Unleashing the CIA

William Blum

The old joke goes that in the waning days of the Second World War, when Hitler was told of yet another defeat on the battlefield, he slammed his fist into his desk and declared: "That does it! No more Mr. Nice Guy!"

We've been treated in the past couple of weeks to one press story after another about how the Bush administration seeks to "unleash" the CIA from its restrictions concerning things like political assassination and dealing with "unsavory" characters. The nature of the September 11 attack was such, we are told, that we have to remove our kid gloves and put on depleted-uranium-tipped brass knuckles.



The policies whose "revisions" are being discussed and leaked are principally a 25-year ban on the CIA and other agencies of the government from engaging in assassination, and a policy of the past five years or so of barring the CIA from employing real nasty killers and torturers abroad, or at least not without express approval from high up.



Why are they telling us these tales at this time? Is it to comfort the American public into believing that the government is holding nothing back in its campaign of making us more secure? Or can they actually believe that such announcements will put the fear of Allah in the Taliban leadership?



Whole story is at http://www.counterpunch.org/blum1.html>http://www.c ounterpunch.org/blum1.html

Louis Lingg writes: "The Labour Party of Pakistan website has posted a report by Scottish socialist Alan McCombes on women involved with the underground Afghan Revolutionary Labour Organisation.

An excerpt: 'as an organiser of the party's women's section, Mahsooda carries out in effect double underground work. They are in even more danger of punishment from the religious
parties if they are discovered. And the women Mahsooda organises are forced to meet clandestinely, behind the backs of the men in their families "Lots of women conform to a
traditional role. But many thirst for knowledge and want to become active," says Mahsooda, herself a mother of four young children. "Women have a long history of
involvement in political struggle in Afghanistan. But now many men won't allow them to attend events, or courses. "We have lots of women comrades who work in secret
from their husbands, brothers and fathers. They will say `we are going to the market' or `we are going to buy clothes' but instead they will come to this house and other
houses."'"

jim writes: "Terrorism and the Struggle for Peace

Manning Marable

It is still mourning time here in New York City. It has
been weeks since the terrorist attack destroying the
World Trade Center towers, but the real tragedy remains
brutally fresh and terribly real to millions of
residents in this over-crowded metropolis. The horrific
sights of thousands of human beings incinerated in less
than one hundred minutes, of screaming people free
falling more than one thousand feet plummeting to their
deaths, is nearly impossible for anyone to comprehend
or even to explain.



The criminals who obliterated the World Trade Center
and part of the Pentagon attempted to make a symbolic
political statement about the links between
transnational capitalism and U.S. militarism. But by
initiating acts of mass murder, any shred of political
credibility that those who plotted and carried out
these crimes was totally destroyed. There can be no
justification, excuse or rationale for the deliberate
use of deadly force and unprovoked violence against any
civilian population. This was not essentially an act of
war, but a criminal act, a crime against not only the
American people, but all of humanity. Those who
committed these crimes must be apprehended and brought
to justice under international law and courts.

jim writes: Immanuel Wallerstein's latest commentary is worth a read:



The United States is a hegemonic power in decline. I have been expressing this viewpoint since at least 1980.(1) This statement is meant to be analytic and not prescriptive. I have found that nonetheless it evokes not only disbelief but anger, and that such a reaction occurs on all sides of the political spectrum, and all around the world. Persons on the right take the statement to be false, or rather they take it to be true only insofar as the superpower has insufficiently asserted its strength. Furthermore, they seem to assume that, by my making such an analysis, I am creating a defeatist attitude that is self-fulfilling. These persons have a strange degree of belief in the power of the word, or at least of my word.



Persons on the left are often incredulous, telling me that it is obvious that the United States dominates the world scene and imposes itself around the world, and that in evil ways. So how can I talk of U.S. being in decline? Am I not thereby deflecting people from meaningful action? And persons in the center seem to be offended by the very idea that appropriate intelligent action on the part of those in power will not, cannot, eventually remedy any limitations on U.S. virtuous action.



What does it mean to be a hegemonic power? It means that normally one defines the rules of the geopolitical game, and that one gets one way almost all of the time simply by political pressure, and without having to resort to the actual use of force. The story of how one gets to be a hegemonic power and why it is that hegemony never lasts is not my subject here.(2) The question rather is what evidence do I have that U.S. hegemony is on the wane.



Check out Immanuel Wallerstein's site to read the rest of this article...