Apesar da proximidade geográfica, o brasileiro, em geral, conhece muito mais sobre a Europa e EUA do que sobre os "primos e hermanos" sulamericanos. Pior para nós.
Resumo tópico:
– A América do Sul é culturalmente próxima e isso é pouco explorado
– Conhecer a América do Sul pelos sul-americanos
– Busca pela integração dos sul-americanos
– Falar a mesma língua no que diz respeito a interesses
– Diferenças e semelhanças do continente sul-americano
– Buscar a igualdade na diferença
– Saber aceitar as diferenças
– Estudar mais as outras culturas, mostrar mais interesse pelo que nos cerca
– Reunidos para pensar os conflitos e também, as soluções
– Conhecer e descobrir
– Ver além dos rótulos
– Praticar a diplomacia
– Ir em busca de interesses comuns
– Explorar o potencial econômico
– A política diferenciada do continente sul-americano
– Inversão: o índio sobe ao poder e o branco é governado
– Questionamento sobre o outro
– Peculiaridades de cada país/nação
– A questão da língua
– As mazelas que atingem todos os países
– O crescimento do continente Sul-Americano como um todo
– Saber aproveitar e investir no que os países vizinhos oferecem de melhor, mais barato e para exportação, saber explorar esses mercados de maneira que beneficie ambos os lados
O presidente do Parlamento da Somália, Sheikh Aden Mohammed Noor, pediu neste sábado aos países vizinhos que enviem tropas a seu país nas próximas 24 horas para defender o governo do país dos grupos islâmicos radicais.
Em entrevista na capital Mogadíscio, Mohammed Noor disse que Etiópia, Quênia, Iêmen e Djibuti deveriam enviar soldados à Somália imediatamente.
Segundo ele, o governo do presidente Sharif Sheikh Ahmed está prestes a ser derrotado por grupos islâmicos liderados pela milícia Al Shabab, que os Estados Unidos vinculam à Al Qaeda.
Ontem, o parlamentar somali Mohammed Hussein Addow foi morto nesta sexta-feira no norte de Mogadício em combates entre as forças governamentais e grupos radicais islâmicos que tentam depor Ahmed.
A instabilidade na Somália levou o governo do Quênia a declarar que não vai ficar parado diante de possíveis ameaças à segurança da região. Um antigo e influente “senhor da guerra” aliado do governo, o parlamentar foi morto quando liderava as milícias governamentais no bairro de Karan da capital somali.
Addow foi a terceira autoridade a morrer em três dias, em um sinal de que o governo não conseguiu retomar o controle da capital, alvo desde o início do mês passado de uma ofensiva de grupos rebeldes. Também foram mortos o ministro de Segurança Interior, Omar Hashi Aden, que morreu em um atentado suicida com pelo menos outras 37 pessoas nesta quinta-feira (18), e o chefe da polícia da capital, coronel Ali Said, morto em combate na quarta-feira (17).
A atual ofensiva rebelde começou em 7 de maio passado, quando os extremistas islâmicos da Shabab e da milícia Hezb Al Islamiya iniciaram um ataque sem precedentes em Mogadício para derrubar o presidente Sharif Sheik Ahmed –o que motivou uma contraofensiva em 22 de maio da parte das forças leais ao governo.
Desde o início dos combates, mais de 300 pessoas morreram, entre civis e combatentes. Segundo a ONU (Organização das Nações Unidas), mais de 122 mil pessoas foram deslocadas na última onda de violência em um país afetado por uma guerra civil desde 1991.
Diante das notícias sobre os combates em Mogadício, o ministro das Relações Exteriores do Quênia disse nesta sexta-feira que seu país não vai ficar parado e permitir que a situação na vizinha Somália se deteriore ainda mais, porque isso, segundo ele, seria uma ameaça à estabilidade regional.
A rede terrorista islâmica Al Qaeda, alvo de uma grande ofensiva dos Estados Unidos no Afeganistão e Paquistão, pretende capturar o armamento nuclear paquistanês para usar no combate aos americanos, afirmou o número três da organização, Mustafa Abul Yazid.
“Deus permita que as armas nucleares não caiam em mãos americanas e os mujahideen (combatentes da guerra santa) as tomariam e usariam contra os americanos”, disse Yazid, líder da Al Qaeda no Afeganistão, em entrevista à emissora de TV Al Jazeera.
Yazid respondia a um pergunta sobre as salvaguardas dos EUA para assumir o controle das armas paquistanesas caso grupos militantes se aproximassem disso. “Esperamos que o Exército paquistanês seja derrotado (…) Deus permita.”
Com apoio do governo americano, o Exército paquistanês lançou uma grande ofensiva militar no último dia 26 de abril para reagir aos talebans paquistaneses que tentaram tomar controle do distrito de Baixo Dir e do vizinho Buner, ambos nos arredores do vale do Swat. Segundo o governo paquistanês, a ofensiva deixou centenas de militantes mortos e os afugentou da região.Nesta segunda-feira, o Exército paquistanês anunciou que estão próximos do fim da ofensiva no vale, um dos principais pontos turísticos do país até a chegada dos talebans. Segundo os militares, mais de 40 mil pessoas foram deslocadas para a última fase da ofensiva.
Questionado sobre seus planos, Yazid afirmou que a estratégia da organização no próximo período é a mesma do período anterior: “atingir a cabeça da cobra, a cabeça da tirania — os Estados Unidos.”
O líder militante disse ainda que a Al Qaeda está disposta a aceitar uma trégua de dez anos com os EUA se Washington concordar em retirar suas tropas de países muçulmanos e parar de apoiar Israel e os governos pró-Ocidente em países muçulmanos.
“Graças a Deus o xeque Osama [bin Laden] e o xeque Ayman al-Zawahri estão seguros e fora do alcance dos inimigos, mas não diremos onde eles estão. Mais que isso, não sabemos onde eles estão, mas estamos em contato constante com eles”, disse, sobre o paradeiro dos principais líderes do grupo.
O presidente Lula criticou, na cúpula mundial do trabalho, a ideia do “Estado mínimo” e insistiu em que, em um momento de crise, não há como falar na flexibilidade no setor trabalhista. Lula abriu, na semana passada, a conferência da Organização Internacional do Trabalho (OIT) em Genebra, na Suíça, marcando os 90 anos da entidade.
Lula aproveitou a crise financeira internacional para defender o “modelo brasileiro de crescimento” e apresentá-lo como uma base a ser seguida, destacando o Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento (PAC) e a criação de empregos que os projetos tendem a gerar.
Em discurso, Lula: “Não se pode conviver com um sistema financeiro que especula com papéis e papéis sem gerar um posto de trabalho, sem produzir um sapato, uma camisa ou até uma gravata”.
Atualmente, nos países ricos, a taxa de desemprego atinge o maior nível em 15 anos.
O recado do governo brasileiro é que no momento de crise, o que se necessita é de maiores garantias de estabilidade para o trabalhador, haja visto o confronto entre sindicatos de trabalhadores e associações patronais sobre se o Brasil volta a ratificar ou não uma convenção da OIT que dificulta demissões de empregados.
Ao analisar o presente nas relações internacionais é muito importante ter sempre em mente o passado (recente) das práticas de poder.
Atualizado em 21 de junho de 2009 às 22:15 | Publicado em 21 de junho de 2009 às 19:52
O clímax de dois anos de desestabilização
Irã, outra “revolução colorida” orquestrada pelos EUA?
por Paul Craig Roberts*, em Counterpunch
Vários comentaristas têm manifestado crença inabalável na pureza de intenções de Mousavi, de Montazeri e da juventude ocidentalizada de Teerã. É como se o plano da CIA, de desestabilização, noticiado há dois anos, nada tivesse a ver com o desenrolar dos eventos de hoje.
Tem-se repetido que Ahmadinejad roubou votos, porque o resultado foi apresentado depressa demais, em tempo que teria sido insuficiente para que os votos fossem contados.
Mas, de fato, Mousavi foi o primeiro a declarar vitória, apenas algumas horas depois de encerrada a votação. É procedimento ‘clássico’ da CIA, para desacreditar resultados eleitorais que não sejam os ‘desejados’. A CIA sempre apressa a declaração de vitória. Quanto mais tempo houvesse entre uma declaração ‘preventiva’ de vitória e a liberação das tabelas oficiais de votos apurados, mais tempo Mousavi teria para criar a impressão de que as autoridades eleitorais, responsáveis pelas eleições, estariam alterando as tabelas de apuração. O mais engraçado é que tantos finjam que não veem o truque e o golpe; menos engraçado é que sinceramente não os vejam.
Quanto à acusação de que a eleição foi roubada, feita pelo Grande Aiatolá Montazeri, ele foi o candidato inicialmente escolhido para suceder Khomeini; perdeu a disputa para o atual Líder Supremo. Para Montazeri, os protestos são ocasião perfeita para ‘acertar as contas’ com Khamenei. Em todos os casos seria bom negócio para Montazeri contestar as eleições, seja ele controlado pela CIA ou não – e a CIA tem longa história de sucessos no aliciamento de políticos derrotados em eleições perfeitas.
Está em curso uma luta pelo poder entre os aiatolás. Vários estão alinhados contra Ahmadinejad, porque o presidente os tem acusado de corrupção; assim, Ahmadinejad joga para a platéia de eleitores do interior do país, onde a interpretação mais ‘popular’ dos princípios do islamismo exige que os aiatolás vivam por padrões de equilíbrio e sobriedade, sem excessos nem de poder político nem de dinheiro.
Pessoalmente, acho que há algo de oportunismo nas denúncias feitas por Ahmadinejad; mas oportunismo é uma coisa; outra, completamente diferente, é a repetição incansável, em todos os jornais e televisões norte-americanas, de ‘análises’ que ‘comprovam’ que Ahmadinejad não passa de político conservador, reacionário e ‘cúmplice’ dos aiatolás.
‘Analistas’ e ‘colunistas’ e ‘especialisttas’ têm ‘explicado as eleições Irãianas a partir de suas (deles e delas) pessoais ilusões, fantasias, desejos e emoções… além de, é claro, seus (deles e delas) interesses de vários tipos.
Embora haja pesquisas confiáveis que indicavam há várias semanas que Ahmadinejad seria eleito por diferença “acachapante”, é claro que isso não implica que as eleições não tenham sido fraudadas. Mas, sim, há muitos indícios, altamente confiáveis, de que a CIA trabalha, sim, há mais de dois anos para desestabilizar o governo Irãiano.
Dia 23/5/2007, Brian Ross e Richard Esposito noticiaram no canal ABC News: “A CIA recebeu aprovação secreta da Casa Branca para montar uma operação “negra” para desestabilizar o governo Irãiano, informaram à rede ABC News oficiais da ativa e da reserva da comunidade de inteligência.”
Dia 27/5/2007, o jornal London Telegraph, citando outras fontes, noticiou: “O presidente Bush assinou hoje autorização para que a CIA construa campanha de propaganda e desinformação com vista a desestabilizar, e eventualmente destituir, o governo teocrático dos mulás.”
Alguns dias antes, o Telegraph noticiara, dia 16/5/2007, que um dos neoconservadores e senhores-da-guerra do governo Bush, John Bolton, declarara ao Telegraph que um ataque militar dos EUA ao Irã “seria a última opção, caso não dessem resultado nem as sanções econômicas nem as tentativas para fomentar agitação de rua e levante da população nas cidades.”
Dia 29/6/2008, Seymour Hersh escreveu, na revista New Yorker: “No final do ano passado, o Congresso aprovou pedido do presidente Bush para liberar verbas para uma grande escalada nas operações secretas de inteligência contra o Irã, conforme informam fontes militares, do serviço secreto e do Congresso. Essas operações, para as quais o presidente Bush solicitou 400 milhões de dólares, foram apresentadas em documento (“Presidential Finding”) assinado por Bush e visam a desestabilizar o governo religioso do Irã.”
Parece evidente que há manifestantes sinceros nos protestos de rua em Teerã. Mas há também muito evidentes sinais que são como marca registrada da CIA, já observados na Georgia e na Ucrânia. É preciso ser completamente cego para não os ver em Teerã.
Daniel McAdams anotou sinais interessantes. Por exemplo, o neoconservador Kenneth Timmerman escreveu um dia antes das eleições, que “fala-se de uma ‘revolução verde’ em Teerã”. Como Timmerman poderia saber de uma ‘revolução’ que só começaria dois dias depois? A única explicação é que conhecia os planos da CIA.
E por que haveria uma “revolução verde” já preparada desde antes das eleições… sobretudo se Mousavi estivesse certo de que seria ‘eleito’? Não há como fugir da evidência de que, sim, os EUA trabalharam para criar os protestos pós-eleitorais que se veem hoje em Teerã.
Timmerman chega a escrever, bem claramente, que “[a ONG] National Endowment for Democracy gastou milhões de dólares na promoção de revoluções “coloridas” (…). Parte desse dinheiro parece ter chegado às mãos dos grupos pró-Mousavi, que têm laços com organizações não-governamentais fora do Irã financiadas pela [ONG] National Endowment for Democracy.” A própria ONG neoconservadora de Timmerman, Foundation for Democracy, é “organização privada, sem finalidades lucrativas, fundada em 1995 a partir de doações da ONG National Endowment for Democracy, NED, para promover a democracia e o respeito aos direitos humanos no Irã.”
* Paul Craig Roberts foi secretário-assistente do Tesouro durante o governo Reagan. É coautor de The Tyranny of Good Intentions. Recebe e-mails em PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
On the US-Iran relationship, President Obama seems to be talking from both sides of his mouth. From one side we hear promising messages of dialogue and a “new beginning” with Iran; from the other side provocative words that seems to be coming right out of the mouth of his predecessor, George W. Bush.
For example, on the occasion of the Iranian New Year in March, while the President expressed willingness for “engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect” he also warned Iran that it cannot “take its rightful place in the community of nations . . . through terror or arms.”
Claims that Iran supports international terrorism or seeks to manufacture nuclear weapons were used by the Bush administration as excuses for not negotiating with Iran. President Obama’s occasional mimicking of those claims (which completely disregards the expert views of both the International Atomic Energy Agency and the National Intelligence Estimate) is likewise bound to serve as a major obstacle in the way of a meaningful conversation with Iran.
In terms of actual policy measures, President Obama and his foreign policy team have not taken any steps to reverse or mitigate the hostile policies their predecessors put into effect against Iran.
Spearhead by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama’s “point man” on Iran, Dennis Ross, the administration is pushing the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to further escalate multilateral sanctions against Iran if Tehran does not stop or limit its uranium enrichment (or nuclear-fuel production) activities. This demand is nothing short of sheer provocation because as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (and under the supervision of IAEA inspectors) such activities are altogether within the legitimate and lawful rights of Iran.
Furthermore, by occasionally parroting George W. Bush’s militaristic song that, concerning Iran, “all options are on the table,” President Obama has not disavowed his predecessor’s favorite threat of “regime change” in Tehran.
This not-so-subtle threat of “regime change” in Iran is not, however, limited to purely rhetorical statements such as “all options are on the table.” More importantly, there are ongoing destabilizing covert operations against Iran that are sponsored by various agents or agencies of the US government.
As Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, former National Security Council staff members, point out, “the Obama administration has done nothing to cancel or repudiate an ostensibly covert but well-publicized program, begun in President George W. Bush’s second term, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to destabilize the Islamic Republic.”1
This means that
“the U.S. is, in effect, conducting a secret war against Tehran, a covert campaign aimed at recruiting Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities . . . into a movement to topple the government in Tehran, or, at least, to create so much instability that U.S. intervention to ‘keep order’ in the region is justified. Given recent events in Iran — a suicide bombing in the southeast province of Sistan-Baluchistan and at least two other incidents — the effort is apparently ongoing.
“A suicide-bomber blast, which occurred inside a mosque in the city of Zahedan, killed at least 30 people: a rebel Sunni group [called Jundallah] with reported links to the U.S. claimed responsibility. . . . The violence was very shortly followed up by attacks on banks, water-treatment facilities, and other key installations in and around Zahedan, including a strike against the local campaign headquarters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Add to this an attempted bombing of an Iranian airliner…and you have a small-scale insurgency arising on Iran’s eastern frontier.”2
The Iranian government has repeatedly accused the U.S. and Israel of fomenting destabilizing covert activities across its borders. Although they deny any connection with Jundallah, the Pakistan-based terrorist organization that has claimed responsibility for a number of cross-border attacks on Iran, including the recent wave of bombings, ABC News, citing US and Pakistani intelligence sources, reported in 2007 that the terrorist group “has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials” to destabilize the government in Iran.3
In an interview with National Public Radio (NPR) on the occasion of the publication of his article in The New Yorker, titled “Preparing the Battlefield,” the renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed striking details of his findings on the goals of the $400 million budgeted by the US government for covert operations inside Iran. He provided valuable information on US military preparations to strike the country . . . and on the US support for the anti-Iran terrorist organizations Jundallah and MKO.4
More evidence of the US involvement in the terrorist activities inside Iran came to light recently when the head of the Jundallah gang, Abdulmalik Rigi, “admitted receiving assistance from the terrorist group Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO),” a terrorist gang of Iranian expatriates under US protection in Iraq. There have been persistent intelligence reports of collaborations between the MKO and Jundallah in the past. But, in a significant admission, Rigi told a US-based satellite TV station . . . on June 2, “They [MKO] have had good intelligence collaborations with us and have provided us with much information about the activities of the Iranian regime.”5
MKO, sheltered and armed by the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, have killed thousands of Iranians in their decades-old campaign of bombings and other terrorist activities against Iran. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, the MKO came under the protection of the occupying US power in Iraq. Although the US State Department officially lists MKO on its list of terrorist organizations, it nonetheless refuses to turn them in to Iranian authorities, as frequently requested. Nor has the US, as the MKO custodian, put an end to its terrorist activities against Iran.
That’s why it is safe to argue that the US is playing a crucial (though largely submerged) role in the terrorist collaboration between Jundallah and MKO against Iran.
It is not surprising, then, that Iranians are not thrilled by President Obama’s rhetoric of “peace and dialogue,” as they can easily see who is pulling the strings of the Jundallah-MKO terrorist activities from behind the scene. “What’s going on in Iran today — a sustained campaign of terrorism directed against civilians and government installations alike — is proof positive that nothing has really changed much in Washington, as far as U.S. policy toward Iran is concerned.”6
But what is to be made of President Obama’s apparently contradictory overtures toward Iran? What accounts for his simultaneously extending a hand for friendship and a fist for continued antagonism?
Charitable and optimistic interpretations tend to blame the President’s opponents for his doublespeak on Iran: the President does have a real plan for a genuine conversation and rapprochement with Iran; but to bring this about he has to occasionally make some tactical Iran-bashing statements in order to appease his powerful opponents lest they should torpedo his entire plan. Hence, his conflicting statements.
Whether this generous reading of the President’s mind is true or false can never be conclusively proven. Nor can such wishful speculations about the President’s “true” feelings or inner desires be of any analytical value for political or policy purposes. What matters — at the end of the day — is what he does or says, not what he quietly thinks to himself. And what he does and says in relation to Iran is pathetic.
He seems to want to eat his cake, and have it too: continuing with George Bush’s policies while employing slick rhetoric and pretending he is different! He serves as the smiley-face mask for the same militaristic policies left behind by George W. Bush and his Neoconservative handlers.
Iranians see through this fraud very clearly. For example, Iran’s most powerful leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently stated: “The nations in the region hate the United States from the bottom of their hearts because they have seen violence, military intervention and discrimination. . . . The new US government seeks to transform this image. I say firmly, that this will not be achieved by talking, speeches and slogans.“7
Many of Obama’s fans, both at home and abroad (including, by the way, many in Iran), who were indignant of his predecessor’s unrefined personality and militaristic policies, seem to be in denial that Obama’s so-called “change” is mainly about style and rhetoric, not substance. This is true not only of foreign but also domestic policies. Just note how his neoliberal, supply-side economic response to the ongoing economic crisis is more friendly to Wall Street rackets than any other President’s in US history — President Reagan included.
A major problem with wishful interpretations of President Obama’s conflicting statements on Iran is that they tend to perpetuate the illusion that he can bring about meaningful change in the US policy toward Iran or, for that matter, the broader Middle East. In reality, however, while the resident of the White House may posture as Commander-in-Chief and tweak policy around the edges, US foreign policy in this region is determined largely by two other sources of power, or special interest groups.
These two powerful special interests are (a) the highly influential beneficiaries of military spending and war dividends or, as the late President Eisenhower put it, the military-industrial complex; and (b) the equally powerful proponents of Greater Israel (from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean coasts), known as the Israel lobby. Evidence shows that both of these groups view their interests better served by war and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
There is an unspoken or tacit alliance between these two extremely powerful interest groups: the armaments lobby and the Israel lobby. There is no formal or legal framework for the alliance; it is largely based on a convergence of interests on war and international convulsion in the Middle East.
To say that the military-industrial complex thrives on war and militarism is to state the obvious. Arms industries and other powerful beneficiaries of war dividends need an atmosphere of war and international tensions in order to promote the sale of armaments and maintain continued increases in the Pentagon budget, thereby justifying their lion’s share of the public money. Viewed in this light, unprovoked US wars abroad can been seen as reflections of domestic fights over national resources, or tax dollars.
This helps explain why since World War II powerful beneficiaries of war dividends have almost always reacted negatively to discussions of international cooperation and tension reduction, or détente.
For example, in the face of the 1970s tension-reducing negotiations with the Soviet Union, representatives of the military-industrial complex rallied around Cold Warrior think tanks, such as the Committee on the Present Danger, and successfully sabotaged those discussions. Instead, by invoking the “communist threat,” they managed to reinforce the relatively weakened tensions with the Soviet Union to such new heights that it came to be known as the Second Cold War — hence, the early 1980s dramatic “rearming of America,” as President Reagan put it.
Likewise, when the collapse of the Soviet system and the subsequent discussions of “peace dividends” in the United States threatened the interests of the military-industrial conglomerates, their representatives invented “new external sources of danger to U.S. interests” and successfully substituted them for the “threat of communism” of the Cold War era. These “new, post-Cold War sources of threat” are said to stem from the “unpredictable, unreliable regional powers of the Third World,” from the so-called rogue states, from “global terrorism,” from “Islamic fundamentalism,” or more recently from Iran’s “impending nuclear weapons.”
Just as the powerful beneficiaries of war dividends view international peace and stability as inimical to their business interests, so too the hardline Zionist proponents of Greater Israel perceive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors as perilous to their territorial ambitions. The reason for this fear of peace is that, according to a number of United Nations resolutions, peace would mean Israel’s return to its pre-1967 borders.
But because proponents of Greater Israel, which includes the current Israeli government, are unwilling to return to those internationally-agreed-upon borders, they sabotage peace efforts and avoid genuine dialogue with Palestinians. By the same token, these proponents view war and socio-political convulsion (or, as David Ben-Gurion, one of the key founders of the State of Israel, put it, “revolutionary atmosphere”) as opportunities that are conducive to the expulsion of Palestinians, the geographic recasting of the region, and the expansion of Israel’s territory.
It is no longer a secret that the major plans of the Bush administration’s jingoistic foreign policy were drawn up largely by these think tanks, often in collaboration, directly or indirectly, with the Pentagon, the arms lobby, and the Israeli lobby. Although no longer as noisy as during the heydays of the Bush administration, especially when they were cheerleading the invasion of Iraq, these belligerent think tanks are no less busy plotting another war of aggression in the region — this time against Iran.
These think tanks and their (somewhat disguised but still active) Neo-conservative champions continue to serve as influence-peddling, corrupting, and, ultimately, subversive links between the armaments lobby, the Israel lobbies, the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the Congress. What is truly amazing is that the debacles they have wrought in Iraq and Afghanistan have not deterred them from working just as hard, using the same scandalous tactics, to bring about a military strike against yet another Muslim country — Iran.
Since the late 1940s, no US president has been able to seriously challenge the militaristic designs of the unholy alliance of the armaments lobby and the Israel lobby in the Middle East. President Obama does not seem to represent an exception to this pattern — his feeble message of peace and hollow posturing about a “new beginning” with Iran, or his formalistic advocacy of the two-state solution in Palestine, notwithstanding.
The carrot-and-stick strategy of the alliance in corrupting and/or co-opting politicians is rather well known: the carrot is the money the alliance pays for their election while the stick is driving them out of office if the carrot proves ineffective. What is less known (but perhaps more dangerous) is the alliance’s tendency to resort to pernicious patriotic-blackmailing tactics against politicians who may defy its policies and priorities.
Furthermore, when the alliance is unable to influence policy within the existing parameters or premises of international relations, it would not hesitate to change (or try to change) those parameters in order to bring about the desired change in policy.
This cynical strategy includes fabrication of evidence, provocation of terrorism (often in Muslim countries or communities), and instigation of war and political tensions. It is a strategy of manufacturing “external threats to our national security,” or inventing new enemies, in order to justify war and military intervention, thereby coercing Presidents and other politicians who may otherwise resist the alliance’s tendency to militarize US foreign policy.
For example, President Jimmy Carter went to the White House (1976) with a major agenda for international peace and stability. A key principle on that agenda was reducing tensions and seeking harmony with the Soviet Union. One of the main reasons for Carter’s peace overtures with the Soviets was to downsize the US military colossus and cut the Pentagon spending in order to reduce the US budget deficit. Carter’s discussion of “peace dividends” frightened beneficiaries of war dividends.
Terrified by Carter’s proposals of tension reduction with the Soviet Union, these influential beneficiaries of military spending set out to challenge him mercilessly. Organizing around opposition to tension-reducing talks with the Soviet Union, they reconstituted the brazenly militaristic Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), which had been instrumental to President Truman’s militarization policies of the early 1950s.
The CPD questioned the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)’s account of the Soviet military capabilities. It charged that the NIE’s account of Soviet arms outlays was too low and that there should be an ‘independent’ analysis. Sounding the false alarms of the Soviet threat, it came up with an alternative estimate (known as the Team B Report) of the Soviet Union’s military spending.
The Team B report ‘discovered’ a sizable error in previous NIE/CIA estimates of Soviet military outlays: the USSR was said to be spending 13, not 8, percent of its GNP on arms. Multiplying this ‘error factor’ by 10 (for the 10-year period 1970-80), it was concluded that by the end of the 1970s the USSR would have outspent the US by $300 billion.8
Although years later it was acknowledged that the Team B Report was bogus, it was nonetheless effectively used at the time to divert the Carter administration from its tension-reducing negotiations with the Soviet Union. “By late 1977 or early 1978 President Carter had moved from his campaign pledge to reduce military spending every year to increasing it. . . . Pressured by the CPD. . . , Carter began a sustained buildup in military expenditures” that continued to the end of his term as President.9
Evidence thus clearly indicates that, using “threats to our national security interests,” along with subtle but unmistakable patriotic-blackmailing tactics, champions of war and militarism successfully highjacked President Carter’s initially peaceful agenda soon after he arrived in the White House. His militaristic political opponents outmaneuvered and coerced him to abandon most of his campaign pledges. Not only was he not able to reduce the geopolitical tensions of the Cold War atmosphere, but, indeed, in the second half of his presidency Carter moved to revive the ephemerally-relaxed Cold War tensions of the early-to-late 1970s and, instead, embark on a confrontational course with the Soviet Union.
There are striking similarities between CPD’s tactics of inventing “external threats to our national security” in order to heighten hostility with the Soviet Union in the late 1970s and the Neoconservatives’ employment of similar tactics in the early 2000s in order to pave the way for the invasion of Iraq. Just as the CPD questioned and overrode the NIE/CIA estimates of the Soviet military capabilities during the Carter administration, so too in the immediate aftermath of the heinous 9/11 attacks the Neoconservative think tanks and their war-mongering operatives in and around the Bush administration overruled the official CIA assessments of Iraq’s military capabilities under Saddam Hussein, thereby justifying the invasion of that country — which drastically increased the fortunes of war profiteers.
The tried-and-true scheme of militarism, “external threats or enemies,” to instigate wars and international tensions continues to this day. Just as during the Bush administration the Neoconservative champions of war and militarism fabricated intelligence in order to justify the occupation of Iraq, so too today their counterparts in and around the Obama administration are plotting to discredit the official CIA/NIE intelligence on Iran’s nuclear plans and military capabilities in order to bring about a military assault against that country.
President Obama and his top policy makers on Iran may use a slightly tempered rhetoric, but they are not any less hawkish in terms of concrete policy measures against that country. While Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz are out; Hillary Clinton and Dennis Ross are in. In their attitudes and approaches toward Iran, neither Hillary Clinton is less hawkish than Donald Rumsfeld, nor is Dennis Ross than Paul Wolfowitz.
(…) Considering this team of advisors, who are not much different in their approach to Iran than their Neo-conservative counterparts of the Bush days, it stands to reason to argue that, at least in the context of the Middle East, President Obama works essentially from within the same metaphorical box of policy options as did his predecessor, President George W. Bush.
Nor is it surprising to see Mr. Obama use the same political toolbox in his approach to Iran as did Mr. Bush: the same narrative, the same premises, the same assumptions, and the same faulty intelligence or distorted information. These dubious assumptions and premises include,
(a) Iran’s nuclear program is not a peaceful technological pursuit, as attested by both the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), but a pursuit of nuclear weapons.
(b) Hamas is not a democratically elected government, but a terrorist organization; Hezbollah is not a major political party in Lebanon, but a terrorist organization; therefore, Iran’s support of these two organizations is tantamount to supporting terrorism.
This spurious, obstructionist narrative — borrowed without reservations from the Bush administration and its Neoconservative handlers — are bound to render President Obama’s rhetoric of “a new beginning with Iran” meaningless. It is hypocritical — as well as offensive — to talk about “a new beginning” while carrying out old policies of lies, demonization, threats, and subversion.
Iran poses no military threat to the United States or Israel — or, for that matter, any other country in the world. The shrill noises coming out of Washington and Jerusalem, however, continue to relentlessly portray Iran as a menace to the national interests of the United States and an “existential threat” to Israel. Why? What accounts for this need of Iran as a boogeyman?
A widely shred view blames Iranian leaders, especially President Ahmadinejad, for the US-Israeli hostility toward Iran. What the proponents of this view overlook, however, is the fact that Iran’s nuclear issue or Ahmadinejad’s controversial statements about Israel are no more than distractions and excuses — distractions from land grabbing, and excuses for war profiteering. The US-Israeli hostility toward Iran did not start with Ahmadinejad; nor will it end after him. The military-industrial-Likud alliance is certain to quickly find other distractions and boogeymen soon after Ahmadinejad is replaced by another president, whenever that maybe.
Just as a reliable prognosis of a disease requires a sound diagnosis, so too a sensible solution to the plague of war and militarism in the Middle East requires an objective identification of the root causes of the continued cycle of violence and bloodshed.
As I have briefly argued in this essay, two nasty viruses lie at the root of war and geopolitical convulsion in the Middle East. These are (a) the beneficiaries of war dividends (the military-industrial complex and associated businesses that benefit from war and military spending), and (b) partisans of territorial expansion in Palestine, that is, militant Zionism, as reflected, for example, in the policies of the Likud Party in Israel and those of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in the United States.12
These two powerful groups view Iran as a threat to their nefarious interests not because of its military power but because Iran exposes these two interest groups for what they are: real sources of war and mischief in the Middle East, driven by a thirst for more profits and more land.
It follows that efforts to end war and geopolitical turbulence in the Middle East require removing or reducing the destructive influences of these two extremely powerful interest groups in the shaping of the policies of the Middle East. This is admittedly a suggestion that is not easily realized. Some might even say it is altogether impractical. But there is simply no other way to achieve peace and stability in the region. It requires two major steps.
First, as the late General Smedley D. Butler pointed out long ago, it requires “taking profits out of war and arms production.”13 This means greatly downsizing the military-industrial complex, closing down the nearly 800 US military bases overseas, and nationalizing the war/defense industry. In suggesting this drastic overhaul, I am not unmindful of the fact that millions of jobs, hundreds of thousands of businesses, and thousands of communities have become dependent on military spending. My suggestion is therefore to reallocate a major portion of military to non-military public spending so that the overall public spending would not diminish. This is, by the way, a suggestion that is sometimes referred to as substituting “peace dividends” for “war dividends.”
Second, ending war and political turbulence in the Middle East also requires ending the suffering of the Palestinian people and the occupation of their land. All that is needed to be done here is simply to carry out the long-standing UN resolutions regarding the Palestinian-Israeli relations. This, of course, requires curtailment of the Likud/AIPAC power, as well as the influence of their supporters in the US congress and the media.
While this may appear remote and unlikely, it is bound to happen. It is simply a matter of time. I only hope that more Jewish people will wake up to the ominous trajectory of expansionist Zionism and play a salutary role in the unfolding of this inevitable outcome. The sooner they realize and/or acknowledge (as many far-sighted and peace-loving Jews already have) that militant Zionism is a con game, headed toward a dead end, the better.
No doubt, the leaders of militant Zionism are, by and large, intelligent and politically savvy people. But they are also shortsighted, as they seem oblivious to the fact that their project of Greater Israel remains, ultimately, hostage to the political utility and profitability imperatives of imperialist powers. They fail to realize or acknowledge that forceful conquest and occupation of the Palestinian land cannot be continued or maintained for ever; and that, as the late Albert Einstein put it, “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”
Bush aprovou a realização de operações secretas para derrubar o governo do Irã. O que você faria quanto a isso se fosse o Supremo líder do Irã?
Seymour Hersh Exposes New US Covert Operations In Iran
(Matéria de 28 de junho de 2008)
Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.
Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees–the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed
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