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By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Adam Hersh

NEW YORK – As negotiators and ministers from the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries meet in Atlanta in an effort to finalize the details of the sweeping new Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), some sober analysis is warranted. The biggest regional trade and investment agreement in history is not what it seems.

You will hear much about the importance of the TPP for “free trade.” The reality is that this is an agreement to manage its members’ trade and investment relations – and to do so on behalf of each country’s most powerful business lobbies. Make no mistake: It is evident from the main outstanding issues, over which negotiators are still haggling, that the TPP is not about “free” trade.

New Zealand has threatened to walk away from the agreement over the way Canada and the US manage trade in dairy products. Australia is not happy with how the US and Mexico manage trade in sugar. And the US is not happy with how Japan manages trade in rice. These industries are backed by significant voting blocs in their respective countries. And they represent just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how the TPP would advance an agenda that actually runs counter to free trade.

For starters, consider what the agreement would do to expand intellectual property rights for big pharmaceutical companies, as we learned from leaked versions of the negotiating text. Economic research clearly shows the argument that such intellectual property rights promote research to be weak at best. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary: When the Supreme Court invalidated Myriad’s patent on the BRCA gene, it led to a burst of innovation that resulted in better tests at lower costs. Indeed, provisions in the TPP would restrain open competition and raise prices for consumers in the US and around the world – anathema to free trade.

The TPP would manage trade in pharmaceuticals through a variety of seemingly arcane rule changes on issues such as “patent linkage,” “data exclusivity,” and “biologics.” The upshot is that pharmaceutical companies would effectively be allowed to extend – sometimes almost indefinitely – their monopolies on patented medicines, keep cheaper generics off the market, and block “biosimilar” competitors from introducing new medicines for years. That is how the TPP will manage trade for the pharmaceutical industry if the US gets its way.

Similarly, consider how the US hopes to use the TPP to manage trade for the tobacco industry. For decades, US-based tobacco companies have used foreign investor adjudication mechanisms created by agreements like the TPP to fight regulations intended to curb the public-health scourge of smoking. Under these investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) systems, foreign investors gain new rights to sue national governments in binding private arbitration for regulations they see as diminishing the expected profitability of their investments.

International corporate interests tout ISDS as necessary to protect property rights where the rule of law and credible courts are lacking. But that argument is nonsense. The US is seeking the same mechanism in a similar mega-deal with the European Union, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, even though there is little question about the quality of Europe’s legal and judicial systems.

To be sure, investors – wherever they call home – deserve protection from expropriation or discriminatory regulations. But ISDS goes much further: The obligation to compensate investors for losses of expected profits can and has been applied even where rules are nondiscriminatory and profits are made from causing public harm.

Philip Morris International is currently prosecuting such cases against Australia and Uruguay (not a TPP partner) for requiring cigarettes to carry warning labels. Canada, under threat of a similar suit, backed down from introducing a similarly effective warning label a few years back.

Given the veil of secrecy surrounding the TPP negotiations, it is not clear whether tobacco will be excluded from some aspects of ISDS. Either way, the broader issue remains: Such provisions make it hard for governments to conduct their basic functions – protecting their citizens’ health and safety, ensuring economic stability, and safeguarding the environment.

Imagine what would have happened if these provisions had been in place when the lethal effects of asbestos were discovered. Rather than shutting down manufacturers and forcing them to compensate those who had been harmed, under ISDS, governments would have had to pay the manufacturers not to kill their citizens. Taxpayers would have been hit twice – first to pay for the health damage caused by asbestos, and then to compensate manufacturers for their lost profits when the government stepped in to regulate a dangerous product. It should surprise no one that America’s international agreements produce managed rather than free trade. That is what happens when the policymaking process is closed to non-business stakeholders – not to mention the people’s elected representatives in Congress.

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at Columbia University, was Chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers and served as Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank.

Adam S. Hersh is Senior Economist at the Roosevelt Institute and Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue.

2 October 2015

By Paul Craig Roberts

The world is beginning to realize that a seachange in world affairs occured on September 28 when President Putin of Russia stated in his UN speech that Russia can no longer tolerate Washington’s vicious, stupid, and failed policies that have unleashed chaos, which is engulfing the Middle East and now Europe. Two days later, Russia took over the military situation in Syria and began the destruction of the Islamic State forces.

Perhaps among Obama’s advisors there are a few who are not drowning in hubris and can understand this seachange. Sputnik news reports that some high-level security advisors to Obama have advised him to withdraw US military forces from Syria and give up his plan to overthrow Assad. They advised Obama to cooperate with Russia in order to stop the refugee flow that is overwhelming Washington’s vassals in Europe. The influx of unwanted peoples is making Europeans aware of the high cost of enabling US foreign policy. Advisors have told Obama that the idiocy of the neoconservatives’ policies threaten Washington’s empire in Europe.

Several commentators, such as Mike Whitney and Stephen Lendman, have concluded, correctly, that there is nothing that Washington can do about Russian actions against the Islamic State. The neoconservatives’ plan for a UN no-fly zone over Syria in order to push out the Russians is a pipedream. No such resolution will come out of the UN. Indeed, the Russians have already established a de facto no-fly zone.

Putin, without issuing any verbal threats or engaging in any name-calling, has decisively shifted
the power balance, and the world knows it.

Washington’s response consists of name-calling, bluster and more lies, some of which is echoed by some of Washington’s ever more doubtful vassals. The only effect is to demonstrate Washington’s impotence.

If Obama has any sense, he will dismiss from his government the neoconservative morons who have squandered Washington’s power, and he will focus instead on holding on to Europe by working with Russia to destroy, rather than to sponsor, the terrorism in the Middle East that is overwhelming Europe with refugees.

If Obama cannot admit a mistake, the United States will continue to lose credibility and prestige around the world.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

11 October, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Ali Abunimah

This video shows Yahya Hassan embracing and bidding farewell to his baby daughter Rahaf in Gaza on Sunday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNOtwmkxc4I

“Wake up, my daughter,” the inconsolable father says, and asks relatives to “leave her with me.”

The toddler died along with her pregnant mother Nour Rasmi Hassan in an Israeli air strike.

Israel claimed it was bombing two Hamas “weapons-manufacturing centers” after one of its anti-missile batteries intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza.

The fierce explosion of the Israeli bombs caused a nearby house in Gaza City’s al-Zaytoun neighborhood to collapse killing Nour, who was 5-months pregnant, along with Rahaf, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, which cited medical sources.

Nour Hassan was aged 30. The father Yahya was also injured in the attack.

Senior Israeli military personnel generally acknowledge that Hamas is not firing the rockets and is attempting to prevent small groups from doing so, in line with the ceasefire agreement that ended Israel’s 51-day attack on Gaza in August 2014.

But Israel asserts that Hamas is responsible for everything that happens in Gaza. While Palestinian violations of the ceasefire are extremely rare, Israel has breached it hundreds of times, according to international monitors.

Gaza boys killed

On Saturday, Israeli occupation forces shot dead two Palestinian boys near its boundary fence with the Gaza Strip, east of Khan Younis.

The Palestinian Authority health ministry named the boys as 13-year-old Marwan Barbakh and 15-year-old Khalil Othman, according to Ma’an News Agency.

The Palestine Red Crescent said that its medics had treated seven Palestinians shot with live rounds across the Gaza Strip, and 21 who suffered excessive tear gas inhalation on Saturday, Ma’an added.

On Friday, Israel killed six Palestinians in the same area of Gaza. The six had been protesting in solidarity with Palestinians in the West Bank.

Gaza-based journalist Mohammed Omer has suggested that the desperate situation in Gaza, which remains under tight Israeli siege with little reconstruction since last year’s attack, is fueling the protests.

“When I talk to protesters they tell me: either we live in dignity or die. Israel has to realize this shift in the new generation,” Omer tweeted.

Since the start of October, 23 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces, according to figures released by the Palestinian Authority health ministry on Sunday.

The ministry put the number of injured by live ammunition or rubber-coated steel bullets fired by Israeli forces at more than 1,100.

A Palestinian man who had been hit in the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet on Thursday, also died of his injuries on Saturday.

Ibrahim Ahmad Mustafa Aoud, 27, was injured during confrontrations with Israeli forces in the West Bank village of Beit Ummar, Ma’an News Agenvy reported. Doctors said he died due to severe head trauma.

Ali Abunimah is Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books. Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.

11 October, 2015
Electronicintifada.net

By Ralph Nader

The photographs in the New York Times told contrasting stories last week. One showed two Taliban soldiers in civilian clothes and sandals, with their rifles, standing in front of a captured U.N. vehicle. The Taliban forces had taken the northern provincial capital of Kunduz. The other photograph showed Afghan army soldiers fully equipped with modern gear, weapons, and vehicles.

Guess who is winning? An estimated thirty-thousand Taliban soldiers with no air force, navy, or heavy weapons have been holding down ten times more Afghan army and police and over 100,000 U.S. soldiers with the world’s most modern weaponry – for eight years.

ISIS forces from Syria have taken over large areas of northern and western Iraq, including its second largest city, Mosul, and the battered city of Fallujah. ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria are estimated to number no more than 35,000. Like the Taliban, ISIS fighters, who vary in their military training, primarily have light weaponry. That is when they are not taking control of the fleeing, much larger, Iraqi army’s armored vehicles and ammunition from the United States.

Against vastly greater numbers of Iraqi soldiers, backed by U.S. weapons, U.S. planes bombing daily, 24/7 aerial surveillance, and U.S. military advisors at the ground level, so far ISIS is still holding most of its territory and is still dominant in large parts of Syria.

The American people are entitled to know how all this military might and the trillions of dollars spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, since 2003 and 2001 respectively, can produce such negative fallouts.

Certainly these failures have little to do with observing the restraints of international law. Presidents Bush and Obama have sent military power anywhere and everywhere, regardless of national boundaries and the resulting immense civilian casualties, in those tragic, blown-apart countries.

The current perception of the U.S. in these countries is that of invaders on a rampage. Recruiting motivated fighters, including a seemingly endless supply of suicide bombers, is easier when the invaders come from western countries that for over a century have been known for attacking, carving up boundaries for artificial states, intervening, overthrowing, propping up domestic dictators, and generally siding with oligarchic or colonizing interests that brutalize the mass of the people.

It hasn’t helped for these invasions to be supported by an alien culture rooted in the Christian crusades against Islam centuries ago, whose jingoism in the U.S. continues among some evangelical groups today.

But of course more contemporary situations are, first and foremost, the wonton destruction and violent chaos that comes with such invasions. With the absence of any functioning central governments and the dominance of tribal societies, the sheer complexity of the invaders trying to figure out the intricate “politics” between and within tribes and clans turns into an immense, ongoing trap for the western military forces.

When the U.S. started taking sides with the Shiites against the Sunnis in Iraq, or between different clans and tribes in Afghanistan, U.S. soldiers, not knowing the language or customs, were left with handing out $100 bills to build alliances. Our government air-shipped and distributed crates of this money. With the local economies at a standstill, public facilities collapsed, fear gripped families from violent streets and roads, and all havoc broke lose in the struggle for safety and survival.

Afghan soldiers, who are paid only $120 a month, will do almost anything to supplement their income, including selling weapons. At higher levels, bribes, payoffs, extortions create an underground economic system. The combination of lack of understanding, the systemic bribes, and the ensuing corruption has produced a climate of chaos.

Then there is the reckless slaughter of civilians – wedding parties, schools, clinics, peasant boys collecting fire-wood on a hillside – from supposedly pinpoint, accurate airplanes, helicopter gunships, drones, or missiles. Hatred of the Americans spreads as people lose their loved ones.

Our “blowback” policies are fueling the expansion of al-Qaeda offshoots and new violent groups in over 20 countries. On 9/11, the “threat” was coming from a corner of one country – northeastern Afghanistan. The Bush/Cheney prevaricator frenzy led to local bounty hunters taking innocent captives, falsely labeled as “terrorists,” who were sent to the prisons in Guantanamo, Cuba. These actions have damaged our country’s reputation all over the world.

All this could have been avoided had we heeded the advice of retired, high-ranking military, national security, and diplomatic officials not to invade Iraq and their advice not to overreact in Afghanistan. But the supine mass media, and an overall cowardly Congress let the lies, deceptions, and cover-ups by the Bush regime go unchallenged and, as Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) put it, Bush/Cheney “lied us into the Iraq War.”

It isn’t as if the Taliban and ISIS are winning the “hearts and minds” of the local people. On the contrary, while promising law and order, they treat local populations quite brutally, with few exceptions. But the locals have long been treated brutally by the police, army, and militias jockeying for the spoils of conflict. Unfortunately, there is still no semblance of ground-level security.

All Empires fail and eventually devour themselves. The U.S. Empire is no different. Look at the harm to and drain on our soldiers, our domestic economy, the costly, boomeranging, endless wars overseas and what empire building has done to spread anxieties and lower the expectation level of the American people for their public budgets and public services.

Not repeatedly doing what has failed is the first step toward correction. How much better and cheaper it would be if years ago we became a humanitarian power – well received by the deprived billions in these anguished lands.

What changes are needed to get out of these quagmires and leave a semblance of recovery behind? Press those gaggles of presidential candidates, who war-monger with impunity or who are dodging this grave matter, for answers. Make them listen to you.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His latest book is The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future. Other recent books include, The Seventeen Traditions: Lessons from an American Childhood, Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win, and “Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us” (a novel).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

10 October, 2015
Nader.org

 

By Bill Van Auken

The Obama administration Friday announced an “operational pause” of the disastrously failed Pentagon program for arming and training “vetted rebels” in Turkey and sending them back across the border into Syria.

Instead, Pentagon and White House officials indicated, the focus will now shift to cementing ties with leaders of existing “rebel” militias, consisting overwhelmingly of Sunni Islamist forces with connections to Al Qaeda. US backing to these groups will apparently include both arms and ammunition as well as close air support from warplanes deployed by the US and its so-called coalition.

The policy shift follows the revelation last month by General Lloyd Austin, the commander of US Central Command, that only “four or five” individual US-trained fighters were then on the ground in Syria, and barely 100 more were undergoing training. This, after the allocation of $500 million for the Pentagon to train over 5,000 such fighters within the first year.

Austin’s revelation was followed within weeks by the Pentagon being forced to retract its initial denial of verified reports that a group of US-trained fighters sent into Syria had immediately turned over its vehicles and weaponry to the al-Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.

The change in strategy also follows a first week of Russian airstrikes against Islamist forces in Syria, including some that had previously received arms shipments organized by the CIA. Beginning in 2011, the US spy agency set up a clandestine station in Turkey and organized the funneling into Syria of weaponry from Libyan stockpiles after the US-NATO war for regime change had succeeded in toppling and murdering Muammar Gaddafi.

Both Washington and Moscow claim to be waging their respective military campaigns in Syria for the purpose of destroying the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an Al Qaeda offshoot that is the direct product of the unleashing of death and destruction against Iraq, Libya and Syria itself by the US military and CIA.

In reality, however, the US and Russian governments are fighting for opposite aims: Washington, to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad and install an American puppet regime; and Moscow to prop up the Assad government, its sole Middle Eastern ally.

The administration has come under increasing criticism from Republican opponents and sections of the US military and intelligence complex for its supposed “inaction” in the face of the Russian offensive in Syria. This found expression Friday in a column published under the joint byline of Obama’s former defense secretary, Robert Gates, and former Bush administration national security adviser Condoleezza Rice entitled “Countering Putin.”

It calls for actions to “create a better military balance of power on the ground,” including the creation of “no-fly zones” as well as “robust support” for various anti-regime forces and an effort to “solidify our relationship with Turkey,” a principal sponsor of the Islamist militias inside Syria.

The Obama administration’s announcement was also preceded by a letter sent to the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA by a bipartisan group of Senate critics of the administration’s Syria policy calling for an end to the “rebel” training program.

“The Syria Train and Equip Program goes beyond simply being an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars. As many of us initially warned, it is now aiding the very forces we aim to defeat,” stated the letter, which was signed by Democratic senators Tom Udall (New Mexico), Joe Manchin (West Virginia) and Chris Murphy (Connecticut) along with Republican Mike Lee (Utah).

The shift in policy announced Friday will not alter this aspect of the program, but only remove the fig leaf of “moderate” Syrian forces, with the handing over of weapons directly to the Islamists who constitute the dominant force among the anti-Assad “rebels.”

The Pentagon has acknowledged that among the principal obstacles to its training program was the vetting process that was supposed to have excluded those whose views were close to Al Qaeda’s, and the requirement that they engage ISIS as the main enemy, rather than the Assad government. It was unable to find such recruits in anywhere near the numbers projected.

President Barack Obama acknowledged in a press conference last week that the Pentagon’s train-and-equip program “has not worked the way it was supposed to.” He added, “And part of the reason, frankly, is because when we tried to get them to just focus on ISIL,” i.e., ISIS.

It appears that the administration’s answer to this failure is to drop these previous restrictions, providing direct US military aid to forces fighting for the overthrow of the Syrian government, including Islamists who would have been excluded from the Pentagon training program.

In the first announcement of the new program, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, speaking in London following a meeting with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, said that it would be modeled on “the work we’ve done with the Kurds in northern Syria … That’s exactly the kind of example that we would like to pursue with other groups in other parts of Syria going forward. That is going to be the core of the President’s concept.”

The US coordination with the Kurds, particularly during the ISIS siege of the Syrian city of Kobani, on the Turkish border, involved Kurds providing ground forces, while identifying targets and calling in airstrikes by US warplanes.

As part of the new program, Pentagon officials said that the US military would train “enablers,” leading members of various militias, who would be instructed in how to coordinate with American warplanes in targeting and striking forces on the ground.

The Kurdish “example” has been rendered problematic by Washington’s alliance with Turkey, which has allowed US airstrikes to be launched from Incirlik Air Base and other bases inside Turkey in return for Washington’s tacit approval of Turkish bombing of the Kurds.

The identity of the “other groups” with whom Washington wants to replicate this strategy is far from clear. Some media reports named the “Syrian Arab Coalition” as a likely recipient of US weapons and close air support. Prior to Friday’s announcement, however, no one had ever heard of this coalition, which appears to be something that the Pentagon hopes to cobble together from existing “rebel” groups.

The dominant forces fighting the Assad government consist of ISIS, which Washington claims to be committed to destroying, the al-Nusra Front, which is on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, and Ahrar al-Sham, another Islamist group whose founders came out of Al Qaeda. Other smaller factions are largely fighting in alliance with these forces.

To the extent that the US military provides air support to these militias, it may well come into direct conflict with Russian warplanes that are bombing them.

Far from a tactical retreat, it appears that the suspension of the Pentagon’s train-and-equip program is only setting the stage for a far bloodier war inside Syria, while heightening the real danger of a military clash between the world’s two largest nuclear powers, the United States and Russia.

10 October, 2015
WSWS.org

 

Yayasan 1Malaysia welcomes the call made by the Conference of Rulers to the Government to expedite the completion of investigations related to 1MDB and to take “appropriate stern action” against all found to be implicated in the scandal. The Rulers also asked all concerned to extend “real and sincere cooperation” for the investigation to achieve its objectives. In this regard, the Rulers also emphasized the importance of all enforcement agencies and regulatory institutions fulfilling “God’s trust and the people’s faith with transparency, credibility and integrity.” It is equally significant that the Rulers cautioned that our inter-religious harmony should “never be sacrificed for shallow political aims.”

One hopes that all those who wield power and influence in Malaysian society at this point in time will pay close attention to every word in the statement of the Conference of Rulers. The advice contained therein, if followed scrupulously, will help to resolve some serious challenges pertaining to integrity and honesty in governance facing the nation today. If, on the other hand, the wise counsel of the Rulers is ignored, and the truth continues to be concealed and camouflaged through Machiavellian political machinations, the people will suffer and the future of the nation will be imperiled.

Our nation is at a crossroads. The national leadership has to do what is morally right NOW.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar,

Chairman,Board of Trustees, Yayasan 1Malaysia.

Petaling Jaya.

7 October 2015.

By Bill Van Auken

In a joint statement Friday, Washington and its allies in the war for regime change in Syria issued a condemnation of Russia’s recent airstrikes in that country, demanding that Moscow confine any military action to attacks on Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targets.

“These military actions constitute a further escalation and will only fuel more extremism and radicalization,” the statement warned.

This essential message was echoed by French President Francois Hollande, who met Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Paris. Russia, Holland declared, must “only hit” ISIS.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who appeared together with Hollande following a summit meeting on the crisis in Ukraine, which was also attended by Putin, stated, “Both of us insisted on the fact that IS [ISIS] is the enemy we should be fighting.”

These warnings and condemnations came as Russian warplanes carried out a third day of strikes, hitting targets in Raqqa, the de facto capital of the ISIS-controlled region of Syria in the east, as well as Islamist “rebel” position further west, including in Darat al-Izza, a town in western Aleppo, and Maarat al-Nu’man, in Idlib province.

Speaking in Paris, Putin said that Russia’s actions in Syria were directed against “ISIL [ISIS], Al-Nusra Front and others.”

“The main targets are Daesh [the Arab acronym for ISIS] groups situated closest to Damascus,” Alexei Pushkov, a top Russian Foreign Ministry official, said. He added that the Russian airstrikes could continue for up to four months.

What is most notable about the joint statement by the US and its allies, as well as remarks made in appearances by Western officials and in the coverage of the controversy in the corporate-controlled media, is the reluctance to state who it is that is being defended against Russian attack.

There have been vague references to “the moderate Sunni opposition,” which President Barack Obama invoked at a White House press conference Friday. He used the same appearance to accuse Moscow of waging a “campaign to simply try to destroy anybody who is disgusted and fed up with Mr. Assad’s behavior.”

In reality, the forces on the ground that the US and its allies are defending and which they are demanding that Russia stop bombing are dominated by the Al-Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.

Some media accounts have referred to Russian bombs hitting the positions of Jaysh al-Fatah, or Army of Conquest, in Syria’s northwest province of Idlib. This “army” consists of a coalition of Al-Nusra and other Al Qaeda-connected Islamist militias that are backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. After massacring Druze villagers in Idlib, they are threatening to move into Latakia province, which is predominantly Alawite and has been a key base of support for Assad, and where Russia’s main military forces have been deployed.

Darat al-Izza, the town in western Aleppo hit by Russian bombs, is also controlled by a similar coalition dominated by Al-Nusra fighters.

This is to whom Obama was referring when he declared at his press conference that Russia “doesn’t distinguish between ISIL and a moderate Sunni opposition that wants to see Mr. Assad go… From their perspective, they’re all terrorists, and that’s a recipe for disaster.”

From Washington’s own perspective, Al-Nusra was also terrorist; at least it was three years ago when the Obama administration added the group to the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. At that time, the State Department cited hundreds of attacks by Al-Nusra, including suicide bombings, in which it said “numerous innocent Syrians have been killed.” The ruling found that Al-Nusra was merely another name for Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Three years later, it is clear that Washington is in what constitutes, at the very least, a de facto alliance with Al-Nusra, which, alongside ISIS, constitutes the most powerful anti-Assad militia. US arms funneled in to CIA-backed “rebels” have largely ended up in Al-Nusra’s stockpiles, while the minuscule number of “vetted rebels” trained and armed by the Pentagon in its notoriously failed program have, virtually to a man, defected to Al-Nusra or turned their weapons over to the militia.

Former US General David Petraeus, who headed the CIA and commanded US forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, last month urged Washington to further its position on the ground in Syria by recruiting sections of the Al-Nusra Front as US proxy troops against the Assad government.

“It might be possible at some point to peel off so-called ‘reconcilables’ who would be willing to renounce Nusra and align with the moderate opposition…to fight against Nusra, ISIL and Assad,” Petraeus said during an interview with CNN.

After 14 years of invoking Al Qaeda terrorism as the all-purpose bogeyman for justifying wars abroad and repression at home, Washington is now coming to the defense of the group in Syria, seeking to preserve it as a military force for overthrowing the Syrian government and thereby weakening both Russia and Iran.

Russia’s intervention is unquestionably directed at preventing the fall of the Syrian government to the onslaught of attacks by Islamist Sunni sectarian militias armed to the teeth and funded with billions of dollars by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Western powers, all under the guiding hand of the US Central Intelligence Agency.

The airstrikes ordered by Moscow are ratcheting up the threat of military confrontation with the US, which is continuing to conduct its own bombing raids in Syria together with a “coalition” consisting primarily of the reactionary Sunni oil sheikdoms. France has also begun its own independent air campaign over its former colonial possession.

Moreover, the Russian intervention cannot provide a progressive way out of the Syrian crisis, directed as it is toward the defense of the interests of the Russian state and the parasitic and criminal class of post-Soviet oligarchs that it represents.

Nonetheless, for Washington and its allies to condemn Russia for military “escalation” and acting to “fuel extremism and radicalization” in Syria is the height of hypocrisy.

The brutal civil war that has claimed the lives of up to 300,000 Syrians and turned many millions more into refugees and displaced persons was instigated, funded and armed by the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Western powers. They sought to repeat the “success” registered by the US-NATO war in Libya, which ended in the toppling and murder of its secular leader Muammar Gaddafi and the plunging of the country into a bloody war between rival militias and governments, along with economic, political and social disintegration that continues to this day.

Meanwhile, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are reported to have organized the shipment of planeloads of weapons to Turkish airbases for distribution to the Sunni Islamist militias.

The reactionary oil monarchies are demanding that the Syrian civil war end in the deposing of Assad and the installation of a puppet regime more amendable to their interests.

While voicing support for a negotiated settlement, Washington’s aim also remains regime change, placing it and Russia, the world’s two largest nuclear powers, on a collision course.
03 October, 2015
WSWS.org

 

By Francis Khoo Thwe

The Myanmar government wants to censor the pope and Card Francis Charles Bo, Myanmar’s first cardinal, with regards to the term “Rohingya” insofar as it is used in relation to the Muslim minority in Rakhine State, western Myanmar, a group that has been subject to abuse and persecutions for years. As the country prepares for general elections on 8 November amid growing sectarian and racial tensions and open fighting with ethnic minorities, it is becoming increasingly clear that the pledges made in the past about progress in human rights, as well civil and political rights after decades of a brutal military dictatorship, are no longer a priority.

Pope Francis is one of the few world leaders to have spoken about the plight of Myanmar’s Muslim minority, and this on several occasions, referring to them as ‘Rohingya,’ a term unpopular with Myanmar’s rulers. The matter came to the fore before the archbishop of Yangon left for Rome to attend the Synod on the family. According to Burmese language Mizzima News, officials at the Myanmar Ministry of Religious Affairs approached the cardinal to ask him not to use the word “Rohingya” in the presence of Pope Francis when he is at the Vatican. Some Ministry officials “recently came to meet me regarding the term of ‘Rohingya,’” said Card Bo. “The Religious [Affairs] Minister wanted to meet me,” he explained, “but so far I haven’t met him”. “If the word Rohingya is used,” people will associate them with Rahkine State, which is what the authorities do not want. For this reason, they are pushing for the “term Bengali or Muslim from Rahkine State.”

The “situation there is very crucial,” Card Bo said. “I think that we have to solve this problem before it becomes too prolonged, before there is more violence,” also in relation to “international terrorism and other things.” When asked if he would use the term in front of Pope Francis he said he would use “Rohingya to indicate [the issue]” but would address the people as Muslims from Rahkine state because of the sensitivity of the subject. At the same time though, he said that he refuses to use the term “Bengali” for those who identify as Rohingya because their families have been in the country for over a century.

This attempt at censorship by the Myanmar government confirms once more the climate of ethnic and sectarian tensions that currently prevail in the country. The controversial laws advocated by Buddhist extremists against mixed marriages, conversions, adultery, and polygamy are starting to have their first negative effects.

Sources told AsiaNews that mixed Buddhist-Catholic families have stopped sending their children to catechism and to church for the sacraments. Fearing possible repercussions, bishops have ordered a stop to marriages involving mixed couples. Married couples from mixed backgrounds are already facing problems.

Recently, a convent of nuns was attacked and devastated in the city of Nyaungwon. Residents ransacked the monastery and destroyed everything, forcing the nuns to flee, after a 14-year-old Buddhist teenager was accused of killing a 4-year-old Buddhist boy whose body was found on church ground. Appeals for calm by the country’s bishops have had no effect so far. A witness said that in this climate, it is “no longer possible” for the Catholic community “to provide help and assistance to the poor if they are Buddhist.”

Christians also risk being accused of forced conversion because young people of other faiths go to Catholic schools. “The situation is becoming more difficult,” said the source, anonymous for security reasons. A Buddhist extremist movement is behind the escalating sectarian and ethnic tensions. According to well-informed sources, the group is operating with the approval of the country’s highest political authorities, in particular the military, who still hold real power in Myanmar. The climate of fear and tensions has not spared Buddhists, many of whom oppose the recent laws passed with the support of the main opposition party, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD).

The government’s decision to release common criminals and murderers whilst keeping political prisoners behind bars has made matters worse. Sources told AsiaNews that the military and the government are pursuing a strategy designed to increase tensions in order to discourage voting. At the same time, vote rigging appears to be well underway (with some people left off voters’ lists whilst the names of dead people are included inothers). “All these moves have one purpose: prevent Aung San Suu Kyi’s party from winning,” said the source. “The regime wants to divide people in order to hold on to power.”

2 October 2015

By Rori Donaghy

A senior member of Saudi Arabia’s royal family has circulated a letter expressing fear that the monarchy may collapse unless the king is urgently replaced and the position of deputy crown prince scrapped, Middle East Eye can reveal.

On 4 September, a grandson of the late King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud wrote a four-page letter calling on the royal family to hold an emergency meeting to address concerns that the House of Saud may be losing its grip on power.

“We [have] got closer and closer to the fall of the state and the loss of power,” the letter read.

“We appeal to all the sons of King Abdulaziz – from the eldest Prince Bandar to the youngest Prince Muqrin – to summon an emergency meeting with all the family to discuss the situation and do everything that is need to save the country.”

The letter was signed “a descendant of the King Abdulaziz of the House of Saud”. MEE spoke to the letter’s author, who confirmed he is a grandson of Abdulaziz, but asked not to be named for fear of negative repercussions.

The document has been carefully circulated among princes, using secure means of mobile communication, because royal family members are under surveillance by those in power, the letter’s author said.

Generational change and power politics

King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud established the modern state of Saudi Arabia in 1932. Since his death in 1953, the country has been ruled by his sons but this is expected to change when the incumbent King Salman’s rule ends, as the heir to the throne Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef is a grandson of Abdulaziz.

This generational shift in Saudi Arabia – despite 13 of Abdulaziz’s sons still being alive – is likely to have been the source of much debate among royals, leading to the letter being written, a regional expert told MEE.

“The most important recent development in Saudi Arabia has been the transition occurring within al-Saud itself in terms of moving from the sons of Abdulaziz to the grandsons,” said Christian Koch, director of the Saudi-funded Gulf Research Centre.

“It is not at all surprising that in light of these changes there is debate going on in the royal family about its future direction.”

The letter partly represents a generational conflict within al-Saud and comes after powerful wings of the family battled for supremacy in the aftermath of the late King Abdullah’s death this January.

The zero-sum game of Saudi politics was exemplified then by the newly anointed King Salman replacing his predecessor’s men with his own people – including the powerful head of the royal court Khalid al-Tuwaijri who was switched for his Salman’s inexperienced 30-year-old son Mohammed bin Salman.

It later emerged that during Abdullah’s final hours, Tuwaijri tried to secure his own position and the second generation of Saudi’s rulers by contriving to have Abdullah’s son Prince Meteb made deputy crown prince – the position now enjoyed by Salman’s son Mohammed. This attempt failed, but not before Tuwaijri also tried to have Salman declared mentally unfit to rule.

Foreign policy and financial crises

The letter, which is set in this context of internal House of Saud power struggles, claims problems began 10 years ago under Abdullah. It argues the need to bring back older members of the Saud dynasty by criticising “totally miscalculated” military decisions in Yemen, Syria and Iraq, claiming that these choices have “weakened the trust of our people and [incited] other peoples against us”.

There have been a series of sharp changes in Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy since Salman took over from Abdullah. Under the late king, Riyadh was understood to view the Muslim Brotherhood and its various offshoots as being enemy number one in the region.

This policy led to Saudi advisors reportedly being in touch with Houthi militiamen in Yemen, who they viewed as a being a bulwark against the local Brotherhood affiliate al-Islah. Under Salman, however, countering Iranian influence is viewed as a key policy priority, and, as such, his defence minister son in March launched a regional coalition against the Houthis, a group viewed by Arab Gulf states as being backed by regional rival Iran.

The war in Yemen, whilst gaining some achievements in pushing the Houthis out of southern areas of the country, has not been a shining success for Saudi Arabia. Dozens of Saudi soldiers have been killed amid an ongoing air and ground campaign, and the Houthis remain in control of the capital Sanaa, while there are reports of skirmishes inside Saudi Arabia by invading Houthis.

Meanwhile in Syria and Iraq, Riyadh joined the US-led coalition to bomb the Islamic State (IS) group in September last year, under the leadership of Abdullah. Since then the kingdom has seen IS claim deadly attacks on the minority Shia community and the government has claimed to have arrested hundreds of the group’s supporters across the country.

Also in Syria the Saudi leadership has actively supported rebel groups battling President Bashar al-Assad, in a civil war where more than 220,000 people have been killed.

As with Yemen, there is currently little to suggest that in Syria Saudi Arabia is close to achieving its military goals. Assad still retains control over swathes of the country, with the international community increasingly distracted by tackling IS, which appears to be no weaker than when the US-led coalition started bombing the group last year.

The royal letter penned by a grandson of Abdulaziz also pointed to financial challenges facing al-Saud, referencing a collapse in oil prices that over the past 12 months has seen the price of a barrel plummet from $120 to less than $50. The impact on the Gulf state, which relies on oil revenues for 90 percent of its income, has been stark – a Citibank analyst recently told MEE that this year the government would have a 20-percent gap between revenue and planned spending, leaving it with one of the largest fiscal deficits in the world.

This deficit has led to Riyadh plundering its sizable currency reserves to prop up spending. In the first half of 2015 the government spent $82bn of reserves, reducing savings to around $650bn, according to Saudi investment company Jadwa. With over 10 percent of currency reserves spent in six months the Citibank analyst warned that, without borrowing, the country’s savings could run dry within two or three years.

The scale of the country’s problems – both militarily and financially – led to the grandson of the country’s founder writing that change at the top may be necessary to protect al-Saud’s future as rulers.

“We will not be able to stop the draining of money, the political adolescence, and the military risks unless we change the methods of decision making, even if that implied changing the king himself,” the letter read.

A well-connected Saudi dissident who lives in London told MEE that the letter is evidence of the royal family recognising the seriousness of the crises ahead.

“There is an awareness in the mind of al-Saud that there is something going wrong and that it needs to be faced,” the dissident, who is in regular contact with royal family members, said on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals.

“This is a wakeup call to stop the collapse.”

Plotting a change at the top

The source said the royal family broadly falls into two camps when considering how to deal with their problems. On one side there are those who do not wish to raise any problems as they fear open disagreement may weaken themselves in the eyes of the public. On the other side there are royals who believe silence will lead to total collapse.

The letter suggested a solution for al-Saud to strengthen their position by returning power to older members of the family who have been side-lined under King Salman. The new ruler has favoured new, younger members of the family close to him – with Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef replacing the youngest of Abdulaziz’s sons Muqrin as crown prince, and his own son Mohammed becoming deputy crown prince.

“[We have neglected] the marginalisation of the elders and the carriers of experience, as well as the surrender of command to the new generations of foolish dreamers who are acting behind the façade of an incapable king,” the letter read.

“How could we accept the marginalisation of King Abdulaziz’s sons both in power and in the processes of policy making?”

Mohammed bin Salman has been roundly criticised for his role in leading the country’s troublesome war in Yemen. The London-based Saudi dissident said that the letter is part of an effort to side-line Mohammed, who is criticised in the text as being a “rotten thief,” and push forward a replacement king.

“The real story behind this letter is that it is preparation for [King Salman’s brother] Ahmed bin Abdulaziz to be pushed towards power,” the source said.

Seventy-three-year-old Prince Ahmed is the youngest member of the powerful Sudairi brothers – an alliance of seven sons of Abdulaziz born to the late king’s favourite wife Hassa bin Ahmed al-Sudairi. He served as deputy interior minister for nearly 30 years from 1975.

In 2012 he was made interior minister, in a move widely viewed as priming him to be a future ruler. However, he was dismissed just five months later in favour of the incumbent Mohammed bin Nayef, who is also the serving crown prince. And in 2014, when Abdullah appointed his brother Muqrin as crown prince, Ahmed was seen as having missed out on the chance to ever be king.

Despite this, the London-based dissident said the prince is viewed favourably among his peers.

“Ahmed is the healthiest and most honest of the senior royals. He doesn’t drink. He’s not a womaniser. He’s the least corrupt,” the source said.

“Everybody thought that he was the natural person to be appointed by Salman as crown prince. He is the real heir apparent in the minds of many people.”

The London-based dissident said that Ahmed is keen on the idea of being promoted but he is reluctant to make the move himself. The prince, while ambitious, is conscious of not appearing to be in conflict with his brother Salman and his son Mohammed.

“He wants others to push him forward for the throne,” the source said.

The grandson of Abdulaziz said in his letter that he will support royal family members being promoted “with meritocracy” by collecting signatures from princes to implement changes for the “common good”.

The letter also said that it is the responsibility of princes including Ahmed bin Abdulaziz “to collect the views and gather the ranks” of the royal family.

“They should isolate the incapable King Salman, the extravagant and vain Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, and the rotten thief Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been devastating for the state, so that the greatest and most pious assume the control of the affairs of the state and of its people.”

“We also ask for a new king and a new crown prince to be invested and take over everyone and for the abolition of the peculiar office of the deputy crown prince.”

Another regional expert said it was highly likely family members will gather to discuss changes but expressed doubt Mohammed bin Salman will be side-lined in the near future.

“I would imagine the demand for an emergency meeting is inevitable – if it hasn’t already taken place,” said Christopher Davidson, author of After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies and reader in Middle East politics at Durham University.

“But the demand for removing the deputy crown prince seems unobtainable.”

The London-based Saudi source said that they had not been able to confirm whether the royal family had held an emergency meeting. However, they claimed to be “aware of discord and discussion about the letter”.

Mohammed bin Salman seeking a promotion

The source said that there is much speculation among al-Saud family members that once this year’s annual pilgrimage ends, which is expected to be on 26 September, the deputy crown prince will move to make himself heir to the throne.

“Some royal family members believe that once hajj is over Mohammed bin Salman will remove Mohammed bin Nayef as crown prince – by orders of his father – and appoint himself,” the source said.

“They [the royal family members] are bracing themselves for this development because they see it as very dangerous. They think it will bring revolt and make it much more likely for action to be taken to push Ahmed [bin Abdulaziz] towards taking power.”

Mohammed bin Salman is increasingly being viewed as possessing much of the power behind the throne, especially amid unconfirmed rumours his 79-year-old father is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. The deputy crown prince recently accompanied the king on a trip to meet with US President Barack Obama where it is believed the 30-year-old played a key role in strategic discussions.

After the visit, an unnamed Arab official told the Washington Post that it is possible King Salman could alter the succession process to name his son as heir.

“Let’s face reality,” the official said. “He’s the son of the king. There’s a strong chance he will be the next king. The longer Salman survives, the larger the chance that MBS (Mohammed bin Salman) is next.”

The impression that Mohammed may be plotting a route to be Saudi Arabia’s next king likely explains the strong feeling among both the grandson of Abdulaziz and the London-based dissident that royal family members are urgently seeking an emergency meeting.

However, the Gulf Research Centre’s Koch played down talk that Mohammed is plotting a way to remove the current crown prince and promote himself to be first in line to the throne.

“One thing to remember is that the ruling family is large and anyone who wants to assert authority will need to be able to put together a broad consensus from within,” he said. “As such, suggestions, as currently circulating, that Mohammed bin Salman in preparing for a coup are quite fanciful if you ask me.”

A prominent Saudi journalist also poured scorn on the idea that a power struggle may be emerging in the country and questioned the authenticity of the letter calling for change at the top.

“I know a prince who is always exchanging with me documents and articles,” Jamal Khashoggi, General Manager of Al Arab television, told MEE. “This letter hasn’t circulated. I still have my doubts [about its authenticity].”

Rori Donaghy founded the Emirates Centre for Human Rights, which was the first independent organisation to focus on human rights abuse in the United Arab Emirates and he has had his work published in the Guardian’s Comment is Free, Huffington Post, Jadaliyya and Open Democracy.

22 September 2015

By Kenneth Eade

Smedley Butler, the highest ranking USMC Major General of his time, put it best when he said, “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” He describes his military career as serving in “all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

The same is true of the “War on Terror.” Patriotism has, throughout history, been used as a tool to garner public opinion in support of war. The terror card played by George W. Bush, has been passed on to Barack Obama, who ironically won a Nobel Peace Prize for “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” and promotion of a “new climate in international relations, especially in reaching out to the Muslim world.” Our peace loving president, whose first effort to bomb Syria was quashed by Russian diplomacy, is now at it again, under the guise of attacking ISIS, an organization whose strength would not be possible without the U.S. intervention in Iraq as part of the “War on Terror.”

What are these wars on terror really about? Do they justify the large scale stripping of our constitutionally guaranteed rights in order to keep us safe? The answer can be found on the pages of the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. Just a few short years ago, the United States was suffering from a fossil fuel shortage. Dependence on foreign oil seemed inevitable until the advent of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which has unlocked a massive oil and natural gas reserve formerly trapped in shale rock, and all we have to do is poison our groundwater to get it.

What to do with the 13.1 million barrels of oil a day by 2019 and the 44% increase in natural gas production? Well, the United States still needs a customer base, because, even though it is the largest consumer of gas and oil on earth, there is more being produced annually than we can sell at home. That is one of the reasons why the U.S. installed its own government in Ukraine, in an attempt to stifle European dependence on Russian natural gas. By 2015, a $12 billion liquefied natural gas terminal in Sabine Pass, Louisiana will come online and it, along with six other proposed terminals approved by the Department of Energy can supply half the daily gas that Russia now supplies to Europe.

The “gas wars” are also the current impetus behind the anti-terrorist rhetoric in fighting ISIS in Syria. Dubbed the “Islamic Pipeline,” a planned 3480 mile long Iran-Iraq-Syria natural gas pipeline going toward Europe from the Middle East, has the full support of the current Assad government. This pipeline project is competing with U.S. and European dreams to build a similar pipeline, originally contemplated to run from Qatar and Saudi Arabia through Syria to Turkey, to to supply European customers through Austria. According to an article in Mint Press News, Wikileaks has published State Department memos “revealing U.S. plans to overthrow the Syrian government through instigating civil strife.” It is apparent that Assad’s refusal to join the U.S. backed plan is the reason behind the current crisis. Russia, in the meantime, according to Agence France-Presse, continues its plans for a new gas pipeline to supply gas to Europe through Turkey. Moreover, according to a February 2014 article in Die Presse, Austria’s OMV may be contemplating a deal with Russia’s Gazprom. Russia, in the meantime, according to Agence France-Presse, continues its plans for a new gas pipeline to supply gas to Europe through Turkey.

The United States has already devastated the infrastructure and government in Iraq, giving rise to political chaos and power to fanatics like ISIS. The last thing we need is more destabilization in Syria and in Europe’s own backyard in Ukraine. The refugee crisis caused by the U.S. intervention in Syria is a sad side effect, which is already causing a tremendous strain on Europe. So, before waving the flag and congratulating your Congressman for signing the next Patriot Act, and before sending your next born child off to war in a foreign land, you should question what is really behind these political decisions.

Kenneth Eade (http://kennetheade.com) is an attorney and the best-selling author of The Brent Marks Legal Thrillers, including the recently released,A Patriot’s Act, the fictional story of a naturalized U.S. citizen, captured in Iraq and held indefinitely at Guantanamo.
01 October, 2015
Countercurrents.org