SOPA: ANTI-PIRACY OR CENSORSHIP?

WIKIPEDIA’S JIMMY WALES VS. COPYRIGHT ALLIANCE’S SANDRA AISTARS

DEBATE ON SOPA IN DEMOCRACY NOW. Thursday, January 19, 2012

Congressional support for a pair of anti-piracy bills is weakening after Wednesday’s historic online protest in which thousands of websites went dark for 24 hours. Hollywood film studios, music publishers and major broadcasters support the anti-piracy legislation, saying it aims to stop the piracy of copyrighted material over the internet on websites based outside the United States. "We’re talking about sites that are operated and dedicated to piracy and that are really preventing individual creators across the country from having an economic livelihood from their creative pursuits," says Sandra Aistars, executive director of the Copyright Alliance, whose members include the Motion Picture Association of America, NBCUniversal, Time Warner, Viacom, ASCAP and BMI. But critics say the bills could profoundly change the internet by stifling innovation and investment, hallmarks of the free, open internet. "Wikipedia could be defined as a search engine under these [bills]," says Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Sales. "That would mean that it would be illegal for Wikipedia to link to a site, even if we’re writing an encyclopedia article explaining to the public what is The Pirate Bay, what is going on here, and we want to send you there so you can go and take a look for yourself. That would become illegal. This is outrageous, and it’s just not acceptable under the First Amendment."

Guests:
Jimmy Wales, American internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia.
Sandra Aistars, executive director of the Copyright Alliance. She is former vice president and associate general counsel at Time Warner Inc. Board members of the Copyright Alliance include the Motion Picture Association of America, NBCUniversal, Time Warner, Viacom, ASCAP and BMI.

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JUAN GONZALEZ: Congressional support for a pair of Hollywood-backed anti-piracy bills is weakening after a historic online protest Wednesday. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia shut down the English version of its website for 24 hours to protest the bills. Thousands of other sites did the same. Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, covered the Google icon on its home page with a black box. Google also urged visitors to sign an online petition asking Congress to reject the bills.

The House bill is called SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, while the Senate bill is PIPA, the Protect IP Act. The Hollywood film studios, music publishers and major broadcasters like NBC and Viacom have supported the anti-piracy legislation, which ostensibly aims to stop the piracy of copyrighted material over the internet on websites based outside the United States. But critics say the bills would profoundly change the internet by stifling innovation and investment, hallmarks of the free, open internet.

In Washington, at least eight lawmakers announced Wednesday they can no longer support the Senate legislation, including co-sponsors Republicans Marco Rubio of Florida, Roy Blunt of Missouri and Orrin Hatch of Utah, as well as Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland.

AMY GOODMAN: Wednesday’s action against the anti-piracy bills are being described as the largest online protest in the history of the internet. But there were also street protests yesterday against the legislation. In New York, hundreds of people gathered outside the Manhattan offices of Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, co-sponsors of the Senate bill. Andrew Rasiej, chair of the New York Tech Meetup, helped organize the protest.

ANDREW RASIEJ: I used to joke that politicians don’t know the difference between a server and a waiter. But in regards to PIPA and SOPA, their ignorance is no joke. In an effort to combat piracy, which we all would like to minimize, if not outright eliminate, Congress, at the behest of moneyed special interests representing copyright-holding industries, is proposing to redesign the internet in a way that is detrimental to our industry and to the open web. If they are successful, they will not only stifle innovation and investment in emerging technology companies in New York and elsewhere, they will irrevocably damage the architecture of the internet so as to embolden censorship around the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Other protesters in New York compared the bills to actions taken by China and Iran to censor the web.

IAN BASSIN: I think it sends the wrong signal to give the government the ability to shut down websites. The web should be a free medium that promotes democracy around the world. When America is trying to convince China and Iran that they shouldn’t be shutting down the web, we shouldn’t be setting a bad example.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by two guests. Jimmy Wales is an internet entrepreneur, best known as the co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia. He’s joining us from a studio in London. In Washington, D.C., we’re joined by Sandra Aistars, executive director of the Copyright Alliance. She is former vice president and associate general counsel at Time Warner Inc. Board members of the Copyright Alliance include the Motion Picture Association of America, NBCUniversal, Time Warner, Viacom, ASCAP and BMI.

We’re going to begin with Sandra in Washington. Why do you think these bills are so important?

SANDRA AISTARS: Thank you, Amy, first of all, for having me on the show. I’m really pleased that you’re taking the time to listen to supporters of the bill as well as to opponents of the bill, because there’s a lot of information about the bills out there that I’ve been hearing that understandably would be scary to anybody as to what the bills do. So, thanks for this opportunity.

As to why the bills are so incredibly important, along with the other board members that you’ve mentioned of the Copyright Alliance, I represent thousands upon thousands of individual artists who live all across America. There are about 11 million artists in the United States, and they depend on the internet to network, to market, to fundraise for their work, to connect with their fans, to distribute their work, and basically to make a living. Their ability to do so effectively is being compromised by the fact that there are criminal websites offshore that are dedicated solely to the purpose of distributing counterfeit goods and copyrighted goods for profit with no return to those creators. We’re not talking about the Wikipedias, we’re not talking about Reddit, we’re not talking about Twitter, or any of those very useful social media tools that we all rely on, when we talk about rogue sites that the bill targets. We’re talking about sites that are operated and dedicated to piracy and that are really preventing individual creators across the country from having an economic livelihood from their creative pursuits.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, you felt that these bills were such a threat that you shut down your website. Why?

JIMMY WALES: Well, these bills are very badly written. It’s all well and good to talk about the need to find some solutions to criminal behavior online. It’s not OK to set up a censorship regime in response to that. It’s not OK to have processes in place that would incentivize the credit card companies to cut off legitimate businesses upon a mere complaint. We need to go back to the drawing board and rethink the entire issue, where we put freedom of speech front and center.

AMY GOODMAN: What about that, Sandra?

SANDRA AISTARS: I agree that freedom of speech and First Amendment issues have to be front and center in all of these discussions, and they have been. The bills have nothing to do with censorship, any more than prosecuting somebody for shoplifting has something to do with censorship. If you’re a site that is criminally distributing copyrighted works or counterfeit goods online to U.S. consumers, you’re in no—you’re not committing free speech, you’re not furthering political discussions, you’re committing theft.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But Sandra, companies like Google—
JIMMY WALES: I—if I—

JUAN GONZALEZ: If I can just ask Sandra—companies like Google insist that they already are involved in voluntary policing of their sites and respond pretty rapidly to requests from industry.

SANDRA AISTARS: Right. Google is talking about its programs that are in place to deal with individual instances of infringing content that are placed, for instance, on YouTube by a user. These bills don’t address that issue whatsoever. First of all, they don’t deal with U.S.-based sites like YouTube, Wikipedia, or any other user-generated content site in the United States. They also don’t impose any duty to monitor those sites or to do anything further than what a legitimate site like YouTube already does under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And there are actually provisions in the bill that specifically make that clear and direct courts not to make alterations to copyright law, trademark law or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when they enforce these bills. So, these bills are dealing with a totally different problem, which are rogue criminal websites that exist entirely and are operated and dedicated to the purpose of infringing copyright. They’re not legitimate sites like Wikipedia, which police their activities themselves. They are sites that are operated often by criminal elements that are truly dedicated to distributing copyrighted goods without authorization and with no other legitimate purpose.

AMY GOODMAN: Jimmy Wales, if you could respond to that and also talk about how you feel Wikipedia would be affected if this—these bills passed.

JIMMY WALES: So, what has been just said here is just simply not true. If you look at the content of these bills, they are very clearly about censorship. The Senate version has provisions to implement DNS blocking of overseas websites, and the bills contain provisions that would make it illegal for Google to link to, for example, The Pirated Bay. That’s pure and simple censorship of Google, and there’s no way around it. Those are the measures that we’re protesting. Those are the things that are wrong.

If you want to go up against those sites, if you want to do something about those sites, you need to go and lobby in those countries and get their laws changed so that they reflect the same kind of situation which you’ve accepted is a valid way of doing things, as we do inside the U.S. with the takedown and notice provisions and all the things that have worked so well for 10 years.

In terms of how this would affect Wikipedia, it affects us in several different ways. The definitions are so broad, Wikipedia could be defined as a search engine under these things, and then that would mean that it would be illegal for Wikipedia to link to a site, even if we’re writing an encyclopedia article explaining to the public what is The Pirate Bay, what is going on here, and we want to send you there so you can go and take a look for yourself. That would become illegal. This is outrageous, and it’s just not acceptable under the First Amendment.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, Jimmy Wales, you’re having an enormous effect. I mean, the internet—thousands of sites going dark yesterday is certainly the internet that roared. And you even have the co-sponsors of the bill, like the conservative Florida Republican senator, Rubio, backing off. One congressman, one senator after another is pulling away from support. How did this legislation get written? And what are your plans for further protest?

JIMMY WALES: Well, so, my view is that further protest isn’t really right. We’ve got the attention of Congress. They realize that they can’t just listen to Hollywood. They need to listen to the users of the internet. They need to listen to their voters. The thing to do now is to go back, and all of the things that our friend from ASCAP was just talking about, in terms of thinking about these rogue sites, thinking about people who are really engaged in economic profiteering off of other people’s work in an inappropriate, illegal way, let’s target that activity. Let’s not target Wikipedia, Google. Let’s not set up a DNS censorship regime.

So, in my view, I think there is a way forward. I think what’s going to happen now, we’ve got, so far, 35 senators, which is up from five before the protest, who have come out against the bill. I think we can essentially say it’s a dead letter, these bills aren’t going to go anywhere. My view is, we shouldn’t just simply gloat and sit here and say, "Ah, hurray, we won." We should actually be constructive now. We should say, "OK, look, we do want to come back," and we want to say, "Look, if there are legitimate problems, let’s analyze those. Let’s come up with solutions that work for everybody."

JUAN GONZALEZ: Sandra Aistars, what about that? Because you’ve called the protest a publicity stunt and that it’s spreading some irresponsible claims. Do you think that this protest, the range of it and the extensive nature of it, is calling for a re-examination of these bills?

SANDRA AISTARS: Well, I think the bills are being re-examined and have been re-examined. That’s part of the normal legislative drafting process. I think what happened yesterday was—you know, was interesting. It was interesting to me personally that Wikipedia took itself online in an act of self-censorship, you know, to protest the bills. But I think what needs to happen in any legislative process is that people have to look at what the bills actually say. Mr. Wales, in talking about the provisions of the bills, is referring to a bill that no longer exists and, frankly, didn’t exist in the form that he suggests it did to begin with. I’d direct folks to look at the manager’s amendment to the Stop Online Piracy Act, which is available on the House Judiciary Committee website, and to look at the provisions of that bill. I’d also note that the legislative process is, as I said, you know, lengthy, and debate occurs around provisions of any bill. And that’s occurring now and has been occurring now. It’s been—over the last couple of days, there have been various modifications that have been made in addition to those that were proposed in the manager’s amendments to SOPA to address some of the concerns about DNS blocking. So both Senator Leahy and Congressman Smith have suggested that they would remove all of the DNS provisions from the bill and move forward with the provisions that are less controversial.

On DNS blocking and whether it’s appropriate to use or not to use, I’d also point people to the fact that our trading partners in Europe, in the United Kingdom, in various E.U. countries, are already implementing DNS blocking to block The Pirate Bay. So, the specific types of activities that Mr. Wales was suggesting need to occur and that we should be pursuing abroad are in fact being pursued abroad. And what we’re looking for is help from domestic sites, under this legislation, to collaborate with the attorney general when a site is declared to be dedicated to infringement by a federal district court and to stop doing business with those sites.

AMY GOODMAN: Jimmy Wales, I know you have to go off to Skye TV in the same building just a—but a quick question.

JIMMY WALES: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response to Sandra Aistars? And also, the power of the companies that she represents, like MPAA? Sandra Aistars just mentioned, for example, Senator Leahy, one of the co-sponsors of the bill, liberal senator from Vermont, colleague of Christopher Dodd from Connecticut, who retired and became head of the MPAA. Has that weighed in, in terms of getting the initial support? Now people, you know, senators, one by one, stepping back.

JIMMY WALES: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s clear that, you know, that there is a process by which lobbyists spend a lot of money, make a lot of friendships, and have influence on legislation. And 30, 40 years ago, there wasn’t much the rest of us could do about it. Now we can get organized on the internet, and we can say, "Hey, wait a minute. You’re supposed to be here sticking up for us, not for a handful of small—a handful of big companies." So, I think that we have a chance to make a difference.

The one other comment I wanted to make is pointing to what some countries in Europe are doing in terms of DNS filtering and blocking, to me, is entirely unpersuasive. This is America. We have the First Amendment. There are certain things that Congress just simply cannot do. The fact that freedom of speech is not as strong in other countries around the world is something not to copy, but something to fight.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you very much, Jimmy Wales, for being with us. Sandra Aistars, if you could stay for a moment, we wanted to play a clip for you from one vocal critic of the two anti-piracy bills, who has been pioneering—he is a pioneering internet writer and New York University professor, Clay Shirky. Earlier this week, he recorded a TED Talk called "Defend Our Freedom to Share (Or Why SOPA is a Bad Idea)." This is part of what Professor Shirky had to say.

CLAY SHIRKY: Because the biggest producers of content on the internet are not Google and Yahoo!—they’re us—we’re the people getting policed, because in the end, the real threat to the enactment of PIPA and SOPA is our ability to share things with one another. So what PIPA and SOPA risk doing is taking a centuries-old legal content—innocent until proven guilty—and reversing it: guilty until proven innocent. You can’t share until you show us that you’re not sharing something we don’t like. Suddenly, the burden of proof for legal versus illegally falls affirmatively on us and on the services that might be offering us any new capabilities. And if it costs even a dime to police a user, that will crush a service with 100 million users. So this is the internet they have in mind.

Imagine this sign everywhere, except imagine it doesn’t say "College Bakery." Imagine it says "YouTube" and "Facebook" and "Twitter." Imagine it says "TED," because the comments can’t be policed at any acceptable cost. The real effects of SOPA and PIPA are going to be different than the proposed effects. The threat, in fact, is this inversion of the burden of proof, where we suddenly are all treated like thieves at every moment we’re given the freedom to create, to produce or to share. And the people who provide those capabilities to us—the YouTubes, the Facebooks, the Twitters and TEDs—are in the business of having to police us or being on the hook for contributory infringement.

AMY GOODMAN: New York University Professor Clay Shirky. We’ll link to his full TED Talk at democracynow.org. Sandra Aistars of the Copyright Alliance, what is your response?

SANDRA AISTARS: You know, if the bills did what the professor says they do, I would be the first one standing up to oppose them. It’s simply not true. The artists and the creators that I represent rely on the internet to share their work, to communicate their work, to communicate with each other, to find new ideas, to build on each other’s works. And they would never stand up for a bill that does what the opponents propose that this bill would hypothetically do in some—some situation. Look at the text of the bills. There’s no shifting of the burden of the proof. There’s no reference to any site bearing any remote resemblance to YouTube or to TED or to Twitter or to Wikipedia. The bills go after sites that are primarily dedicated to commercially distributing infringing copyrighted works. This isn’t about people sharing their own works. This is about people abroad in criminal syndicates ripping off U.S. artists’ works and selling them back into the U.S. marketplace without any return going to the creators of those works. And that’s just simply morally wrong, and it’s offensive to the rights of creators to make a living out of their works.

AMY GOODMAN: We thank you for being with, Sandra Aistars, executive director of the Copyright Alliance, former vice president and associate general counsel at Time Warner Inc.

THE SOPA BLACKOUT PROTEST MAKES HISTORY

THE SOPA BLACKOUT PROTEST MAKES HISTORY
Amy Goodman
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 January 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/18/sopa-blackout-protest-makes-history

An unprecedented wave of online opposition to the Sopa and Pipa bills before Congress shows the power of a free internet

Wednesday 18 January marked the largest online protest in the history of the internet. Websites from large to small "went dark" in protest of proposed legislation before the US House and Senate that could profoundly change the internet. The two bills, Sopa in the House and Pipa in the Senate, ostensibly aim to stop the piracy of copyrighted material over the internet on websites based outside the US. Critics – among them, the founders of Google, Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, Tumblr and Twitter – counter that the laws will stifle innovation and investment, hallmarks of the free, open internet. The Obama administration has offered muted criticism of the legislation, but, as many of his supporters have painfully learned, what President Barack Obama questions one day, he signs into law the next.

First, the basics. Sopa stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act, while Pipa is the Protect IP Act. The two bills are very similar. Sopa would allow copyright holders to complain to the US attorney general about a foreign website they allege is "committing or facilitating the commission of criminal violations" of copyright law. This relates mostly to pirated movies and music. Sopa would allow the movie industry, through the courts and the US attorney general, to send a slew of demands that internet service providers (ISPs) and search engine companies shut down access to those alleged violators, and even to prevent linking to those sites, thus making them "unfindable". It would also bar internet advertising providers from making payments to websites accused of copyright violations.

Sopa could, then, shut down a community-based site like YouTube if just one of its millions of users was accused of violating one US copyright. As David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer and an opponent of the legislation, blogged:

"Last year alone, we acted on copyright takedown notices for more than 5 million webpages. Pipa and Sopa will censor the web, will risk our industry's track record of innovation and job creation, and will not stop piracy."

Corynne McSherry, intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told me:

"These bills propose new powers for the government and for private actors to create, effectively, blacklists of sites … then force service providers to block access to those sites. That's why we call these the censorship bills."

The bills, she says, are the creation of the entertainment, or "content", industries: "Sopa, in particular, was negotiated without any consultation with the technology sector. They were specifically excluded." The exclusion of the tech sector has alarmed not only Silicon Valley executives, but also conservatives like Utah Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Tea Party favorite. He said in a December House judiciary committee hearing, "We're basically going to reconfigure the Internet and how it's going to work, without bringing in the nerds."

Pipa sponsor Senator Patrick Leahy (Democrat, Vermont) said in a press release, "Much of what has been claimed about [Pipa] is flatly wrong and seems intended more to stoke fear and concern than to shed light or foster workable solutions." Sadly, Leahy's ire sounds remarkably similar to that of his former Senate colleague Christopher Dodd, who, after retiring, took the job of chairman and CEO of the powerful lobbying group Motion Picture Association of America (at a reported salary of $1.2m annually), one of the chief backers of Sopa/Pipa. Said Dodd of the broadbased, grassroots internet protest, "It's a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests."

EFF's McSherry said, "No one asked the internet – well, the internet is speaking now. People are really rising up and saying: 'Don't interfere with basic Internet infrastructure. We won't stand for it.'"

As the internet blackout protest progressed 18 January, and despite Dodd's lobbying, legislators began retreating from support for the bills. The internet roared, and the politicians listened, reminiscent of the popular uprising against media consolidation in 2003 proposed by then Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell, the son of General Colin Powell. Information is the currency of democracy, and people will not sit still as moneyed interests try to deny them access.

When internet users visited the sixth-most popular website on the planet during the protest blackout, the English-language section of Wikipedia, they found this message:

"Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge.

"For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the US Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet."

In a world with fresh, internet-fueled revolutions, it seems that US politicians are getting the message.
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• Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

WHAT IS SOPA? HERE ARE 5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS SOPA? HERE ARE 5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
STOP ONLINE PIRACY ACT (SOPA)

NOTE: In colorlines.com you can find one version of SOPA

http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/01/what_the_hell_is_sopa_and_how_it_would_affect_you.html

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has got the entire Internet up in arms today. Media justice advocates say the bill is anathema to basic functioning of the Internet; for a system that’s based on relative freedom and connectivity, SOPA would work as the online world’s stingy gatekeeper, giving government the power to shutdown websites altogether.

Today, hundreds of websites are joining in a day of action to SOPA’s threat to freedom of expression on the Internet. Several civil rights and racial justice organizations are joining in what’s been called an “Internet strike,” by closing their websites from 8 am to 8 pm eastern time. Colorlines.com’s Jamilah King, who covers media policy, explains why:

The Internet’s been an important space for communities of color to tell their own stories and advocate for issues they don’t often see in film or on television. SOPA puts that independence in jeopardy. It’ll add yet another barrier to how and what we can communicate.

So, here are the basics on what you need to know.

Who’s behind SOPA? Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas politician who’s been known mostly for his anti-immigrant stances in recent years. Smith’s got big industry backers, namely: The Recording Industry Association of American, the Motion Picture Association of America (now led by former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

What’s the justification for SOPA? Supporters of the bill claim that it’ll help copyright holders (think big record labels) protect their content. Rep. Smith has criticized the bill’s opponents and explained that SOPA would only target foreign websites that put American businesses at risk.

But opponents argue that the definition of “foreign infringing sites” is too vague. As it’s written now, they argue, the bill will fundamentally alter the relative freedom with which the Internet currently operates. What’s certain is that it’ll add a level of supervision to the Internet that’s never existed before.

Who’s opposed to SOPA? Basically, every website that you visit regularly. Most notably, Wikipedia, Craigslist, and Reddit, along with thousands of other websites, have chosen to go dark in opposition to the bill and to help educate users about its potential impact. But the list doesn’t stop there: Google, Yahoo, YouTube, and Twitter have also publicly opposed the bill. The White House has also announced that should the bill reach President Obama’s desk, he will veto it.

How would SOPA work? It allows the U.S. attorney general to seek a court order against the targeted offshore website that would, in turn, be served on Internet providers in an effort to make the target virtually disappear. It’s kind of an Internet death penalty.

More specifically, section 102 of SOPA says that, after being served with a removal order:

A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order…Such actions shall be taken as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within five days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order.
How would it impact me? If you create or consume content on the Internet, under SOPA the government would have the power to pull the plug on your website. If you’re a casual consumer, your favorite websites could be penalized and shut down if they seem to be illegally supporting copyrighted material.

This is especially important for human rights groups and advocates in communities of color, who could faced increased censorship if the bill is passed. The language of the bill makes it easy for the US Attorney General to go after websites it simply sees as a threat.

Check http://colorlines.com/economy/ and
http://colorlines.com/gop-primary/

A QUIÉN LE IMPORTAN LAS PRIMARIAS O LAS ELECCIONES EN EE.UU.?

A QUIÉN LE IMPORTAN LAS PRIMARIAS O LAS ELECCIONES EN EE.UU.?

Atilio Borón. Enero 6, 2012
Rebelión. http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=142448

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Introduccion por Hugo Adan
(enero 16, 2012)

El titulo del articulo de Atilio Boron le resta merito a su contenido. Quiza solo la interrogante DEMOCRACIA en los EU? habría sido suficiente. A quien le importa? Yo diría que a muchos, empezando por los americanos y yo soy exactamente uno de ellos: mitad latino y mitad americano. Las elecciones de EU ciertamente no son democráticas en términos teóricos, ni siquiera en la teoría de los gurus del norte, digamos R. Dahl y N Chomsky) y menos aun lo son en términos marxistas (si se consideran los debates en la 3ra Internacional y los aportes de Rosa Luxemburgo, pero esto solo en teoría porque el socialism realmente existente –especialmente el de Stalin- estuvo mucho mas lejos de lo que la teoría puntualizo. Decir que el ejercicio de poder de Stalin fue para servir a una clase social, eso no solo contradice las tesis enunciadas en la 3ra internacional (bien caricaturizadas por George Orwell) sino los principios basicos, universalmente aceptados sobre democracia como sistema de gobierno.

Las elecciones no democráticas de EU si interesan a todo el pueblo americano porque es justamente en estos procesos que la mitad del pueblo USAno entiende la farsa y no importa si es un circo donde el pueblo escucha de sus payasos verdades que en otro momento no tendrían valor de decir. En tiempo de elecciones las leyes dadas y las que estan en curso -usualmente manipuladas a puerta cerrada- generan debates publicos imprecedentes y no solo debates sino movimiento popular concreto. El pueblo americano se acaba de mobilizar y responder contra el proyecto de ley Online Piracy Act. The House bill is called SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, y el proyecto del Senado se denomina PIPA, the Protect IP Act. Se dijo que el proyecto Online Piracy Act era para controlar el pirateo de extranjeros que roban y vulneran el derecho al copyrigh de los americanos. Resulto curioso que sean los mas grandes piratas del mundo, los creadores de Monsanto, los que acaban de saquear los museos de Iraq, y que los que patentan la propiedad cultural ajena como suya (caso Simon & Garfunkel con el Condor Pasa) digan esta vez que la nueva ley contra el pirateo va a proteger la creatividad de artistas y gentes de pueblo americano, eso en tiempo electoral llamo la atention. El pueblo salio a las calles para gritar STOP THE ONLINE PIRACY ACT (SOPA) pues lo que lo que se busca es eliminar los contenidos anti-trasnacional del Internet e imponer mas censura politica y silenciar criticas similares al wikileaks u otros contenido que atenten contra los amos en el poder en America. Varios senadores que patrocinaron esta ley acaban de retirarle su apoyo. Esta vigilancia del pueblo y muchas otras mas, son lo positivo de la elecciones. Este es tambien el caso de las denuncias que plantea Ron Paul contra la política imperial y desde dentro del mismo partido guerrerista, los republicanos. En otro tiempo esas denuncias no habria tenido la audience que ahora tienen. Estas verdades hacen que mas del 50% de votantes no concurra al anfora. Y eso por supuesto que no importa al sistema no-democratico en ciernes. Pero no se puede negar que en tiempo electoral es cuando mas participa el pueblo en la denuncia concreta contra el sistema “democrático” entre comillas. Llamar a este pueblo "populacho idiotizado" es un grave insulto que regresa con la fuerza de boomerang contra el desinformado Atilio.

Ademas, debatir que es y que no es democrático o donde lo es? Es pura pedantería teórica si no viene acompañada de alternativas. La realidad política es mas rica que las conceptualizaciones al respecto y esto es lo que importa. Digo esto porque el 50% del electorado que no participa en el voto no cabe en la dialéctica Boronista pues parte de una falsa premisa, el creer que se trata de un populacho idiotizado, desinformado e impotente. Desde esta falsa dialectica no se puede derivar la conclusion de que esos americanos “más pronto que tarde podrían romper el hechizo y dar inicio a un proceso de movilización y radicalización de imprevisibles consecuencias”. Solo le falto decir a Atilio que los idiotas de ese populacho solo podran romper tal hechizo si beben el mágico elixer del marxismo (en otros artículos lo dice). Lo cierto es que muchos marxistas realmente existentes, sobre todo los envueltos en “real politics” no gustan ya del viejo elixer de la ortodoxia marxista sino mas bien del elixer capitalista. Lenin y Mao no habrian podido crear la China y Rusia de hoy sin crear el capitalism controlado que hoy tienen.

En los Estados Unidos la teorización de Atilio sirve solo para describir una realidad que los americanos conocen mejor que él y estas críticas desprovistas de alternativas ya existen en el norte (véase wsws.org, por citar una de 100) y solo sirven para adornar la seudo-democracia existente. El análisis de clase es muy general como para dar cuenta de realidades muy específicas como las que se vive en los EU. La realidad es mucho mas compleja y rica como para reducirla a esquemas de dos siglos atrás.

La solución al problema americano jamas vendrá de una dictadura del proletariado, como lo quisiera Atilio; eso es lo menos probable en el norte. Lo mas probable es una nueva y real democracia y quienes están interesados en esto están hoy participando directamente en el proceso electoral actual. Por esto digo que aqui son muchos a quienes si interesa las actuales elecciones. Por lo pronto el debate popular gira en torno a dos opciones. Primero la de crear un Frente Unido contra la democracia de los ricos. Esto implica poner en un mismo saco a trabajadores y/o clases medias del país y a lideres como Ron Paul, Denis Kucinik, Ralph Nader y los lideres del grass root que en diferentes pueblos del país se en movilizaron las tomas de calles contra el Wall Street.

La otra opción es mas decentralista y apunta a crear total autonomía -basada en Frentes Populares tambien- contra el bipartidismo que financian las grandes corporaciones. Se busca romper la trampa bipartidaria con candidatos independientes en cada Estado (crear solidas bases en The House y en el Senado). El objetivo estratégico apunta a una democracia oritentada al mercado pero con control de bases político-sociales organizadas en diferentes Estados de la Union.

Quienes participan en ambas dos alternativas si están interesados en la elecciones de EU. De forma que el titulo de Atilio “A quien importan las elecciones” es realmente estupida, por decir lo menos. Lo cierto, lo real, lo contundente es que A MUCHOS si importan las elecciones!


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HE AQUÍ el articulo de Atilio Boron

A QUIÉN LE IMPORTAN LAS PRIMARIAS DE IOWA O LAS ELECCIONES EN EE.UU.?

En los últimos días aparecieron dos magníficas notas que dan cuenta de lo que en trabajos anteriores habíamos calificado como la “descomposición moral” del imperio. En una de ellas, Juan G. Tokatlian (El País, 2 de Enero de 2012) habla del acelerado e irreversible avance de la “poslegalidad”, vocablo apto para referirse a la descarada apelación a metodologías y formas de acción completamente reñidas con la propia legalidad estadounidense por parte de la Casa Blanca y, por supuesto, de la la Carta de las Naciones Unidas que se firmara en Junio de 1945 en San Francisco y todo el tan espeso como inoperante andamiaje de la legalidad internacional.

Arrasando con estas molestas limitaciones el indigno Nobel de la Paz que se sienta en la Oficina Oval de la Casa Blanca ordena crímenes y asesinatos de ciudadanos estadounidenses y extranjeros y, envía aviones no tripulados –“drones”- para masacrar poblaciones indefensas sin pagar costo alguno ante una opinión pública estupidizada por la industria cultural del capitalismo mientras que, paso a paso, va cercenando las libertades públicas establecidas por la Constitución de los Estados Unidos pero que desde Ronald Reagan para aquí se ha venido convirtiendo en letra muerta.

En esta misma línea Juan Gelman publicó también en la edición del mismo día pero en Página/12 una nota en donde demuestra que el “progre” Barack Obama ya superó el triste récord de su infausto predecesor en materia de atropellos a los estándares de la justicia y derechos humanos. Pese a sus encendidas promesas de campaña no cerró Guantánamo; retiró parte de las tropas estacionadas en Irak (si bien dejando un buen número de “asesores” cuyas funciones efectivas poco tienen que ver con ese nombre) pero siguió guerreando en Afganistán y extendió las hostilidades a Pakistán.

Además, tras las raídas bambalinas de la OTAN Washington fue el actor principal, según lo reconoció el New York Times, de la masacre y los crímenes perpetrados para “liberar” a Libia. Si G. W. Bush pergeñó el rescate de los bancos su sucesor profundizó esa política; si aquél había escrito el borrador del Tratado EEUU-Colombia que autoriza la utilización de bases militares (por ahora 7, pero se puede aumentar esa cifra con una simple solicitud del Departamento de Estado) en ese país sudamericano, fue Obama quien ratificó el acuerdo poniendo su firma al lado de un personaje siniestro como Álvaro Uribe.

Y en materia económica las políticas de rescate de los delincuentes de cuello blanco y elegantes trajes Armani que pululan en Wall Street -rescate hecho a costa de los deudores hipotecarios estadounidenses- prosiguieron su curso triturando las ilusiones del American dream: ya son dos millones de familias arrojadas a la calle, y se espera que las víctimas de esta gigantesca estafa sean unos cinco millones en los próximos dos o tres años.

Teniendo en cuenta estos antecedentes, ¿a quién puede importar la primaria republicana de Iowa? ¿Cuáles son las razones por las que la prensa mundial otorga tamaña trascendencia a un show mediático como ese, despojado de toda sustancia democrática? Basta leer las declaraciones de los candidatos republicanos, a cual más retrógrado y reaccionario, exaltando los valores tradicionales y patrioteros de la derecha estadounidense, para comprobar la profundidad abismal de la crisis política de ese país. Va de suyo que las opiniones de los candidatos demócratas, comenzando por el propio presidente, no modifican en lo más mínimo este diagnóstico. Tal vez lo empeoren.

El disparate de los candidatos republicanos, exhaustos luego del ejercicio democrático llevado a cabo en Iowa, llegó tan lejos como para que varios de ellos -especialmente Michele Bachmann, la (frustrada) esperanza del Tea Party que cosechó un número irrisorio de votos- fulminaran con sus críticas a Obama por… ¡sus políticas “socialistas”! Se nota que esas gentes, aspirantes todos ellos a heredar el trono imperial de la Casa Blanca, no tienen la menor idea de lo que están hablando.

En su majestuosa mediocridad no se dan cuenta de que si hay algo que impidió (¿o sería más preciso decir “postergó”?) el hundimiento del capitalismo estadounidense fueron las políticas del tandem Bush-Obama que efectivamente pusieron en práctica un socialismo muy del agrado de la burguesía: socializaron las pérdidas de los grandes oligopolios financieros e industriales y las redistribuyeron meticulosamente al conjunto de la población. Mientras tanto, los principales CEO de esas corporaciones afectadas por el “socialismo” de Bush-Obama seguían ganando, una vez pagados los impuestos, más de diez millones de dólares anuales como recompensa por sus brillantes negocios.

Reflexiones estas, en suma, acerca de la total intrascendencia de estas primarias -y las que seguirán en las semanas siguientes, incluyendo un par de ridículos “super martes” que ya provocan la estudiada excitación de la prensa estadounidense y sus voceros de la periferia- que pueden extenderse sin forzar ningún razonamiento a las elecciones presidenciales de los Estados Unidos. Porque, como dicen algunos de los (pocos) politólogos críticos que hay en ese país, ¿a qué viene tanta cháchara con elecciones en las cuales nada se elige y con presidentes que nada presiden toda vez que el “gobierno permanente” que realmente detenta las riendas del poder en sus manos: el complejo militar-industrial y sus aliados, no ha sido elegido por nadie, no debe rendir cuentas ante nadie, ni mucho menos podrá ser removido por el sufragio popular?

No importa lo que el pueblo elija, ni el mandato que otorgue al candidato elegido, porque los que verdaderamente mandan lo hacen en virtud de realidades mucho más proteicas –los millonarios negocios y negociados hechos bajo la complaciente mirada del gobierno y de una dirigencia que depende de los donativos de los oligopolios para financiar sus ambiciones políticas- que las débiles señales producidas por el proceso electoral. Además, a diferencia del “populacho” desinformado e impotente que en proporciones cada vez menores acude a las urnas, la clase dominante imperial sabe lo que es bueno para Estados Unidos y lo que hay que hacer en cada momento.

Parafraseando aquella vieja fórmula de mediados del siglo pasado que decía que “lo que es bueno para la General Motors es bueno para Estados Unidos” sus personeros hoy saben que “lo que es bueno para el complejo militar-industrial es bueno para Estados Unidos”, por lo menos para una dirigencia que piensa exclusivamente en acrecentar los beneficios y perpetuar los privilegios de ese uno por ciento contra el cual se levantaron los indignados de Ocupemos Wall Street. A esa clase dominante del imperio el veredicto de las urnas, sea en las primarias republicanas o demócratas, o en las elecciones generales, le tiene absolutamente sin cuidado. Su inserción en las articulaciones decisivas del aparato estatal estadounidense no está sujeto a escrutinio o control público alguno, y su dominio sobre la clase política y los grandes medios de comunicación la colocan a salvo de cualquier contingencia surgida en el terreno electoral.

Lo único que le preocupa en relación con las primarias y las elecciones es seguir alimentando la ilusión popular de que el país es una democracia, evitando que la masa de la población llegue a pensar que el régimen político imperante no es una democracia sino una abyecta plutocracia. Sabe que de persistir esa creencia su dominio será poco menos que inexpugnable.

El problema es que la ilimitada voracidad de esa burguesía y la super-explotación a la que somete al propio pueblo estadounidense más pronto que tarde podría romper el hechizo y dar inicio a un proceso de movilización y radicalización de imprevisibles consecuencias. Por eso hay que presentar al anodino ejercicio que tuvo lugar el pasado martes en Iowa como si fuera una vibrante prueba de la salud democrática de Estados Unidos. Una mentira, no piadosa, sino maléfica hasta el tuétano.

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* Una versión abreviada de esta nota se publicó en el diario Página/12 de Buenos Aires el día 5 de Enero de 2012.
Fuente: http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/4-184771-2012-01-05.html

IRÁN Y LOS EU ESTÁN DESTINADOS A ENTENDERSE

EL ATAQUE CONTRA IRÁN, O EL ROSARIO DE LA AURORA

http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=142706
Francisco Veiga y Pablo Martín
El Periódico de Catalunya

Estas Navidades hemos vuelto a revivir una más de las alarmas de guerra contra Irán que se viene sucediendo desde hace ya tres años. La causa es siempre la misma: el programa nuclear iraní se ha convertido en una amenaza contra Occidente y la única manera de afrontar ese riesgo es lanzar un ataque devastador contra ese país. Hace unos meses se vendió la especie de que los israelíes habían creado un virus informático capaz de paralizar la infraestructura informática del programa nuclear: el célebre Stuxnet. Por lo visto, el tan cacareado virus no funcionó, y el pasado mes de septiembre, la planta nuclear de Bushehr fue inaugurada y comenzó a suministrar kilovatios al sistema energético del país.

Mientras tanto, la “Primavera Árabe” no lograba conectar con las masas iraníes, más partidarias del régimen de lo que parece; al contrario: la mano oculta de Teherán apareció por aquí y por allá, apoyando opciones rebeldes en países del Magreb y Oriente medio, en contra de los manejos de Arabia saudí, los europeos y los americanos.

En consecuencia, a principios de noviembre, el primer ministro israelí, Benjamin Netanyahu, comenzó a clamar por un ataque preventivo contra Irán, intentando arrastrar, sin éxito, a británicos y estadounidenses. Y en esas estamos: desde Israel se ha llegado a afirmar que el momento propicio para el ataque sería entre mediados de diciembre a mediados de enero de 2012. Sin embargo, no hay señales de que los americanos preparen ningún ataque a gran escala; al contrario, se han retirado definitivamente de Irak, y anuncian un recorte signifiativo de sus fuerzas armadas y una mayor atención en el área Asia-Pacífico, con China como principal enemigo potencial.

La espectacular captura del drone espía americano RQ-170, de la más alta gama, fue un jarro de agua fría sobre la pretendida superioridad tecnológica americana e israelí, que supuestamente haría de un ataque contra los iraníes un paseo militar. En tal sentido, el drone RQ-170 de 2011 parece destinado a ocupar un lugar en la historia junto con el U-2 derribado por los soviéticos en 1960.

En todo este asunto del peligro iraní hay muchas cortinas de humo. Una de ellas, consiste en argumentar que el programa nuclear iraní conlleva una amenaza militar. En realidad, Ahmadineyad cuenta con utilizar la energía nuclear para consumo de la economía interior, dejando libres, de esa forma, más y más reservas de crudo para vender en el extranjero, lo que le permitiría cobrar unos precios más acordes con la rentabilidad que les dictan sus limitaciones tecnológicas en la extracción.

En relación a las maniobras en el estrecho de Ormuz, han servido para recordar que por allí pasa el 35% del petróleo mundial que se comercializa por vía marítima y que un conflicto en la zona remataría la deteriorada economía occidental. Quizá por ello, no sería de extrañar que cobraran cuerpo las hipótesis de algunos analistas en el sentido de que Irán y los EEUU están destinados a entenderse, como ocurrió con Pekín y Washington en 1971. Porque el enfrentamiento, tal como está planteado, es un callejón sin salida.

Fuente: http://eurasianhub.com/2012/01/10/el-ataque-contra-iran-o-el-rosario-de-la-aurora/

US DEBACLE! How Two Wars in the Greater Middle East Revealed the Weakness of the Global Superpower

DEBACLE!
How Two Wars in the Greater Middle East Revealed the Weakness of the Global Superpower

By Tom Engelhardt. http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175484/
In Spanish: http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=142456

NOTA de Hugo adan. Enero 6, 2012

El parágrafo que transcribo a continuación contiene la esencia del artículo de Tom. Lo demás ya fue dicho hasta la náusea. Mi hypothesis: no creo que el fin de la impunidad haya sido el único elemento que determino la salida de las tropas USA de Iraq. El movimiento pacifista del pueblo americano que acuso a los reales beneficiarios de las guerras (los banqueros de Wall Street) y ocuparon las calles con pancartas anti-guerra y anti-capitalismo es algo que influyo fuertemente la política electoral actual. Ni siquiera el partido republicano, los master del war mongerism, pudieron contrarrestar esa demanda popular. De aquí que Ron Paul, un viejo pacifista de ese partido a quien siempre les fue fácil excluir, esta vez tuvo inmensa acogida dentro del partido guerrerista y a pesar del cargamonton contra el, Ron Paul es el 3ro candidato mas votado en sus primarias.

Otro factor importante que El Economist revelo en varios artículos es la posición de Alemania y Francia de un lado y de Rusia y China de otro. Es la suerte de dólar y la inmensa deuda, lo que esta en debate detrás de las cortinas, además de las trafas de los banqueros USA en Europa. Rusia le aseguro el gas a Europa y China el más grande mercado asiático aliado al pacto de Shanghái. En otras palabras, Europa no necesitan de las guerras de EU para mantener su economía y salir del atolladero económico en que están. Esto significa que la aventura militar contra Sirya e Iran no contaría con el apoyo de varios aliados europeos de NATO, su posible disolución, y el rechazo abierto de China y Rusia al proyecto USA-UK e Israel de bombardear y ocupar Iran para saquear el petróleo de este pais. La guerra con Syria-Iran puede dividir la OTAN y crear un movimiento anti-USA en varios continentes. Los directos afectados serian las empresas americanas y estos tampoco necesitan de guerras para salir adelante, con excepción de 10 corporaciones asociadas el military industrial complex.

Lean el extract de abajo y si tienen tiempo leen el resto del art de Tom:

“Only when the Iraqis simply refused to guarantee those troops immunity from local law did the last Americans begin to cross the border into Kuwait. It was only then that our top officials began to hail the thing they had never wanted, the end of the American military presence in Iraq, as marking an era of “accomplishment.” They also began praising their own “decision” to leave as a triumph, and proclaimed that the troops were departing with -- as the president put it -- “their heads held high.”

SE ACABO LA IMPUNIDAD en IRAK:

“Solo cuando los iraquíes simplemente se negaron a garantizar a esos soldados la inmunidad contra la ley local los últimos estadounidenses comenzaron a cruzar la frontera hacia Kuwait. Solo entonces los máximos funcionarios de EE.UU. comenzaron a saludar lo que nunca habían querido: el fin de la presencia militar estadounidense en Iraq, como si marcara una era de “logros”. También comenzaron a elogiar como si fuera un triunfo su propia “decisión” de partir, y proclamaron que los soldados partían –dijo el presidente– con “sus cabezas bien altas”.
----------------------------

He aquí el articulo de Tom:

DEBACLE!
How Two Wars in the Greater Middle East Revealed the Weakness of the Global Superpower

It was to be the war that would establish empire as an American fact. It would result in a thousand-year Pax Americana. It was to be “mission accomplished” all the way. And then, of course, it wasn’t. And then, almost nine dismal years later, it was over (sorta).

It was the Iraq War, and we were the uninvited guests who didn’t want to go home. To the last second, despite President Obama’s repeated promise that all American troops were leaving, despite an agreement the Iraqi government had signed with George W. Bush’s administration in 2008, America’s military commanders continued to lobby and Washington continued to negotiate for 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops to remain in-country as advisors and trainers.

Only when the Iraqis simply refused to guarantee those troops immunity from local law did the last Americans begin to cross the border into Kuwait. It was only then that our top officials began to hail the thing they had never wanted, the end of the American military presence in Iraq, as marking an era of “accomplishment.” They also began praising their own “decision” to leave as a triumph, and proclaimed that the troops were departing with -- as the president put it -- “their heads held high.”

In a final flag-lowering ceremony in Baghdad, clearly meant for U.S. domestic consumption and well attended by the American press corps but not by Iraqi officials or the local media, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta spoke glowingly of having achieved “ultimate success.” He assured the departing troops that they had been a “driving force for remarkable progress” and that they could proudly leave the country “secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people begin a new chapter in history, free from tyranny and full of hope for prosperity and peace.” Later on his trip to the Middle East, speaking of the human cost of the war, he added, “I think the price has been worth it.”

And then the last of those troops really did “come home” -- if you define “home” broadly enough to include not just bases in the U.S. but also garrisons in Kuwait, elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, and sooner or later in Afghanistan.

On December 14th at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the president and his wife gave returning war veterans from the 82nd Airborne Division and other units a rousing welcome. With some in picturesque maroon berets, they picturesquely hooahed the man who had once called their war "dumb." Undoubtedly looking toward his 2012 campaign, President Obama, too, now spoke stirringly of “success” in Iraq, of “gains,” of his pride in the troops, of the country’s “gratitude” to them, of the spectacular accomplishments achieved as well as the hard times endured by “the finest fighting force in the history of the world,” and of the sacrifices made by our “wounded warriors” and “fallen heroes.”

He praised “an extraordinary achievement nine years in the making,” framing their departure this way: “Indeed, everything that American troops have done in Iraq -- all the fighting and all the dying, the bleeding and the building, and the training and the partnering -- all of it has led to this moment of success... [W]e’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people.”

And these themes -- including the “gains” and the “successes,” as well as the pride and gratitude, which Americans were assumed to feel for the troops -- were picked up by the media and various pundits. At the same time, other news reports were highlighting the possibility that Iraq was descending into a new sectarian hell, fueled by an American-built but largely Shiite military, in a land in which oil revenues barely exceeded the levels of the Saddam Hussein era, in a capital city which still had only a few hours of electricity a day, and that was promptly hit by a string of bombings and suicide attacks from an al-Qaeda affiliated group (nonexistent before the invasion of 2003), even as the influence of Iran grew and Washington quietly fretted.

A Consumer Society at War

It’s true that, if you were looking for low-rent victories in a near trillion-dollar war, this time, as various reporters and pundits pointed out, U.S. diplomats weren’t rushing for the last helicopter off an embassy roof amid chaos and burning barrels of dollars. In other words, it wasn’t Vietnam and, as everyone knew, that was a defeat. In fact, as other articles pointed out, our -- as no fitting word has been found for it, let's go with -- withdrawal was a magnificent feat of reverse engineering, worthy of a force that was a nonpareil on the planet.

Even the president mentioned it. After all, having seemingly moved much of the U.S. to Iraq, leaving was no small thing. When the U.S. military began stripping the 505 bases it had built there at the cost of unknown multibillions of taxpayer dollars, it sloughed off $580 million worth of no-longer-wanted equipment on the Iraqis. And yet it still managed to ship to Kuwait, other Persian Gulf garrisons, Afghanistan, and even small towns in the U.S. more than two million items ranging from Kevlar armored vests to port-a-potties. We’re talking about the equivalent of 20,000 truckloads of materiel.

Not surprisingly, given the society it comes from, the U.S. military fights a consumer-intensive style of war and so, in purely commercial terms, the leaving of Iraq was a withdrawal for the ages. Nor should we overlook the trophies the military took home with it, including a vast Pentagon database of thumbprints and retinal scans from approximately 10% of the Iraqi population. (A similar program is still underway in Afghanistan.)

When it came to “success,” Washington had a good deal more than that going for it. After all, it plans to maintain a Baghdad embassy so gigantic it puts the Saigon embassy of 1973 to shame. With a contingent of 16,000 to 18,000 people, including a force of perhaps 5,000 armed mercenaries (provided by private security contractors like Triple Canopy with its $1.5 billion State Department contract), the “mission” leaves any normal definition of “embassy” or “diplomacy” in the dust.

In 2012 alone, it is slated to spend $3.8 billion, a billion of that on a much criticized police-training program, only 12% of whose funds actually go to the Iraqi police. To be left behind in the “postwar era,” in other words, will be something new under the sun.

Still, set aside the euphemisms and the soaring rhetoric, and if you want a simple gauge of the depths of America’s debacle in the oil heartlands of the planet, consider just how the final unit of American troops left Iraq. According to Tim Arango and Michael Schmidt of the New York Times, they pulled out at 2:30 a.m. in the dead of night. No helicopters off rooftops, but 110 vehicles setting out in the dark from Contingency Operating Base Adder. The day before they left, according to the Times reporters, the unit’s interpreters were ordered to call local Iraqi officials and sheiks with whom the Americans had close relations and make future plans, as if everything would continue in the usual way in the week to come.

In other words, the Iraqis were meant to wake up the morning after to find their foreign comrades gone, without so much as a goodbye. This is how much the last American unit trusted its closest local allies. After shock and awe, the taking of Baghdad, the mission-accomplished moment, and the capture, trial, and execution of Saddam Hussein, after Abu Ghraib and the bloodletting of the civil war, after the surge and the Sunni Awakening movement, after the purple fingers and the reconstruction funds gone awry, after all the killing and the dying, the U.S. military slipped into the night without a word.

If, however, you did happen to be looking for a word or two to capture the whole affair, something less polite than those presently circulating, “debacle” and “defeat” might fit the bill. The military of the self-proclaimed single greatest power of planet Earth, whose leaders once considered the occupation of the Middle East the key to future global policy and planned for a multi-generational garrisoning of Iraq, had been sent packing. That should have been considered little short of stunning.
Face what happened in Iraq directly and you know that you’re on a new planet.

Doubling Down on Debacle

Of course, Iraq was just one of our invasions-turned-counterinsurgencies-turned-disasters. The other, which started first and is still ongoing, may prove the greater debacle. Though less costly so far in both American lives and national treasure, it threatens to become the more decisive of the two defeats, even though the forces opposing the U.S. military in Afghanistan remain an ill-armed, relatively weak set of minority insurgencies.

As great as was the feat of building the infrastructure for a military occupation and war in Iraq, and then equipping and supplying a massive military force there year after year, it was nothing compared to what the U.S had to do in Afghanistan. Someday, the decision to invade that country, occupy it, build more than 400 bases there, surge in an extra 60,000 or more troops, masses of contractors, CIA agents, diplomats, and other civilian officials, and then push a weak local government to grant Washington the right to remain more or less in perpetuity will be seen as the delusional actions of a Washington incapable of gauging the limits of its power in the world.

Talk about learning curves: having watched their country fail disastrously in a major war on the Asian mainland three decades earlier, America's leaders somehow convinced themselves that nothing was beyond the military prowess of the “sole superpower.” So they sent more than 250,000 American troops (along with all those Burger Kings, Subways, and Cinnabons) into two land wars in Eurasia. The result has been another chapter in a history of American defeat -- this time of a power that, despite its pretensions, was not only weaker than in the Vietnam era, but also far weaker than its leaders were capable of imagining.

You would think that, after a decade of watching this double debacle unfold, there might be a full-scale rush for the exits. And yet the drawdown of U.S. “combat” troops in Afghanistan is not scheduled to be completed until December 31, 2014 (with thousands of advisors, trainers, and special operations forces slated to remain behind); the Obama administration is still negotiating feverishly with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai on an agreement that -- whatever the euphemisms chosen -- would leave Americans garrisoned there for years to come; and, as in Iraq in 2010 and 2011, American commanders are openly lobbying for an even slower withdrawal schedule.

Again as in Iraq, in the face of the obvious, the official word couldn’t be peachier. In mid-December, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta actually told frontline American troops there that they were “winning” the war. Our commanders there similarly continue to tout “progress” and “gains,” as well as a weakening of the Taliban grip on the Pashtun heartland of southern Afghanistan, thanks to the flooding of the region with U.S. surge troops and continual, devastating night raids by U.S. special operations forces.

Nonetheless, the real story in Afghanistan remains grim for a squirming former superpower -- as it has been ever since its occupation resuscitated the Taliban, the least popular popular movement imaginable. Typically, the U.N. has recently calculated that “security-related events” in the first 11 months of 2011 rose 21% over the same period in 2010 (something denied by NATO). Similarly, yet more resources are being poured into an endless effort to build and train Afghan security forces. Almost $12 billion went into the project in 2011 and a similar sum is slated for 2012, and yet those forces still can’t operate on their own, nor do they fight particularly effectively (though their Taliban opposites have few such problems).

Afghan police and soldiers continue to desert in droves and the U.S. general in charge of the training operation suggested last year that, to have the slightest chance of success, it would need to be extended through at least 2016 or 2017. (Forget for a moment that an impoverished Afghan government will be utterly incapable of supporting or financing the forces being created for it.)

The Pashtun-based Taliban, like any classic guerrilla force, has faded away before the overwhelming military of a major power, yet it still clearly has significant control over the southern countryside, and in the last year its acts of violence have spread ever more deeply into the non-Pashtun north. And if U.S. forces in Iraq didn’t trust their local partners at the moment of departure, Americans in Afghanistan have every reason to be far more nervous. Afghans in police or army uniforms -- some trained by the Americans or NATO, some possibly Taliban guerrillas dressed in outfits bought on the black market -- have regularly turned their guns on their putative allies in what’s referred to as “green-on-blue violence.” As 2011 ended, for instance, an Afghan army soldier shot and killed two French soldiers. Not long before, several NATO troops were wounded when a man in an Afghan army uniform opened fire on them.

In the meantime, U.S. troop strength is starting to drop; NATO allies look unsteady indeed; and the Taliban, whatever its trials and tribulations, undoubtedly senses that time is on its side.

Depending on the Kindness of Strangers

Weak as the several outfits that make up the Taliban may be, there can be no question that they are preparing to successfully outlast the greatest military power of our time. And mind you, none of this does more than touch on the debacle that the Afghan War could become. If you want to judge the full folly of the American war (and gauge the waning of U.S. power globally), don’t even bother to look at Afghanistan. Instead, check out the supply lines leading to it.

After all, Afghanistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. The U.S. is thousands of miles away. No giant ports-cum-bases as at Cam Ranh Bay in South Vietnam in the 1960s are available to bring in supplies. For Washington, if the guerrillas it opposes go to war with little more than the clothes on their backs, its military is another matter. From meals to body armor, building supplies to ammunition, it needs a massive -- and massively expensive -- supply system. It also guzzles fuel the way a drunk downs liquor and has spent more than $20 billion in Afghanistan and Iraq annually just on air conditioning.

To keep itself in good shape, it must rely on tortuous supply lines thousands of miles long. Because of this, it is not the arbiter of its own fate in Afghanistan, though this seems to have gone almost unnoticed for years.

Of all the impractical wars a declining empire could fight, the Afghan one may be the most impractical of all. Hand it to the Soviet Union, at least its “bleeding wound” -- the phrase Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev gave to its Afghan debacle of the 1980s -- was conveniently next door. For the nearly 91,000 American troops now in that country, their 40,000 NATO counterparts, and thousands of private contractors, the supplies that make the war possible can only enter Afghanistan three ways: perhaps 20% come in by air at staggering expense; more than a third arrive by the shortest and cheapest route -- through the Pakistani port of Karachi, by truck or train north, and then by truck across narrow mountain defiles; and perhaps 40% (only “non-lethal” supplies allowed) via the Northern Distribution Network (NDN).

The NDN was fully developed only beginning in 2009, when it belatedly became clear to Washington that Pakistan had a potential stranglehold on the American war effort. Involving at least 16 countries and just about every form of transport imaginable, the NDN is actually three routes, two of them via Russia, that funnel just about everything through the bottleneck of corrupt, autocratic Uzbekistan.

In other words, simply to fight its war, Washington has made itself dependent on the kindness of strangers -- in this case, Pakistan and Russia. It’s one thing when a superpower or great power on the rise casts its lot with countries that may not be natural allies; it’s quite a different story when a declining power does so. Russian leaders are already making noises about the viability of the northern route if the U.S. continues to displease it on the placement of its prospective European missile defense system.

But the more immediate psychodrama of the Afghan War is in Pakistan. There, the massive resupply operation is already a major scandal. It was estimated, for instance, that, in 2008, 12% of all U.S. supplies heading from Karachi to Bagram Air Base went missing somewhere en route. In what Karachi’s police chief has called “the mother of all scams,” 29,000 cargo loads of U.S. supplies have disappeared after being unloaded at that port.

In fact, the whole supply system -- together with the local security and protection agreements and bribes to various groups that are part and parcel of it along the way -- has evidently helped fund and supply the Taliban, as well as stocking every bazaar en route and supporting local warlords and crooks of every sort.

Recently, in response to American air strikes that killed 24 of their border troops, the Pakistani leadership forced the Americans to leave Shamsi air base, where the CIA ran some of its drone operations, successfully pressured Washington into at least temporarily halting its drone air campaign in Pakistan’s borderlands, and closed the border crossings through which the whole American supply system must pass. They remain closed almost two months later. Without those routes, in the long run, the American war simply cannot be fought.

Though those crossings are likely to be reopened after a significant renegotiation of U.S.-Pakistani relations, the message couldn’t be clearer. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in those Pakistani borderlands, have not only drained American treasure, but exposed the relative helplessness of the “sole superpower.” Ten (or even five) years ago, the Pakistanis would simply never have dared to take actions like these.

As it turned out, the power of the U.S. military was threateningly impressive, but only until George W. Bush pulled the trigger twice. In doing so, he revealed to the world that the U.S. could not win distant land wars against minimalist enemies or impose its will on two weak countries in the Greater Middle East. Another reality was exposed as well, even if it has taken time to sink in: we no longer live on a planet where it's obvious how to leverage staggering advantages in military technology into any other kind of power.

In the process, all the world could see what the United States was: the other declining power of the Cold War era. Washington’s state of dependence on the Eurasian mainland is now clear enough, which means that, whatever “agreements” are reached with the Afghan government, the future in that country is not American.

Over the last decade, the U.S. has been taught a repetitive lesson when it comes to ground wars on the Eurasian mainland: don’t launch them. The debacle of the impending double defeat this time around couldn’t be more obvious. The only question that remains is just how humiliating the coming retreat from Afghanistan will turn out to be. The longer the U.S. stays, the more devastating the blow to its power.

All of this should hardly need to be said and yet, as 2012 begins, with the next political season already upon us, it is no less painfully clear that Washington will be incapable of ending the Afghan War any time soon.

At the height of what looked like success in Iraq and Afghanistan, American officials fretted endlessly about how, in the condescending phrase of the moment, to put an “Afghan face” or “Iraqi face” on America’s wars. Now, at a nadir moment in the Greater Middle East, perhaps it’s finally time to put an American face on America’s wars, to see them clearly for the imperial debacles they have been -- and act accordingly.

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s as well as The End of Victory Culture, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, The United States of Fear (Haymarket Books), has just been published.

IS OBAMA WORSE THAN BUSH on CIVIL & POLITICAL RIGHTS?

OBAMA WORSE THAN BUSH on CIVIL & POLITICAL RIGHTS?

EL DESEMPATE DE OBAMA
Juan Gelman. http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=142379
Página 12. http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-184657-2012-01-03.html

Barack Obama acaba de superar a W. Bush: no cerró Guantánamo, inaugurado por su antecesor; amplió a Pakistán las guerras en Irak y Afganistán y su política económica y social no cambió la dirección que le imprimiera W. Pero pocos días después de cumplirse, el 15 de diciembre, el 220º aniversario de la Carta de Derechos que los Padres Fundadores de EE.UU. erigieron en modelo democrático, Obama promulgó una ley que recorta las libertades civiles más, pero mucho más que la Patriot Act de su predecesor. La National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), aprobada por el Congreso, faculta a las fuerzas armadas a encarcelar por tiempo indeterminado, sin cargos ni proceso y en prisiones militares, a todo estadounidense sospechado de terrorista, aunque viva en el extranjero. Adiós al derecho de defensa y a un juicio civil, adiós a la presunción de inocencia del acusado hasta que su culpabilidad se pruebe.

Son conocidas las torturas y humillaciones propinadas a los presos en Guantánamo y aún padecen, los que quedan, exactamente la misma situación. Este hecho despertó protestas débiles en EE.UU., finalmente se trataba de extranjeros. La amenaza de que los estadounidenses mismos se vean sometidos a semejante trato provocó las reacciones más inesperadas, aun antes de que Obama diera su plácet al engendro. El New York Times publicó una columna de opinión de los generales (R) Charles C. Krulak y Joseph P. Hoar, del cuerpo de marines, nada avara en adjetivos (www.nytimes.com, 12–12–11).

(La NDAA) “es equivocada e innecesaria: el presidente ya cuenta con el poder y la flexibilidad que requiere una lucha efectiva contra el terrorismo... las leyes en vigor facultan a los militares a detener a los capturados en el campo de batalla, pero esta disposición extendería el campo de batalla a EE.UU.”. Agregan que la disposición no sólo viola el espíritu de la legislación que limita el uso de las fuerzas armadas en cuestiones de seguridad interna, “sino también nuestra confianza en el personal de servicio, que se alistó pensando que nunca se le pediría que volviera sus armas contra nuestros compatriotas”. Subrayan que la medida “reduce, si no elimina, el papel de las cortes federales en los casos de terrorismo... desde el 11/9, las inciertas e inexpertas comisiones militares condenaron solamente a seis acusados de terrorismo, mientras que los tribunales civiles sentenciaron a más de 400”. Una consideración muy práctica.

Forbes distrajo un poco de su permanente atención a los multimillonarios para titular así una de sus columnas: “La NDAA es la amenaza más grande a las libertades civiles que los estadounidenses enfrentan” (www.for bes.com, 5-12-11). “Y qué hay de la inocencia hasta que la culpabilidad se pruebe. Y qué hay de un gobierno con límites. Estamos afrontando el acabóse. O mantenemos las libertades intrínsecas de nuestra república constitucional o rompemos ese proyecto entero en nombre de la seguridad librando sin término esa infructuosa, cara y en última instancia contraproducente Guerra contra el Terror.”

Al parecer, juicios tan duros hicieron vacilar a la Casa Blanca y varios asesores sugirieron la posibilidad de que la ley fuera vetada. Pero Obama, citando vagos cambios introducidos en el texto, pegó la vuelta en U y descartó el veto incurriendo en lo que un editorial del New York Times calificó de “una rendición política completa, que refuerza la impresión de una presidencia que se mueve a tropezones” (www.nytimes.com, 15-12-11). A saber si fue realmente así.

El patrón de la Casa Blanca agitó el fantasma del veto “pero no porque tuviera alguna objeción a la sustancia de la ley –señaló el Christian Science Monitor–. En realidad el presidente, que es un ex profesor de derecho constitucional, quería retener la facultad de aplicar sus disposiciones, es decir, el encarcelamiento militar por tiempo indeterminado, a los ciudadanos estadounidenses que, en virtud de la Constitución, tienen derecho a un juicio expeditivo y público y a la protección jurídica debida. El Congreso capituló” (www.csmonitor.com, 28–12-11). No fue Obama el que izó bandera blanca.

El profesor de derecho Jonathan Turley, de la Universidad George Washington, trazó el historial de las violaciones de los derecho civiles y humanos cometidas por el gobierno Obama, desde el permiso para usar ese tormento llamado “submarino” hasta el bloqueo de la investigación y procesamiento de torturadores del ejército y la CIA (www.latimes.com, 29–11-11). “Con el tiempo, la elección de Barack Obama podrá considerarse como uno de los sucesos más devastadores en nuestra historia de las libertades civiles”, concluye Turley.

La Carta de Derechos, primera enmienda de la Constitución de EE.UU., aprobada en 1791, garantiza, entre otras, la libertad de expresión y de reunión, el derecho, entre otros, a no ser sometido a torturas y a un juicio rápido con un jurado imparcial. Pareciera que el ex profesor de derecho constitucional olvidó todo lo que sabía.

Fuente original: http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-184657-2012-01-03.html