Dear cj,
Bill Blum has published a new book, "Rogue State: A Guide to
the World's Only Superpower". The second posting below
reviews the book and includes a sample chapter.
Congratulations to Bill for his ongoing contributions to
public education!
"Bill Blum came by his title easily. He simply tested
America by the same standards we use to judge other
countries. The result is a bill of wrongs -- an especially
well-documented encyclopedia of malfeasance, mendacity and
mayhem that has been hypocritically carried out in the name
of democracy by those whose only true love was power."
-- Sam Smith, Editor, The Progressive Review,
Washington, DC
---
The first piece below is from Amnesty International,
concluding that the "UN Committee against Torture must
condemn increasing institutionalized cruelty in [the] USA."
"The spiralling prison and jail population -- which recently
hit two million for the first time -- and the resulting
pressures on incarceration facilities have contributed to
widespread ill- treatment of men, women and children in
custody. Police brutality is rife in many areas, and it is
disproportionately directed at racial and ethnic minorities."
" - Ronnie Hawkins subjected to an eight-second 50,000 volt
electro-shock from a remote control stun belt in open court
on the order of the judge, to punish his verbal statements.
In the past decade, 100 US jurisdictions at federal, state
and local level have acquired stun belts."
---
The Whole Earth Review will be coming out the first week of
June, and it features a 6,000 word article by yours truly,
"Escaping from the Matrix". The film had a big impact on me
because from my perspective, that's exactly how the world
is. There's the real world of power and exploitation, and
then there's the make-believe world of network news,
Hollywood sitcoms, High School history, and lying
politicians and experts. These worlds are as different as
Neo's worlds; they have different histories, they operate
according to different rules, and each is pre-occupied with
its own affairs. The film metaphor was a perfect vehicle
for developing this theme and I hope the article serves as a
red pill for some readers.
Whole Earth has a higher profile than my previous venues,
and I'd like to express my appreciation to Jay Kinney for
requesting the piece. He's guest-editing a section called
"Beyond Left and Right", and I'm looking forward to reading
the issue.
---
I'm in the process of building us a new website. All the cj
and renaissance-network postings will in web form for
browsing, there will be a sizable collection of articles,
and a search engine. Also features for sending in comments,
signing up for lists, etc.
all the best,
rkm
============================================================================
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 12:47:04 -0400
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To: •••@••.•••
From: Snezana Vitorovich <•••@••.•••>
Subject: RE: institutionalized cruelty in USA...
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: USA: UN Committee against Torture must condemn increasing
institutionalized cruelty in USA
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 19:28:47 -0400
From: •••@••.•••
* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty
International *
Amnesty International Public document
AI Index AMR 51/68/2000
News Service Nr. 83
9 May 2000
UN Committee against Torture must condemn increasing institutionalized
cruelty in USA
Cruelty to detainees and prisoners is becoming institutionalized across
the USA, Amnesty International said today, on the eve of the US
Government's first appearance before the UN Committee against Torture in
Geneva.
"Since the United States ratified the Convention against Torture in
October 1994, its increasingly punitive approach towards offenders has
continued to lead to practices which facilitate torture or other forms
of ill-treatment prohibited under international law."
The spiralling prison and jail population -- which recently hit two
million for the first time -- and the resulting pressures on
incarceration facilities have contributed to widespread ill- treatment
of men, women and children in custody. Police brutality is rife in many
areas, and it is disproportionately directed at racial and ethnic
minorities.
"From the use of long-term isolation in supermaximum security units,
through the routine employment of chemical sprays to subdue suspects and
prisoners and the incarceration of asylum-seekers in cruel and degrading
conditions, to the use of electro-shock weapons in local jails and
courts, the USA is standardizing practices which undermine the aim of
the Convention to eradicate state torture and ill-treatment from the
planet," Amnesty International said.
Recent allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
in the USA include:
- Ronnie Hawkins subjected to an eight-second 50,000 volt electro-shock
from a remote control stun belt in open court on the order of the judge,
to punish his verbal statements. In the past decade, 100 US
jurisdictions at federal, state and local level have acquired stun
belts.
- Inmates at two "supermax" prisons in Virginia subjected to arbitrary
electro-shocks from stun guns. Perry Conner, who was beaten in the
genital area and repeatedly electro- shocked until he lost control of
his bowels, was not allowed to shower for six days.
- Widespread punitive solitary confinement and excessive use of
shackling, handcuffing and four-point restraint against children in a
South Dakota juvenile facility.
- James Earl Livingston, a mentally ill man, died after being
pepper-sprayed and left in a restraint chair, one of several deaths
associated with the use of this device.
- Liquid pepper spray swabbed directly into the eyes of non-violent
anti-logging protestors, a technique allegedly repeated against World
Trade Organization protestors in 1999.
In a report outlining its concerns to the Committee against Torture,
Amnesty International notes the US Government=s reluctance to adhere to
international human rights law and to accept the same minimum standards
for its own conduct that it so often demands from other countries.
"As with other international human rights treaties, the USA=s respect
for the Convention against Torture is only half-hearted when applied to
itself," Amnesty International said, pointing out that the US Government
has agreed to only limited compliance with the Convention, entering
several reservations. For example, it agreed to be bound by the
Convention=s ban on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment only to the
extent that it matches the ban on cruel or unusual punishments in the US
Constitution.
"If all countries took this approach, the global system for protecting
fundamental human rights would quickly collapse," Amnesty International
warned.
-"The US Government, which so often labels itself as champion of human
rights, must take serious steps to ensure that international standards
are respected throughout the country," Amnesty International said.
While the US system provides a range of remedies for torture or
ill-treatment, there remain serious deficiencies in overcoming abuses
and localized climates of impunity.
The USA should also urgently review officially sanctioned practices
which are at odds with international standards for humane treatment,
such as the use of long-term isolation in conditions of reduced sensory
stimulation, and cruel restraint methods, including the use of
electro-shock stun belts.
Amnesty International calls upon the Committee against Torture to
condemn such practices and urges the US Government to implement
effective measures to stop the abuses that are occurring on a daily
basis in the United States.
ENDS.../
============================================================================
From: "Leonard Uwiringiyimana" <•••@••.•••>
Organization: University of Dayton
To: •••@••.•••
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 11:13:37 -0500
X-Distribution: Moderate
Subject: (Fwd) New book: Rogue State
Priority: normal
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: "Gregory Elich" <•••@••.•••>
To: <•••@••.•••>
Subject: New book: Rogue State
Date sent: Sat, 6 May 2000 08:35:10 -0400
>From Janet Eaton:
Dear Mai-notters:
This e-mail contains basic information [quotes, and Table of
Contents and links to several chapters] that I have downloaded
about a new book "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only
Superpower" by William Blum from a website devoted to this book.
http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm
William Blum left the State Department in 1967, abandoning
his aspiration of becoming a Foreign Service Officer, because of
his opposition to what the United States was doing in Vietnam.
He then became one of the founders and editors of the
Washington Free Press, the first "underground" newspaper in the
capital.
http://members.aol.com/superogue/author.htm
This book is " a mini-encyclopedia of the numerous
un-humanitarian acts perpetrated by the United States since the end
of the Second World War."
"As I write this in Washington, D.C., in April 1999, the
United States is busy saving Yugoslavia. Bombing a modern,
sophisticated society back to a pre-industrial age. And The
Great American Public, in its infinite wisdom, is convinced that
its government is motivated by "humanitarian" impulses."
http://members.aol.com/superogue/intro.htm
Five chapters of this new book by William Bloom have URL's to
complete text. I have included these URLs in the Table of Contents
below and as well have inserted Chapter 19 at the end of this e-mail
for your possible interest.
Ckapter 19. Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy [NED]
http://members.aol.com/superogue/ned.htm
"The NED, like the CIA before it, calls what it does supporting
democracy. The governments and movements whom the NED targets call
it destabilization. "
I think this book and Chapter 19 should mesh nicely with the
present dialogue Janice has initiated on mai-not about the power
structure of the New World Order.
all the best,
Janet
p.s. To further illuminate
"Bill Blum came by his title easily. He simply tested America by
the same standards we use to judge other countries. The result is a
bill of wrongs -- an especially well-documented encyclopedia of
malfeasance, mendacity and mayhem that has been hypocritically
carried out in the name of democracy by those whose only true love
was power." -- Sam Smith, Editor, The Progressive Review,
Washington, DC
=========================================
==========================================
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
by William Blum, author of Killing Hope:US Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War 2
=========================================
If you believed that the NATO (read U.S.) bombing of Yugoslavia for 78
days and nights in 1999 was a "humanitarian" act, Rogue State
hopefully can serve as a wake-up call to both your intellect and your
conscience. It is a mini-encyclopedia of the numerous un-humanitarian
acts perpetrated by the United States since the end of the Second
World War.
Never before in modern history has a country dominated the earth so
totally as the United States does today. America is now the
Schwarzenegger of international politics: showing off muscles,
obtrusive, intimidating. The Americans, in the absence of limits put
to them by anybody or anything, act as if they own a kind of blank
check in their McWorld. Der Spiegel, Germany's leading newsmagazine,
1997
The United States is good. We try to do our best everywhere. Madeleine
Albright, 1999
A world once divided into two armed camps now recognizes one sole and
pre-eminent power, the United States of America. And they regard
this with no dread. For the world trusts us with power, and the
world is right. They trust us to be fair, and restrained. They
trust us to be on the side of decency. They trust us to do what's
right. George Bush, 1992
How can they have the arrogance to dictate to us where we should go
or which countries should be our friends? Gadhafi is my friend. He
supported us when we were alone and when those who tried to prevent
my visit here today were our enemies. They have no morals. We
cannot accept that a state assumes the role of the world's
policeman. Nelson Mandela, 1997
When I came into office, I was determined that our country would go
into the 21st century still the world's greatest force for peace and
freedom, for democracy and security and prosperity. Bill Clinton, 1996
Throughout the world, on any given day, a man, woman or child is
likely to be displaced, tortured, killed or "disappeared", at the
hands of governments or armed political groups. More often than
not, the United States shares the blame. Amnesty International,
1996
_________________________________________________________________
"Rogue State forcibly reminds us of Vice President Agnew's
immortal line: 'The United States, for all its faults, is still the
greatest nation in the country'." Gore Vidal, author, The Decline and
Fall of the American Empire
"Critics will call this a one-sided book. But it is an
invaluable corrective to the establishment portrait of
America as the world's greatest force for peace. Even
confirmed opponents of U.S. interventionism can find
much in this important book that will both educate and
shock them."
Peter Dale Scott, former Professor at UC Berkeley,
poet, and author, Deep Politics and The Death of JFK
"Bill Blum came by his title easily. He simply tested
America by the same standards we use to judge other
countries. The result is a bill of wrongs -- an especially
well-documented encyclopedia of malfeasance, mendacity
and mayhem that has been hypocritically carried out in the
name of democracy by those whose only true love was power."
Sam Smith, Editor, The Progressive Review, Washington, DC
"Bravo Blum! A vivid, well-aimed critique of the evils of US
global interventionism, a superb antidote to officialdom's
lies and propaganda."
Michael Parenti, author, History as Mystery and To Kill
a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia
______________________________________________________
See Table of Contents and read selected chapters below
________________________________________________________________
Rogue State was published in 2000 by Common Courage Press, Monroe,
Maine 308 pages, fully documented and indexed For a copy signed to
you personally, and shipped immediately, send a check to:
William Blum, 5100 Connecticut Ave., NW, #707, Washington, DC
20008-2064
•••@••.•••
All prices shown are in U.S. dollars.
Price for the paperback, including postage:
United States: book rate $15
priority rate $17
Canada/Mexico: surface mail $15
priority rate (2-3 days) $18
Western Europe: surface mail (4-6 weeks) $15
priority rate (3-4 days) $19
Italy: (no priority rate) airmail (1 week) $20
Australia/New Zealand: surface mail (4-6 weeks) $15
priority rate (5-6 days) $19
Other countries: request price, specifying
surface or priority; no credit cards
-------------------
Table of Contents
Introduction [can be found in entirety at]
http://members.aol.com/superogue/intro.htm
Ours and Theirs: Washington's love/hate relationship
with terrorists and human rights violators:
1. Why do terrorists keep picking on the United States?
2. America's gift to the world -- the Afghan terrorist alumni
3. Assassinations
4. Excerpts from US Army and CIA training manuals
5. Torture
6. The Unsavories
7. Training new unsavories
8. War criminals: Theirs and Ours
http://members.aol.com/superogue/warcrime.htm#beginning
9. Haven for terrorists
10. Supporting Pol Pot
United States Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction:
11. Bombings
http://members.aol.com/superogue/bomb.htm
12. Depleted Uranium
13. Cluster bombs
14. Chemical and Biological Weapons abroad
15. Chemical and Biological Weapons at home
16. Encouraging the use of CBW by other nations
A Rogue State versus the world:
17. A Concise History of US Global Interventions, 1945--present
18. Perverting elections
19. Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy
http://members.aol.com/superogue/ned.htm
20. The US versus the world at the United Nations
21. Eavesdropping on the planet
22. Kidnapping and looting
23. How the CIA sent Nelson Mandela to prison for 28 years
24. The CIA and Drugs: Just say Why Not?
25. Being the World's Only Superpower means never having to say
you are sorry
http://members.aol.com/superogue/sorry.htm
26. The US invades, bombs and kills for it ... but do Americans
really believe in free enterprise?
27. A Day in the life of a free country ... or ... How does the
United States get away with it?
About the author
To read parts of William Blum's other book, Killing Hope:
US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2,
as well as some of his essays, click here.
return to beginning
return to order book
=================
Chapter 19. Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy
http://members.aol.com/superogue/ned.htm
go to end
Trojan Horse
The National Endowment for Democracy
How many Americans could identify the National Endowment for
Democracy? An organization which often does exactly the opposite of
what its name implies. The NED was set up in the early 1980s under
President Reagan in the wake of all the negative revelations about the
CIA in the second half of the 1970s. The latter was a remarkable
period. Spurred by Watergate -- the Church committee of the Senate,
the Pike committee of the House, and the Rockefeller Commission,
created by the president, were all busy investigating the CIA.
Seemingly every other day there was a new headline about the discovery
of some awful thing, even criminal conduct, the CIA had been mixed up
in for years. The Agency was getting an exceedingly bad name, and it
was causing the powers-that-be much embarrassment.
Something had to be done. What was done was not to stop
doing these awful things. Of course not. What was done was
to shift many of these awful things to a new organization, with
a nice sounding name -- The National Endowment for Democracy.
The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA
had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully,
eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities.
It was a masterpiece. Of politics, of public relations,
and of cynicism.
Thus it was that in 1983, the National Endowment for
Democracy was set up to "support democratic institutions
throughout the world through private, nongovernmental efforts".
Notice the "nongovernmental" -- part of the image, part of the
myth. In actuality, virtually every penny of its funding comes
from the federal government, as is clearly indicated in the
financial statement in each issue of its annual report. NED
likes to refer to itself as an NGO (Non-governmental
organization) because this helps to maintain a certain
credibility abroad that an official US government agency might
not have. But NGO is the wrong category. NED is a GO.
Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation
establishing NED, was quite candid when he said in 1991: "A lot
of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the
CIA."{1} In effect, the CIA has been laundering money through
NED.
The Endowment has four principal initial recipients of
funds: the International Republican Institute; the National
Democratic Institute for International Affairs; an affiliate of
the AFL-CIO (such as the American Center for International Labor
Solidarity); and an affiliate of the Chamber of Commerce (such as the
Center for International Private Enterprise). These institutions then
disburse funds to other institutions in the US and all over the world,
which then often disburse funds to yet other organizations.
In a multitude of ways, NED meddles in the internal affairs
of foreign countries by supplying funds, technical know-how,
training, educational materials, computers, faxes, copiers,
automobiles, and so on, to selected political groups, civic
organizations, labor unions, dissident movements, student groups, book
publishers, newspapers, other media, etc. NED programs generally
impart the basic philosophy that working people and other citizens are
best served under a system of free enterprise, class cooperation,
collective bargaining, minimal government intervention in the economy,
and opposition to socialism in any shape or form. A free-market
economy is equated with democracy, reform, and growth; and the merits
of foreign investment are emphasized.
From 1994 to 1996, NED awarded 15 grants, totaling more than
$2,500,000, to the American Institute for Free Labor Development, an
organization used by the CIA for decades to subvert progressive labor
unions.{2} AIFLD's work within Third World unions typically involved
a considerable educational effort very similar to the basic NED
philosophy described above. The description of one of the 1996 NED
grants to AIFLD includes as one its objectives: "build
union-management cooperation".{3} Like many things that NED says, this
sounds innocuous, if not positive, but these in fact are ideological
code words meaning "keep the labor agitation down ... don't rock the
status-quo boat". The relationship between NED and AIFLD very well
captures the CIA origins of the Endowment.{4}
NED has funded centrist and rightist labor organizations to
help them oppose those unions which were too militantly pro-worker.
This has taken place in France, Portugal and Spain amongst many other
places. In France, during the 1983-4 period, NED supported a "trade
union-like organization for professors and students" to counter
"left-wing organizations of professors". To this end it funded a
series of seminars and the publication of posters, books and pamphlets
such as "Subversion and the Theology of Revolution" and "Neutralism or
Liberty".{5} ("Neutralism" here refers to being unaligned in the cold
war.)
NED describes one of its 1997-98 programs thusly: "To
identify barriers to private sector development at the local and
federal levels in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and to push
for legislative change ... [and] to develop strategies for
private sector growth."{6} Critics of Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic have been supported by NED grants for
years.{7}
In short, NED's programs are in sync with the basic needs
and objectives of the New World Order's economic globalization,
just as the programs have for years been on the same wavelength
as US foreign policy.
Because of a controversy in 1984 -- when NED funds were used to
aid a Panamanian presidential candidate backed by Manuel Noriega and
the CIA -- Congress enacted a law prohibiting the use of NED funds "to
finance the campaigns of candidates for public office." But the ways
to circumvent the spirit of such a prohibition are not difficult to
come up with; as with American elections, there's "hard money" and
there's "soft money".
As described in the "Elections" and "Interventions"
chapters, NED successfully manipulated elections in Nicaragua in
1990 and Mongolia in 1996, helped to overthrow democratically
elected governments in Bulgaria in 1990 and Albania in 1991 and
1992, and was busy working in Haiti in the late 1990s on behalf
of right wing groups who were united in their opposition to
former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his progressive
ideology.{8} NED has made its weight felt in the electoral-
political process in numerous other countries.
NED would have the world believe that it's only teaching the ABCs
of democracy and elections to people who don't know them, but in all
five countries named above there had already been free and fair
elections held. The problem, from NED's point of view, is that the
elections had been won by political parties not on NED's favorites
list.
The Endowment maintains that it's engaged in "opposition
building" and "encouraging pluralism". "We support people who
otherwise do not have a voice in their political system," said
Louisa Coan, a NED program officer.{9} But NED hasn't provided
aid to foster progressive or leftist opposition in Mexico, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, or Eastern Europe -- or, for that
matter, in the United States -- even though these groups are hard
pressed for funds and to make themselves heard. Cuban dissident
groups and media are heavily supported however.
NED's reports carry on endlessly about "democracy", but at
best it's a modest measure of mechanical political democracy they have
in mind, not economic democracy; nothing that aims to threaten the
powers-that-be or the way-things-are, unless of course it's in a place
like Cuba.
The Endowment played an important role in the Iran-Contra
affair of the 1980s, funding key components of Oliver North's
shadowy "Project Democracy" network, which privatized US foreign
policy, waged war, ran arms and drugs, and engaged in other
equally charming activities. At one point in 1987, a White House
spokesman stated that those at NED "run Project Democracy".{10} This
was an exaggeration; it would have been more correct to say that NED
was the public arm of Project Democracy, while North ran the covert
end of things. In any event, the statement caused much less of a stir
than if -- as in an earlier period -- it had been revealed that it was
the CIA which was behind such an unscrupulous operation.
NED also mounted a multi-level campaign to fight the leftist
insurgency in the Philippines in the mid-1980s, funding a host of
private organizations, including unions and the media.{11} This was a
replica of a typical CIA operation of pre-NED days.
And between 1990 and 1992, the Endowment donated a
quarter-million dollars of taxpayers' money to the Cuban-American
National Fund, the ultra-fanatic anti-Castro Miami group. The CANF,
in turn, financed Luis Posada Carriles, one of the most prolific and
pitiless terrorists of modern times, who was involved in the blowing
up of a Cuban airplane in 1976, which killed 73 people. In 1997, he
was involved in a series of bomb explosions in Havana hotels.{12}
The NED, like the CIA before it, calls what it does
supporting democracy. The governments and movements whom the
NED targets call it destabilization.{13}
NOTES
1. Washington Post, September 22, 1991
2. NED Annual Reports, 1994-96.
3. NED Annual Report, 1996, p.39
4. For further information on AIFLD, see: Tom Barry, et al., The
Other Side of Paradise: Foreign Control in the Caribbean (Grove
Press, NY, 1984), see AIFLD in index; Jan Knippers Black, United
States Penetration of Brazil (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1977),
chapter 6; Fred Hirsch, An Analysis of Our AFL-CIO Role in Latin
America (monograph, San Jose, California, 1974) passim; The Sunday
Times (London), October 27, 1974, p.15-16
5. NED Annual Report, November 18, 1983 to September 30, 1984,
p.21
6. NED Annual Report, November 18, 1983 to September 30, 1984,
p.21
7. See NED annual reports of the 1990s.
8. Haiti: Haiti Progres (Port-au-Prince, Haiti), May 13-19, 1998
9. New York Times, March 31, 1997, p.11
10. Washington Post, February 16, 1987; also see New York Times,
February 15, 1987, p.1
11. San Francisco Examiner, July 21, 1985, p.1
12. New York Times, July 13, 1998
13. For a detailed discussion of NED, in addition to the sources
named above, see: William I. Robinson, A Faustian Bargain: U.S.
Intervention in the Nicaraguan Elections and American Foreign
Policy in the Post-Cold War Era (Westview Press, Colorado, 1992),
passim
This is a chapter from Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only
Superpower, by William Blum
return to homepage: http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm
To write to the author:
•••@••.•••
------- End of forwarded message -------
============================================================================
Richard K Moore
Wexford, Ireland
Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance
email: •••@••.•••
CDR website: http://cyberjournal.org
cyberjournal archive: http://members.xoom.com/centrexnews/
book in progress: http://cyberjournal.org/cdr/gri.html
A community will evolve only when
the people control their means of communication.
-- Frantz Fanon
You cannot have capitalism without
ever-increasing exploitive development
-- that would be like trying to use an
automobile without putting gasoline in
it. Capitalism is a _political
doctrine which decrees the accumulation
of money-wealth to be the only economic
value, and which demands that such
economics dominate all other societal
values.
-- rkm
Permission for non-commercial republishing hereby granted - BUT
include and observe all restrictions, copyrights, credits,
and notices - including this one.
============================================================================
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