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By Jon Queally

The COP21 climate talks in Paris reached their halfway point on Saturday, but a deal that experts and global justice campaigners would consider acceptable remains a long way off as the fossil fuel industry and wealthy nations maintain their powerful grip on the direction of the international summit.

Given the troubled history of the UN-sponsored talks, most members of civil society headed to Paris acknowledging the two-week gathering was unlikely to yield the kind of agreement that either the science of global warming, or the movement for climate justice, would find acceptable.

However, in the wake of released draft texts by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the body governing the talks, environmental campaigners and rights groups are expressing contempt for the negative influence that powerful corporations and the fossil fuel industry—backed by the world’s wealthiest and most polluting nations—are having on the progress towards reaching an ambitious and transformative deal.

“The enemies of a decent deal know they have one week to kill words in the text that commit the world to ‘full decarbonization,'” said Martin Kaiser, head of the international climate negotiations for Greenpeace. “They know that would set us on a path towards 100% renewables by the middle of the century. Those regressive forces will fight instead for words that call for a ‘low emission transformation,’ knowing that such a watered down phrase will do almost nothing to keep fossil fuels in the ground.”

At speech inside the conference hall on Saturday, Tony de Brum, the Foreign Minister for the Marshall Islands, gave what was described as a “rousing speech,” touching on the vulnerability of low-lying nations and the world’s poor as he vowed to press for ambitious emissions targets as well as adequate levels of financial assistance to pay for the damage already triggered by greenhouse gases.

“We cannot leave Paris with a minimalist agreement, we must build a coalition of high ambition,” declared de Brum. “I refuse to go home without an agreement that I can look my grandchildren in the eye and be proud of my contribution.”

Also on Saturday morning, the UNFCCC released the latest draft text (pdf) of the chapter focused on national financial commitments designed to deal with the impacts of global warming in the decades to come. As Fiona Harvey reports for the Guardian:

The world’s least developed countries face the greatest threat from climate change as they lack the technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions and their infrastructure is too fragile to cope with extreme weather. Under the proposed wording, developing countries with rapidly growing economies, such as China, would be included alongside established developed nations in being regarded as potential donors to poorer nations.

Rich countries argue that the wording merely reflects current reality, as at least eight governments classed as developing have already made “climate finance” contributions that will aid those poorer than them. China pledged $3bn (£2bn) to the Green Climate Fund in September, and has made further pledges to help Africa.

But some developing countries see the attempt to bracket them with the rich as a threat. They think it could be used in the future to force them to become donors alongside countries such as the US and the EU.

Tamar Lawrence-Samuel, associate research director for the U.S.-based Corporate Accountability International, responded to the latest draft by describing it as an affront to the “historical responsibility of the Global North” and said it offers only more proof that rich nations remain the key blockers of the urgently needed transition away from dirty energy.

Speaking on behalf of Friends of the Earth International, spokesperson Asad Rehman, said: “Rich, developed countries, led by the United States are negotiating in bad faith here in Paris – they are refusing to even discuss proposals brought by developing countries. The poorest, most vulnerable nations are being bullied behind closed doors and their issues are being railroaded out of this process. It is simply unacceptable that the USA won’t live up to its legal and moral responsibilities. At the same time civil society observers, the eyes and ears of global citizens, are being shut out of negotiating rooms. Not only are we seeing an ambition deficit, but we are seeing a fundamental lack of justice.”

“While the draft outcome released this morning for negotiation next week will likely be met with applause by Global North governments and their corporate board room backers,” explained Lawrence-Samuel, “it fails to deliver meaningfully toward the systemic transition climate change requires. At the core of this failure are the obstinate negotiating positions of the US and other Global North governments who are bent on deregulating the global rules applying to them and advancing the financial needs of big business over the survival needs of people.”

She continued by saying that even as the U.S. delegation and President Obama, who spent two days in Paris talking about climate earlier in the week, are framing their commitments at COP21 as grand and far-reaching, the contents of this latest draft betray such claims.

“The chasm between rhetoric and action continues to grow,” she said. “Whether it’s finance or technology, loss and damage or differentiation, the positions reflected in this text are heavily biased towards the US, Japan, EU and other Global North countries, and the emissions-intensive industries they represent.”

Highlighting the widely-held sentiment that corporations and the individually powerful continue to have an outsized and negative influence when it comes to the UN-sponsored climate talks, activist filmmakers debuted a short film in Paris on Friday night, entitled “La Fête est Finie (The Party is Over).” The black-and-white short depicts a private gathering of powerful members of industry and government officials in shadow of the Eiffel Tower as they indulge and celebrate.

In a statement released alongside the film, Mark Donne, one of the co-directors, said: “As with any party, the skill is in knowing when to leave. For decades fossil fuel extracting trans-nationals and western governments have continued to dance and partake long after the bright lights of climate science evidence were switched on and the deafening music of denial had its plug pulled.”

Meanwhile, and despite evidence showing the deal reached in Paris will ultimately prove inadequate, Kaiser said Greenpeace remains “optimistic about the process” though “less so about the content,” though indicated room remains for negotiators to prove campaigners wrong. “At this point in Copenhagen we were dealing with a 300 page text and a pervasive sense of despair,” he said. “In Paris we’re down to a slim 21 pages and the atmosphere remains constructive. But that doesn’t guarantee a decent deal. Right now the oil-producing nations and the fossil fuel industry will be plotting how to crash these talks when ministers arrive next week.”

And according to Lucy Cadena, a campaigner for Friends of the Earth International, it remains important to remember that what happens outside of the halls of power—whether in Paris or around the world—is ultimately more important than what happens inside conference centers and meeting rooms.

“It is still unclear whether the warm words and half promises we’ve heard this week will yet lead to firm commitments,” Cadena said. “Will we really see a commitment to a more ambitious temperature threshold? There have been piecemeal pledges for finance for vulnerable countries to adapt, but nothing consistent or in line with rich nations’ fairshare of effort. Nor is there clarity on support to enable the poorest to recover from unavoidable impacts of climate change. Those who grew rich through a dirty climate-changing system and addiction to carbon pollution are leaving poorer countries to foot the bill as if they carry equal responsibility.”

She concluded, “The lack of progress in the halls is in complete contrast with the vibrancy and creativity of people on the streets and in alternative gatherings throughout Paris.”

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

06 December, 2015
CommonDreams.org

By Daniel de Vries

The United Nations climate change summit commenced this past Monday with 150 heads of state and tens of thousands of representatives from national governments, businesses and the NGO industry converging on Paris. Despite its supposedly historic significance, the 21st Conference of Parties, or COP 21, promises little more than the previous 20 failed annual conferences.

Regardless of whether a final agreement is reached, the most ambitious scenario demonstrates once again the inability to address climate change in any meaningful way under capitalism.

The centerpiece of negotiations in Paris consists of formalizing voluntary commitments to limit carbon pollution by individual countries made over the past several months. Yet even if every pledge is fully enacted, with all national sources honestly accounted for, global emissions would remain on a trajectory to increase global temperatures relative to pre-industrial levels by an average of 2.7C by century’s end. During the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen, national governments resolved to remain below the 2 degree threshold, beyond which scientists caution catastrophic impacts are possible.

The agreement under discussion in Paris, however, would not legally require any country to actually achieve their targets. Instead, the most that is acceptable to the Obama administration and other major world leaders is a procedural obligation to pursue nonbinding goals. As economic or political conditions change, governments are free to revise or renege upon these commitments.

Nevertheless, politicians and pundits are playing up the summit as a potential turning point for climate change. “Never have the stakes on an international meeting been so high,” remarked French President Francois Holland in the opening plenary. German Chancellor Angela Merkel added, “Our very future as humankind hinges on this. … Billions of people are pinning their hopes on what we achieve here in Paris.”

Notwithstanding the rhetoric, there is no denying that the expected agreement falls woefully short, even in its ambition, of what is scientifically necessary to protect humanity from the worst consequences of a warming planet. Justifications that such is the limit of what is “technically feasible” or “politically practical” only serve as an indictment of the economic and political setup.

The industrial capacity exists to transition to entirely renewable sources of energy within a matter of a few decades or less, as a recent study by Stanford researcher Mark Jacobson concluded for the United States. However, the level of planning and coordination on an international basis needed to implement such a transition comes into immediate conflict with the division of the world into rival nation-states and private ownership of the world’s productive resources.

The pledges put forward correspond to the needs of the banks and major transnational corporations. Some establish absolute carbon reductions, others merely slow “business as usual” growth, or carbon intensity per economic output. Cumulatively they allow for continued global growth of greenhouse gas emissions, reaching a level 26 percent higher in 2030 than in 2010. Industry remains free to shift energy-intensive production to the most profitable areas, factoring in the lowest fossil energy costs.

COP 21 has continued the trend of growing participation and influence of businesses. With more than 180 business events over the two weeks, the summit resembles a trade show as much as a negotiating session. Corporate leaders joined political leaders to urge “bold” action at Paris. We Mean Business, a coalition representing 350 companies with $8 trillion in revenues, “aspires to an international agreement that stimulates the private sector and makes it a partner with governments in implementing ambitious climate action,” according to a statement on their web site. Even several fossil fuel companies, including Shell and Total, have—publicly, at least—argued for a price to carbon.

Behind this growing role of big business at the conference is a drive among a section of supposedly forward-thinking companies to shape the outcome of international climate policy in a way that minimizes the risk to profits and even opens up avenues for new spoils. The summit is not only an advertising opportunity to tout their “green” credentials, but the serious business of ensuring that any agreement advances market-based climate policies. All that is external to the market (carbon dioxide emissions, unexploited tropical forests) is to be allocated at market value, to be bought and sold, manipulated and profited from.

While expectations are high for a deal to pass next week, it is by no means guaranteed. Disagreements are arising over the extent to which the national commitments will be enforceable, the value of climate-related foreign aid from wealthy to poor countries and intellectual property rights. In the first week of discussions, India emerged as the most prominent voice of dissent, criticizing a proposed system to monitor and revise country-specific emission targets every five years. Indian negotiators stressed the historic responsibility of industrialized countries for the climate crisis, in an attempt to win concessions for native business interests in the form of access to advanced technology and increased development funding.

However, underlying these often staged disputes are bitter conflicts that extend far beyond environmental issues. Behind the scenes, the spying, threats and bribes revealed by WikiLeaks at the Copenhagen climate summit is without question continuing. The primary concern of the major powers is to emerge from the climate talks in a strengthened position relative to its rivals.

Despite a bilateral deal on emission reduction commitments last year, tensions between the U.S. and China are beginning to surface at the climate talks, albeit in a muted form thus far. The remarks by Obama and Xi on the opening day alluded to these conflicts: Obama stressed the need to hold countries accountable for their pledges, while Xi highlighted the needs of developing countries to reduce poverty.

A recurring component of the annual climate summits has been vocal street protests and other direct action. Organizers planed another large series of demonstrations in Paris, but the Socialist Party government in France used the terror attacks to impose police state measures. President Hollande has maintained a ban on all demonstrations, rounding up those who disobey and placing organizers under house arrest. Under conditions of soaring class tensions, the French ruling class is compelled to outlaw any form of opposition.

The organizations behind the planned protests in no way represented a political challenge to the dictates of the corporate and financial elite or their ministers and diplomats assembled in Paris. The common aim of the myriad of liberal environmental and activist groups is to apply pressure on capitalist governments, acting as a counterweight to the profit interests of the fossil fuel industry. They fundamentally represent the interests of sections of the middle class, seeking to temper the worst excesses of capitalism, to carve out a more comfortable (and sustainable) existence within the current setup.

After 21 years of failed conferences and impotent protests, political lessons must be drawn. The task confronting masses of workers and youth, whose future hangs in the balance, is to fight for the reorganization of society on the basis of human need, not private profit. Complex international issues like climate change cannot be addressed on the basis of an outmoded division of the globe into rival states. Such a struggle cannot be successful if it is confined to the protest politics of the pseudo-left. Rather it must be based on the working class, as the only force capable of socializing production on an international scale.

05 December, 2015
WSWS.org

By Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service

Our delegation has just spent five days with the people of Syria visiting the cities of Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Qara and Ma’alula. We have been deeply moved by the kindness and warmth of the Syrian people whom we have had the privilege and joy of meeting. Although they have suffered unimaginable violence, they have inspired us by their vision of a peaceful Syria and deep commitments to solutions in their country. These are the findings of our delegation, consisting of eleven peace and human rights advocates from six countries. Over the course of five days, we met with internally displaced persons, refugees, affected communities, religious leaders, combatants, government representatives and many others in Syria.

We call on the international community to protect the territorial integrity of Syria and to respect the fundamental rights of Syria as a sovereign State. We deplore any intent to breach the integrity of Syria’s frontiers or to damage the unity and rich diversity of the Syrian people.

We recognize the legitimacy of the aspirations of the Syrian citizens for change, reforms and an end to all violence and we support those working for the implementation of a democratic life that respects and protects the fundamental rights of all citizens and we believe that effective and lasting reforms can only be achieved through non-violent means.

Our primary appeal is that all countries stop their interference in Syrian affairs, more specifically, that they halt the supply of arms and foreign combatants. If foreign countries agree to stop the influx of arms and fighters, we are confident that Syrians can find their own solutions to their problems and achieve reconciliation.

We consider it beyond debate that the Syrian people have the right to determine their own government and their own future. Foreign interference is currently preventing the Syrian people from exercising their right to self-determination. We are concerned that such pernicious intervention is tearing apart the fabric of the country itself, with long-term consequences that can only be imagined.

The cautionary examples of Iraq, Lybia, Yemen and other countries serve to remind us of the dire consequences of such international folly. This humanitarian crisis is already spilling into neighboring countries. A collapse of Syrian society will destabilize the entire region. We appeal to the international community that it can learn from history and make better choices in the case of Syria that will spare further tragedy for the courageous Syrian people.

Secondly we appeal to the international media to stop the flow of misinformation regarding the Syrian conflict. We believe that every Syrian should be given the right to be heard and we do not see this reflected in the international coverage of this crisis.

Thirdly, we urge the international community to review and reconsider the crippling sanctions that are taking such a heavy toll on Syrian people.

Fourthly, we urge the international community to take seriously the vast numbers of refugees and persons who have been internally displaced by this conflict.

We appeal to the entire religious community to call the faithful to nonviolence and peacemaking, and to reject all forms of violence and discrimination, and we express our admiration and respect for the many Syrian religious leaders who have refused to endorse the use of violence and have dedicated their lives to working for a peaceful solution to this conflict.

We pay tribute to the Patriarch Gregorios III Laham and Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun for their inspirational work for peace and reconciliation for Syria and the Patriarch Gregorios III Laham for his kind invitation to our delegation. Our delegation would like to express to Mother Agnes Mariam and Sheik Sharif Martini our deep gratitude and appreciation for all their commitment to peace and reconciliation in beloved Syria.

As we leave Syria we are filled with hope that the Syrian people will have peace and so be a light of hope to the world.

Damascus, 30/11/2015

Mairead Corrigan Maguire, co-founder of Peace People, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment. She won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for peace in Northern Ireland. Her book The Vision of Peace (edited by John Dear, with a foreword by Desmond Tutu and a preface by the Dalai Lama) is available from www.wipfandstock.com. She lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland. See: www.peacepeople.com.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 30 November 2015.

30 November 2015

NOBEL LAUREATES

On November 29, 1947, after Great Britain–the mandatory power in Palestine–had asked the United Nations to meet in a special session to discuss the “problem of Palestine,” the General Assembly passed Resolution 181 (II) to end the British mandate by August 1, 1948. The centerpiece of this historic resolution, however, was to partition Palestine and call for the establishment, after a transition period, of “Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem.”

This United Nations decision unleashed a catastrophe whose reverberations Palestinians continue to experience until today. Three-quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs–who were the majority of the population of historic Palestine–fled for their lives after experiencing or learning of massacres by Zionist paramilitary organizations, or were expelled from their homes during the ensuing Arab-Israeli war of 1948. By the 1949 armistice, the original partition lines had shifted violently so that Israel’s footprint became much larger than envisioned by the proposed partition plan–it was accorded 55 percent by the plan, but seized an additional 23 percent of Palestinian territory. At present, the drastically reduced Palestinian land continues to be occupied by the Israeli military and Jerusalem is occupied and divided with Israel controlling and limiting access to religious sites. Palestinians originally displaced during the Nakba (the Arabic word for Catastrophe–what the Palestinians call the 1948 war when they lost their homeland) are still prevented from exercising the right to return to their homes in what is now Israel. And contrary to the resolution (and to the Fourth Geneva Convention) Israel has expropriated additional vast tracts of Palestinian territory for its own use and especially for the building and transfer of its own Israeli citizens to illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

Thirty years after the UN partition plan, the General Assembly passed a new resolution proclaiming an annual observation, on November 29th, to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The particular date, the UN notes, “was chosen because of its meaning and significance to the Palestinian people… Of the two States to be created under this resolution, only one, Israel, has so far come into being.”

UN Resolutions and subsequent General Assembly mandates enshrine the annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The United Nations describes the day as providing “an opportunity for the international community to focus its attention on the fact that the question of Palestine remained unresolved and that the Palestinian people are yet to attain their inalienable rights as defined by the General Assembly, namely, the right to self-determination without external interference, the right to national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to their homes and property from which they had been displaced.”

The fact is that this historic dislocation has resulted in a massive diaspora for the Palestinian people living in the Palestinian territories, Israel, Arab countries, and beyond. The total population of Palestinians numbered about 11.8 million as of the end of 2013, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. This figure comprises 4.5 million in Palestine, 1.4 million in Israel, 5.2 million in Arab countries, and approximately 665,000 in other countries throughout the world.

Despite numerous declarations and resolutions by the United Nations concerning Israel and Palestine, the status of the Palestinian people remains unresolved, precarious, and unjust. They have not attained their rights to “self-determination without external interference, the right to national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to their homes and property from which they had been displaced.” In fact, about half of the world’s Palestinian population continues to live as refugees and in exile. Those who are citizens of Israel are treated as second class citizens, while those in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem live under various levels of repressive military occupation and witness, daily, the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

Although UN member states have tried since the late forties to propose and gain support for resolutions that push for Palestinian human and national rights, their efforts have largely been derailed, particularly in the form of vetoes by powerful members such as the United States. At the same time, it is also important to remember that many UN agencies, especially UNRWA (the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), have played a crucial role in providing assistance to the refugees since 1950; UNRWA continues to serve as a lifeline to Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.

A wave of ongoing violence has included heinous attacks, stabbings, shootings and vehicular attacks causing immense suffering among Israeli and Palestinian families alike – but mostly on the Palestinian side. Illegal settlement activities and settler-related violence have continued, along with punitive demolitions of Palestinian- owned homes and structure.

136 countries recognize the State of Palestine and its flag flies at the United Nations next to those of all Member States. However, these advances are not felt by children in Gaza or by the residents of Nablus, Hebron and East Jerusalem …What they feel instead is a lack of hope that their lives will change for the better and that they will be citizens of a State able to ensure their freedom and well-being through peace with their neighbours.

The Palestinian leader Dr. Mustapha Barghouti has argued that International solidarity day “confirms the continuity of the Palestinian uprising”. International solidarity day has seen hundreds of demonstrations and activities in solidarity with Palestine take place across the world. This highlights the international solidarity with the Palestinian people alongside the tremendous growth of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign.

International solidarity day yesterday was observed in the occupied Palestinian territories, where demonstrations swept the region. This confirms the continuity of the Palestinian uprising.

These were non-violent popular demonstrations, however, as usual; they were countered with Israel violence. The uprising is enhancing solidarity with Palestine all over the world.

Nelson Mandela, the late leader of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, described the issue of Palestine as, “the greatest moral issue of our time.” The level of solidarity, on an international scale, reflects his message. On the other hand, Israeli oppression has now taken the lives of 103 Palestinians and injured 12000 since October. This oppression, which is now isolating and ghettoizing communities in the West bank and Jerusalem, is additional proof of the aggressive and racist policy of the Israeli occupation state. It will only lead to greater isolation of Israel in the international community.

On the side of hope, it must be noted that Palestine is currently witness to a wave of genuine solidarity initiatives. . In this month alone, the European Commission adopted new guidelines for labeling products and goods produced in the illegal settlements in Occupied Palestine (This move is a modest first step, and such labeling should develop into a total boycott of all settlements and settlers); the American Anthropological Association became the largest U.S. academic organization to approve a boycott of Israeli institutions and to affirm the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement; and the British Labour Party’s National Executive Committee voted to boycott private security company G4S for its direct involvement with Israeli prisons. Hanan Ashrawi describes these actions as ones that “send an important message of hope and encouragement to our people – the popular non-violent struggle for Palestinian inalienable rights in the face of the belligerent occupier is possible, and our continued steadfastness and commitment to freedom will not end in vain”.

Israeli oppression has now taken the lives of 103 Palestinians and injured 12000 since October.
This oppression, which is now isolating and ghettoizing communities in the West bank and Jerusalem, is additional proof of the aggressive and racist policy of the Israeli occupation state. It will only lead to greater isolation of Israel in the international community.

The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People honors all those who have struggled for Palestinian independence and all the Palestinians who have lived and died in wars, under occupation, as refugees, and in exile. A dedicated and concerted global effort will, hopefully, isolate Israel and come up with punitive measures that will compel it to surrender its asymmetric power and draw up lines of action which see the dawn of a just and lasting settlement.

Editor : Ranjan Solomon

Palestine Update
Edition 2: No. 130

 

By Dan Glazebrook

Nigeria’s Boko Haram are now officially the deadliest terror group in the world. That they have reached this position is a direct consequence of Cameron and co’s war on Libya – and one that was perhaps not entirely unintended.

According to a report just released by Global Terrorism Index, Boko Haram were responsible for 6,644 deaths in 2014, compared to 6,073 attributed to ISIS, representing a quadrupling of their total killings in 2013. In the past week alone, bombings conducted by the group have killed eight people on a bus in Maiduguri; a family of five in Fotokol, Cameroon; fifteen people in a crowded marketplace in Kano; and thirty-two people outside a mosque in Yola.

In 2009, the year they took up arms, Boko Haram had nothing like the capacity to mount such operations, and their equipment remained primitive; but by 2011, that had begun to change. As Peter Weber noted in The Week, their weapons “shifted from relatively cheap AK-47s in the early days of its post-2009 embrace of violence to desert-ready combat vehicles and anti-aircraft/ anti-tank guns”. This dramatic turnaround in the group’s access to materiel was the direct result of NATO’s war on Libya. A UN report published in early 2012 warned that “large quantities of weapons and ammunition from Libyan stockpiles were smuggled into the Sahel region”, including “rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns with anti-aircraft visors, automatic rifles, ammunition, grenades, explosives (Semtex), and light anti-aircraft artillery (light caliber bi-tubes) mounted on vehicles”, and probably also more advanced weapons such as surface-to-air missiles and MANPADS (man-portable air-defence systems). NATO had effectively turned over the entire armoury of an advanced industrial state to the region’s most sectarian militias: groups such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram.

The earliest casualty of NATO’s war outside Libya was Mali. Taureg fighters who had worked in Gaddafi’s security forces fled Libya soon after Gaddafi’s government was overthrown, and mounted an insurgency in Northern Mali. They in turn were overthrown, however, by Al Qaeda’s regional affiliates – flush with Libyan weaponry – who then turned Northern Mali into another base from which to train and launch attacks. Boko Haram was a key beneficiary. AS Brendan O’ Neill wrote in an excellent 2014 article worth quoting at length: “Boko Haram benefited enormously from the vacuum created in once-peaceful northern Mali following the West’s ousting of Gaddafi. In two ways: first, it honed its guerrilla skills by fighting alongside more practised Islamists in Mali, such as AQIM; and second, it accumulated some of the estimated 15,000 pieces of Libyan military hardware and weaponry that leaked across the country’s borders following the sweeping aside of Gaddafi. In April 2012, Agence France-Presse reported that ‘dozens of Boko Haram fighters’ were assisting AQIM and others in northern Mali. This had a devastating knock-on effect in Nigeria. As the Washington Post reported in early 2013, ‘The Islamist insurgency in northern Nigeria has entered a more violent phase as militants return to the fight with sophisticated weaponry and tactics learned on the battlefields of nearby Mali’. A Nigerian analyst said ‘Boko Haram’s level of audacity was high [in late 2012]’, immediately following the movement of some of its militants to the Mali region.”

That NATO’s Libya war would have such consequences was both thoroughly predictable, and widely predicted. As early as June 2011, African Union Chairman Jean Ping warned NATO that “Africa’s concern is that weapons that are delivered to one side or another…are already in the desert and will arm terrorists and fuel trafficking”. And both Mali and Algeria strongly opposed NATO’s destruction of Libya precisely because of the massive destabilisation it would bring to the region. They argued, wrote O’Neill, “that such a violent upheaval in a region like north Africa could have potentially catastrophic consequences. The fallout from the bombing is ‘a real source of concern’, said the rulers of Mali in October 2011. In fact, as the BBC reported, they had been arguing since ‘the start of the conflict in Libya’ – that is, since the civil conflict between Benghazi-based militants and Gaddafi began – that ‘the fall of Gaddafi would have a destabilising effect in the region’.” In an op-ed following the collapse of Northern Mali, a former Chief of Staff of UK land forces, Major-General Jonathan Shaw, wrote that Colonel Gaddafi was a “lynchpin” of the “informal Sahel security plan”, whose removal therefore led to a foreseeable collapse of security across the entire region. The rise of Boko Haram has been but one result – and not without strategic benefits for the West.

Nigeria was once seen by the US as one of its most dependable allies on the African continent. Yet, following a pattern that is repeated across the entire global South, in recent years the country has been moving ever closer to China. The headline grabbing deal was the $23 billion contract signed in 2010 with the Chinese to construct three fuel refineries, adding an extra 750,000 barrels per day to Nigeria’s oil producing capacity. This was followed up in 2013 with an agreement to increase Nigerian oil exports to China tenfold by 2015 (from 20,000 to 200,000 barrels per day). But China’s economic interests go far beyond that. A Nigerian diplomat interviewed by China-Africa specialist Deborah Brautigam told her that “The Chinese are trying to get involved in every sector of our economy. If you look at the West, it’s oil, oil, oil and nothing else.” In 2006, China issued an $8.3billion low-interest loan to Nigeria to fund the building of a major new railway, and the following year China built a telecommunications satellite for Nigeria. Indeed, of last year’s $18 billion worth of bilateral trade between the two countries, over 88% was in the non-petroleum sector, and by 2012 Nigerian imports from China (it’s biggest import partner) totalled more than that of its second and third biggest import partners, the US and India, combined. This kind of trade and investment is of the type that is seriously aiding Africa’s ability to add value to its products – and is thereby undermining the Western global economic order, which relies on Africa remaining an under-developed exporter of cheap raw materials.

Not has China’s co-operation been limited to economics. In 2004, China supported Nigeria’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council, and in 2006, Nigeria signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership with China – the first African country to do so. It is a partnership with a solid base of support – according to a BBC poll conducted in 2011, 85% of Nigerians have a positive view of China; perhaps not surprising when even pro-US security thinktanks like the Jamestown Foundation admit that “China’s links with Nigeria are qualitatively different from the West’s, and as a result, may potentially produce benefits for the ordinary people of Nigeria”. Symbolising the importance of the relationship, current Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made Nigeria his first foreign destination after taking up the role in 2013.

This growing South-South co-operation is not viewed positively by the US, which is witnessing what it once saw as a dependable client state edge increasingly out of its orbit. The African Oil Policy Initiative Group – a consortium of US Congressmen, military officials and energy lobbyists – had already concluded in a 2002 report that China was a rival of the US for influence in West Africa that would need to be deterred by military means, and China has been increasingly viewed by US policymakers as a strategic threat to be contained militarily ever since. A report by US Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey just this July highlighted China as one of the major ‘security threats’ to US domination, for example – although Obama’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy had already made this clear back in 2013.

Is it such a stretch, then, to think that the US might actually want to cripple its strategic rival, China, by destabilising her allies, such as Nigeria? After all, despite continued US links to Nigeria, it is China, more than any other foreign partner, who has the most to lose from the Boko Hara insurgency, as the Jamestown Foundation makes clear: “Unlike most other foreign actors in the country, [the Chinese] are investing in fixed assets, such as refineries and factories, with the intention of developing a long-term economic relationship. Consequently, stability and good governance in Nigeria is advantageous for Beijing because it is the only way to guarantee that Chinese interests are protected”. If the US increasingly sees its own strategy in terms of undermining Chinese interests – and there is every sign that it does – the corollary of this statement is surely that instability in Nigeria is the only way to guarantee that Chinese interests are threatened – and, therefore, that US strategic goals are served. The US’s lacklustre efforts in backing Nigerian efforts against Boko Haram – from blocking arms deliveries last year, to funding the fight in all of Nigeria’s neighbours, but not Nigeria itself – as well as its suspension of Nigerian crude oil imports from July 2014 (“a decision that helped plunge Nigeria into one of its most severe financial crises”, according to one national daily) would certainly indicate that.

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

This piece originally appeared at RT.com

28 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org

By Ramzy Baroud

I still remember that smug look on his face, followed by the matter-of-fact remarks that had western journalists laugh out loud.

“I’m now going to show you a picture of the luckiest man in Iraq,” General Norman Schwarzkopf, known as ‘Stormin’ Norman, said at a press conference sometime in 1991, as he showed a video of US bombs blasting an Iraqi bridge, seconds after the Iraqi driver managed to cross it.

But then, a far more unjust invasion and war followed in 2003, following a decade-long siege that cost Iraq a million of its children and its entire economy.

It marked the end of sanity and the dissipation of any past illusions that the United States was a friend of the Arabs. Not only did the Americans destroy the central piece of our civilizational and collective experience that spanned millennia, it took pleasure in degrading us in the process. Their soldiers raped our women with obvious delight. They tortured our men, and posed with the dead, mutilated bodies in photographs – mementos to prolong the humiliation for eternity; they butchered our people, explained in articulate terms as necessary and unavoidable collateral damage; they blew up our mosques and churches and refused to accept that what was done to Iraq over the course of twenty years might possibly constitute war crimes.

Then, they expanded their war taking it as far as US bombers could reach; they tortured and floated their prisoners aboard large ships, cunningly arguing that torture in international waters does not constitute a crime; they suspended their victims on crosses and photographed them for future entertainment.

Their entertainers, media experts, intellectuals and philosophers made careers from dissecting us, dehumanizing us, belittling everything we hold dear; they did not spare a symbol, a prophet, a tradition, values or set of morals. When we reacted and protested out of despair, they further censured us for being intolerant to view the humor in our demise; they used our angry shouts to further highlight their sense of superiority and our imposed lowliness.

They claimed that we initiated it all. But they lied. It was their unqualified, inflated sense of importance that made them assign September 11, 2001 as the inauguration of history. All that they did to us, all the colonial experiences and the open-ended butchery of the brown man, the black man, any man or woman who did not look like them or uphold their values, was inconsequential.

All the millions who died in Iraq were not considered a viable context to any historical understanding of terrorism; in fact, terrorism became us; the whole concept of terror, which is violence inflicted on innocent civilians for political ends, abruptly became an entirely Arab and Muslim trait. In retrospect, the US-Western-Israeli slaughter of the Vietnamese, Koreans, Cambodians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Egyptians, South Americans, Africans, was spared any censure. Yet, when Arabs attempted to resist, they were deemed the originators of violence, the harbingers of terror.

Furthermore, they carried out massive social and demographic experiments in Iraq which have been unleashed throughout the Middle East, since. They pitted their victims against one another: the Shia against the Sunni, the Sunni against the Sunni, the Arabs against the Kurds, and the Kurds against the Turks. They called it a strategy, and congratulated themselves on a job well done as they purportedly withdrew from Iraq. They disregarded the consequences of tampering with civilizations that have evolved over the course of millennia.

When their experiments went awry, they blamed their victims. Their entertainers, media experts, intellectuals and philosophers flooded every public platform to inform the world that the vital mistake of the Bush administration was the assumption that Arabs were ready for democracy and that, unlike the Japanese and the Germans, Arabs were made of different blood, flesh and tears. Meanwhile, the finest of Arab men were raped in their jails, kidnapped in broad daylight, tortured aboard large ships in international waters, where the Law did not apply.

When the Americans and their allies claimed that they had left the region, they left behind bleeding, impoverished nations, licking their wounds and searching for bodies under rubble in diverse and macabre landscapes. Yet, the Americans, the British, the French and the Israelis, continue to stage their democratic elections around the debate of who will hit us the hardest, humiliate us the most, teach the most unforgettable lesson and, in their late night comedies, they mock our pain.

We, then, sprang up like wild grass in a desert, multiplied, and roamed the streets of Rabat, Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, calling for a revolution. We wanted democracy for our sake, not Bush’s democracy tinged with blood; we wanted equality, change and reforms and a world in which Gaza is not habitually destroyed by Israel and children of Derra could protest without being shot; where leaders do not pose as divinities and relish the endless arsenals of their western benefactors. We sought a life in which freedom is not a rickety dingy crossing the sea to some uncertain horizon where we are treated as human rubbish on the streets of western lands.

However, we were crushed; pulverized; imprisoned, burnt, beaten and raped and, once more, told that we are not yet ready for democracy; not ready to be free, to breathe, to exist with even a speck of dignity.

Many of us are still honorably fighting for our communities; others despaired: they carried arms and went to war, fighting whoever they perceive to be an enemy, who were many. Others went mad, lost every sense of humanity; exacted revenge, tragically believing that justice can be achieved by doing unto others what they have done unto you. They were joined by others who headed to the West, some of whom had escaped the miseries of their homelands, but found that their utopia was marred with alienation, racism and neglect, saturated with a smug sense of superiority afflicted upon them by their old masters.

It became a vicious cycle, and few seem interested now in revisiting General Schwarzkopf’s conquests in Iraq and Vietnam – with his smug attitude and the amusement of western journalists – to know what actually went wrong. They still refuse to acknowledge history, the bleeding Palestinian wound, the heartbroken Egyptian revolutionaries and the destroyed sense of Iraqi nationhood, the hemorrhaging streets of Libya and the horrifying outcomes of all the western terrorist wars, with blind, oil-hungry dominating foreign policies that have shattered the Cradle of Civilization, like never before.

However, this violence no longer affects Arabs alone, although Arabs and Muslims remain the larger recipients of its horror. When the militants, spawned by the US and their allies, felt cornered, they fanned out to every corner of the globe, killing innocent people and shouting the name of God in their final moment. Recently, they came for the French, a day after they blew up the Lebanese, and few days after the Russians; and, before that, the Turks and the Kurds, and, simultaneously, the Syrians and the Iraqis.

Who is next? No one really knows. We keep telling ourselves that ‘it’s just a transition’ and ‘all will be well once the dust has settled’. But the Russians, the Americans and everyone else continue bombing, each insisting that they are bombing the right people for the right reason while, on the ground, everyone is shooting at whoever they deem the enemy, the terrorist, a designation that is often redefined. Yet, few speak out to recognize our shared humanity and victimhood.

No – do not always expect the initials ISIS to offer an explanation for all that goes wrong. Those who orchestrated the war on Iraq and those feeding the war in Syria and arming Israel cannot be vindicated.

The crux of the matter: we either live in dignity together or continue to perish alone, warring tribes and grief-stricken nations. This is not just about indiscriminate bombing – our humanity, in fact, the future of the human race is at stake.

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.
26 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org

By Dan Glazebrook

Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian jet today shows the utter desperation currently sweeping through the regime change camp as Russia closes in on the death squads in Syria – and does so with massive international support.

At 9.30am on Tuesday morning, a Russian SU-24 jet was shot down by Turkish fighter planes. Its pilots were then allegedly killed by Syrian Turkmen anti-government militias, with the body of one paraded on camera in a video that was immediately posted on youtube. Turkey claimed the jet had encroached on Turkish airspace, but Russia maintains the plane was shot down well inside Syrian territory, 4km from the Turkish border. Rather than calling Russia to defuse any tension arising from the attack, Turkey then immediately called an emergency NATO meeting to ramp it up – “as if we shot down their plane”, Putin commented, “and not they ours”.

To make sense of this apparently senseless provocation, it is necessary to cut through the multiple layers of obfuscation which surround Western narratives around Syria and ISIS. The reality is that the forces essentially line up today just as they did at the outbreak of this crisis in 2011: with the West, Turkey and the gulf monarchies sponsoring an array of death squads bent on bringing down the Syrian government; and Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria (obviously) and Hezbollah resisting this project; the rise of ISIS has not fundamentally changed this underlying dynamic. Indeed, the next-to-useless impact of the West’s year-long phony war against ISIS – alongside its relentless funneling of weaponry to militias with an, at best, ambiguous relationship with Al Qaeda and ISIS – has demonstrated that the Syrian state (or “Assad” to use the West’s puerile personalization) remains the ultimate target of the West’s Syria policy. As Obama himself put it, the goal is not to eliminate ISIS, but rather to “contain” them – that is, keep them focused on weakening Syria and Iraq, and not US allies like Jordan, Turkey or the US’s favoured Kurdish factions. In civil wars, there are only ever really two sides: those who want the insurgency to overthrow the government, and those who want the government to defeat the insurgency. In the Syrian civil war, NATO remains on the same side as ISIS. In this sense, Putin is entirely correct when he commented on the Turkish attack it was a “stab in the back, carried out by the accomplices of terrorists” and asked: “do they want to make NATO serve ISIS?”

Russia’s direct entry into the Syrian conflict two months ago, however, has caused utter panic in the ‘regime change’ camp. Belying all their ‘anti-ISIS’ rhetoric, the US and Britain were openly horrified that Russia might actually be putting up an effective fight against the group and restoring governmental authority to the ungoverned spaces in which it thrives. Immediately, the West began warning of ‘blowback’ to Russia, and ramping up advanced arms shipments to the insurgency. Within a month, a Russian passenger plane was blown up, with ISIS claiming responsibility and British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond calling the attack a “warning shot”. It was a “shot” alright, aimed not only at Russia, but also at her allies; the downing of the plane on Egyptian soil was a deliberate act of economic war against the Egyptian tourist industry, a punishment for Egypt’s support for Russia and Syria and its choking off of fighters to Syria since Sisi came to power. Then, two weeks later, came the attack on Paris. White supremacist niceties prevented Hammond calling that a “warning shot”, but that is precisely what it was, this time at those within the regime change/ anti-Russia camp who were showing signs of ‘wobbling’. Hollande had suggested back in January that sanctions on Russia should be lifted asap, and more recently had showed a willingness to cooperate with Russia militarily over Syria: a ‘red line’ for France’s ‘Atlantic partners’. This is what France was being punished for.

Nevertheless, the net continues to close on the West’s death squad project in Syria. From the start the key to ISIS success has been, firstly, the porous Syria-Turkey border, through which Turkey has allowed a free flow of fighters and weapons back and forth for the past four years, and secondly, the massive amounts of finance ISIS receives both from oil sales and from donors in countries prepared to turn a blind eye to terror financing. In recent weeks, all of this has been threatened by the Russian-led alliance (of which France is increasingly willing to be a part).

The past week has seen a large scale Syrian ground offensive, supported with Russian air cover, in precisely the Syrian-Turkish border region which is the death squads’ lifeline: a move which prompted the Turkish foreign ministry to warn of “serious consequences” if the Russian airstrikes continued. Simultaneously, Russia has embarked on a major campaign against ISIS’ reportedly 1000-strong oil tanker fleet which is so crucial to the group’s financial success. As the Institute for the Study of War reported, “Russian military chief of staff Col. Gen. Andrey Kartapolov announced on November 18 “Russian warplanes are now flying on a free hunt” against ISIS-operated oil tanker trucks traveling back and forth from Syria and Iraq, claiming that Russian strikes had destroyed over 500 ISIS-operated oil trucks in the past “several days.”” This massive dent in the group’s oil transporting capacity even shamed the US into belatedly and somewhat half-heartedly launching similar attacks of their own. The smashing of ISIS’ oil industry will not only be a blow to the entire death squad project, but will directly affect Turkey, widely thought to be involved in the transportation of ISIS-produced oil, and even Erdogan’s family itself, as it is the company run by his son Bilal that is believed to be running the illicit trade.

Finally, France yesterday announced a crackdown on ISIS’ financiers, and demanded other countries do the same. French Finance Minister Michel Sapin implied that the report to the G20 on the issue last month was a whitewash, and demanded that the international Financial Action Task Force be much more explicit in its report to the next G20 finance meeting in February about which countries are lax in terms of terror financing. The move is very likely to expose not only Turkey and Saudi Arabia but also, given HSBC’s links to Al Qaeda, the City of London. Indeed, as the Politico website noted, Sapin specifically “said that considering the reputation of the City of London, he would be “vigilant” on the U.K.’s implementation of EU-agreed measures to clamp down on money laundering and exchange financial information on shady transactions or individuals”.The reactions to his demands that implementation of tougher EU regulations be moved forward will also be instructive (in another move exposing the total lack of urgency in the West’s supposed ‘war on ISIS’, they are currently not due to be implemented for another two years).

And on top of all this, the UN Security Council finally passed a resolution authorizing ‘all necessary measures’ to be used against ISIS, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Syria, effectively granting UN approval to Russia’s intervention. As Pepe Escobar has pointed out, French support for the resolution rendered it politically impossible for the US or UK to use their veto – although US ambassador Samantha Power, an extreme Russophobe and ‘regime changer’, registered her disapproval by failing to turn up for the vote and sending a junior official along instead.

In other words, on all sides the net is closing in on the West’s death squad project in Syria. Turkey’s actions today have merely demonstrated, again, the impotent rage of those who have thrown in their chips with a disastrous and bloody attempt to remake the Middle East. Syria is indeed becoming the Stalingrad of the regime changers – the rock on which the imperial folly of the West and it’s regional imitators may finally be broken.

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

This article originally appeared on RT.com

26 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org

Press Release

Irish Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire and 14 delegates from Australia, Belgium, Canada, India, Ireland, Poland, The Russian Federation, The United Kingdom and the United States, will begin a 6-day visit to Syria to promote peace and to express support for all Syrians who have been victims of war and terror since 2011.

This will be Mairead Maguire’s third visit to Syria as head of a peace delegation. Maguire said: ‘People across the world are rightly expressing solidarity with the people of France after the recent terror attack. However, while there is talk of a war on terror and the focus of that war will be Syria, there is little awareness of how a war will impact on the lives of millions of people in Syria”.

In Syria, Christmas, Easter and the Eid festivals are all national holidays. So the group will acknowledge the unity of Syrians by taking part in an ecumenical service in the Grand Mosque in Damascus.

It will meet displaced Syrians and orphans, and will investigate the reconciliation initiative in Syria.

The group hopes to travel to Homs, a city that has been ravaged by fighting. It will report on how people are rebuilding their lives.

Ms. Maguire said, ‘Syrians are custodians of the two oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The members of the International peace group come from different political and religious backgrounds, but what unites us is a belief that the people of Syria have to be acknowledged and supported, and this is not just for their survival and their country’s survival, but for humankind’s’.

Ms.Maguire noted that when there is talk of war in the world, it seems appropriate that the international peace delegation will travel to Damascus, to listen to the voices of countless Syrians who call for peace, and to bear witness to the true reality of conflict in that country.

25 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org

By Dave Lindorff

In considering the terrifying but also sadly predictable news of a Russian fighter jet being downed by two Turkish fighters, let’s start with one almost certain assumption — an assumption that no doubt is also being made by the Russian government: Turkey’s action, using US-supplied F-16 planes, was taken with the full knowledge and advance support of the US. In fact, given Turkey’s vassal status as a member of US-dominated NATO, it could well be that Ankara was put up to this act of brinksmanship by the US.

What makes the downing of the Russian jet, and the reported death of at least one of its two pilots (the other was reportedly captured alive by pro-turkish Turkmen fighters on the Syrian side of the Syria-Turkish border, and will presumably be returned to Russia) so dangerous is that as a member of NATO, supposedly a “mutual assistance” treaty that binds all members to come to the defense of one that is attacked, if Russia were to retaliate by downing a Turkish military plane, NATO countries including the US would be obligated to come to Turkey’s defense.

Russia knows this, and that is why so far the Russian response to the downing has been muted. Had it been a Jordanian, Saudi or Kuwaiti jet that downed the Russian SU-24, Russia’s response would have been instantaneous. The guilty party would have had some of its planes shot down, or perhaps even bombed on the ground. But President Putin so far has limited himself to demanding a meeting, to warning that Russian-Turkish economic relations would be threatened, etc.

This restraint is good, but clearly, Vladimir Putin will not stop there. Even putting aside domestic considerations (imaging the public clamor for a military response here in the US if some small country shot down a US plane!), he will have to respond or his whole project — so far stunningly successful — of restoring Russia to its pre-USSR-collapse position as a global power, would be a failure.

Putin’s options are actually quite broad, though some carry considerably more risk for everyone, not just for Russia and Turkey. He could have his own air

force in Syria, where Russia is legally acting at the request of the Syrian government to defend it against rebel forces of ISIS and Al Nusra, some of which are backed by both Turkey and the US, calmly wait for a Turkish military jet to cross into Syrian airspace. At that point it could be downed by Russian planes or missiles. No doubt Turkey will be extraordinarily careful going forward to have its pilots keep well away from Syrian air space too avoid that, but it could happen. My guess is that Russian fighter pilots and anti-aircraft batteries in Syria already have their marching orders to take that action, which probably would not activate NATO confrontation with Russia and lead to World War III, as long as there was reasonable evidence that Turkey’s plane was in Syrian airspace.

But should no such opportunity present itself, Russia has plenty of other opportunities to counter Turkey. Remember, Russia is also defending Syria’s coastline, and could sink or capture a Turkish ship that entered Syrian waters (or Russian waters in the Black Sea, which borders both countries).

Russia — knowing that this is really not about Turkey, but about push-back by the US against growing Russian power and influence, both globally and in the Middle East region — could also choose to respond in a venue where it has more of an advantage, for example in Ukraine, where it could amp up its support for the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, perhaps by downing a Ukrainian military plane, or more broadly, providing air cover to protect those regions. Russia could also, less directly, provide aid to Kurdish rebels in both Syria and in Turkey itself who are fighting against Turkish forces.

I’m sure there are plenty of other options available to Russia also to turn the screws against both Turkey and NATO, without openly pushing buttons that could lead to a direct confrontation with the US and its NATO fiction. Working in Russia’s favor is that the US aside, the European nations of NATO have no desire to be at war with Russia. There are clearly hotheads in the US Congress, the Pentagon, and perhaps even within the neo-con-infested Obama administration, who are pushing for just such a mad showdown. But in Europe, where the actual fighting would mostly occur, and where memories are still strong of the destructive power of war, there is no taste for such insanity. It could, in fact, have been a big error in the long run for the US to push Turkey into such a deadly provocation, if it leads to more anti-American sentiment among the citizens of such key NATO countries as France, Germany, Italy and Britain.

It should be added that Russia and China have become much closer in recent years, economically, politically and militarily. This means there is also the possibility that the two countries could, in concert, step up pressure on the US in the western Pacific, for example by forcing down one of the provocative US flights near China’s new island projects in the South China Sea. That would force an already stretched US military to shift more forces to Asia from Europe and the Middle East.

It is all terribly dangerous and it is hard to predict where things will lead. One thing seems certain, though. This outrageous shootdown of a Russian plane that was in no way posing a threat to Turkey or Turkish forces, will not end here, because Russia and President Putin cannot allow Turkey and NATO to so blatantly act against Russia and its pilots and go unpunished, particularly as it is Russia that is acting legally in Syria, while the US, Turkey and other nations backing rebel forces there are in all acting blatant violation of international law.

Unless saner heads start prevailing in Washington, this could all quickly spiral into the kind of situation in 1914, where a lot of ill-conceived treaties led to a minor incident in the Balkans turning inexorably into World War I.

Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective

25 November, 2015
Thiscantbehappening.net

By Paul Craig Roberts

Turkey’s unprovoked shoot-down of a Russian military aircraft over Syria raises interesting questions. It seems unlikely that the Turkish government would commit an act of war against a much more powerful neighbor unless Washington had cleared the attack. Turkey’s government is not very competent, but even the incompetent know better than to put themselves into a position of facing Russia alone.

If the attack was cleared with Washington, was Obama bypassed by the neocons who control his government, or is Obama himself complicit? Clearly the neoconservatives are disturbed by the French president’s call for unity with Russia against ISIL and easily could have used their connections to Turkey to stage an event that Washington can use to prevent cooperation with Russia.

Washington’s complicity is certainly indicated, but it is not completely out of the question that the well-placed Turks who are purchasing oil from ISIL took revenge against Russia for destroying their oil tanker investments and profitable business. But if the attack has a private or semi-private origin in connections between gangsters and military, would Turkey’s president have defended the shoot-down on such spurious grounds as “national defense”? No one can believe that one Russian jet is a threat to Turkey’s security.

Don’t expect the presstitutes to look into any such questions. The presstitutes, such as the BBC’s Moscow correspondent Sarah Rainsford, are spinning the story that the loss of the Russian aircraft, and earlier the airliner, proves that Putin’s policy of air strikes against iSIL has backfired as Russians are not safer.

The responses to the shoot-down are also interesting. From what I heard of Obama’s press conference, Obama’s definition of “moderate Syrian rebels” includes all the extremist jihadish groups, such as al Nursa and ISIL, that are the focus of the Russian attacks. Only Assad is an extremist. Obama, following the neocon line, says that Assad has too much blood on his hands to be allowed to remain president of Syria.

Obama is not specific about the “blood on Assad’s hands,” but we can be. The blood is the blood of ISIL forces fighting the Syrian army. Obama doesn’t refer to the blood on ISIL’s hands, but even the presstitutes have told us the horror stories associated with the blood on ISIL’s hands, with whom Obama has allied us.

And what about the blood on Obama’s hands? Here we are talking about a very large quantity of blood: the blood of entire countries—Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and the blood that Obama’s puppet government in Kiev has spilled of the ethnic Russian inhabitants of Ukraine, not to forget the Palestinian blood spilled by Israel using US supplied weapons.

If the blood on Assad’s hands disqualifies Assad from office, the much greater quantity on Obama’s hands disqualifies Obama. And Cameron. And Hollande. And Merkel. And Netanyahu.

Throughout the entire Washington orchestrated conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Ukraine, the Russian government has spoken reasonably and responded in a diplomatic manner to the many provocations. The Russian government relied on European governments realizing that Europe does not benefit from conflicts generated by Washington and separating themselves from a policy that is against their interests. But Europe proved to be a collection of American vassals, not independent countries capable of independent foreign policies.

In its campaign against ISIL in Syria, the Russian government relied on the agreement made with NATO countries to avoid engaging in the air. Now Turkey has violated this agreement.

I will be surprised if the Russian government any longer places any trust in the words of the West and any hope in diplomacy with the West. By now the Russian government and the Russian people will have learned that the Wolfowitz doctrine means what it says and is in force against Russia.

From the Ukrainian attack on Crimea’s power supply and the blackout that is affecting Crimea, the Russian government has also learned that Washington’s puppet government in Kiev intends further conflict with Russia.

Washington has made it clear from the beginning that Washington’s focus is on overthrowing Assad, not ISIL. Despite the alleged attack on France by ISIL, the US State Department press spokesperson, Admiral John Kirby, said that Russia cannot be a member of the coalition against ISIL until Russia stops propping up Assad.

To the extent that the shoot-down of the Russian military aircraft has a silver lining, the incident has likely saved the Russian government from a coalition in which Russia would have lost control of its war against ISIL and would have had to accept the defeat of Assad’s removal.

Each step along the way the Russian government has held strong cards that it did not play, trusting instead to diplomacy. Diplomacy has now proven to be a deadend. If Russia does not join the real game and begin to play its strong cards, Russia will be defeated.

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.

25 November, 2015
Paulcraigroberts.org