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The following is the text of a speach about the Gulf War not given by
former CIA agent Phil Agee. The reason Agee wasn't able to give the
speech is because Bush and his CIA buddies have deemed that what Agee
has to say is too dangerous for the American public to know about.
The text of Agee's speech, taken from Z magazine and posted recently
by Bill Mills is included below so that anyone who wishes to know what
this former CIA-agent has to say can do so, in accordance with the
right of Freedom of Speech in the Constitution so revered, we are
told, by those who would burn it rather than respect it, and who would
censor "dangerous" speech such as that below. Whether you read it, all
of it, is, now, a matter of free choice.
[Errors corrected since prev. post listed at end]
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PRODUCING THE PROPER CRISIS a speech by Philip Agee, formerly of the CIA.
From Z magazine, Oct. 1990
On the eve of Philip Agee's 20-city tour to campuses and community
groups throughout the U.S. the Nicaraguan foreign ministry revoked his
Nicaraguan passport preventing him from traveling freely. Jean Caiani
of Speak Out!, who organized his tour, is helping coordinate a
national campaign to regain his original passport which was revoked in
1979 on the grounds that Agee's writings and speaking pose "a serious
threat to the national security of the United States." Following is
the speech that Agee planned to give at his scheduled engagements.
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Sooner or later it had to happen: the fundamental transformation of
U.S. military forces was really only a matter of time. Transformation,
in this sense, from a national defense force to an international
mercenary army for hire. With a U.S national debt of $3 trillion, some
$800 billion owned by foreigners, The United States sooner or later
would have to find, or produce, the proper crisis - one that would
enable the president to hire out the armed forces, like a national
export, in order to avoid conversion of the economy from military to
civilian purposes. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, encouraged, it seems, by
the Bush administration, is the necessary crisis.
Not long after the invasion, I watched on Spanish television Bush's
call to arms, when he said "our way of life" is at stake. For days
afterwards I kept watching and reading for news of the tens of
millions of people in this country, who would take to the streets in
joy, in celebration that their days of poverty, homelessness,
illiteracy and uncared-for illness might soon end. What I saw instead,
like most of you, was the Bush "way of life" - fishing, boating, and
golfing on the coast of Maine like any respectable member of the
Eastern elite. Bush's military machismo of recent weeks reminded me of
what General Noriega said about Bush a couple of years ago, before
Bush decided to smash Panamanian nationalism for the foreseeable
future. You remember? Noriega told his deputy in the Panamanian
Defense Forces, who later made it public, he said, "I've got George
Bush - by the balls."
When I read that, I thought, how interesting - one of those rare
statements that contain two revelations. Back in the 1970s, when he
was director of the CIA, Bush tried to get a criminal indictment
against me for revelations I was making about CIA operations and
personnel. But he couldn't get it, I discovered later in documents I
received under the Freedom of Information Act. The reason was that in
the early 1970s the CIA had committed crimes against me while I was in
Europe writing my first book. If they indicted and prosecuted me, I
would learn the details of those crimes, whatever they were:
conspiracy to assassination, kidnapping, a drug plant. So they couldn't
indict because the CIA under Bush, and before him under William Colby,
said the details had to stay secret. So what did Bush do? He prevailed
on President Ford to send Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State, to
Britain where I was living, to get them to take action. A few weeks
after Kissinger's secret trip a Cambridge policeman arrived at my door
with a deportation notice. After living in Britain nearly five years,
I had suddenly become a threat to the security of the realm. During
the next two years I was not only expelled from Britain, but also from
France, Holland, West Germany, and Italy - all under U.S. pressure.
For two years I didn't know where I was living, and my two sons, then
teenagers, attended four different schools in four different
countries.
The latest is the government's attempt to prevent me from speaking in
the U.S now. Where this will end, we still don't know.
How many of you have friends or relatives right now in Saudi Arabia or
the Persian Gulf area? I wonder how they feel, so close to giving
their lives to protect a feudal kingdom where women are stoned to
death for adultery, where a thief is punished by having his hand
amputated, where women can't drive cars or swim in the same pool as
men? Where bibles are forbidden and no religion save Islam is allowed?
Where Amnesty International reports that torture is routine, and that
last year 111 people were executed, 16 of them political prisoners,
all but one by public beheading. And not by clean cut, with a
guillotine, but with that long curved sword that witnesses say
requires various chops. Not that Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait before the
invasion, are any different in terms of political repression than any
number of U.S.-supported allies. But to give your life for those
corrupt, cruel, family dictatorships? Bush says we're "stopping
aggression." If that were true, the first thing U.S. forces would have
done after landing, they would have dethroned the Gulf emirs, sheiks,
and kings, who every day are carrying out the worst aggression against
their own people, especially women. Mainstream media haven't quite
said it yet, as far as I know, but the evidence is mounting that
George Bush and his entourage wanted the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait,
encouraged it, and then refused to prevent it when they could have.
I'll get back to Bush later, but first, a quick review of what brought
on this crisis. Does the name Cox bring anything special to mind? Sir
Percy Cox?
In a historical sense this is the man responsible for today's Gulf
crisis. Sir Percy Cox was the British High Commissioner in Baghdad
after World War I who in 1922 drew the lines in the sand establishing
for the first time national borders between Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, and
Saudi Arabia. And in each of these new states the British helped set
up and consolidate ruling monarchies through which British banks,
commercial firms, and petroleum companies could obtain monopolies.
Kuwait, however, had for centuries belonged to the Basra province of
the Ottoman Empire. Iraq and the Iraqis never recognized Sir Percy's
borders. He had drawn those lines, as historians have confirmed, in
order deliberately to deprive Iraq of a viable seaport on the Persian
Gulf. The British wanted no threat from Iraq to their dominance in the
Gulf where they had converted no less than ten sheikdoms, including
Kuwait, into colonies. The divide and rule principle, so
well-practiced in this country since the beginning. In 1958 the
British-installed monarchy in Iraq was overthrown in a military coup.
Three years later, in 1961, Britain granted independence to Kuwait,
and the Iraqi military government massed troops on the Kuwaiti border
threatening to take the territory by force. Immediately the British
dispatched troops, and Iraq backed down, still refusing to recognize
the border. Similar Iraqi threats occurred in 1973 and 1976.
This history, Saddam Hussein's justification for annexing Kuwait, is
in the books for anyone to see. But weeks went by as I waited and
wondered why the International Herald Tribune, which publishes major
articles from the Washington Post, New York Times and wire services,
failed to carry the background. Finally, a month after the invasion,
the Herald Tribune carried a Washington Post article on the historical
context written by Glenn Frankel. I've yet to find this history in
Time or Newsweek. Time, in fact, went so far as to say that Iraq's
claims to Kuwait were "without any historical basis." Hardly
surprising, since giving exposure to the Iraqi side might weaken the
campaign to Hitlerize Saddam Hussein. Also absent from current accounts
is the CIA's role in the early 1970s to foment and support armed
Kurdish rebellion in Iraq. The Agency, in league with the Shah of
Iran, provided $16 million in arms and other supplies to the Kurds,
leading to Iraqi capitulation to the Shah in 1975 over control of the
Shat al Arab. This is the estuary of the Tigris and Euphrates, that
separates the two countries inland from the Gulf and is Iraq's only
access to Basra, its upriver port. Five years later, in 1980, Iraq
invaded Iran to redress the CIA-assisted humiliation of 1975, and to
regain control of the estuary, beginning the eight year war that cost
a million lives.
Apart from Iraq's historical claims on Kuwait and its need for access
to the sea, two related disputes came to a head just before the
invasion. First was the price of oil. OPEC had set the price at $18
per barrel in 1986, together with production quotas to maintain that
price. But Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates had long exceeded their
quotas, driving the price down to around $13 in June. Iraq, saddled
with a $70 billion debt from the war with Iran, was losing billions of
dollars in oil revenues which normally account for 95 precent of its
exports. Meanwhile, industrialized oil consumers like the United
States were enjoying the best price in 40 years, in inflation-adjusted
dollars. Iraq's other claim against Kuwait was theft. While Iraq was
occupied with Iran during the war, Kuwait began pumping from Iraq's
vast Rumaila field that dips into the disputed border area. Iraq
demanded payment for oil taken from this field as well as forgiveness
of Kuwaiti loans to Iraq during the war with Iran. Then in July, Iraq
massed troops on the Kuwaiti border while OPEC ministers met in
Geneva. That pressure brought Kuwait and the Emirates to agree to
honor quotas and OPEC set a new target price of $21, although Iraq had
insisted on $25 per barrel. After that Hussein increased his troops on
the border from 30,000 to 100,000. On August 1, Kuwaiti and Iraqi
negotiators, meeting in Saudi Arabia, failed to reach agreement over
the loans, oil thefts, and access to the sea for Iraq. The next night
Iraq invaded. Revelations since then, together with a review of events
prior to the invasion, strongly suggest that U.S. policy was to
encourage Hussein to invade and, when invasion was imminent, to do
nothing to discourage him. Consider the following.
During the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s, the U.S. sided with Iraq and
continued this policy right up to August 2, the day of the invasion.
In April, the Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East, John
Kelly, testified before Congress that the United States had no
commitment to defend Kuwait. On July 25, with Iraqi troops massed on
the Kuwait border, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, met
with Hussein. Minutes of the meeting were given by the Iraqis to the
Washington Post in mid-August.
According to these minutes, which have not been disputed by the State
Department, the Ambassador told Hussein that Secretary of State James
Baker had instructed her to emphasize to Hussein that the U.S. has "no
opinion" on Iraqi-Kuwait border disputes. She then asked him, in light
of Iraqi troop movements, what his intentions were with respect to
Kuwait. Hussein replied that Kuwait's actions amounted to "an economic
war" and "military action against us." He said he hoped for a peaceful
solution, but if not, he said, "it will be natural that Iraq will not
accept death..." A clearer statement of his intentions would be hard
to imagine, and hardly a promise not to invade. The Ambassador gave no
warning from Baker or Bush that the U.S. would oppose an Iraqi
takeover of Kuwait. On the contrary she said, "I have a direct
instruction from the President to seek better relations with Iraq." On
the same day Assistant Secretary of State Kelly killed a planned Voice
of America broadcast that would have warned Iraq that the U.S. was
"strongly committed" to the defense of its friends in the Gulf, which
included, of course, Kuwait. During the week between the Ambassador's
meeting with Hussein and the invasion, the Bush administration forbade
any warning to Hussein against invasion, or to the thousands of people
who might become hostages. The Ambassador returned to Washington as
previously scheduled for consultations. Assistant Secretary Kelly, two
days before the invasion, again testified publicly before Congress to
the effect that the U.S. had no commitment to defend Kuwait. And,
according to press reports and Senator Boren, who heads the Senate
Intelligence Committee, the CIA had predicted the invasion some four
days before it happened.
Put these events together, and add the total absence of any public or
private warning by Bush to Hussein not to invade, together with no
U.S. effort to create international opposition while there was time.
Assuming the U.S. was not indifferent to an invasion, one has to ask
whether Bush administration policy was in effect to encourage Hussein
to create a world crisis. After all, Iraq had chemical weapons and had
already used them against Iran and against Kurds inside Iraq. He was
know to be within two to five years of possessing nuclear weapons. He
had completely upset the power balance in the Middle East by creating
an army one million strong. He aspired to leadership of the Arab world
against Israel, and he threatened all the so-called moderate, i.e.,
feudal regimes, not just Kuwait. And with Kuwait's oil he would
control 20 percent of the world's reserves, a concentration in radical
nationalist hands that would be equal, perhaps to the Soviet Union,
Iraq's main arms supplier. Saddam Hussein, then, was the perfect
subject to allow enough rein to create a crisis, and he was even more
perfect for post-invasion media demonization, a la Qaddafi, Ortega,
and Noriega.
Why would Bush seek a world crisis? The first suggestion came, for me
at least, when he uttered those words about "our way of life" being at
stake. They brought to mind Harry Truman's speech in 1950 that broke
Congressional resistance to Cold War militarism and began 40 years of
Pentagon dominance of the U.S. economy. It's worth recalling Truman's
speech because Bush is trying to use the Gulf crisis, as Truman used
the Korean War, to justify what some call military Keynesianism as a
solution for U.S. economic prqoblems. This is, using enormous military
expenditures to prevent or rectify economic slumps and depressions,
while reducing as much as possible spending on civilian and social
programs. Exactly what Reagan and Bush did, for example, in the early
and mid-1980s.
In 1950 the Truman administration adopted a program to vastly expand
the U.S and West European military services under a National Security
Council document called NSC-68. This document was Top Secret for 25
years and, by error, it was released in 1975 and published. The
purpose of military expansion under NSC-68 was to reverse the economic
slide that began with the end of World War II wherein during five
years the U.S. GNP had declined 20 percent and unemployment had risen
from 700,000 to 4.7 million. U.S. exports, despite the subsidy program
known as the Marshall Plan, were inadequate to sustain the economy,
and remilitarization of Western Europe would allow transfer of
dollars, under so-called defense support grants, that would in turn
generate European imports from the U.S. As NSC-68 put the situation in
early 1950: "the United States and other free nations will within a
period of a few years at most experience a decline in economic
activity of serious proportions unless more positive governmental
programs are developed..."
The solution adopted was expansion of the military. But support in
Congress and the public at large was lacking for a variety of reasons,
not least the increased taxes the programs would require. So Truman's
State Department, under Dean Acheson, set out to sell the so-called
Communist Threat as justification, through a fear campaign in the
media that would create a permanent war atmosphere. But a domestic
media campaign was not enough. A real crisis was needed, and it came
in Korea. Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, in their history of the 1945-55
period, "The Limits of Power", show that the Truman administration
manipulated this crisis to overcome resistance to military build-up
and a review of those events show striking parallels to the Persian
Gulf crisis of 1990. Korea at the end of World War II had been divided
north-south along the 38th parallel by the U.S. and the Soviets. Five
years of on-again, off-again conflict continued: first between
revolutionary forces in the south and U.S. occupation forces, then
between the respective states established first between the U.S. in
the south, then by the Soviets in the north. Both states threatened to
reunify the country by force, and border incursions with heavy
fighting by military forces were common. In June 1950, communist North
Korean military forces moved across the border toward Seoul, the South
Korean capital. At the time, the North Korean move was called "naked
aggression", but I.F. Stone made a convincing case, in his "Hidden
History of the Korean War", that the invasion was provoked by South
Korea and Taiwan, another U.S. client regime.
For a month South Korean forces retreated, practically without
fighting, in effect inviting the North Koreans to follow them south.
Meanwhile Truman rushed in U.S. military forces under a United Nations
command, and he made a dramatic appeal to Congress to for an
additional $10 billion, beyond requirements for Korea, for U.S. and
European military expansion. Congress refused. Truman then made a
fateful decision. In September 1950, about three months after the
conflict began, U.S., South Korean, and token forces from other
countries, under the United Nations banner, began to push back the
North Koreans. Within three weeks the North Koreans had been pushed
north to the border, the 38th parallel, in defeat. That would have
been the end of the matter, at least the military action, if the U.S.
had accepted a Soviet UN resolution for a cease-fire and UN-supervised
country-wide elections. Truman, however, needed to prolong the crisis
in order to overcome congressional and public resistance to his plans
for U.S. and European rearmament. Although the UN resolution under
which U.S. forces were fighting called only for "repelling" aggression
from the north, Truman had another plan. In early October U.S. and
South Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel heading north, and
rapidly advanced toward the Yalu River, North Korea's border with
China where only the year before the communists had defeated the
U.S.-backed Kuomintang regime. The Chinese communist government
threatened to intervene, but Truman had decided to overthrow the
communist government in North Korea and unite the country under the
anti-communist South Korean dictatorship. As predicted, the Chinese
entered the war in November and forced the U.S. and its allies to
retreat once again southward. The following month, with the media full
of stories and pictures of American soldiers retreating through snow
and ice before hordes of advancing Chinese troops, Truman went on
national radio, declared a state of national emergency, and said what
Bush's remarks about "our way of life" at stake recalled. Truman
mustered all the hype and emotion he could, and said: "Our homes, our
nation, all the things that we believe in, are in great danger. This
danger has been created by the rulers of the Soviet Union." He also
called again for massive increases in military spending for U.S. and
European forces, apart from needs in Korea.
Of course, there was no threat of war with the Soviet Union at all.
Truman attributed the Korean situation to the Russians in order to
create emotional hysteria, a false threat, and to get the leverage
over Congress needed for approval of the huge amounts of money that
Congress had refused. As we know, Truman's deceit worked. Congress
went along in its so-called bi-partisan spirit, like the sheep in the
same offices today. The U.S. military budget more than tripled from
$13 billion in 1950 to $44 billion in 1952, while U.S. military forces
doubled to 3.6 million. The Korean War continued for three more years,
after it could have ended, with the final casualty count in the
millions, including 34,000 U.S. dead and more than 100,000 wounded.
But in the United States, Korea made the permanent war economy a
reality, and we have lived with it for 40 years.
What are the parallels with the current Gulf crisis? First, Korea in
June 1950 was already a crisis of borders and unification demands
simply waiting for escalation. Second, less than six months before the
war began Secretary of State Dean Acheson publicly placed South Korea
outside the U.S. defense perimeter in Asia, just as Assistant
Secretary Kelly denied any U.S. defense commitment to Kuwait. Third,
the U.S. obtained quick UN justification for a massive military
intervention, but only for repelling the North Koreans, not for
conquest of that country. Similarly, the UN resolutions call for
defense of Saudi Arabia, not for military conquest of Iraq - contrary
to the war mongers who daily suggest that the U.S. may be "forced" to
attack Iraq, presumably without UN sanction or declaration of war by
Congress. Fourth, both crises came at a time of U.S. economic weakness
with a recession or even worse downturn threatening ahead. Fifth, and
we will probably see this with the Gulf, the Korean crisis was
deliberately prolonged in order to establish military expenditures as
the motor of the U.S. economy. Proceeding in the same manner now would
be an adjustment to allow continuation of what began in 1950. NSC-68
required a significant expansion of CIA operations around the world in
order to fight the secret political Cold War - a war against socialist
economic programs, against communist parties, against left social
democrats, against neutralism, against disarmament, against relaxation
of tensions, and against the peace offensive then being waged by the
Soviet Union.
In Western Europe, through a vast network of political action and
propaganda operations, the CIA was called upon to create in the
public mind the specter of imminent Soviet invasion combined with the
intention of the European left to enslave the population under Soviet
dominion. By 1953, as a result of NSC-68, the CIA had major covert
action programs underway in 48 countries, consisting of propaganda,
paramilitary, and political action operations - such as buying
elections and subsidizing political parties. The bureaucracy grew
accordingly: in mid-1949 the covert action arm of the CIA had about
300 employees and seven overseas field stations. Three years later
there were 2,800 employees and 47 field stations. In the same period
the covert action budget grew from $4.7 million to $82 million.
By the mid-1950s the name for the "enemy" was no longer just the
Soviet Union. The wider concept of "International Communism" better
expressed the global view of secret conspiracies run from Moscow to
undermine the U.S. and its allies. One previously secret document from
1955 outlines the CIA's tasks: "Create and exploit problems for
International Communism. Discredit International Communism and reduce
the strength of its parties and organization. Reduce international
Communist control over any area of the world... specifically such
operations shall include any covert activities related to: propaganda,
political action, economic warfare, preventive direct action,
including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition, escape and invasion and
evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states or groups,
including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas
and refugee liberation groups, support of indigenous and
anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world;
deception plans and all compatible activities necessary to accomplish
the foregoing."
Another document on CIA operations from the same period said, in
extracts: "Hitherto accepted norms of human conduct do not apply...
long-standing American concepts of fair play must be reconsidered...
we must learn to subvert, sabotage, and destroy our enemies by more
clever, more sophisticated and more effective methods than those used
against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made
acquainted with, understand, and support this fundamentally repugnant
philosophy." And so, from the late 1940s until the mid-1950s, the CIA
organized sabotage and propaganda operations against every country of
Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union. They tried to foment
rebellion and to hinder those countries' effort to rebuild from the
devastation of World War II. Though unsuccessful against the Soviet
Union, these operations had some successes in other countries, notably
East Germany. This was the easiest target because, as one former CIA
officer wrote, before the wall went up in 1961 all an infiltrator
needed was good documents and a railway ticket.
From about 1949, the CIA organized sabotage operations against targets
in East Germany in order to slow reconstruction and economic recovery.
The purpose was to create a high contrast between West Germany, then
receiving billions of U.S. dollars for reconstruction, and the "other
Germany" under Soviet control. William Blum, in his excellent history
of the CIA, lists an astonishing range of destruction: "through
explosives, arson, short circuiting, and other methods, they damaged
power stations, shipyards, a dam, canals, docks, public buildings,
petrol stations, shops, outdoor stands, a radio station, public
transformation... derailed freight trains... blew up road and railway
bridges used special acid to damage vital factory machinery... killed
7,000 cows... added soap to powdered milk destined for East German
schools," and much, much more. These activities were worldwide, and
not only directed against Soviet-supported governments.
During 40 years, as the east-west military standoff stabilized, the
CIA was a principle weapon in waging the north-south dimension of the
Cold War. It did so through operations intended to destroy
nationalist, reformist, and liberation movements of the so-called
Third World, through political repression (torture and death squads),
and by the overthrow of democratically elected civilian governments,
replacing them with military dictatorships. The Agency also organized
paramilitary forces to overthrow governments, with the contra
operation in Nicaragua only a recent example. This north-south
dimension of the Cold War was over control of natural resources,
labor, and markets and it continues today, as always. Anyone who
thinks the Cold War ended should think again: the east-west dimension
may have ended with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, but
the north-south dimension, which is where the fighting really took
place, as in Vietnam, is still on. The current Persian Gulf crisis is
the latest episode, and it provides the Bush administration with the
pretext to institutionalize the north-south dimension under the
euphemism of a "new international order," as he calls it. The means
will be a continuation of U.S. militarism within the context, if they
are successful, of a new multi-lateral, international framework.
Already James Baker has been testing the winds with proposals for a
NATO-style alliance in the Gulf, an idea that William Safire aptly
dubbed GULFO.
The goal in seeking and obtaining the current stops short, I believe,
of a shooting war. After all, a war with Iraq will not be a matter of
days or even weeks. Public opinion in the U.S. will turn against Bush
if young Americans in large numbers start coming back in body bags.
And Gulf petroleum facilities are likely to be destroyed in the
process of saving them, a catastrophe for the world economy.
Nevertheless, press accounts describe how the CIA and U.S. special
forces are organizing and arming guerrillas, said to be Kuwaitis, for
attacking Iraqi forces. These operations provide the capability for
just the right provocation, an act that would cause Hussein to order
defensive action that would then justify an all-out attack.
Such provocations have been staged in the past. In 1964, CIA
paramilitary forces working in tandem with the U.S. Navy provoked the
Tonkin Gulf incidents, according to historians who now question
whether the incidents, said to be North Vietnamese attacks on U.S.
ships, even happened. But Lyndon Johnson used the events as a pretext
to begin bombing North Vietnam and to get a blank check resolution
from Congress to send combat troops and escalate the war.
I think the purpose is not a shooting war but a crisis that can be
maintained as long as possible, far after the Iraqi-Kuwait problem is
resolved. This will prolong the international threat - remember Truman
in 1950 - and allow Bush to prevent cuts in the military budget, to
avoid any peace dividend, and prevent conversion of the economy to
peaceful, human-oriented purposes. After all, when you count all U.S.
defense-related expenses, they add up to more than double the official
figure of 26 percent of the national budget for defense - some experts
say two-thirds of the budget goes for defense in one way or another.
The so-called national security state of the past 40 years has meant
enormous riches, and power, for those who are in the game. It has also
meant population control - control of the people of this and many
other countries. Bush and his team, and those they represent, will do
whatever is necessary to keep the game going. Elitist control of the
U.S. rests on this game. If anyone doubts this, recall that from the
very beginning of this crisis, projections were coming out on costs,
implying that Desert Shield would last for more than a year, perhaps
that large U.S. forces would stay permanently in the Gulf. Just
imagine the joy this crisis has brought to U.S. military industries
that only months ago were quaking over their survival in a post-Cold
War world. Not six weeks passed after the Iraqi invasion before the
Pentagon proposed the largest arms sale in history: $21 billion worth
of hardware for defense of the Saudi Arabian throne. Very clever when
you do the sums. With an increase in price of $15 per barrel, which
had already happened, Saudi Arabia stands to earn more than $40
billion extra dollars during the 14 months from the invasion to the
end of the next U.S. fiscal year. Pentagon calculations of Desert
Shield costs come to $18 billion for the same 14 months. Even if the
Saudis paid all that, which they won't because of other contributors,
they would have more than $20 billion in windfall income left over.
O.K., bring that money to the States through weapon sales. That, I
suppose, is why the Saudi Arms sale instantly became known as the
Defense Industry Relief Act of 1990.
As for the price of oil, everyone knows that when it gets above $25-30
a barrel it becomes counter-productive for the Saudis and the Husseins
and other producers. Alternative energy sources become attractive and
conservation again becomes fashionable. Saddam Hussein accepted $21 in
July, and even if, with control of Kuwait, he had been able to get the
price up to $25, that would have been manageable for the United States
and other industrial economies. Instead, because of this crisis, it's
gone over $35 a barrel and even up to $40, threatening now to provoke
a world depression. With talk of peaceful solutions, like Bush's
speech to the UN General Assembly, they will coax the price down, but
not before Bush and others in the oil industry increase their already
considerable fortunes.
Ah, but the issue, we're told, is not the price of oil, or
preservation of the feudal Gulf regimes. It's principle. Naked
aggression cannot be allowed, and no one can profit from it. This is
why young American lives may be sacrificed. Same as Truman said in
1950, to justify dying for what was then, and for many tears
afterwards, one of the world's nastiest police states. When I read
that Bush was putting out that line, I nearly choked.
When George Bush attacks Saddam Hussein for "naked aggression", he
must think the world has no knowledge of United States history - no
memory at all. One thing we should never forget is that a nation's
foreign policy is a product of its domestic system. We should look to
our domestic system for the reasons why Bush and his entourage need
this crisis to prevent dismantling the national security state.
First, we know that the domestic system in this country is in crisis,
and that throughout history foreign crises have been manufactured,
provoked, and used to divert attention from domestic troubles - a way
of rallying people around the flag in support of the government of the
day. How convenient now for deflecting attention from the S&L scandal,
for example, to be paid not by the crooks but by ordinary, honest
people.
Second, we know that the system is not fair, that about one in three
people are economically deprived, either in absolute poverty or so
close that they have no relief from want. We also know that one in
three Americans are illiterate, either totally or to the degree that
they cannot function in a society based on the written word. We also
know that one in three Americans does not register to vote, and of
those who register 20 percent don't vote. This means we elect a
president with about 25 percent or slightly less of the potential
votes. The reasons why people don't vote are complex, but not the least
of them is that people know their vote doesn't count.
Third, we know that during the past ten years these domestic problems
have gotten even worse thanks to the Reagan-Bush policy of
transferring wealth from the middle and poor classes to the wealthy,
while cutting back on social programs. Add to this the usual litany of
crises: education, health care, environment, racism, women's rights,
homophobia, the infrastructure, productivity, research, and inability
to compete in the international marketplace, and you get a nation not
only in crisis, but in decline as well. In certain senses that might
not be so bad, if it stimulates, as in the Soviet Union, public debate
on the reasons. But the picture suggests that continuation of foreign
threats and crises is a good way to avoid fundamental reappraisal of
the domestic system, starting where such a debate ought to start, with
the rules of the game as laid down in the constitution.
What can we do? Lots. On the Gulf crisis, it's getting out the
information on what's behind it, and organizing people to act against
this intervention and possible war. Through many existing
organizations, such as Pledge of Resistance, there must be a way to
develop opposition that will make itself heard and seen on the streets
of cities across the country. We should pressure Congress and the
media for answers to the old question: During that week between
Ambassador Glaspie's meeting with Hussein, "What did George know, when
did he know it, and why didn't he act publicly and privately to stop
the invasion before it happened?" In getting the answer to that
question, we should show how the mainstream media, in failing to do
so, have performed their usual cheerleading role as the government's
information ministry.
The point on the information side is to show the truth, reject the
hypocrisy, and raise the domestic political cost to Bush and every
political robot who has gone along with him. At every point along the
way we must not be intimidated by those voices that will surely say:
"You are helping that brute Saddam Hussein." We are not helping
Hussein, although some may be. Rather we are against a senseless
destructive war based on greed and racism. We are for a peaceful,
negotiated, diplomatic solution that could include resolution of other
territorial disputes in the region.
We are against militarist intervention and against a crisis that will
allow continuing militarism in the United States. We are for
conversion of the U.S. and indeed the world economy to peaceful,
people-oriented purposes. In the long run, we reject one-party elitist
government, and we demand a new constitution, real democracy, with
popular participation in decision-making. In short, we want our own
glasnost and restructuring here in the United States. If popular
movements can bring it to the Soviet Union, that monolithic tyranny,
why can't we here in the United States?
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Corrections I made from last post:
-- "Assuming the U.S. was not indifferent to an invasion, one has to act"
Was changed to "..one has to ask"
-- The two paragraphs starting with "Why would Bush seek a world crisis?"
needed to be "filled", i.e., new-lines inserted.
-- "Truman attributed the Korean situation to the RUssians in order to
create emotinal hysteria, a false, threat, and to get the leverage..."
The comma after "false" was deleted.
-- "In Western Europe, through a vast network of political action and
propaganda operations, the CIA was called upon the create in the
public mind, the specter of imminent Soviet invasion combined with the
intention of the European left to enslave the population under
Soviet..." Was changed to "..CIA was called upon to create..." and the
comma after "mind" was deleted.
Please join the campaign to help Phil Agee regain his passport; don't
let Bush decide for us what's too "dangerous" for us to hear (namely
dirty deeds committed by the CIA, as only a former agent can reveal)
-Harel
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Speak Out!
Dear Friends: San Francisco, CA
Speak Out! is organizing a national campaign on behalf of Philip Agee,
former CIA officer and internationally recognized author, lecturer, and
foreign policy critic.
On September 22, the Chamorro government revoked Philip Agee's
Nicaraguan passport. The impetus for this action in all likelihood came
from the U.S. State Department. The revocation came on the eve of his
trip to the U.S. to begin a 20-city speaking tour.
This is merely the latest in an on-going effort to silence Agee and to
prevent him from traveling freely to and from the U.S.
We are appealing to Philip's supporters to help us circulate this
information as widely as possible. The government must not be allowed
to limit U.S. citizens' right to travel and speak freely. If they
succeed in this campaign against Philip Agee there will be ramifications
for all of us.
We invite you to join Noam Chomsky, Margaret Randall, Ramsey Clark,
Michael Parenti, Holly Sklar and many others in sending a brief
statement of protest to:
Secretary of State James Baker
U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Washington, DC 20520
and
Judge Gerhard Gesell
U.S. COURT HOUSE
Third and Constitution NW
Washington, DC 20001
Please also send a copy to us at:
Speak Out! 2215-R Market Street, #520,
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 864-4451
Agee and Speak Out! staff thank you in advance for any
assistance you can provide in spreading the word.
In solidarity,
Jean Caiani
Speak Out! Coordinator
##################################################################
Statement from Agee
##################################################################
Following is an excerpted statement from Philip Agee in Madrid, Spain.
It is from a speech he intended to give during his U.S. speaking tour.
GREETINGS TO ALL OF YOU:
I'm very sorry I'm not able to be with you tonight. I am not with you
because the U.S. government, including the Federal Courts, has once
again taken measures to prevent exercise of a citizen's First Amendment
rights. Not that this is so unusual in a national security state. For
me it's familiar, the latest such action in nearly 20 years of efforts
to prevent my speaking, above all to people in the United States.
Two weeks ago I heard indirectly that my Nicaraguan passport, with which
I have travelled for years, was revoked by the Chamorro government. I
checked with friends in Managua, who confirmed the action.
Without a passport I am unable to travel to the United States because I
could not return to my wife and work in Spain where a valid passport is
required for entry. For almost four years I have been trying
unsuccessfully to get a U.S. passport but the State Department, at the
CIA's urging, has refused.
In June my lawyers filed suit in the District Court in Washington
demanding a court order requiring the State Department either to issue a
passport or to re-open a hearing that in its first phase, three years
ago, was conducted in clear and open violation of the Department's own
regulations.
Those regulations give me the right to "confrontation and
cross-examination" of William Webster, the CIA Director and only witness
against me. The State Department refused to produce Webster despite a
ruling by its Board of Appellate Review that it do so. Ultimate
resolution, perhaps in the Supreme Court, is no doubt years away. By
such delay the government wins its case de facto, without any legal
decision.
After revocation of my Nicaraguan passport, my lawyers asked Judge
Gerhard Gesell, who is presiding my case, for an emergency order
requiring issuance of a passport so that I could fulfill agreements to
speak in the U.S. during October and November, to attend hearings on my
case in his court, to participate in any re-opened State Department
passport hearing, and to visit my family. He refused, knowing full well
that without the passport I could not return to Spain.
Gesell refuses me the possibility to attend sessions on my case in his
court, or any re-opened State Department passport hearing that he might
order, let alone speaking at this meeting tonight. For this and his
past prejudice in a suit I brought under the FOIA ten years ago, I call
on him to disqualify himself from my case. And I ask you to support me
by demanding also that he either reconsider, and issue the order for the
passport, or quit the case.
The object of this exercise is education: to show how the federal court
system is the most undemocratic institution we have. Nobody elects
those judges, who are political appointees for life, and they answer to
no one. The result finds judges masking political decisions in pompous
legalese with total immunity from public reaction. But we should not
take such hypocrisy quietly.
However serious my problems are, they are certainly mild compared with
others. I urge you to support political prisoners like Leonard Peltier
of the American Indian Movement, and the many others deprived of
constitutional rights thanks to the racism and prejudice in what passes
for U.S. justice.
I regret that I cannot be with you. I thank you for whatever support
you can give to help me regain my right to come and go from the United
States, and to be with you on another occasion.
Best Wishes,
Philip Agee
##################################################################
PHILIP AGEE DEFENSE CAMPAIGN
On October 1, Speakout! launched a national campaign on behalf of one of
our speakers, Philip Agee. Agee was the first CIA officer to go public
in protest of the Agency's policies and remains its most controversial
critic since its founding in 1947. For fifteen years Agee has been a
leading American activist against CIA support of torture, political
assassinations, death squads, and destabilization of democratic
governments around the world. His bestselling book Inside the Company:
CIA Diary, was the first uncensored expose of CIA activities written by
one of its own. So that American citizens might know what crimes their
government is committing in their name, Agee has paid and is still
paying a high price: his freedom to travel and speak freely.
In 1979, Agee's U.S. passport was revoked for "national security"
reasons. He applied for the return of his passport in 1987. His
application was denied six months later by Secretary of State George
Shultz, alleging that Agee's activities (writing and speaking), "are
continuing to cause serious damage to the national security and foreign
policy of the United States." No evidence has ever been presented to
substantiate this charge however, and the US government has never
charged Agee with any crime.
Despite on-going efforts to stop him, Agee has traveled freely on an
honorary Nicaraguan passport he received in 1983. Twice a year he has
been touring the United States, speaking about CIA activity to overflow
crowds on hundreds of college campuses. In addition to his talks, he
always meets with students and community organizers to listen to and
advise them, explaining how to become involved in the CIA-Off Campus
Movement and linking them with other activists in the area.
He travels with dozens of books, journals, periodicals, and pamphlets,
encouraging and guiding his audiences to read and to think critically.
As a result of his most recent tour, book sales in the spring of 1990
totalled $10,000. His visits have been so successful that dozens of
CIA-Off Campus committees now exist and a national student newspaper
(Campus Watch) to monitor CIA activities on campuses enjoys a wide
circulation. As a result of his exposes, CIA recruitment has been
banned from many campuses. As Christine Kelley of Student Action Union
(national student organization) says, "If you want to get the CIA off
your campus, bring Phil Agee on."
On September 22, 1990, the eve of a Agee's 20-city US tour organized by
Speakout!, the Chamorro government revoked Agee's Nicaraguan passport,
evidently in response to pressure from the US State Department. This is
just the latest action in nearly 20 years of harassment and efforts to
silence him. State Department pressure has also prevented him from
obtaining a passport from any other country.
After revocation of his passport, Agee's lawyers asked Judge Gerhart
Gesell, who is presiding his case, for an emergency order requiring
issuance of a passport so that he could fulfill agreements to speak at
meetings scheduled in October and November, attend hearings on his case
in court, and visit his family. Judge Gesell refused, knowing full well
that without a passport Agee would be unable to return to his wife and
work in Spain.
Speakout! protests this violation of Philip Agee's first amendment
rights and believes that as an American citizen, he is entitled to
travel freely and to express dissent. It is unconstitutional for the US
government to suboordinate the rights of its citizens to some undefined
national security concern. Speakout! will work to ensure that Philip
Agee's voice continues to be heard in the United States.
Following the successful campaigns to stop the deportation of South
African exile Dennis Brutus and feminist Margaret Randall under the
Reagan Administration, Speakout! has launched a campaign to Agee regain
his passport. We are already receiving some radio and newspaper
coverage, and have mailed support packets to individuals and
organizations encouraging them to write protest letters to Judge Gesell.
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Subject: video on Agee speech
To: Multiple recipients of list ACTIV-L <ACTIV-L@UMCVMB>
/** pn.publiceye: 18.6 **/