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By Nauman Sadiq

In order to create a semblance of objectivity and fairness, the American policymakers and analysts are always willing to accept the blame for the mistakes of the distant past that have no bearing on the present, however, any fact that impinges on their present policy is conveniently brushed aside.

In the case of the creation of Islamic State, for instance, the United States’ policy analysts are willing to concede that invading Iraq back in 2003 was a mistake that radicalized the Iraqi society, exacerbated the sectarian divisions and gave birth to an unrelenting Sunni insurgency against the heavy handed and discriminatory policies of the Shi’a-dominated Iraqi government; similarly, the war on terror era political commentators also “generously” accept that the Cold War era policy of nurturing the Afghan so-called “freedom fighters” against the erstwhile Soviet Union was a mistake, because all those fait accompli have no bearing on their present policy.

The corporate media’s spin-doctors conveniently forget, however, that the creation of Islamic State and myriads of other Sunni Arab jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq has as much to do with the unilateral invasion of Iraq back in 2003 under the previous Bush Administration as it has been the consequence of the present policy of Obama Administration in Syria of training and arming the Sunni militants against the Syrian regime since 2011-onward, in fact, the proximate cause behind the rise of Islamic State, al Nusra Front and myriads of Sunni jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq has been Obama Administration’s policy of intervention through proxies in Syria.

Leaving the funding, training and arming aspects of the insurgencies aside, but especially pertaining to conferring international legitimacy to an armed insurgency, like the Afghan so-called “freedom struggle” during the Cold War, or the supposedly “moderate and democratic” Libyan and Syrian insurgencies of today, it is simply beyond the power of minor regional players and their nascent media, that has a geographically and linguistically limited audience, to cast such heavily armed and brutal insurrections in a positive light in order to internationally legitimize them; only the Western mainstream media, that has a global audience and which serves as the mouthpiece of the Western political establishments, has perfected this game of legitimizing the absurd and selling the Satans as saviors.

It is very easy to mislead the people merely by changing the labels while the content remains the same – call the Syrian opposition moderate and nationalist rebels or insurgents and they would become legitimate in the eyes of the Western audience, and call the same armed militants “jihadists or terrorists” and they would become illegitimate. How do people expect from the armed thugs, whether they are Islamic jihadists or supposedly “moderate” and nationalist rebels, to bring about democratic reform in Syria or Libya?

For the whole of the last five years of the Syrian civil war the focal point of the Western policy has been that “Assad must go!” But what difference would it make to the lives of the Syrians even if the regime is replaced now when the whole country has been reduced to rubble? Qaddafi and his regime were ousted from power in September 2011; five years later Tripoli is ruled by the Misrata militia, Benghazi is under the control of Khalifa Haftar who is supported by Egypt and UAE and a battle is being fought in Sirte between the Islamic State-affiliate in Libya and the so-called Government of National Accord.

It will now take decades, not years, to restore even a semblance of stability in Libya and Syria; remember that the proxy war in Afghanistan was originally fought in the ‘80s and even 35 years later Afghanistan is still in the midst of perpetual anarchy, lawlessness and an unrelenting Taliban insurgency.

The only difference between the Soviet-Afghan jihad back in the ‘80s, that spawned the Islamic jihadists like the Taliban and al Qaeda for the first time in history, and the Libyan and Syrian jihads 2011-onward is that the Afghan Jihad was an overt jihad – back then the Western political establishments and their mouthpiece, the mainstream media, used to openly brag that CIA provides all those AK-47s, RPGs and stingers to the Pakistani ISI which then forwards such weapons to the Afghan mujahideen (freedom fighters) to combat Soviet Union’s troops in Afghanistan.

After the 9/11 tragedy, however, the Western political establishments and corporate media have become a lot more circumspect, therefore, this time around they have waged covert jihads against the “unfriendly” Qaddafi regime in Libya and the anti-Israel Assad regime in Syria, in which the Islamic jihadists (terrorists) have been sold as “moderate rebels” to the Western audience. It’s an incontrovertible fact that more than 90% of militants operating in Syria are either the Islamic jihadists or the armed tribesmen, and less than 10% are those who have defected from the Syrian army or otherwise have secular and nationalist goals.

Notwithstanding, unlike al Qaeda, which is a terrorist organization that generally employs anticolonial and anti-Zionist rhetoric to draw funds and followers, Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front, both, are basically anti-Shi’a sectarian outfits. By the designation “terrorism” it is generally implied and understood that an organization which has the intentions and capability of carrying out acts of terrorism on the Western soil. Though, Islamic State has carried out a few acts of terrorism against the Western countries, such as the high profile November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels bombings, but if we look at the pattern of its subversive activities, especially in the Middle East, it generally targets the Shi’a Muslims in Syria and Iraq.

A few acts of terrorism that Islamic State has carried out in the Gulf Arab States were also directed against the Shi’a Muslims in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia and Shi’a mosques in Yemen and Kuwait. Moreover, al Qaeda Central is only a small band of Arab militants whose strength is numbered in several hundreds, while Islamic State is a mass insurgency whose strength is numbered in tens of thousands, especially in Syria and Iraq.

Additionally, Syria’s pro-Assad militias are comprised of local militiamen as well as Shi’a foreign fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and even Hazara Shi’as from Afghanistan. And Sunni jihadists from all over the region have also been flocking to the Syrian battlefield for the past five years. A full-scale Sunni-Shi’a war has been going on in Syria, Iraq and Yemen which will obviously have its repercussions all over the Middle East region where Sunni and Shi’a Muslims have coexisted in peace for centuries.

Regardless, it should be kept in mind here that the Western interest in the Syrian civil war has mainly been about ensuring Israel’s regional security. The Shi’a resistance axis in the Middle East, comprised of Iran, the Syrian regime and their Lebanon-based proxy Hezbollah, posed an existential threat to Israel; a fact which the Israel’s defense community realized for the first time during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War.

When protests broke out against the Qaddafi and Assad regimes in Libya and Syria, respectively, in early 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings, under pressure from the Zionist lobbies, the Western powers took advantage of the opportunity provided to them and militarized those protests with the help of their regional allies: Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf Arab States.

All of the aforementioned states belong to the Sunni denomination and they have been vying for influence in the Middle East against the Shi’a Iranian axis. Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in August 2011 to June 2014, when Islamic State occupied Mosul, an informal pact existed between the Western powers, their regional allies and the Sunni jihadists of the Middle East against the Shi’a resistance axis. In accordance with this pact, Sunni militants were trained and armed in the training camps located in border regions of Turkey and Jordan.

This arrangement of an informal pact between the Western powers and the Sunni jihadists of the Middle East against the Shi’a Iranian axis worked well up to August 2014, when Obama Administration made a volte-face on its previous regime change policy in Syria and started conducting air strikes against one group of Sunni jihadists battling against the Syrian regime, i.e. the Islamic State, after the latter transgressed its mandate in Syria and overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq and threatened the capital of another steadfast American ally: Masoud Barzani’s Erbil in the oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan.

After that reversal of policy in Syria by the Western powers and the subsequent Russian military intervention on the side of the Shi’a regime, the momentum of Sunni Arab jihadists’ expansion in Syria has stalled and they now feel that their Western allies have committed a treachery against the Sunni jihadists’ cause; that’s why, they feel enraged and they are once again up in arms to exact revenge for this betrayal.

If we look at the chain of events, the timing of the Paris and Brussels attacks has been critical: Islamic State overran Mosul in June 2014, Obama Administration started bombing Islamic State’s targets in Iraq and Syria in August 2014 and after a long time first such incident of terrorism took place on the Western soil at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and then the November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels bombings.

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and MENA regions, neocolonialism and petroimperialism.
21 August 2016

By Dr Fayaz Ahmad Bhat

I have heard that the life in the hell would be very tough, painful and torment. One punishment will be followed by another. There will be guards watching and patrolling the hell so that no body from the hell has relief and escape. The screams of the cursed will fall upon the deaf ears and nobody will be ready to listen and help. When I make an analogue between Kashmir and the hell, I feel no difference between the two, rather I see Kashmir the worst since it is practical and the hell is hypothetical.

In Kashmir (hell) people suffer irrespective of their socio-economic background. The cries go unheard and fall upon deaf ears. During the daytime protesters “watch and guard” the streets and don’t allow anyone to move even ailing are not allowed to have access to health care. During nights “security” forces don’t allow anybody to step out even they barge into houses to “avenge” the people. Both the parties (security forces and protestors) employ different means and methods to punish “violators”. Protesters don’t allow people to move even from one village to another. Sometimes they force the “violators” to chant anti India and pro-Pak slogans those who resist are dealt strictly with the volley of stones. On the other hand “security forces” punish everyone physically and sometimes even damage the property (vehicles, household etc). This is the way how they guard and patrol the hell so that “cursed” have no relief and escape. I am sure that hypothetical hell won’t be so pathetic and torment, the guards there won’t be so cruel and merciless.

It is more than a month now that Kashmir is burning and life is at standstill. According to local media reports more than eight thousand civilian got injured, near about seventy died and hunderends lost eye sight in the ongoing unrest. The rest of the population is in flames (in Kashmir/hell) and their screams go unheard. There are no traces of government and law and order especially in the rural areas of Kashmir Valley. Important entry and exit points and most of the streets in rural areas are fully in the control of unruled protestors. “Separatists” who come up with strike programmes and protest calendars even dance on the tunes of protestors.

The situation is worsening day by day and taking an ugly shape. Another generation of Kashmiris is being radicalised and becoming scapegoat. Interactions and observations suggest that situation in Kashmir is quite different from late 1980’s when young Kashmiris opted gun to challenge Indian rule over Kashmir. A large number of youth who opted for weapons had very humble socio-economic and educational background. They were almost unaware about the political past of the state. The “educated” lot who joined the militant ranks were either Jammaat ideologues or politically disgruntled or the both. The present generation is altogether different. They are literate and well aware of the past especially of the blunders which New Delhi has been committing since late 1980’s in Kashmir. Above all the strategies adopted by New Delhi to handle the Kashmir issue are proving counter- productive, children from the very birth witness killings, protests, processions, mishandling of the issue and bear the brunt of violence. From the age of five and six years misleading and communal readings too reach out to children through oral lore and propaganda. This is one of the reasons that children belonging to the age group of nine to sixteen years are very active in the present unrest. It gives sleepless nights and restive days to see children from the mentioned age group blocking roads and not listening to anybody. They dare everyone; challenge “security” forces and respond bullet, pellet and tear gas shells with slogans and stones. They sometimes even try to barge into army camps and police stations. I remember my childhood days; we used to flee the village along with elders even after listening that vehicles in army camp some eight kilometers away from our village are faced towards our village. Today people (mostly children and young) march towards army camps and police stations to give vent to their anger and frustration. A good number of populace tries to be aloof but they too are not spared. They are labeled Indian agents, traitors, anti movement, anti Kashmiri by protestors and rented mob, pro-Pakistanis, fundamentalists and what not by the state (army, police, crpf etc).

Many Kashmiris want to know what their crime is. They shout they are neither anti Indian nor pro- Pakistani. They are simply Kashmiri who lost their childhood and schooling to curfews, crackdowns, chugs, strikes and cross firings. Their youth disappeared in depression, disappointment and hopelessness and they are longing for nothing but peaceful and harmonious future for their kids.

It is very painful but worth to mention that last Friday when I offered congregational prays I rushed home hurriedly to escape from any possible trouble but was traumatised to hear my three years old son asking her mother that he will go for stone pelting. The case may not appear serious and worth to be mentioned to many but being a student of sociology and misfortune of being brought up in a conflict zone I think, it is really exemplary, serious and alarming. I sense how cruel and merciless I was to my parents. By virtue of fatherhood, I am able to understand how grave wounds I have inflicted to my parents when I was young and death was dancing in every nook and corner of Kashmir. I understand why they (parents) were not only surrendering before my every adamant but bearing every absurd act of mine. Perhaps, they did so to see me alive and not to provide any “reason” for me to join militants. Now I understand despite they desired me to prosper in my studies why they turned mute spectators when I burnt my books. I am sure besides their love and care, the peaceful childhood they had had determinant for their endurance and handling my nonsense and absurdity.

I cry! Can I too do the same? I am certain I cannot! Though I too love my son more than anything but I can’t prove myself to be like my parents as the childhood we had was different. I have been brought up in the environment which knew no tolerance, respect for teachers, neighbours and relations even for parents. More than two decades long conflict has negative impact on my attitude and mentality. I must acknowledge I am weak. I am intolerant. I never introspect and always try to identify the faults of others. I am and psychologically too weak, turns intolerant and violent over nothing.

I cry! The people of Kashmir cry! We cry for the future of our children. We cry in pain and agony but our suffering and misery goes unnoticed rather people pretend to deaf and blind. Our screams annoy our own brothers and sisters and we are looked down as damned and evil mongers.

A Kashmiri narrative very well narrates the state and agony of common Kashmiris; once upon a time there was a fisherman, starvation and misfortune had caught him very badly. One day his mother succumbed to misfortunes and hardships of life. The poor fisherman did not burry the corpse his mother and decided to sustain on the flesh of his mother. The people living nearby smelled “meat” and interpreted that fisherman was enjoying fried fish.

The fellow citizens while sitting in luxurious air-conditioned rooms watching Kashmiris participating in protests and stone pelting, most of which are mourning, funerals, or reaction to atrocities of “security” forces, do not look at these gatherings beyond anti India demonstrations. They curse, curb and labeled all Kashmiris as traitors, Pakistanis and what not.

What is happening in Kashmir and response to it from the rest of country is not different from the narrative. All the Kashmiris are like the fisherman who ate the dead corpse of his mother to survive and the fellow citizens are like the neighbors who mesmerized the event and “thought” he enjoyed fried fish.

Dr Fayaz Ahmad Bhat, presently crying from the hell (Kashmir). He is a student of Sociology, social activist and teaching Sociology at Government Degree College, Sumbal Sonawari, Jammu and Kashmir, India.

21 August 2016

By Aurel Keller

Cuba has come a long way since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the loss of imports crucial for the island nation’s industrial agriculture system—such as chemical pesticides and fertilizers—left Cuba with a severe food crisis in the 1990s. Today, Cuba has become a regional leader in sustainable agricultural research. Within its practices and institutions lies a model for localized and small-scale urban agriculture.

With the loss of the Soviet market, which had imported sugar at subsidized prices, and the fall of global sugar prices in the late 1980s, sugar monoculture production in Cuba collapsed. Out of necessity, Cuba underwent a social, scientific, and economic push toward self-sufficiency. This shift required radical change for the authoritarian communist state as desperation and cooperation drove innovation in sustainable agriculture and urban farming. Although Cuba’s successes relied on country-specific policy adoptions and favorable geographic conditions, the country’s scientific frameworks and practices are widely applicable in other regions.

Reforms Propelled by the Government

Cuba’s success hinged on the adoption of Article 27 of the constitution in 1992, which recognized the state’s innate duty to ensure the sustainable use of resources and to protect the nation’s environment and people. The Cuban state and the Ministry of Agriculture instituted austerity measures, re-adjusting priorities and resources into support roles. State companies in many sectors became employee-owned co-ops, and small-farm distribution programs were greatly expanded. Realizing the need to meet the population’s basic food needs with limited resources, funding for agricultural research infrastructure was expanded to optimize low-input, small-scale farming. The government stepped back from direct management and worked with grassroots organizations and co-ops to provide support through extensive research partnerships to optimize and spread beneficial practices.

Grassroots Organizations and Co-ops Were Key

Grassroots organizations—representing small-scale farmers, animal producers, and agricultural and forest technicians—became essential in forming cooperatives and spreading services and education in Cuba. The small farmer organization, ANAP, has been active since the 1980s, working with farmers and the government to teach beneficial practices and create farmer’s cooperatives—groups of farmers who combine their resources and create employee-owned businesses that provide production, credit, and service assistance. Initially slow, the spread of farm co-ops grew once President Fidel Castro recognized their benefits, with official support commencing in 1987, and picked up speed as land-distribution and support programs expanded. Working with agricultural research outposts and universities, ANAP was instrumental in facilitating the extensive spread of research extension programs through its network, as well as propagating resulting improvements. Many peasant farmers were members of ANAP and participated in co-ops, successful to the point of producing 60 percent of produce on 25 percent of worked land in 2003.

Planning Principles of Cuba’s Sustainable Agriculture

A United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reporton Havana details organopónicos, an agricultural method created in Cuba built on improving organic matter. Based on raised beds, it is easily adapted to many settings and soil types that otherwise would be challenging to use. The agro-ecological model used to manage and plan organopónico farm activities follows a basic frameworkaround local conditions and resources availability.

The framework outlined in the Figure shows the planning process, but a few principles are clear. Organopónicos:

require a continuous investment of time and effort and a reactive approach to pest and soil management;
acknowledge the importance of building healthy soils in having productive, resilient agro-ecological systems; and
seek to emulate the strengths and stability of natural systems.
Havana: Cuba’s Epicenter of Agricultural Transition and Innovation

Urban agriculture has been practiced in Havana since the 1800s, making it an ideal petri dish for development and innovation under Cuban programs, although recent shifts in land-use priorities have led to displacement of farms, especially in high-volume tourism areas.

A nationwide campaign, launched in December 1987, strongly encouraged people to use organopónicos to raise food for their own consumption. Campaign offices and support infrastructure in each district helped to provide technical and input support under urban and peri-urban programs, producing compost, improved seeds, and other inputs. Havana alone had 7 provincial offices and 15 municipal support offices, making it an essential research hub that radiated innovative practices to the rest of the country. The support programs and scientific investments have created an extensive network of scientific and research infrastructure.

As of 2013, Havana district had 97 highly productive organopónicosfarms. One high-yielding farm co-op with 188 members produced more than 300 tons of vegetables a year. The program has been applied throughout the country, with varying success. Nationwide,Cuba had 530,000 small farm plots and backyard gardens, 6,400 intensive gardens, and 4,000 high-yielding organopónicos in 2013. In2003, yields on the best organopónicos farms reached 44 pounds per square meter. Cities like Havana were able to meet up to 70 percent of food needs from local urban farms and gardens.

Social Payoffs of Sustainable Systems and Urban Agriculture

Cuba’s agricultural policies and practices also have had economic and social pay-offs, although this has come at the expense of economic growth associated with export-oriented commodity crops.

The organopónico approach is cost effective, with substantially lower environmental and input costs than traditional industrial agriculture. Fuel costs come to just US$0.55 per ton of produce (stemming primarily from the cost of transporting compost needed to build the soils and maintain fertility), whereas standard systems can cost US$400 per ton of produce.

Cuba’s model of agriculture also has societal advantages. Average income and benefits for co-op farmers are greater than those of the general population. Recipients of farmland were largely peasants, and economic reforms expanded their opportunities. Once a small percentage of the harvest was given to the government, farmers could choose whether to sell the rest on the open market or to the state at set prices, opening the potential of social mobility and income. The incentive of a free home and land led to migration from overcrowded urban centers to rural areas, alleviating social pressures in cities. Poverty and malnutrition have been reduced, contributing to Cuba’s ranking of 67th out of 188 countries on the UN’s 2015 Human Development Index. The extent of research and infrastructure investment has resulted in Cuba being home to 11 percent of Latin America’s scientists, despite having only 2 percent of the region’s population.

Transferring the Cuban Agricultural Model

With the global increase in food insecurity issues—ranging from food “deserts” to extreme food shortages—many university programs and organizations have emerged to teach, research, or promote low-cost, sustainable urban production methods using principles similar to Cuba’s small-scale farming systems. Venezuela,in particular, is facing a severe food crisis and has created a state-sponsored urban agriculture program that could draw lessons from Cuba’s experience.

Cuba’s agricultural transition and methods provide four key lessons that are applicable to other regions:

Integrate grassroots organizations and co-ops. Cooperation and grassroots organizations are essential to the growth of localized agriculture beyond government promotion. Co-ops, as community-based organizations owned by employees, help to distribute economic benefits and opportunities evenly within communities and among their members. Pooled resources and community organizations facilitate involvement, coordination, and transfer of knowledge among groups.
Promote diversity, for increased resilience and self-regulation. Diverse agro-ecological systems have proved more resilient to adverse conditions. Research done after Hurricane Ike in 2008found a 50 percent recovery rate for diverse cropping systems (polyculture), whereas as much as 90–100 percent of single-crop systems (monoculture) were lost. High diversity allows for self-regulation within the agricultural system and compensates for losses of one or more species or ecosystem functions (such as retaining water in the ground or increasing nitrogen content). Diverse plantings develop fertility and can attract predators of agricultural pests to provide redundancy and resilience within the systems and reduce the need for intervention by detecting potential problems early.
Close the nutrient cycle through the use of compost and organic inputs. Returning organic material to the soil and building soil organic matter improves fertility, water retention, and soil structure, while reducing erosion. Materials collected and composted in Cuba include food waste, crop residues, and animal waste. Within the organopónico system, inputs from off the farm are minimized and sourced locally, which maintains low production and transport costs. Maximizing the use of locally sourced organic waste also benefits the global climate by reducing the volume of organic material that is decomposing and emitting methane emissions in dumps.
Use Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Many pest control chemicals can be expensive and have adverse effects on people and other non-target species (the well-recorded impact ofneonicotinoids on bee populations is just one example). IPM is a set of principles and practices based on ecological and local conditions. These practices include using anti-pest spray soaps, introducing predatory insects to combat specific pests, and using pest-resistant seed strains, among many approaches. IPM requires careful planning and monitoring for potential problems and pests.
Agricultural System Under Threat in Cuba

Lessons learned from Cuba’s agriculture system must be gleaned now, as global environmental and economic tides are affecting the Cuban system. According to the World Food Programme (WFP), productivity in Cuba has been strained by adverse weather conditions and climate patterns. Hurricanes and drought have caused crop losses and lower yields. Food assistance programs, reliant on local production, were reduced in 2011 and are increasingly supplemented by expensive imports. As a result, imports have soared to 70–80 percent of food use, straining food programs as state finances struggle to cope with import costs.

Top-producing organopónicos can compete with the productivity of industrial farms, but they are intensive operations requiring inputs of compost and access to support, credit, and technology. The WFPattributes heavy post-harvest losses to obsolete technology, and low yields to localized shortages of inputs and credit.

Moving Forward

Worldwide, the importance and benefits of urban farms—ranging from vertical farms in warehouses to rooftop farming and the remediation of empty lots into community farms—has become evident. Although efforts and research are moving in the right direction, there is much left to do. Substantial gaps have yet to be filled, and practical knowledge still needs to be spread. Ultimately, wide-scale adoption of urban and community agriculture could bring us one step toward building brighter futures, sustainable cities, and improved communities. Cuba’s model, born out of constraint, may provide good lessons on how to change today’s failing agricultural structures.

Aurel Keller is a Communications Intern at the Worldwatch Institute.

First published in Worldwatch Institute

19 August 2016

By Deirdre Fulton

Laying bare the horrors of Syria’s ongoing civil war, heartbreaking footage of a young boy rescued from the rubble following an airstrike in Aleppo has gone viral.

Much as last year’s photos of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi—”The Boy on the Beach“—offered a stark reminder of the human toll of the refugee crisis, the images of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh—”The Boy in the Ambulance”—are forcing many to consider the devastating realities of life in war-torn Syria, where more than 250,000 people, including many children, have died in almost five years of war.

The photo and accompanying video, taken and distributed by the activist group Aleppo Media Centre, show Omran being pulled from a partially destroyed building and placed in a chair inside a brightly lit ambulance after an airstrike Wednesday evening. His face and body are covered in ash, dust, and blood. Seemingly dazed, he says nothing.

Watch the video below [warning: graphic content]:

According to news outlets, Omran was taken to a hospital, treated for head wounds, and released. It has been confirmed that though his parents and siblings were also wounded in the attack, they survived.

The Associated Press reports: “An hour after his rescue, the building the boy was in completely collapsed.”

Eight people, including five children, are said to have died in the bombing.

As many observers pointed out on social media, young Omran represents thousands of innocent children. As journalist Raf Sanchez—whose initial tweet containing the disturbing image has been shared more than 15,000 times—wrote at the Telegraph, “Tomorrow there will, no doubt, be more strikes and more children like Omran will be hurt.”

Indeed, Sanchez on Thursday posted a video of medics in Aleppo giving CPR to a child on hospital floor. The child later died.

On Thursday, the United Nations suspended its humanitarian task force in Syria amid frustration over intensified fighting that has prevented aid deliveries to besieged areas for at least a month.

“Not one single convoy in one month has reached any of the humanitarian besieged areas—not one single convoy,” U.N. envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, who chairs the task force and suspended Thursday’s meeting after just eight minutes, told reporters. “And why? Because of one thing: Fighting.”

Earlier this week, the U.N.-mandated Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria warned in a statement: “The situation in Aleppo city has been catastrophic for many years. As unthinkable as it is, the current attacks suggest the agony of its civilians is about to deepen.”

First published by CommonDreams.org

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

19 August 2016

By Peter Symonds

Even as tensions are rising with Russia in Eastern Europe and China in Asia, the United States has launched a new war in Libya and is preparing a major military escalation in the Middle East, nominally directed against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

In an interview yesterday with USA Today, Air Force Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigan confirmed that the US-led coalition is planning coordinated offensives against two ISIS-held cities—Mosul in northern Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. “If we are able to do simultaneous operations and synchronise the Mosul piece and the Raqqa piece, think about the problem that generates for [ISIS],” he said.

Harrigan, who recently took over command of air operations in the Middle East, said coalition war planes had been striking targets in both cities in recent months. “The team is focussed on force generation to try and make that simultaneous operation occur, because we see huge benefits from it,” he said, referring to the build-up of anti-ISIS ground forces in Iraq and Syria.

USA Today reported US troops are already operating extensively inside Syria, stating: “US Special Operations Forces are helping to identify and organise Syrian rebel groups into a force that can take on the Islamic State [ISIS]. The force now numbers about 30,000 and had generated some surprisingly early successes, particularly around the northern city of Manbij.”

Within Iraq, US-led preparations have been underway for months to retake Mosul, the country’s second largest city, which still has a population of up to one million despite a mass exodus. Iraqi government forces last month seized the Qayyarah air base, 60 kilometres south of Mosul, which is being transformed into a major hub of operations for the upcoming offensive.

The US has funnelled in around 400 troops to carry out repairs, as well as to provide military advice, logistics, communications and intelligence to Iraqi ground troops, which have already begun seizing villages and towns to the south of Mosul. The air base’s runways are being upgraded and extended to allow large military transports to land, along with US and Iraqi fighters and helicopter gunships.

The anti-ISIS forces preparing for the Mosul offensive consist of an unstable coalition of Kurdish peshmerga militia, regular Iraqi army troops and Shiite-dominated Popular Mobilisation Forces, which are notorious for their atrocities against Sunni civilians during the battle for Fallujah. Already concerns are being raised about the potential for sectarian fighting and human rights abuses once Mosul is recaptured.

Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, the top US commander in Syria and Iraq, declared this week: “We are going to try to get Mosul back as fast as we can. It’s one million people living under an oppressive rule under terrible conditions… The Iraqi security forces around Qayyarah are in a position now to begin that process and we’ll try to hurry that along as fast as we possibly can but putting an exact time on it, I’d rather not.”

MacFarland, who is due to be replaced, declared the US was winning the war against ISIS, reducing their territory in Iraq by more than half. “Although it’s not a measure of success and it’s difficult to confirm, we estimate that over the past 11 months we’ve killed about 25,000 enemy figures.” He provided no estimate of the number of civilians killed in the fighting or in US air raids.

The general also downplayed the role of US military forces, declaring they were only playing an “advise and assist” role at a distance and in specific locations. It is clear, however, that US troops are increasingly involved closer to the frontlines.

In an article late last month, the Washington Post reported: “While US Special Operations forces have already been advising elite counterterrorism troops and Kurdish peshmerga forces at their lower levels, the Qayyarah mission marks the first time since 2014 that US forces have advised Iraqi army battalions in the field.”

A small team of American combat engineers accompanied Iraqi forces on July 20 to advise on the task of constructing a temporary bridge over the Tigris River to the southeast of the town of Qayyarah. According to the Post, the US troops spent a few hours in the field in what was a “narrowly targeted mission, with limited battlefield exposure”—a model for “the restricted role that American commanders are planning for US ground forces in the Mosul operation.”

US generals are clearly concerned that American battlefield deaths will fuel anti-war sentiment at home, but have not ruled out putting US troops on the frontline. “In private, other senior officers are even more blunt, making reference to troops they lost in earlier Iraq deployments. This time, they will place Americans in the thick of fighting only if the overall mission is at risk,” the newspaper stated.

The timing of offensives in Iraq and Syria is also being driven by political considerations. Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party are increasingly attacking Republican nominee Donald Trump as being unfit to be commander-in-chief of US forces. A substantial military victory in the Middle East, no matter what the cost in Syrian and Iraqi lives, has the potential to boost Clinton.

The issue is clearly being discussed in Washington circles. An article on thePolitico website on August 1, entitled “Get ready for Obama’s ‘October Surprise’ in Iraq,” suggested that “the American public could be treated to a major US-led military victory in Iraq this fall, just as voters are deciding who will be the nation’s next president.”

The article cited unnamed senior US officers who insisted the Mosul offensive’s timing was not bound up with politics, but it did not rule out the possibility. “If Mosul is retaken, it would both mark a political triumph for Barack Obama and likely benefit his party’s nominee at the polls, Hillary Clinton, undercutting Republican claims that the Obama administration has failed to take the gloves off against Islamic State,” it noted.

13 August 2016

By Alia Al Ghussain

Norma Hashim’s engagement with the issue of Palestinian prisoners has previously produced one book — The Prisoners’ Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag — which has been described by former hunger-striker Hana al-Shalabi as “A humane, beautiful, valuable but painful book.”

Hashim’s Dreaming of Freedom is worthy of a similar description. In this collection children recount their experiences of solitary confinement, beatings, torture and humiliation while in Israeli detention.

The use of firsthand accounts gives a platform for stories that would otherwise go unheard and shed light on systematic abuse in Israel’s prison system.

Harrowing

dreaming-freedomDreaming of Freedom begins with the story of 14-year-old Yazan al-Shrbati, one of the most harrowing narratives in the book.

Yazan lives on Shuhada Street in Hebron, formerly the commercial heart of Hebron’s Old City but now severely restricted to Palestinians for the benefit of Israeli settlers. Yazan recounts his brutal assault by Israeli settlers while walking by himself in the street and his subsequent arrest by the Israeli military, despite the fact that he had done nothing to provoke the attack.

Like all the children in the book, Yazan says that his experience of imprisonment has changed him. As well as the physical violence Yazan endured during his arrest, when Israeli soldiers kicked him and hit him in the head, he was subjected to psychological pressure during his detention.

“I was taken to the interrogation room, not knowing why, as I was the victim of an assault,” the boy states. “The interrogator tried to make me say something. I refused, insisting on my innocence. I was still trying to work out how bad my wounds were after the beatings [by] the settlers and the police.”

Human rights laws and norms do not apply under occupation, as these children are painfully aware.

One child describes their home being stormed by Israeli soldiers, another recounts a summons to an interrogation center. Under occupation, no one can ever truly feel secure.

The story of Ayman Abbasi, a 16-year-old from occupied East Jerusalem, is especially poignant.

Ayman was imprisoned several times — the first when he was just in ninth grade — and was released from prison to serve an open-ended house arrest that lasted for 10 months. He was then sentenced to 18 more months in prison and was forced to turn himself over to the prison authorities.

Ayman did not live to the see the publication of Hashim’s book; in November last year, he was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers.

Long-term consequences

Hashim is careful to present her child subjects as honestly as possible rather than idealizing them. Nor does Hashim romanticize the consequences of rebellion against the occupation, for which Palestinians pay a high price.

Ammar Adeli, a child prisoner who took part in numerous acts of resistance against the occupation, drops out of school after repeated arrests. He cannot find a job due to the high unemployment in the West Bank and is isolated from his family.

The long-term impact that arrest and detention has on children — such as dropping out of school, psychological trauma and unemployment — are central themes of their post-prison experiences.

Yet none of the children profiled in Dreaming of Freedom express a desire to leave their homeland. Their shared experiences of arrest and imprisonment, however, reinforce the sense that they are trapped in a system not of their making that dictates the terms and conditions of their lives.

Most amazingly, the children still have hope. When he explains how he coped with imprisonment, Muslim Ouda explains, “despite the miserable conditions in the cells, I would still try to draw a bright picture of my future, using my innocent imagination, in which there is no occupation.”

Alia Al Ghussain is a British-Palestinian currently based in London.

Dreaming of Freedom: Palestinian Child Prisoners Speak, edited by Norma Hashim and translated by Yousef M. Aljamal, Saba Islamic Media (2016)

First published in The Electronic Intifada

11 August 2016

 

By Dr P S Sahni

Co-Written by Dr. P. S. Sahni&Shobha Aggarwal

For over a month practically the entire Kashmir valley has been under a state of curfew. The innocuous term curfew camouflages the extreme torture and suffering inflicted on the people; curfew actually is ‘house arrest’ of every citizen from a newborn to a person in his nineties. The orders for a curfew may emanate from a magistrate imposing section 144, IPC which restricts people from assembling in public place. Thus millions are put under house arrest without as much as trial by any court of law. Adinfinitum the curfew hours keep on getting extended into days, weeks and months. Meanwhile the fundamental rights of people to life, liberty and equality are flagrantly violated. Long term use of curfew violates the norms laid down by the United Nations and is also in breach of the international law on the issue.

Indefinite curfew limits movement of people; they cannot go to the market place to buy food and medicines; people cannot attend to school, colleges or offices; arranging a funeral for a deceased is a harrowing experience. Reaching a hospital for a medical emergency would jeopardize the patient’s life as also that of the attendant,since both of them could be shot at sight. If the patient and the attendant escape death due to being shot at, they risk being injured or blinded by rubber pellets used by the police/ para-military/ army personnel. Since sanitation and garbage removal is practically impossible wherever curfew has been imposed for long, people risk facing epidemics of gastroenteritis; stagnant water breeding mosquitoes could lead to large number of cases of malaria, dengue, chikungunyaetc. People are at risk of getting any infection since they are unable to get proper nutrition and food. It is an understatement to say that these people are victims of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In fact all social interactions come to a standstill. A variety of steps taken by the authorities during indefinite curfew imposition viz stoppage of newspapers; clamping down of internet service (internet curfew) and cable services/news channels and even telecommunication effectively ensures that individuals/families suffer the ignominy of being in a solitary cell. The feeling is no different from that of a death row convict kept in an isolation cell within the four walls of a jail compound. Ironically the whole of Kashmir has been compared to an open air prison. An apt simile indeed!

There is of course the Armed Forces Special Powers Act under which any house can be raided and the people terrorized into total submission. The under one million strong army personnel – viewed by Kashmiris as an army of occupation – would kill with impunity any one it deems to be a militant. The army personnel working under the umbrella of AFSPA are able to get away with crushing anyone’s liberty and freedom. To hammer this point for the benefit of those Indians who tend to distance themselves from the Azadi movement in Kashmir it would be instructive if they were to read up the political history of India under Mrs. Gandhi’s Internal Emergency years, 1975-77. At least Mrs. Gandhi had to promulgate an Emergency; at least the judiciary had to go through the farce of ADM Jabalpur case known as the habeas corpus case; at least the Attorney General of India had then confessed before a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court of India that the right to life stands suspended; at least there wasa redemption – that at least one judge by the name of Justice H.R. Khanna stuck his neck out. But what about Kashmir? The case pertaining to the ongoing developments in Kashmir is being heard by the Supreme Court of India but the truth is being hidden from the court by the rulers in Delhi. What is easily forgotten presently is that it is the political establishment in India as well as the independence of press and judiciary whose credibility is at stake. The whole world watches in silence. Worse, the U.N. has lately made it clear that it would shut its eyes to these developments in Kashmir.

Curfew as a psychological warfare

The torture suffered by the people during prolonged and sustained curfew should not be underestimated. The conventional torture of a single accused in custody may get to be in public domain occasionally, resulting in a sequence of events which may entail a magisterial enquiry and punishment of the guilty police personnel involved in custodial torture or unnecessary deprivation of personal liberty beyond the period stipulated in law. Such a process does not even get to be thought of and reported and acted upon to ensure that further torture is stopped and those responsible for perpetrating prolonged curfew on a mass of citizens get to face an enquiry. Such is the very nature of mass torture during prolonged curfew extending beyond months. The indefinite curfew imposed upon the people of Kashmir appears to be a collective punishment imposed upon thos

By Nauman Sadiq

Although, I admit that Donald Trump’s recent remarks that Obama Administration willfullycreated the Islamic State were a bit facile, but it is an irrefutable fact that Obama Administration’s policy of nurturing the Syrian militants against the Assad regime from August 2011 to August 2014 created the ideal circumstances which led to the creation of not just Islamic State but myriads of other Syrian militant groups which are just as fanatical and bloodthirsty as Islamic State.

It should be remembered here that the Libyan and Syrian crises originally began in early 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings when the peaceful protests against the Qaddafi and Assad regimes turned militant. Moreover, it should also be kept in mind that the withdrawal of the United States’ troops from Iraq, which has a highly porous border with Syria, took place in December 2011.

Furthermore, the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, served as the United States’ Secretary of State from January 2009 to February 2013. Thus, for the initial year-and-a-half of the Syrian civil war, Hillary Clinton was serving as the Secretary of the State and the role that she played in toppling the regime in Libya and instigating the insurgency in Syria is not hidden from anybody’s eyes.

Additionally, it is also a known fact that the Clintons have cultivated close ties with the Zionist lobbies in Washington and the American support for the proxy war in Syria is specifically about ensuring Israel’s regional security as I shall explain in the ensuing paragraphs. However, it would be unfair to put the blame for the crisis in Syria squarely on the Democrats; the policy of nurturing militants against the regime has been pursued with bipartisan support. In fact, Senator John McCain, a Republican, played the same role in the Syrian civil war which Charlie Wilson played during the Soviet-Afghan war in the ‘80s. And Ambassador Robert Ford was the point man in the United States’ embassy in Damascus.

More to the point, the United States’ Defense Intelligence Agency’sreport [1] of 2012 that presaged the imminent rise of aSalafist principality in northeastern Syria was not overlooked it was deliberately suppressed; not just the report but that view in general that a civil war in Syria will give birth to the radical Islamists was forcefully stifled in the Washington’s policy making circles under pressure from the Zionist lobbies.

The Obama Administration was fully aware of the consequences of its actions in Syria but it kept pursuing the policy of funding, training, arming and internationally legitimizing the so-called “Syrian Opposition” to weaken the Syrian regime and to neutralize the threat that its Lebanon-based proxy, Hezbollah, posed to Israel’s regional security; a fact which the Israeli defense community realized for the first time during the 2006 Lebanon war during the course of which Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets into northern Israel. Those were only unguided rockets but it was a wakeup call for Israel’s defense community that what would happen if Iran passed the guided missile technology to Hezbollah whose area of operations lies very close to the northern borders of Israel?

Notwithstanding, how can the United States claim to fight a militant group which has been an obviousby-product [2] of the United States’ policy in Syria? Let’s settle on one issue first: there were two parties to the Syrian civil war initially, the Syrian regime and the Syrian opposition; which party did the US support since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in early 2011 to June 2014 until Islamic State overran Mosul?

Obviously, the United Statessupported the Syrian opposition; and what was the composition of the so-called “Syrian Opposition?” A small fraction of it was comprised of defected Syrian soldiers, which goes by the name of Free Syria Army, but a vast majority has been Sunni jihadists and armed tribesmen who were generously funded, trained and armed by the alliance of Western powers, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf States.

Islamic State is nothing more than one of the numerous Syrian jihadist outfits, others being: al Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, al-Tawhid brigade, Jaysh al Islam etc. The United States-led war against Islamic State is limited only to Islamic State while all other Sunni Arab jihadist groups are enjoying complete impunity, and the so-called “coalition against Islamic State” also includes the main patrons of Sunni Arab jihadists like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Turkey and Jordan.

Regardless, many biased political commentators of the mainstream media deliberately try to muddle the reality in order to link the emergence of Islamic State to the ill-conceived invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the Bush Administration. Their motive behind this chicanery is to absolve the Obama Administration’s policy of supporting the Syrian opposition against the Assad regime since the beginning of the Syrian civil war until June 2014 when Islamic State overran Mosul and Obama Administration made a volte-face on its previous policy of indiscriminate support to the Syrian opposition and declared a war against a faction of Syrian opposition: that is, the Islamic State.

Moreover, such spin-doctors also try to find the roots of Islamic State in al-Qaeda in Iraq; however, the insurgency in Iraq died down after the“surge” of American troops in 2007. Al-Qaeda in Iraq became a defunct organization after the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and the subsequent surge of troops in Iraq. The re-eruption of insurgency in Iraq has been the spillover effect of nurturing militants in Syria against the Assad regime when Islamic State overran Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in January 2014 and subsequently captured Mosul in June 2014.

The borders between Syria and Iraq are highly porous and it’s impossible to contain the flow of militants and arms between the two countries. The Obama Administration’s policy of providing money, arms and training to the Syrian militants in the training camps located at the border regions of Turkey and Jordan was bound to backfire sooner or later.

Notwithstanding, in order to simplify the Syrian quagmire for the sake of readers, I would divide it into three separate and distinct zones of influence. Firstly, the northern and northwestern zone along the Syria-Turkey border, in and around Aleppo and Idlib, which is under the influence of Turkey and Qatar. Both of these countries share the ideology of Muslim Brotherhood and they provide money, training and arms to the Sunni Arab jihadist organizations like al-Tawhid Brigade and Ahrar al-Sham in the training camps located at the border regions of Turkey.

Secondly, the southern zone of influence along the Syria-Jordan border, in Daraa and Quneitra and as far away as Homs and Damascus. It is controlled by the Saudi-Jordanian camp and they provide money, weapons and training to theSalafist militant groups such as al-Nusra Front and the Southern Front of the so-called “moderate” Free Syria Army in Daraa and Quneitra, and Jaysh al-Islam in the suburbs of Damascus. Their military strategy is directed by a Military Operations Center (MOC) and training camps [3] located in the border regions of Jordan. Here let me clarify that this distinction is quite overlapping and heuristic at best, because al-Nusra’s jihadists have taken part in battles as far away as Idlib and Aleppo.

And finally, the eastern zone of influence along the Syria-Iraq border, in al-Raqqa and Deir al-Zor, which has been controlled by a relatively maverick Iraq-based jihadist outfit, the Islamic State.Thus, leaving the Mediterranean coast and Syria’s border with Lebanon, the Baathist and Shi’a-dominated Syrian regime has been surrounded from all three sides by the hostile Sunni forces: Turkey and Muslim Brotherhood in the north, Jordan and the Salafists of the Gulf Arab States in the south and the Sunni Arab-majority regions of Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in the east.

Sources and links:

[1] United States’ Defense Intelligence Agency’s report of 2012:

2012 Defense Intelligence Agency document: West will facilitate rise of Islamic State “in order to isolate the Syrian regime”

[2] How Syrian Jihad spawned the Islamic State?

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-220914.html

[3] Weapons flowing from Eastern Europe to Middle East:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/27/weapons-flowing-eastern-europe-middle-east-revealed-arms-trade-syria

 

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and MENA regions, neocolonialism and Petroimperialism.
13 August 2016

By David Korten

Our current political chaos has a simple explanation. The economic system is driving environmental collapse, economic desperation, political corruption, and financial instability. And it isn’t working for the vast majority of people.
It serves mainly the interests of a financial oligarchy that in the United States dominates the establishment wings of both the Republican and Democratic parties. So voters are rebelling against those wings of both parties—and for good reason.

As a society we confront a simple truth. An economic system based on the false idea that money is wealth—and the false promise that maximizing financial returns to the holders of financial assets will maximize the well-being of all—inevitably does exactly what it is designed to do:

Those who have financial assets and benefit from Wall Street’s financial games get steadily richer and more powerful.
The winners use the power of their financial assets to buy political favor and to hold government hostage by threatening to move jobs and tax revenue to friendlier states and countries.
The winners then use this political power to extract public subsidies, avoid taxes, and externalize environmental, labor, health, and safety costs to further increase their financial returns and buy more political power.
This results in a vicious cycle of an ever greater concentration of wealth and power in the hands of those who demonstrate the least regard for the health and well-being of others and the living Earth, on which all depend. Fewer and fewer people have more and more power and society pays the price.

A different result requires a different system, and the leadership for change is coming, as it must, from those for whom the current system does not work.

Awareness of system failure is widespread and growing.

Korten -living-earth-economyAwareness of system failure is widespread and growing. We see it in the rebellion against the establishment wings of the major political parties. We see it as previously competing social movements join forces to articulate and actualize a common vision of a new economy. We see it in varied and widely dispersed local citizen initiatives quietly rebuilding the relationships of caring communities. We see it in millions of defectors from consumerism, who by choice or necessity are living more simply.

Analysis of the sources of the system failure, however, rarely goes beyond vague references to capitalism, neoliberalism, Wall Street, and immigrants.

Most of us have been conditioned by corporate media and economics education—along with the basic fact that we need money to buy the things we need or want—to accept the pervasive, but false, claims that money is wealth and a growing GDP improves the lives of all.

It rarely occurs to us to challenge these claims in our own thinking or in conversations with friends and colleagues. So they persist and allow the corporate establishment to limit the economic policy debate to options that sustain its power.

To build a truly coherent movement with the necessary strength to replace the failed system with one designed and managed to self-organize toward a world that works for all, we must challenge its bogus claims as logical and practical fallacies. And simultaneously affirm the self-evident truth that:

We are living beings born of and nurtured by a living Earth. Life exists—can exist—only in living communities that self-organize to create the conditions essential to life’s existence. Money is just a number, an accounting chit we accept in exchange for things of real value because we have been conditioned to do so almost from birth.

We who work for peace, justice, and sustainability have the ultimate advantage. Truth is on our side. And the deepest truths, those on which our common future depends, live in the human heart. Let us each speak the truth in our own heart so that others may recognize and speak the truth in theirs. Together we will change the human story.

David Korten wrote this article for YES! Magazine as part of his new series of biweekly columns on “A Living Earth Economy.” David is co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine, president of the Living Economies Forum, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, a member of the Club of Rome, and the author of influential books, including When Corporations Rule the World and Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth. His work builds on lessons from the 21 years he and his wife, Fran, lived and worked in Africa, Asia, and Latin America on a quest to end global poverty. Follow him on Twitter @dkorten and Facebook.

YES! Magazine encourages you to make free use of this article by taking these easy steps. Creative Commons License

13 August 2016

By Robert J Burrowes

There is a long history of anti-war and peace activism. Much of this activism has focused on ending a particular war. Some of this activism has been directed at ending a particular aspect of war, such as the use of a type of weapon. Some of it has aimed to prevent a type of war, such as ‘aggressive war’ or nuclear war. For those activists who regard war as the scourge of human existence, however, ‘the holy grail’ has always been much deeper: to end war.

There is an important reason why those of us in the last category have not, so far, succeeded. In essence, this is because, whatever their merits, the analyses and strategies we have been using have been inadequate. This is, of course, only a friendly criticism of our efforts, including my own. I am also not suggesting that the task will be easy, even with a sound analysis and comprehensive strategy. But it will be far more likely.

Given my own preoccupation with human violence, of which I see war as a primary subset, I have spent a great deal of time researching why violence occurs in the first place – see ‘Why Violence?’ http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’. http://anitamckone.wordpress.com/articles-2/fearless-and-fearful-psychology/ – and by taking or teaching strategic nonviolent action in response to many of its manifestations.

Moreover, given that I like to succeed when I work for positive change in this world, I pay a great deal of attention to strategy. In fact, I have written extensively on this subject after researching the ideas of the greatest strategic theorists and strategists in history. If you are really keen, you can read about this in ‘The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach’. http://www.sunypress.edu/p-2176-the-strategy-of-nonviolent-defe.aspx

However, because I know that most people aren’t too interested in scholarly works and that nonviolent activists have plenty of worthwhile things to do with their time, I have recently been putting the essence of the information in the book onto two websites so that the strategic thinking is presented simply and is readily available.

One of the outcomes I would like to achieve through these websites is to involve interested peace and anti-war activists from around the world in finalizing the development of a comprehensive nonviolent strategy to end war and to then work with them to implement it.

Consequently, I have been developing this nonviolent strategy to end war and I invite you to check it out and to suggest improvements. You can see it on the Nonviolent Campaign Strategy website. https://nonviolentstrategy.wordpress.com/

If you are interested in being involved in what will be a long and difficult campaign, I would love to hear from you.

You might also be interested in signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com where the names of many nonviolent activists who will work on this campaign are already listed.

Ending war is not impossible. But it is going to take a phenomenal amount of intelligent strategic effort, courage and time. Whether we have that time is the only variable beyond our control.

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’

10 August 2016