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By B. F. Firos

Voila, who is out there looking for refugees with such messianic grandiosity? It’s Slovakia. The central European country said it is ready to admit 200 Syrians provided they are Christians, because, according to the government, “we don’t have mosques… we only want to choose the Christians.” Fair point; so has the diktat been communicated to the refugees fleeing for their life, probably via satellite communication? And in the unfortunate event of not finding enough Christians to fill its 200-slot, is there any government-sponsored mid-sea baptism bid to pick the willing 200 subjects? Or is there a clergy-man baptize-ready standing along the razor-thin fence along with sniffer dogs and police men who have been deployed to drive the refugees away on the borders of Hungary and Austria? Or are there enough high-sensitive religion-detection machines installed at the border checkpoints to sift the 200 souls?

Amid this religionizing of a human tragedy came the picture of a dead Syrian boy lying face-down on a Turkish beach; it has jolted the world which has hitherto been beauty sleeping in its cozy comforts, refusing to even wink at the biggest catastrophe unfolding right under its nose. No doubt, the image is the defining one à la the heart-breaking image of that Vietnam girl running from a Napalm bomb that went on to encapsulate the horrors of the war.

Indeed, it is not the first such loss of life; people have been fleeing war zones and desolation from conflict-ridden countries in the middle-east and Africa for the past many months. It is just that this dead boy just got lucky enough to have been photographed by a western news agency, prompting TV channels the world over to spare their prime time and newspapers to front-page the image to the accompaniment of such poetic headlines as “Europe couldn’t save him.”
And for the readers of Western tabloids it was a refreshing change as the boy’s body was front-paged. Celebrity bums and boobs, of course, can wait for a day; sorry not more than that.

And we must appreciate the BBC over its journalistic circumspection, for, it says that it has chosen to publish only one photograph of Aylan, in which he is being carried by a Turkish police officer. Oh Aylan. That is the boy name, the enterprising media has found out his name. We don’t know the names of those 2,500 people who were drowned or killed on their way to Europe. They remain faceless.

Amid the cacophony of reactions of European leaders, that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel stands out like that of a real angel, a beacon of hope and humanity as she welcomed these seas of desperate souls into her country with open arms. So is France. Rightwing-ruled countries like Hungary closed their doors to the people with predictable insensitivity. Hungary Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, said Europe is in the grip of madness over immigration and refugees, and that he was “defending European Christianity against a Muslim influx.” But thanks to Aylan effect, countries like Hungary have been forced to change their position.

And we saw the likes of David Cameron going into pedagogic mode with didactic precision, trying to differentiate between the vexatious words like ‘immigrants’ and ‘migrants’ and ‘asylum seekers’! Now, he says the UK is ready to accept “thousands more” Syrian refugees. Thanks, again, to Aylan effect.

Hello world, it is very easy to brand people fleeing war zones and catastrophes with such heavily loaded words like ‘migrants’ and ‘illegal emigrants’; in effect bracketing them all in the “bad people” category. And instead of applying the balm of humanity upon these wounded souls, rest of the right-wing world, instead, is poking at their wounds with the poison of religion and xenophobia
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Yes, the world is made of migrations and cross-migrations; people’s movement has always been the inevitable ingredient of human civilization; each country of the world as we know it today has been peopled by migrations of different kinds. Nobody was air-dropped to countries according to pre-fixed maps based on their skin color, nose size and passports that they possess.

For a change those rightwing leaders in Europe may read history books. Europe has benefitted from migration immensely: when the continent was ravaged by war seven decades ago, rest of the world embraced the refugees with open arms. After the Second World War, Australia, New Zealand and rest of Americas accepted huge refugee population that emanated from Europe.

Even as these human tragedies are being played out, in another part of the world called Swaziland, one of the poorest countries in the African continent, a total of 65 girls were killed in a ghastly road accident. They were traveling in an open truck to take part in the annual reeds festival, where the Swazi king traditionally picks one of the topless girls as his newest bride. Some 40,000 virgin-girls gather in a stadium and dance bare-breasted to attract the attention of this African monarch who already has 15 wives, 13 palaces, a private jet and a fleet of luxury cars. Other facts are: the country has the highest HIV and tuberculosis rate in the world and over 50% of the people are under the poverty line.

These girls, desperate to escape the tyranny of poverty and squalor in their lives, hope to lead a better life as queen. Their condition is no less wretched than those thousands of refugees fleeing for their lives. While those girls were killed on the road, most of the refugees perished in the sea. The difference primarily ends there. Both of them flee their pitiable conditions for a life of dignity.

Until and unless a western news agency photographer meets with his epiphany Aylan-moment, places like Swaziland – and the stark realities of the people’s lives there – will continue to remain off from the radar of our tabloid front-pages and TV primetimes.

(The author is a journalist based out of Dubai)

05 September, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Niles Williamson

The Pentagon is in the process of finalizing a $1 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia for the delivery of a cache of weapons, consisting primarily of missiles to arm the fleet of F-15 fighter jets it had previously purchased from the US.

While this latest weapons transfer, first reported by the New York Times, is being presented in the media as part of a bid by the administration of President Barack Obama to assuage the Saudi monarchy’s concerns over the US-Iran nuclear deal, it also facilitates the continuation and escalation of the bloody assault on Yemen that Saudi Arabia has been carrying out along with its allies since March.

The deal serves as a green light from the Obama administration for an escalation of the brutal military offensive against the Houthi militias that took control over much of Yemen’s western provinces earlier this year.

According to UN estimates, more than 4,300 people have been killed since the anti-Houthi offensive began March, with more than half of these being civilians, including many women and children. Nearly 1.5 million people have been internally displaced by the fighting, with tens of thousands more fleeing the country.

With American military intelligence and logistical support, Saudi Arabia and its allies have used US-supplied F-15s to drop US-supplied bombs on residential neighborhoods, markets, schools, factories and ports. The Saudi-led forces have repeatedly dropped internationally outlawed cluster bombs, munitions also supplied by the US government.

After months of punishing airstrikes against targets throughout Yemen, thousands of troops from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other Gulf state monarchies have entered the country and are preparing for a ground offensive to retake the capital of Sanaa.

Fifty soldiers from the UAE and Bahrain were killed on Friday in the northern province of Marib after a rocket reportedly fired by Houthi forces struck a weapons depot, setting off a massive explosion.

The US weapons transfer, which awaits almost certain approval by Congress, was announced as Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud made his first state visit to the United States since ascending to the throne in January.

For the three-day visit to Washington, DC, the Saudi monarch rented out all 222 rooms at the Four Seasons Hotel in the posh Georgetown neighborhood to accommodate his highness and an entourage of several hundred.

The Four Seasons staff laid out a red carpet in the parking garage and hotel hallways to keep the royal feet of the king and his courtiers from touching the ground. And to further ensure ultimate comfort the hotel’s furniture was replaced with gilded equivalents.

“Everything is gold,” a regular hotel patron told Politico. “Gold mirrors, gold end tables, gold lamps, even gold hat racks.”

King Salman and President Obama’s agenda reportedly included discussions on the Iran nuclear deal, the war in Yemen, the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and energy policy. They also discussed escalating US military training programs for the Saudi armed forces.

On Friday, in a joint press briefing with King Salman held in the White House’s Oval Office, President Obama extended a warm welcome to his “personal friend” whose executioners have beheaded at least 130 people so far this year.

Obama also expressed his “concern” over the situation in Yemen, facetiously calling for the restoration of “a functioning government that is inclusive and that can relieve the humanitarian situation there.”

The President also used the public briefing to press for a “political transfer process” in Syria, where the United States and Saudi Arabia have worked together to stoke a four-year civil war aimed at ousting President Bashar al Assad. Saudi Arabia has been one of the key supporters of Islamic fundamentalist jihadist groups fighting in Syria, including the Al Nusra Front, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, as well as ISIS.

The conflict, fueled by the weapons and fighters funneled into Syria by the Obama administration and its Saudi partners, has killed more than 220,000 Syrians and displaced millions, contributing to the flood of refugees now attempting the perilous trek through Europe.

The deal reported by the Times on Friday is only one of a number of pending arms sales to Saudi Arabia being negotiated by the Pentagon. In 2010 the Obama administration announced a $60 billion, 20-year agreement, the largest-ever US arms deal, which will provide Saudi Arabia with, among other things, 84 new F-15 fighter jets and 70 new Apache attack helicopters.

The Saudi government is currently in discussions with the Pentagon to purchase two frigates being built by Lockheed Martin for more than $1 billion. The US-supplied warships will serve as the cornerstone of the Royal Saudi navy’s upgrade of its eastern fleet. A deal worth $1.9 billion for 10 MH-60R Seahawk helicopters to shore up the Saudi navy’s antisubmarine capabilities is also expected to be signed before the end of the year.

The Pentagon approved a number of weapons sales to Saudi Arabia at the end of July, including a $5.4 billion deal for 600 Patriot Missiles and a $500 million deal for more than a million rounds of ammunition as well as land mines and hand grenades for the Saudi Arabian Army.

Supported by the United States, Saudi Arabia has undertaken a massive effort to upgrade and expand its military forces over the last ten years with military expenditures increasing 112 percent between 2005 and 2014. In 2014, the Saudi monarchy committed approximately $80.8 billion, a whopping 10.4 percent of the country’s GDP, to military expenditures.
05 September, 2015
WSWS.org

 

By Karoun Demirjian and Carol Morello

Not since George H.W. Bush was president has the American Israel Public Affairs Committee sustained such a public defeat on an issue it deemed an existential threat to Israel’s security.

But the Iran nuclear deal has Washington insiders wondering if the once-untouchable lobbying giant has suffered lasting damage to its near-pristine political reputation.

In fighting the deal, AIPAC and its affiliates mustered all of its considerable resources: spending tens of millions on television ads in the home states of undecided lawmakers and organizing a fly-in to blitz legislators on Capitol Hill – another is planned for next week when Congress returns from August recess to vote on a resolution of disapproval. But all that noise amounted to a humbling and rare defeat this week, when President Obama secured enough backing in the Senate to protect the pact from efforts to dismantle it.

Many say AIPAC’s efforts were doomed to fail in the aftermath of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s combative speech to Congress in March — an appearance brokered by Israel’s ambassador to the United States along with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) without White House consultation. Many of AIPAC’s supporters also blame Obama and what they see as a process he rigged and a debate he polarized.

But whether the White House won a lasting victory in securing the Iran deal’s fate, AIPAC may have lost its claim to iron-clad influence over lawmakers on issues pertaining to Israel.

“The lesson that lawmakers have learned from this experience is that right-leaning pro-Israel groups are not immortal,” said Dylan Williams, vice president of government affairs for J Street, a more liberal, rival pro-Israel group. “Blood can be drawn. And it is possible to stand up and say “no” to them. And not suffer political consequences.”

AIPAC’s position on the Iran deal lines up with the Republican Party’s, but its efforts thus far have helped persuade only two Senate Democrats, and a handful in the House, while Obama has secured more than the 34 Senate votes needed to ensure that opponents won’t collect a two-thirds, veto-proof majority to block the deal. On Thursday, three more Senate Democrats sided with Obama — Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Cory Booker (N.J.), and Mark Warner (Va.).

Undecided lawmakers found themselves in the crosswinds of a fierce maelstrom of political jockeying as the deal’s architects and opponents pressed their case.

“Vigorous and regular,” is how Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) described it.

Coons, who announced his support for the deal earlier this week, stressed that in Delaware, the lobbying he encountered from the deal’s foes was always respectful – in part because in that small state, the people conveying the anti-deal message were locals he has long known.

“But for other senators who have been comparably torn on this with whom I’ve spoken — where the ads in their states are much more aggressive than the ones here — it has backfired,” Coons said. “Instead of making them feel compelled to vote against the deal, it has made them feel resentful.”

Congress’s Jewish lawmakers came under some of the most intense pressure from anti-deal activists.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who announced his support for the deal in August, described weathering a barrage of attacks from passionately opposed constituents and others on social media, who questioned his religion, his intelligence and called him a kapo – a term used to describe prisoners of Nazi concentration camps who were assigned to supervise forced labor – as they pressed him against the deal.

While he isn’t sure if AIPAC could have improved the dialogue, Cohen said “the tenor was set when Netanyahu came to speak to Congress without the president’s knowledge and/or approval.”

“Having him come and try to influence the members of the Congress and lobby against what the president was working on set the tenor,” Cohen continued. “Netanyahu should not get himself involved in American politics in the future, and AIPAC played a stronger hand than they should have.”

Other congressional aides pointed out that Israel’s unprecedented direct lobbying efforts against the deal by Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, who once worked for GOP operative Frank Luntz, worsened AIPAC’s position by association.

“There are a lot of people whose reaction to the Israeli ambassador’s lobbying was not a positive one,” said one Democratic aide to a Jewish lawmaker. “It wasn’t ever a harsh tone or bossy or threatening, but if you are looking at the group of Jewish Democrats, there could have been a better understanding of the nuanced approach those members were taking. Not ‘This is it is, take it or leave it, and if you’re on the other side of it you’re wrong.’”

The Israeli Embassy didn’t respond to a request for comment.

While AIPAC and Israel’s activities were not coordinated, some members of Congress felt the group was tacitly endorsing the Israeli government’s increasingly political line.

“They burned their bridges with Democrats before they got into this,” said a Senate aide who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak frankly about AIPAC’s apparent failure.

“They were silent and a little complicit in the Netanyahu debacle. They were just standing by when it happened. They spent down their political capital before they got up to this effort.”

Several Democratic lawmakers pointed to Netanyahu’s speech to Congress as poisoning the political environment surrounding the Iran deal debate even before an agreement was reached. Netanyahu spoke to AIPAC’s annual conference the night before his congressional address, arguing vehemently against the Iran negotiations. Several Democratic members boycotted the speech, arguing that Netanyahu’s appearance was inappropriate as Israel was preparing for national elections.

“The unfortunate problem with Prime Minister Netanyahu is that he prides himself on being the Israeli who knows America the best,” said former Democratic congressman Robert Wexler (Fla.), who now runs the D.C.-based S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace. “Where he’s mistaken is, Prime Minister Netanyahu knows the America that elected Ronald Reagan president. He’s completely unfamiliar with the America that elected Barack Obama president. And they are in fact very different Americas.”

J Street, a rival lobbying group that spent far less money trying to persuade lawmakers to support the deal, said AIPAC’s lobbying tactics simply don’t work anymore.

“It used to be that AIPAC could deliver votes in a situation like this by emphasizing the political cost of going against them. That no longer works as well as it used to, with Democrats in particular, who recognize that the majority of their supporters in the Jewish community support this deal,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s executive director. “The days of AIPAC being able to present itself as the sole voice of American Jews on these issues are over.”

AIPAC’s executive director refused interview requests for this story. But AIPAC spokesman Marshall Wittman said the group was aiming “to achieve the largest possible bipartisan majority that will reject this flawed deal.”

“Many of the deal’s proponents have expressed severe concerns,” he said. “We believe that this strong opposition conveys an important message to the world – especially foreign banks, businesses and governments – about the severe doubts in America concerning Iran’s willingness to meet its commitments and the long-term viability of this agreement.”

And to many AIPAC supporters, the fact that a majority of both chambers of Congress are expected to vote against the deal means the vote can’t be characterized as a “loss.”

Middle East policy experts say that for an experienced lobbying organization like AIPAC, other factors were at play.

“I suspect within AIPAC itself there was probably a low expectation that they would succeed in this,” said Dennis Ross, a former White House Middle East peace negotiator. “So the question is, did they believe they could affect what the administration might do in terms of some of the commitments they might be prepared to make to Israel?”

Obama and Kerry have both said the United States will provide Israel more security guarantees, including military aid.

But others argue that if AIPAC wants to recover from this episode, it needs to mend fences.

“This will be a setback if AIPAC allows itself to become Republican-oriented, and allows the debate to continue in its partisan manner,” said Tom Dine, AIPAC’s former executive director until 1993. “The partisan debate got away from AIPAC, and it lost its bipartisan advantage.”

The Iran deal isn’t the first time that AIPAC has lobbied Congress hard and come up short. But the prior episodes to which experts and former lobbyists often refer – the 1981 sale of AWACS early warning aircraft to Saudi Arabia; and a fight in the early 1990s over loan guarantees to build housing in settlements in the Palestinian territories – all took place in a different political time.

Dine, who has ties to the Democratic Party and supports the Iran deal, said AIPAC mistakenly does not do enough to control members who say Obama’s policies have been bad for Israel.

“I just think it’s the dumbest thing possible,” Dine said. “Get with it, man! Go back to basics, and get those guys off the stage. AIPAC may not be able to control what a person says, but you can keep them off the stage.”

Clarification: This article has been updated to say that Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer once worked for GOP operative Frank Luntz.

Karoun Demirjian covers defense and foreign policy and was previously a correspondent based in the Post’s bureau in Moscow, Russia. Before that, she reported for the Las Vegas Sun as its Washington Correspondent, the Associated Press in Jerusalem, the Chicago Tribune, Congressional Quarterly, and worked at NPR.

Carol Morello is the diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, covering the State Department.

3 September 2015

By Colin Todhunter

UK Prime Minister David Cameron this week said “as a father I felt deeply moved” by the image of a Syrian boy dead on a Turkish beach. As pressure mounts on the UK to take in more of those fleeing to Europe from Syria and elsewhere. Cameron added that the UK would fulfil its “moral responsibilities.”

On hearing Cameron’s words on the role of ‘morality’, something he talks a lot about, anyone who has been following the crisis in Syria would not have failed to detect the hypocrisy. According to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, Britain had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009. He told French TV:

“I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business… I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria.”

Writing in The Guardian in 2013, Nafeez Ahmed discusses leaked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, including notes from a meeting with Pentagon officials, that confirmed US-UK training of Syrian opposition forces since 2011 aimed at eliciting “collapse” of Assad’s regime “from within.”

He goes on to write that, according to retired NATO Secretary General Wesley Clark, a memo from the Office of the US Secretary of Defense just a few weeks after 9/11 revealed plans to “attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years,” starting with Iraq and moving on to “Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.” Clark argues that this strategy is fundamentally about control of the region’s vast oil and gas resources.

In 2009, Syrian President Assad refused to sign a proposed agreement with Qatar that would run a pipeline from the latter’s North field through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, with a view to supply European markets in direct competition with Russia. Being a Russian ally, Assad refused to sign and instead pursued negotiations for an alternative $10 billion pipeline plan with Iran crossing Iraq and into Syria that would also potentially allow Iran to supply gas to Europe. Thus Assad had to go.

And this is where Cameron’s concerns really lie: not with ordinary people compelled to flee war zones that his government had a hand in making but with removing Assad in order for instance to run a pipeline through Syrian territory and to prevent Iran and Russia gaining strategic momentum in the region.

Ordinary folk are merely ‘collateral damage’ in the geopolitical machinations of bankers, oilmen and arms manufacturers, only to be shown any sympathy when the media flashes images of a dead Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach or people drowned at sea trying to escape turmoil at home. It is then that people like Cameron are obliged to demonstrate mock sincerity in the face of public concern.

It is not only Syrians who are heading for Europe and the UK but also people from Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Countries that Britain has helped to devastate as part of the US-led long war based on the Project for a New American Century and the US right to intervene unilaterally as and when it deems fit under the notion of the US ‘exceptionalism’ (better known as the project for a new imperialism – the ‘Wolfowitz Doctrine’).

Cameron said that Britain is a moral nation and would fulfil its moral responsibilities. Large sections of the population – ordinary men and women – are certainly ‘moral’ but that is unfortunately where any notion of morality seems to stop. Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray has called the UK a rogue state and a danger to the world. Last year, he told a meeting at St Andrews University in Scotland that the British Government is deeply immoral and doesn’t care how many people its kills abroad if it advances it aims. Moreover, he said the UK was a state that is prepared to go to war to make a few people wealthy.

He added that Libya is now a disaster and 15,000 people were killed when NATO (British and French jets) bombed Sirte, something the BBC never told the public. Murray told his audience what many already know or suspect but what many more remain ignorant of:

“I’ve seen things from the inside and the UK’s foreign interventions are almost always about resources. It is every bit as corrupt as others have indicated. It is not an academic construct, the system stinks.”

Murray was a British diplomat for 20 years. But after only six months, he said that in the country where he was Ambassador, the British and the US were shipping people in order for them to be tortured and some of them were tortured to death. As far as Iraq is concerned, Murray said that he knew for certain that key British officials were fully aware that there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction. He said that invading Iraq wasn’t a mistake, it was a lie.

Back in 2011, 200 prominent African figures accused Western nations and the International Criminal Court of “subverting international law” in Libya. The UN has been misused to militarise policy, legalise military action and effect regime change, according to University of Johannesburg professor Chris Landsberg. He said it is unprecedented for the UN to have outsourced military action to NATO in this way and challenges the International Criminal Court to investigate NATO for “violating international law.” In 2015, the outcome has been to turn Africa’s most developed nation to ruins and run by armed militias fighting one another.

Is this the stability and morality Cameron preaches?

Yet for public consumption, Cameron flags up his ‘morality’ by stating that the UK would continue to take in “thousands” of refugees. But he cautions that this is not the only answer to the crisis, saying a “comprehensive solution” is required. Awash with self-righteous platitudes he hoped would drown out any hint of hypocrisy or irony, Cameron added: “We have to try and stabilise the countries from which these people are coming.”

One year ago, Cameron told the United Nations that Britain was ready to play its part in confronting “an evil against which the whole world must unite.” He also said that that “we” must not be so “frozen with fear” of repeating the mistakes of the 2003 Iraq invasion. He was attempting to drum up support for wider Anglo-US direct military action against Syria under the pretext of attacking ISIS.

At the same time, Cameron spoke of the virtues of the West’s economic freedom and democratic values as well as the horrors of extremism and terror. Cameron’s was a monologue of hypocrisy.

Over a million people have been killed via the US-led or US-backed attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, so we were told. It did not. That was a lie and hundreds of thousands have paid with their lives. We were told that Gaddafi was a tyrant. He used the nation’s oil wealth well by presiding over a country that possessed some of the best indices of social and economic well-being in Africa. Now, thanks to Western backed terror and military conflict, Libya lies in ruins and torn apart. Russia is a threat to world peace because of its actions in Ukraine, we are told. It is not. The US helped instigate the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Ukraine and has instigated provocations, sanctions and a proxy war against an emerging, confident Russia.

But how far in history should we go back to stress that the West and Cameron and his ilk have no right to take the moral high ground when it comes to peace, respect for international law, self-determination, truth or democracy? The much quoted work by historian William Blum documents the crimes, bombings, assassinations, destabilisations and wars committed by the US in country after country since 1945. And since 1945 the UK has consistently stood shoulder to shoulder with Washington.

Cameron stood at the UN and talked of the West’s values of freedom and democracy and the wonders of economic neoliberalism in an attempt to promote Western values and disguise imperialist intent. But it’s a thin disguise. The Anglo-US establishment has imposed its economic structural violence on much of the world by bankrupting economies, throwing millions into poverty and imposing ‘austerity’ and by rigging and manipulating global commodity markets and prices. Add to that the mass illegal surveillance at home and abroad, torture, drone murders, destabilisations, bombings and invasions and it becomes clear that Cameron’s ongoing eulogies to morality, freedom, humanitarianism, democracy and the ‘free’ market is hollow rhetoric.

Apart from attempting to legitimise neoliberal capitalism, this rhetoric has one purpose: it is part of the ongoing ‘psych-ops’ being waged on the public to encourage people to regard what is happening in the world – from Syria, Iraq and Ukraine to Afghanistan and Libya, etc – as a confusing, disconnected array of events (perpetuated by unhinged madmen or terror groups) that are in need of Western intervention. These events are not for one minute to be regarded by the public as the planned machinations of empire and militarism, which entail a global energy and trade war against Russia and China, the associated preservation of the petro-dollar system and the encircling and intimidation of these two states with military hardware.

Any mainstream narrative about the current migrant-refugee ‘crisis’ must steer well clear of such an analysis. Instead, we must listen to Cameron talking about the West ‘helping’ to stabilise the countries it helped to destabilise or destroy in the first place. It’s the same old story based on the same misrepresentation of imperialism: the US-led West acting as a force for good in the world and reluctantly taking up the role of ‘world policeman’.

Whether it’s the now amply financially rewarded Blair or whether it is Cameron at the political helm, the perpetual wars and perpetual deceptions continue.

Cameron plays his role well. Like Tony Blair, Cameron’s media-friendly bonhomie is slicker (and cheaper) than the most experienced used car salesman. And like Blair before him, Cameron is the media-friendly PR man who beats the drums of war (or mock sincerity, as the situation dictates), courtesy of a global power elite, who through their think tanks, institutions and financial clout ultimately determine economic policies and decide which wars are to be fought and for what purpose –

“… the Davos-attending, Gulfstream/private jet-flying, money-incrusted, megacorporation-interlocked, policy-building elites of the world, people at the absolute peak of the global power pyramid. They are 94 percent male, predominantly white, and mostly from North America and Europe. These are the people setting the agendas at the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, G-8, G-20, NATO, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. They are from the highest levels of finance capital, transnational corporations, the government, the military, the academy, nongovernmental organizations, spiritual leaders and other shadow elites. Shadow elites include, for instance, the deep politics of national security organizations in connection with international drug cartels, who extract 8,000 tons of opium from US war zones annually, then launder $500 billion through transnational banks, half of which are US-based.” – David Rothkopf (Project Censored ‘Exposing the transnational ruling class’)

Colin Todhunter is an independent writer and former social policy researcher

04 September, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Niles Williamson

The Saudi-led, US-backed assault on Yemen, now entering its sixth month, continues to take a devastating toll on the country’s civilian population. At least 36 workers were reported killed Sunday after a Saudi-led coalition jet fighter bombed a water -bottling factory in the Abs District of Hajjah Governorate.

Local residents said that dozens of workers had been killed and reported pulling charred remains from the rubble of the plant. “The process of recovering the bodies is finished now. The corpses of 36 workers, many of them burnt or in pieces, were pulled out after an air strike hit the plant this morning,” Hajjah resident Issah Ahmed told Reuters in a phone interview.

This bloody war crime was the latest in a string of airstrikes that have resulted in mass civilian casualties in the Saudi-spearheaded war against the Houthi militias and allied forces. A bombing raid on a dairy and juicing factory in the western port city of Hodeida in April killed at least 37 workers and injured 80 others. Since the anti-Houthi offensive began in March, more than 4,300 have been killed, at least half of them civilians.

Residential neighborhoods, factories, ports, schools, hospitals and markets have all been the targets of Saudi-led bombing raids as the coalition, fully backed by the US government, seeks to bring President Abd Rabbuh Monsour Hadi back to power.

Amnesty International released a report last month which documented potential “war crimes, by all parties,” including coalition bombing raids on a school being used as a shelter, a food market and a workers’ dormitory.

With the support of military forces loyal to former dictator Ali Abduallah Saleh, the Houthi militias consolidated control over much of Yemen’s western provinces in March, including the southern port city of Aden. They forced Hadi to flee the country for Saudi Arabia, where he established a government-in-exile. The Saudis have charged that Iran is backing the Houthis, though Iran has denied providing military equipment.

Facilitated by US military intelligence, logistical support and air tankers to refuel jets, the campaign of nearly continuous airstrikes has been supplemented in recent weeks by a growing ground invasion involving troops from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as well as Yemeni forces trained by the Saudis.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that troops from the UAE have been secretly leading the fight in southern Yemen since late July. Nearly 100 UAE troops with unmarked armored vehicles were deployed in Aden and have played a key role in pushing the Houthis out of the city.

The coalition is reportedly preparing a bloodbath in northern Yemen by setting up a three-pronged assault from Saada province in the north, Marib province in the east and Jawf province in the northeast. Several thousand UAE and Saudi forces, along with battle tanks and other armored vehicles, have already been deployed inside Yemen.

The Saudi coalition is reportedly calculating that a successful assault on the Houthi stronghold of Saada would deal a fatal blow to the anti-Hadi forces and would facilitate the recapture of Sanaa.

Over the last week, Saudi coalition ground forces have also begun entering Yemen from the northeast and have reached the oil-rich Marib province, which provides Sanaa with electricity and fuel. It is also adjacent to the Al Jawf Governorate, where Houthi forces have reportedly set up trenches and planted mines in preparation for a ground battle.

The Saudi-backed Asharq Al Awsat reported on Monday that Saudi-led ground forces have initiated the third prong of the ground invasion, moving troops into Saada province. The troops have entrenched in tribal areas outside of the city of Saada, while Saudi planes have been dropping leaflets encouraging residents to support the reinstatement of the Hadi government.

The UN and other humanitarian groups have released repeated statements over the last five months warning of a dire humanitarian crisis in Yemen as a result of the unrelenting aerial assault and blockade of the country. The UN envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, warned in June that the country was “one step away from famine.”

More than a million people have been displaced by the fighting. Approximately 21 million people, or 80 percent of the total population, lack access to clean drinking water and are in need of some additional form of humanitarian aid.

International charity Save the Children warned on Sunday that Al Sabeen Hospital, the main women and children’s hospital in Sanaa, is faced with imminent closure due to a shortage of medical supplies and fuel for power generators. The hospital has already run out of IV fluid and ready-made food for malnourished children.

“The situation is absolutely critical. We don’t have time to wait for stocks and fuel to come in. If this hospital closes, children and women will die,” the hospital’s deputy manager, Halel Al Bahri, told Save the Children. “The numbers of those who die will be much higher than those being killed by the bombs and the fighting.”

Since the Saudi-led assault began earlier this year, the number of people in Yemen who lack access to basic health care has increased by 40 percent to 15.2 million. The number of children admitted to Yemeni hospitals for malnutrition since March has skyrocketed by 150 percent. It is estimated that more than half a million children will suffer from severe acute malnutrition by the end of the year.

01 September, 2015
WSWS.org

 

By Countercurrents.org

Aylan Kurdi has become the symbol of the refugee crisis in Europe. He was washed up dead on the shores of Bodrum in southwest Turkey. The three year old toddler drowned in the Mediterranean Sea along with his five-year-old brother Galip and mother Rihan. The father, Abdullah, survived. The pictures of Aylan lying dead on the beach went viral on social media and now he has become a symbol of refugee crisis in Europe.

The boys were on one of two boats that departed Bodrum early on Wednesday and were headed for the Greek island of Kos. Both boats sank shortly after leaving the Turkish coast. Twelve bodies have been recovered from the sea, including those of five children. Nine people survived and two are still missing, presumed drowned.

The family, Kurds from Kobane in north Syria, fled their homes after the Islamic State group had besieged their town earlier this year.

Teema said the family had been hoping to eventually reach Canada – after travelling to Europe. Earlier this year the family had a refugee application rejected by Canadian authorities due to complexities around them having already fled from Syria to Turkey.

The United Nations has reported that at least 230,000 people have been killed in Syria’s civil war, although the actual toll is thought to be much higher. More than 6.5 million people out of a population of 22 million have also been displaced by the conflict.

More than 2,600 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe this year alone

More than 350,000 people have arrived in Europe so far this year seeking sanctuary from war or persecution , mostly from Lybia and Syria, two countries destoryed by USA and its NATO allies.

03 September, 2015
Countercurrents.org

By Afro-Middle East Centre

This article examines Pakistan’s decision to abstain from joining the Saudi-led war in Yemen, and considers the impact of this decision on the future of Pakistani relations with Saudi Arabia. It pointedly asks whether the Yemeni war will result in Pakistan pivoting towards Iran, and weakening its ties to the Saudi kingdom, particularly in the context of the recently-concluded Iran nuclear deal.

Allegedly, the current Saudi-led onslaught on Yemen has already caused destruction that resembles the destruction wrought in Syria over the last four years. However, the war in Yemen, like the Syrian crisis, cannot simply be viewed through a domestic Yemeni lens, for Yemen has become a playground for various regional forces carving out their alliances and rivalries within the matrix of the greater Middle East cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. These alliances, rivalries and the intentions of the various actors – including those who are geographically only peripherally attached to this regional system – must be understood within the framework of this confluence of multiple aims and objectives.

Two of those peripherally-attached countries are Turkey and Pakistan. While Turkey straddles the boundaries between the Middle East and Europe and Central Asia, and Pakistan occupies the area separating the Middle East from South Asia, both countries are often inextricably drawn into the conflictual Middle East regional system, usually despite their best efforts. The war in Yemen is illustrative of these dynamics. Pakistan’s response to the Saudi war on Yemen is a good recent case to explore these machinations.

Pakistani-Saudi relations
The history of Pakistan-Saudi Arabia relations is long, and has frequently been described by roleplayers in both countries as strong and dependable. The close collaboration between the two states in the 1980s against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan is often cited to substantiate this point. Additionally, the Pakistani ruling party and its prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, also enjoy exceptionally close ties with the Saudi royal family. When Sharif’s government was overthrown in 1999 by the then-military chief General Pervez Musharraf, Sharif chose Saudi Arabia for his exile, and has since benefited from Saudi largesse, both in his personal capacity and on behalf of Pakistan during his current tenure as prime minister. Examples range from 200 tonnes of dates gifted to Pakistan to a $1.5 billion loan to support the Pakistani economy – both in 2014.

The general Pakistani population also holds the kingdom in high regard, and a recent survey showed that ninety-five per cent of Pakistanis view Saudi Arabia favourably. The prestige that Saudi Arabia claims for itself as the caretaker of the two holiest Islamic sites no doubt plays a significant role in this sentiment. Military cooperation between the two countries is also decades old. Pakistani pilots flew Royal Saudi Air Force jets in 1969 to repel incursions from South Yemen; more than 15 000 Pakistani troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s and 1980s; and Pakistani troops were deployed to protect the kingdom from Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf war in 1990. Pakistan also assisted Saudi Arabia in providing trainers and anti-aircraft and anti-tank weaponry to Saudi-backed rebels in Syria. And there is much speculation that Pakistan, the only Muslim state with a nuclear arsenal, could include Saudi Arabia under its nuclear umbrella in the event of Iran becoming a nuclear weapons power, or that it might transfer nuclear weaponry or weapons technology to Riyadh.

It was therefore not far-fetched to assume that Pakistan would support Saudi Arabia in Yemen. Expectations for such support were bolstered by Saudi and other Gulf officials, and by a visit of the Pakistani defence minister, Khawaj Asif, to Riyadh as the Sharif government mulled over the level of support it could offer to the Saudis in Yemen. Arab media, especially the Saudi Al-Arabiya channel, were reporting that Pakistan would despatch jet fighters and warships to take part in the Yemeni campaign, Operation Decisive Storm. However, after various high level delegations from Pakistan, including military officials, cabinet members and the Pakistani prime minister had visited and assured the Saudis of Pakistani support, Sharif put the matter to the Pakistani parliament for a decision. In a unanimous decision, the parliament decided to turn down the Saudi request for assistance in Yemen, fearing that it could spark Shi’a-Sunni sectarian violence inside Pakistan. Parliament was also concerned about stretching the army too thinl by engaging in a foreign war while Pakistan itself faced multiple internal insurgencies.

Saudi and Gulf anger
That the Saudis were upset by Pakistan’s stance was obvious to most observers of the two countries, despite Saudi attempts at suggesting that they regarded the Pakistani decision as an issue internal to Pakistan. In contrast, the sharp outburst by the UAE foreign minister, Anwar Gargash, calling Pakistan’s decision to withhold troops ‘contradictory, dangerous and unexpected’ indicated that senior decision-makers within the Gulf Cooperation Council, especially Saudi Arabia, were bitterly disappointed by Pakistan. Thereafter, diplomatic initiatives between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia over the former’s support for the Saudi war in Yemen came to a standstill, despite a meeting between Pakistani president Mamnoon Hussain and the Saudi king, Salman bin Abdul Aziz. The meeting was, at best, symbolic rather than a real effort to evaluate and reinvigorate bilateral relations.

It remains unclear whether Pakistan’s decision on Yemen indicates the country inclining toward Iran as the latter furthers its reconciliation with western countries, and whether a new Pakistani-Iranian relationship will be at the expense of the South Asian state’s previous cosy relationship with Saudi Arabia. It is possible that the decision was simply a demonstration of Pakistan’s desire to chart an independent foreign policy formed solely in its national interests – particularly its concern to contain sectarian tensions internally, as parliamentarians suggested during their five-day deliberations on Yemen. Certain Pakistani commentators would certainly prefer their country to act simply on the basis of its own interests, and not to become embroiled in battles between other Muslim states.

Iran replacing Saudi Arabia?
Caution must be exercised with respect to the question about Pakistan’s allegiances. From the perspectives of the two antagonists – Saudi Arabia and Iran – the battle over Pakistan is most likely azero-sum game, with Pakistan being forced to choose one over the other. After all, Iran freed from sanctions would be able to provide similar kinds of support to Pakistan as Saudi Arabia, especially in terms of oil concessions and economic aid. With Iran expected to receive around $100 billion just from funds held in escrow from past oil sales, it is likely to be able provide cheap oil and aid to Pakistan.

The Pakistan foreign ministry welcomed the Iranian nuclear deal, expressing its desire to expand trade between the two countries, and to continue with the Iran-Pakistan pipeline project, which will likely run from Asalouyeh in the Iranian Southern Pars gas field, through the Pakistani provinces of Balochistan and Sindh, to Karachi and Multan. Multan might also become the site from where the pipeline will extend towards Delhi in India. The pipeline project will go a long way in helping Pakistan solve its energy needs, and will also build on Pakistani collaboration with China, which seems willing to step in and bolster Pakistan in the event of a Gulf or Saudi withdrawal. China is busy constructing the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that will link southwestern Pakistan to northwestern China, playing a crucial role in regional integration of China, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Myanmar. Mushahid Hussain, a senior Pakistani political figure and chair of the Pakistan-China Institute, described the project as an integration of South Asia and East Asia into a ‘Greater South Asia’. He provides a window into how the Pakistani foreign policy establishment might be calculating a decreasing dependency on Gulf and Arab partners.

Another, more important, factor that might push Pakistan closer to Iran is security. Pakistan shares a 904 kilometre-long border with Iran which has seen them cooperate in addressing the Balochi insurgency affecting both countries for decades. Further, because of Iran’s influence in Afghanistan and among politicised Shi’a groups in Pakistan, it represents a force that Pakistan would not want to convert into an enemy. The same cannot be said of Saudi Arabia. While it does have influence over certain Sunni militant groups in Pakistan, most of them depend on logistical support from within the Pakistani security establishment. In other words, between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the former is more capable of negatively affecting Pakistan’s security. Iran has a ready network of suppliers to funnel weapons into Pakistan through Balochistan, a route that is not available to Saudi Arabia.

It should, therefore, not come as a surprise that Pakistan might begin inclining more towards Iran than in the past. Saudi Arabia could play the card of drying up Pakistan’s foreign remittances – as it has done with Yemenis and Somalis previously – by forcefully repatriating Pakistani workers in the kingdom. Their wages remitted to Pakistan represent nearly one-third of its total remittances. Together with remittances from Pakistanis in the UAE, the combined amount accounts for half of the country’s annual total of $18.4 billion in remittances. But it is doubtful whether Saudi Arabia would be ready for such a shock to its economy; Pakistanis represent the second largest group of foreign workers employed in the kingdom after India.

Another indicator that might give a better sense of how Pakistan is juggling its relationships with Iran and Saudi Arabia is the level of diplomatic activity with Iran. While Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have had no high profile exchanges – except for the meeting between Salman and Sharif – since the Pakistani decision to remain neutral on Yemen, the Iranian foreign minister, Javed Zarif, visited Pakistan in April as well as early August; the April visit was while the Pakistani parliament was deliberating on whether to support the Saudi campaign in Yemen. And, earlier this week, on 25 August, a technical delegation from Iran’s commerce ministry landed in Pakistan to explore the possibility of increasing the bilateral trade between the two countries to $5 billion.

Conclusion
Pakistan’s decision to stay out of the Yemen conflict is not simply based on concerns that Shi’a-Sunni sectarian tensions might increase within its populace, or that it could not afford to distract its security apparatus away from the various insurgencies within its borders. Rather, it represents a larger regional shift that will likely see Pakistan pivot away from Saudi Arabia into Iran’s embrace, a move that will also be supported by China. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies must be sensing this shift. What steps Saudi Arabia will take to counter this possibility in Pakistan and other countries as Iran grows in confidence remains to be seen. Within the Middle East regional system, the Saudis have played on the hackneyed fault lines of Arab-vs-Persian and Sunni-vs-Shi’a in order to rope in countries such as Jordan and Egypt, as witnessed in the Yemen campaign. Is this a viable option, however? Instead of visiting destruction upon a country, as in Yemen, in order to gain the upper hand in its cold war with Iran, Saudi Arabia might be better off engaging Iran directly. Pakistan seems to be choosing a less hostile course – even if it is not a preferred method of Saudis policymakers. If other countries in the region, especially Turkey, follow the same course, Saudi Arabia might quickly find itself running out of options in its bid for regional hegemony over and against Iran.

28 August 2015

By Dr Vacy Vlazna

“One child has been killed every hour in Gaza over the past two days.”

Kyung-Wha Kang UN Asst. Sec.Gen for Humanitarian Affairs 23-7-14

“All these dead and maimed civilians should weigh heavily on all our consciences. I know that they weigh heavily on mine. All our efforts to protect them have been abject failures”. Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

On its New Zealand Now website, the New Zealand (NZ) government truthfully describes the welcoming characteristics of New Zealand as “Open spaces, open hearts, open minds. That’s New Zealand and its people in a nutshell”: a people with “in-built expectations of ‘fair play’, integrity, honesty and trust.” who live in one of “the world’s most peaceful, least corrupt countries”.

And yet..and yet..the NZ government via its New Zealand Super Fund (NZSF) has deviously exploited the trust of its citizens and besmeared their good reputation with the blood and suffering of innocent Palestinians.

The NZSF is a progressive universal ‘pension’ scheme to which all taxpaying citizens contribute and from which all retirees over 65 benefit. On members’ behalf, the managerial and administrative Guardians, headed by the arrogant CEO, Adrian Orr, are responsible for the investment decisions which under the ethical standards of the Responsible Investment Framework (RIF) must avoid “prejudice to New Zealand’s reputation as a responsible member of the world community”.

“Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.” Shakespeare

NZSF’s investments in Israeli companies which profit from Israel’s war crimes and illegal settlement grabs of Palestinian land violates the standards of the RIF and the decent fair play and integrity of its members.

Since Israel’s monstrous war on Gaza in 2014, there have been energetic public demands on NZSF to divest from its portfolio of Israeli companies with emphasis on Israel Chemicals because of the horrific effect of white phosphorus burns on Palestinians such as little Hamza Almidani, 3 – white phosphorus which Adrian Orr deceptively announced is so benign you can clean your teeth with it.

In 2011, NZSF under public pressure properly divested from Elbit which manufactures armed drones that target children, but furtively maintains investments in companies fiscally invested in Elbit ( see below).

Israeli companies and their many subsidiaries have labyrinthine incestuous relationships with each other in the business of death and atrocity. Here are some of the Israeli companies in the NZSF portfolio that have military and/or settlement connections:

Bank Leumi has 18% stake in Israel Chemicals (ICL) which supplies lethal white phosphorus to US Army for ammunitions sold to Israel.

Alony Hetz: “in August 2013 Hetz and JPM Morgan closed a deal to own 88% of US Carr Properties which also announced it has recently acquired a nearly 50 percent stake in One Liberty Center and in Two Liberty Center. One Liberty is fully leased by the Department of Defense. Two Liberty is a 177,046-square-foot building that is also fully leased to tenants including BAE Systems Inc. and Strategic Analysis.” http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/breaking_ground/2013/08/carr-properties-completes-330-million-in.html

Azrieli: RDC – Rafael Development Corporation Ltd. is based in the Azrieli building in Tel Aviv. RDC is “a unique company based on hi-tech defense technologies developed within Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.” (www.rafael.com), enhanced with the financial capabilities of Elron Electronic Industries Ltd.” https://www.linkedin.com/company/rdc—rafael-development-corporation-ltd-

Israel Bezek: Largest Telecommunications group. The company provides telecommunication services to all of the Israeli settlements, army bases, and checkpoints in the West Bank, and to Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights.

Cellcom Israel Ltd: won an Israel Ministry of Defense tender to supply cellphones.

Delek : “On July 29, 2013, Delek Israel was awarded the Ministry of Defense tender to supply fuel by tankers to IDF bases and provide fueling services for IDF and Ministry of Defense vehicles for three years with an option for the Ministry of Defense to extend the contract for a further two years.”

Clal Insurance: 50% owned by Israel Discount Bank IDB Group. Clal Industries subsidiary Nesher Israel cement Enterprises manufactures and supplies cement to West Bank settlements.

Discount Investment Corporation: holdings include, Elron Electonic Industries has joint ventures with Israel government owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems that develops and produces weapons, military, and defense technologies and Cellcom (see above)

Israel Corp’s major holdings are Israel Chemicals (White phosphorus), Oil Refineries Ltd, “In 2007, 55% of the equity of the company was held by the Ofer Brothers Group, 18% by Bank Leumi and the remainder by the public.
The Israeli government holds the so-called ‘golden share’ in Israel Corp”

Israel Partner Communications Co Ltd: Orange operates in Israel through a franchise agreement with Partner Communications Ltd. Orange profits from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as Partner operates hundreds of communications towers and other infrastructure, much of it on privately owned land confiscated from Palestinians. Orange Israel directly sponsors two Israeli military units, one of which, the Ezuz tank brigade, directly participated in some of the bloodiest incidents in last summer’s assault on Gaza that killed more than 2,200 Palestinians.https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/boycott-hit-orange-may-dump-israeli-partner-mid-2017

Melisron Ltd: operates as a subsidiary of Ofer Brothers Properties (1957) Ltd. Mr. Ofer served as a Director of Israel Corporation Ltd. and Israel Chemicals Ltd. Ofer Brothers control Israel Chemicals ( white phosphorus)

Mellanox Ltd : In June 2014 announced its intent to acquire privately-held Integrity Project that was formed out of an elite military technology unit. Mellanox is currently working with many government agencies and organizations: the Department of Energy, NASA (Ames, Goddard, Johnson), US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, US Postal Service, FBI, DHS, NIH, the EPA and various intelligence agencies. Mellanox also works with the leading systems integrators that serve the federal government, including Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, CSC and Raytheon which receives $149.3 million contract from Rafael Advanced Defense Systems .http://www.mellanox.com/page/press_release_item?rec_id=884

Migdal Insurance: Elbit’s 3 largest shareholders are Migdal Insurance of Israel, Black Rock Institutional Trust Co. and hedge fund Renaissance Technologies.” http://middleeastrealitycheck.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/vibrancy-innovation-bill-shorten.html

Mizrahi Tefahot Bank: “Around 1.8 million people signed a petition calling on Dutch pension fund ABP to divest from three Israel banks: Leumi, Hapoalim and Mizrahi-Tefahot.which finance constructing housing projects in the settlements in the West Bank.” https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/investing-israeli-settlements-continues-cycle-violence-desmond-tutu

NICE-Systems Ltd: Elbit Systems Ltd. announced July 1, further to its announcement of May 21 2015, that it completed the acquisition of the Cyber and Intelligence division of NICE Systems. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/elbit-systems-completes-the-acquisition-of-the-cyber-and-intelligence-division-of-nice-systems-511161911.html

Osem Ltd: “is owned 51% by Nestlé that currently has a 23.29% ownership in L’Oréal..which has a production site in Israel. Garnier Israel (a L’Oréal brand) sent women in the Israeli army ‘care packages’ during Israel’s military aggression against Gaza in July 2014. Osem, partners with the Jewish National Fund, a group that works with the Israeli government to fund settlements and has participated in the repeated bulldozing of the Bedouin village of Al Araqib .” http://www.alternet.org/world/companies-and-consumer-products-boosting-israels-brutal-occupation

Strauss Group: supports the Israeli army and specifically, the Golani Brigade, an “elite” unit with a history of severe human rights abuses in Israel’s wars on Gaza..https://adalahny.org/document/301/help-end-israel-human-rights-abuses-boycott-israel

TEVA Pharmaceuticals has a plant in Har Hotzvim, beyond the Green Line making it a settlement factory.
NZSF cannot plead ignorance. They have well paid researchers who could quickly provide examples of ethical divestment from Israeli companies in the NZSF portfolio. For example-

Harvard Management Company, in 2010 sold up its shares in Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., in NICE Systems Ltd. in Cellcom Israel Ltd. Partner Communications Ltd.

PGGM, the largest Dutch pension fund in January 2014 …” decided to withdraw all its investments from Israel’s five largest banks because they have branches in the West Bank and/or are involved in financing construction in the settlements. [PGGM informed] Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot, the First International Bank of Israel and Israel Discount Bank that their ties with the settlements, and/or companies involved in building in the settlements, created a problem from the standpoint of international law…”

Investment in Israel’s military and occupation is irrefutably inhumane and shows a level of indifference to human suffering that is impossible for any decent person to understand. Israel is a military economy which according to Yotam Feldman’s documentary, The Lab uses “current military operations [against Gaza] as a promotional device” and a place to test its weaponry to boost profits from its sales. Investors and buyers, in Israel’s military industry are complicit in the slaughter of innocent lives, in the maiming of once whole Palestinian children and adults and in the trauma and grief without end like the Gaza student who placed his graduation gown and cap on the grave of his mother murdered last year.

Apart from their illegality, zionist settlements are the breeding grounds of Israeli radicalism that perpetrates vicious ‘pricetag’ attacks that recently included the fatal immolation of toddler Ali Dawabsheh, 18 months, and his father Saad. Ali’s brother Ahmad, 5 is bandaged from head to foot and his mother, Riham, remains in a coma.

To the members of the NZSF, contributors and beneficiaries, please enter Humanize Palestine where Palestinian lives extinguished forever by Israel are transformed “back to life through their pictures, stories, art, and poetry” and then demand that NZSF immediately divests from Israeli state terrorism.

Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 then withdrew on principle. Vacy was coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001.
01 September, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Dr Hakim

10 year old Sakina, an Afghan street kid, had this to say, “I don’t like to be in a world of war. I like to be in a world of peace.”

On 27th August 2015, Sakina and Inam, with fellow Afghan street kids and the Afghan Peace Volunteers, held a mock funeral for weapons and celebrated the establishment of a green space in Kabul.

Dressed in long black coats, they broke and buried toy guns in a small spot where, over the past two years, they have been planting trees.

Inam, a bright-eyed ten year old, caught the group’s energetic desire to build a world without war. “I kept toy guns till about three years ago,” he acknowledged with a smile.

On the same day, Nobel Laureate Oscar Arias Sanchez, ex-President of Costa Rica, was in Mexico for the Arms Trade Treaty’s First Conference of States Parties.

In his statement at the Conference, he told the story of an indigenous Guatemalan woman who thanked him for negotiating a peace accord 28 years ago. The mother had said, “Thank you, Mr. President, for my child who is in the mountains fighting, and for the child I carry in my womb.”

No mother, Guatemalan or Afghan, wants her children to be killed in war.

Oscar Arias Sanchez wrote: “I never met them, but those children of conflict are never far from my thoughts. They were its (the peace treaty’s) true authors, its reason for being.”

I’m confident that the children of Afghanistan were also in his thoughts, especially since he had a brief personal connection with the Afghan Peace Volunteers in 2014, having been part of a Peace Jam video message of solidarity to the Volunteers, wearing their Borderfree Blue Scarves which symbolize that ‘all human beings live under the same blue sky’.

I thank Mr Oscar Arias Sanchez for his important work on the Arms Trade Treaty, though I sense that an arms trade treaty isn’t going to be enough.

Afghan children are dying from the use of weapons.

To survive, they need a ban against weapons. Regulations about buying and selling weapons perpetuate a trade that is killing them.

I saw Inam and other child laborers who work in Kabul’s streets decisively swing hammers down on the plastic toy guns, breaking off triggers, scattering nozzles into useless pieces and symbolically breaking our adult addiction to weapons.

Children shouldn’t have to pay the price for our usual business, especially business from the U.S., the largest arms seller in the world. U.S. children suffer too, with more U.S. people having died as a result of gun violence since 1968 than have died in all U.S. wars combined. U.S. weapon sellers are killing their own people; by exporting their state-of-the-art weapons, they facilitate the killing of many others around the world.

After burying the toy guns, surrounded by the evergreen and poplar trees which they had planted, the youth shed their black coats and donned sky-blue scarves.

Another world was appearing as Sakina and Inam watched young friends plant one more evergreen sapling.

Inam knew that it hasn’t been easy to create this green space in heavily fortified Kabul.

The City Municipality said they couldn’t water the trees (though it is just 200 metres away from their office). The Greenery Department weren’t helpful. Finally, the security guards of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission just across from the garden, offered to help, after the Volunteers had provided them with a 100-metre water hose.

Rohullah, who coordinates the environment team at the Borderfree Nonviolence Community Centre, expressed his frustration. “Once, we had to hire a private water delivery service to water the tree saplings so they wouldn’t shrivel up. None of the government departments could assist.”

Sighing, he added ironically, “We can’t use the Kabul River tributary running just next to the Garden, as the trash-laden trickle of black, bracken water is smelly and filthy.”

Meanwhile, in the rest of the country, according to figures from the National Priorities Project, a non-profit, non-partisan U.S. federal budget research group, the ongoing Afghan War is costing American taxpayers US $4 million an hour.

It is the youth and children who are making sense today, like when Nobel Laureate Malalai Yousafzai said recently that if the whole world stopped spending money on the military for just 8 days, we could provide 12 years of free, quality education for every child on the planet.

“I don’t like to work in the streets, but my family needs bread. Usually, I feel sad,” Inam said, looking away, “because I feel a sort of helplessness.”

Oscar Arias Sanchez said at the Arms Trade Treaty’s First Conference, “And we must speak, today – in favour of this crucial treaty, and its swift and effective implementation. If we do, then when today’s children of conflict look to us for guidance and leadership, we will no longer look away in shame. We will be able to tell them, at long last, that we are standing watch for them. We are on guard. Someone is finally ready to take action.”

That morning, I heard the voices of Sakina, Inam and the Afghan youth ring through the street, “#Enough of war!”

It wasn’t a protest. It was the hands-on building of a green spot without weapons, and an encouraging call for others to do so everywhere.

Through their dramatic colours and clear action, they were inviting all of us, “Bury your weapons. Build your gardens.”

“We will stand watch for you!”

Hakim, ( Dr. Teck Young, Wee ) is a medical doctor from Singapore who has done humanitarian and social enterprise work in Afghanistan for the past 10 years, including being a mentor to the Afghan Peace Volunteers, an inter-ethnic group of young Afghans dedicated to building non-violent alternatives to war. He is the 2012 recipient of the International Pfeffer Peace Prize.

01 September, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Eric Zuesse

There now is open disagreement between three Western leaders regarding how to move forward with regard to Ukraine: Barack Obama of the United States, versus Francois Hollande of France, and Angela Merkel of Germany.

On Friday, August 29th, this split became public concerning whether the Minsk II accords for ending the Ukrainian civil war should remain in force. Obama supports the view of Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko, to violate the Minsk II accords, which would end it; the same day, Hollande and Merkel agreed with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, that the Minsk II agreement needs to be implemented in full.

Merkel and Hollande had arranged the Minsk II accords without U.S. President Obama’s participation, because Obama’s Administration had installed the new, anti-Russian, government in Ukraine in a February 2014 coup, which sparked the breakaway from Ukraine by two former Ukrainian regions that had voted heavily for the man whom Obama had just overthrown, Viktor Yanukovych: first, Crimea, which had voted 75+% for Yanukovych; then Donbass (comprising “Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts”), which had voted 90%+% for Yanukovych. Obama’s agent overseeing the coup, Victoria Nuland, selected Arseniy Yatsenyuk to run the post-coup government and he became the newly appointed Prime Minister when the coup (called “the most blatant coup in history”) occurred 18 days later. Then, on 25 May 2014, the parts of Ukraine that had not separated from Ukraine elected as Ukraine’s new President, Petro Poroshenko. Mr. Poroshenko had informed the EU’s investigators on 25 February 2014 that the overthrow of Yanukovych had been via a coup instead of by a revolution (such as the Obama Administration claimed); but, now, on 25 May 2014, he himself became the new Ukraine’s President. In order to protect himself against the possiblility of being violently overthrown as his predecessor Yanukovych had been, he filed a case with Ukraine’s supreme court, the Constitutional Court, to recognize officially that Yanukovych had illegally been removed from the Presidency. (That case is still pending.)

The current split concerns the provision in the Minsk II accords that requires the Ukrainian government to grant to the breakaway Donbass region a position within a new federal Ukrainian system in which the residents of Donbass will elect their own local leaders, instead of having their leaders imposed upon them (as the coup was) by the central Ukrainian government in Kiev. Donbass will then rejoin Ukraine, and the war will be officially over.

On August 29th, Russia’s Interfax News Agency headlined, “Poroshenko: Ukrainian constitution won’t envision special status for Donbass,” and reported that Poroshenko said (referring to the current Ukrainian Constitution, and which he will not change), “No matter how you look for it there, there is no special status [for Donbass]. … That would lead to a parade of sovereignties. My amendments to the constitution eliminate this article, and there will be no right to such special status.”

A few hours later the same day, Interfax bannered, “Merkel, Hollande Inform Putin on Adherence to Minsk Agreements,” and reported that Putin had phoned both EU leaders about this and received from them reassurance that they, like he, remained committed to full implementation of Minsk II. (Putin does not want Donbass to become part of Russia, but he also doesn’t want the invasion of it by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to continue, especially because it has caused nearly a million refugees into Russia from Donbass. So: he needed to know whether they were behind Poroshenko’s statement, or whether it reflected only Obama’s view.)

This is an international continuation of the disagreement within the Obama Administration regarding Poroshenko’s recent repeated threats to re-invade and forcibly take back Donbass despite the Minsk accords. At first, Kerry said that the U.S. would not support such an invasion, but his nominal subordinate, the Assistant Secretary of State for the area, Victoria Nuland, contradicted that, and President Obama sided with Nuland; she had been instructed to contradict Kerry on this.

One can only speculate as to why Poroshenko has now said that there is no way he will carry through the “special administrative status” provision, provision #11, of the Minsk II Accords. That provision demands specifically what Poroshenko now specifically rejects: “Constitutional reform in Ukraine, with a new constitution to come into effect by the end of 2015, the key element of which is decentralisation (taking into account peculiarities of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, agreed with representatives of these districts), and also approval of permanent legislation on the special status of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in accordance with the measures spelt out in the attached footnote,[note 1] by the end of 2015.”

Putin does not want Donbass to be in Russia, but Poroshenko now refuses to grant Donbass “special administrative status” within Ukraine. The only way that Poroshenko wants to take back Donbass is by force. On April 30th, Poroshenko had said, “The war will end when Ukraine regains Donbass and Crimea,” and on May 11th, he said, “I have no doubt, we will free the [Donetsk] Airport [in Donetsk oblast], because it is our land.”

On August 27th, Edward Basurin, a military official of the Donetsk People’s Republic had announced “UAF Massively shelling DPR — Drastic Deterioration,” saying that, “The fascists have used heavy artillery prohibited by the Minsk Agreements against the civilian areas of Aleksandrovka and Marinka. The outskirts of Donetsk have been struck.” Thus, when Poroshenko, two days later, announced that he would not continue with the Minsk II accords, Putin immediately got back into direct contact with Hollande and Merkel, to ask whether they still fully supported the accords.

The result is a now-open split between the U.S. and Europe, over Ukraine. The split between Nuland and Kerry is now a split between the U.S. and Europe; or, as Nuland had said on 4 February 2014 while providing her subordinate in Kiev her instructions about the preparations and outcome of the coup: “F—k the EU!” Perhaps EU officials are getting increasingly cold feet about the entire matter, now a year-and-a-half later.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

01 September, 2015
Countercurrents.org