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By Ayelett Shani

Itay Mack, a Jerusalem-based human rights lawyer and activist, seeks greater transparency and public oversight of Israel’s military exports.

“There are a few huge government corporations that are active in this field, such as Rafael [Advanced Defense Systems]. The others are completely private companies, created to make money. There are more than 1,000 firms and more than 300 individuals licensed to deal with sales. All the companies are under the umbrella of the Defense Ministry, which must authorize their activity.”

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Israel is known to be a powerhouse in military exports, but what does “military exports” actually mean?

It’s a very broad term, encompassing arms and security equipment, as well as know-how, such as that involving combat doctrines or the training of militias and regular forces.

As I understand it, we’re among the top 10 in the world in this regard.

All countries engage in military exports. The problem is that Israel is involved in places that the United States and Europe decided to avoid exporting weapons to. We know Israel is selling arms to Azerbaijan, South Sudan and Rwanda. Israel is training units guarding presidential regimes in African states. According to reports, this is happening in Cameroon, Togo and Equatorial Guinea – nondemocratic states, some of them dictatorships, that kill, plunder and oppress their citizens.

What is clear is that military exports are perhaps identified with Israel, but it’s not just government companies that are involved.

There are a few huge government corporations that are active in this field, such as Rafael [Advanced Defense Systems]. The others are completely private companies, created to make money. There are more than 1,000 firms and more than 300 individuals licensed to deal with sales. All the companies are under the umbrella of the Defense Ministry, which must authorize their activity.

I understand that there are several types of permits.

There’s a budget “pie” that’s made up of states and others that want to buy arms. The Defense Ministry decides who gets the permits and how to divide the pie. Naturally, that’s done in accordance with its interests and those of its cronies. There’s concern about partiality here, as some of those involved [in requesting permits] are [former] senior Israel Defense Forces officers, former Defense Ministry employees and ex-politicians, or politicians who are taking a break from politics. In the end, the pie is divided among the old-boy network.

So we can assume that supervision and enforcement are not strict.

Out of a staff of some 30 employees at the Defense Export Controls Agency, there are only people in charge of examining the 400,000 annual permits. They are also responsible for ensuring that the recipients of the permits do not violate the terms. They are also supposed to oversee real-time developments on the ground, such as violent conflicts that might require the annulment or suspension of permits.

So, does anyone know if there are violations?

The state comptroller found that most of the enforcement of the terms is the result of companies informing on one another. There are about 160 violations [reported by the Defense Ministry] each year, of which only a few are investigated. There is administrative enforcement with negligible fines imposed. Criminal sanctions are not imposed and permits are not revoked – according to the information the ministry delivered to the Knesset. Effectively, DECA is customer service for exporters.

For the same exclusive club.

Right. Who has the courage to stand up to any of these former generals? And even if someone were to do this, the general would simply call someone higher up in the Defense Ministry and arrange things. Besides which, you can make money from arms exports without a permit, by being a go-between, as [former Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert claimed was done by [former Prime Minister] Ehud Barak. That’s where the really big money is.

‘Raking in big bucks’

In one of the recorded conversations between former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his bureau chief, Shula Zaken, he says Barak took huge bribes as part of these deals.

I’ve been asked about that, and I replied that I have no information about bribes, but the brokering itself – if indeed Barak took part in it – is legal. That’s because neither Barak, who was defense minister from 2009 to 2013, nor his predecessors nor those who followed him, took the time to set regulations or introduce an organized procedure for receiving permits to broker arms deals. This is a completely open and unsupervised field, and those involved in it are raking in the really big bucks.

Are countries that need such an intermediary unable to buy directly, for example, due to arms embargoes?

Generally speaking, yes. Take Nigeria, for example. The U.S. torpedoed arms deals between Israel and Nigeria in 2014, because elements in the Nigerian army are perpetrating war crimes. But at the same time there was a report about an Israeli who brokered a deal. Under the aegis of Nigerian intelligence, he flew from Nigeria to South Africa to buy arms there. Being a middleman makes it possible to bypass all the inspection mechanisms.

How does it work?

A general or senior politician goes to a country – let’s say, Ivory Coast – and tells them that with his connections, he can arrange for an Israeli company to get a permit to transfer weapons to Ivory Coast. Or, he tells them that even if they are subject to restrictions in many countries, he has connections with General X from Country X.

And the amounts involved are incredible.

Unbelievable.

But that will all change now, won’t it? I understand that in December, Israel signed an international treaty to regulate the arms trade.

Israel signed the treaty, but hasn’t ratified it, so all it has to do is not breach the spirit of the treaty. When [Meretz MK] Tamar Zandberg and I urged the Defense Ministry to join the treaty, they told us the implications of signing are less cardinal for exports but could be damaging for imports.

In other words, countries that sign the treaty will not be able to sell arms to Israel.

Yes. I think this is the first time the Defense Ministry admitted to feeling threatened. A group of American senators and congressmen objected to the treaty and told Secretary of State Kerry that under its conditions, the U.S. would be limited in terms of arms sales to Israel. We saw that during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza last summer, Britain and Spain declined to supply certain types of arms to Israel. Theoretically, if it’s determined that Israel is perpetrating war crimes, the countries that are signatories to the arms treaty, such as France, Germany and England, will not be able to sell us arms.

Israel’s ‘ticket’

How did Israel become a major arms exporter?

Israel was on the verge of annihilation in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. There was a huge foreign currency crisis and a crisis in arms and ammunition. The government decided to kill two birds with one stone and began developing the military industries, both to ensure that we would have our own means of production and not be dependent on others, and also to sell abroad. Israel was able to exploit its relative advantage: experience in managing an occupied population and coping with guerrilla organizations. On that “ticket” – know-how and means for suppressing a population – Israel entered South America and afterward Central America. The generals in Guatemala grasped that their confrontation with the [local] Indian population is very similar to the situation in Israel.

In the overall ranking of military exports, we are in sixth or seventh place, but in proportion to our size we are actually first, right?

Correct, and in terms of our involvement in human rights violations and aid in war crimes, the amounts are not relevant – in Africa, for example, even a few rifles can cause tremendous damage. In the Central African Republic, a civil war marked by horrific crimes erupted because a group of rebels obtained machine guns, mounted them on jeeps and attacked the capital.

Since 2008, Israeli military exports have soared, from $3 billion to somewhere between $7 billion and $8 billion.

Yes, that’s the average since Operation Cast Lead, in Gaza.

Israel, then, can sell battle-proven weapons.

Yes. There are some who maintain that Israel carries out certain operations in order to test weapons. That’s my opinion, too, though there is no proof for it. If I’m asked how I have the gall to think that Israel is conducting weapons tests in the territories, I reply that the allegation is not that Israel initiates wars to test weapons, but that the industries ‘hitch a ride’ on them and profit – it’s the arms exporters who market the weapons as battle-proven. That’s what they tell people at the international fairs. I heard it with my own ears: “It’s Cast Lead battle-proven,” “It’s Defensive Shield battle-proven.”

The leap in sales after Cast Lead was also due to the cynicism of the international community, which first condemned the operation and then came here to learn how Israel conducted it. [Maj. Gen. (res.)] Yoav Galant, who was then the head of Southern Command [and now housing minister] made an amazing remark in this connection: “They came to see how we turn blood into money.”

Every such war is utilized for a massive introduction of new technologies. In the West Bank, too, in the regular areas of demonstrations – Bil’in, Kadoum, Qalandiyah – we constantly see new or upgraded weapons and means of crowd dispersal. The military industries also exploit Israel’s activity in the territories, especially in the Gaza Strip, to promote sales.

How, for example?

There were reports about the use of the Tamuz missile [a long-range anti-personnel and antitank weapon] against Syrian positions. Complete technological specifications were made available. Reporters noted that such information is usually censored. But a few months later, a report noted that Israel was going to display the Tamuz at the Paris Air Show. Sometimes the information is in the background of an article about Israeli and Palestinian casualties – they report on what types of shells were used – and there are also articles that are pure promotion.

Does the Defense Ministry “sell” marketing content to journalists?

The Defense Ministry makes information available to journalists, who are happy to get it and aren’t aware of the damage. Something else I’ve noticed concerns the humanitarian missions. It’s a bit like Naomi Klein’s “shock doctrine.” They send [people out on] a mission, and suddenly there are foreign reports about arms deals. That was the case in the Philippines, for example [after the monsoons in 2013].

What do you know about Israeli involvement in South Sudan?

According to reports of international organizations and human rights activists, Israel has violated the embargo and sold arms during the civil war. There are reports that the security forces are armed with Galil and Tavor rifles. We know about South Sudan forces who are trained by Israelis, both there and in Israel, and about a defense mission from South Sudan that visited Israel about half a year ago. We know that Israel built and is operating a surveillance system in South Sudan and is cooperating with the local secret service.

I find this appalling. It recalls Chile during the Pinochet period. Chile was a democracy and didn’t have a secret service when the coup took place, and according to reports Israel trained and prepared the Chilean secret service, which conducted the most brutal torture. Again we see ties with an organization in a country that commits crimes against its citizens.

How many countries does Israel sell arms to?

Israel currently sells arms to 130 countries. We know that among the countries authorized by the Defense Ministry there is a list of special countries with which Israel has no public ties. Israel would be deeply embarrassed if it were known that it’s selling arms to these countries.

Let’s talk about the good sides of our being a military exports power.

I am not a pacifist. I believe countries have to defend themselves. I only think that there have to be clear rules for military exports. Part of the damage that Israel is causing internationally is that it’s bringing about the militarization of civilian forces. In Brazil, for example, the police force is undergoing a rapid militarization process.

Under Israeli sponsorship?

With Israeli assistance. The Brazilians are now starting to realize that this is harmful: The wilder the police become, because of the training they get and the equipment they receive – the more “military” the crime gangs become, because they have the money and means to smuggle in weapons. The police complain about increasing physical and property assaults, and the people object, because their favelas have simply become a Gaza Strip. Israel is contributing significantly to militarization everywhere.

But military exports bring in a lot of money.

Not necessarily. The height of the chutzpah is that the military industries are included under the Encouragement of Capital Investments Law – which is supposed to induce companies like Teva or Intel to stay in Israel. Well, the Israeli military industries can’t actually leave Israel, can they? But the law stipulates that a company in which more than 25 percent of the turnover is intended for export, receives huge tax breaks. According to the Defense Ministry, 75 percent of the military industries’ production goes abroad, so that all these companies are entitled to tax breaks totaling billions. At least they took the government companies off the list; until five years ago, Rafael and Israel Military Industries also enjoyed the tax exemptions. Absurd.

How did you become interested in this subject?

By chance. A few years ago, while trekking in South America, I met a girl from Ireland who was wearing [Israeli-made] Source sandals. She told me she was planning to hike in the jungles of Colombia, where Israelis train the security forces, and she bought the sandals so they would think she was Israeli and not shoot her by mistake. I started to ask myself whether I was safe there as an Israeli, and if I were not an Israeli, would I be under threat? And without Source sandals, would I be shot?

Good questions.

Ultimately, we are on the wrong side of history in most places. And the memory persists. It persists in Latin America. That’s why I decided to open an office and deal with it, because no one else wants to and there’s no funding for it. I understood that when Israel secures a dictator, the public that’s oppressed by the dictator identifies Israel as having chosen a side. Israel chose a side for us all, without asking us.

What do you say to people who allege that you’re unpatriotic, that you are endangering the country’s security?

Israel’s citizens are important to me, and I think I am acting in their interest, whereas the Defense Ministry is not and prefers its cronies. We need transparency and public oversight, because for decades all the mechanisms that were supposed to act as checks simply did not work. We see this in military exports that violate UN Security Council embargoes.

Surely no country conducts its military exports in full transparency.

Military exports are not completely open in any country, but there is a far higher level of transparency in both the U.S. and Europe. When arms were sold to Pakistan during the Bangladesh genocide, Congress established investigative committees. It’s understood in the West that this subject cannot be left exclusively to security personnel, because their considerations are inadequate. The public has moral considerations as well.

The transparency you’re after could entangle Israel diplomatically.

Obviously, not everything can be revealed, but the sweeping refusal to provide any information is also wrong. What does it look like when the Defense Ministry tries to protect its people and whitewash Israel’s involvement in places where war crimes are being perpetrated, and the courts abet this? There is proof that Israel sold arms during the genocide in Rwanda. The Defense Ministry never denied it. It’s absurd that Israel, which was established in the wake of the Holocaust in Europe, is hiding documents relating to genocide.

What would you like to see happen?

I want legislation to be enacted that restricts military exports to countries where there are serious human rights violations, torture, rape for religious, political or ethnic motives, executions without trial and so on. Something like American law that imposes clear limitations on military exports to all kinds of elements in Africa; already today the dramatic change it caused is visible.

It’s all very depressing, isn’t it?

Why depressing? I am optimistic. I think that what went on until now will not be able to continue, because things cannot be silenced. There will be no choice, because the testimonies are accumulating, and more and more people are joining the struggle. That’s the direction, and I am constantly telling the Defense Ministry that in my discussions with them: Remember that there is no statute of limitations on war crimes and on crimes against humanity. If it doesn’t happen now or in a couple of years, it will happen in another 30 years. We will not give up.

Ayelett Shani

Haaretz Contributor

7 August 2015

By Brian Terrell

In recent weeks, I have been part of a haphazard and ad hoc process to compose an open Letter to Pope Francis in advance of his September, 2015 visit to the United States. The promotion of this letter has been taken up by Friends of Franz Jagerstatter, a community of peacemakers inspired by the Austrian Catholic farmer who was martyred for his refusal to fight in the German Army during World War II.

Pope Francis’ recent comments regarding war, the environment and economic justice inspire our letter, which cites segments of his new encyclical, Laudato Si. “War always does grave harm to the environment and to the cultural riches of peoples,” Pope Francis writes, “risks which are magnified when one considers nuclear arms and biological weapons.” In the light of this reality, our letter suggests that Pope Francis avail himself of the challenging opportunity to acknowledge that the United States is “the most prolific polluter and, not coincidentally, the greatest war maker on the globe.”

Encouraged by his naming the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks one hundred years ago “the first genocide of the 20th century,” our letter begs Pope Francis “to speak out just as clearly and (to) publicly denounce the terrorism and genocide that your host country, the United States, is even now inflicting on the Muslim and Christian Arab people of the Middle East and the people of Afghanistan,” and it states that “decades of aggression including sanctions, bombings, invasions, arming of insurgents, have left millions dead, many more millions displaced and homeless. Thousands have been imprisoned and tortured. Many lands are being made desolate and poisoned, and ancient communities are being devastated.”

In composing this letter and subsequently seeking individuals and organizations to sign on to this letter, which will appear in a paid advertisement in the September 11 issue of The National Catholic Reporter, the biggest controversy and stumbling block for many is our use of the word “genocide” to describe the terror the U.S. is inflicting on the earth and in Arab and Muslim lands in particular. It is not surprising that this word evokes a strong response.

Since comments and signatures were sought first from among a small set of friends and colleagues in the peace movement, few of these argued that U.S. policy is benign. Some even fear that the language of our letter is too weak to be commensurate to the horror of the present reality. The belief has also been voiced that, while U.S. actions do indeed rise to the level of genocide, the pope’s use of the word to describe Turkey’s policies against the Armenians is an unfortunate overstatement. Some accept that a U.S. genocide is being perpetrated, but warn that speaking this terrible word to people unprepared to hear it is counter-productive, however true it is.

The strongest objections to the use of the word come from those who deny that U.S. war policies are genocidal. While U.S. actions may be violent and illegal, “it is not genocide, as I see it,” or, “not genocide in my opinion,” some tell us. This position reflects a prevalent concept in the U.S. media and in the government and public discourse that the word genocide is subjective, only vaguely defined and malleable, that it can be applied according to one’s opinion or interest. Others cite another popular definition of genocide that covers only deliberate actions aimed at exterminating an entire race.

The word genocide, however, does have a definite legal definition independent of one’s perspective or opinion. It is codified in the 1948 United Nations Convention On the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide that says in Article II, “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such :(a) Killing members of the group;(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Some peace activists base their denial of U.S. genocide on their understanding of the Convention’s use of the word “intent”. The stated intention of the sanctions in Iraq between 1990 and 2003, for example, was to apply pressure on the Iraqi government to allow weapons inspectors into Iraq. Because the intent was not to kill Iraqi people in vast numbers, the sanctions were not genocidal, in this view, despite the deaths of millions, including more than 500,000 children under age 5 from August, 1990 to the end of 1995 alone. Economic sanctions remained in place for seven more years, inflicting merciless punishment on innocent civilians. This theory doesn’t account for the fact that the sanctions stayed in place for years after UN inspectors had repeatedly certified that they found no evidence of a program to develop weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. One correspondent offers that even if the real but unstated reason for the sanctions was to spur the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam, the intent would still not have been “to destroy, in whole or in part” the Iraqi people. Again this does not account for the U.S. forces allowing Saddam’s military access to helicopter gunships to put down a people’s rebellion after the Gulf War in 1991.

Since the war currently being waged is a war against an insurgency and not aimed at a civilian population, some reason that its intent cannot be called genocidal. This does not account for the fact that many of those actually targeted to be killed in drone attacks are not combatants in the first place and that these attacks kill a disproportionate number of “unintended” victims.

These objections are due to a misunderstanding of the word “intent.” Just as the word genocide has a specific legal meaning regardless of popular or personal understandings of the word, so the word “intent” has a definition in domestic and international law that is not the same as what one might use in everyday language. Simply put, intent is not the same thing as motive. The opposite of an intentional result is an accidental one. If a certain bad result of an action can reasonably be foreseen, that bad result is intentional, regardless of the motive. An internationally recognized test of intention says that “when planning their actions, people may be aware of many probable and possible consequences,” so the decision to proceed with a planned action “means that all the foreseen consequences are to some extent intentional, i.e. within and not against the scope of each person’s intention.”

One example that the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1999, Holloway v. The United States, concerns a carjacking case: “Petitioner’s accomplice testified that their plan was to steal cars without harming the drivers, but that he would have used his gun if any of the victims had given him a ‘hard time.’” The claim that the defendant’s intent was only to steal a car and not to harm or kill its occupants was not accepted by the court. The prosecution does not need “to prove that the defendant had an unconditional intent to kill or harm in all events, but merely requires proof of an intent to kill or harm if necessary to effect a carjacking.”

Millions are dying and nations are being destroyed by recent and current U.S. policy. To accept this as true and still object that these actions are not genocidal because their “intention” is not to kill but only to extend political clout and steal natural resources is to take the part of the carjacker’s accomplice. Of course, the tragic consequences of these policies are foreseen and so they are intentional and they are criminal. As much as they do result in the destruction “in whole or in part,” of “a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” they are genocidal.

Madeleine Albright, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, testified that the lethal consequences of U.S. policy are foreseen and intentional in a 1996 interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes. She was asked by Lesley Stahl, “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” To this Ms. Albright replied: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”

When Pope Francis made his statement about the Armenian genocide on April 12, it was predictably met with controversy and indignation, straining relations between the Catholic Church and the Turkish state in particular. His use of the word to refer to current U.S. policy would necessarily be even more provocative and distressing, but all the more necessary for that fact. “Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it,” the pope said addressing this issue in April.

“There were no Catholic chaplains in the Turkish military in 1915” we remind Pope Francis, “and the banners of ISIS are not displayed today in Catholic churches. The U.S. military, on the other hand, is predominantly Christian with one-third of the force Catholic, so that it might be hoped that your denunciation of terrorism and genocide might have a more positive effect here and now.”

Beyond the quibbles about the definitions of “genocide” and “intent,” I believe that there is a deeper reason behind this reticence to call our country’s policies genocide. In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed the need to speak “clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today–my own government.” This was hard to swallow then, harder even now. Genocide is a horrible word. It is far easier to use it in the context of an accusation, it seems, than in a confession.

Our letter commends Pope Francis for naming the crimes of the (Muslim) Ottoman Turks against the (Christian) Armenians genocide. Since we wrote it, Pope Francis used the word in reference to (Muslim) ISIS brutalities against Christians in areas they control. The word genocide is new, coined only in 1944 in reference to Nazi extermination of Jews. The word needs to be used thoughtfully and judicially, but sometimes it needs to be used. If it is employed exclusively to name crimes that other people commit against us and people like us, and never to name the crimes we and people like us commit against others, then the word genocide is merely a weapon of retribution and it has no potential to heal.

Whether or not the pope gives the proper name to U.S. war policies (as we sincerely hope that he will) it is also important that we in the United States, the Christians among us especially, do not neglect to call genocide by its right name. Our plea to Pope Francis ends with an exhortation from the French existentialist, Albert Camus, “What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear, and that they should voice their condemnation in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest person.”

Brian Terrell is lives on a Catholic Worker farm in Maloy, Iowa

10 August, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Paul Craig Roberts

Do you remember when real reporters existed? Those were the days before the Clinton regime concentrated the media into a few hands and turned the media into a Ministry of Propaganda, a tool of Big Brother. The false reality in which Americans live extends into economic life. Last Friday’s employment report was a continuation of a long string of bad news spun into good news. The media repeats two numbers as if they mean something—the monthly payroll jobs gains and the unemployment rate—and ignores the numbers that show the continuing multi-year decline in employment opportunities while the economy is allegedly recovering.

The so-called recovery is based on the U.3 measure of the unemployment rate. This measure does not include any unemployed person who has become discouraged from the inability to find a job and has not looked for a job in four weeks. The U.3 measure of unemployment only includes the still hopeful who think they will find a job.

The government has a second official measure of unemployment, U.6. This measure, seldom reported, includes among the unemployed those who have been discouraged for less than one year. This official measure is double the 5.3% U.3 measure. What does it mean that the unemployment rate is over 10% after six years of alleged economic recovery?

In 1994 the Clinton regime stopped counting long-term discouraged workers as unemployed. Clinton wanted his economy to look better than Reagan’s, so he ceased counting the long-term discouraged workers that were part of Reagan’s unemployment rate. John Williams (shadowstats.com) continues to measure the long-term discouraged with the official methodology of that time, and when these unemployed are included, the US rate of unemployment as of July 2015 is 23%, several times higher than during the recession with which Fed chairman Paul Volcker greeted the Reagan presidency.

An unemployment rate of 23% gives economic recovery a new meaning. It has been eighty-five years since the Great Depression, and the US economy is in economic recovery with an unemployment rate close to that of the Great Depression.

The labor force participation rate has declined over the “recovery” that allegedly began in June 2009 and continues today. This is highly unusual. Normally, as an economy recovers jobs rebound, and people flock into the labor force. Based on what he was told by his economic advisors, President Obama attributed the decline in the participation rate to baby boomers taking retirement. In actual fact, over the so-called recovery, job growth has been primarily among those 55 years of age and older. For example, all of the July payroll jobs gains were accounted for by those 55 and older. Those Americans of prime working age (25 to 54 years old) lost 131,000 jobs in July.

Over the previous year (July 2014 — July 2015), those in the age group 55 and older gained 1,554,000 jobs. Youth, 16-18 and 20-24, lost 887,000 and 489,000 jobs.

Today there are 4,000,000 fewer jobs for Americans aged 25 to 54 than in December 2007. From 2009 to 2013, Americans in this age group were down 6,000,000 jobs. Those years of alleged economic recovery apparently bypassed Americans of prime working age.

As of July 2015, the US has 27,265,000 people with part-time jobs, of whom 6,300,000 or 23% are working part-time because they cannot find full time jobs. There are 7,124,000 Americans who hold multiple part-time jobs in order to make ends meet, an increase of 337,000 from a year ago.

The young cannot form households on the basis of part-time jobs, but retirees take these jobs in order to provide the missing income on their savings from the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy, which is keyed toward supporting the balance sheets of a handful of giant banks, whose executives control the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. With so many manufacturing and tradable professional skill jobs, such as software engineering, offshored to China and India, professional careers are disappearing in the US.

The most lucrative jobs in America involve running Wall Street scams, lobbying for private interest groups, for which former members of the House, Senate, and executive branch are preferred, and producing schemes for the enrichment of think-tank donors, which, masquerading as public policy, can become law.

The claimed payroll jobs for July are in the usual categories familiar to us month after month year after year. They are domestic service jobs—waitresses and bartenders, retail clerks, transportation, warehousing, finance and insurance, health care and social assistance. Nothing to export in order to pay for massive imports. With scant growth in real median family incomes, as savings are drawn down and credit used up, even the sales part of the economy will falter.

Clearly, this is not an economy that has a future.

But you would never know that from listening to the financial media or reading the New York Times business section or the Wall Street Journal.

When I was a Wall Street Journal editor, the deplorable condition of the US economy would have been front page news.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

10 August, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Hassanal Noor Rashid

In the midst of the nation’s current woes, there is a plan ostensibly for the growth of global commerce which deserves our serious attention. This is the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.

A lot of the criticisms levelled against the TPPA have to do with its highly secretive nature, with much of its negotiations done behind proverbial closed doors whereby access and transparency are not taken into account.

Its secretive nature strips the TPPA of any legitimacy. How can a trade agreement that will ultimately affect the lives of millions of people on both sides of the Pacific ignore the people’s views and sentiments? And yet the nation that is leading the negotiations is supposed to be a democracy?

It has been noted that the TPPA will not be ratified, until after each state member has gone through its own domestic process and signed the document. While this may be the case, it is still highly disconcerting that the public of each member state has had little to no say whatsoever on the clauses and terms that will constitute the agreement itself.

Malaysian academic and lawyer Gurdial Singh Nijar pointed out on July 20th 2015, that many of the clauses of the TPPA were only made known due to Wikileaks disclosing some chapters and since then, the text is being made available on a limited “need-to-know” basis to selected groups and people, who then sign a non-disclosure agreement which applies for up to five years after the treaty has been ratified and comes to full force.

The President of the United States of America Barrack Obama has secured ‘Fast Track authority’ from Congress which allows the U.S Congress to vote “Yes or No”, but disallows any changes to the text of the agreement, a move aimed at thwarting any meaningful criticism of the TPPA by members of Congress.

Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, Minister of International Trade and Industry of Malaysia, has assured Malaysians that the “Constitution, sovereignty, and core policies such as government procurement, state-owned enterprises and the Bumiputra agenda will be safeguarded.” His statement seeks to address the various concerns of the public with regards to the TPPA.

Economist, Ramon Navaratnam, director of the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (ASLI), has also issued his own statements calling for Malaysians to support the TPPA on the basis that “….if we opt out of the TPPA, we will also find it much more difficult to break out from our present middle income trap. Our capacity to innovate and compete at higher levels, to increase our domestic and foreign investment, and to raise our technology, incomes, employment and quality of life can be seriously affected” while at the same time dismissing ad hominem critics of the TPPA by stating that”…we could regress by looking at the short term and narrow minority interests and opting out of the vital TPPA.”

There are numerous articles and online resources which cover extensively what the TPPA is and a whole multitude of well-argued critiques against it by some notable analysts in Malaysia which the defenders of the TPPA appear to have ignored. What is striking is that the likes of Ramon Navaratnam seem to cherry-pick clauses in the TPPA, while failing to acknowledge some of the more pressing and well grounded grievances that have been made by critics of the TPPA.

To exemplify this, the following are some key points as observed by the Consumers Association of Penang on the clauses negotiated under the TPPA.

• The Investor to State Dispute System (ISDS) whereby foreign companies are able to claim billions of ringgit from Governments for any loss of future profits due to introduction of changes in national or state policies , or even through the implementation of new laws and policies. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also of the view that the ISDS mechanism empowers investors to sue foreign governments to weaken their environmental and public health rules. If approved, the ISDS may supplant the role of the judiciary as an arbiter in disputes. One such example would be the case of Thailand which had lost a suit to a tobacco company, Phillip Morris, on the grounds that the country’s anti-smoking regulation, namely the graphic health warnings on cigarette packs, which had increased in size, had adversely affected the brand image of the tobacco company, undermining Thailand’s efforts in progressing its social health policies.

• The Sovereign right of the nation to make policies and of Parliament to enact laws and the judiciary to interpret laws may be jeopardized because of the TPPA’s ISDS system whereby foreigners can sue the government in a foreign tribunal which has been shown to be biased in favour of foreign investors. Even if the ISDS cuts both ways in this regard whereby Malaysian investors abroad can utilize the same protection mechanisms in the TPPA countries, by virtue of agreeing to the TPPA, we still open up the Malaysian economy and regulatory policies to be circumvented by stronger and larger multi-national corporations who will be able to dictate policies and regulations.

• Restriction on government’s ability to regulate flow of funds in and out of the country, thus losing crucial policy tools to ensure financial stability and avoid financial crises, increasing vulnerability to any global financial crisis.

• The elimination of tariffs across the board will threaten the viability of many local industries, and jeopardise the jobs and livelihoods of thousands of local people.
Like many others, Ramon Navaratnam has also alluded to fact that failing to join the TPPA will deny Malaysia’s full access to the markets within the new Free Trade Area, which includes countries such as the United States, Canada, Mexico and Peru. Malaysia already enjoys market access to the United States and other developed countries for almost all important products, whereas our trade within the ASEAN region and Asian Countries has already surged through mainly bilateral trade agreements, as emphasized by the president of the Consumers Association of Penang.

What these key factors indicate is that the biggest beneficiaries of the TPPA are not the individual member states and their people, but instead the large multi-national corporations, a factor which seems to be missing in much of the analysis of the staunch TPPA supporters who are either oblivious to the power and influence that these big corporations exercise upon nation-states, or worse are in favour of the deceptively short term gains they bring.

Gurdial Singh Nijar has asserted that “the TPPA will be a charter for Multi-Nationals and big Businesses” whereby foreign companies can sue governments for regulatory policies that are seen as damaging their profits, receiving huge payouts in the process. This is further compounded by the strict Intellectual Property (IP) regulatory mechanisms within the clauses of the TPPA that directly affect the ability of local pharmaceutical companies to produce cheap generic medications, arising from potential patent suits by the larger pharmaceutical corporations. These firms are determined to protect their monopoly and their profits. By pushing generic drugs out of the market, the TPPA adversely affects the accessibility of life saving generic medicines to poorer communities. Indirectly, it also means the loss of jobs for those employed in local industries manufacturing these medicines.

Even the claims about growth and benefits in trade revenue, are contestable. In 2014, a senior economist in the United Nations, Rashmi Banga, showed evidence that the TPPA may prove detrimental for Malaysia and its local industries. His paper had noted that while there may be an increase in Malaysia’s exports to TPPA countries, its import rates may also further increase. Industries like steel, electrical machinery and automotives will also face stiff competition that may affect the jobs of tens of thousands of Malaysians. These are industries which are dependent on government support that can now be circumvented by the pro-Multi-National Corporation’ policies of the TPPA.

Foreign policies are also affected by this agreement which undermines directly and indirectly the sovereignty of governments, should there be any policies which are not acceptable to foreign corporations and even certain powerful governments. The most notable of which — as stated by Gurdial Singh Nijar — is a provision in the negotiating texts which prevents imposing trade sanctions against the state of Israel that transgress the United-States –Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act which requires U.S trade agreements to “discourage politically motivated actions to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel and seeks to eliminate the politically motivated non-tariff barriers on Israel’s commerce”. Such texts within the drafts of the TPPA suggest that this trade agreement is far more politically biased than initially thought of, and explains why the United States is aggressively pushing through this trade agreement, even though it yields marginal economic benefits for the U.S.

These criticisms against the TPPA are but some of the examples which illustrate that its motives are more political than economic. Obviously, it is a tool to extend the hegemonic influence of powerful nations and foreign corporations to undermine policies of foreign governments deemed unfavourable to, or incompatible with, their own agendas.

Ultimately however, as other analysts such as Nile Bowie have opined the TPPA is a trade pact to address the “the rising influence of China, which is not a participant [in the Trade agreement] despite being the region’s largest economy and the largest trading partner of Asia-Pacific Economies”. It is a policy of containment wilfully perpetuated by the United States in its own interest to curb China’s own influence in the economic sphere and ”lure” other countries away from China .

The conclusion which can be drawn from all these arguments is that on the surface, the TPPA paints a rosy picture with an allurement that promises growth and wealth to countries that would embrace its terms. Hidden within this proverbial Trojan horse however, is a juggernaut whose agenda is to maintain its dominant economic and political hegemony, caring very little for those it may trample upon in the process.

Hassanal Noor Rashid
JUST Program Coordinator
10 August 2015

 

By Israel Shamir

Summer reigns all over Europe, from Greece to Sweden. Vacations have emptied the offices, and filled the beaches. Flowers bloom all over, and their fragrance flows like a river. Endless festivals, performances and art compositions embellish the quaint old cities. But things are not as ever before. The old continent is sick. Living is easy, but not for you. Fish are jumping, and unemployment is high.

‘Austerity for all but banksters and the corrupt politicians’ is the motto of the day. The welfare state shrinks, but military budgets expand, and NATO grows despite the austerity. The EU member countries (save Germany) are de-industrialised, their workers lose skills and go into services. A golf caddy is less likely to cause trouble than an industrial worker. Never has democracy felt so much a sham as nowadays.

After the Syriza debacle of Greece, there is a very little trust for left-wing rhetoric. In the whole modern history of Europe, there was not such a shameful surrender, or even treason. ‘Alexis Tsipras’ is a Greek translation of ‘Vidkun Quisling’ or of ‘Maréchal Pétain’. The man received the full support of his people, and chickened out. (The first step of Syriza after the fiasco was to enter into military cooperation with Israel.) Now only the far-right Golden Dawn speaks loudly against surrender to the bankers, but this is a party in opposition, and it risks nothing by speaking out.

The parties of the left and of the right are now quite similar. Europe has neither true Left nor true Right anymore. The pseudo-Left supports imperialist wars and unmans the man. The pseudo-Right supports imperialist wars and cuts taxes for the wealthy. It was more fun with the traditional parties, with the Right hating financiers, supporting tradition, church, and family, and the Left fighting the bourgeoisie, caring for workers, and aiming for social justice. In Douglas Adams’ words, “men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.” Now they all promote women to the boards of multinationals, compete for Jewish donations and argue who is better for the gays.

In important questions, they are same-same, as my Chinese landlady used to shrill. Both left and right stands for more immigration, though the left explains that by humanitarian reasons and by anti-racism, while the right looks for a cheap work force to keep native workers obedient. The bottom line is the same.

People threatened by mass immigration often vote for the right, as they mistakenly think some token racism will be translated into action. Alas, in vain. Consider Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French President. He would drop a racist line, to flirt with his electorate, but by bombing Libya he sent more immigrants to France than any left-winger would. Well, perhaps François Hollande, the present President, can compete with him, as his support for Syrian rebels did send a million refugees to Europe.

In the UK, Tony Blair destroyed Labour. He turned the old party of workers and miners into Tory Lite. Blair supported every American military campaign and earned the honourable title of the British Poodle. A great friend of Israel and of the Israel Lobby is another of his titles. Blair is out, but his party supporters are still in. And they keep losing.

The Labour rank-and-file would like to see Jeremy Corbyn as their leader. Blair hates him, and this is surely a good recommendation. He is supposed to be a new Michael Foot, who was a great man in pre-Thatcher Britain. Corbyn stands for nuclear disarmament, he spoke positively of Hamas and Hezbollah, voted against American Drang nach Osten wars. Littlewood called him “the antidote to zionist bite”. He would change things, if he ever makes it. Probably they will keep him out: the people behind the parties prefer weak and wet politicians.

The far-right BNP claims to be the heir of true Labour. They say the British workers vote for them. Their claim is not entirely without merit. True Left – whether the Soviet variety, the Chinese or the Cuban one – was strictly against immigration. But immigration is only one issue among many, while the BNP narrowed its field to anti-Muslim politics. They do not even try to deal with the real problem – the excessive wealth of the few built upon the impoverishment of the many.

The Front National in France has more redeeming features, and more supporters. In reality, the FN is probably the only alive and kicking French party, the rest are dead. The FN is for taking France out of NATO and out of the EC, for friendship with Russia and for regaining France’s lost sovereignty. Their arrival at Palais d’Elysée would change things in Europe: if it would ever occur.

The main problem of Europe is American occupation. This is the source of trouble. In 1945, the continent was shared between the US and the USSR. In 1991, the Russians moved out, but no freedom came: the Americans moved in, occupying the whole of Europe from Narva in Estonia to Oeiras in Portugal, from Souda Bay on Crete to Ørland in Norway. Beside military hardware, they enforced their political agenda. Their yoke lies heavy upon Europe’s grey stones. The steps they force the European leaders to take hurt the continent. The leaders make wrong decisions, and the people pay for them.

Europe had a great buyer for its output. Russia bought its machinery and cheeses, abundant wine and cars, and delivered cheap gas and oil. The US stopped this profitable trade in its tracks. Now the Europeans dump their apples and cheese, spend more on military purchases and import expensive American gas.

Europe had a maverick friend over the sea, a retired colonel Kaddafi. He sold cheap oil, imported European goods for his prosperous small population, and kept millions of Africans occupied in Libya. Under American guidance, NATO bombed Libya, the colonel was sodomized by a gun barrel and lynched, his country destroyed. Africans went to Europe on every small boat they could find.

Europe had a friend in Damascus, an ex-eye doctor from London. He bought European goods, kept his country ship-shape, visited Paris. Under American guidance, this gentle man was called a ‘génocidaire’; weapons were delivered to his enemies, the fanatic Muslim takfiris. His country was devastated, and millions of Syrian refugees escaped to Europe.

They followed the Iraqis, whose country was laid low by the US invasion of 2003. The most advanced country of the Middle East, with free education and free medical care, with best engineers and a strong army, was turned into a nest of sectarian strife, while millions of Iraqis went to Europe. The Afghanis, Palestinians, Arabs, Africans pour into Europe from their countries smashed by the iron fist of the US Armed Forces.

My friend, Roger van Zwanenberg of Pluto books, thinks that terrible destruction of the Middle East in the US-led wars is due to Zionist influence and it serves Israel’s desire to fragment the region and subdue it in the Greater Land of Israel from Nile to Euphrates paradigm. It is a plausible thought, bearing in mind the recent scene of Netanyahu’s veneration in the US Congress. The promoters of the wars were mainly Israel-firsters, neocons, Wolfowitz, Perle et al. They pushed for invasion of Iraq, they demanded war on Iran.

But why would these megalomaniacs limit their dreams of dominance to the Middle East? Why not world dominance? If they want to break into pieces the old societies of the Middle East, they can do it in Europe as well, by the same coin. Europe is a victim of the conflict. Without these wars, waves of immigration would not cover Europe. So whoever planned and executed these wars probably intended to undo Europe as well as the Middle East, and Europe was the most important intended victim, as it needed to be subdued on the path to world dominance. And the Middle East is not the only source of refugees and immigrants.

Once the EU was a union of successor states of Charlemagne’s empire, and perhaps, a conceivable idea. But the US took control over Brussels, and forced them to accept East European states, all led by anti-communist devotees of America. Within the EU, the developed countries of the old union devoured the less developed outsiders. The Baltic states lost over third of their populations. Latvia went down from 2.7 million in the end of Soviet days to 1.9 million now. Lithuania went down from 3.7 to 2.9 million. Romania, once freed by the iron will of Nicolae Ceausescu from its debts, now once again is indebted to the hilt. Their impoverished citizens crowded the cities of the Western Europe.

Consider Sweden. This is coldest summer for many years in Sweden. July was as cool as April, but the cold did not stop the inflow of refugees. In front of every supermarket, of every underground and rail station of Sweden, from Kiruna to Lund, sits a gypsy beggar with a plastic cup for alms in his or her hand. They came from Romania and Hungary, fellow EU states, with quite a low standard of living, but within the Schengen Zone, so they do not need a visa. They do not come by their volition, they were sent by their barons who build huge castles and furnish them in the best garish gypsy style on the levy the beggars pay them. After three months on the Swedish pavements, they go home to be replaced by another bunch of beggars.

The Swedish police does not interfere with these beggars. They say there is no law to stop gypsies. They are afraid to be condemned for race profiling if they will. The gypsies are colourful; there are men and women, old and middle age, no more than two at every place. Logistics can’t be easy: so many people so evenly distributed, but the gypsy barons manage it smoothly: I never observed a fight, or even a quarrel, between the beggars. They have been trained to smile; something you never see in Eastern Europe, where beggars are as grim as 1950s buildings.

Refugees from Somalia and Sudan, victims of previous US interventions, do not beg. They crowd smaller Swedish towns; the Swedish state pays for their accommodation and provides some small money for their living. They are not allowed to work, and there is no demand for their labour anyway. They just sit and wait while their applications for refuge are being processed and (usually) declined. Then they disappear from the radar.

Do not weep for all the Swedes, though. The landlords make a fortune from this arrangement, so do officials. The Swedish state pays SEC 500 (€50) per night per room for the refugees. This is a very good business in small far-away towns. Usually, the state prefers bigger landlords with many rooms to offer, and they are able to offer a kick-back to the official in charge of the accommodation. Amusingly, the man considered “the most outspoken Swedish racist” and a fighter against immigration, Bert Karlsson, made mega-bucks renting rooms for the Somalis.

In addition to refugees and immigrants delivered to Sweden by the US wars and US-dictated enlargement of the EU, Sweden and other West European countries are undermined by the US-led gender rearrangement of life. There are few children; schools are being closed. Gays have their fullest rights; women have priority in taking jobs. Boys have fewer opportunities: from state TV to barbershops, the jobs are taken by women. The priests of the Swedish church are mainly females; the state appointed bishops known for their support for female priesthood.

“Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism”, quipped Julian Assange, the Wikileaks’ founder, imprisoned for the third year in the Ecuador embassy in London. He is an expert: two Swedish girls complained he raped them because he had consensual but unprotected sex with them. The Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny said that in such cases, a man should be in jail, even if it turns out he is innocent. Sweden has the highest rate of rape complaints, and the highest rate of these complaints dismissed as untrue. This does not promote love between sexes.

The education amounts to unmanning of men, and gorgeous Swedish girls often prefer more masculine foreign males. (I know, as a tanned and moustachioed foreign male, I married a gorgeous Swedish girl, many years ago). Swedes marry less and less, and have fewer children, despite very generous government assistance.

Many conservative observers put the blame on feminists. Yet even though men have clearly lost the war, the victory of women wilts under examination. Once upon a time women had a choice: they could join the business world or stay at home with the kids. Once upon a time women could raise a family without guilt. Once upon a time women could enjoy being flirted with. Not any more. The unmanning of man was quickly followed by the un-womaning of woman.

There is an understanding between the holders of power that feminised men are easier to control – this is a reason why they encourage homosexuality. Unmanning men is a linchpin in the reprogramming of mankind into an obedient herd, because strong men are unpredictable. Strong men are prone to rebellion, ready for sacrifice and primed for action. It is no coincidence that the enemies of Empire are all masculine males, be they Qaddafi, Castro, Chavez, Lukashenko, Putin – or Julian Assange. It appears the men have been targeted for elimination; the working ants need no sex.

Swedes have made a cult of blacks, also imported from the US, if we can judge by Rachel Dolezal. The blacks are supposed to be better and smarter than whites. In the Terminator movie, it is a black scientist who invents the marvellous chip; he fights together with the white woman-fighter against evil white men. A black Morpheus in the Matrix is a Zion (sic!) operative, saving human race. There was a black President in the Fifth Element before Obama. Many childless Swedes adopt imported black and Asian children, another American cultural trend established by Angelina Jolie. This reverse racism is no different from the ordinary variety. Blacks are fine, but in no way they are better than pink-and-white Swedes.

Ordinary Swedes are unhappy. In a small town with high percent of refugees and immigrants, some 40% vote for the far right party, the Sweden Democrats. They have got 12% in the whole of the country despite a ferocious campaign against them in the media.

The Left received a relative majority of the seats in the Parliament, after years of Right rule. After the election, the mainstream Left and Right joined forces on a compromise agenda, ostensibly – to keep the Sweden Democrats out. The Left voters felt cheated. Why bother and vote, if the result is a compromise between the parties?

Do not weep over the Sweden Democrats’ fate, either. This is a timid pro-Zionist party whose best known political action to-date was to stage a gay parade through a Muslim neighbourhood. They extoll the Jewish state, as their brethren in other European countries do. They accept the gender agenda of the New World Order. They are against immigrants and refugees, never against those who send the waves of the immigrants to Sweden. The other way around: they support the Kiev regime, this pet bastard of the Neocons, and hate Russia as every good NWO supporter should.

So, it is difficult to see where the freedom of the continent will come from, and whether it can come at all.

Israel Shamir, also known by the names Jöran Jermas and Adam Ermash, is a citizen of Sweden and Russian writer and journalist.

8 August 2015

By Shlomo Sand

His past was Jewish, but today he sees Israel as one of the most racist societies in the western world. Historian Shlomo Sand explains why he doesn’t want to be Jewish anymore

During the first half of the 20th century, my father abandoned Talmudic school, permanently stopped going to synagogue, and regularly expressed his aversion to rabbis. At this point in my own life, in the early 21st century, I feel in turn a moral obligation to break definitively with tribal Judeocentrism. I am today fully conscious of having never been a genuinely secular Jew, understanding that such an imaginary characteristic lacks any specific basis or cultural perspective, and that its existence is based on a hollow and ethnocentric view of the world. Earlier I mistakenly believed that the Yiddish culture of the family I grew up in was the embodiment of Jewish culture. A little later, inspired by Bernard Lazare, Mordechai Anielewicz, Marcel Rayman and Marek Edelman – who all fought antisemitism, nazism and Stalinism without adopting an ethnocentric view – I identified as part of an oppressed and rejected minority. In the company, so to speak, of the socialist leader Léon Blum, the poet Julian Tuwim and many others, I stubbornly remained a Jew who had accepted this identity on account of persecutions and murderers, crimes and their victims.

Now, having painfully become aware that I have undergone an adherence to Israel, been assimilated by law into a fictitious ethnos of persecutors and their supporters, and have appeared in the world as one of the exclusive club of the elect and their acolytes, I wish to resign and cease considering myself a Jew.

Although the state of Israel is not disposed to transform my official nationality from “Jew” to “Israeli”, I dare to hope that kindly philosemites, committed Zionists and exalted anti-Zionists, all of them so often nourished on essentialist conceptions, will respect my desire and cease to catalogue me as a Jew. As a matter of fact, what they think matters little to me, and still less what the remaining antisemitic idiots think. In the light of the historic tragedies of the 20th century, I am determined no longer to be a small minority in an exclusive club that others have neither the possibility nor the qualifications to join.

By my refusal to be a Jew, I represent a species in the course of disappearing. I know that by insisting that only my historical past was Jewish, while my everyday present (for better or worse) is Israeli, and finally that my future and that of my children (at least the future I wish for) must be guided by universal, open and generous principles, I run counter to the dominant fashion, which is oriented towards ethnocentrism.

As a historian of the modern age, I put forward the hypothesis that the cultural distance between my great-grandson and me will be as great or greater than that separating me from my own great-grandfather. All the better! I have the misfortune of living now among too many people who believe their descendants will resemble them in all respects, because for them peoples are eternal – a fortiori a race-people such as the Jews.

I am aware of living in one of the most racist societies in the western world. Racism is present to some degree everywhere, but in Israel it exists deep within the spirit of the laws. It is taught in schools and colleges, spread in the media, and above all and most dreadful, in Israel the racists do not know what they are doing and, because of this, feel in no way obliged to apologise. This absence of a need for self-justification has made Israel a particularly prized reference point for many movements of the far right throughout the world, movements whose past history of antisemitism is only too well known.

To live in such a society has become increasingly intolerable to me, but I must also admit that it is no less difficult to make my home elsewhere. I am myself a part of the cultural, linguistic and even conceptual production of the Zionist enterprise, and I cannot undo this. By my everyday life and my basic culture I am an Israeli. I am not especially proud of this, just as I have no reason to take pride in being a man with brown eyes and of average height. I am often even ashamed of Israel, particularly when I witness evidence of its cruel military colonisation, with its weak and defenceless victims who are not part of the “chosen people”.

Earlier in my life I had a fleeting utopian dream that a Palestinian Israeli should feel as much at home in Tel Aviv as a Jewish American does in New York. I struggled and sought for the civil life of a Muslim Israeli in Jerusalem to be similar to that of the Jewish French person whose home is in Paris. I wanted Israeli children of Christian African immigrants to be treated as the British children of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent are in London. I hoped with all my heart that all Israeli children would be educated together in the same schools. Today I know that my dream is outrageously demanding, that my demands are exaggerated and impertinent, that the very fact of formulating them is viewed by Zionists and their supporters as an attack on the Jewish character of the state of Israel, and thus as antisemitism.

However, strange as it may seem, and in contrast to the locked-in character of secular Jewish identity, treating Israeli identity as politico-cultural rather than “ethnic” does appear to offer the potential for achieving an open and inclusive identity. According to the law, in fact, it is possible to be an Israeli citizen without being a secular “ethnic” Jew, to participate in its “supra-culture” while preserving one’s “infra-culture”, to speak the hegemonic language and cultivate in parallel another language, to maintain varied ways of life and fuse different ones together. To consolidate this republican political potential, it would be necessary, of course, to have long abandoned tribal hermeticism, to learn to respect the Other and welcome him or her as an equal, and to change the constitutional laws of Israel to make them compatible with democratic principles.

Most important, if it has been momentarily forgotten: before we put forward ideas on changing Israel’s identity policy, we must first free ourselves from the accursed and interminable occupation that is leading us on the road to hell. In fact, our relation to those who are second-class citizens of Israel is inextricably bound up with our relation to those who live in immense distress at the bottom of the chain of the Zionist rescue operation. That oppressed population, which has lived under the occupation for close to 50 years, deprived of political and civil rights, on land that the “state of the Jews” considers its own, remains abandoned and ignored by international politics. I recognise today that my dream of an end to the occupation and the creation of a confederation between two republics, Israeli and Palestinian, was a chimera that underestimated the balance of forces between the two parties.

Increasingly it appears to be already too late; all seems already lost, and any serious approach to a political solution is deadlocked. Israel has grown used to this, and is unable to rid itself of its colonial domination over another people. The world outside, unfortunately, does not do what is needed either. Its remorse and bad conscience prevent it from convincing Israel to withdraw to the 1948 frontiers. Nor is Israel ready to annex the occupied territories officially, as it would then have to grant equal citizenship to the occupied population and, by that fact alone, transform itself into a binational state. It’s rather like the mythological serpent that swallowed too big a victim, but prefers to choke rather than to abandon it.

Does this mean I, too, must abandon hope? I inhabit a deep contradiction. I feel like an exile in the face of the growing Jewish ethnicisation that surrounds me, while at the same time the language in which I speak, write and dream is overwhelmingly Hebrew. When I find myself abroad, I feel nostalgia for this language, the vehicle of my emotions and thoughts. When I am far from Israel, I see my street corner in Tel Aviv and look forward to the moment I can return to it. I do not go to synagogues to dissipate this nostalgia, because they pray there in a language that is not mine, and the people I meet there have absolutely no interest in understanding what being Israeli means for me.

In London it is the universities and their students of both sexes, not the Talmudic schools (where there are no female students), that remind me of the campus where I work. In New York it is the Manhattan cafes, not the Brooklyn enclaves, that invite and attract me, like those of Tel Aviv. And when I visit the teeming Paris bookstores, what comes to my mind is the Hebrew book week organised each year in Israel, not the sacred literature of my ancestors.

My deep attachment to the place serves only to fuel the pessimism I feel towards it. And so I often plunge into despondency about the present and fear for the future. I am tired, and feel that the last leaves of reason are falling from our tree of political action, leaving us barren in the face of the caprices of the sleepwalking sorcerers of the tribe. But I cannot allow myself to be completely fatalistic. I dare to believe that if humanity succeeded in emerging from the 20th century without a nuclear war, everything is possible, even in the Middle East. We should remember the words of Theodor Herzl, the dreamer responsible for the fact that I am an Israeli: “If you will it, it is no legend.”

As a scion of the persecuted who emerged from the European hell of the 1940s without having abandoned the hope of a better life, I did not receive permission from the frightened archangel of history to abdicate and despair. Which is why, in order to hasten a different tomorrow, and whatever my detractors say, I shall continue to write.

Shlomo Sand is an Israeli emeritus professor of history at Tel Aviv University, known to the general public for his best-selling book The Invention of the Jewish People.

10 October 2014

By Franklin Lamb

Wadi Al Nasera, (Valley of the Christians), Syria: Wadi al Nasera (Valley of the Christians) encompasses approximately 40 picturesque Christian hamlets in western Syria, located amidst the green plush rolling hills between Homs and the Lebanese border. Thirty of its villages are Christian, four are mainly populated by Alawi Muslims and one, Al Qalaa (aka Hosn village), just under the Crak des Chevaliers medieval fortress, was Sunni Muslim. It was literally pulverized by heavy and sustained government forces aerial bombardment once it became a supply base in 2013 for rebels inside the medieval crusader fortress.

I spent the past week visiting some of the oldest Wadi al Nasara Christian villages which include Marmarita, Al-Hwash , Zweitina, Muzina, Nasra, Mqaabra, al Mishtiaya, Blat,Tanurin, Anaz, Joir al-Afes, Hab Nimra, `Ash al-Shuha, `Amar al-Husn, `Ayn al-Barda, `Ayn al-Ajuzi, `Ayn al-Ghara, Kafra, Mashta Aazar, Al-Qllatia, Kayma, Masraa, Muklous, Bahzina, Joineyat, Al-Talla, Daghla, Amar, Mishtayeh and Rabah, agrees with many who come to Wadi al Nasera (Valley of the Christians) that the valley is most beautiful and welcoming area of Syria or of anyplace in the Middle East that he has visited. Its people who include Syrian Orthodox, Syrian Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics and Armenian Orthodox among others, add to its splendor. Some visitors come repeatedly, others annually for summer holidays or to experience one or more of the valleys seasonal cultural festivals that makes this part of Syria a major tourist attraction.

Nonetheless, Wadi Nasera has suffered much, as has most of Syria from the continuing conflict and the devastating loss of loved ones from terrorist acts. For a variety of reasons, the proportion of Christians in the Middle East has contracted from around 20 percent at the start of the 20th century to around 5 percent currently. Less than 1 percent of the world’s more than 2 billion Christians currently live in the Middle East, and it is likely that number will decrease even further.

From the very start of the current conflict, history and religion have fueled passions on both sides in Syria. This has become more pronounced as the conflict drags on, turning bloodier and more vicious by the month. The main target of the most sectarian-minded rebels isn’t Christians, but rather Alawites, the minority group who make up about 12% of Syria’s population, about the same as Christians until recently. The Alawites are a heterodox sect that branched off from Islam, and are considered by Muslim takfiri extremists more heretical than Christians.

Approximately one quarter of the Christian valley’s population have been forced to flee as refugees, according to Roman Catholic Priest, Father Hanna Salloum, owner of the Al Wadi Hotel in the village of Mishtayeh, who generously gave this observer his time and insights into have life has been like for Wadi al Nasara over the past few years. Soon the places of those who fled the valley were taken by other arriving refugees who correctly believed they would be welcomed in the Valley of the Christians. Father Salloum, a devout Christian and Syrian nationalist, insisted that all the rooms in his large 5-star hotel be made available without charge to refugees fleeing Homs and elsewhere. Arriving Christians, Muslims or non-believers were given shelter gratis on a first come first served basis. For more than one year his hotel was a teeming home to his countryman until jihadists were expelled from their stronghold less than two kilometers from his Al Wadi Hotel. Father Hanna Salloum is my kind of Christian.

According to an aide to His Beatitude, Kyrios Youhanna X, formerly, Youhanna X Yaziji, Patriarch of Antioch and All The East, who briefed this observer on 8/4/2015 at the 6th century monastery of St. George, before the current crisis there were approximately 1.2 million Christians in Syria. Today there are estimated to be fewer than 400,000. The population of Wadi Nasera was reduced by approximately 20% during 2012-2013, many fleeing to Christian areas of nearby Lebanon as well as internally. This main exodus followed the early 2012 arrival of al Qaeda affiliated militants including Jund al Sham. The jihadists occupied the medieval fortress, Crac des Chevaliers which towers above the southern entrance to the Wadi, until the Syrian Army was able to evict them in March of 2014. Villages below were regularly targeted by jihadist snipers and mortars as well as middle of the night terrorists slipping down from Krac des Chevaliers fortress, sometimes using tunnels, to slit throats of unsuspecting villagers. This observer has repeatedly heard from residents of Wadi Nasera that while every house has a light weapon, such as an AK-47, the terrorists were heavily armed with a variety of weapons and it was difficult to overpower them when they attacked. Recently, the population of Wadi al Nasera has swollen by more than 150,000, mainly Christians, who view the Wadi as among the safest places in Syria.

I do not believe the current suffering and atrocities being committed against Christians in Syria will not break the will of Al Wadi Nasera, the Valley of the Christians. Rather, it will fortify their resolution and beliefs in the New Testament. And I agree with the sages whom I have met among this close-knit, vital, highly educated, large family community that the future of the Christians in this great country and beyond is with the Muslims. This has been the case since the advent of Islam and its movement into this region 600 years after the arrival of Christianity. Historically, local Christian communities have sometimes welcomed Muslim ‘overlords’ when they freed them from the oppressive rule of Constantinople or Rome. In many places in Syria the two groups continue to reach out to each other. Even many rebel extremists, to the dismay of skeptics, claim that “personally” they don’t have anything against Christians.

Neither massive emigration of Christians to the West nor establishing a Christian state is a long term solution to the current conflict. Throughout history invaders have arrived here, they have committed unspeakable atrocities, ruled for a period and disappeared while the Christian community has endured, prospered relatively and, in a sense, prevailed over the invaders. To wit, the Ottoman Turks, who ruled Syria from 1516 until World War I, relegated Christians to a second-class citizen status. Christians were allowed to practice their religion and govern themselves in matters that didn’t concern Muslims. But they were also required to pay special taxes to Constantinople, and there were plenty of restrictions on them when it came to interactions with Muslims. Wahhabism, the ascetic and harshly conservative form of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, is even tougher on Christians. And many others seeking hegemony have passed through this country—the Byzantines, Tamerlane, the Mongols, Mamluks, the Persians. Their likes have failed to subjugate the Christians of Wadi al Nasera.

Among the factors unifying the residents of Wadi al Nasera is the presence of a group of Nuns who operated an orphanage at Mar Takla monastery in Ma’loula to the south. The group of Greek Orthodox nuns was kidnapped in December of 2013 and held for three months by Jabhat al and before being released three month later in a prisoner exchange. Their new temporary home is St. George Monastery across from Krac de Chaveliers. This observer was honored to spend time with this charming, passionate, energetic, group of sisters on 8/4/2015 and we discussed many subjects. I was happy to share with Mother Superior, Pelagia Sayyaf, head of the Mar Takla monastery in Maaloula and her sisters recently acquired updated information about restoration work being done to their orphanage in preparation for their early return. One of the Nuns asked me about the condition of their large kitchen. By chance, two weeks ago I took a special interest, and some photos which I shared with the Nuns, of the kitchen where I painted some doors. The reason was that as a wannbe chef, I could not fail to examine their 6 foot by maybe 4 foot steel stove which has two large ovens and eight cooking rounds on its surface. They were happy to learn it was in excellent shape and that volunteers had cleaned up the large kitchen. They seem unconcerned that the roof of the kitchen had been hit by a rebel mortar as was no more. The sisters want to return to Ma’loula as soon as possible and hopefully before the end of August. They promise to return regularly to St George Monastery in Wadi al Nasara and stay connected with their new family.

To paraphrase the words of a teacher this observer crossed paths with on 8/5/2015 at the Amigo grocery store on the main street of the village of al-Mishtayeh near, the Al Wadi Hotel at the base of Krac Des Chevaliers, ‘We shall fight for our freedom and fight for our faith. Many may die on the battlefield but no one surrenders. We are the defenders of faiths, ours and others, we will die or be free.”

Franklin Lamb is a visiting Professor of International Law at the Faculty of Law, Damascus University and volunteers with the Sabra-Shatila Scholarship Program (sssp-lb.com).

08 August, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Mahboob A. Khawaja

“We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark…. This weapon is to be used against Japan … [We] will use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new. … The target will be a purely military one… It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful.” (Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), 33rd U.S. President, (Diary, July 25, 1945)

Towards Understanding the Global Complacency in Aggression

Truth is suppressed and political interpretations disguise the real consequences of nuclear detonation. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were planned targets to inflict maximum human casualties. Those who plan egoistic wars fully understand the ultimate consequences in human terms and on-going impacts on the natural environment. More so, of the atomic bombing and continuing human sufferings. General MacRuther denied access to verifiable information as to the human costs of the nuclear attacks on Japan. It is a fatal underestimation that anyone could quote 297,000 human lives were burnt by radiation instantly in Hiroshima, whereas, the actual casualties were much higher in millions. Was the use of atomic bomb on Japan necessary to end the war? Why did America not use this option against Nazi Germany? Were there any ethnic, cultural and religious factors involved in the final decision making? History speaks loud and clear that aggressors surpassing transgression kept the legal definition of “aggression” open to discussion in international law and conveniently undefined within the UNO’s global system of governance. Insane egoism persists to this day that caused downfall of many societies during the WW2 diminishing any possibility of global peace and conflict management through peaceful dialogue and diplomacy. The European allies, the US, former USSR, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are all listed names to be called for committing aggression against the mankind. Never mind Geneva Conventions and Hague Conventions are merely paper-based historic academic exercises in utter futility. Who should regulate the implementation of international law if there is a law of accountability in global affairs? Why should the aggressors not be held accountable for the crimes against humanity? What have we learned from the historic fault lines? Japanese politicians claim to have reborn for a new Japan after the atomic experience. Could the US make the same claim after dropping the first atomic bomb on Japan? Could a victim identify its interests with the oppressor? Understandably, after being incapacitated and dehumanized, Japanese politicians and intellectuals remain captive of the US military dictum. The same is happening across the Arab world as the war on terror, ISIL ravages and Shia-Sunnis sectarian warfare is dehumanizing the entire region. Real issues of political change are subsided; political fantasy is carved up and imposed by the US. Transitory phenomenon of “power” leads to pride, vanity and militarization of nations, a sickening but frightening trend enforced for disastrous consequences in-waiting for the rest of the mankind.

Calls for Global Rethinking

Temples ring bells every year across Japan and hands are raised in prayers for peace and condemnation of the atomic bombs. But all are missing the real issues facing the future of global mankind. All wars are aimed at destruction of people, the habitats and the Nature of Things. The symbolic annual remembrance will not undo the infinite darkness shrouding the use of destructive atomic bombs to which large parts of the humanity are subjected. After 70 years, of the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, there is no will and defined system to question the aggressors for destroying the lives of millions. Symbolic remembrances of the imposed tragedies on Japan signal a clear failure of the global political systems and are devoid of insight to tackle the crux of the problem. All wars have ripple effects as Japanese continued to face the unraveling impacts of the first nuclear bomb. Those who witnessed the horrible crime against humanity can just talk of peace and share an individual vision of the future. The victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki know it firsthand what is like to be living in man-made hell. Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe talks of nuclear disarmament that is nowhere visible in the 21st century. Kazumi Matsui, Mayor of Hiroshima (“Legacy of the Atomic Bomb: 70 Years after it fell on Hiroshima”) explains his concerns and noted:

“Our world still bristles with more than 15,000 nuclear weapons, and policymakers in the nuclear-armed states remain trapped in provincial thinking, repeating by word and deed their nuclear intimidation” ….”To coexist we must abolish the absolute evil and ultimate inhumanity that are nuclear weapons. Now is the time to start taking action.”

Ms. Thurlow was just 13 years old when she saw the atomic bomb falling on Hiroshima. Now, she is a peace activist across the globe but who will listen to her? So is Keiko Ogura, just 8 years old at the time witnessing the pieces of her mother’s body with her own eyes on August 6, 1945 at 8.15a.m. Aftermath of the nuclear detonation on Japan, all the encompassing facts were curtailed by the General Douglas MacRuther – the occupying ruler of Japan. The global community failed to come to grapple the real issues of war and peace. Who will assess the humanitarian cost of nuclear warfare? After 70 years, the global politicians failed miserably to agree to systematic elimination of nuclear weapons from Earth. The Hiroshima remembrance is staged but opportunity is missed to address the prevalent issues of war and peace. Instead, war commemoration are held throughout the world to mark the unending tragedy as if it did not happen and will not happen again from Hiroshima- Nagasaki onward to Kabul and Baghdad and more. The sadistic wars are continuing without an end insight. There is nothing to commemorate plausibly except remorse and unthinking of the use of nuclear warfare. Remembrance should be a moment of honest reflection – how ignorant the politicians are and how global wickedness continues to undermine the large segment of mankind in war theatres like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and across the Arab world. Fullogah was no threat to the US or Britain. But they used uranium enriched weapons to massacre the Iraqis and to subjugate the future generations. The contemporary global politicians defy logic and try to enforce egoistic vision of conflict-making and conflict-keeping to ensure marketability of new weapons. Who will tell the horrific impacts of the nuclear warfare? There is no hope and no optimism that contemporary so called five superpowers will ever give-in to law and justice for the interest of mankind. The International Red Cross (“Remembering Hiroshima” ICRC) questions the lawfulness of atomic weapons and reminds the powerful super States that:

“ War – which remains an anomaly in a civilized world – has undoubtedly become so devastating and universal, amidst the web of conflicting interests on the various continents, that every thought and every effort ought to be directed first and foremost at making it impossible…… The development of means of warfare and, therefore, of war itself, has been rendered all the more lethal by the use of discoveries in atomic physics as a weapon of war of unprecedented effectiveness…….Let us remember this fact of a period which has seen so many violations of the law and so many reprisals.”

Historic Checks and Balances

What was destroyed by atomic bombs, could it be rebuild by human rethinking, peaceful dialogue and continuous harmony? Those who wage wars are often indifferent to common human values of peace, harmony and solidarity. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were selected targets to demonstrate unthinkable power of the atomic weapons and to inflict maximum human casualties to enforce immediate surrender of the Japanese imperial government. President Harry Truman denied allegations of the civilians targets as if Hiroshima was the epic center of Japanese armed forces. But in an interview with Newsweek in 1963 ( “Legacy of the Atomic Bomb: 70 Years after it Fell on Hiroshima”) President Eisenhower successor to Harry Truman revealed that even he had reservations about using the atomic weapon: “The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” Military experts agree, arguing that Japan had already been defeated by July 1945 and they just wanted to know about the Emperor place of exile.

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki also changed the course of history by launching the global race for nuclear proliferation. At this time, there are more than 23 countries known to have the capability of nuclear weapons production or possession of ready made nuclear weapons including the US, the UK, France, Israel, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Most nuclear powers would argue for nuclear deterrence that having advanced nuclear weaponry would prevent opposing states from threatening nuclear option or attacking for the fear of immediate retaliation and for sure, “mutually assured destruction”

“No Comments” But How to Reflect on the Grieving Sense of Humanity

Professor Rodrigue Tremblay ( “The Moral Legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” Global Research: 8/06/2013), narrates the following historic comments on the ethical standing of the US atomic bombing of Japan:

It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude.” (General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe and 34th U.S. President from 1952 to 1960, (Mandate for Change, p. 380)

“Mechanized civilization has just reached the ultimate stage of barbarism. In a near future, we will have to choose between mass suicide and intelligent use of scientific conquests […] This can no longer be simply a prayer; it must become an order which goes upward from the peoples to the governments, an order to make a definitive choice between hell and reason.” (Albert Camus (1913-1960), French philosopher and author, August 8, 1945)

”As American Christians, we are deeply penitent for the irresponsible use already made of the atomic bomb. We are agreed that, whatever be one’s judgment of the war in principle, the surprise bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are morally indefensible.”(The American Federal Council of Churches‘Report on Atomic Warfare and the Christian Faith, 1946).

“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. ” – “The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.” (William Leahy, Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman (“I Was There”, p. 441) .
The 21st century politics is a game of vindictiveness, mutual fear and hatred – more so, amongst the competing superpowers including the United States, West Europeans, Russia and economically influential China. Japanese politicians cannot dare to question American rulers against the occupation and intellectual subservience. Most oil exporting Arab leaders enjoy the same deficient status. They are morally and intellectual conquered and dehumanized. Across the global culture of embittered animosities and mistrust – mass media dominated culture, a combination of pretension, willful deception, institutionalized manufactured lies and individualistic propaganda and fear mongering suspicion of the disbelief to manipulate the common folks to manage the informed herd and exploit their patriotism to serve the multiple interests of the 1% ruling elite. Despite its claims, the liberal democracy seemed at loss to provide any sense of moral or intellectual security to the 99% masses – the political engine of the democratic legitimacy. The well paid corporate news media networks boost the self-crafted fear of wars – the priority aims of the major weapon manufacturers – the agenda for continuous struggle as if peace is an endangered specie even in utopian configuration. The mankind lives in One World on One Planet. War waged by aggressors in one part of the planet, is a war against the whole of the mankind.

We live on One Earth and indeed embody One Humanity, shall we not ask for immediate Rethinking to what cruelty is happening in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Egypt and most of the Arabian peninsula engulfed with tragic warfare and increased weapon sales by the US and West European nations. Arab leaders are incapacitated on their own by greed and fear to think intelligently. There are reportedly 3500 US marines stationed in Iraq supporting the Shiite-led government of PM Al-Abaidi but 6,300 defense contractors are operating in Iraq. Are we perpetuating peacemaking or warmongering to besiege the humanity? Who is lying under international law that cannot be defined? Have the transgressors learned anything useful from the living history? Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence framed it logically:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments arc instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government………… (American Declaration of Independence: 07/04/1776)

Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international relations – global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany, May 2012

08 August, 2015
Countercurrents.org

By Christina Lin

Erdogan’s latest feat in beguiling US/NATO to back his demands regarding Syria is a masterpiece.

Employing a familiar Chinese stratagem of 瞒天过海 (mán tiān guò hǎi) often associated with Emperor Liu Bei’s (161-230 AD) military strategist Zhuge Liang in the Three Kingdoms period, in one fell swoop of offering access to Incerlik air base to fight ISIS, Erdogan obtained what he’s coveted all along: buffer zone for anti-Assad rebels courtesy of US air force, prevention of Kurdish expansion along Turkey’s borders, opportunity to pummel PKK, and legitimacy for his actions from NATO

Mán tiān guò hǎi means deceive the heavens to cross the ocean–to use the ruse of a fake goal until the real goal is achieved.

To what end? The golden prize is likely the proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline to tap into EU’s lucrative market.

Erdogan gains pipeline dream

First proposed by Qatar in 2009, the natural gas pipeline would run through Syria’s Aleppo and Turkey unto Europe. However, Assad dampened this dream in 2011 when he instead forged a pact with Iraq and Iran to run an “Islamic pipeline” eastward to the European market.

Now coincidentally, around the Aleppo region is also where Turkey proposed for US to set up the buffer zone to supply “moderate rebel” forces.

Writing in Armed Forces Journal, Major Rob Taylor joined numerous other pundits in observing that the Syrian civil war is actually a pipeline war over control of energy supply, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey needing to remove Assad “so they can control Syria and run their own pipeline through Turkey.”

“Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as al Qaeda and other groups, are maneuvering to depose Assad and capitalize on their hoped-for Sunni conquest in Damascus. By doing this, they hope to gain a share of control over the ‘new’ Syrian government, and a share in the pipeline wealth.” Even if it includes Turkey surreptitiously supporting ISIS against Assad.

Thus, even if the Saudi/Qatar/Turkey backed Army of Conquest can control just enough land in Syria for a salafist statelet to build the Qatar-Turkey pipeline, then these sunni states can finally realize their pipeline dream.

Indeed, the 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency report corroborates their desire to carve out a salafist statelet in Syria east of Assad-controlled territory in order to put pressure on his regime (In 2012 it was further east, but now that Assad has lost much territory it is just east of Latakia).

But what are the costs for this ploy?

Costs of US-Turkey bargain

Firstly, jihadists in charge of Syria would mean the further extinction of Mideast Christians, as well as genocide of other Syrian religious and ethnic minorities.

Secondly, US and NATO moral legitimacy would be eroded and rightly or wrongly, be perceived by the non-western world as complicit in backing al Qaeda terrorist groups and the persecution of religious minorities.

Thirdly, credibility of US as an ally would further corrode especially since Washington has betrayed the Kurds more than once. Already, US security experts are warning allies such as South Korea and Japan to hedge themselves and build nuclear weapons due to loss of trust in US security guarantee.

Additionally, as some Chinese scholars assessed, Syria/Turkey would become the new AfPak with a safe haven for salafist jihadists to gain power and launch attacks elsewhere, much like western-backed Afghan Mujahideen morphed into al Qaeda and continues to attack the west.

In fact, German politician Cen Ozdemir already called Turkey a “mini-Pakistan” and Berlin has issued a travel advisory, following in the footstep of China after violent anti-China protests broke out in July.

Finally, this risks escalation into a great power conflict by drawing in China, Russia and Iran into Syria.

Iran’s interest in sustaining Assad is already well documented, and as for Russia, the Qatar-Turkey pipeline to Europe directly challenges its dominant position as energy supplier.

That is why Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan tried to convince Putin to abandon Assad and promised that “whatever regime comes after” Assad, it will be “completely” in Saudi Arabia’s hands and will “not sign any agreement allowing any Gulf country to transport its gas across Syria to Europe and compete with Russian gas exports”.

Nonetheless Putin refused, and the Prince vowed military action.

Chinese interests are also harmed due to link of Uyghur insurgents with Turkey’s anti-Assad rebels, threatening Xinjiang secession and destroying the crown jewel and bridge head of Xi Jinping’s silk road grand strategy.

The Turkey/Qatar/Saudi-backed Army of Conquest includes Chinese Uyghur-led terror group, Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), that in April joined al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat-al-Nusra (JN), Uzbek-led Imam Bukhari Jamaat and Katibat Tawhid wal Jihad to defeat the Syrian army at Jisr al-Shughur in northwestern Syria’s Idlib governorate.

As such the rebel coalition now has a direct supply line open from Turkey’s Hatay Province to Idlib, further expanded by the new proposed buffer zone. Counter-terror expert Jacob Zenn assessed that the “rebels may have enough resources to establish a de-facto state in northwestern Syria led by JN and supported by several Central Asian militas.”

This de facto state poses a grave security threat to China s a safe haven for militant groups to launch attacks in the home front, especially with the recent revelation by Chinese security officials that Turkey has been issuing fake passports to recruit Chinese Uyghurs for its anti-Assad group.

TIP has already claimed numerous high-profile terrorists attacks against China over the past two years, including the Kunming train station attacks which Beijing calls her 9/11.

The Middle Kingdom has in the past threatened support for PKK as leverage over Turkey’s backing of Uyghur separatists. As Turkey continues to support Uyghur militants and attack PKK, it would be interesting to see if Emperor Xi levels the playing field and decides to arm PKK via the strategy of Jiè dāo shā rén (借刀殺人), or killing with a borrowed sword.

Dr. Christina Lin is a Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS-Johns Hopkins University.

1 August 2015

 

A Carbon Copy Of The Goldman Sachs/Global Too Big To Fail Banks’ Template

By Matthias Chang – Future Fast-Forward

All robbers and crooks have a method or master-plan on how to rob a bank or break into a bullion bank’s vault. In any criminal investigation, the police will analyse the clues to determine for example, how the robbers circumvented the security system, the way they penetrated the so-called unbreakable vault doors to get their hands on the gold bars and cash, their get-away plans etc.

The Jho Low/1MDB criminal syndicate likewise has a master-plan. But, not being clever and original, they borrowed the time-tested financial robbery template (i.e. Master-Plan) from banks such as Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank, UBS etc.

The template is rather simple. Use internationally accepted legal covers, instruments and conduits to illegally siphon off monies so as to escape and circumvent international anti-money laundering laws.

But, there is never any fool-proof master-plan! There is always a chink in the armour which exposes the robbers and crooks to detection and prosecution. At times, they may have inadvertently left clues that give away their most intricate plans.

Let me illustrate by analysing the first transaction of 1MDB’s joint venture with the Arabs.

This is the classic template by the very best in international high stakes financial con-job or scam which involves a government or a government controlled entity. When it involves a government or a government controlled entity, it is usually employed to financially rape the target country (a method favoured by dictators, corrupt governments and or financial institutions) and it is very difficult to uncover the crimes because of the resources deployed to cover up the crimes by the various enforcement and regulatory agencies, abusing their enormous powers. But, God works in mysterious ways!

Sometimes, it involves the collaboration of two corrupt governments who have a common agenda. The military dictatorships of South America and the Absolute Monarchs of the Middle East and their Intelligence Services use such templates to finance wars and enrich the members of their Oligarchies. It may also involve international drug cartels. In this type of financial rape, US$ Trillions are siphoned off! Every dirty option on the table would be used.

However, all the above actors can never pull off the scam and or the financial rape of a country without the active and conscious participation of global banks, international accounting firms and lawyers specialising in such cross-borders deals using shell companies registered in tax havens.

THIS IS NOT A SPIN or a fairy tale! Just Google “financial fraud and manipulation of markets by global banks” and you will get all the details. Established names such as Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan etc. will come out. And, these are the so-called reputable global banks. But, they are all criminal enterprises! I have done extensive research on these scams and even wrote a book on this – “The Shadow Money-Lenders”!

I am willing to pay US$1 Million to anyone who can show me that none of these banks were indicted for criminal activities, such as selling fraudulent financial products and money-laundering and the blatant manipulation of LIBOR (interest rates), currency, commodities and gold markets etc. But, if you take up the challenge and fail to prove me wrong, you need only pay me US$250,000.00. If you think these are good odds, take up the bet.

Honest people like you and I will never commit such a scam and even if we dare entertain such a thought, it would be close to impossible without access to the people who wields actual ultimate political power or their inner circles.

It takes two to tango!

Now let’s recap the 1MDB-PetroSaudi Ltd Joint Venture.

The whole scam was implemented by Jho Low and his “Malaysian Associates” within 1MDB and his Arab counterparts in the PetroSaudi group of companies headed by the “Chief Arab Crook” Tarek Obaid with the knowledge and approval of the Prime Minister cum Finance Minister.

Step 1:
On 18th September, 2009 a JV Company called 1MDB-PetroSaudi Ltd, was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands by the crime syndicate. This was even before the JV agreement was entered into and signed by 1MDB.
Joint ventures are legal and legitimate business transactions when two partners want to do business together. But, the give-away in this case was that it was registered in a tax haven, the British Virgin Islands. Not all businesses registered in a tax haven are criminal enterprises, but invariably all are trying to avoid paying taxes and to keep the prying eyes of honest government authorities looking too deeply into their affairs.

Step 2:
On 25th September, 2009 a loan was extended by a company called PetroSaudi Holdings (Cayman) Ltd amounting to US$700 Million to the JV Company 1MDB-PetroSaudi Ltd. This loan was stated to have been made to the JV Company to acquire the entire paid-up share capital of a company called PetroSaudi International Ltd (also registered in the Cayman Islands) which allegedly owned some oil and gas assets. But, at all material time, no such assets were owned by this company, PetroSaudi International Ltd or any
other PetroSaudi companies. The issued and paid-up share capital of this company was only US$1. A freaking 1US Dollar company!
It must be freaking madness to borrow US$700 Million to buy a 1US Dollar company.
This was done before the signing of the JV agreement. But, the loan was a fictitious loan.
Giving loans is another legitimate business, but in this case, the loan was to cover a non-existing transaction i.e. that PetroSaudi International Ltd (Cayman) had acquired assets and wants to sell to the JV Company. The fact that these assets were non-existent was never questioned by 1MDB officials or the Board of Directors which indicates that some of 1MDB officers were aware of this fraud i.e. there were no assets. There were valuation reports of the assets but no indication that PetroSaudi International Ltd owned the assets.
By analogy, what is the use of knowing the value of a property if you do not know the actual owner as indicated in the title and the same duly entered in the Land Office’s Registry? Would you buy a property from Mr. Arab if you have not checked whether Mr. Arab is the registered owner? Only a fool would do that. This is what 1MDB’s management did. And this was also approved by the Prime Minister cum Finance Minister. So, why would the Prime Minister approved such a transaction?

Step 3:
On September 28, 2009 the JV agreement was signed between 1MDB and PetroSaudi Holdings (Cayman) Ltd. 1MDB’s obligation was to pay US$1 Billion for 1 Billion shares in the JV Company. The Filthy Arabs were to inject the so-called assets worth US$2.5 Billion to be entitled to 2.5 billion shares as they wanted majority control.
Since there were no assets worth US$2.5 Billion that were injected into the JV Company, 1MDB – PetroSaudi Ltd, the Arab Crooks acting in concert with Jho Low and his associates would be getting 2.5 billion free shares. However, 1MDB must pay US$1 Billion cash for sham shares in a company with no assets.
This is how the crooks in 1MDB with their Arab partners used legal means and covers to get the US$1 Billion out of Malaysia on the false pretext that it was for an overseas investment through a joint venture company.

Step 4:
All of a sudden, on 29th September, 2009 the JV Company was asked to settle the said loan, a mere four days after it was granted.
Is it not strange that no one asked why a loan given on the 25th September, 2009 must be repaid almost immediately. According to the JV agreement, the loan must be repaid on or before the 30th September, 2009.
Therefore, without the complicity and direct knowledge at all levels of 1MDB’s management and the Ministry of Finance, the fictitious loan of US$700 Million would not have been repaid. Had 1MDB’s management checked whether there were actual assets owned by PetroSaudi International Ltd, they would have discovered that it was a sham and that there were no assets. But, they did not check because they were all part of the scam to cheat Malaysia and this was done with the knowledge and approval of the Prime Minister.

Step 5:
1MDB repaid the said loan of US$700 Million on 30th September, 2009. The money was not paid directly into the JV Company’s bank account but was directed to be paid by the Arab crooks via the US bank, JP Morgan Chase which in turn remitted the said US$700 million to RBS Coutts in Zurich for the account of Good Star Ltd, a company controlled by Jho Low and his associates.
By normal and proper procedure, if the JV Company actually borrowed the US$700 million to purchase actual assets then it is only right that the money (US$700 Million) be paid into the JV bank account to reflect that 1MDB had made part payment for the 1 billion shares. 1MDB must pay US$1 Billion for 1 billion shares. Then the JV Company can show that it has used part of the “share capital” (monies) to repay the outstanding loan. But, it was paid to a company that has nothing to do with the JV Company. It was paid to a company controlled by Jho Low and his associates.
Therefore, we can now see very clearly how good clean money from Malaysia was siphoned off for a legitimate investment as a cover but ended up in the accounts of the Jho Low/1MDB crime syndicate.
The balance of US$1 Billion i.e. US$300 million was paid into JV Company to defray alleged JV expenses etc. Again, this was not properly vetted and or accounted for. Likewise, part of this sum of US$300 Million was distributed to the members of the criminal syndicate.

Step 6:
The Arab crooks did not inject the US$2.5 Billion assets because at all material times, they were not owners of the assets. It was a big lie. The entire JV was a sham and a con-job to get US$1 Billion out of Malaysia for an ulterior purpose.
So the entire US$1 Billion was siphoned off from Malaysia under the cover of a legitimate business but, subsequently siphoned off for illegal purposes. Steps 1 to 6 illustrate the Template and Methodology of the financial scam practiced by sophisticated international con-men and women! 1MDB management was part of the scam. And the Prime Minister approved all the transactions.
From day 1 of the inception of the idea to set up 1MDB to its implementation, the objective of the entire exercise was criminal. 1MDB was and is a criminal enterprise to fleece Malaysia of US$1 Billion.

Step 7:
The JV agreement was terminated in March 2010, a mere six months after the full US$1 Billion was paid by 1MDB. What kind of JV is this? Have you ever heard of a JV approved by a Prime Minister of Malaysia (i.e. the last five Prime Ministers) which was then terminated within 6 months because the JV partner had no assets worth US$2.5 Billion to be injected to the JV Company?
PM Najib is the first Prime Minister to do such a deal. Why?
When all the monies have been siphoned off by the crooks, the legitimate business is closed down to hide all traces of illegality and money trails.

Step 8:
The crooks would then create another legitimate transaction to cover the previous transaction. In the case of 1MDB-PetroSaudi Joint Venture, they used the cover of an Islamic Financial Loan called the Murabahah Facility amounting to US$2.5 Billion (consisting of two tranches, the first being US$1 Billion, and the 2nd US$1.5 Billion) of which US1.83 Billion was siphoned off as a cover to hide the previous scam of US$1 Billion.
Having been cheated of US$1 Billion, 1MDB agrees to grant a loan (via a Islamic financial facility – “Murabahah”) to the Arabs allegedly to refund the US$1 Billion and an additional US$1.5 billion for other “investment” purposes, of which US$830 Million was drawn down.
Therefore, the total amount siphoned off is US$1.83 Billion.
What logic compels a company controlled by the Prime Minister who paid US$1 Billion for a shell company and then lend another US$1.5 Billion (total US$2.5 Billion) unless it is to cover the fraud as explained above? The Murabahah Financial Facility replaces the Joint Venture.
Scandalous!
We need not analyse this 2nd part of the scam as very few of you understand Islamic finance but, it is enough for the purpose of this article and exposé that all you need to understand is the first part of the scam – how the crooks with the knowledge and approval of the Prime Minister cum Finance Minister siphoned off US$1 Billion from Malaysia from this first transaction of 1MDB.
It is important that you understand the template and or methodology of the crime as otherwise you would be misled by the Prime Minister’s spin doctors
and sycophants that no monies were lost and that the Prime Minister and the Jho Low/1MDB crime syndicate were innocent of any crimes.
They committed the heinous crime of financially raping the country!
And they must be sent to jail for their crimes.

How US$1.83 Billion Was Shared By The Criminals
This much we know!

1. Tarek Obaid “Chief Arab Crook”
Out of the US$1.83 Billion, the Chief Arab Crook was paid the following sums on diverse dates:
US$85 Million on October 5th, 2009 as “brokerage fees” i.e. went to his pocket;
US$10 Million on October 28th, 2009 went to his pocket;
US$ 5 Million on November 18th, 2009 went to his pocket;
US$68 Million on January 13th, 2010 as conduit for onward transmission;
US$ 6 Million on March 4th, 2010 as conduit for onward transmission;
US$ 5 Million on March 14th, 2010 went to his pocket;
US$50 Million on May 5th, 2010 as conduit for onward transmission;
US$5.5 Million on August 9th, 2010 as conduit for onward transmission;
US$25 Million on September 13th, 2010 as conduit for onward transmission; and
US$300 Million on September 16th, 2010 as conduit for onward transmission.
The total = US$559.5 Million. However, US$105 Million went specifically to Chief Arab Crook’s pocket. The balance was used to implement partner-in-crime Jho Low’s more audacious schemes. Please see below.

2. HRH Prince Turki
US$77 Million on diverse dates, in different amounts went to his pocket.
Prince Turki bin Abdullah Al Saud (born 21 October 1971) is a member of the House of Saud and the seventh son of late King Abdullah, the ruler of Saudi Arabia then. He served as deputy governor of Riyadh Province from 2013 to 2014 and as governor of Riyadh Province from 14 May 2014 to 29 January 2015. Why was he paid US$77 Million?

3. Patrick Mahoney
US$33 Million on October 20th, 2009 went to his pocket. Why was he paid this sum?

4. Jho Low
The balance of the US$1.83 Billion amounting to approximately US$1.160 Billion (i.e. US$1.83 Billion less US$559.5 Million, less US$77 Million, less US$33 Million) went to two companies controlled by Jho Low and his associates, namely Good Star Ltd (Seychelles) and Abu Dhabi Kuwait Malaysia Investment Corporation (British Virgin Islands) which were then applied to various “investments” in Malaysia and overseas under various companies for himself and for his Ultimate Crime Boss.
Part of the balance sum was also disbursed through the JV Company 1MDB-PetroSaudi Ltd, even though the Joint Venture was terminated. The sum of US$830 Million via the Murabahah Islamic Facility was distributed through this corporate conduit.
The Prime Minister must explain to the entire country why he participated in this sordid affair!
The above is but a summary of how the crime was perpetrated so as to enable you to have a macro view of the whole scam.
The entire amount of US$1.83 Billion is tainted as it was applied for purposes other than approved by Bank Negara. When it was disbursed and distributed via a web of various conduits (through individuals as well as corporations), it was money-laundering pure and simple. And any gains/profits derived from such “laundered activities” would be tainted as well.

The Prime Minister by authorising and approving all the transactions relating to the 1MDB-PetroSaudi Joint Venture and the subsequent Murabahah

Financing has thereby participated in money-laundering.

This is a more serious crime than the receipt of RM2.6 Billion by way of an alleged donation to his personal accounts.

The Prime Minister has brought utter shame to the office of the Prime Minister as well as the country.