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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/

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with senior government officials in Myanmar about the violent and ongoing persecution of the country’s Rohingya minority, which has fueled a massive refugee exodus in recent months. NPR’s Kelly McEvers speaks with Maung Zarni, fellow with the Cambodian Documentation Center, specializing in genocide in Buddhist countries, about how the Burmese justify their actions and what it would take to broker a resolution to the current crisis.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in Myanmar today to urge the government there to stop the persecution of a Muslim minority called the Rohingya. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar since August. They now live in squalid conditions across the border in Bangladesh. The U.N. has called the crisis a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. Rex Tillerson did not go that far. He said what happened, quote, “has a number of characteristics of crimes against humanity,” and he called for an independent investigation.

To talk about this more, we’re going to Maung Zarni. He is a fellow with the Cambodian Documentation Center, specializing in genocide in Buddhist countries. Welcome to the show.

MAUNG ZARNI: Thank you.

MCEVERS: Can you just take us back a little bit and help us understand why the Rohingya are persecuted in Myanmar?

ZARNI: Well, for two reasons. They are Muslims. And the other reason is because they are Muslim with their own claim on this strategic piece of borderland next to Bangladesh, the Burmese army starting in the 1960s perceive them as a threat to national security.

MCEVERS: Burma of course being the former name of Myanmar. Much of the violence in Myanmar against the Rohingya people has been carried out by the military. Human rights groups have documented mass rape. They say thousands of people have been killed. How does the military in Myanmar justify this violence to the people of the country?

ZARNI: Simply put, the military in Burma today uses what the Nazis used in the 1930s – that they have misframed the Rohingyas the way the Nazis blamed the Jewish people for everything that was wrong with the society, all the frustration and anger. So I think the military has cleverly diverted public frustration towards the Rohingya, who are completely unarmed and helpless. And they’ve been sitting ducks for the last 40 years.

MCEVERS: And human rights groups have said that Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar, is part of the problem here. This is a woman who of course won the Nobel Peace Prize. She’s considered a champion of human rights. Yet she will not say that what’s happening to the Rohingya is ethnic cleansing. Why? Why is she not getting more involved in their case?

ZARNI: Well, you know, I’ve known her personally, and I’ve supported her for the first 15 years of my activism. And simply put, she is anti-Muslim races. She is Islamophobe. I mean, she is a big part of the problem.

MCEVERS: U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with her today. We know that. I mean, is she part of the solution, or is it going to have to be someone else who could turn the tide here and change what’s happening to these people?

ZARNI: Well, there is no someone else inside the country. Even Buddhist monks justify openly to the military, to the public that killing the nonbelievers, non-Buddhists, the Rohingyas does not amount to bad karma. It is not a crime. And the public is fully behind the army and Aung San Suu Kyi because they believe that those two entities are defending the nation.

MCEVERS: If she’s not the person to solve this, what will solve this problem?

ZARNI: Well, the solution lies outside. And there has to be an international coalition outside the Security Council that is prepared to make a concerted effort to bear serious pressure on both Aung San Suu Kyi and the military.

MCEVERS: Do you think Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit will provide that outside pressure that you think is needed for things to change?

ZARNI: You know, yes or no. Yes, it would put the Burmese military on notice, but no because they have not put their foot down saying that this is international crime and you stop this immediately, or there will be consequences. So that message is not being delivered by Tillerson.

MCEVERS: Maung Zarni specializes in genocide in Buddhist countries. He joined us from the U.K. on Skype. Thank you so much.

ZARNI: Thank you.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2017/11/15/564443814/in-myanmar-the-persecution-of-the-muslim-minority-the-rohingya-continues

By Dr Elias Akleh

During its zenith the Ottoman Empire extended over parts of three continents; Europe, Asia and Africa. Its rule had also spread over the Arab World in the Middle Eastern region for long four centuries. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire the Western colonial powers (the Illuminati, the Hidden Hand, the Khazars, the Rothschilds, the Zionists or whatever you want to call them) had planned to keep the Arab World in the vital geostrategic Middle Eastern region divided, weak, plagued with perpetual wars so that no other empire could be formed to prevent them from robbing the natural resources of the area.

This plan started with the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, and continued on with 1917 Balfour declaration establishing the Israeli terrorist state and its wars against Arab states, the American orchestrated eight years (1980-1988) Iraq/Iran war, President Bush’s (father) 1990/1991 Gulf War,   President Bush’s (son) 2003 war against “Global Terror” destroying Iraq, the neocons’ “Project for Greater Middle East” changed later to the “New Middle East”, the so-called Arab Spring and the destruction of Libya, and finally the six years terrorist wars against Syria and the devastating three years Saudi war against Yemen.

These planned wars kept the Arab World politically divided, conflicted, economically and culturally under-developed, and war-torn with millions of its Arab inhabitants killed, maimed and displaced.

Every action creates a reaction. Every oppression is faced with resistance. As the logical result of all these destructive and devastating wars a new generation of stronger, more adaptable, more creative, and yes more militaristic resistance group was destined to emerge and grow as struggle for survival. A phoenix rising from the ashes; in Lebanon Hezbollah was born and grew stronger. Its fighters caused the American marines to withdrew from Lebanon after bombing the American embassy in 1983. This was followed in 1985 by the ousting of the Israeli occupational forces from southern Lebanon. In 2006 Hezbollah was able to inflect heavy casualties on the so-called undefeatable Israeli forces and to stop them from advancing into southern Lebanon one more time. Getting stronger and more battle experienced Hezbollah joined the Syrian forces to defeat the American/Israeli/Turkish/Saudi supported and armed terrorist groups; such as ISIS and al-Nusra, who waged a six-years terrorist war against Syria.

In occupied Palestine national resistance grew against the Israeli occupation. Two national Intifadha movements erupted against Israeli oppression. Different militarily, though weak, resistance factions were developed. Hamas was the strongest faction and won the Palestinian election in 2006. Yet this did not suit Israel and its western supporters, so they applied pressure on the Palestinian Authority to oppose a Hamas government, which eventually led to the separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank and the establishment of two separate Palestinian governments. Israel took advantage of the situation, imposed a military siege against Gaza Strip and led military attacks against the Strip. Unfortunately, some Arab governments; such as Jordan and Egypt, joined Israel in its siege against Gaza.

Hezbollah and Hamas were supported by Iran, who had its own share of colonialism and wars. Britain occupied Iran and exploited its oil since WWII. Mohammad Mosaddegh was appointed as the Prime Minister in 1951. He nationalized the petroleum industry and the oil reserves, an act that angered the West. In 1953 an American led coup deposed of Mosaddegh and appointed a stooge; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, as the Shah of Iran. With the help of his ruthless secret police; the SAVAK, the Shah ruled Iran suppressively for the benefit of British and American oil companies.

The February 1979 Islamic Revolution deposed of the Shah and established an Islamic Republic. The US responded by inciting and financing popular uprisings such as the Kurdish rebellion, and uprisings in Sistan and Baluchestan. When these uprisings failed the CIA Iraqi operative; Saddam Hussein, was pushed into war against Iran in 1980 that lasted eight years.

The Iranians learnt that the best way to protect themselves and their country is through the build up of their own military industry and through supporting Arab resistance groups in the neighboring Middle Eastern region.

After the 2006 Israeli defeat and failure to destroy Hezbollah in the north, its 2008-09 and 2014 military failures to destroy Hamas in the south, the failure of the terrorist wars against Syria and Iraq, and the failure of the on-going war against Yemen, it became evident that a growing militarily strong Iran, with its influence in these Arab countries is the major stumbling block for Western colonialism and for the continuation of the Greater Israel Project.

Iran is now the main target for US/Israel/NATO/Gulf states, who are stepping up pressure to isolate Iran internationally and to cut its Middle Eastern wings.

For years the well-known nuclear Israel kept on claiming that Iran is one year away from developing nuclear bomb.

While allowing itself to develop tactical nuclear bombs the Trump administration is criticizing the 2013 P5+1 Iranian nuclear deal (JPOA – Joint Plan of Action) threatening not to re-certify the agreement.

The US, Britain and France had considered Hamas a terrorist group, and recently had added Hezbollah to the terrorist list. They are inciting hatred and enmity particularly in the oil and gas rich Gulf States; Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, against Iran.

This hatred and enmity are clearly manifested in the frustrated Saudi Kingdom due to the failure of its costly military foreign policies meddling in the region. The Kingdom had paid Israel for its 2006 offensive in southern Lebanon to get rid of Hezbollah but this Israeli offensive had failed. In his November 11th speech, Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah, exposed the fact that the Kingdom, then, had paid billions of dollars to Israel to attack Hezbollah.

The Kingdom had also failed to get rid of Syrian al-Assad, who rejected the Saudi pipe line and Qatari gas line through his country to Europe. It had also eventually failed to bully Qatar and had gained its enmity instead. It had also failed to subdue the Bahraini popular revolution. Finally, the Kingdom is so frustrated due to the still on-going 3 years Operation Decisive Storm against Yemen, and had become very concerned after Yemeni forces had successfully launched missiles into the Saudi capital.

With the encouragement of President Trump himself, and conspiring with the Zionist  Jared Kushner, an in-experienced, power hungry, and un-realistically dreaming Saudi prince; Mohammad bin Salman, had conducted a coup against all the other royal princes violating all the Saudi family ruling traditions. Somehow, King Salman was convinced to remove Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, the heir to the kingdom, from all his positions, and to appoint his own son Mohammad as the Crown Prince, violating all the Family’s ruling tradition that has been adopted since the establishment of the kingdom.

A petition signed by 21 princes and ministers was sent to the king objecting to the crowning of prince Mohammad and urging for the return of the status quo. Corrupt himself, Prince Mohammad’s reaction was to launch what he claimed to be an anti-corrupt campaign, imprisoning at least eleven princes and tens of ministers and businessmen, and confiscated what is estimated to be $800 billion in assets.

Thus, Mohammad now has purged the domestic front from any opposition and gained total control over the major sectors of the state; military, security, media, economy and religion. This was accomplished with the employment and help of the American Black Waters mercenaries.

Mohammad bin Salman had also called in the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, arrested him as soon as he landed in Riyadh, and forced him to broadcast his resignation accusing Iran of interfering in Lebanese and regional affairs, and of Hezbollah of occupying Lebanon and having plans to assassinate him. Mohammad bin Salman’s goal was to spread chaos among Lebanese factions especially after he accused Iran and Hezbollah of supplying Yemen with missiles that hit Riyadh, which he considered an act of war vowing to respond militarily to free Lebanon from the Hezbollah’s grip.

Beating the drums of what could be WWIII in the region, this naïve, inexperienced, dreaming-to-become a great emperor Mohammad bin Salman is not aware that he, like other leaders in the region, is played by the American administration. He seems to have the illusion that the presence of the American military bases and fleets in the Persian Gulf would protect him from any attack. Besides his war on Yemen he believes that he could pay some Arab leaders to form a military coalition to first subdue Qatar, then attack Iran, and at the same time pay Israel, again, to fight Hezbollah.

What this prince, Mohammad bin Salman, has overlooked is the tribal loyalty many Saudi citizens have for the princes he imprisoned. A counter-coup and an assassination could be in his near future as a retribution to the sins he committed against the tribal honor and the Saudi family tradition.

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/12/new-war-drums-out-of-saudi-arabia/

By Jonathan Cook

Nazareth: The scandal surrounding Priti Patel, who was forced to resign as Britain’s international aid minister last week after secret meetings with Israeli officials during a “family holiday”, offers a small, opaque window on the UK’s powerful Israel lobby.

Patel’s off-the-books meetings with 12 Israelis, including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were organised by a British lobbyist in violation of government rules requiring careful documentation of official meetings. That is to prevent conflicts of interest and illicit lobbying by foreign powers.

Government protocol was flouted again when Patel headed to the Golan Heights, occupied Syrian territory, escorted by the Israeli army. There she was shown an Israeli military field hospital that patches up Syrians, including Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters, wounded in Syria’s civil war.

Afterwards, Patel pressed for the Israeli army, one of the most powerful in the world, to receive a chunk of Britain’s overseas aid. Meanwhile, she has sought to cut aid to the Palestinians, including to vital projects in Gaza. A clue as to how she reached such absurd “humanitarian” priorities is provided in the figure of Stuart Polak, mentor on her Israel “holiday”.

The honorary president of Conservative Friends of Israel, Lord Polak has recruited four-fifths of Conservative MPs, and almost every government minister, to a group whose explicit goal is to advance Israeli interests in Britain. The prime minister, Theresa May, is regarded as one of Israel’s most fervent supporters in Europe.

That should be a cause for public indignation – no other foreign state enjoys such unabashed, high-level political support.

Another window on Israel’s meddling opened briefly last week. The BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, took to Twitter to relay a damning comment from an unnamed “senior” member of Patel’s party. In a clear reference to Israel, the source observed: “The entire apparatus has turned a blind eye to a corrupt relationship that allows a country to buy access”.

A short time later, presumably under pressure, Kuenssberg deleted the tweet. The BBC has not reported the comment elsewhere and the senior Conservative has not dared go public. Such, it seems, is the intimidating and corrupting influence of the lobby.

More than a decade ago, two leading American academics wrote a study of the Israel lobby’s role in the United States, Israel’s chief patron for half a century. It was a sign of the lobby’s influence that John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt could not find a publisher at home. They had to turn to a British journal instead.

The Israel lobby’s strength in western capitals has depended precisely on its ability to remain out of view. Simply to talk about the lobby risks being accused of perpetuating anti-Semitic tropes of Jewish cabals.

But Mearsheimer and Walt described a type of pressure group familiar in the US – and increasingly in European capitals. Everyone from Cuba to health insurers and arms manufacturers operate aggressive lobbyists in Washington to secure their interests.

What is special about the Israel lobby in the US – an amalgam of hawkish Jewish leadership organisations and messianic Christian evangelicals – is the fear it exploits to silence critics. No one wants to be labelled an anti-Semite.

Rarely identified or held to account, the lobby has entrenched its power.

That is what Britain’s heir to the throne, Prince Charles, was talking about three decades ago – even if he misidentified it as a “Jewish” rather Israel lobby – in a forgotten letter found in the public archives and publicised at the weekend.

“Surely some US president has to have the courage to stand up and take on the Jewish lobby in the US? I must be naive, I suppose!” he wrote to a family friend in 1986.

Today, as recent events illustrate, the lobby is struggling to stay in the shadows. Social media and Palestinians with camera phones have exposed a global audience to systematic abuses by the Israeli army the western media largely ignored. For the first time, Israel supporters sound evasive and dissembling.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s strident efforts in the US Congress through 2014 and 2015 to prevent a nuclear accord with Iran dragged the lobby even farther into the light.

The Israel lobby’s dirty tricks in the UK were exposed earlier this year too. An Al Jazeera TV documentary showed Conservative party officials colluding with the Israeli embassy to “take down” Alan Duncan, a foreign office minister who supports the Palestinian cause.

It is noteworthy that Ms Patel’s downfall came about because of social media. Israeli officials like police minister Gilad Erdan were so unused to scrutiny or accountability themselves that they happily tweeted photos with Patel. Erdan is a key player in the lobby, running a “smear unit” to target overseas critics of Israel.

We may never know why Patel so grossly flouted ministerial rules or what she quietly promised in those meetings in Israel. Colleagues have hinted that, in a pattern familiar from US politics, she hoped to win over the lobby and its wealthy donors for a future leadership bid.

There is no way to know, given the lobby’s penchant for secrecy, whether Patel simply proved less adept at treading a path marked out by former Conservative and Labour party leadership hopefuls. But it is also possible that the lobby is discovering changes to the political and cultural environment are making its work much harder.

There is growing hysteria about foreign interference in US and European politics. Is it not time for western states to show as much concern about the malign influence of Israel’s lobbyists as they do about Russian hackers?

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

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/13/israel-lobby-is-slowly-being-dragged-into-the-light/

By Peter Lehr

7 Nov 2017 – Even ten years on, the first mental image that comes to mind with regard to Theravāda Buddhism is that of Myanmar’s Saffron Revolution of August-September 2007: thousands of Buddhist monks peacefully demonstrating in the streets of Yangon, Mandalay, Pakokku, Sittwe and other towns against the ruling military junta. These peaceful monks still exist, although many of them went into hiding, or fled abroad. But the Burmese monks in the headlines today are preaching violence instead of peace, and “firm action” instead of meditation.

It’s not just in Myanmar that this militant Buddhism is on the rise: it’s also surfacing in the other two leading Theravādin countries: Sri Lanka and Thailand. In all three countries, Buddhists make up the vast majority of the population: 70% in Sri Lanka, 88% in Myanmar, and 93% in Thailand. One could be excused for thinking that there is nothing to worry about: with such towering demographic majorities, Buddhists are surely to some extent safe and secure in their respective countries.

This is not how the militant monks see things. They are convinced that Buddhism is under siege, and in grave danger of being wiped out. To explain this, they point out that while Muslims or Hindu Tamils (in the case of Sri Lanka) are in the minority in these countries, they enjoy significant support from beyond their national borders.

In Sri Lanka and Myanmar, the notion that a non-Buddhist minority is the vanguard of an imminent invasion is very strong indeed. It is believed that firm action has to be taken to prevent “them” from taking over Buddhist lands and eradicating Buddhism. Basically, the militant monks see their communities as targets of a relentless “holy war”, and see it as their duty, to respond in kind with their own variant of “holy war”.

Justifying violence

The conviction that Buddhism is under threat also allows these leaders to justify the use of violence. Militant monks usually start their argumentation by pointing out that even the Buddha himself showed some understanding for the wars conducted by his benefactor King Pasenadi instead of condemning them. He did still warn him that “killing, you gain your killer, conquering, you gain the one who will conquer you” – the message being that violence begets violence. Even for the Buddha, then, nonviolence was not necessarily an absolute value – a point seized on by many of today’s militant monks. Although they readily concede that an offensive use of violence should never be allowed, they point out that peaceful and nonviolent Buddhist communities still have the right to defend themselves, especially if and when the survival of the religion as such is at stake.

This point of view is dated. As soon as Buddhist-majority states came into being, the monkhood had to find ways to justify violence, including war, especially that perpetrated by their virtuous sovereign against an opponent. Indeed it was by the monarch’s benevolence, and under the law and order he created, that the monastic order was able to survive.

An early example of such a justification comes from the Sinhalese Mahāvamsa (the Great Chronicle): After a battle against a Hindu-Tamil army, Buddhist King Dutugāmunu felt remorse for all the deaths he had caused, and asked senior monks for advice. They basically told him not to worry since he had caused the deaths of only one and a half persons – one who had just converted to Buddhism, and another who had been a Buddhist lay follower. All the rest had just been “unbelievers and men of evil life […], not more to be esteemed than beasts”.

This notable verdict implies that killing is excusable as long as the intention behind it is in the defence of the religion. Not surprisingly, this quote still is used to condone the use of violence – most recently by the Sitagu Sayadaw, an esteemed Burmese monastic leader, in order to justify the current persecution of perceived enemies of both state and religion – in this case, the Rohingya.

Sanctioning the violent actions of one’s ruler or one’s government is one thing; actively inciting lay-followers to commit such acts in defence of the religion is something completely different. Compared to “preachers of hate” from Abrahamic religions, today’s militant monks have a difficult tightrope to walk, since incitement to murder constitutes one of Buddhism’s four disrobing offences (pārājikas) – offences resulting in the automatic expulsion from the monkhood. In September for example, a Thai monk was forced to disrobe because he had publicly demanded that for each monk killed in Thailand’s deep south, a mosque should be torched.

Most militant monks are therefore very careful in avoiding open calls to violence – instead, they attend mass rallies and demonstrations to stoke anti-Muslim sentiments and to preach “passive resistance” or “pro-Buddhist affirmative action”: not buying from Muslims, not selling to Muslims, not fraternising with Muslims, not allowing one’s children to marry Muslims. They leave it to their followers, especially those organised in pro-state vigilante groups or Buddhist militias, to draw the right conclusions.

Although there is anecdotal evidence of armed monks actively taking part in violence, the majority of militant monks shy away from directly becoming involved: again, this would be a grave violation of the monastic code. Ashin Wirathu, a monk and leader of the Burmese anti-Muslim movement, describes this passive role very eloquently: “I am only warning people about Muslims. Consider it like if you had a dog, that would bark at strangers coming to your house – it is to warn you. I am like that dog. I bark.”

The rise of this strain of militant Theravāda Buddhism can be explained in ethnic, social and economic terms, but from the perspective of the militant monks themselves, it’s about religion. It’s not about the control of resources or worldly goods, but a defensive “holy war” or “Dhamma Yudhaya” in response to a perceived aggressive “jihad” against Buddhism that has been waged for centuries, from the destruction of the Buddhist library in Nalanda/Bihar at the end of the 12th century, to the destruction of the famous Bamiyan Buddhas in March 2001.

This somewhat simplistic reading of history, reminiscent of Samuel P. Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, reinforces the militant monks’ belief that now is the time not for peaceful meditation, but for firm action. The Buddha’s warning that violence begets violence seems to have fallen on deaf ears for the time being.

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/11/militant-buddhism-is-on-the-march-in-south-east-asia-where-did-it-come-from/

By Pepe Escobar

6 Nov 2017 – The House of Saud’s King Salman devises a high-powered “anti-corruption” commission and appoints his son, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, a.k.a. MBS, as chairman.

Right on cue, the commission detains 11 House of Saud princes, four current ministers and dozens of former princes/cabinet secretaries – all charged with corruption. Hefty bank accounts are frozen, private jets are grounded. The high-profile accused lot is “jailed” at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton.

War breaks out within the House of Saud, as Asia Times had anticipated back in July. Rumors have been swirling for months about a coup against MBS in the making. Instead, what just happened is yet another MBS pre-emptive coup.

A top Middle East business/investment source who has been doing deals for decades with the opaque House of Saud offers much-needed perspective: “This is more serious than it appears. The arrest of the two sons of previous King Abdullah, Princes Miteb and Turki, was a fatal mistake. This now endangers the King himself. It was only the regard for the King that protected MBS. There are many left in the army against MBS and they are enraged at the arrest of their commanders.”

To say the Saudi Arabian Army is in uproar is an understatement. “He’d have to arrest the whole army before he could feel secure.”

Prince Miteb until recently was a serious contender to the Saudi throne. But the highest profile among the detainees belongs to billionaire Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal, owner of Kingdom Holdings, major shareholder in Twitter, CitiBank, Four Seasons, Lyft and, until recently, Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp.

Al-Waleed’s arrest ties up with a key angle; total information control. There’s no freedom of information in Saudi Arabia. MBS already controls all the internal media (as well as the appointment of governorships). But then there’s Saudi media at large. MBS aims to “hold the keys to all the large media empires and relocate them to Saudi Arabia.”

So how did we get here?

The secrets behind the purge

The story starts with secret deliberations in 2014 about a possible “removal” of then King Abdullah. But “the dissolution of the royal family would lead to the breaking apart of tribal loyalties and the country splitting into three parts. It would be more difficult to secure the oil, and the broken institutions whatever they were should be maintained to avoid chaos.”

Instead, a decision was reached to get rid of Prince Bandar bin Sultan – then actively coddling Salafi-jihadis in Syria – and replace the control of the security apparatus with Mohammed bin Nayef.

The succession of Abdullah proceeded smoothly. “Power was shared between three main clans: King Salman (and his beloved son Prince Mohammed); the son of Prince Nayef (the other Prince Mohammed), and finally the son of the dead king (Prince Miteb, commander of the National Guard). In practice, Salman let MBS run the show.

And, in practice, blunders also followed. The House of Saud lost its lethal regime-change drive in Syria and is bogged down in an unwinnable war on Yemen, which on top of it prevents MBS from exploiting the Empty Quarter – the desert straddling both nations.

The Saudi Treasury was forced to borrow on the international markets. Austerity ruled – with news of MBS buying a yacht for almost half a billion dollars while lazing about the Cote d’Azur not going down particularly well. Hardcore political repression is epitomized by the decapitation of Shi’ite leader Sheikh Al-Nimr. Not only the Shi’ites in the Eastern province are rebelling but also Sunni provinces in the west.

As the regime’s popularity radically tumbled down, MBS came up with Vision 2030. Theoretically, it was shift away from oil; selling off part of Aramco; and an attempt to bring in new industries. Cooling off dissatisfaction was covered by royal payoffs to key princes to stay loyal and retroactive payments on back wages to the unruly masses.

Yet Vision 2030 cannot possibly work when the majority of productive jobs in Saudi Arabia are held by expats. Bringing in new jobs raises the question of where are the new (skilled) workers to come from.

Throughout these developments, aversion to MBS never ceased to grow; “There are three major royal family groups aligning against the present rulers: the family of former King Abdullah, the family of former King Fahd, and the family of former Crown Prince Nayef.”

Nayef – who replaced Bandar – is close to Washington and extremely popular in Langley due to his counter-terrorism activities. His arrest earlier this year angered the CIA and quite a few factions of the House of Saud – as it was interpreted as MBS forcing his hand in the power struggle.

According to the source, “he might have gotten away with the arrest of CIA favorite Mohammed bin Nayef if he smoothed it over but MBS has now crossed the Rubicon though he is no Caesar. The CIA regards him as totally worthless.”

Some sort of stability could eventually be found in a return to the previous power sharing between the Sudairis (without MBS) and the Chamars (the tribe of deceased King Abdullah). After the death of King Salman, the source would see it as “MBS isolated from power, which would be entrusted to the other Prince Mohammed (the son of Nayef). And Prince Miteb would conserve his position.”

MBS acted exactly to prevent this outcome. The source, though, is adamant; “There will be regime change in the near future, and the only reason that it has not happened already is because the old King is liked among his family. It is possible that there may be a struggle emanating from the military as during the days of King Farouk, and we may have a ruler arise that is not friendly to the United States.”

‘Moderate’ Salafi-jihadis, anyone?

Before the purge, the House of Saud’s incessant spin centered on a $500 billion zone straddling Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, on the Red Sea coast, a sort of Dubai replica to be theoretically completed by 2025, powered by wind and solar energy, and financed by its sovereign wealth fund and proceeds from the Aramco IPO.

In parallel, MBS pulled another rabbit from his hat swearing the future of Saudi Arabia is a matter of “simply reverting to what we followed – a moderate Islam open to the world and all religions.”

In a nutshell: a state that happens to be the private property of a royal family inimical to all principles of freedom of expression and religion, as well as the ideological matrix of all forms of Salafi-jihadism simply cannot metastasize into a “moderate” state just because MBS says so.

Meanwhile, a pile-up of purges, coups and countercoups shall be the norm.

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/11/the-inside-story-of-the-saudi-night-of-long-knives/