International Politics: July 2004 Archives

RAW cannot carry out terrorism without internal help, says Jabbar

PROUT Editor's Note: The news article below concerns a recent terrorist act carried out in Pakistan. The majority of Pakistanis believe that the RAW (Research Analysis Wing of the Indian government) is behind all the terrorist incidents in Pakistan. Similarly, the majority of the Indian people believe that the ISI is behind all terrorist attacks in India. Both countries suffer not merely from outside terrorism but from dysfunctional mindset. Both countries are caught in the grip of fundamentalist paranoia. Both countries believe that they are in imminent danger of being annihilated by the other. What is the way out of this madness? Long ago, Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar commented about how two villages in British India that had close ties, with families from one village marrying members of families in the other village, one day were told that from now on this must all come to an end. One village must regard the other village as the enemy and as Pakistanis. Similarly, the other village was now told by its new government that it must hate its former close friends because they are now Indians. This is what the disease of religious nationalism has done to South Asia. If India and Pakistan and Banglaadesh can overcome these religious pathologies, South Asia can once again be a dynamic force, just as Europe by uniting has become a united force after the Berlin Wall. However, if the present religious fundamentalism prevails in both countries, then both will face further disintegration and splintering along with endless violence, from whom priests, mullahs and politicians alone will derive any benefit. The people of South Asia must take their future into their own hands, and not allow themselves to be sacrificed at the altar of the megalomania of fundamentalist politicians.

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Outlook , Issue 7, Spring 2004
www.globalresearch.ca 3 February 2004
The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO402A.html

America’s leaders in Washington and Wall Street firmly believe in the righteousness of war and authoritarian forms of government as a means to "safeguarding democratic values".

"You ask, 'Is it serious?' Yes, you bet your life. People don't do that unless it's a serious situation." (Donald Rumsfeld)

Inside the Government’s Secret, Corporate-Run Mega-Database

by Madeleine Baran

Jul 9 - In what civil liberties advocates call the most massive database surveillance program in US history, the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, or Matrix, continues to compile billions of records on law-abiding citizens and receive federal funding, despite public outcry and suspicion.

by Madeleine Baran

Jul 5 - Although the members of Congress are elected to represent average Americans, their incomes are anything but ordinary, according to newly released Congressional financial disclosure forms.

By Gregory Wilpert

Perhaps the most important thing to know about Venezuela is that it is an oil exporting country, the fifth largest in the world, with the largest reserves of conventional oil (light and heavy crude) in the western hemisphere and the largest reserves of non-conventional oil (extra-heavy crude) in the world. This fact is of immense importance to understanding Venezuela because it has shaped practically every aspect of the country, its history, its economy, its politics, and its culture. In what follows I will provide a brief history of Venezuela’s oil industry. Next, I discuss how the oil industry has shaped the economy, polity, and culture. Then, I examine the criticisms leveled against the oil industry and how the Chávez government has proposed to address these. Finally, I present what the opposition has done to prevent the reform of the oil industry and how the government has reacted towards this opposition.

July 02, 2004

SEVERAL members of the US House of Representatives have requested the United Nations to send observers to monitor the November 2 US presidential election to avoid a contentious vote as in 2000, when the outcome was decided by Florida.

The trial of Saddam is a distraction tactic that will do nothing to stop the growing Iraqi resistance, argues George Galloway

Thursday July 1, 2004

Today is the start of a show trial. It's intended to deflect attention from the absolute failure of the occupation to either get the electricity and water back on, still less to subdue the Iraqi resistance - which is giving them a bloody good hiding all over the country. I think it will fail in that regard, just as the capture of Saddam Hussein last December failed.

Wednesday June 30, 2004

by Shireen M Mazari

With a new interim government in place in Iraq, a clearer picture is emerging of the US global strategy of regime change embodied in its Pre-emptive Doctrine. For many of us who have been rather naÔve in assuming that the US, under Bush, is simply a superpower that bludgeons itself through to impose its wishes, there is now a clearer indication of a covert aspect to the pre-emptive doctrine that is far more insidious and sinister in its design and ends. It seems to have taken some time for the US Administration to see the value of this covert policy - and one should, perhaps, give credit to Blair and the British for this, given their years of colonial experience and historical intrigues! In any case, this covert policy, as is the case with the whole regime change focus, is clearly aimed primarily at Muslim states - and not just Iraq or Afghanistan though that is where it is being operationalised right now. However, if we look at the political machinations in other Muslim states, we will be able to realise that the target for this US approach extends far beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. The Broader Middle East Initiative - to which the Europeans with their Machiavellian heritage - have subscribed to, has a truly all-encompassing agenda: To redraw the political maps of domestic Muslim polities, including the structure of their political elite.