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By Pepe Escobar

In his seminal ‘Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization,’ Bryan Ward-Perkins writes, “Romans before the fall were as certain as we are today that their world would continue forever… They were wrong. We would be wise not to repeat their complacency.”

The Empire of Chaos, today, is not about complacency. It’s about hubris – and fear. Ever since the start of the Cold War the crucial question has been who would control the great trading networks of Eurasia – or the“heartland”, according to Sir Halford John Mackinder (1861–1947), the father of geopolitics.
We could say that for the Empire of Chaos, the game really started with the CIA-backed coup in Iran in 1953, when the US finally encountered, face to face, that famed Eurasia crisscrossed for centuries by the Silk Road(s), and set out to conquer them all.

Only six decades later, it’s clear there won’t be an American Silk Road in the 21st century, but rather, just like its ancient predecessor, a Chinese one. Beijing’s push for what it calls “One Belt, One Road” is inbuilt in the 21st century conflict between the declining empire and Eurasia integration. Key subplots include perennial NATO expansion and the empire’s obsession in creating a war zone out of the South China Sea.

As the Beijing-Moscow strategic partnership analyses it, the oligarchic elites who really run the Empire of Chaos are bent on the encirclement of Eurasia – considering they may be largely excluded from an integration process based on trade, commerce and advanced communication links.

Beijing and Moscow clearly identify provocation after provocation, coupled with relentless demonization. But they won’t be trapped, as they’re both playing a very long game.

Russian President Vladimir Putin diplomatically insists on treating the West as “partners”. But he knows, and those in the know in China also know, these are not really “partners”. Not after NATO’s 78-day bombing of Belgrade in 1999. Not after the purposeful bombing of the Chinese Embassy. Not after non-stop NATO expansionism. Not after a second Kosovo in the form of an illegal coup in Kiev. Not after the crashing of the oil price by Gulf petrodollar US clients. Not after the Wall Street-engineered crashing of the ruble. Not after US and EU sanctions. Not after the smashing of Chinese A shares by US proxies on Wall Street. Not after non-stop saber rattling in the South China Sea. Not after the shooting down of the Su-24.

It’s only a thread away
A quick rewind to the run-up towards the downing of the Su-24 is enlightening. Obama met Putin. Immediately afterwards Putin met Khamenei. Sultan Erdogan had to be alarmed; a serious Russian-Iranian alliance was graphically announced in Teheran. That was only a day before the downing of the Su-24.

France’s Hollande met Obama. But then Hollande met Putin. Erdogan was under the illusion he fabricated the perfect pretext for a NATO war, to be launched following Article 5 of the NATO Charter. Not by accident failed state Ukraine was the only country to endorse – in haste – the downing of the Su-24. Yet NATO itself recoiled – somewhat in horror; the empire was not ready for nuclear war.

At least not yet. Napoleon knew history turns on a slender thread. As much as Cold War 2.0 remains in effect we were, and will remain, just a thread away from nuclear war.

Whatever happens in the so-called Syrian peace process the proxy war between Washington and Moscow will continue. Hubristic US Think-Tank Land can’t see it any other way.

For Exceptionalist neocons and neoliberalcons alike, the only digestible endgame is a partition of Syria. The Erdogan system would gobble up the north. Israel would gobble up the oil-rich Golan Heights. And House of Saud proxies would gobble up the eastern desert.

Russia literally bombed all these elaborate plans to ashes because the next step after partition would feature Ankara, Riyadh – and a “leading from behind” Washington – pushing a Jihadi Highway all the way north to the Caucasus as well as Central Asia and Xinjiang (there are already at least 300 Uyghurs fighting for ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.) When all else fails, nothing like a Jihadi Highway plunged as a dagger in the body of Eurasia integration.

In the Chinese front, whatever “creative” provocations the Empire of Chaos may come up with, they won’t derail Beijing’s aims in the South China Sea – that vast basin crammed with unexplored oil and gas wealth and prime naval highway to and from China. Beijing is inevitably configuring itself by 2020 as a formidable haiyang qiangguo – a naval power.

Washington may supply $250 million in military “aid” to Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia for the next two years, but that’s mostly irrelevant. Whatever “creative” imperial ideas would have to take into account, for instance, the DF-21D “carrier killer” ballistic missile, with a 2,500 km range and capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

On the economic front, Washington-Beijing will remain prime proxy war territory. Washington pushes the TPP – or NATO on trade pivoting to Asia? It’s still a Sisyphean task, because the 12 member nations need to ratify it, not least the US featuring an extremely hostile Congress.

Against this American one-trick pony, Xi Jinping, for his part, is deploying a complex three-pronged strategy; China’s own counterpunch to the TPP, the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP); the immensely ambitious “One Belt, One Road”; and the means to finance a tsunami of projects, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – the Chinese counter-punch to the World Bank and the US-Japan-controlled Asian Development Bank (ADB).

For Southeast Asia, for instance, the numbers tell the story. Last year, China was the top ASEAN partner, to the tune of $367 billion. This will grow exponentially with One Belt, One Road – which will absorb $200 billion in Chinese investment up to 2018.

Heart of Darkness – revisited
Prospects for Europe are nothing but bleak. French-Iranian researcher Farhad Khosrokhavar has been one of the few who identified the crux of the problem. A jihadi reserve army across Europe will continue to feed on batallions of excluded youth in poor inner cities. There is no evidence EU neoliberalcons will be fostering sound socio-economic policies to extract these alienated masses from the ghettos, employing new forms of socialization.

So the escape route will continue to be a virus-like version of Salafi-jihadism, sold by wily, PR-savvy profiteers as a symbol of resistance; the only counter-ideology available on the market. Khosrokhavar defined it as the neo-umma – an “effervescent community that never existed historically”, but now openly inviting any young European, Muslim or otherwise, afflicted by an identity crisis.

In parallel, on our way into a full 15 years of the endless neocon war against independent states in the Middle East, the Pentagon will be turbo-charging an unlimited expansion of some of its existing bases – from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa to Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan – into “hubs”.

From sub-Saharan Africa to Southwest Asia, expect a hub boom, all of them merrily hosting Special Forces; the operation was described by Pentagon supremo Ash “Empire of Whining” Carter as “essential”; “Because we cannot predict the future, these regional nodes – from Moron, Spain to Jalalabad, Afghanistan – will provide forward presence to respond to a range of crises, terrorist and other kinds. These will enable unilateral crisis response, counter-terror operations, or strikes on high-value targets.”

It’s all here: unilateral Exceptionalistan in action against anyone who dares to defy imperial diktats.

From Ukraine to Syria, and all across MENA (Middle East and North Africa), the proxy war between Washington and Moscow, with higher and higher stakes, won’t abate. Imperial despair over the irreversible Chinese ascent also won’t abate. As the New Great Game picks up speed, and Russia supplies Eurasian powers Iran, China and India with missile defense systems beyond anything the West has, get used to the new normal; Cold War 2.0 between Washington and Beijing-Moscow.

I leave you with Joseph Conrad, writing in Heart of Darkness: “There is a taint of death, a flavor or mortality in lies….To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe….We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember, because we were traveling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign – and no memories…”

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

25 December 2015

www.rt.com

 

By Ramzy Baroud

When I was a little boy, I used to dream of being reborn outside the hardship of the Refugee Camp in Gaza, in some other time and place where there were no soldiers, no military occupation, no concentration camps and no daily grind – where my father fought for our very survival, and my mother toiled to balance out the humiliation of life with her enduring love.

When I grew older, and revisited my childhood fantasies, I came to quite a different conclusion: if I had to, I would do it all over again, I would not alter my past, however trying, in any way. I would embrace every moment, relive every tear, every loss, and cherish every triumph, however small.

When we are young, they often fail to tell us that we should not fear pain and dread hardship; that nothing can be as rewarding to the growth of one’s identity, sense of purpose in life and the liberation of the human spirit than the struggle against injustice. True, one should never internalize servitude or wear victimhood as if a badge; for the mere act of resisting poverty, war and injustice of any kind is the first and most essential criterion to prepare one for a more meaningful existence, and a better life.

I say this because I understand what many of you must be going through. My generation of refugee camp dwellers experienced this in the most violent manifestation you can ever imagine. These are difficult and challenging years for most of humanity, but all the more for you, young Muslims, in particular. Between the racism of American and European politicians and parties, the anti-Muslim sentiment sweeping much of the world, propagated by selfish individuals with sinister agendas, playing on people fears and ignorance, and the violence and counter-violence meted out by groups that refer to themselves as ‘Muslims’, you find yourself trapped, confined in a prison of stereotypes, media hate speech and violence; targeted, labeled and, undeservedly, feared.

Most of you were born into, or grew up in that social and political confinement and remember no particular time in your past when life was relatively normal, when you were not the convenient scapegoat to much of what has gone wrong in the world. In fact, wittingly or otherwise, your characters were shaped by this prejudiced reality, where you subsist between bouts of anger at your mistreatment, and desperate attempts at defending yourself, fending for your family, and standing up for your community, for your culture and for your religion.

Most importantly, you continue to struggle, on a daily basis, to develop a sense of belonging, citizenship in societies where you often find yourself rejected and excluded. They demand your ‘assimilation’, yet push you away whenever you draw nearer. It is seemingly an impossible task, I know.

And, it seems that, no matter what you do, you are yet to make a dent in the unfair misrepresentation of who you are and the noble values for which your religion stands. Their racism seems to be growing, and all the arrows of their hatred persistently point at Islam, despite your passionate attempts to convince them otherwise.

In fact, you hardly understand why Islam is, indeed, part of this discussion in the first place. Islam never invited the US to go to war in the Middle East, to tamper with your civilizations and to torment fellow Muslims in other parts of the globe.

Islam was never consulted when Guantanamo was erected to serve as a gulag outside the norms of human rights and international law.

Islam is hardly a topic of discussion as warring parties, with entirely self-interested political agendas, are fighting over the future of Syria or Iraq or Libya or Yemen or Afghanistan, and so on.

Islam was not the problem when Palestine was overrun by Zionist militias, with the help of the British and, later, the Americans, turning the Holy Land into a battlefield for most of the last century. The repercussions of that act has sealed the region’s fate from relative peace into a repugnant and perpetual war and conflict.

The same logic can be applied to everything else that went awry, and you have often wondered that yourself. Islam did not invent colonialism and imperialism, but inspired Asians, Africans and Arabs to fight this crushing evil. Islam did not usher in the age of mass slavery, although millions of American and European slaves were, themselves, Muslim.

You try to tell them all of this, and you insist that the likes of vicious groups like ISIS are not a product of Islam but a by-product of violence, greed and foreign interventions. But they do not listen, countering with selective verses from your Holy Book that were meant for specific historical contexts and circumstances. You even share such verses from the Quran with all of your social media followers: “…if any one killed a person, it would be as if he killed the whole of mankind; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole of mankind…” (Chapter 5; Verse 32), hoping to elicit some understanding of the sanctity of human life according to your religion, but a fundamental change in attitude is yet to come.

So you despair, at least some of you do. Some of those who live in western countries cease to share with others the fact that they are Muslim, avoiding any discussion that may result in their being ostracized from increasingly intolerant societies. Some of those who live in Muslim majority countries, sadly, counter hate with hate of their own. Either way, they teeter between hate and self-hate, fear and self-pity, imposed apathy, rage and self-loathing. With time, a sense of belonging has been impossible to achieve and, like me when I was younger, perhaps you wonder what it would have been like if you lived in some other time, in some other place.

But, amid all of this, it is vital that we remember that the burdens of life can offer the best lessons in personal and collective growth.

You must understand that there is yet to exist a group of people that was spared the collective trials of history: that did not suffer persecution, racism, seemingly perpetual war, ethnic cleansing and all the evils that Muslims are contending with right now, from Syria to Palestine to Donald Trump’s America. This does not make it ‘okay’ but it is an important reminder that your hardship is not unique among nations. It just so happens that this could be the time for you to learn some of life’s most valuable lessons.

To surmount this hardship, you must first be decidedly clear on who you are; you must take pride in your values; in your identity; you must never cease to fight hate with love, to reach out, to educate, to belong. Because if you don’t, then racism wins, and you lose this unparalleled opportunity at individual and collective growth.

Sometimes I pity those who are born into privilege: although they have access to money and material opportunities, they can rarely appreciate the kind of experiences that only want and suffering can offer. Nothing even comes close to wisdom born out of pain.

And if you ever weaken, try to remember: God “does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear.” (Chapter 2; Verse 286).

Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include ‘Searching Jenin’, ‘The Second Palestinian Intifada’ and his latest ‘My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story’. His website is: www.ramzybaroud.net.

31 December, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Farooque Chowdhury

Intervention in Syria once again exposes the Empire. Not only its imperialist policy is exposed; its inner contradictions and limitations are also revealed. As an extra output, once again, the Empire’s trustworthiness is going to be questioned by its allies, and by the broader society. Exposure by Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has done the job.

Seymour Hersh writes in London Review of Books: the US president Barack Obama’s administration, in particular the CIA, has knowingly armed militant Islamists in Syria including the Islamic State. Citing a document and a former senior adviser to the US Joint Chiefs the report “Military to Military” (LRB, vol. 38, number 1, January 7, 2016) by Seymour Hersh says: “[W]hat was started as a covert US program to arm and support the moderate rebels fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, and had morphed into an across-the-board technical, arms and logistical program for all of the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State. The so-called moderates had evaporated and the Free Syrian Army was a rump group stationed at an airbase in Turkey. […T]here was no viable ‘moderate’ opposition to Assad, and the US was arming extremists.”

The journalist famous for his report on the My Lai Massacre by the US armed forces during the Vietnam War writes:

“Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The jihadists, he said, were in control of the opposition. Turkey wasn’t doing enough to stop the smuggling of foreign fighters and weapons across the border. ‘If the American public saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic,’ Flynn told me. ‘We understood ISIS’s long-term strategy and its campaign plans, and we also discussed the fact that Turkey was looking the other way when it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria.’ The DIA’s reporting, he said, ‘got enormous pushback’ from the Obama administration. ‘I felt that they did not want to hear the truth.’”

The report says:

“‘Our policy of arming the opposition to Assad was unsuccessful and actually having a negative impact,’ the former JCS adviser said. ‘The Joint Chiefs believed that Assad should not be replaced by fundamentalists. The administration’s policy was contradictory. They wanted Assad to go but the opposition was dominated by extremists. So who was going to replace him? To say Assad’s got to go is fine, but if you follow that through – therefore anyone is better. It’s the “anybody else is better” issue that the JCS had with Obama’s policy.’ The Joint Chiefs felt that a direct challenge to Obama’s policy would have ‘had a zero chance of success’. So in the autumn of 2013 they decided to take steps against the extremists without going through political channels, by providing US intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army and used against the common enemy, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.”

Hence, the Empire’s policy options/limitations, ways/limitations in executing policy or strategy or tactics, inner-contradictions, contradictions between geopolitical aim and leverage with allies, and similar aspects, all of which are critical issues for consideration, come to light. The level of democracy, scope for expressing dissent within the machine is a question as “[t]he Joint Chiefs felt that a direct challenge to Obama’s policy would have ‘had a zero chance of success’”, and one reaction to the prevailing environment is also clear as US intelligence is provided “to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army”, which is considered as enemy by the forces backed by the US and a few its allies.

The report presents further bitter facts as it says:

“American intelligence had accumulated intercept and human intelligence demonstrating that the Erdogan government had been supporting Jabhat al-Nusra for years, and was now doing the same for Islamic State.”

The US finds its limit with one of its allies – Turkey – and is forced to live with the reality. It claims of fighting back the IS, but can’t/doesn’t control its ally that aids the IS. The reality of duality not only exposes the Empire, but undercuts its political position also. Moreover, it finds its other allies are distanced, which is revealed in the following incident cited in the report:

“Obama defended Turkey’s right to defend its borders; Hollande said it was ‘a matter of urgency’ for Turkey to take action against terrorists.… The JCS adviser told me that one of Hollande’s main goals in flying to Washington had been to try to persuade Obama to join the EU in a mutual declaration of war against Islamic State. Obama said no. The Europeans had pointedly not gone to NATO, to which Turkey belongs, for such a declaration. ‘Turkey is the problem,’ the JCS adviser said.”

The European approach that was reflected through Hollande touches broader area – NATO – having implication in other areas. The Libya-intervention found strong NATO-unity while it’s absent in the latter case.

An official from the US tells Seymour Hersh: “‘Turkey can disrupt the balance [in the Middle East] – which is Erdogan’s dream. We told him we wanted him to shut down the pipeline of foreign jihadists flowing into Turkey. But he is dreaming big – of restoring the Ottoman Empire – and he did not realize the extent to which he could be successful in this.’”

Despite the assessment by a section in the Empire the main policy thrust remains unchanged. “The Joint Chiefs and the DIA”, the LRB report says, “were constantly telling Washington’s leadership of the jihadist threat in Syria, and of Turkey’s support for it. The message was never listened to.” The report raises the question for not listening to the message: “Why not?” The question may appear as a riddle, but relations in interest in the Empire provide the answer. There’s a deeply divided Congress on the issue of aggression.

The Turkey conduit is quite old. The report by Seymour Hersh describes the following:

The CIA sponsored secret flow of arms from Libya to the Syrian opposition via Turkey, which went on for more than a year. The arms supply began after Gaddafi’s murder. The operation was run out of a covert CIA annex in Benghazi, with State Department acquiescence. Al-Marfa Shipping and Maritime Services, a Tripoli-based company, was handling the weapons shipments. Many in the US intelligence community were aware that the Syrian opposition was dominated by extremists; and the CIA-sponsored weapons kept going there.

The reality complicates further as the involvement of the ally expands. The report cites a Washington foreign affairs analyst who has closely followed the passage of jihadists through Turkey and into Syria. Views of the analyst are routinely sought by US senior government officials. The analyst told “Erdogan has been bringing Uighurs into Syria by special transport while his government has been agitating in favor of their struggle in China. Uighur and Burmese Muslim terrorists who escape into Thailand somehow get Turkish passports and are then flown to Turkey for transit into Syria.” The conflict-reality widens as it pulls China into the conflict-scene. In real term, it narrows down the Empire’s scope for maneuver. With China’s investment and future plans for investment in Pakistan, the Turkey-ally has to follow China. Europe is not now in a position to get into conflict with China. Reports from the economic frontier indicate this.

Dissent is there in the Empire’s vital instrument. “Barack Obama’s repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office”, says the LRB report, “and that there are ‘moderate’ rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him – has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.” “General Dempsey and his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff”, said the report, “kept their dissent out of bureaucratic channels, and survived in office. General Michael Flynn did not. ‘Flynn incurred the wrath of the White House by insisting on telling the truth about Syria,’ said Patrick Lang, a retired army colonel who served for nearly a decade as the chief Middle East civilian intelligence officer for the DIA. ‘He thought truth was the best thing and they shoved him out. He wouldn’t shut up.’ Flynn told me his problems went beyond Syria. ‘I was shaking things up at the DIA – and not just moving deckchairs on the Titanic. It was radical reform. I felt that the civilian leadership did not want to hear the truth. I suffered for it, but I’m OK with that.’” For the Empire, the problem is deeper, not just Syria or Turkey. However, the immediate output was its Syria intervention as the LRB report cites the following incident:

“‘There was no way to stop the arms shipments that had been authorized by the president,’ the JCS adviser said. ‘The solution involved an appeal to the pocketbook. The CIA was approached by a representative from the Joint Chiefs with a suggestion: there were far less costly weapons available in Turkish arsenals that could reach the Syrian rebels within days, and without a boat ride.’ But it wasn’t only the CIA that benefited. ‘We worked with Turks we trusted who were not loyal to Erdogan,’ the adviser said, ‘and got them to ship the jihadists in Syria all the obsolete weapons in the arsenal, including M1 carbines that hadn’t been seen since the Korean War and lots of Soviet arms. It was a message Assad could understand: “We have the power to diminish a presidential policy in its tracks.”’”

The reality – diminish a presidential policy – is not helpful in an important organ of the state. The report by Seymour Hersh cites Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii and member of the House Armed Services Committee:

“In an interview on CNN in October she [Tulsi Gabbard] said: ‘The US and the CIA should stop this illegal and counterproductive war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad and should stay focused on fighting against … the Islamic extremist groups.’

“‘Does it not concern you,’ the interviewer asked, ‘that Assad’s regime has been brutal, killing at least 200,000 and maybe 300,000 of his own people?’

“‘The things that are being said about Assad right now,’ Gabbard responded, ‘are the same that were said about Gaddafi, they are the same things that were said about Saddam Hussein by those who were advocating for the US to … overthrow those regimes … If it happens here in Syria … we will end up in a situation with far greater suffering, with far greater persecution of religious minorities and Christians in Syria, and our enemy will be far stronger.’

“Gabbard later told me that many of her colleagues in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, have thanked her privately for speaking out. ‘There are a lot of people in the general public, and even in the Congress, who need to have things clearly explained to them,’ Gabbard said. ‘But it’s hard when there’s so much deception about what is going on. The truth is not out.’ It’s unusual for a politician to challenge her party’s foreign policy directly and on the record. For someone on the inside, with access to the most secret intelligence, speaking openly and critically can be a career-ender.”

One finds a face of democracy being practiced: “speaking openly and critically can be a career-ender”. Career-ender even speaking openly and critically on an, as Tulsi Gabbard characterizes, “illegal and counterproductive war”, when “there’s so much deception about what is going on”, when “[t]he truth is not out”! Is the political environment helpful to the interests involved with waging the illegal and counterproductive war? No, because dissent helps judge reality and find out better options. Then, it appears, the political system is closing down its doors to a better path. The factors pushing to this situation is a bigger question.

But the fact is known. The LRB report says:

“Obama now has a more compliant Pentagon. There will be no more indirect challenges from the military leadership to his policy of disdain for Assad and support for Erdogan. Dempsey and his associates remain mystified by Obama’s continued public defense of Erdogan, given the American intelligence community’s strong case against him – and the evidence that Obama, in private, accepts that case. ‘We know what you’re doing with the radicals in Syria,’ the president told Erdogan’s intelligence chief at a tense meeting at the White House (as I [SH] reported in the LRB of 17 April 2014).”

The finding comes out as a department, which is vital for the state, is compliant, and there’s no alternate view; although the fact is known: “We know what you’re doing with the radicals in Syria”. The questions are why the state is facing such a situation, what’ll be its consequence, and shall that be helpful to the state? It’s an issue of study on modern day empires equipped with intellectual capacity and modern tools of policy formulation and decision making. The intellectual capacity has grown and developed over centuries. It’s an exposure of the inner-condition/state of working mechanism of an empire.
On the other hand, there’s the exposure of imperialist intervention. The LRB report says:

“State Department cables made public by WikiLeaks show that the Bush administration tried to destabilise Syria and that these efforts continued into the Obama years. In December 2006, William Roebuck, then in charge of the US embassy in Damascus, filed an analysis of the ‘vulnerabilities’ of the Assad government and listed methods ‘that will improve the likelihood’ of opportunities for destabilization. He recommended that Washington work with Saudi Arabia and Egypt to increase sectarian tension and focus on publicizing ‘Syrian efforts against extremist groups’ – dissident Kurds and radical Sunni factions – ‘in a way that suggests weakness, signs of instability, and uncontrolled blowback’; and that the ‘isolation of Syria’ should be encouraged through US support of the National Salvation Front, led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian vice president whose government-in-exile in Riyadh was sponsored by the Saudis and the Muslim Brotherhood. Another 2006 cable showed that the embassy had spent $5 million financing dissidents who ran as independent candidates for the People’s Assembly; the payments were kept up even after it became clear that Syrian intelligence knew what was going on. A 2010 cable warned that funding for a London-based television network run by a Syrian opposition group would be viewed by the Syrian government ‘as a covert and hostile gesture toward the regime’.” Another report by Seymour Hersh says: “In spring 2013 US intelligence learned that the Turkish government – through elements of the MIT, its national intelligence agency, and the Gendarmerie, a militarized law-enforcement organization – was working directly with al-Nusra and its allies to develop a chemical warfare capability. ‘The MIT was running the political liaison with the rebels, and the Gendarmerie handled military logistics, on-the-scene advice and training – including training in chemical warfare,’ the former intelligence official said.…. The American decision to end CIA support of the weapons shipments into Syria left Erdogan exposed politically and militarily…. Without US military support for the rebels, the former intelligence official said, ‘Erdogan’s dream of having a client state in Syria is evaporating”. (“The Red Line and the Rat Line”, LRB, vol. 36, no. 8, April 17, 2014) Plan was hatched to market Syria-sarin lie after the Bush-Blair-Iraq-WMD lie. “Rat Line, in CIAspeak, a clandestine highway used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition is now well-known. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, a few of which were under the cover of Australian entities.

Do these incidents/acts help as a learning material? Most probably, these do. Countries facing imperialist intervention will find this pattern if a careful search is made. Does India, the biggest economy in south Asia, need to learn from this? Most probably, it needs. Does Bangladesh, a much smaller economy than India, need to learn from it? Most probably, it needs. Other south Asian countries? The same answer. Size of economy, market size, resources and geographic location are creating conditions for imperialist intervention. These are the factors that are here in south Asia for a long time. The emerging important factor is desperate condition of imperialism in the face of intensified competition. The desperate condition allures/provokes imperialism to commit military blunders under the guidance of short-sighted leadership. But peoples in more than one country pay before the military blunder finds its burial ground.

Farooque Chowdhury is Dhaka-based freelancer.

31 December, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Jon Kofas

Introduction

Top events in 2015 that shaped the world and are very likely to continue doing so include the economic slowdown not just in China and India, but in most of the world outside the US. Globalization under the neoliberal model of development continued to devastate the middle class in 2015 as it has in the last three decades, especially in countries where monetarist austerity combined with neoliberal policies took effect. Combined with a fiscal structure that favors corporations and the wealthy, monetarism and neoliberal policies had the effect on a world scale of slowing consumption spending owing to downward pressure on wages, forcing some governments to increase capital spending, especially in the defense sector, to stimulate growth.

Capital goods spending trend will continue in 2016 in a number of developed countries trying to keep GDP growth steady against pressures of a declining world GDP in 2016. At the same time, because of monetarism (austerity) and economic stagnation in less advanced countries, the transfer of capital from the less advanced countries will continue toward the G-7, especially US, China, and Germany. Sociopolitical volatility as a result of downward socioeconomic mobilization in much of the world will entail more uprisings than in 2015, more “terrorist” activity, and greater tendency on the part of popular masses to look for political solutions in the extreme right wing political groups.

2015 started with the Charlie Hebdo attack by Yemen al-Qaeda-affiliated individuals, the same al-Qaeda that US-NATO ally had been supporting al-Qaeda in Yemen against pro-Iranian Houthis. The year ended with the Paris bombing by ISIL-affiliated individuals in Paris, the same ISIL group also backed by US-EU allies that include Turkey and Saudi Arabia. This policy contradiction on the part of the US and its allies selectively backing terrorists while fighting to destroy them means that the war on terror will continue because the goal is to destabilize the Middle East so that it is easier to control it. Meanwhile, the war on terror, which Muslims believe is a war against by the crusading Judeo-Christian West against their religion, will only intensify because it is the political leverage the West, especially the US has to keep citizens under sociopolitical conformity and distracted from economic and social problems at home.

Asia, Latin America, and Africa

The biggest development in Asia in 2015, especially China and India, was the economic slowdown that has global impact. Although spending in capital goods is expected to halt some of the stagnation, government efforts to bring public debt under control entail IMF-style monetarist policies that transfer income from the low and middle income groups to the upper while the state as a conduit of economic development applies the breaks on stimulating the economy; this in traditionally quasi-statist countries that rely on public spending for economic stimulus. The neoliberal model that the IMF, banks and corporations are promoting is taking its toll during Asia’s downward cyclical period that will continue in 2016. The Chinese currency joining the world’s reserve currencies after the IMF gave its blessing is a major development in so far as it signals tough decisions for the US in its attempt to manage the burgeoning public deficit and balance of payments deficit. In 2016, China will continue to play the role of trying to engender stability around the world because it has the most to gain as the rising economic power expanding its role, especially in the less developed countries. This is in sharp contrast with the US and its NATO allies that will continue to pursue destabilization policies using overt and covert military means precisely because their global economic influence in relationship to China is dwindling.

The rapid deterioration of the security situation in Afghanistan where China looks like would emerge as the beneficiary from US-NATO intervention was another major development in 2015. While the security situation in Afghanistan will only deteriorate in 2016, China will continue making progress toward overtaking the US not only as the world’s largest economy in PPP terms as it is now, but also measured in nominal values as well. This will mean that Japan will have to grow its public debt to grow the economy by spending on defense, as it already has been doing, using China as the pretext for stronger national security. India will also follow Japan’s lead, relying on closer cooperation with Russia while the intense competition for foreign investment will slow its economy against the background of falling commodity prices that will impact all commodity-dependent countries across Asia and the world in 2016.

Besides the economy, Asia was also in the news because of the climate issue. China’s pollution is well-known, but it was India taking a leading role at the Paris climate conference. That anything will be accomplished to bring climate change under better control remains to be seen given the history of such summit meetings that have not changed much in the last three decades. Moreover, the climate change issue is really one that corporations with investments in solar technology, pollution cleanup, renewable energy, etc. are pushing because there are huge government subsidies involved. In short, climate change is just another means of corporate welfare, although one that people can feel good about.

In 2015, Brazil’s economic and political problems led the top stories along with Argentina returning to neo-liberalism along with other republics to follow. Brazil’s economic miracle is turning into an economic stagflation nightmare for the majority of the people. Venezuela and Argentina are abandoning the remnants of economic nationalism and plunging into neo-liberalism. This means much closer integration with the US and EU, thus strengthening foreign capital to the detriment of national capitalism; this at a time that foreign- led economic growth in Brazil had inspired other countries looking forward to emulating its development model. Like its sister republics dependent on commodity exports that include energy and minerals whose prices have dropped sharply, Brazil’s prospects are very dim until the regional economies begin to grow above 4%. Not that the world economies will soon perform as they did before the recession of 2008, but the IMF and World Bank forecasts paint a dim picture for 2016, especially if we exclude the United States.

The economic slowdown across Africa, but especially in South Africa along with the problems Nigeria faced fighting Boko Haram rebels top the stories in sub-Sahara Africa. Although Nigeria hardly receives the coverage that France does when it comes to jihadist activities, Boko Haram-related deaths number in the thousands (more than 3,500 according to Amnesty International) in 2015. Because the West has no interest in this issue unless it impacts the Western oil interests in Nigeria, there is very little media coverage and hardly the outrage that one finds when whites are the target of jihadists.

Meanwhile, in Muslim northern Africa, Libya remained in total tribal-political chaos that is the legacy of US-NATO military intervention in the name of regime change (2011). The fragmentation of Libya and the rise of jihadists is also characteristic of other Islamic countries where foreign intervention was prominent, especially Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Of course, the US and the Europeans blame the people, their leaders and religious, tribal and ethnic rivalries, just as European colonialists did in the 19th century. The US and its northwest European allies deny any responsibility for the chaos and instability that the West created in order to deny spheres of influence to a regional power like Iran or a global one like Russia, while gaining political, economic and strategic influence. This trend will continue in 2016 but it will hardly benefit the US and its northwest EU allies, considering the impasse in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria demonstrated that military solutions do not work and in fact they backfire on the interventionists.

ISIL, the West and Russia

The Islamic State ISIL was a top global story in 2015 as it was in 2015 and will be again in 2015. Especially significant for 2015 because of the Paris bombing in November and the flood of refugees that caused political and economic problems for all of Europe, essentially triggering resurgent Western nationalism, xenophobia and racism at much higher levels than we have seen recently. Because of the apparent East-West cooperation after the Paris bombing to devise a strategy to defeat ISIL, the West and Russia story becomes more promising because it could potentially point to renewed US-Russia rapprochement to solve other regional conflicts; at least in areas where military solutions simply have no prospects.

There were many interesting ISIL-related developments in 2015, among them the Western quest to fight ISIL while indirectly supporting it and facilitating its operations in Syria against the Assad regime and in Iraq as a counterweight to Iran and pro-Iran Shiite elements inside Iraq. Directly related to ISIL was the massive refugee issue for the EU in which Turkey played both sides, managing to receive several billions from the Europeans not to send refugees while at the same time facilitating ISIL operations and continuing to send refugees to the continent.

The bombing that took place in Paris with many casualties was a human tragedy and a political disaster for Western anti-terrorism policy, although this is not how the Western media portrayed the issue. A day before the suicide bombs in Paris, the bombing in Beirut demonstrated the ease with which jihadists fighting against the Assad regime are able to operate. Three bombings – Paris, Lebanon, Russian plane in Egypt – within a remarkably short span of time demonstrate the reach of an organization that was once backed by US allies in the Middle East, and by the US indirectly in the war that the US started to bring down the Assad regime, all in the name of freedom and democracy, just as the US has been delivering freedom and democracy in Libya among other North African countries.

The quest to destabilize and ultimately overthrow Syria’s President Assad has failed in the last four years and made matters worse for all regional powers but also for the EU and US that believe the only option is a military one until it proves a resounding failure. The US and its European and regional allies have managed to create a new force that has some appeal at least with the radicalized Sunni Muslims not just in Syria and Iraq but across the Middle East and wherever there are Muslims who feel that the Judeo-Christian West has sided with the state of Israel and has been trying to destroy Islam under the pretext of terrorism. Now that US secretary of State John Kerry has been in talks with Russia about how to stabilize Syria there are hopes on limited spheres of influence for imperialists dividing the spoils. While this may temporarily contain the threat of ISIL, the Western crusade against Islam will produce more jihadist groups in the future that target not just the West, but also Russia with a considerable Muslim population in many of the former Soviet republics of Eurasian region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin demonstrated once again in 2015 that he is indeed an authoritarian nationalist leader with Tsarist imperialist tendencies, but one who respects the traditional global balance of power and prefers diplomatic settlement of conflicts because Russia is much weaker than the combined force of NATO. This does not mean Putin is shy about using force, as clearly shown by his aggressive policy to prevent NATO-Western encirclement or containment policy as the US-EU intervention in Ukraine has demonstrated in the last four years, while maintaining a foothold as a regional player in the Middle East as Russian support for the Syrian government against ISIL has also shown.

In 2016, there are likely to be resolutions on several fronts between Russia and the West, revolving around the Middle East but also Ukraine whose population has been struggling economically since the Russia-Western confrontation over this country rich in natural resources but very corrupt political leadership divided between Russia and the West. This means that resolution is most likely in the Ukraine because it is simply too costly for the West to finance a right-wing pro-Western regime that is essentially as corrupt and oligarchic in composition as the previous pro-Moscow one. We are also likely to see the end of the Syrian conflict. This has been very costly for the imperialists of the East and West, indirectly benefiting China and Iran while draining and dividing Europe owing to the refugee question.

We may also see some resolution to the conflicts in Libya and Yemen along the lines of the Syrian model, although both Yemen and Libya present greater challenges than Syria because of much deeper tribal/ethnic divisions. Much will depend on the Palestinian situation where the Israeli apartheid state will become much more aggressive toward the Palestinians. This is largely because the Palestinians have no leverage other than the anemic international boycott movement against companies doing business with Israel.

The US government has already been cracking down on any entity trying to boycott Israel, making it difficult to carry out. The policy of the US toward the Middle East will remain one of blind devotion to apartheid in Israel, while divide and conquer the Arab countries, instigating as much tribal/religious/ethnic/political division as possible to weaken national unity. Meanwhile, US government, media and pundits will blame the victims for the consequences of external intervention, just as they blame the Palestinians who are victims of Israeli racist apartheid policies. Although it defies logic and common sense to blame the victim, it is the logic of the imperialist that we find commonly used in the 19th century by Europeans to justify their colonial exploitation of the non-Western world.

Iran as the de facto Hegemonic Power in the Middle East

In 2015, finally there was a US-Iran deal, despite massive rightwing opposition in the US allied with Israel. The reason was that powerful US-based and EU-based corporations wanted a market share in Iran, but also because the more the US tried military solutions in regional conflicts it instigated in the Middle East, the more powerful Iran was becoming with Russia and China behind it. Does the US-Iran agreement (14 June 2015) that calls for Iran to abandon nuclear weapons ambitions in exchange for lifting of Western sanctions mean a new era in relations between the US and the Middle East? Syria, Turkey, and Egypt publicly praised the deal as a step forward because it would mean greater regional stability and greater economic integration that would benefit all the economies.

There are those who applaud the US for ignoring Israel and its extreme right-wing allies in the US that have done everything in their power to sabotage the negotiations between Iran and the West. Naturally, there are the pro-defense industry elements that regret these developments as much as those hiding behind a right wing ideology to justify animosity of any kind of rapprochement between the West and Iran, an Islamic republic that has been openly anti-West since 1979. Others see this deal as an opportunity to contain Israel from pursuing military adventures, as well as Saudi Arabia funding jihadists while claiming to support the struggle of the Palestinians but all along siding with Israel on its opposition to Iran as the major power that has a dominant voice to determine the regional balance of power.

The Iran nuclear deal may collapse at any time, if the US deems it is in its interest to derail it. However, the only beneficiaries from the Iranian economic integration were Russia and China, and it is unlikely Western corporations like General Electric are going to walk away from multi-billion dollar opportunities. In short, globalization has taken precedence over a sanctions policy that had failed in Iran, just as it failed to bring Russia to its knees for annexing the Crimea. Iran is the undisputed Middle East power and will remain so for a long time, at least as long as Russia and China are skeptical about US regional hegemonic intentions.

The EU, German Hegemony under neo-liberal Policies, and Europe Southern and Eastern Periphery

Besides the Iran-US nuclear negotiations, Germany enjoyed center-stage in 2015 and Chancellor Angela Merkel was person of the year for a number of mass media journals. Although Germany has been at the center of downward socioeconomic mobilization across Europe, something the will continue in 2016, the neoliberals are delighted because the richest Europeans continue to concentrate wealth under monetarist policies that choke off growth. Germany’s leverage stems from its massive economic power within the EU and clearly as the dominant country it has the ability to stabilize or destabilize as it wishes. At the same time, Germany feels the pressure from the US and China, pressure it resents as we have seen over the disagreements on the Russia-Ukraine crisis. In its quest for global power status, Germany wants a freer hand in the EU that it considers its back yard, just like the US considers the Caribbean and Central America its back yard. With France politically and economically weak, the major obstacle to Germany is the persistence of anti-EU sentiment coming out of the UK. It is possible that the UK will have an even larger economy than Germany at some point before 2024, and this is something that Germans take into account when they position themselves for hegemony today. In short, the German-UK power struggle is important today, though hardly fierce enough for these two economic rivals to go to war as they did in 1914.

Greece was one of the biggest stories in 2015, but only because Germany made it so. Not just the mainstream media throughout the world, but the social media has been covering the drama unfolding in Greece, a drama that actually started in early 2010 when the creditors decided to make borrowing expensive for the Greek government. In May 2010, Greece opted for IMF-style austerity and massive cuts in public spending and public sector jobs, combined with higher indirect taxes, measures the EU and IMF promised would lower the public debt and stimulate higher growth rates on a sustainable basis. Promises notwithstanding, the result has been one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, negative GDP growth, accompanied by much higher debt.
In 2015 was whether the German-IMF led dogmatic neoliberals prevail or whether the reformers who believe that the German-imposed patron-client integration model in the EU is forcing Greece and the periphery members into neo-colonial status. Germany failed to conquer Europe by going to wars twice in the 20th century, but it is now trying to achieve the same result through the route of economic hegemony. However, it has very powerful allies in multinational banks and corporations of the entire Western World and this is why it is so powerful against those trying to maintain a bit of their national sovereignty in order to present the illusion of democracy to their citizens.

Beyond the very tragic issue of millions suffering lower living standards, and beyond the very real prospect of their continued suffering for a number of years under such conditions, there is the fear that other countries could also meet with a similar fate as Greece. The question for EU leaders must be to what degree is Greece and for matter all of the periphery (southern and eastern European countries) sovereign and to what degree do citizens have a voice in the illusion of a democratic process that really belongs to the banks and multinational corporations that the state represents?

Finally, Germany took the world’s spotlight because of one the largest corruption and fraud scandals in our time. The Volkswagen emissions scandal was only the tip of the iceberg and the very clear manifestation of the level of corruption in the private-public sector. It is not that VW was promoting itself as the “eco-friendly” corporation, but that it enjoyed the backing of its government that went along with the scandal until it broke. However, this is hardly the biggest scandal considering that Deutsche Bank which has a long history of corruption along with Siemens, have also been immersed in corruption, again with government complicity. Despite all of these corporate scandals linked to the Merkel government that at the very least failed to prevent them and at worst had a complicit role in them, the corporate media presented Merkel as the political hero of 2015! This is not to imply that corporate corruption that is estimated at more than $100 billion is limited to Germany, because it is actually an integral part of capitalism as many books and articles have shown. (c. h. Ferguson, Predator Nation, 2013; M. J. Lynch, Corporate Crime, Corporate Violence, 2015)

American Guns, Racism and Xenophobia

Throughout 2015, the headlines about domestic development in the US were about gun violence, racism and xenophobia that are an integral part of the institutional mainstream and not just Republican Party rhetoric intended to distract from low wages and downward pressures on income. In fact, the Washington Post revealed that the US government is planning to raid more than 100,000 illegal aliens, thus depriving the Republicans of a major issue in the presidential campaign in 2016. At the same time, the Obama administration has done absolutely nothing except to give speeches on the matter of gun violence and police shootings of black youth. If civil rights leaders from the 1950s and 1960s came back to life today, they would be enraged that racism remains an integral part of the culture and institutional mainstream,, with only a thin veil of political correctness to conceal its hypocrisy.

Political correctness as a veil of a racist and unjust society, the American culture of racism has been an integral part of the police force in American society, no matter the civil rights movements and laws on the books. Reinforcing the racist police culture is the “war on terror” and the culture of counter-terrorism since 9/11. The result is institutionalization of “collective psychopathology” to the degree that torturing people, violating their civil rights and their human rights is the now the norm that the media accepts as necessary, and often criticizes those who dare question the abuses of law enforcement in American cities and CIA torturers. The US Senate report on CIA torture revealed that the US looked to Israel as a model for justifying torture on the basis of preventing “imminent attack” in the future. That the US would use Israel, an apartheid society, as a model makes sense if one accepts that the US like Israel in a state of perpetual war with potential Muslim enemies.
Gun violence 2015

Total Number of Incidents 51,538
Number of Deaths13,094
Number of Injuries1 26,420
Number of Children (age 0-11) Killed/Injured678
Number of Teens (age 12-17) Killed/Injured2,623
Mass Shooting329
Officer Involved Incident 4,292
Home Invasion 2,265
Defensive Use 1,234
Accidental Shooting 1,876
http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

According to the U.S. State Department, the number of U.S. citizens killed overseas as a result of incidents of terrorism from 2001 to 2013 was 350. In addition, we compiled all terrorism incidents inside the U.S. and found that between 2001 and 2013, there were 3,030 people killed in domestic acts of terrorism.* This brings the total to 3,380. According to the US government, a total of 406,496 people have been killed from 2001 to 2013, while during the same period, which includes 9/11, 3,380 people were killed on US soil and abroad as a result of what the State Department labels “terrorism”. Ironically, the issue for the media is terrorism and social violence, not institutionalism racism and xenophobia prompted by the reality of downward pressures on incomes, especially on minorities suffering high unemployment and much lower income levels than whites. As long as people believe there is an enemy to hate – domestic and foreign, a Nazi propaganda tactic that Hitler used in the 1930s -this covers up all other problems and distracts people from issues of their daily material lives.

America does not have a monopoly of racism, despite its history as a slave-owning society that first eliminated the native population in a quest for land grab. Nor does the US have a monopoly of xenophobia targeting Muslims and Latinos. However, the US is a world leader and its example is emulated in other predominantly white societies. The culture of racism and xenophobia along with gun violence will become much more pronounced as the socioeconomic conditions become difficult for the middle class in 2016 and beyond.

US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2016

They are not taking out the champagne glasses at the Clinton campaign at the end of 2015, but they are at least dusting them to host their millionaire and billionaire financial contributors and their politically-correct liberal friends trying to mobilize popular support for the presumptive nominee of the Democrat Party in 2016. A couple of years ago, I wrote an article arguing that there is no way Hillary could win after eight years of a black Democrat president. I had no idea two years ago the Republicans would be divided into as many factions, with the populist (racist-xenophobic, pro-gun segment) prevailing over the traditional Rockefeller branch that has its roots on Wall Street and a handful of king-makers. When Jeb Bush sounds rational within the context of the other candidates, this is indicative of how far to the right the party has drifted. The mistake kingmakers made in 2015 was to bring in populists to widen the popular base because in so doing the party assumed many poles of political power now difficult to centralize under a consensus candidate that is acceptable both the financial elites and the disgruntled white Christian fundamentalist xenophobe through many parts of the US.

The presidential race has revealed that neo-Fascism is now very much acceptable as part of the Republican agenda, and just under the politically correct carpet for some conservative Democrats as well. For the Republicans to win the White House in 2016, Democrats would have to stay home in much larger numbers than ever before because the Latino and Black vote is decisive and highly unlikely it will go to the Republican nominee, even if Carson and/or Rubio is on the ticket as VP. In 2004, President G.W. Bush captured 44% of the Latino vote to win the White House, while in 2012, Mitt Romney received a mere 23% of same voting bloc and lost to Obama. This scenario assumes a Trump or Cruz victory with Bush dropping out. Things may change drastically and by some miracle a Rockefeller Republicans like Bush prevails during a divided Republican convention where chaos could prevail as it did for Democrats in 1968 or perhaps closer to 1980 when Ted Kennedy did not embrace Jimmy Carter.

Regardless of who wins the White House, America is a status quo nation unlikely to deviate very far from its current neoliberal path on economic policy and interventionism in foreign affairs. The idea that the presidential elections really means very much aside from gay marriage, abortion and lifestyle issues is absurd as history has shown. The differences between the political parties are stylistic and not substantive intended to project the image of “real choice” to voters. American voters are given two candidates paid for the financial elites and whose interests they will serve even if they have not received money from millionaires and billionaires. In the end, as history has shown, it makes little difference which one wins to the lives of the middle class and workers.

Jon Kofas is a retired university Professor from Indiana University.

29 June, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Ramzy Baroud

John Bolton is a tarnished character. The once United States Ambassador to the United Nations is now promoted as a ‘scholar’ in the pro-Israel lobby group, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Bolton is not a peacemaker, nor, in his defense, did he ever try to appear as if one. When he was appointed as the US Ambassador to the UN by George W. Bush, his stint lasted for only one year, starting August 2005. His time in this position was marked with discord and conflict. He stole the limelight with such statements as “The (UN) Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

When the Iraq war failed to achieve any of its objectives, thus signaling an American retreat in the Middle East, neo-conservative politicians like Bolton retreated to their right-wing, neo-conservative institutions. Those who did not have one, established an organization of their own and began issuing press releases at random, hailing Israel at times, and chastising their President, Barack Obama, for one thing or another.

When the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ took place, neocons, like Bolton, saw in it an opportunity, but one that was difficult to discern. On one hand, they understood little of the mechanisms that propelled popular actions, for they are used to operate at the highest level of power with total disconnect from the people. On the other hand, it was clear for them from the start that Obama was taking no chances by stepping back into a Middle East quagmire that was originally designed by his predecessor.

Unable to affect much change in the region, as they once envisioned under the leadership of the likes of Richard Perle and his Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the neocons mounted a strategy predicated mostly on discrediting their administration’s lack of strategy.

In a sense the ‘Arab Spring’ invigorated the neocons, but also reminded them of their political impotence. Gone were the days of concocting foreign policies from neo-conservative think tanks such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the Center for Security Policy (CSP) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), of which, among others, Perle is an active member.

In fact, Perle is quite a cherished member of the American Enterprise Institute, where Bolton often mounts his occasional articles in mainstream US media, offering a ‘vision’ regarding how to take on Iran, how to reform Arab states and how to redraw the map of the Middle East in ways that are conducive to US foreign policy interests.

The latest of such intellectual charges by Bolton was published in the New York Times on November 24. Under the title, “To Defeat ISIS, Create a Sunni State,” he theorized once more, raging against “Obama’s ineffective efforts” to destroy ISIS and demanding, instead, a “clear view shared by NATO allies.” The main drive behind his logic is that once ISIS is destroyed, the region that the militant group designated as a ‘state’ should be turned into a Sunni state, which, as a working title he called “Sunni-Stan.”

Bolton’s reasoning is as predictable as it is arrogant. It is predictable in the sense that, like other neocon initiatives in the past, it has no respect for the wishes of the people of the Middle East. His arguments are constructed upon the same world view that sees conflict as an opportunity, and warring nations as pawns in a larger game, aimed at subduing people to achieve ‘security’ and ‘stability’ for the US and its supposed allies.

It is also arrogant for the obvious reason that he believes the world should be designed to fit the narrow, self-serving and often violent visions of failed politicians like himself, who, alas, has access to the US’s most respected newspapers.

Bolton’s conceit has completely blinded him to the failures of the Bush administration and the entire collapse of the neo-conservative’s intellectual discourse during, and following the Iraq war. On the contrary, he is asking to repeat exactly what went wrong in Iraq.

“As we did in Iraq with the 2006 ‘Anbar Awakening,’ the counter-insurgency operation that dislodged Al Qaeda from its stronghold in that Iraqi province, we and our allies must empower viable Sunni leaders, including tribal authorities, who prize their existing social structure,” he wrote.

Only an unreasonable person cannot appreciate how the sectarian seed that the US has sowed in Iraq, based on the recommendations of the likes of Bolton, has resulted in the disfiguring of the Iraqi nation. This massive tampering with the social, cultural, religious and political fabric of society – by first empowering the Shia, oppressing the Sunni, then turning the Sunnis against one another, and so forth – has paved the way for unity among various Sunni groups, which ultimately formed ISIS.

It is the grand experimentations of Bolton and his peers that made ISIS the ‘state’ that it is today, which he is proposing to replace with yet another sectarian state, thus slicing up two Arab countries that were once the seats of the two most prominent Caliphate civilizations in history, the Abbasid and the Umayyad.

But for what purpose and at what price? If meddling at a relatively small scale has turned the Middle East into a perpetual inferno, and roped in regional and international rivals into a war that seems to be in constant expansion, one can only imagine what such a large scale reconfiguration of the region could lead to; and for what? So that Bolton can ensure the complete dismantling of the region in favor of Israel and that a buffer state can be established to block the Iranian influence in Syria and Lebanon? So that his country could gain access to more oil supplies? So that Russia’s attempt at having a stake in the future Middle East would be thwarted?

Whatever it is, the neo-conservatives should never be allowed access to the Middle East discourse, and their visions, those of doom and destruction, should remain confined to their ever mushrooming think tanks.

True, it is the perpetual war and horrific rivalries in the Middle East that have finally empowered the neocons to stage a comeback; but considering the damage that these groups have already done, one is certain that no good can possibly come from Bolton and his clique.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include ‘Searching Jenin’, ‘The Second Palestinian Intifada’ and his latest ‘My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story’. His website is: www.ramzybaroud.net.
24 December, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Eric Zuesse

According to Russian Television on December 25th, Russian intelligence has counted “up to 12,000” tanker trucks filled with oil “on the Turkish-Iraqi border,” and “the final destination remains to be Turkey.” In addition, some of those trucks are still heading into Turkey from Syria, but their number is “decreased” because Russia’s Syrian bombing campaign, which started on September 30th, has, ever since they began bombing the oil trucks on November 18th, destroyed “up to 2,000” of those trucks, that were in Syria heading into Turkey.

According to the news report, Russia is requesting help from the U.S. coalition to bomb the “up to 12,000” trucks that are in Iraq carrying ISIS oil into Turkey. ISIS drives them there so that ISIS can become self-sustaining by the oil-sales. ISIS, which had long been supported by America’s allies the Arab oil potentates — all of whom are fundamentalist Sunnis — aims to be self-sustaining now on the sales of this stolen oil through Turkey, which is operating the black market in ISIS’s stolen oil. That’s why Russia wants to stamp out this market. “However, so far, Washington says that it is not ready for such a move,” the report says.

Whereas Russia had begun on November 18th to bomb those trucks en-route into Turkey, and eliminated around 500 of them at that time, the U.S. coalition hadn’t bombed any such trucks until later that day, November 18th, in order to pretend to be competitive with what Russia had been doing since it started on 30 September 2015, to bomb in Syria. Before the U.S. bombed the 116 trucks it destroyed, it warned the drivers 45 minutes in advance.

Here was the shocking admission that was made by the U.S. Defense Department’s press-spokesman at his 18 November 2015 presentation, in which he voluntarily acknowledged that, throughout all of the 14 months during which the U.S. had been bombing in Syria and in Iraq, the U.S. hadn’t previously destroyed any of the tens of thousands of oil tank-trucks that had been transporting ISIS’s stolen oil out from Iraq and from Syria — the stolen-oil sales that bring $2B per year into ISIS coffers — and that the U.S. had warned 45-minutes in advance:

This is our first strike against tanker trucks, and to minimize risks to civilians, we conducted a leaflet drop prior to the strike. We did a show of force, by — we had aircraft essentially buzz the trucks at low altitude.
So, I do have copy of the leaflet, and I have got some videos, so why don’t you pull the leaflet up. Let me take a look at it so I can talk about it.
As you can see, it’s a fairly simple leaflet, it says, “Get out of your trucks now, and run away from them.” A very simple message.
And then, also, “Warning: airstrikes are coming. Oil trucks will be destroyed. Get away from your oil trucks immediately. Do not risk your life.”
And so, these are the leaflets that we dropped — about 45 minutes before the airstrikes actually began. Again, we combine these leaflet drops with very low altitude passes of some of our attack aviation, which sends a very powerful message.

So: not only had the U.S. previously avoided destroying ISIS’s main current source of income (besides the multimillion-dollar donations made by members of the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait — all of whom are protected by the U.S.) (and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had urged all of them on 30 December 2009 please to stop funding their terrorists), but, when the U.S. now started to bomb those tank-trucks filled with stolen oil, the U.S. warned in advance the drivers, who were also assets to the jihadist cause the U.S. pretended to oppose, and thus were enemies of the public (and were participants in the evils of ISIS). The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) wanted to protect them — not to kill them. That was done “to minimize risks to civilians.” Wow!! After the U.S. history of slaughtering millions of civilians in wars, and torturing many, including complete innocents in Iraq and elsewhere, we’re now protecting ISIS’s drivers? Can any hypocrisy exceed this? If the United States were a democracy, its press would have been focusing on this issue for a week. The U.S. protecting ISIS’s financial base, and assets, has mind-boggling implications. On what side are ‘we’ — and who are “we,” and who are “them”? We are not the aristocracy. The aristocracy are them. It includes the top stockholders in firms such as Lockheed Martin. Warren Buffett said in 2006 “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” That’s shocking honesty.

Did any of the major U.S. news media, all of which have reporters attending those press conferences, report the U.S. Government’s open admission there, that the U.S. Government had protected ISIS all along, not bombed any of ISIS’s oil tank-trucks (until Russia did)? Those trucks providing $2B per year to ISIS terrorists? None of them reported it. None of them conveyed to their audience this astounding information — essentially, that the U.S. was protecting the money-flow to the jihadists in Syria, and was even protecting their truckers, and its ‘press’ were protecting them.

Another major revelation at this same press conference was that “we right now have no plans to conduct coordinated operations with the Russians” in Syria. And this was reconfirmed on December 25th from the Russian side, as being still the U.S. policy. In other words: the U.S. President is so hostile toward Russia, that, even months after Russia’s request to Washington on September 30th to cooperate in killing all jihadists in Syria, Obama still refuses to work together with Russia, or even just to “coordinate operations with the Russians,” to kill the jihadists. (And, in the Democratic debate on 19 December 2015, Hillary Clinton insisted that eliminating the jihadists in Syria mustn’t have higher priority than, nor occur before, Bashar al-Assad is permanently removed from Syria’s leadership. Her position is at least as anti-Russian as Obama’s.)

The jihadists had flocked into Syria to oust the non-sectarian leader of that country, Assad, and to replace him with an Islamist leader, a Sharia-law Sunni, whom the U.S. Government, and the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait, approve of as being better than the non-sectarian Assad (who is personally a Shiite, but runs a decidedly unsectarian, secular, government). The jihadists work for the American alliance.

Russia’s position on the matter is that no foreign power possesses the right to determine whom the President of Syria will or won’t be; only the Syrian people do, in an election. Russia insists that it be determined in internationally monitored and overseen elections. However, polls taken by Western polling firms indicate that Assad would overwhelmingly win any such election; so, U.S. President Barack Obama has rejected democracy for Syria. And yet, the U.S. accuses Putin of being dictatorial, and claims itself to be ‘democratic.’ And the U.S. President demands that Syria’s legal President be removed from power and excluded from any possibility of ever again becoming that nation’s President. This is America’s version of ‘democracy’ in Syria.

The DOD spokesperson, Steve Warren, spoke contemptuously of Russia. He said that in Russia’s war against jihadists in Syria, “the Russians are using dumb bombs. Their history has been both reckless and irresponsible.” This statement was being made by a military spokesman for the same Government that in the most “reckless and irresponsible” manner had invaded and destroyed Iraq in 2003. However, his statement here was also, itself, simply false. Russia’s bombings have been with both precision-guided weapons and unguided munitions that are under no control after being fired.

Warren there was reaffirming a reporter’s question which had asserted: “Getting back to Raqqa, as we all know, the Russians are not using precision munitions. Any sense of any increased civilian casualties in Raqqa as a result of that?” So, Warren was here reaffirming a reporter’s (or actually, a press-appointed government stenographer’s) falsehood — reaffirming an assertion that was either unprofessionally ignorant, or else a knowing lie. On September 30th, when Russia had started its air strikes, the U.S. had said that they were “doomed to failure.” That, too, seems increasingly likely to have been false (that it was “doomed to failure”). (And any such pretended foresight is also a lie when it comes from an official source such as a government. It was mere propaganda.)

Instead of the mainstream U.S. press reporting that the U.S. Government lied there (and this Government does it routinely, because the ‘press’ never report that a lie by the President is a lie), only a small number of only non-mainstream sites, all online-only, picked up anything from this stunning press conference, regarding any of the important and much-discussed issues that it addressed; and the first such site to do so was a fundamentalist Christian one, which is obsessively pro-Israel, and generally hard-rightwing Republican. Bridget Johnson at PJ Media headlined, on the same day as the press conference (the only site to report at all upon it that day, November 18th), “ISIS Oil Tankers Hit for First Time – With 45-Minute Warning.” This was an admirable reporting coup (though it wasn’t really “for First Time,” since Russian bombers had already done it), because it covered all of the main points, including the shocking admissions by Mr. Warren. Her news coup had over 1,400 reader-comments.

Paul Joseph Watson, at the generally conservative Republican site InfoWars, bannered on November 23rd, “WHITE HOUSE GAVE ISIS 45 MINUTE WARNING BEFORE BOMBING OIL TANKERS,” and he placed these matters honestly into their geostrategic context, of the Obama Administration’s placing a higher priority upon defeating Russia than defeating jihadism. As is so often the case with the terrific journalist Watson, he penetrated deeply into these matters, and was not at all shy to acknowledge, for example, the following stark contrast, which U.S. ‘news’ media hide:

Compare the Obama White House’s approach to fighting ISIS to that of Russia.
While it took the U.S. fifteen months to even begin targeting ISIS’ oil refineries and tankers, air strikes by Moscow destroyed more than 1,000 tankers in a period of just five days.
In comparison, Col. Steve Warren said that the U.S. had taken out only 116 tanker trucks, the “first strike” to target ISIS’ lucrative black market oil business, which funds over 50 per cent of the terror group’s activities.

So: this, too, like Bridget Johnson’s report, was honest and first-rate news-reporting, from another non-mainstream Republican site. (Note, however, that the mainstream Republican news-sites, such as Fox News, Wall Street Journal, and Rush Limbaugh, were no more forthcoming on this matter than all of the Democratic Party sites were.)

The aristocracy’s control over all the mainstream ‘news’ is ironclad — and this includes the political magazines, such as National Review, and The Nation; as well as ‘intellectual’ magazines, such as Harpers and The Atlantic. American ‘news’ media stifle democracy in America; they’re not part of democracy, in America. They’re like poison that’s presented as being ‘medicine’ instead. Suckers don’t just swallow it; they come back for more of that propaganda.

The next day, November 23rd, “Tyler Durden,” the pseudonymous genius behind his own Zero Hedge blog, headlined “‘Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away’: US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes,” and he reported using some of the same sources as the others, but supplementing it with additional good sources. He had around 400 reader-comments.

In addition, there were some trashy news-reports at far-right Republican sites, such as one, on November 19th, crediting Bridget Johnson’s news report the day before as its source, “The Obamization of the military, pt. 243.” This was by J.R. Dunn, at the fundamentalist Republican, American Thinker, blog. He pretended that Obama was being bad here because Obama was too concerned to avoid bloodshed: “You see, the important thing isn’t hurting ISIS. No – the important thing is not hurting civilians.” Picking up from the standard Republican meme that torture should be used against ‘bad people’ in order for ‘good people’ to be kept safe, and that civilians in ‘enemy’ nations are okay to be victims of American military attacks, Dunn took Bridget Johnson’s news-report merely as confirmation of his own bigotries and hatreds. He had about 150 reader-comments. Typical was this one: “The Left in America has known that in order to succeed with their agenda the US military had to be infiltrated, compromised, and weakened.” For such suckers, the ‘source’ of America’s problems wasn’t America’s aristocracy; it was America’s Democrats.

On November 24th, Michael Morell, Obama’s CIA Director during 2011-2013, said on the trashy PBS Charlie Rose show (hosted by Mr. Rose, who is such an incompetent interviewer that he’s beloved by aristocrats for his reliably softball interviews), “We didn’t go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn’t want to do environmental damage, and we didn’t want to destroy that infrastructure.” Of course, Mr. Rose avoided drilling down there to find out why the U.S. Government treats jihadists as being such a minor matter — especially after all of the environmental damage the U.S. routinely does in its invasions, such as the depleted uranium that contaminates today’s Iraq, from the U.S. attacks. And, of course, almost all of the news-media that picked up on that stunning admission from Obama’s former CIA Director, were Republican sites, such as Daily Caller, Washington Times, Breitbart, Real Clear Politics, and American Thinker. In addition, there were a few high quality journalistic sites reporting it, such as Zero Hedge, The Hill, The Economic Collapse, and Moon of Alabama. In other words: only very few Americans came to know about this jaw-dropping stunning admission from an Obama official — and most who did were people who hate Obama for his being such things as ‘against torture’ (in other words: Republican stooges of the aristocracy).

Basically, in America, only marginal, and mainly right-wing, audiences were being informed even badly, regarding the sensational things that were revealed — and in some instances proudly revealed — at the November 18th DOD press conference, and also in the November 24th TV interview of Morell. What is traditionally viewed as being America’s “news media” were entirely absent from their job of reporting even one of these two important statements by U.S. Government officials. And none of the news-reports on that astounding DOD press conference, and of that Morell interview, reached Democratic Party voters at all. Republicans hate Obama because he’s a communist Islamic Kenyan, while Democrats love Obama because the wacko Republican Party lies about him constantly and because Obama is to the left of those blithering wackos.

A press like this makes it impossible for there to be intelligent, informed, rather than misinformed and/or stupid, voting in national political elections in the United States.

Perhaps the biggest scandal in America is its rigid aristocratically controlled ‘press,’ which is really nothing more than a whored propaganda-operation that’s run by and for the nation’s aristocracy. The owners of America’s ‘news’ media know that the way for the press to make money in this type of dictatorship is to sell to the aristocrats’ corporations access to the public, and to ‘report’ only ‘news’ that the corporate sponsors don’t mind the public’s knowing about.

So: this is how the public get suckered, in America.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the American Government didn’t hypocritically claim to be a ‘democracy.’ That’s just piling it on, with a shovel.

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.

26 December, 2015
Strategic-culture.org

 

By Afro-Middle East Centre (AMEC)

The recently-signed agreement between sections from Libya’s warring factions will likely have little impact as most Libyan political players and militia groups oppose it, and because local initiatives and views were ignored during its conceptualisation. The deal could increase fragmentation in the already gridlocked Libyan political situation, and provide more space for the growth of the Islamic state group (IS). Further, foreign intervention, under the guise of supporting the new ‘Government of National Accord’ (GNA), is becoming an increasingly distinct possibility, and was key in informing the international community’s support for the deal.

The agreement, signed in the Moroccan resort of Skheirat, ends a year-long negotiation process. The negotiations followed the reconvening of the General National Congress (GNC) in Libya in August 2014 in opposition to the internationally-recognised House of Representatives (HoR) based in the eastern city of Tobruk. The deal envisages the creation of a seventeen-member government, led by the little known Faez Serraj as prime minister, and deputies representing the provinces of Fezzan, Tripoli and Benghazi, who will be based in Tripoli. The internationally recognised House of Representatives (HoR) will play a legislative role, while the GNC will play an advisory role. Only members from both institutions who had signed the deal will, however, be regarded as being members of the two bodies.

Initially a bottom-up process which sought to incorporate civil society and lower level political actors such as mayors and town councillors into a process of finding solutions, the ‘negotiations’ have become a diktat from foreign powers. Diplomats have threatened sanctions for ‘spoilers’, refused to recognise the results of internal negotiations between the GNC and HoR, and stated that the agreement is unalterable. Further, the credibility of the UN has been tarnished by its partiality in the negotiations process. At the core of this heavy-handed attitude is the fears of foreign powers, particularly the USA and European Union, of migration and the growth of IS. Libya is viewed as a transit hub for African migrants seeking to enter the EU through Malta, a fear amplified by IS’s consolidation in the port city of Sirte. Western states regard Libya as a growing alternate IS base, and thus see intervention as inevitable. Already US and French aircraft have carried out operations in Libya, and Britain and Italy are likely to deploy ground troops in the country. These states therefore seek the formation of a Libyan government which will sanction and coordinate such intervention. It is expected a UN resolution will soon be passed, declaring the new entity as the only recognised Libyan government.

The agreement has therefore been criticised by the leaders of both the GNC and HoR as a foreign imposition. Less than half of the members of both institutions (eighty of 180 HoR members, and fifty of 136 GNC members) have signed the agreement – in their personal capacities, critics claim. Further, on the 6 December, the GNC and HoR signed a declaration of intent in Tunis, which envisages the creation of two ten-member bodies to form a unity government and draft a new constitution. This would pave the way for the holding of elections in two years. The UN’s special envoy to Libya, Martin Kobler, dismissed this local process by saying the ‘train had already left the station’, asserting that the UN deal was the only one that would be considered, and imploring all factions to sign it. Consequently, the UN deal is unlikely to be respected by the GNC and HoR, and it is difficult to see the new ‘government’ operating out of Tripoli. Further, militia leaders were not involved in the negotiations, and are even less supportive of the agreement than the GNC and HoR. Thus, foreign security will likely be required to protect the new government, weakening its already diminished legitimacy and adding another centre of power into the current civil war. The power of the GNC and HoR will thus be denuded, allowing IS to gain more ground, especially as it begins to create institutions to govern areas it controls, and locals become disillusioned with the failure of the mainstream political actors abilities to govern and provide services.

The current situation is a throwback to what Libya faced in April 2011, when the UN and NATO continued to advocate regime change even after the Gadhafi regime had accepted the African Union’s road map which would have allowed for the development of a local political solution. The failure to involve local, influential actors in the process is a big reason the country currently finds itself in a situation of political gridlock and spiralling insecurity. The UN seems to have failed to learn these lessons. However, the agreement can still be saved if the UN is more flexible and willing to incorporate the local process, which on 14 December saw the heads of the GNC and HoR meet for the first time in an attempt to broker a solution. The UN would also need to stave off calls for foreign intervention and airstrikes – at least until a legitimate political solution incorporating all major players is concluded.

21 December 2015

 

Over 25 local municipalities and regional governments in the Spanish State, including in Catalunya and the Basque Country, have endorsed the BDS boycott of Israel and similar resolutions. Recent municipalities include Diputación of Sevilla, Badalona, Terrassa, Santiago de Compostela and last month in November, Cabildo of Gran Canaria.
One year ago Palestine solidarity organisations, human rights NGOs and BDS organisations in the Spanish State jointly launched the Apartheid Israel Free Municipalities campaign.

Other recent BDS related victories in Spain, including in the Basque Country and Catalunya, are:

1. In 2014 more than 1400 academic professors and researchers in Spain, including in the Basque Country and Catalunya, endorsed the academic boycott of Israel. This list has grown since then.

2. In May this year, after being called on by BDS supporters in Catalunya, Spanish singer Marinah Abad, cancelled her Israeli gig in support of the BDS cultural boycott of Israel.

3. Earlier this year in June, the University of Valencia’s Faculty of Geography & History unanimously adopted the BDS call while the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), this past week on the 17th of December 2015, also adopted a similar support for the BDS academic boycott of Israel.

4. In October 2015 the football club Sevilla FC rejected a €5 million Israel bid to publicize Israel on players’ T-shirts.

BDS South Africa has completed a two week speaking and work tour of Spain, including the Basque Country. The trip was initiated and largely organized by Mundubat and included a conference in Donotsia titled “The global movement for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions. Against colonization, apartheid and the Israeli occupation”. The conference was attended by Palestinians, Israelis and BDS representatives from the UK, Brazil and elsewhere.

While in the Spanish State, BDS South Africa also held several meetings with various organisations (BDS Madrid, Rescop etc.), municipalities, government officials and diplomats including the South African and Palestinian Ambassadors in Spain.

The non-violent Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel campaign is indeed an international one. Being in the Spain and the Basque Country and learning of their campaigns, victories and achievements in the boycott of Israel as well as sharing our BDS successes from South Africa has motivated, energised and inspired all parties. We will indeed be entering 2016 more confident knowing that our movement spans various continents and includes peoples of all faiths and ethnicities from across the globe.

ISSUED ON 21 NOVEMBER BY KWARA KEKANA ON BEHALF OF BDS SOUTH AFRICA.
FIND ONLINE: HTTP://TINYURL.COM/P2TSN4M

 

By Taj Hashmi

What the Saudi defence minister Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud declared last Tuesday (15th December) about the formation of a so-called coalition of 34 Muslim nations to fight the ISIS and Islamist terror was dramatic, ridiculous, and ominous. It signalled the beginning of a long-drawn war between super powers, and between Muslim nations on sectarian and other more important geopolitical issues.

Nothing could be more ridiculous than assuming that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and some other Muslim nations have suddenly decided to crush the ISIS for the sake of global and regional peace. It’s unbelievable that countries like Turkey, who buy cheap oil from the ISIS and treat its injured fighters in their hospitals, can just abandon their protégés for some unknown reasons.

Then again, as there are multiple variables about the nature and outcome of the so-called coalition, made in absolute haste, so are there divergent opinions about how this coalition will work, or won’t work at all. Analysts aren’t sure if the coalition will ever involve military forces anywhere. There’s scepticism about the real motives of Saudi Arabia. Some analysts believe the coalition reflects Saudi Arabia’s desire to prove the Kingdom and its state ideology (Wahhabism) have nothing to do with the ISIS.

Others argue that Saudi Arabia wants to contain the growing Iranian influence in the region, especially in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon; and that the coalition reflects Saudi apprehension that the eventual lifting of nuclear-related sanctions against Iran will further strengthen its Shiite adversary. Some analysts believe there are no military implications of the coalition. One of them insists: “At the end of the day this is a political message, not an operational strategic one. It seems very ad hoc.” He believes the coalition is all about containing Iranian influence in the region.

Monish Gulati is quite optimistic about the outcome of the coalition: “The coalition could serve to heal the divide amongst the Sunni Arab countries; the coming together of Turkey and Egypt could bring some positive influence to bear in countries like Palestine where cultural and sectarian rifts have influenced developments negatively. The coalition could even, to the relief of the West, address the refugee issue.” Last but not least, some analysts believe the coalition is aimed at assuaging the world that Muslim nations aren’t indifferent to Islamist terror attacks, and are determined to address the problem.

One, however, doesn’t believe the unilateral declaration by the Saudi defence minister has anything to do with fighting the ISIS and its ilk. One doesn’t believe the coalition will bring the Sunni Muslims together, and will positively impact Palestine, and will address the refugee problem. It seems, the coalition is all about overthrowing the Assad regime in Syria, and eventually containing the Russian and Iranian influence in the region. No wonder, unlike conventional military alliances, which take months and years to germinate, evolve and mature, one single declaration by a Saudi prince ushered in a mega military alliance of 34 nations. Surprisingly, some of the “coalition” members – including Pakistan and Bangladesh – only learnt about their inclusion in the alliance through media reports.

There’s nothing inclusive or Islamic/Muslim about the coalition. Had defeating the ISIS been a motive, Syria and Iraq – the worst victims of ISIS terror – would’ve been in the coalition. The exclusion of Iran makes no sense either. While Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been virtually at war with anti-ISIS forces in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, one wonders as to how these countries are members of a coalition, purportedly created to crush the ISIS and other Sunni terror outfits across the region! As the Saudi minister asserted, the coalition would be led by Saudi Arabia, which would also host a “joint operations centre” to coordinate efforts. Most importantly, military operations are very much in the agenda of the coalition.

In this backdrop, it’s simply unbelievable Bangladesh has decided to support the coalition, and might send mercenaries to tilt at windmills. What doesn’t seem to have dawned on policymakers in the country is that sending mercenaries to kill innocent civilians in the “neo-war on terror” is altogether a different ball game from sending troops for UN peacekeeping missions. Since Bangladesh came into being by fighting a just war against the perpetrators of an unjust one in 1971, joining an unjust war – a proxy war of super powers and their clients – is reprehensible, least dignified and desirable.

One is afraid, what Bangladesh has earned over the years by taking part in UN peacekeeping missions, would throw away by sending mercenaries to fight proxy wars in the Middle East. Since proxy wars lack transparency and legitimacy, no peace loving country can take part in such wars. Since the Saudi-led coalition isn’t aimed at fighting the ISIS and other Sunni extremists but to contain Iran, Russia and other common enemies of Washington, Riyadh, and Ankara, it’s reprehensible that countries like Bangladesh should send mercenaries just to earn some foreign currency. Last but not least, as per the Constitution, Bangladesh can’t engage in any warfare on behalf of some other country/entity in a foreign land (unless sanctioned by the UN).

Bangladesh has already sent thousands of maids to work for their Arab masters – in the most deplorable condition – to augment its foreign currency reserve. It shouldn’t even think of sending mercenaries to fight someone else’s unjust wars. Self-respect, dignity, and commitment to peace and justice are more important than foreign currency. Nobody respects a nation of coolies, domestic servants and mercenaries.

The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University. Sage has recently published his latest book, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.

21 December, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Thomas Gaist

The US and NATO are preparing to carry out new military operations on Libyan territory, a Guardian report made clear on Sunday.

The Western powers are pressuring the newly formed Libyan “unity government” coalition, assembled last week under the nominal leadership of the Maltese government, to approve strikes against ISIS targets in the country, according to the British newspaper.

The first task of the “unity government” should be to issue “a direct call for help from the West,” the European Union’s Libyan ambassador said. UK Prime Minister David Cameron called on the new coalition to serve as “one unified, representative government in Libya in the fight against Daesh [ISIS].” The Gulf regimes will also send forces in support of the imperialist-backed “unity government,” British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond said.

US State Department spokesman John Kirby vowed that Washington would support the new governmental coalition with “full backing and technical, economic, security and counterterrorism assistance.” In his end-of-the year press conference Friday, President Barack Obama hinted at the plans for a new US-NATO military intervention in Libya, saying the country now faced “a very bad situation” as a result of the failure of the NATO coalition to “rebuild government there quickly” after the 2011 war.

The so-called “unity government” does not include either of the two regimes that currently claim sovereignty over Libya. Nor does it include numerous other factions that are heavily involved in fighting on the ground, where at least six major tribal-based militias are struggling for control of portions of the strategic Mediterranean coastline. These include the Libyan National Army, Ansar al-Sharia, the anti-Islamist Cyrenaica militia, Islamic State, the Shura Revolutionary Council, and the Libya Dawn coalition of so-called “moderate Islamist” and Berber militias.

Far from securing any real unity or stability, the new government has been cobbled together to fabricate a legal fig leaf for another military onslaught against Libya by the imperialist powers, which seek to exploit the political chaos produced by the 2011 war to carry out another round of neocolonial predations against Africa and the Middle East. Libya has the largest oil reserves in Africa.

Last week, Western media reported a mounting threat from the growth of a Libyan branch of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), claiming on Sunday that ISIS militias were on the verge of seizing the key town Ajdabiya. Media reports asserted that such a victory would give the militias control over a substantial portion of Libya’s oil wealth.

The sinister nature of the war preparations are underscored by the complete silence of the US media on these developments. A looming escalation in Libya, opening up a new front in a spreading war that already encompasses Iraq, Syria and Yemen, is to be launched behind the backs of the American people without any public discussion or debate.

A US Special Forces mission in Libya ended in a debacle last week, with the commandos making a hasty withdrawal after meeting with unexpected hostility from local forces, according to the Guardian .

The US troops, deployed to “foster relationships,” were reportedly withdrawn soon after deployment when it became clear that Libyan forces in control of the area were hostile to the US presence. Before departing, the US soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes and carrying rifles equipped with silencers and high-tech optics, stopped for a group picture outside a Libyan airport.

On Sunday, NBC News informed readers that US commandos have been operating secretly in Libya for “some time now,” moving “in and out” of the country, according to comments by unnamed US officials.

It was already well established that US Special Forces conducted extensive operations inside Libya prior to 2011, as the US and NATO sought to mobilize Islamist militias for wars against the Libyan and Syrian governments. The NBC story, one of a handful of reports produced last week before the story was buried by the American press, underscores the fact that US forces have continued to wage secret operations in Libya since the official end to the war.

The evidence of US covert operations in Libya comes amid the preparations of the imperialist powers for open air and ground operations to be carried out in the name of fighting Islamist jihadist forces. These are the same militia American and European intelligence agencies and their regional allies such as Saudi Arabia financed and armed in the war that saw the overthrow and murder of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and were then deployed against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

The most aggressive proposals for new operations in Libya have been advanced by London, which has worked with Italy to contrive a strategy that would send sizable ground forces to occupy portions of Rome’s former colony. Britain is preparing to deploy 1,000-plus troops as part of plans to train new Western-backed militias and link up with pro-Western political elements, according to Al Alam .

Earlier this month, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls made clear that France would launch its own renewed operations against Libya, declaring “[W]e have an enemy, Daesh, that we must fight and crush, in Syria, in Iraq and tomorrow without doubt in Libya.”

Last week, in a report to the United Nations, the British government claimed that ISIS viewed Libya as “the best opportunity to expand its so-called caliphate,” and that the Islamist group had established new safe zones and staging areas in North Africa in response to escalated operations by the Western powers in Syria and Iraq.

The French military is already carrying out reconnaissance missions in preparation for the new campaign, including scouting operation over the city of Sirte, which was reduced to rubble by the 2011 bombing campaign. With the media blaring reports that hundreds of ISIS fighters have massed in Sirte, the city appears to be coming into the crosshairs of the Western powers once again.

The “war against ISIS” has become the all-purpose pretext for a new imperialist carve-up of the Middle East and North Africa.

21 December, 2015
WSWS.org