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By Jonathan Kuttab

It seems the announcement by Netanyahu that he is “pausing” the “Judicial reforms,” in order to give a chance for talks and negotiations, is hardly the end of the crisis that has rocked Israeli society to the core and brought hundreds of thousands into the streets to protest.

For one thing, Netanyahu made it clear that he is only “pausing” the reform process to avoid civil war, and he is determined to push through the changes he needs one way or another. The tectonic changes within Israeli society that led to the formation of the current Israeli government have not been addressed at all. Yet, as I said in a previous article, the results of the recent elections were predictable, inevitable, and irreversible.

More worrying is the difficulty Netanyahu faced in even arriving at such a temporary “pause.” In order to prevent the government from collapsing, under the threat of resignation by Itamar Ben Gvir, Netanyahu agreed to Ben Gvir’s demand for the creation of a private militia under his direct control.

The creation of this private militia has long been a goal for Ben Gvir, and his desire for it only grew after being told that his position as Minister of Police was not enough. He was specifically informed that the Minister of Police only sets policy and must leave the actual implementation of policies to the police.

Ben-Gvir was actually rebuffed when he attempted to order the police in Tel Aviv to take harsher measures against demonstrators, when he tried to get them to shoot at Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, and when he ordered the closure of neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.

The prospect of directly channeling vast amounts and resources to thugs and violent settlers, granting them official sanction and authority is truly frightening. For many years, these elements have enjoyed the tacit support of the army and its complicity. To grant them now direct authority is frightening not only for Palestinians but for the army and the police authorities themselves, who have often viewed Ben Gvir as a convicted terrorist, inciter to violence, and a problematic agitator who creates headaches for them. He was rejected for army service, convicted for terrorism and incitement. He was a politician who has built a reputation for openly calling for near-genocidal practices. He famously went to Sheikh Jarrah, promising a Second Nakba (referring to the ethnic cleansing of 1948) while waving his pistol around. He promised greater violence once he joined the government. It was bad enough that he became Minister of Police and his equally dangerous colleague Bezalel Smotrich was given control over COGAT with direct responsibility for security in the West Bank, but now Ben Gvir is being given his own militia with direct operational authority over its members. Smotrich publicly stated that the recent pogrom at Huwara, and even erasing it (employing a biblical phrase), should have been done not by private citizens but by the government itself. Maybe he had Ben Gvir’s militia in mind.

Some Israeli protestors are reportedly afraid that this new militia may be used against them in a future civil war scenario, and they have not been mollified by Ben-Gvir’s assurances that the new force will only be used against Arabs. The protesters are still missing the main point, however, which is that there can be no true democracy without addressing the issue of equality. The gradual slide into open fascism, which scares them, is an inevitable consequence of the policies of Jewish supremacy pursued by government leaders of both Zionist camps (the so-called Left Block and Right Block). There can be no return to an Israel that is Jewish and democratic, because such an Israel has never existed for its non-Jewish citizens or for the rest of the Palestinian population under its control.

The desire for a constitution, checks and balances, guarantees for the rights of the individual and minorities from the oppressive actions of an electoral majority are all ideas which have become central in the current protests. They are essential elements in any democracy. To think that the protesters can obtain these benefits without sharing them with Palestinians is a foolish mirage. Even in their own interest, they cannot successfully fight off fascism without bringing along Arab allies, who bring their own concerns, fears, and, yes, even their flag. If however, the protesters insist on closing their eyes and seeking a solution that serves Jews only, they are bound to fail.

This is a difficult conversation for Israeli Jews, who have so far tried to keep Palestinian flags and concerns out of their demonstrations against Netanyahu and his extremist government. It is a position that is bound to fail for practical reasons, not only because it lacks morality and ethics. The biblical exhortation known to Christians as the Golden Rule has long been central to Jewish ethics, even before Christ. To remind Israelis of it now may be profoundly revolutionary, as it seems to threaten the very foundations of an exclusivist ideology that is at the root of Zionism and the state of Israel. But this has always been the role of the prophet: to speak truth to those in power. In the world of today, this means Zionist Israelis and those who support an ideology based on the domination and oppression of others. Failing to follow an ethical path leads sooner or later to disaster.

Perhaps it is not too late for Jewish Israelis, who have shown great passion and tenacity in fighting Netanyahu, to recognize this truth and open themselves to new realities that include all the Palestinians living with them in the same land.  Those who care about Israel in this country must also find a way to transmit that same message.  There can be no democracy without equality.  There can be no democracy with apartheid and occupation.

31 March 2023

Wealth and power are the main drivers of media chicanery

By Edward Curtin

“In my seventy-plus years from 1946 to now, the chorus of fear-mongering bullshit has never ceased – only grown louder. The joke is on us. Ha Ha Ha.” – Oliver Stone, Chasing the Light

Perhaps silence is the best response to the endless cavalcade of official lies that is United States history. The Internet and digital technology have allowed those lies to increase exponentially in number and frequency with the result that people’s minds have become like 7-Eleven stores, open 24/7 for snack-crap “news.”

But once you become conscious that it’s lies night and day, it sets your head aswirl and plunges your soul into depths of despair.  You are tempted to retreat from such knowledge and talk of trees and trivia.  But you are ashamed of your country.  It’s hard to laugh.  You feel you are drowning.  You flounder and gasp for air.  You look around and wonder why most people are able to go their merry ways believing the lies and whistling in the dark.  Junk news nation, indeed.

Yes, there are alternative voices who tell the truth, but their audiences and monetary support are very small or non-existent compared to the corporate mainstream media and those who shout and scream across the Internet as they take in a lot of money from naive followers.

The recent revelations about Alex Jones’s wealth probably don’t bother his diehard fans, but they should.  Likewise, the funding sources for websites and writers of various persuasions are important to know, for they reveal possible biases in their work.  Snake oil salesmen are commonplace, and there are many naive customers lining up for their wares.

Wealth and power are the main drivers of the media chicanery that has captured so many minds. Writers, of course, should be fairly paid for their work, but in this Internet age, most are not.  As with the movies and book publishing, the income gap between the big names – the celebrity stars – and less well-known writers, even if their work is excellent, is huge.

Some sites and writers make a lot of money, but who they are is a guessing game.  No one’s talking.  Some regularly tell their readers that if they don’t receive enough contributions, they will be unable to continue to write or publish, even when the sites do not pay their contributors.  Whether this is good marketing or income-by-threat is up for grabs.  Whichever it is, it seems to work, as far as I can tell, for these writers and websites don’t disappear.

Money is the dirty secret of all news and commentary.  To paraphrase someone: It is very difficult to get truth from writers whose income is dependent on pleasing those who fund them.

You may have noticed how many former military officers, CIA agents, mainstream journalists, pharmaceutical company executives, and sundry other government and corporate bigwigs appear in the mainstream and alternative media to support or oppose government policies.  The mainstream ones doing the propaganda they always did, while the alternative ones appear as converts to the dissident faith.  No one ever explains how and by whom these people are financed or how their lucrative pensions affect their consciences.  “Former” is a funny word.  Ha Ha Ha.

Confidence “men” come in all shapes and sizes with no one talking money.

So let me fess up.  I received about $200 in support last year for edwardcurtin.com, my website.  Nothing before that and not a cent over the last 5-6 years for many hundreds of articles that have appeared very widely across the Internet.  Before the Internet, publications paid for work, mine and others.  Not now, at least for me.  How much money writers are receiving, and who is supporting their sites, is a taboo subject.

So I am thinking about selling mugs at my site with my name and mug shot on them and a line of supplements that will increase one’s testosterone and estrogen in equal measure to make sure no one takes offense in this era of delicate feelings.  Ha Ha Ha.  Yes, the joke is on us.  I identify as a man since I am one.  Don’t be offended.

Jokes aside, as Leonard Cohen sang:

“Oh, like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free”

If you are stubborn enough and have the good fortune to find inspiration from those brave dissidents who have gone before us and those who continue to lead us on, you realize silence is betrayal and that you must speak, even if all seems hopeless at times.  Even when no one is paying you, or maybe more accurately, because no one is paying you.  Even though it is hopeless, even though it isn’t.  This is another secret.  There are many.

It’s been twenty years since the U.S. brutally invaded Iraq.  When George W. Bush, at a staged pseudo-event in Cincinnati on October 7, 2002, as he set Americans up for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, said, “Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud,” no one laughed him out of the house.  His claim was simply an evil joke that was reported as truth.  It was all predictable, blatant deception.  And the media played along with such an absurdity, which is their job and what they always do.  I pointed it out at the time in a newspaper column, but who listened to a hick writer in a regional newspaper.

Iraq obviously had no nuclear weapons or the slightest capability to deliver even a firecracker on the U.S.  But the mainstream media, Senator Joe Biden, politicians galore, celebrities like Oprah Winfrey with her guest, the eventually disgraced Judith Miller of the New York Times, the despicable Tony Blair, et al., all supported Bush’s blatant lies.  Soon Colin Powell, the “hero” of George H. W. Bush’s 1991 made-for-TV Gulf War of aggression against Iraq, would do his Pinocchio act at the United Nations and the U.S. military was off to get Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden’s evil twin, both the latest Hitlers until Vladimir Putin replaced them.  I guess I skipped some others such as Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar Al-Assad.  New Hitlers proliferate so fast it’s hard to keep track of them.  Ha Ha Ha.  The joke is on us.

As everyone knows, or should, more than a million Iraqis died because of George W. Bush, but how many cared?  How many cared when once Bush was gone, Barack Obama, aided and abetted by the cackling Hilary Clinton, destroyed Libya and ignited the war against Syria?  You want examples?  There are too many to name here.  But let it be said these lies span all American administrations, whether it’s Bill Clinton continuously bombing Iraq and Serbia through Trump bombing Syria and Somalia, up to the present day with Biden attacking Russia via Ukraine, etc.  All these presidents are liars, but their followers treat them otherwise.  Biden says Jimmy Carter asked him to deliver his eulogy.  What does that tell you?  Shall we laugh?  Sing?

On the clear understanding
That this kind of thing can happen
Shall we laugh?
Shall we laugh?
Shall we laugh?

Shall we laugh harder if I mention the Covid-19 propaganda and all those writers who have failed to even address it, as they have failed to question 9/11 and other obvious official lies?  Is it not evident that if they did so, their money flows might dry up?  Here and no further is a widespread rule, for they must adhere to the boundaries imposed by “responsible thought” and the “no go” zones with which they tie their own hands in order to keep their wallets full.

If you are lucky, as I was, when you are young you discover how fearful of free thought and how corrupt our institutional authorities are.  You don’t spend decades feasting off the spoils of those institutions only to “wake up” once you have made your name and secured your fortune, which seems to be the way of so many wise luminaries of the Internet Age who are either trying to ease their consciences as they get ready to kick the bucket or are perhaps putting us on.

When I was twenty-four years-old, I accepted my first teaching job at a small Catholic college where I taught theology.  I had been trained in the latest and best scholarly work of the most renown international theologians.  Rather than indoctrinating my students with rote learning, I taught them to read widely and think deeply in the tradition of a liberal arts education.  To seek out the best scholarship.

But doing so became quickly apparent to the college and Church authorities who were stuck in the inquisitorial age of obedience or else and no thinking allowed.   Although my students loved my courses and felt freed up for the first time to think about their spiritual lives, I was hounded to correct my heretical teaching, which of course I refused to do.

At one point when I was at lunch in the cafeteria, a nun who was a professor, stole my brief case with my notes and left the cafeteria.  One of my students saw her do this and chased her into the ladies’ room where the nun hid in a stall.  The nun kept flushing the toilet to scare the student away, but the student wouldn’t let her out until she returned the briefcase.  Ha Ha Ha.  It sounds funny to recount but was an example of my experience at this college.  Someone vandalized my office door and ripped down anti-war posters that were on it.  I was gone from that college soon thereafter.  It taught me a lot.  Obey or else.

Heresy: The Latin word is from Greek hairesis, a taking or choosing for oneself, a choice.

At another teaching job a year or so later, I had a more chilling experience.  I was known as an anti-war activist, a conscientious objector from the Marines, etc., and one day, a late Friday afternoon when few were around, an administrator asked to meet me on a deserted stairwell where he proceeded in hushed tones to try to convince me to join him in Army Intelligence to spy on others.  He said I would be perfect for the job since I was known as an anti-war dissident.  I told him to fuck off, but I was shocked by his double life and his request.

I have since learned that this guy the spy was not an anomaly, for government confidence men are widespread.

I’ve had many other such early experiences for which I am very grateful, even though when I was fired from jobs and lost income it was traumatic at the time.  By my thirtieth year, I knew the system was corrupt to its core and subsequent experience has only ratified that conclusion.  I got the joke.

I recount these incidents not because my experiences are singular and I’m special, for others have suffered the same youthful fate.  But such good fortune can fortify you for life or break your spirit.  If the former, you don’t wait to retire to push back against all the lies or regret your past.  You find that it’s all good and life has set you on the heretic’s path of freedom and choice. You realize that what you went through is absolutely nothing compared to people around the world who have and continue to suffer at the hands of the U.S. military industrial complex.  You realize your experiences are trivial in the larger scope of things and that your government’s conduct is beyond condemnation.  It is an abomination.  You feel ashamed to live in a land where killing is a game.

The sociologist Peter Berger puts it well in his little classic, Invitation to Sociology, when he discusses experiences that lead to seeing through the play-acting nature of social life:

Experiences such as these may lead to a sudden reversal in one’s view of society – from an awe-inspiring vision of an edifice made of massive granite to the picture of a toy-house precariously put together with papier mâché. While such metamorphosis may be disturbing to people who have hitherto had great confidence in the stability and rightness of society, it can also have a very liberating effect on those more inclined to look upon the latter as a giant sitting on top of them, and not necessarily a friendly giant at that. It is reassuring to discover that the giant is afflicted with a nervous tick.

Notice the giant George W. Bush’s clicking eyes as he delivers his “facing clear evidence of peril” lies for the invasion of Iraq.  He and his presidential good friends are cardboard cartoon characters whose eyes reveal their evil intentions.  “It’s a Barnum and Bailey world/Just as phony as it can be,” but it would all fall to pieces if it weren’t for you and me failing to see through all the bad actors, not just presidents but the whole cast of characters that populate the Spectacle of news and opinion.

George W. Bush – Cincinnati Speech on Iraq Threat

The Russians are coming!  Ha Ha Ha.  Yes, Oliver, the joke’s on us.

But it’s not really funny, except in the most sardonic and dark way, for we now do really face clear evidence of peril as a result of Biden and his crazy predecessors who have run U.S. foreign policy for so long. They have brought us to the edge of nuclear war with Russia by surrounding Russia with NATO bases and nuclear weapons, while doing the same to China.

Bertolt Brecht was right in his poem “To Those Born After”:

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Caroline Mailloux

US War Crimes

In this video interview, Michel Chossudovsky reviews the war crimes committed by US-NATO against numerous countries in the wake of World War II, as well as the “fake intelligence” and media propaganda used to justify the invasion of sovereign countries. 

It is worth noting that “U.S. military forces were directly responsible for about 10 to 15 million deaths during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the two Iraq Wars”

“The American public probably is not aware of these numbers and knows even less about the proxy wars for which the United States is also responsible. In the latter wars there were between 9 and 14 million deaths in Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Guatemala, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sudan”

According to James A. Lucas’ carefully documented study, the “U.S. Regime Has Killed 20-30 Million People Since World War II”

“Fake Intelligence” Used to Justify the March 2003 Invasion of Iraq

Colin Powell’s “intelligence report” presented to the UN Security Council in early February 2003 was FABRICATED. It was copied and pasted from the internet by members of Tony Blair’s staff.

“Fake intelligence”  was presented to the UN Security Council by Secretary of State Colin Powell on February 5, 2003.

Damning evidence refuting Colin Powell’s official intelligence report was revealed by Dr. Glen Rangwala, Newham College, Cambridge  (image right) on  Britain’s Channel 4 TV on February 6, 2003, on the day following Secretary of State Colin Powell’s historic Iraq WMD presentation to the UN Security Council:

“I would call my colleagues’ attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed . . . which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities.” (Colin Powell, UN Security Council, February 5, 2003)

Powell was referring to “Iraq Its Infrastructure Of Concealment, Deception And Intimidation”, published on January 30, 2003.

According to Rangwala, the  British intelligence document was fake. It had not been prepared by British intelligence. It was copied and pasted from the internet by members of Tony Blair’s staff

Video: Interview with Michel Chossudovsky

Caroline Mailloux of Lux Media, Montreal Interviews Michel Chossudovsky

MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY – WAR & CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

Below is the text presented by Dr. Rangwala to the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs 

It was presented in June 2003, in the wake of the invasion and occupation of Iraq

THE PRESENTATION OF THE 30 JUNE 2003 DOSSIER

30 March 2022

Source: www.globalresearch.ca

By Vijay Prashad

On March 16, 2023, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced—during his visit to Niger—that the United States government will provide $150 million in aid to the Sahel region of Africa. This money, Blinken said, “will help provide life-saving support to refugees, asylum seekers, and others impacted by conflict and food insecurity in the region.” The next day, UNICEF issued a press release with information from a report the United Nations issued that month stating that 10 million children in the central Sahel countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger need humanitarian assistance. UNICEF has appealed for $473.8 million to support its efforts to provide these children with basic requirements. According to the Human Development Index for 2021, Niger, despite holding large reserves of uranium, is one of the poorest countries in the world (189th out of 191 countries); profits from the uranium have long drained away to French and other Western multinational corporations. The U.S. aid money will not be going to the United Nations but will be disbursed through its own agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance.

Northeast of Niger’s capital Niamey, near the city of Agadez, is Air Base 201, one of the world’s largest drone bases that is home to several armed MQ-9 Reapers. During a press conference with Blinken, Niger Foreign Minister Hassoumi Massoudou affirmed his country’s “military cooperation” with the United States, which includes the U.S. “equipping… our armed forces, for our army and our air force and intelligence.” Neither Blinken nor Massoudou spoke about Air Base 201, from where the United States monitors the Sahel region, trains Niger’s military, and provides air support for U.S. ground operations in the region (all of this made clear during the visit by Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass to the base at the end of December 2021). The U.S. will spend $280 million on this base—twice the humanitarian aid promised by Blinken—including $30 million per year to maintain operations at Air Base 201.

Blinken is the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit Niger, a country that his own department accused of “significant human rights issues” like “unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings by or on behalf of government” and torture. When a reporter asked Blinken during the press conference what the U.S. will do “to bring democracy” to Burkina Faso and Mali, he replied that the United States is monitoring the “democratic backsliding, the military coups, which so far have not led to a renewal of a democratic constitutional process in these countries.” The military governments in Burkina Faso and Mali have ejected the presence of the French military from their territories and have indicated that they would not welcome any more Western military intervention. A senior official in Niger told me that Blinken’s hesitancy to directly speak about Burkina Faso and Mali might have been because of the distress about the faltering democracy in Niger.

Niger President Mohamed Bazoum has faced serious criticisms within the country about corruption and violence. In April 2022, president Bazoum wrote on Twitter that 30 of his senior officials had been arrested for “embezzlement or misappropriation,” and they would be in prison “for a long time.” This was a perfectly clear statement, but it obscured the deeper corruption within Bazoum’s own administration—including the detention of his Communications Minister Mahamadou Zada on corruption charges—which was revealed through an audit of the country’s 2021 spending that highlighted millions of dollars of missing state funds. Furthermore, a third of the money spent by Niger to buy $1 billion in weapons from arms companies between 2011 and 2019 was pilfered by government officials, according to a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

In December 2022, during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, President Bazoum joined Benin’s President Patrice Talon to be part of the U.S. project known as the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). The U.S. government pledged $504 million toward facilitating transportation between Benin and Niger, to help increase trade between these two neighbors. The MCC, set up in 2004 in the context of the U.S. war on Iraq, has been expanded into an instrument used by the U.S. government to challenge the Chinese-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Senior officials in Niger, who requested anonymity, and several studies by independent authorities indicate that this MCC money is being used to upgrade African farmlands and that the corporation has been working with U.S.-funded institutions such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller foundations), and turn these agricultural resources over to multinational agribusinesses. The MCC grants, the senior officials said, are used to “launder” Niger’s land to foreign corporate interests and to “subordinate” Niger’s political leadership to U.S. government interests.

At the press conference, Blinken was asked about Russia’s Wagner Group. “Where Wagner has been present,” Blinken said, “bad things have inevitably followed.” Statements have been made recently about the Wagner Group operating in Burkina Faso and Mali by the U.S. State Department’s Vedant Patel after the second coup in the former country in September 2022, and by the RAND Corporation’s Colin P. Clarke in January 2023. Governments in both Burkina Faso and Mali have denied that Wagner is operating from their territory (although the group does operate in Libya), and informed observers such as the Nigerien journalist Seidik Abba (author of Mali-Sahel, notre Afghanistan à nous, 2022) said that countries in the Sahel region are being wary about any foreign intervention. Despite repeating many of Washington’s talking points about Wagner, Niger Foreign Minister Massoudou conceded that focus on it might be exaggerated: “As for the presence of Wagner in Burkina… the information that we have does not allow us to say that Wagner is still in Burkina Faso.”

Before Blinken left for Niger and Ethiopia, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee said that Niger is “one of our most important partners on the continent in terms of security cooperation.” That is the most honest assessment of U.S. interests in Niger—largely about the military bases in Agadez and Niamey.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter.

25 March 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Mir Adnan Aziz

The disintegration of the Soviet Union left the Middle East bereft of any alternatives to US leadership. Washington, a prisoner of American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny – the mythical doctrine used by the US to expand and extend its dominion, never proved itself up to the leadership role. The US foreign policy was and remains nothing but a true manifestation of the Maslow dictum that “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail”. The Middle East, as does much of the world today, bears stark testimony to Washington’s futile hammer and nails policy.

“Wars and chaos in the Middle East will not end until Saudi Arabia and Iran can find a way to share the neighborhood and make some kind of peace”. This, as expressed in an interview by President Obama, was the key to Middle East peace. Stephen Walt, International Affairs professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, noted “Obama’s legacy is one of near-total failure”. The Nobel Peace Laureate, instead of practicing what he preached, encouraged Israel, fueled wars and wrought genocidal destruction in Syria and the Middle East.

It was an extension of the post 9/11 Bush legacy that had set the tone for wars and destruction throughout the Middle East. Dubbed as The New Middle East project, it was launched from Tel Aviv in 2006 by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The predictor to the New Middle East was supposed to be the Iraq invasion. Noted geopolitical analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya writes that constructive chaos, enabling violence and wars extending from Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran and the Persian Gulf with possible extension to central Asia, would be used by the US, Britain and Israel to redraw the Middle East’s map”.

After the invasion of Kuwait the US imposed crippling sanctions on Iraq. The catastrophic effects saw half a million children perish. When veteran journalist Lesley Stahl, host of CBS 60 Minutes, questioned Madeleine Albright about the deaths, she chillingly replied, “We think, the price is worth it”. In June 2006, Israel invaded Lebanon. Its aircraft carried out more than 3000 sorties bombing hospitals, schools, bridges, roads and ports; more than 300 civilians perished. Condoleeza Rice earned notoriety by terming it the birth pangs of a new Middle East as she asked Israel to ignore the ceasefire calls.

In essence, this heartless attitude has been Washington’s Middle East policy since decades. It has been enforced with impunity and arrogance. Post 9/11, Washington has viewed the Middle East through the murky lens of its war on terror. It has clubbed Palestinian-Israel conflict as terrorism rather than the legitimate right of the brutalized Palestinians. The result has seen a leadership vacuum and extreme destabilization of the Middle East. It has also led to the birth of ISIL and its seizing ominous roles in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya apart from Afghanistan and sub-Saharan Africa. The war against terror too has been Washington’s abysmal failure.

In this destructive chaos, the recent China brokered agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia is certainly a breath of life-saving fresh air. The rapprochement ends seven years of diplomatic rupture that saw protesters attack Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran and the 2019 drone attacks on the Saudi Arabian oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais. This was countered by the Saudi led sanctions on Iran.

The Saudi-Iran accord, a modest first step that it may seem, has seen China emerge a peacemaker as against a hammer bearing fractious Washington. As mutual confidence builds up it may well lead to Riyadh ending sanctions on Iran, building commercial ties and refusing Israel over-flights for any adventurism against Iran. This can be reciprocated by Iran with its positive role in Yemen and other Saudi-centric issues. The detente will also de-escalate regional tensions and might lead to other accords to stabilize the Middle East.

Like all other powers, China too has self-interest at heart. However, China has extended its interests globally with mutually beneficial economic and political engagements. It has zealously avoided military or political interventions that have been the hallmark of Washington’s heavy-handed policies. China has also shown no interest in selling its military hardware but chosen to rely on infrastructure based economic and commercial ties.

With a mutual trade of around 90 billion dollars with Saudi Arabia, China has shown absolutely no inhibitions with the Saudi government signing a 37 billion dollar deal with Boeing to purchase aircraft for its recently announced Riyadh Air. Prudent policies see China as a 20 trillion dollar and steadily growing economy. China, secure in itself, has no issues with Riyadh being Washington’s security partner or the latter being Saudi Arabia’s main arms supplier.

China is Saudi Arabia’s largest trade partner and a major buyer of Saudi oil. Iran is overly reliant on China as a major buyer of its oil and a primary source for much needed foreign currency who can dare defy the US sanctions on buying Iran’s oil. With so many mutual stakes at work, the three countries have enough incentive to ensure that this agreement holds.

This welcome respite for the Middle East is fraught with spoilers who would like to scuttle this accord. The greatest one remains Israel, Washington’s enfant terrible. It has worked overtime to build and support a Washington aided anti-Iran axis in the Middle East. It shall take much of China’s Confucian patience and Sun Tzu’s art of engagements to counter the imminent sabotaging acts directly or through the many agent provocateurs that the Washington-Tel Aviv duo have cultivated and nurtured over the years.

Into his record third term, President Xi Jinping’s greatest endeavor shall be to ensure stability by de-escalating conflict in the Middle East. The US flitted away its role and goodwill in the region as it has done in the rest of the world. Nature abhors a vacuum, so does the leadership role. China, the oldest living civilization with over 3500 years of written history, may well prove itself up to the sagacious role.

The writer tweets @miradnanaziz and can be reached at miradnanaziz@gmail.com

25 March 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines because he was unhappy with the level of support provided by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed.

Hersh first accused Washington of destroying the key European energy route in an article released in February, and made more allegations in an interview with the China Daily newspaper published on Friday.

“The [U.S.] president was afraid of Chancellor Scholz not wanting to put more guns and more arms [to Ukraine]. That is all. I do not know whether that it was anger or punishment, but the net effect is that it cut off a major power source through Western Europe,” Hersh claimed.

Despite attempts by the U.S. to deny its involvement in the Nord Stream attack, “Europe is in crisis now” and Biden will receive “a lot of criticism for what he did” in the coming months, the journalist argued.

The Pulitzer Prize winner alleged that “the people that were initially asked to do the job” of destroying the pipelines were contacted by U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan towards the end of 2021.

The initial purpose of mining Nord Stream 1 and 2, built to deliver Russian gas to Europe through Germany, was “to give the [U.S.] president an option to say [Russian] President Putin, ‘If you go to war [in Ukraine], we are going to destroy the pipelines,” Hersh claimed.

Biden himself publicly confirmed that stance but “unfortunately, those people in the Western press seemed to have forgotten,” the journalist stated.

Just under three weeks before the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, Biden warned during a press conference on February 7 that “if Russia invades, there will be no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

According to Hersh, the U.S. leader decided to order the detonation of mines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea last September because the conflict “was not going great in Ukraine” from a U.S. perspective. There was “at best a stalemate” during that period, in what Hersh described as “the American war that President Biden was so eager to support.”

Danish Navy Present Near Nord Stream 2, Repots Media

The Royal Danish Navy is believed to be conducting a diving operation to the east of the island of Bornholm, not far from the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline damaged by a blast. Newspaper Berlingske reported on Tuesday that a Flyvefisken-class patrol vessel used by military divers had been seen there along with two other military ships. The Danish military confirmed its presence east of Bornholm but would not comment on the ships’ mission, Berlingske said.

Last week, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Rasmussen announced that his government could corroborate a report by the Russian gas giant Gazprom, the operator of the undersea pipeline, about a strange object found near Nord Stream 2.

The company sent pictures of the item to Danish authorities, while the Russian government made a formal inquiry through its embassy, the minister said. Copenhagen treats the discovery seriously and will investigate further, Rasmussen pledged at the time.

The object was mentioned last week by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a TV interview. He said it was found during a Gazprom survey about 30 kilometers away from where the pipeline was breached. The device may be an antenna used in remotely detonating a charge, the president suggested, citing experts.

Moscow asked for permission to explore further, Putin added, necessary because the object is located in Denmark’s exclusive zone. Russia could organize a mission “on its own, jointly with [the Danes], or, better yet, with an international group of experts in explosives who are trained to work at such depth.”

Rasmussen said such permission would not be granted, triggering a rebuke from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The sabotage of the two Nord Stream pipelines, which mostly run next to each other but divert a bit near Bornholm, involved explosions in two different general locations, one in Danish waters, the other in the Swedish zone. Three of the four strings comprising the key energy links were ruptured.

According to a report by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the operation was ordered by U.S. President Joe Biden, with the militaries of the U.S. and Norway planting the charges. Both nations have denied any responsibility.

By Seyed Hossein Mousavian

After years of bitter hostilities and escalating crises in the region, the era of diplomacy and wisdom has now arrived

News of the normalisation of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia came as a surprise to international observers. The enmity between the Middle East rivals has been among the most persistent and dangerous in the region.

This month’s agreement came after two years of negotiations between Riyadh and Tehran in Baghdad, and Chinese President Xi Jinping played an important role in concluding the deal in Beijing. As part of the ensuing trilateral statement, Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to implement a 2001 security cooperation agreement and a 1998 deal bolstering economic, cultural and technological ties.

This is based on an agreement the two countries reached in the mid-1990s that remained in effect until 2005. I negotiated the terms for then-President Hashemi Rafsanjani alongside then-Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in Riyadh.

As I detailed in my recent book, A New Structure for Security, Peace, and Cooperation in the Persian Gulf, Rafsanjani and Abdullah agreed to revive relations. I was commissioned by Rafsanjani as his special envoy to discuss a deal with the crown prince. Over the course of four long nights in Abdullah’s mansion in Jeddah, we debated and finally agreed on a plan of action. Then, Rafsanjani’s son and I met King Fahd, and he approved the agreement.

After returning to Iran, the agreement was also approved by Rafsanjani and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It was implemented fully during former President Mohammed Khatami’s term (1997-2005). I was told by a high-level Saudi official that Abdullah viewed Khatami as continuing Rafsanjani’s policies. In 1997, Abdullah visited Tehran, and the cooperation and security agreements were subsequently signed.

Security concerns

In my negotiations with Abdullah, security issues were the primary concern. Riyadh was concerned about Tehran exporting Shiism and supporting Saudi Arabia’s Shia minority, and about demonstrations by Iranian pilgrims threatening the security of the annual Hajj ceremony.

For its part, Tehran was concerned about Saudi Arabia supporting the Sunni minority in Iran and spreading Wahhabi fundamentalism. The bilateral security pact greatly reduced anxieties in both governments over interference in each other’s internal affairs.

Unfortunately, the agreements collapsed after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in August 2005. Iran restarted its nuclear enrichment programme, the UN Security Council adopted resolutions sanctioning Iran, and Abdullah – by now the king of Saudi Arabia – repeatedly exhorted the US to “cut off the head of the snake” by launching military strikes to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme.

Then, in January 2016, Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shia cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, along with 46 other Shia dissidents. Nimr’s execution triggered protests in front of Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Tehran.

The proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia escalated in Yemen, as the Houthis used drones and missiles to attack Saudi oil installations. In ever, and Iran supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against internal and external efforts to overthrow him. Assad’s efforts to normalise his regime have made considerable progress during the past year.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia welcomed former US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, and supported reinstating economic sanctions on Iran – only to see it now enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels.

Trump’s maximum pressure and sanctions campaign against Iran has been devastating. Ordinary Iranians have been confronted with skyrocketing prices and a greatly devalued currency. Last autumn, a wave of anti-government protests swept the country after the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. Iran’s government responded by strengthening its military and political alliance with Russia, as evidenced by Iran’s supply of drones to Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine.

Serious distrust

The upshot of these developments was a lose-lose for both Riyadh and Tehran, demonstrating that their confrontation would have no winner. The recent agreement in Beijing shows that Iran’s conservative government, led by President Ebrahim Raisi, has restored relations with Saudi Arabia based on the two agreements formulated during the moderate government of Rafsanjani and implemented by the “reformist” government of Khatami.

The distrust between Tehran and Riyadh is both deep and serious. Both governments, however, have committed to observe the principles of the UN Charter, including respect for national sovereignty and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. This is necessary, but not sufficient on its own. The agreement must be supplemented with additional commitments to ensure sustainable, friendly relations between Tehran and Riyadh.

By John Scales Avery

Over 300 wars!

As documented in the Wikipedia timeline of U.S. wars,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations

and in the Wikipedia list of wars involving the United States,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

the United States of America has been more or less continuously at war ever since the American Revolutionary war of 1775-1783, which established the United States as a nation. Often several wars took place simultaneously. Many of America’s early wars were aimed at eliminating the First People, the native inhabitants of the country, and were thus genocidal in nature.

Global hegemony through military force

In recent years, the United States has aimed at “full spectrum dominance”, military dominance over all other nations, global hegemony through military force, and the construction of an empire. We should remember that the threat or use of military force violates both the United Nations Charter and the Nuremberg Principles.

Incredibly bloated military budgets

The United States Military-Industrial Complex seems to have a hold over both Republicans and Democrats. With almost no dissenting voices, both parties recently voted to give roughly a trillion dollars for weapons and other military purposes

Militarism is the US national religion

Here are some quotations from an article by William Astore:

“We believe in wars. We may no longer believe in formal declarations of war… but that sure hasn’t stopped us from waging them. From Korea to Vietnam, Afghanistan to Iraq, the Cold War to the War on Terror, and so many military interventions in between, including Grenada, Panama and Somalia, Americans are always fighting somewhere, as if we saw great utility in thumbing our noses at the Prince of Peace (that’s Jesus Christ, if I remember my Catholic Catechism correctly)

“We believe in weaponry, the more expensive the better. The underperforming F-35 stealth fighter may cost $1.45 trillion over its lifetime. An updated nuclear triad (land-based missiles, nuclear submarines, and strategic bombers) may cost that already mentioned $1.7 trillion. New (and malfunctioning) aircraft carriers cost us more than $10 billion each. And all such weaponry requests get funded, with few questions asked, despite a history of their redundancy, ridiculously high price, regular cost overruns, and mediocre performance. Meanwhile, Americans squabble bitterly over a few hundred million dollars for the arts and humanities…”

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq

March 20, 2023 marked the 20th anniversary of the criminal invasion of Iraq. It was based on a lie, which asserted that Sadam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. When Iraq was invaded, no such nuclear, biological or chemical weapons were ever found. However, as documented in the following article, the invasion ultimately resulted in more than 5 million Iraqi deaths.

https://countercurrents.org/2023/03/iraq-invasion-20th-anniversary-5-million-dead-in-iraqi-holocaust/?swcfpc=1

Many of those who died were children, deprived of food and medicines by postwar sanctions.

War has become prohibitively dangerous

War was always madness, always immoral, always the cause of unspeakable suffering, economic waste and widespread destruction, and always a source of poverty, hate, barbarism and endless cycles of revenge and counter-revenge. It has always been a crime for soldiers to kill people, just as it is a crime for murderers in civil society to kill people. No flag has ever been wide enough to cover up the atrocities of war.

But today, the development of all-destroying thermonuclear weapons has put war completely beyond the bounds of sanity and elementary humanity.

Today, the existing nuclear weapons have half a million times the power of the bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A thermonuclear war would destroy human civilization, together with most of the plants and animals with which we share the gift of life.

Research has shown that fire-storms produced by a nuclear war would send vast quantities of smoke into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight, and blocking the hydrological cycle. The climate would become very cold for a period of about ten years. Human agriculture would fail. Plants and animals would also be killed by the nuclear winter.

Can we not rid ourselves of both nuclear weapons and the institution of war itself?

We must act quickly and resolutely before our beautiful world is reduced to radioactive ashes, together with everything that we love.

Many of my freely downloadable books can be found at the following web addresses:

https://www.johnavery.info/

http://eacpe.org/about-john-scales-avery/

John Scales Avery is a theoretical chemist at the University of Copenhagen. He is noted for his books and research publications in quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, evolution, and history of science.

20 March 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Prof Abdul Jabbar

This idea is based on the distinguished journalist Irfan Hashmi’s suggestion to prevent the imminent civil war and loss of millions of lives in Pakistan, including lives of those in power now who are violating the country’s laws and subjecting Pakistan’s people to unprecedented cruelty. What is the fault of the country’s 80% population? They are supporting Imran Khan. Why do those in power now want to kill him? Because he keeps on winning every election. The ruling junta, 65% of whom are on bail for one crime or another, are so used to be in power that they cannot tolerate anyone else to replace them. Now that they know they cannot win the elections, they want to kill Imran Khan. There have been many attempts to kill him. He barely and miraculously survived an attempt on his life in which he was severely injured.

To Imran Khan:

“Your enemies have decided that there will be no elections. They are bent on killing you and have almost succeeded twice, as you yourself said in your latest address to the nation today, March 19, 2023. Please request the Supreme Court Chief Justice to apply the law that calls for restoration of the provincial governments that were in power when the assemblies were dissolved if provincial elections are not held within 90 days after the dissolution. It is evident that the current government and Establishment are focused on arresting and killing you, not on elections, which they know they will lose. Legally mandated restoration of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments is the only way to save you from murder and prevent civil war and bloodshed in Pakistan that is inevitable if the current criminal government assassinates you. Your courage and fearlessness has no parallel, but the nation would like to continue benefiting from your leadership, which can happen only if you are alive. Your supporters prevented you from surrendering to the police when the police unlawfully and in defiance of the Lahore High Court’s orders attacked your house and rained down tear gas shells on your house. You wanted to surrender voluntarily just to prevent bloodshed, even though you knew well that you might be killed if you surrendered. Your supporters prevented you from surrendering because they do not want to lose you.

The criminal police mafia’s latest action was in the form of an attack on your house and family when they knew you were on your way to appear before the High Court in Islamabad. They terrorized your wife, beat up your domestic helpers and guards, and ransacked your house. This cowardly and shameful action has no precedent in Pakistan’s history. Since you are truly concerned about Pakistan and its people, please accept the fact that you cannot fight the corrupt and power-wielding elements in the government, in the army, and all bureaucratic machinery. With your government in Punjab and KP restored in accordance with the law, you can continue your mission of having fair elections and can drive out the cowardly criminals at least from those two provinces.”

Prof. Abdul Jabbar is the first and longest-serving Pakistani-American academic in the United States, having taught Literature, Isam, and Globa Politics for more than half a century.

20 March 2023

Source: countercurrents.org