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By Peter Koenig

Transcript of a PressTV Interview – Following a live press Conference by the Foreign Ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey at the UN Geneva, Switzerland

Background

GENEVA, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) — The UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said here on Monday that the Constitutional Committee’s launch should be a sign of hope for the long-suffering Syrian people.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Pedersen said that the creation of the Constitutional Committee is a shared promise to the Syrian people to try in earnest to agree on new constitutional arrangements for Syria’s future.

Russia, Iran and Turkey have stressed that Syrian constitutional committee must work independently from any foreign intervention to gain maximum support from the people in the Arab country.
Sergey Lavrov was reading a joint statement made by Moscow, Tehran and Ankara ahead of a meeting of Syria’s constitutional committee in Geneva. Lavrov also highlighted the importance of Syria’s unity and territorial integrity. He expressed the readiness of Russia, Iran and Turkey to cooperate with the United Nation’s special envoy for Syria to facilitate the work of the constitutional committee. Lavrov urged the volunteer and safe return of Syrian refugees to their homeland. The Russian foreign minister also described the presence of the U-S troops in Syrian oil fields as illegal.

PressTV – Question
How would you assess the Launch of the Syrian Constitutional Committee – and the Conclusion of the Press Conference?

PK Answer
The Constitutional Committee —- is a good initiative, of course.

And as Mr. Pederson says,“Syrians, not outsiders, will draft the constitution. And the Syrian people must popularly approve it.” – This is an absolute must.

But we should not forget -and I do not think this is a coincidence, that President Trump just decided to leave troops in Syria – under whatever pretext is unimportant.

And I do not think that he wants to either protect nor steel Syrian oil.
What he wants is remaining with a sizable – and flexible – military presence in Syria.

Let’s backtrack to 2008 and then 2011 – when the CIA first recruited, trained, funded and armed the terror groups in 2008 up to 2011 – when they launched the so-called “civil war” – as part of the Arab Spring – which as we all know, has nothing to do with a civil war, but it’s a US mercenary war against the legitimate Syrian Government.

Why is it important to remember this?

Because, Washington has made it its goal to ultimately control Syria – Syria is part of the list countries mentioning in the PNAC (Plan for a New American Century) that must fall – in order for the US to reach full global hegemony. To reach that goal, the Middle East is a key square on the geopolitical Chess Board.

This should always remain in the back of the heads of those who negotiate and draft the new Constitution – the idea of new Constitution is good, but even if all parties agree, it will only be possible to apply it when the US leaves Syria. That is a must.

So, while the negotiations and drafting of the Constitution goes on, observed by Russia,Iran, and Turkey and of course the UN – it is extremely important that the US leaves Syria – letting Syria take full and sovereign control of her territory.

PressTV:
It is an important part of the validity of the new Constitution that Syria gains full sovereignty over her territories. What if the US won’t leave?

PK
That is precisely the point. The US is not likely to leave voluntarily – as we just have vivid proof. They stay under any pretext – as it is and remains their goal to achieve regime change in Syria and dominate this crucial pivotal Middle East country, called Syria.

And more so, as the US does not even have an observer role in the drafting of the new Constitution, unlike, Russia, Iran and Turkey – and of course the UN.

Washington could easily disrupt the process by launching again a false flag attack, by re-mobilizing the ISIS / Al Qaeda terror, or by calling NATO to “secure and protect”the Syrian oil fields. There is no shortage of potential interference by the US.

This is not to put a negative spell on the process of the Constitutional Committee. But let’s be conscious of the dangers, while this worthwhile initiative is moving forward.

The designated observers’ awareness and constant presence in Geneva and in Syria, is, therefore, of utmost importance. Let’s it also be reminded, Russia and Iran are invited in Syria by President Assad, the presence of the US is illegitimate. Peace can be secured only once the US leaves Syria, be that by diplomatic or economic pressure. For the America, leaving Syria is like stepping back from their objective of Middle East and world hegemony. And that does not come voluntarily.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist.

30 October 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Vltchek

Tires are burning, smoke is rising towards the sky. It is October, the 18th day of the month, the capital city of Lebanon, in the past known as the “Paris of the East”, is covered in smoke.

For years I was warning that the country governed by corrupt, indifferent elites, could not hold together, indefinitely.

For all those five years when I was calling Beirut home, things were going down the drain. Nothing was improving: almost no public transportation, electricity shortages, contaminated and erratic water supply. Periodically, garbage has been piling up along the streets and suburban roads. Once an airplane lands and the doors open, the terrible stench of garbage welcomes us, residents of Beirut, back home.

Almost everyone knew that all this could not continue like this, forever.

The city was suffering from 4th World diseases, while simultaneously being flooded with Land Rover SUVs, Maserati and Porsche sports cars, and Armani suits.

Beiruthas almost collapsed to Jakarta levels, although, one has to admit,with extremely smart, highly educated and sophisticated elites, capable of conversing simultaneously in three world languages: French, Arabic and English. Also, with first rate art galleries, art cinemas, posh bars and nightclubs. With lavish marinas and the best bookstores in the entire Middle East.

Some say that Beirut has always been in possession of brain and guts, but something happened to its heart.

Now nothing really works here. But if you have millions of dollars, it does not really matter; you can buy anything here. If you are poor, destitute – abandon all hope. And the majority of the people here are now miserably poor. And no one even knows precisely how many are destitute, as a census is forbidden, in order ‘not to disturb religious balance’ (it was, for years, somehow agreed on, that it is better not to know how many Christians or Muslims are residing in the country).

It is certain that most of people are not rich. And now, outraged by their rulers, corrupt politicians and so-called elites, they are shouting, loudly and clearly: “Enough!”, Halas, down with the regime!”

*

The government decided to impose a tax on WhatsApp calls. Not a big deal, some would say. But it was; it is, it suddenly became a big deal. “The last drop”, perhaps.

The city exploded. Barricades were erected. Tires were set on fire. Everywhere: in the poorest as well as in the richest neighborhoods.

“Revolution!” people began shouting.

Lebanon has a history of left-wing, even Communist insurgencies. It also has its fair share of religious, right-wing fanaticism. Which one will win? Which one will be decisive, during this national rebellion?

The Communist Party is now behind several marches. But Hezbollah, until now the most solid social force in the country, is not yet convinced that the government of Saad al Hariri, should simply resign.

According to Reuters:

“Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said… that the group was not demanding the government’s resignation amid widespread national protests.

Nasrallah said in a televised speech that he supported the government, but called for a new agenda and “new spirit,” adding that ongoing protests showed the way forward was not new taxes.”

Any tax imposed on the poor would push him to call supporters to go take to the streets, Nasrallah added.”

So far, the rebellion has left countless people injured, while two Syrian immigrants lost their lives. Some local analysts say that this is the most serious uprising since the one in 2015 (which included the “You Stink!” campaign, reactingto the appalling garbage crises in Beirut and to the worsening social disaster), but others, including this author, are convinced that this is actually the most serious political catastrophe Lebanon has been facing since the 1980’s.

One hears anger, on every corner of the capital, in cafes and local stores:

“Trust is broken!”

Even those who used to be far from any political activities, are now supporting protesters.

Ms. Jehan, a local staff member at a UN office in Beirut, is one of those who found herself on the side of the rebellion:

“What is happening to Beirut and all over in Lebanon is good. It is about time we stood up. I will go too. This has nothing to do with religions. It is about our shattered lives.”

*

Reading Western mainstream media, one could begin to believe that Lebanon’s main problems are issues like foreign debt (Lebanon is, on a per capita basis, the third most indebted country on earth. The debt stands at 150% of its GDP), miniscule real reserves (US$ 10 billion), and the way the country interacts with the donors and lenders. IMF and its “advice” are constantly mentioned.

But even news agencies like Reuters have to admit that the entire mess is far from just about structural problems:

“As dollars have dried up, banks have effectively stopped lending and can no longer make basic foreign-exchange transactions for clients, one banker said.”

““The whole role of banks is to pour money into the central bank to finance the government and protect the currency,” he said. “Nothing is being done on the fiscal deficit because doing something will disrupt the systems of corruption.””

And here is the key word: “Corruption!”

Lebanon’s elites are shamelessly corrupt. Only such countries like Indonesia are able to compete with the Lebanese troglodyte clans, when it comes to stripping the entire nation of its riches.

Almost nothing is clean, or pure in Lebanon, and that is also why there aren’t any statistics available.

Money comes from the monstrous and ruthless exploitation of natural resources in West Africa. Everybody knows it, but it is never addressed, publicly. I worked in West Africa, and I know what the racist Lebanese ‘business people’ are doing there. But money stolen from the Africans does not enrich Lebanon and its people. It ends up in the Lebanese banks, and spent on lavish yachts, tacky and overpriced European sports cars, and inside bizarre private clubs in and around the capital. While many Lebanese people are near starvation, airplanes flying to Nice, Venice or Greek Islands are constantly packed with la dolce vita seekers.

Lebanon makes billions of dollars from narcotics, particularly those cultivated and refined in the Beqaa Valley. They get exported mainly to Saudi Arabia, for the consumption of the rich, or injected into the battlefields in Yemen and Syria, so-called combat drugs. Again, everyone knows it, but nothing is done to stop it. Hundreds of families, from farmers to politicians, got filthy rich on that trade. This adds a few more super-yachts at the proverbial Beirut marinas.

Then, there is ‘foreign aid’, ‘European investment into infrastructure’, Saudi and Qatari money. Most of it goes, directly, into the pockets of corrupt officials, to the so-called ‘government’, and to its buddies, contractors. Almost nothing is built, but the money is gone.Lebanon has railroad employees who are getting their monthly paychecks, but no railways, anymore. Train station had been converted into vodka bar. Lebanon begs for money so it can host refugees from all over the region, but much of the money ends up in a few deep pockets. Very little goes to the refugees themselves, or to the poor Lebanese people who have to compete for low-paying jobs with the desperate Syrians or Palestinians.

The poor are getting poorer. Yet, Ethiopian, Philippine and Kenyan maids are dragging the groceries of the rich, wiping spit off the faces of babies born into elite families, and cleaning toilets. Some get tortured by their masters, many commit suicide. Lebanon is a tough place, for those who do not look Phoenician or European.

And the slums in the south of Beirut are growing. And some Lebanese cities, like Tripoli in the north, look like tremendous slums, altogether.

Ali, a receptionist at a hotel in downtown Beirut laments:

“I work here as a receptionist for 14 hours and earn only 540 USD every month. I need a minimum of 700 USD to survive. I have a sister in US and want to visit her only for a week, but there is no way I can get visa. I am only 24 years old. I see no future in this country, like so many thousand others protesting in the streets of Beirut.”

According to various estimates, Lebanon may collapse as early as in February 2020. No more money can be looted. The end game is approaching.

If it does collapse, the rich will have their golden parachutes. They have their families abroad: in Australia, Brazil, France. Some have two passports, others have houses in the most desirable parts of the world.

The poor will be left with absolutely nothing: with a carcass of a country, previously looted by its own elites. There will be rotting, ageing Ferraris, all over, but one cannot eat carcasses of cars. There will be lavish but abandoned swimming pools, right next to polluted and destroyed beaches.

People know it, and they have had enough.

Mohamed, a worker at a Starbucks cafe in Beirut is determined:

“This is terrible but it is about time. We can take no more. We need to change the country, drastically. This time things are different. Not about who we worship but about our daily lives.”

Lebanon, in comparison to other shamelessly-capitalist countries, is well-educated. People here cannot be fooled.

The rebellion against the elites has just begun. People want to take back their country.

*

[First published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook – a journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences]

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries.

30 October 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

Following an unprecedented popular revolt for 13 days over decades of political corruption and economic turmoil in Lebanon, Prime Minister Saad Hariri has resigned on Tuesday.

After the announcement, the main protest square in central Beirut erupted into applause, less than an hour after counter-demonstrators ravaged the site and attacked protesters.

Cries of celebration and joy went up across Lebanon, one of the world’s most highly indebted nations with public debt at more than 150 percent of GDP, on Tuesday although most of the protesters said this was merely an initial victory in a long-term battle.

Hariri’s televised address came soon after violence broke out on the streets in Beirut, when a few hundred supporters of two Shia groups – Hezbollah and the Amal Movement – beat protesters and destroyed protest encampments in central Beirut before Hariri’s televised address, eventually retreating after security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets.

The Shia groups set tents on fire and beat anti-government demonstrators. Some chanted in support of Hezbollah – a powerful force in the coalition government – and the Shia political party Amal.

Riot police and troops responded with tear gas, and by the end of the day, anti-government protesters were back on the streets celebrating Hariri’s announcement.

Resignation

Hariri on Tuesday submitted his government’s resignation to President Michel Aoun.

“I will head to the Baabda Palace to submit the government’s resignation in response to the demands of a lot of Lebanese who took to the streets,” Hariri said in an address to the nation.

He later submitted a written resignation to the president at the Baabda Palace.

After the announcement by Hariri, one protester shown on local television said: “Saad Hariri is only the beginning. We will continue” until others resign.

The nationwide cross-sectarian protest movement is calling for an overhaul of a political class viewed as incompetent and corrupt.

The protesters have accused the political elite of desperately attempting to save their jobs and have stuck to their demands for deep, systemic change – a complete overhaul of country’s sectarian-based system of government.

The main demand of the protesters has been the formation of a government of independent experts to guide the country through a worsening economic and financial crisis and secure basic services such as electricity and water.

Chance should not be wasted

Addressing “all political life partners,” Hariri said: “Today our responsibility is to seek ways to protect Lebanon and revive the economy.”

“There is a serious chance that should not be wasted and I put my resignation at the disposal of the president and all Lebanese,” he said.

“Posts come and go and what’s important is the country’s dignity and safety,” Hariri went on to say, stressing, “no one is bigger than their country,” which is a famous saying by his father, slain ex-PM Rafik Hariri.

It is unusual for a prime minister to announce his cabinet’s resignation before holding talks at the presidential palace in Baabda.

Media reports quoted Baabda sources as saying that President Aoun was “still studying Hariri’s resignation letter” and that he would not ask him to act in caretaker capacity on Tuesday.

Raised fists and street wins

With raised fists, traditional “dabkeh” dances and broad smiles, thousands of Lebanese celebrated Hariri’s offer to resign.

Across Lebanon, demonstrators filled main squares in their droves, waving Lebanese flags and celebrating their first major win.

The northern city of Tripoli, a stronghold of Hariri’s al-Mustaqbal Movement, saw one of the largest turnouts, with hundreds releasing red, white and green balloons – the colors of the Lebanese flag.

The southern city of Sidon, from where the Hariri family hails, was filled with a festival atmosphere after the premier’s speech.

Young men lifted each other on their shoulders, as demonstrators danced dabkeh and pounded on drums.

“As of this moment, we can say the street has won,” said Atef al-Abreeq. “The street has forced the government to resign.”

Revolution is not over

“Our revolution is not over,” shouted the protesters.

“What happened today is a big achievement for the revolution,” said Mohammed, 32.

Some protesters even called on members of Hariri’s al-Mustaqbal Movement to join in the festivities.

Demonstrators distributed traditional Arabic sweets, coffee and corn on the cob.

But many said their work was unfinished.

“This resignation is welcome but it’s not enough, it’s only one part of a larger list of demands,” said Tima Samir, a 35-year-old mother of two.

“We want the entire system to change and we’ll stay on the streets until all our demands are met.”

In Sidon, Ahed Madi said he had never witnessed such scenes in his hometown.

“Sidon usually celebrates when a government is formed. This is the first time Sidon celebrates the government’s resignation,” he told AFP.

In the Beirut streets, the protesters exchanged hugs and kisses, the ground around them littered with the charred remains of burnt tents.

“The next step is the formation of a transitional government comprising of independents,” said Gil Samaha as jubilant protesters started to stream back in.

“Hariri isn’t the one who’s sending his people to beat us up and destroy what we have. Those people are still in Parliament and we need to finish what we’ve started there,” Mouzannar said, sitting next to a tent being reconstructed by protesters.

On a nearby road leading to Riad al-Solh square, Saba, a 21-year old event planner, was painting Lebanese flags on the faces of passersby. “He should have resigned earlier, but better late than never – and we got what we wanted,” she said.

But she, too, said Hariri’s resignation by no means satisfied her hopes for the unprecedented movement she was part of. “Step two is to get back the money politicians have stolen from us. Then we will hold everyone accountable, and God is on our side,” she said.

As evening fell, hundreds of Lebanese in Riad al-Solh stood together for the national anthem. Many hugged. One woman stood still, tears rolling from her eyes.

“This may be the biggest achievement for my generation, winning in a clash of this level with our politicians,” Nabil, a 30-year old engineer, said.

Hundreds of others were out in towns and villages across the country, including in Jal al-Dib, Zouk Mosbeh and Jbeil north of Beirut, and Nabatieh and Tyre south of the capital.

“We don’t want any part of the ruling class to be part of this government. The most important thing is to get rid of them all, and form a new electoral law that abolishes sectarianism and has Lebanon as one district,” Rafeef, a 21-year old law student, said.

Back in Riad al-Solh, Rafeed, the law student, said she had woken up the day before feeling as if the protest movement was coming to an end. It was raining, turnout was low across the country, and the government did not seem like it was budging.

“But after what happened today, I’m certain we won’t be leaving the squares,” she said.

“We have nothing to lose at this point. If they want to kill us in the squares, let them do it – but we won’t budge until our demands are met.”

Complicated task

The sudden resignation – the third by Hariri in his career – will restart the complicated task of parliament forming a new government.

It would also mark the most significant win by the protesting people.

Sami Nader, director of Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs, said, “Hariri is opening the door to a solution because the resignation is the only way for a decent exit from the current crisis.”

He said the most likely outcome would be the formation of a government “ala Libanainse, which means you put some independent figures in order to satisfy the street, but the old modus operandi will remain.”

“At least Hariri opened the door for a possible solution, because we were in total deadlock and behaving as if nothing happened and doing business as usual was not a solution.”

Lebanon’s current electoral law has the country gerrymandered into 15 districts, with seats allocated by sect.

Political leaders have appeared shell-shocked, trying simultaneously to express sympathy for the largely peaceful protests while warning of chaos in case of a power vacuum.

Unclear situation

As of Tuesday night, the chart for forthcoming government formation deliberations, which take place via binding consultations between Parliament and the president, were unclear – though Hariri is widely seen as a likely candidate to again head the new government.

Most political players simply called for calm although Hezbollah and its ally the Free Patriotic Movement, the biggest party in the now-resigned government, did not make official statements.

“What is happening requires immediate calm and dialogue between all Lebanese sides,” Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah, told local media, adding, “What is happening is not sectarian at all.”

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea, whose four ministers quit from government on October 19, welcomed Hariri’s resignation. He said a new “government of specialists” should be formed and include people known for their “cleanliness, integrity and success.”

Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Joumblatt, an ally of Hariri, who had previously called on Hariri to resign, before reversing this call, also said dialogue and calm were paramount in the current situation.

As soon as Hariri announced his resignation, popular delegations, dignitaries, clerics, former prime ministers, incumbent ministers and al-Mustaqbal Movement MPs flocked to the Center House to express their support for his decision to resign.

The visitors included former PMs Tamam Salam and Fouad Saniora, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan and the ministers Raya al-Hassan, Mohammed Choucair, Adel Afiouni and Jamal Jarrah.

Hariri told his visitors: “I just want to say: May God protect Lebanon and we hope to get out of this impasse and we hope that the country will be fine.”

He said he was relieved because the resignation was in response to what the people wants, and said: “We will all stay together.”

To avoid financial collapse

Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh on Monday said the country needed a solution to the crisis within days to avoid a financial collapse.

“The only real way forward for Lebanon is to appoint a government that can move on from the disruption of this revolution and restore the confidence with the people and the international community,” Nader said.

What’s Next

The resignation of Hariri will plunge the country into even greater uncertainty, with no clear path to resolving its growing economic and political crisis.

The political settlement that ended Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war distribution of power and top offices among the country’s Shiites, Sunnis and Christians. The complex sectarian system has mostly kept the peace, but it has made major decisions extremely difficult and contributed to long periods of political gridlock.

The Western-backed Hariri had served in a national unity government dominated by rival factions allied with the militant Hizbullah group. He had proposed the creation of an emergency cabinet made up of a small group of technocrats to steer the country toward necessary reforms, but his governing partners refused.

A point of dispute emerged over Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, the son-in-law of President Michel Aoun.

The protesters have trained much of their vitriol on the two men, who are allied with Hizbullah, but Aoun has reportedly insisted on remaining in office and keeping Bassil in his post. Hizbullah, which has three ministers in the government, has stuck by its allies and was opposed to Hariri’s decision to resign.

Aoun will task the now-resigned government to continue in a caretaker capacity. Under the constitution, he then has to hold binding consultations with the heads of parliamentary blocs to ask them for their choice of a new prime minister. He could then appoint Hariri or another individual from the Sunni community to form a government. In Lebanon’s system, the presidency is reserved for a Christian, the prime minister is Sunni and the parliament speaker is Shiite.

Aoun has the right in principle to reject Hariri’s resignation, but he could then refuse to call for cabinet meetings.

The process of forming a new Lebanese government typically takes several months. It took Lebanon’s factions 2 ½ years to agree on the current president, and it took nine months to form Hariri’s now-embattled government.

This time, however, the country is in the grip of a severe economic crisis that has only worsened since the protests began, with banks, schools and businesses are closed for two weeks.

“In this context, it is incredibly difficult to see them agreeing on any one new name,” said Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center.

That would leave Hariri in place as head of a caretaker government.

“His capacity to address the economic crisis and possible economic and financial collapse will be curtailed even more,” Yahya said. “A devaluation of the Lebanese pound will likely lead to even more social unrest and turbulence on the street.”

Hariri’s resignation makes crisis “even more serious” says France

The resignation of Lebanon’s government has made the crisis there “even more serious,” France’s foreign minister said Tuesday.

“Prime Minister Hariri has just resigned, which makes the crisis even more serious,” Jean-Yves Le Drian told parliament in Paris, and urged the authorities in Lebanon “to do everything they can to guarantee the stability of the institutions and the unity of Lebanon.”

Le Drian said a condition for stability in any country “is a willingness to listen to the voice and demands of the population.”

“Lebanon needs a commitment from all political leaders to look within themselves and make sure there is a strong response to the population,” said the minister, offering France’s help.

30 October 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Mazin Qumsiyeh

21 Oct 2019 – My mother says I should have worn long sleeves for the Palestinian olive trees sometimes do not want to part with their fruits without a bit of resistance. But somehow I feel the few minor scratches are a badge of honor and the least I owe our beloved trees. The whole year, we look forward to these days. My sister, wife, mother, and I harvested the olive trees sometimes silently, sometimes talking about mundane things, and rarely speaking of things of consequence. But thoughts are another story.

My thoughts wonder to the Palestinians who lost their olive groves to the colonial settlement activity (over 1 million trees have been uprooted). The picture of the old women hugging her tree that was being cut by the Israeli occupiers flashes through my mind (see photo below*). I am reminded of my deceased father during such time. I feel at peace with the sorrow and anger overwhelmed by emotions of gratitude and serenity under the old olive trees. The olive harvest is after all a ritual that borders on an act of worship (and maybe it is). The stimulation of our senses during the harvest is hard to describe. It is not just the invigorating smells of the olive leaves and whiffs of olive oil but the shape and feel of each olive as our hands comb the tree like a mother combing her daughter’s hair, the sight of beloved ones tending the same tree before moving to the next.

We smile and greet neighbors who stop by to say hello or comment on the production this year (it is actually a poor year since last year was really good and these things alternate). The mechanics of the harvest and the post-harvest work become routine for anyone who has done it once. Old carpets or sheets are spread under the tree. Olives are dropped onto those (never by hitting the tree!). The gathered olives are separated from leaves and any remaining stems removed (on a “sidr”/tray that is inclined). They are kept aired out on mats in a dry place while big healthy olives are picked for pickling.

The pickling involves cracking the olives and submerging them in water containing salt, lemon juice, pieces f lemons, and some lemon leaves. The remaining olives are taken to the press where olive oil is produced. In the old days, we had a stone press with an animal (donkey or mule) rotating two large circular stones placed in a hollowed stone shaped like a cake pan. Now the modern presses (made in Turkey) do the operation in no time at all.

It is hard to describe to non-Palestinians what the olive tree means to us. We could tell of the practical things but that would be like saying our spouses mean a lot to us because of … (and then list all the things they do). Of course these things are important but not the whole picture and we could never do justice that way to people or other living things we love. But just like listing what people do help others visualize their character, so it is with the beloved olive tree. Palestinians over the past 5000 years have cultivated olive trees and derived great benefit from these wonderful hardy trees:

• The olive (Zeitoon) was pickled (rsees) and eaten and perhaps it is the only food that is found in all three meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Its nutritional value is credited with significant health benefits.
• The olive oil (Zeit) is THE oil in Palestine. It is highly nutritious and used in dozens of recipes. The main and most common folkloric recipe going back over 3000 years is Zeit u Zaatar (also sometimes called Zeit u Dukka); the bread is dipped in olive oil then in a thyme based powder (that includes sesame seeds and spices). Thyme and Sesame and many other plans were of course first domesticated and used right here in Palestine (the left wing of the Fertile Crescent). Olive oil was used in Palestine more extensively in the past in oil lamps, in protection of hair and skin, as a lubricant, as an insecticide, and much more.
• The olive pits (and less so olive wood pieces) are used to make “prayer beads” that were used by both Palestinian Christians and Muslims for hundreds of years. The simple act of running fingers through these beads sometimes meditating in the process while concentrating on that feeling gives us a sense of tranquility and peace (much needed considering the circumstances of Palestine over the ages).
• The olive wood is used to make artifacts that locals sell to pilgrims as souvenirs from the Holy Land or keep at their homes. This is true for all monotheistic traditions. Here in Bethlehem, our ancestors made a living of this as artisans for generations (my own family relied on this and agriculture as far back as we can trace to the 16th century).
• The herds of sheep and goats rely on olive leaves and branches trimmed during this season for a significant part of their annual diet.
• The wood was used (less so recently) as firewood. It is a hardy wood that generates much heat per unit kilogram than any other wood I know. The glass smelters in Hebron (famous for its stained glass artistry) used olive wood derived coals as a main energy source.
• The olive trees gave our people shelter from the strong sun and inspired poets, lovers, painters, and prophets across the ages.
• Even the left over material after the production of oil is recycled for energy source.

Here are a few pictures taken by my wife of our harvest, pickling and squeezing of olives to get our yearly supply of these trees:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jchangcpa/2009OliveHarvest?authkey=Gv1sRgCLvr8Mf57Ya5Zg&feat=directlink#

Olive production is always high in one year low in the next**. Last year was high, this year was low and next year (Inshallah) it will be higher barring further destruction by Israel as happened in Gaza recently. In the meantime, we still enjoy our olives and hope that you will come visit us in Palestine so that we can serve you some of the fantastic dishes that include olives or their products and we can do it under the olive trees. I also noted this interesting story of a Palestinian in China proving again that you can take Palestinians outside of Palestine but you cannot take Palestine outside of Palestinians:

China’s first olive harvest strikes oil

(http://www.olives101.com/2006/05/24/chinas-first-olive-harvest-strikes-oil/)

The Olive tree: a folkloric briefing from Bethlehem University

(http://library.bethlehem.edu/e-turathuna/OliveTree/)

** Olive Oil production in West Bank and Gaza in tons showing yearly cyclical change with higher production in even years:

1988 31100
1989 1690
1990 27500
1991 570
1992 33700
1993 525
1994 18000
1995 8628
1996 24953
1997 5500
1998 22000
1999 3800
2000 30000
2001 6686
2002 31784
2003 11300
2004 30232

____________________________________________

Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics and director of cytogenetic services at Yale University School of Medicine, is founder and president of the Holy Land Conservation Foundation and ex-president of the Middle East Genetics Association.

28 October 2019

Source: www.transcend.org

By Countercurrents Collective

The Iraqi government is now taking legal action against the uninvited presence of the U.S. forces in Iraq.

The U.S. forces entered western Iraq without authorization as it withdrew from Syria.

The Iraqi government is also seeking international help after U.S. troops entered western Iraq without any authorization from the Iraq government.

Baghdad did not give permission for U.S. forces to stay in Iraq, Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi reaffirmed on Wednesday. The Iraqi PM said: “We ask the international community and the United Nations to perform their roles in this matter.”

Iraqi PM said the U.S. troops withdrawing from northeast Syria do not have permission to stay in Iraq, adding that his government is taking “all international legal measures” in response to their unauthorized entry into the country.

“We have [already] issued an official statement saying that and are taking all international legal measures. We ask the international community and the United Nations to perform their roles in this matter,” the premier said.

The statement comes as U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper arrived in the country on Wednesday in an unannounced visit while reaffirming Tuesday’s statement from the Iraqi military which only allowed transit through Iraq for the U.S. troops.

“All U.S. forces that withdrew from Syria have received approval to enter the Kurdistan region to be transported out of Iraq, however, there is no permission for these forces to stay,” the statement read.

The Iraqi military statement contradicted the Pentagon’s announcement that all of the nearly 1,000 troops withdrawing from northern Syria are expected to move to western Iraq to continue the campaign against the Islamic State group (IS) and to help “defend” Iraq.

Esper said Tuesday that U.S. troops transiting from Syria would use Iraq to make preparations to go home and assured that the aim is not to “stay in Iraq interminably.”

Esper did not specify how long the U.S. troops would be staying.

In addition, Esper said Tuesday during his visit to Saudi Arabia that the troops will be prepared in Iraq to return to their homeland, without specifying the deadline for their return.

“The goal is not to stay in Iraq endlessly but to withdraw our soldiers and eventually bring them back home,” Esper said at Prince Sultan Air Force Base near Riyadh.

U.S. removed its troops from northern Syria on foot of a Turkish offensive against Kurdish militias in the region.

The U.S. already has 5,000 troops in Iraq under an arrangement with the Iraqi government, but the agreement is a controversial one, with many Iraqis regarding it as continued occupation after the disastrous 2003 U.S. invasion.

Hundreds of vehicles carrying U.S. troops crossed the Syrian-Iraqi border through the Kurdish region of northern Iraq on Monday, and it is estimated that more than 5,000 troops are currently stationed in that Arab country under a bilateral agreement.

After the end of the war in 2011, the U.S. military presence in Iraq had diminished considerably, a fact that changed in 2014 with the threat of IS.

The U.S. military presence continues to be a sensitive and politicized issue as part of Iraqi society considers it an occupation.

Transit only, says Iraqi military

The U.S. forces that crossed into Iraq after pulling out from Syria can only use its territory for transit and do not have permission to stay, the Iraqi military said on Tuesday.

The Iraqi statement adds more uncertainty to a vision of what will actually happen to the troops after their withdrawal from Syria.

In the last few days, the U.S. military were simultaneously reported to be “going home” – that’s according to President Trump – and continuing their mission in Iraq to conduct operations against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in a plan outlined by U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper. He also mentioned some soldiers may remain in Syria to protect oil fields from IS takeover.

The U.S. pulled its forces out of Iraq in 2011 ending nine years of war that started with missile strikes on Baghdad to oust President Saddam Hussein, but they went back after IS began to gain ground in 2014. The number of US forces in the country remains a sensitive and politicized issue after the war that some Iraqis considered to be a US occupation.

U.S. forces leaving Syria for Iraq, not returning home: Pentagon

But an earlier report said:

Esper told reporters traveling with him as he left Washington Saturday heading for Afghanistan, that all U.S. troops currently leaving Syria would be sent to Iraq in order to pursue operations against the IS.

The Pentagon chief’s statements came as U.S. President Donald Trump claimed he was bringing U.S. soldiers home from “endless wars” in the Middle East.

Before he arrived ​​​​​in Afghanistan on Sunday, Esper made clear that, according to current plans, the militaries are not going back to their country and the U.S. is not departing from the region, suggesting that counterterrorism missions could be conducted from Iraq into Syria.

The official’s remarks were the first to layout where U.S. troops will go as they walk out from Syria. He also said he has spoken to his Iraqi counterpart about the plan to shift around 1,000 troops from Syria into western Iraq.

Yet, Trump tweeted “USA soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zones. We have secured the Oil. Bringing soldiers home!”

The president declared the past week that Washington had no stake in defending the Kurdish fighters as Turkey conducted a launched an offensive into northeastern Syria against them before a military truce.

“It’s time for us to come home,” Trump said, defending his removal of U.S. troops from that part of Syria and praising his decision to send more troops and military equipment to Saudi Arabia to help the kingdom defend against Iran.

When asked about the fact that his comments were contradicting those of the president and the troops were not coming home, Esper said “Well, they will eventually,” adding that the troops going into Iraq will have two missions.

“One is to help defend Iraq and two is to perform a counter-ISIS mission as we sort through the next steps,” he said. “Things could change between now and whenever we complete the withdrawal, but that’s the game plan right now.”

24 October 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Laura Tiernan

The bodies of 39 migrants were found yesterday in the back of a freight lorry parked in Grays, Essex, in the United Kingdom. The deaths have evoked public outrage and revulsion toward the British government’s brutal “deterrence” regime against migrants and refugees.

Police were called to the Waterglade Industrial Park in Essex by East of England Ambulance Service at 1.40am. All 39 people—adults and a teenager—were pronounced dead at the scene.

The victims’ identities are not known. Police forensic teams last night transported the truck’s cabin and trailer to Tilbury Docks to begin the process of formal identification. Deputy Chief Constable Pippa Mills told reporters this would be “a lengthy process”.

Police escort the truck, that was found to contain a large number of dead bodies, as they move it from an industrial estate in Thurrock, south England, Wednesday Oct. 23, 2019. Police in southeastern England said that 39 people were found dead Wednesday inside a truck container believed to have come from Bulgaria. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Details of the truck’s movements remain unclear. Police have confirmed only that the trailer arrived via ferry from Zeebrugge, Belgium, docking at Purfleet on the River Thames at 12.30am. The truck cabin and trailer left the port shortly after 1.05am.

It is not known where or at what time the 39 victims entered the truck’s freight container. Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, told the BBC the container appeared to be a refrigerated unit and that temperatures could reach as low as -25C. Conditions for anyone inside would be “absolutely horrendous”. Even if the container was not refrigerated, trucking experts explained that such cabins are sealed tight and lengthy confinement can lead to suffocation.

The truck’s cabin is registered in Northern Ireland. The driver, 25-year-old Mo Robinson from a village in County Armagh, was immediately arrested on suspicion of murder.

But the real authors of this immense crime reside in 10 Downing Street, along with the government and opposition parties in Westminster Palace and their accomplices in every European capital.

Their statements of condolence and crocodile tears are rank hypocrisy. Conservative Party Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s statement was issued via Twitter: “I’m appalled by this tragic incident in Essex… My thoughts are with all those who lost their lives & their loved ones.”

Home Secretary Priti Patel, whose entire career is built on anti-immigrant xenophobia, told parliament, “I’m shocked and saddened by this utterly tragic incident in Grays. My heart goes out to all those affected.”

Only last month, a smirking Patel told the Tory Party conference she was proud to be part of a Brexit government that was “taking back control of our borders” and “ending the free movement of people once and for all.” Johnson has described veiled Muslim women as “bank robbers” and “letter boxes”, deliberately stoking anti-immigrant racism.

The latest horrifying deaths are the direct outcome of a regime of deterrence that has involved a police-military operation on the English Channel and at key ports including Dover.

The truck allegedly driven by Robinson is believed to have arrived at Purfleet to avoid increased police checks and anti-migrant measures put in place at Dover in the leadup to Brexit. Five people have drowned in the English Channel this year.

Seamus Leheny, Northern Ireland policy manager for the Freight Transport Association, told the press, “People have been saying that security and checks have been increased at places like Dover and Calais, so it might be seen as an easier way to get in by going from Cherbourg or Roscoff, over to Rosslare, then up the road to Dublin. It’s a long way around and it’ll add an extra day to the journey.”

In recent months, migrant rights organisations have warned that the British government’s harsh deterrence regime is forcing refugees to resort to riskier methods of entry to the UK, including lorries. In December 2017, a 15-year-old Afghani boy was crushed by a truck he tried to jump on board at Calais, while an Iraqi man’s legs were severed by a train near Dunkirk. In June this year, the frozen body of a stowaway from Kenya fell from a plane onto a London garden. An investigation last November by BBC South East found there was a “pre-Brexit rush”, with people-smugglers warning migrants to enter now before “the borders shut properly.”

In January, former Tory Home Secretary Sajid Javid met with his French counterpart to agree new anti-migrant measures along the English Channel including £3.2 million for drones, radar, night goggles and number plate recognition along with additional border patrol boats.

One year earlier, the Sandhurst Treaty was negotiated by then Prime Minister Theresa May with French President Emmanuel Macron. Signed at Britain’s premier military academy, the treaty saw the UK commit an extra £44.5 million for fencing, CCTV and detection technology in Calais and other Channel ports.

The police measures agreed by the French and British governments were aimed at bolstering the European Union’s “Fortress Europe” policy against desperate migrants and refugees fleeing wars in the Middle East and North Africa and economic deprivation across large parts of Eastern Europe.

Yesterday’s atrocity was the worst in Britain since 2000, when the bodies of 58 Chinese people were found in a sealed airless container at Dover, Kent. An inquest was told the migrants banged frantically on the inside of the container as they suffocated.

More recently, in August 2015, 71 bodies were found decomposing in an abandoned lorry on the A4 motorway in Austria, near Parndorf. This produced a mass outpouring of sympathy for refugees across Europe. Overnight, thousands of ordinary people organised accommodation, transport, food, clothing and medical supplies, turning out to greet and welcome the convoys of refugees arriving from across the Mediterranean, from Turkey and North Africa.

It was this public sentiment which forced Angela Merkel’s government to open Germany’s borders and allow refugees right of entry. But the sympathy for refugees cut across the plans of the German ruling class for remilitarisation and for deepening austerity. Powerful forces in the government and intelligence services set about smothering and reversing this social opposition through the promotion of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and manufactured scares such as the Cologne New Year’s Eve “sex attacks”.

Yesterday’s events in Britain are not only a tragedy for the family and loved ones of the 39 people who have perished. They are a crime perpetrated by the capitalist governments of Britain and Europe against the international working class. Over 19,000 people died or went missing in the Mediterranean between 2014 and October this year. A total of 92 migrant deaths were recorded on land in Europe in 2018. The 39 people murdered yesterday brings this year’s total to 91.

Originally published by WSWS.org

24 October 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Max Parry

Last month, on the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II, the European Parliament voted on a resolution entitled “On the Importance of European Remembrance for the Future of Europe.” The adopted document:

“…Stresses that the Second World War, the most devastating war in Europe’s history, was started as an immediate result of the notorious Nazi-Soviet Treaty on Non-Aggression of 23 August 1939, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and its secret protocols, whereby two totalitarian regimes that shared the goal of world conquest divided Europe into two zones of influence; Recalls that the Nazi and communist regimes carried out mass murders, genocide and deportations and caused a loss of life and freedom in the 20th century on a scale unseen in human history, and recalls the horrific crime of the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime; condemns in the strongest terms the acts of aggression, crimes against humanity and mass human rights violations perpetrated by the Nazi, communist and other totalitarian regimes.”

For 75 years, we have been told that the war started on September 1st, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, even though the Pacific Theater between Japan and China began two years earlier. Now we are to understand that it actually began eight days prior when the German foreign minister visited Moscow. Take no notice of the inherent doublespeak in the premise that a war could be the consequence of a peace agreement, which without any evidence provided is said to have contained “secret protocols”, not provisions. You see, unlike the other pacts signed between European countries and Nazi Germany — such as the Munich Betrayal of 1938 with France and Great Britain to which the Soviets were uninvited while Austria and Czechoslovakia were gifted to Hitler for the courtesy of attacking Moscow — Molotov-Ribbentrop was really a confidential agreement between Hitler and Stalin to conquer Europe and divide it between them.

This is pure mythology. The fact of the matter is that neither the Soviets or even Germany drew the dividing line in Poland in 1939, because it was a reinstatement of the border acknowledged by the League of Nations and Poland itself as put forward by the British following WWI. Even Winston Churchill during his first wartime radio broadcast later that year admitted:

“Russia has pursued a cold policy of self-interest. We could have wished that the Russian Armies should be standing on their present line as the friends and allies of Poland, instead of as invaders. But that the Russian Armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace.”

Yet according to the EU, even though Moscow was the last country to agree to a peace deal with Hitler, it was all part of a hidden plot between them. In that case, why then did Germany choose to invade the USSR in 1941? The EU leaves this question unanswered. Forget about its racial policies of enslaving slavs or that Hitler openly declared in Mein Kampf that Germany needed to conquer the East to secure the Lebensraum. Nevermind that in the Spring of 1941, less than two months before Operation Barbarossa, Stalin gave a speech to the Kremlin at a state banquet for recent graduates of the Frunze Military Academy to give warning of an imminent attack:

“War with Germany is inevitable. If comrade Molotov can manage to postpone the war for two or three months through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that will be our good fortune, but you yourselves must go off and take measures to raise the combat readiness of our forces.”

The EU has redacted that the entire reason for the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact in August 1939 had been to buy time for the Red Army’s attrition warfare strategy to adequately prepare its armaments against a future invasion by the Wehrmacht. The Soviet leadership well understood that Germany would eventually renege on the agreement, considering that in 1936 it had signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan and Italy directed at the Communist International. For six years, the USSR was thwarted in its attempts to forge an equivalent anti-fascist coalition and to collectively defend Czechoslovakia by the British and the French, whose ruling classes were too busy courting and doing business with Germany. It had been the Soviets alone who defended the Spanish Republic from Franco in the final rehearsal before the worldwide conflict and only when all other recourses had run out did they finally agree to a deal with the Hitlerites.

Just a week prior to the signing of the neutrality treaty, Stalin gave a secretspeech to the Politburo where he explained:

“The question of war or peace has entered a critical phase for us. If we conclude a mutual assistance treaty with France and Great Britain, Germany will back off of Poland and seek a modus vivendi with the Western Powers. War would thus be prevented but future events could take a serious turn for the USSR. If we accept Germany’s proposal to conclude with it a non-aggression pact, Germany will then attack Poland and Europe will be thrown into serious acts of unrest and disorder. Under these circumstances we will have many chances of remaining out of the conflict while being able to hope for our own timely entrance into war.”

This latest resolution is part of a long pattern of misrepresentation of WWII by the Anglo-Saxon empire, but is perhaps its most egregious falsification that truly desecrates the graves of the 27 million Soviet citizens who were 80% of the total Allied death toll. Earlier this year, for the commemoration on the 75th anniversary of the Normandy landings, Russia and its head of state were excluded from the events in Portsmouth, England. As if the ongoing absence of Western European leaders from the May 9th Victory Day ceremonies held annually in Russia weren’t insulting enough, while it’s true that the Eastern Front was not involved in Operation Overlord, Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously been in attendance at the 70th anniversary D-Day events in 2014. No doubt the increase in geopolitical tensions between the West and Moscow in the years since has given the EU license to write out Russia’s role in the Allied victory entirely with little public disapproval, though many of the families of those who volunteered in the International Brigades were rightly insulted by this tampering of history and voiced their objection.

The EU motion‘s real purpose is to fabricate the war’s history by giving credit to the United States for the liberation of Europe while absolving the Western democracies that opened the door for the rise of fascism and tried to use Germany to annihilate the USSR. History itself should always be open to debate and subject to study and revision, but the Atlanticists have made this formal change without any evidence to support it and entirely for political purposes. Like the founding of the EU project itself, the declared aim of the proposal is supposedly to prevent future atrocities from taking place, even though the superstate was designed by former Nazis like Walter Hallstein, the first President of the European Commission, who was a German lawyer in several Nazi Party law organizations and fought for the Wehrmacht in France until his capture as a POW after the invasion of Normandy.

Rather than preventing future crimes, the EU has committed one itself by deceptively modifying the historical record of communism to be parallel with that of the Third Reich. Even further, that they were two sides of the same coin of ‘totalitarianism’ and that for all the barbarity committed during the war, the Soviets were equally culpable — or judging by the amount of times the text cites the USSR versus Germany, even more so. It remains unclear whether we are now to completely disregard the previous conclusions reached by the military tribunals held by the Allies under international law at Nuremberg of which all 12 war criminals sentenced to death in 1946 were German, not Soviet. The document doesn’t even attempt to hide its politicized direction at the current government in Moscow, stating that:

“Russia remains the greatest victim of communist totalitarianism and that its development into a democratic state will be impeded as long as the government, the political elite and political propaganda continue to whitewash communist crimes and glorify the Soviet totalitarian regime.”

This accusation does not stand up to critical observation, as Russia has since erected official memorials to those executed and politically persecuted during the so-called ‘Great Terror.’ However, the stark difference between the EU resolution and the Wall of Grief in Moscow is that the latter is based on evidence from the Soviet archives. It has become a widespread and ridiculous belief in the West that Stalin somehow killed as much as five times as many people as Hitler, an absurdity not reflected in the now disclosed and once highly secretive Soviet archives, which after two decades of examination show that over a period of three decades from the early 1920s to his death in 1953, the total recorded number of Soviet citizens executed by the state was slightly less than 800,000. While that is certainly a horrid number, how does it even begin to compare to an industrial scale extermination based on the race theory?

How can anyone believe Stalin killed tens of millions of people when even the most simple analysis of a population demographics chart shows that the Soviet population rate consistently increased each decade with the only reduction taking place during WWII as a result of their casualties? Socialists, who perhaps more than any other political tendency seem to suffer from autophobia, should defend their own history from such falsification. It is only when flaws occur under communist states that the entire political and economic system is to be denounced outright, but never capitalism which for five centuries has colonized half the world while enslaving and killing entire nations.

Most of the wildly exaggerated death figures stem from falsities written in The Black Book of Communism by a group of right-wing French academics in 1997,who did not conceal their apologism for the Nazi collaborationist self-proclaimed Russian Liberation Army (ROA) commanded by Gen. Andrey Vlasov who defected to Germany during the war:

“A singular fate was reserved for the Vlasovtsy, the Soviet soldiers who had fought under the Soviet general Andrei Vlasov. Vlasov was the commander of the Second Army who had been taken prisoner by the Germans in July 1942. On the basis of his anti-Stalinist convictions, General Vlasov agreed to collaborate with the Nazis to free his country from the tyranny of the Bolsheviks.”

The other highly cited work by the West for its overestimated portrayal of Soviet repression is the equally unreliable The Gulag Archipelago volumes by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who as historian Ludo Martens noted also attempted to provide justification for Vlasov’s treason in his best-selling 1973 work:

“And so it was that Vlasov’s Second Shock Army perished, literally recapitulating the fate of Samsonov’s Russian Second Army in World War I, having been just as insanely thrown into encirclement. Now this, of course, was treason to the Motherland! This, of course, was vicious, self-obsessed betrayal! But it was Stalin’s. Treason does not necessarily involve selling out for money. It can include ignorance and carelessness in the preparations for war, confusion and cowardice at its very start, the meaningless sacrifice of armies and corps solely for the sake of saving one’s own marshal’s uniform. Indeed, what more bitter treason is there on the part of a Supreme Commander in Chief?”

The truth is located in the Soviet archives which indicate that Stalin’s successor, the Ukrainian-born Nikita Khrushchev, was as intent on absolving the entirety of the Soviet leadership as himself from any culpability in the purges of the 1930s so that blame for its excesses were placed squarely on his predecessor. In succession, Western historians like the British Foreign Office propagandist Robert Conquest followed his example and this account quickly became official doctrine. In hindsight, Khrushchev’s infamous 1956 secret speech, “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences”, was what planted the seeds of self-doubt in the Soviet system that would eventually lead to its undoing decades later. To the contrary, what the historical records show is most of those who were purged in that period were not necessarily perceived as political threats to Stalin himself, but were targeted because of an overall systemic paranoia held by the entire Soviet government regarding internal sabotage and counter-revolutionary activity by a real fifth column getting inspiration from a certain traitorous former Bolshevik in exile and a potential invasion originating from outside the country.

Many forget that during the Russian Civil War, exactly such a scenario had occurred when the Allies of World War I, including the United States, collectively intervened on the side of the Whites only to be driven out by the Red Army, making such fearful instincts not entirely unreasonable. Not to mention, the rapid industrialization of the entire nation in a single decade while in preparation for the growing threat of war with Germany. When Hitler began his Masterplan for the East, their worst fears came to fruition when tens of thousands of Banderite turncoats enlisted in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) in Ukraine to collaborate with the German occupiers in the slaughter of their fellow countrymen and after the war ended, continued their treasonous struggle during the 1950s with assistance from the CIA. So the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you…

As for the accusation of “whitewashing”, it is true that recent polls indicate that 70% of Russians today hold a favorable view of Stalin — but just as many are nostalgic for communism itself and regret the breakup of the USSR on the basis that the socialist system ‘took care of ordinary people.’ Putin did once remark that despite Stalin’s legacy of repression, he doubted that the native Georgian statesman would have been willing to drop two atomic bombs on Japan like the United States, an atrocity that killed 225,000 innocent civilians (most of them instantly) which is more than a quarter of those capitally punished during the entire Stalin era. Was he wrong to say so? A significant amount of deaths also occurred in the Soviet-wide famines of the 1930s, but there is significantly more evidence to suggest that the British deliberately starved 3 million Bengalis to death then there is to support the Holodomor fraud concocted by the Ukrainian nationalist diaspora. If the West wants to talk about deliberate starvation, it should take a look at what the U.S. did with its economic sanctions in the 1990s killing half a million Iraqi children which former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously described as “worth it.”

This isn’t the first time the Anglosphere has historically omitted the Soviet role in the Allied victory or conflated the USSR with the Third Reich. On previous occasions the European Parliament has issued resolutions declaring August 23rd “a European day of remembrance of the victims of the Nazi-Soviet alliance.” This is all an attempt by the Atlanticists to depict communism as somehow worse than fascism while disconnecting the Nazis from the lineage of European settler colonialism whose racism was its source of inspiration. Why is that which befell the Jews not considered an extension of what was already done to the Herero-Nama tribes for which Namibia is now suing Germany a century later?

The neoliberal political establishment in Europe and its anti-EU populist opponents are fond of appearing dead-set against one another, but it seems they share the same fairytale beliefs about WWII that the Nazis and Soviets were equivalent evils as inscribed in this latest decree. It has always been ironic that the liberal billionaire “philanthropist” and currency manipulator George Soros is so derided by right-wing populists when it was his Open Society Institute NGOs which engineered the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Soros may be averse to the anti-immigrant brand of right-wing nationalism currently on the rise in Western Europe, but as a fanatical Russophobe he is willing to make strange bedfellows with ultra-nationalists in Kiev to undermine Moscow’s sphere of influence and that includes revising WWII history to a version favored by the Banderites which took power during the pro-EU 2014 coup d’etat in Ukraine.

The Nazi junta regime in Kiev has since instituted Russophobic ‘de-communization’ laws erasing the remaining traces of Ukraine’s Soviet past while replacing them with memorials to their wartime foes. A recentexample was the city of Vinnitsa renaming a street that paid tribute to the Soviet spy and war hero Richard Sorge to that after Omelyan Hrabetsk, a commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army which cooperated with Germany during the war and killed thousands of Poles and Jews. Sorge posed as a German journalist in Tokyo and famously provided timely intelligence to Moscow that Japan did not plan to attack the USSR, allowing Stalin to transfer essential reinforcements to the Battle of Moscow which proved to be a major turning point in the war. He was executed by the Japanese in 1944 and posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union.

Now the EU is ‘decommunizing’ history in its own legislation. Meanwhile, Soros’s influence over the EU cannot be overstated as his lobbying power has enabled him to provide direct council to its executive branch more than any official head of state in the political and economic union. The hedge fund tycoon made a fortune as an investor during Russia’s mass privatization in the 1990s after enlisting Jeffrey Sachs and the IMF to apply ‘shock therapy’ to its economy as it did in Poland and his native Hungary. Under Putin, however, Soros’s NGOs have since been barred from Russia. Perhaps the reason he can so cynically provide support to fascist elements in Ukraine to undercut Moscow is that he did so personally in his upbringing in Hungary.

Born Gyorgy Schwartz, during WWII he was a teenager from an affluent Jewish family which survived the Axis occupation by using their wealth to bribe a government official from the collaborationist Arrow Cross government who provided the Soros’s forged documents identifying them as Christians, while the adolescent by his own admission delivered deportation notices to other Jews. A short time later, the young Soros impersonated the adopted gentile son of an official who inventoried the stolen valuables and property from Jewish estates and even accompanied him during his work. One would assume as a Jew he would have been haunted by these experiences, but Soros has repeatedly stated he has no regrets and even disturbingly compared it to his future work as an investor.
Like Soros, the EU has no ideology except an unquenchable thirst for greed and is fond of Nazis when they are the kind that hate Russia. For its own political interests, it is willing to dangerously foster a version of history invented by a rebranded far right where the quislings who collaborated with the Axis powers elude guilt and the Soviets who courageously defeated them are maliciously slandered. Fascism was never fully eradicated only because the West continued to nurture it during the Cold War and even now that capitalism has been reinstated in Eurasia, it continues to do so to undermine a resurgent Moscow on the world stage.

As the world appears increasingly on the brink of WWIII, one is reminded of the expression by Karl Marx who famously stated that “history repeats itself…first as tragedy, then as farce” in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, when comparing Napoleon Bonaparte’s seizure of power in the French Revolution with the coup by his nephew half a century later which brought an end to the French Revolution. Equally fitting is the humorous line by the legendary writer and noted anti-imperialist Mark Twain who reputedly said, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” Both are applicable to the unquestionable tragedy of WWII and the farcical mockery of its history by the EU whose policies continue to make another global conflict that much more likely.

Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst.

23 October 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance

The crisis in Syria has taken a new direction with the Turkish invasion into the Northeast ostensibly to push the Kurdish peoples out. The US has added to this crisis by its green light to Turkey to attack after using the Kurds as a proxy force in the battle against ISIS.

The US’ role in Syria and in the greater Middle East has been destructive throughout this century. The invasion and occupation of Iraq have left destruction and chaos. The illegal bombing of Libya and the brutal murder of its prime minister, Muammar al-Gaddafi, have created a failed state. The US’ alliance with Saudi Arabia in the war against Yemen has resulted in mass murder and destruction. The ongoing conflicts with Iran through illegal unilateral coercive measures (sanctions), regime change attempts, threats of war and military skirmishes have created more instability in the region. And, the US’ ‘special relationship’ with Israel has allowed continued ethnic cleansing and land theft from the Palestinians and has been a tool for instability in the region. The never-ending war in Afghanistan continues to cause destruction as the US remains even though it has been defeated.

These actions have resulted in more than a million deaths and mass migration, which has not only impacted the region but also Europe, causing political instability and the advance of right-wing, anti-immigrant forces. The Middle East was better off, more stable and wealthier before the disastrous US actions of this century. The illegal wars have cost the US trillions of dollars with no benefit. US policy has not served any positive purposes but has caused instability, conflict, and destruction. It is time for the US to get out of Syria and out of the Middle East.

Syria: A Major Defeat for the US and a Geopolitical Game Changer

The bi-partisans in Washington, DC and the foreign policy establishment are furious at Donald Trump for pulling out of the Kurdish region of Syria and allowing Turkey to invade. These groups were united when the US’ goal was removing President Assad from power, but with the culmination of this failed policy, there is political division.

Pepe Escobar describes Syria as the biggest defeat for the CIA since Vietnam. It is a significant defeat, but US losses in Iraq and Afghanistan are in the running for the worst defeat since Vietnam. Escobar describes the failure “as a massive geopolitical game-changer” that strengthens Assad as he retakes control of Northeast Syria. Russia benefits as a guarantor for Syria and key player in the victory over US regime change. The losers are the United States and Kurds.

The US’ contribution to the current chaos and destruction precedes Trump. While the brutal attacks by Turkey in Syria are being blamed on Trump, in reality, they go back to President Obama. Max Blumenthal reports in The Grayzone that “many [of the Turkish fighters] were former members of the Free Syrian Army, the force once armed by the CIA and Pentagon and branded as ‘moderate rebels.’” Blumenthal cites a research paper published this October by the pro-government Turkish think tank, SETA: “Out of the 28 factions [in the Turkish mercenary force], 21 were previously supported by the United States, three of them via the Pentagon’s program to combat DAESH. Eighteen of these factions were supplied by the CIA ….” Further, the leader of this force is Salim Idriss, who hosted John McCain when the late senator made his infamous 2013 incursion into Syria.

The Turkish attack in Syria has been filled with ugly extreme violence that is causing outrage. Mercenaries are sawing the heads off of Kurdish fighters they have killed, a Syrian Kurdish legislator was pulled from her car and executed along with her driver, unarmed Kurdish captives were filmed as they were murdered, the corpse of a female Kurdish fighter was vandalized, ISIS captives were deliberately freed from unguarded prisons, and in a video message, one of the invading fighters promised mass ethnic cleansing if Kurds in the area refused to convert to his Wahhabi strain of Sunni Islam.

Ajamu Baraka points out that the US created the “Free Syrian Army” (FSA), who were the good guys when they were overthrowing Assad, but have now been turned into the “Turkish supported FSA,” especially after the gruesome graphic videos of the Turkish invasion emerged. In reality, Baraka points out, “many of us knew, along with the CIA and most of the honest foreign policy community, that the FSA was always al-Qaeda’s Syria operation in the form of Jabhat al-Nusra and other jihadist militias.”

Blumenthal concludes: “Left out of the coverage of these horrors was the fact that none of them would have been possible if Washington had not spent several years and billions of dollars subsidizing Syria’s armed opposition.”

These recent events need to be viewed through the context of sixty years of on-again, off-again coups and regime change campaigns that have failed. Timber Sycamore, the regime change project of the Obama administration, was a “secret” plan that allowed the CIA to arm terrorists in Syria. Timber Sycamore, which included Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Turkey working with the US, officially began in late 2012 and ended in failure in 2017. The secret program trained future ISIS members as part of covert aid to the insurgents targeting Bashar al-Assad. The US was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool as documented in the book “The Management of Savagery”.

When Obama’s regime change strategy failed, the US switched to occupying one-third of Syria, including the oil region in the Northeast. In January, Secretary of State Tillerson announced the US was creating a de facto Kurdish State there with a 30,000-strong Syrian Defense Force (SDF) troop, US air support, and eight new US bases. In April 2018, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announced the US planned to maintain its illegal presence in Syria.

Obama’s effort to dominate Syria was rooted in the Bush-era. In 2001, former NATO commander Wesley Clark was on record stating that Syria was on a list of targeted nations to be toppled by the US. In 2002, former Secretary of State John Bolton said, in a speech titled “Beyond the Axis of Evil”, that Syria was among a handful of nations the US was targeting. The 2011 protests in Syria were quickly manipulated by the US and foreign powers who sought to destabilize Syria. CIA-backed Muslim Brotherhood assets were in place to snipe at both police and protesters when the demonstrations broke out and Saudia Arabia provided weapons to aid regime change.

Caitlan Johnstone points to more evidence that Syria was not an organic uprising but a foreign regime change effort from the beginning:

“The former Prime Minister of Qatar said on television that the US and its allies were involved in the Syrian conflict from the very beginning. A WikiLeaks cable and a declassified CIA memo both show the US government plotting to provoke an uprising in Syria exactly as it occurred, years before it happened. Former Foreign Minister of France Roland Dumas stated that he was informed that the UK was engineering an uprising in Syria two years before the violence erupted.”

Even the Obama era regime change goal needs to be put in the context of over sixty years of the US trying to control Syria. The first coup attempt by the CIA after it’s creation was in Syria in 1949. Controlling Syria has been a consistent policy objective. CIA documents from 1986 describe how the US could remove the Assad family.

Each of Trump’s efforts to get out of Syria has been opposed by bipartisan war hawks. In March 2018, Trump tweeted that the US would soon be withdrawing from Syria. One month later Secretary of Defense Mattis told Congress the US was not withdrawing testifying, “We are continuing the fight, we are going to expand it and bring in more regional support.” In January, Trump called for withdrawal from Syria, which was met with a firestorm of opposition. He was outmaneuvered by war hawks in his administration and Congress.

There continues to be resistance to withdrawal today. The US is not leaving Syria but is merely moving troops from the Northeast to other areas. David Macilwain reports, “The truth of US intentions – to remain in Eastern Syria until they are driven out militarily – has now been emphasized by US Defence secretary Mark Esper. At a press conference where he confirmed the US intention to withdraw 1000 troops from Syria, when asked whether this meant from all of Syria he simply repeated what he had said –’from Northern Syria.’”

It is past time for the US to leave Syria and end its longterm desire to dominate the country. People in the United States and around the world must insist on the US obeying international law, which means the US must leave Syria as it has no legal grounds for being in that sovereign nation.

Kurds in Syria Negotiate Their Future With Damascus

Kurds, who live in Turkey, Syria, Iraq , and Iran, are often regarded as “the largest ethnic group without a state.” With the US withdrawal from Northeast Syria, the Kurds in Syria are now working with Damascus to repel the Turkish invasion and negotiate their future.

In mid-2012, Assad’s forces largely withdrew from the Kurdish area, and the battle against ISIS was left to the Kurdish militias: the YPG (People’s Protection Units) and the YPJ (Women’s Defense Forces), the autonomous women’s militias. When the Free Syrian Army failed, the US funded the Syrian Kurdish militias known as the Peoples Protection Unit using a new name, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Kurdish never targeted the Syrian government but focused on ISIS.

The Kurdish Rojava cantons are a liberated area in Syria led by socialist-feminists and a population that makes decisions through local councils. Their economy is based on a cooperative model with thousands of co-ops, but private businesses are allowed. The co-ops are initiated and controlled by the communes, i.e. the community assembly structures. Their basic principle is the participation of everyone in production. In the words of a minister of economics: “If a single loaf of bread is manufactured in Rojava, everyone will have contributed to it.”

Their governing model is direct democracy governance without a state, built on local assemblies. There are multiple levels with neighborhood councils, District Councils and a People’s Council for the entire region. And there is also ‘Democratic Self-Administration,’ which is a more conventional government structure of legislative and executive bodies as well as municipal administration. These bodies are not limited to Kurds but open to all religions and ethnicities. Women hold 40 percent of leadership positions at all levels. Three leftist enclaves make up an area slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut.

Some see Rojava’s governance without hierarchy, patriarchy or capitalism as a model for the future of the Middle East and beyond, and as an antidote to capitalism. It is the Communalist Model of Democratic Confederalism, an adaptation of the ideas of the Zapatistas in Chiapas and the work of Murray Bookchin.

In Turkey, Kurds remain part of Turkey and “have formed a political party (Peoples Democratic Party – HDP), which unites progressives of all ethnicities. In the 2015 Turkish election, HDP emerged as the third most popular party and stopped Erdogan’s election domination.” The HDP opposes Turkey’s invasion of Syria.

Turkey is concerned that the Kurds will use the territory they’ve captured to establish an independent Kurdish state for the region’s 25 to 35 million Kurds, roughly 15 million of whom reside in Turkey. Four percent of Kurds reside in Syria, approximately 1.6 million people. Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the region after Arabs, Persians, and Turks. After the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I, they were not granted a homeland.

Peace activists and popular movements around the world should be in solidarity with the Kurdish people’s desire for a semi-independent territory. A contiguous Kurdish state is an impossible dream and negotiation will be required by each population in the country where they reside.

US Out of Syria and Out of the Middle East

We agree with the US Peace Council, which urges “the US peace movement to organize a united national campaign in support of the Syrian people and demand the total withdrawal of all occupying forces from Syria. Leave Syria to the Syrian People!”

The movement’s first demand must be the US out of Syria and out of the Middle East because the US is not yet leaving Syria or the region. Reports indicate between 200 and 300 U.S. troops will remain at the southern Syrian outpost of Al-Tanf and 1,000 troops will shift into western Iraq adding to the more than 5,000 US troops in Iraq. US forces may conduct operations in Syria from Iraq.

On October 11, the US announced it was sending an additional 1,800 troops to Saudi Arabia. An additional 14,000 US troops have been deployed to the Middle East since spring, including more than 6,000 who are part of a naval strike group. The US is fighting in at least seven countries in the Middle East and North Africa: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Niger, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.

We must also be in solidarity with the Kurdish people and call for an end to the Turkish invasion of Syria. The Turkish invasion is already backfiring and people mobilizing against the invasion will lead to its retreat.

And, we must accept immigrants from Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan where migration crises have been caused by US wars. Rebuilding nations destroyed by the United States is a costly endeavor that the US owes to the region. These countries do not want the US meddling in their efforts so compensation must be made through the United Nations without any strings attached.

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers are directors of Popular Resistance

22 October 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Peter Koenig

“I don’t want to be the best President in the history of Bolivia, I want to be the President of the best Bolivia in history.”So proclaimed Evo Morales in a pre-election rally a few days before general elections, today, 20 October 2019. At the same time, Evo declared that ever since the Tribunal Constitucional Plurinacional (TCP–Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal) in November 2017 rejected an appeal by the opposition that he could run for a fourth term for President, and approved his candidacy for 20 October elections, US interference on a daily basis was rampant.

The United States has not stopped trying to change public opinion with false propaganda and making incredibly ludicrous promises to the population. For example, US Embassy people – maybe Fifth Columnists on US payroll, promised the population of the poor Yungas region of Bolivia, new and asphalted roads, if they didn’t support Evo Morales in the upcoming elections. There are also flagrant lies circulating, that Evo and his families had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars and deposited them in a secret account in the Bank of the Vatican. Similar lies as are being spread about Nicolas Maduro, the Castro family, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, the leaders of Iran and Syria and many more, who oppose the dictate of Washington.

The Bolivian Minister of the Presidency, Juan Ramón Quintara, referring to the US attempts to sabotage the elections, mentioned a few days ago on a Bolivian public TV channel, “There is not one day the US is not interfering in Bolivian political internal affairs.” He added, warning his compatriots, “In the last 50 years the United States has put its dirty hand in the Bolivian electoral process. Today the interference is worse than ever. For this reason, brothers Bolivianos, be aware and don’t allow your vote being highjacked by foreign meddling.”

This is in total disrespect of international law, of international diplomacy and ethics. But what to expect from the only rogue state on our “Mother Earth”? Not to mention the flagrant, aberrant and hardly hidden corruption going on in the current and previous US governments for the last at least 100 years, and the Pentagon’s and White House’s constant interference in elections around the world. It is amazing that anybody would still go for these lies – spread by an emperor who is wheezing on his last breath.

Evo Moralesis running for the fourth time with his Vice-President, Álvaro Marcelo García Linera, on the MAS Party (MAS – Movimiento al Socialismo), the Movement for Socialism,for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency of Bolivia. The MAS was created in 1998 by Evo Morales. According to the latest polls, Evo has just under 40% of people’s support, against about 22% of Carlos Mesa, the strongest opponent, who is running second, from the right-wing Civic Community party.

According to Bolivian’s Constitution, with 40% of the votes, the candidate wins in the first round. Evo could indeed, win the election in the first round. However, if he gets less than 40%, they are headed for a second-round run-off election. That’s usually where the dangers lay – that’s where US interference is the most ferocious, in elections worldwide, where they want the winning candidate defeated. Washington spends untold millions in smearing the winning candidate and promoting “their” candidate. And often they are successful. Examples abound. One of the most flagrant one is the 2016 Presidential election in Peru, when in the first round the second candidate from the Socialist Party, the most likely overall winner, was pushed back by election fraud to third place, and the right-wing US-supported candidate was made second – and “won” in the run-off. Today he is under house-arrest, awaiting trial for corruption, linked to illegal business arrangements with the US.

If Evo Morales does not receive the 40% necessary to win the first round, compliments of US interference, it would be the first time in his four runs for President that he would be forced into a second round. He won both the 2009 and 2014 elections with a landslide first round, 61% and 64% respectively.

AlJazeera reports from La Paz, today, in the early morning hours of Election Day, that millions of Bolivians are expected to “cast their ballots amid a climate of uncertainty as President Evo Morales seeks a controversial fourth term.”

Why controversial? – Because the 2009 Constitution allows a President to serve only two terms. But Evo argued that his first term didn’t count because it took place before the new Constitution entered into effect. So, why a fourth term? – Evo realizes that his opposition, especially under his chief contender, Carlos Mesa, would reverse the socioeconomic achievements (see below) of the last 13 years.

Mesa would return the country to the IMF austerity dictate of which Bolivia has been free for 13 years – a main reason for Evo having been able to carry out social reforms, not only benefitting all of Bolivia’s “plurinational” indigenous people, but also to advance Bolivia in macro-economic terms, i.e. renegotiating and partially nationalizing Bolivia’s gas contracts, reducing foreign debt and amassing huge foreign exchange reserves.
Evo is observing closely what is happening in neighboring Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Ecuador. It is clear, leaving the elections free without his candidacy, Washington’s dirty hands would manipulate the elections – as they have “successfully” done in the countries mentioned before – to bring in a US favorable candidate, i.e. Carlos Mesa – and the country would be cooked. It is not difficult to foresee such a disaster, just watch what is happening in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, where poverty and unemployment, and related crime, is rampant.

For a bit of history – Carlos Mena was Vice-President under President Sánchez de Lozada, called “Goni” (August 2002 to October 2003), a businessman, educated by the neoliberal School of Economics of the University of Chicago. Sánchez de Lozada was a built-in representative of Washington, who spoke Spanish with a strong English accent, representing blatantly US over Bolivian interests. He was forced out of office in 2003 by people’s protests over the so-called ‘Bolivian Gas Conflict’ (“Goni” was practically giving away Bolivia’s huge natural gas reserves to foreign petrol corporations, mostly US, for a pittance).

The bloody confrontations forcing Goni to flee the country to the US, claimed the lives of 59 protesters, soldiers and policemen. Goni was succeeded by his Vice-President, Carlos Mesa, who followed in Goni’s footsteps, continuing Goni’s policies on Bolivia’s natural gas. Carlos Mesa, after less than 2 years in office, was also forced to resign in 2005, under incessant people’s demonstrations and protests.
New elections at the end of 2005 brought in Evo Morales, who was presiding over the country from the beginning of 2006 to this day. – Watch also the documentary, “Our Brand is Crisis”, depicting how Sanchez de Lozada was made to win the 2002 elections over Evo Morales, by a special US propaganda team – https://www.bustle.com/articles/119572-watch-the-our-brand-is-crisis-doc-online-before-you-see-sandra-bullocks-movie-in-theaters.

A look at Bolivia’s socioeconomic achievements should further convince anybody who thinks for the people, that Evo did very well, insisting on his candidacy for the 2019 elections. The Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, finds that Bolivia’s remarkable gains have been largely the result of wise policy choices, rather than just a “commodities boom”.

Bolivia was the fastest growing economy in Latin America over the past five years, about 5.2% on average (double the Latin-American average) and was able, under Evo Morales, to reduce poverty by 42% and extreme poverty by 60% since 2006, when Evo took office. The country also ended 20 years of IMF “rule”, by Evo’s eviction of the infamous Bretton Woods institution.

Other remarkable achievements include:

· A 50% increase in real terms of per capita GDP in 2018, over 2005;

· From 2006 – 2011 the government revenues from hydrocarbon increased seven-fold to US$ 4.95 billion, mostly from nationalization and associated policy changes. This was the driving force for the Government’s reaching macroeconomic stability and achieving its socioeconomic targets;

· Unemployment has dropped from 7.7% to 4.4.% in 2008 – and has remained stable through 2018;

· Public investments have increased along with Bolivia’s economic growth; Bolivia has the highest public investment as a percentage of GDP of the region;

· Overall investments have reached almost 22% of GDP on average per year over the past 5 years;

· In 2010 Bolivia has started applying a policy of “quantitative easing” to purchase state-owned financial instruments, i.e. bonds and similar debt certificates. At the end of 2018, the Central Bank’s balance sheet showed 44% were invested in public assets, a 12% increase since 2010.

Lots of challenges remain, as Bolivia still figures as the poorest country in South America, followed by Guyana, Paraguay, Ecuador and Peru. Evo knows that his job is far from finished – and American forced “regime change” is certainly not in order.
Viva Bolivia! Viva Evo!

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist.

21 October 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Richard Falk

13 Oct 2019 – It took the withdrawal of the Nelly Sachs Prize to make me familiar with the fine literary achievements and compassionate politics of Kamila Shamsie. Selfishly, I cannot thank the Dortmund City Council enough for its outrageous behavior, evidently canceling the award because a right-wing newspaper outed Shamsie as a supporter of the BDS Campaign. I can imagine Shamsie’s feeling of hurt as well as disappointment as this incident unfolded. In her novels, she has manifested an uncannny awareness, more so than any writer I have encountered, of the precarious existence of ethnic, gender, and civilizational outsiders, especially Muslims, if they happen to reside in the supposedly once more tolerant West. Her words of eloquent response to the Dortmund about face express both her magnetic literary personality and moral intelligence:

“It is a matter of great sadness to me that a jury should bow to pressure and withdraw a prize from a writer who is exercising her freedom of conscience and freedom of expression; and it is a matter of outrage that the BDS movement (modelled on the South African boycott) that campaigns against the government of Israel for its acts of discrimination and brutality against Palestinians should be held up as something shameful and unjust.”

Germany seems particularly susceptible these days to Islamophobic tropes, especially those given traction at the expense of Muslims, Palestinians, and immigrants. It seems that even 75 years after the Holocaust the German political establishment is still attempting to convince themselves, as well as the State of Israel, that the Holocaust was a national anomaly. Seeking to prove the unprovable, Germany and Germans have chosen to fall in love with Israel precisely because it is the nation state of the Jewish people, and for this reason alone it can do no wrong as we all know that love is blind. In their vain effort to make such a surreal posture credible, Germany insists on going even further, as if to drive the point home to any doubters, by converting Israel’s critics into Germany’s adversaries, somehow forgetting that the locus of the anti-Semitic gene present in the German body politic is situated on its far right, and is definitely not to be found even among the most uncompromising supporters of the BDS Campaign. To suggest otherwise, as is the inescapable implication of the Dortmund action, is to slander a writer of exquisite moral sensitivity. Her actions as a citizen exhibits a strong bond between her sense of right and wrong that infuses her novels and her nonviolent engagements on the side of justice for the Palestinian people. Bonds of this nature are what keep democracy alive, and should be celebrated now more than ever, not condemned.

Evaluated from a more humanistic perspective, this incident confirms the impression that Germany as a nation has learned nothing from its past. To side with Israel is to side with an apartheid government that imposes a regime of daily victimization upon the Palestinian people (treating them as enemy aliens in what once Palestine!). To regard those who oppose this Israeli behavior as if they are the miscreants is to learn nothing from the rightly repudiated German past. It is to be complicit in its repetition.

Under these circumstances, my expression of personal gratitude to Dortmund may seem odd, yet it is quite easy to explain. If it had not been for the withdrawal of the prize, I would not have become an avid reader of Shamsie. The prize might have caught my wandering eye, as should earlier some of the dazzling reviews of Home Fire, but with a busy life along with an array of self-indulgent distractions, I would almost certainly not have taken such a drastic step as to acquire the novel, and then find myself so overwhelmed by its literary quality and brilliant commentaries on the human condition that I immediately obtained, and then read with uncharacteristic concentration, Burnt Shadows in two ten hour days of uninterrupted reading. Reflecting on this experience, which I wish is being replicated by others shocked into a similar response to mine, I became appreciative that, depending on circumstances, we sometimes become more intellectually and culturally indebted to acts of negation than to those of affirmation. It may be that those favoring the Dortmund jury reversal supposed that withdrawing the prize would have the valued added of lessening interest in Shamsie’ writing, and instead it seems to be spreading the word that she is a great writer!

Perhaps, if writers in Britain had not organized a joint letter of solidarity with Shamsie to the London Review of Books, the abstraction of learning about a cancelled prize would not have overcome my habitual sloth, and I would have moved on. I was also drawn to look for myself at the work in question by Shamsie’ unrepentant response, defending her BDS support as something she did as a citizen, which in any event should have had no bearing on whether her novel was more deserving of recognition than were the other short listed competitors for the prize. Until this happened, I would have thought the Nelly Sachs Prize honored literature, rather than kneeling at the altar of political correctness. From now on whenever Germany does something similar, I will do my best to make them pay, not only by joining the protest, but by embracing the work that they repudiated. Let these prizes remain noteworthy, but only if future cancellations serve more as magnets than as repellents. My fear is that foundations and selection groups that give such prizes will in the future become more wary, do their homework better, and bypass candidates whose sympathies with the Palestinian struggle might stir the waters of controversy. It is worth realizing that much of the evil in the world is what is done off camera, behind closed doors, and we who wish for other realities, never get wind of what is going on. Self-censorship may be more destructive of freedom of expression than censorship. Dortmond’s rationale for retraction can be discussed, rejected, overcome. If Home Fire had been quietly put aside by the jurors in their deliberations, it would have aroused no protest, enlisted no new circle of admirers, and no positive voices reminding us that BDS is dedicated to nonviolent liberation, nothing more, nothing less.

Yet before touching on the qualities that make me so admiring of House Fire, I would comment a bit more on what seems like a panic attack. We need to ask what made the folks in Dortmund act so inappropriately as to make themselves appear both craven and foolish? At first glance, it seems that these days right-wing pressure works more often than it should, although ironically, it is the far right that is the incubator of real anti-Semitism. The true face of Jew hatred revealed itself in the very recent Halle incident in which a right-winger aimed to slaughter Jews at a German synagogue on the Yon Kippur holiday. Further, even granting the Zionist feverish campaign to brand BDS as expressive of the so-called ‘new anti-Semitism,’ to treat Shamsie’ support of a cultural boycott as enough to induce the city of Dortmund to withdraw the prize seems to signal societal panic, maybe a reaction to the rise of the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim AfD (Alternative for Germany). It is of more than passing interest that the AfD was not content as were the mainstream German parties in the Bundestag with calling BDS ‘anti-Semitic’ but wanted the non-violent movement formally banned altogether. The resolution adopted in May 2019 by a rare cross-alliance of political parties was itself a lamentable response to pressures being exerted by Zionist groups may have set the stage for the Dortmund retreat. It was followed shortly by a similar action in Aachen where an award was withdrawn from Walid Raad, an Lebanese innovative artist with a world reputation because he reportedly refused to denounce BDS, carrying the imperative of political correctness a menacing step further.

*****

Part of the dark charm of House Fire is a tribute to Shamsie’ ‘see it all eyes’ that illuminate the complexities of Islamic jihadism, how it appeals to those ‘out of place’ around the world, wounding and rupturing the flow of life for those burdened and blessed with a hybrid ethnic, religious, and class identity. Shamsie tells us that her narrative inspiration for Home Fire is the Greek play of Antigone where a heartbroken sister defies her uncle, Creon, the king of Thebes, by burying her rebellious brother who died on a field of battle, and thus declared a traitor by Creon; by law he was denied the right of burial and his body left to rot on the battlefield until he was restored to dignity by the defiant Antigone. Sophocles depicted this classic instance of overriding the law of the land by acting in obedience to the transcendent law of the human heart, given concreteness over the centuries by natural law jurisprudence and more recently, by the universal principles of human rights. Shamsie imparts her meaning by choosing a tag line from Sophocles that appears alone on a page preceding the novel: “The ones we love… are enemies of the state.”

Reading Shamsie made me recall my experience 30 years ago when I read Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The novel made me realize, although growing up in the racially self-righteous, self-segregated liberal confines of Manhattan, that until I read Beloved, I had never grasped the existential horrors of post-slavery racism in the United States, especially throughout the South, and more subtly in the rest of the country. Similarly, until I read Home Fire I never thought empathetically about the intimate lives of terrorists and their loved ones, pitting love within a family against what the state decrees as the limit of acceptable conduct and the moral ambiguities arising from the dreadful harm done to innocent others by terrorist violence, whether by the state or its enemies. The perpetrators are also victims, and the victims can become perpetrators propelled by a vicious retaliatory logic that finds words to justify even beheadings; a jihadist in Home Fire says this: “..what you do to ours we will do to yours..” In other words, when we free ourselves from liberal forms of political indoctrination to experience the radical and reactive otherness that produces delicate negotiations between love and law the simple verities of moral truisms evaporate before our eyes. If we nurture our spiritual selves, a formidable challenge, those brave enough would almost always choose the path cleared by the heart rather than mechanically adhering to the cold logic of those who insist on observing the law however unjust. A signal achievement of Home Fire is to weave a credible tale of such nurturing through the selfless passions of Aneeka, a luminous being, compelled by sibling love to respond to her hapless terrorist twin brother, Pervais. The fact that Aneeka is studying in London to become a lawyer, while Pervais is enchanted by digital mysteries of recorded sounds, somehow heightens the tension between law and love, with a romanticized forgetfulness when it comes to prudence in a public domain of discriminatory vigilance in the world after the 9/11 attacks.

Shamsie’ has produced a moral fable for our times. It is given novelistic and societal complexity by the apparent innocence of the twins, Pervais killed by a colleague in the course seeking to come home to Britain because after becoming disillusioned by his exposure to ISIS, and Aneeka herself defying a vindictive British law denying any right of return even to British citizens if officially declared to be terrorist suspects. With deep symbolic resonance, the corpse of Pervais was sent to his ‘ethnic home,’ Pakistan, where Aneeka traveled to perform her own version of a sacred burial ritual. We are told in a sprightly Note of Acknowledgement at the very end of the book, in case it did not earlier cross our minds, that Shamsie’s work was foreshadowed by the exploration of these themes in Sophocles’ most memorable play, Antigone. Even though I studied Greek theater literature as a student some decades ago, I admit that I never on my own drew the connections between Home Fire and Antigone, and when instructed, I found it worth knowing, but quite irrelevant to my intense enjoyment of this extraordinary novel. The idea of loyalty to love by performing a proper burial may retain a certain symbolic relevance in our world, but it is less inscribed in the modern sensibility than it was in ancient times when such ritual matters were regarded as concerns of ultimate significance, although Shamsie brings it to life because the characters and plot are so emotionally enveloping.

I found Shamsie’s electric feel for language, including the radiance of the conversational dialogue and the creation of vivid and sympathetic characters interacting in the course of an ingenious plot that addressed several distinctive themes of this particular historical moment are some of the elements that make this novel so exciting as a de-Orientalizing work of fictive art. By reading Home Fire we learn what is excluded from reading newspapers or listening to politicians. Shamsie has a special talent for conveying the wonderfully non-conformist dimensions of human lives struggling for meaning and love in our chaotic, confused, and violent world. Even the older sensible sister of the twins, Isma, burdened with parenting them from their childhood, gives principled prudence its due, and yet the book opens ironically with Isma’s own interrogation ordeal at Heathrow as she departs Britain to earn a graduate degree at an American university. Her extremely unpleasant exit experience results from nothing more incriminating than her racial and religious identity, and more plausibly, by her being marked for special attention at immigration portals due to their awareness that her abandoning father died an al Qaeda militant en route to Guantanamo.

This novel was for me an experience of adult education at its best as well as an absorbing artistic reading pleasure. What we learn, above all, is that judging and assessing others from their outside appearances and external criteria produces false impressions that often lead to tragic outcomes. We also learn that grief, forgiveness, and empathy are among the most powerful private emotions that contrast favorably with the cruel opportunism of those who hitch their wagon to the conventional wisdom of state power as intrusively enacted in ways that disrupt the lives of gentle people.

Dortmund was quite right to select Home Fire for a literary award, which also informs us deeply about the vulnerability and fragile live of those at the Muslim edge of Western societies, especially if they are unwilling or unable to compromise beliefs and identity. Kamila Shamsie teaches us by her artistry to understand better the worlds we so unknowingly inhabit. We should also pause long enough to notice her way of living, feeling, and acting as if humanity was her true native country.

__________________________________________

Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, Distinguished Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies, UCSB, author, co-author or editor of 40 books, and a speaker and activist on world affairs.

21 October 2019

Source: www.transcend.org