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By Marjorie Cohn
The unanimous conclusion of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, that Iran ceased pursuing a program of nuclear weapons in 2003, has dealt a severe blow to the Bush-Cheney agenda of forcible regime change in Iran. For several months, the rhetoric emerging from the White House escalated to the point that many observers predicted Bush would attack Iran before he leaves office.
But although the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) makes it more difficult to carry out his agenda in Iran, Bush is trying to publicly undermine its conclusions. "I have said Iran is dangerous," he declared, "and the NIE estimate doesn't do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world - quite the contrary." Will Bush provoke an incident with Iran and then respond in “self-defense”?
Bush "rewarded" Iran for its help in consolidating U.S. power in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks by inaugurating Iran into his “axis of evil” in January 2002. The following year, Iran offered the U.S. government a comprehensive plan for negotiations and cooperation, which addressed all of Bush's claimed pet peeves about Iran. In Iran's 2003 memorandum, sent to the U.S. government via Swiss diplomats, Iran proposed a "dialogue in mutual respect." It sought negotiations with the United States on the concerns Bush has repeatedly expressed.
Iran proposed “full transparency” to show “there are no Iranian endeavors to develop or possess WMD.” It also sought to guarantee “decisive action against any terrorists (above all Al Qaida) on Iranian territory, full cooperation and exchange of all relevant information.” In Iraq, Iran proposed "coordination of Iranian influence for activity supporting political stabilization and the establishment of democratic institutions and a non-religious government." Iran agreed to discuss the “stop of any material support to Palestinian opposition groups (Hamas, Jihad etc.) from Iranian territory" and "pressure on these organizations to stop violent action against civilians within borders of 1967." And Iran listed its "acceptance of the Arab League Beirut declaration (Saudi initiative, two-states-approach)." This meant Iran would recognize the state of Israel.
The Iranian memorandum also offered to negotiate the following with the United States: "Halt in US hostile behavior and rectification of status of Iran in the U.S.: (interference in internal or external relations, 'axis of evil', terrorism list)"; "Abolishment of all sanctions: commercial sanctions, frozen assets, judgments (FSIA), impediments in international trade and financial institutions"; "Iraq: democratic and fully representative government in Iraq, support of Iranian claims for Iraqi reparations, respect for Iranian national interests in Iraq and religious links to Najaf/Karbal"; "Full access to peaceful nuclear technology, biotechnology and chemical technology"; "Recognition of Iran's legitimate security interests in the region with according defense capacity"; and "Terrorism: pursuit of anti-Iranian terrorists, above all MKO."
This 2003 offer by Iran to negotiate these pressing issues with the United States was an incredible opportunity, which Bush, who claims to pursue diplomacy, should have seized. Yet the White House thumbed its nose at the Iranian offer and then tried to cover up the story.
Why did Bush reject Iran's 2003 offer and now seek to discredit the conclusions of the National Intelligence Estimate? Because even if all his stated gripes with Iran were resolved, Bush's hidden agenda would not be addressed. That agenda comes into focus on the website of the American Enterprise Institute, a neoconservative think tank that claims Paul Wolfowitz, Lynne Cheney, Richard Perle and John Bolton as members. Under the AEI's list of "Research Projects" is "Global Investment in Iran."
Just as "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was about corporate control over Iraq's oil, Bush's strategy on Iran is about making Iran safe for global investment. And just as Bush lied about the danger posed by Saddam Hussein, he is now lying about the perils Iran poses.
U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency Director Mohamed ElBaradei has consistently said there is “no evidence” Iran has ever maintained a program of developing nuclear weapons. Yet even though Bush learned about the NIE report in August or September, according to National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, he invoked World War III in the same breath with Iran in October. On December 4, Bush lied about when he learned Iran had no weapons program, saying, "I was made aware of the NIE last week."
Hadley's report on the timing of Bush's knowledge of the NIE is corroborated by a shift in the rhetoric emerging from the White House. During the last two months, Bush stopped talking about Iran possessing nukes, and began referring to Iran having "knowledge" of nuclear weapons, which he linked with World War III.
In spite of the unanimous conclusion in the National Intelligence Estimate and ElBaradei's informed judgment, we cannot trust Bush-Cheney to abandon their imperial designs on Iran. Bush will probably provoke a military confrontation with Iran, then invoke the language in the 2002 Congressional authorization for the use of military force in Iraq that says, "The President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States."
Congress must support Rep. Neil Abercrombie's resolution stating that Bush has been given no authority to go to war with Iran.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Dollar Dips Against Euro Before Fed Rate Call
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London - The dollar wobbled close to record low points against the euro on Tuesday as traders eagerly awaited an interest rate decision from the US Federal Reserve, analysts said.
The Federal Reserve was widely expected to slash its key lending rate later in the day to try to ease turmoil on Wall Street and ward off the threat of a prolonged recession in the world's largest economy.
In European foreign exchange trading, the euro advanced to 1.5813 dollars, up from 1.5725 late on Monday, when it had struck a record high value of 1.5905 dollars.
Against the Japanese currency, the dollar firmed to 97.59 yen, compared with 97.32 on Monday, when it had reached 95.75 yen which was last seen in 1995.
Investors were anticipating a bold move by the Fed to try to ease strains on the US financial system.
"There are wide views of what the Fed will do, with estimates ranging from a 50 to 125 basis points rate cut," said David Mann, currency strategist at Standard Chartered Bank.
"The dollar is still under a lot of negative pressure. The credit crisis is a US problem. It's hard to see what the Fed can do that is dollar positive," he said.
The Fed meeting follows an emergency cut by the Fed to one of its other rates on Sunday after Wall Street giant Bear Stearns fell victim to the credit crunch.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has already slashed its key federal funds interest rate by 225 basis points to 3.00 percent since September to try to bolster the economy in the face of a US housing slump and related credit crunch.
It also lent billions of dollars to financial institutions in exchange for debt, such as the troubled mortgage-backed securities.
Investors fear that the Fed may be running out of ammunition to ease gridlock in US credit markets. Some analysts said that even a bold rate cut by the Fed later on Tuesday would not be enough to prop up ailing markets.
The market "now thinks that a rate cut alone cannot resolve the bad debt problem and stem the deterioration of the economy," said NTT Smarttrade director Takashi Kudo.
Markets were waiting nervously for earnings results from US investment banks Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs later on Tuesday, followed by Morgan Stanley on Wednesday, amid concern that there might yet be more victims of the credit market turmoil.
Traders were on alert for any signs that global financial authorities are considering coordinated action to try to stem the dollar's decline.
In London currency trading on Tuesday morning, the euro changed hands at 1.5813 dollars against 1.5725 late on Monday, at 154.06 yen (153.07), 0.7851 pounds (0.7872) and 1.5563 Swiss francs (1.5489).
The dollar stood at 97.59 yen (97.32) and 0.9851 Swiss francs (0.9846).
The pound was at 2.0136 dollars (1.9975).
On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold stood at 1,006.85 dollars per ounce, up from 1,011.25 dollars late on Monday.
London - The dollar wobbled close to record low points against the euro on Tuesday as traders eagerly awaited an interest rate decision from the US Federal Reserve, analysts said.
The Federal Reserve was widely expected to slash its key lending rate later in the day to try to ease turmoil on Wall Street and ward off the threat of a prolonged recession in the world's largest economy.
In European foreign exchange trading, the euro advanced to 1.5813 dollars, up from 1.5725 late on Monday, when it had struck a record high value of 1.5905 dollars.
Against the Japanese currency, the dollar firmed to 97.59 yen, compared with 97.32 on Monday, when it had reached 95.75 yen which was last seen in 1995.
Investors were anticipating a bold move by the Fed to try to ease strains on the US financial system.
"There are wide views of what the Fed will do, with estimates ranging from a 50 to 125 basis points rate cut," said David Mann, currency strategist at Standard Chartered Bank.
"The dollar is still under a lot of negative pressure. The credit crisis is a US problem. It's hard to see what the Fed can do that is dollar positive," he said.
The Fed meeting follows an emergency cut by the Fed to one of its other rates on Sunday after Wall Street giant Bear Stearns fell victim to the credit crunch.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has already slashed its key federal funds interest rate by 225 basis points to 3.00 percent since September to try to bolster the economy in the face of a US housing slump and related credit crunch.
It also lent billions of dollars to financial institutions in exchange for debt, such as the troubled mortgage-backed securities.
Investors fear that the Fed may be running out of ammunition to ease gridlock in US credit markets. Some analysts said that even a bold rate cut by the Fed later on Tuesday would not be enough to prop up ailing markets.
The market "now thinks that a rate cut alone cannot resolve the bad debt problem and stem the deterioration of the economy," said NTT Smarttrade director Takashi Kudo.
Markets were waiting nervously for earnings results from US investment banks Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs later on Tuesday, followed by Morgan Stanley on Wednesday, amid concern that there might yet be more victims of the credit market turmoil.
Traders were on alert for any signs that global financial authorities are considering coordinated action to try to stem the dollar's decline.
In London currency trading on Tuesday morning, the euro changed hands at 1.5813 dollars against 1.5725 late on Monday, at 154.06 yen (153.07), 0.7851 pounds (0.7872) and 1.5563 Swiss francs (1.5489).
The dollar stood at 97.59 yen (97.32) and 0.9851 Swiss francs (0.9846).
The pound was at 2.0136 dollars (1.9975).
On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold stood at 1,006.85 dollars per ounce, up from 1,011.25 dollars late on Monday.
Unsung Heroes and Alternate Voices
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Tomgram: Greg Mitchell, Getting It Right on Iraq
Just imagine: You run a flagship national newspaper, the New York Times. It’s the fifth anniversary of President Bush’s catastrophic invasion of Iraq. Your own record of reportage in the period leading up to the invasion was not exactly sterling. So, for a change of pace, you decide to turn most of your double op-ed page in your Sunday "Week in Review" over to people who can look back thoughtfully on the misapprehensions of that moment.
But who? Now, that’s a tough one. You want "nine experts on military and foreign affairs" who can consider "the one aspect of the war that most surprised them or that they wished they had considered in the prewar debate." Hmm, sounds like an interesting idea. Of course, one option would be to gather together an involved crew who, even before the invasion began, saw in one way or another that problems, possibly disaster, lay ahead. That would be a logical thought…
…But it wouldn’t be the Times, which this past Sunday chose to ask a rogue’s gallery of "experts" who led (or cheerled) us deep into the war and occupation what surprised them most. Leading off those pages were Richard Perle, nicknamed "the Prince of Darkness," L. Paul Bremer III, the former American viceroy of Baghdad, who so brilliantly disbanded the Iraqi Army and much of the country as well, not to speak of invasion and occupation cheerleaders Frederick Kagan, Danielle Pletka, and Kenneth M. Pollack. With the exception of Pollack, all of them unsurprisingly pointed the finger elsewhere or claimed they were really on the mark all along.
So, just in case the Times has a sudden, bizarre urge on some future anniversary to ask a cast of characters who didn’t drive us into the nearest ditch to look back, it seems worthwhile to start on a list of suggestions for its editors. And that’s where Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor & Publisher magazine, comes in.
He himself is a shining example of someone who exhibited foresight about the invasion and then regularly dealt with issues that the mainstream media was slow to pick up. Just take, for example, this initial sentence he wrote on March 7, 2003, less than two weeks before Bush’s invasion began, for a piece included in his new book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, The Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq: "Considering that we seem to be on the verge of a major war, with little firm evidence of the Iraqi WMD driving it, the questions for Bush at his final press conference before the war seems likely to start were relatively tame." Mitchell then asked 11 questions of his own, all more piercing than any posed on Sunday’s Times op-ed page five years later.
As his book makes brilliantly evident, you didn’t have to be wrong all the time to be an "expert" on Iraq. His article below begins the necessary acknowledgement of those who were right, or did right, in these years and it should encourage all of us to make our own lists and create our own walls of honor to go with the wall of shame the Times displayed Sunday.
My list would be long indeed, but it would certainly include: the Knight Ridder (now McClatchy) reporters Warren Stroebel and Jonathan Landy in Washington, as well as Tom Lasseter, Hannah Allam, and others in Iraq who never had a flagship paper to show off their work, but generally did far better reporting than the flagship papers; Seymour Hersh, who simply picked up where he left off in the Vietnam era (though this time for the New Yorker); Riverbend, the young Baghdad blogger who gave us a more vivid view of the occupation than any you could ordinarily find in the mainstream media (and who has not been heard from since she arrived in Syria as a refugee in October 2007); Jim Lobe who covered the neocons like a blanket for Inter Press Service; independents Nir Rosen and Dahr Jamail, as well as Patrick Cockburn of the British Independent, who has been perhaps the most courageous (or foolhardy) Western reporter in Iraq, invariably bringing back news that others didn’t have; the New York Review of Books, which stepped into some of the empty print space where the mainstream media should have been (with writers like Mark Danner and Michael Massing) and was the first to put into print in this country the Downing Street Memo, in itself a striking measure of mainstream failure; and Juan Cole, whose Informed Comment website was so on the mark on Iraq that reporters locked inside the Green Zone in Baghdad read it just to keep informed.
Maybe I’d throw in as well all the millions of non-experts who marched globally before the war began because commonsense and a reasonable assessment of the Bush administration told them a disaster -- moral, political, economic, and military -- of the first order was in the offing. And, of course, that’s just a start. Tom
Unsung Heroes and Alternate Voices
Some of The Best of Five Years of Iraq War Coverage
By Greg MitchellIn the five years since the tragic U.S. intervention in Iraq began, many journalists for mainstream news outlets have certainly contributed tough and honest reporting. Too often, however, their efforts have either fallen short or been negated by a cascade of pro-war views expressed by pundits, analysts, and editorial writers at their own newspapers or broadcast/cable networks. This sorry record is detailed in my new book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq.
But allow me -- for once -- to focus on the positive by suggesting that many of the most critical and important journalistic voices exposing the criminal nature of, and the many costs of, this war have emerged from an "alternative" universe that includes former war correspondents, reporters for small newspapers or news services, comedians, aging rock ’n rollers, and bloggers, among others.
We can all name our favorite not-famous reporters or online scribes who have covered the war in Iraq in ways that should have been far more common, or offered biting commentary here at home. A full list would be long indeed, but here, on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, is my modest tip of the hat to just a few of my own favorites, based on what, to some, might seem an idiosyncratic definition of "journalist":
Chris Hedges: Looking back at my extensive, and often critical, commentary on media coverage of the Iraq war over the past five years, I’m struck yet again by the way Chris Hedges stands out as a kind of prophet. The former New York Times war reporter, who is now affiliated with the Nation magazine and other "outsider" venues, was among the few who recognized from the start that taking Baghdad would be the easy part.
We interviewed him at Editor & Publisher (E&P) magazine, where I have long been editor, three times just before and after the war was launched. Speaking of the coming occupation of Iraq in April 2003, for example, he said: "It reminds me of what happened to the Israelis after taking over Gaza, moving among hostile populations. It’s 1967, and we’ve just become Israel."
About a month into the occupation, in May 2003, he explained: "We didn’t ever discover how many civilian casualties occurred in the first Gulf War, and I doubt we’ll ever know about this one." He then added: "We don’t have a sense of what we have waded into here. The deep divisions among the varying factions could be extremely hard to bridge, and the historical and cultural roots are probably beyond the American understanding... For occupation troops, everyone becomes the enemy...
"My suspicion is that the Iraqis view it as an invasion and occupation, not a liberation. This resistance we are seeing may in fact just be the beginning of organized resistance, not the death throes of Saddam’s fedayeen."
Mark Benjamin: He now writes tough pieces for Salon.com, but his vital early exposure of hidden damage to -- and mistreatment of -- our troops in Iraq in 2003-4, came when he worked for a well-known news service that these days might just as well be considered "underground" for all the influence it wields: United Press International.
In October 2003, for starters, he revealed that hundreds of soldiers at Fort Stewart, Ga., were being kept in hot cement barracks without running water while they waited, for months at a time in some cases, for medical care. (Twelve days later he exposed ghastly conditions at Fort Knox in Kentucky.) The stories produced quick and measurable results rather than mere promises. Army Secretary Les Brownlee flew to Fort Stewart; new doctors were dispatched; and, within a month, the barracks had been closed. Pentagon officials later declared that they would spend $77 million the following year to help returning troops get better treatment.
And the media started paying more attention to the injured. The 2,000 non-fatal casualties to that moment had rarely been highlighted until Benjamin went to work.
He was also one of the first reporters to link illnesses and deaths among American troops in Iraq (and elsewhere) to the possible side effects of various vaccines being administered by the Pentagon. In addition, in 2003 and 2004, he was the first journalist to analyze closely and repeatedly non-combat injuries and ailments in Iraq -- a step E&P had advocated as early as July 2003. Benjamin showed that one in five medical evacuations from Iraq were for neurological or psychiatric reasons. He followed that with a probe of the unnervingly high suicide rate among soldiers in Iraq and also revealed that two returning soldiers had killed themselves at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington (a fact the military had kept hidden). Only later did these issues finally gain a wider airing in mainstream newspapers.
Lee Pitts: Everyone remembers the uproar caused when, in early December 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that vehicles carrying our soldiers in Iraq were poorly armored -- and his famous quote about going to war with the Army you have not the one you want. But did you know that the whole incident was sparked by a reporter for a local Tennessee paper?
Lee Pitts of the Chattanooga Times, embedded with a military unit based near that city, had learned in early December 2004 that Rumsfeld was slated to appear at a "town hall" gathering in Kuwait at which only soldiers would be allowed to ask questions. Already aware that the troops were angry about the lack of protection offered by their largely unarmored vehicles -- they were finding scrap metal and adding their own ad hoc armor to their trucks and Humvees -- he made sure Rumsfeld was challenged by arranging for a couple of soldiers whom he knew to be in a critical mood to get a chance at the microphone.
Specialist Thomas Wilson, a scout with the Tennessee National Guard, asked the key question at the gathering. (His picture would appear on the front page of the New York Times.) Pitts had previously written two stories about the lack of armored vehicles in Iraq to little effect and now, as he related in an email, "it felt good to hand it off to the national press... The soldier who asked the question said he felt good b/c he took his complaints to the top. When he got back to his unit most of the guys patted him on the back but a few of the officers were upset b/c they thought it would make them look bad."
Then, in an understatement, he added: "From what I understand this is all over the news back home."
Stephen Colbert: When he was still with The Daily Show, Stephen Colbert noted that the growing American unease as the Iraq war started to drag on was all Saddam Hussein’s fault -- for not having those weapons of mass destruction. Well, finding WMD would have gotten the media off the hook, at least, for its worst failures in the prewar period -- besides helping Bush’s approval ratings.
Colbert, as usual, hit the nail on the head. It’s surely a sign of our times that many critics of the war will point to that faux-pundit as one of the true heroes among all the leading TV "newsmen."
Many fondly recall the Comedy Central star’s in-his-face mockery of President Bush at the White House Correspondents Association dinner in Washington, D.C. in April 2006. But who remembers that he was just as critical of journalism’s Beltway boys (and girls) in the audience?
Here is the key passage: "Let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know -- fiction."
Neil Young: Rock star as journo? It essentially happened in 2006 when Neil Young, son of a famous Canadian sportswriter, hurriedly wrote and released (only online at first) his ripped-from-the headlines Living with War CD. He even proposed impeaching the president "for lying" (and "for spying"). In one of the songs in the collection, Young sang repeatedly: "Don’t need no more lies."
He emphasized the prohibition against the media showing pictures of coffins with the American dead being returned from Iraq, singing: "Thousands of bodies in the ground/Brought home in boxes to a trumpet’s sound/No one sees them coming home that way/Thousands buried in the ground." In another song: "More boxes covered in flags/ but I can’t see them on TV."
When Young urged that Americans "Impeach the President," he included audio clips of embarrassing Bush statements ("We’ll smoke them out…"). But a highlight of the collection was the blistering "Shock and Awe," which, along with its antiwar lyrics, included the more philosophical, "History is a cruel judge of overconfidence." He also recalled that "back in the days of Mission Accomplished… the sun was setting on another photo op."
McClatchy Baghdad Bloggers: With danger and violence in Baghdad keeping most Western reporters from venturing far outside the heavily fortified Green Zone, the U.S. media came to rely ever more heavily on Iraqi staffers and correspondents. More than a year ago, the McClatchy bureau in Baghdad launched a blog, Inside Iraq, written only by those Iraqis and, ever since, it’s provided some of the most valuable and brutally honest views of the war to be found anywhere.
The bureau’s bloggers exposed the horrid impact of the war simply by writing about their own lives: their grueling experiences getting to and from work, dealing with a lack of electricity and fuel, caring for wounded or grieving family members. At the end of 2007, six of the Iraqi women who worked in the bureau received the International Women’s Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award.
In introducing the six McClatchy reporters -- Shatha al Awsy, Zaineb Obeid, Huda Ahmed, Ban Adil Sarhan, Alaa Majeed, and Sahar Issa -- at a dinner in New York, Bob Woodruff of ABC News said: "These six Iraqi women have reported the war in Baghdad from inside their hearts. They have watched as the war touched the lives of their neighbors and friends, and then they bore witness as it reached into the lives of each and every one of them."
"All the while, they have been the backbone of the McClatchy bureau, sleeping with bulletproof vests and helmets by their beds at night, taking different routes to work each day, trying to keep their employment by a Western news organization secret," said Woodruff, who himself was grievously wounded while covering the war in Iraq. "All have lost family members or close friends," he continued. "All have had their lives threatened. All have had narrow escapes with death."
According to David Westphal, McClatchy’s Washington Editor: "Only the handful of you who have worked in Baghdad can fully glimpse what it means to be an Iraqi journalist working for an American news organization. The rest of us can only stand in awe, and express our thanks for all they have given, and risked, to tell the story of their country." Amen.
That’s a selection from my "best of" list. What about yours?
Greg Mitchell is the editor of Editor & Publisher magazine, which has won several major awards for its coverage of Iraq and the media. His new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq (Union Square Press). He has written seven previous books on media, history, and politics including Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady and The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics (winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize). He also co-authored with Robert Jay Lifton, Hiroshima in America. He blogs at: Pressing Issues.
Time magazine invents facts to claim that Americans support Bush's domestic spying abuses
Time magazine invents facts to claim that Americans support Bush’s domestic spying abuses
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By Glenn Greenwald
(2) This is Time’s next claim:
(4) The whole Time article is based upon one of the most pervasive journalistic fallacies: namely, that the choices the establishment press makes as to what they will cover and not cover is reflective of what "Americans" generally care about. Thus, Calabresi begins the article by listing a whole series of recent revelations about the Bush administration’s ever-increasing Surveillance State powers and abuses and concludes: "to judge from the reaction in the country, nobody cares."
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By Glenn Greenwald
No matter how corrupt and sloppy the establishment press becomes, they always find a way to go lower. Time Magazine has just published what it purports to be a news article by Massimo Calabresi claiming that "nobody cares" about the countless abuses of spying powers by the Bush administration; that "Americans are ready to trade diminished privacy, and protection from search and seizure, in exchange for the promise of increased protection of their physical security"; and that the case against unchecked government surveillance powers "hasn’t convinced the people." Not a single fact -- not one -- is cited to support these sweeping, false opinions.
Worse still -- way worse -- this "news article" decrees the Bush administration to be completely innocent, even well-motivated, even in those instances where technical, irrelevant lawbreaking has been found, as it proclaims:
In all the examples of diminished civil liberties, there are few, if any, where the motivating factor was something other than law and order or national security.Does Calabresi or his Time editors have the slightest idea how secret, illegal spying powers have been used, towards what ends they’ve been employed and with what motives? No, they have absolutely no idea. Not even members of Congressional Intelligence Committees know because the Bush administration has kept all of that concealed. So Time just makes up facts to defend the Bush administration with wholly baseless statements that one would expect to come pouring out of the mouths only of Dana Perino and Bill Kristol -- the "motivating factor" for secret, illegal spying was nothing "other than law and order or national security."
This article literally has more factual errors -- pure, retraction-level falsehoods -- than it has paragraphs. It makes Joe Klein look like a knowledgable and conscientious surveillance expert. It’s one of the most falsehood-plagued articles I’ve seen in quite some time. Let’s just count the ways this article includes demonstrably false assertions, purely based on facts:
(1) Time claims that "nobody cares" about the Government’s increased spying powers and that "polling consistently supports that conclusion." They don’t cite a single poll because that assertion is blatantly false.
Just this weekend, a new poll released by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University proves that exactly the opposite is true. That poll shows that the percentage of Americans who believe the Federal Government is "very secretive" has doubled in the last two years alone (to 44%) and that "nearly nine in 10 say it’s important to know presidential and congressional candidates’ positions on open government when deciding who to vote for."
The same poll also found that 77% of Americans believe that "the federal government opened mail and monitored phone calls of people in the U.S. without first getting permission from a federal judge," and 64% believe "that the federal government has opened mail or monitored telephone conversations involving members of the news media." Only a small minority (20%) believe that the Federal Government is "Very Open" or "Somewhat Open." Exactly as was true for The Politico’s very untimely article last week falsely claiming that Americans are increasingly supporting the Iraq War again -- on the very day that a new USA Today poll showed that Americans overwhelmingly favor unconditional timetables for withdrawal -- Time today asserts a falsehood that is squarely negated by a poll released the day before.
The proposition that "polls consistently" find that Americans don’t mind incursions into their civil liberties is a rank falsehood. From a December, 2005 CNN poll, days after the NSA scandal was first disclosed:
Nearly two-thirds said they are not willing to sacrifice civil liberties to prevent terrorism, as compared to 49 percent saying so in 2002.More importantly, ever since it was revealed that the Bush administration has been spying on Americans without the warrants required by law, polls have consistently shown that huge numbers of Americans -- usually majorities -- oppose warrantless spying, exactly the opposite of what Time just claimed.
Much of the polling on warrantless eavesdropping occurred throughout 2006 when the NSA scandal was being debated. Here’s what a Quinnipiac poll concluded:
By a 76-19 percent margin, American voters say the government should continue monitoring phone calls or e-mail between suspected terrorists in other countries and people in the U.S., according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. But voters say 55-42 percent that the government should get court orders for this surveillance.From the beginning, pluralities in the vast majority of states -- 37 out of 50 -- believed the President "clearly" broke the law with his NSA spying. A CBS poll (.pdf) found that Americans believe (51-43%) that "the President does not have the legal authority to authorize wiretapes without a warrant to fight terrorism." And back when Russ Feingold introduced his resolution to censure the President for breaking the law in spying on Americans, a plurality of Americans supported censure of Bush despite the fact that Feingold was virtually alone among political figures in advocating it. And most Americans opposed immunity for telecoms accused of breaking the law in how they spied on Americans:Voters in "purple states," 12 states in which there was a popular vote margin of 5 percentage points or less in the 2004 Presidential election, plus Missouri, considered the most accurate barometer of Presidential voting, want wiretap warrants 57 - 39 percent.
Red states, where President George W. Bush’s margin was more than 5 percent in 2004, disagree 51 - 46 percent with the President that the government does not need warrants. Blue state voters who backed John Kerry by more than 5 percent want warrants 57 - 40 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.
A total of 57 percent of voters are "extremely" or "quite" worried that phone and e-mail taps without warrants could be misused to violate people’s privacy. But 54 percent believe these taps have prevented some acts of terror.
"Don’t turn off the wiretaps, most Americans say, but the White House ought to tell a judge first. Even red state voters, who backed President Bush in 2004, want to see a court okay for wiretaps," said Maurice Carroll, Director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Opposition to immunity is widespread, cutting across ideology and geography. Majorities of liberals, moderates, and conservatives agree that courts should decide the outcomes of these legal actions (liberals: 64% let courts decide, 26% give immunity; moderates: 58% let courts decide, 34% give immunity; conservatives: 50% let courts decide, 38% give immunity).As is so often true, the facts are exactly the opposite of what Time, in defending the Bush administration, tells its readers. Can one find polls in which pluralites of Americans support warrantless eavesdropping and other secret spying programs? If one looks hard enough for polls emphasizing "spying on terrorists," perhaps one can, but Time’s assertion that "polling consistently supports the conclusion" that Americans want to give up civil liberties for security is patently false.
(2) This is Time’s next claim:
Even when the White House, the FBI or the intelligence agencies have acted outside of laws protecting those rights -- such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- the public has by and large shrugged and, through their elected representatives, suggested changing the laws to accommodate activities that may be in breach of them.Have Calabresi and his editors been on vacation for the last four months? During that time, there has been a protracted, bitter debate in Congress over the President’s demands for permanent, warrantless eavesdropping powers and amnesty for telecoms which broke the law in spying on Americans. It provoked filibusters and all sorts of obstructionism in the Senate, and House Democrats -- including virtually every conservative "Blue Dog" -- just chose warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty as the issue on which to defy, for the first time ever, the President’s national security orders.
Additionally, while it is true that the GOP-led Congress largely endorsed every one of the President’s policies, including his lawbreaking, the American voting public threw the Republicans out of power in 2006. When Democrats, once in power, began copying their behavior in endorsing even the President’s illegal behavior, their approval ratings plummeted. Just last week, they refused to give legal sanction to the President’s illegal spying; demanded that the lawsuits arising from that spying proceed; and even passed a bill requiring a full-scale investigation into what the President did when spying on Americans for all those years. These events were bizarrely ignored by Time because they negate the narrative they want to push.
(3) Time’s defense of the Bush administration -- that "law and order or national security" has motivated even the illegal spying -- is perhaps most indefensible of all. The administration has blocked every Congressional and judicial attempt to investigate how it has used these spying powers. Thus, nobody has any idea what has motivated the spying or what the level of abuse is.
As Julian Sanchez wrote in a superb Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times this weekend, the Federal Government abused its warrantless spying power for decades -- to spy on political opponents and other dissidents -- but nobody had any idea that was going on until the Church Committee conducted a full-fledged investigation. As Sanchez wrote:
If you think an executive branch unchecked by courts won’t turn its "national security" surveillance powers to political ends -- well, it would be a first.We have had no investigation into how the Bush administration has used these spying powers. There has been no Church Committee, no intensive media investigation, no judicial process. The only "investigations" into any of these surveillance activities has come from the executive branch itself. All we have are slothful, government-worshiping reporters like Calabresi and Time editors who sit back content in their own ignorance, having no idea how the Bush administration used its spying powers, citing their own total ignorance as proof that the Government did nothing wrong -- they did everything for our own Good, for our Protection.
Time’s vouching for the Good Motives of the Bush administration is completely false for a separate reason. Even with as little as we know about what they’ve done, there most certainly are examples of politically-motivated spying, even though Calabresi and his editors are apparently unaware of them. From Democracy Now in 2006:
Earlier this week, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network released documents showing that the Pentagon conducted surveillance on a more extensive level than first reported late last year. De-classified documents show that the agency spied on "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ protests and anti-war protests at several universities around the country. They also show that the government monitored student e-mails and planted undercover agents at least one protest.Even NBC reported previously:But the Pentagon has not released all information on its surveillance activities. The American Civil Liberties Union recently filed a federal lawsuit to force the agency to turn over additional records. The lawsuit charges that the Pentagon is refusing to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests seeking records on the ACLU, the American Friends Service Committee, Greenpeace, Veterans for Peace and United for Peace and Justice, as well as 26 local groups and activists.
A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn’t know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.Are Time reporters and editors just blissfully ignorant of these incidents or do they conceal them because they negate their clean, crisp storyline?A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a "threat" and one of more than 1,500 "suspicious incidents" across the country over a recent 10-month period. . . .
The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.
(4) The whole Time article is based upon one of the most pervasive journalistic fallacies: namely, that the choices the establishment press makes as to what they will cover and not cover is reflective of what "Americans" generally care about. Thus, Calabresi begins the article by listing a whole series of recent revelations about the Bush administration’s ever-increasing Surveillance State powers and abuses and concludes: "to judge from the reaction in the country, nobody cares."
But the only ones who "don’t care" are establishment media outlets like Time, not the "ordinary Americans" on whose behalf they always fantasize that they speak. It’s the media that has ignored those stories.
Here is a Nexus count of how much media coverage certain stories have received over the last 30 days, including the Surveillance State stories which Calabresi cites as proof that Americans don’t care about their constitutional liberties:
* "Spitzer and prostitutes" -- 2,323 results
* "Spitzer and Kristen" -- 1,087 results
* "Obama and Rezko" -- 1,263 results
* "Obama and Jeremiah Wright" -- 466 results
* "Wall Street Journal and data mining" -- 9 results
* "FBI and National security letters" -- 149 results
* "Intelligence Oversight Board" -- 21 results
This is what establishment journalists like Calabresi always do. Their industry obsesses on the most vapid, inconsequential chatter. They ignore the stories that actually matter. And then they claim that Americans only care about vapid gossip and not substantive issues -- and point to their own shallow coverage decisions as "proof" of what Americans care about. That thought process was vividly evident with their obsession with the Edwards hair "story," when they all chattered about it endlessly, promoted it in headlines, and then, when criticized for that, claimed that it was obviously something Americans were interested in, pointing to their own media fixation as proof that Americans cared.
The Time Magazines of the world ignore stories about Bush’s abuses of spying powers. Therefore, Americans don’t care about such abuses. That’s the self-referential, self-loving rationale on which this entire article is based. And the whole article is filled with demonstrable falsehoods, all in service of arguing that the Bush administration has done nothing wrong, and even if they did, Americans don’t mind at all.
UPDATE: Yet another serious factual error in Calabresi’s article that I neglected to mention:
There are no scandalous examples of the White House using the Patriot Act powers for political purposes or of individual agents using them for personal gain.Has Time ever heard of the U.S. Attorneys scandal, which just resulted in the filing of a Congressional lawsuit to compel recalcitrant Bush aides to comply with Subpoenas? From Harper’s Scott Horton on Saturday:
This was largely part of an effort to disguise the obvious fact that the dismissals were the implementation of a political plan which had been formulated in the White House, largely under the guidance of Karl Rove. They were also designed to disguise the fact that an elaborate scheme had been concocted to circumvent the process through which candidates are reviewed and confirmed by the Senate using a secret amendment to the USA PATRIOT Act.It’s not surprising that this scandal would be whitewashed from the pages of Time, in light of what its Managing Editor, Rick Stengel, decreed last year while on The Chris Matthews Show:
Mr. STENGEL: I am so uninterested in the Democrats wanting Karl Rove, because it is so bad for them. Because it shows business as usual, tit for tat, vengeance. That’s not what voters want to see.The principal theme of Time Magazine appears to be that corruption and even blatant lawbreaking by the Bush administration is a total non-story, something that nobody cares about and therefore shouldn’t be investigated or reported (Joe Klein’s first reaction in Time following disclosure of the NSA scandal was to defend the lawbreaking and sternly warn Nancy Pelosi and Democrats generally that they had better not object to the warrantless spying program or else they would be (justifiably) out of power forever).Ms. BORGER: Mm-hmm.
MATTHEWS: So instead of like an issue like the war where you can say it’s bigger than all of us, its more important than politics, this is politics.
Mr. STENGEL: Yes, and it’s much less. It’s small bore politics.
Identically, Calabresi’s declaration that the FBI’s unquestionably illegal use of NSL powers under the Patriot Act was harmless and benign because the Bush DOJ said so is equally gullible and dishonest. As Patrick Meighan pointed out in comments:
In other words, we know that the Justice Department has not intentionally abused its unchecked investigative powers because the Justice Department looked at the Justice Department and decided that the Justice Department did not intentionally abuse its unchecked investigative powers.It is not surprising that this is the view of Bush followers, but it’s also the predominant view of our ornery watchdog journalists as well. The Founders envisioned that the media would be the watchdog over government deceit and corruption, but nobody is more aggressive in dismissing concerns of government lawbreaking and deceit than the Time Magazines of our country. That’s their primary function.In 2008, that’s what’s supposed to pass for checks and balances.
Beware an Attack on Iran
Beware an Attack on Iran
Go to Original
By Marjorie Cohn
Is the Bush administration ramping up for an attack on Iran? The signs seem to point in that direction. On March 11, Navy Adm. William Fallon, commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East, retired early because of differences with Washington on Iran policy. And now, Dick Cheney’s current Middle East tour may be designed to prepare our Arab allies for an imminent "preemptive" war against Iran.
Bush and Cheney have long been rattling the sabers in Iran’s direction. The disaster they created in Iraq isn’t going well, no matter how they spin it. They may feel that engaging the United States militarily in Iran would make it harder to elect anyone other than the seasoned military man, John McCain. The Republican presidential candidate just happens to be touring Iraq with Sen. Joe Lieberman, one of the strongest advocates of a U.S. military strike on Iran. Lieberman is likely on McCain’s short list for a vice-presidential running mate.
Admiral Fallon took early retirement after making comments that contradicted the Bush administration’s aggressive stance on Iran. Fallon told the Arab television station Al Jazeera last fall that a "constant drumbeat of conflict" from the administration against Iran was "not helpful and not useful." After Fallon announced his retirement, the New York Times reported a senior administration official as saying Fallon’s comments about U.S. Iran policy "left the perception he had a different foreign policy than the president." If Fallon wants to talk to Iran rather than attack it, then his policy differs from Bush’s. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Miller, however, has downplayed the significance of Admiral Fallon’s abrupt retirement. Admiral Miller proclaimed recently, "In my view, this should not be seen as a sign – at all – towards any kind of conflict with Iran." Perhaps the chairman doth protest too much.
The White House has been spewing pugilistic rhetoric toward Iran. In spite of the unanimous conclusion of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran is not developing nukes, Bush immediately declared, "I have said Iran is dangerous, and the NIE estimate doesn’t do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world - quite the contrary." (See http://marjoriecohn.com/2007/12/bush-still-spinning-nukes-in-iran.html).
News reports on Monday announced that Dick Cheney is on a surprise weeklong visit to Iraq, Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Turkey. High on Cheney’s agenda is the topic of U.S. policy toward Iran. Connect the dots. They paint a very frightening picture.
Go to Original
By Marjorie Cohn
Is the Bush administration ramping up for an attack on Iran? The signs seem to point in that direction. On March 11, Navy Adm. William Fallon, commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East, retired early because of differences with Washington on Iran policy. And now, Dick Cheney’s current Middle East tour may be designed to prepare our Arab allies for an imminent "preemptive" war against Iran.
Bush and Cheney have long been rattling the sabers in Iran’s direction. The disaster they created in Iraq isn’t going well, no matter how they spin it. They may feel that engaging the United States militarily in Iran would make it harder to elect anyone other than the seasoned military man, John McCain. The Republican presidential candidate just happens to be touring Iraq with Sen. Joe Lieberman, one of the strongest advocates of a U.S. military strike on Iran. Lieberman is likely on McCain’s short list for a vice-presidential running mate.
Admiral Fallon took early retirement after making comments that contradicted the Bush administration’s aggressive stance on Iran. Fallon told the Arab television station Al Jazeera last fall that a "constant drumbeat of conflict" from the administration against Iran was "not helpful and not useful." After Fallon announced his retirement, the New York Times reported a senior administration official as saying Fallon’s comments about U.S. Iran policy "left the perception he had a different foreign policy than the president." If Fallon wants to talk to Iran rather than attack it, then his policy differs from Bush’s. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Miller, however, has downplayed the significance of Admiral Fallon’s abrupt retirement. Admiral Miller proclaimed recently, "In my view, this should not be seen as a sign – at all – towards any kind of conflict with Iran." Perhaps the chairman doth protest too much.
The White House has been spewing pugilistic rhetoric toward Iran. In spite of the unanimous conclusion of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran is not developing nukes, Bush immediately declared, "I have said Iran is dangerous, and the NIE estimate doesn’t do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world - quite the contrary." (See http://marjoriecohn.com/2007/12/bush-still-spinning-nukes-in-iran.html).
News reports on Monday announced that Dick Cheney is on a surprise weeklong visit to Iraq, Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Turkey. High on Cheney’s agenda is the topic of U.S. policy toward Iran. Connect the dots. They paint a very frightening picture.
The Transition to a Totalitarian World Government
"Mankind at the Turning Point"
Go to Orginal
By Brent Jessop
"Mankind at the Turning Point"
Go to Orginal
By Brent Jessop
"The modern crises are, in fact, man-made, and differ from many of their predecessors in that they can be dealt with." [emphasis in original] - Mankind at the Turning Point, 1974 (p15)
Mankind at the Turning Point: The Second Report to the Club of Rome [1] (1974) states their desire to create a unified organic (or interdependent) world system. This system is by definition totalitarian, as was discussed in part one of this series. Now that we know were we are headed, the next question is what will the transition look like?
The Club of Rome is a premiere think tank composed of approximately 100 members including leading scientists, philosophers, political advisors and many other characters who lurk in the shadows of power.
Machines of Doom and the End of Humanity
The focus of Mankind at the Turning Point is a computer model that supposedly replicates the major features of the world problematique. According to The Club of Rome, the world problematique is the set of interlocking world problems, such as, over population, food shortages, non-renewable resource depletion, environmental degradation, etc. Not surprisingly, their self serving model, based on exponential inputs, predicts the complete unravelling of society and perhaps the biosphere. Naturally, failure to implement The Club of Rome’s solution of a totalitarian world government will result in the potential end of humanity.
From Mankind at the Turning Point:
"Therefore we have concentrated out efforts in this report on a number of vital worldwide issues whose mastery we consider essential for man’s survival and for an eventual transition into sustainable material and spiritual development of humanity." [emphasis mine] - XII
"Whether or not to embark on the path of organic growth is a question of mankind’s very survival..." [emphasis mine] - 70
The Transition - Creating A New Mankind
The transition to this totalitarian world government will be made by changing the value systems of the entire planet, creating a one world consciousness.
"Today it seems that the basic values, which are ingrained in human societies of all ideologies and religious persuasions, are ultimately responsible for many of our troubles. But if future crises are to be avoided, how then should these values be readjusted?" [emphasis mine] - 11
"An analysis of problems and crises as reported in subsequent chapters indicate that (1) a "horizontal" restructuring of the world system is needed, i.e., a change in relationships among nations and regions and (2) as far as the "vertical" structure of the world system is concerned, drastic changes in the norm stratum - that is, in the value system and the goals of man - are necessary in order to solve energy, food, and other crises, i.e., social changes and changes in individual attitudes are needed if the transition to organic growth is to take place." [emphasis mine] - 54
"The changes in social and individual attitudes which we are recommending require a new kind of education..." - 148
"Development of a practical international framework in which the cooperation essential for the emergence of a new mankind on an organic growth path will become a matter of necessity rather than being left to good will and preference..." [emphasis mine] - 145
"The transition from the present undifferentiated and unbalanced world growth to organic growth will lead to the creation of a new mankind [emphasis mine]. Such a transition would represent a dawn, not a doom, a beginning not the end. Will mankind have the wisdom and will power to evolve a sound strategy to achieve that transition? In view of historical precedents, one might, legitimately, have serious doubts - unless the transition evolves out of necessity. And this is where the current and future crises - in energy, food, materials, and the rest - can become error-detectors, catalysts for change, and as such blessings in disguise. The solutions of these crises will determine on which of the two paths mankind has chosen to travel." [emphasis in original] - 9
The Transition - One World Consciousness
"Regarding individual values and attitudes the following lessons seem to be outstanding for the new global ethic implicit in the preceding requirements:
1) A world consciousness must be developed through which every individual realizes his role as a member of the world community... It must become part of the consciousness of every individual that "the basic unit of human cooperation and hence survival is moving from the national to the global level."
2) A new ethic in the use of material resources must be developed which will result in a style of life compatible with the oncoming age of scarcity... One should be proud of saving and conserving rather than of spending and discarding.
3) An attitude toward nature must be developed based on harmony rather than conquest. Only in this way can man apply in practice what is already accepted in theory - that is, that man is an integral part of nature.
4) If the human species is to survive, man must develop a sense of identification with future generations and be ready to trade benefits to the next generations for the benefits to himself. If each generation aims at maximum good for itself, Homo Sapiens is as good as doomed." [emphasis mine] - 147
"In order to achieve balance between regions in global development a more coherent regional outlook must be developed in various parts of the world so that the "preferable solutions" will be arrived at out of necessity rather than out of good will... we are talking about a regional sense of common destiny that will find its expression through appropriate societal, economic concepts and objectives... Such a regional outlook will create a "critical mass" necessary for the practical implementation of new and innovative ways of functioning in cultural, economic, and agricultural areas, especially on the rural level." [emphasis mine] - 154
The Transition - Global Warming and the New Mankind
This methodology of doom prediction based on complex, "expert" generated, unverifiable computer models was later taken in full stride by the global warming propagandists. Both had the exact same intent, scare people into believing that the world was on the verge of complete collapse and that the only solution is world government. In reality, the global warming myth is an extension of The Club of Rome’s activities
From Mankind at the Turning Point:
"Governments and international organizations are currently too preoccupied with military alliances and bloc politics. But this problem is becoming of secondary importance... Therefore, barring suicide, mankind will face the most awesome test in its history: the necessity of a change in the man-nature relationship and the emergence of a new perception of mankind as a living global system." [emphasis mine] - 146
"Precisely because the symptoms of these global crises might become fully visible only toward the end of the century, the time to act is now; when the symptoms become clear the remedy will no longer be possible, as has been shown repeatedly in this report. Future history will not focus on personality and social classes, as has been characteristic of history in the past, but on the use of resources and survival of the human species. The time to affect that history is now." [emphasis mine] - 146
The quote above cannot be emphasized enough. The fear that has been used to unify our national societies is being moved from the Hitler/Saddam Hussein type personalities and the Communist/Capitalist class struggles to global unity based on resource depletion and the survival of the human species.
Furthermore, in 1991, in a book entitled The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Council of The Club of Rome [2] and coauthored by one of the founders of The Club of Rome, Alexander King, they admitted choosing global warming and other threats to unify humanity under a world government.
"In searching for a new enemy to unite us [all of humanity], we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. In their totality and in their interactions, these phenomena constitute a common threat which as the enemy, we fall into the trap about which we have already warned, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself." [emphasis mine]
NOTES
[1] Quotes from Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel, Mankind at the Turning Point: The Second Report to The Club of Rome (1974). ISBN 0-525-03945-7
[2] Quotes from Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider, The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Council of The Club of Rome (1991). ISBN 0-671-71107-5
Why the Bush Administration "Watergated" Eliot Spitzer
By F. William Engdahl
The spectacular and highly bizarre release of secret FBI wiretap data to the New York Times exposing the tryst of New York state Governor, Eliot Spitzer, the now-infamous "No.9," with a luxury call-girl, had less to do with the Bush Administration’s pursuit of high moral standards for public servants. Spitzer was likely the target of a White House and Wall Street dirty tricks operation to silence one of its most dangerous and vocal critics of their handling the current financial market crisis.
A useful rule of thumb in evaluating spectacular scandals around prominent public figures is to ask what and who might want to eliminate that person. In the case of Governor Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, it is clear that the spectacular "leak" of government FBI wiretap records showing that Spitzer paid a high-cost prostitute $4,300 for what amounted to about an hour’s personal entertainment, was politically motivated. The press has almost solely focused on the salacious aspects of the affair, not least the hefty fee Spitzer apparently paid. Why the scandal breaks now is the more interesting question.
Spitzer became Governor of New York following a high-profile record as a relentless State Attorney General going after financial crimes such as the Enron fraud and corruption by Wall Street investment banks during the 2002 dot.com bubble era. The powerful former head of the large AIG insurance group, Hank Greenburg was among his detractors. He made powerful enemies by all accounts. He was bitterly hated on Wall Street. He had made his political career on being ruthless against financial corruption. Most recently, from his position as Governor of the nation’s second largest state, and home to its financial industry, Spitzer had begun making high profile attacks on the complicity of the Bush Administration in covertly arranging bailout if its Wall Street financial friends at the expense of ordinary homeowners and citizens, paid all with taxpayer funds.
Curiously, Spitzer, who had been elected governor in 2006 defeating a Republican by winning nearly 70 percent of the vote, has been not charged in any crime. However, the day the scandal broke New York Assembly Republicans immediately announced plans to impeach Spitzer or put him on public trial were he to refuse resignation. Spitzer could be asked to testify in any trial involving the Emperors Club prostitution ring. But so far he hasn’t been charged with a crime. Prostitution is illegal in most US states, but clients of prostitutes are almost never charged, nor are their names usually leaked in a case in process. The Spitzer case is in the hands of Washington and not state authorities, underscoring the clear political nature of the Spitzer "Watergate."
The New York Times said Spitzer was an individual identified as Client 9 in court papers filed last week. Client 9 arranged to meet with "Kristen," a prostitute who officially charged $1,000 an hour, on February 13 in a Washington hotel. Whatever transpired, Spitzer paid her $4,300, according to the official documents. The case is clearly political when compared with more egregious recent cases involving Republicans. Republican Mark Foley was exposed propositioning male interns in Congress and Rudolph Giuliani was discovered cheating on his wife, but no or few Republican calls for resignations were heard.
Why the attack now?
Spitzer had become increasingly public in his blaming the Bush Administration for the nation’s current financial and economic disaster. He testified in Washington in mid-February before the US House of Representatives Financial Services subcommittee on the problems in New York-based specialized insurance companies, known as "monoline" insurers. In a national CNBC TV interview the same day, he laid blame for the crisis and its broader economic fallout on the Bush Administration.
Spitzer recalled that several years ago the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency went to court and blocked New York State efforts to investigate the mortgage activities of national banks. Spitzer argued the OCC did not put a stop to questionable loan marketing practices or uphold higher underwriting standards.
"This could have been avoided if the OCC had done its job," Spitzer said in the interview. "The OCC did nothing. The Bush Administration let the housing bubble inflate and now that it's deflating we're dealing with the consequences. The real failure, the genesis, the germ that has spread was the subprime scandal," Spitzer said. Fraudulent marketing and very low "teaser" mortgage rates that later ballooned higher, were practices that should have been stopped, he argued. "When mortgages are being marketed, there is a marketplace obligation to ensure the borrower can afford to pay back the debt," he said.
That TV interview was only one instance of Spitzer laying blame on the Bush Republicans. On February 14, Spitzer published a signed article in the influential Washington Post titled, "Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers."
That article, laying clear blame on the Administration for the development of the sub-prime crisis, appeared the day after his ill-fated tryst with the prostitute at the Mayflower Hotel. Just a coincidence? Spitzer wrote, ""In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act pre-empting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks."
In his article Spitzer charged, "Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which he federal government was turning a blind eye." Bush, said Spitzer right in the headline, was the "Predator Lenders' Partner in Crime." The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet. Spitzer wrote, "When history tells the story of the sub-prime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favourably."
With that article, some Washington insiders believe, Spitzer signed his own political death warrant.
The spectacular and highly bizarre release of secret FBI wiretap data to the New York Times exposing the tryst of New York state Governor, Eliot Spitzer, the now-infamous "No.9," with a luxury call-girl, had less to do with the Bush Administration’s pursuit of high moral standards for public servants. Spitzer was likely the target of a White House and Wall Street dirty tricks operation to silence one of its most dangerous and vocal critics of their handling the current financial market crisis.
A useful rule of thumb in evaluating spectacular scandals around prominent public figures is to ask what and who might want to eliminate that person. In the case of Governor Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, it is clear that the spectacular "leak" of government FBI wiretap records showing that Spitzer paid a high-cost prostitute $4,300 for what amounted to about an hour’s personal entertainment, was politically motivated. The press has almost solely focused on the salacious aspects of the affair, not least the hefty fee Spitzer apparently paid. Why the scandal breaks now is the more interesting question.
Spitzer became Governor of New York following a high-profile record as a relentless State Attorney General going after financial crimes such as the Enron fraud and corruption by Wall Street investment banks during the 2002 dot.com bubble era. The powerful former head of the large AIG insurance group, Hank Greenburg was among his detractors. He made powerful enemies by all accounts. He was bitterly hated on Wall Street. He had made his political career on being ruthless against financial corruption. Most recently, from his position as Governor of the nation’s second largest state, and home to its financial industry, Spitzer had begun making high profile attacks on the complicity of the Bush Administration in covertly arranging bailout if its Wall Street financial friends at the expense of ordinary homeowners and citizens, paid all with taxpayer funds.
Curiously, Spitzer, who had been elected governor in 2006 defeating a Republican by winning nearly 70 percent of the vote, has been not charged in any crime. However, the day the scandal broke New York Assembly Republicans immediately announced plans to impeach Spitzer or put him on public trial were he to refuse resignation. Spitzer could be asked to testify in any trial involving the Emperors Club prostitution ring. But so far he hasn’t been charged with a crime. Prostitution is illegal in most US states, but clients of prostitutes are almost never charged, nor are their names usually leaked in a case in process. The Spitzer case is in the hands of Washington and not state authorities, underscoring the clear political nature of the Spitzer "Watergate."
The New York Times said Spitzer was an individual identified as Client 9 in court papers filed last week. Client 9 arranged to meet with "Kristen," a prostitute who officially charged $1,000 an hour, on February 13 in a Washington hotel. Whatever transpired, Spitzer paid her $4,300, according to the official documents. The case is clearly political when compared with more egregious recent cases involving Republicans. Republican Mark Foley was exposed propositioning male interns in Congress and Rudolph Giuliani was discovered cheating on his wife, but no or few Republican calls for resignations were heard.
Why the attack now?
Spitzer had become increasingly public in his blaming the Bush Administration for the nation’s current financial and economic disaster. He testified in Washington in mid-February before the US House of Representatives Financial Services subcommittee on the problems in New York-based specialized insurance companies, known as "monoline" insurers. In a national CNBC TV interview the same day, he laid blame for the crisis and its broader economic fallout on the Bush Administration.
Spitzer recalled that several years ago the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency went to court and blocked New York State efforts to investigate the mortgage activities of national banks. Spitzer argued the OCC did not put a stop to questionable loan marketing practices or uphold higher underwriting standards.
"This could have been avoided if the OCC had done its job," Spitzer said in the interview. "The OCC did nothing. The Bush Administration let the housing bubble inflate and now that it's deflating we're dealing with the consequences. The real failure, the genesis, the germ that has spread was the subprime scandal," Spitzer said. Fraudulent marketing and very low "teaser" mortgage rates that later ballooned higher, were practices that should have been stopped, he argued. "When mortgages are being marketed, there is a marketplace obligation to ensure the borrower can afford to pay back the debt," he said.
That TV interview was only one instance of Spitzer laying blame on the Bush Republicans. On February 14, Spitzer published a signed article in the influential Washington Post titled, "Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers."
That article, laying clear blame on the Administration for the development of the sub-prime crisis, appeared the day after his ill-fated tryst with the prostitute at the Mayflower Hotel. Just a coincidence? Spitzer wrote, ""In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act pre-empting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks."
In his article Spitzer charged, "Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which he federal government was turning a blind eye." Bush, said Spitzer right in the headline, was the "Predator Lenders' Partner in Crime." The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet. Spitzer wrote, "When history tells the story of the sub-prime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favourably."
With that article, some Washington insiders believe, Spitzer signed his own political death warrant.
Northern Rock cuts mortgages and axes 2,000 jobs
Go to Original
By Dearbail Jordan
Northern Rock, the Government-owned mortgage lender, today admitted it would cut a third of its staff and reduce mortgage assets by half, leaving current borrowers out in the cold when their deals expire.
The bank is expecting to cut just over 2,000 from its workforce by 2011, in an effort to help repay a £25 billion emergency loan Northern Rock was forced to borrow from the Bank of England last September to stop it going bust. The bank’s management hopes to pay back the loan in three or four years.
Northern Rock said today it is aiming to reduce its current loan book, which is worth £100 billion, to around £50 billion by selling off the mortgage assets to other lenders or by simply declining to offer new loans to existing customers.
A spokesman at Northern Rock said the bank will continue to offer prime mortgages to customers, but it will not give unsecured loans and those customers whose mortgages have come up for renewal are being encouraged to seek deals from alternative mortgage providers.
Northern Rock said today it will work "sensitively" with its staff and Unite, the union, "to minimise the extent and impact of job losses".
However, Unite said it will oppose any compulsory redundancies and is seeking assurances that Northern Rock's workforce will be reduced through voluntary means only.
Northern Rock unveiled its restructuring plan today as new figures emerged showing that inflation during February rose to 2.5 per cent - the sharpest increase since May last year.
The increase casts further doubt on an imminent interest rate cut by the Bank of England which would help Northern Rock.
Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rose from 2.2 per cent in January to 2.5 per cent last month, driven largely by increasing utility bills from Britain's major energy suppliers which have increased prices for gas and electricity since the beginning of the year.
February is the fifth month in a row that inflation has been above the Bank of England's 2 per cent target.
The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which is responsible for setting the UK interest rate, is now facing a difficult balancing act of protecting consumers against a deteriorating economy and falling house prices while inflation continues to grow.
Last month, the MPC opted to leave interest rates unchanged at 5.25 per cent. In contrast, the US Federal Reserve has made a number of cuts to its interest rate, with the most recent at the weekend which reduced the cost of interbank borrowing by 0.25 per cent to 3.25 per cent.
The Bank of England's MPC will next meet on April 9 and 10 to decide whether to cut or hold the UK interest rate.
The US Fed is expected to make another reduction this afternoon, with some economists expecting as much as a 1 per cent reduction as America attempts to fight off a full-blown recession.
Yesterday, global stock markets oscillated wildly as investors digested the emergency rescue of Bear Stearns by JP Morgan Chase.
In London, after yesterday's steep losses, the FTSE 100 index of leading shares was trading up 82.6 points to 5,697 as the UK looked to the US for this afternoon's rate decision.
By Dearbail Jordan
Northern Rock, the Government-owned mortgage lender, today admitted it would cut a third of its staff and reduce mortgage assets by half, leaving current borrowers out in the cold when their deals expire.
The bank is expecting to cut just over 2,000 from its workforce by 2011, in an effort to help repay a £25 billion emergency loan Northern Rock was forced to borrow from the Bank of England last September to stop it going bust. The bank’s management hopes to pay back the loan in three or four years.
Northern Rock said today it is aiming to reduce its current loan book, which is worth £100 billion, to around £50 billion by selling off the mortgage assets to other lenders or by simply declining to offer new loans to existing customers.
A spokesman at Northern Rock said the bank will continue to offer prime mortgages to customers, but it will not give unsecured loans and those customers whose mortgages have come up for renewal are being encouraged to seek deals from alternative mortgage providers.
Northern Rock said today it will work "sensitively" with its staff and Unite, the union, "to minimise the extent and impact of job losses".
However, Unite said it will oppose any compulsory redundancies and is seeking assurances that Northern Rock's workforce will be reduced through voluntary means only.
Northern Rock unveiled its restructuring plan today as new figures emerged showing that inflation during February rose to 2.5 per cent - the sharpest increase since May last year.
The increase casts further doubt on an imminent interest rate cut by the Bank of England which would help Northern Rock.
Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rose from 2.2 per cent in January to 2.5 per cent last month, driven largely by increasing utility bills from Britain's major energy suppliers which have increased prices for gas and electricity since the beginning of the year.
February is the fifth month in a row that inflation has been above the Bank of England's 2 per cent target.
The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which is responsible for setting the UK interest rate, is now facing a difficult balancing act of protecting consumers against a deteriorating economy and falling house prices while inflation continues to grow.
Last month, the MPC opted to leave interest rates unchanged at 5.25 per cent. In contrast, the US Federal Reserve has made a number of cuts to its interest rate, with the most recent at the weekend which reduced the cost of interbank borrowing by 0.25 per cent to 3.25 per cent.
The Bank of England's MPC will next meet on April 9 and 10 to decide whether to cut or hold the UK interest rate.
The US Fed is expected to make another reduction this afternoon, with some economists expecting as much as a 1 per cent reduction as America attempts to fight off a full-blown recession.
Yesterday, global stock markets oscillated wildly as investors digested the emergency rescue of Bear Stearns by JP Morgan Chase.
In London, after yesterday's steep losses, the FTSE 100 index of leading shares was trading up 82.6 points to 5,697 as the UK looked to the US for this afternoon's rate decision.
Preventing a financial crash
Go to Original
By Thomas
With the collapse of Bear Stearns, financial markets are moving closer to a crash that risks grave harm to the economy and the lives of working people. The Federal Reserve's recently created Term Auction Facility (TAF) and Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) move policy in the right direction. However, more needs to be done if a crash is to be prevented.
One way of thinking about Fed policy is in terms of the institutions the Fed deals with, the assets the Fed deals in, and the collateral the Fed accepts. The TAF and TSLF both expand the Fed's transactions menu, but the Fed has resisted expanding the set of institutions it deals with. Thus, initially only depository institutions were given access to the TAF, and only primary government securities dealers have access to the TSLF.
That is not adequate. Had Bear Stearns had access to the TAF its collapse might have been avoided. Now, the Fed has decided to give liquidity access to securities dealers like Bear Stearns, which is welcome but still belated.
The Fed's failure to expand the set of institutions it deals with reflects failure to adapt to the new world of financial intermediation. Previously, lending was dominated by banks, which meant the Fed could address liquidity shortages threatening the supply of credit by providing liquidity directly to banks. Today, lending is increasingly separated from banks. First, banks sell many of the loans they originate so that the ultimate lender is not a bank. Second, many originating lenders are non-bank firms. That means the credit supply is vulnerable to disruptions among these other lenders.
The current problem is that asset prices are falling owing to lack of confidence, triggering margin calls on these non-bank lenders. That has compelled them to sell assets, further driving down prices and triggering further calls. Some lenders have been unable to meet these calls, threatening bankruptcy even though their underlying loans are still performing. That threatens a cascade of asset price collapse.
The Fed's new facilities are a good move that broadens capacity to protect against liquidity disruptions. However, the Fed should further widen the set of institutions it deals with. Limiting dealings to depository institutions and primary government securities dealers protects banks and Wall Street's major brokerage houses, but leaves too much of the system unprotected and creates inefficiencies.
Firms outside the Fed's ring of protection must set up complex transactions with firms inside the ring to access emergency liquidity. That is good for insiders' fee income, but it raises the cost of distributing liquidity and creates unnecessary transactions that can be disrupted. Meanwhile, restricting access to the Fed's liquidity auction facility fails to discover the true price of liquidity that would be paid if all had auction access, which is tantamount to not getting liquidity to those who need it most. That is inefficient, and it also provides a subsidy to institutions inside the ring of protection.
In addition to expanding the institutions the Fed deals with, the Fed should consider further judicious expansion of the categories of securities it accepts as collateral under its auction (TAF) and securities lending (TSLF) facilities. Any additional collateral categories should be assessed at deeply discounted values as they will be more risky. That will protect taxpayers from bearing losses if the collateral under-performs.
Even equities could potentially be accepted, but this would involve crossing a bright line as they are a different form of legal obligation. By accepting equity collateral, the Fed could acquire an ownership stake in firms, which would move it beyond its current role of setting interest rates and providing liquidity to the financial system.
Among economic commentators there has been much misleading chatter about limits imposed by the size of the Fed's balance sheet. The reality is the Fed has no practical limit to its balance sheet as it can always directly purchase financial assets. There is no need for that now, but in the meantime the Fed might further increase the size of its auction facility and should definitely widen the set of auction participants.
Critics will inevitably claim such changes are inflationary. That has been the history of every innovation in central banking. However, the reality is innovations are only inflationary if used in an inflationary way. With regard to the current crisis, that means the Fed will have to withdraw liquidity convincingly once the crisis has abated.
Finally, stopping a financial crash does not get the US economy out of the woods. There remains the underlying residential mortgage debt crisis, and many risky mortgages will go bad as will the mortgage backed securities in which they are embedded. There is also the problem of recession, which calls for reviving aggregate demand and getting the economy growing again. Both the mortgage debt crisis and the recession need their own tailored policy responses. However, if the Fed fails to prevent a crash, the mortgage crisis will be deeper and a recession far more severe.
By Thomas
With the collapse of Bear Stearns, financial markets are moving closer to a crash that risks grave harm to the economy and the lives of working people. The Federal Reserve's recently created Term Auction Facility (TAF) and Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) move policy in the right direction. However, more needs to be done if a crash is to be prevented.
One way of thinking about Fed policy is in terms of the institutions the Fed deals with, the assets the Fed deals in, and the collateral the Fed accepts. The TAF and TSLF both expand the Fed's transactions menu, but the Fed has resisted expanding the set of institutions it deals with. Thus, initially only depository institutions were given access to the TAF, and only primary government securities dealers have access to the TSLF.
That is not adequate. Had Bear Stearns had access to the TAF its collapse might have been avoided. Now, the Fed has decided to give liquidity access to securities dealers like Bear Stearns, which is welcome but still belated.
The Fed's failure to expand the set of institutions it deals with reflects failure to adapt to the new world of financial intermediation. Previously, lending was dominated by banks, which meant the Fed could address liquidity shortages threatening the supply of credit by providing liquidity directly to banks. Today, lending is increasingly separated from banks. First, banks sell many of the loans they originate so that the ultimate lender is not a bank. Second, many originating lenders are non-bank firms. That means the credit supply is vulnerable to disruptions among these other lenders.
The current problem is that asset prices are falling owing to lack of confidence, triggering margin calls on these non-bank lenders. That has compelled them to sell assets, further driving down prices and triggering further calls. Some lenders have been unable to meet these calls, threatening bankruptcy even though their underlying loans are still performing. That threatens a cascade of asset price collapse.
The Fed's new facilities are a good move that broadens capacity to protect against liquidity disruptions. However, the Fed should further widen the set of institutions it deals with. Limiting dealings to depository institutions and primary government securities dealers protects banks and Wall Street's major brokerage houses, but leaves too much of the system unprotected and creates inefficiencies.
Firms outside the Fed's ring of protection must set up complex transactions with firms inside the ring to access emergency liquidity. That is good for insiders' fee income, but it raises the cost of distributing liquidity and creates unnecessary transactions that can be disrupted. Meanwhile, restricting access to the Fed's liquidity auction facility fails to discover the true price of liquidity that would be paid if all had auction access, which is tantamount to not getting liquidity to those who need it most. That is inefficient, and it also provides a subsidy to institutions inside the ring of protection.
In addition to expanding the institutions the Fed deals with, the Fed should consider further judicious expansion of the categories of securities it accepts as collateral under its auction (TAF) and securities lending (TSLF) facilities. Any additional collateral categories should be assessed at deeply discounted values as they will be more risky. That will protect taxpayers from bearing losses if the collateral under-performs.
Even equities could potentially be accepted, but this would involve crossing a bright line as they are a different form of legal obligation. By accepting equity collateral, the Fed could acquire an ownership stake in firms, which would move it beyond its current role of setting interest rates and providing liquidity to the financial system.
Among economic commentators there has been much misleading chatter about limits imposed by the size of the Fed's balance sheet. The reality is the Fed has no practical limit to its balance sheet as it can always directly purchase financial assets. There is no need for that now, but in the meantime the Fed might further increase the size of its auction facility and should definitely widen the set of auction participants.
Critics will inevitably claim such changes are inflationary. That has been the history of every innovation in central banking. However, the reality is innovations are only inflationary if used in an inflationary way. With regard to the current crisis, that means the Fed will have to withdraw liquidity convincingly once the crisis has abated.
Finally, stopping a financial crash does not get the US economy out of the woods. There remains the underlying residential mortgage debt crisis, and many risky mortgages will go bad as will the mortgage backed securities in which they are embedded. There is also the problem of recession, which calls for reviving aggregate demand and getting the economy growing again. Both the mortgage debt crisis and the recession need their own tailored policy responses. However, if the Fed fails to prevent a crash, the mortgage crisis will be deeper and a recession far more severe.
Dalai Lama threatens to resign
Go to Original
The Dalai Lama has said he will resign as Tibet's spiritual leader if the unrest in his homeland worsens, while rejecting Chinese allegations that he was behind it.
He was reacting to the Chinese premier's claim that groups aligned with him are responsible for the violent protests against Chinese rule in Tibet.
Wen Jiabao had said earlier on Tuesday that "there is ample fact and plenty of evidence proving this incident was organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique".
The Dalai Lama responded that "if things are getting out of control, then the option is to completely resign.
"This movement is beyond our control."
Speaking from the north Indian city of Dharamsala, base of the Tibetan government in exile, he said he was not in a position to tell Tibetans living under Chinese rule to "do this or do not do that".
The Dalai Lama also said that independence for Tibet was "out of the question".
"We must build good relations with the Chinese," he said.
The Dalai Lama appealed for calm in Tibet, saying: "Don't commit violence, it is not good. Violence is against human nature, violence is almost suicide. Even if 1,000 Tibetans sacrifice their lives, it will not help.
"We should not develop anti-Chinese feelings. We must live together side by side."
China's charge
Wen's criticism of the Dalai Lama, made at a news conference in Beijing earlier on Tuesday, were the highest-level response so far to the violence in Tibet and the biggest protests against Chinese rule in almost two decades.
He said the protests had shown that "consistent claims by the Dalai clique that they pursue not independence but peaceful dialogue are nothing but lies".
Defending China's crackdown on protesters, he said the response of the security forces had been "extremely restrained" but he avoided giving any details on the situation on the ground in Tibet.
The protests have also spread from Tibet to Tibetan communities in neighbouring Chinese provinces - an issue the Chinese premier avoided comment on.
Chinese authorities say 16 people have been killed but some human rights groups have put the toll as high as 100.
Wen said the Dalai Lama's accusations that China was committing "cultural genocide" in Tibet were "nothing but lies".
He said those who had protested against Chinese rule wanted to undermine the staging of the Beijing Olympics, which open on August 8.
Boycott fear
Hinting at calls from some groups for a boycott of the Games, Wen said the Olympics should not be politicised.
The Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule, has denied Chinese accusations that he incited the rioting.
Wen's comments came hours after a deadline passed for protesters involved in the Lhasa uprising to give themselves up to Chinese authorities.
Qiangba Puncog, the Chinese-installed governor of Tibet, set the deadline for midnight on Monday, warning of "harsh" treatment for those who refused to surrender.
There was little indication of any protesters having surrendered after the deadline.
On Tuesday the US-funded Radio Free Asia reported that hundreds of people were being rounded up by security forces, in a possible sign of an intensified crackdown.
Tibet is largely cut off from the outside world, with foreign reporters barred from the territory.
Even activist groups with long-standing connections to contacts in Tibet have indicated they are having difficulty finding out what is happening in the region.
Sydney protests
The uprising in Tibet and the response of the Chinese authorities have sparked protests outside Chinese diplomatic missions around the world, with several calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics which begin in less than five months time.
On Tuesday about 100 protesters clashed with Australian police outside the Chinese consulate in Sydney.
Several protesters burned Chinese flags, while others attempted to storm the consulate gates.
Earlier in New York, the UN secretary-general said he was "increasingly concerned about the tensions and reports of violence and loss of life in Tibet".
Ban Ki-moon said: "At this time I urge restraint on the part of the authorities and call on all concerned to avoid further confrontation and violence."
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, has also repeated US calls for China to exercise restraint, urging Chinese leaders to "engage the Dalai Lama".
The Dalai Lama has said he will resign as Tibet's spiritual leader if the unrest in his homeland worsens, while rejecting Chinese allegations that he was behind it.
He was reacting to the Chinese premier's claim that groups aligned with him are responsible for the violent protests against Chinese rule in Tibet.
Wen Jiabao had said earlier on Tuesday that "there is ample fact and plenty of evidence proving this incident was organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique".
The Dalai Lama responded that "if things are getting out of control, then the option is to completely resign.
"This movement is beyond our control."
Speaking from the north Indian city of Dharamsala, base of the Tibetan government in exile, he said he was not in a position to tell Tibetans living under Chinese rule to "do this or do not do that".
The Dalai Lama also said that independence for Tibet was "out of the question".
"We must build good relations with the Chinese," he said.
The Dalai Lama appealed for calm in Tibet, saying: "Don't commit violence, it is not good. Violence is against human nature, violence is almost suicide. Even if 1,000 Tibetans sacrifice their lives, it will not help.
"We should not develop anti-Chinese feelings. We must live together side by side."
China's charge
Wen's criticism of the Dalai Lama, made at a news conference in Beijing earlier on Tuesday, were the highest-level response so far to the violence in Tibet and the biggest protests against Chinese rule in almost two decades.
He said the protests had shown that "consistent claims by the Dalai clique that they pursue not independence but peaceful dialogue are nothing but lies".
Defending China's crackdown on protesters, he said the response of the security forces had been "extremely restrained" but he avoided giving any details on the situation on the ground in Tibet.
The protests have also spread from Tibet to Tibetan communities in neighbouring Chinese provinces - an issue the Chinese premier avoided comment on.
Chinese authorities say 16 people have been killed but some human rights groups have put the toll as high as 100.
Wen said the Dalai Lama's accusations that China was committing "cultural genocide" in Tibet were "nothing but lies".
He said those who had protested against Chinese rule wanted to undermine the staging of the Beijing Olympics, which open on August 8.
Boycott fear
Hinting at calls from some groups for a boycott of the Games, Wen said the Olympics should not be politicised.
The Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule, has denied Chinese accusations that he incited the rioting.
Wen's comments came hours after a deadline passed for protesters involved in the Lhasa uprising to give themselves up to Chinese authorities.
Qiangba Puncog, the Chinese-installed governor of Tibet, set the deadline for midnight on Monday, warning of "harsh" treatment for those who refused to surrender.
There was little indication of any protesters having surrendered after the deadline.
On Tuesday the US-funded Radio Free Asia reported that hundreds of people were being rounded up by security forces, in a possible sign of an intensified crackdown.
Tibet is largely cut off from the outside world, with foreign reporters barred from the territory.
Even activist groups with long-standing connections to contacts in Tibet have indicated they are having difficulty finding out what is happening in the region.
Sydney protests
The uprising in Tibet and the response of the Chinese authorities have sparked protests outside Chinese diplomatic missions around the world, with several calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics which begin in less than five months time.
On Tuesday about 100 protesters clashed with Australian police outside the Chinese consulate in Sydney.
Several protesters burned Chinese flags, while others attempted to storm the consulate gates.
Earlier in New York, the UN secretary-general said he was "increasingly concerned about the tensions and reports of violence and loss of life in Tibet".
Ban Ki-moon said: "At this time I urge restraint on the part of the authorities and call on all concerned to avoid further confrontation and violence."
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, has also repeated US calls for China to exercise restraint, urging Chinese leaders to "engage the Dalai Lama".
D.C. gun law goes to Supreme Court
The regulation of weapons could take a hit in a controversial case.
Go to Original
Today the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments in a gun-control case,1,7919861.story that offers the justices an opportunity to display the "judicial modesty" championed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. during his confirmation hearings. The danger is that the more conservative members will press for an unnecessarily sweeping ruling that would doom not only the Washington, D.C., ordinance before the court -- which includes a blanket ban on handguns -- but much more reasonable regulations as well.
Fortunately, it isn't just gun-control advocates who are warning against such a stampede. So is U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, the Bush administration's chief courtroom lawyer. Clement has told the court :// www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/us-heller-brief-1-11-08.pdf "> www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/us-heller-brief-1-11-08.pdf that even if the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, that right is subject to reasonable regulation in the interests of public safety. Such regulation, Clement suggested, includes laws prohibiting the possession of machine guns.
Until recently, the scope of an individual right to keep and bear arms was not an issue. For almost 70 years, courts have assumed that the 2nd Amendment protects the collective right of the states to protect themselves. That interpretation is suggested by the wording of the amendment: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." But some legal historians have argued, notwithstanding the reference to the militia, that the amendment also protects a personal right to bear arms.
Yet even they don't suggest that the right to bear arms is absolute. The constitutional scholar Leonard W. Levy agrees that "the origins of the [2nd] Amendment show that the right to keep and bear arms has an illustrious history connected with freedom, even if it is a right that must be regulated." The question likely to dominate today's oral arguments is what standard the courts should use in deciding which particular restrictions on firearms are permissible.
The case before the Supreme Court will reverberate nationally, of course, but it has special implications for California. Backed by strong popular and police support for gun control, the state and its municipalities have long been in the forefront of regulating weapons. Waiting periods, assault weapons bans, microstamping of bullets and restrictions on handguns have all found approval in our gun-wary state. A broad court ruling could undermine those important accomplishments, painstakingly built over many years.
The Washington ordinance pushes the constitutional envelope. It not only bans the possession of all handguns after a certain date, it requires owners of long guns to dismantle them if they are kept at home. In invalidating the law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit did several things: It accepted that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right; it concluded that the handguns targeted by the law are the descendants of the weapons in "common use" in the nation's early days; and it argued that individual rights under the 2nd Amendment are subject to "the sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as limiting, for instance, the 1st Amendment."
The problem is that, when it comes to laws affecting freedom of speech and press -- rights guaranteed by the 1st Amendment -- the courts have looked with what an English judge once called "eagle eyes," striking down restrictions on expression that were not narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest. The appeals court flirted with the idea that the individual right to keep and bear arms is equally fundamental. So does a brief signed by 305 members of Congress and Vice President Dick Cheney (the Bush administration's most celebrated gun enthusiast).
But there is a plain textual difference between the rights guaranteed by the 1st and 2nd Amendments. The 1st insists that Congress -- and later, by extension, the states -- may pass "no law" that interferes with the rights it protects. The 2nd is qualified by the language regarding militias and thus, on its face, more equivocal. Appropriately, then, Clement takes a less reckless view than Cheney and his fellow enthusiasts, arguing that the appeals court's sweeping definition of an individual right to keep and bear arms could jeopardize federal gun-control statutes. He suggests that the Supreme Court justices remand the case to the appeals court so the law's constitutionality can be assessed on narrower grounds. That sounds a lot like the approach Roberts advocated when he told the Senate in 2005 that the job of a judge is not to make law but rather to "decide cases."
Go to Original
Today the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments in a gun-control case,1,7919861.story that offers the justices an opportunity to display the "judicial modesty" championed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. during his confirmation hearings. The danger is that the more conservative members will press for an unnecessarily sweeping ruling that would doom not only the Washington, D.C., ordinance before the court -- which includes a blanket ban on handguns -- but much more reasonable regulations as well.
Fortunately, it isn't just gun-control advocates who are warning against such a stampede. So is U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, the Bush administration's chief courtroom lawyer. Clement has told the court :// www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/us-heller-brief-1-11-08.pdf "> www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/us-heller-brief-1-11-08.pdf that even if the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, that right is subject to reasonable regulation in the interests of public safety. Such regulation, Clement suggested, includes laws prohibiting the possession of machine guns.
Until recently, the scope of an individual right to keep and bear arms was not an issue. For almost 70 years, courts have assumed that the 2nd Amendment protects the collective right of the states to protect themselves. That interpretation is suggested by the wording of the amendment: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." But some legal historians have argued, notwithstanding the reference to the militia, that the amendment also protects a personal right to bear arms.
Yet even they don't suggest that the right to bear arms is absolute. The constitutional scholar Leonard W. Levy agrees that "the origins of the [2nd] Amendment show that the right to keep and bear arms has an illustrious history connected with freedom, even if it is a right that must be regulated." The question likely to dominate today's oral arguments is what standard the courts should use in deciding which particular restrictions on firearms are permissible.
The case before the Supreme Court will reverberate nationally, of course, but it has special implications for California. Backed by strong popular and police support for gun control, the state and its municipalities have long been in the forefront of regulating weapons. Waiting periods, assault weapons bans, microstamping of bullets and restrictions on handguns have all found approval in our gun-wary state. A broad court ruling could undermine those important accomplishments, painstakingly built over many years.
The Washington ordinance pushes the constitutional envelope. It not only bans the possession of all handguns after a certain date, it requires owners of long guns to dismantle them if they are kept at home. In invalidating the law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit did several things: It accepted that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right; it concluded that the handguns targeted by the law are the descendants of the weapons in "common use" in the nation's early days; and it argued that individual rights under the 2nd Amendment are subject to "the sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as limiting, for instance, the 1st Amendment."
The problem is that, when it comes to laws affecting freedom of speech and press -- rights guaranteed by the 1st Amendment -- the courts have looked with what an English judge once called "eagle eyes," striking down restrictions on expression that were not narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest. The appeals court flirted with the idea that the individual right to keep and bear arms is equally fundamental. So does a brief signed by 305 members of Congress and Vice President Dick Cheney (the Bush administration's most celebrated gun enthusiast).
But there is a plain textual difference between the rights guaranteed by the 1st and 2nd Amendments. The 1st insists that Congress -- and later, by extension, the states -- may pass "no law" that interferes with the rights it protects. The 2nd is qualified by the language regarding militias and thus, on its face, more equivocal. Appropriately, then, Clement takes a less reckless view than Cheney and his fellow enthusiasts, arguing that the appeals court's sweeping definition of an individual right to keep and bear arms could jeopardize federal gun-control statutes. He suggests that the Supreme Court justices remand the case to the appeals court so the law's constitutionality can be assessed on narrower grounds. That sounds a lot like the approach Roberts advocated when he told the Senate in 2005 that the job of a judge is not to make law but rather to "decide cases."
British mercenary confesses role in Equatorial Guinea coup plot
Go to Original
By Ann Talbot
British mercenary Simon Mann has confessed in a television interview with Channel 4 News to being the “manager” of a plot to overthrow President Obiang of the tiny oil-rich West African country of Equatorial Guinea in 2004. Mann has previously claimed that he was on his way to protect a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is the first time that he has admitted he was involved in a coup plot.
But he claimed he was not “the main man.” When asked who the main man was, Mann replied “Ely Calil.” He continued, “I mean, if somebody wants to do me a favour, what they could [do] is put a pair of handcuffs on Calil and chuck him on an aeroplane to Malibu [sic].” Malabu is the capital of Equatorial Guinea.
Calil, a British citizen, is a billionaire businessman of Lebanese origin who was born in Nigeria. Mann has named Calil before in a statement he made after his arrest in Zimbabwe where he was found guilty of illegally buying arms. He later retracted this statement claiming that it was made under duress. In his Channel 4 interview, he insisted that his original statement was true although it had been made under duress.
When asked about the involvement of Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Mann said, “Um, ya, he was a part of the team.” Thatcher was convicted by a South African court of contravening the country’s anti-mercenary laws in 2005. He pleaded guilty to unwittingly putting up US$275,000 for the charter of a helicopter for the coup attempt. Thatcher claims that he thought the helicopter he hired was for business use.
Mann denied that either Jeffrey Archer or Peter Mandelson had anything to do with the attempted coup. Both the EU commissioner and former British minister Mandelson and the disgraced peer Archer are reported to be friends of Calil, provoking media speculation as to their possible involvement in the coup plot or at least knowledge of it. Mandelson, Archer and Calil have all denied any part in the affair.
Archer has known Calil since they were at Oxford together. A J.H. Archer is known to have paid Mann £74,000 just four days before his arrest. Archer has always denied that it was him.
Calil offered Mandelson the use of a Holland Park apartment when he was forced to sell his house in Notting Hill as the result of a financial scandal. The British media reported in 2004 that the South African authorities had a document in which “Calil says that Mandelson assured him he would get no problems from the British government side” and invited Mr. Calil to come and see him again “if you need something done.”
Calil, who has oil interests in West Africa, is said to have financed Severo Moto, the exiled Equatorial Guinean opposition leader. According to the Times, a meeting took place at Severo Moto’s Spanish villa at which Calil was offered the role of chief oil broker in Equatorial Guinea if he participated in the overthrow of Obiang.
Calil, who has not been photographed for more than 30 years, was involved with the First Venetian Bank scandal in Lebanon in 1984. He was linked to a slush fund run by the French company Technip which lost a deal to build a pipeline between Algeria and Italy to the US company Halliburton. He was arrested in Paris during the Elf-Aquitaine affair and is still under investigation for allegedly taking £40 million in bribes. Many of his interests lie in Nigeria, where he built up close relations with a succession of military dictators.
Mann was arrested at Harare airport in Zimbabwe along with 69 South African mercenaries in 2004. They were on board an Antonov plane loaded with sleeping bags and supplies. Nick du Toit, a South African arms dealer and former commando, was arrested at the same time in Equatorial Guinea. He was sentenced to 35 years for his part in the coup plot.
A Zimbabwean court found Mann guilty of firearms and immigration charges. He was held for four years before being extradited to Equatorial Guinea in February. He is currently being held in the notorious Black Beach prison. A German national, Eugen Nershz, who was arrested with du Toit, died in prison shortly after being incarcerated in Black Beach.
Mann appeared wearing handcuffs and leg irons padded with rags. The camera lingered on the visible welts on Mann’s wrists as he claimed that he was being well treated in prison. With his thumbs moving nervously, he said that he had been put under no coercion. Channel 4 reporter Jonathan Miller made it clear that the attorney general of Equatorial Guinea and heavily armed guards were in the room throughout the interview.
Mann, who is due to face trial in a few weeks, seems to have come to the conclusion that his best option is to name at least some names. Calil is being sought by both the South African and Equatorial Guinea police, while Thatcher has already been convicted for his part in the coup attempt. Mann may have reasoned that he could not do them any more harm. At 55 years of age, his chances of surviving a long imprisonment in Black Beach are not high. By refusing to link Mandelson and Archer to the plot, Mann sent a clear signal that he would not involve the British establishment in the case—for now. The interview showed a man bargaining for his life on television.
The prospect of what he might say has caused consternation in Britain. Mann’s wife, Amanda, initially prevented the interview being broadcast when she obtained a High Court injunction. This was dropped when Mann’s brother and sister, Sarah and Edward, flew to see him in prison and found that he wanted the interview to go ahead. The lawyer that Mann’s wife instructed to act on her behalf is Andrew Kerman, identified by the Times as a close associate of Calil. Calil’s lawyers mounted a last-moment effort to get another injunction preventing the broadcast, but failed. Scotland Yard has confirmed since the interview that it is investigating whether any British citizens have been involved in illegal activities related to the coup attempt.
Britain and the United States were not involved in the coup plot, Mann claimed. He denied that there had been a “nod and a wink from the UK.” Nor, he insisted, was there a “nod and a wink from the United States of America. Absolutely not.” The only governments that Mann was prepared to link with the coup plot were the governments of South Africa and Spain.
The potential role of governments in the coup attempt raises a series of unanswered questions. South African intelligence seems to have had early knowledge of the plot, which was being gossiped about in bars frequented by mercenaries. Mann now claims that the South African government was behind the plot.
South African Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa dismissed Mann’s allegations as “preposterous.” Certainly South Africa was eager to prosecute Mark Thatcher and may have tipped off the Zimbabwean and Equatorial Guinean authorities. But it is not impossible that there were divisions within the ruling elite that found expression in a coup plot that was later sabotaged.
Spain’s potential role is clearer. Severo Moto is in exile in Spain. The present Socialist Party government has been less favourable towards him than the right-wing Popular Party government, in power at the time the abortive coup was in preparation. But the Spanish High Court has still just refused a bid by Equatorial Guinea to have Moto extradited and has confirmed his asylum status. Spanish oil companies lost out to US companies in the bid for oil concessions. Regime change might have seemed to be the best way of regaining Spanish influence in the former colony. Spain had something to gain from ousting Obiang. It is rumoured that a Spanish warship was sighted off the coast of Equatorial Guinea as the plot was about to begin.
The possible US role is less certain. Obiang is close to the US administration and the Bush family. As the plot was uncovered, he was found to have hundreds of millions of dollars deposited in the Washington-based Riggs Bank. With 60 accounts at the bank, Equatorial Guinea was Riggs’s largest client. One account held money from US oil companies including Exxon Mobil, Amerada Hess, Marathon Oil and ChevronTexaco.
Simon P. Kareri, the bank employee who dealt with Equatorial Guinea, would return from the West African country with suitcases stuffed with millions of dollars. A US Senate subcommittee found that the bank had ignored anti-money-laundering laws.
The Clinton administration broke off relations with Equatorial Guinea in 1995 just before vast oil reserves were discovered. Equatorial Guinea has since been called the Kuwait of West Africa. It is the continent’s third largest oil producer and has become increasingly important to the US.
President Bush renewed diplomatic relations in 2001. The US embassy is now housed in property rented from National Security Minister Manuel Nguema Mba, who has been consistently linked to human rights abuses. In 2006, Obiang was welcomed to the US by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who called him “a good friend.” On his recent tour of Africa, Bush made a point of visiting Obiang.
It is still possible, however, that the US government wished to remove its “good friend” Obiang, who is known to be in ill health. He has a number of sons who are all vying to succeed him. Obiang himself came to power by murdering his uncle. A messy power struggle among his family would draw in neighbouring Cameroon and Gabon to support rival factions. Not only would that pose a threat to US control of the country’s oil reserves, but it would potentially inflame the rest of West Africa.
Britain’s role in the affair is also cloaked in mystery. Jack Straw, foreign secretary at the time of the attempted coup, was forced to admit that the UK government had prior knowledge of it. As the World Socialist Web Site reported on December 7, 2004, two warnings were sent to British intelligence by Johann Smith, a South African security expert working for Equatorial Guinea. Michael Westphal, a senior colleague of former Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, was warned of the coup plot at the same time.
Straw claimed that the Foreign Office investigated the case and did not find any British companies involved. That may have been true, but a number of Channel Islands- and British Virgin Islands-registered companies are suspected of involvement. Nor is it clear why Straw did not warn the government of Equatorial Guinea that a coup was to be attempted.
Given Mann’s background and career, it is difficult to believe that the coup was an entirely private enterprise. Mann is a well-connected member of a wealthy UK brewing family. Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, he became an officer in the Scots Guards, before transferring to the elite Special Air Service. There would be nothing new in Mann working for the British government. He was a co-founder of the mercenary company Executive Outcomes and its successor, Sandline. Both Sandline and Executive Outcomes have a long history of involvement in mineral ventures. There is a close connection between the two companies and Heritage Oil.
Sandline’s most famous operation in West Africa was its support of President Kabbah of diamond-rich Sierra Leone. Tim Spicer, who also trained at Sandhurst before serving in the Scots Guards and SAS, heads Sandline. He claimed that in Sierra Leone he had worked closely with British Ambassador Peter Penfold. In language similar to that of the Labour government’s description of its own foreign policy, he described Sandline’s role in Sierra Leone as “ethical.” Mann echoed that view of his own activities in Equatorial Guinea in his Channel 4 interview.
When Sandline and Executive Outcomes were hired by the government of Papua New Guinea, the mercenaries who had waged a brutal war against the local population found themselves in prison. The British government stepped in to rescue the Sandline employees. Mann has received no such help this time. He remains in prison in Equatorial Guinea, bargaining with the threat of fresh revelations.
By Ann Talbot
British mercenary Simon Mann has confessed in a television interview with Channel 4 News to being the “manager” of a plot to overthrow President Obiang of the tiny oil-rich West African country of Equatorial Guinea in 2004. Mann has previously claimed that he was on his way to protect a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is the first time that he has admitted he was involved in a coup plot.
But he claimed he was not “the main man.” When asked who the main man was, Mann replied “Ely Calil.” He continued, “I mean, if somebody wants to do me a favour, what they could [do] is put a pair of handcuffs on Calil and chuck him on an aeroplane to Malibu [sic].” Malabu is the capital of Equatorial Guinea.
Calil, a British citizen, is a billionaire businessman of Lebanese origin who was born in Nigeria. Mann has named Calil before in a statement he made after his arrest in Zimbabwe where he was found guilty of illegally buying arms. He later retracted this statement claiming that it was made under duress. In his Channel 4 interview, he insisted that his original statement was true although it had been made under duress.
When asked about the involvement of Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Mann said, “Um, ya, he was a part of the team.” Thatcher was convicted by a South African court of contravening the country’s anti-mercenary laws in 2005. He pleaded guilty to unwittingly putting up US$275,000 for the charter of a helicopter for the coup attempt. Thatcher claims that he thought the helicopter he hired was for business use.
Mann denied that either Jeffrey Archer or Peter Mandelson had anything to do with the attempted coup. Both the EU commissioner and former British minister Mandelson and the disgraced peer Archer are reported to be friends of Calil, provoking media speculation as to their possible involvement in the coup plot or at least knowledge of it. Mandelson, Archer and Calil have all denied any part in the affair.
Archer has known Calil since they were at Oxford together. A J.H. Archer is known to have paid Mann £74,000 just four days before his arrest. Archer has always denied that it was him.
Calil offered Mandelson the use of a Holland Park apartment when he was forced to sell his house in Notting Hill as the result of a financial scandal. The British media reported in 2004 that the South African authorities had a document in which “Calil says that Mandelson assured him he would get no problems from the British government side” and invited Mr. Calil to come and see him again “if you need something done.”
Calil, who has oil interests in West Africa, is said to have financed Severo Moto, the exiled Equatorial Guinean opposition leader. According to the Times, a meeting took place at Severo Moto’s Spanish villa at which Calil was offered the role of chief oil broker in Equatorial Guinea if he participated in the overthrow of Obiang.
Calil, who has not been photographed for more than 30 years, was involved with the First Venetian Bank scandal in Lebanon in 1984. He was linked to a slush fund run by the French company Technip which lost a deal to build a pipeline between Algeria and Italy to the US company Halliburton. He was arrested in Paris during the Elf-Aquitaine affair and is still under investigation for allegedly taking £40 million in bribes. Many of his interests lie in Nigeria, where he built up close relations with a succession of military dictators.
Mann was arrested at Harare airport in Zimbabwe along with 69 South African mercenaries in 2004. They were on board an Antonov plane loaded with sleeping bags and supplies. Nick du Toit, a South African arms dealer and former commando, was arrested at the same time in Equatorial Guinea. He was sentenced to 35 years for his part in the coup plot.
A Zimbabwean court found Mann guilty of firearms and immigration charges. He was held for four years before being extradited to Equatorial Guinea in February. He is currently being held in the notorious Black Beach prison. A German national, Eugen Nershz, who was arrested with du Toit, died in prison shortly after being incarcerated in Black Beach.
Mann appeared wearing handcuffs and leg irons padded with rags. The camera lingered on the visible welts on Mann’s wrists as he claimed that he was being well treated in prison. With his thumbs moving nervously, he said that he had been put under no coercion. Channel 4 reporter Jonathan Miller made it clear that the attorney general of Equatorial Guinea and heavily armed guards were in the room throughout the interview.
Mann, who is due to face trial in a few weeks, seems to have come to the conclusion that his best option is to name at least some names. Calil is being sought by both the South African and Equatorial Guinea police, while Thatcher has already been convicted for his part in the coup attempt. Mann may have reasoned that he could not do them any more harm. At 55 years of age, his chances of surviving a long imprisonment in Black Beach are not high. By refusing to link Mandelson and Archer to the plot, Mann sent a clear signal that he would not involve the British establishment in the case—for now. The interview showed a man bargaining for his life on television.
The prospect of what he might say has caused consternation in Britain. Mann’s wife, Amanda, initially prevented the interview being broadcast when she obtained a High Court injunction. This was dropped when Mann’s brother and sister, Sarah and Edward, flew to see him in prison and found that he wanted the interview to go ahead. The lawyer that Mann’s wife instructed to act on her behalf is Andrew Kerman, identified by the Times as a close associate of Calil. Calil’s lawyers mounted a last-moment effort to get another injunction preventing the broadcast, but failed. Scotland Yard has confirmed since the interview that it is investigating whether any British citizens have been involved in illegal activities related to the coup attempt.
Britain and the United States were not involved in the coup plot, Mann claimed. He denied that there had been a “nod and a wink from the UK.” Nor, he insisted, was there a “nod and a wink from the United States of America. Absolutely not.” The only governments that Mann was prepared to link with the coup plot were the governments of South Africa and Spain.
The potential role of governments in the coup attempt raises a series of unanswered questions. South African intelligence seems to have had early knowledge of the plot, which was being gossiped about in bars frequented by mercenaries. Mann now claims that the South African government was behind the plot.
South African Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa dismissed Mann’s allegations as “preposterous.” Certainly South Africa was eager to prosecute Mark Thatcher and may have tipped off the Zimbabwean and Equatorial Guinean authorities. But it is not impossible that there were divisions within the ruling elite that found expression in a coup plot that was later sabotaged.
Spain’s potential role is clearer. Severo Moto is in exile in Spain. The present Socialist Party government has been less favourable towards him than the right-wing Popular Party government, in power at the time the abortive coup was in preparation. But the Spanish High Court has still just refused a bid by Equatorial Guinea to have Moto extradited and has confirmed his asylum status. Spanish oil companies lost out to US companies in the bid for oil concessions. Regime change might have seemed to be the best way of regaining Spanish influence in the former colony. Spain had something to gain from ousting Obiang. It is rumoured that a Spanish warship was sighted off the coast of Equatorial Guinea as the plot was about to begin.
The possible US role is less certain. Obiang is close to the US administration and the Bush family. As the plot was uncovered, he was found to have hundreds of millions of dollars deposited in the Washington-based Riggs Bank. With 60 accounts at the bank, Equatorial Guinea was Riggs’s largest client. One account held money from US oil companies including Exxon Mobil, Amerada Hess, Marathon Oil and ChevronTexaco.
Simon P. Kareri, the bank employee who dealt with Equatorial Guinea, would return from the West African country with suitcases stuffed with millions of dollars. A US Senate subcommittee found that the bank had ignored anti-money-laundering laws.
The Clinton administration broke off relations with Equatorial Guinea in 1995 just before vast oil reserves were discovered. Equatorial Guinea has since been called the Kuwait of West Africa. It is the continent’s third largest oil producer and has become increasingly important to the US.
President Bush renewed diplomatic relations in 2001. The US embassy is now housed in property rented from National Security Minister Manuel Nguema Mba, who has been consistently linked to human rights abuses. In 2006, Obiang was welcomed to the US by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who called him “a good friend.” On his recent tour of Africa, Bush made a point of visiting Obiang.
It is still possible, however, that the US government wished to remove its “good friend” Obiang, who is known to be in ill health. He has a number of sons who are all vying to succeed him. Obiang himself came to power by murdering his uncle. A messy power struggle among his family would draw in neighbouring Cameroon and Gabon to support rival factions. Not only would that pose a threat to US control of the country’s oil reserves, but it would potentially inflame the rest of West Africa.
Britain’s role in the affair is also cloaked in mystery. Jack Straw, foreign secretary at the time of the attempted coup, was forced to admit that the UK government had prior knowledge of it. As the World Socialist Web Site reported on December 7, 2004, two warnings were sent to British intelligence by Johann Smith, a South African security expert working for Equatorial Guinea. Michael Westphal, a senior colleague of former Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, was warned of the coup plot at the same time.
Straw claimed that the Foreign Office investigated the case and did not find any British companies involved. That may have been true, but a number of Channel Islands- and British Virgin Islands-registered companies are suspected of involvement. Nor is it clear why Straw did not warn the government of Equatorial Guinea that a coup was to be attempted.
Given Mann’s background and career, it is difficult to believe that the coup was an entirely private enterprise. Mann is a well-connected member of a wealthy UK brewing family. Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, he became an officer in the Scots Guards, before transferring to the elite Special Air Service. There would be nothing new in Mann working for the British government. He was a co-founder of the mercenary company Executive Outcomes and its successor, Sandline. Both Sandline and Executive Outcomes have a long history of involvement in mineral ventures. There is a close connection between the two companies and Heritage Oil.
Sandline’s most famous operation in West Africa was its support of President Kabbah of diamond-rich Sierra Leone. Tim Spicer, who also trained at Sandhurst before serving in the Scots Guards and SAS, heads Sandline. He claimed that in Sierra Leone he had worked closely with British Ambassador Peter Penfold. In language similar to that of the Labour government’s description of its own foreign policy, he described Sandline’s role in Sierra Leone as “ethical.” Mann echoed that view of his own activities in Equatorial Guinea in his Channel 4 interview.
When Sandline and Executive Outcomes were hired by the government of Papua New Guinea, the mercenaries who had waged a brutal war against the local population found themselves in prison. The British government stepped in to rescue the Sandline employees. Mann has received no such help this time. He remains in prison in Equatorial Guinea, bargaining with the threat of fresh revelations.
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