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THE NEW AMERICAN -- December 26, 1994
Copyright 1994 -- American Opinion Publishing, Incorporated
P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI  54913

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ARTICLE: Insider Report
AUTHOR: Staff

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CFR/TC Members in Congress.

Twenty-seven members of the 104th Congress that will convene in 
January are members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), 
as compared with 31 members from the 103rd Congress. Representative 
Bob Torricelli (D-NJ) recently joined the CFR. The five members of 
the CFR who are no longer in Congress are: Senators David Boren (D-OK), 
George Mitchell (D-ME), and Harris Wofford (D-PA); and Representatives 
Dave McCurdy (D-OK) and Thomas Foley (D-WA).

The following members of the CFR remain in Congress: Senators John 
Chafee (R-RI), William Cohen (R-ME), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Bob 
Graham (D-FL), John Kerry (D-MA), Joseph  Lieberman (D-CT), Daniel 
Moynihan (D-NY), Claiborne Pell (D-RI), Larry Pressler (R-SD), Charles 
Robb (D-VA), John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), William Roth (R-DE), and 
Olympia Snowe (R-ME); and Representatives Howard Berman (D-CA), Richard 
Gephardt (D-MO), Sam Gejdenson (D-CT), Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Amo 
Houghton (R-NY), Henry Hyde (R-IL), Jim Leach (R-IA), Robert Matsui 
(D-CA), Tom Petri (R-WI), Bill Richardson (D-NM), Patricia Schroeder 
(D-CO), John Spratt (D-SC), and Louis Stokes (D-OH).

Nine members of the 104th Congress are also members of the Trilateral 
Commission (TC), as compared with ten members of the 103rd Congress. 
Former House Speaker Thomas Foley is the one member of the TC who is 
no longer in Congress. Those who remain are: Senators John Chafee (R-RI), 
William Cohen (R-ME), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) Charles Robb (D-VA), John D. 
Rockefeller IV (D-WV), and William Roth Jr. (R-DE); and Representatives 
Lee Hamilton (D-IN), Jim Leach (R-IA), and Charles Rangel (D-NY).

More on the CFR.

According to its 1994 Annual Report, the CFR now totals 3,126 members. 
The largest plurality of CFR membership (760) are business executives. 
Another 693 are "academic scholars and administrators," 463 are U.S. 
government officials, 575 administer nonprofit institutions, 330 are 
members of the media, 280 are lawyers, and 35 are listed under an 
unspecified "other" category. Among the most notable of the recent CFR 
inductees are author/lecturer Elie Wiesel, psychologist Robert K. Lifton, 
Latin American specialist Bernard Aaronson, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 
Newsweek financial columnist Jane Bryant Quinn, and ACLU president Nadine 
Strossen.

Significantly, the CFR, like the UN, is placing increased emphasis on 
the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in international affairs. 
The Annual Report states that Senior Fellow Jessica Tuchman Mathews "is 
directing a project on [NGOs].... She will examine how NGOs affect 
governments and what needs to be done to make them more accountable." 
The NGOs will play a crucial role in "changing the practical meaning of 
sovereignty."

Also of note is a four-year study entitled "Reinventing North America," 
which is being conducted by CFR Senior Fellow Kenneth Maxwell. Part of 
Maxwell's research will focus on communities in the southwestern United 
States which border Mexico.

Proposition 187 and the UN.

According to a report in the San Fernando Valley Daily News, a California 
group calling itself Save Our Children (SOC), which plans to file a 
lawsuit against the recently passed Proposition 187, "will also ask the 
United Nations Human Rights Commission for assistance in its fight." 
SOC's Pablo Quiroz told the Daily News, "I think the United Nations has 
the power to intervene because the United States is part of the United 
Nations." According to Quiroz, such intervention is necessary because 
"Children are suffering psychologically."

Russian Soldiers Train in Alaska.

A squad of Russian paratroopers recently spent time training with the 
1st Battalion (Airborne), 501st Infantry in Alaska. According to the 
October 14th issue of Arctic Star (an Army publication which serves 
Forts Greely, Richardson, and Wainwright), the Russian troops received 
instruction on advanced U.S. technology and participated in joint exercises 
for the purpose of learning "about our training styles and how we conduct 
training." The Russian squad also observed airborne operations and 
participated in a mock attack.

Apparently, for purposes of this joint exercise, vigilance was eclipsed 
by hospitality. The publication reported that the Russians were so well 
received by the military that they were even invited to a cookout by the 
6th Military Intelligence Company. According to 1st Lieutenant Robert 
Ryan, the liaison officer for the 1-501st Infantry, "I was amazed at how 
similar the two armies are ... the bottom line is we basically have the 
same mission." This statement is cause for concern for those Americans 
who recall that the mission of the Russian army for most of this century 
was to promote world socialism.

Globalizing the Reserves.

The Clinton Administration's imperial overstretch has overtaxed America's 
depleted military manpower; as  a result, according to a wire service 
report, "Pentagon officials are proposing that many of the 1 million 
members of the National Guard and Reserves of the various armed forces 
spend their annual training time performing real operations, including 
overseas peacekeeping missions, rather than drilling at home." Although 
details of the plan have apparently not been worked out, Defense Secretary 
Perry, the Joint Chiefs, and "several key lawmakers" have all approved the 
concept.

In January, the Army will send 430 reservists for "peacekeeping" duties 
in the Sinai. Other reservists might be sent to Kuwait and other venues 
in which overworked regular troops are serving the new world order. The 
new arrangement is being touted as a way for reservists to obtain valuable 
experience. However, some analysts concede that selling career-minded 
reservists on the idea of being janissaries for the NWO may harm retention.

Our Leader?!

Conservative Americans heartened by the recent electoral repudiation of 
the Clinton Administration should turn their fire on one of the conservative 
movement's self-designated leaders: Rush Limbaugh. The November 19th 
Washington Post reported  that Limbaugh's nationally syndicated radio 
show refused to sell advertising time to conservative opponents of the 
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

This sudden aversion to advertising revenues represents a reversal of the 
priorities Limbaugh described early in his talk show career, when he 
frequently stated that his desire was to become the world's most successful 
talk show host and thus be able to charge "extortionate advertising rates."

Limbaugh's rejection of anti-GATT spots produced by Pat Buchanan's American 
Cause organization cost the Excellence In Broadcasting (EIB) network more 
than $100,000. Furthermore, although EIB had initially accepted $85,000 to 
run an anti-GATT ad produced by Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, the network's 
management reversed itself and returned the money just before the ads were 
scheduled to run.

Canada Wants Permanent UN Army.

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister, Andre Ouellet, in a speech to the United 
Nations General Assembly, has suggested the creation of a permanent UN army. 
Canada becomes the first major UN member to formally propose having a 
standing army at the UN's disposal. A report will be made to the UN next 
year based on a major study of this concept being done by Canada's Departments 
of Foreign Affairs and National Defense.

In his speech, Ouellet commented that it was proper for the UN to intervene 
in the affairs of Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Haiti, but he believed that 
the UN did not interfere fast enough. Ouellet argued that the UN needs a 
permanent force in order to deploy troops more rapidly.

Perhaps the most alarming idea in Oulett's speech was his concept of the 
role of modern peacekeeping. Ouellet noted that the UN needs to intervene 
earlier in areas where a potential conflict may occur. He conceded that in 
the past his idea might have conflicted with the exclusive domestic affairs 
of a sovereign state but he simply shrugged this off as not important.

Green Lobby Seeks Crackdown.

Taking a page from the abortion lobby, the Eco-Establishment is courting 
a federal crackdown against "anti-environmental extremists." Sierra Club 
Books recently published The War Against the Greens by David Helvarg, a 
book purporting to demonstrate that the property rights movement is engaged 
in a nationwide conspiracy of violence and terrorism against the environmental 
movement. Helvarg's book has been favorably cited in Newsweek and the author 
provided a precis of his book in the November 28th issue of The Nation.

Helvarg argues that grassroots opposition to the Green Gestapo is a case 
of extremism tethered to big corporate interests. Predictably, Helvarg 
labors to connect the property rights movement to the apparently ubiquitous 
menace of "right-wing militias":

    "Since January, a new and more ominous trend has begun to emerge 
    on the hard right. In Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, Washington, 
    eastern Oregon and other parts of the West, white separatist 
    veterans of [sic] Aryan Nations have begun working with Wise 
    Use/Property Rights activists and gun-rights advocates in the 
    formation of self-described 'armed militias.' These militias are 
    recruiting for what they say will be military resistance to the 
    federal government and its preservationist backers."

Of course, the Sierra Club and its ilk have never fretted about the 
terrorist tactics of Earth First! nor has it ever emitted so much as 
a grunt of disapproval for the corporate interests that slop the Green 
Lobby's trough. The Environmental Grantmakers Association, an adjunct 
of the Rockefeller Family Fund created in 1985, held a meeting on Orcas 
Island in October 1992 during which a script was created to govern media 
depictions of the property rights movement.

Stop the Presses: Communism's Not Dead.

The current issue of the CFR journal Foreign Affairs includes an essay 
entitled "The Fall and Rise of the Communists: Guess Who's Running 
Central Europe?" Author Anne Applebaum takes note of communist political 
resurgence in Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary and suggests that "Western-
style conservative" parties and movements should be offered "encouragement" 
(i.e., grants, aid, and strategic support from the National Endowment for 
Democracy and other Establishment fronts).

Some of the points offered by Applebaum are remarkably cogent. For instance, 
she points out that the Establishment "mis-identified" nationalism as the 
"new danger" which would supposedly come out of Central Europe. She states: 

    "The danger comes from the old left, from the remnants of the 
    communist parties, which remain better organized and better 
    funded than any new right-wing party could ever be. Former 
    communist parties hold political and economic monopolies that 
    will take years to loosen...."

There is, surprisingly, some solid analysis in this article. For instance, 
Applebaum points out: "It is not the specter of the 1930s that haunts 
Central Europe, but the old Italian model -- corrupt regimes led by former 
communist parties that rely on a semi-mafia business class composed mostly 
of former communists." She designates this new political elite the 
"nomenklatura capitalists." Of course, she resists pointing out the natural 
kinship that binds the nomenklatura capitalists of East and West.

Why was this relatively informative and lucid analysis published in the 
CFR's flagship journal? Here is one possibility: With a CFR-line Republican 
regime on the way, a new communist menace may be used to take the stigma 
away from interventionism. The GOP, after all, does not object to 
intervention; it merely professes agonies of reluctance regarding UN 
control. Fighting the communists with foreign aid and strategic political 
assistance is right up Newt's alley -- and exactly the kind of business 
which Paul Weyrich, the Heritage Foundation, et al. live for.

END OF ARTICLE

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THE NEW AMERICAN -- December 26, 1994
Copyright 1994 -- American Opinion Publishing, Incorporated
P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI  54913

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