Global Research

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

A video was revealed on Sunday showing former Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, telling a group of listeners that Venezuelan soldiers need to “remove” President Nicolas Maduro from office.

The recording was released just 24 hours after two air drones carrying explosives were detonated above President Maduro and several members of his administration on Saturday as the head of state addressed a large crowd at the 81st anniversary of the Bolivarian National Guard in Caracas. Maduro and other Venezuelan officials are saying that right-wing factions in the United States, Venezuelan and Colombia are behind the drone bombs.

In the video the former president and current Congress member says in English:

“I have said this in public, I have said that the Venezuelan soldiers need to remove that government (of Nicolas Maduro), not to establish a military government, but to call for a rapid transition, with democratic and transparent elections.

“When I say that the United States should help promote that decision, it is in private, for us,” Uribe tells the small group of U.S. business leaders at his home in the Rio Negro, Antioquia on Saturday, hours before the failed attack on Venezuela’s head of state.

Soldados de Venezuela en mora de remover a Maduro y su régimen, y que haya elecciones transparentes.

Un nuevo Gbno democrático para que frene la profundización de la crisis humanitaria y evite el terrorismo y el riesgo de más violencia

— Álvaro Uribe Vélez (@AlvaroUribeVel) August 5, 2018

Later on Sunday, Uribe repeated what he said at his home over his Twitter account:

“Venezuelan soldiers need to remove a Maduro and his regimen and hold transparent elections.” He added in his tweet, “a new democratic gov in order to stop the deepening of the humanitarian crisis and avoid terrorism and the risk of more violence.”

It is not the first time that the right-wing Colombian politician has sought military intervention to overthrow Maduro from his presidential post.

In August 2017 during a congressional session Uribe told his fellow lawmakers:

“We think that the Armed Forces of Venezuela, instead of continuing to assassinate the people, they should demand that the ‘tyrant’ step aside. Some say that would be a coup, is not it?”

Uribe is himself under investigation by Colombia’s Supreme Court for bribery and witness tampering in a case against him for allegedly masterminding a violent paramilitary group in his home department of Antioquia while he served there a governor between 1995 and 1997.

The former president has politically groomed incoming president, Ivan Duque, also of the Democratic Center party. The two have long been opposed to the 2016 peace accords reached by FARC and outgoing president Manuel Santos. Duque will be sworn in on Tuesday, August 7.

Colombian media added that the Congress member intends to hold another private meeting at home with US lawmakers attending the this week’s inauguration in Bogota.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

The people of Kosovo were and still are cheering for joy. The European Commission (EC) recently decided that Kosovars won’t need visas any more to visit EU countries. Up to now, getting such visas was a horrendously complicated and bureaucratic procedure, especially hurtful, since Kosovo, with a population of about 1.8 million Kosovars living in Kosovo, has a diaspora estimated at 800,000 to a million, most of them in western Europe. For Kosovars, with close-knit families, 90+ percent Albanian Muslims, being able to visit their relatives and friends is a priority. So, this sudden EU opening up, was a great “gift” and a tremendous relief. – But, at what price? What happened? Why did it happen this turnabout by the treacherous EU?

Let’s go back to a bit of history.

Kosovo, a strategic pivot in the center of the Balkans; a landlocked country surrounded by Montenegro, Albania, Serbia and Macedonia. Kosovo, carved out from Serbia during or after the Clinton Administration invoked war – the infamous 69 days of NATO bombing of Kosovo, following a ten-year period of systematic US-NATO- European vassals’ destruction of Yugoslavia, arguably the most prosperous country in Europe at the time.

You may want to recall, the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, started with the “Ten Days War” on Slovenia in 1991, followed by the Croatian War (1991-95); then the Bosnia War (1992-95); and the Kosovo War (1998-99), culminating with the Clinton induced 69-day NATO bombing of Kosovo, under the leadership of Wesley Clark, head of NATO in Europe. The latter under the pretext of freeing the Kosovo Albanians from Serbian Milosevic’s atrocities.

Of course, how Milosevic was used by the West as a pretext to literally slaughter Yugoslavia, so far hardly anybody has dared to analyze and write about. He was on trial by the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. He was actually awaiting a court decision on his request to subpoena former President Clinton, as a witness, when he was suddenly found dead in his cell on 11 March 2006. The Dutch court coroner immediately certified that Milosevic died a natural death. Strangely, his death came less than a week after the star witness in his trial, former Croatian Serb leader, Milan Babic, was found dead in the same prison. Babic’s testimony in 2002 described a behind the scene political and military command structure headed by Milosevic. Babic served a 13-year prison sentence. His sudden death was said to be a suicide.

Too many Serbs die suddenly in The Hague to be called ‘coincidences’. In October 2015, Dusan Dunjic, a forensic pathologist, was found dead in his hotel room, just hours before he was due to testify as a key defense witness in the trial of the Bosnian Serb and genocidal general Ratko Mladic, who was on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Dutch police said, “we have no reason to suspect that a crime had been committed”. They gave no further detail. Case closed.

This is just to make the point that the murderous and atrocious Balkan wars were western instigated from the very preparation – including through decades long Fifth Column type – infiltration in Yugoslavia’s institutions.

Today, Kosovo lacks recognition from sufficient countries to be considered a “real country”. Kosovo is not member of the UN, because she has only been recognized by 114 of the current 193 UN members. It needs two thirds of UN members recognition to apply for UN membership. Kosovo is, of course, not a member of the EU either, only 23 of the 28 EU countries recognize her as a country. The reasons for it are multiple and complex. But Kosovo, with a surface of 10,900 km2, and less than 2 million inhabitants, prides herself with having already two military bases, one US – a huge one, and a “subordinate” NATO base – what else.

Like all the Balkans, Kosovo wants to get into the EU as fast as possible. But, they are far from even getting onto the “accession” path – which is like the runway to fly into the EU. When you get to accession status, you have pretty much fulfilled all or most of the EU conditions and are now accepted to negotiate. And ‘accession’ is a privilege that, aside from some rather ridiculous EU conditions, depends pretty much on Washington’s use for a country, once it has become part of the overall EU vassalage. Kosovo is no priority. The US military is already there and NATO has a base – so what more is needed for right now? The EU today in many countries is considered identical with NATO.

Kosovo is hungry though, to get into the EU, so hungry, it can be easily blackmailed – and bribed – into accepting almost anything, in order to gain kudos with Brussels. The best blackmail object is visas, or the waiver of visas, particularly to western Europe, where most of the Kosovar diaspora lives – an estimated 800,000 to one million people.

Montenegro, an EU candidate on fast track, NATO member since 2017, is building or expanding a NATO base right at the border to Kosovo. In fact, it requires Kosovo to give up some 8,200 ha of her land to Montenegro, the new ‘demarcation line’ (see map – red areas are Kosovo concessions to Montenegro). According to “Prishtina Insight”, the Kosovo Parliament ratified a few weeks ago the “land concession”, also called the “Demarcation Deal with Montenegro” with 80 votes against 11 opposition. And this amidst several teargas canister explosion episodes initiated by the opposition in Parliament.

This was the deal: Kosovo give up a stretch of 8,200 ha of your land to Montenegro and you will get visa-free entry to all of Europe. Blackmail only the west in its greed and hegemonic drive is capable of exercising over countries. Identifying their weak spots – in the case of Kosovo, the desire to get easy access to their relatives and friends living in Europe, and then hitting them with an “offer” they can’t refuse.

In fact, going by the strict rules of the EU, which can only slightly be bent to accelerate access, lest more ‘honest’ EU members might protest, none of the Balkan countries are complying with the EU access regulation – most of them are far from doing so, for multiple reasons, i.e. drug dealing, high crimes in human and organ trafficking, as well as more down-to-earth environmental conditions.

However, the EU and Washington are pushing for the pretty arbitrary target of 2025, simply because they are afraid that the Balkans may drift eastwards into the realm of Russia and on a larger scale, China. – Most educated Kosovars are much more “awake” than the average European. While intellectually they may know that east is where the future lays, their trauma of being persecuted and killed by the Serbs is still strong and they are leaning towards the west. Ideally, though, what they want is full independence, being able to choose their allies that best suit them, as every sovereign nation should be able to do. Not having to confront the dilemma, ‘you are either our friend or our enemy’ – which is how the west attempts to buy the Balkans’ politicians.

The western push to prepare and forge these former Yugoslav republics into EU-NATO vassals is enormous. Every military base the Balkans allow to be built in return for being integrated into Europe, is for the west a step closer to Moscow – an increased threat for the Kremlin, so the western empire believes. If these new Balkan nations play their cards right, they may have it both ways – becoming EU members, benefitting from EU subsidies and trade advantages, while leaning eastwards to Russia and China, and eventually the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the new Silk Road, China’s One Belt Initiative (OBI), the multi-trillion-dollar equivalent economic development plan, on course to span the world.

*

This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog; and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. 

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

In 2015, the UK Government’s Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG) wrote a report citing the increase of national pollution emissions that would be caused by proposed shale development in Britain.

Before the report was finally published this week, Public Health England, UK’s official body for the improvement of the nation’s health and wellbeing, always concluded that “the risks to public health from exposure to emissions from shale gas extraction are low if operations are properly run and regulated.”

Now, the AQEG report warns that

“Impacts on local and regional air quality have the potential to be substantially higher than the national level impacts, as extraction activities are likely to be highly clustered. Studies in the US have shown significant impacts on both local air quality and regional ozone formation, but similar studies have not yet been undertaken for the UK.“

In response, Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe Executive Director Wenonah Hauter issued the following statement:

“The apparent suppression of this important report has helped the fossil fuel industry’s plans to turn communities into sacrifice zones. This inevitable industrialisation that goes along with shale development and the need to take the cumulative impacts into account was clearly highlighted in several formal comments against fracking plans in the UK.

“However, the UK Government chose to ignore the known risks and instead, gave companies like Cuadrilla and Ineos the go-ahead for their plans to frack – mostly for plastics.

“The public knows the dangers fracking poses to our clean air and water, and its direct connection to plastic production and waste. Communities in Pennsylvania have already experienced dangerous air and water pollution linked to fracking and plastic production. And now, activists in the UK are taking bold action to protect their communities against these threats.

“Companies like Cuadrilla and Ineos would like to stifle this movement, and the current UK Government has chosen to oppose those advocating for a healthy climate and a livable world. It’s time for the government to do the right thing and revoke Cuadrilla’s and Ineos’s permits in light of the now published evidence.”

Food & Water Watch champions healthy food and clean water for all. We stand up to corporations that put profits before people, and advocate for a democracy that improves people’s lives and protects our environment. Food & Water Europe is the European programme of Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit organisation based in the United States.

*

Featured image is from TruePublica.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Due to the rising trade tension between China and the United States, the trading arm of Chinese state oil major Sinopec has suspended imports of crude oil from the United States, Reuters reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the plans.

Sinopec’s trading unit, Unipec, has not booked new purchases of U.S. crude oil at least until October, one of Reuters’ sources said. Yet it was not immediately clear how long the suspension of U.S. oil imports would last.

Earlier this year, Unipec had planned to trade up to 300,000 bpd of U.S. crude oil by the end of 2018, which would have been triple the volume of U.S. crude oil that it traded last year.

Amid the ongoing trade war between the United States and China, however, Chinese buyers have scaled down purchases of American oil after China threatened to impose a 25-percent import tax on U.S. energy imports if the United States imposed additional tariffs on more Chinese products.

U.S. energy exports to China may suffer if Beijing follows through with its threat to slap tariffs on U.S. oil and oil product imports.

China has, in recent years, become a key export market for growing U.S. energy exports. In fact, China is America’s second-largest crude oil customer after Canada. Chinese imports of U.S. crude oil in May, for example, averaged 427,000 bpd, more than any other destination and surpassing Canada’s 289,000 bpd imports, EIA data shows.

The possible Chinese import tariff, which would slap nearly $18 a barrel to crude priced at $70 per barrel, has deterred other Chinese companies, including PetroChina, state-run Zhenhua Oil, and independent refiners from importing U.S. crude, Reuters’ sources say.

According to trade flow data by Thomson Reuters Eikon, Chinese imports of U.S. crude oil averaged 334,880 bpd between January and August this year. Yet, only three supertankers are currently sailing to China, carrying a total of just 197,515 bpd of U.S. oil to arrive in September, the trade flow data showed.

*

Featured image is from OilPrice.com.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

A Different Demography

The UAE­-Saudi­-led economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar complicates the Gulf state’s preparations to host the 2022 World Cup, but in no way has the event been derailed. The importation of construction materials needed to build eight stadiums, lay dozens of miles of rail work and erect a brand new city may become more expensive or may take longer to arrive as a result of the boycott, but this should not impair the Gulf state’s ability to complete infrastructures on time.1 “The goods from new supply chains are often more expensive and a lot of contractors are already operating on quite low margins… There’s no doubt that the boycott will put an additional premium on what was already going to be a very expensive World Cup”, cautioned Allison Wood, a Middle East and North Africa analyst with strategy firm Control Risks.2

Deep pockets filled by revenues from gas exports, a $335 billion war chest invested in blue chips, and a remaining four­-year lead time have prevented Qatar’s dream of hosting the tournament from turning into a boycott­-battered nightmare. “There’s a solution for every challenge that presents itself. We work with our contractors to ensure that we can deliver long­-term supply chain solutions and alternatives”, said Hassan al­-Thawadi, the Secretary General of the Qatar World Cup Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy.3

In some ways, if the Gulf crisis were to last another four years until the World Cup, attendance may prove to be a more important issue, and not because Qatar would still be involved in a dispute with its neighbours. The crisis has already become the new normal. Even if it were resolved today, regional relationships will never return to the status quo of before. “This is a wound that has been created for a generation. This will never be forgotten”, noted Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al­-Baker.4

The reason attendance could be an issue is that the demography of fans attending the World Cup in Qatar may very well differ from that of past tournaments. Qatar is likely to attract a far greater number of fans from the Middle East, Africa and Asia whose interests, demands and expectations of experience could differ from those of Europeans and Latin Americans.

Governments in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain, if they were still insistent on maintaining their boycott that involves a ban on travel and the cutting off of all land, sea and air links with Qatar, could find themselves in a sensitive position if they deprived their nationals the opportunity to attend the first ever World Cup held not only in the region but also in an Arab country. How those governments choose to handle this question would have consequences for the nature of the boycott and the status of the complete travel injunction. Qatar has urged the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt to allow their nationals to attend the World Cup. “We separate politics from sports”, Al­-Thawadi said, ignoring the fact that Qatar’s sports strategy is a key part of its soft power policy.5

Sensitivity to fans undoubtedly played a role in the UAE’s decision – within weeks of the declaration of the boycott – to exempt beIN Sports, the Al Jazeera television network’s sports franchise, from the blocking of all Qatari television channels in the country.6 The shuttering of Al Jazeera was one of the UAE­-Saudi­-led alliance’s key pre­-conditions for lifting the boycott on Qatar. beIN holds broadcasting rights for major soccer competitions, including England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, the Champions League, the AFC Champions League, the Asian Cup, the CAF Champions League, and the Africa Cup of Nations. The ban deprived fans of access to broadcasts of the world’s major tournaments. The lifting of the ban came days after Qatar won more than a symbolic victory with a decision by the European soccer body UEFA to award beIN Middle Eastern and North African broadcasting rights for the Champions League and grant it rights for the UEFA Europa League.7

Putting Governance to the Test

The lifting of the ban also served to pre­-empt criticism by soccer fans as well as possible punitive measures by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The AFC alongside world soccer body FIFA’s African affiliate, the Confederation of African Football (CAF), insisted in June 2017 on almost identical statements with respect to upholding the separation of politics and football. They called on football stakeholders to adhere to the principles of neutrality and independence in politics as “part of the statutory missions” of FIFA and its affiliates “as well as the obligations of member associations”.8 The CAF went on to say that it would be “particularly vigilant as regards respect for these principles of neutrality and independence in all future games played under its aegis”. The federation warned that its committees would monitor developments and take punitive action where necessary. Adherence to the policy proved to be perfunctory at times and unevenly enforced. It suggested that the Gulf crisis was putting already sorely battered global and regional soccer governance to the test.

FIFA set the tone for global and regional soccer governance’s chequered adherence to its own principles by contradicting itself within hours in its response to the Gulf crisis. Asked days after the crisis erupted whether the Saudi­-UAE­-led boycott would impact the 2022 World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino insisted that

“the essential role of FIFA, as I understand it, is to deal with football and not to interfere in geopolitics”.9

Yet, speaking hours later, Infantino waded into the crisis by removing a Qatari referee from a 2018 World Cup qualifier following a request from the United Arab Emirates.10

FIFA, beyond declaring that the decision was taken “in view of the current geopolitical situation”, appeared to be saying by implication that a Qatari by definition of his nationality could not be an honest arbiter of a soccer match involving one of his country’s detractors. The statement amounted to an admission that sports and politics were not separate but indeed inextricably intertwined. On an even slipperier slope, FIFA also appeared to be judging the referee’s level of professionalism based solely on his nationality.

Moreover, FIFA and the AFC were silent when Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain refused to compete in the Gulf Cup, scheduled to be held in Qatar in 2017. The boycott persuaded Qatar to transfer its hosting rights to Kuwait. FIFA President Gianni Infantino, rather than chastising the three Gulf states for involving the sport in politics, commended Qatar for its “honourable gesture” and attended the tournament’s opening match.11 But the world soccer body was silent when on political grounds the Saudi, Emirati and Bahraini squads refused to participate in news conferences in Kuwait in which Qatari media were present.12

The CAF appeared to be somewhat more assertive than the AFC. It warned Egypt’s two top clubs, arch­-rivals Al Ahli FC and Al Zamalek SC, that they could be penalized if they went through with a declared boycott of beIN Sports,13 in response to a statement by the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) supporting Egypt’s participation in the UAE­-Saudi­-led boycott of Qatar.14 Al Ahli and Al Zamalek said they were barring beIN from their premises and news conferences as part of Egypt’s participation in the Saudi­-UAE led diplomatic and economic embargo on the Gulf state.

“The Egyptian FA fully supports the long­-awaited decisions of the political administration against an entity that has repeatedly tried to harm our country. In agreement we call on all Egyptian clubs and their personnel to suspend all activities with the Qatari sports channels on all contracts or in programming in rejection of the Qatari attitude”, the statement said. Acting on its warning, the Cairo­-based African group subsequently suspended and imposed a $10,000 fine on Al Ahli coach Hossam El Badry for first refusing to address a news conference at which beIN reporters were present, then refusing to give beIN an interview, and finally covering beIN’s microphone and trying to prevent it from recording the press conference.15

The incidents in Egypt and Kuwait suggested that the Gulf crisis was likely to leave deep scars, even after Qatar and its detractors ultimately paper over their differences and end the crisis. The likelihood was that Saudi Arabia and/or the UAE would mount a challenge to Qatar’s commercial grip on the Middle East and North Africa’s sports broadcasting market. It would be both a political and commercial challenge, rooted in a fundamental rift that is likely to play out on the soccer pitch as well as in other arenas long after the Gulf crisis is resolved.

Economically dependent on Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Egypt appeared set to play an important role in the creation of a Saudi competitor to beIN. Saudi Media City chairman Muflih Al­-Hafatah said the new network was being established together with Egypt and that its 11 high­-definition (HD) channels were “Egyptian with a 100 percent Saudi capital”.16 Al­-Hafatah said the channels would charge a fee only if forced to do so because of encryption but would ensure that it was affordable. beIN has suffered in countries like Egypt from the fact that many subscribers could not afford its cost.

Getting Sucked in

FIFA would likely be an arbitrator in the battle between beIN and the new Saudi network, with the kingdom attempting to convince the world soccer body that Qatar could not be allowed to have a monopoly in regional soccer broadcasting rights.17 The underlying message was that FIFA and several of its regional associations would be dragged into the Gulf crisis by hook or by crook even if the issue of Qatar’s World Cup hosting rights was not directly addressed. The more soccer associations involved in the dispute, the more difficult it will be for them to maintain that sports and politics have nothing to do with one another.

FIFA was also likely to be pulled into the dispute by the UAE’s covert and overt efforts predating the crisis18 to convince the world body to deprive Qatar of its hosting rights. It is doubtful that the World Cup is at the core of the Gulf crisis, despite a declaration by Dubai’s top security official, Lt. General Khalfan, that the crisis would be resolved if Qatar surrendered its hosting rights.19Nonetheless, for Qatar’s detractors (and the UAE in particular), the World Cup is quite an important symbol to target, especially given its position as a vehicle for reputational capital.

That is evident from documents from an email account of Youssef al­-Otaiba, the UAE Ambassador to the United States, who was either hacked or the victim of a leak by an insider.20 Al­-Otaiba had devised a complex financial manoeuvre to undermine Qatar’s currency and deprive the Gulf state of its hosting rights. The effort to deprive Qatar of the World Cup stood in stark contrast to Qatar’s failure to adopt a similar tactic by targeting the 2020 World Expo in Dubai, for example.

Nothing is too outlandish, expensive, or ‘down and dirty’ in the Gulf competition to undermine one’s rival, buy influence, garner soft power, or try to win the hearts and minds of the populace. It is a battle that is fought primarily by the UAE and Qatar, the Gulf’s two megalomaniac states, and played out on European soccer pitches, in the board rooms of Western think tanks and universities, and in the media. Character assassination is fair game. Qatar and the UAE stunned European soccer as the window closed in the fall of 2017 for the buying and selling of players by driving prices through the roof and calling into question European soccer body UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules.

Qatar­-owned French club Paris Saint­-Germain (PSG) spent $476 million on two players: FC Barcelona’s Neymar and Monaco’s Kylian Sanmi Mbappé,21 no mean feat for a country of 300,000 citizens locked in an existential battle with its Gulf detractors. The expenditure of $203 million by Abu Dhabi­-owned Manchester City was similarly stratospheric but paled in comparison.22

The Qatari­-UAE competition for jaw­-dropping headlines was about far more than trophy acquisitions and performance on the soccer pitch. By driving the price of soccer players into the stratosphere, Qatar was showing a finger to its Gulf detractors, saying it could shake off their boycott like it would swat a fly. That was priceless in an environment in which the UAE­-Saudi­-led alliance has failed to garner widespread support for its boycott in both the Muslim world and the broader international community.

For Qatar, the soccer acquisitions were part of a far broader soft power strategy that in many ways might be the most strategic and thought­-through approach in the Gulf. It envisioned sports as much as a pillar of national identity as it was a key leg of its effort to amass soft power. The 2022 World Cup was the strategy’s crown jewel. Yet, the strategy has produced only mixed results. Performance on the pitch has not offered the Qatari government the kind of success that various other Arab autocrats have been able to exploit in their bid to boost their image. Qatar is the first World Cup host in almost a century not to qualify for the World Cup on its own merit.23

Fragile Success

Potential success of the Saudi­-UAE effort depends in part on garnering support for the two states’ position. So far, only a few nations (mostly politically and/or financially dependent countries) have joined the boycott. Soccer suggests that even that support is fragile. Take the Maldives as an example. A target of massive Saudi investment, the Maldives severed diplomatic relations with Qatar hours after Saudi Arabia and the UAE declared the boycott.24 However, that did not stop the Football Federation of the Maldives from signing a cooperation agreement with its Qatari counterpart five months later.25

Saudi Arabia and the UAE hoped to create an environment conducive to a withdrawal of Qatar’s hosting rights by publicly pushing the notion that Qatar was supporting tourism. German26 and Austrian27 media both reported that a German campaign to stop extremism28 by persuading the European Union to take regulatory and punitive action against funders of extremism was funded by the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The campaign, which targets left­- and right­-wing as well as Islamic militancy, identified Qatar, together with Turkey, as the main funders of extremism in Europe.29 Supported by prominent Germans and Austrians, many with an immigrant background, the campaign has denied funding by Qatar’s detractors. Businessmen with Qatari interests suspect, however, that the campaign will target Qatar’s hosting rights once it has garnered its targeted one million signatures on a petition demanding tougher EU policies on the funding of extremism. “This initiative is to align with the other German Qatar detractors by next year to agitate for a withdrawal of the hosting rights”, one businessman said.30

All of which makes the Maldives soccer federation’s forging of closer ties to Qatar the more remarkable. The move followed not only the government’s breaking off of diplomatic relations with Qatar but also Saudi efforts to squash criticism of controversial potential investments in the island republic as well as assertions that massive Saudi funding of Sunni Muslim ultra­-conservative educational and cultural activities has put the Maldives’ traditional adherence to Sufism, a more mystical strand of Islam, on the defensive.31 Journalists reporting on a potential $10 billion Saudi­-funded real estate project that media reports asserted could involve the acquisition by the kingdom of Faafu, a collection of 19 low­-lying islands 120 kilometres south of the Maldives capital of Male, were handed cash­-filled envelopes during an event at the Saudi embassy in Male to counter the assertion.32 The project would allegedly involve the building of seaports, airports, high­-end housing and resorts and the creation of special economic zones.

The Saudis “have had a good run of propagating their world view to the people of the Maldives and they’ve done that for the last three decades. They’ve now, I think, come to the view that they have enough sympathy to get a foothold”, said exiled former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed, who lost power in 2012 following protests over rising commodity prices and the nation’s poor economy.33

If soccer is anything to go by, Saudi Arabia’s grip on the Maldives may either be fraying or has been overstated by critics like Nasheed. Speaking in Qatar at the signing of the cooperation agreement, Maldives soccer federation President Bassam Adeel Jaleel insisted that the government, on which the football body is financially dependent, was “happy” with the forging of closer ties despite the boycott of the Gulf state.34 Maintaining that the Maldives could learn from Qatari preparations for the World Cup, Jaleel attempted to shield the government by noting that it adhered to the principle of a “separation of politics from football”, a fiction that governments and sports associations uphold because it gives them license to exploit the incestuous relationship between the two to their advantage. In the Maldives, that appeared to amountto hedging the government’s bets as Qatar resists Saudi and UAE pressure.

The Saudi­-UAE World Cup effort also sought to exploit continued questions about the integrity of the Qatari bid. That integrity remains in question with legal proceedings in New York and Zurich involving corruption in FIFA and potential wrongdoing in the awarding of World Cups. With legal proceedings likely to drag on for a considerable period of time, Qatar’s more immediate problem is the reputational damage it has suffered as a result of the integrity issue and international criticism of its labour regime. In reputational terms, Qatar has benefitted from reform of the regime as well as perception of the Gulf crisis of one pitting David against Goliath, in which Saudi Arabia and the UAE were attempting to bully their smaller brother into submission. Qatar has emerged, despite continued questions about its relationship with militants, as the resilient underdog defending its independence and its right as a small state to chart its own course.

Qatar’s reforms of its controversial kafala, or labour sponsorship system35that put employees at the mercy of their employers, were likely to become a model for the region. With the reforms, Qatar cemented the 2022 World Cup as one of the few mega­-events with a real potential for leaving a legacy of change. Qatar started laying the foundations for that change by early on becoming the first and only Gulf state to engage with its critics, international human rights groups and trade unions. In a rare kudo, Qatar’s fiercest labour critic, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), hailed a Qatari announcement in October 2017 that it was introducing far­-reaching reforms as a “breakthrough”.36 The ITUC and human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have campaigned for labour reform and abolition of kafala since FIFA awarded Qatar the hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup in December 2010.

Breaking Taboos

The successful Qatari bid has also made a mark by cautiously making taboo issues discussable and potentially initiating a process of change in a country in which concerns that stem from a demographic deficit have long prevented the country from confronting intractable issues head on and stalled progress towards proper rule of law. The pressures to which Qatar was exposed sparked tacit discussion on issues such as citizenship and naturalization of foreigners, ones which had long been unmentionable.

To field an Olympic team that would earn Qatar its first ever Olympic medal, Qatar, a tiny state with a population of 2.3 million of which only 300,000 are citizens, granted 23 athletes from 17 countries citizenship in advance of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. They constituted the majority of the Gulf state’s 39­-member team. The athletes’ naturalization, their success notwithstanding, sparked debate about the principle of granting citizenship and who should be awarded the right in a country in which Qatari nationals account for a mere 12 percent of the population.37 Naturalization was long a taboo subject given Qatari fear that it, like any kind of social or political change, could cost the citizenry loss of control of their state and society. Those fears were enhanced by the fact that Qataris realized that there were no easy solutions to a demographic deficit that would prove unsustainable in the long term.

The Qatari debate was echoed in the UAE where Sultan Sooud al­-Qassemi, an erudite intellectual, businessman, art collector and member of the ruling family of Sharjah, provoked controversy in articles that advocated a rethinking of restrictive citizenship policies that were likely to exacerbate rather than alleviate long­-term problems associated with the demographic deficit. Echoing a sentiment that is gaining traction among Internet­-savvy youth who are exposed to a world beyond the confines of the Gulf, Al­-Qassemi noted that foreigners with no rights had, over decades, contributed to the UAE’s success. “Perhaps it is time to consider a path to citizenship for them that will open the door to entrepreneurs, scientists, academics and other hardworking individuals who have come to support and care for the country as though it was their own”, he argued.38

Fears of loss of control were fuelled by the fact that the naturalization of athletes for the Olympic teams sparked questions among non­-Qataris who have been resident in the Gulf state and whose children were born there but who have no real path to citizenship even though their skills and expertise are and will be needed as the country streamlines and diversifies its economy. Qatari naturalization law stipulates that foreigners who speak Arabic and have resided in the country (of which the majority is non­-Arabic speaking even though Arabic is the official language) for 25 years can be considered for citizenship on a case­-by­-case basis.

Limited opportunity for citizenship puts many of the country’s non­-Qatari residents in an emotional bind. They do not want to “rock the boat” for themselves and their families, yet their existence remains precarious. “This is where I was born, this is my home. I accept things as they are, but it does sting”, said a South Asian professional who was born and grew up in Qatar.39

Ironically, one positive social and political fallout of Qatar’s sports strategy was that the South Asian’s sentiment is beginning to be reflected among some Qatari youth who were more willing to openly discuss sensitive issues. Referring to Qatar’s 14­-member Olympic handball team, 11 of whom are naturalized citizens, public sector employee Hamed Al­-Khater asked on Twitter: “If these guys get naturalized then what about doctors, scientists, engineers, academics and artists? Don’t they add more value to society?”40

In another taboo­-breaking incident, Doha News, against the backdrop of persistent questions in the Western soccer fan community about how Qatar would deal with gays attending its World Cup, published an article entitled: “What it’s like to be gay and Qatari?”. Written by a man using the pseudonym Majid Al­-Qatari (Majid the Qatari), the article asserted that gay Qataris disguised their sexuality by being publicly homophobic, but travelled abroad to be themselves. Majid suggested that gays often got married and raised families in what amounted to putting “a Band­-Aid on a wound. The wife will get conjugal visits and the men will just go their own way”.41

Al­-Khater’s question and Al­-Qatari’s exposé are noteworthy in a country where public discussion of these issues has long been taboo even if they likely constitute a minority view. A majority of Qataris see homosexuality as banned by Islam and question whether foreigners can ever become true nationals. They also fear that it would jeopardize national identity, conservative culture and deep­-rooted tribal values.

Integrity vs Leverage

The integrity issue is likely to prove a tougher nut to crack than the labour controversy. On the principle of where there is smoke, there is fire, Qatar is in a bind. Testimony of a star witness, Alejandro Burzaco, a co­-defendant and the former head of Argentine sports marketing company Torneos y Competencias, in a New York courtroom revealed new allegations of Qatari wrongdoing in its successful bid for the 2022 World Cup hosting rights.42 Burzaco is one of more than 40 officials, business executives and entities that have been indicted in the United States since Swiss police accompanied by FBI agents in 2015 raided a hotel in Zurich where senior FIFA members were gathered for a congress of the world soccer body. Burzaco asserted that the first three defendants to stand trial in the warren of FIFA­-related cases – former South American soccer confederation CONMEBOL President Juan Angel Napout and past heads of the Brazilian and Peruvian soccer federations, Juan Maria Marin and Manuel Burga – were among several senior Latin American soccer officials who had been paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes for their votes in favour of the Qatari World Cup.43

Qatar’s sports­-related financial dealings were also under scrutiny on other fronts. Swiss prosecutors opened criminal proceedings against Qatari national, beIN chief executive and chairman of French soccer club Paris St­-Germain Nasser al­-Khelaifi.44 The proceedings were centred on the allegation that Al­-Khelaifi had bribed disgraced former FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke to ensure that beIN was awarded the broadcasting rights for the 2026 and 2030 World Cups. Qatar as well as Al­-Khelaifi have consistently denied any wrongdoing.

A French investigation into possible corruption45 in business deals related to Qatar’s hosting rights links former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to millions of euros involved in business deals that were allegedly part of a three­-way deal to ensure French support for Qatar’s World Cup bid46 as well as the vote of one­-time French star Michel Platini, who headed UEFA and was a member of FIFA’s executive committee before being banned from involvement in soccer on corruption charges.

France’s interference in the FIFA vote on the Qatari World Cup bid was documented in a lengthy exposé in French soccer magazine, France Football.47 The magazine detailed a meeting engineered by then President Sarkozy in 2010 between Platini, then Qatari Crown Prince and current Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Haman Al­-Thani, and a representative of PSG. The three­-way deal cut at that meeting allegedly involved Platini agreeing to vote for the Qatari bid in exchange for Qatar acquiring the French club, creating a French sports television channel, and investing in France.

Britain’s The Daily Telegraph48 reported that French investigators were examining whether Sarkozy may have received funds from deals linked to the 2010 meeting, including the sale to Qatar of a five percent stake in French water management company Veolia as well as the purchase in 2010 of PSG by Oryx Qatar Sports Investments, believed to be a Qatari government investment vehicle.49 The British paper, quoting French sources, reported that $247 million “may have been siphoned off the side lines” of the deals and also used for payments to World Cup officials. A spokeswoman for the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office in Paris said they were “carrying out two separate preliminary inquiries” into Veolia and the World Cup bid. She said there was no established link between the two inquiries and Sarkozy was not “formally and personally targeted at this stage”.50

For activist critics of Qatar, there are two questions. Who do they want to get in bed with? Qatar’s detractors, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia hardly have stellar human and labour rights records. If anything, their records are worse than that of Qatar, which admittedly does not glow.

The second question critics have to ask themselves is how best to leverage the World Cup, irrespective of whether the Qatari bid was compromised or not. On the assumption that it may have been compromised, the question is less how to exact retribution for a wrong doing that was common practice in global football governance. Leveraging should focus on how to achieve a fundamental reform of global sports governance that has yet to emerge six years into a crisis that was in part sparked by the Qatar World Cup. This goes to the heart of the fact that untouched in the governance crisis is the corrupting, ungoverned, and incestuous relationship between sports and politics.

Sports is Politics by Definition

The future of the Qatar World Cup and the Gulf crisis speaks to the pervasiveness of politics in sports. The World Cup is political by definition. Retaining Qatar’s hosting rights or depriving the Gulf state of the right to host the tournament is ultimately a choice with political consequences. As long as the crisis continues, retaining rights is a testimony to Qatar’s resilience, deprival would be a victory for its detractors.

The real yardstick in the debate about the Qatari World Cup should be how the sport and the integrity of the sport benefit most. And even then, politics is never far from what the outcome of that debate is. Obviously, instinctively, the optics of no retribution raises the question of how that benefits integrity.

Yet, the potential legacy of social and economic change that is already evident with the Qatar World Cup is more important than the feel -good effect of having done the right thing with retribution or the notion of setting an example. Add to that the fact that in current circumstances, a withdrawal of hosting rights would not only be interpreted as a victory of one side over the other, but would also further divide the Arab and Muslim world and enhance a sense among many Muslims of being on the defensive and under attack.

To be clear, the rot in sports governance goes far beyond financial and performance corruption. That is evident in the way that the Gulf crisis, the Saudi -Iranian rivalry, and the Israeli -Palestinian conflict increasingly permeate soccer with a mounting number of decisions that upend the notion of a separation of sports and politics and the resignation from FIFA’s Council of Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad Al -Fahad Al -Sabah, long seen as one of the three most powerful men in international sports. Ahmad, a pony -tailed member of Kuwait’s ruling family, and former minister and head of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), is the living denial of a separation between sport and politics.

A statement by the US Attorney’s Office in New York’s Eastern District did not refer to Mr. Ahmad by name.51 The statement asserted however that Richard Lai, a member of FIFA’s Audit and Compliance Committee and President of the Guam Football Association, had received more than $850,000 in bribes between 2009 and 2014 “from a faction of soccer officials in the AFC region” to help “officials in that faction identify other officials in the AFC to whom they should offer bribes. The goal of this scheme was for the faction to gain control of the AFC and influence FIFA”, the statement said.

Ahmad is believed to be one of four co­-conspirators listed in Lai’s indictment that include a Kuwaiti official of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), which has been headed by Ahmad for the past 26 years. Ahmad’s resignation constitutes the first instance in which US legal proceedings against corruption in global soccer governance have touched Asia. Ahmad denied the assertions made by Lai,52 who pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in the United States, as well as past allegations that the OCA had offered bribes to influence past elections in the Asian Football Confederation.

Ahmad’s decision to resign and not to run for re­-election at this month’s FIFA congress in Bahrain put an end to his effort to exploit his international sports stature to further his political ambitions in a bitter power struggle within Kuwait’s ruling family. To be fair, both parties within the family played politics with sports. Ahmad’s position, however, allowed him to persuade the International Olympic Committee (IOC), of which he is a member, as well as virtually all international sports associations, to suspend Kuwaiti membership as part of the Kuwaiti politician’s bid for power.53 Ahmad long used his position to put his own men in office. The IOC lifted the 18­-month suspension in December 2017 in time for the Gulf Cup.

Men like Ahmad and his long -time protégé, AFC president Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al -Khalifa, a Bahraini national, symbolize the intertwining of sports and politics. They are imperious, ambitious, power -hungry products of autocracies who have worked assiduously to concentrate power in their hands and side -line critics clamouring for real reform. Hailing from countries governed by autocratic, hereditary leaders, they have been accused of being willing to occupy their seats of power at whatever price. Ambition, alleged corruption, and greed is their potential Achilles’ heel. That is what caused the demise in 2012 of Mohammed Bin Hammam, a Qatari national who headed the AFC and was a member of FIFA’s governing council. Bin Hammam was banned for life by FIFA from involvement in soccer on charges of ‘conflict of interest’that related to both Qatar’s World Cup and his own campaign in 2010 -2011 to become FIFA president.

If the Qatar World Cup – given the controversy swirling around it and the fact that the World Cup has become a geopolitical football – ultimately leads to an honest and open debate about the relationship of politics and sports, Qatar, unwittingly rather than deliberately, will have made a fundamental contribution to a healthier governance of sports in general, and soccer in particular.

*

This article was originally published on journals.openedition.org.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario,  Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa, and just published China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom

Notes

1 James M. Dorsey, “Gulf Crisis Creates Opportunity for Asian Nations”, Pragati, 28 November 2017. Accessed on 29.11.2017, at https://www.thinkpragati.com/opinion/2772/gulf-crisis-creates-opportunity-asian-nations/.

2 Zainab Fattah, “Qatar Says Boycott Won’t Affect 2022 World Cup Preparation”, Bloomberg, 30 July 2017. Accessed on 30.07.2017, at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-30/soccer-world-cup-host-scrambles-to-bypass-saudi-led-boycott.

3 Interview with the author, 26 November 2017.

4 Andrew Simmons, “Akbar al-Baker on the Gulf Crisis and Qatar Airways”, Al Jazeera, 14 June 2017. Accessed on 14.06.2017, at https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2017/06/akbar-al-baker-qatar-airways-170613020759574.html.

5 Interview with the author, 26 November 2017.

6 Steven McCombe and Roberta Pennington, “BeIN Sports Back on TV in the UAE”, The National, 22 July 2017. Accessed on 22.07.2017, at https://www.thenational.ae/uae/bein-sports-back-on-tv-in-the-uae-1.613012.

7 Al Jazeera, “beIN Signs New Contract to Broadcast UEFA Matches”, 20 July 2017. Accessed on 20.07.2017, at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/07/bein-signs-contract-broadcast-uefa-matches-170720173329310.html.

8 Asian Football Confederation, “AFC Upholds Principles of Political Neutrality”, 23 June 2017. Accessed on 23.06.2017, at http://www.the-afc.com/media/afc-upholds-principles-of-political-neutrality-37612.

9 Reuters, “FIFA President Says Qatar World Cup Not Under Threat”, 11 June 2017. Accessed on 11.06.2017, at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gulf-qatar-fifa/fifa-president-says-qatar-world-cup-not-under-threat-idUSKBN1920T2?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=593d6a3004d30154541f7820&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter.

10 Rob Harris, “FIFA Removes Qatari Match Officials Due to Diplomatic Crisis”, Associated Press, 11 June 2017. Accessed on 11.06.2017, at https://apnews.com/632e19b93aa54bb29e58462d80d91127.

11 The New Arab, “FIFA Commends Qatar for Transferring Boycotted Gulf Cup to Kuwait”, 10 December 2017. Accessed on 10.12.2017, at https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2017/12/10/fifa-commends-qatar-for-transferring-gulf-cup-to-kuwait.

12 Al Arabiya English, “Saudi, Emirati Football Teams Withdraw from Press Conferences ahead of Gulf Cup”, 21 December 2017. Accessed on 21.12.2017, at https://english.alarabiya.net/en/sports/2017/12/21/Saudi-Emirati-football-teams-withdraw-from-press-conferences-ahead-of-Gulf-Cup.html.

13 Robert Malit, “CAF Issues Veiled threat over beIN Sports Boycott”, KingFut.com, 22.06.2017. Accessed on 22.06.2017, at https://www.kingfut.com/2017/06/22/caf-issues-veiled-threat-over-bein-sports-boycott/?utm_content=buffer5588e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer.

14 Ahram Online, “Egyptian Football Association, Clubs to Boycott beIN Sports after Severing Ties with Qatar”, 5 June 2017. Accessed on 05.06.2017, at http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/6/51/270325/Sports/Egyptian-Football/Egyptian-Football-Association,-clubs-to-boycott-be.aspx.

15 Associated Press, “Al Ahly Coach Fined and Suspended as Row over Qatar Reaches Egyptian Football”, The National, 14 July 2017. Accessed on 14.07.2017, at https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/al-ahly-coach-fined-and-suspended-as-row-over-qatar-reaches-egyptian-football-1.608783.

16 Lulwa Shalhoub, “Saudi-Egyptian Sports Alliance to Replace Blocked Qatari beIN Sports”, Arab News, 20 June 2017. Accessed on 20.06.2017, at http://www.arabnews.com/node/1117646/media.

17 TradeArabia, “Saudi Plans New Arab Channel to End Qatar Monopoly”, 14 June 2017. Accessed on 14.06.2017, at http://www.tradearabia.com/news/MEDIA_326338.html.

18 James M. Dorsey (2018), Shifting Sands: Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa. Singapore: World Scientific, 323­-350.

19 Jon Gambrell, “Official Says Qatar Giving Up World Cup May End ‘Crisis’”, Associated Press, 9 October 2017. Accessed on 09.10.2017, at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-09/uae-official-urges-qatar-to-give-up-world-cup-to-end-crisis.

20 Ryan Grim and Ben Walsh, “Leaked Documents Expose Stunning Plan to Wage Financial War on Qatar – And Steal the World Cup”, The Intercept, 9 November 2017. Accessed on 09.11.2017, at https://theintercept.com/2017/11/09/uae-qatar-oitaba-rowland-banque-havilland-world-cup/.

21 Motez Bishara, “European Soccer Feels Force of PSG and Qatar’s ‘Soft Power’”, CNN, 1 September 2017. Accessed on 01.09.2017, at http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/01/football/soft-power-and-football-mega-transfers-psg-neymar-mbappe-qatar/index.html.

22 Evan Bartlett, “Manchester City’s Annual Defence Spending Exceeds that of 47 Actual Countries”, i News, 25 July 2017. Accessed on 25.07.2017, at https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/manchester-city-defence-spending-countries/.

23 FourFourTwo, “Qatar Fail to Qualify for 2018 World Cup, Bringing to Light Eye-Opening Fact”, 31 August 2017. Accessed on 31.08.2017, at https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/qatar-fail-qualify-2018-world-cup-bringing-light-eye-opening-fact.

24 Maldives Independent, “Maldives Severs Diplomatic Ties with Qatar”, 5 June 2017. Accessed on 05.06.2017, at http://maldivesindependent.com/politics/maldives-severs-diplomatic-ties-with-qatar-131067.

25 MenaFn, “Qatar and Maldives Join Hands to Uplift Football”, 1 November 2017. Accessed on 01.11.2017, at http://menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.aspx?storyid=1096027194&title=Qatar-and-Maldives-join-hands-to-uplift-football.

26 Daniel Bax, “Der Feind meines Feindes [The Enemy of my Enemy]”, Tageszeitung, 30 October 2017. Accessed on 30.10.2017, at https://www.taz.de/!5456830/.

27 Michael Voelker, “Plattform ‘Stop Extremism’: Unklare Finanzflüsse um Efgani Dönmez [‘Stop Extremism’ Platform: Unclear flow of funds to Efgani Doenmez]”, Der Standard, 8 October 2017. Accessed on 08.10.2017, at https://derstandard.at/2000065560659/Plattform-Stop-Extremism-Unklare-Finanzfluesse-um-Efgani-Doenmez.

28 Stop Extremism, accessed on 08.10.2017, at https://www.en.stopextremism.eu/.

29 Stop Extremism, accessed on 08.10.2017, at https://www.stopextremism.eu/demands.

30 Interview with the author, 31 October 2017.

31 James M. Dorsey, “Why Saudi Arabia, China and the Islamic State Are Courting the Maldives (JMD in SCMP)”, blog The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 13 March 2017. Accessed on 13.03.2017, at https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2017/03/why-saudi-arabia-china-and-islamic.html.

32 Avas Online, “Saudi’s Cash ‘Gift’ to Maldives Journos Sparks Concern”, 20 February 2017. Accessed on 20.02.2017, at https://avas.mv/en/29796.

33 Karl Mathiesen and Megan Darby, “Saudis Make Maldives Land Grab to Secure Oil Routes to China”, Climate Home News, 5 March 2017. Accessed on 05.03.2017, at http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/03/05/saudis-make-maldives-land-grab-secure-oil-routes-china/.

34 Gulf Times, “Politics and Sports Don’t Mix: Maldives Football Chief”, 1 November 2017. Accessed on 01.11.2017, at http://www.gulf-times.com/story/569629/Politics-and-sports-don-t-mix-Maldives-football-ch.

35 James M. Dorsey, “Activists and Gulf Crisis Turn Qatar into Potential Model of Social Change”, blog The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 26 October 2017. Accessed on 26.10.2017, at https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.pt/2017/10/activists-and-gulf-crisis-turn-qatar.html.

36 BBC News, “Qatar Introduces Minimum Wage for First Time”, 25 October 2017. Accessed on 25.10.2017, at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-41752490.

37 Tom Finn, “Qatar’s Recruited Athletes Stir Debate on Citizenship”, Reuters, 25 August 2016. Accessed on 25.08.2016, at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-qatar-olympics-nationality-idUSKCN11015P.

38 Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, “Give Expats an Opportunity to Earn UAE Citizenship”, Gulf News, 22 September 2013. Accessed on 22.09.2013, at http://gulfnews.com/opinion/thinkers/give-expats-an-opportunity-to-earn-uae-citizenship-1.1234167.

39 Interview with the author, 18 March 2016.

40 Hamed al­-Khater, Twitter, 10 August 2016. Accessed on 10.08.2016, at https://twitter.com/HamadK7/status/763351422167556097

41 Majid Al­-Qatari, “What It’s Like to Be Gay and Qatari”, Doha News, 5 August 2016. Accessed on 05.08.2016, at http://dohanews.co/what-its-like-to-be-gay-and-qatari/.

42 Graham Dunbar and Rob Harris, “World Cup Bribes, Death Threats: Corrupt World of FIFA”, Associated Press, 20 November 2017. Accessed on 20.11.2017, at https://apnews.com/4c704914a9d244e580cc26192d289d86?utm_content=buffer9a48f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer.

43 Tom Hays, “FIFA Official Demanded $80 Million in Bribes from Qatar for World Cup Vote, Trial Hears”, Associated Press, 15 November 2017. Accessed on 15.11.2017, at https://www.thestar.com/sports/soccer/2017/11/15/fifa-official-demanded-80-million-in-bribes-from-qatar-for-world-cup-vote-trial-hears.html.

44 Aimee Lewis, “Swiss Prosecutors Open Investigation into Paris Saint­-Germain’s Qatari Chairman Nasser Al­-Khelaifi”, CNN, 13 October 2017. Accessed on 13.10.2017 at https://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/12/football/nasser-al-khelaifi-paris-st-germain-fifa-criminal-proceedings/index.html.

45 Seth Jacobson, “Sarkozy Probed over Qatar 2022 Graft Claims”, The National, 4 August 2017. Accessed on 04.08.2017, at https://www.thenational.ae/world/europe/sarkozy-probed-over-qatar-2022-graft-claims-1.616804.

46 James M. Dorsey, “FIFA’s Blatter Unwittingly Pinpoints Soccer Governance’s Prime Issues”, blog The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 5 July 2015. Accessed on 05.07.2015, at https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/fifas-blatter-unwittingly-pinpoints.html.

47 Richard Morgan, “Qatargate 2022: Outlining the Evidence that Suggests Qatar Cheated to Win Bid”, Bleacher Report, 6 February 2013. Accessed on 06.02.2013, at https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1518079-qatargate-2022-outlining-the-evidence-that-suggests-qatar-cheated-to-win-bid.

48 Claire Newell, Edward Malnick, Luke Heighton and Rory Mulholland, “Nicolas Sarkozy Under Scrutiny in Prosecutors’ Probe into Qatar World Cup Vote­-Buying”, The Telegraph, 4 August 2017. Accessed on 04.08.2017, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/03/nicolas-sarkozy-scrutiny-prosecutors-probe-qatar-world-cup-vote/.

49 Saj Chowdhury, “Neymar: How Can PSG Afford to Pay £198m for the Barcelona Forward?”, BBC Sport, 22 July 2017. Accessed on 22.07.2017, at http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/40690701.

50 Caroline Mortimer, “Nicolas Sarkozy ‘Under Scrutiny as Part of French Probe into Qatar World Cup Scandal’”, Independent, 4 August 2017. Accessed on 04.08.2017, at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/fifa-qatar-world-cup-nicolas-sarkozy-investigation-veolia-paris-saint-germain-a7876041.html.

51 The United States Attorney’s Office – Eastern District of New York, “Fifa Audit and Compliance Committee Member Pleads Guilty to Corruption Charges”, 27 April 2017. Accessed on 27.04.2017, at https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/fifa-audit-and-compliance-committee-member-pleads-guilty-corruption-charges.

52 Simon Evans, “Asia Olympic Chief Quits FIFA Role over Bribery Scandal”, Reuters, 30 April 2017. Accessed on 30.04.2017, at https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-fifa-asia/asia-olympic-chief-quits-fifa-role-over-bribery-scandal-idUKKBN17W0EC.

53 James M. Dorsey, “Kuwaiti Rulers Fight their Internal Battles on the Sports Field”, blog The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 19 June 2016. Accessed on 19.06.2016, at https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2016/06/kuwaiti-rulers-fight-their-internal.html.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above 

What to call someone who claims to oppose racism, except for that directed against Palestinians?

Judge someone by what they have done and continue to do. Consider the source. These thoughts ran through my mind as I struggled to write about Bernie Farber’s standing among some Left/liberals.

After Israel recently solidified its apartheid regime, a Facebook friend posted an opinion by illustrious pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim titled “Today, I Am Ashamed to Be an Israeli.” While expressing opposition to its recent entrenchment of Jewish supremacism, the story effectively denied the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by claiming,

“the founding fathers of the State of Israel who signed the Declaration [of independence] considered the principle of equality as the bedrock of the society they were building.”

More than this sop to colonial history, my leftist Facebook friend’s post piqued my ire because it highlighted that the article came from Farber, who worked at the now defunct Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) between 1984 and 2011. In response to my complaint about citing the former CJC CEO approvingly, Farber wrote,

“I will continue to work for mutual understanding and do my best to see all sides. You will of course see what you wish from your one-sided pedestal and be critical of anyone who remains a progressive Zionist which I am.”

From the “pedestal” on which I observe Farber, I see an individual who has repeatedly labelled supporters of Palestinian rights as racist. After the Canadian Union of Public Employees (Ontario) passed a 2009 motion in support of the Palestinian led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement Farber claimed, “anti-semitism is once again amongst us.” For Farber the resolution was “bigoted and discriminatory and anti-Jewish” because only one country was targeted. “The sole target is Jews, is Israel,” he said.

In a 2010 letter to the Toronto Star denouncing Israeli Apartheid Week CJC’s CEO wrote,

“Anything that promotes the destruction, demonization and delegitimization of Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, is inherently anti-Semitic. To falsely accuse Israel, and by extension the vast majority of the world’s Jews who support the Jewish state, of ‘apartheid,’ is a form of anti-Semitic bullying.”

When the Israeli military killed 1,400 Palestinians (including 345 children) over 22 days in 2008-09 Farber denounced those protesting the slaughter across the country for their purported “vile, disgusting, hateful rhetoric of the kind that should be absolutely frightening to Canadians.” Further stoking anti-Arab/Muslim sentiment, he labeled the protests “uncivil, un-Canadian, that demonize Jews and Israelis.” Farber called on the police to investigate the burning of an Israeli flag and a small number of individuals with signs deemed “pro-Hamas” or comparing Israel’s actions to the Nazis.

In 2003 Farber lobbied for noted Islamophobe and anti-Palestinian activist Daniel Pipes to speak at York University.

“It would have set a very, very unacceptable precedent to cancel it because of students who didn’t like or what he had to say,” said the then executive director of CJC Ontario.

In 1996 Pipes asserted that Islam “would seem to have nothing functional to offer” and six years earlier said:

“Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene … All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.”

The year before speaking at York University Pipes launched Campus Watch, which created “dossiers” on professors and academic institutions viewed as critical of Israel and more recently, wrote a piece titled “How 99 Percent of ‘Palestine Refugees’ Are Fake.”

Farber certainly didn’t support Pipes as a principled defender of free speech. In fact, Farber repeatedly promoted hate speech restrictions and a few years later the CJC pressured the York administration against holding an academic conference entitled Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace. Farber also applauded the Stephen Harper government’s 2009 move to block former British MP George Galloway from speaking in Canada, writing: “George Galloway enables terrorism.”

After Adbusters juxtaposed photos of the World War II Warsaw Ghetto with images of Gaza, Farber penned a National Post op-ed titled “Selling anti-Semitism in the book stores”. It urged people to complain to stores selling the Vancouver-based magazine and a week later Shoppers Drug Mart told Adbusters it would no longer sell its magazine.

Aligning himself with Doug and Rob Ford, in 2010 Farber called on Toronto Pride to ban Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from its parade. In an over-the-top Toronto Star opinion piece he (co)wrote,

“you’ve got to hand it to the organizers of Toronto’s annual gay pride parade. With their cowardly volte face in allowing Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) to march, organizers have pulled off the PR nightmare hat-trick: bowing to the bullying of political correctness; violating their own core philosophy by readmitting a group rooted in hate and demonization; and shifting media focus off their main objective.”

As executive director of CJC Ontario Farber joined US Jewish groups’ campaign to suppress the 1998 publication of A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth, which was a rebuttal of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s widely distributed Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. The Norman Finkelstein-led project included an expanded version of an article by Ruth Bettina Birn, chief historian for Canada’s Nazi war crimes unit. Farber claimed that Birn was lending her name to Finkelstein’s “anti-Israel outbursts“, which were “an insult” to Jews. The CJC tried to intimidate the longstanding Nazi hunter through her government employer.

In another attempt to punish those in any way associated with Finkelstein, Farber threatened to take the York Region education board to the human-rights commission if it did not dismiss a Palestinian-Canadian from its race relations committee. Farber was angry that Bader Abu Zahra distributed a review of Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering at a teachers’ conference to discuss including “Holocaust and Anti-racist education in History, English and Social Science courses.”

When former Assembly of First Nations (AFN) head David Ahenakew made anti-Semitic comments in 2002 Farber (correctly) criticized them. But he also used Ahenakew’s abhorrent comments to smear Palestine solidarity activists. Alluding to the September 2002 protest against Benjamin Netanyahu at Concordia University and support for the second Palestinian intifada, Farber claimed Ahenakew “felt comfortable at the time to say what he’s been thinking for a long time.” Farber then used Ahenakew’s anti-Semitic comments to push AFN leaders to support a state stealing indigenous Palestinians’ land. As part of AFN/CJC rapprochement Grand Chief Phil Fontaine participated in a CJC organize tour to Israel.

Farber attacked the United Church of Canada for supporting Palestinian rights and Independent Jewish Voices (IJV).

“It almost sends shivers down our spine that the United Church of Canada won’t speak out against documents which on their face are anti-Semitic,” said Farber, regarding a number of Palestine solidarity resolutions submitted to its 2009 national meeting.

Amidst an aggressive campaign targeting the United Church, the CJC head opined, “that a mainstream Christian faith group would provide funding to create an anti-Zionist, and anti-Jewish group is absolutely astounding.”

Farber has repeatedly denigrated IJV, which supports the Palestinian civil society’s call to put economic and diplomatic pressure on Israel. He called IJV a “small, radical rump group”, “a rump on the edge of Jewish society”, a “fringe group” that spews “vile, anti-Zionist” rhetoric, “a minuscule, fringe group” that backs the “anti-Semitic” claim that Israel practices apartheid, etc.

At the same time that he disparaged IJV, Farber gave political cover to the Jewish Defence League (JDL), which recruited in Jewish high schools and participated in Toronto’s Annual Israel Walk. According to Andy Lehrer, JDL head Meir Weinstein spoke glowingly of Farber. After being asked to do so for years, Farber finally distanced himself and the CJC from the JDL in 2011. Highlighting the tension between those who back its anti-Palestinian posture, but oppose the JDL’s alliances with fascist/white supremacist organizations, Farber denounced the group after it rallied in support of Britain’s extremist English Defence League.

In response to my posting some of the above information on Facebook Farber complained that,

“I haven’t worked at the CJC for over 7 years. And you have no idea of my work since then.”

While Farber is no longer a leading proponent of the idea that expressing support for Palestinians is “anti-Semitism”, now challenges some of the Islamophobia he previously stoked and is offside with the JDL, it would be a stretch to say he’s broken from his CJC past. In 2015 Farber’s Mosaic Institute co-hosted an event with the Consulate of Israel in Toronto and last year he supported the exclusion of IJV and the United Jewish People’s Order from an Ontario anti-Semitism committee he co-led. In February Farber was a spokesperson for a JSpace Canada press release callingon the NDP convention to oppose a resolution that called for boycotting products from illegal Israeli settlements.

Despite this anti-Palestinian activity, many left/liberals partner with him. Alt weekly Toronto Now regularly publishes Farber’s articles; anti-racist journalist/activist Desmond Cole spoke with him at a recent forum put on by Farber’s Mosaic Institute; Judy Rebick, Sandy Hudson, Jerry Dias and others co-authored an op-ed with Farber calling on “Progressive Voters To Rally Around Andrea Horwath”; A slew of individuals have supported the new Farber-chaired Canadian Anti-Hate Network; the Treyf podcast interviewed him twice last year; the Torontoist quoted him in an article titled “Toronto’s Jewish Left is Alive and Well and Resisting Extremism.”

Of course, one could argue there is nothing wrong with interviewing someone you disagree with, partnering on an issue even if you differ on other subjects or citing a former pro-Israel activist to highlight that country’s eroding support.

But, ask yourself this: Would a pro-union publication give voice to a prominent union-basher? And if that union-basher claimed to have changed, wouldn’t the pro-union publication question him/her about the reasons for the change and their current opinion regarding unions?

It seems to me that supporters of Palestinian rights must, at a minimum, ask Farber similar questions before giving him voice as a “progressive” and “anti-racist”.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Bolivia’s Evo Morales was among the first to comment, posting on Twitter: “Now the empire and its servants threaten his life.”

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

For the second year in a row, the US state of California is the scene of death and destruction, as wildfires surge throughout the state and drive thousands from their homes. In July alone, wildfires have killed nine people and burned over one thousand homes, forcing tens of thousands to evacuate.

The number of horrific tragedies is multiplying. On Thursday, Ed Bledsoe, 76, left his wife Melody, 70, and two great-grandchildren Emily and James, 4 and 5, to go to a doctor’s appointment. The Carr Fire had been burning for four days near his Shasta County home, but they were not under an evacuation order.

After a panicked call from his wife saying she could see the fire approaching, Bledsoe raced back, but was blocked by traffic and the encroaching fire. Unable to make it home, he managed to reach his family by cell phone as they huddled under wet blankets and the fire overtook them.

Their tragic deaths are part of the social catastrophe that surrounds every natural disaster. The stage is set by forces beyond mankind’s control, but these intersect with and are compounded by a social and political system in which everything is subordinated to the wealth accumulation of the corporate and financial elite.

At the same time as fires rage in California, the death toll from fires last week in Greece has risen to 91, with 25 still missing. While the immediate cause of these fires is still being investigated, there is no doubt that the austerity measures carried out by the Syriza government, dictated by European banks, are to blame for the massive death toll. They include cuts of 20 percent from the fire service, along with other cuts to utilities that contributed to electricity and water supply failures.

In California, prolonged drought conditions have dried out large sections of the state and provided large amounts of fuel for the ongoing fires. Of the ten most destructive wildfires on record in California, four have happened within the last ten months.

Last year, 43 people were killed in California fires, nearly 10,000 buildings were destroyed and a quarter-million people were evacuated. An investigation released last month found that a dozen of the fires that killed nine people in Northern California in October were caused by power lines operated by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, highlighting the impact of decayed infrastructure in causing the blazes.

Among the factors contributing to the greater frequency and intensity of fires is climate change. Studies at the National Center for Atmospheric Research show that increased global temperatures have created warmer winters, shortening the amount of time needed for snowpack to melt, consequently also shortening the time for the newly created water to evaporate.

The Guardian cited University of California professor Anthony LeRoy Westerling, who noted that the impact of climate change “will probably accelerate. There won’t be a new normal in our lifetimes.” The Carr fire is only one of “a bunch of large fires which have behaved in uncharacteristic ways,” including “firenados” that have rapidly destroyed homes.

Similar trends are occurring in Europe and across the globe. Data from the Suomi NPP, Terra and Aqua satellites show Europe’s landscape turning from green to brown over the past month as a result of record long droughts in Armenia, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland and Norway. Approximately fifty forest fires, which have burned down 62,000 acres of land, were blazing in Sweden in mid-July.

Despite increasingly dire warnings from scientists about the consequences of climate change, the capitalist states—riven by national conflicts and each subordinate to the profits of giant corporations—have been incapable of taking any serious measures to do anything about it.

There are many factors that contribute to the spread of fires, and measures that could be taken to mitigate their impact. The US Forest Service estimates that in California’s wilderness there are an unusually high number of dead trees, 129 million, killed by drought and beetle infestations. That immense volume of fuel, reaching high into the canopy, intensifies and helps spread the fires that break out.

Residential building is carried out wherever individual developers can turn a profit. They carry no liability for long-term risks. Moreover, soaring housing costs have driven people to seek lower rents outside the cities in smaller towns and suburbs with greater risks. Cal Fire identified more than 1,300 communities in California “at high risk of damage from wildfire.” But that list was compiled from the 1990 census data and published in 2001. It has not been updated since.

Then there is the impact of perpetually underfunded and under-resourced fire departments, which have faced a series of budget cuts since the 2008 economic crisis. A full quarter of California’s wilderness firefighters are prison inmates who are paid $1 an hour when actively fighting fires and $2 a day when doing preventive work. Two of these workers died in the 2017 fires.

As for the impact of the fires, as with other natural disasters, those who have had their lives upended are left at the mercy of insurance companies, if they even have insurance. Bledsoe, who lost his family, was a renter without insurance. The only thing he has left after the fire is his truck and the clothes on his back. Only a GoFundMe page set up by a family friend separates him from complete destitution.

Resources exist to take emergency measures to address the conditions that produce such disasters. California’s current emergency fund for wildfires is $442.8 million, and a full quarter of it was spent since July 1, $114.7 million. In contrast, every two days in 2018 Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon and richest man in the world, made more than that, $510 million. The entire budget of Cal Fire, which manages the 31 million acres of California’s wilderness, is roughly what Bezos makes in a week.

In a socialist and planned economy, billions would be allocated to implement scientific fire prevention and controlled burning methods. Resources would be devoted to construct advanced warning systems and evacuation routes. Everyone would have access to modern housing in developments planned from the start to avoid wildfires. Those who, despite all these precautions, lost their homes would be made whole with new housing. And emergency measures would be taken, on a global scale, to halt and reverse climate change.

Every natural disaster exposes the social and political reality. As the California fires rage, the Trump administration is plotting new ways to hand out billions in tax cuts to the rich. The Democrats, who control the state of California, are focusing all their efforts on denouncing Trump for being insufficiently aggressive against Russia, while ensuring that the military is funded with a gargantuan $716 billion budget.

The entire political establishment, indifferent and hostile to the interests of the vast majority of the population, merely exposes its own bankruptcy and the irrationality of the capitalist system over which the ruling class presides.

*

Featured image is from Mashable.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

In an event largely overlooked by the U.S. media, the Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that would provide Israel with $3.3 billion in military aid along with over $500 million for missile defense over the course of the next year. The bill, officially titled the “United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018,” is expected to be voted on by the House within the week. If approved and signed into law by President Trump, it would represent the “single largest military aid package in American history.”

The massive amount of funding being allocated to Israel’s military is ultimately the result of the 2016 U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding on security assistance between the Israeli and U.S. governments, which called for $3.8 billion in funding for Israel on an annual basis over the next ten years.

Though this startling figure — which translates into $23,000 for every Jewish family living in Israel — was supposed to be the limit for U.S. military aid to Israel, the figure is actually set to be higher this year, given Congress’ recent passage of a massive $716 billion defense bill that provides an additional $550 million in U.S. aid for Israeli missile defense systems. The defense bill also authorizes an additional $1 billion for U.S. weapons stockpiles in Israel.

Over the past several years, U.S. military aid to Israel has ballooned, with U.S. funding of Israeli missile defense alone quadrupling since 2009. Ironically, many of those missile defense systems, besides being clumsy and costly, frequently malfunction, including the “Iron Dome” defense system — jointly developed by Raytheon and Israeli defense company Rafael — and the “Arrow-3” system — jointly developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and Boeing.

“Largest aid package ever” to be given to Israel despite jarring human-rights abuses

The massive amount of aid the U.S. government is set to give to Israel comes during Israel’s unprecedented crackdown on unarmed protesters and a looming Israeli military operation aimed at “conquering” the Palestinian enclave. Indeed, since March 30, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) — the very forces set to receive billions in U.S. taxpayer funding — have killed 164 Palestinians, including 26 children as well as journalists and medics.

In addition, over that same time frame, the IDF has injured upwards of 17,000 Palestinians living in Gaza, over half of whom had to be hospitalized for their injuries — including more than 1,400 children. All of those killed and injured were unarmed. In contrast, there has been a single Israeli death and nine Israeli injuries over that same time period.

Such grave violations of human rights would normally prevent the U.S. government from providing aid to Israel, given that the Leahy Laws enable the U.S. to withhold military assistance from units and individuals in foreign security forces if they have committed a gross violation of human rights (GVHR). GVHR offenses include: extrajudicial killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; prolonged detention without charges and trial; causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons; and other flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, or the security of person.

However, given that Israel has been engaged in gross violations of human rights since its founding in 1948, and yet has received over $133 billion in aid from the U.S. during that time, the U.S. government has made it clear time and again that it is willing to bend the rules when it comes to Israel.

*

Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Recent Iranian trade figures suggest that the United Arab Emirates, a strong backer of US efforts to squeeze Iran economically, could emerge alongside China as the Islamic republic’s foremost lifeline in seeking to blunt the impact of harsh sanctions. Russia and Oman rather than Europe are emerging as runners-up in possibly enabling Iran to circumvent sanctions.

Casting further doubt on Europe’s ability and will to stand-up to US secondary sanctions, despite its vocal support for the embattled 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program, are new German financial rules scheduled to take effect this month. The rules could delay or prevent crisis-ridden Iran from repatriating Euros 300 million (US$347 million) deposited in an Iranian-controlled bank in Hamburg.

Figures for Iranian trade in the period from 21 March to 22 July of this year, compiled by Iranian energy and economics analyst Faezeh Foroutan, show China and the UAE jointly accounting for 39.8 percent of Iranian imports and 37.8 percent of its exports. By comparison, nine members of the European Union, including heavyweights Germany, France and Britain shouldered only 15.5 percent of imports and 7.93 percent of exports.

Source: Faezeh Forouzan

Iranian leaders have said that the future of the nuclear agreement, officially dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in the wake of the US withdrawal would depend on the ability of Europe, China and Russia to ensure that the impact of US sanctions would be substantially blunted.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted earlier this week that China’s role was key.

“The role of China in the implementation of JCPOA, in achieving JCPOA, and now in sustaining JCPOA, will be pivotal,” Mr. Zarif said.

China, a signatory to the nuclear agreement alongside Europe, Russia and the United States that withdrew from the accord in May, has rejected US requests to cut Iranian oil exports even it reportedly promised not to increase them. China is Iran’s top energy export market.

China’s refusal to cut back on Iranian oil purchases threatens to render the Trump administration’s goal of reducing Iranian exports to zero unachievable and means that its November 4 deadline to do so is unrealistic.

Acting out of self-interest, China, moreover, appeared to be willing to strengthen the Islamic republic in other ways, including by supporting militarily the Iranian-backed Syrian government of president Bashar al-Assad in its quest to gain control of Syria’s last major [Al Qaeda affiliated] rebel stronghold in the northern region of Idlib.

Speaking to Syrian pro-government daily Al-Watan, China’s ambassador to Syria, Qi Qianjin, said that China was ‘following the situation in Syria, in particular after the victory in southern (Syria), and its military is willing to participate in some way alongside the Syrian army that is fighting the terrorists in Idlib and in any other part of Syria.” The ambassador was referring to recent Syrian victories against rebel forces in southern Syria and on the Golan Heights.

Chinese participation in a campaign in Idlib, the dumping ground for rebels evacuated from elsewhere in Syria, including Uyghur [Al Qaeda affiliated] fighters from the north-western province of Xinjiang, would be China’s fist major engagement in foreign battle in decades. China worries that Uyghur fighters may want to return to Xinjiang.

The UAE’s potential role in helping Iran deflect US sanctions may not be surprising given the fact that Dubai has long functioned as a key transhipment point for Iran with trade in the year ending at the end of March topping US$16.8 billion but is notable given Emirati backing for the US sanctions.

Iran, nonetheless, in response to a series of UAE measures against Iranian financial networks, has sought to shift its export hubs to Qatar and Oman and strengthen economic ties  with Russia.

The UAE “has been Iran’s no. 1 trade partners for years. The point is the growing role of Russia and Oman,” Ms. Foroutan said, expressing doubt that Oman could replace the UAE in the short term.

Russia advised Iran during a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that his country was willing to invest US$ 50 billion in the Islamic republic’s oil and gas sector. The two men met days before Mr. Putin’s summit last month in Helsinki with president Donald J, Trump.

Mr. Velayati said a Russian oil company had already signed a US$4 billion deal with Iran that “will be implemented soon” and that “two other major Russian oil companies, Rosneft and Gazprom, have started talks with Iran’s oil ministry to sign contracts worth up to US$10 billion.”

Iran and Russia signed preliminary agreements for up to US$30 billion in investments in Iran’s oil industry months before the Trump administration said it would re-impose sanctions.

Europe’s ability and willingness to play its part in salvaging the nuclear deal was called into question by the new German financial rules and could depend on whether the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) bows to US threats if it fails to exclude by November Iranian banks from its global financial transfer system.

European officials suggest that a SWIFT concurrence with US sanctions would put to bed any hope of salvaging the nuclear deal. Europe appears, however, to be banking on the fact that the US may not follow through on its threats, at least not against the society as such, because that would undermine the global financial system that empowers it.

However, the new German central bank rules that create additional powers to block transactions if their execution could threaten “to end important relationships with central banks and financial institutions of third countries” appear to constitute a nod towards the US sanctions.

Coming into effect on August 25, the rules could allow the bank to reject an Iranian request that it authorize the withdrawal of U$S300 million from the Europäisch-Iranische Handelsbank AG, a Hamburg-based financial institution owned by Iranian banks, including state-owned Bank of Industry and Mine. Iran wants to physically ship the money to Tehran to evade potential US efforts to block a transfer.

Iranian officials told the German government that the foreign currency was needed to enable Iranians who travel abroad but don’t have acceptable credit cards because of sanctions to be able to pay their travel expenses.

US and Israeli officials pressured Germany to block the withdrawal, arguing that Iran might use the funds to finance operations in Syria, Yemen, Iraq or Afghanistan. Said controversial US ambassador to Germany Richard A. Grenell:

“We are very concerned about the reports that the Iranian regime is trying to move hundreds of millions of euros to Iran from a German bank.”

It’s a concern Germany seemingly shares. A German decision to block the transfer of the funds would however influence Iranian perceptions of Europe’s resolve. That in turn would focus attention on Iran’s major trading partners. China and Russia have been relatively clear where they stand while the UAE may find it more difficult to evade measures that would severely curb what has long been a lucrative business.

An oped in the Khaleej Times, the UAE’s oldest English-language newspaper that was co-founded the UAE government, published days before the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement argued nonetheless that the UAE would gain whether or not sanctions were re-imposed.

“The UAE could gain from sanctions because it has previously served as a valuable intermediary during similar periods. Goods that could not be sold to Iran directly due to sanctions were routed through the UAE,” the oped said.

*

This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario,  Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa, and just published China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom

---

The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Judicial Watch announced today the FBI turned over 70 pages of heavily redacted records about Christopher Steele, the former British spy, hired with Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee funds, who authored the infamous Dossier targeting President Trump during last year’s presidential campaign.  The documents show that Steele was cut off as a “Confidential Human Source” (CHS) after he disclosed his relationship with the FBI to a third party.  The documents show at least 11 FBI payments to Steele in 2016 and document that he was admonished for unknown reasons in February, 2016.  The documents were turned over in response to Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for records of communications and payments between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and his private firm, Orbis Business Intelligence (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-00916)).

The documents include a “source closing communication” that states that Steele (referred to as “CHS” or Confidential Human Source) “is being closed” because:

CHS confirmed to an outside third party that CHS has a confidential relationship with the FBI. CHS was used as a source for an online article. In the article, CHS revealed CHS’ relationship with the FBI as well as information that CHS obtained and provided to FBI. On November 1, 2016, CHS confirmed all of this to the handling agent. At that time, handling agent advised CHS that the nature of the relationship between the FBI and CHS would change completely and that it was unlikely that the FBI would continue a relationship with the CHS. Additionally, handling agent advised that CHS was not to operate to obtain any intelligence whatsoever on behalf of the FBI.

The documents also show that Steele was paid repeatedly by the FBI and was “admonished” for some unknown misconduct in February, 2016.  The documents include:

1. Fifteen (15) FD-1023, Source Reports.
2. Thirteen (13) FD-209a, Contact Reports.
3. Eleven (11) FD-794b, Payment Requests.  (It appears Steele was paid money eleven of the thirteen times he met with the FBI and gave them information.)
4. An Electronic Communication (EC) documenting that on February 2, 2016, Steele was admonished in accordance with the Justice Department guidelines and the FBI CHS Policy Manual.

The documents were obtained as a result of a lawsuit was filed after the Department of Justice failed to respond to a March 8, 2017, FOIA request seeking:

• All records of communications between any official, employee, or representative of the FBI and Mr. Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer and the owner of the private firm Orbis Business Intelligence.

• All records related to the proposed, planned, or actual payment of any funds to Mr. Steele and/or Orbis Business Intelligence.

• All records produced in preparation for, during, or pursuant to any meetings or telephonic conversations between any official, employee, or representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Mr. Christopher Steele and/or any employee or representative of Orbis Business Intelligence.

“These new docs show the shady, cash-based relationship the Obama FBI had with Clinton operative Christopher Steele,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The anti-Trump Russia ‘investigation’ had Christopher Steele at its center and his misconduct was no impediment to using information from his Russia intelligence collaborators to spy on the Trump team. The corruption and abuse is astonishing.”

Last week, a separate Judicial Watch lawsuit uncovered the FISA warrant documents used to justify spying on Carter Page. The warrants are controversial because the FISA court was never told that the key information justifying the requests came from a “dossier” that was created by Fusion GPS, a paid agent of the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.  Fusion GPS hired Steele to create the Dossier and Steele is referenced repeatedly as “Source #1” in the warrants. The initial Carter Page warrant was granted just weeks before the 2016 election. Steele and his “minimally corroborated” Clinton-DNC dossier was an essential part of the FBI and DOJ’s applications for surveillance warrants to spy on Page.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

For almost seventeen years, Global Research, together with partner independent media organizations, has sought Truth in Media with a view to eventually “disarming” the corporate media’s disinformation crusade.

To reverse the tide, we call upon our readers to participate in an important endeavor.

Global Research has over 50,000 subscribers to our Newsletter.

Our objective is to recruit one thousand committed “volunteers” among our 50,000 Newsletter subscribers to support the distribution of Global Research articles (email lists, social media, crossposts). 

Do not send us money. Under Plan A, we call upon our readers to donate 5 minutes a day to Global Research.

Global Research Volunteer Members can contact us at [email protected] for consultations and guidelines.

If, however, you are pressed for time in the course of a busy day, consider Plan B, Consider Making a Donation and/or becoming a Global Research Member. 

*     *     *

Dictatorship of the “Free” Market

By Mark Taliano, August 05, 2018

North America is subsisting beneath the bars of a publicly bailed-out “free-market” dictatorship that is killing us all. 

The system requires lies to survive, since it only (temporarily) benefits a tiny, parasitical oligarch class, to the detriment of global Life itself.

Secret Meeting on the Privatization of Nuclear War Held on Hiroshima Day 2003

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 05, 2018

What seems to have escaped the numerous media reports on the 2018 NPR is that the development of “more usable nuclear weapons” had already been put forth in George W. Bush’s 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, which was adopted by the US Senate in late 2002. In this regard, Senator Edward Kennedy had accused the Bush Administration for having developed “a generation of more useable nuclear weapons.” namely tactical nuclear weapons (B61-11 mini-nukes) with an explosive capacity between one third and 6 times times a Hiroshima bomb.

Why West Fears ‘Made in China: 2025’

By F. William Engdahl, August 05, 2018

The Trump administration has made the Chinese industrial transformation strategy, “Made in China: 2025,” or simply China 2025 the explicit target of its current trade war offensive against the Peoples’ Republic. Western industrial leading countries, including Germany, are understandably alarmed. Only they are ten years late, and until now have foolishly refused to collaborate with China in key developments, including of the new economic Silk Road or Belt Road Initiative.

Toxic Silence: Public Officials, Monsanto and the Media

By Colin Todhunter, August 05, 2018

The document discusses the lawsuits that have recently been brought against agrochemical and seed giant Monsanto, issues surrounding the renewal of the licence for glyphosate (key ingredient in Monsanto’s multi-billion-dollar, money-spinning herbicide Roundup) in the EU, rising rates of illness and disease (linked to glyphosate and other agrochemicals), the increasing use of pesticides and the lack of adequate testing and epidemiological studies pertaining to the cocktail of chemicals sprayed on crops.

An Account From a Doctor on Board the Freedom Flotilla Which Was Hijacked by the Israeli Navy

By Dr. Swee Ang, August 05, 2018

The last leg of the journey of al-Awda (the boat of return) was scheduled to reach Gaza on 29 July 2018. We were on target to reach Gaza that evening. There are 22 on board including crew with USD 15,000 of antibiotics and bandages for Gaza. At 12.31 pm we received a missed call from a number beginning with +81… Mikkel was steering the boat at that time. The phone rang again with the message that we were trespassing into Israeli waters.

The Rise and Continued Influence of the Neocons. The Project for the New American Century (PNAC)

By Michael Welch, Robbie Martin, Scott Price, and Mark Robinowitz, August 04, 2018

Politically, the neocons favour a world in which the United States adopts a much more aggressive military posture, and utilizes its military might to not only contain terrorist and related threats to its security, but force regime change in regions like the Middle East. They further take on the task of ‘nation-building’ all in the name of creating a safer world for ‘democracy.’ It was the neocons who promoted the stratagem of pre-emptive military action.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Donald Trump met Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte last week and both emphasised their common values, standing firmly side-by-side at a White House joint press conference.

Trump stated that he and Italy’s Giuseppe Conte were “both outsiders to politics”.

When I read the newspapers of all the major US media outlets, including the New York Times, that ran with the headline Italian Premier: US, Italy Are ‘Almost Twin Countries’, it was a clear signal for me of a rapidly budding special relationship between the two countries, not seen since the WW11 cooperation with Sicilian partisans.

It finally puts to bed the jostling for who is America’s best friend in Europe; and it ain’t the EU, Britain, France or Germany.

Italy, I would argue, has now become the go to, point of contact for America for European, Middle Eastern and African matters, of that there is now no question, and also it is from Italy that the US will pressurise Brussels on a number of subjects especially immigration.

One could argue that no more evidence is required than Trump’s acknowledgement of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s description that the U.S. and Italy as “almost twin countries.”

Italy: A U.S. Proxy?

Let’s look back. Italy has a long history with America. Particularly Her present status as a NATO ally fighting with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq but also potentially Italy could become more directly involved, on America’s behalf, in Libya.

One might anticipate a Russian-French-German “relationship” to counter balance America’s new special relationship with Italy that, by the way, leaves Britain out in the cold militarily and diplomatically.

 

A respected Italian political commentator, Riccardo Puglisi, from the University of Pavia, last week gave a rather more nuanced view on Conte’s visit to Washington.

“Italy’s close relationship with the United States is a two-edged sword. The best-case scenario for Italy is that it can use this relationship to take a seat alongside France and Germany as one of the European Union’s decision-makers.” adding “Prestige from having close ties to Washington might give the government more power in domestic areas, like passing the 2019 budget in September and October and it is also possible that Italy could act as the main liaison [as a political proxy] between the EU and the United States, or hopefully as the country that represents Europe’s priorities in the United States.”

I mention all this in the hope to dispel the notion that Italy is an unimportant insignificant country. [But at the same time, this suggests that Italy’s national sovereignty is affected by this so-called special relationship, M. Ch, GR Editor]

The other side of the sword is I guess, that it could leave Italy isolated from the rest of the EU.

But if, as I believe, the EU and the crooked Brussels bureaucracy are going through their final death throes, then what does it matter?

This also triggers the question of the future of NATO, also based in Brussels, but that is a whole other subject, of  huge importance.

To conclude we should all watch closely over the coming months these evolving relationships between the US and UK and European countries.

Central to this is the hope of an end to the almost intolerable Russia baiting by the US and UK.

Also the sooner the UK has a clean break with the EU, the sooner one can assess the UK’s future role with America (and for that matter, Russia) and Her future influence or otherwise in world affairs.

For now what is clear is that it is Italy that has a ‘Special Relationship’ with America not Britain. That said, given Trump’s unpredictability, who knows how long that will last.

*

Richard Galustian is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above 

The words ‘hope’ and ‘Pakistan’ do not often appear together.  Pakistan, a sprawling nation of 205 million, is hard to govern, even harder to finance, and seething with tribal or religious violence and discord.

But Pakistan, which for me is one of the most interesting and important nations on earth, is by far the leading nation of the Muslim world and a redoubtable military power.  Created in 1947 from former British India as a haven for oppressed Muslims, Pakistan has been ruled ever since by military juntas or by slippery and often corrupt civilian politicians.

After decades of dynastic politics under the Bhutto and Sharif families, there is suddenly hope that  newly elected cricket star Imran Khan and his Tehreek-e-Insaf Party (PTI) may – just may – tackle Pakistan’s four biggest problems: endemic corruption, military interference, political tribalism, and a half-dead economy.

Former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, appears to be headed for jail over a corruption scandal unless he is allowed to go into exile in London. The exiled former military dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is hiding out in Dubai awaiting charges of treason.

I spent a good deal of time with Pakistan’s former leaders, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and his bitter foe, Benazir Bhutto, both of whom were later murdered.  Neither Musharraf nor Nawaz measured up to these colorful personalities in political skills, vision, or personality.

Imran Khan is sometimes called ‘Pakistan’s Jack Kennedy’ for his movie-star good looks, charisma and zesty love life.  He no longer plays professional cricket though he is still idolized in Pakistan and, interestingly, bitter foe India.

Khan (who is of Pashtun tribal blood) is also a philanthropist and respected thinker.  He says he is determined to begin rooting corruption out of Pakistan and to revivify its ailing economy.  Pakistan’s GDP is only $1,641 per person compared to India’s $2,134.  The illiteracy rate is about 40%, notably among women who are the primary teachers of the young.

As Imran Khan is about to take office, Pakistan’s coffers are almost empty.  Islamabad has had to take 12 loans from the International Monetary Fund in the last 40 years, in part to pay for its oil imports.

Now, Islamabad is negotiating yet another loan of $57 billion from its most important ally, China, whose vast belt and road project covering transportation, ports and infrastructure seeks to modernize Pakistan and turn it into a primary conduit to the Arabian Sea.

But Donald Trump’s Washington is angry over China’s dollar diplomacy, formerly a preserve of US foreign policy.  US State Secretary Mike Pompeo, who plays bad cop to Trump’s bad cop, lambastes Pakistan for the Chinese loan.

The White House is obviously dismayed by China’s growing influence over Pakistan caused, in large part, by the US decision to cut aid to Pakistan and favor its old enemy, India.  President George Bush aided India’s military nuclear program, alarming China and Pakistan.  Now, Trump is working to mobilize India against China.  So far, India has been too smart to act as an American strategic proxy.

Imran Khan will now have a chance to resolve the Indo-Pakistani dispute over contested Kashmir that has flared since 1947.  India keeps one million soldiers and police there to repress the rebellious majority Muslim population that seeks to join Pakistan or create an independent state.  The UN mandated a referendum to determine Kashmir’s future but India ignores it.

The new Khan government must also try to find a way to get the US out of the giant hole it has dug in Afghanistan.  Imran has been a vocal critic of the stalemated US war in Afghanistan. Soon, he will control the major supply lines to US forces there.

India and Pakistan are important nuclear-armed powers.  Their nuclear forces are on a hair-trigger alert of less than 5 minutes.  There is frequent fighting on the Kashmir cease-fire line between the two sides.  India’s vastly larger forces are poised to invade Pakistan.  Islamabad says it must have tactical nuclear weapons to deter such an overwhelming Indian attack.

The Kashmir border is the world’s most dangerous flash point.

Imran Khan may be able to calm tensions over Kashmir and open meaningful talks with India where he is very popular.  In the 1980’s, Gen. Zia ul Haq headed off an invasion by India by flying to Delhi on the spur of the moment to attend a cricket match.  This writer expects Imran Khan to similarly appear in India for his ultimate diplomatic test match.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Featured image: A Monsanto facility in Stonington, Ill., on May 19, 2015. (Darrell Hoemann/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)

As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prepared to make label changes for the herbicide dicamba after it caused widespread crop damage, the agency depended on the herbicide’s maker for guidance, documents produced in a federal lawsuit show.

A review of more than 800 pages of documents from a lawsuit filed against the U.S. EPA in January 2017 highlight the process behind how the agency made the label changes.

The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, the National Family Farm Coalition and the Pesticide Action Network North America in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

The lawsuit alleges the agency unlawfully approved a version of dicamba made by Monsanto. It spent a year in discovery before plaintiffs’ filed a brief in February outlining their argument. Oral arguments are scheduled August 29 in Seattle, Washington.

“Like I said, no surprises,” wrote Reuben Baris, acting chief of the Herbicide Branch of the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs, to Thomas Marvin, a Monsanto lawyer, hours before the new label was announced, according to an email dated October 10 obtained in the lawsuit.

The email came during a week of exchanges between the EPA and agribusiness Monsanto in 2017 about the terms and conditions that Monsanto would have to agree to for the label change.

Monsanto is an intervenor in the case, meaning it joined the case to help defend the registration.

“The EPA approved XtendiMax herbicide after a long and careful review process, including years of analysis and a thorough evaluation of data regarding volatility,” said Charla Lord, a spokeswoman from Monsanto, in an emailed statement. “This lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt by NGOs to take a valuable tool out of the hands of American farmers. We will stand with farmers who need this technology to control weeds and ensure that they have the training and support for an even more successful 2018 season.”

Dicamba is a traditional herbicide that has been used on corn and other crops, and the EPA approved its use for genetically modified soybeans and cotton crops in late 2016.

Monsanto had touted the new dicamba-resistant soybean and cotton seeds as its biggest biotech launch in company history. The company also made its own version of dicamba, touted to be less volatile.

But in 2017, the herbicide damaged more than 3.6 million acres of soybeans and other crops in 25 states, according to expert estimates. Dozens of farmers have sued Monsanto over the damage and loss in crop revenue.

In October, the EPA restricted the use of dicamba, making it a restricted use pesticide and limiting the conditions under which it could be applied.

But while making the changes, the EPA ignored state officials’ recommendations, did not use any new data or analysis to back up its new restrictions and allowed the herbicide’s maker to dictate the label’s terms and conditions, according to documents filed in the suit.

This year, despite the new changes, more than one million acres of soybeans are estimated to have been damaged by dicamba as of July 15, according to Kevin Bradley, a University of Missouri weed scientist.

A pesticide applicator sprays soybeans in rural McLean County in Illinois on July 26, 2017. (Darrell Hoemann/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)

Monsanto: Process ‘long and careful’ 

In June, pharmaceutical giant Bayer bought Monsanto for more than $60 billion. The transition is expected to take two months, after which Bayer will drop Monsanto’s name. Until then, Monsanto continues to operate as an independent company, according to a company news release.

In response to comment for this story, Monsanto spokeswoman Lord pointed out the benefits that farmers got from dicamba, saying that 97 percent of customers were satisfied and had a 5.7 bushel per acre advantage over other soybeans in its field trials.

Lord also said,

“We expect the acres of dicamba-tolerant soybean and corn to double this year to nearly 50 million acres, and early reports from the field are encouraging.”

BASF, which makes another version of the herbicide, is not a party to the case but its version of dicamba is covered under a “me-too” approval, meaning that the pesticide is similar or identical in its uses or formulations.

In a response filed in April, the agency said it followed all regular procedures in approving the new registration of the herbicide, as well in changes to the label following widespread damage.

“Facing uncertainty as to what caused the incidents and limited regulatory authority, EPA took a quick but protective approach by working with the registrant to strengthen the label instructions for the 2018 growing season,” the agency wrote in its April response. “The added restrictions could only have the effect of limiting the potential for off-site movement and unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.”

The EPA said the label change process was “the most environmentally responsible and protective approach that could be implemented in time for the 2018 growing season.

“EPA’s approval of the 2017 Amended Label was a careful but swift response to complaints about off-field movement,” the agency wrote in its response.

Additionally, Monsanto, which has the lead registration with the EPA and created the new seeds, continued to influence changes to the label, even after the herbicide led to a record number of pesticide misuse complaints in 2017, documents show.

Documents from the lawsuit include email communications between government officials and Monsanto officials, news reports, scientific studies and draft documents of proposed registration.

In one exchange, Monsanto stated what changes it found acceptable, and even attached a word document, crossing out sections it did not agree to.

“We accepted a number of the proposed changes, but did not incorporate all the iterative communications with retailers proposed in the last draft. In particular, we are concerned that those iterative communications might require a potentially significant period of time to complete,” wrote Philip Perry, a lawyer for Monsanto, to the EPA, in an October 10 email.

In its April response, the EPA said that Monsanto’s changes were the best approach to take before the new growing season.

“After entering into discussions with the registrant, EPA accepted Monsanto’s voluntary label change to further minimize the potential for off-field movement.”

Lawsuit: EPA did not follow FIFRA, Endangered Species Act

In November 2016, the EPA approved Monsanto’s version of dicamba for a two-year trial period.

The lawsuit alleges the EPA did not follow the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, which regulates pesticides in the United States, by applying the wrong legal standard, failing to analyze the “significant socioeconomic and agronomic costs to farmers” of drift and relied on “legally inadequate data.”

The February brief also alleges that the EPA violated the Endangered Species Act by overstepping its bounds and approving the herbicide without letting the wildlife agencies determine whether dicamba would have an impact on species protected by the act.

The pesticide law requires companies to conduct research about pesticides in order to save taxpayers money, though the company paying for the research also raises questions about the validity of the research, said George Kimbrell, a lawyer for the Center for Food Safety.

Additionally, the EPA did not incorporate “any new data or analysis” in changing the label, instead relying on the data from November 2016, despite a year of the pesticide being used in the field, according to the February brief.

The EPA responded that it found that dicamba “would not generally cause unreasonable adverse effects, which was more than sufficient to meet FIFRA’s conditional registration.”

“The conditions on this registration enabled EPA to strike an optimal balance—based on the information available in 2016—between making promising new pesticide uses available and minimizing the likelihood of unreasonable adverse effects on the environment,” the agency wrote. “Accordingly, EPA’s cost-benefit balancing was reasonable and supported by substantial evidence.”

Multiple meetings

Between August and September 2017, EPA officials met with Monsanto four times, according to the lawsuit.

On an August 23 call with state officials, the EPA said it was discussing label changes for dicamba with Monsanto, BASF and DuPont, which has a registration for a branded version of Monsanto’s dicamba.

EPA officials said the agency was considering changing wind speed and tractor speed, limiting the timing of application, requiring more training and classifying the product as restricted use, which requires applicators to be registered and more keep records about application.

During the call, state officials warned the EPA that the proposed label changes only addressed physical drift and not volatility, which caused many of the issues, according to meeting notes.

Jason Norsworthy, a weed scientist at the University of Arkansas, said

“there’s nothing we can do for a volatile product as far as label changes,” notes show.

“Acreage is going to be much higher in 2018, and these solutions won’t address that,” he said.

Several other officials then said that a cutoff date to limit when the herbicide could be sprayed could be effective, although soybean planting dates in the South are much earlier than in farther north areas.

Monsanto opposed the cutoff date, according to its comments to multiple news agencies.

In October 2017, the EPA imposed restrictions on the herbicide for 2018, although officials did not implement a cutoff date. However, Arkansas imposed a cutoff date of April 15 for the spraying of dicamba. Additionally, several other states imposed restrictions on top of the EPA’s label changes.

The EPA also wrote that it considered the benefits of dicamba to farmers.

“Further, Petitioners unreasonably downplay the benefits of these new uses. Herbicides like Xtendimax are an important element of modern agriculture, and EPA recognized that Xtendimax could offer advantages over other registered pesticides, particularly the ability to apply it throughout the growing season to combat new flushes of weeds,” the EPA wrote.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

It seems a distant reality, or nightmare now: a company that was near defunct in 1996, now finding itself at the imperial pinnacle of the corporate ladder.  Then, publications were mournful and reflective about the corporation that gave us the Apple Computer.  An icon had fallen into disrepair.  Then came the renovations, the Steve Jobs retooling and sexed-up products of convenience.

Apple’s valuation last Thursday came in at $1 trillion and may well make it the first trillion dollar company on the planet.  That its assets are worth more than a slew of countries is surely something to be questioned rather than cheered.  This un-elected entity, with employees versed in evading, as far as possible, the burdens of public accountability, poses a troubling minder about how concentrated financial power rarely squares with democratic governance.

Chalking up such a mark is only impressive for those keeping an eye on the trillion dollar line.  China’s state-owned PetroChina is another muscular contender for getting there first, while the Saudi Arabian energy company Aramco, which produces a far from negligible 10 percent of the world’s oil, could well scoot past Apple should it go public.

Cheering was exactly what was demanded by James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute, whose piece in The Week suggests that Apple reached that mark “the right way”.  The critics of such concentrated power, technology company or otherwise, were simply wrong.  “For them, superbig is automatically superbad.”

Praise for Apple, an abstract being, is warranted in the way that its ally, modern capitalism, should be. “The story of Apple is really the story of modern capitalism doing what it does best: turning imagination into reality.”  The author prefers to see Apple, and Amazon, as products of US genius in the capitalist context.

The New York Times is similarly impressed, linking individual gargantuan successes to the broader American effort in the economy.  A small gaggle of US companies commanding “a larger share of total corporate profits” than at any time since the 1970s, is not necessarily something to snort at. The nine-year bull market has, essentially, been powered by the four technology giants.  “Their successes are also propelling the broader economy, which is on track for its fastest growth rate in a decade.”

To its credit, the paper does pay lip service to concerns that such “superstar firms” are doing their bit to stifle wage growth, shrink an already struggling, barely breathing middle class, while jolting income inequality.

This is where the trouble lies: a seemingly blind understanding of capitalism’s inner quirks and unstable manifestations. The paradox behind the tech giant phenomenon does not lie in the wisdom that innovation comes from competition. The converse is claimed to be true: that concentration, oligopolistic power, and strings pulled by a few players is the way to keep innovation alive.  This was Microsoft’s vain argument during the 1990s, something that did not sit well with the antitrust denizens.

The fraternity of economists, rarely capable in agreeing on broader trends, has become abuzz with literature focused on one unsettling topic: the continuing, and accelerating concentration of US industry.  Gustavo Grullon, Yelena Larkin and Roni Michaely noted in April last year that government policies encouraging competition in industry had been “drastically reversed in the US” with a 75 percent increase in the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) measuring market concentration.  (Antitrust regulators beware.)  The authors observe how, “Lax enforcement of antitrust regulations and increasingly technological barriers to entry appear to be important factors behind this trend.”

Marketing professor from NYU, Scott Galloway, is one who has supped from the cup of the tech giants. He has written about their exploits (The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google), his addresses having become something of a viral phenomenon with analyses of the companies at the DLD Conference in Munich.  Initially seduced by the bling and the product, he enjoyed the magic mushroom inducements the tech giants supplied, relished in their success and stock options, extolled their alteration of human behaviour. “This started as a love affair.  I want to be clear.  I love these companies.”

This year, a change of heart took place.  Galloway, after spending “the majority of the last two years” of his life “really trying to understand them and the relationship with the ecosystem” is convinced that these behemoths must be broken up.  The big four, striving all powerful deities, sources of mass adoration, have become “our consumptive gods”.  “And as a result of their ability to tap into these very basic instincts, they’ve aggregated more market cap than the majority of nation’s GDP”.

Power and influence has shifted.  Political leaders have little of these relatively speaking, certainly over the behavioural consistency and content of subjects and citizens.  Someone like Mark Zuckerberg, distinctly outside a political process he can still control, does.  “He can turn off or on your mood. He can take any product up or down. He can pretty much kill any company in the tech space.”  And that’s just Facebook.

What Galloway points out with a forceful relevance is that liberties and freedoms are not the preserve of estranged markets and their bullish actors. Regulation and oversight are required.  A return to competition would only be possible through some form of intervention and coaxing, perhaps even economic violence.  The memory of the great financial crisis initially stimulated an appetite for regulation.  In recent years, such urgings have been satiated.  The tech giants, fully aware of this, continue to burgeon.

*

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Email: [email protected]

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

North America is subsisting beneath the bars of a publicly bailed-out “free-market” dictatorship that is killing us all. 

The system requires lies to survive, since it only (temporarily) benefits a tiny, parasitical oligarch class, to the detriment of global Life itself.

The supremacy of the falsely-labelled “free market” is made palpable by its remnants.  Huge swaths of society – disappeared by monopoly media – are increasingly thirdworldized. This is the “freedom” of the “market”.

It is a mindless political economy wherein people operating its levers claim ignorance of or blindly extol the virtues of, its impacts.

It is a driver beneath the destruction of national sovereignties and the rule of international law in its  constant search for new “free” markets.  Sovereign countries such as Syria, that resist this external dictatorship, feel the heel of Empire’s jackboots, most visibly in the form of Western-supported ISIS and al Qaeda terrorists who lay siege to the country, protected by their benefactors both militarily and politically.

The expanding free market of “neoliberal” predatory capitalism destroys the freedom of “prey” countries to determine their own political economy.  Hence, Syria, which is defeating Empire’s terrorists and restoring the rule of international law, as it regains its sovereignty and territorial integrity, is more free and self-determining than a country like Canada.

Canada’s servitude to transnational policymakers couldn’t be more palpable than it is now, with the announcement that the Trudeau government intends to welcome White Helmets terrorists to our shores.

We are the dustbin for Empire’s failed project in Syria – and most Canadians are, and will likely remain, blissfully unaware. 

One of the few remaining beacons of hope stands defiantly on the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean, where Christianity and civilizations were born, where civilizing forces are re-emerging with every victory over the West’s hideous foot soldiers.

Empire’s anti-Life, megalomaniacal designs for a totalitarian “World Order” of chaos, death, and poverty, are being frustrated on ancient Syrian soils.  Thank God. 

*

Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation.

---

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

List Price: $17.95

Special Price: $9.95 

Click to order

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

“The Facebook intervention is a qualitative escalation of the McCarthyite offensive.”

Facebook has assumed additional political police powers, disrupting a planned counter-demonstration against white supremacists, set for August 12th in Washington, on the grounds that it was initiated and inspired by “Russians” as part of a Kremlin campaign to “sow dissention” in the U.S. The Facebook intervention is a qualitative escalation of the McCarthyite offensive launched by the Democrat Party and elements of the national security state, and backed by most of the corporate media, initially to blame Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat on “collusion” between Wikileaks, “the Russians” and the Trump campaign to steal and publicize embarrassing Clinton campaign emails.

After failing to produce one shred of hard evidence to support their conspiracy theory, the anti-Russia hysteria mongers switched gears, focusing on the alleged purchase of about $100,000 in Facebook ads by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a St. Petersburg-based Russian company, over a multi-year period. The problem was, most of the ads had no direct connection to the presidential contest, or were posted after the election was over, and many had no political content, at all. The messages were all over the place, politically, with the alleged Russian operatives posing as Christian activists, pro- and anti-immigration activists, and supporters of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Special prosecutor Robert Mueller was forced to flip the script, indicting 13 Russians for promoting general “discord” and undermining “public confidence in democracy” in the United States – thus creating a political crime that has not previously been codified in the United States.

“Mueller was forced to flip the script.”

In doubling down on an unraveling conspiracy tale, the Mueller probe empowered itself to tar and feather all controversial speech that can be associated with utterances by “Russians,” even if the alleged “Russians” are, in fact, mimicking the normal speech of left- or right-wing Americans — a descent, not into Orwell’s world, but that of Kafka (Beyond the Law) and Heller (Catch-22).

Facebook this week announced that it had taken down 32 pages and accounts that had engaged in “coordinated and inauthentic behavior” in promoting the August 12 counter-demonstration against the same white supremacists that staged the fatal “Unite the Right” demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, a year ago. Hundreds of anti-racists had indicated their intention to rally against “Unite the Right 2.0” under the banner of Shut It Down DC, which includes D.C. Antifascist Collective, Black Lives Matter D.C., Hoods4Justice, Resist This, and other local groups.

Facebook did not contend that these anti-racists’ behavior was “inauthentic,” but that the first ad for the event was purchased by a group calling itself “Resisters” that Facebook believes were behaving much like the Internet Research Agency.

“At this point in our investigation, we do not have enough technical evidence to state definitively who is behind it,” said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy . “But we can say that these accounts engaged in some similar activity and have connected with known I.R.A accounts.”

“The Mueller probe empowered itself to tar and feather all controversial speech that can be associated with utterances by ‘Russians,’ even if the alleged ‘Russians’ are, in fact, mimicking the normal speech of left- or right-wing Americans.”

Chelsea Manning, whose prison sentence for sending secret documents to Wikileaks was commuted by President Obama, said the counter-protest was “organic and authentic”and that activists had begun organizing several months ago.

“Folks from D.C. and Charlottesville have been talking about this since at least February,” Manning told The New York Times.

“This was a legitimate Facebook event that was being organized by Washington, D.C. locals,” says Dylan Petrohilos, of Resist This. Petrohilos was one of the defendants in the Trump inauguration “riot” prosecutions. He protested Facebook’s disruption of legitimate free speech and assembly. “DC organizers had controlled the messaging on the no UTR fb page and now FB made it harder for grassroots people to organize,” he tweeted. The organizers insist the August 12 counter-demonstration — “No Unite the Right 2 – DC” — is still a go, as is the white supremacist rally.

Whoever was first to buy a Facebook ad — the suspected Russian “Resisters,” or Workers Against Racism, who told the Daily Beast they decided to host their own anti-“Unite the Right 2.0” event because they thought “Resisters” was an “inexperienced liberal organizer” – there was no doubt whatsoever that the white supremacists would be confronted by much larger numbers of counter-demonstrators, in Washington. Nobody in Russia needed to tell U.S. anti-racists to shut the white supremacists down, or vice versa. The Russians didn’t invent American white supremacy, or the native opposition to it. Even if Mueller, Facebook, the Democratic Party and the howling corporate media mob are to be believed, the “Russians” are simply mimicking U.S. political rhetoric and sloganeeriing – and weakly, at that. The Workers Against Racism thought the “Resisters” weren’t worth partnering with, but that the racist rally must be countered. The Shut It Down DC coalition didn’t need the “Resisters” to crystallize their thinking on white supremacism.

“Chelsea Manning said the counter-protest was ‘organic and authentic.”

The Democratic Party and corporate media, speaking for most of the U.S. ruling class — and actually bullying one of its top oligarchs, Mark Zuckerberg — is on its own bizarre and twisted road to fascism. (Donald Trump’s proto-fascism is the old fashioned, all-American type that the white supremacists want to celebrate on August 12.) With former FBI Director Robert Mueller at the head of the pack, they have created a pseudo legal doctrine whereby “Russians” (or U.S. spooks pretending to be Russians) can be indicted for launching a #MeToo campaign of mimicry, echoing the rhetoric and memes indigenous to U.S. political struggles, while the genuine, “authentic” American political voices — the people who are being mimicked — are labeled co-conspirators in a foreign-based “plot,” and their rights to speech and assembly are trashed.

That’s truly crazy, but devilishly clever, too. If “Russian” mimics (or cloaked spooks) can reproduce the vocabulary and political program of U.S. dissent, then all of us actual U.S. lefties can be dismissed as “dupes of the Russians” or “co-conspirators” in the speech crimes of our mimics — for sounding like ourselves.

*

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].

Featured image is from the author.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

On May 18^th 2017, 27 Syrian army vehicles drove within 18 miles of al-Tanf, which breached the U.S.-declared 34-mile radius of the army convoy’s operations resulting  in the U.S. forces striking the Syrian Army. It should be noted that al-Tanf (an American military base) operated by U.S. special forces trains a number of rebel groups referred to by the U.S. as Vetted Syrian Opposition (VSO) also known as the Southern front which includes over 50 militant groups such as the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA). When the U.S struck the Syrian army, Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov reported that “The U.S. attack at al Tanf is significant not because the U.S. has once again struck Assad’s forces, but because it did so in defense of Syrian rebels”. It is important to remember these past events because on June 24^th 2018, the U.S. announced that it will not be backing its proxies on the ground with air force – in contrast to last year. This event highlights that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have made substantial geostrategic gains in the past year.

While the Battle of Daraa is symbolically important – since it is the province where the Syrian (foreign) intervention by proxy first took place in 2011 with the help of Former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford – the Battle for southern Syria should not be analyzed as the “final” battle simply because the U.S. announced “that it will not back up its anti-government proxies in the south”. The SAA and its allies still have a long way to go in liberating areas located in Northern and Eastern Syria which remain under the control of the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) and extremist rebel factions – funded and trained by American officers. This is by no means an overstatement considering Major General Igor Konashenkov saying that Russia has intelligence that the Free Syrian Army is going to stage a “chemical attack” in the village of Haql al-Jafara and accuse the Syrian government of conducting it.

According to Syrian government military sources, almost a year ago in July 2017 a group of Israeli military and intelligence personnel travelled to Syria’s West Daraa countryside with the objective of meeting rebel commanders from the Southern Front such as Liwa Jaydour, Jaysh al-Ababil, and the Revolutionary Commando Army (RAC) to discuss future cooperation and collaboration in battles. Another meeting also took place on September 2017 in the Quneitra border town of Rafid between Israeli intelligence personnel and militia commanders concerning the establishment of a 50km buffer zone stretching east of Golan Heights into Syrian (Southern) territory – absorbing Quneitara, As Suwayda and Daraa. The Times of Israel on July 6^th 2017 notes “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday as part of ongoing Israeli efforts to convince Russia and the United States to establish a demilitarized buffer zone in southern Syria…Israel is pushing for an agreement that would prevent “Hezbollah or other Iranian-backed militias” from operating in the area, which would extend some 30 miles (48 kilometers) beyond the Israeli-Syrian border on the Golan Heights”.

On June 26^th 2018 Russia declared the ceasefire it brokered on July 2017 between Jordan, Israel, and U.S in Southern Syria (de-confliction/de-escalation zone i.e No Fly Zone) as null since Israel targeted an Iranian weapon depot around Damascus Airport, and mercenaries also targeted a Syrian military command post in Suwayda (southernmost province in Syria). The Russian defense ministry took both of these events as clear action in violation of the agreement. With the ceasefire no longer in place, a Syrian-Russo offensive has begun regaining the southern geographical space of Syria. Recent reports reveal that some rebels are surrendering and that the SAA is making substantive gains in Izraa, Nahitah, Sama Al Hadeidat in Daraa and ongoing advancements are underway to take Busra al sham in East Daraa. Questions that remain unanswered concern how long will the IDF “turn a blind eye” to the SAA regaining southern provinces such as quneitara bordered with Israel and the Golan Heights?; and will the U.S. redraw from its base in Al Tanf base which Al Muallem and Al Assad have vehemently opposed and categorized as colonialism?.

It should be highlighted that with the U.S. abandoning its proxies in Southern Syria, we can deduce that Israel will have to “pause” its “Greater Israel” ambitions in wanting to absorb Southern Syrian territory, and la pièce de résistance – claim the Golan Heights as Sovereign Israeli territory. During a visit to Israel’s northern border according to the Jerusalem Post (JP) on July 4th 2018, General Eisenkot discussed the readiness of the Northern Command with its commander Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick and the 366th Division’s commander Brig. Gen. Amit Fisher. “The IDF is monitoring the situation in Syria and is prepared for a variety of scenarios to preserve the security on Israel’s border,” read a statement given by the IDF’s Spokesperson’s Unit. On July 1st 2018 the Israeli government reinforced its border with the Golan Heights by positioning armored and artillery forces near the border with Syria in light of a situational assessment by the Northern Command.

Benjamin Netanyahu is seen during a security tour in the Golan Heights, near Israel’s northern border with Syria

The SAA territorial advancements in the past year highlight that the SAA has the upper hand on the battle field. However, we should also remember that the southern battle is not the final battle, even though it is a vital battle since it includes an offensive that will be combating over 15000 mercenaries. Contrary to Mr. Robert Fisk’s article in the Independent on June 26th 2018, I think it is too early to state that the battle for southern Syria will go down in history as a moment where “the US has given up on the overthrow of Assad in Syria” because it “abandoned its proxies in southern Syria”. Another battle that should be increasing in intensity in the next few weeks and/or after the southern battle is concluded is the battle to reclaim Northern (East) Syria – a territory under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and U.S. rebel factions.

The Syrian government including Liwa al-Baqir convened a major meeting of tribal notables from across Syria on June 2 in order to build support for operations against the U.S. in Eastern Syria. Syrian state media claimed the meeting included representatives from seventy clans from Aleppo, Ar-Raqqa, Hasakah, Daraa, and Deir ez-Zor Provinces. According to the Institute for the Study of War unconfirmed reports suggest that the SDF arrested dozens of additional tribal representatives traveling to the meeting from SDF-held Hasaka Province in Northern Syria. Tribal representatives at the meeting denounced the presence of the U.S., France, and Turkey in Syria and called for tribal mobilization to fight them on behalf of Assad. Multiple new pro-regime militia units of unclear size and capability reportedly formed subsequent to the meeting. These units may have joined Liwa al-Baqir with support from Russia and Iran. Not to mention reports released the week of July 15^th 2018 highlighting that rebels in Southern Syria are being transported to the Northern part of Syria.

More recent news on July 29^th 2018 highlights that the Syrian Democratic Council [the SDF political arm] held a two day meeting with the Syrian government headed by President Bashar Al Assad. Officials belonging to the SDF, which hold large swathes of land in northern Syria discussed the future of the autonomous regions it set up in northern and northeastern Syria. The SDF has made a series of deals with Damascus in recent years, notably in Aleppo when the SAA decimated Syrian Arab rebel groups making a final stand to hold the city. The SDF also came to an agreement with the Syrian government during the Turkish incursion into the then-Kurdish-held Afrin canton in Syria’s north-west corner, allowing Kurdish fighters to cross regime-held territory in a doomed bid to repel Turkish troops and their allies. The SDF, whose military is largely funded by the US as a counter-IS initiative, holds more than 27 percent of the country’s territory, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.  It is still not clear whether rebel troops in northern Syria will be in accord with the SDF and SAA in relinquishing land they have usurped in the past 7 years and have it under the control of Damascus headed by President Bashar Al Assad. Also, According to a statement by SDF spokesperson Leilwa al-Abdullah, SDF forces pushed IS fighters into retreat from an area of ​​3,100 square-kilometers to a small slither of territory close to the strategic border town of Abu Kamal. A local SDF commander, speaking to Syria Direct said that the “crackdown on the border area” had gone ahead in coordination with Iraqi forces and international coalition airpower.

Still, recent territorial gains by the SDF may have little bearing on talks with the Syrian government, which could be unwilling to actually cede territorial control or administrative authority to Kurdish-majority forces. Sihanouk Dibo, from the majority-Kurdish leftist Democratic Union Party (PYD), acknowledged that any future talks could be “long and arduous because the Damascus regime is very centralized.” Whether centralized or not, the Syrian Government has historically been committed to the modality of Greater Syria with Damascus being the locus in decision making and autonomous regions conducting provincial policies relating to their provincial preferences. As stated by President Al Assad “Despite the ethnic diversity within each nation, the social fabric of the region by and large is one”. In other words, a region of the historical Bilad Al Sham/Greater Syria space will not be relinquished since the Levant possesses a unified social fabric and most importantly because the Barzani Clan in Iraq is a dangerous example of how U.S. imperialism with its allies can defend decentralization for the sake of geostrategic interest.

Therefore, in regards to the Syrian peace process, peace cannot be implemented when the UNSC resolution 2254 adopted in 2015 – including the P5 – continues to be violated. The delegates meeting at the June 13^th U.N-led peace process in Geneva reiterated the importance of the clauses in the resolution which included that a nationwide ceasefire can only occur when member states are serious in halting the funding and training of mercenary entities. The members also reiterated the basis for a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition in order to end the conflict in Syria. The meeting in Geneva did not highlight anything novel that the meetings in Astana or Sochi didn’t already outline. The meeting laid out the so-called four “baskets of reform” for a political settlement of the crisis. They include the drafting of a new constitution, parliamentary elections, the creation of a non-sectarian transitional government and the fight against mercenaries and terrorists. But the talks have made little progress so far as opposition members have failed to find an agreement over the fate of President Bashar al-Assad – a condition that the opposition has long wanted to include in the draft.

It is quite ironic that the Syrian Opposition is adamant in wanting to include a clause that stipulates that the current Syrian president is not allowed to run for president after 2020 and/or practice politics in Syria…it is ironic because while some opposition members discuss the importance of democracy being the foundation for peace in Syria, it is precisely democracy which re-elected President Bashar Al Assad in 2014.

*

Khaled Al-Kassimi is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at McMaster University in Canada. His research interest relates to the fields and approaches contoured by Critical Security Studies, Development Studies, International Relations, and Decolonial Studies.

All images in this article are from the author.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

The Trump administration has made the Chinese industrial transformation strategy, “Made in China: 2025,” or simply China 2025 the explicit target of its current trade war offensive against the Peoples’ Republic. Western industrial leading countries, including Germany, are understandably alarmed. Only they are ten years late, and until now have foolishly refused to collaborate with China in key developments, including of the new economic Silk Road or Belt Road Initiative. Here I want to briefly indicate what China is doing. In future reports I will discuss some fundamental flaws in their industrial strategy. Here it is important to understand what China 2025 signals to Western industrial domination.

When he took office, China President Xi Jinping moved to propose what is now the Belt and Road Initiative, a comprehensive network of new infrastructure projects going from China across Asia and Eurasia to the Middle East and the European Union. Xi proposed the BRI at a meeting in Kazakhstan in 2013. Then in 2015, after little more than two years in office, Xi Jinping endorsed a comprehensive national industrial strategy, Made in China: 2025. China 2025 replaced an earlier document that had been formulated with the World Bank and the USA under Robert Zoellick.

One quality I’ve come to appreciate from first hand observation over the course of numerous visits and discussions across China since 2008 is the remarkable determination of Chinese institutions and people, once a national strategy consensus is agreed, to realize that with almost a ruthless determination. Mistakes have been made, in the rush to go from one of the world’s most impoverished peasant economies to the world’s largest industrial producer. Quality control often has been secondary priority. However, step by step since Deng’s 1979 “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” policy turn, China has emerged to become the literal workshop of the world. Until now it has been producing on license for Western multinationals such as VW or Buick GM cars, iPhones or MacBooks, or countless other products for Western multinationals.

“Rejuvenating Chinese manufacturing”

Now China is changing that. Much as Japan did after 1952 then later South Korea embracing the Japanese example, and more relevantly Germany after 1871, China is going to what they describe as “rejuvenating Chinese manufacturing.” This, translated, means instead of being the workshop assembling components for foreign giants like Apple, China will develop its own Apple, or BMW or G5. They have begun a new phase in development of their own world leading industry. Now as China 2025 says, the national industry and government institutions supporting that is undergoing a “transformation from Made in China to Created in China, from China Speed to China Quality, and from Chinese products to Chinese brands.” The broad concept for China 2025 has been modelled on the German “Industry 4.0” strategy which some call the 4th Industrial Revolution. It aims to utilize technological advances in key technologies such as artificial intelligence, internet of things, machine learning, cloud systems, cybersecurity, adaptive robotics to cause radical changes in the business processes of organizations. China has now made such concepts national strategic priority in its economic future development. It is no minor deal. And that is precisely why Trump advisers with their trade war actions are targeting precisely the key vulnerabilities and links to western technologies such as those of China telecom giants Huawei or ZTE Telecommunications which are still dependent on US chips and other sensitive technologies.

‘Post Industrial’ USA

Beginning in the 1970’s there was a deliberate strategy among major US multinational companies to move their manufacture abroad in search of cheap labor, low costs. US think tanks and journals praised the nonsensical idea that the West had entered a “post-industrial era,” a promised nirvana where instead of “dirty” industrial jobs in steel, autos and such, the future would be a services economy. In reality it was outsourcing of America’s manufacturing base.

Beginning especially in the 1990’s with China’s negotiations to join the Western industrial “club” by negotiating for WTO membership, corporate America and their bankers flooded into China, the world’s most populous country with some of the lowest wages. For more than three decades, US companies from GE to Nike to Apple have banked huge profits based on that China production, a fact conveniently ignored today by Washington.

China has used that foreign input to build the world’s largest industrial goliath. However, as they state, one in urgent need of serious transformation if China is to become a “world competitor” and no longer merely a screw-driver assembly for Western or Japanese multinationals. As the official preface to China 2025 states, “Chinese manufacturing is facing new challenges. With resource and environmental constraints growing, costs of labor and

production inputs rising, and investment and export growth slowing, a resource and intensive development model that is driven by expansion cannot be sustained.

We must immediately adjust the development structure and raise the quality of development. Manufacturing is the engine that will drive the new Chinese economy.”

As the policy document correctly points out, “Since the beginning of industrial civilization in the Middle of the 18th century, it has been proven repeatedly by the rise and fall of world powers that without strong manufacturing, there is no national prosperity.” The conclusion they draw is that, “Building internationally competitive manufacturing is the only way China can enhance its strength, protect state security and become a world power.”

The China State Council policy blueprint correctly points to a major transformation of global manufacturing after the financial crisis of 2008 where giant Western corporations are revolutionizing manufacture with developments including 3D printing, cloud computing, big data, bio-engineering, and new materials, intelligent manufacturing, such as plants based on cyber-physical systems. This is what China 2025 is all about, to as the official policy document states, “capture the manufacturing high ground in the new competitive landscape.”

They are frank about their present capabilities in manufacture: “Chinese manufacturing is large but not yet strong. The capability for independent innovation is weak and external dependence for key technologies and advanced equipment is high. Enterprise-led manufacturing innovation systems have yet to be perfected. Product quality is not high and China has few world-famous brands. Resource and energy efficiency remains low, while environmental pollution is severe. The industrial structure and industry services remain immature.”

This is how Beijing describes its present challenge. They will not remain a quasi-colonial industrial assembly platform for foreign companies. They now are building their own version, made in China, to compete as world class industry competitors. This is what has set alarm bells ringing all across the West.

The three steps

They lay out three clear steps: by 2025, by 2035 and by the centennial of creation of the Peoples’ Republic of China in 2049. By 2025 China plans to be a “major manufacturing power,” ten years after onset of China 2025. For that the plan is that China will have consolidated its manufacturing power, increased manufacturing digitalization, master core technologies and become competitive in areas such as high-speed rail or other areas where China is already a global leader, while improving production quality. Energy use and pollutant levels will reach that of advanced industrial countries.

Step 2 by 2035 sees China manufacturing reach an “intermediate level among world manufacturing powers,” with greatly improved innovation ability to make key breakthroughs and “significantly increase overall competitiveness.”

Then in Step 3, by the 100-year anniversary in 2049, China expects to “become the leader among the world’s manufacturing powers. We will have the capability to lead innovation and possess competitive advantages in major manufacturing areas, and will develop advanced technology and industrial systems.”

And they mean it. What the 38 page blueprint lays out is a complex of supporting agencies and funding entities that is dedicated to making this national priority happen. For more than four decades the elites of China have sent their sons and daughters to study at the finest engineering and science universities in the USA and Europe. Now the graduate PhDs in science, IT, engineering are returning to China where the promise of major industrial transformation is far greater than anything they find in the US or EU today.

The state is creating the support system to make China 2025 happen. It includes supporting priority research through support research through the National Science and Technology

Plan; building “innovation coalitions” between government, production, education, research and operations. Further they are creating Industrial Technology Research Bases to do basic research and training in key areas as “next generation IT, intelligent manufacturing, additive manufacturing, new materials, and bio-medicine.”

By 2020 there will be 15 such Industrial Technology Research Bases, and 40 such centers around the nation by 2025. These centers are to develop such key components of the industrial transformation as “high-end, digitally controlled machine tools, industrial robots and additive manufacturing equipment, which feature depth perception, intelligent decision-making, and automation.”

As the national plan states,

“By 2025, major manufacturing areas will become fully digitalized. Operation costs of pilot demonstration projects will decrease by 50%. Production cycle will decrease by 50% and faulty product rates will decrease by 50%.”

And the entire transformation is tied to development of China’s ambitious New Silk Road or Belt and Road Initiative.

In short, China is serious about transforming itself from assembling for Western companies who re-export back to North America or Europe to exporting their own products, “made in China.”

Basic Washington geopolitics, as admitted clearly by the late Zbigniew Brzezinski back two decades ago when the USA was unchallenged as sole superpower, is to prevent the rise of a Eurasian economic challenge. He wrote,

“it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America.”

As Brzezinski stated in his Grand Chess Board book in 1997,

“A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions… control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.”

Current Washington strategy is to target both the growing cooperation between China, Russia and Iran, ironically a result of inept US geopolitics since the past decade, and most especially target the great industrial “rejuvenation” of Chinese manufacturing. The problem is that China 2025 is the very basis of China’s strategy for future existence. Beijing does not see it as an option but rather as the plan.

*

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published.

Featured image is from the author.

---

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

 

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Featured image: While conducting search and rescue in the mountains of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in September of 2017, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations Black Hawk located a home with HELP painted on its roof. (Photo: U.S. CBP/Wikimedia)

As temperatures bust heat records across the globe and wildfires rage from California to the Arctic, a new report produced annually by more than 500 scientists worldwide found that last year, the carbon dioxide concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere reached the highest levels “in the modern atmospheric measurement record and in ice core records dating back as far as 800,000 years.”

While the most significant jump was the global average for carbon dioxide (CO₂)—which, at 405.0 parts per million (ppm), saw a 2.2 ppm increase from the previous year—concentrations of other dominant planet-warming greenhouse gases, methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O), also hit “record highs,” according to State of the Climate in 2017 (pdf) released Wednesday.

Considering those rates, Greg Johnson, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, warned that even if humanity “stopped the greenhouse gases at their current concentrations today, the atmosphere would still continue to warm for next couple decades to maybe a century.”

The 332-page report—which was overseen by NOAA and published as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society—also notes that 2017 is among the three hottest years ever, taking the top spot for warmest non-El Niño year since scientists began measuring in the 1800s. However, NOAA data released last weekend shows that 2018 is on track to set a new record.

The report details how “much-warmer-than-average conditions” across much of the world’s lands and oceans has meant three years of “unprecedented” coral bleaching, Arctic air temperatures that are “warming at a pace that was twice the rate of the rest of the world,” rapidly melting glaciers and ice sheets, and devastating tropical storms—such as Hurricanes Irma and Maria—that reflect “the very active state of the Atlantic basin.”

In its regional analyses, the report notes that “the United States was impacted by 16 weather and climate events that each caused over $1 billion (U.S. dollars) in damages. Since records began in 1980, 2017 is tied with 2011 for the greatest number of billion-dollar disasters. Included in this total are the western U.S. wildfire season and Hurricanes Harvey, Maria, and Irma. Tornado activity in the United States in 2017 was above average for the first time since 2011, with 1,400 confirmed tornadoes.”

It also features a map that highlights notable climate anomalies and events across the globe during 2017. The graphic points out that both Argentina and Uruguay experienced their warmest years on record while Russia experienced its second wettest, and five of six observatories in Alaska documented record high permafrost temperatures.

Permafrost is a layer of soil, rock, or sediment that remains frozen and contains massive amounts of carbon dioxide and methane. Climate scientists are growing increasingly concerned that “as the global thermostat rises, permafrost, rather than storing carbon, could become a significant source of planet-heating emissions.”

*

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above

Featured image: Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, is the most heavily-used agricultural chemical in history. (Photo: Mike Mozart/Flickr/cc)

Are you being lied to or misled? Environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason certainly thinks so and has provided much supporting evidence. She has been campaigning against the agrochemical industry for many years (all her work can be accessed here) and has borne witness to the destruction of her own nature reserve in South Wales, which she argues is due to the widespread spraying of glyphosate in the area.

In 2016, she wrote an open letter to journalists at The Guardian newspaper in the UK outlining how the media is failing the public by not properly reporting on the regulatory delinquency relating to the harmful chemicals being applied to crops (read it here). Her assertion was that not only humans and the environment are silently being poisoned by thousands of untested and unmonitored chemicals, but that the UK media are silent about the agrochemical industry’s role in this.

She has now sent a new ‘open letter’ to some major newspapers with a six-page document attached: ‘The British Government and Monsanto should stand accused of crimes against humanity’.

It has been sent to the editors-in-chief of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, the London Evening Standard and The Independent as well as the director general of the BBC and its senior executives. Channel 4 News (UK) reporters have also been sent the document, including senior presenter Jon Snow, and a number of prominent UK government agencies and ministers.

The document discusses the lawsuits that have recently been brought against agrochemical and seed giant Monsanto, issues surrounding the renewal of the licence for glyphosate (key ingredient in Monsanto’s multi-billion-dollar, money-spinning herbicide Roundup) in the EU, rising rates of illness and disease (linked to glyphosate and other agrochemicals), the increasing use of pesticides and the lack of adequate testing and epidemiological studies pertaining to the cocktail of chemicals sprayed on crops.

Mason feels the media should be holding officials and the industry to account. Instead, there seems to be an agenda to confuse the public or to push the issue to one side. For instance, she has in the past argued that too many journalists are reinforcing the pesticides industry’s assertion that cancers are caused by alcohol use and that the catalogue of diseases now affecting modern society comes down to individual choice and lifestyle decisions. The media constantly link alcohol consumption with various cancers and this ‘fact’ is endlessly reinforced until people believe it to be true.

This, Mason argues, neatly diverts attention from the strong links between the increasing amounts of chemicals used in food and agriculture and serious diseases, including cancers.

In her various documents, Mason has over the years highlighted how international and national health and food safety agencies have dismissed key studies and findings in their assessments of the herbicide glyphosate, and she has provided much evidence that the chemical industry has created a toxic (political and natural) environment which affects us all. She argues that these agencies are guilty of regulatory delinquency due to conflicts of interest and have effectively been co-opted, enabling companies to dodge effective regulation.

Mason has gone to great lengths to show how a combination of propaganda disseminated by industry front groups and conflicts of interest allow dangerous chemicals into the food chain and serve to keep the public in the dark about what is taking place and the impacts on their health.

Aside from the subversion of democratic procedures, the result is rivers, streams and oceans polluted with agrochemical run-offs, spiralling rates of illness among the public and the destruction of wildlife and biodiversity.

By writing to major news outlets, Mason is pressing for at least one to take up this issue and finally begin holding public officials and agrochemical companies to account. To its credit, the French newspaper Le Monde has on occasion been unafraid to report on the activities of this industry.

Regardless of industry propaganda, it is not that we need the model of agriculture that these companies profit from. The increasingly globalized industrial food regime that transnational agribusiness is integral to is not feeding the world. It is, moreover, responsible for some of the planet’s most pressing political, social and environmental crises.

There are credible alternatives that actually can feed the world equitably (see ‘United Nations: Agroecology, not Pesticides, is the Future for Food‘).

So, isn’t it about time integrity and public health took precedence over profit and vested interest?

The UN special rapporteur on the right to food Hilal Elver says:

“The power of the corporations over governments and over the scientific community is extremely important. If you want to deal with pesticides, you have to deal with the companies.”

When speaking truth to power, however, perhaps for many well-paid media personnel with careers to protect it is easier to stay silent.

*

Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.

---

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

 

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

The last leg of the journey of al-Awda (the boat of return) was scheduled to reach Gaza on 29 July 2018. We were on target to reach Gaza that evening. There are 22 on board including crew with USD 15,000 of antibiotics and bandages for Gaza. At 12.31 pm we received a missed call from a number beginning with +81… Mikkel was steering the boat at that time. The phone rang again with the message that we were trespassing into Israeli waters. Mikkel replied that we were in international waters and had right of innocent passage according to maritime laws. The accusation of trespassing was repeated again and again with Mikkel repeating the message that we were sailing in international waters. This carried on for about half an hour, while Awda was 42 nautical miles from the coast of Gaza.

Prior to the beginning of this last leg, we had spent 2 days learning non-violent actions and had prepared ourselves in anticipation of Israeli invasion of our boat. Vulnerable individuals especially those with medical conditions were to sit at the rear of the top deck with their hands on the deck table. The leader of this group was Gerd, a 75 year old elite Norwegian athlete and she had the help of Lucia a Spanish nurse in her group.

The people who were to provide non-violent barrier to the Israelis coming on deck and taking over the boat formed 3 rows – two rows of threes and the third row of 2 persons blocking the wheel house door to protect the wheel house for as long as possible. There were runners between the wheel house and the rear of the deck. The leader of the boat Zohar and I were at the two ends of the toilets corridor where we looked out at the horizon and inform all of any sightings of armed boats. I laughed at Zohar and said we are the Toilet Brigade, but I think Zohar did not find it very funny. It was probably bad taste under the circumstances. I also would be able to help as a runner and will have accessibility to all parts of the deck in view of being the doctor on board.

Soon we saw at least three large Israeli warships on the horizon with 5 or more speed boats (zodiacs) zooming towards us. As the Zodiacs approached I saw that they carried soldiers with machine guns and there was on board the boats large machine guns mounted on a stand pointing at our boat. From my lookout point the first Israeli soldier climbed on board to the cabin level and climbed up the boat ladder to the top deck. His face was masked with a white cloth and following him were many others, all masked. They were all armed with machine guns and small cameras on their chests.

They immediately made to the wheel house overcoming the first row by twisting the arms of the participants, lifting Sarah up and throwing her away. Joergen the chef was large to be manhandled so he was tasered before being lifted up. They attacked the second row by picking on Emelia the Spanish nurse and removed her thus breaking the line. They then approach the door of the wheel house and tasered Charlie the first mate and Mike Treen who were obstructing their entry to the wheel house. Charlie was beaten up as well. Mike did not give way with being tasered in his lower limbs so he was tasered in his neck and face. Later on I saw bleeding on the left side of Mike’s face. He was semi-conscious when I examined him.

They broke into the wheel house by cutting the lock, forced the engine to be switched off and took down the Palestine flag before taking down the Norwegian flag and trampling on it.

They then cleared all people from the front half of the boat around the wheel house and moved them by force and coercion, throwing them to the rear of the deck. All were forced to sit on the floor at the back, except Gerd, Lucy and the vulnerable people who were seated around the table on wooden benches around her. Israeli soldiers then formed a line sealing off people from the back and preventing them from coming to the front of the boat again.

As we entered the back of the deck we were all body searched and ordered to surrender our mobile phones or else they will take it by force. This part of search and confiscation was under the command of a woman soldier. Apart from mobile phones – medicines and wallets were also removed. No one as of today (4 August 2018) got our mobile phones back.

I went to examine Mike and Charlie. Charlie had recovered consciousness and his wrists were tied together with plastic cable ties. Mike was bleeding from the side of his face, still not fully conscious. His hands were very tightly tied together with cable ties and the circulation to his fingers was cut off and his fingers and palm were beginning to swell. At this stage the entire people seated on the floor shouted demanding that the cable ties be cut. It was about half an hour later before the ties were finally cut off from both of them.

Around this time Charlie the first mate received the Norwegian flag. He was visibly upset telling all of us that the Norwegian flag had been trampled on. Charlie reacted more to the trampling of the Norwegian flag than to his own being beaten and tasered.

The soldiers then started asking for the captain of the boat. The boys then started to reply that they were all the captain. Eventually the Israelis figured out that Herman was the captain and demanded to take him to the wheel house. Herman asked for someone to come with him, and I offered to do so. But as we approached the wheel house, I was pushed away and Herman forced into the wheel house on his own. Divina, the well known Swedish singer, had meanwhile broken free from the back and went to the front to look through the window of the wheel house. She started to shout and cry “Stop –stop they are beating Herman, they are hurting him”. We could not see what Divina saw, but knew that it was something very disturbing. Later on, when Divina and I were sharing a prison cell, she told me they were throwing Herman against the wall of the wheel house and punching his chest. Divina was forcibly removed and her neck was twisted by the soldiers who took her back to the rear of the deck.

I was pushed back to the rear of the boat again. After a while the boat engine started. I was told later by Gerd who was able to hear Herman tell the story to the Norwegian Consul in prison that the Israelis wanted Herman to start the engine, and threatened to kill him if he would not do so. But what they did not understand was that with this boat, once the engine stopped it can only be restarted manually in the engine room in the cabin level below. Arne the engineer refused to restart the engine, so the Israelis brought Herman down and hit him in front of Arne making it clear that they will continue to hit Herman if Arne would not start the engine. Arne is 70 years old, and when he saw Herman’s face went ash colour, he gave in and started the engine manually. Gerd broke into tears when she was narrating this part of the story. The Israelis then took charge of the boat and drove it to Ashdod.

Once the boat was on course, the Israeli soldiers brought Herman to the medical desk. I looked at Herman and saw that he was in great pain, silent but conscious, breathing spontaneously but shallow breathing. The Israeli Army doctor was trying to persuade Herman to take some medicine for pain. Herman was refusing the medicine. The Israeli doctor explained to me that what he was offering Herman was not army medicine but his personal medicine. He gave me the medicine from his hand so that I could check it. It was a small brown glass bottle and I figured that it was some kind of liquid morphine preparation probably the equivalent of oromorph or fentanyl. I asked Herman to take it and the doctor asked him to take 12 drops after which Herman was carried off and slumped on a mattress at the back of the deck. He was watched over by people around him and fell asleep. From my station I saw he was breathing better.

With Herman settled I concentrated on Larry Commodore, the Native American leader and an environmental activist. He had been voted Chief of his tribe twice. Larry has labile asthma and with the stress all around my fear was that he might get a nasty attack, and needed adrenaline injection. I was taking Larry through deep breathing exercises. However Larry was not heading for an asthmatic attack, but was engaging an Israeli who covered his face with a black cloth in conversation. This man was obviously in charge.

I asked for the Israeli man with black mask his name and he called himself Field Marshall Ro…..Larry misheard him and jumped to conclusion that he called himself Field Marshall Rommel and shouted how can he an Israeli take a Nazi name. Field Marshall objected and introduced himself as Field Marshall? Ronan. As I spelt out Ronan he quickly corrected me that his name is Ronen, and he Field Marshall Ronen was in charge.

The Israeli soldiers all wore body cameras and were filming us all the time. A box of sandwiches and pears were brought on deck for us. None of us took any of their food as we had decided we do not accept Israeli hypocrisy and charity. Our chef Joergen had already prepared high calorie high protein delicious brownie with nuts and chocolate, wrapped up in tin foil to be consume when captured, as we know it was going to be a long day and night. Joergen called it food for the journey. Unfortunately when I needed it most, the Israelis took away my food and threw it away. They just told me ”It is forbidden” I had nothing to eat for 24 hours, refusing Israeli Army food and had no food of my own.

As we sailed towards Israel we could see the coast of Gaza in total darkness. There were 3 oil /gas rigs in the northern sea of Gaza. The brightly burning oil flames contrasted with the total darkness the owners of the fuel were forced to live in. Just off the shore of Gaza are the largest deposit of natural gas ever discovered and the natural gas belonging to the Palestinians were already being siphoned off by Israel.

As we approached Israel, Zohar our boat leader suggested that we should start saying goodbye to each other. We were probably 2-3 hours from Ashdod. We thanked our boat leader, our Captain, the crew, our dear chef, and encouraged each other that we will continue to do all we can to free Gaza and also bring justice to Palestine. Herman our Captain, who managed to sit up now, gave a most moving talk and some of us were in tears.

We knew that in Ashdod there will be the Israeli media and film crews. We will not enter Ashdod as a people who had lost hope as we were taken captive. So we came off the boat chanting “Free Free Palestine” all the way as we came off. Mike Treen the union man had by then recovered from his heavy tasering and led the chanting with his mega-voice and we filled the night sky of Israel with Free Free Palestine as we approached. We did this the whole way down the boat into Ashdod.

We came directly into a closed military zone in Ashdod. It was a sealed off area with many stations. It was specially prepared for the 22 of us.

It began with a security x-ray area. I did not realise they retained my money belt as I came out of the x-ray station. The next station was strip search, and it was when I was gathering up my belongings after being stripped when I realised my money belt was no longer with me. I knew I had about a couple hundred Euros and they were trying to steal it. I demanded its return and refused to leave the station until it was produced. I was shouting for the first time. I was glad I did that as some other people were parted from their cash. The journalist from Al Jazeera Abdul had all his credit cards and USD 1,800 taken from him, as well as his watch, satellite phone, his personal mobile, his ID. He thought his possessions were kept with his passport but when he was released for deportation he learnt bitterly that he only got his passport back. All cash and valuables were never found. They simply vanished.

We were passed from station to station in this closed military zone, stripped searched several times, possessions taken away until in the end all we had was the clothes we were wearing with nothing else except a wrist band with a number on it. All shoe laces were removed as well. Some of us were given receipts for items taken away, but I had no receipts for anything. We were photographed several times and saw two doctors. At this point I learnt that Larry was pushed down the gangway and injured his foot and sent off to Israeli hospital for check-up. His blood was on the floor.

I was cold and hungry, wearing only one teeshirt and pants by the time they were through with me. My food was taken away; water was taken away, all belongings including reading glasses taken away. My bladder was about to explode but I am not allowed to go to the toilet. In this state I was brought out to two vehicles – Black Maria painted gray. On the ground next to it were a great heap of ruqsacks and suit cases. I found mine and was horrified that they had broken into my baggage and took almost everything from it – all clothes clean and dirty, my camera, my second mobile, my books, my Bible, all the medicines I brought for the participants and myself, my toiletries. The suitcase was partially broken. My ruqsack was completely empty too. I got back two empty cases except for two dirty large man size teeshirts which obviously belonged to someone else. They also left my Freedom Flotilla teeshirt. I figured out that they did not steal the Flotilla teeshirt as they thought no Israeli would want to wear that teeshirt in Israel. They had not met Zohar and Yonatan who were proudly wearing theirs. That was a shock as I was not expecting the Israeli Army to be petty thieves as well. So what had become the glorious Israeli Army of the Six Day War which the world so admired?

I was still not allowed to go to the toilet, but was pushed into the Maria van, joined by Lucia the Spanish nurse and after some wait taken to Givon Prison. I could feel myself shivering uncontrollably on the journey.

The first thing our guards did in Givon Prison was to order me to go to the toilet to relieve myself. It was interesting to see that they knew I needed to go desperately but had prevented me for hours to! By the time we were re-x-rayed and searched again it must be about 5 – 6 am. Lucia and I were then put in a cell where Gerd, Divina, Sarah and Emelia were already asleep. There were three double decker bunk beds – all rusty and dusty.

Divina did not get the proper dose of her medicines; Lucia was refused her own medicine and given an Israeli substitute which she refused to take. Divina and Emelia went straight on to hunger strike. The jailors were very hostile using simple things like refusal of toilet paper and constant slamming of the prison iron door, keeping the light of the cell permanently on, and forcing us to drink rusty water from the tap, screaming and shouting at us constantly to vent their anger at us.

The guards addressed me as “China” and treated me with utter contempt. On the morning of 30 July 2018, the British Vice Consul visited me. Some kind person had called them about my whereabouts. That was a blessing as after that I was called “England” and there was a massive improvement in the way England was treated compared to the way China was treated. It crossed my mind that “Palestine” would be trampled over, and probably killed.

At 6.30am 31 July 2018, we heard Larry yelling from the men’s cell across the corridor that he needed a doctor. He was obviously in great pain and crying. We women responded by asking the wardens to allow me to go across to see Larry as I might be able to help. We shouted “We have a doctor” and used our metal spoons to hit the iron cell gate get their attention. They lied and said their doctor will be over in an hour. We did not believe them and started again. The doctor actually turned up at 4 pm, about 10 hours later and Larry was sent straight to hospital.

Meanwhile to punish the women for supporting Larry’s demand, they brought hand cuffs for Sarah and took Divina and me to another cell to separate us from the rest. We were told we were not going to be allowed out for our 30 minutes fresh air break and a drink of clean water in the yard. I heard Gerd saying “Big deal”

Suddenly Divina was taken out with me to the courtyard and Divina given 4 cigarettes at which point she broke down and cried. Divina had worked long hours at the wheel house steering the boat. She had seen what happened to Herman. The prison had refused to give her one of her medicines and given her only half the dose of the other. She was still on hunger strike to protest our kidnapping in international waters. It was heart-breaking to see Divina cry. One of the wardens who called himself Michael started talking to us about how he will have to protect his family against those who want to drive the Israelis out. And how the Palestinians did not want to live in peace…and it was not Israel’s fault. But things suddenly changed with the arrival of an Israeli Judge and we were all treated with some decency even though he only saw a few of us personally. His job was to tell us that a Tribunal will be convened the following day and each prisoner had been allocated a time to appear, and we must have our lawyer with us when we appear.

Divina by the end of the day became very giddy and very unwell so I persuaded her to come out of hunger strike, and also she agreed to sign a deportation order. Shortly after that possibly at 6 pm since we had no watches and mobile phones, we were told Lucia, Joergen, Herman, Arne, Abdul from Al Jazeera and I would be deported within 24 hours and we would be taken to be imprisoned in the deportation prison in Ramle near Ben Gurion airport immediately to wait there. It was going to

be the same Ramle Prison from which I was deported in 2014. I saw the same five strong old palm trees still standing up proud and tall. They are the only survivors of the Palestinian village destroyed in 1948.

When we arrived at Ramle prison Abdul found to his horror that he his money, his credit cards, his watch, his satellite phone, his own mobile phone, his ID card were all missing – he was entirely destitute. We had a whip round and raised around a hundred Euros as a contribution towards his taxi fare from the airport to home. How can the Israeli Army be so corrupt and heartless to rob someone of everything?

Conclusion

We, the six women on board al-Awda had learnt that they tried to completely humiliate and dehumanise us in every way possible. We were also shocked at the behaviour of the Israeli Army especially petty theft and their treatment of international women prisoners. Men jailors regularly entered the women’s cell without giving us decent notice to put our clothes on.

They also tried to remind us of our vulnerability at every stage. We know they would have preferred to kill us but of course the publicity incurred in so doing might be unfavourable to the international image of Israel.

If we were Palestinians it would be much worse with physical assaults and probably loss of lives. The situation is therefore dire for the Palestinians.

As to international waters, it looks as though there is no such thing for the Israeli Navy. They can hijack and abduct boats and persons in international water and get away with it. They acted as though they own the Mediterranean Sea. They can abduct any boat and kidnap any passengers, put them in prison and criminalise them.

We cannot accept this. We have to speak up, stand up against this lawlessness, oppression and brutality. We were completely unarmed. Our only crime according to them is we are friends of the Palestinians and wanted to bring medical aid to them. We wanted to brave the military blockade to do this. This is not a crime. In the week we were sailing to Gaza, they had shot dead 7 Palestinians and wounded more than 90 with life bullets in Gaza. They had further shut down fuel and food to Gaza. Two million Palestinians in Gaza live without clean water, with only 2-4 hours of electricity, in homes destroyed by Israeli bombs, in a prison blockaded by land, air and sea for 12 years. The hospitals of Gaza since the 30 March had treated more than 9,071 wounded persons, 4,348 shot by machine guns from a hundred Israeli snipers while they were mounting peaceful demonstrations inside the borders of Gaza on their own land. Most of the gun-shot wounds were to the lower limbs and with depleted treatment facilities the limbs will suffer amputation. In this period more than 165 Palestinians had been shot dead by the same snipers, including medics and journalists, children and women. The chronic military blockade of Gaza has depleted the hospitals of all surgical and medical supplies. This massive attack on an unarmed Freedom Flotilla bringing friends and some medical relief is an attempt to crush all hope for Gaza. As I write I learnt that our sister Flotilla, Freedom, has also been kidnapped by the Israeli Navy while in international waters.

BUT we will not stop, we must continue to be strong to bring hope and justice to the Palestinians and be prepared to pay the price, and to be worthy of the Palestinians. As long as I survive I will exist to resist.

To do less will be a crime.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Featured image: Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has survived an apparent attack on his life during a military parade. | Photo: AVN

“They have tried to assassinate me today, and everything points to the Venezuelan ultra-right and the Colombian ultra-right,” President Nicolas Maduro said.

“My film itself is essentially… was tracking the neocon influence and how the neoconservatives from the Bush era that pushed the Iraq war, that constructed the blueprints for the Iraq war, how they also were the earliest pioneers pushing this Russiagate Cold War 2.0 mentality.” – Robbie Martin, from this week’s program.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

Robert Kagan. William Kristol. Paul Wolfowitz. Richard Perle. John Bolton. Elliott Abrams. Gary Schmitt. These are a few of the names generally associated with a strain of far-right political thought called neoconservatism. [1][2]

Politically, the neocons favour a world in which the United States adopts a much more aggressive military posture, and utilizes its military might to not only contain terrorist and related threats to its security, but force regime change in regions like the Middle East. They further take on the task of ‘nation-building’ all in the name of creating a safer world for ‘democracy.’ It was the neocons who promoted the stratagem of pre-emptive military action. [3]

The neocons enjoyed a robust period of influence under the Bush-Cheney administration. The 9/11 attacks and the triggering of a ‘war on terrorism’ enabled a series of foreign policy choices, most notably the War on Afghanistan and the War on Iraq, which aligned with the aims and aspirations of the group once referred to by President George Bush Sr. as the ‘crazies in the basement.'[4]

The neocons did not vanish with the departure of the Bush Republicans from office, and the rise of Obama. Indeed, the clout of this group and their grip on power is arguably as strong as ever. Not only did they continue to shape the U.S. foreign policy establishment, but they have managed to alter what constitutes acceptable public and media discourse within the world’s remaining superpower. The trajectory of neocon influence in Washington is explored in depth in the documentary series, A Very Heavy Agenda, by independent journalist and film-maker Robbie Martin.

In part one of a special two part interview by Global Research News Hour guest contributor Scott Price, Martin describes the inspiration behind making the film, the post 9/11 atmosphere in which the neocons flourished, and the neocons’ role in fostering the new Cold War mentality which contributed to the smearing of his better-known sister, former RT host Abby Martin.

This feature is followed by an interview with writer, ecological campaigner, and Deep State researcher Mark Robinowitz. Originally recorded and aired in January 2018, Robinowitz helps delineate the factions of power shaping the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, as well as the players within the National Security State, including the neocons, that appear to be manipulating him and his presidency, possibly maneuvering him towards an impeachment within the next year.

Robbie Martin is a journalist, musician and documentary film-maker. He is co-host with his sister Abby Martin of Media Roots Radio.  A Very Heavy Agenda can be streamed or purchased here. Soundtrack for Film and music for these series from Fluorescent Grey (Robbie Martin).

Mark Robinowitz is a writer, political activist, ecological campaigner and permaculture practitioner and publisher of oilempire.us as well as jfkmoon.org. He is based in Eugene, Oregon.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

Transcript – Interview with Robbie Martin, July 2018

Global Research: Through the late 20th and early 21st century, the neoconservatives loomed large in American foreign policy…the war on terror, the war in Iraq, the Bush administration. In 2018, it may seem that their power and influence has waned, but in fact, many of these neoconservatives still hold influence, and their legacy has had a much larger impact on politics and society.

In this Global Research News Hour special, we talk with journalist, filmmaker, and musician Robbie Martin on his 3-part documentary, A Very heavy Agenda. This film series covers the rise and continued influence of the neoconservatives. In Part 1, Robbie talks about the artistic and political influence for A Very Heavy Agenda and some of the early history of the war on terror.

Talking more broadly about the documentary, what was.. sort of the genesis of the idea for A Very Heavy Agenda? The documentary has a very distinct style and you don’t do a lot of editorializing. So what was the inspiration for all that? And why did you choose the kind of… this topic and the kind of technique that you were using for this documentary film?

Robbie Martin: I think I probably should give a shout out to filmmaker Adam Curtis right off the top, because I don’t give him enough credit when I talk about the inspiration for this film. As you may know, or if you’re not familiar with it…but he made a film series called The Power of Nightmares during the Bush administration that was sort of charting the neoconservative influence in the Bush administration and before, and how they’ve sort of mirrored the Wahhabist, Islamic, you know, fundamentalists and Al Qaeda figures by using what Adam Curtis described as the Power of Nightmares, that by concocting these nightmare fantasy scenarios, you could gain power, and people like Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were able to do that by spinning these hysterical fear-mongering tales about, oh, what would happen if a bio-terrorist attack happened? You know what would happen if terrorists attacked the World Trade Centers?

That was a big inspiration for me during the Bush administration. It sort of helped me become more politically aware. It made me question a lot of things after 9/11 and having to do with the Iraq war. But over time, i just became sort of just, oh the neocons, they’re the people who were mainly behind the Iraq war. They’re sort of an evil class of foreign policy makers in DC who really want war at every opportunity. And that’s just how I thought of them throughout the years.

It wasn’t until my sister, Abby Martin, and for those listening who aren’t aware of this, my sister actually had a show on the Russian-owned television channel, Russia Today America out of DC from the years around 2012 to, I think, early 2015.

So she had a show on RT for about three years, and while she was there, I remember having a conversation with her very early on saying, you know, we have to be ready for when the U.S. government decides that they’re going to get mad at what this channel’s doing. because when she started working there in 2012, it didn’t seem like there was any attention whatsoever to RT, this idea of Russian meddling, this idea of Russian propaganda, no one cared about it.

In fact, U.S. officials at the time marginalized it and even one of my characters in my film, Victoria Nuland, says it has a very tiny audience. She actually marginalized it during a Brookings panel in DC. Now, that was the attitude back when my sister first started working there, but over time, we started seeing early signs of what appeared to be an information war being waged against the Russian government by shady actors inside the United States.

And that may sound a little bit ironic, considering the way that we see everything through this lens now of Russian meddling, that everyone in the U.S. would describe RT as a form of information war now. You know, that’s how everybody would describe it now, but back then it was such a small channel…it…barely anybody watched it, I mean that was kind of more true what they were saying back then, U.S. officials marginalizing it…that was more of the true narrative. It was a small channel and had very little influence.

But yet maybe just a year or two into her working there, maybe a year and a half, we really started to notice something strange happening in the United States where there was all this focus starting to accumulate towards Putin and Russia and why Russia was so bad. And it started more subtly, kind of in the background. The Sochi Olympics, however, was sort of when we noticed — it was almost like all these coordinated narratives started to really flood out of U.S. media channels, and all this awareness all of a sudden about the Russian gay law, which as someone who’s very adamantly pro gay rights, I was bothered by it as well, but I mean even at the time I remember thinking, now this is an odd amount of focus towards the Russian gay law when yet Saudi Arabia actually executes gays still, and there’s hardly any talk about that in the U.S. media. What’s actually happening here?

So there was some early signs and sort of like what…me just sort of my gut reaction and my sister’s gut reaction to that climate at the time wondering what was going on. And of course, right after the Sochi Olympics, is when the Euromaidan protest in Ukraine, it kind of boiled over to the point where there were, you know, walls of flaming tires all over Euromaidan – basically a war zone. And of course the Ukrainian government fell due to a coup which many believe, including myself, was partially U.S. sponsored by the U.S. State Department.

And then things from there, Scott, just started to spiral out of control, and from the period between 2014 to 2018, it was like an exponentially rising climate of propaganda against Russia coming from the U.S. media, and when I made my film series, I didn’t…I made it before the election, so I didn’t realize how hysterical it was going to get after the election, and frankly, I had no idea it was going to get this bad, to the point that it’s got now.

i know that doesn’t quite answer your question about my inspiration, but it’s…kind of a long answer to your question is…my film itself is essentially.. was tracking the neocon influence and how the neoconservatives from the Bush era that pushed the Iraq war, that constructed the blueprints to the Iraq war, how they also were the earliest pioneers pushing this Russiagate Cold War 2.0 mentality.

And how it only took. you know. certain nudges and pushes and policy papers, and here we are. They essentially got their way, and Russia has never been more demonized since the fall of communism and the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union. So that’s…I don’t know if that was too long of an answer for your question, but that’s what was sort of my inspiration for how I made it. My sister was also kind of a part of the story because some of these neocons actually tried to smear her while she was working for RT.

GR: Right…yeah

RM: And that’s maybe a more literal answer to your question is – that was the key inspiration for me like, oh, wait these neocons are still around, they’re waging some kind of cutting edge information war against Russia at the Obama administration doesn’t seem to care about, and they’re out there trying to ruin my sister. So all those factors combined, sort of coalesced at once, and I’m like, I have to do something about this because no one else is talking about this push, what I saw as a propaganda push to try to push us into kind of a war-footing with Russia. Whether you want to call it World War III or an ideological confrontation.

GR: Right, yeah, and I mean, some of the more, the details of some of these things we’ll get into. I mean, I don’t want to get too far into it, because I want people to to to watch your.. the documentary, because I think it’s so great. And especially…I’m 31 so I kind of, the 9/11 thing really shaped myself and my generation in so many ways. But even in watching this, there’s so many things that I forgot about or didn’t even know about? You know like we kind of form these narratives and we don’t really think about it or you know who’s controlling this stuff and for what purposes. But I think you give a good summation of that.

But one of the things too about the film itself is you use a lot of footage of these people… if it’s one of the Kagans or Bill Kristol or whomever… I mean, obviously this was a conscious decision to use their own words, so could you talk a little bit about why you decided to do it that way? Because I think in watching the how many hours it is over the three parts, you get, you kind of see the same themes coming up again, but it’s from these people themselves that are saying this stuff. Could you talk about the power of that and why you decided to do that?

RM: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think at first, I was really fascinated by the psychology of these key neoconservatives. I was watching, at first I didn’t even know I was going to make a film. I was kind of in this weird place mentally, my sister had just been put through the wringer, she had over 200 basically hit piece stories written about her within the span of a week, and I was just in this kind of depressed place checking in with her making sure she was doing okay, and not basically getting too stressed out from all this media pressure and this barrage of negative stories. So I was just watching these videos basically from the neocon think-tank that I believe was behind the smear campaign against her.

So I was watching videos from this think tank, they were called the Foreign Policy Initiative, and I quickly learned maybe over 48 hour period, oh, the Foreign Policy Initiative is actually a re-branded, reopened version of the Project for The New American Century think tank, which was the most infamous neocon think tank that was behind the Iraq War. Once I realized that, then I just…then I was obsessed with watching these videos. I watched probably every single video on their YouTube channel, and the majority of them were incredibly boring, very dry. And I was already in a depressed place, so, you know, it was kind of just putting me into this weird state where I was watching nothing but these dry foreign policy think tank videos for weeks on end.

Finally I got to Robert Kagan. And I was listening to him, and it struck me differently from the way that most other neoconservatives would talk, because I perceived him as being more candid about the way American foreign policy has actually conducted itself, and also more clever with the way that I perceived him as, re-branding, repackaging neocon rhetoric for the Obama era. Once I saw this, I became fascinated with his psychology. And I was already sort of fascinated with Bill Kristol’s psychology, you know, going back to when I was a young man when I would watch Fox News you know during the Iraq War, I would watch Bill Kristol, and I found him fascinating back then because he seemed on a different level than most other, you know, war hawks that would go on Fox News.

But it was really Robert Kagan though that made me think, you know, his own words are so fascinating and so candid and so revealing without adding any editorial content that I wonder if this will work, if I present it just simply in his own words.

And then the other reason, if I’m being completely honest, I didn’t feel confident at the time to actually add any of my own editorial narration. I kind of cringe sometimes at movies that do that too much, especially political documentaries. Without naming names or crapping on anyone, let’s just say I watched a political documentary that had the word wars in the title. And I felt that the filmmaker himself was…made himself the main character, and while the content of the film was great, he talked about Yemen, Somalia all these… how do I say it without revealing the film maker? All these wars, hidden wars, happening in all these other countries, the filmmaker made himself the main character, and I cringe so much at that I kind of was in this position where I was like, I don’t even know how to enter my own editorial point of view into this other than my editing and the way I’m presenting all this footage.

So when I made Part 1, it was out of necessity, mostly because I didn’t know how to do that yet, and I didn’t feel confident enough to do it, but then also the footage I was grabbing was so compelling to me on its own, I felt that maybe this could work just on its own. Like I wasn’t… When I was originally making it it didn’t even cross my mind to add narration. It was only until later when I was like, I need to release this and show people that I actually decided to add narration. But as you’re saying Part 1, I think you’re mostly talking about Part 1, has no narration whatsoever. And it’s just… It’s mostly just a collage of footage of these neoconservatives talking, and conversing and revealing sort of how they truly think.

GR: Yeah, so in talking about it like how they, the neocons, think and what their worldview really is… I think a lot of listeners of CKUW and the Global Research News Hour would be familiar when you say neocons and Project for a New American Century, but I think the overriding perception is that they’re a thing of the past. They were kind of, they had their time with the Bush and through the 2000s and then they’re gone. So why should people still be paying attention to the neocons in 2018?

RM: Great question. I mean… and you’re right to say that. The general perception is that they kind of got shamed out of existence based on the failure… “the failure” of the Iraq War and the amount of public pressure against that, and how most people have come to the belief that it was a disaster. And the neocons are largely associated with that military invasion and frankly, that massacre that was done completely for no logical reason whatsoever…unless we’re talking about imperialistic games. The WMDs argument is complete BS and everyone knows that now.

So their names were largely associated with the worst lies of the Bush administration, and that was my perception of it too until I started working on this documentary film, is that they had gone away and they weren’t really a problem anymore. And even when I started to see some of the same faces pop up talking about Russia and how evil Putin was back in like 2014, I didn’t personally think it was that big of a deal because I thought, well these people are super marginalized. Who’s really listening to them anymore? Obama is clearly not listening to them. But that actually turned out not to be true. The Obama part… He actually was listening to them as described in my film.

But I think one way to describe why they’re so important and they’re still so influential is because they managed to, a very small handful of them, maybe less than a dozen figures, managed to convince the rest of, what people describe as the DC blob, the sort of foreign policy consensus in DC overall, the neocons managed to rebrand themselves, massage their rhetoric, and make themselves seem less crazy in order to influence the larger DC foreign policy community into basically accepting and going along with almost all their foreign policy platforms, with the exception of overtly wanting to invade Iran which… arguably that is the neocon prize but see, a lot of these smarter neocons like Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol, and a lot of these neocons who managed to convince the blob, they have hidden, and not been open about the fact that they want to overthrow the regime of Iran.

That’s one of their foreign policy platforms they’ve sort of brushed under the rug, because that’s one of… The reason I’m giving that example is because that’s how they have managed to cross the aisle, so to speak, in DC and put a hand out to the neoliberal think tanks and say, hey we’re kind of on the same side in this, and we all think Putin’s bad, and let’s really go after him. Let’s overthrow Assad. So these are things that the neocons managed to essentially convince and influence the rest of the DC foreign policy community to believe.

So yes, it’s true that there are not that many actual literal neocons, but a lot of people now who are sort of anti-war, do work in anti-war or do foreign policy critique, they don’t see much of a difference any more between sort of the neoliberal foreign policy group in DC, which is most of it, and the actual neocons anymore. Because they have essentially merged in a non-partisan fashion, and it’s been very surreal to watch, especially after the 2016 election when you actually saw neocons saying well you should vote for Hillary. For the first time ever they all said that you shouldn’t vote for a Republican.

That’s… so I don’t know that fully answers your question, but I think to sum it up it’s because the neocons have influenced everybody. So now that they’ve been able to do that you don’t really need that many of them around you know making that much trouble because everybody is carrying out their agenda essentially. In this DC foreign policy think-tank.

GR: Yeah…I think the way you kind of describe it in… maybe it’s… I don’t know if you personally describe it, but I wrote it down in my notes about how neoconservatism is almost like a species and it kind of evolved over the last 20 years in a way? So I think what you’re talking about how there’s a shift to Hillary, and, but I mean that shift is more that the neoconservative line really became the mainstream line, whereas, you know, maybe in the early 2000s, like, there was a larger perception, yes, they were in the White House, but these people are also crazy, whereas now is kind of like the mainstream, which is quite scary. Which is something I think we’ll talk about in a little bit. But kind of what I was talking about a bit before what I referenced was that I was a teenager when 9/11 happened, and it really shaped my generation and the world that I’m living in now

But as I was watching the 3-part documentary, there were several things that I was like kind of blown away by how these things kind of just went down the memory hole, and I want to talk about those things because several of these things I vaguely kind of remember now but for some odd reason I had totally forgotten about them, and they’re not really within the wider narrative of 9/11 and the war on terror.

So the first one is that how right after 9/11, several of these neocons, I think it’s Don and Fred Kagan, went on TV and radio kind of immediately after for at least a 24-hour 48-hour period after 9/11 and basically blamed Palestinians for the attack, and were basically outright calling for the U.S. to attack Palestine. And even saying that they had no evidence but we should just go and attack them. So could you talk about what happened there, and what was the effect there? Everyone kind of forgets about this but what happened there, and what do you think the effect of that was?

RM: You just opened up a really big can of worms with that question. Well, to fully answer that it would require a totally separate interview, but I’ll do my best to answer it in this short time that we have. What you’re describing is, what I would say, is the neocons flipping up and revealing too much of an early iteration of their script, than the rest of the consensus was ready to reveal or get on board with. And perhaps, even, they jumped ahead with something that the rest of the neocons already decided, we can’t go there. Because, and this is important to know, that Don Kagan is one of the only three authors credited as writing Rebuilding America’s Defenses, the infamous paper that PNAC released that says we need a new Pearl Harbor, a catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor.

Don Kagan is someone who just, mostly an obscure figure in this, but I’d like to believe that if he was saying that on the radio within 24 hours of 9/11, that it was something being heavily discussed within that community behind the scenes. And he and his son Fred Kagan are two of the most intellectual, influential neoconservatives in DC. Fred Kagan is behind the Iraq surge, he is also behind the Afghanistan surge for Obama, directly working under David Petraeus. So these are not just like random neocons. It’s important to stress that they are some of the most influential neocon brain-trust type people in DC even though they’re so relatively obscure… They’re not household names.

So to hear both of them saying that we need to clean out Palestine with the U.S. Delta Force raids and the full panoply of U.S. military tools and arsenal, it’s a very shocking thing to hear. Even though I’ve long believed that neocons are some of the most evil people on the planet, that was even surprising for me to hear. That they went ahead and openly said that the U.S. military should do that, and actually, in their broadcast they make it clear that they don’t even care who’s behind 9/11. Which is strange. They say that if we run around tracing the actual perpetrators, we’re just going to be wasting our time and we won’t get anywhere. So what they are saying is that we should just go attack all these countries anyways because even if they’re behind it or not, they hate us and want to kill us.

And Palestine was one of their primary targets to retaliate against in response to 9/11. Now that’s very strange when you look at the day of 9/11, and I’ve actually done a podcast on this, I call it the Palestinian Frame-up, on 9/11, there were four separate incidences that were run throughout U.S. media throughout the day of 9/11 that were attempting to blame Palestinians for the attacks before Bin Laden became the primary culprit that the U.S. media latched on to. So I find that very strange.

And I’m not going to try to explain it here during this interview, but you can look into that. It’s all documented. The news media played footage of Palestinians allegedly celebrating the attacks in the middle of a national emergency at 12 p.m. while thousands of people were still missing during the World Trade Center attacks. So this is the kind of stuff that U.S. media was doing.

So it’s very interesting for me to see neocons actually piggy-backing on that and saying we should attack Palestine. And that’s a rare thing, I think, to find neocons slipping up that badly. And I guess I find that clip particularly fascinating because it’s really one of the only ones like that out there, and to my knowledge, I’m the first one to find it by combing through all these archives. I’ve never heard of it before, never even heard of any neocons saying that before on record.

And then also something else interesting Don Kagan brings up in the recording, and maybe you were going to mention this next, but I’ll just say it because it’s so weird, as he says what would have happened, and keep in mind this is 9/12-01, one day after 9/11. He says, what would have happened if the terrorists had Anthrax on that plane?

GR: Right. Yeah.

RM: And on October 5, weaponized anthrax was sent through the U.S. mail. While the Bush Administration was already inoculated with Cipro. the antibiotic taken to prevent Anthrax infection. So there’s a lot of interesting and very scary questions that are raised just by that single clip. and I’m…to this day it’s still a mystery to me.

GR: That was Part 1 of the Global Research News Hour special with Robbie Martin on his documentary series, A Very Heavy Agenda that explores the rise and continued influence of the neoconservatives. Part 2 will air next week where we will explore the anthrax attacks, the role of Vice in spreading U.S. propaganda. You can buy or stream A Very Heavy Agenda at averyheavyagenda.com. Music for this special provided by Fluorescent Grey, AKA Robbie Martin. For the Global Research News Hour, I’m Scott Price.

-end of transcript-

Global Research News Hour Summer 2018 Series Part 5

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . Excerpts of the show have begun airing on Rabble Radio and appear as podcasts at rabble.ca.

The Global Research News Hour now airs Fridays at 6pm PST, 8pm CST and 9pm EST on Alternative Current Radio (alternativecurrentradio.com)

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1  Thursdays at 1pm ET

Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.

It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.

CORTES COMMUNITY RADIO CKTZ  89.5 out of Manson’s Landing, B.C airs the show Tuesday mornings at 10am Pacific time.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 6am pacific time.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca

RIOT RADIO, the visual radio station based out of Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario has begun airing the Global Research News Hour on an occasional basis. Tune in at dcstudentsinc.ca/services/riot-radio/

Radio Fanshawe: Fanshawe’s 106.9 The X (CIXX-FM) out of London, Ontario airs the Global Research News Hour Sundays at 6am with an encore at 4pm.

Los Angeles, California based Thepowerofvoices.com airs the Global Research News Hour every Monday from 6-7pm Pacific time. 

Notes:

1. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35106.htm
2. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11811.htm
3. https://www.globalresearch.ca/neocon-101-what-do-neoconservatives-believe/6483
4. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11811.htm

Note to readers: Click the share buttons above

This incisive and carefully documented article was first published by Global Research in July 2011

In Africa, access to water is one of the most critical aspects of human survival. Today, about one third of the total population lack access to water. Constituting 300 million people and about 313 million people lack proper sanitation. (World Water Council 2006). As result, many riparian countries surrounding the Nile river basin have expressed direct stake in the water resources hitherto seldom expressed in the past.

In this paper, I argue that due to the lack of consensus over the use of the Nile basin regarding whether or not “water sharing” or “benefit sharing” has a tendency to escalate the situation in to transboundary conflict involving emerging dominant states such as the tension between Ethiopia-Egypt over the Nile river basin.  At the same time, this paper further contributes to the Collier- Hoeffler conflict model in order to analyze the transboundary challenges, and Egypt’s position as the hegemonic power in the horn of Africa contested by Ethiopia.   Collier- Hoeffler model is used to predict the occurrence of conflicts as a result of empirical economic variables in African states given the sporadic civil strife in many parts of Africa. In order to simplify my argument and analysis, I focused on Ethiopia and Egypt to explicate the extent of water crisis in the North Eastern part of Africa.

One may question why Ethiopia?  My answers are grounded in three main assumptions. The first is based on the failed Anglo-Ethiopia treaty in 1902 which never materialized.  The second assumption is based on the exclusion of Ethiopia, since 1902 and the subsequent water agreement of 1929 between Britain and Egypt and the 1959 water agreement between Egypt and Sudan after the later became independent in 1956. The final assumption is the emergence of Ethiopia   as a powerful and influential nation in the horn of Africa because of its military power in the sub region.

Ethiopia has pushed forward her demand to develop water resources through hydroelectric power along the Nile. However, for several decades, Egypt has denied other riparian countries complete access to water resources along the Nile, and for that matter has exercised her hegemonic powers over the development and control of the use of water resources in the Nile river basin for many decades. The Nile river basin has survived centuries, and for many years has served as Egypt’s economic hub, political power and growth since ancient times. The water resources in the Nile basins have also served as economic, political, social and cultural achievements of Egypt’s influence in the sub region1.

The water resources in the past were used as trade routes which enhanced Egypt’s mobile communication and international relations for centuries.  In which many earlier contacts of Egypt described Egypt as “the gift of the Nile” This hegemonic status enjoyed, since the beginning of earlier civilizations of the ancient kingdoms of Egyptian civilization compelled the ancient philosopher Herodotus to describe this civilization as “Egypt is the Nile and the Nile is Egypt.” This again coincides the period of Egyptian economic boom and its political dominion. What has further entrenched Egypt’s position in the past, which ultimately contributed to Egypt’s power over other riparian countries in the Nile river basin is the 1929 water treaty agreement signed between Egypt and Britain2.  Britain, then in charge of many riparian countries as colonies negotiated with Egypt on behalf of its colonies, thereby, giving Egypt an urge over other riparian countries in the use and access to water resources in the river basin.

However, with the attainment of independence by these countries,  high population growth, global warming, global economic crisis natural disasters, political development, pollution and resource depletion, industrialization as well as urbanization, high capital cost of water drilling, poor rural electricity for pumping underground water  have impelled these riparian countries to engage Egypt’s control in order to re-negotiate earlier water treaties and to abrogate all attempt by Egypt to control the use and development of water resources over the Nile3.  Egypt has been in control of the Nile Rivers for a long time and has emerged as the major country that has complete access to the Nile. The shortages of water and water resources in Ethiopia and of course Sudan has prompted those countries to take a second look at Egypt’s access to the Nile, most especially Ethiopia’s attempt to confront Egypt in the Nile river. Berman and Paul concluded that the tension between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Nile is likely to escalate to a war in the future. Due to Ethiopia’s rapidly growing population, in consequence, Ethiopia’s water demand has almost doubled in the last decade4.

Nile River Basin and Declining Water Resources

The Nile river basin comprises of ten countries namely, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. These countries are known as the ten riparian countries due to their proximity to the Nile river basin5.  It is the longest river in the world constituting about 6700 km or 4100 miles long and drains almost all ten aforementioned countries. The flow of the Nile as a naturally endowed commodity has benefited North Eastern countries’ economic activities through agricultural and tourism. About 90% of Egypt’s land mark is desert and therefore, many populations have concentrated along the Nile river basin, due the economic opportunities available along the Nile river basin couple with irrigation activity for landscape farming and animal rearing.6

The complete dependence of water resources over the centuries have caused the Nile river basin to deplete, especially of essential material resources causing high rate of unemployment, diseases and hunger in the countries depending on the water resources. Declan et al, argue that the resource depletion in the Nile river basin is due to three spatial factors, namely global green house effect, regional (through land use) and river basin (land management). This assertion is also consistent with Oxfam studies in Askum region and the drought that has engulfed the entire country. In a brief quote Oxfam indicated the situation in Ethiopia and said:

“Climate variability in Ethiopia is not new – but now, in addition to the usual struggles, Ethiopians living in poverty are additionally suffering the effects of climate change – both more variable climate and more extreme weather events. People who are already poor and marginalized are struggling with the added burden of climate variability. For now, this means that the little that they have goes to dealing with the current unpredictable weather because their livelihoods are so dependent on it. When selling off assets becomes a mean to cope, there is little left to plan for the future. Thus, communities are faced with simultaneously increasing climate variability, and with it increasing risk and vulnerability.7”

Global warming due to climatic conditions and green house emission effect according to Declan et al is one of the contributing factors for the recent water resource decline in the Nile river basin8.  They argued that high temperature couple with underground water reduction in the Blue Rivers in Egypt and Sudan is undergoing drastic impact of global warming. As a result, development along the Nile River has led to water resource pollutions by many riparian countries.9

For example, the Ethiopian and Eritrean wars in the late 1990s polluted a substantial part of the river basin with military accoutrements and missile deposits into the Nile Rivers. This pollution activity is further exacerbated by the huge population growth concentrated in the river basin. This populations growth according to the world water council 2006 have double in the last two decades, and continues to rise amidst migrations to the Nile river basins.10

The impact of population pressures and the resource decline in the river basins is also consistent with Aston’s argument that the southern and the northern portions get less rainfall than their equatorial neighboring countries.11  For example the Nile has two confluent tributaries connecting the White Nile and the Blue Nile, the Blue Nile which is considered the most fertile for crop production flows from Lake Tanna in Ethiopia through to Sudan from the South East.12  The Blue and White river basins also coincide with the division of upstream and downstream riparian, and their source of water. While the upstream mainly benefit on water rainfall, the down streams such as the blue river basins enjoys physical flow of water.

Braune, and Youngxin argue that the demand for allocation of water resources has witnessed several treaties and pointed out that “in the past 60 years there have been over 200 international treaties on water and only 37 cases reported on violence between countries.13.”  These magnitude of the problem resulted in lack of adequate resolution in resource allocation of water resources.

The impact of Industrialization and mechanization has played a significant role as a result of expansion projects along the Nile river basin. In 2004, the Ethiopian minister for trade accused Egypt of using undiplomatic strategies to control Ethiopia’s development projects on the Nile. Said, “Egypt has been pressuring international financial institutions to desist from assisting Ethiopia in carrying out development projects in the Nile basin.14.”

Farming along the Nile is one of the major sources of livelihood for communities living along the concentrated Nile river basins, but the ensuing drought, famine, population growth and land degradation have impacted the water resources in the Nile river basin. The Environmental Protection Agency in its 2010 report also argued that land degradation and deforestation in the river basin due to excessive burning for land cultivation in many parts of the Nile River has virtually eroded the oasis making it extremely tough for cultivation and water conservation.15

Thus before the 1950s, there were fewer resentments on the Nile water resources by riparian countries, however with changing circumstances such as declining water resources, hunger, and diseases, riparian countries have decided to renegotiate themselves in order to access the Nile. Kenya together with Ethiopia are  pioneering this process as seen in the cessionary address to parliament by the Member of Parliament for Kenya Paul Muite in 2004 who remarked “Kenyans are today importing agricultural produce from Egypt as a result of their use of the Nile water.” In a similar statement, Moses Wetangula, the assistant minister for foreign affairs remarked “Kenya will not accept any restriction on use of lake Victoria or the river Nile” and stated  “ it however does not wish to be alone ranger in deciding how to use the waters, and has consequently sought the involvement of involved countries.”16

Methodology

Conflict Theory and the Collier-Hoeffler Model

Kofi Anan reiterated that “Unsustainable practices are woven deeply in to the fabric of modern life. Land degradation threatens food security. Forest destruction threatens biodiversity. Water pollution threatens public health, and fierce competition for fresh water may well become a source of conflicts and wars in the future.’’

This statement by Kofi Anan is buttressed by Amery when he alluded to the Egyptian Member of Parliament’s assertion that Egypt’s “national security should not only be viewed in military terms, but also in terms of wars over waters17.”  The horn of Africa has been bedeviled by conflicts, both interstate and civil wars for several years now. These conflicts are mainly concentrated on the north east and central Africa. While many of these conflicts have been disputes over land occupation in mainly oil rich areas of the Congo, others have been the issue of diverting water resources. This paper examines the water scarcity in the North East with an attempt to focus on Egypt and Ethiopia through the Collier-Hoefer model of theory of civil wars in order to construct the model on water scarcity with an attempt to reconcile the tensions over water resources and its effects on the people of the north East African people.

There have been several applications and interpretations of the earlier conflict theorists propounded by earlier scholars such as Karl Marx, Lenin, and Weber. Collier-Hoeffer, also known as the C-H model is one of such interpretation of recent times. Their analyses on conflict is based on the framework of many variables such as tribes, identities, economics, religion and social status in Africa, and subjecting the data to a regression analysis and concluded that of the many variables identified in Africa and the examination of the 78 five year increments(1960-1999) in which conflicts occur, and of  five year 1, 600 inputs in which no conflicts occur, concluded that based on the data set that economic factors rather than ethnic, or religious, identities are the bane of conflicts in Africa. In complementing this model with the earlier conflict theory propounded by Karl Marx, Marx, recognized the significance of the social and interactions within a given society. These interactions according Karl Max are characterized by conflicts. Hence, the conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie of the capitalist system forms a synthesis of the forces of the interaction within the system.18

Marx, again reiterated the fact that these social and human interactions is dialectical in the sense that when a dominant nation seeks to control dependent nations or peripheral countries what yields in consequence is the tension to rebel against the oppressor by dependent states in order to agitate for equitable and fair share of national resources. This point is consistent with the C-H model when they argued with empirical data on the causes of conflicts in Africa, and concluded that economic factors are the significant predictor of conflict in many parts of the African continent. Therefore, according to C-H, economic reasons contributed to a large extent the greater portion of conflicts in Africa19.  While these economic reasons are varied and numerous due to the resources available in a given region and the allocation of resource whether naturally endowed or man-made, any form of competition to control these resources or allocation of resources will naturally generate two outcomes: tension and potential conflict, and cooperation. In this case, Egypt’s sole access to the Nile for centuries now has invariably gratified itself as the sole control of the Nile water resources.

As a result of the 1929 mandate that gave Egypt absolute control of water resources in the Nile, she has worked to sabotage many riparian countries through other diplomatic and international treaties. Ethiopia has vowed to engage Egypt over the control of water resources in the Nile valley basin. This is exemplified in many water agreement initiated by Ethiopia and the other riparian countries to abrogate all previous agreement hitherto entered by Egypt. Consequently, Stars argues that the looming tension between Egypt and the riparian countries initiated by Ethiopia is a recipe for conflict in the North Eastern Africa20.  For instance, these tensions are exemplified in Egypt’s response to Kenya’s assistant foreign affairs minister’s  statement when Mohammed Abu Zeid, Egypt’s minister for water resources remarked that Kenya’s statements were a “a declaration of war” against Egypt and subsequently threatened Kenya of economic and political embargo.21

This looming tension among riparian countries is further worsened by Kenya’s continuing threat of engagement. In 2002, a senior Kenyan minister Raila Odinga, called for the review and renegotiation of the 1929 treaty which gave Egypt the right to veto construction projects on the Nile river basin, and said “it was signed on behalf of governments which were not in existence at that time.” This paper’s argument is further rooted in the idea that there are emerging players such as Kenya and Ethiopia in the horn of Africa as major hydro-political powers to engage Egypt’s hydro-hegemonic status. Prior to the Nile basin initiative in February 1999, Wondwosen, argues that there have been several similar water treaties such as the 1993 Technical Committee to promote development cooperation among riparian countries. Also, in 1995 the Nile Basin Action Plan was launched, and in 1997, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) through collaborations with the World Bank attempted to foster cooperation among riparian countries to promote dialogue.22

This initiative including earlier treaties already mentioned shows the magnitude of the problem in the Nile basin, and of course the consensus necessary to equitably allocate water resources and thereby encourage development projects along the Nile. In 2010, for instance, Ethiopia announced that it was initiating a hydro-electric development projects in order to improve its country’s electric and energy needs. This announcement few days later saw resentment by Egypt and Egypt attempt to veto any such policy along the Nile. While Ethiopia is poised to making this project reality, Egypt has begun galvanizing international support in order to prevent Ethiopia from undertaking such projects.

Cascao, argued that the asymmetrical flow of water resources in the Nile river basin and the access to physical flow of the blue Nile by Egypt and Sudan in the downstream has extremely heighten hydro-political tension over the Nile. These tensions have attracted the United Nations organizations interventions and other international organization on matters concerning the distribution and allocation of water resources in the Nile river basin and in which compensation are offered to other riparian countries unequal access to the distribution of water resources, especially those on the upstream who only benefit rainfall.23

Thus in 1999, nine riparian countries met in Dar Es Salem, Tanzania by the Council of Minister of Water Affairs of Nile River Basin Countries and agreed to cooperate in solidarity for equitable allocation of water resources in the Nile basin as well as for economic integration through sustainable development.24

This economic solidarity through cooperation is declared in the Nile Basin Initiative as the shared vision by riparian countries to promote cooperation and economic well being, while at the same time  “to achieve sustainable socio-economic development through the equitable utilization of, & benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources25.”  This Nile Basin Initiative is the first attempt by riparian countries to push demand for equal access to the Nile, and  at the time promoting economic cooperation. Egypt’s defiance of the NBI and its lack of participation in the NBI’s initial attempt to convene such a cooperation agreement is a crucial aspect of the NBI’s objective to consolidate through cooperation in the negotiation for equitable distribution. The subsequent institutional mechanism for policy guidelines for riparian countries to agree to follow is set forth by NBI in order to stimulate cooperation rather than intimidation in the allocation of water resources.

The following objectives in February 1999 were set up by the NBI as follows:26

•    To develop the Nile Basin water resources in a sustainable and equitable way to ensure
•    prosperity, security, and peace for all its peoples
•    To ensure efficient water management and the optimal use of the resources
•    To ensure cooperation and joint action between the riparian countries, seeking win-win gains
•    To target poverty eradication and promote economic integration
•    To ensure that the program results in a move from planning to action.

Thus among the NBI’s core functions include among others to promote water resource management, water resource development and capacity building enhanced through cooperation. These initiative have proven worthwhile, in preventing a escalating a major conflict in the region, although there are still tensions among riparian countries along the Nile. Egypt still exercises hydro hegemonic powers in the region because of her absolute control of the Nile basin, Egypt has participated and is willing to cooperate with other riparian countries in bringing lasting solutions to the increasing demand of water resources on the Nile river basin. When it comes down to water resource allocation and distribution, it has always been sidelined and not considered a significant issue in the solution to the Nile problem.

Africa’s interstate conflicts in the past have been on a number of issues such as ethnic and tribal as well as land disputes and acquisitions. The discovery of oil however has proven to be a blessing in disguise in many of the oil regions of Africa. In the Congo for instance, there have been several conflicts with rebels over the control of oil regions of the Brazzaville. This area has not been spared of violence and mayhem for several decades now. In Nigeria for example, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has created havoc and tensions culminating in violence and attacks on oil expatriates in the Niger Delta region. These oil regions in Africa today are bedeviled with conflicts, violent attacks and conflicts in order to control oil resources. The least said about the diamond and gold areas of sub Saharan Africa the better. Similarly, and in consistent with the paradigm this paper takes is the assertion that water conflicts like many of the natural endowed assets bestowed on the African continent is a bane for the continent’s development. In the cases of the Nile, although there is no any imminent conflict, scholars are predicting that the lack of concrete and up-to-date resolution on the water policy regarding the distribution of water resources on the Nile is a recipe for conflict in the region.

Relations of Power

As already mentioned and by extension Herodotus comments on Egypt as “the gift of the Nile,” has been extrapolated by Egypt in order to exercise hydro-political power in the Nile river basin for several decades. This status Egypt has enjoyed for some time now without allowing any riparian countries along the Nile to negotiate any form of control on water resources and development projects such as hydro electric power by neighboring countries. The asymmetrical flow of water resources in the Nile has also afforded Egypt a position of dominance compared to other riparian countries who are situated upstream on the Nile. The Nile’s downstream is currently housed by Egypt and Sudan, consequently, Sudan’s attempt to renegotiate Egypt’s unilateral control on the Nile27.

In 1959, a water agreement signed between Egypt and Sudan gave Egypt 55bcm and 18bcm to Sudan. Again this uneven allocation of resource points to asymmetrical power relations of riparian countries ability to negotiate Egypt to access water resources28.  Cascao, provides a theoretical understanding on this hydro power hegemony of Egypt in controlling water resources. And indicated that the hegemonic power of Egypt is due to many factors in the horn of Africa, but argues that this hegemonic status is about to end as counter hydro hegemonic powers are beginning to emerge in order to contest Egypt’s long standing hegemony in the region. I totally agree with Cascoa, and in fact her analysis is in line with my argument that the position Egypt finds herself is about to change due to first the declining rate of water resources in the Nile.

This is because in the past when life was booming riparian countries made no mention of inequity if water resources however, with the emergence global water crisis due to global warming these riparian countries are beginning to contest power relation on the access to the Nile. Cascao points to “apparent consent” to illustrate the apparent lackadaisical attitudes of consent by riparian countries. This apparent consent, Cascoa argues was latent consents by riparian countries along the Nile on many agreements that were signed as far back in 1902. Ethiopia is a case in point. In many of these water treaties Reginald points to about 60 water agreements since the first one in 1902 which either ignored Ethiopia or Ethiopia decided to apparently consent to by keeping mute to the issue. But what is significant is a looming civil war among riparian countries. There have been scuffles between Sudan and Burundi, also Ethiopia and Eritrea and Rwanda and Somalia in the past several decades without totally engaging Egypt’s hydro-hegemonic power in the region, given the emerging hydro political configuration that is beginning to unravel29.

In order to understand the relations of power and dominance in regards to the situation in the Nile river basin it is prudent to again invoke Cascao analysis of power and dominance as they significantly hinges on the Ethiopia’s counter hegemonic strategy in the Nile river basin for some time now. Cascao begins by citing Gramsci’s definition of hegemony as “political power that flows from intellectual and moral leadership, authority, or consensus as distinguished from armed force30”  she continues to argue “power is relational and the outcome of hegemonic power relations is determined by the interaction of diverse actors” diverse actors for me seem meaningful and significant here in terms of the power relations here. It can be recalled that there are ten riparian countries each diverse with varied needs and demands in regard to the fair allocation of water resources in the Nile. This diversity is yet galvanized for a common interest as seen in the Nile basin initiative put forth by the nine riparian countries.

Once gain the significant portion Egypt occupies comes under a counter hegemonic truce by riparian countries to renegotiate earlier treaties concerning the Nile river allocation of resource which is consistent with Cascao assertion that “power relations are not static or immutable” and points to a dialectical thesis of challenging the status thereby bringing in new status quo with alternatives. This dialectics is one earlier propounded by Marx and Lenin in their conflict theories regarding the suppression of groups and their simultaneous revolt of the existing status quo. In the case of the river basin, these riparian countries see themselves as having asymmetrical power relations with Egypt, and because Egypt’s consistent dominance in both economic and hegemonic political relations in the sub region, there is an attempt to contest existing status quo as seen in the earlier water treaties and allocation of resources in the Nile basin.

Based on the accusations and counter accusations on the allocation of water resources along the Nile, Ethiopia like Egypt have both galvanized for support in terms of international diplomacy and legitimacy over the use of resources in the Nile. While Egypt continues to maintain its legitimacy based of the earlier water agreements and proclamations that exclusively gave Egypt dominance with right to veto any development projects, Ethiopia has taken its stands to engage Egypt on talks to renegotiate Ethiopia’s position of the Nile resources. When it comes to international funding on the Nile river basin, the IMF and the World Bank has withhold funds for development along the Nile because of the looming tension between the riparian countries and has promised not to get itself tangled on the water crisis along the Nile river basin.31

“Water sharing” or “benefit sharing”

The debate as to whether “water sharing” or “benefit sharing” has dominated many scholarly discourse on the Nile issue. According to Teshome, benefit sharing is “the distribution of benefits through cooperation” and argues furthermore that “benefit sharing gives riparian states the chance to share the benefits derived from the use of water rather than the physical distribution of water itself32.”  Teshome’s analysis regarding benefit sharing through cooperation sounds a laudable alternative to riparian countries capacity to cooperate in order to tap water resources, but this argument is idealistic given the power relations along the Nile, and the asymmetrical flow of water resources in the upstream and downstream countries could be difficult to ascertain. I offer the following reason to buttress my argument.

Most significantly, the lack of political will to cooperate by riparian countries is the number one reason benefit sharing could be difficult to achieve. Several water  agreement have been launched since the 1929 Anglo Egyptian water agreement that gave Egypt the exclusive power to monitor development activities along the Nile. The lack of political will is clearly demonstrated by Ethiopia’s “apparent consent” to many water treaties that has been passed. The most recent treaty the Nile Basin Cooperative Frame Work Agreement launched in (1997-2007) shows the nature of participation by riparian countries to cooperate to achieving common goals and the allocation of water resources. This lack of political will is also consistent with Teshome argument that the lack of political leadership has exacerbated the situation to the extent that at present there is no international treaty or agreement that binds riparian countries together. Although the many cooperative agreements between upstream and downstream riparian have sidelined issues bordering benefit sharing in their agenda33.

In addition, problem in benefit sharing cooperative agreement is the fact that many riparian countries comes from different political and socio-cultural backgrounds and are therefore prone to series of political and civil upheavals that will endanger any attempt by riparian countries to cooperate for mutual benefit sharing. The most significant one is the Ethiopia Eritrea conflict that has rocked the region for several years, also the Somalia civil conflicts, the Rwanda Burundi and many others in Sudan has worked to prevent many cooperative agreement to realize its potential. Although mutual benefit is essential its implementation to a full potential is unattainable.

This argument is also supported by Cascao when she argued that cooperative agreement can be a “battle ground for opposing tendencies” (p24) Not only that but, also Egypt’s power and international diplomacy over the region. It is indeed important to acknowledge the role of Egypt’s diplomatic relations in the past that has ushered its dominance over the Nile. The strategic position of Egypt on the Suez Canal has been a strategic location for British involvement in Egypt and for British access to India through the canal. This important location of Egypt was advanced by British interest in India34.  Benefit sharing or cooperative agreement by upstream and downstream countries have been in opposing terms for quite some time now. The recent National Basin Initiative (NBI) has been used as a platform by Ethiopia to get the 1959 water agreement between Egypt and Sudan annulled, since Ethiopia was excluded, and for that matter the other seven riparian countries in order to enact a comprehensive water policy that will promote the advancement of cooperative water sharing without hostilities.

Also, significant factor that hampers any cooperative agreement on benefit sharing is Egypt’s diplomatic influence on the region. If all riparian countries agree to benefit share these cooperative agreement maybe lopsided and for that matter benefit Egypt more than the other riparian because of Egypt diplomacy with Britain and US, and the international organizations including the Arab league. This point is argued in Teshome when he said “Egypt has been pressuring international institutions to desist from assisting Ethiopia in carrying out development projects in the Nile basin …it has used its influence to persuade  the Arab world not to provide Ethiopia with any loans or grants for Nile water development.”

My final alternative is that several water sharing agreements have been adopted by riparian countries at least since the 1959 between Sudan and Egypt in terms of allocation of water resources. This allocation which earmarked 18 BCM to Sudan and 55BCM to Egypt is seen by Sudan as an unfair deal and have since pushed forward for renegotiation on the allocation of water resources that has given Egypt an unfair proportional distribution of resources and for development projects on the Nile. This last alternative could be dangerous in if physical allocation of water resources are to be shared among riparian countries through demarcation, this is because land demarcation and allocation of resources have been one of the dangerous recipe for conflicts currently ongoing on the continent, to physically allocate recourses is nothing but to add more insult to injuries. With emerging hydro-political powers in the region, Ethiopia and Egypt could dominate other countries and for that matter wage physical wars in order to control water resources.

On the basis of the above discussions, it can be safely concluded that the nature of tension in North Eastern Africa most, especially the Nile riparian countries are on a brink of conflict over the control and use of Nile water resources. As already pointed out, and by extension Collier-Hoeffler’s economic analysis of conflicts in Africa did not cite the potential trigger of conflict as a result of the Nile, what is significant about his model is the paradigmatic nature upon which his theory of analysis are based. And since water is a vital part of the economic resources of Africa, this papers concludes that the water resources just as any other economic resource has a full potential of tension and conflict over the Nile river basin by riparian states.

Notes

1.Wonddwossen Teshome B. “Transboundary Water cooperation in Africa: The case of the Nile Basin Initiative.” Turkish Journal of International Relations winter Vol. 7.4 2008 pp34-43
Also see Flintan, F. & Tamarat,I  Spilling Blood Over Water? The case of Ethiopia, in Scarcity and Surfeit, The Ecology of Africa’s Conflict. Lind &J.& Sturman K.(eds)  Institute for Security Studies, Johannesburg (2002)
2.Ibid
3.Ashton, Peter J.  “Avoiding Conflicts over Africa’s Resources” Royal Swedish Academy of Science. Vol.31.3, 2002 pp236-242
4.Berman and Paul, “The New Water Politics of the Middle East. Strategic Review, Summer 1999. 21-28
5.Wonddwossen Teshome B. “Transboundary Water cooperation in Africa: The case of the Nile Basin Initiative.” Turkish Journal of International Relations winter 2008 Vol. 7.4 pp34-43
6.Alcamo, J., Hulme, M., Conway, D., & Krol, M. “Future availability of water in Egypt: The interaction of global, regional and basin scale driving forces in the Nile basin”. AMBIO – A Journal of the Human Environment, 25(5), (1996). 336.
7.Oxfam 2009 report
8.Kim, U., & Kaluarachchi, J. J. “Climate change impacts on water resources in the upper Blue Nile river basin, Ethiopia.” Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 45(6), (2009). 1361-1378.
9. ibid
10.World Water Council Report 2006
11.ibid
12.Wonddwossen Teshome B. “Transboundary Water cooperation in Africa: The case of the Nile Basin Initiative.” Turkish Journal of International Relations winter 2008 Vol. 7.4 pp34-43
14.Braune, Eberhard and Youngxin Xu2. “The role of Ground Water in the Sub Saharan Africa.” Vol. 48.2 March 2010, pp229-238
16.Cam McGrath and Sonny Baraj “Water Wars  Loom along the Nile” 2004 news 24.com
17.EPA North East Africa 2010 report
18.Ibid
19.UN Secretary General Kofi Anan
20.Karl Marx. “Capital” A Critique of Political Economy Vol. 1, translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Avelling Ed.  F.Engels 1887
21.Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler. “Economic Causes of Civil War.” Oxford Economic Papers Vol50.4 1998, pp563-573. Also in Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler Greed and Grievance in Civil War. World Bank Policy Research—Working papers number 2355 May 2000
22.J.R. Stars “Water Wars” Foreign Policy  Issue 82 991pp17-20
BBC 12 DEC 2003 also see AL-Ahram, 26 February 2004
23.Ibid also see Ana Elisa Cascao “Ethiopia- Challenges to Egyptian hegemony in the Nile Basin” Water Policy 10 supplement 2 (2008)
24.Ana Elisa Cascao “Ethiopia- Challenges to Egyptian hegemony in the Nile Basin” Water Policy 10 supplement 2 (2008)
25.Ana Elisa Cascao “Ethiopia- Challenges to Egyptian hegemony in the Nile Basin” Water Policy 10 supplement 2 (2008)
26.The Nile Basin Initiative NBI
27.Ibid NBI
28.ibid
29.ibid
30.ibid
31.Gramci 1971 cite in Cascao (2008) p.18
32.World water council report 2009
33.ibid
34.ibid
35.Cascao “water policy” document No. 10

Majeed A. Rahman is Professor of African Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milawaukee.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

“Turkey’s Erdogan Wants to Crush the Kurds and Recreate the Ottoman World”

It’s true, with Western propagandistic headlines like this, who needs NATO, who really needs them as even friends. Perhaps the barrage of such vitriol has caused two vital allies of Washington, Ankara and Islamabad, to be fare more cautious from here on out.

It was bad before in previous decades, but headlines like this – NOT in right wing cheerleaders of empire like Fox News – but in virtually all of the “Liberal media” (who consider themselves more sophisticated and nuanced), we see one ridiculous (and dangerous) headline after the next.

It’s not Erdogan or Imran Khan per se who bother Western elites.

It is what they represent: the de-centering of the West, the re-orienting of the world order, and the profound crisis and rapidly collapsing  world system of the 500 year project of coloniality.

The Erdogans, Khans, etc., In a nutshell, represent the irresolvable crises of ‘whiteness’ (in a world that is finally beginning to mentally decolonize from prostrating before the Western “White Man” – used here as a political category rather than merely a racial one).

It is a crisis of that white supremacist world order, and a crisis of the post-WWII liberal international order that Western hegemony thought it could dominate endlessly – all culminating now in the relative structural decline of the Western plutocracies.

Of course, the leading American politicos and financiers fully grasp this situation but keep getting convinced by the warmongering neocons and Zionists in Washington DC that the Empire can reverse its decline by reckless threats and flexing its military muscle. Or, if that doesn’t work, learn from the German and Italian leaders of the 1930s about how to deal with the ‘Muslim Question’.

Indeed, headlines like this infantile one reflect that. They have become indistinguishable from any utter nonsense one may expect from many one-man, one-party, and one-media kind of states (many of which are close allies of Washington), something to be reflexively dismissed because everyone knows it’s pure state propaganda.

And in the headline referred to here, the mythology we are expected to swallow is just too insulting to our intelligence. Erdogan and the AKP were the first forces ever to make overtures to the Kurds, to both integrate them and grant them autonomy. In fact, Turkey’s worst crimes against the Kurds peaked in the 1990s with complete military and political support from Washington. A decade ago, Erdogan and the AKP were ‘NATO’s Islamists’ and promoted as a model for the Muslim world, repeated ad nauseum by every Western think tank.

So yes, the Kurds have been treated horribly by the state of Turkey, but that is a long history of secular military repression long preceding Erdogan and the AKP party that initially tried to ameliorate the conflict.

The fact of the matter is that the Gulf petro autocrats, their best friend the Zionist Israeli regime, and Washington never can tolerate any leader – from the global South and especially if s/he happens to be Muslim – getting too big for their boots…

The Saudis in particular are aching to punish Erdogan since he made sure that the Saudis would not just run roughshod and take over Qatar, since Turkey sent its troops immediately to defend Qatar from the Saudi invasion.

After all, the House of Saud believes that the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) and indeed all Muslim nations exist to serve them and their interests alone. They are – or at least claim to be –  the custodians of the two holy mosques and Islam more generally, so the House of Saud expects a default genuflection to its tyranny by all Muslims of the world.

Fortunately, that is the fictitious  fantasy land of the ‘reformer’ Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS), whose wet dreams undoubtedly are instigated by the smile on his face knowing Yemenis, Gazans, etc. are being butchered.

MBS should know not let his feelings get hurt by the fact that overwhelming majority of the Muslims throughout the world only care to visit or even think of Saudi Arabia when it comes to performing their mandatory religious ritual of Hajj (pilgrimage). Other than that, they see the House of Saud as the curse upon the Muslim world that it is, always on the side of oppression and subjugation, and ingratiating itself with its protectors in Washington at whatever price demanded. The Emiratis play the exact same game.

It is incredulous that in light of the criminal wars  and humanitarian catastrophes in Yemen, Gaza, and at the US-Mexico border where entire families are being ripped apart, the Western plutocracies and their media are involved in the most vulgar hypocrisy imaginable – when it comes the ‘non-West,’ the ‘non-White,’ and especially, the Muslim.

Nevertheless, we must never forget the courage of the many in the West resisting the creeping fascism that their elites are trying to impose on them and the world.

*

Junaid S. Ahmad is a PhD Candidate in Decolonial Thought, School of Sociology, University of Leeds, a Research Fellow, Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul, and Director of the Center for Global Studies, School of Advanced Studies, UMT, Lahore, Pakistan. 

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

At 20:06 (CEST) we lost contact with the sailing vessel Freedom, sailing under a Swedish flag, which is on a mission to break the illegal Israeli blockade of the Palestinian people of Gaza. We have reason to presume that the Israeli Occupation Forces has now begun to attack it and that it has been surrounded in International Waters. The latest reported position was approximately 40 nautical miles from the coast of Gaza.

Based on what happened on Sunday, we anticipate that the Israeli Occupation Forces has now cut all communications with Freedom, so it can begin an undocumented attack.

Freedom is a gift for the Palestinian fishers of Gaza and is carrying a cargo of medical supplies, including #Gauze4Gaza. On board are 10 participants and two journalists from five countries. Details of all of the participants are here.  The last news that we had from Freedom was that she was maintaining her course towards Gaza and the ‘conscience of humanity’.

The Israeli Occupation Forces claims that our civilian boats – including our 100% wind-powered boat – are breaking international law and threatens that they will use ‘any measures necessary’ to stop us. We assert the right of ‘innocent passage’ guaranteed under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 and call upon international authorities to protect our small yacht. The only ‘necessary measures’ are to end the illegal blockade of Gaza and to restore freedom of movement for all Palestinians.

Last Sunday, the Israeli Occupation Forces cut all communications and then violently attacked our lead boat (‘Al Awda) in international waters, pulled down its Norwegian flag and trampled upon it. According to many testimonies that we have, including Yonatan Shapira, a former Israeli Air Force officer who was a participant aboard ‘Al Awda’, they then beat up and tasered several people and stole most of the participants’ property.

Four boats left Scandinavia in mid-May and have since stopped in 28 ports building support for a ‘Just Future for Palestine’. We demand that Israel ends its ongoing breaches of international law, including the collective punishment of a twelve-year blockade of Gaza, thereby enabling the only closed port in the Mediterranean to open and that people have their universal right to freedom of movement.

“The Freedom Flotilla Coalition calls on the Swedish Government, the national governments of those aboard Freedom, other national governments, and relevant international organizations to act immediately.” said Dror Feiler of Ship to Gaza Sweden, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. “We demand that the Israeli Occupation Forces not interfere with our unarmed yacht, as we continue our voyage to Gaza to deliver our gift of much-needed medical supplies”.

*

Featured image is from Just Future for Palestine.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

A bipartisan Senate contingent has introduced what Republican Lindsey Graham has called the “sanctions bill from hell,” targeting Russia and President Vladimir Putin.

The legislation, which was introduced just as senators were departing for a shortened August recess on Wednesday, targets Russian oligarchs and Putin family members for additional sanctions, and it would seek to require a two-thirds vote of the Senate for any attempt by the U.S. to abandon NATO.

“We must confront this challenge — not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans. Because ultimately, Putin’s true aim is to undermine all of us — our country, our freedom, and all that America stands for,” said Armed Services Chairman John McCain of Arizona, who has joined in the Graham-led legislation.

Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, teamed up with Foreign Relations ranking Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey in leading the latest legislative push.

Menendez noted in his statement that President Donald Trump and his  administration has not used all of the tools at its disposal to counter Russian efforts to interfere in American democracy.

“The Kremlin continues to attack our democracy, support a war criminal in Syria and violate Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Menendez said. “With the passage of this legislation, Congress will once again act to establish a clear U.S. policy to hold Russia accountable with one clear message: Kremlin aggression will be met with consequences that will shake Putin’s regime to its foundation.”

The introduction of the bill, which was previewed last week, comes after disclosures by Facebook that the social media company, which also owns Instagram, had removed numerous pages of memes and events that were fraudulent in nature. The phony accounts are widely believed to be connected to Russian intelligence.

The Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing on Wednesday with outside experts on the covert use of social media platforms by the Russians, highlighting the ongoing concern about efforts to increase divisions in the U.S., both between and within political parties.

Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado also signed on to the bill. He has been pushing a separate effort to require the State Department to determine whether Russia should be designated a state sponsor of terror. That provision has now been included in the Graham-Menendez legislation.

“Unless Russia fundamentally changes its behavior, we must not repeat the mistakes of past administrations of trying to normalize relations with a nation that continues to pose a serious threat to the United States and our allies,” Gardner said in a statement.

Despite the level of fervor among senators about Russia’s use of active measures and the introduction of several pieces of legislation (also including a proposal from Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida that’s supposed to provide for deterrence and retaliation), the Senate left for recess without passing any specific bills on the subject.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

“Attempting to control rural areas in Afghanistan always eventually ends up boiling down to personal survival.” – Evan McAllister, former Marine staff sergeant, New York Times, July 28, 2018

It genuinely doesn’t matter how the security boffins within the Pentagon frame it: the Taliban have fought the United States, through sheer will of force and mania, to the negotiating table – at least in a fashion.  Ever since a vengeful US took to the field in Afghanistan in an effort to redraw the political landscape in its favour, the country has been true to its historical record: drawing, draining and dispersing the manpower and material of an empire.

Washington’s longest war has taken the lives of 2,400 Americans and 30,000 Afghan civilians, a bloody sore that never dries. The US has 14,000 troops stationed in an effort to bolster a flabby, unconvincing Afghan military which is suffering weekly losses at a horrendous rate. The bloodletting has had its necessary demoralising effect, with the number of Afghan soldiers, police, pilots and security personnel dropping by five percent (18,000 fewer individuals) since last year.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction has become a regular font for bad news, at least for those punters backing the regime in Kabul.  The Taliban and various other insurgent groups have been industriously committed, making gains exceeding those of January 2016.

Within Afghanistan lie 407 districts, with the government holding or influencing 229. The Taliban have a seemingly modest 59.  What is significant is where the rest fall: the so-called “contested” category.

The strategy adopted against a thriving Taliban force is a tried and failed one.  Even since the Soviet Union discovered that it could never genuinely control the rural areas with any conviction, let alone purpose, peppering areas of low population density with beleaguered military outposts, retreat to the urban areas has become the norm.

The current push from US planners is strikingly unvaried in imitation, insisting that Afghan troops do the same.  First came the redux Soviet strategy adopted by the Bush administration: guarding outposts intent on re-establishing control and taking the battle to the Taliban in rural areas.  By 2009, the focus had shifted: remote areas would no longer feature; the focus was, as a Pentagon document went, “protecting and developing the major population centres” in eastern Afghanistan.

Retired two-star Army General Paul Eaton, whose previous brief was to train Iraqi forces following the calamitous 2003 invasion of that country, has more than let the cat out of the bag: the US has run out of military solutions amidst the “significant loss of life, and blood and treasure.”  It is “time to say that we need a political outcome.”

The basis of such a political outcome will involve encouraging the Afghan military to leave unpopulated areas with a focus on more heavily populated ones, seen by Eaton as “a rational approach to secure the cities, and provide the Afghanistan government the political opportunity to work with the Taliban.” Again, this is reminiscent of the prodding by the Obama administration in 2015 to convince Afghan commanders that various remote checkpoints were simply not worth defending, let alone reclaiming and holding.

The denials that this is the case have been forthcoming.  Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States, is well versed enough in spin to suggest that the approach has nothing to do with conceding ground to the enterprising Taliban and surrendering rural areas to their control; the focus, rather, is to secure urban areas with a future aim on re-engaging rural communities.

This treacly deception ignores the point that a retreat from remote Afghanistan is a de facto defeat for the Afghan and US forces. The police forces left in place will become fodder for Taliban attacks; in some instances, negotiations are taking place between the local police and the Taliban.  Survival is the aim.

True to erratic form, the Trump administration is attempting to adjust old and stubborn positions.  The President had preferred a swift withdrawal and termination of the conflict but Defence Secretary Jim Mattis got to his ear, preferring a more conventional topping up of forces – an additional 4,000 troops in a last hurrah for a victory that never came.

Instead, new talks with the Taliban are being proposed.  A few preliminary ones have already taken place in Qatar.  In their aftermath, State Department spokeswoman Stephanie R. Newman preferred a modest assessment.

“Any negotiations over the political future of Afghanistan will be between the Taliban and the Afghan government.”

The giant is being humbled.

The Taliban remain an indigenous force, nigh impossible to dislodge.  Its unsavoury brand of Islam will not fly in cosmopolitan circles, but that hardly matters. In the game of crude politics, they have survived and become a reality impossible to ignore, let alone defeat.  Swords may, in time, be sheathed, and guns holstered – if only temporarily.

*

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from Veterans Info Source.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

The US has targeted Nicaragua for regime change. Some former supporters of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista party echo the US talking points: Ortega’s “entire government has been, in essence, neoliberal. Then it becomes authoritarian, repressive.”

One would think that a neoliberal regime, especially if it were authoritarian and repressive, would be just the ticket to curry favour with Washington.

‘Threat of a Good Example’

In Noam Chomsky’s words, Nicaragua poses a threat of a good example to the US empire. Since Ortega’s return election victory in 2006, Nicaragua had achieved the following, according to NSCAG, despite being the second poorest country in the hemisphere:

• Second highest economic growth rates and most stable economy in Central America.
• Only country in the region producing 90% of the food it consumes.
• Poverty and extreme poverty halved; country with the greatest reduction of extreme poverty.
• Reaching the UN Millennium Development Goal of cutting malnutrition by half.
• Free basic healthcare and education.
• Illiteracy virtually eliminated, down from 36% in 2006.
• Average economic growth of 5.2% for the past 5 years (IMF and the World Bank).
• Safest country in Central America (UN Development Program) with one of the lowest crime rates in Latin America.
• Highest level of gender equality in the Americas (World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report 2017).
• Did not contribute to the migrant exodus to the US, unlike neighbouring Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
• Unlike its neighbours, kept out the drug cartels and pioneered community policing.

The World Bank, IMF, and EU countries have certified Nicaragua for its effective use of international loans and grants. Funds were spent for the purposes they were given, not syphoned off into corruption.

Before April 18, Nicaragua was among the most peaceful and stable countries in the region. The otherwise inexplicable violence that has suddenly engulfed Nicaragua should be understood in the context of it being targeted by the US for regime change.

Nicaragua has provoked the ire of the US for the good things it’s done, not the bad.

Besides being a “threat” of a good example, Nicaragua is in the anti-imperialist ALBA alliance with Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, and others. The attack on Nicaragua is part of a larger strategy by the US to tear apart regional alliances of resistance to the empire.

Nicaragua regularly votes against the US in international forums such as challenging retrograde US policies on climate change. An inter-ocean canal through Nicaragua is being considered, which would contend with the Panama Canal. Russia and China invest in Nicaragua, competing with US capital.

The NICA Act, passed by the US House of Representatives and now before the Senate, would initiate economic warfare designed to attack living conditions in Nicaragua through economic sanctions, as well as intensify US intelligence intervention. The ultimate purpose is to depose the democratically-elected Ortega government.

Meanwhile, USAID announced an additional $1.5 million “to support freedom and democracy in Nicaragua” through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to overthrow the government and “make this truly a hemisphere of freedom.” That is, freedom for the US empire.

Alternatives to Ortega Would Be Worse

Those on the left who also call for Ortega’s removal need to accept responsibility for what comes after. Here the lesson of Libya is instructive, where the replacement of Gadaffi has resulted in a far worse situation for the Libyan people.

Any replacement of Ortega would be more, not less, neoliberal, oppressive, and authoritarian. When the Nicaraguan people, held hostage to the US-backed Contra war, first voted Ortega out of office in 1990, the incoming US-backed Violeta Chamorro government brought neoliberal structural adjustment and a moribund economy.

“Dictators don’t win fair elections by growing margins,” notes longtime solidarity activist Chuck Kaufman, citing Ortega’s 2006 comeback win with a 38% plurality, followed in 2011 with 63%, and 72.5% in 2016. The Organization of American States officially accompanied and certified the votes.

The dissident Sandinistas who splintered off from the official party after the party’s election defeat and formed the MRS (Sandinista Renovation Movement) are not a progressive alternative. They are now comfortably ensconced in US-funded NGOs, regularly making junkets to Washington to pay homage to the likes of Representative Iliana Ros-Lehtinen and Senator Marco Rubio to lobby in favour of the NICA Act. Nor do they represent a popular force, garnering less than 2% in national elections.

When the MRS left the Sandinista party, they took with them almost all those who were better educated, came from more privileged backgrounds, and who spoke English. These formerly left dissidents now turned to the right in their hatred of Ortega, have many ties with North American activists, which explains some of the confusion today over Nicaragua.

Most Progressive Country in Central America

The world, not just Ortega, has changed since the 1980s when the Soviet Union and its allies served as a countervailing force to US bullying. What was possible then is not the same in today’s more constrained international arena.

Nicaragua is the most progressive country in Central America with no close rival. There is a disconnect between urging Nicaraguans to replace Ortega with new elections and advocacy against US imperialist depredations. Unconstitutional elections in Nicaragua would further destabilize a profoundly destabilized situation. Given the unpopularity and disunity of the opposition and the unity and organizational strength of the Sandinistas, Ortega would likely win.

Most important, the key role of Northern American solidarity activists is to end US interference in Nicaragua so that the Nicaraguans can solve their own problems.

The rightwing violence since April in Nicaragua should be understood as a coup attempt. A significant portion of the Nicaraguan people has rallied around their elected government as seen in the massive demonstrations commemorating the Sandinista revolution on July 19.

For now, the rightwing tranques (blockades) have been dismantled and citizens can again freely circulate without being shaken down and threatened. In the aftermath, though, Nicaragua has suffered unacceptable human deaths, massive public property damage, and a wounded economy with the debilitating NICA Act threatening to pass the US Senate.

*

Roger Harris is on the board of the Task Force on the Americas, a 32-year-old anti-imperialist human rights organization.

Featured image is from the author.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

The Trump administration’s approval to use toxic pesticides and genetically modified crops is an insult to our national wildlife refuges and the wildlife that rely on them. – Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO

The Trump administration has reversed an Obama administration ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides and genetically engineered crops on national wildlife refuges where farming is permitted, threatening pollinators like bees and butterflies along with a suite of other wildlife species that depend on healthy, natural refuge habitats.

This abrupt change in policy, announced via a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) internal memorandum, revokes the agency’s 2014 policy prohibiting the use of toxic “neonic” insecticides and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on refuges. The 2014 ban was promulgated in response to a series of lawsuits challenging the use of genetically modified seed and broad-scale application of toxic pesticides on refuges for violating environmental laws.

Jamie Rappaport Clark, President and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, issued the following statement:

“Industrial agriculture has no place on public lands dedicated to conservation of biological diversity and the protection of our most vulnerable species, including pollinators like bumble bees and monarch butterflies. The Trump administration’s approval to use toxic pesticides and genetically modified crops is an insult to our national wildlife refuges and the wildlife that rely on them.”

Background

The new memorandum, signed yesterday by Greg Sheehan, the Service’s Principal Deputy Director, will require refuge managers to consider application of neonicotinoids and GMO seed on a case-by-case basis, in compliance with relevant laws including the National Environmental Policy Act and refuge policies. Not only does this place an undue burden on already understaffed refuges, but it disregards numerous scientific findings on the dangers of neonicotinoids and GMOs to wildlife and conflicts with Congressional mandates to maintain the biological diversity, integrity and environmental health of the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Genetically Modified Organisms Threaten Refuge Ecosystems

Genetically modified crops are engineered to resist insects and herbicides, allowing for increased use of the latter to control undesirable vegetation. Intensive use of herbicides can kill native vegetation and significantly increase toxicity in natural systems, affecting birds, fish, mollusks, amphibians and insects. While the Service previously determined that the use of genetically modified crops was unnecessary for achieving refuge purposes, the new memorandum attempts to justify their use by claiming they may be necessary to provide additional feed for waterfowl and migratory birds and counter the loss of private farm land nationwide.

Neither of these justifications is based on reality, science or professional wildlife management principles. The wildlife-first mission of the Refuge System includes all species, not just ducks, geese and other game animals (which are otherwise faring well without intensive agriculture on national wildlife refuges). The claim that the federal government needs to facilitate farming on refuges to compensate for lost farmland elsewhere is without merit and contrary to the long-established purpose of the System. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in February that 910 million acres are managed for agriculture. In comparison, approximately 100,000 acres of the Refuge System were farmed in 2017.

Neonicotinoid Pesticides Harm Refuge Species and Habitats

Application of neonicotinoids on national wildlife refuges is even more dangerous than GMOs. Neonics are a class of pesticides implicated in declining pollinator populations around the world. Farmers spray this systemic nerve poison directly onto their crops or treat the seeds with the pesticide, which is absorbed throughout the entire plant. When pollinators, birds and other small animals are exposed it can lead to paralysis and death. These highly potent chemicals have been linked to devastating declines in bee populations, widespread contamination of streams and rivers across entire regions, and threaten amphibians, fish, birds and other wildlife. A growing body of scientific research suggests that neonics are one of the most persistent, prevalent and potentially toxic pesticides since DDT, which was banned in the U.S. in 1972.

The new memorandum provides no justification for allowing the consideration of this poisonous pesticide on national wildlife refuges. Its use would harm a variety of species and violate a fundamental purpose of the Refuge System to conserve biodiversity.

Farming on National Wildlife Refuges

Farming is only allowed on national wildlife refuges when it supports specific conservation objectives for waterfowl and other wildlife that the Service cannot meet through the maintenance, management or mimicking of natural ecosystem processes in other ways, or where authorized in refuge establishment authorities. Cooperative agriculture agreements – where the Service partners with farmers to meet wildlife management goals – permit farmers to grow crops on a refuge to produce more food for wildlife or improve habitat.

Prior to 2014, neonicotinoids and genetically engineered crops were regularly used in refuge farming programs. However, the Service banned these harmful industrial agriculture practices because they interfered with naturally functioning ecosystems and healthy wildlife populations the Refuge System was established to protect, until yesterday’s policy reversal.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Featured image: Razan al-Najjar, the 21 year old Gaza medic killed by an Israeli sniper on June 1, treating an injured man, undated photo from Palestine Live on twitter.

The 1948 Genocide Convention clearly states that one instance of genocide is “the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a people in whole or in part.” No matter whether this happens at a fast rate, or in “slow motion.” That is what has been done to Gaza since the imposition of the blockade by Israel, and the subsequent massacres which led to the death of more than 4000 Palestinians in three successive genocidal wars.

Palestinians of Gaza live an ongoing, illegal, crippling Israeli siege that has shattered all spheres of life, prompting the former UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, Richard Falk, to describe it as “a prelude to genocide”. In 2009, the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, headed by the highly respected South African judge, Richard Goldstone, found Israel guilty of “war crimes and possible crimes against humanity,” as did major international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The Goldstone report, for example, concludes that Israel’s war on Gaza was “designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”

The same scenario was repeated in 2012, and a worse one in 2014 only because Israel feels that it can carry on its war crimes with full impunity. And last week Israel has decided to tighten the siege by closing the only commercial crossing, even to increase its attacks by targeting peaceful protesters demanding the implementation of UN resolutions, and an end to this deadly, hermetic siege.

In her visit to Gaza, Professor Sara Roy, an expert on Gaza, describes the Strip as “a land ripped apart and scarred, the lives of its people blighted. Gaza is decaying under the weight of continued devastation, unable to function normally…” Professor Roy concludes that

“[T]he decline and disablement of Gaza’s economy and society have been deliberate, the result of state policy–consciously planned, implemented and enforced… And just as Gaza’s demise has been consciously orchestrated, so have the obstacles preventing its recovery.”

In addition to Israel’s daily attacks and air strikes, Gazans also suffer from the contamination of water, air and soil, since the sewage system is unable to function due to power cuts necessitated by lack of fuel to the main generators of the Gaza power grid. Medical conditions due to injuries from internationally prohibited butterfly bullets and other illegal Israeli weapons as well as from water contamination cannot be treated because of the siege. In addition to the ban on building materials, Israel also prevents many other necessities from being imported: lights bulbs, candles, matches, books, refrigerators, shoes, clothing, mattresses, sheets, blankets, tea, coffee, sausages, flour, cows, pasta, cigarettes, fuel, pencils, pens, paper… etc. In Gaza, people are wondering whether the current Israeli government, the most fascist in the county’s history, might even discuss a ban on Oxygen! Add to this the punitive measure taken by the PA, and the drastic cuts endorsed by UNRWA, not to mention the constant closure of the Rafah crossing–the only exit Gaza has to the external world– leading to one of the highest unemployment rates and poverty on the face of earth.

In fact, the conclusion Gazans have reached is that Israel is intent on destroying Gaza because world official bodies and leaders choose to say and do absolutely nothing. The brazen refusal of Israel to cooperate with the decision of the International Community to re-construct Gaza, for which several billions of dollars were pledged in Sharm El-Sheikh, should not be tolerated. Israel’s attacks have damaged or completely destroyed many public buildings and have according to the UN’s own Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports severely damaged or completely destroyed some thousands of family dwellings, schools, universities and factories. Many other Palestinians who have spent the past several winters and summers in tents and caravans have also been promised the means to rebuild homes and schools, though to date nothing has been done to alleviate their suffering.

The practice of wanton willful killing of civilians exemplified in the extra-judicial sniping of non-violent protesters at the eastern fence of the Gaza Strip is not an isolated incident. It is part and parcel of an ongoing, comprehensive policy targeting the civilian Palestinians of the Gaza strip and systematically denying them their rights to movement, work, medical care, study, livelihood and increasingly life itself. But it is also a reflection of the nature of the state of Israel.i. e., a settler-colony. Israel’s leading, anti-Zionist historian, Ilan Pappe,  sheds light  on the driving ideology behind this genocidal policy:

Zionism is, in essence, a settler colonial movement, which was interested in having as much of the land of Palestine with as few Palestinians on it as possible. As the late scholar of settler colonialism, Patrick Wolfe, has put it; the encounter between the settlers and the indigenous population triggered ‘the logic of the elimination of the native’. In some places, such as North America, annihilation was literally a genocide of the native; in Palestine it was a different kind of elimination, obtained through segregation, ethnic cleansing and enclavement

In spite of Israel’s alleged unilateral withdrawal from the Strip in 2005, it still maintains a permanent military presence in Gaza’s territorial waters and controls the movement of people and goods onto the strip by land and water in addition to movement within the strip through targeting anyone entering the “no go” zone designated by the Israeli military. Israel also continues to control Gaza’s population registry. Yet, Israel claims that it is no longer the occupying power in the Gaza strip and uses this excuse, in addition to the results of 2006 democratic elections, to intensify its policy of siege and lethal attacks on Gaza’s civilians.

And now, Israel has decided to become openly an apartheid state by legalizing racial discrimination. I have tried very hard to find out whether there are constitutions or laws in the world similar to Israel’s “new” Nation-State Basic Law which aims to establish a legal basis for Jewish supremacy and racism against indigenous Palestinians, including those living in what has become the largest open-air prison on earth; only South Africa under apartheid and America in the eras of slavery and segregation.

So, what to do?!

In a piece published in MEE, Gideon Levy asks

“Israel, where is your outrage at the legislation of Apartheid?”

Actually, we are not expecting a settler-colonial community to act against its own racism. The outside world has to intervene. Hence our call for #BDS. But, in Palestine, we are in urgent need of serious discussions about a program of radical political transformation, what with the disastrous failure of the existing programs, right and left, a program that divorces itself from the racist two-state solution, one that endorses a more inclusive program that guarantees the rights of all segments of the Palestinian people.

*

Haidar Eid is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Postmodern Literature at Gaza’s al-Aqsa University. He has written widely on the Arab-Israeli conflict, including articles published at Znet, Electronic Intifada, Palestine Chronicle, and Open Democracy. He has published papers on cultural Studies and literature in a number of journals, including Nebula, Journal of American Studies in Turkey, Cultural Logic, and the Journal of Comparative Literature.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

On August 2, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that warplanes of the Israeli Air Force had bombed several fighters of the ISIS-affiliated Khalid ibn al-Walid Army near the occupied Golan Heights. Seven militants were killed in the strikes according to the Israeli media.

This was the second attack by the IDF on the Khalid ibn al-Walid Army during the last two weeks. On July 26, Israeli warplanes destroyed a rocket launcher allegedly belonging to the group in southwestern Syria.

An official of the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF) announced that members of the Khalid ibn al-Walid Army are attempting to cross the border from Syria. According to him, the JAF’s 10th Border Guard Battalion clashed with the terrorists in the Yarmouk Valley killing a number of them.

According to Syrian sources, some number of terrorist group members are still hiding near the Golan Heights and at the border between Syria and Jordan. They are attempting to flee the area in order to hide from the ongoing security operation by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

During the operation in southwestern Syria, the SAA and its allies liberated 3,332km2 and 146 settlements, the head of the Russian General Staff Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said during a press briefing. 50 of them were liberated by peaceful means after negotiations.

Militants in the area surrendered over 650 pieces of military equipment, including 39 battle tanks, 28 infantry fighting vehicles and armoured personnel carriers, 10 Shilka self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, 35 anti-aircraft guns, 17 multiple launch rocket systems, 60 machine guns and 23 anti-tank missile launchers. A total of 4,927 members of militant groups and 5,355 their supporters left the area towards the province of Idlib via an open corridor in the framework of the reached surrender agreement.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) conducted its first patrol along the separation line between Syrian and Israeli forces. The Russian Military Police established eight observation posts in front of the UNDOF in order to prevent provocations in the area.

As soon as the situation in southwestern Syria is stabilized, the SAA will be able to re-deploy most of its forces to other frontlines and to start another round of combating terrorism in the country.

*

If you’re able, and if you like our content and approach, please support the project. Our work wouldn’t be possible without your help: PayPal: [email protected] or via: http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Featured image: Zimbabwe MDC-A instigated violence on August 1, 2018 in Harare

National harmonized parliamentary and presidential elections in the Southern African state of Zimbabwe were held on July 30.

Over 70 percent of the electorate participated in the voting where some 23 presidential candidates and dozens of political parties were on the ballot.

This is the first election since the resignation of former President Robert Mugabe during late November 2017. His predecessor, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, has attempted to set the stage for improving the national economy through reforms aimed at lifting sanctions imposed nearly two decades ago by western imperialist states.

The Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) ruling party won two-thirds of the seats in the legislative branch of the republic. Results announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) Chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba said that Mnangagwa won 50.8 percent of the vote while his closest rival, Nelson Chamisa of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDC-A), garnered 44.3 percent. Other smaller parties combined made up the remaining 4.9 percent of the votes.

Zimbabwe electoral laws mandate that if any leading candidate for president acquires less than 50 percent of the votes there will be a runoff contest between the two top candidates in a matter of weeks. Mnangagwa tallied over 50 percent and was therefore declared the victor.

Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangawa at ZANU-PF gathering in Harare.

Numerous international monitoring teams came into Zimbabwe for the run-up and actual voting. This has been a tradition for many years although after 2000, a number of teams, particularly those from states which have imposed sanctions on the country, were barred from participation. 

Election monitors from the African Union (AU), Southern African Development Community (SADC), Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), United Nations, European Union (EU), the United States, Commonwealth of Nations, People’s Republic of China, among many others were on the ground in Zimbabwe to assess whether the poll was free and fair along with making a determination about the accuracy of the outcome.

Veronica Gwaze wrote on the regional view of the July 30 elections in an article published by the state-owned Zimbabwe Herald noting that:

“The Electoral Commissions Forum of SADC countries (ECF- SADC) has congratulated Zimbabwe and its various political parties on the manner in which they conducted themselves during the 2018 electoral period. In its preliminary report, ECF-SADC head Justice Semistocles Kaijage said a spirit of tolerance and restraint was prevalent during the campaign period. On polling day, the mission reported, most polling stations allowed for smooth flow of voters and the secrecy of the vote was safeguarded.” 

During the day of the voting there were no reported incidents of violence across the vast nation which borders South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi and Botswana. Reports from the monitoring teams and the media indicated that the process was conducted in a calm, transparent and efficient manner. 

Despite the claims of vote rigging by the opposition MDC-A, there was no specific evidence cited which could substantiate these allegations. The terms of the elections were agreed upon by all parties involved which allowed observers to verify the counting and tabulation.

A key trading partner and decades-long political ally of Zimbabwe, the People’s Republic of China’s head of its monitoring group reported that the electoral system was working properly and approved of the results. Zimbabwe Herald reporter Ishemunyoro Chingwere interviewed Liu Guijin of the Chinese team noting:

“[A]s a good friend of Zimbabwe, China had been very helpful in the past with Zimbabwe’s development process and was definitely going to continue on the same path after the elections. The peaceful and democratic elections, he said, will also send a positive signal to the Chinese investors, whom he said should up their investments in the country. He also urged the Zimbabwean private sector to take advantage of Chinese entrepreneurs and business counterparts who will be coming into the country in search of business opportunities.” (Aug. 2)

MDC-A Sparks Violence on August 1: Six People Confirmed Dead

Nonetheless, the MDC-A continued throughout the counting, verification and tabulation process to make claims through both social media and the international press that the ZEC was rigging the outcome. By the conclusion of the voting on July 30, Chamisa was already claiming that he had won the elections prior to any significant number of the votes having been counted.

When the ZEC announced the results of the parliamentary voting on August 1 giving the ruling ZANU-PF Party an overwhelming majority, it was denounced by the MDC-A as fraudulent. Hundreds of opposition supporters began staging a demonstration in the capital of Harare demanding that Chamisa and MDC-A be declared as the winners.

Both police and military units were deployed in response to the demonstration which soon turned violent. Dozens of vehicles were vandalized and set alight. Later government and ZANU-PF offices were physically attacked by demonstrators throwing bricks and other missiles at the buildings. 

Tires were left burning in the streets while protesters went on a rampage. Early reports said that three people died in the melee. The following day on August 2, the Zimbabwe police confirmed the deaths of six people directly related to the disturbances. 

Various elements within Zimbabwe society as well as the government placed blame for the destruction and death on the MDC-A supporters. Some said the riot was staged in order to cast aspersions on the ZANU-PF government tainting the electoral process and providing a rationale for the continued embargo by the West against Zimbabwe. 

Dr. Obert Mpofu, the Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, wrote in an editorial on August 3 emphasizing:

“We condemn in the strongest terms these acts of violence which have reared their ugly face in Harare CBD (Central Business District) and we attribute to the MDC Alliance. The Government of Zimbabwe places full responsibility for the violence, destruction of property, injury and loss of life on the MDC-Alliance which has continuously and persistently churned out hate speech, inflammatory language and displayed propensity for violence since February 2018. MDC-Alliance’s political leadership has over the past three months heightened and psyched up their members to commit violence at political rallies, addressing Press conferences and even on social media.” (Herald)

International Dimensions of the Zimbabwe Situation

The attitude of the MDC-A is not surprising to anyone who has followed their political trajectory since 2000. Every election held during this time period in which they did not win has been denounced as illegitimate.

This current MDC-A configuration is actually an alliance of seven different parties which are by no means united even among themselves. Certain elements in the alliance of convenience objected to the tactics utilized on August 1 which resulted in the deaths and unwarranted destruction of government and private property. The MDC-A, as well as its previous iterations, are supported both politically and financially by interests in the western countries which have maintained draconian sanctions on Zimbabwe for nearly two decades. Obviously there is a concerted attempt to continue their economic war against the state in an effort to overthrow ZANU-PF as the ruling party.

It will be up to the ZANU-PF government and political leadership to develop a strategy for moving forward in regard to their relationship with the United States, Britain and the EU since these countries hold the key to the lifting of sanctions. Zimbabwe under the previous leadership of President Mugabe adopted a “Look East” policy where priority was placed on cultivating trade and joint economic projects with governments within the Global South.

China has demonstrated historically its commitment to expressing solidarity with Zimbabwe through partnerships and investment. Neighboring Republic of South Africa has rejected calls by the imperialist states to engage in a blockade against Zimbabwe. President Mnangagwa has gone out of his way to mend relations with the world capitalist nations which continue to impose sanctions on the country. All of these western governments were allowed to send observers into Zimbabwe for the elections. 

The entire SADC region recognizes that Zimbabwe must be supported in order to guarantee stability and progress throughout the sub-continent. This holds true as well for the AU. With the ongoing combined efforts of the progressive forces inside the country and the international community Zimbabwe will survive. 

*

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

The US government and the presstitutes that serve it continue to lie to us about everything. Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics told us that the unemployment rate was 3.9%.  How can this be when the BLS also reports that the labor force participation rate has declined for a decade throughout the length of the alleged economic recovery and there is no upward pressure on wages from full employment.  When jobs are plentiful, people enter the labor force to take advantage of the work opportunities. This raises the labor force participation rate. When employment is full—which is what a 3.9% unempoyment rate means—wages are bid up as employers compete for scarce labor.  Full employment with no wage pressure and no rise in the labor force participation rate is impossible.  

The 3.9% unemployment rate is not due to employment. It results from not counting discouraged workers who have ceased to search for jobs because there are no jobs to be had.  If an unemployed person is not actively searching for a job, he is not counted as being in the labor force. The way the unemployment rate is measured makes it a hoax.

The government tells us that there is essentially no inflation despite the fact that prices have been rising strongly—the price of food, the price of home repairs, the price of drugs, the price of almost everything.  Two years ago the American Association of Retired People’s Public Policy Institute reported that the average retail drug price has been increasing at a worrying pace of 10 percent a year, and about 20 drugs have astoundingly had their prices quadruple since just December. Sixty drugs doubled over the same period. Turing Pharmaceuticals, headed by Martin Shkreli, is one of the most pronounced examples of this kind of behavior. The company bought a lifesaving cancer medication only to increase its price from $13.50 to $750 per pill. (See this) 

Incomes, of course, have not doubled.  In real terms incomes have declined.  Moreover, expenditures on medicines are a huge percentage of the budgets of the elderly and those on Medicare. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average annual cost of prescription medicines for the elderly accounts for three-fourths of the average Social Security pension and for about half of the median income of peope who receive Medicare benefits. (See this) 

Real jobs have also declined. The jobs that the financial presstitutes  report to be unfilled are not jobs that provide a living. The BLS reported that the number of Americans working multiple jobs rose in July by 453,000, bringing the number of Americans who hold multiple part-time jobs to 8,072,000. 

Looking at July’s payroll jobs report again we see the Third World complexion of the US work force.  The alleged new jobs are concentrated in lowly paid domestic services:  temporary help services, health care and social assistance, waitresses and bartenders.  

There is scant sign of a vibrant economy, but high debt is everywhere.  Debt is growing faster than the income needed to support it. The US government is on course for another $1 trillion annual budget deficit. The federal, state, and local tax base has been decimated by the global corporatons’ export of high productivity high value-added manufacturing and professional skill jobs.  In the name of “free trade” the tax base for Social Security, Medicare, and public pensions has been given away to China and other Asian countries where labor costs are low.  The US global corporations make higher profits by shrinking the US tax base.  Neoliberal economists defend this absurdity as “free trade” that benefits Americans.

The millions of Americans whose jobs were given away to foreigners know full well that they have not benefited. They know the story told by neoliberal economists and financial presstitutes is a lie.  

The lies, of course, go far beyond the economic ones.  Russiagate, which has dominated the print and TV media and NPR since the last presidential campaign is a massive lie that continues day after day.  On August 3 the NPR presstitutes, for example, were smacking their lips over the prospect that Paul Manafort was on trial and might give special Russiagate prosecutor Robert Mueller a conviction that could lead to Trump’s removal from the White House. The presstitutes speculated that a convicted Manafort would tell on Trump in exchange for a lighter sentence. 

The NPR presstitutes did not reveal that Manafort was not on trial for anything related in any way to Russiagate.  Manafort is being tried on income tax evasion charges dating from a decade ago when he was a consultant to Ukrainian politicians.  There is no doubt but that these are false charges whose purpose is to coerce Manafort into protecting himself by making false charges against Trump.  If Manafort is convicted it will not be on the basis of any evidence.  Manafort will be convicted by the presstitute media which will convince jurors that Manafort is “one of those rich who don’t pay taxes.”

That President Trump permits this witch-hunt to continue, a witch-hunt that far oversteps Mueller’s Russiagate mandate for which not a shred of evidence has been found, shows how the presstitutes working hand-in-hand with the military/security complex and DNC have disempowered the President of the United States.  While Americans sit there sucking their thumbs, the coup against the President proceeds before their eyes.

*

This article was originally published on Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

For what could be the first time ever, post-revolutionary Iran might not back out of competing against “Israel” in an international sporting event because of the serious damage that this stunt could do to its already strained relations with Russia if it refuses to play against its foe in the field medicine challenge that they’re both scheduled to participate in during the International Army Games that their shared partner is hosting.  

It probably sounds unbelievable to those who are indoctrinated with Alt-Media dogma, but there’s a good chance that Iran might make an exception to its hitherto post-revolutionary position of refusing to compete against “Israel” in international sporting events and actually participate in the field medicine challenge that they’re both scheduled to partake in during this year’s International Army Games in Russia. The Jerusalem Post was the first media outlet to draw attention this, albeit in a very casual manner, when it wrote that:

“Israel will be participating in three competitions, all on Russian soil: the military rally, a field kitchen cook-off and a field medicine rally. It will be competing against Russia in all three, against Iran only in field medicine – although Tehran is participating in 17 of the 28 contests – and not against Syria in any of them.”

It also noted the following:

“The tank biathlon, one of the central parts of the games, saw the participation of 23 countries including Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Iran, Morocco, Syria and Sudan. Each team consists of 21 soldiers divided into four crews and tests the crews’ driving skills traversing over some 15 km. in the shortest time possible while firing at various targets such as models of other tanks, helicopters and rocket-propelled grenade-launcher crews.

While Israel did not participate in the biathlon, a spokesman from the IDF told The Jerusalem Post that officers were sent to watch and learn from countries who did participate. Israel’s flag was nonetheless posted next to the Iranian flag on the games’ official website as participating – since Israel immediately precedes Iran in Russian alphabetical order.”

Not only is “Israel” poised to compete with Iran in what might be their first-ever post-1979 sporting event, but its military officials were also allowed to watch the Iranian tank crew carry out complicated maneuvers in real time. In addition, by an alphabetical coincidence, the two rivals’ flags were also posted next to each other. The symbolism behind all of this couldn’t be stronger because it shows that Russia is trying to bring these foes together as it attempts to manage their proxy war in Syria.

So that skeptical readers don’t dismiss this outright as “Zionist propaganda”, here’s a screenshot from the official website of Russia’s 2018 International Army Games showing both parties’ flags as described and proving that they’re each slated to compete in the same field medicine challenge:

Having confirmed the accuracy of The Jerusalem Post’s report, the question now becomes one of whether Iran will actually go through with the scheduled event and compete with its hated nemesis for what might be the first time ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian sportspeople always boycott participating in any kind of matches against “Israelis” because they believe that doing so grants legitimacy to the settler entity that their government doesn’t officially recognize, but this time they might actually go through with it for three reasons.

The first is that the Iranians won’t necessarily be competing with the “Israelis” face-to-face because, as the author understands it, the individual and group runs are conducted separately from other teams, meaning that each goes through the course independently on their own and then just has their final times compared with everyone else’s. If that’s the case, then Iran might not consider that it’s “compromising” on its principled stance regarding the ethics of its sportspeople competing against “Israelis”, thereby making it acceptable to go ahead with the challenge.

As for the second, Russian-Iranian relations are severely strained right now because of their unofficial but widely speculated disagreements about Syria’s post-Daesh future, which the author touched upon in his most recent article on the topic titled “It’s Official, ‘Israel’ Is Now A Joint Russian-American Protectorate”. Because “Russia Is Already ‘Balancing’ Iran In The Mideast”, Tehran is unlikely to want to cause a scene by dramatically pulling out of the field medicine challenge just to protest Tel Aviv’s participation in it and risk embarrassing Moscow to the point where it feels compelled to toughen its stance in order to “save face”.

Finally, the last reason why Iran might be reluctant to drop out of that event is because it’s getting used to how Russia has gradually normalized indirect interactions between it and “Israel”. Not only is Moscow doing this on the military front in southwestern Syria, but it’s also quietly doing the same on the economic one through its plans to clinch Free Trade Agreements with both Iran and “Israel” and consequently serve as the commercial bridge between them, just like the author wrote earlier this year in his piece about how “The Resumption Of Russian-‘Israeli’ Free Trade Talks Proves Ties Are Fantastic”.

Bearing these three points in mind, there’s a high likelihood that Iran will remain in the field medicine challenge and indirectly compete with “Israel” even though tensions between the two are at one of their highest points in history and they’re still engaged in a simmering proxy war against one another in Syria. Russia’s symbolic “balancing” of both parties through what might be their successful participation in the same International Army Games event could bode well for regional stability, however, because it would prove that Moscow is capable of doing what had previously been written off as the politically impossible.

*

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Sputnik International.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

In the current multipolar world in which we live, economic and military factors are decisive in guaranteeing countries their sovereignty. Russia and China seem to be taking this very seriously, committed to the de-dollarization of their economies and the accelerated development of hypersonic weapons.

The transition phase we are going through, passing from a unipolar global order to a multipolar one, calls for careful observation. It is important to analyze the actions taken by two world powers, China and Russia, in defending and consolidating their sovereignty over the long term. Observing decisions taken by these two countries in recent years, we can discern a twofold strategy. One is economic, the other purely military. In both cases we observe strong cooperation between Moscow and Beijing. The merit of this alliance is paradoxically attributed to the attitude of various US administrations, from George Bush Senior through to Obama. The special relationship between Moscow and Beijing has been forged by a shared experience of Washington’s pressure over the last 25 years. Their shared mission now seems to be to contain the US’s declining imperial power and to shepherd the world from a unipolar world order, with Washington at the center of international relations, to a multipolar world order, with at least three global powers playing a major role in international relations.

The Sino-Russian strategy has shown itself over the last two decades to consist of two parts: economic clout on the one hand, and military strength on the other, the latter to ward off reckless American behavior. Both Eurasian powers have their respective strengths and weaknesses in this regard. If Russia’s economy can hardly be compared to China’s, China plays second fiddle to Russia’s conventional and nuclear deterrents, and is quite some way behind Moscow in terms of hypersonic weapons. The cooperation between Moscow and Beijing aims to synergize their respective strengths.

Economic sovereignty

Both de-dollarization and the development of hypersonic weapons serve the purpose of defending both countries’ sovereignty. Economic sovereignty entails, among other things, elimination of dependence on the US dollar, the abandonment of an international banking system based on the SWIFT payment system, the inclusion and increase in the share of the yuan in the basket of international currencies, the reduction of dollar-denominated public debt, the constant accumulation of gold, and, of course, the elimination of any residual debt with international institutions that are part of the world governance model controlled and manipulated by Washington for its own interests.

Beijing, rather than seeking to replace the central role of the United States, seeks instead to expand its influence in existing organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

From an economic point of view, the international order is very similar to a duopoly rather than anything multipolar, without forgetting that the European Union has an important role to play should it regain some form of sovereignty by freeing itself from dependence on Washington. For Moscow and Beijing, reducing public debt is one of the best ways of achieving strong economic sovereignty. The Russian Federation has reduced its public debt in relation to GDP from 92% at the beginning of 2000 to 12.9% today. The People’s Republic of China, over 20 years, has increased its public debt from 20% of GDP to around 48%. Compared to the public debt of European countries (Italy and Greece are over 120%, France 100%, the EU average is 85%), Japan (240%) and the United States (110%), Beijing and Moscow have paid particular attention to keeping their accounts in order. Another important strategy involves the steady accumulation of gold in the reserves of these two countries.

China and Russia are once again trending in an opposite direction to that of the West. Since 2005, Russia and China have accumulated huge amounts of gold, with the clear intention of diversifying their reserves. Both Moscow and Beijing are among the top 10 countries in terms of gold reserves, with an exponential increase over recent years.

Thanks to a limited public debt, huge quantities of gold, and a progressive reduction in the amount of US government bonds held, Moscow and Beijing have embarked on the path of full economic sovereignty, independent of the US dollar system and strongly protecting themselves against any future financial crises. In this respect, the creation of international financial bodies, to be added to those already existing, has the clear purpose of diluting Washington’s institutional influence over the economic affairs of the world.

A decided acceleration in this general direction was made following the exclusion of the Islamic Republic of Iran from the SWIFT system, a ringing alarm bell for the Eurasian duo. Despite their reduction of public debt and significant de-dollarization, both countries remain dependent on, and therefore vulnerable to, an economic and financial system that orbits around Washington and London. The workaround has therefore been to create two alternative bank-payment systems to SWIFT. In the case of Russia, there is the so-called system for the transfer of financial messages (SPFS), and in China, the Cross-Border Inter-Bank Payments System (CIPS). Initially conceived as a fallback in the event of exclusion from the SWIFT system, the SPFS and CIPS projects currently strongly intertwine with the energy agreements reached in 2015. Moscow’s selling of liquid natural gas (LNG) to Beijing takes place through an international payment system based on Chinese renminbi that is immediately converted into gold thanks through the innovative mechanism inaugurated at the Shanghai Gold Exchange. It is not excluded that these operations could not directly occur through the SPFS or CIPS systems in the future. Never mind the petrodollar system that is one of the main problems that China and Russia face when dealing with the international financial system. Efforts to progressively switch from USD to Yuan in paying oil commodities have been in place for years especially by Beijing.

This is an example of how countries like Russia and China have found ways of circumventing the means used to limit their sovereignty. The inclusion of the yuan in the IMF basket of world reserve currencies is associated with the Chinese strategy of supporting the renminbi for export, reducing the share of the US dollar. The strategy adopted by Moscow and Beijing seems to leave Washington unable to stop the protective measures of these two Eurasian powers.

In practice, we are already beginning to see the effects of this alternative economic world order. The sanctions imposed by Washington and her satraps on Moscow and Tehran are easily circumvented by Russia and Iran, with exchanges denominated in currencies other than the dollar (often gold), or simply through bartering.

China and Russia, with strongly diversified economies, with treasuries chock full of gold, and with minimal public debt, leave very little room for international speculators to have an effect on their domestic economies with actions that amount to financial terrorism.

Being able to minimize the impacts and risks of a new financial crisis, or resist the threats and blackmail of the international bodies steered largely by Washington and London, are the key means of being able to chart an economically independent course and ensure national sovereignty.

The military is the definitive guarantor of sovereignty

Without a clear and inviolable military sovereignty, the economic measures implemented can become ineffective in the event of war. For this reason, China and Russia continue to implement nuclear-weapons strategies, the ultimate and definitive deterrent. Moscow is at least equal to Washington in this regard, just as Beijing is at least equal to Washington in the economic field. China and the United States have an interconnected economy, but in the event of total war, Washington would suffer the greatest damage. The transfer to China of almost all American industry has a cost, and in the case of a complete rupture in relations between the two countries, Washington is well aware of its economic vulnerability to China.

In military terms, the strategy for ensuring territorial sovereignty focuses on certain key areas, namely the defense of airspace and maritime borders, and the ability to discourage any nuclear attack by guaranteeing a second-strike capability.

I have written about this in the past, noting that Russia and China have implemented complex and advanced systems in recent years to close the technological gap with the West, Moscow being at least equal to Washington in this regard, and sharing with Beijing some of its most important innovations. The sale of S-400s to China paves the way for a future joint defense of Eurasian airspace. As the process of union and cooperation between the two countries increases, their respective militaries will have the task of discouraging outside attempts to destabilize the region. This is the reason why the United States sees the sale of the S-400 systems (to Turkey, for example) as a red line not to be crossed. The ability to prevent access to one’s airspace upsets one of Washington’s principal doctrines of war. Without air supremacy and the ability to operate in an uncontested airspace, the American way of war is severely hobbled, it becoming practically impossible for the United States to impose its will militarily.

The second military focus for the Eurasians concerns the defense of their maritime borders, reflecting Moscow and Beijing’s need to keep the US Navy a good distance from their shores. The development of anti-ship weapons has been a priority for Beijing in recent years, as has been the development of islets in the South China Sea to ensure a constant protection of its borders, given the aggressive presence of the US Navy. Beijing aims to create areas of denial for the US military. Initially keeping US forces about 180 miles from their coast, the future intention is to push them even further back, to a distance of about 700 miles, thus obtaining an effective anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) space that prevents any amphibious assault or a maritime blockade of China’s sea lines of communication.

In the same way that de-dollarization represents an economic nuclear weapon in the hands of Russia and China, the development of hypersonic weapons is the linchpin of the Sino-Russian alliance’s ability to defend its territorial sovereignty. I wrote two very detailed articles on these amazing weapons, and so did my colleagues at the Strategic Culture Foundation. It is an exciting topic because for the first time in years, Washington has faced the accomplished fact of its geopolitical adversary’s impressive technological progress. Hypersonic weapons have no present weaknesses, and Moscow is the only country in the world capable of producing and using them. With this new capability, the range of action of the Russian Federation reaches unprecedented levels.

Hypersonic weapons have the crucial advantage of being able to hit mobile or fixed targets with unprecedented speed and power. The ability to obliterate in a matter of minutes a US Navy carrier group or ABM systems in Romania and Poland undoubtedly has a sobering effect on the US military. This is to leave aside the fact that the future S-500 system will have anti-satellite capabilities as well as ballistic-missile defense, and the new SS-28 Sarmat will not be able to be stopped by any current or future ABM system.

With the use of hypersonic weapons (some already operational) and the sophisticated S-400 and S-500 systems, US naval and air power is being strongly challenged. With nuclear weapons, even the Russian first- and second-strike capabilities become impossible for the US to overcome.

It is only a matter of time before hypersonic technology is brought to bear by the People’s Republic of China, probably with Moscow’s crucial assistance. The level of mutual trust and cooperation has never been so high between the two countries, and it is natural for them to collaborate militarily and economically, spurred by their common opponent.

Conclusion

The challenge for Russia and China is complex and ongoing. The transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world order is occurring as we speak, enabled by economic and military sovereignty. The challenge for these two Eurasian countries will be to increase their military and economic power, and correct the obvious imbalances in the current world order, without destroying it.

If this strategy proves successful, it will only be natural to start offering other countries the opportunity to hop onto the Eurasian train, enabling those willing to shift their military, economic and diplomatic leaning from the Atlantic to the Eurasian world. Given the momentous significance of India and Pakistan’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as permanent members, it would seem that Moscow and Beijing are on track to eliminating the central role of the United States in international relations in favor of a multilateralism that will benefit everyone.

*

Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

I don’t know about you out there, but whenever I drive around my city and surrounding area of perhaps 250k people, I notice the increased congestion and near crazy drivers. It keeps getting worse and some of the blame has to be pointed at the uncertainty of our times. You don’t have to be an accounting genius or a historical scholar to realize when you’re on the receiving end of the shaft.

The facts are out there, even though the embedded mainstream media does its best to keep them from you. We live in an empire whereupon over half of our hard earned federal tax money goes down the rabbit hole of military spending. That’s the first gorilla in the room. It sits there smiling at you, because it knows that its appetite is being satisfied… as your needed safety net is shredded to bits.

How many out there understand that this first gorilla needs over $ 700 billion each and every year?

Some researchers have that figure at a cool trillion dollars. Imagine if even a quarter of that money went to establish a National Health Service to dwarf even the one the Brits have had for decades? Imagine going to any doctor you wanted and having any surgery you needed , along with saving your teeth with comprehensive dental care. With $ 180 billion going into that kitty, imagine how little it would cost you and me to pay for such care? Oh no, the gorilla is growling and pounding his giant paws!

The second gorilla is also very content now. He knows that his super rich existence is safe, because Uncle Sam is in his pocket. How many of you realize that the super rich had a top federal tax bracket of 90% to deal with in the 50s and 60s? During the 1970s the top bracket never went below 70%. In 1981, under Reagan, the top rate dropped to 50%. Now it is at 37% for incomes over $ 400,000 +. That does not mean that anyone actually pays that amount. No, with a good accountant and plenty of deductions, even multi millionaire

Mitt Romney acknowledged that he paid at around 15%. Get it? Plus the fact that someone earning , let us say $ 500k a year, is put in the same bracket as a Romney or a Bill Gates. Thus, the mega millionaire and billionaire gorilla are happier than a pig in ****. Meanwhile, back at the (prison) ranch you and me and all the millions of working stiffs out there (who make up most of the 99+ %) have to subsidize this government spending with our sweat and tears (maybe some blood added to the mix?). Every dollar we earn is taxed at the Payroll Tax rate of over 7.5 %, the same for what the super rich must contribute. Plus, the social security tax stops at incomes of $ 128k a year. So, the Fat Cats and wannabee Fat Cats can earn ‘the sky’s the limit’ and are only responsible for $ 128k of income. Imagine if that ceiling was extended all the way up to the sky, how much added revenue our Treasury would have? This could be used  to secure and expand that safety net. Another idea is to create a ‘Mega Millionaire Flat Surtax’ of let us say 50% of any income over one million dollars a year, leaving the first million to be taxed at the current rate. This would include bonuses and all stock and bond income as soon as either is cashed in. Translated: Jeff Bezos, a multi billionaire, only makes less than $ 100k a year in salary. His stock is worth billions! So, when Jeff one day decides to cash in or transfer his holdings to someone else, the flat surtax kicks in.

What could occur if our nation was a mix of socialism and capitalism? Well, all major industries that are vital to the public’s health and well being would be nationalized. Imagine if Banking, Energy, Pharma, Health care, Defense, Real Estate were owned and operated by the citizens through local and federal government.

No more excess profits from our taxes going for mortgages, residential and commercial real estate rentals, doctor visits and medicines, home heating and electric, surgeries, dental care, weapons systems and military needs… all working at non profit or low profit. Socialism and ‘ Adam Smith capitalism’ would see a nurturing of Main Street small businesses. It can happen if first we can get  rid of those two smelly 500 lb. gorillas! Imagine for a minute if all small businesses with less than 100 employees (for argument sake) had a moratorium on the Payroll Tax contributions from both employee and employer for the first $ 20k of employee wages… with companies over 100 employees just having the moratorium on employee contributions. Think how A) $ 1500-$ 1600 a year tax free can be useful for the worker and his or her boss; and B) this would get rid of most of the ‘off the books’ employment that many Mom and Pop businesses are forced to utilize to stay above water. Ditto for the workers.

With our own government running the weapons and military equipment industries, the trumpet for more phony wars and occupations would be muffled a great deal. All those private Pentagon influenced lobbyists would need to go out and get a real job! We could use that money wasted on the profits of the few to be used as I mentioned above. Think about that. And with local community nonprofit mortgage banks, imagine how many current renters would be able to afford a home or apartment of their own… at rates that only translate into overhead costs. You want real economic stimulus, well with more new homes and apartments needed, the housing and materials market would be overflowing with energy… and plenty of needed jobs.

Who needs the super rich? I don’t. Do you?

*

Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn , NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his work posted on sites like Global Research, Greanville Post, Off Guardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust., whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected].

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Air strikes thought to be conducted by the Saudi-led coalition have hit a hospital’s entrance, fishing port and fish market in the Yemeni city of Hodeidah, killing scores. 

A source at Hodeidah’s health office told Middle East Eye that 55 people were killed in the strikes, with more than 100 wounded. Both figures are likely to rise as the situation becomes clearer.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Twitter it was sending medical equipment to al-Thawra Hospital to treat those in critical condition following the attack.

The hospital said in a tweet that a strike targeted its main gate, leaving dozens of casualties, while Houthi-run Saba news agency said 40 were killed in the hospital strike.

“It is a very painful sight, parts of bodies are everywhere around the hospital gates,” an eyewitness told Reuters.

Staff working for Save the Children, which runs a diphtheria treatment centre in the hospital, described the situation aftert the strikes as “chaos”.

“A bomb exploded just outside the hospital, on the street,” one staff member said. “Then there was another explosion towards the back. I saw people running and bodies in the street.”

Despite the Houthis’ lack of an air force, the Saudi-led coalition laid the blame at the rebels’ door, and insisted it was not behind the strike.

“The coalition did not carry out any operations in Hodeidah today,” the coalition spokesman, Colonel Turki al-Malki, told Al-Arabiya television. “The Houthi militia are behind killing of civilians in Hodeidah on Thursday,” he said.

“The coalition follows a strict and transparent approach based on the international law. We pursue any allegations and if there is any responsibility we will hold it transparently,” he added.

Pro-Yemeni government activists and media accused the Houthis of targeting the civilians with ballistic missiles, but residents in the rebel-held city told MEE that they heard the buzzing of warplanes.

Meanwhile, the United Nations said it will invite the parties involved in Yemen’s conflict for talks on 6 September.

UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths told the UN Security Council that “a political solution” to end the war in Yemen is “available” and urged world powers to support the new push for peace negotiations.

“These consultations will provide the opportunity for the parties, among other things, to discuss the framework for negotiations, relevant confidence-building measures and specific plans for moving the process forward,” said Griffiths.

Strategic port city

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Sunni Muslim allies have been fighting in Yemen with Western backing for more than three years against the Iran-aligned Houthis.

The Houthis control much of north Yemen including the capital Sanaa and drove its Saudi-backed government into exile in 2014.

On Tuesday, the Houthis said they were unilaterally halting attacks in the Red Sea for two weeks to support peace efforts.

This came a few days after Saudi Arabia suspended oil exports through a strategic Red Sea channel, amid Houthi attacks on crude tankers on 25 July.

About 70 percent of Yemen’s food imports flow through Hodeidah port; about 8.4 million Yemenis are said by aid workers to be on the verge of starvation.

On 13 June, Saudi Arabia and its allies in a pro-government coalition launched a major offensive to retake Hodeidah. Fighting around the port has raised UN fears of a new humanitarian catastrophe in a country already at the brink of famine and a deadly cholera epidemic.

The Houthis have offered to hand over management of the port to the world body, according to the United Nations, but the coalition says the group must quit the western coast.

On Friday, the UN’s World Health Organisation said Yemen may be on the brink of a new cholera epidemic, with greater chance of a high death rate due to widespread malnutrition.

“We’re calling on all parties to the conflict … for three full days of tranquility and to lay down arms to allow us to vaccinate the civilian population for cholera,” WHO emergency response chief Peter Salama said.

*

Featured image is from The Wire.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

China’s ambassador to Damascus has reportedly told Syrian media that Beijing is prepared to aid the government’s push to retake territory throughout the country.

Speaking to Syrian pro-government daily Al-Watan, the envoy, Qi Qianjin, expressed China’s support for what he referred to as Syria’s war against terrorists, according to a dispatch from the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Qi said he regretted that Chinese Uyghurs had participated in fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, adding that the Chinese military was hoping to enhance relations with the Syrian military.

“Asked about the possibility that his country would take part in the Syrian Arab Army’s upcoming campaign against the terrorists in Idlib, especially in light of the presence of Uyghur fighters [there], [Qi] replied that China ‘is following the situation in Syria, in particular after the victory in southern [Syria], and its military is willing to participate in some way alongside the Syrian army that is fighting the terrorists in Idlib and in any other part of Syria,” the article from Al-Watan was translated as saying.

When asked about Chinese participation in the campaign, military attaché Wong Roy Chang said

“‘the military cooperation between the Syrian and Chinese armies is ongoing. We have good relations and we maintain this cooperation in order to serve the security, integrity and stability of our countries. We – China and its military – wish to develop our relations with the Syrian Army. As for participating in the Idlib operation, it requires a political decision.’ He denied that there were military advisers or special Chinese forces in Syria today.”

*

Featured image is from Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

A detailed study of the death toll that has been recorded in Nicaragua since a violent campaign to remove President Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista government shows that at least as many Sandinista supporters were killed as opposition members. The study, “Monopolizing Death,” demonstrates how partisan local NGOs conflated all deaths that occurred since April, including accidents and the murders of Sandinistas, with killings by government forces. Washington has seized on the bogus death count to drive the case for sanctions and intensify pressure for regime change.

The manipulated death toll was the centerpiece of a July 25 harangue by Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on the House floor. While drumming up support for a bipartisan resolution condemning Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega for supposedly ordering the massacre of demonstrators, Ros-Lehtinen declared,

“Mr. Speaker, four hundred and fifty! That is how many Nicaraguans have been killed by the Ortega regime and its thugs since April of this year.”

The congresswoman’s portrayal of a dictatorial regime gunning down peaceful protesters like helpless quails in a canned hunt was designed to generate pressure for an attack on the Nicaraguan economy in the form of sanctions packages like the Nica Act. Her narrative was reinforced by Vice President Mike Pence, who condemned Nicaragua’s government for “350+ dead at the hands of the regime,” and by Ken Roth, the long-serving executive director of Human Rights Watch, who also suggested that Ortega had personally ordered the killing of “300 demonstrators against his corrupt and repressive rule.”

On @HouseFloor, I also called for our Senate colleagues to quit stalling and to take meaningful action to support the Nicaraguan people by passing the #NICAAct so that we can keep the pressure on the #Ortega regime until true #democracy + #freedom return to #Nicaragua. pic.twitter.com/rv2r3tC0zf

— Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (@RosLehtinen) June 7, 2018

Throughout the past two weeks, I have been in Nicaragua interviewing scores of victims of the US-backed Nicaraguan opposition. I have met police officials who saw their colleagues gunned down by well armed elements while being ordered to stay in their stations, Sandinista union leaders whose homes were burned down, and average citizens who were kidnapped at tranque roadblocks and pulled out of their homes to be beaten and tortured, sometimes with the assent of Catholic priests. It was clear to me that the Nicaraguan opposition was anything peaceful in its bid for regime change.

And it was also clear that many Sandinistas had been killed since the chaos began in April. The opposition’s victims include Gabriel de Jesus Vado, a police officer from Jinotepe, who was kidnapped, dragged from a moving car, and burned alive on video at the tranque in Monimbo this month, a neighborhood in Masaya that the opposition had violently occupied for weeks.

Opposition militants burn Jinotepe police officer Gabriel de Jesus Vado alive at a Masaya roadblock after brutally torturing him. A local Catholic priest, Harvin Padilla, was recorded offering his verbal consent for the heinous killing.

But according to the logic employed by Congress and the White House, which holds the government responsible for every single death that occurred between April and June in Nicaragua, the killing of Vado and as many as twenty other members of Nicaragua’s national police never took place — nor did the deaths of anyone killed by opposition paramilitaries. This is what you have to believe if you blame the Sandinista government for one hundred percent of the deaths.

The manipulation of the death toll by Congress and Western soft power NGOs is exposed in meticulous detail “Monopolizing Death.”

The author of this forensic study, independent Nicaraguan researcher Enrique Hendrix, describes his analysis as “evidence of a campaign that, in the absence of a just cause, uses the death of every citizen as a motive to manipulate the emotions of the population in order to counterpose ‘the government’ against ‘the people.’”

Hendrix told me that he initiated his study, “Monopolizing Death,” two weeks after the anti-Sandinista protests began.

“All the opposition media channels started claiming all these deaths were taking place [at the hands of government forces], and I was having a lot of uncertainties,” he said. “So I started researching the lists of the human rights organizations and really trying to figure out if these death counts consisted only of students, as opposition media was reporting.”

The complete text of Hendrix’s study, translated into English by the Tortilla con Sal journalism collective, is embedded at the end of this article, along with a spreadsheet analyzing (in Spanish) each death in detail.

Partisan human rights NGOs as a regime change weapon 

Hendrix’s study surveys the deaths recorded by the three main Nicaraguan human rights organizations. They are the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), whose involvement was requested by the government of Nicaragua on May 13th; and the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH).

These are the organizations that Congress, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and international soft power organizations like Human Rights Watch have relied on for their understanding of the violence that has gripped Nicaragua.

While in Nicaragua, I learned how members of CENIDH and ANPDH actively participated in the campaign to remove the Sandinista government. For instance, I was told by three separate students of the public university UNAN that CENIDH legal advisor Gonzalo Carrion was present with opposition students and militants when they took over the campus and that Carrion was even a bystander to their violence.

Ramon Avellan, the police commissioner of Masaya, related to me how staffers of ANPDH repeatedly appeared at his police station alongside opposition activists to beseech him to surrender. This act that would have resulted in the total takeover of the city by the armed opposition, which according to Avellan, included strong representation from local criminal cartels.

ANPDH was founded in Miami, the true base of Nicaragua’s right-wing opposition, and was funded in the 1980’s by the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy to paint the Contras as victims of communist brutality. Today, the group remains a political weapon of choice against the Sandinista movement.

How anti-Sandinista “human rights” NGOs and Washington cooked the books

Hendrix found that the three main self-proclaimed human rights groups in Nicaragua had removed the contexts of the deaths they recorded in order to conflate every unnatural death that occurred across the country between April 19 and June 25 with killings by Nicaraguan pro-government forces.

He found that seven categories of deaths were included in the human rights reports. All categories except for one were totally unrelated to government violence.

They are as follows:

• Duplicated names
• Deaths unrelated to protests
• People murdered by the opposition
• Opposition activists, including those involved in the violent tranques
• Innocent bystanders
• Names without significant data to determine the cause of death
• Deaths omitted from each list

According to Hendrix, reports by CENIDH, CIDH, and ANPDH were padded with the deaths of “victims of traffic accidents, altercations between gangs, murders by robbery, those killed by accidental firing of a firearm and even more absurdly, a suicide.”

CIDH’s study includes a whopping nine duplicated names, while all three organizations larded their reports with 97 deaths that were unrelated to the protests. The causes of 77 deaths recorded in the three reports remain unknown.

While the Nicaraguan opposition has howled about genocide-level massacres of students, Hendrix found in his own research that out of the approximately 60 deaths among anti-Sandinista elements at the hands of government-aligned forces, only 16 or 17 were actual students.

Most shockingly, Hendrix’s forensic research demonstrated that the opposition killed at least the same number of Sandinista supporters and police officers as they lost at the hands of the government. This fact flies directly in the face of the US-centric narrative of a dictator mowing down peaceful protesters.

It would be easy for anyone familiar with the situation that unfolded on the ground over the past three months to see why so many had been killed on the Sandinista side.

In late April, Ortega ordered his police forces to stay in their stations as a condition of the national dialogue he initiated with the opposition. The order meant that for about 55 days, Sandinista supporters were left to fend off a national crusade of lethal blood vengeance. Countless citizens were beaten or faced property destruction at the hands of the opposition solely because they belonged to the Sandinista front.

Among the killings of Sandinistas detailed in Hendrix’s report was a 25 month old baby, the child of Gabriella Maria Aguirre, who died on June 13 in Masatepe of bronchoaspiration when her ambulance was held up at an opposition roadblock.

Meanwhile, in cities like Masaya and Jinotepe, police found themselves under virtual siege, cut off for weeks from regular food and medical supplies, and wound up waging a pitched battle with the opposition militants that had encircled them.

Armed opposition militants hold the police station in Sebaco under siege, attacking it with grenades and rifles.

The deaths of those within opposition ranks who were killed by accident or as a result of fratricidal violence has also been decontextualized in these reports, and are therefore unacknowledged by Washington and international legal bodies. They include Guatemalan journalist Eduardo Spiegler, who was crushed by a “tree of life” street decoration toppled by opposition protesters as he was covering their spree of vandalism.

Opposition demonstrators topple a “tree of life” atop Eduardo Spiegler, a Honduran journalist covering their rampage, then dance on it in celebration.

From anti-Sandinista NGOs to international bodies, with no scrutiny in between

The Nicaraguan government has appointed its own commission comprised of independent experts to investigate the deaths that have occurred since April. According to Hendrix, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has refused to accept data from the official Nicaraguan investigation, relying instead on ANDPH.

This means that the main international body responsible for drawing conclusions about the violence in Nicaragua has relied largely on a partisan NGO with a decidedly anti-Sandinista bent and has done no independent work.

In Washington, meanwhile, members of Congress like Ros-Lehtinen have not only relied on the opposition’s flawed narrative, they have exaggerated the death toll to drum up the case for a deepened attack on Nicaragua’s economy.

Hendrix emphasized that because local human rights NGOs like ANDPH relied so heavily on highly partisan opposition media to tabulate their death counts, “it is impossible to verify in so many cases if they are even telling the truth.”

He wondered if “we could be seeing an even greater manipulation than we know.”

*

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, The Fifty One Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, and The Management of Savagery, which will be published later this year by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie and the forthcoming Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded the Grayzone Project in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.

Featured image is from the author.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Facebook has announced its campaign against “fake news.” But, according to some workers’ own admission, conservatives are being censored.

And Google also wants to censor “fake news.” But Google also was shown to treat conservative websites, but not liberal ones, as “fake news.”

The same thing seems to be going on with Twitter. And again, conservatives are complaining.

But who is to decide what is “fake news”? Who will be Facebook and Google’s sources for real news?

In 2013 the U.S. Senate considered a new a shield law to protect journalists. In the lawmakers’ attempts to narrow the definition of a journalist, some Senators including Sen. Dianne Feinstein only wanted to include reporters with “professional qualifications.”

“Professional” publications such as the New York Times, the “Paper of Record,” would apparently be protected.

So one can conclude that the New York Times can be a source of “real” news for Facebook or Google, despite all the Times‘ errors, screw-ups, and corrections, right?

According to one NYT former reporter, the Times has been a “propaganda megaphone” for war. Also a partner with the CIA to promote Obama’s reelection bid.

Or CNN, “The Most Trusted Name in News” which wins its own “fake news” awards with its errors, screw-ups and corrections.

During the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign, there were collusions between then-CNN contributor and DNC operative Donna Brazile, who was outed by WikiLeaks in her giving candidate Hillary Clinton questions in advance for a CNN Town Hall.

Other emails that were leaked to WikiLeaks informed us that reporters obediently followed instructions from the Hillary Clinton campaign on how to cover the campaign. These include reporters from the New York Times such as Maggie Haberman who said the campaign would “tee up stories for us,” and Mark Leibovich, who would email Clinton flunky Jennifer Palmieri for editing recommendations.

And Politico reporter Glenn Thrush asked Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta for approval of stories on Clinton. Thrush was then hired by the New York Times. After Thrush was then suspended from NYT over allegations of sexual misconduct, the Times ended the suspension, stating that while Thrush had “acted offensively,” he would be trained to behave himself. Hmm.

But all this from the 2016 campaign reminded me of the “JournoLists,” the group of news journalists who participated in a private forum online from 2007-2010. The forum was to enable news reporters to discuss news reporting and political issues in private and with candor, but also, it was revealed, to discuss ways to suppress negative news on then-2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama.

For instance, according to the Daily Caller, some members of the group discussed their criticism of a 2008 debate in which Obama was questioned on his association with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The Nation‘s Richard Kim wrote that George Stephanopoulos was “being a disgusting little rat snake.” The Guardian‘s Michael Tomasky wrote that “we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy.”

Spencer Ackerman, then with the Washington Independent and now of the Daily Beast, wrote,

“If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

The Nation‘s Chris Hayes wrote,

“Our country disappears people. It tortures people. It has the blood of as many as one million Iraqi civilians — men, women, children, the infirmed — on its hands. You’ll forgive me if I just can’t quite dredge up the requisite amount of outrage over Barack Obama’s pastor.”

(But has Hayes criticized Obama’s assassination program, or Obama’s bombings or the blood on Obama’s hands? Just askin’)

In an open letter, according to the Daily Caller, several of the JournoList members called the ABC debate a “revolting descent into tabloid journalism,” because of the moderators’ legitimate questions on Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

So, in today’s Bizarro World, objectively questioning a candidate on a controversial issue is now “tabloid journalism,” but making things up like “Trump-Russia collusions” and repeating the propaganda over and over – that’s not “tabloid journalism.”

The JournoLists also included reporters from Time, the Baltimore Sun, the New Republic, Politico, and Huffington Post.

Now, are those the sources of “real news” that Facebook, Google and Twitter want to rely upon to combat “fake news”?

And who exactly were the “JournoLists” promoting? Obama?

Regarding Obama’s own crackdown on actual journalism, Fox News reporter James Rosen was accused by the feds of being a “co-conspirator” with State Department leaker Stephen Jin-Woo Kim in violating the Espionage Act.  Rosen’s correspondences with Kim were seized by Obama’s FBI, along with Rosen’s personal email and phone records. The FBI also used records to track Rosen’s visits to the State Department.

Apparently, then-attorney general Eric Holder went “judge-shopping” to find a judge who would approve subpoenaing Rosen’s private records, after two judges rejected the request.

Commenting on James Rosen and the FBI’s abuse of powers, Judge Andrew Napolitano observed that

“this is the first time that the federal government has moved to this level of taking ordinary, reasonable, traditional, lawful reporter skills and claiming they constitute criminal behavior.”

And there was the Obama administration’s going after then-CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, possibly for her reporting on Benghazi and Fast and Furious. Attkisson finally resigned from CBS news out of frustration with the company’s alleged pro-Obama bias and with CBS’s apparently not airing her subsequent reports.

In 2013 CBS News confirmed that Attkisson’s computers had been “accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions.” In 2015 Attkisson sued the Obama administration, claiming to have evidence which proves the computer intrusions were connected to the Obama DOJ.

In Attkisson’s latest lawsuit update, after her computer was returned to her following the DOJ Inspector General’s investigation, her forensics team now believes her computer’s hard drive was replaced by a different one.

Now back to “fake news.”

After Donald Trump locked up the Republican Presidential nomination in May, 2016, there were significant events in the next two months. Fusion GPS and former British spy Christopher Steele colluded to get opposition research on behalf of Hillary Clinton, the FBI applied for FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign associates, and Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner had a possibly set-up meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower.

Also within that same period, the DNC claimed that its computers were hacked but the DNC wouldn’t let FBI investigate. The Washington Post published an article claiming, with no evidence presented, that “Russian government hackers” took DNC opposition research on Trump.

It was very shortly after the November, 2016 Presidential election that the Washington Post published an article on a “Russian propaganda effort to spread ‘fake news’ during the election.” To escalate the media’s censorship campaign perhaps?

The campaign against “fake news” coincided with Obama minions at FBI, DOJ and CIA apparently panicking over a possible Trump presidency and their allegedly abusing their powers to attempt to take down Trump.

So the news media seem to be on a crusade to fabricate “Trump-Russia collusions” and repeat it over and over, and to vilify, ignore and squash actual investigative research and reporting on what exactly the FBI and DOJ bureaucrats have been doing. Call such real investigative reporting “fake news,” “conspiracy theory,” and so forth.

In the end, Facebook, Twitter and Google might want to reconsider relying on the mainstream news media led by the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN, and instead include citizen journalists and non-government-sycophant media to provide news and information.

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh has noted that the Founders generally viewed the freedom of the Press to apply to every citizen to print, publish or express accounts of events. We really need to highlight that kind of old-fashioned, honest journalism.

*

Scott Lazarowitz is a libertarian writer and commentator. Please visit his blog.

Featured image is from Pixabay.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above

Data is rarely inert.  It moves, finds itself diverting, adjusting and adapting to users and distributors. Ultimately, as unspectacular and banal as it might be, data sells, pushing the price in various markets whoever wishes to access it.  Medical data, given its abundance, can do very nicely in such domains as the Dark Web.  With governments attempting to find the optimum level of storing, monitoring and identifying the medical health of citizens, the issue of security has become pressingly urgent. 

Britain’s National Health Service is a case in point.  Last year, that venerable, perennially criticised body of health provision received the full attention of the WananCry virus. Much of this was occasioned by carelessness: a good number of organisations were running on out-of-date Windows XP software.  The principle of insecurity was, however, affirmed.

Last month, the Singaporean government faced the grim reality that 1.5 million health records had been accessed by hackers including, audaciously, the records of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. This well landed blow riled all the more for that state’s heralded insistence on the merits of its own cybersecurity.  In the words of the government statement,

“Investigations by the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) and the Integrated Health Information System (IHiS) confirmed that this was a deliberate, targeted and well-planned cyberattack.”

Lee, in an obvious effort to reassure, perhaps more himself than anybody else, claimed that his data had nothing of value.  (If a thief takes your goods, make sure they are worthless.)

“My medication data is not something I would ordinarily tell people about, but there is nothing alarming in it.”

Obtaining medical data enables a stealthy plotting for the attacker, hoarding information clandestinely then deploying it with maximum effect.

“Patients who have had their medical information stolen,” goes Aatif Sulleyman for The Independent, “might not realise it’s even happened until the attackers have already set their plans in motion.”

Patient profiles can be built, with credentials mustered for reasons of impersonation to obtain health services.  Medical equipment and drugs can be duly purchased, and claims with insurers lodged.  That prospect is somewhat bleaker than one whose credit card details have been pinched; the bank, at the very least, might be able to put a halt on transactions with immediate effect.

Such excitement turns in anticipation and worried focus to the My Health Record proposition of the Australian government, which, it must be said, belies the usual blissful ignorance about what such an invitation tends to be.  Here, information utopia is paraded and extolled: to have such material in one spot, rather than diffused and intangible; to have the picture of one’s medical being in one location for those providing health care services.

Australia’s political representatives and bureaucrats have assumed a certain cockiness far exceeding health providers in other jurisdictions, making the My Health Record scheme a pinnacle of insecurity in medical care.  A pervasive sense exists that privacy concerns will simply vanish in a bout of extended apathy.  The scheme is astounding for the scope it enables prying of medical data that would otherwise be deemed private.

Deficiencies were spotted early on.  Far from being clinically-reliable as a record, it is dated and far from comprehensive.  Any such record would be, at worse, a distraction in an emergency.  Nor is there a track on who has seen it, except institutions en bloc.

If Australians do not opt out of the centralised medical scheme by October 15, a record by default will created, stored and used.  This will mean that those in the healthcare provision business, be it pharmacists, nurses or podiatrists, not to mention a whole string of unknown providers, will have automatic access to the medical record without patient consent.  The notions of express and fully informed consent have been given a dramatic, contemptuous heave ho, with a focus on the patient’s volition to avoid the scheme altogether. The Australian government’s refusal to engage the public in any meaningful way, be it through a sustained advertising or information campaign, has been patchy, and, in some instances, entirely absent.

Such an approach flies in the face of such recommendations as those made by the UK Information Governance Review from 2013 acknowledging “an appropriate balance between the protection of the patient user’s information, and the use and sharing of such information to improve care”.  This balance was struck on principles derived in the 1997 Review of the Uses of Patient-Identifiable Information, chaired by Dame Fiona Caldicott.  While admitting that information governance might at stages have to give way to sharing confidential patient information for the sake of that patient’s welfare, the principles of data security remain fundamental.

A skirt through the My Health Record system yields the extent of its shabbiness, and the level of its aspiration.  The My Health Record privacy policy is hardly glowing, acknowledging the problems with having such a database in the first place.

“In any online platform, including the My Health Record system, there are inherent risks when transmitting and storing personal information.”

Then comes the mandatory, if hollow reassurance:

“Despite this, we are committed to protecting your personal information, and ensuring its privacy, accuracy and security.”

A rich opportunity for the prying and the pilfering await.

*

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Email: [email protected]

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above

Banned from promoting his dangerous Islamic agenda across the European Union, Turkish President Erdogan is now seeking to use his growing influence in the Balkans against the Western countries. Erdogan’s aggressive return to the Balkans increased concerns among critics in southeastern Europe—the region where he is pursuing more assertive policies and strategically spreading his brand of Islamist nationalism through a network of mosques and religious institutions.

The EU countries have come to realize the danger emanating from his Islamic scheme. As a result, Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany banned Erdogan from organizing electoral campaigns. Furthermore, two months ago, Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz ordered the closing of seven mosques and expelled Turkish-funded Imams while placing under tight scrutiny dozens more Turkish Imams.

“Parallel societies, politicized Islam or radical tendencies have no place in our country,” Kurz said as was reported by the New York Times.

Austria’s move to close mosques prompted a furious reaction from Erdogan, who condemned the decision, labeling it Islamophobic and promising to retaliate against them. He used the rally in Bosnia to underline his proclivity for challenging the Western countries. He declared in front of a crowd of more than 12,000 supporters that

“At a time when the glorious European countries that claim to be the cradle of democracy failed, Bosnia and Herzegovina proved to be not ostensibly, but truly democratic by giving us the opportunity to gather here.”

Many corrupt politicians, Imams, representatives of NGOs, and members of academia in the Balkans remain united in their resolve to campaign on Erdogan’s behalf, as they have been enjoying over the years the largess and comfort that Erdogan provides to his loyalists. This is how Erdogan succeeded in winning hearts and minds, especially among the region’s Muslim population.

Albanian politician Grida Duma, representing the Democratic Party, the second-largest group in the parliament, said to us that,

“For Rama, the Albanian Prime Minister’s challenge to the EU by appeasing Erdogan is dangerous… and would create serious consequences… as the closeness between Rama and Erdogan does not serve Albania’s geostrategic interests.”

Journalists and civil society representatives from Balkan countries are deeply concerned about what may come next, notably following the amendment to the Turkish constitution and Erdogan’s reelection, which granted him unprecedented powers.

Andi Bushati, a journalist and publisher from Albania, affirms Duma’s observation and suggested that

“This closeness manifests itself not only by symbolic acts, such as Rama’s applause to Erdogan’s statement that ‘Kosovo is Turkey and Turkey is Kosovo,’ but also politically, for example, by endorsing Erdogan’s condemnation of Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”

To express their admiration of this authoritarian leader, Serbian, Macedonian, Kosovar, Albanian, and Bosnian leaders hailed Erdogan’s re-election and attended his inauguration in a show of solidarity.

Meanwhile, Kosovo’s acquiescence to Erdogan’s Islamic agenda is becoming increasingly transparent. A few weeks ago, hundreds of Kosovars marched in support of “Turkish democracy” led by the Turkish Ambassador in Kosovo, Kıvılcım Kılıç.

Bekim Kupina, a seasoned journalist from Kosovo, said that Kosovo’s leaders must not allow Erdogan to use their country as a springboard to Europe.

“Kosovo needs schools, kindergartens, and job opportunities, and not religious institutions that Turkey is building.”

As the EU seeks to increase its influence in the Balkans, Russia and Turkey have been working hard to strengthen their own ties to the region. The EU’s renewed interest in its southern backyard has also been prompted by fears of Moscow’s mounting influence in the Balkans.

Jelena Milic, director of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies in Belgrade, confirms that Erdogan and Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic are developing increasingly strong ties.

“Erdogan’s track record is not criticized by Serbia’s government-controlled media. Erdogan and Vucic visited Sandzak, a Bosnian Muslim populated province of Serbia, but Erdogan was very cautious to highlight only economic ties and investment opportunities”, says Milic.

According to her, Turkey’s influence in the region is growing at an alarming speed.

Former Bosnian diplomat Zlatko Dizdarević, who served as ambassador to Jordan, Croatia, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, describes Turkish meddling in Bosnia as a “threat” which further weakens the country by deepening internal divisions.

On the night of Erdogan’s re-election, Bosniak member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bakir Izetbegović, congratulated Erdogan on his victory, stating

“Mr. President, you are not only the president of Turkey, you are the president of all of us.”

Sead Numanovic, Bosnian journalist, said that such statement further encourages Erdogan to intensify his interference in Bosnia, which has recently opened an AKP office in Sarajevo.

“Erdogan made a public promise to build a highway and speed road between Sarajevo- Novi Pazar and Belgrade. The cost of these two projects alone is over 3 billion euros”, says Numanovic.

He believes that the recent election’s outcome in Turkey has emboldened Erdogan, who will use his power and prestige to increase his political influence in the Balkans.

Erdogan is bent on doing so through financial means and investments, and there is little that can stop him because he believes he can lock horns with the EU without chancing much.

Conversely, Duma said that

“While the main projects were given to Turkish companies, there is no American company that has invested recently in Albania.”

There is no doubt about the closeness between Albanian Prime Minister Rama and Erdogan. Beside their friendly relations, they also support each other electorally.

To be sure, Erdogan has made his unprincipled position clear to Western powers, stressing that Turkey will become as powerful and influential as the Ottoman Empire was during its heyday. Erdogan’s ambition to reconstitute elements of the Ottoman era should have a chilling effect on any country with which Erdogan seeks active bilateral relations.

There are always insidious intentions behind his overtures, especially now that most of the countries in the Balkans are in the process of negotiating entry into the European Union, especially Serbia and Macedonia, who are recognized candidates for accession.

The Balkans now are Erdogan’s trump card against Europe, especially after he was barred by EU countries from expanding his Islamic agenda and particularly because the door for Turkey to become an EU member has, for all intents and purposes, been shut.

Since the Western Balkan countries have been seeking long-lasting relations with the EU, the EU should further strengthen its relations with the Balkan states by providing financial support and investing in major projects, while continuing to encourage social, political, and economic reforms.

That said, despite the preoccupation with Brexit, immigration, and violent extremism, the EU must maintain steady progress toward integration of the Western Balkan nations. By commencing accession negotiations with Macedonia and Albania, which according to the European commission are ready to join, the EU will send a clear message to the rest of the Balkan states of its seriousness about their prospective membership.

This will send a cautionary note to the Balkan leaders that the path to EU membership is open, but of necessity requires that they not cozy up to Erdogan, who has betrayed the EU’s founding principles and is obsessed with luring the Balkans to join his Islamist nationalistic orbit.

*

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies. [email protected]   Web: www.alonben-meir.com

Arbana Xharra authored a series of investigative reports on religious extremists and Turkey’s Islamic agenda operating in the Balkans. She has won numerous awards for her reporting, and was a 2015 recipient of the International Women of Courage Award from the US State Department.                       

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Launched by professors at Princeton University and signed by experts on both sides of the Atlantic, this declaration calls for a break with the policy of unconditional support for the Likud government in Israel by US president Donald Trump, and an engagement with the region toward its denuclearization, including the signing by Israel of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

*

The Middle East is in turmoil now, possibly again on the verge of a major war that could draw in the United States and Russia. President Donald Trump has pulled the United States out of the six nation nuclear agreement with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA. Although a few of his advisers counseled against leaving the agreement, he has brought into his cabinet advisers who are known to be hawkish toward the Middle East and prefer regime change in that area to regime reform. The most notable of these advisers is John Bolton, appointed as director of the National Security Agency. His policies align well with those of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who condemned the nuclear accord with Iran from the outset.

On May 14 of this year Israel celebrated the seventieth anniversary of its existence. It has enjoyed extraordinary military successes against its Arab neighbors in 1948, 1956, and 1967, and after suffering a setback at the outset of the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria, the Israel Defense Force crossed the Suez Canal and was in a position to threaten the capitals of Egypt and Syria and their many population centers. Yet, in spite of its unmatched military capabilities in the Middle East, its strong cultural institutions, its technological capacities, and its high standards of living with respect to the other states in the region, Israel has negotiated peace agreements only with Egypt and Jordan.

The United States government has provided immense financial and military support to Israel as have American citizens and American corporations. The American-Israeli Political Action Committee is one of the strongest pressure groups in the United States on a par with corporate lobbies and the National Rifle Association. The recent decision of the American government to move its embassy to Jerusalem, done without extracting any concessions from the government of Israel and with no support from its European allies, makes clear the American government’s support for the state of Israel.

Equally important and distinctly related, perhaps as severe as the tensions between Iran and Israel, is the presence of Israel’s soldiers on the west bank of the Jordan River, with its heavy Palestinian population. The Israel Defense Force has been in military occupation of that region for five decades, making it one of the longest military occupations of modern times. The Israeli state has used its power in that area to deny statehood to the Palestinians, to oppress the Palestinian population, to dispossess Palestinians of houses and land, and has established a substantial settler population, strongly committed to annexing these territories. American political decision makers, as well as Israeli political leaders, need to rethink their political, military, economic, and cultural policies in the region. If Israel maintains its army in the West Bank and continues, with Egypt, to isolate Gaza from the outside world, surely Israel will be seen as responsible for the well-being of the Palestinian populations. It will take on apartheid-like policies.

American and Korean political elites have contemplated a denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Would not such a policy, namely the denuclearization of the Middle East, be a worthwhile development and a major first step toward resolving the rising tensions in the area? To this day, the Israelis, possessing, according to some sources, 150 nuclear warheads and refusing to sign the non-nuclear proliferation accord or to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct inspections of its facilities, claim that Israel will never be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the region. Although the Iranians have not claimed that their nuclear program was a response to the presence of nuclear weapons in Israel, surely that must be a factor.

It is time that those of us interested in the Middle East and world peace make our voices heard. We call on others to endorse policies that favor denuclearization of the Middle East and a just and fair resolution of the Arab-Israeli dispute.

This statement originated at Princeton University through conversations involving Arno J. Mayer, Stanley J. Stein, and Robert L. Tignor, all retired faculty from the history department of Princeton University.

It was agreed to and signed by Abdel Aziz Ezz el-Arab (American University in Cairo), Joel Beinin (Stanford University), Noam Chomsky (MIT), Richard Falk (Princeton University and the University of California, Santa Barbara), Khaled Fahmy (University of Cambridge), James Gelvin (UCLA), Israel Gershoni (Tel Aviv University), Molly Greene (Princeton University), Alain Gresh (former editor of Le Monde Diplomatique and general editor of Orient XXI), Chris Hedges (former Middle East Bureau Chief for the New York Times); Yoram Meital (Ben Gurion University in the Negev; Ralph Nader (public citizen), Ilan Pappe (University of Exeter), Vijay Prashad (Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research); Roger Owen (Harvard University), Cyrus Schayegh (University of Geneva), Taqadum al-Khatib (Free University of Berlin), Michael Wood (Princeton University) and Juan Cole (University of Michigan). Most of the signers do research and teach courses on the modern Middle East.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

As most of the participants and crew from Al Awda (The Return) are being deported from their unlawful detention at Givon prison in Israel, we now have a clearer picture of just how much violence was used  by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in their attack on the first Freedom Flotilla ship on Sunday. Some participants were repeatedly tasered, including in the head. Others were punched or had their head beaten against a wall by IOF soldiers. Zip-cuffs were used in a manner which cut off circulation. That any of this should happen to any civilian is an outrage. That the Israeli military would deliberately hurt a frail, 69 year old, slightly built surgeon and an Indigenous elder is even more outrageous.

The official IOF story of a ‘uneventful arrival’ is clearly false and masks a seriously disproportionate reaction: there was no need to deploy 12 military vessels with hundreds of armed soldiers against one unarmed former fishing boat full of peaceful participants committed to non-violence. At least two of our unlawfully detained participants began hunger strikes in prison to protest the way they were kidnapped at sea and the unhealthy conditions under which they are being held. Yes international response has been muted.

“There is a noticeable similarity with the capture of the Arctic Sunrise by Russian forces in 2013,” observes Phil Ball, British activist and climber who on board the Greenpeace vessel in 2013 and subsequently imprisoned in Russia for two months. “But in our case the international outcry led to some measure of justice. Here we have another unarmed civilian vessel, this time carrying medical supplies, which was aggressively boarded in international waters, and the world community isn’t upholding the same level of accountability.”

Of particular concern is the fate of the two Al Jazeera journalists from Al Awda, who are among the last still held in unlawful detention at Givon prison in Israel. They have had their professional equipment, documents, personal property and money stolen while held by Israeli forces. Press freedoms are under attack by the Israel authorities and require our international support, so we must all #DemandPressFreedom

Given that our next Flotilla vessel, the Swedish-flagged sailboat Freedom, is due to reach Gaza soon with more boxes of much-needed medical supplies (including #Gauze4Gaza), it is even more important to affirm the internationally recognized right to innocent passage on the high seas. We call on all national governments and international organizations to demand that Israeli forces respect the personal integrity of all on board the sailing vessel #Freedom and we #DemandPressFreedom for journalists on board, their equipment and their stories.

*

Featured image is from Freedom Flotilla.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

President Donald Trump is threatening to take away the security clearances of a number of former senior intelligence and security officers who have been extremely critical of him. Most Americans were unaware that any ex-officials continued to hold clearances after they retired and the controversy has inevitably raised the question why that should be so. Unfortunately, there is no simple answer.

A security clearance is granted to a person but it is also linked to “need to know” in terms of what kind of information should or could be accessed, which means that when you are no longer working as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency you don’t necessarily need to know anything about China’s spying on the United States. Or do you? If you transition into a directorship or staff position of a major intelligence or security contractor, which many retirees do, you might need to retain the qualification for your job, which makes the clearance an essential component in the notorious revolving door whereby government officials transit to the private sector and then directly lobby their former colleagues to keep the flow of cash coming.

At top levels among the beltway bandit companies, where little work is actually done, some make the case that you have to remain “well informed” to function properly. The fact is that many top-level bureaucrats do retain their clearances for those nebulous reasons and also sometimes as a courtesy. Some have even received regular briefings from the CIA and the office of the Director of National intelligence even though they hold no government positions. A few very senior ex-officials have also been recalled by congress or the White House to provide testimony on particular areas of expertise or on past operations, which can legitimately require a clearance, though it such cases one can be granted on a temporary basis to cover a specific issue.

The problem arises when former officials use their clearances as bona fides to enhance their marketability for non-clearance jobs in the media or corporate world, particularly when those individuals are criticizing current government policies and behaving in a partisan fashion regarding specific candidates for office. Donald Trump was especially assailed by former officials John Brennan, James Clapper, Michael Hayden and Michael Morell before the 2016 election, all of whom continue to attack him currently, most particularly for the recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. During the 2016 campaign, Morell, who openly supported Hillary Clinton and is the designated intelligence on-air contributor for CBS news, deliberately linked the fact that he was ex-CIA Acting Director to his assertion that Trump was somehow an “unwitting agent of the Russian Federation” to establish his credibility. That type of activity should be considered abusive and an exploitation of one’s former office.

Morell left CIA in June 2013 and by November was a senior counselor with Beacon Global Strategies. According to the firm’s website, Beacon Global Strategies is a government and private sector consulting group that specializes in matters of international policy, foreign affairs, national defense, cyber, intelligence, and homeland security. Morell may know little about those issues as they have evolved in the past five years, but citing his clearance gives him credibility for knowledge that he might not really possess and also gives him direct access to former colleagues that he can lobby to obtain government contracts.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, who famously voted for the Communist Party candidate for US president in 1976, has also profited greatly from his government service, becoming rich from his board memberships. He sits on the board of directors of SecureAuth + CORE Security and also on the board of The Analysis Corporation. More important in terms of his public profile, he is the “Intelligence Consultant” for NBC News and MSNBC and appears regularly.

Last week Senator Rand Paul met with President Trump and recommended that Brennan’s security clearance be revoked. He argued that Brennan, Trump’s most aggressive critic, has been using his credentials to provide credibility when he calls meeting with Russia’s president “treasonous” and describes the president as “wholly in the pocket of Putin.” Clearance holders also more generally use their privileged access to “secret information” to leverage speaking and television network pundit fees. In other words, Brennan and the others are using their security clearances to enhance their incomes, monetizing their access to classified information to enhance their value.

It is by no means clear whether Trump will revoke the clearances of Clapper, Brennan, Morell and Hayden. As he is the legal source of all government clearances he has the power to do so. An equitable solution on the clearance issue more generally speaking would be to cancel all security clearances on the day when one leaves government service unless there is a direct and immediate transition to a private sector position that absolutely requires such a qualification. That would be fair to lower level employees seeking a second source of income and it would also eliminate many of those who are merely cashing in on their presumed access. As it is a rational solution it is very unlikely that it will be entertained by either the White House or by Congress.

*

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

Dr. Giraldi is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

In October, America’s war in Afghanistan will turn 17. At that point, it will be old enough to go and fight in itself—and there is no end in sight. The United States escalated the war in 2018 by increasing the number of its troops and airstrikes, and this year is bringing a record-high number of civilian deaths. Afghanistan has the worst rate of infant mortality in the world and ranks 175 out of 186 countries on the Human Development Index. Millions of Afghans live in severe poverty, unemployment is high, 41 percent of Afghan children under the age of five are stunted and 33 percent of the population is food insecure. While the U.S-led efforts to pacify the country have often been rationalized on the grounds that they will supposedly lead to the emancipation of Afghan women, just 8.8 percent of adult women have reached secondary school (compared to 35.4 percent of men), and the Afghan government—which the United States is fighting to keep in power—is ignoring violence against women. Torture under that government is widespread and on the rise, with a quarter of the victims under the age of 18.

These are the conditions that prevail under U.S occupation.

Since the 2001 invasion, the United States and its partners have carried out spectacular crimes in Afghanistan. Less than a month into the war, the United States scattered cluster bombs over a civilian village, and bombed a mosque and a hospital. A 2007 U.S-NATO bombing in Helmand province’s Gereshk district killed manycivilians, possibly more than 100. A year later, a U.S-led coalition airstrike in Nangahar province killed 47 Afghan civilians at a wedding. The next month, an American bombing in Herat killed 90 civilians. An Amnesty International report examines 10 cases from 2009 to 2013 where “mainly U.S. forces were responsible for civilian deaths, mostly through air strikes or night raids. At least 140 civilians were killed in these incidents, including pregnant women and at least 50 children.”

No one has ever been held accountable for these atrocities. In October 2015, a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) trauma center in Kunduz was destroyed by a sustained bombing campaign by U.S.-led coalition forces that killed at least 42  patients, 14 staff and 4 caretakers. The United States claims that this was an accident, but MSF says it gave the hospital’s GPS coordinates to the coalition four days before the attack. MSF reports,

“Our patients burned in their beds, our medical staff were decapitated or lost limbs. Others were shot from the air while they fled the burning building.”

Deadly U.S. bombings continue to the present. Less than two weeks ago, a U.S. bombing killed 14 Afghan civilians, three of them children, in Kunduz. That’s not an exhaustive list of U.S crimes in Afghanistan, but as long as the United States and its partners are bombing Afghanistan, more horrors can be expected.

The United Nations finds that anti-government elements such as the Taliban and daesh (the so-called “Islamic State”) are behind the majority of the attacks that have killed civilians so far in 2018. But it also notes “a sharp increase in civilian casualties” from airstrikes carried out by pro-government forces, a coalition in which America is a central player, with 1,047 civilians killed by this side of the war thus far in 2018. There’s good reason to believe that the U.S-led coalition is responsible for a greater portion of the civilian deaths than the UN report suggest. Civilian casualty tracking in Afghanistan, conducted by the U.S. and Afghan governments, is grossly inadequate—hardly a surprise given that the perpetrators are in charge of determining their own guilt.

The United States and its partners also share blame for Afghan civilian deaths caused by anti-government forces. According to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg conducted after World War II, a war of aggression is “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” What this means is that whoever starts a war is responsible for all the atrocities that occur in that war. The 2001 U.S-led invasion of Afghanistan was a war of aggression. The attack was not authorized by the United Nations, which means it was illegal. Nor is the argument that the United States had to invade because of the September 11, 2001 massacre tenable. In the early days of the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, the Afghan government offered to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden if the United States stopped its airstrikes. But the Bush administration called this “non-negotiable,” opting to wage more war and to replace the oppressive, misogynistic Taliban with the Northern Alliance, an outfit, in the words of Robert Fisk, wrought with “gangsters,” and “well-known rapists and murders” of Afghan civilians.

That the United States and its partners are culpable for “the accumulated evil of the whole” in Afghanistan is even clearer in view of the longer-term history. America’s assault on the country did not really begin in 2001. As the journalist Robert Dreyfuss shows in Devil’s Game, it dates to the early 1970s when the United States and its partners—particularly Pakistan and Saudi Arabia—conspired to handcuff Afghanistan’s progressives, nationalists and leftists—all of whom were strong at the time. These policies undermined Afghanistan’s hopes for a democratic society, never mind one with any degree of socio-economic equality. The U.S-led alliance’s policy reached its apotheosis later that decade when it empowered an insurgency of violent arch-reactionaries, unleashing a devastating war and the emergence of the U.S-backed Taliban government in the 1990s.

Apirations of the ruling class

To understand America’s nearly 50 years of violent intervention in Afghanistan, it is necessary to evaluate the efforts of the U.S. ruling class to secure political and economic primacy, a process that necessary includes keeping potential challengers at bay. Afghanistan is rich with natural gas, and Afghanistan has oil reserves that in 2010 were discovered to be substantially larger than previously thought. Afghanistan has an estimated $1 to $3 trillion in mineral wealth that the Trump administration has ogled. This includes gold, copper, iron, mercury, lead, uranium, chromium, lithium and an array of rare metals, resources that are used in cell phones, computers and military goods.

As a result of the current war, the United States undertook supervision of the privatization segments of the Afghan economy. A 2010 U.S State Department report notes that Afghanistan has “taken significant steps toward fostering a business-friendly environment for both foreign and domestic investment.” Scholar Michael Skinner’s research leads him to conclude that the

war in Afghanistan is “being used by the U.S.-led Empire of Capital as a bridgehead to open all [of] Eurasia to global free trade while simultaneously containing the aspirations of potential challengers.”

Afghanistan shared a border with the Soviet Union and shares one with China, a competitor of the U.S ruling class, and another with Iran, at present one of U.S. elites’ most hated adversaries. The value of this real estate is laid bare by Chinese and Iranian infrastructure projects in Afghanistan—in addition to those of India—which are crucial for determining the trade routes that will be required to export Afghanistan’s resources. As Adam Hanieh of the University of London points out, the Afghanistan-Pakistan region is at the intersection of the Gulf and Central Asia, forming “the crossroads of these two energy-rich areas.” This may go a long way to explaining the military bases the United States has constructed in Afghanistan, some of which are massive, suggesting America may be intending to stay in the country and use it as a launching pad for attacks within and possibly beyond Afghanistan’s borders.

The degree to which the U.S ruling class has succeeded in its pursuit of these goals remains an open question, but it’s difficult to imagine that the U.S economic and foreign policy establishment does not value having a military presence and allied government in such a strategic neighborhood. Zbigniew Brzezinski, a chief architect of the Carter administration’s plan to arm the mujahedeen and later an advisor to President Obama, was frank about this in 1997, writing that “the distribution of power on the Eurasian landmass will be of decisive importance to America’s global primacy.”

Getting out of Afghanistan

Ending the war is the precondition for Afghans to be able to have even minimal physical safety and access to social services, let alone any loftier political aspirations beyond that. Danielle Bell, human rights chief for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, notes that conflict-related violence is eroding the rights of children to education, healthcare, freedom of movement, family life, playing outdoors and otherwise enjoying a childhood free of the “brutal effects of war.” The war displaced 437,907 people in 2017 alone, and internally-displaced people lack adequate housing, food, water, health care and opportunities to pursue education and employment. As the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs puts it,

“Afghanistan has been in protracted conflict for almost thirty five years, which has seriously hampered poverty reduction and development, strained the fabric of society and depleted its coping mechanisms.”

These are among “the accumulated evil of the whole” wrought by America’s war on Afghanistan.

After nearly a half century, the jury is in: Afghanistan will not be safe or free under U.S tutelage. It’s time for the war to end and a central requirement of that is that America get out.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above 

Featured image: Western bumblebee photo by Steve Amus, USDA.

Four commonly used neonicotinoid pesticides can harm bees and other pollinators, according to a new analysis by California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation. The study found that current approved uses of the “neonics” on crops like tomatoes, berries, almonds, corn and oranges exposes bees to levels of the pesticides known to cause harm.

“The more we learn about the toxicity of neonics, the more apparent it is that pretty much any plant with nectar or pollen sprayed with these poisons is unsafe for bees,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “This important analysis is further proof that it’s time to ban all outdoor use of these harmful pesticides on crops.”

Recent analyses by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified harms to bees and pollinators from neonics used on cotton, citrus and several other fruits. But California’s analysis indicates neonics can cause much broader harm, including to pollinators commonly found on many types of vegetables, cereal grains, tree nuts, fruits and tobacco.

One of the most important findings of the new California analysis is the discovery of the high risk to bees posed by use of two neonicotinoids, thiamethoxam and clothianidin, on cereal grains like corn, wheat, rice and barley. Late last year the U.S. EPA announced it would consider an application from Syngenta to spray thiamethoxam directly on 165 million acres of wheat, barley, corn, sorghum, alfalfa, rice and potato.

Earlier this year California announced that it would no longer consider any applications by pesticide companies that would expand the use of bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides in the state.

“At the same time California is wisely prohibiting new uses of neonics, the U.S. EPA is considering approving the spraying of a neonic known to be harmful to pollinators on an area nearly the size of Texas,” said Donley. “It’s dangerous and it doesn’t make any sense.”

Background

Earlier this year, the European Union banned neonicotinoids for outdoor uses in agriculture. Europe’s decision came after Canada’s pesticide regulatory agency recommended banning imidacloprid, the most widely used neonicotinoid, based on demonstrated harms to aquatic ecosystems.

As other developed nations further restrict the use of these poisons, the U.S. EPA has largely ignored the risks. Last year a rule that would have placed limited restrictions on neonics when commercial honeybees were present in fields was changed from mandatory to voluntary.

The U.S. EPA is currently in the process of reanalyzing neonic impacts to humans and the environment and is expected to re-approve the pesticides by the end of 2018.

California’s pesticide office is in the process of identifying mitigation measures to reduce the risk of neonics to bees, which the agency says will be finalized in the next two years.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Russia is pursuing a remarkably balanced naval strategy in the Afro-Bengal Ocean (Indian Ocean) that strives to maintain equal relations with its Pakistani and Indian counterparts, being drawn to the region not just because of its desire to maintain strategic stability between these two rivals through “military diplomacy”, but also to protect forthcoming offshore energy investments and participate in the game of prestige that all Great Powers are presently playing in this crucial body of water.

The Russian Navy isn’t usually the first branch of the Armed Forces that comes to mind when thinking about the country’s military, but it nevertheless has taken on a heightened strategic importance over the past few years following its participation in the anti-terrorist campaign in Syria, most notably through the launching of its Kalibr cruise missiles from positions in the Caspian and Eastern Mediterranean Seas. President Putin also announced over the weekend during the Navy Day celebrations in Saint Petersburg that his country’s flotilla will receive 26 new ships by the end of the year, further emphasizing the significance of naval assets for Russia’s grand strategy.

There are plenty of uses that Russia’s five existing fleets (Baltic, Black, Caspian, Northern, and Pacific) can have in advancing Moscow’s defensive designs across the 21^st century, but this piece proposes that the country’s navy might begin expanding its scope of operations to the Afro-Bengal Ocean (still popularly known by its colonial-era name as the “Indian Ocean”). There was already a very minor presence here during the last decade in the Gulf of Aden in order to support the international mission against piracy in the region, but two recent developments point to a more pronounced shift towards this highly strategic southern body of water.

“Military Diplomacy”

The first is that Pakistan’s Vice Chief of Naval Staff visited Saint Petersburg last weekend and signed a Memorandum of Understand (MoU) with the Russian Navy, which coincided not just with Russia’s Navy Day celebrations, but also the first-ever visit of the Pakistani Navy to the Baltic Sea. Shortly afterwards, news reports circulated that Russia had earlier proposed a LEMOA-like logistics agreement with India, though one that supposedly has to do more with servicing equipment than using the host country’s facilities for de-facto forward-operating purposes like the Americans have in mind. Taken together, it’s clear that Russia is trying to “balance” Pakistan and India in the Afro-Bengal Ocean.

At this point, it’s important to comment on Russia’s strategy of “military diplomacy”, which seeks to maintain the balance of power between multiple pairs of rival states through arms shipments and other forms of military cooperation with both. In the relevant context, this explains why Russia continues to export billions of dollars of weaponry to India while expanding its anti-terrorist military cooperation with Pakistan to the naval realm. Keeping this nuanced policy in mind, it wouldn’t be surprising if Russia’s offer to sell its Kalibr-armed Karakurt corvettes to India, Vietnam, and China was broadened to also include Pakistan one day in order to maintain the greatest degree of “balance” in the Afro-Pacific.

After all, the India-China and Vietnam-China pairs of rivaling states form the basis of Russia’s “balancing act” in Asia, especially its military component, but relentless American and “Israeli” inroads into India’s military-industrial complex in recent years have chipped away at Moscow’s former dominance of this sphere and compelled it to diversify its Asian arms portfolio. This is one of the many reasons why Russia is engaging in unprecedented levels of military cooperation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan as part of its “Ummah Pivot”, so it would follow that naval sales to Pakistan might eventually become a part of this larger strategy, especially if India rebuffs Russia’s LEMOA-like proposal because of American pressure.

“Energy Diplomacy” And Prestige

Looking beyond the indirect regional presence established through “military diplomacy”, Russia will soon have other reasons to directly involve itself in the Afro-Bengal Ocean if its prospective offshore Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline is ever built. All Great Powers have an interest in defending such multibillion-dollar investments, and Russia is no different. It could also be drawn closer to this body of water through any forthcoming energy cooperation with India and Myanmar, and especially if it acquires a foothold in the LNG-rich countries of Tanzania and Mozambique as part of its plan to become one of Africa’s main energy partners. Through these means, Russia’s “energy diplomacy” could actually drive its “military diplomacy”.

Fielding a flotilla in the Afro-Bengal Ocean isn’t just about simple pragmatism and the tangible defense of one’s national interests, but is also increasingly taking on a very influential prestige component whereby all emerging and established powers are feeling compelled to have a presence in this region simply by inertia of everyone else seemingly doing so too. This dynamic was first put on full display during the pre-“Scramble for Africa” of the 21^st century that saw many countries dispatching naval forces to the Gulf of Aden to combat piracy, where most of them continued to remain in one capacity or another following the climax of that crisis.

From Sudan To Pakistan

Great Powers such as Italy and Japan, who aren’t normally associated with the Afro-Bengal Ocean, actually have bases in Djibouti that allow them to maintain a position in this strategic region, and even landlocked Ethiopia has plans to build a navy, proving just how far the prestige game is going in this part of the world. To that end, Russia might seriously consider taking Sudan up on its offer to build a naval facility in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, from where it could simultaneously exert influence along the Sahelian-Saharan Silk Road inside the African hinterland through its terminal port and also into the Afro-Bengal Ocean beyond the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Bearing in mind that Pakistan also has a developing interest in expanding its all-around connectivity with Africa in order to benefit from China’s increasing trade with the continent through CPEC, it would make sense for its navy to conceptualize a strategy for the Arabian Sea-Gulf of Aden (ASGA) region as a first step to advancing this vision. The overlap of naval interests between Russia and Pakistan could possibly even see the pairing of their proposed naval facilities in Port Sudan with Gwadar through a LEMOA-like logistics agreement between these two Great Powers, thereby facilitating the Russian Navy’s defensive patrols of the IPI pipeline and the Pakistani ones of CPEC’s Sea Lines Of Communication (SLOC).

Concluding Thoughts

It shouldn’t be forgotten that none of these possible long-term plans are aimed against any country, especially India and the US vis-à-vis Russia and Pakistan’s motivations respectively, but that the abovementioned ideas are intended to epitomize win-win cooperation in the emerging Multipolar World Order. Russia’s recently reported efforts to clinch a LEMOA-like deal with India are proof of its desire to preemptively quash any externally manipulated “security dilemma” between these two historic partners and signal that its fast-moving “military diplomacy” with Pakistan isn’t meant to disrupt the regional balance like the US’ moves with India are.

Given the enormity of energy investments that Russia is making in the Mideast, South Asia, and Southeast Asia (with reference off the Myanmar coast), and the plans that it has to expand its extraction operations into Africa (with a particular focus on Mozambique), it only makes sense that Moscow would begin preparing well in advance to field its navy in the Afro-Bengal Ocean just like it did during the Soviet period, albeit for entirely different reasons during the present era.  The game of Great Power prestige also has something to do with it as well, so be that as it may, Russia has plenty of reasons to resume its naval activity in this strategic space.

*

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

You may recall the fuss Theresa May made about getting rid of the Islamist preacher Abu Qatada. 

In the end it took 11 years of legal wrangling to get this fanatic, with his very nasty opinions, out of the country. 

Without her personal intervention at the end, he would probably still be here.

Why, then, is the British Government seriously considering welcoming into this country an unknown number of men who have been – I put this at its mildest – closely associated for several years with an armed faction linked to Al Qaeda, or with others perhaps even worse?

Was all the fuss about Abu Qatada just a public relations front? Or does the right hand just not know what the left hand is doing?

Here’s what is going on. Last week the new Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, put his name to a very odd statement about a very odd event.

I think the nicest thing to say here is that Mr Hunt is a bit inexperienced. The statement said that Britain would be ‘protecting’ a group of ‘White Helmets’, supposedly civil defence workers from Syria. That’s what they call themselves, anyway.

The 400 people involved (a quarter of them said to be ‘White Helmets’) had been caught by the sudden collapse of Islamist jihadi rebel forces in a southern corner of Syria next to the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

And, despite the defeated rebels being Islamist jihadi fanatics, they were mysteriously allowed to cross into Israel so that they could escape to Jordan.

Israel? Such people normally regard Israel with violent hatred, a feeling Israel returns with interest.

As far as I can discover, other defeated groups of Syrian rebels and their hangers-on have been bussed under safe conducts to the rebel-held north of Syria, under Turkish and Russian supervision. Why not this time?

Later, the Jordanian government revealed that some of them would now be resettled in Britain. Its spokesman announced that Britain, Germany and Canada made a ‘legally binding undertaking’ to resettle them ‘within a specified period of time’ due to ‘a risk to their lives’. Legally binding, eh?

What was this risk? What were they so worried about? Why do they need to come to Britain when the whole Arab Muslim world must presumably long to welcome these glorious, self-sacrificing heroes?

For, according to the Foreign Office, and many others, the ‘White Helmets’ are the good guys.

They like them so much they have so far spent £38.4million of your money and mine on supporting them.

The FO is in a mess over this. It has for years been backing the Islamist rebels against the Syrian government, a policy which involves supporting exactly the sort of people we would arrest if we found them in Birmingham.

Perhaps that is why it claims the ‘White Helmets’ are ‘volunteers’ (they are often paid) and that they have ‘saved over 115,000 lives during the Syrian conflict’ and done ‘brave and selfless work’ to ‘save Syrians on all sides of the conflict.’

When I asked them to provide independent, checkable evidence for these assertions, they came up empty after three days of searching.

This is not surprising, as the ‘White Helmets’ generally operate only in areas controlled by unlovely bodies such as the Al-Nusra Front, until recently an affiliate of Al Qaeda, and the equally charming Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), famous for putting captured Syrian Army soldiers in cages and using them as human shields.

Independent Western observers, whether they are diplomats or journalists, can’t really go to these zones, because they are quite likely to end up very dead and probably headless.

So you can choose whether to believe the ‘White Helmets’ and their flattering picture of their own goodness, or wonder why exactly they are in such need of protection that these much-feted and saintly humanitarians are willing to be evacuated through a country that most Arab Muslims loathe and despise, rather than rely on the mercy of their own countrymen.

Is it possible (I only ask) that, while undoubtedly brilliant at public relations, and at making slick videos showing themselves rescuing wounded children, the ‘White Helmets’ are not quite as nice as they say they are?

Even the USA, which has for years (like us) helped the Syrian rebels, refused entry to the leader of the ‘White Helmets’, Raed Saleh, when he arrived at Washington’s Dulles Airport in 2016. They won’t say why.

The FO tells me that the Home Office, not them, will be vetting those chosen to come here. I hope they are careful when they do so. I am sure that future Home Secretaries will not be grateful if any of the new arrivals turns out to have the same opinions as Abu Qatada.

In any case, it is time the British Government came clean about who it has been helping in Syria.

*

Featured image is from TruePublica.

For almost seventeen years, Global Research, together with partner independent media organizations, has sought Truth in Media with a view to eventually “disarming” the corporate media’s disinformation crusade.

To reverse the tide, we call upon our readers to participate in an important endeavor.

Global Research has over 50,000 subscribers to our Newsletter.

Our objective is to recruit one thousand committed “volunteers” among our 50,000 Newsletter subscribers to support the distribution of Global Research articles (email lists, social media, crossposts). 

Do not send us money. Under Plan A, we call upon our readers to donate 5 minutes a day to Global Research.

Global Research Volunteer Members can contact us at [email protected] for consultations and guidelines.

If, however, you are pressed for time in the course of a busy day, consider Plan B, Consider Making a Donation and/or becoming a Global Research Member. 

*     *     *

BRICS Summit Held in South Africa While U.S. Trade War Escalates

By Abayomi Azikiwe, August 02, 2018

Republic of South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa hosted the 10^thBRICS Summit where strong opposition to the burgeoning trade and currency wars initiated by the United States administration of President Donald Trump was assailed.

Global Fires and Droughts: The Media Cover-up of Climate Change

By Dr. Andrew Glikson, August 02, 2018

There was a time when the contamination of drinking water constituted a punishable crime. Nowadays those who willfully ignore or promote the destruction of the Earth’s atmosphere and ocean acidification through the rise in emission of carbon gases (2014 ~36.08 billion ton CO2/year ; 2017 ~36.79 billion ton CO₂/year), hold major sway in the world.

Trump Threatens Iran to Distract From Russia Criticism and Appease Israel

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, August 02, 2018

Trump is now desperate to deflect criticism away from his much-criticized summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Trump knows that a war — conducted with the right spin — could help the GOP in the midterm elections. And Israel, the United States’ closest ally, has been gunning for regime change in Iran, which Israel considers to be an existential threat.

Rwandan Dictator Paul Kagame’s Paranoia Strikes Deep

By Ann Garrison, August 02, 2018

The Indian Ocean Newsletter reports that French intelligence warned Yoweri Museveni that Kagame was plotting to have his plane shot down over Rwanda, causing him to cancel a flight from Uganda to Burundi for a summit. If said plot had come to fruition, it would have been Kagame’s second presidential assassination by plane shoot-down over Rwanda. In 1994, his men shot down the plane carrying Rwandan Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian Hutu President Cyprien Ntaryamira from Arusha, Tanzania, to Kigali, Rwanda. That shoot-down triggered the infamous hundred days of ethnic massacres known as the Rwandan Genocide.

The Yellow Peril Comes to Washington. Is China Also Involved in “Election Meddling”!?

By Philip Giraldi, August 02, 2018

So President Donald Trump reckoned on Monday that the United States Intelligence Community (IC) just might be wrong in its assessment that Russia had sought to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election but then decided on Tuesday that he misspoke and had the greatest confidence in the IC and now agrees that they were correct in their judgment.

On 65th Anniversary of Korean Truce, Activists Criticize the US for Delaying Real Peace

By Kevin Zeese, August 02, 2018

South Korean peace and justice activists have been writing to us at Popular Resistance complaining that the United States is not responding to the positive steps being taken by North Korea before and after the meeting between President Trump and Chairman Kim. They have sent us information about protests they are organizing in South Korea aginst the United States as well as in Washington, DC.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Israel’s Defence Ministry announced on Thursday it was banning gas and fuel from entering Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing, the main point of entry of international aid into the besieged strip.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the decision aims to stop Palestinians from using kites and balloons set on fire and flown over the fence to cause damage in Israel.

“The decision has been taken in view of the continued terror of incendiary balloons and friction along the fence,” a statement by Lieberman’s office said.

Palestinians say the balloons are a modest and legitimate means of resistance against Israel’s deadly violence and blockade of Gaza.

Israel has stepped up its crippling sanctions on Gaza as Palestinians continue to regularly demonstrate along the fence separating Gaza from Israel as part of the Great March of Return.

The protest campaign calls for an end to the 11-year Israeli blockade on Gaza and for Palestinian refugees’ right of return to the lands that their families fled during the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

Since the demonstrations began on 30 March, the Israeli army has killed at least 155 Palestinian protesters, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Israel had closed the Kerem Shalom crossing and reopened it partially last week after warnings from UN officials that emergency fuel supplies are running low in the Gaza Strip.

Fuel shortages and power cuts have created a dire situation for hospitals and water sanitation systems.

*

Featured image is from UPI.com

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

After nearly 18 months of sittings and questioning witnesses, parliament’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee (DCMS) has finally released an interim report on “fake news.”

“Evidence” has been selected and manipulated to justify the committee’s demand to ramp-up the UK ruling elite’s anti-Russia campaign.

On the pretext of combating fake news from Russia, the report calls for immediate steps to crack down on the democratic rights of individuals and political organisations, censor social media and close down alternative media sources that expose the plans of the imperialist powers.

A related purpose of the report is to use allegations of Russian political interference to halt or reverse the Brexit vote.

The select committee investigation was launched in January 2017, tasked with investigating “fake news” and centring on accusations of “foreign interference” in the June 2016 referendum on UK membership of the European Union and the June 2017 general election. It was formed in tandem with the Democratic Party’s campaign against the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election which has also centred on allegations of Russian interference.

The DCMS summary states,

“There are many potential threats to our democracy and our values,” including ‘fake news,’ created for profit or other gain, disseminated through state-sponsored programmes, or spread through the deliberate distortion of facts, by groups with a particular agenda, including the desire to affect political elections.”

“Such has been the impact of this agenda, the focus of our inquiry moved from understanding the phenomenon of ‘fake news,’ distributed largely through social media, to issues concerning the very future of democracy. Arguably, more invasive than obviously false information is the relentless targeting of hyper-partisan views, which play to the fears and prejudices of people, in order to influence their voting plans and their behaviour.”

The DCMS identifies Russia as the puppet master able to influence the thoughts and very actions of millions of people all over the world:

“In particular, we heard evidence of Russian state-sponsored attempts to influence elections in the US and the UK through social media, of the efforts of private companies to do the same, and of law-breaking by certain Leave campaign groups in the UK’s EU Referendum in their use of social media.”

The DCMS calls on the term “fake news” to be discarded by the government as there is “no clear idea of what it means, or agreed definition.” Instead, the government should put forward “an agreed definition of the words ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’” that “can be used as the basis of regulation and enforcement.”

Why the DMCS, consisting of five Conservatives, five Labourites and a Scottish National Party representative would feel it necessary to discard the term “fake news” is clear. These are representatives of a right-wing political and corporate set-up that is universally despised. This same parliament voted to take Britain to war in Iraq based on lies that Saddam Hussein possessed “weapons of mass destruction.” The most infamous “fake news” document of the 21st century, the “dodgy dossier,” was used in 2003 to justify the US/UK led invasion that resulted in over a million deaths.

Russia or “Russian” is mentioned 134 times in the report, an average of 1.5 mentions per page. It states that, “The evidence led us to the role of Russia specifically, in supporting organisations that create and disseminate disinformation, false and hyper-partisan content, with the purpose of undermining public confidence and of destabilising democratic states. This activity we are describing as ‘disinformation’ and it is an active threat.”

When it comes to quantifying the “active threat,” the DCMS offers nothing of substance. It castigates Facebook who “told us that the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) had bought only three adverts for $0.97 in the days before the Brexit vote.” It adds, “According to evidence that Facebook submitted to Congress, and later released publicly, Russian anti-immigrant adverts were placed in October 2015 targeting the UK, as well as Germany and France. These amounted to 5,514.85 roubles (around £66).”

Asked by the DMCS to provide details on all political advertising paid for by Russian agencies targeting UK Facebook users from October 2015 to date, Facebook replied in June this year, “Looking further back over the activity of the IRA accounts from as early as January 2015 (including the period of over a year before the start of the regulated referendum period), the total spend on impressions delivered to the UK is approximately $463.”

In order words, the “meddling” in British politics since 2015 by Russia consists of paying $463 in Facebook adverts!

This didn’t suit the objectives of the DCMC, who describe Facebook’s response as “obfuscation.”

After stating it has received “disturbing evidence,” of hacking, disinformation and voter suppression in elections since 2010, it notes that some of this remains unpublished.

The report seeks to link the Leave campaign with Russian interference, stating in bolded text that businessman and UK Independence Party funder “Arron Banks is believed to have donated £8.4 million to the Leave campaign, the largest political donation in British politics, but it is unclear from where he obtained that amount of money.”

Banks is estimated to be worth anything up to £250 million. Without revealing any of it, the report states,

“we have evidence of… Banks’ discussions with Russian Embassy contacts, including the Russian Ambassador, over potential gold and diamond deals, and the passing of confidential information by… Banks.”

The DCMS campaign was given the imprimatur of the mouthpiece of the Remain campaign and leading voice demanding an anti-Russian agenda, the Guardian. It hailed the “plucky little committee,” editorialising that its report has “the potential to reshape the political landscape,” as it “deals with issues demanding essential action. For this is subject-matter on which neutrality is not an option.”

Citing “Russian dirty tricks and destabilisation, Facebook’s consistent refusals to acknowledge its practical, moral or legal responsibilities, and the reckless audacity and contempt with which groups like SCL Elections, Cambridge Analytica, Global Science Research and Aggregate IQ—as well as the Vote Leave and Leave.EU campaigns—defied the regulatory authorities and the whole idea of the rule of law in politics,” it complains, “It is not impossible that this superior ruthlessness, audacity and defiance enabled the leave side to win the 2016 referendum…”

This must be combated by a huge assault on democratic rights, with the DCMS stating, “In this rapidly changing digital world, our existing legal framework is no longer fit for purpose.”

In a measure aimed at censoring web sites that oppose official lies, it states that government should “initiate a working group of experts to create a credible annotation of standards, so that people can see, at a glance, the level of verification of a site.”

A “new category of tech company” should be developed, “which is not necessarily either a ‘platform’ or ‘publisher.’” These companies should have a “clear legal liability” to “act against harmful and illegal content.”

This would be the basis for a dragnet to delete masses of social media content.

The liability should “include both content that has been referred to them for takedown by their users, and other content that should have been easy for the tech companies to identify for themselves. In these cases, failure to act on behalf of the tech companies could leave them open to legal proceedings launched either by a public regulator, and/or by individuals or organisations who have suffered as a result of this content being freely disseminated on a social media platform.”

It recommends, “ Paid-for political advertising data on social media platforms, particularly in relation to political adverts,” should identify their “source, explaining who uploaded it, who sponsored it, and its country of origin.”

A ban on micro-targeted political advertising to similar audiences and “a minimum limit for the number of voters sent individual political messages should be agreed, at a national level. ”

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Featured image: Syrian government forces arrive at Quneitra crossing in Syrian Golan to resume control (Source: Tikun Olam)

Just as Russia doused a potential conflagration over stationing of Iranian forces in the Syrian Golan, Bibi Netanyahu lit sparks in the south over a Houthi rocket attack on a Saudi oil tanker.  For months, Israel has cajoled and threatened Russia into restraining Iran from stationing its forces in the Syrian Golan.  As a result, the Russians have just successfully completed a meeting with Iran and Turkey, which guaranteed that Iranian forces and their Shiite militias will withdraw to 85 kilometers from the Golan armistice line.  In exchange, Israel has been forced to accept the return of Syrian forces to this zone and the return of government control.  Previously, the Golan had been controlled by Israeli Islamist allies, al-Nusra, which is affiliated with al Qaeda.

Israel had demanded that the Iranians withdraw completely from Syria, though this clearly was a non-starter.  Later, it suggested the Iranians stay within 100 miles of the ceasefire line.  It remains to be seen whether this will bring the desired quiet to this volatile front.  Israel has mounted hundreds of air attacks on Iranian and Hezbollah positions inside the country.  If it doesn’t cease these assaults, then it could draw the Iranians back across the 85km line in response.

Netanyahu, whose premiership seems built upon the premise of constant war or threat of war, today turned to his southern flank.  He told a military ceremony that if Iran’s Houthi allies continued to threaten shipping in the Bab al Mandab waterway separating Yemen from the Horn of Africa, the IDF would join or lead a Sunni coalition which would break such a blockade and counter-attack against Iran.  This is precisely the response Israel’s Saudi allies expected when Houthi forces fired a missile at a Saudi oil tanker headed to Egypt.

It seems to me that we are now in a pre-WWI situation in the Middle East.  There are primary enemies (Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel) and there are secondary states allied with one side or the other: Yemen, Syria, Iraq vs. Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Egypt, Jordan and Israel.  Not only can war break out due to a direct conflict between the primary parties; even an inadvertent provocation by one of the secondary allies could launch a major conflagration.  This is precisely how WWI commenced with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand by Serbian nationalists.

Imagine that Houthi missile actually blowing up the ship and its 2-million gallons of oil.  Or imagine the assassination of a major figure in any of these countries.  All it will take is a single spark to light this fuse.  Unlike Donald Trump thus far, Netanyahu has shown himself ready and willing to take his country to war.  At least twice earlier in his reign, he pressured his security cabinet to attack Iran.  Both times, his military and security chiefs rose up and objected to such plans, and both times Netanyahu backed down.  But clearly, he’s itching to give Iran a bloody nose.

Of course the problem with this is that the result could be far worse than a bloody nose.  In fact, the result could be rivers of blood: both Iranian and Israeli.

Today, The Intercept revealed that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson nearly single-handedly talked the Saudi leadership out of invading Qatar shortly after it declared a blockade on the Gulf kingdom, which the Saudis saw as betraying their Sunni allegiance by sidling up to Iran over oil and gas deals.  Until Tillerson intervened to prevent such an escalation, Pres. Trump seemed only to happy not just to side with the Saudis in the conflict, but to permit a major military invasion of Qatar.  It was only after his secretary of state’s efforts bore fruit and the Saudis stood down from launching their war plans that Trump switched gears and toned down his anti-Qatar rhetoric.

If there had been such a war, it’s entirely possible that Iran would have sided with Qatar.  Turkey too supported the Qataris in this episode.  Would either or both of them have provided military support or even troops to support the Qataris?  Even if the Saudis had succeeded initially in taking over Qatar, it’s unlikely this would have been the end of things.  The Qataris would have continued to resist foreign occupation.  Their allies would provide logistical and military support.  At that point, the Saudis would have had two huge headaches on their hands: Yemen, where they’ve killed over 50,000 Yemenis; and Qatar.  These are just the sorts of misadventures which are likely to lead to full-scale region-wide military conflict.

Someone has to be the adult in this situation and hold up their hand and say: Stop!  Luckily for us, Tillerson was that person.  For his troubles, the Saudis and UAE ganged up on him and demanded that Trump fire him, which he later dutifully did.  Given the largess that these two states have thrown around Washington during the Trump administration, I have little doubt that a backroom deal involving consulting contracts and other forms of largesse greased the skids on the Tillerson firing.  It remains for Bob Mueller and enterprising journalists to offer us further revelations on this score.

Speculate for a second what might have happened if, instead of Rex Tillerson and H.R. McMaster running the show, it had been Mike Pompeo and John Bolton.  Given Pompeo and Bolton’s hankering for regime change in Iran, there is no chance they would have pursued the path the fired secretary of state did.  If anything, they would have piled fuel on the fire and given their blessings to yet another Saudi military adventure-intervention.  God help us if it comes to this again.  There will be war in the region and we will be partners in the slaughter.

It would be unthinkable for an American opposition party run openly out of Moscow to compete in American elections. It would be even more unthinkable for the Russian government to declare US elections illegitimate for disallowing a Moscow-backed party from running in American elections.

Yet this is precisely what the US and the European Union have attempted to do in the wake of Cambodia’s recent elections regarding an opposition party created by Washington and whose leadership calls Washington a second home.

US-EU Seek to Undermine Cambodian Election Results

The BBC in their article, “Cambodia election: Ruling party claims landslide in vote with no main opposition,” would claim:

Critics have called the vote a sham as the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which narrowly lost the last election, has been dissolved.

The US said the poll was “flawed”.

“We are profoundly disappointed in the government’s choice to disenfranchise millions of voters, who are rightly proud of their country’s development over the past 25 years,” a statement from the White House said.

The US will consider placing visa restrictions on more government officials, it added. The EU has said it is considering economic sanctions.

However, the BBC never explains why the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was dissolved.

Had it, Washington and Brussels’ statements would have been immediately rendered hypocritical and Cambodia’s decision to dissolve CNRP more than warranted. This is because CNRP is openly run out of Washington, with US support, for the expressed aim of undermining and eventually overthrowing the current Cambodian government.

Cambodia’s Opposition is Run From Washington 

Kem Sokha who had led CNRP until its dissolution had traveled to Washington annually since as early as 1993 to seek support from the US. He also repeatedly announced receiving direct US support, as well as plans for subverting the Cambodian government with US backing. 

Kem Sokha’s daughter, Kem Monovithya, has also openly worked with the US to seek the overthrow of the Cambodian government.

When Cambodia began its crackdown on both CNRP and the US-funded organisations supporting it, the US threatened sanctions and other punitive measures. Kem Monovithya would play a central role in promoting these punitive measures in Washington.

The Phonom Post in a December 2017 article titled, “US says more sanctions on table in response to political crackdown,” would claim:

…in Washington, a panel of “witnesses” convened by the House Foreign Affairs Committee – including Kem Sokha’s daughter, Kem Monovithya – called for additional action in response to the political crackdown. In a statement, Monovithya urged targeted financial sanctions against government officials responsible for undermining democracy. She also called on the US to suspend “any and all assistance for the central Cambodian Government”, while “continuing democracy assistance programs for civil society, particularly those engaged in election-related matters”.

Like her father, Kem Monovithya’s collaboration with the US government goes back much further. The Washington Post in a 2006 article titled, “While in U.S., Cambodians Get a Lesson on Rights From Home,” would first admit:

Kem Sokha, a former Cambodian senator and official, heads the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, which is supported by U.S. government funds. The center has held public forums to hear complaints about conditions in Cambodia.

Regarding Kem Monovithya herself, the Washington Post would note:

Monovitha Kem, a business school graduate and aspiring lawyer, said she would lobby U.S. and international institutions to fight Hun Sen’s decision.

“I would like to see the charges dropped not just for my father, but for all other activists,” she said in an interview Monday. “I hope they will amend the defamation law.”

Monovitha Kem has met with officials at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Republican Institute, the U.S. Agency for International Development and major human rights groups.

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) are both subsidiaries of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which, together with the US government itself, have supported myriad subversive activities within Cambodia for years.

This includes a number of organisations cited in a May 2018 Washington Post article attempting to deny claims of US meddling by citing almost exclusively US-funded fronts operating in Cambodia.

This includes Licadho, which is funded by both the UK government and the US via USAID. It also includes Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, both of which are funded by the US government and overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors chaired by US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo himself. There is also the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, funded by NED subsidiaries Freedom House and IRI as well as the British Embassy and convicted financial criminal George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.

Literally decades of US meddling in Cambodia’s politics, including the creation of both Kem Sokha’s opposition party and organisations created and funded by the US government to support it, along with plans to overthrow the current Cambodian government to install CNRP into power, represents in reality political meddling many times worse than even the most imaginative accusations made against Russia in regards to meddling in US and European politics.

US Meddling Seeks Chinese Encirclement 

US interests in Cambodia go beyond merely controlling the nation’s people and resources, it stems primarily from a much wider and long-term plan to encircle China with client states serving Washington’s vision of perpetual American primacy in Asia.

Along with allegations from US-European leadership and their respective media conglomerations attempting to condemn Cambodia’s recent elections as “illegitimate,” US-European media made little effort to hide equal condemnation regarding China’s inroads into Cambodia recently.

Reuters in an article titled, “Cambodia’s Hun Sen has an important election backer: China,” would claim:

China announced a major infrastructure project in Cambodia midway through its election campaign and denounced proposed economic sanctions by the European Union on the Southeast Asian nation.

China’s ambassador in Phnom Penh also attended a ruling party rally in the Cambodian capital, according to a media report.

The flurry of moves during the three-week campaign shows China is leaving nothing to chance to ensure its most loyal ally in Southeast Asia, Cambodia’s long-time ruler Hun Sen, comfortably wins Sunday’s poll, political analysts said.

Thus, while many may be tempted to defend US meddling in Cambodia as they have similar US meddling elsewhere as merely “promoting democracy” and “human rights,” it is clear that US meddling in Cambodia sought to prevent China from building constructive ties with a friendly government by creating a client state that would spur Beijing in favour of Washington.

Reuters complains that Cambodia has supported Beijing over Washington amid ongoing South China Sea tensions. Reuters even obliquely suggests that infrastructure deals made between China and Cambodia during the election campaign constituted some form of political meddling. No mention of overt US meddling in Cambodian politics, including the creation and sponsorship of the main opposition party, CNRP is made in Reuters’ article.

While Reuters claims Cambodian relations with the West includes “decades of diplomatic effort and billions of dollars of aid and investment,” Cambodia has very little to show for it. Claims that the West “bristled at human rights violations and electoral irregularities in Cambodia” opened the door for closer Chinese-Cambodian ties begs belief considering no such human rights-based “bristling” occurs in regards to Western ties with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the current government in Ukraine.

It is clear that the US and Europe attempted to reassert control over Cambodia through the co-opting of its government and institutions and that much of the West’s supposed “investments” in Cambodia were directed into this political meddling. Conversely, China is proposing actual infrastructure projects like motorways, airports and electricity distribution networks, all areas Cambodia is critically lacking in, even after “billions of dollars of aid and investment” from the West.

Cambodia, through its ties with China and its own straightforward approach to uprooting foreign meddling in its internal affairs has averted the latest attempt by the US and Europe to destabilise the nation and exert control over its future from Washington and Brussels. Other nations in the region, including neighbouring Thailand and Malaysia, still face extensive US-European meddling including persistent street movements and large networks of US-funded media platforms, legal firms and even political parties seeking to destabilise, and if possible, overthrow local governments and independent institutions.

Only through fully recognising the threat and working together can Southeast Asia ensure the age of American-European colonisation has ended for good and a new era of multipolarism and self-determination can begin.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was first published. 

 

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Republic of South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa hosted the 10^th BRICS Summit where strong opposition to the burgeoning trade and currency wars initiated by the United States administration of President Donald Trump was assailed.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) want to expand international cooperation and seek avenues of development independent of the western industrialized states.

The gathering comes at a time of rising acrimony prompted by the imposition of tariffs by the U.S. against Canada, the European Union and the People’s Republic of China. Although Trump said he was amending some of his measures during a meeting with EU President Jean-Claude Juncker on July 25 at the White House, it was not clear what the actual outcome of the putative truce would involve. 

On May 23 Trump ordered an investigation by the Department of Commerce under Section 232 on whether the importation of vehicles was a threat to national security. A conference of non-U.S. auto producers took place on July 31 in Geneva, Switzerland where a possible strategy to counter the Trump policy was discussed.

Attending the gathering in Geneva were the deputy trade ministers of the EU, Canada, Mexico, Japan and South Korea. Altogether these nations account for approximately $1 trillion in auto exports to the international market. 

However, in South Africa the tone of the discussion was quite different. The 10^th BRICS Summit was convened under the theme “BRICS in Africa: Collaboration for Inclusive Growth and Shared Prosperity in the Fourth Industrial Revolution”.

The bloc of member-nations and observers represent the so-called rapidly expanding “emerging economies.” These states have been marked by phenomenal economic growth over the last decade although they are facing profound challenges from the Western industrialized governments who are obviously threatened by the potential erosion of their global power.

A statement from the South African presidency said of the gathering that:

“The Summit is focused on the need to strengthen the relationship between BRICS and Africa. In this regard BRICS leaders will also interact with African leaders on how best to bring about inclusive growth and shared prosperity through heightened collaboration. In this context, leaders of the Republics of Namibia, Gabon, Angola, Senegal, Uganda, Togo and Rwanda will participate in the BRICS-Africa Outreach session.”

Prior to the summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited for the first times the West African state of Senegal and Rwanda in the eastern region of the continent. Discussions with Senegalese President Macky Sall and Rwandan leader Paul Kagame resulted in the deepening of economic relations between these African Union member-states and China. Following the BRICS Summit, President Xi stopped over in Mauritius where he held talks with Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth.  

In a media advisory issued by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs it says:

“The visits will promote the further deepening of political mutual trust, mutual development assistance, mutual learning on each other’s concepts between China and Africa and the building of a closer China-Africa community of common destiny. They will jointly witness the signing of a series of cooperation agreements to elevate China-Rwanda practical cooperation to new highs.”

BRICS African participants, July 2018

Outcomes of the Summit

At the conclusion of the meeting, there was a 102-point declaration issued by the participants addressing a wide range of concerns from the role of the United Nations Security Council, the World Trade Organization (WTO), along with encouraging international cooperation in the fields of cinema, sports, culture, peacekeeping and economic development. The scope of the declaration is so broad that it encompasses the various political characteristics of the member-states and observers. (See this)

Although the final document does not directly criticize the protectionist and hostile economic posture of the U.S., it is obvious that the general tone of the proceedings poses a rebuttal to the efforts by the Trump administration to reclaim an uncontested dominant role for Washington and Wall Street in the present world situation. Ruling class interests in the U.S. clearly views the role of the Russian Federation and China as imperiling the existing international division of labor and financial power, where the leading imperialist nation is responding with threats of trade and currency wars which could easily lead to intensified military conflict over the control of the land, resources and waterways of the planet. 

At the opening session of the BRICS Business Forum, President Ramaphosa emphasized:

“We are meeting here, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when the multilateral trading system is facing unprecedented challenges. We are concerned by the rise in unilateral measures that are incompatible with World Trade Organization rules, and we are worried about the impact of these measures, especially as they impact on developing countries and economies. These developments call for thorough discussion on the role of trade in growing and promoting sustainable development, particularly in inclusive growth.”

President Xi spoke after his South African counterpart sounding a similar alarm stressing the need to oppose the Trump administration’s unilateralism. China, by far the largest economy among the BRICS grouping, and the second only to the U.S., is seeking to build a different type of inter-regional coalition aimed at countering U.S. influence. 

The Chinese president said of the contemporary crisis in international relations related to Washington and the rest of the world that:

“Unilateralism and protectionism are mounting, dealing a severe blow to multilateralism and the multilateral trading regime. We are facing a choice between cooperation and confrontation, between [an] opening up and a closed doors policy, between future benefits and the beggar-thy-neighbor approach. The international community has indeed reached a new crossroads.”

New Avenues of Cooperation and Development 

BRICS has established a New Development Bank whose aim is to establish an alternative to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Its goal is the accumulation of $100 billion in capital to disperse among member-states and others in the global south. By the end of 2018, the NDB will have loaned $7.5 billion to various countries. 

South Africa has received $180 million toward the state-controlled ESKOM Holdings SOC Ltd. for a renewable energy project. Another loan of $200 million has been allocated for the reconstruction of the Durban container terminal.

China on its own announced during the BRICS Summit that it is willing to invest $14.7 billion into ESKOM which has suffered immensely over the last few years. This is part and parcel of a policy by Ramaphosa to attract $100 billion in new investment into South Africa over the next five years.

Beijing pledged to support a planned investment summit in South Africa scheduled for October of this year. On a continental level, another Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) will take place in China during September.

A preliminary meeting of scholars from AU member-states and China met in Beijing on July 3-4 to determine ways in which cooperation can be enhanced.  The convening of The Seventh Meeting of the China-Africa Think Tanks Forum brought together three hundred scholars from China and Africa. (See this)

According to an article published by Xinhua news agency in June:

“Dazzling achievements in China during the past four decades of reform and opening-up set an invaluable example for growth-hungry African countries, African experts have told Xinhua. They believed that China’s rise to one of the world’s economic powerhouses results from a carefully pursued strategy over the four decades. They argued that China’s development path of reform and opening-up, without sacrificing core ideological principles or its independence, holds many of the critical elements that can help Africans harness its vast human and natural resources to build the continent into an economic and political powerhouse.” (See this)

*

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author.