Meet the President of Europe, one of the elite’s own

One of their own: Herman Van Rompuy, first President of the European Union

Brussels Journal | Nov 20, 2009

by Paul Belien

Herman Van Rompuy. Get used to the name. He is the first President of the European Union, which with the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon by all the 27 EU member states in early November was transformed into a genuine United States of Europe.

The President of Europe has not been elected; he was appointed in a secret meeting of the heads of government of the 27 EU member states. They chose one of their own. Herman Van Rompuy was the Prime Minister of Belgium. I knew him when he was just setting out, reluctantly, on his political career.

To understand Herman, one must know something about Belgium, a tiny country in Western Europe, and the prototype of the EU. Belgians do not exist as a nation. Belgium is an artificial state, constructed by the international powers in 1830 as a political compromise and experiment. The country consists of 6 million Dutch, living in Flanders, the northern half of the country, and 4 million French, living in Wallonia, the southern half. The Belgian Dutch, called Flemings, would have preferred to stay part of the Netherlands, as they were until 1830, while the Belgian French, called Walloons, would have preferred to join France. Instead, they were forced to live together in one state.

Belgians do not like their state. They despise it. They say it represents nothing. There are no Belgian patriots, because no-one is willing to die for a flag which does not represent anything. Because Belgium represents nothing, multicultural ideologues love Belgium. They say that without patriotism, there would be no wars and the world would be a better place. As John Lennon sang “Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.”

In 1957, Belgian politicians stood at the cradle of the European Union. Their aim was to turn the whole of Europe into a Greater Belgium, so that wars between the nations of Europe would no longer be possible as there would no longer be nations, the latter all having been incorporated into an artificial superstate.

A closer look at Belgium, the laboratory of Europe, shows, however, that the country lacks more than patriotism. It also lacks democracy, respect for the rule of law, and political morality. In 1985, in his book De Afwezige Meerderheid (The Absent Majority) the late Flemish philosopher Lode Claes (1913-1997) argued that without identity and a sense of genuine nationhood, there can also be no democracy and no morality.

One of the people who were deeply influenced by Dr. Claes’s thesis was a young politician named Herman Van Rompuy. In the mid-1980s, Van Rompuy, a conservative Catholic, born in 1947, was active in the youth section of the Flemish Christian-Democrat Party. He wrote books and articles about the importance of traditional values, the role of religion, the protection of the unborn life, the Christian roots of Europe and the need to preserve them. The undemocratic and immoral nature of Belgian politics repulsed him and led to a sort of crisis of conscience. Lode Claes, who was near to retiring, offered Herman the opportunity of succeeding him as the director of Trends, a Belgian financial-economic weekly magazine. It is in this context that I made Herman’s acquaintance. He invited me for lunch one day to ask whether, if he accepted the offer to enter journalism, I would be willing to join him. It was then that he told me that he was considering leaving politics and was weighing the options for the professional life he would pursue.

I am not sure what happened next, however. Maybe word had reached the leadership of the Christian Democrat Party that Herman, a brilliant economist and intellectual, was considering leaving politics; perhaps they made him an offer he could not refuse. Herman remained in politics. He was made a Senator and entered government as a junior minister. In 1988, he became the party leader of the governing Christian-Democrats.

Our paths crossed at intervals until 1990, when the Belgian Parliament voted a very liberal abortion bill. The Belgian King Baudouin (1930-1993), a devout Catholic who suffered from the fact that he and his wife could not have any children, had told friends that he would “rather abdicate than sign the bill.” The Belgian politicians, convinced that the King was bluffing, did not want the Belgian people to know about the King’s objections to the bill. I wrote about this on the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal and was subsequently reprimanded by the Belgian newspaper I worked for, following an angry telephone call from the then Belgian Prime Minister, a Christian-Democrat, to my editor, who was this Prime Minister’s former spokesman. I was no longer allowed to write about Belgian affairs for foreign newspapers.

In April 1990, the King did in fact abdicate over the abortion issue, and the Christian-Democrat Party, led by Herman Van Rompuy, who had always prided himself on being a good Catholic, had one of Europe’s most liberal abortion bills signed by the college of ministers, a procedure provided by the Belgian Constitution for situations when there is no King. Then they had the King voted back on the throne the following day. I wrote about the whole affair in a critical follow-up article for The Wall Street Journal and was subsequently fired by my newspaper “for grievous misconduct”. A few weeks later, I met Herman at the wedding of a mutual friend. I approached him for a chat. I could see he felt very uncomfortable. He avoided eye contact and broke off the conversation as soon as he could. We have not spoken since.

Herman’s political career continued. He became Belgium’s Budget Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Speaker of the Chamber of Representatives and finally Prime Minister. He kept publishing intellectual and intelligent books, but instead of defending the concept of the good, he now defended the concept of “the lesser evil.” And he began to write haiku.

Two years ago, Belgium faced its deepest political crisis ever. The country was on the verge of collapse following a 2003 ruling by its Supreme Court that the existing electoral district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (BHV), encompassing both the bilingual capital Brussels and the surrounding Dutch-speaking countryside of Halle-Vilvoorde, was unconstitutional and that Parliament should remedy the situation. The ruling came in response to a complaint that the BHV district was unconstitutional and should be divided into a bilingual electoral district Brussels and a Dutch-language electoral district Halle-Vilvoorde. This complaint had been lodged by… Herman Van Rompuy, a Flemish inhabitant of the Halle-Vilvoorde district.

In 2003, however, the Christian-Democrats were not in government and Herman was a leader of the opposition. His complaint was intended to cause political problems for Belgium’s Liberal government, which refused to divide the BHV district because the French-speaking parties in the government refused to accept the verdict of the Supreme Court. The Flemish Christian-Democrats went to the June 2007 general elections with as their major theme the promise that, once in government, they would split BHV. Herman campaigned on the issue, his party won the elections and became Flanders’ largest party.

Belgium’s political crisis dragged on from June until December 2007 because it proved impossible to put together a government consisting of sufficient Dutch-speaking (Flemish) and French-speaking (Walloon) politicians. The Flemings demanded that BHV be split, as instructed by the Supreme Court; the Walloons refused to do so. Ultimately, the Flemish Christian-Democrats gave in, reneged on their promise to their voters, and agreed to join a government without BHV being split. Worse still, the new government has more French-speaking than Dutch-speaking ministers, and does not have the support of the majority of the Flemings in Parliament, although the Flemings make up a 60% majority of the Belgian population. Herman became the Speaker of the Parliament. In this position he had to prevent Parliament, and the Flemish representatives there, from voting a bill to split BHV. He succeeded in this, by using all kinds of tricks. One day he even had the locks of the plenary meeting room changed so that Parliament could not convene to vote on the issue. On another occasion, he did not show up in his office for a whole week to avoid opening a letter demanding him to table the matter. His tactics worked. In December 2008, when the Belgian Prime Minister had to resign in the wake of a financial scandal, Herman became the new leader of the predominantly French-speaking government which does not represent the majority of Belgium’s ethnic majority group. During the past 11 months, he has skillfully managed to postpone any parliamentary vote on the BHV matter, thereby prolonging a situation which the Supreme Court, responding to Herman’s own complaint in 2003, has ruled to be unconstitutional.

Now, Herman has moved on to lead Europe. Like Belgium, the European Union is an undemocratic institution, which needs shrewd leaders who are capable of renouncing everything they once believed in and who know how to impose decisions on the people against the will of the people. Never mind democracy, morality or the rule of law, our betters know what is good for us more than we do. And Herman is now one of our betters. He has come a long way since the days when he was disgusted with Belgian-style politics.

Herman is like Saruman, the wise wizard in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, who went over to the other side. He used to care about the things we cared about. But no longer. He has built himself a high tower from where he rules over all of us.

________

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Europeans Meet (Soviet-Style) to Choose First-Ever EU President

Geo-strategists are debating whether Europe’s superpower moment is or is not just around the corner. But if the nomination process for the individual who will represent 500 million Europeans has demonstrated anything at all, it is that Europe is inexorably moving in a direction that has far more in common with Soviet totalitarianism than with Western liberal democracy.

EU strong-armed nations into submitting to a single president over all Europe

FILE – In this Oct. 9, 2009 file photo, Britain’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair attends a reception in London. Very soon, Europeans from Denmark to Bulgaria will wake up to the reality of having their very first president, one person world leaders can call when they want to talk to Europe. It’s taken a lot of history to get here. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, Pool, File)

AP | Nov 15, 2009

By ANGELA CHARLTON

PARIS — The European Union has battled long and hard for this moment: the imminent choice of its first president.

To get there, the EU strong-armed Irish voters, brushed aside hostile French and Dutch ballots, and pressured the Czech president into agreeing to a single leader to give Europe a strong voice on the world stage.

Yet after all that, EU leaders meeting Thursday may end up picking someone from a small country with little international power instead of a charismatic heavyweight to head this continental bloc of 27 nations, half a billion people and huge economic heft.

To pick a boss they can all live with, they must strike the right balance between big countries and small, east and west, socialists and conservatives, perhaps male and female. They must maneuver between proponents of a strong Europe and those who fear it — eurocentrics and euroskeptics, in the local parlance.

It’s a diplomatic minefield.

The decision will help define Europe’s future, the climax of a decade of agonized contortions and oft-thwarted efforts to make the EU about more than money and markets and common rules about what bananas Europeans can buy.

“The time has come to have a personality who will make an imprint … a European mark” on world affairs from Iran’s nuclear program to relations with Russia, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said last week.

“We should have weight in the world; we are 500 million people,” he said. “We should participate in world events and not just finance them.”

The early favorite was Britain’s former prime minister, Tony Blair, but his candidacy has run into trouble. He cuts a big figure on the world stage — perhaps too big for the liking of other powerful figures such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Now the talk among diplomats is that the EU president won’t be that globally powerful after all and that the role will primarily be to liaise internally among EU governments. That would leave room for a low-profile president and a more eye-catching figure in the No. 2 slot of EU foreign minister, which carry the real international oomph.

There’s talk of grudges: Will Britain block Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as punishment for Belgian objections to Blair? Will Poland nix Italy’s Massimo d’Alema because of his communist past?

The path toward giving Europe a public face has been a tortured one. First, there was the EU constitution, which was meant to streamline decision-making and stipulated creating a president and a commissioner of defense and foreign affairs. But French and Dutch voters rejected the constitution in referendums in 2005, fearing a threat to their sovereignty.

Then a toned-down reform treaty was born. That made it past most governments — but then Irish voters said no.

They were talked into a second vote, said yes — and then the euroskeptic Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, resisted. Under heavy pressure, the Czechs also signed on last week.

There are no declared candidates and no public campaigns. President Barack Obama’s future European counterpart will be determined not by elections but over a closed-door dinner.

Blair’s most visible handicap is his enthusiasm for the Iraq war, which many Europeans opposed. He is especially resented among European leaders who bucked resistance at home to join the euro, the bloc’s common currency, only for Britain to stay out of it.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband is often mentioned for the job of foreign minister, but he insists he’s not in the running.

Being on the left and coming from a big country, Miliband could have been nicely balanced against a conservative from a small country holding the presidency, such as Dutch Premier Jan Peter Balkenende, Belgium’s Van Rompuy or former Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel.

At the last EU summit two weeks ago, calls mounted to give the presidency to a woman. That boosted the long-shot chances of Latvian former President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

The logic of choices is often mysterious or counterintuitive. Balkenende is vaunted as a good candidate because his country’s voters rejected the EU constitution, “which should comfort the euroskeptics,” the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad surmised.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt is known internationally for his U.N. role in the Balkans, but says he’s not running. He says only that Europe’s president should be “a good person.”

The European Union that rose from the ashes of World War II has torn down its borders, adopted common standards in everything from the death penalty to the weight of cargo trucks. It has dug a tunnel to link Britain to the Continent and its haves have poured billions into its have-not member states — 10 from the former communist bloc — raising their living standards beyond recognition.

And that’s where it should stop, say the euroskeptics, before national governments lose their sovereignty to a faceless superstate.

A face, say the europhiles, is exactly what Europe needs in order to take its proper place on the world stage. They have a stock phrase: When America needs to talk to Europe, it doesn’t know whom to call.

Now, said France’s Kouchner, “Europe will have a telephone number.”

Obama: Communist China’s rising role on world stage no cause for alarm, nothing to worry about

Tourists are reflected in the window of a shop displaying shirts and pouches bearing an image U.S. President Barack Obama’s face imprinted over that of China’s late leader Mao Zedong, in the popular tourist area of Houhai in central Beijing September 21, 2009. Obama, who will visit Shanghai and Beijing for the first time on Nov. 15-18, spent much of his childhood in Hawaii, five time zones away from Washington, D.C. ; and beginning in 1967, when he was six years old, he lived in Jakarta for four years. Although U.S. President Barack Obama has never set foot there, China cast a long shadow in the Pacific region where he grew up. Picture taken September 21, 2009. To match Special Report CHINA/USA. Reuters Pictures

The Observer | Nov 15, 2009

by Tania Branigan

Barack Obama introduced himself as America’s “first Pacific president” as he launched his four-nation tour of the region, vowing to deepen ties with Asia and arguing that China’s rise should be welcomed rather than feared.

Kicking off his visit in Tokyo, he also sought to thaw the chill in relations with his hosts, America’s closest allies in the region. The new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has vowed to make Japan less dependent on the US, but the two men agreed to put off the issue of resolving the future of US forces in Japan.

However, police in China are reported to have detained dozens of dissidents in a crackdown ahead of Obama’s arrival there today. Human rights campaigners said that at least 30 activists who were expected to apply for the right to hold protests directed at the Chinese government during the US president’s visit were arrested.

Reformers worry that Obama will play down China’s poor human rights record in order to maintain good relations on issues such as the economy. “We get the impression Obama doesn’t want to talk about human rights on this trip, but it is precisely because of his visit here that these people are being rounded up and detained right now,” Ai Weiwei, a Beijing-based artist and social commentator, told the Financial Times.

Speaking yesterday during the first stop on his nine-day Asian tour, Obama told an audience of 1,500 in the Japanese capital: “I want every American to know that we have a stake in the future of this region, because what happens here has a direct effect on our lives at home.”

American officials have portrayed the trip as an opportunity to develop relationships and make progress on non-proliferation, climate change and the economy, and are playing down expectations of any agreements.

As in his previous foreign affairs speeches, Obama emphasised his personal ties in the region – referring to his birth in Hawaii, time in Indonesia and boyhood travels in Asia – and the administration’s break with unilateralism.

“We welcome China’s efforts to play a greater role on the world stage – a role in which their growing economy is joined by growing responsibility,” he said. “Power does not need to be a zero-sum game and nations need not fear the success of another.”

He held out a hand to North Korea again, calling for it to denuclearise; and to Burma, if it undertakes democratic reform and frees political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Burma’s prime minister will be present at the president’s meeting with Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) leaders in Singapore.

Obama also announced that the US will sign up to a trans-Pacific free trade agreement. That may help to deflect accusations of protectionism, which are likely to be aired throughout his tour. He stressed the need for “balanced” growth and said Asian countries should not be dependent on exports to the US.

The economic crisis has underlined the interdependence of “Chimerica” in particular and the trade imbalance that has left China with vast US dollar holdings. Washington wants the Chinese currency, the yuan, to appreciate further; Beijing will repeat its concerns that US debt could endanger its dollar holdings.

But Obama’s Chinese visit is about more than money. The world’s two largest carbon emitters are meeting just weeks away from the Copenhagen climate-change conference.

China’s influence on North Korea and Iran are central to Obama’s non-proliferation agenda. Its handling of Afghanistan and Pakistan will also be high up in discussions.

Obama’s China policy is essentially his predecessor’s; the relationship is increasingly amicable. But some fear attempts to broaden it could mean less meaningful engagement.

“Bush’s approach was: you are rising in the international system and need to take on more responsibility,” said Victor Cha, director of Asian affairs in the National Security Council under George Bush and now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. “Obama is heaping on all these very, very high expectations – on issues like climate change and currency – and I think they are expectations that China cannot possibly meet.”

China sees itself as a vulnerable developing country as well as a rising power. And shared anxieties – such as those over proliferation – do not equal identical interests. “China’s own interests in those hot spots [North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan] make it deeply conflicted about playing a larger role on the world stage,” said Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt of the International Crisis Group. “While the United States frames China in terms of its growing responsibilities as a major power, China continues to think primarily in terms of its own interests.”

To some observers, the administration is also too keen to please Beijing, wasting leverage rather than smoothing the path to greater gains.

Obama’s decision not to meet the Dalai Lama last month – aides say he will do so in future – “doesn’t send a signal that the US wants to work with China; it sends a signal they have basically got us,” said Cha.

Obama hails China’s expanded role in world affairs

AP | Nov 13, 2009

By JENNIFER LOVEN

TOKYO — President Barack Obama said Saturday that he welcomes a robust China on the world scene, but he cautioned that all nations must respect human rights, including religious freedoms. In a speech to prominent Japanese, Obama called himself “America’s first Pacific president” and urged greater cooperation between the United States and Japan and other Asian countries.

He played down some Westerners’ fears of an ascending China, especially in economic affairs.

“We welcome China’s efforts to play a greater role on the world stage, a role in which their growing economy is joined by growing responsibility,” Obama said.

“The United States does not seek to contain China,” he said. “On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations.”

But Obama diplomatically reminded China and other non-democratic nations in Asia that the United States wants them to allow more freedoms to their citizens.

“Supporting human rights provides lasting security that cannot be purchased in any other way,” he said. “That is the story that can be seen in Japan’s democracy, just as it can be seen in America’s.”

Obama said all people want to speak their minds, choose their leaders, access information and worship as they please.

He did not mention particular sore spots such as Tibet, a region of China where authorities have suppressed religious freedom and nation aspirations. He did, however, criticize Burma for suppressing human rights and North Korea for pursuing nuclear weapons.

In a weeklong visit to Asia, Obama is emphasizing cooperation, warning North Korea that there will be tough, unified action by the U.S. and its Asian partners if the Koreans fail to abandon their nuclear weapons programs.

Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’

Raw Story | Nov 4, 2009

By Daniel Tencer

The CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan, a place where widespread torture practices include raping suspects with broken bottles and boiling them alive, says a former British ambassador to the central Asian country.

Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program.

“I’m talking of people being raped with broken bottles,” he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. “I’m talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I’m talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on.”

Human rights groups have long been raising the alarm about the legal system in Uzbekistan. In 2007, Human Rights Watch declared that torture is “endemic” to the country’s justice system.

Murray said he only realized after his stint as ambassador that the CIA was sending people to be tortured in Uzbekistan, country he describes as a “totalitarian” state that has never moved on from its communist era, when it was a part of the Soviet Union.

Suspects in Uzbekistan’s gulags “were being told to confess to membership in Al Qaeda. They were told to confess they’d been in training camps in Afghanistan. They were told to confess they had met Osama bin Laden in person. And the CIA intelligence constantly echoed these themes.”

“I was absolutely stunned — it changed my whole world view in an instant — to be told that London knew [the intelligence] coming from torture, that it was not illegal because our legal advisers had decided that under the United Nations convention against torture, it is not illegal to obtain or use intelligence gained from torture as long as we didn’t do the torture ourselves,” Murray said.

UK/USA made use of Uzbek torture

Murray asserts that the primary motivation for US and British military involvement in central Asia has to do with large natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As evidence, he points to the plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan that would allow Western oil companies to avoid Russia and Iran when transporting natural gas out of the region.

Murray alleged that in the late 1990s the Uzbek ambassador to the US met with then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to discuss a pipeline for the region, and out of that meeting came agreements that would see Texas-based Enron gain the rights to Uzbekistan’s natural gas deposits, while oil company Unocal worked on developing the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline.

“The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan,” Murray noted.

Murray said part of the motive in hyping up the threat of Islamic terrorism in Uzbekistan through forced confessions was to ensure the country remained on-side in the war on terror, so that the pipeline could be built.

“There are designs of this pipeline, and if you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you’ll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It’s what it’s about. It’s about money, it’s about oil, it’s not about democracy.”

The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline is slated to be completed in 2014, with $7.6 billion in funding from the Asian Development Bank.

Murray was dismissed from his position as ambassador in 2004, following his first public allegations that the British government relied on torture in Uzbekistan for intelligence.

The following videos were posted to YouTube by the Real News Network on Oct. 26 and Nov. 4, 2009.

Passing on the Mantle of Deep North American Integration

nauresistance.org | Nov 3, 2009

By Dana Gabriel

With the demise of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America and the restructuring of many of its key priorities under the banner of the North American Leaders Summit, other trilateral initiatives are also passing on the mantle of deep continental integration.

The Fifth Annual North American Forum was held in Ottawa on October 4-6, 2009.  In a news release the group describes itself as, “a community of Canadian, Mexican and American thought leaders whose purpose is to advance a shared vision of North America, and to contribute to improved relations among the three countries.”  It goes on to say that, “They come together annually to explore linkages among the mutually reinforcing goals of security, prosperity and enhanced quality of life.”  Meetings are co-chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State, George Schultz, former Premier of Alberta, Peter Lougheed, as well as former Mexican Finance Minister Pedro Aspe.  The North American Forum has no business office and no business address.  It consists of the three co-chairs, along with their extensive network of contacts in government, business and the military, meeting privately to champion North American integration.  The news release also stated that, “This year’s meeting of the North American Forum focused on the need for Canada, Mexico and the United States to work together in responding to the global economic crisis and promoting a quick return to strong and sustainable growth.  In addition, the Forum included special sessions on two critical issues: one on energy and the environment, and the other on transnational crime, arms smuggling and drug trafficking.”  The North American Forum has been described as a parallel structure to the SPP.

The Standing Commission on North American Prosperity is an initiative of the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce and directly relates to the ongoing efforts to further merge North America.  The group characterizes itself as “an united effort of distinguished individuals from Mexico, Canada and the USA to provide sound economic and social policy guidance to the political leaders of the three countries for the future prosperity of all peoples of North America.”  It notes that, “In the aftermath of NAFTA and the SPP initiatives, a vacuum presently exists in developing a vision for North American prosperity.  The lack of such a vision jeopardizes previous achievements in building strong economic ties across North America made during the past 15 years.”  It also states that, “The Commission will meet 3 times a year and will provide ‘A North American Prosperity’ White paper to the leaders of the three countries upon conclusion of each session.”  The group’s inaugural Summit was held at Georgia’s Kennesaw State University on May 12-13, 2009.

The Future of North America Summit presented by the Standing Commission on North American Prosperity was scheduled to take place on November 2-3 of this year in Toronto, Canada.  It was reported that the Summit was cancelled, but there is no indication if it will take place at a later date.  The meetings would have included the participation of past political heavyweights such as former Mexican President Vicente Fox, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, as well as former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos Escobar.  The agenda would have dealt with economic, environmental and climate change, energy, trade, transportation, along with other issues and how they relate to North America.  In a recent article Manuel Pérez-Rocha, director of the NAFTA Plus and the SPP Advocacy Project, raised some valid questions concerning the meetings.  He stated, “Are we going back to the future?  Why are these former leaders ‘representing’ countries they don’t run any more?  Is their purpose to dictate to our actual presidents what to do to build North America?  Why was ex president Lagos from Chile invited at all?”  What is clear is that with the SPP no longer the vehicle being used to create a North American Union, other groups and initiatives are further advancing deep continental integration.

The 2009 meeting of the NAFTA Free Trade Commission was held in Dallas, Texas on October 19 of this year and brought together top trade officials from the U.S., Canada and Mexico.  The meeting was used as an opportunity to celebrate NAFTA’s achievements and to plot a course for the future.  Manuel Pérez-Rocha stated, “What the three governments are really doing is incorporating the already-buried, George W. Bush-led Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) agenda into NAFTA.  While current presidents are stripping the SPP label, which has garnered much negative publicity, they’re keeping its principles to armor NAFTA as an instrument for further deregulation.”  He also said that, “the merging of the SPP prosperity agenda into NAFTA is evident, especially after the recent Dallas meeting.  In their declaration, the trade officials stated that since 2007, the three countries have worked together to protect and enforce intellectual property rights.  This was one of the SPP’s plans, together with a ‘framework for regulatory cooperation,’ a ‘North American plan for avian and pandemic influenza,’ and an ‘agreement for cooperation on energy science and technology,’ which are also well under way.”  Mexico is scheduled to host the next NAFTA Commission meeting in 2010.  Despite the demise of the SPP, many of its key objectives have already been implemented or continue to move forward through other initiatives.

Speaking at the annual policy forum of the Canadian American Business Council held in Montreal on October 21, U.S. ambassador to Canada David Jacobson said that there are no immediate plans to reopen NAFTA.  He also echoed Washington’s sentiments that the trade agreement is working well for all sides.  This could not be further from the truth as NAFTA is badly flawed.  Minus a few cosmetic changes that the Obama administration might make regarding side deals related to labor and the environment, the reality is that NAFTA will remain intact.  The NAFTA structure is also being used to advance SPP objectives.  All the talk of renegotiating the agreement appears to have revived the 15 year old trade accord and renewed the push for North American integration.  This could lead to NAFTA’s expansion into a North American Union and might serve to further spread its failed model to other parts of the Western Hemisphere.

Dana Gabriel is an activist and independent researcher. He writes about trade, globalization, sovereignty, as well as other issues. Contact: beyourownleader@hotmail.com

Visit his blog site at beyourownleader.blogspot.com

Berlusconi to remain prime minister of Italy even if convicted in two corruption trials

Silvio Berlusconi to stay on if convicted

Silvio Berlusconi will refuse to resign as prime minister of Italy even if he is convicted in two corruption trials due to begin later this month.

Telegraph | Nov 2, 2009

By Nick Squires in Rome

Mr Berlusconi, 73, who is battling a series of sex scandals and legal entanglements as well as a dose of scarlet fever, said a conviction would only strengthen his resolve to lead.

Italian law allows for two exhaustive levels of appeal, during which time the defendant remains at liberty. The appeals could take years and might extend the cases until they “time out” under Italy’s complicated statute of limitations system.

The first trial, which involves tax fraud and false accounting allegations involving his television empire Mediaset is due to start on November 16.

The second, in which he is accused of paying £370,000 bribe to his British tax accountant David Mills, the estranged husband of Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell, will resume shortly afterwards, on Nov 27. The prime minister denies all the charges.

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“I still have confidence in the existence of serious magistrates who issue serious sentences, based on facts,” he said. “If there is a conviction at trial, we would be confronted with such a subversion of the truth that I would all the more feel the duty to resist (and stay) at my post to defend democracy and rule of law.”

Angelo Bonelli, an opposition MP, said the prime minister’s declaration sent “an unedifying message to the country”.

Both trials were frozen last year when Mr Berlusconi passed a law giving himself immunity from prosecution while in office.

His opponents said it was a brazen attempt to twist the law to serve his own ends. It was ruled unconstitutional by Italy’s highest court last month, a decision which prompted the prime minister to lash out at “communist” judges and magistrates who he claims are bent on destroying him.

The association of Italian magistrates denounced the attack as “groundless and ridiculous” and said it was considering calling a strike.

Experts: Swine flu may spark martial law

Swine Flu May Choke Civil Rights, Profs Say

somd.com | Oct 28, 2009

By DAVID M. JOHNSON

WASHINGTON (Oct. 28, 2009) — Quarantine, forced vaccination, and martial law are just a few of the options available to Gov. Martin O’Malley should the H1N1 virus spread uncontrollably, according to professors who talked Wednesday about the civil rights problems an outbreak could create.

Michael Greenberger and Dr. Marita Mike from the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security and Wendy Mariner from Boston University’s School of Public Health discussed the legal and constitutional implications of the government’s response to a potential H1N1 pandemic at the National Press Club.

“The Maryland governor has the power to compel people to take medical measures; he could compel medical vaccinations; he can quarantine; he can isolate; he can seize medications…he can condemn or reorient how hospitals give treatment; he can shelter people in place; he can move them out of the city,” Greenberger said. “He has the power to overturn any law that interferes with his ability to respond to the catastrophe.”

Disease prevention laws in many states shifted from public health to national security and emergency preparedness after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In Maryland, the statute was passed almost overnight, according to Greenberger.

Epidemics are similar to terrorist attacks in that they have the potential to strike at any time, so laws that dictate government responses to these emergencies should be scrutinized, said Mariner.

“It is especially important to look at what laws bar so we don’t undermine fundamental human rights,” Mariner said. “Laws that suspend civil rights during epidemics become laws that suspend constitutional rights in our daily lives, perhaps indefinitely.”

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So far, no public health emergency law has been challenged in Maryland court because no governor has had to use one.

“When you look at the statute books state to state, while they aren’t well defined, the power they give to governors and local executives are truly extraordinary,” Greenberger said. “The issues I’ve outlined are the issues lawyers and those that care about the application of law in this area will have to be thinking about very carefully.”

According to the panel, H1N1’s impact would have to get worse before any governor would think about drastic measures, but such a scenario could be imagined.

“This thing attacks the lungs,” Greenberger said. “Ventilators cost $35,000; we have a very limited supply of ventilators. You can just imagine having someone you care about and knowing that if they can get on a ventilator, they’ll live.”

Lack of ventilators, vaccine or anti-virals in any state could force governors or other executives to turn to these laws.

In New York, the state health commissioner recently ordered all state health care workers to get the H1N1 vaccine. Last week, after facing a lawsuit, the state suspended the mandatory requirement saying limited supplies should be used for those most at risk for serious illness.

“Nurses who were perfectly willing to get vaccines voluntarily, got their backs up and began to resist when they were told it was necessary,” Mariner said about the New York situation. “The danger can be illustrated by the old axiom, if the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail. If the only tools you have are quarantine and isolation then what happens when you need more vaccine? You can’t force people to get a vaccine you don’t have.”

Pinochet’s execution squads to testify about their atrocities hoping for pensions and benefits

Pope John Paul II visits with Chilean dictator Pinochet in 1987

Pinochet’s execution squads ready to testify on atrocities

Scotsman | Nov 2, 2009

By Eva Vergara in Santiago

HUNDREDS of former military conscripts are making a provocative offer to Chile’s government. They will reveal details of crimes committed by General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship – but only if their safety is guaranteed.

The conscripts fear that if they reveal where the bodies are buried, they will face prosecution by the courts or retaliation by the superiors who ordered them decades ago to torture and kill political prisoners.

The information they once promised to carry to their graves has become both a heavy psychological burden and a bargaining chip. By offering confessions, the former soldiers hope to improve their chances of securing benefits from pensions to psychological treatment.

“We were executors and witnesses of many brutalities and now we’re willing to talk about them for our own personal redemption,” said former soldier Fernando Mellado, who organised a meeting yesterday of former conscripts outside Chile’s presidential palace.

“So if there is any opportunity in which we can testify, maybe anonymously, then we’d be happy to oblige.”

Mr Mellado leads the Santiago chapter of the Former Soldiers of 1973 and has been working with similar groups across Chile to work out whether and how to turn over the information.

Of the 8,000 people conscripted as teenagers from Santiago alone in the tumultuous year when Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende’s government and cemented his hold on power, Mr Mellado believes “between 20 and 30 per cent are willing to talk”.

Chilean security forces killed 3,186 people during the dictatorship, including 1,197 who were made to disappear, according to an official count.

In nearly two decades of democracy since then, fewer than 8 per cent of the disappeared have been found, said Viviana Diaz of the Assembly of Family Members of the Disappeared Detainees. Hundreds of recovered remains, some just bone fragments, have yet to be identified. Only those who buried the bodies know where other common graves lie.

Ms Diaz hopes the former soldiers start talking, even if they do so outside the courts. “People have come to us and all we tell them is, ‘It doesn’t matter that you don’t reveal your identity, just tell us the location.”‘

Chilean law allows for a “just following orders” defence for former soldiers who submit to the mercy of the courts, naming names and providing information that could help resolve some of the thousands of crimes committed under Pinochet’s 1973-1990 rule.

But most former soldiers fear the consequences for themselves and their families. Some worry that judges who rose through the ranks under Pinochet might protect their former officers instead.

One confessed to shooting an entire family. Another – now an alcoholic who sleeps in the street in Santiago – said he was forced to drown a seven-year-old boy in a barrel of hardening plaster.

“Our mission was to stand guard outside, and listen to their screams,” said former conscript Jose Paredes, who described his service at the Tejas Verdes torture centre. “They would end up destroyed, torn apart, their teeth and faces broken.”

Afghan President Karzai’s drug gangster brother on CIA payroll

Ahmed Wali Karzai, right, the brother of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, at a campaign event in Kandahar in August. Banaras Khan/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images

Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll

NY Times | Oct 28, 2009

by Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti and James Risen.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.

The ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration. The critics say the ties complicate America’s increasingly tense relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who has struggled to build sustained popularity among Afghans and has long been portrayed by the Taliban as an American puppet. The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.

More broadly, some American officials argue that the reliance on Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful figure in a large area of southern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is strongest, undermines the American push to develop an effective central government that can maintain law and order and eventually allow the United States to withdraw.

“If we are going to conduct a population-centric strategy in Afghanistan, and we are perceived as backing thugs, then we are just undermining ourselves,” said Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the senior American military intelligence official in Afghanistan.

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At this point, everything about the U.S. policy toward the Afghan drug trade — from tolerance to eradication during the Bush administration to an evolving approach to cultivating alternatives — now ought to be questioned.

Ahmed Wali Karzai said in an interview that he cooperated with American civilian and military officials, but did not engage in the drug trade and did not receive payments from the C.I.A.

The relationship between Mr. Karzai and the C.I.A. is wide ranging, several American officials said. He helps the C.I.A. operate a paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, that is used for raids against suspected insurgents and terrorists. On at least one occasion, the strike force has been accused of mounting an unauthorized operation against an official of the Afghan government, the officials said.

Mr. Karzai is also paid for allowing the C.I.A. and American Special Operations troops to rent a large compound outside the city — the former home of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s founder. The same compound is also the base of the Kandahar Strike Force. “He’s our landlord,” a senior American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Karzai also helps the C.I.A. communicate with and sometimes meet with Afghans loyal to the Taliban. Mr. Karzai’s role as a go-between between the Americans and the Taliban is now regarded as valuable by those who support working with Mr. Karzai, as the Obama administration is placing a greater focus on encouraging Taliban leaders to change sides.

A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment for this article.

“No intelligence organization worth the name would ever entertain these kind of allegations,” said Paul Gimigliano, the spokesman.

Some American officials said that the allegations of Mr. Karzai’s role in the drug trade were not conclusive.

“There’s no proof of Ahmed Wali Karzai’s involvement in drug trafficking, certainly nothing that would stand up in court,” said one American official familiar with the intelligence. “And you can’t ignore what the Afghan government has done for American counterterrorism efforts.”

At the start of the Afghan war, just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, American officials paid warlords with questionable backgrounds to help topple the Taliban and maintain order with relatively few American troops committed to fight in the country. But as the Taliban has become resurgent and the war has intensified, Americans have increasingly viewed a strong and credible central government as crucial to turning back the Taliban’s advances.

Now, with more American lives on the line, the relationship with Mr. Karzai is setting off anger and frustration among American military officers and other officials in the Obama administration. They say that Mr. Karzai’s suspected role in the drug trade, as well as what they describe as the mafialike way that he lords over southern Afghanistan, makes him a malevolent force.

These military and political officials say the evidence, though largely circumstantial, suggests strongly that Mr. Karzai has enriched himself by helping the illegal trade in poppy and opium to flourish. The assessment of these military and senior officials in the Obama administration dovetails with that of senior officials in the Bush administration.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money are flowing through the southern region, and nothing happens in southern Afghanistan without the regional leadership knowing about it,” a senior American military officer in Kabul said. Like most of the officials in this article, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the information.

“If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” the American officer said of Mr. Karzai. “Our assumption is that he’s benefiting from the drug trade.”

American officials say that Afghanistan’s opium trade, the largest in the world, directly threatens the stability of the Afghan state, by providing a large percentage of the money the Taliban needs for its operations, and also by corrupting Afghan public officials to help the trade flourish.

The Obama administration has repeatedly vowed to crack down on the drug lords who are believed to permeate the highest levels of President Karzai’s administration. They have pressed him to move his brother out of southern Afghanistan, but he has so far refused to do so.

Other Western officials pointed to evidence that Ahmed Wali Karzai orchestrated the manufacture of hundreds of thousands of phony ballots for his brother’s re-election effort in August. He is also believed to have been responsible for setting up dozens of so-called ghost polling stations — existing only on paper — that were used to manufacture tens of thousands of phony ballots.

“The only way to clean up Chicago is to get rid of Capone,” General Flynn said.

In the interview in which he denied a role in the drug trade or taking money from the C.I.A., Ahmed Wali Karzai said he received regular payments from his brother, the president, for “expenses,” but said he did not know where the money came from. He has, among other things, introduced Americans to insurgents considering changing sides. And he has given the Americans intelligence, he said. But he said he was not compensated for that assistance.

“I don’t know anyone under the name of the C.I.A.,” Mr. Karzai said. “I have never received any money from any organization. I help, definitely. I help other Americans wherever I can. This is my duty as an Afghan.”

Mr. Karzai acknowledged that the C.I.A. and Special Operations troops stayed at Mullah Omar’s old compound. And he acknowledged that the Kandahar Strike Force was based there. But he said he had no involvement with them.

A former C.I.A. officer with experience in Afghanistan said the agency relied heavily on Ahmed Wali Karzai, and often based covert operatives at compounds he owned. Any connections Mr. Karzai might have had to the drug trade mattered little to C.I.A. officers focused on counterterrorism missions, the officer said.

“Virtually every significant Afghan figure has had brushes with the drug trade,” he said. “If you are looking for Mother Teresa, she doesn’t live in Afghanistan.”

The debate over Ahmed Wali Karzai, which began when President Obama took office in January, intensified in June, when the C.I.A.’s local paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, shot and killed Kandahar’s provincial police chief, Matiullah Qati, in a still-unexplained shootout at the office of a local prosecutor.

The circumstances surrounding Mr. Qati’s death remain shrouded in mystery. It is unclear, for instance, if any agency operatives were present — but officials say the firefight broke out when Mr. Qati tried to block the strike force from freeing the brother of a task force member who was being held in custody.

“Matiullah was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mr. Karzai said in the interview.

Counternarcotics officials have repeatedly expressed frustration over the unwillingness of senior policy makers in Washington to take action against Mr. Karzai — or even begin a serious investigation of the allegations against him. In fact, they say that while other Afghans accused of drug involvement are investigated and singled out for raids or even rendition to the United States, Mr. Karzai has seemed immune from similar scrutiny.

For years, first the Bush administration and then the Obama administration have said that the Taliban benefits from the drug trade, and the United States military has recently expanded its target list to include drug traffickers with ties to the insurgency. The military has generated a list of 50 top drug traffickers tied to the Taliban who can now be killed or captured.

Senior Afghan investigators say they know plenty about Mr. Karzai’s involvement in the drug business. In an interview in Kabul this year, a top former Afghan Interior Ministry official familiar with Afghan counternarcotics operations said that a major source of Mr. Karzai’s influence over the drug trade was his control over key bridges crossing the Helmand River on the route between the opium growing regions of Helmand Province and Kandahar.

The former Interior Ministry official said that Mr. Karzai was able to charge huge fees to drug traffickers to allow their drug-laden trucks to cross the bridges.

But the former officials said it was impossible for Afghan counternarcotics officials to investigate Mr. Karzai. “This government has become a factory for the production of Talibs because of corruption and injustice,” the former official said.

Some American counternarcotics officials have said they believe that Mr. Karzai has expanded his influence over the drug trade, thanks in part to American efforts to single out other drug lords.

In debriefing notes from Drug Enforcement Administration interviews in 2006 of Afghan informants obtained by The New York Times, one key informant said that Ahmed Wali Karzai had benefited from the American operation that lured Hajji Bashir Noorzai, a major Afghan drug lord during the time that the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, to New York in 2005. Mr. Noorzai was convicted on drug and conspiracy charges in New York in 2008, and was sentenced to life in prison this year.

Habibullah Jan, a local military commander and later a member of Parliament from Kandahar, told the D.E.A. in 2006 that Mr. Karzai had teamed with Haji Juma Khan to take over a portion of the Noorzai drug business after Mr. Noorzai’s arrest.

Dexter Filkins reported from Kabul, and Mark Mazzetti and James Risen from Washington. Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington.