Democracy Now! Daily Digest - A Daily Independent Global News
Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Friday, 27 December 2013
democracynow.org
STORIES:
The Other 98% Urges Wall Street to Donate $91 Billion in Bonuses
to Victims of Financial Crisis
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both hit
record highs on Thursday while the NASDAQ surged to its highest level in over
13 years. The year-end rally is expected to add a boost to the massive bonuses
Wall Street is preparing to hand out this year. The largest Wall Street firms
have reportedly set aside more than $91 billion for year-end bonuses. In
response, an activist group called The Other 98% has launched a petition
calling on employees of Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan
Stanley and Bank of America to donate their bonuses to the 10 million Americans
made homeless by the housing crisis. We are joined by Alexis Goldstein, a
former computer programmer at Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank
who later got involved with Occupy Wall Street and is now communications
director at the group, The Other 98%.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Thursday was another record-setting day on Wall
Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 both
hit new highs while the NASDAQ surged to its highest level in over 13 years.
The year-end rally is expected to add a boost to the massive bonuses Wall
Street is preparing to hand out this year. The biggest Wall Street firms have
reportedly set aside a whopping $91 billion for year-end bonuses.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, a spinoff of Occupy Wall Street called
The Other 98% has launched a petition calling on employees of Chase, Citigroup,
Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America to donate their
bonuses to the 10 million Americans made homeless by the housing crisis.
We’re joined now by Alexis Goldstein in Washington, D.C. For
seven years, she worked on Wall Street as a computer programmer at Morgan
Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank. She later got involved with Occupy
Wall Street, now is communications director at The Other 98%.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Alexis.
ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, talk about your recommendation for what these
bankers should do with their bonuses.
ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: Sure. So you had on Laura Gottesdiener, who’s
the author of A Dream Foreclosed, earlier this year. And she has said that 10
million people were displaced during the foreclosure crisis, often due to
predatory loans. These were mortgages that were sold that had rates that were
bait-and-switch rates. And so our suggestion is quite simply that they should
take this money and do something about the lack of affordable housing, which we
think is a problem that they caused, because they have essentially thrown so
many people wrongfully out of their homes.
And so, we had a proposal to take $60 billion and fund something
called the National Housing Trust Fund for two years. This is a program that
was actually created by George Bush in 2008. It’s a program that, if funded at
$30 billion for 10 years, could end homelessness in America. But this program
has been yet to be funded. And so, we’re saying that Wall Street could take $60
billion out of their bonuses and help get this ball rolling and fund that
program for two years.
And then our next suggestion was essentially to take care of the
$21 billion in needed repairs to public housing. Right now the federal
government only allocates less than $2 billion a year to do these repairs, and
so what ends up happening is about 10,000 units of public housing fall out of
the inventory every year, so we have less and less affordable housing. So
that’s our second suggestion.
And then I suppose they could take the $10 billion remaining,
and I suppose they could dole the rest of that out. But those were our two
suggestions.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Alexis, how is it possible that the Wall
Street firms have been able to accumulate so much in bonuses, given the fact
that the recovery here in the—economic recovery here in the United States is
still so sluggish, still over 7 percent unemployed, and the reports the last
few days that Christmas shopping among Americans was hardly what the financial
community expected?
ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: It’s a great question, Juan, and I think
there’s two answers. One is, Bloomberg earlier this year did a study that said
that there’s an $83 billion-a-year subsidy coming from the government and
flowing into Wall Street. And that comes from the cheap cost of borrowing that
they get directly from the Federal Reserve, and it also comes from the fact
that the people that loan Wall Street money assume that the government would
bail them out again if they ever got into trouble, and so they loan them money
at a lower rate than they would to a bank that they don’t see as too big to
fail. So, $83 billion of government subsidies every year, a big chunk of that,
I guess, they’re just putting right back into their pockets and giving out in
bonuses.
And I think another reason that they’re doing so well is they
continue to commit crimes that are very profitable. There was a huge settlement
this year with JPMorgan that was a $13 billion settlement, that was the result
of mortgages that they sold during the crisis that were very shady and were
misrepresented. Investors actually lost $26 billion on that, so $13 billion
sounds like a big settlement, but it’s actually just a fraction of the money
that people lost. But then you have things like JPMorgan manipulating
electricity markets and charging consumers in California more money than they
should be, because they’re manipulating the market. We saw credit card fraud.
We saw JPMorgan fined for that, to the tune of $300 million. So I think the
second answer to the question is, they’re still doing things that are criminal
that actually happen to be highly profitable.
AMY GOODMAN: You talk about FT magazine’s "How to Spend
It."
ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: Yes. So, there’s a magazine that comes out 30
times a year in the Financial Times as a hard copy, and it also has its own
website, just howtospendit.com. And it’s kind—it looks like a parody. It’s kind
of shocking. But it’s a real thing. And they profile $20,000 watches. They
profile gadgets that you can buy, like a $50,000 diamond-crusted iPhone case.
And, you know, they profile all sorts of very fancy, very expensive cars. But
this is a real magazine that exists to sort of instruct, I suppose, the
wealthiest of Wall Street bankers how they can spend their opulent bonuses each
year.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the bonuses that are being
considered?
ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: Well, so it’s important to remember that these
employees on Wall Street get a base salary, and the base salary that they get
is usually in the range of about $150,000, and it goes on up from there,
especially if you’re a higher-level employee. So the bonuses are often, you
know, 100 percent of the base salary, but all the way up into the millions of
dollars for very profitable traders. And so, these are people that are making a
salary that is far above what the average American makes already. And then
they—you know, depending on where they are in the bank and if they’re a trader
or somebody more on the operations end—might get something in the tens of thousands
or hundreds of thousands, all the way up into the millions. So it really
depends on where people sit in the bank. But I think the key point to remember
is, these are not people that are, you know, living hard on their salary. Their
salaries themselves are very generous, and the bonus is just the icing on the
cake at the end of the year.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about one of the chief
reforms that came out of the financial crisis, the so-called Volcker Rule that
President Obama touted repeatedly and that is now in the stages of being
finally implemented. We’re talking now five years after the crisis, or six
years. And what is the Volcker Rule? And how is it being implemented? And what
are the financial firms doing to—already, to try to challenge it or to rein in
its worst aspects, as far as they’re concerned?
ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: Sure. So the Volcker Rule came out of the
financial crisis, and it was part of a law called Dodd-Frank, which was this
very long law that tried to tackle all of the various problems that led to the
financial crisis. The Volcker Rule says that banks that enjoy government
backing and FDIC insurance don’t get to gamble anymore. If they want to do
trades, they have to do trades on behalf of their clients, and they don’t get just
to buy something because they think it’s going to skyrocket in price in the
future. And the logic behind it was, a lot of these banks—Citigroup one of
them, Merrill Lynch another—bought up a lot of these mortgage-backed securities
and other mortgage derivative products, and essentially held onto them because
they thought they were going to go up and up and up forever. And they ended up
losing a ton of money as a result of that. They sold a lot of loans that
were—sold a lot of these that were very—ended up being fraudulent. And so, the
basic idea is, look, if you’re going to have taxpayer backing at the end of the
day, if you’re going to have FDIC insurance, you shouldn’t get to gamble. And
that’s what the Volcker Rule is about.
But like any law that is put forth these days, Wall Street
lobbied very hard to try to water it down, very hard to try to have exceptions.
And so, one of the exceptions, essentially, to the rule is, look, you shouldn’t
be able to own a hedge fund if you’re a Wall Street bank or a private equity
fund, because you could just gamble through that hedge fund. So they put a 3
percent cap on the amount of a hedge fund or amount of a private equity fund
that you could own. But there are different ways around that. And there are
certain things that don’t count towards that 3 percent cap. And one of those
happens to be a fight that we’ve been having for a while about taxation. So if
you remember back in the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney was—it was revealed
that he paid a very low rate in taxes. And that has to do with something in
private equity, in the way that private equity managers are paid. They’re paid
basically through something called carried interest. And carried interest is
essentially a sharing of the profits that the private equity fund makes. And
the arguments that people like Mitt Romney make for why that carried interest
should be taxed at a lower rate is that they say it’s ownership in the fund.
But in the Volcker Rule, carried interest is not considered ownership, and because
of that, it doesn’t count towards that 3 percent cap that I mentioned. And so,
that’s just one example of an exemption in the Volcker Rule that I fear could
be exploited by the banks.
I do think there’s a silver lining there, though. If we can get
five financial regulators—and that’s how many regulators worked on this rule—to
agree, which they have agreed, that carried interest isn’t ownership, then it
seems to me that Congress has no excuse not to change the way it’s taxed. And
it should be taxed the same way a salary is taxed and the same way that wages
are taxed. So I suppose there’s a small silver lining in that exemption.
AMY GOODMAN: When people ask, "Where is Occupy today?"
well, one of the places it is, it’s right here around this issue. Occupy Wall
Street sent a 325-page comment on the Volcker Rule. The document was cited 284
times in the actual rule. Alexis, talk about that document that you were key in
helping to write.
ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: So there were about seven of us that worked on
that. I was one of the seven. And we really tried to identify every single
place that we could find where Wall Street would exploit a loophole or run
around the rule. And so, we made a series of recommendations. We made a number
of recommended changes in the language of the law. And, you know, for the most
part, I think most of our recommendations weren’t taken verbatim, but
essentially what happened is the banks would argue for something that was
super-deregulatory; the group that I was a part of, Occupy the SEC, would argue
for strengthening the rule; and the regulators essentially, for the most part,
chose something in the middle and made both sides unhappy. But I see it as a
victory, because the needle didn’t move towards Wall Street, which is what
normally happens. Normally, we just see watering down. And there were a couple
of cases where they actually did take on the recommendations that were made.
And so, I think that this was a real victory for the public having a voice in
the process and having a voice in these laws and regulations that are normally
completely dominated by Wall Street interests, and essentially they get to
write their own rules. And so, we were able to move the needle a little bit in
the right direction in this case because of that letter.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about another issue that I’m
sure is going to come up in Congress in 2014, which is the issue of the huge
amounts of profits that U.S. corporations are holding overseas, because they
don’t want to repatriate them and have to pay full tax by bringing them back
into the country. There’s all kinds of talk, even in the Obama administration,
about some form of a tax amnesty. I’m wondering what you think—your sense is,
what’s going to happen with this issue in 2014?
ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: I think, unfortunately, the interests are
not—you know, the odds are not in our favor. I think that there’s a very, very
strong push to continue to allow these loopholes to exist. I am somewhat
optimistic, because we do at least see talk from the Obama administration about
addressing income inequality, and it seems to me that if you’re going to truly
meaningfully address income inequality, in addition to raising the minimum
wage, you need to close some of these tax loopholes. So it does seem to be a logical
extension of what the president has called the most important issue of our
time. However, you know, it’s one thing to say that in a speech; it’s another
thing to make policy changes to the tax code. I’m encouraged that we could see
policy changes to tighten these loopholes that allow them to shift things
overseas, but again, it’s always an uphill struggle, because you tighten one
loophole, and then they lobby to open up another one. So I suppose I would say
that I was cautiously optimistic that we’ll see some changes, but I’ll be
watching it closely, and I certainly remain skeptical.
AMY GOODMAN: Alexis, I wanted to ask you about, before we end, a
satirical video that The Other 98% posted around the oil giant Exxon. Let’s go
to a clip.
ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: Yes.
THE OTHER 98% AD: Here at Exxon, we hate your children. We all
know the climate crisis will rip their world apart, but we don’t care, because
it’s making us rich. That’s right. Every year, Congress gives the fossil fuel
industry over $10 billion in subsidies. That’s your tax dollars lining our
pockets. Making a fortune destroying your kids’ future, at Exxon, that’s what
we call good business. ExxonHatesYourChildren.com.
AMY GOODMAN: Alexis Goldstein, talk about it.
ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: So, this was essentially our way of bringing
to light the very real fact that ExxonMobil is a huge contributor to climate
change. They are really wrecking the planet for all of us. You know, we blew
past 350 parts per million of carbon. We’re at 450 parts per million of carbon.
And this is a corporation that receives $10 billion a year—that’s a low end of
the estimate. Some people believe the estimate for oil companies is as high as
$52 billion. And so, this is a company that not only receives a huge amount of
government assistance, they continue to operate as if they are a good corporate
actor. And I think if you took into account all of the externalities—and by
that I mean climate change, all of the natural disasters that we’ve seen, you
know, increasing temperatures, extreme weather—this is a corporation that cares
more about profits than they do about all of us living here on this planet.
And so, we were trying to poke fun at that. They actually filed
a cease-and-desist letter with Comcast so that we couldn’t air this as we
wanted to right before the State of—the president’s State of the Union earlier
this year. So, they definitely noticed. So—but I think that this was very
effective. And it’s tongue-in-cheek, but it’s also quite serious. I mean, I think
they really do hate all of us and hate our children. They certainly like their
money more than they like all of our children.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, President Obama called for an end to those
tax subsidies, hasn’t he? But where has it gone?
ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: That’s right. It’s a good question. I think
that it’s really important that we keep the pressure on, that we continue to
shame the corporate caucus and call for a true end to these subsidies, and not
just talk about it.
AMY GOODMAN: Alexis Goldstein, I want to thank you for being
with us, communications director at The Other 98%, worked for seven years on
Wall Street at Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace
Report. The Philippines is still reeling from Typhoon Haiyan, and yet they are
paying a fortune in back debt for the former dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. How is
this possible? One group is calling for forgiving the debt. Stay with us.
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U.S. Rushes Weapons to Iraq Amidst Bloody Sectarian Conflict Set
Off by 2003 Invasion
A series of attacks in Iraq over Christmas left at least 42
people dead and dozens more wounded. As Iraq faces its worst violence in years,
the United States has rushed a new shipment of Hellfire missiles to help the
Iraqi government fight militants. The CIA is also helping Iraqi forces target
militant camps with aerial strikes. According to the United Nations, more than
8,000 Iraqis have been killed this year in the worst violence since 2008. We
discuss the continued crisis in Iraq and how the Syrian conflict is affecting
the entire region, with two guests: Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-American blogger and
political analyst, and William Dunlop, a Baghdad-based correspondent for Agence
France-Presse.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: As Iraq faces the worst violence in years, the
U.S. is reportedly sending arms to the country. The New York Times reports the
United States has rushed a new shipment of Hellfire missiles to help the Iraqi
government fight militants. The CIA is also helping Iraqi forces target
militant camps with aerial strikes. U.S. and Iraqi government officials said
that about 75 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles had been sent last week. An
additional shipment of unmanned ScanEagle surveillance drones is also expected
next year.
Meanwhile, a series of attacks in Iraq over Christmas left at
least 42 people dead and dozens more wounded. The Christmas Day bombings mostly
targeted Christian areas. This is Essam Istefan, an Iraqi Christian.
ESSAM ISTEFAN: [translated] I wish on Christmas Day happiness
for Christians in Iraq and around the world, and I wish that the Iraqi people
can overcome these difficult times. And I hope for the return of happiness and
peace in the country.
AMY GOODMAN: According to the United Nations, more than 8,000
Iraqis have been killed this year in the worst violence since 2008. To talk
more about the situation in Iraq, we’re joined by two guests: in Washington,
D.C., Raed Jarrar, Iraqi-American blogger, political analyst, and in Baghdad,
William Dunlop is a correspondent for Agence France-Presse. AFP has been
keeping a regular tally of deaths across Iraq this year.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s go directly to
William Dunlop in Baghdad. Talk about the level of the violence, the numbers of
people who are dead. And is it possible we’re talking about the numbers dead
equal to the height of the Iraq War under President Bush?
WILLIAM DUNLOP: Over the course of this year, there’s been a
sharp increase in violence compared to the previous several years, in which
there was a fairly steady decline in the number of people killed. This has
especially been the case since April, after a security forces raid on an
anti-government protest site in the north, in which dozens of people were
killed in clashes. Death tolls spiked after that raid and have remained at a
highly elevated level for the remainder of the year.
The tolls we’re seeing this year are currently around the levels
of seen in 2008, so not quite the worst years of the Iraq War, which were 2006,
2007, the height of the sectarian killings that took place here, but
approaching that level and, ultimately, a level of violence that has not been
seen since near the height of America’s military presence in Iraq. So now Iraqi
security forces are effectively left to face this heightened violence alone.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, William Dunlop, what’s been the impact on
the ability of the government to function or to provide basic services to its
people? There are elections coming up in April. What’s going to be the impact
on that?
WILLIAM DUNLOP: In terms of basic services, they remain severely
lacking, both in terms of clean water and electricity, throughout the country.
It’s not necessarily—violence is not the only issue that’s impacting that;
corruption and delays in building up the power grid are also affecting those
services.
As far as generally functioning, most of the government is
headquartered in the Green Zone, which is a highly secure area in central
Baghdad, so its most high-ranking officials are effectively shielded from the
impact of violence by working in this area. Nonetheless, there has been severe
political deadlock plaguing the country, you could say, since—for several years
now. Major legislation has languished in Parliament. Not much has been done on
a governmental level.
There are parliamentary elections coming up on April 30th.
Depending on the results, that could result in some changes in the Cabinet and
potentially as—in prime minister, as well. However, after the preceding
elections in 2010, it took almost nine months for a government to be formed,
and if that happens again, that’s only going to add to the instability.
AMY GOODMAN: Christian communities in Iraq celebrated Christmas
Eve mass in Baghdad Tuesday. The service was also attended by Iraq’s leader of
the Islamic Supreme Council, Ammar al-Hakim.
AMMAR AL-HAKIM: [translated] They are targeting us as they are
targeting you, too, because in this country there are those who believe in
killing all those that will disagree with them. They think that the people
should think in the same way and with one logic. You can see there are Shiite
and Sunni Muslims who disagree with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,
al-Qaeda and other extremist groups, and they are killed. You’re a target for
them, and therefore we are partners in our shared goals and in the challenge.
And we will remain partners in confronting extremism, violence and terrorism.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the significance of who was
coming together? And also, what is the cause of the violence, William Dunlop?
WILLIAM DUNLOP: Generally, it’s—there are two main factors that
have contributed to the rise in violence this year. One is primarily internal,
which is widespread discontent among Iraq’s minority Sunni Arab community, who
complain of being marginalized economically and politically by the Shiite-led
government, and additionally of being unjustly targeted with heavy-handed
security measures such as mass arrests and closing off of neighborhoods. That
is creating a lot of anger among that community, sparked protests that have
continued for almost a year. And ultimately, that level of anger has made it
easier for militant groups to operate in certain Sunni areas. Additionally, it
has eased recruitment for these groups and provided an additional motivation
for them to carry out attacks.
There’s also an external factor, which is the civil war in
Syria, which has seen various hardline jihadist-type groups establish bases in
rebel-held areas. Senior Iraqi security officials are also saying that that
conflict has resulted in guns and fighters moving back and forth across the
border areas in western Iraq and also the re-establishment of some al-Qaeda
bases that had been abandoned in previous years.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We’re also joined by Raed Jarrar in—from
Washington, D.C., Iraqi-American blogger and analyst. Could you tell us what
your sense is of this astonishing rise in the violence in Iraq?
RAED JARRAR: I don’t think many Iraqis are surprised because the
levels of violence are up again, because the reasons for violence existed all
along and have not been addressed adequately by the current Iraqi authorities.
So, people expect—in Iraq, they expect to see some periods of less violence and
periods of more violence. But as your other guest indicated, violence is only
one indicator of the failure of the Iraqi government. There are many other
indicators that Iraqis live on a daily basis, including the complete collapse
of the infrastructure, the unprecedented levels of political and financial
corruptions in the country. Iraq is still among the top five most corrupt
countries in the world, according to Transparency International. So, the
reasons of the violence that were installed in Iraq after the U.S. invasion of
2003, by creating a sectarian government, have not been addressed. And I think
as long as Iraq continues to have this sectarian dysfunctional government, the
country will continue to go through these cycles of violence.
AMY GOODMAN: Last month, the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri
al-Maliki, asked the United States to provide more military aid, including
weapons, to help combat Iraq’s worst violence in five years. He was speaking at
the United States Institute for Peace.
PRIME MINISTER NOURI AL-MALIKI: [translated] We do not tell the
world to stand by us and support us. Rather, we have a right to ask of the
world because we are part of them, and because if what happens in Iraq is not
dealt with, it will expand. And what happens in Syria, if not dealt with, will
also expand. And what happens in any country where the virus of terrorism
lives, this virus will spread.
AMY GOODMAN: The U.S. and Iraqi government officials said about
75 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles have been sent to Iraq, also an additional
shipment of unmanned ScanEagle surveillance drones also expected. Raed Jarrar,
what about the significance of this and the U.S. relationship with the Iraqi
government?
RAED JARRAR: This is one of the most puzzling geopolitical
realities. The U.S. has been funding and training and supporting the same
government that has been funded and trained by Iran. So, unlike other parts of
the Middle East where Iran and the United States have somewhat of a proxy
war—like in Lebanon, for example, where the U.S. funds and supports opponents
of those parties funded by Iran—in Iraq, both governments, the American—the
United States and the Iranian governments, have been supporting the same
leaders in Iraq.
And I think that the most recent shipment of weapons reaffirms
this strategic alliance between the U.S. and Iran inside Iraq, betting on the
same horses. I think this, in addition to the most recent agreements between
the U.S. and the Syrian government and the U.S. and the Iranian government, or
at least the negotiations, are sending very alarming messages to the region
that the U.S. will continue to take sides within domestic conflicts. And in
Iraq, it seems that the U.S. will continue to support the Iraqi government that
has been accused for years of being behind torture and assassinations and the
killing its own people.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Raed, what do you make of the issue of the
neighboring civil war in Syria and its impact on the escalating violence in
Iraq?
RAED JARRAR: I mean, it’s—the situation in Syria is so close to
Iraq that I don’t think the word "neighboring," you know, explains it
anymore. It’s all in the same conflict now. This is turning into one huge
regional conflict. And as your other guest indicated, the events in Syria are
affecting the bordering areas in Iraq. Because of many of the new political
realities in the region, unfortunately, many Iraqis and Syrians and others in
the Arab world are identifying more with their sectarian background than their
national background. So you find many Iraqi Sunnis who will identify more now
with a Syrian Sunni than with an Iraqi Shia. And in reality, this is the new
map that is being drawn in the region.
So what’s going on in Syria has direct implications on the
situation in Iraq. Iraq is heavily involved in the Syrian conflict. The Iraqi
government, through the Iranian government, has been supporting the Syrian
government against the uprising. The, of course, Iraqi—the majority of Iraqi
Sunnis are not happy about the Iraqi government’s support to Bashar al-Assad’s
regime. And this is creating more conflict inside the country. So this is
turning into one large sectarian regional conflict that spreads all the way
from Iran to Lebanon. Even this morning’s explosion in Beirut falls within
these new fault lines.
AMY GOODMAN: Last week, Democracy Now! spoke to Patrick Cockburn,
Middle East correspondent for The Independent of Britain. He talked about Saudi
Arabia’s role in the various conflicts in the Middle East.
PATRICK COCKBURN: Saudi Arabia has, through a distribution of
arms contracts, through its money, sort of made itself part of the
international establishment, in which normally foreign leaders visiting Saudi
Arabia are—don’t bring up these delicate topics and put very little pressure on
the Saudis to do anything about it. But, you know, it is one of the—it enables
the Saudis to really go on supporting jihadi organizations at the state or
private level, in the same way that they were doing in Afghanistan,
post-Afghanistan, when they supported the Taliban, before 9/11, after 9/11,
during Iraq, after Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, what about that, Will Dunlop in Baghdad, the
role of Saudi Arabia? And I’d also like to get Raed Jarrar’s comment.
WILLIAM DUNLOP: Neighboring countries definitely have an impact
on what’s going on in Iraq. It’s sometimes hard to pinpoint who is directly
providing financing to any specific groups, however.
AMY GOODMAN: Raed, the role of Saudi Arabia?
RAED JARRAR: I mean, it’s more complicated than the conventional
wisdom in the U.S., I think, especially after the coup in Egypt, where Saudi
Arabia funded a coup d’état against what seems to be a Sunni religious regime
in Egypt. I mean, conventional wisdom would have concluded that Saudi Arabia
would support the Muslim Brotherhood rather than conspire to bring them down.
So, the Saudi role in the region is prominent. It is a major player. But they
have so many other geopolitical calculations, including keeping them as the
main leader of Sunnis as an authority, the main authority of Sunnis. So
sometimes it ends up being more of a competition between them and other Sunni
Arab groups in the region. The Saudi role in Iraq hasn’t been as prominent as
the Iranian or American roles in Iraq, not even close to that. So they haven’t
been really supporting the Iraqi major Sunni groups or funding them the same way
that Iran has been funding their allies or the U.S. funding its allies. So it’s
a little bit more exaggerated in Iraq, but of course it is one of the main
regional players.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Raed, what do you see as the prospects for
some kind of relative peace—we’re not talking about absolute peace here, but
some kind of relative peace—in Iraq right now? What would have to happen to
sharply diminish the escalating violence that’s occurring now?
RAED JARRAR: I mean, that’s the $1 million question. I think, a
few years ago, many people, including myself, advocated for a swift end of the
U.S. military intervention and occupation. And many people cautioned that the
longer the U.S. military intervention continues in Iraq, the more tragic the
consequences would be. Unfortunately, by the time that the U.S. left in 2011,
after more than 20 years of military intervention—this is a military
intervention that started in January of 1991 and did not end until December
2011—the country has been destroyed completely. And the effects of the U.S.
military intervention can be still felt until today.
So I think we need a very dramatic change of the foundation of
the governance in Iraq to stop violence there—actually, the governance in the
entire region. We’re dealing with a wave of sectarian politics that might
redraw a new map of the region, a map that is not based on the current
nation-state lines that were drawn in 1916 and 1920, but a map that is based on
sectarian and religious affiliations. So these are way larger. These are, you
know, huge forces that take decades to change—people’s national identities,
people’s political belonging, you know, massive movements of transfer, of
migrations of people. So, unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to end
violence. And it seems that the upcoming years will be even more violent than
what we’ve seen.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about this top story that’s
happening in Lebanon, Raed. You just alluded to it before. The victims—top
target in Lebanon, Mohamad Chatah, seems to have been killed, along with a
number others, Lebanon’s former foreign minister. Chatah was an aide to former
Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and a vocal critic of Bashar al-Assad. And Saad
al-Hariri was the son of Rafiq al-Hariri, who was assassinated, the former
prime minister of Lebanon. Talk about the significance of this.
RAED JARRAR: It’s a very symbolic attack. The assassination
happened a few yards away from the assassination of Saad al-Hariri’s father a
few years ago, the same location of Beirut. The assassination of the former
minister, Chatah, who was assassinated this morning, is more symbolic, because
he is the least protected member of that team. He doesn’t have the same type of
security, because he’s a former member of the government. It was easier for
whomever assassinated him to kill him there. I think it is seen overall as
another escalation, and many people are reading it as a political message,
following the attack on the Iranian embassy in Beirut. So, these car bombs are
turning into political messagings. You know, one bomb attacks an embassy. A
couple of weeks after that, one bomb kills a former minister. So, it’s really
ugly. Many people are comparing what’s going on now to the Lebanese civil war,
where political messages are starting to be sent through car bombs rather than
TV channels.
AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar, I want to thank you for being with us,
Iraqi-American blogger and analyst, and Will Dunlop, for joining us from
Baghdad, AFP correspondent there. We’ll link to your reports. Please be safe.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace
Report. When we come back, the bonuses that are going to bankers in the United
States. Stay with us.
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How Can the Philippines Recover from Typhoon Haiyan While Forced
to Pay Off Ex-Dictator’s Old Debt?
While the Philippines struggles to rebuild after Typhoon Haiyan,
the country is being forced to continue paying out billions of dollars in debt
to the World Bank and other lenders. Haiyan, the strongest typhoon to ever hit
land, affected more than 14 million people in 44 provinces in the central
Philippines, killing 6,000, displacing more than four million, leaving nearly
1,800 missing, and damaging about one million homes. On Christmas Eve, the
Philippines reached a grim milestone: $1 billion in debt payments since the
typhoon hit. Some of those debts are from the corrupt and abusive regime of
Ferdinand Marcos, which enjoyed the early backing of the Ronald Reagan
administration. During their 20 years in power, the Marcoses embezzled $5 to
$10 billion from their people, a debt Filipinos continue to carry today. To
explain the debt and how the country is coping after the storm, we are joined
by Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to the Philippines, where the
holidays were observed with a mixture of gratitude and somberness, as the
country continues to recover from Typhoon Haiyan, which reduced almost
everything in its path to rubble two months ago. Haiyan, the strongest typhoon
to ever hit land, affected more than 14 million people in 44 provinces in the
central Philippines. It killed at least 6,000 people, displaced more than four
million residents, and damaged about one million houses, leaving nearly 1,800
people missing.
On Saturday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
visited Tacloban, the epicenter of the typhoon, and urged international
community to scale up support for Philippines recovery and reconstruction
efforts.
SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON: I was deeply moved and also
inspired by my visit to Tacloban. People are working hard to recover. We must
not allow this to be another forgotten crisis. I urge all donors to add to
their already generous response so that we can help communities to build back
better and safer.
AMY GOODMAN: That was U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. This
week, the U.N. announced an appeal for $800 million in international
humanitarian relief. So far, only 30 percent of the target has been met.
Amidst the ongoing crisis, some may be shocked to learn that the
Philippines’ debt repayments far overshadow all the Typhoon Haiyan relief
assistance to date. On Christmas Eve, the Philippines reached a grim milestone:
$1 billion in debt payments since the typhoon hit. Some of those debts are from
the corrupt and abusive regime of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, which enjoyed the
early backing of the Reagan administration. In the 1980s, the White House
described Marcos as, quote, "an old friend and longtime ally." During
their 20 years in power, the Marcoses embezzled $5 to $10 billion from their
people, according to a joint U.N. and World Bank report. It’s a debt Filipinos
continue to carry today.
For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Eric
LeCompte. He is the executive director of Jubilee USA Network.
Eric, welcome to Democracy Now! Talk about this debt and what
this means, given how hard hit the Philippines is from the typhoon.
ERIC LECOMPTE: Well, I think, as you explained, the devastation
is absolutely horrific on the ground. Six thousand people have died. There’s
been economic losses of over $15 billion. And there’s a reality, as 10 to 12
typhoons continue to hit the country every year, they’re unprepared for climate
change and future catastrophic typhoons, which are expected to arrive and hit
shore over the next 10 years. So when we’re looking at the amount of aid so
far, it’s been absolutely incredible how countries around the world have
delivered about $350 million in aid, $51 million from the U.S. government
alone, but it’s completely dwarfed by the debt payments that are continued to
be made by the country of the Philippines. They’re paying down over $60 billion
in debt. This year alone, they will pay over $6.7 billion; since the typhoon
hit, over a billion dollars. So, we see that the amount of debt is
unsustainable. Over 20 percent of the income of the Philippines goes towards
paying down the debt.
And what makes this whole situation even worse is that the roots
of this debt are from the corrupt regime of Ferdinand Marcos. And, you know,
Ferdinand Marcos, under his dictatorship in the Philippines, more than 3,000
people were killed; 35,000 people were tortured. You know, I was 10 years old
when finally the nonviolent revolution unseated the dictatorship of Ferdinand
Marcos. And I will never forget seeing the television images of Imelda Marcos’s
shoe collection of over 3,000 designer pairs of shoes. While the country was in
poverty, while people were being tortured, this couple was embezzling between
$5 and $10 billion. So, we have to understand that in the current context of
what’s happening in the Philippines, that there’s no way the country can get
back on its feet without dealing with this unsustainable debt, with its roots
in the corrupt Marcos regime.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Eric, your mention of the Marcos regime—I
want to turn to an interview that Al Jazeera correspondent Veronica Pedrosa did
with Imelda Marcos. This is an excerpt.
VERONICA PEDROSA: He enriched himself, didn’t he?
IMELDA MARCOS: How would he? He was rich.
VERONICA PEDROSA: You were enriching yourselves.
IMELDA MARCOS: He was rich. He was rich when he and I got
married. In fact, before he became president, he was number four. And you can
see that in an interview in the Reader’s Digest. He was number four in the
payment of taxes.
VERONICA PEDROSA: But, Mrs. Marcos, isn’t it true that $10
billion of the Philippine treasury money went missing?
IMELDA MARCOS: It’s not true. It’s not true, because then we—I
should have been in jail already. I’ll show you the documents.
VERONICA PEDROSA: Well, where is the money, though, madam? If
you—it’s OK, you can—yeah.
IMELDA MARCOS: We have not stolen any money.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Imelda Marcos being interviewed by
Veronica Pedrosa of Al Jazeera. I wanted to ask you, the Marcoses have
been—were overthrown decades ago, and how is it possible that the debt is still
being paid by the Philippine government?
ERIC LECOMPTE: Well, a big part of it is interest rates. So, you
know, what we know is that the government, the dictatorship, took out more than
$25 billion in loans, that we know of, that we’re aware of, and that the
principal of many of those loans have been paid. But what’s remarkable is that
the interest rates have grown to such amount that, you know, the loans have
continued to grow. I think one of the problems that we’re seeing—and this isn’t
a problem that’s just endemic to the Philippines—but the reality of it is, is
of this $60 billion of debt, we don’t know completely who it’s owed to, what
the $60 billion paid for, what benefits happened from the $60 billion, and, you
know, whether or not the government of the Philippines at any time, even
recently, has sought approval of its people in order to transact and to be able
to take loans.
AMY GOODMAN: Where was the embezzled money? Why can’t it be
found?
ERIC LECOMPTE: Well, you know, so—that’s a U.N. and a World Bank
report that say from—what their estimates—and their estimates range between $5
billion and $10 billion. I’m sure for many of the listeners of Democracy Now!,
there’s quite a difference between $5 billion and $10 billion. It’s astounding
that these are just projections. These are just estimates. You know, much of
this money was hidden by the Marcos regime. And as the Marcoses fled the
Philippines, they certainly took a lot of that money with them.
I think one of the issues that we’re dealing with in the
international financial system is also how our financial system supports
corruption. Through the use of tax havens, through the use of secret bank
accounts, many corrupt officials continue to be able to hide moneys around the
world. And I think these are some of the problems that—you know, it’s much
bigger than just the Philippines, when we’re counting debt right now in the
trillions of dollars around the world, that the financial crisis was caused by
high indebtedness, by speculation, and, you know, the international financial
system still is not providing rules to deal with these problems.
And when we go back to the Philippines, you know, there still
aren’t even rules in place in the Philippines, like in many countries around
the world, where a country’s leader needs to seek approval from even their
parliament or their congress in order to take out loans and spend that money.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Eric, can you just talk about what you’re
calling for?
ERIC LECOMPTE: So, you know, specifically in terms of the
Philippines, we join our partners at Jubilee Asia-Pacific and the Freedom from
Debt Coalition on the ground in the Philippines, and we’re asking President Jim
Kim of the World Bank to immediately have a moratorium on debt payments. The
World Bank, as well as the Asian Development Bank, hold the majority of loans
in the Philippines right now. So we want a moratorium on the debt.
The second part, which is critical, is there needs to be a
public, independent audit. We need to know what the money was spent on, where
the money went, how the money was approved, and where the money is now, and
actually who all the money is loaned—is owed to. And I think these are critical
things in regards to the Philippines.
More broadly, for us at Jubilee USA and our international
partners, you know, we want to see debt audits take place around the world. We
want to see the implementation of an international bankruptcy process to work
out these unsustainable debts. And we want to see basic regulations for
responsible lending and borrowing implemented in the international financial
system.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And we just have about 20 seconds, and you said
that the World Bank has most of the debt, but do you know any of the major U.S.
banks that have a portion of the Philippine debt?
ERIC LECOMPTE: So, about 5 percent of the debt right now is
either held by the U.S. government or by U.S. banks, again, going back to the
Marcos regime. Without an audit, we don’t know the exact breakdowns. So that’s
why an audit is so important right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Eric LeCompte, we want to thank you for being with
us, executive director of Jubilee USA.
-------
How Can the Philippines Recover from Typhoon Haiyan While Forced
to Pay Off Ex-Dictator's Old Debt?
While the Philippines struggles to rebuild after Typhoon Haiyan,
the country is being forced to continue paying out billions of dollars in debt
to the World Bank and other lenders. Haiyan, the ... Read More →
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HEADLINES:
Ex-Minister Among 5 Dead in Lebanon Bombing
A car bombing in the Lebanese capital of Beirut has left at
least five people dead. The victims included the attack’s apparent target,
Mohamad Chatah, Lebanon’s former finance minister. Chatah was an aide to former
Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and a vocal critic of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad. Much of Beirut was put on lockdown after the blast.
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U.S. Drone Strike Kills 4 in Pakistan
A U.S. drone strike in Pakistan has killed four people. The
attack hit a compound in the tribal region of North Waziristan. Pakistani
officials described the victims as Afghan members of the Haqqani militant
group. The strike came amidst ongoing protests against the U.S. drone war. On
Thursday, demonstrators briefly blocked a NATO supply route near the city of
Quetta.
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African Leaders Mediate Talks in South Sudan
Fighting is continuing in South Sudan amidst mediation efforts
by African countries. The leaders of Ethiopia and Kenya are in the capital Juba
in a bid to end fighting between government forces and rebels loyal to the
country’s ousted former vice president. The United Nations says the violence
has claimed more than 1,000 lives and displaced tens of thousands more. Rebels
have now captured half of the capital in South Sudan’s main oil producing
state, the Upper Nile. Hilde Johnson, head of the U.N. mission in South Sudan,
said the country is facing its worst crisis since gaining independence from
Sudan two years ago.
Hilde Johnson: "These past 11 days have been a very trying
time for South Sudan and for all citizens of this newborn nation. What has
happened this last week has, for many of them, brought back the nightmares of
the past. The nationhood, painstakingly built over decades of conflict and
strife, is at stake."
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Dozens Killed, Mass Grave Uncovered in Central African Republic
Dozens of people have been killed this week in continued
fighting in the Central African Republic. Muslim and Christian militias have
battled the other and attacked civilian areas since fighting erupted earlier
this month. The Red Cross says it has recovered 44 bodies in the streets of the
capital over the last two days. A mass grave with 30 bodies was also reportedly
found near a Muslim rebel base.
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Egypt Arrests Dozens of Muslim Brotherhood Members Following
"Terrorism" Designation
The military government in Egypt has pressed ahead with its
crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood one day after declaring the group a
terrorist organization. On Thursday, dozens of Brotherhood members were
arrested and their assets seized. Over a thousand groups also had their bank
accounts frozen, including a network of hospitals. The terrorism designation
marks a new escalation of the campaign against the Brotherhood since the ouster
of President Mohamed Morsi in July. On Thursday, one person was killed as
Brotherhood supporters clashed with rivals in Cairo. The State Department says
it has "expressed concern" to the Egyptian government over its latest
moves.
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Israel Bombs Gaza; Closure Threatens Power Plant
Israeli forces have bombed the Gaza Strip for the second time in
three days. The latest strikes came after Palestinian militants fired rockets
into southern Israel, causing no damage. Israel has also cut off its lone commercial
crossing into Gaza, stopping the import of critical fuel for Gaza’s lone power
plant. Palestinians say the plant will again be forced to shut down unless the
crossing reopens today.
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44 Killed, 60,000 Displaced in Brazil Flooding
Brazil continues to grapple with massive flooding in its
southeast. The death toll from weeks of torrential rains stands at 44, with
more than 60,000 left homeless. It is the worst rain storm to hit Brazil in 90
years.
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Kidnapped U.S. Citizen Issues Video Plea to Obama
A U.S. citizen kidnapped by al-Qaeda in Pakistan has appeared in
a new video appeal to President Obama. Warren Weinstein was working as a U.S.
government contractor when he was seized two years ago. Al-Qaeda has said it
will free him if the United States stops air strikes in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, and frees al-Qaeda prisoners, among other demands. On the tape,
Weinstein asks President Obama to help win his release.
Warren Weinstein: "It seems that I have been totally
abandoned and forgotten. You are now in your second term as president of the
United States. And that means that you can now take hard decisions without
worrying about re-election. And so I again appeal to you to instruct your
appropriate officials to negotiate my release."
Weinstein goes on to say his captors have agreed to let his
family members visit him if the United States allows the same courtesy to its
al-Qaeda prisoners.
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U.N. Seeks Answers from U.S., Yemen on Drone Strike
A pair of U.N. experts has asked the United States and Yemen to
account for a suspected drone strike that reportedly killed up to 15 people
earlier this month. The victims were on their way to a wedding when they were
apparently mistaken for an al-Qaeda convoy. In a statement, Christof Heyns,
U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions,
called on the United States and Yemen to confirm their responsibility for the
attack. Juan Méndez, U.N. special rapporteur on torture, said bombing an
illegitimate target such as a convoy of civilians would amount to "cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment."
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Okinawa Approves Relocation of U.S. Base
A plan to relocate a U.S. military base on the island of Okinawa
has won local approval after a multi-year dispute. The Okinawa governor has
signed onto a U.S. effort to move the base to a more remote area. A movement of
Okinawa residents has opposed the base altogether and pushed for ousting U.S.
forces off the island, citing environmental concerns and sexual assaults by
U.S. soldiers on local residents. The United States maintains 34 bases and
18,000 troops on Okinawa.
-------
Ice Storm Toll Hits 27 in U.S., Canada
More than 100,000 people remained without power in Maine on
Thursday after an ice storm that swept up from the Midwest. Freezing
temperatures over the past several days have killed 27 people, 17 in the United
States and 10 in Canada.
-------
Obama Signs Pentagon, Budget Laws
President Obama has signed into law the two major congressional
measures of the past month: a Pentagon spending bill and a new budget for 2014.
The military bill bars the transfer of Guantánamo Bay prisoners to the United
States, but frees up their release to foreign countries. In a signing
statement, Obama called the U.S. transfer ban "unwise" and said he
will continue to work for its removal. The measure also keeps military sexual
assault cases within the chain of command while adding some new protections for
survivors. The budget bill averts a government shutdown early next year, but
ignores the extension of jobless benefits for the unemployment that expired
this week.
-------
U.S. Appeals Court Overturns Conviction of Clergy Official for
Hiding Child Abuse
An appeals court has overturned the conviction of a top-ranking
clergyman of Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic Church for covering up child sexual
abuse by Philadelphia priests. Monsignor William Lynn was found guilty last
year of hiding the molestation by transferring predatory priests to
unsuspecting congregations. He was the highest-ranking U.S. church official to
be convicted of covering up child abuse to date. But on Thursday, Lynn’s
conviction was overturned after a judge ruled he was not legally responsible
for a victim’s welfare. Lynn remains jailed pending an expected appeal by
prosecutors, but his attorneys will now seek his release on bail.
-------
First Greenpeace Arctic 30 Members Leave Russia
Members of the Greenpeace Arctic 30 have begun leaving Russia
after charges were formally dropped earlier this week. The group of 28 activists
and two journalists were jailed for two months for trying to stop Russian oil
drilling in the Arctic. On his way home to Sweden, activist Dmitri Litvinov
vowed to remain involved in anti-drilling protests.
Dmitri Litvinov: "I’m glad that this chapter is over, but
the book still remains to be written. As long as there is threat for the
Arctic, as long as multinational companies, like Gazprom, like Shell, like
Exxon, and the puppet regimes are intent on raping the Arctic, we will
certainly continue to fight against that and to work towards a sane
future."
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