There are compulsive liars, pathological liars, lying bastards and then there is the Bush administration...

You're gonna love this one. It exposes downright, blatant lying at the very highest level and a lot of really angry Americans sounding off at the powerful, including Sean Penn.

Iran - Condi takes a leaf from Powell's book

As I have previously mentioned elsewhere on this blog, any US attack on Iran will be preceded by a campaign for the minds of the US people. It started long before now, but here is Condi Rice yesterday speaking to the Senate Budget Committee:

"It's not just Iran's nuclear programme but also their support for terrorism around the world. They are, in effect, the central banker for terrorism." She added that Tehran was bent on "political subversion, terrorism, and support for violent Islamist extremism….It is Iran's regional policies that really are concerning as we watch them, with their sidekick Syria, destabilizing places like Lebanon and the Palestinian territories and, indeed, even in southern Iraq."

Rice is shortly off to the Middle East to hold talks with regional allies about containing Iran. And what’s the betting mention will be made of that Oil Bourse Iran intends to forge ahead with in march and how it would be bad news all round. No doubt this will later be followed by a speech to the UN that will reminiscent of Colin Powell’s scare mongering performance in February of 2003 when he begged the international community to give their blessing for the invasion of Iraq.

On Wednesday, Rice’s State Department asked Congress for $75m this year to support opponents of Tehran and to finance the first 24-hour official US television station broadcast in Farsi.

Meanwhile, her fellow war pimp, Dubya, is asking congress for another $65 billion for his war kitty. The request would raise war-related spending to nearly 400 billion dollars since September 1th 2001.

Interestingly, today it was revealed that China and Iran are close to finalising plans to develop Iran's Yadavaran oil field in a deal estimated to be worth $100 billion. A Chinese government delegation is expected to travel to Iran as early as March to formally sign an agreement allowing China Petrochemical Corp to develop Yadavaran. The thought of China controlling one of the bihggest oil fields in the Middle East must be causing a lot of sleepless nights for some in the US.
March? Hmmm….why does that month keep popping into my head?

Rendition to Torture

Once again, the US is in the proverbial “dock” over revelations that it allows a practice known as “rendition to torture”, whereby terror suspects, upon arrest, are secretly flown to far off countries to be tortured for months on end.

Condoleeza Rice, the US Secretary of State and Klingon look-alike, is currently on a damage limitation exercise in Europe and telling anyone who will listen to her, and who can keep a straight face, that the US is not into that sort of thing, that it does not condone torture. She admits that the US has made mistakes in the war on terror and has said that where possible those wrongs will be righted, but pathetically covers these transgressions with the claim that at least CIA methods have saved European lives.
Granted, there are a lot of gloopy people in Europe – I’ve met a fair few myself - or else we would not have the leaders we have here, but for her to come here and say the US is not into torture suggests Rice thinks Europe is chocabloc with lobotomised cretins.

Let’s get a couple of things straight. Firstly, the US does not give a monkey’s f*** for human rights. This much was made abundantly clear when George (Dubya) Bush took office and, acting on advice from one Alberto Gonzales, withdrew the US from the Geneva Convention and cancelled Clinton’s signature from the International Criminal Court. Well, if you’re aiming to torture whoever you want, where ever you want, then it makes sense not to be a signatory to a document stating you believe people should not be tortured, that all people should be treated with respect and human kindness.

Secondly the CIA is actually above the law. Not a lot of people know this but on 27/12/2000 Congress passed a law to protect the CIA from any legal action whatsoever (the relevant law is: 114 STAT. 2840 PUBLIC LAW106-56 DEC. 27, 2000. SEC.1001. (a) and (b)). The latter makes sound sense – if you’re hell bent on world domination and are prepared to go to any lengths to secure it then you have to make damn sure your intelligence services are free from prosecution.
According to Human Rights Watch, The Bush administration is now the only government in the world to claim a legal rationalization for abusing prisoners during interrogations.

White House officials recently approached members of the U.S. Congress to seek a waiver that would permit the CIA to use cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment on prisoners in U.S. detention outside the United States.

In a 90-9 vote, the U.S. Senate accepted a measure backed by Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham that would proscribe the military and CIA from using “cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment” in the case of any captive, anywhere in the world. But in October, Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA director Porter Goss met with Sen. McCain to propose a presidential waiver for the planned legislation. The suggested waiver stated that the measure “shall not apply with respect to clandestine counterterrorism operations conducted abroad, with respect to terrorists who are not citizens of the United States, that are carried out by an element of the United States government other than the Department of Defence. . . if the president determines that such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack.” The waiver which clearly applies to non-military counter-terrorism operations against non-citizens overseas, declares that such operations need to be “consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and treaties to which the United States is a party.” But the Constitution does not vigorously restrict the conduct of the CIA overseas, and pertinent domestic laws contain abundant loopholes. What is more, administration officials have previously told Congress that they do not deem CIA personnel operating outside the United States to be bound by legal prohibitions against “cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment” under treaties to which the United States is party. This exemption carries coded language that could give the CIA the go ahead to treat prisoners inhumanely. Human Rights Watch said the waiver would also open the door for outright torture, as interrogators would find it impossible to draw lines between illegal and “allowable” mistreatment. Bush administration officials, under questioning from members of Congress in the past, have failed to clearly define differences between torture and lesser forms of mistreatment. They have also made inaccurate statements about the definition of torture; for instance, administration officials have claimed that “waterboarding” (suffocating a person until he believes he is about to drown) is not a form of torture.

The widely publicised photos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, show not isolated cases of brutality by unsupervised personnel – as has been claimed – but CIA torture techniques that have been used for 50 years all over the world.From 1950 to 1962, the CIA carried out research into psychological torture that cost an estimated $1 billion, producing a new method of torture that was psychological, “no touch torture”, not physical.

Your common or garden physical method meant interrogators had to inflict pain, by rough beatings, but this often produced heightened resistance, especially in obstinate prisoners, or undependable information. With the new psychological concept, on the other hand, interrogators used two new methods, disorientation and self-inflicted pain, to make prisoners feel responsible for their own suffering.

Though ostensibly less violent, "no touch" torture can produce lasting psychological scars on both victims and interrogators. The victims often need much psychological help to recuperate from a trauma every bit as debilitating as physical pain. The interrogators can undergo a perilous increase of ego, leading to increasing barbarity and lasting emotional scars.

After codification in the CIA's "Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual in 1963 (this is now declassified and can now be downloaded from the National Securuity Archives website – they’ve lots of other juicy stuff there too) the new technique was circulated to police in Asia and Latin America through USAID's Office of Public Safety (OPS). In the wake of accusations of torture by USAID's police novices in Brazil, the US Senate closed down OPS in 1975.

With the demise of the OPS, the CIA propagated its torture techniques through the US Army's Mobile Training Teams, which in the 1980s were operating in Central America. In 1997, the Baltimore Sun published alarming extracts of the "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual" that these Army teams had distributed to allied militaries for two decades.

These manuals ceased to be used in the early 1990s, but torture continued apace right up to 9/11 and beyond with the hunt for Al Qaeda suspects, with US intelligence agents handing suspects over to foreign agencies for processing.

When Bush kick-started the current ‘war on terror’ the ‘no touch’ torture techniques recommenced, firstly in Afghanistan at Bagram Air Base, where prisoners actually died during interrogation and then in Iraq, where interrogators have likewise killed their victims. Similar prisoner abuses have been reported at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The US is as guilty as hell of not only torturing its suspects just as Britain and other countries are accomplices in so far as they allow their airports to be used by CIA chartered planes carrying their victims to be tortured in whatever god-forsaken hell hole they have lined up for them. The photographic evidence for psychological torture cannot be denied and neither can the testimony of those lucky enough to have been freed by their interrogators.

What planet Condi Rice comes from is anyone’s guess – the Klingon planet Narendra III?

The Logic behind that UN Resolution on Iraq

After weeks of debating, the UN Security Council hammered together a unanimous resolution setting harsh terms for Iraqi disarmament, and cautioning there would be brutal consequences for any further defiance.


Bluntly, cleverly, the UN has crafted a situation where Iraq not only has to prove that it has eradicated all of its weapons of mass destruction (WMD), it also has to verify that it never possessed certain WMD. This seems something of a Catch 22 - for if Iraq never possessed the alleged WMD in the first place, then how can it prove that it never possessed them? And woe betides Iraq if it can’t prove that it never had something others say it has had. All Globocop has to do is affirm it does not believe Iraq or declare the findings of the weapons inspectors invalid and begin an attack on the grounds that Bush and his fellow hawks were right all along, that the scheming and devious Saddam is just extra clever at hiding the evidence.


For Saddam’s part, he has insisted he will move to defuse the crisis by complying with the resolution and cooperating fully with the UN inspectors. The level of compliance and cooperation he will afford the inspectors will undoubtedly determine future events. As before, this weapons inspectorate will be acting on CIA intelligence and will undoubtedly be seeking to manipulate a situation that will lead to a US response. What is less certain is just what will transpire if Saddam really complies 100% with the terms of the UN resolution and cooperates wholeheartedly with the weapons inspectors. As far as the UN is concerned he will have honoured the UN resolution and can stay in power – no regime change!


But could the US really stomach a situation in which Saddam stays in power, an obstacle once again to Bush’s ambitions to make this century – as his father once prophesised – ‘another American century?; a barrier to the corporate interests of US oil giants? How would such a situation be squared with the ambitions of US capitalism as evidenced increasingly in the belligerent and imperialistic tone of foreign policy documents these past ten years?


We had, cause recently to report on the Bush administration's foreign policy objectives outlined in "National Security Strategy" document, (also known as the "Bush Doctrine" even though it was penned by National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice). It states quite brusquely: "The President has no intention of allowing any foreign power to catch up with the huge lead the United States has opened since the fall of the Soviet Union more than a decade ago." The document goes on to say: "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equalling, the power of the United States."


We have also commented how the "Bush Doctrine" resembles a similar document, (which we have also reported on) - a1992 Pentagon paper written by hawks Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz that announced that the United States will aim to "prevent the re-emergence of a new rival…This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defence strategy and requires that we endeavour to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power."


Lately, The New York Times ran a story outlining how "the White House is developing a detailed plan ... to install an American-led military government in Iraq if the United States topples Saddam Hussein. ... In the initial phase, Iraq would be governed by… [someone who would]… assume the role that Gen. Douglas MacArthur served in Japan. ... In contemplating an occupation, the administration is scaling back the initial role for Iraqi opposition forces in a post-Hussein government." The article continued: "as long as the coalition partners administered Iraq, they would essentially control the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world." Which is what really concerns the US. Allowing a coalition a say in the distribution of Iraqi oil? Think again, Chirac, Putin and Blair. There’s profits to be had.


Writing in The Guardian, November 5th, George Monbiot reported on the recent findings of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre:


“As available reserves decline, the world's oil-hungry nations are tussling to grab as much as they can for themselves. Almost everywhere on earth, the United States is winning. It is positioning itself to become the gatekeeper to the world's remaining oil and gas. If it succeeds, it will both secure its own future supplies and massively enhance its hegemonic power… In the Middle East, the only nation which could significantly increase its output is Iraq.”


Monbiot further highlights a 2001 a report sponsored by the US Council on Foreign Relations and the Baker Institute for Public Policy which outlines some of the implications of this decline for US national security. The report states: "The world is currently precariously close to utilizing all of its available global oil production capacity." It also states that the looming crisis is increasing "U.S. and global vulnerability to disruption". During the preceding year, it says, Iraq had "effectively become a swing producer, turning its taps on and off when it has felt such action was in its strategic interest". If world demand for oil continues to rise, world shortages may possibly reduce the prominence of the US to that of "a poor developing country".


The report maintains that this crisis demands "a reassessment of the role of energy in American foreign policy ... Such a strategy will require difficult trade-offs, in both domestic and foreign policy. But there is no alternative. And there is no time to waste." By assuming "a leadership role in the formation of new rules of the game", the United States will put a stop to the strategic ambitions of its competitors.


When the ‘Bush Doctrine’ is considered with similar US foreign policy reports, it becomes clear that the US is determined to scupper at the outset the plans of any commercial rival, whoever they may be, particularly where oil is concerned. The US is well aware that Baghdad has already awarded $1.1 trillion in oil contracts to Europe, China and Russia and, naturally, all are anxious that their contracts will not be honoured by a US-dominated Iraq should Saddam be ousted. Thus, the recent UN resolution on Iraq can be viewed from a new angle. The long drawn-out diplomatic wrangling over the precise wording of the UN Security Council resolution has less to do with Saddam’s WMD and far more to do with who will have access to the second largest oil reserves on the planet. European ‘doves’ are not so much concerned with the morality of an attack upon Iraq, or with any related humans rights issues. Their bickering over the finer points of the UN resolution is simply a desperate attempt to ensure they do not lose out in the scramble for Iraq’s oil reserves.


In the meantime, be assured that if the oil-crazed Bush administration has its way, Saddam will be found to have breached this new UN Security Council resolution and the perfect pretext will have arisen for the US invasion of Iraq and the next stage in US global domination.