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By Alex Lantier

24 July, 2013

@ WSWS.org

The Pentagon is planning a major escalation of the US-led war against Syria, involving direct US military involvement to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In a letter to Democratic Senator Carl Levin, the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Martin Dempsey spelled out proposals and cost estimates for various potential US interventions in Syria. His plans include training opposition militias in Syria; missile strikes against Syrian targets; setting up a “no-fly zone” to ground or destroy Syria’s air force; seizing “buffer zones” of Syrian territory near Jordan or Turkey; and Special Forces raids to seize chemical weapons.

Pentagon plans include large-scale operations, costing at least tens of billions of dollars per year. Dempsey said Special Forces strikes would cost over $1 billion a month, and missile strikes—requiring “hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines, and other enablers”—would cost “in the billions.”

Dempsey’s letter followed a vote last week by the US House and Senate intelligence panels to directly arm opposition forces in Syria. Until now, they had been funded and armed by US-allied oil sheikdoms such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and not directly by the US. This allowed Washington to cynically claim the opposition was not on its payroll, even as the CIA coordinated the flow of arms and money.

The Obama administration lobbied intensively for the votes to arm the opposition in Syria. Vice President Joe Biden, CIA Director John Brennan, and Secretary of State John Kerry all called or briefed members of Congress.

The original justification for the Syrian war—that it was a humanitarian struggle to defend a democratic uprising of the Syrian people—is so nakedly exposed that the US and its European allies barely bother to repeat it. They recklessly armed Al Qaeda-linked forces like the Al Nusra Front and promoted a “moderate” stable of CIA assets and regime turncoats, hoping to topple Assad. While the Syrian people faced an onslaught of US-backed gangs and militias, the media and bourgeois “left” praised these forces as revolutionary fighters for democracy.

This criminal policy is now in shambles. This opposition faces defeat due to its lack of popular support and the international spread of the war. In recent months, select Iranian forces and fighters from the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah helped Assad turn the tide of battle against Sunni Islamist-dominated opposition militias.

Washington’s response is to prepare for an even greater bloodbath. Powerful sections of the ruling class are pushing for a broad US war to oust Assad and forcibly assert US imperialist hegemony over the Middle East. Anthony Cordesman, an influential strategist from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), made his case for such a war in a Washington Post column yesterday titled “Syria’s Ripple Effect.”

He wrote, “If Assad succeeds in crushing the opposition or otherwise maintains control over most of Syria, Iran will have a massive new degree of influence over Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon in a polarized Middle East divided between Sunni and Shiite …This would present serious risks for Israel, weaken Jordan and Turkey, and, most important, give Iran far more influence in the Persian Gulf, an area home to 48 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves.”

Cordesman outlined a spectrum of US actions, from providing anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles to the Western-backed militias to imposing a no-fly zone to permit direct US intervention: “US officials could make clear that either the rebels will succeed with such weapons—leading to a negotiated departure of Assad’s government and the installation of a new national government—or the United States will join with allies in creating a no-fly zone.”

Cordesman’s proposal amounts to a call for the Pentagon and its allies to prepare for broad regional or even global wars with mass casualties and devastating effects on the world economy. It could involve the US in a war not only with Syria, but also with Hezbollah forces and the Assad regime’s international backers—Iran, upon which the US imposed further sanctions last week, or even Russia and China.

Layers within the US military have cautioned against a rapid, all-out war, primarily because they are not sure that they are prepared for how such a war would escalate. Thus, in his letter to Levin, Dempsey reportedly wrote: “Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is hard to avoid.”

Sections of the ruling class propose to strengthen the opposition and wage a long-term proxy war in Syria to carry out a neocolonial partition of the country. Citing White House Press Secretary Jay Carney’s comment that Assad “will never rule all of Syria again,” the New York Times wrote yesterday that Washington is preparing “the long-term reality of a divided Syria,” of which Assad would only control a “rump portion.”

All these plans to escalate imperialist intervention in the Middle East reflect the crisis and breakdown of American democracy. Ten years after the disastrous and unpopular US invasion of Iraq, imperialist strategists are formulating plans for another ruinous war, with contempt for the views of the population. Fully 61 percent of the population opposes US involvement in the Syrian war, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll.

The ruling elite’s ability to press forward with plans for war underscores the deeply reactionary role of the media and the petty-bourgeois “left” in suppressing any overt expression of popular opposition. In particular, the role of pseudo-left groups like the International Socialist Organization (ISO) in the US, Die Linke in Germany, or the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) in France is clear. They have worked continuously to market filthy imperialist wars to left-liberal sections of the middle class as “revolutions.”

These parties have not only supported the wars in their publications, but also played a direct role in the intelligence operations necessary to organize the war. Early in the Syrian war, the NPA’s Gilbert Achcar attended a covert October 2011 conference of the CIA-backed Syrian National Council (SNC) opposition group to advise it on the mechanics of foreign intervention.

These parties have functioned as mouthpieces for various sections of the intelligence community who favor an imperialist overthrow of Assad in alliance with the Islamist opposition.

Thus, a recent article by the NPA’s main writer on Syria, Gayath Naïssé, titled “Self-organization in the Syrian people’s revolution,” praises the opposition militias that control the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, writing that “a democratic dream has been realized in Deir ez-Zor.” He enthuses that “a free electoral process “was organized for the first time in forty years” as it was described by Khadr, a member of the local council of the opposition which was elected on Sunday by the inhabitants of the “liberated’ areas.”

This is a blatant falsification of the political record of far-right, Al Qaeda-linked militias that have seized various Syrian cities with US support, imposing a reign of terror on the population. In Deir ez-Zor itself, they operate death squads that have recorded widely-publicized videos of themselves murdering inhabitants opposed to their policies. More broadly, Islamist opposition militias have become notorious for looting areas that they control—most notably destroying factories in Aleppo, in order to fund their arms purchases from the United States’ allies.

The ISO’s latest statement on Syria—a piece by Michael Karadjis first posted on the Australian pseudo-left site Links —attacks any opposition to US intervention to back the Syrian opposition. Denouncing “lazy talk of the trickle of light weapons from abroad representing some great ‘war on Syria,’” it attacks opponents of the US intervention as people “terribly frightened about the prospect of a trickle of arms reaching the rebels from the wrong people.”

The statement adds, “It is not up to socialists within imperialist countries to demand our governments not provide arms just because we understand our government’s aims are different to ours and such arming demands a political price from the rebels … If the US or other imperialist states did decide for their own reasons to provide some arms, we should also not protest against it, robotic-style.”

This passage underscores how the ISO functions as a conscious defender of imperialism and war. While acknowledging that the Syrian opposition consists of forces armed by the US government and that therefore act as its stooges, it demands that these pro-US stooges in Syria be armed to the teeth, and that no opposition to such a proxy war be organized.

Such forces are accomplices in the devastation of Syria and ongoing preparations for even broader and bloodier imperialist wars.

By Richard Heinberg

24 July, 2013

@ Post Carbon Institute

You and I consume; we are consumers. The global economy is set up to enable us to do what we innately want to do—buy, use, discard, and buy some more. If we do our job well, the economy thrives; if for some reason we fail at our task, the economy falters. The model of economic existence just described is reinforced in the business pages of every newspaper, and in the daily reportage of nearly every broadcast and web-based financial news service, and it has a familiar name: consumerism.

Consumerism also has a history, but not a long one. True, humans—like all other animals—are consumers in the most basic sense, in that we must eat to live. Further, we have been making weapons, ornaments, clothing, utensils, toys, and musical instruments for thousands of years, and commerce has likewise been with us for untold millennia.

What’s new is the project of organizing an entire society around the necessity for ever-increasing rates of personal consumption.

This is how it happened

Consumerism arose from a unique historic milieu. In the early 20th century, a temporary abundance of cheap, concentrated, storable, and portable energy in the form of fossil fuels enabled a dramatic increase in the rate and scope of resource extraction (via powered mining equipment, chain saws, tractors, powered fishing boats, and more). Coupled with powered assembly lines and the use of petrochemicals, cheap fossil energy also permitted the vastly expanded manufacture of a widening array of commercial products. This resulted in a serious economic problem known as overproduction (too many goods chasing too few buyers), which would eventually contribute to the Great Depression.

Industrialists found a solution. How they did so is detailed a book that deserves renewed attention, Captains of Consciousness by social historian Stuart Ewen (1976). Ewen traced the rapid, massive expansion of the advertising industry during the 20th century, as well as its extraordinary social and political impacts (if you really want to understand Mad Men, start here). Ewen argued that “Consumerism, the mass participation in the values of the mass-industrial market . . . emerged in the 1920s not as a smooth progression from earlier and less ‘developed’ patterns of consumption, but rather as an aggressive device of corporate survival.”

In a later book, PR! (1996), Ewen recounts how, during the 1930s, the US-based National Association of Manufacturers enlisted a team of advertisers, marketers, and psychologists to formulate a strategy to counter government efforts to plan and manage the economy in the wake of the Depression. They proposed a massive, ongoing ad campaign to equate consumerism with “The American Way.” Progress would henceforth be framed entirely in economic terms, as the fruit of manufacturers’ ingenuity. Americans were to be referred to in public discourse (newspapers, magazines, radio) as consumers, and were to be reminded at every opportunity of their duty to contribute to the economy by purchasing factory-made products, as directed by increasingly sophisticated and ubiquitous advertising cues.

While advertising was an essential prop to consumerism, by itself it was incapable of stoking sufficient demand to soak up all the goods rolling off assembly lines. In the early years of the last century Americans were accustomed to paying cash for their purchases; but then along came automobiles: not many people could afford to pay for one outright, yet nearly everybody wanted one. In addition to being talked into desiring more products, consumers had to be enabled to purchase more of them than they could immediately pay for; hence the widespread deployment of time payments and other forms of consumer credit. With credit, households could consume now and pay later. Consumers took on more debt, the financial industry mushroomed, and manufacturers sold more products.

Though consumerism began as a project organized by corporate America, government at all levels swiftly lent its support. When citizens spent more on consumer goods, sales tax and income tax revenues tended to swell. After World War II, government advocacy of increased consumer spending was formalized with the adoption of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the nation’s primary measure of economic success, and with the increasing use of the term consumer by government agencies.

By the 1950s, consumerism was thoroughly interwoven in the fabric of American society. In 1955, economist Victor Lebow would epitomize the new status quo, writing in the Journal of Retailing: “Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate.”

What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile critics had identified a couple of serious problems with consumerism.

First problem: Consumerism, according to the critics, warps human values.

Way back in 1899, when consumerism was barely a glimmer in advertisers’ neurons, economist Thorstein Veblen asserted in his widely cited book The Theory of the Leisure Class that there exists a fundamental split in society between those who work and those who exploit the work of others; as societies evolve, the latter come to constitute a “leisure class” that engages in “conspicuous consumption.” Veblen saw mass production as a way to universalize the trappings of leisure so the owning class could engage workers in an endless pursuit of status symbols, thus deflecting their attention from society’s increasingly unequal distribution of wealth and from their own political impotence. Later critics of consumerism included German historian Oswald Spengler, who wrote that “Life in America is exclusively economic in structure and lacks depth”; Mohandas Gandhi, who regarded a simple life free from possessions as morally ennobling; and Scott and Helen Nearing, authors of Living the Good Life and pioneers of the back-to-the-land movement. Social critics of consumerism like Duane Elgin, Juliet Schor, and Vicki Robin have argued that relationships with a product or brand name are dysfunctional substitutes for healthy human relationships and that consumer choice is a soporific stand-in for genuine democracy.

A second and more crucial problem with consumerism, say the critics, has to do with resource limits. Environmental scientists assert that, regardless of whether consumerism is socially desirable, in the long run it is physically impossible to maintain. The math is simple: even at a fraction of one percent per year growth in consumption, all of Earth’s resources would eventually be used up. The consumer economy also produces an unending variety of wastes, of which water, air, and soil can absorb only so much before planetary life-support systems begin unraveling.

In his 1954 book The Challenge of Man’s Future, physicist Harrison Brown envisioned devastating social and environmental consequences from the relentless growth of human population and resource consumption; Brown even managed to foresee the current climate crisis.

A few years later a team of researchers at MIT began using a computer to model likely future scenarios ensuing from population expansion, consumption growth, and environmental decline. In the computer’s “standard run” scenario, continued growth led to a global economic collapse in the mid 21st century. That project’s findings were documented in the pivotal 1972 book, Limits to Growth, which received blistering reviews from mainstream economists but has since been vindicated by independent retrospective analysis.

More recently, E. F. Schumacher, Herman Daly, William Rees, and other advocates of ecological economics have pointed out that the consumer economy treats Earth’s irreplaceable capital (natural resources) as if it were income—an obvious theoretical error with potentially catastrophic real-world results.

A self-reinforcing system

Often these critiques have led to a simple personal prescription: If buying ever more stuff is bad for the environment and turns us into vapid mall drones, then it’s up to each of us to rein in our consumptive habits. Buy nothing! Reuse! Recycle! Share!

Yet treating consumerism as though it were merely an individual proclivity rather than a complex, interdependent system with financial and governmental as well as commercial components is both wrong and mostly ineffectual. Consider this simple thought experiment: What would happen if everyone were to suddenly embrace a Gandhian ethic of voluntary simplicity? Commerce would contract; jobs would vanish; pension funds would lose value; tax revenues would shrivel, and so would government services. Absent sweeping structural changes to government and the economy, the result would be a deep, long-lasting economic depression.

This is not to say that personal efforts toward voluntary simplicity have no benefit—they do, for the individual and her circle of associates; however, the system of consumerism can only be altered or replaced through systemic action. Yet systemic action is hampered by the fact that consumerism has become self-reinforcing: those with significant roles in the system who try to rein it in get whacked, while those who help it expand get stroked. Nearly everybody wants an economy with more jobs and higher returns on investments, so for a majority the incentive to shut up and get with the program is overwhelming. Arguments against consumerism may be rationally irrefutable, but few people stop to think about them.

If mere persuasion could dismantle consumerism or replace it with something better, it would have done so by now.

Crisis time

Still, as the critics have insisted all along, consumerism as a system cannot continue indefinitely; it contains the seeds of its own demise. And the natural constraints to consumerism—fossil fuel limits, environmental sink limits (leading to climate change, ocean acidification, and other pollution dilemmas), and debt limits—appear to be well within sight. While there may be short-term ways of pushing back against these limits (unconventional oil and gas, geo-engineering, and quantitative easing), there is no way around them. Consumerism is doomed. But since consumerism now effectively is the economy (70 percent of US GDP comes from consumer spending), when it goes down the economy goes too.

A train wreck is foreseeable. No one knows exactly when the impact will occur or precisely how bad it will be. But it is possible to say with some confidence that this wreck will manifest itself as an economic depression accompanied by a series of worsening environmental disasters and possibly wars and revolutions. This should be news to nobody by now, as recent government and UN reports spin out the scenarios in ever grimmer detail: rising sea levels, waves of environmental refugees, droughts, floods, famines, and collapsing economies.

Indeed, in view of the events since 2007, it’s likely the impact has already commenced, though it is happening in agonizingly slow motion as the system fights to maintain itself.

The happy alternative

It is not too soon to wonder what comes after consumerism. If there is good news to be gleaned from the story just told, it is that this mode of economic existence is not biologically determined. Consumerism arose from a certain set of circumstances; as circumstances change, other economic arrangements will become adaptive.

If we have some idea of the circumstances that are likely to emerge in the decades ahead, we may get some clue as to what those alternative arrangements might look like. As we’ve already seen, the consumerist economy of the 20th century was driven by cheap energy and overproduction. All signs suggest the new century will be shaped by energy limits, environmental sink limits, and debt limits—and therefore by declining production per capita. Under these circumstances, policy makers will surely strive to provide a sufficiency economy. But how do we get from a consumerist economy to a sufficiency economy?

Perhaps the most promising clue comes from the emerging happiness movement. Since the 1970s, the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has experimented with Gross National Happiness (GNH) as a measure of economic success, and recently convened a meeting at the United Nations to advocate widespread international adoption of GNH. Concurrently, the New Economics Foundation of Britain has begun publishing an annually updated Happy Planet Index (HPI), which ranks nations by the self-reported levels of happiness of citizens and by the size of countries’ ecological footprints.

The point of GNH and HPI is to count economic success more by how people feel about their lives and circumstances, and less by measuring consumption (which is what GDP does, in effect). Happiness metrics are kryptonite to consumerism, which has been shown time and again to make people less satisfied with the circumstances of their lives. A wholesale official adoption of GNH or HPI by the world’s nations would ultimately lead to a profound shuffling of priorities. Governments would have to promote policies that lead to more sharing, more equity, more transparency, and more citizen participation in governance, since it is these sorts of things that tend to push happiness scores higher.

The guardians of the consumer economy are not stupid. They will not permit the wholesale introduction of happiness metrics absent necessity. But, as we’ve seen, necessity is coming. As the current consumer economy frays and sputters, policy makers will need increasingly to find ways to pacify the multitudes and give them some sense of direction. Beyond a certain point, promises of a return to the days of carefree shopping will ring hollow. Moreover, upon first consideration, happiness indices appear relatively innocuous: they merely propose an alternative to GDP, which many economists acknowledge is deeply flawed anyway.

The happiness movement cannot solve all our problems. By itself, it can do little directly to address climate change, water scarcity, overpopulation, or a dozen other converging crises—though it could overturn an economic paradigm that tends to exacerbate all of them.

Happiness indices may constitute a collective adaptation that could ease the transition from one economic mode to the next, reducing the trauma that will likely accompany the demise of consumerism. GNH or HPI may be effective packages in which to “sell” sufficiency to policy makers and citizens; they may also be pathways to a genuinely superior mode of human existence.

Richard Heinberg is the author of ten books including The Party’s Over and The End of Growth. He is Senior Fellow-in-Residence of Post Carbon Institute and is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost Peak Oil educators.

Posted on 23 July 2013 – 05:10am

By Eric S. Margolis

HERE we go again, another round of Middle East peace talk kabuki. A process in which Washington, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation hold intense talks over holding talks, a ritual as stylised as the traditional Japanese dance. In the end, it’s the same empty, cynical ritual, year after year.

Last week, US Secretary of State John Kerry was leading the dance in the latest attempt to restart peace talks between Israel and the Mahmoud Abbas’ PLO. As of this writing, the talks appear off. But they may be on again just as quickly. It depends on how much Washington offers its feuding clients, Israel and the PLO.

Watching this annual charade is both painful and exhausting. It makes cynics of the most idealistic hopers for Middle East peace.

Israel holds all the cards, and knows it. Jewish settlements, roads, and security walls are roaring ahead, relentlessly gobbling up the occupied West Bank, Golan and their water resources.

West Bank Palestinians are being crammed into future native Bantustans patterned after South Africa’s apartheid-era reservations for blacks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who vows there will be no Palestinian state, appears to have an impregnable hold on power. Israel’s economy is doing very well, thanks in part to billions in US economic and military aid, privileged access to the US market, and exports of arms and electronics.

Israel’s high tech and medical industries are among the world’s leaders. New gas and oil finds between Israel and Cyprus may make Israel an energy exporter within a decade.

The United States has eliminated any possible Arab military challenge to Israel’s absolute military domination of the Middle East by destroying Iraq as a functioning state and then fuelling Syria’s civil war. Egypt, once Israel’s leading foe, has been bought off by American money.

Israel has finished deploying an indestructible triad of nuclear forces based on missiles, aircraft and, most lately, submarines that can fire cruise or, possibly, ballistic missiles, all targeted by Israeli and US satellite networks.

This means that Israel can survive any nuclear attack and retaliate in kind against attackers. Israel’s Middle East nuclear monopoly remains secure.

Equally important, Israel, through its American supporters, effectively guides much of America’s Middle East policy. Almost 50% of Republican voters are now rural born-again Christian Zionist for whom Israel is an essential part of their Biblical prophecy of the return of the Messiah.

President Barack Obama’s feeble efforts to press Israel into real peace negotiations with the Palestinians were quickly squashed by the pro-Israel lobby and its partisans in Congress. Netanyahu probably exerts more influence over the US Congress than Obama.

Moreover, Israel is “negotiating” with a PLO that has become a sock puppet for the US and Israel after its former leader, Yasser Arafat, was very likely assassinated to make way for the compliant Mahmoud Abbas.

The PLO is run and financed by the US and Israel, its security forces trained and directed by CIA, its intelligence agency an arm of Israel’s Mossad. Its elected rival, Hamas, remains jailed in Gaza.

Yet even this is not enough. Netanyahu now demands the Arabs recognise Israel as a “Jewish state”, knowing this is unacceptable. Christians and Muslims make up 20% of Israel’s population.

Tragically, Israel right wing parties have spurned the sensible 2002 peace offer led by Saudi Arabia. The plan calls for a withdrawal to 1967 borders, with some minor rectifications for large Jewish settlement blocs, full peace and recognition between Israel and 57 Muslim nations, and a “just” solution to the Palestinian refugee crisis – meaning some token repatriation of refugees and compensation for Jews who fled the Arab world.

This is clearly the best solution. But it was rejected by Israel’s Likud Party and other rightists because they refuse to define Israel’s borders.

As the late Israeli Moishe Dayan stated, it is up to god, not man, to determine Israel’s future growth. Israel’s right wingers have long looked with desire upon Lebanon and parts of Syria. Baghdad once had a large Jewish population.

Why sacrifice all this for the sake of little Palestinian rump state that will anyway become an Israeli protectorate? Just keep talking about talks while the bulldozers roar ahead.

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist, writing mainly about the Middle East and South Asia. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

By Thomas Gaist

23 July, 2013

@ WSWS.org

In what the Washington Post describes as the “next phase of drone warfare,” the Obama administration is set to “extend the Pentagon’s robust surveillance networks far beyond traditional, declared combat zones.” According to the Post, Washington is set to deploy the drone fleet to new areas across the globe, where it will be used to monitor drug runners, pirates and “other targets that worry US officials.”

A Defense Department spokeswoman said the military is “committed to increasing” drone activities throughout Asia and the Pacific. The Post also cites Colombia as a war theater that will likely see increased use of American drones, although US drones have already been engaged in operations against “narco-terrorists” in collaboration with the Colombian military.

“Surveillance drones could really help us out and really take the heat and wear and tear off of some of our manned aviation assets,” Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, head of the US Southern Command, said in March.

While Obama has claimed that “the tide of war is receding,” actually the US government is intensifying military operations worldwide. During the past decade, the Pentagon has assembled a fleet of hundreds of high-altitude, “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAVs), which now carry out missions on a daily basis in service of the strategic aims of US imperialism. The “Predator” drone series alone has carried out at least 80,000 sorties in conflict areas including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Somalia.

In their 2013 article, “How Many Wars Is the US Fighting Today?” Linda Bilmes of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Michael Intriligator of the University of California, Los Angeles argue that the US is engaged in at least five “unannounced and undeclared” wars fought to a large extent with robotic weapons systems.

As the paper points out, these conflicts are part of a long “tradition of many previous covert US military incursions,” including those in Chile, Cuba, Nicaragua and many other countries. Advanced military technologies have facilitated a massive extension of such covert military incursions, the authors argue, writing that “the emergence of robotic warfare is enabling the US to become involved in more conflicts worldwide.”

The paper states: “Today US military operations are involved in scores of countries across all the five continents. The US military is the world’s largest landlord, with significant military facilities in nations around the world, and with a significant presence in Bahrain, Djibouti, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Kyrgyzstan, in addition to long-established bases in Germany, Japan, South Korea, Italy, and the UK.”

Additionally, the US has “some kind of military presence” in Colombia, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, UAE and Yemen.

Bilmes and Intriligator assert that “the invention of precise, remotely controlled robotic aircraft has enabled the US to expand dramatically the number of covert, unofficial attacks it carries out without providing information to the public about where it operates, how it selects targets, or how many people it has killed, including innocent civilian bystanders.”

Statistics from the New America Foundation show that drone strikes have escalated at an exponential rate. Pakistan was hit by only nine drone strikes from 2004 to 2007, increasing to 118 by 2010.

Many smaller US military operations in Africa and the Middle East are increasingly utilizing drones. Former US Africa Command (AFRICOM) commander General Carter Ham stated in February that his forces required a 15-fold increase in surveillance and reconnaissance capacities for the continent. US Air Force drones have already been flying sorties across North Africa, and the US already operates drone bases in Djibouti, Ethiopia and the Seychelles.

As part of “Operation Nomad Shadow,” a secret US military surveillance program, the US military is currently launching drones from the Incirlik air base in Turkey to provide surveillance for the Turkish military in its campaign against the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The drones fly into northern Iraq to gather data, which is then transmitted to a “fusion cell” in Ankara for analysis.

The drone operations are arousing popular hostility in Turkey. Protests erupted in 2012 in response to an airstrike by Turkish pilots, directed by a US drone, which killed 34 civilians. The US drone incorrectly identified the convoying civilians as PKK guerrillas. A study released on Thursday by the Pew Research Center found that 82 percent of Turks oppose the Obama’s administration’s global drone war.

Simultaneous with its operations abroad, the Obama administration is ramping up drone flights in the US. The Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS), for instance, has purchased Puma drones used by the Navy, which are slated for deployment off the coast of Los Angeles.

ONMS is currently preparing to expand drone flights in other states, including Hawaii, Florida, and Washington. A new $100 million drone hangar is currently planned for Fort Riley, Kansas, along with a new hangar and airfield at Fort Hood, Texas.

The drone war is taking a heavy toll of civilian lives. Last year, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) published information about deliberate targeting of rescuers, mourners, funeral processions, and those who return to the scene of drone strikes after the initial explosions, a tactic known as the “double tap.” So-called signature drone strikes are frequently launched based on analysis of “patterns of behavior,” with individuals engaging in supposedly suspicious gatherings and movements selected for targeting.

According to the BIJ, US drone strikes have been responsible for at least 3,500 deaths, including American citizens, who have been personally selected for assassination by President Obama. The BIJ maintains that at least 555 of the dead are confirmed civilians, in opposition to Senator Dianne Feinstein’s claim that civilian casualties have been in the “single digits.”

Pakistani government estimates featured in a recently leaked internal document, “Details of Attacks by NATO Forces/Predators in FATA,” show that at least 147 of 746 people killed by US drones between 2006 and 2009 were civilians, and 94 of them children. A report issued by Stanford and NYU law schools last year found that 50 civilians are killed for every confirmed “insurgent” who is eliminated by the strikes.

The Obama administration, as the Post observed, has “imposed a broad cone of silence on its drone programs worldwide,” operating on the basis of secrecy and issuing secret laws and fiats to institutionalize worldwide targeted assassination.

In May, Obama gave a speech in staunch defense of his use of drone strikes, and announced the codification of his administrations drone policies in a new “Presidential Policy Guidance” document. Obama said, “For the same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power—or risk abusing it. That’s why, over the last four years, my administration has worked vigorously to establish a framework that governs our use of force against terrorists—insisting upon clear guidelines, oversight and accountability that is now codified in Presidential Policy Guidance that I signed yesterday.”

The Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG) document is one of more than 20 secret Presidential Policy Directives (PPD) promulgated by the Obama administration and withheld from public view. According to www.allgov.com, a PPD is a “statement by the President directed to the Executive Branch” which “becomes part of the particular legal framework that grows up around any statute or program.”

The PPG institutionalizes and provides a false veneer of legality to the worldwide campaign of targeted killings. What Obama presents as a constraint on power is, in reality, a measure that strips every person on the planet of their right not to be killed arbitrarily on the say-so of US state officials.

The global drone war is a primary instrument of US foreign policy. It is waged, under the fraudulent mantle of the “Global War on Terrorism,” not to defend the US against terrorists, but as part of an expansive militarist agenda aimed at shoring up American imperialism’s eroding position of strategic dominance.

By Dana Gabriel

23 July, 2013

@ Be Your Own Leader

Canada recently took over the leadership of the Arctic Council and will be succeeded by the U.S. in 2015. With back-to-back chairmanships, it gives both countries an opportunity to increase cooperation on initiatives that could enhance the development of a shared North American vision for the Arctic. The U.S. has significant geopolitical and economic interests in the high north and have released a new national strategy which seeks to advance their Arctic ambitions. While the region has thus far been peaceful, stable and free of conflict, there is a danger of the militarization of the Arctic. It has the potential to become a front whereby the U.S. and other NATO members are pitted against Russia or even China. In an effort to prevent any misunderstandings, there are calls for the Arctic Council to move beyond environmental issues and become a forum to address defense and security matters.

In May, Canada assumed the chairmanship of the Arctic Council where they will push for responsible resource development, safe shipping and sustainable circumpolar communities. The Arctic Council is the leading multilateral forum in the region and also includes the U.S., Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. During the recent meetings, members signed an Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic which seeks to improve coordination and planning to better cope with any such accidents. In addition, China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, along with Italy were granted permanent observer status in the Arctic Council. With the move, China has gained more influence in the region. The potential for new trade routes that could open up would significantly reduce the time needed to transport goods between Europe and Asia. The Arctic is an important part of China’s global vision, as a place for economic activity and a possible future mission for its navy. In order to better reflect the realities of politics in the high north, there are calls to expand the Arctic Council’s mandate to also include security and military issues.

Writing for the National Post, Rob Huebert of the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute explained that, “One issue that has not received much attention is the need to discuss the growing militarization of the Arctic. While the Arctic Council is formally forbidden from discussing military security in the Arctic, the time has arrived to rethink this policy.” He went on to say, “The militaries of most Arctic states are taking on new and expanded roles in the region that go beyond their traditional responsibilities, which may create friction in the region.” Huebert also stressed that, “These new developments need to be discussed to ensure that all Arctic Council member states understand why they are occurring, and increase the confidence of members that these new developments are not about a conflict in the Arctic, but about the defence of core strategic interests.” He further added, “It is easy to see how both the Americans and Russians will become increasingly concerned about the security steps that the other is taking. But now is the time for all to openly discuss these developments so that old suspicions and distrusts do not resurface.”

As part of efforts to strengthen Arctic security cooperation, in June, the Northern Chiefs of Defence Meeting was held in Greenland. It brought together representatives from the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland. Gen. Charles Jacoby, Commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) also attended the event. The second annual gathering was used as an, “opportunity for direct multilateral and bilateral discussions focused on Northern issues. Topics discussed included the sharing of knowledge and expertise about regional operational challenges; responsible stewardship of the North; and the role Northern militaries can play in support of their respective civil authorities.” The Northern Chiefs of Defence meeting has become an essential forum to address common Arctic safety and security concerns.

Ahead of Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip to attend the Arctic Council Ministerial Session in May, the White House unveiled a National Strategy for the Arctic Region. It outlined strategic priorities including advancing U.S. security interests, pursuing responsible stewardship and strengthening international cooperation. The document acknowledged competing environmental and economic goals, but in the end sets an aggressive agenda for the exploitation of Arctic oil, gas and mineral reserves. In addition, the strategy recommended enhancing national defense, law enforcement, navigation systems, environmental response, as well as search-and-rescue capabilities in the Arctic. It also builds off of National Security Presidential Directive-66 issued by the Bush administration in 2009. In coordination with the new plan, the U.S. Coast Guard has released their Vision for Operating in the Arctic Region which will work towards improving awareness, modernizing governance and broadening partnerships. According to James Holmes, professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College, the Coast Guard and Air Force could become the military’s odd couple in defending America’s Arctic front.

Several months back, Congressman Don Young testified in front of Armed Services Committee in support of Alaska national defense priorities. He proclaimed, “We must be able to project power into the Arctic environment and extensive Arctic training is needed to do that.” Some have pointed out that the true nature surrounding U.S. plans to shift additional missile interceptors to Alaska is not to protect against a North Korean threat, but is instead aimed at control over Arctic resources. Meanwhile, there have also been renewed discussions about Canadian participation in the U.S. anti-ballistic missile shield, a move that could damage relations with Russia and China. In order to enhance its presence and security in the Arctic, the U.S. is increasing cooperation with Canada. This includes expanding joint military exercises and intelligence gathering operations in the region. Professor Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research has described Washington’s militarization of the Arctic as part of the process of North American integration.

In December 2012, the U.S. and Canada signed the Tri-Command Framework for Arctic Cooperation which is part of efforts to further merge USNORTHCOM, Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC) and NORAD. A press release explained that the framework is designed to, “promote enhanced military cooperation in the Arctic and identify specific areas of potential Tri-Command cooperation in the preparation for and conduct of safety, security and defense operations.” USNORTHCOM, CJOC and NORAD have also pledged to work closer together with regards to planning, domain awareness, information-sharing, training and exercises, capability development, as well as in the field of science and technology. In the coming years, the Arctic will become an even more important part of North American perimeter security.

While the Arctic remains a region of strategic interest to the alliance, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently rejected a direct NATO presence. For a number of years, Norway has been pushing for NATO to increase its focus in the Arctic and have called for more joint northern exercises. Even though NATO has yet to truly define its role in the area, Arctic member countries are stepping up military and naval operations in the high north. In the future, NATO’s mandate could include economic infrastructure and maritime security. It could also serve as a forum for discussing Arctic military issues. Expanding NATO activity in the region might signal the militarization of the Arctic which could raise tensions with both Russia and China.

There are fears that the Arctic could become an arena for political and military competition. With potential new shipping routes and countries further staking their claims to the vast untapped natural resources, defending strategic and economic interests may lead to rivalries in the region. There is also the possibility that conflicts which originate in other parts of the world could spillover and affect the stability of the Arctic.

Dana Gabriel is an activist and independent researcher. He writes about trade, globalization, sovereignty, security, as well as other issues. Contact: beyourownleader@hotmail.com. Visit his blog at Be Your Own Leader

By Chris Woods

23 July ,2013

@ Countercurrent.org

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

A secret document obtained by the Bureau reveals for the first time the Pakistan government’s internal assessment of dozens of drone strikes, and shows scores of civilian casualties.

The United States has consistently claimed only a tiny number of non-combatants have been killed in drone attacks in Pakistan – despite research by the Bureau and others suggesting that over 400 civilians may have died in the nine-year campaign.

The internal document shows Pakistani officials too found that CIA drone strikes were killing a significant number of civilians – and have been aware of those deaths for many years.

Of 746 people listed as killed in the drone strikes outlined in the document, at least 147 of the dead are clearly stated to be civilian victims, 94 of those are said to be children.

The confidential 12-page summary paper, titled Details of Attacks by NATO Forces/Predators in FATA was prepared by government officials in Pakistan ‘s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

Based on confidential reports from a network of government agents in the field, it outlines 75 separate CIA drone strikes between 2006 and late 2009 and provides details of casualties in many of the attacks. Five attacks alleged to be carried out by NATO or other unspecified forces are also listed.

The numbers recorded are much higher than those provided by the US administration, which continues to insist that no more than 50 to 60 ‘non-combatants’ have been killed by the CIA across the entire nine years of Pakistan bombings. New CIA director John Brennan has described claims to the contrary as ‘intentional misrepresentations‘.

The document shows that during the 2006-09 period covered, when Pakistan ‘s government and military were privately supporting the CIA’s campaign, officials had extensive internal knowledge of high civilian casualties.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the Bureau the present Pakistani government opposes drone strikes: ‘ Pakistan ‘s position on drone strikes has been stipulated on several occasions. The drone strikes violate our sovereignty and international law. These also entail human rights and humanitarian implications.’

A former Political Agent for North Waziristan who was shown the leaked report by the Bureau says he does not believe the casualty figures to be exaggerated.

‘There was no benefit in officials “cooking the books” here, since this document was clearly never intended to be seen outside the civilian administration,’ said Rauf Khan Khattak, who also recently served in Pakistan ‘s caretaker government.

Three separate sources

The leaked document – which the Bureau obtained from three separate sources – is based on field reports by government officials rather than on media coverage. The Bureau understands that the document is continually updated as attacks occur – although the copy obtained ends with a strike on October 24 2009 .

Prepared for the FATA Secretariat – the political administration of the tribal areas – the document was never intended for public release. Since no individual victims are named, the Bureau has assessed that it is safe to publish the paper in its entirety.

The document often includes fresh information on strikes, for example confirming the location and target of a September 2, 2008 CIA attack, only previously alluded to in a US intelligence document.

The newly released paper gives a precise location and casualty count for that strike, noting:

Predator attack was made on the house of Bakhtawar Khan Daur, Mohammad Khel, Tehsil Datta Khel Miranshah. One injured.

According to former officials familiar with the process, the internal casualty data listed in the document would have been collated through an extended network of government contacts.

Each tribal area such as North Waziristan is administered by a Political Agent and his assistants. Beneath them are agents known as tehsildars and naibs who gather information when drone strikes occur – the names and identities of those killed, damage to property and so on. Additional information is also drawn from the khassadar – the local tribal police – and from paid informants in villages.

‘What you end up with in these reports is reasonably accurate, because it comes from on-the-ground sources cultivated over many years. And the political agent is only interested in properly understanding what actually happened,’ says former official Rauf Khan Khattak.

Key document

Both the US and Pakistani authorities have historically been wary of releasing casualty data for the ‘secret’ CIA campaign.

However in March, UN special rapporteur Ben Emmerson QC – who is carrying out an investigation into drone strikes – said that Pakistani officials had now produced estimates of civilians killed in CIA drone attacks.

Emmerson stated that Islamabad ‘has been able to confirm that at least 400 civilians had been killed as a result of drone strikes, and that a further 200 individuals were regarded as probable non-combatants. Officials indicated that due to under-reporting and obstacles to effective investigation on the ground these figures were likely to be under-estimates of the number of civilian deaths.’

In contrast, leaked US intelligence documents recently obtained by news agency McClatchy show the CIA rarely admits to civilian deaths in Pakistan .

Yet the internal document obtained by the Bureau shows that for years Pakistani officials were noting privately what news media and researchers were already reporting publicly – that significant numbers of civilians were indeed being killed in CIA attacks.

In a US strike on the village of Damadola in January 2006, for example, officials noted: ’05 children 05 women and 6 men all civilians’ died. Press reports at the time indicated that between 10 and 18 civilians had died.

On four other occasions, tribal officials privately reported civilian deaths where the media had reported none.

On June 14 2009 , for example, FATA officials secretly noted that an attack on a vehicle which killed three people was on ‘a civilian pickup truck’. No Urdu or English-language media at the time reported any civilian deaths.

Most controversially, tribal officials reported back to Islamabad in October 2006 that 81 civilians, all but one of whom were described as children, were killed in a single drone strike on a religious school in Bajaur Agency.

According to officials, the casualties were ’80 children 01 man all civilian’.  It was widely reported at the time that scores of children had died: Pakistani newspaper The News published the names and ages of 69 children, under the UN definition of a child as being under 18 years old. The discrepancy appears to be because the FATA Secretariat has also classified older students killed as children.

As with all early CIA drone strikes, Pakistan ‘s military had initially claimed it was responsible for the 2006 Bajaur strike. As word of civilian deaths began to emerge, the army reversed its position and denied carrying out the attack, although it has consistently claimed that only militants died that day.

Most controversially, tribal officials reported back to Islamabad in October 2006 that 81 civilians, all but one of whom were described as children, were killed in a single drone strike on a religious school.’

In June 2012, Pakistan ‘s former President General Pervez Musharraf told journalist Jemima Khan: ‘In the media, they said it was all children. They were absolutely wrong. There may have been some collateral damage of some children but they were not children at all, they were all militants doing training inside.’

Jemima Khan is associate editor of British magazine the New Statesman and also the former wife of Pakistani politician Imran Khan – who campaigns vociferously against US drone strikes.

‘Can you imagine the uproar that would be caused anywhere else in the world if 94 children were reported murdered in just three years?’ Ms Khan told the Bureau.

Ms Khan said that she was angered to learn that senior military and government officials were denying the deaths of children at Bajaur, even as they privately knew otherwise.

‘This leaked document proves what many have suspected all along – that US and Pakistani politicians have been lying to us,’ she said.

Former officials agree that the leaked document is most likely accurate: ‘You can’t distort that kind of information. If children hadn’t been killed, we’d have had people coming to us from all over Bajaur who would have told us so,’ former FATA agent Rauf Khan Khattak insists.

Unnamed dead

The secret government papers are revealing, but they also have some puzzling omissions.

None of those killed are named in the document – either civilians or alleged or known militants. Even where prominent militant commanders were killed – such as Baitullah Mehsud, head of the Pakistan Taliban (TTP), who died in August 2009 – no reference is made to the target.

Reports of civilian deaths also disappear entirely for most of 2009, after President Obama took office.

In part this is because officials occasionally note that ‘details of casualties are yet to be ascertained.’ But many credible reports of civilian deaths are simply missing.

The Bureau’s own research shows that civilian deaths have been credibly reported in at least 17 of the 53 CIA drone strikes in Obama’s first year in office.

Yet FATA officials report civilian deaths in only three incidents in 2009.

On January 23 that year, for example, the secret file notes only that five people died in a strike in South Waziristan – with no indication of civilian deaths.

However, a letter from the South Waziristan Political Agency – obtained in 2010 by the Center for Civilians in Conflict (right) – clearly notes four civilian deaths in that attack.

President Obama is also reported to have been informed of civilian deaths in this and another strike on the same day.

For the years 2006 to 2008, the internal document far more closely matches media reports of civilian deaths. Yet measured against the public record, it is unclear why references to civilian deaths in the report disappear almost entirely after Obama’s election.

‘No such documents’

Ambassador Rustan Shah Mohmand, who was a senior administrator in the tribal areas for 25 years between 1973 and 1998, cautions that the released file might not be the fullest data available.

Noting that Pakistan ‘s military is responsible for security in FATA, he told the Bureau: ‘Tribal documents might present a broad picture. But any accuracy is dependent on what data the military chooses to release to or withhold from the political agents. In the last eight years, for example, no precise casualty figures have ever been submitted to Pakistan ‘s parliament.’

Rumors have been circulating for many months of internal Pakistani documents detailing drone strike casualties. The Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court, Dost Muhammad Khan, began demanding in mid 2012 that the FATA Secretariat release all casualty data it held.

Khan presided over a successful civil case against the CIA brought by the Foundation for Fundamental Rights. FATA officials at first claimed that no such internal documents existed, though in August 2012 an official presented the court with limited details of CIA strikes up to 2008.

In his final judgment Chief Justice Khan, citing ‘Political Authorities’ in FATA, said that 896 civilians had been killed by the CIA between 2007 and 2012 in North Waziristan, with a further 533 civilian deaths in South Waziristan.

Those figures indicate that FATA officials may now be claiming a far higher civilian death toll than that reported by the leaked document –  although the source for those claims is not clear.

‘How come the same civil servants are feeding one kind of data to the Peshawar High Court and another kind of data to the FATA secretariat?’ asked Shahzad Akbar, a legal fellow at charity Reprieve and the Pakistani barrister behind the successful Peshawar case. ‘Are they fudging the numbers based on who was on the receiving end?’

US counter-terrorism officials declined to comment on the specifics of the leaked document, though referred the Bureau to recent comments by both President Obama and CIA director Brennan stating that the US goes to great lengths to limit civilian deaths in covert drone strikes.

Read the full internal Pakistani document.

This article is licenced under Creative Commons licence

By Countercurrents.org

23 July, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

The US military’s use of depleted uranium in Iraq has led to a sharp increase in Leukemia and birth defects in the city of Najaf – and panicked residents are fearing for their health. Cancer is now more common than the flu, said a report by Russia Today.

It should be mentioned that the city of Najaf saw one of the most severe military actions during the 2003 invasion.

RT’s Lucy Kafanov traveled to the area, quickly learning that every residential street in several neighborhoods has seen multiple cases of families whose children are ill, as well as families who have lost children, and families who have many relatives suffering from cancer.

The report said:

Speaking on the rooftop of her house instead of her laboratory, Dr. Sundus Nsaif says the city has seen a “dramatic rise” in cancer and birth defects since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq . Nsaif said the alternative location was chosen because there is an active push by the government not to talk about the issue, perhaps in an effort not to embarrass coalition forces.

“After the start of the Iraq war, rates of cancer, leukemia and birth defects rose dramatically in Najaf. The areas affected by American attacks saw the biggest increases. We believe it’s because of the’ illegal’ weapons like depleted uranium that were used by the Americans. When you visit the hospital here you see that cancer is more common than the flu,” said Nsaif told

The report cited Leila Jabar, whose three children died because they were born with congenital deformities.

Leila said: “The war isn’t over. Yes, the Americans are gone, but we are still suffering from the Consequences.”

Leila blames radioactive ammunition used by American forces during the war for the health problems of her children. Her only surviving 8-months-old son Ahmed has a nervous system disorder and doctors don’t expect him to survive his first birthday.

The RT report said:

Dr. Chris Busby has researched the effects of depleted uranium (DU) in detail. He says the only source of uranium in Iraq was used by American-led forces.

Dr. Chris told RT: “We went to Fallujah and we found the levels of cancer. We looked at the parents of children with congenital malformation and we did analysis of their hair to see what was inside their hair that might be genotoxic that might be the sort of thing that can cause congenital malformation. The only thing that we found was uranium. We found uranium in the mothers of the children with congenital malformations.”

Dr. Chris explained: “We know that uranium is genotoxic that it causes these levels of genetic damage, and because of that it also causes cancer. The only source of uranium was the use by the American-led forces of uranium weapons. Not only depleted uranium weapons, but as we later found out slightly enriched uranium weapons, which we believe they were using in order to cover their tracks. So, I think we have more or less proved that these effects are a result of the use during the two wars of uranium, and the particles that the uranium weapons produced.”

Citing credible media report from Fallujah the RT report said:

From 2009 onwards, the city of Fallujah was the scene of intense urban warfare in 2004. The media brought high rates of congenital birth defects to the world’s attention. At least two platforms that utilize DU munitions were employed in ‘Phantom Fury,’ the most intense operation since the official end of major combat operations in 2003.

At least 440,000kg of DU were used in Iraq, some ending up as DU dust, and some as corroding penetrators – leaving a still unknown number of sites with contaminated vehicles, buildings and soils, according to a Dutch report.

The Dutch report said:

“The exposure risks to civilians from the use of DU in populated areas have been compounded by the US ‘s persistent refusal to release the data that could have helped facilitate the effective assessment and clearance work, providing that the Iraqi government had the capacity and finances to undertake it. Taken as a whole, these issues cast serious doubts over the legitimacy of the use of DU.”

The authors of the report noted:

Aside from DU’s potential impact on physical health, it is highly likely that its use and presence in Iraq has led to heightened fear and anxiety, which in turn may have created a measurable psycho-social impact.

Citing a report, funded by the Norwegian government, the RT report said:

It was found that depleted uranium was used against civilian targets in populated areas in Iraq in 2003.

The Norwegian report emphasizes a lack of transparency by coalition forces over the use of depleted uranium, but also describes one incident in Najaf where a Bradley armored fighting vehicle fired 305 depleted uranium rounds in a single engagement.

It should be mentioned that depleted uranium weapons have the ability to penetrate through walls and tanks. One of its most dangerous “side effects” is that when the substance vaporizes, it generates dust inhaled by individuals.

The RT report said:

The Pentagon and the UN estimate that US and British forces used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium during attacks in Iraq in March and April, far more than the [officially] estimated 375 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War, according to a report published in Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2003.

In cities like Basra and Fallujah, where American and British forces used heavy munitions at the start of the war, it is estimated that over half of all babies conceived after the start of the war were born with heart defects.

Citing a study published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology the RT report said:

Between October 1994 and October 1995, the number of birth defects per 1,000 live births in Al Basrah Maternity Hospital was 1.37. In 2003, the number of birth defects in the same hospital was 23 per 1,000 live births. Within less than a decade, the occurrence of congenital birth defects increased 17-fold.

The international community has voiced concerns over the actual effects of the use of such weapons. The World Health Organization and the Ministry of Health in Iraq are expected to publish a report on this in the near future, but so far it has been delayed. According to the WHO, the report will not examine the link between the prevalence of birth defects and use of depleted uranium munitions used during the war and occupation in Iraq .

“Since the issue of associating congenital birth defects with exposure to depleted uranium has not been included in the scope of this particular study, establishing a link between the congenital birth defects prevalence and exposure to depleted uranium would require further research,” the WHO said in a statement.

Meanwhile, people in Najaf struggle to provide the necessary medical support for their children suffering from a wide range of disorders. Some couples are scared to have more children after having several born with birth defects.

By The Women of Kathikudam

22 July, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

From

The Women of Kathikudam

Kadukutty Panchayat

Chalakudy

Thrissur

Kerala State

India

Dear Sisters,

We, the women and children from this small village in Kadukutty Panchayat in Chalakkudy of Thrissur district in Kerala are writing to you in distress and desperation. We have a fable that we want to share with you which if we do not do will never reach you. Unlike the Fable for Tomorrow, the opening chapter of the poignant book on toxins in the environment Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, ours is Fable for today….

Our sylvan village on the banks of the tributaries of Chalakudy river was prime agricultural area with arecanut and coconut, clove and paddy fields. Being on the banks of the river, supply of pure life giving waters was perennial and constant. This was the situation in which we were not so long back that is 30 years ago. When in the early 1970s the Government and the Kerala Industrial Development Corporation came in with the proposal to start a factory with a fancy name Nita Gelatin Factory with Japanese collaboration, there were mixed feelings in our minds. Many welcomed it as it would assure employment for our youth. Some were skeptical and watchful and others just ignored. But little did any one of us know what we were in store for. The three products that the Company started producing- Gelatin, Ossein and Dicalcium phosphate have lethal effluents with deleterious impacts on the air, water and soil along with human health. A casual visit to our village is enough to prove this. Along with this is the massive withdrawal and pumping of more than 62,90,200 litres* of water daily from the Chalakudy river! No, we were not prepared or ready for this. Very soon we found that we were being consumed by a dark and dangerous monster which would affect all that made our life and land special- the purity of the environment and our bodies

Thus the real fable began. Our children were constantly ill with lung and skin infections. The women started feeling scared as many babies were born with abnormalities- both physical and mental. Our men and boys started losing their energetic healthy state. Along with this was the ill-health of the land. The water we use was contaminated. Our soil and paddy fields in which sludge from the factory was dumped lost its fertile nature. The farmers started losing vital crops like cucumbers. The death and stink of fishes and other water organisms became a common sight.

We came across studies that proved that we were surrounded with a lethal cocktail of hydrochloric acid, grease, oil, bone marrow, meat residues from animal bones and chloride to name a few.All of this singly or in combination with other elements in the air,water and soil into which they were thrown into would emerge as organo chlorides and other toxic fatal contaminants. And this was the village we were living in! Along with this came the additional concern about the water supply to 5 panchayats and 1 municipality from a pump house with the same water not to speak of a more recent Drinking water scheme to 3 more Panchayats. We realized that more and more people were being added to the beneficiary list of free contaminant dispersal by the Government.

All the beautiful things in Nature- the wind patterns, the flow of the river and its tributaries, the open paddy fields and the fertile alluvial deposits turned against us and all life forms in accumulating and magnifying the toxins that this monster gave out so generously.

Since the early 2000s we, the people of this village started organizing against the Company and the Pollution Control Board and all of the State machinery which was abetting the crime of giving permission and extending permits for the factory to function here. In spite of studies and data that proved that the chloride levels in the water and effluents was several times more than permissible in our region ( 4450 mg/litre Chloride as against the permissible 250mg/litre) the Company continued. Inspite of the water quality tests which showed that the water from our wells and water bodies is not fit for human consumption, there was no ban on the discharge or mandate for treating the discharge of effluents. In spite of regular and massive death and surfacing of fishes in the river and paddy fields along with other smaller organisms there was no attempt to block the pipelines that were slowly and steadily reaching the contaminated water to the river, the paddy fields or the water bodies.

We have gone through strikes, sit-ins, dharnas, meetings with political parties, leaders in power and otherwise. Our one and only demand is to shut down the factory which has not given any employment or brought progress and prosperity to our village. On the contrary it has made us ill and also contaminated our surroundings beyond repair. With all this in view, we announced that our month long strike with fasts and dharnas would take a new turn in which we would be forced to remove the pipe line which is a symbol of all the bad effects of the monster on 21 st July 2013.More than 6000 people gathered in a peaceful manner just yesterday, but all the roads and pathways were blocked by Police including a Platoon from the Rapid Action Force. By mid afternoon, the women and children were arrested and removed. Then started the carnage on our men and youth . Many, more than 100 lie injured in hospitals as this is being written. Some are in Intensive Care Units, especially our leaders. Others are hiding. There was massive intrusion into the houses where women were subjected to verbal abuses from the Police, windows and doors broken.Many bikes and vehicles have been damaged in the scuffle that followed .

We ask this of all those concerned- is there no other way in which the just demands of a community along with their right to establish a safe and secure life? Is it unlawful in a democratic system to raise questions against a development program that strikes at the base of life and livelihood using the most illegal and undemocratic means possible? What did we do to warrant such a violent and aggressive reaction and response from the Government? Do we not deserve a space for a decent dialogue that will answer our concerns and anxieties about our own life?

This we ask as we stop the fable for today

Do write to the Chief Minster of Kerala condemning all that happened at chiefminister@kerala.gov.in with a copy to minister-home@kerala.gov.in

Please stand by us

The Women of KATHIKUDAM 22.07.2013

Prepared by Anitha.S ( after talking with the shocked and angry women friends in Kathikudam ) anithasharma2007@gmail.com

* The company claims that the consumption of water has been brought down to below 30,00,000 by October, 2012 and currently consumes less than 28,00,000 litres of water.

Interview by Kourosh Ziabari

21 July, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

According to Jim W. Dean, the United States , UK , France and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf that have engaged in a long-fought war against Syria have a variety of motives for trying to dismantle and bring down the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

“As for a motive, the West wants to cut off arms supply routes through Syria to Hezbollah and to be able to stage bases in Northern Syrian for offense against Iran both with planes and missiles. That is the military reason. They also want to block Iran’s long term pipeline access to the Mediterranean Sea that way, in case Turkey had a change of heart over running the lines into their system. And the Saudis and Qatar both want a land route to the Mediterranean over territory they effectively control,” Jim W. Dean made the remarks in an exclusive interview with the Fars News Agency.

Jim W. Dean is the managing editor of the Veterans Today, an online foreign policy and military affairs journal. He has been writing, speaking and doing public relations, television, consulting and multimedia projects for different American heritage, historical, military, veterans and intelligence organizations.

Q: What are in your view the roots of the current crisis and unrest in Syria? Do you agree that certain extremist elements in Syria and foreign forces tried to confiscate the peaceful protests in mid-March 2011 and turn it into a violent and bloody civil war with the aim of dismantling the government of President Bashar al-Assad?

A: Westerners did not have a good view of the initial intrigues. It was assumed to be instigated by the Arab Spring. Later, it appeared that it had to be an outside instigated uprising to be able to attempt to subdue a 400,000 man army. The long standing minority/majority, bad blood and rivalries were more known to some of us and that with the obvious major powers long wanting to take Syria out, we began to see the uprising as bait to bring that outside support in, copying Libya as a model.

Q: The Al-Nusra Front has been designated by the United Nations and even the United States and Australia as a terrorist organization. However, we don’t see any serious practical action aimed at disarming this dangerous group which is intent on bringing down the Syrian government and is seemingly not afraid of killing the innocent civilians. What’s the reason?

A: No, and there probably won’t be any efforts to disarm them. It seems some are more equal than others. Who would take action against Qatar and the Saudis? No one in the West. Would “non interference” China do it? No. Would Russia? No. The EU or NATO? So they both know this; that they have a free pass, even from the UN that has almost disappeared. Syria played a part in humiliating them with non-cooperation so they left. So now when Syria could use some UN attention for publicity, they get none.

The al-Nusra people should have had drone campaign going on them for some months now. But who would base it? There are surveillance drones being used, even by the U.S. out of Jordan, and a key part of that is helping Iraq try to keep a handle on it long border. Would Iraq base drones to be used against them? No. Would Turkey?

So it is like us here, going around to all the top law enforcement people for advice on getting prosecutions on our own 9/11 perpetrators here, or busting up the Israeli espionage networks here, and they just say that as much as they hate to say it, there is no place to go where anyone would prosecute these people. So the judicial arm here has been totally compromised, the federal courts, and the Supreme Court which would not touch either item. It is a failure of government that our Founding Fathers never anticipated, and would require a new branch of government to ever take responsibility for a separate law enforcement and judicial branch; a super internal affairs department that answered to the people only and was not under Congress or the White House.

The UN will not even put out a warrant for the organ eater despite his video admission. The big guy with the huge beard who cut the priests head off should be clearly identifiable, but there is not a word about putting international warrants out for them. It makes the War on Terror a complete hoax, which really has always been.

Q: It’s reported that so far, 1,000 Syrian government officials have been assassinated and killed by the armed rebels and foreign-backed terrorists. So, it’s clear that the main objective of the terrorists is to overthrow the government of President Assad and bring to power a quisling regime. In what ways do the Western powers and Arab monarchies benefit from the disintegration of the Syrian government?

A: These numbers are not known in the West because they are censored in the media as they show an obvious terror campaign and not one conducted by a rag tag group of amateurs, but professionally trained killers and this means certain countries are sponsoring that being done.

As for a motive, the West wants to cut off arms supply routes through Syria to Hezbollah and to be able to stage bases in Northern Syrian for offense against Iran both with planes and missiles. That is the military reason. They also want to block Iran’s long term pipeline access to the Mediterranean Sea that way, in case Turkey had a change of heart over running the lines into their system. And the Saudis and Qatar both want a land route to the Mediterranean over territory they effectively control.

Q: In the recent months, Israel has been actively engaged in an anti-Syrian campaign aimed at paralyzing the Syrian army and empowering the opposition groups, including the armed rebels and terrorists. Is Israel trying to take over the political and military establishment of Syria in this unequal proxy war?

A: Israel has always been at war with Syria as part of its bogeyman stature of needing outside threats to keep the country militarized. Syria has not been an offensive threat to Israel really for a long time. But the issue the media will not discuss is the real fear they have, that is the mini-nuke warheads being put on the shorter range rockets which make them an effective response to Israeli preemptive strikes. And the West has already used tactical mini-nukes. They let that Frankenstein out, so now the other side can use them in reply. This is being hidden from the world’s public opinion for obvious reasons as the threat was created by the West, and then like the Stuxnet virus, it has escaped.

Q: What do you think about the role the Takfiri and Salafist groups are playing in the ongoing crisis in Syria? Many international organizations have accused these sects of committing war crimes against the Syrian population and the government’s security forces. What are these extremist groups looking for?

A: They are a mixed bag with mixed motives, varying from thugs that love this kind of war as they have a kind of immunity. Then you have your religious zealots and crazies, and then those for the Warlord and looting aspects, like a Mafia carving up territory. The West is creating a whole new Taliban, Al-Qaeda type network after ten years of fighting a failed War on Terror. We had 100,000 troops in Afghanistan when the commanders were estimating under a 100-member Al-Qaeda in the country. We manufacture that great volume a day now. It is total insanity and many here in the Intel and military community feel that way.

Q: The Financial Times has reported that Qatar has funded the Syrian rebellion by as much as $3 billion over 2011 and 2012, but as of May 2013, Saudi Arabia is the main supplier of arms and ammunitions to the Syrian opposition. The Qatari government also pays $50,000 a year to every Syrian family which defects and escapes from the country. The Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation have suspended Syria’s membership and given new seats to the Free Syrian Army as the representative of the Syrian people. What do you think about the position adopted by the Arab states regarding the situation in Syria? Why have they become so belligerent toward the Syrian government?

A: This went over everybody’s heads here in the West. Why are the refugee camps full of the Qataris handing out $50K checks? Are they trying to increase their population? Are they looking for grateful people to someday join a Saudi Praetorian Guard to help the Royal family keep its country subdued? Or were they looking to acquire new territory that is not all sand and an outlet to the Mediterranean Sea?

Q: In the recent weeks, the Syrian army has made important progresses and advances in defending such cities as Homs, Bab Hood, Idlib, Aleppo and Damascus. What’s your prediction for the future of Syrian Army’s operations against the rebels and the foreign-backed terrorists? Will they succeed in cleansing more areas and bringing peace to the whole country?

A: They have learned how to operate against the rebels, and have had some assistance there. The Syrian army is highly motivated and highly trained now. But the West is upping the retaliation now, using the Saudis who don’t care what anybody thinks to bring the heavier weapons in. So we have the Saudi Arabia and Qatar as the new upscale terror regimes in the area, and the UN has not uttered a word. No one has said anything, which is very dangerous as in sets others to thinking they could do the same thing.

The West and their Persian Gulf buddies have created more threats and instability than what the Taliban and Al-Qaeda even imagined, but as the people of those countries protest somewhat, the Egyptian youth passed them all by effectively in just one month when they collected 22 million signatures to demand early elections to take the Brotherhood out. Maybe we will have to ask these people to teach the rest of us how to do it.

Q: And finally, what’s your perspective on the U.S., UK and France’s war threats against Syria? Will they finally realize their threats of military intervention into Syria?

A: Their intervention is using the endless supply of Arab young people as cannon fodder. God only knows why the bankrupt Britain and France are involved so much, other than their respective Israeli lobbies insisting, which is a sad story for another time, how government after government has betrayed their own people to curry favor with these ruthless bums. They are like al-Nusra as they cut off people’s livelihoods and cut their institutions up into little pieces and then devour those parts they like the best. A Hollywood script writer could never have dreamed what they have done to the world. We had the War on Terror on the wrong people, but again, that is a story for another day, also.

Kourosh Ziabari is an award-winning Iranian journalist and media correspondent. He writes for Global Research, CounterCurrents.org, Tehran Times, Iran Review and other publications across the world. His articles and interviews have been translated in 10 languages. His website is http://kouroshziabari.com

By David Swanson

21 July 2013

@ warisacrime.org

Thanks to Michael Feikema and Doug Hendren for inviting me.  Like most of you I do not spend my life studying trade agreements, but the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is disturbing enough to make me devote a little time to it, and I hope you will do the same and get your neighbors to do the same and get them to get their friends to do the same — as soon as possible.

I spend most of my time reading and writing about war and peace.  I’m in the middle of writing a book about the possibility and need to abolish war and militarism.  I hate to take a break from that.  But if we think trade and militarism are separate topics we’re fooling ourselves.

New York Timescolumnist Thomas Friedman, a big fan of the supposed wonders of the hidden hand of the market economy says, “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15.  And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.”

Of course, there’s nothing hidden about that fist.  The TPP is planned to include the United States, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, and Vietnam, with Japan expected to be added this month, and with the ability to expand to any other Pacific nation even after the treaty is created — if it is created.  The U.S. military works closely with the militaries of all of those nations, encourages their militarization, and keeps its own troops in most of them.  The U.S. military is currently building up its presence in the Pacific — including even in Vietnam, where McDonald’s also opened its first store this week.  In a presidential debate last year President Obama described the TPP as part of a strategy to counter China and exert U.S. influence in Asia, the same rationale behind the naval base on Jeju Island and all the rest of the military build up around China’s borders.  In this year’s State of the Union, Obama said the TPP and an agreement with the European Union were priorities for him this year.

There is also, of course, nothing hidden about the hand of corporate trade agreements.  These are not agreements aimed at maximizing competition by preventing monopolies.  These are very lengthy and detailed agreements that include protection and expansion of monopolies.  Rather than relying on the magic of the marketplace, a corporate trade agreement relies on the influence of lobbyists.  Just as the corruption of the military industrial complex helps explain a global military buildup in the absence of a national enemy — I mean an enemy that is a nation, not a handful of criminals who ought to be indicted and prosecuted rather than blown up along with whoever’s nearby — so, too, the corporate ownership of our government explains our government’s trade policies.

What is hidden, in another sense, is the detailed negotiated text of the proposed TPP treaty.  Some 600 corporate advisors are helping the U.S. government write the text.  Some of these advisors come from those benevolent, public-interest firms known as Monsanto, the Bank of America, Chevron, and ExxonMobil.  The rest of us are shut out.  The government gathers up our every communication, but we aren’t allowed to see what it’s doing in our name.  We don’t influence the text and we don’t get to see it.  Some courageous person or persons willing to risk charges of aiding the enemy (even if there is no enemy) has made parts of what is in the TPP known.

I dealt with corporate trade agreements a little when I worked as press secretary for Dennis Kucinich for President in 2004.  Basically my job was to tell any media outlet that would listen that we were going to end wars, create single-payer healthcare, and abolish NAFTA.  But mostly we were going to end wars.  I remember in the 2008 campaign, a whole bunch of Democratic primary candidates lined up on a stage for a huge labor-organized debate in a football stadium.  Kucinich said he would abolish NAFTA, get out of the WTO, and create bilateral trade agreements with nations, agreements that left in place protections for workers, consumers, and the environment.  The applause suggested most people there agreed.  But every other one of the candidates refused to say they would end NAFTA.  Instead, every one of them, including Barack Obama, said they would re-negotiate NAFTA to fix it by adding in the protections it was missing.  Most of them, of course, didn’t get elected.  The one who did seems to have had a change of plans.  The TPP has been under negotiation for 5 years.

A year and a half ago, some of us were living in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., and there was another camp just over in McPhearson Square, and the Occupy Movement had gone national through corporate television and newspapers.  A Senate committee was holding a hearing on new corporate trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and Korea.  After the lobbyists got their seats, there were a few left for the public, and I took one.  The senators were discussing how they would mitigate the damage of what they were about to support.  They planned to try to help find jobs for some of the people they would throw out of work.  I thought I should point out to them that they could just leave everybody in their current jobs.  I was hoping they would realize that on their own.  I didn’t want to be rude and interrupt.  But it seemed an important enough point.  So I spoke up.  And they arrested me.

Then the senators discussed Korean and U.S. tariffs on beef.  A woman in the audience spoke up and asked why we couldn’t just leave the Korean beef in Korea and the U.S. beef in the United States instead of shipping beef both ways across the ocean.  They arrested her.  They arrested everybody who said anything.  In the first year of the previous agreement made with Korea, U.S. exports to Korea fell 10% and the U.S. trade deficit with Korea rose 37%.  The same sort of results are likely with a new one.

On the plus side, Congress was kept safe from interruptions.  The charges carried some months in jail, as I recall.  Four of us made deals in court that kept us out of jail but banned us from Capitol Hill for 6 months.  In the next courtroom over, some friends were convicted of speaking out against torture when some committee chairman hadn’t asked them to.  And straight across the hall, that same day, another friend was told she’d completed her probation for having interrupted Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in the Capitol, a punishment imposed even though Netanyahu had thanked her for speaking and bragged about how she’d have been treated worse in Iran — although the assault she suffered in the U.S. Capitol put her in a neck brace.

The First Amendment is not doing much better than the Fourth Amendment these days.  I know that some of you will say nobody should interrupt anyone.  How would I like to be interrupted myself? Et cetera.  But how much has the corporate media that dominates our communications system, and does so with our subsidies, told us about the Trans-Pacific Partnership?  Unless we can organize enough of these meetings, someone is going to have to interrupt someone to get the word out.

Maybe the first thing I would interrupt a super bowl or a state of the union to tell people about the TPP is that it creates corporate nationhood.  This is something I started to focus on after interviewing Lacey Kohlmoos of Public Citizen on my radio show.  Public Citizen has a website set up at ExposeTheTPP.org.  Another coalition has created FlushTheTPP.org.  Another is at CitizensTrade.org.  And then there’s a cross-border effort to organize against the TPP at TPPxborder.org.  You can find pretty much everything I have to say, and much more, at those websites.  You can sign up and get involved with ongoing campaigns as things develop at those websites.

Many of us have heard of corporate personhood.  Corporations have been given the Constitutional rights of persons by U.S. courts over the past 40 years, including the right to spend money on elections.  By corporate nationhood I mean the bestowing of the rights of nations on corporations.  The TPP, drafts of which have been leaked to Public Citizen, has 29 chapters, only five of which — according to Public Citizen’s thinking — deal with trade.  The others deal with things like food safety, internet freedom, medicine costs, job off-shoring, and financial regulation.  Treaties, according to Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, are — together with the Constitution itself — the supreme law of the land.  So U.S. laws would have to be made to comply with the TPP’s rules.

The United States is party to treaties banning war and torture.  Some treaties are treated more like helpful suggestions than the supreme law of the land.  That would not be the case with the TPP.  Our federal and state and local governments would have to obey the TPP.  And if they didn’t, corporations could force them to.  A corporation could take the U.S. government or other nations’ governments to court (or rather, a special tribunal) and overturn their laws.  That’s corporate nationhood.  A bunch of corporate lawyers would make their case to a tribunal made up of three corporate lawyers taking a break from themselves arguing such cases in order to rule on some of them.  These three lawyers would answer to no electorate and be bound by no precedents.  There would be no appeals process.  They would be empowered to order any amount of compensation whatsoever, to be paid to corporations by tax payers.

So, if the United States has a healthcare policy or an environmental or workplace policy or a banking or internet or other public policy that a few corporate lawyers can convince three other corporate lawyers fails to comply with the TPP, the policy will be overturned, the law rewritten, and compensation ordered to be paid by the public treasury to the corporations that suffered from having to provide healthcare or from having to refrain from poisoning a river, or whatever.  We don’t know all of the details — I’ll get to some of them shortly.  But this framework is an outrage no matter what they turn out to be.  And it’s an expansion of something already being tried under existing corporate trade agreements.

ExposeTheTPP.org says: “Tribunals have already ordered governments to pay over $3.5 billion in investor-state cases under existing U.S. agreements.  This includes payments over toxic bans, land-use policies, forestry rules and more.  More than $14.7 billion remain in pending claims under U.S. agreements alone.  Even when governments win, they often must pay for the tribunals’ costs and legal fees, which average $8 million per case.  The TPP would expand the scope of policies that could be attacked.

“The proposed TPP foreign investor privileges would provide foreign firms greater ‘rights’ than those afforded to domestic firms. This includes a ‘right’ to not have expectations frustrated by a change in government policy. Claiming such radical privileges, foreign corporations have launched investor-state cases against a broad array of environmental, energy, consumer health, toxics, water, mining and other non-trade domestic policies that they allege undermine their ‘expected future profits.’

“Some of the investor-state attacks now underway are:

Chevron trying to evade liability for its Ecuadorian Amazon toxic contamination;

Phillip Morris attacking Australia’s cigarette labeling policy;

Eli Lilly attacking Canada’s drug patent policy; and

European firms attacking Egypt’s post-revolution minimum wage increase and South Africa’s post-Apartheid affirmative action law.”

Corporate trade agreements like the TPP don’t impose something as dangerous as corporate nationhood as part of the cost of some other benefit.  These agreements have no clear upside, unless it’s inexpensive, poorly made products that poorly paid people can afford to buy.  Most destructive public policies are justified by jobs.  We’ll chop down that forest for jobs.  We’ll build a bigger military for jobs.  We’ll mine coal for jobs.  We’ll concentrate wealth beyond medieval levels for jobs.  But corporate trade agreements eliminate, or at least export, jobs.

The United States had about 20 million manufacturing jobs before NAFTA, and lost about 5 million of them, including the closure of more than 60,000 facilities.  Imports have soared while the growth of exports has slowed.  Millions of service jobs have been offshored too, of course.  The TPP is referred to by those who have seen drafts of it (and you can read some draft chapters online) as NAFTA on steroids.  It expands on NAFTA’s policies.  The TPP would provide special benefits to, and eliminate risks for, companies that offshore jobs.  Vietnam’s wages are even lower than China’s.  An average day’s wage in China is $4.11.  In Vietnam it’s $2.75.

The TPP will push U.S. wages downward.  And if NAFTA’s impact on Mexico is any guide, the TPP won’t end up being seen as beneficial to Vietnam either, especially when some other country decides that it can pay workers even less than Vietnam does.

The TPP will also move U.S. government contracting jobs to foreign companies by banning buy-American procurement policies.  The ability of U.S. firms to bid on government contracts in the other participating countries will not begin to balance this out.  And in every country involved, the foreign companies will be less accountable to the people whose money is being spent.  Also banned will be preferential treatment for sweat-free businesses, minority-owned businesses, women-owned, or environmentally-friendly businesses.  Not only does the TPP make corporations into governments, but it also makes governments into corporations, requiring that they work purely to maximize profits — although the profits are for the corporations.

The TPP doesn’t end there.  When it comes to food safety and workplace safety and other consumer or environmental protections, an agreement like this could require that all nations enforce a high standard, even the highest standard of any of the nations, or a higher standard than any nation now meets — after all, the agreement would create an even playing field for all and ought to be seen as an opportunity to collectively raise the standards.  The TPP, as drafted, does just the opposite.  It would require the United States to import meat and poultry that doesn’t meet U.S. safety standards.  Any U.S. food safety rule on pesticides, labeling, or additives that is higher than international standards could be challenged as an “illegal trade barrier.”  Malaysia and Vietnam are big seafood exporters.  High levels of contaminants have been found in Vietnam’s seafood.  (I can’t imagine why!)  The FDA only inspects 1% of imported seafood now.  Local seafood producers struggle as it is.  The pollution involved in shipping seafood around the globe probably won’t work wonders for future seafood either.  And don’t imagine we’ll all just buy local and “vote with our wallets.”  The TPP will impose limits on labeling where food comes from, labeling GMO foods, labeling foods dolphin-safe, etc.  You won’t know where your food comes from or how it was produced unless you grow it or buy it from a neighbor who grew it.  But the odds will be stacked even more heavily against the small farmer if the TPP is enacted.

Once everyone’s gotten good and sick by eating TPP food, just wait to see what the TPP does to healthcare.  Corporations with national rights will be able to overturn domestic patent and drug-pricing laws.  The big drug companies will be able to raise prices with extended monopolies over drugs and over surgical procedures.  People in need of inexpensive generic drugs will be denied them, and many of those people will die.  The TPP, in the end, may turn out to be more deadly than any war.  The TPP would threaten provisions included in Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans’ health programs to make medicines more affordable.  Foreign corporations will also be able to challenge laws on toxics, zoning, cigarettes, alcohol, public health, and the environment — anything that they could claim might cost them profits.  NAFTA doesn’t go as far as the TPP, but these things are already happening under it.  ExposeTheTPP.org says: “Canada lifted a ban on a gasoline additive already banned in the U.S. as a suspected carcinogen after an investor attack by Ethyl Corporation under NAFTA. It also paid the firm $13 million and published a formal statement that the chemical was not hazardous.”

Under the TPP, the United States could increase its exports of so-called natural gas, and that will mean more fracking.  And laws to protect the environment, including the human beings, where the fracking is done could be challenged by corporations as limiting their future profits.  The same problems arise with tar sands.  Even under existing corporate trade agreements, governments have already paid over $3 billion to foreign corporations, and over 85% of that has been the result of challenges to oil, mining, gas, and other environmental and natural resource policies.  This includes payments by the governments of Mexico and Canada to U.S. fossil fuel corporations.

The United States has been growing accustomed to secret laws.  The PATRIOT Act, for example, according to numerous members of Congress, has been secretly “reinterpreted” to mean things radically at odds with and worse than what the words of the bill — horrible as they were — meant.  The TPP could become public, and bits of it keep leaking out, but it outdoes the PATRIOT Act in size and breadth.  It would rewrite laws.  It would even put in place laws very intentionally rejected by Congress following a very public process.

Last year there was a big struggle over SOPA, a bill that was marketed as copyright protection but ultimately rejected as internet censorship — following a great deal of public, and even some corporate, pressure.  According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU, the TPP would largely recreate SOPA while no one’s watching.  Unless, of course, we start watching.  Under the TPP, internet service providers will be able to monitor user activity, remove internet content, and prevent certain people from accessing certain content.  Downloading a song could be treated the same as a large-scale for-profit copyright violation.  The TPP would impose copyright protections for 120 years for corporate-created content.  Breaking digital locks (and no, I don’t really know what those are) for legitimate purposes, such as using Linux or accessing closed captioning for the deaf or audio-supported content for the blind could result in fines.

Then there are the laws that we dream our government might enact that the TPP would prevent, such as reasonable regulation of Wall Street.  Under the TPP a government could not ban the toxic derivatives and other risky financial “products” that helped crash the economy.  A firewall could not be put back in place between different types of financial institutions.  Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, arguing that it prevented economic crashes for a half century from the 30s through the 80s. The TPP would forbid it.  A huge movement that I’ve been working with wants to impose a Robin Hood tax, a tax on financial transactions.  Some nations’ governments have begun to agree.  The TPP would forbid it.  If our government creates and then abides by the TPP it will be asked for more bankster bailouts.  If it creates and does not abide by the TPP, corporate tribunals will make it pay the bailouts as punishment for imposing regulations.  Our government is doing this to itself because it is broken.  Elections are broken.  Communications are broken.  Secrecy is out of control.  Whistleblowers are persecuted.  Bribery is institutionalized.  Parties have replaced branches.  And a culture of shortsighted greed and subservience has supplanted anything resembling statesmanship.

The TPP will, as the flyer for this event stated:

§  Prevent effective regulation of Wall Street

§  Trade good-paying careers for sweatshop labor

§  Destroy family farms

§  Accelerate global warming in the name of profits

§  Keep the public in the dark

§  Place corporate rights above our national sovereignty

§  Crush our ability to support local economies

§  Weaken and undermine democracy at home and abroad

President Obama wants to fast-track the TPP.  Industry groups this week have been demanding that Congress approve fast-tracking.  Corporate trade agreements are not treated as treaties requiring a two-thirds vote in the Senate.  Rather, they are treated as requiring a simple majority in both houses.  If Congress allows fast-tracking, that means the thing can’t be amended.  And it can’t be filibustered.  It must be simply voted on as is, with the most horrible bits included along with the only moderately horrible parts.  Most Congress Members had no time to read the PATRIOT Act before they voted on it, and of course the public had not seen it.  Congress has not seen the TPP yet either.  There are three chapters in the draft text that no one has leaked even the titles of.

Fast-track authority expired in 2007 and Congress refused to renew it.  Urging Congress to continue rejecting fast-track could be part of a comprehensive campaign aimed at getting Congress to take itself seriously, a campaign that might include repeal of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force which essentially handed war powers over to the president.  Regardless, stopping fast track would help stop the TPP.  And it wouldn’t stop decent trade agreements that can withstand the light of day.  There have been over 500 trade agreements created since 1974, and fast track has been used for only 16 of the worst ones.

As a candidate, Obama said he would replace fast track and make sure that Congress played a strong and informed role in trade agreements. Now he’s seeking fast track.  If he gets it, the TPP will become likely in every gory detail.

The TPP can be stopped.  Others have been since NAFTA passed, including the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which failed following huge public protests.  In the case of the FTAA, the negotiation documents were made public.  Not this time.  But FlushTheTPP.org offers these words of encouragement:

“Since the ‘Battle in Seattle,’ the World Trade Organization has had an impossible time moving forward, as was seen in the failure of the Millennial and Doha Rounds of the WTO. We also stopped the Free Trade Area of the Americas and the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. And at least 14 other corporate trade agreements have not been completedbecause of widespread public opposition. This is hopeful news, and together we can stop the TPP also, which will be a tremendous victory for the people against transnational corporate power!”

FlushTheTPP.org has a map where you can find or create actions around the country.  Groups are encouraged to hold TPP Tuesdays, dedicating Tuesdays to educational or nonviolent resistance events.  In August, when Congress Members are expected to be in their districts and senators in their states.  We should bird-dog them, lobby them, meet with them, interview them, pressure them, protest them, until they agree to make the TPP public and to stop fast track.  Former US Trade Representative Ron Kirk has said that if the contents of this agreement were known it could not be signed because it would be so unpopular.

The Backbone Campaign, online at BackboneCampaign.org, has great ideas for props and banners and puppets.  They’ve even been holding training camps, teaching things like action planning, light projection, song and dance flash mobs, guerilla theatre, fundraising, giant banner construction and deployment — including with helium balloons, blockades, rappelling, etc.  I recommend contacting them or organizing a similar effort.

Maybe TPP opposition can be a catalyst for a resurgence of Occupy Harrisonburg and Occupy Everywhere.  We are going to have to get organized and we are going to have to occupy.  We need to keep moving the money out of the big banks.  We need to advance worker ownership and community power.  We need to become independent of the outrageously corrupt political party that we’re supposed to hate and the outrageously corrupt political party that we’re supposed to like.  We need to stop cheering when President Obama gives speeches opposing his own policies.  I can’t recall once demanding that President Bush give a speech.  We always wanted something more substantive than that.

There are places to get involved:

http://ExposeTheTPP.org

http://FlushTheTPP.org

http://CitizensTrade.org

http://TPPxborder.org

Also, at RootsAction.org, where I work, there is a page at which 20,000 people have already emailed Congress and the president against the TPP, and you should too.  Make your voice heard here.

This free trade agreement is not free and not about trade, and we’re definitely not in agreement!