Heritage Blowback

Heritage Blowback: The Unintended Consequences of Carte Blanche Support for Anti-Soviet Holy Warriors in Afghanistan

by Neal M. Hughes, 28 December 2007

The word jihad is an Arabic word for “struggle, warfare,” and other words in English. From this root is derived mujahedeen, or one who does jihad. The term was popularized in the 1980s as the valiant equivalent of Abyssinian warriors meeting Italian machine gun fire and air strafes on horseback with swords and flintlocks. The stated purpose of all the Anti-Soviet fighters was to liberate the lands infested with the Plague of Marx. In the West, and the USA in particular, the various groups – Nicaraguan contras, Cuban Exile Militants, and the mujahedeen – were seen as not so much as a viable fighting force as a continuous burr under the Soviet Union’s saddle. The history of such black ops has not been pretty. Let us consider Victor Jara’s broken hands in the Santiago Stadium and the 30,000 missing youth of Argentina alongside the murdered Archbishop Romero and nuns in El Salvador for the heritage of US funding of such activities in Central and South America.

Heritage? A good word for a paragraph transition here, albeit, this author must admit, a bit forced. The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank which was very close to the Republican administrations of the twentieth and current centuries after its foundation by Scaife in the early 1970s. During the rise of the Communist government in Afghanistan, an indigenous movement — so far as any foreign movement can be in that tribal land – found its socialist revolution under attack by truly semi-indigenous agents, i.e., the Code of the Pashtun and conservative Sunni Islam of the Afghani’s preferred flavor. As a consequence, the Communist government “invited” the Soviet Union’s troops to “assist” in the pacification of the various Afghan rebel forces.

Urging the tribal and Islamic fighters ever onwards were a mixture of Cold Warriors, think tanks, and assorted arm chair strategists, the Heritage Foundation included. Indeed, by 1987, The National Review in a short article entitled “1987: Year Eight” cited Joe Phillips of the Heritage Foundation. Buckley, through Phillips, through Scaife, had this to say:

James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation suggests that the U.S. take several steps in addition to providing the current estimated $470 million per year to the resistance: more modern weaponry, radios, mine detectors, medicine, training. Aid to Pakistan, next item on the Soviet menu, should also be boosted.

Phillips urges that Afghanistan be given top priority in U.S. diplomatic and propaganda efforts. Despite some early optimistic predictions that Afghanistan would be “the Soviets’ Vietnam,” we have done almost nothing to make it so. We can’t count on the Soviet media, after all, to play the role our own media played in Vietnam-the central weakness of the analogy. Quiet aid to the resistance isn’t enough. Collateral costs to the Soviets need to be increased. (1)

Indeed, Joe Phillips of the Heritage Foundation – by then receiving additional funding by Joseph Coors, Sr. and the Koch family – had an entire laundry list of proposed steps to make Afghanistan into the USSR’s own Vietnam. Among these were:

Improving organizational abilities: The mujahedeen should be working to provide Afghan civilians with long-term alternatives to Communist rule. Resistance groups should be encouraged to organize and mobilize the people of the areas where they are strongest.

Aid for Pakistan: Islamabad has borne significant security risks on behalf of the Afghan resistance and continues to bear the brunt of the economic burden imposed by three million Afghan refugees. Washington should help reduce these risks and lighten the economic burden. The Administration has proposed a six-year $4 billion program of military and economic aid to Pakistan. The aid should be focused on the Pakistani provinces bordering Afghanistan, where it would help ease tensions between refugees and Pakistanis. (2)

“Aye, but there’s the rub,” Will Shakestaff had Hal to say upon the contemplation of suicide. There, verily and forsooth, was the rub. Due to the humanitarian crisis encountered in the refugee camps of the North West Frontier and Tribal areas of Pakistan, the slack was picked up by the Taliban and eventually the Arabian largesse of bin Ladin and his al-Qaeda. The “military and economic aid to Pakistan” largely having evidently gone into the mysterious place wherever “military and economic aid” goes, i.e., to the military and some well connected pockets; the obvious void was then filled through Arabian largesse.

There can be no denying that both the Taliban and bin Ladin’s al-Qaeda made a great deal of friends in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Young Arabs of the fundamentalist bent came to Afghanistan to join the mujahedeen and the Taliban, where they were by-and-large rejected: somehow a lack of Pashtun or Farsi is a bit of a detriment to successful cooperation. However, those who did not flock to the ascetic image of the “perfected” Arab holy warrior, Osama bin Ladin initially, soon did when in Afghanistan.

The image of an Afghanistan, the first step of a worldwide quest for the restoration of the Caliphate under al-Qaeda’s tutelage and money, soon evidently led to open discord between the Taliban – then in power in Kabul with all the accoutrements of power (outlawing the shaving of men’s beards, recorded music, and destroying the relics of pre-Islamic Afghanistan such as the Giant Buddhas) – who were at least as interested in not advancing the revolution to the world, at least not just yet, reminiscent of “Communism in One Country,” with al-Qaeda playing the role of Trotsky, albeit not with ice ax to the back of the head, but “safe” from the fear of extradition within the literal Al-Qaeda, bin Ladin’s base camp. The Taliban were free in the meanwhile to battle tribal rivals and to whip women who dared to attend school or not cover their faces adequately in public.

Once upon a time the various factions were the Darlings of the Western World, making most partisans appear to be veritable Playboys in comparison. When a peace was brokered in 1988 the Cold Warriors and Armchair Generals of the various think tanks came to armed penmanship:

“The continued bloodshed in Afghanistan would be a blight on the Reagan administration and a lost opportunity for freedom and self-determination of the Afghan people,” the letter said. “How can you assure that the U.S. will continue to support the Mujahedeen {Afghan resistance fighters} when the U.N. accord prohibits`outside interference?’ “

Resistance leaders have vehemently denounced the accords and pledged to escalate their struggle against the Soviet forces and the Soviet-backed Kabul government.

The delegation included Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation; Cullom Davis, chairman of the Heritage Foundation board of trustees; retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel O. Graham, chairman of High Frontier; and Peter Flahert . . . .

Also in the group were William W. Pascoe III, a Heritage Third World analyst, Constantine Menges, a former National Security Council expert on Central America, and Dan McMichael, a conservative activist. (3)

Looking back upon the entire debacle of Afghan aid, one analysis finds that the Taliban were, at least in the person of Mullah Omar, tied to the original mujahedeen:

Backfiring of U.S. Policy

“Then emerged the Taliban. They came together in Pakistan in late 1994 as a militia of Pashtun Islamic fundamentalist students. These students had received training in Pakistan’s religious schools attended by refugee men who had formerly fought as the CIA-backed mujahedeen. Indeed, a man who played a significant role in the advent and growth of the Taliban movement was Mullah Mohammed Omar, the current chief of the Taliban and former fighter under a CIA-trained commander. Garnering power and support during a peak of political fractiousness, the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, declaring themselves the legitimate government of Afghanistan.” (4)

We know what happened after the Taliban came to power. We know what happened after bin Ladin and his al-Qaeda were given safe haven in Afghanistan. Indeed, it does even border upon hyperbole to say that the conservative think tanks were the lead cheerleaders for the mujahedeen, merely to thump the nose of the evil empire of the CCCP. Imagine their surprise when they actually won and then did what they seem to do best in Afghanistan, revert to a series of tribal wars, with the Taliban as the newest metatribe coming out on top for a spell, and enabling al-Qaeda. Is it a leap of the imagination to suggest that the Heritage Foundation and other think tanks bear some intellectual responsibility for al-Qaeda’s attacks, or should at least deal with their backwash instead of urging on a new war for such purposes? But such would be the world of honor, and not of pragmatic “deep thought” by soi disant experts as the “scholars” and “fellows” at the various Scaife/Koch/Coors institutes and foundations. With such thought coming from such institutes, one is ready for non-experts with a surplus of common sense than these experts.

Notes:

1. “1987: Year Eight.” National Review 23 (30 Jan. 1987).
2. ibid.
3. David B. Ottaway, Lou Cannon,” Conservatives Oppose Afghan Accords; Groups’ Delegation Says Reagan Has `Let Down’ Resistance Fighters’”. The Washington Post. 13 Apr. 1988, p. A-30.
4. Reyko Huang, “Lessons from History: U.S. Policy Toward Afghanistan, 1978-2001.” Oct. 5, 2001. URL: http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/afghanistan-history-pr.cfm. Accessed 28 December 2007.

New Feature: Critical analysis of Republic candidates’ websites

With my faithful Wunderhund Maybelle ever lounging on the futon as she likes to stay within reach of Daddy, we shall begin our new series with Mike Hugabe — je m’ajuste — Huckabee. We are sorry for that slight slip of the electronic pen there, but after the news hit the blogosphere and the wires of the former governor’s most unenlightened views on quarantine of we poor Latter Day Lepers, we thought of the soon-to-be-late Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Celui-là is such a kidder! The fat are so jolly! Wait! He’s been lidoed and the skin surgically removed (enough we hear to have put an entire Haitian village to work gearing up for the upcoming baseball season). He is no longer fat. It stands to reason that he is no longer jolly . . . so his site must be serious.

Well, Maybelle has had a bit of fake Mozzarella. Skim milk, not sure from what animal, but we’ve a feeling it ain’t buffa. The price of dairy is outrageous these days! So she can begin her nightly foray into squirrel eradication by dream, and i can write. Where were we? Oh, yes, Hugabe.

His first bit is wisdom is to extol the virtue of the “Fair Tax,” which we liken unto “Safe Coal,” by telling us that “When the FairTax becomes law, it will be like waving a magic wand releasing us from pain and unfairness.”

I’m sorry Mike, but is that lifted from a funeral sermon? “Releasing us from pain and unfairness” — “magic wand” — we can’t help but to think that Susan Sontag died much too early, much, much too soon for those bits not to be in a postulated update of “Notes on Camp.” So Mike likens himself to what or whom? Tinkerbelle? Taxes are death? We always thought that they were the price of a civilized society.

The wand and funereal imagery are bad enough, but let’s see what the Bland Baptist hast wrought on foreign policy: “Iraq is a battle in our generational, ideological war on terror. The Democrats delusionally deny that the war in Iraq is part of the war on terror even as we fight Al Qaeda there. Al Qaeda is a major ally of the Sunni insurgents in their fight against the Shiite majority. One of the most significant events in the Iraq War was Al Qaeda’s bombing of the Shiites’ Golden Mosque in Samarra in February 2006. That bombing led to the dramatic rise in sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites we’ve seen ever since, furthering Al Qaeda’s goal of fomenting chaos and civil war. What’s in it for them? They need territory, a place to plot their evil and train their murderers for another September 11.”

Evidently he didn’t get news from September 2001: al Qaeda is an Arab Peninsular phenomenon, or was, until even the Arabs got tired of them and booted them first to Sudan and then Afghanistan. Then we invaded Iraq, a secular state whose goal was to be the New French Empire East, trumpeting Baathist unity with no room for silly Wahhabi nonsense, but lots of soldiers and oil revenue to march them. Now they may or may not be in Iraq. Who knows who has the legit franchise and who are 14th ST knockoffs? I think if you look closely, you will see the dye on the LV’s are a bit askew from the genuine article . . . oh, that is for handbags. Our Arabic here is pretty limited to foodstuffs (something I am sure M. Hugabe knows a bit about) like kofta, pita, babaganoush, kebab, etc., and a few odd religious phrases and words, so I can’t be sure if they are genuine or not in Irakistan. I am pretty sure they were in Afghanistan.

We shall give him a B+ for the attempt at alliteration with “Democrats delusionally deny” but that is pretty lame, not up with Buchanan’s “nattering nabobs of negativism.”

Well, we don’t need to say that loss of a progressive income tax for a VAT is not going to happen. Has one ever heard of a tax going away? When we were in economic exile in the wilds of Long Island, Land of Mystery and Largely Unexplored Suffolk County, we discovered while needing to clean some paint brushes, via Newsday that some little bitty draw bridge in Nassau had been paid for by a toll and a tax. They were levied in the early 1920s. They were used to support the relief of the toll takers. No maintenance had ever been needed for them, being built in the 1920s and not much ship traffic is inbound from the teeming Brooklyn wharfs these days needing a short safe harbor. In short they were a patronage job, a sinecure for and from the Republic Party of Nassau County for the benefit of its loyalists.

But I digress. Let us get back to Flat Tax/Clean Coal. This, The Huck assures us, would only be for new products, not used. Glory hallejulah! We not-working working lads can rejoice for we rarely buy anything new and retail. Can’t one see the container ships coming in from Genoa and Marsailles, filled to the brim with European used couture! Why I might have that 42 R Armani suit after all! Tax free! Imagine, we will all look like people from New Guinea, with odd tees with logos so oddly out of place that we once again wish Sontag were still with us, only in haute couture. I rather fancy the idea of Butch and Leroy ditching their Rustlers for some Matinique. I don’t know about you, but I am not above buying used Liberty of London shirts, frayed cuffs and odd Euroodors be damned, if I can get it tax free! Screw you VAT!

His Immenseness –I correct myself again! — what is a Baptist preacher’s title? Brother, I presume, like Francis, Brother Hugabe is on something there: a government based on thrift stores. The dollar is so weak it won’t be long until our betters who were relying upon our continued conspicuous consumption shall be reduced to offing their relics in consignment stores for pence on the pound and we shall be there to gobble them up, well, have we any money, we shall.

Lest anyone think I lie, look up the hilarity on http://www.mikehuckabee.com for yourselves.

The Republic must be restored.

Tom Paine wrote that “these are the times that try mens souls,” and the time is apt for those to be repeated often and loudly. The basic premise of government, as realized by Hobbes, Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers was that government was a contract: the people gave up certain rights (such as absolute control of all their wealth and profit and a the right to mete out justice) in return for the government being not merely derived from the consent of the governed, but as an agent for the mutual protection of the people under whom the government was established.

The Divine Right of Kings, of Might Makes Right, and that government is an oligarchy set up to maintain and increase the power and wealth of a few is long passed in theory. But these days, here at the dawn of the Twenty-first Century, a new rise of a tyranny masquerading as a Security State. Cloaked in a flag dripping blood from the innocent spewed out by the acts of a few religious fanatics, holding a Bible in one hand and the threat of peine fort et dure along with the threat of indefinite detention with no due process or even our ancient right of habeus corpus, a man with little wit and slim to nothing to recommend him alongside his cabal of toadies and henchmen has been allowed to ride roughshod over our entire Republic.

We find ourselves embroiled in another Asian Adventure, after having failed to learn our lesson from the Vietnamese Fiasco in Iraq. Iraq! A state which was our ally against the Iranians after their Islamic Revolution! Iraq! A state which had not threatened any of its neighbors save the decadent al Sabbah tyranny of Kuwait for over ten years. Yes, that Iraq.

Why? We still do not know the whole truth. Every reason offered has been proven to either be a lie or changed. After the 19 religious fanatics from ARABIA not Iraq flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and allegedly aimed for the Capitol itself, “everything changed” according to the official account of this Administration.

Indeed, it did, as we were set back further in our quest for a government by, for, and of the people in one fell swoop with a rubber stamp Congress and a tyrant in the White House and another at the Naval Observatory in the city of Washington.

Perhaps we are saddled with the nincompoop Bush and the evil Cheney and Chertoff until 2009, but they can be thwarted at every move by a strong Democratic Congress and a handful of Independents and Republicans who can keep additional spread of the cancer of cronyism, backslapping and lust for absolute power, the Constitution and our contract be damned!

Now is the time for the people to stand firm and speak out! Are you as tired of being in a civil war as am I? Are you sick of having dissent equated as treason? Do you want the Constitution restored? Then erect your verbal barricades and arm yourselves with the truth and then join the battle to save the Republic by restoring Constitutional Rule to our nation.

The First Hundred Hours and the New Congress: Let’s not Forget Energy!

Nancy Pelosi will be our Speaker of the House in just a few days and has already promised 100 hours of legislative initiatives. Let us, while keeping our big picutre firmly in mind — peace, a healthy working America, real democracy, a just wage and fair trade, as well as environmental stewardship — but not ignore our message of energy independence and the promotion of research of alternatives to nuclear, coal and other fossil feuls. A campaign of a very diverse group of governmentalal watchdog agencies, the Dept. of Energy itself, along with environmental educational and activist organizations, as well as alternative energy technology industries are urging a change in our current budgeted energy policies.

Right now much more public money is being spent to “improve” coal standards, develop deepwater drilling technology and a new generation of nuclear reactors and a highly suspect nuclear-hydrogen program’s development to the detriment of increasing conservation, creating an advanced solar, geothermal, wind turbine, and tidal energy non-polluting energy policy.

One agency, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, issued the following letter urging immediate action in the new Congress regarding our federal energy policy:

Dear Friends:

We are working to build new coalitions of renewable energy groups and trade associations, safe energy and environmental groups, businesses and others to redirect our nation’s energy priorities away from nuclear power and fossil fuels and towards the renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies that can cleanly and sustainably power our future and at the same time address the global climate crisis….

…Our first effort is below: a letter to Congress seeking a budget shift from nuclear and fossil fuel programs to renewable and efficiency programs in the Fiscal Year 2007 federal budgetrces for renewable and efficiency programs for FY 2008.
Because the new Congress intends to act on FY 07 budget issues very quickly, we intend to get this letter to Congressional leaders next week!
We encourage all national, regional and local organizations to sign on. Please let us know by 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, December 26. Please reply to this e-mail with your name, organization, city and state.
Thanks for your help and support!
Michael Mariotte, Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
nirsnet@nirs.org 301-270-6477

Indeed, as Mr. Mariotee notes, time is fleeting for FY 2007 budget changes and to begin addressing the 2008!

A remarkable coalition of researchers, advocates and policy experts have joined together to address the budgetary concerns for the First Hundred Hours. These are: Cascade Associates, Environmental and Energy Study Group, Geothermal Energy Assoc., Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Public Citizen, SUN DAY Campaign, and the US Combined Heat and Power Association. In a letter due to be released on 27 December to every member of Congress, they urge the following:

In general, we support what we understand to be Congress’ intent to fund programs in FY’07 at the FY’06 level as being a good starting point for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) sustainable energy programs.
We believe that it is essential to sustain funding at or above historic levels (i.e., FY’06 and earlier) for the core renewable energy and energy efficiency programs in DOE as well as in other federal agencies.
We also note that as work progressed during this past year on the FY’07 appropriations bills, consensus was reached between the Congress and the White House to expand a number of sustainable energy programs as well as launch several new energy efficiency and/or renewable energy initiatives. We believe these programs and funding levels should be a part of the final FY’07 appropriations bill.
However, we recognize – and fully support – Congress’ desire to not increase overall spending limits and, in fact, to move towards significantly reducing the size of the federal budget deficit.
Therefore, we recommend that any increases in the funding levels for the federal energy efficiency and renewable energy programs be offset by commensurate, or greater, reductions in selected fossil fuel and commercial nuclear power program accounts.
We believe that a shift in federal funding from mature and/or polluting technologies to cleaner, safer, and sustainable energy sources offers the best option for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing oil imports, and addressing the nation’s other pressing energy and deficit-reduction needs within the constraints of a very tight federal budget.

PDA certainly endorses these moves. Not only are many of the present DOE endorsed projects are just continuations of existing technology that are potential polluters and greenhouse gas emitters, but due to their nature, set to further enlarge the tremendous commercial energy corporations’ coffers at the public’s expense.

PDA urges all to contact their representatives and their staff along with the senators and their staff to support a green conservative DOE budget aimed at alternative fuels and saving energy, not continuation of the same failed policy that is geared towards commercial fossil and nuclear corporations.

PDA: Building a New Alliance

The people spoke at the polls in November 2006: we are tired of war, nonresponse to crises actual and pending, and business as usual with an agenda set out by the “Usual Suspects” in Washington alongside their corporate and special interest allies and enablers. The Democrats sent a majority to the House in November, and Nancy Pelosi has been elected Speaker of the House. We Democrats sent a bare majority of one (counting three Independents who will caucus with the Democrats) to the Senate. The fragile majority is threatened by a single Senator crossing the aisle to the Republican side or falling unable to carryout her or his duties. Even in many of the contested losing elections, Democrats came unbelievably close to gaining House and Senate seats, demonstrating the political pendulum swing we are witnessing.

The Senate right now is extremely important in 2008, as is the Presidency and keeping control of the House. Right now the House can hold up all money bills. In the Senate, however, we are left to the 100 ladies and gentlemen there who have the ability not only to approve treaties and Presidential appointments, but to override Bush vetoes as well. During the less than two years we have left before the General Election, it is imperative that PDA continue its mission of growth while continuing its ongoing agenda of education, action, and support for Progressive candidates.

Right now PDA is operating on a shoestring budget with only four paid full-time employees. Our volunteers staff many of the day-to-day efforts, such as all the State Caucus and Chapter work, as well as on the national level, doing, such tasks as research and action alerts. But, due to the dedication of our members, some 6000 members right now are donating around $8000 per month in direct credit card deductions! As a nonfederal PAC, PDA cannot take more than $5000 in individual contributions, but we do have a mechanism in place for larger donations.

PDA believes that all Americans deserve a widened and level playing field, in all areas of life from politics to health care. We believe most Americans do also. Our imperialistic military-industrial Pay to Play politics need to be made as obsolete as the policies of the Gilded Age of Robber Barons and political machines. A Healthy America, A Peaceful America, Fair Trade and Just Wage, Social and Economic Justice, and Environmental Stewardship is our message. Electing Progressive Democrats is our goal to achieve this. How can you help?

You can help by fighting for an America in which you can take pride again! A United States rooted in peace, a clean environment and an end of corporate control of the political process! How? By joining PDA and volunteering your time or financial resources to the effort to see the America you long for made manifest!

Whistling Dixie in Congress and on the Golf Links

Dixie is the colloquial term for southernmost Utah, so called from its warm climate — palm trees grow there — and a failed 19th Mormon Church experiment in cotton planting. St. George in Washington County is the heart of this Dixie, not Alabama. Like its close neighbor, Las Vegas, the area has been booming. One never really knows why an area booms. Is it word of mouth alone? Boosterism, a desire to be in on the ground floor, or a lemming-like advance? Now, Washington County, Utah is a gem. Only 110 miles of Las Vegas, it has two colleges, a major medical facility and more scenic beauty than anyone not familiar with the area can imagine. It is home to the Red Rocks area of Utah — a pristine desert landscape that borders the world famous Zion National Park and the Mojave Desert. An odd place for a city of mega-mansions and golf courses, certainly, this driest county in the second driest state in the Union, but so was Las Vegas.

Some in the local county and city government was the Las Vegasification to continue, minus the casinos and bars — this is Utah, after all, and the polygamist Fundamentalist Latter Day Saint sects run out of Hildale (and its neighbor, Colorado City, Arizona) is in Washington County. Washington County has been a very popular place for financially secure people in the Salt Lake area to retire: lots of sun, palms, little snow or ice, golf galore, and as always, location, location, location. This is an area of unfathomable beauty: red sandstone formations, and a safe, secure, family friendly place.

But boosterism has come at a price, socially, environmentally and politically. The local three man county commission has been boosting more growth at public expense masked in “environmentalism” in the disingenuously named S. 3636/HR 5769, the “Washington County Growth and Conservation Act” sponsored by Senator Bob Bennett and Rep. Jim Matheson. This bill was thankfully dead with Hastert’s recent last gavel bang, but it has a chance of rearing its head again in the new Congress.

This bill seeks to redefine pubic lands, the majority of which are already under the protection of the Zion National Park, while failingto protect over 70% of the land that is of “wilderness quality” and to give away land to the highest bidders and carve out water, utility, transportation and off road vehicle track corridors. Yes, corridors, not corridor. The bill sought to sell off 40 miles square of public land — with no methodology of determining where as well as to give away land to the County outright!

Just coincidentally, one of the county commissioners, Alan
Gardner happens to have a large interest in “The Ledges” an “upscale” housing and golf development on the edge of the Zion National Park in St. George, along with his St. George city councilman brother Larry. Both also own grazing contracts with the Bureau of Land Management in the wilderness area outside the city for their cattle business. Equally coincidentally, another county commissioner, Jay Ence, who is pushing these bills happens to be the former head of a development company whose three nephews now own the company following his retirement. The Salt Lake Tribune, notes that just for starters,

Environmentalists, some local officials and residents oppose the plan, which also outlines a route for a new highway through tortoise habitat in the Red Cliffs Desert Preserve that potentially could link a development in which the Gardner brothers havea financial interest and land they own to Interstate 15.

but adds that

To their credit, Ence and the Gardners seem to have scrupulously followed Utah law concerning conflicts of interest while in public service. They’ve certainly done some good as public servants and undoubtedly feel that election to office is a mandate for their pro-growth agenda.

 

One might term the SL Tribune‘s corrolary to be “damning with faint praise,” at best. The local St. George newspaper, TheSpectrum, has also exposed the connections between the developers and city/county “fathers” of Dixie with less word mincing.

Seldom has such legislation been met by such outrage by the press, environmental and citizens groups and even business as this fiasco. The SierraClub; Peter Metcalf, the head of Black Diamond Equipment, Ltd., and a board member of the Outdoor Industry Association; the Zion-Mojave Wilderness Organization , the Southern Utah Wilderness Association (SUWA), and thousands of individual Utahans and lovers of nature and proponents of intelligent growth/conservation strategies have joined in opposing these bills. Even the Bush Administration’s own Department of the Interior, in the person of Chad Calvert , Principal Deputy Asst. Secretary of the Interior, Land and Minerals Management opposed these bills!

The proposed public highway through the desert (near The Ledges luxury housing development partially owned by the Brothers Gardner) happens to be a sanctuary for the desert tortoise. The “water developlment corridor” aspect is a proposed 90 mile cross country pipeline from Lake Powell to St. George, to feed the thirst of the golf links and 200,000 new homes that the local developers want to see. Over 25 Million people downstream of Lake Powell on the Colorado River would be affected by these bills if the water development was allowed! ATV trails! High lines! Squashed tortoises! Land giveaway! Corporate welfare! How about a pony and a Mercedes for the each member of the Washington County Commission and St. George city council while we’re at it?

The people of Washington County don’t want unbridled growth.
They want wise oversight. They want to see the Red Rocks and hike the canyons unimpeded, not a New Las Vegas. As a matter of fact, had these two bills not died in the House and Senate committees where they sat ready for action on the floor, this may have been a new low in corporate welfare and disingenuity. Luckily they died, but they may return…

And if you think that is bad enough, wait until you learn about the gas development proposed in Dixie…..

Action Alert — Stop Development of Zion-Mojave Wilderness

PDA
Action Alert

Urge your Representative, especially
those in the House Resources Committee to oppose the present bill HR
5769
This bill is suspect from environmental, conservation and
cultural reasons — Even the Bush Administration is in opposition!

HR 5769, introduced by Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) on 12 September 2006
and its companion bill, S. 3636 introduced by Sen. Bob Bennett
(R-UT)
on the same date has the short title of The Washington County Growth and
Conservation Act of 2006. Despite its stated desire to
“conserve,” in reality, the bill does while designating certain areas
of the environmentally sensitive Zion-Mojave area of Washington County,
Utah, protected areas, does much more than that. It seeks to
authorize — at government expense — “critical water, transportation
and utility corridors.” A similar proposed designation of lands
in Nevada (the White County
Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2006) was
to be subject to public hearings on disposal of public lands, while
this bill allows over 20,000 acres to be gobbled up for such projects
as developers might see fit with no such public input required.
The Nevada bill also sought to help purify the waters of Lake Mead, and
promote water conservation and the development of affordable housing
through Nevada.

The full text of the bill(s) are available via GovTrack.us
(http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-5769)

During initial subcommittee testimony against the bill, Jerry
Greenberg, Vice President for Regional Conservation with The Wilderness
Society on behalf of Friends
of Nevada Wilderness, The Nevada Wilderness Project, Campaign for
America’s Wilderness, Red Rock Audubon, and The Wilderness
Society spoke in opposition to the Washington County legislation.

“Greenberg noted that the Nevada and Utah bills are very different. The
Washington County bill has inadequate wilderness protection, leaves out
many of the most ecologically sensitive areas, and sets arbitrary
mandates on land sales. While conservationists have consistently said
they believe the acreage figure for land sales in the Nevada bill is
excessive, the parcels must be identified through the BLM’s resource
management planning process. The Utah bill mandates sales for
approximately 20,000 acres and does not require that those lands be
identified through a public planning process.” — Wilderness.org
(http://action.wilderness.org/wildernessII/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=2601348)

Not merely opposed by national environmental groups, but even by
President Bush’s own Bureau of Land Management, the bill is seriously
flawed. Chad
Calvert, the Principal Deputy Asst. Secretary, Land and Minerals
Management, US Dept. of the Interior, noted the danger in the bill in
its present form in testimony before the House Subcommittee on
Forests and Forest Health on 16 September 2006. Calvert noted
that not only would the sale of the nearly 25,000 acres “effectively
require the Treasury to borrow more funds to pay this interest” on the
sale, but that the parcels proposed for sale were unacceptable to the
BLM since “the density of unique and special cultural resources in the
identified area is exceptionally high.”
(http://www.blm.gov/nhp/news/legislative/pages/2006/te060914.htm)

This bill, while protecting a certain percentage of public lands in
Utah, also is a handout for developers who are seeking corporate
welfare to produce more housing in a fast-growing area adjacent to some
of the most environmentally sensitive and culturally significant wild
regions in the West. The “development” portion of the bill’s text
would effectively allow the City of St. George, already the
fast-growing city in Utah to be additionally overdeveloped by the
utility, water, and transportation corridors proposed. Rather
than seeking to conserve electricity and water and fossil fuel use in
the Zion-Mojave area, this bill seeks to encourage it — at public
expense.

Additionally the Southern
Utah Wilderness Alliance is also fighting the drilling of gas wells
in the White River Wilderness Area along with the pork barrel aspects
of HR 5769. The BLM has planned for drilling and construction of roads
for access through this presently pristine wilderness surrounding the
New River. They seek input from the public at the above link to
show disapproval of this move.
(http://www.suwa.org/entry.php?entry_id=792)

Urge all your Representatives and Senators to oppose the bill, HR 5769
and to comment in opposition on the Bureau of Land Management’s plans
to develop the New River Wilderness.

Talking Points;
Environmental Conservation
Cultural Significance
Unsustainable Growth
Corporate Welfare

Free Trade or Fair Trade? What is Good for America.

In today’s Tompaine.com blog Common Sense, “Slowing The Free-Trade Bulldozer”, 30 November 2006 by Mark Engler, a most interesting post. The main points of which are that now during the Lameduck Session, the Progressive Democrats ought to strike against free trade agreements as a preemptive measure.

Engler’s main points are:

Long a bipartisan crusade in Washington, “free trade” is now set to face some overdue opposition. And there’s no better time to start the rumble than in the lame duck session of Congress. . . .

Whether the wave of revulsion against corporation globalization will propel a lasting change in Democratic policy-making will depend largely on figures like Rangel, incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is set to be chair of the Senate Finance Committee. These party chiefs may not be “free traders” like Bill Clinton, but neither are they leading fair trade activists like Brown and Sanders. Each has mixed record on trade issues; both Pelosi and Rangel voted in favor of the Vietnam trade legislation, which may yet be revived in coming months. Moreover, each of these senior Democrats has made rhetorical gestures toward bipartisanship since the election. . . .

More conservative officials at the Democratic Leadership Council hope that these overtures will morph into permanent middle-of-the-road stances. But this is not the kind of “moderation” that the rest of us should regard as a virtue. More exciting, and more laudable, would be if the Democrats come out swinging, taking down trade agreements that fail working families and clearing the way for a globalization built from the bottom up.

This is in total agreement with the position of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA).

How long are the workers of the United States to be held hostage by a New Gilded Age?  How long before neo-serfdom is the norm for all the world?  When will the voters simply drive the Corporate Party (Democratic- Enabler and Republican Branches) away from their statehouses, courthouses, Congress and the White House?

Not until enough sweat has been spilt upon the brows of men and women who are unable to meet their medical costs, rents or mortgages, or even travel to their jobs without a spontaneous burst of common revulsion has united us all in common cause.

What has any giant corporation ever done except for its chief officers?  Other than poisoning the air, soil and water, not paying its fair share of taxes, and taking jobs to Asian and Latin American wage  slaves that had been decent honorable US jobs, that is.

The money we spend in Congress without so much as a blink of an eye or a second thought in  the futile meddling in  Iraq’s civil war could fully fund any governmental single server health insurance scheme — yet the corporate control of our Congress makes it a dream for progressives and the common folk.  Every person who draws a government salary has envious health care insurance.  Odd that those who give it to themselves do not deign to cast a single crumb our way…

Cut and Run and the Ministry of Truth and Net Neutrality

This afteroon, 24 October 2006, London time, the
BBC reports that ” US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has said stabilising the country is possible in a realistic time-frame, despite ongoing sectarian violence” and that General Casey claims that “Iraqi security forces are 75% ready.”

However the BBC notes the following events as Khalizad and Casey spoke:

BBC World affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says the thrust of the briefing was one of reassurance, perhaps to US voters as they prepare for next month’s mid-term elections.

As the two US officials spoke in Baghdad, violence continued across the country. Among the incidents:

* US soldiers shot dead four Iraqi firefighters they had mistaken for insurgents in the western city of Falluja

* A car bomb in Baghdad wounded 13 people

* Two policemen died in Amara, in an attack blamed on Shia militiamen

The same report continued: “At least 87 US troops have died this month – the highest monthly toll since November 2004.”

Meanwhile, back in Washington or Florida or wherever the Commander in Chief happens to be campaigning at present, the White House issued a lie, then a correction and then a clarification on “stay the course.” The phrase, when contrasted with the Democratic alternative of “cut and run” was of course, made popular by Bush himself along with cut and run. Now he denied saying it. Then when caught on tape, he denied denying it or something of the sort, and says that the problems facing his Iraqi War and his near-abandonment of Afghanistan construe a change in strategic, rather than tactical thinking…whatever that means.

What it appears to mean is that (1)Lindsay Graham, (2)the forthcoming Baker Report, (3) the fact that Warner and the a growing majority of both chambers do not care for “stay the course”, and (4) the all-too apparent likelihood of the Republican majority being lost in at least the House, if not the entire Congress, and (5)the enslaught of Republican pedophilia and corruption cases have combined to make Mr. Bush wake out of his stupor. Of course, lacking a Ministry of Truth, and having only Snow and FoxNews to clarify, we await an “official” statement from the throne or “signing statement” as to what constitutes a change from “stay the course.”

Meanwhile, the unitary executive, whatever that is, grinds on. I imagine it to largely be something cooked out of a recipe book by either Stalin or Hitler, myself, or else a concept brought to light by a self-appointed “President for Life” or “Supreme Leader.” In his latest ploy, Mr. Bush seems to think that after signing the budget bill, he is able to single handedly appropriate monies as he sees fit within the DOD. Why stop there? Why not declare the right to tax or void tax at will or else to solely declare the constitutionality of laws, Mr. Bush?

Meanwhile, back in DC, a series of unfortunate corporate hacks posing as Congress refused to allow continued deregulation of the internet. Evidently, the Republican House and its DemocraticEnablers (aka the Corpopublicrats) have dashed down any hope of maintaining status quo in 2006. The ACLU and the Christian Coalition have actually joined forces with Google and other parties to attempt to preserve what we presently have.

But what has that to do with the war in Iraq? Everything. If the corporate media in the USA continues to report by rote all the soundbites as fact coming from the Pentagon and White House and money determines whose blogs get read, then where is the voice of the people and the independent media? Second rate, just as would be any voice of inquery and accurate analysis. We would be turned into minions of a corporate Ministry of Truth where only those who paid get to play, we could read the news from The Guardian, The Independent and Observor and listen to Amy Goodman and the BBC on Pacifica and the shortwave, but where would we see it in print with a huge variety of nuance in individual analyses if the internet became a play to pay toy for the corporations? In a sad place is where.

A sad place indeed, almost as sad as Iraq or the Pentagon or a military family’s notice of the death of their son, grandson, nephew, husband or friend.

$100,000 USD per hour towards Iraq; Civil War in Iraq and Congress.

Besides the Republican sex scandal in Washington which has DC and the talking heads abuzz, several recent developments are definitely worthy of comment. We refer not to the latest Enabling Act of the BushCo, Inc. administration re: habeus corpus and unitary executive legislative/executive power, two other events are especially pressing. While many might not immediately assume that the two are directly connected, they are in more than a mere cursory manner. These two are the cost of the Iraqi debacle, known as the “War on Terror” and the US Congress playing politics and local funding politics at that over an international issue, the full and equitable funding of the FY 2007 Ryan White Care Act.

The Los Angeles Times article by Mark Mazzetti and Joel Havemann, entitled “Iraq War Costing $100,000 per Minute,” via the Seattle Times on 3 February 2006 reports the following:

WASHINGTON — The White House said Thursday that it plans to ask Congress for an additional $70 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, driving the cost of military operations in the two countries to $120 billion this year, the highest ever.

Most of the new money would pay for the war in Iraq, which has cost an estimated $250 billion since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

The additional spending, along with other war funding the Bush administration will seek separately in its regular budget next week, would push the price tag for combat and nation-building since Sept. 11, 2001, to nearly a half-trillion dollars, approaching the inflation-adjusted cost of the 13-year Vietnam War.

At the same time, the intercine civil war in Iraq is claiming as many as 150 victims of torture and murder in a 48 hour period, even during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. News reports of as much of $9 Billion missing from the US Iraq reconstruction project are scandalizing the Iraqis, the US general public and the entire world.

At the same time that all this money is seeming to be the equivalent of keeping out rats by stuffing the holes with paper money, a catfight erupted on the floor of the US Senate and between HIV/AIDS advocacy groups over the funding of the Ryan White Care Act. Hillary R. Clinton (supposed D, NY) took to the Senate floor to basicly say three things: (1) Leave Metro NYC funding alone, since (2)it is the fault of people moving to NYC for HIV treatment from other states that we have the highest case load in the country and (3) that maybe someday soon the other more rural states will get what they need, but NY can’t lose a dime. She does reiterate the fact that a shift in priority needs to occur in the country regarding HIV/AIDS care and that Medicare should be offered as soon as a person presents HIV positive, but that Congress doesn’t seem too interested…

However, as she pointed out, NY doesn’t want to lose any money, claiming that the higher cost of living and more per capita cases in New York means that more monies are required. But what she neglects to mention is that there is a wealth of HIV/AIDS social service organizations that are well funded and organized offering a wide range of services that a smaller city, such as Huntsville, Alabama or Columbia, South Carolina lack.

Sen. Clinton held up the bill for a while, but caved in once the compromise was reached. Had she been more for HIV funding and less for New York, she would have held her breath until she turned blue, ready to filibuster until she fainted from exhaustion.

One blog,
“From the Left,” notes via Jeffery Birnbaum’s WP article on 23 August 2006 that:

Clinton (D-N.Y.) said she opposes the measure because it would lower funding for her home state. But some AIDS groups also see broader political motives at work. Other states that would lose out include California, Florida and Illinois — all places Clinton would need to win if she seeks the presidency. Her critics also note that many of the states that would receive higher funding under the new formula are rural and Southern, which tend to vote Republican.

Birnbaum’s article concludes that she was the only nay in the entire Senate… Quite a few comments came in to this blog, some most virulent towards Mrs. Clinton and the entire AIDS charity network. These include:

Sign the God damned bill Hillary, before no state, including your own, can get a dime of Federal money to treat the epidemic. Tweak it later, add appropriations to other bills, but get the God damned Federal money now before Bush spends every last cent in the US Treasury on Iraq!

and

What is the Gay Men’s Health Crisis thinking by supporting her? These silly queens must be swept away by the Cult of Hillary, just as they are by the Cult of Barbra, Liza, Cher and Mariah.

Time to wake up, gay America! Hillary Clinton is NOT our friend. Never has been and she never will be. Hillary takes care of Hillary.

In the interest of fairness, one must admit that there are defensive comments as well in rebuttal. However, the fact that it appears to be less than Lily White, does give us cause for alarm… Mrs. Clinton has the appearance of counting potential electoral ballots prior to nomination and of making an international crisis one of county lines.

Let us face fact, this Congress, collectively, doesn’t give a proverbial rat’s ass about HIV. If they did, they would fully fund Ryan White, and give up some of the $9 Billion they shat away in Baghdad to contractors that are not rebuilding Iraq and maybe a few hours of the Iraqi Adventure.

HIV funding should be national and not a hodgepodge of self-replicating mini-ministries. The funding should follow the cases and education and outreach should be universal — the same adverts should be in New York and Newark as are in Baton Rouge and Birmingham or Binghampton. The social service organizations and medical clinics should be funded by two criteria: that of case load and that of overhead, not by luck of geography.

The face of HIV is changing, and it is becoming darker and female. It is time for the United States to decide where we want our month of Adventure to go: to Bush’s gulags and fresh cannon fodder on the streets and in the markets of Iraq or to FULL FUNDING for not only Ryan White but active education and social and medical services whether in Brooklyn or Birmingham or Boise.

Noone should play politics with peoples’ lives. It is not only unseemly, but immoral, and just plain old-fashioned bullshit, whether dressed in a senator’s suit or a Talibangelist’s stole.