evidence of Hillary Clinton's conservative
leanings, but if you need more, you're probably still in love with
Obama, who in a new book is quoted telling his aides during a comment
on drone strikes that he's "really good at killing people". 11 Can we
look forward to Hillary winning the much-discredited Nobel Peace
Prize?
I'm sorry if I take away all your fun.
Notes
1. Democracy Now!, "U.N. General Assembly Votes Overwhelmingly
Against U.S. Embargo of Cuba"
<http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/30/headlines/un_general_assembly_votes_overwhelmingly_against_us_embargo_of_cuba>,
October 30, 2013
2. Huffingfton Post, May 3, 2012
3. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States,
1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba (1991), p.885
4. Copies can be purchased by emailing kuchkovop...@mail.ru
5. From William Blum, Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the
American Empire (2005), p.194
6. Speaking at the "Take Back America" conference, organized by the
Campaign for America's Future, June 20, 2007, Washington, DC; this
excerpt can be heard on Democracy Now!'s website
<http://www.democracynow.org/2007/6/21/headlines/clinton_booed_for_iraq_remarks>
7. Roger Morris, former member of the National Security Council,
Partners in Power (1996), p.415
8. National Review Online, May 1, 2007
9. Fortune magazine, July 9, 2007
10. Washington Post, October 25, 2013
11. Washington Post, November 1, 2013, review of "Double Down: Game
Change 2012"
Issue #121
http://williamblum.org/aer/read/121
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