Archives: Articles

By Simon Adams

Last Wednesday an international court found Ratko Mladić, the notorious “butcher of Bosnia,” guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. As Commander of the Bosnian Serb Army during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, Mladić’s troops forced thousands of civilians to flee from “ethnic cleansing” – a cruel euphemism that will forever be associated with the wars in the former Yugoslavia. At the time Mladić appeared all-powerful and untouchable, presiding over the genocide at Srebrenica and wantonly committing war crimes. He will now die in prison.

It took decades for international justice to catch up with Mladić. And while the verdict is a welcome warning to other perpetrators, it also poses the uncomfortable question of whether the international community is doing enough to hold those responsible for atrocities today accountable for their crimes?

Last month, at a meeting held at the United Nations in New York, I argued that “democracy in Myanmar cannot be built on the bones of the Rohingya.” Sitting between the former Foreign Minister of Bangladesh and the UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, those were my concluding remarks regarding the quickest and most brutal episode of ethnic cleansing of our times. They were made to a room crowded with diplomats, UN bureaucrats and human rights activists who were gathered because since 25 August more than 622,000 Rohingya have crossed the border from Myanmar (Burma) into Bangladesh.

The Rohingya are fleeing so-called “clearance operations” carried out by the Myanmar military in Rakhine State, including widespread killings, rape, and the burning of more than 280 villages. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has described these attacks as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

The Rohingya, a distinct Muslim ethnic group in an overwhelmingly Buddhist country, have been persecuted for generations. Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law does not recognize the estimated 1 million Rohingya as one of the country’s “national races,” rendering them stateless. Other discriminatory laws restrict their freedom of movement and access to employment and education. In short, the conditions under which the Rohingya minority live in Myanmar constitute a uniquely Southeast Asian form of apartheid.

The military’s operations began as collective punishment for a coordinated attack on police and army barracks by Rohingya militants armed mainly with knives. One week later, the Commander of Myanmar’s military, General Min Aung Hlaing, described the “Bengali problem” (he refuses to use the term Rohingya) as an “unfinished job” that previous governments had failed to complete. Atrocities committed against the Rohingya population since then constitute crimes against humanity under international law. They may ultimately prove to be genocidal in intent.

The response of the UN Security Council has been tepid at best. It took ten weeks for the Council just to issue a Presidential statement condemning the atrocities. The reason for the delay is that China is a powerful ally of the Generals who still dominate Myanmar. China is also Myanmar’s largest supplier of arms. But facing global outrage, China eventually agreed to a unanimous Presidential statement rather than a legally-binding resolution. Words, but no action.

Despite the Security Council’s inertia, the flow of Rohingya refugees has ebbed. This is not because atrocities were halted, but because Myanmar’s military has largely finished its job. Possibly as much as 80% of the Rohingya population have fled. And no one knows how many more are dead or displaced inside Myanmar. Unfinished business, indeed.

My comment at the UN regarding the bones of the Rohingya was a response to those who see these atrocities as unconscionable, but ultimately, as a lesser priority than the political preservation of Myanmar’s frail democracy under Aung San Suu Kyi. The greatest threat to Myanmar’s democracy today, however, is the impunity of its Generals. What kind of a country will Myanmar be if they are allowed to successfully impose their scorched earth policy on Rakhine State? They will certainly have no incentive to respect the human rights of the other 135 ethnic groups who live within Myanmar’s borders.

But there is an alternative. First, the international community should suspend all bilateral ties with Myanmar’s military. All senior officers with command responsibility for ethnic cleansing should also face targeted sanctions. And all international trade, aid and investment programs in Rakhine State should be scrupulously reviewed. The local authorities and the Myanmar military must not be allowed to profit from the seizure of Rohingya crops, livestock and land.

The United States, Canada, European Union and others have already imposed some of these measures, but all UN member states should do so.

Secondly, influential international friends of Aung San Suu Kyi need to continue to lobby her to implement the recommendations of the Rakhine Commission. Led by Kofi Annan, the Commission has offered practical suggestions to end the persecution of the Rohingya and ease conflict in Rakhine. Not by coincidence, its final report was released on 24 August, the day before the current conflagration began. Expeditiously implementing the Commission’s recommendations would weaken those inside Myanmar’s military who still prefer to conduct domestic policy with bayonets and bullets.

Finally, we need to recognize that the international community has utterly failed the Rohingya. Despite years of warnings about the risk of mass atrocities, including by my own organization, a number of governments took refuge in the idea that quiet diplomacy – including acquiescing to Myanmar’s insistence on not publicly mentioning the Rohingya – would create space for gentle reform. Instead it had the reverse affect, encouraging those generals who desired a final solution in Rakhine State and wanted to test the limits of Aung San Suu Kyi’s moral authority.

Unlike Ratko Mladić’s victims, Rohingya refugees should not have to wait two decades for justice. It is time to amplify the voices of those calling for the Myanmar authorities to uphold their responsibility to protect the Rohingya. This will require more than hand wringing. It will necessitate holding General Min Aung Hlaing and all those responsible for ethnic cleansing in Myanmar accountable for their actions. What is at stake is not just the fate of the Rohingya, but the very idea of an international community that is prepared to defend universal rights.

24 November 2017

Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ratko-mladi%C4%87-international-justice-and-the-bones-of_us_5a188351e4b068a3ca6df7ce?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004

By Jonathan Cook

Nazareth: Can anyone still doubt that access to a relatively free and open internet is rapidly coming to an end in the west? In China and other autocratic regimes, leaders have simply bent the internet to their will, censoring content that threatens their rule. But in the “democratic” west, it is being done differently. The state does not have to interfere directly – it outsources its dirty work to corporations.

As soon as next month, the net could become the exclusive plaything of the biggest such corporations, determined to squeeze as much profit as possible out of bandwith. Meanwhile, the tools to help us engage in critical thinking, dissent and social mobilisation will be taken away as “net neutrality” becomes a historical footnote, a teething phase, in the “maturing” of the internet.

In December the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to repeal already compromised regulations that are in place to maintain a semblance of “net neutrality”. Its chairman, Ajit Pai, and the corporations that are internet service providers want to sweep away these rules, just like the banking sector got rid of financial regulations so it could inflate our economies into giant ponzi schemes. [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/21/net-neutrality-rules-to-be-ditched-as-expected-fcc-decision-sparks-protests]

That could serve as the final blow to the left and its ability to make its voice heard in the public square.

It was political leaders – aided by the corporate media – who paved the way to this with their fomenting of a self-serving moral panic about “fake news”. Fake news, they argued, appeared only online, not in the pages of the corporate media – the same media that sold us the myth of WMD in Iraq, and has so effectively preserved a single party system with two faces. The public, it seems, needs to be protected only from bloggers and websites.

The social media giants soon responded. It is becoming ever clearer that Facebook is interfering as a platform for the dissemination of information for progressive activists. It is already shutting down  accounts, and limiting their reach. These trends will only accelerate. [https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/ive-been-banned-from-facebook-for-sharing-an-article-about-false-flags-678c24358fde]

Google has changed its algorithms in ways that have ensured the search engine rankings of prominent leftwing sites are falling through the floor. It is becoming harder and harder to find alternative sources of news because they are being actively hidden from view. [https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/] [http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2017-09-30/googles-new-search-engine-bias-is-no-accident/]

Google stepped up that process this week by “deranking” RT and Sputnik, two Russian news sites that provide an important counterweight – even if one skewed in its pro-Russia agenda – to the anti-Russia propaganda spouted by western corporate media. The two sites will be as good as censored on the internet for the vast majority of users. [http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42065644]

RT is far from a perfect source of news – no state or corporate media is – but it is a vital voice to have online. It has become a sanctuary for many seeking alternative, and often far more honest, critiques both of western domestic policy and of western interference in far-off lands. It has its own political agenda, of course, but, despite the assumption of many western liberals, it provides a far more accurate picture of the world than the western corporate media on a vast range of issues. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_YLPUvBcDM]

That is for good reason. Western corporate media is there to shore up prejudices that have been inculcated in western audiences over a lifetime – the chief one being that western states rightfully act as well-meaning, if occasionally bumbling, policemen trying to keep order among other, unruly or outright evil states around the globe.

The media and political class can easily tap into these prejudices to persuade us of all sorts of untruths that advance western interests. To take just one example – Iraq. We were told Saddam Hussein had ties to al-Qaeda (he didn’t and could not have had); that Iraq was armed with WMD (it wasn’t, as UN arms inspectors tried to tell us); and that the US and UK wanted to promote democracy in Iraq (but not before they had stolen its oil). There may have been opposition in the west to the invasion of Iraq, but little of it was driven by an appreciation that these elements of the official narrative were all easily verified as lies.

RT and other non-western news sources in English provide a different lens through which we can view such important events, perspectives unclouded by a western patrician agenda.

They and progressive sites are being gradually silenced and blacklisted, herding us back into the arms of the corporate propagandists. Few liberals have been prepared to raise their voices on behalf of RT, forgetting warnings from history, such as Martin Niemoller’s anti-Nazi poem “First they came for the socialists”. [https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392#]

The existing rules of “net neutrality” are already failing progressives and dissidents, as the developments I have outlined above make clear. But without them, things will get even worse. If the changes are approved next month, internet service providers (ISPs), the corporations that plug us into the internet, will also be able to decide what we should see and what will be out of reach.

Much of the debate has focused on the impact of ending the rules on online commercial ventures. That is why Amazon and porn sites like Pornhub have been leading the opposition. But that is overshadowing the more significant threat to progressive sites and already-embattled principles of free speech.

ISPs will be given a much freer hand to determine the content we can can get online. They will be able to slow down the access speeds of sites that are not profitable – which is true for activist sites, by definition. But they may also be empowered to impose Chinese-style censorship, either on their own initiative or under political pressure. The fact that this may be justified on commercial, not political, grounds will offer little succour.

Those committed to finding real news may be able to find workarounds. But this is little consolation. The vast majority of people will use the services they are provided with, and be oblivious to what is no longer available.

If it takes an age to access a website, they will simply click elsewhere. If a Google search shows them only corporately approved results, they will read what is on offer. If their Facebook feed declines to supply them with “non-profitable” or “fake” content, they will be none the wiser. But all of us who care about the future will be the poorer.

23 November 2017

Source: https://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/23/from-an-open-internet-back-to-the-dark-ages/

By Trévon Austin

All but admitting that Google is engaged in censorship, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet, announced that Google will create algorithms designed to “de-rank” web sites such as RT and Sputnik on its news delivery services.

In a question and answer session at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada over the weekend, Schmidt laid out Google’s intentions. When asked if the internet giant had a role in preventing the “manipulation of information,” Schmidt stated, “We are working on detecting and de-ranking those kinds of sites—it’s basically RT and Sputnik.”

In response to a question about “Russian propaganda,” Schmidt replied, “We are well of aware of it, and we are trying to engineer the systems to prevent that. But we don’t want to ban the sites—that’s not how we operate.” Instead, Schmidt said he viewed the “misuse of information” as bugs in a program. “If you’re misusing information, then our programs are not doing a good enough job of properly ranking it.”

During the session, Schmidt claimed that he was “very strongly not in favor of censorship,” while at the same time professing faith in the “ranking” process that is used to demote content not deemed authoritative—clearly a form of censorship, since ranking is used to make certain web sites virtually invisible on “Google News” and similar news aggregators.

Schmidt added that Google’s algorithm was capable of detecting “repetitive, exploitative, false, and weaponized” information, but did not elaborate how such criteria are defined.

The World Socialist Web Site has been engaged in a campaign to expose Google’s efforts to censor left-wing and anti-war sites. Since it discovered that its search traffic originating from Google had dropped by 74 percent since April of this year, the WSWS has provided detailed data showing that Google is effectively banishing the WSWS from its lists of articles and news sources. The WSWS has published an Open Letter and launched a petition drive to demand that Google end its censorship of the WSWS and other left-wing, progressive and anti-war web sites.

Google has refused to respond to the WSWS’ allegations, even after the New York Times published an article based on an interview with the chairman of the WSWS International Editorial Board, David North, describing the systematic and obvious purging of the WSWS from its search requests.

However, Schmidt’s statements over the weekend amount to an admission that Google is actively censoring sites because of their political views.

The blacklisting of media platforms RT and Sputnik is part of a broader campaign of internet censorship, backed by the US intelligence agencies and supported politically by the Democratic Party, in particular.

Earlier this month, RT America was forced by the US Justice Department to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The platform has been a prime target of the efforts of tech companies, including Twitter, Facebook and Google, to combat so-called “extremist content,” a term that embraces information and opinions at odds with the policies and propaganda of the government.

The report released last January by the intelligence agencies on alleged “Russian meddling” in the 2016 elections makes clear that the government defines social and political dissent as tantamount to foreign subversion. The report stated: “RT broadcast, hosted and advertised third-party candidate debates and ran reporting supportive of the political agenda of these candidates. The RT hosts asserted that the US two-party system does not represent the views of at least one-third of the population and is a ‘sham.’”

The popularity of RT and other news platforms critical of the US government reflects the mood of broad layers of the American public. An NBC poll in July reported that 76 percent of Americans were worried about a war breaking out with North Korea, and 59 percent preferred diplomacy to solve conflicts with that country. A report by the anti-communist Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation revealed that most young people in the US, age 21 to 29, preferred socialism to capitalism.

US politicians such as Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claim that RT is an arm of the Kremlin, used to “sow divisions” within the United States. This month’s congressional hearings on “extremist content” on the internet were replete with demands for social media companies to take decisive action in censoring “harmful content.”

At one of the hearings, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat from California, questioned Google’s legal counsel on why it took so long for YouTube to remove RT as a “preferred” channel. She demanded to know, “Why did Google give preferred status to Russia Today, a Russian propaganda arm, on YouTube?”

Representative Jackie Speier from California asserted that RT “seeks to influence politics and fuel discontent in the United States.” She asked, “Why have you not shut down RT on YouTube?… The intelligence community says it’s an arm of one of our adversaries.”

The American people do not need RT to understand that the political system is corrupt and dominated by Wall Street. The results of the McCarthyite witch-hunt over supposed “Russian interference”—algorithms to promote “authoritative content,” the demoting of “extremist content,” the blacklisting of left-wing sites—have set a dangerous precedent. The hysterical campaign against Russia, including RT, has served as a cover for a frontal attack on the First Amendment rights to free speech and political expression.

21 November 2017

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/21/google-announces-moves-to-censor-rt-and-sputnik/

By Spencer Woodman

Global inequality has worsened since the millennium, with a new report finding the richest 1 percent account for half of the world’s wealth.

The world’s top 1 percent held 45.5 percent of all household wealth in 2000. Now, they hold 50.1 percent, according to Credit Suisse’s annual Global Wealth Report.

The report highlights that Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWIs) – people who are worth more than $50 million – as being the driving force behind the gap. This group of wealth holders has grown five-fold since 2000.

“While the bottom half of adults collectively own less than 1 percent  of total wealth, the richest decile (top 10 percent of adults) owns 88 percent of global assets, and the top percentile alone accounts for half of total household wealth,” the report said.

It was also the wealthy who benefited from the global fortunes following the 2008 global financial crisis with wealth inequality rising across all regions, except for China where median wealth declined.

The report offers a reminder that anti-poverty groups aren’t the only ones publishing eye-popping numbers on global inequality; the severe numbers are also being confirmed by the financial services firms that specialize in helping the rich grow their assets.

“It fits broadly along with the things we really noticed this year — that is, the massive increase of wealth in just one unit,” Max Lawson, head of inequality policy at Oxfam International, said of today’s report.

The report comes a little more than a week after ICIJ and more than 90 media partners around the world released the Paradise Papers, an investigation that seeks to shed light on the offshore financial services industry, a significant driver of greater shares of wealth accumulating at the top.

The investigation revealed ways in which the offshore world offers billionaires and the companies they own a means to reduce their taxes under a deep veil of financial privacy, allowing them to grow their assets in dazzling exponentials.

“You’ve got a direct link between tax havens and this explosion in the wealth of the super-rich which we see in the report today,” Lawson said.

“They’re using industrial levels of tax avoidance to make sure their fortunes are shielded from the tax man. They’d be less wealthy if they paid the tax they owe.”

The Paradise Papers investigation, based on a trove of millions of leaked files from leading offshore law firm Appleby,  shed light on the use of these havens by some of the world’s wealthiest individuals.

The files revealed that James Simons, a hedge fund billionaire and top US political donor, used the low-tax jurisdiction of Bermuda to quietly grow one of the largest private trust funds ever discovered. It also showed how multinational corporations like Apple and Nike have avoided billions in taxes, often using mazes of offshore entities that shift earnings and assets overseas — away from public scrutiny and tax collectors.

“The offshore industry makes “the poor poorer” and is “deepening wealth inequality,” Brooke Harrington, a certified wealth manager and Copenhagen Business School professor, told ICIJ’sreporters for the Paradise Papers investigation.

“There is this small group of people who are not equally subject to the laws as the rest of us, and that’s on purpose,” Harrington said.

While the Paradise Papers provide a view into the elaborate mechanisms by which the wealthy move their assets away from public coffers, today’s Credit Suisse report shows how these maneuvers have manifested in broad terms, although the report does not name offshore services providers or tax avoidance as drivers of its findings.

“This is clearly a crisis… and it is a crisis that is getting a lot worse.”
— Max Lawson

The report states that half the world’s population — 3.5 billion adults with wealth below $10,000 — account for just 2.7 percent of global wealth.

“In contrast…the 36 million millionaires comprise less than 1% of the adult population, but own 46% of household wealth,” the report said.

The growth of “financial assets,” commonly defined as stocks, bonds and other investments, has outpaced the growth of real assets, like homes and land — with the rich benefiting handsomely from this trend.

This has been most true, according to the report, in wealthier countries, where  millionaires and billionaires fare far better than those in poor countries.

“The United States continued its remarkable unbroken spell of gains after the financial crisis,” the report states, noting that many countries in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa saw growth of less than one percent – or even shrinking overall wealth. Credit Suisse attributed this to “adverse currency movements.”

“This is clearly a crisis,” said Oxfam’s Lawson. “And it is a crisis that is getting a lot worse.”

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/11/wealth-inequality-crisis-as-richest-1-percent-account-for-half-the-worlds-wealth/

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

The Western Media Refute Their Own Lies

Not only do they confirm that the Pentagon has been training the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons, they also acknowledge the existence of a not so secret “US-backed plan to launch a chemical weapon attack on Syria and blame it on Assad’s regime”

London’s Daily Mail in a 2013 article confirmed the existence of an Anglo-American project endorsed by the White House (with the assistance of Qatar) to wage a chemical weapons attack on Syria and place the blame on Bashar Al Assad.

(Update; April 8, 2017) Trump’s decision to strike a Syrian airbase in retaliation for Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against his own people confirms that the “False Flag” Chemical Weapons attack scenario first formulated under Obama is still “on the table”.  Our analysis (including a large body of Global Research investigative reports) confirms unequivocally that Trump is lying, the Western media is lying and most of America’s allies are also lying.

The following Mail Online article was published and subsequently removed. Note the contradictory discourse: “Obama issued warning to Syrian president Bashar al Assad”, “White House gave green light to chemical weapons attack”.

This Mail Online report published in January 2013 was subsequently removed from Mail Online. For further details click here

The Pentagon’s Training of  “Rebels” (aka Al Qaeda Terrorists) in the Use of Chemical Weapons

CNN accuses Bashar Al Assad of killing his own people while also acknowledging that the “rebels” are not only in possession of chemical weapons, but that these “moderate terrorists” affiliated with Al Nusra are trained in the use of chemical weapons by specialists on contract to the Pentagon.

In a twisted logic, the Pentagon’s mandate was to ensure that the rebels aligned with Al Qaeda would not acquire or use WMD, by actually training them in the use of chemical weapons (sounds contradictory):

“The training [in chemical weapons], which is taking place in Jordan and Turkey, involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and materials, according to the sources. Some of the contractors are on the ground in Syria working with the rebels to monitor some of the sites, according to one of the officials.

The nationality of the trainers was not disclosed, though the officials cautioned against assuming all are American. (CNN, December 09, 2012, emphasis added)

The above report by CNN’s award winning journalist Elise Labott (relegated to the status a CNN blog), refutes CNN’s numerous accusations directed against Bashar Al Assad.

Who is doing the training of terrorists in the use of chemical weapons?  From the horse’s mouth: CNN

Sources: U.S. helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing chemical weapons

And these are the same terrorists (trained by the Pentagon) who are the alleged target of  Washington’s counterterrorism bombing campaign initiated by Obama in August 2014:

“The Pentagon scheme established in 2012 consisted in equipping and training Al Qaeda rebels in the use of chemical weapons, with the support of military contractors hired by the Pentagon, and then holding the Syrian government responsible  for using the WMD against the Syrian people.

What is unfolding is a diabolical scenario –which is an integral part of military planning– namely a situation where opposition terrorists advised by Western defense contractors are actually in possession of chemical weapons.

This is not a rebel training exercise in non-proliferation. While president Obama states that “you will be held accountable” if “you” (meaning the Syrian government) use chemical weapons, what is contemplated as part of this covert operation is the possession of chemical weapons by the US-NATO sponsored terrorists, namely “by our” Al Qaeda affiliated operatives, including the Al Nusra Front which constitutes the most effective Western financed and trained fighting group, largely integrated by foreign mercenaries. In a bitter twist, Jabhat al-Nusra, a US sponsored “intelligence asset”, was recently put on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

The West claims that it is coming to the rescue of the Syrian people, whose lives are allegedly threatened by Bashar Al Assad. The truth of the matter is that the Western military alliance is not only supporting the terrorists, including the Al Nusra Front, it is also making chemical weapons available to its proxy “opposition” rebel forces.

The next phase of this diabolical scenario is that the chemical weapons in the hands of Al Qaeda operatives will be used against civilians, which could potentially lead an entire nation into a humanitarian disaster.

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/11/pentagon-trained-syrias-al-qaeda-rebels-in-the-use-of-chemical-weapons/

By Peter Schwarz

14 Nov 2017 – The European Union has taken a major step toward developing the capacity to wage war in the future independently of and, if necessary, against the United States.

Foreign and defence ministers from 23 of the 28 EU member states signed a framework document on a common defence policy in Brussels on Monday. Along with Britain, which will leave the EU in 2019, only four smaller countries—Denmark, Ireland, Malta and Portugal—did not sign on to the deal. However, they can do so at any time.

With the “agreement on permanent structured cooperation” (PESCO), the EU states committed themselves to close cooperation in the development and purchase of weapons, and in making available troops and equipment for joint military interventions.

“PESCO is an ambitious, binding and inclusive European legal framework for investment in the security and defence of the EU’s territory and citizens,” the document states. The key issue is to make Europe more efficient, capable of acting and quicker, said a representative of the German defence ministry.

The agreement signifies an escalation of European militarism. The first of 20 conditions to which all parties must commit is a regular increase in military spending. At least 20 percent of this must be directed to the purchase of new weapons. For its part, the EU intends to contribute €500 million annually and €1 billion after 2021 to joint arms projects.

Details concerning the form of cooperation will be worked out over the coming weeks. There are currently 47 proposals for joint projects. These include a joint crisis response corps, the establishment of multinational combat units, a joint “centre of excellence” for European training missions, precautionary plans for military interventions in various regions around the world, a “military Schengen” zone, which would allow the swift deployment of troops and heavy weaponry without bureaucratic hurdles, joint satellite reconnaissance, a European medics commando, and joint logistics hubs. Ten of these 47 projects are to be initiated in December.

The driving forces behind PESCO are Germany and France. In recent months, Berlin, Paris and Brussels have promoted the project by holding six workshops. French President Emmanuel Macron, in a speech delivered at the Sorbonne University in Paris in September, declared, “By the beginning of the next decade, Europe must have a joint intervention force, a common defence budget and a joint doctrine for action.”

German Defence Minister Ursula Von der Leyen said the signing of PESCO was “a great day for Europe.” The parties were taking “a further step towards an army for Europe.”

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel described the agreement as “historic.” It was a “major step towards independence and the strengthening of the EU’s security and defence policy.” He anticipated that PESCO would result in a major increase in military capabilities.

Europe currently spends half of the money the US does on its military, he said, but achieves a capacity of only 15 percent. Closer cooperation could bring about an improvement.

Berlin, Paris and Brussels are seeking to portray EU military cooperation as complimentary to, rather than at odds with, NATO. The PESCO agreement itself states: “The strengthened military capacity of EU states will also be of use to NATO. It will strengthen the European pillar and serve to answer repeated demands for stronger transatlantic burden-sharing.”

Von der Leyen also sought to deny any opposition to NATO. The transatlantic alliance would always be responsible for national and collective defence, she said, while the EU, with its “networked security,” would carry out tasks that are not part of NATO’s remit, such as “assistance” to African states.

This is nonsense. Commentators are generally agreed that two key events have encouraged the implementation of long-discussed but repeatedly frustrated plans for a European army: the election of Donald Trump and Brexit.

A first attempt to found a European Defence Community failed in 1954 in the face of French opposition. No further attempt was made for several decades. At the turn of the new century, efforts to establish closer military cooperation failed due to resistance from London, which, as Washington’s closest ally, wanted to prevent the emergence of any alternative to NATO.

Trump’s “America First” policy has sharpened the tensions between the United States and Europe. US policy in the Middle East and Southeast Asia is viewed in Berlin and Paris as an attack on their interests, and America, Europe and China are fighting among themselves for influence in Africa. Only in the preparations for war with Russia are the European powers and the US cooperating closely via NATO. But even here, there are tactical differences on how far the conflict should be pushed.

At the same time, Brexit has removed the most important opponent of a European army from the EU.

The PESCO agreement does not mean that all of the conflicts within Europe have been overcome, and that Germany and France will toe the same line from now on. Even prior to the agreement, sharp differences emerged.

While Paris wanted to restrict the agreement to a small, exclusive group of states with large armies that could intervene decisively in a crisis situation, Berlin pressed for the broadest possible range of participants, with a wide spectrum of tasks. Germany prevailed.

Since unanimous decisions are required, decision-making will be difficult. But Berlin feared that the Eastern European states, which are increasingly dominated by nationalist and anti-EU sentiment, would align with the US.

The huge hike in military spending connected with PESCO will exacerbate class tensions in Europe. The ruling elites are already responding to class tensions in every European country with a major buildup of the apparatus of state repression. This is encouraging right-wing and nationalist forces and tearing the EU apart.

In the final analysis, the growing tensions between the US and Europe are “not simply the product of the extreme nationalist policies of the current occupant of the White House,” as the World Socialist Web Site wrote in its June 2, 2017 Perspective column titled “The Great Unraveling: The crisis of the post-war geopolitical order.”

The column continued: “Rather, the tensions are rooted in deep contradictions between the interests of the major imperialist powers, which twice in the last century led to world war…

“The events surrounding Trump’s trip to Europe reflect a crisis not only of American imperialism, but of the entire world capitalist system. None of Washington’s rivals—neither the EU, despised at home for its austerity policies, nor the economically moribund, right-wing regime in Japan, nor the post-Maoist capitalist oligarchy in China—offers a progressive alternative. Anyone who asserted that a coalition of these powers will emerge to stabilize world capitalism, and block the emergence of large-scale trade war and military conflict, would be placing heavy bets against history.”

The rearming of Europe confirms this. Only the construction of an international antiwar movement based on the working class and fighting for a socialist programme and the overthrow of capitalism can avert the catastrophe of another world war.

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/11/eu-member-states-take-major-step-toward-a-european-army/

By Rene Wadlow

On 13 November, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution, 366 to 30 opposed, on the armed conflict in Yemen expressing the urgent need for a political solution and denouncing “ the conduct of activities in Yemen and areas affected by the conflict that are, directly or indirectly inconsistent with the law of armed conflict including the deliberate targeting of civilian populations or the use of civilians as human shields.”  The violations of the laws of war, now usually called humanitarian law, have been so wide-spread and numerous as to be considered a deliberate policy which now includes the systematic destruction of medical facilities and imposing starvation.  Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen reports that seven million people are in famine-like conditions, and many more depend on imported food aid.  The aggression against Yemen has created a moral vacuum, an area devoid of the most basic human values both within Yemen and in the countries attacking it.

Among the 30 in Congress who opposed the resolution there were some who wanted a stronger resolution calling for an end to US support which includes intelligence and logistic support, air refueling and the sale of weapons including rockets and cluster munitions, of the Saudi-led attacks.  However, even the Congressmen who proposed the resolution, Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts recognized that a stronger resolution demanding a US cutoff to the Saudis would have met strong opposition from within the Administration.

The impact of the resolution will be felt most strongly outside of Washington.  The resolution is a strong message to the governments in the Saudi-led coalition: United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, that the wind is changing directions in Washington.  Although the Gulf States leading the aggression have unlimited money for arms, they do not have broad political support of other countries of influence beyond the USA and Great Britain.  Thus the resolution, although very general, will get a message across to States such as Egypt, Jordan and Morocco which depend on US support for both domestic power and influence on other foreign policy issues.  Qatar which had originally been a member of the coalition withdrew in June 2017 as part of a conflict on other issues with Saudi Arabia.

When the Saudi-led coalition began its bombing of Yemen on 15 March 2015, they expected a short war and called its attack “Operation Decisive Storm.” As the war dragged on the name was changed to “Operation Restoring Hope”, but hope has given way to resignation.  Countries in the Saudi coalition see less and less their national interest in participating.  While they may not follow Qatar and officially leave the coalition, their participation is likely to lessen.

There is wide agreement in U.N. circles and among conflict-resolution NGOs that Yemen is in a quagmire with a free-fall of its economic and social infrastructure.  The country is on the eve of a new division between the north and south of the country.  The country’s present shape dates from 1990 when what had been the British colony of Aden, then the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen was integrated into north Yemen.   However, the country remains highly fractured on tribal, sectarian and ideological lines, with the tribal structures being the most important.

Negotiations among the multitude of factions in Yemen will be difficult.  The most likely pattern will be for the country to split into two again with each half having a  number of relatively autonomous regions.  In the best of worlds, one could envisage a federal Yemen with a rule of law and a unity government focused on raising the standard of living and dealing with ecological issues with a priority on water supply.

The immediate need is for a ceasefire ending all foreign military attacks.  Continued fighting serves the interest of none and has not changed the power configurations within the country nor within the wider Middle East region.  The United States serves no national interest by its continued support of the Saudi-led attacks.

The resolution in Congress will offer some support to the U.N. mediator Ould Cheikh Ahmed and especially will lead to discussions among the Saudi-led coalition members who may also be wondering if this Saudi-led war in Yemen is really necessary.

19 November 2017

Rene Wadlow is the President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation on and problem-solving in economic and social issues.

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Sixty nine years after Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, a “shrine” dedicated to his killer Nathuram Godse was set up in Guwalior by the Hindu Mahasabha on Wednesday (Nov 15), Hindustan Times reported.

The ultra right wing organization installed a bust of Godse inside its office premises amid Vedic chants to mark the anniversary of his execution.

Leaders of the Mahasabha said every Tuesday they will perform “akhand bharat (Greater India) aarti in the temple” to apprise the younger generation about Godse’s life and vision.

The term akhand bharat or Greater India is most commonly used to encompass the historical and geographic extent of all political entities of the Indian subcontinent, and the regions which are culturally linked to India or received significant Indian cultural influence.

A Gwalior-based leader of the Mahasabha Jaiveer Bhardwaj told HT that they were forced to set up the shrine inside their office building as the district administration did not give permission and land for the temple.

“We had applied for permission on November 9, but district authorities denied it. So we finally decided to set up the temple inside our building in the Daulatganj area of the city”, he said.

Bhardwaj said the “temple” would created awareness among the younger generation about the historical events surrounding the life of Godse, which, he claimed, is often distorted, and the role of Mahatma Gandhi in the partition of the sub-continent in 1947 by Britain to establish Pakistan.

He said Godse had spent time in Gwalior and it was from here he went to Delhi to kill Mahatma Gandhi.

Assassination of Gandhi

On January 30, 1948 Nathuram Godse, a member of  Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), shot Mahatma Gandhi three times and killed him in Delhi.

Godse and his fellow conspirators Digambar Badge, Gopal Godse, Narayan Apte, Vishnu Karkare and Madanlal Pahwa were identified as prominent members of the Hindu Mahasabha.

Along with them, police arrested Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who was suspected of being the mastermind behind the plot.

Savarkar coined the term Hindutva (Hinduness) to create a collective “Hindu” identity as an essence of Bharat (India).

While the trial resulted in convictions and judgments against the others, Savarkar was released on a technicality, even though there was evidence that the plotters met Savarkar only days before carrying out the murder and had received the blessings of Savarkar.

The Kapur Commission in 1967 established that Savarkar was in close contact with the plotters for many months.

The governing Bharatiya Janata Party is widely seen as the political arm of the umbrella Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, or National Volunteer Corps).

In 2015 vice president of All India Hindu Mahasabha, Sadhvi Deva Thakur stoked a controversy saying Muslims and Christians must undergo sterilization to restrict their growing population which was posing a threat to Hindus.

She said, “The population of Muslims and Christians is growing day by day. To rein in this, Centre will have to impose emergency, and Muslims and Christians will have to be forced to undergo sterilization so that they can’t increase their numbers”.

‘Hindu Rashtra’ by 2023

Nathuram Godse temple is apparently a part of Indian ultra right political parties’ agenda to make Indian a Hindu State. It may be recalled that in June last, approximately 150 Hindu outfits held a four-day convention in Goa to chalk out a program for establishing a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ in India by 2023.

The convention was organized by the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS), the sister outfit of Sanatan Sanstha which was caught up in controversy after the murder of rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar in 2013.

Declare India a Hindu rashtra, ban cattle slaughter and declare the cow India’s national animal, ban all religious conversions, start the construction of a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya: these were some of the resolutions passed by the four day convention attended Approximately 150 Hindu outfits which met in Goa from June 14 to17 for a convention to chalk out a program for establishing a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ in India by 2023.

According to Rahul Kaul, national youth coordinator for Panun Kashmir, this will bring back the glory India enjoyed in ancient times. “It was Hindutva which attracted people from all across the globe and this will happen again if we adopt the Hindu way of life,” said Kaul.

Similar was the view of Bharat Raksha Manch, which said that the move had the potential to make India a superpower. “This will create in a country where no one will be appeased and there will be the same law for everyone,” said Anil Dhir, National Secretary, Bharat Raksha Manch.

Opponents have blasted the whole mission calling it a upper class conspiracy. “In their concept, forget Muslims, even the Dalits and adivasis will be reduced to second class citizens,” said Maulana Noorie, general secretary, Raza Academy. “This is false propaganda of appeasement of Muslims being spread by these Hindu forces as the ground reality is we are worse off than the Dalits,” said Noorie.

The Congress said the entire Hindutva program of HJS has the blessings of the ruling Bhartiya Junta Party (BJP). “These outfits carry out subversive activities with impunity, thanks to the support from the BJP-led Govt,” said Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant.

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/18/indian-ultra-right-party-honors-the-assassin-of-nations-father-mahatma-gandhi/

By Richard Heinberg

“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel.” –  Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, first Prime Minister of United Arab Emirates

Try this simple mental exercise. Imagine a hypothetical Middle Eastern monarchy in which:

• Virtually all wealth comes from the extraction and sale of depleting, non-renewable, climate changing petroleum;

• Domestic oil consumption is rising rapidly, which means that, as long as this trend continues and overall oil production doesn’t rise to compensate, the country’s net oil exports are destined to decline year by year;

• The state has a history of supporting a radical version of Sunni Islam, but the people who live near its oilfields are mostly Shiite Muslims;

• Power and income have been shared by direct descendants of the royal founder of the state for the past 80 years, but the thousands of princes on the take don’t always get along well;

• Many of the princes have expatriated the wealth of the country overseas;

• Population is growing at well over two percent annually (doubling in size every 30 years), and, as a result, 70 percent of the country is under age 30 with increasing numbers in need of a job;

• Roughly 30 percent of the population consists of immigrants—many of whom are treated terribly—who have been brought into the country to perform labor that nationals don’t want to do;

• A sizeable portion of the nation’s enormous wealth has been spent on elaborate weapons systems and on fighting foreign wars;

• A powerful Shia Muslim nation located just a couple of hundred miles away has gained geopolitical advantage in recent years; and,

• For the past three years oil prices have been too low to enable the kingdom to meet its obligations, so it has rapidly been spending down its cash reserves.

Now, ask yourself: What could possibly go wrong here?

We are, of course, discussing Saudi Arabia, which has been much in the news lately. This essay will review recent events centered therein and probe their significance. As we will see, the main actors in the drama are an ambitious young Saudi prince, the Trump administration (and its own ambitious young prince), Iran, and Israel (which has a hand in just about everything of significance that happens in the Middle East)—with Lebanon, Qatar, and Yemen as possible staging grounds for the unfolding of further action. As we will also see, regional stability is likely now in peril to a greater degree than at any time since the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

MbS Rules

Most of the current hubbub in Saudi Arabia revolves around 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (sometimes referred to as MbS), who was elevated to his current status as heir apparent to the throne in June 2017. MbS appears to be a forward-thinking young Saudi who wants to reduce his country’s official support for the extreme branch of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism. He has lobbied for regulations restricting the powers of the religious police and advocated for the removal of the ban on women drivers. MbS’s moderate stance is widely popular among Saudi youth.

Bin Salman has also put forward a plan called “Saudi Vision 2030,”  which aims to reform the Saudi economy, privatize Saudi Aramco (the government-owned oil company), reduce corruption, develop renewable energy and other non-petroleum revenue streams, and pursue sustainable development. The plan includes setting up a $2 trillion megafund for a transition to the post-oil era. This policy is, again, widely approved by younger Saudis.

Though MbS appears to be the new de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, his official title since 2015 has been Minister of Defense. In that capacity he has overseen Saudi’s deepening involvement in the war in neighboring Yemen, where rebel Houthis (who follow Shia Islam) gained control of the government in 2014-2015. The Saudi intervention has killed thousands of civilians, prompting accusations of war crimes. Earlier this November, the Saudis blockaded Yemeni ports, severely exacerbating Yemen’s massive humanitarian crisis, with up to seven million facing the imminent prospect of famine amid the worst outbreak of cholera in history. On November 13, Houthi rebels threatened to attack oil tankers and warships sailing under the Saudi coalition flag unless Riyadh lifted its blockade; the same day, the Saudi government pledged to open Yemeni ports. So far, the war has cost the Saudis tens of billions of dollars, yet has failed to dislodge the Houthis and their allies from the Yemeni capital.

In Syria, Saudi Arabia has been a main supplier of arms to various Sunni rebel groups (almost certainly including ISIS) since the start of that nation’s civil war. The secular Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has, for his part, received backing from Iran and Russia. After 2015, when MbS rose to leadership of the Saudi Defense Ministry, Saudi support for the anti-Assad forces increased significantly. However, the rebels have not fared well: the Assad regime’s position today is far more secure than was the case even a year ago thanks to Russian intervention and the help of Iran/Hezbollah.

A third “accomplishment” of MbS as Minister of Defense has been to blockade the tiny neighboring nation of Qatar, for no apparent reason other than the fact that Qatar and Iran are on friendly terms. The two countries share access to the South Pars/North Dome natural gas field in the Persian Gulf, and as a result Qatar is the world’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Iran and Turkey both back Qatar in the dispute. In May of this year, Donald Trump made his first foreign trip as president—to Saudi Arabia, where he was flattered with the pomp and circumstance that world leaders have learned are keys to his fragile ego. On that visit he met with MbS, Egypt’s military dictator, and officials of the United Arab Emirates. It was right after the visit that Saudi Arabia launched its campaign against Qatar—which Trump quickly endorsed.

To summarize perhaps too simplistically, MbS is an ambitious and visionary young man. But two big projects under his supervision as Minister of Defense have failed miserably, and a third seems to be going nowhere.

Gambling Spree Timeline

Now let’s recall the events of the past month that have garnered Mohammed bin Salman and the Saudis so many headlines:

October 27. President Trump’s son-in-law and Senior Advisor, 36-year-old Jared Kushner, arrives in Riyadh for an unannounced visit. He leaves within 48 hours after extensive meetings with MbS.

November 4. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri is summoned to Saudi Arabia. This in itself is not unusual: Hariri holds Saudi as well as Lebanese citizenship (as did his assassinated father Rafiq). But then Hariri is forced to read a resignation letter, written by the Saudis, on Saudi TV. The letter blames Iran for making Lebanon’s power-sharing arrangement untenable. It is still unclear whether Hariri is actually free to return to Lebanon.

November 4. Saudi Arabia claims it has intercepted a missile launched from Yemen and aimed at Riyadh’s airport. The Houthis have fired missiles into Saudi territory previously, but this one has a longer range. Saudi officials immediately blame Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah (who support the Houthis), and the missile firing is proclaimed an act of war.

The weekend of November 4-5. Mohammed bin Salman initiates a purge. Two prominent princes who try to flee the country are killed; a dozen others are detained. Government ministers are also rounded up. Altogether, by November 10, over 200 (some sources put the number at 500) have been detained, some tortured, with up to $800 billion in assets frozen. The ostensible purpose of the purge is to reduce corruption (the entire Saudi system is in fact built on corruption; it is difficult to imagine it functioning any other way). The purge is by all accounts the biggest power grab since the creation of the Saudi state. MbS has shattered the great compromises on which the kingdom was founded—between the royal family and the clergy, and among the families of the descendants of Ibn Saud. For now he has the country’s youth and the military behind him. But he has also made some powerful people extremely unhappy.

November 9. Saudi citizens are advised to leave Lebanon.

This remarkable string of incidents, all taking place within a mere two weeks, has left commentators speculating as to what might come next. Could this be the prelude to a Saudi bombing of Lebanon? That would likely accomplish little, as the Saudi air force has little to show for its efforts in Yemen, and Hezbollah already is used to being routinely bombed by competent Israeli pilots.

Might MbS undertake an invasion of Qatar? One could argue that it is only with the spoils of such an invasion that Saudi Arabia could afford to continue its lavish spending much longer. But sending troops toward Doha, home to the largest U.S. military base in the region, would constitute a blind roll of the dice. The Trump administration might side with the Saudis, but explaining its reasons for doing so would require some fancy verbal footwork, given the obvious violations of international law. Iran, if not Turkey, would undoubtedly feel compelled to respond in some way.

Lurking rather quietly in the background of all this is Israel—which reportedly has been holding informal meetings with the Saudi leadership for at least five years aimed at strategically uniting the two nations against their mutual foe, Iran.  The budding alliance carries many risks for both countries, which each enjoy a special relationship with the U.S. Iran, on the other hand, has increased its cooperative relations with Russia in recent years.

Saudi/Trump Prospects

We have no way of knowing what Jared Kushner and Mohammed bin Salman said to one another in their meetings October 27-28. Perhaps the essence of Kushner’s message was, “Go for it. Throw all your chips in. We’ll back you up. Somehow.” MbS’s subsequent actions certainly suggest that this might have been the gist; moreover, such reckless encouragement would have been entirely in character: Kushner is himself a gambler (though not a very lucky one, on the evidence of his purchase of 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City), and his father-in-law is speculator-in-chief.

Donald Trump’s own luck is fairly spotty. He managed to win the U.S. presidency against stiff odds, but in doing so he (like MbS) made some powerful people very angry. Whether or not there is something to the Trump-Russia election-rigging story, Special Counsel Robert Mueller appears to be closing in on the president and his inner circle with charges potentially including money laundering, perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy against the United States. Trump can’t fire Mueller without inciting a rebellion in Congress that might lead to Mueller’s appointment as Independent Counsel (a position in which he would be far less vulnerable to presidential interference).

Desperation stalks the halls of the White House. What could change the game? A war might do the trick—maybe a huge conflagration in the Middle East or Korea. Earlier this year I described the current administration as “a presidency in search of an emergency”—anything to justify going full authoritarian.

Mohammed bin Salman’s chances of igniting a regional conflict are substantially higher than his chances of achieving an economic-social soft landing for his nation. But he’s far from being the only double-down-delusional national leader in today’s world. Perhaps he, Trump, and Kushner together fantasize about the unimaginable wealth they can realize for themselves by doing just one more deal, rolling the dice one last time.

There is a possible alternative interpretation of the events of October 27 (the two are not mutually exclusive): maybe Jared Kushner’s visit to Riyadh was to lobby for the listing of Saudi Aramco on the New York Stock Exchange—essentially the substance of a subsequent presidential tweet.  This explanation might exude a less conspiratorial fragrance, but its implications are no less noxious. If the Saudi IPO—which will be the biggest in history—were channeled through the NYSE, the U.S. kleptocracy (perhaps including Kushner and Trump) would make a killing, and this could be a quid pro quo for backing MbS’s personal ambitions and risky moves in the region. In any case, MbS’s flurry of domestic arrests—of businessmen as well as rival princes—could easily spook already nervous potential Aramco investors.

There’s no guarantee the Aramco IPO will even happen. It would, after all, require an audit of Saudi oil reserves. For years analysts have argued that OPEC stated reserves, which are not audited by any disinterested second party such as the International Energy Agency, have been generously inflated for political reasons. If this is indeed the case, it’s not just the Saudis and Aramco investors who should be worried, but the whole oil-dependent world.

The bullet points at the start of this article, though framed somewhat facetiously, outline the deadly serious bind that Saudi Arabia faces: it is not just a political, geopolitical, or economic trap, but also a biophysical one. Indeed, Saudi Arabia epitomizes the growth snare in which the entire world struggles: a few decades’ worth of cheap fossil fuels have driven population, consumption, and expectations far beyond what can be sustained or fulfilled for much longer.

“Vision 2030” is certainly an attractive idea on its face. Saudi Arabia should naturally be thinking about a post-petroleum transition. But the project as outlined entails hiring outside engineers to design and build a “sustainable” industrial society nearly from scratch, and it assumes no reduction in standards of living. Such a project raises a thorny question: if your own people aren’t skilled and knowledgeable enough to build a sustainable society, how can you trust them to operate and manage it sustainably?

The centerpiece of “Vision 2030” is the proposal for a purpose-built city, Neom, that would be powered by solar panels and busied by cutting-edge industries like artificial intelligence, biotechnology, IoT, and robotics; its water would be supplied by desalination plants and its food grown hydroponically. Neom, if ever actually built, would most likely either be an enormous waste of billions of dollars and untold amounts of natural resources that can never be used for better purposes (as in hundreds of Chinese “ghost cities”), or would lead to an even uglier and more extreme version of haves vs. have-nots than already exists in Saudi Arabia. Add continued rapid population growth and the whole exercise becomes transparently futile.

A cheaper and more sensible plan (though likely not as popular) would be to end population growth, slash overall consumption, reduce economic inequality, make peace in the region, and aim for home-grown development of intermediate technology. Not as glamorous, not as attractive to an ambitious risk taker. But practical nonetheless.

However, even this plan comes with substantial risks, as climate change could foreclose on any progress by 2100 with deadly high temperatures that make much of the Middle East uninhabitable by humans. If the region still has a window for peaceful adaptation, it is small and quickly narrowing.

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/18/saudis-and-trump-gambling-bigly/

By Eric Zuesse

On November 8th, Britain’s Daily Mail bannered “NATO tells Europe to prepare for ‘rapid deployment’:” and sub-headed “Defence chiefs say roads, bridges and rail links must be improved in case tanks and heavy vehicles need to be quickly mobilised” (to invade Russia, but the newspaper’s slant was instead that this must be done purely defensively: “In October, NATO accused Russia of misleading them, saying that Moscow had deliberately violated international rules of military drills”).

The article continued:

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called for the infrastructure update across Europe as NATO is set to overhaul its command structure for the first time since the Cold War

During a press conference in Brussels, Stoltenberg said NATO needs a command structure to ensure ‘we have the right forces, in the right place, with the right equipment at the right time.’

He then added: ‘This is not only about commands. We also need to ensure that roads and bridges are strong enough to take our largest vehicles, and that rail networks are equipped for the rapid deployment of tanks and heavy equipment.

‘NATO has military requirements for civilian infrastructure and we need to update these to ensure that current military needs are taken into account.’

The NATO military alliance against Russia has been continuing the Cold War, and is now intensifying it, after the voluntary end of the Cold War in 1991, by the Soviet Union, and by its mirrored military alliance, which was the Warsaw Pact.

With that end of communism, and end of the communist military alliance, all of the constructive reason for NATO likewise ceased, and so NATO should have ended simultaneously when the Soviet Union and its military alliance did; but, instead, certain corporate interests in Western nations have prevailed; and, so, the Cold War is now ratcheting up even further on the U.S.-NATO side. This escalation, which is being done under false pretext (on the basis of lies), is forcing Russia to similarly increase its military budget and military exercises (such as the drills that are the pretext for NATO’s latest aggressive move here) — and Russia’s responses are being called by NATO ‘Russian aggression’, as if NATO hasn’t actually forced Russia to increase its military defenses (including those “drills”).

The need that the NATO-supplying corporations, such as Lockheed Martin and BAE, have — companies whose enormous profits depend heavily upon intensifying the Cold War instead of ending it (such as ought to have happened in 1991) — has become the mass-murdering and land-destroying corporate tail, which is actually wagging the governmental dogs, of Western nations’ (especially of America’s) foreign policies, so as to increase global expenditures into the mass-killing industries (most of which are U.S.-based), in order to keep their war-profits high. Wall Street is heavily involved in this, and most of America’s billionaires have these types of investments.

Economic theory considers all purchases and sales to constitute ‘economic growth’; and, so, expenditures and purchases for mass-killing and bombing, and for defenses against same, are considered just as much ‘economic growth’ as if those expenditures had gone into building things, instead of into destroying things — and neoliberals are therefore just as supportive of the military-industrial complex as are neoconservatives — neoliberals merely view the matter from the perspective of internal domestic policies (‘growth’), instead of from the perspective of external foreign policies (conquest). Both perspectives serve the aristocracy, the billionaires. This neoliberal-neoconservative consensus, in the West, keeps the profits going for the owners of all sorts of corporations — it’s “the Washington Consensus” that’s sold to vassal nations by promising that this path will allow them to join in the imperial nations’ ‘growth’. The leadership of the Soviet Union was sold a neoliberal bill of goods by the the Harvard economics department in around 1990, and the World Bank and Harvard’s people took the Russians for all they could, which was able to be done because Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was naive and accepted neoliberalism — he didn’t know about its neoconservative side, the aristocracy’s pursuit of conquest. He had rejected Marxist economics, and thought that the only alternative would be capitalist economics.

Back in 1991, when Gorbachev ended the Soviet Union and its military alliances, NATO had 16 member-nations. Later in the decade, in 1999, NATO under U.S. President Bill Clinton, started expanding — taking on as new members, nations that had previously been allied with Russia.

The Soviet Union had consisted of: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Moldova, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, and Estonia (the last of which was forcibly joined with it in 1940 so as to assist Russia’s fight against the Nazis). NATO has since absorbed, into its anti-Russia ranks: Lithuania (2004), Latvia (2004), and Estonia (2004), and is seeking the additional admissions of Ukraine, and of Moldova.

The Warsaw Pact, of Soviet-allied nations, had included: U.S.S.R., Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. All of those except the Russian portion of the U.S.S.R. have since been absorbed into the anti-Russian military alliance, NATO. In the brainwashed U.S.-allied countries, this growth of the anti-Russia alliance isn’t considered “aggression,” even though it’s being done by NATO’s adding former Russia-allied nations, and though Russia’s former military alliance against NATO, the Warsaw Pact, ended in 1991. Aggression by “the West” is not acknowledged by “the West.” Even the U.S. group’s blatant aggressions that destroyed Russia-friendly nations such as Iraq, Libya and Syria aren’t. The fact that the U.S. is considered overwhelmingly throughout the world to be “the biggest threat to peace” is likewise ignored by the Empire’s ‘news’media.

Thus: 10 formerly Russia-allied nations have now been switched into the anti-Russia military alliance. And NATO accuses Russia of ‘aggression’. Nobody talks about how the U.S. would react if Russia had a military alliance which included both Mexico and Canada, and called upon them to strengthen their bridges so as to be able to carry today’s Russian battle-tanks. But, the people who are doing this, know very well what they are doing, and why, and to whom. They play dumb but they aren’t.

In addition, Yugoslavia was non-alligned, but now most of its parts have joined NATO: Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro. (Montenegro was brought into NATO on 5 June 2017, by U.S. President Donald Trump, who is being investigated by the rabidly anti-Russia U.S. Government, for allegedly being insufficiently hostile against Russia. His response to the accusations has been to try to out-do his domestic opponents’ hostility against Russia — to up their anti-Russia ante, instead of to wage political war against America’s military-industrial complex and its owners.)

And, the other parts of the former Yugoslavia continue to be courted. On November 15th, Radio Free Europe headlined “Serbia Hosts Joint Military Drills With U.S. As Bosnia Hosts NATO Delegation”. They reported: “NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, speaking at a joint news conference with visiting Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Brussels on November 15, said ‘there is no doubt whatsoever that we absolutely respect the decision by Serbia to remain a military neutral country.’” Were Hitler’s troops being allowed to hold military exercises in neutral Switzerland? Of course not. Obviously, this isn’t any ‘military neutrality’. Instead, it’s those small countries trying to avoid becoming targets of U.S. missiles and bombs.

Most of the 13 new admittees to NATO after the 1991 end of the Cold War (on Russia’s side, but not on America’s), are located to the east of West Germany (closer to Russia than even East Germany was). In the negotiations to end the Cold War, the understanding that George Herbert Walker Bush’s people communicated to Mikhail Gorbachev’s people was that if the Cold War ends and East Germany becomes absorbed into West Germany to become again simply “Germany” and thenceforth a capitalist country (such as all did happen), then NATO would not move “one inch to the east.” That’s the basis upon which Gorbachev ended the Cold War. George Herbert Walker Bush lied — via his agents. Gorbachev was incredibly naive, and he didn’t specify that NATO would need to end if the Warsaw Pact would end. He believed in the goodwill, and honesty, of Bush and of his agents. He accepted merely the vague verbal promise that NATO would’t be expanded even “one inch to the east.” He didn’t know that he was dealing with people who were negotiating on behalf of, and who were following the instructions of, a super-scoundrel — U.S. President Bush. Bush’s dream, of encircling Russia with U.S. bombers, missiles. and tanks is now coming true. Would the U.S. tolerate Russia placing its invasion-forces on and near our borders, in Canada and in Mexico?

If this isn’t the time to end NATO, then when will be? And how much time to do it remains, before there is a WW III? Anyone who is supportive of the formation of a non-profit “End NATO Now” is hereby invited to indicate so, in a reader-comment to this article, at Washingtonsblog; and, if enough people indicate there that they would be willing to donate time or money to such an organization, then I shall establish it. Because: if we don’t end NATO now, then maybe NATO will end us all, surprisingly soon.

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/17/the-biggest-threat-to-world-peace-is-nato/