Venezuela ready to resist any attack by the U.S. empire



• Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro responds to transnational oil company’s campaign

CARACAS, February 11. – Venezuela is ready, trained and strong enough “to confront any attack by the U.S. empire,” said Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro today, PL reports.

Maduro emphasized that the U.S. administration “has not desisted, nor will it desist, in its attempt to destabilize our country, to turn us back and convert us once again into a dependent oil colony.”

Speaking about the new campaign underway against the country, this time by the transnational Exxon Mobil, the minister indicated that it is all a result of Venezuela’s actions over the past several years to reassert the nation’s interests.

He said that as a result of the Bolivarian government’s efforts over the last nine years, “we have built a conscious people, alert, who are not letting themselves be intimidated and who can never be terrorized.”

As to reactions to the Exxon Mobil actions, he affirmed that the existence of two worlds is evident, “that of the opposition traitors” and the one that believes in dignity, sovereignty and independence, which will overcome any situation.

Maduro also emphasized the importance of the current process based on economic independence, which is different to that of previous years, when the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank used to arrive with a “prescription” that the government of the moment would promptly sign.

Translated by Granma International

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Our crimes in Iraq must not be forgotten
The Independent

If the alliance was arrogant at the time of the invasion, it is even more so today

The people responsible for the war have, of course, moved on, and we must follow their fine example. Still they rise, praise be to them. Such self-belief, such resilience, no sign of weakness, no dribble of an apology. Awesome. Instead of being marched off to face war crimes tribunals they are forgiven their trespasses and rewarded generously.

The Catholic Church blesses and receives the deceiver (Mr Blair); fat banks and oil companies welcome them on boards (Jonathan Powell, Mr. Blair et al); they are called to make peace in the Middle East and lecture us on ethics ( Mr Blair and Mr Campbell) and invited in to the Cabinet (Jack Straw).

For some (still) enthusiastic warmongers – boys who never forgot the excitement of running around shooting their toy guns at strangers – the invasion and colonisation is the best thing ever. The "surge" has worked, they declare – our boys and American soldiers are not dying in the numbers they were, and look!, Iraqis are coming out to play, buy and sell, smoke their pipes in tranquillity, and thousands are returning from exile in Syria. Hip hip hooray. For we're the jolly good fellows.

In the US with the primaries going full blast, John McCain is anointed as the noble saviour, the man who promises to crush all those aliens out there who are plotting to kill the US of A. I attended the BBC Radio 4 Alistair Cooke Lecture delivered by McCain, and what I heard was a man who uses his terrible experiences in Vietnam to justify all future wars he wants his country to wage.

Bill and Hillary both actively and tacitly supported the invasion of Iraq and never once defended the UN route. These candidates are "liberals", we are told. Only in America. None of the above are exactly in the habit of mentioning the caged of Guantanamo or the anguish of Iraqis. Obama did fleetingly touch on these ugly American transgressions, but not for long, and not with intense moral purpose. At least the guy tried, and had the guts to vote against the invasion. The others still seem to believe fervently that the attacks on 9/11 outweigh all other acts of political violence.

If the alliance, its leaders and brass bands were imperiously arrogant when they went into Iraq, they are even more so today. Failure has given them no humility at all and completes the cycle of villainy. They lied and broke international law and appear to have no duty of care towards the innocent inhabitants of that blighted land.

Iraqi deaths are now calculated at around one million. According to international organisations monitoring migrations, Iraq is going through one of the largest and most serious humanitarian crises in the world, with population displacement within and from Iraq. Last November, cholera figures were the worst for 40 years, says an Iraqi health minister. Childhood diseases are rampant. There are relentless bombardments across the country, for reasons not given, on people unseen and labelled al-Qa'ida.

The current hand-wringing about British journalistic standards concentrates entirely on small, domestic matters. The real shame and scandal is that air attacks on Iraq go on and on and get hardly any serious coverage. In 2006, there were 229 such raids; in 2007 there were 1,447 raids (dead uncounted and unidentified). The ghastly, ruthless General David Petraeus says they have now reached a "sustainable level of violence". That is, at least, a truthful assessment and one that explains why we went into Iraq. If the allies allow Iraqi Sunnis, Shias and Kurds to carry on murdering each other day after day, not so many that it turns into a full-blown civil war, we can steal their oil and control the place.

Meanwhile, here Lord Guthrie, once Chief of Staff, and others of his ilk are furious with Gordon Brown for promising that the consent of Parliament will be sought before any future war is launched by the Government. These generals have become extraordinarily bullish after the lamentable collapse of all their strategies in Iraq – thereby fending off any accountability and reasonable interrogation as to why even Basra became disillusioned with our presence.

There are, thank God, people who keep alive truth and awaken our collective conscience. On Tuesday there is a public meeting in London (courtesy of the Stop the War Coalition) organised by Phil Shiner, public interest lawyer and an indefatigable campaigner for justice. For years he has tried to expose the brutality of some of our soldiers in Iraq who have committed heinous crimes against the populations and got away with it. At the meeting, which all good people should attend, Shiner will be talking about the British state and how it tolerates the torture, mutilations and killings of Iraqi civilians.

This Thursday the Jordanian Jamil el-Banna and Libyan Omar Deghayes go to court to argue against extradition to Spain to face charges of terrorism. These are the two men who were last year released from Guantanamo Bay, where they were caged and tortured for five years. Imagine the state of their minds and bodies, their fears of incarceration.

Here they were interrogated by our spooks and police officers, and released without charge. Yet Spain clamours for them and we will deliver them into yet another jurisdiction unless the lawyers can win the case. Helena Kennedy and Geoffrey Bindman have spoken up to defend these poor men; journalist Victoria Britten has investigated charges against them for four years and tells me she is absolutely sure they are innocent. Great Britain, Mr Brown? Tell me about it.

Just released too is the film Battle for Haditha by the exceptionally diligent director Nick Broomfield (I must remember him in my prayers). He has bravely brought to the screen an untold story of the war – the massacres of innocents by the allies in Hathida, a middle-class Sunni city where he says "couples would honeymoon on the Euphrates". Fallujah was similarly "punished". Both places at first supported the invasion and learnt to their cost that their saviours had dark intent and too many had lost their own humanity.

If Blair is elected President of the EU and either Clinton or McCain get the US presidency, the final insults will be added to the endless injury suffered by the Iraqis. They will know conclusively that there ain't no justice in the world. And some of them will turn to terrorism. And the peace we hope for will never come.

y.alibhaibrown@independent.co.uk

How the BBC helps manufacture Public Opinion

Question Time is a TV show on the BBC which purports to allow the public to ask a selected panel of 'experts' various questions of current political interest. In fact, Question Time is a classic example of the tyranny of the new managerial class chattering to itself while studiously ignoring the real issues.

Or as one perceptive critic observes, QT is nothing more than "an echo chamber for approved establishment views."

Despite being constantly pissed-off by its smug, self-gratifying tones I find myself compelled to watch it, always hoping that someone on its weekly panel might say something closely approximating the true state of affairs in British politics.

Invariably this turns out to be a punishing experience. Question Time's talking heads are deliberately chosen either to represent right-wing, establishment views or the kind of anodyne inanities meant to lull the audience back to sleep. Discussion is tightly controlled in order to reflect the values and attitudes of the British establishment's rulers. Radical attitudes are taboo. Week in week out various panels are chosen for their somnambulist nature. Socialists, dissidents and lefties need not apply.

Last night, for example, Afghanistan was discussed, Not one speaker had the intelligence or honesty to question what on earth NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) is doing occupying a country in Central Asia or whether its real purpose to be there was decided by geopolitics, to secure Gas and Oil reserves in that area. It was simply assumed that Britain was there in order to 'bring democracy' to the unruly Afghans, a regurgitation of the 'White Man's Burden', the Victorian rationale for unabashed imperialism.

No discussion of the actual colonialist, imperialist reality behind Britain's military aggression against Afghanistan or Iraq, no discussion of the several war crimes committed by Britain's leaders and Military in either country. Instead this rather bovine acceptance of the Big Lie that we invade countries and cause genocide in order to 'bring democracy' to uncivilized darkies who otherwise wouldn't know any better! Any objections from the audience were kept off. The question was dealt with, the audience were invited to go back to sleep.

This morning, I found the following comments on the Medialens which I feel are worth repeating here. They follow an ongoing debate on that site that in recent times Question Time has made a clear shift to the right:

The "general shift to the right" puts the cart before the horse. It might well be correct to some extent, but this analysis overlooks the role various media plays in the [re]reproduction, the sustaining and most importantly the cultivation of a right wing (or better perhaps to call it a regressive, pro establishment, pro capitalist) ideology.

Furthermore, that this uncritical (of the establishment) viewpoint and representation is normalised and seen as "centre ground". The BBC in particular play a crucial role in this ideological sleight of hand.

Question Time performs a particularly useful role for the establishment. It is representative of the mediated public sphere and as such narrows the discursive frame. Discourse both defines and limits what is speakable about particular subjects. By repetition, the Public Sphere comes to be Question Time. Or better: Politics in this country comes to be best described as "the workings of parliamentary democracy and the choices put forward during various election campaigns" this is then reproduced via media and none better suited to the task than the BBC and Question Time in particular.

What we loosely call democracy is actually nothing of the sort. We are in fact periodically consulted on the questions who will best administer the empire - this question is of course not overt. Neo Liberal market based capitalism is designed to ensure that most people struggle to financially survive, with the odd reported success story thrown in just to keep the "dreams" alive.

Most of us are occupied with all consuming labour in order to service our unpayable debt. Then up pops Question Time with the "Big Issues of the Day" but none of the issues discussed can actually solve our problems. However, if nobody speaks of them (in the mediated Public Sphere) then they do not exist, and the frames of debate narrow and the discourse is sustained.

Every 4 -5 years we make the choice between two incredibly similar branches of the technocratic class. This is how ideology, discourse and the Mediated Public Sphere works in western capitalist economies. QT is the finest example of discourse formation that I know of. The thing is: we need to engage with it as opposed to just switching off precisely because, through mediated and signifying practices, it sets the political, economic, socio-cultural, public debate agenda.

I agree, we in Britain should be engaging with the BBC about the manner in which TV licence-payers are being forced to finance what is nothing more than an organ of state propaganda. Why is there no movement, for example, to refuse paying the licence fee? Why allow these apparatchiks the luxury of continuing to fatten themselves on our money when they should have been kicked out of their jobs a long time ago?

Stop Blair !

Petition against the nomination of Tony Blair as "President of the EuropeanUnion"

We, European citizens of all origins and of all political persuasions, wish to express our total opposition to the nomination of Tony Blair to the Presidency of the European Council.

The Treaty of Lisbon provides for the new post of President of the European Council, to be elected by the Council for a mandate, renewable once only, of two and a half years. Under the terms of the Treaty: "The President of the European Council shall chair it and drive forward its work" and "shall ensure the preparation and continuity of the work of the European Council". Further, "The President of the European Council shall, at his level and in that capacity, ensure the external representation of the Union on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy"¹.

The future President of the European Council will therefore have a key role in determining the policies of the European Union and its relations with the rest of the world. This first Council Presidency will also have a major symbolic weight for both citizens of the European Union and for the image of the Union in the rest of the world. In this perspective, we believe it is essential that the first president embodies the spirit and values of the European project.

For some time now, increasingly insistent news reports have made evident a wish, in some quarters, to see Tony Blair appointed the first President of the European Council. This appointment, were it to take place, would be in total contradiction with the values professed by the European project.

In violation of international law, Tony Blair committed his country to a war in Iraq that a large majority of European citizens opposed. This war has claimed hundreds of thousands of victims and displaced millions of refugees. It has been a major factor in today's profound destabilisation of the Middle East, and has weakened world security. In order to lead his country into war, Mr Blair made systematic use of fabricated evidence and the manipulation of information. His role in the Iraq war would weigh heavily on the image of the Union in the world, should he in fact be named its president.

The steps taken by Tony Blair's government, and his complicity with the Bush administration in the illegal programme of "extraordinary renditions", have led to an unprecedented decline in civil liberties. This is in contradiction with the terms of the European Convention of Human Rights, which is an integral part of the treaty.

The European Charter of Fundamental Rights formalises the founding values of the European project and is one of the pillars of the new treaty. Tony Blair fought its inclusion in the Treaty of Lisbon, and eventually managed to secure an exemption for the UK.

Rather than move European integration forward, the former British Prime Minister set a series of so-called red lines during the Lisbon negotiations², with the intent of blocking any progress in social issues and tax harmonisation, as well as common defence and foreign policy.

Furthermore, it seems unthinkable that the first President of the European Council should be the former head of a government that kept its country out of two key elements of the construction of Europe: the Schengen area of free movement of people and the Euro zone.

At a time when one of the priorities of the European institutions is to reconnect with its citizens, we believe it is essential that the President of the European Council should be a person with whom a majority of citizens can identify, rather than one rejected by a majority³. Therefore, we declare our total opposition to this nomination.

1. Treaty of Lisbon, Article 1, point 16, inserting Article 9 B into the Treaty on European Union, points 5 and 6 (2007/C 306/17, 18) ↑
2. Blair sets out EU treaty demands, BBC, June 2007 ↑
3. Table 6 in FT/Harris poll, June 2007 ↑

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Britain is slithering down the road towards a police state

The pretence of oversight has been ripped aside by the Khan bugging affair: the security apparat has become a law unto itself

Simon Jenkins
Wednesday February 6, 2008
The Guardian

The machine is out of control. Personal surveillance in Britain is so extensive that no democratic oversight is remotely plausible. Some 800 organisations, including the police, the revenue, local and central government, demanded (and almost always got) 253,000 intrusions on citizen privacy in the last recorded year, 2006. This is way beyond that of any other country in the free world.

The Sadiq Khan affair has killed stone dead the thesis, beloved of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, that any accretion of power to the state is sustainable because ministers are in control. Whether this applies to phone tapping, bugging devices, ID cards, NHS records, childcare computer systems, video surveillance or detention without trial, it is simply a lie. Nobody can control this torrent of intrusion. Nobody can oversee a burst dam.

Khan, an MP and government whip, was allegedly targeted by the police for having been a "civil rights lawyer" and thus a nuisance, though the recording of his meetings with a constituent in prison was supposedly directed at the inmate. Either way, the bugging destroyed the "Wilson doctrine", that MPs cannot be bugged. It appears that they can if ministers, or the police, so decide.

Security machismo claims that in the "age of terrorism", real men bug everyone and everything. The former flying squad chief and BBC dial-a-quote, John O'Connor, implied this week that it would be negligent of the police not to bug anyone they - repeat they - thought a threat. The Blair thesis that "9/11 changes everything" has been a green light to every security consultant, surveillance salesman and Labour minister wanting to flex his - or her- muscles in the tabloids.

Years ago a lawyer gave me unassailable evidence that a call with a client had been tapped by the police and handed to the prosecution. Such tapping allegedly required a personal warrant from the home secretary who, when tackled on the subject, flatly denied it could have happened without his approval, which he would never give in such a case. I checked back with a police chief, who roared with laughter. "The home secretary is absolutely right. He must authorise all taps sent to him for authorisation. But not, of course, the rest." Orwell's cuttlefish were squirting ink.

The grim reality of the past week alone is that it has seen a substantial section of the British establishment allowing itself to believe that private dealings between lawyer and client, and between MP and constituent, should no longer be considered immune from state surveillance. A cardinal principle of a free democracy is thus coolly abandoned. It is not a victory for national security. It is a victory for terrorism.

The monitoring organisation Privacy International now gives Britain the worst record in Europe for such intrusion, indeed the worst among the so-called democratic world and on a par with "endemic surveillance societies", such as Russia and Singapore. The Thames Valley policeman, Mark Kearney, who bugged Khan's conversation in Woodhill prison, claims to have protested that it was "unethical" but was overruled and placed under "significant pressure" from the Metropolitan police. He has since had to leave the force. The saga reads like a script from the film about East German espionage, The Lives of Others.

Britain's poor record is the result of government weakness towards the security apparat. Even among supposed liberals, the response is to demand not less surveillance but more oversight. David Davis, the Tory spokesman, said yesterday: "It's got to be controlled; it's got to be accountable." Civil rights champion Liberty wants "simpler and stronger surveillance laws, with warrants issued by judges, not policemen nor politicians".

People have been saying this for years. Britain has a Kafkaesque oversight bureaucracy ranking with the one it purports to oversee. Some six separate surveillance monitors trip over themselves. All operate in secret and appear to be one gigantic rubber stamp. The distinction drawn by the justice secretary, Jack Straw, between "intrusive" and "directed" bugging, illustrates the prevailing mumbo-jumbo. The chief surveillance monitor, Sir Christopher Rose, has been asked by Straw to investigate the Khan affair, which appears to be a failure by the chief surveillance monitor. Is this to be taken seriously?

When the council can bug you for fly-tipping, when prisons can record conversations with defence lawyers, when any potentially criminal act can justify electronic intrusion - and when ministers resort to the dictator's excuse, "The innocent need not fear" - warning bells should sound.

There is no "balance" to be struck between civil liberty and national security. Civil liberty is absolute, security its handmaid. Measures are needed to protect the public, but a firm line needs to be drawn round them. The line must accept a degree of risk, or a police state is just around the corner.

A quarter of a million surveillances in Britain are beyond all power of politicians or overseers to check. It is state paranoia, justified only by that catch-all, the "war on terror". In truth it is not countering terror, but promoting it. Mass surveillances one of the poisons that the terrorist seeks to inject into the veins of civil society.

It is clear the overseers have gone native. Even the "independent" security watchdog, Lord Carlile, has bought 42-day detention. More oversight will not cure surveillance but mask its spread. The extension from terrorism to benefit fraud, fly-tipping and trading standards demonstrates how the official mind flips to Stasi mode at the least excuse.

To claim that Britain is a police state insults those who are victims of real ones. But I have no doubt that feeble ministers are slithering down just this road, pushed by the security/industrial complex. It is not oversight that must be increased, but rather the categories and boundaries of surveillance that must be drastically curbed.

Of course there are people who want to explode bombs in Britain. Taxpayers spend a fortune trying to stop them. But how often must we remind ourselves that the bomber need not kill to achieve his end when we appease his yearning for the martyrdom of repression? The amount of surveillance in Britain is grotesque. It is a sign of the corruption of power, and nothing else.

____________________

Rory's Comments: Jenkins is an apologist for the establishment so when people like him start ringing the alarm bells the rest of us can be sure that matters are very, very serious. He denies that we are already a police state but fails to tell us the difference between what he considers a police state and one in the making. There's no point in getting bogged down in semantics. Whether or not, in Jenkins' terms, Britain is already a police state or not we all agree that it is not very far from it.

How long before blogs like these are shut down for saying so? Not very long if the present downward momentum continues.