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By Ali Abunimah

Israeli occupation forces wrought death, injury and destruction this week as they carried out revenge demolitions of Palestinian homes and fired on protesters.

More than 85 Palestinians have been killed in escalated violence since 1 October, dozens in what human rights organizations and international monitors have condemned as summary executions.

Sixteen Israelis were slain in the same period.

More than 9,000 Palestinians and 133 Israelis were injured, according to the United Nations monitoring group OCHA.

On Thursday, a Palestinian and two Israelis were killed in a shooting attack near the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the occupied West Bank.

According to Israel’s Haaretz, a Palestinian driver opened fire toward cars near the settlement of Alon Shvut, killing three people.

The alleged assailant was arrested after he crashed his car into another vehicle.

Those killed in the attack have been identified as Shadi Arafa, a 24-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank city of Hebron; Ezra Schwartz, an 18-year-old US citizen; and Yaakov Don, a 49-year-old West Bank settler.

Earlier, two Israelis – 51-year-old Reuven Aviram and Aharon Yesayev, 32 – were killed in a stabbing attack at an office building in Tel Aviv.

The alleged assailant was taken into custody. He was identified as Riad al-Masalma, a Palestinian from Dura village near Hebron.

That occupied West Bank city has borne the brunt of recent Israeli violence, including 29 killings since the start of October.

Last Friday, two Israeli settlers – a father and his adult son – were killed after an unknown assailant opened fire on their car in southern West Bank.

Killings and revenge demolitions

Thursday’s killings follow a wave of Israeli violence against Palestinians.

Israeli forces blew up six homes in the occupied West Bank belonging to families of Palestinians who allegedly committed attacks against Israelis.

At least 16 additional homes in the same buildings or adjacent to those targeted were damaged or destroyed.

The demolitions made 47 people, including 20 children, homeless, from both the targeted and adjacent structures, according to OCHA.

Israel carried out the revenge demolitions after its high court rejected an appeal by human rights organizations.

Israel claims that the policy, used exclusively against Palestinians and never against Jews, deters attacks, but even its army has refuted this.

OCHA affirmed that the demolitions are “a form of collective punishment and as such are illegal under international law.”

“Vindictive”

Shortly after midnight on 16 November, Israeli forces invaded Qalandiya refugee camp, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, to destroy the family home of Muhammad Abu Shahin.

Abu Shahin is accused – though has not been convicted – of killing an Israeli in the West Bank last June.

Israeli forces “called on loudspeakers to the residents of nearby houses, instructing them to leave their homes and move about 100 meters away,” the human rights group B’Tselem reported. “When Abu Shahin’s apartment was blown up, the apartment on the floor below it was also damaged, as was an apartment in a nearby building that was home to four people, including two minors.”

Abu Shahin’s wife and children lived in the targeted house.

Palestinian residents confronted the Israeli forces invading the camp.

Israeli soldiers shot dead Laith Assad Manasra, 21, and Ahmad Abu al-Aish, 28, in the densely populated refugee camp.

Dozens more were injured, including 17-year-old Yousif Abu Latifa, who was critically wounded. Witnesses told the Ma’an News Agency that Israeli forces fired tear gas at ambulances attempting to reach the wounded.

On 14 November, Israeli forces used explosives to destroy four apartments in Nablus that were home to relatives of Palestinians accused, but not convicted, of killing two West Bank settlers on 1 October, leaving 14 people homeless, according to B’Tselem.

The force of the explosions destroyed six other apartments that were not targeted, making 16 more people homeless.

In the Ramallah-area village of Silwad, Israeli forces blew up the home of the mother and brother of Muaz Hamad, who Israel accuses of killing a West Bank settler in June.

The explosion damaged eight nearby houses, according to B’Tselem.

In addition to being illegal under international law, the group says that Israel’s policy of punitive demolitions is “a draconian, vindictive measure directed at entire families who have done nothing wrong nor are they suspected of any wrongdoing.”

Another 27 Palestinians, including 12 children, were also made homeless as Israeli forces demolished another 17 homes and other structures in across West Bank, including East Jerusalem, under the pretext that they lacked building permits, OCHA reported.

Killing and raids

On 17 November, Israeli forces killed 24-year-old Muhammad Saleh, from Aroura village, near Ramallah.

Israel stated that Saleh opened fire on a military jeep, but the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) notes that there “was no eyewitness to confirm or deny the Israeli claim.”

In what appears to be standard practice, Israeli forces prevented Palestinian medics from reaching Saleh, PCHR said.
In the last week, OCHA said more than 1,100 Palestinians, including 203 children, were injured amid ongoing confrontations with Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces raided almost 80 Palestinian communities in the West Bank and arrested more than 100 Palestinians, including 38 children, according to PCHR.

Slap on the wrist

Another event this week highlighted the stark contrast between the brutality Israel directs towards Palestinians and the impunity it affords its own citizens.

An Israeli Border Police officer convicted for the savage beating of Palestinian American teenager Tariq Abukhdeir was given a slap on the wrist – six weeks of community service.

The attack – in which one officer held the boy down while another methodically kicked and pummeled him in the head – was recorded on video.

This week two UN special rapporteurs called on Israel to end its policy of summary executions of Palestinians.

The independent human rights experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council said that the current escalation of violence is “occurring within the existing context of policies and practices under the longstanding Israeli occupation which entail violations of Palestinian human rights.”

For their part, Israeli leaders continue to exploit the attacks in Paris by insisting that Palestinians are driven by the same motivations as the suspected Islamic State gunmen and bombers who killed 130 people last Friday.

Meanwhile Israel announced plans for 454 more settler homes in occupied East Jerusalem, a move even Israel’s staunch allies the United States and Germany criticized.

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

20 November, 2015
Electronicintifada.net

By Peter Van Buren

We Meant Well

Wars are expensive. The recruitment and sustainment of fighters in the field, the ongoing purchases of weapons and munitions, as well as the myriad other costs of struggle, add up.

So why isn’t the United States going after Islamic State’s funding sources as a way of lessening or eliminating their strength at making war? Follow the money back, cut it off, and you strike a blow much more devastating than an airstrike. But that has not happened. Why?

Donations

Many have long held that Sunni terror groups, ISIS now and al Qaeda before them, are funded via Gulf States, such as Saudi Arabia, who are also long-time American allies. Direct links are difficult to prove, particularly if the United States chooses not to prove them. The issue is exacerbated by suggestions that the money comes from “donors,” not directly from national treasuries, and may be routed through legitimate charitable organizations or front companies.

In fact, one person concerned about Saudi funding was then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who warned in a 2009 message on Wikileaks that donors in Saudi Arabia were the “most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”

At the G20, Russian President Vladimir Putin said out loud what has otherwise not been publicly discussed much in public. He announced that he has shared intelligence with the other G20 member states which reveals 40 countries from which ISIS finances the majority of its terrorist activities. The list reportedly included a number of G20 countries.

Putin’s list of funders has not been made public. The G20, however, include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the European Union.

Oil

One source of income for ISIS is and has robustly been oil sales. In the early days of the air campaign, American officials made a point to say that the Islamic State’s oil drilling assets were high on the target list. Yet few sites have actually been targeted. A Pentagon spokesperson explained that the coalition has actually been trying to spare some of ISIS’s largest oil producing facilities, “recognizing that they remain the property of the Syrian people,” and to limit collateral damage to civilians nearby.

The U.S. only this week began a slightly more aggressive approach toward the oil, albeit bombing tanker trucks, not the infrastructure behind them. The trucks were destroyed at the Abu Kamal oil collection point, near the Iraqi border.

Conservative estimates are that Islamic State takes in one to two million dollars a day from oil sales; some see the number as high as four million a day. As recently as February, however, the Pentagon claimed oil was no longer ISIS’ main way to raise money, having been bypassed by those “donations” from unspecified sources, and smuggling.

Turkey

One of the issues with selling oil, by anyone, including ISIS, is bringing the stuff to market. Oil must be taken from the ground using heavy equipment, possibly refined, stored, loaded into trucks or pipelines, moved somewhere and then sold into the worldwide market. Large amounts of money must be exchanged, and one to four million dollars a day is a lot of cash to deal with on a daily basis. It may be that some sort of electronic transactions that have somehow to date eluded the United States are involved.

Interestingly, The Guardian reported a U.S.-led raid on the compound housing the Islamic State’s chief financial officer produced evidence that Turkish officials directly dealt with ranking ISIS members, including the ISIS officer responsible for directing the terror army’s oil and gas operations in Syria.

Turkey’s “open door policy,” in which it allowed its southern border to serve as an unofficial transit point in and out of Syria, has been said to be one of ISIS’ main routes for getting their oil to market. A Turkish apologist claimed the oil is moved only via small-diameter plastic irrigation pipes, and is thus hard to monitor.

A smuggled barrel of oil is sold for about $50 on the black market. This means “ several million dollars a day worth of oil would require a very large number of very small pipes.

Others believe Turkish and Iraqi oil buyers travel into Syria with their own trucks, and purchase the ISIS oil right at the refineries, transporting themselves out of Syria. Convoys of trucks are easy to spot from the air, and easy to destroy from the air, though up until now the U.S. does not seem to have done so.

So as is said, ISIS’ sources of funding grow curious and curiouser the more one knows. Those seeking to destroy ISIS might well wish to look into where the money comes from, and ask why, after a year and three months of war, no one has bothered to follow the money.

And cut it off.

Peter Van Buren spent a year in Iraq as a State Department Foreign Service Officer serving as Team Leader for two Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). Now in Washington, he writes about Iraq and the Middle East at his blog, We Meant Well. His new book is We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People (The American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books).
© 2015 Peter Van Buren

19 November, 2015

 

By RT news

President Vladimir Putin says he’s shared Russian intelligence data on Islamic State financing with his G20 colleagues: the terrorists appear to be financed from 40 countries, including some G20 member states.

During the summit, “I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) units by private individuals. This money, as we have established, comes from 40 countries and, there are some of the G20 members among them,” Putin told the journalists.

Putin also spoke of the urgent need to curb the illegal oil trade by IS.

“I’ve shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products,” he said.

“The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon,” Putin added, comparing the convoy to gas and oil pipeline systems.

It’s not the right time to try and figure out which country is more and which is less effective in the battle with Islamic State, as now a united international effort is needed against the terrorist group, Putin said.

Putin reiterated Russia’s readiness to support armed opposition in Syria in its efforts to fight Islamic State.

“Some armed opposition groups consider it possible to begin active operations against IS with Russia’s support. And we are ready to provide such support from the air. If it happens it could become a good basis for the subsequent work on a political settlement,” he said.

“We really need support from the US, European nations, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran,” the president added.

Putin pointed out the change in Washington’s stance on cooperation with Moscow in the fight against the terrorists.

“We need to organize work specifically concentrated on the prevention of terrorist attacks and tackling terrorism on a global scale. We offered to cooperate [with the US] in anti-IS efforts. Unfortunately, our American partners refused. They just sent a written note and it says: ‘we reject your offer’,” Putin said.

“But life is always evolving and at a very fast pace, often teaching us lessons. And I think that now the realization that an effective fight [against terror] can only be staged together is coming to everybody,” the Russian leader said.

According to Putin, first of all it should be decided which groups in Syria can be considered terrorist organizations and which can be attributed to an armed, but still legitimate part of the Syrian opposition.

“Our efforts must be concentrated on the battle with terrorist organizations.”

Putin also disagreed with Western criticism of Russia’s actions in Syria, where the country has been carrying out a large-scale air campaign against Islamic State and other terror groups since September 30.

“It’s really difficult to criticize us,” he said, adding that Russia has repeatedly asked its foreign partners to provide data on terrorist targets in Syria.

“They’re afraid to inform us on the territories which we shouldn’t strike, fearing that it is precisely where we’ll strike; that we are going to cheat everybody,” the president said.

“Apparently, their opinion of us is based on their own concept of human decency,” he added.

Putin told the media that Russia has already established contact with the Syrian opposition, which has asked Moscow not carry out airstrikes in the territories it controls.

Still no conclusion on what caused Sinai plane crash
It’s too early to make conclusions about the reasons for the crash of the Russian A321 jet over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in late October, as all possible reasons are still being considered by the investigators, Putin said.

“We know about all the possible scenarios, all of the scenarios are being considered. The final conclusion can only be made after the implementation and completion of the inspection,” he stressed.

“If there was an explosion, the traces of explosives would have remained on the liner’s cover and on the belongings of the passengers. It’s inevitable. And we have enough equipment and skilled, world class experts, capable of finding those traces. Only then would it be possible to speak about the reasons for this tragedy,” the president added.

With 224 people dying in the crash, Putin said that “it’s a huge emotional pain for all of us; for all Russian people, no matter what the cause of the crash was.”

16 November 2015

 

By Dr Gideon Polya

The appalling Paris atrocity – about 130 innocent civilians killed and 300 wounded – must be unequivocally condemned as utterly barbaric by all decent people throughout the world but also demands honest appraisal as evident “blowback” for the role of France under serial war criminal President Francois Hollande in the Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI) –promoted US War on Muslims (13 million Muslim deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation since 1990). In the 21st century a US lackey, nuclear terrorist, New Vichy France has attacked or otherwise sent military forces to 13 substantially Muslim countries and is major backer of nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel.

The reality of France’s role in the ongoing, post-1990 US War on Muslims was incisively exposed at the time of the French invasion of Mali in 2013 when outstanding anti-racist Jewish American human rights activist, lawyer, author, investigative journalist and critic of western imperialism, Apartheid Israel and the US surveillance state, Glenn Greenwald, writing in the UK Guardian, stated: “As French war planes bomb Mali, there is one simple statistic that provides the key context: this west African nation of 15 million people is the eighth country in which western powers – over the last four years alone – have bombed and killed Muslims – after Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and the Philippines (that does not count the numerous lethal tyrannies propped up by the west in that region). For obvious reasons, the rhetoric that the west is not at war with the Islamic world grows increasingly hollow with each new expansion of this militarism. But within this new massive bombing campaign, one finds most of the vital lessons about western intervention that, typically, are steadfastly ignored” [1].

In January 2014 it was estimated that France had invaded about 80 countries since the time of Charlemagne, but that listing (now 82) requires an updating to more precisely include war criminal French military activities in 14 countries (13 substantially Muslim) in the 21st century under President Francois Hollande and his predecessor President Nicolas Sarkozy.

These 21st century 14 national victims of French state terrorism are highlighted in bold below in the list of 82 countries invaded by France together with the approximate dates for the entry of French forces [2]:

Western Europe – Austria (1805, 1809, 1945), Belgium (9th- 12th century, 15th -18th century, 1797), France (Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade, 1209-1229; Huguenot Massacres, 1572; French Revolution Reign of Terror, 1793-1794; Vichy French Jewish Genocide, 1941-1945), Germany (6th century, 800-814, 1812, 1919, 1945), Italy (800-814, 16th – 18th century, 1796-1815), Luxembourg (1797, 1866), Malta (1798), Netherlands (9th century, 14th – 15th century, 17th -18th century, 1672, 1794), Portugal (17th -18th century, 1807), Spain (18th century, 1808), Switzerland (9th-16th century, 1515), Britain (UK) (1066; Hundred Years War, 1337-1437).

Eastern Europe – Belarus (1812), Hungary (1919), Lithuania (1812), Poland (1807, 1812), Russia (1812, 1918-1920).

Non-Arab Africa – Benin (17th – 19th century slavery , 1863, 1891-1894, 1904, 1977), Burkina Faso (1805-1894, 2013), Cameroon (1916, 1919, 1946), Central African Republic (1897, 1979, 1997, 2013), Chad (1890, 1894, 1960, 1972, 1975, 2013), Comoros (1843, 1978), Congo (Brazzaville) (16th – 19th century slavery, 1880, 1880s-1930s, genocide by French), Congo (Zaire) (1960s -21st century, French peace keepers), Côte D’Ivoire (15th – 19th century slavery, 1842; 2002), Djibouti (1862, 1975 onwards), Equatorial Guinea (15th – 19th century slavery, 1900), Gabon (15th – 19th century slavery, 1885, 1964), Gambia (15th – 19th century slavery, 1867, 1981), Guinea (15th – 19th century slavery, 1849, 1886), Liberia ( 15th – 19th century slavery), Madagascar (1642, 1883, Mali (19th century, 1850, 2013), Mauritania (1858, 1903, 1920, 2013), Mauritius (1715-1810), Niger (1885, 1890s, 1922, 1946, 2013), Réunion (1638), Sao Tomé and Principe (15th – 19th century slavery), Senegal (1638, 1639, 1677, 1775-1783, 1854-1885) , Seychelles (1756), Sierra Leone (15th – 19th century slavery), Somalia (1862, 2009, 2013), Togo (16th – 19th century slavery, 1897, 1912-1918, 1992, 1946), Western Sahara (20th century, 1904).

North America – Canada (1534), United States (17th century).

Latin America – Dominica (16th century), Dominican Republic (1697, 1795), French Guiana (1604), Grenada (1674), Guadeloupe (16th century), Haiti (1697, 1801, 2004), Martinique (1635), Mexico (1861), Monserrat (16th century), Puerto Rico (16th century), Saint Lucia (1660), Turks and Caicos (17th century, 1764).

North Africa and Middle East – Algeria (1820s), Egypt (1798, 1956), Iraq (1991, 2014), Lebanon (11th – 13th century Crusades, 1861, 1916, 1919), Libya (1815, 1940 with UK , 2011), Morocco (1854), Palestine (11th – 13th century Crusades), Syria (11th – 13th century Crusades, 1916, 1920, 1941, 1945, 2014), Tunisia (1881, 1945).

Turkey , Central Asia – Afghanistan (2001), Turkey (1915).

South Asia – Bangladesh (16th -18th century), India (16th -18th century).

South East Asia – Cambodia (1854, 1863, 1945), Laos (1893, 1945), Vietnam (1860, 1945).

East Asia – China (1856), Korea (1950).

Pacific – French Polynesia (1840), New Caledonia (1853), New Zealand (Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior bombing, 1985), Vanuatu (19th century).

To reiterate, France in the 21st century has invaded or otherwise had military forces in 14 countries of which all but Haiti had substantial Muslim populations. Under serial war criminal President Francois Hollande, France is currently involved militarily in 11 substantially Muslim countries (and one supposes also reserves a France-UK-US (FUKUS) Alliance “right” to continue to bomb targets in Libya, a “right” currently being exercised by the US). This list does not include an uncertain number of countries in which France is involved in clandestinely, in military training or in arms dealing.

Military invasion, bombing, and military-backed neo-colonial hegemony will result in not only deaths from violence but also in avoidable deaths from war- or hegemony-imposed deprivation as analyzed in my book “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” [3]. Avoidable death, avoidable mortality, excess death, excess mortality, premature death, untimely death, death that should not have happened) is the difference between the observed deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, decently governed country with the same demographics (i.e. the same birth rate and age distribution) [3]. Thus 1.3 billion people have died avoidably in the period 1950-2005, 1.2 million in the Developing World and 0.6 million in the Muslim World, a Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide 100 times greater than the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed) or the “forgotten” WW2 Bengali Holocaust in which the British with Australian complicity deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death for strategic reasons (genocidally racist White Australia was complicit by withholding food from starving Indian from its huge wartime grain stores) [4-7].

As summarized below, over 142 million people have died avoidably from deprivation since 1950 in countries occupied by France in the post-WW2 era. The most justifiably much-admired beauty and elegance of Paris, France, French high culture and French haute couture have come at an enormous price for Developing countries and Muslim countries in particular.

The following summary data is of post-1950 avoidable mortality/ 2005 population (both in millions, m) and expressed as a percentage (%) for France, for each country occupied by France in the post-1945 era, and as a total for all the countries subject to French occupation in that period. The asterisk (*) indicates a major occupation by more than one country in the post-WW2 era: France [3.275m/60.711m = 5.4%] – Algeria [7.167m/32.877m =21.8%], Benin [3.267m/7.103m = 46.0%], Burkina Faso [6.810m/13.798m = 49.4%], Cambodia* [5.852m/14.825m = 39.5%], Cameroon* [6.669m/16.564m = 40.3%], Central African Republic [2.274m/3.962m =57.4%], Chad [5.085m/9.117m = 55.8%], Comoros [0.204m/0.812m =25.1%], Congo (Brazzaville) [1.085m/3.921m = 27.7%], Côte d’Ivoire [6.953m/17.165m = 40.5%], Djibouti [0.265m/0.721m = 36.8%], Egypt* [19.818m/74.878m = 26.5%], French Guiana [0.010m/0.187m = 5.3%], French Polynesia [0.018m/0.252m = 7.1%], Gabon [0.504m/1.375m = 36.7%], Guadeloupe [0.025m/0.446m = 5.6%], Guinea [5.185m/8.788m = 59.0%], Haiti* [4.089m/8.549m = 47.9%], Laos* [2.653m/5.918m = 44.8%], Madagascar [7.098m/18.409m = 38.6%], Mali [6.808m/13.829m = 49.2%], Martinique [0.022m/0.397m = 5.5%], Mauritania [1.294m/3.069m = 42.2%], Mauritius [0.064m/1.244m = 5.18], Morocco* [8.202m/31.564m = 26.0%], New Caledonia [0.017m/0.237m = 7.2%], Niger [6.558m/12.873m = 50.9%], Réunion [0.047m/0.777m = 6.0%], Senegal [4.457m/9.393m = 47.5%], Syria* [2.198m/18.650m = 11.8%], Togo [1.950m/5.129m = 38.0%], Tunisia [1.582m/10.042m =15.8%], Vanuatu* [0.037m/0.222m = 16.7%], Vietnam* [24.015m/83.585m = 28.7%], Total = 142.291m/430.678m = 33.0% [3].

The 21st century French military involvements from Haiti to Afghanistan are summarized below with countries in alphabetical order together with data on (a) current population, (b) 1950-2005 avoidable deaths from deprivation [3], (c) current annual avoidable deaths in 2015 from deprivation, and (d) annual per capita GDP (noting that the annual per capita GDP for rich, peaceful and independent France is $41,000):

Afghanistan [32.5 million; (b) 16.6 million; (c) 149,000; (d) $1,900]. Remote Afghanistan has been repeatedly invaded by the British (19th century), the Russians (1979) and thence by the US Alliance including France (2001). 2,000 French combat troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2012 leaving 1,400 for training and logistics. The continuing US Alliance Afghan War (6 million Afghan deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation) [8, 9] was ostensibly about the presence in Afghanistan of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and their supposed responsibility for 9-11, an atrocity that numerous science, engineering, architecture, aviation, military and intelligence experts say was a US Government false flag operation, with some asserting Israeli involvement [10]. However Al Jazeera reported a recent interview with former Afghan President Hamid Karzai thus (2015): “On the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Afghan President Hamid Karzai joins Mehdi Hasan in UpFront’s Headliner segment. In this online preview, Karzai dismisses al-Qaeda’s presence in the country, calling it a “myth”. “[Al-Qaeda] is for me a myth … For us, they don’t exist.” “I don’t know if al-Qaeda existed and I don’t know if they exist,” said Karzai. “I have not seen them and I’ve not had any report about them, any report that would indicate that al-Qaeda is operating in Afghanistan.” Asked whether he believed Osama bin Laden carried out the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington DC and plotted them from Afghanistan, he responded: “That is what I have heard from our Western friends. That’s what the Western media says. There is no doubt that an operation, a terrorist operation was conducted in New York and in Washington.” Asked again by Hasan if he believed the 9/11 attacks were the responsibility of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the former president responded: “I neither believe nor disbelieve something that I don’t know about. I can tell you that Afghanistan was as much a victim of terrorism as was America, as were the people who were killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks” [11]. The horrendous death toll in Afghanistan (6 million Afghan deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation since 2001) indicate the appropriateness of the terms Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide to describe the France-complicit US Afghan War [8, 9]. However one cannot ignore collateral damage from French-complicit Afghan genocide – 1 million people have died from opiate related causes globally due to the US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 6% of world market share in 2001 to 93% in 2007, the breakdown (as of 2015) including 280,000 Americans, 256,000 Indonesians, 68,000 Iranians, 25,000 British, 14,000 Canadians, 10,000 Germans, 5,000 Australians and 500 French [8].

Burkina Faso [(a) 18.1 million; (b) 6.8 million; (c) 109,000; (d) $1,700]. Burkina Faso was brutally colonized by the French in the period 1805-1894 [3, 12] and gained nominal independence in 1960 from France, which nevertheless retained neocolonial hegemony. French forces returned in 2013 as part of Operation Burkhane directed against Muslim rebels in the Sahel [13].

Central African Republic [(a) 4.9 million; (b) 2.3 million; (c) 55,000; (d) $600]. The Central African Republic was colonized brutally by France in the late 19th century and gained nominal independence in 1960 from France, which nevertheless retained neocolonial hegemony [3]. In the post-2013 Central African Republic (CAR) civil war after Seleka rebels led by Djotodia (a Muslim) seized the capital, Bangui, Christian and animist anti-balaka forces have targeted Muslims. 6,000 people have been killed, nearly all of the 436 mosques in the country have been destroyed, and Muslims are being targeted for forced conversion or expulsion. The UN reports that that 2.7 million people are in need of aid, and 1.5 million people were affected by food insecurity. The UNHCR reports that 0.5 million people out of a population of about 5 million have been displaced and 0.4 million have fled to neighbouring states [14, 15]. According to the Guardian: “France ordered the deployment of 1,200 additional soldiers, following a call for help from the interim government and a UN security council resolution. They joined 3,500 soldiers from a central African support mission. At the start of 2014, a quarter of the country’s entire population was internally displaced. International pressure forced [Muslim Seleka leader] Djotodia to step down, and soon the Séléka were retreating north, where they continued to target Christians. But as the anti-balaka made inroads elsewhere, villages emptied of their Muslim populations, with homes looted and mosques torched. In the capital, Bangui, the Muslim population dropped from up to 145,000 to just 900. Amnesty International called it ethnic cleansing and warned of a Muslim exodus of historic proportions. Many Muslims were left feeling resentful towards French peacekeepers and the new president, Catherine Samba-Panza, a Christian who studied in France and has two of her three children living there” [16].

Chad [(a) 14.0 million; (b) 5.1 million; (c) 147,000; (d) $2,600]. Chad was brutally colonized by France in the 1890s and gained nominal independence in 1960 from France, which nevertheless retained neocolonial hegemony [3] . French forces repeatedly intervened from the 1980s onwards against northern Muslim rebels. French forces returned in force in 2013 as part of Operation Burkhane directed against Muslim rebels in the Sahel [13].

Côte D’Ivoire [(a) 20.1 million; (b) 7.0 million; (c) 199,000; (d) $3,100]. Côte D’Ivoire was ravaged by French, British and Portuguese slave traders in the 15th – 19th centuries, was brutally colonized by the French in the period 1842-1944, and finally regained independence in 1960 but with brutal French repression of the socialist independence movement. The French re-invaded in 2002 and French forces have remained ever since [3], with the French now reinforcing their base at the capital, Abidjan, as a key part of their military and economic control over the region [13].

Djibouti [(a) 0.9 million; (b) 141,000; (c) 8,000; (d) $3,100]. Djibouti was seized by France in the 1860s but gained nominal independence in 1977 with a major, continuing French , US and British presence. Djibouti was the base for French participation in the 1990-1991 Gulf War. The French were involved in suppressing Affar rebellion in the period 1977-2002. In 2003 the French lackey government sought the expulsion of 0.1 million Ethiopians and Somalis [3]. France gave the former French Foreign Legion Camp Lemonnier to the government of Djibouti, which then leased it to the US in 2001. France maintains over 1,500 troops in Djibouti and French forces in Djibouti have taken part in operations in Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Côte D’Ivoire [13].

Haiti [(a) 10.7 million; (b) 4.1 million; (c) 52,000, (d) $1,800]. Haiti was acquired by France in 1697 and was used for a slave-based plantation economy. A slave rebellion in 1789 led to British invasion in 1793. In 1804 an independent Haiti was declared but the new state was subject to repeated US intervention and invasion, culminating in decades of brutal rule in the 20th century by “Papa Doc” Duvalier. A democratically-elected Haitian Government under President Aristide was terminated in 2004 and Aristide was kidnapped and removed to Africa by the US. US lackey French forces were brought in as “peace keepers” but were later replaced by US lackey Latin American forces.

Iraq [(a) 36.4 million; (b) 5.3 million; (c) 47,000; (d) $15,300]. Iraq was invaded by the UK in 2014. The UK continued to repress Iraqi rebellion in Iraq up to and including WW2, notwithstanding ostensible Iraqi independence in 1932. France was involved in the Gulf War (1990-1991) in which 0.2 million Iraqis were killed and in the war criminal 1990-2003 Sanctions in which Iraqi deaths from imposed deprivation totalled 1.7 million. France was not directly involved in the 2003-2011 US Alliance Iraq War in which 2.7 million Iraqis died from violence (1.5 million) or from war-imposed deprivation (1.2 million). France became involved in US Alliance bombing of Iraq in 2014, intervention that may prolong war and civil war in Iraq for decades more. The Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide has, so far, been associated with 1.7 million violent deaths, 2.9 million avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation, 5-6 million refugees and 2 million under-5 infant deaths (90% avoidable and due to horrendous US Alliance war crimes in gross violation of the Geneva Convention) [9, 17].

Libya [(a) 6.3 million; (b) 0.8 million; (c) 8,000; (d) $15,900]. France was involved with the UK in attacking Libya in 1815. Libya was brutally occupied by Italy in the period 1911-1943 but was “liberated” and ruled by the UK and France until UN administration in 1949 and independence in 1951. Under Muammar Gaddafi (1969-2011) Libya became the most prosperous country in all of Africa. The 2011 France-UK-US (FUKUS) Alliance bombing campaign removed Gaddafi, splintered the country, killed 100,000 people and generated 1 million refugees. From zero annual avoidable deaths under Gaddafi, UN demographic data now indicate 8,000 avoidable deaths annually in a devastated Libya. The US continues to bomb Libya.

Mali [(a) 20.1 million; (b) 7.0 million; (c) 199,000; (d) $1,700]. Mali was brutally subdued by the French in the 19th century but secured independence in 1960. In 2013, France launched airstrikes against Tuareg rebels who had conquered the northern half of the country and finally defeated them in a so-called Operation Serval. France followed up Operation Serval with Operation Barkhane dedicated to killing Muslim rebels in the Sahel countries of Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad.

Mauritania [(a) 17.6 million; (b) 1.3 million; (c) 123,000; (d) $4,300]. In the 14th and 15th centuries Mauritania was part of the Mali Empire but was increasingly subject to European (Portuguese, English, Dutch and French) incursion, In the 19th century the French invaded to consolidate French territory from Senegal to the Sudan. Mauritanian resistance was only finally overcome in the 1930s. Mauritania became formally independent in 1960 but was subject to French hegemony and interference. France’s Operation Barkhane involves thousands of air-supported French troops dedicated to killing Muslim rebels in the Sahel countries of Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad.

Niger [(a) 19.9 million; (b) 6.6 million; (c) 111,000. (d) $1,100]. In the 17th century Niger was part of the Songhai Empire based on the River Niger. Niger was conquered by France in the late 19th century but became ostensibly independent in 1960 but under French hegemony. The French Operation Barkhane involves thousand of air-supported French troops dedicated to killing Muslim rebels in the Sahel countries of Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad.

Somalia [(a) 10,8 million; (b) 5.6 million; (c) 91,000. (d) $600]. Somalia was repeatedly invaded by Italy in the 19th century and the 20th century. The British took over Somalia in WW2. Independence in 1960 was followed by war against Ethiopia and civil war, the effects of which were exacerbated by drought and famine. The US invaded in 1992 and after extensive civil war an Islamic administration assumed power in 2005. However the US backed an Ethiopian invasion in 2007 and thence a Kenyan invasion. In 2009 France and Germany invaded Somali waters to retake a French yacht which had been captured by Somali pirates. In 2013 French special forces from Djibouti failed in an operation to rescue French intelligence agent from Indigenous Somali al-Shabaab forces in the town of Buulo Mareer.

Syria [18.5 million; (b) 2.2 million; (c) 30,000; (d) $5,100]. French crusaders invaded Syria in the 11th and 12th centuries. Notwithstanding Arab participation in the British defeat of the Turks in WW2, secret deception by the Allies via the 1916 Anglo-French Sykes-Picot Agreement divided the Middle East between Britain and France. In 1920 Syria was put under a League of Nations mandate to France. In 1925 there was a Druze rebellion and the French bombarded Damascus. In 1926 Lebanon was separated from Syria by France and in 1936 Syria was granted autonomy. In 1941 British and Free French forces invaded to defeat pro-Nazi Vichy French forces. In 1944 Syria became independent and in 1945 Syria became a founding member of the UN. The last French forces left Syria in 1946. However French diplomatic, military, financial and nuclear assistance to Apartheid Israel ultimately enabled Apartheid Israel to occupy and largely ethnically cleanse the Golan Heights part of Syria in 1967 and to regularly bomb Syria with impunity since then. France (together with Turkey, the US, UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar) has materially and diplomatically backed anti-Assad rebels in Syria since about 2011 and only a Russia/China veto at the UN Security Council prevented a France-UK-US (FUKUS) Alliance repeat in Syria of what FUKUS did to Libya. Assad’s Syria barely survives as a rare secular state in the Muslim world with Russian and Iranian support whereas US policy has destroyed secular regimes elsewhere in the Muslim world, notably in Afghanistan (1978), Iran ( 1953), Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011)[18]. Assad commenting after the Paris atrocity: “[France’s] mistaken policies… have contributed to the spread of terrorism… France has got to know what we live with in Syria…[ President Francois Hollande] should change his policy…The question that is being asked throughout France today is, was France’s policy over the past five years the right one? The answer is no” [19]. Indeed on 12 November 2012, precisely 3 years before the Paris attack, France became the first Western power to officially recognise Syria’s opposition coalition as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people [20]. The Syrian Civil War has so far killed about 0.3 million people violently, possibly killed about 0.3 million people through war-imposed deprivation, and generated about 12 million refugees. Syria was once a haven of religious toleration [21] and a world leader per capita in providing haven for refugees, but has now been devastated in a France-, UK-, US- and Apartheid Israel-backed sectarian civil war and half of its population are now refugees themselves.

France has invaded about 82 countries (as compared to the UK 193, Australia 95, the US 70, the US 70, Germany 38, Japan 30, Russia 24, Canada 24, Apartheid Israel 12 and China 2) [2, 22-24 ], testament to an entrenched culture of French hubris, French imperialism, French racism and French state terrorism. Many throughout the world are quite rightly appalled by the Paris atrocity but ignore or excuse the continuing, horrendous record of French invasions of other countries, French state terrorism and war crimes such as those for which Nazi German generals were hanged after 1945.

Indeed the ongoing war criminal French invasion of other countries in the 21st century is regarded by many in the Orwellian, Zionist-perverted US Alliance Murdochracies, Lobbyocracies and Corporatocracies as “peace keeping” or “responsibility to protect” (”R2P”) i.e. these egregious war crimes are not considered to be crimes at all but are regarded as noble humanitarian endeavours. This Mainstream media whitewashing of French war crimes reminds one of the words of great French playwright Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) in “Tartuffe ou L’Imposteur” (“Tartuffe or the Hypocrite”): “Le scandale du monde est ce que fait l’offence, Et ce n’est pas pécher que pécher en silence (It is public scandal that constitutes offence, and to sin in secret is not to sin at all)” [3].

People are rightly appalled by the Paris atrocities perpetrated against hundreds of unarmed and innocent civilians but ignore the Elephant in the Room reality that since the defeat of Napoleon by the Russians and thence by the British and Germans at Waterloo, the French have mostly directed their military prowess against effectively unarmed and impoverished people in the Americas (Mexico, Guiana and Haiti) , the northern half of Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia, East Asia (China) and the Pacific. Almost none of these victim countries have ever invaded other countries and then only with contiguous, neighbouring countries [3]. Indeed of the 14 countries bombed or occupied by France in the 21st century, only Iraq and Libya had invaded a neighbour (UK-created Kuwait and Chad, respectively). The annual per capita GDP of France’s 14 impoverished 21st century victims range from $600 (Central African Republic and Somalia) to $15,300 and $15,900 for oil-rich Iraq and Libya, respectively, as compared to $41,000 for serial-invader and Syrian terrorism-supporting France, $54,000 for serial invader and Syrian terrorism-supporting US, $137,000 for Syrian terrorism–supporting and Yemen-invading Qatar and $52,000 for Syrian terrorism-supporting and Yemen-invading Saudi Arabia [25].

Conclusions.

Decent people around the world will unreservedly condemn the appalling Paris atrocity involving about 130 innocent and unarmed civilians killed and 300 wounded. However this atrocity is evident “blowback” for the role of France under serial war criminal Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande in the Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)–promoted US War on Muslims that amounts to a Muslim Holocaust and a Muslim Genocide (13 million Muslim deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation since 1990). Indeed ISIS has claimed responsibility for this atrocity, citing the French military involvement in Syria.

In the 21st century a US lackey, nuclear terrorist, New Vichy France has attacked or otherwise sent military forces to 13 substantially Muslim countries and is major backer of nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel that is responsible for an ongoing Palestinian Genocide ( 2 million Palestinian deaths since 1936 from violence, 0.1 million, or from violently-imposed deprivation, 1.9 million [26]).

Decent people must wonder what they can do in the face of appalling non-state terrorism as exhibited by ISIS in this latest Paris atrocity and the vastly worse carnage wrought by French state terrorism, US state terrorism, UK state terrorism and Apartheid Israeli state terrorism in the Muslim world. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Decent people who are utterly opposed to both non-state terrorism and state terrorism must (a) inform everyone they can, (b) urge and support urgent cease-fire, dialogue and compromise between all parties to prevent a worsening catastrophe in both Iraq and Syria, and (c) urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all people, parties, politicians, companies, corporations and countries disproportionately involved in militarism, violence, war, non-state terrorism and state terrorism.

Unfortunately in New Vichy France under serial war criminal Hollande, (a) there is a massive media ignoring, as in the rest of the Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)–dominated West, of the horrendous realities of US Alliance state terrorism, (b) the rational course of urgent cease-fire, dialogue and compromise is dismissed in favour of endless high technology extermination, and (c) a recent French court ruling makes it now effectively illegal in France for pro-peace and pro-human rights activists to advocate Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against neo-Nazi apartheid states like Apartheid Israel and their racist supporters [27]. Decent French people must respond to the appalling Paris atrocity by recognizing the racist and murderous evil of state terrorism and its propensity to excite murderous non-state terrorism – they must get rid of Hollande and his ilk at the ballot box.

References.

[1]. Glenn Greenwald, “The bombing of Mali highlights all the lessons of western intervention”, Guardian, 15 January 2013: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/14/mali-france-bombing-intervention-libya .

[2]. Gideon Polya, “President Hollande And French Invasion Of Privacy Versus French Invasion Of 80 Countries Since 800 AD”, Countercurrents, 15 January, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150114.htm .

[3]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes an avoidable mortality-related history of every country since Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on he web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality_05.html .

[4]. “Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Bengal Famine) writings of Gideon Polya”, Gideon Polya Writing: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/bengali-holocaust .

[5]. Gideon Polya (1998), “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, 2008 edition that is now available for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ .

[6]. Gideon Polya (1995) ” The Forgotten Holocaust – The 1943/44 Bengal Famine”: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com.au/2005/07/forgotten-holocaust-194344-bengal.html .

[7]. Gideon Polya (2011), “Australia And Britain Killed 6-7 Million Indians In WW2 Bengal Famine”, Countercurrents, 29 September, 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya290911.htm .

[8]. “Afghan Holocaust Afghan Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ .

[9]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .

[10]. “Experts: US did 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .

[11]. “Preview: Hamid Karzai says al-Qaeda is a “myth’”, Al Jazeera, 10 September 2015: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upfront/2015/09/preview-hamid-karzai-al-qaeda-myth-150910101842572.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=*AfPak%20Daily%20Brief ).

[12]. Sven Lindqvist, “Exterminate All The Brutes”.

[13]. Jeremy Bender, “France’s military is all over Africa”, Business Insider Australia, 23 January 2015: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/frances-military-is-all-over-africa-2015-1 .

[14]. Azzad Essa, “Muslims being “erased” from Central African Republic”, Al Jazeera, 31 July 2015: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/amnesty-muslims-erased-central-african-republic-150731083248166.html

[15]. UNHCR, “Central African Republic”: http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e45c156.html .

[16]. David Smith, “France’s poisoned legacy in the Central African Republic”, Guardian, 29 April 2015: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/29/france-poisoned-legacy-central-african-republic .

[17]. “Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .

[18]. Gideon Polya, “Fundamentalist America Has Trashed Secular Governance, Modernity, Democracy, Women’s Rights And Children’s Rights In The Muslim World”, Countercurrents, 21 May, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya210515.htm

[19]. Imed Lamloun, “Syria’s Assad blames France as Arab world condemns Paris attacks”, Yahoo News, 14 November 2015: http://news.yahoo.com/syrias-assad-blames-france-arab-world-condemns-paris-193922961.html .

[20]. “Syria: France backs anti-Assad coalition”, BBC News, 13 November 2012: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-20319787 .

[21]. William Dalrymple, “From the Holy Mountain”.

[22]. Gideon Polya, “As UK Lackeys Or US Lackeys Australians Have Invaded 85 Countries (British 193, French 80, US 70)”, Countercurrents, 9 February, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya090215.htm .

[23]. Gideon Polya, “The US Has Invaded 70 Nations Since 1776 – Make 4 July Independence From America Day”, Countercurrents, 5 July, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya050713.htm .

[24]. Gideon Polya, “British Have Invaded 193 Countries: Make 26 January ( Australia Day, Invasion Day) British Invasion Day”, Countercurrents, 23 January, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya230115.htm .

[25]. “List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita .

[26]. “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .

[27]. Ali Abunimah, “France now more repressive of boycott calls than Israel”, Electronic Intifada, 4 November 2015: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/france-now-more-repressive-boycott-calls-israel .

Dr Gideon Polya has been teaching science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript

) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine ). When words fail one can say it in pictures – for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .
16 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

‘It is illegal under US and international law to transfer weapons to human rights abusers, or to forces that will likely use it to commit gross violations of human rights.’
By Sarah Lazare

The Pentagon announced on Monday that the U.S. has approved a $1.29 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, despite mounting evidence of the country’s mass atrocities and possible war crimes in neighboring Yemen.

The U.S. State Department on Friday approved the sale of over 10,000 bombs, munitions, and weapons parts produced by Boeing and Raytheon. This includes 5,200 Paveway II “laser guided” and 12,000 “general purpose” bombs. “Bunker Busters,” also included in the deal, are designed to destroy concrete structures.

“The proposed sale augments Saudi Arabia’s capability to meet current and future threats from potential adversaries during combat operations,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Defense, said in an announcement of the deal released Monday.

But Raed Jarrar, government relations manager for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), told Common Dreams: “Sending additional weapons to the Middle East will not stabilize the region or put an end to violence and extremism. Supporting proxy wars, interventions, and military occupations will only add fuel to the fire.”

“It’s also illegal under US and international law to transfer weapons to human rights abusers, or to forces that will likely use it to commit gross violations of human rights,” Jarrar continued. “There is documented evidence that such abuses have been committed by almost all of U.S. allies in the region.”

The U.S. statement indicates that the deal will, in part, be used to replenish arms for Saudi Arabia’s seven-month-long military assault on Yemen, which has killed at least 2,355 civilians and wounded 4,862, according to United Nations statistics.

With the backing of the U.S. and U.K., the Saudi-led coalition is responsible for the vast majority of these killings. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported in September that “almost two-thirds of reported civilian deaths had allegedly been caused by coalition airstrikes, which were also responsible for almost two-thirds of damaged or destroyed civilian public buildings.”

The approval came just a month after the U.S. approved an $11.25 billion sale of combat ships to Saudi Arabia, defying the international call for an arms embargo over war crimes concerns. What’s more, it continues a long-standing trend in which the U.S. is a major weapons supplier to the gulf state. The IHS Jane’s 360 report, released in March, found that Saudi Arabia was the primary “defense” trading partner with the United States in 2014.

In announcing this latest weapons deal, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said: “Providing these defense articles supports Saudi Arabian defense missions and promotes stability in the region… and enables Saudi Arabia to safeguard the world’s largest oil reserves.”

But experts warn that such sales, in fact, are driving instability and atrocities across the Middle East—far beyond Yemen.

In a statement released on Monday, Paul Shannon of the AFSC called on “the U.S., France and the west to cut off its support and vast weapons supplies to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies whose royal families have been responsible for the spread of the jihadist extremist ideology throughout the region.”

The arms deal will proceed unless Congress moves to block it in the next 30 days.

Sarah Lazare is a staff at commondreams.org

17 November 2015

By Prof. Shah Alam Khan

Elena Beaulieu (name changed), the twenty five year old student from Paris, was among the 80 people killed at the Bataclan Concert venue. Having been to Paris thrice, I could very well imagine the young girl in her bright pink lipstick, dancing excitedly to the tunes of the Eagles of Death Metal, unwary of the danger that lingered in the Parisian air like a poisonous gas. The mindless violence and murder appears to have a perennial occurrence on the streets of Paris now. Following the attacks on Charlie Hebdo this January, ‘Jihadi terror’ on the French soil became a reality.

But is it all about jihad? Is it all about radical Islam? Is it all about the ‘us’ versus ‘them’, where ‘us’ represents the triad of freedom, democracy and liberty and ‘them’, darkness and violence?

It is essential to abhor and condemn violence but it is also essential for the French to introspect. The origins of Friday’s attacks do not lie solely in the dusty lanes of Syria or the sleepy hamlets of Iraq. They reside very much in the zones de non-droit (lawless zones) of Paris and the une rues of Strasbourg. These areas with Muslim dominance have been fertile grounds for the cultivation of the jihadi who is willing to blow himself up amidst a group of innocent restaurant goers.

What have the French society done to its migrant population which compelled third and fourth generation children to fall for radical Islam? How does a third generation British Pakistani (Muslim) rise to represent the country’s cricket team while a third generation French Algerian happily straps a detonating belt across his waist in the name of jihad? The difference is not in their faiths or the migrant trajectories their forefathers have taken, the difference lies in the glue that integrates them to their respective societies. A paradox of liberal progress, which the French society so sadly represents.

It is strange that in Auberviliers, a northern suburb of Paris, Muslim children take an off from school for the Friday prayers. Strange, because it doesn’t happen in any other part of Europe!

It is but ironical that Islam is the religion of the ghettos of France. The segregation of Moroccan and Algerian Muslims is brazen in the present day France with Islamophobia governing every aspect of social consent building. In 2004, the National Consulting Committee on Human Rights of France asked its people how they feel about major religions. Half of the population thought positively about Christianity while a whopping 66% thought negatively of Islam! When asked, “what do you think when you hear the word Islam?” A good 83% responded-“terrorism”. A study in 2007 in France concluded that those resumes with a Muslim surname found it extremely difficult to get through the short-listing process for different jobs.

The colonial past of France digs its teeth in its present. The heavy immigration of Muslims from Algeria, Morroco, Tunisia and other North African nations is the conclusion of that process. Ghettoization, prejudice and a pan indifference to their problems render them vulnerable to divisive and violent ideologies.

It is thus important to know what radical Islam and the likes of ISIS can do to the peace of the French society but it also equally important to realize what the French society needs to do to prevent this radicalization. As they say, peace is not the absence of war; it is the presence of justice.

Prof. Shah Alam Khan AIIMS, New Delhi

16 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Jon Kofas

The bombing that took place in Paris with many casualties was a human tragedy and a political disaster for Western anti-terrorism policy. A day before ISIS suicide bombing in Paris, the bombing in Beirut, Lebanon demonstrated the ease with which jihadists fighting against the Assad regime are able to operate. In both cases the jihadist group ISIS operating in Syria and Iraq claimed responsibility and celebrated its success in retaliation for those trying to strike at ISIS targets. It is also likely that an ISIS affiliate in Egypt bombed a Russian passenger plane killing 224 people on 31 October 2015.

Three bombings within a remarkably short span of time demonstrate the reach of an organization that was once backed by US allies in the Middle East, and possibly by the US indirectly in the war that the US started to bring down the Assad regime, all in the name of freedom and democracy, just as the US has been delivering freedom and democracy in Libya. The quest to destabilize and ultimately overthrow Assad has failed in the last couple of years and made matters worse for everyone, above all the people of Syria. The US and its European and regional allies have managed to create a new force that has some appeal at least with the radicalized Sunni Muslims not just in Syria and Iraq but across the Middle East and beyond. Now that US secretary of State John Kerry has been in talks with Russia about how to stabilize Syria, perhaps agree on limited spheres of influence as imperialists, so that the greater threat of ISIS is contained.

Based on the results alone, one could conclude that the US policy of destabilization that helped to create the conditions for ISIS to operate is a miserable failure with horrible consequences. Of course, if one advocates a policy of redrawing the map of Syria and Iraq, as many Westerners and Zionists do, then the policy has been a resounding success. After all, both countries are already badly divided along sectarian and ethnic lines, and what could be a better way of limiting the influence of Iran in Iran and Syria and Russia in Syria other than redrawing the map just as Western imperialists almost did a century ago?

One would think that the lessons learned from the US policy of supporting jihadists in the 1980s in Afghanistan against the pro-USSR regime had become a lesson for policy change that would actually yield the desired results. On the contrary, as a status quo power immersed in Cold War ideology, the US does not change policy just because it backfires with dire consequences for itself and its allies. The military solution option is the only one on the table for the US for a combination of reasons. This means that cycle of jihadist attacks will continue as will the response with conventional militarist solutions that would in fact produce more unconventional warfare. Looking beyond the military solution to the root causes – social, economic and politic injustice – is out of the question during the era when neoliberal thinking prevails across the Western World.

1. The obsession of projecting strength through raw military power in the world as a way of retaining Pax American alive.

No matter the failures of the military solution, and unintended benefits to US rivals Russia, China and Iran that do not want the US to have exclusive role in determining the balance of power in the Middle East, policymakers in Washington, backed by the corporate world and media do not deviate from the failed military solution option until there is no choice as was the case with Iran and the nuclear deal. The empirical evidence suggests that while military solutions as a means of maintaining Pax Americana began to show weaknesses as far back as the 1960s during the Vietnam War. Yet, the US will not abandon a policy that has failed to deliver. Pax American was dead and buried during Vietnam, and President Johnson implied as much when he announced on TV that he would not seek reelection, knowing the failure of Vietnam was a resounding failure for Pax American he was supposed to guard and expand. However, the lessons of Vietnam included everything but political solutions to crises. Instead, a commitment to go deeper into debt as a nation – currently $17 trillion or about equal to GDP – so that Pax Americana’s glory could live on if not in the real world, at least in the minds of delusional politicians while defense contractors made huge profits.

2. Ideological commitment to militarism and imperialism, despite the evolution of new multi-polar world in which China plays a determining role.

The diehard ideologues to right-wing solutions have been around from the early days of the Truman administration advocating unilateral action in a world where the US defined its national security interests not just within its sovereign territory, not just in the Western Hemisphere as part of the long-standing Pan-Americanism perspective that dates back to the Monroe Doctrine, but across the world as the reckless and dysfunctional world’s policeman. Unable to exist as a society that is content with playing a role commensurate to its actual economic, political and economic power in the world, the ideologues advocating unilateralism, militarism and imperialism (intervention via over military action or covert operations) have proved detrimental to the security of the nation and to the destabilization of all places where there is intervention.

The US invaded and occupied Iraq under Saddam Hussein on a series of blatant lies, created chaos and divisions with an otherwise unified country, and above all it is responsible for millions of refugees that are a huge problem for neighboring nations. Similarly, the US goal to bring down Syria’s Assad and make that country a US satellite instead of one where Russia and Iran enjoy influence has entailed the creation of millions of refugees for which the right-wing American ideologues want harsh punishment instead of amnesty by EU nations. Blinded by the notion of an invincible America pursuing its destiny to exert preeminent influence if not dominate the world, these ideologues making money as consultants, politicians, media analysts and above all defense contractors thrive on destabilization and what they call crisis management; ironically for crises they create but then propose to “manage”.

3. Tangible interests of profits by defense contractors who hire former politicians and high level defense and intelligence officers to work and lobby for them.

President Eisenhower’s warning to the American people about the military industrial complex that was actually forged during the Wilson administration to manage World War I may have come too late. To this day, no one takes seriously the Eisenhower warning, partly because he was then advised by the IMF that the dollar as a reserve currency was becoming weak and would ultimately become even weaker owing to balance of payments deficits. Although the US could hardly afford both guns and butter, Johnson pursued such a reckless policy by escalating the Vietnam War to the delight of defense companies.
Because there is instability, jihadist terrorism, regional conflicts, and neglect of diplomacy as the first rather than the last option to resolve conflict, the profits of defense contractors rise as their stock market price indicates, and indeed the profits of every company from food and soft drink suppliers to defense to makers of drones. One cannot possibly ignore the power of the defense contractors and all industries feeding off the defense and intelligence budgets that simply drive up the public debt and weaken the civilian economy.

These people thrive on events that drive governments raise defense spending just at the time they should be cutting it and considering political solutions that may actually work against the reality of unending military solution failures that only generate more “unconventional warfare” or terrorism. As cynical as it may sound, all those making a living from the defense and intelligence domain delight in events such as that of Paris on 13 November 2015. These people know that peace and stability means cuts in their business, so they have no interest in political solutions to conflict.

4. The media is always there to pump up militarism as the sole solution.

The Western media had no problem with ISIS striking down the Russian plane and Beirut where Hezbollah was the target. In fact, the western media was criticizing Russian president Putin for striking at ISIS targets, prompting the US to indirectly assist ISIS by sending air cover to protect certain pro-West assets in Syria along the Turkish border. The media, reflecting US official position, sent the message to the world that the problem at hand was really Putin and Assad, rather than the barbaric ISIS that Russian planes were targeting; that is until the Paris bombing that had some arguing drive the idea into peoples’ heads that it is possible to wipe out unconventional type of war, or terrorism by simply striking hard at the enemy.

While the media does not create terrorism, it celebrates militarism by selecting news analysts and by reporting on stories of military solutions to conflict. It may be argued that the media must reflect the status quo and mirror what governments are pursuing. Editorial decisions are made on what stories to cover, how to cover them, and what spin to put on them, not just on FOX NEWS that has been called out by a number of organizations for extreme right wing coverage, but the New York Times that many regard as liberal newspaper, yet it hardly differs in goals from FOX.

5. Will Terrorism Subside or proliferate.

Contrary to what many politicians including the French President announced about closing the border and adopting other such “security measures” to preempt any strikes on French soil, and contrary to what British PM announced about striking down and ending jihadist activities, terrorism will continue and proliferate. This is because the underlying causes of terrorism are not addressed, and they include Western militarism and economic imperialism, complemented by racism and religious prejudice.

In 2015, we have much greater and wider forms of terrorism than we did when the US announced its war on terror after 9/11. The public relations exercises intended for mass consumption project the idea that government has the solution at hand and it is in position of protecting its citizens. However, jihadists already reside within the nations they wish to strike and history has demonstrated that unconventional war has never been won by conventional military means. One could argue that the Russian Tsars in the 19th century lacked the sophisticated science and technology available to the West in 2015.

Fair enough, but how do then explain the Paris bombings taking place when France is well known for its sophisticated intelligence and technology available? This does not mean that measures cannot be taken for greater security of citizens, but it does mean that there will never be a full proof method of combating unconventional warfare (terrorism) because of its nature unless the underlying causes are addressed. The political solution remains the only option to eradicate terrorism which is simply a publicity stunt that never brings about systemic change toward greater social justice because it lacks grassroots support and alienates people that would otherwise sympathize with the cause of social justice.

In the aftermath of the Paris bombings, the response I expect from the Western countries is one similar to the US in 9/11, although Russia will take advantage of the situation and once again propose a multilateral approach for a conventional strike against ISIS. One would think that if ISIS was able to bring down the Russia plane over Egypt, hit at the heart of Hezbollah in Beirut and hit Paris within a few days, there must be a wide network of support behind it with significant links.

There are still questions about which governments, corporations and varieties of businessmen still maintain indirect ties to this group that needs such cooperation to manage its considerable economic and strategic affairs. Similarly, there are questions about the US policy toward Syria that one the one hand, claims to be fighting to undermine ISIS, but on the other hand, it wants to bring Assad down and undermines Russia efforts to fight ISIS. Clearly, a coordinated policy between US-NATO with Russia, China and Iran could go a very long way to contain ISIS. However, this is not how US ideologues see the matter resolved; this is not what the defense contractors want, and this is not what the populist Republicans and rightwing media advocate. It makes sense that they keep citizens living in a state of perpetual fear as a means of imposing sociopolitical conformity amid a period when the socioeconomic gap has been widening on the US despite a modest economic recovery. Unless systemic problems of the Muslims – social justice issues – and the relationship of Muslim nations with the West are addressed, terrorism is a reality that will become more prominent in the next decade.

Jon Kofas is a retired university Professor from Indiana University.
14 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org

Instead of shifting blame for ISIS’s rise, the West and its allies should look in the mirror.

By Ben Reynolds

The Baroness Turner of Camden recently argued in The Diplomat that Iran is the “major driving force” in Iraq’s civil war, and furthermore, that Iran is “central to the broader conflict that has seemingly put the entire Middle East beyond hope of stability.” The Baroness’ article is right about one thing: the Iranian regime brutally suppresses dissidents. But it is not the main party responsible for Iraq’s civil war, or for the broader conflict in the Levant. It may be convenient for dissidents and opponents of the current Iranian regime to blame Iran for the rise of ISIS, but history tells a different story.

The U.S., Western Europe, and their regional allies in fact bear most of the responsibility for the rise of extremist groups like ISIS. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which Britain notably supported, was a strategic disaster. Contrary to speculation at the time, Saddam Hussein’s secular Ba’athist regime prevented Al Qaeda from operating out of Iraq. Iraq had also been supported by the West before the 1991 Gulf War as a counterbalance against the revolutionary Islamic Republic during the Iran-Iraq War. The U.S.-led invasion changed all of that.

The Iraq War toppled Saddam, destabilized the country, and led to a wave of sectarian bloodshed. It also made Iraq a safe haven and recruiting ground for Al Qaeda affiliates. Al Qaeda in Iraq, ISIS’s forerunner, was founded in April 2004. AQI conducted brutal attacks on Shia civilians and mosques in hopes of sparking a broader sectarian conflict. Iran naturally supported Shia militias, who fought extremists like AQI, both to expand its influence in Iraq and protect its Shia comrades. Iran cultivated ties with the Maliki government as well. Over the long term, Iran tried to seize the opportunity to turn Iraq from a strategic counterweight into a strategic ally. The U.S. didn’t do much to stop it.

When the U.S. helped to establish Iraq’s government, it consistently supported Maliki, even going so far as to assist in Maliki’s persecution of dissidents and civil society activists. The U.S. was probably more instrumental than Iran in cementing Maliki’s power in Iraq. Maliki alienated Sunnis in Iraq by cracking down on his opponents and pursuing discriminatory policies in government and the armed forces. When Maliki’s troops stormed Sunni protest camps in 2013, they were armed with U.S.-made weapons. By the time the U.S. and Western Europe finally decided Maliki was enough of a liability to push out of government, fertile ground already existed for an ISIS-led Sunni insurgency in Western Iraq.

The Syrian story is even more important. In 2011 the Assad regime violently suppressed peaceful pro-democracy protests. This civil society movement rapidly transformed into an armed uprising against the Syrian government. Why? In the early stages of the war, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey began funneling arms to opposition forces, seeing an opportunity to destabilize a key ally of Iran and Hezbollah, their geopolitical foes. As the civil war deepened, extremist groups joined the fight against what they saw as an odious secular regime. They also became the beneficiaries of large amounts of arms and funding from America’s regional allies.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey knowingly funded extremist groups including Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s official affiliate in Syria. Jabhat al-Nusra quickly became one of the most effective and influential rebel groups fighting against the Syrian government. ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra have been fighting over doctrinal and practical matters for months, but some al-Nusra elements have also merged into ISIS. The extent of Saudi support for ISIS is uncertain and hotly debated, but many analysts agree that there has been a substantial bleed of funding and weapons between rebel groups.

The U.S.’s own involvement in the Syrian conflict is telling. Early in the civil war, the Obama administration expressed its conviction that Bashar al-Assad’s regime had to go. Given U.S. antagonism toward Iran and its allies, this statement did not come as a surprise. The U.S. offered nonlethal aid to the Syrian rebels and eventually covertly armed them, going so far as to operate a training camp for rebels in northern Jordan.

But the U.S. didn’t appear to expand its direct support for the Syrian rebels beyond this point, and for good reason. When the Obama administration asked Congress for $500 million to train and equip “moderate rebels,” the Pentagon testified that it anticipated difficulties finding moderate fighters to train and arm. In plain English, this means that they don’t really exist. With ISIS’s victories in Iraq, the U.S. strategy of fueling the fire in Syria without allowing either side to win is finally revealing its inherent contradictions.

No one is innocent in the Iraqi and Syrian civil wars, but Iran is not primarily responsible for the current state of affairs. The U.S. and its allies destabilized Iraq and Syria in turn, creating safe havens for extremists that previously did not exist. U.S. allies provided the material support that allowed ISIS and groups like it to become threats to the entire region, despite lacking any substantial popular base in Syria and Iraq. It is not unreasonable for Iran and Hezbollah to fight against these groups, which murder and enslave Shia and other religious minorities. Their actions conceivably fall under one of the West’s favorite principles of international law: the duty to protect.

Iran has been the most serious foreign force fighting against ISIS from the very beginning of the Syrian civil war. The Syrian Army is constantly beset by manpower and equipment problems. It is difficult to believe that the Syrian government would have held its own without the assistance of the Iranian Qods Force and Iran’s allies in Hezbollah, much less without Iranian weapons. Contrary to the Baroness’ objections, Iran is the most viable regional partner for a temporary, pragmatic alliance against ISIS.

Western politicians and activists like the Baroness of Camden understandably oppose the Iranian regime’s domestic repression. But Iran and its regional allies are not the cause of ISIS’s rapid and brutal rise. Extremist groups like ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra have been consistently aided by disastrous Western interventions in the Middle East and the influence of regional actors like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Responsibility for the rise of ISIS isn’t much of a mystery: the West and its allies just have to look in the mirror.

Ben Reynolds is a writer who graduated from the College of William and Mary. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

31 August 2014
www.thediplomat.com

 

By Ma’an News Agency

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Thursday condemned Israel’s undercover arrest raid earlier in the day in al-Ahli hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

The organization told Ma’an that it urged “the relevant military authorities to respect the special status that [International Humanitarian Law] grants to medical facilities and the wounded and sick.”

MSF said that Azzam Ezzat Shalaldah, 20, who was shot by an Israeli settler last month, was a patient of the group and was being treated in their Mental Health Support Program “for victims of political violence.”

The group said that the way in which Shalaldah was detained was “serious” and contrary “to the principles of neutrality and respect of the medical mission.”

“International Humanitarian Law requires the respect of health facilities and forbids any intrusion of the armed forces in these structures,” MSF said, adding that international law “demands that sick and wounded people would be treated without any discrimination in conformity with medical ethics.”

During the undercover raid, Shalaldah’s cousin, Abdullah Azzam Shalaldah, 28, was shot and killed while coming out of a bathroom in the hospital ward. His other cousin, Bilal, who was in the room with Shalaldah was handcuffed during the incident, but not detained.

MSF demanded that the relevant authorities inform and train “members of the armed forces on their obligation to respect medical facilities and personnel, as well as patients… and their caretakers” in order to prevent another incident of this kind.

Shalaldah, who was detained during the undercover raid, was still in recovery after undergoing three surgeries at the hospital where he was admitted mid-October.

MFS said the organization is “very concerned about the fate of the patient taken away from the hospital and strongly demands to the Israeli authorities to provide the adequate medical attention and information on his conditions in the shortest delay.”

MSF also requested that Israel allow Shalaldah to continue his mental health treatment through the organization.

Undercover Israeli forces shoot dead Palestinian in Hebron hospital

Undercover Israeli forces on Thursday shot dead a Palestinian during a hospital raid in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, witnesses and hospital staff said.

Abdullah Azzam Shalaldah, 28, was shot several times by forces who raided the surgery unit of al-Ahli hospital in order to detain his cousin, Azzam Ezzat Shalaldah, 20, who was shot by an Israeli settler last month, hospital staff told Ma’an.

Abdullah and another relative were in the hospital visiting Azzam when around 20 undercover Israeli soldiers entered the hospital at around 4:00 a.m., witnesses said.

The forces tied up the relative while Abdullah, who was in the bathroom at the time, entered the room and was shot dead on scene.

The undercover forces then retreated from the hospital with Azzam, taking him into custody, witnesses added.

Video footage from security cameras shows a group of around 16 men walking through the corridors of the hospital just before 4 a.m. pushing a wheel chair, when suddenly the man sitting down removes his blanket, stands up, and all the men draw guns and proceed down the hall.

The footage also shows what appears to be an Israeli agent dressed as a Palestinian woman, and other Israeli forces dressed as Palestinian Muslim men, wearing keffiyehs and appearing to have fake beards.

An Israeli army spokesperson was unable to comment on the presence of undercover forces during the raid, while Israeli media reported that the forces arrived in two large vans with someone pretending to be pregnant.

The army spokesperson told Ma’an that a combined force of Israeli army and police members had entered the hospital in order to detain Azzam, when an “additional suspect attacked the forces.”

The forces responded with live fire, killing the man, the spokesperson confirmed.

The spokesperson said that the forces detained Azzam on the grounds that he “stabbed an Israeli in the chest in Gush Etzion” on Oct. 25, wounding him severely, adding that “the victim shot him” as he fled the scene.

The spokesperson added that the “Shalaldah family are known Hamas operatives.”

Palestinian security sources told Ma’an on Oct. 25 following the attack that Azzam was shot by an Israeli settler.

A spokesperson for Hadassah hospital said at the time that the settler, 58, had received a light “stab” wound to his chest, and had possibly been hit with a stone in his head.

Palestinian witnesses told Ma’an that they believed that the alleged Palestinian attacker had fled the scene unharmed and that Azzam had been working in agricultural fields when he was shot.

Abdullah, from the Hebron-area village of Sair, was the 80th Palestinian to be killed since Oct. 1.

The majority of those killed were shot dead by Israeli forces during alleged, attempted, and actual attacks on Israeli military and civilians.

Ten Israelis have been killed by individual Palestinians during the same time period.

13 November, 2015
Maannews.com

By Eric Zuesse

Unlike so many online ‘news’ reports that are merely authoritarian trash because they don’t link to any of their sources (they rely instead upon dumb readers’ faith or trust in the ‘reporter’ or in the publisher, such as The New York Times or Fox News), this one from Marshall is top-notch: not only does it provide intelligently skeptical readers with instantaneous access to documentation for each one of its key points, but those sources are credible ones. Taken all together, the sources, and Marshall’s presentation of them, constitute a solid historical account of how the war to bring down Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, actually started. It didn’t start by Assad’s dumping (as U.S. President Barack Obama loves to claim) “barrel bombs,” upon merely peaceful protesters in Syria. It started actually in Washington, years before that.

The Obama Administration itself was taking advantage of not only the “Arab Spring” protests throughout much of the Arab world, but, specifically, of an ongoing economic catastrophe in Syria that had started five years before the anti-Assad demonstrations did: an extended drought. Here is how the source that Marshall linked to describes it, two years before the “Arab Spring” even began:

In the past three years, 160 Syrian farming villages have been abandoned near Aleppo as crop failures have forced over 200,000 rural Syrians to leave for the cities. This news is distressing enough, but when put into a long-term perspective, its implications are staggering: many of these villages have been continuously farmed for 8000 years.

That source had been published on 16 January 2010. The drought continued on; the situation only got even worse right into 2011 and up through the public demonstrations in Aleppo that started the war. There were no “barrel bombs” then. There was instead surging economic dislocation. Obama merely took advantage of it. He knew that it was coming, and he planned so as to exploit it.

In fact, a wikileaked confidential 26 November 2008 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Damascus to the CIA and other associated agencies referred to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization by saying:

UNFAO Syria Representative Abdullah bin Yehia briefed econoff and USDA Regional Minister-Counselor for Agriculture on what he terms the “perfect storm,” a confluence of drought conditions with other economic and social pressures that Yehia believes could undermine stability in Syria. Because he is working with such limited resources, Yehia plans to target FAO assistance to small-holding farmers in the hardest-hit province of northeast Syria, Al Hasakah. (Note: This province shares a northern border with Turkey and a southern border with Iraq. Mosul is approximately 100km from Al Hasakah province.) Because the UN appeal has, thus far, not been entirely successful, Yehia has had to prioritize aid recipients.

That was institutional U.S. federal government knowledge three months prior to Obama’s becoming President. Obama as the President-elect at the time was privy to such information. Once he got into the White House, he needed to understand what was going on in Syria. Was it dumb of Yehia to trust the U.S. government with this information? Was he naive about the type of people who sit in America’s Oval Office nowadays? Is a deer in the forest naive to move when a hunter is stalking it? Is the deer supposed to just stand still, instead? Barack Obama during his electoral campaign had provided the public with no reason to suspect that he might have been harboring aggressive designs against the Syrian government, nor even against the Russian government that has been supporting it. Yehia was just seeking help, like the deer in fear.

Obama knew what was going on. He knew that the Syrian situation wasn’t just “barrel bombs” showing up suddenly out of nowhere, from no cause, and for no reason. He knew more than was published to the public in the American press. His repeated references to “barrel bombs” after the situation in Syria blew up, suggests that he takes advantage of the fact that the American public isn’t aware of such facts. It suggests that he’s playing the American public as trusting gulls, rather than as citizens.

In fact, America’s own National Academy of Sciences recently published a study (17 March 2015), “Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought,” which opens (though propagandistically blaming Assad as having contributed to the drought):

“Before the Syrian uprising that began in 2011, the greater Fertile Crescent experienced the most severe drought in the instrumental record. For Syria, a country marked by poor governance and unsustainable agricultural and environmental policies, the drought had a catalytic effect, contributing to political unrest.”

(Of course, Obama doesn’t claim to be bombing Assad’s forces because Assad had ‘unsustainable agricultural and environmental policies.’) In the section of that report “Significance,” the investigators-propagandists close:

“We conclude that human influences on the climate system are implicated in the current Syrian conflict.”

So, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, in this recent study, is arguing, in effect, that Syria should have a different government. Perhaps the failed state that Obama insists upon producing there would be the ‘solution’? To what extent is the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (it’s PNAS) nowitself politicized, nationalistic, propagandistic — that they are retrospectively publishing something like this, which fails to criticize the U.S. Government itself for having turned down the Syrian Government’s years-long pleadings for assistance on the matter? The PNAS study ignores this. Instead, it argues only that, “The rapidly growing urban peripheries of Syria, marked by illegal settlements, overcrowding, poor infrastructure, unemployment, and crime, were neglected by the Assad government and became the heart of the developing unrest.”

Wow, the NAS argues that Assad should have been more dictatorial! That would have helped prevent the effects of the drought? Does nothing that comes from the U.S. Establishment possess credibility anymore — publishing garbage like this inPNAS? Is Assad more of a dictator than Obama? Does the U.S. National Academy of Sciences really think he should have been? How absurd does the propaganda need to be in order for the U.S. to become a laughingstock to the entire world for its ‘democratic’ pretensions? After all: it’s not a democracy. And the one scientific study that has been done of that has confirmed that it’s not. So: the U.S. now insists upon installing ‘democracy’ in Syria, where all polls show that Assad would win any free election (and the latest polled finding is that he’d win at least 55% of the votes) but Obama insists that he must be ousted, so that there can be ‘democracy’ there?

Marshall’s news report about the origin of the Syrian war was published at Consortium News on 20 July 2015, but was picked up and reported to a broader audience only at a very few news-sites, each no larger (or even smaller) in audience-size than is the publisher (Consortium News) itself. Only RINF, CommonDreams and Truthout republished it. Reddit posted that story’s headline, “Hidden Origins of Syria’s Civil War,” linking to the Consortium News report, but no one up-marked it there, and still no reader-comments have been posted to it there. It was just another voice of real news unheard in the wilderness of propaganda that causes an individual tree to be ignored among the forest.

Thus: This blockbuster three-month-old news-report still remains news in the U.S., even today. Marshall’s news report was one of the most important of all news reports on the Syrian war, and it certainly deserves larger public distribution than that. So: Here is his historical account of the origin of the Syrian war.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is an academic and author.

The original source of this article is Strategic Culture. Copyright © Eric Zuesse, Strategic Culture, 2015

10 November 2015