Wikileaks: US-led NATO Troops Operate Inside Syria

Local Editor
A document released by the WikiLeaks website has revealed that undercover US-led NATO forces are operating inside Syria against the Syrian government, Islam Times reported Wednesday.

WikiLeaks released a confidential email from an analyst working for the US-based intelligence firm Stratfor, in which he claims to have attended a meeting in the Pentagon with several NATO officials from France and Britain in December last year.
The analyst said he learned that US-led NATO troops are already on the ground in Syria, training armed gangs.
"SOF [special operation forces] teams (presumably from the US, UK, France, Jordan and Turkey) are already on the ground, focused on recce [reconnaissance] missions and training opposition forces," the analyst claimed in his letter.

The Stratfor analyst went on to say that "the idea ‘hypothetically’ is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns" to overthrow the Syrian government.

This fact is revealed despite claims by the Western military alliance denying the deployment of forces to Syria.

In addition, armed gangs in the country recently said they have received military hardware from France and Britain to attack government forces.

Al-Manar Website posted an article Saturday, it which it revealed that weapons from Israel are used for the first time by the terrorist armed gangs in Baba Amr, Homs, where the Mossad, Blackwater and CIA have led military operations.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Tuesday that the people of Syria are determined to crush terrorist groups and pursue the reforms in the country. He added that foreign forces are seeking to undermine the Syrian government.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011. Hundreds of people, including security forces have been killed since then.

Narco y mito

El narco en México y quien lo U.S.A.

Jorge Munguía Espitia

MÉXICO, D.F. (Proceso).- Rafael Barajas (El Fisgón) publica el libro-historieta Narcotráfico para inocentes: El narco en México y quien lo U.S.A. (Ed. El Chamuco; México, 2011. 219 p.), en el que hace una relación del surgimiento del narcotráfico y la manera en cómo lo ha combatido el Estado durante el sexenio de Felipe Calderón. En especial destaca el apoyo de Estados Unidos en esa lucha y las intenciones de incrementar su control en el país a través del acceso a los sistemas de inteligencia nacionales, la presencia de agentes de la DEA y la entrega de armas a la delincuencia, la Marina, el Ejército y la policía.

Todo esto bajo una estrategia compleja que combina una guerra irregular, en la que se utilizan las fuerzas como la de los cárteles o de los grupos paramilitares para enfrentarlos entre sí, con una guerra de cuarta generación que tiene como finalidad crear el miedo a través de los medios de comunicación masiva.

Los resultados han sido una mayor presencia estadunidense y un control sobre la población a través del miedo, la militarización y la represión de los movimientos sociales. Así como un debilitamiento de los cárteles para favorecer a uno que pacta e introduce la droga de acuerdo con tiempos y montos del gobierno gringo. Sin embargo, la guerra ha generado miles de muertos (más de 40 mil) y desgarrado el tejido social a través de la desconfianza, la fractura de las familias y los barrios, así como el éxodo hacia otras ciudades.

Narcotráfico para inocentes… es un libro escrito y dibujado con un humor negro de altos vuelos. Por la gran variedad de tesis que maneja, invita al lector a meditar también sobre la corrupción, el sistema financiero, la arbitrariedad, el ejército, la inversión estadunidense…

Hallan en la basura pruebas de masacre cometida por marines en Irak

Son 400 páginas que confirman el asesinato de 24 civiles. Fueron encontradas por un periodista en Bagdad.

17712/11.-Uno por uno, los infantes de marina se sentaron, juraron decir la verdad y dieron entrevistas secretas sobre uno de los episodios más horribles de los años que EE.UU. pasó en Iraq: la masacre de civiles iraquíes de la ciudad de Haditha, cometida en 2005 por un grupo de “marines”.

Las 400 páginas de interrogatorios, antes celosamente guardadas como secretos de guerra, supuestamente debían haber sido destruidas conforme las últimas tropas estadounidenses se alistaban para salir de Iraq. En cambio, fueron descubiertas junto a otros documentos confidenciales, como mapas militares de las rutas de helicópteros, por un periodista de The New York Times en un depósito de chatarra de las afueras de Bagdad. Un empleado las estaba quemando como combustible para cocinar su cena.

Transcripciones de las entrevistas hechas durante la investigación militar sobre la masacre de Haditha se encuentran en este trailer en un depósito de chatarra en Bagdad, que se especializa en la venta de remolques y material de oficina sobrante tras el cierre de las bases militares de EEUU. Foto: The New York Times

Los documentos -muchos rotulados como secretos- son parte de una investigación interna de las fuerzas armadas y confirman gran parte de lo ocurrido en Hadith, una ciudad del río Éufrates donde los “marines” mataron a 24 iraquíes, incluidos un hombre de 76 años en silla de ruedas, mujeres y niños, algunos de los cuales recién empezaban a caminar. Haditha fue un momento definitorio de la guerra, ya que contribuyó a profundizar la perdurable desconfianza iraquí hacia EE.UU. y la indignación ante el hecho de que ni un solo “marine” fuese procesado.

Esa es una de las principales razones por las que las tropas de combate de los EE.UU. se retiran este fin de semana.

Pero los relatos son igualmente sorprendentes por lo que revelan acerca de las enormes tensiones que sufrían los soldados destinados aquí, sus frustraciones y los choques a menudo dolorosos con una población a la que no entendían . El informe documenta el carácter deshumanizante de la guerra, en la que los “marines” llegaron a ver a veinte civiles muertos no como algo “notable” sino de rutina .

Este era el clima en 2005, cuando los infantes de marina de la Compañía K del 3er Batallón, 1er Regimiento de Infantería de Marina de Camp Pendleton, California, llegaron a la provincia de Anbar, donde está ubicada Haditha.

La provincia se había convertido en un baluarte de los sunnitas privados de sus derechos y de los combatientes extranjeros que querían expulsar a EE.UU. de Iraq. De las 4.483 muertes estadounidenses ocurridas en Iraq, 1.335 se produjeron en Anbar.

En 2004, cuatro contratistas de Blackwater fueron muertos a balazos y arrastrados por las calles de Fallujah. Luego sus cuerpos fueron quemados y colgados de un puente. Días después, las fuerzas norteamericanas entraron a Fallujah, y se desató el caos en la provincia de Anbar. Todo esto preparó el terreno para lo que pasó en Haditha el 19 de noviembre de 2005.

Esa mañana, un convoy militar de cuatro vehículos se dirigía a un puesto de avanzada de Haditha cuando uno de ellos se vio alcanzado por una bomba colocada al borde de la carretera. Varios “marines” fueron a atender a los heridos, uno de los cuales más tarde murió, mientras otros buscaban a los insurgentes que podrían haber instalado el dispositivo. En pocas horas, 24 iraquíes -incluido un hombre ciego de 76 años y niños de entre 3 y 15 años- fueron asesinados, muchos dentro de su casa .

Cuando llegaron los primeros informes donde se decía que habían muerto más de veinte civiles en Haditha, los “marines” que los recibieron manifestaron que no les sorprendía el alto número de muertes civiles. El oficial principal K.R. Norwood, que recibió informes desde el campo de batalla el día de los hechos de Haditha, declaró que veinte civiles muertos no era una cifra inusual. “No era llamativo, teniendo en cuenta la zona no diría que era llamativo, señor”, dijo.

Johnson, el comandante de las fuerzas estadounidenses en Anbar, dijo no haberse sentido impulsado a volver sobre los hechos porque eran parte de un patrón constante de muertes civiles . “ Pasaba todo el tiempo , en todo el país “.

Los documentos descubiertos por The New York Times siguen siendo confidenciales. Fueron cargados en remolques militares y trasladados al depósito de chatarra por un contratista iraquí que trataba de vender los desechos de las bases estadounidenses, dijo el empleado del depósito. “¿Qué podemos hacer con ellas?” preguntó el empleado. “Estas cosas no tienen ningún valor para nosotros, pero entendemos que son importantes y es mejor quemarlas para proteger a los estadounidenses. Si se van, debe ser porque su trabajo aquí ya está cumplido”.

(Traducido por Clarín, Argentina)

Democracy Now! sobre masacre de Haditha

Meet the Wealthy Men Trying to Buy Our Upcoming Election

These are America's best-funded political factions, their war chests filled by some of the richest men (and almost all are men) in the country.

AlterNet / By Justin Elliott

The hidden infrastructure of the 2012 campaign has already been built.

A handful of so-called Super PACs, enabled to collect unlimited donations by the continued erosion of campaign finance regulations, are expected to rival the official campaign organizations in importance this election. In many cases, these groups are acting essentially as outside arms of the campaigns.

These are America's best-funded political factions, their war chests filled by some of the richest men (and almost all are men) in the country.

More than 80 percent of giving to Super PACs so far has come from just 58 donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics analysis of the latest data, which covers the first half of 2011. The Republican groups have raised $17.6 million and the Democratic groups $7.6 million. Those numbers will balloon, with American Crossroads, the main Republican Super PAC, aiming to raise $240 million.)

The exceptions are two public employee labor unions, whose massive donations match those of some of the largest moguls. The rest are individuals with vast fortunes at their disposal. They constitute two different tribes.

The conservative red tribe is dominated by businessmen who have built or inherited fortunes. They also include Wall Street investors, oil and gas men, construction magnates, and retail executives. Mormons are well represented.

The liberal blue tribe is dominated by men from Hollywood and media entrepreneurs -- often Jewish -- and the leaders of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

The Super PACs are not paragons of transparency, but what has been disclosed gives a sense of where the money is coming from and the interests of those giving it. Based on the donors and the origins of these groups, we can already discern what messages the Super PACs will generate in the home stretch of the campaign.

What follows is a pocket guide to the big money tribes of American politics, what they will tell you -- and what they won't.

AMERICAN CROSSROADS

Staffed by former officials from the Republican National Committee and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and associated with Karl Rove. Many consider it more important than the RNC itself. Certainly American Crossroads and Fox News control the GOP's message in a way the Republican National Committee does not and cannot. It is not unfair to say that during a presidential election year, the Republican Party is more an adjunct to American Crossroads, than vice versa.

The funders:

-- Jerry Perenchio, the former CEO of Univision, has already given a whopping $2 million to the group. Perenchio has been attacked by some right-wing commentators for his moderate stances on immigration issues. Befitting his more moderate politics, Perenchio in August signed on to the Jon Huntsman campaign as a member of the "California finance team" to help with fundraising. That move came four months after his contribution to Crossroads. Given Huntsman's failure to pick up any steam, it's not clear at this point what role Perenchio will play in the 2012 race.

-- Bob Perry: A Texan who made a fortune in the construction business, he has given $500,000 to Crossroads. A longtime friend of Rove, he's been a huge donor to GOP causes for years. In 2010, he gave a staggering $7 million to Crossroads in a six-week period before Election Day. As for what issues he cares about, a spokesman once described his philosophy this way: "People call him and pitch him, and if he likes what he hears, he'll write a check." That includes unsavory efforts like the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack campaign against John Kerry, which Perry bankrolled.

To read more HERE.

BOYCOTT ISRAEL / USA

Empire of Chaos: How 9/11 Shaped the Politics of a Failing State

The neoconservative ideas that shaped the war on terror have evaporated as the United States is battered by an economic depression that shows no end.

AlterNet / By Arun Gupta

The neoconservative ideas that shaped the war on terror have evaporated as the United States is battered by an economic depression that shows no end.

The events made my mind reel. The angry plumes of smoke, office paper raining like confetti, tumbling windows flashing in the sunlight. I could make out jumpers and watched a jet fighter whoosh by the burning towers, bank and disappear. I thought, “This is like a movie.”

It upset me that my only way to comprehend the events was to reference the Hollywood imaginarium. But it was understandable. Where else would I have seen images resembling the war in my backyard – collapsing skyscrapers, gigantic fireballs and thousands of dead?

The need to make sense of the events of Sept. 11 – the plot by al-Qaeda, four hijacked airliners, the demolished twin towers and nearly 3,000 dead – is universal. It is why the state’s first task after 9/11 – before one bomb dropped, one soldier deployed – was to imprint the “war on terror” on the collective American mindset.

Mere hours after the attack, in his address to the nation, President Bush began assembling the ideological scaffolding for endless war: “America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world”; “our nation saw evil”; “the American economy will be open for business”; “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them”; and “we stand together to win the war against terrorism.”

Many of the ideas that have shaped the events and policies of the first decade of the war on terror are right there: American exceptionalism, they hate us for our freedoms, capitalism will triumph, and this war will know no geographic or temporal bounds.

These ideas were bundled into the “New American Century,” the neoconservative dream to extend Pax Americana indefinitely. Ten years later that dream has evaporated as the United States is being battered by an economic depression that shows no end. The only question appears to be how quickly America will be eclipsed by China. So how did we get from the triumphalism of “mission accomplished” to the twilight of American Empire?

In essence, the responses to 9/11 by the managers of the corporate-military state, which were largely shaped by ideology, have accelerated a decline that started decades ago. After World War II, U.S. hegemony was based on its ability to order the world. Today, U.S. power is dominant but waning, and its main effect is that of disorder – internationally and domestically. And that disorder is eroding the military, economic, political and diplomatic foundations of its rule.

While there is no certainty that China will usher in a Pacific Century – in the 1980s it was “the Japan threat” that generated U.S. anxiety – American Empire will continue to decay if for no other reason than its economic base has been hollowed out and new power blocs are taking shape across the world.

After WWII, the United States wielded all manner of institutions and ideology in establishing global rule: the Bretton Woods Agreement ordered the world economy, the dollar was the reserve currency, the United Nations legitimized undemocratic big-power rule, the Pentagon and threat of nuclear weapons served as the instruments of violence, the transnational corporation combined with U.S. government aid opened and created new capitalist markets, and anti-Communism undermined and isolated mass anti-capitalist forces in the West. Finally, the compact between capital and labor provided for social welfare, generous benefits and increasing wages so workers could enjoy the consumer bounty in return for purging the left from unions and helping squelch labor movements in the Third World.

To read more HERE.

" IN DEBT WE TRUST"

In America's earliest days, there were barn-raising parties in which neighbors helped each other build up their farms. Today, in some churches, there are debt liquidation revivals in which parishioners chip in to free each other from growing credit card debts that are driving American families to bankruptcy and desperation. IN DEBT WE TRUST is the latest film from Danny Schechter, "The News Dissector," director of the internationally distributed and award-winning WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception), an expose of the media's role in the Iraq War. The Emmy-winning former ABC News and CNN producer's new hard-hitting documentary investigates why so many Americans are being strangled by debt. It is a journalistic confrontation with what former Reagan advisor Kevin Phillips calls "Financialization"--the "powerful emergence of a debt-and-credit industrial complex." While many Americans may be "maxing out" on credit cards, there is a deeper story: power is shifting into fewer hands.....with frightening consequences.

Mexico's hidden war

Josh Rushing finds out how campesino communities caught in the narco-economy are resisting repression and dispossession.

http://youtu.be/2Rc72FZYlCM

The spectacular violence of Mexico's drug war grabs international attention. Some 45,000 people have been killed since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon deployed Mexican military and security forces in the so-called war against the cartels - often in gruesome and sadistic ways.
But behind the headlines, under cover of impunity, a low-intensity war is being waged. In the second episode of a two-part series, Josh Rushing and the Fault Lines team travel to the state of Guerrero to investigate claims that Mexican security forces are using the drug war as a pretext to repress indigenous and campesino communities.

In one of Mexico's poorest and top drug-producing states, where struggling farmers are surrounded by the narco-economy, we ask about the cost of taking the struggle against dispossession into your own hands.

CUBADEBATE

Buscando visas…, buscando un muerto

Washington, que históricamente ha utilizado su “programa de refugiados” en su arsenal anticubano, pone precio a las visas, y el más caro es incluso sacrificar la vida. Su convocatoria es abierta: un saco donde tienen cabida mercenarios, terroristas o delincuentes. No importa la calaña, lo que hace falta es un muerto. De lo demás se encargan los medios de la desinformación y voceros imperiales.

Es por ello que apela al suicidio como “método de lucha”, a través de huelgas de hambre por cualquier pretexto o contexto, para tratar de fabricar “mártires” e intentar presionar o chantajear a nuestro gobierno.

Ver más »

“El FBI intentó sobornar a los miembros de WikiLeaks”, afirma Julian Assange

El fundador de WikiLeaks señaló en una entrevista que mantuvo en el diario Telegraph, que “el FBI intentó sobornar a los miembros de WikiLeaks”. A nadie le debería extrañar que la superpotencia y sus servicios de inteligencia hayan intentado de una o otra manera acercarse a los entresijos de la organización que ha realizado la mayor filtración en la historia del país, no así tanto que haya sido el propio FBI el que intentará un soborno para infiltrarse en WikiLeaks, dijo Assange.

Ban Ki-moon, el inquebrantable amigo de EEUU

Veamos qué dicen los documentos del Departamento de Estado por cortesía de Wikileaks. La embajada de EEUU en Seúl lo definió antes de su elección como un personaje sin más experiencia que la conseguida en el Ministerio de Exteriores, pero había una cosa que tenía clara: “En una credencial no tenemos ninguna duda”, de acuerdo con la apreciación de la embajada de EE.UU en Seúl, Corea: Ban es inquebrantablemente pro-estadounidense y se puede contar con él para ofrecer un oído comprensivo cuando EEUU. necesite algo.

Mas informacion de Cubadebate AQUI.

It's Not Just Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF Itself Should Be on Trial

Imagine a prominent figure was charged, not with raping a hotel maid, but with starving her, and her family, to death along with thousands of others.

Independent UK / By Johann Hari

Sometimes, the most revealing aspect of the shrieking babble of the 24/7 news agenda is the silence. Often the most important facts are hiding beneath the noise, unmentioned and undiscussed.

So the fact that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is facing trial for allegedly raping a maid in a New York hotel room is – rightly – big news. But imagine a prominent figure was charged not with raping a maid, but starving her to death, along with her children, her parents, and thousands of other people. That is what the IMF has done to innocent people in the recent past. That is what it will do again, unless we transform it beyond all recognition. But that is left in the silence.

To understand this story, you have to reel back to the birth of the IMF. In 1944, the countries that were poised to win the Second World War gathered in a hotel in rural New Hampshire to divvy up the spoils. With a few honorable exceptions, like the great British economist John Maynard Keynes, the negotiators were determined to do one thing. They wanted to build a global financial system that ensured the money and resources of the planet were forever hoovered towards them. They set up a series of institutions designed for that purpose – and so the IMF was delivered into the world.

The IMF’s official job sounds simple and attractive. It is supposedly there to ensure poor countries don’t fall into debt, and if they do, to lift them out with loans and economic expertise. It is presented as the poor world’s best friend and guardian. But beyond the rhetoric, the IMF was designed to be dominated by a handful of rich countries – and, more specifically, by their bankers and financial speculators. The IMF works in their interests, every step of the way.

Let’s look at how this plays out on the ground. In the 1990s, the small country of Malawi in Southeastern Africa was facing severe economic problems after enduring one of the worst HIV-AIDS epidemics in the world and surviving a horrific dictatorship. They had to ask the IMF for help. If the IMF has acted in its official role, it would have given loans and guided the country to develop in the same way that Britain and the US and every other successful country had developed – by protecting its infant industries, subsidising its farmers, and investing in the education and health of its people.

That’s what an institution that was concerned with ordinary people – and accountable to them – would look like. But the IMF did something very different. They said they would only give assistance if Malawi agreed to the ‘structural adjustments’ the IMF demanded. They ordered Malawi to sell off almost everything the state owned to private companies and speculators, and to slash spending on the population. They demanded they stop subsidising fertilizer, even though it was the only thing that made it possible for farmers – most of the population – to grow anything in the country’s feeble and depleted soil. They told them to prioritise giving money to international bankers over giving money to the Malawian people.

So when in 2001 the IMF found out the Malawian government had built up large stockpiles of grain in case there was a crop failure, they ordered them to sell it off to private companies at once. They told Malawi to get their priorities straight by using the proceeds to pay off a loan from a large bank the IMF had told them to take out in the first place, at a 56 per cent annual rate of interest. The Malawian president protested and said this was dangerous. But he had little choice. The grain was sold. The banks were paid.

To read more HERE.

It's a Simple Fact: Obama Is Now Waging an Illegal War

The question is whether anyone in Congress will find the will to do something about it.

AlterNet /By Joshua Holland

Regardless of whether one loves or loathes the president, or how one views his intervention in Libya, it is simply a conclusive fact that Barack Obama is now pursuing an illegal conflict. And a timid congress, so inured to our nation's permanent state of war, isn't calling him on its illegality.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is not an ambiguously worded statute. Passed over a presidential veto in the latter stages of the Vietnam conflict, it was designed to be a check on the executive branch's authority to enter the United States into far-flung hostilities. Among other things, the resolution requires the president to “terminate any use of United States Armed Forces” after 60 days unless Congress specifically authorizes the action, grants an extension or “is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack upon the United States.”

The deadline for getting Congress to authorize military action in Libya came and went on May 20. According to the New York Times, Obama sent a letter to Congressional leaders in which “he did not directly ask for a resolution authorizing the action or concede that it was necessary.” Meanwhile, “Administration officials offered no theory for why continuing the air war in Libya in the absence of Congressional authorization and beyond the deadline would be lawful.”

It isn't. At least Bill Clinton offered a “theory” for continuing the air campaign in Kosovo for two weeks after that deadline passed; he said that Congress had appropriated funds for the campaign, which amounted to tacit authorization to continue the fight. The Obama administration is simply thumbing its nose at the law.

It's likely that if one polled Americans about their views of this development, they wouldn't much care. But they should. The separation of powers is one of those "first principles" that should supersede partisanship or ideology. We have now come to the end of a long slippery slope: the Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war (scholars have long debated whether that actually means waging war); the War Powers Resolution granted the executive branch the power to deploy troops in an emergency situation and then get Congress to sign off; and now we appear to have arrived at a point where there is effectively no check on the executive's ability to deploy U.S. troops anywhere in the world. The administration isn't even offering a “theory” of how it might be legal to blow the deadline in the Libyan context.

The administration shouldn't bear the blame for this development alone. A small number of lawmakers have sent letters to the White House asking the administration to comply, but it is ultimately up to Congress to assert its authority, and a divided and dysfunctional legislature has shown little will to challenge the White House on matters of war and peace.

Since its passage almost 40 years ago, presidents have asserted that the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional. Congress based the statute on the Necessary and Proper clause, which gives the federal government – all three branches – the authority required to carry out its enumerated powers. But both the executive and legislative branches know that if the statute is litigated, one or the other will lose some modicum of power, so they have left the issue unresolved.

A president can't simply ignore a law that he deems unconstitutional – it's the law of the land unless or until it is struck down by the judiciary. So, we've been left in a legal limbo in which the founders' brilliant concept of checks and balances between separate branches of government has become moot when it comes to deploying U.S. forces overseas.

To read more HERE.

Bin Laden y la última aventura de Supermán

Osama Bin Laden, líder de Al Qaeda.

Ariel Dorfman

MÉXICO, D.F., 12 de mayo.- ¿Puede ser una suprema coincidencia? ¿O acaso hay gato –o superhéroe– encerrado?

Para entender por qué ahora, justo ahora, en ésta de todas las fechas posibles, se llevó a cabo el ajusticiamiento de Bin Laden, tal vez sea necesario vincular su muerte repentina y deseada con dos acontecimientos aparentemente desconectados que surgieron la semana pasada.

El primero, que causó entre fanáticos de la guerra entre el bien y el mal casi tanta consternación como el asesinato del funesto y lúgubre jefe de Al Qaeda, aunque menos júbilo, fue el anuncio de Supermán (en la historieta número 900 de aniversario que celebra sus peripecias) de que pensaba ir a las Naciones Unidas para renunciar a la ciudadanía estadunidense. El Hombre de Acero que, desde su primera aparición inaugural en la revista de historietas Action de junio de 1938, se viste con los colores de la bandera yanqui y actúa en nombre de los valores estadunidenses, llegó a tan drástica decisión después de sufrir los reproches del encargado de seguridad del gobierno estadunidense (un hombre de raza negra con un peregrino parecido a Colin Powell) por haber volado hasta Teherán para demostrar durante 24 horas su solidaridad con los manifestantes de la revolución verde que protestaban contra el despotismo de Ahmadinejad y sus secuaces. El gobierno de Irán (en la historieta, por cierto, ya que dudo que los ayatolas reales se dediquen a leer solapadamente las aventuras de Supermán) denunció tal acto –por silencioso que fuera, y animado por la no violencia– como una injerencia del Gran Satanás en sus asuntos internos, casi como una declaración de guerra. Me desagradan sobremanera los autócratas de Irán, pero no se les puede objetar su lógica al aceptar las palabras del propio Hombre de Acero respecto a encarnar desde hace décadas “truth, justice and the American way” (“la verdad, la justicia y el modo de ser/proceder de USA”). Así que Supermán, para poder obrar desde ahora en adelante más allá de las fronteras nacionales y los intereses circunstanciales de cualquier Estado, se vio obligado a establecer su independencia frente a su país adoptivo. Porque, en efecto, Supermán no nació en Estados Unidos, sino en el planeta Kryptón, llegando de bebé (sin pasar por aduanas ni inmigración) a Kansas en una diminuta nave espacial, siendo acogido en ese territorio, en mero centro de USA, por los Kent, granjeros que personifican precisamente la American way. Era Ka-El. Sería Clark Kent.

Es difícil exagerar la indignación con que este acto audaz de renuncia a la ciudadanía, esta “bofetada” de Supermán, fue recibida por el pueblo estadunidense. He leído (¡en serio!) blogueros que llaman a deportar a su planeta de origen al nuevo campeón del internacionalismo (como si fuera un mexicano “ilegal”), y ya circula una petición para que los ejecutivos de la Time Warner (dueños de la empresa que mercantiliza a Supermán) fuercen a los autores de la historieta a retractarse. Y múltiples comentaristas conservadores habían visto este insulto del superhéroe como la prueba definitiva de la decadencia del país más poderoso de la Tierra: ¡hasta el ídolo que representa más universalmente nuestro modo de vida nos está dando la espalda!

No sé si el presidente Obama sigue atentamente las aventuras de Supermán (se sabe que es un fan del Hombre Araña, de cuyo origen neoyorquino no caben dudas), pero alguien tiene que haberle llamado la atención sobre la merma de prestigio que significa la deserción de un tal titán. ¿Qué pasa, por ejemplo, si el Hombre de Acero, adalid de los desposeídos, decide cerrar Guantánamo o usar sus ojos de rayos equis para liberar algunos Súper WikiLeaks, ahora que ya no jura lealtad a la bandera estadunidense? ¿Qué pasa si se pone al servicio de una potencia como China? – aunque, pensándolo bien, no hay mucha Verdad o Justicia en ese país, así que seguramente no aceptaría ese tipo de alianza. En todo caso, los consejeros de Obama tienen que haberle explicado que la defección de Supermán debía tratarse como una inmensa crisis cultural e ideológica que incluso podía costarle al presidente su reelección, puesto que los republicanos ya cocinaban planes para acusarlo de haber “perdido” a Supermán (como si fuera Cuba o Vietnam).

La respuesta de Obama fue genial: al matar a Bin Laden, probaba que USA no necesita a un hombre musculoso que vuela y atraviesa paredes para defenderse de los terroristas, que para eso tiene helicópteros y Navy Seals y computadoras y armas, como qué no, de acero. Un modo de restaurar la confianza nacional que estaba a mal traer y que difícilmente podía tolerar otro menoscabo a su aureola.

Claro que antes de que pudiera realizarse aquella operación en Pakistán, Obama tenía que arreglar otro asunto, un problema que lo rondaba desde hace varios años. ¿Cómo iba a pararse frente al mundo y revelar el asesinato de Bin Laden en nombre de Estados Unidos si un insólito porcentaje de su propio pueblo dudaba de que el presidente fuera, en efecto, estadunidense? ¿Cómo crear el contraste con el tránsfuga Supermán si a Obama mismo se lo acusaba de haber nacido en el extranjero, en Kenya que, como se sabe, está mucho más lejos de Kansas que el Planeta Kryptón, por mucho que los tres lugares compartan la kafkiana letra K?

Y de ahí que Obama produjo hace unos días su certificado de nacimiento, tapándoles la boca a quienes lo señalaban como un “alien” (ajeno, extranjero, pero también “alien” significa extraterrestre, otro significativo paralelo entre el Presidente y el Superhéroe). Por cierto que un grupo de conciudadanos suyos sigue creyendo que Obama no nació en territorio estadunidense. Insisten en que el documento se falsificó y en que el hospital fue sobornado y en que la madre (¡nacida originalmente ni más ni menos que en Kansas!) trajo al niño de contrabando a Hawai porque sabía que en cuarenta y tantos años más ese niñito mulato sería presidente. Se me ocurre que la única manera en que esos recalcitrantes acepten que Obama nació en USA sería que se blanquera enteramente la cara y toda la piel. Ya no sería, entonces, un “alien”.

Pero para la mayoría de sus compatriotas, Obama logró en una semana una verdadera y triple proeza. Habiendo probado que era un presidente legítimo, pudo, armado de su certificado de nacimiento y también del ejército más vigoroso del globo, eliminar al siniestro enemigo número uno de Estados Unidos. Y sin que interviniera Supermán.

¿Y ahora qué?

Ahora, propongo una hazaña de verdad: ya que la razón por la cual Bush invadió Afganistán era el amparo que los talibanes ofrecieron a Bin Laden, ¿no ha llegado el momento de retirar todas las fuerzas estadunidenses de ese país de montañas y guerrillas?

Estoy seguro de que Supermán, en conjunción con las Naciones Unidas y esgrimiendo su nuevo pasaporte cosmopolita y global, estaría feliz de ayudar en el transporte rápido de la tropas. Sería bonito que lo leyéramos en las próximas aventuras del Hombre de Acero, sería alentador que Obama y Supermán --ambos con sus orígenes en Kansas, ambos menospreciados por ser “extranjeros”-- colaboraran para crear por lo menos un pequeño oasis de paz en un mundo donde desafortunadamente escasean por ahora tanto la verdad como la justicia. l

*La última novela de Ariel Dorfman es Americanos: Los Pasos de Murieta.

Imperial Decline: How Does It Feel to Be Inside a Dying Empire?

Could this be what it’s like to watch, paralyzed, as a country on autopilot begins to come apart at the seams while still proclaiming itself “the greatest nation on Earth”?

Alternet

This can’t end well.

But then, how often do empires end well, really? They live vampirically by feeding off others until, sooner or later, they begin to feed on themselves, to suck their own blood, to hollow themselves out. Sooner or later, they find themselves, as in our case, economically stressed and militarily extended in wars they can’t afford to win or lose.

Historians have certainly written about the dangers of overextended empires and of endless war as a way of life, but there’s something distant and abstract about the patterns of history. It’s quite another thing to take it in when you’re part of it; when, as they used to say in the overheated 1960s, you’re in the belly of the beast.

I don’t know what it felt like to be inside the Roman Empire in the long decades, even centuries, before it collapsed, or to experience the waning years of the Spanish empire, or the twilight of the Qing dynasty, or of Imperial Britain as the sun first began to set, or even of the Soviet Empire before the troops came slinking home from Afghanistan, but at some point it must have seemed at least a little like this -- truly strange, like watching a machine losing its parts. It must have seemed as odd and unnerving as it does now to see a formerly mighty power enter a state of semi-paralysis at home even as it staggers on blindly with its war-making abroad.

The United States is, of course, an imperial power, however much we might prefer not to utter the word. We still have our globe-spanning array of semi-client states; our military continues to garrison much of the planet; and we are waging war abroad more continuously than at any time in memory. Yet who doesn’t sense that the sun is now setting on us?

Not so many years ago, we were proud enough of our global strength to regularly refer to ourselves as the Earth’s “sole superpower.” In those years, our president and his top officials dreamed of establishing a worldwide Pax Americana, while making speeches and issuing official documents proclaiming that the United States would be militarily “beyond challenge” by any and all powers for eons to come. So little time has passed and yet who speaks like that today? Who could?

A Country in Need of Prozac

Have you noticed, by the way, how repetitiously our president, various presidential candidates, and others now insist that we are “the greatest nation on Earth” (as they speak of the U.S. military being “the finest fighting force in the history of the world”)? And yet, doesn’t that phrase leave ash in your mouth? Look at this country and its frustrations today and tell me: Does anyone honestly believe that anymore?

It wasn’t a mistake that the fantasy avenger figure of Rambo became immensely popular in the wake of defeat in Vietnam or that, unlike American heroes of earlier decades, he had such a visibly, almost risibly overblown musculature. As eye-candy, it was pure overcompensation for the obvious. Similarly, when the United States was actually “the greatest” on this planet, no one needed to say it over and over again.

Can there be any question that something big is happening here, even if we don’t quite know what it is because, unlike the peoples of past empires, we never took pride in or even were able to think of ourselves as imperial? And if you were indeed in denial that you lived in the belly of a great imperial power, if like most Americans you managed to ignore the fact that we were pouring our treasure into the military or setting up bases in countries that few could have found on a map, then you would naturally experience the empire going down as if through a glass darkly.

To read more HERE.

Chomsky: Who Owns The World?

Chomsky: Is the World Too Big to Fail? The Contours of Global Order

There are sure to be far-reaching consequences of what is taking place both in the decaying industrial heartland of the U.S. and in the Arab world.

Alternet

The democracy uprising in the Arab world has been a spectacular display of courage, dedication, and commitment by popular forces -- coinciding, fortuitously, with a remarkable uprising of tens of thousands in support of working people and democracy in Madison, Wisconsin, and other U.S. cities. If the trajectories of revolt in Cairo and Madison intersected, however, they were headed in opposite directions: in Cairo toward gaining elementary rights denied by the dictatorship, in Madison towards defending rights that had been won in long and hard struggles and are now under severe attack.

Each is a microcosm of tendencies in global society, following varied courses. There are sure to be far-reaching consequences of what is taking place both in the decaying industrial heartland of the richest and most powerful country in human history, and in what President Dwight Eisenhower called "the most strategically important area in the world" -- "a stupendous source of strategic power" and "probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment," in the words of the State Department in the 1940s, a prize that the U.S. intended to keep for itself and its allies in the unfolding New World Order of that day.

Despite all the changes since, there is every reason to suppose that today's policy-makers basically adhere to the judgment of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s influential advisor A.A. Berle that control of the incomparable energy reserves of the Middle East would yield "substantial control of the world." And correspondingly, that loss of control would threaten the project of global dominance that was clearly articulated during World War II, and that has been sustained in the face of major changes in world order since that day.

From the outset of the war in 1939, Washington anticipated that it would end with the U.S. in a position of overwhelming power. High-level State Department officials and foreign policy specialists met through the wartime years to lay out plans for the postwar world. They delineated a "Grand Area" that the U.S. was to dominate, including the Western hemisphere, the Far East, and the former British empire, with its Middle East energy resources. As Russia began to grind down Nazi armies after Stalingrad, Grand Area goals extended to as much of Eurasia as possible, at least its economic core in Western Europe. Within the Grand Area, the U.S. would maintain "unquestioned power," with "military and economic supremacy," while ensuring the "limitation of any exercise of sovereignty" by states that might interfere with its global designs. The careful wartime plans were soon implemented.

It was always recognized that Europe might choose to follow an independent course. NATO was partially intended to counter this threat. As soon as the official pretext for NATO dissolved in 1989, NATO was expanded to the East in violation of verbal pledges to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It has since become a U.S.-run intervention force, with far-ranging scope, spelled out by NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who informed a NATO conference that "NATO troops have to guard pipelines that transport oil and gas that is directed for the West," and more generally to protect sea routes used by tankers and other "crucial infrastructure" of the energy system.

Grand Area doctrines clearly license military intervention at will. That conclusion was articulated clearly by the Clinton administration, which declared that the U.S. has the right to use military force to ensure "uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources," and must maintain huge military forces "forward deployed" in Europe and Asia "in order to shape people's opinions about us" and "to shape events that will affect our livelihood and our security."

To read more HERE.

Oliver Stone: Don't Betray Us, Barack -- End the Empire

Let's face facts: The US can no longer dictate to the rest of the world.

Alternet

"Suddenly, a season of peace seems to be warming the world," the New York Times exulted on the last day of July 1988. Protracted and bloody wars were ending in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia and Nicaragua, and between Iran and Iraq. But the most dramatic development was still to come.

In December 1988, the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, declared the cold war over. "The use or threat of force no longer can or must be an instrument of foreign policy," he said. "This applies above all to nuclear arms."

He proposed cutting offensive strategic arms in half, jointly safeguarding the environment, banning weapons in outer space, ending exploitation of the third world and canceling third world debt payments. He called for a UN-brokered ceasefire in Afghanistan, acknowled­ging that, after nine years, the Russians had failed to defeat the Afghan insurgents despite deploying 100,000 troops.

Still, he was not finished. He held out an olive branch to the incoming administration of George H W Bush, offering a "joint effort to put an end to an era of wars".

The New York Times described Gorbachev's riveting, hour-long speech as the greatest act of statesmanship since Roosevelt and Churchill's Atlantic Charter in 1941. The Washington Post called it "a speech as remarkable as any ever delivered at the United Nations".

Gorbachev saw this as a new beginning for America, Russia and the world, but US policymakers had something very different in mind, hailing it as the triumph of the capitalist west after the long decades of the cold war.

In September 1990, Michael Mandelbaum, then director of east-west studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, rejoiced that "for the first time in 40 years we can conduct military operations in the Middle East without worrying about triggering World War III".

The US would soon test that hypothesis, beginning two decades of costly and destructive imperial overreach, particularly, but not exclusively, in the Middle East. It squandered a historic opportunity to make the world a more peaceful and just place, instead declaring itself the global hegemon. After the attacks of 11 September 2001, the entire gaggle of neocons was extolling American power and beneficence. "We are an attractive empire, the one everyone wants to join," crowed the military historian Max Boot.

Buzzsaw of opposition

Fast-forward to 2008, when Barack Obama swept to office on a wave of popular euphoria, mesmerising supporters with his inspiring biography, lofty and exhilarating rhetoric, welcome rejection of unilateralism and strong opposition to the Iraq war - qualities that made him seem the antithesis of George W Bush.

Bush and his empire-building advisers - the sorriest crew ever to run this country - had saddled him and the American people with an incredible mess. After two long and disastrous wars, trillions of dollars in military spending, torture and abuse of prisoners on several continents, an economic collapse and near-depression at home, disparities between rich and poor unheard of in an advanced industrial country, government surveillance on an unprecedented scale, collapsing infrastructure and a global reputation left in tatters, the US did not look all that attractive.

Obama has taken a bad situation and, in many ways, made it worse. He got off to a good start, immediately taking steps to reverse some of Bush's most outlandish policies - pledging to end torture and close the detention facility at Guantanamo as well as the network of CIA-administered secret prisons.

But he ran into a buzzsaw of opposition from opportunistic Republicans and conservative Democrats over these and other progressive measures and has been in retreat ever since. As a result, his first two years in office have been a disappointment.

Instead of modelling himself after Gorba­chev and boldly championing deeply felt convictions and transformative policies, Obama has taken a page from the Bill (and Hillary) Clinton playbook and governed as a right-leaning centrist. While trying naively to ingratiate himself with an opposition bent solely on his defeat, he has repeatedly turned his back on those who put him in office.

To read the complete article HERE.

Mexico, chief casualty of America's 'war on drugs'

With the death toll ever rising, it's high time the US stopped sponsoring a bloody, unwinnable conflict with the drugs cartels.
Mexican police guard a US embassy vehicle after it came under fire from gunmen on Highway 57 between Mexico City and Monterrey, on 15 February 2011. A US immigration and customs enforcement agent was killed and another wounded in the attack. Photograph: AP Photo/Teodoro Blanco Vazquez

John Ackerman

Tuesday's brutal attack on two US law enforcement agents in Mexico has led to the normal sabre-rattling. Representative Michael McCaul of Texas has called it a "game-changer" and a "wake-up call" to the "war on our nation's doorstep". Last week, James Westphal, undersecretary of the Army, had already spoken of an "armed insurgency" in Mexico, and the possibility of sending "armed and fighting" troops across the border to prevent a "takeover of government". Secretary Janet Napolitano continually speaks of the "war" south of the border. James Clapper, national intelligence director, recently announced that Mexico has been promoted to being a top national security threat.

Mexico has, indeed, reached a tipping point. But an escalation of the present military strategy will only make the situation worse. The best response to recent events is to end the war and proceed towards disarmament, instead of aggravating the conflict. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, has declared the end of the metaphorical "war on drugs" within US borders. The time has come also to bring a stop to the very real war on the drug cartels south of the border.

The central problem with the military strategy is that it does not distinguish between violent and non-violent criminals, or serious and less harmful crimes. As Kerlikowske has pointed out, the Mexican cartels are not "insurgents" or "terrorists", but "multivalent criminal organisations", which have diversified into a wide variety of activities including kidnapping, extortion, piracy, human trafficking, money-laundering and government corruption, as well as the transportation and sale of illegal drugs.

Of all of these crimes, by far the least harmful for social and economic development is the transportation of drugs. Although drug consumption is clearly damaging, simply transporting illegal substances does not, in itself, create violence, economic crisis or human suffering. And even the harm of drug consumption pales in comparison to the effects of kidnappings, beheadings and human trafficking, especially when the consumption involves marijuana, sales of which make up two thirds of the profits of the Mexican cartels.

Nevertheless, due to pressure from the US government, the Mexican authorities have been forced to concentrate their scarce law enforcement resources on pursuing the least harmful crimes. This strategy has had the obvious consequence of pushing the criminals towards more dangerous and violent activities. The result: a stratospheric increase in violence, with over 35,000 assassinations in the past four years, 15,000 during 2010 alone. The problem in Mexico is, therefore, not a lack of firepower or support for the "war on drugs", but the very strategy of "war" itself.

The real priority should be on punishing violent crimes, not the transportation of drugs. By turning the typical strategy on its head, Mexico would slowly start to separate the violent, dangerous criminals from those drug traffickers who are in the business principally for the money. Although this might not bring down the prices of illegal drugs on the streets of US cities, it would help end the violence, which today is paramount and may at some point spill over to the US.

This proposal should not be confused with either legalisation or negotiation approaches. Increased liberalisation of marijuana consumption would reduce the urgency of controlling transportation routes, but this strategy is by no means dependent on the legalisation of drug use. And this idea in no way implies a pact with the cartels, in the style of the past authoritarian Mexican governments. On the contrary, the proposal is to increase, not reduce, the pressure on the most serious criminals.

Such a change in strategy would immediately receive vigorous applause from the Mexican people. A growing number of Mexicans have come to the conclusion that peace and prosperity are more important than stopping the flow of drugs towards eager consumers in the United States. A broad new citizen movement has even emerged, rallying around the cry of: "No more blood!" Movement leaders agree that the drug cartels need to be controlled – but in a way that does not destroy the very fabric of society. It makes no sense to win the war, if it leaves the country in shambles.

It is time for the Obama administration to listen to the Mexican people and not only to his military advisers. The roots of the problem obviously lie in the lack of regulation of the sale of assault weapons and in the high drug consumption in the US: 90% of weapons confiscated from Mexican cartels come from the US. But if it is not politically feasible to attend to these issues, the Obama administration can at least change the emphasis of its policy towards Mexico. The central objective should be the reduction of violence and the establishment of the rule of law. Without this, everything else is doomed to fail.

President Obama, say the 'D-Word'

US appears to shy away from talk about democracy in Middle East, despite historic anti-government rallies in ally Egypt.
Obama has 'sought to equate Egypt's protesters and government as equally pitted parties in the growing conflict' [AFP]

AlJazzera

It's incredible, really. The president of the United States can't bring himself to talk about democracy in the Middle East. He can dance around it, use euphemisms, throw out words like "freedom" and "tolerance" and "non-violent" and especially "reform," but he can't say the one word that really matters: democracy.

How did this happen? After all, in his famous 2009 Cairo speech to the Muslim world, Obama spoke the word loudly and clearly - at least once.

"The fourth issue that I will address is democracy," he declared, before explaining that while the United States won't impose its own system, it was committed to governments that "reflect the will of the people... I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere."

"No matter where it takes hold," the president concluded, "government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power."

Simply rhetoric?

Of course, this was just rhetoric, however lofty, reflecting a moment when no one was rebelling against the undemocratic governments of our allies - at least not openly and in a manner that demanded international media coverage.

Now it's for real.

And "democracy" is scarcely to be heard on the lips of the president or his most senior officials.

In fact, newly released WikiLeaks cables show that from the moment it assumed power, the Obama administration specifically toned down public criticism of Mubarak. The US ambassador to Egypt advised secretary of state Hillary Clinton to avoid even the mention of former presidential candidate Ayman Nour, jailed and abused for years after running against Mubarak in part on America's encouragement.

Not surprisingly, when the protests began, Clinton declared that Egypt was "stable" and an important US ally, sending a strong signal that the US would not support the protesters if they tried to topple the regime. Indeed, Clinton has repeatedly described Mubarak as a family friend. Perhaps Ms Clinton should choose her friends more wisely.

Similarly, president Obama has refused to take a strong stand in support of the burgeoning pro-democracy movement and has been no more discriminating in his public characterisation of American support for its Egyptian "ally". Mubarak continued through yesterday to be praised as a crucial partner of the US. Most important, there has been absolutely no call for real democracy.

Rather, only "reform" has been suggested to the Egyptian government so that, in Obama's words, "people have mechanisms in order to express legitimate grievances".

"I've always said to him that making sure that they are moving forward on reform - political reform, economic reform - is absolutely critical for the long-term well-being of Egypt," advised the president, although vice-president Joe Biden has refused to refer to Mubarak as a dictator, leading one to wonder how bad a leader must be to deserve the title.

Even worse, the president and his senior aides have repeatedly sought to equate the protesters and the government as somehow equally pitted parties in the growing conflict, urging both sides to "show restraint". This equation has been repeated many times by other American officials.

This trick, tried and tested in the US discourse surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is equally nonsensical here. These are not two movements in a contest for political power. Rather, it is a huge state, with a massive security and police apparatus that is supported by the world's major superpower to the tune of billions of dollars a year, against a largely young, disenfranchised and politically powerless population which has suffered brutally at its hands for decades.

The focus on reform is also a highly coded reference, as across the developing world when Western leaders have urged "reform" it has usually signified the liberalisation of economies to allow for greater penetration by Western corporations, control of local resources, and concentration of wealth, rather than the kind of political democratisation and redistribution of wealth that are key demands of protesters across the region.

Al Jazeera interview says it all

An Al Jazeera English interview on Thursday with US state department spokesman PJ Crowley perfectly summed up the sustainability of the Obama administration's position. In some of the most direct and unrelenting questioning of a US official I have ever witnessed, News Hour anchor Shihab al-Rattansi repeatedly pushed Crowley to own up to the hypocrisy and absurdity of the administration's position of offering mild criticism of Mubarak while continuing to ply him with billions of dollars in aid and political support.

When pressed about how the US-backed security services are beating and torturing and even killing protesters, and whether it wasn't time for the US to consider discontinuing aid, Crowley responded that "we don't see this as an either or [a minute later, he said "zero sum"] proposition. Egypt is a friend of the US, is an anchor of stability and helping us pursue peace in the Middle East".

Each part of this statement is manifestly false; the fact that in the midst of intensifying protests senior officials feel they can spin the events away from openly calling for a real democratic transition now reveals either incredible ignorance, arrogance, or both.

Yet this is precisely an either/or moment. Much as former US president Bush declared in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, we can either be "with or against" the Egyptian people. Refusing to take sides is in fact taking sides -the wrong side.

Moreover, Crowley, like his superiors, refused to use the word democracy, responding to its use by anchor al-Rattansi with the word "reform" while arguing that it was unproductive to tie events in Egypt to the protests in other countries such as Tunis or Jordan because each has its own "indigenous" forces and reasons for discontent.

That is a very convenient singularisation of the democracy movements, which ignores the large number of similarities in the demands of protests across the region, the tactics and strategies of protest, and their broader distaste and distrust of the US in view of its untrammelled support for dictatorships across the region.

Systematic silence

Ensconced in a system built upon the lack of democracy - not just abroad, but as we've seen in the last decade, increasingly in the US as well - perhaps president Obama doesn't feel he has the luxury of pushing too hard for democracy when its arrival would threaten so many policies pursued by his administration.

Instead, "stability" and "reform" are left to fill the void, even though both have little to do with democracy in an real sense.

Perhaps Obama wants to say the D-word. Maybe in his heart he hopes Mubarak just leaves and allows democracy to flourish. By all accounts, the president is no ideologue like his predecessor. He does not come from the political-economic-strategic elites as did Bush, and has no innate desire to serve or protect their interests.

Feeling trapped by a system outside his control or power to change, maybe president Obama hopes that the young people of the Arab world will lead the way, and will be satisfied by congratulations by his administration after the fact.

But even if accurate, such a scenario will likely never come to pass. With Egyptians preparing to die in the streets, standing on the sidelines is no longer an option.

A gift that won't be offered again

The most depressing and even frightening part of the tepid US response to the protests across the region is the lack of appreciation of what kind of gift the US, and West more broadly, are being handed by these movements. Their very existence is bringing unprecedented levels of hope and productive activism to a region and as such constitutes a direct rebuttal to the power and prestige of al-Qaeda.

Instead of embracing the push for real democratic change, however, surface reforms that would preserve the system intact are all that's recommended. Instead of declaring loud and clear a support for a real democracy agenda, the president speaks only of "disrupting plots and securing our cities and skies" and "tak[ing] the fight to al-Qaeda and their allies", as he declared in his State of the Union address.

Obama doesn't seem to understand that the US doesn't need to "take the fight" to al-Qaeda, or even fire a single shot, to score its greatest victory in the "war on terror". Supporting real democratisation will do more to downgrade al-Qaeda's capabilities than any number of military attacks. He had better gain this understanding quickly because in the next hours or days the Egypt's revolution will likely face its moment of truth. And right behind Egypt are Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, and who knows what other countries, all looking to free themselves of governments that the US and its European allies have uncritically supported for decades.

If president Obama has the courage to support genuine democracy, even at the expense of immediate American policy interests, he could well go down in history as one of the heroes of the Middle East's Jasmine winter. If he chooses platitudes and the status quo, the harm to America's standing in the region will likely take decades to repair.

Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.