This Sunday I watched a very long and depressing line of speakers from the United States Bureau of Making Shit Up. James Woolsey (former head of the CIA and freelance war-hawk) speculated wildly and baselessly about possible connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda. An anonymous terrorism expert moved beyond baseless allegation into nothing more than vague insinuations–he was particularly a fan of the claim that the Beltway sniper is actually an al-Qaeda operative, in spite of the complete lack of any basis whatsoever for asserting this to be probable, let alone true. Bill Kristol then got on and talked for a while about the need to bomb the world and starve North Korea, and practically accusing Tom Daschle of treason for daring to question the President’s authoritarian and secretive attitude towards Congress and the American people on foreign policy issues.

Well, OK. I expect this shit from Fox News. But while they drone on, an astounding grassfire movement against the war is welling up. The latest development is something that should get the attention of every Right-wing Bomb the World Republican, every spineless amoral Democrat, and the few progressives and genuine Lefties that remain in DC. Over the past week, MoveOn PAC‘s Reward the Heroes drive has raised over 1 million dollars for the campaigns of Congresspeople and Senators who opposed the President’s resolution for war against Iraq. Over $1,000,000 in a week! And we’re not talking about Republican or DLC-style contributions from millionaires here. We’re talking about over 37,000 individual contributions. An average of about $27 per contribution (I gave two contributions of $25, personally). If the DC cognoscenti start taking notice, this could be a very big deal. Money talks in DC, and right now, the people are screaming at the top of their lungs.

Of course, this campaign–like all campaigns–has its limitations. Among them:

• It’s depressing that this action will talk much louder than the hundreds of thousands of calls, letters, and e-mails against war on Iraq that were sent out over the past several weeks. The pre-eminence of PAC money-laundering in politics is not a trend that I really want to see strengthened, although I’m willing to work to get through to Congress by pretty much any just means necessary right now.

• The campaign is primarily focusing on funnelling money to support incumbent Democrats who voted against the war. With the exception of that lying goat Paul Wellstone, I don’t have any objection to supporting those who have taken a stand against war. But I’d also like to see a lot more invested in getting new blood into Congress, not just giving established Lefty Democrats a political sinecure.

• Maintaining a Congress which is independent of the grip of the far Right is important, but we have to do a lot more than that to keep the country from going to hell in a handbasket. Slowing the bleeding will only do so much.

• MoveOn, for all of its virtues in moving Internet activism out into the offline world, makes no particular efforts to reach out to people other than those who can receive their e-mail alerts or access their website.

Again, the power of the Internet as an organizing medium is simply astounding, and we have to take very seriously how we are going to make the best use of it. The MoveOn PAC campaign is one very important way to put a lot of energy into grassroots campaigns, but we have to see this as only the start, and improve from here.

So what do we need to do?

• We need to follow up this campaign with more campaigns that move beyond online voting and make concrete actions. Contributing to campaigns where necessary, I guess, but also building up funding reserves for other purposes–organizing spaces, grassroots organizing (including workplace unionizing), and all the other infrastructure of a successful, anti-vanguardist resistance to the Right-wing Powers that Be. MoveOn PAC’s campaign is a brilliant example of a dynamic, exciting, creative way of standing up against the flow in DC and making them listen. Let’s come up with more ideas.

• We also need to talk about ways to allow online campaigns to reach out to people who don’t spend a lot of time on the Internet–people who tend to be older, poorer, racial minorities, etc. The Right doesn’t care: every CEO and arm-chair warhawk columnist has e-mail, Web access, and all the money the Right-wing foundations have to offer. But we have to work with people, not just dollars, and we have to think about building a mass movement. Otherwise, as Martin Striz pointed out in this space:

  Unfortunately, this nascent form of democratic political transformation is only relevant to those who have an Internet connection, and the unfortunate divide between the haves and have-nots will continue to plague us.

  So what can we do to pull that off? Well, simply focusing on campaigns that move offline and into the world of street protests, organizing spaces, letters to the editor, and other things in the meatspace will help. But let’s start thinking about other ways to convert Internet organizing into a galvanizing force for everyone. I don’t have many more ideas than anyone else on this–I’ve lobbied for printable posters and flyers to be available from all websites that advertise an offline political event, and I think that working on developing phone trees that spread from online to offline contacts would also be a really cool idea. But I’m a neophyte like everyone else and I’m really interested in hearing some creative ideas about where we can go from here.

In the meantime, toss a few bucks to the [MoveOn PAC][] Reward the Heroes campaign, and help make our voice heard in support of pro-peace candidates.

On Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Institute announced that President Jimmy Carter would be the Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 2002. In honoring Carter for his 25 years of work in humanitarian projects and peaceful conflict resolution. Many–including Gunnar Berge, the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee–have interpreted the award as not just an honor for Carter’s work, but also as a pointed challenge to the present Bush administration sabre-rattling and unilateralist war-mongering towards Iraq.

Those of you who follow this space may find this development particularly interesting, because back in February I reported on the nomination of Bush and Blair for the Nobel Peace Prize by Harald Tom Nesvik, a Right-wing Norwegian MP for–that’s right–starting a war. In reaction to the news, I launched an Internet campaign protesting the nomination and urging the Nobel Committee to give the award to a candidate who had truly worked for peace. The outcome of that action was nothing short of astounding: over the eight months between the beginning of the action and the announcement of snub of Bush and Blair, some 43,850 e-mails were sent from people all over the world to the Nobel Peace Prize committee through my web site, and many people also sent faxes and letters by international post (I reported on the remarkable outpouring of support for the action in GT 2002/02/18, GT 2002/02/20, and GT 2002/03/01).

Now, reality check: did a bunch of polemical e-mails about Bush and Blair actually affect the Nobel Peace Prize committee’s decision? It’s unlikely. They had already stated their hostility towards Bush and Blair’s promises of ever-expanding militarism. The stance of the European Left–which presently holds the majority on the committee–towards DC‘s renewed calls for a militaristic New World Order is well known to be hostile. They had already stated, in fact, that they would consider giving the prize to Bush and Blair–but only if they brought al-Qaeda to justice without bombing Afghanistan, and, well, we all saw how that one went.

Nevertheless, I can’t help but be pleased with how things have turned out on this count. Who knows; maybe the flood of e-mail did embolden them towards sharper criticism of the Bush administration. And whether it did or not, I am simply humbled by how much people all over the world put into a campaign on my little page off in an obscure corner of the Internet. It had nothing in particular to do with me, except in terms of the software; I publicized the actions on a few mailing lists and a few IndyMedia sites, and then simply stood by and watched as nearly 50,000 spread the word amongst themselves all over the world. I received piles of e-mail from people I’ve never met; I had people voluntarily contribute French transations to help the international appeal of the website. Such simple devices as e-mail forwards and listservs rallied a tremendous response from all over the world. As I wrote near the beginning of the campaign, we could be living at the beginning of a new era in using the Internet as a space for democratic political transformation. The networks that we are building–if we do the work we need to, to expand them, make them effective, make them inclusive, and use them to bring actions out to the streets–are one of our best hopes for the future. I hope that I have done some small work towards helping to demonstrate that promise. And I think that this weekend is an excellent opportunity to think ahead to how we can continue this work.

Take Action!

You can thank the Norwegian Nobel Institute by writing them an e-mailthanking them for respecting the worldwide outcry against Nesvik’s nomination and Bush’s militarism, and for rewarding a man who has truly worked for peace for the past 25 years.

In Swaziland, a tiny country surrounded by South Africa, sub-saharan Africa’s last absolute monarchy maintains a regime of tyranny over the women of the nation. Under Swazi law, women are considered minors, and cannot own property, acquire a bank loan, or enter into a legal contract without the consent of a male relative. The King is promising that a new constitution will be written sometime soon now, but with no commissions or discussion at all in the palace about gender equity, its’ likely that this new constitution will merely recycle status quo ante as far as women are concerned.

In a recent fit of misogyny that veers into the completely senseless, Jim Gama, a power behind the throne and Right-wing hate radio host near the capital Mbabane has ordered that soldiers strip women wearing trousers in the royal villages. (One is reminded of the Shah’s charming little habit of having soldiers tear off women’s chadors with bayonetts during his campaign of forced Westernization.) According to women’s rights activist Pholile Dlamini, Gama became the most powerful traditional authority in Swaziland because he "endeared himself to the national leadership by being a super traditionalist who regularly belittled women on the air."

Meanwhile, in totally unrelated news that I don’t at all intend to link with the preceding story: power-behind-the-throne Dick Cheney decided to spend the anniversary of the September 11^th massacre building national unity and currying mainstream consensus by sitting down for an interview with Rush Limbaugh, a Right-wing hate radio host who endeared himself to the national leadership by being a super-traditionalist who regularly belittles women on the air.

But I digress.

According to several reports now reaching Western media, mass graves of slaughtered prisoners have been found in the area of Dasht-e-Leili in Afghanistan [forwarded by RAWA]. The massacre was committed by forces under the control of General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the notorious warlord of northern Afghanistan, the pillager of Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, and valued ally of the United States government.

After Taliban militia and al-Qaeda guerillas had surrendered at Konduz, Dostum’s troops locked prisoners into unventilated freight containers, packing about 100 to 120 in each container, loaded them up on trucks, and began a death convey towards Sheberghan prison. Truck drivers who realized what they had gotten into and tried to punch holes in the containers were savagely beaten by Dostum’s troops. The prisoners locked in the containers slowly died from suffocation and dehydration.

By the time the trucks arrived at Sheberghan prison, many were ominously quiet. Mohammed was the driver of the second truck in line, but he got down from his cab and walked into the prison courtyard as the doors of the lead truck were opened. Of the 200 or so who had been loaded into the sealed container not quite 24 hours before, none had survived. "They opened the doors and the dead bodies spilled out like fish," says Mohammed. "All their clothes were ripped and wet."

. . .

Abdul, a 28-year-old pashtun, is one who lived. NEWSWEEK interviewed him in Sheberghan prison. He recalls that his container was packed to the breaking point. After nearly 24 hours without water, Abdul says, the prisoners were so desperate with thirst that they began licking the sweat off each other’s bodies. Some prisoners began to lose their reason and started biting those around them. Abdul’s was one of the containers in the third convoy to Sheberghan: by the time they reached the prison, he says, only 20 to 30 in his container were alive.

. . .

For some, the agony in the containers was intensified because they were tied up. This appears to have been a fate reserved for Pakistani–and perhaps other non-Afghan–prisoners. Mahmood, 20, says he surrendered at Konduz along with 1,500 other Pakistanis. All were bound hand and foot either with their own turbans or with strips ripped from their clothing, he says. Then they were packed in container trucks "like cattle," he says. He reckons that about 100 people died in his container.

The drivers remain tormented by what they took part in. "Why weren’t there any United Nations people there to see the dead bodies?" asks one. "Why wasn’t anything being done?" Another driver shook uncontrollably as he spoke with NEWSWEEK.

The massacred prisoners were thrown into mass graves. From information gathered by Physicians for Human Rights and the Red Cross, well over 1,000 prisoners were slaughtered in the Death Convoy to Sheberghan.

Dostum is considered an ally of the United States in Afghanistan’s provisional regime, and at the time of these atrocities, he was actively supported by the United States Special Forces 595 A-team, commanded by Capt. Mark D. Nutsch. There is no evidence that they participated in the massacre, but a lot of evidence that they knew about it and yet did nothing, and continued to work with the butcher Dostum. Despite frequent attempts to deny all knowledge by the Defense Department, the 595 team was at the prison as the truckloads of dead prisoners were arriving, and a separate U.S. intelligence team was screening all incoming prisoners for further interrogation. Before we went in, we knew that Dostum was a butcher. While we were there, our forces had to know what was going on. Yet the US military supported his elevation to power and prestige, and has rewarded his atrocities by turning a blind eye to what he has done.

We are coming up on the first anniversary of the September 11th crime against humanity and I want to hope that we can mark the occasion as a memorial and a beckoning towards healing of the world. But when all the truth comes out about what has happened since then, when we have seen what our government has wrought at home and around the world, I fear that the crimes committed in our names will be more than we can bear.

For further reading:

• GT 2/03/2002 He Thinks You’re An Idiot
• GT 10/08/2001 Women of Afghanistan Fight Back Against Both Taliban and Northern Alliance

Most Israelis oppose the occupation and want the settlements dismantled.

Let’s say that again: a clear majority of Israelis oppose the occupation and want the settlements dismantled.

It’s a secret that Ariel Sharon and his hawkish allies, both in the US and Israel, don’t want you to know. It’s a secret they’ve managed to cover up not only from the American public, but even from most of the Israeli public. It’s a dirty little secret that, even in these dark days, ought to give us some hope for the longer term. As harrowing as the daily news coming out of Israel is, 2/3 call for unilateral withdrawal from the occupied territories. 2/3 call for evacuation of all or most of the settlements. 60% believe that Israel should agree to the creation of a Palestinian state.

Now, let’s not get too optimistic here: clear majorities of Israelis also call for strong military measures. 74% say that Sharon is doing a good job, and 60% say that the Israeli army should be allowed to attack the refugee camps in Gaza. But they are short-term hawks and long term doves. The long-term measures they support–ending the occupation–will pull the bottom out of the vicious circle of violent escalation and vengeance that the occupation has sustained. They are quickly growing war-weary (much as America did as the Vietnam war rolled on), and are in no mood for the bloody escalation that will be needed to sustain or expand the occupation for much longer.

Why hasn’t this been heard? Why does Likud continue to pretend as though it had a blank check from the Israeli populace to continue and expand the occupation and ethnic cleansing indefinitely? Why don’t we know that the vast majority of the Israeli populace wants a peaceful, two-state solution?

Well, part of the reason is the well known fact that the Israeli press allows for a much greater range of debate than the American press over controversies such as the occupation. In America we tend to be blinded to the huge presence of moderates and the burgeoning peace movement within Israel. Instead we get fed infantile formulas, as if there were only Sharon’s side and Hamas’s side, and if you are not with Sharon you are with the attacks on civilians. Positions such as those taken by, say, Ha’aretz in Israel, are marginalized and confined to the Left-wing alternative media in the US.

That’s part of the reason we haven’t heard about the pro-peace supermajority in Israel. The other reason is that many Israelis themselves don’t know about it. Policymakers, as they often do, have ignored majority views, and opinion-shapers in the media follow along with this distorted picture of reality (the same thing happens in the United States on issues such as drug prohibition, where government drug warriors and their media lackeys are far to the Right of the American public). The power of the settler lobby in the Knesset, and Sharon’s refusal to actually discuss settlement issues head-on, have aided and abetted the misperceptions. As a consequence, in polls, Israelis significantly overestimate pro-settlement and pro-occupation opinion in their own country, even though they themselves predominantly believe in withdrawal and evacuation.

So let’s spread the secret, and say it as much as we can. Let’s bust up the lie that the Right-wing elites have tried to push down our throats.

Next time tells you that we have to stand with the Israelis, tell him where the Israelis really stand. Next time someone calls you an anti-Semite for opposing the occupation, tell her what the voice of Israeli Jews is calling for. Say it again: most Israelis oppose the occupation.