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MIM Notes 315 · March 1, 2005 · Page 1

MIM Notes

March 1 2005, Nº 315

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

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By a contributor

February 17, 2005

Many "socialists" and even

"communists" in the united $nakes have

been strangely silent about Ward

Churchill, which is an expression of the

fact that their lines are really bourgeois.

But some who have opened their mouths

to "defend" him have seen fit to

undermine him with the other hand.

Certain so-called leftists and socialists

have been contributing to Ward

Churchill's detractors' distortion of his

ideas, while claiming to support Churchill

in his struggle with the Colorado governor

and legislators, and the Colorado

University regents. Not content with

making simplistic Liberal arguments in

defense of Churchill's Constitutional

"free speech" rights, some have gone as

far as calling Churchill's arguments

"reactionary," presumably to distance

themselves from Churchill's unpopular

ideas. Yet, they claim to be supporting

Churchill as a matter of principle.

But these "leftists" aren't just trying to

distance themselves from Churchill's

Support Ward Churchill

Don't slander him all over again

ideas; many actually mean what they say.

This is a recent example from the World

Socialist Web Site:

"This [Churchill's argument about the

"technocratic corps" as being little

Eichmanns] is a wrongheaded and deeply

reactionary argument, whether it refers

to top officials of investment firms or

immigrant maintenance workers. The

crimes of US imperialism are manifold,

and seen from the perspective of a Native

American, American history must appear

a particularly bloody spectacle.

Nonetheless, to identify the American

people, from whom virtually all

knowledge about the consequences of the

Persian Gulf war and sanctions has been

withheld, with the US war machine is a

terrible political mistake and writes off

the possibility of profound social change

in America. Moreover, the essential

callousness of Churchill's response to the

bombings works in the opposite direction

of cultivating humanitarian and generous

impulses in the population." (David Walsh,

For fliers and a petition, see http://

www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/

sept112001/

THE

`COLLECTIVE

RESPONSIBILITY'

MOVEMENT

Western white man's greatest

accomplishment in the 20th century

The whole Ward Churchill furor about

"little Eichmanns" and the huge

propaganda blitz surrounding the taking

of U.$. hostages in Iraq point up the

urgent need to understand the collective

responsibility of the white man in the

industrialized imperialist countries. In

particular, it is appropriate at this moment

to point out the greatest accomplishment

of the white man of the Western

industrialized countries in the 20th

century. The award goes to the German

communists who for a time ran the

government of Germany with the theme

of "collective responsibility" for the

crimes of Nazi Germany. Without that

movement for "collective responsibility,"

the white man would have that much less

basis for peace with the rest of the world.

The first official statement of the

communist party (KPD) once legalized

after World War II said:

"`Not only Hitler is guilty of the crimes

that have befallen humanity! Ten million

Germans also bear part of the guilt, those

who in 1932 in free elections voted for

Hitler although we communists warned:

`Whoever votes for Hitler votes for war!'

"Part of the guilt is also borne by those

German men and women who, spineless

and without resistance, watched Hitler

grab power, watched how he destroyed

all democratic organizations, especially

those of the labor movement, and locked

up, tortured, and murdered the best

Germans.

"Guilty are all those Germans who saw

in the armaments build up a `Greater

Germany' and perceived in bestial

militarism, in marches and exercises, the

sole sanctifying redemption of the nation."

Then, as now, there were those who

wanted to whitewash countless

oppressive actions carried out by ordinary

On February 18, 2005, the glorious red

banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism

was hoisted over northern North America

with the establishment of MIP-Kanada,

a Maoist Internationalist Party. MIP-

Kanada works closely with its fraternal

parties in the other imperialist countries

and maintains ties with its fraternal parties

in the developing countries.

Kanada has plenty of parties calling

themselves "socialist" or "communist"

that cater to the demands of Kanadians,

but MIP-Kanada is the only party that

upholds MIM's correct and scientific

Announcing MIP-Kanada

The Kanadian vanguard party

view of Kanada as a country dominated

by a labour aristocracy that supports

imperialism because it has been bought

off with a share of imperialist superprofits

extracted from the Third World. White

Kanadians, like their Amerikan

counterparts, constitute an oppressor

nation that subjugates its internal semi-

colonies, principally the First Nations. We

spell "Canada" and "Canadian" with a

"K" to symbolize the decadent, backward,

pro-imperialist nature of Kanada's non-

proletarian working class.

MIP-Kanada upholds MIM's positions

on the

K a n a d i a n

n a t i o n a l

q u e s t i o n .

A l t h o u g h

Q u é b e c ' s

struggle for

s o v e r e i g n t y

gets the most

attention in the

K a n a d i a n

media, MIP-Kanada sees the struggle of

the First Nations for self-determination

as the primary national struggle in Kanada

and the only one that gets our support at

this time. While recognizing Québec as a

nation, we join our First Nations comrades

in opposing Québec's independence as a

move that would set back the

independence of the First Nations and

play into the hands of U$ imperialism. We

will support any First Nations that demand

their indepedence from Kanada and will

offer them our assistance in establishing

their own Maoist parties.

In addition, MIP-Kanada agrees with

the majority of Kanadians that Kanada

does not have a distinct culture or a

national identity. Anglophone Kanada in

particular is merely an extension of the

United $tates. Unlike the Kanadian-

chauvinist parties calling themselves

Marxist that exaggerate Kanada's

distinctness for opportunist ends, MIP-

Continued on page 4...

Continued on page 5...

Continued on page 9...

MIM Notes 315 · March 1, 2005 · Page 2

What is MIM?

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is the collection of existing or emerging

Maoist internationalist parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-

speaking internal semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Maoist Internationalist
parties in Belgium, France and Quebec and the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking
Maoist Internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.$. Empire.

MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-speaking
parties or emerging parties of MIM. MIM upholds the revolutionary communist ideology
of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and is an internationalist organization that works from the

vantage point of the Third World proletariat. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all
groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possibly by
building public opinion to seize power through armed struggle. Revolution is a reality for

North America as the military becomes over-extended in the government's attempts to
maintain world hegemony. MIM differs from other communist parties on three main
questions: (1) MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, the

potential exists for capitalist restoration under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within
the communist party itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the
death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's death and the overthrow of the "Gang

of Four" in 1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest advance
of communism in humyn history. (3) As Marx, Engels and Lenin formulated and MIM has
reiterated through materialist analysis, imperialism extracts super-profits from the Third

World and in part uses this wealth to buy off whole populations of oppressor nation so-
called workers. These so-called workers bought off by imperialism form a new petty-
bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to

advance Maoism within those countries because their standards of living depend on
imperialism. At this time, imperialist super-profits create this situation in the Canada, Quebec,
the United $tates, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland,

Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark. MIM accepts people as
members who agree on these basic principles and accept democratic centralism, the system
of majority rule, on other questions of party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should

regard it not as dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of
learning terms and phrases, but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution."

- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208.

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Two weeks ago King Gyanendra of

Nepal fired all his puppets and took full

and open control of the political regime.(1)

He imposed a total communications

blackout, only now being somewhat

relieved.

At the same time, the king ordered the

arrest of bourgeois politicians planning

demonstrations. Hundreds have been

detained. As a result, Denmark has

ceased its aid operations to Nepal and

other countries are threatening to follow

suit.

Currently, the United $tates, India and

the European Union are making a show

of slapping the king on the wrist for totally

moving away from "democracy." In

actuality, they are letting King Gyanendra

do their dirty work.

Without bourgeois political

interlocutors, the monarchy's army in

Nepal is now openly speaking for itself

as upholding "human rights" despite fears

about what such an openly monarchist

regime might intend.(2) As MIM reported

previously, at least some bourgeois

analysts believe that King Gyanendra is

the only one with political capital with the

military sufficient to launch any attacks

on the Maoist rebels carrying out People's

War. Otherwise, we might expect that the

imperialists would have assassinated the

king long ago and installed a new stooge.

As usual, the military strategy of an

unpopular regime is to rely on higher

technology weaponry than what the rebels

have. King Gyanendra wasted no time

by launching air strikes on his own

people(3) after disposing of his own

previous puppet government. Yet it is

inevitable that in a Maoist People's War,

the people will learn to adjust to new

weapons and seize new ones of their

own.

Thanks to the secret nature of

bourgeois diplomacy we can only

speculate that the king did all this with

the green light from U.$. imperialism. It's

only too cute that after the united $tates

and others delivered their military aid to

the monarchy, they criticized him slightly

and withdrew ambassadors "for

consultation," a somewhat severe

diplomatic move by diplomatic standards.

This allows the imperialists to pretend to

wash their hands of what follows.

Again, the king's move only proves

what MIM was saying before about the

nature of u.$. allies in Nepal and globally.

As usual, Uncle $am finds the most

bizarre and backward people to prop

up--anybody as long as they are not

communist.

In this case, the imperialists have

picked their typical lackey, someone on

the wrong side of history. It is also the

case that the petty-bourgeoisie of

Amerika deserves some criticism for

supporting god-kings like King Gyanendra

in Nepal, when they themselves would

never consent to living under a god-king.

The crunchy, feel-good granola-eaters

of Amerika fantasize about lands distant

and spiritually pure. They fantasize that

the slave-owning Dalai Lama would have

ruled better than Mao.

Now we see the result. For all who

have praised the Dalai Lama, here is your

comeuppance. You should now be in

praise of King Gyanendra. Here is your

chance to show that theocrats in countries

that supposedly never want to change are

King makes his move

Nepal reaches critical point

better than Maoists. The Hindu god

Vishnu is supposedly incarnated in

Nepal's king.

As MIM said in MIM Notes 303, "the

mode of production needs to advance in

Nepal. The Maoists are right, and that's

why the political alternatives seem so

ludicrous." It's obvious that no one can

modernize Nepal except the Maoists.

Notes:

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/

south_asia/4226039.stm

2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/

south_asia/4269787

3. http://www.boston.com/news/world/

a s i a / a r t i c l e s / 2 0 0 5 / 0 2 / 0 8 /

nepali_army_launches_air_strikes_against_rebels/

MIM Notes 315 · March 1, 2005 · Page 3

On February 16, the professional U.$.

hockey league called "National Hockey

League" (NHL) announced the

cancellation of the season. The players

and owners could not agree on salary caps

per team, with players wanting $49 million

per team and owners wanting it to be $6.5

million less.

Even on NBC television, the disgruntled

fans led the announcer to point out how

"big business" has made itself unpopular

in this context. Fans spoke on TV about

how they wanted the game played for its

own sake.

MIM refers to this conflict as one of

leisure-time dynamics. Although salaries

make it possible to have professional

sports, the public somehow still wants in

the back of its mind that sports have

intrinsic value, apart from money.

Sports for their own sake and sex for

its own sake are similar agenda items

when it comes to capitalism. In fact, with

the existence of capitalism it is not

possible to know when people have sex

for its own sake and it is not possible to

know who would be the champions in

sports without the influence of having to

entertain for money. As the professional

basketball player Dennis Rodman

explained, even he does not believe the

NBA is about who is the best player or

team. Instead it's about who the owners

believe they should promote because of

their capability to sell tickets and boost

TV ratings.

In this particular conflict over hockey,

the fans with a refined sense of leisure

time gain some insight into the fight

against capitalism. They realize that

capitalism is destroying something they

value external to money.

In most circumstances, people with a

refined sense of leisure are contributing

Capitalism ruins sports: NHL cancels season

to capitalism's stability. We call these

people "gender aristocracy." People who

might otherwise be discontented find

themselves entertained into apathy.

Statistics on newspaper readership and TV

viewing make it clear that such people are

increasingly important while "hard news"

reporting by MIM or the New York Times

is less and less important in the majority-

exploiter countries.

Another interesting point about the

hockey season cancellation (and at the

very least, the NHL has missed most of

its season to negotiations thus far) is the

salaries of the players, who average $1.8

million a year in salary. There are many

foolish or deceptive "Marxists" who say

that income does not matter and that

hockey players are "proletariat," because

they receive a paycheck and do not own

the stadiums.

In contrast, genuine Marxists believe

that income derives from access to the

means of production. High income

generally comes from access to the

means of production. In this case, high

income is so high it is access to the means

of production itself. $1.8 million is not the

means of subsistence. It is an amount to

save in the form of access to the means

of production--stocks, bonds and savings

accounts. The annual interest from $1.8

million in an account somewhere is

sufficient to live on-- proof that the

average hockey player is not just petty-

bourgeois but outright bourgeois. What

matters is not who owns the skating rink

but the fact that players are partners to

the TV rights-access to the means of

production in general, not particular

lockerrooms or gyms.

Note: http://www.940news.com/

news.php?cat=9&id=n0216110A

By a comrade

A Texas prisoner has sent us a copy of

his "Rational Self-Analysis" (RSA)

worksheet. RSA is a simplistic

psychological method used by quack

business consultants and other charlatans

trying to make an easy buck off of

people's insecurity. The method is

designed to get people to disassociate

themselves from things they "cannot"

change and instead focus on the effects

of their own actions. Like horoscopes, at

a high enough level of generality these

ideas may appear correct. For example,

we should avoid ultraleft idealism, or the

idea that we can take revolutionary action

as if material conditions have already

changed in the direction we want them

to. But we do not say that we "cannot"

change material conditions -- just that

we need to understand how much they

have actually changed, and be scientific

about how much change we can effect

in a certain time period.

In this Texas prison, the counselor

applying the RSA program is clearly just

trying to get the prisoner to stop worrying

about other prisoners' conditions, to

prevent the development of collective

identity. Clearly, "an injury to one is an

injury to all" would constitute a violation

of the reprogramming the counselor is

trying to impose.

The worksheet below says, "the way

to change our feelings is not to change

reality (this is impossible!) but to change

our trouble causing patterns of thinking."

We agree that what we think and feel

reflects the interaction of external events

and our own consciousness and reaction

to them. However, we must insist that

our reactions in turn influence external

events. If that were not the case, society

would never change. The counselor wants

to break the dialectical connection

between consciousness and conditions,

to insist that the only correct approach

for the prisoner is to accept all material

conditions as unchanging "reality" and

settle for adapting his behavior to survival

within these conditions. We would agree

that revolutionary prisoners need to put

a very high priority on their own survival,

and that idealism about the ability to affect

conditions can lead to costly mistakes.

But we reject the underlying philosophy

in general and the shameless attempt to

depoliticize this prisoner in particular.

We would like to see other examples

of this or similar programs from other

prisoners, so that we may expose them

to prisoners and their supporters outside

the walls.

Below is the excerpted text of the

worksheet, with the prisoner's responses

as written shown in italics. The

counselor's "corrections," marked in red

pen, appear in [brackets].

Rational Self-Analysis

The A-B-C Model:

If we look at our lives, most of what is

going on in our heads is focused on

situations or events of some kind.

Thousands of events are occurring all of

the time but only certain ones get our

attention. These events are called

Activating Events. We often think that

these cause us to feel a certain way and

we believe we cannot help feeling the

way we do because they "made" us feel

that way. We believe that our feelings/

behaviors are the consequences of the

event. But if that were true, then everyone

would react to the same event the same

way. However, the Consequences of the

event, our feelings and behaviors, are

really caused by the Beliefs we hold about

the event. The way to change our feelings

is not to change reality (this is impossible!)

but to change our trouble causing patterns

of thinking. We need to create helpful,

worthwhile, encouraging and useful

Rational Responses that will help us feel

and behave in healthy ways!

Worksheet

Rational Self-Analysis: A guide to

help you challenge your self-talk

[Across the top, in red, the prison

counselor has written, "Please try again!"]

A - Activating Event (Something

happens):

Prisoner: Officer did not feed

another offender at chow.

B - Beliefs, thoughts, self-talk (I tell

myself something about "A"):

Prisoner: The officer did this as a

form of punishment but only because

be believes he can get away with it.

C - Consequences (I feel and do

something):

Emotions (I feel):

Prisoner: Anger

Behaviors (I do): I question the officer

as to why he didn't feed the offender.

D - Dispute (Challenge) the above

Beliefs by answering the following

questions about each thought you listed

above. If your answer is no, explain why.

A-live? Does this thought keep me

safe?

Prisoner: No. It lets the officer know

that I did not like what he did.

F-eel? Does this thought help me feel

the way I want to feel?

Prisoner: Yes

[Counselor's red pen: Please refer to

"B" and "C"]

R-eal? Is this though true? Is it based

on objective reality?

Prisoner: Yes.

O-thers? Does this thought keep me

out of trouble with others?

Prisoner: No. It places me in threat

of retaliation.

G-oals? Does this help me reach my

goals?

Prisoner: Yes.

[Counselor's red pen: Please refer to

"B" and "C". It is the responsibility of

the other offender to deal with this

problem. By becoming involved in another

offender's problem, you *make* it *your*

problem.]

Create a Rational Response (New self-

talk that is worthwhile, encouraging,

useful, and helps you reach your goals):

Prisoner: Instead of questioning

officer about the incident, simply file

a complaint against him.

Abolish the oppressor's tool called `psychology'

Texas prisoners face professional brainwashing

MIM Notes 315 · March 1, 2005 · Page 4

"The new McCarthyism: the witch-

hunting of Ward Churchill," http://

www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/

chur-f11.shtml)

What this particular example shows is

that Trotskyists are worse than nothing.

They are also worse than Liberals, like

the ACLU, who do not claim to be

socialist, yet still manage to support Ward

Churchill without strongly attacking him

with the other hand. David Walsh

conflates the "technocratic corps" with

the "American people" and repeats the

vague bullshit about Churchill being

"callous" toward the Trade Center victims

(without mentioning how callous Madeline

Albright was). And he deliberately

misreads Ward Churchill as saying there

is no opportunity for any Amerikans to

change, when Churchill clearly

acknowledges the existence of a minority

of Amerikans (albeit tiny) who opposed

the Iraq sanctions in more effective ways

than those who either did nothing or too

little to oppose the sanctions.

David Walsh also attributes Churchill's

observations on Amerikan genocide to

Churchill's being an American Indian:

"seen from the perspective of a Native

American, American history must appear

a particularly bloody spectacle."

However, it is David Walsh and other

Trotskyists who practice identity politics

by quickly opposing any line that locates

the bulk of the revolutionary forces outside

the "American people." Also, David

Walsh lies about Amerikans not knowing

the effects of the sanctions before 9/11.

It's as if David Walsh did not even read

Churchill's essay. As Churchill points out,

Madeline Albright herself admitted on 60

Minutes in 1996 that half a million children

died as a result of the sanctions. Peer-

reviewed research on the child mortality

effects of the sanctions appeared as early

as 1992. David Walsh's obnoxious

nihilism with regard to what the Amerikan

population could have known about the

sanctions is exactly what Ward Churchill

is talking about. And what could the

Amerikan population have known, a

decade before 9/11? Just looking at the

Iraq sanctions:

On November 4, 1992, The Atlanta

Journal and Constitution reported James

Grant as saying Iraqi "children are in the

greatest crisis, and 3 million people suffer

from U.N. sanctions. He spoke of raw

sewage and broken pumps, malnutrition

and deaths from measles in a situation he

called `very fragile'." On September 24,

1992, The Toronto Star (Reuters)

reported: "An international team of

researchers estimated 46,900 children

under age 5 died in Iraq between January

and August, 1991, as an indirect effect of

the bombing, civilian uprisings and a U.N.

ordered economic embargo." On

September 24, 1992, USA TODAY

reported: "Air attacks on Iraq during the

Persian Gulf war, and subsequent trade

sanctions, increased by threefold the

number of war-related infant and child

deaths, a postwar study suggests." On

December 23, 1991, a St. Louis Post-

Dispatch (Missouri) editorial reported:

"The sanctions have indeed been choking

Iraqis to death. According to surveys, food

prices in Iraq have risen more than 2,000

percent, per capita calorie intake has

dropped to 1,500 calories from 3,000

before the war; cholera, typhoid,

meningitis and diarrhea are epidemic;

infant morality has quadrupled and

118,000 children are at risk of death."

On November 25, 1991, The

Washington Post reported: "After more

than a year of U.N.-imposed economic

sanctions, Iraqis are accustomed to such

shortages. But in what diplomats here

say could become a major obstacle to U.S.

efforts to sway Iraqi public opinion and

influence government policy, Iraqis are

expressing growing anger and resentment

toward the United States for maintaining

the economic blockade, now that Iraqi

forces are out of Kuwait. . . . [Ayad

Ramadhani, surgeon in Mosul, Iraq, said]

`Your country is punishing our people.

What the United States is doing is starving

our children and depriving people of drugs

and telling them to overthrow the

government. This is torture, inhumane

torture'." On November 5, 1991, a St.

Petersburg Times (Florida) editorial

reported "George Bush repeatedly said

we had no quarrel with the people of Iraq,

but they are suffering from the continued

economic sanctions imposed on them by

the West and from the consequences of

the air war. Eighty-eight thousand tons

of bombs were dropped on the country,

causing devastation that imperils the lives

of thousands of children. . . . A group of

Harvard doctors and public health

workers visited Iraq last month and

brought back harrowing statistics. After

visiting 9,034 households in every region

in Iraq, the team reached these

conclusions: 900,000 Iraqi children are

malnourished. The mortality rate for

children is 380 percent greater than it was

before the war."

On December 19, 1990, The Herald

Sun (Reuters) reported: "Iraq claimed

today UN sanctions had killed 2042 Iraqi

children under the age of five years since

August because of shortages of food and

medicine." On the same day, The

Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA)

(Reuters) reported the same thing.

There are hundred of other examples

like these (not only before September

2001, but before 1996!), and these

reactionary jokers like David Walsh have

the nerve to claim the "American people"

could not know have known anything

about the consequences of the sanctions

long before 9/11?

Robert Jensen, in an essay ("Ward

Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right

About 9/11," http://

w w w . c o u n t e r p u n c h . c o m /

jensen02142005.html) posted in several

places on the Internet, also misrepresents

the content of Ward Churchill's "Some

People Push Back" essay. This may be

even more damaging than the foul WSWS

trash because Robert Jensen, unlike David

Walsh, purports to give Ward Churchill's

main argument "firm" support.

What Robert Jensen does which is so

devastating is to interpret Churchill as

supporting the Trade Center attacks as a

matter of strategy, when Churchill is only

counseling readers on how to avoid similar

attacks in the future. Robert Jensen: "It's

hard to read that as anything other than

an endorsement of the use of deadly force

against all those involved in "the mighty

engine of profit' to which the military

dimension of U.S. policy has always been

enslaved," apparently at the level of stock

traders and above." Jensen proceeds to

discuss why "the attacks of 9/11 don't

meet the test" of necessary and justified

violence. However, Ward Churchill never

said the attacks were effective. On the

contrary, Churchill said: "For it to have

been otherwise, a far higher quality of

character and intellect would have to

prevail among average Americans than

is actually the case. . . . it's becoming

increasingly apparent that the dosage of

medicine administered was entirely

insufficient to accomplish its purpose.

Although there are undoubtedly

exceptions, Americans for the most part

still don't get it."

Also, Churchill only said the "little

Eichmanns" had it coming morally from

the viewpoint of those who carried out

the Trade Center attacks (thus Churchill's

use of the word "penalty," which has a

punitive connotation), and in the sense that

it was predictable based on a long history

of Amerikan militarism and genocide.

How much clearer can it get? Churchill

said: "This might be seen as merely a

matter of `vengeance' or `retribution,'

and, unquestionably, America has earned

it, even if it were to add up only to

something so ultimately petty." Read that

again: "petty."

Petty

Petty, like Robert Jensen's pathetic

attempts to fabricate distinctions between

stock traders on the exchange floor and

higher-up brokers and portfolio managers,

as if these people weren't all parasites,

as well as cogs in the machine, and didn't

have similar career goals and political

aims. Petty, like Jensen's claim that

"high-level traders" bear more

responsibility simply because their actions

have more powerful immediate financial

consequences. It's as if Jensen were

holding the high-level employees to a

higher standard--perhaps because they

are aware of the evil they are perpetrating

(which reduces responsibility to a matter

of subjective intentions). Jensen's whole

point about differing levels of responsibility

covers up the fact that the low-level stock

traders are also parasites and easily had

the leisure time to participate in the

revolutionary anti-imperialist struggle. It

obscures the fact that the low-level stock

traders were just as aware of the

consequences of the Iraq sanctions for

Iraqi children, or did they not read

newspapers or watch the news on TV?

The bourgeoisie themselves were talking

and worried about the consequences,

more for pragmatic reasons, but still.

Straight up, executives do not have

more responsibility than lower-level

employees. On the contrary, the exploited

and oppressed cannot rely on the most

powerful, and therefore most

"responsible" parasites, like executives

and the best-paid professionals, for

change. The fact that the less

"responsible" labor aristocracy who

aren't executives haven't overthrown

capitalism is an indictment on its own, but

with a material basis in the labor

aristocracy's role in parasitism. Jensen is

wrong to distance not only the Amerikan

labor aristocracy, but also the stock

traders, from "collective responsibility."

Totaled up, the labor aristocracy may

have even more responsibility than the

executives. To say they have less

responsibility in comparison to parasites

higher on the ladder is misleading. There

is no end to this kind of logic. Eventually,

we would just be holding a handful of

individuals in the White House

responsible. Even within the dominator's

own logic about "democracy" and

elections, the people in the White House

are the choice of the Amerikans.

Ward Churchill is right; the Amerikan

population as a whole (but particularly the

white oppressor nation) has had more

than enough opportunity to be informed

about imperialism, and more than enough

opportunity to act, but they have not acted.

Granted, many are too busy being

decadent to be very well-informed. Yet,

most were aware of the Iraq sanctions,

for instance, but did absolutely nothing

about them. For Jensen to speak of

degree of responsibility here is ridiculous

because Amerikan parasites hardly

exhibit degrees of action in the first place.

What it comes down to is that Jensen,

under the pretext of "disagreeing" with

Churchill's writing in order to

"demonstrate [true] solidarity," portrays

Churchill as having an unrefined

terroristic mentality incapable of

discriminating between different

Amerikan parasites. But Churchill was

not proposing terrorism as a strategy in

the first place, so Jensen's "disagreement"

is just the same slander about Churchill's

supposed ulterior motives.

Support Ward Churchill

From page 1...

MIM Notes 315 · March 1, 2005 · Page 5

Germans during World War II--actions

that in no way could ever generate humyn

harmony. The guises for this were many.

Some called them "exploited workers."

Others clung to "Aryan superiority." The

various politicians in Germany after the

war vied to evade the truth, the unpopular

truth. It could be no other way, because

parliamentary politicians win through

flattery of the majority, so at those times

when something absolutely unflattering

has to be said about the majority, only a

communist dictatorship guided by

scientific principles has a chance of

moving forward.

Aside from MIP-Amerika, MIP-

Kanada, the Ghetto Liberation Political

Party, the Russian Maoist Party and the

movement to put the ALKQN on the

Maoist road there are no organizations in

the imperialist countries with a correct

line to fight the propaganda of Bu$h's

"war on terror." There is no way to fight

back against the propaganda without the

ideology of collective responsibility. The

terrorist attacks on ordinary Amerikans

will appear as out-of-the-blue, unless we

understand the oppressive actions of

ordinary Amerikans costing millions of

innocent civilian lives since World War

II.

THE `COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY' MOVEMENT

Eventually, the understanding of

"collective responsibility" in Germany fell

by the wayside. In the meantime, at least

a partial purge of Nazis from responsible

positions had occurred, a difficult struggle

considering how many ordinary Germans

had enthusiastically participated in Nazi

oppression. In eastern Germany, various

citizens of other Sovietized countries had

to run the administration while Germans

could not do it for themselves. At the time,

there was no systematic theory for why

the Germans could not do it themselves,

only a political reality of Nazi history, a

fact too obvious to evade, theory or no

theory.

Soon after the end of World War II,

Stalin died in 1953 and the political path

of capitalist-roader Khruschev was clear.

There was never to be a summation of

the German experience guided by

revolutionary science. It is only with 50

years hindsight, and the principles

developed in MIM's line, that we can now

say that the "collective responsibility"

movement of Germany in 1945 and 1946

was the greatest political advance of the

Western white man in the 20th century.

Ironically, today, Ward Churchill finds

himself criticized by many consciously and

unconsciously influenced by Marx writing

about early capitalism. Yet it has been

almost 160 years since Marx wrote the

"Communist Manifesto" and over 80

years since Lenin explained why

imperialist wealth may delay the

revolution in the most industrialized

countries. That means that we are

overdue for a correct summation of

history.

The award for the greatest

accomplishment of the Western white

can not go to the rebels of Paris in 1968,

because there was no follow-up. The

rebels had the physical opportunity to take

power, but did not because of a lack of

mission that the German comrades

demonstrated in 1945 and 1946. The

German comrades too had many flaws,

but the one thing that they managed to

do is still unparalleled elsewhere--

provide political meaning to a majority on

why it had been wrong.

The German communist example in

1945 continues to shine a brilliant light

today. The German communists were not

"terrorists" or "terrorist sympathizers" for

talking about "collective responsibility"

and that is something that even the

ordinary Amerikan can understand, if

political activists unite behind the MIM

line to put forward the explanation

necessary. Just as today the various

minorites scapegoated by the allies of the

Bu$h administration had nothing to do

with 911, because it was Reagan and

Bu$h who armed and trained Al-Qaeda,

so too the German comrades were

involved with no terrorist armed actions

while putting forward the "collective

responsibility" line that advanced global

peace. Certainly the ordinary Germans

did suffer during and after World War II,

but the German comrades held firm and

did not try to evade their own

responsibility for their own plight.

The German communist example also

lights the path, because it proves that in

any strategic situation no matter how dire,

what matters is the overall strength of

the international proletariat in the world,

not inside a particular powerful imperialist

country. There is no reason to give up

the fight, and in some circumstances it is

absolutely necessary to resist the majority

bitterly.

Note: Weitz, Eric D. Creating German

Communism, 1890-1990: From Popular

Protests to Socialist State. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 1997, p. 319.

From page 1...

As of February 20, 2005, 8:40 AM

GMT, a February 16, 2005, article entitled

"Turnabout: Ward Churchill Now Target

of Terrorists" (http://

w w w . c h r o n w a t c h . c o m / c o n t e n t /

contentDisplay.asp?aid=13089) appears

on the third page of Google news search

results for: "Ward Churchill". The article,

by Jeremy Robb, is posted on

ChronWatch, which is intended to be

critical of the "ultra liberal" bias of the

San Francisco Chronicle , and initially

appeared in the "Fun Stuff" section on

the front page of ChronWatch. Under the

pretext of "satire," the article reports that

Al Qaeda has objected to being compared

with Jews by implication of Churchill's

describing the World Trade Center

"technocratic corps" as "little

Eichmanns." (Adolf Eichmann was a

Nazi bureaucrat, who supposedly was just

obeying orders.) Jeremy Robb falsely

reports:

"In a printed statement, Churchill said

"I am shocked that I have become the

target of Al Qaeda. I hate Americans as

much, if not more, than they do. I only

wish I could have been on one of those

planes to prove how much I hate

Americans. And I certainly would never

insult these freedom fighters by

comparing them to Jews." "

Given the outright lies about Churchill

going around in the blogosphere and the

larger Internet, many will write off the

ChronWatch article as being yet another

intentional, blatant distortion of Ward

Churchill's "Some People Push Back"

essay , this time under the pretext of

parody or satire, and they will be right.

The article is total bullshit, and the quote

Jeremy Robb attributes to Churchill was

just made up. But what's interesting is

that Google's "computer algorithms

without human intervention" portrays this

as a news piece, like any other, and some

persyns have actually interpreted it as

such.(1) Elsewhere, the body of the article

was reposted, without comment, on right-

wing University of Haifa Professor

Steven Plaut's blog.(2) However, the

ChronWatch article does not actually

parody anything in the San Francisco

Chronicle . On the contrary, the

Associated Press articles, covering Ward

Churchill's struggle with the Colorado

bureaucrats, in the San Francisco

Chronicle , have distorted and in other

ways misrepresented the content of

Churchill's essay. Other blog posts, filled

with shameless lies about Churchill and

racist attacks (repeated off-line) having

to do with his American Indian lineage,

appear as legitimate "news" on Google.

In another example (http://

www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/

sept112001/wardchurchill021705.html) of

a half-assed "defense" of Ward Churchill

that actually undermines him, Steven Best,

Assistant Professor at the University of

Texas at El Paso, undermines Churchill's

credibility by contributing to his

detractors' distortions of what he said.(3)

According to Steven Best, "Churchill

wrongly viewed the World Trade Center

as a military target and absurdly judged

everyone killed in the twin towers as `little

Eichmanns'."

But Churchill did not "judge everyone

killed in the twin towers as `little

Eichmanns'," only those whom he called

the "technocratic corps." This is patently

clear from just reading Churchill's

description of the "little Eichmanns" in

his essay.

Under the pretext of overcoming

Churchill's alleged lack of "nuance" and

even going as far as to contradict himself

in the same paragraph, Steven Best

falsely attributes statements to Ward

Churchill, such as: "Churchill declared

that the 2,977 people killed in the `sterile

sanctuary of the twin towers' were not

innocent victims, but rather ` little

Eichmanns.' Without nuance or

qualification , Churchill argued that those

killed in the World Trade Center were as

culpable for US violence as top Nazi

bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann was for

Hitler's `final solution'" (emphasis mine).

Not only does this clearly misrepresent

what Churchill said right in his

controversial essay, Steven Best had the

nerve to write this more than a week after

Churchill unnecessarily clarified: "It should

be emphasized that I applied the `little

Eichmanns' characterization only to those

described as `technicians.' Thus, it was

obviously not directed to the children,

janitors, food service workers, firemen

and random passers-by killed in the 9-1-

1 attack. According to Pentagon logic,

were simply part of the collateral

damage" (emphasis mine).(4) Steven

Best even notes this clarification. Yet,

Best insists on insinuating that Churchill

was "back-peddling."

From MIM's point of view, all

Amerikans need to take collective

responsibility for crimes of their

government. Churchill's argument

touched on a different subject --the

golden rule that Amerikans supposedly

love with Christian values. If "collateral"

damage is OK for Amerikans to carry

out as the government said during the Gulf

Wars, then "collateral" damage certainly

cannot be blamed when the terrorists took

out a CIA office in the World Trade

Center. Those people flying into the twin

towers did nothing that Amerikans had

not been doing for years and the only way

for peace is for the main perpetrators to

recognize that.

Steven Best feigns ignorance(5) on

behalf of the bourgeoisie, not just the

broad Amerikan labor aristocracy: "unlike

Eichmann U.S. technocrats may be

genuinely oblivious to the violent nature

of the system for which they work." But

not only are the "technocrats" responsible,

so is the majority of the larger Amerikan

population. As Deborah Frisch points out,

Unprincipled cowards from the Internet purposefully misrepresent Ward Churchill's ideas

Half-assed "defenses" of Churchill not enough

Go to page 6...

MIM Notes 315 · March 1, 2005 · Page 6

it is "[tempting] to agree that `titans' of

finance are more guilty than the rest of

us. But even though they're better

compensated than the rest of us, they're

no more guilty, really. We're all little

Eichmanns. Only the far left is willing to

admit it."(6)

Steven Best asserts: "Left unqualified,

Churchill's words can be read as an

endorsement of terrorism and mass

murder; thus, they had obvious

inflammatory potential that the Right

exploited to full advantage to launch a

new round of Culture Wars." This is

wrong. Churchill did indeed specify who

the "little Eichmanns" were in his essay,

and Churchill's words do not endorse

terrorism or mass murder. It is only open

reactionaries and idiots like Steven Best

Half-assed "defenses" of Churchill not enough

with reading-comprehension problems

who could "read" Churchill's essay in this

way.

For those who still do not get it, if you

are going to "defend" Ward Churchill,

only to misrepresent what he said, just

stay out of it. There may be a difference

between distancing oneself from

Churchill's ideas, and misrepresenting his

ideas, but many "liberals and Leftists"

have certainly crossed this line into

fueling the gross distortion of Churchill's

ideas. Steven Best says: "Numerous

liberals and Leftists have defended

Churchill's First Amendment rights, while

offering more thoughtful and nuanced

analyses of 9-11." But many so-called

leftists have also contributed to the

butchering of Churchill's essay.

Between now and the conclusion of the

CU chancellor and regents' investigation

in March is not the time for so-called

nuance. But now is the time to defend

Churchill thoroughly. Individuals who

cannot do this should at least refrain from

making questionable "interpretations" of

Churchill's essay.

Notes:

1. http://graffitiwall.radioleft.com/blog/

_archives/2005/2/5/303426.html

2. http://

www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com/

(accessed February 20, 2005)

3. "Killing the Messenger: Ward

Churchill's Sins Against the Empire,"

http://www.pressaction.com/news/

weblog/full_article/best02102005/

4. "January 31 2005 statement from

Ward Churchill," http://www.etext.org/

P o l i t i c s / M I M / m n / s e p t 1 1 2 0 0 1 /

wardchurchilljan2005.html (scroll down)

5. A pattern exhibited by mouthpieces

of the labor aristocracy (or even

capitalists covering up for the labor

aristocracy) who "defend" Ward

Churchill for their own purposes, only to

trash what he said and undermine his

credibility. See: "Support Ward Churchill;

don't slander him all over again," http/

www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/agitation/

iraq/sanctionspolls.html

6. Deborah Frisch, "A Psychologist's

Defense of Ward Churchill," http://

w w w . c r i t i c a l h i s t o r y . c o m /

index.php?itemid=753

From page 5...

By a contributor

February 18, 2005

Certain individuals, presuming to refute

Ward Churchill's "Some People Push

Back" essay that is causing the governor

of Colorado to ask for Ward Churchill's

resignation from the University of

Colorado, are suggesting Amerikans could

not have known about the effects of the

Iraq sanctions long before 9/11, at least

enough to act. The argument goes that

since such people "did not know," they

cannot hold moral responsibility as "little

Eichmanns" as Ward Churchill charged.

What counts as actionable information is

the underlying question.

The low quality of the imperialist

media's output is worth mentioning.

Progressives should seek to raise the truth

quotient in politics, and that includes

raising the truth quotient in public opinion.

News media, which both influences and

reflects public opinion, can water down

or otherwise distort the truth. To point out

that the vast majority of Amerikans could

have known about the child mortality

effects of the sanctions against Iraq, for

instance, is not to say that the media

coverage of the Iraq sanctions was

adequate politically. As Maria Alanis

points out, mainstream media coverage

of Iraq sanctions has been lacking,

numerically speaking and otherwise, since

September 11, 2001, yet more proof of

the need for the oppressed to have their

own independent institutions, including

newspapers.(1)

Undoubtedly, an Iraqi child mortality

figure repeated matter-of-factly by a

news announcer on a bourgeois news

program is not going to be really inspiring.

[mim3@mim.org interjects: No one can

find a reference for the alleged Stalin

quote "An individual death is a tragedy.

A million deaths is a statistic," but if he

said it, it would surely be referring to his

frustration in communicating with the

public via statistics, not a belief that a

million deaths is unimportant. Quite the

contrary, Stalin put the group above the

individual as do all communists.]

Saying something like "according to the

Iraqi government , this number of Iraqi

children have died..." is obscuring things,

too. But repeated exposure to such

coverage should be enough motivation for

even the densest Amerikan to delve a little

bit more deeply into the Iraq sanctions

question. That the vast majority of

Amerikans did not is directly related to

their parasitic privileges, decadence, and

oppressor politics. Far from opposing the

Iraq sanctions, most Amerikans have

expressed support for the Iraq sanctions,

lifted partially only in May 2003. And most

of those who verbally opposed the Iraq

sanctions failed to act in any way to

oppose them.

Contrary to Robert Jensen's argument,

low-level stock traders have just as much

responsibility as high-level stock traders

when both absolutely fail to act against

imperialist militarism and genocide. To say

only those high on the corporate and

political ladders have great responsibility

is opportunism and strategically

disorienting. But let's leave aside for now

what Amerikans did not do. Let's look at

what they did do.

An October 22, 1990, telephone poll

(before the Persian Gulf War began)

conducted by Yankelovich Clancy

Shulman shows that 56% of Amerikans

wanted to "continue sanctions." 32%

wanted to "take military action." Only 4%

voluntarily indicated "neither." A

November 1990 telephone poll conducted

by the same marketing firm shows that

57% of Amerikans wanted to "continue

sanctions." 35% wanted to "take military

action." Only 1% voluntarily indicated

"neither."

A July 31, 1991, Gallup telephone poll

(after the Gulf War ended) shows that

52% of Amerikans supported "leaving the

sanctions in place as long as Saddam

Hussein remains in power." 37%

supported "allowing Iraq to sell some oil

if the money goes to pay for food and

medical supplies." Only 6% supported

"lifting the sanctions to allow Iraq to

resume."

In May 1996, Madeline Albright did not

dispute 500+ thousand Iraqi children dead

from Iraq sanctions on 60 Minutes. A

September 10, 1996, telephone poll

conducted by the Los Angeles Times,

several months after the 60 Minutes

broadcast, shows that 16% of Amerikans

supported continuing "economic sanctions

against Iraq." 9% supported continuing

"military operations against Iraq." 58%

supported continuing "both economic

sanctions and military operations."

A November 25, 1997, telephone poll

by CBS News and New York Times

shows that only 14% of DemoKKKrats

supported making the Iraq sanctions "less

restrictive." 80% said they should be

"continued as they are now." 79% of

Amerikans in general said they should be

"continued as they are now."

(RepubliKKKans were slightly worse

than Demokrats, but independents made

Amerikans as a whole more supportive

than even Demokrats of making the Iraq

sanctions less restrictive.)

The u.$. population as a whole, but

particularly the oppressor Euro-Amerikan

nation, is privileged compared with

oppressed nations and even compared

with imperialist countries like Russia. Polls

conducted by the United States

Information Agency, for example, show

that Russians supported the Iraq sanctions

less than Amerikans did. Amerikans

obtain privileges from imperialist

parasitism, so much so that the majority

are exploiters. So, when the mainstream

media consistently papers over the

consequences of the Iraq sanctions for

Iraqi children, that really is not surprising.

For certain reasons, such representations

of the Iraq sanctions correspond to the

interests of most Amerikans. Amerikans'

supporting the Iraq sanctions was not an

instance of false consciousness for most

Amerikans. For anti-imperialists sorting

out what demands to support and what

demographics to work with, this is

strategically important to know.

At the same time, however, the

reactionary politics of the majority of

Amerikans cannot be attributed to a lack

of information. True, better information

was available than in the mainstream

media, but that is precisely the point. In

"Some People Push Back," Ward

Churchill notes that "as a whole, the

American public greeted these

[mainstream media!] revelations with

yawns" and continued to engage in self-

absorbed chauvinism and decadence,

when they could have spent an hour

finding and reading better information on

the Iraq sanctions.

There are tons of non-mainstream

sources on the Iraq sanctions, but it is

interesting to see what even the

mainstream sources were putting out.

One TV example is from Larry King

Live on September 13, 1993.(2) General

Norman Schwarzkopf did not dispute the

fact that "the Iraqi children, the people,

and the elderly are dying because of the

sanctions," only saying "that the sanctions

are applied by the United Nations." On

Larry King Live, January 19, 1993,

Pentagon spokespersyn Pete Williams did

not dispute that "allied bombing" had an

effect on Iraqi children and wimmin.(3)

On November 3, 1992, CBS News'

Bob Simon reported from Baghdad:

"Mr. Bush does not have many fan clubs

anywhere in Iraq. He is remembered here

as the man who bombed Iraqi children,

as the man who's now making their lives

miserable by keeping economic sanctions

in force even though the war is now over.

Even opponents to the regime have their

own reasons for resenting Mr. Bush. He

is remembered by them as the man who

The collective responsibility movement for Amerika

What could AmeriKKKans have known about the Iraq sanctions?

Go to next page...

MIM Notes 315 · March 1, 2005 · Page 7

encouraged the Kurds and Shiites and

other dissidents to rise up against Saddam

Hussein when the war was over and then

abandon them to the not-very-tender

mercies of the regime.(4)"

What the above illustrates is that, while

Iraq did not support terrorism, the

murderous Iraq sanctions were

contributing to Iraqis' and possibly others'

anger toward the united $tates. Other TV

news programs dealt with the

consequences of the Iraq sanctions more

directly:

On November 21, 1992, CNN's Gale

Young reported from Baghdad:

"The accord [U.N. accord allowing

limited UNICEF aid in Iraq] was signed

after UNICEF director James Grant

toured Iraqi hospitals. Baghdad said these

children are suffering from disease and

malnutrition because it does not have the

hard currency needed to import food and

medicine, allowed under the terms of the

embargo. . . . The United States tried,

unsuccessfully, to block the UNICEF

agreement saying it gave Iraq too much

control. Baghdad, meanwhile,

maneuvered to limit the number of U.N.

guards allowed under the pact. But these

power struggles are probably beyond the

comprehension of most of the Iraqi

children caught in the middle."(5)

On World News Tonight with Peter

Jennings, January 16, 1992, Dennis

Troute reported from Baghdad:

"The young suffer disproportionately

because they depend on powdered milk

which is scarce. Western analysts

estimate that 30 percent of Iraqi children

are malnourished. Infectious diseases are

rampant, including cholera and typhoid,

in part because power and water

treatment plants have not been fully

restored. Medicines are not supposed to

be affected by the embargo, but they are

in short supply all the same and doctors

are frustrated. " (6)

Remarkably, Troute stated the above

as facts, or attributed them to "Western

analysts," not the Iraqi government.

On World News Tonight with Peter

Jennings, July 4, 1991, ABC News'

Dennis Troute reported from Washington,

D.C.:

"Dr. Michael Viola and two other

American doctors have just returned from

Baghdad, their research and that of other

foreign doctors shows that the infant

mortality rate in many hospitals has more

than tripled since last year. A recent study

by UNICEF, the United Nations relief

agency for children, reaches the same

conclusion. Relief workers and Iraqis

blame the shortages of food, as well as

medicine and drinking water, on the

international sanctions still in place against

Baghdad. The sanctions prevent Iraq

from selling oil and raising money for food

and the expensive machinery needed to

get sanitation facilities running again. The

sanctions do allow emergency deliveries

of food and medicine, but relief agencies

say despite their best efforts they are

falling far short of Iraq's needs. Here in

Washington, the Bush Administration's

own National Security analysts have

warned the White House that large

numbers of Iraqi children will die this

summer without massive imports of food

and medicine. The White House argues

that the sanctions provide important

leverage against Saddam Hussein, but

American doctors, as well as Iraqis now

are pointing out that Saddam Hussein is

not the one going hungry." (7)

On Nightline, May 30, 1991, ABC

News' Ted Koppel reported:

"Whatever pressure that may be putting

on the Iraqi president, it is certainly a

hardship on the Iraqi people. Indeed, a

team of U.S. doctors recently returned

from a tour of Iraq and predicted that the

impact of the sanctions is devastating,

especially on the children. Similar

projections have been made by UNICEF

and by the International Red Cross." (8)

Dennis Troute followed up with:

"These undernourished children are

victims of a war which had just started

when they were born. They've become

the subject of growing alarm for doctors

both in Iraq and in the West. Relief

workers talk about the real possibility of

tens of thousands of deaths. . . . The

sanctions against Iraq heighten the

dangers confronting its children in several

ways. Milk, medicine and chemicals

needed to purify water are in short supply

because the sanctions bar Iraq from

selling its oil to purchase new stocks.

That's true also of spare parts needed to

fix generators damaged during the war.

Without adequate power, it is impossible

to treat sewage or to refrigerate food.

The problem of food shortages is most

acute among Iraq's poor. They were

dependent on inexpensive foods

subsidized by petroleum sales over the

past decade. Now government milk

rations have been cut by two-thirds.

When there is food, they often cannot

afford it. With the sanctions still in place,

they see no relief in sight. . . . Infant

mortality rates, which were three percent

before the war, now are above 13

percent. Doctors expect them to get

worse. An examination of death

certificates at the children's hospital

shows that the most frequent cause of

death is marasmus, or a wasting away of

tissue in an advanced state of

malnutrition. Relief workers say problems

are worsening because critical supplies

in this country of 18 million are being

exhausted much faster than they can ever

be replaced." (8)

On World News Tonight with Peter

Jennings, May 21, 1991, ABC News' John

McWethy reported from the State

Department:

"The Harvard [S]tudy [T]eam predicts

that 170,000 Iraqi children under the age

of five will die in the next year from

delayed effects of the war. They will die

because in some parts of Iraq there is

still no electricity, no sewage treatment,

no functioning hospitals. There is already

severe malnutrition the report says and

widespread cases of cholera, typhoid and

gastroenteritis. During the hot months of

summer, the situation will get worse.

Iraq's ability to help itself is severely

limited because of the UN embargo

prohibiting Iraq from selling its oil to the

outside world.(9)"

Again, there are hundreds of other

examples like these in the mainstream

newspaper and television news media. All

of the above handful of selected TV

examples were taken from just 1991-

1993. It is wrong for opportunists to feign

ignorance on behalf of the labor

aristocracy in order to say the "American

people" could not have known enough to

act, not even enough to go out and get

more information.

Notes:

1. Maria Alanis, "Media Coverage of

Iraq Sanctions," October 20, 2003, http:/

/soc.hfac.uh.edu/artman/publish/

article_29.shtml (accessed February 18,

2005).

2. Transcript #914 (the reference

system of electronic source "Lexis-

Nexis")

3. Transcript #743.

4. Transcript.

5. Transcript # 226 - 3.

6. Transcript.

7. Transcript.

8. Transcript.

9. Transcript.

The collective responsibility movement for Amerika

From previous page...

By a contributor

February 20, 2005

"It should be noted that not one but two

high United Nations officials attempting

to coordinate delivery of humanitarian aid

to Iraq resigned in succession as protests

against US policy.

"One of them, former U.N. Assistant

Secretary General Denis Halliday,

repeatedly denounced what was

happening as "a systematic program . . .

of deliberate genocide." His statements

appeared in the New York Times and

other papers during the fall of 1998, so it

can hardly be contended that the

American public was "unaware" of them.

Shortly thereafter, Secretary of State

Madeline Albright openly confirmed

Halliday's assessment. Asked during the

widely-viewed TV program Meet the

Press to respond to his "allegations," she

calmly announced that she'd decided it

was "worth the price" to see that U.S.

objectives were achieved."(1)

The Amerikan population as a whole,

the majority of whom are exploiters, had

and continue to have collective

responsibility for Amerikan imperialist

militarism and genocide. In his essay

"Some People Push Back," Ward

Churchill adequately points out that the

Amerikan population, and particularly the

"well-educated," had collective

knowledge of the consequences of the

sanctions against Iraq. However,

Amerikans had knowledge of the child

mortality and other undesirable effects of

the Iraq sanctions even earlier than Dennis

Halliday's statements in 1998, or 1996,

the year of the 60 Minutes broadcast with

Madeline Albright.

The following is aimed at those who

are spreading lies to the effect that

Amerikans could not have known

anything substantial, before the

September 11, 2001, attacks, about the

consequences of the Iraq sanctions. The

focus is on u.$. mainstream newspapers,

and these are just a handful of the articles

Amerikans read in just 1991-1995.

Several other similar articles from 1990-

1992 are mentioned in "Support Ward

Churchill; don't slander him all over

again" (http://www.etext.org/Politics/

M I M / m n / s e p t 1 1 2 0 0 1 /

wardchurchill021705.html). The first part

of "What could AmeriKKKans have

known about the Iraq sanctions?" (http:/

/www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/agitation/

iraq/sanctionspolls.html) provides some

television news media examples from

1991-1993. Keep in mind that this is not

just about the viscerally repugnant effects

of the Iraq sanctions, but rather a pattern

of Amerikans, including leftists and even

"socialists" (not to mention

DemoKKKrats and RepubliKKKans),

denying and then feigning ignorance about

the consequences of Amerikan imperialist

militarism and genocide generally.

Mainstream newspaper sources,

1991-1995

On March 28, 1993, the Washington

Post reported for the more pragmatic

Amerikan parasites:

"Economic sanctions don't work very

well. They sound tough, but in practice

they often end up helping the very people

who are supposed to be punished.

" "None of the sanctions are working,"

said retired U.S. diplomat Robert B.

Oakley, who just completed an

assignment as special U.S. envoy in

Somalia after serving at various times as

ambassador to Pakistan, Zaire and

Somalia."(2)

On June 19, 1992, columnist Charles

Krauthammer, upholding military action

as an alternative to sanctions, mentioned:

"almost a year and a half of the most

severe sanctions in history, applied to a

country devastated by war, U.S.

intelligence agencies report that Hussein

is stronger today than he was a year

ago.(3)

The above is a case of pro-imperialist

Amerikan parasites criticizing the Iraq

sanctions for selfish pragmatic reasons,

but it is revealing. Still, in 1996, 58% of

telephoned Amerikans supported

continuing "both economic sanctions and

What could AmeriKKKans have known about the Iraq sanctions?: Part II

Go to next page...

MIM Notes 315 · March 1, 2005 · Page 8

military operations," and 16% supported

continuing "economic sanctions against

Iraq" (poll by the Los Angeles Times,

September 10, 1996). In 1992, three times

as many Amerikans supported

maintaining "economic sanctions"

compared with giving "money to finance

groups in Iraq that want to overthrow

him" (poll by NBC News, March 2,

1992).

On July 24, 1991, USA TODAY

reported:

"President Bush is looking for a way to

relax U.N. sanctions against Iraq to halt

`'the suffering of innocent women and

children,'' he said Tuesday. . . . Bush has

been torn between reports of malnutrition

and epidemics in Iraq and his vow to

isolate Saddam Hussein's government

into oblivion."(4)

It appeared that George H. W. Bush

himself made decisions based on

knowledge of "malnutrition and epidemics

in Iraq."

On December 18, 1991, The

Washington Post reported:

"Iraq said more than 80,000 of its

children under 5 have died because of

shortages caused by U.N. sanctions

imposed over its invasion of Kuwait. . . .

Iraq said last month that 65,000 children

had died because of shortages of food

and medicine and 350,000 more were at

risk this winter. The U.N. Children's Fund

said the figures were realistic."(5)

On September 8, 1991, The

Washington Post presented excerpts from

letters sent from Iraq to the united $tates:

"Letters also describe the effect of

sanctions in carefully chosen terms. "We

are happy as a family. We enjoy reading

by lamplight until our eyes are full of

tears, then we sleep. Even in the daytime,

we read when we have free time

because there is no cooking gas, so we

cook and make bread on kerosene space

heaters. H -- and I spend two or three

hours making bread from flour more like

animal feed than it is flour, but that is all

that is available. More recently, of course,

real flour is in the shops, but at outrageous

prices. People are beginning to hunt deer

out of malnourishment and hunger."(6)

"The most recent letters date from mid-

July. This is the last one from one family:

"I went to Amman for a few days. I tried

to get immigration visas for myself and

the family to any country in the world.

My dear, life has become extremely

difficult in Iraq. The prices continue to

rise in a mad way beyond imagination but

we manage in one way or another. God

protect us from what will come next, it is

bound to be worse.""(6)

Feelings of distress resonated even

among Iraqis in the united $tates who

were against the Ba'ath Party. On July

24, 1991, an editorial in The Washington

Post related:

"But the greatest anguish is being

endured now, as Iraqi Americans watch

the governments of the United States and

the allies listen to multiplying reports of

hunger and disease with seeming passivity

What could AmeriKKKans have known about the Iraq sanctions?: Part II

and indifference.

"The shortages of food and medicine

in Iraq are at catastrophic levels. Children

are dying daily from malnutrition,

malnourishment and the absence of basic

medical care and such common drugs as

antibiotics. In addition to cholera, typhoid

and gastroenteritis, previously unknown

diseases in Iraq such as kwashiorkor and

marasmus are killing children."(7)

Other writers urged readers to consider

the so-called unintended consequences of

the Iraq sanctions. On November 21,

1993, William F. Woo commented in the

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri):

"Sanctions may be politically

convenient or cheap for the nation

imposing them, but their harsh effects upon

civilian populations - despite so-called

precautions to exempt food or medicine -

make it important that moral

considerations occur before they are

ordered. They are the economic

equivalent of warfare, and like the real

warfare of guns and bombs they can add

to the suffering of innocent people who

already have troubles enough."(8)

Perceptions of the sanctions-caused

suffering were reflected elsewhere in the

mainstream newspaper press. On August

1, 1993, the Chicago Sun-Times

(Associated Press) reported:

"Ordinary Iraqis struggle to survive

from day to day as the sanctions bite ever

deeper, law and order inexorably breaks

down and a once rigidly structured society

collapses.

Beggars, virtually unknown in Baghdad

before the war, crowd the streets. They

ask for food, not money. Crime is

endemic, despite severe penalties that

make even car theft punishable by

death."(9)

On April 9, 1993, Plain Dealer

(Cleveland, Ohio) (Wire Reports)

reported that:

"Iraq's labor minister said yesterday

that U.N. trade sanctions and the effects

of the Persian Gulf war have closed most

factories in Iraq and caused record

unemployment.

"Omed Medhat Mubarak said tens of

thousands of factories have shut down

since the war because of a shortage of

raw materials and spare parts."(10)

Of course, far more articles in just the

month of April were dedicated to

unemployment rates in the united $nakes.

This was not because of a lack of

"authoritative" reporting on the

consequences of the Iraq sanctions. On

July 16, 1991, USA TODAY reported:

"A U.N. humanitarian report Monday

urged easing sanctions against Iraq,

calling such a move `'imperative'' for

helping war-ravaged civilians. . . . Claims

that 170,000 Iraqi children could die from

war-related illness and starvation have

been challenged, yet doctors agree

malnutrition is rampant among Iraqi

children."(11)

On July 5, 1991, The Washington Post

reported:

"Iraqi civilians, complaining that the

country's worsening economic crisis is

hurting them far more than the

government, are expressing bewilderment

and annoyance at U.S. insistence on

continuing international trade sanctions. .

. . Although they recognize that the U.S.

aim is to force the ouster of President

Saddam Hussein -- a goal many Iraqis

support -- they say this is not likely and

in the meantime they are bearing the

brunt of the economic hardship. As a

result, many say, they are beginning to

think that the Iraqi people, not the

government, are the target of U.S.

hostility. . . . One woman said she didn't

know what the word "embargo" means,

"but we need food!""(12)

On October 22, 1991, The New York

Times reported:

"A new public health study by American

and other Western experts in Iraq says

the country's child mortality rate has

nearly tripled and perhaps even

quadrupled as a result of the Persian Gulf

war, civil strife and international

sanctions.

"Such an elevated mortality rate could

mean tens of thousands of additional

deaths in Iraq's population of more than

three million children under five years old,

officials who took part in the survey said,

although they declined in their study to

make specific projections of overall

deaths."(13)

News articles were interspersed with

disturbing editorials and letters to the

editors. On October 25, 1991, Frances

Farenthold related in USA TODAY:

"In May, I saw the wizened faces, the

emaciated bodies, the parched skin of

babies and children and the fearful

expressions of their mothers in Iraqi

hospitals. I smelled the stench of sewage

and listened to the frantic pleas of

exhausted and bedraggled doctors asking

that sanctions be lifted.

"This week's report indicates conditions

have not improved; mortality rates have

almost quadrupled since August

1990."(14)

On April 26, 1993, Pittsburgh Post-

Gazette (Pennsylvania) (Wire

Dispatches) reported:

"Death rates among young children in

Iraq have increased by more than 800

percent because of U.N. economic

sanctions, Iraq said yesterday. . . . 362

Iraqi children under age 5 died of

malnutrition, diarrhea and pneumonia. It

said that figure was up to 3,419 children

in March 1993, an increase of 844

percent. Iraq blames the increased death

on shortages of food and medicine from

the U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq's

1990 invasion of Kuwait."(15)

On December 27, 1995, a Washington

Post editorial reported:

"A study commissioned by the U.N.

Food and Agriculture Organization

estimates that a half-million Iraqi children

have died because of the international

economic sanctions in effect since the end

of the gulf war. To this stunning toll must

be added the malnutrition and disease

affecting the many others, children and

adults, who are still alive. It adds up to a

second gulf war of historic proportions

-- a war whose immense civilian

casualties apparently fall most

conspicuously upon the young."(16)

Estimates of Iraqi children dead from

the sanctions varied, but they were

consistently high. Total estimates as of

1996, reported in the mainstream

newspaper press and elsewhere, were

unquestionably higher than total Amerikan

casualties in the Viet Nam War. On

December 24, 1995, an editorial in the

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Wisconsin)

commented:

"Iraqi children's suffering is the result

of a policy championed by the United

States. . . . The dimensions of Iraq's plight,

and especially the suffering of its children,

were authoritatively documented earlier

this month in The Lancet, the journal of

the British Medical Society, by two

researchers from Harvard University

who visited Iraq in August under U.N.

auspices. . . . "Water and sanitation

systems have deteriorated, hospitals are

functioning at 40% capacity, and the

population is largely sustained by

government rations which provide 1,000

calories per person per day. . . . Since

August 1990, 567,000 children in Iraq

have died as a consequence" of the

sanctions."(17)

The mainstream newspaper press

portrayed a struggle, even within the

United Nations, over the Iraq sanctions.

On December 29, 1995, the Times-

Picayune (New Orleans, LA) reported:

"Sanctions on Iraq will remain in place

until Baghdad complies with all U.N.

Security Council resolutions, U.N.

Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali

said Thursday. But Boutros-Ghali said he

hopes Baghdad will accept a U.N. offer

to let Iraq sell $2 billion worth of oil to

buy badly needed food and medicine for

its 20 million people. "These sanctions

cause me pain," said the U.N. chief,

referring to the misery the 5-year-old

embargo has caused the Iraqi people.

Russia, meanwhile, shipped 27 tons of

food and medical supplies to Baghdad

Thursday for Iraqi children who are

reported to be suffering from malnutrition.

Russian officials in Amman, Jordan, said

the shipment was trucked to Iraq from

Jordan because the United Nations

refused to allow it to be airlifted to

Baghdad."(18)

On December 11, 1995, Barbara

Crossette of The New York Times

reported:

"The effects that five years of

sanctions are having on children in Iraq

has been a concern of UNICEF and other

U.N. agencies. Experts say they believe

that at least 500,000 children may have

died because of the sanctions and

because of President Saddam Hussein's

refusal to allow a United Nations-

supervised sale of Iraqi oil to buy food,

medicine and other emergency

supplies."(19)

On October 16, 1994, The Washington

Post, as if anticipating Ward Churchill's

From previous page...

Go to next page...

MIM Notes 315 · March 1, 2005 · Page 9

"Some People Push Back" essay,

reported:

"Signs of Iraq's agony -- due in large

part to the U.N. trade embargo, imposed

after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 -- are

abundant in this once prosperous, oil-rich

country. The health care system, once

among the best in the Middle East, is in

shambles; Baghdad's raw sewage is being

dumped for the third straight year into the

Tigris River, the main source of drinking

water; more babies are dying of

malnutrition; the proportion of young girls

dropping out of elementary school is up

to 17 percent from 2.3 percent; crime and

corruption are up; the educated are

leaving and the middle class is in ruins. . .

. The sanctions also have generated anti-

American sentiment among Iraqis that

some observers fear could be exploited,

either by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein

-- if he survives the U.S. challenge to

his leadership -- or by Islamic

fundamentalists."(20) (emphasis mine)

The divergence between the u.$.

governments' intentions with respect to

the Iraq sanctions, and the "unintended"

consequences of the sanctions, was

apparent in other ways. The seeming lack

of control gave pause to pro-imperialist

pragmatists who were considering

"military operations" against Iraq, but

should also have motivated people to

oppose the sanctions as part of exposing

and resisting the crimes of imperialism.

On May 22, 1991, Patrick E. Tyler in The

New York Times reported the following:

"The [Harvard University] medical

team's report raises new questions about

whether the Bush Administration's

postwar strategy of continued economic

sanctions against Iraq will lead to rising

mortality rates in the nation of 18 million,

where health problems, disease and

malnutrition are reported to be growing

out of control.

"Senior Bush Administration officials

have said in the past that they will not

allow Iraqi civilians to starve as

Washington calibrates a postwar pressure

campaign to keep tight trade sanctions

on Iraq to force President Saddam

Hussein from power. But the Harvard

study suggests that a combination of

disease, food shortages and high prices

is already causing thousands of

deaths."(21)

This is just a sample of the newspaper

pieces, from 1991-1995, covering the

murderous consequences of the sanctions

against Iraq. The mainstream newspaper

press and television news media

continued to report on the consequences

of the Iraq sanctions in 1996-2003.

Notes:

1. "Some People Push Back: On the

Justice of Roosting Chickens," http://

www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/

sept112001/somepeoplepushback.html

2. Stuart Auerbach, "Are Sanctions

More Harmful Than Helpful?; Experts

Say Embargoes Enrich Targets, Hurt

Poor," Washington Post, March 28, 1993,

LexisNexis.

3. Charles Krauthammer, "The

Sanctions Fallacy; They are no alternative

to military force," Washington Post, June

19, 1992.

Also printed in:

Charles Krauthammer, "The Failure of

Sanctions," Chicago Sun-Times, June 21,

1992.

Charles Krauthammer, "FORSAKE

THE FANTASY THAT SANCTIONS

WORK," St. Louis Post-Dispatch

(Missouri), June 21, 1992.

Charles Krauthammer, "Sanctions are

still no replacement for military force,"

St. Petersburg Times (Florida), June 22,

1992.

Charles Krauthammer, "Let's learn

from litany of sanctions," Atlanta Journal

and Constitution, June 22, 1992.

And others.

4. Jessica Lee and Lee Michael Katz,

"Bush may ease Iraqi sanctions," USA

TODAY, July 24, 1991.

5. Washington Post, "Iraq Blames

Sanctions for Deaths," December 18,

1991.

6. Yasmine Bahrani, "...and Sorrow In

the Mail; Letters From Baghdad: Painting

A Portrait of Bitter Desolation,"

Washington Post, September 8, 1991.

7. Rend Francke, "How to Help Iraq's

Innocents," Washington Post, July 24,

1991.

8. William F. Woo, "ECONOMIC

WARFARE, TOO, HAS VICTIMS," St.

Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri),

November 21, 1993.

9. Dilip Ganguly, "In Iraq; Sanctions

Bite Into Society's Strictness," Chicago

Sun-Times (Associated Press), August 1,

1993.

10. Jordan Amman,

"UNEMPLOYMENT SOARS IN

IRAQ FROM SANCTIONS," Plain

Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) (Wire Reports),

April 9, 1993.

11. Lee Michael Katz, "U.N. report:

Ease Iraq sanctions // Says civilians on

`brink of calamity'," USA TODAY, July

16, 1991.

12. Caryle Murphy, "Iraqis Say

Sanctions Hurt the Wrong People;

Saddam `Has Everything' but Others

Suffer," Washington Post, July 5, 1991.

13. Patrick E. Tyler, "Study Says Iraq's

Child Mortality Rate Has Tripled," New

York Times, October 22, 1991.

14. Frances Farenthold, "USA must

share blame," USA TODAY, October 25,

1991.

15. "SANCTIONS BLAMED,"

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)

(Wire Dispatches), April 26, 1993.

16. "The War Against Iraq's Children,"

Washington Post, December 27, 1995.

17. Richard Foster, "In U.S.-Iraqi face-

off, it's the children who do the dying,"

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Wisconsin),

December 24, 1995.

18. "IRAQI SANCTIONS WILL

STAY, U.N. CHIEF SAYS," Times-

Picayune (New Orleans, LA), December

29, 1995.

19. Barbara Crossette (New York

Times), "Children's welfare has been

brutalized by warfare, UNICEF says,"

Houston Chronicle, December 11, 1995.

20. Caryle Murphy, "Sanctions Mean

Hardship, Anger For Iraqi Civilians;

Diplomats Say U.N. Measures May Hurt

Stability of Region," Washington Post,

October 16, 1994.

21. Patrick E. Tyler," Health Crisis Said

to Grip Iraq In Wake of War's

Destruction," New York Times, May 22,

1991.

From previous page...

The Kanadian vanguard party

Kanada exists mainly to carry out

revolutionary activities, such as

propaganda, that are tactically easier for

a party operating within Kanada's

artificial borders. Our responsibilities and

aims, however, do not stop at the 49th

parallel. We are internationalists

committed to promoting Maoist revolution

all over the world.

Together with our comrades in MIP-

Amerika, with whom we currently share

resources, we oppose armed struggle in

the imperialist countries at this time.

Instead, we devote our energies to legal

struggles that contribute to the fulfilment

of MIM's central task: "to create public

opinion and the independent institutions

of the oppressed to seize power."

MIP-Kanada operates in both English

and French and welcomes Kanadians who

endorse MIM's three main points.

Comrades are invited to work and struggle

with us.

DOWN WITH IMPERIALISM!

LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM-

MAOISM!

PROLETARIANS OF THE WORLD,

UNITE!

Provisional Central Committee

of MIP-Kanada

February 18, 2005

From page 1...

by International Minister

February 21 2005

MIM has been working with MIP-

Kanada especially closely the last few

years. Hoisting the red flag over Kanada

February 18 2005 was not a casual event.

From our joint work, we know that the

provisional Central Committee has the

capability and determination to lead. This

is not a case where MIM just received

an email and a party arose. MIM would

not encourage that; although no one can

be stopped from setting up a party.

In the imperialist countries, the usual

question in addition to ability is the desire

to lead. The sugar-coated bullets lead to

degeneration of many comrades.

At MIM, we also always assume a

percentage of cops and other enemies in

the party. As always we tell people to

assume that when they deal with any

MIM related party, they could be dealing

with a cop or spy. Part of that

understanding is breaking with Hoxha's

metaphysics that chalks up enemies in the

party to the Liberalism of party leaders,

as if all-knowing party leaders could ever

stop 100% of the infiltration of the enemy.

So each persyn must become more adept

at his/her own security in today's

conditions. For now, communications

from Kanada are still handled by

mim3@mim.org.

There are a number of people floating

about in Kanada that had contacted MIM.

We hope they will work with MIM more

closely.

The situation in England and Au$tralia

also cries out. We know there are many

from those two places whose hearts are

with MIM. It's a matter of dedicating

oneself to arduous struggle for

organization. The MIP-Kanada sets the

self-reliant example.

Another party that needs to arise is from

among the Latin Kings/Queens

(ALKQN) already working with MIM.

The example is there, but we all must

redouble our efforts.

Where MIM's aid to the formation of

parties has been insufficient, I'm sure

everybody in MIM would like to

apologize in advance. It really has been

insufficient globally, for the Russians, ex-

Yugoslavians, ALKQN etc. That's not to

mention what should be done for the rest

of the world.

On the formation of MIP-Kanada

Kanada is an imperialist

oppressor nation of whites

dominated by a labor

aristocracy and traditional

petty-bourgeois population

numerically.

You'll read:

* Using Kanada as a reference point

for the national question

* Kanadian bourgeoisie getting ready

to give up sovereignty

* Mohawks and the Quebecois national

question

* Position paper on Quebec as another

potential imperialist country

* On Kanada's referendum of 1992

To read MIM's analysis of Kanadian political questions, go to:

http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/countries/canada/

MIM Notes 315 · March 1, 2005 · Page 10

MIM on

Prisons & Prisoners

MIM seeks to build public opinion

against Amerika's criminal injustice sys-
tem, and to eventually replace the bour-
geois injustice system with proletarian jus-
tice. The bourgeois injustice system im-
prisons and executes a disproportionately
large and growing number of oppressed
people while letting the biggest mass mur-
derers -- the imperialists and their lack-
eys -- roam free. Imperialism is not op-
posed to murder or theft, it only insists that
these crimes be committed in the interests
of the bourgeoisie.

"All U.S. citizens are criminals--

accomplices and accessories to the crimes
of U.$. oppression globally until the day
U.$. imperialism is overcome. All U.S.
citizens should start from the point of view
that they are reforming criminals."

MIM does not advocate that all

prisoners go free today; we have a
more effective program for fighting
crime as was demonstrated in China
prior to the restoration of capitalism
there in 1976. We say that all prisoners
are political prisoners because under
the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, all
imprisonment is substantively
political. It is our responsibility to
exert revolutionary leadership and
conduct political agitation and
organization among prisoners --
whose material conditions make them
an overwhelmingly revolutionary
group. Some prisoners should and will
work on self-criticism under a future
dictatorship of the proletariat in those
cases in which prisoners really did do
something wrong by proletarian
standards.

Under Lock & Key

News from Prisons & Prisoners

Federal prisoner

demands education

I've been incarcerated ever since I was 19.

I'm now 30 years old. All remedies have been

exhausted. So they say that I will die behind
these bars. I need to study so that I can
demonstrate to others by writing and speech

that the judicial system is a fraud.

The Dred Scott ruling remains true: "the

black man has no rights that the white man is

bound to respect." Instead of appealing to
this system we should discredit it.

-- a Federal prisoner in Colorado, 6

January, 2005

MIM responds: Our Free Books for

Prisoners program is designed to give

prisoners the chance for both an honest
education on the history of the oppressed,
and to become activists, organizers and

educators, using their knowledge to bring
others into political consciousness and
participation. We Maoists are doing the work

of making democratic participation an option
for one of the most underrepresented groups
in this so-called free society.

Prisoners: We distribute books in exchange

for political work, so when you write, tell us
how you want to contribute.

People on the outside: Join our book of the

month club! You send us one political, legal,
or historical book each month, and we'll get

that book to a prisoner who needs it.

One Small Account of

Torture and a Lesson

for CO's

I am currently housed at the WSP/IMU

[Washington State Penitentiary/ Intensive
Management Unit]. I have been at the
receiving end of much abuse by Washington

State prison officials since 1987.

I have been psychologically and physically

abused, as well as tortured much over the

years.

On 8/2/01, here at WSP, I was blasted

directly in the face with O/C [Oleoresin

Capsicum commonly known as Pepper Spray].
I was in no defensive or offensive posture,
when I didn't even know the QRT (Quick

Response Team) was at my cell or that I was
being ordered to cuff up. In any case,
immediately upon receiving a large burst

directly in the face I jumped up from my Seg
cell bed, said, "you won", or something to
that effect, put my hands behind my back to

cuff up and was clearly cooperating. At that
time, Sgt. Gains gave me another burst directly
to the face. This all occurred in around a ten

second period. Two bursts in a row is generally
not considered acceptable, but I was not
doing anything defensively or offensively

and was cooperating fully when I received a
second large burst directly to the face. I was
then cuffed and cold water was sprayed from

a hose over my face for about thirty seconds.
I was then paraded by an outside wall lined
with prison staff by the QRT escorting me

and placed in a seclusion room in the BMU
(Behavior Management/Modification Unit).
It was a strip cell with a hole in the floor to

defecate in. Counselors Brad Graham and
Cathy Bly refused to let me use a wet towel or
rag to clean my face, arms and genitals which

felt on fire, [instead they stood there] laughing
at me. I then lost it and four points were
approved, however I was six pointed for

torture purposes. I was six pointed on the
standard metal table they use, which is also
part of the torture process they use on a

regular basis.

They put each limb in leather restraints,

which is called four pointing and was
approved. However, I was six pointed, which
involved a leather strap being placed around

my lower knees, around the metal table, then
tightened all the way and a second leather
belt strap was placed over my chest, then

tightened around the table. They would give
me the required limb releases as required, but
would leave the leather belt straps tightened

and would not release them as the law
required. This caused a great deal of severe
pain and discomfort. In fact, my right knee

clearly was damaged and this results in severe
knee pain. I was in six points for five days.

The first couple nights O/C spray was

dripped in my eyes and once on my nipples.
During the five days I was psychologically
and physically abused. I have got documents

that clearly show I was six pointed when only
four points were approved, but many staff
tried to cover up that I was six pointed. It

shows I did not receive the required releases
as is required by law concerning the leather
belt straps. They attempted to cover up that I

was six pointed but I have documents that
clearly show I was while restrained on the
table. The video tape of the QRT cell extraction

is also available.

Torture is much more common than most

would think and I can document other acts of

torture.

The Department of Corrections is a state

sponsored organization for the criminal abuse

of prisoners. Over the years I have assaulted
many staff, mainly all male. I have thrown
things and spit on female staff. I am no longer

going to respond in that fashion to their
mistreatment. But rather use my mind to shed
light on their abuses and to attempt to make

change for the better.

-- a Washington Prisoner, February 2005
MIM responds: OC has been linked to

numerous deaths in prisons and on the street
by police in the u$. It was outlawed in 1972
by the United Nations Biological Weapons

Convention. For more on the danger of OC
see Under Lock & Key in MIM Notes 149.

We commend this comrade's resolution to

take a more productive approach to the torture
s/he has faced for years. Spending your life
in a cage for years never knowing when your

tormentors will choose to attack can have a
lot of negative effects on a persyn. One
understandable outcome is that you might

become easily agitated and ready to fight
anyone. And this is a lesson for those
correctional officers who want to keep

themselves safe at work. Anyone who reads
our literature and reads Under Lock and Key
might get insight into the fact that the more

work a person does with MIM the less likely
they are to get in fights with guards and other
prisoners. This is because once someone

becomes a part of the struggle for a better
society, getting beat up or tortured is no
longer just another bad day in a fucked up

situation. Each injury suffered and each lost
battle is a potential set back for the movement.

So for all those CO's that browse thru MIM

Notes as it passes through the prison mail
room: Unless you value the interests of state
repression over your own safety, please do

yourselves a favor and don't prevent MIM

from reaching the people in your facility. Better
yet, if you really want to protect yourself,
stop reinforcing the hyper-violent amerikan

prison culture by forcing people into
situations where they feel they have little
choice but to fight as a means of self-defense.

26,000 Murderers,

Rapists and Child

Molesters

As a three strikes lifer with a bird's-eye view

of the California prison system, a single

subject captured the attention of the entire
population Proposition 66. Liberation.
Justice. A chance to be free again.

After months of hope founded on very

promising poll numbers, the fear- merchants
relied on smear-tactics to cheat us out of a

chance to go home.

"I can't believe the people didn't see

through the governor's lies," said Thomas

Wallen, a three striker from Kern County. He's
serving 26 years to life for receiving stolen
property. "There are thousands of us buried

alive for minor crimes."

Gov. Schwarzenegger relied of "patently

false" numbers in his anti- Proposition 66

attack ads by claiming 26,000 murderers,
rapists and child molesters would be set free
if the initiative passed. He abandoned the

truth in his war-on-justice.

In this election, the truth lost by seven

points.

Nonetheless, hope remains. The underlying

injustice of three strikes still exists. This law
has been in place for too long, includes too

many, and has survived each and every
challenge. No other sentencing mandate
receives as much criticism. No other law sends

drug addicts and shoplifters to prison for life
alongside murderers and molesters.

Eventually, this law has to be amended.

Despite the "mathematically impossible"

numbers advanced by the opponents of
Proposition 66, only 7,400 three strikers exist

4,100 of whom would have been the sole
recipients of being re-sentenced.

This is a bitter defeat.

It's not so much that we lost, but how the

opposition accomplished the task. Far from
infallible, we make easy targets. What's worse,

they showcased hard core predators and
sexual deviants to keep the rest of us
incarcerated.

Most three strikers have lengthy rap sheets.

In my case, I committed a robbery and two
burglaries in my late teens and early '20s.

These are the strike priors qualifying me for a
life sentence under the "any" felony
provision of California's three strikes.

My third strike was a nonviolent drug

offense.

No matter how bad my criminal past looks

on paper, I paid my debt for those crimes. We
all did. That is the point; three strikers aren't
murderers, rapists or child molesters. That's

a lie.

It's sad, how the politics of fear works.
The defeat of Proposition 66 has merely

delayed the inevitable. They stole an election
with a pumped up actor-turned-politician who

would say anything to look tough-on-crime.

Cruel and unusual punishment.

If we truly deserved our sentences, why

would corrections officials send mental health
workers around in the days leading up to the

election to find out if we were alright?

The answer is simple.
It's one thing to pay your debt to society

for serious and violent felonies like we did
when we were younger. Mine were committed
in the mid '80s. It's simply indescribable to

receive a life sentence years later for a crime
that carries a year or two in every other
circumstance. It's enough to drive a person

mad.

If a shoplifter deserves a life sentence for

stealing a bottle of aspirin, how much time

should the governor receive for stealing an
election with "patently false" numbers
Superior Court Judge Raymond Cadei called

"mathematically impossible."

Schwarzenegger cooked the books, just like

Enron.

- a prisoner at Susanville, November 2004

MIM Notes 315 · March 1, 2005 · Page 11

Facts on U$ imprisonment

The facts about imprisonment in the United $tates are that the United $tates has been the world's leading prison-state per capita for the last

25 years, with a brief exception during Boris Yeltsin's declaration of a state of emergency.(1)

That means that while Reagan was talking about a Soviet "evil empire" he was the head of a state that imprisoned more people per capita.

In supposedly "hard-line" Bulgaria of the Soviet bloc of the 1980s, the imprisonment rate was less than half that of the United $tates.(2,3)

To find a comparison with U.$. imprisonment of Black people, there is no statistic in any country that compares including apartheid South

Africa of the era before Mandela was president. The last situation remotely comparable to the situation today was under Stalin during war
time. The majority of prisoners are non-violent offenders(4) and the U.S. Government now holds about a half million more prisoners than
China; even though China is four times our population.(5)

The rednecks tell MIM that we live in a "free country." They live in an Orwellian 1984 situation where freedom is imprisonment.

Notes: 1. Marc Mauer, "Americans Behind Bars: The International Use of Incarceration 1993," The Prison Sentencing Project, 918 F. St. NW, Suite

501, Washington, DC 20004 (202) 628-0871 Reference: SRI: R8965-2, 1994
2. Ibid., 1992 report.

3. United Nations Development Programme, "Human Development Report 1994,:" Oxford University Press, p. 186.

4. Figure of 51.2 percent for state prisoners there for non-violent offenses. Abstract of the United States 1993, p. 211.
5. Atlantic Monthly December, 1998.

Join the fight against

the injustice system

While we fight to end the criminal

injustice system MIM engages in

reformist battles to improve the lives

of prisoners. Below are some of the

campaigns we are currently waging,

and ways people behind the bars and

on the outside can get involved. More

info can be found on our prison web

site: http://www.etext.org/Politics/

MIM/agitation/prisons

Stop Censorship in Prison: Prisons

frequently censor books, newspapers

and magazines coming from MIM's

books for prisoners program. We need

help from lawyers, paralegals and

jailhouse lawyers to fight this

censorship.

Books for Prisoners: This program

focuses on political education of

prisoners. Send donations of books and

money for our Books for Prisoners

program.

End the Three Strikes laws: This

campaign is actively fighting the

repressive California laws, but similar

laws exist in other states. Write to us

to request a petition to collect

signatures. Send articles and

information on three strike laws.

Shut Down the Control Units: Across

the country there are a growing number

of prison control units. These are

permanently designated prisons or cells

in prisons that lock prisoners up in

solitary or small group confinement for

22 or more hours a day with no

congregate dining, exercise or other

services, and virtually no programs for

prisoners. Prisoners are placed in

control units for extended periods of

time. These units cause both mental and

physical problems for prisoners.

Write to us to request a petition to

collect signatures. Get your

organization to sign the statement

demanding control units be shut down.

Send us information about where there

are control units in your state. Include

the names of the prisons as well as the

number of control unit beds/cells in

each prison if that is known. Send us

anti-control unit artwork.

MIM's Re-Lease on Life Program:

This program provides support for our

comrades who have been recently

released from the prison system, to help

them meet their basic needs and also

continue with their revolutionary

organizing on the outside. We need

funds, housing, and job resources. We

also need prisoner's input on the

following survey questions:

1. What are the biggest challenges

you face being released from prison?

2. How can these problems be

addressed?

3. What are the important elements

of a successful release program?

Guards beat prisoners

to death

In October 2004 two inmates were murdered,

beaten to death by so called "peace" officers

here at Lancaster. To cover up their crime they
(Lancaster CDC) conducted a phony war on
drug search and in the process re- arrested

two inmates for drugs. Now catch this. This
administration claims that the people who they
"caught" with the drugs sold the drugs to

the people who were murdered and that the
people who were murdered overdosed on the
drugs. Now the people who allegedly sold

the drugs are being accused of the murders.
As if these people can't see that these now
dead people are severely wounded from the

outside and that an autopsy would shoot their
accusations down completely.

- a prisoner in California, November 2004

Frivolous lockdowns

and repression at

Salinas Valley

For the past few years this prison (Salinas

Valley State Prison The New Soledad), has

been under intense investigation by the
internal affairs and inspector generals office,
two so-called watch dog groups that are

propped up by CDC. Several incidents of
inmates being beaten, property being
destroyed or outright stolen, and vandalism,

led to pressure being applied by state Senator
Gloria Romero, who chairs the select
committee on the California Correctional

System.

Romero's questioning led to the

investigation, which in turn caused then

Warden Caden (who has since "retired") to
reveal facts surrounding a police prison gang
called "the Green Wall." This bonafide gang

made it their cause to "rough-up" rebellious
captives and retaliate against prisoners that
"disrespect" staff. Most of these most

outlandish events took place before my arrival
here in April of 2004. I recently read
documented accounts of several incidents

compiled by an organization that protests and
demonstrates for prisoners rights. Most
recently, seven officers (including a sergeant

and lieutenant) were fired by CDC for beating
an inmate, falsifying documents, and lying
during an interview. The so-called mainstream

media has paid little attention to these events,
as they continue to develop.

During my time here, a pattern of frivolous

lockdowns has manifest. On a regular basis,
the administration will lockdown the entire
yard for weeks at a time, based upon an

"alleged" kite [letter] being received. The
most minor displays of stalwart character are
a cause for extended lockdown. An example

is the "interview process" being employed

by the administration here. Whenever an
incident occurs, or when they (pigs)

supposedly "hear" of a potential incident,
they will lockdown the yard for a "threat
assessment." During which time, everyone is

required to participate in a confidential
interview with the pig, to answer a list of
questions! Imagine that!

I was shocked that the overwhelming

majority of "inmates," without hesitation
submitted themselves to these interviews. I

immediately began organizing brothers to
protest and refuse this blatant "snitch"
policy! It is a violation of my Fifth Amendment

rights, as well as my "Miranda" rights to
remain silent. Beyond this, it is an attempt to
de-sensitize the convict class to suspect

activity. They desire to make it normal
program to see inmates in the office, with the
pig, with the door closed, answering

questions and signing paperwork.

Their intent was made obvious (even to

those initially blind) when they began to back

track on the answering of questions, but
striving to enforce that everyone at least
"come to the office." This way, it is virtually

impossible to distinguish who may be telling,
and those who simply submit to "suspect"
activity.

The true demonstration is to stand firm,

refusing to participate in the interview
process, and refusing to play a part in

undermining the solidarity of the convict
class. A small collective stood with me, which
began to grow and develop with agitation. Of

course, the pigs repression came, but pressure
has a dual nature: it will bust a pipe, but it is
also responsible for the formation of

diamonds, a valued gem, and hardest known
natural substance to man! Their repression
only helped to sharpen the understanding of

the people, and move me to redouble my
efforts to see truth succeed. I have since been
locked in ad-seg for alleged weapons

possession, weapons which I have never
seen (to this day!).

My activism coupled with the spirit to get

out front and pull the people forward, has
moved CDC to oppress and repress me --
locking me up for faulty "investigations," for

a few months at a time; carting away all of my
literature and paperwork, for weeks at a time
but it only motivates me to agitate and

educate those in my surroundings, while all
the time building and destroying in dialectical
process toward staunch revolutionary

perfection!

-a prisoner in California, February 2005

Prisoner abuse at

Corcoran

I'm here at Corcoran korruptional facility

SHU and I've been here since 1999 for a bogus
attempted battery on five rotten pigs while I

was in handcuffs already behind my back.

Since my arrival here at corrupted Corcoran

SHU in April 1999 I have been assaulted many
many times [by the guards], either while I'm
in hand cuffs or in the ruse of an emergency

cell extraction which has left me with 13
stitches in my head and a trumped up DA
charge against me of battery on a pig with a

weapon. The DA rejected that shit as soon as
they sent it to them, this was nothing but a
cover up tactic that is always used when these

cowards pull a low down move on a convict
or inmates.

Now here is my current issue with these

clowns. In June 2003 while I was under the
guise of being escorted to the law library by
corrupted officials, as soon as they had me in

the darkened rotunda area, two pigs took me
to the ground head first, then commenced to
punch and kick me from head to toe. Another

corrupted official who worked in the control
booth just stood there watching the whole
incident. Then once they were satisfied from

all the blood they seen coming from my
mouth, nose and eye area they pushed the
alarm, then all of a sudden here comes the

rest of that corrupted crew. They come right
in front of where I'm laying on my stomach
bleeding profusely from mouth, nose and eye

area. One of them starts spraying pepper spray
for no reason other than just for sport, all into
my bleeding areas.

Then they put me in the shower with the

hot water running so it would aggravate the
pepper spray more. Then they refused to

allow me any medical attention, just put me
back into my cell.

Around 5pm the next day I was pulled out

of my cell and taken to the interview room
down the hallway where I was interviewed
on camera for over an hour. Then I was

escorted to the facility's hospital where I got
x-rayed, physically examined and given pain
medicine, Tylenol and ice packs.

I filed a law suit against all the players but

I was unable to make any copies because they
corrupt kops would not give me any access

to the law library. So I sent the court my only
copy of everything.

-a prisoner at Corcoran, December 2004

MIM Notes 315 · March 1, 2005 · Page 12

Notas Rojas

marzo 1 Nº 315 Fragmento del Periodico Oficial del Movimiento Internacionalista Maoista

Gratis

Por: Carlos Varea (*).

www.eldiariointernacional.com

La Junta Electoral iraquí presentaba finalmente el

sábado 13 de febrero los resultados de los comicios

celebrados en Iraq el pasado 30 de enero. Los
resultados se ajustan a lo previsto, esencialmente un
reparto de los 275 escaños de la nueva Asamblea

Nacional entre las formaciones asociadas a los
ocupantes y que han formado parte de las instancias
previas instauradas por EEUU y Reino Unido tras la

invasión de Iraq, primero del Consejo Gubernativo
y, a partir de junio de 2004, del denominado Gobierno
Interino, presidido por Iyad Alawi [1].

El número oficial de participantes en los comicios

ha sido fijado finalmente en 8.456.266 votantes,
sobre un total de inscritos de 14,7 millones, es decir

el 59%. De los 20 millones de potenciales votantes
se habían inscrito para poder hacerlo 14 millones,
según fuentes oficiales, es decir el 70%. Calcúlese el

porcentaje final total de participación: en torno al
42%.

Lo más relevante es que la coalición, si no

exclusivamente shi'í (incluye formaciones de otras
comunidades y confesiones), sí articulada en torno a
la figura del gran ayatollah as-Sistani y las dos

principales formaciones confesionales shiíes (el
Congreso Supremo de la Revolución Islámica en Iraq,
CSRII y ad-Dawa), la Alianza Unida Iraquí (AUI), ha

obtenido, según declaraciones propias, menos votos
de los esperados: 1,9 millones. La AUI ha logrado así
el 47,6% de los casi 8,5 millones de votos emitidos,

el 60% de ellos en Bagdad (donde votó el 51% de los
inscritos) y el resto en las nueve provincias del sur
del país, donde el promedio de participación fue del

72% [2].

Hay discrepancias en la asignación del número de

escaños, pero la AUI contará según el reparto de la

Junta Electoral con 132, es decir carecerá de mayoría
absoluta en la Cámara (fijada en dos tercios) pero
será la fuerza principal. Efecto colateral inevitable

de la estrategia de desmantelamiento confesional y
sectario del Estado iraquí seguida por la
Administración Bush, este hecho solo atenuará

parcialmente la poderosa irrupción de Irán en el
escenario interno iraquí, dada la estrecha relación
con este país que mantienen tanto la propia jerarquía

shi'í iraquí (as-Sistani es iraní), como las dos
formaciones principales de la lista vencedora, el
CSRII y ad-Dawa (que incluso combatieron al lado de

Teherán durante la guerra irano-iraquí).

La siguiente lista más votada ha sido la de la

coalición --de los otrora enemigos-- Unión

Patriótica del Kurdistán (UPK, de Talaban) y el
Partido Democrático del Kurdistán (PDK, liderado
por Barzani), la denominada Alianza Kurda, con el

25,4% de los votos y que tiene asignados 71 escaños.
La tercera es la del actual primer ministro Alawi, la
Lista Iraquí, con el 13,6% de los votos y 38 escaños.

La cuarta más votada es la encabeza por el actual
presidente interino del país, Ghazi al-Yawar, sunní,
que contará con cinco escaños. Al-Yawar

probablemente ha recogido el limitado voto de las
provincias centrales del país, con un porcentaje
mínimo de participación en la de al-Anbar (con

capital en ar-Ramadi y donde se localiza Faluya), el
2%, y máximo en la de Salah al-Din, con el 29%. Las
provincias caracterizadas como de "mayoría sunní"

por los medios de comunicación suman siete millones
de iraquíes, un cuarto de la población total del país.

Otras siete candidaturas se reparten el resto de

escaños de la Asamblea, entre ellas la del Partido
Comunista (Unión del Pueblo, con dos) y una lista de
seguidores del clérigo Moqtadar as-Sadr (lista Nacional

Independiente, con otros dos), quien se desvinculó
de la lista promovida por as-Sistani, pero que,
respetando el liderazgo religioso de la jerarquía shi'í

(al-Marja'iyyah, integrada por cuatro ayatollahs),
no llamó al boicot activo de los comicios [3]. Esta
lista de seguidores de as-Sadr ha recibido su apoyo

mayoritariamente en la provincia de Maysan, donde
el porcentaje de participación ha sido el máximo
estatal, como en el Kurdistán, del 85% [4]. Tras las

elecciones, as-Sadr ha pedido un calendario para la
retirada de las tropas de ocupación [5] y

probablemente espera canalizar de nuevo a su favor

la oposición mayoritaria a la presencia de los
ocupantes entre el electorado shí'í a medida que se
evidencia que la Asamblea y el nuevo gobierno, como

ya se ha adelantado, no pedirá a EEUU y demás
países ocupantes el fin de su presencia en el país [6].

Una situación de interinidad

Estos resultados electorales, se les otorgue la

fiabilidad que se quiera (las denuncias de irregularidades
han sido muchas, particularmente en la disputada

ciudad de Kirkuk [7], que la coalición UPK-PDK
reivindicará como capital de un ampliado Kurdistán
iraquí), prefiguran un panorama político en Iraq para

el próximo año complejo, que habrá de resolverse
con un reparto equilibrado de cargos entre las tres
listas más votadas, en una atmósfera que no pierde su

carácter de interinidad.

Así, el nuevo parlamento habrá de estar constituido

para el primero de marzo y habrá de abordar la

formación de un nuevo gobierno y la redacción de
una nueva Constitución basada en la denominada
Ley Administrativa Transitoria, un texto provisional

aprobado hace ahora un año que, según el calendario
establecido por la Autoridad Provisional de la
Coalición antes de su disolución en junio de 2004,

habrá de someterse a referéndum el 15 de octubre.
Tras ello, se convocarán nuevamente elecciones
generales el 15 de diciembre para elegir otra nueva

Asamblea y un nuevo gobierno, ya por cinco años.

La Administración Bush sin duda participará

activamente en lograr un acuerdo entre los

triunfadores en lo que respecta a la designación de
los cargos de primer ministro y presidente del país.
Alawi ha procurado en estos días --con visita a Irbil

incluida-- que los partidos kurdos le apoyen en su
intento de mantenerse como primer ministro,
haciendo valer para ello su carácter de puente --

"shi'í laico" [sic]-- entre las dos listas más votadas.
La alianza UPK-PDK postula a Jalal Talabani, líder
de la UPK, como presidente del país. Por su parte la

coalición ganadora ha insistido en que quiere para sí
el cargo de primer ministro, designando para éste a
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, máximo dirigente de ad-Dawa y

actual vicepresidente del país [8]. Presentado como
un moderado por medios occidentales, al-Jaafari,
exilado en Irán desde los años 80, pertenecía a la

denominada "rama londinense" de ad-Dawa, más
proclive que la parte de dirección del partido asentada
en Teherán a asociarse a los planes de EEUU y Reino

Unido de invasión de Iraq.

Fuentes kurdas avanzaban un acuerdo preliminar

por el cual la Alianza Kurda finalmente apoyaría a

un primer ministro de la lista shi'í y no a Alawi, a
cambio de que la presidencia del país se otorgue a
Talabani [9], un hombre con muy buenas relaciones

con Irán, Turquía e Israel.

Las líneas de mayor tensión entre la Alianza Kurda

y la Alianza Unida Iraquí de as-Sistani es la

reivindicación federalista de la primera y la
imposición de la ley islámica como exclusiva fuente
de legislación en la nueva constitución de la segunda,

ya expresada abiertamente tras los comicios [10].
La posibilidad de acuerdo, aquél derivado de la presión
estadounidense y del sometimiento a la lógica de los

ocupantes de unos y de otros en esta nueva etapa de
dominación, que cabe imaginar como caracterizada
por una división territorial de facto de Iraq, mientras

se ajustan para 2006 los acuerdos sobre la presencia
militar indefinida de EEUU y Reino Unido y la
privatización de los hidrocarburos. En suma, la

gestión y reparto en clave neocolonial del crudo
iraquí.

Por su parte, las formaciones que llamaron al

boicot de las pasadas elecciones en Iraq, agrupadas
en el Congreso Fundacional Nacional Iraquí, han
emitido un comunicado el 14 de febrero al término

de un nueva reunión mantenida en Bagdad. Entre las
formaciones y personalidades reunidas se encontraba
un representante de Moqtadar as-Sadr, junto a la

Asociación de Ulemas Musulmanes y formaciones
laicas y nacionalistas (incluido el Partido Baaz). El
comunicado, avanzado por Al-Jazeera , exige de la

comunidad internacional "[...] un calendario
internacionalmente garantizado para la retirada de

las tropas extranjeras" y fija las dos condiciones de

su participación en un "[...] proceso de reconciliación
nacional y redacción de la [nueva] Constitución":
que se ponga fin a la designación de cargos según

"[...] criterios religiosos, raciales o étnicos" y "[...]
el reconocimiento del derecho del pueblo a resistir"
la ocupación. El comunicado declara como

"ilegítimo" el gobierno iraquí que surge de unas
elecciones que son caracterizadas como
"fraudulentas" y con limitado grado de participación

popular.

Continuidad de la presencia extranjera
Debido a este carácter de interinidad de las nuevas

instancias iraquíes surgidas del 30 de enero, no se
espera que EEUU discuta con el gobierno iraquí que
ha de ser ahora constituido el denominado Status of

Forces Agreement ("Acuerdo sobre el estatuto de las
fuerzas [extranjeras en Iraq]") [11], es decir, un
calendario de retirada parcial y escalonada de las

tropas de ocupación y la formalización de su presencia
definitiva en el país por medio del establecimiento
de hasta 14 bases militares estadounidenses y

británicas, asociadas --se afirma-- a puntos
neurálgicos de extracción, producción y exportación
de crudo y gas iraquíes [12]. En cualquier caso, todas

las declaraciones más recientes de miembros de la
Administración Bush y del propio presidente
coinciden en el mantenimiento de la presencia de las

tropas estadounidenses más allá, cuando menos, de
este año 2005, máximo cuando se confirma lo poco
que avanza el proceso de formación y adiestramiento

de los nuevos cuerpos de seguridad iraquíes, hasta el
punto que el Pentágono ha renunciado a dar cifras
concretas sobre esta materia [13].

Mandos militares estadounidenses han reconocido

que el nivel de violencia el día de las elecciones fue
muy superior al inicialmente admitido, entre 200 y

300 ataques, cuando el vicesecretario de Defensa
Wolfowitz limitó el número de acciones a ocho
ataques suicidas [14]. El segundo mando del Comando

Central de EEUU, el general Lance Smith, ha
señalado que la actividad insurgente se mantiene tras
la elecciones en niveles similares a las semanas

anteriores. En diciembre murieron en combate 55
militares de EEUU (58 en diciembre) con una
distribución territorial amplia, a los que hay que sumar

otros 52 fallecidos en "incidentes no hostiles" [15].
Desde el 1 de mayo de 2003 han muerto en combate
1.019 militares de EEUU. En el transcurso de los

primeros quince días de este mes han muerto en
combate al menos 15 militares estadounidenses.

Además han muerto por la actividad insurgente

10 británicos, un italiano (en Nasiriyah el día 19 de
enero) y ocho ucranianos y un kazaco (todos ellos
en la provincia de Wasit). Los militares británicos

murieron el mismo día de las elecciones por el derribo
de un avión de transporte C-130 a 30 kilómetros al
noroeste de la capital, una práctica que empieza a

preocupar a las autoridades de ocupación por su
carácter creciente y porque los insurgentes estarían
utilizando misiles relativamente sofisticados tierra-

aire SAM y MANPADS (Man Portable Air Defense
Systems), provenientes de arsenales clandestinos del
ejército iraquí [16].

Tras la elecciones, mandos estadounidenses

indicaban a la cadena CNN que el Pentágono ha
elevado hasta entre 13.000 y 17.000 la cifra oficial

de insurgentes (antes limitada a 5.000), en su mayoría,
según los oficiales, militantes o cuadros militares
baasistas; menos de un millar serían seguidores de az-

Zarqawi.

Escándalos petrolíferos
Nada parece indicar que el nuevo gobierno iraquí

se salga del guión establecido por EEUU y Reino
Unido. Sobre el terreno seguirán los más de 40.000
asesores civiles y militares estadounidenses que,

impuestos por Paul Bremer y designados para cinco
años, supervisarán igualmente cada una de las
decisiones --si es que cabe calificarlas como tales--

de las nuevas instancias iraquíes [17].

Al igual que en la faceta securitaria, no cabe

imaginar que el nuevo gobierno iraquí altere la

intervención de EEUU en la gestión de la renta
petrolífera. El actual ministro de Finanzas --antes

mencionado como candidato del CSRII a primer

ministro--, Adil Abd al-Mahdi, se manifestaba
partidario el pasado mes de diciembre, durante una
visita a Washington, de la aprobación por el nuevo

gobierno iraquí de una ley de privatización del sector
petrolífero que permitiera a las compañías extranjeras
invertir --y ser por tanto propietarias-- en cualquier

tramo de la explotación energética del país. Contratos
en esa línea ya estarían siendo aprobados de manera
encubierta en estos meses durante su gestión al frente

del ministerio, incluidos aquellos por valor de 450
millones de dólares para la explotación de los
yacimientos de Suba-Luhais y Hamrin [18].

Lo cierto es que las alharacas y fuegos de artificios

lanzados con motivo de las elecciones del 30 de
enero han permitido tapar el escándalo del informe

presentado ese mismo día por Stuart Bowen, Inspector
General de EEUU para la Reconstrucción de Iraq,
relativo a 8,8 mil millones de dólares obtenidos por

la venta de crudo durante los 14 meses de mandato
de la Autoridad Provisional de la Coalición (APC) y
cuyo destino se desconoce, además de un cifra

indetermina de hasta 800 millones de dólares (de
ellos, al menos 500 millones también procedentes
de la venta de crudo iraquí, el resto de fondos del

Pentágono) otorgados a mandos militares
estadounidenses para actividades de emergencia sobre
el terreno y sin necesidad de ser justificados [19].

(18-02-2005).
(*). Carlos Varea es coordinador de la Campaña

Estatal contra la Ocupación y por la Soberanía de

Iraq, CEOSI (www.nodo50.org/iraq)

Notas:
1. Véase el texto de Carlos Varea en Rebelión del

4 de febrero de 2005, "Tras las elecciones en Ira: No
perder el hilo": http://www.rebelion.org/
noticia.php?id=10986.

2. Según datos oficiales iraquíes.
3. AFP, 4 de febrero de 2005.
4. Finantial Times (edición electrónica), 10 de

febrero de 2005. En esta provincia los seguidores de
as-Sadr habrían llegado a un acuerdo de control de la
seguridad con los militares británicos.

5. AFP, 4 de febrero de 2005.
6. El mismo martes día 1 de febrero, el actual

presidente interino de Iraq, Ghazi al-Yawer, dejaba

bien claro que "[...] carece absolutamente de sentido"
una petición por parte de las nuevas instancias
iraquíes de una salida de las fuerzas de ocupación

"[...] en este caos y con este vacío [actual] de poder"
(Associated Press, 1 de febrero de 2005). Al-Yawer
indicó que "[h]acia finales de este año podríamos

ver una reducción del número de fuerzas extranjeras".
De igual tenor se han manifestado otros responsables
iraquíes, entre ellos, el ministro interino de Defensa,

Hazem Shaalan. Más significativa sin duda es la
posición mostrada poco después por quienes
supuestamente son los ganadores de los comicios:

Mohammad Juzai, uno de sus portavoces de la
jerarquía shí'i, ha confirmado que ésta no solicitará
la salida de las tropas de ocupación por el momento,

según informa The Washington Post el 3 de febrero.

7. IslamOnline.net y agencias, 12 de febrero de

2005. Las denuncias parten de organizaciones árabes

y turcomanas que afirman que estas comunidades no
han podido votar.

8. Al-Jazeera, 16 de febrero de 2005. Al-Jaafari ha

desplazado al candidato del CSRII, el actual ministro
de Finanzas, Adil Abd al-Mahdi.

9. Reuters, 13 de febrero de 2005.

10. The Jordan Times, 9 de febrero de 2005.
11. Escobar, J. "The Roving Eye. The Shi'ites'

Fautian Pact", Asian Times ( www.atimes.com ),

febrero de 2005.

12. Al-Moktar, S. "Oil in the election", Al-Ahram

Weekly Online, febrero de 2005.

13. The Independent, 13 de febrero de 2005.
14. UPI, 9 de febrero de 2005.
15. Datos oficiales recogidos en Iraq Coalition

Casualties Count.

16. India Daily, 9 de febrero de 2005.
17. Phyllis Bennis, UFPJ Talking Points 29:

"Reading the elections", 1 de febrero de 2005.

18. The News Standar, 8 de febrero de 2005.
19. The Guardian, 8 de febrero de 2005. Otros 1,4

mil millones de dólares fueron transferidos también
por la APC de Bremer al gobierno autónomo del
Kurdistán in que se conozca su destino final.

Irak: Las elecciones son una fase

nueva en la ocupación yanqui