MIM Notes ***

MIM Notes

August 1, 2003, Nº 285

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

Free

INSIDE: Harry Potter & Terminator 3 * Prisons * Una Página en Español...

www.etext.info/Politics/MIM

New inter-

imperialist

contradictions

coming to the

surface

by mim3@mim.org

July 18 2003

An unscientific poll by CNN shows that

over 80% no longer believe Bush's story

about weapons of mass destruction. Most

now think there were no weapons of mass

destruction (WMDs) in Iraq just before

the Amerikan invasion. For the first time,

WMDs matter to a majority of

Amerikkkans. "Less than a majority said

the war would be worth its costs if such

weapons were not found, down from 56

percent in May."(1)

Before the issue of Bush lying about

WMDs came up, oil for the SUV and

pick-up truck was good enough a reason

to go to war for Amerikkkans. But now

that it looks like the imperialists lied to

their labor aristocracy partners, a majority

wants to see those WMDs. It's not that

Amerikkkans cared what the WMD

issue meant for Iraqis or even U.$. troops

in Iraq. But add in the issue of imperialists

misleading the labor aristocracy, and

suddenly it all comes apart. Even

bourgeois business partners want the

correct business information from each

other, so there's nothing too radical or

surprising about the Amerikan public's

interest in this question.

Still, Bush's overall approval rating

remains around 60%.

As the Bush story on Iraq unravels,

MIM would like to point to further areas

BIG BROTHER

DOESN'T

ALWAYS KNOW

What the flap

over WMD in

Iraq reveals for

the underdog's

struggle

Often we at MIM hear an argument

that amounts to saying political struggle

is useless, because Big Brother spends

11 digit money each year to spy on

everyone with everything from satellites

to submarines. Arab media said that

Uncle $am knew the color of Saddam

Hussein's underwear. The website

"marxists.org"(1) recently said it is

possible to track every computer by

placing devices "upstream." The point of

such arguments is that it is futile to

struggle against Big Brother, a.k.a. Uncle

$am, so we must join Uncle $am in a

political fight by Uncle $am's rules--yet

the flap over the weapons of mass

CENSORED

Many prisons

keep MIM

literature out

This is the third of MIM's regular

reports on censorship in the Amerikan

prisons. MIM sends in our newspaper,

MIM Notes, free to prisoners who ask

for it. We also send political books and

pamphlets (by MIM and by others) to

politically active prisoners. We face

tremendous censorship in this work with

prisoners. Prisoncrats across the country

frequently refuse to deliver books,

magazines and newspapers. At the same

time we work with our comrades behind

bars, sending many letters back and forth

discussing politics, global affairs, the

criminal injustice system and organizing

work. Even these letters are frequently

censored.

This censorship is not surprising since

prisoners are a group of people in

Amerika with much revolutionary

potential. Prisoners are disproportionately

oppressed nationals, primarily Blacks and

Latinos. And their interaction with the

criminal injustice system and forced

confrontation with the political nature of

the system instills a strong interest in

politics and a drive for justice. The prisons

have to resort to censorship to keep

prisoners from learning more about politics

and applying their knowledge to fight the

injustice system. This is what the prisons

mean when they reject MIM literature

as "a threat to institutional security" or

"threat to legitimate penological

objectives" as the Washington state

Department of Corrections is fond of

stating. Nowhere in any literature MIM

sends to prisoners is there anything

advocating violence or illegal acts in the

prisons, contrary to many prisoncrats'

claims.

Frequently we get justification like this

one from Illinois: "Return to sender; Items

not permitted in institution" giving no

explanation for the censorship. MIM and

U.$. lackeys in Peru

scapegoat London

writer and speaker

revised July 18 2003

According to the newspapers in Peru

and the Yahoo! featured Europe Press,

Spanish authorities arrested Adolfo

Olaechea on July 4. We do not have

reliable details, but a number of sources

claim that Adolfo Olaechea was in Spain

on a business trip.

The ambassador from Peru asked for

Adolfo Olaechea's extradition to Peru as

a "terrorist" connected to the Communist

Party of Peru and the civil war in Peru

since 1980, an armed struggle that only

started years after Adolfo Olaechea left

Peru.

The headline on Yahoo! reads

"Peruvian terrorist Adolfo Olaechea . . "

So it is these days that the Yankee-

induced hysteria about "terrorists"

reverberates around the world--par for

the course in this whole "anti-terrorist"

fad of the rulers used to cover every kind

of opportunism and misdeed.

For most of 40 years Adolfo Olaechea

has not been in Peru. He has been a

permanent resident in England for 25

years. According to an interview in El

Comercio, and because he was not a

member of the Communist Party of Peru,

he had a document from the Peruvian

Embassy allowing him to travel in Peru

and consequently he had no difficulty with

travel to Peru for two weeks. So the

question arises, why does this charge of

"terrorism" come up now, if no Yankees

are pulling the strings. As the El Comercio

interview points out, the people heaping

abuse and charges on him in the past are

now in prison, in connection to the drug-

dealing, bribe-giving, mass murderer V.

Montesinos who was head of intelligence/

security under Fujimori and now in prison.

Given the recently rising discontent with

the economically failed regime in Peru,

U.$. tide turns on weapons

of mass destruction in Iraq

Spain arrests

Adolfo Olaechea

MIM reviews Summer

books, movies, music

Ah-nold and Harry Potter are back,

selling millions of movie tickets and books.

We review "Terminator 3" and "Harry

Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" on

pages 6 and 7. We also review the new

release by alternative rockers Radiohead,

"Hail to the Thief."

Continued on page 4...

Continued on page 8...

Continued on page 9...

MIM Notes 285 · August 1, 2003 · Page 2

What is MIM?

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is the collection of existing or emerging

Maoist internationalist parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-

speaking internal semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Maoist Internationalist
parties in Belgium, France and Quebec and the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking
Maoist Internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.$. Empire.

MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-speaking
parties or emerging parties of MIM. MIM upholds the revolutionary communist ideology
of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and is an internationalist organization that works from the

vantage point of the Third World proletariat. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all
groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possibly by
building public opinion to seize power through armed struggle. Revolution is a reality for

North America as the military becomes over-extended in the government's attempts to
maintain world hegemony. MIM differs from other communist parties on three main
questions: (1) MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, the

potential exists for capitalist restoration under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within
the communist party itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the
death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's death and the overthrow of the "Gang

of Four" in 1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest advance
of communism in humyn history. (3) As Marx, Engels and Lenin formulated and MIM has
reiterated through materialist analysis, imperialism extracts super-profits from the Third

World and in part uses this wealth to buy off whole populations of oppressor nation so-
called workers. These so-called workers bought off by imperialism form a new petty-
bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to

advance Maoism within those countries because their standards of living depend on
imperialism. At this time, imperialist super-profits create this situation in the Canada, Quebec,
the United $tates, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland,

Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark. MIM accepts people as
members who agree on these basic principles and accept democratic centralism, the system
of majority rule, on other questions of party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should

regard it not as dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of

learning terms and phrases, but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution."

- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208.

Editor, MC206; Production, MC12

Letters

MIM Notes

The Official Newsletter of The Maoist Internationalist Movement

ISSN 1540-8817

MIM Notes is the bi-weekly newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement. MIM

Notes is the official Party voice; more complete statements are published in our journal,
MIM Theory. Material in MIM Notes is the Party's position unless noted. MIM Notes
accepts submissions and critiques from anyone. The editors reserve the right to edit
submissions unless permission is specifically denied by the author; submissions are
published anonymously unless authors insist on identification (prisoners are never
identified by name). MIM is an underground party that does not publish the names of its
comrades in order to avoid the state surveillance and repression that have historically
been directed at communist parties and anti-imperialist movements. MCs, MIM comrades,
are members of the Party. The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) is an anti-
imperialist mass organization led by MIM (RCs are RAIL Comrades). MIM's ten-point
program is available to anyone who sends in a SASE.

The paper is free to all prisoners, as long as they write to us every 90 days to confirm

their subsciptions. There are no individual subscriptions for people outside prison.

People who want to receive newspapers should become sponsors and distributors.

Sponsors pay for papers, distributors get them onto the streets, and officers do both
distribution and financial support. Annual cost is: 12 copies (Priority Mail), $120; 25
(Priority Mail), $150; 50 (Priority Mail), $280; 100, $380; 200, $750; 900 (Express
Mail), $3,840; 900 (8-10 days), $2,200. To become a sponor or distributor, send
anonymous money orders payable to "MIM." Send to MIM, attn: Camb. branch, PO Box
400559, Cambridge, MA 02140. Or write mim3@mim.org.

Most back issues of MIM Notes are available free on our web site. The web site con-

tains thousands of documents, with ordering information for many more.

MIM grants explicit permission to copy all or part of this newspaper for any reason, as

long as we are credited.

For general correspondence, contact:

MIM

P.O. Box 29670

Los Angeles, CA 90029-0670

eMail: <mim@mim.org>

WWW: <http//www.etext.info/Politics/MIM>

Trotskyist website
reader perturbed

Dear MIM:

I hope that you people eventualy [sic]

realise [sic] the absolute babarity [sic] of

Mao and Stalin and get on board with the

rest of us communists. You are

discrediting everything that Marx - Engels

- Lenin - Trotsky - Luxembourg - and the

every other true communist out there has

done. Stalin and Mao were and are not

the way forward.

Mao and Stalin coming to power meant

the death of international socialism for an

indefinable amount of time.

The only thing that pleases me on your

web site is your admission at being a small

party - may it stay that way.

--Trotskyist

July, 2003

mim3@mim.org replies for MIM:

Barbarism is dying from hunger and lack

of medical care. Barbarism is not shooting

a small portion of society spreading

confusion and otherwise throwing up

obstacles to progress as the writer above

does by referring to a movement that has

produced no social change in the last 75

years. Whether he is objective enough to

know it, the above critic of us is a part of

the status quo.

Barbarism is also not having universal

education. Stalin and Mao fixed those

problems--hunger, medical care and

education. That's why the life

expectancies of their countries doubled

despite all the repression of liberal-radical

idiots.

What this sort of criticism always boils

down to is two things: 1) A defense of

the status quo in the guise of Trotskyist

(or fill in the blank) principles which have

failed to bring about changes like Stalin

and Mao did. 2) Valuing the lives of

liberal-radical dissidents at 100 or 1000

times that of the toiling peasants and

workers. There is no other explanation

for how people supposedly interested in

the Soviet Union's history could ignore

the progress there in the name of their

impotent principles.

Amerika's "war on
terrorism" hypocrisy

What's happening in California prisons,

along with prisons in general across

Amerika is a form of terrorism! It is very

sad what happened on 9-11. However, it

shows that people throughout the world

are tired of Amerikan oppression. It is

dangerous to divorce "terrorism" from

politics, yet u.s. media continue to talk

about an abstract war against terrorism

without mention of the issues or context

that lie behind them. In reality, terrorism

is a political act, a response to u.s. foreign

policy. It is an act of war waged by people

too weak to have a conventional army or

one large enough to take on Amerika. We

informed, conscious citizens of Amerika

must face it--u.s. foreign policy

contributes to acts of terrorism (a.k.a.

Freedom Fighting). Amerika participated

in creating a monster, now it has turned

against "us" and the world--16,000

Arabs were trained in Afghanistan, made

into a veritable killing machine. This is an

insane instance of "the chickens coming

home to roost." War is indeed hell, for

some. For others, it is big, and burgeoning,

business.

The united snakes of Amerika has

supplied Turkey, Israel, and Indonesia with

such weapons, and they have used them

against civilian populations. But the nation

most guilty is "our" own. No nation in the

world possesses greater weapons of mass

destruction than Amerika does, and none

has use them more often, or with greater

loss of civilian life. In Hiroshima hundreds

of thousands died, in Korea and south

Vietnam millions died as a result of

Amerika's use of such weapons. The

sheer hypocrisy of such a nation

threatening another nation on the basis

of its possession of "weapons of mass

destruction" is stunning. Asians and

Arabs must be shaking their collective

heads in mass disbelief! Clinton's lurch

to the right during his second term is now

mirrored by Bush as he recycles his

predecessors lie, the old "weapons of

mass destruction" tale, a justification for

Bush the younger's efforts to repair Bush

the Elder's failure to properly discipline

Iraq for daring to act as a sovereign state,

instead of a vassal-state (or client-state)

to the U.S. Empire. [If Clinton lurched to

the right at all, it was a small move within

the context of imperialist politics. Recall

that one of his first acts as president was

to bomb Iraq with cruise missiles. Clinton

steadfastly carried out Amerika's war

against Iraq and laid the basis for the

current expansion.--ed.]

To take the hypocrisy to an even higher

pitch, consider that some of Iraq's

weapons were indeed weapons of mass

destruction, a fact well known to

Washington because u.s. hardware was

delivered to the Iraqis, the better to kill

their Iranian enemies with. The U.S.,

London and other western (white)

countries made mountains of wealth

selling such weapons (divide and

conquer) not only to Iraq, but to Iran as

well. Amerika seeks to extend her New

Crusades to Iraq and whoever else. Don't

forget the oil folks! Why isn't that a crime

against international law? Ultimately, war

often has economic underpinnings, but

they are hidden. War is a tool of foreign

and economic policy!

--a prisoner in California,

July 2003

MIM Notes 285 · August 1, 2003 · Page 3

Jordan is a country where a pro-U.$.

king rules. As Hillary Clinton explained

in her recent book "Living History," Uncle

$am takes Jordan very seriously and

sends presidents to funerals there.

However, a recent BBC poll of 11,000

people in 11 countries(1) shows that most

people in Jordan consider the United

$tates more dangerous to world peace

than Al Qaeda, the organization headed

by Osama Bin Laden.

The bourgeois news wire service

summed it up this way: "The poll, which

was carried out in May and June, will

make depressing reading for U.S.

officials charged with improving the

country's image. It surveyed people from

Australia, Brazil, Canada, Britain, France,

Israel, Indonesia, Jordan, South Korea,

Russia and the United States.

"Asked who was the more dangerous

to world peace and stability, the United

States was rated higher than al-Qaida by

respondents in both Jordan (71 percent)

and Indonesia (66 percent).

"It was also rated more dangerous than

Iran by people in Jordan, Indonesia,

Russia, South Korea and Brazil, and more

menacing than Syria by respondents in

all countries except Australia, Israel and

the United States. Israel beat Canada and

Britain to win the dubious accolade of

`most pro-American country.'"(2)

Au$tralia, I$rael and the United $tates

all have the fact of being settler dominated

imperialist countries. The petty-

bourgeoisie in those countries has the

particular hatred of oppressed peoples

driven not just by super-exploitation but

also the particularities of genocide to seize

land.

The International Herald Tribune also

summarized an even more pointed finding

from an earlier poll done by the Pew

Research Center: "In fact, feelings are

so intense in the Islamic world that

Osama bin Laden was chosen by five

Muslim publics--in Indonesia, Jordan,

Morocco, Pakistan and the Palestinian

Authority--as one of the three political

leaders they would most trust to `do the

right thing' in world affairs."(3)

The widespread support of Osama Bin

Laden in the Third World is an example

of false consciousness, because Osama

Bin Laden does not claim to be for the

average exploited and super-exploited

persyn of the Third World and more

importantly his analysis and strategy are

lacking. However, we gather from the

showing of Osama Bin Laden in the polls

that the people want to see a strong stand

against U.$. imperialism. It's the perfect

example of "false consciousness,"

because we can see what the Third World

people want, even as they fail in

pinpointing how they will accomplish it.

Any strong leader appearing to be anti-

U.$. would obtain the same support.

In contrast, the support for Bush in

On July 2 the 7th U.$. Circuit Court of

Appeals in Chicago ruled that federal

courts don't have the jurisdiction to

review discretionary decisions of the

attorney general. The case overturned a

federal judge ruling that Sabri Samirah

could return to the United $tates after

visiting his sick mother in Jordan.

Samirah, who had lived in the United

$tates for 15 years, was waiting for his

green card and received permission from

the Immigration and Naturalization

Service (INS) to visit his mother in

Jordan. In January Samirah tried to

return to the U.$. and the INS revoked

his "advance parole" and barred his re-

entry on behalf of Attorney General John

Ashcroft based on information that he

was a "security risk." Samirah appealed

the decision and in March U.$. District

Judge Michael Moran ruled that he should

Closed

borders kill

nineteen

Nineteen immigrants from Mexico and

Central America died of suffocation in a

truck trailer abandoned in the Texas desert

last May 14. Police have now arrested at

least three people on charges they were

smuggling the immigrants into the United

$tates. The local district attorney

"promised aggressive prosecution of the

smugglers responsible for the incident."(1)

Prosecuting the few smugglers who are

caught will do little to protect the

thousands of immigrants who risk their

lives to come to the United $tates to take

jobs few Amerikans want. As former

federal immigration official Benedict

Ferro put it, arresting smugglers "is treating

a symptom, not the disease."(2) Above

all, the United $tates and the sizeable

yahoo "put a fence on the border" crowd

are to blame for those who die trying to

cross the border illegally. To close the

borders and expect no black market in

humyn smuggling under capitalism is pure

hypocrisy.

Capitalism produces black markets in

everything. When people are able to profit,

they do so in arms, drugs and even

humyns. The more successful police are

in catching suppliers of black market

services, the smaller the supply of those

services. That only means that the price

goes up in the world of capitalist supply

and demand. Concretely that means drug

prices go up and new suppliers rush to fill

the need. In immigrant smuggling it means

that the smugglers charge more money.

In this case, it means that the humyn

smuggler may have used a cheaper but

more dangerous method to raise his

profits. People who advocate capitalist

systems know all this very well, but still

they blame the inevitable smugglers

produced by their capitalist system, instead

of opening the borders.

According to a 1999 Immigration and

Naturalization Service report, "alien

smuggling has grown in to a multibillion-

dollar-a-year industry." Security

crackdowns since September 11 have only

forced more immigrants to seek our

professional smugglers and forced the

smugglers to use more dangerous

methods. About 500,000 undocumented

immigrants enter the United $tates ever

year.(2) Hundreds die trying to cross the

desert into California alone.(3)

Within the imperialist countries, the labor

aristocracy is even more to blame than

the imperialists. The labor aristocracy

cannot imagine a better system and hence

the population within imperialist countries

fights to keep borders closed with the idea

of keeping living standards high for itself.

The economic nationalists in the imperialist

countries have the blood of the nineteen

victims in Texas on their hands.

Notes:
1. Washington Post, 15 May 2003.
2. Houston Chronicle, 15 May 2003.
3. www.etext.info/Politics/MIM/agitation/
gatekeeper/index.html.

be allowed to return to his U.$. home, but

the decision was put on hold until the

government could appeal.

Samirah was an outspoken critic of U.$.

support for Israel, Chairman of the Islamic

Association for Palestine, and head of the

United Muslim Americans Association.

The U.$. government has been

increasingly targeting politically active

Arabs since September 11, 2001. While

proclaiming themselves defenders of

freedom around the globe (by invading,

murdering and plundering), the

government is busy revoking supposedly

protected civil liberties at home. The

Patriot Act greatly expanded the

authorities of the government to act

without oversight and with this Appeals

Court decision the courts are falling into

line to support these actions.

Notes: Chicago Tribune, July 3, 2003.

Court: Attorney General free to oppress

I$rael and the United $tates is not "false

consciousneess," because it is enemy

consciousness. Marxists use the term

"false consciousness" to refer to those

situations where a class does not adopt

an ideology in its own interests and

instead adopts that of another class

because it has been duped. In I$rael and

the united $tates, a settler petty-

bourgeoisie has consciously taken up an

ideology of land-grabbing oppression. It's

not a case where some I$raeli and

Amerikkkan "exploited" are

unconsciously taking up the ideology of

exploiters. The I$raeli$ and Amerikkkans

are very active in their support for

predatory wars.

An example of this is that the

Amerikkkan lives in a country dependent

on the world for oil. For this reason, polls

show that Amerikkkans did not care

when "weapons of mass destruction"

(WMD) did not show up in Iraq as

promised during the war itself. They still

supported the war.

Slate author Michael Kinsley put it this

way on June 19th: "According to a Harris

poll out Wednesday, a majority of

Americans still think the Bush

administration was telling the truth before

the war when it said it had hard evidence

of WMD. A Knight Ridder poll released

last weekend reports that a third of the

populace believes that the weapons have

been discovered. A Fox News poll last

week found that almost half of

Americans feel that the administration

was `intentionally misleading' about Iraq's

weapons, but more than two-thirds think

the war was justified anyway. A Gallup

Poll released Wednesday concludes that

almost 9 out of 10 Americans still think

Saddam had or was close to having

WMD."(4)

Bush may very well end up in hot water

over the WMD, but it won't be because

Amerikkkans do not want to oppress

Iraqis. If Bush ends up in hot water, it will

be because Amerikkkans deem it

unseemly for him to lie to Amerikkkans

and because they figure out that the

premature press accounts announcing the

discovery of WMD in Iraq had been

wrong.

The fall in oil prices set a recent record

according to USA Today: "America

imported $11.21 billion in petroleum in

April, a drop of 10.4% from March.

However, all the improvement came in

lower costs, as the volume of crude oil

climbed to the second highest level on

record. But the average price of a barrel

of crude oil declined $4.25 to $26.02,

reflecting a fall in global oil prices as fears

of supply disruptions eased with the

successful conclusion of the U.S.-led war

in Iraq.

"It was the biggest one-month drop in

crude oil prices since a $4.59 decline from

January to February of 1991, as

America's success in driving Iraq out of

Kuwait eased oil supply concerns during

the Persian Gulf War."(5) Neither Osama

Bin Laden nor the Third World generally

have gotten what they wanted vis-a-vis

the united $tates, and that is why a claim

of "false consciousness" may be true. In

contrast, the Amerikkkan public is willing

to lie with Bush to the rest of the world

about WMD in Iraq, but it fought for and

got what it wanted with regard to oil.

Notes:
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/
2994924.stm
2. http://www.upi.com/
view.cfm?StoryID=20030618-060033-9862r
3. http://www.iht.com/articles/98482.html
4. http://slate.msn.com/id/2084602/
5. http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/
trade/2003-06-13-deficit_x.htm ; see also, http://
csmweb2.emcweb.com/2003/0221/p01s01-
usec.html

False consciousness and Al Qaeda

Third World looks for strong

anti-imperialist leaders

MIM Notes 285 · August 1, 2003 · Page 4

destruction shows just how wrong it is to

be Liberal about struggle and security.

Ten months before George Bush's

mistaken "State of the Union" address

citing forged evidence that Iraq

supposedly obtained uranium from Niger,

the CIA told the Bush administration that

the information was false. Separately an

ambassador also told the Bush

administration the information was bogus.

What this means is that even having the

right information is no guarantee it will

be used.(2) There were countless other

false statements from the Bush

administration about the nature and

justification of war with Iraq.(3) There

was Tony Blair's statement (based on

U.$. sources) that Saddam Hussein was

ready to launch WMD with 45 minutes

notice--something that obviously did not

happen.(4)

Little did pro-war and neutral students

know that the English government's

intelligence dossier justifying the Iraq war

came largely from an American student's

publicly available paper that was not

cited.(5) In MIM Notes 274, we criticized

a student taking a typical monarchist line

justifying apathy and lack of struggle

against the war. The student said: "We

base opinions of foreign and domestic

policy on the knowledge we receive from

a biased media, from our friends' opinions,

and from our professors' leading

questions. Bush bases his opinions on Top

Secret intelligence data gathered from

multiple sources, national estimates from

senior intelligence officials, and advice

from experts. If even he does not have a

complete picture, ours must be a

minuscule piece of the puzzle." It turns

out that someone wanted to make a fool

of the Bush administration by forging

documents about Iraq's nuclear weapons

program which Bush used to further his

pre-2000 goal of war on Iraq. Thus having

"Top Secret intelligence" turned out to

be a drawback, not an advantage. Merely

having the "complete" information does

not guarantee its correct use.

Those struggling as the underdog for

justice should take note: even if the ruler

has all the means of information in his or

her hands, there is no guarantee that s/he

can use it. In fact, capitalism corrupts all

knowledge production ranging from

medicines sold for profit to analyses of

the effectiveness of weapons systems

that the Pentagon buys. As we pointed

out in our website FAQ on security: "U.$.

imperialism has no chance of being able

to afford all the work of sorting out true

information from false." For that matter,

MIM has also pointed out that collecting

information from a source is no guarantee

that that source is not emitting information

that amounts to a decoy.

The imperialists pursue knowledge that

helps them profit individually. As a

consequence, the imperialists will never

match the proletariat in its abilities in

finding the truth. Although the imperialists

spend much more money on intelligence

than the proletariat does, the imperialists

are not able to use what they collect and

when they do use what they collect they

come into conflict with other imperialists

with other property interests and

government agendas. For this reason, it

is always justified to struggle to make it a

little harder for the imperialists to spy on

the oppressed and exploited. As we said

in our review of the marxists.org website:

"The reasons not to surrender are

numerous: 1) Raising the cost to the

enemy, because even when s/he does

espionage correctly it costs him/her. 2)

The enemy must sort out true from false

once information is obtained. 3) The

enemy may not bother."

Notes:
1. http://www.etext.info/Politics/MIM/links/
marxistsorg.html
2.http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/World/
iraq030616_uranium.html; see also, http://
politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/
0,12956,972651,00.html
3. See for example, http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/
A43615-2003Jun11.html
4. See a former CIA director admit this here:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/
0,2933,89923,00.html; see also, http://
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,89649,00.html
5. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/
0,12956,970035,00.html

Big Brother doesn't always know

Continued from page 1...

U$ tide turns on Iraq WMD

of interest, some of which are bound to

come up in the next few weeks. A Slate

article by Timothy Noah (2) answers why

the U.$. press has taken some notice of

uraniumgate (Bush's state-of-the-union

canard that Iraq sought to purchase

uranium from Niger). Noah cuts through

the naiveté and asks the question: under

what conditions does government

deception become front-page news in

Amerika? Answer: when the deceivers

own up to it. Bourgeois reporters are too

lazy or timid to do their own work and

take officials' words as gospel--unless

the officials themselves say their words

are not gospel. We at MIM would only

add that in many cases, journalists are

too poorly educated to know how to do

original journalistic work if they tried.

Both Bush and Blair now say that

Saddam Hussein had "programs" for

weapons of mass destruction. They leave

out the word for actual "weapons." It's

important to notice a change of spin like

that. Increasingly, even newspapers in

Amerika's hinterlands are noticing. The

fact that the 3rd Infantry has not returned

home yet and a soldier dies in an attack

every day assures that Amerikans from

the boonies where soldiers come from are

paying attention. This again proves the

nature of military power's relationship to

the truth. Had U.$. troops wrapped up

and all come home by now, the

Amerikkkan public would be hearing a

lot less truth.

More and more, with their own lies

falling apart, Bush and Blair rely on

Clinton's lies. They fall back to arguing

that Saddam Hussein kicked out the

weapons inspectors, when the weapons

inspectors themselves have pointed out

that in reality Clinton kicked out the

inspectors. Clinton then blamed the

expulsion on Iraq in order to have an

excuse for "regime change." When Blair

and Bush refer to past violations of UN

resolutions, the intelligent reader should

ask why China, Russia and France did

not agree since they were on the same

committees. The reason is that the United

$tates had an active role in forging Iraq's

non-compliance and other countries

noticed.

With the Iraq lies falling apart, we do

not mean to say there are no Amerikkkans

still buying the bologna. FOX News is

noticeably emphasizing that Bush's

statement in the "State of the Union" was

technically correct, because he cited a

source, the British government. For these

sorts of spin-masters, it no longer matters

if the source cited is wrong. Rather than

make it their job to get to the bottom of

this, FOX publishes a few sentences and

then lets FOX readers respond with their

Pavlovian monarchism.(3) Their words

boil down to "we love our king: leave it to

him." This would be fine and good if we

lived in a monarchist system advancing

beyond even more backward systems like

feudalism, but supposedly we live in a

"democracy" founded against monarchist

ideas of national security. We're left with

the hypocrisy and the twisted morality of

"pre-emptive" strikes, which should really

be called "re-emptive" strikes, because

the United $tates has never stopped

attacking its colony Iraq since 1991,

whether through missile strikes, no fly

zones or embargoes enforced by sea, land

and air. We are only waiting for someone

to take a picture of tea imported into Iraq

with the accompanying paper work for

Amerikan taxes.

Thus while the mainstream media

focuses on this one question of attribution

of sources, because it feels it must pander

to the monarchist Right of Amerikkka,

the rest of the world is wondering just

how many lies the Amerikkkans can

swallow and why. England signed onto

international resolutions and treaties which

require it to turn over its intelligence on

Iraq's nuclear programs to the UN;(4)

yet England continues to say it has

evidence of uranium purchases in Africa

that it won't share, because it does not

have permission from the party that gave

England the intelligence. Apparently

England is preserving its spy-first

protocols, because the issue of nuclear

weapons in Iraq is less important than

other things that England wants to obtain

from relations with other countries' spies.

Of course, that just leaves the question

of why England signed on to international

obligations regarding nukes and Iraq in

the first place, and why anyone should

care if England itself believes the

possibility of nuclear weapons in Iraq is

so unimportant that it won't divulge

sources and information. This is one of

those have-your-cake-and-eat-it-toos.

Either the information is important from

their own perspective (worth having a

war over) and should be released or it's

unimportant and does not sustain the case

Bush and Blair are making, in which case,

again they should shut up and take their

lumps.

In the past two weeks, the most popular

article in all our website agitation has been

our review of Bush's "State of the Union"

address in January. That review has

proved to stand the test of time and has

put some of the data being spun by

politicians in perspective. It also puts in

relief that major news media with the

professional resources did not put in the

time to do the research on any of the

WMD questions and in effect, one was

better off reading a few books from

different sources than counting on the

press to come up with important

information.

We will point out the obvious: Bush Jr.'s

cabinet is composed of those who wanted

an invasion of Iraq under Bush Sr. and

did not get one because of others in Bush

Sr.'s cabinet, such as Brent Scowcraft

and Howard Baker. Some have pointed

also to Vice President Cheney's business

ties to those who benefit from an Iraq

occupation. Certainly his sector of

business benefits even if his company

Continued from page 1...

Continued on next page...

MIM Notes 285 · August 1, 2003 · Page 5

stays out.

However, beyond economic self-

interests and old arguments and

associated egos, the Amerikkkan public

should know that Bush Jr. is a politician.

It was always foolish since 911 to extend

the government the kind of trust that the

U.$. population has. Politicians are still

masters of spin, focusing on some subjects

only so the rest will be ignored. 911 did

not improve politicians: in fact it gave

them more covers to carry out more

opportunistic misdeeds. Among their

many misdeeds is to cover up the sources

of the 911 problem to divert attention from

their own previous actions and policies.

In contrast, MIM knows it is not

coming to power by Amerikan votes or

other method any time soon. Compared

with Bush who has friends in the oil

business, a father to vindicate in history,

officials to defend and a re-election

campaign requiring votes, we at MIM

have no reason to lie or mislead. We at

MIM can only err, which is why our

coverage has been much more accurate

and less misleading than that of anything

ranging from FOXNEWS to CNN to

CBS to the New York Times.

Our critics have said in the past we

would err because Bush should know

better with all his access to intelligence,

but that is a monarchist argument. Bush

claims to be president in a democratic

system in which voters are supposed to

be informed well enough to choose

politicians. Hence, there was never a

good reason to leave a question of war

"up to Bush." That's to leave aside that

we at MIM may have less intelligence

than the CIA but do a better job of

interpreting what we do have. Now we

see that even having all the intelligence

does not guarantee anything. There is no

way that politician Bush desired to be in

the present spot he is in now of explaining

cloak-and-dagger type things and

diplomacy. U.$. politicians need to

premise their own credibility on

explanations of why someone would

forge uranium export documents like they

need a hole in the head. Bush knows this

instinctively which is why he would

usually rather appear stupid than explain

anything overly complicated.

Yet complicated is what this has

become--not in the facts regarding

weapons of mass destruction--but the

diplomatic relations involved. The

Washington Post admitted as follows:

"Since World War II, U.S. and British

intelligence agencies have had an image

of intimate collaboration with each other.

But the portrait that emerges from the

British version of events concerning the

investigation of the reported uranium deal

is of agencies at times working at cross-

purposes and reluctant to trust the other

with sensitive information."(5) A critical

British official Jack Straw says the CIA

and State Dept. had not informed him of

their conclusion that the whole story of

uranium in Africa was phony. Thus far

England has covered Bush's back by

saying it stands by its uranium story, so

Bush would appear to have the right idea

for the wrong specific reasons.

Nonetheless, England can back off at any

moment--especially after the public stops

paying attention.

Now there are even better new twists