Lords of Misrule

World Beat
by JOHN FEFFER | Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Vol. 4, No. 43

Lords of Misrule

The bottle looks beautiful. It sports an old-fashioned spring-top stopper. The red, diamond-shaped label features an elegant font. From a distance, the silhouetted landscape on the label looks exotic. It is, like all fine gourmet water, "bottled at source." Even the French name of the water suggests elegance: B'eau Pal.

But wait: B'eau Pal? That sounds rather familiar. You look at the label more carefully. The top of the label reads: "25 years of pollution." The picture on the label isn't an exotic location after all. It's...the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India that poisoned a half a million people and killed thousands back in 1984 when it accidentally released tons of methyl isocyanate.

B'eau Pal is the work of the Yes Men, the dynamic duo of disinformation. Five years ago, one of the pair, Andy Bichlbaum, appeared on BBC as a spokesman for Dow Chemical, which now owns Union Carbide, to announce that his company would provide $12 billion in medical care for the 120,000 victims of the Bhopal calamity and fully clean up the site. Dow lost $2 billion in market value in 20 minutes. That's how long it took before the hoax was exposed.

"We demonstrated what would happen if Dow did do the right thing in Bhopal," Bichlbaum told Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) senior analyst Mark Engler in Pranksters Fixing the World. "What happened? The stock market punished Dow. And if it had really happened, the stock market would have kept punishing Dow. The guy who made the decision would have lost his job. Or he would have been sued by the shareholders, which happens."

The Yes Men's point: The heads of major corporations won't suddenly do the right thing even if someone - somehow, somewhere, some day - manages to reveal to them the errors of their ways. Now five years later, Dow blathers on about the importance of clean water even as it does nothing for the residents of Bhopal, who are suffering from a drought. To catch the attention of all those who have forgotten about Bhopal - virtually everyone except the people of Bhopal and a handful of dedicated activists - the Yes Men created B'eau Pal, a critique wrapped in a jest and shrouded in faux-corporate hype.

With their spoofs of the World Bank, fast food restaurants, and Exxon Mobil, the Yes Men are culture jammers par excellence. Their altered advertisements, mock press conferences, and off-kilter conference presentations are delightful inversions of corporate propaganda. They interrupt life's regularly scheduled programming to bring us these important announcements. They treat corporate reality in the same way that hackers approach websites or Marcel Duchamp approached the Mona Lisa.

They are, in other words, the ultimate Lords of Misrule.

During the Middle Ages, at the end of the Christmas holiday, came Twelfth Night, a tradition dating back to the Saturnalia of the Roman age. On this one night, under the guidance of a specially selected Lord of Misrule, the world turned upside down. Men become women, beggars became kings, prostitutes became queens, jesters became judges. In this topsy-turvy world, the community indulged in fantasies and tolerated transgressions. Everyone drank a lot and let off steam. Indeed, because it was more a safety valve than a way of imagining alternative futures, Twelfth Night ultimately reinforced the status quo. Nevertheless, the tradition has spawned satirists, surrealists, and subversives of all varieties.

As the latest Lords of Misrule, the Yes Men aim to change the rules of the game. They're not satisfied with an annual flouting of tradition. They're not interested in turning poisoned water into a high-end beverage as a one-off prank. They want to continually bring the high low and the low high, smothering the corporate elite in their own puffery and amplifying the voices of the victims.

This is deadly serious stuff. But remember: If you can't laugh, don't bother to join their revolution.

Torture and the Bomb

The Yes Men are the mirror image of those infamous No Men, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The Yes Men speak truth to power; the No Men spoke lies to the powerless. The president and vice president said no to peace, to international treaties, to economic common sense. When the world protested, they said, "No, we will go our own way." When the U.S. public protested, they replied, "No, history will vindicate us."

This repudiation of moral standards reached its nadir with the torture issue. The Bush administration attempted to create its own moral universe ruled over by a ticking bomb and governed by ruthless expediency. This was not, however, an unprecedented break with tradition, as FPIF contributor Jon Reinsch points out.

"When the United States adopted torture as a weapon in its 'war on terror,' it was a turn to methods that shock the conscience, and when discovered, officials and their media surrogates went to great lengths to gain public acquiescence for their policies," Reinsch writes inTorture and the Bomb. "It was not the first time the country betrayed its highest ideals, nor the first time U.S. citizens were led to deny that any betrayal had occurred. The United States had gone down the same road in 1945, when it used nuclear weapons to destroy two Japanese cities. One case involved the product of intensive scientific research, the other methods dating back hundreds of years, if not to prehistory. But in the way the U.S. government made and justified these fateful decisions, the two stories contain many disturbing parallels."

A Trio of Abuses

The Mexican economy is reeling from the current economic crisis. Its economy will likely shrink by 7.5% this year. Against this backdrop, the Mexican government didn't punish the managers and financiers and government officials responsible for this disaster. Instead, it has cracked down on workers. This month, the government effectively shut down the Mexican Electrical Workers Union, one of the largest independent unions in the country.

"The ravenous right has set out to prove that it's not the rich who will pay for the crisis," writes FPIF columnist Laura Carlsen in Mexico's Union Bust Reveals Flaws in NAFTA. "One of the arguments for eliminating Central Light and its union was that it employed too many people, making it 'inefficient.' For the Calderon government, offering decent employment to more than 40,000 families is a crime in a year when unemployment has doubled and nearly 800,000 Mexican workers have lost jobs due to the crisis."

In Honduras, meanwhile, the human rights violations continue to pile up in the wake of the military coup that ousted Manuel Zelaya. As FPIF contributor Margaret Knapke reports, there have been at least 100 fatalities as well as over 1,000 illegal detentions, many beatings, and more than a dozen rapes by the Honduran police. The number of women killed in Honduras has also gone up dramatically. "Clearly, the Honduran crisis is a real opportunity for Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to prove their human-rights and feminist mettle," she writes in Coup's Impact on Honduran Women. "Conversely, a failure of resolve toward the illicit and abusive coup regime could do lasting harm to Obama's and Clinton's political credibility - and cost many more Honduran lives."

In Central Asia, too, the United States has a chance to pressure one of its occasional allies, Turkmenistan. The leadership there, following the death of long-time dictator Saparmurat Niyazov, promised many liberal changes. They made some steps in that direction - in education, in communications - only to stop and re-impose government controls. "Washington should think about inviting Turkmenistan's leader for a high-level and high-profile visit, while setting out certain human rights prerequisites before the visit would take place," suggests FPIF contributor Farid TukhbatullininTurkmenistan: Waiting for the Second Step.

From the corporate heads of Dow Chemical to the leaders of Mexico, Honduras, and Turkmenistan: The real Lords of Misrule are still in place. The Yes Men are calling all jesters. Let the games begin...

Links

B'eau Pal: http://www.bhopalwater.com/

Mark Engler, "Pranksters Fixing the World," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6514); With a new film, the Yes Men carry forth their gonzo brand of anti-corporate activism.

The Bhopal Medical Appeal: www.studentsforbhopal.org

Mark Dery, "Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of Signs," October 10, 2004; http://www.markdery.com/archives/books/culture_jamming/#000005#more

Jon Reinsch, "Torture and the Bomb," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6516); Bush's use of torture and Truman's use of nuclear weapons bear some sinister parallels.

Laura Carlsen, "Mexico's Union Bust Reveals Flaws in NAFTA," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6519); The Mexican government recently locked out a major union. But who's really responsible for the country's current economic crisis?

Margaret Knapke, "Coup's Impact on Honduran Women," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6518); The coup is claiming more and more victims, particularly women.

Farid Tukhbatullin, "Turkmenistan: Waiting for the Second Step," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6507); The United States can help improve human rights in this Central Asian country.

. . .

Foreign Policy In Focus is a network for research, analysis and action that brings together more than 700 scholars, advocates and activists who strive to make the United States a more responsible global partner. It is a project of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington. www.fpif.org

For more than four decades, the Institute for Policy Studies has transformed ideas into action for peace, justice, and the environment. It is a progressive multi-issue think tank. www.ips-dc.org

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Barack Obama & the Unipolar Moment

Barack Obama and the ‘Unipolar Moment’

By Noam Chomsky

October 6, 2009

Every powerful state relies on specialists whose task is to show that what the strong do is noble and just and, if the weak suffer, it is their fault.

In the West, these specialists are called "intellectuals" and, with marginal exceptions, they fulfill their task with skill and self-righteousness, however outlandish the claims, in this practice that traces back to the origins of recorded history.

With just that much background, let us turn to the so-called unipolar moment. Symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, the collapse of the Soviet Union putatively left a unipolar world, with the United States as the sole global superpower and not merely the primary superpower, as it was before.

Within months, the George H. W. Bush administration outlined Washington's new course: Everything will stay much the same, but with new pretexts.

We still need a huge military system, but for a new reason: the "technological sophistication" of Third World powers. We have to maintain the "defense industrial base" -- a euphemism for state-supported high-tech industry.

We must maintain intervention forces directed at the energy-rich Middle East--where the significant threats to our interests "could not be laid at the Kremlin's door," contrary to decades of deceit.

All this was passed over quietly, barely reported. But for those who hope to understand the world, it is quite instructive.

The George W. Bush administration went far to the extreme of aggressive militarism and arrogant contempt. It was harshly condemned for these practices, even within the mainstream.

Bush's second term was more moderate. Some of the most extreme figures were expelled: Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and others. Vice President Richard Cheney could not be removed because he WAS the administration. Policy began to return toward the norm.

As Barack Obama came into office, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice predicted he would follow the policies of Bush's second term, and that is pretty much what happened, apart from a different rhetorical style that seems to have charmed much of the world.

One basic difference between Bush and Obama was expressed very well in another era, by a senior adviser of the Kennedy administration at the height of the Cuban missile crisis.

Kennedy planners were making decisions that threatened Britain with obliteration, but they were not informing the British about it.

At that point the advisor defined the "special relationship" with Britain: "our lieutenant--the fashionable word is `partner."'

Bush and his cohorts addressed the world as "our lieutenants." Thus, in announcing the invasion of Iraq, they informed the United Nations that it could follow U.S. orders or be "irrelevant." Such brazen arrogance naturally aroused hostility.

Obama adopts a different course. He politely greets the leaders and people of the world as "partners," and only in private does he continue to treat them as "lieutenants."

Foreign leaders much prefer this stance, and the public is also sometimes mesmerized by it. But it is wise to attend to deeds, not rhetoric and pleasant demeanor.

The current world system remains unipolar in one dimension: the arena of force. The United States spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined on its military and it is far more advanced in the technology of destruction.

The United States is also alone in having hundreds of global military bases and in occupying two countries in the crucial energy-producing regions.

NATO is part of the Cold War apparatus that Obama can deploy.

As the unipolar moment dawned, the fate of NATO came to the fore. The traditional justification for NATO was defense against Soviet aggression. With the USSR gone, the pretext evaporated. But NATO has been reshaped into a U.S.-run global intervention force, with special concern for control over energy.

Post-Cold War NATO has inexorably pushed to the east and south. Obama apparently intends to carry forward this expansion.

In July, on the eve of Obama's first trip to Russia, Michael McFaul, his special assistant for national security and Russian and Eurasian affairs, informed the press, "We're not going to reassure or give or trade anything with the Russians regarding NATO expansion or missile defense."

McFaul was referring to U.S. missile defense programs in Eastern Europe and to NATO membership for Russia's neighbors, Ukraine and Georgia, both steps understood by Western analysts to be serious threats to Russian security that would likely inflame international tensions.

A few weeks ago the Obama administration announced a readjustment of U.S. anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe. That led to a great deal of commentary and debate, which, as in the past, skillfully evaded the central issue.

Those systems are advertised as defense against an Iranian attack. But that cannot be the motive. The chance of Iran launching a missile attack, nuclear or not, is about at the level of an asteroid hitting the Earth -- unless, of course, the ruling clerics have a fanatic death wish and want to see Iran instantly incinerated.

The purpose of the U.S. interception systems, if they ever work, is to prevent any retaliation to a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran -- that is, to eliminate any Iranian deterrent. In this regard, antimissile systems are a first-strike weapon, and that is understood on all sides. But that seems to be a fact best left in the shadows.

The Obama plan may represent less provocation to Russia but, rhetoric aside, it is irrelevant to defending Europe--except as a reaction to a U.S. or Israeli first strike against Iran.

The present nuclear standoff with Iran summons the Cold War's horrors--and hypocrisies.

The outcry over Iran overlooks the Obama administration's assurance that the Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement is exempt from the just-passed U.N. resolution on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which India greeted by announcing that it can now build nuclear weapons with the same destructive power as those in the arsenals of the world's major nuclear powers, with yields up to 200 kilotons.

And, over the objections of the United States and Europe, the International Atomic Energy Agency called on Israel to join the NPT and open its nuclear facilities for inspection. Israel announced it would not cooperate.

Though the world is unipolar militarily, since the 1970s it has become economically "tripolar," with comparable centers in North America, Europe and northeast Asia. The global economy is becoming more diverse, particularly with the growth of Asian economies.

A world becoming truly multipolar, politically as well as economically, despite the resistance of the sole superpower, marks a progressive change in history.

© 2009, New York Times News Service

---

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the author of dozens of books on U.S. foreign policy. He writes a monthly column for The New York Times News Service/Syndicate.

Henry Kissinger & his Nobel peace Prize (remember Chile, Indonesia, East Timor & West Papua

With Friends Like These

Kissinger does Indonesia

by Terry J. Allen

In These Times, April 2000

Asked why he quit writing satirical songs, Tom Lehrer replied that after Henry Kissinger won the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, there was nothing left to satirize. Lehrer may have underestimated Dr. K's spirited sense of irony.

This February, the former U.S. secretary of state accepted Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid's invitation to become an unpaid adviser to the Indonesian government. Kissinger accepted "out of friendship for the Indonesian people and the importance I attach to the Indonesian nation."

Twenty-five years earlier, on December 6, 1975, Kissinger-along with President Gerald Ford-paid another friendly visit to Jakarta. The next day, as Air Force One cleared Indonesian air space, President Suharto launched some 10,000 troops on a full-scale attack of East Timor. The goal was to conquer and annex the fledgling nation, which had just been granted independence by Portugal. Kissinger now calls the atrocities that accompanied and followed the invasion-200,000 dead-"regrettable."

To this day, Kissinger maintains that the timing of his 1975 Jakarta visit was a mere coincidence and the United States had no role in the invasion. But a partially declassified State Department document of the December 6 meeting, minutes of a December 18 Washington meeting with his top advisers and other documents have been enough to convince most historians that the United States was complicit in planning, arming and supporting the invasion.

As a recent editorial in the Asian Times noted, "Kissinger is an accomplished liar in the service of his nation and his personal image' Not to mention his bank account. The strength of his fellowship for the Indonesian people is at least rivaled by that of his financial ties to the world's largest gold mine, located in the remote province of Irian Jaya (now called West Papua). Kissinger sits on the board of New Orleans-based Freeport McMoRan Gold and Copper, the majority shareholder in the massive mining operation, which also happens to be Indonesia's biggest taxpayer. Friends and family of Suharto, who was ousted in 1998, still hold much of the minority stake in the mine.

In another "coincidence," Kissinger's trip to Jakarta came at a time of rising Indonesian dissatisfaction with the mining giant and the terms of its operating contract, which was negotiated during the height of Indonesian cronyism and U.S. dependence. Recently, after several Indonesian legislators visited the company's 10,000-square-mile mining operation, Jakarta rejected a glowing environmental impact statement prepared by a firm hired by Freeport.

The government indicated it might review Freeport's contract to operate in Indonesia. But settling into his new role of adviser, Kissinger proffered his first words of wisdom. Chiding Jakarta for failing to guarantee strict adherence to working contracts signed in the past, he cautioned that "it is in the interests of Indonesia" to honor the contract. "Investors also expect an assurance in law enforcement," Kissinger reportedly reminded Yasril Ananta Baharuddinn, chairman of the House of Representative's defense commission.

Law enforcement is certainly what Freeport investors got in West Papua in spades ... and clubs. Local and international human rights groups have linked Freeport with persistent human rights violations. The Free Papua Movement, like its counterpart in East Timor, has long sought independence from Jakarta. During Suharto's 32-year reign, the military, armed with U.S. equipment, burned and strafed villages in an unsuccessful scorched earth campaign to eradicate a tiny band of ill-equipped rebels.

The army reportedly has used Freeport company buses to haul away protesters, and West Papuans have been imprisoned in Freeport chipping containers. Freeport Vice President Paul Murphy vouched for the mine's innocence: Company equipment, he said, was commandeered by the military. "For years Papuans saw the Indonesian military coming in Freeport helicopters, boats, trucks and Jeeps," a U.S. missionary told Time magazine. "So it's hard for them to see the difference."

The mining company also has touted its "exemplary" environmental practices. However, both international and local organizations have accused Freeport of massive pollution. West Papua's Environmental Impact Management Agency says that the operation has contaminated 514 square miles. Freeport officials insist that the devastated area is only 51 square miles and will soon blossom forth with bananas and pineapples.

While admitting that it dumps 220,000 tons of gravel tailings every day directly into the murky Aghawagon River, Freeport insists ,~ the water is safe and that the local hunter gatherers have failed to provide scientific studies to back up their claims that fish and shellfish-and the people who eat them-are being poisoned by metal from the tailings. Nor have they proven that Freeport's huge mountains of stored tailings may be leeching into the groundwater.

While all agree that the mining operation has brought with it many of the accoutrements of 20th century progress, some of the beneficiaries are less than grateful. They charge that economic change, including patterns of land use and ownership, have undermined indigenous cultures and spawned an epidemic of alcoholism.

All this unrest no doubt makes Kissinger and fellow Freeport board members nervous. In his new role of adviser, the former secretary of state promised to hold regular phone discussions with senior government ministers and to visit Jakarta annually. Accepting his appointment and calling himself "a patriotic American," Kissinger said "the role of Freeport in Indonesia must be a strictly commercial one and must be to the mutual benefit of Indonesia and Freeport."

But he promised not to interfere in Indonesian politics (wink, wink).

Source: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/Kissinger_Indonesia.html


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INVASION

Gerald Ford & Henry Kissinger Green-Lighted Indonesia's Invasion of East Timor: Indonesia Murdered Over 100,000 People

Sam Diener, editor of Peacework Magazine, muses on global thought and local action. He will also highlight the online musings of the authors of Peacework Magazine. Please read the guidelines of Peacework's blogs and forums to participate in the discussion.
Posted January 4th, 2007 by sdiener

in

• East Timor
• Freedom of Information
• Gerald Ford
• Henry Kissinger
• Indonesia
• Invasion
• War Crimes

The glowing tributes to Ford as a "nice guy" obscure his crimes.

by Peacework Co-Editor, Sam Diener. To respond to this blog entry, and/or to discuss Ford's and Kissinger's other crimes, and/or to discuss how to challenge the corporate media to cover these issues, please comment on this blog's discussion forum.

The Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975 resulted in the deaths at least 100,000 East Timorese (Amnesty International estimates 200,000) out of a population of only 700,000 people. After a decades-long struggle, East Timor won its independence in 2002, but the effort to rebuild, and the struggle for accountability and reparations, continues.

Too often forgotten is the role that President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger played in these crimes. In the week since President Ford's death, on December 26, 2006, the corporate press has been filled with unctuous praise for President Ford, obscuring his historical roles. The New York Times obituary, for example, didn't even mention East Timor. Describing Ford's funeral, the corporate press referred to Henry Kissinger as a dignitary, instead of as a person guilty of war crimes.

President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger visited Indonesia's dictator, Suharto, in Jakarta in December of 1975, as the Indonesian military, using US supplied weapons, prepared to attack. Ford and Kissinger reassured the despot of US support for Indonesia's invasion.

Activists have long suspected that Ford and Kissinger supported the invasion, but didn't know just how explicit the conversation between Ford, Kissinger, and Suharto was. The following Department of State telegram, featuring a transcript of their discussions, declassified after a long FOIA struggle waged by Brad Simpson of the National Security Archives, shows that not only did Ford and Kissinger approve of the attack, Kissinger actually urged Suharto to "succeed quickly," encouraging the Indonesian military to be more brutal. Both Ford and Kissinger allude to the legal difficulties they could face if it was known they were conspiring to violate US laws which prohibit US weapons from being used by other countries to wage aggressive wars.

The transcript, dated December 6, 1975, was designated, "US Embassy Jakarta Telegram 1579 to Secretary State" (link opens the PDF). A key portion is excerpted here:

Suharto: We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action.

Ford: We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have.

Kissinger: You appreciate that the use of US-made arms could create problems.

Ford: We could have technical and legal problems. You are familiar, Mr. President, with the problems we had on Cyprus* although this situation is different.

Kissinger: It depends on how we construe it. Whether it is in self-defense or is a foreign operation. It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly. We would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens happens after we return. This way there would be less chance of people talking in an un-authorized way. The President will be back on Monday at 2:00 pm Jakarta time. We understand your problem and the need to move quickly but I am only saying that it would be better if it were done after we returned.... If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the President returns home. Do you anticipate a long guerilla war there?

Suharto: There will probably be a small guerilla war.

Indonesia invaded East Timor the next day.

For more on this issue, please see the Democracy Now story which aired 2006-12-27, interviewing Brad Simpson and the investigative journalist Alan Nairn about Ford's and Kissinger's complicity with Indonesia's invasion.

The struggle for self-determination in East Timor continues. Please see, for example, information about the push for an international criminal tribunal, and reparations from the US . Information about the effort to prevent US arms sales to Indonesia is also available, along with much more information, from the East Timor Action Network.

For a broader overview of how the East Timorese policy is consistent with President Ford's policy of fueling human rights violations around the world, see Professor Stephen Zunes' article for Foreign Policy in Focus.

* The reference Ford made to Cyprus alludes to the fact that Turkey used US made weapons to invade Cyprus, and the resulting Congressional pressure, resisted by Ford, to cut off weapons transfers to Turkey.

To respond to this blog entry, and/or to discuss Ford's and Kissinger's other crimes, and/or to discuss how to challenge the corporate media to cover these issues, please comment on this blog entry's discussion forum.

Source: http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/blog/gerald-ford-henry-kissinger-green-lighted-indonesias-invasion-east-timor-indonesia-murdered-ove