Archives: Articles

By Judy Bello

A Pakistani Woman named Aafia Siddiqui was abducted from a taxi in Karachi, Pakistan along with her 3 children 12 years ago on March 30, 2003. At the time she was vulnerable, recently divorced from an abusive husband; living with her mother; her father had just died of a heart attack. The youngest child was an infant. Following her abduction, Aafia Siddiqui and her children disappeared from view for 5 years. She spent those years in US Black Site prisons in Afghanistan and Pakistan. One can only imagine the torment she suffered there, in a system created to enable the torture and abuse of terrorism suspects. She was a woman alone. They took her children, and threatened them when personal torture was not enough to gain her acquiescence.

They say other women came and went from Bagram and the secret prisons in Afghanistan, but Aafia Siddiqui is the only one whose story is known. This is true in part because she had lived, studied and worked in the United States for more than a decade, but even more so because of the devoted persistence of her family, he mother Ismet, and sister Fowzia, who never for one moment ceased their efforts to find her and bring her home. Using their standing as an upper middle class family in Karachi, a conservative Muslim family, well educated, known for their involvement in various aspects of civil society during, the Siddiqui women engaged with the government at all levels, engaged the press to publicize Aafia’s disappearance and to investigate her whereabouts and the circumstances of her disappearance.

Ismet says that shortly after her daughter’s disappearance, a man came to her door and threatened her. He told her to drop the search for her missing daughter or ‘else’. The two women, Ismet and Fowzia, were convinced that Aafia and her children had been detained by either Pakistani Intelligence (ISI) or the CIA. This is not surprising because Pakistani citizens were frequently disappeared during that period, mostly by the Pakistani Secret Police and Intelligence forces complicit with the American CIA and FBI who were casting a broad net to fish for ‘terrorists’ after 9/11/2001. Thousands were abducted and imprisoned for long or short periods of time. A few eventually landed in Guantanamo, but who knows what happened to the rest?. Many never returned. Thousands of Muslim immigrants were rounded up and questioned here in the United States as well. Many of them were tortured. Many were held for months and years with no accessto legal aid or their families. Many were eventually deported despite having committed no crime.

No, Aafia Siddiqui wasn’t the only person rendered during the first years of the Global War on Terror, nor was she the only Pakistani disappeared under the Musharraf regime. We now know that thousands were rendered from the streets of Pakistan and around the globe during the first years following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. We know that torture was ubiquitous during that period, while brutal violence against civilians characterized the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. What is extraordinary about Aafia Siddiqui’s case is that she was a woman, and was taken with her children. Also somewhat unusual is the fact that she had spent many years in the US where she went to college and eventually obtained a PhD from Brandeis, married a Pakistani Doctor and had 2 children; and worked for various charities generally leading a conscientious life of good will. She sent Qurans to prisoners, and taught children at a Mosque in an impoverished city neighborhood.

But after 9/11 it all fell apart. She and her husband were not abducted, but they were interrogated. A young Saudi the government was pursuing had stayed for a while in their apartment building. Her husband had used his credit card to buy night vision goggles, he said for hunting. The marriage was becoming increasingly stressed and at times, violent. Aafia had a long scar on her cheek from a cut caused by a baby bottle her husband admitted to throwing at her. Aafia took her children and returned to her parents’ home in Karachi. She was pregnant with their third child when her husband divorced her and remarried. We are told she seemed nervous and agitated during this period. Who wouldn’t be nervous and agitated under those circumstances? And then, one day she set out for a family visit with her uncle, got in the taxi with her children, and disappeared.

In July of 2008, Aafia Siddiqui arrived in Manhattan a week after abdominal surgery to remove a couple of bullets from her intestines, and was brought directly into a courtroom in her wheelchair for arraignment on charges of attacking US military personnel in Afghanistan. After a highly publicized trial during which the press consistently referred to her as ‘Lady al Qaeda’, she was sentenced to 86 years in prison and sent to Carswell Medical Center, a high security federal prison in Texas, where she remains to this day, so we are told.

At the trial, no physical evidence was presented by the prosecution. There was none. Basic questions related to context were neither asked nor answered. Where was Aafia Siddiqui between the time of her disappearance 5 years earlier, and her encounter with the soldiers in Ghazni, Afghanistan? Why wasn’t she believed when she said she had been rendered and tortured? Why did the Pakistani Government allow her to be extradited from Afghanistan, then pay a small fortune for lawyers for her, lawyers that she did not want or trust because, whatever their qualifications, they had been selected and paid for by the Pakistani government? Why, when a fragile woman, who was obviously physically and mentally broken, said that she had been tortured, did no one investigate her story?

Between 2003 and 2008, US officials repeatedly denied having Aafia Siddiqui in custody. They insisted that she was not in the system anywhere. But, when she showed up in 2008, they had a story all ready to tell about her involvement with al Qaeda, conferring with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some of his associates. They actually said she was married to his nephew Ammar al Baluchi, a charge her family absolutely denies. She was only recently divorced, and had just birthed a child when she disappeared. The specific accusation against Siddiqui was that she had got a mailbox in Maryland for Majid Khan, a young man who had associated with Khalid Sheikh Muhammed in Karachi He had allowed his visa to lapse while he was visiting family in Karachi, and needed a US mailbox address to reapply for it so he could return to the US. . Khan was accused of plotting to commit terrorist attacks on returning to the USA.

But this isn’t the crime Aafia Siddiqui was tried for, just a story leaked to the press. At the time of Aafia Siddiqui’s trial, Majid a few weeks before Siddiqui and her children were, but had lived in the United States and attended high school here. Raised in a middle class suburb of Baltimore, he was restless and unable to decide what to do with his life, so he went to Karachi to visit the extended family and married there. Members of his family were initially detained with him, then later released. According to his brother, Majid Khan was tortured and beaten during this period, and coerced into making unreliable and false confessions

Although he may have known KSM and his nephew, Khan was never proven to do anything other than talk and spin stories. After touring the black sites and being tortured for a couple of years, Khan landed in Guantanamo where he apparently continued talking and spinning stories. Majid Khan was eventually released from Guantanamo in 2012 in exchange for testimony against Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Ammar Al Baluchi and others. Perhaps Siddiqui did help Majid Khan with his immigration problem. He was a kid who needed help. That is an immigration violation that might keep her from returning to the US. But we don’t even know for sure that she even did that. We do know that Khan told a lot of stories in return for a plea deal in 2012 that capped his sentence at 19 years.

The government, however, claimed that she spent the 5 years she was missing in a terrorist cell developing chemical and biological weapons. She was a scientist, after all, with a PhD. When she was arrested in Pakistan, there were some chemicals in her bag along with some recipes for biological and chemical weapons written in her handwriting and a picture of the statue of liberty, an odd choice for someone who had lived many years in Boston area and Texas before that. These items were brought into evidence. Again, when Aafia Siddiqui explained that she wasn’t that kind of scientist, that she was an educator, she was ignored. Her PhD was in neuroscience as it pertains to learning capabilities. This is a matter of public record at Brandeis University. She was Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, but neither a physician, a chemist nor even a biologist except in a narrow tangential sense. She said she wrote in the documents what she was told to write by men who threatened to harm her children if she did not do as they wished.

Aafia Siddiqui suffered from severe PTSD which made it difficult for her to present a consistently calm and pleasant demeanor during trial. She told the court she had been tortured during the time she was missing, but this testimony was dismissed as untrue and irrelevant. The government, of course, had denied it. She didn’t want the highly paid lawyers hired on her behalf by the Pakistani government because she didn’t trust the motivation of the Pakistani government, and she didn’t like the way they were building her case. But the judge chose to ignore her protest and allowed those lawyers to continue. Judge Berman was privately informed of the details the US held against Siddiqui. The story was apparently leaked to the press as well. But it wasn’t told in open court where she might have refuted it. The jury convicted despite the lack of physical evidence on charges normally bringing a sentence of around 15 years. They did not convict on the charge of premeditation, but Judge Berman added a ‘terrorism’ enhancement to her verdict, and sentenced Aafia Siddiqui to 86 years in a federal prison.

Today, Aafia Siddiqui remains in the psychiatric division of Carswell, seven years into her 86 year sentence. She had a hard time early on, and apparently was beaten at one point, by the guards? Other inmates? That we don’t know. We do know she was in solitary after that. She hasn’t been allowed to receive mail.. I, myself, have sent her many letters, all returned. Early on they came back unopened, marked ‘undeliverable’. When I called the prison to inquire whether I had the wrong address, the person who answered went off to ask advice on what to tell me. He said, when he returned to the phone, that she refused her mail. A few months later when I was in jail myself (for direct action protest at the gate of Hancock AFB) I received a letter from my attorney, and realized that they have to open your mail and inspect it before offering it to you. After I called again to question this issue, my letters started coming back opened.

Aafia Siddiqui hasn’t spoken to her family in more than a year. She has a brother, also in Texas, but he has not been able to see her. No one has had contact with her for over a year now. The last time she was given a chance to talk to her family, to her mother and sister, and the 2 children returned to them after she was imprisoned in the US, was following a national press conference outside the Pakistani Embassy in Washington DC and a well-publicized protest outside Carswell Prison. At the time, Fowzia asked her why she was refusing her mail, and she replied ‘What mail?”

Last year Robert Boyle, a new attorney hired by the family, submitted a motion to vacate to Judge Berrman, requesting that he throw out the verdict because Aafia’s repeated requests for an adjournment of the proceedings so she could find an acceptable attorney were ignored. The motion lays out a detailed argument that Siddiqui’s request was sane and reasonable, and described the potential bias of the Pakistani government and the ways in which their choice of attorneys, even well-known human rights lawyers, might not have been in her best interest. Judge Berman called the lawyers in a few days later and said that Aafia Siddiqui had written a letter to him, asking that the motion be dismissed, and that he was therefore required to dismiss it. He went on to say that he had, in any case, no intention of granting the motion.

Since then, another six months have passed with no word to anyone from Aafia Siddiqui. It’s true she is likely depressed. Is she sick? Is she being heavily medicated? Is she alive? An appeal that had earlier been rejected which focused on procedural issues. This motion that Judge Berman says she asked to have dismissed very directly mirrored her own concerns at the time of the trial. It’s true; she may have done this out of depression or despair. But if she was too disturbed for the Judge to support her initial request in the court room, why was her current request honored without a hearing?

Aafia Siddiqui said that she had been tortured and raped. Why her assertion was dismissed as a fabrication with no investigation, and why were any investigations into her claims treated as collateral conspiracy theories? How did she neatly fall into the hands of US soldiers just as the family felt their sources were near locating her? Why did the Pakistani Government allow her to be extradited if they thought she was innocent? Where are Aafia Siddiqui now and what is her status?

The fact is that Aafia Siddiqui’s story is not so different than many of the other Pakistani, Afghan and Arab men swept up after 9/11. Why is it so unbelievable? All of the evidence is in her favor except for the ‘secret’ evidence and the fact that the US denies her assertions. Would we expect anything different from them? We have heard the stories of others illegally swept up in the rendition program. But maybe we don’t want to believe they would do that to a woman. We’ve heard a lot of stories about horrors visited on women by US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Vietnam, but maybe we don’t want to think that might happen to a vulnerable middle class housewife with a PhD in Education. What would they do to cover up committing these atrocities against this kind, well educated, English speaking woman who had spent nearly half her life in the US when she was detained? And to cover up the cover up?

Judy Bello is a Peace and Justice activist who has recently traveled to Syria, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan where she spent time with the family of Aafia Siddiqui. She is a member of the Administrative Committee of the United National Antiwar Coalition, and a charter member of the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars which engages in civil resistance at Hancock Air National Guard Base.

30 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

By Paul Craig Roberts

I have been around for a long time and have experienced more than most. The current situation in my experience is the most dangerous time of all for humanity.

Nuclear weapons are no longer restrained by the Cold War MAD doctrine. Washington has released them into pre-emptive first strike form.

The targets of these pre-emptive strikes–Russia and China–know it, because Washington proudly proclaims its immorality in public documents describing its war doctrine.

The result is to maximize the chance of nuclear war. If you were Russia and China, and you knew that Washington had a war doctrine that permits a surprise nuclear attack, would you sit there waiting while Washington cranks up its anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda machine, demonizing both countries as a threat to “freedom and democracy”?

The fools in Washington are playing with nuclear fire. Noam Chomsky points out that in a less dangerous time than currently exists, we came very close to nuclear war. https://philosophynow.org/issues/107/Noam_Chomsky_on_Institutional_Stupidity

Harold Pinter, one of the last Western intellects, understood the danger in Western arrogance. He denounced the West’s crimes and called for the crimes to be subject to established law before it is too late for humanity.

“We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East’. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice.” Harold Pinter, 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech.

“An Iraqi Holocaust” by Gideon Polya http://www.countercurrents.org/polya230315.htm and “Genocide In Iraq” http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150315.htm provide abundant evidence for convicting Bush and Blair.

Dr. Gideon Polya is a professor of science in one of Australia’s leading universities. He has a moral conscience, something increasingly rare in the Western world.

His articles are based largely on the just published by Clarity Press two volume heavily documented Genocide in Iraq by Abdul-Haq Al-Ani and Tarik Al-Ani. Abdul-Haq Al-Ani is a British-educated lawyer with a Ph.D. in International Law and a Ph.D. in electronics engineering. Tarik Al-Ani, is an architect, translator, and researcher.

Currently I am reading the two-volume work and intended to review it. But Professor Polya’s articles suffice as an introduction to Genocide in Iraq. Washington has committed a terrible crime in our name. Washington not only murdered Iraq, Washington has murdered the Middle East. Washington and its despicable vassals–”the Coalition of the Willing”–are responsible for a Middle East Holocaust.

For people in the Anglo-American world who have a moral conscience, the facts are soul-wrenching. The populations of the countries whose governments comprised “the Coalition of the Willing” are contaminated with war crimes committed by their governments in the Iraq Genocide. A progressive modern state was obliterated, and 2.7 million Iraqi people were murdered.

The crime was covered up with propaganda that demonized Saddam Hussein and created fear of nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.

The Iraqi genocide was based on a lie, and both Bush and Blair knew it. The two satanic leaders simply decided to destroy a people who they first demonized and marginalized.

Cheney and the neocons continue to justify the genocide and the illegal torture regime that they created in order to produce fake “terrorists” as a justification for their war crimes. The Western media, especially the New York Times, is also complicit in the Iraqi Genocide as are the insouciant Western peoples themselves who stood by cheering while millions of people were destroyed on the basis of a blatant and transparent lie.

What does the West represent? Greed? Lies? War? Torture? War Crimes? Selfishness, Intolerance? Destruction of life on earth?

The “Christian” West is a master at propaganda and self-deception. Look at the evangelical churches. They support a criminal, inhumane regime while professing to be followers of Christ.

Look at American “conservatives.” They support the militarized police state. They support the routine police murders of dark-skinned American citizens. They support every war Washington dreams up and even more. Indeed, there are not enough wars for the satisfaction of Congressional Republicans who now want war with Russia and with Iran.

Look at the Republicans in Congress and in state governments. They hate the environment. They love polluters. They worship Israel and Israel’s destruction of the Palestinians and the ongoing theft of the Palestinians’ country, a 60-year old activity. Just look at the map of shrinking Palestine. More is stolen each day.

Washington has supported this theft of an entire country. Yet, Washington is able to masquerade as a great defender of human rights. Whose rights? Washington’s and Israel’s. No one else’s rights count.

How does the world survive the American-Israeli aggression? Probably it will not. The evil is now directed at Iran, Russia, and China. These countries cannot be bombed year after year after year with no consequences to the bombers.

Iran is limited in its destructive ability. But Iran could destroy Saudi Arabia and Israel. Russia and China can destroy the US and all of Washington’s vassal states. The intensity of Washington’s propaganda war is driving the world to destruction.

How can it be stopped when Putin himself says over and over that Washington continually ignores every thing that the Russian government says. Putin is the peacemaker. Every peace proposal he brings is ignored by Washington whose response is to beat the drums of war louder.

Unless European governments recognize the danger in Washington’s aggression and dissolve NATO, planet earth hasn’t long to live.

The American public needs to understand the consequences of Washington’s illegality and criminality. On the one hand it means that those subject to Washington’s aggression have to endure war crimes, but on the other hand it means a growing hatred for America. As Washington’s easy targets are used up, Washington engages countries that can reply to force with force.

Unless the neoconservatives are ejected from the Obama regime and banned from inclusion in any future American government, mushroom clouds will go up over Washington, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, Cleveland, Chicago. The American mid-west, which hosts the ICBM silos, will become uninhabitable except by cockroaches.

Americans, and the populations of the American puppet states, desperately need to understand that Washington is incapable of speaking the truth about anything. Washington is an evil force. Washington is Sauron. Washington is Satan.

Look at Iraq. Look at Afghanistan. Look at Libya. Look at Syria. Look at Somalia. Look at Ukraine. Nothing but destruction comes from Washington. Will life on earth be Washington’s next victim?

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

30 March, 2015
Paulcraigroberts.org

 

By Cindy Sheehan and David Swanson

The U.S. government is toying with a war with nuclear Russia while already waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, having done severe damage to Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. Military spending is climbing ever higher. Presidential war powers are ever more extreme. The proliferation of nuclear technology is combining with the ease and secrecy of drone wars to raise the risk of a Dr. Strangelove finish to the human species. And, let’s face it, you had more time to give a damn when the president was a Republican.

The top means by which war kills is the diversion of unfathomable piles of money away from life-saving initiatives. That spending continues without pause. President Obama and most of Congress want it increased even more next year. The Congressional Progressive Caucus just put out a budget that made no mention of military spending but — if you searched through the numbers — was proposing to cut it by 1% ($13 billion of $1.3 trillion in spending across several departments). We’re talking about the single item that takes up over half of discretionary spending. One or two percent of it could make U.S. college education free, or end starvation on earth. A bigger slice could take on climate protection. Everyone across the inch-wide chasm of the political divide in Washington prefers to see the militarism continue. Of 100 senators, 100 favor sanctions on Iran. Bipartisanship is alive and well when it comes to war promotion.

The top risk from war is nuclear holocaust. That danger continues to grow with active U.S. assistance. The second worst thing a U.S. president can do about war is grab more war powers and pass them on to all future presidents. In that regard, President Obama has outdone President Bush. Lying to Congress is now totally routine: Congress and the United Nations can simply be ignored. Secrecy has mushroomed. President Obama picks out men, women, and children to murder from a list on Tuesdays. The public, the Congress, and the courts have no say and often no knowledge. President Obama has dramatically increased U.S. weapons sales abroad — the U.S. being far and away the top supplier of weapons to regions that the U.S. public thinks of as inherently violent.

While Obama’s body count doesn’t yet begin to approach Bush’s in terms of people directly and violently killed, that’s not a standard that will get us to survival, much less peace and prosperity.

Why do so many people think of the political party that lied the United States into two world wars, the Korean war, the war on Vietnam, the Kosovo war, the Libya war, and the war on ISIS — the party that dropped the nukes on Japan — as a party for peace?

Why do longtime war advocates like Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton get a pass? What benefit from making Hillary president could outweigh shutting down the peace movement for 4 or 8 years?

Hillary was instrumental in persuading her husband to bomb the former Yugoslavia against the will of Congress. She pushed for the 2003 attack on Iraq and the 2011 attack on Libya. She tried to get a U.S. war on Syria going in 2013. She pushed for the Obama-era escalation in Afghanistan — a war that is now more Obama’s than Bush’s by every measure.

Hillary has urged Iran to be aware that she could “obliterate” it. She has giggled with pleasure at having killed Muamar Gadaffi. She’s hawkish on Ukraine.

What can be done?

Tell people you know what warmaking has become, because someday the president will be a Republican and they’ll grow outraged.

Give up on the idea of bestowing royal tokenism on every deserving demographic before the planet’s trashed. We don’t have that kind of time to work with.

Oregon has just made voter registration automatic, and California is proposing the same. Devote yourself to making sure that your state does likewise, and refuse to any longer think of registering people to vote as useful activism or to waste your time doing it.

Rather than giving a blank check to war mongering for the next nearly two years and then possibly beginning to object, save us all the suffering and pretend the president right now is Dick Cheney. Protest accordingly.

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc Casey Sheehan who was murdered in Iraq on 04/04/04 by the US Empire and has become a non-flinching and uncompromising peace activist and host of her own podcast: Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox and Editor in Chief of the Soapbox People’s Network.

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org.

29 March, 2015
Davidswanson.org

 

By Russia Today

Arab leaders have agreed to form a joint military force at a Sharm el-Sheikh summit, hosting Egyptian President Abdel Sisi has announced. The meeting was dominated by the situation in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia leads a bombing campaign against rebels.

“The Arab leaders have decided to agree on the principle of a joint Arab military force,” Sisi said Sunday as the summit wrapped up. The summit final communique called for “coordination, efforts and steps to establish an unified Arab force” to intervene in countries such as Yemen.

The Egyptian leader said a high-level panel will work out the structure and mechanism of the future force. The work is expected to take four months.

Earlier reports said the joint Arab military may be formed from roughly 40,000 elite troops and backed by warplanes, warships and light armor. There are however doubts that all 22 members of the Arab League would significantly contribute to it; the formations of the force could take months.

In a communique signed in the Egyptian resort city, the Arab countries also called on the West to form a new more comprehensive response to militancy, which is a thinly veiled reference to the desire by some Arab nations to see a new Western military intervention in Libya.

The country that was devastated after civil war and a NATO bombing campaign, which helped to oust strongman Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, became a hotbed for Islamist radicals, including the terrorist organization Islamic State.

The Egyptian Arab League summit was dominated by discussions of the Yemen turmoil, where Shiite Houthi rebels ousted President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and forced him to flee to Saudi Arabia. Yemen’s neighbor has gathered a 10-nation Arab coalition against Houthi fighters and launched military strikes on Thursday.

Arab leaders said the operation in Yemen is to continue until the Houthis withdraw and hand over their weapons.

Yemen remains divided after Ali Abdullah Saleh resigned as the country’s president in 2012 in response to mass protest against his two decades of rule. He kept a strong foothold in Yemen’s politics however, keeping allies in several key positions of the government and the military.

Houthi rebels had been a major anti-government force in Yemen for decades, but have capitalized on the weakening of the central government, which failed to address pressing issues like tribal divisions, the economic slowdown, the pressure from the Yemeni branch of Al-Qaeda and others.

29 March, 2015
RT.com

 

By Amritanshu Pandey

The modern Hindi speaker uses the words Manava and Purusha somewhat interchangeably- both mean ‘man’ or ‘human’ to us. Yet this was not always so. The Rig Veda and other Hindu scriptures talk of two distinct tribes- the tribe of Manu and the tribe of Puru (or Pururava, who was Puru’s ancestor). It is a common Sanskrit rule to assign patronymics to tribes, places and individuals. Thus, the children of Pandu were Pandavas and the descendants of Kuru were Kauravas. Those descended from Yadu were called Yadavas, those from Bhrigu were called Bhargavas and so on. Similarly- the words Manava and Purusha are but the patronymics of two different tribes. The sons of Vaivasvat Manu chose to called themselves Manava or Manushyas. The sons of Puru, or possibly Pururava, called themselves Purushas. Neither side used the other term for themselves.

Thus we have an example of how two words that are more or less synonymic today carried vastly different meanings in an ancient era. This in turn points us to the many differences that existed between ancient Vedic tribes, especially in their rituals and dialects. We must note the fact that tribes such as the Bharatas never used the title of Manava or Purusha- indicating that they were a completely separate people. This gives us an ancient canvas where India was not populated by a united citizenry, but divided into dozens of clans that drew vital distinctions between each other.The Suryavanshi prayed primarily to their patron deity- Surya, and the Rig Veda (which is the Bharata tribe’s composition) contains only eight prayers to Surya. Eight among the 900+ prayers! It can thus be said that Surya-worship was not an important ritual among those of Bharata blood, though it was vital to the Manavas and Aikshvakus that claimed descent from Surya himself. Is Surya-namaskara really a part of Indian culture then, when India’s most prominent ancient tribe (Bharata) never indulged in it?

This is the sort of syncretic world the Rig Veda suggests to us, and there are substantial hints to the fact that the ‘people of the book’ for the Rig Veda are the Bharatas- not the Suryavanshi or the Pancha Gana tribes- Yadu, Puru, Druhyu, Anu and Turvasa. But a reading of the genealogies appended to all major Puranas indicates that these other tribes too had important strongholds in ancient India. What are we to make of the five Anu brothers- Pundra, Suhma, Odhra, Anga and Vanga- whose names later became the names of places and cities? What are we to make of the Druhyu ruler- Gandhara- whose name survives to the modern age as Kandahar, Afghanistan?Is it mere coincidence that there was a ruler in the Yadu tribe named Mathu, and that Mathura was a Yadava town? Should we ignore the fact that there existed a Suryavanshi king named Ayuddha, and the patronymic derived from him is Ayodhya? With so many different tribes occupying different parts of ancient India’s geography and cultural legacy, how are we to say anything about our ancestors that may hold true for all of them? Can I even consider the Rig Veda representative of ancient Indian times when it was composed almost exclusively by a single tribe?

Enthusiastic Indian nationalists that proclaim the glory of an ancient past are, for the most part, ignorant of these nuances to the very texts they take as their cultural inheritance.This is not to say that Western historians have done justice to the period either, for they too have not delved into the tribal portrait painted by the Rig Veda and other ancient Sanskrit texts. How many of us are aware of the fact that the Rig Veda lists close to fifty different tribes? Or are the nationalists aware of it, but chose to, like the ancient Bharatas, side-line every tribe but the most prominent? Is it not possible that the many indigenous tribes extant in modern India are descended from the people mentioned in this ancient text? Thus while the nationalists speak of a golden past the truth is that ancient India may very well have been the equivalent of a medieval Arabia! Realisation of this could help us better accept India’s vast cultural diversity, and prevent us from engaging in acts such as the ban on beef-production simply because it offends the culture of a select group. The truth is that there could have been several ancient Indian tribes that relished beef, while others abstained from its consumption. Which of them represent the real India, and who are we truly descended from?

As a last note to help us understand this, take a look at the word- Ashvamedha. Most of us know its direct translation- horse sacrifice. And the Rig Veda speaks of another ritual- the Purushamedha. Instinct might direct us to translate this as human sacrifice, but since the first paragraph of this article, we are aware that Purusha was a name for the people of the Puru tribe. What do we gather from the fact that there existed an entire ritual prescribing the sacrifice of a member of an enemy tribe- here in ancient India (a ritual in the Rig Veda- text of the Bharata tribe). There are two ways to react to this. We can, like the ancient Bharata tribe, be their insular and intolerant descendants and design the cultural sacrifice of all those who do not fit in with us. Or- we can understand the diverse, syncretic nature of our ancient nation and learn from it, thus evolving into a progressive society that must come naturally to a country with a history that provides such profound learnings.

Amritanshu Pandey is a writer and author of the novel The Seal of Surya.

26 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Is the United States finally accepting responsibility for the devastating ongoing effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam, or is this funding just a way to get USAID in the door to meddle in the country’s affairs as part of Obama’s “Asian Pivot” strategy?

WASHINGTON — The use of Agent Orange constitutes a war crime with devastating effects on the people in Vietnam not only during the war but even today. The U.S. military knew that its use of Agent Orange would be damaging, but, as an Air Force scientist wrote to Congress “because the material was to be used on the enemy, none of us were overly concerned.”

Ecocide was committed when “the U.S. military sprayed 79 million liters of herbicides and defoliants over about one-seventh of the land area of southern Vietnam.” The 2008-2009 President’s Cancer Panel Report found that nearly five million Vietnamese were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in “400,000 deaths and disabilities and a half million children born with birth defects.”

No one has been held accountable for this crime. U.S. courts have blocked lawsuits brought by the people of Vietnam, and the United States has never paid adequate war reparations to assist in caring for the victims of Agent Orange or to clean up the environment.

In recent years, however, the U.S. has begun to fund cleanup and treatment programs for Agent Orange victims. The timing of this change in policy comes as the U.S. military has been building a relationship with the Vietnamese military as part of the so-called “Asian Pivot.” Yet this relationship has been impaired by the United States’ failure to properly deal with Agent Orange.

Funding for Agent Orange damages is being used to open the door to greater U.S. military involvement and influence in the region, but it will also allow an expansion of U.S. covert operations in Vietnam that set the stage for the U.S. to install a “friendlier” government, if necessary for U.S. hegemony in the region.

This funding is coming through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which has close ties to the CIA and a long history of covert intelligence and destabilization. Vietnam is experiencing a greater U.S. military presence along with USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, also known for fomenting regime change.

Drawing Vietnam into US militarism

With its Asian Pivot, the U.S. intends to surround and isolate China by moving 60 percent of its Navy to the Asia-Pacific region, developing military agreements with countries there, and conducting joint military exercises with Pacific countries. The U.S. is also negotiating a massive corporate power-expanding treaty, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which excludes China.

Vietnam has been a focal point for the U.S. military since the end of the George W. Bush administration, a prelude to the Asian Pivot that was formally announced by President Obama. For the last five years, the U.S. and Vietnam have been involved in joint military exercises. The U.S. has also started to sell weapons to Vietnam, seeking to transition the Vietnamese from Russian weapons to American weapons. And there has been a series of high-level meetings between the two countries.

In June 2013, The Diplomat reported, “the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff hosted the first visit by the Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army (and Deputy Minister of National Defense), General Do Ba Ty. Ty’s delegation included the commander of Vietnam’s Air Force and the deputy commanders of the Navy and General Intelligence Department. His trip included a visit to the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state suggesting future possible joint activities.”

On July 25, 2013 Obama met with President Truong Tan Sang in Washington to form a U.S.-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership, covering a range of concerns including war legacy and security issues. They agreed to cooperate militarily through the U.S.-Vietnam Defense Policy Dialogue and the bilateral Political, Security, and Defense dialogue to discuss future military cooperation.

That meeting was followed by two high-level meetings between the U.S. and Vietnamese militaries. On Oct. 1, 2013 they held the 6th U.S.-Vietnam Political, Security and Defense Dialogue. The U.S. delegation included representatives from the State Department, Defense Department, USAID and the U.S. Pacific Command, while the Vietnamese delegation included representatives from the foreign affairs, public security and national defense ministries. The agenda included counterterrorism, counternarcotics, human trafficking, cyber law enforcement, defense and security, disaster response, search and rescue, war legacy and cooperation in regional organizations.

On Oct. 28 to 29, 2013 a second meeting was held in Washington. The 4th U.S.-Vietnam Defense Policy Dialogue was a deputy minister-level meeting and involved officials from their respective defense ministries. The Diplomat reported that “both dialogues were held within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding on Advancing Bilateral Defense Cooperation signed on September 19, 2011 and the U.S.-Vietnam Joint Statement of July 25, 2013.”

“What was new?” The Diplomat continued. “The two sides agreed to step up cooperation between their navies and their respective defense academies and institutions.”

Yet the Vietnamese are continuing to move slowly in building a military relationship with the U.S. Vietnam limits the U.S. Navy to one port call per year and continues to bar U.S. Navy warships from entry to Cam Ranh Bay. Further, Vietnam has yet to approve a request made by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in June 2012 to set up an Office of Defense Cooperation in the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi.

A key factor holding back a closer military relationship is the inadequate cleanup of Agent Orange and the United States’ insufficient commitment to dealing with war legacies. After the 4th Defense Policy Dialogue, Vietnamese Deputy Defense Minister Nguyen Chi told Voice of Vietnam, “A better defense relationship should be based on the efficiency of practical cooperation, including overcoming [the] war aftermath… General speaking (sic), the U.S. has offered Vietnam active cooperation in the issue, but it is not enough as the consequences of war are terrible.”

Bloomberg reported last year on the fifth year of joint military operations, tying them to the Asian Pivot: “Two U.S. Navy ships began six days of non-combat exercises with the Vietnamese military as the U.S. seeks to bolster its presence in Asia at a time of growing tension between China and its neighbors.” Lt. Comm. Clay Doss, a Navy public affairs officer, described the evolution, saying: “The quality and depth of the exchanges is increasing each year as our navies get to know each other better.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey visited Vietnam in August – the first visit of a Joint Chiefs chairman since 1971. Dempsey’s trip came amid an escalation in conflicts between China and Vietnam. Among other things, he visited a U.S. military base where toxic defoliants had been stored.

In October, the U.S. eased a ban on lethal weapons sales to Vietnam. The U.S. said the arms sales would improve the maritime military capabilities of Vietnam so it could be more effective in conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region. In December 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry announced $18 million in assistance to Vietnam to provide its coast guard with five unarmed, high-speed patrol boats.

An October commentary in the People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of China’s Communist Party, described these acts as destabilizing and “a clear extension of America’s interference with the balance of power in the region.” Maritime conflicts between Vietnam and China have been increasing as the U.S. adds military strength to Vietnam’s navy and coast guard. China maintains that disputes should be resolved through negotiations. Citing the Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, the Chinese side maintains that “related countries should solve maritime disputes peacefully.”

Meanwhile, in Vietnam there are also concerns about an escalation of disputes: “Some senior Vietnam Communist Party leaders have worried over the years that moving to upgrade military-to-military ties with the US would provoke China to increase its pressure on Vietnam and its assertiveness in the South China Sea.”

In addition to challenging China, the U.S. also seeks to undermine the relationship between Vietnam and Russia. Russia, an arch rival of the U.S., has been the main weapons supplier for Vietnam since 2009. The U.S. wants to reorient Vietnam’s military away from Russia, which holds multi-billion dollar arms sales contracts with Vietnam, including the sale of submarines and fighter jets.

Sputnik, a Russian government-owned news media outlet, reported earlier this month that the U.S. “bullied” Vietnam to stop allowing Russia to use the Cam Ranh Bay naval base. The State Department says it has “urged Vietnamese officials to ensure that Russia is not able to use its access to Cam Ranh Bay to conduct activities that could raise tensions in the region.” Igor Korotchenko, director general of the Russian Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade, described the U.S. as stirring up tensions, instituting an arms race and creating regional instability.

Agent Orange funding a tool for US militarism — and what else?

The Vietnamese government told the U.S. that one thing preventing a closer relationship between the U.S. and Vietnamese militaries is the failure of the U.S. to deal with the lasting effects of Agent Orange. After 50 years of the Agent Orange crisis the U.S. is finally beginning to fund some cleanup efforts. This funding is coming from USAID, which has a sordid history of serving as a cover for U.S. militarism and the CIA in Vietnam and around the world.

In William Blum’s 2004 book “Killing Hope,” John Gilligan, director of USAID under the Carter administration, describes the depth of the CIA-USAID relationship: “At one time, many AID [USAID] field offices were infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people. The idea was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas, government, volunteer, religious, every kind.”

Likewise, The Washington Post reported in 2010 that, “In South Vietnam, the USAID provided cover for CIA operatives so widely that the two became almost synonymous.”

During the Vietnam War, USAID operated a police training program that was tied to death squads. Former New York Times correspondent A. J. Langguth wrote that “the two primary functions” of the USAID police training program were to allow the CIA to “plant men with local police in sensitive places around the world,” and bring to the U.S. “prime candidates for enrollment as CIA employees.”

The covert role of USAID has persisted. As The Washington Post reported in 2010, then-CIA Director Leon Panetta promised spies “new cover” for secret ops, and agencies that provide such cover include USAID and the State Department.

USAID has recently used health crises as cover for its covert operations. In 2011, Pakistan had a polio crisis, recording the highest number of polio cases in the world; it was a spiraling health catastrophe. USAID used a vaccination program organized by Save the Children, which had operated for 30 years in Pakistan, as cover to find Osama bin Laden.

The USAID-funded vaccination program used a Pakistani doctor and a local group, Lady Health Workers, to gain entrance to bin Laden’s home by going door-to-door to administer vaccinations. When vaccinations were administered to bin Laden’s children and grandchildren USAID tested the DNA of the used needles. It is likely that the doctor and two organizations were not aware they were being used by USAID. Save the Children staff members were expelled from Pakistan and the doctor was sentenced to 33 years in prison. His lawyer was murdered last week, and 74 health care workers have been killed since December 2012.

Last year, The Associated Press uncovered a USAID HIV-prevention program in Cuba used for covert operations. Beginning in October 2009, USAID, working through the Washington-based Creative Associates International, sent “Venezuelan, Costa Rican and Peruvian young people to Cuba in hopes of ginning up rebellion. The travelers worked undercover, often posing as tourists, and traveled around the island scouting for people they could turn into political activists.” They created an HIV-prevention workshop that “memos called ‘the perfect excuse’ for the program’s political goals.” Cuba uncovered the covert mission when the youth were questioned about their funding.

Noting that USAID has “a long history of engaging in intelligence work and meddling in the domestic politics of aid recipients,” Foreign Policy reported on another USAID program in Cuba, also exposed in 2014, where USAID covertly launched a social media platform in 2010, creating a Twitter-like service that would spark a “Cuban Spring.” The digital Bay of Pigs failed to spark a revolt, but it did expose the political leanings of 40,000 Cubans. This was reportedly not a CIA project, but a USAID project meant to undermine the Cuban government. Indeed, USAID has evolved to carry out its own meddling in the affairs of governments.

A 2006 State Department cable, released by WikiLeaks in 2013, outlined the United States’ strategy for undermining the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez by “Penetrating Chavez’ Political Base,” “Dividing Chavismo,” and “Isolating Chavez internationally.” The same office responsible for the digital Bay of Pigs in Cuba, USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, also carried out the program in Venezuela.

Bolivia expelled USAID in 2013 because it was meddling in Bolivian politics. President Evo Morales was upset that USAID money reached lowland regional governments that attempted to overthrow him in 2008. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed that USAID provided “$10.5 million for ‘democracy-building’ awarded to Chemonics International in 2006 ‘to support improved governance in a changing political environment.’” (Democracy development is a common cover for programs to foment rebellion.)

Bolivia is one of the many countries that have recently expelled USAID over the organization’s meddling in internal politics. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2013 that “about 50 countries have adopted laws to limit foreign funding of civic groups or more strictly control their activities. About 30 other countries are considering restrictions.”

Meanwhile, U.S. covert actions in Vietnam have not ended. A blogger and lawyer who spent a year in the U.S. as a fellow the National Endowment for Democracy was arrested in December 2012 for pro-democracy activities. The National Endowment for Democracy has been providing hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Vietnamese projects related to changing the government in recent years. USAID has a major presence with 38 ongoing projects in Vietnam.

It may be that regime change activities are already beginning in Vietnam. In 2014, there were large anti-China protests and attacks on Chinese businesses in Vietnam. Some speculated that the Vietnamese government was behind the protests, but David Koh, a reporter for Singapore’s Straits Times, who works with NGOs in Vietnam, interviewed officials and businessmen in Vietnam and reported that the government was surprised by the protests.

The protests were also against economic conditions and other issues in Vietnam, and it remains unclear who planned and funded the events. Researchers in Singapore who interviewed people on the ground in Vietnam wrote:

“A large number of Vietnamese ?ags and T-shirts had been purchased before the demonstrations suggesting that the attacks were not spontaneous. Even maps locating Chinese and Taiwanese factories had been photocopied in large numbers. The leaders of the riots have been reported to have been using walkie-talkies to communicate with each other. The fact that the violence affected as many as 200 factories in a single day already suggests that a high level of professionalism and organization was involved. This suggests that the riots were premeditated, although unlike the earlier peaceful demonstration of the patriots, they were not announced openly. Workers were believed to receive from VND50,000 to VND300,000 VND (equivalent to US$2.3 to US$14) to follow the agitators. This begs the question: where did the money come from?”

It’s important to note that people were paid more than a day’s labor to participate.

The Singapore researchers ultimately concluded that the Vietnamese government was the big loser:

“However, for now, the notion that the riots and violence were simply the result of a wave of blind nationalism and anti-Chinese sentiments must be re-examined. The current crisis presents major challenges for not only Vietnam-China relations, regional stability and ASEAN’s unity, but most of all, for Vietnam’s political system.”

Agent Orange Trojan Horse compounds war crimes

In addition to opening up Vietnam to a deeper relationship with the U.S. military – which is dangerous enough for Vietnam, China, Russia and the broader Asia-Pacific region – what else will USAID do with its foothold in Vietnam? As USAID so routinely involves itself in the affairs of foreign governments, it would be foolish to assume that USAID does not have other plans for Vietnam.

Rather than paying war reparations, the U.S. is using Agent Orange as a Trojan Horse to further U.S. militarization in Vietnam, escalate conflict with China and break the Vietnamese relationship with Russia. It may also be laying the groundwork for regime change if Vietnam does not comply as a tool of U.S. Empire.

Vietnam should continue to demand war reparations that are adequate for the problems the U.S. created and keep the U.S. military at arm’s length. Vietnam should kick out USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, and demand that payments be made directly to Vietnam to keep U.S. meddling out of their country. Indeed, the U.S. should not be allowed to leverage the war crime of its use of Agent Orange as a tool for more U.S. militarism and intervention.

Kevin Zeese, JD and Margaret Flowers, MD are co-directors of Popular Resistance. @KBZeese

26 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

 

By Eric Zuesse

To understand the recent signs that are pointing toward a final settlement of Ukraine’s civil war, this war’s background must first be summarized:

Petro Poroshenko became elected as Ukraine’s President on 25 May 2014, in an election that was held virtually only in the anti-Russian northwestern half of Ukraine. That’s the area which had not voted for his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, in Ukraine’s last, 2010, election — the man who was violently overthrown on 22 February 2014, in what the head of Stratfor, the ‘private CIA’ firm, has called “the most blatant coup in history.” Before Poroshenko became elected, however, the region in the far east bordering Russia, Donbass, had broken away from Ukraine, and its residents were dubbed by the post-coup government as ‘terrorists,’ for rejecting their rule. That region had voted 90% for Yanukovych, the man who had been overthrown in the coup. This new Ukrainian government invaded Donbass, using bombers, tanks, rocket-launchers, and everything it had; and, when Poroshenko gave his victory speech on May 25th, he promised, and it was very clear from him, that: “The anti-terrorist operation cannot and should not last two or three months. It should and will last hours.” (Another translation of it was “Antiterrorist operation can not and will not continue for 2-3 months. It must and will last hours.”) But it did last months — Poroshenko’s prediction was certainly false; and, moreover, he lost first one round of the war, and then another — his prediction of its outcome was likewise false.

Quickly, the hard-line anti-Russian leaders in Ukraine started talking about overthrowing Poroshenko. One of them was Ihor Kolomoysky, a billionaire governor of one of Ukraine’s regions, who had been appointed by Oleksandr Turchynov, who had been appointed by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who had been appointed by Victoria Nuland, who had been appointed by Barack Obama. Kolomoysky also had hired Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden to the board of one of his companies. So, Kolomoysky was connected directly to Obama. By contrast, Poroshenko was not, at all — he had been elected, by the residents in the now-rump Ukraine. Poroshenko wasn’t appointed by anybody. Kolomoysky said, as early as 21 June 2014 (when the first round of Poroshenko’s war was lost), “I’ll never obey Poroshenko,” and “My private army will finish off the separatists.” He was saying that he would achieve what Poroshenko and Ukraine’s regular army could not. Kolomoysky’s faction in Ukraine’s parliament is almost as influential as is Poroshenko’s. Moreover, on December 2nd, all three of the far-right parliamentary factions (including Kolomoysky’s) joined together in an alliance whose aim was specifically to remove Poroshenko.

By this time, Poroshenko, now the loser of two rounds of this war, was the leader of the Ukrainian government’s moderate or peace faction. The leader of the war faction is still Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Prime Minister of Ukraine, the man who had been appointed on 4 February 2014 (18 days before the coup) by Victoria Nuland of the U.S. State Department. Whereas Yatsenyuk was directly beholden to Obama, Poroshenko was not.

Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Francois Hollande, as well as several other EU leaders, wanted the war to end at this point, but America’s Barack Obama still did not; he wanted yet another, third, round of the war, just as did Yatsenyuk and the other hard-line anti-Russians. So: Merkel and Hollande decided to fly to Moscow and negotiate on their own with Russia’s Vladimir Putin; and, on February 7th, they announced agreement on a plan, with or without the U.S. President. Though Obama had previously said that he would send weapons to Ukraine, he now said that he would place on hold his decision about sending weapons, so as not to obstruct the efforts of those EU leaders — not embarrass and antagonize leaders whose cooperation he was seeking.

A peace-summit was then held at Minsk on February 11th, attended by Merkel, Hollande, Putin, and Poroshenko; and it resulted in the signing of a new package of peacemaking measures, called Minsk II, on February 12th.

The big question, since then, has been whether the United States would press on with its arming of Ukraine. Would Obama support Yatsenyuk, whom his own person Victoria Nuland had selected to run the country? Or would he instead switch now to support Poroshenko — whom he had never chosen?

The first big shoe to fall was on March 19th, when Poroshenko removed Kolomoysky from control of a company whose majority owner is the Ukrainian government, and when Kolomoysky sent some of his toughs into its headquarters in order to seize back control of it, and when the American Ambassador to Ukraine — the very same person who had carried out Victoria Nuland’s appointment of Yatsenyuk to become Ukraine’s Prime Minister — publicly reprimanded Kolomoysky for that action. The U.S. White House, which had selected Yatsenyuk, who then indirectly selected Kolomoysky, was now publicly renouncing Kolomoysky. This was huge. (Subsequently, on March 25th, Poroshenko removed Kolomoysky from the governorship to which Yatsenyuk — via Turchynov — had originally appointed him.)

The second big shoe to drop was on March 23rd, when, as announced in a headline, “Ukrainian Parliament May Check Yatsenyuk for Corruption.” It reported: “MP Sergei Kaplin, a member of the largest faction in the Ukrainian parliament — ‘Petro Poroshenko Bloc’ — suggested creating a special commission in Verkhovna Rada – Ukraine’s Parliament – to investigate the activities of the current Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was accused of concealing corruption schemes.” In other words: Poroshenko has Obama’s approval to get rid of Yatsenyuk — who had previously been Obama’s man. Poroshenko is now free to follow through with the Merkel-Hollande peace-plan.

Apparently, Obama, who had started this war, has finally given up on pursuing it any further, because doing so would split the Western alliance.

Obama has other fish to fry with them — such as his proposed Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), to grant international corporations effective control over the environmental, labor, and product-safety regulations of participating countries. He seems to have decided (at least for the time being) to pursue — via other routes than Ukraine — his war against Russia.

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

26 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Jon Queally

Following earlier indications that such attacks were likely, the U.S. military bombarded targets in the Iraqi city of Tikrit overnight as it took a commanding role in an ongoing offensive against Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) militants that has so far been spearheaded by Iraqi forces and Shi’ite militias which receive direct backing and guidance from the Iranian military.

“These strikes are intended to destroy ISIL strongholds with precision, thereby saving innocent Iraqi lives while minimizing collateral damage to infrastructure,” said Lt. Gen. James L. Terry of U.S. Central Command as he confirmed the bombing effort late on Wednesday. “This will further enable Iraqi forces under Iraqi command to maneuver and defeat ISIL in the vicinity of Tikrit.”

The Washington Post reports:

Pentagon officials said that the Iraqi government had requested the assistance as the fight for Tikrit stalled as it moved into its fourth week. They said initial targeting for the strikes will be aided by U.S.-led coalition surveillance aircraft that recently began flying over the city, 110 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The fight for Tikrit is considered a crucial test for larger future objectives, including Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which has been the symbol and center of Islamic State power in Iraq since the militants took it last summer.

According to Reuters:

The decision to give air support to the Tikrit campaign pulls the United States into a messy battle that puts the U.S.-led coalition, however reluctantly, on the same side of a fight as Iranian-backed militia in a bid to support Iraqi forces and opens a new chapter in the war.

It also appeared to represent at least a tacit acknowledgement by Baghdad that such airpower was necessary to wrest control of the hometown of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from Islamic State fighters, after its attempts to go it alone stalled.

With ongoing and escalating fighting in Yemen in recent days, including a wave of airstrikes led by Saudi Arabia, the greater Middle East region is now awash in a complex web of violence in which proxy battles, influxes of weapons and soldiers, and cross-border sectarian divisions are feeding violence in myriad ways.

As Middle East historian Juan Cole points out, the U.S. military on Wednesday into Thursday was assisting the Saudi bombing of the Iranian-allied Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, while simultaneously collaborating (at least indirectly) with Iranian military advisors from the Iranian Republican Guard Corp in the operation against ISIS in Tikrit. “The US support for the Saudi air strikes and the new coalition makes the Yemen war now the second major air campaign supported by the US in the region,” he writes. “But the one in Iraq is in alliance with Iran. The one in Yemen is against a group supported in some measure by Iran.” According to Cole:

US air intervention on behalf of the Jerusalem Brigades of the IRGC is ironic in the extreme, since the two have been at daggers drawn for decades. Likewise, militias like Muqtada al-Sadr’s “Peace Brigades” (formerly Mahdi Army) and League of the Righteous (Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq) targeted US troops during Washington’s occupation of Iraq. But the fight against the so-called “Islamic State group” or Daesh has made for very strange bedfellows. Another irony is that apparently the US doesn’t mind essentially tactically allying with Iran this way – the reluctance came from the Shiite militias.

The takeaway, according to Cole, is that the U.S. military is “now involved in two air wars in the Middle East, not to mention more widespread drone actions” elsewhere. Amid all this violence, the prospect for peaceful resolutions anytime soon has dropped to nearly zero.

And the Washington Post adds:

…the Tikrit operation is fraught with potential political and strategic complications for the Obama administration. The overwhelming presence of Shiite militias and volunteers armed and advised by Iran has given rise to fears that their victory would promote sectarian divisions and bloodletting in the majority-Sunni city. U.S. officials have estimated that these Shiite fighters outnumber official Iraqi security forces and Sunni tribal forces by about 5 to 1 in the battle. […]

Human rights groups in recent days have documented the Shiite pursuit of a scorched earth policy in areas already liberated from the Islamic State. After U.S. airstrikes drove the militants out of the town of Amerli, in northeastern Iraq, late last summer, the militias went on a sectarian rampage, burning and bulldozing thousands of homes and other buildings in dozens of Sunni villages.

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

26 March, 2015
CommonDreams.org

 

 

By Niles Williamson

The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adair Al Jubeir, announced Wednesday night from Washington, D.C. that his country, in coordination with the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, had begun airstrikes on Houthi rebel positions inside Yemen. He said that Saudi Arabia and others in the coalition were prepared “to protect and defend the legitimate government” of President Adb Rabbu Mansur Hadi.

Jubeir declared that Saudi Arabia would do “whatever it takes” to keep Hadi in power.

The Saudi strikes are backed by the Obama administration, which released a statement stating that the US was providing “logistical and intelligence support.” A ground offensive involving 150,000 Saudi troops is also reportedly being prepared.

Airstrikes were reported at the Sanaa airport and at the Al Dulaimi military base. Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi’s Ansarullah politburo, warned that the airstrikes would set off a “wide war” in the Arabian Peninsula. “The Yemeni people are a free people and they will confront the aggressors. I will remind you that the Saudi government and the Gulf governments will regret this aggression,” Bukhaiti told Al Jazeera news.

According to US officials, Saudi Arabia has also positioned heavy artillery and other military equipment on its border with Yemen. At a weekend meeting of Gulf state princes and defense ministers, Saudi officials had presented their plans for air strikes against Houthi targets and a naval blockade of Houthi supply routes. Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud Al Faisal, told reporters earlier this week that his country was prepared to “take the necessary measures for this crisis to protect the region.”

With the latest developments Yemen’s escalating civil war has openly taken on the character of a regional conflict, involving both Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi Arabia’s Sunni monarchy is now openly backing Hadi as the legitimate leader of the country, while Shiite-dominated Iran has called for him to cede power, giving its support to the Houthis, who belong to the Zaydi Shiite sect of Islam.

In recent years, Saudi Arabia, which receives military support from the United States, has undertaken military incursions to suppress popular Shiite uprisings in neighboring countries. In late 2009, the Saudi military launched operations against the Houthi militias inside Yemen in coordination with the government of former president and longtime dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Saudi monarchy also dispatched troops to Bahrain in March 2011 to suppress protests by that country’s Shiite majority against the dictatorship of Sunni King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa.

A letter sent by Hadi to the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday asked for the adoption of a resolution supporting “all means necessary, including military intervention, to protect Yemen and its people from the continuing Houthi aggression”.

The beleaguered Hadi reportedly left Yemen on Wednesday as Houthi rebel fighters backed by army units loyal to former president Saleh seized the Al Anad airbase in Lahj province as well as Aden’s international airport and central bank headquarters.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Hadi fled Aden on a boat with the assistance of a retinue of Saudi Arabian diplomatic officials to escape the impending Houthi assault. Reports of Hadi’s departure were denied by Yemen’s chief of national security, Major General Ali Al Ahmadi, who told Reuters, “He’s here, he’s here, he’s here. I am now with him in the palace. He is in Aden.”

Until their evacuation last weekend, US and European special forces soldiers had used the Al Anad airbase to coordinate military operations and drone missile strikes against members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in southern and eastern Yemen.

The Houthis seized the base as they pushed south towards the port city of Aden, where Hadi had fled after escaping house arrest in Sanaa in February. The president had been forced to announce his resignation and dissolution of the government after the Houthis seized control of the presidential palace in January.

The Houthi rebels, who took control of the capital of Sanaa in September 2014, began their advance south last week after fighting broke out in Aden between forces loyal to Saleh and Hadi over control of the international airport.

Wednesday’s advance put the Houthis within striking distance of the compound where Hadi has been marshaling military forces still loyal to him in an attempt to reassert control over the country. Fighter jets manned by Yemeni air force pilots supporting Saleh have been strafing the compound for the last few days.

The loss of Al Anad air base amid the complete collapse of the US puppet regime headed by Hadi is the latest debacle for American imperialist foreign policy following in the wake of Iraq, Syria, and Libya. The disastrous intervention of American imperialism in Yemen has stoked long-simmering sectarian tensions to the point of explosion, completely destabilizing the deeply impoverished Arab country.

Al Anad was one of the key sites used by the US military and CIA to launch drone strikes inside Yemen. According to estimates by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the drone war, which began under the direction of US president Barack Obama in 2009 with the assent of then-president Saleh, has killed more than 1,000 people. The massively unpopular drone strikes were also supported by Hadi, who came to power in 2012, after Saleh was ousted by mass protests.

After the Houthi rebels seized control of Sanaa in January, the Pentagon worked to establish relations with them in order to continue drone strike operations against alleged Al Qaeda militants. The last reported strike came on March 1 in Bayda province, killing as many as three people. It was in an area where Houthi militants had been fighting members of AQAP.

Underscoring the debacle in Yemen, the Pentagon admits that it has lost track of more than $500 million worth of weapons and equipment amid the ongoing fighting. US military officials testified in recent closed-door congressional hearings that they have no idea whether the equipment has fallen into the hands of either Houthi fighters or Al Qaeda militants. “We have to assume it’s completely compromised and gone,” a legislative aide told the Washington Post.

Among the US equipment provided to the Yemeni government since 2007 that has now been lost are 200 M-4 rifles, 1.25 million rounds of ammunition, 160 Humvees, and 4 Huey II helicopters. An additional unknown amount of weapons and equipment provided by the CIA and Pentagon through classified programs has also been lost.

26 March, 2015
WSWS.org

 

By Sara Flounders and Lamont Lilly

U.S. efforts to overturn the government of Syria have now extended into a fifth year. It is increasingly clear that thousands of predictions reported in the corporate media by Western politicians, think tanks, diplomats and generals of a quick overturn and easy destruction of Syrian sovereignty have been overly optimistic, imperialist dreams. But four years of sabotage, bombings, assassinations and a mercenary invasion of more than 20,000 fighters recruited from over 60 countries have spread great ruin and loss of life.

The U.S. State Department has once again made its arrogant demand that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must step down. This demand confirms U.S. imperialism’s determination to overthrow the elected Syrian government. Washington intends to impose the chaos of feuding mercenaries and fanatical militias as seen today in Libya and Iraq.

A delegation from the International Action Center headed by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark traveled to Syria in late February to present a different message.

Visits to hospitals, centers for displaced families and meetings with religious leaders, community organizations and government officials conveyed the IAC’s determination to resist the orchestrated efforts of U.S. imperialism acting through its proxies in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Israel.

The IAC’s opportunity to again visit Syria came following its participation in a packed and well-organized meeting of the International Forum for Justice in Palestine, held in Beirut on Feb. 22 and 23. The conference was initiated by Ma’an Bashour and the Arab International Centre for Communication and Solidarity and again confirmed the centrality of the burning, unresolved issue of Palestine in the region.

The solidarity delegation to Syria included Cynthia McKinney, former six-term member of the U.S Congress; Lamont Lilly, of the youth organization FIST – Fight Imperialism, Stand Together; Eva Bartlett, from the Syrian Solidarity Movement; and Sara Flounders, IAC co-director.

The delegation traveled the rutted, mountainous, blacktop road from Beirut to Damascus to the Lebanon-Syria border. On the Syrian side, this road was a modern, 6-lane highway, a reminder of Syria’s high level of infrastructure development. Even after four years of war, this is still a well-maintained highway. Due to sanctions against Syria, hundreds of trucks attempting deliveries stretched for miles on both sides of the border.

Compared to two years ago, when the IAC visited Damascus, this year we didn’t hear the constant thud of incoming rockets from mercenary forces shelling the city. These military forces have been pushed back from their encirclement of the capital. Syrian military units, checkpoints, sandbags, blast walls and concrete blocks were now less pervasive. Markets were full of people and held more produce.

A visit to Damascus’ largest hospital showed the cumulative impact of four years of devastation. At the University Hospital, where children with amputated limbs receive treatments in the ICU, many children had been brought in maimed from explosives and with shrapnel wounds from mortars and rockets fired on Damascus by terrorist forces.

At a visit to a center for displaced families at a former school, we met with university students, who provide sports, crafts, tutoring and mentoring programs. Medical care, free food and education programs are provided by the centers. But conditions are desperately overcrowded. Each homeless family, often of 6 to 10 people, is allocated a single classroom as housing. Almost half the population has been displaced by the terror tactics of mercenary forces.

A Mosaic of cultures

A theme in almost every discussion was Syria’s heritage as a diverse, rich mosaic of religious and cultural traditions. Sectarian divisions and intolerance are consciously opposed. One can see the determination to oppose the rule of foreign-funded forces.

A visit with Syria’s Grand Mufti Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun and Syrian Greek Orthodox Bishop Luca al-Khoury reflected the centuries of religious harmony that previously existed in Syria.

Mufti Hassoun stressed the need for reconciliation. He described to the visitors the assassination three years ago of his 22-year-old son, Saria, who “had never carried a weapon in his life.” Saria was gunned down after leaving his university. At the funeral, Mufti Hassoun declared he forgave the gunmen and called on them to lay down their weapons and rejoin Syria. He described his Greek Orthodox counterpart, Bishop Luca al-Khoury, as his cousin and brother.

Bishop Khoury described the ease with which he received a visa to the U.S., while Mufti Hassoun was denied a visa, although both are religious leaders. “Why do they differentiate between us?” said Khoury. “It’s part of the project to separate Christians and Muslims here. It’s over gas pipelines which are supposed to run through Syrian territory. This will only happen if there is a weak Syrian state.

“If the Syrian government would agree to give a monopoly to France to extract gas from Syria, then you would find [President François] Hollande visiting Syria the next day. If the Syrian government would give the monopoly to [the United States of] America, [President Barack] Obama would declare President al-Assad as the legitimate ruler of the Syrian people.”

“Turkey is warring on us,” Khoury continued, “with financial support from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and political support from America, Europe and Britain. Drones cross our borders daily, providing coordinates for the terrorists as to where to strike.”

Both religious leaders declared, as did many others in Syria, that the only solution is an international effort to stop the flow of arms: “If the American government would like to find a solution for the Syrian crisis, they could go to the Security Council and issue a resolution under Chapter 7 for a total ban of weapons from Turkey to terrorists in Syria. In one week this would be over.”

Syria’s accomplishments

Political and media adviser to President al-Assad, Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, described the problem of stopping the weapons and mercenaries flooding into the country: “With external support and financing, and an over 800-kilometer border with Turkey, it’s very difficult to stop the flow of terrorists.

“Syria was formerly one of the fastest developing countries in the world,” Shaaban continued, “and one of the safest. We have free education and health care. We did not know poverty; we grew our food and produced our own clothing. At universities, 55 percent of the students were women. In whose interest is it to destroy this heritage? Who is the beneficiary of this?”

Shaaban described her time as a Fulbright scholar at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and later as professor at Eastern Michigan University: “I always wanted to be a bridge between Syria and Western cultures. At the beginning of the crisis, they tried to buy me. They urged me to ‘come to a civilized place,’” she said. “We have baths which are over 1,000 years old and still functioning. I studied Shelley: They didn’t have baths 800 years ago in England. We did. We were having baths and coffee.”

The delegation headed by Ramsey Clark also had an important opportunity to meet with Abu Ahmad Fuad, deputy general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Abu Sami Marwan, of the Political Bureau of the PFLP, and hear of the ongoing developments in Palestine and the region.

According to a Feb. 25 statement released by the PFLP after the meeting, “The PFLP leaders discussed the nature of the U.S./Zionist aggression against the people of the region, their intervention in Syria and the attempts of colonial powers to impose their hegemony by force and military aggression, through division of the land and people, and by pushing the region into sectarian or religious conflict.

“This U.S. policy is nothing new.” The Front noted that the colonial powers have waged an ongoing war against the Arab people to prevent any real progress for the region on the road to liberation, self-determination and an end to Zionist occupation.

“The U.S. delegation discussed the urgent need for building ongoing solidarity with Palestine in the United States and internationally,” continued the release, “in particular to confront the deep involvement of the United States — militarily, politically and financially — in the crimes of the occupier, and to end its attacks on Syria, Iraq and the people of the entire region.

“The solidarity delegates noted that there is a colonial scheme to divide and repartition the region according to the interests of major corporations and imperial powers, targeting the resources of the people, sometimes through blatant political interference in the affairs of the region and other times through wars and military attacks on states and peoples.

“The two sides emphasized the importance of communication between the Palestinian Arab left and progressive and democratic forces in the United States to confront Zionism and imperialism in the U.S. and in Palestine alike.”

Ramsey Clark described the aim of the visit: “To find more opportunities for dialogue and coordination among the Syrian and American people. We saw culture and credibility in Syria and we appreciate the struggle of this people. We will disallow them to shift Syria into Iraq or Libya.”

Cynthia McKinney, former member at the U.S. Congress, said that she appreciated “Syria’s heroic stance, as people and leadership, in its war against the U.S. imperialism. The Syrian people are exceptional in their capability of resistance as the acts during four years have failed to achieve their goals.”

17 March 2015