Author: Nahapetian Zhanna

STATE BUDGET REVENUES GROW BY 19.5% IN JANUARY-OCTOBER 2006 ON SAME PERIOD OF LAST YEAR

Noyan Tapan
Dec 04 2006

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 4, NOYAN TAPAN. In January-October 2006, the
revenues of the RA state budget made over 345.6 billion drams (about
813 million USD), while expenditures – 354.4 billion drams. The
annual program indices on revenues were implemented by 82.4%, those
on expenditures – by 76.9%. The state budget revenues grew by 19.5%
or more than 56.4 billion drams compared with the same period of last
year. Taxes and duties grew by 48.7 bln drams, non-tax revenues –
by 2.6 bln drams, revenues from capital operations – by 4 bln drams,
and official transfers – by 1.1 bln drams. Most of the state budget
revenues (82.5%) was formed at the expense of tax revenues. The state
customs made up 4.7% of the budget revenues, non-tax revenues – 8%,
capital operation revenues – 3.5% and official transfers – 1.3%.

POPE URGES TURKISH CHRISTIANS TO MEET ‘MANY CHALLENGES’
by Malcolm Moore in Ephesus

The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
November 30, 2006 Thursday

THE Pope drew attention to the plight of Turkey’s tiny Christian
community yesterday and paid tribute to a Catholic priest who was
shot dead earlier this year.

On the second day of his four-day trip, the Pope visited a shrine in
Ephesus where the Virgin is said to have spent her final days. The
small stone house, which has been converted into a church, is close
to Turkey’s only significant Catholic community, at Izmir. A few
hundred locals were invited to pray with the Pope.

During the outdoor mass, under a canopy of flowers in the Vatican’s
colours of yellow and white, the Pope appeared to be nursing a cold,
coughing often and wiping his nose.

"Let us sing joyfully, even when we’re tested by difficulties and
dangers, as we have learned from the fine witness given by the Rev
Andrea Santoro, whom I am pleased to recall in this celebration,"
he said.

Fr Santoro was shot in February by a teenager as he knelt in prayer at
his church in Trabzon on the Black Sea. The Pope encouraged Turkey’s
"little flock" of Christians to stand firm in the face of "many
challenges and daily difficulties".

Out of Turkey’s 70 million people, who are mostly Muslims, only 20,000
are Roman Catholic. Another 65,000 are Armenian Orthodox Christians,
3,500 are Protestant and 2,000 are Greek Orthodox.

The Christian minority has faced a series of persecutions. A Catholic
priest in Izmir was harassed during the Danish cartoon controversy
and bulldozers arrived to level his church. In July, a priest was
stabbed in Samsun.

The Pope appealed again for understanding between Muslims and
Christians, citing Mary as a figure that united the two faiths.

Turkish security forces cordoned off the hill on which the shrine
stands. Snipers patrolled the surrounding forest and trees were
whitewashed to remove possible cover for assassins.

The trip has been dogged by controversy since September, when the
Pope made comments in which he appeared to link Islam with violence.

BUDGET ADOPTED

A1+
[07:34 pm] 29 November, 2006

The National Assembly has adopted the 2007 state budget with 77 votes
for and three against. Six deputies abstained from voting. The 2007
state income will be 490.2 billion AMD, whereas the expenses will be
558.7 AMD. The Deficit is 68.47 million AMD.

The exchange rate of AMD and USD is 357 AMD for one US dollar.

22 DISTRICT COMMISSIONS AND 278 ELECTION DISTRICTS ESTABLISHED IN NAGORNO KARABAKH TO CONDUCT REFERENDUM

Regnum, Russia
Nov 30 2006

Preparations for the referendum on constitution scheduled for
December 10, 2006, continue in Nagorno Karabakh. According to a REGNUM
correspondent in Stepanakert, 22 district commissions and 278 election
districts, as well as correspondingly as many election commission on
referendum, were created in Stepanakert.

According to Chairman of central Commission on Referendum Sergey
Nasibyan, about 90,000 people are preliminary registered as voters;
lists of voters are checked, now. 25,000 copies of constitution in
Armenian are published and sent to all settlements. Publishing the
brochures in Russian and English – for Russian-speaking population
of the republic and for international observers – is planned. A model
ballot-paper is worked out and approved; all citizens will be informed
via mass media how to fill it.

NKR citizens who have right to vote and who are temporarily in
Armenian territory will be able to participate in referendum on NKR
constitution voting at polling station E/1 situated at administrative
building of NKR permanent representation in Yerevan, Nairi Zaryan St.,
17a, Yerevan.

IS WEST CHANGING TACTICS?
Hakob Badalyan

Lragir, Armenia
Nov 29 2006

U.S. President Bush stated during the NATO summit in Riga that the
doors of NATO remain open to Ukraine and Georgia. Perhaps, this is
the least that Georgia, for instance, would expect, which is rushing
towards the North Atlantic. The expectations that the summit in Riga
would take an essential step towards the membership of Georgia did
not come true. But Bush’s statement is important in terms of regional
developments. In fact, Georgia is singled out of the three South
Caucasian states, at least on the level of statements. In other words,
the words of the U.S. president imply that Georgia can become member
of NATO separately from Armenia and Azerbaijan. Consequently, the
U.S. policy on the region is estabishing a new hierarchy of approaches,
which may act as a precedent for the actions of other international
organizations, namely the European Union. Certainly, Bush’s statement
is not a guarantee that Georgia will soon become member of NATO but it
also allows concluding that the United States considers the membership
of one separately from the other two as quite possible. Even if it
does not take place, the approach nevertheless marks the revision of
the general regional policy – the South Caucasus, at least for the
United States, is no longer an integrated region in tactical terms.

This may be an impetus for te EU to conduct a similar policy.

Strategically, the South Caucasus will remain by all means an
integrated region for both the United States and the EU. However,
they have come to realize that it is not effective to implement this
strategic approach through the same tactical method. The point is that
the common policy of integration with the Western organizations was
one of the main obstacles for the development of the South Caucasian
countries. The approach that either these three countries become
members together or none of them becomes member separately eliminated
competition between them. A country knows that even if it is a little
behind of the other, it will not affect the prospect of integration
because everyone is measured and viewed in a package.

Moreover, one of these three could use its slow pace of reforms to
influence the other two, threatening their integration. Perhaps this
is the reason why the countries of the South Caucasus do not display
sufficient will for reforms and regional partnership.

Apparently, the United States took this into consideration in
separating Georgia and encouraging it. This policy was first adopted by
the European Union, which separated the three South Caucasian countries
in the framework the New Neighbors Policy. However, it did not have
enough courage, and the European Union did not sign the policy of
individual partnership until all the three countries upgraded to the
required benchmark. Now Bush’s statement shows, in fact, that the
West can separate the three with regard to practical steps already.

Actually, this gives rise to a competitive situation in the region.

Obviously, the state which is ahead on the track for integration with
the European and Atlantic organizations will contend for leadership,
picking the fruits of this situation. In other words, Armenia, in
particular, can no more be consoled by the fact that Azerbaijan is
less democratic than we, or in reality Georgia is on the verge of
decay. Everyone will be measured by a separate benchmark, and the
three states will be viewed with all their pros and cons. In this
situation, all Armenia can do is to rely on the development of civil
institutions and modernization of political and economic systems.

Armenia does not have other resources to compete with Georgia and
Azerbaijan. Apparently, the leadership of Armenia including the head
of state realize this. At least, they have stressed this in their
statements. But the point is that competition already requires definite
acts, because as Bush could have said, "I make statements here."

RWANDA AND ALGERIA ACCUSE FRANCE FOR GENOCIDES IN AFRICA
By Mukremin TASCI, JTW

Journal of Turkish Weekly
Nov 28 2006

Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Saturday repeated accusations that
France was implicated in his country’s 1994 genocide in a television
interview. Algerian President and Prime Minister also accused France
last month of committing genocide in Algeria during the colony time.

"France is implicated in the genocide, there is no doubt about that,
no one can have doubts," Mr. Kagame told French TV channel i-Tele in
an interview broadcast on Saturday.

Rwanda accuses France of training soldiers it knew would later commit
genocide though France denies any wrongdoing, saying its military
intervention helped Rwandans.

Mr Kagame told i-Tele:

"On the extent, the degrees of implications, the people involved,
the way in which French institutions were involved, these are aspects
which will be examined… France is a superpower so it thinks that it
is always right even when it is wrong… We have a will and a reason
to fight for our rights and we will."

The latest diplomatic flare-up between the two countries arose earlier
this week when French anti-terrorism magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere
called for Kagame to stand trial at a U.N. court over the killing of a
former Rwandan president. Mr Bruguiere also issued arrest warrants for
nine of Mr Kagame’s associates over the 1994 shooting down of a plane
carrying former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana. Rwanda says
that the decision is politically motivated and counter French attack
against the Rwanda claims. Mr Kagame has denounced Mr Bruguiere’s
comments as the `justice of bullies, arrogance’.

* ALGERIA ALSO ACCUSES FRANCE

Not only Rwanda, but also Algeria also says that the French caused
genocide in Africa. Relations between France and Algeria remain
strained due to the Algerian Genocide committed by France during the
colonial period. French President Jacques Chirac has rebuffed Algerian
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s demand that France apologize for its
"long, brutal and genocidal" rule. Bouteflika officially named the
French period as "cultural and political genocide of the Algerian
identity".

During a visit to Algiers in the second week of November 2006, French
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the leading ruling party candidate
in the 2007 presidential vote, said he couldn’t "ask children to
apologize for the faults of their fathers." Sarkozy and his party
accuses Turkey for the Ottoman past and Sarkozy strongly support
a bill which makes crime to reject the Armenian genocide crimes in
Turkey. Algerians argue that France should first face with its own
crimes before judging the other countries.

Algerian historians estimate that more than 1,5 million Algerians
were massacred by the French Army.

The Algerian war for independence began in 1954, and the French army
largely crushed the rebels by 1958. Civilian massacres and the use of
torture undercut support for the war in France, resulting in General
Charles de Gaulle’s decision to quit Algeria.

* FRANCE DOES NOT WANT TO APOLOGIZE

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was on an official visit to
France’s former colony Algeria last week. Sarkozy placed a wreath at
a monument for Algerians killed in their war for independence and
then he visited a monastery in Tibhirine where seven French monks
where killed in 1996. In only eight years, 1.5 million Algerians died
during their country’s fight for independence between 1954 and 1962.

Torture was widespread.

The Algerian government has urged France to apologize for the killings
and suffering during 130 years of colonial rule.

While the Algerian government has called on the French to recognize
"the number of victims and the looting of riches" and "the deletion of
national identity," Sarkozy preferred to talk about the "dark moments"
of the colonial era and suffering on both sides.

Sarkozy, a leading candidate for the French center-right political
world to run for president next year, has strongly supported France’s
recent notorious bill criminalizing the denial of an Armenian genocide
at the hands of the Turks during World War I.

During his trip Sarkozy preferred to focus on an initiative to lift
visa restrictions for Algerians traveling to Europe. Both the French
interior minister and the Algerian leadership avoided talking too
much on the two topics cooling relations between the two countries:
Algeria’s call for an apology and the postponement of a 2005 bilateral
friendship treaty.

The treaty was pushed aside after France passed a law last year
requiring textbooks to talk about the "positive side" of French
colonialism. An embarrassed Chirac quashed the law but relations
have suffered.

Instead, both sides preferred to talk about Sarkozy’s trip in terms
of a "necessary" friendship between the two countries "condemned"
to a mutual future, said Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

ARMENIAN PARLIAMENTARIANS EXPRESS GRATITUDE TO THEIR FRENCH COLLEAGUES FOR ADOPTION OF LAW CONDEMNING DENIAL OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Nov 28 2006

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 28, NOYAN TAPAN. On November 28, RA National Assembly
Speaker Tigran Torosian received Head of the French National Assembly’s
France-Armenia Deputy Friendship Group, Francois Rochebloine, group
member Alen Muan Bersan and group Secretary Jean-Pierre Delaunay. He
highly estimated the efforts of the French parliament aimed at right
perception of issues delicate for Armenia, in particular, adoption
of the bill determining a punishment for denial of the Armenian
Genocide. In Tigran Torosian’s words, indeed it is aimed at not
punishing individuals, but expresses a precise attitude towards such
phenomena for the purpose of preventing them.

NA Speaker informed the guests about Armenia’s position on Nagorno
Karabakh settlement and on Turkey. He said that more favorable
situation has been formed at present for solving the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict: principles of nations’ self-determination and territorial
integrity were opposed to each other for a long time and now the
Minsk Group Co-chairs propose a resolution where these principles
are confronted with each other. Touching upon relations with Turkey
T.Torosian said that Armenia is for normal relations without any
preconditions but Turkey puts forward preconditions, which, naturally,
is unacceptable.

F.Rochebloine who visits Armenia for the 15th time mentioned the
great progress Armenia has in all spheres after the 90-s.

At the meeting, they also touched upon issues of cooperation of
Armenian and French delegations in PACE.

According to the report submitted to Noyan Tapan from RA NA Public
Relations Department, the same day the Armenia-France Deputy Friendship
Group met with members of NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations
and RA NA Armenia-France Deputy Friendship Group.

Highly estimating the current level of Armenian-French many-sided
relations Committee Chairman Armen Rustamian attached importance
to further development of interparliamentary relations. Expressing
gratitude for the bill condemning denial of the Armenian Genocide, he
mentioned that it raised to a new level the international community’s
attention towards the Armenian Genocide. A.Rustamian expressed the
hope that the change in the staff of the U.S. Congress in favor of
deputies with a pro-Armenian position will enable to give more serious
attention to the problem of the Genocide in the U.S. as well.

Mher Shahgeldian, Head of Armenia-France Deputy Friendship Group,
also expressed gratitude to the French parliament for adopting the
law determining a punishment for denial of the Armenian Genocide. He
attached importance to necessity to cooperate in the sphere of economy,
to use the French experience in electoral processes.

ALLURE OF ISLAM SIGNALS A SHIFT WITHIN TURKEY
By Sabrina Tavernise

The New York Times
November 28, 2006 Tuesday
Late Edition – Final

Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Ankara, and Ian Fisher from
Rome. Sabrina Pacifici contributed research.

A short 24 hours before a visit by Pope Benedict XVI to this Muslim
country, its prime minister finally agreed to meet him publicly. The
venue: the airport, on the Turkish leader’s way out of town.

The elaborate, last-minute choreography pointed to the deep divide
that has festered within Turkish society since the foundation of the
modern state. Should Turkey face eastward, toward its Muslim neighbors,
or westward, toward Europe?

In the past five years, Muslims here have repeatedly felt betrayed
by the West. The United States began holding Muslims without charge
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; it invaded Iraq and abused prisoners at Abu
Ghraib. Turkey’s hopes of entering the European Union have dimmed.

The pope made a speech citing criticism of Islam.

Turkey — a democratic Muslim country with a rigidly secular state —
is at a pivot point. It is trying to navigate between the forces that
want to pull it closer to Islam and the institutions that safeguard
its secularism. Turkey’s pro-Islamic government is constrained by
rules dictating secularism established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
Turkey’s revered founder.

The extremes jostle on Istanbul’s streets, where miniskirts mix with
tightly tied head scarves and lingerie boutiques stand unapologetically
next to mosques.

"There are two Turkeys within Turkey right now," said Binnaz Toprak,
a professor of political science at Bogazici University.

The pope’s visit, which begins Tuesday, falls squarely on that fault
line, and highlights a slow but steady shift: Turkey is feeling its
Muslim identity more and more. The trend worries secular Turkish
politicians, who believe the state’s central tenet is under threat.

In late October, a senior officer of Turkey’s army — which ousted a
government it saw as overly Islamic in 1997 — issued a rare warning
to that effect.

Others say the threat is overstated, but acknowledge that Turks do
feel pushed eastward by pressures on their country from America and
Europe. A poll by the Pew Foundation in June found that 53 percent
of Turks have positive views of Iran, while public opinion of Europe
and the United States has slipped sharply.

"Many people in Turkey have lost hopes in joining Europe and they are
looking for other horizons," said Onur Oymen, an opposition politician
whose party is staunchly secular.

It has been more than 80 years since religion was ripped out of
the heart of the new Turkish state, which was assembled from the
remains of the Ottoman Empire, the political and economic center of
the Muslim world for centuries. But the portion of Turks who identify
themselves by their religion has increased to 46 percent this year,
from 36 percent seven years ago, according to a survey of 1,500
people in 23 cities conducted by the Turkish Economic and Social
Studies Foundation, an independent research organization based in
Istanbul. That is a trend that has emerged in countries throughout
the Muslim world since Sept. 11, 2001.

"I’m here as a Muslim," said Fatma Eksioglu, who was sitting on
the grass next to her sister in downtown Istanbul on Sunday at a
demonstration of about 20,000 people opposing the pope’s visit. She
did not belong to the Islamic party that organized the gathering,
she said, adding, "When it comes to Islam, we are one."

But in a paradox that goes to the heart of modern Turkey, a stronger
Muslim identity does not mean that, as in Iraq, fundamentalism is
on the rise, or even that more Turks want more religion in their
government. Indeed, the number of Turks in favor of imposing Shariah
law declined to 9 percent from 21 percent, according to the survey,
which was released last week.

Perhaps the most powerful factor pushing Turks toward the east has
been a series of bitter setbacks in talks on admission to the European
Union. To try to win membership, the Turkish government enacted a
series of rigorous reforms to bring the country in line with European
standards, including some unprecedented in the Muslim world, like a
law against marital rape.

But the admission talks have stalled. And while the official reason
involves the longstanding Greek-Turkish dispute over Cyprus, most
Turks say they believe the real reason is a deep suspicion of their
country’s religion.

Indeed, in 2002, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the former French
president, said Turkey’s admission to the union would mean "the end
of Europe." Nicholas Sarkozy, the French presidential hopeful, has
made his opposition to Turkish membership a campaign issue. Even the
pope, when he was still a cardinal in Germany, said publicly that he
did not think Turkey fit into Europe because it was Muslim. That talk
has begun to grate on Turks.

"It hurts me that the E.U. expects Turkey to be something it’s not,"
said Nilgun Yun, a stylish 26-year-old eating a chocolate muffin in
a downtown Istanbul cafe on Sunday.

Her position, shared by many of her friends, was simple: "Accept me
as I am. We are Muslim, and we will remain Muslim. That’s not going
to change."

Mr. Oyman, the Turkish opposition politician, said criticism of
his country was tougher than ever. "You cannot believe how they
accuse Turkey on Cyprus and other issues," he said in a telephone
interview from Brussels, where he was attending a meeting of European
parliamentarians. "Our European friends are playing a very shortsighted
game."

The shift has begun to affect trade. While Europe is still Turkey’s
largest trading partner, business with other neighbors, including
Syria, Iraq and Iran, has picked up substantially in recent years,
said Omer Bolat, the head of one of the country’s largest business
associations, whose members are mostly pro-Islamic. He put the growth
at about 30 percent from just 3 percent in 2000.

"It is risky for a country with respect to foreign policy to have
dependence on one partner and market," he said in English, sitting in a
sleek conference room overlooking a bustling trade fair that showcased
Turkish goods. "Now Turkey is opening its muscles, its horizons."

The policies of the Bush administration have deeply worried Muslims,
he said, before rushing off to speak to the Pakistani ambassador,
who had arrived at the fair.

"The United States used to be paradigm of freedom and rights," he
said. "But since the Republican period, the U.S. policies have been
so detrimental in Muslim eyes."

In just four years, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has managed
to get inflation down to historical lows and growth rates to all-time
highs. The growing prosperity has eased the integration of religious
Turks into the country’s secular society, which is still suspicious
of advocates of Islam, as well as of Mr. Erdogan.

"This group of people that was more religious has relaxed,"
said Ms. Toprak, the professor. "They are now visible. They go to
restaurants they would never have gone; they go to posh shopping
malls."

"It was a struggle to get a piece of the pie," she said. "Now they
have one."

Even so, the increased religiosity, or at least identification with
religion, could eventually present a serious problem for Turkish
society. There are already rumblings. A killing of a judge whose court
had ruled that a nursery school teacher could not wear a head scarf,
even away from school, alarmed Turkey’s secularists. Gen.

Yasar Buyukanit, head of the Turkish Army, has referred to a rising
threat of fundamentalism on at least four occasions since he took up
his position in late August.

Mr. Erdogan’s closely watched government had attempted to limit liquor
consumption in public places, but later backed down. It also tried
to make adultery a crime, but relented.

Some Turkish officials play down the possibility of real damage to
secularism, but say that European suspicion does Turkey no good.

The delay with Europe, for instance, "fans up the disappointment,
the disillusionment," said Namik Tan, the spokesman for Turkey’s
Foreign Ministry. "People say, ‘Why are they doing this?’ "

That is why public officials, including Mr. Erdogan, have shrunk from
the visit by the pope, who symbolizes, in the eyes of Turks, a disdain
for Islam and the unfair exclusivity of the Western club. A cartoon
in a Turkish newspaper last weekend showed two public officials belly
laughing at the bad luck of those Turkish officials obliged to meet
him. (The senior official appointed to be his formal guide has the
portfolio of youth and sport.)

But the pope is coming, and the meetings are happening. Despite growing
pains, a neglected Kurdish minority in the south, a thin skin for
any reference to the Armenian genocide, and failure to scrap a law
that makes insulting Turkishness a crime, Turkey stands out as lively
democracy in a larger Middle East riddled with restrictions, and its
acceptance by the West is a test case for others, officials said.

Muslim countries, Mr. Tan points out, are watching.

"Turkey is a beacon for those countries," he said. "Don’t forget,
if we fail, then the whole dream will fail."

ANOTHER ACT OF CIVIC DISOBEDIENCE

A1+
[07:39 pm] 27 November, 2006

more images "Shame on you", "Leave, traitors"…

These were what the victims of "state needs", the former residents
of the center of the city said while walking from the Parliament
building to the Constitutional Court where the participants of the
civic disobedience movement were waiting for them. By the way, the
participants of the protest action carried brooms which have already
become their symbol.

As far as today is the first anniversary of the Constitutional
referendum, the residents of Kentron had gathered to express their
discontent with the members of the Constitutional Court. "Last
year the Armenian nation boycotted the farce. Today we have come to
express our discontent with the members of the Constitutional Court
who close their eyes to the illegal actions of the authorities. At
present they are adopting an anti-constitutional law about alienation
of property", said founder of the Civic Disobedience movement, former
Foreign Minister Alik Arzoumanyan.

He called on those present, "This movement will become more and
more powerful day by day. Our only demand is that Kocharyan and
his criminal group should leave. We will not wait for the recurrent
illegal elections".

Arkadi Karapetyan, head of the NKR "Erkrapah" Union, said, "We
protected this country during war. Today we are ready to protect it
in peace too".

Residents of both the city and the regions participated in the protest
action. Elmira Kostandyan, owner of Dalma gardens, held a broom in
her hands and promised to sweep everything unclean in the country.

Another old man from the regions demanded, "Let’s take an ax and put
an end to this situation".

After the speeches the participants of the action moved on to the
Parliament building again as the deputies were discussing the RA Law on
"Alienation of property for state and needs".

By the way, the founders of the movement were the first the leave
the site.

Dissident Voice, CA
Nov 25 2006

The Anti-Empire Report
Would Jesus Get Out of Iraq?
by William Blum

November 24, 2006

The good news is that the Republicans lost.

The bad news is that the Democrats won.

The burning issue — US withdrawal from Iraq — remains as far from
resolution as before.

A clear majority of Americans are opposed to the war and almost all
of them would be very happy if the US military began the process of
leaving Iraq tomorrow, if not today. The rest of the world would
breathe a great sigh of relief and their long-running love affair
with the storybook place called "America" could begin to come back to
life.

A State Department poll conducted in Iraq this past summer dealt with
the population’s attitude toward the American occupation. Apart from
the Kurds — who assisted the US military before, during, and after
the invasion and occupation, and don’t think of themselves as Iraqis
— most people favored an immediate withdrawal, ranging from 56% to
80% depending on the area.

The State Department report added that majorities in all regions
except Kurdish areas said that the departure of coalition forces
would make them feel safer and decrease violence. [1]

George W. is on record declaring that if the people of Iraq ask the
United States to leave, the US will leave. He also has declared that
the Iraqis are "not happy they’re occupied. I wouldn’t be happy if I
were occupied either." [2]

Yet, despite all this, and much more, the United States remains, with
predictions from Pentagon officials that American forces will be in
Iraq for years. Large US military bases are being constructed there;
they’re not designed as temporary structures. Remember that 61 years
after the end of World War II the United States still has major bases
in Germany. Fifty-three years after the end of the Korean War the US
has tens of thousands of troops in South Korea.

Washington insists that it can’t leave Iraq until it has completed
training and arming a police force and army which will keep order.
Not only does this inject thousands more armed men — often while in
uniform — into the raging daily atrocities, it implies that the
United States is concerned about the welfare and happiness of the
Iraqi people, a proposition rendered bizarre by almost four years of
inflicting upon those same people a thousand and one varieties of
hell on earth, literally destroying their ancient and modern
civilization. We are being asked to believe that the American
military resists leaving because some terrible thing will befall
their beloved Iraqi brethren. ("We bomb you because we care about
you" … suitable to be inscribed on the side of a cruise missile.)
Even as I write this, on November 14, I read: "An overnight US raid
killed six people in mainly-Shia east Baghdad, sparking angry anti-US
protests. Thirty died in a US raid on the Sunni stronghold of Ramadi,
Iraqi officials said." [3]

At the same time, the American occupation fuels hostility by the
Sunnis toward Shiite "collaborators" with the occupation, and
vice-versa. If the Americans left, both sides could negotiate and
participate in the reconstruction of Iraq without fear of being
branded traitors. The Iraqi government would lose its quisling
stigma. And Iraq’s security forces would no longer have the handicap
of being seen to be working on behalf of foreign infidels against
fellow Iraqis.

So why don’t the Yanquis just go home? Is all this not rather odd?
Three thousand of their own dead, tens of thousands critically
maimed. And still they stay. Why, they absolutely refuse to even
offer a timetable for withdrawal. No exit plan. No nothing.

No, it’s not odd. It’s oil.

Oil was not the only motivation for the American invasion and
occupation, but the other goals have already been achieved —
eliminating Saddam Hussein for Israel’s sake, canceling the Iraqi use
of the euro in place of the dollar for oil transactions, expansion of
the empire in the middle east with new bases.

American oil companies have been busy under the occupation, and even
before the US invasion, preparing for a major exploitation of Iraq’s
huge oil reserves. Chevron, ExxonMobil and others are all set to go.
Four years of preparation are coming to a head now. Iraq’s new
national petroleum law — written in a place called Washington, DC —
is about to be implemented. It will establish agreements with foreign
oil companies, privatizing much of Iraq’s oil reserves under
exceedingly lucrative terms. Security will be the only problem,
protecting the oil companies’ investments in a lawless country. For
that they need the American military close by. [4]

What a mad raving dinosaur am I!

Democratic Party leaders think that the election validates their
pursuing a centrist path. Arnold Schwarzenegger credits his
re-election as California governor to his moving to the center (or at
least pretending to do so). They and their colleagues would have us
all believe that the American people have resolutely moved to the
center, abandoning the "extremes". But is that really so? I maintain
that most Americans are liberal, and many even further left. I think
that this would be revealed if the public was asked questions along
the following lines?

Would you like to have a government-run health care system, which put
an end to the for-profit health care corporations and hospitals, and
which covered all residents for all ailments at very affordable
premiums?

Do you think that when corporations are faced with a choice between
optimizing their revenue and doing what’s best for the environment
and public health, that they should always choose in favor of the
environment?

Do you think that abortion is a question best left up to a woman and
her doctor?

Do you think that the United States should officially be a totally
secular nation or one based on religious beliefs?

Do you think that big corporations and their political action
committees exercise too much political power?

Do you think that corporate executive salaries are highly excessive?

Do you think that the tax cuts for the super rich instituted by the
Bush administration should be cancelled and their taxes then
increased?

Do you think that the minimum wage should be increased to what is
called a "living wage", which would be at least $10 per hour?

Do you think that all education, including medical school and law
school, should be free, subsidized by the government?

Do you think that the government should take all measures necessary
to guarantee that corporations have retirement plans for all workers
and that the retirement funds are safeguarded?

Do you think that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a mistake?

Do you think that United States support of Israel is excessive?

Do you approve of the treatment of people captured by the United
States as part of its so-called War on Terror — the complete loss of
legal and human rights, and subjected to torture?

For those readers who think that I’m presuming too much about
Americans’ disenchantment with their economic system, I suggest they
have a look at my essay: "The United States invades, bombs, and kills
for it, but do Americans really believe in free enterprise?" [5]

And for those readers who wonder where all the money would come from
to pay for the education, medical care, etc., keep in mind that one
year of the US military budget — that’s one year — is equal to more
than $30,000 per hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born.

The Great Decider

Earlier this month the US State Department dropped Vietnam from its
blacklist of nations that it judges to be serious violators of
religious freedom. This occurred just days before a visit to Vietnam
by President Bush. The Department denied any connection between the
two events. However, to quote George Bernard Shaw: "Not bloody
likely."

In removing Vietnam from the list, the State Department was ignoring
the US government’s own Commission on International Religious
Freedom, a congressionally mandated advisory body, which had called
for Vietnam to be kept on the list. The Commission also called for
Pakistan and Turkmenistan to be added. This, too, was ignored by the
White House. [6]

Foreign policy considerations routinely play a decisive role in
determining who’s included and who’s not on various State Department
lists. This is no small matter, for inclusion on one of the lists can
lead to economic and other sanctions. It’s thus another weapon
Washington has available to bend the world to its will.

In addition to the report on religious freedom, the State Department
self-righteously issues annual reports which rate the countries of
the world on human rights, the war on drugs, trafficking in persons,
and the war on terrorism, as well as maintaining a list of
"terrorist" groups. The Department has placed Venezuela in the worst
category on the trafficking-in-persons list, stating that "Venezuela
is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children
trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor"
and that "The Government of Venezuela does not fully comply with the
minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not
making significant efforts to do so." [7]

It’s all rather arbitrary and most of what the State Department
report says about Venezuela could be said as well about the United
States and other developed countries. In Washington, DC, for many
years, there have regularly been cases of foreign diplomats
"enslaving" and sexually abusing young women whom they brought with
them from abroad to work in their home. This keeps happening again
and again and there does not appear to be a clear and tough policy of
the State Department to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The
stories are reported each time a young woman, after years of
"slavery" in a Washington suburb, escapes. "Slavery" is indeed the
term used by the legal authorities.

Categorizing Venezuelan thusly is as arbitrary as including Cuba on
the list of state supporters of terrorism because a few American
Black Panthers hijacked planes to Cuba 25 or 30 years ago, and a
Basque activist lives in Cuba, which Spain has no problem with, but
which the US wants to make political capital of.

Caution: extremist statement ahead (You may never see this in print
again, so clip and save)

France is on the verge of approving legislation which makes it a
crime to deny the Turkish genocide of Armenians at the time of the
First World War.

Denying the German Holocaust of Jews is a crime in Germany, Belgium,
the Czech Republic, France, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland,
Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, and Israel.

In the United States it’s not a crime to deny the American holocaust,
although this particular historical phenomenon encompasses Vietnam,
Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, Guatemala, El Salvador, Grenada,
Indonesia, Iraq, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Greece, East Timor, Angola,
Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Colombia, and several
other countries upon whom Washington has bestowed its precious gifts
of freedom and democracy.

But how long before the neo-Cons and the neo-Dems of America put
their heads together and make it a crime to affirm the American
holocaust? Politicians and media people carry around ten-foot poles
to not touch this with.

The case that is still not closed

I have closely followed and often written about the case of Pan Am
Flight 103, blown out of the sky by a terrorist bomb over Lockerbie,
Scotland in 1988, taking the lives of 270 people. For well over a
year afterward, the US and the UK insisted that Iran, Syria, and a
Palestinian group had been behind the bombing, until the buildup to
the Gulf War came along in 1990 and the support of Iran and Syria was
desired for the operation. Suddenly, in October 1990, the US declared
that it was Libya — the Arab state least supportive of the US
build-up to the Gulf War and the sanctions imposed against Iraq —
that was behind the bombing after all.

Eventually, in 2001, a Libyan, Abdelbaset al Megrahi, was sentenced
to life in prison for the crime, although his Libyan co-defendant,
charged with the same crime and with the same evidence, was
acquitted. The trial was the proverbial travesty of justice, which
I’ve discussed in detail elsewhere. ("I am absolutely astounded,
astonished," said the Scottish law professor who was the architect of
the trial. "I was extremely reluctant to believe that any Scottish
judge would convict anyone, even a Libyan, on the basis of such
evidence.") [8] The prosecution’s star witness, Libyan defector Abdul
Majid Giaka, groomed and presented by the CIA, was a thoroughly
dubious character who didn’t know much or have access to much, and
who pretended to be otherwise just to get more CIA payments. And the
CIA knew it. The Agency refused to fully declassify documents about
him, using their standard excuse — that it would reveal confidential
sources and methods. It turned out they were reluctant because the
documents showed that the CIA thought him unreliable.

Then, in 2005, we learned that a key piece of evidence linking Libya
to the crime had been planted by the CIA. [9] Just like in movie
thrillers. Just like in conspiracy theories.

For anyone still in doubt about the farcical nature of the trial, now
comes along Michael Scharf, an attorney who worked on the 103 case at
the State Department and was the counsel to the counter-terrorism
bureau when the two Libyans were indicted for the bombing. In the
past year he trained judges and prosecutors in Iraq in the case that
led to the conviction and death sentence of Saddam Hussein. Scharf
recently stated that the Panam case "was largely based on this inside
guy [Giaka]. It wasn’t until the trial that I learned this guy was a
nut-job and that the CIA had absolutely no confidence in him and that
they knew he was a liar. It was a case that was so full of holes it
was like Swiss cheese." He says that the case had a "diplomatic
rather than a purely legal goal." [10]

Victor Ostrovsky, formerly with the Israeli intelligence service,
Mossad, has written of Mossad what one could just as correctly say of
the CIA: "This feeling that you can do anything you want to whomever
you want for as long as you want because you have the power." [11]

So, let’s hope that Abdelbaset al Megrahi is really guilty. It would
be a terrible shame if he spends the rest of his life in prison
simply because back in 1990 Washington’s hegemonic plans for the
Middle East needed a convenient scapegoat, which just happened to be
his country. However, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
is to report in the coming months on whether it believes there was a
miscarriage of justice in the case.

And by the way, my usual reminder, Libya has never confessed to
having carried out the act. They’ve only taken "responsibility", in
the hope of getting various sanctions against them lifted.

William Blum is the author of: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War 2, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s
Only Superpower, Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American
Empire, and West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir. Visit his
website: He can be reached at: [email protected].