Department Of Housing And Urban Development Settlement Statement Optional Form For T: Fill & Download for Free

It’s important for home buyers to understand that a mortgage commitment letter in NYC does not guarantee that the bank will fund your loan.As you will see from the NYC mortgage commitment letter sample below, there are many contingencies in place for the bank to revoke its loan commitment to you. If you’re about to submit an offer and deciding whether to waive the mortgage contingency, it’s important to understand what a mortgage commitment letter entails and how much assurance a loan commitment offers you in the first place.What does a NYC mortgage commitment letter sample look like?This is an example of a standard mortgage loan commitment letter that would be issued to a New York City condo or co-op apartment buyer. There are additional sections in this NYC mortgage commitment letter sample you should review such as Commitment Conditions.MORTGAGE LOAN COMMITMENTBorrower Name(s):Borrower Mailing Address:Lender:Property Address:Type of Property: [Condo, Co-op, etc.]Commitment Expiration Date:Date:It is a pleasure to notify you that your application for a mortgage loan has been approved subject to the following matters set forth below and on pages 2 and 3.INSTRUCTIONSPlease sign, date and return Lender’s copy of this Commitment, along with any required fees and items requested, to the Lender at the following address, within 15 days of the date hereof, or at the option of Lender, this Commitment shall become null and void. Should you have any questions, please contact:This approval is not a final commitment. Due to the fact that interest rates are subject to change without notice, your approved payment and loan amount may change if interest rates increase or decrease.EFFECTIVE DATE AND COMMITMENT FEEThis commitment will become effective upon compliance with the terms herein and, if applicable, the receipt of your check in the amount of any non-refundable commitment fee (“stand-by fee”). It is understood and agreed that if this mortgage loan is not settled in accordance with the terms and conditions of this commitment, the Lender shall retain this fee as earned charges for the origination and approval of this loan.AMOUNTS, TERMS AND FEESAmount of Loan $[Amount]Initial (Contract) Interest Rate [Rate]%Loan Term [Number] monthsAmortization TypeBalloon Term (if applicable) [X] monthsLoan TypeLien Position 1st LienPAYMENT (P&I)Your initial interest only principal and interest (P&I) amount is $[Amount]. This amount does not include any escrowed amounts and may change if there is a change in loan terms.ESCROW[ X ] An Escrow Account is not required.[ ] An Escrow Account is required.Even if an Escrow (Impound) Account is not required at time of settlement, subject to the terms of your specific loan documents, the Lender may set up and require an Account should the taxes or insurance on the subject property ever become delinquent.EVIDENCE OF TITLEThe Evidence of Title is to be provided to the Lender and must indicate no liens, encumbrances, or any adverse covenants or conditions to title unless approved by Lender. The Evidence of Title must be issued from a firm or source, and in a form, acceptable to Lender. Borrower will be charged for the cost of providing such title and the cost of recording documents, all of which will be ordered by Lender unless requested otherwise.CANCELLATIONThe Lender reserves the right to terminate this commitment prior to the settlement of the loan in the event of an adverse change in your personal or financial status, or if the improvements on the property are damaged by fire or other casualty.REQUIRED ITEMS OR CONDITIONSAll Items Listed on the Commitment Conditions Addendum Apply.THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS MAY APPLY TO YOUR LOAN DEPENDING ON THE LOAN TYPE AND TERMS.BALLOON MATURITYA balloon loan matures before the loan is fully amortized. The balance of the loan will be due in a lump sum payment at maturity.FIRE AND EXTENDED COVERAGE INSURANCEPrior to settlement, we will require an original insurance policy and/or binder containing fire and extended coverage (i.e., windstorm, hurricane, hail damages, or any other perils that are normally included under an extended coverage endorsement) insurance in an amount equal to the lesser of 100% of the insurable value of the improvements, or the unpaid principal balance of the mortgage as long as it equals the minimum amount (80% of the insurable value of improvements) required to compensate for damage or loss on a replacement cost basis through a company acceptable to the Lender, and a receipt showing premiums paid in advance for one year. The insurance policy shall also contain a standard mortgage clause in favor of Lender. We cannot require you to obtain a policy which exceeds the guaranteed replacement cost of the improvements securing the loan.If the property is new construction and you are not able to occupy the property immediately after closing, you will be required to furnish an original fire/hazard insurance policy or binder, including a Builder’s Risk Rider. If this is a renovation of an existing dwelling that will remain occupied, a Builder’s Risk Rider is not necessary.GOVERNMENT INSURED LOANSLoan Commitments issued for these types of mortgage loans, including, but not limited to FmHA, RHS, FHA, and VA, are subject to all the terms and conditions of the Agency’s commitment, or the VA certificate of reasonable value, as well as the rules, and regulations, and all applicable requirements of the Farmers Home Administration, Rural Housing Service, Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and/or other state or municipal authority.FLOOD INSURANCEBy signing and accepting this commitment, you acknowledge that if the property securing this loan is in an area identified as having a special flood hazard you agree to these insurance requirements.Our policy, in order to best protect collateral interest, is to adhere to the more common industry practice of requiring flood coverage for the lesser of: the full 100% Replacement Cost Value or the maximum amount of insurance available under NFIP for the particular type of building; currently $250,000 per residential dwelling/condominium unit. A copy of the declaration page or application signed by the agent, along with proof premium has been paid, is required prior to closing.Flood insurance is mandatory now or in the future if this property has been or will be determined to be in an area which has a special flood hazard. Federal Law requires that flood insurance, available through any agent, must cover the lowest of: the outstanding principal balance of the loan[s]; the maximum amount of coverage allowed for the type of building under NFIP or the full replacement cost value of the building or contents securing the loan.TAX AND INSURANCE PAYMENTSMonthly deposits and initial deposits as determined by Lender are required to cover the payment of estimated annual real estate taxes, special assessments and, if applicable, FHA or Private Mortgage Insurance Premiums. Lender may also require additional deposits for hazard or other insurance if required for this loan. Such deposits are to be placed in a separate escrow or impound account.SPECIAL ASSESSMENTSIf required, all unpaid and future special assessment installments must be paid in full prior to, or at time of settlement.DOCUMENTATIONThe mortgage or deed of trust, note and other pertinent loan documents will be provided by Lender and must be signed by all applicants that are to be contractually liable under this obligation. Further, the mortgage or deed of trust must be signed by any non-applicant spouses if their signature is required under state law to create a valid lien, pass clear title, or waive unclear rights to property. Note: Samples of loan documents are available upon request.ADDITIONAL CONDITIONS FOR CONSTRUCTION LOANS.CONSTRUCTION LOANS: ONE PAYOUT AND MULTIPLE PAYOUTImprovements are to be built in a good and workman-like manner in strict accordance with plans and specifications furnished Lender and in compliance with applicable building codes. After completion, said improvements shall be approved by a representative of Lender and an occupancy permit shall be issued by local municipality. Any changes, whether they be additions, deletions, or alterations, of the plans and specifications, must be approved in writing by Lender in order that this loan commitment remain in effect.CONSTRUCTION LOANS: MULTIPLE PAYOUTEvidence must be submitted that the net proceeds of our loan are sufficient to complete the construction of the building, free and clear of all claims of Mechanic’s Liens for labor and material. All disbursements will be made upon the order of the borrower upon presentment of proper waivers of lien, subject to compliance inspections by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Federal Housing Administration, or Lender, not to exceed 80% of the value of the work done. The remaining funds will be held back until the certificate of completion and/or occupancy certificate is issued.I (WE) accept the terms and Conditions of this Commitment and will notify Lender if there are any changes to the information provided on the application before the closing of the loan.Borrower DateCOMMITMENT ISSUED ON BEHALF OF LENDER BY:Take special note of the cancellation clause listed above. If you lose your job or suffer some other financial setback, the bank will have cause to terminate your loan commitment!What are some typical commitment conditions in a NYC mortgage commitment letter sample?This is an example of a some typical commitment conditions in a NYC mortgage commitment letter sample. Note the long check-list of tasks that must be completed in order for the lender’s commitment to be valid.COMMITMENT CONDITIONS(Attachment to Mortgage Loan Commitment)Borrower: The Closing Disclosure will be provided to you in advance of your closing indicating your loan terms and is followed by a government mandated waiting period before the actual closing occurs. Receipt of the Closing Disclosure does not indicate all loan conditions have been satisfied which must occur prior to closing. Changes of any kind that occur after the final Closing Disclosure has been delivered to you may result in an additional waiting period prior to closing.Borrower: This loan is also subject to all other lender specified conditions and must comply with all applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations.Lender: Verification from the Lender’s Closing Agent / Attorney that a Recognition Agreement has been executed by the the Cooperative Board and received by the Closing Agent/AttorneyLender: Title to have Recorded UCC1 lien search at time of closingLender: Recognition agreements and stock certificate required at time of closingLender: This loan is approved for a maximum interest rate of — [ ]% (qualifying pmt)Lender: If the loan does not close by the expiration date of the credit documents which includes verification of employment, assets and credit, re-verification will be required. To avoid re-verification the loan must close by: [Date] (rate)Lender: Obtain a completed and signed Form 4506-T (written permission to request tax returns from the IRS) for all borrowers at and before closing. — ** rcvd prior to closing **Lender: Closing agent to verify borrower(s) identityLender: Fully executed and signed Social Security Administration release (form OMB #0960–0760)Lender: Loan was approved based on the following parameters: Debt to Income Ratio not to exceed [ ]%; Total Reserves required for Transaction are $[Amount] or 12mos (subject to change) plus closing cost & prepays of $[Amount] (subject to change). Required Liquid Funds for transaction can be no less than $[Amount]. If any of these parameters change, as required by product guidelines, the loan will be subject to re-underwriting.Lender: If the loan does not close by the expiration date of the following documents, re-verification will be required:Appraisal: [Date] Verbal VOE: [Date] Rate: [Date] Lien Search: [Date] Co-Op Approval: [Date]Lender: No subordinate financing allowedLender: Seller paid closing cost may not exceed actual costs, the maximum amount that can be paid is — $[Amount]Lender: No cash out to borrower(s) at closingNote that this hypothetical lender does not allow any subordinate financing. That means you won’t be able to take out a 2nd lien home equity line of credit at a later time. Please also note that if your purchase doesn’t close in time, the lender may need to re-do the underwriting process.Sample Mortgage Commitment Letter InstructionsCONGRATULATIONS!Your application for a [Bank Name] Co-op Loan has just been approved. Enclosed you will find a commitment letter which provides you with specific details regarding your loan approval. We urge you to read it carefully as it contains important information on the financing terms and the documentation that is required in order to close your loan.WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS?You must sign the commitment and return it to us within ten (10) days of the commitment or before the expiration date, whichever is sooner with any fees specified. Please note that this commitment letter contains two critical dates. If you elected to lock in your interest rate and points there is a rate expiration date. If you do not close your loan on or before the rate expiration date, the terms and conditions will change.In addition, there is credit document expiration date. If you do not close your loan on before this date you will need to satisfactorily update certain credit documents in order for the terms and conditions of this commitment letter to apply. If your rate and points have not been locked, the rate expiration date will be established once you elect to lock in your rate. You must lock in your rate at least five business days prior to loan closing.Please read the commitment letter and riders carefully, as they contain conditions that must be satisfied prior to your loan closing. It is incumbent upon you to make sure that we are in receipt of all items listed. These items must be reviewed and approved at least three (3) days prior to loan closing. Again we must emphasize that you cannot close your loan unless all these items have been satisfied.We have notified the closing attorney for [Bank Name] of this loan transaction.Arrangement and instructions for closing your loan should be obtained by contacting the [Bank Name] attorney named in your commitment letter. A loan closing can be scheduled shortly after all necessary documents have been received by [Bank Name].The [Bank Name] attorney will be able to provide you with specific information regarding the following:-Closing Date-Closing Location-Prepaid Interest and Escrow Funds-Co-op Lien Search Requirements-Survey Coverage Requirements-Insurance Requirements (Hazard/Flood/Condominium/Co-op)We encourage you to have your attorney contact the [Bank Name] closing attorney to review the requirements. This should help to ensure that your closing goes smoothly.Thank you for choosing [Bank Name] for your financing needs. We are delighted to have you as a client.What are sample closing conditions in NYC?Dear [Borrower],We have received today from [Bank Name] a copy of a commitment letter for a co-op loan and will represent [Bank Name] at the closing. Please be advised that we cannot schedule a closing unless we receive confirmation that the conditions required by [Bank Name], prior to closing, have been satisfied and the conditions required at closing will be obtainable and brought to the loan closing.Enclosed with this letter you will find three copies of Recognition Agreements. The Recognition Agreement must be delivered to and executed by an Officer of the Cooperative Corporation. The fully executed Recognition Agreement must be delivered to our office prior to loan closing or it must be brought to loan closing. We will be unable to close a co-op loan without the original executed Recognition Agreement with the corporate seal.Enclosed with this letter you will find a Uniform Commercial Code Authorization Form. This document must be signed by each person who will be on title and promptly returned to our office. This document is necessary for [Bank Name], to obtain a security interest in the cooperative. Upon our receipt and/or confirmation of certain information i.e. section/block/lot numbers of the building same will be inserted in the financing statement prior to filing. Please be sure to note that the executed Uniform Commercial Code Authorization Form and the check required by paragraph 3 below must be remitted to our attention at the time you accept your commitment letter to a assure a timely closing.To ensure that [Bank Name] has a proper security interest, a Cooperative search of the appropriate records will be conducted solely for [Bank Name]’s benefit. The search will be ordered by our firm and will be reviewed and approved by our office prior to loan closing. Payment of the lien search must be remitted to our office at the time you send back the UCC-1 Authorization form. The cost of the search is $275.00 and the filing fee for the UCC-1 is $100.00. Please remit a check for $375.00 made payable to [Name] for the lien search and the recording of the financing statement.Unless paid prior to loan closing, all charges and fees due to [Bank Name] must be paid from the loan proceeds. If you call our office the day before loan closing, we will advise you of the exact amount being deducted from loan proceeds.The commitment letter has two expiration dates; one is the Commitment Expiration and one is the Rate Lock Expiration. The loan must close and funds must be disbursed on or before the earlier of the Commitment Expiration or the Lock-In Expiration. In the event the loan is a refinance transaction and it is subject to the required three (3) business-day right of recission it must close four (4) business days prior to the expiration of any applicable rate lock agreement.Please note that a closing cannot be scheduled until the following items have been completed:– We have been advised by [Bank Name] that all commitment conditions have been satisfied.– The U.C.C. -1 financing statement has been filed.– The co-op search has been reviewed and approved– We have a copy of the proposed Stock Certificate and the first page of the Proprietary Lease. At closing, the original Stock Certificate and Proprietary Lease must be delivered to [Bank Name] Closing Attorney.– We must be in receipt prior to or at loan closing of a blanket insurance policy for the co-op evidencing sufficient dwelling coverage.[Bank Name] requires at least two (2) business days to schedule a loan closing.We are committed to providing you with the highest level of customer service. If you should have any questions please feel free to call us at [Phone Number].Content courtesy of https://www.hauseit.com/nyc-mortgage-commitment-letter-sample/Disclosure: Hauseit and its affiliates do not provide tax, legal or accounting advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction.

Well, I’ll toss this out to see what people think. They might not be the biggest, but…Lies and Consequences in Our Past 15 WarsMonday, May 28, 2012 By David Swanson, War Is a Crime | News AnalysisAFGHANISTANPrior to 2001, the Taliban was willing to turn Osama bin Laden over to a third country if he was promised a fair trial and no death penalty, and if some evidence of his guilt of crimes were offered. In 2001, the Taliban warned the United States that bin Laden was planning an attack on American soil. In July 2001 the United States was known to have plans to take military action against the Taliban by mid-October.When the United States attacked Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, the Taliban again offered to negotiate for the handing over of bin Laden. When President George W. Bush refused, the Taliban dropped its demand for evidence of guilt and offered simply to turn bin Laden over to a third country. Bush rejected this offer and continued bombing. At a March 13, 2002, press conference, Bush said of bin Laden "I truly am not that concerned about him."[i] When President Barack Obama announced, in May 2011, that he had killed bin Laden, the war didn't even slow down.Bin Laden, as a justification for the longest war in U.S. history, had always had weaknesses. As with Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gadaffi or Manuel Noriega, past U.S. support for bin Laden had to be kept out of the discussion. And a crime had to be transformed into an act of war. A crime by a non-state group was used to implicate the nation of Afghanistan, even though 92% of Afghans not only didn't support the crime of 9-11, but they have to this day never heard about it.[ii]If bin Laden was not the reason for over a decade of war in Afghanistan, perhaps al Qaeda more generally was the cause. When President Obama continued the war in 2009 and tripled the number of U.S. troops in it, he and his subordinates argued that if the Taliban had power it would work with al Qaeda, and that would allow al Qaeda to endanger the United States. Some of the same officials who made this claim, including Richard Holbrooke, at other times admitted that al Qaeda had virtually no presence in Afghanistan, that the Taliban was not likely to work with al Qaeda, and that al Qaeda could easily plan attacks on the United States in a dozen nations other than Afghanistan, just as the 911 attack had been planned, in part, in Europe and the United States.[iii]And of course recruitment for such attacks could only be boosted by the continuation of a U.S. war on Afghanistan. Most experts believe that the war is making the United States less liked and less safe. From 2001 to 2007, there was a sevenfold increase in fatal jihadist attacks around the world, a predictable if tragic result of the Global War on Terror. The U.S. State Department responded to this dangerous escalation in terrorism by discontinuing its annual report on terrorism.[iv] By 2012, Obama was proposing to include the Taliban in a peace process.If bin Laden and al Qaeda and terrorism were not the reasons for the war, maybe the war was intended to spread democracy, human rights, and economic benefits. Maybe the war was philanthropy. But the United States has claimed to be building nations in dozens of places and never succeeded yet.[v] The Afghan government propped up by the U.S. occupation supports wife-beating and barely even pretends to hold legitimate elections. It is extremely difficult to bring people rights and freedoms while bombing them and kicking in their doors at night. While U.S. media only mentions U.S. deaths and suffering, never showing images of the suffering of Afghans in this war, the pretense that the war is for the benefit of Afghans is thin. Nearly 2,000 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan, as compared to tens of thousands of Afghan men, women, and children. The United States doesn't even count the number of people it kills, a seemingly necessary step if we actually wanted to calculate whether we are bestowing more benefit than harm. In fact, a strong majority of the people of the United States wants the war ended, as does a majority of Afghans. But racial and religious bigotry allow many in the United States to hold the self-deceptive belief that Afghans can gain from a war they oppose, since they just don't know any better. In fact, many Americans blindly accept that the U.S. government or president knows best even if their policies appear to us to be the most extreme folly.If the war is based on lies and making us less safe, at least we can take comfort in the fact that it is succeeding. Or can we? Why is it taking so long? In April 2012, echoing numerous other reports, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis made public the results of 250 interviews with U.S. soldiers and Afghans around the country over two year-long deployments. Davis concluded that all claims of success and progress have been dishonest: "Senior ranking U.S. military leaders have so distorted the truth," he wrote, "when communicating with the U.S. Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable."As the U.S. public has turned against the war, many members of Congress have depicted themselves as opponents and critics of the war, while still in many cases continuing to vote for its funding. A Congressional report in 2010 documented payoffs made by the U.S. to the Taliban for the safe passage of goods through Afghanistan, payoffs that amounted to either the first or second largest source of income for the Taliban, the other being opium. Afghans, including those fighting for the Taliban, often signed up for training and pay from the United States and then departed, sometimes repeating the process a number of times. The United States has been funding, training, and arming both sides of the war.[vi]Every week or two there has been an atrocity story in the media. Soldiers cut off fingers. Or they shot children from a helicopter. Or they shot up a bunch of women and then dug the bullets out with knives to cover up the crime. Or they urinated on corpses or burned corpses or burned Korans. It is always something. And it is always lied about to the extent possible by the United States and NATO, with NATO serving as protection from Congressional oversight. A pattern has developed of the U.S. military passing the buck to NATO, NATO denying everything, NATO revising its lies as new evidence emerges, and NATO finally admitting the crime, with the blame going to a few rogue "bad apples." But you cannot have a war without atrocities, and the atrocities are the least of it. The urination on corpses is not as serious a crime as the creation of the corpses in the first place.The U.S. military lied about football star Pat Tillman's death to his family at his funeral, for purposes of propaganda, but what would have been unusual would have been telling the truth.[vii] Wars cannot exist without lies, and lying is the norm.Myths about how a recent escalation in Iraq had turned a bad war into a good and successful war were applied by Obama to the completely different context of Afghanistan, in combination with familiar rhetoric about supporting troops, as if the war were for their benefit, and as if they had volunteered to be in it, even though they were being endlessly redeployed to a war that had nothing to do with the responsibilities they had signed up for and sworn an oath to, and even though their top cause of death was suicide. Sending more troops into war so that previous troops should not have killed themselves in vain is a hopeless endeavor. Escalating hopeless wars, supposedly in order to end them, actually serves only two purposes: it allows a president to appear more militaristic, and it enriches war profiteers. The escalation in Afghanistan has not improved the situation, quite the reverse."We did not choose this war," said Obama on May 1, 2012, as if the crime of 9-11 had been continually compelling him to fight a war in Afghanistan year after year. But the war was not defensive. Afghanistan was not attacking the United States. The war was not authorized by the United Nations. And it was not declared by Congress, as no war has been since 1941. When Russia began talking about a preemptive strike against U.S. missile bases on Russia's western border in May of 2012, there was nothing the United States could say against the justifiability of such an act. Not after Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and the threats being made toward Iran.The tissue of lies surrounding the war on Afghanistan is typical. Libya, despite its use as a model for future "humanitarian wars," is no different.LIBYAThe United States and Europe had been arming and working with Muamar Gadaffi in Libya for years, up to shortly before "intervening" against him in 2011. U.S. and British spy agencies had worked with Gadaffi's torturers and killers.Gadaffi had given up his nuclear program. His subsequent fate (butchered and displayed in a meat locker), along with the fate of the nation of Iraq, sends a strong message to other nations already inclined to believe that only nuclear weapons will protect them.But Gadaffi had displeased the West and displeased the Arab dictatorships. He was unreliable. He wanted too much of Libya's wealth for Libyans. He was too independent. He even called the Saudi monarch the worst thing in the book: "made by Britain and protected by the U.S." And he made that remark in Qatar, another nation that became his enemy.The Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt was out of control. Nonviolent movements were overthrowing dictators. Something had to be done. Violence by protesters in Libya provided an opening -- for the Gulf dictatorships and for U.S.A./NATO. Violent engagement in Libya, supposedly on behalf of the Arab Spring, provided cover for violent crackdowns on nonviolent protesters in Bahrain and Yemen. It was opponents of the Arab Spring who helped to arm the rebels in Libya -- and later in Syria -- but not just to arm them, also to control them. This began under the banner of humanitarianism.Between February 15th and 19th, according to Human Rights Watch, 104 protesters were killed in Libya. Protests did not remain nonviolent. Rebels burned down a police station in Dernah and executed 50 "African mercenaries" in Al Bayda'. On February 21st the Libyan air force attacked Benghazi. Reports vary as to whether the targets were military or civilian. By February 24th Benghazi residents were lining up to be issued guns looted from the army and police. Gadaffi's troops tried to take Az Zawiya on March 1st and Misrata on March 6th but the rebels held off the attacks. Gadaffi's troops did take Az Zawiya on March 7th, and the loss of life was about eight people. Thirty-three died on March 5th in Az Zawiya, eight of them Gadaffi's soldiers. And 21 were killed in Misrata on March 6th by Gadaffi's army shelling. But Gulf and NATO nations' media began talking about 50,000 dead and a genocide underway. The number came from Sayed al-Shanuka, a Libyan member of the International Criminal Court who had defected. There was no explanation of where or how the 50,000 had been killed.On April 10th, Human Rights Watch reported on the dead in Misrata. The highest numbers came from Dr. Muhammad el-Fortia who claimed there were 257 dead, with only 22 percent of them women -- suggesting that fighters had been targeted rather than homes. By the middle of June credible reports claimed 10,000 had been killed over four months by both sides, including by NATO's bombing. NATO, dominated by the United States, entered the war on the pretext of protecting civilians from mass slaughter. There is no solid evidence that slaughter would have occurred. Some observers believe the rebels had the upper hand. The rebels were, in any event, very well armed. There were other options available, as well. The African Union had been proposing a peace settlement, one that Gadaffi might have agreed to.But NATO immediately abandoned humanitarian rescue as the goal of its mission, replacing it with the need to overthrow Gadaffi. General Khalifa Belqasim Hifter was brought in from his home in Virginia by the CIA to lead the rebels, along with other CIA-friendly Libyans. Obama, Sarkozy, and Cameron published an essay on April 15th announcing their plan to overthrow Gadaffi, something the United Nations did not authorize. U.S. Navy Admiral Samuel Locklear admitted in May to Congressman Mike Turner (R., Ohio) that NATO was trying to assassinate Gadaffi.The New York Times admitted to "scores" of dead from NATO strikes unacknowledged by NATO. Over 600,000 civilians fled the country, including 100,000 Libyans, while another 200,000 Libyans were internally displaced. NATO had bombed the city of Tripoli for months, occasionally apologizing for the deaths of civilians, but leaving many observers with the impression that the goal was "shock and awe" -- or "terror bombing" as opposed to "precision bombing." Among the targets were media outlets, in which journalists were killed by NATO's missile strikes.Because cruise missiles and drones did the dirty work, U.S. Department of State Legal Adviser Harold Koh told Congress that the war was neither a war nor even "hostilities" (the language in the War Powers Act). If no U.S. pilots or soldiers were at risk, then the bombs were not hostile. They were friendly explosions.There are echoes here of the first aerial bombing in world history, the Italian bombing of Tajura and Ain Zara in 1911. The bombing, the Italian air force said, had "a wonderful effect on the morale of the Arabs." The 2011 version had a less-than-wonderful effect on the U.S. Constitution, because of course Congress did not offer any resistance. Discussions of a possible war on Iran in 2012 left both Congress and the United Nations to one side. Pentagon head Leon Panetta told the U.S. Senate that President Obama could go to war in Syria or elsewhere without Congress, without the United Nations, and with or without NATO.The ICC disgraced itself as well. Lead investigator Luis Moreno-Ocampo made statements as if they were indisputable about alleged crimes by Gadaffi, including claims about mass-rape and the handing out of Viagra to troops, stories pushed at the same time by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice. Eventually Amnesty International investigated and found no grounds for the accusations. Moreno-Ocampo did not investigate NATO's crimes in Libya, any more than he has ever done so in Iraq or Afghanistan. On January 19, 2012, the Arab Organization for Human Rights, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, and the International Legal Assistance Consortium reported that NATO had targeted civilian areas and committed war crimes.Toward the end of the war, the rebels displaced the entire population of the town of Tawergha. All 30,000 people are now gone. The rebels had deemed the town's residents' skin too dark. Libya is now smuggling arms to Syrian rebels. Tribes are at war in Southern Libya. The new transitional Libyan government is not representative, democratic, stable, protective of civil rights, or productive of economic rights. Libya is plagued by the resentment and instability that come with violent change. Gadaffi's death did nothing to prevent this inevitable outcome. And unlike the outcome of homegrown violence, which would have been bad enough, the current state of affairs in Libya is one in which the nation suffers from foreign control.The West could have left Libya alone in 2011. Or it could have left Libya alone for decades. Or it could have done good by Libya, economically and politically rather than seeking to exploit Libya's oil. Come the crises of 2011, the United States could have aided the nonviolent protesters in Bahrain rather than approving of a Saudi crackdown and sending over a U.S. cop to lead the cracking of skulls. Instead, the people of the nations of Western Asia learned that the West will only aid violent campaigns, and then only if it, too, favors the overthrow of one of its former puppets. Oil now flows from Libya to the West for free, as repayment apparently for "regime change services."[viii]DRONE WARSThe bombing of Libya was intense and sustained, but U.S. drones are also being used to kill in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere. They are used to kill individuals, including U.S. citizens, including children, including both identified individuals and people targeted because of a pattern of behavior that is deemed suspicious, and of course including many people who simply happen to be too close to an intended or accidental target. If drone strikes are law enforcement, the president or his designate is judge, jury, and executioner. The U.S. Congress and public are left in the dark. The nation where the strike is made is violated. If drone strikes are war, they are war with one army safely ensconced thousands of miles from the battlefield, and the other army blindfolded and handcuffed on the battlefield with their wives and children and grandparents along.In February 2002, a drone pilot thought he'd killed Osama bin Laden, but it turned out to be an innocent man. Expert observers, including Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer representing drone victims, believe the vast majority of drone victims are not the individuals who were targeted. Noor Behram, who photographs drone victims, says, "For every 10 to 15 people, maybe they get one militant." President Obama has instructed the government of Yemen to keep a reporter locked up whose crime appears to be having reported on the victims of a U.S. drone strike. Over a million people, by Amnesty International's estimate, have fled the areas of heavy drone bombing in Pakistan.Drones have killed Americans in "friendly fire," including on April 6, 2011, in Afghanistan. Afghans have killed CIA drone pilots and other U.S. officials inside their offices. Even drone "pilots" working in the United States can commit suicide. They are suffering extremely high rates of stress and burnout, according to the Air Force. A Pakistani who tried to blow up a car in Times Square in 2010 said it was revenge for drone attacks. Eventually, blowback for drone attacks may come in the form of drone attacks. U.S. companies sell drones to democracies and dictatorships alike. Al Qaeda stole a crashed U.S. drone from Yemeni police in February 2011. And in December 2011, Iran captured a U.S. drone a decade after the CIA had given Iran plans to build a nuclear bomb, any possible progress on which the drone was no doubt supposed to be spying on.While initially cheaper than manned planes, unmanned drones require many more personnel: 168 people to keep a Predator drone in the air for 24 hours, plus 19 analysts to process the videos created by a drone. And to make matters worse, they tend to crash. They even "go rogue," lose contact with their "pilots" and fly off on their own. The U.S. Navy has a drone that self-destructs if you accidentally touch the space bar on the computer keyboard. Drones also tend to supply so-called enemies with information, including the endless hours of video they record, and to infect U.S. military computers with viruses. But these are the sorts of SNAFUs that come with any project lacking oversight, accountability, or cost controls. The companies with the biggest drone contracts did not invest in developing the best technologies but in paying off the most Congress members.[ix]IRAQ IIThe normalization of war lies in recent years, and the acceptance of the idea that war criminals should go on book tour rather than on trial, of course begins with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. And that war began with the promise that it would be free and easy. Dick Cheney said U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators, while Ken Adelman promised a cake walk.President George W. Bush had decided on the war and sought ways to get it started for many months, while publicly pretending to be striving to avoid a war. Vice President Cheney pressured the CIA to fudge the facts, and set up an even more compliant "intelligence" operation within the Pentagon. Secretary of State Colin Powell made a war sales pitch to the United Nation despite his own staff having warned him that many of the claims he would be making were not backed up by the evidence. The U.N. refused to authorize the war, but Bush launched it anyway, resulting in over a million deaths and over 4 million people displaced from their homes, along with such complete devastation of Iraqi society that commentators began popularizing the term "sociocide." This disaster cost the U.S. trillions of dollars in direct expense and indirect economic impact.[x]This war, like all wars since 1928, violated the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and like most wars since 1945, violated the U.N. Charter. But it went further than that in damaging the rule of law. Bush persuaded Congress to issue vague and general "authorizations to use military force," violating the limitations placed on presidential war making by the Constitution and even by the War Powers Act. Bush also violated the authorization by submitting false information to Congress, not to mention by claiming in a "signing statement" that Congress had no power to authorize him to do anything. Those and many other false claims about Iraqi weapons and ties to terrorism, made by Bush and his subordinates, violated the Anti-Conspiracy Statute, as well as the False Statements Accountability Act. It is also illegal under treaties the United States is party to for one nation to invade another in order to control its resources.[xi]And then there were all the subordinate war crimes that came along with the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq: targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, using antipersonnel weapons including cluster bombs in densely settled urban areas, using white phosphorous as a weapon, using depleted uranium weapons, employing a new form of napalm found in Mark 77 firebombs, collectively punishing populations including by blocking roads and electricity and water, by planting bombs in farm fields, by demolishing houses, by plowing down orchards, by detaining people without charge, imprisoning children, torturing, raping, and murdering captives. An increased use of mercenaries created a force lacking even the pretense of accountability to any body of law.[xii]Equal to the mendacity of the public relations campaign that launched the Iraq war was the campaign that escalated it and claimed some benefit from that "surge" in 2007-2008. Just as the Vietnamese would have agreed to the same terms prior to the saturation bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong as after, the Iraqis would have accepted the treaty that Bush and Maliki finally came up with had it been proposed prior to the escalation. The "benchmarks" that Congress expected Bush to meet by 2007 were not met by then or by 2008 or by 2009. There was no oil law, no de-baathification law, no constitutional review, no provincial elections, and no improvement in electricity, water, or other basic measures of well-being. Only agreement to leave produced what the escalation had merely delayed. Claims for the "surge" were downsized to include only a reduction in violence, but the timing coincided with a long-term downward trend in violence, the relatively small "surge" actually increased violence in some areas, and violence went down most dramatically where troops were withdrawn, or where they ceased provocative raids on homes, not where troops were added. Violence really dropped off when Bush committed the United States to full withdrawal in 2011.[xiii]BOSNIADishonesty about wars did not begin with our 43rd president. In 1995, President Clinton announced that he would "help the people of Bosnia to secure their own peace." Almost two decades later, U.S. and other foreign troops have never left , and the place is governed by a European-backed Office of High Representative.[xiv] U.S. involvement in Yugoslavia gave NATO a reason to exist after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was also not unrelated to lead, zinc, cadmium, gold, and silver mines, cheap labor, and a deregulated market. In 1996 U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown died in a plane crash in Croatia along with top executives for Boeing, Bechtel, AT&T, Northwest Airlines, and several other corporations that were lining up government contracts for "reconstruction." Enron, the famously corrupt corporation that would implode in 2001, was a part of so many such trips that it issued a press release to state that none of its people had been on this one. Enron gave $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 1997, six days before accompanying new Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor to Bosnia and Croatia and signing a deal to build a $100 million power plant. The annexation of Kosovo created a militarized buffer between Yugoslavia and the projected route of an oil pipeline through Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Albania. The pipeline is being built, with U.S. government support, to provide the United States and Western Europe with access to oil from the Caspian Sea. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said in 1998: "This is about America's energy security. It's very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right." [xv]IRAQ IFar-fetched claims of humanitarian intention did not begin with Bill Clinton either. On October 9, 1990, a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl told a U.S. congressional committee that she'd seen Iraqi soldiers take 15 babies out of an incubator in a Kuwaiti hospital and leave them on the cold floor to die. Some congress members, including the late Tom Lantos (D., Calif.), knew but did not tell the U.S. public that the girl was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, that she'd been coached by a major U.S. public relations company paid by the Kuwaiti government, and that there was no other evidence for the story. President George H. W. Bush used the dead babies story 10 times in the next 40 days, and seven senators used it in the Senate debate on whether to approve military action. Thus was born the Gulf War, a war that would never really end, but would be radically expanded in 2003.[xvi]PANAMAWhen Bush the Elder had first sought, among other things, to prove he was no "wimp" by attacking Panama in 1989, the most prominent justification was that Panama's leader was a mean, drug-crazed, weirdo with a pockmarked face who liked to commit adultery. An article in the New York Times on December 26, 1989, began:"The United States military headquarters here, which has portrayed General Manuel Antonio Noriega as an erratic, cocaine-snorting dictator who prays to voodoo gods, announced today that the deposed leader wore red underwear and availed himself of prostitutes."Never mind that Noriega had worked for the CIA, including at the time he'd stolen the 1984 election in Panama. Never mind that his real offense was refusing to back U.S. war making against Nicaragua. Never mind that the United States had known about Noriega's drug trafficking for years and continued working with him. This man snorted cocaine in red underwear with women not his wife. "That is aggression as surely as Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland 50 years ago was aggression," declared Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger of Noriega's drug trafficking. The invading U.S. liberators even claimed to find a big stash of cocaine in one of Noriega's homes, although it turned out to be tamales wrapped in banana leaves. And what if the tamales really had been cocaine? Would that, like the discovery of actual "weapons of mass destruction" in Baghdad in 2003 have justified war?[xvii]DOMINICAN REPUBLIC AND GRENADAOften one of the initial excuses for military action is to defend Americans in a foreign country who have supposedly been put at risk by recent events. This excuse was used, along with the usual variety of other excuses, by the United States when invading the Dominican Republic in 1965, Grenada in 1983, and Panama in 1989. In the case of the Dominican Republic, U.S. citizens who wanted to leave (1,856 of them) had been evacuated prior to the military action. Neighborhoods in Santo Domingo where Americans lived were free of violence and the military was not needed in order to evacuate anyone. All the major Dominican factions had agreed to help evacuate any foreigners who wanted to leave.In the case of Grenada (an invasion that the United States banned the U.S. media from covering) there were supposedly U.S. medical students to rescue. But U.S. State Department official James Budeit, two days before the invasion, learned that the students were not in danger. When about 100 to 150 students decided they wanted to leave, their reason was fear of the U.S. attack. The parents of 500 of the students sent President Reagan a telegram asking him not to attack, letting him know their children were safe and free to leave Grenada if they chose to do so.In the case of Panama, a real incident could be pointed to, one of a sort that has been found anywhere foreign armies have ever occupied someone else's country. Some drunk Panamanian soldiers had beaten up a U.S. navy officer and threatened his wife. While President Bush claimed that this and other new developments prompted the war, the war plans had actually begun months prior to the incident.[xviii]President Lyndon B. Johnson's invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 used the pretense of American lives at risk. But that justification had been cooked up as a substitute for a claim of combating communism, which Johnson knew to be baseless and couldn't be sure would fly. In a closed session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Mann later explained that the U.S. ambassador had asked the head of the Dominican military if he'd be willing to play along with the alternative lie:"All we requested was whether he would be willing to change the basis for this from one of fighting communism to one of protecting American lives."[xix]VIETNAMThe greatest war fraud perpetrated by LBJ was, of course, Vietnam. He built on what had already been done during President John F. Kennedy's presidency. Kennedy's subordinates in Vietnam wanted an expansion of the U.S. presence there, but believed the public and the president would resist. General Maxwell Taylor and Walt W. Rostow wondered how the United States could go to war while appearing to preserve the peace. While they were pondering this, Vietnam was suddenly struck by flooding. The U.S. quickly sent in troops to save Vietnam from natural disaster.[xx]The big escalation, however, came after a fictional attack on U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 4, 1964. These were U.S. war ships off the coast of North Vietnam that were engaged in military actions against North Vietnam. President Johnson knew he was lying when he claimed the August 4th attack was unprovoked. Had it happened, it could not have been unprovoked. The same ship that was supposedly attacked on August 4th, had damaged three North Vietnamese boats and killed four North Vietnamese sailors two days earlier, in an action where the evidence suggests the United States fired first, although the opposite was claimed. In fact, in a separate operation days earlier, the United States had begun shelling the mainland of North Vietnam. But the supposed attack on August 4th was actually, at most, a misreading of U.S. sonar. The ship's commander cabled the Pentagon claiming to be under attack, and then immediately cabled to say his earlier belief was in doubt and no North Vietnamese ships could be confirmed in the area. President Johnson was not sure there had been any attack when he told the American public there had been. Months later he admitted privately: "For all I know, our navy was just shooting at whales out there." But by then Johnson had the authorization from Congress for the war he'd wanted.[xxi]Vietnam is a prominent example of another type of war lie as well. Peace offers have been rejected and hushed up prior to or during World War II, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, and many other wars. In Vietnam, peace settlements were proposed by the Vietnamese, the Soviets, and the French, but rejected and sabotaged by the United States. The last thing you want when trying to start or continue a war — and when trying to sell it as a reluctant action of last resort — is for word to leak out that the other side is proposing peace talks.[xxii]The War on Vietnam may have killed 4 million civilians or more, plus 1.1 million North Vietnamese troops, 40,000 South Vietnamese troops, and 58,000 U.S. forces.KOREAThe forgotten war in Korea, however, was the war that did away with Congressional declarations and established war as a permanent industry and global project, with the heavy taxes that go along with funding that. Americans were told that North Korea had attacked South Korea and had done so at the behest of the Soviet Union as part of a plot to take over the world for communism. In fact, the evidence suggests that the South was the aggressor. But, whichever side attacked, this was a civil war. The Soviet Union was not involved, and the United States ought not to have been. South Korea was not the United States, and was not in fact anywhere near the United States, yet this war was advertised as "defensive."The War on Korea saw the deaths of an estimated 500,000 North Korean troops; 400,000 Chinese troops; 245,000 - 415,000 South Korean troops; 37,000 U.S. troops; and an estimated 2 million Korean civilians.WORLD WAR IIThe war that has been used to justify later wars more than any other, and to justify massive military spending in anticipation of its repetition, is World War II. More than a few paragraphs are needed to persuade most Americans that there were better alternatives that could have been taken immediately prior to, in the decades preceding, and during the conduct of World War II. What can be easily reviewed is the fact that the war propaganda was chock full of lies.On September 4, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a "fireside chat" radio address in which he claimed that a German submarine, completely unprovoked, had attacked the United States destroyer Greer, which — despite being called a destroyer — had been harmlessly delivering mail. Really? The Senate Naval Affairs Committee questioned Admiral Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, who said the Greer had been tracking the German submarine and relaying its location to a British airplane, which had dropped depth charges on the submarine's location without success. The Greer had continued tracking the submarine for hours before the submarine turned and fired torpedoes.A month and a half later, Roosevelt told a similar tall tale about the USS Kearny. And then he really piled on. Roosevelt claimed to have in his possession a secret map produced by Hitler's government that showed plans for a Nazi conquest of South America. The Nazi government denounced this as a lie, blaming of course a Jewish conspiracy. The map, which Roosevelt refused to show the public, in fact actually showed routes in South America flown by American airplanes, with notations in German describing the distribution of aviation fuel. It was a British forgery, and apparently of about the same quality as the forgeries President George W. Bush would later use to show that Iraq had been trying to purchase uranium.Roosevelt also claimed to have come into possession of a secret plan produced by the Nazis for the replacement of all religions with Nazism: "The clergy are to be forever silenced under penalty of the concentration camps, where even now so many fearless men are being tortured because they have placed God above Hitler." Such a plan sounded like something Hitler would indeed draw up had Hitler not himself been an adherent of Christianity, but Roosevelt of course had no such document.[xxiii]The people of the United States did not support going into another war until Pearl Harbor, by which point Roosevelt had already instituted the draft, activated the National Guard, created a huge Navy in two oceans, traded old destroyers to England in exchange for the lease of its bases in the Caribbean and Bermuda, and — just 11 days before the "unexpected" attack — he had secretly ordered the creation of a list of every Japanese and Japanese-American person in the United States.On August 18, 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with his cabinet at 10 Downing Street. The meeting had some similarity to the July 23, 2002, meeting at the same address, the minutes of which became known as the Downing Street Minutes. Both meetings revealed secret U.S. intentions to go to war. In the 1941 meeting, Churchill told his cabinet, according to the minutes: "The President had said he would wage war but not declare it." In addition, "Everything was to be done to force an incident."In January 1941, eleven months before the attack, the Japan Advertiser expressed its outrage over Pearl Harbor in an editorial, and the U.S. ambassador to Japan wrote in his diary: "There is a lot of talk around town to the effect that the Japanese, in case of a break with the United States, are planning to go all out in a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor. Of course I informed my government."On February 5, 1941, Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner wrote to Secretary of War Henry Stimson to warn of the possibility of a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.In November 1940, Roosevelt had loaned China one hundred million dollars for war with Japan, and after consulting with the British, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau made plans to send the Chinese bombers with U.S. crews to use in bombing Tokyo and other Japanese cities. On December 21, 1940, two weeks shy of a year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, China's Minister of Finance T.V. Soong and Colonel Claire Chennault, a retired U.S. Army flier who was working for the Chinese and had been urging them to use American pilots to bomb Tokyo since at least 1937, met in Henry Morgenthau's dining room to plan the firebombing of Japan. Morgenthau said he could get men released from duty in the U.S. Army Air Corps if the Chinese could pay them $1,000 per month. Soong agreed.On May 24, 1941, the New York Times reported on U.S. training of the Chinese air force, and the provision of "numerous fighting and bombing planes" to China by the United States. "Bombing of Japanese Cities is Expected" read the subheadline. By July, the Joint Army-Navy Board had approved a plan called JB 355 to firebomb Japan. A front corporation would buy American planes to be flown by American volunteers trained by Chennault and paid by another front group. Roosevelt approved, and his China expert Lauchlin Currie, in the words of Nicholson Baker, "wired Madame Chaing Kai-Shek and Claire Chennault a letter that fairly begged for interception by Japanese spies." Whether or not that was the entire point, this was the letter:"I am very happy to be able to report today the President directed that sixty-six bombers be made available to China this year with twenty-four to be delivered immediately. He also approved a Chinese pilot training program here. Details through normal channels. Warm regards."On July 24, 1941, President Roosevelt remarked, "If we cut the oil off , [the Japanese] probably would have gone down to the Dutch East Indies a year ago, and you would have had a war. It was very essential from our own selfish point of view of defense to prevent a war from starting in the South Pacific. So our foreign policy was trying to stop a war from breaking out there."Reporters noticed that Roosevelt said "was" rather than "is." The next day, Roosevelt issued an executive order freezing Japanese assets. The United States and Britain cut off oil and scrap metal to Japan. Radhabinod Pal, an Indian jurist who served on the war crimes tribunal after the war, called the embargoes a "clear and potent threat to Japan's very existence," and concluded the United States had provoked Japan.In late October, U.S. spy Edgar Mower was doing work for Colonel William Donovan who spied for Roosevelt. Mower spoke with a man in Manila named Ernest Johnson, a member of the Maritime Commission, who said he expected "The Japs will take Manila before I can get out." When Mower expressed surprise, Johnson replied "Didn't you know the Jap fleet has moved eastward, presumably to attack our fleet at Pearl Harbor?"On November 15th, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall briefed the media on something we do not remember as "the Marshall Plan." In fact we don't remember it at all. "We are preparing an offensive war against Japan," Marshall said, asking the journalists to keep it a secret.Ten days later Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote in his diary that he'd met in the Oval Office with Marshall, President Roosevelt, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Admiral Harold Stark, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Roosevelt had told them the Japanese were likely to attack soon, possibly next Monday. It has been well documented that the United States had broken the Japanese' codes and that Roosevelt had access to them. It was through intercept of a so-called Purple code message that Roosevelt had discovered Germany's plans to invade Russia. It was Hull who leaked a Japanese intercept to the press, resulting in the November 30, 1941, headline "Japanese May Strike Over Weekend."That next Monday would have been December 1st, six days before the attack actually came. "The question," Stimson wrote, "was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves. It was a difficult proposition." The day after the attack, Congress voted for war.[xxiv]Craig Shirley's book December 1941, published in December 2011, printed a memo from December 4, 1941, that warned Roosevelt of possible Japanese attack. Shirley also reported that, in the words of U.S. News and World Report, "On the night of the Pearl Harbor attack, FDR and his war cabinet considered declaring war on all three Axis Powers -- Japan, Germany, Italy -- but in the end the president only targeted Japan."World War II became "the good war" during the unpopular war on Vietnam. In the minds of many Americans today, World War II was justified because of the degree of evilness of Adolf Hitler, an evilness to be found above all in the holocaust. But you won't find any recruitment posters of Uncle Sam saying "I Want You…to Save the Jews." When a resolution was introduced in the U.S. Senate in 1934 expressing "surprise and pain" at Germany's actions, and asking that Germany restore rights to Jews, the State Department "caused it to be buried in committee." By 1937 Poland had developed a plan to send Jews to Madagascar, and the Dominican Republic had a plan to accept them as well. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain came up with a plan to send Germany's Jews to Tanganyika in East Africa. Representatives of the United States, Britain, and South American nations met at Lake Geneva in July 1938 and all agreed that none of them would accept the Jews.On November 15, 1938, reporters asked President Franklin Roosevelt what could be done. He replied that he would refuse to consider allowing more immigrants than the standard quota system allowed. Bills were introduced in Congress to allow 20,000 Jews under the age of 14 to enter the United States. Senator Robert Wagner (D., N.Y.) said, "Thousands of American families have already expressed their willingness to take refugee children into their homes." First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt set aside her anti-Semitism to support the legislation, but her husband successfully blocked it for years.In July 1940, Adolf Eichmann, "architect of the holocaust," intended to send all Jews to Madagascar, which now belonged to Germany, France having been occupied. The ships would need to wait only until the British, which now meant Winston Churchill, ended their blockade. That day never came. On November 25, 1940, the French ambassador asked the U.S. Secretary of State to consider accepting German Jewish refugees then in France. On December 21st, the Secretary of State declined. By July 1941, the Nazis had determined that a final solution for the Jews could consist of genocide rather than expulsion.[xxv]World War II, is still the deadliest of all time, with military deaths estimated at 20 to 25 million (including 5 million deaths of prisoners in captivity), and civilian deaths estimated at 40 to 52 million (including 13 to 20 million from war-related disease and famine).World War II was of course capped off by President Truman pretending that Hiroshima was a military base and that bombing the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives and shortened the war.[xxvi]WORLD WAR IIn the case of World War I, the U.S. public was told that Germany had attacked our good and innocent allies, might eventually attack us, and had in fact attacked innocent American civilians aboard a ship called the Lusitania. German submarines had been giving warnings to civilian ships, allowing passengers to abandon them before they were sunk. When this exposed the U-boats to counterattacks, however, the Germans began attacking without warning. That was how they sank the Lusitania on May 7, 1915, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. But, through other channels, the Germans had already warned those passengers. The Lusitania had been built to specifications of the British Navy which listed it as an auxiliary cruiser. On its final voyage, the Lusitania was packed with American-made war materiel, including ten-and-a-half tons of rifle cartridges, 51 tons of shrapnel shells, and a large supply of gun cotton, not to mention 67 soldiers of the 6th Winnipeg Rifles. That the ship was carrying troops and weapons to war was not actually a secret. Before the Lusitania left New York, the German Embassy had obtained permission from the U.S. Secretary of State to publish in New York newspapers a warning that because the ship was carrying war supplies it would be subject to attack.Upon the sinking of the Lusitania, those same newspapers, and all other American newspapers, declared the attack murder and omitted any mention of what the ship had carried. When President Wilson protested to the German government, pretending the Lusitania had not contained any troops or weapons, his secretary of state resigned in protest of Wilson. The British and U.S. governments falsified the ship's manifests and lied so effectively that many people today imagine there is doubt over whether the Lusitania had weapons on board. Or they imagine that dive crews discovering arms in the wreckage of the ship in 2008 were resolving a long-standing mystery.[xxvii]SPANISH AMERICAN WARProfessional public relations campaigns may have come into their own with World War I, but war propaganda was not invented in the 20th century. In 1898 the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor, and U.S. newspapers quickly blamed the Spanish, crying out "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!" Newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst did his best to fan the flames of a war he knew would boost circulation. Who actually blew the ship up? Nobody knew. Certainly Spain denied it, Cuba denied it, and the United States denied it. Spain didn't just casually deny it either. Spain conducted an investigation and found that the explosion had been inside the ship. Realizing that the United States would reject this finding, Spain proposed a joint investigation by both countries and offered to submit to binding arbitration by an impartial international panel. The United States wasn't interested. Whatever caused the explosion, Washington wanted war.More recent investigations raise the distinct possibility that the Maine was indeed sunk by an explosion, whether accidental or intentional, that occurred within it, rather than by a mine outside it. But no experts have proven one theory over another to the satisfaction of all. The Spanish could have found a way to plant a bomb inside the ship. Americans could have found a way to place a mine outside it. Knowing where the explosion took place won't tell us who, if anyone, caused it. But even if we knew for certain who caused it, how, and why, none of that information would change the basic account of what happened in 1898. The nation went mad for war in response to an attack by Spain for which there was no evidence, merely conjecture. This alleged atrocity -- the sinking of the Maine -- was used to launch a war "in defense of" Cuba and the Philippines that involved attacking and occupying Cuba and the Philippines, and PuertoRico for good measure.[xxviii]MEXICAN AMERICAN WARU.S. imperialism wasn't new in 1898. The United States had simply run out of land to conquer on the continent by then. Before Abraham Lincoln had become, as president, the celebrated abuser of war powers (suspending habeas corpus, etc.) who has served to excuse similar abuses by so many of his successors, he had been a congressman aware that the Constitution had given the power to declare war to the Congress. In 1847, Congressman Lincoln accused President James Polk of lying the nation into a war by blaming Mexico for aggression when that charge rightly should have been made against the U.S. Army and Polk himself. Lincoln joined with former president and then-current congressman John Quincy Adams in seeking a formal investigation of Polk's actions and the formal sanctioning of Polk for lying the nation into war.[xxix]Even while denouncing a war based on lies whose blood, Lincoln said, was crying to heaven, Lincoln and his fellow Whigs voted repeatedly to fund that war. On June 21, 2007, Senator Carl Levin (D., Mich.) cited Lincoln's example in the Washington Post as justification for his own stance as an "opponent" of the War on Iraq who would continue to fund it through eternity as a means of "supporting the troops."IT WAS EVER THUSAnd so it goes, back through the claim that the Civil War was launched to end slavery and was needed to end slavery, even though so many other nations ended slavery without wars. Back through the endless lies about, and to, Native Americans. Back through the War of 1812 that we like to imagine as a defensive struggle and a continuation of a war for independence, although it was actually launched by the U.S. government three decades after the revolution ended, and launched with the intention of conquering Canada. Back indeed beyond the American Revolution that we justify by averting our eyes from the nonviolent liberation of many other nations.From war we have acquired taxes and debt. Expenses on war and war preparation in the United States are now over half of federal discretionary spending, more than all other nations of the world combined, and more than at any time during the Cold War. Military spending increases, not with the need for military defense, but with the level of corruption in U.S. elections.Decreasing in proportion to the rise in military spending are our civil liberties; our representative government; the balance of powers within the government; resistance to policies of warrantless spying, imprisonment without charge, torture, and assassination; and the health of our news media. The war machine has become the greatest destroyer of the natural environment we have. And the shifting of funding from all other areas to the military has had disastrous results in as many fields as we might choose to name.[xxx][i] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 38.[ii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 55.[iii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 56.[iv] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 56.[v] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 94.[vi] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 102.[vii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 164.[viii]David Swanson, "The Libyan Model and the Oxymoron," http://davidswanson.org/node/3669[ix] Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, by Medea Benjamin, 2012.[x] Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union, by David Swanson, 2009, pp. 34-44.[xi] Ibid.[xii] Ibid.[xiii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 242-249.[xiv] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 101.[xv] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 181.[xvi] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 23.[xvii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 30-31.[xviii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 53.[xix] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 79-80.[xx] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 100.[xxi] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 79.[xxii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 192.[xxiii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 117-118.[xxiv] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 57-65.[xxv] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 36.[xxvi] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 41-43.[xxvii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 71-72.[xxviii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 68-69.[xxix] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 65-67.[xxx] The Military Industrial Complex at 50, edited by David Swanson, Charlottesville, VA., 2011.This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.David SwansonDavid Swanson, author of War Is A Lie, is an activist, journalist, public speaker and radio host. His previous books include When the World Outlawed War, and War No More: The Case forAbolition. Swanson serves as director of World Beyond War, and host of Talk Nation Radio. He blogs at Let's Try Democracy and War Is A Crime. In the early 2000s, he helped to expose the "Downing Street Minutes" and other attempts to lie the United States and its allies into the Iraq war.

For those who are lack of awareness and blinded with wrong informations about the history of Tibet. Here I have kindly presented you with the fact which has hidden in the eyes of Chinese common. Esther's and sisters. Please do know the fact.“Free Tibet” has long been a celebrity cause, one marshaled by generations of Hollywood actors and liberals looking for a cause. Socialists, however, have been more skeptical.China’s invasion of Tibet, many argue, ended feudal and theocratic rule and started a liberation process that continues to this day. They’ll admit that the People’s Republic of China hasn’t run Tibet flawlessly. Mistakes were made; the Cultural Revolution was unfortunate. But you wouldn’t want to see the Dalai Lama back, would you?Almost willfully, this narrative overlooks the way in which Tibet has been a victim of old-fashioned colonization. The record of the last sixty years is striking: an invasion by a more powerful neighbour that produced tens of thousands of refugees; manmade famines that killed tens of thousands more; attempts to wipe out local culture, religion, and language; and rule by thousands of Chinese officials, the vast majority of whom never spoke Tibetan; and decades of violent repression.The oft-repeated claim that Tibet represents an integral part of the country has an unspoken conclusion: Tibet belongs with China, irrespective of the population’s wishes. This mantra expresses a power relationship that runs counter to any principle of self-determination.Granted, American supporters of Tibetan nationalism don’t add much credibility to the campaign. Not only do the flakiest of Hollywood stars seem drawn to the cause like moths to a flame, but, much more seriously, the CIA and State Department have long supported the Tibetan government-in-exile. In the early 1960s, the CIA trained guerrillas to fight inside Tibet — a plan every bit as successful as the Bay of Pigs invasion.But there is simply no escaping the fact that China occupies Tibet in much the same way Western empires of the nineteenth and twentieth century occupied large parts of Africa and Asia. Further, China’s claims to have “liberated” Tibet ring hollow, and the continuing Tibetan resistance represents an important call for self-determination.Defining TibetThe word “Tibet” often refers to different geographical and political entities, so it’s useful to start with clear definitions.The Tibetan plateau makes up just over a quarter of China’s total land surface, comprising the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), Qinghai province, and parts of Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces. It is one of the most sparsely inhabited regions of the world, with a population of between ten and eleven million, between six and seven million of whom are Tibetan (all figures are disputed and approximate). All of China’s major rivers — as well those in east and south Asia — rise on the plateau.For the last thousand years, Tibet has been politically divided between central and western Tibet, previously ruled by the Dalai Lama and today called the TAR, and the two regions of Amdo (now Qinghai province and part of Gansu) and Kham (parts of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces), where local rulers historically held political power.The three regions nevertheless largely share the same culture, religion, and language, and when Tibetans speak of Tibet, they mean the whole plateau, not just the Tibetan Autonomous Region.Control of Tibet has remained central to all variants of modern Chinese nationalism, but this is not purely ideological. It is also rooted in the plateau’s strategic importance, both for its sheer size and geographical command of central Asia, as well as being the source of China’s two largest rivers. So far, however, the cost of controlling Tibet far outweighs the occupation’s economic gains, despite aggressive campaigns to find mineral wealth.Those who defend China’s occupation tend to rely on three main arguments: the historical, the political, and the economic.One Thousand Years of FriendshipThe historical argument uses imperial history to demonstrate that Tibet has been part of China since the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE). In 641, the marriage of a Tang princess to the Tibetan emperor cemented this alliance. As the official People’s Daily puts it:In plain terms, Tibet has been part of China since ancient times. The thousand-year Tibetan–Han relationship covers two stages: in the Tang Dynasty, Tibetans and Han people formed an alliance; since the Yuan Dynasty, they have belonged to the same country.This glosses over quite a bit of history. The Tibetan empire had comparable size and strength to China. In fact, it drove Tang dynasty troops out of what is now Xinjiang Province, and, in 762, briefly occupied Changan (present-day Xian), which was then the Chinese capital. In the late ninth century, it collapsed due to internal warfare — shortly before the Tang dynasty fell for similar reasons.The claim that “since the Yuan dynasty, they have belonged to the same country” isn’t wrong, but it would be more accurate to say that Kublai Khan’s Mongolian empire conquered both China and Tibet.Following the overthrow of Mongol rule by the ethnic Chinese Ming dynasty in 1368, ties between China and Tibet loosened. According to A. Tom Grunfeld — a generally pro-Chinese historian — “from 1566 to the fall of the Ming in 1644, political relations between Beijing and Lhasa were apparently non-existent.”The fall of the Ming coincided with the establishment of rule by the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. The two mutually reinforcing positions have served as spiritual leaders across Tibet, but their political control rarely extended beyond the central and western areas.The far more expansionist Qing dynasty — which replaced the Ming rulers — gradually increased control over Tibet during the nineteenth century, primarily in response to growing pressure from the British in India. British imperialists were obsessed with the “Great Game” — their name for the conflict with Tsarist Russia over central Asia — and, in late 1903, the United Kingdom invaded Tibet in an operation known as the Younghusband expedition.The British forces fought their way to Lhasa, killing some 2,700 Tibetan troops along the way. They then promptly withdrew, taking huge amounts of plunder with them. The whole affair demonstrated that China was powerless to defend Tibet from the British, and, following the 1911 revolution, which ended the Qing dynasty, the Tibetan government quickly expelled the Chinese presence. As centralized rule in China fell apart, Tibet became effectively free of outside control.Chinese propaganda may claim that it and Tibet have a long history of unification, but the history shows a rather different picture — given the opportunity Tibet has thrown off any outside control.LiberationPolitical defenses of Chinese rule often begin by arguing that China’s 1950 invasion liberated the population from feudalism. Tibet was indeed a desperately poor, disease-ridden society ruled by serf-owning lords. But the same argument could be used to justify conquests in Africa, Asia, and Latin America on the grounds that the conquered were already subjected to oppressive social systems.The liberation argument turns out to be anachronistic as well. As Robert Barnett, one of the leading historians of Tibet, points out:China made no claims at the time of its invasion or liberation of Tibet to be freeing Tibetans from social injustice. It declared then that it was liberating them from “imperialism” (meaning British and US interference). The issue of freeing Tibetans from feudalism appeared in Chinese rhetoric only after 1954 in eastern Tibet and 1959 in central Tibet.For the first few years, the Chinese government worked with and through the Tibetan aristocracy and political establishment while also skillfully exploiting the divisions in the ruling class, particularly between the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama — or rather between their entourages, as both were teenagers.They had less success winning over the population, not least because the huge cost of the occupation required maintaining feudal forced labor. Refugees fled Kham and Amdo, where China established its rule much more quickly, and their accounts of the new rulers only added to the tensions.In 1955, the government began land collectivization, forcing nomads to settle. Tibetans met this with major resistance: late that year, fighting spread across both regions, and a major rebellion erupted in Kham in early 1956. The Taiwanese government and the CIA gave some support to the uprising, but these outside forces in no way inspired the movement. The limited arms they delivered made no substantial difference. Nevertheless, American involvement no doubt contributed to China’s determination to strengthen its control over the region.Three years later, Lhasa rose in open rebellion. Following its defeat, the Dalai Lama and around one hundred thousand refugees — from a total population of some three million — fled to India. Chinese accounts represented the rising as directly organized by the CIA. Tsering Shakya, however, argues convincingly that this is not the case.The original demonstrations were “not only expressing their anger against the Chinese but their resentment against the Tibetan ruling elite who, they believed, had betrayed their leader.” He also highlights the leading role the artisans’ guilds and mutual aid societies of the (very small) Tibetan working class played in the rebellion.The CIA did help the Dalai Lama escape, though this involved only two agents. In the following years, the American agency supported would-be guerrillas, but their numbers stayed small and their impact on the ground close to zero. Compared to Indochina, the sums involved were tiny, and shrank further throughout the 1960s. Grunfeld notes that, by 1970, “CIA money had totally dried up” and concludes that “American involvement did not alter the situation in Tibet in any discernable manner after 1959.”Following Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1971, the countries entered into a mutually convenient alliance against the Soviet Union — something often forgotten by those who see China as a constant target for American imperialism. Part of the price for that alliance was ending all American support for Tibetan emigreé groups.Following the 1959 revolt, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) abandoned its cautious policy and established full control over central Tibet, which was formally incorporated as a province-level autonomous region in 1965. On the upside, the TAR was spared Mao’s Great Leap Forward, a disastrous attempt in the late 1950s to stimulate rapid economic growth through forced labor. The effects in other Tibetan regions were among the worst anywhere in China — Gansu, Qinghai, and Sichuan provinces had some of the highest death tolls.Following forced collectivization, officials made peasants substitute their traditional barley crop with wheat, which would not thrive at such high altitudes. In 1962, the Panchen Lama — China’s most prominent supporter among the Tibetan elite — wrote Mao a biting letter detailing the consequences of this policy and pleading for a change: “Although Tibet was in the past a barbarous society under the rule of feudalism, grain was never this scarce.” He was subsequently removed from all official positions and jailed, to be released only in 1977.Even after the famine ended, living standards remained low due to the demands coming from the huge Chinese government and military presence. In 1966, the Cultural Revolution brought a wholesale assault on Tibetan culture. As Grunfeld notes:The damage caused by the wanton destruction and the fighting was awesome. . . . Even if we discount stories of thousands of Tibetans killed . . . verifiable activities of the Red Guards are horrifying enough. There were killings and people hounded into suicide. People were physically attacked in the streets for wearing Tibetan dress or having non-Han hairstyles.In 1959, a millenarian revolt broke out, marked by the wholesale slaughter of Chinese and Tibetan officials. At its high point, the uprising covered eighteen counties. The Chinese army hunted down these rebels and publicly executed their rulers in Lhasa, but the revolt showed the scale of China’s failure.After MaoWhen Deng Xiaoping and his supporters came to power in 1978, their reform agenda rejected the legacy of the Cultural Revolution and allowed a greater degree of personal freedom, believing this would win the regime renewed popular legitimacy. In Tibet, as in Xinjiang, this involved admitting to some of the damage done and loosening the reins significantly.Thousands of people were released from prison, taxation was reduced, monasteries were reopened, and Tibetan officials were rapidly promoted. Over 40 percent of all ethnic Chinese living in the TAR left between 1980 and 1985. Hu Yaobang, one of Deng’s closest associates, was sent to Tibet to oversee the process, and the first-ever Tibetan-speaking first party secretary was appointed. In 1979, a delegation from the Dalai Lama was allowed to visit, drawing huge crowds.Living standards improved rapidly, though as Tsering Shakya notes, this only meant that they “returned to the level the people had enjoyed before the Chinese ‘liberation.’” These concessions whet appetites for much greater change.In September 1987, a small number of monks staged the first public protest in Lhasa since 1959, possibly organized to mark the Dalai Lama’s visit to the United States earlier that month. All were arrested. A few days later, police beat protesters holding a small demonstration in support of the monks, and the city exploded. As Robert Barnett, who was in the city during the protests, described:About 2,000 Tibetans then besieged the local police station to demand the release of the monks detained inside. Eventually they set fire to the door of the station to enable those prisoners to escape. When the authorities opened fire on the crowd, around ten people were shot dead, including children, with several times that number wounded.Then, in early 1989, the Panchen Lama died, removing China’s most senior supporter. Funeral marches turned into scuffles with the police, and, on March 5, the cops opened fire, killing at least ten people. The riots that followed were the largest since 1959, occupying the center of Lhasa for three days. Hundreds were killed and thousands jailed in the subsequent repression.The much larger movement that began in Beijing in May and the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4 overshadowed these protests, although students at Lhasa University struck in solidarity with Beijing. Some four hundred reportedly held out as late as May 21. The nationwide crackdown that followed hit Tibet especially hard. Martial law, imposed in March, lasted for over a year and saw tanks on the streets of Lhasa in early 1990.Finding the Panchen Lama’s replacement cost China even more supporters in the Tibetan religious hierarchy. According to Tibetan Bhuddism, when either the Panchen Lama or the Dalai Lama dies, their spirit is reincarnated in a young boy born at the time of their death. Monks from the deceased Lama’s monastery find the reincarnation and bring him to the other for final approval. So, the Dalai Lama ultimately chooses who will be the next Panchen Lama, and — crucially — the Panchen Lama chooses who will be the next Dalai Lama.In 1995, the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama each announced that they had found the reincarnation. The Dalai Lama’s choice is presumed to be under arrest with his family. When the government tried to impose its choice on the Panchen Lama’s home monastery, a revolt erupted — in what had previously been the main base of religious support for Chinese rule in the TAR — and a number of leading monks went into exile.Beijing subsequently enshrined its support for the principle of reincarnation in state regulations, insisting thatTo maintain the validity and purity of all living Buddha reincarnation and uphold the solemnity of the law, it is necessary to reiterate the key principle already enshrined in the new rule that any reincarnated living Buddha, appointed against the rule [that the government has the final say in ‘recognizing’ a reincarnation], is illegal and invalid.In 2002, China opened negotiations with the Dalai Lama’s representatives, holding out the possibility of a political settlement that would allow him to return. Inside Tibet, however, repression increased, with ever greater restrictions on monasteries. At the same time, economic development caused huge environmental damage and left most Tibetans further excluded from economic growth.The tensions exploded in March 2008. The Dalai Lama declared that six years of negotiations had led nowhere. Monks from the Sera monastery in Lhasa took to the streets in his support, and security forces attacked with tear-gas and cattle-prods, then live ammunition. By the end of the week, thousands of people were fighting against a massive police and army presence with stones. Rioters took control of substantial parts of Lhasa.The protests spread across the TAR, and more importantly, across the rest of the plateau. The government admitted to killing demonstrators in the towns of Luhuo and Aba in Sichuan province. In Gansu province, the BBC reported that high school students led a major uprising in the town of Hezuo. The Guardian’s website showed footage of several thousands demonstrating in Xiahe, where they were tear-gassed by police.One Tibetan expert from the London School of Economics argued that “in terms of the scale of the protests and the subsequent troop deployment, there has not been anything like this since the 1950s.” The protests’ geographic spread was unprecedented and posed a new problem for China’s rulers. We cannot know the exact numbers involved, but, for the first time, the majority of the protests took place outside the TAR, proving that this had become a pan-Tibetan movement.China’s media called the riots a racist pogrom, targeting Chinese and Hui Muslim residents. (The Hui are ethnically Chinese, but designated a seprate nationality by virtue of their religion.) In fact, the rioters mainly targeted symbols of Chinese occupation — such as the Bank of China and government buildings. Numerous attacks on Chinese businesses, at least one mosque, and on individual Chinese and Hui in the streets do lend credence to the Chinese account, but given the nature of the occupation, it is hardly surprising that Tibetans would see individual settlers as responsible for their oppression.After the protests were put down, security ramped up, with internal movement restrictions, roadblocks, and an even greater police presence. The series of self-immolations that have been taking place across Tibet represent one response to this repression. Since February 2009, at least 153 Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule.It is difficult to imagine a more emblematic “weapon of the weak”: impossible to defend against or prevent. Suicide as protest has a long history in China and in several religious traditions, including Buddhism. It came to prominence in the modern era in Vietnam, when Buddhist monks burned themselves to death to protest the South Vietnamese government’s religious persecution.The sheer duration of the Tibetan protests set them apart. The government has passed new laws making it illegal to self-immolate, to help anyone else do so, to spread news of a self-immolation, or even to organize prayers for someone who has died. Collective punishments have been imposed on the families, monasteries, nunneries, and sometimes whole villages. Since 2012, Lhasa has been essentially closed to Tibetans, already a minority in the city, who live elsewhere.American state support for Tibetan nationalists — cut in the early 1970s as part of the Mao-Nixon alliance — has once again started to grow. Strategists, worried about Chinese economic, political, and military competition, support some Tibetan organizations, through the conduit of the National Endowment for Democracy and other vehicles.Yet the extent of this backing shouldn’t be overstated. In 2015, they admitted giving just under $750,000 to twenty-three organizations in Tibet — peanuts, essentially. One pro-free-market project in Pakistan received more money than all the Tibetan projects combined. And both sums pale in comparison to the hundreds of millions given to Afghan mujahideen groups in the 1980s and 1990s.In practical terms, Tibet doesn’t come into play in the overall nexus of Chinese-American relations. As two supporters of the neoconservative Project for a New American Century wrote:Americans need to recognize that, for better or worse, we have no practical alternative to Chinese sovereignty in Tibet. . . . It would be pointless to make independence a goal when there is no chance that such a goal can be reached.This could change. If the United States seriously targeted China as a military opponent, it could use the Tibetan movement as allies (the “Kosovo option”) and parts of the Tibetan movement would surely go along with it.However, from the standpoint of American capital, there are good economic and political reasons not to ally with Tibetan nationalists. China owns more US government debt than any country except Japan; some 450 of the Fortune 500 companies invest in China; and most companies that produce in China have no realistic alternative that they could move to. Politically, China has been a key supporter of the global “war on terror,” and is key to the American strategy of containing North Korea.Whether Trump understands any of those factors — or will listen to those who do — is another matter entirely. He has managed to anger both the Chinese and Taiwanese governments, as well as to start unpicking Obama’s careful work rebuilding American imperialism’s position in east Asia even before he took office. It’s impossible to predict what fresh hell a Trump executive order on China, Taiwan, or Tibet might unleash.Regardless, a more aggressive policy toward China will likely keep Tibet on the periphery. All the key fault lines and all the potential allies are located in east and southeast Asia, not the Himalayas.And while some Tibetan organizations will accept whatever crumbs they are offered, Tibetan nationalism cannot simply be reduced to a tool of American imperialism. It gains support from the harsh realities of Chinese rule and from the refusal of most to accept it. Recognition of that oppression is at the core of why we should support Tibetan self-determination.Development Without TibetansIn 2015, the official news agency Xinhua boasted about how much the Chinese government had invested in Tibet:In the period from 1952 to 2013, the central government provided 544.6 billion yuan to Tibet in financial subsidies, accounting for 95 percent of Tibet’s total public financial expenditure. . . . Over the last two decades, a total of 5,965 of China’s best officials have been appointed to work in Tibet, 7,615 assistance projects have been carried out, and 26 billion yuan has been invested in Tibet.Leaving aside the unfortunate echo of Kipling — “take up the white man’s burden / send forth the best ye breed” — this statement fails to mention who benefits from this spending. The majority of Tibetans still live on subsistence agriculture and livestock herding, though the Chinese policy of forced settlement is rapidly restricting this traditional economy. Something like two million farmers and nomadic herders have been forcibly resettled in newly built villages.In the TAR and Qinghai, the establishment of nature reserves — which ban nomads but allow over-harvesting and industrial development — is driving this resettlement. These reserves now cover one-third of the land area of the TAR, and just over half that in Qinghai.Farmers face dispossession when their land is taken for urban or industrial development. They are forced into shoddily built housing with no land for agriculture and almost nothing in the way of alternative work. In Taming Tibet, Emily T. Yeh described one such village:Nearby construction had cut off all sources of irrigation and thus prevented them from working on their remaining farmland, and yet the village committee did not have enough capital from farmland compensation to complete construction. Villagers were thus left to wait for other work units to come and expropriate their remaining farmland so that the village could finish building their resettlement homes. Ironically, then, villagers waited idly to lose farmland so that they could use the compensation to pay to move into apartments built on their expropriated farmland.As with the forced resettlement of indigenous peoples in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other colonial states, this creates regions — effectively ghettos — that suffer from huge social problems like alcoholism, family breakdown, and the loss of traditional skills. China, however, has added an extra twist by making those resettled pay the cost of their new housing. Yeh quotes one brutally succinct summary of how this is experienced: “This is what socialism is, right? It means we have to do whatever the leaders tell us to do.”Some Tibetans have prospered from recent economic growth, in particular those employed as lower-level officials. In one estimate, half of Lhasa’s indigenous population works for the government. TAR spending has massively increased in recent years, fueled by direct subsidies from central government that, in 2012, amounted to 116 percent of the TAR’s GDP. Government and party administration make up over 13 percent of total economic activity. But the vast majority of that money goes toward control and coercion.The TAR’s GDP quadrupled between 1997 and 2007, a faster economic growth rate than the Chinese economy as a whole, but that was produced almost entirely by central-government spending. The Chinese have invested heavily in construction and infrastructure for the development of the so-called two pillars of the TAR’s economy — tourism and mining — and hydroelectric dam projects. All will exclude Tibetans from everything but the lowest-paying jobs, and all will do great ecological harm.Tourism is now pulling in some fifteen million visitors a year, five times the TAR population, who are increasingly living in a theme-park version of Tibet that one journalist dubbed the “Disneyland of Snows.” As in other developing nations, tourists largely stay inside a bubble of upmarket hotels, shopping malls, and organized trips that exclude the local population and bring little benefit to them.Tourism has little ecological impact, as it is concentrated in just a few areas. But mining, still in its infancy in the TAR, will do far more damage. Mining and mineral extraction have long been the major industries in Qinghai, centered on the Qaidam basin in the province’s northwest. For almost fifty years, the Chinese government has extracted coal, oil, asbestos, salt, lead, zinc, and other minerals. It now plans for tar-sands oil extraction and fracking for gas.The damage has been enormous. Mining has destroyed half of the area’s primitive forest. Pipelines leak, asbestos and copper mining wastes are rampant, and industrial waste has completely polluted water resources.Large-scale mining hasn’t fully developed in the TAR — only a few copper and gold mines are currently in production. The isolation of the reserves and the huge amount of investment needed to exploit them has helped slow this process, but Tibetan resistance has also played a part. Several self-immolations have focused on mining operations as have a number of large-scale mobilizations, which met severe repression. Paramilitary police fired on crowds at least twice, both times killing at least one person.It’s worth emphasizing that the very different rules of engagement used on mass protests are another indicator of Tibet’s colonial status. In China, police rarely fire on protesters, and protesters are rarely killed by police action. Instead, privately hired thugs carry out most political violence. But in Tibet, as in Xinjiang, it has become the standard practice.Mining causes large-scale ecological damage, as dangerous chemicals get into rivers and the water table and spoil-heaps scar the landscape. The impact of hydroelectric dams can be even greater, as the effects are felt the whole length of the river.China has pioneered hydroelectric generation, which produces just under a fifth of all its electricity. Now dams are being built or planned on most of the major rivers that flow out of Tibet — including in Burma, Nepal, and Pakistan. Some two million people depend on these rivers for drinking water, irrigation, fishing, and other essentials of life. The dams threaten to severely disrupt the ecology of a huge part of Asia, potentially affecting the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people.Ironically, they are designed to power an industrial expansion whose waste products will likely erode the water sources industry relies on. Tibet is called the “third pole” because of the volume of water locked up in its almost forty thousand glaciers. But global warming means they are shrinking at a faster rate than even the Arctic or Antarctic. China of course is not solely responsible for climate change, but the runaway growth of the past twenty-five years, coupled with lax environmental controls, has contributed greatly to the problem.The environmental impact of China’s Tibetan occupation may well turn out to be the most severe consequence of all.Self-Determination From BelowThe immediate prospects for change in Tibet are bleak. As opposition has stepped up in recent years the so-called government in exile, located in Dharamsala in northern India, seems more and more distant from what is happening on the ground.The Dalai Lama is an oddly contradictory figure, one minute describing Marxism as being “founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability,” the next asserting that “America is [the] leading nation of free world. American principles, democracy, liberty: right now these things [are] very important.” He matters as a figurehead, with more religious than political authority, rather than the leader of any kind of national movement.In fact, the government in exile consists of a collection of fairly faceless bureaucrats who mainly provide services to the refugees still managing to get out of Tibet. And there is not — nor can there be — any succession strategy. The Panchen Lama must recognize the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, giving Beijing a huge advantage over the exiled government.This growing division between internal resistance and external organization goes back a long way. In 2008, Tsering Shakya wrote:The refugees in India have developed an ideology and forged a nationalistic sentiment such that they have come to see themselves as defenders of Tibet and the Tibetan people. On some occasions this has verged on a view where they see themselves as the “true” representatives of the Tibetans and view the Tibetans inside Tibet as merely passive, oppressed victims.