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 Those laws are still on the books and, as written, will be very difficult to 
 change. And what Iraqi governing body will be able to make the US close its 
 bases, including the new ones currently being built? Saving Africa. For 
 whom? We"ve just gone through one of the periodic Save Africa campaigns -- 
 the G-8 was meeting, Live 8 was performing, aid was increasing, debts were 
 canceling ... Paul McCartney, Bono, Stevie Wonder ... "Make Poverty History" 
 ... But does anyone doubt that after the songs have been sung and the 
 current campaign is history Africa will be swimming in the very same river 
 of misery? 
  
 Even if all the G-8 pledges of aid are fulfilled, which, if history is any 
 guide, will not come close; and by 2010, the target date for the aid, those 
 making the pledges are likely to be out of office for some time. One can 
 offer any number of reasons for this sad state of affairs, not least of 
 which are the workings of globalization as championed by the G-8, 
 particularly their subsidies for their own agricultural products, which 
 African farmers can"t compete with, and IMF structural adjustment, which 
 forces countries receiving aid to cut back on all manner of social services 
 and open up the economy to the multinationals. It is to advance such ends 
 that the G8 exists; it is not, truth be told, a charity to help poorer 
 nations. 
  
 But also high on the list of reasons for failure is corruption. In the past, 
 much of whatever real aid was forthcoming didn"t reach those most in need, 
 while African government officials drove around in Mercedes Benzes and flew 
 to Switzerland to be closer to their money. What can be done about this? 
 Find better leaders of course; leaders genuinely concerned about the welfare 
 of those on the bottom. Hmmm. 
  
 But what would happen if a Salvador Allende or a Jean-Bertrand Aristide or a 
 Fidel Castro or a Hugo Chavez came to power in an African country? The 
 United States would do its very best to overthrow him, or, failing that, 
 make his rule as difficult as possible. Such was the fate of Patrice Lumumba 
 in the Congo and Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana in the 1960s, and Agostinho Neto in 
 Angola beginning in the 1970s. 
  
 Washington also installed its own special monsters like Hissan Habr€ in Chad 
 in the 1980s and Joseph Mobutu in Zaire for three decades ending in the 
 1990s. The US didn"t have to subvert Nelson Mandela because in office he was 
 not particularly progressive, instituting an extensive program of 
 privatization and IMF structural adjustment, which did nothing to relieve 
 the destitution of millions of South Africans. 
  
 Once more with feeling On July 2, an American airstrike in the mountains of 
 Afghanistan destroyed a house, and as villagers gathered to look at the 
 damage, a US warplane dropped a second bomb on the same target. The second 
 bomb killed 17 civilians, including women and children, according to the 
 governor of the province. The US military confirmed civilian deaths but said 
 the numbers were unclear, stating that the targeted house was a known 
 operating base for terrorist attacks. The statement added that US forces 
 "regret the loss of innocent lives." 
  
 Two days later, after the Afghanistan government of American ally Hamid 
 Karzai also criticized the bombing attacks, the US State Department 
 declared: "We deeply regret any loss of civilian life in the course of 
 military actions."{3} 
  
 In 1999, during the 78-day NATO (read US) bombing of Yugoslavia, "We regret 
 the loss of innocent lives" was a common _expression from the mouths of NATO 
 spokesmen. It was also an _expression regularly used by the IRA following 
 one of their misdirected bombings in Northern Ireland. But the IRA actions 
 were regularly called "terrorist". 
  
 If all the economists were laid end to end they still wouldn"t reach any 
 useful conclusions 
  
 The poor people of the world fell off the cosmic agenda centuries ago. In 
 India, the homeless are large enough to constitute fair-sized cities, the 
 slums large enough to constitute a major metropolis; "crushing poverty" or 
 "dirt poor" don"t quite capture it; "a food-free diet" comes closer. We all 
 know the picture. The Wall Street Journal, though, sees things we don"t. 
 "India"s economy expanded a larger-than-expected 7 percent during the three 
 months ended March 31," they breathlessly informed us July 5. "India"s gross 
 domestic product has recorded some of the biggest growth in the world this 
 year." 
  
 Gross domestic product ... that"s a real beauty that one; you can put almost 
 anything you want in it, like it"s a garbage can; anything called a product, 
 anything called a service. You wanna be a good citizen and increase the GDP? 
 Burn down a building (which then has to be rebuilt), or go out and kill 
 someone (services of undertakers, cemeteries, lawyers, etc.) As one 
 economist has noted, marry your cleaning person, and you will make GDP drop 
 (a paid service changing to an unpaid one). So much of it is arbitrary, so 
 arbitrarily complex; and then the complexity is multiplied by comparing the 
 GDP among different countries. Who knows what India puts into its particular 
 garbage can? Is it the exact same garbage calculated in the exact same 
 manner as in the United States? Hardly likely. 
  
 But economists, politicians, the media, they all make use of their favorite 
 Leading Economic Indicators to paint the kind of picture they want us to 
 see; since India is waist-deep in the joys of globalization it"s vital to 
 globalization cheer leaders like the Wall Street Journal to paint smiley 
 faces. 
  
 What would you like to believe against all evidence to the contrary? "A few 
 months ago I told the American people that I did not trade arms for 
 hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that is true, but 
 the facts and evidence tell me it is not." President Ronald Reagan, 1987{4} 
  
 Reagan may well have been in his pre-Alzheimer"s condition when he made his 
 famous denials about not trading arms for the American hostages held in 
 Iran, but what is the excuse for the fantasies of present-day Republicans? 
  
 Like Vice President Dick Cheney, revealing unsuspected gifts as a humorist 
 by declaring in June that prisoners at the US detention center at Guant€namo 
 Bay, Cuba are well treated. "They"re living in the tropics. They"re well 
 fed. They"ve got everything they could possibly want."{5} 
  
 Not to be outdone, Congressman Duncan Hunter of California held a news 
 conference a few days later concerning Guant€namo. Displaying some yummy 
 traditional meals, he said the government spends $12 a day for food for each 
 person. "So the point is that the inmates in Guant€namo have never eaten 
 better, they"ve never been treated better, and they"ve never been more 
 comfortable in their lives than in this situation.{6} 
  
 Normally, I don"t bother commenting on the tales told by the dial-a-lie 
 Bushpeople; such stuff is as surprising and newsworthy as Paris Hilton 
 posing in scanty attire. But what I find interesting is how well the 
 Bushpeople have grasped a fundamental truth, first given great currency by a 
 certain Mr. A. Hitler, originally of Austria. This individual, though often 
 castigated, actually arrived at a number of very perceptive insights into 
 how the world worked. One of them was this: 
  
 "The great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to 
 be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil ... therefore, in 
  
 [continued in next message] 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)