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MIM Notes 305 · August 1, 2004 · Page 1

MIM Notes

August 1 2004, Nº 305

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

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INSIDE: `Bad Apples' in Iraq * Under Lock & Key * Una Página en Español...

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`FORMER' U$ GREEN

BERET TORTURES

AFGHANS, FEEDS

WESTERN MEDIA LIES

fghan police found three men

hanging from the ceiling by their

feet when they raided a house

in Kabul that had been turned into a prison

by "former" U$ Green Beret Jonathan

Keith "Jack" Idema and at least two other

Amerikans. All eight prisoners in the

house showed signs having been

beaten.(1)

Mr. Idema claimed to be a member of

a secret Special Operations group called

"Task Force Saber."(2) The Amerikan

military quickly tried to distance itself from

Idema and his goons, but because

espionage is by definition secret warfare,

there is plenty of room for reasonable

doubt in this case and others like it. Indeed,

Idema looked so much like the real thing

that NATO troops helped him on several

raids. NATO bomb squads found

evidence of explosives at several sites

after Idema had raided them and tipped

off authorities--raising the suspicion that

Idema himself planted the explosives.

"[Our] personnel believed that he was

what he purported to be, which was a

special operations agency," said a

spokespersyn for the occupation forces.

"Therefore they believed they were

providing legitimate support to a legitimate

security agency."(3)

Nor were NATO troops the only ones

who accepted Idema's credentials. The

Amerikan media embraced Mr. Idema as

an "Al Qaeda expert." MSNBC

interviewed him; so did CBS and National

Public Radio. He told the New York Daily

News he wanted to "punch out" Geraldo

Rivera for allegedly compromising the

security of anti-Taliban fighters.(4) The

New York Post reported he had

discovered "handwritten plans" to

assassinate then-President Bill Clinton.

(5) He was the centerpiece of the best-

selling book "The Hunt for Bin Laden:

Task Force Dagger."(6) And he supplied

FOX News with a video purportedly

showing Al Qaeda fighters training to

attack Amerikans.(7)

RULERS

TALK

ABOUT

THE DRAFT

I. New puppets in place, same old

national oppression of Iraqis

On June 28, the United $tates stopped

trying to be the direct government of Iraq.

Bush's colonial official L. Paul Bremer

III handed power over to Iraqi puppets

who have no sanction from the Iraqi

people of any sort.

We at MIM are aware that many of

our readers had given Uncle $am a break

till June 30th, because for many months,

the Bush administration was talking about

the June 30th "hand-off." Many including

naive supporters of the Republicans

believed that Bush would leave Iraq on

June 30th in order not to have the issue

hanging over the presidential election in

November.

It is important to be able to distinguish

rhetoric about "handovers" from the

military and political realities of invasion.

This invasion was never about just

capturing Saddam Hussein or even

weapons of mass destruction, which is

why the troops are still there. Without the

troops the U$ political control would

collapse.

Draft-age people should now see that

the U$ military continues to occupy Iraq

despite the hand-off to Iraq puppets who

are dependent on U$ troops for "security."

In fact, Bush continues to talk about

The pattern of Amerika's involvement

in Iraq today follows a decades-old

Amerikan prescription. When no

Amerikan lives face direct threat, the

U$ public swallows whole anything that

the State Department and mega-

corporate media throw its way. The first

to bother with anything different than

the media perception built by a handful

of spinners and deceivers at the top of

gigantic government and media

bureaucracies are military intelligence

and business officials.

Prisoner abuse scandal

spreads to Afghanistan

China, Vietnam and now Iraq

Only military threats make

Amerikans serious about politics

Dead Amerikans cause a pause for reflection.

When responsible military officials

become upset enough, they release

information to the public to give it a more

accurate picture. This is part of factional

fighting within the ruling class, but it is

also part of manipulating the public into

new directions.

The ordinary picture of Chinese in

Amerika before the 1930s was a people

running laundries in the United $tates

worthy of racist scorn. That all had to

change at least somewhat as real

Continued on page 4...

Continued on page 6...

Continued on page 5...

REVIEWED IN THIS ISSUE

Fahrenheit 9/11, SuperSize Me,

and Marlon Brando's career.

MIM Notes 305 · August 1, 2004 · Page 2

What is MIM?

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is the collection of existing or emerging

Maoist internationalist parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-

speaking internal semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Maoist Internationalist
parties in Belgium, France and Quebec and the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking
Maoist Internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.$. Empire.

MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-speaking
parties or emerging parties of MIM. MIM upholds the revolutionary communist ideology
of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and is an internationalist organization that works from the

vantage point of the Third World proletariat. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all
groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possibly by
building public opinion to seize power through armed struggle. Revolution is a reality for

North America as the military becomes over-extended in the government's attempts to
maintain world hegemony. MIM differs from other communist parties on three main
questions: (1) MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, the

potential exists for capitalist restoration under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within
the communist party itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the
death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's death and the overthrow of the "Gang

of Four" in 1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest advance
of communism in humyn history. (3) As Marx, Engels and Lenin formulated and MIM has
reiterated through materialist analysis, imperialism extracts super-profits from the Third

World and in part uses this wealth to buy off whole populations of oppressor nation so-
called workers. These so-called workers bought off by imperialism form a new petty-
bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to

advance Maoism within those countries because their standards of living depend on
imperialism. At this time, imperialist super-profits create this situation in the Canada, Quebec,
the United $tates, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland,

Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark. MIM accepts people as
members who agree on these basic principles and accept democratic centralism, the system
of majority rule, on other questions of party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should

regard it not as dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of
learning terms and phrases, but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution."

- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208.

Editor, MC206; Production, MC12

Letters

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The Official Newsletter of The Maoist Internationalist Movement

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Whatever you contribute "it must be

substantial." So spoke Secretary of State

Colin Powell to friendly nations too weak

to defend themselves against the world's

strongest military turned aggressor. The

only things missing were the pinstriped

suits, the broad brimmed felt hat or fedora,

and the bulge of a shoulder holster or

sidearm tucked under an armpit. Other

than that, Mr. Powell could be taken for

any mafia henchman walking in to a

neighborhood candy store to sell the

owner insurance...you do want to protect

your place don't you (smile)...and

naturally there weren't any of the rival

families at this conference. Nations from

the axis of evil and most others with

nuclear capability require a different

approach. But the weaker nations are ripe

for the picking. Countries like Nicaragua

and Haiti need our protection.

Now after a dozen years of embargo

and bombing, plus a final walk-on invasion

and occupation that didn't even require

the planned "shock and awe" now the

U.S. is ready to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure

and buildings we so systematically

destroyed.

Never mind that Iraq had little or

nothing to do with terrorism or that they

didn't have any weapons of mass

destruction ready to be deployed against

the U.S. and their neighbors. We all know

that. But it's the thought that counts: and

they certainly had a great many evil

thought directed towards us.

Restricted to an oil for food program,

losing a half million children to starvation

and denied the parts to repair their

equipment, while their leader built palaces,

now how can you blame the Iraqi people

harboring resentment?

So Mr. Store owner, you seen what

happened to the store down the street.

You don't want that to happen to you do

you? Cough up a substantial part of your

treasury and we'll take care of you ...

By the way, terrorism is a tactic not a

thing. It's a scheme, an activity, a method,

a strategy. A surprise that can be used by

anyone limited only by mans imagination

and resources. People like Osama Bin

Laden might use it but it isn't an entity

you can see, feel or touch. It's ethereal.

Declaring war against terrorism is like

declaring war against thinking.

--A California prisoner, July 2004

Mafia tactics and the

Coalition of the Willing

Militarism is war-mongering or the

advocacy of war or actual carrying out

of war or its preparations.

While true pacifists condemn all

violence as equally repugnant, we

Maoists do not consider self-defense

or the violence of oppressed nations

against imperialism to be militarism.

Militarism is mostly caused by

imperialism at this time. Imperialism

is the highest stage of capitalism--

seen in countries like the United

$tates, England and France.

Under capitalism, capitalists often

profit from war or its preparations.

Yet, it is the proletariat that does the

dying in the wars. The proletariat

wants a system in which people do not

have self-interest on the side of war-

profiteering or war for imperialism.

Militarism is one of the most

important reasons to overthrow

capitalism. It even infects oppressed

nations and causes them to fight each

other.

It is important not to let capitalists

risk our lives in their ideas about war

and peace or the environment. They

have already had two world wars

admitted by themselves in the last 100

years and they are conducting a third

right now against the Third World.

Even a one percent annual chance of

nuclear war destruction caused by

capitalist aggressiveness or "greed" as

the people call it should not be tolerated

by the proletariat. After playing

Russian Roulette (in which the bullet

chamber is different each time and not

related at all to the one that came up in

previous spins) with 100 chambers and

one bullet, the chance of survival is

only 60.5% after 50 turns. In other

words, a seemingly small one percent

annual chance of world war means

eventual doom. After 100 years or turns

of Russian Roulette, the chances of

survival are only 36.6%. After 200

years, survival has only a 13.4%

chance.

What is militarism?

MIM Notes 305 · August 1, 2004 · Page 3

Fahrenheit fires on

a few good targets,

avoids others

Director Moore's "progressive

patriotism" leads him astray

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

by Michael Moore

MIM is happy to see Fahrenheit 9/11

doing so well in theaters, despite getting

less screen time than the schlock released

on its opening weekend.(1) We want

people to see this movie, and to confront

the cynicism and hopelessness of

Amerika's "War on Terror."

That so many people are rushing to

Fahrenheit 9/11 means that after more

than two-and-a-half years of war

Amerikans are finally willing to take

politics more seriously. Unfortunately,

much as in the immediate aftermath of 9/

11, this new-found attention to politics over

escapism has more to do with the

mounting Amerikan death toll in Iraq than

it does with the internationalist awakening

this country needs if it is ever to enter a

civilized community of nations. Also

unfortunately, Moore panders heavily to

this brand of Amerika-first liberalism,

turning what could have been a really

good expose of the War on Terror into a

public service announcement for getting

out the vote.

But let's start with the good parts.

Moore takes a big bite out of the fear

Amerikans have been sold. He interviews

a Congressman who argues the main

function of the Department of Homeland

Security's terror alert system is to stun

the U.$. populace into compliance

because "people will do anything when

they're afraid." Of course, the

Congressman's apt comments come a

little too late: as Moore points out, no one

in Congress fully read the draconian

Patriot Act before passing it. So much

for relying on beauty- contest winners--

er, "our elected representatives"--to take

risky, principled stands.

"Fahrenheit" aptly ridicules the devices

security companies are selling now to give

people the illusion of security--a safe

room for every home and a parachute,

for those times you need to jump from

your flaming office building. The upshot

of all this fear mongering has been

predictable: robust support for the wars

in Afghanistan and Iraq and people who

advise their neighbors "don't trust anyone

you don't know." We see the extremely

unthreatening Fresno Peace Action group

being victimized by the kind of policing

the new, broader definitions of "terrorism"

have sanctioned. Police infiltrated this

group of largely middle-aged whites

whose main activity is to hold rush-hour

street corner vigils against the war. The

members learned of the infiltration when

the kop who had invaded their group was

hurt in a traffic accident and had his photo

in the local paper.

The War on Terror is a war on dissent.

The only reasonable response to this

knowledge is to stand up and defend that

Continued on page 9...

The United Front to Shut Down the

Security Housing Units held the first in a

series of educational forums on Amerikan

prison torture in San Francisco on July

15. The event opened with a letter from

a California prisoner, written in May of

this year, shortly after the news of the

Iraqi prisoner abuse came out.

"Amerika's modern-day dungeons,

such as Security Housing Units (SHUs),

Intensive Management Units (IMUs) and

Maximum Custody Control Units ... were

designed with sensory deprivation in

mind," he wrote. "[Control units are

synonymous with] isolation, control of

movement, interrogation, mental and

physical tortures, excessive force and

criminal abuse.

"These penitentiary test labs have been

a breeding ground for prison guards to

practice their sadistic murderous behavior

unchecked with impunity. So it should be

of no surprise that the military uses these

techniques and tactics on prisoners in Iraq

and Guantanamo Bay." A previous

edition of MIM Notes (#302) reported

in detail how guards charged with torture

at Abu Ghraib had served in Amerikan

prisons, where they developed a

reputation for brutality.

Control units are prisons within prisons,

where inmates are locked in their small

cells, alone, for 23 hours or more each

day. International humyn rights groups

have condemned them as a form of

torture. Control units are consciously used

to break prisoners' will and ability to resist.

A past warden of Marion IL, one of the

first Control Unit prisons, stated: "The

purpose of the Marion control unit is to

control revolutionary attitudes in the prison

system and in society at large."

A speaker from the Barrio Defense

Committee (BDC) described her son's

battle with the California prison system.

Jose Luis was placed in the SHU at

Corcoran prison after leading a hunger

strike for basic humyn rights at New

Folsom prison. While in the SHU he has

lost sight in one eye and is experiencing

other physical and mental problems.

Another speaker described her recent

visit to Pelican Bay State Prison where

Hugo Pinell is locked in the SHU. Hugo

is one of the many Prisoners of War kept

behind bars as punishment for their

political activism. She described his

isolation from the outside world and spoke

movingly about Hugo's strong spirit despite

this torture.

The final speaker touched on her

experience in the women's prison in

California, where she was punished for

political activism. She noted that the 40

women locked in the SHU in the women's

prison need to be contacted so that

activists on the outside can work with them

to organize the growing women's prison

population.

The United Front to Shut Down the

SHU includes a wide range of political

organizations and individuals such as the

Barrio Defense Committee (BDC), the

African People's Socialist Party (APSP),

African People's Solidarity Committee

(APSC), the Maoist Internationalist

Movement (MIM), Justice for

Palestinians, California Prison Focus, the

Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League

(RAIL), Proyecto Common Touch and

RASCALS. We are working to expand

participation from like-minded

organizations across the state. We are

united in fighting to shut down control units

in California prisons.

Current activities include of the United

Front include holding events like this one

across the state, protests the first

Saturday of every month in cities across

California, and a petition drive to shut

down the SHU (we have collected

thousands of signatures already!).

Our next state-wide organizing meeting

is scheduled for September 12th in

Oxnard California. The United Front is

also planning a protest in front of the CDC

office in Sacramento for August 20th.

This forum will be held again in the

following locations:

Santa Cruz

August 5, 7pm

Loudlen Nelson Center, 301 Center St

Los Angeles

August 12, 6pm

Casa de Pueblo Co-Op, Sunset Blvd

Activists expose torture

in Amerikan prisons

Super Size Me (2004)

Morgan Spurlock, Director

"Super Size Me", the entertaining

documentary by Morgan Spurlock, is a

great addition to the education of the

Amerikan public about the biological and

social roots of obesity. The gimmick:

Spurlock only eats at McDonalds for

thirty days and goes from fit and trim to

dangerously unhealthy and... not-so-trim.

Before beginning his thirty-day binge

Spurlock gets checked out by three

doctors and consults with a nutritionist.

They all proclaim him a model of health

and plan to follow him throughout the

month. Spurlock then cuts down on his

normal amount of exercise, including daily

walks to and from work and around New

York City, in order to mimic an average

Amerikan's daily physical activity. He has

three rules for his McMonth: 1) he must

try everything on the menu at least once;

2) he cannot eat or drink anything that is

not sold at McDonald's; and 3) he will

only Super Size his meals when asked

by the clerks.

By the end of his experiment, he has

gained 24 pounds; his cholesterol has shot

up to dangerous levels, and he feels

terrible all the time. At one point he wakes

in the middle of the night with such severe

chest pains and shortness of breath that

he thinks he is having a heart attack.

Spurlock concedes that he could have

made essentially the same movie about

Burger King or Wendy's (small comfort

for the McDonald's propaganda machine).

Still, McDonald's has, by far, the largest

world market share of fast food poison,

and represents 43% of the U.$. fast food

market.(1)

McDonald's responded to Super Size

Me in much the same way it has

responded to lawsuits charging that its

food caused obesity: it claims it is offering

"more choice and variety" so that

consumers can make their own decisions.

(Although in one sequence Spurlock

searches in vain for the very nutritional

information McDonald's boasts it offers.)

McDonald's says that Spurlock acted

"irresponsibly by consuming more that

5,000 calories a day more than twice the

recommended level for adult males and

by purposely limiting his physical activity.

That's why this movie makes no

contribution to the important dialogue

taking place today on nutrition and

balanced lifestyles." (2)

A supposedly neutral writer--who

actually is a lobbyist for McDonald's

(among other corporations)--harped on

this last point, noting that Spurlock if

Spurlock ate 5,000 calories he "could

have gained that extra weight [24 pounds]

anywhere-at a health-food restaurant in

Cleveland or at Taillevent in Paris."(4)

This hack goes on to say, "What

Americans need is balance: Sensible

eating plus exercise. Staying fit is a matter

of personal choice and responsibility

which is just what this con man [Spurlock]

and his co-conspirators want to take away

from you."

This appeals to the individualist streak

in Amerikans, but the cold reality--which

Amerikan brainwashing not good for Amerikans

Continued on page 8...

MIM Notes 305 · August 1, 2004 · Page 4

The responses to the hostage and

torture situations in Iraq and Afghanistan

are revealing the chasm separating the

bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties on

the one hand and the proletarian parties

on the other. The torture in Abu Ghraib

and other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan

produced condemnation from Bush to the

phony communists. It's useful to look at

who is drawing correct conclusions from

these events without pulling punches and

who is merely saying what is comfortable

for the Amerikan petty-bourgeoisie to

hear.

It all started off with Bush criticizing

the torture situation. He said we "must

understand that what took place in that

prison does not represent the America

that I know."(1) Senator Conrad said

much the same thing before Bush, and of

course Reagan's "optimism" about

Amerika preceded both.

In contrast, Lenin said the following:

"First, what is the cardinal idea underlying

our theses? It is the distinction between

oppressed and oppressor nations. Unlike

the Second International and bourgeois

democracy, we emphasize this

distinction."(2) It's not just a few bad

apples: it's a whole nation according to

us followers of Lenin.

In response to the Abu Ghraib prison

scandal, Al Gore, Clinton's Vice-

President for eight years literally yelled

for Rumsfeld, Rice and Tenet to resign.

Along with the combative tone came the

statement that this torture was not a

matter of a "few bad apples."(3)

Al Gore's opinion is acceptable opinion

within Amerika and the petty-bourgeoisie

is ready to hear it. True, there is a die-

hard element, even greater than 10% that

openly defends torturing Iraqis.

Nonetheless, the majority is with Bush &

Gore in a self-image adjustment.

The sad truth is that Al Gore's line is

identical to that of a number of phony

"communist" parties, such as the

"Revolutionary Communist Party-USA"

(RCP=U$A) and "Communist Party

USA" (CP=U$A). Both Gore and these

phony "communists" deny that they uphold

the "few bad apples line," but in fact they

do. It takes the sort of crisis facing the

imperialists now to best show the public

exactly how the phony "communists'"

line dovetails with the imperialists'.

Careful reading of the RCP=U$A line

will show that they see the bourgeois

dictatorship as some kind of pattern of

actions by only the police and military.

We're not surprised, because the

RCP=U$A line is that only 10% of

Amerika is enemies.

We hesitate to call the RCP=U$A

opportunist for saying nothing Gore would

not say. The RCP=U$A consciously

represents the petty-bourgeoisie, which

means vacillating toward proletarian

positions occasionally for maximum

popularity while upholding the imperialist

alignment with the middle-classes on the

whole. The petty-bourgeoisie has no

future of its own, and has no choice but

to vacillate between the imperialists and

proletariat.

It is the official line of the RCP=U$A

that only 10% of the U$A is enemy.(4)

Get that: it means only 10 out of 100 apples

in the barrel are bad ones. Yet, the vocal

defenders of the RCP=U$A have the

nerve to claim they don't have the "few

bad apples" line. In contrast, Lenin said

that one quarter of the whole world is

oppressor and he admitted belonging to

an oppressor nation; even though Russian

imperialism was no where near the level

of global exploiter as the U$ imperialists

today.

There is no detectable difference

between the 10 bad apples out of 100

view and the view of Bush and Gore. The

RCP=U$A is in fact helping to cover up

the enemy just like Bush & Gore.

The U$ contractors in Iraq are another

example that causes the political

vacillation of the petty-bourgeoisie. On

the one hand, the CP=U$A says that it

supports the occupation regime in Iraq in

which its sister party has one of 25

seats.(5) On the other hand, for some

occasional proletarian rhetoric, even the

CP=U$A has vaguely admitted that U$

contractors in Iraq are oppressors.(6)

They try to make it sound like these

contractors are exceptional, and maybe

not even Amerikans. This represents

another tactical approach for the servitors

of imperialism: adopt a proletarian posture

but claim it is only very selectively

necessary, and not part of an overall class

analysis.

What these imperialist lackeys don't do

is name Thomas Hamill by name. He was

a truck driver in Iraq taken hostage. This

would clear up that the CP=U$A was not

just talking about Cheney's Halliburton

executives in Iraq, but also people like

Hamill. Likewise, the RCP=U$A hides

behind the common petty-bourgeois

opinion that the soldiers/CIA should not

be in Iraq.

If any of the Trotskyists, the CP=U$A,

the RCP=U$A or the rest of the chauvinist

"left" had half a wit, they would know

they should be answering the Thomas

Hamill question and do it in principle. If

they think that Thomas Hamill was an

exploiter in Iraq, then they need to answer

what the difference is between him and

the rest of the oppressor nation

"workers." Thomas Hamill worked for a

private company. Who doesn't? Thomas

Hamill's company had contracts with the

government. Which multinational

corporation hiring workers does not?

Thomas Hamill is tied up with exploiting

the Third World people and his salary

showed it. What oppressor nation

"workers" in the u$a do not have such

links? To these scum evading the question,

we say, "Denial is not a river in Egypt."

Notes:
1. http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/
0,,2-10-1460_1522413,00.html
2. http://www.etext.info/Politics/MIM/classics/
text.php?mimfile=distinct.txt
3. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/26/
politics/main619770.shtml
4. Revolutionary Worker #890, http://
www.etext.info/Politics/MIM/wim/wyl/
text.php?mimfile=avakian9010.txt
5. http://www.etext.info/Politics/MIM/agitation/
iraq/revisionistoccupation.html
6. People's Weekly World, May 22-28, 2004, p.
12.

`Few bad apples' line takes over in Iraq crisis

Collective denial about national oppression

Descriptions of the video--played over

and over on FOX and earnestly discussed

by Dan Rather in early 2002--make it

sound suspiciously like campy anti-

Communist dreck like 1984's "Red

Dawn." "The footage shows a terrorist

cell infiltrating a golf course. ... Weapons

are hidden in golf bags. And then comes

the attack."(8) The video also purports

to show "heavily armed al Qaeda thugs

... storming a school, shooting children and

taking hostages." "We found little desks

with bullet holes in them," Idema told the

New York Post; however, an FBI

spokesman quotes in the same article says

there is "no credible evidence of a specific

threat to American schools."(9)

The senior Amerikan commander in

Afghanistan at the time "watched the ...

tape carefully twice, but said he could not

comment."(10)

There's more. According to the New

York Times, somebody named

Mohammed Ashimey was feeding

Western media reports about a

"supersecret group" of "renegade Green

Berets."

Prisoner abuse scandal spreads

"In breathless prose, the article said the

former commandos, frustrated by

American government inaction, had ...

arrested 13 people suspected of terrorism

since arriving in Afghanistan three months

ago. The article, which sounded like it

could have been written by an American,

included an accurate description of the

illegal arrests that led to Mr. Idema's

detention and a fawning description of his

work.

"`Driving beat up old SUVs, wearing

low-slung holsters like Clint Eastwood,

long hair, beards and Afghan scarfs, the

Green Berets operated the way they did

on the 2001-2002 war, with no rules, no

oversight, and no plan...'

"Local Afghan journalists said they had

never heard of Mr. Ashimey..."(2)

There is no way to spin this story to

exonerate either the Amerikan

government or the Amerikan media. Any

way you look at it, both are complicit in

Idema's torture ring.

If Mr. Idema is just some crusader

yahoo, then the Amerikan media let

themselves be suckered by a con-man

who was selling the pulp fiction they

wanted to buy: a shoot-em-up cowboy

story with Osama Bin Laden playing the

really really bad dude in the black hat.

If Mr. Idema is just some heavily-

armed mercenary nutcase, the Amerikan

military let him tramp through Afghanistan

starting in 2001, when he reportedly

served as military advisor to the anti-

Taliban Northern Alliance. Idema and

wackos like him thrive in Afghanistan: the

Amerikans have created a Wild West

atmosphere there, in part by offering $340

million in bounties for information leading

to the capture or killing of top "terrorists."

"Whatever Idema's credentials are,"

writes the British Independent, "the fact

remains that he and others like him are

common sights in Afghanistan. They have

an eye for bounty... There are also claims

that some are involved in heroin

trafficking--in the country that produces

three-quarters of the world's

supply..."(11) Heroin production has

soared 20-fold since the U$ invasion.(12)

Nor are these "unofficial" thugs the

only ones abusing Afghans. "David

Passaro, a former Green Beret who

arrived on a CIA security contract, is

currently under arrest, accused of beating

a 28-year old Afghan detainee to

death."(10) So much for "liberating" the

people of Afghanistan.

Of course, Jack may have been

working for the Amerikan military, the

CIA or some other Amerikan spy agency

at some point in the last three years. In

that case, the Amerikan media are not

off the hook: they still let themselves be

played, just this time by a clandestine

government agent.

The military may have been using

Idema both to do its dirtiest work and feed

propaganda to the media. Now, perhaps

because he had gone independent or

perhaps because he got caught in the

middle of a nasty job, the Amerikan

government wants to distance itself from

him officially--and maybe unofficially, by

leaking unflattering reports through the

likes of the Times and the Independent.

The imperialists are addicted to war,

and a necessary consequence of that

addiction are nasty spy games like the

ones Idema played at in Afghanistan. The

official denunciation of Idema is

exceptional; usually governments will not

admit or deny an individual is a spy.(13)

This raises the suspicion that any journalist

Continued from page 1...

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MIM Notes 305 · August 1, 2004 · Page 5

or tourist is spying and poisons the

relationships between peoples.

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the

imperialists are showing they have no

solution to the problem of violence. Their

"policing" approach has not reduced

violence in either country. Indeed, given

the Amerikans' notorious frontier dog-eat-

dog mindset, they've arguably made

things worse. A real solution to the

problem of violence requires international

economic cooperation to meet basic

humyn needs, not profit.

Notes:
1. The Guardian (UK), 9 July 2004.
2. The New York Times, 11 July 2004.
3. Agence France Presse, 15 July 2004.
4. Quoted in The Columbus Dispatch, 6 April
2003.
5. New York Post, 13 March 2003.
6. Many reviews on Amazon.com--from people
claiming to be Special Operations soldiers--call
this book "largely fiction." This likely reflects
some persynal rivalries among the "soldier of
fortune" crowd; although, from the few excerpts
MIM has read, we agree with their assessment.
7. As it turns out, one of the men arrested with
Idema was Edward Caraballo, a videographer
who directed "The J Keith Idema Story," about

political contests broke out across Asia.

In the 1930s, when landlord dictator

Chiang Kai-shek partially ruled China, the

U$ media lavished incredible praise on

him--much the opposite of what the same

media did to Saddam Hussein in 2002 and

2003. Time Magazine in 1937 named

Chiang Kai-shek and his wife "Madame"

Chiang Kai-shek the "ablest of

leadership" worthy of "Man and Women

of the Year."(1) Actually, wild oscillations

in Amerikan opinion of China started even

before that. It's just that by 1937, thanks

to a war brewing and a communist threat

led by Mao Zedong, Amerikan policy-

makers started to judge that Chiang Kai-

shek was their man in China.

The praise was so fulsome, authors said

that the Chiang Kai-shek couple had been

made into "plaster saints" at the time. All

that changed as soon as Amerikan lives

were at stake in China during World War

II. One Graham Peck of the U$ "Office

of War Information" said, "`I think every

American who came to Kuomintang

territory on war duty has bitter memories

of the do-nothing attitudes, and the

profiteering which ranged from the prices

the U.S. had to pay for air fields to the

prices GI's were charged in

restaurants.'"(2)

Amerikan military men who thought

they were flying Madame Chiang Kai-

shek on an important mission found

instead that they were transporting her

luxury baggage, at risk to themselves.

Previously, if the press had reported that

she was doing politico-military work, they

would have believed it, but with their own

lives on the line in the flying, the pilots'

attitude was different.

After World War II, something else

reminiscent of Vietnam and Iraq

happened. Chiang Kai-shek's party and

generals told the Amerikans that "`The

Communists are babies; they don't know

how to fight.'" "`The war will be over in

three months,' Chiang's top-ranking

general declared." That all went into the

Amerikan media.

Nonetheless, based on World War II

experience, Amerikan generals, pilots and

soldiers knew better. Even though most

U$ military forces went to Europe during

World War II, there were some who dealt

with the Chinese and Vietnamese

attacking the Japanese. When Mao

liberated all of China in 1949 instead of

collapsing in three months, much of the

U$ military knew exactly why--that

Chiang Kai-shek was a hopelessly

backward and corrupt man heading a

useless and corrupt party.

While Chiang Kai-shek's money came

from the United $tates, he still found ways

to lobby Amerika after being booted onto

Taiwan by the Chinese Revolution.

Among other things that Chiang Kai-

shek's government did was give money

to Richard Nixon's campaign for Senate

in California and egg on Senator Joe

McCarthy.(4)

The same thing happened with Vietnam.

The U$ military officials who dealt with

the regime in southern Vietnam knew it

to be corrupt and inefficient in every

way--not promising material for the

development of "freedom." Nonetheless,

the dominant media-created perception

was that sending a few more thousand

troops would wipe out the communist

threat and Vietnam would be on the road

to "democracy."

This belief continued for several years

until Lyndon B. Johnson had 500,000

troops in Vietnam in 1965. Even then, it

took until 1969 for a majority of U$ public

opinion to swing against the war--but not

before tens of thousands of U$ deaths.

The process of thought in the Amerikan

mind started with debunking what it

considered "lies." For example, in the

spring of 1964, the outgoing general in

Vietnam named Paul Harkins told the

incoming military leader William

Westmoreland and a civilian official that

the United $tates would win in six

months.(5) As early as a January 1963

battle at Ap Bac that the media observed,

the U$ media knew that the U$

government lied about winning a battle

that the U$ puppets lost. President John

F. Kennedy tried to get a reporter

reassigned for knowing the truth.(6)

So it is today in Iraq. When the war

started, a majority supported it. In fact,

in March, 2003, only 20% of U$ whites

opposed the war.(7) Then Bush declared

that "major combat operations in Iraq

have ended" on May 1, 2003. Since that

time, more U$ soldiers died than during

the official fighting. The soldiers

themselves learned on the scene that

contrary to the neo-conservatives, the

Iraqi people did not "throw roses and