VIDEO: The Shock Doctrine

The following short video is based on the book by Naomi Klein:

VIDEO: Naomi Klein Talks About 'The Shock Doctrine'

In the following series of video clips,

Naomi Klein talks about her new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Speaking at a benefit event for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a social justice research institute.

Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America's "free market" policies have come to dominate the world -- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

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Bush Says "Watch Aljazeera"

He didn't use those exact words but last week the president did indicate quite clearly what sort of ... um ... broadcasts we can expect from the mainstream media.

Here is some of the truth that is currently available at Aljazeera, which lately seems more and more like one of the last bastions of responsible journalism...

All is quiet in Falluja, or at least that is how it seems, given that the mainstream media has largely forgotten about the Iraqi city. But independent journalists are risking life and limb to bring out a very different story.

The picture they are painting is of US soldiers killing whole families, including children, attacks on hospitals and doctors, the use of napalm-like weapons and sections of the city destroyed.

One of the few reporters who has reached Falluja is American Dahr Jamail of the Inter Press Service. He interviewed a doctor who had filmed the testimony of a 16-year-old girl.

"She stayed for three days with the bodies of her family who were killed in their home. When the soldiers entered she was in her home with her father, mother, 12 year-old brother and two sisters.

She watched the soldiers enter and shoot her mother and father directly, without saying anything. They beat her two sisters, then shot them in the head. After this her brother was enraged and ran at the soldiers while shouting at them, so they shot him dead," Jamail relates.

This is the kind of story our so-called leaders don't want us to hear.

Speaking of which, guess who says journalists are being targeted? And guess who presented evidence to back her[!]self up? Naomi. Check this out; it's beautiful.

Journalist and writer Naomi Klein has also come under attack for insisting that US forces are eliminating those who dare to count casualties.

No less than the US ambassador to the UK David Johnson wrote a letter to British newspaper The Guardian that published Klein's work, demanding evidence, which she then provided.

The first piece of evidence Klein sent to Johnson was that the hospital in Falluja was raided to stop any reporting of casualties, a tactic that was later repeated in Mosul.

"The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi soldiers was to storm Falluja general hospital, arresting doctors and placing the facility under military control.

"The New York Times reported that 'the hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumours about heavy casualties', noting that 'this time around, the American military intends to fight its own information war, countering or squelching what has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons'.

This might not be news to some of us, but apparently it was big news to "the US ambassador to the UK David Johnson". Har de har. Well Mister David Johnson you done picked on the wrong journalist there, mister ambassador dude moron sir.

It is wonderful to see somebody waving some truth in the general direction of Ambassador Johnson, and it's great to see this happening in a UK paper. But will Americans ever read about it? Other than the four or five regular readers of this lowly and nearly frozen Winter Patriot, who else in the United States will ever know about this? Who else will ever know about any of the other details that appear once in one article in one edition of one city newspaper and then disappear forever? Like:

The Los Angeles Times quoted a doctor as saying that the soldiers 'stole the mobile phones' at the hospital - preventing doctors from communicating with the outside world."

Would we know this if not for Naomi? Thank goodness for Naomi Klein.

As Dahr Jamail reports from his online diary "doctors are now technically forbidden to talk to the media or allow them to take photos in Iraqi hospitals unless granted permission from the Ministry of Health and its US-adviser".

Thank goodness for Dahr Jamail. And thank goodness for all four or five regular readers, too. You guys rock!

Read the article I've been quoting.

Bookmark Aljazeera.

Iraq's Democracy Is A Stacked Deck

Naomi Klein's newest column will be available from two different sources, and in two different versions.

It's called Brand USA is in trouble, so take a lesson from Big Mac in the Guardian Unlimited of March 14th, and Can Democracy Survive Bush's Embrace? in the March 28th issue of The Nation. Aside from the titles, there are several other differences; a shrewder media analyst would be able to list them all and would probably be inclined to speculate as to their origins.

But this lowly and nearly frozen Winter Patriot wishes to draw your attention to a single point Naomi Klein makes about the Iraqi electoral system: It's immensely undemocratic, as befits a systemm of "freedom" designed by occupiers who wish to be seen as liberators.

From the Guardian's version:

[T]he ongoing wrangling over who will form Iraq's next government, despite the United Iraqi Alliance being the clear winner, points to an electoral system designed by Washington that is less than democratic. Terrified at the prospect of an Iraq ruled by the majority of Iraqis, the former chief US envoy, Paul Bremer, wrote election rules that gave the US-friendly Kurds 27% of the seats in the national assembly, even though they make up just 15% of the population.

Skewing matters further, the US-authored interim constitution requires that all major decisions have the support of two-thirds or, in some cases, three-quarters of the assembly - an absurdly high figure that gives the Kurds the power to block any call for foreign troop withdrawal, any attempt to roll back Bremer's economic orders, and any part of a new constitution.

What's wrong with this picture?

Please read the rest of this article.

Why The Iraqi Elections Won't Be Postponed

The Russians are unhappy with American interference in Ukranian elections, as could be expected. They are also unhappy with American plans for Iraq, as explained in this article in Aljazeera: Russia warns US over Ukraine vote Here's an excerpt:

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week blasted the West for complaining about irregularities in the Ukrainian electoral process while pressing ahead with plans to hold a vote next month in Iraq despite the bloodshed there and the "occupation" by US-led troops.

"We do not understand how there can be an election in a country under conditions of total occupation. ... It's absurd. It's a farce," Putin said.

Sure it's absurd. Sure it's a farce. But it's going to happen. No matter what. Bush has made this very clear over and over. But he never tells us why. It seems like a good question.

Why is the USA so anxious to hold elections in Iraq? To bolster the claim that they are 'democratizing' Iraq? No, not really. The upcoming Iraqi 'election' is not about democracy. How could it be? The Bush administration doesn't care about democracy anyway, as has been very clear for a long time. This is about something more important [to them, anyway]. It's about money. You see, it's against international law to plunder a country while you are occupying it militarily. But if it has an 'elected' government, you can legally rob it blind. Naomi Klein explains all this in an excellent essay, Baghdad Year Zero

International law prohibits occupiers from selling state assets themselves, but it doesn’t say anything about the puppet governments they appoint.

I urge you to read the entire article.

Meanwhile, how are things going in Iraq? Big surprise: apparently wishful thinking is still not a viable strategy. Here's an excerpt from Think tanks slam US Iraq strategy:

The Wasington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIC) said on Wednesday that the US is facing increasingly deadly attacks in Iraq because it has failed to honestly assess facts on the ground.

And in a report published on the same day, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said Iraqi hostility towards the US-led "occupation" means that Washington can no longer achieve its pre-war goals.

The CSIC report, prepared by senior fellow Anthony Cordesman, said administration spokesmen had appeared to live "in a fantasyland" when giving accounts of events in Iraq.

Three cheers for Anthony Cordesman. It of courage to tell the truth these days. It even takes courage just to face the truth. But some of us are still trying.