Pygmies: Congo rebels ate enemies
Tuesday, January 28, 2003 Posted: 7:50 AM EST (1250 GMT)

BENI, Congo (AP) -- Allegations are being made in the African state of Congo
that rebels have started to resort to cannibalism.
    Amuzati Nzoli says he watched from a hiding place in bushes as rebel soldiers
killed and ate his six-year-old nephew.
    Accounts like the one told by the middle-aged Pygmy are sweeping through
northeastern Congo.
    Human rights activists and investigators from the United Nations say rebels
cooked and ate at least a dozen Pygmies and an undetermined number of people
from other tribes during recent fighting with rival insurgents.
    Nzoli says rebels from the Congolese Liberation Movement invaded his forest camp
and slaughtered the dozen people they found at the camp.
    Nzoli, who had been hunting, arrived during the attack and hid.
    He says rebel fighters butchered his nephew, Kebe Musika, and roasted his body
parts over an open fire, grabbing pieces from the smouldering embers.
    "They even sprinkled salt on the flesh as they ate, as if cannibalism was all
very natural to them," Nzoli said.
    It is not the first time cannibalism has been reported in Congo; it generally
occurs during great upheaval, like the Simba rebellion in 1964.
    The latest upheaval is the country's four-year civil war, which has left an
estimated 2.5 million people dead, the vast majority from starvation.
    As in the past, the attacks are fuelled by a mix of tribal animosities and a
desire to spread fear. There is also a belief among some that eating an enemy is
a source of power.
    Rebels used cannibalism "to provoke terrible fear in their foes and pave the way
to dramatic success in the battlefield," said Apollinaire Kighoma, a Roman
Catholic priest in Mangina, 19 miles northwest of Beni.
    The priest has heard accounts about the practice from hundreds of people
displaced by fighting who have taken refuge at his church.
    "Once you develop a reputation as a cannibal, no one wants to stay in your
path," Kighoma said.
    Most of the reported acts of cannibalism took place between November and
December when the Congolese Liberation Movement launched a successful offensive
to retake Mambasa, a town about 70 miles northwest of Beni.
    Tribal rivalries, fuelled by the fight to control the region's mineral and
timber resources, determined the victims.
    Aside from the Pygmies, many other victims were Nande, the tribe from which most
of the leadership of the rival rebel group, the Congolese Rally for
Democracy-Liberation Movement.
    Congolese Liberation Movement rebels may have eaten Pygmies as punishment for
their guiding rival troops through the dense forests, said Angali Salehe, the
chief of the camp were Nzoli lived.
    Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of the Congolese Liberation Movement, says he is
"shocked" by reports that his troops ate people.
    "I don't even know how to explain it," said Bemba, who is poised to become one
of Congo's four vice presidents under a peace deal reached last year.

U.S. Army seeks Hollywood theories
Directors, writers asked for their ideas on terrorist scenarios

HOLLYWOOD (Variety), Oct. 8, 2001 — In a reversal of roles, government intelligence
specialists have been secretly soliciting terrorist scenarios from top Hollywood
filmmakers and writers. An ad hoc working group convened at the University of
Southern California at the behest of the U.S. Army. The goal was to brainstorm
about possible terrorist targets and schemes in America and to offer solutions
to those threats, in light of the aerial assaults on the Pentagon and the World
Trade Center.
         One USC insider describes the ad hoc group as focused ‘on the short-term
threats against the country’ and says that an army general had been heading the
effort.
         AMONG THOSE who convened just last week in the working group based at
USC’s Institute for Creative Technology (ICT) are filmmakers and writers with
obvious connections to the terrorist-movie milieu, such as “Die Hard”
screenwriter Steven E. De Souza, TV writer David Engelbach (“MacGyver”) and
director Joseph Zito, who directed the features “Delta Force One,” “Missing in
Action” and “The Abduction.”
       But the list also includes more mainstream suspense directors such as
David Fincher (“Fight Club”), Spike Jonze (“Being John Malkovich”), Randal
Kleiser (“Grease”) and Mary Lambert (“The In Crowd”), as well as feature
screenwriters Paul De Meo and Danny Bilson (“The Rocketeer”).
       In August 1999, the Army awarded USC a five-year contract to create the
Institute for Creative Technologies with a mandate to enlist the resources and
talents of the entertainment industry, videogame-makers and computer scientists
to advance the state of “immersive,” or virtual reality, training simulation for
soldiers.

CREATIVE EXPERTISE
       The entertainment industry brings a certain expertise in story and
character, as well as visual effects and production know-how to the table.
         But one USC insider describes the ad hoc group as focused “on the
short-term threats against the country” and said that Army Brig. Gen. Kenneth
Bergquist had been heading the effort, which has met twice already via
teleconference with the Pentagon.
       ICT creative director James Korris confirmed that the filmmaker meetings
were ongoing with the Army but declined to elaborate as to what specific
recommendations had been made to the Pentagon.
       A call to the Army’s office of public affairs seeking comment from Gen.
Bergquist was not returned.

Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor
by Robert B. Stinnett
 List Price: $16.00
Our Price: $12.80
You Save: $3.20 (20%)

Usually ships within 24 hours
Paperback - (May 2001) 416 pages

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
It was not long after the first Japanese bombs fell on the American naval ships
at Pearl Harbor that conspiracy theories began to circulate, charging that
Franklin Roosevelt and his chief military advisors knew of the impending attack
well in advance. Robert Stinnett, who served in the U.S. Navy with distinction
during World War II, examines recently declassified American documents and
concludes that, far more than merely knowing of the Japanese plan to bomb Pearl
Harbor, Roosevelt deliberately steered Japan into war with America.

Stinnett's argument draws on both circumstantial evidence--the fact, for
example, that in September 1940 Roosevelt signed into law a measure providing
for a two-ocean navy that would number 100 aircraft carriers--and, more
importantly, on American governmental documents that offer apparently
incontrovertible proof that Roosevelt knowingly sacrificed American lives in
order to enter the war on the side of England. Although obviously troubled by
his discovery of a systematic plan of deception on the part of the American
government, Stinnett does not take deep issue with its outcome. Roosevelt, he
writes, faced powerful opposition from isolationist forces, and, against them,
the Pearl Harbor attack was "something that had to be endured in order to stop a
greater evil--the Nazi invaders in Europe who had begun the Holocaust and were
poised to invade England." Sure to excite discussion, Stinnett's book offers
what may be the final word on the terrible matter of Pearl Harbor. --Gregory
McNamee --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
The Pearl Harbor disaster continues to be controversial. Uncertainty about
whether the U.S. had knowledge of the Japanese attack has led to books
suspicious of FDR's actions, such as John Toland's Infamy (1982). Although
Stinnett's accusatory light doesn't definitively fall on FDR, it illuminates
fishy aspects of the case. For starters, Stinnett, despite his assiduous Freedom
of Information Act campaign that produced most of his data, was often stymied by
official secrecy still enveloping certain decryptions of Japanese radio
communications. Second, Stinnett reports that 13 messages from the Japanese
commander, Yamamoto, to his attack force are missing from the American archive
of decrypts. Third, Stinnett interviewed radio intelligence officers who
recalled locating the force as it crossed the Pacific, contrary to lore that
holds it sailed undetected. And the naval base commander was handcuffed: two
weeks prior to the attack, he was ordered to stop patrolling waters north of
Oahu. Whether the result of simple dereliction or sinister dereliction of duty,
Pearl Harbor holds fewer secrets because of Stinnett's research. Gilbert Taylor
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

>From Kirkus Reviews
An explosive, well-written look at the events leading up to the Japanese raid on
Pearl harbor, including FDRs provocation of the attack, by a WWII veteran and
longtime journalist. Though rumors have long circulated about American prior
knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Stinnett has gone far beyond
his models in substantiating the state of American intelligence, diplomacy, and
readiness in the year preceding December 7, 1941. Though Stinnett easily makes
his case that the Unites States knew an attack was coming and did not prepare
for it, even more shocking is his discovery that the North Pacific area, where
an attack was believed likely to originate, was declared a ``vacant sea'' just
weeks prior to the attack and any patrols were forbidden in this area. The real
heart of the book is the argument that the attack on Pearl Harbor was
deliberately instigated by the Roosevelt Administration as a way of quickly
bringing a unified America into the war. Stinnett begins his case by quoting a
policy memo written by Lt. Cdr. Arthur McCullum listing eight actions designed
to incite a military action by Japan, including such actions as the blocking of
the sale of oil to the Japanese, maintaining a heavy US naval presence in the
Pacific, and supporting Chiang Kai-shek in China. After showing how this plan
was carried out, he then goes on to show how this effort systematically led up
to Pearl Harbor. Although too little is made of the context in which Roosevelt
apparently made the decision to allow the attack to go unchecked (it is only in
the closing sections that this issue is even discussed), Stinnett has left no
stone unturned in this account, which should rewrite the historical record of
WWII. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This
text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Book Description
In Day of Deceit, Robert Stinnett delivers the definitive final chapter on
America's greatest secret and our worst military disaster. Drawing on twenty
years of research and access to scores of previously classified documents,
Stinnett proves that Pearl Harbor was not an accident, a mere failure of
American intelligence, or a brilliant Japanese military coup. By showing that
ample warning of the attack was on FDR's desk and, furthermore, that a plan to
push Japan into war was initiated at the highest levels of the U.S. government,
he ends up profoundly altering our understanding of one of the most significant
events in American history.

Download Description
Twenty years ago Robert Stinnett set out to answer the question that the
Congressional investigations of 1945 and 1995 could not: Did President Roosevelt
know that the attack on Pearl Harbor was coming? Using evidence that has never
been released before now, Stinnett describes Japanese activities documented by
the American government that prove that FDR knew in advance about the attack,
and deliberately did nothing to stop it. For decades it has been believed that
the Japanese fleet maintained strict radio silence as it approached Hawaii. But
Stinnett reveals that it did not -- in fact, no coordinated fleet could have
done so -- and more explosively, he proves that allied listening stations
intercepted and decoded dozens of the fleet's military messages, as they had
been doing long before December 1941. Stinnett produces several devastating
cables, tracing their path from the cryptographers who deciphered them directly
to the White House. Here at last is the archival evidence that has been denied
for half a century. --This text refers to the Digital edition.

Does Tony have any idea what the flies are like that feed off the dead?
By Robert Fisk
26 January 2003
 

On the road to Basra, ITV was filming wild dogs as they tore at the corpses of the Iraqi dead. Every few
seconds a ravenous beast would rip off a decaying arm and make off with it over the desert in front of us,
dead fingers trailing through the sand, the remains of the burned military sleeve flapping in the wind.
    "Just for the record,'' the cameraman said to me. Of course. Because ITV would never show such footage.
The things we see - the filth and obscenity of corpses - cannot be shown. First because it is not
"appropriate" to depict such reality on breakfast-time TV. Second because, if what we saw was shown on
television, no one would ever again agree to support a war.
    That of course was in 1991. The "highway of death", they called it - there was actually a parallel and much
worse "highway of death" 10 miles to the east, courtesy of the US Air Force and the RAF, but no one
turned up to film it - and the only true picture of the horrors we saw was the photograph of the shrivelled,
carbonised Iraqi soldier in his truck. This was an iconic illustration of a kind because it did represent what we
had seen, when it was eventually published.
    For Iraqi casualties to appear on television during that Gulf War - there was another one between 1980 and
1988, and a third is in the offing - it was necessary for them to have died with care, to have fallen
romantically on their backs, one hand over a ruined face. Like those First World War paintings of the British
dead on the Somme, Iraqis had to die benignly and without obvious wounds, without any kind of squalor,
without a trace of shit or mucus or congealed blood, if they wanted to make it on to the morning news
programmes.
    I rage at this contrivance. At Qaa in 1996, when the Israelis had shelled Lebanese refugees at the UN
compound for 17 minutes, killing 106 civilians, more than half of them children, I came across a young
woman holding in her arms a middle-aged man. He was dead. "My father, my father," she kept crying,
cradling his face. One of his arms and one of his legs was missing - the Israelis used proximity shells which
cause amputation wounds - but when that scene reached television screens in Europe and America, the
camera was close up on the girl and the dead man's face. The amputations were not to be seen. The cause
of death had been erased in the interests of good taste. It was as if the old man had died of tiredness, just
turned his head upon his daughter's shoulder to die in peace.
    Today, when I listen to the threats of George Bush against Iraq and the shrill moralistic warnings of Tony
Blair, I wonder what they know of this terrible reality. Does George, who declined to serve his county in
Vietnam, have any idea what these corpses smell like? Does Tony have the slightest conception of what the
flies are like, the big bluebottles that feed on the dead of the Middle East, and then come to settle on our
faces and our notepads?
    Soldiers know. I remember one British officer asking to use the BBC's satellite phone just after the
liberation of Kuwait in 1991. He was talking to his family in England and I watched him carefully. "I have seen
some terrible things," he said. And then he broke down, weeping and shaking and holding the phone
dangling in his hand over the transmission set. Did his family have the slightest idea what he was talking
about? They would not have understood by watching television.
    Thus can we face the prospect of war. Our glorious, patriotic population - albeit only about 20 per cent in
support of this particular Iraqi folly - has been protected from the realities of violent death. But I am much
struck by the number of letters in my postbag from veterans of the Second World War, men and women,
all against this new Iraqi war, with an inalienable memory of torn limbs and suffering.
    I remember once a wounded man in Iran, a piece of steel in his forehead, howling like an animal - which is,
of course, what we all are - before he died; and the Palestinian boy who simply collapsed in front of me
when an Israeli soldier shot him dead, quite deliberately, coldly, murderously, for throwing a stone; and the
Israeli with a chair leg sticking out of her stomach outside the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem after a
Palestinian bomber had decided to execute the families inside; and the heaps of Iraqi dead at the Battle of
Dezful in the Iran-Iraq war - the stench of their bodies wafted through our helicopter until the mullahs
aboard were sickened; and the young man showing me the thick black trail of his daughter's blood outside
Algiers where armed "Islamists" had cut her throat.
    But George Bush and Tony Blair and Dick Cheney and Jack Straw and all the other little warriors who are
bamboozling us into war will not have to think of these vile images. For them it's about surgical strikes,
collateral damage and all the other examples of war's linguistic mendacity. We are going to have a just war;
we are going to liberate the people of Iraq - some of whom we will obviously kill - and we are going to give
them democracy and protect their oil wealth and stage war crimes trials and we are going to be ever so
moral, and we are going to watch our defence "experts" on TV with their bloodless sandpits and their
awesome knowledge of weapons which rip off heads.
    Come to think of it, I recall the head of an Albanian refugee, chopped neatly off when the Americans, ever
so accidentally, bombed a refugee convoy in Kosovo in 1999 which they thought was a Serb military unit.
His head lay in the long grass, bearded, eyes open, severed as if by a Tudor executioner. Months later, I
learned his name and talked to the girl who was hit by the severed head during the US air strike and who
laid the head reverently in the grass where I found it. Nato, of course, did not apologise to the family. Nor
to the girl. No one says sorry after war. No one acknowledges the truth of it. No one shows you what we
see. Which is how our leaders and our betters persuade us - still - to go to war.

26 January 2003 15:27

COURTESY JOHN COULTHART

Monday, 20 January, 2003, 17:47 GMT
Black pharaoh trove uncovered

By Ishbel Matheson
BBC, Nairobi

A team of French and Swiss archaeologists working in the Nile Valley have
uncovered ancient statues described as sculptural masterpieces in northern
Sudan.
    The archaeologists from the University of Geneva discovered a pit full of large
monuments and finely carved statues of the Nubian kings known as the black
pharaohs.
    The Swiss head of the archaeological expedition told the BBC that the find was
of worldwide importance.
    The black pharaohs, as they were known, ruled over a mighty empire stretching
along the Nile Valley 2,500 years ago.
    The pit, which was full of ancient monuments, is located between some ruined
temples on the banks of the Nile.
    It had not been opened for over 2,000 years.
    Inside, the archaeologists made a breathtaking discovery.
    The statues of the black pharaohs are highly polished, finely carved and made of
granite.
    The name of the king is engraved on the back and on the feet of each sculpture.
    The head of the expedition, Charles Bonnet, described them as very beautiful.
    He told the BBC they were sculptural masterpieces.
    They were important not just for the history of Sudan but also for world art.
    The Nubians were powerful and wealthy kings who controlled large territories
along the Nile.
    Their land was known as the Kingdom of Kush.
    They controlled the valuable trade routes along the river but were eventually
conquered by their neighbours from the north.
    The ancient Egyptians made the pit into which the monuments and statues were
piled.
    Many of the sculptures were savagely destroyed, with smashed heads and broken
feet.
    Professor Bonnet says that this shows that the Egyptians were not content with
simply conquering Kush.
    They also wanted to obliterate the memory of the black pharaohs and their unique
culture from the face of the earth.

COURTESY: H.T.

Hunter S. Thompson
The godfather of gonzo says 9/11 caused a "nationwide
nervous breakdown" -- and let the Bush crowd loot the
country and savage American democracy.

By John Glassie

Feb. 3, 2003 | He calls himself "an elderly dope fiend
living out in the wilderness," but Hunter S. Thompson
will also be found this week on the New York Times
bestseller list with a new memoir, "Kingdom of Fear:
Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final
Days of the American Century."
    Listening to his ragged voice, there is some sense that
Thompson, now 65, has reined in his outlaw ways, gotten
a little softer, perhaps a little more gracious now
that he's reached retirement age. "I've found you can
deal with the system a lot easier if you use their
rules," he says. "I talk to a lot of lawyers."
    But do not be deceived. In "Kingdom of Fear" and in a
telephone interview with Salon from his compound in
Aspen, Colo., Thompson did what he's always done: speak
the truth about American society as he sees it, without
worrying much about decorum. "Who does vote for these
dishonest shitheads?" he writes, referring to the
people currently occupying the White House. "They are
the racists and hate mongers among us -- they are the
Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis."
    That's his enduring attitude in this new age of
darkness: a lot more loathing than fear.
    The godfather of gonzo believes America has suffered a
"nationwide nervous breakdown" since 9/11, and as a
result is compromising civil liberties for what he
calls "the illusion of security." The compromise, he
says, is "a disaster of unthinkable proportions" and
"part of the downward spiral of dumbness" he believes
is plaguing the country.
    While the country's spinning out of control, Thompson
says his own lifestyle has been a model of consistency.
He still does whatever the hell he wants. In fact, his
new book was supposed to be a "definitive memoir of his
life," a long look back by the man who rode with the
Hell's Angels, who experienced the riots at the 1968
Democratic Convention, and who has smoked more
cigarettes, driven more fast cars, fired more weapons
and done more drugs than most living people, let alone
most living authors. But the book is much more than
memoir.
    Thompson has long been an outspoken and vigorous
champion of civil liberties, at least since a
well-publicized 1990 case in which he was charged with
sexual and physical assault and possession of illegal
drugs -- charges that were ultimately dropped due to an
illegal search and seizure. Of course, the writer has
distrusted power all his life, and it may come as no
surprise that he now believes the administration is
"manufacturing" the Iraqi threat for its own political
gain and the economic gain of the "oligarchy" (read:
the military-industrial complex).
    Perhaps Thompson's most disturbing charge is aimed at
the American people -- only half of whom exercise their
right to vote. "The oligarchy doesn't need an educated
public. And maybe the nation does prefer tyranny," he
says. "I think that's what worries me."
    In the end, however, Thompson is not and has never been
that easy to pigeonhole. He's friends with Pat Buchanan
and has a lifetime membership in the National Rifle
Association. In his own mind, if not in others', he is
"one of the most patriotic people I've ever encountered
in America."

Your new book, "Kingdom of Fear," is being called a
definitive memoir -- although almost all of your books
seem to be autobiographical in one way or another.
What's the difference between the written accounts --
of drug use, run-ins with the law, sex, fast cars, guns
and explosives -- and real-life events?
I don't really see any difference. Telling the truth is
the easiest way; it saves a lot of time. I've found that
the truth is weirder than any fiction I've seen. There
was a girl that worked for me a long time ago, who
graduated third in her class from Georgetown Law
School, and was from some kind of uptown family in
Chicago, and instead of going to work for some big-time
firm, she came to Aspen and ends up working for me out
here in the wilderness. A year or so later her mother
or father were coming out to visit. I've had some
understandable issues with parents -- really all my
life. And I'd be worried about my daughter, too, if
she'd run off with some widely known infamous monster.
And so I asked her -- just so I could get braced for
this situation, meeting the parents and having them
come to the house: "Given what you know about me and
what you hear about me, which is worse?" She finally
came out and said there was no question in her mind
that the reality was heavier and crazier and more
dangerous. Having to deal with the reality is no doubt
a little more traumatic.

Indeed, your author blurb says you live in "a fortified
compound near Aspen, Colorado." In what sense is it
fortified and why does it need to be?
Actually, I live in an extremely pastoral setting in an
old log house. It's a farm really. I moved here 30 years
ago. I think the only fortification might be my
reputation. If people believe they're going to be shot,
they might stay away.

Yes, I understand you're a gun enthusiast, to put it
euphemistically. But do you support more restrictive
gun laws? Do you support a ban on assault weapons?
I have one or two of those, but I got them before they
were illegal. In that case, if I were sure that any
tragedies and mass murders would be prevented, I'd give
up my assault rifle. But I don't really believe that. Do
I have any illegal weapons? No. I have a .454 magnum
revolver, which is huge, and it's absolutely legal. One
day I was wild-eyed out here with Johnny Depp, and we
both ordered these guns from Freedom, Wyo., and got
them the next day through FedEx. Mainly, I have rifles,
pistols, shotguns; I have a lot of those. But everything
I have is top quality; I don't have any junk weapons. I
wouldn't have any military weapon around here, except
as an artifact of some kind. Given Ashcroft and the
clear blueprint of this administration to make
everything illegal and everything suspicious -- how
about suspicion of being a terrorist sympathizer?
Goddamn, talk about filling up your concentration
camps. But, yeah, my police record is clean. This is
not a fortified compound.

So, just to clarify, how do your views stack up with
the NRA's?
I think I'm still a life member of the NRA. I formed a
gun club out here, an official sporting club, and I got
charter from the NRA. That made it legal to have guns
here, to bring guns here, to have ammunition sent here,
that sort of thing. I've found you can deal with the
system a lot easier if you use their rules -- by
understanding their rules, by using their rules against
them. I talk to a lot of lawyers. You know, I consider
Pat Buchanan a friend. I don't agree with him on many
things. Personally, I enjoy him. I just like him. And I
learn from Pat. One of the things I'm most proud of is
that I never had anybody busted, arrested, jailed for
my writing about them. I never had any -- what's that?
-- collateral damage.

But speaking of rules, you've been arrested dozens of
times in your life. Specific incidents aside, what's
common to these run-ins? Where do you stand vis-a-vis
the law?
Goddammit. Yeah, I have. First, there's a huge
difference between being arrested and being guilty.
Second, see, the law changes and I don't. How I stand
vis-a-vis the law at any given moment depends on the
law. The law can change from state to state, from
nation to nation, from city to city. I guess I have to
go by a higher law. How's that? Yeah, I consider myself
a road man for the lords of karma.

In 1990, you were put on trial for what you call "sex,
drugs, dynamite and violence." Charges were eventually
dropped. Since then, you've been outspoken on Fourth
Amendment issues: search and seizure, the right to
privacy. I assume you've taken a side in the civil
liberties debate that's come up in the aftermath of
9/11?
It's a disaster of unthinkable proportions -- part of
the downward spiral of dumbness. Civil liberties are
black and white issues. I don't think people think far
enough to see the ramifications. The PATRIOT Act was a
dagger in the heart, really, of even the concept of a
democratic government that is free, equal and just.
There are a lot more concentration camps right now than
Guantanamo Bay. But they're not marked. Now, every jail,
every bush-league cop can run a concentration camp. It
amounts to a military and police takeover, I think.

Well, as some have pointed out, Lincoln suspended
habeas corpus during the Civil War. Is some suspension
of civil liberties ever appropriate or justified in a
time of war?
If there's a visible, obvious threat like Hitler, but
in my mind the administration is using these bogeymen
for their own purposes. This military law is nothing
like the Constitution. They're exploiting the formula
here: The people are afraid of something and you offer
a solution, however drastic, and they go along with it.
For a while, yeah. My suspicions are more justified
every day with this manufacturing of dangerous killer
villains. The rest of the world does not perceive, I
don't think, that some tin-horn dictator in the Middle
East is more of a danger to the world than the U.S. is.
This country depends on war as a primary industry. The
White House has pumped up the danger factor because
it's to their advantage. It's to John Ashcroft's
advantage. There have always been pros and cons about
the righteousness of life in America but this just
seems planned, it seems consistent, and it seems
traditional.

What do they get out of it?
They get control of the U.S. economy, their friends get
rich. These are not philosopher-kings we're talking
about. These are politicians. It's a very sleazy way of
using the system. One of the problems today is that
what's going on today is not as complex as it seems.
The Pentagon just asked for another $14 billion more in
the budget, and it's already $28 billion. [Defense
spending in the 2003 budget rose $19.4 billion, to
$364.6 billion]. That's one sector of the economy
that's not down the tubes. So, some people are getting
rich off of this. It's the oligarchy. I believe the
Republicans have never thought that democracy was
anything but a tribal myth. The GOP is the party of
capital. It's pretty basic. And it may have something
to do with the deterioration of educational system in
this country. I don't think Bush has the slightest
intention or concern about educating the public.

Many people would say you're un-American and
unpatriotic.
I think I'm one of the most patriotic people that I've
ever encountered in America. I consider myself a
bedrock patriot. I participate very actively in local
politics, because my voice might be worthwhile. I
participate in a meaningful way -- not by donations, I
work at it.

Well, what do you prescribe? What do you advocate?
All the blood is drained out of democracy -- it dies --
when only half the population votes. I would use the
vote. It would seem to me that people who have been
made afraid, if you don't like what's happening, if you
don't want to go to war, if you don't want to be broke,
well for God's sake don't go out and vote for the very
bastards who are putting you there. That's a pillar of
any democratic future in this country. The party of
capital is not interested in having every black person
in Louisiana having access to the Ivy League. They
don't need an educated public.

So what took place during this past election?
I believe the Republicans have seen what they've
believed all along, which is that this democracy stuff
is bull, and that people don't want to be burdened by
political affairs. That people would rather just be
taken care of. The oligarchy doesn't need an educated
public. And maybe the nation does prefer tyranny. I
think that's what worries me. It goes back to Fourth
Amendment issues. How much do you value your freedom?
Would you trade your freedom for some illusion of
security? Freedom is something that dies unless it's
used.

This is coming from someone who's described himself as
"an elderly dope fiend who lives out in the wilderness"
and also as a "drunken screwball."
A dangerous drunken screwball.

Right. Sorry. So why would anybody listen to you?
I don't have to apologize for any political judgments
I've made. The stuff I wrote in the '60s and '70s was
astonishingly accurate. I may have been a little rough
on Nixon, but he was rough. You had to do it with him.
What you believe has to be worth something. I've never
given it a lot of thought: I've never hired people to
figure out what I should do about my image. I always
work the same way, and talk the same way, and I've been
right enough that I stand by my record.

But is there a sense in which your views are, by
definition, going to be seen as fringe views -- views
that can just be discarded?
That is a problem and I guess "Fear and Loathing in Las
Vegas" might have colored the way people perceive me.
But I haven't worried that people see me as "dope
fiend," I'd rather get rid of the "elderly" rather than
the "dope fiend."

What's the best example of something you were right
about?
Christ, the Hell's Angels certainly. Police agencies
regarded that book as a major primary resource on
motorcycle gangs. I started covering presidential
politics after I realized how easy it was to manipulate
the political machinery in this county -- or almost
officially doing it -- by running for sheriff. I saw
that there might be some serious fun in politics. I
covered Goldwater's convention in 1964. And I went from
Nixon to Kennedy to Nixon. I wanted to have some say in
events, just for my own safety.

You have famously attached yourself to the word "fear"
since you wrote "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Now
you've written "Kingdom of Fear." Will you explain?
This country has been having a nationwide nervous
breakdown since 9/11. A nation of people suddenly
broke, the market economy goes to shit, and they're
threatened on every side by an unknown, sinister enemy.
But I don't think fear is a very effective way of
dealing with things -- of responding to reality. Fear
is just another word for ignorance.

You write in "Kingdom of Fear" about the passing of the
American Ccentury.
That's official, by the way. The American Century was
the twentieth, so sayeth Henry Luce. And when it ends,
Christ, you can't avoid thinking: "Ye Gods!"

To whom or what is the 21st century going to belong?
That's something I have not divined yet. Goddammit, I
couldn't have told you in 1960 what 1980 was going to
be like.

You've also referred to your beat as the "Death of the
American Dream." That was the ostensible "subject" of
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Has it just sort of
been on its deathbed since 1968?
I think that's right.

A lot of people would argue with you about that anyway,
and believe that the American Dream is alive and well.
They need to take a better look around.

But in a way, haven't you lived the American Dream?
Goddammit! [pause] I haven't thought about it that way.
I suppose you could say that in a certain way I have.

You said back in 1991 that you were "as astounded as
anybody" that you were still alive. Still drinking,
smoking & doing drugs?
I guess I'd have to say I haven't changed. Why should
I, really? I'm the most stable neighbor on the road
here. I'm an honest person. I don't regret being
honest. I did give up petty crime when I turned
18eighteen, after I got a look at jail -- I went in
there for shoplifting -- because I just saw that this
stuff doesn't work. There's a line: "I do not advocate
the use of dangerous drugs, wild amounts of alcohol and
violence and weirdness -- but they've always worked for
me." I think I said that at a speech at Stanford. I've
always been a little worried about advocating my way of
life, or gauging my success by having other people take
up my way of life, like Tim Leary did. I always
quarreled with Leary about that. I could have started a
religion a long time ago. It would not have a majority
of people in it, but there would be a lot of them. But
I don't know how wise I am. I don't know what kind of a
role model I am. And not everybody is made for this life.

In fact, you've experienced more than your share of
dangerous situations. You've been beaten by the Hell's
Angels. You were in the middle of the 1968 Democratic
Convention riots. You've been shot at. What's going on
with that?
By any widely accepted standard, I have had more than
nine lives. I counted them up once and they're were
13thirteen times that I almost and maybe should have
died -- from emergencies with fires to violence,
drowning, bombs. I guess I am an action junkie, yeah.
There may be some genetic imperative that caused me to
get into certain situations. It's curiosity I guess. As
long I'm learning something I figure I'm okay -- it's a
decent day.

Is there anything you regret?
That goes to the question of would you do it again. If
you can't say you'd do it again, it means that time was
wasted -- useless. The regrets I have are so minor. You
know, would I leave my Keith Richards hat, with the
silver skull on it, on the stool at the coffee shop at
LaGuardia? I wouldn't do that again. But overall, no, I
don't have any regrets.

jaybabcock.com home