Global Research

We heard the same refrain before. It keeps repeating about nonexistent “Russian aggression” in Ukraine.

Now it’s Syria. On Monday, its Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi called rumors about Russia building up its military presence in his country “fabricated by intelligence agencies of the West and some Arab countries.”

This hostile campaign is aimed at creating the impression that the Syrian state has become so weak that it has to seek direct military assistance from its friends.

Our relations with Russians, including in the military sphere, have been developing for a long time. However, there are no Russian troops in Syria. Russia conducts no military activities on land, at sea or in the air.

On Wednesday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he has no information about any plans for deploying Russian troops abroad anywhere.

“I know nothing about that,” he said. “This is the first time I heard about it.” The last time Putin asked the upper house Federation Council to authorize sending Russian forces abroad was in March 2014. He issued a statement at the time, saying:

Due to the emergency situation in Ukraine and a threat being posed to the lives of Russian nationals, our compatriots, and the Russian military contingent stationed in Ukraine (the Autonomous Republic of Crimea) in compliance with international agreements, I ask the Federation Council for permit to use Russian armed forces on the territory of Ukraine until social and political situation in the country stabilizes.

Under Article 102 of Russia’s Constitution, Federation Council members are responsible for deciding whether to deploy government troops abroad. They approved Putin’s request unanimously. They were never sent.

Russia has longstanding political, economic and military relations with Syria – in full compliance with international law. On Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharov explained, saying:

We never made a secret out of our military-technical cooperation with Syria. We have long supplied arms and military equipment to Syria. We are doing it in compliance with existing contracts and in full compliance with international law.

I can confirm and reiterate that there are Russian military specialists in Syria who help to use arriving equipment.

(I)f additional measures in the interests of boosting anti-terrorism efforts are required, then, undoubtedly, these issues will be additionally considered, but exclusively on the basis of international law of Russian legislature.

Arms deliveries are to combat US-imported Islamic State and other takfiri terrorists. Washington, rogue partners and irresponsible media sources irresponsibly bash Russia for legitimately supporting an ally – against US-sponsored aggression, Obama using terrorist invaders to do his dirty work. More on this below.

Moscow will continue fulfilling all its contractual obligations, including providing humanitarian aid. Washington pressured Bulgaria to close its airspace to Russian aircraft heading to Syria. Greece so far withstood similar bullying.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said “alternative routes will be found.” Humanitarian flights will continue, delivering vital aid. Iran responsibly said its airspace is open for Russian deliveries.

John Kerry displayed typical US arrogance – criticizing legitimate Russian aid and support for an ally, ignoring Washington’s full responsibility for war to oust Syria’s popularly elected government, creating the world’s greatest refugee crisis from all its aggressive conflicts, and threatening belligerence against against the Europe’s leading peacemaker for doing the right thing.

Washington Post editors bashed Russia headlining “Mr. Putin makes moves in Syria, exploiting America’s inaction,” saying:

“Not for the first time, the president appears to have badly misread the Russian ruler…Moscow appears to be doubling down,” regurgitating anti-Putin propaganda, falsely claiming he’s preparing to deploy military forces and “carry out air operations” supporting Assad.

Wall Street Journal editors reported the same Big Lie, claiming “Russia may be preparing for a major military deployment to” support Assad – despite no evidence proving it.

They cited unnamed “Western diplomats,” alleging “a Russian expeditionary force…already in Syria preparing for the arrival of jets and attack helicopters to carry out strikes against the Islamic State.”

“…Russia will do whatever it wants in Syria, and the US can do nothing about it,” they blustered.

In March 2011, Obama launched naked aggression against sovereign independent Syria – supported by Britain, France, Canada, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other rogue state allies.

Longstanding US plans call for replacing all independent governments with pro-Western puppet regimes. Wars are waged when other strategies fail.

Syria’s defeat would isolate Iran, making it vulnerable to US aggression, planned long ago, to be implemented at Washington’s discretion – by Obama or his successor.

Global conflicts begin this way. Endless US aggression and challenging Russia irresponsibly risk WW III, threatening humanity’s survival. Stopping Washington’s reckless agenda should be top priority for all peace activists worldwide.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

SELECTED ARTICLES

Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts on September 10, 2001 were confirmed by a CBS News Report. Osama had been hospitalized on September 10th, 2001, one day before the 9/11 attacks. How on earth could he have coordinated the attacks from his…

Inside the 9/11 Hearings: Uncovering Deception, Demanding the Truth By Michael Welch, David Ray Griffin, Lance deHaven-Smith, and Kevin Ryan, September 09, 2015 

New Evidence of Foreknowledge of the 9/11 Attacks: The 9/11 Consensus Panel By Consensus911.org, September 09, 2015

This text was written fourteen years ago, on September 30, 2001, in the week preceding the onslaught of the US-NATO war on Afghanistan. Officially the war on Afghanistan was in retribution for the alleged sponsorship of the 9/11 attacks by the Afghan government. You do not plan a large scale theater war in a matter of 3-4 weeks, the war on Afghanistan was planned well in advance of  September 11, 2001. (Michel Chossudovsky,  September 10, 2015)

*      *      *

America is preparing for war [late September 2001]. British and US Special Forces “trained in the arts of kidnapping and assassination” are already operating inside Afghanistan. More than one million US troops are on standby. US military bases around the World are on high alert: “the Japan-based USS Kitty Hawk battle group and the 7th Fleet are ready to join” in the largest display of military might since the Vietnam war.

The Bush Administration is planning on launching this military operation without delay, prior to the development of a cohesive anti-war movement in the US and around the World.

Already, US military personnel of the 82nd Airborne and 101st Air Assault Divisions have arrived in Pakistan. They will be collaborating with the Pakistani military and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the agency which over the years –under CIA guidance– has channeled support to the Islamic jihad including Osama bin Laden and the Taliban government in Kabul.

The pretext to wage war as a means of combating international terrorism is totally fabricated. In a cruel irony, the legitimacy of the Bush administration in embarking on this military adventure rests entirely on Osama bin Laden’s presumed role in the terrorist attacks of September 11.

At this critical juncture in US history, does President Bush have a firm grasp of the broad implications of his decisions? According to Time Magazine (15 November 1999):

…on too many issues, especially those dealing with the wider world of global affairs, Bush often sounds as if he’s reading from cue cards. When he ventures into international issues, his unfamiliarity is palpable and not even his unshakable self-confidence keeps him from avoiding mistakes.

A president with minimal understanding of key international and strategic issues can easily be manipulated by the military-intelligence apparatus.

Apart from reading carefully prepared speeches, is George W. Bush as President and Commander in Chief capable of formulating “responsible” foreign policy decisions? In this regard, does the President wield real political power or is he an instrument? In other words, who decides in Washington? On the eve of a major military adventure, this question is of utmost significance because ultimately the US military machine will respond when the president “pushes the button”.

The knowledge of the President on Pakistan and Afghanistan –i.e. the two countries which constitute the theatre of America’s war– is dismal to say the least. Prior to becoming President, George W. Bush thought the Taliban was a rock group.

In a 1999 TV interview with Andy Hiller on NBC (WHDH in Boston), when asked who was the president of Pakistan, George W. Bush had “the name of General Pervez Musharraf on the tip of his tongue, but then allowed his enthusiasm to make him appear to condone the military coup that ousted the elected prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.” (Daily Telegraph, 6 November 1999).

Below is an excerpt of this interview:

Bush: “The new Pakistani General, he’s just been elected – not elected, this guy took over office. It appears this guy is going to bring stability to the country and I think that’s good news for the sub- continent.”

Hiller: “And you can name him?”

Bush: “General. I can name the general.”

Hiller: “And it’s . . ?

Bush: “General.”

Hiller: “And the Prime Minister of India?”

Bush: “The new Prime Minister of India is – (pause) No.”

To which George W. Bush retorted with a question to Andy Hiller:

Bush: “Can you name the Foreign Minister of Mexico?”

Hiller: “No sir, but I would say to that, I’m not running for President.”

The G7 made the politically charged decision to suspend Russia’s membership following the country’s reunification with Crimea at the end of March 2014. At the time, many media outlets treated this news as being bound to have some sort of sensational consequence for Russia, but they were only partly right.

It definitely was a consequential event for the country, but not at all in the manner that they had expected. Instead of bringing about the doom and gloom scenario of an economic collapse, it actually freed Russia up to rapidly accelerate its geo-economic diversification and lay the foundation for entirely new economic fundamentals. The hunter thought he could ensnare the bear by using the honey of Western economic ‘integration’ as bait, but lo and behold, when the honey was punitively withdrawn before the bear was fully trapped, it lackadaisically shrugged off the former temptation and quickly made friends with the economic queen bee instead.

This article thus begins by chronicling the strategic origins of the G7 and then explaining how it sought to use the economic means of its framework to entrap a weakened, 1990s Russia within its global order. Afterwards, it explores what the Putin Presidency did to weaken the foreign grasp on Russian sovereignty, and then move along to the point where the West’s own G7 gambit fantastically failed and helped Russia break free from the former trap. Finally, the last part details how the G7’s continental European members have found themselves worse off after the split, and how this confirms that Russia’s suspension from the group was actually a timely blessing in disguise.

The Hunter’s Mindset

The Cold War was as much an economic competition as it was a military-political one, and this explains the rival groupings of COMECON from the East and the European Coal and Steel Community (the precursor to the EU) from the West. Pertaining to the latter, it came to function as an economic component of NATO, which was founded just two years before it, and considering this, it was inevitable that it too would come to be directly controlled by the US. The creation of the G6 in 1975 (Canada, the sixth member, didn’t join until a year later) satisfied this requirement, as the US directly made itself the economic overlord of not only its primary European proxies, but also its occupied Japanese satellite as well.

Looked at in hindsight, it can be argued that this strategic logic is the forerunner of the combined Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) plots that the US is currently cooking up in order to make itself the connective and controlling nerve center of both economic domains.

Seen from another perspective, one much more ominous, the collaboration between the US, France, and the UK on one hand, and (West) Germany, Italy, and Japan on the other, represents a “Reverse Potsdam” of Allied (minus the USSR) and Axis cooperation stretching across the globe, with this “Rambouillet Pact” having equally global ambitions as its Pact of Steel predecessor.

To Lure A Bear

The G6’s founding document lays out everything that observers need to know about the organization and why it decided to reach out to Russia in the post-Cold War order. The Declaration of Rambouillet makes its ideological objectives clear in its second pronounced point, stating that:

We came together because of shared beliefs and shared responsibilities. We are each responsible for the government of an open, democratic society, dedicated to individual liberty and social advancement. Our success will strengthen, indeed is essential to, democratic societies everywhere. We are each responsible for assuring the prosperity of a major industrial economy. The growth and stability of our economies will help the entire industrial world and developing countries to prosper.

There is thus no room for one to deny the political nature of the organization, which has always been to promote the West’s perceived “democratic society” via economic mechanisms. The pursuit of this objective is largely the reason why the group wanted to integrate an economically dysfunctional 1990s Russia, knowing also that the corrupt national elites would froth at the first opportunity to internationally ‘legitimize’ the means by which they were siphoning billions of dollars of wealth out of the country. This brings one to the second major reason why the G7 pushed through the contradiction of inviting a struggling Russia into their elite economic club, and that’s to have full access to its natural resource wealth. In point 13 of the same founding document cited above, the G6 outlined what is perhaps the most practical reason explaining why it made the decision to integrate Russia:

World economic growth is clearly linked to the increasing availability of energy sources. We are determined to secure for our economies the energy sources needed for their growth. Our common interests require that we continue to cooperate in order to reduce our dependence on imported energy through conservation and the development of alternative sources. Through these measures as well as international cooperation between producer and consumer countries, responding to the long-term interests of both, we shall spare no effort in order to ensure more balanced conditions and a harmonious and steady development in the world energy market.

From the above, it’s evident that energy considerations were probably the main motivation driving the G7’s interaction with Russia. It of course helped that the country’s sovereignty was critically weakened after the 1990s and that society was still reeling from the national trauma inflicted on it by the sudden Soviet collapse. The contemporaneous political elites were known for their inferiority complex vis-à-vis the West, and their unrestrained corruption ensured that they’d guide the state apparatus after any economic carrot dangled out in front of it. The bear was thereby tempted by economic honey into opening up its home and resources to foreign plunderers, but alas, this was ultimately not to be.

Roaring At The Trappers

Metaphorically speaking, the Russian Bear began roaring at the trappers ever since Vladimir Putin was elected as the country’s President. The single most important thing that he did to safeguard Russia’s sovereignty and national resources from its “Western partners” was to bring Mikhail Khodorkovsky to justice. This oligarch acted with prior impunity and seemed intent to seize power for himself and his foreign backed patrons, but his arrest and subsequent conviction forever prevented those plans from being fulfilled. The importance here lies in the fact that the G7’s highest shadow asset in Russia was removed from the political and economic scene, which thus nullified the ideological and energy motivations for incorporating Russia into the group. Furthermore, the Russian economy began to roar back into action around this time too, buoyed by high oil prices and prudent budgetary management, which on the economic level, finally made Russia an ‘equal’ member of the group.

In fact, it was between this time and Russia’s suspension from the G7 (2003-2014) that it actually began to partially reverse some of the dynamic being imposed on it. Seeing as how strong the Russian economy had become, it entered into natural economic partnerships with continental Europe’s three G7 members – Germany, Italy, and France. This served the purpose of diversifying their economic dependencies on the US and nudging them along the path of economic multipolarity, if even just slightly. The resultant momentum being created was bringing Russia and continental Europe closer than the US felt comfortable with, and the Nord Stream project was a precise case in point. However unwittingly, the US began to fret that it was losing control over the whole purpose of the G7, and that its colonial subjects in Europe might eventually integrate with Russia to such a degree that they become politically unmanageable.

The Hunter’s Folly

Likewise, the ‘opportunity’ existed to turn this evolving disadvantage back to the US’ favor while the process was in its nascent stages, as there still remained a precise window of timing in which Washington could act. The importance laid in sabotaging the EU and Russia’s bilateral economic relations prior to the stage in which their energy cooperation began transforming into real-sector trade growth, as this would open both sides up to a vulnerability that could consequently be exploited. Russia’s diplomatic intervention in averting a conventional American War on Syria in September 2013 created the vengeful impetus for pushing forward the Ukrainian Color Revolution scenario, which itself was already prefabricated to provoke the larger Russian-European falling out that the US had planned.

As the American-controlled Western mainstream media proceeded to spin a false narrative about “Russian aggression”, the European audience and their elites were increasingly falling into a fearful trance and becoming ever more compliant to whatever responses the US would suggest. Aside from the military-political ones related to NATO, the US also envisioned enacting an economic one pertaining to the G7, ergo the decision to suspend Russia’s membership and implement sanctions against it. The ultimate folly in this tactic rested not in the punitive consequences that it had for Europe (which were anticipated and are proceeding according to expectation), but in the fact that they had the opposite repercussion for Russia, which now found itself unchained from the Western vector of its geo-economic strategy and freer to Pivot to Asia and the non-West.

Breaking Free

The Russian bear effortlessly sprung free from the snare that was set for it, and was thus completely at liberty to pursue its patriotic policies to the maximum. The political constraint of Western elites’ opinions of it evaporated overnight, as the illusion of a neutral economic partnership was immediately dispelled and the regretful reality of partisan geopolitics set in. No matter how much certain European elites may have wanted to deepen their economic relations with Russia, their political counterparts were sucked too deeply into the trans-Atlantic whirlpool to save their national interests, and the timing of the American-coordinated rupture between them and Russia was such that neither side had established the real-sector trade relationships necessary for weathering such stormy interferences in their relationship. As will soon be seen, this boded extremely negatively for Europe, but it had the equally opposite effect for Russia.

High-Level Expert Seminar “The Post-2015 Development Agenda: towards a new partnership for development” held in Moscow on March 12, 2014, was the last event organized by the Russians inside G8.

Undeterred by whatever criticisms the West would thereafter level at it, Russia ardently advanced its national interests with a renewed impetus, understanding that the former concentration on European economic development had limited its strategic freedom and sedated the urgency with which the country should have been simultaneously moving towards Asia. Having been rudely (but thankfully) brought to its senses by the declaration of economic war against it (the sanctions), all strata of Russian society mobilized in supporting their government’s efforts to protect their sovereignty, including its initiative to broadly pivot away from the West. After a year and half since its suspension from the G7, Russia has demonstrated that it’s been able to adapt a grand geo-economic strategy with global scope, convening the summer of summits to display its dedication towards economically reorienting towards the non-Western world and its larger intention of integrating Northern Eurasia prior to a sweeping southern pivot.

Running Scared

As fate would have it, the EU has been pummeled by Russia’s counter-sanctions against its agricultural products, and this has created domestic divides in countries as far away as France and Belgium, which no conventional commentator predicted would be significantly impacted by this policy. The EU has now pledged to provide farmers with 500 million euros in support, but this is only an insufficient band-aid solution for a much larger structural problem, which is that European agriculture has been hit hard by the inability to sell its products on the Russian market. The glut that this created has crashed prices and increased inter-bloc competition between national farmers, with non-Euro-using farmers like those in Poland selling their excess goods in Euro-using states like France and undermining domestic prices in these states. The end result is that social dissatisfaction is rising in the EU among one of its key economic constituencies, farmers, and that unless its agricultural products return to the Russian market, Brussels will have to keep continually doling out hundreds of millions of euros to placate this rising problem.

The hunter is now running scared from the same bear he once tried to entrap, but his fear goes even further when energy interests (once the bedrock EU-Russian cooperation) are taken into account. Both sides sincerely want to retain this important vestige of their relationship, but the US’ geopolitical imperative is that the EU instead becomes dependent on its expensive LNG gas. From Washington’s standpoint, any new Russian pipelines transiting Europe must be under the full control of NATO forces, ergo the ongoing battle between Eastring and Balkan Stream, but even then, the US does not want to see Russia supplying the lion’s share of Europe’s resources anymore and is thus still promoting the LNG ‘alternative’ (which is more of an enforced choice than an option). While it would be mutually disastrous for both sides if the US intervened to the extent of unlikely completely cutting off Russia’s energy shipment to Europe, at the end of the day, Moscow would still survive the situation in a better shape than the EU (the procedural Asian energy pivot, including LNG to ASEAN, plays a large part), but the EU would literally have no realistic replacement for Russia’s resources since its backtracking economy can simply not build the expensive LNG terminals needed to accommodate the US’ wishful shipments (which in any case are grossly exaggerated and incapable of replacing Russia’s).

Concluding Thoughts

The G7-Russia divorce was initiated by the group’s US overseer with the end intent of splitting continental Europe away from Russia. The organization had originally been founded as a means of perpetuating the Western world order and expanding it across the world, and in the post-Cold War era, it was used as a snare to entrap the weakened Russian bear. When the country’s leadership changed to Vladimir Putin, he removed the singlehanded most effective lever of influence that the group had within the state, and that was oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which thus foiled the “democratic” regime change plot that the G7 was cooking up for Russia. From then on until its suspension from the organization, Russia attempted to reverse the internal dynamics by using the format as a platform for exerting its own influence on continental Europe, whereby it hoped to lessen the sphere’s dependency on the US and liberate it in a piecemeal and long-term fashion.

Alarmed by this development, the US began brainstorming ways in which it could divide the two before their cooperation put an end to its hegemonic vision, and it found the perfect avenue to do this via a second Color Revolution in Ukraine (one which was specifically pushed forward as revenge for Syria, it must be said). The timing of this was such that it did succeed in splitting the two sides, albeit only to the detriment of Europe, which became ever more dependent on the US (much as Washington wanted). Russia, on the other hand, accepted the reality that was forced upon it and unhesitantly moved in the opposite direction, strengthening its strategic partnership with China in order to compensate for the one that was lost with the EU. 

The full consequences of this shift are still playing out in Europe today, as the continent is struck with a collapsing agricultural market due to the counter-sanctions and has an unstable long-term energy outlook. Contrast this with Russia, which has emerged largely unscathed and in an even better strategic position than it ever previously was, poised like never before to diversify its trade networks all across Eurasia, and ironically having its expulsion from the G7 to thank for this fortuitous circumstance.

Andrew Korybko is the political analyst and journalist for Sputnik who currently lives and studies in Moscow, exclusively for ORIENTAL REVIEW.

I recently interviewed Jeff Halper about his excellent new book, War Against the People, which examines the way Israel has crafted an indispensable role for itself doing what Halper calls “niche-filling” in the “war on terror”.

Put in the simplest terms, Halper’s argument is that Israel develops, refines and tests things – weapons, missile interception systems, surveillance, crowd control, biometric data collection, new interpretations of international law – using the Palestinians as guinea pigs. The occupied territories are test beds, demonstrating how well such “innovations” work in the field. That knowledge and experience can then be sold on to other international players, including, of course, the biggest: the United States.

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador (one who went rogue, from the British government’s point of view) has a very interesting post about the latest efforts of David Cameron’s government to justify the extra-judicial murder of two Britons in Syria over the summer by claiming that such actions accord with international law. The US began doing similar things in the Middle East to its citizens, also using drones, a few years earlier.

Israel, of course, led the way decades ago on this kind of murder from the skies, before most people had heard of drones. Israel refers to these murders as “targeted assassinations”, and has spent the intervening period trying to persuade the world that they are legal in international law.

I have been covering the Israel-Palestine conflict long enough to remember a time when no one took that argument seriously. In fact, Israel was regularly castigated by the US and others for carrying out such attacks, perhaps most famously in 2002 when it dropped a one-tonne bomb on a residential neighbourhood of Gaza, killing at least 10 children as they slept, as it “targeted” Hamas leader Salah Shehadeh.

Then 9/11 happened and the US, backed by the UK, launched its endless “war on terror”. Usefully, Israel had been there long before and had a blueprint for how to conduct such a sustained offensive. After all, it had been waging its own war on terror – aka an illegal, belligerent occupation – against the Palestinians for decades.

It is worth bearing all this in mind as you read Murray’s piece (and I recommend you do) on the execution of the two Britons in Syria. I don’t know what drones were used by the UK but there has to be a good chance they were made by Israel. Britain is the biggest importer of drones in the world, and most of them come from Israel – in fact, 55 were bought by the UK between 2010 and 2014. But Israel’s role in this is about much more than the hardware, as Murray’s post illustrates.

What did Tony Blair and Jack Straw do back in 2003 when they needed to support the US in its illegal attack and invasion of Iraq? Unfortunately for them, international law is clear about such attacks, just as it is about extra-judicial murder on foreign soil. An unprovoked attack on another state – one that is not in self-defence from an imminent and credible threat –  is a war crime. In fact, it is worse than that: it is defined as “the supreme war crime”.

That is the advice Blair and Straw received when they tried to get their in-house lawyers to sanction the attack.

So what did they do? They brought in an outside expert. They turned to Daniel Bethlehem, a lawyer beloved of Israeli prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the Israeli army. He had spent many years advising the Israeli military as it tried to develop new legal principles that justify states using massive firepower that kills chiefly civilians. That nonchalance you see from Israeli officials every time Israel murders hundreds of children in Gaza relies on the legal sophistry provided by rent-an-excuse lawyers like Bethlehem.

Israel and its enablers have tried to create a loophole in international law, arguing that an “imminent” threat exists – whether from a country like Iraq or two blokes with guns in Syria – and justifies self-defence even if the country has no weapons that pose a credible threat or the people killed aren’t involved in an attack on the aggressor state, imminent or not.

This is exactly the kind of tough, thankless work Israel has been doing that, in our age of permanent “war on terror”, is highly marketable. States buy weapons systems and they pay people like Bethlehem big bucks to put their names to bits of paper spouting nonsense about international law.

But most of all, as Halper argues, this kind of usefulness is not paid for in hard currency. It buys good will. Lots of it. Which is why you won’t see the British or US governments making life hard for Israel soon, however much their own publics may be outraged by Israel’s behaviour.

www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/09/exclusive-i-can-reveal-the-legal-advice-on-drone-strikes-and-how-the-establishment-works

“It is true that Europe cannot house all the misery in the world. But we have to put it into perspective.” EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Sep 9, 2015.

European Union President Jean-Claude Juncker knows it. Most of Europe knows it. In his “state of the union” speech to the European parliament, Juncker found himself deep in reflection about disunion and mismatched aims. “There is a lack of Europe in this European Union, there is a lack of union in this European Union.”

Such political reflections are not new. Europe has seen political experiments that tended to go more pear shaped than develop in even harmony. In what remains one of the more curious political assemblies of history, the Holy Roman Empire proved to be more eclectic and disparate than the Oxbridge college system.

Appendages in title were added over time, be it the term “Roman Empire” and the addition of “Holy”. Battles were waged between dynasties, and between the Pope and the secular ruler in the form of the Holy Roman Emperor. The patchwork imperial system brought the famous quip by Voltaire: it was neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire. Eventually, Napoleon killed it off.

Juncker’s refugee plan, which covers the resettlement of 160,000 migrants from Italy, Greece and Hungary, has various components. He further urged member states to accept and equitably resettle a further 120,000 on top of 40,000. He leaves little room for discussion: “This has to be done in a compulsory way… 160,000 that is the number.”

Other aspects of the proposal involve a permanent relocation system, a proposed list of safe countries, a review of the Dublin system requiring arrivals to claim asylum in the state they first enter the EU and a better overall control of external borders and improvement of legal channels for migration (BBC News, Sep 9).

The target of the Juncker plan is unevenness in EU refugee policy. Some countries regard themselves as unbound by imposed targets. This is proving problematic for such states such as those in the Visegrad group, whose citizens have benefited from a looser migration regime. Quotas, argue Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, cannot exist without genuine border security.

Then come those stormy critics, such as UKIP’s Nigel Farage, who claim that the piecemeal terms of what is currently in place are too broad as they are. “As I warned you in April, the EU’s common asylum policy sets its terms so wide that to say that anyone who sets foot on EU soil can stay.”

The threat, and one constantly being voiced by Farage, is how such quota policies will convince the electorate that the European family is worth divorcing. If Prime Minister David Cameron, for instance, were not given “back control and discretion” over Britain’s borders, “the Brits will over the course of the next year, vote to leave.”

There is another dimension at stake here. Some governments have made the obvious decision that rapid incorporation and acceptance of refugees is in order. Germany’s approach, by way of comparison to other member states, looks staggering. This, argues economics commentator Robert Peston, may have as much to do with the growth factor than anything else. Germany’s population is aging; its dependency ratio (welfare against earners) is rising, and it needs the rush of migrants.

Viable, hardy refugees will add a boost in the long term and it has been said that German Chancellor Angela Merkel “is creaming off the most economically useful of the asylum seekers, by taking those who have shown the gumption and initiative to risk life and limb feeling to Europe.”[1] Another experiment in population adjustment is taking place at the heart of Europe.Indeed, Merkel is very aware of pushing a rhetoric in sharp distinction to her EU colleagues. Avoid, she seems to be intoning, the reference to “Gastarbeiter” or “guest workers”, a suggestion that the people being welcomed are more in the league of citizens than before. She has lately said that, in future, she expects many of the latest refugees arriving to “become new citizens of our country”.

The EU problem, just as it is in finance, is what standards to impose. The debate about any union is what obligations cut deepest. Germany’s formula on this, just as it stands in finance, will not be appreciated by others. Merkel is already nudging the line that the Schengen arrangements may be at risk if other states do not muck into the refugee intake. But the milk of human kindness wasn’t abundant to begin with, and internal debates are proving furious.The very idea of imposed quotas, sanctioned by executive decree, is bound to send nationalist groups to the streets. Latitude, it is being suggested in what are putatively sovereign halls, must be granted to states. Denmark, this week, has already given a taste of that latitude with the cancellation of all trains to and from Germany to discourage migrants. Government advertisements are also being run in the Middle East publications to discourage arrivals (Financial Times, Sep 9).

Creeping up in the Juncker ripostes to his opponents, most vocally that of Farage, is a certain authoritarianism. Another UKIP member, David Woburn, was given a serving when interjecting in Juncker’s speech. “I will not at each time respond to what you are saying because what you are saying is useless.” Others did not agree, with an interjecting Italian MEP sporting an Angela Merkel mask.

Such is the face of European Disunion: avoid such opinions at your peril. The treatment of Greece by the troika continues to plague Europe’s dream, but the treatment of refugees is bound to provide another, perhaps sterner test.

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

Note

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34172729

 

The following is a summary of the medical issues currently confronting Mumia Abu-Jamal, now a prisoner at SCI Mahanoy in Pennsylvania. A detailed presentation of his issues is contained in the papers filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in the case of Abu-Jamal v. Kerestes and will be made available upon request.

Mumia Abu Jamal is suffering from “active” hepatitis C, a serious liver disease. Tests performed over the last several months show that Mr. Abu-Jamal’s liver likely has “significant fibrosis” (scarring) and deteriorated function. The disease has also manifested itself in other ways. He has a persistent, painful skin rash over most of his body.

Our consulting physician, who visited Mr. Abu-Jamal has concluded that it is likely a disease known as necrolytic acral erythma, a condition that is almost always associated with an untreated hepatitis C infection. Mr. Abu-Jamal has been diagnosed with “anemia of chronic disease”, another common consequence of hepatitis C. He has sudden-onset adult diabetes, a complication that led to an episode of diabetic shock on March 30, 2015. Most recently, he has begun to lose weight again.

Mr. Abu Jamal’s hepatitis C can be cured – and the painful and dangerous consequences alleviated– if the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) would administer the direct acting anti-viral medication that has now become the standard for treatment for hepatitis C infections.

According to the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD), this hepatitis C treatment “results in sustained virologic response (SVR) which is tantamount to virologic cure”. The AASLD protocol has been adopted by the United States Bureau of Prisons.

Under that protocol, Mr. Abu-Jamal is a candidate for immediate treatment

The DOC has known of Mr. Abu-Jamal’s hepatitis C infection since 2012- but never conducted a complete hepatitis C workup until recently. His skin condition, which had been intermittent for several years, worsened and became constant in August 2014. His health had deteriorated to such an extent that he was admitted to the hospital in May 2015. Over those eight days numerous tests were conducted that ruled out many conditions, including some cancers.

Those tests led the doctors to conclude that the symptoms were likely caused by the hepatitis C. In June 2015, after Mr. Abu-Jamal’s release from the hospital, his attorneys demanded that a complete hepatitis C workup be conducted and treatment administered. But it took several weeks for those simple blood tests to be taken.

They concluded that Mr. Abu-Jamal does, in fact, have an active hepatitis C infection. Notwithstanding that determination, and Mr. Abu-Jamal’s continued suffering and deteriorated health, he has not been given the anti-viral drugs.

As our consulting expert had concluded, “failure to treat Mr. Abu-Jamal’s hepatitis C will result in serious harm to his health, as his current-hepatic symptoms will not be cured, and he faces an increasingly serious risk of suffering from fibrosis and cirrhosis, liver cancer, complications of his diabetes, and eventual death.”

A motion for an injunction seeking treatment is pending in federal court.

However, the treatment, as our medical expert has stated, should begin “immediately”.

Given the overwhelming and undisputed evidence that Mr. Abu-Jamal is suffering from an active infection, treatment should not await a determination by the court. It must begin now.

The conditionality of the Soviet Union’s agreement to allow East Germany to be taken by West Germany and for the Cold War to end, was that NATO would not expand «one inch to the east». This was the agreement that was approved by the Russian President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, a great man and a subsequent hero to democrats around the world.

He agreed then to end the Soviet Union and abandon communism and thus to end the entire Cold War; he agreed to this because he had been promised that NATO would expand not «one inch to the east,» or «one inch eastward,» depending upon how the promise was translated and understood — but it has the same meaning, no matter how it was translated. He trusted American President George Herbert Walker Bush, whose friend and Secretary of State James Baker made this promise to Gorbachev. With this promise, Gorbachev agreed to end the Soviet Union; end the communist mutual-defense pact which was their own equivalent of NATO, the Warsaw Pact; and he believed that the remaining nation that he would then be leading, which was Russia, would be accepted as a Western democracy.

He was even promised by the United States that «we were going to make them a member [of NATO], we were –observer first and then a member». In other words: the U.S. promised that NATO would not extend up to the borders of Russia and so become a mortal threat to the national security of the Russian people – now isolated and separated from its former military allies. Instead, Gorbachev was told, Russia would itself become welcomed into the Western Alliance, and ultimately become a NATO member. That was the deal, ending the 46-year Cold War.

Russia kept its part of the bargain. The United States did not; the U.S. instead lied through its teeth and so has since expanded NATO to absorb former member-nations of the Warsaw Pact into NATO as being, now, an anti-Russian military alliance — exactly what the U.S. had promised would never happen. U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush in private told West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (who had wanted to go along with what James Baker had arranged): «To hell with that! We prevailed, they didn’t». He didn’t want peace with Russia; he wanted to conquer it; he wanted to rub Russians’ noses in their inferiority to Americans.

Russia’s continued (and continuing) desire to join NATO has simply been spurned. This is war by NATO in intent; it is the exact opposite of what the U.S. had promised to Russia, on the basis of which the Warsaw Pact ended. How can the Russian people then trust such a country as the United States? They would need to be fools to do so.

But this deceit, this double-cross, isn’t merely America’s shame; it has also become the shame by the entirety of the nations that joined in that Western promise at the time. Because all of them accepted America’s leadership in this double-crossing war against Russia, America’s war to conquer Russia. They accept this merely by remaining as members of the now-nefarious military gang, which NATO has thus become. Worse yet, some of the other member-nations of NATO at the time were (like West Germany’s Kohl, the model for his protégé Angela Merkel, who now continues the crime) themselves key participants in the making, and now breaking, of that promise to Russia.

Here is the evidence regarding this massive and ongoing historical international crime — the crime that’s now the source of so much misery and even death in not only Russia but the rest of Europe, and of millions of refugees fleeing from Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and other former Russian-allied nations — the chaos that’s being led by America:

THE TESTIMONY

«I was there when we told the Russians that we were going to make them a member, we were–observer first and then a member»: Lawrence Wilkerson, 3 October 2014, on The Real News Network, at 18:54 in the interview.

«When I spoke with Baker, he agreed that he told Gorbachev that if the Soviet Union allowed German reunification and membership in NATO, the West would not expand NATO «one inch to the east»: Bill Bradley, 22 August 2009, in Foreign Policy.

«Mr. Kohl chose to echo Mr. Baker, not Mr. Bush. The chancellor assured Mr. Gorbachev, as Mr. Baker had done, that ‘naturally NATO could not expand its territory’ into East Germany»… Crucially, the Gorbachev-Kohl meeting ended with a deal, as opposed to the Gorbachev-Baker session the previous day… Mr. Kohl and his aides publicized this major concession immediately at a press conference. Then they returned home to begin merging the two Germanys under one currency and economic system: Mary Louise Sarotte, New York Times, 29 November 2009.

«According to records from Kohl’s office, the chancellor chose to echo Baker, not Bush, since Baker’s softer line was more likely to produce the results that Kohl wanted: permission from Moscow to start reunifying Germany. Kohl thus assured Gorbachev that ‘naturally NATO could not expand its territory to the current territory of [East Germany].’ In parallel talks, Genscher delivered the same message to his Soviet counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze, saying, ‘for us, it stands firm: NATO will not expand itself to the East.’… But Kohl’s phrasing would quickly become heresy among the key Western decision-makers.

Once Baker got back to Washington, in mid-February 1990, he fell in line with the National Security Council’s view and adopted its position. From then on, members of Bush’s foreign policy team exercised strict message discipline, making no further remarks about NATO holding at the 1989 line. Kohl, too, brought his rhetoric in line with Bush’s, as both U.S. and West German transcripts from the two leaders’ February 24–25 summit at Camp David show. Bush made his feelings about compromising with Moscow clear to Kohl: ‘To hell with that!’ he said. ‘We prevailed, they didn’t.’… In April, Bush spelled out this thinking in a confidential telegram to French President François Mitterrand… Bush was making it clear to Mitterrand that the dominant security organization in a post–Cold War Europe had to remain NATO — not any kind of pan-European alliance.

As it happened, the next month, Gorbachev proposed just such a pan-European arrangement, one in which a united Germany would join both NATO and the Warsaw Pact, thus creating one massive security institution. Gorbachev even raised the idea of having the Soviet Union join NATO. ‘You say that NATO is not directed against us, that it is simply a security structure that is adapting to new realities,’ Gorbachev told Baker in May, according to Soviet records.

‘Therefore, we propose to join NATO.’ Baker refused to consider such a notion, replying dismissively, Pan-European security is a dream.’ … By the time of the Camp David summit, … all members of Bush’s team, along with Kohl, had united behind an offer in which Gorbachev would receive financial assistance from West Germany — and little else — in exchange for allowing Germany to reunify and for allowing a united Germany to be part of NATO»: Mary Louise Sarotte, Foreign Affairs, October 2014.

«A failure to appreciate how the Cold War ended has had a profound impact on Russian and Western attitudes — and helps explain what we are seeing now. The common assumption that the West forced the collapse of the Soviet Union and thus won the Cold War is wrong. The fact is that the Cold War ended by negotiation to the advantage of both sides. At the December 1989 Malta summit, Mikhail Gorbachev and President George H.W. Bush confirmed that the ideological basis for the war was gone, stating that the two nations no longer regarded each other as enemies. Over the next two years, we worked more closely with the Soviets than with even some of our allies. … ‘By the grace of God, America won the Cold War,’ Bush said during his 1992 State of the Union address. That rhetoric would not have been particularly damaging on its own. But it was reinforced by actions taken under the next three presidents. President Bill Clinton supported NATO’s bombing of Serbia without U.N. Security Council approval and the expansion of NATO to include former Warsaw Pact countries. Those moves seemed to violate the understanding that the United States would not take advantage of the Soviet retreat from Eastern Europe. The effect on Russians’ trust in the United States was devastating» (Jack Matlock, Washington Post, 14 March 2014).

«Sir Rodric Braithwaite GCMG, former British Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Russia, informed us that assurances were given in 1990 by the US (James Baker, US Secretary of State) and Germany (Helmut Kohl, German Chancellor), and in 1991 on behalf of the UK (by the then Prime Minister, John Major, and the British Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd) and France (by French President Francois Mitterrand). Sir Rodric Braithwaite said that this ‘factual record has not been successfully challenged in the West’»( The EU and Russia: before and beyond the crisis in Ukraine, 20 February 2015, British House of Lords, paragraph 107.)

CONCLUDING NOTE:

Gorbachev’s failure to demand these assurances in writing has been widely criticized, but handshake agreements in international affairs are common, and no treaty was to be signed at the end of the Cold War because it hadn’t been a hot war: there were no claims, no restitution or reparations to be paid by either side to the other. Gorbachev thought that the U.S. was honest and could be trusted — that understandings reached in private and witnessed by numerous participants would be honored by the West, as they would be by Russia.

Sadly, he was trusting mega-crooks who were led by a super-gangster, G.H.W. Bush, and the entire world is suffering from those crooks today, and every day. Instead of the West apologizing, and stopping, it insults Russia constantly. It’s digging in deeper, into G.H.W. Bush’s original sin, the West’s mega-crime, which produces increasing global chaos and bloodshed, in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere, and now a resulting refugee crisis throughout Europe.

For example, Defense News, the trade journal for U.S. military contractors, headlined on 4 September 2015, «Ukraine’s New Military Doctrine Identifies Russia As Aggressor, Eyes Naval Acquisitions,» and reported that:

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk [whom Victoria Nuland of the U.S. State Department had appointed on 4 February 2014, 18 days before the coup] said that the country’s new draft military doctrine is the first in Ukraine’s history to clearly identify Russia as an enemy and an aggressor. The announcement was made Sept. 1 during the prime minister’s visit to Odessa. … Yatsenyuk said that … the Ukrainian President «will sign the corresponding decree»… Vice Admiral James Foggo, commander of the US 6th Fleet, and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt [who took instructions from Nuland and ran the coup for her] took part in the ceremony… «We feel as one force with our partners, NATO [member] states, with our American partners. Therefore, the American ships have entered and will [defeat the Russians in Crimea and expell from the naval base there the Russian navy which has been headquartered there since 1783, and so] enter the Ukrainian territorial waters in the future. We will continue our joint exercise,» Yatsenyuk said.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

The criticism started at the top and is now reverberating from other corners of the Russian government.

Now, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova has followed suit, slamming Western-led ‘social engineering’ throughout the Middle East.

She said, “we do not engage in social engineering. We do not appoint or dismiss foreign presidents ourselves, or in collusion with anyone else. This applies to Syria and other countries in the region, whose people, I’m convinced, must determine their destiny themselves”.

Watch a video of this report here:

After shocking images emerged of dead children on Turkish beaches, Russia’s President Putin was the first and only world leader to speak sense on the crisis; correctly namely Western interference in the region as the cause of the problem.

Speaking specifically of the thousands of refugees, she said they had been “subjected to experiments in the spirit of social engineering“. This is an obvious attack on Western actions tosupport terrorist rebel forces in Syria that were attempting to overthrow Assad.

In order to solve the crisis, Zakharova said Russia is trying “to gather all the efforts together — all the international players, all Syria’s neighbours, all members of the opposition coalition, all of those who are involved.”

Yet, her main issue is that the West has exhibited “a complete loss of the ability to learn from their mistakes“, and that “heavy-handed intervention in Middle Eastern affairs has led to an area of instability, forming right in Europe’s backyard“.

Zakharova had few kind words for the West at all, instead asking “what is the West planning to do right after? Do they have a magic wand that will transform Syria from civil war to economic prosperity?“

Speaking of support for Assad and Damascus, she said “we are supporting them, we were supporting them and we will be supporting them” in “their struggle against terrorists“.

The tide is beginning to turn against militaristic ‘humanitarian interventionism’, with a huge global player, Russia, taking a strong public stand against it. We should be optimistic of this fact, yet also wary that it may lead to even greater confrontations between nuclear states. With the West refusing to acknowledge the error of their ways, we can only hope that Russia, and perhaps other BRICS nations, will be able to present a tangible and effective solution to the current crisis.

If we peer behind the veil of mainstream media oversimplification, lies and propaganda we find that the humanitarian crises we are faced with today are the straight line consequences of a decades-old policy on the part of the West (defined as the US, the UK, Israel and others ) to subvert and destabilize the very nations that are submerged in civil war and strife.

Faced with a burgeoning refugee crisis in Europe sparked by global extremism, U.S. and European officials said this week that there is a growing consensus that the multinational military campaign against Islamic State must focus more on targeting the group’s nerve centers in Syria.

Using thousands of people flowing into Europe every day as a pretence, France and Britain are both poised to join Washington in carrying out more airstrikes with greater and greater levels of aggression against Islamic State in Syria.

U.S. allies also are responding to rising concerns about extremists in Syria planning attacks on western targets, such as a thwarted attempt last month by a lone gunman to kill passengers on a Paris-bound train and the Tunisia attacks on British citizens in June. The stage is set. Cameron will convince Parliament, Britain will engage in a new war.

But is all this activity about beating Islamic State in Syria or is about a much wider conflict?

This week, there has been a serious escalation that should be of concern to everyone.

Reuters –

“The U.S. officials said the intent of Russia’s military moves in Syria was unclear. One suggested the focus may be on preparing an airfield near the port city of Latakia, a stronghold of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. U.S. officials have not ruled out the possibility that Russia may want to use the airfield for air combat missions. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to his Russian counterpart for the second time in four days to express concern over reports of Russian military activities in Syria“.

The US State Department lists 62 countries as members of the “global coalition to degrade and defeat ISIL.” Many countries have pledged military or humanitarian support. They are;

Albania, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and last but most the United States.

Intervention forces in Syria include the US, the Gulf States, Morocco and Canada and as we have now found out Britain. Armament support comes from France and Kurdistan. Armed groups come from around 30 tribes and various fighting forces.

ISIL and it’s allies are also in there.

Meanwhile, on the other side, non lethal support to Syria’s Assad includes; Venezuela, Angola and China. Lethal support includes; Russia, North Korea, Iraq, Balarus and even Egypt. Then there are Syrian government forces and over thirty allied armed forces groups. Hezbollah, Iran and Russia all have forces in Syria backing Asad’s regime.

In all of this, it is Russia’s recent step up that is most concerning. Western backed sanctions currently crippling Russia’s economy over Ukraine will increase over its involvement in Syria. When that happens, it forces Russia further into the arms of China.

China and Russia have moved in tandem on Syria. They have repeatedly vetoed resolutions aimed at the Assad regime in the UN Security Council. China has no major concerns over Syria but it does with Russian relations. The issue of Syria is more of aconundrum of loyalties and politics to China. China is powered largely by both Russian and Saudi oil and gas.

In the meantime, China has been dumping US treasuries in record volumes, burning through $100billion in just two weeks in supporting its own currency that has rattled America enough that there are even suspicions that the US is not taking that lying down.

Five Chinese navy ships are currently operating in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska, Pentagon officials said just last week, marking the first time the U.S. military has seen such activity.

Just last week, China also formally releases information of a new class of weapons described by the FT- “Some analysts say such missiles threaten to consign aircraft carriers — which form the basis of current US naval strategy — to the dustbin, just as aircraft carriers themselves did to battleships with Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor“. The FT continues  – “There is more potent symbolism in this missile than any other weapon in the Chinese arsenal,” said Ashley Townshend, a research fellow at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. “This is the missile that really does potentially encroach on US capability to deploy military power close to Chinese shores. It significantly raises the risks and costs.”

Russia, a key ally of Syria during its four-year civil war, says it has sent military experts but that is all. Correspondents say that without Moscow’s backing, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may have fallen by now. Unnamed US officials quoted by Reuters say Moscow has sent additional aircraft and two tank landing ships to Russia’s naval base in the Syrian coastal city of Tartus, within the past day or so. They also say a small number of naval infantry forces have been deployed.

Britain now has troops on the ground, despite Parliament not yet approving the deployment of troops there. Those troops are fighting alongside American Special Forces.

According to various sources (HERE, HERE and HERE) – The Iranian government has sent 15,000 fighters to Syria to help the Syrian government. The force, made up of Iranians, Iraqis and Afghanis, arrived in the Damascus region and in the province of Latakia last month.

Bulgaria and Greece have both been told by US officials to not allow Russian planes over their airspace in recent days. Bulgaria has been trying to forge new relations with Russia recently as has Greece in its desperation to stop avert total economic collapse.

Russia says it has permission to fly over Iranian airspace to reach Syria – Iran has not commented yet.

The purpose of this article is not to rationalise events in Syria, not to lay blame or point a finger but merely to highlight the fact that there is no dispute that there has been a very serious escalation of events in the war that is being conducted in Syria.

The war in Syria is not about Islamic State.

It is to highlight the fact that the countries involved in this war are now from all four hemispheres of the planet who are now represented and engaged in a conflict that will definitely be a fight to the very end. The question is – where will that very end, end up being?

My recent article about a possible Russian military intervention in the Syrian conflict triggered, amongst mostly rational reactions, a few angry and frustrated one from folks who were apparently disgusted with the Russian refusal to get militarily involved in Novorussia and Syria.  Since such angry protests are also often echoed on other supposedly pro-Russian blogs and websites I think that it is worthwhile to address the substance of these criticisms once again.  So let’s start with the basics:

The legal purpose of the Russian Armed Forces.

The Federal Law N61-F3 “On Defense”, Section IV, Article 10, Para 2 clearly states that the mission of the Russian Armed Forces is to “repel aggression against the Russian Federation, the armed defense of the integrity and inviolability of the territory of the Russian Federation, and to carry out tasks in accordance with international treaties of the Russian Federation“.  That’s it.  Defend the territory of Russia or to carry out tasks in accordance to ratified treaties.  These are the sole functions of the Russian Armed Forces.

The Russian Constitution, Chapter IV, Article 80, Para 2 clearly states that “The President of the Russian Federation shall be guarantor of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen. According to the rules fixed by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, he shall adopt measures to protect the sovereignty of the Russian Federation, its independence and state integrity, ensure coordinated functioning and interaction of all the bodies of state power“.

Now, for an American used to have, on average, about one new war every year, this might seem mind boggling, but the Russian Federation has absolutely no desire to become an “anti-USA” and get involved in constant military operations abroad.  Not only that, but the laws of the Russian Federation specifically forbid this.

Russia is not the world policeman, she does not have a network of 700-1000 bases worldwide (depending on your definition of ‘base’) but an army specifically designed to operate withing 1000km or less from the Russian border and the President does not have the legal mandate to use the Russian armed forces to solve foreign crises.

The political mandate of the Russian President

Putin’s real power is not based on any written Russian law.  His real power is in the fact that he has the support of the overwhelming majority of the Russian people.  How did he achieve such an amazing popularity?  It was not by funding a multi-billion dollar propaganda campaign, or by making empty promises.  Putin’s popularity is simply a direct result of the fact that Putin’s actions are in conformity with the will and desires of the Russian people.

Again, for an American who has seen every single US President grossly betray all his promises and who is used to have somebody in the White House whom a minority of Americans really support, this might be mind boggling, but in Russia the President actually enjoys the support of the people.

And the fact is that poll after poll the majority of the Russian people (67%) are opposed any overt Russian military intervention in the Donbass.  That is a fact which the “hurray patriots” always conveniently ignore, but it is a fact nonetheless.  Now if most Russian are opposed to a Russian military intervention in Novorussia, what percentage do you think would approve of a Russian military intervention in Syria?

This might sounds trite, but Putin was elected by the Russian people to defend their interests.  He was not elected by the people of Novorussia or Syria.  In fact, Russia has absolutely no obligation to anybody,not even a moral obligation to help.  Those who are disgusted by the lack of Russian military intervention seem to somehow assume that Russia “must” or “should” “do something” simply because she could do it.  That is absolutely not true.  Even if Russian could successfully intervene in Novorussia (she can) or Syria (she cannot) – that does not at all automatically mean that she has to take any such action.

Yes, Russia has provided support to Novorussia and Syria, but not because she “owed” them anything, but because she chose to help.  This help, however, does not automatically entail that the Russian commitment is open-ended and that Putin “has to” send Russian soldiers into combat if needed.

Besides, when is the last time any country send its soldiers to help Russia and, if needed, die for her?

Why the Russian soldier is willing to die in combat

I have three kids and I can easily imagine what the parents of a young man from, say, Tula or Pskov would feel if their son died in combat somewhere in Syria.  Here is the text of the oath taken by each Russian solider:

I, (full name), do solemnly swear allegiance to the Fatherland – the Russian Federation.  I swear to faithfully observe the Constitution of the Russian Federation, to comply strictly with the requirements of the military regulations, the orders of my commanders and superiors. I swear to honorably perform my military duties, to courageously defend the freedom, independence and constitutional order of Russia, the people and the fatherland.

There is no mention of Syria or any other country in this, is there?

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan the Soviet propagandists came up with a cute concept “интернациональный долг” or “international duty”.  This idea was derived from the Marxist concept of “proletarian internationalism”.  And it is true that the Soviet Constitution (in articles 28 and 30) included the following language:

The foreign policy of the Soviet Union aims at strengthening the positions of world socialism, supporting the struggle of peoples for national liberation and social progress” (…) “the Soviet Union as part of the world socialist system, the socialist community develops and strengthens friendship and cooperation, comradely mutual assistance with other socialist countries on the basis of a socialist internationalism

There are probably those who are still nostalgic of the “good old days” when the Soviet Union was involved in conflicts in Asia, Africa or Latin America, but I am most definitely not one of them.  And neither are the vast majority of Russians who remember exactly the price paid in blood for such ideological nonsense.

Again, for a person living in the USA where it is normal to see “posts” of “Veterans of Foreign Wars” (as if the US ever had a domestic one in living memory!) all over the country and where everybody know a least one relative, friend or neighbor who lost a family member in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere – this might seem ridiculous.  But for a Russian national not only is this not ridiculous, it is quite literally sacred.  Why?  Because it means that if their son or daughter are only sent into harms way when the Russian nation is under attack.  This is also why the men of the 6th Company in Ulus-Kert were willing to die: because they were fighting for their Motherland, not for a college tuition, not to avoid jail or unemployment and not because they thought they could visit the world and kill brown people.

The pitfalls of “limited” military interventions

Ask yourself, how do wars typically end?  Specifically, how many wars do you know of when both parties agreed to stop and sign some kind of peace treaty?  The fact is that most wars end up in a victory for one side and a defeat for the other.  And that, in turn, means that as long as the stronger party does not have the means to fully defeat the weaker one, the war will continue.  The perfect example of that was the war in Afghanistan in which the Soviets easily invaded the country and defeated the “freedom fighters” [which later became known as “al-Qaeda”, courtesy of the US CIA] but were unable to pursue them into Pakistan and Iran.  Thus the anti-Soviet forces, while “weaker”, could deny the Soviets their “victory” simply by surviving and even successfully resisting them in some locations (such as the Panjshir Valley).

This is the rough map of the territory currently controlled by Daesh:

Image: Daesh area of operations

As you can see from the map, Daesh currently is active in both Syria and Iraq, and we also know that they have made inroad into Lebanon and Egypt.  We can also be certain that Daesh could, if needed, move inside Saudi Arabia.  By any measure, the territory currently more or less controlled by Daesh or, more accurately, the territory where Daesh can operate is huge.  So in this context, what would “victory” mean?  Eradicating Daesh from the entire Middle-East, of course.  We have already seen what happened when the Syrian military basically defeated Daesh – Daesh just retreated into Iraq, that’s all.  And that was enough to deny the Syrians their victory.

Can Daesh be defeated?  Absolutely.  But only if the AngloZionist would stop their anti-Shia crusade and let Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Iraq crush these Takfiri lunatics.  But since that is absolutely unacceptable to the AngloZionsts, the war will go on.  And it is in this context that some would have Russia enter the conflict?!   That is insane!

Any Russian commitment, besides being of dubious legality and politically very dangerous for Putin, would have to be either half-hearted or open-ended.  In the first case it would be useless and in the second one extremely dangerous.

What about only sending aircraft?

Contrary to what some commentators have written, sending 6 MiG-31s could make a difference: six MiG-31s would mean 2 on combat air patrol, 2 ready to take-off and 2 in routine maintenance.  Also, 2 MiG-31s in the air would be enough to monitor the Syrian airspace and defend it from any intruder (you can think of the MiG-31 as a ‘mini AWACS’ since it has an advanced passive electronically scanned array radar and weapons capable of tracking 10 targets while simultaneous engaging four of them at a very long range (as far as 200km).  The problem with that is that all this fancy hardware serves no purpose against Daesh which has no air force.

Some have suggested that the MiG-31s could be used to protect Syria from a US cruise missile attack.  While it is true that the MiG-31 is capable of engaging low-flying cruise missiles, the problem here is that each MiG-31 can only carry 4-6 air-to-air missiles.  Thus a 2 MiG-31s patrol could only engage 12 cruise missiles at most, unless they begin chasing down each one and use their 23mm canon.  Since any US attack on Syria would involve many more cruise missiles, there is really very little the MiG-31s could do.  A much more effective defense would be provided by the S-300 and this is why the US and Israel were so opposed to any S-300 deliveries to Syria.

Others have suggested that Russia could send MiG-29s.  Bad choice.  The MiG-29 is a formidable close-in combat fighter, but a poor close air support aircraft.  If the mission is the support of Syrian combat operations, then SU-24 and, especially, SU-25 would be much better suited.  As far as I know, not a single report mentioned these.

How Syria can be assisted

First and foremost, I want to remind everybody that Russia has already single-handedly stopped a planned US attack on Syria by simultaneously sending a naval task force off the Syrian coast (thereby providing the Syrians of a full view of the airspace in and around Syria) and by brilliantly suggesting that Syria get rid of her (utterly useless) chemical weapons (which, of course, some saw as a “betrayal” and “disarming” of Syria).  Russia can still help Syria by sending military hardware, advisors, sharing intelligence and, most importantly, providing political cover.

Should the Syrian armed forces truly suffer from a military reversal and should the government be threatened, Hezbollah will be the first to intervene (as they already have), followed by Iran (as they, reportedly, also already have).  With Hezbollah and Iranian boots on the ground (the latter probably also in Hezbollah uniforms), there is no need at all for Russian forces.  At least not “regular” military ones.

It is possible, and even likely, that the Russians would (or already have) send covert units into Syria.  What we are talking here are GRU and SVR special teams, mostly posing as “advisors” or private military contractors or even “technical assistance” personnel.  Still, by all accounts the Syrian forces are extremely capable and we should not assume that they need any special outside expertise.  And to the degree that outside assistance would be needed, Hezbollah would probably be much better suited for this task than Russian units.

As far as I know, the Syrians do lack some types modern equipment, especially modern electronics and optics.  I am confident that the Russians can supply those, if needed through Iran.  Finally, since this war has been going on for so many years already, I am sure that the Syrian military has difficulties with spares and repairs.  Here again, Iran can help, with Russian aid if needed.

Conclusion

For the Russians to intervene directly in Syria would be illegal, politically impossible and pragmatically ineffective.  Russia is much better off playing her role in the Hezbollah-Iran-Russia “chain of support” for Syria.

For all the AngloZionist propaganda about the resurgent Russian Bear planning to invade Europe and for all the sophomoric demands by pseudo-friends of Russia for Russian military interventions – Russia has absolutely no obligation or intention to intervene anywhere.  The US example has already shown how costly and self-defeating it is for a country to declare itself the world policeman and to use military force to try to solve every one of the world’s crises.  Russia is not the USA and she is not even an “anti-USA”.  And that is, in my opinion, a very good thing for everybody.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Wednesday became the latest elected leader to use the plight of refugees in building a rhetorical case for military escalation towards Syria, despite numerous calls for wealthy nations to extend refuge—not bombs—as the humanitarian crisis worsens.

Speaking in the Australian capital of Canberra on Wednesday, Abbott coupled an announcement that the country will admit an additional 12,000 people fleeing conflict in the Middle East with the declaration that the nation will extend its military actions beyond Iraq by joining in the bombing campaign in eastern Syria this week. The move comes despite questions over the Abbott administration’s legal footing for the air strikes.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron is also calling for a “hard military force” to remove President Bashar al Assad in Syria. “Assad has to go, [ISIS] has to go and some of that will require not just spending money, not just aid, not just diplomacy, but it will on occasion require hard military force,” he declared Wednesday.

Cameron’s comment comes despite the fact that he lost a parliamentary vote in August 2013 for approval to launch air strikes at the Assad regime. Moreover, the statement follows rising concerns over the country’s recent drone assassination of its own citizens,secret participation of its pilots in air strikes within Syria, and bombing of targets within Iraq.

“David Cameron is determined to go to war, and he refuses to let democratic formalities stand in his way,” the UK-based Stop the War Coalition declared earlier this week. “His government is even exploiting the refugee crisis, which is the product of US and UK military intervention, in order to force Britain into yet another savage bombing campaign. UK bombing of Syria would only increase the refugee crisis.”

In France on Monday, President François Hollande announced that the country will take in 24,000 refugees—and begin conducting surveillance flights over ISIS positions in Syria, beginning this week. France, which has been participating in the U.S.-led bombing campaign of targets in Iraq since September 2014, is currently weighing whether to directly participate in air strikes on Syria, the president stated.

Speaking to the uptick in military fervor among some politicians, Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, recently declared in a Facebook question-and-answer exchange that leaders are considering intensified military efforts “to help deal with the root causes.”

Many, however, have argued that Western invasion, occupation, and military escalation arekey root causes of the war and conflict forcing people to flee their homes.

In an article recently published by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, journalist Adam Johnson warned against false military solutions, including those led by the United States. “The U.S. funded, armed and fueled the very crisis its partisan media are now calling for it to swoop and in save,” wrote Johnson. “The moral ADD required by those pushing further US involvement in the Syrian civil war in the face of this fact is severe.”

Robert Naiman, policy director for Just Foreign Policy, agrees. “Military escalation has not and will not solve the problems of Syria,” Naiman told Common Dreams. “Military escalation has and would make things worse.”

Moreover, the escalation comes amid lagging humanitarian response, as The Intercept‘s Murtaza Hussain pointed out on Twitter:

This week’s chorus is not limited to Australia and Europe, however. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose government has been participating in air strikes within both Syria and Iraq, said earlier this week that the refugee crisis builds the case for further military action. His declaration was coupled with a call for more stringent screening of refugees. “We cannot open the floodgates and airlift tens of thousands of refugees out of a terrorist war zone without proper process. That is too great a risk for Canada.”

The widely circulated photo of Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy whose body was found on a beach in Turkey and whose family was “making a final, desperate attempt to flee to relatives in Canada even though their asylum application had been rejected” [1] by the Harper Government, has caused widespread outrage and forced Western leaders to acknowledge that there is a “refugee crisis”. 

In Canada, the leaders of the Liberal and New Democratic parties have used the news of Kurdi’s tragic death, along with the deaths of his five-year-old brother and his mother, to criticize the Harper Government’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Trudeau and Mulcair have called on Canada to accept more Syrian refugees, while the Harper Government, with its lust for military action, insists on more illegal bombing raids in Syria and Iraq as the solution to the surge of Syrian refugees [2].

The real tragedy is the refusal of Western leaders to acknowledge the cause of the refugee crisis – Western imperialism’s genocidal and never ending wars on the people of the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa.

There are now more refugees than at any time since World War 2, and the number of refugees has increased markedly since the start of the “Global War on Terror” [3]. Wherever the U.S. and its imperialist allies have intervened, whether through direct military action or indirect proxy wars, economic sabotage, and coups, in the name of “democracy”, the “War on Terror”, or the “responsibility to protect”, death and despair have been forced upon millions of innocent people, who have been left no other choice than to abandon their native lands to embark on a dangerous future of desperate struggle.

In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Mali, Korea, Vietnam, East Timor, Sudan, Ukraine, and elsewhere the livelihoods of millions have been destroyed by the forces of U.S. and Western imperialism.

In the 1980s, Afghanistan had a “genuinely popular government”, according to John Ryan, retired professor from the University of Winnipeg, that was implementing widespread reforms [4]. Labour unions were legalized, a minimum wage was established, hundreds of thousands of Afghans were enrolled in educational facilities, and women were freed from age-old tribal bondage and able to earn an independent income. U.S. and Western imperialism, fearful of that kind of equitable distribution of wealth, supported the feudal landlords and fundamentalist mullahs to sow chaos across the country, bringing rise to elements that later formed al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The Afghan people were once more dealt a severe punishment by the forces of Western imperialism following 9/11, despite a lack of conclusive evidence linking either the Taliban or al-Qaeda to the attacks. 30 years of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan have left the people of Afghanistan impoverished, traumatized, and desperate.

The conflicts in Libya and Syria are eerily similar to the Western destabilization of Afghanistan. In 2011, when the Arab Spring protests swept across the Middle East and North Africa, Western imperialism hijacked legitimate grievances of the masses as a pretext for intervention in the name of the “responsibility to protect” and “democracy promotion”.

Prior to the 2011 U.S./NATO intervention, Libya was among the wealthiest and most stable countries in Africa, with the continent’s highest standard of living. Housing was enshrined as a human right, education and healthcare services were free for all citizens, and the country was pushing to establish an African currency linked to gold to help end the endless cycle of debt and impoverishment of the African masses by Western imperialism [5]. Under the cloak of the United Nations, Western imperialism, using the pretext of protecting the people of Libya from Gaddafi’s murderous rule, launched airstrikes on Libya and allied themselves with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other Libyan extremists [6]. NATO airstrikes killed hundreds of civilians and forced Libya back into the Stone Age; Gaddafi was mercilessly tortured and murdered by the rebels. Thousands have been killed as rival tribal and extremist factions, some now allied with ISIS, battling for control of the country.

The conflict in Syria has frequently been referred to as “Libya 2.0”. U.S. imperialism with the support of Israel, Turkey, and the Persian Gulf States, trained and financed “moderate” rebels to overthrow the secular and popularly supported government of Bashar al-Assad. The “Free Syrian Army”, i.e., the “moderate” rebels, has been virtually eliminated in the conflict despite millions of dollars in aid from the U.S. and its regional allies [7]. FSA fighters have deserted to the ranks of ISIS en masse, itself a product of the illegal U.S. occupation of Iraq that killed 1 million Iraqis. There is overwhelming evidence that the U.S. and its allies have been actively training and supporting ISIS elements since the start of the proxy war in Syria [8][9]. It wasn’t until ISIS invaded Iraq with its new Toyota technicals, curtesy of U.S. imperialism, that ISIS was declared a threat to the world. Western imperialism changed its tactic from supporting ISIS to airstrikes on Iraq and Syria, with the support of other Western imperialist states, Turkey (which is also conveniently bombing anti-ISIS Kurdish fighters [10]), Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf States, but without consultation with the Syrian government, Iran, or Hezbollah that have been fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda elements since the start of the conflict. Hundreds of thousands have died in the West’s proxy war against the Syrian government.

From Libya to Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and Somalia, U.S. and Western imperialist interventions, coups, and sanctions have displaced and killed millions of people. Physicians for Social Responsibility estimates that in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan alone Western imperialist interventions have caused the deaths of 1.3 million people [11]. It is no wonder then that hundreds of thousands seek asylum elsewhere; however, after traveling huge distances overland and on water, refugees find themselves abused, discriminated against, held in detention, or rejected from Europe, Canada, the U.S., and Australia.

More than 2, 500 have died this year trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe, while the International Organization for Migration estimates that 30, 000 could die by the end of 2015 [12].

Refugees attempting to enter Europe, even if they are granted asylum in a mainland European country such as Germany, have been met with police violence in Greece, Italy, and other countries on the Mediterranean that are the first landing points for boats sailing from North Africa and Turkey.

Greek riot police have beaten refugees protesting the failure of local governments to process their applications. Conditions are so poor for refugees that while waiting for processing newborn babies have died in Greece [13].

On the Macedonia-Greece border, where more than a thousand refugees are crossing daily, refugees that broke through the barbed wire fences were shot at with stun grenades, and the Macedonian police have treated refugees as rioters, according to Amnesty International [14].

Italian police forcibly removed African refugees camping out at the French border after France refused to grant them asylum [15]. Hungary is building a fortified wall, similar to the barbaric wall that divides the U.S.-Mexico border, to stop refugees from crossing the border [16].

The thousands of refugees that seek asylum in Australia are detained in Australia’s detention facilities in Papua New Guinea and the small island nation of Nauru, dubbed the “Guantanamo Bay of the Pacific” [17]. Refugees can be detained for several years in these facilities, where social workers have observed “profound damage” to those detained through “prolonged deprivation of freedom, abuse of power, confinement in an extremely harsh environment, uncertainty of future, disempowerment, loss of privacy and autonomy and inadequate health and protection services” [18]. An Australian Senate investigation received reports of guards raping women on tape and sexually exploiting children as young as 2-years-old [19]. Just as Britain refuses to assist drowning refugees in the Mediterranean out of fear that it will encourage more migrants to seek asylum [20], the unannounced policy of Australian authorities is to make refugees suffer abuse and inhumane living conditions to deter them from seeking asylum in Australia, as if Australian imperialism hasn’t inflicted enough suffering on the people of the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia.

U.S. and Western imperialism is the root cause of the “refugee crisis”. Everyday men, women, and children are killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, U.S. and Western-backed militias in Afghanistan, Syria, and Somalia, European and North American mining and oil conglomerates in Central and Western Africa, or are starved to death in Yemen by the U.S.-backed Arab blockade of the country. Until the genocidal aims of U.S. imperialism, with the support of Canada, Australia, the European Union, and regional allies, are defeated, the “War on Terror” will continue to make life too unbearable for working people in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to remain in their home countries.

Notes

1. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/03/refugee-crisis-syrian-boy-washed-up-on-beach-turkey-trying-to-reach-canada
2. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/09/04/parties-responses-to-refugee-crisis-show-stark-differences.html
3. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-refugee-crisis-and-the-genocidal-nature-of-us-nato-interventions/5474296
4. Parenti, Michael. “The Terrorism Trap”. Page 56. City Lights Books, San Fransisco, 2002. 
5. http://www.globalresearch.ca/libya-ten-things-about-gaddafi-they-dont-want-you-to-know/5414289
6. http://www.infowars.com/us-nato-commander-admits-al-qaeda-linked-to-libyan-rebels/
7. http://www.ibtimes.com/four-years-later-free-syrian-army-has-collapsed-1847116
8. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/18/the-terrorists-fighting-us-now-we-just-finished-training-them/
9. http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/officials-u-s-trained-isis-at-secret-base-in-jordan/
10. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/turkish-jets-strike-kurds-iraq-complicating-anti-isis-fight-n398276
11. http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/03/26/body-count-report-reveals-least-13-million-lives-lost-us-led-war-terror
12. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/04/iom-mediterranean-death-toll-top-30000-2015-150421232012080.html
13. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-beaten-unconscious-as-clashes-continue-with-riot-police-on-greek-island-of-lesbos-10488615.html
14. http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/08/22/war-refugees-trapped-under-fire-trying-enter-macedonia
15. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/16/italy-forcible-removal-eu-mediterranean-migrant-crisis-french-border-refugees
16. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/refugees-race-into-hungary-as-border-fence-nears-completion/2015/08/25/91f6e9c8-4aac-11e5-9f53-d1e3ddfd0cda_story.html
17. http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/22/guantanamo_of_the_pacific_australian_asylum
18. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/nauru-guards-paid-for-sex-with-asylum-seekers-and-filmed-it-social-worker-claims-20150620-ght36i.html
19. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jun/05/former-asylum-seeker-worker-tells-of-abuse-of-two-year-old-children-on-nauru
20. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11549721/The-900-refugees-dead-in-the-Mediterranean-were-killed-by-British-government-policy.html 

 

Hundreds of thousands of refugees face uncertain future in Germany

Photographs of a three-year-old Kurdish migrant child washed up from the beach in Turkey symbolized the worsening humanitarian and political crisis unfolding in Europe. Since the beginning of 2015, thousands of people from various geo-political regions in the East have died in the Mediterranean.

Many of the people who pay human traffickers to navigate a “safe passage” to Southern and Eastern Europe are fleeing from United States imperialist coordinated wars of regime-change. Others have been dislocated by the ever-growing world economic crisis of capitalism, where despite the claims of a full recovery from the Great Recession of the last decade, people are sinking deeper into poverty and instability.

A near rebellion in Hungary among migrants, many of whom are from war-torn Syria, forced Germany and Austria to allow the exit of thousands of people by train.

When the first group of migrants reached Germany they were met with welcoming crowds after conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that the country would grant sanctuary to many of those fleeing the Middle East, Africa and Asia over the next few years.

Nonetheless, European states are divided over how to deal with the growing problem. Faced with its own economic and political problems, compounded by widespread anti-immigrant sentiments based on racism, various states on the continent are concerned over a large influx of people from formally colonized states.

Hungarian right-wing leader described the crisis as a problem for Germany and not his county which wants nothing to do with migrants. The approach of Budapest was to view the people looking for sanctuary as criminals to be detained and sent someplace else.

The Washington Post in an article noted “Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, did nothing to tamp down those fears Tuesday (Sept. 8). Following a quick visit to the border Monday night, he told a Hungarian newspaper that the government would speed the construction of a fence along the country’s border with Serbia. Orban has also said the military may soon be deployed.” (Sept. 8)

Contrasting this attitude at least for now is the leadership in Germany which announced that they are willing to take up to 800,000 people and perhaps more. The conservative coalition ruling the country has appealed to other European states to follow their example.

In the same Washington Post report it says “The country’s (Germany) vice chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, braced the nation for what could be half a million refugees a year for ‘several years.’

On Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, standing side-by-side Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, called on other E.U. nations to do more. ‘We should be clear and to the point,’ Merkel said. ‘I am deeply convinced that this is a task that will decide whether we maintain our European values. The entire world is watching us.’”

European responses to the policies put forward by Merkel which were scheduled for release on September 9, could seriously strain relations among the continental states. One of the stated objectives of the migrant plan is to establish intake centers in several nations including Italy, Greece and Hungary.

Hungary at the aegis of its government had held up thousands at a train station seeking to move on to Austria and Germany. Many of those detained were set to be relocated to a detention camp.

Scenes of unrest that flared in clashes between the Hungarian police and the migrants, portends much for what is to come in the next several months and years. Since there are no plans by the imperialist states to curtail their militarism in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, along with the economic uncertainty which grips the entire world, Europe will not be able to escape the contradictions that have developed through its alliance with Washington and Wall Street.

The Significance of the Migration Crisis to Race Relations in Europe

Western and Northern Europe are already impacted by the fallout of the interference in the internal affairs of the oppressed nations. Rebellions led by residents and citizens whose origins are within the developing states of Africa, Asia and the Middle East have taken place over the last three decades.

Just in the last decade unrest has hit France, England and Sweden. In most cases the rebellions were sparked by acts of police brutality and killings. However, the underlying causes stem from the broader socio-economic disparities between people of color and Europeans and the failure to address the question of national oppression within the continent itself.

It is inevitable that discontent will set in soon among the migrants. The type of employment, housing and educational opportunities available for immigrants and their descendants from the developing countries are wholly inadequate.

Unemployment remains high among African, Asian and Middle Eastern residents in Europe even for those who have become naturalized citizens or second and successive generations of inhabitants. Even though many people coming from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. may feel relieved initially to settle in Germany and other European countries, the harsh realities of racism and economic hard ships of living outside their areas will soon come into focus.

Germany could very well have a role for the migrants in some military or political fashion. After World War I and II, the once powerful imperialist state which fought for dominance over the peoples of the world against the U.S., France and Britain, was destroyed with the defeat of the Third Reich by the Soviet Red Army, the largely communist-led resistance in France, Yugoslavia and Greece along with the might of the British and American forces.

The U.S. military strategy under the administration of President Barack Obama is designed to share the “white man’s burden” of the 21^st century. Although Washington and Wall Street will take the lead in regard to intelligence gathering, destabilization operations, targeted assassinations and air power, the deployment of troops in ground operations result in casualties which could prove costly in political terms inside the country.

There may very well be ample room for Germany and other European states to engage in broader and more long term interventions that are designed to “stabilize” those regions which have been deliberately destabilized by the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and therefore migrants from the most hotly-contested geo-political regions could serve as a bulwark in the implementation of neo-colonial control over states which have been targeted for regime-change.

The Impact of the Migrant Crisis on the Image of the Peoples of the East Among the Oppressed in the West

This crisis of mass migration, repression and resettlement also serves to reinforce the oppressive conditions under which Africans, Middle Easterners and Asians live under in the imperialist states, particularly the U.S. As the Obama administration and the corporate media pretends as if it has nothing to do with the destruction of nation-states and societies throughout the world, by implication of a denial of responsibility, the focus is shifted to the oppressed nations apportioning blame on what are described as repressive governments in various countries.

Yet even with these distortions of the true set of circumstances that have prompted the exodus from the East, the actual conditions within the Western states are by no means conducive to the integration of Africans, Middle Easterners and Asians within the European and white American dominated societies. In the U.S., African Americans and Latinos have engaged in mass demonstrations and urban rebellions in response to racism and economic exploitation. This level of unrest will not only continue but become even more pronounced.

Consequently, it is important for representatives of the oppressed within the imperialist states as well as the working class in general, to not only welcome these newly arriving migrants but to defend them against the repressive structures that are entrenched in the industrialized countries. Moreover, the capitalist states of the West have very little to offer the migrants and therefore they must take up a position as the natural allies of the forces that are fighting to overturn racism and socio-economic injustices.

This text is taken from an interview conducted on August 19, 2015 with CounterPunch Radio host Eric Draitser on WBAI 99.5 FM New York City.

WBAI: In the past decade, America has quietly expanded its military presence throughout Africa. Take us there as a starting point and educate us.

Eric Draitser: The last decade is a good timeframe to discuss this because there have been such significant changes both in terms of what’s happened on the continent of Africa, and in terms of how the United States and its military establishment have responded to that. People may remember, or they may not in fact, that back in 2007 towards the end of the Bush administration we had the establishment of the US military’s so-called Africa Command (AFRICOM). And from its humble beginnings, so to speak, in terms of “cooperative security arrangements” and “counter-terrorism,” AFRICOM has quietly expanded to become a continent-wide military footprint that the United States uses for all sorts of goals. In fact, the US military establishment has insinuated itself in almost every single country on the continent with the exception of two (Zimbabwe and Eritrea).

And so, although it doesn’t receive much media attention, though it doesn’t get much fanfare, the United States has deeply penetrated Africa militarily, and is directly engaged in every important conflict on the continent. Whether you want to discuss the US-NATO war on Libya in 2011, the United States was a principal part of that conflict. The US is deeply engaged in West Africa, both in terms of the so-called counter-terrorism operations against Boko Haram, as well as being a principal participant in the conflicts around the Lake Chad basin. It has deep penetration in the Sahel region both with counter-terrorism and surveillance. And we could go on and on. The point here is that anywhere you look in Africa the US military is involved.

And so, in understanding the changing nature of US engagement we need to understand both western corporate interests (resource extraction, investment, etc.), as well as its military engagement and all the pretexts with which it justifies that. In looking at the issue in this way, one begins to get a comprehensive understanding of just how deeply involved the US and the former colonial powers really are in Africa.

WBAI: The motivation, we are told, when we do discover or realize this penetration, is fundamentally humanitarian. It’s there to assist in counter-terrorism, such as you mentioned with Boko Haram and the kidnapped schoolgirls, etc. Please educate us more deeply about the motivations, the places, and the substantive issues that have brought the US to furthering its military foothold throughout Africa.

ED: Sure. Boko Haram is one that happens to get a lot of headlines because of the grizzly attacks, the kidnappings of the Chibok girls and others, the massacres at Baga and elsewhere, and all the rest of that organization’s violence. Certainly it warrants that attention, although if we have time, I could go more deeply into the fact that the corporate media won’t touch the real issues behind Boko Haram: where it comes from, its murky beginnings, and the shadowy networks that it operates within. But also, beyond Boko Haram, we remember quite recently the Ebola scare in West Africa which provided a very convenient pretext for the United States to send so-called “military advisers” along with military medical equipment and facilities, providing a cover for continued military engagement and, interestingly enough, a lot of those military forces are still there. So, of course, you see there are a number of pretexts that the US uses to justify its presence.

If we remember back to 2012-2013, in the wake of the US-NATO war that overthrew the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya government of Muammar Gaddafi, there was a steady flow of weapons that went west and south, and those weapons, and some of those fighters, ultimately led to the overthrow of the government in Mali which led to a war in that country. That war then precipitated an intervention by the former colonial master France, backed naturally by the United States. And, in fact, US military personnel were engaged in Mali well before the overthrow of the government. So you see, all throughout West Africa and the Sahel region you have US military involvement.

It should be noted though that the US presence is not limited to active troop presence and active military engagement. Allow me to provide just a few examples. In the nation of Chad, the United States has indefinitely stationed a contingent of troops. In fact Chad, a very important nation because of its strategic location – south of Libya, east of West Africa, situated in the Lake Chad basin and the Sahel region – was the host of the US military exercise known as Flintlock 2015. This US-sponsored series of military exercises included the participation of the nations of Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Tunisia. Each of these countries hosted US military personnel as an outgrowth of this comprehensive international military exercise.

But of course the US presence is not limited to simply such exercises. The Washington Post reported the establishment of a major new US drone base in the nation of Niger. This base is designed to be the drone and surveillance headquarters for the entire Lake Chad-West Africa-Sahel region. Consider very carefully what such a base means; it means that the Washington has “eyes in the sky” throughout the whole Boko Haram conflict zone and the entire Lake Chad basin, extending upwards into North Africa, to the western edge of West Africa and south into Central Africa. So, when the US claims that they have no idea what’s going on with Boko Haram and are in the dark about what’s happening in the Lake Chad basin, this strains credulity.

But it doesn’t stop there. The United States has “staging outposts” – they won’t call them military bases for obvious propaganda reasons – in the nations of Ghana, Senegal, and Gabon. It also has allies such as Germany and France with a presence in those countries. And then of course the US has a major hub in its surveillance network in the nation of Burkina Faso as was reported by the Washington Post back in 2012.

I’m really only scratching the surface here. We could talk for hours and hours about all the different military facilities all over the continent which they have penetrated so deeply, and of course the reasons behind this penetration. And as I mentioned earlier, the reasons are complex and multi-faceted: it is about geopolitics, economics, and strategic military engagement.

WBAI: Could you give us a summary of some of that? How do the neocolonial powers use debt as a weapon against Africa? How does the US use the military in this contemporary neocolonial context? At one point I know you had posited to me off air that to some degree this is done to block the growing influence of China in its development and engagement with Africa. Could you lay some of that out for us?

ED: Ultimately the geopolitics is central to all of this. Looking first at the debt issue – the United States and its neocolonial allies France and the UK primarily (but not exclusively) have maintained their hegemony over their former colonial possessions through the mechanism of debt. I don’t think this is a secret to anyone who has followed the politics of Africa in the postcolonial period. This is something that is well known and well-studied. They use the mechanism of international finance through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank; the main levers are debt financing and debt servicing. That is to say, they provide financial assistance to these countries that is never really payable, forcing these countries into the vicious cycle of paying back the debt, and the interest on the loans. So the indebted countries are then forced to take new loans to pay back the original loans, further indebting themselves, thereby stunting their own economic progress for years to come.

Not surprisingly, those countries that have attempted to either repudiate debt, or that have at least called it what it is and tried to find a way out of that cycle of debt slavery, have been destroyed, had interventions or assassinations or coups. One could look at Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso, or even Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Many of these countries that have done something to get out of that economic enslavement have found themselves in worse situations because of the reactions of the neocolonial countries of the West.

And this is really the main issue here: the US and its allies want to continue to maintain hegemony over Africa financially for the purposes of exploiting resources – extracting the wealth of Africa and shipping it back to the colonial powers, something that’s been going on for centuries, albeit this is a somewhat new form and under the guise of legal, neoliberal capitalism so to speak.

But also, the expansion of hegemony is done for the purposes of blocking China. The Chinese have engaged economically all throughout the continent, this has been the unmistakable trend over the last decade or more. Just to give an idea of the scope of what China has invested in Africa: in 2000 China’s total investment in Africa was roughly $10 billion for all of Africa, by 2012 it had risen to more than $165 billion, a fifteen-fold increase. This gives you an idea of the importance of Africa to China’s investment growth, and how it views its future in terms of financial engagement on the continent.

One of the reasons China has become such an attractive investor to these African countries is because the Chinese model is decidedly different from that of the US and the western powers. Specifically, the Chinese don’t view aid in terms of loans, grants, or charity. Rather, they view financial aid in terms of mutually beneficial cooperation – win-win investment as the Beijing sometimes calls it. To be fair, there are of course instances of corruption, some negative byproducts in terms of uneven distribution, environmental degradation, and other effects which come with all forms of investment, regardless of who’s doing the investing. But what the Chinese offer is hard investment in infrastructure: roads, factories, airports, railways, ports, satellite and telecommunications networks, etc. that are required for them to get a return on their investment and to be able to further expand their economic investment on the continent.

And China does so without that negative product that the African people are so justifiably afraid of: debt. In other words, when the Chinese come in to make an investment, they do so without the debt albatross to hang around the necks of African nations. There are no loans to be serviced when the Chinese are done with their investment. And this is one of the reasons why almost every country in Africa views China as a viable alternative to western financial investment and “aid.” And this is the danger that the US sees here. The US knows, quite frankly, that because of its own economic issues and those of Europe as well, that it simply cannot compete with China in terms of investment in Africa. So, what the United States has chosen to do, and this is clear from the policy decisions and military engagement all over the continent, is to check Chinese economic penetration with military penetration. And that is really the overarching issue here: the US uses its military everywhere on the African continent to block Chinese economic engagement, penetration, and influence.

WBAI: I’d like to get back to the US-NATO war on Libya in 2011 which was a major force of destabilization. You’ve contended that this was a turning point for Africa. Could you elaborate?

ED: Absolutely. In fact, calling it a turning point might be understating it. It was a watershed moment of world-historical importance because the destruction of Libya – I would call it an imperial war on Libya – really set off a chain of events the effects of which we’re still seeing today.

When the United States and its NATO allies destroyed Libya, they destabilized the entire North African region. As I think I mentioned briefly earlier, the weapons and fighters from Libya flowed both west and south; anyone looking at a map can see quite obviously what the effects of that would be. As those weapons flowed west, they went into West Africa and into the Sahel, and when they went south they went to Chad. Those weapons and fighters that went to Chad, many of them are now engaged in the conflict we’ve come to know as the war of Boko Haram. The networks from which Boko Haram has sprung have been based in Chad, this we know from WikiLeaks cables that we’ve now seen. Many of these fighters get a lot of their financing and weapons funneled through Chad as well as certain elements in Nigeria. Their staging areas are also in Chad. So, a lot of those weapons went into that conflict there.

Many of the weapons and fighters also went into Mali. The war in Mali and the overthrow of the Malian government was a direct outgrowth of the war in Libya, many of those fighters filtered back into Mali, they picked up their weapons and engaged in their continued war which had been going for a number of decades. Terrorism arose within that maelstrom. We saw the emergence of the terrorist organization known as Ansar al Dine led by a shadowy individual known as Ayad Ag Ghaly who has deep connections to the Saudis and Qataris. Ghaly led the terrorist insurgency in Mali which then necessitated a French intervention in order to restore order. So we see at least two separate wars in Mali and Nigeria that can be described as a direct outgrowth of the war on Libya.

Of course, there’s also the continuation of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a very shadowy terrorist organization, also has its contemporary roots in what happened in Libya in 2011, though the group existed well before that war. Many of the fighters from Libya have become guns for hire in criminal organizations such as AQIM and others in the region.

So in Libya, the flow of weapons, the flow of fighters, out of that country destabilized the entire region. And I should reiterate that this is not exclusive to Africa because many of those fighters who were veterans of the war in Libya not coincidentally found their way into Syria, and have acted as mercenaries in the four and a half year war on Syria.

Clearly, there are deep shockwaves that emanated from the war on Libya, and are still being felt today all throughout North Africa, West Africa, as well as the Middle East. I would contend that this was not unpredictable. Many of us, including myself, were saying that this is exactly what would happen if the United States wages this war on Libya. That’s precisely what happened. And if you think that the strategic planners in Washington had no concept of that, I’d say that’s deeply naïve and misguided. I think that they understood perfectly that by destabilizing and destroying Syria, they could expand the chaos throughout the region which, going back to what I said at the beginning of this interview, provides the justification and pretext for expanded US military engagement, precisely what they’ve wanted all along.

WBAI: In the remaining time that we have Eric, how do you analyze Obama’s recent trip to Kenya and Ethiopia?

ED: Well, I think that this was an act of desperation what we saw in both places, evident on the face of Obama, because in both countries the US is now being outstripped by China in various ways, especially in Ethiopia. This is very interesting because Ethiopia has historically been a US proxy state for the last few decades, acting as Washington’s “cop on the beat” for the Horn of Africa. The fact is though that Ethiopia is increasingly turning towards China. One of the main examples of this shift is the massive new dam that the Ethiopians are building on the Nile with Chinese funding and Chinese expertise. Although the project has certain negative environmental consequences, it is in many ways a major development for Ethiopia, a country in which the majority of the population still lives without electricity, where the infrastructure is dilapidated to the extent that it exists at all, which is deeply backwards in terms of its development. And the Chinese have come in and offered this massive project, and the Ethiopians have jumped at it.

The United States is deeply concerned that it will lose its foothold in the Horn of Africa if the Ethiopians become direct allies with China. And so, what you saw with Obama was a historically significant moment: the first time a US president has gone to Africa and openly said that the US offers Africa a better deal than does China. In other words, open and overt recognition that the United States is in open competition with China for influence in Africa. This is something many people have written about, many people have known. But for the US president to say it openly on an official trip to Africa is, I think, quite significant and quite telling of the desperation that Washington feels.

The other thing we saw on this trip was Obama’s speech in Kenya when he was standing there shoulder to shoulder with Kenyan President Kenyatta. Obama was talking about American and Western “values” and the importance of “values” referring to things like recognition of the rights of LGBTQ individuals, what might be called “secular western liberal progressive values.” But what we saw was a rejection not simply of those specific values, although we saw that as well, but also a rejection of the US dictating the terms of African cultural, social, and political development. What President Kenyatta said – first of all it should be noted that Kenyatta ran on an anti-International Criminal Court platform, against the validity of the court itself, arguing that it had been made into a tool of the US and the West to prosecute solely African people, thereby becoming effectively the International Criminal Court for Africans. That the court itself is white supremacist, colonialist, and racist at its very core…and I entirely agree with Mr. Kenyatta’s assessment and analysis.

And so we’ve seen a shift in terms of African perceptions and perspectives towards both the United States, and the western political and economic institutions that it dominates. So when Kenyatta was standing there with Obama, he was not only rejecting the notion that the US should dictate values to Africans, he was rejecting the very idea of western hegemony in Africa, and I think that that is really critical. Although Kenya works with the US on a number of issues involving peacekeeping and many other things, you’re seeing a major shift in terms of perspective and in terms of values and understanding the role that the United States plays in Africa. And I think that that’s really critical because that is a turning point. Africans want independent development – independent political and economic development. And that is what we’re seeing. The more the better for Africa.

WBAI: Eric Draitser, thank you for this comprehensive analysis which we will continue to dive into in the weeks and months that come. Thanks for getting up with us this morning.

ED: Thank you for having me.

Introduction

Background

1. As The 9/11 Commission Report informed us, Mohamed Atta was the “tactical leader of the 9/11 plot.” [14] He first arrived in the United States on a tourist visa, June 3, 2000. [15] The 9/11 Commission also said that “American intelligence agencies were unaware of Mr. Atta until the day of the attacks.” [16]
2. In August 2005, a year after the 9/11 Commission had closed, Commissioners Kean and Hamilton explained to the media why Able Danger had not been included in The 9/11 Commission Report:
   1. They had been informed about Able Danger in 2003, but were “never told that it had identified Mr. Atta and the others as threats.” [17] Although the project leader Captain Phillpott was interviewed by the Commission about Atta in July 2004, his “knowledge and credibility” were not “sufficiently reliable” to warrant further investigation of Able Danger, so they concluded that the project was not “historically significant.” [18]
   2. When the Commission asked the Pentagon for all its documents relating to Able Danger, “none of the documents turned over to the Commission mention Mohamed Atta or any of the other future hijackers.” [19]

   According to an Associated Press story reported in mid-September 2005:

   “The commission’s former chairman, Thomas Kean, said there was no evidence anyone in the government knew about Atta before Sept. 11, 2001. … Kean said the recollections of the intelligence officers cannot be verified by any document.”“ ‘Bluntly, it just didn’t happen and that’s the conclusion of all 10 of us,’ said a former commissioner, former Senator Slade Gorton.” [20]

3. Although several of Able Danger’s officers and intelligence analysts had been scheduled to testify at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee September 21, 2005, the Defense Department said that open testimony “would not be appropriate [because of] security concerns.” [21]
4. In a September 2006 investigative report, the DOD Office of the Inspector General (IG) wrote:“We concluded that prior to September 11, 2001, Able Danger team members did not identify Mohammed [sic] Atta or any other 9/11 hijacker. While we interviewed four witnesses who claimed to have seen a chart depicting Mohammed Atta and possibly other terrorists or ‘cells’ involved in 9/11, we determined that their recollections were not accurate.” [22]

I. Regarding Mohamed Atta’s Date of Arrival in the United States:

1. Three senior staff from the Able Danger project gave written testimony to a September 2005 Senate Hearing that Mohamed Atta was identified as a potential member of a terrorist cell in New York in January-February 2000, four months earlier than the June 2000 date stated by the official account. A fourth member of the project, Mr. Kleinsmith, was asked during the same Hearing:

   “Are you in a position to evaluate the credibility of Captain Philpott [sic], Colonel Shaffer, Mr. Westphal, Ms. Preisser, or Mr. J.D. Smith, when they say they saw Mohammed [sic] Atta on the chart?”

   Mr. Kleinsmith: “Yes, sir. I believe them implicitly from the time that I had worked with all of them.” [23]

2. After 9/11, civilian sightings of Atta during the spring of 2000 were reported in the news:
   • Johnelle Bryant of the US Department of Agriculture, talking to Brian Ross of ABC News “in defiance of direct orders from the USDA’s Washington headquarters,” said that Atta came into her office “sometime between the end of April and the middle of May 2000,” asking for a loan to buy a small airplane (which she refused to give). Bryant reported that when she wrote down his name, she spelled it A-T-T-A-H, leading him to say: “No, A-T-T-A, as in Atta boy!” [24]
   • In April 2000 and into the summer, Atta was, according to the head of security and a reference librarian, seen repeatedly using the computers in the Portland Maine Public Library. [25]
   • A federal investigator reported to Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Atta and another hijacker rented rooms in Brooklyn and the Bronx in the spring of 2000. A senior Justice Department official reported that Atta’s trail in Brooklyn began with a parking ticket issued to a rental car he was driving. [26]

II. Regarding the reasons given in the Kean-Hamilton 2005 statement for not including Able Danger in The 9/11 Commission Report:

1. The 9/11 Commission staff members were briefed twice by Able Danger project members:
   • The first briefing was by Colonel Anthony Shaffer on October 23, 2003. Although he was no longer with the Able Danger project, he was given clearance to meet with 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow and some Commission staff members who were visiting Bagram Air Force Base, Afghanistan, where Shaffer was stationed.In an hour-long meeting, Shaffer told Commission staff about the Able Danger project and how it had identified Atta in early 2000. In 2005, answering the Kean-Hamilton claim that he had not mentioned Atta to the Commission, Shaffer insisted that he had named Atta, saying: “I kept my talking points (from the meeting). And I’m confident about what I said.” [27]
   • The second briefing was by Navy Captain Scott Phillpott (who had held four US Naval commands) on July 13, 2004. Phillpott, the leader of Able Danger, was interviewed by Commission staff member Dieter Snell. [28]Although Phillpott’s statement clearly reinforced Shaffer’s October 2003 statement, The 9/11 Commission Report had included neither, because as mentioned above, the Report said that Captain Phillpott’s “knowledge and credibility” were not “sufficiently reliable” to warrant further investigation of Able Danger. [29]
2. Kean and Hamilton also rejected Able Danger’s Atta claim on grounds that the Pentagon records contained no documentary evidence. They thus disregarded the consistent briefings and testimony from four members of the project’s senior management team.  A clue to why may be provided by Anthony Shaffer’s report (backed up by Curt Weldon; see IV-a below) that when Christopher Kojm, Deputy Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, was asked by Congressman Curt Weldon’s chief of staff why the Commission had not included Able Danger in its report, Kojm replied, “It did not fit with the story we wanted to tell.” [30]
3. With regard to the Commission’s claim that Able Danger was not historically significant, former FBI Director Louis Freeh said that “[t]he Able Danger intelligence, if confirmed, is undoubtedly the most relevant fact of the entire post-9/11 inquiry,” calling the Commission’s claim “astounding.” [31]

III. Regarding the Pentagon concern that “it is simply not possible to discuss Able Danger in any great detail in an open public forum” such as the Senate Judiciary Committee:

• Phillpott, Shaffer and Smith had already made their written submissions when testifying before the September 21, 2005, Senate Hearing on Able Danger.
• Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said he was surprised by the Pentagon’s decision because “so much of this is already in the public domain,” [32] and “[t]hat looks to me like it may be obstruction of the committee’s activities.” [33]

IV. Regarding the Inspector-General’s 2006 conclusion that the Able Danger team’s recollection of an Atta chart was not accurate:

1. In late June 2005, Congressman Curt Weldon, during an address to the House, had presented an enlarged version of the chart that he had received from Dr. Eileen Preisser and had then given to Stephen Hadley in the White House.Pointing out Mohamed Atta’s name in the center of the chart, Weldon had asked:

   “Why is there no mention, Mr. Speaker, of a recommendation in September of 2000 to take out Mohammed [sic] Atta’s cell which would have detained three of the terrorists who struck us?We have to ask the question, why have these issues not been brought forth before this day? I had my Chief of Staff call the 9/11 Commission staff and ask the question: Why did you not mention Able Danger in your report? The Deputy Chief of Staff [Christopher Kojm] said, well, we looked at it, but we did not want to go down that direction.

   So the question, Mr. Speaker, is why did they not want to go down that direction? Where will that lead us? Who made the decision to tell our military not to pursue Mohamed Atta?” [34]

2. In late August, 2005, three members of the Able Danger team had gone public, confirming the Atta chart: Defense intelligence analyst Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, [35] project leader Scott Phillpott, [36] and defense contractor James D. Smith, saying he was “absolutely positive that Atta was on our chart.” [37]Important testimony from Smith came in a Hearing of the House Arms Services Committee on February 15, 2006. Explaining that he had used Arab intermediaries in Los Angeles to buy a photograph of Atta, Smith added that it was one of some 40 photos of al-Qaeda members on a chart that he had given to Pentagon officials in 2000. [38] Smith also said:“I have recollection of a visual chart that identified associations of known terrorist Omar Abdul-Rahman within the New York City geographic area. … Mohamed Atta’s picture … was on the chart. … The particular Atta chart is no longer available, as it was destroyed in an office move that I had in 2004. [Smith later, explaining to the Pentagon’s Inspector General how his Atta chart was destroyed, said: [I]t had been up there so long I had quite a lot of tape up there because it had been rolled up. In the process the tape was tearing the chart. … It shredded itself as I was trying to pull it off the wall carefully … so I just threw it away.” [39]During questioning by Weldon, the following exchange had occurred:

   “Weldon: Mr. Smith?I have direct recollection of the chart because I had a copy up until 2004. … At the time, after 9/11 when the pictures were released in newspapers and I did the compare on the chart, when I saw [Atta’s] picture there, I was extremely elated and, to anyone that would listen to me, I showed them the chart that was in my possession.

   Weldon: How sure are you that it was Mohammed Atta’s name and picture [on the chart]?

   Smith: I’m absolutely certain. I used to look at it every morning …

   Weldon: And was that the chart you think that was given to me that I gave to the White House?

   Smith: Yes, sir. It was.

   Weldon: And you’re aware that when I gave that chart to the White House, Dan Burton, the chairman of the Government Ops Committee, was with me and stated to the New York Times, that he actually showed the chart to Steve Hadley and explained the linkages?

   Smith: Yes, sir.” [40]

3. Confirming the public statements released in August, 2005, by Phillpott, Shaffer, and Smith, two more people reported having seen a chart with Atta’s name on it when the Pentagon interviewed 80 Able Danger employees in early September 2005. Dr. Eileen Preisser and a Mr. (probably Christopher) Westphal brought the number of people who had seen the chart up to five, four of whom remembered Atta’s picture. [41]
4. A purported image of one of Able Danger’s charts, shown below, is available online, [42] supporting the existence of the charts and what they looked like:
5. Regarding the Pentagon Inspector General’s 2006 90-page summary claiming that the team’s recollections were not accurate, Dr. David Ray Griffin has provided a detailed analysis, showing its lack of transcripts, circular reasoning, and prejudicial treatment of witnesses. [43]
6. In an unusual departure from government and military investigation procedures, the Inspector General’s 2006 report refers only to the positions of its witnesses, and does not identify them by name, thus offering witness protection through anonymity, although it was not a criminal investigation. [44]In Congressman Weldon’s words, “The report trashes the reputations of military officers who had the courage to step forward and put their necks on the line to describe important work they were doing to track al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. … I am appalled that the DOD IG would expect the American people to actually consider this a full and thorough investigation.” [45]

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is reluctant to unlock horns with the White House, even as he faces almost certain defeat in trying to block President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran.

Last week, when it became clear he could not muster enough votes in the Senate to block a presidential veto, Netanyahu let fly one more punch. He observed that “the overwhelming majority of the American public sees eye-to-eye with Israel”, not their president.

According to polls, a narrow majority of Americans reject the Iran deal.

But ordinary Americans may be surprised to learn that Netanyahu’s hardline policy on Iran has long been viewed as implausible and counter-productive back home, among his own security officials.

That verdict was underscored by the latest disclosures from Ehud Barak, who was defence minister through the critical years of Israel’s lobbying for an attack on Iran.

Leaked audio tapes of Barak speaking to biographers suggest that he and Netanyahu pressed unsuccessfully on three occasions, between 2010 and 2012, for the Israeli military to launch a strike.

Each time, he says, they were foiled either by the military’s failure to come up with a workable plan or by the reticence of fellow ministers as they heard of the likely fallout.

In Washington, Netanyahu has cast himself as Cassandra, the forsaken prophet of disaster. His dire predictions have been based on two assumptions.

The first holds that Iran is a replica in the Middle East of Nazi Germany. The single-minded goal of its leaders is to commit a nuclear holocaust against their enemies, with the Jews and Israel top of the list.

Such claims should sound credible only to Israeli loyalists and the gullible. How is it that tens of thousands of Iranian Jews are living peacefully in the belly of the beast? And are Iran’s leaders really suicidal as well as fanatical, given Israel’s own, undeclared nuclear arsenal?

The second assumption has become an article of faith for most western policy-makers: that Iran is actively trying to build a nuclear weapon. It is easy to forget that many experts, and US intelligence agencies, doubt that has been the case for more than a decade.

On these flimsy premises, Netanyahu has constructed an equally dubious conclusion: there can be no negotiating with evil.

Given his precarious position in defying a US president, Netanyahu has been coy about explaining what alternative he believes Washington should have pursued in place of the current agreement with Iran.

In an effort to divert critics from the lack of a real strategy, he has even suggested he is not opposed in principle to Iran being allowed a civilian nuclear programme.

But if Iran is really Nazi Germany, as he says, or simply exploiting its energy research to reach the threshhold of developing a bomb, as more cautious critics allege, how can Netanyahu contemplate opening that particular door to Tehran?

The truth is that Netanyahu disapproves of any agreement. He would prefer an intensification of sanctions, forcing Iran to break free of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and conceal its nuclear research from all scrutiny.

Then his warnings would sound more compelling, as would his demands that the US lead an attack on Iran.

Above all, Netanyahu wishes to prevent a rapprochement between the US and Tehran, one that might weaken Israel’s hold on Washington’s Middle East policy and increase the pressure for a real peace process with the Palestinians.

Barak’s leaked comments, meanwhile, have damaged everyone involved. The former defence minister has been publicly rebuked as a blabbermouth, and Netanyahu derided for being so ineffectual his cabinet spurned him at what he claimed to be the most fateful moment in Israel’s history.

As former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has noted, continuing leaks of high-level discord over Iran have made Israel look “ridiculous”.

But the tapes’ enduring significance – whatever embellishments Barak made in the telling – is that they confirm years of intimations from Israel’s security establishment that it stood firm against Netanyahu’s reckless approach on Iran.

From Meir Dagan, the former Mossad spy chief, to Gabi Ashkenazi, the former military chief of staff, Israel’s security elite has hinted loudly that it was blocking Netanyahu’s efforts to provoke regional conflagration.

Such was the opposition, one may suspect that even Netanyahu and Barak began to have doubts. Had they truly believed Israel could be saved only by bombing Iran, would they not have moved mountains to win over the cabinet and defence establishment?

More likely, Netanyahu concluded some time ago that Israel had no military option against Iran.

So why fight a doomed battle on Iran to the bitter end, further damaging Israel’s already frayed ties with Washington?

Doubtless, Netanyahu expects to extract yet more concessions from the White House, from upgrades to its US-supplied weapons systems to US guarantees of diplomatic protection in international forums.

But Netanyahu hopes for more.

Last week the Israeli media quoted sources close to Netanyahu saying he knew he would lose on the Iran deal from the outset but carried on regardless. The goal was to convince the American public, not Democratic legislators.

Netanyahu’s current bluster starts to look like it is aimed less at the nuclear deal than at President Obama himself.

Is Netanyahu hoping to turn the Iran issue into a doomsday electoral weapon against the Democrats, helping to clear the path into the White House next year for a Republican.

That way, Netanyahu may believe he can still emerge the victor, with a hawkish new president prepared to push Iran back into the US line of fire.

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

 

Arthur Neville Chamberlain (18 March 1869 – 9 November 1940) was a former British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, with Adolf Hitler, conceding the German­speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Germany.

Here in London, another Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom this time prepares to concede to the demands of Benjamin Netanyahu – the belligerent prime minister of an undeclared nuclear state which is a global arms supplier – that allegedly include the annexation by Israel of the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem in an appeasement foreign policy that will have severe political repercussions throughout the Middle East and Europe.

Suddenly 2015 seems frighteningly similar to 1938 as a petition signed by 106,900 concerned British citizens demanding the arrest if the Israeli Prime Minister on alleged war crime charges, is summarily rejected without any debate in the House of Commons in which the majority of the Conservative cabinet is reputed to support the CFI Conservative Friends of Israel lobby.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/an­arrest­warrant­for­israels- prime­minister­netanyahu­when­he­arrives­in­london­on-september­9/5474750

Images of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy who washed up dead on Mediterranean shores in his family’s attempt to flee war-torn Syria, have grabbed the attention of people around the world, sparking outrage about the true costs of war.

The heart-wrenching refugee crisis unfolding across the Middle East and at European borders has ignited a much needed conversation on the ongoing strife and instability that’s driving people from their homes in countries like Syria, Libya and Iraq. It’s brought international attention to the inhumane treatment these refugees are receiving if — and it is a major “if” — they arrive at Europe’s door.

In Syria, for example, foreign powers have sunk the nation into a nightmare combination of civil war, foreign invasion and terrorism. Syrians are in the impossible position of having to choose between living in a warzone, being targeted by groups like ISIS and the Syrian government’s brutal crackdown, or faring dangerous waters with minimal safety equipment only to be denied food, water and safety by European governments if they reach shore.

Other Syrians fleeing the chaos at home have turned to neighboring Arab Muslim countries. Jordan alone has absorbed over half a million Syrian refugees; Lebanon has accepted nearly 1.5 million; and Iraq and Egypt have taken in several hundred thousand.

Although it’s not an Arab nation or even part of the Middle East, Iran sent 150 tons of humanitarian goods, including 3,000 tents and 10,000 blankets, to the Red Crescents of Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon via land routes to be distributed among the Syrian refugees residing in the three countries last year.

Turkey has taken in nearly 2 million refugees to date. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Erdogan made international headlines for opening his nation’s arms to migrants, positioning himself as a kind of savior in the process.

Meanwhile, Gulf Arab nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have provided refuge to zero Syrian refugees.

While there’s certainly a conversation taking place about refugees — who they are, where they’re going, who’s helping them, and who isn’t — what’s absent is a discussion on how to prevent these wars from starting in the first place. Media outlets and political talking heads have found many opportunities to point fingers in the blame game, but not one media organization has accurately broken down what’s driving the chaos: control over gas, oil and resources.

Indeed, it’s worth asking: How did demonstrations held by “hundreds” of protesters demanding economic change in Syria four years ago devolve into a deadly sectarian civil war, fanning the flames of extremism haunting the world today and creating the world’s second largest refugee crisis?

While the media points its finger to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s barrel bombs and political analysts call for more airstrikes against ISIS and harsher sanctions against Syria, we’re four years into the crisis and most people have no idea how this war even got started.

This “civil war” is not about religion

Citing a lack of access on the ground, the United Nations stopped regularly updating its numbers of casualties in the Syrian civil war in January 2014. Estimates put the death toll between 140,200 and 330,380, with as many as 6 million Syrians displaced, according to the U.N.

While there is no question that the Syrian government is responsible for many of the casualties resulting from its brutal crackdown, this is not just a Syrian problem.

Foreign meddling in Syria began from the onset of the revolt in March 2011. But even according to major media outlets like the BBC and the Associated Press, the demonstrations that supposedly swept Syria were comprised of only hundreds of people.

While these demonstrations were mostly genuine and represented a real call for economic change, just one month into these demonstrations in April 2011, WikiLeaks released U.S. intelligence revealing a heavy CIA hand in organizing, financing and even arming this revolt.

Just a few months later, with demonstrations growing, rebel groups swarming Syria, and a severe government crackdown sweeping through the country, it became evident that the United States, United Kingdom, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey would be jumping on the opportunity to organize, arm and finance rebels to form the Free Syrian Army. (Just a few months ago, WikiLeaks confirmed this when it released Saudi intelligence that revealed Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia had been working hand in hand to arm and finance rebels to overthrow the Syrian government since 2012.)

These foreign nations created a pact in 2012 called “The Group of Friends of the Syrian People,” a name that couldn’t be further from the truth. Their agenda was to divide and conquer in order to wreak havoc across Syria in view of overthrowing Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The true agenda to hijack Syria’s revolt quickly became evident, with talking heads inserting Syria’s alliance with Iran as a threat to the security and interests of the United States and its allies in the region. It’s no secret that Syria’s government is a major arms, oil and gas, and weapons ally of Iran and Lebanon’s resistance political group Hezbollah.

But it’s important to note the timing: This coalition and meddling in Syria came about immediately on the heels of discussions of an Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline that was to be built between 2014 and 2016 from Iran’s giant South Pars field through Iraq and Syria. With a possible extension to Lebanon, it would eventually reach Europe, the target export market.

Perhaps the most accurate description of the current crisis over gas, oil and pipelines that is raging in Syria has been described by Dmitry Minin, writing for the Strategic Cultural Foundation in May 2013:

“A battle is raging over whether pipelines will go toward Europe from east to west, from Iran and Iraq to the Mediterranean coast of Syria, or take a more northbound route from Qatar and Saudi Arabia via Syria and Turkey. Having realized that the stalled Nabucco pipeline, and indeed the entire Southern Corridor, are backed up only by Azerbaijan’s reserves and can never equal Russian supplies to Europe or thwart the construction of the South Stream, the West is in a hurry to replace them with resources from the Persian Gulf. Syria ends up being a key link in this chain, and it leans in favor of Iran and Russia; thus it was decided in the Western capitals that its regime needs to change.

 

It’s the oil, gas and pipelines, stupid!

Indeed, tensions were building between Russia, the U.S. and the European Union amid concerns that the European gas market would be held hostage to Russian gas giant Gazprom. The proposed Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline would be essential to diversifying Europe’s energy supplies away from Russia.

Turkey is Gazprom’s second-largest customer. The entire Turkish energy security structure relies on gas from Russia and Iran. Plus, Turkey was harboring Ottoman-like ambitions of becoming a strategic crossroads for the export of Russian, Caspian-Central Asian, Iraqi and Iranian oil and even gas to Europe.

The Guardian reported in August 2013:

“Assad refused to sign a proposed agreement with Qatar and Turkey that would run a pipeline from the latter’s North field, contiguous with Iran’s South Pars field, through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, with a view to supply European markets – albeit crucially bypassing Russia. Assad’s rationale was ‘to protect the interests of [his] Russian ally, which is Europe’s top supplier of natural gas.’”

Knowing Syria was a critical piece in its energy strategy, Turkey attempted to persuade Syrian President Bashar Assad to reform this Iranian pipeline and to work with the proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline, which would ultimately satisfy Turkey and the Gulf Arab nations’ quest for dominance over gas supplies. But after Assad refused Turkey’s proposal, Turkey and its allies became the major architects of Syria’s “civil war.”

Much of the strategy currently at play was described back in a 2008 U.S. Army-funded RAND report, “Unfolding the Future of the Long War”:

“The geographic area of proven oil reserves coincides with the power base of much of the Salafi-jihadist network. This creates a linkage between oil supplies and the long war that is not easily broken or simply characterized. … For the foreseeable future, world oil production growth and total output will be dominated by Persian Gulf resources. … The region will therefore remain a strategic priority, and this priority will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war.”

In this context, the report identifies the divide and conquer strategy while exploiting the Sunni-Shiite divide to protect Gulf oil and gas supplies while maintaining a Gulf Arab state dominance over oil markets.

“Divide and Rule focuses on exploiting fault lines between the various Salafi-jihadist groups to turn them against each other and dissipate their energy on internal conflicts. This strategy relies heavily on covert action, information operations (IO), unconventional warfare, and support to indigenous security forces. … the United States and its local allies could use the nationalist jihadists to launch proxy IO campaigns to discredit the transnational jihadists in the eyes of the local populace. … U.S. leaders could also choose to capitalize on the ‘Sustained Shia-Sunni Conflict’ trajectory by taking the side of the conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment movements in the Muslim world…. possibly supporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly hostile Iran.”

The report notes that another option would be “to take sides in the conflict, possibly supporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly hostile Iran.”

This framework crafted an interesting axis: Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, U.S., Britain and France vs. Syria, Iran and Russia.

Divide and conquer: A path to regime change

With the U.S., France, Britain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — aka, the new “Friends of Syria” coalition — publicly calling for the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad between  2011 and 2012 after Assad’s refusal to sign onto the gas pipeline, the funds and arms flowing into Syria to feed the so-called “moderate” rebels were pushing Syria into a humanitarian crisis. Rebel groups were being organized left and right, many of which featured foreign fighters and many of which had allied with al-Qaida.

The Syrian government responded with a heavy hand, targeting rebel held areas and killing civilians in the process.

Since Syria is religiously diverse, the so-called “Friends of Syria” pushed sectarianism as their official “divide and conquer” strategy to oust Assad. Claiming that Alawites ruled over a majority Sunni nation, the call by the “moderate” U.S.-backed rebels became one about Sunni liberation.

Although the war is being sold to the public as a Sunni-Shiite conflict, so-called Sunni groups like ISIS,  the Syrian al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra (the Nusra Front) and even the “moderate” Free Syrian Army have indiscriminately targeted Syria’s Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and Jews. At the same time, these same foreign nations supported and even armed the Bahraini government, which claims to be Sunni, in its violent crackdown on the majority Shiite pro-democracy demonstrations that swept the nation.

The Syrian government army itself is over 80 percent Sunni, which indicates that the true agenda has been politically — not religiously — motivated.

In addition to this, the Assad family is Alawite, an Islamic sect that the media has clumped in with Shiites, though most Shiites would agree that the two are unrelated. Further, the Assad family is described as secular and running a secular nation. Counting Alawites as Shiites was simply another way to push a sectarian framework for the conflict: It allowed for the premise that the Syria-Iran alliance was based on religion, when, in fact, it was an economic relationship.

This framework carefully crafted the Syrian conflict as a Sunni revolution to liberate itself from Shiite influence that Iran was supposedly spreading to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

But the truth is, Syria’s Sunni community is divided, and many defected to join groups like the Free Syrian Army, ISIS and al-Qaida. And as mentioned earlier, over 80 percent of Assad’s military is Sunni.

As early as 2012, additional rebels armed and financed by Arab Gulf nations and Turkey like al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood, declared all-out war against Shiites. They even threatened to attack Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraq’s government after they had overthrown the Assad government.

Soon after, the majority of the Muslim Brotherhood rebels became part of al-Qaida-affiliated groups. Together, they announced that they would destroy all shrines — not just those ones which hold particular importance to Shiites.

Hezbollah entered the scene in 2012 and allied itself with the Syrian government to fight al-Nusra and ISIS, which were officially being armed and financed by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. And all the arms were actively being sold to these nations by the United States. Thus, US arms were falling into the hands of the same terror group the US claims to be fighting in its broader War on Terror.

According to reports, Hezbollah was and has been been active in preventing rebel penetration from Syria to Lebanon, being one of the most active forces in the Syrian civil war spillover in Lebanon. Despite this, the U.S. sanctioned both the Syrian government and Hezbollah in 2012.

Also that year, Russia and Iran sent military advisers to assist the Syrian government in quelling the terror groups, but Iranian troops were not on the ground fighting during this time.

What was once a secular, diverse and peaceful nation, was looking more like it was on its way to becoming the next Afghanistan; its people living under Taliban-style rule as jihadists took over more land and conquered more cities.

 

Effects of foreign meddling outweigh self-determination

If you think that was hard to follow, you’re certainly not alone.

Most sectarian civil wars are purposely crafted to pit sides against one another to allow for a “divide and conquer” approach that breaks larger concentrations of power into smaller factions that have more difficulty linking up. It’s a colonial doctrine that the British Empire famously used, and what we see taking place in Syria is no different.

So, let’s get one thing straight: This is not about religion. It might be convenient to say that Arabs or Muslims kill each other, and it’s easy to frame these conflicts as sectarian to paint the region and its people as barbaric. But this Orientalist, overly simplistic view of conflict in the Middle East dehumanizes the victims of these wars to justify direct and indirect military action.

If the truth was presented to the public from the perspective that these wars are about economic interests, most people would not support any covert funding and arming of rebels or direct intervention. In fact, the majority of the public would protest against war. But when something is presented to the public as a matter of good versus evil, we are naturally inclined to side with the “good” and justify war to fight off the supposed “evil.”

The political rhetoric has been carefully crafted to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. Ultimately, no matter the agendas, the alliances or instability brought on by foreign meddling, the calls for freedom, democracy and equality that erupted in 2011 were real then and they’re real today. And let’s not forget that the lack of freedom, democracy and equality have been brought on more by foreign meddling to prop up brutal dictators and arm terror groups than by self-determination.

The people in the Middle East once stood united and strong together against foreign meddling, exploitation and colonialism no matter their religious or cultural background. But today, the Middle East is being torn to shreds by manipulative plans to gain oil and gas access by pitting people against one another based on religion. The ensuing chaos provides ample cover to install a new regime that’s more amenable to opening up oil pipelines and ensuring favorable routes for the highest bidders.

And in this push for energy, it’s the people who suffer most. In Syria, they are fleeing en masse. They’re waking up, putting sneakers on their little boys and girls, and hopping on boats without life jackets, hoping just to make it to another shore. They’re risking their lives, knowing full well that they may never reach that other shore, because the hope of somewhere else is better than the reality at home.

Canadian Gunboat Diplomacy

By Yves Engler, September 09, 2015

Former Prime Minister Kim Campbell once said “an election is no time to discuss important issues.” But surely the opportunity to free up $40 billion while making the world a safer place ought to spark a discussion about the Canadian Navy’s role in the world.

Four years ago the Conservatives announced the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy, a $30-$40 billion effort to expand the combat fleet over three decades. But, the initiative is stalled and this is a perfect time to consider other priorities, such as putting the money into a national daycare program, building co-op/public housing, investing it in light rail or using it to make higher education more affordable.

Let’s have a debate and let Canadians choose.

The first step is understanding how the Canadian Navy uses it warships.

People seldom think of Canadian foreign policy when the term “gunboat diplomacy” is used, but they should. It is not just the USA, Great Britain, France or other better-known imperial powers that have used naval force as a “diplomatic” tool.

Nearly a century ago the Royal Bank loaned $200,000 to unpopular Costa Rican dictator Federico Tinoco just as he was about to flee the country. A new government refused to repay the money, saying the Canadian bank knew the public despised Tinoco and that he was likely to steal it. “In 1921,” Canadian Gunboat Diplomacy notes, “in Costa Rica, [Canadian vessels] Aurora, Patriot and Patrician helped the Royal Bank of Canada satisfactorily settle an outstanding claim with the government of that country.”

In another chapter of the 2000 book titled “Maple Leaf Over the Caribbean: Gunboat Diplomacy Canadian Style” Royal Military College historian Sean Maloney writes: “Since 1960, Canada has used its military forces at least 26 times in the Caribbean to support Canadian foreign policy. In addition, Canada planned three additional operations, including two unilateral interventions into Caribbean states.”

While the Canadian Navy has long flexed its muscles in the Western hemisphere, over the past decade the Canadian Navy has played a greater role in Africa. In the summer of 2008 Canada took command of NATO’s Task Force 150 that worked off the coast of Somalia. Between the start of 2013 and fall of 2015 Canadian warships HMCS Regina and HMCS Toronto participated in a 28-nation Combined Maritime Forces operation in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. At the start of 2015 twenty-six Canadian Armed Forces members participated in the multinational maritime security exercise Cutlass Express 2015. Sponsored by the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), it took place off the East African coast.

As part of what’s been dubbed Africa’s “encirclement by U.S. and NATO warships”, HMCS Athabaskan led Operation Steadfast Jaguar 2006 in the Gulf of Guinea. A dozen warships and 7,000 troops participated in the exercise, the first ever carried out by NATO’s Rapid Response Force.

The following year HMCS Toronto participated in a six-ship task group of the Standing Naval Maritime Group 1 of NATO that traveled 23,000 kilometres around the continent. The trip took five months and was the first NATO fleet to circumnavigate Africa. HMCS Toronto spent a year preparing for this trip, a journey costing Canadian taxpayers $8 million.

Oil largely motivated operations off Nigeria’s coast. Nigeria’s Business Day described NATO’s presence as “a show of force and a demonstration that the world powers are closely monitoring the worsening security situation in the [oil-rich] Niger Delta.” A Canadian spokesperson gave credence to this interpretation of their activities in a region long dominated by Shell and other Western oil corporations. When the Standing Naval Maritime Group 1 warships patrolled the area Canadian Lieutenant Commander Angus Topshee told the CBC that “it’s a critical area of the world because Nigeria produces a large amount of the world’s light crude oil, and so when anything happens to that area that interrupts that flow of oil, it can have repercussions for the entire global economy.”

More broadly, the objective of circumnavigating the continent was to develop situational knowledge of the various territorial waters, especially Nigeria and Somalia. How knowledge of countries’ coastlines was to be used was not made entirely clear, but it certainly wasn’t to strengthen their sovereignty. “During the voyage,” according to a story in Embassy, “the fleet sailed at a distance of 12 to 15 miles off the African coast, just beyond the limits of sovereign national waters. The NATO fleet did not inform African nations it would soon be on the horizon. This, Lt.-Cmdr. Topshee says, was an intentional move meant to ‘keep options open.’ ‘International law is built on precedent,’ he says. ‘So if NATO creates a precedent where we’re going to inform countries, we’re going to operate off their coastline, over time that precedent actually becomes a requirement’.” To help with the legal side of the operations a lawyer circumnavigated the continent with HMCS Toronto.

Reportedly, the Nigerians did not appreciate NATO’s aggressive tactics. Topshee described the Nigerians as “downright irate” when the fleet approached. “There was real concern they might take action against us.”

For HMCS Toronto’s Captain Stephen Virgin, the circumnavigation was largely about preparing NATO forces for a future invasion. “These are areas that the force might have to go back to some day and we need to operate over there to get an understanding of everything from shipping patterns to how our sensors work in those climates.”

In early 2011, 15 days before the UN Security Council authorized a no-fly zone over Libya, HMCS Charlottetown left Halifax for the North African country. Two rotations of Canadian warships enforced a naval blockade of Libya for six months with about 250 soldiers aboard each vessel.

Later that year, on May 19, HMCS Charlottetown joined an operation that destroyed eight Libyan naval vessels. The ship also repelled a number of fast, small boats and escaped unscathed after a dozen missiles were fired towards it from the port city of Misrata. After the hostilities the head of Canada’s navy, Paul Maddison, told Ottawa defence contractors that HMCS Charlottetown “played a key role in keeping the Port of Misrata open as a critical enabler of the anti-Gaddafi forces.”

On one occasion a Canadian warship, part of a 20-ship NATO flotilla purportedly enforcing the UN arms embargo on Libya, boarded a rebel vessel filled with ammunition. “There are loads of weapons and munitions, more than I thought,” a Canadian officer radioed HMCS Charlottetown commander Craig Skjerpen. “From small ammunition to 105 howitzer rounds and lots of explosives.” The commander’s response, reported the Ottawa Citizen, was to allow the rebel ship to sail through.

The National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy will give Canadian officials greater means to bully weaker countries. Surely, one of the opposition parties sees a better way to spend $40 billion dollars.

Yves Engler is the author of Canada In Africa: 300 years of aid and exploitation and will be speaking across the country in the lead up to the election. For information: Yvesengler.com

Polls show increasing numbers of voters dislike and distrust her. She’s losing ground to Sanders and bested by Donald Trump.

Voters rate her poorly on honesty, trustworthiness and transparency. When asked to describe her, “liar” is the word most often mentioned – then “dishonest,” untrustworthy,” and “criminal.”

She can’t convince people she’s not hiding something. Her sordid past perhaps caught up with her. Polls show Joe Biden is most favored against Republicans – maybe enough to convince him to declare his candidacy.

Clinton campaign aides say she’s rebooting, aiming to reinvent herself as kinder, gentler. She’ll find it hard to erase her sordid past or change her image in voter minds once fixed.

In a field of deplorable presidential aspirants without a worthy one in the bunch, she stands out as especially loathsome and dangerous – a war goddess most likely to confront Russia and perhaps China belligerently, a prescription for WW III. Smiles and feigned affability can’t disguise pure evil.

The New York Times explained her new campaign strategy headlining “Hillary Clinton to Show More Humor and Heart, Aides Say.”

From now on she’ll refrain from “flip jokes about her private email server (and) rope lines to wall off crowds…And there will be new efforts to bring spontaneity to a candidacy that sometimes seems wooden and overly cautious,” said The Times.

A record of being on the right side of major issues and character matter most. Clinton fails on both counts – a shameless self-promoter, an unabashedly hawkish supporter of endless wars, fundamentally against world peace and stability, a nuclear weapons use proponent.

Her earlier attempts to fake a softer side fell flat. Her demeanor shows she’s not genuine. Her record as US senator and secretary of state belies her disingenuous claim about “want(ing) to be the president who addresses the problems in the headlines and the ones that keep you up at night.”

Her agenda is polar opposite her duplicitous rhetoric. Democrat pollster Anna Greenberg was right calling her an “establishment candidate,” without explaining she supports dirty business as usual – in her case much dirtier.

Last April, Politico headlined “Hillary is new and improved! Take as directed,” saying she “invented herself almost as many times as Edison tried to invent the light bulb.”

If she stood for what matters most for most people, reinvention wouldn’t be an issue. Portraying herself as a populist champion is polar opposite her real persona and agenda.

On September 8, the Wall Street Journal picked up on the Politico theme headlining “Hillary, New and Improved,” saying:

She’ll try shedding her “scriptedness.” Political campaigning is choreographed kabuki theater – candidates pretending to be something they’re not, illusion papering over ugly reality.

For eight years as first lady, she partnered in husband Bill’s crimes. She shamelessly self-promoted throughout her Washington years and since leaving government.

Her public service record as senator and secretary of state was scandalous – militantly pro-war, contemptuous of rule of law principles, scornful of democracy, backer of Israel’s worst crimes, anti-populist while pretending to be otherwise, dismissive of human suffering, and supporter of police state legislation.

She represents the worst of America’s dark side, a monument to wrong over right, anti-Russian, a major threat to world peace.

She stands for everything activists for peace, equity and justice oppose. It’s hard imagining a worse choice for president – or any other public service office.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

“And yet, while [David] Cameron continues to impose limits on the number of refugees who can take shelter in the UK, he is willing to welcome Netanyahu to our shores.” Len McCluskey et al, The Guardian, Sep 7, 2015

It has been there, in the background, gurgling away. Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been the subject of a busy UK petition which has seen over a hundred thousand signatures demanding his arrest. “Under international law, he should be arrested for war crimes upon arrival in the UK for the massacre of over 2,000 civilians in 2014.”[1]

The hundred thousand threshold, apart from its obvious statement of indignation, also brings into play another feature of the UK political process: it compels parliamentarians to take notice and debate the issue. The government, however, reserves the right not to hold a debate in the Commons “if the issue has already been debated recently or there’s a debate scheduled for the near future.”

When the petition started to gather steam, the Israeli Foreign Ministry gave it short shrift, deeming it “a public relations stunt with no practical significance.” The official position from the British government remains traditional: international law does not, as yet, countenance the prospects of arresting a head of state while holding office.

The moment Netanyahu decides to hang up his sword of battle and leave office, that could be quite another matter. Venues for safe travel have certainly shrunk over the years, and his blood spattered resume is becoming the stuff of legend.

For current purposes, Cameron’s position is that of lamentation and acceptance: pity the dead, but value necessary military action, the sort that inheres within the nasty confines of state sovereignty. “We recognise that the conflict in Gaza last year took a terrible toll. As the prime minister said, we were all deeply saddened by the violence and the UK has been at the forefront of international reconstruction efforts.”

The very statistical discrepancy between 2,100 dead Palestinians, 500 children, as against seventy-three Israelis, almost all combatants, should stand out as a classic of disproportionate military action. During the conflict between July and August last year, 6,000 airstrikes were launched, 50,000 tank and artillery shells fired. But such ruthless muscularity is more likely than not going to be stricken from the agenda.

As with so much on the Netanyahu schedules of late, such a visit will be closely choreographed. Local dissent will have to be managed. A delegation of parliamentarians has been combed to meet the Israeli prime minister. A range of Jewish leaders also make the list. None of the four candidates of the Labor party’s leadership will be amongst them, and certainly not Jeremy Corbyn, whose pro-Palestinian credentials are well noted.

Corbyn’s position is reflected in a plethora of organisations who have argued for the squeeze to be applied to Israel. The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, which is intending to hold a protest later today opposite 10 Downing Street, has called for arms embargos and sanctions to be imposed (The Jerusalem Post, Sep 9).

A joint letter published in the Guardian, authored by a range of unions (TSSA, RMT, Aslef, Unite), left wing advocates and Labour MPs Jo Stevens and Cat Smith, similarly denounced the visit, claiming that Netanyahu “must bear responsibility for war crimes identified by the UN human rights council in its investigation into Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza.”[2]

Those wishing to identify some form of proportionate response on the IDF’s part tend to point to the 4,881 rockets fired by Hamas and other militant groups, including 1,753 mortar rounds into Israel. The balance sheet of death is somewhat less impressive than that of the Israeli war machine: six civilians in all, albeit a considerable number of injuries – 1,600.

Netanyahu’s own salvo against the UN report was to argue that it stemmed from “a committee that does everything but protect human rights”. Case closed. A similar response ensued to the Amnesty International report on the same conflict from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Amnesty International had supposedly ignored “the heinous strategy of these terrorist organisations to embed their military operations within the civilian environment, and to fire at the IDF and Israel’s civilian population from behind the civilian population.”[3]

Israel’s officials have previously featured as subjects of interest on the British legal circuit. Former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was the subject of an arrest warrant from a British court in 2009. It was subsequently withdrawn as Livni took heed and cancelled her trip to Britain.

Earlier this year, there were mutterings that former defence minister Shaul Mofaz could be a potential target. According to the Jerusalem Post, “Israeli media reported that Mofaz was at risk of being detained on possible war crimes charges since Israeli authorities had tried and failed to secure diplomatic immunity for him on the trip.”[4]

While the wheels of international law on the subject of criminal responsibility tend to move slowly, the International Criminal Court is engaged in preliminary investigations into the 2014 war. Israel remains rather vocal in attempting to undermine it.

As such, much of this legal process remains ritualised and careful – to start going about clapping current leaders in irons for alleged crimes of high order would see an emptying out of the stables. Netanyahu, however, has been put on lingering notice.

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

Notes

[1] https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105446

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/07/binyamin-netanyahu-uk-visit-denounced-letter-war-crimes

[3] http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422891/british-leftists-want-bibi-netanyahu-arrested-war-crimes-mark-antonio-wright

[4] http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Arrest-Netanyahu-for-war-crimes-British-petitioners-demand-411777

 

The Official Account

Fourteen years after the world-changing events of 9/11, new evidence refuting the official story continues to be unearthed by a Panel of 23 professional researchers.

Today the 9/11 Consensus Panel releases two new Consensus Points presenting evidence of official foreknowledge of the attacks.

The first Point deals with Able Danger, the code name for a high-level intelligence operation co-founded by Generals Hugh Shelton and Peter Schoomaker, Commanders in Chief of the Defence Department’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM).

Able Danger indicated that the man identified as “Mohamed Atta” had been in the United States in January-February 2000, about 18 months before the 9/11 attacks, whereas the official story said he arrived in June, 2000.

Officials also claimed that US intelligence didn’t know Atta was in the country before 9/11, whereas this vital arm of US intelligence knew he had been there since Jan-Feb, 2000.

Nevertheless: Able Danger’s evidence was consistently ignored by government officials before the attacks; the 9/11 Commission failed to mention its evidence afterwards; and the Defence Department’s Inspector General later covered this up.

Louis Freeh, the former director of the FBI, called the 9/11 Commission’s claim that this evidence was not historically significant “astounding.”

The second new Consensus Point shows that the attack on the Pentagon was expected in several quarters before the event. Several pre-911 military exercises involving planes flown into the Pentagon suggest that such an attack was not unexpected.

In addition, news reports contained warnings from security sources to Pentagon and other officials not to fly on September 11.

On the morning of 9/11, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld predicted a Pentagon attack. In his office, as he watched the TV coverage from New York, he reportedly said: “Believe me, this isn’t over yet. There’s going to be another attack, and it could be us.”

Meanwhile, within minutes of the attack, and during “extremely congested traffic conditions,” the FBI was reportedly arriving to confiscate security camera videotapes from several locations that overlooked the section of the Pentagon that had just been hit.

NBC’s Pentagon correspondent, Jim Miklaszewski, was warned in advance by a US military intelligence official, who reportedly said, “I would stay off the E Ring [the outer ring of the Pentagon, where the NBC office was] for the rest of the day, because we’re next.”

Previous foreknowledge Points include the collapse of World Trade Center 7, evidence of insider trading, and the roles of Vice President Dick Cheney and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The Panel employs a methodology used in medicine to generate consensus statements of the best available evidence on specific topics. During the survey process, the expert respondents remain blind to one another through three rounds of revision and feedback.

Over a four-year period the Consensus Panel has published46 Points of evidence refuting the official story.

Source:   The 9/11 Consensus Panel  @911consensus

Contact list:  http://www.consensus911.org/media-contacts/

Email:  [email protected]

In the summer of 2010, Taiwanese-based Foxconn Technology Group—the world’s largest electronics manufacturer—utilized the labor of 150,000 student interns from vocational schools at its facilities all over China. Foxconn is one of many global firms utilizing student intern labor. Far from being freely chosen, student internships are organized by the local state working with enterprises and schools, frequently in violation of the rights of student interns and in violation of Chinese law. Foxconn, through direct deals with government departments, has outsourced recruitment to vocational schools to obtain a new source of student workers at below minimum wages.

The goals and timing of internships are set not by student educational or training priorities but by the demand for products dictated by companies. Based on fieldwork in Sichuan and Guangdong between 2011 and 2012 and follow-up interviews in 2014, as well as analysis of the Henan government’s policies on internships, we find that the student labor regime has become integral to the capital-state relationship as a means to assure a lower cost and flexible labor supply for Foxconn and others. This is one dimension of the emerging face of Chinese state capitalism.

I. Introduction

“My original plan was to seek an internship at Huawei Technologies, but our teacher persuaded my whole class of 42 students to intern at Foxconn Technology Group,” a student from a vocational school in Sichuan’s Mianyang city recalled. Under pressure from the Sichuan government to fulfill a quota for interns at Foxconn in 2010, the teacher was directed to recruit entire classes and overcome student objections to taking Foxconn internships. “During the night shift, whenever I look out in that direction [pointing to the west], I see the big fluorescent sign of Huawei shining bright red, and at that moment, I feel a pain in my heart,” she said before sinking into a long silence. Huawei (founded in Shenzhen as a private-sector firm in 1987) and Foxconn (founded in Taipei in 1974 and incorporated in Shenzhen as a Taiwanese-invested enterprise in 1988) have headquarters on opposite sides of the Meiguan Expressway in Longhua Town, Shenzhen City. Although neither the intern nor we can verify whether the internship program offered by Huawei would have been any better than that at Foxconn, she regretted her inability to choose her internship site (Fieldwork in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, April 2011).

Who are the interns? How are they recruited and managed at the workplace? In this article we show the processes by which companies, vocational schools, and local governments jointly carry out “internship programs” that turn large numbers of teenage students into factory workers. We attempt to explain the emergence of this student labor regime in the context of China’s rising manufacturing costs and intensified competition among companies for employees in global production. Analyzing the organization of student internships, we look into the pivotal role of transnational capital and its ability to secure privileged access to labor in negotiation with the Chinese state. The active cooperation of provincial and lower level governments in circumventing labor law restrictions, and ensuring corporate access to a lower cost and flexible supply of student labor (xueshenggong 學生工), is fundamental to the contemporary Chinese labor regime.

Our primary research is based on multiple fieldtrips to Foxconn’s largest assembly facilities in Sichuan (Chengdu City) and Guangdong (Shenzhen City) between 2011 and 2012, and follow-up visits in Shenzhen in August 2014, supplemented with inquiries made to senior company executives between December 2013 and April 2014.¹ Drawing on interviews with 38 interns and 14 teachers, who were dispatched from eight vocational schools (based in Sichuan and Henan provinces) to Foxconn factories for internships, we also conducted documentary analysis of the Henan government’s major policies on student internships and employment. There has been scant scholarly attention to student interns as temporary or contingent labor, leaving unexamined an important dimension of the precarity of Chinese labor that is the product of the triangular relationship linking capital, the local state, and vocational schools in internship programs. In the following we review the changing labor market and ongoing legal reforms and structural transformation in China. We then present the findings of our study of the Foxconn internship program, and conclude by assessing the corporate and government responses to student labor abuses.

Image: The majority of Foxconn’s more than one million workers are rural migrants and teenage student interns. Fushikang, headquartered in Taipei (registered as Hon Hai Precision Industry Company), literally means “wealthy” and “healthy” in Chinese. Photographs taken during field trips to Guangdong and Sichuan (2011-2014).

 

II. Student Labor in China

The re-emergence of labor markets under China’s reforms since the late 1970s has transformed the economy in step with Chinese and international investment and the privatization of numerous state enterprises. Employment in the manufacturing sector (relative to agriculture and the service industry) reached an unprecedented 15 percent of the economically active population in the mid-1990s. The percentage would have been even higher if the other eight to 14 percent of those employed in uncategorized industries were added (Evans and Staveteig 2009, 78). The increase in industrial workers was mainly drawn from the hundreds of millions of rural migrants who, in the wake of de-collectivization, were absorbed into booming township and village enterprises and export-oriented privately-owned factories, along with state and collective enterprises. However, the labor rights and interests of many internal migrants were unprotected. It was not until July 1994, following tragic industrial fires and deaths and numerous abuses, that the government promulgated a Labor Law to regulate the complex labor relations of the market economy (Gallagher 2005, 2014; Ngok 2008; Liebman 2014). The law guarantees basic protections to all worker-citizens, regardless of household registration status or ownership type, such as entitlement to employment contracts, local minimum wages, overtime premiums, social insurance and retirement benefits, rest days, safe and healthy workplaces, and access to government-sponsored labor dispute resolution mechanisms. Despite the national labor compliance requirements, employers systematically “ignored the law with impunity because of the lack of effective implementation and enforcement by local regulatory or supervisory organizations, including the trade union, the local labor bureau and the courts” (Gallagher and Dong 2011, 44).

When structural reforms and privatization accelerated in the 1990s and following China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, many small and medium state-owned enterprises lost out in the fierce new competition. Laid-off workers, especially those who were relatively young, joined the rank and file of rural migrants to toil in the “world factory,” facing great uncertainties in a more liberalized economy (Solinger 2009; Blecher 2010; Andreas 2012; Hurst 2009, 2015). As of 2005, Chinese manufacturing wages as a percentage of US wages, compared to those of Japan and East Asian Tigers like South Korea and Taiwan in the early years of their economic takeoffs, had remained consistently low (Hung 2008, fig. 1, 2009, fig. 5). Private companies as well as restructured state enterprises have generally offered fixed-term employment contracts, effectively ending a lifetime “iron rice bowl” tenure that had been prevalent in large urban state enterprises. Other employing units, however, failed to provide labor contracts, minimum statutory wages, or welfare benefits, generating worker grievances and resistance (Chan 2001; Pringle 2011; Elfstrom and Kuruvilla 2014; Zipp and Blecher 2015). In the face of increasing worker lawsuits and collective protests since the mid-1990s, the Chinese government was compelled to expand legal reforms to ensure minimally acceptable social and labor standards as a means to alleviate the growing tensions between legitimacy and profitability (Lee 2007; Lee and Zhang 2013; Chen 2012; Friedman 2014).²

From the mid-2000s, as a result of growing worker demands for better conditions, tightening labor markets due to demographic changes, and Beijing government measures to stimulate domestic consumption such as boosting statutory minimum wages and abolishing agricultural taxes, wages have been rising (Chu and So 2010; Eggleston et al. 2013; Davis 2014; Whyte 2014; Naughton 2014). Firms were increasingly pressured to cut costs and to cope with fluctuations in production orders by hiring temporary workers, including student interns (also termed student apprentices or trainees) and agency laborers (also known as dispatched workers, who signed contracts directly with privately-run or government-operated agencies but providing services to client companies). In the seven large state-owned and Sino-foreign joint-ventured automobile assembly factories that she surveyed, Lu Zhang (2015) found that the number of temporary workers ranged from one- to two-thirds of the total workforce during fieldwork in the mid-to-late 2000s. Downward cost pressure in business competition, particularly during the 2008 global financial crisis, eroded the wages and benefits as well as job security of regular workers who have not yet been displaced by temporary laborers. The latter’s per capita cost averages only one-fourth to one-third of the former’s (Park and Cai 2011, 33-35; Zhou 2013, 362-63). Unequal treatment of the temporary and regular workers performing identical production tasks created a two-tiered employment system. This system engendered worker conflicts and social divisions. As Eli Friedman and Ching Kwan Lee (2010, 513) insightfully observe, this dual labor regime “is problematic not just from the perspective of the informal workers, but also from [that of] the regular workers, who will find it increasingly difficult to make collective demands on their employers.”

Agency workers, who were long excluded from national legal protection prior to the implementation of the significant Labor Contract Law on 1 January 2008, eventually gained access to basic employment rights, if only honored on the books. Under the new law, under which hiring agencies and client firms share joint legal responsibilities, agency workers are supposed to receive the same pay for doing the same work as directly employed workers. Moreover, they are assumed to take only “temporary, auxiliary, and substitute” posts, thereby placing certain limits on informalization while maintaining labor and organizational flexibility (Chan 2009; Harper Ho 2009; Wang et al. 2009; Cui et al. 2013; Gallagher et al. 2015; Zhang 2015, chap. 7). It is important to note, however, that the 2008 law did not cover interning students. Interns, who are not, after all classified as workers, can be laid off without severance pay and 30 days’ prior notice to which employees are entitled. They continue to possess fewer legal rights than agency or regular workers even when they are directly recruited and assigned to the same tasks (Pun and Chan 2012, 2013; Chan and Selden 2014; Pun et al. 2014; Chan et al. 2013, 2015).

The vulnerability of interns as laborers, including both those who are unpaid and those who are under-paid, has recently drawn discussion centering on the applicability of relevant national and international laws. Earl Brown and Kyle deCant (2014), in their provocative essay “Exploiting Chinese Interns as Unprotected Industrial Labor,” ask whether interns—who are not legally defined as employees under Chinese law—are in practice provided equal labor rights at work, and whether the internship experience benefits the intern. The controversy is not just about poor management and lack of educational content in some internship programs, as documented in the 2010 OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) review report on China’s development of vocational education and workplace-based internship training (Kuczera and Field 2010, 18-27). It is ultimately about the well-being of, and fundamental fairness to, student intern workers. While the Chinese state has not fully recognized interns as workers, it has granted them certain rights under the domestic legal framework. Brown and deCant (2014, 195) compellingly assert: “When these programs [at Foxconn, Honda, and other workplaces] are devoid of any relevant educational component and maintained solely for the benefit of the employer’s bottom line, these interns should be afforded the full protection of China’s labor laws.” We aim to extend the legalistic debates by evaluating the role of the local state as a direct agent in a capitalist development process in which student labor governance is becoming an integral and substantive part. As we will see, at stake is not a mere legal technicality; it is the dynamism of a capital-state alliance that charts the role of student labor with important implications both for student (mis)education and the corporate bottom line.

From the national to the global level, the promulgation of a set of non-binding transnational labor and environmental standards has been among the key corporate responses to sweatshop charges made by workers and their supporters in many countries (Ross 2004; Smith et al. 2006; Litzinger 2013; Locke 2013; Lüthje et al. 2013; Ruggie 2013). Workers—including student interns—are subjected to the pressure of buyers in multi-layered production networks. Image-conscious companies, in response to charges of labor abuse in factories that produce their products, pledge to adhere to good labor practices in global production, such as respecting the rights of “student workers” in China (Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition [EICC] 2014, 44). Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), the membership-based industry association representing Apple and Foxconn and 100-plus other companies worldwide, has asserted that, “In the past 10 years we have seen that consistent auditing, clearer guidelines, greater transparency and a Code of Conduct can play important roles” in regulating “student working hours, wages, [and] health and safety gaps” (EICC 2015, 4). In China’s high-tech electronics manufacturing, researchers including ourselves have just begun to assess the impact of corporate codes of conduct on workers’ conditions.

In a nutshell, we locate student labor at the heart of key industries, notably electronics, in globalized China. In contrast to the approach of Lu Zhang in Inside China’s Automobile Factories (2015, chaps. 5-6), who did not distinguish between interning students and agency workers in her categorization of “temporary workers,” a group contrasted to “formal workers,” we aim to understand the distinctive character of student interns in China’s international political economy. Accordingly, we examine the central role of three parties in the recruitment and control of students during the internship period, namely, factory managers, school teachers, and local officials. Our major goal is to explain the systemic deployment of student interns in industrial production through a study of Foxconn’s practice, thereby contributing to deeper understanding of the massive use of student interns on worker fragmentation among Chinese workers.

III. The Foxconn Internship Program

With more than one million employees, Foxconn is the world’s largest industrial employer (DeCarlo 2014) and probably maintains the world’s largest internship program. The Foxconn internship program, which brought in as many as 150,000 young students during the peak production months in summer 2010—approximately 15 percent of the company’s workforce (Foxconn Technology Group 2010a)—and which continues to hire new interns across China at present, dwarfs Disney’s College Program, which received more than 50,000 interns cumulatively over 30 years from college partners in the United States and abroad (Perlin 2011, 6). How is the capital-state-school coalition behind the Foxconn internship program organized?

Foxconn is a key node in the Asian and global production networks, where the processing of components, final assembly, and shipment of finished products to world consumers continues around the clock 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Inside Foxconn there are more than a dozen “business groups” (shiyequn 事業群), which compete on speed, quality, efficiency, engineering services, and added value to maximize profits. In one of these business groups, iDPBG (integrated Digital Product Business Group), which produces exclusively for Apple, 28,044 student interns worked alongside workers in Shenzhen in 2010—a six-fold increase from 4,539 in 2007. They were recruited from “more than 200 secondary vocational schools” (Foxconn Technology Group 2010b, 23). At the company’s 30-plus manufacturing mega-complexes across China (see Figure 1), workers and student interns toil day and night to churn out iPhones, iPads, and other electronic products for Apple and other IT corporations. Following Chinese government stimulus-led growth and economic recovery, as well as large-volume orders, in 2010, Foxconn registered a 53 percent year-on-year increase in revenues to US$95 billion (3 trillion NTD) (Foxconn Technology Group 2011, 4). Student interns, among assembly-line workers, played an indispensable role in corporate expansion.

Image: Foxconn locations in greater China, 1974-2015. Foxconn has more than 30 factories across China. In many cities, Foxconn runs multiple manufacturing facilities. Sources: Foxconn Technology Group company websites and annual reports.

China has more than 13,300 registered vocational schools and colleges (Xinhua 2015). In 2014, approximately 18 million full-time students were enrolled in secondary vocational schools across the country. The government projects an increase in vocational school enrollment to 23.5 million by 2020 (not including those in vocational colleges or adult vocational education) (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2010a, table 1). Upon completing nine years of compulsory education, students can compete to continue their studies in general track high schools or enroll in vocational institutions. The age of admission to standard three-year vocational schools is often as young as 15. While students in high schools are prepared for university entrance, those in vocational schools are trained for skilled work or higher vocational education. m

Vocational schools offer employment-oriented courses for first- and second-year students. During their third year, when they are 17 to 18 years old, students are expected to intern at enterprises that are “directly relevant to their studies” (Ministries of Education and Finance of the People’s Republic of China 2007, art. 3). However, our interviews revealed that Foxconn not only recruits students regardless of their field of study, but also often much earlier than is legally allowed (that is, in their first and second years of vocational studies). In our sample, only eight of the 38 student interns were in their final year. Their average age was 16.5, just above the national statutory minimum working age of 16.

The Working Conditions of Student Interns

The duration of the Foxconn internship programs we studied during fieldwork in 2011 and 2012 ranged from three months to one year. From the beginning of her internship, Liu Siying³, the final-year student aspiring to a meaningful learning opportunity whom we met at the opening of this article, was “tied to the PCB [printed circuit board] line attaching components to the product back-casing.” In her words, “it required no skills or prior knowledge.” Students were assigned to a one-size-fits-all internship at Foxconn factories, which involved repetitive manual labor divorced from their studies and interests.

Image: Foxconn Chengdu’s newly built 18-story factory dormitory, Block 2. Teachers are housed in dorm rooms next to their students to strengthen control during the off-work hours throughout the “internship.”

Image: Sichuan Zhongjiang Vocational School students, many of them 16 years of age, arrived at Foxconn (Chengdu)
in the morning on 3 March 2011 to begin “internships.”

China’s leaders seek to boost labor productivity through expanded investment in vocational skill training (Woronov 2011; Hansen and Woronov 2013; Ling 2015). At Foxconn, interns were placed on assembly lines to work illegally long shifts of ten to 12 hours, six to seven days a week. Article 5 of the 2007 Administrative Measures for Internships at Secondary Vocational Schools (Ministries of Education and Finance of the People’s Republic of China 2007) states that “interns shall not work more than eight hours a day,” and the 2010 Education Circular (Clause 4) specifies that “interns shall not work overtime beyond the eight-hour workday” (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2010b). Not only must interns’ shifts be no more than eight hours, all their training activity is required to take place during daytime to ensure students’ safety and physical and mental health, in line with the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Minors (2013).⁴ In reality, interns ranging in age from 16 to 18 were subjected to the same working conditions as regular workers, including alternating day and night shifts and extensive overtime, defying the letter and the spirit of the education law.

A typical comment by interns, their hopes for gaining technical knowledge dashed, underlines the harsh reality of life on the line: “We’re sent to do trivial tasks like checking iPad screens and cleaning the product surface … we’re frustrated at repeating the same boring work all day” (Interviews on 19 March 2011; 18 December 2011). Foxconn Global Social and Environmental Responsibility Committee Executive Director, Martin Hsing, has defended the internship program, saying that “it meets the needs and expectations of the interns,” even when the educational value of internship is reduced to assembly-line labor, pure and simple. He emphasized that school participation is “voluntary” and that interns are “free to terminate their internship at any time;” more importantly, the company has “specific policies to ensure that [the internship program] is implemented in full accordance with China law” and its “own Code of Conduct” (Foxconn Technology Group 2013). Several students told us that they phoned their parents after the first week of the internship asking them to pressure Foxconn managers to immediately “release the interns.” They failed. They were told that they “risked not being able to graduate” if they refused internships at Foxconn (Interviews on 3 March 2011; 1 April 2011; 20 January 2012).

At Foxconn, student interns are paid. As of January 2011, while student interns and entry-level workers had the same starting wage of 950 yuan/month (USD $154 / GBP £100 / EUR €128), only employees could receive a skill bonus of 400 yuan/month (USD $65 / GBP £43 / EUR €54). Interns were not entitled to have their skills assessed in order to qualify for the bonus (see Figure 2). China’s Vocational Education Law, effective 1 September 1996, states that students participating in vocational education programs “shall be paid properly for their work” (Article 37, shidang de laodong baochou 適當的勞動報酬) (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 1996). Similarly, the 2007 Administrative Measures for Internships at Secondary Vocational Schools stipulate that employers should “pay reasonably for the labor of interns” (Article 8, heli de shixi baochou 合理的實習報酬). Maintaining that student interns are not employees—even when they perform work identical to that of production workers—Foxconn does not enroll interns in government-administered social security, which covers medical insurance, work injury insurance, unemployment benefits, maternity insurance, and old age pensions, nor in a housing provident fund (known collectively as “wu xian yi jin” 五險一金). By dispensing with all of these benefits, the company saves money.

For the period of our investigation, Foxconn claimed to have provided “work-related injury and health insurance” for all interns (quoted in Fair Labor Association 2012, 10), but our interviewed interns said they had received no information about an insurance policy. A quick look at the math reveals that, in 2015, assuming a total of 150,000 student interns working in various Foxconn factories during one month in the peak season, the savings from not providing them with welfare benefits is roughly 150,000 persons × 300 yuan = 45,000,000 yuan (economic conditions and statutory minimum wages vary substantially across China; we use the lower end of 300 yuan/month per person for this illustration⁵). While this is a simplified exercise, it conveys a good sense of employer savings for just one month; considering that many interns work for a full year, the annual savings must be far greater.

Image: Foxconn (Chengdu) job ad, 2011. The advertisement makes clear the company’s savings in employing student interns who are ineligible for the 400 yuan per month wage hike after three months. It does not disclose other savings such as payments toward pensions. Source: Foxconn Technology Group.

Cost cutting is especially imperative in electronic manufacturing where profit margins are thin (Kraemer et al. 2011; Lüthje et al. 2013). In recent years, state minimum wages have steadily increased and companies have faced pressure to raise wages to retain workers, particularly a young cohort, who frequently changed jobs in an attempt to get better pay and benefits. National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China (2014, fig. 1) reported that average total income of rural migrant workers had risen steadily following the economic recovery in 2009, reaching unprecedented 2,609 yuan/month in 2013, a 13.9 percent increase from the previous year. However, “speed, not just cost,” might be “the killer attribute” that gives Foxconn and other large manufacturers “the winning edge to remain competitive” (Dinges 2012). Pressure from brand-name buyers to stay responsive to consumer demand is strong (Hamilton et al. 2011). Accordingly, Foxconn translates production requirements for fast time-to-market and high quality into increased work pressure and longer hours. In a rare reference to the production pressures that Apple and its competitors apply, Foxconn CEO’s Special Assistant Louis Woo explained his company’s perspective on overtime in an April 2012 American media program (Marketplace 2012):

The overtime problem—when a company like Apple or Dell needs to ramp up production by 20 percent for a new product launch, Foxconn has two choices: hire more workers or give the workers you already have more hours. When demand is very high, it’s very difficult to suddenly hire 20 percent more people. Especially when you have a million workers—that would mean hiring 200,000 people at once.

Woo’s statement indicates that, when faced with soaring demand from Apple, Dell, and other electronics brands, Foxconn’s first response is to impose compulsory overtime on its existing labor force. However, it also tries to hire more people to respond seamlessly to corporate demands for rush orders. Recruitment through vocational schools is an efficient way to pick up tens of thousands of new workers at once, who are purportedly hired in the name of skills training and school-business cooperation (xiaoqi hezuo 校企合作).

In Shenzhen’s Longhua Cultural Square, student intern Zhang Lintong, 16, talked about school life and music. He told us he admires the 19^th century Russian realist artist Ilya Repin and praised The Song of the Volga Boatmen, which reminds him of Repin’s seminal painting Barge Haulers on the Volga.⁶ Barge Haulers depicts a foreman and ten laboring men hauling an enormous barge upstream on the Volga. The men seem on the verge of collapse from exhaustion. The lead hauler’s eyes are fixed on the horizon. The second man bows his head into his chest and the last one drifts off from the line, a dead man walking. The haulers, dressed in rags, are tightly bound with leather straps. The exception is the brightly clad youth in the center of the group, who raises his head while fighting against his leather bonds in an effort to free himself from toil. “I often dream, but repeatedly tear apart my dreams; like a miserable painter, tearing up my draft sketches…I’m not interested in assembling iPhone parts. It’s exhausting and boring. I want to quit. But I can’t,” Lintong sighed (Interview on 29 November 2011).

All 14 female and male teachers we interviewed were aware that the Foxconn program violated the purpose of internships, which are mandated to provide an integral part of students’ education and skills training. Fearing punishment from the school, however, teachers and students played their parts in the charade called internship. The teachers reported for duty at the company administrative building from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday. They were housed in the factory dormitories throughout the internship. Only one teacher expressed criticisms of the internship system in the course of our fieldwork. Mr. Tian, a Sichuanese in his 40s, was a Chinese literature teacher with more than two decades of teaching experience. “My daughter is 17 years old, my only daughter. She’s now preparing for the national college entrance exam. No matter what the result is, I won’t let her come to intern, or work, for this company.” And yet he told us that “paid internships at Foxconn were one of the main attractions for students attending his school.” He also admitted, however, that “at Foxconn, there’s no real learning through integration of classroom and workshop. The distortion of vocational education in today’s China is deeply rooted” (Interview on 16 December 2011).

Student Internship Recruitment through Government and School Mobilization

Image: 50-seater public buses line up for Foxconn (Chengdu) in Pi County, Sichuan. Drivers provide
transportation service to Foxconn at government discounted rates.

Image: Government-printed banners on the sides of the buses read,
“Use fighting spirit to overcome earthquakes and natural disasters to provide transportation for Foxconn.”

Foxconn, given its powerful market position, gains access to numerous resources with strong government support all over China. In the years since the magnitude 7.9 earthquake that struck Sichuan in May 2008, killing 87,150 people and leaving 4,800,000 homeless, the provincial government has redoubled efforts to attract investments to fund reconstruction. Zhuang Hongren, Foxconn’s chief investment officer, pledged to “help Chengdu to become an unshakeable city” in world electronics (quoted in Sichuan Provincial People’s Government 2011). In response, local officials subsidized transportation services and provided numerous benefits for the company. Foxconn employees now commute to work in public buses that have been dedicated to the exclusive use of Foxconn (Fieldwork in Pi County, Chengdu City, March 2011). Government-printed banners on the sides of the buses read, “Use fighting spirit against earthquakes and natural disasters to provide transportation for Foxconn” (yong kangzhen jiuzai de jingshen, nuli wancheng Fushikang baoche yewu 用抗震救災的精神，努力完成富士康包車業務). Foxconn’s economic influence has become so great that CEO Terry Gou is widely known among workers as the “Mayor of ‘Foxconn City’” in Chengdu, provincial capital of Sichuan, southwest China.

Manager Zhu, a 31-year-old college graduate, joined the human resources department of Foxconn Chengdu on its opening in October 2010 after seven years in a small state-owned factory, was chiefly responsible for liaison linking government, vocational schools, and Foxconn. He explained (Interview on 14 December 2011):

Over the past year, I held monthly meetings with government leaders responsible for the “Number One Project” [yihao gongcheng 一號工程] tailored for Foxconn. Over a few drinks and shared cigarettes, our colleagues and local government officials regularly updated each other on the company’s recruitment schedules, thereby establishing a good working relationship.

The Sichuan provincial government prioritized helping Foxconn as its “Number One Project.” It offered Foxconn partial funding to construct its gigantic production complex and 18-story dormitories. In addition to the construction projects, it undertook large-scale recruitment of student interns and workers at new Foxconn factories (there are two mega production sites of Foxconn Chengdu), leaving other Taiwanese manufacturing competitors such as Wistron and Compal far behind (Global Times 2012). Local education bureaus pitched in by compiling and updating lists that identify vocational schools suitable for linking to Foxconn internship programs. All qualified schools were required to participate in recruitment.

Image: A government employment and social security office converted into a Foxconn recruitment station at Hongguang Town, Pi County (in Chengdu City, Sichuan). Local states subsidize the growth of private business with free hiring services and cheap labor supply.

To assure the vocational schools’ cooperation, governments disburse funds to those that fulfill company targets for the number of student interns. If schools fail to meet human resources requirements, education bureaus withhold funds (Interview with a township government official in Chengdu City, 17 December 2011). Foxconn has taken advantage of this system to extend its labor recruitment networks to schools, where it draws on the assistance of local officials and teachers to utilize student labor. Figure 3 shows how Foxconn in Sichuan province draws up plans for student labor recruitment, then top-level government officials lead work teams across different administrative levels (city, county, district, township and village) to meet the deadlines and quotas, with the cooperation of the vocational schools under their jurisdiction.

Image: Foxconn internship recruitment through local mobilization, Sichuan. For illustrative purposes, we simplify the complex, multi-level power relationships in the recruitment of student interns through the triple alliance of Foxconn, local governments (from the provincial to the village level), and vocational schools (under the jurisdiction of Sichuan province). The seven vocational schools that we specify were publicly reported in local news and/or on school websites as participating in the Foxconn internship programs. Source: Field data collected in Sichuan province.

All production workers, including student interns, at Foxconn Chengdu are engaged in making iPads exclusively for Apple. Between September 2011 and January 2012 (a school semester), in Foxconn’s Chengdu factories, more than 7,000 students—approximately ten percent of the labor force—were working on the assembly line (Interviews with human resources managers and teachers in December 2011 and January 2012). One of the participating schools, Pujiang Vocational School, sent 162 students on 22 September 2011 to undertake three-month internships that were subjected to extension in accordance with iPad production needs. The large Pengzhou Technical School signed up 309 students, accompanied by three male and three female teachers during the entire internship. This is typical of the 1:50 teacher-student ratio maintained throughout the Foxconn Chengdu internship program in 2011-2012. Contrary to our findings, the Apple-commissioned factory inspector Fair Labor Association “found no interns had been engaged at [Foxconn] Chengdu since September 2011” (our emphasis) (Fair Labor Association 2013, 5).⁷

Image: A recruitment poster introducing the corporate background of Foxconn (Chengdu) is displayed outside the Chengdu rail station, Sichuan. Since October 2010 Foxconn (Chengdu) has produced iPads exclusively for Apple. In one semester during 2011-2012, it employed more than 7,000 “student interns” on the assembly line.

Government officials support the timely fulfillment of labor recruitment assignments for Foxconn by doing public relations work to improve the company’s image. The targets include students and fresh graduates. A township official-in-charge elaborated, “We were tasked by upper level governments to eliminate negative social attitudes toward Foxconn after the [2010] suicide wave”⁸ (Interview on 14 December 2011). The main contents of student labor recruitment are Foxconn’s corporate development, its economic and technological strength, and its expansion prospects. The government team deploys messages “across the internet, radio, television, posters, blogposts, leaflets, telephone calls, door-to-door visits, and the mail to publicize Foxconn’s culture, and guide recruitment targets in correct thinking and understanding” (The People’s Government of Guangyuan City [Sichuan] 2011a). Villages, towns, and schools are saturated with propaganda to assure that Foxconn achieves the status of a household name. The division of labor is summarized as follows (Interview with a township government official in Chengdu City, 16 December 2011):

1. The Human Resources and Social Security Department makes recruitment a top priority.

2. The Education Department arranges school-business cooperation, ensures that the number of graduates and interns meets the assigned goal, and arranges for their transportation on schedule and properly supervised by teachers.

3. The Finance Department ensures that recruitment is adequately funded.

4. The Public Security Department completes job applicants’ background investigations.

5. The Transportation Department assures appropriate transport capacity and safety.

6. The Health Department provides pre-employment physical examinations.

7. Other relevant departments ensure that recruitment progresses smoothly.

Foxconn obtains wealth of resources from multiple government departments to enhance its cost-competitiveness and business capacity while assuring an abundant supply of workers at a time of tightened labor markets. Indeed, in the past 30-plus years, preferential treatment by local governments has increased capital mobility and facilitated the growth of transnational corporations, first in southeast coastal regions and then in interior cities (McNally 2004; Leng 2005; Selden and Perry 2010). What is new is the outreach to vocational schools to tap student labor through a partnership of capital and state. One municipal government actually conducts investigations of departments that “do not complete 50 percent of monthly tasks,” pushing for a 100 percent completion rate of the recruitment quota handed down by Foxconn (The People’s Government of Guangyuan City [Sichuan] 2011b).

“In Chengdu,” Andrew Ross (2006, 218) concludes from his research on global IT service outsourcing to China that “it was impossible not to come across evidence of the state’s hand in the fostering of high-tech industry.” From Sichuan to central China’s Henan province, provincial governments have similarly channelled financial and administrative resources to support Foxconn hiring. In June 2010, the Zhengzhou City Education Bureau directed all vocational schools under its jurisdiction to dispatch students 1,000 miles away to Foxconn’s Shenzhen factories for employment and/or internships. This step was taken to make sure students would complete their training in time for the August opening of a new manufacturing base in Zhengzhou, provincial capital of Henan. Foxconn Zhengzhou exclusively assembles iPhones for Apple. The opening passage of the government notification to all education units reads (Zhengzhou City Education Bureau (Henan) 2010):

To promote the city’s vocational education, accelerate the pace of educational development, deepen school-business cooperation, strengthen customized training, and promote industry, it has been decided to launch an employment (internship) partnership with Foxconn Technology Group, and to arrange for all vocational school students to work (intern) at Foxconn Shenzhen.

Specifics of the sweeteners offered to Foxconn include the following (Henan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office 2010.):

1. Implementing a policy of rewards for job introductions at the standard rate of 200 yuan per person from the designated government employment fund.

2. Giving every successful worker (or intern) a 600-yuan subsidy from the designated government employment fund.

The Henan provincial government, using taxpayers’ money, pays for incentives to schools or labor agencies (“the job introduction fee” of 200 yuan/person) that arrange for employment and/or internships at Foxconn. In August and September 2010, local government officials divided the 20,000-recruit goal among 23 counties and cities (each new worker/intern receives 600 yuan). For the targeted recruitment of 20,000 persons, the government bill would be 16,000,000 yuan (= 20,000 persons × (200 + 600) yuan). Each city or county government was assigned specific recruitment targets, with quotas within each district subdivided down to villages and towns. Table 1 shows the number of new Foxconn recruits that each of the 23 localities was ordered to produce. From this moment, student internships were transformed into a government-organized activity in the service of a private employer (see also, Henan Provincial Education Department 2010).

Government Recruitment Assignments for Foxconn, Henan

	Name	Targets for August 2010 (persons)	Targets for September 2010 (persons)	Total (persons)
1	Xinyang	1,000	1,000	2,000
2	Zhoukou	940	940	1,880
3	Luoyang	850	900	1,750
4	Nanyang	850	850	1,700
5	Shangqiu	850	850	1,700
6	Zhumadian	850	850	1,700
7	Puyang	750	700	1,450
8	Xinxiang	680	680	1,360
9	Anyang	650	650	1,300
10	Pingdingshan	550	550	1,100
11	Kaifeng	500	500	1,000
12	Zhengzhou	200	200	400
13	Hebi	200	200	400
14	Jiaozuo	200	200	400
15	Xuchang	200	200	400
16	Luohe	200	200	400
17	Sanmenxia	200	200	400
18	Gushi County, Xinxiang	100	100	200
19	Jiyuan	50	50	100
20	Dengzhou City, Nanyang	50	50	100
21	Yongcheng City, Shangqiu	50	50	100
22	Xiangcheng City, Zhoukou	50	50	100
23	Gongyi City, Zhengzhou	30	30	60
	Total	10,000	10,000	20,000

The Henan provincial government established an inter-departmental committee to coordinate labor recruitment at Foxconn. The 20,000 new recruits included students and non-student job seekers.

Source: Henan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office 2010.

Student interns—cheap, youthful, and productive—are a new source of labor that is growing larger in step with the expansion of vocational education. Steven McKay in Satanic Mills or Silicon Islands concludes that high-tech commodity producers “focus their labor concerns on cost, availability, quality, and controllability” to enhance profitability (2006, 42, italics original). On 1 November 2011, Han Chinese and Tibetan student interns got into a brawl during working hours. The incident sounded an alarm and a vice principal from one of the participating vocational schools arrived on the scene the next day to “look after his students,” reported interviewee Teacher Jiang. He added, “All of the few dozen students were laid off. Foxconn demanded that the schools concerned immediately ‘take back the bad students’ to prevent any disruption to work” (Interview on 15 December 2011). The assistance of the vice principal in removing the interns to whom Foxconn objected reveals other dimensions of how the schools and the enterprise cooperate in exercising dual control over students (Smith and Chan 2015). Psychosocial behaviour, such as playing video games all night and not going to work on time, as well as slowing down due to loss of motivation to work hard, however, continued. Foxconn’s presentation of Outstanding Student Intern Awards—also known as the “hardworking bee” prize—failed to instill stronger commitment and loyalty among interns who perceived the internship as squandering their education and found the work demeaning.

None of the 38 interviewed interns expressed interest in working for Foxconn after graduation. If they were interested in assembly line jobs, they would have started working straight away after finishing middle school rather than seeking specialized training in multiple fields. “Come on, what do you think we’ve learned standing for more than ten hours a day manning the machines on the line? What’s an internship? There’s no relation to what we study in school. Every day is just a repetition of one or two simple motions, like a robot,” Lintong emphasized (Interview on 29 November 2011).

IV. Conclusion

If the Chinese government’s goal is to encourage workforce preparedness by investing in vocational training, with student internships as a core component, the policy is a failure. Foxconn has shifted hiring costs onto local governments and outsourced recruitment to vocational schools to obtain a flexible, low-cost labor supply. In this capital-state-school alliance, the incorporation of students into the workplace in the guise of internships has served the interests of capital, while generating intern protests over unfair and illegal treatment.⁹ Intense competition among localities to lure foreign investment has undermined enforcement of labor and educational laws. Notwithstanding significant Chinese legal reforms to date, there remains a deep-seated conflict between state legitimation and local accumulation, with the result that student workers’ rights and interests are sacrificed. Companies have continued to exploit the internal contradictions of the state to maximize their gains, and local states have bent education and labor rules and regulations to attract businesses. This is one important facet of China’s distinctive state capitalism.

Speaking of the dynamism of state-society relations, Ching Kwan Lee (2007, 17) “sees contradictions within different state imperatives and insists that state power is not independent of but rather constituted through its engagement with social groups in their acquiescence and activism, triggered by contradictory state goals and policies.” We observe that, under mounting public concerns of student worker abuses, including child labor hidden in the guise of interns at Foxconn’s labor-hungry factories (SACOM 2012), the Chinese central government has recently proposed new “Draft Rules on the Management of Vocational School Student Internships” (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2012). These rules, if vigorously implemented, would require that student internships have substantial educational content and work-skill training plans, along with comprehensive labor protections for teenage workers. As of December 2014, however, the draft rules still had not been issued (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2014), suggesting opposition from employers and their allies.

At the industry level, in an attempt to polish its corporate image, Apple (2013, 19) reiterated in January 2013 its standards for suppliers’ hiring of students: “Student working hours must comply with legal restrictions…. We’ve begun to partner with industry consultants to help our suppliers improve their policies, procedures, and management of internship programs to go beyond what the law requires.” Claiming to exercise corporate social responsibility in global supply-chain management, Apple never acknowledged its own culpability in imposing tight delivery schedules and high quality demands at the lowest possible prices (Chan et al. 2013, 2015; Chakrabortty 2013). Manufacturers, faced with buyers’ tight deadlines and ruthless demands, in turn place tremendous pressure on frontline workers including interns to retain contracts and stay profitable. In February 2014, Scott Rozelle, co-director of the Rural Education Action Program at Stanford University, announced a monitoring and evaluation program of student internships at the invitation of Apple in Apple’s China-based major suppliers (Rural Education Action Program 2014). As of our writing in August 2015, the findings were still not publicly available.

Ross Perlin in his book on American and European internship practices, Intern Nation, comments, “The very significance of the word intern lies in its ambiguity” (2011, 23, italics original). In the four years we have been working on this research, we have seen that the recruitment of interns as cheap and disposable labor at Foxconn has become routine practice that continues in the present day, and extends to many other companies such as Samsung and Lenovo (see also China Labor Watch 2014; Dou 2014). Schools, facing financial and political pressure, are unable to shield students from internships that violate the letter and spirit of the law. Business-friendly local authorities sponsor such internship programs through direct subsidies and administrative support to large corporations. In China, the student labor regime has become integral to its economic development, frequently at the sacrifice of all workers’ interests.

Acknowledgements

*This article is jointly published by The Asia-Pacific Journal and Asian Studies.

Asian Studies 1(1): 69-99, March 2015, DOI: 10.6551/AS.0101.04

The authors would like to thank Asian Studies and The Asia-Pacific Journal editors and reviewers, as well as colleagues Amanda Bell, Jeffery Hermanson, Greg Fay and Debby Chan for their intellectual insights. An earlier draft of this paper entitled “Student Interns in China: Foxconn Internship through Government and School Mobilization” was presented at Pennsylvania State University in March of 2013 at the symposium “Global Workers’ Rights: Patterns of Exclusion, Possibilities for Change,” where Jenny Chan received constructive comments from organizers Mark Anner, Jill Jensen, Daniel Hawkins and many participants.

We acknowledge academic funding support from University of Oxford, University of London, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Hong Kong Research Grant Council.

Jenny Chan (PhD in 2014) is a Lecturer in Sociology and China Studies at the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, and an elected Junior Research Fellow (2015-2018) at Kellogg College, University of Oxford. Educated at the CUHK and HKU, she was a Reid Research Scholar while pursuing her doctorate at the University of London. In 2013-2014 she received a Great Britain-China Educational Award. She was the SACOM Chief Coordinator (2006-2009) and a Board Member of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on Labor Movements (2014-2018).

Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Ngai Pun is a Professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences and the Director of China Development and Research Network at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is the author of Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace (2005), for which she won the C. W. Mills Award. Recently she has co-authored and co-edited several books on labor and social economy in Hong Kong and China (in Chinese).

Email: [email protected]

Mark Selden is a Senior Research Associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell University, a Visiting Researcher at the Asian/Pacific/American Studies Institute at NYU, and editor of the Asia-Pacific Journal. A specialist on the modern and contemporary geopolitics, political economy and history of China, Japan and the Asia Pacific, his work has ranged broadly across themes of war and revolution, inequality, development, regional and world social change, social movements and historical memory.

Homepage: www.markselden.info/

Email: [email protected]

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Notes

¹ Concerning the rights protection of China-based student interns in transnational production, on 16 December 2013, we wrote letters to, respectively, Foxconn CEO Terry Gou and Apple CEO Tim Cook. Apple is the world’s most profitable technology company, which contracts Foxconn, among others, to manufacture its branded products. The two letters, and company statements, are on file with the authors.

² On the inherent contradictions between legitimacy and profitability in global capitalism, and the varied responses of industrial capital and the state under specific historical context, see also Burawoy (1985), Silver (2003), and Webster et al. (2008).

³ The names of our interviewees, unless otherwise specified, are changed to protect them.

⁴ Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Minors (Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Wei Chengnianren Baohu Fa 2013) protects young people under 18 for their balanced development and healthy growth. Article 20 stipulates that schools, including vocational schools, shall “cooperate with the parents or other guardians of the minor students to guarantee the minor students time for sleeping, recreational activities and physical exercises and may not increase their burden of study.”

⁵ As of December 2013, in Shenzhen, Foxconn paid ten percent of employees’ basic monthly wage for social insurance (180 yuan) and five percent for the mandatory housing provident fund (90 yuan), that is, 270 yuan/month in total.

⁶ The Song of the Volga Boatmen (in Russian with Chinese illustration)

⁷ The Fair Labor Association (FLA) received from Apple membership dues of US$250,000, plus audit fees for conducting its investigation at Foxconn Chengdu and two other Foxconn factories in Shenzhen (Longhua and Guanlan) between 2011 and 2012 (Weir 2012). Given the complete financial dependence of the FLA on the companies that support it, we question its ability to fulfill its purported mission to protect workers in the global economy.

⁸ In 2010, at least 18 workers attempted suicide at Foxconn’s facilities in Shenzhen and other cities, resulting in 14 deaths and four crippling injuries, see Chan and Pun (2010) and Chan (2013).

⁹ It was estimated that in May 2010 approximately 70 percent of the 1,800 workers were student interns at a Honda parts plant based in Nanhai District in Foshan City, Guangdong. Following a significant victory in which Honda workers received an additional 500 yuan per month and underpaid interns over 600 yuan more per month, auto workers at supplier factories of Toyota and Hyundai were emboldened to take their demands to managers (see Butollo and ten Brink 2012; Chan and Hui 2014; Friedman 2014, chap. 5; Lyddon et al. 2015).

“On Freedom’s tree there rained a withering blight, 
Glory to proud Palmyra sighed adieu,
And o’er her shrines Destruction’s angel flew.”
(Nicholas Michell, 1807-1880.)

At a meeting of the Foreign Ministers in Cairo in September 2002 the then Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa warned US President George W. Bush that the proposed invasion of Iraq would: “open the gates of Hell … in the region.” Iraq and Syria would be the first to be engulfed in the fire.

German’s Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said it would be a “big mistake” for the United States to launch its own war on Iraq: “ … and European foreign policy chief Javier Solana insisted that weapon inspections issues were a matter for the UN”, not an invasion (1.)

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was isolated as: “the sole European leader in Bush’s camp.” Even:  “Australian Prime Minister John Howard, long one of Bush’s staunchest allies, said he favored a diplomatic solution to the crisis and would not blindly follow the United States into war.”

There was of course no “crisis”, just a pack of lies to justify the illegal invasion for oil and to rid a government who had committed another unpardonable sin – switching oil trading from $US to Euros – and were a staunch supporter of Palestine. We are currently witnessing a similar murderous stitch up of another supporter of Palestine, Syria.

Syria is also believed to have considerable untapped reserves of oil and gas in her territorial waters in the Levantine Basin, exploration and finance of which is being undertaken in cooperation with Russia (2.)

Given the planning the United States has invested in destabilization of the country, aptly phrased by Syrian Military Intelligence in 2006 their: “efforts to provide military training and equipment to Syria’s Kurds” (3) and to “highlight Kurdish complaints” in order to implement another illegal “regime change” and resources theft there must be a fair amount of angst in Washington and Whitehall at resilience and government survival, though at huge human cost, approaching a decade later.

The “highlighting of Kurdish complaints” though, clearly had time devoted to its complexities, being needed: “to be handled carefully, since giving the wrong kind of prominence to Kurdish issue in Syria could be a liability for our efforts … given Syrian civil society’s skepticism of Kurdish objectives.”  Nevertheless, another plan for illegally overthrowing a sovereign government was underway, lessons from the Iraq nightmare ignored.

The human cost of US meddling has, as ever, been staggering. According the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) Syria’s 2013 population was 22,85 million. By May 2015  12.2 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance, 7.6 million displaced internally due to violence and 4 million had fled the country (4.) Incidentally for those who notice the discrepancy between the population and the UNOCHA figures, in crisis people return home to those they love: “If we die, at least we will die together” is a phrase that haunts.

But the history of the region too is dying. The great, inspired monuments, witness to the triumphs and tragedies of mankind throughout millennia. Pillars, buildings, sanctuaries, laughed in, loved in, hidden in, touched by, wondered at and revered by generations are being erased from Iraq: Hatra, Nineveh, Nimrud, Jonah’s tomb and Mosque, ancient churches, mosques, temples, priceless artifacts – and now a jewel of Syria, Palmyra.

As Adam Walker, specialist in classical Islam and history of the Middle East and North Africa points out, Islam has protected civilization’s wonders, not destroyed them. The psychopathic deviates of ISIS/ISIL/IS do not represent Islam he reminds. Further, in March in London: ‘Speaking about desecration and destruction of ancient heritage sites, the Caliph and worldwide Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, said:

“For more than 1400 years these cities were preserved and protected by successive Muslim rulers and governments and yet now the extremists claim to have destroyed them in Islam’s name. This can only be branded as an extreme cruelty and a transgression of Islam’s teachings. No true Muslim could ever comprehend acting in this way.” ‘(5)

Palmyra first appeared in written records in the 2^nd millennium BC, in cuneiform texts. It has been controlled by the Assyrians, the Persians, became part of Alexander the Great’s Macedonian Greek Empire. On his death in Babylon in June 323 BC, his empire was divided between two of his Generals, Ptolemy and Seleucus, Ptolemy controlling Egypt and Seleucus Babylonia, extending his power to Palmyra and much of Syria.

At the end of the Seleucid Empire, Palmyra, stranded between the warring Roman Empire and the Parthians, carved itself a niche as the principle trading post, including between the two hostile powers. In AD 77, Pliny the Elder wrote of the settlement’s mediating role: “Enjoying certain privileges with the two Great Empires, that of the Romans and that of the Parthians, Palmyra is sought out whenever disputes occur.”

What an irony that this wondrous place of ancient mediation, also home to Christianity under Emperor Justinian (527-65) when churches were restored, then Islam under General Khalid ibn al-Walid and was silent    witness to the Middle East’s golden ages and tribulations from then to now, is being erased by demented deviants spawned by George W. Bush and Tony Blair’s declared “Crusade.”

IS seized Palmyra, “The Venice of the Sands”, in May. In June they were reported to have destroyed the 1,900 year old Lion of al-Lat statue, the five centuries old shrine of Sufi scholar Nizar Abu Bahaa Eddine and that of Mohammed bin Ali, descendent of a cousin of the Prophet.

Shortly after this foray in to cultural genocide, the head and hand choppers with a penchant for burning people and more recently babies to death – seemingly continually “accidentally” dropped arms, food and medical needs by the US – kidnapped renowned archeologist Dr Khaled al-Assad, Palmyra’s Curator.

In July Palmyra’s haunting amphitheater was used as a stage for the execution of twenty five Syrian soldiers by child executioners – described as no older than thirteen or fourteen – who shot each kneeling man through the back of the head (6.)

On 18^th August the US aid recipients beheaded the eighty one year old Dr Al Assad, for his refusal to reveal where many precious artifacts had been hidden according to his son, who was kidnapped with him but released. The body was hung from one of the great Graeco-Roman columns, his head placed between his feet.

Dr al-Assad became the Director of Antiquities at Palmyra in 1963. “He learned ancient Palmyrian, close to Aramaic. He also learned English, to guide round visitors and dignitaries. He was able to manage between Bedouins who live around Palmyra, and visiting Presidents at the same time”, recalls Dr Abd al-Razzaq Moaz, his friend and Syria’s former Deputy Culture Minster. “And he was open minded.” (7)

“I was born here, I will die here”, he said of his love for Palmyra. He died protecting it from the criminals whose priceless thefts from Iraq and Syria show up on eBay, and in London, European and US auction houses or antique shops (8.) Apparently, incredibly, this is near beyond authorities from border control to crime prevention, to halt. Seems the powers responsible for the carnage in the region are peerless at destruction, but worse than useless at prevention.

On 23^rd August the Temple of Baalshamin, dedicated to the Canaanite sky deity Baalshamin, constructed in 131 AD, was destroyed by explosives. It had been financed by Male Agrippa, a Palmyra merchant Prince who, two years before its construction had been visited in Palmyra by the Roman Emperor Hadrian (117-138.)

A week later, on 30^th August the ISIS crazies destroyed the Temple of Bel (also called Baal) consecrated to the Mesopotamian God, Bel where the lunar God, Aglibol and the sun God, Yarhibol were also worshipped. Dedicated in 32 AD was then the centre of Palmyran religious life.

This latest victim of cultural genocide contained a cupola with the busts of the seven planetary divinities – Jupiter in the centre, surrounded by Helios, Selene, Ares, Hermes, Aphrodite and Cronos. It was surrounded by the signs of the Zodiac. The lintel at the entrance carried a carving of an eagle – wings outstretched across a star strewn sky – representing Jupiter/Bel. Eagles of course, also guarded one of Iraq’s recently lost wonders at the hands of the modern day barbarians, Hatra.

Dr al-Assad, seeped in his love for Palmyra, who died for defending it had named his daughter after Zenobia, the third century Queen of the Palmyrene Empire, who led a revolt against the Roman Empire.

Many have written that Iraq and Syria’s glorious archeology survived even Genghis Khan’s repeated assaults on the region but not the US and it’s terrorist beneficiaries. Genghis Khan (“Supreme Khan of the Mongols, King of Kings”) lived between 1162-18^th August 1227.

The 18^th August was when Dr al-Assad was so appallingly murdered nearly eight hundred years later. A supreme, terrible irony – or something more sinister?

Irena Bokova heading UNESCO has bleated that the destructions are a war crime but action is glaringly absent. Bokova led UNESCO’S activities for a Holocaust remembrance but has been silent over the ongoing Holocaust of perhaps two million deaths since the illegal invasion of Iraq. She was also instrumental in the exhibit: “The People, the Book, the Land – 3,500 years of ties between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel” inaugurated at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 11^th June 2014. She is markedly less vociferous about the destruction of the history of the land, the years, guarded so faithfully by the countless generations of the indigenous people of the region.

On 3^rd September President Bashar al-Assad awarded Dr Khalid al-Assad a posthumous Order of Merit for his achievement and devotion to archeology, to be presented to his family at a ceremony arranged by the Ministry of Culture.

As Padraig Belton has written: “In all this, one humble octogenarian dared, as the West has not, to defy the most chilling murders the present century has yet seen. And when a new Syria one day confronts the impossible task of rebuilding itself, one elderly academic’s quiet resistance in the name of antiquity, like David against Goliath, will provide a stark example of dauntlessness and civilization amidst the rubble of its bleakest hour.”

There are times when the heart hurts, the soul hurts, the being wants to sob; mourning the sacrifices, the loss of legacy to future generations for all time cannot be borne.

To meet Dr al-Assad and his love for Palmyra, see a modern legacy, his Facebook page (9) – and weep.

Notes

1. http://www.arabnews.com/node/223999
2. http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-gas-oil-and-trouble-in-the-levant/5362955
3. http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-and-conspiracy-theories-it-is-a-conspiracy/29596
4. http://www.unocha.org/syria
5. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/adam-h-walker/islam-has-a-history-of-protecting-civilisation_b_6993580.html
6. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3149469/Slaughter-amphitheatre-ISIS-executioners-brutally-shoot-dead-25-Syrian-regime-soldiers-bloodthirsty-crowds-ancient-Palmyra-ruin.html
7. http://www.apollo-magazine.com/a-tribute-to-khaled-al-asaad-the-archaeologist-killed-by-isis-in-palmyra/
8. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/antiquities-looted-by-isis-end-up-in-london-shops
9. https://www.facebook.com/esraa.alhariri.7

See also Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, Footprint Handbooks: ISBN 1 900949 14 8

In 1939 the German military commanders had plans to create a Ukrainian puppet state inside Poland. Today’s article will discuss why this never happened.

On the eve of WWII the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was a key terrorist group the Nazi secret services put stakes on while preparing an assault on Poland. That group was carrying out subversive operations against both Polish and Soviet interests and was given a substantial role to play in Germany’s offensive plans.

On June 13, 1939, Colonel Erwin von Lahousen, the chief of Abwehr Section II (primarily responsible for carrying out sabotage), instructed a representative of the OUN, Roman Sushko, to train 1,300 officers and 12,000 ordinary Ukrainians for an attack on Poland. In a report dated July 15, Lahousen noted that in preparation for the Fall Weiß operation, the Abwehr was training a group of Ukrainian nationalists to commit sabotage under the command of Roman Sushko, which was code-namedBergbauernhilfe and consisted of approximately 600 people by mid-August 1939.

Along with the Bergbauernhilfe unit, OUN militants inside Poland were also gearing up for an anti-Polish uprising. At the order of the OUN’s regional leader in Western Ukraine, Vladimir Tymchy (Lopatinsky), the members of that organization began their military training as early as July 1939 in secret camps in Polesia and the Carpathians. According to Ukrainian historians, by late August about a thousand militants had been trained and were ready to shoulder their duties as the core of the anti-Polish insurgent forces.

The OUN’s combat units were not only assigned to carry out sabotage, but also to seize power. The contemporary Ukrainian historian Ivan Patrylyak speaks about this openly, “Lopatinsky envisioned partisan units leaving their hideouts and, having seized power in their locality, then proclaiming the restoration of the Ukrainian state and creating their own administration.”

Meanwhile, the Abwehr’s sabotage division was resolving the supply issues – by providing them with weapons, ammunition, and explosives. On Aug. 18, 1939 there was a remarkable entry in Lahousen’s journal (a copy can be found in the archives of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace): “The training of the Bergbauernhilfe members should be continued. They will presumably be dispatched in the region on Aug. 22 … Ukrainian military personnel are receiving instructions via Major Stolze, according to which the leader of the Ukrainians, Melnyk, must be ready to engage in armed hostilities if the situation in Poland so demands.”

On Aug. 22, OUN saboteurs from Bergbauernhilfe were supposed to be dispatched to the Polish border. Like the other Abwehr detachment – the special Ebbinghaus battalion that was trained for action in Polish Silesia – they were to become the basis for an anti-Polish uprising. However, these plans were frustrated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

The Soviet-German nonaggression treaty was signed on Aug. 23 in Moscow. For Hitler, it was a guarantee that the Soviet Union would not enter the upcoming war on the side of Poland. For Stalin, it was a guarantee that German troops would not make an appearance in the Baltics, Western Byelorussia, or Western Ukraine anytime soon.

“This pact with Moscow will eventually come back to haunt National Socialism,” wrote the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg in his diary on Aug. 25. “If we are also forced to relinquish Polish Ukraine to the Soviet Union, then that will be the second blow we will have inflicted, after Carpatho-Ukraine, on the strongest force opposed to Moscow.”

By “the strongest force opposed to Moscow,” Rosenberg meant the OUN. His prediction was accurate – as soon as word came from Moscow about the signing of the Soviet-German agreement, the Abwehr was no longer permitted to use Ukrainian saboteurs. “In my apartment I received a call from Secretary of State Keppler who said that instructions had come from Schloss Fuschl (the residence of the minister of foreign affairs), according to which the ‘action’ (i.e., the ‘launch’ of the Ukrainian underground movement) should not be begun,” wrote Lahousen in his diary.

Over the next few days he tried to challenge that decision, but only managed to win the right to use the Bergbauernhilfe for defensive purposes inside Slovakia (which is where the unit was being trained).

On Aug. 28 Lahousen recorded this decision in his diary, “With regard to the Ukrainians, I am issuing the following instructions. In the event of peace: the Bergbauernhilfe members should be hired as general workers. In the event of war: no action will be taken at first. After consultations with the General Staff, a decision will be made about whether it is possible to use these disciplined people as an intergal unit.”

Meanwhile, the OUN underground in Poland continued to train for an armed insurrection, in accordance with the earlier plans. A mobilization of OUN supporters was scheduled for Aug. 28 – they were to go to the forest and sort themselves into combat units.

On Sept.1 German troops invaded Poland. On Sept. 5, the Ebbinghaus battalion, joined by Silesian Germans, seized the Katowice railway junction prior to the arrival of the Wehrmacht divisions. General Busch, the commander of the VIII Army Corps, congratulated the Abwehr staffers overseeing the Ebbinghaus battalion on this achievement.

On Sept. 11 the Abwehr tried once more to come to a decision regarding the use of the Bergbauernhilfe to support the Ukrainian anti-Polish uprising, but this initiative was again stymied. Nonetheless, OUN detachments in western Ukraine attacked outposts of the Polish government, the police, and even small military units. Polish civilians also fell victim to the nationalists. The number of militants totaled at least 3,000.

Meanwhile, Berlin realized that the war in Poland had been won. Polish troops were retreating under the onslaught of the German divisions, generating genuine euphoria, in the wake of which Hitler threw caution to the winds and decided to set up a puppet Ukrainian state within the ruins of Poland. This was a violation of the Soviet-German agreement of Aug. 23: according to a secret protocol, western Ukraine was considered to be within the Soviet sphere of influence.

The leaders of the Abwehr were informed of the decision on Sept. 12. Lahousen’s diary entry for that day was extremely laconic: “A trip with the head of the department to Oppeln via Breslau. Purpose: a discussion of the Ukrainian question.” Lahousen gave more details about this decision in his testimony at Nuremberg: “This order or directive … Ribbentrop also giving it to Canaris during a brief discussion, was in reference to the organizations of National Ukrainians with which Amt Abwehr cooperated along military lines, and which were to bring about an uprising in Poland, an uprising which aimed to exterminate the Poles and the Jews … When Poles are mentioned, the intelligentsia especially are meant, and all those persons who embodied the national will of resistance …” That decision, which Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop communicated to the heads of the Abwehr, had been made in consultation with Hitler.

Thus, the Abwehr was given permission to make use of the Bergbauernhilfe unit and the support of OUN’s anti-Polish armed uprising. The Ukrainian nationalists were also tasked with destroying any “disloyal element.” The Abwehr did not protest, as this was nothing unusual: the above-mentioned Ebbinghaus battalion also committed mass murders of Poles.

On Sept. 15, the Abwehr chief, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, along with Lahousen met with the leader of the OUN,Andriy Melnyk, in Vienna. Melnyk advised them as to the likelihood of creating a pro-German, Western (“Galician”) Ukraine. Afterward, Melnyk gave orders for a “coalition government” to be assembled for Galicia. Lahousen, in turn, began to take concrete steps toward the use of Ukrainian troops. His diary shows this entry: “Ukrainian military staff are being immediately transferred to the command of the XIV Army (Dehmel). Notify Heeresgruppe Süd via Abwehr Section II … Melnyk should continue to remain at the disposal of head of the department … Abwehr Section II must provide a replacement for the Bergbauernhilfe.”

However, these plans were thwarted on Sept. 17. On that day Soviet troops entered western Ukraine and western Byelorussia. According to Walter Warlimont, deputy chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, when Gen. Alfred Jodl received a message stating that Red Army troops were entering Poland, he asked in horror, “Against whom?” This attempt to create a Ukrainian state, in accordance with the plan approved by Hitler, would result in Germany being forced into a war against the Soviet Union under the worst possible conditions. And so Berlin abruptly began backpedaling.

In the following weeks, Canaris, Lahousen, and one of the leaders of the OUN, Richard Yary, worked to save “what they could,” arranging for OUN members to pull back into the parts of Poland controlled by Germany as well as into Hungary.

The Bergbauernhilfe division was disbanded and some of its personnel transferred to a team of police units in occupied Poland. However, the assistance provided by the Ukrainian nationalists to the Reich did not go uncompensated. The OUN gained legal status, and its members were assigned to serve in Werkschutz units (guarding factory sites). The Ukrainian population of the Nazi-created “Governorate General” received many privileges; in particular, the Ukrainians were given homes and shops that had been confiscated from Jews.

The plans to create a Ukrainian puppet state were briefly put on hold, only to be revived in the spring of 1941, on the eve of the attack on the USSR. The Act of Proclamation of Ukrainian Statehood would be announced by the leaders of the OUN on June 30, 1941 in Nazi-occupied Lvov … The games the Nazis played in occupied Ukraine would prompt the Volyn’ massacre and other crimes against the Polish and Russian people. As a result, the USSR worked until the late 1950s to eradicate the nationalist underground in western Ukraine.

Alexander Dyukov is the Russian historian, Director of the “Historical Memory” Foundation.

Source in Russian: Lenta.ru

Adapted and translated by ORIENTAL REVIEW.

Team Abe keeps saying it will try to gain public understanding of its controversial security legislation, but there are few signs that it is winning anyone over. The massive youth-led demonstration in front of the Diet on August 30, widely reported as involving more than 120,000 Japanese spanning the often-divided liberal spectrum and involving all generations, is a sign of the times.¹ 

Demonstrators loudly denounced Prime Minister Abe Shinzo as a threat to peace and the constitution while some signs depicted him as a warmongering fascist tyrant and puppet of Uncle Sam.

Although NHK’s 7 PM News declared it Tokyo’s largest demonstration, the program devoted far more time to an investigation into faulty plastic stools! This marks a mild improvement over the news blackout in 2011 when NHK ignored a massive anti-nuclear rally in Yoyogi Park just across the street. It also ignored the self-immolation of a middle-aged man protesting on the eve of Abe’s cabinet reinterpretation of Article 9 on July 1, 2014.

Since that grisly spectacle, strong public opposition to Abe’s security legislation has spilled out on to the streets of Tokyo, an encouraging sign in Japan’s otherwise dispiriting political scene. Students are in the vanguard of this movement and they are attracting throngs of Japanese who share their sense of outrage about Abe’s trampling on Japan’s Constitution and pacifist norms.

SEALDs

The quixotic Student Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy (SEALDs) has served as an inspiration for the nation, organizing demonstrations and arousing and instigating political engagement extending well beyond university undergrads.

SEALDs are part of a post-3.11 continuum of protests by citizens angered by the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdowns, Abe’s 2012 secrecy legislation that undermined transparency, accountability and democratic values, government inaction in the face of racist assaults on the rights of resident ethnic Koreans and rightwing vigilantism targeting the liberal media that in 2014 Abe publically applauded in the Diet.

SEALDs was launched on May 3, 2015, Constitution Day, highlighting the group’s concerns that Abe’s security legislation is tantamount to a stealth revision that fails to adhere to proper constitutional procedures. The core members of SEALDs belonged to the Students Against Secret Protection Law (SASPL) that protested Abe’s secrecy bill from February to December of 2014. That legislation passed, but they were aroused by the Abe Cabinet’s decision on July 1, 2014 to autocratically reinterpret Article 9 of the Constitution to allow Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense. Promoting such a radical shift in Japan’s security policy without following procedures laid out in the Constitution for revising the constitution spurred the students to take to the streets to preserve constitutionalism.

Launched in Tokyo and Kansai, SEALDs has since blossomed into a nationwide network with branches in Ryuku (Okinawa), Tohoku and soon Tokai, with an estimated 400 core members and far more loyal adherents and supporters who regularly participate in protests, but are not formally members. Core members organize the demos, produce leaflets and posters, handle the media, and organize and run study groups. Its still early to speak of a new social movement, but it does seem to be a success in terms of mainstreaming political activism and making it seem unthreatening to the public while giving a voice to the majority who are incensed by Abe’s steamrollering his security agenda through the Diet.

Robin O’Day, a researcher at Tsukuba University, says that key core members from Meiji Gakuin, International Christian University, Sophia and Hosei, among the centers of activity, all attended the same high school. A number of these are historically Christian Universities. However, Meiji Gakuin’s Tom Gill cautions against reading too much into this Christian connection. He points out that his university has an active Peace Studies Institute and “…a liberal-left tradition. Partly it stems from being a Protestant mission school. Christianity tends to be associated with conservatism in countries where it dominates, but with progressivism where it is a minority faith.” “Few of the faculty and very few of the students are actually Christians,” he adds, “but a little bit of the crusading spirit of Kagawa Toyohiko, a pioneering social activist and famous Meigaku graduate, has somehow lingered on.” In contrast to the 1960s Ampo student movement, leading national public universities such as Tokyo University and Kyoto University have not played leadership roles.

So what does SEALDs reveal about contemporary Japan? Certainly the students challenge the prevailing negative stereotype that youth today are politically apathetic, disengaged and happily retreating into the virtual world. They are a small vanguard that taps into SNS to amplify their influence and mobilize sympathizers to join in demonstrations.

Mainstreaming Street Politics

Taking advantage of what Sophia University’s David Slater calls a perfect storm of opportunity, SEALDs is tapping into mainstream anxieties about Abe’s overall agenda. Slater, and his research colleague Robin O’Day, have been tracking SEALDs from the outset through an ethnographic project they call “Voices of Protest Japan” (coming soon), interviewing all the core members and amassing reams of data.

O’Day says they are impressed with the resilience and adaptability of the movement, defying expectations that it might run out of steam.

The large and loud crowds that regularly gather outside the Diet on Friday evenings are the result of student activists trying to do something constructive to block Prime Minister’s Abe’s security legislation. The core activists in Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy (SEALDs) say they want to protect Japan’s liberal democratic values and promote constitutionalism. SEALDs is wooing a public that shuns radicalism and extremist actions meaning no leftist jargon, Molotov cocktails, police confrontation or hunger strikes. There is a sense that the more confrontational style of protests and political agitation in the 1960s played into the government’s hands, enabling it to portray activists as extremists and deny the movement broader public support.

Okuda Aki, a 23 year-old student at Meiji Gakuin and founder of SEALDs, insists, “If one government can change things just with their interpretation, then the Constitution itself is altered and the government can do whatever it wants.” Like many other SEALDs members, Okuda is often seen sporting a T-shirt emblazoned with “Destroy Fascism”. While acknowledging that the conservative forces of darkness are well entrenched, Okuda understands the unrelenting power of ideas in action. “This is not a top-down movement, mobilized by the leaders of certain groups. No one can stop people who have begun to think and take action.”

SEALDs moderate manifesto stands in contrast to the Marxist ideology of the 1960s protestors, urging respect for the Constitution, liberal democratic values and existing security policies while also calling for improving the social safety net, positions that enjoy broad public support.

Hosei University’s Yamaguchi Jiro says, “It is the first movement that has no connection with left parties or political organizations. They are spontaneous, and their words are fresh.” ”Their amateurism has inspired ordinary citizens, and made them feel they should do whatever they can do to prevent the Abe administration from imposing the new security legislation.” He adds, ”It is a big surprise for me that the Japanese people still have such a strong attachment to the Pacifist Constitution.”

Ogawa Akihiro, the Chair of Japanese Studies at the University of Melbourne, has been studying 21^st century protest movements in Japan, noting that “During SEALDs’ protest demonstrations, I often heard three major calls: “Kenpō Mamore! (Protect the Constitution), Abe wa yamero! (Abe, Quit), Sensō suruna! (Don’t make war).” In his view, SEALDs drew inspiration from the political ferment of the past five years sparked by the Fukushima meltdowns and Abe’s reactionary agenda and “tyrannical attitude”.

Ritsumeikan’s Honna Jun draws parallels with the pro-democracy youth movements targeting entrenched interests elsewhere in Asia including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indonesia, “effectively using social media to gain inspiration, organize events, recruit people, and expand networks.” In his view,” SEALDs is a very important new student activism long waited in Japan’s political process. It is new because the movement is non-partisan and is not ideology-oriented.”

Ogawa points out that, “Members of SEALDs do not necessarily disagree with any revision of the Constitution; what they want is politics based on ‘constitutionalism’ or rikken shugi.”

Tom Gill, the Meiji Gakuin anthropologist, adds, “The other half of the story is the marked shift to the right by the LDP under Abe, which has prompted the revival of a long-dormant tradition of student radicalism.” SEALDs, he reminds us, “ is campaigning for freedom and democracy, not communism or anarchism. They feel more left wing because the establishment has become more right wing.”

Sophia University’s Nakano Koichi says, SEALDs is “trying to build a new political culture”, what Slater and O’Day call “the politics of the regular”. Nakano says they are consciously seeking to mainstream their message to reach a wider audience because “the Japanese public is allergic to extremism and shuns the radicalism of the 1960s.” SEALDs wants to normalize political engagement and activism, drawing on the recent experience of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Occupy Wall Street while interacting with like-minded organizations and counterparts all over the world.

The goal, according to Nakano, is “not having to be a full-time radical activist to engage in street politics…its supporters are regular students who plan to lead regular lives and who want political engagement to become a new norm in Japan, similar to western democracies.” Cynics will no doubt be muttering “good luck with that”, but as Kimijima told me, “Their naiveté and enthusiasm encourages and inspires people who have given up trying.” Sure they make mistakes and its easy to second guess their tactics and agenda, but because they are not jaded by defeat, “unlike the old, they don’t hesitate to act…this is their strength,” he adds.

Staking out the middle ground has also drawn criticism from some older leftist groups who disparage SEALDs’ moderate tactics, a sniping that Nakano likens to “Getting bullets from behind”. Slater disagrees with those who denigrate SEALDs as, “more sheen than substance, more fashion than politics.” Adding,” I think these critics are missing the point. SEALDs have gotten more people from a wider demographic onto the streets and aware of the issues. That they don’t look like the old or new left—all the better. Maybe they will succeed where others failed.”

Rebooting Pacifism

SEALDs focus is on Abe’s disregard for the Constitution, but its agenda is clearly pacifist. Ritsumeikan’s Kimijima says that SEALDs wants Japan to be a nation based on the rule of law, and believes that Abe is flouting the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. Apparently, there is no shortage of Japanese who agree with them.

This past June in the Diet, eminent constitutional scholars dismissed Abe’s security legislation as unconstitutional, putting wind in SEALDs sails. Since then, almost all of Japan’s constitutional scholars have joined in condemning Abe’s putsch as did a former Supreme Court justice and a number of ex-directors of the Cabinet Legislative Bureau, the bureaucratic entity that screens bills to determine their constitutionality. The LDP continues to cite the 1959 Supreme Court decision on the Sunakawa case to justify its legislation allowing Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense, but as law professor Lawrence Repeta points out, “the Sunakawa decision did not address collective self-defense at all.” Lawrence Repeta, “Japan’s Proposed National Security Legislation — Will This be the end of Article 9?” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue. 24, No. 3, June 22, 2015.

In July, Muto Takaya, at the time an LDP Diet member, arrogantly disparaged SEALDs for being selfish and pacifist. He has since resigned from the party following allegations of financial and sexual misconduct, but his comments sparked a backlash. Kimijima points out that young Japanese volunteers working at NGOs all over the world have made significant contributions to building peace in war-torn countries, a far more effective example of proactive pacifism than PM Abe’s militarized version. These young people and the SEALDs activists, he argues, draw on the pacifist inspiration of Japan’s peace constitution and are dedicated to promoting “peace by peaceful means”, an approach that resonates powerfully worldwide and within Japan. But not in the Diet it appears.

Outside the Diet at the August 30 rally I met a number of disgruntled Komeito members who are appalled at their leadership for abandoning the party’s core pacifist principles and caving into Abe. I also met activists associated with local housewives associations, Christian groups, various unions and also the student organization Zengakuren, all expressing opposition to Abe’s attack on Japanese pacifism and expressing solidarity with SEALDs. Inspired by SEALDs, Mothers Against War (Mama no Kai) has also joined protests, circulated petitions and directly lobbied Diet members. There is also a SEALDs junior for high school students, TNS-SOWL, which regularly participates in SEALDs protests. At the massive rally I met some septuagenarians and octagenarians, self-designated groups of MIDDLEs and OLDs, and many participants who appeared unaffiliated, but eager to denounce the pronounced rightward shift in Japan’s conservative political establishment.

It is also clear that Japan’s scholarly community supports SEALDs in its efforts to protect the constitution against Abe. Reading the list of signatories to the appeal circulated by the Association of Scholars Opposed to the Security-related Bills, one quickly understands why Team Abe has proposed eliminating humanities and social sciences programs at national universities, although some natural scientists are also among the signatories. In their view Abe, is undermining the rule of law and flouting the constitution. Ironically, Abe’s Defense Minister, Nakatani Gen, wrote a few years ago that revising the Constitution by reinterpretation and legislation would lack legitimacy. That is exactly the policy he is now tasked with spearheading. The scholars warn that somehow, sometime, somewhere, Japan will be dragged into an American-instigated war at Washington’s behest and regard Abe as endangering the nation in order to promote his reactionary agenda.

On September 6 these scholars and SEALDs jointly staged a large rally in Shinjuku. The membership includes nearly 14,000 scholars, and almost 30,000 supporters, with associated groups at some 100 universities. The number of protestors was about 12,000, thronging the main thoroughfare, where crowds gathered to hear speeches and show solidarity. Sophia University’s Nakano Koichi says that SEALDs has asked scholars for suggestions on reading lists and some professors are participating in study sessions, a collaborative effort aimed at contextualizing protest activism in the arc of Japanese history and the wider global discourse.

SEALDs links with other activist groups are extensive. One observer told me that “Tokyo Democracy Crew (TDC) has ceded the spotlight to the more youthful SEALDs, and these days they are assisting SEALDs from behind the scenes. They play vital roles, but they don’t seek attention.” Others suggest that TDC also helps with security by monitoring the crowds, keeping things peaceful and removing saboteurs. In addition, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations remains politically engaged in its own right, but also provides legal advice to SEALDs.

Tokyo Democracy Crew	Women from Saitama give Abe a yellow card

Nakano explains, “Number-wise, the ‘old school’ pacifist groups and labor unions, called Sogakari, which are now united across the traditional political divide, remain the greatest. Sogakari organizes the weekly Thursday protests, whereas SEALDs organizes the weekly Friday protests. In the week of the Lower House vote, every day Sogakari started the protest earlier in the day, and SEALDs took over later in the evening. Similarly, in the week of the expected Upper House vote starting on September 14, the same is likely to happen.”

Media Savvy

SEALDs cooperates with the media by holding press conferences, offering interviews, and orchestrating eye catching events that attracts readers and boosts television ratings. They appear polite, thoughtful and articulate, cultivating a reassuring image that makes their rightist detractors appear more unhinged than usual. They have also wooed the international press, knowing that fame abroad can translate into legitimacy and coverage at home. It almost seems professional, but strong self-presentation and multimedia skills come naturally to 21^st century youth.

It is striking just how media savvy SEALDs is with an English acronym, provocative placards in English, a handsome and effective English language website, and good looking youth swaying to the drums while belting out tuneful chants. Meiji Gakuin’s Tom Gill says a member told him that the idea of adopting an English acronym, “was to make themselves more identifiable to international media” on the premise that “getting mentioned abroad is a good way to get local media to start taking you seriously.” Regarding their deft media presence he says, “they are just applying the on-line practices of their personal lives to political ends.”

On its website SEALDs displays a cool coat of arms, with a quadrant depicting a book, a quill, a megaphone and headphones with a play button icon in the center, demonstrating a canny sense of branding. Some reactionaries threaten that demonstrators will have a tough time job-hunting, but ad agencies and any firm looking for inspired, resourceful and skillful workers ought to beat a path to their doors.

Nakano notes that older leftists complain that ordinary Japanese don’t understand the pithy English placards, but SEALDs embraces a cosmopolitan outlook, connecting threats to Japanese democracy and constitutional government to global developments. At recent protests I asked some older people about the SEALD sign they were holding, “I can’t believe I’m still protesting this shit.” It seems they fully understood and approved the gist of the message taking its place in a sea of “No War” and “Protect Article 9” signs.

Sustainability?

Given that Abe’s security legislation is a done deal in the Diet, what comes next for SEALDs? It seems there is a target-rich environment for liberals and progressives eager to defend democracy and constitutionalism in Abe’s Japan. Anti-nuclear activists are prominent at their rallies, and judging from placards and T-shirts there is concern about a perceived tide of fascism, but there is also growing concern about the social safety net and the fate of the vulnerable. The growing precariat in Japan, now 38% of all workers, are disproportionately young and women. Abe’s structural reforms are aimed at accelerating the rise in non-regular employment in low paid, dead-end jobs with no job security or benefits, a significant factor in income disparities, deflation, declining marriage rates, low fertility, and suicide.

According to O’Day, however, precarity and inequality, issues that helped catapult the Democratic Party of Japan into power in 2009, are secondary concerns for SEALDs. Of greater concern for college students is controlling “Black Corporations”, strengthening the social safety net, and bolstering legislation that protects workers from abuses.” And “they are not directly aligning themselves with established political ideologies about precarity that already exist among other social movements in Japan.”

Will resurgent movements play a key role in the 2016 Upper House elections and help unify the fractured opposition? The LDP won only about 25% of the total potential vote in December 2014, so SEALDs hopes that backing strong opposition candidates regardless of party affiliation and getting out the votes is the best way to revive democracy and unseat the LDP. The larger question is whether SEALDs can become a sustainable movement that can lead a resurgence of Japanese democracy.

Jeff Kingston, Director of Asian Studies, Temple University Japan and author of Asian Nationalisms Since 1945 (Wiley 2016), editor of Asian Nationalism Reconsidered (Routledge 2015) and Press Freedom in Japan (Routledge 2016). He is an Asia-Pacific Journal Contributing Editor.

Notes

¹ The numbers remain controversial with police estimating 35,000 and organizers 350,000 including many thousands trapped by police and unable to exit from subways or herded elsewhere.

For the 14th anniversary of 9/11 we invite our readers to listen to the Global Research News Hour Series on this controversial topic. This first episode was aired on August 2, 2013. 

This week’s installment of the Global Research New Hour marks the first of a five part series highlighting research into the World Trade Center attacks and the need for a renewed investigation.

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From September 8 to September 11, 2011, a gathering of researchers, experts and activists converged on the campus of Ryerson University in Toronto to review what was then the most up to date information with regard to the ten year old tragedy.

Throughout the four day event, speakers challenged the views that the attacks were carried out by an outside enemy and that they were successful because of US intelligence failures. The visiting speakers from around the world would point to evidence that the Twin Towers were deliberately brought down using explosives. They would discuss the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and the consequent attempts to marginalize critics of the official story in mainstream media and culture. Crucially, they would make the case for a re-opening of an independent investigation into the attacks.

Does 9/11 still matter?

The 9/11 attacks took place just under twelve years ago. They were carried out under the watch of a different administration in Washington. The world has moved on. What is the point of continuing to reveal the truth about 9/11?

When hijacked airplanes flew into the Twin Towers causing them to collapse, or so the public was led to believe, the administration of then US President George W. Bush announced that the US and in fact the civilized world were under threat from a fanatical terrorist network known as Al Qaeda. The US and its partners would need to reformulate their domestic and foreign policies in order to subdue the terrorist menace in our midst. Fear that an international network of criminal extremists were so dastardly and cunning that they could catch the $40 billion military-intelligence apparatus of the United States completely off guard made it easier to convince its citizens to dispense with many of the freedoms and liberties celebrated by Americans as pillars of their democracy.

Ordinary Americans would be persuaded to subsidize with their tax dollars, and the lives of their sons and daughters in uniform, the military operations taking place in the Middle East, North Africa and abroad in the name of fighting terrorism.

The legend of this menacing outside enemy furnishes the justification for all these draconian measures. If there is to be any measure of success in resisting the allure of expensive and destructive wars, unlawful detentions, and boundless surveillance, it is crucial that the legend of 9/11 which underpins the Global War on Terrorism be carefully examined.

These conversations are excerpted from the DVD “The Toronto Hearing on 9/11: Uncovering Ten Years of Deception” (available to order from Global Research). Part One features three presenters who all spoke on September 8, the first day of the hearings.

Lance deHaven-Smith is a Professor in the Reubin O’D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University. A former President of the Florida Political Science Association, he is the author, co-author, or editor of 15 books on topics ranging from religion and political philosophy to Florida government and politics. He is the author of Conspiracy Theory in America published last April by University of Texas Press. In his September 8 talk, he addressed what he called ‘State Crimes Against Democracy’ (SCADs).

David Ray Griffin is a retired Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Theology from the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont California. He has written or contributed to twelve books on the topic of the 9/11 attacks including his most recent – 9/11 Ten Years Later: When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed. He spoke on Day One of the Toronto Hearings on the topic of ‘The Inadequacies of the 9/11 Commission Report.’

Kevin Ryan is a chemist and Laboratory Manager and was the site manager for Environmental Health Laboratories, a division of Underwriters Laboratories, before he was fired in 2004 for publicly questioning the report drafted by the National Institute on Standards and Technology (NIST) on their World Trade Center collapse investigation. He has continued to research the World Trade Center attacks and works as co-editor of the on-line Journal of 911 Studies. In his September 8 presentation, he discusses his assessment of the inadequacies of NIST’s 9/11 investigation.

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Press For Truth and The International Center for 9/11 Studies Present:

The Toronto Hearings on 9/11: Uncovering Ten Years of Deception

AVAILABLE TO ORDER FROM GLOBAL RESEARCH!  Price: $22.95 (+ $9.50 S&H)

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Produced by:
Steven Davies
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An over 5 hour DVD, with comprehensive coverage of the 4 day Toronto Hearings from September 2011.

Featuring expert witness testimony from:

David Ray Griffin
Richard Gage
David Chandler
Michel Chossudovsky
Kevin Ryan
Niels Harrit
Barbara Honegger
Peter Dale Scott
Graeme MacQueen
Jonathan Cole
Cynthia McKinney
…and many more!

A US-led coalition airstrike killed 11 Afghan anti-drug police officers in southern Afghanistan, the Interior Ministry said Monday. Amid conflicting reports, NATO has denied responsibility.

The airstrike hit the unstable, opium-rich province of Helmand on Sunday, AFP cited officials as saying. “Eleven counter-narcotics police were killed and four others were wounded in an airstrike carried out by international forces in the Garmsir district of Helmand province,” deputy Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said.

The statement comes amid conflicting reports over who was behind the attack. According to the Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman, the airstrike was ordered against drug smugglers and carried out by NATO forces.

NATO denied the officers were killed in one of its airstrikes. A spokesman said there were no NATO-led airstrikes in Helmand province, but added that there was one in the neighboring Kandahar province to “eliminate threats to the force.”

While Afghan air forces also have the capacity for airstrikes, no comment was issued on their behalf.

The provincial police department provided a higher death toll, saying that 14 bodies had been recovered from the site of the airstrike. Unconfirmed media reports put the number of casualties at over 20.

Helmand is known for its volatility and its international opium trade. It has been one of the central areas for the 14-year Taliban insurgency, which followed the US-led invasion.

Friendly fire deaths have been on a rise in NATO’s Afghan campaign, leading to public criticism. In July, up to 10 Afghan soldiers were killed and four wounded in an US airstrike that hit an Afghan army outpost.

In March 2014, five Afghan soldiers died in a coalition airstrike in Logar province with another coalition bombing claiming the lives of five US soldiers, one Afghan soldier and an interpreter in southern Afghan Zabul province just three months later, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The US-led military coalition formally ended its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014, although the US and its allies still offer support to Afghan troops in the form of airstrikes, reconnaissance and logistics. Recently, airstrikes have become more frequent amid increased fighting on the ground.

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US President Barack Obama has postponed his plans to downsize the American forces in Afghanistan this year, instead deciding to keep the 9,800 US soldiers there until the end of 2015.

At the August 14, 2015 flag-raising ceremony in Havana, Secretary of State John Kerry stated “we remain convinced the people of Cuba would be best served by genuine democracy.” This US promotion of democracy for Cuba is explicitly or implicitly referring to freedom of the press, among other features. Nonetheless, Kerry’s comment on democracy was not the main focus of his remarks; rather, he spoke mainly about the administration’s policy on US–Cuba relations, in recognition of the Cuban government and of the establishment of diplomatic relations and embassies as a step toward the possible normalization of relations as neighbours rather than enemies or rivals.

But how did the US press deal with Kerry’s speech and his other formal engagements in Havana that day? Let us take CNN USA as an example. The latter sent one of its most important anchors, Jake Tapper, to Havana for the occasion. What spin did he provide to the Kerry speech? The CNN host declared: “But it is not as though, you know, snap, all of a sudden there is democracy and freedom of the press.” At another time that same day, he reported, “This is a country that does not have freedom of the press, does not have the right of assembly. You can go on and on.” Tapper broadcast on yet another CNN television spot that same day:

One American flag does not solve every problem or release the Castro brothers’ grip on the people here… President Eisenhower said then – [whom I] quote – ‘Our sympathy goes out to the people of Cuba now suffering under the yoke of a dictator.’ [Tapper adds:] The dictator and his yoke now enforced [by] his brother, Raúl.

By his own account, Tapper actively sought out Cuban dissidents, among others, to interview. He hung on to every word they uttered in their opposition to the unconditional re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. He summarized that “critics claim that today [August 14] only will give legitimacy to a dictator who has no interest in true change.” Tapper went further by playing a July 2007 presidential debate video clip in which then Senator Barack Obama, according to Tapper, was “laying out his rationale for engaging a rogue regime such as Cuba.” However, according to CNN transcripts, the question in July 2007 was whether the presidential candidates favoured “to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries.” The question and Obama’s response did not employ the term “rogue regime.”

Thus, to summarize, while CNN did broadcast the flag-raising ceremony and Kerry’s statement, whose main feature was the promotion of diplomatic relations as neighbours, in its entirety, CNN did its own editing. The cable news network jumped on Kerry’s remarks about democracy for Cuba and one of its correlations, freedom of the press. During the entire day and on virtually every program going into the late evening, TV viewers were bombarded by the sound bites of “freedom of the press,” “dictatorship” and “rogue regime.”

What is also significant, and serving as a corollary to the treatment of Kerry’s remarks, was what CNN blacked out. In addition to the flag-raising ceremony, there was a second important activity. Kerry was welcomed by his counterpart, Cuban Foreign Minster Bruno Rodríguez, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building. The meeting behind closed doors was followed by public availability to the press at the Hotel Nacional. This event included remarks by both John Kerry and Bruno Rodríguez followed by an open question and answer period. The entire activity was virtually censored by CNN. It is unfortunate, because the US audience and others around the English-speaking world served by CNN USA missed the opportunity to hear what the Cuban side had to say about “democracy for Cuba.”

During the question and answer period, AP journalist Andrea Rodríguez addressed Bruno Rodríguez: “Secretary Kerry today mentioned that he hopes to see in Cuba a genuine democracy. I would like to know your comments on this.” The Cuban Foreign Minister’s response never reached the US public via CNN. Here is what he said:

I feel that we should work very actively in order to build confidence, mutual confidence, and to develop contacts in the areas where we have a very close approach or those areas where our ideas could come closer, and to be able to discuss in a respectful way about our respective differences. In some areas, it is true that differences are profound. However, I can say that some of these issues have been subject to an intensive international debate. For example, some electoral political models of industrialized countries that seem to be a unique model have gone into a very serious crisis, even in Europe. States have seen the need to develop their relations according to international law with peoples which have decided in the exercise of their self-determination to choose their own national destiny according to their culture and level of development. I feel very comfortable with the Cuban democracy, and at the same time there are things that could be further perfected.

Today we are working actively as part of the processes related to the updating of our economic and social, socialist model. I can say that we are ready to speak on those issues on the basis of reciprocity, on sovereign equality. We have also a lot to say, we have concerns to share. There are attempts to increase international cooperation to solve problems related to civil and political liberties, which, in our opinion, should be guaranteed, such as the right to food, the right to gender equality, the right to life, the right to education, and health care.

Readers can reach their own conclusion as to why these comments were suppressed by CNN. One take is that the Cuban Foreign Minister enunciated, as expected, some views that fly in the face of the CNN sound bites. On the question of democracy, he turned the attention toward a concern shared by many people in the US and elsewhere in the West. This preoccupation consists in the quality of democracy and the electoral process in these advanced industrial countries. This Cuban interjection throws a wrench in the CNN narrative regarding democracy. This portrayal hammers Cuba but leaves the US unscathed or even as the model, seeing as the US bases itself on the US-centric conception of democracy. The Minister’s remarks in defence of Cuban democracy were qualified with the very important caveat that it has to be improved. This logic of combining sovereign decisions with the recognition of improvements within the Cuban traditions and values also flies in the face of the US mainstream press such as CNN. Finally, the Minister threw the ball back into the court of the US in a very diplomatic manner by indicating that Cuba highly regards, for all countries, the guarantee for civil and political liberties, such as the right to food, the right to gender equality, the right to life, the right to education and to health care. Cuba’s accomplishments in these fields are well-known and internationally recognized, while the lack of these guarantees in the US is increasingly notorious in the country itself and internationally.

How did the Cuban press deal with August 14? Did it carry out censorship, blackouts and misinformation? No. On the contrary, the entire day was broadcast live on Cuban TV and radio. This began with the arrival by Kerry at the airport in Havana and an informational biography of the Secretary of State that was not at all tinged by derogatory statements or qualifications. The entire ceremony and Kerry’s remarks at the US Embassy were transmitted. The full press availability mentioned above was equally on Cuban TV. The next day, the Cuban official press carried the full transcripts in Spanish of the flag-raising ceremony and the press availability.

This aversion to censorship is part of the Cuban tradition when it comes to striving to normalize relations with the US. For example, in 2002, former President Jimmy Carter visited President Fidel Castro in Cuba. On this occasion, Carter’s speech in Spanish was broadcast in its entirety by Cuban TV and radio, even though it contained comments regarding democracy for Cuba similar to Kerry’s August 2015 remarks. In his own report on the visit, Carter wrote:

That evening at the University of Havana I made a speech and then answered questions that, as promised, was carried live on television and radio. It was later rebroadcast, and the entire transcript was published in the two Cuban newspapers. Subsequently, we could not find anyone on the streets or in the markets who had not heard it.

The diametrically opposed approaches of the Cuban press and of CNN in covering August 14 indicate that CNN does not have any grounds to criticize Cuba for the lack of freedom of the press. In fact, it was Cuba that gave a lesson to CNN about opposing censorship, blackouts and misinformation. Cuba turned the tables on the US.

In the US, “freedom of the press,” like “democracy” itself, is presented in the abstract. They are buzzwords that are designed to make people in the US and abroad kneel down in homage to the US as the model. The First Amendment to the US Constitution (1791) proscribes that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The amendment gives the impression that there are no restrictions by abstracting the press from the socio-economic context in which it operates. Thus, supposedly, anybody can write and say anything.

In Cuba, on the other hand, as the US logic goes, there are restrictions. Article 53 of the Cuban Constitution indicates that “citizens have freedom of speech and of the press in keeping with the objectives of socialist society.” The US-centric framework dictates that in Cuba, there is no real freedom of the press, as there are constraints, while in the US there are supposedly no conditions.

Does pure freedom of the press exist in the US? Let us take CNN’s reporting on August 14, 2015 as our ongoing example. How did host Jake Tapper and the other CNN anchors come to spin their story and reporting? It is possible that no one instructed them on exactly what angle to take. However, there was no need to, as they know that, in order to advance their careers, certain concepts have to be promoted, while others have to be blacked out or distorted. All of these contortions are broadcast in order to make their story coincide with the preconceived notions and interests of the ruling circles. Noam Chomsky unravelled the role of the US media as part of the establishment in his classic bookManufacturing Consent. He and his co-author wrote that the “media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them.” Chomsky goes on to unveil the inner workings of this phenomenon by indicating that the constraint that the establishment exercises over the media “is normally not accomplished by crude intervention, but by the selection of right-thinking personnel and by the editors’ and working journalists’ internalization of priorities and definitions of newsworthiness that conform to the institution’s policy.”¹ Yet it is well known that “crude intervention” also takes place.

Taking into account the Chomsky view on the US media related to CNN and Jake Tapper, we can give the cable news outlet the benefit of the doubt that “crude intervention” was not carried out for the August 14 angle on US–Cuba relations. However, following the Chomsky thesis, in December 2012, Tapper was first selected by CNN, based on his career, as a “right-thinking” person. On August 14, 2015, he “internalized” or embodied the angle that CNN desired. In other words, by incarnating the US long-term view on Cuba held by some sections in the establishment, Tapper knew perfectly well what he was doing. It is part of building a career with the monetary rewards that accompany climbing the ladder.

Tapper is a rising star in CNN and thus has been chosen to moderate the September 16, 2015 Republican presidential debate. There is a serious struggle between Fox News and CNN to capture more and higher- priced ads and increase their ratings as part of these Republican presidential debates. CNN is banking on Tapper to contribute toward attaining its goals. The corporate “freedom of the press” situation in the US is further emphasized when contrasted with the Cuban approach. Article 53 of its Constitution stipulates that the “mass media are state or social property and can never be private property.” This is not a restriction but rather a liberating factor, especially if one compares the US-corporate controlled press to the Cuban approach.

However, as indicated above, Cuba, for its part, has an explicit constraint on freedom of the press: the press must coincide with the objectives of socialist society. There is no hypocritical attempt to hide it. The objectives of the Cuban socialist society and its principles with regard to Cuba–US relations require that diplomacy be fostered to the utmost as a crucial input toward bringing about changes to Cuba’s socialist model. This Cuban diplomatic effort included full press coverage of Kerry’s visit, irrespective of his declarations. For Cuba, it is also a question of principle to treat its US guests in that way, as did Fidel Castro with President Carter.

Did CNN’s reporting on the August 14 activities in Havana contradict the current official US policy on Cuba? Did it represent one section of the ruling circles that is not favourable to the thawing of relations between the two neighbours against another faction of the US establishment that is inclined to the normalizing option? The situation is complex. One has to keep in mind that on August 17, 2014, when Presidents Obama and Castro made the surprising simultaneous announcement of the new US policy, both the White House and the State Department made – and continue to make – one point very clear. The new US approach represents only a change of tactics, while the objective of the US remains in place. US officials continue to promote the US version of democracy for Cuba. This ultimate goal, couched in a more diplomatic manner, and thus not as boorish as CNN, requires ongoing propaganda that Cuba is not democratic, that there is no freedom of the press, etc. The question remains as to why CNN did not contribute to the evolution of the diplomatic efforts by both countries by professionally informing the US public, as did the Cuban press with its people. CNN’s crass reporting serves as another reminder of this new situation with its very positive perspectives for both Cubans and Americans, as well as the dangers for Cuba. Cubans are very aware of this. Its press and journalists’ blogs presently serve as a forum for a very mature and lively debate on the significance of the new US approach. This debate is a result of the attempts by the leadership and the journalists to improve the Cuban press as part of the wide-ranging changes going on in Cuba.

Arnold August, a Canadian journalist and lecturer, is the author of Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections and, more recently, Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion. Cuba’s neighbours under consideration are the US, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Arnold can be followed on Twitter @Arnold_August.

Notes

1. Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 2002), XI.

 

Privatization and corporate ownership of our food and water is what is at stake. The greed that has allowed companies to create patents on food and to siphon off water and sell it back to the world is as disturbing as ever. Following are ways which a cabal is trying to control 2 of our most basic needs – food and water.

The Overtaking of the Food Supply

A cabal controls our food supply. If you haven’t heard about the massive Svalbard ‘doomsday’ seed bank that individuals and companies like Bill Gates, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation, and the Government of Norway have created, then you might want to check it out. The Svalbard seed bank seems to foreshadow a massive food crisis on this planet.

By infiltrating our government regulatory agencies and lying about the safety of genetically modified foods, our world’s food supply is now in critical danger. Obama has passed Monsanto-friendly legislation, and with the Trans Pacific Partnership being negotiated behind closed doors, it is likely our ability to decide against GMO labeling or bans as states will be retracted by the federal government.

GMOs have been linked to cancer, with the World Health Organization now finally admitting that glyphosate, the main herbicide manufactured to be used in concert with these crops, is ‘probably carcinogenic.’

The Institute for Responsible Technology reports how GMOs pose a reproductive risk, accelerated aging, and problems with our digestive system by damaging our healthy gut flora.

In the same manner that the cabal’s banking system (which you can read about in part one) strips the common man and woman of their inherited wealth, poor nations have become a testing ground for GMOs. Even places like Hawaii, called Ground Zero for GMOs, are also especially appealing to the biotech arm of the cabal since the US government is complicit in pushing this toxic food, and since the islands have a year-round growing season due to perfect weather and daily rain.

These crops not only spoil our current food, but they deplete the soil. What’s more, they cross-pollinate thousand-year-old native crops which are already very good at defending against pests, weeds, and even drought.

Under the ‘food’ topic I will also include the pharmaceutical arm of the cabal, though it has no place here. But they are so inextricably linked, that I may as well combine them.

Monsanto, arguably the most influential company controlling our food supply, spun off into Pfizer – one of the biggest legal drug cartels on the planet. Americans consume half of the world’s pharmaceuticals, and we only account for 5% of the world’s population.

This is no mistake. Part of the reason Americans are so drugged up and doped out is because the same companies that control our food supply also control our healthcare system and government agencies that regulate them – the CDC, FDA, EPA, etc.

Controlling the Water

California is going through the worst drought it has ever seen, and with a burgeoning 40 million population, some might think it is no wonder that they are suffering, having built their infrastructure in the middle or an extremely arid climate. But there’s more to the story than this.

Corrupt corporations are making a killing off of California’s drought. Nestlé’s actions are especially despicable. The company is drawing an unnumbered amount of water, likely millions of gallons of water from an underground spring, and then selling it back to the public. The company’s CEO even recently said on a radio show that he would ‘increase it if he could,’ referring to revenues gained from water privatization. Nestle has even said that water is not a human right.

This is just a small example of world-wide water privatization aims. The World Bank wants water privatized – go figure! And so do many corporations with a stake in making gazillions off of the world’s thirst. Activist Vandana Shiva states:

“Since nature gives water to us free of cost, buying and selling it for profit violates our inherent right to nature’s gift and denies the poor of their human rights.”

The sustainable use of water is never discussed by these companies, nor the fact that desalinization technologies already exist which could make places like California an utter oasis.

What to Do About the Oligarchy?

The fact that you are reading this article and educating yourself is a big step in the right direction. As the world awakens to the atrocities that are being committed right under its nose, we will free ourselves from tyrannical corporate control.

“The only tyrant I accept in this world is the ‘still small voice’ within me.”  ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Recent days have seen a powerful wave of solidarity and support for refugees arriving in Germany and Austria. Many people have been profoundly shaken by the horrific images of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean and reports of migrants suffocating by the dozens in traffickers’ trucks.

Millions are shocked and appalled by scenes of exhausted families with small children confronting barbed-wire fences, and people being herded into detention camps where they are held for days without adequate food or sanitation. People across Europe were outraged when Hungarian police attacked defenseless asylum seekers with batons, stun grenades and tear gas.

Last week, it emerged that Czech authorities were stamping registration numbers on refugees’ forearms, recalling the methods employed by Nazi concentration camp officials. The report unleashed a storm of protest.

Subsequently, solidarity committees sprang up in dozens of cities and towns to collect clothing, food, medicine, toiletries, toys and other items. Aid was coordinated via the Internet. Doctors and nurses offered free medical examinations and care.

An unemployed teacher who called on colleagues via Facebook to organize German-language courses and other programs for refugees was overwhelmed by the number of volunteers who came forward. An Internet platform is now offering accommodation for refugees.

Twenty thousand refugees arrived in Munich last week after a long journey across Hungary and Austria and were then taken by train and bus to other locations. When they disembarked, they were welcomed by committees formed to distribute water, lunches and toys and to offer translation assistance and other support.

These extraordinary events have revealed the immense chasm that separates the sentiments of broad masses of people from the reactionary obsessions driving state policy and official public opinion. For weeks, the politicians and media sought to stir up hostility against the refugees. Right-wing professors such as Herfried Münkler of Berlin’s Humboldt University insisted that the population was terrified of the refugees. Münkler called for the ditching of “moral no-go precepts.”

Over the past two years, the German political and media establishment has worked relentlessly to convince the people that the horrors of World War II and Nazism should be forgotten. President Joachim Gauck joined other top officials in insisting that Germany had to get over its past, abandon its post-World War II policy of military restraint, resume its place as a global power with military force at its disposal, and be prepared to use that force around the world. The outpouring of public support for the refugees shows how little support this vile campaign has generated among the working masses.

When refugees held up their arms to news cameras to show the registration numbers stamped on them by Czech officials, large numbers of people decided they could no longer stand by in silence. Too great was the horrific association with the crimes of Nazism.

Asked why she had joined a welcoming committee for refugees and waited for hours at train station for their arrival, one elderly woman replied: “Before I burst into tears in front of my TV, I’d rather come here and help these long-suffering people.”

In her traditional summer interview, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a tactical adaptation to this mood, spoke of a “culture of welcome in Germany.” This was merely a maneuver. The German government is working feverishly to restrict the right of asylum and deport the majority of the refugees as soon as possible.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban spoke for all governments in Europe when he said in Brussels last Friday: “If we give the refugees the impression they are welcome, it will be a moral defeat.”

The sympathy and support of broad layers of the population for the refugees is to be welcomed. But it is necessary to transform such elemental feelings of solidarity into a politically conscious struggle. This requires working through the issues underlying the refugee crisis.

How is it to be explained that 25 years after the end of Stalinist East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall, walls and fences are being erected across Europe, secured by barbed wire and guard dogs? Why, 70 years after the end of World War II, are people once again forced to flee their homes to be herded into camps and treated as concentration camp prisoners?

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the major capitalist powers, led by the American ruling elite, felt liberated from the constraints placed on them by the existence of the USSR. One of the central conclusions they drew was the belief that they could expand the use of military violence to achieve their geo-strategic aims. Their first victims were the energy-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia.

Decades of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq under the pretext of a “war on terror” ruined these countries and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. This was followed by the US/NATO war for regime-change in Libya, which overthrew the government of Muammar Gaddafi and transformed the country into a “failed state,” torn apart by constant fighting between rival militias. Then came the Syrian civil war, set in motion, armed and financed by US imperialism and its regional allies with the aim of overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and installing a pro-Western puppet regime in Damascus.

The constant threat of death and destruction that is driving hundreds of thousands of people to undertake the desperate flight to Europe is the result of these crimes of imperialism. The rise of the terrorist militia ISIS and the wars in Iraq and Syria are direct consequences of the destruction of Iraq by the US and the support given to ISIS and similar Islamist militias in Syria by US imperialism and its allies.

The refugee crisis has exploded any notion that the imperialist powers can unleash savage violence in the Middle East without consequences at home. The world is coming face to face with the global interconnectedness of modern society. What has been revealed is the irrationality of an international capitalist order that divides the world into national states and rich and poor countries.

The defense of the refugees requires a political struggle against imperialism and war. The working class in Europe and internationally must unite and take the fate of society into its own hands.

Official accounts from Washington and European capitals along with duplicitous major media reports suppress what’s most important to know.

Volumes are written without a single explanation of why a refugee crisis exists in the first place, what should be done about it, and most important, how to prevent future ones.

Millions fleeing troubled lands aren’t migrants. They’re refugees and asylum seekers – desperately seeking safe havens anywhere out of harm’s way.

Washington bears full responsibility for the gravest refugee crisis since WW II – because of its devastating post-9/11 wars. Resolving the problem isn’t rocket science.

It’s as simple as declaring peace, stopping US wars, ending its support for ISIS and other takfiri terrorists, establishing effective transition policies, and caring for displaced people humanely until they’re able to return home, adjust to a new environment on their own or go elsewhere.

RT International interviewed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. He correctly blamed America for refugee crisis conditions.

“It is Europe that has to deal with the disaster caused by the US, because it is Europe that is now taking in thousands of migrants and they don’t know how to cope with this situation,” he said.

By deception, (America) invaded (Afghanistan), then (Iraq), the cradle of civilization – and razed it to the ground. Now it is literally split into thousands of parts and engulfed by terrorism in its cruelest form” because Washington wanted to steal its oil and exploit its people.

Who bombed Libya! Who took the lives of more than 100,000 Libyans! Who is now bombing Syria,” Maduro stressed!

Who financed the terrorists that are now seeking to destroy it. The US has caused a real disaster, chaos, and now it wants to cause chaos in other regions of the world.”

Britain’s Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn blasted David Cameron – calling his response to the Syrian refugee crisis (the worst one globally) “wholly inadequate.

Images of a dead child washing up on Turkey’s shoreline reflect the horrors of Washington’s imperial wars – endless ones taking millions of lives, displacing millions of survivors fleeing for safety, enduring extraordinary hardships few can comprehend, and treated with deplorable callousness most everywhere they arrive.

Tory leadership failed, said Corbyn. Britain granted asylum to less than 300 Syrian refugees since January 2014.

Cameron dismissively says “I don’t think there is an answer that can be achieved simply by taking more and more refugees” – while his complicity with Obama’s wars creates more of them.

Corbyn calls it Britain’s “duty under UN law, but also as human beings, to offer a place of safety, and play a role internationally to share our responsibilities, and to try to end (ongoing) conflict(s)” – ones Britain complicit with Washington wage.

On September 4, Human Rights Watch (HRW) listed “five steps to tackle (the) refugee crisis:

1. Establish safer legal ways to aid desperate people – helping them avoid the horrors of hazardous journeys, “dangerous routes and unscrupulous smugglers.”

2. Fix “the EU’s broken asylum system.” Different polices among member states created a dysfunctional process.

3. Institute “robust search and rescue operations” sustained as long as needed.

4. Establish a “permanent relocation (policy) to share asylum seekers.”

5. “Develop a list of ‘unsafe’ countries whose nationals…need international protection.”

HRW omitted what’s most important. Declare a universal commitment to peace and stability. End US imperial wars. End European involvement in them. Hold Israel accountable for slow-motion genocide against Palestinians.

When swords are turned into plowshares, refugee crises won’t exist. Instead, Washington’s solution to everything is war, endless conflicts for wealth and power, turning planet earth into a dystopian wasteland – or maybe destroying it altogether.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

While Russian opinion polls in support of President Putin now has reached a record level of 89%, he is simultaneously target of a smear campaign in the West. Putin, we are told, is a power-hungry dictator intending to restore the Soviet Empire. He is portrayed as a danger to world peace, a dictator with a background as a KGB officer, who controls  ”communist” Russia with an iron fist.

What is called ”Putin’s annexation of Crimea” is taken as an example of his aggressiveness. The fact that Crimea has been a province of Russia since 1758 is not mentioned in Western media. Khrushchev handed over Crimea to Ukraine at a time when both were part of the Soviet Union and the whole thing was purely administrative.

Russia has for 250 years had its Black Sea fleet based in Crimea, and a leasing agreement with Ukraine gave them the right to have 25,000 troops there. After the so called ”annexation” Crimean streets were full of jubilant inhabitants who had again become Russian citizens. Not a single shot was fired, and a referendum showed that 96% of the people wanted to return to Russia.

This is not surprising because seventy percent of the Crimeans have relatives in Russia, and forty percent of Russians have relatives in Crimea. Despite the fact that reports from the OSCE confirmed that the poll followed all rules for referendums western media claimed that it was illegal and rejected it as propaganda. Informed observers know that the annexation was nothing more than Crimea’s reconnection with the motherland.

Ex-president Jimmy Carter said that:

”It was something that Crimean residents wanted.”

Even anti-Russian Forbes Magazine wrote:

”One year after annexation locals prefer Moscow before Kiev.”

Putin in the Western media and the coup in Kiev

However, western media have kept silent about this and argues with the persistence of a fool that Russia has conquered Crimea militarily, and therefore should be sanctioned.

The western elite wants to keep the public unaware that the United States was behind the coup in Kiev and the US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland appointed the Ukrainian Government not the Ukrainian people. Her discussion with the US ambassador to Ukraine about who they would put in the government has been leaked and is available to listen to on the Internet (1).

The US invested 5 billion USD in Ukraine to support ”democracy-building” (a more correct term would be “subversion-building”) to so called non-profit organizations (2). If the coup had succeeded, it would have deprived Russia of its military base in the Crimea, and locked Russia out from the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

All of a sudden the Ukraine people found themselves facing a government with strong Nazi elements whose first decision was to ban the Russian language! Their hatred for everything Russian has resulted in a genocide in eastern Ukraine, where the military indiscriminately murders the Russian-speaking population including children and elderly.

At least 5,000 civilian Russian-speaking Ukrainians have been murdered and a couple of million have fled, most of them to Russia (3). Crimea’s reconnection to Russia has saved its people from a similar fate.

Nazi groups such as Svoboda and the Azov Battalion are driving forces, but Western media still denies the existence of Nazism in the country. A US bill to congress suggests otherwise saying:

”Nazi groups in Ukraine will no longer be supported.”

However, this has been silenced, and western media continue to assert that Russia is in war with the Russian population in Ukraine, which is extremely absurd but apparently the best they could come up with; who else would shell the Donetsk civilians?

The only measure Russia has taken is sending caravans of trucks with food and medicine to the badly affected population, whose pensions and social support has been taken from them by their own government. However, the US, Canada and other NATO countries have sent both weapons (which Obama has allegedly stopped but that George Friedman of the Stratfor think tank says is happening) and military personnel to them.

Washington’s Responsibility

The reason for the coup, which forced the democratically elected President Yanukovych to escape, was definitely not more democracy for Ukraine’s people, but had political causes that can be traced back to a single one, namely the US global hegemony that does not allow any other country to challenge them.

The Wolfowitz doctrine spells out the US foreign policy strategy;

Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.

In other words Washington’s primary goal is not peace, not prosperity, not human rights, not democracy, not justice. Washington’s primary goal is to remain the only superpower in the world. (4)

If war is necessary to defend this, the world will have to accept it! A well-functioning cooperation between Germany and Russia is, according to presidential advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, the only power formation that could threaten US hegemony. To drive a wedge into the cooperation between them, was an obvious reason for the coup in Ukraine.

Another thing was that Russia does not support the World Government under control of the financial elite, which they have been planning for a long time and which is now being slipped into western countries, without the citizens being aware of it.

Putin shocked the elite when he commented on the world government issue (he used the wordsunipolar world), in a speech in Munich in 2007, where he said:

. . . what is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making.

It is a world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.

And this certainly has nothing in common with democracy. Because, as you know, democracy is the power of the majority in light of the interests and opinions of the minority.

Incidentally, Russia – we – are constantly being taught about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves.

I consider that the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world.

After this statement the campaign against Putin has intensified.

End of Democracy

The role democracy will play in the planned world government is clearly revealed by David Rockefeller when he thanked a select group of media invited to share its planning.

It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.

In other words, the world has to look forward to the bankers’ dictatorship! Democracy is over! This applies also to Sweden, where the removal of cash is a first step making us completely dependent of the banks’ greed and unpredictability. This means that during a power outage, we will have no money at all! During a power outage for two months – which can be arranged – we will have difficulty even surviving. The elite claims the world is overpopulated and its intention is to reduce world population from the present seven billion to 500 million, and this may be one tool in their effort to kill off 6,5 billion people – the biggest genocide ever!

Putins Achievements

The American Sharon Tennison (5) began already during the Soviet era to arrange journeys for Americans to Russia, her private initiative to reduce tension in the world. She has closely followed the change ever since:

It is astounding to me how much progress Russia has made in the past 14 years since an unknown man with no experience walked into Russia’s presidency and took over a country that was flat on its belly. . . During this time, I’ve traveled throughout Russia several times every year, and have watched the country slowly change under Putin’s watch. Taxes were lowered, inflation lessened, and laws slowly put in place. Schools and hospitals began improving. Small businesses were growing, agriculture was showing improvement, and stores were becoming stocked with food.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Putin is loved by the Russians, but hated by those who want to remove him from power. He has the nerve to act as an exceptionally skillful head of state who works for the best of his country and people, something that every politician should do, but which still few countries can enjoy.

MH17

A year ago a passenger plane from Malaysia Airlines was shot down over the Ukrainian war zone. Western media immediately accused Russia. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (6) says about this in an interview:

I think they intended for the airliner to be shot down. The latest evidence is that it was shot down by air, by a Ukrainian jet fighter using a missile. This is the best evidence we have at this time. What is suspicious about this is that the instant that the airliner was reported to have been shot down, the entirety of the Western media was already programmed to blame Russia. Before there was any evidence, before there was any explanation, we had all of the Western media blaming Russia – even the BBC, which used to be a respectable news organization. So this suggests the whole thing was preplanned.

And if you look at the development of this we see that Ukraine has not released any information about its contacts with the airliner. And we see that Washington, which had a spy satellite directly over the area at the time, refuses to release its information. So the only information we have comes from the Russians, and the Russians say that if this had happened on a ground-to-air missile, this Buk system, that their radar in Rostov would have picked it up and yet it shows no such happening.

So I think the reason that we can’t get to the bottom of this is that it’s been used against Russia by Washington in order to break off Russia’s relationships with Europe. It’s the foundation of the sanctions and it’s part of Washington trying to break up the political and economic relationships between Russia and Europe. In my opinion, all the evidence we have, as of this time, supports no other conclusion. . . 

 So that’s really what it’s all about and shooting down an airliner for Washington this doesn’t mean anything; they kill more people than that while we are talking, in Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, in wherever. For 14 years the US has been killing people all over the Middle East and Africa and why are they so worried about a couple of hundred on an airliner, they kill that many every hour.

So the whole thing is directed to demonize Russia in order to force Europe to comply with Washington’s will, which is: “We have to stop the rise of Russia, we can’t have another independent power, we are the uni-power, we have hegemony over the world, we must not permit other countries to be able to block us in any way.” That’s what it’s all about.

Why has the Dutch crash report not been published?

• Could it be that it does not show what Russia has been accused of ever since the crash?
• Is it perhaps that Washington now wants to refer the whole case to a UN commission which they can control and let them judge that Russia is the perpetrator, without having to bother about the facts of the final crash report?

The US-backed coalition have been expanding Yemen war by exercising more airstrikes and deploying 1000 additional Qatar troops, preparing to advance the Yemeni capital. Pro-Saudi military faced the deadliest battle incident ever. Yemeni forces declared the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) cities a military target, 

 

1. September 2, ISIS Wilayat Sana’a exercised a dual bombing at an al Houthi-run mosque in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a. One suicide bomber detonated a suicide vest in the al Muayid mosque and was followed by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device that targeted emergency responders at the scene. 28 locals were killed and 75 were wounded.
2. September 3, A vehicle-borne improvised explosive device killed at least five al Houthis in al Bayda city. No group has claimed the attack at this time, but Ansar al Sharia, the militant arm of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has taken credit for at least six other attacks on al Houthi positions in al Bayda governorate between September 2 and September 4.
3. September 4, At least 45 UAE and 10 Saudi soldiers were killed in an attack on a Gulf coalition military base in Ma’rib governorate. The soldiers died in an explosion when a rocket, launched by al Houthi forces, struck a weapons cache inside the camp.
4. September 4, Two al Houthi army soldiers were killed and six others wounded when suspected al-Qaeda militants carried out an attack in the province of Shabwa. Over the past months, al-Qaeda militants have frequently carried out attacks on Yemen’s security forces. The militants have been also engaged in battle with the Shia Ansarullah fighters.
5. September 5, Saudi fighter jets launched raids on residential areas in the northwestern Yemeni province of Sa’ada. Several people including a mother and her child were killed.
6. September 5, The spokesman for the Yemeni army Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman said that the Saudi cities of Jeddah, Abha, and the capital Riyadh will turn into legitimate targets for the Yemeni forces in their retaliatory attacks against the kingdom.
7. September 6, Saudi-led coalition pounded the Yemeni capital with air strikes on Sunday. Coalition warplanes hit military bases on the capital’s Nahdain and Fajj Attan hills and the neighbouring presidential complex, south of Sanaa, as well as a special forces headquarters. At least 27 people were killed.
8. September 7, Around 1000 Qatar Armed Forces soldiers, backed by 200 armoured vehicles and 30 Apache helicopters, head to Yemen’s Maareb province to join the Saudi-led coalition already fighting in the area.
9. September 7, Saudi airstrikes killed 12 people and injured 39 others in the city of Yarim in Ibb Province.

The US-backed coalition suffered high loses during the ground operation in Yemen.

According to different reports, it lost from 50 to 130 troops last Friday. This number will apparently rise because of crucial stance of most injured fighters, their number is 200. Furthermore, the coalition lost 3 Apache helicopters and over 40 units of military equipment. The important thing is that 5 Bahrain fighters of the coalition were killed in the border territories of KSA. It covers the effectiveness of the Yemeni army’s realatory attacks. In any case, contemporary loses conducted a real shock in the coalition’s headquarters.

Another important feature of the Friday’s incident is the fact the al Houthi fighters used a Tochka-U missile for the attack. In fact, al Houthis hardly have enough trained fighters to use the missile effectively. An example of this fact we could see in Ukraine where even availability of the missles didn’t help pro-Kiev forces to hit the targets in Donbass, sistematically. So, this case could be a solid argument to argue that there are Iranian military advisors among al Hotuhi forces.

Considering the fact that the Saudi-led coalition failed the offensive on Taiz and jitters among coalition forces (Southern Resistance militants, Saudi Arabia, UAE have own goals in this intervention), we can easily predict that the future advance on the Yemeni capital through Ma’rib will be related for the coalition with heavy loses and won’t guaranty success.

While Western pundits have been busy building the myth of “Russian isolation” all throughout the summer, the country itself has been busy hosting four major forums and summits that absolutely refute the mainstream media’s false narrative. The Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), BRICS Summit, SCO Summit, and the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) have each succeeded in their own way to cement Russia’s role as one of the leading economic centers of the multipolar world. They all have something else in common, too, which is that each of them is a strong step in the direction of North Eurasian economic integration, with the grand intent of more solidly posturing Russia for its eventual economic expansion into the southern reaches of the supercontinent. Thus, the overarching goal is for Russia to more robustly make its presence felt in every corner of Eurasia, leveraging its institutional influence as a vanguard in actualizing its grand geo-economic ambitions.

The first part of the article begins by reviewing the four major forums and summits in Saint Petersburg, Ufa, and Vladivostok, drawing attention to some of the relevant themes and results of each. Afterwards, it transitions into a brief discussion of how these yearly events are helping Russia to consolidate its North Eurasian position. The second part of the piece continues by examining how this aforementioned consolidation can facilitate three specific southward shifts that Russia is expected to enact. Finally, the series ends by looking at Russia’s economic vision beyond Eurasia and assessing the feasibility of its global strategy.

The Illusion Of Isolation

Unlike the illusion that the US tries to construct, the reality is that Russia is far from isolated, and the four forums held over the summer testify to that effect. Here’s how each of them dispelled the smoke and mirrors:

SPIEF:

This annual event in Russia’s “Western Capital” saw $5.4 billion worth of deals signed this year, but the most important takeaways related to the energy sector. Two noteworthy memorandums were agreed to for the construction of the Nord Stream II and Greek Stream gas pipelines, the latter being the first planned expansion of Turkish Stream. These two projects are complementary in deepening the interdependence between Russia and Europe, which his even more significant at this given time because they show that the politically charged sanctions cannot eliminate the natural economic basis on which bilateral relations have historically been established.

Alongside that, these energy projects also demonstrate that there is a degree of political will present in Europe to independently sidestep the US-pressured sanctions and intensify strategic sectoral cooperation with Russia. While the EU as a whole is still an American protectorate (after all, it followed the US’ lead to sanction Russia), Washington’s hold over some of the continent’s capitals isn’t as complete as it would like to believe. The possibility (however distant) is thus held out that one day this colonial relationship can be further unraveled as select European nations continue to pursue their national interests irrespective of American coercion, culminating in what might eventually become the refutation of the entire sanctions policy and more. This explains the vehemence with which the US opposes any and all European energy cooperation with Russia, since it senses that such measures are the first step along the path of reversing American influence (whether the EU countries wittingly know this or not).

The last takeaway relevant to the discussion at hand is the surprise nuclear energy agreement that Russia signed with Saudi Arabia at the forum. Nobody had expected this, as bilateral diplomacy up until that point had been largely relegated to the shadows out of consideration for the extreme political sensitivity of its nature. There’s a lot more to this tangent than the scope of the present article entails, but what’s important to recognize is that nuclear energy cooperation with any nation, let alone with oil leader and regional nation-wrecker Saudi Arabia, always has a deeper strategic meaning. More often than not, it foreshadows a coming intensification of full-spectrum relations, which in this case is particularly with one of the US’ most traditional allies.

BRICS:

The crowning achievement of the BRICS Summit was undoubtedly the dual launching of the BRICS New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (the currency pool). These two institutions are the twin pillars upholding the creation of an alternative global economic order, and it’s very significant that Russia has not only taken a leading position in their establishment, but that they formally began their operation during the Russian-hosted event. As is common knowledge, Russia is working hand-in-hand with China in pioneering the rise of non-Western institutions to liberate ‘the bronze billions’ (all those outside of ‘the golden billion’) from the Washington Consensus. As it connects to the discussed theme of this article, the success of the BRICS Summit showcases the global reach of Russia’s influence, with its strongest point being the trilateral intersection between itself, India, and China (RIC, the actual forerunner of BRICS). To top everything off, the five participants agreed to the Ufa Declaration, a broad-based document that lays out the unified position of the BRICS countries on a diverse variety of international issues, with an obvious focus on economic cooperation.

SCO:

This summit was held immediately after the BRICS gathering, and its most notably visible success was in expanding the organization by initiating the accession of India and Pakistan. Aside from the military-political connotations that this embodies, it also bodes well for the economic vision of the SCO, which has lately been emphasizing this benefit of its membership. Pertinently, it’s not without reason that China proclaimed that the organization could serve as a useful platform for the New Silk Road, and this year’s summit also included talk of an SCO Development Bank to assist with this. Thus, it can be witnessed that the SCO has succeeded in rebranding itself as an integrational institution with concrete economic potential, which thus holds massive future importance due to its three anchor economies (Russia, India, China) and the geostrategic space (Central Asia) between them. In the context of Russian geo-economic strategy, this provides the country with a North-South trade avenue from Siberia to South Asia (going through Central Asia and Iran) and strengthens the ties between Russia and China both on a bilateral basis and via the connective infrastructure linking them through the former Soviet Republics.

EEF:

The first-ever Eastern Economic Forum held in Vladivostok is an Asian-directed investment and integrational platform for developing the resource-rich Far East region. This enormous corner of the country holds the keys to Russia’s evolution from a European-centric economy to a more diverse one that embraces economic multipolarity as much as it practices its political manifestation. The Far East functions not only as the Pacific gateway of the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Europe, but also as a key logistics node along the Northern Sea Route. As a supplement to the latter, investment in the more distant Advanced Special Economic Zones in the northern reaches of the region could lead to connective infrastructure being built to both Vladivostok and Arctic Ocean ports, which would thus make the warm-water city the southern terminus of a new North-South trade axis. Furthermore, if the two Koreas can be linked to Vladivostok via a rail network, then Russia’s “Eastern Capital” would be positioned to become one of the most integral Pacific hubs in Northeast Asia owing to its unique geostrategic ability to connect the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and Northeast China to Russia, the Arctic Ocean, and the EU. It’s in the pursuit of this long-term vision that President Putin has placed a priority focus on developing the Far East to enhance the viability of Russia’s Pivot to Asia and its function in the Asian-gravitating global economy.

All Roads Lead Through Russia

These four summits and forums function as the cornerstones of Russia’s larger geo-economic strategy, which is to consolidate its position in Northern Eurasia before moving to its rich southern coasts. Prior to the shift, Russia must first succeed in tethering itself to the Western (EU), Central (Central Asia), and Eastern (East Asia) markets of Northern Eurasia and become the most convenient trade conduit between the EU and East Asia. It aims to fulfill this gargantuan task through utilizing the combined economic potential and institutional overlap of the Eurasian Union, the SCO (its Central Asian members in this context), and the Silk Road to inaugurate a Eurasian Land Bridge, which will serve as the land-based counterpart of the Northern Sea Route.

Looked at through the prism of the four summits and forums discussed in this piece, it’s becomes clear what role each of them plays in this united framework. SPIEF is directed mostly towards the EU, although in recent years it’s become more geographically inclusive through the interest Mideast (Saudi Arabian), South Asian (Indian), and East Asian (Chinese) companies have shown in the event (in large measure due not only to the sanctions, but also to the widespread realization of Russia’s geo-pivotal economic role as explained above in this article). The SCO, although expanded this year to formally include South Asia, has always been a catalyst for cooperation between Russia, China, and the Central Asian states, with the two cores (Russia and China) concentrating on the synchronization of their ‘Heartland’ policies. The EEF deals most directly with East Asia, and it seeks to diversify Russia’s pivot there through the broadening of ties with its Korean and Japanese neighbors. Finally, the BRICS Summit touches upon all of these and more owing to the revolutionary impact that it’s having on the global economic architecture.

Altogether, the building-block vision is to connect the aforementioned trade routes to Russia, using the forums and summits as multilateral opportunities for bringing together all the relevant partners (as well as attracting new ones) in order to coordinate their efforts and promote new joint projects. Ideally, Russia would like to occupy the central role in managing EU-Chinese, Central Asian-European, and Central Asian-East Asian trade logistics, with the expectation that there will be sufficient residual benefit to develop its under-populated transit regions and contribute to the national wealth. Additionally, setting up a stable and efficient multifaceted trade network spanning the breadth of the North Eurasian economic zone (EU/Russia/Central Asia/China or Lisbon to Hong Kong via Moscow and Tashkent) will make it a lot easier for Russia to leverage its economic potential in a southwards direction, which represents the next logical step of its geo-economic grand strategy.

To be continued…

Andrew Korybko is the political analyst and journalist for Sputnik who currently lives and studies in Moscow, exclusively for ORIENTAL REVIEW.

US corporate-funded policy think-tank, the Brookings Institution, published a June 2015 paper titled, “Deconstructing Syria: Towards a regionalized strategy for a confederal country.” The signed and dated open-conspiracy to divide, destroy, invade, then incrementally occupy Syria using no-fly-zones and both US and British special forces is now demonstrably underway.

The paper would lay out in no uncertain terms that (emphasis added):

The idea would be to help moderate elements establish reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able. American, as well as Saudi and Turkish and British and Jordanian and other Arab forces would act in support, not only from the air but eventually on the ground via the presence of special forces as well. The approach would benefit from Syria’s open desert terrain which could allow creation of buffer zones that could be monitored for possible signs of enemy attack through a combination of technologies, patrols, and other methods that outside special forces could help Syrian local fighters set up.

Were Assad foolish enough to challenge these zones, even if he somehow forced the withdrawal of the outside special forces, he would be likely to lose his air power in ensuing retaliatory strikes by outside forces, depriving his military of one of its few advantages over ISIL. Thus, he would be unlikely to do this.

Not only does Brookings lay out an open conspiracy to invade and occupy Syria, it does so with the open admission that the goal is not to degrade the fighting capacity of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS or ISIL), but rather to undermine and eventually overthrow the Syrian government. In fact, Brookings makes a point of stating that the goal would be to seize and hold Syrian territory to further advance American ambitions toward regime change, and would move quickly to degrade the Syrian government’s ability to resist ISIS if any attempts were made by Damascus to stop the US invasion.

News reports have trickled out regarding US and British “fighters” operating in Syria. Their backgrounds, affiliations, logistical support, and transportation to the battlefield have been intentionally left ambiguous by the Western media. Occasionally, open admissions are made that US and British special forces are operating in Syria, with one recent report indicating British Special Air Service (SAS) operators were in Syria “dressed as ISIS fighters.” The UK Express reported in their article, “SAS dress as ISIS fighters in undercover war on jihadis,” that:

The unorthodox tactic, which is seeing SAS units dressed in black and flying ISIS flags, has been likened to the methods used by the Long Range Desert Group against Rommel’s forces during the Second World War. 

More than 120 members belonging to the elite regiment are currently in the war-torn country on operation Shader, tasked with destroying IS equipment and munitions which insurgents constantly move to avoid Coalition air strikes. 

Of course, this alleged and very risky military operation to “destroy IS equipment and munitions” in Syria begs belief as all of ISIS’ equip first enters Syria at the very Turkish-Syrian border the SAS likely staged to begin their operation. Strategically and tactically, interdicting ISIS’ supplies before they reach Syria would effectively cripple ISIS’ fighting capacity in the matter of weeks. It is clear that the SAS and other Western special forces are not in Syria to fight ISIS, but as Brookings itself admits, to take and hold Syrian territory from which terrorist groups, including ISIS can more safely wage war against Damascus.

As the number of US and British forces on the ground in Syria grow, a variety of cover stories have been invented. The latest has been posited by Foreign Policy magazine. In their report titled, “Meet the Americans Flocking to Iraq and Syria to Fight the Islamic State,” they claim:

…the number of Americans traveling abroad to fight the Islamic State is picking up, with 44 percent of all fighters identified in the report arriving between May and mid-August of 2015. Whether you think of them as brave patriots stepping up to oppose a pressing threat or meddlesome war tourists taking foolish risks, one thing seems certain: More Americans will be arriving in Iraq and Syria to take up the fight against the Islamic State in the near future.

The anecdotes used to qualify Foreign Policy’s claims that these fighters are “volunteers” and not special forces or paid mercenaries are the clearest indication that the article, and many like it, are a cover story. Ironically, it would be one of Cass Sunstein’s “independent credible voices,” Eliot Higgins – who regularly claims Russian volunteers in Ukraine are in fact sanctioned by Moscow – who would publish a “report” supporting Foreign Policy’s “volunteer” premise.

In reality, Foreign Policy is covering up the immediate implementation of admitted and documented US foreign policy to invade and occupy Syrian territory using special forces. A growing number of US and British special forces in Syria to take and hold territory will be impossible to cover up perpetually, so alternative narratives explaining the large and growing numbers of Western fighters in Syria has been fabricated.

And while the prospect of volunteers travelling to Syria is not entirely fantastical, the transportation, funding, arming, and both tactical and political support of these fighters requires state resources. The fact that American citizens are forbidden by law to partake in foreign conflicts in this manner, yet are able to freely enter Turkey, then cross at Turkish-controlled checkpoints to fight in Syria – like the flow of weapons, supplies, and fighters to bolster ISIS at these same checkpoints – suggests stated US foreign policy to both use armed terrorist groups to overthrow the Syrian government by proxy, and now the use of US and British military forces to do so directly, is being executed before the eyes of the world.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

 

Distant Australia has done its level best to influence the refugee debate in the most negative of ways this century. Its reactionary response has deployed a range of established stereotypes that have targeted the right to asylum. Safety has been sacrificed in favour of deterrence.

While Prime Minister Tony Abbott continues to bask the ill-gained glory of “turning back the boats”, the European refugee crisis has exploded. This has produced a range of sentiments in Parliament, some verging on the overtly discriminatory. While the refugee category should be inclusive and absolute (such suffering, by its nature, should know no religion or race), the debate suggests quite the opposite: We only want appropriate refugees.

True to form, various Coalition members have expressed interest in select minorities, preferably of the non-Muslim sort. Some backbenchers have been rather open in the party room. “No more Muslim men” is a message doing the rounds.

Front benchers such as Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull see stars of hope in saving Syria’s Christian communities. “They are a minority, they survived in Syria, they’ve been there for thousands of years, literally since the time of Christ.”Senate Leader Eric Abetz has similarly pushed the line on Christian salvation. “It should be on the basis of need and given the Christians are the most persecuted group in the world, and especially in the Middle East, I think it stands to reason that they would be pretty high up on the priority list for resettlement.”

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has also had her pick of preferred exceptionally persecuted minority groups. She favours supporting Maronites and various groups within, including the Yazidis and Druze.

The result is an inbuilt method of discrimination that assumes a self-justified, circular logic: if you are a Christian in Syria, then you will be persecuted; if you are persecuted in Syria, then obviously, you must be a Christian. This logic is shoddy on various levels, not least because it ignores numerous other communities, notably Islamic ones, that are equally the targets of terror.While he can’t generally be guaranteed to make sensible remarks on refugees, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten made the obvious point that, “Being a victim of war doesn’t know a particular religion.” He was careful, however, to only propose an increased intake after getting word back from his focus groups.Refugee Council chief executive Paul Power sees such a prioritisation as counter productive. By granting specific refugee groups a talismanic worth – the worthier sufferers, if you will – they will become even more exceptional targets. “I’m sure one of the consequences is that extremists within Syria and other parts of the Middle East will use this as a weapon against Syrian Christians.”[1]

The latest Australian position on refugees is fundamentally consistent with its broader discriminatory practices. It supposedly detests people smuggling, yet consents to paying boat captains to take back refugees when needed. (One claims he was recently paid as much as $30,000 to turn his boat load of human cargo back.)

The Abbott government feels it needs to act, but it is only doing so with reluctance. There are calls from across the political aisle for larger intakes of refugees – Labor has pressed for 10,000, while the Greens have asked for double that number. Liberal backbenchers spoke over the weekend about the death of three-year old Aylan Kurdi. More, it was suggested, needed to be done.

In the main, the government is far busier bungling with such visa-checking missions such as the failed Operation Fortitude, and running detention camps on Manus Island and Nauru that give purgatory a bad name. Detainees face sexual abuse, psychological trauma and an appalling safety record.

The concern here is whether the Australian recipe for dealing with refugees may prove palatable for European policy makers. Abbott has himself suggested on a few occasions that “countries facing a crisis on their doorsteps are looking at his success at stopping the boats and thinking they can learn from Australia’s experience.”[2]

The New York Times, in a scathing survey of Australia’s refugee policies, was worried by exactly that point. “Some European officials,” claimed the editorial board, “may be tempted to adopt the hard-approach Australia has used to stem a similar tide of migrants. That would be unconscionable.”[3]

It would be, but the issue of dealing with refugees ceased being a matter of conscience in Australian politics years ago. More typical are the views of the current immigration minister, Peter Dutton, who parrots the line that such a ruthless stance is actually humane. “Our policies are lawful. They are safe. And they work.”

The grief for the drowned provides the perfect alibi to repress and deter refugees – they are being treated that way for their own good. “What Australians and the world did not see were the hundreds of others who were dying while trying to reach Australia in unseaworthy boats.”[4]

Various European governments have certainly shown Abbott-like tendencies in embracing domestic unilateralism, be it Hungary’s wall solution or the Slovak response of only wanting Christian refugees. That way lies, not merely a good deal of madness, but a good deal of deflection.

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

Notes

[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-08/christians-to-get-priority-in-syrian-refugee-intake/6757110

[2] http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/no-tony-abbott-we-dont-have-the-answer-on-refugees-20150904-gjfjqc.html

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/03/opinion/australias-brutal-treatment-of-migrants.html?_r=0

[4] http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/immigration-minister-peter-dutton-hits-back-at-new-york-times-over-asylum-seeker-editorial-20150904-gjflgk

 

For more than two centuries, the United States has viewed Latin America as its “backyard,” a geopolitical sphere of influence where it acts as undisputed hegemon. The history of the Western hemisphere, broadly speaking, reflects this reality as the U.S. has influenced, dominated, and otherwise controlled the political and economic development of most of the countries of Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.  

However, recent years have borne witness to a growing independence and assertiveness from many nations in the region, owing in no small part to the rise of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Indeed, with Venezuela as the exemplar, and Chavez as the initiator of the process of regional integration and collective security, Latin America has grown increasingly independent of its imperial neighbor to the north.

And it is precisely this political, economic, and cultural independence that the U.S. has moved to counteract in the most effective way it can: militarily. Using pretexts ranging from the “War on Drugs” to humanitarian assistance, and the “War on Terror,” the U.S. seeks to regain its military foothold in the region, and thereby maintain and further its hegemony.

The Silent Invasion

The deployment of U.S. military forces throughout Central and South America calls to mind the dark days of U.S. imperialism in the region, when Washington installed client regimes and fascist dictatorships for the purpose of controlling the political and economic development of nations that might otherwise have pursued the path of socialism and independence. And it is the memory of those years that is immediately evoked when one critically examines what the U.S. is doing militarily.

In Central America, U.S. military forces have penetrated key countries under the pretext of counter-narcotics operations. In Honduras for example, the U.S. has played a key role in supporting, advising and directing the military of the right-wing government that took control of the country after the 2009 coup, supported by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration. As the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) reported:

The steady increase of U.S. assistance to [Honduran] armed forces [is] an indicator of tacit U.S. support. But the U.S. role in militarization of national police forces has been direct as well … The US [DEA] Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team (FAST) … set up camp in Honduras to train a local counternarcotics police unit and help plan and execute drug interdiction operations … these operations were nearly indistinguishable from military missions … According to the New York Times, five “commando style squads” of FAST teams have been deployed across Central America to train and support local counternarcotics units … In July 2013, the Honduran government created a new “elite” police unit called the Intelligence Troop and Special Security Group, or TIGRES (Spanish for “tigers”). The unit, which human rights groups contend is military in nature, has been deployed in tandem with the new military police force and has received training in military combat tactics from both U.S. and Colombian Special Forces units.

The deployment of this sort of combination of military, paramilitary, and militarized law enforcement is indicative of the U.S. strategy for re-militarizing the region. Rather than simply overt military occupation, Washington “provides assistance” in the form of military aid. This is further demonstrated by therecent announcement of a contingent of U.S. Marines deployed to Honduras, ostensibly to help with relief efforts during hurricane season.

Such deployments keep with recent U.S. initiatives to further penetrate these countries militarily, using small contingents of troops and Special Forces. In 2013, it was reported that in Colombia, former commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command William McRaven, “sought the authority to deploy [Special Operations Forces] teams to countries without consulting either U.S. ambassadors there or even the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) … McRaven’s command even tried to work out an agreement with Colombia to set up a regional special operations coordination centre there without consulting SOUTHCOM or the embassy.” In fact, under McRaven Special Forces troop deployments ballooned to more than 65,000, with many spread throughout Latin America.

Colombia has long been a centerpiece of U.S. military strategy. Perhaps the most well-known U.S. regional program is Plan Colombia, launched by the Clinton administration and expanded under George W. Bush. As Foreign Affairs documented in 2002, “The Clinton administration shifted its emphasis from a comprehensive counterdrug program … to a policy that focused on the provision of military assistance and helicopters.”

Undoubtedly, Plan Colombia was always about militarization and protecting economic interests. In fact, just totaling the military, police, and economic aid to Colombia for 2010-2015, the U.S. has given nearly US$3 billion to Colombia in the form of “aid” to fight the so-called “War on Drugs.”

Under Obama, the U.S. military has expanded on the Clinton/Bush administration programs, especially with the Mérida Initiative (launched in 2008 by Bush) and the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) created by Obama in 2011. According to the Igarapé Institute, CARSI and Mérida alone received more than US$2.5 billion (2008-2013). It is an open secret that the massive funding has been channeled primarily into military and paramilitary programs. Though the U.S. touts these programs as success stories, their expansion has coincided with increased militarization in every country where U.S. funds have been provided.

In El Salvador, the Funes government has consolidated military control of law enforcement in the interests of its U.S. backers. These changes took place simultaneous to the implementation of CARSI, and should be seen as an outgrowth of U.S. militarization. In Guatemala, the government of Otto Pérez Molina, a former military leader with a record of atrocities and genocide, has further militarized the country.

Similarly, Honduras has been transformed into the U.S. military’s primary foothold in Central America. U.S. Coordinator of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) and Refoundation Party (LIBRE) Lucy Pagoada explained in a 2015 interview that “[Honduras] has turned into a large military base trained and funded by the U.S. They even have School of the Americas forces there …There have been high levels of violence and torture since the [2009] coup.”

Of course these examples merely scratch the surface of U.S. military engagement. Aside from its long-standing partnership with Colombia, the U.S. military has now further entrenched its position thereby establishing NATO-Colombia cooperation. Naturally, such announcements have been met with consternation by independent leaders such as Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua who described the NATO-Colombia deal as a “knife in the back of the people of Latin America.”

The US Agenda

Ultimately, U.S. militarization in Latin America is an attempt to check militarily the rise of regional cooperation and independence. The development of ALBA, Unasur, PetroCaribe, and other multilateral institutions not controlled by the U.S. has alarmed many in Washington who see their former “backyard” slipping out of their grasp. And so, the U.S. has moved to block this development with military force.

The regional component is also critical to the U.S. militarization agenda. Washington wants to block any further integration, while also checking the growing influence of China and other non-western actors who are increasingly penetrating the region through investments. Essentially, the U.S. is doing in the Americas, what it is doing in Africa, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific regions: using its military to block independent development.

Perhaps this is an unavoidable part of imperialism. Perhaps it is indicative of an Empire’s waning influence and its desperate attempt to recapture lost spheres of influence. However one interprets its motives, the U.S. is unmistakably consolidating its military power in Latin America. Whether this allows the Empire to reassert control, or is simply a doomed attempt at reestablishing hegemony, only time will tell.

Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. He is the editor of StopImperialism.org and host of CounterPunch Radio. You can reach him at [email protected].

The methodology of sending an unmanned drone into enemy territory as in previous cases, the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, Iran, Syria, Iraq or Lebanon to kill those who are your political opponents – was pioneered by the IDF, Israel’s peculiarly misnamed attack force.

It is the coward’s approach to liquidating one’s political opponents without any risk whatsoever to the operative who sits thousands of miles away, drinking a latte, as he decides whose life to summarily extinguish next and upon what ‘intelligence’ he can point to in claimed justification. The victim, of course, will already be dead, often together with his family, children and or work colleagues. They were not afforded to chance to defend themselves from the brave drone operator and his superiors. His body lies spread-eagled in the front seat of the car, his face blown away by the unseen missile as his blood seeps into the upholstery and onto the vehicle floor. His innocent passengers lie dead also on the front and back seats.

The United States congress, on seeing how super-efficient the Israeli killing methodology is, soon copied it to great effect. And now, it must be admitted, the British government have been unable to resist the temptation also of killing at will, with no risk. It’s a sort of real life computer game in which you can zap anyone who displeases you or whom you merely do not like.

But it’s not a computer game and hundreds of innocent lives have already been blown away at the flick of an Israeli, American and now British, switch.

The future is indeed bleak. No more courts of justice: no more trials to determine innocence or guilt: no more evidence by the prosecution or defence rebuttal by the accused: no more lawyers or counsel: no more appeals: no more justice, in fact, just an Israeli or American liquidation operative pushing buttons on a killing console and committing murder between sips of coffee.

Welcome to the 21^st century!

Below is the Response of the Petitions Team of the British parliament concerning the petition, calling for Netanyahu’s arrest, signed by more than 107,000 British citizens and residents.

It was sent out at 9.40pm GMT on September 8, 2015. 

It has all the appearances of a “fast track decision” taken on the 8th of September, one day before the scheduled arrival of  Israel’s Prime Minister and War Criminal Benyamin Netanyahu.

Was pressure exerted on the petitions team to issue this abridged statement and endorsement of PM Cameron?  

The petitions team is not only in violation of its mandate, which is to consider the petition for parliamentary debate, it also fails to address the legal issues.

It constitutes an absolute parody  of the British parliamentary system:  

Because the Government said in its response that the request made by the petition was something that it was not able to do under UK and international law, the Committee agreed that it would not take any further action on the petition. 

This statement is nonsensical. There are precedents in the UK:

We will recall that a warrant for Chile’s dictator Augusto Pinochet was issued in the UK, upon his  indictment by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón in October 1998.

He was arrested in London and was held under house arrest for more than a year. “Pinochet claimed immunity from prosecution as a former head of state under [Britain’s] State Immunity Act 1978.” This was rejected by the House of Lords.

A warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest can be issued under British law without the consent of the government or the House of Commons. Make it Happen

Failing the issuing of an arrest warrant Plan B Consists in A Citizens’ arrest.

 

*      *     *

(text of the response of the parliamentary committee below addressed to more than 105,000 British citizens and residents, scroll down)

CLICK IMAGE TO SIGN

 Text of response

Hi MICHAEL CHOSSUDOVSKY,

You recently signed a petition on the UK Government and Parliament Petitions website for: Benjamin Netanyahu to be arrested for war crimes when he arrives in London:

 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105446

The Committee considered this petition, along with the Government’s response, on Tuesday 8 September.

Because the Government said in its response that the request made by the petition was something that it was not able to do under UK and international law, the Committee agreed that it would not take any further action on the petition.

It is still open to MPs who want a debate on this issue to find other opportunities, such as an application to the Backbench Business Committee:

http://www.parliament.uk/bbcom

You can use this link to find out who your local MP is and how to contact them:

http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/

You can see all the decisions the Petitions Committee made at its meeting here:

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/petitions-committee/news-parliament-2015/8-sept-committee-decisions/

Click this link to view the petition “Benjamin Netanyahu to be arrested for war crimes when he arrives in London”:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105446

Thanks,
The Petitions team
UK Government and Parliament

You’re receiving this email because you signed this petition.

Doom and gloom: this is the new troll term to describe the financial realities being described by those who use math and pure logic to derive conclusions. 

What other conclusions can one come to than “it’s been a great ride but it’s nearly over”? 

We are only a week away from the Fed meeting where interest rates may come off of “zero” (I dare them). 

Just reported was an unemployment rate at 5.1% …while 47 million Americans are on food assistance.  Totally “unexpected” was the chemical “explosion of the week” in China Another Chinese Chemical Plant Explodes, Huge Clouds Of Black Smoke Billow Skyward.

I ask, what happens when you raise interest rates on a wobbly creditor (system) living day to day shuffling funds around just to settle?  What happens when one of these well known creditors cannot and do not “settle”?

I am talking of course about derivatives.  You know, those wonderful contracts that allow creditors (even entire countries like Greece, Italy etc.) to hide true debt because they are “insured”.  What happens when the insurance does not pay or the insurer goes broke?

As for unemployment, how can nearly 15% of your population eat on food assistance while the country is at or near “full employment”?

Does anyone, even for a moment believe the country is at full employment?  How does a country survive when more than half the population “gets” while the other, less than half “gives”.

All of these social programs may have been noble in their infancy.  Now they are used and abused as a “way of life”.  The only problem is the unsustainable nature means there is an end date … an “exhaustion” so to speak!

I could of course write 24/7 for a month or more on what has gone wrong and what is unsustainable.

The point of this writing is not to give you new information or dots to connect.  The dots have been identified and connected by many in what is termed the “alternative media”.  Is common sense logic and truth actually “gloom and doom” for sensationalism or is it getting out because for some, truth still matters?

In my opinion truth doesn’t “still matter”, it is ALL that matters and WILL matter.

I write this to tell you “be careful what you wish for”.  I receive several hundred e-mails each day.  Some are nuts, a few are trolls, some are well intentioned but uninformed, some are inquisitive and others demanding.  The one response that seems to be standing out and growing are of the “I just want to get it over” type.  I understand this and sometimes I feel the same way.  It is a feeling of exhaustion while waiting for the exhaustion to happen!  The problem with this is we are wishing for a “crashed” standard of living.  Our current standard of living has been on borrowed money and is on borrowed time, I have to say it’s really been fun while it lasted!

Why do I write this now?  It is safe to say, if you look around it is obvious.

The computer algorithms have taken over, the little guy is long gone and we watch as volatility increases with volume continually decreasing …THE classic sign of exhaustion.

Markets all over the world have unsettled and the carefully choreographed stability is being shaken.  Debt, which the entire system has been built on has now come front and center with skepticism.  Central banks far and wide (including The Fed) are having their “omnipotence” questioned …and thus so are their issued currencies.

SELECTED ARTICLES:

By Graham Vanbergen, September 08, 2015

The Myth of a Moral Capitalism

By Richard Becker, September 08, 2015

‘A parliamentary report published in 2013 noted that since its creation in 1948, Israel has granted official refugee status only to 200 people.’   (Washington Post)

And that is, of course, the point ­ Israel is NOT a European country.

It is a state in the Middle East composed primarily of ideological migrants from the U.S. plus a few million former Russian political dissidents and refugees from various other Middle Eastern states.

It is not in Europe, nor in the EU nor in NATO; is not subject to any EU law but It does seek to influence the foreign policy of the United States congress by means of a powerful, moneyed lobby in Washington.

It is the annual recipient of billions of dollars of military equipment each year including F16 strike aircraft, helicopter gunships, missile bombers, cluster bombs, chemical weapons and electronic surveillance equipment.

It is, itself, a major arms exporter to various repressive regimes, worldwide, of military equipment, guns and surveillance equipment.

It is the perpetrator of an illegal seven year blockade of essential goods into Gaza.

It holds 5000 political prisoners in detention without trial.

It conceals a secret nuclear arsenal estimated to hold up to 400 nuclear warheads.

It operates a covert fleet of five nuclear­armed submarines assumed to be patrolling the Mediterranean Sea, unseen, that is a potential threat to Europe.

The government of Binyamin Netanyahu has encouraged, by means of tax and monetary inducements, over 500,000 of its citizens to leave their homes in Israel to illegally settle on occupied Palestinian land.

It is an expansionist state that has waged war against all its neighbours and has killed many thousands of them, indiscriminately, over the past six decades, including hundreds of unarmed women and children.

It is a frightening fact that an undeclared, nuclear­ armed Israel, outside the inspection of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, is a threat to the region and to global peace.

Far from being armed to the teeth by America its nuclear arsenal should be completely disarmed under pressure from the European Union, failing which, all bilateral trade should be discontinued.

“Israel must not get involved in what is happening in Syria. We are not a European country. We are too close.”    (quoted by NY Times. Sept 6^th. 2015)

 

Israeli prime minister cites demographic purity, stokes fear about ‘terrorists’

Amid a growing humanitarian crisis in Europe and the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday refused calls to admit non-Jewish refugees from Syria and announced plans to build a “security fence” to shut out people fleeing war—directly referencing concerns that admittance would skew demographics.

“Israel is a small country, and we do not have the geographic and demographic depths [to absorb them],” Netanyahu’s office declared in an English language statement released Sunday. “We will not allow Israel to be flooded with illegal migrants and terrorists.”

“Today, we are starting to build a fence on our eastern border. In the first stage, we will build it from Timna to Eilat in order to protect the airport being built there, and we will continue the fence up to the Golan Heights, where we have already built a strong security fence,” the statement continued.

However, as Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man pointed out in +972 Magazine, the Hebrew version of the statement released from Netanyahu’s office struck a different chord—referring to the Syrian refugees as “infiltrators.”

“The message here is clear,” wrote Omer-Man. “In Hebrew there is no such thing as a Syrian refugee who might find shelter in Israel; instead, there are infiltrators, work migrants and terrorists. All of those words are meant to scare the average Israeli into rejecting the possibility of taking in refugees.”

The prime minister’s statement came a day after Isaac Herzon, opposition leader, called onIsrael to allow entry to Syrian refugees.

Not only is Syria an immediate neighbor of Israel, but the countries bearing the brunt of the refugee crisis—Lebanon and Jordan—also share a border with Israel. Lebanon is now home to approximately 1.2 million refugees from Syria, amounting to roughly one out of every five people currently residing in the country. More than half of Syria’s population is currently displaced—with seven million internally uprooted and four million fleeing to other countries.

Some of those now fleeing Syria are Palestinian refugees. Israel has driven millions of Palestinians from their homes, through expulsions, ethnic cleansing campaigns, war, and occupation. On Saturday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on Israel to grant Palestinian refugees fleeing Syria safe passage into Palestinian territories.

Netanyahu’s refusal follows growing condemnation of Israel’s brutal treatment of tens of thousands of non-Jewish asylum seekers fleeing war and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa—mostly Eritrea and Sudan.

Israel is not the only country to refuse entry to refugees. Its close ally the United States has admitted just 1,500 Syrian refugees since 2011, and in 2013, the last year for which Homeland Security statistics are available, granted asylum to a mere 36.

And wealthy Gulf monarchies including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have welcomed few—if any—Syrian refugees into their country.

Further, Israel is not the only country building a fence to keep refugees out. Hungary’s far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban has built a razor-wire fence along the border with Serbia and is preparing to reinforce it with military and police deployments.

Obama began premeditated aggressive proxy war on Syria in March 2011 – using imported Islamic State and other takfiri terrorists to do his dirty work.

There’s nothing civil about ongoing conflict – claims otherwise one of the many Big Lies repeated ad nauseam, proliferated by Western officials and media regurgitating state propaganda, their main role, not honest reporting.

Russia maintains normal diplomatic relations. It supplies contractually arranged arms as well as other products and services. It has every legal and moral right to support a longstanding ally.

It’s gone all-out for diplomatic conflict resolution. Putin urges an international coalition against terrorism and extremism – not efforts to topple an independent government. Obama wants endless imperial wars – against one country after another, ongoing in multiple theaters, likely to erupt in new ones any time.

US officials give chutzpah new meaning. On September 5, a State Department web site spokesperson statement said:

The Secretary called Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov this morning to discuss Syria, including US concerns about reports suggesting an imminent enhanced Russian military build-up there.

The Secretary made clear that if such reports were accurate, these actions could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-ISIL coalition operating in Syria.

Fact: No evidence suggests a “Russian military build-up” in Syria. Satellite images would clearly show it. None exist.

Fact: No “anti-ISIL coalition” exists. US-led aggression using imported ISIS and other takfiri terrorists foot soldiers targets Syria for regime change.

Fact: Obama bears full responsibility for mass slaughter and destruction against the Syrian nation and its people, as well as the greatest refugee crisis since WW II.

Major media reports exclude what readers and viewers most need to know. State-sponsored propaganda substitutes.

On September 4, The New York Times headlined “Russian Moves in Syria Pose Concerns for US,” saying:

A Russian “military advance team (was sent) to Syria (plus) other (unmentioned) steps” taken – citing unnamed administration officials, claiming Putin’s possible intention “to vastly expand his military support” for Syria, despite no evidence showing he’s doing anything beyond fulfilling contractual agreements between both nations.

Despite clear evidence otherwise, The Times cited “Kerry’s repeated efforts to enlist Mr. Putin’s support for a diplomatic solution” to continued conflict.

It bears repeating. Syria is Obama’s war. He didn’t wage it to quit. Indications suggest he intends escalating it. Libya 2.0 appears likely.

Russia deplores war. It’s done more for world peace than any other nation – yet gets irresponsibly criticized. Proliferating anti-Russian propaganda is longstanding Times policy – now suggesting possible deployment of thousands of Russian forces to aid Assad, despite no evidence suggesting it.

State Department spokesman Admiral John Kirby was quoted saying “(w)e have regularly and repeatedly expressed our concern about Russian military support for” Assad.

Fact: No nation is more responsible for global wars and unspeakable human suffering than America.

Fact: Post-Soviet Russia never attacked another country. Its August 2008 South Ossetian incursion was to protect its own citizens – initiated after hundreds were murdered by Georgian forces, deployed by US-installed fascist despot Mikheil Saakashvili.

On September 5, The Times headlined “US Warns Russia Over Military Support for Assad,” saying:

Kerry warned Sergey Lavrov “that such a move might lead to a ‘confrontation’ with the American-led coalition…”

US anti-Russian propaganda war rages unabated – facilitated by media scoundrels proliferating managed news misinformation and Big Lies, notably in New York Times feature reports.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

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Israel’s Benjamin Netantahu is reluctant to unlock horns with the White House, even as he faces almost certain defeat in trying to block President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran.

Last week, when it became clear he could not muster enough votes in the Senate to block a presidential veto, Netanyahu let fly one more punch. He observed that “the overwhelming majority of the American public sees eye-to-eye with Israel”, not their president.

According to polls, a narrow majority of Americans reject the Iran deal.

But ordinary Americans may be surprised to learn that Netanyahu’s hardline policy on Iran has long been viewed as implausible and counter-productive back home, among his own security officials.

That verdict was underscored by the latest disclosures from Ehud Barak, who was defence minister through the critical years of Israel’s lobbying for an attack on Iran.

Leaked audio tapes of Barak speaking to biographers suggest that he and Netanyahu pressed unsuccessfully on three occasions, between 2010 and 2012, for the Israeli military to launch a strike.

Each time, he says, they were foiled either by the military’s failure to come up with a workable plan or by the reticence of fellow ministers as they heard of the likely fallout.

In Washington, Netanyahu has cast himself as Cassandra, the forsaken prophet of disaster. His dire predictions have been based on two assumptions.

The first holds that Iran is a replica in the Middle East of Nazi Germany. The single-minded goal of its leaders is to commit a nuclear holocaust against their enemies, with the Jews and Israel top of the list.

Such claims should sound credible only to Israeli loyalists and the gullible. How is it that tens of thousands of Iranian Jews are living peacefully in the belly of the beast? And are Iran’s leaders really suicidal as well as fanatical, given Israel’s own, undeclared nuclear arsenal?

The second assumption has become an article of faith for most western policy-makers: that Iran is actively trying to build a nuclear weapon. It is easy to forget that many experts, and US intelligence agencies, doubt that has been the case for more than a decade.

On these flimsy premises, Netanyahu has constructed an equally dubious conclusion: there can be no negotiating with evil.

Given his precarious position in defying a US president, Netanyahu has been coy about explaining what alternative he believes Washington should have pursued in place of the current agreement with Iran.

In an effort to divert critics from the lack of a real strategy, he has even suggested he is not opposed in principle to Iran being allowed a civilian nuclear programme.

But if Iran is really Nazi Germany, as he says, or simply exploiting its energy research to reach the threshhold of developing a bomb, as more cautious critics allege, how can Netanyahu contemplate opening that particular door to Tehran?

The truth is that Netanyahu disapproves of any agreement. He would prefer an intensification of sanctions, forcing Iran to break free of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and conceal its nuclear research from all scrutiny.

Then his warnings would sound more compelling, as would his demands that the US lead an attack on Iran.

Above all, Netanyahu wishes to prevent a rapprochement between the US and Tehran, one that might weaken Israel’s hold on Washington’s Middle East policy and increase the pressure for a real peace process with the Palestinians.

Barak’s leaked comments, meanwhile, have damaged everyone involved. The former defence minister has been publicly rebuked as a blabbermouth, and Netanyahu derided for being so ineffectual his cabinet spurned him at what he claimed to be the most fateful moment in Israel’s history.

As former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has noted, continuing leaks of high-level discord over Iran have made Israel look “ridiculous”.

But the tapes’ enduring significance – whatever embellishments Barak made in the telling – is that they confirm years of intimations from Israel’s security establishment that it stood firm against Netanyahu’s reckless approach on Iran.

From Meir Dagan, the former Mossad spy chief, to Gabi Ashkenazi, the former military chief of staff, Israel’s security elite has hinted loudly that it was blocking Netanyahu’s efforts to provoke regional conflagration.

Such was the opposition, one may suspect that even Netanyahu and Barak began to have doubts. Had they truly believed Israel could be saved only by bombing Iran, would they not have moved mountains to win over the cabinet and defence establishment?

More likely, Netanyahu concluded some time ago that Israel had no military option against Iran.

So why fight a doomed battle on Iran to the bitter end, further damaging Israel’s already frayed ties with Washington?

Doubtless, Netanyahu expects to extract yet more concessions from the White House, from upgrades to its US-supplied weapons systems to US guarantees of diplomatic protection in international forums.

But Netanyahu hopes for more.

Last week the Israeli media quoted sources close to Netanyahu saying he knew he would lose on the Iran deal from the outset but carried on regardless. The goal was to convince the American public, not Democratic legislators.

Netanyahu’s current bluster starts to look like it is aimed less at the nuclear deal than at President Obama himself.

Is Netanyahu hoping to turn the Iran issue into a doomsday electoral weapon against the Democrats, helping to clear the path into the White House next year for a Republican.

That way, Netanyahu may believe he can still emerge the victor, with a hawkish new president prepared to push Iran back into the US line of fire.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website iswww.jonathan-cook.net.

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

The meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers held in Ankara, Turkey over the weekend underscored the inability of the major capitalist powers to initiate any measures to halt the recessionary forces overtaking the world economy. Rather than a proposal for concerted action, the official communique was a public relations exercise aimed at masking the acuteness of the crisis and the impotence of the economic and financial authorities.

The meeting was held in the midst of turbulence on global financial markets fuelled by growing fears that the efforts of central banks to prop up the economy with injections of money are being swamped by deflationary trends.

Despite an admission that “global growth falls short of our expectations” and warnings of the impact of financial turmoil and slowing growth in China on emerging markets and more broadly, the communique declared that the G20 had taken “decisive action to keep the recovery on track” and was “confident the global economic recovery will gain speed.”

There is, in fact, no global economic recovery. In a note published in preparation for the G20 meeting, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledged that its forecasts for the world economy, made only last July, were already out of date. Growth had fallen below predictions in the US, the euro zone, Japan and most poorer countries.

The predicted boost from lower oil prices had failed to materialise, the IMF acknowledged, risks to the world economy had risen, and “a simultaneous materialisation of some of these risks would imply a much weaker outlook.” The IMF is expected to again revise downward its forecasts for global growth, already at their lowest level since the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008–2009, at its next meeting scheduled for October. “After six years of demand weakness, the likelihood of damage to potential output is increasingly a concern,” it said.

Another indication of the real state of the global economy is the data on world trade released last month, showing that trade contracted in the first half of 2015 more sharply than at any time since the height of the financial crisis in early 2009.

A pointed comment published on the CNBC web site on the eve of the G20 meeting predicted that whatever came out of the gathering, global leaders would “undoubtedly try to give the impression they have a plan, no matter how far-fetched it is, because if the world markets get a sniff that there is no plan, that things are being made up on the hoof and that things are slipping out of control,” there will be increased turbulence.

This was an apt preview of the communique that emerged from the meeting.

As a result of the financial turbulence in China and mounting concerns over its growth rate—with expectations that real growth will be closer to 4 percent than the official target of 7 percent—there was undoubtedly discussion of the state of the world’s second largest economy behind the scenes.

But the comments from financial officials sought to promote an upbeat message. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said the G20 had agreed there was no reason to fear slower Chinese growth, while Pierre Moscovici, the European Union commissioner for economic affairs, praised “the absolute determination of the [Chinese] authorities to sustain growth.” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said there had been a very open dialogue with China and it was “extremely comforting to have that level of understanding.”

However, the underlying reality broke through the façade of contrived statements on one decisive question, revealing growing divergences among the major powers. The official line of the meeting was to accept the Chinese explanation that last month’s currency devaluation was not aimed at bolstering Beijing’s export position at the expense of its rivals, but was a move towards a market-based currency. The communique included a hollow pledge that members would “refrain from competitive devaluation” and “avoid persistent exchange rate misalignments,” even as it is acknowledged that such commitments are being honoured mostly in the breach.

But in a pointed departure from normal procedure at such meetings, Japan, which stands to lose heavily as a result of a major fall in the Chinese currency, did not adhere to the official line. Speaking to reporters, Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said Chinese representatives had given an incomplete explanation of their motives. “They may have tried to be constructive, but they weren’t detailed enough,” he said.

Another area of divergence, which was also largely covered over, was on the issue of monetary policy. The United States is officially committed to an increase in its official interest rate, even if only a very small one, in the coming period. But the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan are both committed to continuing the policy of quantitative easing, with ECB President Mario Draghi indicating on the eve of the meeting that he might extend the present asset-purchasing operation beyond the scheduled completion date of September 2016.

The IMF has urged the US Federal Reserve not to begin interest rate increases until well into next year, a position that was repeated by Managing Director Lagarde. The Fed had not raised interest rates for such a long time (nine years), that it should make a move only when there was no uncertainty and should not give it a try and then have to reverse its decision, she said.

Lagarde and others fear that any interest rate increase in the US will impact heavily on the financial position of emerging markets and spark a major outflow of capital, exceeding that which took place during the so-called “taper tantrum” of 2013, when the Fed first indicated it would wind back its asset-purchasing program.

Emerging markets are already feeling the effects of the slowdown in China, their major export market, with currency values in some South East Asian countries down to levels not seen since the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98. If a rise in US interest rates sparks a rush for the exit by major investors, it could set off a major financial crisis.

According to Troy Gayseki, a senior portfolio manager as Skybridge, a firm that specialises in hedge fund investing, several emerging market hedge fund managers suffered losses of between 3 and 35 percent in August. “There is a lot of chaos and carnage out there,” he told the Financial Times.

In all of the reports by economic authorities on the state of the world economy, including the IMF and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the lack of investment, now 25 percent below where it was in 2007 in some cases, is cited as the major cause of economic stagnation. There was an attempt to address this issue at the G20 heads of government meeting in Brisbane, Australia last November, at which participants committed themselves to the target of a two percent increase in growth over the next five years, much of it to be achieved through infrastructure projects. Less than a year on, the goals of the Brisbane meeting are regarded as a dead letter.

This decline in productive investment is a product of the colossal growth of financial speculation and parasitism in the world capitalist economy, with resources increasingly diverted away from investment in the material productive forces and into financial manipulations and swindles that account for an ever greater share of the income of the world’s billionaires. The policy of central banks and capitalist governments of continuing to pump vast sums into the financial markets only fuels the growth of financial parasitism.

Seven years after the Wall Street crash of September 2008, the inability of the major capitalist powers and their economic and financial authorities to devise any coordinated solution to the crisis is the expression not of some intellectual incapacity, but of something much more fundamental. It is the outcome of the irresolvable contradiction under capitalism between the global economy and the national state system, which generates trade and currency conflicts and economic and political rivalries leading ultimately to war. All of these tendencies will be intensified by the gathering world slump.

Even as tens of thousands of Syrians flee to Europe, the NATO powers are proposing to step up the bombing of their war-torn country and the drive for regime change in Syria.

According to a report in the Sunday Times, British Prime Minister David Cameron is seeking the support of sections of the Labour Party for a plan to address the migrant crisis that involves bombing Syria and destroying the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The plan would be voted upon in the British Parliament in October.

Yesterday Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, demanded “air strikes and other British military assistance to create secure and safe enclaves” in Syria. This would mean bombing Syria and seizing its territory, which would be an aggressive attack on Syria and an act of war. Nonetheless, British officials rushed to support Lord Carey’s proposal.

“We’ve got to defeat these criminal gangs who trade in human misery and risk people’s lives and kill people. You’ve got to deal with the problem at the source, which is this evil Assad regime and the [Islamic State (IS) militia] terrorists,” declared UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

Osborne’s statement is the height of political cynicism. It is the US and NATO-backed intervention in Syria, along with the financing of Islamic fundamentalist organizations by their allies in the Gulf monarchies, which created the conditions for the emergence of ISIS. Civil war has been deliberately stoked as part of a policy of undermining and overthrowing the Assad government.

Now, as tens of thousands of Syrian refugees stream into Europe, the NATO powers intend to exploit the crisis to intensify their drive for regime change in Syria, which will only force more Syrians to flee their country.

London’s aggressive posture received support from Paris, after French President François Hollande proposed “to neutralize” Assad at an ambassador’s meeting in Paris last month. A top secret military meeting at the Elysée presidential palace on Friday reportedly discussed France taking on the role of a “team player” in a US-led coalition to carry out air strikes in Syria.

Speaking to Le Monde, French military sources indicated that they expected they would have US military support for a war for regime change in Syria. “The Americans have officially declared that they are in this for the long term, with an aerial campaign that will last at least three years,” one official declared.

French opposition politicians made tactical criticisms of Hollande’s proposal, indicating that they would prefer integrating Russian and Iranian forces into war planning in Syria. They also indicated that they wanted to avoid a re-play of the situation in September 2013, when Paris aligned itself with Washington to push for war in Syria, only to find itself humiliated when the Obama administration decided not to attack Syria and called off the war without consulting Paris.

If an intervention is going to take place, it requires a broader agreement with partners besides the United States. Russia and Iran must be reintegrated. France must get back to an independent policy in Syria. The last time we spoke about strikes, we were pretty aligned [on Washington],” declared former conservative French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

The military escalation not only threatens more mass carnage and social devastation in Syria, but a direct clash between nuclear-armed powers, as Washington threatens to destroy the Syrian regime and Moscow considers launching a war to defend Assad, a key Russian ally in the region.

To say we’re ready to do this today—so far it’s premature to talk about this. But we are already giving Syria quite serious help with equipment and training soldiers with our weapons,” Russian President Vladimir Putin declared on Friday during an economic forum in Vladivostok.

Putin also indicated, however, that Moscow could support negotiations that could lead to a political settlement in Syria and possibly the stepping down of Assad. “In general, the understanding is that this uniting of efforts in fighting terrorism should go in parallel to some political process in Syria itself,” he said. “And the Syrian president agrees with that, all the way down to holding early elections, let’s say, parliamentary ones, establishing contacts with the so-called healthy opposition, bringing them into governing.

Washington quickly moved to criticize attempts by Moscow to boost its influence in Syria. On Friday, US intelligence officials claimed that Russian troops were building an air base near the coastal Syrian city of Latakia, from which they could launch air strikes.

As part of its alliance with Syria stretching back to Soviet times, Russia has for decades operated a naval base at the nearby port city of Tartus.

On Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry called his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to complain of indications of an “imminent enhanced Russian military build-up” in Syria.

Nearly half a million Palestinian pupils go on strike in Israel as Netanyahu government digs in heels against independent church schools

Thousands of Arab schools in Israel went on strike on Monday, their 450,000 pupils remaining at home, as the Israeli government geared up for a major showdown with its large Palestinian minority.

The trigger for the strike is the Israeli government’s decision to starve 47 independent schools, set up originally by the international churches, of the state funding they have received for decades.

The schools, among the best in the country, have effectively been forced to shut indefinitely, their 33,000 pupils unsure when or even whether they will return to their classrooms.

On Sunday, thousands of families came from across Israel, from cities like Nazareth, Haifa, Jaffa, Ramle and Jerusalem, where the schools are located, to protest noisily outside the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The schools have run up huge debts since education officials began cutting their budgets seven years ago, from 75 percent of the funding received by state schools to just 29 percent today. To open this academic year, they need about $50 million; the government is offering $5 million.

Talks over the past 18 months with the education ministry have gone nowhere. As Monday’s solidarity strike shows, Netanyahu’s government is taking on not only the church schools and the small Christian population of about 150,000, but all of the country’s 1.5 million Palestinian citizens, who make up a fifth of the population.

Israel is also risking a diplomatic confrontation with the Vatican and other international churches.

Last week Pope Francis raised the matter during a visit by Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, to the Holy See. Rivlin promised to find a solution, though the government itself shows no signs of budging.

Christian leaders in Israel have hinted that they may try to shut important holy sites, such as the Basilica of the Annunciation Church in Nazareth and the Mount of Beatitudes next to the Sea of Galilee, in retaliation. This, they hope, will bring the issue to the attention of pilgrims and tourists, adding to the pressure on Israel.

Sinister motives

Education officials, however, are hoping they can limit support for the schools by advancing a seemingly reasonable argument: if the church schools want government money, they should join the state education system.

In truth, however, the move is not being advanced on economic grounds. There are far more sinister motives for the crackdown on the church schools, observers note.

Nadeem Nashif, director of Baladna, an organisation in Haifa promoting the rights of Palestinian youth, warns that the Netanyahu government’s main goal is to end the educational autonomy of these schools.

“They want to tighten control,” he told Middle East Eye. “Even if the government eventually eases the cuts, the battle will have sent a very clear message to the head teachers. Behave like ‘good Arabs’ or we will shut you down.”

The move is related to long-term measures designed to weaken Israel’s Christian minority and make the fledgling Palestinian middle class in Israel more dependent on the state, a state that has shown itself consistently and systematically hostile to its non-Jewish population.

The arguments in favour of the government’s position on funding cuts can be easily dismissed.

If this is simply an issue of who foots the bill for church schools, as the education ministry implies, then why is the government insisting that the schools not be allowed to make up the budget shortfall by charging parents more?

By tying the schools’ hands, the education ministry’s terms are, in the words of the church schools, a “death blow”, intended to make their survival as independent schools impossible.

Different treatment

Similarly, if this is about the unfairness of state subsidies for religious education, as is also suggested, then why is the government massively funding private religious schools for the Jewish ultra-Orthodox community?

In contrast to the treatment of the church schools, the ultra-Orthodox schools are getting 100 per cent funding.

There are other striking contrasts: unlike the church schools, which teach the national curriculum, the Jewish ultra-Orthodox schools break the law by failing to teach core subjects like English and maths. Unlike the impressive record of the church schools, the ultra-Orthodox schools are almost all failing academically.

Also, unlike the ultra-Orthodox schools, which teach only religiously observant Jews, the church schools are open to all segments of the Palestinian minority. Nearly half the pupils are Muslim.

That is why support for them has come from unlikely quarters. Masoud Ghanaim, a leader of the southern Islamic Movement, described the church schools as “among the best in Arab society, and therefore their struggle is our struggle”.

The government’s argument also fails to acknowledge that education in Israel is based on strict segregation. There is separation between Jewish and Arab pupils, and between religious and secular Jews.

In the famous 1954 civil rights case, Brown vs the Board of Education of Topeka, the US Supreme Court ruled that separate schools for blacks and whites were “inherently unequal”.

But since its founding, Israel has insisted on segregation. And as the US justices warned, the outcome has been gross discrimination in education at all levels between the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority.

Shortage of 6,000 classrooms

Studies show on average a Jewish pupil receives more than five times the funding of an Arab pupil – $1,100 compared to $192. The Arab system has a shortage of more than 6,000 classrooms and 4,000 teachers. Jewish schools have twice as many computers relative to their student bodies.

More damagingly still, as Nashif points out, Arab state schools have no control over their curriculum, which is set by Jewish officials, while Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, vet teaching appointments and monitor the schools, creating an oppressive atmosphere.

The independent church schools provide the only viable escape route, at least for Palestinian families in Israel who can afford them.

The schools’ matriculation rates show how successful they have been. Many in the Palestinian leadership, as well as a third of the minority’s university graduates and most of its hi-tech engineers, have been educated in the church schools.

Ayman Odeh, the head of the minority’s Joint List party in the Israeli parliament and himself a graduate of a church school, observed at the weekend: “It’s impossible to talk about development and equal opportunity on one hand, but on the other hand harm the very schools that are succeeding in breaking the glass ceiling.”

In effect, the church schools and the parents who send their children to them have been subsidising the education budget. At a cut-price to the state, the church schools have been producing some of the best-educated pupils in the country.

But this may be exactly part of the problem, from Israel’s point of view.

Fearful of the middle class

During the 1948 war that led to the creation of a Jewish state, the Israeli army cleared Palestinian cities of most of their Palestinian residents, except in the sensitive holy city of Nazareth, which was left relatively untouched.

Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, appreciated that these cities were home to the Palestinian middle classes and centres of intellectual life and political activism.

If Israel were to face organised Palestinian resistance, it would emerge from the cities – which is why Ben Gurion made sure they were erased. Strict systems of control and massive discrimination kept the minority weak and divided.

Over many decades Palestinian society has slowly rebuilt itself. In recent years a middle class has begun to re-emerge in these cities, especially in Nazareth, very much aided by the church schools.

As Ben Gurion feared, the most educated have proven often the most sophisticated critics of Israel, the most organised in demanding their rights, the most articulate and successful in reaching foreign audiences, including Christian solidarity groups and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

It may be no coincidence that the politician currently most reviled by the Israeli Jewish public for her nationalist positions is the Knesset member Haneen Zoabi, a Muslim woman who graduated from a church school in Nazareth.

Pressure to leave

By forcing the church schools to close or come under state control, Israel would remove the keystone of the support structure for the fledgling Palestinian middle class, and especially the urban Christian population.

The next generation of Palestinian elites, including Christians, would be far more dependent on the state than their predecessors and likely to be far more cautious about their political activism, notes Nashif of Baladna.

Observers like Nashif believe this move should be viewed in relation to another recent government initiative, one clearly intended to create divisions in the Palestinian minority: Christian but not Muslim youth in Israel are being pressured to serve in the army.

The fear is that Palestinian Christians are slowly being shown the future, one where they will live as a cornered and vulnerable minority, turned against their Muslim neighbours, and reliant on a state that demands their obedience even as it provides privileges for Jews.

The Christian middle classes are being forced into a deeply uncomfortable choice: either prove your loyalty as Zionists, or know that life will become much harder for you here.

Last week, at a demonstration in Nazareth, a senior Roman Catholic bishop, Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, warned: “If Christian schools are threatened, in the long run it is the very Christian presence in Israel that is threatened.”

The church schools have been an anchor for the Christian population, upholding their religious traditions in education, providing them with an identity separate from the alienating one promoted by the state, and offering them opportunities to flourish economically.

All that is now in jeopardy.

Strikes like Monday’s and pressure from the Vatican may eventually force the government to partially relent. But many Christians in Israel are starting to suspect that the government is declaring a low-level war on them.

Their co-religionists in neighbouring states are fleeing the region as they face civil wars and threats of persecution. In Israel the mistreatment of Christians may be more bureaucratic than physical, but, as Marcuzzo warns, its effects are likely in the long run to prove just as tangible.

 

We must resist attempts to turn humanitarianism into a pretext for war, says Kevin Ovenden, for it is wars, above all, which create refugees.

From the Greek island of Mytiliene to Munich we are seeing something of the power of ordinary people and a collective counterweight to racist exclusion, poverty and war.

In Britain, it has forced notoriously anti-migrant and anti-refugee papers, such as the Sun and Daily Mail, hypocritically to claim they care for those facing death in the Aegean. That has left the likes of Peter Hitchens on an ever diminishing island of bigotry, committed to the absurdity of Britain staying exactly as it is – or as he imagined it was.

Whatever contortions the tabloids and politicians make this weekend, it is not they who have led the upsurge of human solidarity.

First, the refugees and newcomers to Europe are fighting for their rights. And winning many battles. No state or inter-governmental  agency airlifted or brought them to Munich or other European cities.

They themselves battled across one border after another to get there.

That, and the shocked reaction to the image of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, has brought a groundswell of solidarity. That in turn is moving more people.

In Britain, there is a growing focus on those trapped at the Calais camp who would like to cross the Channel.

Governments across Europe are feeling some pressure and are having to work out what to do. David Cameron is cooking up a political response.

He and a section of the British establishment, including on the right of the Labour Party, are concerting an argument for bombing Syria. The latest is former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey.

The moral depravity of what Cameron is doing is sickening. He is not even trying to make a convincing case for how dropping more bombs on Syria will somehow bring to an end the many-sided war there, which the West’s policy has helped foment.

He knows there is no compelling case. That’s why he is so nervous about pressing ahead. Unlike Tony Blair over Iraq who went to war despite a deep division in parliament, Cameron says he will move only with parliamentary consensus.

So why push for bombing at all, with so much doubt even among the military top brass, and with an unworkable policy of both regime change and stopping ISIS?

At this moment, it is in order to avoid having to break with the inhuman asylum and immigration policy and to allow refugees in. Something that is 100 percent guaranteed to help and not to make matters worse.

It is to exploit the suffering of millions of people who are on the move in order to justify an enhanced British military presence in the Middle East, even though that will create more refugees. It is to use deaths such as Aylan’s to cement alliances with countries such as Saudi Arabia, which isbombing neighbouring Yemen and has not taken one single Syrian. Not one.

The callousness and cynicism are staggering. From ordinary people we are seeing a spontaneous upsurge of solidarity. Cameron is seeking to use the immediacy of the shock at what is happening to divert that solidarity into support for wider war.

That’s why it is absolutely right that the organisation of solidarity from below is going hand in hand with an argument to stop Cameron doing that and to force him to do at the very least what the German government has been obliged to do in accepting many more refugees.

Most people quite rightly smell the opportunism of politicians trying to exploit a tragedy. “Keep politics out of it” is an understandable reaction. But it is not enough to stop what Cameron is up to or to “keep the politicians out”.

That’s because with the likes of Lord Carey and a pliant media governments present bombing as a non-political humanitarian act. It is the opposition to bombing which is then rounded on as “bringing politics into it”. This is what they will try to do this coming week.

They will try to shift public opinion – which is very conflicted both over bombing and over taking more refugees (see the polls quoted in the article linked to) – politically to manipulate humanitarian instinct along pro-bombing lines.

Just saying keep politics out of it will not be enough to stop that. And it can end up echoing the right wing’s political attack on those opposed to war.

That’s what people like Bob Geldof and Bono have frequently ended up doing. I’m all for prominent figures and celebrities joining the solidarity movement. It’s great that the German football club, Bayern Munich, has followed the lead of a large section of its fans and is donating and making clear its support for refugees.

A major initiative from English football is in the pipeline.

But those things are different from celebrity politicos who are wheeled out to support an establishment argument. It’s because politicians are so generally distrusted that they so often these days have to rely on celebs to push a difficult political line.

The choice of who to focus on and what images to use in the media also subtly serves to frame the issues in ways which crop out the views of the people involved and the demands of the movement which is developing.

So there are few pictures right now of the second dangerous route, next to the crossing from Turkey to Greece, into Europe for people escaping war and devastation: from Libya across the Mediterranean.

Earlier this year two boats went down with many hundreds of people aboard within a few days of each other. Some of them will have been the same age as Aylan Kurdi.

Europe’s leaders do not want us to include those images – and the media follows that cue, because it maintains that what the politicians and celebrities say is more important than anything else.

The reason is that we have already bombed Libya. Four years ago the British government led the way in exploiting people’s heartfelt solidarity with those suffering in Libya in order for Nato to bomb, to enforce regime change and to… to end up with devastation and a refugee crisis from one end of the country to the other.

While the media has moved on from Libya and drawn a blanket over that Nato-made disaster, a lot of people in Britain and Europe have not.

There is a deep understanding among a section of the public that Western bombing will create more refugees not end the crisis.

That is true among people I know on the island of Mytilene (Lesvos) in Greece. They were charged with people smuggling because of their actions in helping refugees.

The campaign around their court case is what caused the current Greek government to change the law so that helping people ashore in the Aegean is not a crime.

The popular assistance for refugees in Greece which has been organised by ordinary people for many years has fought many political campaigns. It has resisted attempts to exploit suffering for military purposes.

So as this movement of solidarity builds towards a day of action across the continent on 12 September let’s follow that example.

That means choosing to listen to the voices from below across Europe. It means saying that we have a genuinely humanitarian politics, which will reject false attempts to separate those fleeing Western-stoked wars and disastrous interventions into “deserving” and “undeserving”.

And we will resist all attempts to turn humanitarianism into a pretext for war. For it is wars, above all, which create refugees.

The neocon prescription of endless “regime change” is spreading chaos across the Middle East and now into Europe, yet the neocons still control the mainstream U.S. narrative and thus have diagnosed the problem as not enough “regime change,” as Robert Parry reports.

The refugee chaos that is now pushing deep into Europe – dramatized by gut-wrenching photos of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey – started with the cavalier ambitions of American neocons and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks who planned to remake the Middle East and other parts of the world through “regime change.”

Instead of the promised wonders of “democracy promotion” and “human rights,” what these “anti-realists” have accomplished is to spread death, destruction and destabilization across the Middle East and parts of Africa and now into Ukraine and the heart of Europe. Yet, since these neocon forces still control the Official Narrative, their explanations get top billing – such as that there hasn’t been enough “regime change.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Aug. 30, 2013, claims to have proof that the Syrian government was responsible for a chemical weapons attack on Aug. 21, but that evidence failed to materialize or was later discredited. [State Department photo]

For instance, The Washington Post’s neocon editorial page editor Fred Hiatt on Monday blamed“realists” for the cascading catastrophes. Hiatt castigated them and President Barack Obama for not intervening more aggressively in Syria to depose President Bashar al-Assad, a longtime neocon target for “regime change.”

But the truth is that this accelerating spread of human suffering can be traced back directly to the unchecked influence of the neocons and their liberal fellow-travelers who have resisted political compromise and, in the case of Syria, blocked any realistic efforts to work out a power-sharing agreement between Assad and his political opponents, those who are not terrorists.

In early 2014, the neocons and liberal hawks sabotaged Syrian peace talks in Geneva by blocking Iran’s participation and turning the peace conference into a one-sided shouting match where U.S.-funded opposition leaders yelled at Assad’s representatives who then went home. All the while, the Post’s editors and their friends kept egging Obama to start bombing Assad’s forces.

The madness of this neocon approach grew more obvious in the summer of 2014 when the Islamic State, an Al Qaeda spinoff which had been slaughtering suspected pro-government people in Syria, expanded its bloody campaign of beheadings back into Iraq where this hyper-brutal movement first emerged as “Al Qaeda in Iraq” in response to the 2003 U.S. invasion.

It should have been clear by mid-2014 that if the neocons had gotten their way and Obama had conducted a massive U.S. bombing campaign to devastate Assad’s military, the black flag of Sunni terrorism might well be flying above the Syrian capital of Damascus while its streets would run red with blood.

But now a year later, the likes of Hiatt still have not absorbed that lesson — and the spreading chaos from neocon strategies is destabilizing Europe. As shocking and disturbing as that is, none of it should have come as much of a surprise, since the neocons have always brought chaos and dislocations in their wake.

When I first encountered the neocons in the 1980s, they had been given Central America to play with. President Ronald Reagan had credentialed many of them, bringing into the U.S. government neocon luminaries such as Elliott Abrams and Robert Kagan. But Reagan mostly kept them out of the big-power realms: the Mideast and Europe.

Those strategic areas went to the “adults,” people like James Baker, George Shultz, Philip Habib and Brent Scowcroft. The poor Central Americans, as they tried to shed generations of repression and backwardness imposed by brutal right-wing oligarchies, faced U.S. neocon ideologues who unleashed death squads and even genocide against peasants, students and workers.

The result – not surprisingly – was a flood of refugees, especially from El Salvador and Guatemala, northward to the United States. The neocon “success” in the 1980s, crushing progressive social movements and reinforcing the oligarchic controls, left most countries of Central America in the grip of corrupt regimes and crime syndicates, periodically driving more waves of what Reagan called “feet people” through Mexico to the southern U.S. border.

Messing Up the Mideast

But the neocons weren’t satisfied sitting at the kids’ table. Even during the Reagan administration, they tried to squeeze themselves among the “adults” at the grown-ups’ table. For instance, neocons, such as Robert McFarlane and Paul Wolfowitz, pushed Israel-friendly policies toward Iran, which the Israelis then saw as a counterweight to Iraq. That strategy led eventually to the Iran-Contra Affair, the worst scandal of the Reagan administration. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “When Israel /Neocons Favored Iran.”]

However, the right-wing and mainstream U.S. media never liked the complex Iran-Contra story and thus exposure of the many levels of the scandal’s criminality was avoided. Democrats also preferred compromise to confrontation. So, most of the key neocons survived the Iran-Contra fallout, leaving their ranks still firmly in place for the next phase of their rise to power.

In the 1990s, the neocons built up a well-funded infrastructure of think tanks and media outlets, benefiting from both the largesse of military contractors donating to think tanks and government-funded operations like the National Endowment for Democracy, headed by neocon Carl Gershman.

The neocons gained more political momentum from the U.S. military might displayed during the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91. Many Americans began to see war as fun, almost like a video game in which “enemy” forces get obliterated from afar. On TV news shows, tough-talking pundits were all the rage. If you wanted to be taken seriously, you couldn’t go wrong taking the most macho position, what I sometimes call the “er-er-er” growling effect.

Combined with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the notion that U.S. military supremacy was unmatched and unchallengeable gave rise to neocon theories about turning “diplomacy” into nothing more than the delivery of U.S. ultimatums. In the Middle East, that was a view shared by Israeli hardliners, who had grown tired of negotiating with the Palestinians and other Arabs.

Instead of talk, there would be “regime change” for any government that would not fall into line. This strategy was articulated in 1996 when a group of American neocons, including Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, went to work for Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign in Israel and compiled a strategy paper, called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.”

Iraq was first on the neocon hit list, but next came Syria and Iran. The overriding idea was that once the regimes assisting the Palestinians and Hezbollah were removed or neutralized, then Israel could dictate peace terms to the Palestinians who would have no choice but to accept what was on the table.

In 1998, the neocon Project for the New American Century, founded by neocons Robert Kagan and William Kristol, called for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, but President Bill Clinton balked at something that extreme. The situation changed, however, when President George W. Bush took office and the 9/11 attacks terrified and infuriated the American public.

Suddenly, the neocons had a Commander-in-Chief who agreed with the need to eliminate Iraq’s Saddam Hussein – and Americans were easily persuaded although Iraq and Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mysterious Why of the Iraq War.”]

The Death of ‘Realism’

The 2003 Iraq invasion sounded the death knell for foreign policy “realism” in Official Washington. Aging or dead, the old adult voices were silent or ignored. From Congress and the Executive Branch to the think tanks and the mainstream news media, almost all the “opinion leaders” were neocons and many liberals fell into line behind Bush’s case for war.

And, even though the Iraq War “group think” was almost entirely wrong, both on the WMD justifications for war and the “cakewalk” expectations for remaking Iraq, almost no one who promoted the fiasco suffered punishment for either the illegality of the invasion or the absence of sanity in promoting such a harebrained scheme.

Instead of negative repercussions, the Iraq War backers – the neocons and their liberal-hawk accomplices – essentially solidified their control over U.S. foreign policy and the major news media. From The New York Times and The Washington Post to the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute, the “regime change” agenda continued to hold sway.

It didn’t even matter when the sectarian warfare unleashed in Iraq left hundreds of thousands dead, displaced millions and gave rise to Al Qaeda’s ruthless Iraq affiliate. Not even the 2008 election of Barack Obama, an Iraq War opponent, changed this overall dynamic.

Rather than standing up to this new foreign policy establishment, Obama bowed to it, retaining key players from President Bush’s national security team, such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General David Petraeus, and by hiring hawkish Democrats, including Sen. Hillary Clinton, who became Secretary of State, and Samantha Power at the National Security Council.

Thus, the cult of “regime change” did not just survive the Iraq disaster; it thrived. Whenever a difficult foreign problem emerged, the go-to solution was still “regime change,” accompanied by the usual demonizing of a targeted leader, support for the “democratic opposition” and calls for military intervention. President Obama, arguably a “closet realist,” found himself as the foot-dragger-in-chief as he reluctantly was pulled along on one “regime change” crusade after another.

In 2011, for instance, Secretary of State Clinton and National Security Council aide Power persuaded Obama to join with some hot-for-war European leaders to achieve “regime change” in Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi had gone on the offensive against groups in eastern Libya that he identified as Islamic terrorists.

But Clinton and Power saw the case as a test for their theories of “humanitarian warfare” – or “regime change” to remove a “bad guy” like Gaddafi from power. Obama soon signed on and, with the U.S. military providing crucial technological support, a devastating bombing campaign destroyed Gaddafi’s army, drove him from Tripoli, and ultimately led to his torture-murder.

‘We Came, We Saw, He Died’

Secretary Clinton scurried to secure credit for this “regime change.” According to one email chain in August 2011, her longtime friend and personal adviser Sidney Blumenthal praised the bombing campaign to destroy Gaddafi’s army and hailed the dictator’s impending ouster.

“First, brava! This is a historic moment and you will be credited for realizing it,” Blumenthal wrote on Aug. 22, 2011. “When Qaddafi himself is finally removed, you should of course make a public statement before the cameras wherever you are, even in the driveway of your vacation home. … You must go on camera. You must establish yourself in the historical record at this moment. … The most important phrase is: ‘successful strategy.’”

Clinton forwarded Blumenthal’s advice to Jake Sullivan, a close State Department aide. “Pls read below,” she wrote. “Sid makes a good case for what I should say, but it’s premised on being said after Q[addafi] goes, which will make it more dramatic. That’s my hesitancy, since I’m not sure how many chances I’ll get.”

Sullivan responded, saying “it might make sense for you to do an op-ed to run right after he falls, making this point. … You can reinforce the op-ed in all your appearances, but it makes sense to lay down something definitive, almost like the Clinton Doctrine.”

However, when Gaddafi abandoned Tripoli that day, President Obama seized the moment to make a triumphant announcement. Clinton’s opportunity to highlight her joy at the Libyan “regime change” had to wait until Oct. 20, 2011, when Gaddafi was captured, tortured and murdered.

In a TV interview, Clinton celebrated the news when it appeared on her cell phone and paraphrased Julius Caesar’s famous line after Roman forces achieved a resounding victory in 46 B.C. and he declared, “veni, vidi, vici” – “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Clinton’s reprise of Caesar’s boast went: “We came; we saw; he died.” She then laughed and clapped her hands.

Presumably, the “Clinton Doctrine” would have been a policy of “liberal interventionism” to achieve “regime change” in countries where there is some crisis in which the leader seeks to put down an internal security threat and where the United States objects to the action.

But the problem with Clinton’s boasting about the “Clinton Doctrine” was that the Libyan adventure quickly turned sour with the Islamic terrorists, whom Gaddafi had warned about, seizing wide swaths of territory and turning it into another Iraq-like badlands.

On Sept. 11, 2012, this reality hit home when the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was overrun and U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other American diplomatic personnel were killed. It turned out that Gaddafi wasn’t entirely wrong about the nature of his opposition.

Eventually, the extremist violence in Libya grew so out of control that the United States and European countries abandoned their embassies in Tripoli. Since then, Islamic State terrorists have begun decapitating Coptic Christians on Libyan beaches and slaughtering other “heretics.” Amid the anarchy, Libya has become a route for desperate migrants seeking passage across the Mediterranean to Europe.

A War on Assad

Parallel to the “regime change” in Libya was a similar enterprise in Syria in which the neocons and liberal interventionists pressed for the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad, whose government in 2011 cracked down on what had quickly become a violent rebellion led by extremist elements, though the Western propaganda portrayed the opposition as “moderate” and “peaceful.”

For the first years of the Syrian civil war, the pretense remained that these “moderate” rebels were facing unjustified repression and the only answer was “regime change” in Damascus. Assad’s claim that the opposition included many Islamic extremists was largely dismissed as were Gaddafi’s alarms in Libya.

On Aug. 21, 2013, a sarin gas attack outside Damascus killed hundreds of civilians and the U.S. State Department and the mainstream news media immediately blamed Assad’s forces amid demands for military retaliation against the Syrian army.

Despite doubts within the U.S. intelligence community about Assad’s responsibility for the sarin attack, which some analysts saw instead as a provocation by anti-Assad terrorists, the clamor from Official Washington’s neocons and liberal interventionists for war was intense and any doubts were brushed aside.

But President Obama, aware of the uncertainty within the U.S. intelligence community, held back from a military strike and eventually worked out a deal, brokered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Assad agreed to surrender his entire chemical-weapons arsenal while still denying any role in the sarin attack.

Though the case pinning the sarin attack on the Syrian government eventually fell apart – with evidence pointing to a “false flag” operation by Sunni radicals to trick the United States into intervening on their side – Official Washington’s “group think” refused to reconsider the initial rush to judgment. In Monday’s column, Hiatt still references Assad’s “savagery of chemical weapons.”

Any suggestion that the only realistic option in Syria is a power-sharing compromise that would include Assad – who is viewed as the protector of Syria’s Christian, Shiite and Alawite minorities – is rejected out of hand with the slogan, “Assad must go!”

The neocons have created a conventional wisdom which holds that the Syrian crisis would have been prevented if only Obama had followed the neocons’ 2011 prescription of another U.S. intervention to force another “regime change.” Yet, the far more likely outcome would have been either another indefinite and bloody U.S. military occupation of Syria or the black flag of Islamic terrorism flying over Damascus.

Get Putin

Another villain who emerged from the 2013 failure to bomb Syria was Russian President Putin, who infuriated the neocons by his work with Obama on Syria’s surrender of its chemical weapons and who further annoyed the neocons by helping to get the Iranians to negotiate seriously on constraining their nuclear program. Despite the “regime change” disasters in Iraq and Libya, the neocons wanted to wave the “regime change” wand again over Syria and Iran.

Putin got his comeuppance when U.S. neocons, including NED President Carl Gershman and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland (Robert Kagan’s wife), helped orchestrate a “regime change” in Ukraine on Feb. 22, 2014, overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych and putting in a fiercely anti-Russian regime on Russia’s border.

As thrilled as the neocons were with their “victory” in Kiev and their success in demonizing Putin in the mainstream U.S. news media, Ukraine followed the now-predictable post-regime-change descent into a vicious civil war. Western Ukrainians waged a brutal “anti-terrorist operation” against ethnic Russians in the east who resisted the U.S.-backed coup.

Thousands of Ukrainians died and millions were displaced as Ukraine’s national economy teetered toward collapse. Yet, the neocons and their liberal-hawk friends again showed their propaganda skills by pinning the blame for everything on “Russian aggression” and Putin.

Though Obama was apparently caught off-guard by the Ukrainian “regime change,” he soon joined in denouncing Putin and Russia. The European Union also got behind U.S.-demanded sanctions against Russia despite the harm those sanctions also inflicted on Europe’s already shaky economy. Europe’s stability is now under additional strain because of the flows of refugees from the war zones of the Middle East.

A Dozen Years of Chaos

So, we can now look at the consequences and costs of the past dozen years under the spell of neocon/liberal-hawk “regime change” strategies. According to many estimates, the death toll in Iraq, Syria and Libya has exceeded one million with several million more refugees flooding into – and stretching the resources – of fragile Mideast countries.

Hundreds of thousands of other refugees and migrants have fled to Europe, putting major strains on the Continent’s social structures already stressed by the severe recession that followed the 2008 Wall Street crash. Even without the refugee crisis, Greece and other southern European countries would be struggling to meet their citizens’ needs.

Stepping back for a moment and assessing the full impact of neoconservative policies, you might be amazed at how widely they have spread chaos across a large swath of the globe. Who would have thought that the neocons would have succeeded in destabilizing not only the Mideast but Europe as well.

And, as Europe struggles, the export markets of China are squeezed, spreading economic instability to that crucial economy and, with its market shocks, the reverberations rumbling back to the United States, too.

We now see the human tragedies of neocon/liberal-hawk ideologies captured in the suffering of the Syrians and other refugees flooding Europe and the death of children drowning as their desperate families flee the chaos created by “regime change.” But will the neocon/liberal-hawk grip on Official Washington finally be broken? Will a debate even be allowed about the dangers of “regime change” prescriptions in the future?

Not if the likes of The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt have anything to say about it. The truth is that Hiatt and other neocons retain their dominance of the mainstream U.S. news media, so all that one can expect from the various MSM outlets is more neocon propaganda, blaming the chaos not on their policy of “regime change” but on the failure to undertake even more “regime change.”

The one hope is that many Americans will not be fooled this time and that a belated “realism” will finally return to U.S. geopolitical strategies that will look for obtainable compromises to restore some political order to places such as Syria, Libya and Ukraine. Rather than more and more tough-guy/gal confrontations, maybe there will finally be some serious efforts at reconciliation.

But the other reality is that the interventionist forces have rooted themselves deeply in Official Washington, inside NATO, within the mainstream news media and even in European institutions. It will not be easy to rid the world of the grave dangers created by neocon policies.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon andbarnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includesAmerica’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

The meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers held in Ankara, Turkey over the weekend underscored the inability of the major capitalist powers to initiate any measures to halt the recessionary forces overtaking the world economy. Rather than a proposal for concerted action, the official communique was a public relations exercise aimed at masking the acuteness of the crisis and the impotence of the economic and financial authorities.

The meeting was held in the midst of turbulence on global financial markets fuelled by growing fears that the efforts of central banks to prop up the economy with injections of money are being swamped by deflationary trends.

Despite an admission that “global growth falls short of our expectations” and warnings of the impact of financial turmoil and slowing growth in China on emerging markets and more broadly, the communique declared that the G20 had taken “decisive action to keep the recovery on track” and was “confident the global economic recovery will gain speed.”

There is, in fact, no global economic recovery. In a note published in preparation for the G20 meeting, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledged that its forecasts for the world economy, made only last July, were already out of date. Growth had fallen below predictions in the US, the euro zone, Japan and most poorer countries.

The predicted boost from lower oil prices had failed to materialise, the IMF acknowledged, risks to the world economy had risen, and “a simultaneous materialisation of some of these risks would imply a much weaker outlook.” The IMF is expected to again revise downward its forecasts for global growth, already at their lowest level since the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008–2009, at its next meeting scheduled for October. “After six years of demand weakness, the likelihood of damage to potential output is increasingly a concern,” it said.

Another indication of the real state of the global economy is the data on world trade released last month, showing that trade contracted in the first half of 2015 more sharply than at any time since the height of the financial crisis in early 2009.

A pointed comment published on the CNBC web site on the eve of the G20 meeting predicted that whatever came out of the gathering, global leaders would “undoubtedly try to give the impression they have a plan, no matter how far-fetched it is, because if the world markets get a sniff that there is no plan, that things are being made up on the hoof and that things are slipping out of control,” there will be increased turbulence.

This was an apt preview of the communique that emerged from the meeting.

As a result of the financial turbulence in China and mounting concerns over its growth rate—with expectations that real growth will be closer to 4 percent than the official target of 7 percent—there was undoubtedly discussion of the state of the world’s second largest economy behind the scenes.

But the comments from financial officials sought to promote an upbeat message. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said the G20 had agreed there was no reason to fear slower Chinese growth, while Pierre Moscovici, the European Union commissioner for economic affairs, praised “the absolute determination of the [Chinese] authorities to sustain growth.” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said there had been a very open dialogue with China and it was “extremely comforting to have that level of understanding.”

However, the underlying reality broke through the façade of contrived statements on one decisive question, revealing growing divergences among the major powers. The official line of the meeting was to accept the Chinese explanation that last month’s currency devaluation was not aimed at bolstering Beijing’s export position at the expense of its rivals, but was a move towards a market-based currency. The communique included a hollow pledge that members would “refrain from competitive devaluation” and “avoid persistent exchange rate misalignments,” even as it is acknowledged that such commitments are being honoured mostly in the breach.

But in a pointed departure from normal procedure at such meetings, Japan, which stands to lose heavily as a result of a major fall in the Chinese currency, did not adhere to the official line. Speaking to reporters, Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said Chinese representatives had given an incomplete explanation of their motives. “They may have tried to be constructive, but they weren’t detailed enough,” he said.

Another area of divergence, which was also largely covered over, was on the issue of monetary policy. The United States is officially committed to an increase in its official interest rate, even if only a very small one, in the coming period. But the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan are both committed to continuing the policy of quantitative easing, with ECB President Mario Draghi indicating on the eve of the meeting that he might extend the present asset-purchasing operation beyond the scheduled completion date of September 2016.

The IMF has urged the US Federal Reserve not to begin interest rate increases until well into next year, a position that was repeated by Managing Director Lagarde. The Fed had not raised interest rates for such a long time (nine years), that it should make a move only when there was no uncertainty and should not give it a try and then have to reverse its decision, she said.

Lagarde and others fear that any interest rate increase in the US will impact heavily on the financial position of emerging markets and spark a major outflow of capital, exceeding that which took place during the so-called “taper tantrum” of 2013, when the Fed first indicated it would wind back its asset-purchasing program.

Emerging markets are already feeling the effects of the slowdown in China, their major export market, with currency values in some South East Asian countries down to levels not seen since the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98. If a rise in US interest rates sparks a rush for the exit by major investors, it could set off a major financial crisis.

According to Troy Gayseki, a senior portfolio manager as Skybridge, a firm that specialises in hedge fund investing, several emerging market hedge fund managers suffered losses of between 3 and 35 percent in August. “There is a lot of chaos and carnage out there,” he told the Financial Times.

In all of the reports by economic authorities on the state of the world economy, including the IMF and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the lack of investment, now 25 percent below where it was in 2007 in some cases, is cited as the major cause of economic stagnation. There was an attempt to address this issue at the G20 heads of government meeting in Brisbane, Australia last November, at which participants committed themselves to the target of a two percent increase in growth over the next five years, much of it to be achieved through infrastructure projects. Less than a year on, the goals of the Brisbane meeting are regarded as a dead letter.

This decline in productive investment is a product of the colossal growth of financial speculation and parasitism in the world capitalist economy, with resources increasingly diverted away from investment in the material productive forces and into financial manipulations and swindles that account for an ever greater share of the income of the world’s billionaires. The policy of central banks and capitalist governments of continuing to pump vast sums into the financial markets only fuels the growth of financial parasitism.

Seven years after the Wall Street crash of September 2008, the inability of the major capitalist powers and their economic and financial authorities to devise any coordinated solution to the crisis is the expression not of some intellectual incapacity, but of something much more fundamental. It is the outcome of the irresolvable contradiction under capitalism between the global economy and the national state system, which generates trade and currency conflicts and economic and political rivalries leading ultimately to war. All of these tendencies will be intensified by the gathering world slump.

This article was first published by  GR 14 years ago upon the inauguration of our website on September 9, 2001

What drives incarceration and the massive build-up in American criminal justice? Are specific corporate interests taking control of criminal justice policy, as is often the case with military policy? Has the Military-lndustrial Complex, with the end of the Cold War, transmognfied into the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC)?

This “prison as pentagon” argument has assumed the mantle of common sense among many left pundits and activists. The PIC explanation generally cites three ways in which incarceration directly bolsters capitalism. They are: the privatization of prisons and prison-related services, the exploitation of prison labor by private firms, and the broad Keynesian stimulus (i.e., job creation) of criminal justice spending.

All of these features are important, but none of them-alone or together-explains why we are headed for what Jerome Miller calls a “gulag state.” Perhaps a more useful analysis of the cops-courts-and-big house buildup requires a broader, more historically rooted class analysis that looks not just at bad corporations but at the structure of American capitalism more generally

Prison Labor

Critics of the Prison Industrial Complex focus much of their attention on prison labor: We hear that incarceration is increasingly driven by profit hungry firms looking for cheap labor. In making this point speakers or writers will reel off a sinner’s list of familiar implicated corporate names: Microsoft, Starbucks, Victoria’s Secret and TWA. The phenomenon looks to be a mile wide, but in reality it’s only an inch deep.

Most of the typically named culprits have engaged prison labor only via subcontractors who, in turn, often have only sporadic contracts with prisons. The moral stain remains: Leasing convicts is leasing convicts. But we need to re-calibrate our understanding of what’s going on and look closely at the facts. Nationwide only 2,600 prisoners work for private firms 2 Why is this? Because capitalists don’t like the invasive, slow, overbearing environment of prisons. Guards may approve of “making convicts pay” but in practice they regularly interrupt production to strip-search, count, and lock away the convict employees. Nor are many big firms willing to risk the bad press associated with exploiting prisoners. For example, Montgomery Ward’s charter pledges that the company will not use child, slave, or convict labor. Finally, why hire convicts at minimum wage-corporations have to pay prisons minimum wage even if the inmate employees only receive pennies per hour-when there is an overabundance of desperate, often mi litarily disciplined, workers in the free world.

But that’s just the private sector, what about the State? After all, most convict laborers are employed by state-owned “prison industries” such as the California Department of Corrections Prison Industries Authority (PIA) or the Federal Government’s Unicor, which employs about 20,000 inmates. Impressive numbers, and one would be excused for thinking that someone must be making money hand over fist. However Unicor-like the many parallel ventures owned by the states-is an economic basket case that would shortly collapse if ever forced to compete with the private sector.

Unicor products provided to the Department of Defense, on average, cost 13 percent more than the same goods supplied by private firms. U.S. Navy officials say that, compared to the open market, Unicor’s “product is inferior, costs more and takes longer to procure.” The federal prison monopoly delivers 42 percent of its orders late, compared to an industry-wide average delinquency rate of only 6 percent. A 1993 government report found that Unicor wire sold to the military failed at nearIy twice the rate of the military’s next worst supplier.

“The stuff was poor quality,” said Derek Vander Schaaf, the Pentagons Deputy Inspector General, adding: “If you can’t compete at 50 cents an hour for labor, guys, come on.”

Most state owned prison industry authorities (PlAs) are just as bad: twenty-five percent of them reported net losses in 1994. But even this unflattering number is optimistically distorted, because many PlAs that boast profits in their annual reports fail to disclose the massive subsidies they receive. For example, California’s PIA claims to be in the black, but state auditors tell a different story: In 1998 the PIA employed 7,000 of the state’s 155,000 prisoners in everything from dairy farming to computer refurbishing, and operated with the usual pampering of guaranteed markets and obscenely low wages. But, like Unicor, the PIA was unable even to meet its costs. Despite posting a “profit” the PIA is on life support, receiving “operating subsidies” and capital outlay funding from the state worth more than $90 million.

I he same story can be found in state after state. Why the inefficiency? In part because convicts resent being used as virtual slaves and thus drag their feet, steal supplies, and commit sabotage nonstop. One former federal inmate told me that his “cellie” ended each workday at a Unicor shop with a celebratory calculation of how much equipment and material he had destroyed, thrown or stolen. As the former prisoner put it, “It was all waste, all the time.”

Private Prisons

Another player in the matrix of interests referred to as the prison industrial complex is the fast-growing and powerful private prison industry which now controls around 10 percent of all U.S. prison beds. Though private jailers are generally profitable, they don’t lower the costs of incarceration for state governments. What savings are achieved through corner cutting- that is: removing all amenities and services and hiring unqualified guards-is usually absorbed by the company as profit. Already this modus operandi of the bottom line is showing itself to be detrimental for the long-term profitability of some big private jailers, as we will see below.

Through assiduous cultivation of state officials, the private jailers are increasingly active in shaping criminal justice policy, but their partnerships with state governments also face problems. Recent events have unveiled private jailers as cheats, liars and major political liabilities.

The biggest of the most recent blemishes on the private gulag’s image was the mass escape at Corrections Corporation of America’s Youngstown, Ohio, prison. That joint-supposed to be a medium security lockup-was a hyper-violent overcrowded facility illegally packed with maximum security inmates from D.C.

CCA’s invincibility crumbled with the news that six very angry young men from Washington, D.C., had cut open the prison’s chain-link fence, crossed an electrified barrier, plowed through yards of razor wire and were now at large among the good people of Youngstown.

For almost a week, regular police, tactical squads, canine teams, and helicopters combed an ever widening circle around the prison in search of the runaways. One by one the cops busted the desperate, exhausted escapees, some of whom had been badly wounded by the razor wire. The last runaway inmate, Vincent Smith, was finally taken down in the backyard of Susie Ford’s house. A 54-year-old grandmother of three living on the outskirts of Youngstown, Ms. Ford got the news live-when her frenetic sister telephoned advising her to turn on the television. “That’s our building! That’s our building!” Indeed it was. And the Ford sisters watched their screens in amazement as police swarmed through the shrubs out back.

This and a slew of other “problems” have finally undermined the once unstoppable CCA. A former Wall Street darling, and dubbed “a theme stock for the nineties,” CCAs stock price has tumbled to half its peak value.

Other private lockup firms are facing the same crisis. Recently the number two private jailer, Wackenhut Corporation, saw several of its facilities rocked by riots. In mid-November last year, at the Taft Federal Correctional Institution, hundreds of inmates, angry about lousy food, smashed windows, televisions, and tables in the federal system’s only full-sized private prison. Thirty minutes of tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bang grenades ended the uprising. More serious was the August rioting in two of Wackenhut’s New Mexico penitentiaries. In one of those clashes a guard was shanked to death by ten inmates. On top of all that 12 former Wackenhut employees are under indictment in Austin, Texas. And much like CCA, the company ended the year with its stock heading south-down 60 percent from the previous season.

So private prison has grown fast but its boom days may be over as politicians-even Republicans- are turning against for-profit lockups p2 Thus it would seem that private prisons are not pushing criminal justice policy in the way that arms manufacturers do with defense policy

Working The Crackdown

There is one way in which criminal justice as a whole is coming to resemble the military-industrial complex. While the estimated spending on prisons overall is $30 billion annually, the overall tab on police, courts, prosecutors, probation, parole, bail bonds, bounty hunting, drug treatment and prison is estimated to be as high as $150 billion annually. That’s roughly half the Pentagon’s budget, not counting the billions in military spending that are hidden within the Department of Energy So there is definitely a broad Keynesian stimulus effect from the crackdown; the criminal justice system is host to a raft of parasitic job categories that range from stenographer and janitor, to judge and executioner. But other than prosecutors nationwide and prison guards in California, few of these interest groups are very organized or do much to create new law and order politics.

What about economically cast-off regions, places that once subsisted thanks to military bases or now dead smokestack industries? We hear that many such regions are resurrected, phoenix-like, by the prosperity of prison spending. A closer look at the new prison towns complicates that picture.

That this has proven to be an illusion is no better illustrated than in California’s Central Valley In the last 15 years, California spent $4.2 billion building 23 new prisons. A recent analysis of the economic impact of the eight prisons surrounding Fresno reveals a junkyard of broken promises and falsely optimistic economic projections. First and foremost, the vast majority of the 8,000 new prison-related jobs haven’t gone to residents in the economically depressed little prison towns. Nor has the $2 billion spent on prison construction in California over the last 15 years, or the half-billion dollars annually shelled out to meet prison payrolls, translated into a wave of new houses, restaurants or stores in the states’ impoverished lock-up regions.

In Corcoran-where more than half of the town’s population is incarcerated in a massive complex of two penitentiaries, which may add a third one soon-800 job-seekers took civil-service placement tests for just two prison staff positions. The town’s unemployment rate is still 15 percent just as it was a year before the first prison opened in 1988. According to estimates from the state and the prison guards’ union, only 7 to 9 percent of the prison jobs in the Central Valley go to people living in prison towns.

Thanks to the massive freeways and California’s all-powerful car culture, most staff and guards commute from the region’s major cities: Fresno, Visalia, and Bakersfield. In short, prison cannot replace industry.

Class War From Above

While all of the specific interests mentioned above help explain part of the crackdown, they don’t go far enough. Beyond the interlocking corporate interests and the question of job creation and regional economic development there lies the broader and historically deeper question of class and racial control.

In many ways the criminal justice build-up is an organically evolving means of managing the class and racial polarization of a restructured American economy At the heart of the matter lies a basic contradiction: Capitalism needs and creates poverty, intentionally through policy and organically through crisis. Yet, capitalism is also always threatened by the poor. These surplus populations help scare working people into obedience and keep wages low. But at the same time the poor (who in a white supremacist system are disproportionately people of color) scare the upper middle classes (who are mostly white). At times the impoverished classes, the dangerous classes, even rebel, demanding justice, burning down the ghetto, or worse yet, organizing themselves into coherent coalitions that can leverage the state for economic redistribution and racial equality

From the New Deal in the 1930s through the culmination of the War on Poverty in the 1970s (that’s right-it all really came to fruition under Nixon), an ever larger portion of America’s cast-off populations were absorbed through ameliorative and co-optive social reforms. Spending on health care, education, urban development and welfare were all expanded. At the same time corporate America came under increased regulation in the areas of health and safety, labor arbitration and environmental pollution.

People of color, particularly in agricultural regions, were largely excluded from many of these reforms and managed the old fashioned way-via brute force. Nonetheless, by the late sixties America’s burgeoning social democracy had begun to cause trouble for the owning classes. By the early seventies profits began to shrink and unemployment began to rise but wage demand still increased. In fact labor was in a more militant mood than ever. By the early seventies wildcat strikes had shut the nation’s postal system, coal fields, truck industry and railways.

From capital’s point of view government anti-poverty programs were, shall we say, spoiling the working classes. During one nationwide strike in which 12 unions beat General Electric it was figured that strikers had collected $25 million in welfare. And, despite recession in the early seventies, the ratio of quits to layoffs was rising.

In short, workers were losing their fear of unemployment and bosses because the nation’s incipient social welfare system was taking up the slack and supporting them: the War on Poverty was subsidizing the war against capital.

Reagan put an end to all that with: severe recession in the early eighties engineered to put labor back in its place; conservative courts, and a mass assault on all forms of government subsidies to poor and working people (from low-income housing programs, to job training to welfare). All this helped to tip the scales back in capital’s favor. Now profits are in recovery while the people, particularly people of color, bleed.

But how to control the new surplus populations?

In retrospect the ever evolving answer is clear: Racialize poverty via the code of crime, and then hound the victims with police narc squads, SWAT teams, and quality of life enforcement; send the INS to raid their homes; and lock up as many as possible for as long as possible.

Thus criminal justice regulates, absorbs, terrorizes, and disorganizes the poor. It also bolsters white supremacy by demonizing, disenfranchising and marginalizing ever larger numbers of brown people. But unlike social democratic/welfare co-option-that other way of managing poverty-anti-crime repression doesn’t have the deleterious side effect of economically empowering or at least cushioning the poor and subsidizing their struggles. Nor does the new model of control let loose dangerous notions of racial equality and social inclusion, as did the rhetoric surrounding the New Deal War and the War on Poverty

Finally one last caveat: The politicians who produce these laws and other policies do not necessarily do so for the structurally beneficial impacts they will have. Rather, the average get-tough pol is simply looking for a compelling issue that speaks to voters’ anxieties without actually saying anything revealing or dangerous about class power and privilege. On such a journey there seems to be no better horse to ride than the trusty stead of crime coded racism. But the inevitable outcome of such electioneering is legislation that is also useful in bolstering and reproducing an unequal society.

In a Sept. 5 blog, former Secretary of Labor and liberal commentator Robert Reich, asks,

“What Happened to the Moral Center of American Capitalism?” It’s not satire.

Reich writes:

“We’ve witnessed over the past two decades in the United States a steady decline in the willingness of people in leading positions in the private sector—on Wall Street and in large corporations especially—to maintain minimum standards of public morality. … CEOs of large corporations now earn 300 times the wages of average workers. Wall Street moguls take home hundreds of millions or more. Both groups have rigged the economic game to their benefit while pushing downward the wages of average working people.”

The vast and ever-widening inequality in the U.S. and capitalist world as a whole is, of course, undeniable. Reich’s answer is to harken back to an earlier, supposedly more “moral” period of capitalism:

“By contrast, in the first three decades after World War II—partly because America went through that terrible war and, before that, the Great Depression—there was a sense in the business community and on Wall Street of a degree of accountability to the nation,” he writes. “It wasn’t talked about as social responsibility, because it was assumed to be a bedrock of how people with great economic power should behave.

CEOs did not earn more than 40 times what the typical worker earned. Profitable firms did not lay off large numbers of workers. Consumers, workers, and the community were all considered stakeholders of almost equal entitlement.

It’s pretty hard to cram so many illusions as well as factual errors into so few words.

The Great Depression of the 1930s was the most catastrophic of the recurrent economic crashes that are a built-in feature of the capitalist system. During the Great Depression, when the unemployment rate topped 25 percent and millions of people were made homeless by banker evictions, most capitalists opposed unemployment benefits, social security or any kind of government relief, as well as the right of workers to form unions.

It was the massive labor organizing wave starting with general strikes in 1934 that prompted the Roosevelt government to make concessions in the form of social programs, and won for millions of workers the power to negotiate for better wages, benefits and conditions.

By 1950, 35 percent of workers were unionized, one of the major factors in the improvement of living standards in the post-World War II period, a fact which Reich omits. Another major factor was U.S. domination of the world market in the aftermath of the war.

While the war had indeed been terrible for the tens of millions around the world who were killed, maimed and starved, and the hundreds of millions displaced, it had been a bonanza for U. S. corporations and banks. Big business reaped immense profits from supplying the most powerful war machine ever created and vastly expanded their productive capacities. In addition, the mainland of the U.S. suffered no damage to its home front. By the war’s end, the U.S. was producing more than 50 percent of total world output.

Out of its super-profits gained from domination of the world market and exploitation of the colonized and neo-colonized world, U.S. capitalists were able to make economic concessions to the working class. At the same time the government was successfully moving to weaken the unions by purging communists and other militants, and passing anti-union laws like the Taft-Hartley Act.

It was this highly unusual combination of factors, rather than some new-found “morality” among the capitalists, that led to the 1945-75 period being one of significant improvements in living standards for millions of workers.

Capitalist intellectuals and mass media relentlessly proclaimed Marxism had been proven wrong. Marx had written that a fundamental characteristic of capitalism was, “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation at the opposite pole.”

Subsequent developments have irrefutably shown the postwar period to have been not some new reality for capitalism but instead an aberration.

Today, economic inequality is at its highest level ever. One family, the Waltons of Walmart, possess as much wealth as the poorest 42 percent of the U.S. population, and 400 billionaires own as much as the poorest 3,500,000,000 people on Earth.

A bloody, racist ruling class from the start

Contrary to Reich’s assertion,”Profitable firms” did indeed “lay off large numbers of workers” innumerable times between 1945 and 1975, particularly but not exclusively in times of economic contraction. It’s surprising that someone who was formerly in charge of the federal Labor Department could make such a ludicrous claim.

For the first two decades of Reich’s imaginary “good old days,” segregation—in law and/or in fact—prevailed across the country. Until the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, both won through hard struggle by the Black Freedom Movement, African Americans were denied the right to vote in many states, and continue to be denied equality down to the present.

The idea that “consumers, workers and the community were all considered stakeholders of almost equal entitlement” by the capitalist ruling class and its government at any time in U.S. history is an unintentionally comic touch.

And in Reich’s three “moral” decades, that same ruling class and government waged genocidal wars in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, engineered murderous coups in Iran, Guatemala, Congo, Brazil, Indonesia, Greece, Bolivia, Chile, and Uruguay, supported the apartheid regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe), armed the Portuguese fascists in their colonial wars in Africa, invaded and blockaded Cuba, played the key role in Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinian people, built the most deadly arsenal ever assembled and repeatedly threatened nuclear war, etc., etc.

Robert Reich is a critic of the excesses of capitalism while at the same time a defender of the capitalist system. To resolve this dilemma, he is compelled to locate a time in history when capitalism functioned in a just fashion.

But in reality, no such time has existed. There has never been a “sense in the business community and on Wall Street of a degree of accountability”—to anything but maximizing their profits and maintaining their power. That is the nature of capitalism.

The only way to put an end to capitalist excesses is to put an end to the system itself.

Richard Becker is the Western Region Coordinator of the ANSWER – Act Now to Stop War & End Racism – Coalition, and the author of Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire, and The Myth of Democracy and the Rule of the Banks.

While the Western media attempts to portray the sudden influx of refugees appearing out of no where at Europe’s gates, the reality is that for years they have been gathering in expansive, well-funded refugee camps in Turkey.

In fact, Turkey has brought in over 2 million refugees with a suspiciously eager “open door” policy and has spent upward to 6 billion USD on building and maintaining these immense camps. They have done so as part of a long-standing strategy to justify creating “safe havens” in northern Syria – essentially NATO invading and occupying Syrian territory, protecting their terrorist proxies within Syria’s borders so that they can strike deeper toward Damascus and finally topple the government of President Bashar Al Assad.

Image: Turkey has eagerly invited 2 million refugees into their country to stay at camps
funded by upward to 6 billion USD, not out of altruism, but to use refugees together with the US, NATO, and the EU, as a geopolitical weapon. 

US plans to carve out a “safe haven” or “buffer zone” in northern Syria stretch back as far as 2012 – before a real crisis even existed. In their “Middle East Memo #21,” “Assessing Options for Regime Change,” it was stated specifically (emphasis added):

Brookings would elaborate upon this criminal conspiracy in their more recent report titled, “Deconstructing Syria: Towards a regionalized strategy for a confederal country.” It states (emphasis added):

The  idea would be to help moderate elements establish reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able. American, as well as Saudi and Turkish and British and Jordanian and other Arab forces would act in support, not only from the air but eventually on the ground via the  presence  of  special  forces  as  well. The  approach would  benefit  from  Syria’s open desert  terrain  which  could  allow  creation  of  buffer  zones  that could  be  monitored  for possible  signs  of  enemy  attack  through  a  combination  of  technologies, patrols,  and other methods that outside special forces could help Syrian local fighters set up.

Were Assad foolish enough to challenge these zones, even if he somehow forced the withdrawal  of  the  outside  special  forces,  he  would  be  likely  to  lose  his  air power  in ensuing  retaliatory  strikes  by  outside  forces,  depriving  his  military  of  one  of its  few advantages over ISIL.Thus, he would be unlikely to do this.

Unfortunately for US policymakers, little justification or public support underpins any of these plans to intervene more directly in Syria in pursuit of what is obviously regime change dressed up as anything but.

Bring in the Refugees 

However, in hopes of solving this lack of public support, the West appears to have taken a huge number of refugees created by its years of war upon the Middle East and North Africa, and suddenly releasing them in a deluge upon Europe. The Western media itself implicates Turkey as the source of these refugees, and reports like that from the International New York Times’ Greek Kathimerini paper, in an article titled, “Refugee flow linked to Turkish policy shift,” claims (emphasis added):

A sharp increase in the influx of migrants and refugees, mostly from Syria, into Greece is due in part to a shift in Turkey’s geopolitical tactics, according to diplomatic sources. 

These officials link the wave of migrants into the eastern Aegean to political pressures in neighboring Turkey, which is bracing for snap elections in November, and to a recent decision by Ankara to join the US in bombing Islamic State targets in Syria. The analyses of several officials indicate that the influx from neighboring Turkey is taking place as Turkish officials look the other way or actively promote the exodus.

This wasn’t done until after years of staged terror attacks across Europe, in attempts to ratchet up fear, xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia. Every attack without exception involved patsies tracked by Western intelligence agencies in some cases for almost a decade. Many had traveled to and participated in NATO’s proxy war on Syria, Iraq, and Yemen before returning home to carry out predictable acts of violence.

Image: Even Western “international” organizations find it difficult to hide NATO’s role in the refugee crisis with most migrants transiting through NATO-destroyed Libya, and NATO-member Turkey.

In the case of the infamous “Charlie Hebo” massacre, French security agencies followed the gunmen for years – even arresting and imprisoning one briefly. This surveillance continued up to but not including the final six months needed for them to plan and carry out their final act of violence. When asked why French security agencies ended their surveillance of known terrorists, they cited a lack of funds.

With Europeans intentionally put into a state of fear at home and in hopes of eliciting support for wars abroad NATO appears to now be undulating Europe with a tidal wave or refugees intentionally accumulated and cared for in Turkey either to flood back into NATO-established safe zones in Syria or into Europe to extort from the public backing for further military aggression.

The Big Reveal 

The Huffington Post’s article, “David Cameron Facing Pressure To Bomb Islamic State In Syria After Lord Carey Calls To Group To Be ‘Crushed’,” in covering the political discourse in England provides us with the final reveal of what was really behind this sudden “crisis.”

Image: The Western media ensures that articles discussing the possibility of using the refugee crisis as justification to further decimate Syria includes lots of pictures of desperate refugees struggling to burst into Europe.

It state (emphasis added):

David Cameron is facing growing pressure to extend RAF air strikes into Syria as the worsening conflict threatened to drive increasing numbers of desperate refugees to seek sanctuary in Europe. 

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey became the latest senior figure to call for a renewed military effort to “crush” Islamic State (IS) in its Syrian heartlands. 

He also backed calls for British military intervention to help create “safe enclaves” within the country where civilians would be protected from attack by the warring parties in Syria’s bloody civil war. 

The Huffington Post’s report would also state (emphasis added):

His intervention came after Chancellor George Osborne acknowledged that a comprehensive plan was needed to tackle the refugee crisis “at source”. 

Speaking to reporters at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Turkey on Saturday, he said that meant dealing with the “evil” regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as well as the militant jihadists of IS.

At the end of the day, the “refugee crisis” is yet another contrivance by the same special interests who first sought to intervene in Syria to back “freedom fighters,” then to stop the use of “WMDs,” and most recently to fight “ISIS.” Now with all three failing to justify what is otherwise naked military aggression openly pursuing regime change in Syria as a basis for wider confrontation with Iran, Russia, and even China, “refugees” are being used as human pawns to provoke fear and rage across Europe.

Fantastic news; the Scottish government recently announced it will take advantage of the amendment to EU rules and ban the growing of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the country.

Scotland’s Rural Affairs Secretary, Richard Lochhead, stated earlier this month that “the Scottish Government has long-standing concerns about GM[/GMO] crops – concerns that are shared by other European countries and consumers, which should not be dismissed lightly… Scotland is known around the world for our beautiful natural environment – and banning [the] growing [of] GM crops will protect and further enhance our clean, green status.”

Mr Lochhead revealed that he has “heard directly from food and drink producers in other countries that are ditching GM because of a consumer backlash”, adding that there “is no evidence of significant demand for GM products by Scottish consumers.”

At the start of the year, the EU changed its rules on the cultivation of GMO crops by allowing individual governments and devolved administrations to opt out of growing EU-authorized GMO crops. Many people around the world viewed this change as a backdoor for Big-Agri to push their products on the continent, but Scotland has wisely seized the opportunity to ban GMO crops.

Across the border in England however, the government in London is pushing for GMOs to be grown in the country. England could soon be growing GMO crops in the form of maize, oil seed rape and even potatoesin the near future.

Hopefully Scotland’s decision will help to persuade other governments around Europe and the world to instigate a similar ban (if they haven’t already), and ensure that Big-Agri does not get a significant foothold on the continent. Germany looks like one of the countries that will also choose to ban GMO crops.

Organic Revolution

 As the health dangers of GMO foods and herbicides become blatantly apparent for all to see, demand for organic produce is soaring around the world. In the UK last year, sales of organic products increased by 4%according to the Soil Association’s 2015 Organic Market Report.

Organic food sales in the United States have increased from approximately $11 billion in 2004 to an estimated $27 billion in 2012, with organic sales expected to reach $35 billion in the US this year.

Demand for organic produce in Australia is at record levels. Last year’s Australian Organic Market Reportfound that the organic industry is now valued at over $1.72 billion, representing a 15.4 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since 2009.

Denmark has launched the “world’s most ambitious” organic plan which aims at doubling organic farming by 2020. The European nation has long been a leader in the market with organic sales increasing by 6.1% from 2013 to 2014.

Toxic GMO

The negative health effects associated with the consumption of GMO foods are literally endless, ranging from cancer to autism, food intolerances to organ failure. Last year, a comprehensive report by The Ministry of Health in Cordoba, Argentina, found that in areas where GMO crops are grown and agro-chemicals are used, cancer rates are double the national average.

Even though the scientific evidence documenting the toxicity of GMO foods is undeniable, proponents of GMOs are still dogmatically supporting the technology. Professor Brian Wynne, an emeritus professor at the University of Lancaster, recently stated that the pro-GMO campaign resembles a “religious crusade”, adding that many have an “obsession with GM.”

Ban Monsanto’s Roundup!

 In March of this year, the World Health Organisations (WHO) cancer agency – the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – conducted a study on glyphosate, the main ingredient in the most widely used weedkiller in the world, Monsanto’s Roundup – which is heavily sprayed on GMO crops. The IARC study chillingly revealed that glyphosate was “classified as probably carcinogenic to humans”.

The WHO is only the latest in a long line of scientific studies which have proven that Roundup is deeply harmful to human health.A US peer-reviewed study in 2013 which was published in the scientific journal Entropy, linked Monsanto’s Roundup to infertility, cancers and Parkinsons disease amongst other ailments. The authors of the study were Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant from Arthur D. Little, Inc. and a former private environmental government contractor. The abstract of the study reads:

Glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body…….Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
(Samsel and Seneff, 2013).

Seneff also recently sparked controversy by stating that half of all children in the US will have autism by 2025 due to Monsanto’s Roundup. Evidence indicates that autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are on the rise in the US; with one study conducted in 2014 by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discovering that one in 68 US children had an ASD, compared to one in 88 in 2012. Many people would assert that this is a result of more efficient ways to diagnose ASD, an assertion that is true. However, it surely does not account for such dramatic increases in recent years.

Considering the quantity of scientific literature pertaining to the health dangers of Monsanto’s Roundup and its main ingredient – glyphosate; nations around the world have instigated bans on the substance and associated products. The Netherlands hasbanned Roundup to protect citizens health; Sri Lanka’s new President put an immediate ban on the importation of glyphosate; Two major supermarkets in Switzerlandhave stopped selling products that contain glyphosate; in addition to France banning the sale of Roundup from garden centres.

Scotland along with every other country in the world should also implement a ban on Monsanto’s Roundup, in addition to investigating the chief scientists and board members of Monsanto, as they have been profiting from selling products that are harmful to human health.

Stop TTIP

 In order to ensure Monsanto and other biotech corporate giants are unable to infringe on European nations ability to protect their citizens, the corporate fascist trade deal between the US and EU – the “undemocratic” Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – will have to be defeated. This highly surreptitious partnership is only one of many other deals currently being negotiated behind closed doors, with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) completing the trio of tyrannical pacts.

One of the most controversial aspects of the TTIP and the TPP is the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which Washington is adamantly pushing to be included in the partnerships. The ISDS would allowcorporations to sue national governments if countries implement laws that will infringe on the profits and investments of corporations, not surprisingly leading to widespread opposition by the public – 97 percent of citizens consulted by the EU on ISDS were opposed to it.

As the former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, explains in his article: Rule By The Corporations, that governments who have passed laws against GMO foods could be sued by multinational corporations if these partnerships are signed:

What the “partnerships” do is to make private corporations immune to the laws of sovereign countries on the grounds that laws of countries adversely impact corporate profits and constitute “restraint of trade.” For example, under the Transatlantic Partnership, French laws against GMOs would be overturned as “restraints on trade” by law suits filed by Monsanto. © PCR 2015

The Scottish government’s decision to ban the growing of GMO crops is a timely and sensible move, but other legislation needs to be implemented to ensure Scotland’s citizens are protected against the dangers of GMOs. Edinburgh needs to place an immediate ban on glyphosate-based products in addition to rejecting the corporate fascist trade deal, the TTIP.  More government subsidized organic farming initiatives would also be an important step in the right direction, as many farmers feel the cost of growing organic foods is an unsustainable business model.

Steven MacMillan is an independent writer, researcher, geopolitical analyst and editor of  The Analyst Report, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.