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This week: • Burma • Iraq • Iraq2 • Oil • Green • Disney • Stuff • Revolt •
So remind me, Iraqi sanctions were so great because …? Let’s not forget, with further economic sanctions pending against Burma, they killed 500,000 Iraqi children in 13 cruel years.
In the past 10 years, Washington has imposed sanctions on at least 35 countries, which in most cases have done little except to make the situation worse for the people in those countries. Time and time again sanctions have hurt the people and not the intended target, the ruling party.
Already it is clear that the investment and arms sanctions put in place by the US, as well as the trading and investment embargoes raised by the European Union have done nothing to harm the government, the workers just get paid less as the country’s sphere of economic influence shifts towards China. The Burmese mass produce goods for Chinese consumers more and more – just think how cheap those products must be – hardly going to generate an income is it? The sanctions that have been in place since 1997 have not changed the dictatorship’s attitude towards basic human rights. Nevertheless, the US passed further economic sanctions last year, renewing them last week and is now calling on the UN to endorse sanctions.
The Belgium-based independent International Crisis Group maintains trying to attack by trade is not beneficial to bringing regime change. Disdaining American policy towards Burma, ICG’s Asia program director Robert Templer said: “The unfortunate thing about Burma is that it doesn’t matter enough to anybody for there to be any really serious policy making done on it and therefore, it is very easy for the US government to have an extremely dumb policy on it. And that’s what it is – a completely failed policy.”
While the little red email applauded the stark front page headline of the Guardian (Punched, kicked, then left to die) in the wake of the shocking images aired on CBS’s 60 Minutes II, it was once again Robert Fisk with the most prescient words as he sought to find what lies in the minds of those who brazenly commit torture. The Independent correspondent pointed to “the poisonous, racial dribble of a hundred Hollywood movies that depict Arabs as dirty, lecherous, untrustworthy and violent people – and soldiers are addicted to movies – and it’s not difficult to see how some British scumbag will urinate into the face of a hooded man, how some American sadist will stand a hooded Iraqi on a box with wires tied to his hands.
“Indeed, we now depict Arabs in our films as the Nazis once depicted Jews But Arabs are fair game. Potential terrorists to a man – and a woman – they must be softened up, ‘prepared,’ humiliated, beaten, tortured.
“We are all victims of our high-flown morality. ‘They’ – the Arabs, Muslims, ‘cloth heads,’ ‘rag heads,’ ‘terrorists’ – are of a lesser breed, of lower moral standards. They are people to be shouted at. They have to be ‘liberated’ and given ‘democracy.’ But we little band of brothers, we dress ourselves up in the uniforms of righteousness. We are marines or military police or a queen’s regiment and we are on the side of good. ‘They’ are on the side of ‘evil.’ So we can do no wrong.
“Or so it appeared until those shameful pictures last week tore apart the whole bandwagon and proved that race hatred and prejudice is an old historical inheritance of ours. We used to call Saddam the Hitler of Iraq. But wasn’t Hitler one of ‘us,’ a Westerner, a citizen of ‘our’ culture? If he could kill six million Jews, which he did, why should we be surprised that ‘we’ can treat Iraqis like animals? Last week came the photographs to prove we can.”
For a candid Russian view on the War on Terror™ look no further than Pravda and its article on 4 May entitled “The Forces of Evil: Gestapo-like behaviour by US Armed Forces”
“The shocking images of US military personnel standing around smiling and giving the thumbs up sign as Iraqi prisoners were tortured comes as no surprise. The surprise is that it took so long for the story to break. Why? Because there was a massive cover-up attempt by the Queen of Liars, Washington.”
As well as listing all the aired CBS photos, Pravda also pointed out that at least one Iraqi prisoner has been beaten to death at the hands of American jailers, and that “others were forced to suffer acts of sodomy by US military personnel”.
Noting that this was not one isolated incident and 17 soldiers were found guilty of mistreating prisoners last month, Pravda suggests that we are seeing “just the tip of the iceberg, after the same sort of actions have been taken for many months, hidden from the press and the American public by the evil, lying and murderous Bush regime.
“But what to expect from a regime which purposefully drops cluster bombs into civilian areas, one which makes a meal out of the treatment of a ten-year-old Iraqi boy in America — after his arms and legs were blown off and his entire family slaughtered by US military personnel who decided to drop a bomb on his house?
“What to expect from a regime which lies to its people, lies to the world, disrespects fundamental international law and perpetrates a shocking act of butchery which has slaughtered ten thousand civilians, injured or mutilated thirty-five thousand others and left one thousand children without arms or legs or eyes because they picked up the brightly-coloured “sweets” that had been dropped near their homes, only to find they were fragments of cluster bombs, which blasted away their faces and their futures and their lives?
“We are speaking about the evil regime led by George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell and Richard Cheney, better known as Dick. It comes as no surprise that the United States of America is the most hated nation on the planet at this moment in time. Blame Bush for that.”
Ah, brings back memories of the Cold War doesn’t it?
All these guys have been in the oil business for a hell of a long time, pretty much all their lives in fact; they know the simple mathematic fundamentals that now drive US foreign policy, the US thrives on having a constant access to oil and recent reports show there’s far less of it around than had been forecast, making it all the more urgent to tie up stocks now. The numbers are simple. The current manipulation in Iraq and Afghanistan to ensure US oil imports for years to come is clear.
Global demand for oil increased from 66.2 million barrels a day in 1990 to 79.7 million in 2003. In 2003 alone, demand grew by 1.4 million barrels a day, principally from the burgeoning Chinese economy.
A picture is emerging following the revelations from Royal Dutch/Shell, the oil giant, that it had overestimated its reserves by at least 20% or four billion barrels, that global reserves are considerably under the widely held estimate of just over one trillion barrels.
According to new forecasts from the respected Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas Saudi Arabia’s reserves are actually closer to 210 billion barrels a day than the currently stated 261 billion barrels.
Iraq’s reserves are estimated at 90 billion barrels against the official 112 billion forecast, Kuwait’s are more likely to be 55 billion than the 90 billion reported and the United Arab Emirates probably has 60 billion rather than 98 billion, the association maintains.
Now bear in the mind that the US is an oil based economy and shows no sign of turning off the taps just yet. The US, with just six percent of the world population, consumes nearly 25 percent of the oil and gas produced worldwide.
With its own reserves falling as demand grows a secure source of import is ever more vital See Craig Unger’s fantastic House of Bush, House of Saud (link) for further details.
Today the US imports six of every 10 barrels of oil and two of every 10 cubic metres of gas that it consumes, and by 2020 it will import eight of every 10 barrels of oil and four of every 10 cubic metres of gas, according to US government statistics.
The International Energy Agency predicts that by 2030, conventional oil output will have reached a limit of 100 million barrels a day, but the world will need 120 million barrels. The US economy cannot survive without oil and demand from around the world, led by Asia, is jumping, showing its actions in the Middle East clearly is oil diplomacy by cluster bomb. The ruling elite of the US is too close to the oil industry to make any great moves to curb fossil fuel use. It must ensure a stable Middle East pipeline, yet it has mistakenly chosen war as the best way to achieve its consuming needs.
Fancy living in the sunny climes Down Under? No, not Australia, further down that Antartica. That’s the stark possibility facing your grandchildren, in the latest damning environmental report issued by a top British government scientist. Professor Sir David King warned the vast continent at the southern tip of Earth is likely to be the world’s only habitable region by 2100 if carbon dioxide emissions cannot be reduced. Sir David said the planet was entering the "first hot period" for 60 million years a time when there is no ice and "the rest of the globe could not sustain human life".
British ministers vote next week on whether to ease European Union-planned emission cuts.
CO2 levels in the atmosphere are 50% higher than at anytime in the last 420,000 years, the scientist noted. The last time there was so much CO2 in the air, some 60 million years ago, Earth warmed up dramatically leading to mass extinction.
"No ice was left on Earth. Antarctica was the best place for mammals to live, and the rest of the world would not sustain human life," he said.
At our present guzzling rate "we will reach that level by
2100" the professor forecast.
So what simple things can you do to help reduce CO2 emissions?
Here are four simple ways to seriously reduce both your electricity
bill and the amount of damage you are causing to the environment.
Turn your refrigerator down. Refrigerators account for about 20% of household electricity use. Use a thermometer to set your refrigerator temperature as close to 37°F (2.7°C) and your freezer as close to 3°F (-16°C) as possible. Make sure that its energy saver switch is turned on. Also, check the gaskets around your refrigerator/freezer doors to make sure they are clean and sealed tightly.
Turn down your water heater thermostat. Thermostats are often set to 140°F (60°C) when 120°F (49°C) is usually fine. Each 10°F (-16°C) reduction saves 600 pounds of CO2 per year for an electric water heater, or 440 pounds for a gas heater. If every American household turned its water heater thermostat down 20°F (approx 10°C), the US could prevent more than 45 million tons of annual CO2 emissions — the same amount emitted by the entire nations of Kuwait or Libya.
Buy energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs for your most-used lights. Although they cost more initially, they save money in the long run by using only 1/4 the energy of an ordinary incandescent bulb and lasting 8-12 times longer. They provide an equivalent amount of bright, attractive light. Only 10% of the energy consumed by a normal light bulb generates light. The rest just makes the bulb hot. In a typical home, one compact fluorescent bulb can save 260 pounds of CO2 per year.
If you have a central air conditioning unit then turn the thermostat up. 78°F (25°C) is considered fine for summer. Each degree you dial up above 72°F (22°C) reduces your cooling bill by approximately 3%. Moreover, with summer upon us, now’s the time to give those air con filters a good scrub, it’ll shave another 1.5% off your bill.
“For nearly a year, this struggle has been a lesson in just how difficult it is in this country to create a piece of art that might upset those in charge,” Moore noted on his website.
Moore’s agent said that Michael Eisner, Disney’s embattled chief executive, was worried the film might hinder important tax breaks that Disney’s theme park gets from Florida governor, Jeb Bush.
With the right degree of apprehension, a New York Times editorial noted: “If that is the reason for Disney’s move, it would underscore the dangers of allowing huge conglomerates to gobble up diverse media companies… It is clear that Disney loves its bottom line more than the freedom of political discourse.”
Moore is no stranger to Machine censorship. His breakthrough book Stupid White Men was held from publication initially by Rupert Murdoch’s Harper Collins publishing company. Moore’s speech at the Oscars, that rant against the fictitious president, was drowned out by the band as editors scrambled for an ad break. He likes to rally up against any sign of corporate muzzling.
It’s worth noting that Mel Gibson’s production company, Icon, pulled out of this latest Moore vehicle last year. The last time Disney turned down a Miramax film and it was taken to Cannes was in 1999 with Kevin Smith’s Dogma. It found a distributor straight away. No doubt so will the publicity savvy Mr Moore.
A hotchpotch of stuff we’ve found and enjoyed recently.
For whom the Bell tolls
Steve Bell, the Guardian’s finest cartoonist has been doing some of his finest work over the last week or so.
Covering Bush’s Apology to Airbs[sic], the current state of the coalition, and “Bush’s” testimony to the 9-11 hearing.
Osama bin Lotto
A few fun facts about the US economy
- When Ronald Reagan was president, the average CEO made 42
times as much money as the average worker. Last year, CEOs
earned 300 times as much as workers.
- The average worker takes home $517 a week; the average CEO
takes home $155,769 a week. After the Bush team guts overtime,
workers will take home less, CEOs will take home more, and
the world will be as it should be.
- Since 1990, CEO pay has risen 313 percent (while corporate
profits rose by far less than half that).
- Over that same period, worker pay rose 49 percent — a smidge
ahead of inflation, which rose 41 percent.
- If the minimum wage had increased as quickly as CEO pay since
1990, it would today be $15.71 per hour, more than three times
the current minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.
Iraq is not the new Vietnam, it’s the new Grozny
Falluja: the US’ Grozny. This Iraqi city has seen similar
desecration to that meted out on the Chechen capital by ruthless
Russian soldiers. This
BBC report shows the “wasteland” that is Falluja.
Terry says Tony must try harder
The wickedly funny Terry Jones recently came up with another wonderfully ascerbic comment on Bliar’s letter to the Observer on Iraq. Entitled “Tony really must try harder”, the comment bemoans Bliar’s poor attempt at an essay on Iraq which “shows he has little grasp of his subject, world politics”. A tour de force almost as good as the (to steal a python phrase) great pre-war joke “I’m losing patience with my neighbours”.
The revolution’s web activity has been progressing slowly over the past two weeks, bogged down by the capitalist inventions of international shipping and ecommerce. However we have made some progress in both these areas and have had time to do a few more things besides:
You can now bomb any country you don’t like the look of with our great new RumCo Spoiler Bomber.
And we have furthered our artwork on the threat posed by the Machine.
As well as starting the new Book Reviews in the consume section.
One wry correspondent noticed just how differently the new Iraqi flag is to all of its neighbours’ – bar one: Israel. Green, red, white and black — the colours that made up the old flag — are prevalent in most of the Arabic nations near Iraq. The contrast is compelling. Check it out in our forums.