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By Dr Binoy Kampmark

The disclosure of confidential material has its own sometimes fraught ethics. When it comes to medical information, assumptions abound that confidentiality comes first. Not, however, in international sports, a notorious field where the corrupt rub shoulders with the desperate; where perspectives of the supposedly level playing field meet unevenness and disadvantage. In such a case, disclosures can be both political and financial weapons.

The hack by the cyber espionage group Fancy Bears of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) data storage system has, to that end, produced a range of reactions. Transparency supporters have given it a good wink and in some cases, even a dismissive shrug. Germany’s discus thrower and 2012 Olympic Champion Robert Harting was content to tweet that, “We don’t hide anything. Go transparency!”

Australian Jock Bobridge, who had been prescribed prednisolone and glucocorticoids over a five-year period, explained that such prescriptions for rheumatoid arthritis were permissible. “Regarding the WADA hacks and ‘leaks’ of my personal information I’d like to make it clear I have no problem with this info becoming public.”[1]

That transparency drum has also been beaten by three-time Tour de France winner, Chris Froome, who insisted that nothing leaked on the issue of taking therapeutic use exemptions was particularly shattering. “I’ve openly discussed my TUEs (therapeutic use exemptions) with the media and have no issues with the leak which confirms my statements.”

Other individuals such as tennis figure Petra Kvitova revealed that she received therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) for hydrocortisone, and initially the banned anabolic agent DHEA, subsequently revoked by WADA.

The reaction from a spokesperson for two time Grand Slam winner Kvitova and the Czech tennis federation was all anger at the disclosure, arguing that her asthma condition had been “no secret”. “To say that Petra Kvitova suffers from asthma,” shot back Karel Tejkal with highbrow propriety, “is the same revelation as saying she’s won Wimbledon.”[2]

The picture emerging from the disclosure is that of top athletes who have been battling range of illnesses and lingering ailments within various rules of demarcation set out by WADA and general sports officialdom.

Venus Williams, who netted silver in the mixed doubles at the Rio Olympics, could not hide the fact that she was suffering from the energy-draining disease Sjogren’s Syndrome, a condition that necessitated her seeking exemptions. Those exemptions, she explained, had been established by the Tennis-Anti-Doping Program.

Sports officialdom had to race out explanations and clarifications in the wake of the disclosure. After all, athletes had tested positive for an assortment of goodies that may well have fallen foul of the establishment but for the fact that they were permitted by medical certificate. Delle Donne was certainly far from conflicted by this, expressing a round of thanks for the hackers “for making the world aware that I legally take a prescription for a condition I’ve been diagnosed with, which WADA granted me an exception for it.”

The often righteous Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) similarly noted that various exemptions were bound to be legitimate. “Despite the efforts of the hackers to twist these assumptions to prove foul play, in obtaining a TUE, the athletes have operated entirely within the rules of clean, fair sport.” Various conditions were legitimately treated by TUEs.

Gymnast Simone Biles, to reassure those watching the unfolding saga, insisted that she did “believe in clean sport, have always followed the rules, and will continue to do so as fair play is critical to sport”.

Biles, having tested positive for methylphenidate after four tests conducted on Aug 11, 14, 15 and 16, had been issued certificates from the International Gymnastic Federation for the daily use of the drug in quantities of 15 mg, and therapeutic use over the year period from September 2012.

It is precisely such behaviour that did not impress Russian president, Vladimir Putin. “It seems,” urged Russia’s suspicious leader, “as if healthy athletes are taking drugs legally that are prohibited for others, and people who are clearly suffering from serious illnesses, major disabilities, are suspected of taking some kind of substances and banned from the Paralympic Games.”

The hack has not merely revealed the way transparency can, inadvertently, create an economy of openness in a world that tends to lack it. It also shows the complexity, and unevenness of the drugs regime, where sports figures suffering from illness were still permitted various approved medications to effectively manage impairment and debilitation.

This stands in total contrast to the supposedly “war-like ideology” adopted by anti-doping agencies, which has struck some scholars as being akin to “the public discourse sustaining international efforts against illicit drugs.”[3] False assumptions about fairness in sports and the “level playing field” have been made in such a belligerent quest.

A crude form of social Darwinism has evidently been abandoned in certain, specific instances, where the doctor dispenses the certificate of medical mercy to enable a top performer to continue. Much has been left to WADA to explain in that regard. Such exemptions, in other words, may well be legal, but do they square with the evangelical world of the anti-dope crusader?

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

19 September 2016

By Dr Vivek Kumar Srivastava

The Syrian crisis has now moved into a serious zone where the next developments will bring the opposite groups, which were recently involved in a ceasefire deal, to a direct confrontation in more lethal way than the prevailing stage. The reason is not very hard to comprehend as in a strike by US led coalition forces; 62 Syrian soldiers have been killed. Though US regretted saying that it was nonintentional and was intended to target ISIS but Russia rejected the contention.

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said that ‘If previously we had suspicions that Al-Nusra Front is protected this way, now, after today’s airstrikes on the Syrian army we come to a really terrifying conclusion for the entire world: The White House is defending IS [Islamic State, formerly ISIS/ISIL].We demand a full and detailed explanation from Washington. That explanation must be given at the UN Security Council, immediately after the airstrike by coalition planes, Islamic State militants launched their offensive,[US coalition] strikes have cleared the way for ISIS fighters to take over Deir ez-Zor city now.’

Russia took the matter to UNO and fifteen members UN Security Council met last night and the relevant discussions are yet to open. US although has criticized the Russian demand for the security council meet calling it ‘cheap’.

These developments show that in Syria the rivalry is quite heightened between two powers, USA and Russia have looked to the Syrian crisis from different lens. The major contention of US has always been to replace Assad which is contested by Russia. This is the crux of the problem. In the aftermath of ceasefire deal by both the countries a common understanding was that this will not hold long. It happened so as since Monday when ceasefire was implemented after 9 September deal, about 199 violations till yesterday had taken place. Russia has accused US and the moderate groups for the same whereas US accused Assad regime for not allowing the humanitarian aids, consequently US said it would not set up a planned joint US-Russian military co-ordination cell in Syria.

The pro and anti groups of Assad cannot remain in silence because the US has concluded that removal of Assad is the final aim and the violations were mainly from the side of the anti Assad forces. Now the attack on the Syrian forces brings into open the US policies in Syria as the questions will be raised on several counts.

The start point will be- how the so efficient and scientifically managed US forces faltered on this point that the soldiers which were not to be attacked were killed. Was it a sheer negligence or the well thought strategy? It is often seen in the international conflicts that statements do not hold the truth and thrown only as a face saving tool. This was a well known trait of diplomatic communication and on several occasions the realities were enveloped by the use of the words. The traditional diplomacy is almost declined but the new ways and the tools cannot depart from the well established ways to save the faded faces.

Another question is related to the non coordination between the US and Russia. When a deal of non conflict was in operation, a proper understanding and the information sharing mechanism should have been established. The international norms in such cases demand the proper coordination and this is a very simple practice at the global conflict zones but since September 2015 when Russian air forces went to bomb the anti Assad targets mainly in North West Syria such cooperation lacked. USA and Russia failed to have a standard coordination and the cooperation on the issue of bombardment suggesting that a trust deficit existed between both and the main onus of responsibility was laid on US because Russia had carried more vigorous air attacks in terms of sorties than US. US never participated with the strength as it had executed during the gulf war. Its reluctance was always there not only in terms of sorties but also in terms of coordination. Though in some cases Russian strikes targeted which were to be avoided. Since those days the military cooperation between both the stakeholders in Syria survives with fragile thread.

One analysis leads us to think the likely cause of US attack may be just to measure the strength of the Syrian forces or a systematic and calculated deliberate act to destroy the Assad forces. This argument finds strength from the secrecy which is wrapped till now in the ceasefire deal which has taken place between US and Russia. The astonishing feature of modern nation state is that they desire transparency from others but when they are themselves to answer the questions they act as an innocent actor. The same has happened in case of ceasefire deal where it is still to be known to world what actually are the terms and conditions, both US and Russia have kept it a secret. The Russian stand is that first US should open then only it can follow. This secrecy supports the analysis that US may have given a thought to replace the Assad regime, its lasting goal. Russian President Putin has also given credence to such an analysis. He has explicitly stated ‘this comes from the problems the U.S. is facing on the Syrian track — they still cannot separate the so-called healthy part of the opposition from the half-criminal and terrorist elements. I don’t really understand why we have to keep such an agreement closed, in my opinion; this comes from the desire to keep the combat potential in fighting the legitimate government of Bashar Assad. But this is a very dangerous route.’

Such developments have wider implications because Russia will retaliate in its own manner. Russia will attempt to decipher the real cause of the strikes if it is deliberate then Syria will be thrust into more burring days and nights.

Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava is Consultant CRIEPS, Kanpur, e mail-vpy1000@yahoo.co.in

18 September 2016

By Counter Currents

Four militants stormed an Army base barely 50 metres from the Brigade Headquarters in Uri sector, 6 km from the Line of Control (LoC), killing 17 soldiers and wounding 23, nine of them critically, at 4.30 am Sunday morning. It is the highest casualty suffered by the Army in a single attack in Kashmir in the past two decades. The four fidayeen involved in the attack were also killed.

The well-trained, heavily-armed militants are believed to have crossed the LoC hours before the attack. They breached the 7-foot-high rear wall by cutting the barbed wire at about 4.30 am and sneaked into the Army base that houses an infantry battalion of the 12th Brigade.

As they lobbed grenades, opened fire and set ablaze the barracks and temporary shelters, there was utter chaos inside where 10 Dogra Regiment was in the process of moving out, making space for 6 Bihar Regiment. Of the 17 soldiers killed, 15 were from 6th battalion of the Bihar Regiment and two from 10 Dogra Regiment.

“Most casualties were primarily because of tents and temporary shelters catching fire. At the initial stage, soldiers of both the regiments were asleep inside. At least 10 of them were killed,” an Army official said. He said the militants, who belonged to the Jaish group, carried items with Pakistani marking.

The 12th Brigade is one of two brigades guarding the LoC in Uri sector, which is heavily forested. Sources said the militants may have infiltrated through Sokar sector and made their way through the dense cover.

The Army air-dropped special forces to zero in on the militants. After almost five hours of fierce fighting, all of them were killed.

The Army had a tough time shifting the injured to the Army Base Hospital. The state government rushed doctors from the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences to the 92 Base Hospital in Badamibagh for assistance.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, who reached Srinagar following the strike, said he had asked Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh to take firm action against those responsible for the attack.

Here is the full list of jawans who died in the Uri terror attack

(1) Subedar Karnail Singh, r/o Vill Shibu Chak, Teh- Bishnah, Dist Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir.
(2) Havildar Ravi Paul, r/o Samba, Dist Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir.
(3) Sepoy Rakesh Singh, r/o Vill Baddja, Dist Kaimur, Bihar.
(4) Sepoy Javra Munda, r/o Vill Meral, Dist Khuti, Jharkhand.
(5) Sepoy Naiman Kujur, r/o Vill Gumla, Chainpur, Jharkhand.
(6) Sepoy Uike Janrao, r/o Vill Nandgaon (Kh), Dist Amravati, Maharashtra.
(7) Havildar NS Rawat, r/o Vill Rajawa, Dist Rajasmand, Rajasthan.
(8) Sepoy Ganesh Shankar, r/o Vill Ghoorapalli, Dist Sant Kabir Nagar, Uttar Pradesh.
(9) Naik SK Vidarthi, r/o Vill Boknari, Dist Gaya, Bihar.
(10) Sepoy Biswajit Ghorai, r/o Vill Ganga Sagar, Dist South 24 Parganas, West Bengal.
(11) Lance Naik G Shankar, r/o Vill Jashi, Dist Satara, Maharashtra.
(12) Sep G Dalai, r/o Vill Jamuna Balia, Dist Howarah, West Bengal.
(13) Lance Naik RK Yadav, r/o Vill Balia, Uttar Pradesh.
(14) Sepoy Harinder Yadav, r/o Vill Ghazipur, Dist Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh.
(15) Sepoy TS Somnath, r/o Vill Khadangali, Dist Nashik, Maharashtra.
(16) Havildar Ashok Kumar Singh, r/o Vill Raktu Tola, Dist Bhojpur, Bihar.
(17) Sepoy Rajesh kr Singh, r/o Vill Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh.
19 September 2016

By Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Sina Toossi

In January, Saudi Arabia severed formal diplomatic ties with Iran after a row over its execution of a prominent Shia cleric ended with angry protestors attacking its Tehran embassy. Diplomacy has since been replaced by an ever-escalating war of words, and tensions have reached an all-time high.

Under pragmatist president Hassan Rouhani, Iran has for its part sought to foster dialogue on multiple occasions. Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif initiated meetings with his Saudi counterpart at venues like the UN General Assembly, attended the funeral of the late King Abdullah, and repeatedly dispatched envoys for talks with Saudi officials. “Once our Saudi friends are ready to engage in serious dialogue, they will find Iran to be … ready,” Zarif proclaimed in late 2015. His efforts have thus far been met with a muted Saudi response.

Instead, King Salman bin Abdulaziz’s Saudi Arabia has elected to pursue overt hostility. Among the kingdom’s provocations have been lending support to notorious Iranian terrorist groups like the MEK and expending considerable resources to persuade the GCC, Arab League, and Organization of Islamic Cooperation to adopt anti-Iranian stances.

The most recent Saudi-Iran spat to dominate global headlines stems from last year’s Hajj stampede, which resulted in a death toll the Saudis have obfuscated but Western sources have estimated at over 2,400 and Iran at roughly 4,700. It marked the latest in a long line of Hajj accidents under Saudi supervision.

According to The New York Times, Saudi authorities triggered the stampede by spontaneously blocking access to a key road near an Iranian encampment. A plurality of the fatalities were Iranians.

At the time, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei emphasized Iran was exercising “self-restraint in accordance with Islamic ethics” but cautioned it was nearing its limits. The succeeding year would prove to break this patience.

“Because of Saudi rulers’ oppressive behavior towards God’s guests, the world of Islam must fundamentally reconsider the management of the two holy places and hajj,” Ayatollah Khamenei declared on the stampede’s anniversary. Even the usually measured Javad Zarif recently stated that the al-Saud ruling family has turned into a “ruthless and illogical” regime.

Saudi Fears

At security conferences with many Saudis in the past two years, one of the authors, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, has consistently heard the same grievances. Iran, Saudis believe, has after three decades of sanctions and pressure still gained the upper hand over its neighbors. With traditional Arab powers like Egypt and Iraq either in domestic disarray or aligned with Iran, Saudi Arabia feels that it is the last Arab country standing in the way of total Iranian regional dominance.

It is understandable for Saudi leaders to feel vulnerable. Saudi Arabia is a young state that by itself is not capable of competing with Iran, given its population of roughly 20 million native citizens, upwards of 15 percent of whom are Shia Muslims that face routine discrimination. As an absolute monarchy, it also faces the triple threat of Sunni extremism, mainstream Islamist opposition, and calls for liberal democratic reform. Less discussed but also pertinent are the sharp regional and tribal fissures lurking just underneath the surface of Saudi society.

To bolster its regional position, Saudi Arabia has relied on its partnership with the United States. Over the past several decades, the US has effectively underwritten Saudi Arabia’s ability to exert power and influence in the region. Thus, what frightens the kingdom more than anything, and the prime reason for its opposition to the Iranian nuclear negotiations and much of President Obama’s Middle East policies, is the prospect of US engagement with Iran coupled with broader US disengagement from the Middle East.

The nature of Saudi provocations against Iran today suggests that it is bent on stoking regional tensions to keep the US embroiled in the region on its behalf. As President Obama has said, U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia “seek to exploit American ‘muscle’ for their own narrow and sectarian ends.”

A Realistic Peace Predicated on Mutual Acceptance

Saudi leaders must understand that Iran, regardless of its government, will always play a major regional role. This is primarily due to its structural characteristics, its strategic location and size, its demographics and natural resources, and a millennia-spanning history of unbroken statehood. Today, Iran is a nation of 80 million, endowed with the world’s largest combined oil and natural gas reserves, an increasingly diversified economy, self-reliance in key economic and security matters, and a highly educated population.

Saudi leaders have two choices before them. The first is to continue down their current path of pursuing aggressive, unilateralist foreign policies and preconditioning dialogue on quixotic notions of Iran having zero role in its neighborhood. This approach has been exemplified by the Saudis bombing Yemen with impunity, crushing pro-democracy protests in Bahrain, refusing to recognize the post-war democratic Iraqi government for six years, aiding and abetting terrorism (as attested by both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump), and countering the Arab Spring revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, to name but a few destabilizing policies. Of course, Saudi efforts to export its intolerant state ideology of Wahhabism and the disastrous effects this has had on the Muslim world have been well documented, most recently by Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif in a New York Times op-ed highlighting the global danger of this creed.

In taking this path, Saudi rulers would be wise to consider that for years the US, the sole global superpower, attempted a similar approach of altering Middle Eastern politics to align with its preferences through military intervention, only to meet failure and sow further destabilization. Given Saudi Arabia’s mounting economic and political woes, it is already bleeding while trying to make Iran bleed.

However, an alternative approach exists, predicated on abandoning self-defeating zero-sum mindsets and recognizing legitimate regional security threats and interests. Only then can Riyadh and Tehran begin to view their respective capabilities as assets and move towards establishing a credible, sustainable equilibrium that bolsters regional peace and security. Iran’s president has already demonstrated his readiness for such dialogue. The onus is now on Saudi Arabia.

Photo: Saudi ambassador to Iran Abdolrahma Bin Gharman al-Shahri meets with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in 2014. Photo by Amin Hosroshahi vis ISNA.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian is a Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist at Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and author of “Iran and the United States: An Insider’s view on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace.” Sina Toossi is a Senior Research Specialist at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

19 September 2016

 

By TASS Russian News Agency

“If this is the case, then maybe this is exactly why the US side does not agree on publishing the Russian-US agreements on Syria,” Russian Foreign Ministry’s official spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said

MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/. US airstrikes at the Syrian army lead to the conclusion that Washington defends the Islamic State (terrorist organization banned in Russia), Russian Foreign Ministry’s official spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Rossiya 24 TV channel on Sunday.

“If we had suspicions earlier that this is in defense of Jebhat al-Nusra (terrorist organization banned in Russia), then now, after today’s airstrikes at the Syrian army, we come to a scary conclusion — the White House defends IS,” Zakharova said.

“If this is the case, then maybe this is exactly why the US side does not agree on publishing the Russian-US agreements on Syria,” she continued. “We demand explanations from Washington – whether this is a deliberate policy to support IS or a mistake,” she noted.

According to the Syrian government forces’ command, 62 servicemen were killed and 100 more injured in an airstrike near the city of Deir ez-Zor. Russian Defense Ministry’s official spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that on Saturday, “from 5pm to 5:50pm near an aerodrome of the Deir ez-Zor city (Syria), the aircraft of ‘anti-IS coalition’ (two F-16 and two A10) delivered four airstrikes at units of Syrian government forces which were surrounded by Islamic State terrorist groupings,” Konashenkov noted.

18 September 2016

By Jay Syrmopoulos

Over the past 15 years many highly respected academics and experts have come forward to challenge the official narrative on the collapse of the WTC towers forwarded by the U.S. government. The official government position holds that the collapse of all three towers was due to intense heat inside of the buildings.

But a new forensic investigation into the collapse of the three World Trade Center towers on 9/11, published in Europhysics News – a highly respected European physics magazine – claims that “the evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that all three buildings were destroyed by controlled demolition.”

While many in the mainstream have attempted to label anyone questioning the official narrative as “tin foil hat” conspiracy theorist, many highly respected experts have come forward to lampoon the idea that the buildings collapsed due to the intense heat and fires following two terrorist-directed plane crashes.

“Given the far-reaching implications, it is morally imperative that this hypothesis be the subject of a truly scientific and impartial investigation by responsible authorities,” the four physicists conclude in the damning report.

The new study is the work of Steven Jones, former full professor of physics at Brigham Young University, Robert Korol, a professor emeritus of civil engineering at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, Anthony Szamboti, a mechanical design engineer with over 25 years of structural design experience in the aerospace and communications industries and Ted Walter, the director of strategy and development for Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a nonprofit organization that today represents more than 2,500 architects and engineers.

The comprehensive study in Europhysics Magazine directly challenges the official narrative and lends to a growing body of evidence that seriously questions the veracity of the government narrative.

In 2002, the National Institute of Standards and Technology remarked that the case was exceptionally bizarre. There were no other known cases of total structural collapses in high-rise buildings caused by fires and so it is deeply unusual that it should have happened three times in the space of one day, noted NIST.

Official investigations have never been able to thoroughly and coherently explain how this might have happened and various teams tasked with examining the collapse have raised difficult questions about the veracity of the government’s story.

Perhaps most damning of all, the experts claimed that after a thorough forensic analysis of video footage of the building’s collapse, it revealed signs of a controlled implosion. Additionally, Jones has co-authored a number of papers documenting evidence of unreacted nano-thermitic material in the WTC dust.

The authors of the study note that the buildings fell with such speed and symmetry that they there was no other feasible explanation for the sudden collapse at free fall speeds – directly refuting studies that attempted to debunk the idea that the building fell without resistance. These respected experts’ new forensic analysis only adds to the growing movement of people calling for a new and impartial investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Revealing the scope and breadth of public disbelief in the official government narrative surrounding the events of 9/11, even presidential candidate Jill Stein has recently called for a new investigation.

https://youtu.be/IYUYya6bPGw

The original source of this article is The Mind Unleashed

Copyright © Jay Syrmopoulos, The Mind Unleashed, 2016

17 September 2016

By Pepe Escobar

You may have never heard of LEMOA. In Global South terms, LEMOA (Logistics Exchange Memorandum Agreement) is quite a big thing, signed in late August by Indian Defense Minister Mohan Parrikar and Pentagon supremo Ash Carter.
As Carter spun it four months before the signing, LEMOA rules that US forces “may” be deployed to India under special circumstances. Essentially, Delhi will allow Washington to refuel and keep contingents and equipment in Indian bases – but only in case of war.

In theory, India is not offering the US any permanent military base. Yet considering the Pentagon’s track record that may of course change in a flash.

No wonder Indian nationalists were outraged – insisting there is no strategic gain out of this gambit, especially for a nation that is very proud of being one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

The cozying up to the Pentagon happens just a few months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi – who had been denied a US visa for nearly a decade – addressed a joint meeting of Congress in a blaze of glory, declaring that India and the US are
natural allies” and calling for a closer partnership.

Modi went no holds barred, even referring to Gandhi’s influence on Rev. Martin Luther King’s nonviolent civil disobedience strategy – something that could not but earn him a standing ovation in Capitol Hill.

The “closer” partnership does involve military and nuclear issues. As Modi reminded Congress – which needed no reminding – the industrial-military complex sold weapons to India “from almost zero to $10 billion in less than a decade.”

Then there’s the US-India nuclear cooperation deal, which opens a window for US corporations to build and supply Indian nuclear power reactors. And eventually Washington is bent to share “some” – and the operative concept is “some” – military technology with Delhi.

Geopolitically, this all boils down to what happened recently in the Philippine Sea, as the US, Japan and India practiced anti-submarine warfare and air defense maneuvers; practical evidence of the “pivot to Asia”, as in re-tweaking Asia’s naval-security “order” to counteract – who else – China.

Modi performs geopolitical yoga
Yet things are not as black and white – from the Indian point of view. It’s no secret that key sectors of the Indian diaspora in the US are quite integrated with the Washington consensus and usual suspect hegemony mechanisms such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Rand Corporation. But Modi’s game is way more sophisticated.

Modi’s priority is to solidify India as the top South Asian power. So he cannot afford to antagonize Washington. On the contrary; he’s getting the US on board his vastly ambitious Make in India strategy (“a major national initiative designed to facilitate investment; foster innovation; enhance skill development; protect intellectual property; and build best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure.”)

Naturally, US corporations – heavy supporters of TPP – are salivating at the lucrative prospects. The drive is similar to what China did decades ago, but now with emphasis on “protection of intellectual property” to attract the TPP-obsessed crowd.

Another geopolitical Modi goal is to forcefully present India – not Pakistan – to Washington as the ideal reliable/rational partner in South Asia. That’s dicey, because for the Pentagon the multiple declinations of the war on terra in AfPak are de facto being configured as something like Operation Enduring Freedom Forever.

And then there’s once again the military angle: India diversifying its weapons suppliers – mostly it buys from Russia – towards the US, but not that much, establishing a careful balance.

This is a balance between the US and BRICS, in itself is the hardest nut to crack. As Beijing admits in no uncertain terms, “BRICS faces the risk of retrogressive, rather than progressive, cooperation because of new, intricate circumstances.”

Talk about a diplomatic euphemism for the ages. And this as Washington will go no holds barred to
contain China behind the First Island Chain in the South China Sea while there’s not much Delhi can do to contain Myanmar providing Beijing with total access to the Indian Ocean via Pipelineistan, ports and high-speed rail.

Meet INSTC
At the next BRICS summit in Goa next month, some of these geopolitical intricacies will be quietly discussed behind closed doors. BRICS may be in disarray, with Brazil under regime change, Russia under sanctions and India flirting with the US. But BRICS remains committed to serious institutional moves, such as the New Development Bank (NDB), the push towards trading in their own currencies and a multi-pronged politico/economic drive towards a multipolar world.

This drive is graphically in effect when we examine one of the key – unreported – Eurasian integration stories; the symbiosis between India and Iran. Delhi counts on Tehran to up its game as an economy propelled by natural gas as well as profiting in the long run from the perfect – Persian – gateway to Central Asian markets.

The key hub of course is the port of Chabahan. The highlight of a Modi visit to Tehran four months ago was a Chabahar contract between India Ports Global Private Limited and Arya Banader of Iran. That’s about “development and operation for 10 years of two terminals and 5 berths with cargo handling”.

There’s way more; development of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and essential road/rail links from Iran to Afghanistan and further into Central Asia. India will then have direct access to Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan. It does not hurt that Delhi and Kabul are already strategic partners.

Chabahar is only 500 km east of the ultra-strategic Strait of Hormuz.

In the near future, we might as well see a configuration where the Indian Navy has the right to use Chabahar while the Chinese Navy has the right to use Gwadar, in Pakistan, only 150 km by sea east of Chabahar. Nothing that BRICS dialogue – or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – could not keep on smooth sailing mode.

For Iran, this is a certified “win-win” game. Iran not only will be connected to the Chinese One Belt, One Road (OBOR); but it will also solidify yet another trade/transportation corridor in Eurasia; the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) between the Indian Ocean and Central Asia. Key INSTC members happen to be Iran, India and… Russia. Talk about, once again, the interpenetration of BRICS and the SCO.

The Big Picture ahead under Modi’s long term planning does not look like Delhi subjected to the role of flagrant vassal of Washington. India needs certified stability with all key players – from the US to China, considering the master plan is to lift 1.3 billion Indians close to the living standards of middle-class Chinese.

China had a head start. India may take up to 2050 to do it. Meanwhile, it’s not to India’s interests to actively join any US policy of China containment or encirclement, be it “pivot” or “rebalance”. It’s more like India, in a Gandhian way, will be practicing the fine art of nonviolent, forceful neutrality.

Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia.

15 September 2016

Analysis by Kalinga Seneviratne

This article is the tenth in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.

BANGKOK (IDN | Lotus News Features) – President Barack Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ policy that realigned U.S. relationship to Asia, is largely regarded favourably in this region. Yet, his farewell visit to Asia ‘unpivoted’ a darker side of America’s involvement in Asia – of horrendous war crimes committed by the U.S. in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s for which Washington is yet to be held accountable.

Laos, the tiny landlocked country in Southeast Asia inhabited by 6.9 million people, is one of the most heavily bombed countries in the world, per capita, following the Vietnam War. The dangerous UXO (unexploded ordnance) left behind is a sad legacy of the war that continues to be a threat to the lives of rural populations and a hindrance to the use of land for agriculture and development.

Between 1964 and 1973 a secret CIA-led operation to cut supplies to the Vietcong resulted in two million tons of ordinance being dropped on Laos – more than the combined total dropped on both Japan and Germany during World War Two. This includes more than 270 million anti-personnel sub-munitions released from cluster bombs.

Speaking at the National Cultural Centre in Laos, while announcing a grant of $90 million for landmine clearance operations in the country, President Obama came very close to apologizing for his country’s war crime.

“For those years in the 1960s and 70s America’s intervention in Laos was a secret to the American people who were separated by vast distances and a Pacific Ocean – and there was no Internet and information didn’t flow as easily,” he said, adding, “for the people of Laos obviously this war was no secret.”

The money will be provided over the next three years and will be spent on surveying Laos for some 80 million unexploded cluster bombs dropped during the war. Obama told his audience that the U.S. has an obligation to help Laos clear the munitions that remain in the ground after bombing raids that have devastated large parts of the country.

“Villages and entire valleys were obliterated. Ancient plains were devastated. Countless civilians were killed. That conflict was another reminder that whatever the cause, whatever our intentions, war inflicts a terrible toll, especially on innocent men, women and children,” Obama said, stopping short of offering a formal apology for the U.S. actions.

He added: “Many of the bombs dropped never exploded. Over the years thousands of Lao people have been killed or injured, farmers tending fields, children playing. The wounds, a missing leg or arm, last a lifetime. That’s why I’ve dramatically increased our funding to remove these unexploded bombs.”

As Vientiane Times pointed out, about 580,000 secret bombing missions were carried out over Laos. A quarter of all villages in Laos are contaminated with UXO, the impact of which is particularly visible in many of the poorest districts.

Although the Indochina war ended more than three decades ago, the bombs killed and injured about 50,000 people as a result of UXO incidents between 1964 and 2008, with many being women and children.

Explaining the effect of the atrocious actions, Somsack Pongkhao wrote in the Vientiane Times: “The bombs that remain continue to have a major impact on the safety and livelihoods of rural people, diminishing their ability to cultivate crops and killing and maiming those who take the risk of working contaminated land.

“Unexploded ordnance has a significant effect on social and economic development as a whole, increasing the cost of the construction of schools, hospitals and roads throughout Laos, due to the need to carry out clearance activities before work can begin.”

It is ironic that while the U.S. Administration goes around the world, often drafting the UN Human Rights Council and the International Court of Justice, to demand from countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to account for war crimes, it took it almost 60 years to acknowledge its heinous actions in Laos.

Yet, as former American war correspondent in Laos and Vietnam Robert Scheer argued in an interview with ‘The Real News Network’, Obama used his visit for a charm offensive rather than accounting for one of the most horrendous war crime in history. “If you don’t take ownership for your own atrocities, you first of all have no authority to condemn atrocities anywhere in the world and you don t learn the lessons of history,” he argues.

“It was one of the most brutal uncivilized, vicious attacks on a people that we’ve seen in human history and the president is lying. It’s a bald-faced lie to say oh people couldn’t get the information because we didn’t have the Internet,” notes Scheer who has witnessed the atrocities, documented and reported these.

“There were plenty of journalists. They couldn’t get mainstream media to cover the story in any effective way. But the most important thing was that the U.S. government was very effective in lying about what it was doing.”

While these war crimes were well documented, Scheer notes that the U.S. never took ownership or responsibility for what it did. It was only in 2012 that Hillary Clinton went there as Secretary of State.

“This was a war against peasants. People who were using oxen to till their fields. Who barely knew what a pencil was and you went to war with them to destroy them, to demoralize them, and it had nothing to do with them,” says Scheer. “It had to do with China, it had to do with the Soviet Union, it had to do with some crazy ideas about the Cold War.”

By offering $90 million to clear mines, President Obama made it to look like an altruistic gesture to the Laotian people and the uncritical mainstream media assisted the process.

Even New Zealand, which was an U.S. ally during the Vietnam war chipped in with Prime Minister John Key, who was also attending the East Asia Summit in Vientiane that Obama attended, announcing a grant of $7.2 million to the United Nations Development Programe’s (UNDP) UXO clearing operations.

UNDP is headed New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Helen Clark who is also one of the candidates for the post of the UN Secretary-General.

“New Zealand has a strong legacy of supporting UXO clearance around the world, including for the past 20 years in Laos, and this funding will make a real difference to the safety and economic prospects of the people here. We are proud to stand alongside the people and the government of Laos to continue this important work,” Prime Minister Key said at a ceremony at the UXO Training Centre in Laos.

But, no journalist present there asked him why couldn’t New Zealand stand with the Lao people 60 years ago to stop the U.S. atrocities or whether they were part of the bombing campaign?

Former UNDP resident representative in Laos, Minh Pham writing in Singapore’s Straits Times called on the U.S. to accelerate the detection and clearance of cluster bombs in Laos.

“At the current rate of clearance, it will take a century for Laos to rid itself of the 2.7 million tonnes of cluster bombs that were dropped, 30 per cent of which did not explode and are imbedded in the ground,” he warned.

Addressing President Obama, Minh Pham wrote: “Bombing people ‘back to the Stone Age’ runs contrary to the ‘soft’ or ‘smart’ power you have advanced. Recognising this, along with the principle that the polluter pays, will go a long way to bridge the trust deficit.”

Minh sad: “A smart move will be to introduce drone technology in the detection of the millions of tennis ball-sized bomblets scattered throughout the country; Laos currently uses handheld World War II-era technology.”

He added, “clearing the UXO will lift the tax in perpetuity imposed by the presence of the bombs on the social and economic development of the country. And critically, it is not only a smart move, but also a moral obligation.”

Meanwhile, at a side event to the ASEAN Summit, from September 6 to 8 in the Lao capital, Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon inaugurated Laos’s own national Sustainable Development Goal 18 on UXO: It says: “Make lives safe from UXO; Remove the UXO obstacle to national development.” [IDN-InDepthNews – 11 September 2016]

Photo: A bombshell deco in Northern Laos. Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne | IDN-INPS

IDN is flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate.

Kalinga Seneviratne is a lecturer and researcher at Chulalongkorn University.

11 September 2016

By Glenn Greenwald

Last week, a major censorship controversy erupted when Facebook began deleting all posts containing the iconic photograph of the Vietnamese “Napalm Girl” on the ground that it violated the company’s ban on “child nudity.” Facebook even deleted a post from the prime minister of Norway, who posted the photograph in protest of the censorship. As outrage spread, Facebook ultimately reversed itself — acknowledging “the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time” — but this episode illustrated many of the dangers I’ve previously highlighted in having private tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google become the arbiters of what we can and cannot see.

Having just resolved that censorship effort, Facebook seems to be vigorously courting another. The Associated Press reports today from Jerusalem that “the Israeli government and Facebook have agreed to work together to determine how to tackle incitement on the social media network.” These meetings are taking place “as the government pushes ahead with legislative steps meant to force social networks to rein in content that Israel says incites violence.” In other words, Israel is about to legislatively force Facebook to censor content deemed by Israeli officials to be improper, and Facebook appears eager to appease those threats by working directly with the Israeli government to determine what content should be censored.

The joint Facebook-Israel censorship efforts, needless to say, will be directed at Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians who oppose Israeli occupation. The AP article makes that clear: “Israel has argued that a wave of violence with the Palestinians over the past year has been fueled by incitement, much of it spread on social media sites.” As Alex Kane reported in The Intercept in June, Israel has begun actively surveilling Palestinians for the content of their Facebook posts and even arresting some for clear political speech. Israel’s obsession with controlling Palestinians’ use of social media is motivated by the way it has enabled political organizing by occupation opponents; as Kane wrote: “A demonstration against the Israeli occupation can be organized in a matter of hours, while the monitoring of Palestinians is made easier by the large digital footprint they leave on their laptops and mobile phones.”

Notably, Israel was represented in this meeting with Facebook by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, an extremist by all measures who has previously said she does not believe in a Palestinian state. Shaked has “proposed legislation that seeks to force social networks to remove content that Israel considers to be incitement,” and recently boasted that Facebook is already extremely compliant with Israeli censorship demands: “Over the past four months Israel submitted 158 requests to Facebook to remove inciting content,” she said, and Facebook has accepted those requests in 95 percent of the cases.

All of this underscores the severe dangers of having our public discourse overtaken, regulated, and controlled by a tiny number of unaccountable tech giants. I suppose some people are comforted by the idea that benevolent Facebook executives like Mark Zuckerberg are going to protect us all from “hate speech” and “incitement,” but — like “terrorism” — neither of those terms have any fixed meanings, are entirely malleable, and are highly subject to manipulation for propagandistic ends. Do you trust Facebook — or the Israeli government — to assess when a Palestinian’s post against Israeli occupation and aggression passes over into censorship-worthy “hate speech” or “incitement”?

While the focus here is on Palestinians’ “incitement,” it’s actually very common for Israelis to use Facebook to urge violence against Palestinians, including settlers urging “vengeance” when there is an attack on an Israeli. Indeed, as the Washington Post recently noted, “Palestinians have also taken issue with social-media platforms, saying they incite violence and foster an Israeli discourse of hatred, racism and discriminatory attitudes against Palestinians.”

In 2014, thousands of Israelis used Facebook to post messages “calling for the murder of Palestinians.” When an IDF occupying soldier was arrested for shooting and killing a wounded Palestinian point blank in the head last year, IDF soldiers used Facebook to praise the killing and justify that violence, with online Israeli mobs gathering in support. Indeed, Justice Minister Shaked herself — now part of the government team helping Facebook determine what to censor — has used Facebook to post astonishingly extremist and violence-inducing rhetoric against Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his other top ministers have done the same. As Al Jazeera America detailed in 2014:

The hate speech against Arabs that gathered momentum on Facebook and Twitter soon spilled out onto the streets of Jerusalem as extremist Israelis kicked up violence and caused chaos. This violence then made its way back online: YouTube and Facebook videos show hundreds of angry Israeli mobs running around chanting, “Death to Arabs,” and looking for Palestinians to attack. A video of an Israeli Jew attacking a Palestinian on a public bus shouting, “Filthy Arabs, filthy Arab murderers of children,” emerged from Tel Aviv. And more video footage showing Israeli security forces using excessive force on a handcuffed Palestinian-American boy further called into question who was really inciting this chaos.

Can anyone imagine Facebook deleting the posts of prominent Israelis calling for increased violence or oppression against Palestinians? Indeed, is it even possible to imagine Facebook deleting the posts of Americans or western Europeans who call for aggressive wars or other forms of violence against predominantly Muslim countries, or against critics of the West? To ask the question is to answer it. Facebook is a private company, with a legal obligation to maximize profit, and so it will interpret very slippery concepts such as “hate speech” and “inciting violence” to please those who wield the greatest power. It’s thus inconceivable that Facebook would ever dream of deleting this type of actual advocacy or incitement of violence:

https://youtu.be/rImgsRg-a-8

Facebook is confronting extreme pressure to censor content disliked by various governments. The U.S. and U.K. have jointly launched a campaign to malign Silicon Valley companies as terrorist helpers or ISIS supporters for refusing to take more active steps to ban content from those whom these governments regard as “terrorists.” Israel has been particularly aggressive in attempting to blame Facebook for violence and coerce it to censor. Family members of Israelis killed by Palestinians are suing Facebook claiming the company helped facilitate those attacks, while some Israelis have actually complained that Facebook is biased against Israel in its censorship practices.

About all of this, The Intercept submitted the following questions to Facebook, which has not yet responded; we will update this article if it does:

1) Has FB ever met with Palestinian leaders in an effort to identify and suppress posts from Israelis that incite violence? Is there any plan to do so?

2) If an Israeli advocates that Palestinians be attacked and/or bombed, would those posts violate FB’s terms of service and be deleted? Have any ever been?

3) What role, exactly, is the Israeli government playing in helping FB identify content that should be barred?

4) FB said it “granted some 95% of the requests” from Israeli officials to remove content. What percentage of requests from Palestinians to remove content has been accepted?

5) If someone says that Israel’s occupation is illegal and should be resisted using all means, would that be permitted?

It’s true that these companies have the legal right as private actors to censor whatever they want. But that proposition ignores the unprecedented control this small group of corporations now exerts over global communications. That this censorship is within their legal rights does not obviate the serious danger this corporate conduct poses, for reasons I set forth here in describing how vast their influence has become in shaping our discourse (see here for a disturbing story today on how Twitter banned a Scottish pro-independence group after it criticized an article from a tabloid journalist, who then complained she was being “harassed”).

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Facebook, at this point, is far and away the most dominant force in journalism. It is indescribably significant to see it work with a government to censor the speech of that government’s opponents. But as is so often the case with censorship, people are content with its application until it is used to suppress views they agree with or like.

One of the early promises of the internet, a key potential benefit, was its ability to equalize disparities, to enable the powerless to communicate as freely and potently as the powerful, and to politically organize in far more efficient ways. Those who continually call on companies such as Facebook and Twitter to censor content are seriously jeopardizing those values, no matter how noble their motives might be. It is difficult to imagine any scenario more at odds with the internet’s promise than Facebook executives and the Israeli government meeting to decide what Palestinians will and will not be allowed to say.

Glenn Greenwald is one of three co-founding editors of The Intercept. He is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. His most recent book, No Place to Hide, is about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world. Prior to co-founding The Intercept, Glenn’s column was featured at The Guardian and Salon.
13 September 2016

By Jonathan Cook

Nazareth: Is Israel on the verge of civil war, as a growing number of Israeli commentators suggest, with its Jewish population deeply riven over the future of the occupation?

On one side is a new peace movement, Decision at 50, stuffed with former political and security leaders. Ehud Barak, a previous prime minister who appears to be seeking a political comeback, may yet emerge as its figurehead.

The group has demanded the government hold a referendum next year – the half-centenary of Israel’s occupation, which began in 1967 – on whether it is time to leave the territories. Its own polling shows a narrow majority ready to concede a Palestinian state.

On the other is Benjamin Netanyahu, in power for seven years with the most right-wing government in Israel’s history. On Friday he posted a video on social media criticising those who want to end the occupation.

Observing that a Palestinian state would require removing hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers currently living – illegally – on Palestinian land, Netanyahu concluded: “There’s a phrase for that. It’s called ethnic cleansing.”

Not only did the comparison upend international law, but Netanyahu infuriated the Obama administration by implying that, in seeking to freeze settlement growth, the US had supported such ethnic cleansing. A spokeswoman called the comments “inappropriate and unhelpful” – Washington-speak for deceitful and inflammatory.

But the Israeli prime minister is not the only one hoodwinking his audience.

Whatever its proponents imply, the Decision at 50 referendum is about neither peace nor the Palestinians’ best interests. Its assumption is that yet again the Israeli public should determine unilaterally the Palestinians’ fate.

Although the exact wording is yet to be decided, the referendum’s backers appear concerned solely with the status of the West Bank.

An Israeli consensus believes Gaza has been free of occupation since the settlers were pulled out in 2005, despite the fact that Israel still surrounds most of the coastal strip with soldiers, patrols its air space with drones and denies access to the sea.

The same unyielding, deluded Israeli consensus has declared East Jerusalem, the expected capital of a Palestinian state, as instead part of Israel’s “eternal capital”.

But the problem runs deeper still. When the new campaign proudly cites new figures showing that 58 per cent support “two states for two nations”, it glosses over what most Israelis think such statehood would entail for the Palestinians.

A survey in June found 72 per cent do not believe the Palestinians live under occupation, while 62 per cent told pollsters last year they think Palestinians have no rights to a nation.

When Israelis talk in favour of a Palestinian state, it is chiefly to thwart a far bigger danger – a single state shared with the “enemy”. The Decision at 50 poll shows 87 per cent of Israeli Jews dread a binational conclusion to the conflict. Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Shin Bet intelligence service and a leader of Decision at 50, echoed them, warning of an “approaching disaster”.

So what do Israelis think a Palestinian state should look like? Previous surveys have been clear. It would not include Jerusalem or control its borders. It would be territorially carved up to preserve the “settlement blocs”, which would be annexed to Israel. And most certainly it would be “demilitarised” – without an army or air force.

In other words, Palestinians would lack sovereignty. Such a state exists only in the imagination of the Israeli public. A Palestinian state on these terms would simply be an extension of the Gaza model to the West Bank.

Nonetheless, the idea of a civil war is gaining ground. Tamir Pardo, the recently departed head of Israel’s spy agency Mossad, warned last month that Israel was on the brink of tearing itself apart through “internal divisions”.

He rated this a bigger danger than any of the existential threats posited by Mr Netanyahu, such as Iran’s supposed nuclear bomb.

But the truth is that there is very little ideologically separating most Israeli Jews. All but a tiny minority wish to see the Palestinians continue as a subjugated people. For the great majority, a Palestinian state means nothing more than a makeover of the occupation, penning up the Palestinians in slightly more humane conditions.

After many years in power, the right is growing in confidence. It sees no price has been paid, either at home or abroad, for endlessly tightening the screws on the Palestinians.

Israeli moderates have had to confront the painful reality that their country is not quite the enlightened outpost in the Middle East they had imagined. They may raise their voices in protest now but, if the polls are right, most will eventually submit to the right’s realisation of its vision of a Greater Israel.

Those who cannot stomach such an outcome will have to stop equivocating and choose a side. They can leave, as some are already doing, or stay and fight – not for a bogus referendum that solves nothing, but to demand dignity and freedom for the Palestinian people.

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

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.

13 September 2016