Progressive Calendar 11.25.07
From: David Shove (shove001tc.umn.edu)
Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 04:09:07 -0800 (PST)
            P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R    11.25.07

1. Stillwater vigil  11.25 1pm
2. Happy Russian Rev 11.25 3pm

3. Amnesty Intl      11.26 7pm
4. Arctic env/film   11.26 7pm
5. Gender violence   11.26

6. Make cops answer  11.27 8am/5pm
7. Prez power amok   11.27 12noon
8. Polly Mann/poetry 11.27 6:30pm
9. Journalists/war   11.27 7pm
10. Nonprofit $$$    11.27

11. Herman/Peterson - The U.S. aggression process and its collaborators
12. ed              - Capitalism vs Utilitarianism

--------1 of 12--------

From: scot b <earthmannow [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Stillwater vigil 11.25 1pm

A weekly Vigil for Peace Every Sunday, at the Stillwater bridge from 1- 2
p.m.  Come after Church or after brunch ! All are invited to join in song
and witness to the human desire for peace in our world. Signs need to be
positive.  Sponsored by the St. Croix Valley Peacemakers.

If you have a United Nations flag or a United States flag please bring it.
Be sure to dress for the weather . For more information go to
<http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/>http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/

For more information you could call 651 275 0247 or 651 999 - 9560


--------2 of 12--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Happy Russian Rev 11.25 3pm

"The October uprising was not only the actual salvation of the Russian
Revolution; it was also the salvation of the honor of international
socialism." - Rosa Luxemburg, 1918

ON THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION:
TEN DAYS THAT STILL SHAKE THE WORLD

Speakers:
Gerald Erickson, Professor Emeritus, Classical Studies, U of M
Don Olson, Peace Activist, Host, Northern Sun News, KFAI
Jon Peterson, editor, Socialist Appeal
Peter Rachleff, Professor of History Macalester College
Mary Scully, socialist-feminist writer

Sunday, November 25, 3 PM
Mayday Bookstore
301 Cedar Ave Minneapolis
Social following the program: Food/Beverages/Discussion

for more information: (612) 333-4719


--------3 of 12--------

From: Gabe Ormsby <gabeo [at] bitstream.net>
Subject: Amnesty Intl 11.26 7pm

Augustana Homes Seniors Group meets on Monday, November 26th, from 7:00 to
8:00 p.m. in the party room of the 1020 Building, 1020 E 17th Street,
Minneapolis. For more information contact Ardes Johnson at 612/378-1166 or
johns779 [at] tc.umn.edu.


--------4 of 12--------

From: Christine Frank <christinefrank [at] visi.com>
Subject: Arctic env/film 11.26 7pm

3CTC November Environmental Forum
There will be a screening of Caribou People, a documentary on the impacts
of a warming Arctic and oil and gas drilling on the Porcupine Caribou Herd
and the Gwich'in People who depend upon the wildlife for their livelihood.
The film is produced by Chad Kister, who is an Arctic defense activist,
explorer, author and filmmaker.  There will be a discussion on the need to
defend the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and maintain it as a pristine
wilderness.

The film showing will take place on Monday, November 26 at 7:00 PM, Mayday
Books, 301 Cedar Avenue South, West Bank, Minneapolis.  It is free and
open to the public.  The event is sponsored by the Climate Crisis
Coalition of the Twin Cities.  The 3CTC business meeting occurs at 6:00
PM. All are welcome.  For further information, phone 612-879-8937.



--------5 of 12--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Gender violence 11.26

11/26 to 12/10, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights hosts a display of
photographs related to gender violence, Common Roots Cafe, 2558 Lyndale Ave
S, Mpls.  http://www.mnadvocates.org

--------6 of 12--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Prez power amok 11.27 12noon

Tuesday, 11/27, noon to 1:30, F.A.O. Schwarz, Jr, lectures on "Unchecked and
Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror," Cowles Auditorium,
Humphrey Institute, 301 - 19th Ave S, Mpls.  http://www.hhh.umn.edu/


--------7 of 12--------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: Make cops answer 11.27 8am/5pm

Minneapolis Television Network (MTN 17) viewers:
11/27 8am "Holding the Police Accountable"  Interview of Communities
United Against Police Brutality organizer Michelle Gross. Hosted by Eric
Angell.

St. Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN 15) viewers:
"Our World In Depth" cablecasts in St. Paul on Tuesday evenings and
Wednesday mornings.  All households with basic cable can watch!

11/27 5pm and midnight and 11/28 10am "Holding the Police Accountable"
Interview of Communities United Against Police Brutality organizer
Michelle Gross.  Hosted by Eric Angell.

[Step away from that donut! You heard me, copper! +Zzzzaaapppp! -ed]


--------8 of 12--------

From: patty <pattypax [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Polly Mann/poetry 11.27 6:30pm

This Tuesday, the guest will be Polly Mann, our wonderful peace activist.
But Polly is also a writer and poet and this Tuesday we will hear her read
her poetry that she wrote during and after the Vietnam War.

Pax Salons ( http://justcomm.org/pax-salon )
are held (unless otherwise noted in advance):
Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 pm.
Mad Hatter's Tea House,
943 W 7th, St Paul, MN

Salons are free but donations encouraged for program and treats.
Call 651-227-3228 or 651-227-2511 for information.


--------9 of 12--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Journalists/war 11.27 7pm

Tuesday, 11/27, 7 pm, human rights correspondent Janine di Giovanni speaks
on journalists' response to war, Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave (at
Lyndale), Mpls.  http://walkerart.org/tickets


--------10 of 12--------

From: Tim Erickson <tim [at] e-democracy.org>
Subject: Nonprofit $$$ 11.27

I just heard about a series of free workshops in nonprofit leadership
offered by Hamline University and the Greater Minneapolis Council of
Churches. Registration is required but there's no fee. Word following the
first on Tuesday is that it was excellent.
More info:  http://gmcc.org/Compassionworkshops.htm

   Nov 27 - Nonprofit fundraising: research methods
   Dec 4  - Grant writing


--------11 of 12--------

The U.S. Aggression Process and Its Collaborators:
>From Guatemala (1950-1954) to Iran (2002-)
by Edward S. Herman
and David Peterson
November 25, 2007
ZNet

We are living in a very dangerous period in which a predatory superpower
has embarked on a series of aggressive wars in rapid succession - three on
two different continents during the past decade alone.  Not only have
these wars violated the UN Charter, and constituted what U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Robert Jackson declared at Nuremberg to be "the supreme
international crime;" not only has it gotten away with its wars, despite
their increasingly destructive and murderous nature; but in waging them,
the United States has been able to enlist leaders of the "international
community" and United Nations in support of its assaults on distant
lands.[1] As the world's preeminent multilateral organization, the central
purpose of which was purportedly to save humankind from the scourge of
war, and to ensure that armed force not be used except for the common
defense, we find the UN's role here to be troubling indeed.

This superpower's wars are opposed by a majority of the world's
population, and often even by a majority of the heavily propagandized
citizens of its own country.[2] But popular opinion and voter preferences,
even when manifested in national elections, as in November 2006, do not
determine policy in the United States.  Freed at last from any deterrent
of the kind the Soviet Union exercised until its demise, and the kind
posed for a more abbreviated period by the civil protests that confronted
it on its own streets between 1965 and 1974, the U.S. program of "power
projection" proceeds apace.  Now it sets its sights on Iran, likely to
produce a much wider war and one that quite possibly could involve the use
of nuclear weapons.

U.S. wars of aggression are certainly not new, nor is its leaders' brazen
disregard for international law.  Greece, Guatemala, Lebanon, the
Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Grenada, Panama - these do
not exhaust the list of U.S. victims since World War II.  What is more,
the assumption that international law does not apply to the United States
is longstanding.  The "propriety of the Cuba quarantine is not a legal
issue,"  former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson explained in
reference to Kennedy's naval blockade of Cuba during the 1962 missile
crisis.  "The power, position and prestige of the United States had been
challenged by another state; and law simply does not deal with such
questions of ultimate power".  For Acheson, any U.S. action to counter
alleged threats trumps international law, and law cannot be allowed to
interfere with the exercise of the "pre-eminent power" of this country.
The belief that although law should apply to others, it never applies to
the United States, was internalized long before Acheson's day; and it
reaches straight through to the present, widely accepted abroad because
the scale of U.S. power permits its leaders to ignore the law with
complete impunity.

But the aggression pace and scale has been stepped up in recent years,
based on a number of factors: The collapse of the containing power, the
vested interests in U.S. power projection in the Middle East - the Israeli
lobby, oil interests, the military-industrial-complex - and the ideology
and politics of a militarized capitalist state.

The aggression process has always involved demonization of the target,
with the establishment media regularly carrying out their propaganda
service in ways that match anything achievable in a totalitarian state. In
the case of the joint U.S-proxy army attack on Guatemala in 1954, the New
York Times swallowed and disseminated the lie that the Reds had taken over
that country (e.g., Sidney Gruson, "How Communists Won Control of
Guatemala," March 1, 1953), just as the paper swallowed and disseminated
the official line in 2002-3 that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass
destruction.  Equally important in both cases was the suppressed context:
In the case of Guatemala, the vested interests of United Fruit Company in
the ouster of the elected government, the ties of high U.S. officials to
that company (including Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster
Dulles), and the fact that Guatemala was virtually unarmed and posed not
the slightest threat to the security of the United States or Guatemala's
small neighbors.  In the case of Iraq, major suppressions included the
facts that the United States had actually supplied Saddam with "weapons of
mass destruction" when he was attacking Iran, and that he failed to use
such weapons during the 1991 Persian Gulf War because he recognized that
the United States could retaliate in kind with overwhelming force - the
disclosure of which would weaken the case that his possession of such
weapons in 2002-3 posed any threat to this country or Israel, except that
of self-defense.

The aggression process not only depends on the domestic media following
the official line, marginalizing dissent, and causing the public to
believe in the mythical threat posed by the target, it also requires
neutralization of any international response that might protect the
prospective victim. In the case of Guatemala, its leaders did appeal to
the UN in June 1954 for protection against an already-in-process
U.S.-organized attack.  But with the U.S.'s (and United Fruit investor and
former spokesperson) Henry Cabot Lodge president of the Security Council,
and the United States exerting intense pressure on its voting members and
Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, the Security Council refused to
consider Guatemala's case.  Hammarskjold, who felt that the issue was
precisely what the UN was formed to deal with, considered the U.S. effort
"the most serious blow so far aimed at the Organization".[3]

The decade-long U.S. effort at "regime change" in Nicaragua during the
1980s involved a boycott, the mining of Nicaragua's harbors, and
sponsorship and active support of a terrorist army on its borders, in
violation not only of the UN Charter but also the Organization of American
States Charter and the Rio Treaty, the latter two quite clear on the
illegality of the cross-border use of military force, "directly or
indirectly, for any reason whatsoever" (OAS), and with proper
authorization or "self defense" the only bases for an exception (Rio).
Nicaragua brought these violations to the UN and World Court, but the
United States vetoed a Security Council condemnation and ignored several
adverse World Court decisions against its "unlawful use of force". The
Reagan administration could get away with this in part because the
establishment media accepted its aggression and violation of international
law, encapsulated in the New York Times's editorial that dismissed the
World Court as a "hostile forum" ("America's Guilt - or Default," July 1,
1986) - a lie, but demonstrating that the editors' principles do not
extend to universality of application and that they will apologize for
blatant illegality and even aggression by their own state.

U.S. Aggression After the Soviet Collapse

The collapse of the Soviet bloc in late 1989 was greeted in the West by
the U.S. invasion of Panama, which received the New York Times's immediate
approval - although the Times did acknowledge that it "fueled enduring
Latin suspicions about Washington's selective respect for sovereignty,"
and expressed the concern that this kind of precedent might be used by
less worthy powers to achieve the same effect ("Why the Invasion Was
Justified," December 21, 1989).

But it is with Iraq (1990-), Yugoslavia (1991-1995; and 1999-),
Afghanistan (2001-), and Iraq again (2003-) that we move into the
definitive post-Soviet era, when the international community becomes a
more active participant in the aggression process, and the global
aggressor is either appeased, abetted - or both.

In the case of Yugoslavia, the U.S.-led NATO bombing war of 1999,
assaulting Serbia and Kosovo, was preceded four years earlier by gradually
escalating bombing attacks in Bosnia to support Bosnian Muslim and Croat
forces, all in violation of the spirit of the UN Charter, but approved by
UN secretary-generals and the Security Council.  Also notable was the
Security Council's 1993 creation of an ad hoc Tribunal supposedly to bring
"justice" as well as peace to Yugoslavia, but in reality a political and
public relations arm of NATO, that functioned to prevent peace in pursuit
of U.S. and NATO aims there.[4] It also provided a legal and public
relations cover for NATO's own crimes, most notoriously in its bringing an
indictment against Slobodan Milosevic in May 1999, just as NATO was coming
under attack for extending its bombing to Serb civilian facilities. This
diversionary PR operation was quickly used by the U.S. Secretary of State
and her spokesperson to justify NATO war crimes.  It goes almost without
saying that the UN Security Council failed to question the U.S.-NATO
bombing war against Yugoslavia, although it was in violation of the UN
Charter and followed a peace conference in France designed to fail and
permit the U.S.-NATO attack to proceed.[5]

The war on Afghanistan was launched by the U.S. and U.K. purportedly as an
international police action and a reprisal raid against al-Qaeda targets
in the aftermath of 9/11, but it also removed the Taliban regime in Kabul
and carried the war to the Taliban's allies in Pakistan and elsewhere
around the world.  From the outset, Washington defined Afghanistan as a
theater in its new global "War on Terror," a Cold-War-like framework
projected to stretch indefinitely into the future, and useful to the
warrior states for disguising their actions in this era of global
warlordism.[6] Although the war never received Security Council
authorization, it has been prosecuted with UN support from the very start.
In the week that preceded this war, the UN joined the cause with a
"counter-terrorism" resolution and a hastily organized conference "to
fight the scourge of terrorism" (Kofi Annan), with terrorism elevated to a
"threat to international peace and security, as well as a crime against
humanity" (General Assembly President Han Seung-soo of South Korea).[7]
Four days before the war, in clear anticipation of the event, Annan even
reappointed Lakhdar Brahimi his Special Representative to Afghanistan;
Brahimi's assignment was to "initiate preparations for the development of
plans for the rehabilitation of that shattered country"[8] - not one word
warning about the war or taking issue with its illegality.  Within the
Council itself, a Counter-Terrorism Committee was established; it is now a
permanent feature of Council activities.  Sentiments to the effect that
"armed non-State networks" such as al-Qaeda "pose a universal threat to
the membership of the United Nations and the United Nations itself" are
now commonplace; and efforts to combat such non-state actors have been
placed at the top of the UN's agenda ever since.[9]

Before the end of 2001, the invading military forces had gotten the United
Nations to sponsor the Bonn Agreement through which they installed an
Interim Authority in Kabul, with Hamid Karzai as its chairman; now six
years later, Karzai is the president, having won elections staged by the
UN in October 2004.  But as with any country in a state of perpetual war,
real power within Afghanistan resides with the 40,000-strong International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the NATO-bloc's second out-of-area
operation in the past decade, the first having been Kosovo. The occupation
has failed to dismantle the power of the warlords, with whom the United
States collaborated in the initial war effort; it has failed to do any
substantial rebuilding of this "shattered country;" and its military focus
and civilian-costly methods of warfare have caused substantial losses of
life and helped the resurgence of the Taliban.  Still, the UN has stood
firm as a supporter of the occupation; and as with Bosnia, Kosovo, and
Iraq, treats Afghanistan like a laboratory for neocolonial
nation-building, helping the occupiers at every turn "to deny the power
which they wield and to evade accountability for its exercise."[10]

The aggression process involving Iraq that began in 1990 was simplified at
that time by the fact that Iraq had committed an act of aggression itself
in invading and taking over Kuwait in early August of that year. This gave
the United States the opportunity to mobilize the UN and international
community to oppose an aggression which it disapproved.  (Although poor
Saddam Hussein might have been misled by the earlier U.S. support of his
aggression against Iran, and by U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie's reassuring
him one week before his Kuwait adventure that the United States had "no
opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with
Kuwait."[11])  But with the actual Iraq aggression the United States
quickly got UN and international support for ousting Saddam from Kuwait.
Even here, however, there is solid evidence that the United States would
not let Saddam escape via a negotiated settlement, but instead forced a
war, which means that even in their "legitimate" case this country's
leaders acted in violation of the UN Charter, which calls for all states
to "bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles
of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of
international disputes" (Article I).  There were also serious law
violations in both the slaughter of helpless Iraqi soldiers, the use of
illegal weaponry, and the deliberate destruction of Iraq's civilian
infrastructure, including water and sanitation facilities, knowing that
this would take a heavy civilian toll (and would be in violation of the
laws of war).[12]

Following the end of the Persian Gulf War in late February 1991, the UN,
under U.S.-U.K. pressure, installed a very severe sanctions regime that
greatly limited Iraq's imports and its export of oil. This prevented or
greatly hindered the repair of the damaged water and sanitation facilities
as well as its electrical plants and grid, irrigation systems, factories,
schools and hospitals. This resulted in huge casualties, mainly from
disease, poor nutrition and limited health care, especially among
children, whose estimated 500,000 deaths from the "sanctions of mass
destruction," was a price in human lives that Madeleine Albright famously
declared on national TV in 1996 to have been "worth it". All of this was
done under UN authority, although the U.S. and U.K. were the aggressive
sponsors of these genocidal sanctions.

With the Bush administration having decided to "go massive" after the
events of 9/11, to "sweep it all up, things related and not" (Donald
Rumsfeld),[13] and to invade and occupy Iraq as well as Afghanistan, it
faced the small problem that what it intended to do would be a major
violation of the UN Charter, as Iraq had neither attacked nor threatened
the United States, so any non-risible self-defense justification was out.
The U.S. and U.K., while still making extremely implausible claims about
an Iraq threat ("mushroom clouds" over American cities, hidden WMD
programs, chemical and biological weapons 45-minutes from launch)[14] and
providing a stream of false claims about Iraq's weapons programs,
eventually fell back on Iraq's resistance to UN inspections.  An attack on
Iraq would be based on and justified by Iraq's defiance of UN authority!
After all, we cannot dispense with the rule of law!

It is well known that the Bush administration only bothered with resort to
the UN under British urging and in the interest of giving an aura of
legitimacy to an attack already planned and one that had nothing to do
with Iraq's "non-compliance".  The UN cooperated in this make-believe
scenario with intensified inspections that found nothing but refused to
stop looking, to the great annoyance of U.S. officials, whose 160,000
troops and naval armada were already positioned for an invasion and wanted
the inspectors and Security Council to sanction war. When they couldn't
get this, they went to war anyway, once again in violation of the UN
Charter. Once again also they were helped along by the establishment U.S.
and U.K. media, whose members across the board quickly joined the war
bandwagon, passing along WMD claims on a daily basis that were untrue or
misleading, essentially blacking out dissident views and facts,
mini-demonizing the French for their failure to get on board the bandwagon
and Hans Blix and the inspectors for failing to produce evidence that
didn.t exist.

Two months before the war, aggression-hawks Kenneth Pollack and Martin
Indyk were given space in the New York Times to lament the UN "inspections
trap" that they alleged the Washington regime then found itself "firmly
stuck in," and counseled that, instead of relying on a "futile hunt for a
'smoking gun'," the world should simply accept that "Every inspection of
an Iraqi site that finds nothing reinforces the misimpression that Iraq
has complied."  ("How Bush Can Avoid the Inspections Trap," January 27,
2003.)[15] The day before the U.S. launched its war, Princeton
University's advocate for U.S. lawlessness Anne-Marie Slaughter invoked
the precedent of the 1999 war over Kosovo, also launched without Security
Council authorization, and noted that Washington's imminent war over Iraq
"could be called 'illegal but legitimate'," just as the Independent
International Commission on Kosovo had found with respect to Kosovo.
("Good Reasons for Going Around the U.N.," New York Times, March 18,
2003.)  The same day, the Times itself editorialized that, "For Mr.
Hussein, getting rid of weapons of mass destruction is no longer an
option.. Mr. Hussein must be disarmed."  ("War in the Ruins of Diplomacy,"
March 18, 2003.)  This is war propaganda service that would be hard to
surpass.

The UN of course never condemned the United States and Britain for this
invasion in violation of the UN Charter, even though it was soon
recognized in the mainstream to have been based on lies. Not only was
there no condemnation, the UN Security Council quickly voted to validate
the occupation and gave the aggressor the  Security Council's approval to
stay in Iraq and try to bring stability to the victimized country.[16] The
UN even created the Assistance Mission for Iraq to help U.S. management
there, resulting in the bombing death of the Secretary-General's Special
Representative for Iraq, Sergio Viera de Mello, and 22 others, as the
Iraqi resistance did not view the UN as a neutral party.[17]
Subsequently, the UN has done nothing to condemn or attempt to bring to a
conclusion an invasion-occupation that has virtually destroyed Iraq,
killed perhaps a million civilians, and driven in excess of 4 million
Iraqis from their homes.[18] The contrast with the UN's treatment of
Yugoslavia and the U.S.-NATO targeting there of Serbia, could hardly be
more dramatic.

The Iran Aggression Process

The current round of threatening Iran dates back to the summer of 2002, a
year that opened with Bush labeling Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the "axis
of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world."  Already hot on the
trail of the apocryphal Iraqi WMD, and proclaiming its new national
security doctrine of "preemption" (i.e., aggression by another name), the
White House started floating allegations about a clandestine Iranian
nuclear weapons program, and coupled these with statements of opposition
to the "unelected people who are the real rulers of Iran," a stance that
Iran's President Mohammad Khatami immediately assailed as "war-mongering"
and "open interference" in Iran's affairs.[19]

The current U.S. preparation for an attack on Iran has many of the
characteristics of earlier U.S. aggressions, and the responses of the UN,
international community, humanitarian interventionists, and mass media
have also been similar.  The first striking similarity is the extent to
which claims and tactics used earlier but eventually acknowledged to have
been based on falsehoods designed to mislead and manipulate have been
recycled yet again, with only marginal challenge as to their motive and
accuracy.  Another is how a double-standard can be applied so effectively
that it passes almost without challenge: One standard for the U.S. target
(Iran), the Security Council demanding that it surrender its "inalienable"
right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium for peaceful
purposes; another standard for the United States and any country that has
U.S. approval  (the nuclear-weapon states of Israel, India, and Pakistan,
for example; Saddam Hussein's weapons programs in the 1980s, when he was
serving U.S. interests; and even Iran's nuclear energy program in the late
1970s, when controlled by the U.S.-client dictator Shah Mohammad Reza
Pahlavi.).

A third notable feature of the aggression process developing in regard to
Iran is that another major violation of the UN Charter by the United
States, another "supreme international crime," is not only taken as
legally and politically unchallengeable by the UN and international
community, but is also sanctioned and even given positive aid.  It is true
that Secretary-General Kofi Annan did plaintively point out on more than
one occasion that the 2003 Iraq invasion was illegal - "not in conformity
with the Charter,"[20] in the milquetoast phrase he preferred when dealing
with U.S. crimes - but he didn't suggest doing anything about it.  In his
first official statement after the start of the war, Annan expressed
regret that "if we had persevered a little longer, Iraq could yet have
been disarmed peacefully,"[21] thus repeating the disinformation that had
been used by the states that launched their war in violation of the
Charter under which he served.

Kofi Annan was very accommodating to U.S. demands, but his successor, Ban
Ki-moon, is even more cooperative with the Supreme International Criminal.
Not only has he failed to say a word about the U.S. threat to attack Iran,
but with the United States now between its third (Iraq) and prospective
fourth (Iran) supreme international crime, Ki-moon nevertheless has gone
out of his way to claim that the "UN and the US have a shared objective of
promoting human rights, democracy and freedom and peace and security," and
to call for "a strong partnership between the United Nations and the
United States."[22] Like his predecessor, Ki-moon recognizes who is the
boss, and shows no qualms over using his office to help the boss implement
his UN Charter violations.

The Security Council also is cooperating with the U.S. process.  Mainly it
has done this by going along with the U.S. allegation that Iran's nuclear
program poses a threat to international peace and security,[23] rather
than recognizing that in threatening to take military action against Iran
if it does not comply with U.S. demands, it is the U.S. that poses the
grave threat, not Iran - a threat that would be actionable under Chapter
VII of the Charter, were the Security Council able to live up to its
legitimate functions and powers.  This, too, is a rerun of the Security
Council's effort in late 2002 and early 2003, leading to the invasion of
Iraq, when the Council went along with the United States' alleged concern
about Iraq's noncompliance with the Council's disarmament resolutions, and
patiently voted for an "enhanced inspections regime" instead of calling
the supreme international criminal's bluff and denouncing its plans for
the already decided-upon invasion.[24] Going along with these pressures
and demands fed into the U.S. war-propaganda in 2002, just as it does the
same today in the run-up to the planned attack on Iran.

Also helpful to the U.S. aggression process today is the work of the IAEA
and Mohamed ElBaradei, which closely parallels the earlier efforts of the
United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and its
chairman, Hans Blix.  The mere existence of an inspections program, and
the fact that it can be dragged out for years - on-and-off for a total of
eight years in Iraq, and since 2002 in Iran - permits the United States to
create the impression that there really is a grave threat and to distract
attention from the real threats that it poses, including its own
contribution to the spread of nuclear weapons. The inspections regimes
have provided the United States with platforms to spread false allegations
against Iraq and Iran, the two states that it declared its main targets in
early 2002.  Just as it was impossible for Blix's UNMOVIC to refute the
U.S.-U.K. allegation that Iraq was "in material breach" of its disarmament
obligations, so, no matter how many times ElBaradei's inspectors "verify
the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran," they will never
be able to refute the Alice-in-Wonderland allegation that they still
cannot "provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared
nuclear material and activities,"[25] and that a clandestine nuclear
weapon program must be hidden somewhere.

In Iraq's case, the United States made grandiose allegations before the
Security Council that were soon thereafter proven false[26] - but with no
affect on its status within the UN, or on its right eventually to lead the
Multinational Force there,[27] or the believability of its sequel
allegations against Iran. The United States denounces first Blix and now
ElBaradei for unwarranted foot-dragging and appeasement of the targeted
states.  And of course the establishment media cooperate in this process
by treating hyperbolic allegations about the targeted states as no
different than real news about them, refusing to give context and expose
the real U.S. agenda, and failing to note that Iran's case today is
following the same script that in Iraq turned out to be false.

Among the aggression process's many modalities, which combine the
suppression of critical facts with the repetition of falsehoods, we note
here the following:

  1. That only rarely is mention made of the striking and ominous
parallels between the utterly discredited U.S. and U.K. mobilization
campaign in 2002-2003 to rid Iraq of its nonexistent weapons of mass
destruction, and the ongoing U.S. and Israeli mobilization campaign from
2002 onward alleging that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

  2. That no mention is made that the U.S. and Israeli threats to attack
Iran are themselves violations of the UN Charter's prohibition on the
threat or use of force, and that even the UN and the international
community are guilty of turning a blind-eye to the illegality of these
threats.

  3. That no mention is made that the U.S.-led aggressions-occupations of
Afghanistan and Iraq mean that Iran is now surrounded on its eastern and
western borders by massive and hostile military forces that can launch
devastating strikes on Iran at any time.  So that to focus at this
juncture on any kind of threat - real or counterfactual - to peace and
security posed by Iran is simply incongruous with reality.

 4. That no mention is made of Iran's inherent right of self-defense
against the very real threats posed by the United States and Israel, both
the closest of allies and nuclear weapons powers.  As the Israeli military
analyst Martin Van Creveld noted, "The world has witnessed how the United
States attacked Iraq for, as it turned out, no reason at all. Had the
Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy."  ("Is
Israel planning to attack Iran?" International Herald Tribune, August 24,
2004.) This sentiment appears virtually nowhere in the establishment U.S.
media, which also give little credence to the Iranian leadership's
repeated protest that they do not intend to produce nuclear weapons.

 5. That no mention is made that Israel was the first state outside the
Permanent Five to develop nuclear weapons, a capability that it possesses
to this day; and that Israel remains the only state in the Middle East
never to have acceded to the NPT and international inspections.

  6. That no mention is made that Security Council Resolution 687 (April
3, 1991), which imposed disarmament requirements on Iraq, also recalled
the longstanding "objective of the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free
zone in the region of the Middle East;" and that this objective, which
enjoys very broad support throughout the region, has been ignored by
Israel, the United States, and Security Council.

  7. That no mention is made that Iran also has long advocated a
nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East, as well as extending IAEA
safeguards to all states in the region; and that every year the UN General
Assembly votes by overwhelming margins to adopt resolutions to this
effect, but that at the same time they are rejected by the United States
and Israel.

 8. That no mention is made that under the NPT, Iran - like every other
non-nuclear-weapons-possessing party to the treaty - enjoys the
"inalienable right" to develop research, production and use of nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination" (Art. IV.1), and that
the IAEA has produced no evidence that Iran is working on nuclear weapons.

  9. That no mention is made that under the NPT, the United States - like
every other nuclear-weapons-possessing party to the treaty - agrees to
"pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to
cessation of the nuclear arms race - and to nuclear disarmament, and on a
treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective
international control" (Art. VI).  By continuing to improve its nuclear
weapons, and to make their design more practicable, it is the United
States that stands in serious violation of the NPT.

  10. That no mention is made that at the last NPT Review Conference, held
in New York City in May 2005, recognition of the urgency to implement this
disarmament article figured prominently among the vast majority of
participants - but not with the United States.[28] Instead, the conference
ended in "the most acute failure in the history of the NPT" (former U.S.
weapons negotiator Thomas Graham), unable to produce even a final
statement on substantive issues.  Led by the U.S. refusal, the conference
was unable to admit any topic related to disarmament, "[turning] the world
of nuclear proliferation into the Wild West, with complete disrespect for
the rule of law" (Abolition 2000 founder Alice Slater).

  11. That no challenge is raised in the UN or international community
contesting the fact that the United States has taken it upon itself to
decide which states may develop nuclear programs, and which may not.
Iran could build nuclear power plants under the Shah, Pakistan can develop
and keep nuclear weapons under Pervez Musharraf (or a likely
successor-client of the U.S.), Egypt can develop nuclear power under Hosni
Mubarak, Israel and India can develop and keep nuclear weapons over four
decades - but neither the Islamic Republic of Iran, Libya, nor North Korea
can.  Not only is this unilateralism and politicization of the right of
access to nuclear energy not challenged by the UN or the establishment
media, it isn't even noticed.

  12. One basis for these politicized choices is the usual demonization
process, so that a target like Iran cannot be allowed to come close to
developing nuclear energy for any purpose because its leaders are
portrayed as religious fanatics who might use a single nuclear device to
bring about some mad end even though this would entail national suicide.
These fears are not based on an examination of the performance of Iran's
leaders, who in their diplomatic relations with other states and UN
representatives clearly behave as realistic geopoliticians.  Nor is any
comparison ever made with the religious beliefs of "End Times"
evangelicals in the United States and their influence on U.S. leaders and
policy.

  13. That the Iranian target can be accused of other crimes, with minimal
evidence and context, like interference in Iraq's internal affairs by
sending aid to the resistance.  This allegation is very convenient, as it
is impossible for Iran to refute beyond simple denial, the establishment
media don't require hard evidence to report it, and it scapegoats Iran for
the failures of the aggression-occupation - so attacking Iran will be part
of the effort to "liberate" the Iraqis!  Note also that when the United
States aids insurgents opposing an occupation, as in the case of the
Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation, no question is raised about
the legitimacy of such interference; but then, only the United States has
aggression rights. Thus, only the United States can legitimately aid
factions in the conflict over Iraq.  It aids all of the factions,
according to momentary strategic convenience.  And it attacks anybody
inside Iraq that it wants to attack.

  14. That very little attention is given to the fact that the U.S.
supports the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) and related groups such
as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, whose members appear to
move freely among the Western capitals, despite the U.S. Department of
State's formal designation of these groups as Foreign Terrorist
Organizations at least since 1997.[29] With U.S. aid and approval since
the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the MEK has continued its longstanding
campaign of cross-border bombings and assassinations against Iran -
causing much bloodshed among Iranians.[30]

  15. That by highlighting the abuses of dissidents inside Iran, a
prospective U.S. attack on Iran is made all-the-more palatable.[31] When
the lie about going to war to disarm Iraq no longer could be sustained,
the selling-point shifted to the "liberation" of Iraqis from the
dictatorship in Baghdad.  Similarly, Western intellectuals and human
rights organizations have featured the detentions and trials of different
Iranian figures, combining cost-free denunciations of Iran's leadership
with public displays of solidarity towards the dissidents.  This has been
an important mechanism by which a segment of the intellectual community,
including the humanitarian interventionists and devotees of "democracy
promotion,"  serve the imperial state while convincing themselves that
they are simply aiding in the global liberation process. It has been
noted, however, that this segment seems reluctant to push hard for
democracy in states allied with and supported by the empire (e.g., Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia, Israel, etc., or in the United States
itself). They also spend much more effort in expressing concern over the
condition of the dissidents in target countries than they do over the
supreme international crimes to which they may be contributing.

Concluding Note

Imagine that Adolf Hitler, having invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia and
making clear plans to attack Poland, was able to get France, Britain and
the Soviet Union to agree with him that Poland's buildup of its border
forces posed a threat to Germany and should be subject to sanctions till
it reduced those forces.  A League of Nations Disarmament Commission was
formed that focused on Polish weaponry on its border with Germany,
expressing "concern" over Poland's possible secrecy in the placement of
some of those weapons. Meanwhile, the head of the League met with Hitler,
expressed admiration for his revitalization of Germany, and expressed the
hope that the League and Germany could forge a "stronger partnership" for
the years ahead.  The famed appeasement of Nazi Germany never went this
far in the late 1930s, so that it never matched the current scene of UN
and international community appeasement plus literal collaboration with
the Supreme International Criminal of our day, who is threatening another
major cross-border attack despite being bogged down in a quagmire in an
aggression begun in 2003.

Like the League, the United Nations is never more than the cumulative
actions of its members.  The collapse of the Soviet bloc and Soviet Union
itself (1989-1991) was greeted by much optimism at the time: Finally, the
UN would live up to its historic mission of protecting the world's peace
and security.  But what this rhetoric really meant was that the
flourishing Western bloc was freer than ever to use the UN to promote its
agenda. This proved true in the 1990s, as the number and scope of
Western-inspired UN operations expanded greatly.  And when in March 1999,
the U.S.-led NATO bloc could not gain Russia's assent in the Security
Council for its war on Yugoslavia, NATO went ahead with its war anyway,
and brought in the UN after the fact.

Post-9/11, the United States and its allies have used the UN even more
effectively to promote selective campaigns of "counter-terrorism" and
"counter-proliferation," and to push aside aggression and disarmament.
At the same time that U.S. wars approach a lethality not seen since
Southeast Asia 40 years ago, UN agencies are dispatched with mandates to
pick up the pieces caused by their destructiveness, but never to counter
them.

At an October 17 news conference, a reporter asked George Bush whether he
"definitively believe[s] Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon?"  "Yeah,"
Bush replied, "I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in
order to make a nuclear weapon..So I've told people that if you're
interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be
interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a
nuclear weapon."[32]

Notice that Bush's mobilization for World War III is not in response to
Iran's actual use or even acquisition of a nuclear weapon, but simply to
prevent Iran from having the knowledge of how to build one - knowledge
that can be found in every peaceful use of nuclear energy the world over.
Note also the transference of responsibility for the planned war from the
serial aggressor onto the target, an Orwellian gambit hardly commented
upon in the West.  Bush's extreme position was announced only weeks after
an Israeli bombing raid in northern Syria that may have been executed to
destroy surface-to-air missile defense systems of the same class that Iran
is also known to operate, as well as test the system's vulnerabilities.
And a vote by three-quarters of the U.S. Senate - including 30 of the
Senate's 50 Democrats - expressed its sense that Iran poses a "threat to
the security of the region," and called on the White House to designate
Iran's military a "foreign terrorist organization," just eight days before
Bush did in fact designate Iran's military an FTO, adding to the sanctions
it already imposes on Iran.[33]

It is thus quite possible that the U.S. leaders are about to embark on
their fourth aggression in a desperate hope of reviving public support for
a beleaguered presidency and it reactionary program. In this case,
however, the aggression would likely trigger a much wider war, even
involving nuclear arms, a breakdown in the global flow of oil, economic
chaos as well as mass war deaths and destruction, and a rapid spread of
authoritarian rule (reaching the United States).[34] But the breakdown in
the rule of law as manifested in the UN and great power acceptance of, and
even collaboration with, the serial aggressions of the United States, and
the inability of democratic processes in the United States to constrain
the war party, make this tragic outcome unnervingly more probable.

    ---- Endnotes ----

[1] Although adopted by the UN Security Council, we regard resolutions
such as 1244 (June 10, 1999), 1378 (November 14, 2001), and 1483 (May 22,
2003), 1500 (August 14, 2003), and 1546 (June 8, 2004), as
extra-constitutional actions on the Council's part, and therefore as
usurpations of the Council's functions and powers under the UN Charter,
which are established as the maintenance of international peace and
security, not the ex post facto legitimation of its grave breaches.  Yet,
each of these resolutions assumed the conquest of sovereign states
(Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, respectively) by other states led in
each case by the United States.

[2] In September 2007, the Program on International Policy Attitudes asked
both U.S. and Russian citizens whether they would favor or oppose all
countries agreeing to eliminate all of their nuclear weapons, if there
were a "well-established international system for verifying that all
countries are complying."  Sixty-three percent of Russians said they would
favor this, and 73% of Americans did likewise.  More than two-thirds of
both countries' citizens (67% Russians, 69% Americans) favor the goal of
eliminating all nuclear weapons.  Perhaps most impressive of all, no fewer
than 79% of Americans and 66% of Russians believe that each of their
respective countries should "do more to work with the other nuclear powers
toward eliminating their nuclear weapons." As PIPA observes, "Most approve
of this objective, even though they are unaware that their country has
already agreed to pursue it under the Non-Proliferation Treaty."  Steven
Kull et al., Americans and Russians on the Future of Nuclear Weapons and
Disarmament, November 9, 2007, pp. 16-18.

[3] Dag Hammarskjold's remark is quoted in Piero Gleijeses, Shattered
Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1949-1954
(Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 331.

[4] See Michael Mandel, How America Gets Away With Murder: Illegal Wars,
Collateral Damage and Crimes Against Humanity (Pluto Press, 2004), pp.
117-146.

[5] Referring to the peace conference in France, former State Department
official George Kenney reported shortly after NATO's 1999 war that a
"senior State Department official had bragged that the United States
'deliberately set the bar higher that the Serbs could accept'.  The Serbs
needed, according to the official, a little bombing to see reason."
(George Kenney, "Rolling Thunder: the Rerun," The Nation, June 14, 1999.)

[6] See Noam Chomsky, "Cold War II," Z Magazine, October, 2007.

[7] "Presidential Address to the Nation [about Afghanistan]," White House,
October 7, 2001; UN Security Council Resolution 1373, September 28, 2001;
Kofi Annan, October 5, 2001; and the Statement by the President of the
General Assembly Han Seung-soo (GA/SM/274/), October 8, 2001..Here we note
the contrast between the "scourge of terrorism" and the UN Charter's
"scourge of war," the latter having been pushed aside in the name of
"counter-terrorism."

[8] Kofi Annan (S/2001/934), October 3, 2001.

[9] See the website for the Counter-Terrorism Committee, UN Security
Council.  Also see A more secure world: Our shared responsibility, Report
of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and
Change, December, 2004, par. 146; and the Global Counter-Terrorism
Strategy (A/RES/60/288), UN General Assembly, September 8, 2006.

[10] David Chandler, Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building
(Pluto Press, 2006), p. 1.

[11] Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie's comment first surfaced
in September 1990, when a transcript of her July 25, 1990 meeting with
Saddam Hussein was produced by the Iraqi government, and released to the
public.  (See, e.g., "Excerpts From Iraqi Document on Meeting With U.S.
Envoy," New York Times, September 23, 1990.)  Later asked by Senator Alan
Cranston in testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
whether she actually said what the Iraqi transcript reported, Glaspie
conceded "Yes."  (Federal News Service transcript, March 20, 1991.)

[12] See, e.g., John Mueller and Karl Mueller, "Sanctions of Mass
Destruction," Foreign Affairs, May/June, 1999; Thomas J. Nagy, "The Secret
Behind the Sanctions: How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water
Supply," The Progressive, September, 2001; and Joy Gordon, "Economic
Sanctions as a Weapon of Mass Destruction," Harper's Magazine, November,
2002.

[13] See David Martin, "Notes from an aide to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld
says Iraq was considered an attack target as far back as 9/11 despite no
evidence of involvement," CBS Evening News, September 4, 2002.

[14] "His WMD programme is active, detailed and growing," British Prime
Minister Tony Blair stated when releasing what later came to be known as
his "dodgy dossier" on Iraq's WMD.  "The policy of containment is not
working. The WMD programme is not shut down.  It is up and running..Our
case is simply this: not that we take military action, come what may; but
that the case for ensuring Iraqi disarmament (as the UN has stipulated) is
overwhelming. I defy anyone on the basis of this evidence to say that is
an unreasonable demand for the international community to make."  ("Prime
Minister's Iraq Statement to Parliament," 10 Downing Street, September 24,
2002.)

[15] Addressing the "mystery" behind the missing WMDs, Kenneth Pollack was
still counseling three months after the start of the war: "The fact that
the sites we suspected of containing hidden weapons before the war turned
out to have nothing in them is not very significant....[T]he failure to
find weapons of mass destruction in no way invalidates the prewar
intelligence data indicating that Iraq had the clandestine capacity to
build them."  ("Saddam's Bombs?  We'll Find Them," New York Times, June
20, 2003.)

[16] To repeat what we said above (see n. 1): Unless the Security Council
has the power to create facts as well as laws, resolutions such as 1483
(May 22, 2003), 1500 (August 14, 2003), and 1546 (June 8, 2004) must be
regarded as usurpations of the Council's legitimate functions and powers
under the UN Charter.  Rather than demanding that the illegal occupying
U.S. military power surrender its prize back to the people of Iraq or to
an international authority, they put the occupier in charge of a country
it had conquered by force.

[17] The August 19, 2003 bombing attack on the UN compound in Baghdad
followed a Security Council resolution (1500) and statements by the
Secretary-General and the head of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq that
were supportive of U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, headed by Paul
Bremer, and of the Governing Council of Iraq, whose members had been
appointed by Bremer.  See, e.g., Salim Lone, "Not Too Late for the U.N.,"
Washington Post, November 19, 2003; and Salim Lone, "The new US tactics
won't work," The Guardian, November 20, 2003.

[18] See, e.g., Gilbert Burnham et al., "Mortality after the 2003 invasion
of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey,. The Lancet, Vol. 368,
No. 9544, October 14, 2006 (as posted by the Center for International
Studies at MIT); Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq, Oxfam
International, July 30, 2007; and "Iraq Refugees: A lot of talk, little
action," Refugees International, November 14, 2007.  Also see the webpage
devoted to "The Iraq Situation" by the UN High-Commissioner for Refugees.

[19] "President Delivers State of the Union Address," January 29, 2002;
"Statement by the President [on Iran]," July 12, 2002; "Iran: Khatami Says
U.S. 'War-Mongers' Threaten World," BBC Monitoring International Reports,
July 14, 2002; and Dana Priest, "Iran's Emerging Nuclear Plant Poses Test
for U.S.," Washington Post, July 29, 2002.

[20] Kofi Annan, March 10, 2003.

[21] Kofi Annan, March 20, 2003.

[22] Ban Ki-moon, January 16, 2007.

[23] Through the present date, the Security Council's actions with respect
to Iran's nuclear program have included one Presidential Statement
(S/PRST/2006/15, March 29, 2006), and three resolutions: 1696 (July 31,
2006), 1737 (December 23, 2006), and 1747 (March 24, 2007).  The first
resolution demanded that Iran cease uranium enrichment; the latter two
imposed various economic and materiel sanctions on Iran for its not having
ceased to enrich uranium.

[24] See UN Security Council Resolution 1441, November 8, 2002, par. 2.

[25] See Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant
provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) in
the Islamic Republic of Iran (GOV/2007/58), IAEA, November 15, 2007, par.
39, par. 43..As the IAEA's current Alice-in-Wonderland report concludes
(par. 43): "Confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran.s
nuclear programme requires that the Agency be able to provide assurances
not only regarding declared nuclear material, but, equally importantly,
regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in
Iran.  Although the Agency has no concrete information, other than that
addressed through the work plan, about possible current undeclared nuclear
material and activities in Iran, the Agency is not in a position to
provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear
material and activities in Iran without full implementation of the
Additional Protocol."  In short: Never.  The allegations are structured so
as to be impervious to refutation.or, crucially, until such time as it is
too late to make a difference.

[26] See Colin L. Powell, "Remarks to the United Nations Security
Council," U.S. Department of State, February 5, 2003.  To the best of our
knowledge, no high representative of the Nazi state ever appeared in a
comparable forum, ca. 1937-1939, and laid out Berlin's casus belli for
defending Western Civilization and Aryan blood. When we take into account
the status of the speaker (a U.S. Secretary of State), the venue where he
delivered his remarks (the UN Security Council), the gravity of the moment
(the threat of war by the world's pre-eminent superpower), and, last but
not least, the fact that upwards of 100 percent of his substantive
assertions were falsehoods, surely this single event ranks at the historic
pinnacle of charades.

[27] Under UN Security Council Resolution 1546 (June 8, 2004), the Council
not only legitimated the U.S. military occupation, but it placed the
United States in charge of the so-called Multinational Force for Iraq.

[28] For the official documents of the NPT Review Conference in New York
City, United Nations, May, 2005.  And for the single most important
collection of conference documents, see the Final Document of the 2005
Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons: Part II - Documents issued at the Conference
(NPT/CONF.2005/57(PartII)), New York, 2005.

[29] See the 1996 Patterns of Global Terrorism Report, Appendix B,
"Background Information on Terrorist Groups," U.S. Department of State,
1997.

[30] See, e.g., Seymour Hersh, "The Coming Wars," New Yorker, January
24/31, 2005; and Seymour Hersh, "The Iran Plans," New Yorker, April 17,
2006. Also Seymour Hersh, "Shifting Targets: The Administration's plan for
Iran," New Yorker, October 8, 2007.

[31] For the most highly publicized example of this phenomenon in 2007,
see the open letter, "Release Haleh Esfandiari," New York Review of Books,
June 28, 2007; also see the "Free Haleh!" campaign sponsored by the
American Islamic Congress and many others.  The Director of the Woodrow
Wilson Center's Middle East Program in Washington D.C., Esfandiari was
charged with espionage and endangering the security of Iran.  Eventually
released by Iranian authorities in September, she returned to the United
States.  We believe that the effects of these highly selective campaigns
to demonize the leadership of a targeted state extend to discouraging
opposition from coalescing around the threatened war.   In the realm of
test-marketing for a U.S. attack on Iran and how best to get Western
intellectuals to remain silent about it, so-called "solidarity" campaigns
have proven particularly salable. (See Laura Rozen, "Focus Grouping War
with Iran," Mother Jones, November 19, 2007.)

[32] "Press Conference by the President," October 17, 2007.

[33] See "Advanced Russian Air Defense Missile Cannot Protect Syrian and
Iranian Skies," DEBKAfile, September 7, 2007; U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote
00349, September 26, 2007; and "Designation of Iranian Entities and
Individuals for Proliferation Activities and Support for Terrorism," U.S.
Department of State, October 25, 2007.

[34] For some current assessments of the dangerous trends within this
heavily militarized capitalist state, see Gregory Meyerson and Michael
Joseph Roberto, "It Could Happen Here," Monthly Review, October, 2006;
Chris Hedges, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On
America (Free Press, 2007); Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy
(Princeton University Press, 2007); and Charlie Savage, Takeover: The
Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy
(Little, Brown and Company, 2007).


--------12 of 12--------

              Capitalism vs Utilitarianism

 Utilitarianism - the greatest happiness of the greatest number
 Capitalism - the greatest misery of the greatest number

 Misery is money. The more people are sick and dying, abused and
 exploited, demeaned and despised, enslaved and imprisoned, the more gold
 flows to the top. Capitalism does well by doing evil.

 (Utilitarianism is a philosophical/ethical/legislative position held by
 Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill among others)


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