The Anti-Empire Report

by William Blum

October 30, 2008

www.killinghope.org

Don't tell my mother I work at the White House. She thinks I play the piano in a whore house.

The Republican presidential campaign has tried to make a big issue of Barack Obama at one time associating with Bill Ayers, a member of the 1960s Weathermen who engaged in political bombings. Governor Palin has accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists”, although Ayers' association with the Weathermen during their period of carrying out anti-Vietnam War bombings in the United States took place when Obama was around 8-years-old.

Contrast this with who President Ronald Reagan, so beloved by the Republican candidates, associated with. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was an Afghan warlord whose followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. This is how they spent their time when they were not screaming "Death to America". CIA and State Department officials called Hekmatyar "scary," "vicious," "a fascist," "definite dictatorship material".¹ None of this prevented the Reagan administration from inviting the man to the White House to meet with Reagan, and showering him with large amounts of aid to fight against the Soviet-supported government of Afghanistan.

Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, palled around with characters almost as unsavory during his first campaign for the presidency in 1988. His campaign staff included a number of genuine pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic types from Eastern and Central Europe. Several of these worthies were leaders of the Republican campaign’s ethnic outreach arm, the Coalition of American Nationalities, despite the fact that their checkered past was not a big secret. One of them, Laszlo Pasztor (or Pastor) had served in the pro-Nazi Hungarian government’s embassy in Berlin during the Second World War. This had been revealed in a 1971 page-one story in the Washington Post.² When this past was again brought up in September 1988, the Republicans were obliged to dump Pasztor and four others of his ilk from Bush’s campaign.³

And who has John McCain been palling around with? Who has been co-chair of McCain's New York campaign and a foreign policy adviser to McCain himself? None other than the illustrious unindicted war criminal and mass murderer Henry Kissinger, who must be very careful when he travels to Europe for there are committed and serious people in several countries there who will again try to have him arrested for the crimes against humanity he's responsible for ... Chile ... Angola ... East Timor ... Vietnam ... Laos ... Cambodia ...

By contrast, there is no evidence that Bill Ayers was involved in any Weathermen bombing that killed anyone; nor have I seen any evidence that on the very rare occasion that an anti-Vietnam War bombing in the United States resulted in a casualty that it could be ascribed to the Weathermen.

John McCain's bombings certainly killed – some two dozen aerial attacks upon the people of Vietnam, people who had neither done nor threatened any harm to him or his country. What label do we give to such acts, to such a man? His level of violence is matched by his degree of hypocrisy. Speaking of Ayers, McCain asked: “How can you countenance someone who was engaged in bombings that could have or did kill innocent people?”⁴

In his 2001 memoir, “Fugitive Days,” Ayers writes: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” This is something very few Americans can accept, and I wouldn't even make the attempt to persuade them. But I personally didn't blame the Weathermen then, and I don't blame them now. The Vietnam War was in its eighth year of barbarity. I and the rest of the army of the powerless needed a few points up there on the scoreboard against the lords of the national-security corporate state.

A bombing, with a suitably war-criminal target – like the State Department or the Pentagon – and taking care to prevent any casualties, told the bastards that we were still out there, that their impunity was not total, that this is how it feels to be bombed. Armed propaganda. It told the public that there was something more serious going on than a town-hall difference of opinion that could be reasonably resolved by reasonable people discussing things in a reasonable manner. And like an unhappy child having a temper tantrum, we needed some instant gratification. We were struggling against the most powerful force in the world.

The Weathermen were on the right side of that war.

John McCain on the wrong side.

And who has Sarah Palin herself been palling around with? John McCain, and the Alaska Independence Party, a secessionist party her husband belonged to for seven years. “My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand,” Joe Vogler, who founded the party, once declared. Earlier this year Governor Palin shouted out to party members: ”Keep up the good work. And God bless you.”⁵

I do believe that secession of a state from the union is somewhat frowned upon by the powers that be, and if memory serves me, the last time it was seriously tried the government actually went to war. Who do these Alaskans think they are, the Kosovo gangsters whose secession from Serbia was immediately recognized by Washington?

This just in: John McCain (yes, the same one), as a congressman, met in 1985 in Chile with General Augusto Pinochet, one of the world's most notorious violators of human rights, credited with killing more than 3,000 civilians, jailing tens of thousands of others, and torturing a great many of them. McCain met with Pinochet apparently without any preconditions, which is what McCain has repeatedly criticized Obama for saying he would do with certain present-day foreign leaders whom McCain doesn't like.

At the time of the meeting, the US Justice Department was seeking the extradition of two close Pinochet associates for an act of terrorism in Washington, DC – the 1976 car-bomb assassination of former Chilean ambassador to the US, Orlando Letelier, a prominent critic of Pinochet, and his American assistant. McCain made no public or private statements critical of the dictatorship, nor did he meet with members of the democratic opposition in Chile. Senator Edward Kennedy arrived only 12 days after McCain in a highly public show of support for democracy, meeting with Catholic church and human rights leaders and large groups of opposition activists.⁶

The John McCains of America, in and out of Congress, would much sooner pal around with Augusto Pinochet than Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro or Bill Ayers.

TO READ MORE OF THIS EDITION OF

"THE ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT" by William Blum,

go to:

http://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/aer63.html

A traveller's tale....

Con Dao: From "Earthly Hell" to Paradise

I am just back from the peaceful, fresh air of beautiful Con Dao island, to the exciting buzz of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Viet Nam.

Famous adventurer Marco Polo discovered Con Dao long before me, in 1294 in fact, when his boat came ashore to avoid a disastrous storm which had destroyed some of his fleet. Con Dao, an archipelago of 16 islands, was once known as Paulo Condore by early western sailors.

For me, it was a stunningly scenic 45 minute flight south from Saigon, and being there was very relaxing. Con Son is a neat little town, with well-kept streets and gardens, and yellow beaches surrounded by thick, green-forested mountains. There is a colourful underwater world of coral reefs to dive in, pearl farming, forest trails, and beautiful sunrises and sunsets from near-deserted beaches. It is one of the rare places visitors can see the turtle making its nest and laying its eggs on the beach at night. Here, there is a real sense of isolation from the busy, modern world.

The quiet isolation was exactly what I was seeking for some much-needed R&R at the end of my 11th year of tourist group leading for Intrepid in Viet Nam. For now at least, it is almost untouched by tourism. But it was not always such a paradise.

The quiet isolation was also just what the French colonialists were seeking and, in 1862, they began to build their notorious prison system on Con Dao. Here, they would brutally incarcerate, torture and murder patriotic Vietnamese who dared to resist French exploitation. For the prisoners, it was their "Earthly Hell", from which some would escape but most would not, except in death.

Later, in 1954, after the French were defeated by the Viet Minh, led by hero President Ho Chi Minh, they handed over their prisons to the US and their client regime in Saigon, to continue the "Earthly Hell", right up until Liberation Day, April 30, 1975. The next day, prisoners themselves rose up in unity with the triumphant Ho Chi Minh Campaign to free themselves, and their country.

My basic but comfortable resort accommodation was located right by some of those prisons, a constant poignant reminder of just where I was relaxing, looking over the beautiful blue-green sea.

For me, it was a sad, harrowing experience walking through just some of the many political prisons, including the especially inhuman "tiger cages". I don't think even I was quite expecting them to be so vast and horrible. Some have been restored, and some are being restored, but I think the most confronting are the ones left as they were, some still with the prisoners' writings and scratchings on the walls, and the lingering smell of human suffering and death, like it was just yesterday.

The diabolical horrors and cruelties of the past continue today in other places in the world, but we are usually deliberately kept oblivious to them (in both cases!).

I also visited the large, well-maintained Hang Duong martyrs' cemetery, peaceful under the forest of trees, the final resting place for so many Vietnamese national heroes and patriots who suffered so much on Con Dao. During the 113 years of this "Earthly Hell" alone, perhaps some 20,000 Vietnamese from all over the country - north, centre and south - died while incarcerated on Con Dao.

For many, the prison was also a revolutionary school, training a defiant generation with the strong will to fight for national salvation. Fortunately, many of those imprisoned on Con Dao lived to become important citizens and famous leaders of modern Viet Nam, including former prime minister Pham Van Dong, former president Ton Duc Thang, Le Duan, Phan Chau Trinh, Nguyen Van Linh, and diplomatic negotiator Le Duc Tho who signed the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement between Viet Nam and the USA, winning the Noble Peace Prize.

I particularly wanted to see the tomb of famous female hero Vo Thi Sau. Born in the south in 1933, she was a Viet Minh revolutionary against the French from the age of 14. She was the first Vietnamese woman to be sentenced to death and transported to Con Dao. Vo Thi Sau was imprisoned in the "tiger cages" at the tender age of 16, and executed on January 23, 1952, when she was only 19. Boldly, she faced her executioners in a white blouse so they could not fail to see her young blood shed for her country. Long ago, I read that even today there are always fresh flowers and incense on her tomb, and sure enough, so there were. Of course, I had to add my own, something I have been wanting to do for many years.

Rest in Peace - We Never Forget

Grave of Vietnamese heroine Vo Thi Sau on the island of Con Dao

Postage stamp marking the 50th Anniversary of the death of Vo Thi Sau

(I visited Con Dao from October 5-9, 2008)

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