Ukraine Crisis in One Sentence... "Ukraine is much too important as a transportation route for sources of energy, both Russian oil and gas and the reserves in the Caspian Sea, to allow the country to become the play thing of the Kremlin." German newspaper Handelsblatt, November 23, 2004 ***** SACRAMENTO Former IRS agent charged as tax cheat - Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, November 19, 2004 SFChronicle.com Joseph Banister was once a gun-toting Internal Revenue Service special agent who investigated tax cheats for six years. On Thursday, the certified public accountant was arrested on a federal indictment accusing him of numerous tax crimes. Banister, 41, whose Web site proclaims, "The Income Tax is a Hoax," was taken into custody by IRS agents at his San Jose home at about 7:30 a.m. He pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Sacramento and was released on $25,000 bond. A co-defendant, Walter A. Thompson, 57, of Redding, was arrested at 10 a. m. Thursday after a brief chase and standoff on Interstate 5, authorities said. Thompson is to appear in court today. Banister has advised clients they don't have to file income tax returns on the grounds that the 16th Amendment, which gives the federal government the power to collect income taxes, was not properly ratified. He maintains that only foreign-sourced income is taxable. In a statement, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said, "Joe Banister, a former IRS agent, knew exactly what he was doing. Tax professionals and employers who break the law will be held accountable." Banister could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Donald Kilmer Jr. , said Thursday that he had just received a copy of the indictment and could not discuss the case. Asked to comment on his client's income tax theories, Kilmer said, "I'd rather not get into that in a newspaper article." Banister and Thompson were accused in the indictment of conspiring to defraud the United States of nearly $260,000 in income and employment taxes from July 2000 to December 2002. Banister was also charged with three counts of aiding and assisting the filing of false tax returns for Thompson. Thompson, who owned Cencal Sales, an aviation travel-bag manufacturing business in Shasta Lake City (Shasta County), was also charged with two counts of filing false claims with the IRS, one count of filing a false income tax return and 10 counts of failing to collect and pay more than $176,000 in taxes from his employees, who included seamstresses and office workers. Banister and Thompson allegedly decided to remove Cencal employees from taxpayer rolls by no longer withholding employment taxes from wages and not filing employer's quarterly tax returns and other required forms. At an October 2000 staff meeting, Thompson told his employees that the pay they received for their work was not income under IRS regulations, the 26- page indictment said. Banister, who attended the meeting, told the group that Thompson "was an honorable man who would not lie to them," the indictment said. In December, in a separate proceeding, Administrative Law Judge William Moran ordered Banister not to represent tax clients before the IRS. Banister was an IRS criminal investigator from 1993 until he resigned in 1999 because he felt that he was breaking the law by investigating alleged scofflaw taxpayers. The IRS taxes people based on "intimidation and propaganda and fear that they've been putting out there for decades," Banister told The Chronicle in January. E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com. ***** 2,000 killed in Fallujah offensive Friday, November 26, 2004 More than 2,085 people were killed and 1,600 detained in the massive US-Iraqi offensive on the rebel city of Fallujah, Iraqi national security adviser Qassem Daoud has said. The US military had previously said at least 1,200 rebels had been killed. The US and aid organisations have only just started discussing the means of retrieving the bodies that are still believed to be strewn across the deserted former rebel bastion. Meanwhile, the Iraqi Red Crescent Society was able for the first time to deliver aid directly to families stranded by fighting in Fallujah after a US-led offensive to wrest the Sunni Muslim city from insurgents. A single Red Crescent team delivered food and water to five families in a battered northern Fallujah neighbourhood after US marines patrolling the area found them hiding in their homes. The Red Crescent estimates that only 150 to 175 families remained in Fallujah after the US-led offensive started on November 8 and civilians living in the ruined city have become desperate for water and blankets. Red Crescent officials met with US marine Lieutenant Colonel Gary Montgomery to discuss cooperative aid efforts. Red Crescent convoys were able to enter Fallujah on Wednesday and Monday, but only toured the city, saying they were unable to move freely and find any of those who needed assistance. Red Crescent efforts to assist civilians still in Fallujah have been frustrated by ongoing military operations. The agency's coordinator for Fallujah, Jotiar Nafaa, says getting into the city to assess how many people need help was the organisation's first priority. Most of Fallujah's 300,000 inhabitants fled the city before the assault. Many residents sought refuge with relatives in Baghdad and other nearby towns, but several thousands are stranded in refugee camps outside Fallujah. No date has been decided for their return and the US Marines say basic services like water and electricity might not be restored until February. The International Red Cross Committee is also planning a trip to Fallujah in coming days to make its own assessment of the situation. - AFP ***** The Enlightenment vs. Bush's America: Defining liberal values By Carla Binion Online Journal Contributing Editor November 20, 2004 - Media commentators have been asking what role moral values and religion played in the presidential election's outcome. Democrats have been seeking to clearly define liberalism, explain the Democratic Party's moral values and determine the role religion should play in the party's public life. A good start would be to remember American liberalism's roots and religious foundation. This country's founders developed their ideas during the Enlightenment, the historic period around 1650 to 1770, when science and reason began to supplant the barbarism, religious dogmatism and absolutism of the Middle Ages. Thomas Jefferson expressed a personal religious faith, but he had many conflicts with a religiously intolerant clergy wanting to impose their specific dogma on the whole society. Jefferson and many other Enlightenment thinkers placed a high value on reason and opposed any form of religion or philosophical belief that oppressed rational thought. In a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800, Jefferson declared, "They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." In "Notes on the State of Virginia" (1781-1785), Jefferson wrote, "Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only. Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged at the era of Reformation, the corruptions of Christianity could not have been purged away." In "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom," known as "The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779)" Jefferson also denounced "the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others." He added, "Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics and geometry." However, while resisting irrational or constraining dogma, Jefferson also expressed admiration for the moral teachings of Jesus, saying, "Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus." (Letter to W. Canby, September 18, 1813.) When Patrick Henry proposed a bill affirming Christianity as the "established religion of this Commonwealth," James Madison kept the bill from becoming law. In his "Memorial and Remonstrance" (1785), Madison noted that the mix of government and religion gave rise to "pride and indolence in the Clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution." Today we're returning to religious dogmatism, absolutism and anti-scientific thought among some members of the religious right, including certain George W. Bush supporters such as Jerry Falwell. Though America was founded on the basis of rational thought and tolerance for religious diversity, we now find we're revisiting pre-Enlightenment era thinking. Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. In his article, "An attack on American tolerance," Kuttner says, "What is uniquely alarming in the United States today, among all the democracies and in our own history, is that a president of the United States is explicitly on the side of antimodernism. Never before has an American chief executive worked deliberately to foment a fundamentalist absolutism that is ultimately tribal, theocratic, antiscientific, and incompatible with pluralist democracy." Bush has resisted scientific study involving stem cell research, professed belief that his decision to make war with Iraq is a divinely sanctioned crusade and embraced religious leaders who encourage intolerance, dogmatism and absolutism. Many Bush supporters on the religious right seem to think morals and values are almost entirely about sexual behavior and interpret the Bible in a way that justifies their prejudices against homosexuality. In his article, "Embattled faith needs enemies for focus," reporter Gene Lyons says, "Apart from the timeless topic of Other People's Sex Lives, nothing gets fundamentalist Christianity's spiritual entrepreneurs going like vengeful Old Testament tribalism. The basic con is to insist upon the literal, historical and scientific accuracy of every syllable in the Bible while focusing selectively on passages confirming pre-existing phobias. Hence, they rarely are more dogmatic than when they are ignoring, if not actively contradicting, the essence of Christ's teachings." Lyons continues, "Yes, Leviticus calls homosexuality an abomination. Also wearing garments of two fabrics, eating pork and shellfish, and planting two crops in one field. It recommends stoning to death anybody who works on the Sabbath. Exodus stipulates how to sell your daughters into slavery." While the religious right's morals and values center on sexual behavior, liberal morals and values historically center on actively loving other people, working to uplift the poor, reducing human suffering by (for example) opposing unjust wars, striving for equality and fair treatment for diverse ethnic groups and others, enhancing civil liberties, using good reasoning skills and staying informed and involved as citizens. Liberalism is represented in Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and the successful social movements of the 1960s, including the civil rights and women's movements. American liberalism is also defined by the millions of ordinary people who have worked as activists throughout history, including those involved in various antiwar movements, the labor movement and abolitionism. Liberalism is reflected in our country's literature - in Mark Twain's "The War Prayer;" Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience;" W. E. B. DuBois' "The Gift of Black Folk;" and many other works. (Conservatives in some parts of the country have banned some of these writers' books from public schools.) In "Song of Myself," the poet Walt Whitman wrote about the pluralism and tolerance for diversity first advocated by the nation's founders. The "I" of the poem doesn't solely represent the poet himself but symbolizes all Americans: I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man . . . I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from . . . Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) Making room for "multitudes," embracing ambiguity and contradiction are characteristic of liberalism. Jefferson and other Enlightenment thinkers also tolerated diverse "multitudes" and allowed for ambiguity, and this kind of thinking has been an integral part of our nation's character and of liberal thought since our beginnings. However, Bush and many of his supporters seem intolerant of this way of thinking, instead insisting on a rigid either-or view of the world. For example, Bush stated, "When it comes to the war on terrorism, you're either with us or you're with the terrorists." We need Democrats who will strongly oppose Bush's most egregious policies. Though strategists from the Democratic National Committee or the Democratic Leadership Council might suggest the Democratic Party needs a better gimmick of one kind or another to win voters, what the public most wants to see in the Democratic leadership is a genuine dynamic passion for serving the public's interests. For the Democratic Party to define itself and clarify its own morals and values, it needs to review liberalism's history and integrate that historic identity into its current collective personality. The party also needs to find a way to create a larger place for itself in the media and use radio and TV talk shows and other outlets as a way to inform the American people that liberalism is a positive alternative to radical right politics. In "Notes on the State of Virginia," Thomas Jefferson wrote about the relationship between political leaders and a self-governing public. He said, "Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories." If the Democratic Party reclaims its roots and becomes the party of the people, it has a chance to come alive and save itself and maybe even revitalize democracy in the process. ***** On executions, beheadings, and other propaganda operations By Larry Chin Online Journal Associate Editor November 20, 2004 - The pattern has been consistent and obvious. Every news report or scandal that has been detrimental to the Bush/Anglo-American war agenda has been followed, within hours, with shocking executions (real and staged) that are attributed to "terrorist insurgents," despite questionable circumstances, non-verifiable evidence and unreliable sources, such as "unnamed" intelligence and military officials. The parties responsible for these acts have not and likely will not be identified, thanks in large part to deliberate US/Pentagon blackouts of reporting from war zones, and disinformation-laden and Bush-controlled corporate media. What is clear, regardless of the identities of the perpetrators, is that the results have exclusively benefited the US/Bush administration war machine, while completely undermining the political and public relations objectives of anti-US/anti-occupation opposition movements and groups. The methods used in the kidnapping and murder of Margaret Hassan, Nick Berg and others neatly fit the profile of classic western intelligence and counterinsurgency operations. Margaret Hassan Reports of the genocidal mass murder, atrocities and war crimes now being committed by US forces in Fallujah (also see dispatches by Dahr Jamail from Iraq) have been "countered" by a video of the apparent execution of Margaret Hassan, a CARE relief official who was beloved and respected by Iraqis and non-Iraqis alike. This act, blamed on insurgents, has prompted outrage among Iraqis against rebel fighters. But was the Hassan killing part of a British intelligence operation? An account by a Jordanian journalist: "The British have tried to insure against any potential backlash from the general public and its own Labour MP's (in the event things go badly wrong) by instructing its agents on the ground inside Iraq to kidnap Margaret Hassan, the Care International charity worker. "The recent communiqué from the Mujaahideen has exposed the British insurance policy and has denied any JTJ involvement in the kidnapping. The kidnapping will send the message to the British public that the Iraqi resistance is comprised of monsters and serial murderers - and there can be no response other than wiping them from the face of the earth - thereby prolonging the redeployment of the British troops in the region near Baghdad." Indeed, the kidnapping and execution of Hassan make no sense, except as an intelligence operation by US, British or US-allied operatives: "But why would the resistance kidnap somebody who has provided humanitarian assistance to the people of Iraq for 25 years? Is it possible the Iraqi resistance wants to deny the Iraqi people humanitarian assistance? Of course not. In America, the corporate media answers the above question every day—the Iraqi resistance is fanatical, murderous, nothing more than a loose confederation of terrorists, criminals, Islamic madmen, demented sadists who blow up car bombs in crowded market squares and kill women and children, their own neighbors. However, there is another possible explanation: the kidnapping of Margaret Hassan is part of a counterinsurgency operation devised to make the resistance look bad and thus turn world opinion against it." For over 20 years, Hassan herself was one of the most powerful voices on the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. And recently, she was a critic of the occupation. In a previous videotape, Hassan pleaded for the British to get out of Iraq. She was a public relations liability. Toretta and Pari Kidnappings In September 2004, two young Italian humanitarian aid workers, Simona Toretta and Simona Pari, were kidnapped under suspicious circumstances. This was blamed on insurgents and/or terrorists connected to Zarqawi. According to an investigation by the UK Guardian, Iraqi insurgents were not behind the kidnapping of the two Italian aid workers: "The Guardian said the kidnapping of Simona Torretta and Simona Pari has the mark of an undercover foreign operation in a bid to discredit the unabated Iraqi resistance against US occupation forces. "The mass-circulation newspaper adds more suspicion on foreign involvement in the operation as it was carried out only few meters from the heavily patrolled Green Zone with no interference from Iraqi police or US military. "The Guardian maintains that the weapons used in the operation were more sophisticated than those usually used by the Iraqi resistance as the kidnappers used AK-47s, shotguns and pistols with silencers and stun guns, while the Iraqi resistance fighters always use the rusty Kalashnikovs. "Most striking, according to the British daily, the kidnappers wore Iraqi National Guard uniforms and identified themselves as working for [Iraqi Prime Minister] Iyad Allawi." Nick Berg Execution In the spring of 2004, Nick Berg was "executed" by US or US-allied intelligence operatives to divert attention from the torture scandals at Abu Ghraib. There is also ample evidence that the videotaped execution of Nicholas Berg in the spring of 2004 was a complete fabrication, based on a detailed analysis by La Voz de Aztlan. Despite this, and other debunkings, the Berg beheading remains a lurid image that prompts "anti-terrorist" hatred. Daniel Pearl The killing of journalist Daniel Pearl was similarly twisted to benefit the "war on terrorism" propaganda, and to ignite fury against alleged al-Qaeda terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks. Just as Margaret Hassan was a public relations problem that needed to be nipped in the bud, Pearl was a nuisance. He had been pursuing links between terrorism, terrorist groups and intelligence agencies, and was going after Pakistan's ISI (a virtual CIA branch), shortly before he was murdered. The mushrooming Post-9/11 Nightmare It is clear that most, if not all, of the conveniently-timed kidnappings and executions, false terror alerts, Osama Bin Laden videos, "al-Qaeda" arrests, constant Zarqawi drumbeat (also see here) - have been staged and exploited for Anglo-American war propaganda, timed in order to 1) distract from the truth of unilateral Anglo-American aggression, 2) turn world opinion against those resisting US-led war and occupation, and3) maintain the fear, shock and hate-based myth of "terrorism" and "the fanatical outside enemy." At the same time, what cannot be ignored is that violent outrage on the part of the victims of US-led aggression will spiral out of control - if it has not already. As US-led aggression has continued to escalate, it has driven its victims to increasingly desperate acts of resistance and self-preservation. By design. As Mike Ruppert writes in Crossing the Rubicon: "Even if there weren't [terrorists] before 9/11 (and there were), the US has gone out of its way to create animosity against this country that is in full flower all over the globe." From the "war on terrorism" to the bombing, invasion and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. From the massacre at Mazar-I-Sharif to the torture cells of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Today in Iraq, American soldiers are killing with fanatical bloodlust - grotesquely demonstrated by the daily slaughter in Fallujah, the mosque murders, and the earlier incidents such as the "mercy killing" of innocent Iraqis unloading a garbage truck. In this nightmarish world of endless and expanding war, and continuous cycles of provocation and response, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the brutality of criminal aggressors from acts of resistance to this aggression. Just as Israel and Palestine have been locked into unending cycles of unpredictable and uncontrollable violence for decades, the entire world, lit by the 9/11 "war on terrorism" powder keg, is set for the same. This war, and the propaganda that fuels it, must be stopped. Larry Chin is a freelance journalist and an Online Journal Associate Editor.