10 Sept - AlterNet

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When Cocaine and Monsanto's Pesticide Collide, the War on Drugs Becomes a Genetically-Modified War on Science

Back in April, Argentinean embryologist Andrés Carrasco gave an interview with a Buenos Aires newspaper describing his recent findings suggesting the chemical glyphosate, a chemical herbicide widely used in agriculture as well as in U.S. anti-narcotic efforts, could cause defects in fetuses in much smaller doses than those to which peasants and farmers in his country were already being exposed. Loud calls for a ban on the substance were issued by Argentinean environmental lawyers, and the country's Ministry of Defense banned the planting of glyphosate-resistant soya crops in its fields.

Then came the backlash. An article in an Argentinean paper recently reported that Carrasco was assaulted in a way he described as "violent" by four men associated with agricultural interests:

Two of the men were said to be members of an agrochemical industry body but refused to give their names. The other two claimed to be a lawyer and notary. They apparently interrogated Dr. Carrasco and demanded to see details of the experiments. They left a card Basílico, Andrada & Santurio, attorneys on behalf of Felipe Alejandro Noël.

It's still unclear who these people are. But the interest in keeping such information quiet or discrediting Carrasco and his findings are strongest with Monsanto, the agricultural company who first patented a glyphosate product (sold as Roundup) and also created genetically-modified crops specifically to resist the herbicide.

GRAIN, an international non-profit supporting small-scale farmers and biodiversity in community agriculture, originally reported the story, evidently before the reports of threats against Carrasco were known. GRAIN has also done extensive reporting on Monsanto's genetically-modified soya crops in Argentina (which, according to the group, have increased five-fold since their introduction there, and have taken over more than half of Argentina's farmland) as well as on the use of glyphosate (which has increased fourteen-fold since its introduction, contrary to Monsanto's promises that its crop would decrease pesticide use). The so-called "Roundup Ready" crops have interbred with other plants, creating "superweeds" which in turn necessitate the use of other poisonous herbicides such as atrazine.

The dangers of glyphosate are hotly debated. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does regulate the allowable amount in drinking water, but the data it has on the dangers of the chemical are all nearly two decades old, and many studies were sponsored by Monsanto. But rural agricultural workers across South America have been protesting the spraying for well over a decade, pointing to increases in local cancer rates and birth defects as proof.

The Transnational Institute (TNI), a nonpartisan international group of scholars, has drawn attention to the inconsistencies and basic errors in studies refuting the dangers of glyphosate. This should come as no surprise, since Monsanto has been involved in several known cases of scientific fraud regarding the same chemical, wherein the EPA found multiple instances in which labs were paid to falsify preferred results for the company. Monsanto has also been charged in multiple jurisdictions for disseminating misleading information about its Roundup products.

Yet, glyphosate is still the top-selling herbicide around the world. And it's not just used to kill weeds, either. The U.S. military sprays glyphosate from airplanes onto drug crops as part of its worldwide anti-narcotic strategy. The best known example of such an effort was named Plan Colombia by the Clinton Administration and persists today.

But punishment is meted out unequally. Because glyphosate is an herbicide and is not specifically targeted to work against drug crops (as is easily deduced by the fact that it's used against coca and poppy plants as well as against household weeds in the U.S.), the spray kills legitimate crops, too.

That is, unless you're growing Monsanto's specially-formulated "Roundup Ready" crops. The you can spray nearly unlimited amounts of the stuff, which is what it seems farmers (as well as the U.S. military) are doing.

It seems that the whole operation may have backfired though, at least from the perspective of the governments that are promoting such a strategy. The effort has lead to coca growers cutting down national forests -- where such spraying is often against the law -- to produce their illicit crops. But Mother Nature may be rebelling against drug policy as well. coca plants appear to be either evolving on their own (or with the help of coca farmers' active selection) -- or they are possibly crossing with Roundup Ready crops already on the ground -- to produce a glyphosate-resistant crop known as Boliviana negra.

One TNI study looked at the political and commercial motives for continuing to spray the chemical on drug crops in South America regardless of findings that the effort is counterproductive at best:

It is true that the United States is behind fumigation, backed by the economic interests of companies such as Monsanto and DynCorp, who share in this lucrative business -– which is one of the reasons it meets with opposition. But it is also true that the disastrous consequences of the current anti-drug policy, of which fumigation is but one component, are a reality that surpasses ideologies, and the nations that suffer its consequences firsthand must find a solution instead of becoming polarised...

Colombia would not fumigate if it weren’t for pressure from the US. It would be implementing other forms of eradication or offering alternative development programmes that provide income to the population.

The group suggested that South American countries band together to refuse U.S. anti-narcotic spraying on environmental and human safety grounds, as has been done in Afghanistan.

In 2004, Joshua Davis had the Boliviana negra plant tested to determine its provenance for Wired Magazine. He concludes that the glyphosate-resistant coca plant he found in Colombia was most likely developed in the fields by farmers grafting on chance genetic mutations.

But the resulting article is perhaps most interesting for the taciturn response on all sides of the issue. Davis suggests that South American authorities don't want to talk about the situation because the revelation might cost countries that receive a large amount of U.S. aid to combat drug traffickers. The U.S. government doesn't want coca farmers who don't already know to find out about the new strain, because it can still eradicate old strains with glyphosate. And drug growers who do have the new strain certainly don't want the status quo to end, because currently the U.S. government is doing their weeding for free.

But on the larger cost-benefit analysis, the biggest winner is Monsanto. The more Roundup Ready crops there are out there, the more Roundup farmers need to get rid of the weeds, as is evidenced by the GRAIN research in Argentina. The real foe of Monsanto is not drug cartels or government entities. It's scientists.

When you put together the studies referenced above, which show that spraying glyphosate is harmful to humans and the environment and that it does not hamper the production of coca or weeds, the answer to almost everyone's problems is eliminating Monsanto.

So while there's no solid proof that the men threatening Andrés Carrasco belong to the same corporation that falsified lab results on the harm caused by glyphosate or the group that told lies about Roundup, there's no doubt in my mind that they belong in the same sick club.

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Spanish Judge Resumes Torture Case Against Six Senior Bush Lawyers

The Spanish newspaper Público reported exclusively on Saturday that Judge Baltasar Garzón is pressing ahead with a case against six senior Bush administration lawyers for implementing torture at Guantánamo.

Back in March, Judge Garzón announced that he was planning to investigate the six prime architects of the Bush administration's torture policies -- former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; John Yoo, a former lawyer in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, who played a major role in the preparation of the OLC's notorious "torture memos"; Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy; William J. Haynes II, the Defense Department's former general counsel; Jay S. Bybee, Yoo's superior in the OLC, who signed off on the August 2002 "torture memos"; and David Addington, former Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff.

In April, on the advice of the Spanish Attorney General Cándido Conde-Pumpido, who believes that an American tribunal should judge the case (or dismiss it) before a Spanish court even thinks about becoming involved, prosecutors recommended that Judge Garzón should drop his investigation. As CNN reported, Mr. Conde-Pumpido told reporters that Judge Garzón's plans threatened to turn the court "into a toy in the hands of people who are trying to do a political action."

On Saturday, however, Público reported that Judge Garzón had accepted a lawsuit presented by a number of Spanish organizations -- the Asociación Pro Dignidad de los Presos y Presas de España (Organization for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners), Asociación Libre de Abogados (Free Lawyers Association), the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España (Association for Human Rights in Spain) and Izquierda Unida (a left-wing political party) -- and three former Guantánamo prisoners (the British residents Jamil El-Banna and Omar Deghayes, and Sami El-Laithi, an Egyptian freed in 2005, who was paralyzed during an incident involving guards at Guantánamo).

The newspaper reported that all these groups and individuals would take part in any trial, which is somewhat ironic, as, although Judge Garzón has been involved in high-profile cases that have delighted human rights advocates -- his pursuit of General Pinochet, for example -- he has been severely criticized for his heavy-handed approach to terrorism-related cases in Spain (as in the cases of Mohammed Farsi and Farid Hilali, amongst others), and, in fact, aggressively pursued an extradition request for both Jamil El-Banna and Omar Deghayes on their return from Guantánamo to the UK in December 2007, in connection with spurious and long-refuted claims about activities related to terrorism, which he was only persuaded to drop in March 2008.

Next page »

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Norman Finkelstein: Why I resigned from the Gaza Freedom March coalition

( Extracted from statement )

The original consensus of the International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza was that we would limit our statement to a pair of uncontroversial, basic and complementary principles that would have the broadest possible appeal: the march to break the siege would be nonviolent and anchored in international law.

I agreed with this approach and consequent statement and decided to remove myself from the steering committee in order to invest my full energies in mobilizing for the march. During the week beginning August 30, 2009 and in a matter of days an entirely new sectarian agenda dubbed “the political context” was foisted on those who originally signed on and worked tirelessly for three months.

Because it drags in contentious issues that—however precious to different constituencies—are wholly extraneous to the narrow but critical goal of breaking the siege this new agenda is gratuitously divisive and it is almost certain that it will drastically reduce the potential reach of our original appeal.

It should perhaps be stressed that the point of dispute was not whether one personally supported a particular Palestinian right or strategy to end the occupation. It was whether inclusion in the coalition’s statement of a particular right or strategy was necessary if it was both unrelated to the immediate objective of breaking the siege and dimmed the prospect of a truly mass demonstration.

An Army of Home-Schooled "Christian Soldiers" On a Mission to "Take Back America for God"

Reprinted from Write These Laws On Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling by Robert Kunzman. Copyright © 2009 by Robert Kunzman. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston.

Generation Joshua and HSLDA

“A Few Good Soldiers”

“America is in a culture war. A few good soldiers can make a difference. Equip yourself and come join the battle!” So proclaimed the founders of Generation Joshua, a civics program from the Home School Legal Defense Association begun in 2003. “Our goal is to ignite a vision in young people to help America return to her Judeo-Christian foundation,” its leaders explained. “We provide students with hands-on opportunities to implement that vision.” As I began my homeschooling research six years ago, the birth of Generation Joshua caught my attention. Here was a civics education program aimed at homeschoolers, one that clearly sought to help nurture in students an idea and practice of citizenship informed and energized by their deep religious convictions. Perhaps the homeschooler president of Michael Farris’s dream would emerge from such an education.

Designed primarily for high-school-aged students, Generation Joshua combines online components with periodic opportunities for face-to-face interaction and real-world political engagement. The online elements of the program include extensive civics coursework, adult-moderated “chats” about current events, and thousands of bulletin-board forums where students can post entries on topics ranging from immigration reform and international relations to popular movies and rules for courtship.

This civics education program extends far beyond a virtual electronic community, however. Students are encouraged to participate in summer camps, voter registration drives, regional clubs, and an intriguing feature called Student Action Teams (SATs). These adult-supervised teams of students engage directly with the political process through participation in electoral campaigns. In fact, several victorious candidates for state and national offices have credited SATs with playing a pivotal role in their races.

But assisting with current political contests, while certainly appreciated by candidates, is ultimately a means to a much broader end. An ABC World News Tonight profile described Generation Joshua as developing “Christian soldiers with a mission to take back America for God, ”and GenJ leadership clearly agrees. Founding director Ned Ryun designed a strategy of creating a new generation of leaders who will bring their Christian values and commitments with them into the public square of policy, politics, and culture. “Great movements begin from the grass roots, from the bottom up,” he told one magazine interviewer. “With the homeschooling movement, we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg so far. In another ten or fifteen years, we may see a disproportionate number of homeschoolers in positions of highest leadership.” In the first six years of its existence, Generation Joshua has seen steady growth in its membership, with a 2008 roster of more than four thousand students.

Michael Farris sees Generation Joshua as playing a vital role in the long-term goals of HSLDA and conservative politics. “We are not homeschooling our kids just so they can read,” he told the New York Times. “The most common thing I hear parents telling me is they want their kids to be on the Supreme Court. And if we put enough kids in the farm system, some may get to the major leagues.” It was Farris who coined the program’s name. He describes current homeschool parents and leaders as the Moses Generation, the ones who led the exodus from public schools (the equivalent of pharaoh’s Egypt). But just as it was Moses’s protégé Joshua who finally brought his people into the Promised Land, Farris sees the homeschooled youth as the ones who will ultimately “take back the land” for God.

This vision of conservative Christian homeschooling, while still rooted in the primacy of the family and parental freedom to direct the upbringing of their children, reaches beyond to instill a particular philosophy and practice of citizenship. Even on first glance, Generation Joshua— with its battle imagery and strong emphasis on real-world engagement in the political arena—promised to be something quite different from the lowest-common-denominator, controversy-avoiding, inert civics curricula sadly typical of public schools.

So I decided to follow the development of this program, to see how they go about “igniting a vision” of citizenship focused so squarely on bringing their Christian values into the public square. What kind of citizen are they trying to develop? Are students encouraged to think for themselves, or parrot a party line? And how is such a citizen supposed to engage with the diversity of beliefs and perspectives at play in our democracy?Next page »

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