HOW Venezuela Is Keeping the Home Fires Burning in Massachusetts," reads a recent full-page ad in major US newspapers from PDVSA, Venezuela's state-owned oil company, and CITGO, its Houston-based subsidiary.

The ad describes a programme, encouraged by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to sell heating oil at discount prices to low-income communities in Boston, the South Bronx and elsewhere in the United States - one of the more ironic gestures ever in the North-South dialogue. The deal developed after a group of US senators sent a letter to nine major oil companies asking them to donate a portion of their recent record profits to help poor residents cover heating bills. The only response came from CITGO.

In the United States, commentary on the deal is grudging at best, saying that Chavez, who has accused the Bush administration of trying to overthrow his government, is motivated by political ends - unlike, for example, the purely humanitarian programmes of the US Agency for International Development.

Chavez' heating oil is one among many challenges bubbling up from Latin America for the Washington planners of grand strategy. The noisy protests during President Bush's trip last month to the Summit of the Americas, in Argentina, amplify the dilemma.

From Venezuela to Argentina, the hemisphere is getting completely out of control, with left-centre governments all the way through. Even in Central America, still suffering the aftereffects of President Reagan's "war on terror," the lid is barely on.

In the southern cone, the indigenous populations have become much more active and influential, particularly in Bolivia and Ecuador, both major energy producers, where they either oppose production of oil and gas or want it to be domestically controlled. Some are even calling for an "Indian nation" in South America.

Meanwhile internal economic integration is strengthening, reversing relative isolation that dates back to the Spanish conquests. Furthermore, South-South interaction is growing, with major powers (Brazil, South Africa, India) in the lead, particularly on economic issues.

Latin America as a whole is increasing trade and other relations with the European Union and China, with some setbacks, but likely expansion, especially for raw materials exporters like Brazil and Chile.

Venezuela has forged probably the closest relations with China of any Latin American country, and is planning to sell increasing amounts of oil to China as part of its effort to reduce dependence on a hostile U.S. government. Indeed, Washington's thorniest problem in the region is Venezuela, which provides nearly 15 percent of U.S. oil imports.

Chavez, elected in 1998, displays the kind of independence that the US translates as defiance - as with Chavez' ally Fidel Castro. In 2002, Washington embraced President Bush's vision of democracy by supporting a military coup that very briefly overturned the Chavez government. The Bush administration had to back down, however, because of opposition to the coup in Venezuela and throughout Latin America.

Compounding Washington's woes, Cuba-Venezuela relations are becoming very close. They practice a barter system, each relying on its strengths. Venezuela is providing low-cost oil while in return Cuba organises literacy and health programmes, and sends thousands of teachers and doctors, who, as elsewhere, work in the poorest areas, previously neglected.

Joint Cuba-Venezuela projects are also having a considerable impact in the Caribbean countries, where, under a programme called Operation Miracle, Cuban doctors are providing health care to people who had no hope of receiving it, with Venezuelan funding.

Chavez has repeatedly won monitored elections and referenda despite overwhelming and bitter media hostility. Support for the elected government has soared during the Chavez years. The veteran Latin American correspondent Hugh O' Shaughnessy explains why in a report for Irish Times:

"In Venezuela, where an oil economy has over the decades produced a sparkling elite of superrich, a quarter of under-15s go hungry, for instance, and 60 per cent of people over 59 have no income at all. Less than a fifth of the population enjoys social security. Only now under President Chavez ... has medicine started to become something of a reality for the poverty-stricken majority in the rich but deeply divided - virtually nonfunctioning - society. Since he won power in democratic elections and began to transform the health and welfare sector which catered so badly to the mass of the population progress has been slow. But it has been perceptible ..."

Now Venezuela is joining Mercosur, South America's leading trade bloc. Mercosur, which already includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, presents an alternative to the so-called Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, backed by the United States.

At issue in the region, as elsewhere around the world, is alternative social and economic models. Enormous, unprecedented popular movements have developed to expand cross-border integration - going beyond economic agendas to encompass human rights, environmental concerns, cultural independence and people-to-people contacts.

These movements are ludicrously called "anti-globalisation" because they favour globalisation directed to the interests of people, not investors and financial institutions. US problems in the Americas extend north as well as south. For obvious reasons, Washington has hoped to rely more on Canada, Venezuela and other non-Middle East oil resources.

But Canada's relations with the United States are more "strained and combative" than ever before as a result of, among other issues, Washington's rejection of NAFTA decisions favouring Canada. As Joel Brinkley reports in The New York Times, "Partly as a result, Canada is working hard to build up its relationship with China (and) some officials are saying Canada may shift a significant portion of its trade, particularly oil, from the United States to China."

It takes real talent for the United States to alienate even Canada.

THIS WEEK I was strolling through the streets of Athens, at the foot of the Acropolis, when my eye was caught by a sign bearing one single word in Greek letters: Sisyphus. It was the name of a tavern.

Perhaps the gods wanted to remind me of an article I wrote 14 years ago, entitled "The Revenge of the Gods". Its tragic hero was the man I called "Shimon Sisyphus".

The original Sisyphus was, of course, the king of Corinth, a sinful, lying man of intrigue. He ratted on Zeus, the God-in-Chief, who was, as was his wont, dallying with human beauties.

As a punishment, Sisyphus was sent to Hades, condemned to roll a heavy stone up a hill. Every time the stone was approaching the top of the hill, it slipped down again. And so on, to the end of time.

That had been the fate of Shimon Peres at the time I wrote that article, and that has been his fate since then, too, up to this very day. I don't know what made the Greek gods mete out this punishment, but throughout the years Peres has proved that he deserves it.

If there was any doubt about this, the last few days provided confirmation. Peres committed an act of political prostitution. If he had just left the Labor Party before the primaries and joined the competition - well enough. After all, Ariel Sharon has done the same. But Peres ran for party chairman, and only after he was roundly defeated, did he go over to Sharon's new party.

No doubt, Peres brought the curse on himself. He will continue to roll the stone up, and the stone will continue to slip down every time, just when it seems about to reach the top.

ALREADY IN 1953, when he was a mere 30, he was appointed Director General of the powerful Ministry of Defense. That was an amazing promotion. He was the protégé of the almighty David Ben-Gurion, the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, who handed him control of the huge defense establishment. He could well expect that in due course the Old Man would turn the prime minister's office over to him. In the meantime, in 1959, he was elected to the Knesset and appointed Deputy Minister of Defense.

And then he was struck by disaster. In 1963, Ben-Gurion was driven out of office and - quite literally - into the desert. Peres remained dangling. He made himself agreeable to the successor, Levy Eshkol, who became Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, and was busy trying to restore his standing when the stone slipped from his grasp again: Ben-Gurion returned suddenly from his retreat in the desert and founded a new party, Rafi. Peres could not really refuse to join him. With obvious reluctance he resigned his post and left the Labor party (then called Mapai). But he hoped that with Ben-Gurion's victory he would still reach the top.

He threw himself into the work of building the new party, setting up local branches, conducting the election campaign. He was sure that a party led by the legendary Old Man, with the participation of the glorious Moshe Dayan and several other generals, would win a resounding victory. How could it be otherwise? But election day, in November 1965, brought a bitter disappointment: Rafi won only 10 (out of 120) Knesset seats, and their location on the political map condemned them to irrelevancy. (This example sweetens the dreams of Likud functionaries, who hope that the same will now happen to Sharon, who has started a similar adventure.)

After two years, a life-saver was thrown to Rafi. The savior was none other than the Egyptian leader, Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, who massed his army in the Sinai desert, threatening Israel. The country was seized by panic, Rafi was invited to join an emergency government, and its representative became Minister of Defense. But it was not Peres, who labored so hard for Rafi, but Moshe Dayan, who had not lifted a finger. The staggering victory in the Six-day war made Dayan the idol of the masses, while Peres was left on the sidelines. The stone had slipped again to the bottom of the hill.

Peres understood that he had no chance in a small party. He brought Rafi back into the Labor Party (now called Ma'arakh) and received as consolation prize the unimportant Ministry of Transportation. Ben-Gurion regarded this as an act of treason by his protégé and founded another small party, the State List.

The great opportunity arrived in 1974, a few months after the Yom Kippur war. The war looked like a national disgrace, and the two persons responsible for that, Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, until then national icons, were sent packing. The way was clear for a new Prime Minister, and it seemed as if the job would fall into the lap of Peres like a ripe fruit. But at the last moment Yitzhak Rabin, a political greenhorn, appeared out of nowhere and plucked the fruit. He was selected by the party.

Peres, hurt to his innermost soul, was compelled to make do with the Ministry of Defense. He spent the next three years working relentlessly to undermine Rabin, who later described him as an "Untiring Conspirator". For this purpose, and in order to gain the sympathy of right-wingers, Peres founded Kedumim, the first settlement in the heart of the Arab population of the West Bank.

The cruel gods decided to mock him again. Rabin was involved in a trifling affair - contrary to the prevailing law, his wife had neglected to close a bank account that he had kept while serving as ambassador in Washington - and resigned. At long last, Peres became the chairman of the party. At the start of the election campaign of 1977, his victory was assured and he already busied himself with selecting his ministers, when the unimaginable happened: Menachem Begin, the eternal opposition leader who had been defeated in one election campaign after another, won and became Prime Minister. Peres had to bear the responsibility, Rabin's hands were clean. The stone had again slipped to the bottom.

In the next elections, 1981, the gods played an even more sadistic trick. When the ballots closed, the pollsters announced that Labor had won. Radiant with happiness, Peres let himself be declared the next Prime Minister. And then it became clear that Begin had won after all.

The continuation was bitter. Begin accepted the advice of his new Minister of Defense, Ariel Sharon, and invaded Lebanon. The day before the tanks rolled, Peres publicly announced his support . There followed the occupation of Beirut, the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the dismissal of Sharon, the mental breakdown of Begin. The public started to detest the war. Peres was sure that this time he would win. But the winner was Begin's successor, Yitzhak Shamir.

The next years were a series of ups and downs. Again and again Peres almost reached the top. Once he even became Prime Minister for some time, but only owing to a peculiar Israeli invention: a rotating Prime Ministership in a "national unity" government after an impasse with Shamir at the polls. As Prime Minister he had one real success: together with a talented Finance Minister, Yitzhak Moda'i, he brought inflation down from 400% to normal.

But the urge to become Prime Minister by his own efforts was too strong: he organized a putsch in the national unity government to displace Shamir and to seize power with the help of the religious ministers. But they betrayed him at the last moment and he had to leave the government altogether. Rabin, in his inimitable style, called the episode, "Peres's stinking exercise".

On the eve of the 1992 elections, Peres' chances looked good. The public was fed up with the Likud. Victory was beckoning the Labor Party. But the fruit was again snatched from him: the party nominated Rabin. Peres had to be content with a secondary post - as Foreign Minister, who in Israel is less important than the Defense and Finance ministers.

People who talked with Peres at that stage got the impression that he had finally given up the ambition of ever getting to the top of the hill. For the first time, he really cooperated with Rabin, and the two together created the miracle of Oslo. Both had been long-term advocates of the "Jordanian Option" (handing the occupied Palestinian territories to the Jordanian king), but the intifada finally convinced them to recognize the Palestinian people and come to an agreement with the PLO. When it was decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Peres moved heaven and earth to be included as well. Since the prize can be given to three people at most, the fourth partner, Mahmoud Abbas, was unjustly left out.

BUT THE gods did not relent. In November 1995, Rabin was assassinated. The assassin, who was waiting at the foot of the staircase, let Peres, who was within touching distance, walk safely by. He was appointed by the party to take Rabin's place as Prime Minister.

This was the opportunity of his life. He could call for new elections and surely ride to a landslide victory on the wave of public outrage at the murder. But Peres did not want to owe his election to Rabin's memory. He postponed the election for a few months, during which he started a small war in Lebanon that ended in disaster - the massacre of refugees by mistake. Then he okayed the assassination of a Hamas militant, the legendary bomb-maker Yihyeh Ayash, provoking a series of bloody retaliatory suicide attacks that ruined Peres' chances.

On election day, the gods repeated their sadistic trick: it looked as if Peres had won. Late in the night it became clear that the opposite had happened. A new phrase was born: "We went to sleep with Peres and woke up with Netanyahu!"

At one of the party meetings, Peres asked what was meant to be a rhetorical question: "What, am I a loser?" and was dismayed by a chorus of replies: "Yes! Yes!"

It seemed as if the gods had lost interest. Binyamin Netanyahu assumed power and was soon detested by the public. The government fell, and Labor won the elections. But the hero was not Peres, but Ehud Barak, a former army Chief-of-Staff, whose election aroused wild enthusiasm, which, in turn, turned quickly into bitter disappointment that degenerated into a despair of peace and the collapse of the Left. In 2001 Barak lost to Sharon by a landslide, the party luminaries could not agree among themselves on a successor, and asked Peres to assume the party leadership "temporarily" as a stop-gap. As usual, he immediately began turning "temporary" into permanent.

On the way, another accident befell him. The post of President of the State fell vacant. Peres lusted for the position, which is empty of practical content but full of prestige. The President is elected by parliament in a secret vote. Most members assured Peres of their support. The alternative candidate was a second-rank Likud functionary, one Moshe Katzav. But when the envelopes were opened, it appeared that the impossible had happened again: Peres had lost this contest, too.

In order to keep his international standing, Peres led his party into the Sharon government, in return for a newly invented title: "Vice Prime Minister". For this empty appellation, he sold the soul of the party. He used his international prestige to cultivate respectability for Sharon throughout the world, where Sharon was remembered as the man of Sabra and Shatila. For this alone, Peres deserves everything that was coming to him.

The Labor ministers supported not only the Gaza withdrawal - a good thing in itself - but also all the acts of oppression in the West Bank: the expropriation of land, the expansion of the settlements, inaction on the "removal of the outposts", the construction of the monstrous wall and the campaign of targeted assassinations, while boycotting the Palestinian Authority. Peres himself condemned the Thatcherist economic policy of the government as "swinish capitalism", while continuing to support it unstintingly in practice.

The end - for the time being - came a few weeks ago. In the past, Amir Peretz had left the Labor Party to found his own small workers' party. Peres himself had convinced him to come back into the fold. Now he contested Peres' post as party chairman - and won. Taking revenge on the party, Peres left it for the second time in his life and joined Sharon, as he had once joined Ben-Gurion.

NOW SHARON uses Peres as bait to lure fish from the Labor party, but would not dream of putting him on his list of party candidates for the Knesset. That would have repelled a lot of Likud members from joining him. It is doubtful whether he will really honor his promise to Peres to give him a respectable job if he wins the elections - perhaps the post of President, after Katzav finishes his term.

There is something deeply tragic in this story. All his life, Peres has pined for the love of the public, and every time he has been jilted. This man, a professional and incredibly persevering politician from the age of 18, has never won an election. Israelis wonder why he enjoys so much prestige throughout the world. The rest of the worlds why he cannot win an election in Israel.

Was it because he was an immigrant in an era of native-born Sabras? Was it the Polish accent, that he was unable to get rid of? Something in his character? The lack of charisma? The fact that he never served in the army? Perhaps some combination of all these?

The gods surely know.
(c) 2005 Uri Avnery Gush Shalom

I am always open to innovative ways of raising money for cash-strapped governments, as long as it doesn't cost me anything extra. Many states, for example, sponsor lotteries; nobody is forced to buy in, but millions of citizens purchase tickets that help underwrite our schools and road-repairs.

In that light, I have a modest proposal for the Bush Administration: Auction off torture rights.

Here's how it would work. The Bush Administration, either through eBay or by establishing a website all its own (>> torturersRus.gov <<), would let citizens bid for the right to brutalize a terrorist suspect in one of the secret CIA prisons around the globe.

The Torture Abroad program would be aimed at those who, for a price, might delight in exercising their dominance and control of dangerous, inferior beings. (Note: This project is NOT to be confused with the similarly-named Torture A Broad program.)

For purposes of full disclosure, it's essential to note that the Bush Administration denies having supersecret CIA prisons around the world, and emphatically insists that torture does not take place at those facilities. If "harsh interrogation methods" are employed at the non-existent prisons, it's totally without the Administration's knowledge or approval.

A MARKETING FLYER

Trying to be helpful, I've composed some possible text for a Torture Abroad advertising flyer:

Want to do something to aid your country's battle against terrorists, and to participate in frat-style pranks and good, clean aerobic fun at the same time?

Then consider sending in your bid to become a member of Torture Abroad. Remember, high bidders have more chance to be selected.

Wearing our handsome black mask and windbreaker -- with the eye-catching Volunteer Torturer Militia seal -- you'll be flown free on one of the CIA's luxury secret air flights with, of course, stopover privileges in Poland, Romania, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Morocco, et al. Naturally, you'll be in First Class, and your assigned torture-buddy, appropriately enough, will be in Cargo.

You will be permitted to indulge in sexual humiliation, stress positioning, rape, thumb-screws, pyramid-building, baseball bat-play, use of the wrack, whip & chain teasing, the employment of rabid dogs, and so on, but you'll have to pay a bit extra for the privilege of near-drowning (our popular "water boarding" option) and for the awesome electrification-of-the-genitals display.

We realize, based on our polling data, that some people will be repulsed by this suggestion. Granted, the idea of having to pay this extra fee is offensive, but the whole idea of this enterprise, let us remember, is to raise money to help subsidize our country's vital "war on terror."

Note: If you torture a detainee to death, which has been known to happen even with professionals in charge, there will be a hefty surcharge and you will suffer severe penalties: You will NOT receive the video of your handiwork or the program's parchment certificate signed by Karl Rove Himself.

All torture implements will be provided but if you have certain activities that cannot be accommodated by government-issue, you will be permitted to bring your own props. No chain-saws, please. We do not want to give even the slightest appearance of savagery.

If perchance, as a result of your time spent together, your detainee chooses to confess to something or other, you will be granted a 10% refund. If the confession actually contains anything remotely resembling the truth, you will be gifted another prisoner at no extra charge. (Note: This rarely happens.)

Please be aware that while we carry out due-diligence in certifying our terrorist suspects, in the event that an innocent man or woman was provided you -- which does happen on occasion as street sweeps can be fairly random -- we assume no financial or criminal liability. We also cannot provide assurance that governments or family members of the prisoner won't try to locate you later for purposes of revenge.

But most red-blooded American citizens won't let those minor caveats stop them from coming to the aid of their country in this time of war. And you can have jolly good fun doing so, and feel patriotic pride in your valuable work for the homeland.

Slots are limited, so act now. For the first hundred who sign up, we will provide a framed, autographed photo of Jeffrey Dahmer.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR BID

So that's the basic outline of my proposal, which, as you can see, is a win-win for all concerned. The war effort gains much needed fundage, the capitalist system is promoted, bad guys are punished, ordinary citizens are permitted to participate in important governmental programs, and the recipients of the carnage no doubt will be adopted by liberal do-gooder groups and nursed back to health. If they make it.

Should you be interested in applying to Torture Abroad, send your name, address and phone number, and a good-faith deposit of $5000 cash, to the address below. A special email address for VIP entry into the program will be forwarded to you -- in other words, you won't have to log onto the website's home page, which, as you can imagine, is sure to attract all sorts of low-life thugs.

Mail all inquiries to John Ashcroft, Torture Abroad Program Director, at the Department of Homeland Security, P. O. Box 666, Washington, D.C. Enclose a photo, a brief bio, a key to your home, and your email password.

Thank you from all of us on Torture Abroad's Board of Directors: K. Rove, G. Bush, R. Cheney, D. Rumsfeld, C. Rice, A. Gonzales, L. Libby, J. Ashcroft, S. Hadley, K. Hughes, M. Matalin, J. Bolton, J. Woo, J. Bybee, B. O'Reilly, R. Limbaugh, A. Coulter, J. Inhofe, W. Boykin, G. Miller, S. Cambone, M. Chertoff, and Founding Fathers J. Mengele, A. Eichmann, and T. de Torquemada.

The more we learn of the Bush administration's pervasive outsourcing of torture, the more sensible it seems as a policy. Evidently, our intelligence people, tainted as they are by the squeamish morality of Western civilization, are just not fully up to the task of getting prisoners to tell us what the administration wants us to hear.

Sure, they tried water boarding and extreme stress positions in Guantanamo, but would U.S. interrogators be willing to pull out fingernails or use electric shock, as was inflicted upon at least a dozen of the 625 Baghdad inmates released Sunday from yet another secret inhuman jail run by our Iraqi surrogates? Not guaranteed, and anyway, some conscious-stricken soldier likely would release photos, as one did at Abu Ghraib, and let the world in on our use of such special methods.

Better to use the services of those less democratic nations where torture is the norm, including some, such as Uzbekistan, that still have usable camps left over from Soviet-era torturers. That must be behind the logic of "extraordinary rendition," as it officially is called, in which it is acknowledged U.S. policy to turn over prisoners our government has captured to other nations deemed more effective in interrogation.

Nor can the deficiency of our own personnel be simply a lack of language skills, religious familiarity or cultural affinity between interrogator and subject, as apologists for the administration's policy have suggested. Over the last decades, many billions of dollars have been spent in supplying our intelligence agents with precisely that sort of expertise.

What clearly is missing is the will to go all the way in "breaking down" prisoners. There are just too many decent people scattered throughout our military and intelligence forces who would object publicly to such barbarism. They, and the American public when informed, would insist on limits, even when the president doesn't.

That must be why the CIA failed in its interrogation of an alleged high-ranking al Qaeda official back in January 2002 to prove the connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Hey, no biggie, they just turned the captive, a Libyan named Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, over to Egypt's inquisitors who miraculously transformed him into a virtual spokesman for the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq.

Virtual, because he was shipped back to disappear in the Guantanamo Gulag, but his false witness was trumpeted by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vice President Dick Cheney and the president, who stated on the eve of the congressional vote that authorized the Iraq invasion: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and gases.'' What Bush did not say was that eight months earlier, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the top coordinating agency in such matters, concluded that al-Libi's testimony was totally bogus.

So, one must not jump to the conclusion correctly claimed by most experts on the subject that torture doesn't work just because it yields mostly false results from prisoners who want the torture to stop. In the case of al-Libi, torture worked splendidly to produce exactly the critical false evidence that the president needed to make his case for war.

The beauty of the rendition program is that the administration can still claim to be against torture because the host nation torturers gave us assurance that they abhor the practice. That is a devilishly clever posture, because there isn't a country in the world that admits to practicing torture. But it is one that offered no protection to Canadian citizen Maher Arar, who as CBS reported, was repeatedly tortured after being "rendered" to Syria, before being released without ever being charged with a crime. That should not come as a surprise to the State Department, whose annual Human Rights Report lists Syria high on its torture-nation roster. But yet the president insists, and the facts be damned, that "we do not render to countries that torture."

If so, why continue to block the "Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act" written by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., which would forbid such "renditions" to nations known to practice torture? Because, as Markey put it, "In order to meet its obligations under the Convention Against Torture, this administration has been engaging in a piece of legalistic fiction. It asks the torturing country for 'diplomatic assurances' that the transferred detainee will not be tortured on the theory that a torturing country will keep its word."

The legal loophole for torture is too good a tool to give up, not as a means of catching the bad guys, but rather as needed cover in possible litigation against the self-proclaimed good guys gone wild.
(c) 2005 Robert Scheer

There is an election taking place in Iraq on Friday. According to those who still maintain some kind of hope that the wretched situation over there can be salvaged at the ballot box, this election will be a turning point. "If the result is seen to be fair and the government elected for the next four years is accepted as broadly representative of the interests of most Iraqis," writes Liz Sly in the Chicago Tribune, "there is a real chance that the insurgent violence and the sectarian rivalries that are pushing the country close to civil war will abate."

This vote, the third since the occupation began, is meant to elect a 275-person parliamentary body called the Council of Representatives. All 18 Iraqi provinces will be participating in the election. The Sunnis, who mostly boycotted the elections last January, are expected to participate in far larger numbers this time around. Leading Sunni clerics have issued a fatwa which decrees that Sunni participation in this election is a religious duty.

This election will be no panacea, despite what the hopefuls think. Every electoral model has the Shia and Kurds assuming dominant positions in the Iraqi government. Even if every Sunni in Iraq goes to the polls, they make up only 20% of the overall population. Electoral formulas meant to enhance Sunni power within an Iraqi government will still leave them deeply in the minority.

A collection of leading Sunni parties called the Iraqi Consensus Front has been pushing a straightforward slogan: "Our goal is to get the invaders out and rebuild the country." If their minority status prevents the Sunnis from achieving their first goal according to their wishes, they may well return to violence to achieve their second goal. A leaflet was broadly distributed in the Azamiyah neighborhood of Baghdad last Monday. Sunni Arabs may have a chance to advance their cause politically in the upcoming elections, read the leaflet, but "the fighting will continue with the infidels and their followers."

The campaigning itself, which ended on Tuesday, has been a half-baked farce all too reminiscent of America's watered-down and money-driven electioneering. Thanks to the assassinations and attempted assassinations of several candidates, and thanks to the ever-present threat of violence, almost all campaigning has been done via television. Because television time is prohibitively expensive, only the campaigns with significant financial resources will ever become known to the Iraqi people. Hundreds of viable candidates, a number of them secular, don't stand a chance next to well-funded religious campaigns whose cash comes from unknown and potentially dangerous outside sources.

Juan Cole, professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History at the University of Michigan, does not see how this election can possibly be seen as credible. "As with the Jan. 30 elections," writes Cole, "the Dec. 15 elections are not being held in accordance with international standards of fairness, and cannot be. Proper elections would require that security be provided to voters and candidates. But there is no security. In many parts of the center-north, voters will have no guarantee of coming home alive. The only way the vote will happen at all is that the US military has forbidden all vehicular traffic, so everyone has to walk for the next few days. This tactic prevents car bombings from disrupting the elections, but it is a desperate measure and not a sign of an election that could be certified as free and fair."

In one sense, however, one can appreciate how difficult it must be to mount an effective political campaign in Iraq. Beyond the real possibility of getting shot, a candidate must face a divided populace that does not, according to a recent ABC News/Time poll taken in Iraq, seem to know what it wants. Make sense of these numbers: 90% believe Iraq needs democracy, but 91% believe Iraq needs a single strong leader; 48% want the mullahs to rule, but only 13% want an Islamic state; 48% think religious leaders should rule, while 49% think military leaders should rule.

The most gifted and adept American politician would struggle to develop a coherent message in this situation. Half the populace wants religious leadership, half the populace wants military leadership, and simultaneously the vast majority believes either of these is amenable to democracy. The only issue the Iraqi people have a clear consensus on is the occupation itself; by large majorities, they want the Americans out.

Imagine, for a moment, that the Iraqi elections on Friday come off without a hitch. No one is killed, maimed or intimidated into voting for a particular candidate by having a gun barrel put to his head. There are no hanging chads, no mayhem or madness. What will the Iraqi and American people get out of the incredible blood and treasure we have poured into this conflict?

We will get an Iraqi government dominated by known and notorious terrorists. We will get an Iraqi government dominated by Iran.

The Shia will walk away from Friday with the lion's share of control over the Iraqi government. The two most powerful Shia political parties, the ones that will come out of this with the big wins, are the Dawa Party and the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is known by the initials SCIRI. Both were founded and funded by Iran in the 1980s. Both have a history of spectacular violence against the United States and other nations. "These guys are murderers," says former CIA agent Bob Baer, who dealt with Dawa during the 1980s. "They were the core element that blew up our embassy in Beirut in 1983."

Paul Mulshine, writing last week for the New Jersey Star-Ledger, encapsulates this amazing turn of events. "What would you call someone who wants to hand over control of Iraq to a group of terrorists that first made its reputation by blowing up a couple of American embassies?" wrote Mulshine. "I'd call him President Bush. The group is called the Dawa party. In the early 1980s, Dawa terrorists bombed our embassies in Kuwait and in Lebanon. They were universally recognized as vicious America-hating, Iranian-supported terrorists. Now they're part of the coalition that is expected to win control of the new Iraqi parliament in Thursday's elections."

"The other coalition partners aren't much better," continued Mulshine. "The sanest group on the Shi'a side is the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. A 1984 Washington Post story portrayed the group, known by its initials SCIRI, as 'a kind of parent organization for four operational terrorist groups.' SCIRI was founded in Iran a couple of years earlier by the Ayatollah Khomeini with the goal of taking control of Iraq. Now, they're about to do so, courtesy of George W. Bush."

A walk through history serves to remind those afflicted with short attention spans of who exactly is about to take control of Iraq.

A story from US News and World Report dated December 26, 1983, titled "The New Face of Mideast Terrorism" describes the bombing of the American embassy in Kuwait: "The terrorist who detonated the truckload of explosives at the US Embassy in Kuwait was identified as a 25-year-old Iraqi belonging to an outlawed Moslem unit, the Iranian Dawa Group."

A story from the Associated Press dated February 11, 1984, titled "Trial of Bomb Blast Defendants Opens" describes the trial of 21 people charged with bombing American and French embassies: "Of the other defendants, 17 are Iraqis; two, Lebanese, three, Kuwaitis and two are stateless. Most of them said they belonged to Al-Dawa (Islamic Call) Party, an Iraqi movement of Shiite Moslem fanatics who are pro-Iranian."

A story from the Associated Press dated December 27, 1986, titled "Five Groups Claim Responsibility, Iraq Accuses Iran" describes the attempted hijacking of an Iraqi jetliner that resulted in the deaths of over 60 people: "The hijackers acted in cooperation with the Dawa party of pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiites."

Etc.

A sharp indictment of SCIRI and its ties to Iran and terrorism can be found, of all places, within the pages of the report put forth by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. This commission, put together to investigate the events of and leading up to September 11, heard expert testimony from Mark Gasiorowski, professor of Political Science and Director of International Studies at Louisiana State University.

In his testimony, Gasiorowski stated, "From the early 1980s until about 1996, Iran was directly involved in a wide variety of terrorist activities. It provided extensive support to Islamist terrorist groups such as Hezbollah (in Lebanon), Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Afghan Northern Alliance and its precursors." Gasiorowski goes on to state that Iran continues to support several terrorist groups, and includes SCIRI among them. "They are most strongly committed to Hezbollah and SCIRI," said Gasiorowski, "with which they have worked closely for over 20 years."

Excellent. It seems the best path to electoral victory in Iraq, besides kissing babies and avoiding assassins, involves a long history of terrorism and extreme violence against the United States. Former CIA agent Bob Baer stated in Mulshine's article, "So now we have a Shia terrorist state. Was this worth $6 billion a month?"

Almost certainly, we will hear apologists for both the Bush administration and the invasion downplay the incredible terrorist histories of the groups about to take over the Iraqi government. "Sure they were terrorists," we will hear, "but they're OK now." In other words, they are terrorists, but they are our terrorists.

Saddam Hussein was our terrorist in Iraq for years, so long as he directed his terrorism primarily at Iran. Osama bin Laden was our terrorist in Afghanistan for years, so long as he directed his terrorism at the Soviet Union. Anyone seeing a pattern developing here?

Just how interested is Iran in Friday's elections? The New York Times reported on Wednesday that, "Less than two days before nationwide elections, the Iraqi border police seized a tanker on Tuesday that had just crossed from Iran filled with thousands of forged ballots, an official at the Interior Ministry said. The Iranian truck driver told the police under interrogation that at least three other trucks filled with ballots had crossed from Iran at different spots along the border." American democracy at its finest, it seems.

It is amazing to consider that Americans, who have almost completely lost faith in the vote as an effective means of political participation at home, are somehow expected to believe that this vote will solve Iraq's incredible problems. One wonders how long it will be before the Vanishing Voter Project opens an office in Baghdad. In Iraq, of course, vanishing voters carry an entirely different meaning.

Christmas came 11 days early for Donald Rumsfeld two years ago when the news broke that American forces had pulled Saddam Hussein from a spidery hole. During interviews about the capture, on CBS and ABC, the Pentagon's top man was upbeat. And he didn't have to deal with a question that Lesley Stahl or Peter Jennings could have logically chosen to ask: "Secretary Rumsfeld, you met with Saddam almost exactly 20 years ago and shook his hand. What kind of guy was he?"

Now, Saddam Hussein has gone on trial, but such questions remain unasked by mainstream U.S. journalists. Rumsfeld met with Hussein in Baghdad on behalf of the Reagan administration, opening up strong diplomatic and military ties that lasted through six more years of Saddam's murderous brutality.

As it happens, the initial trial of Saddam and co-defendants is focusing on grisly crimes that occurred the year before Rumsfeld gripped his hand. "The first witness, Ahmad Hassan Muhammad, 38, riveted the courtroom with the scenes of torture he witnessed after his arrest in 1982, including a meat grinder with human hair and blood under it," the New York Times reported on Dec. 6. And: "At one point, Mr. Muhammad briefly broke down in tears as he recalled how his brother was tortured with electrical shocks in front of their 77-year-old father."

The victims were Shiites -- 143 men and adolescent boys, according to the charges -- tortured and killed in the Iraqi town of Dujail after an assassination attempt against Saddam in early July of 1982. Donald Rumsfeld became the Reagan administration's Middle East special envoy 15 months later.

On Dec. 20, 1983, the Washington Post reported that Rumsfeld "visited Iraq in what U.S. officials said was an attempt to bolster the already improving U.S. relations with that country." A couple of days later, the New York Times cited a "senior American official" who "said that the United States remained ready to establish full diplomatic relations with Iraq and that it was up to the Iraqis."

On March 29, 1984, the Times reported: "American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name." Washington had some goodies for Saddam's regime, the Times account noted, including "agricultural-commodity credits totaling $840 million." And while "no results of the talks have been announced" after the Rumsfeld visit to Baghdad three months earlier, "Western European diplomats assume that the United States now exchanges some intelligence on Iran with Iraq."

A few months later, on July 17, 1984, a Times article with a Baghdad dateline sketchily filled in a bit more information, saying that the U.S. government "granted Iraq about $2 billion in commodity credits to buy food over the last two years." The story recalled that "Donald Rumsfeld, the former Middle East special envoy, held two private meetings with the Iraqi president here," and the dispatch mentioned in passing that "State Department human rights reports have been uniformly critical of the Iraqi President, contending that he ran a police state."

Full diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad were restored 11 months after Rumsfeld's December 1983 visit with Saddam. He went on to use poison gas later in the decade, actions which scarcely harmed relations with the Reagan administration.

As the most senior U.S. official to visit Iraq in six years, Rumsfeld had served as Reagan's point man for warming relations with Saddam. In 1984, the administration engineered the sale to Baghdad of 45 ostensibly civilian-use Bell 214ST helicopters. Saddam's military found them quite useful for attacking Kurdish civilians with poison gas in 1988, according to U.S. intelligence sources. "In response to the gassing," journalist Jeremy Scahill has pointed out, "sweeping sanctions were unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate that would have denied Iraq access to most U.S. technology. The measure was killed by the White House."

The USA's big media institutions did little to illuminate how Washington and business interests combined to strengthen and arm Saddam Hussein during many of his worst crimes. "In the 1980s and afterward, the United States underwrote 24 American corporations so they could sell to Saddam Hussein weapons of mass destruction, which he used against Iran, at that time the prime Middle Eastern enemy of the United States," writes Ben Bagdikian, a former assistant managing editor of the Washington Post, in his book The New Media Monopoly. "Hussein used U.S.-supplied poison gas" against Iranians and Kurds "while the United States looked the other way."

Of course the crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime were not just in the future when Rumsfeld came bearing gifts in 1983. Saddam's large-scale atrocities had been going on for a long time. Among them were the methodical torture and murders in Dujail that have been front-paged this week in coverage of the former dictator's trial; they occurred 17 months before Rumsfeld arrived in Baghdad.

Today, inside the corporate media frame, history can be supremely relevant when it focuses on Hussein's torture and genocide. But the historic assistance of the U.S. government and American firms is largely off the subject and beside the point.

Nothing in the [Geneva] Conventions [on the treatment of prisoners of war] precludes directed interrogations. They do, however, prohibit torture and humiliation of detainees, whether or not they are deemed P.O.W.'s. These are standards that are never obsolete-they cut to the heart of how moral people must treat other human beings. John McCain , in Torture: A Human Rights Perspective, edited by Kenneth Roth and Minky Worden (The New Press)

In a November 21 USA Today interview with Porter Goss, the head of the CIA "declined to describe interrogation methods exclusive to the CIA." He thereby confirmed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's statement during his confirmation hearings that the CIA has "special powers." Where did the CIA get permission to overrule the rule of law? The word came from a classified directive by President George W. Bush soon after 9-11, and was confirmed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. (Emphases added.)

Therefore, whatever is increasingly revealed about how the CIA uses its grant of cruel and unusual exclusivity in dealing with prisoners makes George W. Bush directly accountable for any crimes committed.

This president is not going to be impeached, except by history. However, historians will find reams of evidence against him and other members of his administration in such books as The Torture Papers, edited by Karen Greenberg and Joshua Dratel (Cambridge University Press), and Torture and Truth, by Mark Danner (a New York Review of Books volume).

Also contributing to the immutable record are such journalists as Dana Priest of The Washington Post and Brian Ross of ABC News. Revealing why the ratings of network television newscasts continue to drop is the disgraceful decision by the producers of ABC's World News Tonight to give only three and a half minutes to the Brian Ross investigation of some of the interrogation techniques Porter Goss will not describe.

But Ross and Richard Esposito detailed them at length on abcnews.com on November 18. (I believe the late Peter Jennings would have given much more than three and a half minutes to this breakthrough story on World News Tonight.)

Last week, I quoted what Brian Ross had found from present and former CIA officers and supervisors about extracting confessions from "water boarding." Ross also cited a description of that "exclusive" CIA technique by John Sifton of Human Rights Watch: "The person[s] believe they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law."

Indeed, what we are learning about the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" are also violations of our own War Crimes Act (Section 2441 of the federal criminal code). This statute also provides that:

"Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life, or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death."

Our War Crimes Act criminalizes as a "war crime" a "grave breach" of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which this country ratified.

As page 1160 of The Torture Papers explains: "With respect to interrogation in armed conflict, Common Article 3 requires humane treatment generally, and specifically forbids 'cruel treatment and torture' or 'outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.' "

From CIA sources, Brian Ross has cited six of the "enhanced interrogation techniques." Among them is "Long Time Standing": "This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt on the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions."

Another technique is "The Cold Cell": "The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water."

Now, here is a smoking gun from the Ross report:

"According to CIA sources, Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi, after two weeks of enhanced interrogation, made statements that were designed to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear . . . al Libbi had been subjected to each of the progressively harsher techniques in turn and finally broke after being water boarded and then left to stand naked in his cold cell overnight where he was doused with cold water at regular intervals.

" His statements became part of the basis for the Bush administration claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biochemical weapons. Sources tell ABC that it was later established that al Libbi had no knowledge of such training or weapons and fabricated the statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment." (Emphasis added.)

Since these war crimes, including torture as defined in international and American law, are being done in our name, the following Brian Ross discovery should lead to a congressional investigation with subpoena powers all the way to the top of the chain of command:

"According to the sources, when an interrogator wishes to use a particular technique on a prisoner, the policy at the CIA is that each step of the interrogation process must be signed off at the highest level-by the deputy director of operations for the CIA. A cable must be sent and a reply received each time a progres- sively harsher technique is used . . . there are few known instances when an approval has not been granted. Still, even the toughest critics of the techniques say they are relatively well monitored and limited in use."

How "limited in use"? And what about those of the techniques that are war crimes under the definitions in law that I have cited? The CIA has all the information about their use. Meanwhile, around the world, and not only among our enemies, this country is increasingly seen as a habitual, egregious violator of human rights. Let's finally put the CIA under the rule of law.