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By Gerald A. Perreira

Until the philosophy
that holds one race superior
and another inferior
is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
Everywhere is war

Anyone listening to the imperialists and corporate media reports/analyses of what is taking place in Mali,   will be left feeling confused. But we know that confusion and commotion are an integral part of the imperialists’ game plan.

Both the Bible and the Quran warn us that the devil is the author of lies and confusion.

The Hon Elijah Muhammad taught us to recognize the nature of the devil and how the devil operates in the contemporary context. He taught us to see the devil not as some mythical figure, but as a reality, a   living force moving amongst us, who knows its time is up and will do anything to maintain its rule upon the earth. This worldview is way outside the bounds of Western discourse, but integral to an understanding of what is really taking place in Mali and across the region.

The situation in Mali is not that confusing – actually it’s as simple as this:

Go back many years. Imagine you are the Brother Leader, Muammar Qaddafi. Your goal is one of a unified, strong Africa, able to throw off the yoke of imperialism and neo-colonialism. You know that Africa’s liberation cannot be realized without unity, and also that the first step on this long journey is to rid Africa of its remaining inept, neo-colonial regimes.

Leading the African Union meant that Qaddafi had to deal at a state to state level with the very neo-colonial regimes that he also knew had to be removed. To further complicate the matter, Qaddafi had long-standing and strong relationships with a number of liberation movements, revolutionary organizations and parties throughout Africa, that were opposing the neo-colonial regimes in some of these countries.

All sides of the political and ideological divide knew this about Qaddafi – that he had assisted liberation struggles throughout Africa, and for that matter throughout the world, with the sole intention of achieving African liberation and the victory of the oppressed worldwide. That his intentions were genuine was clear, since in many instances, under his leadership, Libya provided assistance to groups which definitely did more harm than good to Libya’s geo-political interests, simply complicating things for this often beleaguered nation.

I recently heard a National Geographic travel writer, trying to pass himself off as an expert on North Africa, and in particular, Libya and Mali, saying that Qaddafi played one tribe off against the other. What nonsense!

When I hear European journalists and some African factotums talking about Qaddafi playing one tribe off against the other, then I realize that we have to tell this story. Muammar Qaddafi was listened to by all sides, which is why he was so often asked to mediate in negotiations to resolve conflicts. Only someone who had not been at these meetings, and did not understand the ancient and complex nature of the African environment, could dismiss what Qaddafi was doing as ‘playing one off against the other’.

On Our Own Terms – African Solutions to African Problems
Those involved in the struggle for African unity know that mediating in the affairs of tribes cannot be achieved within the confines of the Westminster model of governance. Qaddafi was struggling to make peace in Africa in order to lay the groundwork for real development and liberation. As already mentioned, he understood that the only way for Africa to be free was for Africa and Africans, on the continent and in the Diaspora, to unite into a power bloc, and he also knew that it was imperative to apply African solutions to African problems.

The Libyan Jamahiriya, emerging as it did out of an African-Arab cultural environment, does not separate the individual from the community, but rather sees both as interdependent and part of an integral whole. In such a worldview, values which solidify and integrate the community are emphasized, while at the same time recognizing the rights, responsibility and role of the individual. This is in contrast to the liberal democratic tradition of the European community of nations or so-called ‘developed world’, where the individual is considered ‘absolute’ and where rugged individualism is encouraged.

In this framework of inter-connectedness, the prosperity of one means the prosperity of the other. Instead of pitting the interests of the individual and the community against one another, as is found in both capitalist and communist states, African communalism, or what Qaddafi refers to as ‘natural socialism’, recognizes the interests of all.

African philosopher, Polycarp Ikuenobe points out that:

‘While Africans recognize that individuals have natural rights, which derive from their natural individuality, interests and desires, these rights and individuality would be abstract and meaningless except when they are contextualized, made substantive, given material contents, and made meaningful in the context of a community.’

The detached, atomized individual is a European concept and is alien to the African traditions of Ubuntu, Ujamaa and Ishtirakiyah, principles which form the foundation of  systems of governance based on African communalism  or what was referred to in the Libyan Jamahiriya as ‘natural socialism’.

Where the multiparty system, emerging as it did out of the European cultural and historical context tends to fragment and divide, the Jamahiriyan system seeks to build social cohesion, unity and partnership.

In the Green Book, Qaddafi outlines clearly the social architecture that derives from what he understands to be a ‘natural order’:

The tribe is an extended family that has grown as a result of procreation. The tribe is in effect, a large extended family, and it then follows that the nation is the tribe that has also grown as a result of procreation. The nation is a large extended tribe; and the world is the nation that has diversified into a multitude of nations. The world therefore is an enlarged nation.

The relationship that binds a family together is the same relationship which binds the tribe together, the nation and the world. Nevertheless, the larger the multitude of people, the weaker this bond becomes… This is a sociological fact, denied only by the ignorant.

…This is why it is very important for the human community to preserve the cohesion of the family, the tribe, the nation and the world, in order to profit from the advantages, benefits, values and ideals yielded by the solidarity, cohesion, unity, familiarity and love of the family, tribe, nation and humanity…the tribe provides its members with the natural benefits and social advantages that the family provides for its members, for the tribe is a secondary family. It is worth mentioning here that an individual may sometimes behave in a dishonorable manner that a family will not condone: yet because the family is relatively small in size, this individual will not be aware of its supervision. In contrast, individuals, as members of the tribe, cannot be free of its watchful eyes.’

Qaddafi understood the primacy of ‘culture’ and that the cultural context is the foundation out of which all ideologies and social systems emerge.  He agreed with the view of Afrocentric psychologist, Wade Nobles, that culture is ‘a general design for living and patterns for interpreting reality’. That is why he chose to work so closely with traditional leaders/chiefs throughout Africa and the Tuaregs of the Sahel. Both groups had managed to keep their African traditions/culture alive, despite having been marginalized under colonialism and by successive neo-colonial regimes. This conception of culture is also why, from the outset of the Al Fateh revolution in 1969, Qaddafi necessarily rejected the Western multi-party parliamentary system and Western ideologies.

In 2010, at a meeting in Tripoli, Qaddafi addressed 175 traditional leaders from across the African continent. He told them that ‘African traditions were being replaced with Western culture and that multi party politics was destroying Africa’.   The chiefs agreed, accusing Africa’s political leaders of ‘neglecting traditional values and marginalizing Africa’s indigenous institutions.’

Yahaya Ezemoo Ndu, leader of Nigeria’s African Renaissance Party and Chairperson of the newly formed Pan-African international, ARM, in a recent interview, quoted Professor Catherine Achaolonu-Olumba, when he warned Africans that if they failed to recognize the importance of their own culture and cultural institutions, they would never achieve liberation:

‘To all Africans, Blacks and all deprived peoples all over the world, we say culture is everything! Those who took your cultures from you took everything from you. Your culture is your life, your past, your present, your science, your religion, your closest link to the One True God. You are your culture and your culture is all you have – it is your link to all knowledge available in the Universal Mind of the Creator. Your culture is you…’

Ndu went on to say:

‘Most of the problems confronting Africans are traceable to inappropriate governance systems. The Western World, led by the United States, has been forcing electocracy down the throat of Africans, claiming that it is ‘democracy’, while in fact, the United States does not experience, and has never experienced true democracy’.

There are over 100 tribes in Libya alone innumerable tribal groups throughout Africa. The concept of the ‘tribe’ is misunderstood in European political discourse, and tribal forms of organization are automatically dismissed as being backward and having no merit. However, as Qaddafi rightfully acknowledges, family and tribe are the basis of all African societies and tribal forms of organization will never be relinquished. The current nation-state borders in Africa are colonial constructs, and often secondary to indigenous concepts of tribe and tribal nations. That is why tribes do not always recognize nation-state boundaries drawn up and left by the colonizers, and furthermore why some tribes, even if they exist across a number of ‘nation-state’ borders, can be considered as constituting a nation in and of themselves.

This is one of the reasons why the imposition of the alien system of multi-partyism into Africa, where tribal loyalties are so honored, has led to disaster. Political parties can never demand the loyalty and support that one’s tribe can. Eventually, the multi-party system exacerbates any tribal conflict that exists and even creates tribal conflict where it did not previously exist. It actually works against the existing indigenous forms of social organization, creating chaos and failed states.

Abd-l Alkalimat points out the contradiction of importing the very systems which have been used to destroy us:

‘The basis for our social, political and economic systems can better be found among the communal traditions of our people rather than among those who have used their systems to oppress if not annihilate us.’

The success of a given system is entirely dependent on whether the particular system in place is in tune with and meets the needs of the people it is meant to serve.

As Africans, our struggle must be focused on achieving our inalienable right to self-determination – to develop our own political and economic systems and put in place our own political structures, free of interference from the outside world. Only we can turn the tables – only we can achieve our own liberation from systems that continue to keep us in a state of dependency and disarray.

Talk is cheap…
Bringing about the kind of unity, prosperity, and dignity that could lead to an independent and democratic United States of Africa is a long and tumultuous journey, which not everyone would have the courage to embark on. Theory is one thing, and a vital component, however, concrete action has to start somewhere. Qaddafi and the revolutionary Libyan Jamahiriya put Libya’s wealth where their mouth was and began to work with others to support the coming together of Africa, by upgrading telecommunications systems, enhancing infrastructural development, engaging in joint commercial projects, building educational institutions, providing healthcare, advancing  loans to African governments, and the setting up of African based lending institutions with plans for an African currency, which would have put an end to our continued dependency on the Euro/American Empire and their financial institutions.

Much analysis is produced by those who are not actively engaged in the struggle to change the world, but engaged only in interpreting it. They provide us with endless academic critiques of those who are active, finding fault with everything.  The late African revolutionary, Kwame Ture, always said, ‘never to waste our energies in lengthy conversation or debate with anyone who was not actively involved in the struggle for liberation in one way or other, since they would never be able to fully understand the issues at stake and would necessarily be dealing only with abstraction.’

Anyone who is engaged in struggle knows that the world is a brutal and complex arena. African unity is a journey that is fraught with overwhelming challenges that cannot always be resolved the way we would wish. This is not to act as an apologist for mistakes made, but simply to acknowledge that if criticism is to be constructive then it must be part of a discourse that is anchored in the reality of what it means to fight imperialism and injustice on all its fronts in 2013.

The intellectual warrior, Franz Fanon understood this, based on his own involvement in the Algerian struggle for liberation, when he boldly claimed,

‘Everybody will have to be compromised in the fight for the common good. No one has clean hands; there are no innocents and no onlookers. We all have dirty hands; we are all soiling them in the swamps of our country and in the terrifying emptiness of our brains. Every onlooker is either a coward or a traitor’.

As we say in the Caribbean – ‘yuh think it easy?’

The Mali story…
When the progressive leader, Amadou Toure, was elected president of Mali in 2002, Muammar Qaddafi welcomed him onto the scene. Toure believed that African conflicts/problems should be resolved within the framework of the African Union and he supported the vision of a United States of Africa. In such an environment, Qaddafi was able to broker a peace agreement between the Tuaregs and the Toure administration. Qaddafi had offered the Tuaregs what no one else had – to live in Libya with all of the benefits that that brought – free healthcare, education, housing etc. This was a gift to the Tuareg people and also in line with Qaddafi’s understanding of this part of the world outside of the boundaries of the artificial borders created by colonialism. In fact, the Libyan Jamahiriya had authorized Africans from all over the continent to cross its borders freely.

Once Qaddafi was murdered and Libya was handed over to the current barbaric alliance of Arab supremacists, monarchists and Al-Qaeda affiliated Wahabi-Salafi heretics, the Tuaregs, many of whom had been integrated into the Jamahiriyan military since the early 70s, had no choice but to return home.

What happened next?
The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), largely made up of Tuareg returnees, laid claim to a land mass in Northern Mali which they call Azawad. They claimed Azawad as their ancestral homeland and it came under their jurisdiction with little opposition from the Malian army.

In 2009, there was a major Tuareg uprising against the Malian government and Muammar Qaddafi was asked by both sides to play a mediating role. During these negotiations, President Toure made a number of concessions, promising to address the legitimate long term grievances of the Tuareg. These promises were not honored, and with Qaddafi no longer there to guide and mediate, and the Tuaregs now being forced to return to Mali, they had no choice but to claim their homeland.

President Toure quickly realized that a military solution was not possible and agreed to enter into negotiations with representatives of the MNLA. Days later, seemingly from out of nowhere, we saw a full blown coup in Mali. The US trained coup leader, Captain Amadou Sanogo, opposed the idea of Tuareg autonomy. At the time of the coup he claimed that President Toure was benefitting financially from the drug trade, suggesting that this was why he was ready to make concessions to the MNLA. This was untrue. For one thing the MNLA are not the ones who are involved in the expansive and lucrative drug trade in the Sahel – in fact they oppose it. It is well documented that the drug traffickers are Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and their front organizations across the region. That is why Qaddafi said that the so-called rebels in Benghazi were not only Al-Qaeda affiliated but were on drugs. It is interesting to note that Captain Sanogo was photographed recently with US ambassador, John Price, and the two were said to be laughing and talking like long lost friends. President Toure ended up in Senegal.

Next Move…
Also, from out of nowhere – Salafi militias enter Mali – Ansar Al Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad. Groups never before seen or heard of in Mali – made up primarily of non Malians and backed by guess who? Correct, the Gulf State Pretenders to Islam and NATO. They had one shared objective – to crush the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), since they shared Qaddafi’s vision for a united Africa and would have set up a Jamahiriya type state – Azawad style. The MNLA also adhere to an Islamic theology of liberation, rather than the Wahabi aberration parading as Islam, that the Gulf States and their imperialist backers depend on for their continued repression and plunder. The setting up of such a liberated zone would have provided a refuge for those loyal to Qaddafi and his ideas.

And so, they got rid of Toure and all hope of a peaceful solution to the issue of an autonomous Azawad and they unleashed their dogs of war, the Islamists, into Mali to beat back the progressive National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). The MNLA, however, were too clever to be seduced into an all out war with these foreign and reactionary Islamist forces, financed by one of the biggest sponsors of terrorism, the Qatari ruling elite, so they melted into the population, as only a liberation force with the backing of the people can do.

The MNLA had made it abundantly clear from the outset that they had no interest in seizing any territory outside of Azawad, including the capital Bamako, or causing havoc in Mali. This further ruffled the imperialists, since there is nothing they dislike more than the prospect of peaceful, progressive African based solutions to African conflicts.

With no MNLA to fight, the Islamists then proceeded to wreck havoc in Mali as they do everywhere they are deployed, and went on a killing spree and the French invaded to reign in their own proxy army,   definitely not to save Malians from the brutality of the Islamists.  The French realized that they had better reign in the dogs of war they themselves had unleashed, lest, unsuspectingly, while using the Islamists to prevent the huge deposits of uranium, which France depends on for their continued energy supply, from falling into MNLA hands, the Islamists themselves stole Mali from under France’s nose.

European Warlords in Re-scramble for African Resources
Unfortunately for Africa, we have everything that the US and Europe want and need. The story is not as complex in Mali, or for that matter throughout Africa, as they would have us believe – actually it is quite simple – the lifestyle enjoyed by Europeans on this earth – life as only they know it – is over without unfettered access to African resources.

With Qaddafi out of the way, one of the biggest remaining threats to their free reign in Africa is African resistance movements which are loyal to his vision. Groups such as the MNLA and JEM are high priority targets for imperialist military operations and their killer drones, a weapon straight out of their own Sci-Fi, which enables them to kill by remote control.  The US, imposing itself as the judge, jury and executioner, has killed thousands of human persons this way, while at the same time posturing as the world’s leading democrats. Their world is undeniably bizarre and Orwellian.

It is estimated that there are over 60 Drone bases in the US alone and more than 60 across the globe.  The most recently installed Drone base is in Niger, Northwest Africa. The plan is for such bases to be installed throughout the continent. US president, Barack Hussein Obama, has shown himself to be little more than a warlord and black only in color. Mentally incarcerated, he is the perfect candidate for the role of first black US president – and what a public relations coup: to have a black man at the helm when re-colonizing Africa.

While the Euro-American ruling elite plunder the world’s resources, cynically paying lip service to the ‘American Dream’, the tragedy is that Barak Obama seems to believe in it. He has taken it upon himself to target for execution, at whim, anyone, anywhere in the world, whom the Empire deems necessary to exterminate, in order to maintain White Supremacy. Make no mistake: the White House is still the White House.

Licensed to Kill

 It is reported that John Brennan, whose official title is Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and Assistant to the President, draws up the weekly list of those targeted for assassination by drones. These lists are then signed off by the President at a meeting of ‘counterterrorism security officials’ (War Council) held every Tuesday, now dubbed ‘kill list Tuesdays’ in White House circles.

Last year one of those targeted for assassination was Dr Khalid Ibrahim, leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), one of the largest groups within the Sudanese Revolutionary Front. He and some senior members of JEM had also been forced to leave Libya and were working to establish a liberated zone in Kordofan.

Only days ago, Tahir El-Faki, a spokesperson for the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), accused the Bashir regime in Khartoum of transporting Salafi jihadists from Mali to North Darfur. He added that some of them had already been in Darfur before being moved to Mali last year. It was reported that the ‘Jihadists’, who are from different countries in the region, including Niger, Chad and Algeria, had been transported using Qatari airplanes. Africa is up for grabs.

And finally, there is the hugely threatening factor of China’s rise as an economic superpower on the global stage. However, China, which is also completely dependent on African resources for its continued economic growth, has an entirely different approach. Not interested in military expansion, they pursue economic and commercial expansion instead. In contrast to the Euro/American Empire, China is willing to negotiate a fair deal within a win-win framework, and is therefore becoming a preferred trading partner for many African states, especially those who want to free themselves from their dependence on economic relations with the unjust and hypocritical Empire. To disrupt the increasingly closer ties between China and Africa is a priority for the imperialists, and so an already crumbling Empire, threatened with its own extinction, is now in full military swing.

Malcolm X knew the enemy well:

‘…when you and I begin to look at him and see the language he speaks, the language of a brute, the language of someone who has no sense of morality, who absolutely ignores law – when you and I learn how to speak his language, then we can communicate. But we will never communicate talking one language while he’s talking another language. He’s talking the language of violence.’

Fact is they will never stop warring for Africa’s resources until we Africans put an end to the fight ourselves. That is why imperialism can only be buried once and for all in Africa…

And until that day,
The African continent
Will not know peace,
We Africans will fight – we find it necessary –
And we know we shall win
As we are confident
In the victory
Of good over evil

References
Ikuenobe Polycarp, Philosophical Perspectives on Communalism and Morality in African Traditions, Lexington Books, OX, UK, 2006

Ndu, Yahaya Ezemoo, Africa’s Role in the Global World, African Executive Magazine, Online Edition, February, 2011

Nobles, Wade, Africanity and the Black Family, Black Family Institute Publications CA, USA, 1985

Qaddafi, Muammar, The Green Book Ithaca Press, UK, 2005 (first published 1975)

Shabazz, Malik (Malcolm X), By Any Means Necessary, Pathfinder, NY, USA, 1970

Title, opening and closing remarks from a speech delivered to the United Nations General Assembly by Haile Selassie in 1963, and later put to music by Robert Nesta Marley.

Gerald A. Perreira is a founding member of the Guyanese organizations Joint Initiative for Human Advancement and Dignity and Black Consciousness Movement Guyana (BCMG). He lived in Libya for many years, served in the Green March, an international battalion for the defense of the Al Fateh revolution and was an executive member of the World Mathaba based in Tripoli. He is the International Secretary for the newly formed, Afrocentric Pan-African International – ARM (African Revolutionary Movement).

Robert J. Burrowes

Can we take meaningful action to prevent our own extinction without ending human violence first?

The scientific evidence that human extinction will now occur before 2050 continues to rapidly accumulate. (See, for example, ‘Global Extinction within one Human Lifetime as a Result of a Spreading Atmospheric Arctic Methane Heat Wave and Surface Firestorm’: http://climatesoscanada.org/blog/2012/04/30/global-extinction-within-one-human-lifetime-as-a-result-of-a-spreading-atmospheric-arctic-methane-heat-wave-and-surface-firestorm/) Of course, we can deny this scientific evidence because it frightens us, we can delude ourselves that someone or something else (perhaps governments) will fix it, or we can delude ourselves that a few painless measures, primarily taken by others, will sort it all out. Another option is to powerfully take responsibility for the problem and play a vital role in addressing it ourselves. This is the choice for each of us.

On 11 November 2011 a movement to end violence in all of its forms was launched around the world: ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’. So far this movement has gained individual and organizational participants in 47 countries and the movement expands every day. But this is not a movement for the faint-hearted. This movement requires individuals and organisations that are willing to contemplate and take action on a range of deep and unpleasant truths about the state of our world because the time for pretence and prevarication is over.

So what is unique about ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’? The Nonviolence Charter is an attempt to put the focus on human violence as the pre-eminent problem faced by our species, to truthfully identify all of the major manifestations of this violence, and to identify ways to tackle all of these manifestations of violence in a systematic and strategic manner. It is an attempt to put the focus on the fundamental cause – the violence we adults inflict on children – and to stress the importance of dealing with that cause. (See ‘Why Violence?’ http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence) It is an attempt to focus on what you and I – that is, ordinary people – can do to end human violence and the Nonviolence Charter invites us to pledge to make that effort. And it is an attempt to provide a focal point around which we can mobilise with a sense of shared commitment with people from all over the world.

In essence then, one aim of the Nonviolence Charter is to give every individual and organisation on planet Earth the chance to deeply consider where they stand on the fundamental issue of human violence. Will you publicly declare your commitment to work to end human violence? Or are you going to leave it to others?

And what, precisely, do you want to do? And with whom? The Charter includes suggestions for action in a wide variety of areas; for example, by inviting people to participate in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’ – http://tinyurl.com/flametree – which is a simple yet comprehensive strategy for individuals and organisations to deal with the full range of environmental problems. The Charter also provides an opportunity to identify and contact others, both locally and internationally, with whom we can work in locally relevant ways, whatever our preferred focus for action. In that sense, each participating individual and organisation becomes part of a worldwide community working to end human violence for all time.

So far, the movement has attracted some exceptional people long known for their work to create a world without violence. These people include renowned international peace activist and ‘living legend’ Ela Gandhi (granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi), Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire, pre-eminent public intellectual Professor Noam Chomsky, president of the Malaysian-based International Movement for a Just World Professor Chandra Muzaffar, Director of Aksyon para sa Kapayapaan at Katarungan at the Pius XII Catholic Center in the Philippines Dr Tess Ramiro, the Deputy Moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa Dr Braam Hanekom, prominent nonviolent activists (including Anita McKone, Anahata Giri, Tom Shea, Leonard Eiger, Tarak Kauff, Jill Gough, Jim Albertini, Lesley Docksey and Bruce Gagnon), the jurist Judge Mukete Tahle Itoe of Cameroon, author Anna Perera of the UK and the eminent human rights and communal harmony activist Professor Ram Puniyani in India. Apart from these and other prominent signatories, however, it is mostly ‘ordinary people’ who are making the pledge to work for a world without violence.

Many organisations are making the pledge too. These include Pax Christi Australia, Nonviolence International in Canada, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Cymru (Wales), the Human Rights Center in Georgia, the GandhiServe Foundation in Germany, Muslim Peacemaker Teams in Iraq, Women for Human Rights in Nepal, the Pan-African Reconciliation Centre in Nigeria, the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand, the Holy Land Trust in Palestine, Buddha Dharma in Slovenia, the Forum for Community Change and Development in South Sudan, Facilitate Global and Share the World’s Resources in the UK as well as Bay Area Women in Black, the Blauvelt Dominican Sisters Social Justice Committee, It’s Our Economy and Veterans for Peace in the USA. There are many others.

The Nonviolence Charter acknowledges our many differences, including the different issues on which we choose to work. But it also offers us a chance to see the unity of our overarching aim within this diversity. Hence, whatever our differences, we are given the chance to see that ending human violence is our compelling and unifying dream.

If you think it is time to end violence before we end life, you can join this movement. You can read and, if you wish, sign the pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ online at http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com/

Biodata: Robert has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach’, State University of New York Press, 1996. His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his personal website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

By Mazin Qumsiyeh

25 February 2013

@ http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com

I just returned to Palestine after a productive but tiring short tour of European cities (Paris, Bordeaux, Grenoble, Geneva) to rejoin the growing uprising against the occupation/colonization (a change) and to witness the PA and Israel still engaged in “security coordination” with our own tax money used as “leverage” (a no change).  Today was a day of anger as we buried Arafat Jaradat, a 32 year old father of two (and a third on the way) whose autopsy clearly showed he was tortured to death in Israeli jails (over 200 Palestinians lost their lives in Israeli prisons).*

The tour featuring me and Jeff Halper to discuss the one-state solution was organized by the European branch of “Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace”. The organizers are mostly young students (though some of them are in graduate programs).  They did a tremendous amount of work.  They had invited me and Jeff to speak on the issue knowing that we hold somewhat different views (he is for a binational state within a confederation of Middle Eastern states while I am for one democratic secular state).  We both agree though that any dreams about the mirage of a two-state solution must be abandoned.  The discussions both during and between presentations were rather useful to all concerned including me.

I had written a book on the subject called “Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle”.  As it is out of (second) print now, I went ahead and put it on my website (http://qumsiyeh.org/sharingthelandofcanaan/ ).  Briefly I argued then (nearly 10 years ago) that a just peace can be achieved and that it can be durable and a win-win situation for all involved.  I suggested that instead of wasting time and energy talking about fictional solutions (like that of two-states) or less workable ones (vague binational state), we should insist on human rights as a basis for our activism.  Human rights are well enunciated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).  These basic rights include the right not to be removed from one’s own lands and thus the rights of refugees to return to their homes and lands.  They include the rights to equality regardless of religion (thus Israel’s basic laws favoring Jews and discriminating against the native Christians and Muslims are against human rights).

The various provisions of the UDHR clearly present us with only one way forward: one country for its entire people.  This happens to be also the main demand made by the native Palestinians from their first encounter with the harmful effects of political Zionism in 1880 (the colony of Petah Tikveh).  It remained our demands despite the Nakba of 1948, the Naksa of 1967, and the political setback of the Oslo “process”.  The latter was like a second Nakba: devastating to the psyche of the people. This year will mark the 20th anniversary of these disastrous “Declarations of Principles” and the agreements emanating from them.  They were supposed to be for a five-year (1993-1998) interim period while Palestinians and Israelis “negotiated” the final status issues.  But as most people realized then and all people realize now, no peace can be achieved by negotiating between a weak, imprisoned population and a strong colonial power that has no incentive to give up any stolen lands/resources.  After all, the occupation of the 1967 areas is the most profitable occupation in history (>$10 billion in direct profit annually to the state of Israel).  And this is not taking into account the benefit Israel gets from continued use of the land it occupied in 1948 by continuing to deny the refugees the right to return to their homes and lands.  It is also not taking into account the hundreds of billions Israel got over the past 65 years from Western Government and individual “donors” by playing the victim card while it was the most repressive regime engaged in massive war crimes and crimes against humanity.

These kinds of facts are slowly being recognized by civil societies around the world.  Many of those people finding these facts are also acting on them.  The Israel-Palestine question remains the most pressing issue in the world agenda since the collapse of apartheid in South Africa.  This is because, like that situation, the racism and apartheid in Palestine presents a severe challenge to the “world order” created after WWII.  After all, what value is all this talk about democracy, human rights, international law, and peace if the western governments continue to support a racist apartheid regime that ethnically cleansed 530 villages and towns and imprisons the remaining Palestinians in open air prisons (ghettos, Bantustans, cantons, people warehouses)?  Add to that this is the Holy Land where members of one religion now determine everything that happens with a set of discriminatory laws against members of other religions.

My humble recommendations for going forward (not in any order):

-Palestinians should rise-up against the system created in Oslo and rejuvenate the Palestine Liberation Organization to be representative of all 12 million Palestinians. This must be based on a clear strategy advocating for one democratic state.

-Palestinians continue and intensify resisting the occupation and colonization schemes of the Israeli government and settlers including pushing for a new wave of resistance (the 14th or 15th uprising)

-The international community intensifies its efforts at Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) in the same manner as we did with apartheid South Africa.  We encourage all to act by visiting Palestine and see for themselves the horrors of apartheid and then to act by many methods (see http://qumsiyeh.org/whatyoucando/ for 64 ways to act)

-We intensify the use of the internet (social networking, Tweets, Facebook etc.) to bring millions more to join the global struggle against Zionist apartheid and colonization.

-We should increase outreach among Israeli Jews who were isolated and brainwashed by their own government, so that they can see reality and the writing on the wall that there is no future for the programs of racism and ethnic cleansing done grotesquely in the name of “Jewish nationalism” (a false messiah).

“Our food is our curse” was a title of an article in an Egyptian newspaper I read on the way back home.  The author argued that Egyptians have become so focused on making their daily living as individuals that interest in issues, knowledge, and societal improvement have diminished or disappeared.  I agreed somewhat especially after being tricked to pay more on three occasions just in the last day of my travels.   But I would think he was a bit too pessimistic.  I think there is still a lot of good in Egypt, in Palestine, and in the Arab world.  The fact that he can write and critique is in itself a good indication.  I am also optimistic because the growth of the internet made change inevitable.  There is now hundreds of millions of people logging in and socially networking and learning from each other.  Ideas spread like viruses and power, previously concentrated in the hands of the few, is slowly diffusing to the hands of the many.  While we have no illusions about the obstacles we face (greed, institutionalized racism, western politicians beholden to Zionist lobbies, apathy etc.), we are 100% confident in the inevitability of democracy, justice and peace.  Much of our work will only help speed up the arrival of that inevitable future.  This acceleration will save lives and reduce other forms of suffering.  I see the change happening all around our shared blue planet.

*see http://mondoweiss.net/2013/02/autopsy-revealed-torture.html

Action: Please work for the release of all prisoners: Israel continued to kidnap Palestinians including several people we know or are friends of friends.  For example they arrested our activist colleague Mohammad Shabaaneh was kidnapped by the Israeli occupation authorities and has been isolated without seeing a lawyer and without charges.  He is a cartoonist.  He is added to the thousands of Palestinians imprisoned in the apartheid jails. http://mondoweiss.net/2013/02/palestinian-cartoonist-international.html

See also this report about other human rights violations including the arrest of 27 year old Yazan Mohammad Sawalha who was imprisoned years before and returned to university and was about to graduate

http://tinyurl.com/ahdru8z

Many are beginning to realise that the military digital complex can be more profitable than its industrial complex.

By Haroon Meer

25 Feb 2013

@ Aljazeera.com

February kicked off with reports from the New York Times that their computer networks had been breached by Chinese hackers. A few weeks later, US Computer Security firm Mandiant, released a report [PDF] which purported to link Chinese cyber attacks against 141 US companies to a section of the People’s Liberation Army (Unit 61398). Just two days after the release of the report, the US government announced a new strategy for dealing with such attacks and released a 142 page policy document on “Mitigating the Theft of US Trade Secrets” [PDF].

This all makes for excellent drama. State sponsored villainy, high-tech skullduggery and victims facing clear and present danger. The media frenzy that followed is understandable, predictable and completely dangerous. We have seen this movie before and with the ever-growing moves to militarise the internet, it would behoove us to pause for a bit before hauling out the pitchforks.

Does China have a military unit dedicated to Computer Network Operations (CNO)? Certainly. But this is perfectly normal for most developed countries today. Wikipedia claims that Israeli unit 8200 is the largest unit in the Israeli army and the American NSA has always taken pride in the number of PhD mathematicians it employs. Lots of ink has been dedicated over the past few years to the formation of US Cyber Command which is dedicated to US Cyberspace Operations and there have been just as many articles written on the drive to draft cyber warriors into the military (recently, the DoD even created new medals [PDF] to hand out for this “new” theatre of war).

US security firm links China to vast hacking

So the existence of a dedicated Chinese unit signals intelligence and cyberwar is not news, and the fact that this unit would recruit from science and engineering faculties of Chinese universities should hardly come as a surprise. What is surprising is the unfaltering belief that since attacks come from IP addresses in the same geographic region as a PLA unit, ipso facto, the attacks are state sponsored and need some sort of government response.

For context, the area in question is about the size of Los Angeles and houses over 5 million people (making it roughly the equivalent of the second most populated US city). Claiming that attacks originating from anywhere in this city must imply the involvement of Unit 61398 is a stretch and ignores a raft of other possibilities.

So why do so many people so readily believe that attacks from China are state sponsored?

An argument is made that the attacks show coordination and shared purpose that implies a state sponsored mission. We know from recent history that the one does not imply the other. When Anonymous (and its splinter group Lulzsec) relentlessly attacked the Japanese Sony Corporation and brought down the Playstation network (and compromising Sony sites worldwide), was the natural assumption that this was a US State Sponsored attack against Japan? When the US hosts hundreds of conferences every year dedicated to hacking and computer security, are they accused of promoting cyber terrorism?

Another weak argument that is often bandied about is that the attacks show a scale that must imply the employment of thousands dedicated to the task (which must imply government funding). Again, we know that this is not true. The internet is a force multiplier and allows a handful of smart engineers to build infrastructure that scales exponentially. Don’t believe me? Ask Instagram, who managed to use a dozen engineers to build a service that scales to service millions (while generating billions in income).

Many assume that the existence of the “Great Firewall of China” means that the PLA has tight control over the entire Chinese internet space. A brief glance through the address space shows that this simply isn’t true. In 2011, a security researcher discovered that a popular Chinese entertainment programme inadvertently opened up an open proxy on all machines that ran the software. Presto, with one piece of misconfigured software, we have “100 million open proxies in China”. An open proxy means that we can co-opt the proxy to act on our behalf (which probably explains why so many attacks seem to be coming from Chinese address-space).

Empire

Targeting Iran – Video: The plot of the century

The thought of state sponsored attackers helps us feel better about the fact that we are so easily compromised, but the truth of the matter is that we are so easily compromised because for the most part, we haven’t figured out yet how to properly defend ourselves on the internet. This is another topic for another day, but one I have previously written about here.

Even if we accept the premise of the Mandiant report, the squeals from the US about these cyber espionage attacks ignore some ironic bits of history.

To date, the largest documented offensive cyber operations in the world were conducted by the USA and Israel in the form of 2010’s Stuxnet and Flame attacks against Iran. Even relatively passive countries that were avoiding the topic of cyberwar were forced to re-evaluate their positions post-Stuxnet.

But this is state sponsored corporate espionage, not cyberwar, which makes it all different. Once more, a brief history lesson makes sense.

The European Parliamentary Session Document from 2001 covering the USA’s echelon programme lists a number of egregious instances of US cyber espionage being used to benefit US based corporations over their European counterparts.

Examples include:

– The NSA intercepted communication between Airbus and the Saudi Arabian government during contract negotiations and forwarded this communication to Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas (who went on to win the contract instead).

– The NSA forwarded technical details of an engineering design to a US based firm (who then patented the design before the original inventors).

– The CIA hacked into the Japanese Trade Ministry to obtain details informing their negotiation on quotas for US cars.

– The NSA intercepted communications between VW and Lopez (and then forwarded this information to General Motors).

– The NSA surveillance of the Thomson-CSF/Brazil negotiations (for a billion dollar contract) were forwarded to Raytheon (who were later awarded the contract instead).

So China doesn’t exactly have the monopoly on cyber warfare or industrial espionage. In fact, it is fairly well understood that most modern states are engaged in similar activities against each other.

The new policy document pushed through by the White House includes the promise of “Enhanced Domestic Law Enforcement Operations” and “Improved Domestic Legislations” as two of its five strategic action items.

The penny drops.

First comes the bogeyman, and then comes the protection we need – more legislation and more law enforcement. Again, this all has a strangely familiar feeling.

There is a huge lobby in the US desperate to reclaim engineering jobs that have been shipped to China, and there is a huge lobby of hawks who are beginning to realise that the military digital complex can be even more profitable than the military industrial complex was. There is a powerful lobby that constantly pushes for increased regulation and there is an ever-increasing call for freedom-restricting technology that limits anonymity and online whistle-blowing.

All of them benefit from hyping the Chinese-Cyber-Demon and we would be well advised to make sure that we don’t let scary headlines, injured pride and our desire for online safety make us give up essential online liberties. We have made this mistake before.

Haroon Meer is the founder of Thinkst, an Applied Research company with a deep focus on information security.

By Craig Whitlock,

23 February, 2013

@ Washingtonpost.com

President Obama announced Friday that about 100 U.S. troops have been deployed to the West African country of Niger, where defense officials said they are setting up a drone base to spy on al-Qaeda fighters in the Sahara.

It was the latest step by the Pentagon to increase its intelligence-gathering across Africa in response to what officials see as a rising threat from militant groups.

In a letter to Congress, Obama said about 40 U.S. service members arrived in Niger on Wednesday, bringing the total number of troops based there to “approximately” 100. He said the troops, which are armed for self-protection, would support a French-led military operation in neighboring Mali, where al-Qaeda fighters and other militants have carved out a refuge in a remote territory the size of Texas.

The base in Niger marks the opening of another far-flung U.S. military front against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, adding to drone combat missions in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. The CIA is also conducting drone airstrikes against al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan and Yemen.

Senior U.S. officials have said for months that they would not put U.S. military “boots on the ground” in Mali, an impoverished nation that has been mired in chaos since March, when a U.S.-trained Malian army captain took power in a coup. But U.S. troops are becoming increasingly involved in the conflict from the skies and the rear echelons, where they are supporting French and African forces seeking to stabilize the region.

Obama did not explicitly reveal the drone base in his letter to Congress, but he said the U.S. troops in Niger would “provide support for intelligence collection” and share the intelligence with French forces in Mali.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to provide details about military operations, said that the 40 troops who arrived in Niger on Wednesday were almost all Air Force personnel and that their mission was to support drone flights.

The official said drone flights were “imminent” but declined to say whether unarmed, unmanned Predator aircraft had arrived in Niger or how many would be deployed there.

The drones will be based at first in the capital, Niamey. But military officials would like to eventually move them north to the city of Agadez, which is closer to parts of Mali where al-Qaeda cells have taken root.

“That’s a better location for the mission, but it’s not feasible at this point,” the official said, describing Agadez as a frontier city “with logistical challenges.”

The introduction of Predators to Niger fills a gap in U.S. military capabilities over the Sahara, most of which remains beyond the reach of its drone bases in East Africa and southern Europe.

The Pentagon also operates drones from a permanent base in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, and from a civilian airport in Ethi­o­pia.

The U.S. military has been flying small turboprop surveillance planes over northern Mali and West Africa for years, but the PC-12 spy aircraft have limited range and lack the sophisticated sensors that Predators carry.

U.S. military contractors have been flying PC-12 surveillance aircraft from Agadez for several months. Those planes do not carry military markings and only require a handful of people to operate.

In contrast, Predators need ground crews to launch, recover and maintain the drones. Those crews, in turn, require armed personnel for protection.

The U.S. defense official said it is likely that more U.S. troops will deploy to Niger but declined to be specific. “I think it’s safe to say the number will probably grow,” he said.

The Predators in Niger will only conduct surveillance, not airstrikes, the official said. “This is purely an intelligence-gathering mission,” he said. Other officials said the Obama administration had not ruled out arming the Predators with missiles in the future.

Information collected from reconnaissance missions will be shared with the French and other African militaries so they can attack al-Qaeda targets, officials said.

There is evidence that al-Qaeda fighters in West Africa are already bracing for drone warfare. The Associated Press reported finding an al-Qaeda document in Timbuktu, Mali, that listed 22 tips for avoiding drones. Among other countermeasures, it advised hiding “under thick trees” and buying off-the-shelf electronic scramblers “to confuse the frequencies used to control the drone.”

Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, signed an agreement with the United States last month that provides legal safeguards for U.S. forces stationed there. Nigerien officials are concerned about the spillover of violence and refugees from Mali, which has threatened to destabilize the entire region.

Because Mali’s coup leaders toppled a democratically elected government, the U.S. government is prohibited by law from giving direct military aid to Mali.

Johnnie Carson, the State Department’s top diplomat for Africa, told reporters Friday that security assistance and other aid could “immediately” resume to Mali “if there is a restoration of democracy.” Mali has tentatively scheduled elections for July.

The French military launched a surprise intervention in Mali last month after Islamist fighters swept south and threatened to take over much of the country.

Since then, about 4,000 French troops and a coalition of about 6,000 African forces have retaken major cities in northern Mali, chasing al-Qaeda fighters and other militants into remote areas. One French official described combat operations there as “a little like Afghanistan.”

French military leaders have said they would begin a partial withdrawal next month. Their strategy hinges on enlisting Malian troops and other African forces to act as peacekeepers, while negotiating side deals to persuade some of Mali’s many militant factions to turn against al-Qaeda.

But al-Qaeda fighters and other Islamist militants have quickly adopted guerrilla tactics and show no sign of disappearing. Car bombs and suicide attacks have flared in recent days and are likely to intensify in the coming weeks, Carson acknowledged.

“There’s no question that [al-Qaeda] has not been totally defeated, but they have been significantly degraded,” he said at a breakfast sponsored by the Center for Media and Security.

Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.

© The Washington Post Company

By Jonathan Cook

22 February, 2013

@ Jonathan-cook.net

Israelis have been revelling in the prospect of an Oscar night triumph next week, with two Israeli-financed films among the five in the running for Best Documentary. But the country’s right-wing government is reported to be quietly fuming that the films, both of which portray Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories in a critical light, have garnered so much attention following their nominations.

Guy Davidi, the Israeli co-director of 5 Broken Cameras, one of the finalists, said industry insiders had warned him that pressure was being exerted on the Academy to stop the films winning the award.

“Many people in Hollywood are working very hard to make sure that neither film wins,” he said. “From Israel’s point of view, an Oscar would be a public relations disaster and mean more people get to see our films.”

The film is a searing account by Palestinian filmmaker Emad Burnat of a six-year period in his West Bank village during which the residents protested non-violently against an Israeli wall that cut off their farmland.

Israeli soldiers are shown beating, tear-gassing and shooting the villagers and solidarity activists.

The other Israeli-backed contender, The Gatekeepers, directed by Dror Moreh, features confessions by all six former heads of the Shin Bet, the main agency overseeing Israel’s occupation, since 1980. All are deeply critical of Israel’s rule over the Palestinians, with one even comparing it to the Nazis’ occupation of Europe.

Both films have won critical acclaim. This month The Gatekeepers won the Cinema for Peace Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film has also been picked up by a major distributor, Sony Pictures Classics.

With the Israeli media abuzz over the country’s Oscar hopes, the columnist Gideon Levy observed: “This is not a matter of Israeli pride but rather of Israeli chutzpah. … Israel should be ashamed of what these movies bring to light.”

Despite the publicity, showings of the films in Israel have been mainly limited to circles of intellectuals and left-wing activists.

Davidi said requests to the education ministry to put 5 Broken Cameras on the civics curriculum had been rebuffed. That appears to be in line with official efforts to avoid drawing attention to the documentaries.

The culture ministry, run by Limor Livnat, a hawkish ally of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, broke its silence to make a short, caustic comment. A spokesman, Meir Bardugo, said: “Israeli cinema doesn’t have to be anti-Israeli.”

Responding to claims from local film executives that Livnat had put pressure on them to start making films showing Israel in “a sweeter light”, Bardugo added: “If Livnat would interfere, these two films wouldn’t get to the Oscars.”

Paradoxically for the government, Israel’s claim to 5 Broken Cameras is disputed. Emad Burnat, the other co-director, said: “It’s my story. I am Palestinian and the film is about the struggle of my village in Palestine. If it wins, it will be a victory for Palestine, not Israel.”

Unlike the Best Foreign Language Film category, Oscar-nominated documentaries are not classified according to country. 5 Broken Cameras received US$250,000 (Dh918,000) from Israeli and French government film funds.

Nonetheless, the dispute echoes previous Oscar controversies, including claims that the Academy refused to consider Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention in 2002 because it did not recognise Palestine as a state, and a statement by Skandar Copti, the Palestinian-Israeli co-director of Ajami, that he would not “represent Israel” in the 2010 Oscars.

Both 5 Broken Cameras and The Gatekeepers exploit to the full the exclusive access the filmmakers had to their subject matter.

The former records in troubling detail confrontations between the Israeli army and the villagers, including a sensational scene in which a soldier fires directly at Burnat. The bullet lodges in his camera lens and saves his life.

However, of the two films, The Gatekeepers has polarised opinion most sharply in Israel and among many American Jews because its criticisms of the occupation are made from consummate insiders.

At a festival screening in Jerusalem last year, some audience members were reported to have shouted “Traitors!” at the former Shin Bet heads who attended.

Writing in the US weekly The Jewish Press this month, the psychology professor Phyllis Chesler argued that the $1.5 million-budget film followed “a lethal narrative script against the Jewish state”.

But the CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour described The Gatekeepers as “full of stunning revelations”. It is rare for senior officials to break a code of silence designed to shield their activities from scrutiny.

The film was made in absolute secrecy, according to the director. “I knew I had dynamite in my hands.”

Moreh is scathing of Netanyahu for his inaction on Palestinian statehood, calling him “the biggest danger to Israelis”. The antipathy has apparently been reciprocated. Netanyahu’s spokesman has told the media that the prime minister has no plans to see the film.

Another new Israeli documentary, The Law in These Parts, which has been competing in festivals alongside 5 Broken Cameras and The Gatekeepers, is causing similar unease among officials.

In it, some of the country’s top legal minds admit that their job was to create arbitrary and oppressive laws to control Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Lia Tarachansky, an Israeli-Canadian filmmaker whose documentary Seven Deadly Myths interviews ageing former soldiers about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, said the new films were groundbreaking: “For the first time people who know the system from the inside are providing a very precise, even clinical, picture of the structure of the occupation.”

She echoed Davidi’s fears that pro-Israel lobbyists were trying to stop critical films reaching a mainstream audience. “There is a lot of blind support for Israel in the industry.”

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His new website is

www.jonathan-cook.net

By Joharah Baker

21 February, 2013

@ Uruknet.info

“Silence is complicit”, read one of the signs raised by protesters in front of UN offices in Ramallah. The young men and women in solidarity with Palestinian hunger strikers were sending a message to the UN and to the world: your silence could kill them.

In a way, that is very true. The lives of four Palestinian hunger strikers are hanging in the balance, teetering between life and death. Two in particular – Samer Issawi and Ayman Sharawneh have crossed the 200-day mark without food. The sheer number of days is staggering, difficult for any person to wrap their heads around. And still, the world is more or less disgracefully quiet.

The Palestinians have a right to be angry. The Palestinian prisoner issue has been shuffled aside, ignored and sidelined for years now. International human rights organizations have admitted that grave violations of human rights have taken place behind Israeli bars but Israel has never been held accountable.

While tens of thousands of Palestinians have suffered in Israeli prisons over the decades since the Israeli occupation of 1967, recently, a heroic few have brought this issue back to the fore. Last year, Khader Adnan waged a 66-day hunger strike to protest Israel’s administrative detention policy, which allows Israel to imprison Palestinian political prisoners without charge for an indefinite period of time. Adnan’s strike, which ended in his eventual release and an Israeli promise not to renew his detention, encouraged others silently suffering the same fate to walk in his footsteps.

Today, Samer Issawi, on hunger strike for over 200 days, is most likely dying. Medical reports and lawyer visits tell a haunting tale of a man who has lost more than half of his body weight, is suffering from excruciating muscle and joint pains and who can no longer stand on his own. Ayman Sharawneh is also in grave medical condition, having been rushed to Israel’s Soroka Hospital after days in isolation in a Beer Sheva-area prison. Tareq Qadan and Jaafar Izzedin are also on hunger strike, weak but determined.

In a letter to his people, Samer Issawi shows that despite his weak body his is still strong-willed.

“My message is that I will continue until the end, until the last drop of water in my body, until martyrdom…I say to my people: I’m stronger than the occupation army and its racist laws. I, Samer al-Issawi, son of Jerusalem, send you my last will that, in case I fell as a martyr, you will carry my soul as a cry for all the prisoners, man and women, cry for freedom, emancipation and salvation from the nightmare of prisons and their harsh darkness.”

Samer, freed in the Shalit prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel in October 2011, was re-arrested in July 2012 on a technicality. Issawi, who was ostensibly banned from entering the Jerusalem-area town of Al Ram, was ‘caught’ there and detained for violating the terms of his release. Israeli prison authorities informed him he would have to serve out the remainder of his original sentence of 20 years. And so, he stopped eating at the beginning of last August, refusing to accept the unjustness of his situation.

It has even taken Palestinians too much time to rise up in protest. Since the prisoners began their hunger strike, there have been solidarity activities, tents and confrontations with the Israeli army in their name, but it has not been until recently that the real protests have begun. Khader Adnan declared his own hunger strike in solidarity, holed up in the Red Cross office in Ramallah and Ayman Sharawneh’s family have all stopped eating in solidarity with their son.

But, with the exception of the few and far between statements of ‘concern’ for the lives of the prisoners, the international community has said nothing. And so, coupled with their genuine concern for the lives of their brothers, husbands, sons and comrades, the Palestinians are enraged that the world would sit back and watch these good men die. Even if one of them perishes, the Palestinians will surely hold the world accountable for not stepping in and saving them.

Those who have not lived through such a struggle and under such harsh and inhumane circumstances cannot fully understand the significance of this act. These brave men are not starving to death just for their own sakes. For most, that would never be enough. But for those dedicated to the cause and to Palestine, this is the price of freedom they are willing to pay.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) . She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org

By Architects & Engineers For 9/11 Truth

21 February, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

On February 25, in the small town of Horsham in the United Kingdom, there will be a rare and potentially groundbreaking opportunity for the 9/11 truth movement. Three hours of detailed 9/11 evidence is to be presented and considered in a court of law where the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) will be challenged over the inaccurate and biased manner in which it has portrayed the events and evidence of 9/11.

Over the last 16 months, BBC has been challenged strongly by individuals in the UK over two documentaries that they showed in September 2011 as part of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, namely ‘9/11: Conspiracy Road Trip’ and ‘The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 Ten Years On’. Formal complaintswere lodged with BBC over the inaccuracy and bias of these documentaries, which, according to 9/11 activists, was in breach of the operating requirements of BBC through their ‘Royal Charter and Agreement’ with the British public.

This document requires BBC to show information that is both accurate and impartial. These complaints were supported by the US-based educational charity Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth), which submitted detailed scientific evidence to BBC to buttress the complaints. The evidence focuses in particular on the confirmed free-fall of WTC 7 and NIST’s 2008 admission of this fact. In addition, over 300 AE911Truth petition signers supported these complaints by sending letters to BBC, requesting that BBC show this evidence to the public.

As a continuation of this process with the BBC, documentary film maker Tony Rooke has decided to take a personal stand on this issue. People in the United Kingdom are required to pay an annual TV licence fee which is used to fund BBC’s operations. Tony has refused to pay his TV licence fee on the basis of specific anti-terrorism legislation.

Section 15 of the UK Terrorism Act 2000, Article 3, states that it is offence to provide funds if there is a reasonable cause to suspect that those funds may be used for the purposes of terrorism. Tony’s claim is that BBC has withheld scientific evidence which demonstrates that the official version of the events of 9/11 is not possible and that BBC has actively attempted to discredit those people attempting to bring this evidence to the public. According to Rooke, by doing this, BBC is supporting a cover-up of the true events of 9/11 and is therefore potentially supporting those terrorist elements who were involved in certain aspects of 9/11 who have not yet been identified and held to account.

Rooke has been charged with a crime for not paying his TV Licence Fee. However, he has lodged a legal challenge to this charge and has now been successful in being granted an appearance in a Magistrate’s court, where he has three hours available to present his evidence to defend himself against the charge. Tony has put together a formidable team to support him in presenting the evidence, including the following two outstanding 9/11 researchers:

Professor Niels HarritP

Dr. Niels Harrit is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen and is one of the world’s leading experts on the scientific evidence that contradicts the official story of 9/11. Professor Harrit’s team of scientists in Copenhagen proved that there was nano-engineered thermitic residue, both ignited and unignited, throughout the dust of the three WTC towers. He led the team and published the peer-reviewed study in an official scientific journal. He is also an expert on the other aspects of scientific evidence indicating controlled demolition of the three towers.

Professor Harrit was interviewed for a major documentary with BBC in 2011 where BBC clearly attempted to harass and discredit him rather than look at the scientific evidence, which was devastating to the official story of the destruction of the Twin Towers. Professor Harrit’s team took the precautionary step of recording this interview, as well as the interaction before and after the interview, which clearly shows the harassment and highly inappropriate conduct by BBC

Tony Farrell

Tony Farrell is a former Intelligence Analyst for the South Yorkshire Police Department. He was fired in 2010 because he felt compelled by his conscience to tell the truth in his official report and state that, due to his extensive analysis of the events of 9/11 and the 7/7 London bombings, he considered that the greatest terrorist threat to the public did not come from Islamic extremists but from internal sources within the US and British establishment. He is now dedicating his life to helping to expose the evidence and he is challenging his dismissal through international court.

Other members of Rooke’s presentation team include:

Ian Henshall: Leading UK author on 9/11 and founder of the UK group ‘Re-investigate 9/11’

Ray Savage: Former counterterrorism officer who demonstrates the official 9/11 story is not true

Peter Drew: UK AE911Truth Action Group Facilitator

In addition to these presenters, there are detailed written testimonies of evidence and support from four other 9/11 researchers which will be deployed to bolster to Tony’s defence:

Richard Gage, AIA: Founder/CEO of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth

Dwain Deets: Former NASA Director of Aerospace Projects

Erik Lawyer: Founder of Firefighters for 9/11 Truth

Jake Jacobs: Veteran US airline pilot and member of Pilots for 9/11 Truth

The evidence about 9/11 that will be presented by the various individuals above has rarely, if ever, been seen in any court of law in the United Kingdom, so this court case represents a unique and valuable opportunity for the 9/11 Truth movement.

We encourage all AE911Truth supporters and petition signers in the UK to attend this court hearing – the more the better. An outpouring of support will strengthen the message that the 9/11 truth movement needs to be heard and that there needs to be a new and independent 9/11 investigation.

The date and location of the hearing are as follows:

February 25th at 10:00 am

Horsham Magistrates’ Court [Court 3]

The Law Courts

Hurst Road

Horsham

West Sussex

England

RH12 2ET

For further information, please contact Peter Drew, AE911Truth UK Action Group Leader,

truthfor911 [at] hotmail.co.uk

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By Countercurrents.org

18 February, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

An arms race among European defence contractors to re-equip Libya’s armed forces is on.

A report [1] by Christopher Stephen in Tripoli and Nick Hopkins said:

Britain is trying to boost the sale of defence equipment to Libya by sending a Royal Navy warship to Tripoli to act as floating shop window for security firms, amid concern in Whitehall that France and Italy are already cashing in on the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.

But the trip in April has raised concerns among Libyan politicians and arms control campaigners who have demanded to know which companies will be on board and what kind of equipment they will be attempting to sell.

So far, UK Trade and Investment, the government agency organizing the fair, has refused to disclose the businesses likely to be exhibiting, saying this will give European competitors an advantage.

UKTI said no weapons would be offered for sale and the Libyans would only be shown specialist equipment to help with port security and maintenance, ribbed inflatable boats for patrolling the harbor, and uniforms.

Yet some prominent Libyans have raised fears that the race to win defence contracts could lead to equipment getting into the wrong hands in a country where the government has a tenuous grip on security.

“I can’t see the point of having this kind of exhibition in Libya now,” said Hassan el-Amin, an independent member of congress who lived in exile in the UK for 28 years and who is chair of the congress communications committee. “One of our problems is that arms are everywhere, I can’t see any point in an arms exhibition right now.”

The fair appears to be part of the UK government’s defence engagement strategy, which is designed to foster better relations in areas where the UK has security – and business – interests.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed that a Royal Navy frigate would be making a port call to Tripoli in the spring, but said it could not give further details for security reasons. However, the UKTI website said it was seeking British defence firms to take part in a “defence and security industry day” in Tripoli in April.

The agency said this was “an opportunity for UK defence and security to promote equipment and services to the Libyan navy on board a Royal Navy vessel in Tripoli. The event will attract key senior military personnel from the Libyan government.”

Registration for the event closed on 12 February, but UKTI – which says it “provides the essential government to government dimension to help the UK defence and security industry” – said the list of exhibitors had not yet been finalized.

With a UN arms embargo in place and the Foreign Office regarding Libya as a “country of concern” in relation to human rights abuses, Britain is restricted by what it can sell. Sir John Stanley, chair of the committees on arms export controls, told the Guardian he expected ministers to stick to their own criteria when considering any arms export licenses.

William Hague, the foreign secretary, has said if there is a “clear risk that the proposed export might provoke or prolong regional or internal conflicts, or which might be used to facilitate internal repression”, then the license should be refused. Stanley said: “The policy is not qualified. The policy is clear and we expect the government to adhere to it.”

His committees will be able to review any licenses granted. “The defence companies can show what they like, but they still have to get valid export licenses before anything leaves the UK,” Stanley added.

The Campaign Against the Arms Trade said it also had concerns about the trade mission and the use of a navy warship as a platform for defence businesses. “We would rather it didn’t happen at all,” said a spokesman. “But if it is going to happen, then UKTI needs to be more transparent about who is going and what they are attempting to sell.”

There is already an undeclared arms race among European defence contractors to re-equip Libya’s armed forces, which were defeated in the 2011 NATO-supported Arab spring uprising.

Last year Chris Baker, operations director for UKTI’s defence arm, said Britain regarded Libya as a “priority country” for future exports. Speaking at the Farnborough air show, he said the UKTI was looking at Libya’s border and maritime security and “at rebuilding their defence infrastructure, getting their air force back on its feet from scratch”.

This month Italy handed over 20 Puma armored cars to Libya’s defence ministry, and in January the French company Sillinger sold Libya 50 rigid inflatable boats.

The Libyan defence minister, Mohammed al-Bargati, said Libya would give Italy “priority status for new armaments”, although the policy is complicated by the continuing UN arms embargo on Libya.

Weapons proliferation remains a headache for Libya, with Libyan weapons reportedly fuelling the insurrection in Mali. The former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said she had no doubt that Libyans weapons were used in the attack on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria that left 39 hostages dead.

“The Pandora’s Box of weapons coming out of these countries in the Middle East and north Africa is the source of one of our biggest threats,” she said. “There is no doubt that the Algerian terrorists had weapons from Libya.

Bilal Bettamer, a Benghazi lawyer and democracy activist, said: “It’s not a secret that Libyan weapons are going everywhere, you might find them being used against British soldiers. I hope these weapons go to the official army, the trusted people.”

A previous UKTI DSO mission to Libya in April last year was attended by BAE Systems, CAE, GD(UK), KBR, NATS, 3SDL, Selex Galileo, and Surrey Satellite Technology, according to an answer to a parliamentary question by MP Ann Clwyd on May 24.

Britain has taken a lead in offering training for Libya’s army and police, and the European Union is providing assistance as Libya seeks to monitor its porous border, amid concerns that jihadist groups can cross at will.

The Guardian reported in March 2011 that UK companies gained arms export licences for Gaddafi’s forces worth €72.2m (£62m) for Libya following the lifting of the international arms embargo in October 2004. When Libya’s revolution broke out, the government revoked 158 export licences for UK companies to Libya.

In an article in the Guardian on September 17 2012, the MPs Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy called for tighter regulation over arms sales to Libya, warning “If the Arab spring has shown us anything, it is that perceived past stability is no guarantee against future volatility”.

Italy

The Tripoli Post in a report [2] said:

Italy is among the top three contributors to security in Libya and is planning no less than 80 programs, mainly concerning border control, said Italian Minister Giulio Terzi during the international conference on security, justice and rule of law in Libya co-chaired by French foreign minister Laurent Fabius and Libyan foreign minister Mohammed Abdelaziz.

“Looking at the master plan drafted by the United Nations on the basis of the data supplied by individual countries, it is clear that Italy is among the top three contributors to Libyan security”, Terzi asserted, explaining that France and the UK are each currently in the process of implementing 36 projects, as compared to Italy’s 35″.

The minister added, “if we look at the programs in the planning stages, we have no less than 80 regarding Libya, well in excess of those expected from all the others”, and “I am confident that these plans are realistic”, Terzi continued.

The Italian minister went on to explain that his country would mainly be dealing with controls at the southern borders, which are “the most strategic to Libya’s internal stability”, in as much as “there are still deeply entrenched movements sustained by former loyalists, who infiltrate and slip back and forth across borders creating a framework of instability”.

He made assurances that the “The situation on the ground is still considerably worrisome on the level of security, but we and the other countries present at today’s meeting are confident that it can be remedied in the coming months”, he assured.

The Italian foreign minister also underscored that Italy had “very much supported” the Paris meeting, since “we are profoundly convinced that the progress and success of the stabilization of Libya, and the establishment of a solid democracy, depend to a large extent on the level of international support and on the determination with which the countries most involved in the Libyan question are able to act and maintain a common agenda”.

Terzi also tweeted that the “Paris meeting confirms Italy’s approach: Libyan stability is a European and international community priority”. The next international conference in this format is to be held in Italy.

Official army

Another The Tripoli Post report [3] said:

The Libyan ambassador to the US, Ali Suleiman Aujali acknowledged the challenges the country faces but says he is still optimistic about the future.

In an exclusive interview with VOA, Aujali said the greatest challenge in Libya is building an official army, which did not exist during the 42 year-year of Gaddafi. Who used brigades to protect his family and his people. He said that their replacement “is a patchwork of armed men carving out their own version of security”.

“The problem is how we’re going to absorb them in the government under different umbrellas,” Aujali said. “Not all of them want to be in the army, or they want to be in the police forces, or they want to be in security service. Some of them, are civilians who just found themselves fighting the brutal regime during the revolution,” he said.

He went on to say that the Libyan government wants to work with the fighting groups, to train and educate them. “We have these freedom fighters, or what you call them, the young revolutionaries. They are the one who’s taking care of the security of Libya and the border, and they are not a problem to us because we need them at this time.”

In the two years since the ousting of Gaddafi, the new government that has come to power has re-established Libya’s links with the rest of the world, but the country is still economically destitute and lacks a constitution.

Aujali acknowledges the problems, and says that Libya needs to build its security. “Without our security, we cannot build our country. This is priority number one,” he told VOA

Aujali said that once all those steps happen the process should “not take a very long” because most of the articles in the old constitution “can still serve us well after more than 40 years.”

US president Barack Obama pledged in his State of the Union address that the US would help Libya provide for its own security, and offered few details about what that meant.

The Libyan ambassador to the US also provided some details about Tripoli’s relationship with Washington. “I think the Americans are committed to help Libya by training, by technology, which is really important in this small population,” he said.

Source:

[1] guardian.co.uk, Feb 17, 2013, “Royal Navy sends warship to Libya to showcase defence equipment”,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/17/royal-navy-warship-libya-defence

[2] 14/02/2013, “Italy Among Top Three Contributors to Libyan Security, Italian Minister Says”, http://www.tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=1&i=9901

[3] 16/02/2013, “Libyan Envoy to US Says Building Army is Key to Security”, http://www.tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=1&i=9918

Interview By Kourosh Ziabari

17 February, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Pepe Escobar is unquestionably one of the world’s leading progressive, anti-war journalists. He is Brazilian and has lived in several countries across the world, including the United States , France , Italy , Singapore , Thailand and Hong Kong . He runs a regular column on Asia Times Online titled “The Roving Eye” in which he writes commentaries and articles about the Middle East and Asia affairs and the U.S. foreign policy. He has been interviewed by Russia Today, Press TV, Al-Jazeera and The Real News Network.

Pepe’s articles have also appeared on such magazines and news websites as Huffington Post, Tom Dispatch, The Nation, Voltaire Net, Salon, Common Dreams, Information Clearing House and Antiwar.com. His first book “Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War” was published in 2007 and his fourth book will be released soon.

Pepe Escobar believes that the United States and its European partners have waged an economic war against Iran by imposing the crippling sanctions which are affecting the lives of ordinary Iranian citizens. He also points out that if Iran had made the folly of assassinating the U.S. civilian scientists, like what the U.S. and Israel did to Iran five times, an all-out nuclear war would have been unleashed against Iran .

With regards to controversy over Iran ‘s nuclear program, Pepe Escobar says that Iran and the West should reach a sustainable, face-saving solution which both ensures Iran ‘s entitlement to its essential rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory, and also alleviates the West’s concerns on the peacefulness of Iran ‘s nuclear activities.

In order to delve into the prospect of Iran-West relations in the wake of standoff over the country’s nuclear program, the impacts of the U.S.-engineered sanctions on Iran’s economy, the upcoming nuclear talks between Iran and the six world powers in Kazakhstan and the possibility of a diplomatic reconciliation between Iran and the United States in the wake of the appointment of John Kerry as the U.S. Secretary of State, I conducted an in-depth interview with Pepe Escobar and asked him some questions on these subjects.

My Spanish friend and colleague Moises Herrezuelo helped me a great deal with the conduction of the interview. What follows is the full text of the interview.

Kourosh Ziabari: Dear Pepe; what’s your viewpoint regarding President Obama’s appointment of John Kerry as the Secretary of State and Chuck Hagel as the Secretary of Defense? Does he intend to send a signal that he wants to solve the challenging issues of the U.S. foreign policy, especially the controversy over Iran ‘s nuclear program in a peaceful and diplomatic manner? Of course John Kerry would be far more lenient than Hilary Clinton, and Hagel is said to have opposed military action and economic sanctions against Iran with a less pro-Israeli attitude. What’s your take on that?

Pepe Escobar: Both Hagel and Kerry narratives in the US are enveloped in a fog of misconceptions.

Unlike the usual Washington brand of armchair warrior, Hagel saw the real thing in Vietnam . Whether he learned the lesson in terms of how imperialism is defeated on the ground is debatable – but at least he learned to be cautious in terms of foreign policy adventures. Those same armchair warriors say he opposed Bush’s surge on Iraq after he had first supported the war/invasion in 2003. That’s not the point; the point is he saw an escalation would lead to nothing, as it did – in fact, it led to less than nothing; the myth that Gen David Petraeus “won” the war with the surge.

Hagel also dared to suggest – discreetly – that the US always blindly following whatever Israel concocts, lethally and with its fabricated “facts on the ground”, would never help in finding a way out of the occupation/ethnic cleansing of Palestine . To say something like this is practically anathema in Washington , even though a lot of well-informed Israelis who live in Israel – and not in Manhattan – share the same position.

There’s also one extremely petty reason for the Hagel nomination being stalled by Republicans senators; in the 2008 US presidential election he refused to endorse the awful John McCain. No, this will never be explained to unsuspecting US citizens by the Washington Post or the New York Times.

Now to Kerry. There was a lot of noise in Washington about the Supreme Leader’s comments on the renewed P5+1 negotiations. The official narrative was that Khamenei wants no deal. Wrong. What the Supreme Leader said is that Tehran won’t negotiate under threat. He has always stressed that the condition for any negotiation is mutual respect – with the Islamic Republic recognized as representing legitimate national interests. When we look at the record in detail, Tehran has countless reasons not to trust Washington . One example is enough; after Iran helped a lot delivering intel – and even actual jihadis – to the Americans in late 2001 in Afghanistan , its reward was to be branded as an “axis of evil” member state.

This time Kerry was wilier. He said the US is “ready to respond” if the meeting in Kazakhstan yields “real substance”. He did not repeat the same old scratched CD – “all options are on the table”. His response was written, not a quote, which means this is serious, straight from the top: diplomacy – at least in theory – should prevail.

In Kerry’s words, “they [ Iran ] have to prove to the world that it [the nuclear program] is peaceful and we are prepared to sit reasonably and negotiate how they can do it.” This is certainly better than what I called the “roll over and die” school of diplomacy that was being applied by two Bush terms and the first Obama administration.

In December, Kerry told the Emir of Qatar that “the United States recognizes Iran ‘s ambitions to be a regional player, and wants a dialogue about what sort of power it will be”. Rhetorically, that’s a sea change. Let’s look at the facts in a few months, especially after the Iranian presidential election.

Kourosh Ziabari: President Obama came to office while he had promised that he will reach out to Iran for dialogue on equal footings and based on mutual confidence and respect. But although some progress were made in the Iran-P5+1 negotiations, the stalemate over Iran ‘s nuclear program still remains in place. Why has Obama failed to realize the promise he had made and failed to reach a compromise with Iran ? Why did he renew the sanctions the very first year he came to office?

Pepe Escobar: In this article published last December, I outlined the key reasons why Obama has not fulfilled his promise.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175625/tomgram%3A_pepe_escobar%2C_obama_in_tehran/

I also went much further, stressing that the Big Picture goes way beyond the Iranian nuclear dossier. It involves not only Iran’s right to use civilian nuclear energy but also what I call Pipelineistan – the complex chessboard of oil and gas pipelines all across Eurasia; Washington’s future relations with China – a serious ally of Iran – as well as the rest of Asia; and who will dominate the 21st century energy, transport and trade versions of the old Silk Road across Eurasia.

Obama may have been filled with good intentions in early 2009. But what he may have wanted was, essentially, aborted by the Israel lobby – of which AIPAC is the most vocal component – and Congress. Hardcore pressure also came from the House of Saud and France under that bling bling entity, King Sarko, who later got the boot from French voters. There are plenty of other reasons. The June 2009 election drama in the streets of Tehran was not helpful, to say the least – because the impression was firmly set in Washington that the election was stolen; thus Obama could not justify diplomacy under these circumstances. Also right from the beginning – when we look at the long record, which I detail in a chapter included in a forthcoming book about Obama’s foreign policy – the Obama administration actually adopted a very confusing “dual track” policy – combining diplomacy with the relentless ratcheting up of sanctions. After a while, it was obvious that Obama did not have the balls to challenge the status quo in Washington – which, for all practical purposes, identifies the Islamic Republic as a mortal enemy.

Kourosh Ziabari: One of the reasons why the Iranian leaders cannot trust the United States is that Washington will certainly push for more political concessions if Iran agrees to halt its 20% uranium enrichment. In the past three decades, the United States has militarily and financially assisted such anti-Iran terrorist groups as MKO and Jundallah to carry out acts of sabotage and terrorization in Iran and kill Iranian people, officials and even civilian scientists. Iran also has complained about the allocation of sizeable budgets to fund anti-Iranian media propaganda and finance the so-called pro-democracy NGOs. So Iran is probably right in being suspicious to the United States and its sincerity for entering the talks. What’s your viewpoint in this regard?

Pepe Escobar: Let’s examine how the world sees it. The BRICS group of emerging powers, as well as the absolute majority of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) – just check their summit last year in Tehran -, they all support Iran ‘s nuclear rights. Japan and South Korea – when not bullied by the West – and they are Iran energy clients, also support a civilian nuclear program, under the NPT. On the other side there’s essentially the US and Canada , the EU and Israel . The case of the EU is pure theater of the absurd. Especially Club Med nations, in southern Europe , have suffered because of the US/EU sanctions on Iran . And still whenever you talk – off the record – with specialists in Brussels, they tell you they wish Europe could do business, and invest, in Iran’s energy industry, because that is the fastest way for Europe to get rid of its (dreaded) dependency on Gazprom. On top of it, US Big Oil is also excluded from doing business in Iran – very bad for business from their point of view. And even Hillary Clinton herself – in her unguarded moments – has admitted that the sanctions mostly hurt Iranian civilians, as in shortage of medicine and food supplies.

Kourosh Ziabari: The United States assumes that by imposing hard-hitting economic sanctions on Iran, it can pit the people against the government and cause a popular uprising or a widespread anti-government resentment; while the reality on the ground is that the sanctions are adversely contributing to the expansion of anti-American sentiments among the Iranians and bringing them closer together to confront the perceived enemy. What’s your viewpoint on that?

Pepe Escobar: That’s another instance of theater of the absurd; (supposedly) grown men in Washington actually believing Tehran must come to the negotiating table while under what for all practical purposes is economic war; attacked by cyber warfare and covert ops; and under relentless threat of regime change. Any average, well-informed Iranian can see that – whether or not he agrees with the powers that be in Tehran . People all across the developing world also see it clearly. If we stick purely to the nuclear dossier, there’s an extremely simple solution; Washington recognizes Iran ‘s right to enrich uranium up to 20%. After that, a deal is a detail. It won’t happen, though, because for Washington , as it stands, Tehran has the right to enrich nothing.

Any informed Western observer – immune to the perennial hysteria of the Bomb, Bomb Iran lobby – would agree with Ambassador Hossein Mousavian, former spokesperson for the Iranian nuclear negotiating team from 2003 to 2005. I have been quoting him for a while, because – technically – this is a solid, fool proof solution to the nuclear dossier. Once again:

“To satisfy the concerns of the West regarding Iran ‘s 20% stockpile, a mutually acceptable solution for the long term would entail a ‘zero stockpile’. Under this approach, a joint committee of the P5+1 and Iran would quantify the domestic needs of Iran for use of 20% enriched uranium, and any quantity beyond that amount would be sold in the international market or immediately converted back to an enrichment level of 3.5%. This would ensure that Iran does not possess excess 20% enriched uranium forever, satisfying the international concerns that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. It would be a face-saving solution for all parties as it would recognize Iran’s right to enrichment and would help to negate concerns that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.” http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NH22Ak06.html

There’s another aspect which I consider even more important; Iran not using the petrodollar for its energy trade. Be it in yuan, rubles, gold, barter, this is surely pointing the way towards the exit. China , Russia , even US ally India , a host of developing countries would see nothing better than finally ditching the petrodollar. Saddam and Gaddafi both tried to; look what happened to them. But Iran is not an unarmed Iraq , or a disorganized Libya . Chris Cook has soundly pointed out the wave of the future: an energy-based currency.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/OA19Ak01.html

Kourosh Ziabari: Has the European Union’s oil embargo against Iran had any effects on the already troubled economy of the continent? The Western media have largely remained silent on the possible consequences of the anti-Iran sanctions on the European economy, but in one of your articles last year you talked about the hike in the prices of crude oil as a result of the embargo and that Iran’s Asian clients continue to buy its crude despite the U.S. pressure. How is the situation right now? Can Iran continue to manage its economy without the oil revenues?

Pepe Escobar: Washington ‘s financial blockade of Iran ‘s oil sales is in fact all-out economic war – once again making a joke of international law. But even applying what was in fact Mob-style pressure over Iran ‘s energy clients, and forcing Saudi Arabia to flood the market with an extra 2 million barrels of oil a day was not enough, because some countries fought for exemptions and others continued to trade bypassing the Western-dominated financial system.

Japan – which always bends over backwards to do whatever Washington wants – is indeed getting cozier with Saudi Arabia; they want guarantees they will get emergency oil supplies for the next 20 years. In this case, imports from Iran would not be needed. But Japan is not the norm in Asia . True, the sanctions did bite; Iran ‘s energy exports fell by 40% in 2012. But then they started going up again, because Iran started to implement some very creative solutions – as in buying oil tankers from China , insuring them, and filling them with oil bound for China . Iran may be on the way to set up its own oil distribution network – self-sufficiency is always a good idea. India , for its part, pays for Iranian oil in rupees. The bottom line; whatever Washington concocts, it won’t interfere with the energy requirements of these two crucial BRICS members. On the losing side, once again, there’s only the Europeans.

Kourosh Ziabari: Can the Israeli regime finally drag the United States to a war with Iran ? Will the Obama administration heed the calls of Netanyahu and other hawks in Tel Aviv to enter a war with Iran over its nuclear program? Does Obama have enough courage and authority to resist the pressure by the Israeli lobby and take up diplomacy instead of military confrontation?

Pepe Escobar: The Israel lobby and what we could label as the War Party – mostly Republicans but also Democrats, plus operatives in key positions in the Pentagon, CIA, the industrial-military-security complex, plus corporate media (from Fox News to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post) – these are the actors who want a war against Iran. Predictably, the Israel lobby unleashed all its artillery against Chuck Hagel – from AIPAC to the Washington Institute of Near East Policy (WINEP), where notorious lobbyists Dennis Ross and Elliott Abrams dwell; after all, Hagel was not putting Israel’s interests above Washington’s, as is the norm. They will not prevail – but they won’t go away either; the “Bomb Bomb Iran” mindset will continue even with Hagel and Kerry, and that includes routine wacko pieces on the Wall Street Journal warning, for instance, about Iran ready to attack Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons, or routine dismissals every time the Supreme Leader insists nuclear weapons must be eliminated.

There are, of course, pockets of intelligence in this debate – but they are a minority. Check out, for instance, Flynt and Hillary Leverett’s excellent book, Going to Tehran : http://goingtotehran.com/the-book

They are Washington insiders, they have been to Iran , and they are staunchly pro-diplomacy.

Kourosh Ziabari: What’s your viewpoint regarding the United States’ sponsorship of such groups as Jundallah whose aim is to create sectarian conflict in Iran, and MKO which has openly bragged about its intention for a regime change in Tehran ? The U.S. and Israeli-backed terrorists have so far assassinated four Iranian nuclear scientists, but the UN chief and the Security Council haven’t raised any voice in protest. What’s your analysis of these events?

Pepe Escobar: These tactics are classic Divide and Rule – inherited from the British Empire . Jundallah is little more than a gang, trained by the CIA. Mounting the odd cross-border operation in Sistan-Balochistan, killing the odd policeman, and then retreating, that may create a nuisance for Tehran , but it’s a detail. Much more dangerous would be the CIA’s capacity to instigate a nationwide Sunni-Shiite conflict on a mass scale; they don’t have the intel, or the contacts, to do it. MKO is a laughable cult – discredited since Saddam times and with absolutely no support inside Iran ; their capacity of mobilization is negligible. The fact that the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists – which, if conducted by Iran inside the US or Israel , could even provoke a Western nuclear attack – has not raised an eyebrow in the UN Security Council is a graphic illustration of its cosmic incompetence and irrelevance; as absurd as Israel never being condemned for its slow-motion genocidal practices in Palestine .

Kourosh Ziabari: One of the reasons why no solution has been found for Iran ‘s nuclear deadlock can be Israel ‘s nuclear arsenal. Iran has always complained about Washington ‘s exercising double standards on Israel ‘s underground nuclear facilities. Can we imagine that the controversy may be resolved if Israel is disarmed and the idea of a nuclear-free Middle East which Iran and the Non-Aligned Movement have proposed is realized?

Pepe Escobar: That’s ultimate wishful thinking; the idea that Israel would ever get rid of its (“secret”, undeclared) nuclear arsenal of several hundred warheads. That’s one of the dirty secrets behind Israel ‘s hysterical campaign against the Iranian nuclear program. If Tehran , hypothetically, decided to go for a nuclear weapon, abandoning what could be described as a latency period (having enough enriched uranium to build a weapon even on short notice), Israel ‘s strategic advantage would be erased. It would cease to be the only military nuclear power in the whole of Southwest Asia (Middle East, once again, is a silly Westernized concept, same as “ Far East ”). Every actor in Southwest Asia – except Israel – is in favor of a nuclear-free region, even Saudi Arabia .

Kourosh Ziabari: How much impact will the Syria crisis have on the future of Iran-West relations? From one hand, the U.S. and its European allies have explicitly expressed that they will accept no solution for the crisis in Syria but the removal of Bashar Al-Assad from power, and from the other hand, Iran has promised to do its best to make sure that Assad will not go anywhere. Will confrontation on the Syrian front lead to further hostilities and animosities between Iran and the West?

Pepe Escobar: Contrary to a tsunami of predictions that had the Assad regime falling virtually on a daily basis, the awful situation in Syria has reached a stalemate. NATO can’t go for a no-fly zone because Russia and China drew the red line, at least three times. So it won’t be Libya 2.0. Washington has no stomach for a new Middle East war. Turkey – with its “zero problems with our neighbors” policy turned into “a lot of problems with one neighbor” – started seeing this for the quagmire it really is; in fact Prime Minister Erdogan recently started distancing himself from NATO and the EU and making seducing noises towards the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is led by China and Russia. The so-called Free Syria Army has been repeatedly unmasked; little else than weaponized gangs of thugs. Washington – after Benghazi – finally woke up to the fact that Salalfi-jihadis are instrumental in the fighting in Syria . What’s left is the diverging agendas of Saudi Arabia and Qatar ; the Saudis financing hardcore Wahhabis and the Qataris anything that allies with the Muslim Brotherhood. The new coalition opposition – forged by Washington/Doha – is a joke; the leader, Moaz al-Khatib announces they must talk to the regime, but the others say no way, Assad has to leave first (that has always been the one and only mantra). This spells out, unfortunately, a long, protracted, civil war where the real victims will continue to be vast swathes of the Syrian civilian population – drowned by the usual Western crocodile tears about “the suffering of the Syrian people.”

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