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Overtime
OVERTIME--June 2004 issue
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Dedicated to reflecting the collective wisdom of enlightened workers.
Linda Featheringill
4651 West 41st Street, Down
Cleveland, OH 44109
(216) 661-0794
lfeatheringill@hotmail.com
July 2004
Volume 5, Number 2
Greetings on another July 4 - a day of parades and fireworks. Hate the parades, love the fireworks! I found some interesting pieces for this issue. Hope you enjoy them. -- Linda Featheringill
In praise of Ronald Reagan (not!)
[Many of the words of praise for former US president Ronald Reagan on the occasion of his death seemed a little odd to me and more than a little inaccurate. And I wasn’t the only one who held that viewpoint. Consider these comments from England.]
It is odd for Iraqis to hear the eulogies to freedom-loving Ronald Reagan at his state funeral. The motives behind US policy towards Iraq have always been a mystery. If Iraqis sometime explain to westerners that Saddam Hussein was a CIA agent whose appointed task was to provoke an American invasion, it is largely thanks to Reagan’s legacy.
The CIA station in Baghdad aided the coup that first brought the Ba’athists to power in 1963. But it was Reagan who, two decades later, turned US-Iraqi relations into a decisive wartime alliance. He sent a personal letter to Saddam Hussein in December 1983, offering help against Iran. The letter was hand-carried to Baghdad by Reagan’s special envoy, Donald Rumsfeld.
The hallmark of Reagan’s presidency was anti-communist cynicism, marked by phony rhetoric about freedom. In his first press conference as president, he used quasi-biblical language to claim that soviet leaders “reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”
It was one of the most extraordinary cases of the pot calling the kettle black. What could Saddam, let alone other Iraqis, have thought when it became known two years after Rumsfeld’s first visit to Baghdad that Washington had secretly sold arms to the mullahs in Iran that Iraq was fighting. Who had been lying and cheating?
In the name of anti-communism, everything was possible: 1) Reagan invaded Grenada on the false premise that US students who had been there safely for months were suddenly in Danger. 2) He armed thugs to overthrow the government of Nicaragua, even after it won internationally certified free elections in 1984 and made the US an outlaw by rejecting the world court judgments against the US blockade of Nicaragua’s coast. 3) He armed and trained Osama bin Laden and his followers in their Afghan jihad [against the USSR] and authorized the CIA to help pay for the construction of the very tunnels in Tora Bora in which bin Laden later successfully hid from US planes. 4) On the grounds that Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress was pro-communist, Reagan vetoed US congress bills putting sanctions on the apartheid regime the ANC was fighting.
He was credited with winning the Cold War but his policies towards the Soviet Union were hysterical and counter-productive. He put détente into deep freeze for several years with his insulting label “the evil empire.” It led to overblown outrage over the downing by Soviet aircraft of a South Korean airliner that intruded into Russian air space. Moscow’s action was inept, but it Reagan had not put the superpowers on a collision course, the Kremlin might have treated the wayward plane more calmly.
By the time Reagan took office, some independent analysts and reporters with experience in the Soviet Union were arguing that Moscow’s power had peaked. Its Warsaw Pact allies were unreliable and had to be periodically invaded or threatened.
In the Middle East, Moscow had few allies, in spite of decades of trying to win friends through the supply of arms. Egypt had moved west, Syria saw that Russia had no clout on the central issue of Israel and Palestine, and the Gulf states were suspicious. Only Yemen and Iraq seemed to offer a little hope.
Reagan’s Star Wars project did not bankrupt the Soviet Union into reform, as his admirers claim. On the contrary, in repeated statements, as well as in his budget allocations, Gorbachev made it clear that Moscow would not bother to match a dubious weapons system that would not be effective for at least another 15 years, if ever.
The Soviet Union imploded for internal reasons, not the least the erratic way Gorbachev reacted to the contradictory processes set in motion by his own reforms. Reagan was merely an uncomprehending bystander. His acceptance in his second term of détente was a u-turn that millions of peace activists in Europe had been demanding.
It was détente that made the end of the cold war possible and without Reagan’s blind anti-communism, it could have come at least four years earlier.
[From an aricle by Jonathan Steele for The Guardian (London), June 11, 2004.]
As the praises went on and on and on, I often wondered if Reagan supporters live in the same reality as the rest of us. [L.F.]
Prisoners in US Custody
In defense of its editorial policies, the Washington Post offered the following summation of administration policies.
(US) Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld expressed dismay on Thursday about editorials in which "the implication is that the United States government has, in one way or another, ordered, authorized, permitted, tolerated torture." Such reports, he said, raised questions among U.S. troops in Iraq, reduced the willingness of people in Iraq and Afghanistan to cooperate with the United States, and could be used by others as an excuse to torture U.S. soldiers or civilians. This was wrong, he said, because "I have not seen anything that suggests that a senior civilian or military official of the United States of America . . . could be characterized as ordering or authorizing or permitting torture or acts that are inconsistent with our international treaty obligations or our laws or our values as a country."
Since Mr. Rumsfeld referred directly to The Post, we believe we owe him a response. We agree that the country is at war and that we all must weigh our words accordingly. We also agree that the consequences of the revelations of prisoner abuse are grave. As supporters of the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have been particularly concerned about the ways that the scandal -- and the administration's continuing failure to come to terms with it -- could undermine the chances for success. We also have warned about the uses that might be made of it by captors of Americans. What strikes us as extraordinary is that Mr. Rumsfeld would suggest that this damage would be caused by newspaper editorials rather than by his own actions and decisions and those of other senior administration officials.
What might lead us to describe Mr. Rumsfeld or some other "senior civilian or military official" as "ordering or authorizing or permitting" torture or violation of international treaties and U.S. law? We could start with Mr. Rumsfeld’s own admission during the same news conference that he had personally approved the detention of several prisoners in Iraq without registering them with the International Committee of the Red Cross. This creation of "ghost prisoners" was described by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, who investigated abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, as "deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine and in violation of international law." Failure to promptly register detainees with the Red Cross is an unambiguous breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention; Mr. Rumsfeld said that he approved such action on several occasions, at the request of another senior official, CIA Director George J. Tenet.
Did senior officials order torture? We know of two relevant cases so far. One was Mr. Rumsfeld’s December 2002 authorization of the use of techniques including hooding, nudity, stress positions, "fear of dogs" and physical contact with prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay base. A second was the distribution in September 2003 by the office of the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, of an interrogation policy that included these techniques as well as others, among them sleep and dietary manipulation. In both cases lawyers inside the military objected that the policies would lead to violations of international law, including the convention banning torture. Both were eventually modified, but not before they were used for the handling of prisoners. In the case of the Abu Ghraib prison, the policy apparently remained in effect for months.
Did senior officials "permit" torture? A Pentagon-led task force concluded in March 2003 with the support of the Justice Department that the president was authorized to order torture as part of his war-making powers and that those who followed his orders could be immunized from punishment. Dictators who wish to justify torture, and those who would mistreat Americans, have no need to read our editorials: They can download from the Internet the 50-page legal brief issued by Mr. Rumsfeld’s chief counsel.
The damage caused by the prisoner abuse cases is already enormous, and it is not over. We believe there is a way to mitigate and eventually overcome the debacle, but it is not by asking newspapers to go mute. What is needed is a full and independent investigation of the matter, including the decisions made by Mr. Rumsfeld and other senior officials, and a forthright and unambiguous commitment by President Bush to strictly observe U.S. and international law in the future. That pledge should be accompanied by a return to the public disclosure of U.S. interrogation policies. If U.S. soldiers, Iraqi citizens and foreign leaders can see for themselves that American doctrine excludes illegal abuse, then the dangers Mr. Rumsfeld cited will be greatly lessened.
[Editorial, The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.), June 21, 2004.]
Afghan detainees routinely tortured and humiliated by US troops
Detainees held in Afghanistan by American troops have been routinely tortured and humiliated as part of the interrogation process, in the same way as those in Iraq, a Guardian investigation has found.
Five detainees have died in custody, three of them in suspicious circumstances, and survivors have told stories of beatings, strippings, hoodings and sleep deprivation.
The nature of the alleged abuse indicates that what happened at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was part of a pattern of interrogation that has been common practice since the US invasion of Afghanistan.
Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic member of the Senate subcommittee on foreign operations, told the Guardian that prisoners in Afghanistan "were subjected to cruel and degrading treatment, and some died from it. These abuses were part of a wider pattern stemming from a White House attitude that 'anything goes' in the war against terrorism, even if it crosses the line of illegality."
Syed Nabi Siddiqi, a former police officer, said he was beaten and stripped. "They took off my uniform. I showed them my identity card from the government... Then they asked me which of those animals - they made the noise of goats, sheep, dogs, cows - have you had sexual activities with?"
A second detainee, Noor Aghah, said he was forced to drink bottles and bottles of water during his interrogation.
The network of US detention centres around Afghanistan has largely avoided scrutiny, yet, according to the coalition forces last week, more than 2,000 people have been detained there since the war.
"In some ways the abuses in Afghanistan are more troubling than those in Iraq," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. "While it is true that abuses in Afghanistan often lacked the sexually abusive content of the abuses in Iraq, they were in many ways worse. Detainees were severely beaten, exposed to cold and deprived of sleep and water. Five are known to have died [two of natural causes]."
ECOLOGY
The only way we can preserve the earth is to grant every living entity what it needs to thrive and take from it only what it can afford to give.
Water in Las Vegas
The usual sort of mining involves digging underground in order to remove a non-renewable resource. Some substances, like coal and diamonds, are created by nature, but the replacement rates are so slow that we consider them non-renewable.
Replacement of water in naturally occurring underground water storage structures may also be extremely slow - often in the order of hundreds or even thousands of years. When we pump water out of aquifers, we are essentially mining a non-renewable resource.
That is what is happening in the western part of the US.
Las Vegas, famous for gambling and fancy hotels, is now considered an attractive place to live. The population of the area is growing by 3000 to 4000 people each month. In this hot and dry area, finding water for all these people is a problem.
Water usage in the metropolitan area has risen from about 300,000 acre-feet per year a decade ago to about 500,000 acre-feet today. [An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover an acre of land to a depth of one foot. One acre-foot will supply water to two average homes in a dry area for a year.]
In the past, water for Las Vegas has been supplied by the Colorado River. But the entire Western US is in the grips of a long-standing drought and the Colorado has
very little water to spare. The city has sought to buy water from other users of the Colorado and has plans to divert water from other rivers. It also has plans to pump water from an ancient aquifer that runs from Death Valley in eastern California to western Utah.
The Mojave Desert, which includes Death Valley, has an annual rainfall of about 4 inches [10 cm] and summer temperatures of 115-120F [47-48C]. Wildlife in the area depends on warm springs that bubble up from the aquifer below. Biologists fear that if Las Vegas takes water from the aquifer, the springs will dry up. If the springs go away, the animals will die off.
This aquifer also supplies water to thousands wells that meet the needs of individual ranches and homes scattered throughout the region. If water is taken from the aquifer for Las Vegas and the water level falls, will these wells go dry?
“Aquifer” is an Americanism for an underground structure that stores water. It may include sand, porous rock, and small spaces. It is not a big hole in the ground with nothing but water in it. If the water is removed from an aquifer, however, it is likely to compact and be unable to hold water in the future. It is very possible that water removed from an aquifer will never be replaced and so is not a renewable resource.
[Information taken from an article by Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times, June 21, 2004.]
Rain in Beijing
On an overcast day in the Fragrant Hills Park in western Beijing, the booming sound of anti-aircraft guns suddenly echo off the mountain side, shaking the air and startling hikers. This was no air raid drill, nor was it in preparation for a coming invasion. Rather, it was the sound of Beijing meteorologists shooting canisters of silver iodide into the gather clouds, in the hope that the chemical would enhance rainfall over the city.
In a drive to address Beijing’s growing water shortages, the city has decided to take every measure possible to increase water supplies, including the widespread use of unproven precipitation enrichment technologies. According to press reports, from 1995 to 2003 China spent 266 million dollars on rainmaking technology in 23 provinces and regions. There are now about 35,000 people who work in this field. Growth of the population and development of the economy has led to a high increase in water demand. This is happening during a period that has seen frequent droughts, a fall in ground water levels, and drying up of rivers like the Yellow River.
Since April and the use of silver iodide, it has rained more often in Beijing than in previous years, but the volume of rain has not been greater.
[AFP News Service, Yahoo!News, June 21, 2004.]
Heat in Spain
A second summer of deadly heat over part of Europe was responsible for the death of a 48-year-old Spanish man, while six others were hospitalized due to the effects of high temperatures. The death came as millions of Iberian residents switched on air conditioners to escape the heat and caused electricity consumption to soar. Spain’s meteorological institute said that Madrid broke a 73-year record when the mercury reached 103 F [40 C].
Last summer’s European heat wave killed 141 people in Spain alone.
[Steve Newman, Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet, June 27 to July 3, 2004.]
Wildfire in New Mexico
As of this writing (10 June 2004) the 42,000-acre [65+ square miles] wildfire in southeastern New Mexico is still not completely contained. It could have been contained when it was just a pup of a few acres, but it wasn't. Why?
There were no planes to drop retardants. They had been grounded because two had crashed last summer, killing a number of people. They had crashed because they had not been properly maintained. That service had been privatized, and of course the private contractor had not done proper maintenance because that would cut into profits. So, a few million bucks has had to be laid out to hire fire fighters and provide the necessary infrastructure of sleeping tents, mess tents, field hospital, field laundry, etc. etc.
New Mexico governor Bill Richardson* announced that the state would purchase and operate the necessary planes, which is a proper use of our tax money.
Meanwhile, there has been no rain in New Mexico for two months. None. While fires caused by arson and human stupidity make headlines, most fires are caused by lightning and made worse by droughts. When we hear of floods in Texas, we are filled with longing.
*Watch this man: Richardson definitely has presidential ambitions. He's been touted as a possible v-p candidate, though he's coyly denied interest. And at that, he has a lot more experience than Twig [President Bush], having been, besides governor, a congressman, an ambassador to the UN, and a cabinet member.
[J. F., New Mexico, USA.]
This and That
English is really crazy
There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger. Neither apple nor pine is in pineapple. English muffins were not invented in England and French fries were not developed in France. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is not from Guinea and is not a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why wouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth?
One goose, two geese. So, one moose, two meese? One index, two indices. Then is cheese the plural of choose?
If teachers taught, did preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
In what language do people recite a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?
When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock goes off by going on. When the stars are out, they are visible when the lights are out, they are invisible.
When I wind my watch, I start it but when I wind up this essay, I’ll end it.
[Anonymous, Freethought Perspective, July 2004.]
and how is the war going?
A new book by the senior CIA officer who headed a special office to track Osama bin Laden and his followers warns that the United States is losing the war against radical Islam and that the invasion of Iraq has only played into the enemy's hands.
In the book, "Imperial Hubris," the author is identified only as "Anonymous," but former intelligence officials identified him as a 22-year veteran of the CIA who is still serving in a senior counter-terrorism post at the agency and headed the bin Laden station from 1996 to 1999.
The 309-page book, obtained by The New York Times, provides an unusual glimpse into a school of thought inside the CIA and includes harsh criticism of both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Under CIA rules, the book had to be cleared by the agency before it could be published. It was approved on condition that the author and his internal agency not be identified.
"U.S. leaders refuse to accept the obvious," the CIA officer writes. "We are fighting a worldwide Islamic insurgency -- not criminality or terrorism -- and our policy and procedures have failed to make more than a modest dent in enemy forces."
The author describes the threat as rooted in opposition not to American values, but to American policies and actions, particularly in the Islamic world. He denounced the American invasion of Iraq as "an avaricious, premeditated unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat," and said it would fuel the anti-American sentiments on which bin Laden and his followers draw.
[New York Times, June 23, 2004.]
What people in the US think about the war in Iraq
[Other opinion polls have produced similar results. L.F.]
All in all, do you think the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, or not?
Yes, worth going to war------------43%
No, not work going to war----------53%
Don’t know--------------------------4%
Generally speaking, do you think that the United States is making good progress in Iraq, or would you say that the US is getting bogged down?
Making good progress---------------35%
Getting bogged down----------------61%
Don’t know--------------------------4%
So far, who do you think is winning the war in Iraq: the US or the insurgents fighting in Iraq?
US winning the war-----------------52%
Insurgents winning the war---------24%
Neither----------------------------16%
Don’t know--------------------------8%
Generally speaking, do you think the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq have given countries around the world a more positive or negative opinion of the US?
Positive--------------------------21%
Negative--------------------------57%
No effect-------------------------12%
Don’t know------------------------10%
As you know, June 30 is the date set by the Bush administration and its allies to hand over the governing of Iraq to an interim Iraqi government that has just been appointed. Do you think the Iraqis are ready to govern their country without help fro the US and its allies?
Iraq is ready to govern-----------27%
Iraq is not ready to govern-------65%
Don’t know-------------------------8%
When the handover of Iraq to an interim government is completed on June 30, should the US increase its troops to improve security, withdraw some of its troops, withdraw all of its troops, or should the US increase or decrease its troop level only at the request of the interim Iraqi government?
Increase its troop level-----------9%
Withdraw some of its troops-------23%
Withdraw all of its troops--------18%
Increase/decrease troop level
only at the request of
Iraqi government------------------41%
Don’t know-------------------------9%
Should the interim Iraqi government have veto power to block military operations by US military forces and its allies?
Have veto-------------------------36%
Not have veto---------------------51%
Depends----------------------------3%
Don’t know------------------------10%
[Los Angeles Times poll conducted June 5-8, 2004. Margin of error + 3%.]
Economics - corporate cash
[I’ve mentioned this before but I think it bears repeating. I’m not sure what it means, but it “feels” significant to me. L.F.]
Unbeknownst to most investors or financial journalists, US corporations are perched on enormous piles of cash - the biggest in decades. It figures, when you think about it. Consumers went on a debt-financed shopping spree starting in 2001. The economy boomed despite the aftermath of terrorist attacks, the dot-com collapse and corporate scandals.
Businesses collected all the borrowed money as revenue for Ford Broncos, Snoop Dogg DVDs, steel beams and whatnot. And they didn’t hire much or give workers good raises or build new plants in the meantime, so their sales growth far exceeded their cost growth, and retained earnings dwarfed capital outlays.
The result: very large buildups of liquid money in corporate treasuries, a situation that is pregnant with economic possibility.
Investors have largely ignored this cash bash by focusing, as usual, on individual stocks and earnings per share. But Morgan Stanley credit analyst Greg Peters figures we now have the biggest corporate cash hoard since the 1950s, as measured by cash and cash look-alikes (treasury bills, bonds and other marketable securities) as a balance sheet portion.
It’s true that many individual companies are known for cash stashes. Software giant Microsoft is the most famous, with $56 in cash as of March 31. (That’s twice the foreign exchange reserves of Venezuela.)
But the bird’s-eye view of corporate cash accumulation is even more interesting.
The value of cash, bonds and other easily sold financial assets held by non-bank corporations in this year’s first quarter was 32 percent higher than that of five years ago, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve. (We don’t count banks because cash and its relatives are their business - their inventory, so to speak.)
Even more striking, the financial assets of US non-bank corporations are now worth more than “tangible” assets such as factories, land, equipment and inventory - 8 percent more. That’s the highest level since the Fed started measuring such things in 1945.
[From an article by Jay Hancock for the Baltimore Sun, July 3, 2004.]
NOTE:Last month, I asked for information or news reports about photos or videos taken at Guantanamo. In the interim, the Bush administration issued a statement that they would release such films and photos to Congress for review.
Hidden deep in the announcement, however, was the fact that these are from surveillance cameras located in the individual cells. They did not promise to furnish any pictures of actual interrogations.
So again I ask that if you find any information on films or photographs of interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, please send it along to me.
There are rumors that the US Congress has seen pictures of prisoner abuse that are even nastier than those that have been published on the internet. Actual violence and actual rape. I’ve also heard about abuse of Iraqi women, as well as men. Again - actual violence and actual rape.
So there are tapes and rumors of tapes and yet the end is not near.
I do appreciate your efforts to keep me informed and I’ll pass along what facts I can gather. --L.F.
Rabid anti-Communism
The first article of this issue accuses Ronald Reagan of “hysterical” anti-communism. But the former president was only one of a long line of rabidly anti-communist US leaders. This particular hysteria has contributed to US policies that have caused a lot of grief. It has:
--Fueled the Cold War.
--Got us into Vietnam.
--Led us to help overthrow a democratically elected government in Iran in the 1950s so that the Shah of Iran could be installed in office. The Shah ruled his people with remarkable cruelty until he was overthrown by the Muslim mullahs.
--Led us to help overthrow the government in Iraq so the Ba’athists could take over. One up and coming member of this group was Saddam Hussein.
--Led us to materially assist the resistance fighters in Afghanistan as they fought against Soviet occupation. Among the beneficiaries of this policy was Osama bin Laden.
--Led to all the silliness regarding Cuba. The government says it is anti-Castro because he is a dictator. That is nonsense. How kindly the Cuban government treats its people is beside the point. The US totally ignored both Papa Doc and Baby Doc during decades of exceptional cruelty towards the people of Haiti.
The same stories could be told about countries all over South America, Africa, and Asia.
Rabid the anti-communism of the past led the US to support ANYBODY - no matter how horrid - who would echo the US rhetoric and who would cooperate with US business interests. Even worse, the US operated under the idea that the end justifies the means and that anything goes in the fight against the “evil empire.”
The USSR collapsed several years ago but we are still living with the consequences of this hysteria among US leaders. The Vietnam War was lost. Iran is a once and future trouble spot. Iraq, of course, is a real mess and might yet represent another defeat. The situation in Afghanistan is not at all secure and could go either way at any time. And there is a distinct possibility that we will lose the war on terrorism.
The crusade against communism caused more damage and more misery than the USSR ever did. The US has millions of enemies scattered across the globe. Some are sullen and withdrawn, while others are eager to take up arms. And we - you and me - will have to live with that. No, it isn’t fair. But that’s the way it is. --Linda Featheringill
Next month: We’d love to know what you think. These are our usual classifications:
-- Open - questions, comments, tirades, etc.
-- RSVP. React to previous statements.
-- The ecology.
-- Clippings from newspapers, etc.
On the Web:
Overtime is included in the website of Socialism for a Real Labor Union at:
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[Socialism Marx DeLeon for a real union]
Money.
Overtime is free, but there are expenses and any help with these would be appreciated. Please make checks payable to Linda Featheringill and mail to me at 4651 West 41st Street, Down, Cleveland, OH 44109.
Contributions will be acknowledged in the next issue, or you can remain anonymous if you wish.
Finances at the end of June 2004:
Balance ------------------------23.62
Contributions ------------------56.57
Supplies and stationary
Copying ------------------------34.62
Postage ------------------------35.53
Total expenses -----------------70.15
Balance ------------------------10.04
Contributions: S.F. 10.00, S. J., 10.00, E.M. postage 7.57, Anon. lottery winnings 19.00, and Anon. 10.00
And, to Everyone, thank you, thank you, thank you. Linda Featheringill.