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By Jack A. Smith

Washington’s extensive military maneuvers in the Middle East since Sept. 11, 2001, have largely failed, creating far worse calamities at great cost to the people and countries of the region — and there is little reason to suspect this will change for the better in New Year 2016.

Actually, it could get much worse despite UN talks in Vienna later this month to seek a temporary cease-fire in Syria and the beginning of discussions on an eventual new Damascus government. The abrupt break in diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, plus the formation of a new Sunni coalition to “fight terrorism” and new maneuvers by an assertive Turkey could exacerbate existing conflicts.

Here’s a brief look at the three largest wars in which the U.S. is deeply involved at the moment — in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria — plus additional information about the region:

• IN AFGHANISTAN, THE TALIBAN IS ON THE OFFENSIVE, battering Afghan troops in Helmand province. The so-called Islamic State (IS) is now a growing presence in the country. Al-Qaeda — the reason George W. Bush bombed and invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 — is making a comeback, according to the Dec. 30 New York Times which revealed:

“Even as the Obama Administration scrambles to confront the Islamic State and a resurgent Taliban, an old enemy seems to be reappearing in Afghanistan: Al Qaeda training camps are sprouting up there, forcing the Pentagon and American intelligence agencies to assess whether they could again become a breeding ground for attacks on the United States…. The scope of Al-Qaeda’s deadly resilience in Afghanistan appears to have caught American and Afghan officials by surprise.” Again.

A day earlier USA Today reported “Afghanistan’s security situation is so tenuous that the top U.S. commander there wants to keep as many U.S. troops there as possible through 2016 to boost beleaguered Afghan soldiers and may seek additional American forces to assist them.” There are nearly 10,000 U.S troops in Afghanistan today and half are scheduled to depart by the end of 2016 — but Gen. John Campbell, the U.S.-NATO commander in Afghanistan, suggested the larger number, and perhaps more, should remain indefinitely.

The U.S. war in Afghanistan has lasted 14 years and four months and is expected to continue for more years. The cost to U.S. taxpayers so far is over $1 trillion, according to the Financial Times, and the final cost will be much higher. The only American victory in this war will be that of the U.S. armaments industry.

• IN IRAQ, WASHINGTON’S DISASTROUS WAR has lasted nearly 13 years from March 2003 with the exception of two and a half years until returning in August 2014 to fight against the Islamic State (IS) — itself a product of the first war. President Obama propelled the second intervention soon after IS captured Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in June 2014. Late last month, after losing much ground, Iraqi forces backed by American air power recaptured the key city of Ramadi, destroying a large portion of the city in the process. The battle to recapture Mosul may take place this year.

However, many sources in and out of Congress argue that only a significant ground war will ultimately defeat the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria. Aside from 3,500 U.S. military “trainers and advisers” in Iraq, President Obama is reluctant to engage in a major ground campaign in either country, given his past promises to avoid just that and the Pentagon’s difficulties in actually winning big wars in the Middle East. If political pressure doesn’t oblige him to deploy ground troops against IS this year, there is a likelihood his successor may in 2017. Regardless, the Iraq war will become more intense in 2016.

There are several other important problems regarding Iraq, but two stand out.

(1) The Islamic State is a militant Sunni “caliphate” based on Islamic fundamentalist Wahhabi doctrine mainly propagated by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The IS evidently considers its main enemy to be the Shia branch of Islam, which departed from the Sunni version in the 7th century. Virtually all of the many Sunni jihadist groups follow aspects of fundamentalist Wahhabism or the nearly identical Salafism, and most condemn adherents of Shia Islam. The IS “state” occupies large portions of two Shia-governed countries, Iraq and Syria. Sunni Arabs in Iraq — most of whom appear not share fundamentalist views — constitute 15 to 20% of the Iraqi population. But many oppose the Shia controlled Baghdad government. Unless a substantial number of these Sunnis turn strongly against the IS, defeating it will be more difficult. A few Sunni tribes already fight IS in Iraq.

Kurds make up 17% of the Iraqi population and are described as “mainly secular Sunnis” who seek independence from Iraq in the future to build their own independent state — but at the moment they supply the most effective ground forces against the IS. The Shia represent up to 65% of the population but have long existed under Sunni rule, usually as secondary citizens. It was only after the U.S. destroyed the minority secular Sunni government of Saddam Hussein and his Ba’ath Party that the Shia won power in an election. The Bush/Cheney Administration probably knew that regime change in Iraq — Iran’s enemy neighbor to the west — could strengthen the Shia government in Tehran, but since they initially planned to invade Iran (as well as Syria) after Iraq was subdued they ignored the risk. The U.S. sank so deeply in the Iraqi quagmire that it never was able to expand its ridiculous imperialist escapade.

(2) NATO member Turkey is intervening in Iraq against the wishes of the Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who leads the Sunni Islamist-leaning government in Ankara, persists in refusing a demand by Shia-governed Iraq to remove the several hundred soldiers and heavy equipment he sent to northwest Iraq Dec. 4, ostensibly to join a smaller Turkish unit training Sunni and Kurdish fighters against the IS takeover of Mosul.

Reflecting the worsening relations between Iraq and Turkey, the Baghdad government did not give Ankara permission to send more troops and insisted they depart immediately. Turkey responded by declaring its soldiers would remain until Mosul is freed from IS control, and criticized the Iraqi government for not moving faster to retake the city. Interestingly, the Arab League, which usually supports Sunni states, backed Iraq’s position Dec. 25, most likely because it is wary of allied but non-Arab Turkey grabbing more influence and territory in the region. (Arab lands were dominated by Turkey’s Ottoman Empire until the end of World War I when British and French imperialism then rearranged the old boundary lines to serve their own interests — a scheme that has contributed to the crises in Iraq and Syria today.)

On Dec. 9, Turkey instructed all its citizens in Iraq to leave the country, except those in Kurdish Iraq. Turkey is fighting against Kurds in Syria, and its own country, but not the Iraqi Kurds, which have cordial relations with the U.S.

Erdoğan, whom the New York Times editorially described Jan. 6 as “an authoritarian leader willing to trample on human rights, the rule of law and political and press freedoms,” has been taking a variety of aggressive steps in recent years to enhance Turkey’s and his own power in the region.

M. K. Bhadrakumar, a journalist and former Indian diplomat, reported in India Punchline Dec. 31: “President Erdoğan paid a daylong visit on Dec. 27 to Riyadh to meet King Salman. The Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awst reported the two leaders decided to form a ‘strategic cooperation council’ with a view to create a quantum leap in the strength of the relationship between the two countries so that it is strategic and serves the interests of the two countries and their peoples, and contributes to the creation of security and stability in the region.

“Evidently, the Turkish-Saudi entente is based on a congruence of interests. A prominent Russian pundit Yevgeniy Satanovsky, who heads the Middle East Institute in Moscow, has warned that Turkey and Saudi Arabia may be planning to step up their longstanding covert support of the radical Islamist groups operating in Russia’s North Caucasus. In recent statements President Vladimir Putin had also signaled that Moscow’s patience was wearing thin over Turkey’s support of subversive elements in Russia and things were coming to a pass in bilateral relations even before the downing of the Russian warplane.”

• THE SYRIAN CONFLICT IS IN TRANSITION after nearly five years of what has become a decimating civil war, pitting the Islamic State, al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra Front, scores of different jihadi organizations and a small number of secular forces against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. So far over 200,000 people have died on both sides and millions of Syrians are internally displaced or have fled the country for a very uncertain future.

Hostilities continue but the sudden intervention of Russia and its military forces on the side of Assad in late September dramatically changed the geopolitical landscape and strengthened Syria’s military struggle against rebel forces.

The United States — the regional hegemon toward whom nearly all Arab states offer deference — became a powerful supporter of regime change in Damascus beginning 2011, even though Washington did not dispatch combat troops to join the civil war. Obama’s most reliable supporters in the region are Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Gulf monarchies and other Sunni countries seeking to oust Syria’s Alawite/Shia led government. All have provided the rebels with abundant political and financial aid plus military equipment.

The objective of the U.S. and its allies is to replace an Alawite/Shia government friendly to Iran, Iraq and Russia with a Sunni led regime friendly to themselves, but not the fundamentalist regime desired by many of the rebel organizations and some of the Sunni governments. The U.S. and its NATO foreign legion will not allow a jihadi government in Damascus for obvious reasons. At most President Obama will tolerate some representatives of the fighting rebel forces to have a say from obscure posts in a new regime, but nothing more. The regional allies agree because that is what the U.S. wants. If any turned against Washington regime change could be their fate. Other reasons for obeying Obama include the increasing danger they all feel from IS and possibly a reinvigorated al-Qaeda, and the fact that Russia has now become a Middle Eastern power that may give them trouble.

Iran, Iraq and Russia supported the Assad government, but until President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian air force and navy to bombard rebel forces in Syria, their power was limited. Russia is now a major player, and when it talks Washington must listen if not necessarily act.

When Obama demanded that Assad step down in the early months of the war it had nothing to do with democracy, a frequent U.S. justification for regime change. He wanted to extract Syria from its allied relationship with Iran and its long term, mutually advantageous association with Russia, going back before its Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union in 1980 during the Cold War. Washington also acted to cultivate its power relations with Sunni governments in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia, that wanted to weaken the Shia Muslim political alliance of geographically contiguous Iran, Iraq and Syria.

The Oval Office has gradually came to realize — long after unsuccessfully seeking to create an anti-Assad leadership coalition largely composed of Syrian exiles — that jihadi militants are virtually in total command of the civil war and that unless dynamics change the removal of Assad could lead to a humiliating “terrorist” takeover in Damascus. Obama also was getting criticism because the military campaign against IS was not making sufficient progress.

Enter Russia — bombing rebel jihadis in Syria and the Islamic State while proposing the possibility of a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the Syria crisis. No one can predict the outcome at this stage. Although President Obama has often made clear his reluctance to share an iota of American unilateral “leadership,” he knows but doesn’t wish to acknowledge that Putin pulled him out of two, and now possibly three, of his most difficult dilemmas. Here’s how:

The first was in 2013 when Obama was about to launch a bombing campaign against Syria for allegedly violating his “red-line” against the use of chemical weapons. A majority of the American people and many in Congress opposed the move, but Obama felt he had no alternative that would allow him to save face. Putin then convinced Assad to dispose of his entire chemical arsenal, which provided the White House with a valid reason not to launch an unpopular war. The other instance is when Putin used Russia’s good relations with Iran to help bring about the now successful Washington-Tehran negotiations regarding nuclear matters.

The upcoming UN talks on a temporary cease-fire in the Syrian war and the beginning of discussions on an eventual new Damascus government largely depend on an agreement in next months or years between the U.S. and Russia.

Most fighting Jihadi rebels and their Sunni Arab and Western supporters want Assad to resign before negotiations for a new government. The Syrian regime and its supporters, including Russia, stipulate that Assad has considerable support in Syria and that he should be part of the decision on candidates. (According to the June 4, 2014, New York Times: “There is no doubt that Mr. Assad has considerable support in parts of Syria.”) It may in time be possible to resolve this exceptionally complex matter — but it is only half the equation.

Here’s the other half: Regarding a cease fire several score well armed and financed Sunni Islamist jihadi rebel fighting organizations are supposed to turn their guns away from the Syrian government and toward powerful Islamic State. The U.S. is behind efforts to help organize and finance this hoped for new coalition (although U.S. troops will not take part). Some Arab countries are supposed to send troops as well as the existing jihadists. The powerful Nusra Front has not been invited to join the coalition because of its al-Qaeda connection but since it views IS as an enemy rival it may well not be a coalition target unless it advances on its own to the gates of Damascus. The Nusra Front has worked in collaboration with many of the “moderate” jihadi groups that are supposed to become part of the coalition.

Washington seems naïve or desperate to think a significant number of jihadis will stop fighting Assad in order to take on the Islamic State even if there are big bribes to do so, unless the deal is to fight IS for a while then go back to displacing Assad. Obama’s latest efforts to create a “moderate” fighting coalition resulted in “four or five” recruits at the preposterous cost — hold your breath — of $500 million before the program was scrapped. Some rebel groups can no doubt be bought off but it seems possible others might join IS or Nusra Front or continue on their own to battle for Sunni Islamist control of the government.

Stratfor’s Dec. 29 summary of the Islamic State’s present strength and weakness in Syria is of interest:

“Though far from defeated, [the Islamic State] is nevertheless being harried across several fronts, experiencing significant losses in Syria as well as Iraq…. In northern Syria, the Kurdish-dominated [and U.S. backed] Syrian Democratic Forces are driving their offensive onward, crossing the Euphrates River in numbers after seizing the Tishrin dam [and] are now advancing westward toward the Islamic State-held town of Manbij in northern Aleppo…. Syrian government forces, with backing from foreign militias and the Russian air force, have also been pushing hard into Islamic State territory. The Syrian army is expanding its control over terrain close to the formerly besieged Kweiris air base, where a number of Syrian loyalists held position for years against persistent Islamic State attacks. On Dec. 29 the Syrian government also reportedly took back the strategic town of Maheen, 16 miles from the vital M5 highway controlled by the IS…. The Islamic State is unlikely to be pushed back everywhere in the short term, and it is still capable of carrying out its own offensive operations, as it has done in Deir el-Zour in late December. However, it is increasingly difficult for the group to achieve the major battlefield victories it won previously as it stretches its forces thin and encounters persistent aerial attacks.”

According to the Pentagon Jan. 5, IS lost 30% of the territory it once occupied in Iraq and Syria.

• A REGION IN TURMOIL

(1) The gravest charge against President Assad is that he has he killed 250,000 or 300,000 “of his own people,” which has repeatedly been broadcast by many U.S. TV news stations and repeated by a number of Congressional members. (Turkey’s President Erdoğan just upped the figure the other day to 400,000.) Without justifying the government’s seemingly indiscriminant use of “barrel bombs” in populated territory under rebel control, exception must be taken to these intentionally misleading calculations.

The Sept. 14 New York Times reported, after thorough investigation, that there were approximately 200,000 deaths in Syria up to that time, and that there were 84,404 civilian deaths, killed by both the government and the rebel forces. This remains a terrible casualty toll, but to condemn the Assad regime for all of an exaggerated number of civilian deaths is consciously distorted propaganda. According to the Times, the remainder of the deaths were those of government and rebel fighting forces. A few weeks earlier the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which opposes the Assad government, reported Aug. 5 that that 330,000 people died and that 111,624 were civilians killed, obviously by both sides. The total is higher but the percent of civilian deaths is lower. The Times, which opposes Assad, had to be aware of the higher estimate before it decided to rely on its own research.

(2) Long-term religious and political differences between Iran and Saudi Arabia escalated significantly after the Saudi kingdom announced Jan. 2 that it had executed prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, an outspoken resident of the kingdom who sought more rights for the Shia 15% minority mainly residing in Eastern Province, a region with very high oil reserves.

The Associated Press reported Jan 4: “Al-Nimr was a central figure in the 2011 Arab Spring-inspired protests by Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority until his arrest in 2012. He was convicted of terrorism charges but denied advocating violence.” BBC reported Nimr was “a persistent critic of Saudi Arabia’s Sunni royal family who was said to have a particularly strong following among Saudi Shia youth. He was arrested several times over the past decade, alleging he was beaten by Saudi secret police during one detention.”

The charges against him were instigating unrest, undermining state security and making anti-government speeches and defending political prisoners. His unforgivable “crime” was openly calling for a more democratic society in a totalitarian theocracy.

Shia religious or political leaders throughout the world, especially in the Middle East, condemned the Riyadh regime for the execution. Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared: “The unjustly spilled blood of this oppressed martyr will no doubt soon show its effect and divine vengeance will befall Saudi politicians.” The leader of Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, accused Saudi Arabia of seeking to ignite a Shia-Sunni civil war across the world.

Protests began in Iran immediately after the news circulated. In one case a large group demonstrators spontaneously attacked the Saudi embassy, sacking part of the interior and starting fires. There evidently were no injuries. The Iranian government disapproved of the attack. Tehran authorities condemned the violence and police have made at least 50 arrests so far. This was not a government project.

Angry peaceful protests were continuing in Iran Jan. 3 when the Saudi regime retaliated by breaking diplomatic relations and expelling all Iran’s diplomats and staff as well as recalling its own embassy staff and ending airline travel between the two countries. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani responded: “The Saudi government has taken a strange action and cut off its diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran to cover its crimes of beheading a religious leader in its country…. Such actions can’t cover up that big crime.”

Several regional Sunni led countries either broke relations with Iran or reduced diplomatic staff in solidarity with the kingdom. More may do so. The Arab League will hold an emergency meeting Jan. 10 to discuss the issue.

What’s up and what next? In our view, the House of Saud knew precisely what the reaction would be in Iran if it decided to kill al-Nimr. There would at least be a riot in Teheran and profound criticism from Iran and the Shia community worldwide.

The monarchy could have avoided an increase in tensions and a break in relations by simply keeping Nimr in prison. So they killed him, hedging their bets to confuse the situation by executing 47 men the same day. The others were alleged to be Sunni jihadists mainly connected to al-Qaeda who had attacked Saudi Arabia and had been imprisoned for a number of years. By mixing one Shi’ite with 46 Sunnis, who could possibly think the royal family was religiously intolerant?

The kingdom sought an open confrontation with Iran for several reasons. Two stand out.

The first emanates from Riyadh’s extreme anger about the U.S.-Iran nuclear agreement and the ending of sanctions on Tehran. Only Israel can match their fury in this regard. Both countries exerted intense pressure on Washington to continue the sanctions and to forego the deal. They wanted Iran permanently impaired, each for their own reasons.

Saudi Arabia has both religious and political reasons for seeking to isolate and weaken the Tehran government and still counts on Washington’s assistance to accomplish the task. As the wealthy leading Sunni country in the Middle East the kingdom is deeply affronted by the existence of a brash, self-confident, militarily superior, independent and non-Arab Muslim Shia regime glaring face to face with itself across the Persian Gulf, a name the royals choke on and wish to change. It is of consequence that the Saudis responded so theatrically after the embassy brouhaha just two weeks after announcing the creation of an important new Sunni military “coalition against terrorism” that the kingdom will lead with U.S. backing (see below).

The Iranian government has a good idea about what’s actually going on. This sectarian chess game has lasted many decades, including when Saudi Arabia last broke relations from 1988 to 1991 over different issues. Tehran doesn’t fall for the one in 47 deception because both sides fully understand it’s only the “one” that counts. The execution was intended to increase tensions, but apparently within limits.

The Iranian government evidently was surprised by the cynical execution of Nimr which they had vigorously warned against in the past, and expressed its rage toward the Saudi regime — but also within certain limits. Threats will go back and forth, and tensions will increase but Tehran does not want this situation to become unacceptably worse; nor, I think, does Saudi Arabia wish it to get out of hand — at lest not yet.

(3) With air support from the U.S. and Russia, or Russia alone, a combination of the armies of Iran, Iraq, Syria and the Kurds could defeat IS on the ground — but the Obama Administration has opposed the formation of such an amalgamation. The reasons are political and geopolitical. He wants more Sunni and less Shia involvement. This will strengthen U.S. regional power.

Worldwide, there are 1.6 billion Muslims — 87 to 90% Sunni and 10 to 13% Shia. As global hegemon, the U.S. knows that numbers count far more than state-sponsored religious intolerance. The Shia are thought of, and often treated, as an outcast minority by most Sunni authoritarian states in the Middle East, virtually all of which receive America’s support as long as they genuflect to Washington’s strategic leadership. The fact that the Saudi monarchy and others want to displace Syria’s Alawite-Shia government is a prime reason why Obama has called for Assad’s removal for nearly five years.

The antediluvian Saudi absolute monarchy — Washington’s closest Arab ally since 1945 when the U.S. pledged to protect royal power in return for secure access to the country’s fabulous supply of petroleum — is the leader of the regional anti-Shia campaign, which the Obama Administration has not publicly criticized. The White House has long been aware that the kingdom repeatedly financed Sunni jihadist adventures from the 1970s (in Afghanistan, along with Pakistan and the United States) to the various rebel groups in Syria today.

For instance, according to Huffington Post in January last year: “A Wikileaks cable clearly quotes then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying ‘donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.’ She continues: ‘More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT [Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba which operates in East Asia] and other terrorist groups.’ And it’s not just the Saudis: Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are also implicated in the memo. Other cables released by Wikileaks outline how Saudi front companies are also used to fund terrorism abroad.”

Also weighing heavily on White House decisions is the Israeli government’s fabrication that Iran constitutes a threat to its existence, a position evidently shared by vocal majorities in the House and Senate and many liberal Democrats. Obama didn’t allow the Netanyahu regime to bomb Iran, which would have been a catastrophe, and recently reached agreement with unjustly sanctioned Tehran about its nuclear program, throwing billions Netanyahu’s way to calm him down. But in most other respects, except when the Israeli leader purposely humiliates him, Obama easily bends the knee to his manipulative, opportunist and obsessively mistrustful opposite number. But in nearly all cases, what Israel wants, Israel gets from Uncle Sam.

Even now, after Obama’s energy policies have resulted in U.S. oil output surpassing that of Saudi Arabia, the U.S. is keeping its original agreement of 70 years with the Saudis. Why? The main reason is because siding with Sunni kingdoms and dictatorships helped keep the USSR at bay at during the Cold War and now assures America’s continued domination of the strategic, fuel-rich Middle East.

Obama will not give permission or any support for a three nation Shia coalition plus the Kurds to unify with ground forces to fight against the Islamic State, especially with Russian air power for a few reasons: It would require ending the regime change war in Syria. It would be a slap in the face to its Sunni allies who might retaliate. It would increase the importance of Russia.

(4) To seal the bargain with the kings and dictators the U.S. enthusiastically supports Saudi Arabia and its allied emirates in their unjust, venomous nine month bombing campaign against Shia-affiliated Houthi rebels in Yemen, the poorest country in the region. Obama has supplied and re-supplied the aggressors with all types of killer weapons including internationally outlawed cluster bombs, earning the American “defense” industry $13 billion in sales last year. A few years earlier the kingdom stuffed $60 billion in U.S. war industry pockets.

According to Madawi Al-Rasheed, a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science as well as a columnist for Al-Monitor: “The Saudi war on Yemen is not an inevitable war of self-defense [as the kingdom maintains]…. Instead, it was a preemptive strike to inaugurate an aggressive Saudi regional foreign policy.”

The UN estimates the human toll in Yemen last year was 8,119 casualties, including 2,795 dead and 5,324 wounded. The New York Times reported Jan 6. UN “human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, told the Security Council in December that the Saudi-led coalition had accounted for a ‘disproportionate amount’ of the damage to infrastructure and civilian premises, including schools and hospitals.”

Sent to do the dirty work by clean-hands-Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry was obliged Nov. 23 to tell embarrassing lies no one actually believes to the foreign minister of a member of the Saudi anti-Yemen coalition Nov. 23: “We respect what United Arab Emirates has been able to do to accomplish significant progress in Yemen. We understand completely and support the reasons that Saudi Arabia and the UAE felt compelled to take acts of self-defense and to protect the security of this region.” Meanwhile, units of both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are exploiting the confusion to grab more territory in Yemen.

(5) On Dec. 15 Saudi Arabia announced the formation of a new 34-state Sunni Islamic military coalition under its own leadership. This extremely important event is not connected to the kingdom’s much smaller anti-Yemen coalition, which continues to plod along, shooting here, bombing there. Major countries such as Egypt and NATO’s Turkey are members of the new formation. Syria and Iran were excluded from membership. Shia-governed Iraq was not excluded, evidently due to its continuing relationship with Washington.

Aljazeera reported: “The United States welcomed the announcement of the anti-terrorism alliance. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said: ‘We look forward to learning more about what Saudi Arabia has in mind in terms of this coalition…. But in general, it appears it is very much in line with something we’ve been urging for quite some time, which is greater involvement in the campaign to combat IS by Sunni Arab countries.'”

Washington was obviously involved in developing the new coalition and probably functions behind the scenes as a silent partner. Our surmise is that the Sunni alliance will eventually take moderately more action against the Islamic State — a change in some degree from their miniscule efforts to fight IS up to now. In addition, this new Saudi led military coalition seeks regime change in Syria, regards Shia Islam as a religious betrayal to be shunned, and conceivably might be deployed to politically to contain Iran or for worse purposes.

“Worse” may be near, or far. The Wahhabi Saud clan has just accumulated substantially more power and authority in the region, and — despite occasional differences in tactics —is blessed by the higher and more powerful strategic authority at the headquarters of modern imperialism on the banks of the Potomac.

The author is editor of the Activist Newsletter and is former editor of the (U.S.) Guardian Newsweekly. He may be reached at jacdon@earthlink.net or http://activistnewsletter.blogspot.com
08 January, 2016
Countercurrents.org

By Andre Vltchek

For now, Argentina is lost and Venezuela is deeply wounded, divided and frustrated. Virtually everywhere in socialist Latin America, well-orchestrated and angry protests are taking place, accusing our left-wing governments of mismanagement and corruption.

What was gained during those years of hard work and sacrifices, is suddenly evaporating in front of our eyes. And there seems to be no way to stop the trend in the foreseeable future. Whatever magnificent work our governments have done have been smeared. Western propaganda and its local serfs belittle the achievements of our people. In several countries, revolutionary zeal has almost entirely vanished.

***

It is clear, even with an unarmed eye that great progress had been made. Those of us who knew Ecuador two decades ago, (then a depressing country, humiliated and torn by disparities and racism), are now impressed by its wonderful social services, free culture and modern infrastructure.

Indigenous people of Bolivia are proudly in possession of their own land.

Venezuela has been inspiring the entire Latin America and the world by its internationalism and determined struggle against Western imperialism.

Chile, step by small step, has been dismantling the grotesque legacy of Pinochet’s dictatorship, moving firmly towards socialism.

There are hundreds of great and inspiring examples, all over the continent.

In less than two decades, Latin America converted itself from one of the most depressing parts of the world, to the most progressive one.

A few years ago, it really seemed that the Empire had finally lost. There was no way that South Americans would want to go back to the days of darkness. The achievements of socialism were too obvious, too marvelous. Who would want to go back to the gloomy nihilism, depressing feudal structures and the fascist client-state arrangements?

Then the Empire re-grouped. It gathered its local lieutenants, its lackeys, and began striking back with deadly force.

All the means of imperialist propaganda were applied. The goal was to convince people that what they see is not actually real. Another objective was to subvert, to torpedo most of the achievements.

***

We lost elections? What nonsense!

It was clean economic and political terror unleashed against us, and it was the most vicious propaganda, which began forcing out the left wing governments of Latin America from power!

The world was watching, still demanding more Western-style “democracy”, more concessions. The West administered a “Fifth Column” that damaged Latin American revolutions, after infiltrating both media and brains in Caracas, Buenos Aires, even Quito. It consisted especially of the liberals and those so-called ‘progressive forces’; the same people who tried to burry the Cuban revolution after the Soviet Union had been destroyed by Western imperialism. The same people actually who were cheering the demolition of the Soviet Union itself.

They kept pushing for anarchism and for some formulae of “participatory economy”, in fact for their own concepts, for Western, white concepts, for something that most of Latin American people who fought and won their revolutions never asked for!

Jealous and petty, they hate the true powerhouses of resistance against Western imperialism: Russia, China, Iran or South Africa and in fact, even Latin America itself.

Latin American people have always been intuitively longing for big, strong governments, like those in Cuba and those that lately emerged in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. And their natural allies should have been those countries from other, non-Western parts of the world, with powerful people-oriented leadership, not some European and North American individuals representing grotesque and defunct movements and “intellectual” concepts.

In several countries, Latin America lost its way and again got derailed by Western demagoguery. Suddenly there was almost nothing left here of Chinese or Russian or Vietnamese ideas, nothing of internationalism, only Western soft liberal egotists and countless irrelevant marginal groups.

History was forgotten. It was simple, decisive and powerful action by China that single-handedly saved Cuba, when the island-nation was hit by the Gorbachev and Yeltsin disasters. I wrote about it a lot, and Fidel quoted me, agreeing in his “Reflections”.

It was the Soviet Union that stood in solidarity with almost all revolutionary movements of Latin America throughout the 20th century. And it was Russia that was backing Chávez during the countless Western attempts to overthrow his government.

***

Playing with anarchism, liberalism and Euro-socialist concepts brought several Latin American revolutions to the brink of absolute calamity.

South America is at the frontline. It is under attack. There is no time for the flowery theories.

I know Latin American revolutionaries. I have met many, from Eduardo Galeano to several Cuban and Sandinista leaders.

I also met many of the South American ‘elites’.

One day, not long after Evo Morales came to power in Bolivia, I spoke to a man, a member of one of the ‘leading’ families, which has in its ranks Senators, owners of mass media outlets, as well as captains of local industry.

“We will get rid of Morales”, he told me, openly. “Because he is a dirty Indian, and because we will not tolerate lefties in this part of the world.”

He was not hiding his plans – he was extremely confident.

“We don’t care how much money we have to spend; we have plenty of money. And we have plenty of time. We will use our media and we will create food and consumer goods deficits. Once there is nothing to eat, once there are food lines in all the major cities, as well as great insecurity and violence, people will vote him out of power.”

It was clearly the concept used by the Chilean fascist economic and political right wing thugs, before the 1973 US-backed coup against President Salvador Allende. “Uncertainty, shortages”, and if everything failed – then a brutal military coup.

In Bolivia the “elites” tried and tried, but they were not successful, because there was great solidarity with the government of Evo Morales, coming from socialist countries like Brazil and Venezuela. When the Right tried to break the country to pieces, pushing for the independence of the richest, “white” province of Santa Cruz, Brazilian President Lula declared that he was going to send the mightiest army in the South American continent and “defend the integrity of the neighboring country”.

It is beasts, and actually extremely powerful beasts, who are heading the “opposition” in South America.

And to be frank, we can hardly speak about an “opposition”. These are oligarchs, landowners, Christian (many from the Opus Dei) demagogues and military leaders. In many ways they are still the true rulers of the continent.

Nothing except brute force can stop them. They have unlimited financial resources, they have a propaganda machine at their disposal, and they can always count on the Empire to back them up. In fact it is the Empire that is encouraging, training and sustaining them.

***

“Violations of democracy and human rights!” the “opposition” yells, whenever our governments decide to hit back. It is not that we are lately hitting back really hard, but any retaliation is packaged as “brutal”.

What do we in fact do? We arrest just a few of the most outrageous terrorists – those who are openly trying to overthrow or destabilize the state.

But when they, the ‘elites’ and their armies, came to power, they cut open people’s stomachs, and threw them from helicopters straight into the sea.

Their death squads violate children in front of their parents. Female prisoners are raped by specially trained German shepherds dogs, and tubes with starved rats are inserted into their vaginas.

Entire movements and parties are liquidated by fascist South American battalions of death (some of them trained in the United States), but we must use some nice and clean tactics and “democratic means” to prevent them from grabbing power again?

The white, racist, colonialist Christian implants from Europe have been forming so-called South American ‘elites’. They are actually some of the cruelest human beings on Earth. Thanks to them, before our latest wave of Revolutions, Latin America suffered from the greatest disparities on earth. Tens of millions of its people were murdered. It was racially divided. It was plundered. Its veins were, and to a great extent still are, open – to borrow from the terminology of the great storyteller Eduardo Galeano.

My friend Noam Chomsky wrote about it extensively. I wrote about it in several chapters of my two latest books: : “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. Others have as well.

How can people still listen to those mass murderers, with a straight face?

***

One thing cannot be disputed: only a big and powerful government and its army could now defend its people. Latin American revolutionary leaders were given a mandate by the people, and they have no right to back up, to betray.

Indecisiveness could prove lethal.

Referendum after referendum, people expressed their support for the revolutionary Proceso, in Venezuela and elsewhere. Year after year the fascist “opposition” has been showing spite for the voices of the people, the same spite it has demonstrated for centuries.

Sabotage after sabotage was administered, one treasonous act after another committed. As was promised by the Bolivian ‘elites’, the Venezuelan capitalist bandits paralyzed their country by shortages. Even rolls of toilet paper became ‘a deficit’. All too familiar… Like in Chile before 1973!

The message is clear: “you want to be able to wipe your ass after shitting, then betray socialism!” Or: “You want to eat? Then down with the legacy of Chávez!”

The will of the people is being humiliated. The elites are spitting straight into the faces of the majority.

Some citizens are now voting for the right, simply because they are exhausted, because they are scared, because they see no solution. They are voting against their own will (as they used to in Nicaragua during the reign of Aleman), because if they vote for their own candidates, they would be made to eat shit, literally.

But solutions are there! They are available.

Instead of listening to some Euro-centric gurus from Slovenia or New England, the Latin American governments should ask for help and lean on such countries as Russia and China, immediately joining alternative financial institutions, forging defense treaties, working on energy and other deals with those who are actually standing up against Western imperialism.

Latin America should never lose its independence. But with proven good friends and true powerful alliances, independence is never lost.

Our leaders should shed their dependency on the Western Left. Mainly because the Western Left does not exist anymore, with some tiny, miniscule exceptions that proves the rule. What remain are a huge army of “liberals”, and then a tremendous multitude of selfish beings defending their own interests and concepts. They are horrified of those who are truly fighting and winning; therefore they openly hate Russia, China and other non-Western nations. Frankly, they are racist. Such people cannot inspire or impress anybody, and so they are trying their luck at the distant shores, diluting determination and perverting the essence of the South American revolutions.

This is the time to be focused. South America should fight, with all its might. It is not easy, but its treasonous families, those who are destroying the precious lives of tens of millions of human beings, should be identified, arrested and tried. It should be done immediately! What many of them are actually doing is not “being in opposition”. They are interrupting the democratic process in their own countries, selling their homelands once again to foreign powers and international capital.

***

Mass media outlets that are spreading misinformation, lies and foreign propaganda should also be immediately identified. They should be exposed, confronted, and if their goal is to destroy the socialist fatherland, shut down. Again, this is no time for liberal niceties.

Freedom of expression has nothing to do with the freedom of using newspapers and television stations to spread fabrications, fear and uncertainty, or to call for the direct overthrow of democratically elected governments.

And in South America, entire huge international newspaper and television syndicates have been working for years and decades for one single and deadly goal – to smear and liquidate the Left, and to deliver the entire continent back to the racist, fascist foreign imperialist rulers.

It has all gone too far, and it has to stop.

A few months ago, I was riding on the impressive Sao Paulo metro system, together with my Cuban friend.

“It is much better than any public transportation network that I have seen in Europe or in the United States”, I exclaimed.

“But people in Brazil think that it is total shit”, commented my friend, laconically.

“How come?” I was shocked.

“Because they are told so on the television, and because they read it in the newspapers”.

Yes, that’s how it is! Free art, including opera, given to the Brazilian public, is nothing more than crap, if one reads the mainstream Brazilian press. Free medical care, no matter how (still) imperfect it is, is not even worth praising. Free education in so many South American countries … New transportation networks, free or heavily subsidized books, brilliant parks with brand new libraries that are mushrooming in Chile and Ecuador… Financial support for the poor, the fight to keep children in school, the fight to save the environment, countless programs to protect indigenous communities…

Nothing, nothing, and absolutely nothing is positive in the eyes of the pro-Western South American propagandists!

This has become one huge counter-process, financed from foreign and local sources, aimed at discrediting all those great achievements.

***

Corruption!!! That is the new battle cry of the elites and their lackeys. Accusations of corruption are fabricated or inflated against all governments of the left: Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, even Michelle Bachelet of Chile. Cristina Kirchner’s back was almost broken by constant corruption charges.

But how on earth could anyone take such accusations seriously, if they are coming from those who have been plundering, for over 500 years, their own continent on behalf of Europe and then the United States and multi-national corporations? Like locust, the right-wing families have been looting all the natural resources, while forcing people into near slave labor. Under horrendous feudal and fascist rulers, Latin America was converted into the pinnacle of corruption – moral and economic.

Nothing was left intact, and nothing remained pure. In order to survive in such a vile system, people had to bend, twist, and maneuver.

Now these same bandit clans that have been destroying the continent are smearing, pointing fingers at the governments that are, step by step, trying to reverse the trend and serve the people.

The same bastards that were bombing restaurants and hotels in their own countries, planting bombs on passenger airliners, and assassinating thousands of innocent people, are talking about morality.

Are our people, our governments, expected to reach, to achieve total purity in just one or two decades, after the entire continent had been functioning for over 500 years as a bordello of Western colonialism and imperialism?

Are we going to allow ourselves to be on the defensive when facing those who robbed and raped almost everything and everybody in Latin America?

***

Yes, the people of Latin America were brutalized for several long centuries. They went through unimaginable suffering. They lost everything. But they never gave up. Since the holocaust performed by Spanish, Portuguese and other European barbaric conquerors, they have been rising, rebelling and fighting for their scarred land.

Pablo Neruda wrote a tremendous poem “Heights of Machu Picchu.” Eduardo Galeano wrote “Open Veins of Latin America”. It is all there, in those two tremendous works.

The fight goes on, to this very moment.

Most of the power is now, finally, in the hands of those who are determined to fight for the interests of their people.

We have no right to be defeated. If we do, hundreds of millions will lose their future and their hope.

Such an opportunity would not come back. It is here, for the first time in 500 years! Millions died to bring it here. If the Revolution is crashed now, it may not return in full force for who knows how many years. In simple terms it means that several more generations would be lost!

We have to counterattack now. What are we waiting for? Of what are we afraid? That the biggest terrorist on Earth – the West – would brand us as undemocratic? That the same West that has, for centuries, overthrown our governments, murdered our leaders as well as simple men, women and children would not give us its stamp of approval? That we would be criticized by those countries, which are still looting, violating, lying and ruining?

Our friends, our allies are not in the West. We all know how lukewarm was the support given to Venezuela, Cuba or Ecuador in Europe and North America by those “progressive forces”, and how hostile was the mainstream. We have to wake up and join forces with those who are now standing proudly and with great determination against Western imperialism and market fundamentalism.

There is no time for experiments. This is the fight for our survival!

As I wrote earlier, in order for the Revolutions to continue, we need big governments, determined cadres, loyal armies and mighty allies. We also need huge Latin American solidarity, true unity and integration. One monolithic South American block in fraternal embrace with other truly independent countries.

This is an extremely serious moment, Comrades! This is damn serious.

Anarchism and the concepts of the factories administered by workers will not save us right now.

Argentina has fallen, but Venezuela is still standing. Each creek, each boulder has now to be defended, be it in Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Venezuela, Nicaragua or Cuba.

We have to be tough, we have to be alert, and we cannot do it alone!

Venceremos nuevamente, camaradas!

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries.

08 January, 2016
Countercurrents.org

By Nathan Tempey

Administrators at a northern New Jersey high school are getting angry phone calls from Palestinian rights activists after a junior there says administrators accused her of bullying over tweets she made that were sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

Bethany Koval, 16, is prolific on Twitter, having dashed off more than 21,000 messages and gained nearly 4,000 followers since joining in February 2015. She got the attention of online activists including members of Anonymous this morning after tweeting about her trip to the principals office. The tweets include recordings of a man she says is an assistant principal saying she could be formally charged with bullying, which under New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act (pdf) can lead to suspension or expulsion.

Koval grew up in the New Jersey suburb of Fair Lawn and attends Fair Lawn High School, where part of the mission statement reads, “We believe that the optimal environment is one in which students feel free to challenge themselves and have opportunities to take initiative, to articulate clearly and imaginatively, to be creative, and to learn from their inquiry and experience.”
She said she became interested in politics over the last few years after realizing “I’ve been fed all kinds of kinds of propaganda and I started to question a lot of it.” She said she joined Twitter because “I really wanted an outlet to express my views and find people who had similar views.” Koval posted wide-ranging discussions of abortion rights, Hillary Clinton’s record, and the Syrian civil war. She said she has family in Israel and grew outraged about the country’s treatment of Palestinians in 2014 after seeing video of civilians bombed in Gaza.

“I was just really hurt by what was going on, hurt by how much money the United States gives to Israel,” she said. “I was so shocked because it seemed so undemocratic.”

Koval tweeted about the bombings and the Israeli-Palestinian political situation over her winter break, and said that it’s those tweets that caught the attention of a classmate who she describes as a former friend. In one, Koval described Hamas as “not extreme.”

Hamas is not extreme: Hamas is just painted that way Hateful rhetoric against Hamas is what allowed the Gaza bombing https://t.co/eprM2ahGHV
— benny (@bendykoval) December 23, 2015

In another, she described Israel as a “terrorist force.”

Israel is a terrorist force :(. Gaza bombing of 2014 death toll: 2,104 Palestinians innocents to 66 Israeli soldiers https://t.co/GpI0TtofWs
— benny (@bendykoval) December 23, 2015

Koval thinks that the reaction might have come more swiftly had she not been on holiday break, but says word got back to her that the unidentified girl was unhappy with what she’d said. Online, she speculated about the kind of trouble that her online activity could get her in.

But actually I can get in a LOT of trouble with my school for my anti-Israel sentiments on here A girl I know got in trouble for a BLM post
— benny (@bendykoval) December 27, 2015
@aberrating Valid point. But sigh, they could definitely call it hate speech, they could say I’m threatening Israeli people, etc
— benny (@bendykoval) December 27, 2015
She also celebrated the classmate unfollowing her.
im sooooo glad that pro-Israel girl from my school unfollowed me! I’m so FREE now like….. FUCK ISRAEL FUCK ISRAEL FUCK ISRAEL FUCK ISRAEL
— benny (@bendykoval) December 27, 2015
In another recording, the administrator seems to refer to that tweet, and possibly this one, perhaps the most directly confrontational:
@L_Chevere YOU’RE MY FAVORITE LOCAL. I’M DMING YOU THEIR NAMES RN
— benny (@bendykoval) December 26, 2015
Koval said she did message the girl’s name to L_Chevere, a classmate, “but of course it didn’t go farther. She didn’t even know the girl.”
This morning, she narrated the beginning of the fallout.
Principal just called me down. I’m about to be exposed for being anti-Israel. Pray for me.
— benny (@bendykoval) January 6, 2016
Ends with “the state law may interpret it differently”, if you couldn’t hear it.pic.twitter.com/fJsl5ygmsy
— benny (@bendykoval) January 6, 2016
Apparently a “smug attitude” is trying not to burst into tears. Do you know how bad a HIB report looks? pic.twitter.com/bqNLUmSc6b
— benny (@bendykoval) January 6, 2016
Koval said that upon arriving at school today, her teacher had received a memo and told her to report to the main office. There she says assistant principal Frank Guadagnino showed her printouts of the tweets, and said, “Do you realize that what you put out electronically can also get you in trouble in school, or put you in some kind of problem?”

“I haven’t put anything problematic out there,” she says on the recording. “Maybe controversial.”

“That’s your interpretation,” he replies. “There’s a state law that might interpret it different.”

Koval said she was let go, only to be called back and told to write a statement of the events. She said she told Guadagnino she wouldn’t do it without a lawyer but that he told her they could only go on the other girl’s account if she didn’t write it then and there.
I was denied my right to an attorney. I was forced to make a writer statement, but I begged them to revoke it. pic.twitter.com/izgyLANgMJ
— benny (@bendykoval) January 6, 2016
Koval said she has since been allowed to rescind this version of events and draw something up for tomorrow morning, when some sort of justice is supposed to meted out. Also, she said, concerned that she might have “filmed” the proceedings, administrators including Principal James Marcella told her the Department of Education could sue her if she had.

She said she thinks she’s been targeted “because I’m not pro-Israel.”

The response online was swift, prompting an #IStandWithBenny hashtag, and a deluge of calls and emails to the school from around the world. There was also reaction close to home. She said one boy at her school messaged her, “bitch let’s fight son.” When she got home this evening, she said the school called her mom and she overheard someone say the administration was getting calls from far and wide. Her mom walked into the other room for the rest of the call.

Koval said she is not especially concerned for her safety now that she is internet famous: “I’m just worried for my parents, really.”

Her parents, who she describes as “apolitical” are now “REALLY mad.”
Okay. My parents are really mad. REALLY mad. I have to get off Twitter for now. Thank you for your love and support. Keep fighting

Flight from Athens to Tel Aviv delayed after Jewish passengers demand pair disembark amid security fears

By Agence France-Press in Athens

Two passengers with Israeli documents left an Aegean Airlines flight after other Israelis protested about their presence, the company has said.

Israeli media identified the two as an Israeli-Arab and a Palestinian, and said the protesting passengers were Jewish. The incident occurred on Sunday night, delaying the flight from Athens to Tel Aviv by more than 90 minutes.

Aegean said: “An initially small group of passengers very vocally and persistently asked for two other Israeli passengers to be checked for security issues.”

The airline said one of the men held an Israeli passport and the other had a valid Israeli residence permit. It did not mention their ethnicity.

“While it is indeed unfortunate that they were possibly racially profiling the customers, indeed their fellow Israelis … safety must be first,” the company said.

By the time the police arrived to check the two passengers’ passports, finding nothing suspicious, the outcry had spread.

“It started with three or four people and by the end there were 60-70 people standing up, demanding that the pair disembark,” a company spokesperson said. “The pilot said anyone who does not feel safe to fly should disembark and would not be compensated. But by that stage, the two men were in a poor state and wanted to leave themselves.”

Aegean said it had offered the pair overnight stay and transport on Tuesday. They were compensated for the incident and flew to Israel on an El Al flight on Monday.

“We thank again the two Israeli passengers that agreed to disembark for their understanding and collaboration and we apologise for the whole episode which was indeed extremely unfortunate,” the airline added.

5 January 2016

By Mallika Kaur

Ignorance, regressive and regrettable as it may be, is not what’s maiming and killing us.

It doesn’t take an African American studies scholar to understand the travesty in what happened to 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland days before Thanksgiving 2014. It does not require a Sikh American expert witness to explain what’s wrong with the battery of 68-year-old Amrik Singh Balin Fresno the day after Christmas 2015. It certainly does not require a theologian to understand the immorality in gunning down parishioners, bombing a mosque, or shooting an immigrantstore clerk in the face.

The other day, a Jeep abruptly cut into my lane on a busy highway, veering in and out, the two men inside bent on having their obnoxious gestures acknowledged. As I gained composure and forgave myself for not catching their number plate, I had a moment of clarity about what we keep getting deathly wrong about hate acts: the role of ignorance.

Would you think that the men in the Jeep needed a “Know thy fellow driver” leaflet, explaining who I am, what I do, while promising peace? That I am brown—they could see. That I am a woman—was hardly lost on them, by their sexist gestures. They don’t have to know the waves of feminism from waves at a ballgame to know their actions were disrespectful. That was precisely their intention.

Yet each time there is an act of violent bigotry against a colored person rendered the ‘other,’ there is a rush to educate, explain, dispel myths, increase awareness. Each time led by the community of the victimized.

Ignorance is what I talk about in Cultural Competency trainings. Quit asking any Asian person if they love curry or complimenting any person of pigment on their ability to speak English with no accent or assuming the Latino man mowing his lawn is the hired help. Those are things we can laugh or rage over—depending on the day—and talk through, together.

Know what’s a conversation stopper?

“I don’t trust any of you. I’m going to get my AK47 and kill all of you.”A friend posted on Facebook the threat conveyed to him and his buddies on a train to Manhattan this Monday,by a woman with a young child.

It’s irrelevant whether the group of men wore turbans or not, had Sikh beards, biker beards, Muslim beards, shadow beards, or no beards. It doesn’t matter if my friend is a Harvard grad and Google employee or a cab driver. It’s not ignorance about them, or their actual privilege, that results in such acts of hate. It is the tacit understanding that such acts, if ever questioned, will be given a pass as ignorance or mistaken identity or some other misnomer, instead of being called out as bigotry or racism.

The child accompanying the woman terrorizing those subway riders in New York received a message that will take too many Awareness 101 presentations to undo. What amount of pointing to a handy globe, Asian sweets, and songs will undo the damning lesson on racism?

Could it be so simple as telling our children not to attack another regardless of what little we understand about the color of their skin, the sex of their partner, the choice of their dress, what gender-specific bathroom they prefer, which disease causes their weight gain or hair fall?

To be sure, cumulatively, ignorant acts pile up. The micro aggressions—Where are you really from?—are part of a macro system that thwarts potential. So we continue awareness-raising with the willing.

One of the many tiring obligations thrust on targeted people is to speak as one collective, with one story, preferable 140 characters or less. Awareness campaigns often lead to reductive understandings. When this understanding is shaken—as it will be—the onus again is on the community to make itself palatable.

I can’t tell you what every brown Sikh Punjabi American feminist woman lawyer believes. I can speak for myself. If you don’t happen to care about any or all of my identities, so be it. It might interest you to know though that each aspect of my identity makes each act of bigotry, against anyone, my business.

“Ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible in the past… Once we have more knowledge (light) about each other…a United front will be brought about,” said Malcolm X. To be sure, we need to continue countering ignorance. But, let’s face it: ignorance is not making murderers, something else is. Say its name.
Mallika Kaur is a lawyer & writer who focuses on gender and minority issues in the U.S. and South Asia. She has a JD from The UC Berkeley School of Law and MPP from Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

**A version of this piece appeared in the Sacramento Bee on January 6, 2015.
07 January, 2016
Countercurrents.org

 

By Eric Zuesse

No matter how bad the fundamentalist Sunni-Islamic Saud royal family are, America’s government still supports them and condemns the countries that the Sauds hate: those are the Shia-led nations of Iran and of Syria.

All jihadist terrorism is Sunni, none of it is Shia; but the U.S. government is anti-Shia, not anti-Sunni. There were no Shia involved in the 9/11 attacks, nor in the Mumbai attacks, nor in the Charlie Hebdo or other Paris attacks, nor in the London bombing, nor in any of the others. All of the terrorism that wracks Afghanistan and Pakistan is Sunni. ISIS is Sunni; Al Qaeda is Sunni. As Sunni fundamentalists, they all hate especially Shia as “infidels,” because Shia claim to be Muslims, and Sunni fundamentalists take that very claim to be not only a lie but a personal insult to themselves as ‘real’ Muslims, because they ‘know’ what a ‘real’ Muslim is — they’ve been taught it, and it’s distinctively Sunni.

But the U.S. government keeps harping instead against the Shia group Hezbollah, which is at war against Israel because of the barbaric way that Israel treats its Palestinians. But that’s not terrorism in anything like the same sense — it’s not jihadist, it’s not out for global conquest; and it certainly doesn’t threaten us. And it’s really none of America’s business to get involved with, anyway — it is Israel’s problem, entirely: and Israel flagrantly violates even the Camp David accords that the U.S. government itself brokered; and, so, for America to be involved on either side there is plain wrong — but the U.S. government donates, from its own taxpayers, over $3 billion every year to Israel, so that it’ll buy weapons from U.S. arms-makers. This give-away to the U.S. weapons-industry is supposed to be ‘humanitarian,’ and ‘foreign aid.’ It actually aids more in killing than it does in protecting; the sheer hypocrisy of that subsidy to U.S. weapons-makers is obscene. But anyway: Hezbollah is a sideshow in a discussion of terrorism, and it’s not at all jihadist. By contrast, the Saud family fund jihad. And yet the U.S. government considers them allies, if not its top allies. Something’s very wrong here.

The Sauds have impunity, at least from the U.S. government. Instead of the U.S. government being against the tyrants who rule Saudi Arabia, the U.S. government overthrows the leaders (tyrants or otherwise) who are allied with Russia — which just happens to be another country that the Sauds are at war against. Thus, the U.S. overthrew Russia-friendly Saddam Hussein in 2003, and Russia-friendly Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and Russia-friendly Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, and our government is allied with the Sauds and other top funders of terrorism, global jihadist Islam — all of whom are Sunnis — to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, because he not only is Shiite but allies with Russia, and because the Sauds hate Russia almost as much as the leadership of America do (so the U.S. is allied in this with the Sunni dictatorships: not only the Saud royals but the Qatar royals, and the Kuwait royals, and the UAE royals, and all of the Arabic-oil royal families are led by the Saudi King, the world’s wealthiest person, and the organizer of a new Saudi-run Sunni version of America’s NATO alliance against Russia).

The people who control America are lots more anti-Russian than they are anti-terrorist — and any old excuse will serve America’s leaders to ‘justify’ that priority, to the public whom they treat as their suckers, not as the people in a democracy, who are supposed to own this government (“We, the People …”), and from whom it has been stolen.

So, something’s fishy here. It’s the U.S. government, obviously, and it emits the stench of rotten fish. The U.S. government’s ulterior motives are constantly reeking. It’s the stench of our government’s constant lying-to-the-public.

Here’s the reality about our Saudi ‘friends’:

Ever since 1744, when the gang-leader Muhammad Ibn Saud and the fanatically anti-Shiite Sunni preacher Muhammad Ibn Wahhab swore their mutual oath to one-another, the Sauds have hated Shia and been set upon defeating them. That oath started what we today know as Saudi Arabia: a union of church-and-state (Saudi government with Wahhabist clerics validating that family’s authority to rule) that seeks first to exterminate all Shia Muslims, and then to organize all Muslims together into global conquest, to bring every nation under strict Sunni rule. (And anyone who resists will be beheaded and then crucified.) Wahhab hated Shia for their trying to soften the original Islam. (Wahhabism is called “Salafism” when it’s being practiced outside the Muslim Holy Land of Saudi Arabia, but its principles are the same under either name. ISIS is also the same as Saudi, except that it demands the global Islamic leader to be a descendant of the Prophet, which the Sauds are not. In this regard, ISIS poses a real threat to the Sauds. ISIS then is an enemy of the Sauds inside Saudi Arabia, but a useful fighting-oprganization for the Sauds’ objectives outside Saudi Arabia.)

The aggressor in the world isn’t Shia; it’s Sunni. And the custodians of the two holiest places in Islam — Mecca and Medina — are the extremist-Sunni Saud family, which America’s government call ‘friends.’ The Saud family won what they have by conquest: to allege they got it by either ‘capitalism’ or ‘democracy’ would be to insult both. Worse yet: it would be to lie. And they’re no ‘friends’ of America. But maybe they are our masters. Here’s how they managed to grab what they’ve got:

“Muhammad ibn Saud began by leading armies into Najdi [today’s Saudi] towns and villages to eradicate various popular and Shia practices. The movement helped to rally the towns and tribes of Najd to the Al Saud-Wahhabi standard. By 1765 Muhammad ibn Saud’s forces had established Wahhabism–and with it the Al Saud political authority.”

Furthermore:

“By marrying his son into Al-Wahhab’s tribe, Muhammad Ibn Saud broke with custom but initiated a process that led to the unification of disparate tribes under one leader. … In return for their allegiance, Muhammad Ibn Saud offered his followers the prospect of conquest. … In 1746, Imam Al-Wahhab issued a formal proclamation of jihad against all those who refused to share his vision of Unity.”

That jihad continues today, but the U.S. government joins it, instead of repudiates and condemns it. The U.S. government is instead obsessed with conquering Russia. This obsession started just while the Cold War against the Soviet Union and its communism was ending. It has dominated U.S. foreign policy ever since.

Inside Saudi Arabia, the Saud family, who financed Al Qaeda, behead some of their own jihadists in order to achieve two objectives: first, to get rid of some of the Sunni extremists who say that the Sauds aren’t sufficiently extreme or “pure”; and, second, to please American and other suckers to believe that, in America’s allying with the very same people who provide the funding to jihadists, the U.S. isn’t acting against the interests of the American people. Even a beheading can be a PR stunt, in one way or another.

And our government has been doing this since at least 1945, and especially since 1971 when the U.S. went off the gold standard and went onto the oil standard instead: oil would now be priced only in dollars.

The hypocrisy of America’s leaders is what stinks enough to make rotting fish smell like fragrance by comparison.

Why isn’t even one U.S. Presidential candidate promising to end the selling of weapons to those jihadist tyrants (the Sauds and the other Arabic oil-potentates — all of the Sunni national leaders), and to organize global economic sanctions against the Sauds and their friends the other funders of jihadism? Let those clans sell their oil and gas, but there should be an internationally coordinated arms embargo against them. Instead, the Sauds are by far the largest foreign purchasers of U.S. weapons (and, unlike Israel, they pay for all of it with their own inherited money, not with money that was donated to them by America’s taxpayers).

How else can jihadism be brought to an end in our time? Why isn’t the reality behind jihadism even being publicly discussed? Why?
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
07 January, 2016
Countercurrents.org

 

By Thomas Gaist

Saudi Arabia officially canceled a weeks-old cease-fire in its war against Yemen Saturday, ending a formal period of truce between the regime and the Houthi insurgency that began on December 15.

The regime has already launched a fresh wave of airstrikes since declaring the truce over. According to the UN Saudi jets have pounded areas throughout the country over the last three days in attacks that have already destroyed a handful of civilian targets.

Saudi forces have already attacked several targets in “densely populated civilian areas” within Yemen’s capital of Sanaa, according to UN human rights representative Rupert Coalville. The latest Saudi strikes destroyed a medical center for blind patients on Tuesday. Earlier this week airstrikes also destroyed Yemen’s chamber of commerce headquarters.

Yemen’s main population centers are currently under various degrees of military siege and blockade, including the capital Sanaa and the southern port city of Aden, as well as Taiz, a city of some 200,000.

An 8 p.m. curfew was imposed in Aden on Monday, after pro-government forces wrested control of areas of the city that had been taken over by Al Qaeda-linked militia and other militia factions.

The war against Yemen is only one of countless US-orchestrated slaughters perpetrated against the Middle East. Nonetheless, it is being waged with an especially frenzied level of criminality and recklessness. The Saudi regime and its American backers are proving in Yemen that they will use any level of military force and mass terror in defense of their power and control over the highly strategic region.

Wave after wave of Saudi-led bombing has routinely struck known civilian targets and residential areas. At least 8,100 Yemeni civilians have been killed or wounded since the beginning of the Saudi-led bombing campaign in March, according to the latest UN figures. Within days of the beginning of the Saudi air war in March Saudi attacks struck a refugee camp, a civilian market and a medical center.

The number of civilian casualties produced by Saudi air attacks continued to increase sharply throughout December in spite of the supposed truce. Amid the ceasefire and simultaneous “peace talks” in Geneva, the total number of Yemeni civilians killed more than doubled in December by comparison with November.

Saudi airstrikes are responsible for two thirds of the civilian deaths caused by the war, a UN report found in September. More than 2.5 million Yemenis have been displaced and nearly 200,000 have sought refuge in other countries since the Saudi onslaught began.

Saudi strikes have been launched in flagrant violation of international law against areas with known schools and hospitals, according to Johannes van der Klaauw, UN humanitarian official in charge of Yemen. Saudi forces have launched countless “accidental” strikes against civilian areas, wedding parties and medical facilities.

The widespread destruction of Yemen’s social and productive infrastructure has led to conditions in which the vast majority of the population struggles without secure sources of food, electricity or running water.

Within two weeks of the launch of the Saudi air war, more than 10 million Yemenis had lost all access to food, water and electricity, according to initial reports in April 2015. Some 100,000 Yemenis were displaced from their homes within the first two weeks of the Saudi war alone.

The UN food agency warned recently that Yemen as a whole is “at risk of slipping into famine.” Nearly half of Yemen’s provinces are characterized by near famine conditions, according to the World Food Program. One million Yemenis are already malnourished and Yemen’s health care infrastructure is “close to collapse,” according statements by top UN emergency relief official Kyung-wha Kang.

Some 300,000 young children (ages 1-4) are malnourished and some 7.6 million Yemenis are living in borderline starvation conditions. Human rights groups also report that many Yemeni children are showing signs of mass psychological trauma.

In the months since initial accusations of cluster bomb usage by Riyadh were advanced by Human Rights Watch in April, Saudi forces have continued to use illegal cluster munitions against civilian areas. UN investigators found dozens of shell casings from Saudi cluster weapons near villages in Yemen’s Haradh District.

The US media has maintained the maximum level of silence possible in relation to the Yemen war. A Saudi air strike which destroyed a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Yemen in late October, just weeks after US forces incinerated a large MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, passed with barely a ripple in the American press.

With the help of the corporate media, the Obama administration has worked to distance the US and NATO from the war and downplay the scale of the crimes being perpetrated by the US-backed Saudi forces.

In reality, the Saudi monarchy has received a blank check from Washington to wage war in Yemen. The US government and military have played a central role in the war, providing close support for the Saudi air campaign, including logistics, weapons, intelligence and target selection. The US has carried out thousands of mid-air refuels of Saudi coalition planes, and has been running joint military operation centers in Saudi territory to streamline the assault.

In November, President Obama signed an authorization green lighting an additional purchase of $1.3 billion worth of US weapons by the Saudi regime.

The Saudi royals have enthusiastically seized on the open-ended US backing for their campaign to place their military apparatus on a total war footing and assemble an “Islamic war coalition” in preparation for confrontation against Iran and Iranian forces and interests throughout the Middle East.

Official Saudi budget estimates for 2016 allocate nearly $215 billion to “military sectors.” The regime plans to double the size of its military by 2020, building up its combat-ready force to over 500,000 soldiers and spending some $150 billion on an array of new advanced weapons systems, according to figures cited by the Daily Telegraph’s Con Coughlin.

Just days prior to the December 15 ceasefire, Saudi Arabia announced the formation of the Islamic Military Alliance, which includes Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Nigeria, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi war against Yemen is being waged by a coalition of states that closely overlaps with the roster of the IMA coalition, which is widely understood among regional analysts to be essentially an anti-Iranian alliance.

The renewed Saudi offensive against will include forces from the Kuwaiti military, reports last week revealed. On Tuesday, the Kuwaiti regime announced that it will suspend diplomatic ties with Iran, joining Bahrain, UAE and Qatar in issuing punitive measures against Tehran and signaling their alignment with the Saudi monarchy.

06 January, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Jon Schwarz

It’s hard for some Americans to understand why the Obama administration is so determined to come to an agreement with Iran on its nuclear capability, given that huge Iranian rallies are constantly chanting “Death to America!” I know the chanting makes me unhappy, since I’m part of America, and I strongly oppose me dying.

But if you know our actual history with Iran, you can kind of see where they’re coming from. They have understandable reasons to be angry at and frightened of us — things we’ve done that if, say, Norway had done them to us, would have us out in the streets shouting “Death to Norway!” Unfortunately, not only have the U.S. and our allies done horrendous things to Iran, we’re not even polite enough to remember it.

Reminding ourselves of this history does not mean endorsing an Iran with nuclear-tipped ICBMs. It does mean realizing how absurd it sounds when critics of the proposed agreement say it suddenly makes the U.S. the weaker party or that we’re getting a bad deal because Iran, as Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham put it, does not fear Obama enough. It’s exactly the opposite: This is the best agreement the U.S. could get because for the first time in 35 years, U.S.-Iranian relations aren’t being driven purely by fear.

1. The founder of Reuters purchased Iran in 1872

Nasir al-Din Shah, Shah of Iran from 1848-1896, sold Baron Julius de Reuter the right to operate all of Iran’s railroads and canals, most of the mines, all of the government’s forests, and all future industries. The famous British statesman Lord Curzon called it “the most complete and extraordinary surrender of the entire industrial resources of a kingdom into foreign hands that has probably ever been dreamed of.” Iranians were so infuriated that the Shah had to rescind the sale the next year.
2. The BBC lent a hand to the CIA’s 1953 overthrow of Iran’s Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh

This is a 1950 photo of Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and a one-time high Central Intelligence Agency official. (AP Photo) Kermit Roosevelt (AP) ASSOCIATED PRESSIf the Reuters thing weren’t enough to give Iranians a grudge against the Western media, the BBC transmitted a secret code to help Kermit Roosevelt (Teddy’s grandson) lay the groundwork for an American and British coup against Mosaddegh. (BBC Persian also assisted by broadcasting pro-coup propaganda on the orders of the British government.) Soon enough the U.S. was training the regime’s secret police in how to interrogate Iranians with methods a CIA analyst said were “based on German torture techniques from World War II.”

3. We had extensive plans to use nuclear weapons in Iran

In 1980 the U.S. military was terrified the Soviet Union would take advantage of the Iranian Revolution to invade Iran and seize the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. So the Pentagon came up with a plan: If the Soviets began massing their troops, we would use small nuclear weapons to destroy the mountain passes in northern Iran the Soviets needed to move their troops into the country.

So we wouldn’t be using nukes on Iran, just in Iran. As Pentagon historian David Crist put it, “No one reflected on how the Iranians might view such a scenario.” But they probably would have been fine with it, just as we’d be fine with Iran nuking Minnesota to prevent Canada from gaining control of the Gulf of Mexico. “No problem,” we’d say. “Nuestra casa es su casa.”

4. We were cool with Saudi Arabia giving Saddam $5 billion to build nukes during the Iran-Iraq war

You probably know that, after Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, Iraq went all out (with our help) trying to make biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, and actually used chemical weapons on Iranian soldiers. What you probably don’t know is that Saudi Arabia was funding Saddam’s nuclear program with billions of dollars, and the Reagan administration knew all about it and didn’t care.

To understand how this looks to Iran, remember that at least 0.75% of Iran’s total population died during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, the per capita equivalent today of 2.4 million Americans. For comparison’s sake, we still constantly talk about World War II — in which 400,000 Americans died, then 0.3% of our population — 70 years later.

5. U.S. leaders have repeatedly threatened to outright destroy Iran
It’s not just John McCain singing “bomb bomb bomb Iran.” Admiral William Fallon, who retired as head of CENTCOM in 2008, said about Iran: “These guys are ants. When the time comes, you crush them.” Admiral James Lyons Jr., commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in the 1980s, has said we were prepared to “drill them back to the fourth century.” Richard Armitage, then assistant secretary of defense, explained that we considered whether to “completely obliterate Iran.” Billionaire and GOP kingmaker Sheldon Adelson advocates an unprovoked nuclear attack on Iran — “in the middle of the desert” at first, then possibly moving on to places with more people.

Most seriously, the Obama administration’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review declared that we will not use nuclear weapons “against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.” There’s only one non-nuclear country that’s plausibly not in this category. So we were saying we will never use nuclear weapons against any country that doesn’t have them already — with a single exception, Iran. Understandably, Iran found having a nuclear target painted on it pretty upsetting.

6. We shot down a civilian Iranian airliner — killing 290 people, including 66 children

(TEH-4) Funeral for Airbus victims – Seventy-six coffins containing the remains of some of the 290 victims of the Iran Air passenger plane which was shot down Sunday in the Persian Gulf by the USS Vincennes are arrange in a line in front of the Iranian parliament prior to a funeral procession in Theran Thursday, according to the official Iranian news agency which released this photo. (AP-Photo/IRNA) 7.7.1988 Funeral for victims of downing of Flight 655. (AP)
On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes, patrolling in the Persian Gulf, blew Iran Air Flight 655 out of the sky. The New York Times had editorialized about “Murder in the Air” in 1983 when the Soviet Union mistakenly shot down a South Korean civilian airliner in its airspace, declaring, “there is no conceivable excuse for any nation shooting down a harmless airliner.” After the Vincennes missile strike, a Times editorial announced that what happened to Flight 655 “raises stern questions for Iran.” That’s right — for Iran. Two years later the U.S. Navy gave the Vincennes’s commander the highly prestigious Legion of Merit commendation.

7. We worry about Iranian nukes because they would deter our own military strikes

Our rhetoric on Iran seems nonsensical: Do U.S. leaders actually believe Iran would engage in a first nuclear strike on Israel or the U.S., given that would lead to a quick and devastating retaliation from those well-armed nuclear powers?

Even conservative U.S. foreign policy experts know that’s incredibly unlikely. They’re not worried that we can’t deter a nuclear-armed Iran — they’re worried that a nuclear-armed Iran could deter us. As Thomas Donnelly, a top Iran analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, put it in 2004, “the prospect of a nuclear Iran is a nightmare … because of the constraining effect it threatens to impose upon U.S. strategy for the greater Middle East. … The surest deterrent to American action is a functioning nuclear arsenal.”

This perspective — that we must prevent other countries from being able to deter us from waging war — is a bedrock belief of the U.S. establishment, and in fact was touted as a major reason to invade Iraq.

Before joining First Look, Jon Schwarz worked for Michael Moore’s Dog Eat Dog Films and was Research Producer for Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story. He’s contributed to many publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones and Slate, as well as NPR and “Saturday Night Live.” In 2003 he collected on a $1,000 bet that Iraq would have no weapons of mass destruction.

8 April 2015

By Dan Glazebrook

In 1999, NATO bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days, culminating in the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from the Serbian province of Kosovo. Tens of thousands were killed or maimed by the airstrikes, and Kosovo was carved out as a NATO statelet under the control of UNMIK (the United Nations Mission in Kosovo) in alliance with its local quislings the Kosovo Liberation Army (the KLA). Last month’s parliamentary debate on British airstrikes in Syria witnessed several MPs citing the operation as a great success. Labour MP Ivan Lewis was “proud of the difficult choices that we made” in Kosovo and elsewhere, which he claimed “saved hundreds of thousands of lives”. Kosovo was particularly held up by those supportingBritish military action in Syria as an example of how airstrikes alone, without support from ground forces, can be victorious. Mocking those who argued that “coalition action which rests almost wholly on bombing…will have little effect”, Margaret Beckett responded“well, tell that to the Kosovans, and do not forget that if there had not been any bombing in Kosovo perhaps 1 million Albanian Muslim refugees would be seeking refuge in Europe.” Conservative MP Richard Benyon concurred, adding: “I asked one my constituents––someone who knows a bit about this, General Sir Mike Jackson––whether he could remember any conflict where air power alone made a difference. He thought and said one word: Kosovo.”

The argument is entirely fallacious. One obvious difference between the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999 and the British bombing of Syria today is the contrast in their statedaims. NATO were ostensibly bombing Yugoslavia to achieve a limited goal – the secession of Kosovo. In Syria today, however, the ostensible aim of airstrikes against ISIS is the destruction of ISIS. In other words, whilst the first aimed to force a concession from the force it was targeting; the other apparently aims at the total elimination of its target. Whilst enough punishment might persuade someone to concede a demand, it will not persuade anyone to agree to their own eradication. There is, thus, no parallel in the logic behind the two campaigns, and anyone trying to draw one is being entirely disingenuous.

Secondly, when the actual historical record is examined, it becomes clear that, even on its own terms, NATO did not actually achieve its demands. The Rambouillet ‘agreement’ was NATO’s eleventh hour diktat to Yugoslavia on the eve of bombing, designed to be rejected in order to justify the bombing raids. The key bone of contention for Yugoslavia in this document was that it demanded NATO troops be granted full access to air fields, roads, ports and railroads across the country – that is to say, an effective NATO occupation of the entire federal republic. Obviously, as Sara Flounders and John Catalinotto of the International Action Centre have written, “no self-respecting government could accept such an ultimatum”. Instead, the Yugoslav government offered to withdraw their troops from Kosovo. This was rejected by NATO, who began bombing within days. After nearly three months of heroic resistance from the Yugoslav people, the bombing ended with Yugoslav troops withdrawing from Kosovo -without any NATO occupation of the rest of the country. That is to say, the war was brought to a close on the terms originally offered by the Yugoslavs, and not on the terms demanded by NATO at the outset: hardly the overwhelming victory claimed by the likes of Mike Jackson.

What really gives the lie to the ‘Kosovo success’ narrative, however, is simply the condition of NATO’s statelet today. An in-depth piece by VedatXhymshiti in Foreign Policy Journal last month notes that “Kosovo is the poorest and most isolated country in Europe, with millionaire politicians steeped in crime. A third of the workforce is unemployed, and corruption is widespread. Youth unemployment (those aged 25 and under) stands at 2 in 3, and nearly half of the 1.8 million citizens of Kosovo are considered to be in poverty. From December 2014 until February 2015, about 5% of the population was forced to leave the country in an effort to find a better life, studies and more dignified jobs, on their uncertain path towards wealthier countries in the EU.”

The British MPs’ argument that NATO’s takeover of Kosovo was achieved by airstrikes alone, without ground forces, is a lie. NATO’sallies in 1999 were the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army), a violent sectarian group who openly sought the establishment of an ethnically supremacist state – much like the forces supported by NATO in Libya, Syria and Ukraine. Once NATO had destroyed the Yugoslav administration in Kosovo, effective power on the ground passed to the KLA, who set about implementing their vision of an ethnically pure Kosovo via a series of pogroms, massacres and persecutions of the province’s Serb, Jewish and Roma populations. They gained effective control of Kosovan politics, and used this power to guarantee themselves impunity both for their historic and ongoing war crimes, and for their massive expansion of organised criminality.

In December 2010, a Council of Europe report named Kosovan Prime Minister and former KLA leader HashimThaci“the head of a “mafia-like” Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe”, according the Guardian newspaper’s summary. Following NATO’s intervention, Thaci’sDrenica group within the KLA, according to the report, seized control of “most of the illicit criminal enterprises” in which Kosovans were involved in Albania. The report noted that “agencies dedicated to combating drug smuggling in at least five countries have named HashimThaçi and other members of his Drenica group as having exerted violent control over the trade in heroin and other narcotics.” The human rights investigator who authored the report, Dick Marty, commented that: “Thaçi and these other Drenica group members are consistently named as ‘key players’ in intelligence reports on Kosovo’s mafia-like structures of organised crime.” In addition to their leading role in Europe’s heroin smuggling trade, Thaci and his group were also named as having been responsible for a professional organ smuggling operation involving the kidnapping and murder of Serb civilians in order to harvest and sell their kidneys. Currently serving as both Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Thaci’s NATO protection guarantees he has never been brought to justice for any of these crimes.

Indeed, NATO-sponsored impunity has been a consistent theme amongst the new Kosovan elite. A report by Amnesty International published in August 2013 noted that “the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) singularly failed to investigate the abduction and murders of Kosovo Serbs in the aftermath of the 1998-1999 conflict” adding that “UNMIK’s failure to investigate what constituted a widespread, as well as a systematic, attack on a civilian population and, potentially, crimes against humanity, has contributed to the climate of impunity prevailing in Kosovo.” Marty’s report, too, noted the “faltering political will on the part of the international community to effectively prosecute the former leaders of the KLA”, and Carla del Ponte, former chief war crimes prosecutor at the Hague, stated that she was barred from prosecuting KLA leaders.

UNMIK’s responsibilities for police and justice came to an end in December 2008, following Kosovo’s controversial declaration of independence. It was replaced by the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), which, according to Amnesty International, inherited 1,187 war crimes cases that UNMIK had failed to investigate. All the signs are that the overt impunity that has prevailed up until now will be replaced by lip service to the rule of law, accompanied by the prosecution of a few low level operatives, whilst maintaining the protection for those at the top. Following the Council of Europe’s damning report, EULEX spent three years investigating the claims, eventually publishing a verdict that was a textbook case of damage-limitation whitewash. EULEX concluded that the crimes were indeed real, and were linked to leading KLA members, but refused to corroborate the names of any specific individuals involved, despite copious evidence. Thaci’s protection, it seems, is absolute.

Nevertheless, in August of this year, the Kosovan parliament finally and grudgingly approved (after initially rejecting) the establishment of a special war crimes court to prosecute KLA leaders for crimes committed between 1998 and 2000. In moves highly reminiscent of scenes outside both the Libyan and Ukrainian parliaments when tentative and tokenistic legal moves were made to end the impunity of the sectarian death squads, the parliament has come under repeated attack ever since. Riots and six separate teargas attacks by the opposition have brought the normal functioning of the Kosovan parliament to a standstill. Failed state status surely beckons.

Meanwhile, the credibility of EULEX, whose officials will be overseeing the establishment of the new court, was further thrown into doubt in November 2014 when Andrea Capussela, former head of UNMIK’s economic unit, released the results of an in-depth analysis of the most significant cases in which EULEX had been involved. Seven of these she claimed had only been brought after intense international pressure, whilst in a further eight, no investigation was carried out at all, despite “credible and well-documented evidence strongly suggesting that serious crimes had been committed.” She noted that “Eulex’s conduct in these 15 cases – the eight ignored ones and the seven opened under pressure – suggests that the mission tended not to prosecute high-level crime, and, when it had to, it sought not to indict or convict prominent figures”. During its six years of operating, she noted, only four convictions had been secured – three of them against only secondary figures, whilst “higher-ranking figures linked to the same crimes were either not investigated or indicted”. A senior Kosovan investigator noted that “There are people killing people and getting away with it because of Unmik and Eulex,” adding that “The political elite and Eulex have fused. They are indivisible. The laws are just for poor people,” Indeed, Eulex seem to be operating increasingly like a mafia themselves, last year, putting “pressure”,according to Amnesty International, on “journalist, VehbiKajtazi, who had reported alleged corruption in EULEX”.

In a final twist to NATO’s ‘success story’, Kosovo has now become the largest per-capita provider of fighters for regime change in Syria. The official figure is 300 but more reliable estimates suggests the true figure is more than 1000 (from a population of 2 million), including one of the top ten ISIS commanders, LavdrimMuhaxheri. As state education, along with most other social provision, has collapsed since 1999, Saudi-sponsored Madrasas have filled the gap, providing an extreme Wahhabi sectarian education now feeding its first generation of impoverished graduates into NATO’s new Syrian battlefields. No surprise, then, that Kosovan government’s efforts to prevent this have been “superficial and ineffective”, according to David Philips in the Huffington Post.

The ‘lesson’ of Kosovo, then, is not that “airpower works” or any other such nonsense. The real lesson is what it reveals about NATO’s formula for the destruction of independent regional powers – relying on a combination of aerial bombardment alongside the empowerment of local sectarian death squads, who come to dominate the political scene in the aftermath, obliterating the rule of law and guaranteeing a dysfunctional state incapable of providing either dignity or security to its citizens. This was the same formula that was used on Libya in 2011 and currently being attempted in Syria today. Of course, for NATO, all of this is indeed a success: Yugoslavia dismembered; its resources plundered at the expense of its desperate and impoverished people; and Kosovo turned into a provider of shock troops for regime change in Syria, and transit hub for heroin and organ trafficking. If this is what NATO calls a success, we must all pray for failure.

Dan Glazebrook is author of Divide and Ruin: The West’s Imperial Strategy in an Age of Crisis

This article was originally published on RT.com

05 January, 2016
Countercurrents.org