The Best of Tomdispatch: Dower on the Occupiers, 1931/2003

On June 20, 2003, just over two months after Baghdad fell to American troops, at a time when the Bush administration was proudly comparing its "liberation" of Iraq to the U.S. occupations of Japan and Germany after World War II, I posted a piece, "The Other Japanese Occupation," by historian John Dower. (It appeared in print in the Nation magazine.) Dower offered one of the less noticed but eerier historical analogies in that triumphalist, "mission accomplished" period. He suggested that the Japanese moment to consider was not the post-war American occupation of Japan then in such currency, but the prewar Japanese imperial occupation of the Chinese province of Manchuria (renamed Manchukuo). That analogy, as he played it out, is, if anything, even eerier in April 2006 as the Bush imperial machine seems to be sputtering toward its prolonged end-game -- without, unlike imperial Japan, a Great Power enemy in sight. At a time when observers have begun to compare devolving Iraq to civil-war torn Lebanon in the 1980s, I thought -- while still traveling on the West Coast -- that I would repost Dower's remarkable piece from that distant moment (with my intro). It deserves the sort of attention now that it couldn't possibly get then. So travel back to 2003 with me and see what you think.

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1,000 secret CIA flights revealed

The CIA has operated more than 1,000 secret flights over EU territory in the past five years, some to transfer terror suspects in a practice known as "extraordinary rendition", an investigation by the European parliament said yesterday. The figure is significantly higher than previously thought. EU parliamentarians who conducted the investigation concluded that incidents when terror suspects were handed over to US agents did not appear to be isolated. They said the suspects were often transported around Europe on the same planes by agents whose names repeatedly came up in their investigation.

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The World is Uniting Against the Bush Imperium
Wars, Debt and Outsourcing

Is the United States a superpower? I think not. Consider these facts: The financial position of the US has declined dramatically. The US is heavily indebted, both government and consumers. The US trade deficit both in absolute size and as a percentage of GDP is unprecedented, reaching more than $800 billion in 2005 and accumulating to $4.5 trillion since 1990. With US job growth falling behind population growth and with no growth in consumer real incomes, the US economy is driven by expanding consumer debt. Saving rates are low or negative. The federal budget is deep in the red, adding to America's dependency on debt. The US cannot even go to war unless foreigners are willing to finance it. Our biggest bankers are China and Japan, both of whom could cause the US serious financial problems if they wished. A country whose financial affairs are in the hands of foreigners is not a superpower.

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  thanks to Politics in the Zeros