13 months of injustice in Honduras

Tomorrow marks 13 months since the Honduran coup.

A band of self-interested and corrupt political and military elites, with the tacit support of Senators, Congressmen, and the Obama administration, overthrew a legitimate president.  The de-facto government deployed the military, and human rights abuses spiralled.  Those involved in the coup were quickly granted amnesty. A sham 'election' was held and President “Pepe” Lobo was inaugurated.  With politicians, activists, journalists, and protesters silenced through intimidation, detention, assault, and assassination, little dissension has been heard outside Honduras.

For more info: The Coup Is Not Over: Marking a Year of Resistance in Honduras

Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord - Dead?

I have written before about the hollow accord, which Washington heralded as ‘a breakthrough’ and ‘an historic agreement.’ Hillary Clinton spoke of working towards a ‘full return of democracy and a better future for the Honduran people.’ As recently as Friday, Washington continued to refer to the Tegucigalpa-San Jose accord as ‘an historic victory for democracy’. I have also criticised those who were too easily seduced by intoxicating rhetoric (the more perceptive of whom quickly changed their tune).  A background to this post can be found here.

One of the more confusing aspects of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose accord was the optimistic response of Zelaya given that it was so riddled with loopholes.  A likely explanation for Zelaya’s surprising optimism was that it was part of a longer-term strategy.   Should the coup leaders fail to soften their stance during negations, Zelaya would be able to walk away.  Only his reinstatement would bring broad international recognition to the forthcoming national elections, meaning that he has considerable leverage.  Unfortunately, the coup regime continues to receive recognition and substantial aid from the U.S.  As long as Micheletti & co. have this on their side, they still have the power to largely ignore Zelaya and his supporters’ demands, which is exactly what they have done.  Zelaya has been left with only his final hand to play; he declared the Tegucigalpa-San Jose accord ‘dead’.  Having made a tactical decision to sign the accord, he as been left with little option but to urge his supporters to boycott the elections in the hope that the lack of electoral legitimacy will pressure the next government. Regrettably, the U.S. is pledging to steadfastly recognise the elections regardless of legitimacy, which is undermining Zelaya’s final hand.  Whilst Zelaya declares the accord ‘dead’, the U.S. are declaring ‘continued support’ for the accord, regardless of Zelaya.

The reason why the U.S. wishes to talk-up the accord is painfully clear, as Ian Kelly, department spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Sate, said during a farcical press conference, the accord ‘gives us a way to support the elections.’ ‘It is the best way forward’.  The accord legitimises the forthcoming elections and offers no reversal on Zelaya’s position as a legal outcast.  Zelaya’s tactical decision has backfired because the U.S is continuing to support the dictatorial regime that assumed power by force.  Meanwhile Zelaya remains trapped inside the Brazilian embassy, threatened with arrest if he steps foot on Honduras soil.

Whilst Zelaya deserves great sympathy, the accord - even if it returned Zelaya - was always unlikely to give the Honduran people what they deserve.  The resistance to the coup is about more than just Zelaya. The people of Honduras want real change, real human rights, and justice for the oppression suffered during the coup regime. An historic victory for democracy?  Nothing could be further from the truth.

EU lifts sanctions on Uzbek government.

The sanctions were initially enacted in response to the Andijan massacre of 2005 (an incident in which troops shot at unarmed protesters - the number killed is disputed, but believed to be in the hundreds).  Since then, sanctions have been slowly eroded.

Germany, clearly incentivised by advancing its own economic interests, has led the fight for lifting sanctions.  EU nations can once again sell weapons to a corrupt regime lead by the brutal dictator Islam Karimov.

The claim that the Uzbek situation has progressed is specious:

There have been no improvements in human rights in Uzbekistan. There remains no freedom of speech, assembly, movement or religion. Thousands of political prisoners slave in the gulags, children are forced into the fields by soldiers to pick the cotton. Thousands still suffer hideous torture every year.

The value of the removal of sanctions is largely symbolic.  Uzbekistan has been obtaining weapons from non-EU sources. Although Russia is reported to be their main suppliers, the U.S. has played a major role in supporting the Karimov regime.  Because of its usefulness as a launch pad for offences in the Middle East, the U.S. has pumped money in to the hands of the Karimov government in order to buy favour with the regime.

Obama has been more than willing to ‘cut deals’ with Karimov. Obama recently agreed to triple the fee for its U.S. airbase in Uzbekistan. The most recent official U.S. rhetoric on Uzbekistan-U.S. Relations spoke of ‘partnership,’ ‘historic agreement,’ ‘a very positive development,’ and ‘our friends in the Uzbek government.’  There was even an attempt to sell Uzbekistan to U.S. corporations, ‘we will explore ways that we can expose more American companies to the opportunities here.’

Unsurprisingly, when it comes to questions regarding human rights, there was considerable obfuscation:

With respect to the human rights question, the United States and Uzbekistan intend to initiate a bilateral annual consultation in which we will discuss the full range of priorities on our bilateral agenda. I conveyed an invitation from the United States government to the government of Uzbekistan to send a high-level delegation at the time of their choosing to the United States to begin those consultations. As I said in my statement, I am confident that we will be able to make progress on the full range of priorities on our bilateral agenda.

As for why so many nations are willing to get into bed with one of the world's most egregious regimes, I will leave you with Craig Murray’s a concise appraisal

The politicians do it because the media and public do not seem to care, so they think they can get away with it. So far, they are right.

Micheletti and Zelaya reach 'breakthrough'

The details are vague, there is still much to be agreed upon, and the agreement is rife with dubious pre-conditions, yet many who opposed the Micheletti coup are hyperbolic in their response to the latest development. (For background information, see below)

Mark Weisbrot declared that this was "a victory for democracy in the Western Hemisphere." He continued;

This shows that international pressure really matters. Despite the fact that the U.S. blocked stronger action by the Organization of American States, it ultimately had to go along with the rest of the hemisphere […] This shows that Latin America is not going back to the days when U.S.-trained and funded military forces could overturn the will of the electorate.

With so many uncertainties and discouraging preconditions, such blind optimism is, at best misguided, at worst counter-productive.

First of all, whilst the agreement ‘calls for’ a truth and reconciliation commission, this is far from a guarantee of justice. The ‘agreement’ makes no effort condemn the coup or those involved in its implantation. Quite the opposite is true. The details of the agreement that are known legitimise the coup orchestrators. A power-sharing government has been agreed to - this means that those responsible for the coup shall be rewarded with the power and prestige of occupying positions of authority within the Honduran polity. This is a clear indication that, unless there are some significant developments, the truth and reconciliation commission will allow the crimes and human rights abuses of the de facto government to go unpunished. Secondly, the ‘agreement’ itself has to receive support from congress and the supreme court. Such a condition is ludicrous. They are the very bodies that were complicit in the conspiracy against Zelaya in the first place! Seeking their approval further legitimises the coup.

In contrast to the pre-coup circumstances, Micheletti & co. have gained influence through the barrel of a gun, and done so with impunity. Zelaya has lost four months of his presidency and found himself politically weakened. The Honduran people have seen dozens killed, had their human rights severely weakened, been attacked for peaceful protest, and seen their own voices ignored. The people wanted a president to bring social justice. They are left with a man so constrained that it is unlikely that he will be anything other than a popular figurehead for a puppet regime.

Although the situation could be worse, the fight is far from over.

Background
On Sunday, June 28, approximately 200 members of the Honduran military surrounded the presidential palace and forced the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, into custody and then flew him to Costa Rica.

The official justification for the military coup was that Zelaya was to hold a referendum to extend presidential terms beyond a single four-year term, which, it was argued, would be unconstitutional. This continues to be reported as the justification for the coup.

What has tended to be far less widely reported is that constitutional amendments are not uncommon, between the year of its approval, 1982, and 2005, the only years that it was not amended were 1983 and 1992. The constitution itself was approved during a period of heavy U.S. interference.

The genuine motivation for the coup is that Zelaya allied Honduras with the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America (ALBA) - an alternative to Free Trade Area of the Americas. The U.S. feared that Honduras could turn into a 'pacifist state', at the cost of a U.S. military base, as happened in Ecuador.

The subsequent period has been characterised by protests, military suppression, former cabinet misters going into hiding, and the poor fearing sanctions and greater economic hardship.

On July 6th the Honduran military blocked Zelaya’s planned return to Honduras and fired tear gas and live ammunition on protesters, who had initially intended to welcome the Zelaya’s return.

Despite ‘tough talk’ from Barack Obama, some rightly questioned whether the Obama administration is as opposed to the coup against Zelaya as it should be.

Despite apparent ‘condemnation’ through careful description of the coup as “not legal”, Obama still has not acknowledged the coup d'état as a coup d'état for fear of forcing his own hand. (Acknowledging the coup as such would require stopping all forms of non-humanitarian aid by law). Obama tacitly supported the coup d'état and the coup government financially and militarily.

'The use of culture to promote imperial agenda did not end after the Cold War'

Eva Golinger discusses the State Department sponsoring the Summit of the Alliance of Youth Movement (Translated from Spanish).

The potential use of these [new] technologies to promote psychological operations and propaganda is unlimited. Its strength is the speed of dissemination of messages and global coverage. [...]

The student movement "white hands" in Venezuela, financed and trained by U.S. agencies, anti-communist protests in Moldova, the demonstrations against the Iranian government and the latest virtual protests against President Chavez are examples of this new strategy. New technologies-Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others, are the main weapons, and traditional media such as CNN and its affiliates, helping to exaggerate the real impact of these movements promoting matrices false and distorted view of its importance and legitimacy.

The Alliance Youth Movement is another chapter in the destabilization plans against sovereign countries that reject imperialist imperial domination. The double standard of Washington reaffirms this fact. While the Department of State encourages, supports and sponsors the training of young people from other countries in the use of new technologies to destabilize their governments, the United States criminalizes using Twitter and Facebook to convene protests against Washington's policies. This was shown three weeks ago when two American citizens were arrested for using Twitter to inform the protesters against the G20 summit in Pittsburgh on the repressive actions of the police.

For information on the US citizens arrested for using Twitter see Democracy Now!

See here for my earlier post about the over-reaction to Twitter as a revolutionary tool of democracy.

When Moore met Chávez

In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Michael Moore discussed meeting Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (see video).

Moore's anecdote was a bizarre fiction. Just harmless fun? Well, his 'embellished' account left Eva Golinger feeling less than amused.

Anyone who has ever traveled [sic] or been close to President Chávez knows very well that it is absolutely impossible to just “go knock on his door”. Presidential security lines the hallways, elevators and all entrance points. Take it from someone who knows first hand. Moore’s story is complete and utter fiction. Also the man Moore identified in the interview as Chávez’s “bodyguard” is actually Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro, but hey, all latinos look alike!

The tale continues. Moore says he entered the room and a “bottle and a half of tequila later”, he was writing Chávez’s speeches! Of course, Michael, all of us Latin Americans drink tequila! Man, he couldn’t even get his alcohol right in his fairy tale! Tequila is Mexican, Michael. Venezuela makes rum. Get it straight. And anyway, President Chávez does not drink at all and is well known for his anti-alcohol position. But in Moore’s story, latinos are all a bunch of partiers! No work, just party, drinks and fun at 2am! [...]

No tequila, no parties, no scandals, just a normal meeting between a head of state and an invited guest. In fact, the real meeting lasted three hours, without tequila. [...]

Moore’s declarations against President Chávez are offensive and insulting and a clear sign of his hipocresy [sic] and lack of ethic.

Read more here

Update

Moore's response has been to accuse Golinger of lacking a sense of humour, and to admit that Chávez does not drink. This, in tern, lead to Golinger making a passionate defence of Chávez.

All I'm saying is, if you have 5 minutes on national television in the US to talk about Venezuela or President Chávez, and you care or believe in the incredible changes and movements taking place in Venezuela and throughout Latin America, and you're talking about one of the world's most demonized and threatened leaders, at least say something - one thing - redeeming. One positive thing. One. But to use the gift of 5 minutes before millions of viewers who know little or nothing - or care little or nothing - about Venezuela and Chávez to make jokes and ridicule an already overly-ridiculed leader, it just doesn't do it for me.

We have had a coup d'etat in Venezuela, funded and designed by the Department of State and the CIA, numerous economic sabotages causing billions of dollars in damages to the economy, we have an ongoing, severe media war, paramilitary infiltration causing death and violence throughout the country - coming from neighboring Colombia where the US not only has invested almost $10 billion during the past 10 years in Plan Colombia, but also just entered into an agreement with the Colombian government to utilize 6 more Colombian military bases for US operations in the region and to allow US military and security forces FULL ACCESS to all Colombian military and police installations...There have been several, documented assassination attempts against Chávez during the past few years, and just last year, the US Government tried to place Venezuela on the list of "state sponsors of terrorism", but it didn't happen because they couldn't figure out - yet - how to still get the oil if we are truly classified as enemies.

And not to mention the complete absence of any information in US media about the achievements of the Bolivarian revolution and President Chávez's policies during the past ten years, which have resulted in free health care coverage for all 27 million Venezuelans; the eradication of illiteracy and the guarantee of all levels of education, from basic to graduate level, for free to all Venezuelans; the recuperation of national sovereignty and national industries, such as oil, in order to redistribute the wealth and attempt to reduce and eliminate poverty - to date extreme poverty has been reduced more than 30% in the past decade, under Chávez. Worker-run factories, cooperatives, community councils, indigenous people's land and language rights, women's institutes and banks, community banks, free distribution of books and reading materials, inclusion of national artists and culture in all aspects of government and social policies, and the list is endless, practically, of incredible advances and achievements on a social and economic level in Venezuela during the past 10 years. Millions of people previously invisible are now visible. Participation in every aspect of Venezuelan society - political, economic, social and cultural - is at almost a 100%. People feel that what they do, matters. These changes are absolutely extraordinary, and untold.

So, excuse my apparent "lack of humor", but Michael Moore could have at least taken one minute to say one thing good about Venezuela and Chávez, instead of doing what all those who want to diminish and devalue what is happening here always do - ridicule and make fun of Chávez, and manipulate and distort the facts.

Read more here

Noam Chomsky's latest article (at In These Times) tackles the pretexts of the Bush administration's aggressive foreign policy, the role of NATO, and Obama's foreign policy. In the following passage, Chomsky summarises the controversies surrounding newly discarded plans for anti-missile systems in Europe and the hypocrisy of the U.S. stance on nuclear weapons.

A few weeks ago the Obama administration announced a readjustment of U.S. anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe. That led to a great deal of commentary and debate, which, as in the past, skilfully evaded the central issue.

Those systems are advertised as defense against an Iranian attack. But that cannot be the motive. The chance of Iran launching a missile attack, nuclear or not, is about at the level of an asteroid hitting the Earth — unless, of course, the ruling clerics have a fanatic death wish and want to see Iran instantly incinerated.

The purpose of the U.S. interception systems, if they ever work, is to prevent any retaliation to a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran — that is, to eliminate any Iranian deterrent. In this regard, antimissile systems are a first-strike weapon, and that is understood on all sides. But that seems to be a fact best left in the shadows. [...]

The present nuclear stand-off with Iran summons the Cold War’s horrors—and hypocrisies.

The outcry over Iran overlooks the Obama administration’s assurance that the Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement is exempt from the just-passed U.N. resolution on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which India greeted by announcing that it can now build nuclear weapons with the same destructive power as those in the arsenals of the world’s major nuclear powers, with yields up to 200 kilotons.

And, over the objections of the United States and Europe, the International Atomic Energy Agency called on Israel to join the NPT and open its nuclear facilities for inspection. Israel announced it would not cooperate.

Read more here.

IRAQ WAR PHOTOGRAPHER DIARY - MILITIAS

Below is a re-post of Zoriah's blog post (with permission).

June 26, 2008 IRAQ WAR PHOTOGRAPHER DIARY - MILITIAS

© Zoriah/www.zoriah.com

The above image is of a confiscated weapons cache housed inside of a US/Iraqi army base in Sadr City. Notice that there are no magazines in these weapons. As I was taking these photos, U.S. soldiers filled their pockets with loaded magazines, intending to distribute them to local militias. I am lying in my cot in a dank, concrete room in Joint Security Station Sadr City when one of the Army commanders who bunks next to me walks though the door, obviously frustrated an annoyed. He is stationed upstairs in the Tactical Operations Center, which is basically a command center for all the troops in the area and a relay point between them and other commands around the area. "What's wrong man? You look pissed," I say, as he throws his bag down on his bunk. "Everyone upstairs is all fucking pissed off because the fucking New York Times just broke a story about how the U.S. is arming and funding all of these neighborhood militias and gangs all around Iraq," he says. I mention to him that I happen to know for a fact that this is true because not more than two days ago I saw it with my own eyes. He responds, "Yeah, I know its true too, we are taking guns out of one guys hand and putting them into the hands of another guy. I'm not pissed about the article, I just have to work with a bunch of idiots who are pissed about the article. That is what makes my life miserable." I have decided to post what I wrote a few days ago, now that I am sure that hunch was correct.

© Zoriah/www.zoriah.com

I am a photojournalist. It is my job to be a visual story teller, showing people what other's lives and struggles are like, when they would otherwise have no way of visualizing these lives. I don't consider myself to very an expert in politics, warfare or the situation in Iraq. It puts me in the unique position of seeing and experiencing without pre-conceived notions or ideas. Since my job is based on truly "seeing", I am at ease with learning things along my path. I am noticing a disturbing trend in Iraq right now, one that I feel pretty sure will prove to be a major mistake in this war and cause a fair amount of grief to the Iraqi people and most likely beyond. The U.S. Military is arming and funding militias and civil military groups across the country. After a discussion with a soldier about the Sons of Iraq, what is now called a "neighborhood guard" by the US military, the soldier said, "We are basically paying these guys off with money and weapons to not kill us."

© Zoriah/www.zoriah.com

The streets of Iraq are now filled with various militias and private security forces. Think of these militias as Blackwater without background checks, rules or any kind of oversight whatsoever (ok, so just think of it like Blackwater!) . Often, they are composed mainly of children not old enough to drive and carrying AK-47 assault rifles nearly as big as themselves.

© Zoriah/www.zoriah.com

Another soldier explains to me that most of the members from the militant groups and death squads a year or two ago, are now either wearing the uniforms of the Iraqi National Police Force, or in one of the hundreds, if not thousands of militias. As I said before, I no expert on such things, but in my humble opinion this appears to be a disaster waiting to happen.

A few links to things that have happened in my absence.

The U.S. offer unconvincing assurances regarding its continued use of rendition.

Birth deformities in Fallujah continue - the cause remains unknown.

Obama's actions belie his rhetoric once more as he extends the Cuban trade embargo.

Trafigura, a company whose corporate social responsibility policy makes the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant look like Oxfam, is responsible for the several deaths and the injury of thousands due the to the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast. The story serves as a measure of news agencies' priorities. Not one of the tabloids mentions the story at all. Meanwhile, David Leigh and Rob Evans, expose links to Conservative lords including the leader of the Conservative party in the Lords, Lord Strathclyde. And, that the victims are to receive little compensation.

The Other Taxpayers' Alliance continue their efforts to expose the Taxpayers' Alliance as a murky millionaires' club.

I found myself agreeing with pretty much everything David Mitchell writes about David Cameron and MPs expenses.

This Richard Littlejohn cock-up is exquisitely ridiculous. Whist this Daily Mail attempt to whip up a false moral outrage is tedious.

Update

*Pink link added retrospectively.

Truths in the face of misinformation (AKA cut the crap)

The British government supports torture.

The Conservative Party is not progressive.

Update

In relation to UK and U.S. complicity in torture, Newsnight interviews former Uzbek intelligence officer.

When a coup "isn't a coup"

Eva Golinger highlights an exchange during the U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing with Assistant Secretary of State Phillip J. Crowley.*

QUESTION: Coming back to Honduras, we’re getting some reports out of the region that there might be some sort of rift now between Zelaya and the Venezuelan Government. Is that Washington’s understanding? And if so, is that something that can be leveraged as these negotiations move on? To put it another way, is Chavez out of the way, and does that make Washington happy?

MR. CROWLEY: (Laughter.) We certainly think that if we were choosing a model government and a model leader for countries of the region to follow, that the current leadership in Venezuela would not be a particular model. If that is the lesson that President Zelaya has learned from this episode, that would be a good lesson. [...]

QUESTION: When you say that the Venezuelan Government is – should not be an example of government for any leader -

MR. CROWLEY: I’m a believer in understatement.

QUESTION: Can you say that again? (Laughter.) It’s like – it’s justifying, sort of, the coup d’état, because if any government try to follow the socialist Government of Venezuela, then it’s fair, then, that somebody can try to make it – you know, defeat the government or something like that? Can you explain a little bit where we’re – what was your statement about Venezuela?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I think, as we have talked about and as the Secretary has said in recent days, we have, on the one hand, restored our Ambassador to Venezuela. There are a number of issues that we want to discuss with the Venezuelan Government.

On the other side of the coin, we have concerns about the government of President Chavez, not only what he’s done in terms of his own country – his intimidation of news media, for example, the steps he has taken to restrict participation and debate within his country. And we’re also concerned about unhelpful steps that he’s taken with some of this neighbors, and interference that we’ve seen Venezuela – with respect to relations with other countries, whether it’s Honduras on the one hand, or whether it’s Colombia on the other. And when we’ve had issues with President Chavez, we have always made those clear.

QUESTION: Have you ruled this as a coup d'état there legally --

MR. CROWLEY: No.

Golinger rightly infers from this that

The State Department finally concluded 3 weeks of ambiguity on its determination of whether or not a coup d'etat has taken place in Honduras. Despite the United Nations, European Union, Organization of American States and every Latin American nation clearly condemning the events as a coup d'etat, the United States government has today stated it doesn't consider a coup has taken place. The Obama administration joins only with the coup regime and its supporters (other coup leaders and/or executors of coups) in that determination. [... Furthermore] Crowley also made this statement, which appears to be a not-so-veiled attempt to tell President Zelaya and any other head of state overthrown by US allies that they better have learned their lesson: Washington will back (fund, support, design) coups against governments that align themselves with Venezuela.

In addition to drawing attention to Golinger's exceptional work on the Honduras coup and the coup itself, I wanted to highlight Crowley's criticism of Chavez. On the 11th April 2002 there was a failed coup d'état in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez, which involved some of the key actors in the Honduran coup. The coup attempt was heavily backed be the Venezuelan media, which can be seen in the film The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. With this in mind, it is understandable that Chavez has a troubled relationship with his nation's media.

In her latest post, Golinger chronicles the latest events.

Washington is also the only government with a remaining ambassador in place in Honduras, and has broken absolutely no diplomatic, military or economic ties with the coup regime. Yesterday the European Union suspended over $90 million in aid to Honduras because of the coup.

The coup regime also issued an order to the Venezuelan Embassy declaring all Venezuelans to leave the country immediately. [...]

Meanwhile, the Honduran people are still out in the streets protesting the coup, on this 25th day since the de facto regime was first installed. The economy remains shut down by striking workers, schools remain closed because of teacher's strikes and there are disturbances throughout the nation. A national curfew is still in effect, imposed by the dictatorial regime.

Elsewhere, Nikolas Kozloff looks at the importance of U.S. airbase at Soto Cano to the coup.

Prior to the recent military coup d’etat President Manuel Zelaya declared that he would turn the base into a civilian airport, a move opposed by the former U.S. ambassador. What’s more Zelaya intended to carry out his project with Venezuelan financing. For years prior to the coup the Honduran authorities had discussed the possibility of converting Palmerola into a civilian facility. Officials fretted that Toncontín, Tegucigalpa’s international airport, was too small and incapable of handling large commercial aircraft. An aging facility dating to 1948, Toncontín has a short runway and primitive navigation equipment. The facility is surrounded by hills which makes it one of the world’s more dangerous international airports.

Palmerola by contrast has the best runway in the country at 8,850 feet long and 165 feet wide. The airport was built more recently in the mid-1980s at a reported cost of $30 million and was used by the United States for supplying the Contras during America’s proxy war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua as well as conducting counter-insurgency operations in El Salvador. [...]

In 2006 it looked as if Zelaya and the Bush administration were nearing a deal on Palmerola’s future status. In June of that year Zelaya flew to Washington to meet President Bush and the Honduran requested that Palmerola be converted into a commercial airport. Reportedly Bush said the idea was “wholly reasonable” and Zelaya declared that a four-lane highway would be constructed from Tegucigalpa to Palmerola with U.S. funding. [...]

But constructing a new airport had grown more politically complicated. Honduran-U.S. relations had deteriorated considerably since Zelaya’s 2006 meeting with Bush and Zelaya had started to cultivate ties to Venezuela while simultaneously criticizing the American-led war on drugs. [...]

Over the next year Zelaya sought to convert Palmerola into a civilian airport but plans languished when the government was unable to attract international investors. Finally in 2009 Zelaya announced that the Honduran armed forces would undertake construction. To pay for the new project the President would rely on funding from ALBA [...]

The Honduran elite and the hard right U.S. foreign policy establishment had many reasons to despise Manuel Zelaya as I’ve discussed in previous articles. The controversy over the Palmerola airbase however certainly gave them more ammunition.

*A full transcript is available from the government website, as is the video. For those that would like to see the words come out of his mouth, the first question comes at 24.19 in the video. An inarticulate question and a lot of hot air about mediation from Crowley follows, which is best skipped. The second exchange comes at 28:42.

Barack Obama 182 days in office

In the course of electioneering, Barack Obama massively exaggerated his intentions. He played on hope, built expectations, and was destined to disappoint. As a president he presents himself as mindful that his predecessors have left him a considerable agenda. He is faced with formidable opposition to almost everything that he sets out to do, he needs to act tough and make enemies for the sake of the principles he claims to uphold. He needs to carry his public goodwill to shore up his reforms, push through a second stimulus package if needed, ensure that healthcare reform is anything like the plans he speaks of, leave Iraq and stand-up to Israel.

His actions belie his rhetoric. For all the plentiful ‘tough talk’ there have been few strong actions. He fudges issues and fails to deliver his promises. For those that think that his policy half-measures are better than nothing, please bear in mind that an insufficient stimulus package and half-baked heathcare reform could well prove counter productive. Critics of the plans will be able to say, “we tried them once and they didn’t work. Now you want more money? Why throw good money after bad?”

The highlights of his presidency have been the reversal of Bush’s restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, his easing of restrictions on Cuba, and the change of rhetoric on many issues. With the exception of providing government funding for stem cell research, his achievements are easily exaggerated. His presidency has been characterised by morally deplorable foreign policy, compromises that please nobody and competent public relations management in the face of a largely servile media. (When Obama is criticised by the media, it tends to be on insignificant or spurious grounds).

In regards to the change in rhetoric, little else has changed. During his presidential inauguration speech Barack Obama said, “America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.” This is nonsense. America is a friend to its client states and an enemy to those that get in the way.

Obama has proclaimed his commitment “to governments that reflect the will of the people” and of ‘democracy promotion’. Indeed, Obama called for increased investment in ‘democracy promotion’ in Latin America. As it turns out, those investments were to do the opposite of what he claimed they were to do. Democracy promotion funding has been used to support a military coup d'état in Honduras, which overthrew a democratically elected president with a progressive agenda.

The money for democracy promotion funds the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID). These agencies heavily funded the various organisations that formed Democratic Civil Union of Honduras.

Its [Democratic Civil Union of Honduras] only objective was to oust President Zelaya from power in order to impede the future possibility of a constitutional convention to reform the constitution, which would allow the people a voice and a role in their political process.

Despite apparent ‘condemnation’ through careful description of the coup as “not legal”, Obama has tacitly supported the coup d'état and the coup government financially and militarily. When Obama talks about ‘difficult’ issues his speech is laden with considerable obfuscation. All too often it is what he deliberately omits the objectionable truths. Obama has not acknowledged the coup d'état as a coup d'état for fear of forcing his own hand.

Obama has portrayed himself as being tough on Israel. He told Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “settlements have to be stopped”. Yet Obama has done nothing about the continued expansion of settlements. America continues to fund the Israeli government. The U.S. has plenty of leverage over the Israel and there is historical precedence in using it. For example, during his presidency George H. W. Bush (by no means the most progressive president) suspended loan guarantees to Israel because of settlement expansion. Obama chooses to do nothing.

When discussing America's 'new' approach to counterterrorism Obama said, “America's moral example must be the bedrock and the beacon of our global leadership”. Yet extraordinary rendition continues unabated. The “historic consensus” on significantly cutting carbon is a cynical exercise in greenwashing. It is full of loopholes and too long term to really effect Obama’s presidency. The planned departure of US troops from Iraq is a weak line of action that comes up short. It is an unquestionable fudge.

Obama has eased restrictions on Cuba and said that he seeks “an equal partnership”. These changes are, as Fidel Castro rightly considered them, "positive although minimal". The U.S. trade embargo against Cuba is still in place. The U.S. continues to punish Cuba by keeping in place this hangover from the Cold War whilst continuing to support dictators and aggressive regimes that it views favourably. A global superpower continuing to undermine small island is not grounds for an equal partnership.

The actions of the Obama administration expose Obama for the largely unprincipled and wilfully deceptive man he is. In the light of the military coup d'état in Honduras Hugo Chavez addressed Obama via Venezuelan state television. He said, "don't deceive the world with a discourse that contradicts your actions". Fat chance

Update

I should have included the reckless killing of civilians in Afghanistan and the failure to reform the financial sector too.

Wake up call - the Honduras coup d'état reading list

James D Cockroft calls the Honduras coup "The Moment of Truth for the Obama Administration"

The military coup currently underway in Honduras is a hard coup accompanied by various vain attempts to make it appear soft and "constitutionalist." Behind the coup are diverse social, economic, and political forces, of which the most important is the administration of President Barack Obama. No important change can happen in Honduras without Washington's approval. The Honduran oligarchy and transnational corporations (banana growers, pharmaceutical manufacturers) are defending their interests, as they always have, with a military coup.

James Hodge and Linda Cooper report on the U.S. Continuing to Train Honduran Soldiers.

A day after an SOA-trained army general ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint, President Barack Obama stated that "the coup was not legal" and that Zelaya remained "the democratically elected president." The Foreign Operations Appropriations Act requires that U.S. military aid and training be suspended when a country undergoes a military coup, and the Obama administration has indicated those steps have been taken. However, Lee Rials, public affairs officer for the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the successor of SOA, confirmed Monday that Honduran officers are still being trained at the school.

"Yes, they're in class now." Rials said [...]

Whatever legal argument the coup leaders had against Zelaya, it fell apart when they flew him into exile rather than prosecuting him, the attorney [Herrera Hernández] said. The legal system has broken down, he added, for if this can happen to the president, who can't it happen to?

Eva Golinger looks at the "reasons" for the coup and the growing U.S. military presence in Latin America.

They claim that President Zelaya was violating the constitution by proposing a non-binding national survey on the possibility of future constitutional reform. Most strange in this claim is that a non-binding survey, which means it doesn't legally matter what the outcome is, to consult the people's will regarding their constitution, is somehow a violent crime that justifies kidnapping, forced exile, and 3 weeks of imposed national curfew, suspension of constitutional rights and repression of the people. [...]

Meanwhile, the outrage is growing in Latin America over Obama's request (happily accepted by Colombian president Alvaro Uribe) to occupy 5 new military bases in Colombia. This agreement, which was consolidated in the Oval Office this past June 30, 2009, as Obama simultaneously and cynically declared the Honduran coup "illegal", will turn Colombia into a dangerous launching pad for US military operations in the region, never seen before in history. $46 million of US taxpayer monies was already approved by Congress - as requested by Obama - for pumping up the capacity of just one of the Colombian bases that US forces will occupy. The base in Palanquero - central Colombia - is set not just for counter-drug operations, which is the usual justification for US military presence in the region, but also for "hemispheric security operations". Hmmm, security operations? Against whom? Maybe neighbouring Venezuela and Ecuador, two nations that are in revolution and maintain anti-imperialist doctrines.

The people of the US and the world should express outrage and disgust at this violent, intimidating and threatening massive US presence in Latin America, authorized by "agent of change" Barack Obama.

During his presidential inauguration speech Barack Obama said, "America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity". If only it were.

Military Coup in Honduras & the role of the U.S.

On Sunday, June 28, approximately 200 members of the Honduran military surrounded the presidential palace and forced the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, into custody and then flew him to Costa Rica. In the days following, the role of the U.S. has become clearer - this coup was U.S. supported.

School of Americas Watch reported at the time:

The Honduran state television was taken off the air. The electricity supply to the capital Tegucigalpa, as well telephone and cellphone lines were cut. [… T]he people of Honduras are going into the streets, in spite of the fact that the streets are militarized. From Costa Rica, President Zelaya has called for a non-violent response from the people of Honduras, and for international solidarity for the Honduran democracy.

Richard Gott explains that:

Manuel Zelaya, president since 2006, is an improbable revolutionary. A wealthy landowner with timber and cattle interests, he was the candidate of the Liberal party, one of the two traditional parties of the Honduras oligarchy that have controlled the country's political system for most of the past century, with a sizeable input from the armed forces. Foreign journalists of a certain generation have a vivid memory of Honduras in the 1980s when the country was a military base, organised and funded by the United States, for the operations of the "contras", the paramilitary forces that invented a civil war against the Sandinista government in neighbouring Nicaragua. … [ F]ew of those who voted at the elections in November 2005 imagined that Zelaya would embark on a programme of radical change. He won with only a slim majority over his rivals.

The official tenuous justification for the military coup d'état is that Zelaya was to hold a referendum to extend presidential terms beyond a single four-year term. This, it is argued, would be unconstitutional. Yet constitutional amendments are not uncommon, between the year of its approval, 1982, and 2005, the only years that it was not amended were 1983 and 1992. The constitution itself was approved during a period of heavy U.S. interference.

The genuine motivation for the coup d'état is that Zelaya allied Honduras with the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America (ALBA) - an alternative to Free Trade Area of the Americas. The U.S. feared that Honduras could turn into a 'pacifist state', at the cost of a U.S. miltary base, as happened in Ecuador.

Zelaya, always dark-suited, cuts a strange figure alongside such fiery radicals as Evo Morales of Bolivia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, not to mention Raúl Castro. Yet in his small country of 7 million people, he has sought to introduce a range of social programmes, including a minimum wage, and to mobilise the poor majority. His success has been sufficient to summon up a violent challenge from the traditional elite before it is too late.

The subsequent period has been characterised by protests, military suppression, the interim president Roberto Micheletti forming a new cabinet, former cabinet misters going into hiding, and the poor fearing sanctions and greater economic hardship.

On July 6th the Honduran military blocked Zelaya’s planned return to Honduras and fired tear gas and live ammunition on protesters, who had initially intended to welcome the Zelaya’s. Estimates regarding injuries and deaths vary slightly.

This event was also captured by photojournalist James Rodriguez.

Despite ‘tough talk’ from Barack Obama, some have questioned whether the Obama administration is as opposed to the coup against Zelaya as it should be.

While the Obama administration have said that the coup is illegal and that Zelaya remains the only legitimate President of Honduras there has also been some vagueness. Unlike the ALBA governments the US has not recalled its ambassador from Honduras or refused to recognise the new government. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, when asked at a press conference if the US commitment to a return to democratic and constitutional practices in Honduras meant the restoration of Zelaya to office, gave no clear answer. It’s possible that the Obama administration’s attitude to Zelaya is ambiguous, or alternatively that it’s attempting to avoid handing ammunition to right wingers (including some Democrats) in the US congress who consider Chavez and Zelaya to be ‘dictators’ and enemies of the US or who want to revive the Free Trade Area of the Americas. It may even be, as Hugo Chavez has suggested, that Obama opposed the coup but other elements in the US government, military and intelligence agencies backed it

However Honduras’ military remains heavily US armed, funded and trained (there are even 300 US troops permanently based in the country) and it seems likely that if the Obama administration really wanted to restore democracy in Honduras it would only need to suspend all military aid and arms sales until Zelaya was restored to power. Many of the officers involved in the coup were trained at the notorious US School of the Americas in the 1980s and 1990s, including the main leader of the coup, General Romeo Vásquez Velasquez. Latin American History professor Greg Grandin says that “The Honduran military is effectively a subsidiary of the United States government. Honduras, as a whole, if any Latin American country is fully owned by the United States, it’s Honduras....Its economy is wholly based on trade, foreign aid and remittances. So if the US is opposed to this coup going forward, it won’t go forward. Zelaya will return.”

Since Duncan McFarlane’s post (quoted above), more evidence has come to light of U.S. interference. Eva Golinger reports that

Things are getting worse each day inside Honduras. Over the weekend, two well-known social leaders were assassinated by the coup forces. Roger Bados leader of the Bloque Popular & the National Resistance Front against the coup d'etat, was killed in the northern city of San Pedro Sula. Approximately at 8pm on Saturday evening, Bados was assassinated, killed immediately by three gun shots. Bados was also a member of the leftist party, Democratic Unity (Unificación Democrática) and was president of a union representing workers in a cement factory. His death was denounced as part of the ambience and repressive actions taken by the coup government to silence all dissent.

Ramon Garcia, another social leader in Honduras, was also killed on Saturday evening by military forces who boarded a bus he was riding in Santa Barbara and forced him off, subsequently shooting him and wounding his sister. […]

Meanwhile, the coup government has hired top-notch Democrat lobbyists in Washington to make their case before Congress and the White House and convince the US people to recognize them as a legitimate government. The New York Times has confirmed that Clinton lobbyist Lanny Davis, former Special Counsel for President Bill Clinton from 1996-1998, and close advisor to Hillary's campaign for president last year, has been hired by the Latin American Business Council - an ultraconservative group of Latin American businesses - to represent the coup leaders in the U.S.

In a more recent report several key facts have been established

• The Department of State had prior knowledge of the coup.
• The Department of State and the US Congress funded and advised the actors and organizations in Honduras that participated in the coup.
• The Pentagon trained, schooled, commanded, funded, and armed the Honduran armed forces that perpetrated the coup and that continue to repress the people of Honduras by force.
• The US military presence in Honduras, which occupies the Soto Cano (Palmerola) military base, authorized the coup d'etat through its tacit complicity and refusal to withdraw its support of the Honduran military involved in the coup.
• The US Ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Hugo Llorens, coordinated the removal from power of President Manuel Zelaya, together with Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon and John Negroponte, who presently works as an advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
• The Department of State has refused to legally classify the events in Honduras as a "coup d'etat," nor has it suspended or frozen its economic aid or commerce to Honduras, and has taken no measures to effectively pressure the de facto regime.
• Washington manipulated the Organization of American States (OAS) in order to buy time, therefore allowing the coup regime to consolidate and weaken the possibility of President Zelaya's immediate return to power, as part of a strategy still in place that simply seeks to legitimate the de facto regime and wear down the Honduran people that still resist the coup.
• The strategy of "negotiating" with the coup regime was imposed by the Obama administration as a way of discrediting President Zelaya - blaming him for provoking the coup - and legitimizing the coup leaders.

Robert McNamara has died

Robert McNamara, Defence Secretary under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, died June 6th. McNamara was the subject of The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara - a compelling documentary by Errol Morris. Indeed, it is one of my favourite documentaries by my favourite documentary maker.

Noam Chomsky Political Discourse Dictionary

Preface

Almost every term in political discourse has a literal meaning and a propaganda version. […] The propaganda version - which is typically the one that prevails - that's the version presented by those who have the power to control discourse, propaganda, framework of discussion, and so on. And, in that case, that means primarily the United States.

Presented below select definitions of the ‘propaganda version’ of terms offered by Chomsky. It is a work in progress. Further suggestions (preferably sourced) and comments are encouraged.

Anti-Globalization - a propaganda term devised by the advocates of a particular investor-rights version of international integration. No sane person is opposed to globalization, surely not the left or the workers movements, which were founded on the commitment to international solidarity - that is, a form of globalization that is concerned with the rights and needs of people, not private capital.

Debt Repayment, International - commercial banks made bad loans to their favorite dictators, and those loans are now being paid by the poor, who of course had absolutely nothing to do with the process.

Democracy, Developing Nations – requires that the media and political system be in the hands of local oligarchies or similar elements committed to the form of “development” favoured by U.S. investors, that the public be marginalized (by violence, if necessary), and that the military, with its long-established links to the U.S. system of violence, be granted free rein.

Democracy Promotion - The neoliberal rollback of democracy.

[Note]. Where neoliberal rules have been observed since the '70s, economic performance has generally deteriorated and social democratic programs have substantially weakened.

Demographic Problem – a term devised to disguise the obviously racist presuppositions

Deterrence - means the opposite of what it says. Our offensive stance should primarily be based on nuclear weapons because they are so destructive and terrifying. Furthermore, just the possession of massive nuclear forces casts a shadow over any international conflict, as people are frightened of us because we have this overwhelming force.

Economic Interest, National - a misleading term because countries don't have economic interests, groups inside of them do and those interests may differ.

Failed State - a state that has the formal political institutions, but they are not functioning. Functioning in a democratic society is supposed to mean that public policy somehow reflects public interests and concerns.

Financial Crisis - "the crisis" has a clear enough meaning: the financial crisis that hit the rich countries with great impact, and is therefore of supreme importance.

Globalization - specific form of international economic integration that has been instituted within the "neoliberal" framework of past several decades.

Humanitarian Crisis - a problem somewhere that threatens the interests of rich and powerful people [as opposed to] the massacres in Colombia, for example, or the slaughters and expulsions of people in south-eastern Turkey, which are being carried out with crucial support from Clinton. Those aren't humanitarian crises.

International Community, The - a technical term referring to Washington and whoever happens to agree with it.


Labour Flexibility - a fancy way of saying that when you go to sleep at night, you don't know if you have a job tomorrow morning - and that's supposed to be a very good thing. […] Labour-market flexibility has gotten a bad name as a euphemism for keeping wages down and workers out, which in fact is exactly what it is, which is why it's gotten that bad name.

Legal - in US-Israeli parlance means "illegal, but authorized by the government of Israel.”

Libertarian - means the opposite of what it always meant in history. Here [the U.S.] it means ultra-conservative - Ayn Rand or Cato Institute or something like that.

Literal meaning

Socialist and anti-state, an anti-state branch of socialism, which meant a highly organized society, completely organized and nothing to do with chaos, but based on democracy all the way through. That means democratic control of communities, of workplaces, of federal structures, built on systems of voluntary association, spreading internationally.

Etymology of literal meaning
Throughout modern European history meant socialist anarchist. It meant the anti-state element of the Workers Movement and the Socialist Movement. It sort of broke into two branches, roughly, one statist, one anti-statist. The statist branch led to Bolshevism and Lenin and Trotsky, and so on. The anti-statist branch, which included Marxists, Left Marxists - Rosa Luxemburg and others - kind of merged, more or less, into an amalgam with a big strain of anarchism into what was called "libertarian socialism."



Manufacturing Consent –

Etymology
“The term "manufacturing consent" is not mine, I took it from Walter Lippmann, the leading public intellectual and leading media figure of the twentieth century, who thought it was a great idea. He said we should manufacture consent, that's the way democracies should work. There should be a small group of powerful people, and the rest of the population should be spectators, and you should force them to consent by controlling, regimenting their minds. That's the leading idea of democratic theorists, and the public relations industry and so on”

Moderate - 'they do what we say' - willing to conform to US demands, irrespective of the nature of the regime.

NAFTA Miracle - a "miracle" for U.S. investors and the Mexican rich, while the population sank into misery.

National Security Interests - only an incidental relation to the security of the nation, though they have a very close relation to the interests of dominant sectors within the imperial state, and to the general state interest of ensuring obedience.

Nicaragua, The U.S. War Against - if we want to be kind to the United States - we could say it was international terrorism. A stronger, probably more accurate, term would be outright aggression.

Peace Process - conventionally used to refer to whatever the U.S. government happens to be doing, often undermining diplomatic efforts.

Radical - not under U.S. control.

Rogue State - is used to refer to any state that is disobedient, that the US has in the sights of its rifles. […] An instrument of propaganda, to beat selective enemies over the head.

Stability

1. a code word referring to a “favourable orientation of the political elite” – favourable not to their populations, but to foreign investors and global managers.
2. subordination to Washington’s will 

Terrorism - literal meaning - the calculated use of violence against civilians to intimidate, induce fear, often to kill, for some political, religious, or other end. It turns out to be almost the same as the definition of official U.S. policy. Except, when it is U.S. policy, it is called ‘counter-insurgency’ or ‘low-intensity conflict’ or some other name. Furthermore, if you apply the literal definition, you conclude that the U.S. is a leading terrorist state because it engages in these practices all the time.

propaganda version - directed against the United States or its allies and carried out by enemies


Terrorism, International - introduced during the 1980s when it was pretty clear that the Soviet pretext was collapsing and another one had to be found and "international terrorism" was invented as a pretext to replace it.


Tough love - love for the rich and privileged, tough for everyone else.


Trade - propaganda version [used in addition to literal meaning]. An operation inside of a command economy which has to cross borders. E.g. US trade with Mexico after NAFTA - about half of it is not trade in any serious sense. It's just interaction as internal to a command economy. If General Motors makes the parts in Indiana and sends them to Mexico to be assembled because they have cheaper labor and fewer environmental constraints, and then sends them back to Los Angeles to sell the cars, that is called trade in both directions, but it is not trade in any reasonable sense. 


U.S., The -

1. a leading terrorist state.
2. "United States" is conventionally used to refer to structures of power within the United States; the "national interest" is the interest of these groups, which correlates only weakly with interests of the general population.

Obama’s Cairo speech

What he did say was largely inoffensive, what he failed to say …

Fisk writes

About the Venue

[P]lease note that Obama has chosen Egypt for his latest address to the Muslims, a country run by an ageing potentate – Hosni Mubarak is 80 – who uses his secret police like a private army to imprison human rights workers, opposition politicians, anyone in fact who challenges the great man's rule.

And that: …

The Egyptian Organisation of Human Rights, a separate group, discovered that 10 of the 29 died after torture. In one case, rights groups acquired a videotape of a prisoner being anally raped with a stick by a police officer. Other videos show one of Mubarak's political opponents – a woman – being sexually molested by a plain-clothes police officer in a Cairo street.

As for the speech itself: …

when Obama said that some governments, "once in power, are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others", there was a roar of applause from the supposedly obedient audience. […] As the Palestinian intellectual Marwan Bishara pointed out yesterday, it is easy to be "dazzled" by presidents. This was a dazzling performance. But if one searched the text, there were things missing.

There was no mention – during or after his kindly excoriation of Iran – of Israel's estimated 264 nuclear warheads. He admonished the Palestinians for their violence – for "shooting rockets at sleeping children or blowing up old women in a bus". But there was no mention of Israel's violence in Gaza, just of the "continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza". Nor was there a mention of Israel's bombing of civilians in Lebanon, of its repeated invasions of Lebanon (17,500 dead in the 1982 invasion alone). Obama told Muslims not to live in the past, but cut the Israelis out of this. […]

For a man who is sending thousands more US troops into Afghanistan – a certain disaster-to-come in the eyes of Arabs and Westerners – there was something brazen about all this. When he talked about the debt that all Westerners owed to Islam – the "light of learning" in Andalusia, algebra, the magnetic compass, religious tolerance, it was like a cat being gently stroked before a visit to the vet. And the vet, of course, lectured the Muslims on the dangers of extremism, on "cycles of suspicion and discord" – even if America and Islam shared "common principles" which turned out to be "justice, progress and the dignity of all human beings".

There was one merciful omission: a speech of nearly 6,000 words did not include the lethal word "terror". "Terror" or "terrorism" have become punctuation marks for every Israeli government and became part of the obscene grammar of the Bush era.

An intelligent guy, then, Obama. Not exactly Gettysburg. Not exactly Churchill, but not bad. One could only remember Churchill's observations: "Words are easy and many, while great deeds are difficult and rare."

Chomsky notes that:

Obama's June 4 Cairo address to the Muslim world kept pretty much to his well-honed "blank slate" style -- saying very little of substance, but in a personable manner that allows listeners to write on the slate what they want to hear. CNN captured its spirit in headlining a report "Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world."

Whereas John Pilger - Smile on the face of the tiger [Please read in full]

President Barack Obama made his “historic” speech in Cairo, “reaching out to the Muslim world”, reported the BBC. “Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” said Obama, “does not serve Israel’s security.” That was all. The killing of 1,300 people in what is now a concentration camp merited 17 words, cast as concern for the “security” of the killers. This was understandable. During the January massacre, Seymour Hersh reported that “the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of ‘smart bombs’ and other hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel” for use in Gaza.

Chomsky on Israeli settlement expansion

Chomsky wrote the following about the planned expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestine:

Washington's position was presented most strongly in Hillary Clinton's much-quoted statement rejecting "natural growth exceptions" to the policy opposing new settlements. Netianyahu, along with President Peres and in fact virtually the whole Israeli political spectrum, insists on permitting "natural growth" within the areas that Israel intends to annex, complaining that the US is backing down on Bush's authorization of such expansion within his "vision" of a Palestinian state.

Senior Netanyahu cabinet members have gone further. Minister Yisrael Katz announced that "the current Israeli government will not accept in any way the freezing of legal settlement activity in Judea and Samaria.” (Ha'aretz, May 31). The term "legal" in US-Israeli parlance means "illegal, but authorized by the government of Israel.” In this usage, unauthorized outposts are termed "illegal," though apart from the dictates of the powerful, they are no more illegal than the settlements granted to Israel under Bush's "vision."[…]

If Obama were serious about opposing settlement expansion, he could easily proceed with concrete measures, for example, by reducing US aid by the amount devoted to this purpose. That would hardly be a radical or courageous move. The Bush I administration did so (reducing loan guarantees), but after the Oslo accord in 1993, President Clinton left calculations to the government of Israel. Unsurprisingly, there was "no change in the expenditures flowing to the settlements," the Israeli press reported: "[Prime Minister] Rabin will continue not to dry out the settlements," the report concludes. "And the Americans? They will understand" (Hadashot, Oct. 8; Yair Fidel, Hadashot Supplement, Oct. 29, 1993).

Obama administration officials informed the press that the Bush I measures are "not under discussion," and that pressures will be "largely symbolic" (Helene Cooper, NYT, June 1). In short, Obama "understands." […]

[A]ll of these discussions about settlement expansion evade the most crucial issue about settlements: what Israel has already established in the West Bank. The evasion tacitly concedes that the illegal settlement programs already in place are somehow acceptable (putting aside the Golan heights, annexed in violation of Security Council orders) -- though the Bush "vision," apparently accepted by Obama, moves from tacit to explicit. What is in place already suffices to ensure that there can be no viable Palestinian self-determination. Hence there is every indication that even on the unlikely assumption that "natural growth" will be ended, US-Israeli rejectionism will persist, blocking the international consensus as before.

Netanyahu says that West Bank settlements are to expand.

News that manages to be both unsurprising and almost unbelievable. The West Bank settlements, which are considered illegal under international law, are to expand.

"I have no intention to construct new settlements," Binyamin Netanyahu was quoted by officials as telling his cabinet on Sunday.

"... but it makes no sense to ask us not to answer to the needs of natural growth and to stop all construction," he added.

Whereas Obama said to Netanyahu just days earlier …



As for Netanyahu vowing to remove makeshift outposts in the West Bank that the Israeli government itself considers illegal …

A few links

Robert Fisk discusses the semiotics of conflict reports - 'Civilians pay price of war from above', which gives Al Jazeera's report, 'US probe 'confirms' Afghan deaths', greater resonance. The use of language by US officials is spookily similar to that of the Israeli government’s justification of the Israel Defence Force's activities. The story itself is receiving little or no attention from mainstream British news organisations.

Dave’s Part assesses the perceived moving left of Labour under Brown -'SDP, the second time as farce'.

'Monbiot meets... Hazel Blears' is extraordinary. It might not sound that interesting but wait for Blear's reaction to Monbiot's question about Islam Karimov, the brutal dictator of Uzbekistan. At about 7:02 comes a moment of near David Brent proportions awkwardness.

An overlooked story from Michael Crick's Newsnight blog

If you are still hungry for interesting and informed reading matter, A Very Public Sociologist is a pretty good place to look. I recently discovered that they have linked The Polemical Report (it is listed in the ‘Counter-Hegemonies’ section), which I am pretty pleased about. Thank you if you are reading this A Very Public Sociologist team.