Rants I

Transferred from the Society & Culture blog...

Intimidation & Supression of Dissent [September 10, 2003]

We already know that peace activists are targeted by a secret airport ban in the US.

Now, with the new color coding system, we can expect that the system will continue to be used for intimidation and suppressing dissent.

Anti-War Activists Targeted by Secret Airport Ban

After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security, Washington has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds or even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special scrutiny at airports. [...]

The list had been kept secret until its disclosure last week by the new US agency in charge of aviation safety, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). And it is entirely separate from the relatively well-publicized "no-fly" list, which covers about 1,000 people believed to have criminal or terrorist ties that could endanger the safety of their fellow passengers. [...]

Others who have filed complaints with the ACLU include a left-wing constitutional lawyer who has been strip-searched repeatedly when traveling through US airports, and a 71-year-old nun from Milwaukee who was prevented from flying to Washington to join an anti-government protest. [...]

The agency, she said, had no way of making sure that people did not end up on the list simply because of things they had said or organizations they belonged to. Once people were on the list, there was no procedure for trying to get off it. The TSA did not even think it was important to keep track of people singled out in error for a security grilling. According to documents the agency released, it saw "no pressing need to do so". [Full Story]


Air Travelers to Be Color Coded for Risk Level

The Washington Post reports the new Transportation Security Administration system will allow the agency to probe deeper into each passenger's identity than is currently possible under federal law, comparing personal information – like our shopping habits – against criminal records and intelligence information. [...]

Civil liberty organizations, conservative groups and some airlines have expressed concerns that the new system, called Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System II, or CAPPS II, will allow the government to act as judge and jury regarding a passenger's history without any due process.

"You could be falsely arrested. You could be delayed. You could lose your ability to travel," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program.

The first will match the passenger's name and information against databases of private companies that collect information on people for commercial reasons, such as their shopping habits. This process will generate a numerical score that will indicate the likelihood that the passenger is who he says he is. Passengers will not be informed of their color code or their numerical score. [...]

"When airport security started confiscating cuticle scissors, most passengers felt less safe rather than more secure, since such great pains and expense had gone into taking action that many people thought trivialized the goal of security," says Noonan.

"I don't believe most of us will feel safer in any practical way because they say we 'won't be sitting next to an ax murderer,' as the head of the TSA noted. Even if we're 'approved' I suspect most of us will not enjoy flying knowing a government agency has first scrutinized our buying habits and financials. That knowledge will undoubtedly not serve to make us feel more secure about traveling." [Full Story]

Personal note here: I am a white, educated, middle-class person who has never had a credit card, and have a very low consumption level. According to the information above, I will most likely be targeted - just for that - as a potential security threat. I do not fit the norm in terms of demographics and spending habits. In addition, I have a history of organizing for global justice and peace issues, which also will label me as a security threat.

The story directly above also mentions that most of the new airport security measures are ineffective. Their main purpose seems to be to make it appear as if they are doing something (and to annoy the passengers). There are innumerable targets that will be equally good or better from a terrorist's point of view, and if they want to bring a plane down, then there is a large number of ways to do it that are not touched by the measures they are implementing.


Dean [September 8, 2003]

I have noticed several commentators (including democrats) viewing Dean as "too liberal" to be able to win over Bush. What they seem to ignore is the large number of people who are attracted to Dean, because he is not another spineless Democrat (of the type we have seen over the last two years). He is a candidate that may be able to mobilize a large number of people who would otherwise not vote. People who think there is too little difference between the typical Republican and Democratic candidate to make it a real choice. With Dean, there is finally a sense of a real choice. (I personally prefer Kucinich, who seems more visionary, but Dean is a good second).


Height of Idiocy [September 7, 2003]

Mr. G.W. Bush apparently said earlier today that he is ready to use as much money as "is necessary" to defeat terrorism. The way he plans to spend it, it proves that he is as stupid as many of us suspected before he was selected. Violence, arrogance and wars is a surefire way to fuel terrorism. The more they apply that approach, the more people around the world have solid reasons for resenting the US. If they wanted to use that money wisely, they would spend it (a) domestically on healthcare and education, and (b) internationally on (i) reducing the cultural, political and military influence of the US around the world, (ii) reducing the gap between poor and wealthy nations and individuals within nations, and (iii) help nations strengthen their own culture and local economy.

The current course will ruin the US economy and increase terrorism worldwide. The first is actually not a bad thing, if it also reduces the US dominance in the world (which it will if applied in the long run)... The second is obviously to the benefit of no-one.


Lack of Maturity & Information about the World [September 7, 2003]

There is an often surprising lack of maturity and lack of knowledge of the world in this country. The reactions following 911 is just one of many examples (splitting into "us" and "them", dehumanizing the opponents, wanting to do to others what we do not want anyone to do towards us). Another is the large percentage of US citizens who believe there was a connection between Irak and terrorism prior to the recent Iraqi war (eight of ten...!). In Norway, and probably in Europe in general, you would have to look long to find anyone who thinks there was such a connection (in Norwegian media, the lack of such a connection was often repeated before the war).


Irony [September 7, 2003]

The strong "preserving the freedom of the US" attitude expressed by many in this country is typically associated with some other behaviors and views. One is to blindly support the current administration, especially if they are engaged in a war (where is the freedom if the behavior is automatic?). The other is to be indignant when others express views different from themselves. I thought "freedom" was partly about encouraging and seriously exploring a wide variety of views?


Sidetrack [September 7, 2003]

The so called "war on terror" (I have issues with the term "war" as it indicates symptom focus rather than cause focus, win-loose mentality [our needs at the expense of their needs], dehumanization of opponents, etc.) functions as a smokescreen for far more important and serious areas - that all overlap and are tied into each other.

Our ecological situation is extremely serious. The Ecological Footprint of Humanity exceeds the bioproductive area of the Earth. In economic terms, this means that we are not only living off the interest of our resources (the surplus production), but off the principal (the productive core). The effects are not noticeable (on a large scale) until we reach the bottom of the account, at which point it is too late to turn around. Ecosystems, on which all our wealth, health and lives depend, are unravelling at an increasingly faster pace. We are facing not only an ecological collapse, but a cultural collapse as well. There is still time to change, but the change must be radical and fast.

Multinational corporations, with their singleminded focus on increasing profits for shareholders, increasinlgy determine international and national policies. Policies are created, by politicians dependent on the financial support of these corporations for being elected, that are in the interest of corporations, not in the interest of people, ecosystems, and future generations. Multinational corporations not only have politicians in their pocket, but also own a large segment of international and national mass media, and thus determine the information most people access, and how this information is viewed and discussed.


Terrorism or Resistance [September 7, 2003]

Norwegian media tends to emphasize the homegrown and varied resistance movement in Iraq. A very natural and predictable resistance to illegal occupation by a foreign power (that has a culture and set of values very different from their own, and profoundly immoral and corrupted from their view). US officials and media emphasize "terrorism", in a typical attempt to place a smokescreen on the situation. While there may be some instances that could be called "terrorism", it seems that most of it is indeed homegrown resistance.


US Hegemony [September 6, 2003]

Former British MP Michael Meacher is among the growing number of people who speaks up: The emperor has no clothes.

Michael Meacher, This war on terrorism is bogus (The Guardian).


Still Amazed [August 25, 2003]

I can't help still being amazed by the reaction of the US government and population following 911. To anyone following the international situation, even superficially, it was clear that the US foreign policy over many decades has given a large number of people around the world good reasons to resent the US. I personally was surprised it did not happen sooner. As an acquaintance of mine commented about the reaction of the US public: "Sorry your bubble burst." It seems amazing how the reaction was channeled into the most immature and unhealthy ways - into the desire to use violence and escalate the tragedy, into blind and pathological patriotism... Into a situation where people were willing to readily give up just what they said the US is representing.

Of course, the White House used the situation to further their own policies and US dominance around the world. The media followed, since they are owned by multi-national corporations with aligned interests. But that people accepted it? It seems almost beyond belief. It seems even more beyond belief that European governments largely have followed the US. I remember that NATO responded initially with emphasizing the need to reduce the gap between wealthy and poor etc. worldwide. They went directly to the cause of the frustration behind terrorism. And then they readily abandoned it as soon as the US applied pressure...


CIA Paying for False Testemony, PR Firm, and Reporters [August 24, 2003]

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) had a revealing story on their evening news today. Apparently, CIA - on the request of the US government - payed off an Iraqi defector for false testemony (concerning nonexisting WMD facilities), a PR firm, and reporters, to create a false impression of WMD production in Iraq. There is already so much evidence that - in a more democratic and transparent system - the government would have to resign. Of course, in the US, nothing happens. [ more 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ]


Drones & Lies

The case for the Iraqi war is disentigrating in the media at an increasing rate. Of course, those who followed international news in the leadup to the war knew that a significant portion of the arguments of Bush, Powell and Blair were not grounded in reality. Now it is also coming into mainstream US news - too late to change what has happened, but maybe soon enough to let more people see what is going on with this government.

Some examples: Scientists: Iraq drones posed no threat | A look back at Powell's case on Iraq | No 10 knew: Iraq no threat | A Weapons Cache We'll Never See One of the prime minister's closest advisers issued a private warning that it would be wrong for Tony Blair to claim Iraq's banned weapons programme showed Saddam Hussein presented an "imminent threat" to the west or even his Arab neighbours. [story]

Huddled over a fleet of abandoned Iraqi drones, U.S. weapons experts in Baghdad came to one conclusion: Despite the Bush administration's public assertions, these unmanned aerial vehicles weren't designed to dispense biological or chemical weapons.

The evidence gathered this summer matched the dissenting views of Air Force intelligence analysts who argued in a national intelligence assessment of Iraq before the war that the remotely piloted planes were unarmed reconnaissance drones. [story]

Six months after Powell's Feb. 5 appearance, the file does look thin. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told U.S. senators last month the Bush administration had no "dramatic new evidence" before ordering the Iraq invasion. [...]

Powell presented satellite photos of industrial buildings, bunkers and trucks, and suggested they showed Iraqis surreptitiously moving prohibited missiles and chemical and biological weapons to hide them. At two sites, he said trucks were "decontamination vehicles" associated with chemical weapons.

These and other sites had undergone 500 inspections in recent months. Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix, a day earlier, had said his well-equipped experts found no contraband and no sign that items had been moved. Nothing has been reported found since. [...]

Powell said "classified" documents found at a nuclear scientist's Baghdad home were "dramatic confirmation" of intelligence saying prohibited items were concealed this way.

U.N. nuclear inspectors later said the documents were old and "irrelevant" - some administrative material, some from a failed and well-known uranium-enrichment program of the 1980s. [...]

Powell said defectors told of "biological weapons factories" on trucks and in train cars. He displayed artists' conceptions of such vehicles.

After the invasion, U.S. authorities said they found two such truck trailers in Iraq, and the CIA said it concluded they were part of a bioweapons production line. But no trace of biological agents was found on them, Iraqis said the equipment made hydrogen for weather balloons, and State Department intelligence balked at the CIA's conclusion. The British defense minister, Geoffrey Hoon, has said the vehicles aren't a "smoking gun."

The trailers have not been submitted to U.N. inspection for verification. No "bioweapons railcars" have been reported found. [...]

Powell said Iraq produced four tons of the nerve agent VX. "A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons," he said.

Powell didn't note that most of that four tons was destroyed in the 1990s under U.N. supervision. Before the invasion, the Iraqis made a "considerable effort" to prove they had destroyed the rest, doing chemical analysis of the ground where inspectors confirmed VX had been dumped, the U.N. inspection agency reported May 30.

No VX has been reported found since the invasion. [...]

"We know that Iraq has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry," Powell said.

No "chemical weapons infrastructure" has been reported found. [...]

"Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent," Powell said.

Powell gave no basis for the assertion, and no such agents have been reported found. [...]

Powell said 122mm chemical warheads found by U.N. inspectors in January might be the "tip of an iceberg."

The warheads were empty, a fact Powell didn't note. [...]

"Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons. . . . And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorized his field commanders to use them," Powell said.

No such weapons were used and none was reported found after the U.S. and allied military units overran Iraqi field commands and ammunition dumps. [...]

[story]


Falling Out of Love with America

An article that closely reflects my sentiments... [Full story]

[...] There was a deafening, bewildered silence that prairie night in the Iguana diner on the edge of Oklahoma, broken only by such musings as that of a man asking: 'What is it people have got against us, that they want to come killing our kids?' The honest answer: a despised 'federal government' headed by a man the Right - even beyond McVeigh's militias - regarded as a usurper in the White House. [...]

For nearly a decade a group of people exiled from power during the Clinton years had been making plans. Their names are now more or less well known: Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Douglas Feith. In a series of papers they devised a blueprint for unchallenged and unchallengeable American power, military and political, across the globe, with the Middle East and Iraq as fulcrum. All that was needed to realise that dream - said a document produced by one of their many think-tanks, the Project for the New American Century - was 'a new Pearl Harbour'. [...]

'I think what we are seeing now, represented by the policies of the Bush administration, is an old American tradition, an imperialist tradition that has existed since the middle of the nineteenth century. But we are in for a busy ride. Reality has a way of landing in your lap and punching you in the nose. "Empire Lite" may not work; and are the Americans really ready for heavy Empire?' [...]

'And so we are left with an America which sees the world as a football game: you win or lose. It has lost all sense of nuance. And even though Americans do not like foul play in football - a clip in the back from behind - we are encouraging it in the world. We have become a nation with no idea what it means to grow up in a refugee camp in the West Bank or Gaza, and no idea why people such as al-Qaeda - with whom I have no agreement at all, I hasten to add - dislike us so much.' [...]

There are many, invariably woolly, ways to measure how America is perceived in the world: one was the relative absence of anti-Americanism on the planet's streets until the invasion of Iraq. More instructive probably are the fortunes of quintessentially American commercial brands on the global market. Just this month, a survey by the RoperASW consultancy found that for the first time ever overseas sales by Nike, Microsoft and McDonald's have fallen by 14, 18 and 21 per cent respectively). [...]

By Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian


The US Promoting Terrorism Worldwide [August 23, 2003]

I am still struck by how determined the US seems to be in promoting terrorism worldwide. Their foreign policies, now more than ever, seems primarily aimed at giving people worldwide reason to feel increased resentment towards the US. The illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq - opposed by the world majority and the UN - just being one recent example in a long history. Acting with disrespect (towards international democracy, the right of nations, and of individuals) and violence fuels terrorism - it does not diminish it.


Sentiments Towards the US [August 21, 2003]

I usually don't make an entry just to link to something else, but think this story is very revealing. It certainly reflects sentiments I find when I talk with other Europeans - both progressive and conservative (although the European conservatives would be seen as pretty liberal in the US). The dislike revealed in this survey seems to be based partly on the global effects of the US foreign policy (aimed at promoting US economic, cultural and military dominance throughout the world), and partly on the values promoted by the US.

These values are promoted in deeds, although not always in words, and include: Corporations and profit making over the needs of people. Individuals over community. Increasing the gap between wealthy and poor within the US and worldwide. Lack of understanding and respect for other cultures and religions. Arrogance and self-centeredness (our view is the only right one). A country founded on genocide, lieas and theft, and continuing thievery. [ 2 | 3 ]. The list can be made very long.

According to investigations carried out at the end of 2002 by the PEW Research Centre, dislike of the USA has risen in the last year in Latin American countries as well as in Middle Eastern nations. Around 81% of Pakistanis expressed aversion to US foreign policy. In Argentina loathing of America reaches 73% and just 6% of the Egyptian public has a favourable view of the United States.

The report in general states that the spread of U.S. ideas and customs is disliked by majorities in almost every country included in this survey. This sentiment is even prevalent in friendly nations, such as Canada (54%) and Britain (50%), and even more so in countries where America is broadly disliked. The PEW global attitudes survey interviewed more than 38,000 people in 44 nations between July and October 2002. [...]

The fact that the US is hated for its colonialist foreign policy is even acknowledged by many Americans themselves. Robert Bowman, bishop of the United Catholic Church in Melbourne Beach, Florida wrote, "We are the target of terrorists because, in much of the world, our government stands for dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation. We are the target of terrorists because we are hated. And we are hated because our government has done hateful things." [continued]

Story by Billy I. Ahmed, Bangladesh's The New Nation


Iraq and Violence [August 21, 2003]

Prior to the (illegal) invasion and occupation of Iraq, there were no proven links between that country and terrorism - even according to the CIA. Following the invasion and a short time into the occupation (which is going to be long lasting and costly in every way), there certainly is. Predictably, we are seeing a grassroots and homegrown resistance aimed at an occupying power with the intention of asserting their dominance in the oil-rich Middle East. We are also possibly seeing Iraq becoming a haven for terrorism and terrorists - due to the general resentment towards the US and the current lawless conditions. Terrorism following, not prior to, the occupation.


My Mail [August 19, 2003]

Nearly all my mail from Europe over the last few months has arrived opened. The same is the case of some US mail (especially packages). After two such occurrences over the same number of days, I finally went to the post office. They said - as I expected - that the mail is opened for security reasons. Opened, with no letter of explanation - and consistently leaving the envelope or package open...! The person at the post office mentioned that mail is opened at random. The frequency my mail is opened at seems to indicate that I may have the privilege of being on some sort of list (which I do see as a priveledge - akin to being on Nixon's famous list). The fact that they leave the mail opened (single minded concern for "security" - no concern for the recipient of the mail) reflects in its own little way the general attutude of the current US government.


Security [August 15, 2003]

Keywords: In terms of security, ineffective strategies. Military - often opposite effect. Airlines, ridiculous and ineffective measures (so many other ways to bring a plane down, so many better targets). Interview before visa, difficult to see how can be effective (will a terrorist openly admit what they are planning in a five or ten minute interview with an overworked embassy employee?). Only goals seems to be to appear to do something.

Real security: Healthcare, education. Withdraw US cultural, economic and military dominance. Aid countries in strengthening their own culture and traditions, their own local economies - on their own terms.


Culture (and cult) of Immaturity [August 2, 2003]

The US seems to have a cult of immaturity.

When I first came to the US, another Norwegian student made the observation that the US mainstream culture, (and thus a large segment of the population) seem to be stuck in adolescence - they do not mature beyond. It certainly seemed true (and still does) in terms of food choices, the media and entertainment. Still, I remember thinking that it had to be an exaggeration, especially in people's understanding of and view on the world.

The longer I am here, the more the description seems overall accurate. It goes far beyond food choices, media and entertaiment.

This reflection was sparked by a particular observation: The US media and government applauds and celebrates the assassination of Saddam Hussein's sons. How can anyone celebrate the death of another human being, unless they have lost touch with their own humanity - and thus their source of maturity.

The same lack of maturity is reflected in a large number of the (other) views and actions of the White House. Some examples: The "you are with us or against us", black-and-white, non-nuansed, view promoted by Bush. The habitual response to violence and tragedy with actions that lead to further violence and tragedy (for humans on "the other side"). The de-humanization of opponents.

US mass media systematically promote immature behavior. It is seen as "cool" to (apparently, but not truly) meet ones own needs with little concern for the needs of others. Unfortunately, this is picked up by a significant number of people, to the dismay of others.