New edition!

We are proud to present the latest edition of ¡Reclama!, which went to press last Thursday. Click on the cover below to download a PDF copy. If you would like a paper copy, please email us to request one.

In the posts below this one, you will find links to different resources cited in the latest edition.

Click on the cover page to download the magazine in PDF


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Spill, Baby, Spill: BP and its Gulf Coast oil catastrophe

from the latest edition of ¡Reclama! magazine:

As May 8th-9th efforts to control the BP oil leak in the Gulf Coast failed and the oil slick spreads to more coast lines, we are reminded that disasters like this don’t happen in a vacuum and without plenty of foregone opportunities to prevent them.

On the evening of Tuesday, April 20th, an explosion on the oil rig Deepwater Horizon killed 11 workers and injured nearly 20 more. The ship, on lease by the oil giant BP, sank two days later, ironically on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, in the next step of what has been predicted to be the worst industrial environmental disaster in US history. By April 30th the oil slick (the film of oil floating on the surface of the water) had grown to 20,000 square miles and had begun to come ashore near the mouth of the Mississippi river, on course to hit 10 state and national wildlife refuges and management areas. Beyond affecting the parks, the oil leak may potentially hit five states, with fragile economies dependent on fishing. The extent of the oil leak, which is leaking from pipes laid at an ocean depth of 5,000 feet, is predicted to take at the bare minimum two to three months to control. Estimates of daily leak volume have grown steadily: April 22nd estimates placed the leak volume at 1,000 barrels per day, roughly 42,000 gallons; by April 29th, when BP revealed there was an additional breach in the riser (the pipe through which the oil flows), the estimate was 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons per day. On May 5th, a senior BP executive revealed in a closed-door Congressional brief that the pipe could be leaking as much as 60,000 barrels, or 2,520,000 gallons, per day. If that number is true, we will have roughly four Olympic swimming pools worth of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico every day for the next two months.

The BP oil spill, already considered to be worse than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989, comes not too long after the Obama administration revealed plans to open up sensitive areas along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to offshore oil drilling, ending a 27-year moratorium protecting these areas. As victims from the explosion and families of the killed workers begin a lawsuit against BP, the probing into BP’s habit of shirking of safety regulations reveals not just the appalling disregard of the London-based oil giant for worker safety and the environment, but also a distinct relationship between the oil industry and the institution meant to regulate it that makes this tragedy not all that surprising, and not all that unlikely to be repeated in the future.

They might be giants
In 2009, for the first time, seven of the ten largest corporations in the world were oil companies. According to Antonia Juhasz, author of “The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry – and What We Must Do to Stop It,” BP – British Petroleum, or, since the start of their green-wash campaign in 2000, Beyond Petroleum – brought in US$239 billion in revenues in 2009, qualifying it as the fourth largest company in the world. With its staggering yearly revenues, BP has little interest in moving beyond petroleum, and a decidedly vested interest in funding new sources of oil and keeping themselves free from government regulations that would hinder them from doing so or increase the cost of their operations. With off-shore oil wells at shallower depths running dry, BP and other oil companies have begun gaining permits to drill at unprecedented depths, despite their technology not being tested to be safe for drilling these new wells. When the Deepwater Horizons explosion occurred the rig was drilling under 5,000 feet of water and as deep as 18,000 feet into the earth. (Interestingly, and relevant to the lawsuits being filed, the well that is now leaking had just been cemented by the somehow ubiquitous contractor Halliburton, known more for its contract work in Iraq and Afghanistan, which makes 15-17% of its annual revenue from offshore drilling contracting of this nature.)

Drilling at such an extreme depths is a huge operation, and comes with considerably elevated risks. Avoiding the actualization of those risks via safety regulations, however, costs BP money. Well, no problem for BP, right? After all, they made $239 billion last year. But why would BP increase the cost of their operations and compromise their profits when they can just buy off the organization meant to impose those regulations? Accordingly, in 2008 BP spent a record $10 million on lobbying in Washington, and then broke their own record in 2009 by spending $16.5 million, lobbying heavily against stricter offshore drilling safety rules that were being considered. As pointed out by Tyson Slocum, Director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, when the Department of the Interior (the department that oversees offshore oil operations) proposed a mandate of additional safety and oversight regulations in 2009, BP wrote back in September that additional regulations were not necessary as their own “internal voluntary safety standards” were adequate.

Perhaps the members of the Obama administration and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (a big supporter of expanding oil drilling in the Gulf Coast) were open to taking BP’s word for it thanks to the generous campaign contributions made by BP. They certainly wouldn’t have trusted BP’s voluntary standards based on an exemplary safety record: BP is one of the worst repeat corporate law-breakers out there when it comes to disregarding safety regulations. After an explosion at a Texas refinery in March 2005 that killed 15 and injured 180, BP was found to have hundreds of worker safety violations. The company was fined $21.4 million, convicted of negligence and put on probation, with orders to address the safety violations and its previous disregard of the Clean Air Act. According to a 2009 BP report by RiskMetrics analyst Yulia Reutur, a government review found that BP failed to comply with the terms of its probation, and the company was fined an additional $18 million, on top of a related $50 million fine added in 2007 for violations of the Clean Air Act. These fines, however, are just slaps on the wrist for such an enormous corporation; standard costs of operation which are easier to pay than to avoid altogether by adhering to the regulations.

How to make billions, and keep them, too!
Corporations though, including BP and the contractor Halliburton, have found other ways to avoid those fines and avoid having to run safe and environmentally conscious operations: bend the laws. Riki Ott, marine toxicologist and author of “Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Spill” points to the Halliburton Exemption in the Clean Water Act, which authorizes oil and gas drillers to inject recognized hazardous materials into underground water supplies without regulation in a process known as fracking. This is indicative of a corporate trend. The Halliburton Exemption is included in the actual Clean Water Act, part of the Bush Administration’s Energy Policy Act of 2005. BP has benefited in a similar manner. The Minerals Management Service, of the Department of the Interior, granted BP a “categorical exclusion” from the standard environmental review required to receive an offshore drilling project. That means that when Deepwater Horizons was out drilling this now heavily leaking well at unprecedented depths, there had been no environmental review of their project, just an easy rubber stamp, permitted through a loophole in the National Environmental Policy Act. This is standard practice: the Minerals Management Service grants 250-400 of these exclusions to oil companies every year.

We have to be cognizant of this sort downward spiral, as the power flows unabated into the hands of corporations like BP and out of the hands of the institutions meant to regulate them. With the January 21st Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, corporate funding of political candidates can proceed without limitations. Whereas in 2008 BP spent $500,000 on campaign finance, BP is now free to dump as much money into campaigns as it does into lobbying; $16.5 million will go a long way in electing politicians that will back the further deregulation of the oil industry, with more than enough left over to buy off the politicians that would otherwise be against it. The Supreme Court, in its decision, just granted corporations the rights of persons under the constitution, except BP is a person with $239 billion and an explicit interest in electing politicians that will give the oil industry free reign. This is, incidentally, not democracy, when corporations can finance campaigns, buy politicians, and make up the rules to their own games.

Yet people support this! Citizen’s United was a 5-4 Supreme Court decision. These laws, these safety regulations—they are put in place to protect us. They are put in place to protect the 11 workers who just died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion or, at the very least, hold someone accountable for their deaths. We offer BP protection under our constitution, granting them legal personhood when it comes to their profits, but when it comes to their responsibility to their workers, their liability in disasters like this, suddenly it is nobody’s fault. You can’t put a corporation in jail for life for killing 11 people.

The regulations these corporations fight protect the water we drink and the air that we breathe; they are meant to preserve public safety, worker safety, and our public health, and yet we let corporations get away with murder – figuratively and literally – because we don’t hold the corporations accountable. We can’t, as a country, seem to disenchant ourselves from the illusion that an unregulated market is going to take care of us.

And so it goes
The 1990 Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund may well protect BP from having to pay anything more than $75 million in liabilities claimed by individuals, companies, or the government in this spill. Fishermen from the coastal states will see their livelihoods disappear, as this oil spill will wipe out animal resources for years, as we saw with the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. And if that oil spill liability wasn’t going to cover them enough, BP was just ordered to stop offering settlement agreements to the people of Alabama who will be most affected by the spill. Taking a page out of Exxon’s Valdez spill response on this one, BP was offering people $5,000 upfront to waive their right to sue in the future for any damages that may occur to their business, their health, or their families.

We allow BP to lobby for decreased regulation and expanded areas for drilling and we will now allow them to dump their astronomical revenues into electing our politicians. Yet, when a huge spill like this occurs, are we surprised? It was only a matter of time, and it is only a matter of time before it happens again. We allow the profit of the oil industry to be privatized and the risk to be socialized. BP will continue making $239 billion a year after the shock of this spill wears off, but the communities and average Americans whose lives have been devastated will have to fight to ever see a penny from them. Shell Oil, by the way, plans to start oil drilling in the Chukchi Sea of Alaska in July. What were those wise words we once heard during the 2008 campaigns? Ah, yes, I remember. Drill, Baby, Drill.

A personal account of Port-au-Prince: "A City of Two Faces"

This eye-witness recount by an international development worker regarding Port-au-Prince was published in the latest ¡Reclama!

May 2010

The juxtaposition is jarring. I’ve seen poverty before but never in such close proximity and sharp contrast to wealth. Up in the hills, a tent city, housing hundreds of people, has popped up right across the street from a gated house, complete with a serious-looking armed guard. From the same hill, where I notice that most of the biggest houses are still standing, I look across the city to the ocean. Down below, in the slums, it looks like someone has taken a giant wrecking ball to the houses. In some places, the damage seems arbitrary – I see one house standing while all of its neighbors have been destroyed. In other places, wide swaths of hillside have been reduced to piles of cement blocks and rebar.

What is most surprising, though, is that life seems almost normal. As I walk through one of the tent cities, I greet the residents and a chorus of people responds: “Bonjou!” Mothers watch me, slightly amused, as laughing children run after me and try to hold my hand. Women and men sit on the outskirts of the tent city, hawking their goods – a bowl of freshly-cooked rice, some mangoes, bottles of cooking oil.

In plain view, less than 200 yards away, the Presidential Palace sits collapsed on itself, a somber reminder to most Haitians about the state of their government. I broach the subject of government to my guide, asking whether he likes the current president, Rene Preval. He scowls and points to some graffiti spray painted on a nearby wall: “Down with Preval.” Then I ask him about Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first democratically-elected President in Haiti’s history, who is currently living in exile in South Africa. He becomes much more animated and emphatically tells me about how popular the deposed leader is. Then he becomes more subdued and motions for me not to mention it again – there are people around, although I’m not sure which ones, who will take exception to any mention of Aristide.

Later that day, the driver of the car I’m riding in revs his engine in order to pass a United Nations tank, filled with blue-helmeted Brazilian troops holding automatic weapons. It doesn’t appear that they are going anywhere in particular or moving with any sort of urgency. They are MINUSTAH (Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti), and they’ve been in Haiti since Aristide was deposed in 2004. I heard once that the Brazilian troops are particularly effective at maintaining order in Port-au-Prince because they have so much prior experience working in the slums of Rio de Janeiro – a depressing anecdote.

It’s not just the UN who has a presence in the city; I’ve never seen so many NGO vehicles. With names like Food for Life Global and Concern plastered on their doors and hoods, they crawl up and down the streets like ants with body armor. There are more than 10,000 NGOs currently working in Haiti – it is the center of the world’s development industry. When I got into Port-au-Prince, I started chatting up a taxi driver and told him that it was my first day there.

“So, which NGO are you here to work with?” he asks.

Only in Haiti,” I think. I’ve been to a lot of different countries in the world, and in every other one the locals have perceived me, either correctly or incorrectly, as a tourist. The minute I set foot in Port-au-Prince I am immediately classified as a development worker. It dawns on me that I’ve arrived with all the good intentions in the world, just as tens of thousands have before me. I feel helpless.

Over the next few days, I explore the city and try to get a taste for how life is after one of the biggest natural disasters in recent memory. I try to relax, act normal, and be as objective as possible. But there is always something in the back of mind – a whispering voice – telling me to be wary. I realize that I’ve fallen victim to the constant negative media attention that has been showered on post-earthquake Haiti. I am almost waiting for something to happen.

Angry with myself for having these feelings, I stop and take a good look around. I realize that my fears are not justified, even though I haven’t seen one of the supposed hundreds of American soldiers that are patrolling the city. In fact, it is the Haitian police force that is most present.They are in control, at one point stopping our car (filled with foreigners) at a checkpoint and asking to see the American driver’s license. Really, though, I find most comfort in the strength and warmness of the people, even as I’m strolling through Bel Air, one of the roughest areas of Port-au-Prince. They have gone through more in the last few months than I could ever imagine, yet they will survive. I reach out and hold the hand of one of the laughing children.

--Sam Easterly

Barrick Gold and Los Haitises: Dominicans speak out against injustice

This is the first of two articles focused on Barrick Gold Corporation in the latest edition of ¡Reclama! magazine:

As May 16 approaches, the PLD, PRSC, and PRD [Dominican political parties] are drawing great numbers of supporters in lengthy caravans, dressed in their parties’ colors, raising banners trumpeting their candidates’ names and likenesses, and singing their parties’ hit merengue along to the thumping sound trucks. Yet Dominicans believe that political parties are among the most corrupt entities of society. In election time, dirt roads are paved, hospitals are inaugurated, candidates hand out food, washing machines, cash and more, and more electricity reaches the community. Party members are flush with the excitement of competition.

A cynical observer might wonder if the continued lack of faith in government combined with a readiness to snap up handouts and enthusiastically support candidates who give them out dooms Dominicans to an ineffective government that makes no progress on the issues most fundamental to Dominican citizens – jobs, education, and healthcare. Indeed, among the principal findings of a 2008 USAID-funded study on the perception of corruption in the D.R. is that over 40% of people did not denounce corruption because they benefit from it.

Two series of events in the last two years point another way to reform. In 2009, national youth movements spurred popular outrage over a cement quarry in the buffer zone of the Parque Nacional de Los Haitises, and through Internet activism, large demonstrations and media coverage forced politicians and the courts to acquiesce to the public will. Today, popular protests are gaining momentum to demand a reevaluation of the contract governing the enormously rich gold mine south of Cotui operated by Barrick Gold and GoldCorp.

These protests have taken a diffferent path from the typical pattern of Dominican protests, or huelgas, characterized by road blockages, burning tires, downed trees, and rocks thrown at passing vehicles. What stands out about the protests directed at Los Haitises and Barrick Gold is the high quantity and quality of information shared about the causes and goals of the protests, the leadership of youth and student movements, and the participation of other sectors, such as university administration, artists, campesinos, and churches in the protests.

The numerous protests against the cement quarry that were staged throughout the summer of 2009 kept the fire to the feet of the politicians. While actually canceling the license to the quarry required President Fernandez’s involvement, a recommendation to cancel from the UN, and declarations of scientists denouncing the dangers of the quarry, it was the continued protests, such as the simultaneous protests staged on June 5, 2009, World Environment Day, in towns around the D.R., in Spain and New York that gave impetus to all of these actions. A poll administered by Gallup and sponsored by the newspaper Hoy demonstrated that 85% of Dominicans opposed the cement quarry. Over 20 artists joined together to hold a popular concert publicizing the broad support for the revocation of the license. Yet the Secretary of Environment, Jaime David Mirabal, from the spring on, repeatedly insisted that the license for the quarry was a closed case and that all necessary investigations had been made.

By November, 2009, when the government terminated the license to the quarry after receiving the UN’s feasibility study, protest groups were already uniting and using the same methods to contest the contract signed between Barrick Gold and the Dominican government to exploit the gold mine south of Cotui.

The Pueblo Viejo mine is estimated to have 23.7 million ounces of gold, in addition to copper, silver and zinc. At today’s price of USD$1207 per troy ounce, the gold alone would bring in over USD$25 billion. The major concerns about the mine and the contract are environmental and economic. Because the gold will be extracted from an open pit mine using highly dangerous chemicals including mercury, cadmium and cyanide, scientists are concerned that groundwater, river, and air pollution could broadly affect the central and eastern Cibao. Protesters are demanding that the contract more concretely stipulate how the environment will be protected or restored, while the company assures that no environmental damage will occur.

On March 15, 2010, concerns about the operation of the mine exploded onto the national scene. Approximately 350 employees were suddenly admitted to clinics and hospitals in Cotui and San Francisco. According to initial reports from those present, employees heard an explosion, and began experiencing nausea, vomiting and fainting. In the next day’s newspapers, however, Barrick Gold’s version held sway: massive food poisoning from the cafeteria. Rumors of an explosion were minimized and not sourced, while the company’s chief medical officer was quoted as stating that food poisoning was the cause of the illnesses. A week later, after a team of medics, pharmacists, toxicologists, epidemiologists and other specialists representing the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD), the Environment Commission and the D.R. Academy of Sciences established that no patients were treated for symptoms of food poisoning, and the company’s own studies established that there was no clinical evidence for food poisoning, Barrick Gold insisted in the press that food poisoning caused the outbreak.

The attention caused by the explosion and the apparent lies from the company drew further investigation. The report from the Chemical Institute of the UASD, the Environment Commission and the Academy of Sciences indicated that Barrick Gold may be violating laws dealing with human trafficking, migratory rights and labor rights. Foreign employees apparently were not registered with the Dominican health care system, were not permitted possession of their passports and were confined to isolated quarters. Employees were forbidden by contract from speaking with the press, which enabled Barrick Gold to avoid further criticism by minimizing the story. The company also prohibited the investigators from entering the site of the supposed explosion in order to verify the truth of the story.

The confusion over the true nature of the incident may have served to minimize the story, but the anger of various sectors of the public was unleashed. Again, youth movements were key in continuing to keep the issue in the public eye. During Semana Santa, 3,000 people protested the mining operation in Cotui, and 50 people walked 105 km. from Santo Domingo to the mine to protest the conditions of the contract. Talk radio again burned with calls for politicians to heed the public and revise the contract more favorably for the Dominican people. Facebook groups and Twitter messages spread links to video, reports on the mining operation, and news of events, while encouraging people to speak up. On May 2nd, protests were held against Barrick Gold worldwide in the countries in which it operates, including a protest in Santo Domingo on Avenida Lincoln.

While some members of the PRD and other parties opposing the ruling PLD have made demands to revise the contract with Barrick Gold, in the immediate run-up to the election, few politicians have made the revision of Barrick Gold’s contract with the state a major issue. The president has publicly stated his support for the contract as it stands, which was approved with multi-partisan support.

But as the protests against the quarry in Los Haitises showed, the Dominican public has found that it can impose its will on the institutions of the government. It remains to be seen what will happen with the contract of Barrick Gold, but with a 25-year operating life of the mine, it seems a safe bet that the Dominican people will continue to express their will outside of the political system.

Further reading:

*For a detailed review of the history of the movement against the cement quarry
in Los Haitises, click here (in Spanish)

*Report from the UASD and the D.R. Academy of Sciences on massive intoxication at Barrick Gold (in Spanish)

*Gallup poll on Perception of Corruption in the Dominican Republic

*Dangers of chemicals used to extract gold at Pueblo Viejo (in Spanish)

Letter to the Publishers: Amy Martin on Chomsky's Earthquake Commentary

From the pages of the newest edition of ¡Reclama! magazine:

I just read the first edition of ¡Reclama! and had some questions for a statement made by Noam Chomsky and highlighted by the ¡Reclama! staff by being placed on the front page of the magazine. Chomsky states that the earthquake in Haiti was a “class-based catastrophe,” affecting the “the people living in the miserable urban slums” more than the wealthy. During my two stays in Jimaní working at both the public and private hospitals, I had contact with many different relief workers and first responders from numerous organizations that had seen the destruction in both the wealthy areas and the slums. Hearing firsthand accounts from the situation and devastation in and around Port-au-Prince, I was convinced of exactly the opposite.

It seemed to me an interesting twist of fate that in this particular natural disaster, quite uncommonly, the upper and lower classes were affected unequally with the upper classes hit with more severity than the slums. Chomsky states, “It didn’t much harm the wealthy elite up in the hills...” This is where, through first hand accounts, it seems that the population was hit the hardest. I do not take this point of view from media coverage because I tend to have a healthy skepticism for what stories the media concentrates on; and I have read both supporting and opposing accounts published simultaneously from different sources. I take this point of view from those who were there and saw the situation with their own eyes.

How could this specific event immediately affect the wealthy more than the impoverished when 9 out of 10 natural disasters affect the opposite socioeconomic group? Well, let’s think of the infrastructure and lifestyle differences between the two demographics. The wealthy have the luxury to build with cement blocks. They are more worried about their structures withstanding hurricanes than earthquakes. They build structures that can topple and kill and trap in an earthquake. The lower classes, those “living in the miserable urban slums,” do not have this luxury. Their homes are built out of cardboard and palm board which fall with ease and cannot hold up in a hurricane, but in an earthquake is exactly what can fall on your head without crushing you.

Let’s talk about lifestyle. In early evening the wealthy are still in their hurricane-proof, but not earthquake-proof, cement block offices, in commute, in block grocery stores, or in their block houses. After school or work in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas, many more-privileged citizens head straight to internet cafes. At the time that the earthquake hit, internet cafes were full and constituted one of the public locations with the highest rates of mortality. In the slums, there are no internet cafes of block, only cardboard or palm-board structures. There is not the luxury to shop in block supermarkets, only buying food in open-air markets.

What I can say from my first hand experiences at the hospital in Jimani is that the a good portion of the patients there were of the middle-upper class. They were well educated, spoke French, English and Spanish, and hadprofessional careers in Haiti. Initially, I thought that the patients were able to leave Haiti and arrive at the hospital in Jimaní based on wealth or class. After talking with doctors and transportation coordinators, I was informed that patients arrived based on their medical priority and their needs matched the available resources. I took this as being non-biased and a semi-accurate glimpse of the population affected. However, of course, I am not sure how the patients were actually chosen.

My writing this is not to make light of the current situation with the lower classes in Haiti or say that they survived this unscathed, or even that we should see their devastation as anything less. They have suffered incomprehensible tragedy and devastation, and they are the ones without the resources to recover. It is true, as well, that after the initial acute phase of rescue and relief that the people of this demographic are and will be the ones to feel the long-term effect of the earthquake. They are the subset of the population where lack of food, water, and protection from communicable disease are grave threats. Whereas the wealthy have the finances and means to rise out of the rubble, the poor do not.

After I read Chomsky’s statement, I initially assumed that he was referring to these long-term effects that the earthquake will have on the lower class. Indeed, the lower classes face more challenges with basic needs now and into the foreseeable future, without the resources to cope--this IS a “class based-catastrophe,” but it is the same class-based catastrophe that has been present in Haiti before the earthquake, albeit now more intensified.

But Chomsky makes this statement in the past tense--and suggests that the immediate effect of the earthquake on those in the slums (whose living situation may have in fact saved their lives) is what destroyed them, and he dismisses the devastation it had for the upper class in Haiti. He writes: “It didn’t much harm the wealthy elite up in the hills, they were shaken and not destroyed. On the other hand the people living in the miserable urban slums, huge numbers of them have been devastated...” To me, to so easily dismiss the effect that the earthquake had on the wealthy is erroneous. To all of us who had the opportunity to work with patients that were not from the slums in Jimani and elsewhere, we know they too are survivors and that to dismiss their suffering is tragic. The entire country suffered. This should be acknowledged.

I believe deeply in the representation of the underprivileged; giving a voice to those who do not have a voice is necessary. But above this, I believe in searching for the truth and reporting the truth. Automatically siding with one side or another without the necessary research can lead you to lose credibility for the causes you fight for and give the opposition a weakness to attack.

I write this because to me it was an interesting anomaly pertaining to the social effects of natural disasters, and it gave me hope that the lower classes in Haiti might have found some resilience in this earthquake with which to rebuild. I also believe that every victim of the earthquake, regardless of socioeconomic status, deserves equal acknowledgment.

¡Música!

Some links to the musicians highlighted in the most recent ¡Reclama!.

Enjoy!

Panteón Rococo
SOJA
Debajo Del Agua
Youssou N'Dour

The War in Afghanistan (footnotes included)

In order to save space, we omitted the footnotes for the article "The War in Afghanistan: A Call For Change," published in the most recent edition of ¡Reclama!. Here is the original version.

Click here to read Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival, which devotes considerable time to the arguments of justification in the US occupation of Afghanistan.