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By Franklin Lamb

With the Syrian army deep inside Aleppo’s old city: This observer has long sought an extended visit to the old city of Aleppo which is also one of this cradle of civilizations cultural and educational centers. Despite being in a continuing war zone, the visit materialized when security authorities granted permission and assistance to this observer to complete research finalizing more than two years of research across Syria on the subject of Syria’s Endangered Heritage: The Story Of A Nations Fight To Preserve Its Cultural Heritage.

Several visits to damaged archeological sites and quality briefings soon turned a few days into more than a week with more than a two dozen detailed evaluations and analyses during meetings with Syrian nationalists among them, M.B. Shabani, Director of the Aleppo National Museum. Another was with Professor of Islamic Science, Bouthania Chalkhi and a group of her faculty colleagues and researchers at Aleppo’s 80,000 plus student university. Aleppo University, like nearly all of Syria’s institutions of higher learning has paid a bitter price for keeping its classrooms open. On January 15 2013 the School of Architecture was shelled and more than 90 students and visitors on campus were killed. By shocking coincidence, Damascus University’s School of Architecture was similarly shelled only five weeks later on March 28, 2013, killing more than 15 students.

Two military commanders, currently with their troops deep inside the old city near the ancient Citadel, seemed more like college philosophy instructors than military men, as they discussed the massive destruction inside the old city including more than 1,600 khans and souks.

This observer and another American, a special young man from Maryland who is studying Arabic in this region, was guided along with two colleagues on a long nighttime tour and briefing among alleys inside the ancient burned out and blasted medina souk. Sometimes as we paused our army guide would comment on how parts of the souk might be salvageable and how he felt anger at what was wantonly inflicted in the area now under his command. Our military escort advised us that our tour of the remains of this UNESCO World Heritage site was the first such visit allowed since its destruction more than 18 months ago. He even joked that nearly a month ago a team with the BBC was offered a more limited tour but that a famous female BBC Middle East correspondent, one of this observers favorites, turned back after penetrating the warrens by less than 50 yards.

Surely not the first or last time that Yankees have followed up Brits to complete a task, our interpreter from Damascus giggled.

For hours we trudged through the widely reported massive destruction observing the burned detritus of what were formerly historic “khans” which for centuries traded and sold specialty items as noted below. The tour left one in numbed disbelief over the extent of the destruction.

Among the most historic souks in Aleppo’s old city, verified by this observer as having been destroyed on 9/29/2012, all within the burned out covered alleyways of Souk al-Madina, include, but are not limited to the following. This partial list is presented as a condolence to Syrian artisans and citizens whose lives have been deeply, negatively, and irreversibly damaged. Wanton destruction of a significant part of the shared global heritage of us all.

Khan al-Qadi, one of the oldest khans (specialized souk areas) in Aleppo dating back to 1450;
Khan al-Burghul (Bulger), built in 1472 and the location of the British general consulate of Aleppo until the beginning of the 20th century;
Souk al-Saboun (soap khan) built in the beginning of the 16th century was the main center of the soap production in Aleppo;
Souk Khan al-Nahhaseen (coppersmiths), built in 1539. The general consulate of Belgium was at this location during the16th century. Before its destruction it including more than 80 traditional and modern shoe-trading and production shops;
Khan al-Shouneh, built in 1546 was a market for trades and traditional handicrafts of Aleppine art;
Souq Khan al-Jumrok or the customs’ khan, was a textile trading center with more than 50 stores. Built in 1574, Khan Al-Gumrok was considered to be the largest khan in ancient Aleppo;
Souk Khan al-Wazir, built in 1682, was the main souk for cotton products in Aleppo;
Souk al-Farrayin was the fur market, is the main entrance to the souk from the south. The souk is home to 77 stores mainly specialized in furry products;
Souk al-Hiraj, traditionally was historically the main market for firewood and charcoal. Until its destruction it reportedly included 33 stores mainly dealing in rug and carpet weaving and products;
Souk al-Dira’, was perhaps the main center for tailoring and one of the most organized alleys in the souk with more than 60 workshops;
Souk al-Attareen for more than a century was the vast herbal market and in fact was the main spice-selling market of Aleppo. Before its destruction it was a textile-selling center with more than 80 stores, including spice-selling shops;
Souk az-Zirb, was the main entrance to the souq from the east and the place where coins were being struck during the Mamluk (18th century) period. All of its 72 shops featured textiles and the basic needs of the Bedouins;
Souk al-Behramiyeh, located near the Behramiyeh mosque had more than 20 stores trading in foodstuffs;
Souk Marcopoli (derived from Marco Polo), was a center of textile trading with 29 stores.
Souk al-Atiq specialized in raw leather trading with 48 outlets;
Souk as-Siyyagh or the jewelry market was the main center of jewelry shops in Aleppo and Syria with more than 100 outlets located in 2 parallel alleys.
The Venetians’ Khan, was home to the consul of Venice and the Venetian merchants.
Souk an-Niswan or the women’s market, was an area where accessories, clothes and wedding equipment’s of the bride could be found;
Souk Arslan Dada, is one of the main entrances to the walled city from the north. With 33 stores, the souk is a center of leather and textile trading;
Souk al-Haddadin, is one of the northern entrances to the old city. Located outside the main gate it was considered to be the old traditional blacksmiths’ market with more than 40 workshops;
Souk Khan al-Harir (the silk khan) was another entrance to the old city from the north and was buiit in the second half of the 16th century. The silk souk hosted the Iranian consulate until 1919.
Suweiqa (small souk) consisted of 2 long alleys: Sweiqat Ali and Suweiqat Hatem, located in al-Farafira district which contained markets mainly specialized in home and kitchen equipment.
One is left distraught over the seeming futility of even contemplating rebuilding this world heritage site. Would it require half a century to reconstruct, as was required in Dresden Germany following three days of firebombing by British and American planes, which began on February 13, 1945?

There are many questions to be answered whether rebuilding would ever authentically restore Aleppo’s old city to what it had been for centuries.

Would “restoration” render it a sterile or glitzy place with the main focus on the tourist dollar? Which countries would help rebuild it and where would the money come from, and could Syria and her experts influence and oversee the reconstruction? One professor of Archeology at Aleppo University asked, “Could a rebuilt Medina souk ever again be ‘my neighborhood, the cherished neighborhood of my youth and of my family over preceding generations?” Many of the individual souks, maybe 12 feet by 10 feet were valued at close of one million dollars and restoration would cost hundreds of millions.

Locating experts in areas amidst fairly intense government security concerns and measures which are much greater than in Damascus was not always easy. It was compounded by the fact of 2 hour per day electricity and water shortages, yet one still had the opportunity to discuss and learn from a cross section of this community including academic, governmental, business and citizen activists.

Three tentative conclusions arrived at by this observer from fascinating and heart felt discussions include one from Professor Lamis Herbly, Chairperson of the Archeology department of Aleppo University. This warm and elegant lady’s eyes welled with tears, being the mother of two youngsters and who worries daily about the safety of her children while insisting that they stay in school despite the dangers, described her and her communities losses. She also expressed the concerns of her academic colleagues that if and when reconstruction begins in the old city of Aleppo that it must be done with utmost care and under Syrian experts control. She explained what she meant was that reconstruction in Syria not mirror what was done in Beirut to renovate the ‘downtown’ area which separated Muslim and Christian militia along the ‘green line’ during Lebanon’s 15 year (1975-1990).

One professor declared the reconstruction of downtown Beirut and the filling in of Beirut harbor with thousands of years of antiquities as Saudi financed, behemoth Mercedes Benz earth movers shoved much of Lebanon’s history into the sea to make way for upscale fancy tourist attracting shops catering to rich Gulf tourists (of whom there are very few these days). “So they can buy yet more jewelry and Paris fashions?” she asked. Someone else joined in saying what happened in Lebanon was a cultural crime.

“Downtown Beirut is an obscenity,” one PhD candidate, a young lady who formerly lived near the old city insisted. This student is among those who joined efforts that began nearly two decades ago to preserve and protect one of Aleppo’s two remaining synagogues in the Samoua neighborhood. She vowed that citizens of Aleppo must not and will not allow what happened in Beirut to happen here in Aleppo.

Another concern, discussed with citizens in Aleppo is the often expressed worry over whether other countries that unfortunately had, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, a hand in the destruction of much of Syria cultural heritage would be willing to help with its preservation and reconstruction. This observer, who has studied the subject over the past two years in Syria shared this concern, but sought to assure Aleppo interlocutors that indeed many governments acknowledge with gratitude the work of the Syrian people in protecting our mutual global heritage, in the custody of country’s people for millennia, share their horror over what has happened and indeed want to help as soon as a lasting ceasefire can be achieved. This subject was one of the most frequently raised by both experts and average citizens in Aleppo.

Archeological and restoration experts in Syria tend to agree with international research findings that estimate that despite the vast heartbreaking destruction, looting, politically motivated desecration of countless mosques and churches as well as thousands of years of pagan artifacts, that approximately 96 percent of our shared cultural heritage in Syria can be repaired, restored, or even replicated when no other option in available. What is urgently needed before more damage is infected is a ceasefire or freeze in place and is being discussed by UN mediators. Objects that have been blow up in a frenzy of ignorance and malevolence are lost and irreplaceable. The tens of thousands of illegally excavated and looted priceless antiquities now scattered to private collections and speculators have been routed through, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Iraq and Jordan. They must be returned as part of a massive international antiquities retrieval campaign that should include an expanded role for Interpol, auction houses and governments as well as international institution of the UN. One student at Damascus University told this observer recently that she and fellow students have started an international campaign focusing on auction houses and governments seeking the return of stolen Syrian antiquities. They have named their student led organization: “I’m Syrian and I need to go home. Please help me.”

One of life’s seeming wonderful incongruities is experienced by visitors all across Syria these days. It has to do with the human spirit. Examining and contemplating just the one example of damage to our shared global heritage in Aleppo, as depressing and discouraging as any of the damage done to our shared global culture heritage one might be excused for becoming cynical and even somewhat catatonic as one observes and studies the desecration and destruction here in Aleppo and in so many other areas.

But not the Syrian people. Rather than slump and becoming crestfallen, this observer finds Syrians resolute and even somehow inspiring in their determination to preserve, protect and restore our cultural heritage. Space allows for one example.

This observer, spent an afternoon this week next to the glowing fireplace on a cold rainy day in the warm and cozy office of Mohammad Kujjah, Director of the 1924 founded Archeological Institute of Aleppo. I was joined by some of his staff, all experts on preserving archeological treasures. One taciturn scholar sitting next to me, who I thought appeared to be on the verge of nodding off, saddening perked up and squeezed my arm to get my undivided attention. He then proceeded to further light up the bookcase lined office by presenting a brilliant lecture that, were he asked, this observer would entitle something like:

The Germans rebuilt Dresden and the Syrians will rebuild Aleppo!

He began with fascinating comparisons between what was and what was done to Dresden beginning on February 13, 1945 and what happened to Aleppo’s old city on September 28, 2012. Dresden was carpet bombed by 722 RAF and 527 USAAF bombers that dropped 2431 tons of high explosive bombs, and 1475.9 tons of incendiaries. The high explosive bombs damaged buildings and exposed their ancient wooden structures, while the incendiaries ignited them. The massive wooden structures, like in Aleppo, burned to the ground. The resultant firestorms killed an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 people, although the total number is disputed. Dresden, an historic center held no strategic value. The war in Europe was coming to an end, and the city was packed with refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army. It is widely believed that the bombing was a revenge attack for the German bombing of Coventry as well as a show of force.

As he spoke the professor displayed for his guests a large photograph of Dresden taken in early March of 1945. The high explosive bombs damaged buildings and exposed their wooden structures, while the incendiaries ignited them. The massive wooden structures of Aleppo’s old city also burned to the ground.

The archeologist lectured his rapt American audience, seemingly also to the delight of his Aleppine colleagues on how Aleppo reconstruction could be achieved and he spoke of the Syrian peoples will that it shall be done.

All people of good will who accept their personal duty to join the people of Syria in preserving, protecting and restoring our shared global heritage can take solace from what this observer witnessed an exhilarating demonstration of the sublime capacities of our shared human spirit as we help to salvage our cultural heritage.

Franklin Lamb’s most recent book, Syria’s Endangered Heritage, An international Responsibility to Protect and Preserve is in production by Orontes River Publishing, Hama, Syrian Arab Republic.

20 December, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Richard Heinberg

Oil prices have fallen by half since late June. This is a significant development for the oil industry and for the global economy, though no one knows exactly how either the industry or the economy will respond in the long run. Since it’s almost the end of the year, perhaps this is a good time to stop and ask: (1) Why is this happening? (2) Who wins and who loses over the short term?, and (3) What will be the impacts on oil production in 2015?

1. Why is this happening?

Euan Mearns does a good job of explaining the oil price crash here. Briefly, demand for oil is softening (notably in China, Japan, and Europe) because economic growth is faltering. Meanwhile, the US is importing less petroleum because domestic supplies are increasing—almost entirely due to the frantic pace of drilling in “tight” oil fields in North Dakota and Texas, using hydrofracturing and horizontal drilling technologies—while demand has leveled off.

Usually when there is a mismatch between supply and demand in the global crude market, it is up to Saudi Arabia—the world’s top exporter—to ramp production up or down in order to stabilize prices. But this time the Saudis have refused to cut back on production and have instead unilaterally cut prices to customers in Asia, evidently because the Arabian royals want prices low. There is speculation that the Saudis wish to punish Russia and Iran for their involvement in Syria and Iraq. Low prices have the added benefit (to Riyadh) of shaking at least some high-cost tight oil, deepwater, and tar sands producers in North America out of the market, thus enhancing Saudi market share.

The media frame this situation as an oil “glut,” but it’s important to recall the bigger picture: world production of conventional oil (excluding natural gas liquids, tar sands, deepwater, and tight oil) stopped growing in 2005, and has actually declined a bit since then. Nearly all supply growth has come from more costly (and more environmentally ruinous) resources such as tight oil and tar sands. Consequently, oil prices have been very high during this period (with the exception of the deepest, darkest months of the Great Recession). Even at their current depressed level of $55 to $60, petroleum prices are still above the International Energy Agency’s high-price scenario for this period contained in forecasts issued a decade ago.

Part of the reason has to do with the fact that costs of exploration and production within the industry have risen dramatically (early this year Steve Kopits of the energy market analytic firm Douglas-Westwood estimated that costs were rising at nearly 11 percent annually).

In short, during this past decade the oil industry has entered a new regime of steeper production costs, slower supply growth, declining resource quality, and higher prices. That all-important context is largely absent from most news stories about the price plunge, but without it recent events are unintelligible. If the current oil market can be characterized as being in a state of “glut,” that simply means that at this moment, and at this price, there are more willing sellers than buyers; it shouldn’t be taken as a fundamental or long-term indication of resource abundance.

2. Who wins and loses, short-term?

Gail Tverberg does a great job of teasing apart the likely consequences of the oil price slump here. For the US, there will be some tangible benefits from falling gasoline prices: motorists now have more money in their pockets to spend on Christmas gifts. However, there are also perils to the price plunge, and the longer prices remain low, the higher the risk. For the past five years, tight oil and shale gas have been significant drivers of growth in the American economy, adding $300 to 400 billion annually to GDP. States with active shale plays have seen a significant increase of jobs while the rest of the nation has merely sputtered along.

The shale boom seems to have resulted from a combination of high petroleum prices and easy financing: with the Fed keeping interest rates near zero, scores of small oil and gas companies were able to take on enormous amounts of debt so as to pay for the purchase of drilling leases, the rental of rigs, and the expensive process of fracking. This was a tenuous business even in good times, with many companies subsisting on re-sale of leases and creative financing, while failing to show a clear profit on sales of product. Now, if prices remain low, most of these companies will cut back on drilling and some will disappear altogether.

The price rout is hitting Russia quicker and harder than perhaps any other nation. That country is (in most months) the world’s biggest producer, and oil and gas provide its main sources of income. As a result of the price crash and US-imposed economic sanctions, the ruble has cratered. Over the short term, Russia’s oil and gas companies are somewhat cushioned from impact: they earn high-value US dollars from sales of their products while paying their expenses in rubles that have lost roughly half their value (compared to the dollar) in the past five months. But for the average Russian and for the national government, these are tough times.

There is at least a possibility that the oil price crash has important geopolitical significance. The US and Russia are engaged in what can only be called low-level warfare over Ukraine: Moscow resents what it sees as efforts to wrest that country from its orbit and to surround Russia with NATO bases; Washington, meanwhile, would like to alienate Europe from Russia, thereby heading off long-term economic integration across Eurasia (which, if it were to transpire, would undermine America’s “sole superpower” status; see discussion here); Washington also sees Russia’s annexation of Crimea as violating international accords. Some argue that the oil price rout resulted from Washington talking Saudi Arabia into flooding the market so as to hammer Russia’s economy, thereby neutralizing Moscow’s resistance to NATO encirclement (albeit at the price of short-term losses for the US tight oil industry). Russia has recently cemented closer energy and economic ties with China, perhaps partly in response; in view of this latter development, the Saudis’ decision to sell oil to China at a discount could be explained as yet another attempt by Washington (via its OPEC proxy) to avert Eurasian economic integration.

Other oil exporting nations with a high-price break-even point—notably Venezuela and Iran, also on Washington’s enemies list—are likewise experiencing the price crash as economic catastrophe. But the pain is widely spread: Nigeria has had to redraw its government budget for next year, and North Sea oil production is nearing a point of collapse.

Events are unfolding very quickly, and economic and geopolitical pressures are building. Historically, circumstances like these have sometimes led to major open conflicts, though all-out war between the US and Russia remains unthinkable due to the nuclear deterrents that both nations possess.

If there are indeed elements of US-led geopolitical intrigue at work here (and admittedly this is largely speculation), they carry a serious risk of economic blowback: the oil price plunge appears to be bursting the bubble in high-yield, energy-related junk bonds that, along with rising oil production, helped fuel the American economic “recovery,” and it could result not just in layoffs throughout the energy industry but a contagion of fear in the banking sector. Thus the ultimate consequences of the price crash could include a global financial panic (John Michael Greer makes that case persuasively and, as always, quite entertainingly), though it is too soon to consider this as anything more than a possibility.

3. What will be the impacts for oil production?

There’s actually some good news for the oil industry in all of this: costs of production will almost certainly decline during the next few months. Companies will cut expenses wherever they can (watch out, middle-level managers!). As drilling rigs are idled, rental costs for rigs will fall. Since the price of oil is an ingredient in the price of just about everything else, cheaper oil will reduce the costs of logistics and oil transport by rail and tanker. Producers will defer investments. Companies will focus only on the most productive, lowest-cost drilling locations, and this will again lower averaged industry costs. In short order, the industry will be advertising itself to investors as newly lean and mean. But the main underlying reason production costs were rising during the past decade—declining resource quality as older conventional oil reservoirs dry up—hasn’t gone away. And those most productive, lowest-cost drilling locations (also known as “sweet spots”) are limited in size and number.

The industry is putting on a brave face, and for good reason. Companies in the shale patch need to look profitable in order to keep the value of their bonds from evaporating. Major oil companies largely stayed clear of involvement in the tight oil boom; nevertheless, low prices will force them to cut back on upstream investment as well. Drilling will not cease; it will merely contract (the number of new US oil and gas well permits issued in Novemberfell by 40 percent from the previous month). Many companies have no choice but to continue pursuing projects to which they are already financially committed, so we won’t see substantial production declines for several months. Production from Canada’s tar sands will probably continue at its current pace, but will not expand since new projects willrequire an oil price at or higher than the current level in order to break even.

As analysis by David Hughes of Post Carbon Institute shows, even without the price crash production in the Bakken and Eagle Ford plays would have been expected to peak and begin a sharp decline within the next two or three years. The price crash can only hasten that inevitable inflection point.

How much and how fast will world oil production fall? Euan Mearns offers three scenarios; in the most likely of these (in his opinion) world production capacity will contract by about two million barrels per day over the next two years as a result of the price collapse.

We may be witnessing one of history’s little ironies: the historic commencement of an inevitable, overall, persistent decline of world liquid fuels production may be ushered in not by skyrocketing oil prices such as we saw in the 1970s or in 2008, but by a price crash that at least some pundits are spinning as the death of “peak oil.” Meanwhile, the economic and geopolitical perils of the unfolding oil price rout make expectations of business-as-usual for 2015 ring rather hollow.

Richard Heinberg is a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute

20 December, 2014
Post Carbon Institute Blog

 

By Alex Lantier

Despite sharpening divisions within the European Union over the implications of the collapse of the Russian currency, the two-day EU summit in Brussels stepped up Europe’s confrontation with Russia, imposing new EU sanctions to keep businesses from operating in Crimea.

On Thursday, as the EU summit opened, US President Obama signed new legislation that allows Washington to impose a raft of new punitive sanctions on Russia. The impact of the sanctions that have already been enacted, cutting off credit to the Russian economy, has been crippling. The Russian currency has lost roughly half of its value against the US dollar this year, and economists say Russia’s economy could contract by 5 percent next year.

Concerns are mounting in the European bourgeoisie over the implications of a collapse of the Russian state, which would threaten economic collapse in Europe and war. From Austria, the Wiener Zeitung wrote: “Economic turbulence in Russia is giving the EU cause for concern. Leading politicians are asking themselves whether the collapse of the Russian state is not an even greater danger. For some time, certain European countries, such as Italy, have been proposing to loosen the sanctions.”

But despite the potentially catastrophic consequences, the EU summit aligned itself with the US policy of waging economic war for regime-change in Russia unless the Kremlin submits to US-NATO hegemony in Eurasia. The dominant forces at the summit demanded that sanctions be maintained until Moscow abandoned all opposition to the far-right, pro-Western regime in Kiev.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the sanctions, first imposed after last February’s NATO-backed coup in Kiev, had to remain in place. “Sanctions were imposed for specific reasons and they can be lifted only when these reasons cease to apply,” she said.

This echoed her remarks to the Bundestag, the German parliament, the day before. Even though the atrocities committed by pro-Kiev regime fascist militias in eastern Ukraine have been widely documented, Merkel insisted that pro-Kiev forces “be permitted to bring their own relief supplies safely to areas in the east of the country that are controlled by the separatists.” Until Russia cooperated with the EU on this matter, she added, “sanctions remain unavoidable.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron also pressed for a hard line at the summit. He declared that if the Kremlin “takes Russian troops out of Ukraine, and it obeys all the strictures of the Minsk agreement [the ceasefire between Kiev and the eastern Ukraine separatists], these sanctions can go.”

EU President and former Polish Premier Donald Tusk said, “We must go beyond being reactive and defensive. As Europeans, we must regain our self-confidence and realize our own strengths.” He called Russia a “strategic problem” for Europe.

Tusk alluded to the growing divisions within Europe over the NATO powers’ confrontation with Russia, which France and Italy publicly criticized at the summit. “It is obvious,” he declared, “we will not find a long-term perspective for Ukraine without an adequate, consistent and united European strategy towards Russia… Today we are maybe not too optimistic. But we have to be realistic, not optimistic.”

French President François Hollande, who traveled to Moscow for talks on December 6, said that a deal with Russia was possible and called on the EU to calm the situation. “I believe that today, if moves are made by Russia as we expect, there is no reason to impose further sanctions… It will be best instead to examine how we also could begin carrying out a de-escalation,” he said.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said his position was “absolutely no to new sanctions.”

Divisions also emerged within the German government yesterday, as Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier gave an interview to Der Spiegel criticizing a policy of financially strangling Russia. The magazine wrote: “Those thinking of forcing Russia to its knees economically are dangerously mistaken if they think this will lead to more security in Europe. ‘I can only warn you about this,’ Steinmeier said. He also spoke out directly against further sanctions. ‘That is why I am against a further ratcheting up of sanctions,’ the foreign minister declared.”

The EU’s decision nonetheless to tighten the economic noose around Russia testifies to the historic bankruptcy of European capitalism and the desperation and recklessness of its ruling elites. A year ago, facing economic collapse and rising working class opposition to their austerity policies, they embarked on a confrontation with Russia over Ukraine. Now this adventure has placed Europe and the world on the verge of an even greater financial and military conflagration.

The explosive situation in the working class interrupted the EU summit, which broke up early Friday morning so that participants could flee social protests against austerity in Brussels.

Four days after the last one-day general strike in Belgium, farmers and agricultural workers faced off against police, blockading downtown Brussels with tractors. Anger is mounting over the Belgian government’s slashing of social benefits and expressions of sympathy by top officials for Belgium’s World War II-era Nazi-collaborationist regime.

The social and economic crisis is set to intensify further as the impact of the sanctions on Russia spreads throughout the European and world economy.

Speaking to the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung, Volker Treier of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) predicted that German exports to Russia would fall 20 percent in 2014 due to the “dramatic drop in the purchasing power” of Russians. Treier noted that the ruble crisis might briefly encourage spending, as Russians tried to buy up goods before the ruble lost even more value, but this would likely have a limited and short-term impact.

The fall in exports will lead to further attacks on German workers. “German auto factories have already been working short shifts [Kurzarbeit] for several weeks or laying off workers,” Treier said.

As Russia’s single largest creditor, with €49 billion in loans to Russia, France is also particularly threatened by the ruble crisis. French oil firm Total and auto maker Renault do much of their business in Russia, and the Société Générale bank has a 99.4 percent stake in Rosbank, the country’s largest private bank.

20 December, 2014
WSWS.org

 

By Eric Zuesse

A Ukrainian soldier who was part of the crew that operated the supposed missile-battery that the Ukrainian Government claims shot down the Malaysian MH17 airliner on July 17th has testified publicly for the first time, saying that the missile-battery was operated by the Ukrainian military, not by the rebels as asserted, and that he and his former crew-mates who operated it laughed when they heard their Government say that this missile-battery was operated by rebels and had shot the airliner down.

An English-translated transcript of the December 15th Russian-language interview with this soldier was posted at UkraineWar.Info on December 17th by Michael Collins, an investigative journalist with UkraineWar.Info who has been following very closely the multiple investigations that are proceeding into the cause of the downing.

This testimony confirms the accumulating prior, already overwhelming and even-more-convincing evidence, which is linked to in my latest article on the topic, here, all of which evidence indicates that either one or else two Ukrainian fighter-jets intentionally shot this airliner down — that it was not an error by rebels who had mis-identified this airliner as being a bomber from the Ukrainian Government, such as the Ukrainian Government and its sponsor the U.S. Government claim.

Regarding the reason why the Ukrainian Government did this, it, too, is clear: U.S. President Obama needed a startling incident in order to obtain from the EU and other U.S.-allied nations their participation in heavily increased economic sanctions to weaken Russia. As soon as this plane was downed, both the Ukrainian Government and the Obama Administration claimed that they possessed convincing proof that it had been downed by pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine’s former southeast. All U.S. allies got on board with that and agreed to hiked sanctions against Russia.

This “false flag” event (as such government fakeries are called in the intelligence communities) succeeded, just as did Hitler’s burning down the Reichstag and blaming it on leftists, which was the event that enabled him to seize total power in Germany.

THIS JUST IN (3:21PM Eastern time in U.S.) from Michael Collins: “George [Eliason, a third member of our team at UkraineWar.Info, and a resident inside the conflict-zone] says that due to the pub from the article, the ukraine govt took down their ‘damning’ pic of BUK 312 today and that the reporter who did the interview is underground and fleeing the country.”

So, the reason why Ukrainians are reluctant to go public about their lying Government is obvious. And, all of the ‘news’ media there are owned by Ukrainian, or, in some cases, by American, oligarchs. (The American ones do it through ‘nonprofit’ foundations they create, which are co-funded by the American Government. The U.S. oligarch then gets tax-write-offs, plus co-funding by U.S. taxpayers, to save him still more money on his scheme.)

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

18 December, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Nicola Nasser

Overtly, the Israeli superpower of the Middle East has been keen to posture as having no role whatsoever in the four-year old devastating conflict in Syria, where all major regional and international powers are politically and militarily deeply involved and settling scores by Syrian blood.

In his geopolitical weekly analysis, entitled “The Islamic State Reshapes the Middle East,” on November 25 Stratfor’s George Friedman raised eyebrows when he reviewed the effects which the terrorist group had on all regional powers, but seemed unaware of the existence of the Israeli regional superpower.

It was an instructive omission that says a lot about the no more discreet role Israel is playing to maintain what the Israeli commentator Amos Harel described as the “stable instability” in Syria and the region, from the Israeli perspective of course.

Friedman in fact was reflecting a similar official omission by the US administration. When President Barak Obama appealed for a “broad international coalition” to fight the Islamic State (IS), Israel — the strongest military power in the region and the well – positioned logistically to fight it — was not asked to join. The Obama administration explained later that Israel’s contribution would reflect negatively on the Arab partners in the coalition.

“Highlighting Israel’s contributions could be problematic in terms of complicating efforts to enlist Muslim allies” in the coalition, said Michael Eisenstadt, a senior fellow at AIPAC’s arm, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Covertly however Israel is a key player in prolonging the depleting war on Syria and the major beneficiary of neutralizing the military of the only immediate Arab neighbor that has so far eluded yielding to the terms dictated by the U.S. – backed Israeli regional force majeure for making peace with the Hebrew state.

Several recent developments however have brought the Israeli role into the open.

First the latest bombing of Syrian targets near the Damascus international civilian airport on December 7 was the seventh major unprovoked air strike of its kind since 2011 and the fifth in the past 18 months on Syrian defenses. Syrian Scientific research centers, missile depots, air defense sites, radar and electronic monitoring stations and the Republican Guards were targeted by Israel.

Facilitating the Israeli mission and complementing it, the terrorist organizations operating in the country tried several times to hit the same targets. They succeeded in killing several military pilots and experts whom Israeli intelligence services would have paid dearly to hunt down.

Foreign Policy on last June 14 quoted a report by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki – moon as saying that the “battle – hardened Syrian rebels … once in Israel, they receive medical treatment in a field clinic before being sent back to Syria,” describing the arrangement as a “gentleman’s agreement.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in February this year visited this “military field hospital” and shook hands with some of the more than 1000 rebels treated in Israeli hospitals, according to Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).

Foreign Policy quoted also Ehud Yaari, an Israeli fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as saying that Israel was supplying the rebel – controlled Syrian villages with medicines, heaters, and other humanitarian supplies. The assistance, he said, has benefited civilians and “insurgents.” Yaari ignored the reports about the Israeli intelligence services to those “insurgents.”

Israel facilitates war on UNDOF

Second, the latest quarterly report by the UN Disengagement Force (UNDOF) to the UN Security Council (UNSC) on December 1 confirmed what eight previous similar reports had stated about the “interaction … across the (Syrian – Israeli) ceasefire line” between the IOF and the “armed members of the (Syrian) opposition,” in the words of Ki-moon’s report to the Council on December 4.

Third, Ki-moon in his report confirmed that the UNDOF “was forced to relocate its troops” to the Israeli side of the ceasefire line, leaving the Syrian side a safe haven zone for the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front, which the UNSC had designated a “terrorist group.”

UNDOF’s commander Lieutenant General Iqbal Singh Singha told the UNSC on October 9 that his troops were “under fire, been abducted, hijacked, had weapons snatched and offices vandalized.” Australia was the latest among the troop contributing countries to pull out its forces from UNDOF.

UNDOF and the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) operate in the buffer zone of about 80 km long and between 0.5 to 10 km wide, forming an area of 235 km². The zone borders the Lebanon Blue Line to the north and forms a border of less than 1 km with Jordan to the south. It straddles the Purple Line which separates the Israeli – occupied Golan Heights from Syria. The west Israeli side of this line is known as “Alpha”, and the east Syrian side as “Bravo.”

Speaking at the U.S. military base Fort Dix on Monday, President Obama warned those who “threaten America” that they “will have no safe haven,” but that is exactly what Israel is providing them.

Israeli “interaction” has practically helped the UNDOF “to relocate” from Bravo to Alpha and to hand Bravo as a safe haven over to an al-Nusra Front – led coalition of terrorist groups.

Al-Nusra Front is officially the al – Qaeda affiliate in Syria. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told the Senate Committee on Foreign relations on this December 9 that his administration considers the IS to be a branch of al – Qaeda operating under a different name. Both terrorist groups were one under the name of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and only recently separated. Whoever accommodates either one is in fact courting the other.

“The 1,200-strong UN force is now mostly huddled inside Camp Ziouani, a drab base just inside the Israeli – controlled side of the Golan Heights. Its patrols along the de facto border have all but ceased,” the Associated Press (AP) reported on last September 18.

Israeli air force and artillery intervened several times to protect the al-Nusra Front’s “safe haven” against fire power from Syria, which is still committed to its ceasefire agreement of 1974 with Israel. Last September for example, Israel shot down a Syrian fighter jet that was bombing the Front’s positions, only three weeks after shooting down a Syrian drone over the area.

Israel is not violating the Syrian sovereignty only, but violating also the UN – sponsored ceasefire agreement and the UNSC anti-terror resolutions. More important, Israel is in fact undermining the UNDOF mandate on the Israeli – occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

This situation could only be interpreted as an Israeli premeditated war by proxy on the UN presence on the Golan Heights.

“Israel is the most interested in having (UN) peacekeepers evacuated from the occupied Golan so as to be left without international monitoring,” Syria’s permanent envoy to the UN, Bashar al- Jaafari, told reporters on September 17.

The UNSC seems helpless or uninterested in defending the UNDOF mandate on the Golan against Israeli violations, which risk the collapse of the 1974 ceasefire arrangements.

Syrian Foreign Ministry was on record to condemn these violations as a “declaration of war,” asserting that Syria reserves its right to retaliate “at the right moment and the right place.” Obviously a regional outbreak is at stake here without the UN presence as a buffer.

Upgrading unanimously Israel’s status from a “major non – NATO ally” to a “major strategic partner” of the United States by the U.S. Congress on December 3 could explain the UNSC inaction.

The undeclared understanding between the Syrian government and the U.S. – led coalition against the self – declared “Islamic State” (IS) not to target the latter’s forces seems to have left this mission to Israel who could not join the coalition publicly for subjective as well as objective reasons.

The AP on September 18 did not hesitate to announce that the “collapse of UN peacekeeping mission on Golan Heights marks new era on Israel – Syria front.” Aron Heller, the writer of the AP report, quoted the former Israeli military liaison officer with UNDOF, Stephane Cohen, as saying: “Their mandate is just not relevant anymore.” Heller concluded that this situation “endangers” the “status quo,” which indeed has become a status quo ante.

Israeli strategic gains

The emerging fait accompli seems very convenient to Israel, creating positive strategic benefits for the Hebrew state and arming it with a pretext not to withdraw the IOF from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and Palestinian territories.

In an analysis paper published by The Saban Center at Brookings in November 2012, Itamar Rabinovich wrote that, “Clearly, the uncertainty in Syria has put the question of the Golan Heights on hold indefinitely. It may be a long time until Israel can readdress the prospect of giving the Golan back to Damascus.”

Moreover, according to Rabinovich, “the Syrian conflict has the potential to bring the damaged Israeli – Turkish relationship closer to normalcy … they can find common ground in seeking to foster a stable post – Assad government in Syria.”

The hostile Turkish insistence on toppling the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, the concentration of the IS and other rebel forces in the north of the country and in central, eastern and southern Syria are diverting the potential and focus of the Syrian Arab Army northward and inward, away from the western front with the Israeli occupying power on the Golan Heights.

The protracted war on the Syrian government is depleting its army in manpower and materially. Rebuilding the Syrian army and the devastated Syrian infrastructure will preoccupy the country for a long time to come and defuse any military threat to Israel for an extended time span.

On the Palestinian front, the rise of the IS has made fighting it the top U.S. priority in the Middle East, which led Aaron David Miller, a former adviser to several U.S. administrations on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, to warn in Foreign Policy early in September that the rise of the IS would pose “a serious setback to Palestinian hopes of statehood.”

The expected fallback internally of the post – war Syria would “hopefully” relieve Israel of the Syrian historical support for the Palestinian anti – Israeli occupation movements, at least temporarily.

Netanyahu on Sunday opened a cabinet meeting by explicitly using the IS as a pretext to evade the prerequisites of making peace. Israel “stands … as a solitary island against the waves of Islamic extremism washing over the entire Middle East,” he said, adding: “To force upon us” a timeframe for a withdrawal from the Israeli – occupied Palestinian territories, as proposed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the UN Security Council, “will bring the radical Islamic elements to the suburbs of Tel Aviv and to the heart of Jerusalem. We will not allow this.”

Israel is also capitalising on the war on the IS to misleadingly portray it as identical with the Palestinian “Islamic” resistance movements because of their Islamic credentials. “When it comes to their ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas,” Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly on September 29.

Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories

17 December, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Maryam Sakeenah

The Peshawar school attack is a tragedy that sends senses reeling, an enormity that confounds the senses. It does not help however, to dismiss the people who committed this foul atrocity as ‘inhuman’, or to say they were not really Muslims. It is a convenient fiction that implies a most frustrating unwillingness and inability to understand how human beings are dehumanized and desensitized so they commit such dastardly acts under the moral cover of a perverted religiosity. This unwillingness and inability to understand is deeply distressing because it shows how far away we are from even identifying what went wrong, and where- and hence, how far we are from any solution.

The international media has reflected- not surprisingly- a superficial, flat and ludicrously shallow grasp of the issues in Pakistan. The CNN (and other channels) repeatedly portrayed the incident as ‘an attack on children for wanting to get an education. ’ In fact, the UK Prime Minister himself tweeted: “The news from Pakistan is deeply shocking. It’s horrifying that children are being killed simply for going to school.” It actually reeks of how the media’s portrayal and use of Malala’s story has shaped a rather inaccurate narrative on Pakistan.

Years ago shortly after 9/11, former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer had lamented Western politicians’ dim-witted understanding of terrorism and the motives behind it. Scheuer highlighted how dishonestly and dangerously Western leaders portrayed that the terrorists were ‘Against Our Way of Life’; that they were angry over the West’s progress as some deranged barbarians battling a superior civilization out of rank hatred. This rhetoric from Western politicians and the media ideologized terrorism and eclipsed the fact that terror tactics were actually a reaction to rapacious wars in Muslim (and other) lands often waged or sponsored by Western governments. It diverted focus from the heart of the problem and created a misleading and dangerous narrative of ‘Us versus Them’, setting global politics on a terrible ‘Clash of civilizations’ course.

Today, I remembered Scheuer again, browsing through responses to the Peshawar tragedy both on local social media as well as from people in positions of power- most reflected a facile understanding of the motives of terrorism. The Taliban spokesman Umar Khorasani states: “We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females. We want them to feel the pain.”

Certainly, this is twisted and unacceptable logic. What is most outrageous is his attempt to give religious justification to it by twisting religious texts.

Certainly, the leadership of the TTP is guilty of a criminal abuse of religious sources to legitimize its vile motives and sell it to their conservative Pashtun following who are on the receiving end of Pakistan’s military offensive in the tribal areas. The TTP leaders have hands drenched in innocent blood. Even the Afghan Taliban have rejected the use and justification of such means by the TTP as unacceptable by any standards in an official statement.

But I wonder at those human beings chanting Arabic religious expressions who blew themselves up for the ‘glorious cause’ of taking revenge from innocent unsuspecting school children. I wonder how they had gone so terribly, terribly wrong in their humanity, their faith. Certainly, they were taken in with the TTP’s malevolent ideological justification for the rank brutality they committed. Certainly, they allowed themselves to be taken in because they perceived their miserable lives had no intrinsic worth except in being given up in order to exact vengeance.

I understood too when I heard a victim student writing in pain, vowing revenge. ‘I will grow up and make their coming generations learn a lesson’, he said. In that line, I understood so much about human psychology and the psychology of victimhood, and the innate need for avenging wrongdoing.

The problem with the public perception of the war in Pakistan is that we see only part of it: we see the heartrending images from Peshawar and elsewhere in the urban centres where terrorists have struck. But there is a war that we do not see, hidden from public view. This is the war in the tribal north. The familiar images we see from the war divide the Pakistani victims of this war into Edward Herman’s ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ victims- both, however, are innocent victims- the ones we see and the ones we do not. But because some victims are unworthier than others, the unworthy victim claims worth to his condemned life in dying, misled into thinking that death by killing others can be a vindication.

But sometimes the ones we are not allowed to see, make themselves visible in horrible, ugly ways; they become deafeningly loud to claim notice. And in the process, they make other victims- our own flesh and blood… And so it is our bloody burden to bear for fighting a war that was not ours, which has come to haunt us as our own.

The work of some independent journalists has highlighted the war we do not see in Waziristan- their work, however, has not made it to mainstream news. Such work has brought to light enormous ‘collateral damage’ figures. Some independent journalists have also focused on the plight of IDPs who feel alienated and forgotten by the Pakistani state and nation. It must be noted, however, that there is no access to the media in the areas where the army’s operation is going on. The news we get from the war zone is solely through the Pakistan Army- there is, hence, absolutely no counternarrative from Waziristan. And hence our one-sided vision eludes a genuine understanding.

This unwillingness and inability to understand reflects in our uninsightful militarist approach to the problem in Waziristan. While the necessity of using military means to combat a real and present danger is understood, the need for it to be precisely targeted, limited in scope and time, and planned to eliminate or at least substantively minimize collateral damage is equally important. The need to efficiently manage the fallout of such an operation and rehabilitate affectees cannot be overemphasized. On all these counts, we need to have done more.

But perhaps the most vital understanding is that military operations are never the enduring solution. They may be needed to achieve specific necessary targets, but only with the aforementioned conditionalities to minimize the fallout. Moreover, the bigger, deeper problems have to be dealt with through a wider, more insightful non-military approach: listening and understanding, dialogue, mutual compromise and reconciliation, rehabilitation and peacebuilding. There are numerous examples in the past- even the recent past- of how war-ravaged communities drenched in the memory of oppression and pain, seething with unrelenting hate, have successfully undertaken peacebuilding. There have been temporary respites in this war in Pakistan whenever the two sides agreed to a ceasefire. That spirit ought to have lasted.

I understand that this sounds unreasonable on the backdrop of the recent atrocity, but there is no other way to give peace a chance. Retributive justice using force will prolong the violence and make more victims.

Since religion is often appealed to in this conflict, its role in peacebuilding has to be explored and made the best of. To break this vicious, insane cycle, there has to be a revival of the spirit of ‘Ihsan’ for a collective healing- that is, not indiscriminate and unrelenting retributive justice but wilful, voluntary forgiveness (other than for the direct, unrepentant and most malafide perpetrators). This must be followed by long-term, systematic peacebuilding in Pakistan’s war-ravaged tribal belt in particular and the entire nation in general. Such peacebuilding will involve religious scholars, educators, journalists, social workers and other professionals. Unreasonable as it may sound, it is perhaps the only enduring strategy to mend and heal and rebuild. The spirit of ‘Ihsan’ has tremendous potential to salvage us, and has to be demonstrated from both sides. But because the state is the grander agency, its initiative in this regard is instrumental as a positive overture to the aggrieved party.

But this understanding seems to have been lost in the frenzy, just when it was needed most pressingly. I shudder to think what consequences a failure to understand this vital point can bring. The Pakistani nation has already paid an enormously heavy price.

Maryam Sakeenah is a Pakistan-based independent researcher and freelance writer on International politics, human rights and Islam.

17 December, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Hassanal Noor Rashid

The International Movement for a Just world (JUST) joins together with many other organizations, enraged individuals and communities in condemning the Taliban in Pakistan (TTP) for the barbaric and mindless massacre of 145 people in a Pakistani school in Peshawar on the 16th December 2014. The vast majority of the victims—132 to be exact— were school children between the ages of 12 and 16. This is what makes the cruel massacre — the worst in Pakistani history — utterly reprehensible.

The actions of the gunmen who had committed these vile atrocities, which have notably been criticised by the Taliban in Afghanistan, are representative of a virulent ideology and a perverse view of Islam which utilizes the religion to justify the actions of brutal murderers.

The misrepresentation of the Islamic faith by these groups is an increasingly worrying trend that has resulted in many unwarranted tragedies, but like in many instances of events such as these, religion is not the core driving motivation.

The rationalization given by the group responsible for this heinous act was to avenge the killings of hundreds of innocent tribesmen in provinces such as South Waziristan, North Waziristan and the Khyber Agency according to a spokesperson of the TTP.

The military actions by the Pakistani government within these provinces are reflective of its flawed approach to the fight against terrorism, an approach continuously found within the rhetoric of various Washington pundits that persists in the post- 9/11 political environment, 13 years later.

The government’s response to these perceived terrorist threats has been one where laws are introduced which curtails civil rights, and legitimizes the use of torture and assassinations.

All these have created a political and social environment which in fact diminishes security and endows extremists with a sense of perceived legitimacy to carry out their morally disengaged and ill-conceived actions.

The injustices that have befallen the Palestinian people which have also been a large part of the Muslim world’s conscious reality, have served to be an ideological focal point for many militants and has contributed further to the rise of militancy.

These terrorists’ worldview is ultimately an ideological response to the invasive activities of countries like the United States of America and its allies, who are seeking to dictate and influence how the structures of power in the region benefit their own interests and agendas.

These countries and their nefarious hegemonic agendas are as much responsible for facilitating the rise of extremist militancy, as they are in many ways responsible for the brutal slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people at the hands of the extremists.

The victims of this ideological dogma however, as this incident has shown, are rarely Western civilians. They tend to, more often than not, be other Muslims, who are seen by these militants as colluding with the foreign aggressor and therefore traitors to the nation and the religion.
So long as these policies and practices continuously persist, and alternative actions are not implemented to engage with these threats more effectively and sustainably, atrocities like these may well become a political-social norm.

Justice demands we never let that happen, and Muslims all over have a responsibility to not allow Islam to be hijacked by peddlers of violence.

20 December 2014.

Hassanal Noor Rashid is the programme coordinator of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST)

 

By Jean Bricmont

There at least two things that are easier to start than to end: a love affair and a war. No participant in WWI expected it to last as long as it it did or to have the consequences that it had. All the empires that participated in the war were destroyed, including eventually the British and French ones.

Not only that, but one war leads to another. The British philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell remarked that the desire of the European monarchs to crush the French Revolution led to Napoleon; the Napoleonic wars produced German nationalism that itself led to Bismarck, the French defeat at Sedan and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. That in turn fueled French revanchism that gave rise, after World War I, to the Versailles Treaty, whose inequities gave a strong boost to Nazism and Hitler. Russell ended the story there, but it continues. Hitler’s defeat gave rise to the Cold War and the creation of Israel. The Western “victory” in the Cold War led to the current desire to crush Russia once and for all. As for Israel, its creation produced endless strife and an intractable situation in the Middle East.

What is the way out of this dialectic? I would suggest the idea of institutional pacifism. Not pacifism in the sense of refusing violence under any circumstance, or as amoral exhortation, but in the sense of building institutions that can help the preservation of peace. The United Nations and its charter, at least as it was originally conceived, is probably the best example of such an institution.

The very starting point of the United Nations was to save humankind from “the scourge of war”, with reference to the two World Wars. This goal was to be achieved by defending the principle of the equal sovereignty of all states, in order to prevent Great Powers from intervening militarily against weaker ones, regardless of the pretext. But since there is no international police to enforce international law, it can only be enforced by a balance of power and, most importantly, by the pressure of the citizens of the various countries to constrain their governments to adhere to common rules.

However, the way the end of the Cold war was interpreted in the West, as an unilateral victory of Good against Evil, led to a total disregard for international law or even for caution and diplomacy in the West. This was a consequence of the ideology of human rights and of the right of humanitarian military intervention that was developed by influential Western intellectuals, starting from the mid-70’s, who were often supporters of Israel, which may seem odd given Israel’s human rights record.

This “right” of humanitarian intervention has been universally rejected by the majority of mankind, for example at the South Summit in Havana in April 2000 or at the meeting of the Non Aligned Movement in Kuala Lumpur in February 2003, shortly before the US attack on Iraq, which issued the following declaration: “The Heads of State or Government reiterated the rejection by the Non-Aligned Movement of the so-called ‘right’ of humanitarian intervention, which has no basis either in United Nations Charter or in international law” and “also observed similarities between the new expression ‘responsibility to protect’ and ‘humanitarian intervention’ and requested the Co-ordinating Bureau to carefully study and consider the expression ‘the responsibility to protect’ and its implications on the basis of the principles of non-interference and non-intervention as well as the respect for territorial integrity and national sovereignty of States.” But in the West, this right of intervention is almost universally accepted.

The reason for this opposition of views is probably that the rest of the world has a very different memory than the West about the latter’s interventions in the internal affairs of other countries.

US intervention is multi-faceted but constant and always violates the spirit and often the letter of the United Nations charter. Despite claims to act on behalf of principles such as freedom and democracy, US intervention has repeatedly had disastrous consequences: not only the millions of deaths caused by direct and indirect wars, in Indochina, Central America, Southern Africa and the Middle East, but also the lost opportunities, the “killing of hope” for hundreds of millions of people who might have benefited from progressive social policies initiated by people like Arbenz in Guatemala, Goulart in Brazil, Allende in Chile, Lumumba in the Congo, Mossadegh in Iran, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, or Chavez in Venezuela, who have been systematically subverted, overthrown or killed with full Western support. But that is not all. Every aggressive action led by the United States creates a reaction. Deployment of an anti-missile shield produces more missiles, not less.

Bombing civilians – whether deliberately or by so-called “collateral damage” – produces more armed resistance, not less. Trying to overthrow or subvert governments produces more internal repression, not less. Encouraging secessionist minorities by giving them the often false impression that the sole Superpower will come to their rescue in case they are repressed, leads to more violence, hatred and death, not less. Surrounding a country with military bases produces more defense spending by that country, not less. The possession of nuclear weapons by Israel encourages other states of the Middle East to acquire such weapons.

The ideology of humanitarian intervention is actually part of a long history of Western attitudes towards the rest of the World. When Western colonialists landed on the shores of the Americas, Africa or Eastern Asia, they were shocked by what we would now call violations of human rights, and which they called “barbaric mores” – human sacrifices, cannibalism, women forced to bind their feet. Time and again, such indignation, sincere or calculating, has been used to justify or to cover up the crimes of the Western powers: the slave trade, the extermination of indigenous peoples and the systematic stealing of land and resources. This attitude of righteous indignation continues to this day and is at the root of the claim that the West has a “right to intervene” and a “right to protect”, while turning a blind eye to oppressive regimes considered “our friends”, to endless militarization and wars, and to massive exploitation of labor and resources.

The West should learn from its past history. What would that mean concretely?

Well, first of all, guaranteeing the strict respect for international law on the part of Western powers, implementing the UN resolutions concerning Israel, dismantling the worldwide US empire of bases as well as NATO, ceasing all threats concerning the unilateral use of force, lifting unilateral sanctions, stopping all interference in the internal affairs of other States, in particular all operations of “democracy promotion”, “color” revolutions, and the exploitation of the politics of minorities. This necessary respect for national sovereignty means that the ultimate sovereign of each nation state is the people of that state, whose right to replace unjust governments cannot be taken over by supposedly benevolent outsiders.

Proponents of humanitarian intervention claim that this is interventionism is done by the international community. But nowadays, there is no such thing as a genuine international community. Actually, nothing can better illustrate the hypocrisy of the the human right ideology than the contrast between the West’s reaction to Kosovo’s demands for independence and to the Eastern Ukrainian’s demand for autonomy. There is refusal to negotiate in both cases, but with total support for independence in one case and total opposition to autonomy in the other.

The promoters of humanitarian intervention present it as the beginning of a new era; but in fact it is the end of an old one. The major social transformation of the 20th century has been decolonization. It continues today in the elaboration of a genuinely democratic, multipolar world, one where the sun will have set on the US empire, just as it did on the old European ones.

The viewpoints expressed here are shared by millions of people in the “West”. This is unfortunately not reflected in our media. In the recent anti-Russian hysterical campaigns, our media seem to have totally abandoned the critical spirit of the Enlightenment that the West claims to uphold. The human rights ideology, which portrays us as being good versus them being bad, has the characteristic of all religious faiths, and is particularly fanatic. Let us not forget, among all the criticisms of secularism that I have heard here, that in World War I, all sides thought that they had God on their side, although, a far as I know, the Almighty was not kind enough to let us know on which side he was. Maybe he was too busy putting in heaven and hell the souls of the deceased soldiers who died invoking his name. The human rights ideology has replaced the old faiths, but it functions as a religion, and is the basis of a new nationalism, the one of the US and of the EU.

Some people think that all this ideological agitation and warmongering is due to rational economic calculations by cynical profiteers. I think this view is too optimistic and ignores, to quote Russell again, “the ocean of human folly upon which the fragile barque of human reason insecurely floats”. Wars have been waged for all kinds of non-economic reasons, such as religion or revenge, or simply to display power.
If the citizens of the West do not manage to mobilize themselves against their governments and their media in order to stop the current madness, it will be up to other countries to fulfill that role. It is to be hoped that they can achieve that task without adding another bloody chapter to the history that started with the desire of the European monarchs to crush the French Revolution.

Jean Bricmont teaches physics at the University of Louvain in Belgium.
14 December 2014
Counterpunch.com

 

By Alan Hart

It’s Israel’s Jews NOT the Palestinians who are trapped in their public narrative

In recent months nothing has made me more angry than an article written and posted on 11 December by Alon Ben-Meir with a headline that described the occupied and oppressed Palestinians as being Trapped In Their Public Narrative. It included this statement. “The Palestinians haven’t learned that they cannot have it both ways: demand a state of their own and threaten Israel’s very existence.”

My immediate response was this.

The only threat to Israel’s very existence is its on-going colonization of the occupied West Bank (ethnic cleansing slowly and by stealth) and the sickening Zionist self-righteousness that justifies it.

The anger provoked in me by Ben-Meir’s article was accompanied by surprise at what he wrote because this Baghdad-born, Jewish gentleman, currently a professor of international relations and Middle East studies at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, is internationally respected and not without influence in the corridors of power. He is a passionate supporter of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and an outspoken critic of Israel’s leaders for ignoring it. (His post before the one I am debunking here was headlined How Netanyahu Committed Political Suicide, and the following was its opening sentence. “Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insistence on passing a bill that will define Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people is as disgusting as his denial that Israel is an occupying power.”)

The main purpose of Trapped In Their Public Narrative was to convey this message.

“Not withstanding the growing support of the international community, the Palestinians will be mistaken to assume that the international community will solve their conflict with Israel… Neither the Europeans nor the U.S. who enjoy certain leverage with Israel will be able to force the hand of any hardcore right wing Israeli leader… Only the Palestinians themselves can change the Israeli public perception.”

The flesh Ben-Meir put on those bones included the following.

QUOTE

The Palestinians’ constant acrimonious public narrative against Israel has and continues to damage their credibility in the eyes of many Israelis…They are now increasingly focused on evoking international sympathy for their cause, but have failed time and again to appeal to the Israeli public, which matters the most to realize their stated objective of a Palestinian state.

The Palestinians appear to be trapped in their rancorous public narrative against Israel, even during the peace negotiations. Coupled with widespread anti-Israeli teaching in schools, regular media attacks and indoctrination in many public and private institutions, this is what Israelis see, hear, fear and believe.

The Palestinians fail to understand that they have nurtured persuasive anti-Israeli sentiment among the Palestinians and strong anti-Palestinian feeling among the Israelis, which is to the detriment of peace.

It is time for the Palestinians to re-examine the shifting political landscape in Israel and change course now, however incongruous that may be, because it is indispensable to their overall objective.

The Palestinians need to recognize that there is a psychological dimension to their conflict with Israel, traced back through decades of mutual hatred and mistrust. The frequent verbal attacks and the characterization of Israel as a racist and apartheid state only reinforce the Israelis’ resentment and distrust of the Palestinians.

The PA seems to ignore the fact that their constant anti-Israeli public sentiments play into the hands of the powerful right constituency while weakening the hands of the center and left-of-center, which represent the majority of Israelis.

The Israeli political parties from the center and left want to hear a language of reconciliation…The Palestinians cannot expect the Israelis to dismiss their public onslaught as empty rhetoric… Only the Palestinians themselves can change the Israeli public perception – not by mere political slogans but by demonstrating that they can be trusted and are a worthy negotiating partner.

The Palestinians must separate (draw a distinction) between the Israeli government and people. Every single Palestinian leader must carefully think about how his or her public utterances affect the Israeli electorate, especially during national elections. There is a steady shift to the right and maligning Israel during the campaign will only further strengthen the right and weaken the center and the left.

I am not naive to suggest that by merely changing their public narrative positively the Palestinians will instantly and dramatically alter the political map in Israel in favour of the left and center. But if the Palestinians want to realize statehood, they must change their rancorous narrative sooner rather than later, and the Israeli elections offer a unique opportunity to begin this shift.

UNQUOTE

I agree with Ben-Meir to the extent that between now and Israel’s election in March it would be a good idea for the Palestinians to remind Israel’s Jews, constantly and explicitly, that the ground on their side for peace on terms which a sane government of Israel would have accepted with relief was prepared 35 years ago by Yasser Arafat.

But also to be said is that the idea (implicit in Ben-Meir’s article) that only the occupied and oppressed Palestinians can bring Israel’s Jews to their senses and get them to understand the extent to which they have been brainwashed by their leaders is ridiculous.

In my view the most awesome flaw in Ben-Meir’s logic can be summarised as follows.

It assumes by obvious implication that Israel’s Jews are the victims in the story of Palestine that became Israel when, actually, and as the whole world is beginning to understand, they are the oppressors.

From that it follows, it seems to me, that it’s Israel’s Jews not the Palestinians who have got to make the first major move if there is ever to be peace based on justice for the Palestinians and security for all. And what does that first major move have to be?

AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THAT A TERRIBLE WRONG WAS DONE TO THE PALESTINIANS BY ZIONISM IN THE NAME OF ALL JEWS AND THAT THIS WRONG MUST BE RIGHTED.

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent.

14 December, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

ByEric Zuesse

On Saturday, December 13th, Russian media reported that U.S. President Obama evidently can’t wait to sign the congressional authorization for war against Russia (which has already been passed in draft form by 98% of U.S. House members and 100% of U.S. Senate members), and that he is already shipping military supplies into Ukraine for use against Ukraine’s ethnic Russians that the Ukrainian Government is trying to eliminate.

Mikhail Emelyanov, a leading Russian parliamentarian, was quoted as saying on Saturday, Russia “cannot calmly watch as the US arms Ukraine with the most modern lethal weapons. In this regard, we should not appear weak. The situation is very alarming. Judging by US intentions, they want to turn Ukraine into a fighting platform against Russia.”

The popular Russian website “Colonel Cassad” reports that the reason why Ukraine’s airports in Zaporozyhe, Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk mysteriously shut down for other traffic on Saturday was to unload weapons-shipments from the U.S. Specifically, it said that, at Zaporozyhe, “one of the airport workers replied that the airport has to be prepared to accept military aircraft with equipment, including Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk. The equipment is expected from the United States.” For the time being, civilian traffic at all three of those airports is being reduced during the next few days, in order to unload that U.S. freight.

Also reported Saturday at fortruss.blogspot was that, “Right now at Zaporozhye airport they are unloading two transport planes from USA. Cargo is in boxes. According to additional information two more planes are expected to arrive.”

Just one day prior, Foreign Policy had bannered on Friday, “Who Will Foot the Bill in Ukraine?” and their reporter naively claimed that, “little aid is forthcoming for Ukraine as its government faces a shortfall.”

The “aid” is actually already coming, in the form of U.S. military cargo shipments, gratis from U.S. taxpayers (though hardly gratis from the U.S. armaments-makers, whose business is booming from this). And the Ukraine “government faces a shortfall” thing is actually far worse than that: as Forbes’s Mark Adomanis headlined on April 15th, “Ukraine’s Economy Is Nearing Collapse.” He reported, “The central bank was forced to take such desperate measures because the currency has been in free fall, losing more than 35% of its value against the dollar this year. The Hryvnia has been the world’s worst performing currency in 2014.” And: “The only reason that things haven’t totally imploded is because of the $18 billion package of assistance from the IMF and the $9 billion in additional assistance pledged by the United States and the European Union. This financial assistance is desperately needed and will obviously help the Ukrainian government keep the lights on. The problem is that Ukraine’s funding needs aren’t a static target but are directly influenced by changes in its economic outlook. Since that economic outlook is darkening, Ukraine’s already large funding needs have grown commensurately.”

Forbes’s Kenneth Rapoza then noted on November 12th, “The nation’s currency, the hryvnia, has lost 91.5% of its value so far this year.”

On December 11th, Ukraine’s new Minister of Economic Development admitted, “By and large, the state is bankrupt.”

So: U.S. and European taxpayers will be funding all of those ‘loans,’ which will never be paid back, they’re actually donations instead of loans, because Ukraine was already tens of billions of dollars in debt even before the West took over; and none of these additional ‘debts’ will be able to be paid back one cent unless and until those earlier debts are, which will never be possible in that spiraling-downward country, which is now designing a military graveyard with a capacity for 250,000 fresh corpses of Ukrainian soldiers, and that’s not a very productive “investment” for any country to be making. America’s ‘investment’ in Ukraine is an ‘investment’ in corpses; and far more of those will be of the millions of residents in the targeted region than of the soldiers on either side of the conflict.

One of Russia’s loans to Ukraine has a provision saying that if Ukraine’s ratio of debt to GDP exceeds 60%, then Russia can demand and Ukraine must pay in cash the full due amount. The ratio has already exceeded that, but the official figure won’t be announced until March 2015, and, as Britain’s Economist noted, “That could trigger a default on all Ukraine’s other international bonds (which are worth about $16 billion up to 2023).” So: all of the money that is being ‘loaned’ to Ukraine now is purely a donation, since Russia will certainly pull the plug and flush Ukraine down the toilet this coming Spring. Then, all of a sudden, that $16 billion in cash will need to be put up by the Ukrainian Government, and whatever there is to put up, practically all of it will have to be paid to Ukraine’s old chief lender: Russia. The West will get little or nothing of it.

Washington isn’t out to help the Ukrainian people; it’s solely using Ukraine as a launching-pad for WW III against Russia. That’s all it’s “good for” now. And that’s what Obama is using it for: to slaughter, first, the residents in the parts of Ukraine that refuse to be ruled by the regime that Obama put in place; and, then, everybody else.

If this sounds crazy (and of course it does), then please ask your two Senators and your one Representative in the House: “Why did you vote to approve sending weapons to the Ukrainian Government?” (Mine refuses to answer.)

Please then report back here, in the reader-comments below, what the answer to that question is. Everyone who reads this article here will be interested to know what the answer to that question is.

Here is the list of the only 10 members of Congress who voted no on that bill, and all of them are in the House:

California’s George Miller (D)

California’s Dana Rohrabacher (R)

Florida’s Alan Grayson (D)

Florida’s Alcee Hastings (D)

Kentucky’s Thomas Massie (R)

Michigan’s Justin Amash (R)

North Carolina’s Walter Jones (R)

Tennessee’s John Duncan (R)

Texas’s Beto O’Rourke (D)

Washington’s Jim McDermott (D)

If any of those Representatives happens to be yours, then don’t ask him why he voted for the bill; he voted against it.

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