From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Thu Nov 1 06:01:02 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Mission to expel Message-ID: Wholly consistent with the Birt/Dyke policy regarding news and current affairs, as evidenced by the output of BBC World... Documentary department jobs slashed Jason Deans The Guardian, Thursday November 1, 2001 The BBC is axing 129 programme-making posts in its factual and learning department. The long-anticipated cuts will fall mainly in London, but BBC production staff in Manchester will also be affected. Management jobs in Birmingham will also go, but the brunt of the losses will be in London. The factual and learning department makes general documentaries and arts programmes. Shows made by the department include Timewatch, Omnibus, Airport and When Louis Met.... BBC factual and learning staff, who have been waiting for months to hear about their fate, are to be told about the cuts this morning. The BBC was originally planning to introduce the cuts in the summer. But the announcement was delayed because it was feared news of documentary and arts programme-makers getting P45s might send the wrong signal to the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, while she was deciding whether to give the go-ahead for the BBC's proposed new digital TV services. Full article at: http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,584689,00.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Thu Nov 1 06:31:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] The Guardian Message-ID: Over on PEN-L we've had a debate (of sorts) regarding the role of the UK media in the great scheme of things. The Guardian has a reputation as an outlet of liberal/left opinion, and, true enough, you can find occasional voices of reason there, such as Paul Foot, Gary Younge, Melissa Benn, Seumas Milne and Larry Elliott. Tory Geoffrey Wheatcroft also makes regular, readable and interesting contributions, tellingly critical of the status quo. Even John Pilger gets a look-in occasionally. But for every one of these there is a multitude of Blairites who can be relied upon to relay the true thinking of the UK permanent government and its natural party, New Labour. Thus the article below. Anyone watching BBC World last night would never have known of Blair's embarrassment, although his discomfort was plainly visible (arms flailing manically in frenzied gestures of conciliation). News domestic to Britain requires a more sophisticated gloss, however, and this is it -- a farrago of propaganda and disinformation aimed at discrediting the very person/regime that, 24 hours earlier, was so crucial to *Blair's* strategy. Now it can be written off as the contradiction "at the heart of Bush's worldwide war". Never mind that Syria, like Iraq, has one of the most religiously pluralistic regimes in the region, unlike, say, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, allies of the west. Syria and Iran are, of course, heavily implicated in the 1988 Lockerbie disaster, but their cooperation was needed for Desert Storm in 1991 so Colonel Gaddafi was wheeled out to serve as the convenient whipping boy. And on it goes... How Blair's Syria gamble failed Attempt to rein in 'rogue state' proves disastrous Ewen MacAskill and Patrick Wintour in Damascus Thursday November 1, 2001 The Guardian Tony Blair visited the tomb said to contain the head of John the Baptist which is housed in the main mosque of Damascus's Old City. He might look back on it as an omen: hours later it was Mr Blair's head that was being served up on a plate. Downing Street officials had not expected much in the way of results from Mr Blair's first meeting with the young Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad. But they did not anticipate that Mr Assad would reject Mr Blair's overtures in such a public and abrupt way. Mr Assad, dispensing with the usual diplomatic niceties, used a joint press conference to rebuff Mr Blair over the bombing of Afghanistan and Syria's policy of providing a haven to anti-Israeli groups classified by both the US and Britain as terrorists. Diplomatically, it was a disaster. Mr Blair has not looked as uncomfortable in the presence of a foreign leader since an outburst on Chechnya by the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, during a joint press conference in London last year. Both Downing Street and the Foreign Office knew beforehand that Mr Blair was taking a risk in going to Syria, a country that is a dictatorship with an abysmal human rights record, and which is still engaged in fighting Israel by proxy. The decision was influenced mainly by a trip made to Syria a fortnight ago by Lord Powell, Lady Thatcher's former foreign affairs adviser. The recommendation to the prime minister was that Syria was ready to come in from the cold and that he should go. It now looks a blunder. The Syria trip joins the list of growing diplomatic setbacks since Mr Blair and the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, embarked on a series of whirlwind tours after the September 11 attacks. Mr Straw ran into trouble in Iran and Israel and Mr Blair was snubbed by Saudi Arabia two weeks ago. Mr Blair might have hoped for better from Mr Assad, who was being educated in Britain last year when his father died and he was called home to take over, and whose wife is British. But Syria represents the contradiction at the heart of George Bush's worldwide war against terrorism. Syria provides a home and cash for groups such as Hizbullah, one of the most disciplined and powerful groups of fighters in the Middle East, which forced Israel to leave the Lebanon and which continues to snipe at Israel along its border. Until this year Damascus had also been the headquarters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and still provides a haven for its members. The PFLP assassinated an Israeli cabinet minister a fortnight ago. During his discussion with Mr Blair in private, Mr Assad argued that these groups had a legitimate right to fight Israel. Giving the impression his hands were tied, Mr Assad said that he had to listen to the Arab street just as Mr Blair had to listen to his "street". But in the press conference, Mr Assad was much more outspoken and less emollient than Downing Street had been prepared for. He won applause from Syrian reporters for condemning the bombing of Afghanistan and reiterated that resis tance on the part of the anti-Israeli groups was legitimate. The Foreign Office would have told Mr Blair the visit was high risk. Mr Assad is no respecter of visitors: he used a press conference in Damascus in May to mark the Pope's visit to engage in an anti-semitic rant, which left the Pontiff embarrassed. Vulnerable president Hopes that Mr Assad would turn out to be a reformer after the tough dictatorship of his father have so far been misplaced. He is in a vulnerable position, surrounded by vested interests, unable to make the compromises that would bring reform. Political opponents, journalists and others are regularly thrown into jail. He is too weak to negotiate a peace settlement with Israel, which still occupies Syria's Golan Heights from the 1967 war. A Foreign Office source, making the most of the visit, said: "We were not going to brush the differences under the carpet. We want to have a debate with them about what constitutes terrorism." Mr Blair had twin objectives: one was to look for a way of weaning Syria away from its support for Hizbullah and other groups, and the other was to try to get Syria to re-enter talks with Israel on the return of the Golan Heights. He secured neither. Since Labour came to power, Britain has been pursuing a commendable policy of trying to bring the so-called "rogue states" or "states of concern" into the in ternational community. In contrast to the United States, it has restored diplomatic ties with Libya and Iran. Opening up a good relationship with Syria was the next obvious step. Downing Street and the Foreign Office shrugged yesterday at the suggestion that the visit had been a mistake and insisted that the test of whether the trip was worthwhile remained to be decided. If the visit marked the start of a dialogue between Syria and Britain, it would have been worthwhile. Even though the visit will not ease his talks with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, today, Mr Blair concluded: "You can either stay out of the dialogue, or you can try to get into it and build a bridge of understanding for the future." Full article at: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/story/0,1320,584591,00.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Thu Nov 1 06:36:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] News management Message-ID: Bear in mind Blair's speech to the Welsh Assembly this week: "we must never forget...", suggesting more than just a spontaneous and unsolicited patriotic manoeuvre on the part of CNN. CNN to carry reminders of US attacks Matt Wells, media correspondent Thursday November 1, 2001 The Guardian CNN is to risk accusations of bias by ordering news presenters to end reports from Afghanistan with a reminder that the Taliban regime harbours terrorists who supported the September 11 attacks on the US. The network says it seems "perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan" without reminding viewers of its domestic service that up to 5,000 innocent people died in New York and Washington. Some CNN correspondents are understood to be concerned that a "pro-American stamp" will be put on the end of their reports. But CNN's executives are concerned that pictures showing misdirected US missile attacks landing on residential areas or Red Cross warehouses could be manipulated before they come out of Afghanistan. In a memo to staff, obtained by the Guardian, Rick Davis, CNN's head of standards and practices, says: "As we get enterprising reports from our correspondents or al-Jazeera inside Afghanistan, we must continue to make sure that we do not inadvertently seem to be reporting uncritically from the perspective or vantage of the Taliban. "Also, given the enormity of the toll on innocent human lives in the US, we must remain careful not to focus excessively on the casualties and hardships in Afghanistan that will inevitably be a part of this war, or to forget that it is the Taliban leadership that is responsible for the situation Afghanistan is now in." News presenters on the service that is shown to US viewers will be required to end each report with a formula such as: "We must keep in mind, after seeing reports like this, that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan continues to harbour terrorists who have praised the September 11 attacks that killed close to 5,000 innocent people in the US." Alternatively, they can say: "The Pentagon has repeatedly stressed that it is trying to minimise civilian casualties in Afghanistan, even as the Taliban regime continues to harbour terrorists who are connected to the September 11 attacks that claimed thousands of innocent lives in the US." And "if relevant", the presenter can say that "the Pentagon has stressed that the Taliban continues to harbour the terrorists and the Taliban forces are reported to be hiding in populated areas and using civilians as human shields". The memo concludes: "Even though it may start sounding rote, it is important that we make this point each time." Presenters on CNN International will not be subject to the edict. Walter Isaacson, chairman of CNN, told the Washington Post: "I want to make sure we're not used as a propaganda platform. We're entering a period in which there's a lot more reporting and video from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. You want to make sure people understand that when they see civilian suffering there, it's in the context of a terrorist attack that caused enormous suffering in the United States." Jim Murphy, executive producer of the CBS Evening News, said: "I wouldn't order anybody to do anything like that. Our reporters are smart enough to know it has to be put in context." Bill Wheatley, NBC News vice-president, said: "I'd give the American public more credit, frankly." The BBC said it had no plans to include any such reminders on its own news programmes. However, a spokeswoman added: "Correspondents may or may not decide to put in this sort of detail in their reports to put things in context." Full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,584636,00.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Thu Nov 1 19:58:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Re: A-List digest, Vol 1 #23 - 7 msgs Message-ID: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu wrote: > Send A-List mailing list submissions to a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/a-list or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to a-list-request@lists.econ.utah.edu You can reach the person managing the list at a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of A-List digest..." The A-List Digest Today's Topics: 1. Pakistan is in danger of falling apart (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) 2. Israeli "intelligence" (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) 3. Britain/US split? (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) 4. Europe/US rivalry (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) 5. accessing the message archive (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) 6. Republican contrarians ruminate on the dollar (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) 7. CIA met bin Laden in July (Le Figaro) (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) --__--__-- Message: 1 To: "Rad Green" , "Leninist International" Cc: Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 22:54:15 -0800 From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] Pakistan is in danger of falling apart Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu Pakistan is in danger of falling apart Regional separatism and support for Islamist groups are growing William Dalrymple Tuesday October 23, 2001 The Guardian A couple of years ago, on a visit to the North West Frontier, I called in on Khan Abdul Wali Khan. The Khan had once been one of the Pathan's great leaders; but he was now a frail old man. We sat in his summer house in the middle of his irrigated garden. The Khan poured jasmine tea and asked me about my impressions of the area. I told him what I had just seen at the nearby Darra arms bazaar: hundreds of men busy manufacturing home-made assault rifles and anti-aircraft cannon. "Yes," said the Khan. "There are now more than one million Kalashnikovs in this province alone. It has got completely out of control." He shook his head sadly. "I feel," he said, "as if I'm living on an ammunition dump." I thought of the Khan this week as anti-American protests spread across Pakistan. Although there has been unrest in Karachi and a bomb in Rawalpindi, it is among the Pathans that the rioting has been most serious: a cinema, the UN compound and a bazaar burned down by Pathans in Quetta, and four more shot dead in a village nearby; significantly, the local Baluchis have played virtually no part in the riots. Worse still on the frontier, where the Pathans are from the same tribes as their cousins in the Taliban, Peshawar has disappeared into a miasma of tear gas and police shooting, with at least half a dozen dead. Machismo is to the North West Frontier what religion is to the Vatican. Bandoliers hang over the men's shoulders; grenades are nonchalantly tucked into their pockets. I once walked into a Khyber tea house to find a group of Pathan mojahedin huddled in a corner dismantling a live landmine with a broken screw driver. None of the other tea drinkers blinked. The Pathans have never been completely conquered, at least not since the time of Alexander the Great. They have seen off centuries of invaders, and they retain the mixture of self-confidence, independence and suspicion that this has produced. Beyond the checkpoints on the edge of Peshawar, tribal law - based on the tribal council and the blood feud - rules unchallenged. The dominant Afridi tribe controls the Afghan heroin trade and kidnapping and murder are virtually cottage industries. It takes very little for latent discontent of the Pathans with the Pakistani government to erupt, but this latest wave of riots is on a different scale to anything since partition, raising the perennial question as to the future of Pakistan - can the centre hold? If many in Pakistan now question the long-term viability of the state, it is certain that none would be so ready to separate themselves from it as the Pathans. Throughout the 1940s, Wali Khan's father, known as Padshah Khan, passionately opposed the creation of Pakistan, leading the Pathans to side with Gandhi's Congress against Jinnah's Muslim League. During this period the Pathans believed that they would gain their own state, allied to India, just as East Pakistan - modern Bangladesh - was originally separated by thousands of miles from its western wing. In the bloodshed of partition, this Pakhtun state never happened, but the dashed hopes left the Pathans estranged from the idea of Pakistan. Padshah Khan spent the 1960s and 1970s struggling in vain for a union with the equally disgruntled Pathans in Afghanistan to form a new state - Pakhtunistan, straddling the Durand Line (the hated frontier drawn up by the British in 1893 which broke the tribes in two). But the Pakhtun nationalist spirit survived his death in 1988, and has mutated into a very different Islamist form under a variety of Taliban-like groups such as the Jamiat Ulema i-Islam (JUI). If, as seems quite possible, Afghanistan breaks up in the aftermath of the American assault, with the Tajik Northern Alliance controlling the north, and a Pathan post-Taliban successor state taking the south, then demands for the creation of Pakhtunistan can only gain momentum. Regional separatism is only one of the problems now faced by Pakistan. President Musharraf's decision to support the American assault on the Taliban, against the wishes of more than 80% of his population, has greatly strengthened Islamist groups, bringing them support from swathes of the population not normally part of their constituency. Serious civilian casualties in Afghanistan or heavy-handed action by the Pakistani security forces would further radicalise the population. Last week Musharraf sacked two leading pro-Taliban generals and placed three pro-Taliban religious leaders (including the spiritual leader of the JUI) under house arrest; but after a decade of Talibanisation, Pakistan has never been closer to an Islamic revolution, or at least an Islamist coup. Such a coup would put nuclear weapons into Islamist hands: Bin Laden's wildest dream. These strains and tensions within Pakistan can only increase in the months ahead. It is likely to be a bumpy ride. · William Dalrymple is the author of The Age of Kali: Indian Travels and Encounters (HarperCollins) ------------------------------------------- Macdonald Stainsby Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green ---- Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international ---- In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht --__--__-- Message: 2 Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 14:40:02 +0200 To: "A-List (E-mail)" From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] Israeli "intelligence" Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu News direct from Paul Wolfowitz's man in Scotland. Only the Israelis could come up with a scheme that links together all *their* enemies in one huge dastardly plot. And in whose interest is it for Pakistan's "shadowy ISI" to "establish" links between Iraq and al-Qaeda? Since when was the ISI a reliable source? Israeli intelligence warned US days before attacks IAN BRUCE The Herald, 31 October 2001 ISRAEL'S military intelligence service, Aman, issued an urgent warning of an impending terrorist "spectacular" against America, several days before the suicide bombers flew passenger airliners into New York's Trade Towers and the Pentagon on September 11. Aman had no details of the targets, but picked up enough indicators of major terrorist activity from a combination of informants and electronic eavesdropping to send out an alert, which also covered US interests in Britain, France and Germany. Much of the Israeli intelligence centred on Imad Mughniyeh, head of the Iranian-backed Hizbollah movement's foreign operations section, and on Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born terrorist mastermind reputed to be Osama bin Laden's chosen successor. The Israelis say they have evidence linking both men to agents representing SSO, Iraq's foreign intelligence service, and believe Baghdad has provided finance and logistical support to them. Links between the terrorist network and Iraq have been established by Pakistan's shadowy ISI agency and by the Czech Republic's counter-intelligence service. Salah Suleiman, an Iraqi SSO agent, was detained on the Pakistan border last October after a series of trips into Taliban-controlled territory to meet bin Laden. After interrogation, he was deported. Iraqi agent, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, has been expelled by the Czechs for "conduct incompatible with his diplomatic status". They had been monitoring his activities after a tip-off from Israel that he was planning to bomb Radio Free Europe, a station financed by the CIA that broadcasts to Iraq and Iran. Baghdad regards the broadcasts as "an act of aggression". During the surveillance, they photographed Al-Ani with Mohammed Atta, the al Qaeda agent believed to have flown the first plane into the World Trade Centre. Full article at: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/31-10-19101-0-24-15.html --__--__-- Message: 3 Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 14:47:35 +0200 To: "A-List (E-mail)" From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] Britain/US split? Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu World must tackle peace agenda, says Hain=20 Minister says greater global unity is needed to confront broader issues if war on terrorism is to be won Stuart Millar Wednesday October 31, 2001 The Guardian A senior government minister warned yesterday that forthcoming international negotiations on climate change, development and trade could influence the chances of long-term success in the campaign against terrorism.=20 Peter Hain, the Foriegn Office minister, said the international community would have to demonstrate greater political will and coherence in tackling broader global issues if it was to have any chance of defeating al-Qaida and other terror groups. "The war against terrorism is unlike other wars, because we cannot wait until the war is over to win the peace," he said. "Winning the peace is part of winning the war."=20 Mr Hain was speaking at a conference in London organised by the Royal United Services Institute and the Guardian to examine the key issues and challenges facing the international community in the aftermath of September 11.=20 In the first practical example of attempts to implement the cooperative world order outlined by Tony Blair in his speech to the Labour conference earlier this month, Mr Hain put the focus firmly on a series of crucial conferences from now into next year.=20 This week, talks are taking place in Morocco for the United Nations' framework document on climate change, while international trade negotiations begin next week in the Qatar capital, Doha.=20 In March next year, the UN is holding the financing for development conference in Monterrey, Mexico, which will be followed later in 2002 by the UN's world summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg. These events, Mr Hain said, would provide governments with a chance to show they had learned the lessons of September 11 and were willing to use the existing international framework to better effect.=20 He said: "The message from al-Qaida is that enhanced business as usual will not be enough.=20 "We need a step change in the urgency with which we tackle the peace agenda, in the amount we invest in it - not only financially but in political will and ingenuity."=20 He added: "We do not need new texts, new principles and treaties to win the peace. What we need now is better implementation to translate the texts we have into better lives for real people."=20 His comments may also be read as a veiled warning to the US that the doggedly unilateralist position adopted by George Bush since he arrived in the White House is no longer acceptable.=20 The summits are the first key test of Washington's willingness to re-engage with the international community on global initiatives to tackle diverse issues, such as global warming, third world poverty and the Aids epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.=20 "These are the security challenges of the world after September 11," Mr Hain said. "The grand coalitions of the 21st century will not be coalitions of government alone, because governments acting alone cannot provide solutions to this kind of problem."=20 But Mr Hain sidestepped questions about whether this ambitious vision could ever be realistically implemented when the US and Britain had made so many deals with countries previously regarded as pariahs to prop up the coalition for military action in Afghanistan.=20 Jonathan Eyal, a senior fellow of the RUSI, said a price was being paid to maintain the coalition which could affect future success.=20 "We have heard nothing recently about the need for democracy in the Gulf, or about the export of this arid form of Islam coming from the Gulf.=20 "We have three central Asian countries which do not have an accountable system of government, and nobody is saying much about Chechnya in the last few weeks.=20 Mr Eyal asked: "Are we not repeating exactly the same problems we have in the past, acquiring fairweather friends and having bigger difficulties later on?"=20 But Mr Hain replied only that these issues needed to be addressed by the new world order. Full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,583838,00.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi --__--__-- Message: 4 Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 16:59:40 +0200 To: "A-List (E-mail)" From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] Europe/US rivalry Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu As promised, related to the "Britain/US split" thread is this current development, very reminiscent of the Westland affair that almost brought down the Thatcher government in 1986. Italy was involved then, too, as the government's preferred bidder for Westland was the US/Italian Sikorsky-Fiat consortium, rather than the European consortium involving British Aerospace that Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine was trying to put together. The split within the Cabinet resulted in the resignations of Heseltine and Leon Brittan, Trade and Industry Secretary, who went on to become Deputy Head of the European Commission and got his revenge on his former sponsor (Thatcher) by pushing forward European integration (and incidentally helping to put into place the infrastructure to help the continuing UK "takeover" of the EU apparatus -- Brittan has been succeeded as Deputy by none other than Neil Kinnock, arch-"moderniser" of the Labour Party during the 1980s and one of the few, if not the only, survivor of the Commission headed up by Jacques Santer). =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Airbus project pullout prompts tussle in Rome Financial Times, Oct 26, 2001 By JAMES BLITZ A big tussle was developing last night in the centre-right Italian government led by Silvio Berlusconi over a decision to quit a flagship European defence project.=20 Antonio Martino, defence minister, insisted that the government would stand by a decision to quit the Airbus 400M programme, a joint project to build a large military transport, despite objections from Renato Ruggiero, foreign minister.=20 "This aircraft is not necessary for Italy's military requirements. . . we have to spend our resources on other projects," said Mr Martino, a Eurosceptic figure, on national television.=20 On Wednesday night, Mr Ruggiero sharply criticised the move, saying he had not been consulted, and that he hoped the decision "was not the final one".=20 Mr Ruggiero said if there were economic and financial reasons for quitting the Airbus programme, those arguments must be heard. "But the overall decision has got to be justified," he said. "I am certainly extremely sensitive to arguments that would have led to a different decision being taken."=20 Mr Ruggiero, former head of the World Trade Organisation, is a career diplomat and apolitical figure. His entry into Mr Berlusconi's government was promoted by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the head of state, as a means of signalling Italy's continued commitment to the European Union.=20 However, Mr Berlusconi has made little secret of his wish to forge a special bilateral relationship with the US. Mr Martino had admitted earlier this week that he had "many personal doubts" about continuing with the A400M programme. Industry analysts think Italy wants to enhance co-operation in this field with Lockheed Martin or Boeing in the US.=20 Some European diplomats think Italy's decision to quit the project explains why Jacques Chirac, French president, excluded Mr Berlusconi from a mini-summit with Britain and Germany in Ghent last Friday to discuss the attack on Afghanistan's Taliban regime.=20 But whatever the reason, Italy's centre-left opposition thinks tensions between Mr Berlusconi and Mr Ruggiero are emerging as the main fault-line in the centre-right government. "This may be a short-term problem, one that reflects the new government's initial difficulties working out a foreign policy line," said a leading centre-left figure. "But we may be on the verge of a major rift between the two, with significant repercussions."=20 Another sign of growing tension over Italy's foreign policy came in a newspaper interview with Francesco Cossiga, a former president.=20 He called on Mr Berlusconi to implement the immediate closure of Nato's military bases in Italy, arguing that Italy was being ignored by the US and its main European partners.=20 "We must accept that Nato is finished," said Mr Cossiga. "Its only role is to help the US dress up its military operations. We must start raising the problem of Nato's military bases in Italy. Closing them is the only way to avoid Italy falling into league division two." Full article at: http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/articles.html?print=3Dtrue&id=3D= 01 1026001201 Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi --__--__-- Message: 5 Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 19:22:23 +0000 To: A-List From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] accessing the message archive Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu The message archive is now accessible without need for a password. The archive address is: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/ --__--__-- Message: 6 Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 19:30:41 +0000 To: A-List From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] Republican contrarians ruminate on the dollar Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu PFV 10/23 MONEYCHANGER - DR. WALKER TODD ON THE AMAZING LEVITATING US = DOLLAR A MONEYCHANGER Interview: DR. WALKER TODD ON THE AMAZING LEVITATING US DOLLAR Dr. Walker Todd is no stranger to Moneychanger readers. He was born in=20 Murfreesboro, Tennessee and graduated from Vanderbilt University. He holds= =20 a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin, a Ph.D. in French from= =20 Columbia University, and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law. For= =20 20 years he worked for Federal Reserve banks as a lawyer and economist. In= =20 1981, he served on the U.S. negotiating team that secured the release of=20 52 US hostages from Iran and established an international tribunal plan=20 for adjudicating claims against Iran. Today he is an independent economic= =20 and legal consultant living in Chagrin Falls, Ohio Dr. Todd kindly made=20 time for this interview on June 8, 2001. Although that dates=20 the interview somewhat (because we know what happened=20 immediately afterward, like the dollar index topping) and 9-11 has changed= =20 the scene tremendously, this interview is still very valuable today. It=20 offers us clues us about the troubles the US dollar faces, not to mention= =20 those faced by the "Masters of the Universe, the dollar's managers in the= =20 Fed and US treasury. Dr. Todd also offers us some danger signs to watch=20 for cracks in the dollar. MONEYCHANGER Frankly, I'm baffled. The US dollar obviously holds the key= =20 to financial events in the near future, but how can you explain its=20 historically high valuation? Even in the face of the long bond market=20 falling, Greenspan dropping interest rates, and a record balance of=20 payments deficit, the dollar just keeps on riding high. And this=20 surrealistic script is played out against the background of an obviously=20 topping stock market. TODD We were in a similar period in the early 1980s. Everyone likes to=20 forget that. From roughly August '82 until September '86, conditions were= =20 very much similar to today's, considering the US dollar versus competing=20 foreign currencies, the posture of US interest rates versus major foreign= =20 interest rates, and the like. Conditions at home were also similar. The=20 dollar had become very much too strong at that time. Manufacturing was in a world of hurt. If you'll recall that period saw=20 the first wave of wipe-outs in the auto industry, and some major steel=20 downsizing. LTV Steel in Cleveland filed for bankruptcy in '86 or '87. And= =20 the US was running what at the time looked like a record trade deficit=20 (current account deficit). These conditions are similar, and at the same time the stock market was= =20 in the middle of a big boom. Stock prices rose steadily from roughly 8/82= =20 to 9/86. A strong dollar is good for Wall Street. Since most people who=20 make their living on Wall Street live within a 50 - 100 mile radius=20 of New York city, they don't care much what happens to the rest of=20 the country -- as long as Wall Street prospers. The US Treasury Secretary, of course, always has to be concerned with=20 what Wall Street thinks of the Treasury. Nevertheless, he also represents= =20 the US public's interests in maintaining their treasury. Since 1934 the=20 Treasury has been charged exclusively with managing the dollar's foreign=20 exchange value. At the end of the day, responsibility for the dollar -=20 strong, weak, or whatever you have -- resides at the Treasury department.= =20 From roughly mid-`95 onward Clinton's administration touted the virtues=20 of a strong dollar policy to cure foreign country's ills. The theory was=20 that we would sacrifice a little bit of US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to= =20 help bail out countries struggling to pay their debts. How do=20 we sacrifice? We expand US imports by keeping the dollar strong. But=20 if you're importing it, it doesn't add to GDP, does it? This theory=20 was triggered off Mexico's troubles at the end of 1994. Mexico, however, failed to recover before the next wave of=20 defaults began. That began in east Asia in summer 1997 with Thailand,=20 and eventually embraced Korea, Indonesia, and a bunch of others. As those= =20 countries began going down the tubes, once again the foreign policy=20 Establishment advisors to the Treasury began touting the virtues of the=20 strong dollar and expanded US imports to help these countries out of a=20 jam. In a meeting once I heard a staff economist of the Council on Foreign= =20 Relations say, "Well, it's going to cost us half a point of GAP to get=20 east Asia out of this slump -- but that's not much." What's the problem with that line of reasoning? The half a point of GDP= =20 never comes out of hide of Wall Street or the New York financial community. When they're talking about giving up half a point of GDP,=20 they're talking about shutting down steel mills, automobile plants,=20 and turning off farmers' exports. That's exactly what's been=20 happening ever since. We're just now living at the crest of the wave. MONEYCHANGER This was Rubin's and Clinton's idea? TODD It was. To give Rubin some credit, though, he was not a=20 wildly cheerleading, enthusiastic supporter of this policy. Instead,=20 Larry Summers was. MONEYCHANGER So this was Summers' policy. TODD Yes, and remember he started out as an assistant secretary=20 for international affairs, became under-secretary for international, then= =20 deputy secretary, and finally Treasury secretary at the end of the Clinton= =20 years. It was Larry who tended to run international policy at the Treasury. MONEYCHANGER Was he not a Kissinger prot=E9g=E9? TODD No, his guru was a Harvard economics professor named Martin = Feldstein. MONEYCHANGER Who used to belong to the president's council of economic=20 advisors. TODD Yes, under Reagan. MONEYCHANGER How long can a currency maintain a low interest rate policy= =20 and run high current account deficits? Both force down a currency's value.= =20 It's obvious that the bond market already smells a rat, because in spite=20 of Greenspan's interest rate drops, the long bond market refuses to rise. TODD Exactly. It's a telling point that about two months back=20 the crossover point was reached where the Fed cut rates but the long bond= =20 no longer fell. MONEYCHANGER Which implies the steely-eyed bond traders said, "Nope, we= =20 aren't going to play this hand." TODD Exactly. 1986 was only 15 years ago and there are probably enough=20 old boys around Wall Street who remember that and are saying, "No, if you= =20 want me to take 10-year risks with the dollar and US Treasury bonds, I=20 want to be paid a higher rate for it." The interesting thing is, why doesn't a similar concern pop up in the=20 gold price? MONEYCHANGER You tell me. The gold price has just made me throw my hands= =20 up in the air. There are only three possible explanations for its deadness. First, the derivatives revolution of the last 70 years has given people= =20 alternative to gold in disaster protection or inflation. TODD Right. At a minimum call it "inflation protection." The=20 market offers other vehicles besides gold. MONEYCHANGER Vehicles that they didn't have 20 years ago. The=20 second explanation is that the market has become so indifferent to=20 gold because for 70 years the American people has been propagandised=20 on this imaginary, fiat system so that finally we have a generation that= =20 has forgot gold. The third explanation is that they're just outright rigging the price. I= =20 think there's a lot of evidence for that. You can't view Greenspan's=20 history and conclude you have a man indifferent to the gold price. In=20 fact, back in 1994 he stated before Congress that any central bank that=20 ignores the gold price does so at its own peril. Still, gold doesn't=20 respond to these inflationary pressures. So maybe it's one of those three= =20 explanations, or a combination. TODD I think it's a combination. Around the= =20 margins there may be a little manipulation of the gold price. I haven't=20 yet seen enough hard evidence of the manipulation to buy the GATA theory=20 totally, but I think they've got their arms around at least a little bit=20 of the truth. The circumstances are such that it would only take a little bit=20 of manipulation to make a major change in the outcome. So I think=20 that there's a little bit of manipulation and still just enough=20 central bank gold sales under the Washington Agreement so that demand=20 is soft. MONEYCHANGER From the beginning of 1999 to the end of 1999, Greenspan=20 pumped $100 billion of currency into a system that began with $450 billion= =20 in circulation. The rate of monetary growth since then, depending on which= =20 monetary aggregate you use, has been clipping along well above 15%, and in= =20 some indicators above 20%. TODD Normally you'd say that's way too much, and the US has just gotten= =20 away with it because enough foreigners are willing to hold dollars, so we= =20 haven't yet had to pay the price. But I want to remind everybody about some earlier episodes, 1971 1979.= =20 A lot of official US policy is built on assuming that there will never=20 come a time when foreigners will get tired of holding US dollars. In the=20 two years I mentioned, 1971 1979, that's exactly what happened. They=20 called the Fed's bluff and said, "We're not going to finance your current= =20 account deficit any more, at least, not at the current exchange rate."=20 Willy-nilly, the US was forced to devalue. In 1979 they combined it with a= =20 major hammer-hit on interest rates. MONEYCHANGER A few months ago a professor from McGill University floated= =20 a theory that demand for cash dollars in Europe was keeping the dollar's=20 exchange rate up. At the end of this year the old national paper=20 currencies - Deutsche marks, pesetas, francs, lira - will be withdrawn and= =20 replaced by the paper Euro. At that point the folks with untaxed, black=20 market profits held in national currencies will lose them. If they try to= =20 swap them for Euro currency, they'll get caught. TODD Right, if you've been holding Deutsche marks underground, you've=20 got a problem. MONEYCHANGER So the professor's theorises that, anticipating=20 that changeover, Europeans are cashing in black market marks and=20 franks and lira for US dollars and holding their untaxed profits that=20 way. Add another fact to that. 70% of new $100 bills are sent=20 overseas, and Treasury estimates that two-thirds to three-quarters of=20 US currency circulates outside the borders of the US already. We already= =20 know there's a big foreign demand for US cash. To what extent is the Euro= =20 conversion affecting that? TODD It's just a small fraction of the whole, but at the margin=20 it accounts for a lot of the demand, like the official manipulation=20 of the gold price. It's not much as a fraction of the whole, but at=20 the margin it makes a big difference in the marginal price. That's=20 what is happening with foreign demand for the dollar. While it might=20 not amount to much as a fraction of the whole, it's still enough at=20 the margin to sop up as much as one-third to one-half of the=20 current foreign demand for dollars. MONEYCHANGER Which is significant at the margin. TODD Yes. MONEYCHANGER And the margin is what the people at the Fed are=20 always trying to control, just like herding cattle. If one breaks out,=20 you have to get him back in, or the rest of them will follow him. TODD Exactly. Good analogy. MONEYCHANGER What signs should we look for that the dollar is=20 coming unglued? One thing we haven't mentioned yet is the huge chunk of=20 US government debt that foreigners own. Two years ago that stood=20 at 40%. TODD It's still in that neighbourhood, a little over $2 trillion.=20 Ironically, the proportion of foreign ownership may keep rising as the=20 Treasury redeems debt. The denominator is the total publicly held debt and= =20 the numerator is the foreign held part. That foreign-held percentage will= =20 keep rising in the near future, even if they don't buy another dollar of=20 debt. Any significant liquidation of the foreign position in US government= =20 debt would be a major danger signal. MONEYCHANGER Where would we find that? TODD The only way you see it regularly is in the Fed's Board=20 of Governors H.4.1 Release, the weekly statement of condition of=20 the Federal Reserve banks. They also publish a monthly summary of that in= =20 the Federal Reserve bulletin. A line item entry there shows "US government= =20 securities held in custody by the Federal Reserve Banks for foreign=20 official and international accounts." You can always look at that total to= =20 see whether it's rising or falling. The benchmark number is $600 - 700=20 billion, where it has been in recent years. [Go to , where you will=20 find a list of dates to choose from. Choose the latest report. After the=20 body of numbered items, you will find the first remark. "On June 6, 2001,= =20 the face amount of marketable U.S. government and federal agency=20 securities held in custody by the Federal Reserve Banks for foreign=20 official and international accounts was $709,699 million, a change of=20 $ 2,692 million for the week." -- FS] MONEYCHANGER A liquidation of any significant portion of that debt would= =20 signal trouble. TODD Say the Japanese, with problems of their own, decide to cash=20 in their dollars, you might see $300 billion walk out the door.=20 You'd notice that in the Fed total. You might also see it in the long=20 bond rate. MONEYCHANGER Driving the value of long bonds down by=20 drastically increasing their supply. TODD Another signal would be a sudden, unexplained rise in the Euro. If= =20 the Europeans hold their interest rates more or less steady (and currently= =20 they are signalling that's exactly what they will do) and still the Euro=20 started rising rapidly against the dollar, that would be a signal that=20 people are bailing out of the dollar. MONEYCHANGER Recently the European Central Bank (ECB) dropped interest=20 rates. That certainly looked like collusion with the Fed. I think people=20 get confused when they listen to central bankers because they all loudly=20 proclaim their own independence. Yet once a month they meet in Basel at=20 the BIS. TODD The cynic would say they are independent of their governments but=20 they all collude with each other. [laughing] MONEYCHANGER When you were talking about the early '80s I was thinking=20 about the Plaza Accords. TODD The Plaza and Louvre Accords were the two things that kept turning= =20 the dollar around on a dime in '85 and '87. MONEYCHANGER The chart made it very obvious that some big policy change= =20 had been made. TODD But anyway I don't think we've got that sort of agreement yet. You= =20 might argue, we may need one to stem the rise of the dollar. [laughing]=20 Another signal to watch is the US Dollar Index, the trade-weighted value=20 of the dollar against major foreign currencies. The base year, by the way,= =20 is 1973, the first year of the official float of the dollar. A "100" on=20 the dollar index equals the 1973 value. At 95 or below, US manufacturers and exporters do okay. Between 95 and=20 100, we are losing export competitiveness. At 100, it becomes very hard for= =20 US exporters to sell anything abroad. The current dollar index is around=20 120. The last time it was that high was 1986. [For current quotes on the US Dollar Index, go to , in the=20 "Please select the FUTURE Commodity below" window, select "US Dollar=20 Index." You can get a daily or weekly chart of the US Dollar Index at --= FS] MONEYCHANGER Right before the stock market came down so hard. TODD Exactly. MONEYCHANGER The dollar index has stayed over 100 (with a few=20 short exceptions) since the beginning of 1998. So US=20 export competitiveness has been dropping for a long time. TODD Do you know about the four farmers' lawsuit in Colorado? MONEYCHANGER No. TODD Early in 2000 Gene Schroeder and three other plaintiffs filed=20 a federal suit against the Treasury and other departments.=20 They challenged the foreign exchange management of the dollar. On=20 what grounds? Because as it was being carried out, it subverts=20 the interests of farmers. This was wrong statutorily and constitutionally= =20 because it constituted an indirect "taking" of farmer's production and=20 property rights. When you look at the statutes that give the Treasury the= =20 power to regulate foreign exchange, or the executive branch power to=20 negotiate foreign bilateral trade agreements, all of those statutes are=20 conditioned on taking the agriculture's interests into account. Clearly,=20 they are not using these powers that way, so we're saying either you begin= =20 to do that or you pay us parity prices. Where has the lawsuit gone? Initially the federal district court=20 in Denver dismissed our complaint in July 2000. The farmers appealed=20 to the 10th circuit federal court of appeals. We asked for oral argument.= =20 The government opposed it, but we got oral argument anyway on March 13,= 2001. It was the biggest event in the history of the 10th circuit, except for= =20 the Timothy McVeigh stuff. We had over 120 farmers standing around a room= =20 designed to hold ninety. MONEYCHANGER They must have nearly croaked. They must have called out=20 every US marshal for a hundred miles. [laughing] TODD To give the court full credit, I thought they were great. As=20 a lawyer I was proud and pleased with the way the 10th circuit conducted= =20 itself that day. It was probably the finest hour in the history of the=20 American judicial system. The judges were informed, they had read all the= =20 briefs, they understood the arguments, they asked appropriate and=20 pertinent questions. It was a great day to be in the courtroom. They made it very clear that they took the issue very seriously and that= =20 they will issue a deliberate opinion. We're still waiting for that. If we win, that certainly throws a monkey wrench into the=20 Treasury's foreign exchange works. They suddenly have to consider new=20 factors in deciding whether to prop up the strong dollar and keep all=20 the things going that we were talking about. MONEYCHANGER Do you think Greenspan is riding a tiger? Does the new administration know they can't just climb off=20 the tiger? TODD Yes, and they also are well aware that if=20 Greenspan intends to induce a recession for them, they want get it over=20 with now, as opposed to two years from now. The longer he keeps delaying,= =20 the more likely that latter prospect is. MONEYCHANGER Why is= =20 he willing to take the gamble of keeping the stock market bubble alive? TODD Generally speaking I think he's concerned about the=20 financial condition of not only some banks but also some large=20 financial market players. As you sit there and see all these other=20 companies filing Chapter 11 it's clear he doesn't care if most companies=20 go bankrupt. What he cares about is banks and securities firms,=20 hedge funds, and so on. MONEYCHANGER So you're saying (and it shouldn't come as a surprise to=20 anyone) is that the country is run for the benefit of Wall Street, and the= =20 rest of us be damned. TODD Yes, but I want to give Treasury Secretary O'Neill some=20 credit. He's the first treasury secretary we've had from west of=20 the Alleghenies in at least 20 years. MONEYCHANGER But he also hails from Andrew Mellon's old firm,=20 Alcoa. [laughing] TODD Franklin, Franklin, Franklin, listen up. What was Andrew Mellon's=20 policy on gold in the 1920s? He liked it, didn't he? MONEYCHANGER Yes. TODD He's our kind of guy. Don't badmouth Andrew Mellon. MONEYCHANGER Okay, but O'Neill is part of the same old Wall Street Big= =20 Business Establishment. TODD Yes, but if you must choose between Andrew Mellon on the one hand=20 and Goldman Sachs on the other hand, which would you choose? MONEYCHANGER No choice. I'll go with Mellon every time. TODD Don't stand there waiting for the second coming. You're not going=20 to get it. O'Neill is such a refreshing change compared to what we've had= =20 to deal with in the last 20 years, especially the last 5 or 6 years, that= =20 I'll shout hosannas at the very mention of his name. MONEYCHANGER I was suspicious of Rubin and Summers. I think they would=20 do anything to make money for their crowd in New York. I could be wrong,=20 but I don't think they'd gag a minute at using the power of government to= =20 make money for their friends. Of course, they wouldn't do it in a direct= way. They wouldn't hand out $100 bills, but they would create=20 conditions whereby they can profit. In another direction, do you think it's possible that the dollar could=20 come unglued altogether? TODD Well, yes, but you have to define "unglued." Let's phrase=20 it another way. If the dollar index is at 120 and the powers that be=20 in Basel ordered us to get the dollar to a level so that the=20 current account deficit corrects itself and at least approach balance=20 again, how low do you have to take that index? Let's put a tag on that. The answer is, based on recent experience we have to get it at=20 least below 95, and to give it some running room you might want to take=20 it all the way down to 90. The last time they did a major adjustment=20 of that sort in the late '80s they took it all the way down to 87 or 88.= =20 Let's assume 90 on the dollar index is the target figure=20 for re-establishing a balanced current account. Well, 120 less 90=20 equals 30, and 30 divided by 120 equals 25%. You have to wipe out 25% of the US dollar's foreign exchange value. MONEYCHANGER My goodness! TODD That's the price of restoring a sustainable balance. That=20 great loss is the main complaint. People have been pointing this out=20 to the treasury for well over a year, back when the dollar index was only= =20 110. They warned the treasury, the longer you let this go on, the bigger=20 the adjustment you must take to return to a sustainable balance. MONEYCHANGER Walker, you're talking about returning the dollar to=20 a sustainable current account balance, but when I say "come unglued," I=20 mean the possibility of a collapse. TODD Don't think that the dollar can drop to 25% of present=20 value, because the world doesn't work that way anymore. Maybe in a=20 fair minded world it should, but in a manipulated, collusive,=20 central bank-run world, the greatest decline you're likely to see is in=20 the neighbourhood of 25 - 30%. What would that do to the stock market? You might trigger a larger than= =20 25% decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, just because once the=20 dollar goes to the weak side, foreign investors lose the incentive to buy= =20 US rather than European stocks. That would drain an awful lot of money out= =20 of Wall Street. A 25% correction in the dollar might trigger a 40% or 50%= =20 correction on Wall Street. MONEYCHANGER We've watched Greenspan push the limit on what we thought=20 was possible for central banks to do -- certainly major central banks --=20 in terms of inflation. Imagine 20% annualised monetary growth rates for a= =20 couple of years. He has kept air in the Wall Street Bubble, and kept on=20 blowing it up! In spite of all this, I believe I just heard you say that=20 fundamentally it is no longer possible for the dollar to collapse. TODD I think you'd see a 25% decline. That is entirely feasible now.=20 MONEYCHANGER But not an evaporation. TODD Right, not an evaporation. You won't see 1933 again. MONEYCHANGER Well, I suppose that's comforting. TODD You may get a generation long decline to 1933, but as an overnight= =20 phenomenon, no. [laughing] MONEYCHANGER I know that a "generation-long" decline is kind of a joke,= =20 but then again, it's not a joke. TODD We certainly went through that from 1966 forward. Over=20 the following generation the dollar lost a great deal of its value.=20 But the way the world is, assuming semi-rational men continue to run=20 it, I wouldn't expect the dollar to decline more than 25-30% at the most.= =20 Europeans will always have to be dragged in kicking and screaming. The=20 bidding would start with the treasury asking for 20%, and the Europeans=20 asking for 10%. The likely initial compromise is a 15% decline in the=20 dollar. That still does nothing. All you do at a dollar index value of 100= =20 is to lock in the trade deficit at the current level with no improvement.= =20 Then you have to ask, How do you like $400 billion trade deficits and $500= =20 billion current account deficits as far forward as the eye can see? MONEYCHANGER Doesn't that at some point decapitalise the United States? Doesn't that at some point destroy the value of the dollar? TODD Yes, but it has consequences that are more pernicious than that. It= =20 transfers US assets into foreign hands, inviting the re-creation of 19th=20 century finance, especially the first half of the 19th century. You are no= =20 longer the master of your own fate. You wind up having to do whatever=20 foreign creditors demand. MONEYCHANGER You become Argentina. TODD Yes. So it's pernicious from the standpoint of=20 constitutional governance in the long run. You don't want this trend to=20 continue, versus the views of the globalisers, who are all saying, "Well,= =20 we just ought to be one more happy trading station on the great plain of= =20 global trade." MONEYCHANGER Isn't there a fundamental issue of independence=20 and sovereignty here? So you're saying that it doesn't really matter much= =20 whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge . . . TODD Oh, I think it does matter, but it matters more which set=20 of Republicans. As long as you've got Republicans from west of=20 the Alleghenies running things, I'd argue you're better off than if=20 you have any set of eastern Democrats or eastern Republicans=20 running things. At the moment, we have the best set. MONEYCHANGER Is this like telling the man with diabetes that only his=20 toes are gangrenous? TODD Yes, it's not a nice position but you have to live with it. We can= =20 live with heartland Republicans. Where the problem always arises, as you=20 saw with Vermont senator Jeffors, is that eastern Republicans are a=20 different breed and you may not necessarily want them representing you. MONEYCHANGER Well, those of us from the South have felt that way for a=20 long time. What does all this say for the stock market? TODD I tend to agree with you that it feels like it's at the crest of=20 the wave, along with these other factors I've been discussing. You watch=20 that dollar index keep going up and start asking yourself, "Where's the= top? 125? 130?" The bubble will blow as high as Greenspan and the Treasury=20 allow that dollar index to go. MONEYCHANGER So our discussion has come full circle. The=20 really important indicator to watch right now is the US dollar index. TODD I think so. At 100, I think Wall Street just stays wherever it sits= =20 at the moment. It will just sit there a while. At 95 you have a prospect=20 for the DJIA to rise smartly, because US manufacturers' profits return. MONEYCHANGER But is the converse true? If the dollar stays high, is the= =20 stock market doomed? TODD No, suppose the dollar index went to 130. One way it would=20 get there is Greenspan the Treasury allowing long bond rates to continue= =20 to rise to sustain foreign investors' purchases of dollars in order to buy= =20 those Treasury securities at the higher rate. As long as you see a=20 corresponding rise in long term interest rates, that dollar index is=20 likely to keep going up and suck Wall Street up along with it. Where Wall Street would decline, I think, would be in that range from=20 120 falling to 100, because with the dollar index in that range, there's=20 no upside for the Dow. They still can't export anything, and nobody wants= =20 to buy your paper. MONEYCHANGER So on the one hand we export goods at the lower end of the= =20 dollar index range, and at the upper end of the range we export paper. TODD That's right. MONEYCHANGER What a world! [laughing] That's insane. TODD I agree with=20 you, it's an insane world. In the view of classical economists, and=20 Austrian economists especially, money ought to be a neutral factor. That's= =20 the virtue of forcing a central bank to adhere to some price that it=20 cannot control, a gold price, for example. MONEYCHANGER But I think I have understood that you are saying that we=20 can't go back to a gold standard or convertibility. TODD I think Anna Schwartz made the wisest comment I ever heard on this= =20 issue. She was asked that question at a CMRE meeting once, "Why don't we=20 go back to a gold standard?" She answered, "Because of the way central banks handle things."=20 This immediately followed her talk about what a botch central banks=20 had made of things. She added that at the Gold Commission in 1981 we decided that there are= =20 many virtues in the gold standard, but the problem is that government has= =20 grown far larger in our lives than it was in 1933, the last time we were=20 on a gold standard. At the time, if you looked at total government=20 expenditure was in the neighbourhood of 5 - 10% of GDP versus today where= =20 government at all levels is maybe 40% of GDP. That means in the old days=20 the necessary adjustments to maintain a gold price could be absorbed by a= =20 private sector that was 90% of GDP. Today that absorption would have to be= =20 taken by a private sector that's only 60% of GDP, so that the consequences= =20 for the living standards of the average American would be at least=20 50% more severe than in the old gold standard days of panics=20 or recessions. They would automatically be 50% worse to get you where you= =20 had to go. So the task in the near term is shrink government to the extent= =20 that you could then safely adopt and live with a gold standard. MONEYCHANGER So you must shrink government before you can ever get rid=20 of the central bank incubus? TODD And the bad news is, of course, that the Establishment controlling= =20 that central bank will fight like rabid dogs to keep you from shrinking=20 their government so as to take away their indirect control of everything=20 through their control of the central bank. MONEYCHANGER That implies also that without a central bank,=20 no government can metastasise to waste away 40% of the=20 commonwealth's production. TODD That's why the standard Democratic Party formulas are a disaster,=20 because they contemplate ever bigger government. MONEYCHANGER This has really been a cheerful conversation, Walker, but I= =20 really appreciate your insight on the dollar, and that's what we're going= =20 to keep our eyes on. Thanks very much. TODD You're quite welcome. [end] The Moneychanger is a privately circulated monthly newsletter edited by= =20 Franklin Sanders. Our goal is to help Christians prosper with their=20 principles intact in an age of monetary and moral chaos. Subscriptions are= =20 $95/year from P.O. Box 178, Westpoint, Tennessee 38486; (888) 218-9226). E-mail us at moneychanger@compuserve.com or visit our=20 website www.the-moneychanger.com . Copyright 1999, 2000 Le Metropole Cafe. All rights reserved. --__--__-- Message: 7 To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 23:58:40 -0200 From: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [A-List] CIA met bin Laden in July (Le Figaro) Reply-To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu The conservative and _respectable_ French newspaper Le Figaro dated October, 31, says that the "CIA would have met bin Laden past July = (....) at the premises of the American Hospital in the Dubai" emirate. He stayed there during 15 days to be treated of a "serious renal insufficience" by an US doctor, dr. Terry Callaway, a renowned = specialist. It seems to have been a gentlemen's meeting, since the main CIA agent = in place "would have even been informed about possible strikes" (Cet = agent aurait m=EAme =E9t=E9 inform=E9 sur d'=E9ventuels [*] attentats.). = It rather seems a joke: the CIA representative is not an undercover agent because he = is widely known overthere (que beaucoup de gens connaissent =E0 = Duba=EF). =20 [*] Note that in the Latin languages _eventuel_ means uncertain = but possible, although in English it means "taking place at un unspecified later time" (Webster). =20 Osama bin Laden imported to his refuge at Kandahar a mobile dialyse apparatus past year. Is this handicapped man capable to endure a = fierce persecution through the inhospitable and barren mountains of the rugged Afghanistan? Osama arrived to Dubai flying from the Pakistani airport of Quetta and = was probably accompanied by the second man of his terrorist ring, the = notorious Egyptian surgeon Ayman al-Zawahari, plus 4 bodyguards and an Algerian nurse. He was kindly visited not only by the CIA but also by many relatives and Arab personalities.=20 Le Figaro furthemore says that "the Dubai meeting was the logical suit = of a =ABcertain American policy=BB", so concluding its report on the old = ties between Osama bin Laden and CIA since 1979, at Istanbul, where he = managed a family's company. The newspaper also says that the FBI had already "discovered the =ABmontages=BB that CIA has developed with its = =ABIslamic friends=BB along the years" since the former agency traced the blowing = of the US embassies at Nairobi (Kenya) and Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzanie) in = August, 1998, to a military explosive made in USA that had been furnished three years ago to Osama bin Laden's voluntary Arab brigades in Afghanistan.=20 In August, 2001, the US agencies held an urgent meeting with their = French counterparts and required minutely exact information from Algerian = islamic militants, but quite strangely the US top officers refused to disclose = the outlines of what they looked for (les Am=E9ricains opposent un mutisme difficilement compr=E9hensible). Furthermore: "According to = different Arabian diplomatic sources and to the French information services, = quite precise intelligence was communicated to the CIA about the terrorist attacks against American interests in the world, "comprising the = Union's territory" in September, 7 --Le Figaro doesn't say if by _Union_ = it refers to the European Union or to the United States . The full text in French of these news is transcribed below. The second Le Figaro news --under the headline "A =ABmonster=BB = created by the American services"-- mention the creation of the Osama bin Laden's ring with the help of the CIA, of the Saudi information services and of = the billionaire Adnan Kashoggi. Funds were then freely collected at the mosques in USA. Le Figaro adds: "=ABCIA created a monster whose = control it has eventually lost=BB, as it was already predicted several years = ago by Daoud Mir, the former Afghan _charg=E9 d'affaires_ in Paris." The = second news may be found at: http://www.lefigaro.fr/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=3D= Futu reTense/Apps/Xcelerate/View&c=3DfigArticle&cid=3DFIGINRRVETC&live=3Dtrue= &Site=3Dtrue &gCurChannel=3DZZZJTGN6J7C&gCurRubrique=3DZZZ4GPM6J7C&gCurSubRubrique=3D= ZZZ6YQM6J7C The third news refer to the Washington Post Monday edition (Oct., 29). = It deals with the 20 secret meetings (at least) in the latest three = years, up to a few days before the WTC bombing, between the Talibans and the = US government in order to get Osama bin Laden extradicted to the United States. See the following URL: http://www.lefigaro.fr/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=3D= Futu reTense/Apps/Xcelerate/View&c=3DfigArticle&cid=3DFIGAMRRVETC&live=3Dtrue= &Site=3Dtrue &gCurChannel=3DZZZJTGN6J7C&gCurRubrique=3DZZZ4GPM6J7C&gCurSubRubrique=3D= ZZZ6YQM6J7C Le Monde, another well known French daily newspaper, published on = October 23 an extensive article about the Islamic extremism in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Estimates of foreigners coming from everywhere in the = Muslim world range up to 25,000. From 1992 on many foreign _moudjahidins_ (holy warriors) were enlisted in the former 7th brigade of the Bosnian Army, including war criminals (3,000 to 5,000 _moudjahidins_ ). They were allowed to enter the country during the civil war by the former Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic, also an ally of USA in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. A part of them obtained Bosnian = nationality. Richard Holbrooke, the US negotiator of the 1995 Dayton agreements, = named it a "pact with the devil".=20 Many _humanitarian_ Islamic NGOs are quite actively woking in the country, including those which keep relations with the Osama bin = Laden's ring, as the Saudi High Commission, or the Sudan-based TWRA -- Third = World Relief Agency, that is a cover for weapons smuggling. It is also = related to sheikh Omar Abdel Rahmane, the mastermind behind the 1993 World = Trade Center bombing. According to a non-identified member of the government, the aid of the Arabian countries=20 to the tiny Bosnia and Herzegovina amounted to 1,5 billion dollars = along the past five years, what means 25% of the total foreign aid to that country. Nevertheless, almost all the resources thus obtained have = been used to promote Islam, to build new mosques, to keep koranic schools = and to publish religious literarture. The full text of the article may be found at http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3230--236116-,00.html In solidarity, R. Magellan ########################################### http://www.lefigaro.fr/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=3D= Futu reTense/Apps/Xcelerate/View&c=3DfigArticle&cid=3DFIGJMSRVETC&live=3Dtrue= &Site=3Dtrue &gCurChannel=3DZZZJTGN6J7C&gCurRubrique=3DZZZ4GPM6J7C&gCurSubRubrique=3D= LE FIGARO Alexandra Richard Publi=E9 le 31 octobre 2001,=20 page 2 La CIA aurait rencontr=E9 Ben Laden en juillet L'ennemi public num=E9ro un aurait =E9t=E9 soign=E9 dans = l'h=F4pital=20 am=E9ricain de Duba=EF au d=E9but de l'=E9t=E9 pour de graves=20 insuffisances r=E9nales. Durant son s=E9jour de 15 jours, le=20 milliardaire saoudien aurait re=E7u la visite d'un repr=E9sentant=20 local de la CIA. Cet agent aurait m=EAme =E9t=E9 inform=E9 sur=20 d'=E9ventuels attentats. Duba=EF, l'un des sept =E9mirats de la f=E9d=E9ration des Emirats=20 arabes unis, au nord-est d'Abu Dhabi. Cette ville de 350 000=20 habitants a =E9t=E9 le th=E9=E2tre discret d'une rencontre = secr=E8te entre=20 Oussama ben Laden et le repr=E9sentant de la CIA sur place, en=20 juillet. Un homme, partenaire professionnel de la direction=20 administrative de l'h=F4pital am=E9ricain de Duba=EF, affirme que=20 l'ennemi public num=E9ro un a s=E9journ=E9 dans cet = =E9tablissement=20 hospitalier du 4 au 14 juillet. En provenance de l'a=E9roport de Quetta au Pakistan, Oussama=20 ben Laden a =E9t=E9 transf=E9r=E9 d=E8s son arriv=E9e =E0 Duba=EF = Airport.=20 Accompagn=E9 de son m=E9decin personnel et fid=E8le lieutenant,=20 qui pourrait =EAtre l'=C9gyptien Ayman al-Zawahari - sur ce point=20 les t=E9moignages ne sont pas formels -, de quatre gardes du=20 corps, ainsi que d'un infirmier alg=E9rien, Ben Laden a =E9t=E9 = admis=20 =E0 l'h=F4pital am=E9ricain, un b=E2timent de verre et de marbre = situ=E9=20 entre Al-Garhoud Bridge et Al-Maktoum Bridge. Chaque =E9tage comporte deux suites =ABVIP=BB et une quinzaine=20 de chambres. Le milliardaire saoudien a =E9t=E9 admis dans le = tr=E8s=20 r=E9put=E9 d=E9partement d'urologie du docteur Terry Callaway,=20 sp=E9cialiste des calculs r=E9naux et de l'infertilit=E9 = masculine. Joint=20 par t=E9l=E9phone =E0 de multiples reprises, le docteur Callaway = n'a=20 pas souhait=E9 r=E9pondre =E0 nos questions. En mars 2000 d=E9j=E0, l'hebdomadaire Asia Week publi=E9 =E0=20 Hongkong s'inqui=E9tait de la sant=E9 de Ben Laden, faisant =E9tat = d'un grave probl=E8me physique pr=E9cisant que ses jours =E9taient = en danger =E0 cause d'une =ABinfection r=E9nale qui se propage au=20 foie et n=E9cessite des soins sp=E9cialis=E9s=BB. Selon des = sources=20 autoris=E9es, Ben Laden se serait fait livrer dans son repaire=20 afghan de Kandahar l'ensemble d'un mat=E9riel mobile de=20 dialyse au cours du premier semestre 2000. Selon nos=20 sources, le =ABd=E9placement pour raison de sant=E9 de Ben=20 Laden=BB n'est pas le premier. Entre 1996 et 1998, Oussama=20 ben Laden s'est rendu plusieurs fois =E0 Duba=EF pour ses=20 affaires. Le 27 septembre, quinze jours apr=E8s les attentats du World=20 Trade Center, sur demande am=E9ricaine, la Banque centrale=20 des Emirats arabes unis a annonc=E9 avoir ordonn=E9 le gel des=20 comptes et des investissements de 26 personnes ou=20 organisations soup=E7onn=E9es d'entretenir des contacts avec=20 l'organisation de Ben Laden, notamment aupr=E8s de la Duba=EF=20 Islamic Bank. =ABLes rapports entre l'Emirat et l'Arabie Saoudite ont=20 toujours =E9t=E9 tr=E8s =E9troits, expliquent nos sources, les = princes=20 des familles r=E9gnantes qui avaient reconnu le r=E9gime des=20 talibans se rendaient souvent en Afghanistan. Un des=20 princes d'une famille r=E9gnante participait r=E9guli=E8rement =E0 = des chasses sur les terres de Ben Laden qu'il connaissait et=20 fr=E9quentait depuis de nombreuses ann=E9es.=BB Une liaison=20 a=E9rienne entre Duba=EF et Quetta est d'ailleurs quotidiennement=20 assur=E9e par les compagnies Pakistan Airlines et Emirates.=20 Quant aux avions priv=E9s =E9miratis ou saoudiens, ils desservent=20 fr=E9quemment Quetta o=F9 ils ne sont la plupart du temps ni=20 enregistr=E9 ni consign=E9 dans les registres de l'a=E9roport. Durant son hospitalisation, Oussama ben Laden a re=E7u la=20 visite de plusieurs membres de sa famille, de personnalit=E9s=20 saoudiennes et =E9miraties. Au cours de ce m=EAme s=E9jour, le=20 repr=E9sentant local de la CIA, que beaucoup de gens=20 connaissent =E0 Duba=EF, a =E9t=E9 vu empruntant l'ascenseur=20 principal de l'h=F4pital pour se rendre dans la chambre=20 d'Oussama ben Laden. Quelques jours plus tard, l'homme de la CIA se vante devant=20 quelques amis d'avoir rendu visite au milliardaire saoudien. De=20 sources autoris=E9es, l'agent de la CIA a =E9t=E9 rappel=E9 par sa = centrale le 15 juillet, au lendemain du d=E9part de Ben Laden=20 pour Quetta. A la fin juillet, les douaniers =E9miratis arr=EAtent =E0 = l'a=E9roport de=20 Duba=EF un activiste islamiste franco-alg=E9rien, Djamel Beghal.=20 D=E9but ao=FBt, les autorit=E9s fran=E7aises et am=E9ricaines sont = alert=E9es. Interrog=E9 par les autorit=E9s locales =E0 Abu Dhabi, = Beghal raconte qu'il a =E9t=E9 convoqu=E9 en Afghanistan fin 2000=20 par Abou Zoubeida - un responsable militaire de=20 l'organisation de Ben Laden, Al Quaida. La mission de=20 Beghal: faire sauter l'ambassade des Etats-Unis, avenue=20 Gabriel, pr=E8s de la place de la Concorde, =E0 son retour en=20 France. Selon diff=E9rentes sources diplomatiques arabes et les services=20 de renseignements fran=E7ais eux-m=EAmes, des informations tr=E8s=20 pr=E9cises ont =E9t=E9 communiqu=E9es =E0 la CIA concernant des=20 attaques terroristes visant les int=E9r=EAts am=E9ricains dans le=20 monde, y compris sur le territoire de l'Union. Un rapport de la DST dat=E9 du 7 septembre rassemble la=20 totalit=E9 de ces donn=E9es, pr=E9cisant que l'ordre d'agir devait = venir d'Afghanistan.=20 En ao=FBt, =E0 l'ambassade des Etats-Unis =E0 Paris, une r=E9union = d'urgence est convoqu=E9e avec la DGSE et les plus hauts=20 responsables des services am=E9ricains. Extr=EAmement inquiets,=20 ces derniers pr=E9sentent =E0 leurs homologues fran=E7ais des=20 demandes de renseignements tr=E8s pr=E9cises concernant des=20 activistes alg=E9riens, sans toutefois s'expliquer sur le sens=20 g=E9n=E9ral de leur d=E9marche. A la question =ABque craignez-vous = dans les jours qui viennent?=BB, les Am=E9ricains opposent un=20 mutisme difficilement compr=E9hensible. Les contacts entre la CIA et Ben Laden remontent =E0 1979=20 lorsque, repr=E9sentant de la soci=E9t=E9 familiale =E0 Istanbul, = il=20 commen=E7a =E0 enr=F4ler des volontaires du monde=20 arabo-musulman pour la r=E9sistance afghane contre l'Arm=E9e=20 rouge. Enqu=EAtant sur les attentats d'ao=FBt 1998 contre les=20 ambassades am=E9ricaines de Nairobi (Kenya) et de=20 Dares-Salaam (Tanzanie), les enqu=EAteurs du FBI ont=20 d=E9couvert que les traces laiss=E9es par les charges proviennent=20 d'un explosif militaire de l'arm=E9e am=E9ricaine et que cet=20 explosif a =E9t=E9 livr=E9 trois ans auparavant =E0 des Afghans = arabes,=20 les fameuses brigades internationales de volontaires, engag=E9s=20 au c=F4t=E9 d'Oussama ben Laden durant la guerre d'Afghanistan=20 contre l'arm=E9e sovi=E9tique. Poursuivant ses investigations, le FBI d=E9couvre des=20 =ABmontages=BB que la CIA avait d=E9velopp=E9s avec ses =ABamis=20 islamistes=BB depuis des ann=E9es. La rencontre de Duba=EF ne=20 serait donc que la suite logique d'une =ABcertaine politique=20 am=E9ricaine=BB End of A-List Digest From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Thu Nov 1 20:02:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] capital employers v. finance capitalists? Message-ID: November 1, 2001 Wall Street Stunned by Treasury's Action on Long-Term Bonds By GRETCHEN MORGENSON With fears mounting that nine interest rate cuts in almost as many months may not be enough to rev up the United States economy, the Treasury Department added some high-test yesterday to the Federal Reserve's fuel mix. Unfortunately, Wall Street got run over in the process. Treasury officials said that their decision to halt the issuance of 30-year bonds was intended to save the government money. But traders scoffed at that explanation, viewing the move as an almost desperate effort to push down long-term interest rates, which had remained stubbornly high, and prod both corporate and individual borrowers to spend again. "Without a doubt the thing that the Fed really wants to do is get mortgage rates and corporate rates down," said Peter McTeague, government bond market strategist at Greenwich Capital Markets, a brokerage firm in Greenwich, Conn. "But mortgage rates weren't falling as much as people hoped because they are more driven by the long end of the yield curve. So they're trying every little trick in the basket. If the Fed funds rate isn't going to do it, let's see if we can do something else." The predicament for the Fed has been that even as it slashed interest rates from 6.5 percent at the beginning of the year to 2.5 percent last month, longer-term borrowing costs for corporations and individuals had not fallen as hard. For example, yields on the 10-year note, the benchmark for many mortgage rates and corporate bond issues, began the year at 5.1 percent and fell only to 4.5 percent by the time the Fed lowered rates for the ninth time on Oct. 2. By last week, 10- year yields had actually risen to 4.64 percent. Yields on the 30-year bond rose even as the Fed cut short-term rates. Starting the year at 5.45 percent, yields on the long bond hit 5.9 percent in May. In an interview yesterday, Peter Fisher, the Treasury's undersecretary for domestic finance, said that "today's decision is in no way an attempt to manage long-term interest rates. That is not what motivated us." But there is no doubt that the sticky nature of longer-term rates has exasperated policy makers. This is especially the case with mortgage rates, since consumer spending has been the only prop supporting the economy in recent months. Keeping consumers feeling flush has, therefore, become a top priority. One way to do this is by lowering mortgage rates, encouraging people to refinance their home loans and put more money in their pockets. The case may have become even more compelling after the report on Tuesday of a plunge in consumer confidence and other recent reports that home buying has started to slip. While mortgage refinancing activity has soared since Sept. 11, the Mortgage Bankers Association's index of home buying activity has instead stumbled. Existing home sales dropped 5.2 percent in September from a year earlier and 11.7 percent from August. But the plunge yesterday in yields on government securities will bring mortgage rates down significantly and soon. The Treasury's announcement stunned Wall Street firms. To be sure, the government had been reducing the amount of long-term bonds in the market by buying back issues periodically and not issuing new ones. But traders had come to believe that because the federal budget surpluses have all but vanished, the government would have to resume heavy borrowings to finance deficit spending. And the Treasury gave Wall Street none of the usual warning signs that come in the form of trial balloons floated before a policy shift as big as this one. When Treasury prices surged on the news of the bond's demise, most major brokerage firms were caught with significant losses. Investors rushed to buy soon-to-be extinct issues. Prices of long-term bonds soared, and their yields plunged, falling from 5.21 percent on Tuesday to 4.88 percent yesterday. It was the biggest single-day move since investors fled to the safety of government securities during the stock market crash of 1987. Traders who had sold long-term Treasuries short to hedge their holdings in corporate bonds and mortgage-backed securities got crushed. "This was a complete blind siding," one trader said. "They would have accomplished the same thing just by signaling it. But they decide not to signal it, and everybody on the Street got slammed." From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 01:27:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: AW: [A-List] Israeli "intelligence" Message-ID: <4FC0BEA08BA4D51188F20002A5291B2617E523@MAILIX07> Dear Ian- I find your comments, frankly, out of touch with reality. The article is interesting and makes a lot of sense. Rule number one (I tell you this as a former diplomat) - keep your eyes open on all sides, and disregard no information whatsoever, out of ideological reasons! Kind regards Arno Tausch -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu] Gesendet: Mittwoch, 31. Oktober 2001 13:40 An: A-List (E-mail) Betreff: [A-List] Israeli "intelligence" News direct from Paul Wolfowitz's man in Scotland. Only the Israelis could come up with a scheme that links together all *their* enemies in one huge dastardly plot. And in whose interest is it for Pakistan's "shadowy ISI" to "establish" links between Iraq and al-Qaeda? Since when was the ISI a reliable source? Israeli intelligence warned US days before attacks IAN BRUCE The Herald, 31 October 2001 ISRAEL'S military intelligence service, Aman, issued an urgent warning of an impending terrorist "spectacular" against America, several days before the suicide bombers flew passenger airliners into New York's Trade Towers and the Pentagon on September 11. Aman had no details of the targets, but picked up enough indicators of major terrorist activity from a combination of informants and electronic eavesdropping to send out an alert, which also covered US interests in Britain, France and Germany. Much of the Israeli intelligence centred on Imad Mughniyeh, head of the Iranian-backed Hizbollah movement's foreign operations section, and on Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born terrorist mastermind reputed to be Osama bin Laden's chosen successor. The Israelis say they have evidence linking both men to agents representing SSO, Iraq's foreign intelligence service, and believe Baghdad has provided finance and logistical support to them. Links between the terrorist network and Iraq have been established by Pakistan's shadowy ISI agency and by the Czech Republic's counter-intelligence service. Salah Suleiman, an Iraqi SSO agent, was detained on the Pakistan border last October after a series of trips into Taliban-controlled territory to meet bin Laden. After interrogation, he was deported. Iraqi agent, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, has been expelled by the Czechs for "conduct incompatible with his diplomatic status". They had been monitoring his activities after a tip-off from Israel that he was planning to bomb Radio Free Europe, a station financed by the CIA that broadcasts to Iraq and Iran. Baghdad regards the broadcasts as "an act of aggression". During the surveillance, they photographed Al-Ani with Mohammed Atta, the al Qaeda agent believed to have flown the first plane into the World Trade Centre. Full article at: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/31-10-19101-0-24-15.html From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 02:27:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Israeli "intelligence" Message-ID: Arno Tausch writes: Dear Ian- I find your comments, frankly, out of touch with reality. The article is interesting and makes a lot of sense. Rule number one (I tell you this as a former diplomat) - keep your eyes open on all sides, and disregard no information whatsoever, out of ideological reasons! ===== Actually these were my comments but with the listserver apparently processing all mails without registering the original sender some clarity has been lost. My comments re Ian Bruce's article are based on a continuing surveillance of his very interesting and peculiar output in the provincial newspaper, The Herald, published in Glasgow, Scotland. For such a provincial newspaper journalist, he appears to be well-connected, if not so well-informed. Or should that be disinformed? My scepticism regarding his output is based on a succession of gung-ho articles he has published which, to be frank, are downright racist in their depiction of those whom our leaders are bombing with impunity. I can forward these articles to the list, and will be forwarding his articles in future anyway, for the purposes of further scrutiny. They reveal as much of what the establishment would like us to believe as they do of whatever is really happening on the ground. I don't disregard information for ideological reasons -- I am acutely aware of the strong possibility for disinformation being disseminated for ideological reasons. Bruce is only one in an endless stream of British journalists whose connections to the UK intelligence services are legion. Below is a post I forwarded to PEN-L in response to some queries regarding the Guardian newspaper, whose image as a liberal/left standard-bearer is belied by its historical and current role in the evolution of the British state. Posted to PEN-L on 3 October: Jim D. reasonably asks: Michael, shouldn't it be basic that we should distrust all of the bourgeois media -- not just the GUARDIAN -- because they have clear bourgeois biases, including favoring the national security state, etc.? Even though the New York TIMES doesn't seem to be connected with the CIA, I am very careful with what I believe in their stories. ===== Yes, absolutely right. The UK press generally serves a much more unified "market" which can be segmented according to politics and again according to presumed degree of affluence/education, giving highbrow rightwing crap, middlebrow rightwing crap, lowbrow, etc. The Guardian has traditionally occupied the "left", and has been put to use in various ways over the last 30 years, not least in helping to hobble Wilson/Callaghan/Foot Labour, supporting the breakaway Gaitskellite successor SDP, and ushering in the New Labour ascendancy. An analogous job to the dishing Labour from the left tactic is being accomplished now by the Daily Telegraph, which is more likely to complain of the Conservative Party selling out, and thus support every idiot punk Thatcherite who declares loyalty to the cause. A while back I deliberately inserted the mischievous little paragraph from Private Eye noting Telegraph editor Charles Moore's sighted exit from MI5 HQ. Given Britain's smaller size and historically more unified news media space, it's a very cosy club indeed. This means all newspapers are ripe for manipulation, overt and covert. It also means that information, however partial or distorted, can inadvertently leak out from time to time, especially when different branches of the secret state are conducting their own turf wars, as with the long tussle between MI5 and MI6, and even between different "wings" of MI5 itself. I suppose picking on the Guardian goes back to a point raised by Michael P. back in March/April or thereabouts, when he queried why it was that a significant proportion of forwarded news articles are from the Guardian. This got us into the merits of that specific paper, and on to Mark Jones' point about the historic relationship between the Guardian and the intelligence services, followed by Michael Pugliese's interventions, followed by my own research into the British state following the IMF UK 1976 episode, etc. There are people here who are on record as praising the reliability of the Guardian, and it maybe needs to be reiterated just how questionable that particular source really is, for all its housing of worthy social democrats over the years(e.g. Roy Hattersley), and even the odd radical (Paul Foot, Mark Steel - now at the Independent, Gary Younge, Seumas Milne). There are still plenty of Polly Toynbees, Jonathan Freedlands, Martin Kettles, Peter Prestons, Matthew Engels to keep the liberal intelligentsia happy. (But far better is the Tory Geoffrey Wheatcroft.) The image of the Guardian as hammer of the right is helped by its recent history of bringing down various Conservative Party Ministers, including Neil Hamilton and Jonathan Aitken. But the related point made by Mark Jones regarding the realignment of the permanent government towards New Labour and away from the increasingly unstable and unpredictable Conservatives, riven with factions and infighting thanks to the punk Thatcherites, adds a different gloss to the apparently laudable conduct of the Guardian as a haven of campaigning journalism. The Guardian also got in on the "stop Portillo" campaign, playing a bit part to the major roles taken by both Telegraph titles, whose own contributions were so clearly orchestrated to produce a wholly predictable outcome (Thatcher denying all support for Portillo just prior to the crucial MPs' vote) show that security service mischief-making is far from over in the British news media. You continue: BTW, traditionally the CIA was the "liberal" spy agency in the US (compared to the FBI). Its agents were sophisticated Ivy League types who hobnobbed with (and corrupted) liberals, social democrats, and laborites. The CIA traditionally embraced a more long-term and "enlightened" perspective than the FBI. Is the MI5 the same way? If so, one can learn something from them (and their allies in the media) while being extremely careful not to believe everything they say. ===== There is no doubt that MI5 has housed some seriously reactionary types over the years, too extreme even for many colleagues. MI6 has its own horrible history, laid out in detail by Stephen Dorril in his recent book, but, yes, if one can make comparisons then MI6 would be analogous to your characterisation of the CIA. Particularly in Northern Ireland, MI6 comes out rather well compared to the ruthlessness which characterised MI5 operations there, and which contributed to many civilian deaths and subverted whatever minimal norms of bourgeois liberal democracy remained. As Peter Taylor revealed in his "Brits" series and book, it was via MI6 that Mrs Thatcher broke her vow and "talked to terrorists". Meanwhile army types were horrified at what MI5 were getting up to. Some of this is revealed in both the David Leigh and Dorril/Ramsay books on the Wilson plots. There is also a much longer, detailed study by Paul Foot, "Who Framed Colin Wallace?", Wallace being an army information officer who was being fed all sorts of smears regarding Wilson, but whose uncovering of an establishment paedophile ring led to him being framed for manslaughter and jailed. It gets more complicated when someone like Foot, for example, who has no truck with the British state, can be relied upon to indulge his sectarian tastes by rubbishing e.g. Arthur Scargill, whose limitations are apparent to many on the left but whose pariah status on the right means that leftists' disaffections can be exploited, as with the attempt by Robert Maxwell and Roger Cook in 1990 to frame Scargill and Peter Heathfield for the misuse of NUM funds and the pocketing of large sums of Soviet miners' money sent to help striking British miners. Thus, to answer your question, I think it's a mixture of instinct, historical knowledge, cross-checking and inspired guesswork. An important question to answer is, "whose purposes are served by this reporting?" The advantage of a forum like this is that the latter particularly can be tested and others who are informed on related and similar matters can add to the common understanding. Marx's notion of determinations is useful here, given all the subtexts encountered in some of the topics we have focused on in recent times, whether on the IMF in Britain, the marginalisation of punk Thatcherism, the ascendancy of New Labour, etc. Not to mention the rather more global role performed by the Financial Times in its campaign against James Wolfensohn. In closing, you ask: BTW2, what is PRIVATE EYE's connection with the intelligence goons? ===== That's an intriguing one. I tried to cover that in my review of David Leigh's book, noting the relationship of certain individual staff members to the state (Auberon Waugh, Patrick Marnham, e.g.) and their toleration by editor Richard Ingrams whose own sympathy towards Thatcherism and loathing of Harold Wilson significantly skewed the content of the magazine, and led to the departure of people like Paul Foot and the noticeable reduction of commitment by other founders like Willie Rushton and John Wells, who were unhappy with the rather one-sided nature of the satire being employed. In certain respects the latterday Ingrams Eye looked like a comic book version of the Spectator. Under Ian Hislop's editorship, it's become a more equal opportunities satirist again, and Rushton and Wells returned, as did Paul Foot, to be joined by Francis Wheen, while old hacks like Peter Mackay, Nigel Dempster and Patrick Marnham were booted out. Meanwhile former owner Peter Cook encouraged Hislop to develop the investigative reporting side of the magazine. I think there is a generally healthy distrust of state and corporate power displayed in most of the magazine's contents. That attitude can, of course, be exploited by some in the intelligence services to score tactical points. To be independent of the goons does not immunise one from their manipulations. But I would reckon that the Eye's head and heart are generally in the right place, as concern state and corporate power at least. On the basis of current evidence, anyway. Michael K. ===== This does not explain the role of a provincial newspaper like the Herald. Until recently the Glasgow Herald, the paper serves a readership concentrated mostly in the west of Scotland, for obvious reasons. Intelligence angst about Scottish separatism, close links with Ireland/Northern Ireland, and now a large Pakistani emigre population would provide sufficient rationale for spooks to get busy. And busy they are. What I cannot understand is the point of Bruce's very provocative disquisitions on the "character" of the Afghan people -- just who is supposed to be impressed by that? Certainly not the large Pakistani community, which, incidentally, in my experience, was never enthusiastic about the "Islamic" ideas of General Zia (the US stooge who came to power via a bloody coup in 1977, paving the way for Brzezinski-inspired destabilisation of the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul). Of course "provincial" newspapers, like foreign ones, however obscure, can be used in a technique known as "surfacing", where information comes to light in a faraway place and can then be relayed back to the intended audience under cover of simply reporting what others have been saying. Hence the career of Colin Wallace, British Army Information Officer serving in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s who was being fed lots of whacked out smears concerning Harold Wilson by the goons of MI5. Another feature of recent times has been the laments regarding the lack of "expertise" on Afghanistan and the Middle East generally. The CIA and allied agencies have been caught short because they have not engaged in the same levels of infiltration, subversion, etc., that they did under the Cold War. Better to sub-contract these activities to darker-skinned types who can live the alcohol-free, celibate and rough lifestyle necessary. The KGB had the good taste to lay on all kinds of tasty entrapments for our agents, after all. No such pickings in Kandahar. Thus which sub-contractor has been using this arrangement for its own benefit? Probably all of them, but certainly Israeli intelligence which, as the closest ally to the US, is in the best position to influence and manipulate according to its prerogatives. One need only see the energetic performances of Ehud Barak in the world media in recent months, talking about "terrorism" in such terms as to mirror the monochrome treatments routinely served up by Mossad et al. So, I am certainly open to considering evidence that backs up the tale being peddled by Mr Bruce. But I have to see it first. Meanwhile I've got plenty that suggests Mr Bruce is simply the current incarnation of Chapman Pincher, long a reliable establishment urinal (to use E.P. Thompson's wonderfully accurate description) whereby fragments of fact are deposited along with judicious helpings of disinformation, mischief and smear. Our job here is to evaluate what gets passed off as reportage and distil the urine accordingly. Michael Keaney From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 03:32:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Strategy of tension Message-ID: It's no wonder our leaders worry about "dirty" bombs. They and their predecessors have manufactured most of them, and have had plenty of time to study the results of using depleted uranium ordnance in both Iraq and Kosovo. Anthrax having served its purpose, now we can ratchet up the tension with some alarmism about suitcase bombs. BTW, has anyone here ever seen the Sean Connery 1982 movie, "Wrong is Right", titled "The Man with the Deadly Lens" in Britain? It's uncannily close to what is going on now. Supposedly a satire on the relationship between US news media and politics, it centres on events in a fictional North African state whereby the CIA engineers the assassination of the "moderate" king in order to stop a possible alliance with the "extremists" who have been fighting a civil war against him until now. Then it's a question of how the US president can legitimately declare war on that country without losing face (and an election, more importantly) because of being uncovered as the assassin in the first place (a corner engineered for him by the CIA). This is achieved by the "discovery" and disarming of two suitcase atom bombs hanging from a flagpole in New York. War is declared, and the president wins the election. If you find a copy in the rental store, check it out. If anything it's more believable than anything you're likely to be told by Donald Rumsfeld. Not that this would be difficult, of course. ===== West fears terrorist 'dirty' bomb IAN BRUCE The Herald, 2 November 2001 THE ultimate nightmare for security services throughout the West is a terrorist "dirty" bomb made from high-grade nuclear waste packed around home-made explosives. Packed in the back of a van parked on the top storey of a high-rise car park in a city centre, it could inflict tens of thousands of casualties, some a generation away from the initial blast as a result of cancers and birth defects. The worst-case scenario, depending on wind speed and direction, power of the blast and materials used, could render parts of a city uninhabitable for the next century or two. All of it would be contingent on whether or not it rained within hours of the detonation. A decent shower would bring the most damaging radioactive particles rapidly to earth and limit the worst of the contamination. The Royal Navy's Clyde submarine base was established on the principle of "Faslane weather", an anchorage where it rained on a daily basis more often than not. It was a major unstated factor in the selection of Faslane as the home port for Britain's nuc-lear deterrent force. While there was virtually no risk of an atomic explosion, the average rainfall would, hopefully, diminish the aftermath of an accidental release of radioactive material. The fact that it also gave a ready access to the sea for Polaris missile boats was a bonus. Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network has been actively seeking nuclear capability since the early 1990s. Its first attempts focused on the purchase of a ready-made warhead in the chaos of the Soviet Union's fragmentation. Even Moscow is still unsure whether it has a full inventory of the atomic weapons it deployed in the tens of thousands during the Cold War. There are unsubstantiated rumours that al Qaeda managed to buy two "backpack" nuclear demolition charges, weapons designed to be used by the Spetznaz, the Soviet equivalent of the SAS, behind Nato lines in the 1980s. But intelligence sources say that, if bin Laden has the warheads, then he lacks the enabling codes to detonate them. If he had them, then he would have used one or both to destroy New York's Trade Towers instead of relying on a complex hijack plan and the nerve of kamikaze pilots. Far more alarming and pos-sible is the adaptation of relatively easily-available nuclear material to a makeshift "dirty" bomb. According to the International Atomic Energy Authority, there have been 175 cases of illegal trafficking in nuclear material, and 201 cases of trafficking in medical and industrial radio-active waste since 1993. Only 18 of these cases have involved small amounts of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the basic component of nuclear weapons. But 13 have happened in the last year. It takes 50lbs of specially treated uranium or 18lbs of plutonium to form the core of a bomb, but the process to convert it from radioactive mass to a warhead and then deliver that warhead to a specific target, is beyond the means of most states, never mind terrorist organisations. The cheaper option is to obtain the most radioactive material which can be stolen or bought on the black market: the waste from the hundreds of nuclear power stations dotted around the world. With a few kilos of the mixed plutonium and uranium, or better still caesium-137, a substance more toxic than Ebola virus and more enduring than diamonds, the ultimate terrorist would have the lethal coating for his poor man's atomic bomb. Most terrorist groups have access to commercial or military plastic explosives. The IRA used to make its bigger vehicle bombs from "Co-op mix", a combination of weedkiller, sugar, diesel, and various other ingredients found in most kitchens and garden huts. The trick with a dirty nuclear release is to trigger it upwind of the target area on a day when the breeze will spread the contamination as widely as possible. The accidental reactor meltdown and release of a windblown plume at Chernobyl in 1986 polluted almost 3000 square miles of the Ukraine and deposited dangerous levels of radioactivity across most of northern and western Europe. There have been 11,000 admitted cases of thyroid cancer in Ukraine and Belarus alone since then. Sheep in Wales are still being checked quietly for contamination, 15 years after the event. Full article at: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/2-11-19101-0-49-12.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 03:34:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Strategy of tension Message-ID: UK nuclear plants may be next for kamikaze jet attacks IAN BRUCE The Herald, 2 November 2001 THE crashing of a hijacked passenger jet into Sellafield nuclear plant on the Cumbrian coast, could release 44 times more lethal radiation than the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine. Gordon Thompson, executive director of the US Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Massachusetts, says such an incident would send a plume of deadly particles into the atmosphere, and certainly contaminate much of Britain and Ireland. Depending on wind direction and speed, the plume might spread over much of the near-continent, causing two million cancer cases in the next 50 years. British Energy, the East Kilbride-based body that supervises the UK's seven gas-cooledatomic power stations, dismissed Mr Thompson's claims as "alarmist". But he was backed by Mohamed El Baradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Authority, the UN watchdog authority that regulates safety standards for the nuclear industry. He said targeting nuclear facilities to cause "a Chernobyl-style disaster" was the most probable choice for terrorist groups hoping to "incite panic, contaminate property, and inflict death and injury among civilians." The path of the PanAm plane blown up by a bomb over Lockerbie in 1988 was a few moments' flight time from Sellafield. Full article: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/2-11-19101-0-48-27.html NOTE: Both Syria and Iran were in the frame for the Lockerbie bombing, until their support for Desert Storm in 1991 was required. Colonel Gaddafi was wheeled out to serve as whipping boy on that occasion. Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 03:37:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Strategy of tension Message-ID: Of course the unintended consequences of scare campaigns include workers acting in their self-interest, not just government officials and business leaders. ===== Postal staff in walkout ANNETTE McCANN The Herald, 2 November 2001 POSTAL workers in Edinburgh staged a walkout yesterday after the wages of those who refused to return to work following a recent anthrax scare were deducted. John Keggie, the deputy general secretary of the Communications Workers' Union (CWU) condemned the situation as "irresponsible" given the pressures facing postal workers following the US terrorist attacks. Around 85 workers at the Brunswick Road delivery office were affected. The protest was staged between 6am and 8am, leading to delays to the morning deliveries in Leith. The CWU is calling for an inquiry and for disciplinary action to be taken against the management. But a Royal Mail spokesman said: "The staff involved in the walk-out were a group who refused to work normally after the building had been given the all-clear by the police." Full article at: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/2-11-19101-0-46-48.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland michael.keaney@mbs.fi From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 03:55:04 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] Israeli "intelligence" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011102104940.030b0608@pop.tiscali.co.uk> Michael Keaney wrote: >with the listserver apparently >processing all mails without registering the original sender some >clarity has been lost. This may be my fault. While attempting to make the archive more accessible I set the reply-to function to delete the original sender and haven't managed to correct it yet. Ho hum. Sign your emails is the best I can suggest right now. Mark From a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu Fri Nov 2 04:23:03 2001 From: a-list-admin at lists.econ.utah.edu (a-list-admin@lists.econ.utah.edu) Date: Sat Jul 8 08:08:22 2006 Subject: [A-List] fwd: paper by Alexander N. Domrin on Russia Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20011102111230.00a9eaf0@pop.tiscali.co.uk> Alexander N. Domrin1 Ten Years Later: Society, 'Civil Society' & the Russian State. Conference ?Ten Years Later: The Development of Russian Civil Society?, Wittenberg University, Springfield, OH, November 3, 2001. I. Grazhdanskoe obschestvo (civil society) is becoming a new mantra of the Russian government and the political elite in general. The term is widely used in Russian political lexicon today. A reference to ?creation of civil society? or its ?further development? is usually present in a typical set of arguments of Russian policy-makers endorsing certain political initiatives in the country. Work on ?developing structures of civil society in Russia? is regularly discussed during meetings of President Putin with leaders of parliamentary factions or with presidential envoys (as happened, for instance, on 28 June 2001 during Putin's meeting with envoys Petr Latyshev (Urals federal district) and Leonid Drachevskii (Siberian federal district))2. Even the creation of a coalition of two political parties - pro-Putin Edinstvo (Unity) and Primakov-Luzhkov's Otechestvo-Vsya Rossiya (Fatherland-All Russia) - was welcomed by President Putin for two main reasons: because it was expected to become an ?important step aimed at strengthening and developing the political system, and creating civil society?3. The number of registered public organizations in Russia has reached approximately 300,0004, including more than 70,000 social and noncommercial organizations, which are directly or indirectly involved in charitable work. Charity organizations unite about 2.5 million citizens providing assistance to about 30 million Russians5. Reportedly, the number of Russian regions that have formal cooperation arrangements with, for instance, groups working with orphans and the disabled, has risen from 12 (out of 89) in 1998 to 40 in 20016. Not by a coincidence, it was on 12 June 2001, a symbolic date in Russia's most recent history7 and an official Russia Day holiday, that President Putin held a meeting with representatives of wide-ranging (although far from being comprehensive) public organizations. All in all, the meeting in the Kremlin was attended by 28 NGOs, including the Association of Beekeepers, the Allotment Gardeners' Federation, the All-Russian Society of Stamp Collectors, as well as those uniting lawyers, invalids, journalists, consumers, ecologists and even bards. It was proposed to form a Civic Chamber attached to the Office of the President. The Chamber is expected to become an important component of the process of building a civil society and of development of grass-roots activities of population. Concrete preparations for creation of such Chamber are being made by Gleb Pavlovsky, a former dissident, ?political prisoner?, and now the head of a high-profile Foundation for Effective Policy, and Vladislav Surkov, a senior official of the presidential administration. It's expected that the Civic Chamber will be preceded by a certain Civic Forum (or a Union of the Civic NGOs), which is to be convened on November 16-17, 2001 with participation of more than 250 NGOs8. The current rapid intensification of dialogues of the Russian political elite and social scientists on civil society and problems of its evolution is not accidental. Yet another stunning defeat of radical ?reformers? in the Russian parliamentary elections in December 1999, and Putin's decisive victory in the presidential campaign in March 2000, are viewed by many observers as the end of ?revolutionary changes? in Russia9. In a popular expression, civil society is the point where revolution ends and routine (byt) of a democratic regime starts. In a certain way, the term grazhdanskoe obschestvo is following the pattern of the use of another concept more than ten years ago - pravovoe gosudarstvo (Russian equivalent of Rechtsstaat or ?law-governed state?, ?state based on the rule of law?). Indeed, ?civil society? is probably as often mentioned now as the words glasnost' (openness, transparency) or pravovoe gosudarstvo were used in the perestroika (restructuring, change, reform) period of the Soviet history in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Back in June of 1991, it was observed (in a report prepared for the U.S. Congressional Research Service), that ?voluntary or involuntary lack of consensus on the meaning of the rule of law, broad interpretation of the term, and attempts to use it in political demagogy as a populist tool lead to outright abuses of the concept?10. And just like perestroika itself has transformed in reality and public consciousness into katastroika (from ?catastrophe?)11, and the ?architect of perestroika?, Michail Gorbachev, deservedly enjoys the support of not more than 0.5 percent of the Russian electorate (who voted for him in the 1996 presidential elections), indiscriminate use of the term ?civil society? in Russian political doublespeak today can potentially lead to the same consequences tomorrow12. The more politicians speak about ?civil society?, the less meaningful it becomes. As an example, let's consider two official documents of the State Duma: Plan of ?Civil Society? Legislative Drafting 13 and Recommendations of Parliamentary Hearings ?Russian Federalism and Problems of Development of Civil Society?. The Plan of ?Civil Society? Legislative Drafting was adopted by the State Duma in the beginning of 1995 and contained titles of 31 bills. Besides bills aimed at regulating the establishment and activities of public associations (No.1) and charity organizations (No.2) or formulating ?General Principles of Organization of Local Government in the Russian Federation? (No.11), the list also included so different in their constitutional significance and scope of legal regulation draft acts as ?On Election of the RF President? (No.13), ?On Election of Deputies of the State Duma of the RF Federal Assembly? (No.12), ?On Referendum in RF? (No.14), ?On the RF Constitutional Assembly? (No.16), ?On Alternative Civil Service? (No.3), ?On Political Parties? (No.6), on the one hand, and ?On Distribution of Erotic Production? (No.30), ?On Prohibition of Propaganda of Fascism in RF? (No.26), ?On Protection of Linguistic, Cultural and Other Traditions in RF? (No.28), on the other hand. Similarly, parliamentary hearings at the Russian State Duma on ?Russian Federalism and Problems of Development of Civil Society? (15 November 1999) led to an adoption of three sets of ?recommendations? in various areas of social activities. In the area of scientific research, the participants in the hearings recommended Russian scholars, among other things, to concentrate on such eternal problems as ?humanism and federalism?, and on such vague topics as ?fusion of the energy of civil society with the policy of sustainable development?, ?federalism and civil consciousness of the Russian society?, or ?civil self-governing society - a condition of creation and development of real federalism in Russia?. In the sphere of information and mass media, it was advised to ?concentrate on the necessity of a productive dialogue between political parties, social movements and the state power, between the Center and regions aimed at reaching political consensus between them?, to introduce a special section ?Individual, Civil Society, Federalism in Russia? in a number of Russian scholarly magazines (Zhurnal rossiyskogo prava, Pravo i ekonomika, Svobodnaya mysl', Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya, Polis, Federalizm, etc.), to start a new talk show on TV called ?Civil Society and Federalism in Russia?. Apart from long-term and, to a large extent, hypothetical and detached from current Russian reality goals (such as creation of ?complex programs, federal and regional, aimed at developing and strengthening civil society?, or establishment of an ?institute for research in problems of civil society?), the third set of proposals (?in the legal and administrative sphere?) contained a short list of just six draft laws which, from the point of view of organizers of the conference and its participants, would assist Russia in moving closer to ?real federalism? and to ?strengthen civil society in our country at the contemporary stage?. The proposed bills included: ?On Responsibility of Officials for Violations of Civil Rights and Freedoms, Constitutional Foundations and Principles?; ?On Guaranteeing Consistency of Legal Acts of Subjects of the Russian Federation with the Federal Legislation?; ?On the Mechanism of Rendering Decisions of the RF Constitutional Court?; ?On the Mechanism of Recognizing Unconstitutional the Legal Acts of Subjects of the Russian Federation Contravening the Federal Legislation?; ?On Responsibility of Officials for Violations of Constitutional Rights of People?; ?On Information Safeguarding Citizens' Security?. The problem with that set of draft laws is that, despite the fact that it includes a very small number of titles, two of them basically repeat each other (bills ?On Responsibility of Officials for Violations of Civil Rights and Freedoms, Constitutional Foundations and Principles? and ?On Responsibility of Officials for Violations of Constitutional Rights of People?), and two others intend to regulate very close aspects of law and could probably be united in one (bills ?On Guaranteeing Consistency of Legal Acts of Subjects of the Russian Federation with the Federal Legislation? and ?On the Mechanism of Recognizing Unconstitutional the Legal Acts of Subjects of the Russian Federation Contravening the Federal Legislation?). It's hard to understand from the title of another bill (?On Information Safeguarding Citizens' Security?) what area of social relations it intends to regulate. In case of adoption of the last bill (?On the Mechanism of Rendering Decisions of the RF Constitutional Court?), the new act would most probably be eventually recognized violating the Russian Constitution. Indeed, if the activities of the RF Constitutional Court are regulated by a Federal Constitutional Law (?On the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation? of 24 July 1994), the proposed ?mechanism of rendering decisions? of the Constitutional Court could, in principle, be introduced not by a regular parliamentary act, but only by another Constitutional Law. Yet, the Russian Constitution contains an exhaustive list of Federal Constitutional Laws (on referendum, on arbitration courts, on the Commissioner for Human Rights, on martial law, on a state of emergency, etc.), but the proposed act is not among them. Finally (and the most important in the context of this article), it's totally unclear what all those bills have in reality to do with civil society, and in what way their adoption, in the opinion of the law-makers, would contribute to development of civil society in Russia or its ?strengthening?. II. The concept of civil society has a longer history in transitional regimes of Central and Eastern Europe. Already in the late 1970s, the civil society doctrine was understood as a program of resistance to the Communist government in Poland. To a large extent, the ?velvet revolutions? themselves were ?carried out in the name of 'civil' society?14. Unlike in Central and Eastern Europe, where such terms as ?civil society?, ?citizen's committees?, ?citizen's assemblies?, ?citizen's initiatives?, etc. were the ?most frequently used terms in the public discourse of that time?15, revolutionary (in their essence) legal and political reforms were initiated at the end of the 1980s in the USSR not under ?civic? slogans, but under slogans of Soviet transition to ?democracy? and the ?rule of law?16. The term ?democratic? was present in the titles of the most radical groups and movements in the country: from Novodvorskaya's schizoid Democratic Union to massive (at that time) Democratic Russia and from the Social Democratic Platform of the CPSU to Travkin's Democratic Party of Russia and Rutskoy's ?Communists for Democracy?. Symbolically, one of the very first political groups that used the term grazhdansky in its title was Grazhdansky soyuz (the Civic Union), the most promising and influential democratic organization standing in the opposition to domestic and foreign policy of the Russian government in general, and to the disastrous course of Chubais' privatization and the experiments of market bolshevists17 with the Russian economy in particular18. Refusal of Yeltsin and his radical supporters to hold a dialogue with the Civic Union in the second half of 1992 marginalized Russian politics and channelled governmental economic and social policy to predominantly confrontational and eventually violent forms. With the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, internal content of the idea of civil society so drastically changed that some authors even began speaking about the ?fall of the concept of civil society?19. This observation is probably correct if we mean an exclusively negative, destructive component of the concept - a denial of the state per se as an apparatus of force; mobilization of societal resistance aimed at overthrowing the state. However, in the words of Bronislaw Geremek (a former Polish Solidarity activist and subsequently the parliamentary leader of the Democratic Union, the largest of the post-Solidarity parties), civil society today ?cannot and should not base itself on emotions, but on the building of carefully nurtured institutions... The main task now is constructing democratic mechanisms of stability?. And in the opinion of Larry Diamond (of the Hoover Institution), the ?single most important and urgent factor in the consolidation of democracy is not civil society but political institutionalization?20. ?Democratic mechanisms of stability? and ?political institutionalization? are the key words here. And in this respect the conclusions of Geremek and Diamond are highly relevant to Russia as well. At the first glance, the term ?civil society? is quite extensively represented in contemporary Russian legislation. The term ?civil society? has been used in more than a hundred legal acts and official documents (adopted in 1991-2001). Such acts include at least 10 presidential decrees, half of which were issued in March-June of 1996 at the height of Yeltsin's presidential campaign21, two presidential directives22, three resolutions of federal legislative bodies (Supreme Soviet and State Duma)23, two resolutions of the RF Constitutional Court, and one resolution of the Federal Arbitration Court of the Moscow District24; three federal programs: on ?Continuation of Reforms and Stabilization of Russian Economy? in 1993, on support to book-printing in Russia in 1996-2001, and ?Culture of Russia (2001-2005)?25, and at least three resolutions of the RF Government26. ?Civil society? is also mentioned in numerous legal acts and official documents adopted in regions of Russia27, for instance, in six resolutions of Moscow Government28, in three addresses of regional leaders of Russia (Bashkortostan29 and Tatarstan), and in a number of other acts of executive or legislative bodies30. Lip service to the necessity of developing or strengthening ?civil society? in Russia was paid in all ?State of the Nation? annual addresses of the Russian President to the Federal Assembly (1994-2001), as well as in the Concept of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation31 and in the Doctrine of Information Security of the Russian Federation32. Yet, apparently, there is only one federal Law - ?On Education? (No. 3266-1 of July 22, 1992) - that uses this term. A quarter of all official documents mentioning ?civil society? (to be precise, 25 of them) are international agreements, communique or memoranda (including those adopted by the UN, UNESCO, OSCE, G-8, the Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly, the Supreme Council of Russia-Belarus Union, as well as a joint statement by Presidents Putin and Kostunica of October 27, 2000 in Moscow). This figure will become even bigger if we add documents hardly having significant legal meaning (like an information report of the RF Central Bank of October 3, 1995, or four orders, three letters and one resolution of the RF Ministry of General and Professional Education and the RF Ministry of Education)33, plus those adopted by lesser institutions and organizations (like three resolutions of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of February-March 1996, or a resolution of the 3rd Congress of Russian Judges of March 25, 1994 ?On the Concept of the RF Judicial System?). As a result, a comprehensive Dictionary of Russian Legislation: Terms, Concepts, Definitions contains about 25,000 legal terms and definitions but there is not ?civil society? among them34. Even the most fundamental commentaries to the RF Constitutions don't mention ?civil society? in their indexes35. III. Russian legislation is not the only one having unsettled relations with the term ?civil society?. The concept of ?civil society? remains a matter of much dispute predominantly among scholars of philosophy and political theory. Civil society itself is a philosophical concept (which is also used in political science and sociology). Scholars trace the origins of this doctrine to the works of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Bodin, Grotius, Gobbs, Milton, Spinoza, Locke, classics of French and German Enlightenment (Montesqieu, Rousseau, Pufendorf, Leibniz, Thomasius, Wolf), as well as to the system of civil society developed by Hegel36. The concept of civil society is much closer to contemporary political studies rather than to legal research. A sample search in just one magazine - Journal of Democracy in the 1990s - indicated