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By Nile Bowie

The Obama administration’s recent decision to intervene in Iraq has seen the first US air strikes since the end of American occupation in 2001, in response to the sweeping territorial gains made by militants belonging to the Islamic State group, formerly known as ISIS.

Two and a half years after the US military withdrew from the country in 2011, Barack Obama has pledged a renewed commitment to long-term military involvement in Iraq to counter the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate, which has swallowed large swathes of northwestern Iraq and northern Syria.

Washington defended its renewed involvement in Iraq as being necessary to prevent the slaughter of religious minorities, Yazidi and Christian communities, who fled their homes en masse as ISIS advanced. US forces did indeed provide thousands of gallons of clean water and packaged meals.

The administration’s altruism, though helpful in this case, appears highly selective, considering the subdued US response to the entrenched persecution of minorities in the region throughout the Western-backed war to topple the Syrian government over the past three and half years.

The Obama administration’s strategic interests in the current scenario are undoubtedly grounded in bolstering the pro-American Kurdish peshmerga forces defending the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, where US energy firms such as ExxonMobil and Chevron have significant investment interests.

The United States has redeployed some 800 troops to Iraq since June, and has since conducted dozens of airstrikes in support of Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iraqi Special Forces, who successfully retook a strategic dam near Mosul. The Iraqi army is now struggling to retake the town of Tikrit, some 130km north of Baghdad, where ISIS is firmly in control.

The specter of the Islamic State group and the appalling humanitarian crisis that Iraq finds itself marred in cannot be divorced from the legacy of the US invasion in 2003, as well as covert operations that have since been undertaken by the Obama administration to bolster rebel forces in Syria.

Following the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, Paul Bremer, then Governor of Iraq, entirely dismantled Iraq’s central government, state institutions, and armed forces with the stroke of a pen. Colonial divide and rule policies were put in place that saw the rise of Shiites into positions of power to offset the Sunnis thought to be loyal to Saddam Hussein.

Washington’s attempt at nation building fueled sectarian enmities as occupation authorities favored certain tribal groups and religious sects that were seen to be more advantageous and amenable to US interests, which inalterably and artificially restructured Iraqi society based on the dictates of neoconservative analysts and think-tanks, forcing Christians and other minorities to flee.

The political ascent of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government was part and parcel of US policy that sought to offset the influence of the Sunni political forces. Washington did the opposite in Syria, backing Sunni Islamist militias to undermine President Bashar al-Assad, who belongs to the Alawite sect of Shia Islam.

Terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and other affiliated groups had no presence in Iraq or Syria before the US occupation, yet a sectarian explosion has taken place across the entire region since, hastened by the sweeping gains of radical jihadist groups operating in Syria.

The fighting in Syria is not a civil war per say, but a full-blown international conflict with arms and financing being meted by various intelligence agencies and governments who want to see regime change in Damascus. The Obama administration has funneled weapons, communications equipment, and other material support to Sunni militias in Syria since 2011, according to the New York Times, in addition to providing training, cash assets, and diplomatic backing.

The Islamic State has emerged as the most efficient, disciplined, and well-funded jihadist group in history precisely by virtue of its ability to flourish in the lawless space of northern Syria, a region continually destabilized by rebel militias who have been recipients of enormous funding and support from external forces. US allies such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey have played a significant role in aiding jihadist organizations in Syria.

The Obama administration has contributed multi-million dollar budgets to supply Syrian rebels with weapons, which have logically found their way into the hands of the most proficient fighters. When the Islamic State group captured the Iraqi city of Mosul earlier this summer, they did so with US-made equipment such as anti-tank weapons and RPGs, and have since captured Iraqi military equipment, also provided by the US.

US officials have preferred to shoulder the blame for this situation on the polarizing sectarian policies of al-Maliki’s government, but Western policies in Iraq and Syria have done far more to turn the region into a tinderbox. The unfolding horror of religious communities in northern Iraq could have even been avoided had US forces intervened or supplied Iraq with fighter jets when Maliki called for US support in June following the capture of Mosul.

Washington has long fallen out of favor with Maliki, who brought Iraq closer Syria and Iran, and rejected American demands that any US military forces stationed in Iraq be shielded from prosecution or lawsuits. Maliki also opposed ExxonMobil’s oil exploration deal with the Kurds in northern Iraq, which was negotiated and signed directly with the US-backed Kurdish authorities without the approval of Baghdad.

Maliki visited Washington last fall with an urgent request that the US provide Baghdad with weaponry, including a long-delayed sale of F-16 fighter jets, which fell on deaf ears. As ISIS approached Baghdad, the Obama administration called on Maliki to step down before the US would honor Baghdad’s request for military assistance.

If the Obama administration allowed the Iraqis to purchase US weapons rather than use the situation to pressure Maliki to resign, Iraq could have provided air cover to protect Yazidis and Christians without relying on Washington, thereby greatly enhancing Baghdad’s ability to thwart the Islamic State’s advance.

In all likelihood, Washington’s decision to intervene was prompted by a realization the administration could effectively use the threat posed by the Islamic State as a shoehorn for achieving its strategic interests: ousting Maliki to bring in a leader more agreeable to the US, safeguarding vital economic interests in the Kurdish region, and reviving the push to launch airstrikes against Syria.

US officials have reportedly asked the Syrian opposition-in-exile to call on the international community to come to their aid by launching air strikes against both the Islamic State and the Syrian government forces, an indication that the Obama administration intends to reverse the gains of the Syrian army using airpower under the guise of beating back ISIS.

The scenario now unfolding can lead to a wider regional conflict, pitting Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds against one another, effectively destroying Iraq.

The US and France, and most likely Israel, are now directly arming Kurdish forces, independently of the central government in Baghdad, which could embolden the territory’s separatist ambitions and hasten the partitioning of the Iraqi state.

Kurdistan’s US-aligned government, led by President Massoud Barzani, declared last month that the region would soon organize an independence referendum, which could lead to the formation of an independent state aligned to Washington and Tel Aviv, which has long maintained ties with the Kurds.

Haider al-Abadi has been slated to replace Maliki as Iraqi Prime Minister, and the new leadership faces enormous challenges. Abadi must prioritize reconciliation with the Sunnis, many of whom deeply resent the Shiite leadership and hold sympathetic views toward the Islamic State.

If the Kurdish regional government pushes ahead with independence, it would deprive the central government of key oil revenue and effectively guarantee continued infighting among Sunnis and Shiites as both vie for resources and political power, opening the door to Iraq’s fragmentation and demise.

If the countries that invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003 were serious about defeating the Islamic State group and their perverted and nihilistic fundamentalism, they must realize that this can only be accomplished through partnering with the legitimate governments in Damascus and Baghdad rather than undermining then.

Nile Bowie is a columnist with Russia Today, and a research affiliate with the International Movement for a Just World (JUST).

22 August 2014

 

By Paul Craig Roberts

There are reports that American police kill 500 or more Americans every year. Few of these murdered Americans posed a threat to police. https://www.dojmedia.com/u-s-police-have-killed-over-5000-civilians-since-911/ Police murder Americans for totally implausible reasons. For example, a few days before Michael Brown was gunned down in Ferguson, John Crawford picked up a toy gun from a WalMart shelf in the toy department and was shot and killed on the spot by police goons. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/family-man-killed-cops-walmart-demands-surveillance-video Less than four miles from Ferguson, goon thugs murdered another black man on August 19. The police claims of “threat” are disproved by the video of the murder released by the police. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/20/kajieme-powell-shooting_n_5696546.html

Five hundred is more than one killing by police per day. Yet the reports of the shootings seldom get beyond the local news. Why then has the Ferguson, Missouri, police killing of Michael Brown gone international?

Probably the answer is the large multi-day protests of the black community in Ferguson that led to the state police being sent to Ferguson and now the National Guard. Also, domestic police in full military combat gear with armored personnel carriers and tanks pointing numerous rifles in the faces of unarmed civilians and arresting and threatening journalists make good video copy. The “land of the free” looks like a Gestapo Nazi state. To much of the world, which has grown to hate American bullying, the bullying of Americans by their own police is poetic justice.

For those who have long protested racial profiling and police brutality toward racial minorities, the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson is just another in a history of racists murders. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/20/racial-repression-and-the-murder-of-mike-brown/print Rob Urie is correct that blacks receive disproportionate punishment from the white criminal justice (sic) system. See, for example: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/william-norman-grigg/mother-faces-11-years-in-prison/

Myself, former US Representative Dennis Kucinich, and others see Michael Brown’s murder as reflective of the militarization of the police and police training that creates a hostile police attitude toward the public. The police are taught to view the public as threats against whom the use of violence is the safest course for the police officers.

This doesn’t mean that racism is not also involved. Polls show that a majority of white Americans are content with the police justification for the killing. Police apologists are flooding the Internet with arguments against those of the opposite persuasion. Only
those who regard the police excuse as unconvincing are accused of jumping to conclusions before the jury’s verdict is in. Those who jump to conclusions favorable to the police are regarded as proper Americans.

What I address in this article is non-evidential considerations that determine a jury’s verdict and the incompetence of Ferguson’s government that caused the riots and looting.

Unless the US Department of Justice makes Michael Brown’s killing a federal case, the black community in Ferguson is powerless to prevent a cover-up.

What usually happens in these cases is that the police concoct a story protective of the police officer(s) and the prosecutor does not bring an indictment. As Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, are partially black (in skin color alone), the black majority community in Ferguson, Missouri, might have hopes from Holder’s visit. However, nothing could be more clear than the fact that Obama and Holder, along with the rest of “black leadership,” have been co-opted by the white power structure. How else would Obama and Holder be in office? Do you think that the white power structure puts in office people who want justice for minorities or for anyone other than the mega-rich?

The 1960s were a time of black leadership, but that leadership was assassinated (Martin Luther King) or co-opted. Black leaders sold out for prestige appointments and corporate board memberships. Today black leadership is marginalized and exists only at local levels if at all.

If the cop who killed Brown is indicted and he is tried in Ferguson, the jury will contain whites who live in Ferguson. Unless there is a huge change in white sentiment about the killing, no white juror can vote to convict the white cop and continue to live in Ferguson. The hostility of the white community toward white jurors who took the side of a “black hoodlum who stole cigars” against the white police officer would make life for the jurors impossible in Ferguson.

The trouble with purely racial explanations of police using excessive force is that cops don’t limit their excesses to racial minorities. White people suffer them also. Remember the recent case of Cecily McMillan, an Occupy protester who was brutalized by a white good thug with a record of using excessive force. McMillan is a young white woman. Her breasts were seized from behind, and when she swung around her elbow reflexively and instinctively came up and hit the goon thug. She was arrested for assaulting a police officer and sentenced by a jury to a term in jail. The prosecutor and judge made certain that no evidence could be presented in her defense. Medical evidence of the bruises on her breast and the police officer’s record of police brutality were not allowed as evidence in her show trial, the purpose of which was to intimidate Occupy protesters.

In America white jurors are usually sheep who do whatever the prosecutor wants. As Cecily McMillan, a white woman, could not get justice, it is even less likely that the black family of Michael Brown will. Those who are awaiting a jury’s verdict to decide Michael Brown’s case are awaiting a cover-up and the complicity of the US criminal justice (sic) system in murder.

If there is a federal indictment of the police officer, and the trial is held in a distant jurisdiction, there is a better chance that a jury would consider the facts. But even these precautions would not eliminate the racist element in white jurors’ decisions.

The situation in Ferguson was so badly handled it almost seems like the police state, in responding to the shooting, intended to provoke violence so that the American public could become accustomed to military force being applied to unarmed civilian protests.

Ferguson brings to mind the Boston Marathon Bombing. Two brothers of foreign extraction allegedly set off a “pressure cooker bomb” left in a backback that killed and injured race participants or observers. The two brothers were deemed, without any evidence, to be so dangerous that the entirety of Boston and its suburbs were “locked down” while 10,000 heavily armed police and military patrolled the streets in military vehicles conducting door-to-door searches forcing residents from their homes at gun point, while the police ransacked homes where it was totally obvious the brothers were not hiding. Not a single family evicted from their residences at gunpoint said: “Thank God you are here. The bombers are hiding in our home.”

The excessive display of force and warrantless police home intrusions is the reason that aware and thoughtful Americans do not believe one word of the official account of the Boston Marathon Bombing. Thoughtful people wonder why every American does not see the bombing as an orchestrated state act of terror in order to accustom Americans to the lock-down of a city and police intrusion into their homes. Logistically, it is impossible to assemble 10,000 armed troops so quickly. The obvious indication is that the readiness of the troops indicates pre-planning.

In Ferguson all that was needed to prevent mass protests and looting was for the police chief, mayor or governor to immediately announce that there would be a full investigation by a civic committee independent of the police and that the black community should select the members it wished to serve on the investigative committee.

Instead, the name of the cop who killed Michael Brown was withheld for days, a video allegedly of Michael Brown taking cigars from a store was released as a justification for his murder by police. These responses and a variety of other stupid police and government responses convinced the black community, which already knew in its bones, that there would be a coverup.

It is entirely possible that the police chief, mayor, and governor lacked the intelligence and judgment to deal with the occasion. In other words, perhaps they are too stupid to be in public office. The incapacity of the American public to elect qualified representatives is world-renown. But it is also possible that Michael Brown’s killing provided another opportunity to accustom Americans to the need for military violence to be deployed against the civilian population in order to protect us from threats.

Occupy Wall Street was white, and these whites were overwhelmed by police violence.
This is why I conclude that more is involved in Ferguson than white racist attitudes toward blacks.

The founding fathers warned against allowing US military forces to be deployed against the American people, and the Posse Comitatus Act prevents the use of military forces against civilians. These restrictions designed to protect liberty have been subverted by the George W. Bush and Obama regimes.

Today Americans have no more protection against state violence than Germans had under National Socialism.

Far from being a “light unto the world,” America is descending into cold hard tyranny.

Who will liberate us?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

21 August, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Paul Craig Roberts

Having served Washington’s propaganda purposes, the downed Malaysian airliner and the alleged Russian armored column that entered Ukraine and was allegedly destroyed have dropped out of the news even though both stories remain completely and totally unresolved.

Washington’s stooge government in Ukraine has not released the records of communications between Ukrainian air traffic control and Malaysian flight 17, and Washington has not released the photos from its satellite which was directly overhead at the time of the airliner’s demise.

We can safely and conclusively conclude from this purposeful withholding of evidence that the evidence does not support Washington’s and Kiev’s propaganda.

We can also safely and conclusively conclude that the Western media’s sudden disinterest in the unresolved story and failure to demand the evidence kept secret by Washington and Kiev is in keeping with the Western media’s role as a Ministry of Propaganda.

In other words, Washington and its presstitutes are protecting the lie that Washington and its media vassals successfully spread around the world and have used as the basis for further sanctions that escalate the conflict with Russia. Washington could not possibly make it clearer that Washington intends to escalate, not defuse, the conflict that Washington alone orchestrated.

Ditto for the alleged Russian armored column. The Russian government has labeled the story a fantasy, which it clearly is, but nevertheless Washington and its media vassals have left the story in place.

As English is the world language and as the European press follows the lead of the American presstitutes, the propaganda war is stacked against Russia (and China). Russian and Chinese are not world languages. Indeed, these languages are difficult for others to learn and are not well known outside the countries themselves. The Western media follows Washington’s lead, not Moscow’s or Beijing’s.

As facts are not relevant to the outcome, Moscow and Beijing are in a losing situation in the propaganda war.

The same holds for diplomacy. Washington does not engage in diplomacy. The exceptional country uses bribes, threats, and coercion. The Russian government’s diplomatic efforts come to naught. As Russian President Putin has complained, “Washington doesn’t listen, the West doesn’t hear us.”

And yet the Russian government continues to try to deal with the Ukrainian situation with facts and diplomacy. This approach is proving to be very costly to the residents of the former Russian territories in eastern and southern Ukraine. These people are being killed by air and artillery strikes against their homes and infrastructure. Large numbers of these people have been displaced by the Ukrainian attacks and are refugees in Russia. The Western media does not report the violence that Washington’s stooge government in Kiev is inflicting on these people. The Western media speaks only with Washington’s voice: “It is all Russia’s fault.”

The crisis would have been prevented if the Russian government had accepted the provinces request to be reunited with Russia as in the case of Crimea. However, the Russian government decided to avoid any decision that Washington could misrepresent as “invasion and annexation,” thinking that Europe would see Russia’s unprovocative behavior as reassuring and resist Washington’s pressure to enter into conflict with Russia.

In my opinion the Russian government over-estimated the power of diplomacy in the West. Washington is interested in fomenting crises, not in resolving them.

In the 23 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Russians have been of the opinion that Washington, not the Soviet government, was the party to be trusted in the Cold War. What the Russian government has learned recently is that Washington cannot be trusted and that the Soviet government’s suspicions of the West were very well founded.

Kiev’s military assault on eastern and southern Ukraine is not going to stop because Europeans finally see the light and object. Europeans not only stood aside for 13 years while Washington bombed civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen, and organized outside forces to attack Syrians, while isolating Iran for military attack, but also actively participated in the attacks. Europe has stood aside while Israel has massacred Palestinians on numerous occasions. For Russia to rely on Europe’s moral conscience is to rely on something that does not exist.

The continued slaughter and destruction of the Russian populations in eastern and southern Ukraine will eventually demoralize the Russian people and undermine their support of Putin’s government for failing to halt it. The Russian government’s acceptance of the slaughter makes Russia look weak and encourages more aggression against Russia.

If the Russian government intends to resolve its problems in Ukraine and to forestall
Washington’s ability to further erode Russia’s political and economic relationships with Europe with more sanctions, the Russian government will have to turn to more forceful measures.

In Ukraine the Russian government has two alternatives. One is to announce that the ongoing slaughter and the unresponsiveness of Kiev and its Western backers to Russia’s efforts to end the killing with a diplomatic settlement has caused Russia to reconsider the provinces’ requests to be reunited with Russia and that any further attacks on these territories will be regarded as attacks on Russia and be met with a devastating military response.

The other alternative is for Putin to meet privately with Washington’s stooge and convey to the corrupt oligarch that enough is enough and that if the attacks continue Russia will accept the requests for reunification and protect the provinces. Putin would explain to Washington’s stooge that if he wants to retain the former Russian territories as part of Ukraine, he will have to work out satisfactory arrangements with the provinces. In other words, Putin would deliver an ultimatum, one that required an immediate answer so that the stooge couldn’t run to Washington and Washington would not have time to create a new propaganda.

Karl Marx regarded morality as a rationale for class interests. As each class created a morality to justify its interests, there was no basis for good will between people. With reform impossible, violence becomes the only effective method of change. Washington has its own version of Marx’s doctrine. As the exceptional country, history has chosen the US to prevail over other countries’ interests. Prevailing rules out diplomacy which requires compromise. Therefore, Washington, like Marx, relies on violence.

The Russian government cannot rely on diplomacy and good will if the West is relying on violence.

Perhaps s solution could be found by President Putin meeting separately with Merkel and Hollande and explaining that Russia cannot indefinitely accept sanctions based on lies and propaganda without taking more determined steps than Russian sanctions against European agricultural products. Putin could make it clear that if Europe continues to accommodate Washington’s assault on Russia, the flow of energy could be restricted or be turned off.

Additionally, President Putin might explain to the European leaders that the dynamics of Washington’s campaign to demonize Russia can escape control and result in war that would devastate Europe. Putin could tell Europeans that by disassociating from Washington’s foreign policy and adopting foreign policies that serve their own interests instead of Washington’s, Europeans have nothing to lose but their chains of vassalage.

Putin could explain to Europeans that Russia is prepared to guarantee Europe’s security and, therefore, that Europe does not need Washington’s guarantee against a nonexistent Russian threat.

If this very reasonable and diplomatic approach to Europe fails, then Russia and China know that they must prepare for war.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

20 August, 2014
Paulcraigroberts.org

 

Statement

Indian Muslims are shocked and pained by the brutality and atrocities being perpetrated by the ISIS (Islamic State of Syria and Iraq) against Christians, Shias, Kurds, Yazidis and other minorities in the regions now under their control. We strongly condemn such barbarism which is against the teachings of Islam. We express our heart-felt sympathies and solidarity with the survivors of those whose near and dear ones have been mercilessly butchered, and the tens of thousands of Iraq’s minorities who have been dispossessed, forced to flee their homes and are now living in extremely difficult circumstances.

The barbaric conduct of the ISIS is all the more reprehensible because its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaims to be the ‘Caliph’ of the entire Muslim world and his armed group are supposedly acting in the name of Islam. We welcome the fact that most religious leaders and Islamic scholars from across the world, including India, have debunked al-Baghdadi’s claim of being a Caliph.

Alongside the ongoing tormenting of common citizens and persecution of religious and ethnic minorities in areas under their control, the ISIS has been enforcing its own intolerant, extremist, violent, distorted interpretation of Islam on Muslims who are also Sunnis. This too deserves to be condemned in the strongest possible words. We call upon Muslim religious leaders in India and elsewhere to add their voice to that of Muslim organisations and individuals who have already denounced al-Baghdadi and his ISIS for distorting Islam’s message for peace and for their barbaric conduct.

The unspeakable atrocities and mass crimes against Iraq’s minorities are nothing short of ‘crimes against humanity’, ‘religious/ethnic cleansing’. We appeal to the United Nations to urgently intervene, create the circumstances where those forced to flee feel secure enough to return to their homes and cities with full honour and dignity, and hold the ISIS accountable for its heinous acts.

While the ISIS must be held fully responsible for its unconscionable acts, the United States, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait etc. cannot escape their share of the blame in fuelling the flames. The worsening plight of Iraq’s Christians is but a legacy of America’s illegal, unwarranted and criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its subsequent engineering of sectarian strife to divide the Iraqi resistance to the occupation.

Dictator Saddam Hussain was no angel but under him the country’s 1.4 million Christians were free to practice their faith. Many occupied high government posts. It is ironic that the US is now bombing the very ISIS to which it had earlier provided training, arms and ammunition in an attempt to dislodge Syria’s authoritarian President, Bashar al-Assad. For their own myopic ends, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait etc have been backing an array of radical Islamist outfits of which the ISIS — a monster now seemingly out of control — was an integral part.

We urge a global condemnation of the ISIS and all its allies, overt or covert.

Endorsed by:
1. A.J. Jawad, Advocate, Chennai
2. Aamir Edresy, President, Association of Muslim Professionals, Mumbai
3. Abbas Shamael Rizvi, Cinematographer & Photographer, Delhi
4. Abdul Mannan Prof, Gauhati University, Assam
5. Abdul Salam Prof, President , Justice and Equity Demand Samiti, Assam
6. Abusaleh Shariff Dr., Executive Director, US-India Policy Institute, Washington DC
7. Akhtar Husain Akhtar Gen. Secretary, All India Momin Conference, Kanpur
8. Amir Rizvi, Communication Designer, Mumbai
9. Amjad Ali Dr., Assistant Professor, Jaunpur
10. Arshad Ajmal, Social Activist, Patna
11. Asad Ashraf, Social Activist, Delhi
12. Asad Zaidi, Writer and Publisher, Delhi
13. Asif Iqbal, Director, Dhanak, Delhi
14. Asif Naqvi Professor, Aligarh
15. Bader Sayeed, Advocate & Former Member Legislative Assembly Tamil Nadu
16. Faizur Rehman, Islamic Forum for Promotion of Moderate Thought, Chennai
17. Farhat Amin, BIRD Trust, Cuttack
18. Farrukh Warris Dr., Educationist, Mumbai.
19. Fazlur Rahman Dr, Principal, Govt Degree College, Moradabad
20. Feroze Mithiborwala, Muslim Intellectual Forum, Mumbai.
21. Hanif Lakdawala, Executive Director, Sanchetna, Ahmedabad
22. Hasina Khan, Women Activist, Bombay
23. Imanul Haque, Prof, Kolkata
24. Iqbal Ahmad Niazi, Retired Professor Emeritus of Zoology, University of Rajasthan
25. Irfan Engineer, Director, Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai
26. Ishaq Dr, Social Activist, Azamgarh
27. Jameela Nishat, Shaheen Women’s Resource Centre, Hyderabad.
28. Javed Anand, Muslims for Secular Democracy, Mumbai
29. Javed Malick Dr, Retired Academic, Delhi University, Delhi
30. Juzar Bandukwala Dr., Retired Professor, Vadodara
31. K.K. Mohammad, Senior Archaeologist, Hyderabad
32. Kamal Faruqi, Former Chairman, Delhi Minority Commission
33. Kamal Siddiqui, Businessman, Khushinagar, UP
34. Kasim Sait, Businessman & Social Activist, Chennai
35. Mairajuddin Ahmed Dr. , Former Cabinet Minister, UP
36. Mazher Hassain, Social Activist, COVA, Hyderabad
37. Md. Aftab Alam Dr., Assistant Professor, Delhi
38. Mike Ghouse, President, World Muslim Congress, Dallas, Texas
39. Mohd Aamir, Human Rights Activist, ANHAD., Delhi
40. Mohammad Arif Dr,, Chairman, Centre for Harmony and Peace, Varanasi
41. Mujataba Farooque, President, Welfare Party of India
42. Mujib Kidwai, Marketing Management, Jeddah
43. Mushirul Hasan, Prof. , Former Vice Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi
44. Nasiruddin Haider Khan, Journalist, Delhi
45. Navaid Hamid, Movement for Empowerment of Muslim Indians (MOEMIN), Delhi
46. Noorjehan Safia Niaz, Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, Mumbai
47. Ovais Sultan Khan, Social Work Professional, Delhi
48. Qurban Ali, Journalist, Delhi
49. R Jeibunnisa, Manitham Trust, Tamil Nadu
50. Rahima Khatun, NSKK, Kolkata
51. Rubina Parveen, Social Activist, Varanasi
52. S. Akhtar Ehtisham Dr, Academic, Delhi
53. SM Hilal, Social Activist, Kanpur
54. S Irfan Habib, Prof, Maulana Azad Chair, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, Delhi
55. Safdar Khan, Former Chairman, Delhi State Minorities Commission, Delhi
56. Sahir Raza, Independent Cinematographer, Mumbai
57. Salar M.Khan, Lawyer, New Delhi
58. Sania Hashmi, Director, Anhad Films, Delhi
59. Sarah Hashmi, Actor, Mumbai
60. Semeen Ali, PhD student, University of Delhi, New Delhi
61. Shabana Azmi, Actor, Mumbai
62. Shabnam Hashmi, Social Activist, ANHAD, Delhi
63. Shahin Ansari, Social Activist, Saharanpur
64. SMS Firdausi, Advocate, High Court, Allahabad
65. Sohail Hashmi, Filmmaker, Delhi
66. Syed Shahid Mahdi, Former Vice Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi
67. Syeda Hameed, Former Member, Planning Commission, Delhi
68. Tanweer Fazal, Academic, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
69. Tanveer Nasreen Prof, Academic, Bardman, WB
70. Tariq Ashraf Dr, Academic, Delhi
71. Wahad Ahmad, Social Activist, Bijnaur
72. Waris Mazhari Dr., Department of Islamic Studies, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad
73. Wizarat Rizvi, Academic, Delhi
74. Zafarul-Islam Khan Dr., Delhi
75. Zaheer Ahmad, Social Activist, Varanasi
76. Zaheer Ahmed Sayeed Dr., Neurologist, Chennai
77. Zaheeruddin Ali Khan, Editor, Siasat, Hyderabad
78. Zahid S Kamal, Retired Govt Officer, Delhi
79. Zakia Soman, Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, Gujarat
80. Zamser Ali, Journalist, Gauhati, Assam, President, BTAD Citizen Rights Forum, General Secretary, Centre for Minority Studies, Research and Development, Assam
81. Zeenat Shaukat Ali Dr. , Director General, The Wisdom Foundation (World Institute of Islamic Studies for Dialogue, Mediation, Gender-Justice and Peace), Mumbai
82. Zoya Hasan Prof. , Former Member, National Minorities Commission, Delhi

 

Does suspension of missile deal mean trouble in relations with U.S., or is it just a tap on the wing?

By Moti Bassok

The United States of America is Israel’s big brother and really loves us. Israel does not have and apparently will not have another friend like it. According to a recent Congress report, Israel is the country that has received more cumulative American aid than any other country since the end of World War II.

Since it began in 1962, American military aid to Israel has amounted to nearly $100 billion. For the past decades the United States has been regularly transferring aid of about $3 billion annually. In recent years, the aid has been solely for defense purposes. Additionally, the U.S. has been giving Israel generous military aid for projects that are important both to it and to Israel.

Between the establishment of the state and the first decade of this century, the economic aid the United States gave Israel was modest. Its civilian aid to Israel began in 1949 – less than a year after the establishment of the state, when Israel was in terrible economic distress – with help in purchasing food and absorbing the mass immigration of Jewish refugees. The amount of the aid was small, $100 million, and some of the money went towards purchasing basic foodstuffs, such as grains.

In the 1950s, America gave Israel only civilian aid, for economic purposes, and this was doled out in loans and small grants. In 1951 the United States refused to help Israel advance the reparations agreement with Germany, which was signed the following year and gave Israel some economic breathing room.

The change began during Lyndon Johnson’s administration (1963-1969), when the United States began transferring more significant civilian aid to Israel, which increased over the years. Between the establishment of the state and 1962, the United States under Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower imposed a total arms embargo on Israel. The first president to lift the embargo was John Kennedy, who in 1962 allowed Israel to pay in full for surface-to-air Hawk missiles. In 1965 America sold offensive weapons – Patton tanks – to Israel for the first time. In the 1960s, France was Israel’s major arms supplier, until the turnaround after the Six-Day War, when the United States became its main supplier.

In 1984 the Cranston Amendment stopped loans to Israel while increasing the grants in order to put an end to past debts. From 1985 on, in the framework of the plan to stabilize the economy, American aid was pegged at a grant of $3 billion annually. In that year Israel also received another grant of $1.5 billion. One of the negotiators between the countries in 1985 was Professor Stanley Fischer, who later became the governor of the Bank of Israel.

The largest amount of American aid in grants and loans in a single year came to $15.7 billion in 1979, when Israel signed the peace treaty with Egypt. Cumulatively, American aid to Israel between 1950 and 2013 amounted to about 3% of Israel’s GDP during that period.

For about the past 20 years, under the American-Israeli agreement, the grants from the United States are used for the purpose of purchasing arms and other security equipment (for example fuels) that Israel needs for propelling its war machine. One of the most expensive arms deals in the history of Israel’s defense forces – the purchase of 20 F-35 fighter planes for $2.7 billion – will be financed entirely by aid money. The deal was signed towards the end of 2010 and the first planes are slated to be delivered to Israel next year.

Hellfire

Last weekend, in the context of Operation Protective Edge, it was learned that the White House had ordered the Pentagon, the Defense Department and the Army to hold back a shipment of Hellfire missiles for Israel’s Apache helicopters. Both the helicopter and the missiles have been in use in Israel since 1990. Depending on the model, each missile costs between $25,000 and $65,000.

This is a localized and insignificant incident, not even a light tap on the wing. The move is somewhat reminiscent of the temporary suspension of flights to Israel during Operation Protective Edge. Does anyone still remember that?

However, the Hellfire incident is not the first in which the United States has used an embargo, a delay, or threats of an embargo to obtain something from Israel or to send it a message. To the big brother’s credit, it must be said that it does not do this very often.

The most outstanding incident of this sort occurred during the first days of the Yom Kippur War, when America’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger delayed Israel’s requests for the provision of weapons systems and ammunition for the purpose of applying diplomatic pressure. Later in the war, the United States provided an unprecedented airlift, even though most of the rest of the international community made things difficult for Israel by refusing to grant American transport planes landing rights for stopovers. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan, who was friendly towards Israel, halted the provision of F-15 fighter planes after the bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor.

Diplomatic circles in Jerusalem assess that the Hellfire missile issue will be resolved in the coming days, if it has not already been resolved, in discreet talks between Washington and Jerusalem.

A bumpy start

Relations between Israel and the United States are now at a peak, but their start was bumpy. On November 29, 1947, the United States supported United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 to recognize Israel, but in March of 1948 it leaned towards passing a General Assembly resolution aimed at rescinding 181 because of Israel’s condition on the battlefield and pressure from hostile Britain and the Arab world.

During the first decades of the state’s existence, American economic aid to Israel was modest and confined to civilian aid.

Under a special agreement, the United States maintains in Israel caches of $1 billion worth of emergency munitions, including rockets, artillery shells and armored combat vehicles. The project is operated by the European Command of the U.S. Army. In the Second Lebanon War and in Operation Protective Edge, the United States sold Israel armaments from these caches.

The United States has also helped Israel over the years with joint military and defense projects essential to both sides. For example, the United States helped and is helping Israel develop its multi-layered defense system that includes Iron Dome, Magic Wand and the Arrow. The cost thus far has been about $3 billion, including more than $1.3 billion for Iron Dome.

In May 2010 President Barack Obama asked for and received a special allocation of $205 million for the Iron Dome project above and beyond the regular American military aid. Subsequent requests for funding for the project have also been approved, including $351 million that Israel requested for purchasing additional Tamir interception missiles for Iron Dome in the third week of July, during Operation Protective Edge.

A week later, both houses of Congress approved, with President Obama’s backing, a special additional aid package for Israel of $225 million for purchasing more Tamir missiles. Only two weeks intervened between the time the request was submitted and its passage – which shows that the case of the Hellfire missiles is localized and should not lead to any far-reaching conclusions. A possible explanation for the difference in attitude is that the Tamir missiles are for defensive purposes whereas the Hellfire is an attack missile.

 

By William Pfaff

find it very disquieting that so few among the West European and American commentators on the Ukraine crisis, private or public, seem concerned that the United States has started this affair, and that it is not inconceivable that it may end in a war.

Worse yet, Washington’s demonization of Vladimir Putin has been so successful in the American press and public, and its secrecy about the American role in Kiev, has left the public in the United States and in NATO Europe convinced that this has all been the result of a Russian strategy of aggressive expansion into Ukraine, and not a bungled and essentially American attempt to annex Ukraine to NATO and the European Union, and to undermine the domestic political position of President Putin — which all has gone badly and dangerously wrong.

The Ukrainian coup d’état in February was prepared by Washington. Why else were the State Department official in charge of Europe and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, together with officials of the European Union and a number of intelligence people present, in company with the “moderate” Ukrainians programmed to take over the government after the planned overthrow of the corrupt (but elected) President Viktor Yanukovych? Even President Obama, in Mexico for a “summit”, was waiting to supply a video feed speeding the overthrown Mr. Yanukovych on his way, and congratulating the “democratic” victors.

But then, as the night wore on, things got out of hand. The riot police and the opposition forces went out of control. In a video made at the time, the American candidate for prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, said desperately, “Ukraine is in a big mess.”

Even though the immediate mess was eventually sorted out, and Mr. Yatsenyuk (“Yats” to Secretary Nuland) was soon (briefly) the prime minister — and immediately was welcomed to Washington to dine at the White House with the American president — one must ask what was accomplished by all this that did not discredit the United States and the EU, and draw towards Ukraine and the American troops today deployed in Poland and the Baltics, and towards NATO itself, the storm-clouds of a useless war?

It is the latest (and probably last) step in a foolish American and European betrayal of the promise given to Mikhail Gorbachev by President George H.W. Bush, at the time of the unification of Germany, that if the Soviet Union agreed to a newly united Germany’s assuming the Federal Republic’s existing place as a member of NATO, no NATO troops would be stationed in what formerly had been the Communist German Democratic Republic.

The deal was done, and at the time was a cause for congratulations on all sides, since it removed the principal obstacle to Germany reunion, considered desirable (and inevitable) by the western countries, and as inevitable, given Germany’s history, by Moscow as well.

This agreement was undermined during the Clinton presidency by measures that first gave the former Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe what might be described as cadet NATO membership (the “Partnership for Peace”).

Agreement to actual NATO admission came as part of the European Union Maastricht treaty in 1991, and in 1999 Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia (soon to become two states) became NATO members, and in 2004 the Baltic States, Romania and Bulgaria.

Washington and the EU then turned their attention to the Caucasus and Ukraine. As early as 1987, the EU’s “Europe 2000” plan for expansion named Ukraine, Moldavia, and Belarus as eventual candidates for EU membership.

Georgia was the first to be invited to prepare for NATO membership, and took this as a sign that NATO and the U.S. would underwrite its military recovery of its “lost lands,” and launched an attack on South Ossetia. Russia’s patience was exhausted. The Russian army promptly defeated the Georgians and took over the Ossetian statelet, and nearby Abkhazia as well. Washington and the NATO allies voiced loud outrage. But it was Georgia that had started this little war of national revenge.

NATO was, and remains, an alliance effectively under complete American control. Its arrival on the frontier of the former Soviet Union was viewed by the new Russia of Vladimir Putin with disquiet. This was not supposed to have happened.

It would take a closer knowledge than I possess of the workings of American government to explain why it decided to take control of post-1990 Central and Eastern Europe, following Communism’s collapse. For Poland, the former Czechoslovakia, the Baltic states, Hungary and Romania, who suffered badly under the Communists, NATO membership obviously offered reassurance.

But for Georgia and other states in the Caucasus, and for Ukraine, NATO membership amounted to an annexation by NATO of nations formerly among the historical territories of Soviet or Czarist Russia. Why should the United States and the original states of the European Union — western, Roman Catholic or Protestant Christian, Atlantic-oriented states — decide to dismantle historical Russia by taking over nations once part of Russia itself (and in the Ukranian case had been the instrument of Russia’s conversion to Christianity), or had been colonies, some of them Muslim, of the Czars.

That, in any case, is where we are now, and Russia’s reaction is not simply that of an aggressive and authoritarian President Putin — as the West likes to make out — but the hostility of a significant part of the Russian population, which only now has recovered its national self-confidence and ambition.

What was the intent of all this? To create an east-west civil war in Ukraine? Why is that in the American interest? Russia’s intervention in such a futile war handed it back Crimea, but also apparent responsibility for some fool’s shooting down a passenger airliner.

Dmitri Trenin, Director of the Carnegie Center in Moscow, recently offered the following observations: Vladimir Putin’s essential requirements are:

NATO excluded from Ukraine.

No U.S. troops on Russia’s borders.

Protection and preservation of the Russian cultural identity of the south and east of Ukraine.

Keeping Crimea Russian.

Putin won’t yield. Any serious concession to the U.S. would cause him to fall from power, and produce disorder in Russia.

For the future, he considers the U.S. in decline. He does not look to alliance with a rising China but to Germany, which he sees as the coming leader of a powerful Europe.

What is Barack Obama’s interest in all this? What about the Washington hawks responsible for what is happening? Why have they done this without an explanation to the American people?

There is only one possible solution now: negotiated truce on the Ukraine frontier, followed by Russo-American and EU agreement on the permanent existence of an independent and autonomous Ukraine. The alternative could be major war.

William Pfaff is the author of The Irony of Manifest Destiny, published in June 2010 by Walker and Company (New York)

7 August 2014

By Nile Bowie

Nearly one month has passed since Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over the skies of eastern Ukraine, taking the lives of 298 people. An international investigation is now underway, led by the Netherlands, with members from Ukraine, Malaysia, the United States, Russia, and others.

Though the team of investigators examining the crash sight have yet to publish their findings and assign culpability to the responsible party, prominent media outlets have obediently toed the line of several Western capitals with reports that all but categorically blame Russia for the aircraft’s demise.

Journalistic and analytical speculation cannot be avoided in such a tragic and geopolitically charged situation. Media outlets have a responsibility to provide both critical commentary and impartial reporting to their readers, but in the case of MH17, the lack of balance is breathtaking.

Those parties who unreservedly pointed fingers at Moscow in the hours immediately following the disaster have yet to make public any forensic evidence that definitively implicates Russia with providing anti-Kiev militias with the training or hardware needed to take down a commercial airliner.

On the other hand, Russia’s Defense Ministry has made available compelling satellite images and military data that calls the Ukrainian government’s official narrative of events into question. Moscow’s findings have either been laxly underreported or dismissed as propaganda by the West.

US officials, such as Secretary of State John Kerry, made numerous media appearances that were used to argue the Obama administration’s position on MH17, that Moscow had directly trained and equipped rebels in eastern Ukraine who carried out the attack.

To date, the White House has made available several satellite images that support their version of the story. Moscow responded by pointing out that the images released by Washington carried altered time-stamps that indicate that the images were taken in the days after the disaster.

Russia’s Defense Ministry also claimed that the weather and lighting conditions in the US satellite images did not correspond to the actual climate conditions at the time they were allegedly recorded. US officials also declined to provide further evidence over concerns that doing so would compromise Washington’s intelligence-gathering capabilities.

US intelligence officials who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in the days following the tragedy flatly stated they did not possess evidence to substantiate Russia’s involvement; they also conceded that they did not know the identities or even the nationalities of the culprits.

There is a clear contradiction between the statements offered by US intelligence officials and the narrative endorsed by the White House. Washington continues to rely heavily on unverified and poorly sourced social media content to validate its claims of Russian involvement.

Western media outlets have hardly deviated from Washington’s narrative, while their coverage has strongly assumed Russia’s culpability, despite the wholly circumstantial nature of the evidence disclosed by the West. It is farcical that the country known for overseeing the world’s most sophisticated and far-reaching surveillance capabilities has sunk to citing grainy YouTube videos to justify their policy decisions.

An investigative report recently published by Robert Parry, the former Associated Press journalist best known for his coverage of the Iran-Contra scandal, cites American intelligence analysts who suspect that Ukrainian armed forces were behind the attack.

Parry’s intelligence sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that the US intelligence community lacks any satellite imagery supporting the White House’s allegations of Russian involvement, and that the only surface-to-air missile system in that part of Ukraine appeared to be under the control of the Ukrainian military.

Neither Washington or Kiev have released images of a Buk missile system being transferred by Russia to rebel controlled areas of Ukraine, where several high-level Ukrainian officials allege it was fired from before being taken back into Russia.

The claims made by Parry’s US intelligence sources have been corroborated by military monitoring data made available by Russia’s Defense Ministry, which detected radiation from Kiev-controlled missile batteries at the time of the MH17 downing.

Moscow has made available satellite images that purport to show Ukrainian air defense units deployed in the southeastern parts of the country near rebel-held territory during the time of the crash. Kiev’s concentration of multiple missile batteries in the region is highly suspect because the rebels they are fighting do not possess aircraft.

Russia has also claimed that it tracked a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet flying in close proximity to the aircraft prior to it disappearing from radar. Parry’s article claims that US intelligence analysts believe that the Ukrainian military missile battery system and the government’s fighter jets may have been operated in collusion to bring down the aircraft.

The New Straits Times recently published a report citing forensic experts who believed that the blast fragmentation patterns on the aircraft’s fuselage were consistent with that of cannon rounds from an air-to-air assault.

The article included testimony from Michael Bociurkiw, a Ukrainian-Canadian monitor from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who claimed that the fuselage had been pockmarked with machinegun fire. Retired Lufthansa pilot Peter Haisenko was also citied in the report, remarking that a surface-fired missile alone could not have created entry points on both the port and starboard sides of the aircraft.

Olga Ivshina, a correspondent with BBC’s Russian language service, interviewed local eyewitnesses who told her that they saw military aircraft in the sky flying beneath MH17 before the incident, intensifying suspicions of Ukrainian involvement. Ivshina’s video dispatch was hastily removed from BBC’s website, which claimed that her report didn’t meet editorial standards.

The coverage presented to audiences by Western media outlets has been framed in lockstep with official positions of Western governments, and there is conspicuous and unmistakable effort by these media giants to keep “unwanted” facts and testimony out of the discussion.

In light of the evidence brought forward by the Russian side – as well as the questions raised by credible journalists and investigators – the Dutch-led international investigation team should request that Kiev produce raw military radar data and missile battery logs recorded at the time of the disaster.

Recordings of Ukrainian air-traffic control’s correspondence with the doomed aircraft should also be made available for public scrutiny. If the international investigation is truly concerned with impartiality, it must objectively scrutinize the evidence on offer and pressure intelligence agencies and governments to substantiate their allegations and disclose the facts.
Nile Bowie is a freelance journalist based in Kuala Lumpur. He is a Research Associate with the International Movement for a Just World (JUST).
14 August 2014.

By Paul Craig Roberts

The consequence of Washington’s reckless and irresponsible political and military interventions in Iraq, Libya, and Syria has been to unleash evil. The various sects that lived in peace under the rule of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and Assad are butchering one another, and a new group, ISIS, is in the process of creating a new state out of parts of Iraq and Syria.

The turmoil brought into the Middle East by the Bush and Obama regimes has meant death and displacement for millions and untold future deaths. As I write 40,000 Iraqis are stranded on a mountain top without water awaiting death at the hands of ISIS, a creation of US meddling.

The reality in the Middle East stands in vast contradiction to the stage managed landing of George W. Bush on the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln where Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” on May 1, 2003. The mission that Washington accomplished was to wreck the Middle East and the lives of millions of people and to destroy America’s reputation in the process. Thanks to the demonic neoconservative Bush regime, today America is regarded by the rest of the world as the greatest threat to world peace.

The Clinton regime’s attack on Serbia set the pattern. Bush upped the ante with Washington’s naked aggression against Afghanistan, which Washington clothed in Orwellian language–”Operation Enduring Freedom.”

Washington brought ruin, not freedom, to Afghanistan. After 13 years of blowing up the country, Washington is now withdrawing, the “superpower” having been defeated by a few thousand lightly armed Taliban, but leaving a wasteland behind for which Washington will accept no responsibility.

Another source of endless Middle East turmoil is Israel whose theft of Palestine is Washington-enabled. In the middle of Israel’s latest attack on civilians in Gaza, the US Congress passed resolutions in support of Israel’s war crimes and voted hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for Israel’s ammunition. Here we witness Great Moral America 100 percent in support of unambiguous war crimes against essentially defenseless people.

When Israel murders women and children, Washington calls it “Israel’s right to defend their own country”–a country that Israel stole from Palestinians–but when Palestinians retaliate Washington calls it “terrorism.” By supporting Israel, declared to be a terrorist state by a few moral governments that still exist, and accused of war crimes by the UN General Secretary, Washington is in violation of its own laws against supporting terrorist states.

Of course, Washington itself is the leading terrorist state. Therefore, it is illegal under US law for Washington to support itself. Washington, however, does not accept law, neither domestic nor international, as a constraint on its actions. Washington is “exceptional, indispensable.” No one else counts. No law, no Constitution, and no humane consideration has authority to constrain Washington’s will. In its claims Washington surpasses those of the Third Reich.

As horrific as Washington’s recklessness toward the Middle East is, Washington’s recklessness toward Russia is many orders of magnitude greater. Washington has
convinced nuclear armed Russia that Washington is planning a nuclear first strike.
In response Russia is beefing up its nuclear forces and testing US air defense reactions. http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russian-strategic-bombers-conduct-more-than-16-incursions-of-u-s-air-defense-zones/

It is difficult to imagine a more irresponsible act than to convince Russia that Washington intends to hit Russia with a preemptive first strike. One of Putin’s advisers has explained to the Russian media Washington’s first strike intentions, and a member of the Russian Duma has made a documented presentation of Washington’s first strike intentions. http://financearmageddon.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/official-warning-u-s-to-hit-russia-with.html By marshaling the evidence, I have pointed out in my columns that it is impossible for Russia to avoid this conclusion.

China is aware that China faces the same threat from Washington. http://yalejournal.org/2013/06/12/who-authorized-preparations-for-war-with-china/ China’s response to Washington’s war plans against China was to demonstrate how China’s nuclear forces would be used in response to Washington’s attack on China to destroy the US. China made this public, hoping to create opposition among Americans to Washington’s war plans against China. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2484334/China-boasts-new-submarine-fleet-capable-launching-nuclear-warheads-cities-United-States.html Like Russia, China is a rising country that does not need war in order to succeed.

The only country on earth that needs war is Washington, and that is because Washington’s goal is the neoconservative one of exercising hegemony over the world.

Prior to the Bush and Obama regimes, every previous US president went to great efforts to avoid telegraphing any nuclear threat. US war doctrine was careful to keep nuclear weapons limited to retaliation in the event the US suffered a nuclear attack. The purpose of nuclear forces was to prevent the use of such weapons. The reckless George W. Bush regime elevated nuclear weapons to preemptive first use, thus destroying the constraint placed on the use of nuclear weapons.

The overriding purpose of the Reagan administration was to end the cold war and, thereby, the threat of nuclear war. The George W. Bush regime, together with the Obama regime’s demonization of Russia, have overturned President Reagan’s unique achievement and made nuclear war likely.

When the incompetent Obama regime decided to overthrow the democratically elected government in Ukraine and install a puppet government of Washington’s choosing, the Obama State Department, run by neoconservative ideologues, forgot that the eastern and southern portions of Ukraine consist of former Russian provinces that were attached to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by Communist Party leaders when Ukraine and Russia were part of the same country–the Soviet Union. When the Russophobic stooges that Washington installed in Kiev demonstrated in word and deed their hostility to Ukraine’s Russian population, the former Russian provinces declared their desire to return to mother Russia. This is not surprising, nor is it something that can be blamed on Russia.

Crimea succeeded in returning to Russia, where Crimea resided since the 1700s, but Putin, hoping to defuse the propaganda war that Washington was mounting against him did not accept the pleas from the other former Russian provinces. Consequently, Washington’s stooges in Kiev felt free to attack the protesting provinces and have been following the Israeli policy of attacking civilian populations, civilian residences, and civilian infrastructure.

The presstitute Western media ignored the facts and accused Russia of invading and annexing parts of Ukraine. This lie is comparable to the lies that US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in behalf of the criminal Bush regime, lies that Colin Powell later apologized for to no avail as Iraq had been destroyed by his lies.

When the Malaysian airliner was destroyed, before any facts were known Russia was blamed. The British media was especially primed to blame Russia almost the instant it was known the airliner was downed. I heard the BBC’s gross misrepresentation and blatant lies on American National Public Radio, and only the Daily Mail’s propagandistic account was worse. The entire “news” event has the appearance of orchestration prior to the event, which, of course, suggests that Washington was behind it.

The airliner deaths became all important for Washington’s propaganda war. The 290 casualties are unfortunate, but they are a small fraction of the deaths that Israel was inflicting on Palestinians at the same moment without provoking any protests from Western governments, as distinct from Western peoples in the streets, people whose protests were conveniently suppressed for Israel by Western security forces.

Washington used the downing of the airliner, which probably was Washington’s responsibility, as an excuse for another round of sanctions and to pressure its European puppets to join the sanctions with sanctions of their own, which Washington’s EU puppets did.

Washington relies on accusations and insinuations and refuses to release the evidence from the satellite photos, because the photos do not support Washington’s lies. Facts are not permitted to interfere with Washington’s demonization of Russia any more than facts interfered with Washington’s demonization of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Iran.

Twenty-two reckless and irresponsible US senators have introduced the “Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014,” US Senate bill 2277, sponsored by Senator Bob Corker, who well represents in his ignorance and stupidity what appears to be the majority of the American population or the majority of voters in the state of Tennessee. Corker’s bill is a mindless piece of legislation designed to start a war that would be likely to leave no survivors. Apparently, idiotic Americans will elect any fool to power.

The belief that Russia is responsible for the downed Malaysian airliner has become fact in Western capitals despite the total absence of even a tiny scrap of evidence in behalf of the claim. Moreover, even it the accusation were true, is one airliner worth a World War?

The UK Defense Committee has concluded that a broke and militarily impotent UK must “focus on the defense of Europe against Russia.” The military spending drums, if not the war drums, are beating and the entire West has joined in. A militarily impotent Britain is going to defend Europe from a non-existent, although much proclaimed, attack from the Russian bear.

US and NATO military dignitaries and the Pentagon chief are issuing Russia Threat Warnings based on alleged but non-existent Russian troop-buildups on Ukraine’s border. According to the the Western Ministry of Propaganda if Russia defends the Russian populations in Ukraine from military attack from Washington’s stooge government in Kiev, it is proof that Russia is the villain.

Washington’s propaganda campaign has succeeded in turning Russia into a threat. Polls show that 69 percent of Americans now regard Russia as a threat, and that the confidence of Russians in American leadership has vanished.

Russians and their government observe the identical demonization of their country and their leader as they observed of Iraq and Saddam Hussein, of Libya and Gaddafi, of Syria and Assad, and of Afghanistan and the Taliban just prior to military assaults on these countries by the West. For a Russian, the safest conclusion from the evidence is that Washington intends war on Russia.

It is my opinion that the irresponsibility and recklessness of the Obama regime is without precedent. Never before has the United States government or the government of any nuclear power gone to such great efforts to convince another nuclear power that that power was being set up for attack. It is difficult to imagine a more provocative act that more endangers life on earth. Indeed, the White House Fool has doubled up, convincing both Russia and China that Washington is planning a preemptive first strike on both.

Republicans want to sue or to impeach Obama over relatively inconsequential issues, such as ObamaCare. Why don’t Republicans want to impeach Obama over such a critical issue as subjecting the world to the risk of nuclear armageddon?

The answer is that the Republicans are as crazed as the Democrats. Their leaders, such as John McCain and Lindsay Graham, are determined that “we stand up to the Russians!” Wherever one looks in American politics one sees crazed people, psychopaths and sociopaths who should not be in political office.

Washington long ago gave up diplomacy. Washington relies on force and intimidation. The US government is utterly devoid of judgment. This is why polls show that the rest of the world regards the US government as the greatest threat to world peace. Today
(August 8, 2014) Handelsblatt, Germany’s Wall Street Journal, wrote in a signed editorial by the publisher:

“The American tendency to move from verbal escalation to military escalation–the isolation, demonization, and attacking of enemies–has not proven effective. The last successful major military action the US conducted was the Normandy landing [in 1944]. Everything else – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan – was a clear failure. Moving NATO units towards the Polish border with Russia and thinking about arming Ukraine is a continuation of relying on military means in the absence of diplomacy.”

Washington’s puppet states–all of Europe, Japan, Canada, and Australia–enable Washington’s unrivaled danger to the world by their support of Washington’s agenda of exercising hegemony over the entire world.

The 100th anniversary of World War I is upon us. And the folly that caused this war is being repeated. WWI destroyed a civilized Western world, and it was the work of a mere handful of scheming people. The result was Lenin, the Soviet Union, Hitler, the rise of American Imperialism, Korea, Vietnam, the military interventions that created ISIS, and now resurrected conflict between Washington and Russia that President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev had ended.

As Stephen Starr has pointed out on my website, if merely 10% of the nuclear weapons in the US and Russian arsenals are used, life on earth terminates.

Dear readers, ask yourselves, when has Washington told you anything that was not a lie? Washington’s lies have caused millions of casualties. Do you want to be a casualty of Washington’s lies?

Do you believe that Washington’s lies and propaganda about the Malaysian airliner and Ukraine are worth risking life on earth? Who is so gullible that he cannot recognize that Washington’s lies about Ukraine are like Washington’s lies about Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Iranian nukes, and Assad’s use of chemical weapons?

Do you think that the neoconservative influence that prevails in Washington, regardless of the political party in office, is too dangerous to be tolerated?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

09 August, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Shamus Cooke

Suddenly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has become a threat worthy of American missiles. For almost two years President Obama completely ignored the biggest and most brutal terror group in the Middle East, allowing it to balloon into a regional power. No matter how many heads it severed or how much territory it conquered, ISIS just couldn’t draw Obama’s attention.

As ISIS was conquering ever-expanding territories Obama was supposedly waging a “war on terror” around the globe, drone-bombing any would-be bogeyman in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, etc. But when a real bogeyman emerged, Obama ignored it, and so did the U.S. media, which instead followed Obama’s warmongering gaze to Ukraine, while plagiarizing the president’s endless excuse-making for Israel’s genocidal conduct in Gaza.

For well over two years ISIS and other al-Qaeda-style groups have been the main driving force in the Syrian war that has claimed over 170,000 lives, with millions made refugees. And now, suddenly, Obama wants to intervene for “humanitarian” reasons to fight ISIS. But the actual reason that ISIS attracted Obama’s missiles is that the terror group did something unforgivable: It has finally threatened “U.S. interests,” whereas before the interests of ISIS and Obama were perfectly aligned.

The indefatigable Middle East journalist Patrick Cockburn was dumbfounded by the lack of government and media attention ISIS has gotten, as the group expanded its power over huge regions of Syria and Iraq, now threatening Lebanon. Cockburn exasperatedly writes:

“As the attention of the world focused on Ukraine and Gaza, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) captured a third of Syria in addition to the quarter of Iraq it had seized in June…The birth of the new [ISIS] state is the most radical change to the political geography of the Middle East since the Sykes-Picot Agreement was implemented in the aftermath of the First World War. Yet this explosive transformation has created surprisingly little alarm internationally…”

Similar surprise was displayed by Noah Bonsey, a Syria expert at the International Crisis Group, who couldn’t understand the free hand Obama was giving ISIS:

“The U.S. has the clout and capacity to build partnerships capable of reversing ISIS gains, but seems to lack the necessary vision and will.”

And finally from The New York Times:

“Even after the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, seized Fallujah and other territory in the western part of the country [Iraq] at the beginning of the year and marched through Mosul and toward Baghdad by summer, the president expressed no enthusiasm for American military action.”

Or any action for that matter.

While ignoring ISIS’ destruction of Syria and invasion of Iraq, U.S.-led NATO issued non-stop warnings about Russia possibly invading Ukraine. But of course there were no such warnings issued — or attention paid — to Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

And whereas Obama didn’t lift a finger to stop the Israeli invasion, he recently stated that the U.S. has a “unique opportunity” to stop an ISIS massacre in Iraq; thousands of Gazans must be rolling in their freshly dug graves.

Obama’s inconsistent approach to foreign policy has confused many an analyst, who see no logic in the president’s approach to military intervention. Even Obama’s former deputy Secretary of State recently commented:

“Nobody has the sense about why [intervention] in some cases and not in others… His [Obama’s] last news conference just leaves you scratching your head. Yeah, we can’t do everything. But what matters to us?”

In reality, however, there is a definite logic to Obama’s foreign policy, where he has been disgracefully consistent throughout his presidency. For example, after Obama publicly targeted the Syrian government for destruction had had no qualms about using ISIS and the other al-Qaeda-linked groups as proxies in the fight.

These terror groups were encouraged to grow exponentially in their fight against al-Assad, with Obama knowing full well that Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allied Gulf States were sending mountains of money, guns, and fighters to the jihadists. There was simply was no one else effectively fighting al-Assad, a dynamic that has artificially lengthened a war that would have ended years ago, while creating the environment that ISIS thrived in. Much of the money and guns that Obama shipped to the “moderate” Islamists rebels of course found its way into the hands of the jihadists, since thousands of moderates have since joined ISIS.

The more that ISIS did for the U.S. in Syria, the less Obama gave it attention, a very powerful form of passive political support. When ISIS invaded Iraq from Syria, Obama barely batted an eyelash, making excuse after excuse about why the U.S. couldn’t send the Iraqi government military equipment to fight ISIS. Imagine, however, if Saudi Arabia or Israel were invaded by a terrorist organization? Obama would have green-lighted F-16 bombing raids in minutes.

Obama’s lack of concern for the ISIS invasion of Iraq was ideologically linked to his inaction in Syria: Obama wants regime change in both nations, and is using ISIS as a de facto ally in both cases. This became quickly obvious with Obama’s response to the ISIS invasion of Iraq; he simply criticized the Iraqi government for not being more inclusive; meanwhile ISIS butchered its way through giant regions of Iraq and subjected the survivors to a more brutal totalitarianism than the U.S.-allied dictatorship in Saudi Arabia.

Further political support was given to ISIS by U.S. politicians, who essentially accepted ISIS as the ruler of the newly conquered Iraqi territories; these politicians instantly referred to Iraq as being “de facto partitioned,” meaning that ISIS had created a separate Sunni region that would be complemented by Shia and Kurdish regions.

Coincidentally, this “partition” plan just happens to be the official plan of Vice President Joe Biden, who for a while has advocated a “soft partition” of Iraq, an idea as ludicrous as a “partial” nuclear attack. As long as ISIS was “de facto” helping achieve Biden’s partition plan, Obama was fine with ISIS’ murderous rampage. And now the media informs us, unsurprisingly, that Biden’s plan has officially been “gaining momentum” in Washington D.C.

But then ISIS went too far. The red line that ISIS finally crossed was their attack against the U.S. allied Iraqi Kurds. The Kurds govern their own oil-rich autonomous zone in Iraq, and have been steadfast U.S. supporters. The New York Times talks openly about the real, non-humanitarian motive of Obama attacking ISIS:

“Mr. Obama has been reluctant to order direct military action in Iraq [against ISIS] while [Iraqi] Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remains in office, but in recent weeks there have been repeated pleas from the Kurdish officials for weapons and assistance as ISIS militants have swept across northwestern Iraq.”

The Times re-enforced this perspective when talking about the views of Representative Adam Smith of Washington State:

“…he [Smith] supported intervening on behalf of the Kurds, as opposed to the unpopular Baghdad government. “The Kurds are worth helping and defending” [said Smith].”

There you have it. The thousands who have been slaughtered by ISIS in Syria and other parts of Iraq weren’t “worth defending,” but the Kurds are different, since their leaders are U.S. allies. This sums up U.S. foreign policy in a nutshell, which has absolutely nothing to do with “humanitarianism.” Gazans are allowed to be slaughtered, Syrian’s massacred, and half of Iraq torn to shreds while Obama has busied himself with making threats to Russia.

The logical of U.S. military intervention is completely based on a cynical calculation meant to boost U.S. military and corporate power abroad, by any means necessary.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org).

09 August, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By John Scales Avery

Why the book is important

The nuclear destruction of Hiroshima was a tragedy in itself, but its larger significance is that it started a nuclear arms race which today threatens to destroy human society and much of the biosphere.

Sokka Gakki

Sokka Gakki is a large Nichirin Buddhist religious group. Its 12 million members are centered primarily in Japan, but Sokka Gokkai International (SGI) has groups in 192 countries. In Japanese, the words “Sokka Gakkai” mean “Value-Creating Education”. The organization was started by two Japanese educators, Tsunisaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda, both of whom were imprisoned by their government during World War II because of their opposition to militarism. Makaguchi died as a result of his imprisonment, but Josei Toda went on to found a large and vigorous educational organization dedicated to culture, humanism, world peace and nuclear abolition.

The Toda Declaration and Daisaku Ikeda’s Proposals

In 1957, before a cheering audience of 50,000 young Sokka Gakkai members,Josei Toda declared nuclear weapons to be an absolute evil. He declared that their possession is criminal under all circumstances, and he called the young people present to work untiringly to rid the world of all nuclear weapons.

Toda was the mentor of Daisaku Ikeda, the first president SGI. Every year, President Ikeda issues a Peace Proposal, calling for international understanding and dialogue, as well as nuclear abolition, and outlining practical steps by which he believes these goals may be achieved. In his 2013 Peace Proposal, Ikeda, noted that 2015 will be the 70th anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima, and he proposed that the NPT review conference should take place in Hiroshima, rather that in New York. He proposed that this should be followed by “an expanded global summit for a nuclear-weapon-free world”

The Hiroshima Peace Committee and the last remaining hibakushas

In Japanese the survivors of injuries from the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are called “hibakusha”.Over the years, the Sokka Gakkai Hiroshima Peace Committee has .published many books containing their testimonies. The most recent of these books, “A Silence Broken”, contains the testimonies of 14 men, now all in their late 70’s or in their 80’s, who are among the last few remaining hibakushas. All 14 of these men have kept silent until now because of the prejudices against hibakusha in Japan, where they and their children are thought to be unsuitable as marriage partners because of the effects of radiation. But now, for various reasons, they have chosen to break their silence. Many have chosen to speak now because of the Fukushima disaster.

The testimonies of the hibakushas give a vivid picture of the hell-like horrors of the nuclear attack on the civilian population of Hiroshima, both in the short term and in the long term. For example, Shigeru Nonoyama, who was 15 at the time of the attack, says: “People crawling out from crumbled houses started to flee. We decided to escape to a safe place on the hill. We saw people with melted ears stuck to their cheeks, chins glued to their shoulders, heads facing in awkward positions, arms stuck to bodies, five fingers joined together and grab nothing. Those were the people fleeing. Not merely a hundred or two, The whole town was in chaos.

“I saw the noodle shop’s wife leg was caught under a fallen pole, and a fire was approaching. She was screaming, ‘Help me!Help me!’ There were no soldiers, no firefighters. I later heard that her husband had cut off his wife’s leg with a hatchet to save her.”

“Each and every scene was hell itself. I couldn’t tell the difference between the men and the women. Everybody had scorched hair, burned hair, and terrible burns. I thought I saw a doll floating in a fire cistern, but it was a baby. A wife trapped under her fallen house was crying, ‘Dear, please help me, help me!’ Her husband had no choice but to leave her in tears.”

“…I hovered between life and death for three months, from August to October. When a fly landed on a festering wound, it would bleed white maggots in a few days. My mother shooed away the flies through the night with a fan through the night. She must have been desperately determined not to lose any more sons or daughters. My dangling skin dried and turned hard, like paper. My mother picked off the dried skin. She made a cream of straw ash and cooking oil, and applied it to my burnt head, face and fingertips, turning me black…”

The testimonies of the other hibakushas are equally horrifying.

The postwar nuclear arms race

On August 29, 1949, the USSR exploded its first nuclear bomb. It had a yield equivalent to 21,000 tons of TNT, and had been constructed from Pu-239 produced in a nuclear reactor. Meanwhile the United Kingdom had begun to build its own nuclear weapons.

The explosion of the Soviet nuclear bomb caused feelings of panic in the United States, and President Truman authorized an all-out effort to build superbombs using thermonuclear reactions – the reactions that heat the sun and stars. On October 31, 1952, the first US thermonuclear device was exploded at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. It had a yield of 10.4 megatons, that is to say it had an explosive power equivalent to 10,400,000 tons of TNT. Thus the first thermonuclear bomb was five hundred times as powerful as the bombs that had devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki The Soviet Union and the United Kingdom were not far behind.

In 1955 the Soviets exploded their first thermonuclear device, followed in 1957 b y the UK. In 1961 the USSR exploded a thermonuclear bomb with a yield of 58 megatons. A bomb of this size, two thousand times the size of the Hiroshima bomb, would destroy a city completely even if it missed it by 50 kilometers. France tested a fission bomb in 1966 and a thermonuclear bomb in 1968. In all about thirty nations contemplated building nuclear weapons, and many made active efforts to do so.

Because the concept of deterrence required an attacked nation to be able to retaliate massively even though many of its weapons might be destroyed by a preemptive strike, the production of nuclear warheads reached insane heights, driven by the collective paranoia of the Cold War. More than 50,000 nuclear warheads were produced worldwide, a large number of them thermonuclear. The collective explosive power of these warheads was equivalent to 20,000,000,000 tons of TNT, i.e., 4 tons for every man, woman and child on the planet, or, expressed differently, a million times the explosive power of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Today, the collective explosive power of all the nuclear weapons in the world is about half that much, but still enough to destroy human society.

There are very many cases on record in which the world has come very close to a catastrophic nuclear war. One such case was the Cuban Missile Crisis. Robert McNamara, who was the US Secretary of Defense at the time of the crisis, had this to say about how close the world came to a catastrophic nuclear war: “I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals: Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; Castro was rational. Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today.”

A number of prominent political and military figures (many of whom have ample knowledge of the system of deterrence, having been part of it) have expressed concern about the danger of accidental nuclear war. Colin S. Gray, Chairman, National Institute for Public Policy, expressed this concern as follows: “The problem, indeed the enduring problem, is that we are resting our future upon a nuclear deterrence system concerning which we cannot tolerate even a single malfunction”. Bruce G. Blair (Brookings Institute) has remarked that “It is obvious that the rushed nature of the process, from warning to decision to action, risks causing a catastrophic mistake”… “This system is an accident waiting to happen.”

As the number of nuclear weapon states grows larger, there is an increasing chance that a revolution will occur in one of them, putting nuclear weapons into the hands of terrorist groups or organized criminals. Today, for example, Pakistan’s less-than-stable government might be overthrown, and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons might end in the hands of terrorists. The weapons might then be used to destroy one of the world’s large coastal cities, having been brought into the port by one of numerous container ships that dock every day, a number far too large to monitored exhaustively. Such an event might trigger a large-scale nuclear conflagration.

Recent research has shown that a large-scale nuclear war would be an ecological catastrophe of enormous proportions, producing very large-scale famine through its impact on global agriculture, and making large areas of the world permanently uninhabitable through long-lived radioactive contamination.

How do these dangers look in the long-term perspective? Suppose that each year there is a certain finite chance of a nuclear catastrophe, let us say 1 percent. Then in a century the chance of a disaster will be 100 percent, and in two centuries, 200 percent, in three centuries, 300 percent, and so on. Over many centuries, the chance that a disaster will take place will become so large as to be a certainty. Thus by looking at the long-term future, we can see that if nuclear weapons are not entirely eliminated, civilization will not survive.

We will do well to remember Josei Toda’s words: “Nuclear weapons to be an absolute evil. Their possession is criminal under all circumstances”

John Avery received a B.Sc. in theoretical physics from MIT and an M.Sc. from the University of Chicago.

09 August, 2014
Countercurrents.org