Noam Chomsky quotes

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

American society is now remarkably atomized. Political organizations have collapsed. In fact, it seems like even bowling leagues are collapsing. The left has a lot to answer for here. There's been a drift toward very fragmenting tendencies among left groups, toward this sort of identity politics.

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way.

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.

Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.

I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

Personally, I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions of society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony.

Sports plays a societal role in engendering jingoist and chauvinist attitudes. They're designed to organize a community to be committed to their gladiators.

States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.

The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.

The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself.

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.

The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival.

The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.

The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control - "indoctrination," we might say - exercised through the mass media.

To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public.

Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists.

We can, for example, be fairly confident that either there will be a world without war or there won't be a world - at least, a world inhabited by creatures other than bacteria and beetles, with some scattering of others.

You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.

William Cook: A Personal Declaration of Independence

I refuse to accept as my government actions by the current administration and its obsequious servants, the Republican Congress and the Republican Senate.
By William A. Cook

“If there’s any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it’s flawed logic … It’s unacceptable to think that there’s any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.” (President George W. Bush, Sept. 15, 2006 report by AP’s Terence Hunt)
Citizens of the United States of America bear an awesome responsibility to maintain control of their government’s behavior since that government derives its powers from the consent granted it by the citizens. When the government ceases to act in accord with the dictates of the respective consciences of its citizens as determined by its foundational documents – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights -- , when it violates the established principles that give this nation legitimacy before the nations of the world through mutually accepted agreements, charters, and conventions, when it abrogates the inalienable rights granted the citizens by the Creator, when it declares unequivocally that the citizens cannot dissent with an action or actions taken by the government, then it is the right and the duty of the citizen to “alter or abolish” that government. For the past five years, the present government of the United States, including the Executive branch, the Congress and the Senate, has committed a “long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object (that) evinces a design to reduce them (the citizens) under absolute despotism.” As a citizen of these United States for 70 years, I refuse to be ruled by a tyrant who imposes despotic, autocratic control on the citizens of these United States through a series of clandestine actions that usurp the rights of the people.
I refuse to accept as my government actions by the current administration and its obsequious servants, the Republican Congress and the Republican Senate, that include * spying on its citizens without their knowledge or consent, an action contrary to existing law;
* elimination of personal privacy through the Patriot Act, an action that presumes culpability, not innocence until proven guilty;
* preemptive invasion of other nations determined by the unilateral judgment of an all powerful executive that eviscerates the power of the peoples’ representatives;
* acts of extrajudicial execution and the abandonment of rule by law thereby making the President, in effect, judge, jury and executioner;* acts of torture and the unilateral infliction of “acceptable” torture techniques thus casting America before the world as an amoral nation beholden to no international agreement and placing at risk the soldiers who defend it;
* imposition of illegal actions of war instituted through an orchestrated control of lies communicated to the citizenry thereby negating their democratic right to know that they might vote in accord with their conscience;
* levying an incredible tax burden on the citizens to pay for the consequences of these lies that will cost them and their children dearly for decades to come while corporations reap a windfall of profit from closed bids and corruption;
* infliction of a forced military occupation on a nation against the desires of its people and enabling that occupation to use illegal weapons of war contrary to the Geneva Conventions thus implicating its citizens in acts against humanity;
* development of diverse nuclear weaponry in direct violation of the UN Charter even as it decries other nations for attempting to acquire their own nuclear weaponry;
* acceptance, indeed, complete complicity and support of the barbaric and genocidal actions of the state of Israel against the people of Palestine, and most recently, and most deplorably, the abandonment of all pretense to the behavior of a civilized nation through its almost unanimous acceptance of a resolution written by the American Israeli Political Action Committee to endorse the Israeli state’s wanton destruction of the state of Lebanon.
These are not the actions of a democratic state; these are the actions of an autocratic state, an amoral state, an arrogant state that rules by force and acts more ruthlessly than the “extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective,” negating by its actions the unthinkable comparison the President decried.
For six years I have tracked the deception of this government as it surreptitiously acted to acquire more and more power by instilling in the American people the fear necessary to propel the autocrat to absolute power. Fear suppresses individual inquiry even as it enables control of the people, ostensibly to provide protection for them. Fear creates victims, especially in the minds of those who have not been violated. It is the unknown, what might be that metastasizes into the mental slave, the compliant citizen who marches to the drum of those who would control a society. It is the instrument of tyrants and dictators.
This government hobbles its citizens by using fear to manipulate their belief in end time prophecy, by implanting fear of imminent threat from “Islamofacist” fanatics, and by immersing the people in a false sense of “victim hood” that links them with the state of Israel as the only “friend” in the mid-east suffering from the same terrorist scourge. It is time to dispel this fear that enslaves. It is time to declare that this government no longer serves the people, that, indeed, it surpasses in its behavior “the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.” It is not the “compassion and decency of the American people” that is in question; it is the absence of “compassion and decency” in this administration that is at fault.
It is time to withdraw recognition of it as the government of these United States.How can a citizen withdraw recognition, one might ask? I would answer simply that no person with a conscience could recognize the validity of this government that commits the actions listed above, each more heinous than the last, the worst being its near universal acceptance of the genocide perpetrated by Israel on the Palestinians, actions that are inclusive enough to incorporate almost all the others. If every person of conscience gave sign of their aversion to the behavior of this government by wearing a black armband or posting a black flag or ribbon on the door or window ledge or by flying our flag upside down, the numbers who distrust this government would be manifest for the nation and the world to see and we would not have to wait till election time to cast our conscience on the screen.
I tell you this, each day that passes casts more gloom over this nation as hundreds more die and thousands more are maimed, and all for a lie and all in our name. Appealing to our representatives accomplishes nothing; they are but lackeys to the administration and to the primary lobbing groups that determine for them America’s foreign policy, AIPAC and the lobbies for the military/industrial complex. We can no longer wait for the ballot box to determine our future; it may not be our conscience that is voted to office. Should we not act to declare this government unjust and hence unfit to be our government, then we will be no better than those who dictate and inflict these atrocities on the innocent. I will not have my conscience held hostage by an elite few who rule without a conscience. The honest citizen carries no weapons against his brothers and sisters; the honest citizen marches forward in tune with reason and common sense not fear and ignorance.
Think how many Lebanese died, how many were maimed, how many went homeless, how many die now after the cease fire because Israel left its calling card in the form of miniature mines for children to play with, how much destruction and wanton devastation this government inflicted in our name while our representatives waited for AIPAC to pen the resolution that gave license to such slaughter. If any justice came from this invasion it was this: the world was witness to the savagery and barbarism of Israel that ruthlessly devastated another people out of sheer anger turned to vengeance, a behavior that it has inflicted at will on the Palestinians behind locked gates and its Wall of Infamy.
Think now of the holocaust being inflicted on the people of Gaza, the reign of fire that comes with missiles launched into crowded civilian neighborhoods randomly killing mothers and children, a reign of terror that has lasted over three months as the Israelis lock the gates to prevent access to medical care, food, employment, and business, a reign of terror that starves the children, denies the people electricity and water, a reign of terror that is calculated, vicious, and inhumane. But it is done behind the Wall, out of sight of our conscience, locked out of public view by the Israeli IOF and its government that has closed access to Gaza by air, sea, or road. Americans cannot complain because our representatives have capitulated to an Israeli government gone mad, driven by racism as it surreptitiously rampages through schools, refugee camps, factories and homes killing, demolishing, executing at will a population that is cornered, starved, and near total death; yet America supports this mayhem justifying it as “self-defense.” How does an illegal occupying force operating on stolen land defend what they do not own and call it self-defense? What non-sense guides this crippled republic that our representatives would defend such dementia?
Where does one turn for guidance out of this morass? Will our Christian leaders proclaim the teachings of Jesus from the steeples of their churches? Will they condemn the government for its ruthlessness? Will they march in the streets to demand change? Will they echo Tolstoy’s astute observation, “to kill is incompatible with man’s uprightness…(for) A Christian, whose doctrine enjoins upon him humility, non-resistance to evil, love to all (even to the most malicious), cannot … join a class of men whose business it is to kill their fellow-men.” (Writings on Civil-Disobedience and Non-Violence). Oh, there are those who cry in the wilderness, congregations that have divested themselves of the atrocities inflicted by Israel and they are to be praised even as they are ignored by our representatives. There are the Christian Arabs in Bethlehem who weep each day as they see their flock decimated and their brothers and sisters murdered, maimed, and humiliated as that malicious Wall surrounds the birth place of their God and our representatives turn their backs. And there are voices for peace, millions of voices that decry the wanton brutality of this regime, Christian and Jew and Muslim, men and women who know they are drenched in the blood of the innocent because this despotic “President” has determined how they must think and how they must behave and our representatives kneel on bended knee before his throne.
But the horror of America today rests not just in the dementia of its leaders but in the distorted madness of its evangelical fanatics who have cloaked themselves in the armament of prophecy declaring themselves God’s voice on earth as they propel their sheep to wage endless war against God’s creatures. Men who follow not in the footsteps of the humble and peaceful Jesus but in the footsteps of prior fools and idiots that ran rampant in other days and times inflicting mayhem and death on the innocent. These fanatics do not know the teachings of Jesus; they read from a gospel of fear that has metamorphosed Jesus into a General who wields a bloody and fiery sword, stomping over the hills and valleys of the earth wreaking havoc and death, thus does the God of light and peace, of brotherly love, become the new Satan to whom these TV evangelists pay homage.
They are men of war who stand behind their pulpits in glistening cathedrals of gold and glass while they send the children of their congregations to slaughter. These men are criminals not Christians. They do not understand the bells of penitence for sin; the only bells they ring intone the opening of the Stock Market or the cash register.
Pastors like John Hagee, Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, Benny Hinn, and all the others who crowd the Cathedral of Television lead their respective laity into battle each day, marching at their head, holding aloft their missiles of fire and brimstone, tearing incendiary passages from the Old Testament and Book of Revelation that pour like acid from their mouths and flame forth against perceived disbelievers and infidels. Their exhortations on behalf of their malicious God pits dementia against the teachings of Jesus, pits vengeance against brotherhood, pits fear against love, and power against compassion.
Have we transformed a nation respectful of all, protective of the rights of all, assertive of the inherent rights that give personal authority to our conscience, into a nation that denies these values in order to inflict our will on all peoples of the mid-east? Has this nation granted to its President and Congress absolute authority to determine what we as a citizenry must obey if we are to be Americans? Have we returned to the days of McCarthy, days of fear and loathing, forcing on all the demented ideology of a few? Have we willingly accepted their lies that brought forth the invasion against the Iraqi people, the subterfuge that perpetuates the genocide of the Palestinians, the fear they use to compel loss of individual rights? Have we handed to this administration the one force that gives us power in this nation, our right to dissent? Liberty is not liberty if it is defined for you; freedom is but a word if it does not give you peace of mind; and conscience does not exist if you do not exercise it.
I would assert that as long as the compassion and decency of the American people are defined by this administration, we are a nation without compassion and without decency and as long as this administration directs the behavior of this nation, any comparison to Islamic extremists who “kill innocent women and children” pales in comparison with the hundreds and thousands this administration has slaughtered in our name in Palestine and Iraq and Lebanon. There is but one response and that is to deny it my consent.
-William Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of Tracking Depception: Bush's Mideast Policy He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU.

On War and Occupation By ARUNDHATI ROY

Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris and Euphrates. How many children, in how many classrooms, over how many centuries, have hang-glided through the past, transported on the wings of these words?
And now the bombs have fallen, incinerating and humiliating that ancient civilization.
On the steel torsos of their missiles, adolescent American soldiers scrawled colorful messages in childish handwriting: "For Saddam, from the Fat Boy Posse."
A building went down. A market place. A home. A girl who loved a boy. A child who only ever wanted to play with his older brother's marbles. On the March 21--the day after American and British troops began their illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq--an "embedded" CNN correspondent interviewed an American soldier. "I wanna get in there and get my nose dirty," Private A.J. said. "I wanna take revenge for 9/11."
To be fair to the correspondent, even though he was "embedded," he did sort of weakly suggest that so far there was no real evidence that linked the Iraqi government to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Private A.J. stuck his teenage tongue out all the way down to the end of his chin. "Yeah, well, that stuff's way over my head," he said.

Arundhati Roy On Government

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. "Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.

No government's condemnation of terrorism is credible if it cannot show itself to be open to change by nonviolent dissent[The choice between John Kerry and George Bush] is not a real choice. It's an apparent choice. Like choosing a brand of detergent. Whether you buy Ivory Snow or Tide, they're both owned by Proctor & Gamble.

You begin to realize that hypocrisy is not a terrible thing when you see what overt fascism is compared to sort of covert, you know, communal politics which the Congress has never been shy of indulging in.

Arundhati Roy from Come September

Today the world is run by three of the most secretive institutions in the world: The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, all three of which, in turn, are dominated by the U.S. Their decisions are made in secret. The people who head them are appointed behind closed doors. Nobody really knows anything about them, their politics, their beliefs, their intentions. Nobody elected them. Nobody said they could make decisions on our behalf.

Flags are bits of coloured cloth that governments use to first, shrink wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.

To call someone 'anti-American', indeed, to be anti-American, (or for that matter anti-Indian, or anti-Timbuktuan) is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those that the establishment has set out for you: If you're not a Bushie you're a Taliban. If you don't love us, you hate us. If you're not Good you're Evil. If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.

Donald Rumsfeld said that his mission in the War Against Terror was to persuade the world that Americans must be allowed to continue their way of life. [...] but 'The American Way of Life' is simply not sustainable. Because it doesn't acknowledge that there is a world beyond America.

In 1947, the United Nations formally partitioned Palestine and allotted 55 per cent of Palestine's land to the Zionists. Within a year they had captured 76 per cent. On the 14th of May 1948 the state of Israel was declared. Minutes after the declaration, the U.S. recognised Israel. The West Bank was annexed by Jordan. The Gaza Strip came under Egyptian military control. Formally, Palestine ceased to exist except in the minds and hearts of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people who became refugees.

Israel's staunchest political and military ally is and always has been the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government has blocked, along with Israel, almost every U.N. resolution that sought a peaceful, equitable solution to the conflict. It has supported almost every war that Israel has fought. When Israel attacks Palestine, it is American missiles that smash through Palestinian homes. And every year Israel receives several billion dollars from the U.S.

chomsky on Iraq War

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PRESIDENT CHAVEZ DELIVERS REMARKS AT THE U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLYSEPTEMBER 20, 2006

PRESIDENT CHAVEZ DELIVERS REMARKS AT THE U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLYSEPTEMBER 20, 2006

"Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.
Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, 'Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.'" [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] "It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet.
The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time," [flips through the pages, which are numerous] "I will just leave it as a recommendation.
It reads easily, it is a very good book, I'm sure Madame [President] you are familiar with it. It appears in English, in Russian, in Arabic, in German. I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house.
The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.
"And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here." [crosses himself] "And it smells of sulfur still today."
Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.
I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.
An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe."
As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.
CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): The world parent's statement -- cynical, hypocritical, full of this imperial hypocrisy from the need they have to control everything.
They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that's their democratic model. It's the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that's imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons.
What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.
What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?
The president of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I'm quoting, "Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom."
Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother -- he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there's an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.
The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over. And people are standing up.
I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations.
CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Yes, you can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination.
The president then -- and this he said himself, he said: "I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East, to tell them that my country wants peace."
That's true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, what does this country want? Does it want peace? They'll say yes.
But the government doesn't want peace. The government of the United States doesn't want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.
It wants peace. But what's happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? In Palestine? What's happening? What's happened over the last 100 years in Latin America and in the world? And now threatening Venezuela -- new threats against Venezuela, against Iran?
He spoke to the people of Lebanon. Many of you, he said, have seen how your homes and communities were caught in the crossfire. How cynical can you get? What a capacity to lie shamefacedly. The bombs in Beirut with millimetric precision?

This is crossfire? He's thinking of a western, when people would shoot from the hip and somebody would be caught in the crossfire.
This is imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire and Israel firing on the people of Palestine and Lebanon. That is what happened. And now we hear, "We're suffering because we see homes destroyed.'
The president of the United States came to talk to the peoples -- to the peoples of the world. He came to say -- I brought some documents with me, because this morning I was reading some statements, and I see that he talked to the people of Afghanistan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Iran. And he addressed all these peoples directly.
And you can wonder, just as the president of the United States addresses those peoples of the world, what would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? What would they have to say?
And I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the south, the oppressed people think. They would say, "Yankee imperialist, go home." I think that is what those people would say if they were given the microphone and if they could speak with one voice to the American imperialists.
And that is why, Madam President, my colleagues, my friends, last year we came here to this same hall as we have been doing for the past eight years, and we said something that has now been confirmed -- fully, fully confirmed.
CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I don't think anybody in this room could defend the system. Let's accept -- let's be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It's worthless.
Oh, yes, it's good to bring us together once a year, see each other, make statements and prepare all kinds of long documents, and listen to good speeches, like Abel's (ph) yesterday, or President Mullah's (ph). Yes, it's good for that.
And there are a lot of speeches, and we've heard lots from the president of Sri Lanka, for instance, and the president of Chile.
But we, the assembly, have been turned into a merely deliberative organ. We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world. And that is why Venezuela once again proposes, here, today, 20 September, that we re-establish the United Nations.
Last year, Madam, we made four modest proposals that we felt to be crucially important. We have to assume the responsibility our heads of state, our ambassadors, our representatives, and we have to discuss it.
The first is expansion, and Mullah (ph) talked about this yesterday right here. The Security Council, both as it has permanent and non-permanent categories, (inaudible) developing countries and LDCs must be given access as new permanent members. That's step one.
CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Second, effective methods to address and resolve world conflicts, transparent decisions.
Point three, the immediate suppression -- and that is something everyone's calling for -- of the anti-democratic mechanism known as the veto, the veto on decisions of the Security Council.
Let me give you a recent example. The immoral veto of the United States allowed the Israelis, with impunity, to destroy Lebanon. Right in front of all of us as we stood there watching, a resolution in the council was prevented.
Fourthly, we have to strengthen, as we've always said, the role and the powers of the secretary general of the United Nations.
Yesterday, the secretary general practically gave us his speech of farewell. And he recognized that over the last 10 years, things have just gotten more complicated; hunger, poverty, violence, human rights violations have just worsened. That is the tremendous consequence of the collapse of the United Nations system and American hegemonistic pretensions.
Madam, Venezuela a few years ago decided to wage this battle within the United Nations by recognizing the United Nations, as members of it that we are, and lending it our voice, our thinking.
Our voice is an independent voice to represent the dignity and the search for peace and the reformulation of the international system; to denounce persecution and aggression of hegemonistic forces on the planet.
CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): This is how Venezuela has presented itself. Bolivar's home has sought a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council.
Let's see. Well, there's been an open attack by the U.S. government, an immoral attack, to try and prevent Venezuela from being freely elected to a post in the Security Council.
The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.
And I would like to thank all the countries that have kindly announced their support for Venezuela, even though the ballot is a secret one and there's no need to announce things.
But since the imperium has attacked, openly, they strengthened the convictions of many countries. And their support strengthens us.
Mercosur, as a bloc, has expressed its support, our brothers in Mercosur. Venezuela, with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, is a full member of Mercosur.
And many other Latin American countries, CARICOM, Bolivia have expressed their support for Venezuela. The Arab League, the full Arab League has voiced its support. And I am immensely grateful to the Arab world, to our Arab brothers, our Caribbean brothers, the African Union. Almost all of Africa has expressed its support for Venezuela and countries such as Russia or China and many others.
CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I thank you all warmly on behalf of Venezuela, on behalf of our people, and on behalf of the truth, because Venezuela, with a seat on the Security Council, will be expressing not only Venezuela's thoughts, but it will also be the voice of all the peoples of the world, and we will defend dignity and truth.
Over and above all of this, Madam President, I think there are reasons to be optimistic. A poet would have said "helplessly optimistic," because over and above the wars and the bombs and the aggressive and the preventive war and the destruction of entire peoples, one can see that a new era is dawning.
As Sylvia Rodriguez (ph) says, the era is giving birth to a heart. There are alternative ways of thinking. There are young people who think differently. And this has already been seen within the space of a mere decade. It was shown that the end of history was a totally false assumption, and the same was shown about Pax Americana and the establishment of the capitalist neo-liberal world. It has been shown, this system, to generate mere poverty. Who believes in it now?
What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceanea. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision.
We have to strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle, our awareness. We have to build a new and better world.
Venezuela joins that struggle, and that's why we are threatened. The U.S. has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere.
CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier.
And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists.
And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner.
And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.
And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to.
And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace.
Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is protected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I'm here today.
But these people who led that coup are here today in this country protected by the American government. And I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse.
CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): We mentioned Cuba. Yes, we were just there a few days ago. We just came from there happily.
And there you see another era born. The Summit of the 15, the Summit of the Nonaligned, adopted a historic resolution. This is the outcome document. Don't worry, I'm not going to read it.
But you have a whole set of resolutions here that were adopted after open debate in a transparent matter -- more than 50 heads of state. Havana was the capital of the south for a few weeks, and we have now launched, once again, the group of the nonaligned with new momentum.
And if there is anything I could ask all of you here, my companions, my brothers and sisters, it is to please lend your good will to lend momentum to the Nonaligned Movement for the birth of the new era, to prevent hegemony and prevent further advances of imperialism.
And as you know, Fidel Castro is the president of the nonaligned for the next three years, and we can trust him to lead the charge very efficiently.
Unfortunately they thought, "Oh, Fidel was going to die." But they're going to be disappointed because he didn't. And he's not only alive, he's back in his green fatigues, and he's now presiding the nonaligned.
So, my dear colleagues, Madam President, a new, strong movement has been born, a movement of the south. We are men and women of the south.
With this document, with these ideas, with these criticisms, I'm now closing my file. I'm taking the book with me. And, don't forget, I'm recommending it very warmly and very humbly to all of you.
CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): We want ideas to save our planet, to save the planet from the imperialist threat. And hopefully in this very century, in not too long a time, we will see this, we will see this new era, and for our children and our grandchildren a world of peace based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations, but a renewed United Nations.
And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We've proposed Venezuela.
You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all.
May God bless us all. Good day to you.

the most complete human being of our age Che Guevara

Who Was Che Guevara?

You've probably seen his face on t-shirts, hats, or some other piece of merchandise, but what do you really know about Che Guevara? What did he accomplish that made him the hero of oppressed people all around the world?

The Russian revolutionary Vladamir Lenin once pointed out the tendency of the ruling class to “co-opt” revolutionaries after their deaths, turning them into mere “logos” which they attempt to render meaningless by separating the individual from what it is they stood for. It is in an effort to combat this that we offer this article.

Of course, it is not within the scope of this article to completely detail the life of Che – that has already been attempted to varying degrees of success in numerous biographies – rather, we hope to to provide a general outline to those unfamiliar with the man, in hopes that it will lead them to dig deeper into the story of his life, his theories, and most importantly what he fought for: the liberation of humankind.


Early Years
Ernesto Guevara (the 'Che' part wouldn't come until much later) was born in Rosario, Argentina, in 1928. His mother and father could be described as middle-class, with liberal inclinations.

Even as a young boy, Guevara was known for his often radical perspective, but they wouldn't develop fully until later in life.

He suffered from crippling asthma from birth, so much so that his family had to relocate because of it, but it didn't stop him from becoming an excellent athlete. Rugby was one of the sports that he enjoyed most. His aggressive style of play earned him the nickname 'Fuser'.

In 1948, he enrolled in the University of Buenos Aires to study medicine. He was an excellent student who excelled at his studies.


The Journey Begins
In 1951, on the suggestion of his older friend, Alberto Granado, a biochemist, he decided to take a year off from school to embark on trip across South America that they had dreamed of taking for years. Guevara and his 29-year-old friend set off from their hometown of Alta Gracia on a 1939 Norton 500 cc motorcycle they called La Poderosa II (literally, “the mighty one”). As a part of their trip, they planned to spend a few weeks volunteering at the San Pablo leper colony in Peru. Guevara documented the trip in The Motorcycle Diaries, which was translated into English in 1996, and turned into a motion picture of the same name in 2004.

During the trip, Ernesto witnessed first hand many things that he hadn't had much experience with before, such as the widespread poverty and oppression faced by the masses of people throughout the Latin America (and the world) under capitalism. It was through this, as well as studies of the writings of revolutionaries like Karl Marx, that he began to understand that the only remedy to these ills lay in socialist revolution.

Through his trip he also began to see Latin America not as a grouping of separate nations divided by invisible, often imposed borders, but rather as a single cultural and economic entity. It was from this foundation that he began to formulate his concept of a united Ibero-America, united “from Mexico to the Magellan straits”, and bound together by a “single mestizo” culture.

Upon his return to Argentina, Guevara was anxious to continuing traveling throughout Latin America, and so he completed his medical studies as quickly as possible, finishing in March of 1953.


Imperialism in Guatemala
Following his graduation, Guevara again set out on the road, this time planning to travel through Central America. After much traveling, he finally ended up in Guatemala, where the popular reformist Jacobo Arbenz Guzman had been elected president. Arbenz was attempting to bring about a social change through various reforms – particularly land reform.

It was at this time that Guevara acquired the nickname that would follow him for the rest of his life. Friends in Guatemala began to refer to him as “Che” (pronounced “chay”), after an interjection (often used to get attention, such as “hey” or “wow”, but also used like “friend” or “pal”) commonly used by Argentinians such as himself.

At the time, 2% of the population of Guatemala controlled 74% of the land suitable to farming, and only used 12% of it. Arbenz planned to redistribute some of the unused land to the poor farmers of the country who made up the majority of its population, a plan that they greatly supported.

The U.S.-based United Fruit Company (UFC), the largest landowner in Guatemala, fully opposed the plan, even though it was paid $600,000 (based on land values it declared for tax purposes) for unused land that was seized as the plan began to be implemented.

The UFC had close ties with the U.S. government, and lobbied the CIA and the Eisenhower administration to take action. In 1954, the administration commissioned the CIA to overthrow democratically elected president Arbenz in a plan called Operation PBSUCCESS. The plan was a success and Arbenz was forced to flee the country on June 27th.

Following the overthrow, Che offered to fight, but Arbenz instructed his foreign supporters to leave the country. After spending some time in the Argentine consulate, Che headed to Mexico.

Witnessing the events that took place in Guatemala enabled Che to understand more than ever that the U.S. was an imperialist power that would always oppose any movements that attempted to solve problems like inequality and poverty that are endemic to Latin America and the rest of the third world. His understanding of socialism as the only answer to these problems grew even stronger.

Incidentally, the U.S. sponsored military dictatorship that replaced Arbenz turned out to be one of the most brutal regimes in world history.


The Cuban Revolution
It was in Mexico City that Che would meet brothers Raul and Fidel Castro. The two were in exile from Cuba after being freed – by popular demand – from a Cuban prison to which they were sentenced after leading a failed attack on a military garrison as a part of a larger plan to overthrow U.S. sponsored dictator Fulgencio Batista. The Castro brothers and others Cubans were planning to return to Cuba as a guerrilla force named the “26th of July Movement” (after the date of the original attack on the garrison). Che immediately hit it off with Fidel and agreed to join the expedition as a medic on the first night.

After a period of training, and even imprisonment by the Mexican authorities, Fidel, Che, and 80 others departed from Tuxpan, Veracruz, aboard the cabin cruiser Granma in November 1956. Che was the only non-Cuban on board.

Bad weather, and other problems, delayed their arrival by two days, and so an armed uprising in Santiago, which was aimed at drawing away the attention of Batista's troops, ended up only serving to put them on alert. They finally landed, 30 miles away from the point where weapons and reinforcements awaited them.

Almost immediately after pulling themselves ashore they were ambushed by the dictator's army. All but a handful of the guerrillas were killed. It was during this battle that Che made a crucial decision when, while retreating, he chose to pick up a box of ammunition instead of his medical bag. He later described the situation, “Perhaps this was the first time I was confronted with the real-life dilemma of having to choose between my devotion to medicine and my duty as a revolutionary soldier. Lying at my feet were a knapsack full of medicine and a box of ammunition. They were too heavy for me to carry both of them. I grabbed the box of ammunition, leaving the medicine behind.”

Fidel, Raul, and Che were among the survivors who then made their way undetected into the rugged Sierra Maestra mountains. From here they built a strong support base amongst the region's poor farmers which would soon spread to working people across the country. The numbers of the Rebel Army grew as they continued to carry out successful attacks.

Throughout the revolution, Che continually exhibited great courage, combat and leadership skills, self-discipline, and boldness. He soon rose to the highest rank in the Rebel Army, Comandante (Major). In Late 1958, he lead his column through a long and arduous march to the city of Santa Clara, where they would soon take over after derailing an armored train filled with Batista's henchmen. This proved to be the final straw and the dictator was forced to flee the country. Guevara later recorded his memories of the two year struggle in a series of articles that would later be published as a book entitled Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War.


Revolutionary Government
On January 1st, 1959, the 26th of July Movement called for a general strike – to serve as a final blow – which lead to the victory of the revolution. For his part in the fighting Che was declared a “Cuban citizen by birth” and was appointed Commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison. Soon after he divorced his Peruvian wife, Hilda Gadea, the mother of his first child whom he married while in Guatemala. Later he would marry Aleida March, another fighter in the Rebel Army, with whom he would have 4 children.

During his six months at the prison, Che oversaw people's courts in which the Cuban people dished out revolutionary justice to brutal killers, rapists, and other war criminals that served Batista during the war.

Later, Che would become an official of INRA (the National Institute of Agrarian Reform), that carried out one of the most extensive land reforms ever seen. Large plantations were seized from big (often foreign owned) businesses and given to the poor farmers that actually worked them. An Urban Reform was also carried out in which all rents were lowered so that no renter would have to spend more than 10% of their income on housing, and, after a few years, would receive ownership of it. The mansions of the rich were turned over to the servants that worked in them and the government bought up homes which weren't being used (usually because the owners had several homes) and redistributed them to people in need of housing. U.S. owned casinos and houses of prostitution (so many in fact that Cuba was referred to as 'the whore house of the Caribbean) were closed.

Che would go on to become President of the National Bank of Cuba and Minister of Industries, positions from which he headed the major challenge of transforming Cuba's backwards, colonial, capitalist plantation economy into a socialist industrial economy. The U.S. government, angry that the socialist revolution had taken up the cause of the people over the interests of foreign-owned business, drastically cut back the amount of sugar that they purchased from Cuba (eventually imposing a full economic embargo, which stands to this day, even though it has been repeatedly condemned by all but 2 nations and deemed illegal by the United Nations), in an attempt to damage the Cuban economy. They also sabotaged buildings, farms, and factories, flew planes over the island dropping bombs, and attempted to assassinate Cuban leaders. Cuba however, would not be intimidated. Che negotiated a trade agreement with the Soviet Union in 1960 in which they agreed to buy all Cuban sugar at a price above the going rate. He also represented Cuba on many trade missions to nations – socialist or otherwise – in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Che played a major part in the reorganization of the Cuban economy along a socialist path, which enabled the country to eliminate homelessness, illiteracy, and unemployment in only a few years. He became well known as a hero of many for his fiery attacks on the United States imperialists' foreign policy in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

It was during this time that Che made many important theoretical contributions in his speeches, articles, letters, and essays. His book Guerrilla Warfare became highly influential, and was used as a guide by guerrilla movements throughout Latin America (unfortunately, many of the fighters, though very courageous, oversimplified the theories put forth in the book, eventually leading to their defeat). Groups like the FARC-EP, waging a decades long revolutionary struggle in Colombia, utilize many methods laid out in the book to this day. El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba (Man and Socialism in Cuba), put forth many of Che, and Cuba's, greatest contributions. In it Che pointed out that liberation of humankind could only come about after the people first evolved into 'new people', concerned with the welfare of everyone as a whole over the welfare of themselves as individuals. This 'evolution' could only occur when the material conditions for it existed, namely, under socialism. Later, when the continuing world revolution, and the economic crises inherent to capitalism destabilized it, the need for the socialist state would disappear and full liberation would finally exist in a society of equals without states or governments.

Che portrayed this 'new man' in his daily life. He spent his weekends and evenings volunteering in shipyards and textile factories or cutting sugarcane. He was known for his simple lifestyle, an example of which was when he refused a pay raise when he became a member of government, choosing instead to continue receiving the much lower salary he drew as a Comandante in the Rebel Army. In another famous example, when Che was served food on expensive china while dining with high-ranking officials from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during a trip to Russia, he asked the officials, “Is this how the working class lives in Russia?”

An attempted U.S. invasion, commonly known as 'the Bay of Pigs', and which was defeated in less than 72 hours, took place during Che's time in the revolutionary government. The event lead Cuba to acquire nuclear missiles from the USSR in its own defense, which resulted in the “Cuban missile crisis” in 1962.


The Disappearance
After returning from a three-month tour of the People's Republic of China, United Arab Republic, Algeria, Ghana, Mali, Dahomey, Congo-Brazzaville, and Tanzania in March of 1965, Che dropped out of public life and was not seen for some time.

Che's whereabouts were the main question in Cuba throughout the year, and many rumors began to spread – including one started by enemies of the revolution that Che and Fidel had some sort of a split. This of course was not true at all, as would be proven later.

In an interview with foreign correspondents on November 1st, Castro said that he knew where Guevara was but could not disclose the location. He said that Che was “in the best of health”. Speculation however continued at the end of the year, and Che's movements would have to be kept secret for the next two years.

During this time, an article written by Che was published in Tricontinental Magazine in which he called for complete support of the heroic Vietnamese people who were fighting against U.S. imperialist invaders, and urged comrades around the world to create “one, two, many Vietnams”


In The Congo
In March of 1965 the decision was made that Che would lead a rebel force in support of the Marxist Simba movement in the former Belgian Congo (later Zaire and currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in Africa.

Guevara worked with guerrilla leader Laurent-Desire Kabila, who had earlier helped supporters of the murdered prime minister Patrice Lumumba lead a revolt that was suppressed by the Congolese army and a large group of white mercenaries.

CIA advisors working with the Congolese army monitored Guevara's communications, arranged ambushes against the rebels and the Cubans, and interrupted their supply lines. Che had planned to teach the local Simba fighters communist ideology and the strategies and tactics of guerrilla warfare; but, due to their incompetence, superstition, and internal feuds, he was unable to, and the revolt eventually failed. After seven months, Che, who was ill and suffering from debilitating bouts of asthma, finally left the Congo with the surviving members of his Cuban column (six had died in battle). Originally, Che refused to give up and planned to send the wounded back to Cuba and then stand alone, fighting to the end as a revolutionary example; but after much debating with his comrades in arms, and Fidel, he was finally persuaded to return. Guevara documented his experiences in his Congo Diaries (later published as The African Dream).

During his time in the Congo, Fidel had made public a farewell letter written to him in which Che officially severed his ties with Cuba in order to devote himself to revolutionary activities in other parts of the world. "I feel that I have fulfilled the part of my duty that tied me to the Cuban revolution in its territory," the letter says, "And I say goodbye to you, the comrades, your people, who are already mine ... Other nations of the world call for my modest efforts. I can do that which is denied you because of your responsibility as the head of Cuba, and the time has come for us to part."

After spending six months living underground in Dar-es-Salaam, Prague, and the GDR, Che returned to Cuba, but only on a temporary basis for the few months needed to prepare another revolutionary effort, this time in Latin America.


Bolivia
Throughout 1966 and 1967 people continued to wonder where exactly Che was. Finally, in a speech at the 1967 May Day rally in Havana, Major Juan Almeida announced that Guevara was “serving the revolution somewhere in Latin America.” It would turn out that Che was leading a guerrilla army in Bolivia.

Che chose Bolivia after a 1964 coup triggered an outbreak in demonstrations, protests, strike by miners, and repression against leaders of leftist and other popular movements. When he and his comrades analyzed the situation, they saw that there was an opening for a guerrilla column made up of Bolivians, some Peruvians, and a group of well trained Cubans, to launch a revolutionary offensive. The plan was to create an international rebel army, that, after achieving victory in Bolivia, would spread the struggle to the rest of Latin America.

A piece of land was purchased in the jungles of the Nancahuazu by the Bolivian Communist party and turned over to Che for use as a training area. The Party originally pledged its full support and participation of its membership, but its leader, Mario Monjae, later decided against it after the struggle had already begun.

The rebel army, named the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional de Bolivia (National Liberation Army of Bolivia), was made up of about 50 well equipped guerrillas. They were able to launch a number of successful attacks against the Bolivian army in the mountainous Camiri region, despite the fact that it was being trained in jungle warfare and aided by U.S. Army Special Forces.

But problems, such as the refusal of the Communist Party of Bolivia to deliver expected assistance, materials, and reinforcements (the Party leadership went as far as to refuse to tell would-be volunteers how and where to join the guerrillas), eventually lead to some defeats. In September the Bolivian Army managed to eliminate two small groups of guerrillas.

Additionally, with full CIA backing, counter-revolutionary Cuban exiles set up interrogation houses in which they tortured 300,000 Bolivians in search of supporters of Che and the guerrillas.


Capture and Assassination
To make matters worse a deserter betrayed the guerrillas and lead Bolivian Special Forces directly to them. On October 8th, their encampment was encircled and a shoot out took place. Che refused to surrender and was captured only after being shot in both knees and having his gun destroyed by a bullet.

Che was taken to a old schoolhouse where he was held overnight. On the next afternoon he was murdered by a sergeant in the Bolivian army while he was tied by his hands to a board. Before he was executed, Che said these last words: “I know you are here to kill me. Shoot coward! You are only going to kill a man.”

After a military doctor cut off Che's hands, Bolivian army officers moved his body to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal if his remains had been buried or cremated.

CIA agent Felix Rodriguez, who also took part in the failed invasions of Cuba and Vietnam, took Che's watch and still displays it to this day.

On October 15 Fidel Castro gave an emotional speech in which informed the world of Che's death and proclaimed three days of public mourning in Cuba. The death was considered a severe blow to the revolutionary movement and deeply saddened oppressed people around the world.

The diary Che kept in Bolivia was removed when he was captured. In it, he documented the events of the guerrilla campaign. He wrote of how the guerrillas were forced to begin operation much earlier than they had planned due to discovery by the Bolivian Army. He also recorded the rift between the Bolivian Communist Party and himself, which resulted in the rebel army having far fewer soldiers than was originally expected. Che also wrote of his increasing illness towards the end of the campaign. His asthma was getting worse, and most of his last offensives were made simply in an attempt to obtain medicine which he should have been able to acquire through the Bolivian Communist Party.

In 1997, Che's skeletal remains were exhumed from beneath an air strip near Vallegrande, Bolivia, positively identified by DNA matching, and returned to Cuba. On October 17, 1997, his remains were laid to rest with full military honors in a specially built mausoleum, the Plaza Comandante Ernesto Guevara, in the city of Santa Clara, where he won the decisive battle of the Cuban Revolution thirty-nine years earlier.


Legacy of a Revolutionary Hero
When Che's murder was announced protests broke out throughout the world, and articles, books, poems and songs were written about his life, death, and message. Che is especially revered because of his spirit of self-sacrifice, illustrated by his choice to reject a comfortable life and instead join, and take up the cause of the worlds poor, oppressed majority. He never gave up that cause, continuing to give his all to the revolutionary struggle until his death.

The famous photo taken of Che by photographer Alberto Korda in 1960, which became one of the 20th centuries most recognizable images, has become a symbol of liberation – through socialist revolution – for millions of people.

French philosopher Jean-Paul Sarte called Che “the most complete human being of our age,” and he was correct in doing so. Ernesto “Che” Guevara was one of the most important, and most dedicated revolutionaries we have ever known. But his struggle is far from over. The oppressed masses of the world must continue to fight for freedom, justice, and equality through socialist revolution – the only way it can be achieved – as Che said, “Hasta la victoria, siempre!” [Always, until the victory!]

What We Say

Terrorism is the use of force or violence against persons or property in violation of the criminal laws of the United States for purposes of intimidation, coercion or ransom. Terrorists often use threats to create fear among the public, to try to convince citizens that their government is powerless to prevent terrorism, and to get immediate publicity for their causes.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) categorizes terrorism in the United States as one of two types--domestic terrorism or international terrorism.

Domestic terrorism involves groups or individuals whose terrorist activities are directed at elements of our government or population without foreign direction.

International terrorism involves groups or individuals whose terrorist activities are foreign-based and/or directed by countries or groups outside the United States or whose activities transcend national boundaries.

If we consider above mention Definition By FBI is right then what we say on the different Assassinations or Planning for Same prominent foreign individuals the United States has been involved in since the end of the Second World War. The list does not include several assassinations in various parts of the world carried out by anti-Castro Cubans employed by the CIA and headquartered in the United States.

1949 - Kim Koo, Korean opposition leader

1950s - CIA/Neo-Nazi hit list of more than 200 political figures in West Germany
to be "put out of the way" in the event of a Soviet invasion

1950s - Chou En-lai, Prime minister of China, several attempts on his life

1950s, 1962 - Sukarno, President of Indonesia

1951 - Kim Il Sung, Premier of North Korea

1953 - Mohammed Mossadegh, Prime Minister of Iran

1950s (mid) - Claro M. Recto, Philippines opposition leader

1955 - Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India

1957 - Gamal Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt

1959, 1963, 1969 - Norodom Sihanouk, leader of Cambodia

1960 - Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, leader of Iraq

1950s-70s - José Figueres, President of Costa Rica, two attempts on his life

1961 - Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, leader of Haiti

1961 - Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Congo (Zaire)

1961 - Gen. Rafael Trujillo, leader of Dominican Republic

1963 - Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam

1960s-70s - Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, many attempts on his life

1960s - Raúl Castro, high official in government of Cuba

1965 - Francisco Caamaño, Dominican Republic opposition leader

1965-6 - Charles de Gaulle, President of France

1967 - Che Guevara, Cuban leader

1970 - Salvador Allende, President of Chile

1970 - Gen. Rene Schneider, Commander-in-Chief of Army, Chile

1970s, 1981 - General Omar Torrijos, leader of Panama

1972 - General Manuel Noriega, Chief of Panama Intelligence

1975 - Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire

1976 - Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica

1980-1986 - Muammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya, several plots and attempts upon his life

1982 - Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran

1983 - Gen. Ahmed Dlimi, Moroccan Army commander

1983 - Miguel d'Escoto, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua

1984 - The nine comandantes of the Sandinista National Directorate

1985 - Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanese Shiite leader (80 people killed in the attempt)

1991 - Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq

1993 - Mohamed Farah Aideed, prominent clan leader of Somalia

1998, 2001-2 - Osama bin Laden, leading Islamic militant

1999 - Slobodan Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia

2002 - Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Afghan Islamic leader and warlord

2003 - Saddam Hussein and his two sons


Taken from Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
by William Blum, email:bblum6@aol.com

And After this list what American Government Say about following facts

Zbigniew Brzezinski revealed a hidden Fact that on July 3, 1979, unknown to the public and American Congress that President Jimmy Carter secretly authorized $500 million to create an international terrorist movement that would spread Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia and "de-stabilize" the Soviet Union...
The CIA called this Operation Cyclone and in the following years poured $4 billion into setting up Islamic training schools in Pakistan (Taliban means "student").

These people were sent to the CIA's spy training camp in Virginia, where future members of al-Qaeda were taught "sabotage skills" - terrorism.
Others were recruited at an Islamic school in Brooklyn, New York, In Pakistan; they were directed by British MI6 officers and trained by the SAS.
The result, quipped Brzezinski, was "a few stirred up Muslims" - meaning the Taliban.

The Wall Street Journal "The Taliban are the players most capable of achieving peace. Moreover, they were crucial to secure the country as a prime trans-shipment route for the export of Central Asia's vast oil, gas and other natural resources."
No American newspaper dares suggest that the prisoners in Camp X-Ray are the product of this policy, nor that it was one of the factors that led to the attacks of September 11.
Nor do they ask: who were the real winners of September 11?
The day the Wall Street stock market opened after the destruction of the Twin Towers, the few companies showing increased value were the giant military contractors Alliant Tech Systems, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon (a contributor to New Labor) and Lockheed Martin.
As the US military's biggest supplier, Lockheed Martin's share value rose by a staggering 30 per cent.
Within six weeks of September 11, the company (with its main plant in Texas, George Bush's home state) had secured the biggest military order in history: a $200 billion contract to develop a new fighter aircraft. The greatest taboo of all, which Orwell would surely recognize, is the record of the United States as a terrorist state and haven for terrorists.

This truth is virtually unknown by the American public and makes a admiration of Bush's (and Blair's) statements about "tracking down terrorists wherever they are."

They don't have to look far. Many people are under there nose but they even don’t want to see them because most of them are there virtual hands for the fear business.

The al-Qaeda training camps are kindergartens compared with the world's leading university of terrorism at Fort Benning in Georgia. Known until recently as the School of the Americas, its graduates include almost half the cabinet ministers of the genocidal regimes in Guatemala, two thirds of the El Salvadoran army officers who committed, according to the United Nations, the worst atrocities of that country's civil war, and the head of Pinochet's secret police, who ran Chile's concentration camps.

The humane response of people all over the world to the terrorism of September 11 has long been captured by those Greedy so-called Leaders running for the great power with a history of terrorism There Ultimate Goal Is Global supremacy, not the defeat of terrorism

As soldiers have died in displaying personal patriotism

As soldiers have died in displaying personal patriotism, the pay gap between soldiers and defense CEOs has exploded. Before 9/11, the gap between CEOs of publicly traded companies and army privates was already a galling 190 to 1. Today, it is 308 to 1. The average army private makes $25,000 a year. The average defense CEO makes $7.7 million.
``Did this surprise us? No, because we've been watching since Sept. 11," said Betsy Leondar-Wright, communications director for United for a Fair Economy. ``While the rest of us were worrying about terrorism and mourning the people who died, the CEOs were maneuvering their companies to take advantage of fear and changing oil supply, not just for competition but for personal enrichment."
The top profiteers after 9/11 were the CEOs of United Technologies ($200 million), General Dynamics ($65 million), Lockheed Martin ($50 million), and Halliburton ($49 million). Other firms where CEO pay the last four years added up to $25 million to $45 million were Textron, Engineered Support Systems, Computer Sciences, Alliant Techsystems, Armor Holding, Boeing, Health Net, ITT Industries, Northrop Grumman, Oshkosh Truck, URS, and Raytheon.
While Army privates died overseas earning $25,000 a year, David Brooks, the disgraced former CEO of body-armor maker DHB, made $192 million in stock sales in 2004. He staged a reported $10 million bat mitzvah for his daughter. The 2005 pay package for Halliburton CEO David Lesar, head of the firm that most symbolizes the occupation's waste, overcharges, and ghost charges on no-bid contracts, was $26 million, according to the report's analysis of federal Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
``Those examples take the cake, especially because it's all related to their government contracts, which is money straight out of the taxpayer's pocket

Origins of the neo-conservative movement

Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons wrote that:

Neoconservatives, including many Jewish and Catholic intellectuals rooted in Cold War liberalism, clustered around publications such as Public Interest and Commentary and organizations such as the Committee on the Present Danger. They emphasized foreign policy, where they advocated aggressive anticommunism, U.S. global dominance, and international alliances. Although they attacked feminism, gay rights, and multiculturalism, "neocons" often placed less emphasis on social policy issues, and many of them opposed school prayer or a ban on abortion. In addition, many neocons supported limited social welfare programs and nonrestrictive immigration policies. Inter-Press Service journalist Jim Lobe noted that the development of a common understanding on the definition of neoconservative "can help distinguish them from other parts of the ideological coalition behind the administration's neo-imperialist trajectory". Lobe identifies the main strands as "the traditional Republican Machtpolitikers (Might Makes Right), such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, and the Christian Rightists, such as Attorney General John Ashcroft, Gary Bauer, and Pat Robertson.

Writing in 2002 Lobe and Tom Barry argued that"neoconservatives have a profound belief in America1s moral superiority, which facilitates alliances with the Christian Right and other social conservatives. But unlike either core traditionalists of American conservatism or those with isolationist tendencies, neoconservatives are committed internationalists. As they did in the 1970s, the neoconservatives were instrumental in the late 1990s in helping to fuse diverse elements of the right into a unified force based on a new agenda of U.S. supremacy.

U.S. built major Iranian nuclear facility

U.S. built major Iranian nuclear facility

In the heart of Tehran sits one of Iran's most important nuclear facilities, a dome-shaped building where scientists have conducted secret experiments that could help the country build atomic bombs. It was provided to the Iranians by the United States.

The Tehran Research Reactor represents a little-known aspect of the international uproar over the country's alleged weapons program. Not only did the U.S. provide the reactor in the 1960s as part of a Cold War strategy, America also supplied the weapons-grade uranium needed to power the facility庸uel that remains in Iran and could be used to help make nuclear arms.

As the U.S. and other countries wrestle with Iran's refusal this week to curb its nuclear capabilities, an examination of the Tehran facility sheds light on the degree to which the United States has been complicit in Iran developing those capabilities.

Though the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has found no proof Iran is building a bomb, the agency says the country has repeatedly concealed its nuclear activities from inspectors. And some of these activities have taken place in the U.S.-supplied reactor, IAEA records show, including experiments with uranium, a key material in the production of nuclear weapons.

U.S. officials point to these activities as evidence Iran is trying to construct nuclear arms, but they do not publicly mention that the work has taken place in a U.S.-supplied facility.

The U.S. provided the reactor when America was eager to prop up the shah, who also was aligned against the Soviet Union at the time. After the Islamic revolution toppled the shah in 1979, the reactor became a reminder that in geopolitics, today's ally can become tomorrow's threat.

Also missing from the current debate over Iran's nuclear intentions is emerging evidence that its research program may be more troubled than previously known.

The Bush administration has portrayed the program as a sophisticated operation that has skillfully hid its true mission of making the bomb. But in the case of the Tehran Research Reactor, a study by a top Iranian scientist suggests otherwise.

After a serious accident in 2001 at the U.S.-supplied reactor, the scientist concluded that poor quality control at the facility was a "chronic disease." Problems included carelessness, sloppy bookkeeping and a staff so poorly trained that workers had a weak understanding of "the most basic and simple principles of physics and mathematics," according to the study, presented at an international nuclear conference in 2004 in France.

The Iranian scientist, Morteza Gharib, told the Tribune that management of the facility had improved in the past three years. When asked whether sloppiness at the reactor might have contributed to some of Iran's troubles with the IAEA, Gharib wrote in an email: "It is always possible, for any system, to commit infractions inadvertently due to lack of proper bookkeeping."

Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at Harvard University, said bungling might be to blame for some infractions, but the Iranians clearly concealed major nuclear activities, such as building a facility to enrich uranium. "This was not an oversight," he said.

Another overlooked concern about the Tehran reactor is the weapons-grade fuel the U.S. provided Iran in the 1960s預bout 10 pounds of highly enriched uranium, the most valuable material to bomb makers. It is still at the reactor and susceptible to theft, U.S. scientists familiar with the situation said.

This uranium has already been burned in the reactor, but the "spent fuel" is still highly enriched and could be used in a bomb. Normally, spent fuel is so radioactive that terrorists cannot handle it without causing themselves great harm. But the spent fuel in Iran has sat in storage for so long that it is probably no longer highly radioactive and could be handled easily, the U.S. scientists say.

The fuel is about one-fifth the amount needed to make a nuclear weapon, but experts said it could be combined with other material to construct a bomb.

In an interview, Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, an arm of the U.S. Energy Department, said the U.S. would like to retrieve the U.S.-supplied fuel, but the top priority has been to get Iran to suspend its enrichment efforts.

Under the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. But the UN Security Council, saying Iran has failed to prove it is not building weapons, has demanded Iran stop enrichment by Aug. 31 or face economic sanctions. This week, Iran offered "serious talks" on its nuclear activities but did not promise to stop enriching uranium.

While Brooks downplayed the proliferation risk of the Tehran Research Reactor, some experts believe the facility is so important to Iran's nuclear program that it would be targeted in a U.S. military strike on Iran.

"Its purpose is mainly advanced training and producing a cadre of nuclear engineers," said Paul Rogers, an arms control expert at the University of Bradford in England. "So it's one of the facilities that is really quite significant."

Exactly how significant is unclear. The Tehran reactor provided the foundation for Iran's nuclear program, but that program now consists of numerous other facilities as well. And over the years, Iran has obtained nuclear aid from various sources, including Russia and the black market network of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. China also has supplied research reactors.

Most of the world's nuclear research reactors, which train students or produce radioisotopes for medicine, fall under IAEA restrictions. Agency inspectors have visited the Tehran facility several times in recent years. Iran says its nuclear program, including the U.S.-supplied reactor, is solely for peaceful purposes.

When arguing for tough penalties on Iran, U.S. officials have pointed to activities in the U.S.-supplied reactor.

In 2004, John Bolton, the State Department's senior arms control official at the time, told a congressional panel that Iran's covert nuclear weapons program was marked by a "two-decades-long record of obfuscation and deceit." He cited experiments in the reactor as part of the evidence.

Several months later, Bolton told another congressional panel that Iran had received technological assistance from companies in Russia, China and North Korea in an attempt to develop missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Countries that provide Iran such weapons-of-mass-destruction technology "ought to know better," said Bolton, now the American ambassador to the United Nations. If foreign companies aid Iran, the U.S. "will impose economic burdens and brand them as proliferators."

What Bolton didn't note: America's role in Iran's nuclear program.

That role has complicated U.S. efforts to gain support for greater restrictions on Iran. For instance, the U.S. wants Russia to take a firmer stance on Iran's nuclear program and has been critical of Russian efforts to help Iran build a nuclear power plant.

But Russia has noted the U.S. had no problem providing Iran a research reactor and highly enriched uranium when it was politically expedient.

Those who defend the U.S. say it should not be faulted for aiding Iran in the past. "It's not the international community's fault for helping Iran exercise its rights in the past" to develop nuclear energy for peaceful uses, said Lewis, the Harvard expert. "It's Iran's fault for not living up to its safeguards obligation."

Iran's nuclear program can be traced to the Cold War era, when the U.S. provided nuclear technology to its allies, including Iran. In 1953, the CIA secretly helped overthrow Iran's democratically elected prime minister and restore the shah of Iran to power.

In the 1960s, the U.S. provided Iran its first nuclear research reactor. Despite Iran's enormous oil reserves, the shah wanted to build numerous nuclear power reactors, which American and other Western companies planned to supply.

Yet today, the U.S. argues that Iran does not need to develop nuclear power because of those same petroleum resources.

In 1979, when the shah was overthrown and U.S. hostages taken, America and Iran became enemies; Iran's nuclear power program stalled.

The U.S. refused to give Iran any more highly enriched uranium for its reactor, and Iran eventually obtained new fuel from Argentina. This fuel is too low in enrichment to be used in weapons but powerful enough to run the facility. To this day, the reactor runs on this kind of fuel from Argentina.

In papers filed with the IAEA, Iran states that before the 1979 revolution it gave the U.S. $2 million for additional highly enriched uranium fuel for its American-supplied reactor but the U.S. neither provided the fuel nor returned the $2 million.

In 2003, shortly after IAEA officials inspected the U.S.-supplied reactor, Iran acknowledged it had conducted experiments on uranium in the reactor between 1988 and 1992預ctivities that had not been previously reported to the agency.

The IAEA rebuked Iran for failing to report these experiments and expressed concern about other activities in the reactor. These included tests involving the production of polonium-210, a radioisotope useful in nuclear batteries but also in nuclear weapons.

Inspectors also were curious why some uranium was missing from two small cylinders. Iran said the uranium probably leaked when the cylinders were stored under the roof of the research reactor, where heat in the summer reached 131 degrees Fahrenheit.

When inspectors took samples from under the roof, they indeed found uranium particles. But inspectors did not think Iran's explanation about leaking cylinders was plausible.

Eventually, Iran acknowledged the missing uranium had been used in key enrichment tests in another facility.

The Big Lie About 'Islamic Fascism'

The Big Lie About 'Islamic Fascism'

by Eric Margolis
by Eric Margolis


DIGG THIS

The latest big lie unveiled by Washington’s neoconservatives are the poisonous terms, "Islamo-Fascists" and "Islamic Fascists." They are the new, hot buzzwords among America’s far right and Christian fundamentalists.

President George W. Bush made a point last week of using "Islamofacists" when recently speaking of Hezbullah and Hamas – both, by the way, democratically elected parties. A Canadian government minister from the Conservative Party compared Lebanon’s Hezbullah to Nazi Germany.

The term "Islamofascist" is utterly without meaning, but packed with emotional explosives. It is a propaganda creation worthy Dr. Goebbels, and the latest expression of the big lie technique being used by neocons in Washington’s propaganda war against its enemies in the Muslim World.

This ugly term was probably first coined in Israel – as was the other hugely successful propaganda term, "terrorism" – to dehumanize and demonize opponents and deny them any rational political motivation, hence removing any need to deal with their grievances and demands.

As the brilliant humanist Sir Peter Ustinov so succinctly put it, "Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich."

Both the terms "terrorism" and "fascist" have been so abused and overused that they have lost any original meaning. The best modern definition I’ve read of fascism comes in former Columbia University Professor Robert Paxton’s superb 2004 book, The Anatomy of Fascism.

Paxton defines fascism’s essence, which he aptly terms its "emotional lava" as: 1. a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign "contamination."

Fascism demands a succession of wars, foreign conquests, and national threats to keep the nation in a state of fear, anxiety and patriotic hypertension. Those who disagree are branded ideological traitors. All successful fascists regimes, Paxton points out, allied themselves to traditional conservative parties, and to the military-industrial complex.

Highly conservative and militaristic regimes are not necessarily fascist, says Paxton. True fascism requires relentless aggression abroad and a semi-religious adoration of the regime at home.

None of the many Muslim groups opposing US-British control of the Mideast fit Paxton’s definitive analysis. The only truly fascist group ever to emerge in the Mideast was Lebanon’s Maronite Christian Phalange Party in the 1930’s which, ironically, became an ally of Israel’s rightwing in the 1980’s.

It is grotesque watching the Bush Administration and Tony Blair maintain the ludicrous pretense they are re-fighting World War II. The only similarity between that era and today is the cultivation of fear, war fever and racist-religious hate by US neoconservatives and America’s religious far right, which is now boiling with hatred for anything Muslim.

Under the guise of fighting a "third world war" against "Islamic fascism," America’s far right is infecting its own nation with the harbingers of WWII totalitarianism.

In the western world, hatred of Muslims has become a key ideological hallmark of rightwing parties. We see this overtly in the United States, France, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Poland, and, most lately, Canada, and more subtly expressed in Britain and Belgium. The huge uproar over blatantly anti-Muslim cartoons published in Denmark laid bare the seething Islamophobia spreading through western society.

There is nothing in any part of the Muslim World that resembles the corporate fascist states of western history. In fact, clan and tribal-based traditional Islamic society, with its fragmented power structures, local loyalties, and consensus decision-making, is about as far as possible from western industrial state fascism.

The Muslim World is replete with brutal dictatorships, feudal monarchies, and corrupt military-run states, but none of these regimes, however deplorable, fits the standard definition of fascism. Most, in fact, are America’s allies.

Nor do underground Islamic militant groups ("terrorists" in western terminology). They are either focused on liberating land from foreign occupation, overthrowing "un-Islamic" regimes, driving western influence from their region, or imposing theocracy based on early Islamic democracy.

Claims by fevered neoconservatives that Muslim radicals plan to somehow impose a worldwide Islamic caliphate are lurid fantasies worthy of Dr. Fu Manchu and yet another example of the big lie technique that worked so well over Iraq.

As Prof. Andrew Bosworth notes in an incisive essay on so-called Islamic fascism, "Islamic fundamentalism is a transnational movement inherently opposed to the pseudo-nationalism necessary for fascism."

However, there are plenty of modern fascists. But to find them, you have to go to North America and Europe. These neo-fascists advocate "preemptive attacks against all potential enemies," grabbing other nation’s resources, overthrowing uncooperative governments, military dominance of the world, hatred of Semites (Muslims in this case), adherence to biblical prophecies, hatred of all who fail to agree, intensified police controls, and curtailment of "liberal" political rights.

They revel in flag-waving, patriotic melodrama, demonstrations of military power, and use the mantle of patriotism to feather the nests of the military-industrial complex, colluding legislators and lobbyists. They urge war to the death, fought, of course, by other people’s children. They have turned important sectors of the media into propaganda organs and brought the Pentagon largely under their control.

Now, the neoconservatives are busy whipping up war against Syria and Iran to keep themselves in power and maintain the political dynamics of this 21st century revival of fascism.

The real modern fascists are not in the Muslim World, but Washington. The neocons screaming fascist the loudest, are the true fascists themselves. It’s a pity that communist and leftist propaganda so debased the term "neo-fascist" that it has become almost meaningless. Because that is what we should be calling the so-called neocons, for that is what they really are.

August 29, 2006The Big Lie About 'Islamic Fascism'