Darfur News Brief: Oct. 13, 2006
Genocide Intervention NetworkHave a Hand in Stopping Genocide
Hundreds were wounded or captured when violence between rebels and the government of Sudan erupted on Oct. 7 near the border with Chad. Meanwhile, international organizations and leaders of Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, France, Germany and others are increasing pressure on Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir with appeals to allow a UN peacekeeping force into the Darfur region. The International Criminal Court is continuing its investigations in Darfur with considerable difficulty due to instability, while the African Union announced a new dialogue initiative to improve the Darfur Peace Agreement.

Situation on the Ground
Intense fighting between the National Redemption Front rebel group, which has not signed the Darfur Peace Agreement, and the government of Sudan began on Saturday near Sudan's border with Chad, wounding or capturing hundreds of rebel and government troops. Both sides blame each other for initiating the clash.
UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis said the agency was concerned about the close vicinity of the fighting to the Oure Cassoni refugee camp, located in Chad, five kilometers from the border. UNHCR will be surveying new sites available for an "urgent" relocation of the two camps.
Analysts warn that the continued violence near the border between Sudan and Chad threatens to destablize the entire region as well as relations between the two countries who only recently re-opened their borders.
On Monday, the fighting begun on Saturday spilled over into eastern Chad. The Sudanese government says 103 Sudanese soldiers were taken by the government of Chad after crossing the border, a charge Chad denies. Sudan subsequently accused Chad of providing support to National Redemption Front rebels.
Khartoum's troops have suffered heavy casualties in recent weeks, driven back in some areas despite the arrival of 20,000 additional soldiers into Darfur.
Two Darfurian refugees, girls aged 12 and 15, fought back against an attempted rape near a refugee camp in Ardamada. A dozen masked and armed men attacked four Médecins Sans Frontières aid workers in Darfur on Sept. 11. Three workers were beaten and given death threats and one female staff member was sexually harassed. UN agencies condemned increased attacks on women and girls in Darfur and reminded the Sudanese government of its obligation to investigate and prosecute these crimes.
The United Nation Children's Fund estimates that right now, 80 children under age 5 die each day due to malnutrition, disease, and poor living conditions in Darfur.
The World Food Programme said the number of people not reached by food aid has dropped from 470,000 in July to 224,000 in September. Among this number are 139,000, "who have gone without food aid for four months." Insecurity has been a major problem for the WFP. A spokesperson said WFP drivers "are being harassed, sometimes dragged out, beaten up" because "food convoys represent a lot of money to some of those armed groups." An initiative in South Darfur, "Food for Seed Protection" will aid 200,000 farmers in surviving the coming "hunger season."
Jan Egeland, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed journalists on the situation in Darfur, Sudan stating that violence and insecurity are escalating. Because Sudanese militias are now better armed and equipped, "they are much better armed, they are more brutal than ever and their potential to do bad is bigger than ever," said Egeland.
The "Sudan Humanitarian Overview," a report released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reported an increase in attacks on aid workers and an "atmosphere of fear and insecurity" in camps for internally displaced peoples. A report by the UN Security Council documented violations of the arms embargo by all parties in Darfur, including the Sudanese government. Insurgents from Chad too have broken the agreement while reportedly joining forces with the Sudanese government.
The UN human rights agency has urged the government of Sudan to launch an investigation of August militia attacks targeting 45 villages in South Darfur. The UN human rights chief said "several hundred" civilians may have died in these late-August militia attacks, a much higher number than originally estimated.

The Proposed UN Transfer
In a joint UN-AU letter to Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, UN support of AU forces in Darfur was assessed at about 200 UN military and civilian staff. The AU is waiting for a formal response from Sudan on when this UN support team will be permitted to deploy to the Darfur region.
Stating its "grave concern" over Sudan's continued refusal of UN peacekeepers, the Security Council extended the timeline for the mission through the end of next April. The African Union has extended its own mission in Darfur until the end of 2006.
The government of Sudan staunchly refuses the UN force. In an interview, the deputy leader of the ruling National Congress Party, Ibrahim Omar, stated that if the SPLM, the only rebel group to sign May's peace agreement, accepts "invading" UN forces, "there will be no national unity government and the Naivasha agreements will cease to exist." Beshir has himself warned that he would lead a jihad against any UN troops in Darfur.
Abdul Rahman Khalil Ahmad, Sudan's charge d'affairs, said "the US and UK are after controlling our country," and that Sudan would continue to resist a UN force, even in the face of sanctions. Beshir has also rejected the Arab League's initial proposal offering to dispatch a UN force made up entirely of Arab and Muslim soldiers.
US Special Envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios left on Thursday for Khartoum, where he will press Beshir to accept a UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur. He is planned to visit Khartoum, the Darfur region and the southern city of Juba, despite recently announced restrictions on US travel within Sudan.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, in an address at the headquarters of the AU in Addis Ababa on Tuesday, acknowledged that genocide might be occurring in Darfur, and urged the international community to act. "It is not in the interest of Sudan nor in the interest of Africa, nor indeed in the interest of the world, for us all to stand by, fold our hands and see genocide in Darfur," Obasanjo said. Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs Joy Ogwu was in Khartoum for two days this week to discuss the situation in Darfur.
Obasanjo and the presidents of Gabon and Senegal hope to persuade Beshir to accept an international peacekeeping force when they travel to Khartoum on Oct. 17 for a summit on Darfur. The governments of South Africa, France and Germany have also made statements urging the Sudanese government to accept UN peacekeepers.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmend Abul Ghiet called on the government of Sudan and the United Nations to reach a mutual understanding regarding the situation in Darfur. He also called for a special meeting of leaders of the UN Security Council, the Arab League, and the African Union in order to convince Sudan to accept UN troops in Darfur.
A group of Chadian rebels said that they oppose a UN peacekeeping force to the Darfur border region because it could obstruct their campaign to overthrow Chadian President Idriss Deby.
After being nominated by the UN Security Council on Monday, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon is expected to be formally elected as secretary-general later this month. The following excerpts trace references to Ban Ki-Moon's support of the "Responsibility to Protect" principle, which was agreed upon by UN leader's during last year's summit:
"Ban Ki-moon has expressed strong support for things like the responsibility to protect the International Criminal Court," reported UN correspondent Ian Williams on Oct. 8.
"Ban also vowed to speak out in favor of the 'responsibility to protect' – a vow of collective action made by world leaders last year to stop 'genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity,'" reported Agence-France Presse on Sept. 27.
"When a country is not able to protect its own people from crimes against humanity and genocide and prevents the international community from intervening on the excuse of sovereignty, the international community has a responsibility to protect those people from genocide," said Ban Ki-Moon in an interview with AFP on Oct. 3.

Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank founder wins Nobel Peace Prize
PTI
Dhaka, Oct 13:
Bangladeshi economist, Mr Mohammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank founded by him were today awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in helping millions, especially women, in the country overcome poverty through a system of small-scale loans.
The 66-year-old Mr Yunus, the first Bangladeshi to win a Nobel prize, said, “I think this is a wonderful recognition of our efforts at Grameen Bank, and for all the women who work for us and who have made Grameen Bank a success.
“I am proud for the whole country,” a beaming Mr Yunus told reporters at his home here. The award will “inspire him to complete his future plans”, said the economist whose Grameen Bank was honoured with India’s Gandhi Peace Prize in 2000.
Announcing the award, the Nobel committee in Oslo said it was given for efforts by Mr Yunus and the bank to “create economic and social development from below”.
“Across cultures and civilisations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development,” the Nobel commitee said in its citation.
Mr Yunus first learnt about winning the prize from a Norwegian TV station, which called him to say he might get the award and then told him to hold the telephone line. Soon after, a voice from the other end confirmed he had won the Nobel Peace Prize.
His home was thronged by friends, colleagues and well-wishers as news of his winning the award spread across Dhaka. The Prime Minister, Mr Khaleda Zia congratulated him and said his achievement would boost Bangladesh’s image. She wished him many successful years ahead.
Asked why the Nobel Foundation had given him the peace prize and not the one for economics, Mr Yunus said, “Economics and peace is directly linked. Unrest in many parts of the world is linked to economics.”
Grameen Bank was created in 1976 and became a formal bank in 1983 under a special law passed by the government for its creation. Its website says it has 6.61 million borrowers, 97 per cent of whom are women.
The Nobel committee, in its citation, said, “Economic growth and political democracy cannot achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male.”
The bank pioneered the concept of micro-credit, or extending small loans without collateral to borrowers too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.
Since its inception, Grameen Bank has extended loans worth a total of $5.72 billion and $5.07 billion has been repaid. Over the past 12 months, it has given out loans worth $58.87 million a month, its website said.
Others who crowded the Grameen Bank office here said Bangladesh had got a new and positive identity with Mr Yunus winning the honour.
The winner of many international awards, including the Magsaysay Award in 1984, Mr Yunus was rumoured to be in the running for the Nobel prize in economics for the past three years.
Grameen Bank today has over 2,200 branches in more than 71,000 villages and its concept has been copied in many other countries.
Besides the bank, Mr Yunus has created several other companies like Grameen Phone (a mobile phoen company) and Grameen Communications (a rural Internet service provider).
Mr Yunus, who beat 191 other candidates including India’s Sri Sri Ravishanker, the founder of the Art of Living movement, said he was looking forward to making the trip to Oslo on December 10 to receive the award.
Candidates are never identified by the five-member awards committee, but it was widely believed that Ravi Shanker, human rights activists like Ms Lida Yusupova in Chechnya and Ms Rebiya Kadee of northwest China and peace brokers like Mr Maarti Ahtisaar were on its list.
The prize includes 10 million Swedish kronor (US $1.4 million).
Mr Yunus said he would invest the cash into his financing offers for the poor.
The peace prize is the sixth and last Nobel prize announced this year.

from Thepeacealliance.org Press Release

October 12, 2006; East Rutherford, NJ–
The more than 300,000 fans expected to attend the Red Hot Chili Peppers' U.S. tour this fall will find something more than the band's signature blend of funk, rap and rock-n-roll; they'll find a call for civic activism.

"I want to share with all of our fans my enthusiasm for the work of The Peace Alliance and the campaign to establish a U.S. Department of Peace," said bass-player Flea in explaining why the band invited The Peace Alliance to be the only organization tabling at its shows this year.
"In our homes, in our schools, in our communities and in worldwide affairs, violence is an increasingly serious problem," Flea continued. "There's nothing more important we can do than to work to change the direction of our culture towards more practical peaceful solutions and, as a nation, to invest more fully in these solutions. I hope everyone at our shows joins the campaign and urges their members of Congress to support the Department of Peace legislation."

New York - New Jersey area volunteers with the national grassroots Department of Peace Campaign will be tabling at The Red Hot Chili Peppers show on Tuesday, October 17 and Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at the Continental Airlines Arena. The legislation currently has two co-sponsors in the Senate and 75 in the House, including from New Jersey: Robert E. Andrews, Rush D. Holt, Donald Payne and Steven Rothman and from New York: Carolyn Maloney, Gregory Meeks, Jerrold Nadler, Major Owens, Charles Rangel, Jose Serrano, Edolphus Towns, and Nydia Velazquez.

New Jersey Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez do not yet co-sponsor the Senate version, S.1756, nor do New York Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chuck Schumer.
The primary purpose of the Department of Peace would be to research, articulate and facilitate nonviolent solutions to domestic and international conflict. It would be led by a Cabinet-level Secretary of Peace, and would also create a Peace Academy on par with the nation's current military service academies.

The Peace Alliance is a 501(c)4 nonpartisan citizen action organization advocating for legislation that supports a culture of peace. It works to foster positive, proactive change toward the creation of a more nonviolent and peaceful world. The Peace Alliance is spearheading the national campaign to establish a United States Department of Peace (H.R. 3760 and S.1756), with citizen organizers active in all 50 states. For more information about The Peace Alliance and the Department of Peace Campaign, visit www.thepeacealliance.org . For more information about local activities, contact Kevin Fagan kfagan1@nyc.rr.com or 917 865-4763 and go to www.nyc-dop.com or www.sjdopcampaign.com for more details.

A Subtle kind of Fascism
By John Chuckman
Online Journal, 12 Oct 2006

The word fascism is used a lot, often pejoratively. The image that immediately comes to mind is Mussolini in a steel helmet, hands on hips, head tipped back, jaw thrust out. It is an image that influenced other fascists. Young Hitler was a great admirer.
It is always helpful for any discussion to define the subject carefully, a seemingly obvious principle often ignored. What exactly is fascism? Can fascism coexist to any extent with democratic institutions?

Fascism certainly is not the same thing as communism, although both these systems are represented by strongmen or tyrants and the state apparatus needed to support them. Those who like the nomenclature of the French Revolution might say that the two political extremes, right and left, almost meet somewhere in a bend of political space.

Private enterprise, of course, has been regarded as incompatible with communism, although contemporary China with its New Economic Zone begins to confuse the issue. Things have always been quite different with fascism. Fascist governments are favorable to the interests of enterprise, at least the interests of large-scale enterprises. Great private combines existed and were encouraged under Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini. Fascism represents, if you will, a kind of large-scale, public-private partnership.

Fascism, much like the mental image of Mussolini, tends to be about power, generally a raw display of political and military power. These two things are welded together in a fascist state. Flags, banners, strutting, and marching feature prominently, with political occasions sometimes difficult to distinguish from military ones.
Fascism's strutting-peacock displays serve several purposes. One, with their rise to power, fascist parties brag about getting things done (the reality of entrenched fascism proves another matter altogether), as opposed to the mundane, boring inefficiency of ordinary deliberations. This kind of promise appeals to the frustrations of many people who yearn for decisive change. Their yearnings may concern anything from building public projects to imposing moral rules.
There likely is a built-in component in human beings which finds authority attractive, at least over certain limits. Society mimics the show of power in many institutions from popes to presidents.

The display of power also intimidates enemies. Political opponents are not a common feature of fascist states, which always feature secret police, secret prisons, and heavy domestic spying, although they are sometimes allowed to exist in a neutered form for show or internal political purposes.

Aggression is closely associated with fascism. Partly the aggression is simply the result of having large standing armies and all the state and corporate apparatus associated with them. Large standing armies simply tend to get used -- historians have offered this as one of the important explanations for the First World War -- and the impulse to use them is undoubtedly increased by the psychology of fascism.

The psychology of fascist states tends to include penis-fixation -- big guns, big flags, and big monuments. Aggression is a direct outgrowth of all the strutting, bragging, and marching.
Aggression also grows out of the fascist tendency to regard the nation as somehow specially blessed or endowed or entitled. There follows an assumed inherent right or even obligation to rule over others or at least to direct their destinies.

When you consider these characteristics, every one of them is an intrinsic part of contemporary American society. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that America is a kind of fascist state, certainly a softer-appearing one than some in the past, but then America excels at marketing, perhaps its one original intellectual gift to the world.

America does cling to ideals of human rights, something which it never fails to remind the world at international gatherings, but the truth is international gatherings are only regarded as useful for just such announcements. Despite clinging to human-rights ideals, at the very same time, America refuses to deal with others on the basis of these rights, and it often fails even to enforce the rights of selected categories of its own citizens.

This ambiguity about human rights is not so odd if you consider the many American Christians who enshrine Jesus' great commandment and the Ten Commandments and yet stand ready at a moment's notice to kill others in meaningless wars.

Genuine respect for human rights is surely more a matter of prevailing day-to-day attitudes in a society than words written on old pieces of paper.But America is a democracy, isn't it? It certainly has many of the forms of a democracy, but when you closely examine the details, as I've written previously, American democracy resembles a badly worn wood veneer. The ugly structural stuff underneath sticks out the way elbows do in a threadbare coat.
Copyright © 1998-2006 Online Journal

It's About Time, ya think???

5 Scandals that Could Put Republicans in Jail
James Ridgeway, Mother Jones
The Foley cover-up is just the tip of the iceberg. If the Democrats succeed in retaking Congress this fall, here are five investigations they should get started on right away.

5 Scandals that Could Put Republicans in Jail

The stately Russell Senate Office Building stands at one corner of a domestic Green Zone, just northeast of the Capitol building at the intersection of Delaware and Constitution avenues. In the past few years a maze of blockades has sprouted along the shaded avenues and curving drives of the Capitol complex. Checkpoints are patrolled by heavily armed police; guards watch for suspicious characters and prohibited items (which now include food and beverages; cans, bottles, and sprays; and bags larger than 13 by 14 inches). At the Russell Building, visitors encounter another set of barriers and metal detectors before being granted admittance to the elegant structure. Then, at the top of a sweeping staircase, they'll find a room walled in white marble, draped in deep red, overhung by a gilded ceiling, and fronted, altarlike, with a raised dais.
Here in the humbly named Caucus Room, the U.S. Congress has held some of its most famous public hearings, beginning with a 1912 investigation into the fate of the Titanic. The Watergate hearings unfolded here in the early '70s, beneath the ever-watchful gaze of Senator Sam Ervin (D-N.C.). It was here that Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-Texas), the first Southern black woman elected to Congress, declared: "My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution."
But in the past six years, congressional investigations of such bold, searching nature have disappeared. In a post-9/11 environment of silence and fear, the mood inside Congress has mirrored the bunkers and barriers outside: No one dares question the military or the intelligence services too closely, or to push the president too far. The Caucus Room continues to be used for party meetings and social events, and every so often there is a potted inquiry, as in the case of the 2003 hearings on the space shuttle. But on issues of war and peace, of corruption and graft, of civil rights, civil liberties, and constitutional breaches, meek questions are the rule, answered by dull assurances from the White House.
If the Democrats win back control of Congress (or even one of its chambers), if they can come up with the requisite moxie, and if they can muster the political will to reach out to their own base as well as to disaffected Republicans, they will have an opportunity to begin to change all that. They will need to overcome the myriad obstacles the Bush administration has created to keep lawmakers from obtaining and releasing critical information, such as its resistance to briefing congressional committees on intelligence issues, or its heavy hand in redacting congressional reports. When explosive information has leaked out -- the fact that documents offering "proof" of Saddam Hussein's intent to buy uranium from Niger had been forged, or that the United States is operating a network of secret prisons in other countries -- the administration's response has focused on condemning critics for politicizing national security -- a charge before which the Democrats usually crumble.
Still, there is a chance that some of the gutsier Dems, with the support of an increasingly fed-up public, could make progress toward exposing the truth.
But if lawmakers of either party do not begin to reclaim their constitutional powers -- by asking questions such as those listed below -- it's not hard to envision a time when visitors may come to the venerable Caucus Room as if to a museum, to learn about a bygone era when congressional investigations still served as a check on the imperial presidency.
1. Who lost Iraq?
It goes without saying that a congressional investigation -- a joint inquiry by both houses, given the gravity of the matter -- should address the causes, conduct, and effects of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, going back to the days immediately after Bush's election when the plans for invading Iraq were laid (see "A War Foretold," Page 61). But beyond that, the conduct of the war on terror has raised myriad vital questions that, at another time, would have been subjects of full-fledged inquiries on their own: the Pentagon's failure to adequately equip troops with armor, ammunition, radios, and the like; the use of mercenary forces; the contracting process; and the government's efforts to manipulate the press through outside PR agencies. Also worthy of scrutiny is the role of oil and gas, including the work of the secret Cheney energy task force, which points to prewar discussions with the ceos of major companies about Iraqi oil.
A congressional investigation into the Iraq war must make full use of subpoena power and must be prepared to forward findings of illegal acts to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. Just as important, public hearings could provide an opportunity -- and protection -- for would-be whistleblowers: Recall that Daniel Ellsberg didn't take his trove of documents, showing the Defense Department's true assessment of the war in Vietnam, to the New York Times until after he had been rebuffed by congressional Democrats. Somewhere inside the Defense Department and the intelligence agencies today's Pentagon Papers are waiting.
2. Who blew 9/11?
It's high time to follow up on the startling discoveries of the Senate and House's joint inquiry, back in December 2002, on pre-9/11 intelligence. In reconstructing the hijackers' trail, the inquiry's staff discovered that the FBI had failed to report, and had later balked at making public, information showing that it knew that a bureau informant in the San Diego Muslim community had socialized with two of the hijackers, and that another man who had been investigated by the FBI had rented an apartment to one of them. Both of the future hijackers had been closely followed by the CIA as they made their way from the Middle East to Malaysia; the agents lost track of the men before they boarded a plane to California, where they then lived openly, with driver's licenses and a phone book listing in their own names. So far, no one has been able to discover how they escaped detection by the FBI -- and why the bureau refused to let Congress find out what happened.
The joint inquiry also discovered a Saudi spy operating in California -- the same man who had rented an apartment to one of the hijackers -- along with suggestions of a larger network, according to former Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.). The spy nominally worked for a Saudi government contractor, and the committee followed a money trail going back to the royal family and the Saudi government, according to Graham. This was a tantalizing find. Congressional sources have suggested that Saudi spooks may have been sent to California to keep tabs on Saudi students who might be tempted by democratic ideas; it has also been speculated that some of these undercover agents could have become enmeshed with Al Qaeda. In any event, the White House has adamantly refused to declassify 28 pages of the final committee report that dealt with Saudi Arabia. When Congress later set up an independent commission to look into 9/11, it pointedly ordered the panel to "build upon the investigations of other entities" such as the joint inquiry. Yet the commission's report glossed over many questions involving Saudi Arabia. A new select committee could pick up where other probes left off.
3. How wide is the domestic surveillance net?
In the mid-1970s, the Church Committee, named after Idaho Democratic senator Frank Church, put out 14 separate reports that exposed the intelligence agencies' abuses of law. The Pike Committee, named after Rep. Otis Pike (D-N.Y.), conducted a parallel inquiry in the House, focusing mostly on the CIA. Among other things, the investigations discovered the notorious COINTELPRO operation to spy on and disrupt left-wing groups. Thirty years later urgent questions are once again piling up: Just what is the extent of the agencies' spying inside the United States? What are the true motivations and outcomes of this surveillance? How much money is going into spying programs? There is much evidence that domestic intelligence gathering is not limited to the infamous NSA surveillance project. The ACLU, for one, has obtained numerous files describing FBI cooperation with local police in joint terrorism task forces that have targeted groups such as Greenpeace, United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
4. Is Big Oil pulling an Enron?
The last serious investigation of the oil industry concluded in 1952 with the Federal Trade Commission's staff report on the International Petroleum Cartel, published by the monopoly subcommittee of the Senate. That study laid out a now-familiar pattern: A major concern of the oil industry has always been the threat of surpluses driving down prices. To prevent surpluses, oil and gas companies have employed means such as instituting quota systems, closing off reserves from market, and setting up cartels, or agreements among producers.
Today, while many experts believe oil will soon run out, there is no actual shortage that could be blamed for driving up gas prices. The hurricanes of 2005 did not put the supply in any serious jeopardy, nor was lack of refinery capacity a real factor. (According to the U.S. Department of Energy, refineries along the Gulf Coast and elsewhere frequently run below capacity, meaning that there was some slack in the system.)
There is, however, evidence to suggest practices reminiscent of Enron's market rigging: Last year, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a California-based consumer group, released a series of internal memos from Chevron, Texaco, and Mobil that laid out the industry's thinking. A Texaco memo, for example, warned that "supply significantly exceeds demand year-round. This results in very poor refinery margins and very poor refinery financial results. Significant events need to occur to assist in reducing supplies and/or increasing the demand for gasoline." An investigation would subpoena internal company documents and take testimony from oil executives under oath -- not just in an "unsworn" chitchat like the sideshow put on by the Senate commerce and energy committees last year -- to discover whether the companies conspired to rig prices or manipulate supply.
5. Who's making money off your retirement?
It's been predicted that at least 1 in 10 retirees in 2020 will teeter on the edge of financial collapse or plunge into outright poverty. Social Security is just a small bit of the problem. The potentially much bigger challenge is the disappearance of pensions, most of which have been replaced with 401(k)-type accounts dependent wholly on the securities market. This is an enormous shift: Corporations have succeeded, with amazingly little protest from labor, in transferring the cost -- and the risk -- of retirement from employer to employee. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. provides some backup when a company with a standard pension plan goes under (think United Airlines). With 401(k)s, there is no insurance. The Securities and Exchange Commission is supposed to regulate mutual funds, which handle most 401(k) money; the sec has nowhere near the resources to keep tabs on the $9 trillion business, so policing is largely left up to the funds themselves.
Before this crisis grows greater, Congress ought to launch a serious investigation into the retirement system. We've got to know all the ways companies are bailing on their pension plans -- by converting them into 401(k)s, by filing for bankruptcy, or simply by quietly not paying into (or "underfunding") them for years at a time. We need to understand who controls the money in 401(k)s, what the hidden costs are, and to what extent these accounts are threatened by Wall Street conflicts of interest. For example, thanks to deregulation laws passed during the Clinton administration, commercial banks can now sell the mutual funds that their investment-banking arms manage, but investors have no recourse if their 401(k)s lose value because of bad management. With Social Security privatization refusing to die, and Wall Street eager to get its hands on that money, Congress should do some due diligence.
BONUS: Grounds for impeachment?
Congressional investigators digging into the aforementioned questions cannot ignore the possibility of impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney, who figures prominently in almost every one of the scandals engulfing the administration. It was Cheney who ran the government's response to the 9/11 attacks without constitutional authority, at one point ordering shoot-downs of commercial planes and what would turn out to be a medevac helicopter; who led the secret meetings of administration officials and oilmen to set energy policy; who allowed Ahmed Chalabi to play the U.S. government like a violin; who very well may be the origin of the whisper campaign that culminated in the Plame leak; and, of course, it was Cheney's former employer (and source of continuing deferred compensation paychecks) that benefited enormously from no-bid contracts in Iraq. Judicial Watch, the conservative legal outfit in Washington, has unearthed an email dated March 5, 2003, sent by an Army Corps of Engineers official whose name had been blacked out, that said of a pending deal under which Halliburton would rebuild the Iraqi oil industry, "We anticipate no issue since the action has been coordinated w VP's office." There's plenty more where that came from; whether any of Cheney's actions constitute "high crimes and misdemeanors" is for Congress, and the nation, to debate.

Read about additional questions the Democrats should be asking at MotherJones.com.
James Ridgeway is Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief.

The Terror of Hiroshima Has Come Full Circle
Are We Doomed to Wait for a Second Nuclear Holocaust to Arouse Our Moral and Political Imaginations?
by Richard Falk, The Nation
It seems ironic that the last serious engagement with the challenge of ridding the world of nuclear weapons occurred twenty years ago, when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met at Reykjavik, and seemed close--at least for a moment--to agreeing to the goal of zero nuclear weapons within ten years. It is probable that even Reagan lacked the political clout to pull off such a deal, given the depth of American attachment to the weaponry. This speculation was not tested because the two leaders could not find a way to compromise on the issue of a defensive program dear to Reagan's heart, called "Star Wars" by its critics and "Strategic Defense Initiative" by its supporters. This flirtation with nuclear disarmament in Iceland produced wildly different assessments, ranging from "near miss" to "outright failure."
From the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima until the end of the cold war, leaders of both superpowers were consistently in favor of the goal of nuclear disarmament, at least in public. Proposals were made at various times during the twenty years following World War II, but none came close to achieving a meeting of relevant minds in Washington and Moscow. The dividing line between sincere advocacy and peace propaganda was never clear, arousing worries on the side of those who believed that nuclear weapons were necessary for American security that disarmament moves might indeed be genuine and suspicions among peace activists that governmental endorsement of disarmament moves was never more than window-dressing. Richard Barnet wrote an insightful short book titled Who Wants Disarmament? in 1960 that reached the predictable answer to his question: "neither side."
At first glance, the failure to seek nuclear disarmament in the early 1990s seems puzzling. After all, the main rationale for keeping the weapons was to deter the Soviet Union, and vice versa. With the cold war over, there was a wide-open window of opportunity, yet there was no movement to take advantage of it. In fact, American diplomacy encouraged the Yeltsin government to keep its arsenal of nuclear weapons intact. How can we explain this posture? It discloses two of the reasons nuclear disarmament has proved to be such a non-starter (as compared with efforts to curb biological and chemical weapons): first, the nuclear-weapons establishment is very powerful; and second, for the United States and other nuclear weapons states, despite arguments to the contrary, influential leaders in government and the military believe the possession of these weapons confers strategic advantages.
Almost as puzzling as the diplomatic lack of interest is the failure of the peace movement to sustain the focus on nuclear weapons issues that had been so intense during the 1980s. It was then that the great nuclear freeze movement excited many people in America, while the European Nuclear Disarmament Movement mobilized millions in Europe. In retrospect, it would seem that the issue surfaced so strongly at that time because there was real fear that a war with nuclear weapons might actually be fought in Europe. That fear stemmed in part from the talk of a new strategic doctrine that actually envisioned exchanges of so-called tactical nuclear weapons in Europe without the devastation of the United States. With the end of the cold war, given the extent to which the danger of nuclear war had been so strongly associated with a breakdown of deterrence, the public sense of danger vanished overnight.
There was at the same time a convergent development that drew popular attention to a new cause. With the emergence of Gorbachev's leadership in the Soviet Union and the great popular movements in Eastern Europe directed at overcoming the oppressive cold war regimes, as well as the growing international attention given to the antiapartheid movement, there was a shift of idealistic energies from war/peace issues to human rights. This dynamic has continued. Idealistic young people today seem far more interested in human rights than they do in the pursuit of a cause that seems as futile and abstract as nuclear disarmament.
This is not to say that nothing constructive has happened since Reykjavik. The World Court in 1996 issued a historic Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons that lent strong support to two conclusions: The use of nuclear weapons could be legal, if ever, only in circumstances where the survival of a state was at severe risk; and that the Non-Proliferation Treaty imposed a firm obligation on the nuclear weapons states to pursue in good faith nuclear disarmament. As might have been expected, the US government did its best to prevent the court from ever dealing with these issues, and when that failed, used major pressure to get the media to ignore the results.
In the meantime, of course, there have been some very serious adverse developments. India and Pakistan both openly crossed the nuclear threshold in 1998, and North Korea seems to have developed a few weapons of its own. The United States, especially after 9/11, has adopted "counterproliferation" as a defining doctrine of its foreign policy. The alleged threat of Iraq to develop nuclear weapons served as a pretext for aggressive war. A similar diplomatic confrontation with Iran is shaping up over whether Tehran's determination to possess a complete fuel cycle, including uranium enrichment facilities, represents an unacceptable move to develop nuclear weapons. Beyond these problems, the United States seems to be moving toward a new strategic doctrine that greatly expands the military role of nuclear weapons, treating them as potentially available even against non-nuclear adversaries. In an important sense, the terror of Hiroshima has come full circle--to be linked not only to the terror of 9/11 but also to the bravado of preventive war waged against essentially civilian societies. The report produced this year by the UN Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction, headed by former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, is revealingly titled Weapons of Terror.
As the Blix report made clear, serious dangers of a nuclear catastrophe form part of today's geopolitical landscape. At the same time, there are no legitimate roles for these weapons of mass terror and thus no legitimate reason for governments to maintain their current nuclear postures. Yet the challenge remains of how to translate the immorality and illegality of this weaponry into a viable antinuclear political project. In the end, fear was not enough, even at the height of cold war anxieties. Are we up against an apocalyptic dead end in the human experience? Are we doomed to wait for a second Hiroshima to arouse our moral and political imaginations? We should realize, at least, that consoling illusions will not move us back from the current nuclear precipice!