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By Eric Draitser

In the midst of the war against ISIS (Islamic State) now taking place in both Iraq and Syria, a possible shifting of alliances that could fundamentally alter the balance of power in the region is taking place, and no one seems to have noticed. Specifically, the burgeoning relationship between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of Northern Iraq has the potential to remake the political landscape of the Middle East. Naturally, such a development is part of a broader geopolitical gambit by Iran, and it will have significant ramifications for all regional actors. However, it is Turkey, the gulf monarchies, and Israel that potentially have the most to lose from such a development.

While Iran has long-standing disputes with elements of its own Kurdish minority, it has demonstrably taken the lead in aiding Iraqi Kurds in their war against extremist fighters loyal to ISIS. As Kurdish President Massud Barzani explained in late August, “The Islamic Republic of Iran was the first state to help us…and it provided us with weapons and equipment.” This fact alone, coupled with the plausible, though unconfirmed, allegations of Iranian military involvement on the ground in Kurdish Iraq, demonstrates clearly the high priority Tehran has placed on cooperation with Barzani’s government and the Kurdish people in the fight against the Saudi and Qatari-backed militants of ISIS. The question is, why? What is it that Iran hopes to gain from its involvement in this fight? Who stands to lose? And how could this change the region?

The Iran Equation

While many eyebrows have been raised at Iranian involvement on the side of the Kurds in the fight against ISIS, perhaps it should not come as a much of a surprise. Tehran has steadily been shoring up its relations with Erbil, both out of a genuine desire to form an alliance, and as a counter-measure against the ouster of their close ally and partner, former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Since the US war on Iraq began in 2003, and especially after US troops left in 2011, Iran had positioned itself as a key, and in some ways dominant, actor in Iraq. Not only did it have significant influence with Maliki and his government, it also saw in Iraq an opportunity to break out of the isolation imposed upon it by the US, EU and Israel over its disputed nuclear program. For Iran, Iraq under Maliki was a bridge both physically (linking Iran with its allies in Syria and Southern Lebanon) and politically (serving as an intermediary with the West in negotiations). In addition, Maliki’s Iraq was to be the linchpin of a new economic strategy which included the proposed Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, a project which would have provided Iran overland access to the European energy market, thereby allowing the Islamic Republic to overtake Qatar as the region’s dominant gas exporter to Europe.

Additionally, Iraq was in many ways the front line in Iran’s continued struggle against western-backed terror groups, the most infamous of which is the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK). It was Maliki’s government which closed down Camp Ashraf, the notorious base from which the MEK operated, conducting their continued terror war against Iran. It is of course no secret that MEK is the darling of the neocon establishment, lauded by nearly every architect, supporter, and enabler of Bush’s Iraq War.

Seen in this way, Iraq was both an economic and political necessity for Iran, one that could not simply be allowed to slip back into the orbit of Washington. And so, with the emergence of ISIS, and the subsequent toppling of the Maliki government through behind-the-scenes pressure and a comprehensive propaganda campaign that portrayed him as a brutal dictator on par with Saddam Hussein, Iran clearly needed to recalculate its strategy. Knowing that it could not trust the new government in Baghdad, which was more or less handpicked by the US, Tehran clearly saw a new opportunity in Kurdistan.

Why Kurdistan?

While the imperatives for Iran to engage in Iraq are clear, the question remains as to what specifically Kurdistan offers Tehran both in terms of strategic necessity and geopolitical power projection. To understand the Iranian motive, one must examine how Kurds and Kurdistan fit into Iran’s national and international relations.

First and foremost is the fact that Iran, like Iraq, Syria and Turkey, is home to a considerable Kurdish minority, one that has consistently been manipulated by the US and Israel, and used as a pawn in the geopolitical chess match with the Islamic Republic. With the chaos in Iraq and Syria, and the continued oppression and marginalization of the Kurdish minority in Turkey, it seems that an independent Kurdistan, one that could fundamentally alter the map of the region, is becoming an ever more viable possibility. So, in order to prevent any possible destabilization of Iran and its government from the Kurds, Tehran seems to have begun the process of allying with, as opposed to aligning against, Kurdish interests in Iraq. Likely, Iran sees in such an alliance a tacit, if not overt, agreement that any Kurdish independence will not be used as a weapon against Tehran.

Secondly, by siding with Barzani’s government and providing material and tactical support, Iran is clearly jockeying for position against its regional rivals. On the one hand, Iran recognizes the threat posed by NATO member Turkey whose government, led by Erdogan and Davutoglu, has been intimately involved in the war on Syria and the arming and financing of ISIS and the other terror groups inside the country. While Ankara has publicly proclaimed its refusal to participate in military action in Syria, its actions have shown otherwise. From hosting terrorists to providing space to CIA and other intelligence agencies involved in fomenting civil war in Syria, Turkey has shown itself to be integral to the US-NATO-GCC attempt to effect regime change.

It is, of course, not lost on the Kurds precisely what Turkey has done, and continues to do. Not only has Turkey waged a decades-long war against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), it has steadfastly refused to treat its Kurdish minority as anything other than second class citizens. And now, given the central role that Erdogan, Davutoglu & Co. have played in fomenting the war in Syria, they allow their terrorist proxies of ISIS to massacre still more Kurds. It should therefore come as no surprise that many Kurds view Turkey, not Syria or Iran, as the great threat and enemy of their people. And so, Iran steps into the vacuum, offering the Kurds not only material, but political and diplomatic support.

From Tehran’s perspective, Turkey continues to be the representative of the US-NATO-GCC agenda; Ankara has played a key role in blocking Iranian economic development, particularly in regard to energy exports. It should be remembered that Turkey is one of the principal players in the Caspian energy race, providing the requisite pipeline routes for both the TANAP (Trans-Anatolian Pipeline) and Nabucco West pipeline project, among a basket of others. These projects are supported by the US as competition to both Russia’s South Stream (a pipeline which would bring Russian gas to Southern Europe) and the proposed Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline. Essentially then, Turkey should be understood as a powerful chess piece used to block Iranian moves toward economic independence and regional hegemony.

Iranian overtures toward the Kurds, and involvement in the fight against ISIS generally, must also be interpreted as a check against Iran’s other regional rivals in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Both countries have been implicated in organizing and financing many of the terror groups and networks that now operate under the “ISIS” banner, using them as proxies to break the “Resistance Axis” that includes Hezbollah, Syria’s Baath Party, and Iran.

The economic and political interests of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, more specifically the families ruling those countries, are self-evident; maintaining their grip on power is only possible by maintaining dominance over the energy trade. In Iran, the gulf monarchies see a powerful, resource-rich nation that, given the opportunity to develop economically, would likely displace them as the regional leader. And so, naturally, they must activate their jihadi networks to deprive Iran of its two strategic allies in Iraq and Syria, thereby severing the link with Hezbollah and breaking the arc of Shia dominance. It is basic power politics, only it is now Kurds paying with their lives for the petty aspirations of gulf monarchs.

Finally, Iranian moves in Kurdistan represent a new phase of the long-standing proxy war between Iran and Israel. It is no secret that, as mentioned above, certain Kurdish factions and organizations have long been quite close with Tel Aviv. In fact, the decades-long relationship between the two is one of the primary reasons for Kurdish acquiescence to western designs against both Iraq and Iran. As pro-Israeli blogger and self-proclaimed “prodigious savant” Daniel Bart wrote:

There was very close cooperation between Israel and the KDP in the years 1965-75. During most of that time there were usually some 20 military specialists stationed in a secret location in southern Kurdistan. Rehavam Zeevi and Moshe Dayan were among Israeli generals who served in Kurdistan…The Israelis trained the large Kurdish army of Mustafa Barzani and even led Kurdish troops in battle…The “secret” cooperation between Kurdistan and Israel is mainly in two fields. The first is in intelligence cooperation and this is hardly remarkable as half the world including many Muslim states have such relationships with Israel. The second is influence in Washington.

Bart, relying on the work of noted Israeli author and researcher Shlomo Nakdimon, is quite correct to point out that Israeli intelligence, including some of the most celebrated (or infamous, depending on one’s perspective) Israeli leaders, have had intimate ties with the Kurdish leadership for more than half a century. Though the documented evidence is scanty, those who follow the relationship closely generally believe that the level of cooperation between Tel Aviv and Erbil has increased dramatically, particularly since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Indeed, Israel likely has covert operatives and intelligence officers on the ground in Kurdistan, and has for some time. This is certainly no secret to the Iranians who are convinced (and are likely correct) that many of the assassinations, bombings, and other terrorist acts perpetrated by Israel have been planned and organized from Kurdish territory.

Such thinking is backed up by the investigative reporting of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh who noted in 2004:

“The Israelis have had long standing ties to the Talibani and Barzani clans [in] Kurdistan and there are many Kurdish Jews that emigrated to Israel and there are still a lot of connection. But at some time before the end of the year [2004], and I’m not clear exactly when, certainly I would say a good six, eight months ago, Israel began to work with some trained Kurdish commandoes, ostensibly the idea was the Israelis — some of the Israeli elite commander units, counter-terror or terror units, depending on your point of view, began training — getting the Kurds up to speed.”

Iran’s leaders have been keenly aware of the presence of Israeli Special Forces and intelligence on the ground in Kurdistan, knowing that ultimately it is Tehran in the crosshairs. And so, Iran has clearly taken this brief window as an opportunity to assert its own influence in Kurdistan, inserting itself into what had been, until now, the domain of the Israelis. It remains to be seen how Tel Aviv will respond.

While the world watches with horror the continued advance of ISIS in both Iraq and Syria, there is another story unfolding. It is the story of how Iran, long since demonized as the regional pariah, has turned the chaos meant to destroy it and its allies into a possible springboard for future cooperation. It is the story of how terrorism and proxy war has brought former enemies closer together, while exposing before the world the treachery of governments once seen as Iranian allies. It is the story of alliances shifting like desert sands. But in this story, the next chapter has yet to be written.

Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City, he is the founder of StopImperialism.org and OP-ed columnist for RT, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

16 October 2014

http://journal-neo.org/

By Ajamu Baraka

The U.S. is conducting a curious humanitarian war against ISIS in Syria. While Kobani, the largely Kurdish district that straddles the border with Turkey is being attacked by ISIS forces and facing the very real possibility of mass civilian killings if it falls, U.S. military spokespersons claimed that they are watching the situation in Kobani and have conducted occasional bombing missions but that they are concentrating their anti-ISIS efforts in other parts of Syria. Those other efforts appear to consist of bombing empty buildings, schools, small oil pumping facilities, an occasional vehicle and grain silos where food is stored to feed the Syrian people. Turkey also seems to be watching as the Kurds of Kobani fight to the death against ISIS.

The humanitarian concerns of officials in the U.S. with the plight of Kurds in Kobani could not be more different than what occurred in Iraq when ISIS forces made a push into Kurdish territory. When the Kurdish city of Erbil was under attack by ISIS, U.S. forces unleashed the full power of its air force in tactical coordination with Kurdish forces to push ISIS back.

So what is the difference in the two situations?

The difference and the reason why the Kurds of Kobani are to be sacrificed stems from the fact that they are the wrong kind of Kurds. Masoud Barzani and the bourgeois Kurds of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) are the “good Kurds” and the predominant force among the Kurds of Iraq. Their control of almost 45% of Iraqi oil reserves and the booming business that they have been involved in with U.S. oil companies and Israel since their “liberation” with the U.S. invasion makes them a valued asset for the U.S. The same goes for Turkey where despite the historic oppression of Kurds in Turkey, the government does a robust business with the Kurds of Iraq.

The situation is completely different in the Kurdish self-governing zones in Syria. In Kobani, it is the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or Y.P.G., that is linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (P.K.K), a Turkey-based Kurdish independence KillingTrayvons1organization that both the U.S. and Turkey have labeled a “terrorist” organization, that provides the main forces resisting the ISIS attack. Also, the ISIS attack in Kurdish territory neatly converges with the strategic interests of Turkey. Both the U.S. and Turkey saw the control of territory by militant Kurds as a threat. Turkey in particular wanted to undermine the self-governing process among Kurds, Christians and Sunni Arabs in those self-governing zones and turn the territory into a battlefield in order to steal Syrian territory and isolate and attack the “bad” Kurds of the PKK.

Turkey pushed and apparently secured an agreement from the U.S. that it will not oppose it taking parts of Syrian territory. To consolidate that land grab Turkey also wants to establish a “buffer zone” along the Syrian-Turkey border. This is why U.S. government spokespersons have been floating the idea of a no-fly zone in Northeastern Syria in the U.S. state/corporate media. The zone is being framed as necessary to protect civilians from attacks by the Syrian forces – the humanitarian hustle again.

Yet for the “bad” Kurds of Syria like the “bad” Palestinians of Hamas and Gaza, there will be no humanitarian intervention.

To placate the Turkish government in exchange for its increased cooperation in what is being set-up as a final push on Damascus, the people of Kobani will be delivered to ISIS.

The transparency of Turkey’s plan and the collaboration of the U.S. in the planned massacre of YPG combatants at Kobani could be easily exposed in the U.S. if the news readers in the corporate press were actually able to “see” the world more critically and allowed to question the state sanctioned narratives without running the risk of ending their “careers.” For example, the obvious question regarding a no-fly zone in Northeastern Syria is why is it necessary when the only civilians being attacked in Northeastern Syria are Kurds and they are being attacked by ISIS forces that don’t have an air force, at least not yet.

But those questions are not being asked very often because they don’t comport with the official narrative that the U.S. is compelled to act once again to save the world against an intractable enemy that can only be defeated by U.S. military might. All of this is part of the imperialist hustle that even large segments of the “left” in the U.S. has fallen for.

However, the non-bombing of ISIS at Kobani and the theatrics of bombing fixed, empty buildings confirm what should be obvious based on the history of U.S. interventions – that the real objective of U.S. intervention in Iraq and Syria is the reintroduction of direct U.S. military power in the region in order to secure continue control over the oil and natural gas resources of the region, undermine Iran, block the Russian Federation, and break-up cooperative economic and trade agreements between counties in Central Asia and China. In other words, the objective is to secure U.S. and Western colonial/capitalist hegemony. The U.S. and its allies just needed a pretext to get back in without alienating large sectors of their domestic populations. ISIS give them what the sarin gas attacks could not – mass acceptance in the West for another war, however limited it is being sold in its first phase.

The militarists in the U.S. political establishment never wanted to abandon their plans for a permanent military presence in Iraq, even in the face of the fact that it was costing the nation an enormous price in blood, treasure and domestic legitimacy to remain. They concluded that the road back to Bagdad and on to Tehran went through Syria. A position that despite reports to the contrary, Obama signed on to early in his administration. All Obama wanted was some plausible deniability during the first phase of the plan to destabilize Syria.

The current situation in Kobani is part of the cynical farce that is the fight against ISIS. Turkey has no interest in preventing Kobani from falling to ISIS when it suits its strategic interests to deny the Kurds any semblance of self-determination. And the U.S. is not interested in altering the balance of forces on the ground in Syria by seriously degrading ISIS militarily and undermining its primary short-term strategic objective of regime change in Syria.

With the creation of ISIS, the neocons and liberal interventionists now have their war and a sizeable portion of the U.S. public is in support, at least at this point . But that support will change as soon as it becomes clear that the political elite has plunged the U.S. back into another quagmire. The real shame and expression of the white supremacist colonial/capitalist global contradiction is that until that awareness takes hold among the people at the center of the empire and the people there move to alter U.S. war policies, thousands more will die in Kobani and throughout Syria, Iraq and the world.

Ajamu Baraka is a human rights activist, organizer and geo-political analyst.

12 October 2014

By Mark Bergfeld

If Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela, decides to pay ExxonMobil $1.6bn in compensation for the nationalization of an oil project that will be almost a business deal with the devil, and Venezuela will only lose.

Who does not remember the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez calling George W Bush “the devil” in front of the United Nations in September 2006? Or, how he told former British Prime Minister Tony Blair “Go straight to hell, Mr. Blair”? These moments gave us a glimpse of what Venezuela was trying to do, that they meant business with the “Evil Empire.” But eighteen months after Chavez’s death, his heirs appear to be playing games with the devil.

Last week, the World Bank arbitration tribunal ruled that Venezuela must pay $1.6bn to ExxonMobil in compensations. Chavez’s anti-imperialist and populist rhetoric was quickly replaced with more sober words. Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez called this ruling a “victory to sovereignty.” Yes, the sum is peanuts compared to Exxon’s initial claims of nearly $12bn. But it is playing a dangerous game. The price is high if it finally decides to compensate ExxonMobil, handing back power to those opposed to the Bolivarian revolution.

In 2007, Chavez and his government nationalized ExxonMobil’s Cerro Negro Project and other assets. Since then, the company has been seeking compensations of up to $16.6bn. A previous decision in 2012 ruled that Venezuela’s national oil company, PDVSA should pay Exxon $908m. With the aid of international courts, ExxonMobil froze $300m of Venezuela’s money held in US accounts.

ExxonMobil was anything but satisfied. So it came looking for more. After all, ExxonMobil needs to assure investors that its money is safe. This it failed to do. ExxonMobil’s stock fell by three per cent on Wall Street last week. Yet, this will only worry shareholders in the short-term. If money talks the stock markets scream. Exxon’s gamble did not pay. But with Chavez gone, it was a risk worth taking.

For Venezuela however “a victory to sovereignty” looks different. It would have seen ExxonMobil leave Venezuela empty-handed, and the Venezuelan government pledge to use the $1.6bn for social, educational or environmental programs. This could deepen the Bolivarian process and strengthen the hand of Venezuela against US-run multi-national companies. However, Ramirez’s rhetoric mirrors Venezuelan reality post-Chavez.

Venezuela has handed over more power to US oil than it would like to admit. In order to boost productivity and output, it agreed to a $2bn financing deal with multinational oil company Chevron. It leaves a bitter taste. But more so, it opens the door to those seeking shareholder value.

Recent loan agreements with multi-national oil companies have all contained unfavorable investor protection clauses. The future price could be a high one if Venezuela cannot fulfill the terms and conditions set out. Are these games with the devil really worth it?

Venezuela is not broke. After all, the PDVSA continues to produce 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. However, Venezuela’s national sovereignty is tied up with oil like nowhere else in the world. It remains the fourth largest oil exporter to the United States. But its source of strength is also its Achilles Heel. A large part of its recent earnings flow to China as loan repayments. With 95 per cent of the country’s export income generated through oil, negotiation and conciliation are required to soothe international finance and capital markets.

In fact, Venezuela’s nationalization strategy was never as aggressive as the Western media would like us to think. As George Ciccariello-Maher, author of We Created Chavez, told me: “The government argues that this is a victory against Exxon’s outrageous claims. But this is because the Venezuelan process has always been very strategic in insisting that all expropriations would be compensated. This will no doubt prove less than convincing for radical sectors which reject capitalist valuation entirely.”

More than ever, Venezuela needs a strategy to deal with the demands for compensation. Currently Venezuela faces 20 pending claims for compensation. Paying up will only weaken it. Negotiation will have them looking for more. It is a vicious cycle very difficult to escape. Mining company Gold Reserve won $740 million.

If Venezuela pays Exxon, it could quickly unravel. Following last week’s ruling we can be certain that Conoco Phillips will be granted a similar amount at an arbitration court. If the court however decides to grant them significantly more, it is likely that ExxonMobil would use preferential treatment clauses to unleash its lawyers like a gang of rabid dogs, possibly costing Venezuela many more billions. After all, The World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investor Disputes (ICSID) does not mediate between disputing parties; it acts in the interests of those who want to drive Venezuelans into further immiseration.

Since the 1990s, we have seen a significant rise of investor state attacks on domestic regulatory policy with more than 95 countries having to respond to one or more investment arbitration cases. Self-evidently, countries like Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador who turned their backs on neoliberalism bore the brunt of this clause. With the on-going economic crisis and shifts in the political landscape, there were 58 new cases in 2012 alone according to UNCTAD. With Chavez gone, multi-nationals hope to make a quick buck.

The Venezuelan government carries a responsibility for other countries in the Global South. It should condemn these investor protection clauses and arbitration courts forcing countries to submit to the Washington consensus and neoliberal paradigm. Venezuela and others stand with no obligation to pay up. After all, it was companies like ExxonMobil and Gold Reserve which ransacked Venezuela for its natural resources, causing irreversible ecological and economic damage which it still suffers today.

Playing games with the devil might solve cash-flow problems in the short-term. But once you open Pandora’s Box these multi-national companies will just eye for more. Even Chavez’s rhetoric cannot help them now. It will require action. Let us hope Maduro and Ramirez step up to the game.

Mark Bergfeld is a writer and activist based in Cologne, Germany and London, UK.

13 October 2014

By John Wight

On the Turkish frontier, in and around the town of Kobani in northern Syria, the world is witnessing the very best of humanity alongside the very worst.

The very best are, of course, the Kurdish defenders of the town, whose courage and heroism in resisting an onslaught by the forces of the Islamic State (IS) over the past few weeks is such that songs will be written about them in years to come.

Indeed, the sight of those men and women, many barely out of their teens, holding the line with light weapons against repeated assaults from three sides by militants from an organization whose brutality has shocked the entire world conjures up parallels with Barcelona, the Warsaw Ghetto, even Stalingrad in microcosm. And given the medieval ideology of IS, under which women are reduced to the status of slaves, the fact that women are playing such a key role in the town’s defense adds an extra dimension of defiance to the barbarism they are facing.

The Islamic State (IS, previously known as ISIL and ISIS) has emerged and erupted across northern Syria and Iraq as a direct consequence of the West’s disastrous policy of military intervention in the region, going back to 2003 with the war in Iraq. Moreover, in pursuit of its domination of this oil-rich part of the world, Washington and its allies have extended themselves in propping up a constellation of corrupt regimes across the region — specifically Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait – while at the same time failing to arbitrate a just settlement for the long suffering Palestinians.

During this crisis the previously mentioned Gulf states, along with Washington’s NATO ally Turkey, have managed to navigate a pernicious policy of providing indirectly if not directly support to IS over the past couple of years, while maintaining the facade of fighting terrorism. Until recently, IS fighters moved freely across the Turkey-Syria border and large shipments of arms were allowed to enter Syria from Turkey, as witnessed and recorded by outraged Kurds.

It is no wonder that Kurdish exile communities are demonstrating throughout the world demanding an end to Turkey’s support for the Islamic State. In Turkey itself those demonstrations have resulted in fatalities, reminding us that Turkey’s history of denying its own Kurdish minority’s legitimate rights is a shameful one. In addition, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains determined to see the conflict in Syria continue until the Assad government is toppled, regardless of who and what replaces it, thus placing him on the side of barbarism.

As for the Saudis, the fact this vile regime retains the support of the West is an affront to decency – especially when we consider that the medieval and obscurantist creed of Wahhabism, near indistinguishable from the fundamentalist perversion of Islam which underpins the ideology of Al-Qaida and its offshoots such as the Islamic State, has no place in the 21st century.

It is inhuman and incompatible with human rights and yet it is the ruling orthodoxy taught to millions in the Kingdom.

So why is the West an ally of the very state which exists to promote a barbarous medieval ideology across the region and wider Muslim world? The answers are oil, a multi-billion dollar trade in arms, and strategic advantage. But even on those terms, the Frankenstein’s monster of IS demands a major reorientation of this policy and alliance.

In truth, if Washington and its European allies were serious about defeating IS in Syria and Iraq it would order air strikes not only against its forces on the outskirts of Kobani and in northern Iraq, but also against Erdogan’s government in Istanbul followed by air strikes to root out the Saudis in Riyadh. The world should not make the mistake of holding its breath waiting for this to happen, however, as currently in the White House resides not a president but a comedian masquerading as one.

Obama’s recent announcement that he was still formulating a strategy to deal with IS, weeks after the group’s eruption across the region, suggests a president who feels the need to consult his advisers and ponder the issue endlessly before he even takes a trip to the bathroom.

This is not a game. The Kurds defending Kobani, the Syrian people as a whole, the Iraqi people — the people of the Middle East in their entirety — demand an end to the double dealing, opportunism and hypocrisy that has defined the West and its allies’ role in creating the conditions for the carnage being visited upon them by this murder cult.

The plight of Kobani gives those who are currently fighting for their lives defending it the right to make a pact with the devil himself in order to defeat those who mean to torture, rape and behead them. As such, only the most callous would criticize recent US air strikes against the IS forces in and around the town — air strikes its defenders have been pleading for.

However, ultimately, it will only be when the West desists from its wrongheaded policy of treating President Assad of Syria as an enemy rather than a pillar of resistance to this poisonous ideology, and understands that a coalition which includes Turkey and the Saudis is no coalition at all, will the region finally begin to emerge from this disaster.

Sadly, anyone betting on such an eventuality is likely to lose their money. For as the man said:“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

John Wight is a writer and commentator specializing in geopolitics, UK domestic politics, culture and sport.

14 October 2014

 

By Peter Van Buren

You know the joke? You describe something obviously heading for disaster — a friend crossing Death Valley with next to no gas in his car — and then add, “What could possibly go wrong?”

Such is the Middle East today. The U.S. is again at war there, bombing freely across Iraq and Syria, advising here, droning there, coalition-building in the region to loop in a little more firepower from a collection of recalcitrant allies, and searching desperately for some non-American boots to put on the ground.

Here, then, are seven worst-case scenarios in a part of the world where the worst case has regularly been the best that’s on offer. After all, with all that military power being brought to bear on the planet’s most volatile region, what could possibly go wrong?

1. The Kurds

The lands the Kurds generally consider their own have long been divided among Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. None of those countries wish to give up any territory to an independence-minded ethnic minority, no less find a powerful, oil-fueled Kurdish state on their borders.

In Turkey, the Kurdish-inhabited border area with Iraq has for years been a low-level war zone, with the powerful Turkish military shelling, bombing, and occasionally sending in its army to attack rebels there. In Iran, the Kurdish population is smaller than in Iraq and the border area between the two countries more open for accommodation and trade. (The Iranians, for instance, reportedly refine oil for the Iraqi Kurds, who put it on the black market and also buy natural gas from Iran.) That country has nonetheless shelled the Kurdish border area from time to time.

The Kurds have been fighting for a state of their own since at least 1923. Inside Iraq today, they are in every practical sense a de facto independent state with their own government and military. Since 2003, they have been strong enough to challenge the Shia government in Baghdad far more aggressively than they have. Their desire to do so has been constrained by pressure from Washington to keep Iraq whole. In June, however, their military, the Peshmerga, seized the disputed, oil-rich city of Kirkuk in the wake of the collapse of the Iraqi army in Mosul and other northern cities in the face of the militants of the Islamic State (IS). Lacking any alternative, the Obama administration let the Kurds move in.

The Peshmerga are a big part of the current problem. In a near-desperate need for some semi-competent proxy force, the U.S. and its NATO allies are now arming and training them, serving as their air force in a big way, and backing them as they inch into territory still in dispute with Baghdad as an expedient response to the new “caliphate.” This only means that, in the future, Washington will have to face the problem of how to put the proverbial genie back in the bottle if the Islamic State is ever pushed back or broken.

Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and now under the control of the Islamic State, is the most obvious example. Given the woeful state of the Iraqi army, the Kurds may someday take it. That will not go down well in Baghdad and the result could be massive sectarian violence long after IS is gone. We were given a small-scale preview of what might happen in the town of Hassan Sham. The Kurds took it back last month. In the process, some Shia residents reportedly sided with their enemies, the Sunni militants of IS, rather than support the advancing Peshmerga.

Worst-case scenario: A powerful Kurdistan emerges from the present mess of American policy, fueling another major sectarian war in Iraq that will have the potential to spill across borders. Whether or not Kurdistan is recognized as a country with a U.N. seat, or simply becomes a Taiwan-like state (real in all but name), it will change the power dynamic in the region in ways that could put present problems in the shade. Changing a long-held balance of power always has unintended consequences, especially in the Middle East. Ask George W. Bush about his 2003 invasion of Iraq, which kicked off most of the present mess.

2. Turkey

You can’t, of course, talk about the Kurds without discussing Turkey, a country caught in a vise. Its forces have battled for years against a Kurdish separatist movement, personified by the PKK, a group Turkey, NATO, the European Union, and the United States all classify as a terrorist organization. Strife between the Turks and the PKK took 37,000 lives in the 1980s and 1990s before being reduced from a boil to a simmer thanks to European Union diplomacy. The “problem” in Turkey is no small thing — its Kurdish minority, some 15 million people, makes up nearly 20% of the population.

When it comes to taking action in Syria, the Turks exist in a conflicted realm because Washington has anointed the Kurds its boots on the ground. Whatever it may think it’s doing, the U.S. is helping empower the Kurdish minority in Syria, including PKK elements arrayed along the Turkish border, with new weapons and training.

The Turkish ruling party has no particular love for those who run the Islamic State, but its loathing for Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad is such that its leaders have long been willing to assist IS largely by looking the other way. For some time, Turkey has been the obvious point of entry for “foreign fighters” en route to Syria to join IS ranks. Turkey has also served as the exit point for much of the black-market oil — $1.2 to $2 million a day — that IS has used to fund itself. Perhaps in return, the Islamic State released 49 Turkish hostages it was holding, including diplomats without the usual inflammatory beheading videos. In response to U.S. requests to “do something,” Turkey is now issuing fines to oil smugglers, though these have totaled only $5.7 million over the past 15 months, which shows the nature of Turkey’s commitment to the coalition.

The situation in the IS-besieged town of Kobani illustrates the problem. The Turks have so far refused to intervene to aid the Syrian Kurds. Turkish tanks sit idle on hills overlooking the hand-to-hand combat less than a mile away. Turkish riot police have prevented Turkish Kurds from reaching the town to help. Turkish jets have bombed PKK rebels inside Turkey, near the Iraqi border.

Meanwhile, U.S. air strikes do little more than make clear the limits of air power and provide material for future historians to write about. American bombs can slow IS, but can’t recapture parts of a city. Short of destroying Kobani by air to save it, U.S. power is limited without Turkish ground forces. Under the present circumstances, the fighters of the Islamic State will either take the city or it will slowly burn as they slug it out with the Kurds.

The Turkish price for intervention, publicly proclaimed, is the creation of a U.S.-enforced buffer zone along the border. The Turks would need to occupy this zone on the ground, effectively ceding Syrian territory to Turkey (as a buffer zone occupied by Kurds would not do). This would involve a further commitment from Washington, potentially placing American warplanes in direct conflict with Syria’s air defenses, which would have to be bombed, widening the war further. A buffer zone would also do away with whatever secret agreements may exist between the U.S. and Assad. This zone would represent another open-ended commitment, requiring additional U.S. resources in a conflict that is already costing American taxpayers at least $10 million a day.

On the other hand, Washington’s present policy essentially requires Turkey to put aside its national goals to help us achieve ours. We’ve seen how such a scenario has worked out in the past. (Google “Pakistan and the Taliban.”) But with Kobani in the news, the U.S. may yet succeed in pressuring the Turks into limited gestures, such as allowing American warplanes to use Turkish airbases or letting the U.S. train some Syrian rebels on its territory. That will not change the reality that Turkey will ultimately focus on its own goals independent of the many more Kobanis to come.

Worst-case scenario: Chaos in Eastern Turkey’s future, while the sun shines on Assad and the Kurds. An influx of refugees are already taxing the Turks. Present sectarian rumblings inside Turkey could turn white hot, with the Turks finding themselves in open conflict with Kurdish forces as the U.S. sits dumbly on the sidelines watching one ally fight another, an unintended consequence of its Middle Eastern meddling. If the buffer zone comes to pass, throw in the possibility of direct fighting between the U.S. and Assad, with Russian President Vladimir Putin potentially finding an opening to reengage in the area.

3. Syria

Think of Syria as the American war that never should have happened. Despite years of calls for U.S. intervention and some training flirtations with Syrian rebel groups, the Obama administration had managed (just barely) to stay clear of this particular quagmire. In September 2013, President Obama walked right up to the edge of sending bombers and cruise missiles against Assad’s military over the purported use of chemical weapons. He then used an uncooperative Congress and a clever Putin-gambit as an excuse to back down.

This year’s model — ignore Assad, attack IS — evolved over just a few weeks as a limited humanitarian action morphed into a fight to the finish against IS in Iraq and then into bombing Syria itself. As with any magician’s trick, we all watched it happen but still can’t quite figure out quite how the sleight of hand was done.

Syria today is a country in ruins. But somewhere loose in that land are unicorns — creatures often spoken of but never seen — the Obama administration’s much publicized “moderate Syrian rebels.” Who are they? The working definition seems to be something like: people who oppose Assad, won’t fight him for now, but may in the meantime fight the Islamic State, and aren’t too “fundamentalist.” The U.S. plans to throw arms and training at them as soon as it can find some of them, vet them, and transport them to Saudi Arabia. If you are buying stock in the Syrian market, look for anyone labeled “moderate warlord.”

While the U.S. and its coalition attacks IS, some states (or at least wealthy individuals) in that same band of brothers continue to funnel money to the new caliphate to support its self-appointed role as a protector of Sunnis and handy proxy against Shia empowerment in Iraq. Vice President Joe Biden recently called out some of America’s partners on this in what was billed as another of his famous gaffes, requiring apologies all around. If you want to see the best-case scenario for Syria’s future, have a look at Libya, a post-U.S. intervention country in chaos, carved up by militias.

Worst-case scenario: Syria as an ungoverned space, a new haven for terrorists and warring groups fueled by outsiders. (The Pakistani Taliban has already vowed to send fighters to help IS.) Throw in the potential for some group to grab any leftover chemical weapons or SCUD-like surface-to-surface missiles from Assad’s closet, and the potential for death and destruction is unending. It might even spread to Israel.

4. Israel

Israel’s border with Syria, marked by the Golan Heights, has been its quietest frontier since the 1967 war, but that’s now changing. Syrian insurgents of some flavor recently seized border villages and a crossing point in those heights. United Nations peacekeepers, who once patrolled the area, have mostly been evacuated for their own safety. Last month, Israel shot down a Syrian plane that entered its airspace, no doubt a warning to Assad to mind his own business rather than a matter of military necessity.

Assumedly, the Obama administration has been in behind-the-scenes efforts, reminiscent of the 1991 Gulf War when Iraqi SCUDS began raining down on Israeli cities, to keep that country out of the larger fight. It is not 1991, however. Relations between the U.S. and Israel are far more volatile and much testier. Israel is better armed and U.S. constraints on Israeli desires have proven significantly weaker of late.

Worst-case scenario: An Israeli move, either to ensure that the war stays far from its Golan Heights frontier or of a more offensive nature aimed at securing some Syrian territory, could blow the region apart. “It’s like a huge bottle with gas surrounded by candles. You just need to push one candle and everything can blow up in a minute,” said one retired Israeli general. Still, if you think Israel worries about Syria, that’s nothing compared to how its leadership must be fuming over the emergence of Iran as an ever-stronger regional power.

5. Iran

What can go wrong for Iran in the current conflict? While in the Middle East something unexpected can always arise, at present that country looks like the potential big winner in the IS sweepstakes. Will a pro-Iranian Shia government remain in power in Baghdad? You bet. Has Iran been given carte blanche to move ground forces into Iraq? Check. Will the American air force fly bombing runs for Iranian ground troops engaged in combat with IS (in a purely unofficial capacity, of course)? Not a doubt. Might Washington try to edge back a bit from its nuclear tough-guy negotiations? A likelihood. Might the door be left ajar when it comes to an off-the-books easing of economic sanctions if the Americans need something more from Iran in Iraq? Why not?

Worst-case scenario: Someday, there’ll be a statue of Barack Obama in central Tehran, not in Iraq.

6. Iraq

Iraq is America’s official “graveyard of empire.” Washington’s “new” plan for that country hinges on the success of a handful of initiatives that already failed when tried between 2003-2011, a time when there were infinitely more resources available to American “nation builders” and so much less in the way of regional chaos, bad as it then was.

The first step in the latest American master plan is the creation of an “inclusive” government in Baghdad, which the U.S. dreams will drive a wedge between a rebellious and dissatisfied Sunni population and the Islamic state. After that has happened, a (re)trained Iraqi army will head back into the field to drive the forces of the new caliphate from the northern parts of the country and retake Mosul.

All of this is unrealistic, if not simply unreal. After all, Washington has already sunk $25 billion dollars into training and equipping that same army, and several billion more on the paramilitary police. The result: little more than IS seizing arsenals of top-notch Americans weaponry once the Iraqi forces fled the country’s northern cities in June.

Now, about that inclusive government. The United States seems to think creating an Iraqi government is like picking players for a fantasy football team. You know, win some, lose some, make a few trades, and if none of that works out, you still have a shot at a new roster and a winning record next year. Since Haider al-Abadi, the latest prime minister and great inclusivist hope, is a Shia and a former colleague of the once-anointed, now disappointed Nouri al-Maliki, as well as a member of the same political party, nothing much has really changed at the top. So hopes for “inclusiveness” now fall to the choices to lead the key ministries of defense and the interior. Both have been tools of repression against the country’s Sunnis for years. For the moment, Abadi remains acting minister for both, as was Maliki before him. Really, what could possibly go wrong?

As for the Sunnis, American strategy rests on the assumption that they can be bribed and coerced into breaking with IS, no matter the shape of things in Baghdad. That’s hard to imagine, unless they lack all memory. As with al-Qaeda in Iraq during the American occupation years, the Islamic State is Sunni muscle against a Shia government that, left to its own devices, would continue to marginalize, if not simply slaughter, them. Starting in 2007, U.S. officials did indeed bribe and coerce some Sunni tribal leaders into accepting arms and payments in return for fighting insurgent outfits, including al-Qaeda. That deal, then called the Anbar Awakening, came with assurances that the United States would always stand by them. (General John Allen, now coordinating America’s newest war in Iraq, was a key figure in brokering that “awakening.”) America didn’t stand. Instead, it turned the program over to the Shia government and headed for the door marked “exit.” The Shias promptly reneged on the deal.

Once bitten, twice shy, so why, only a few years later, would the Sunnis go for what seems to be essentially the same bad deal? In addition, this one appears to have a particularly counterproductive wrinkle from the American point of view. According to present plans, the U.S. is to form Sunni “national guard units” — up-armored Sunni militias with a more marketable name — to fight IS by paying and arming them to do so. These militias are to fight only on Sunni territory under Sunni leadership. They will have no more connection to the Baghdad government than you do. How will that help make Iraq an inclusive, unitary state? What will happen, in the long run, once even more sectarian armed militias are let loose? What could possibly go wrong?

Despite its unambiguous history of failure, the “success” of the Anbar Awakening remains a persistent myth among American conservative thinkers. So don’t be fooled in the short term by media-trumpeted local examples of Sunni-Shia cooperation against IS. Consider them temporary alliances of convenience on a tribe-by-tribe basis that might not outlast the next attack. That is nowhere near a strategy for national victory. Wasn’t then, isn’t now.

Worst-case scenario: Sunni-Shia violence reaches a new level, one which draws in outside third parties, perhaps the Sunni Gulf states, seeking to prevent a massacre. Would the Shia Iranians, with forces already in-country, stand idle? Who can predict how much blood will be spilled, all caused by another foolish American war in Iraq?

7. The United States

If Iran could be the big geopolitical winner in this multi-state conflict, then the U.S. will be the big loser. President Obama (or his successor) will, in the end, undoubtedly have to choose between war to the horizon and committing U.S. ground forces to the conflict. Neither approach is likely to bring the results desired, but those “boots on the ground” will scale up the nature of the ensuing tragedy.

Washington’s post-9/11 fantasy has always been that military power — whether at the level of full-scale invasions or “surgical” drone strikes — can change the geopolitical landscape in predictable ways. In fact, the only certainty is more death. Everything else, as the last 13 years have made clear, is up for grabs, and in ways Washington is guaranteed not to expect.

Among the likely scenarios: IS forces are currently only miles from Baghdad International Airport, itself only nine miles from the Green Zone in the heart of the capital. (Note that the M198 howitzers IS captured from the retreating Iraqis have a range of 14 miles.) The airport is a critical portal for the evacuation of embassy personnel in the face of a future potential mega-Benghazi and for flying in more personnel like the Marine Quick Reaction Force recently moved into nearby Kuwait. The airport is already protected by 300-500 American troops, backed by Apache attack helicopters and drones. The Apache helicopters recently sent into combat in nearby Anbar province probably flew out of there. If IS militants were to assault the airport, the U.S. would essentially have to defend it, which means combat between the two forces. If so, IS will lose on the ground, but will win by drawing America deeper into the quagmire.

In the bigger picture, the current anti-Islamic State coalition of “more than 60 countries” that the U.S. patched together cannot last. It’s fated to collapse in a heap of conflicting long-term goals. Sooner or later, the U.S. is likely to once again find itself alone, as it eventually did in the last Iraq war.

The most likely outcome of all this killing, whatever the fate of the Islamic State, is worsening chaos across Iraq, Syria, and other countries in the region, including possibly Turkey. As Andrew Bacevich observed, “Even if we win, we lose. Defeating the Islamic State would only commit the United States more deeply to a decades-old enterprise that has proved costly and counterproductive.” The loss of control over the real costs of this war will beg the question: Was the U.S. ever in control?

In September, Syria became the 14th country in the Islamic world that U.S. forces have invaded, occupied, or bombed since 1980. During these many years of American war-making, goals have shifted endlessly, while the situation in the Greater Middle East only worsened. Democracy building? You’re not going to hear that much any more. Oil? The U.S. is set to become a net exporter. Defeating terrorism? That’s today’s go-to explanation, but the evidence is already in that picking fights in the region only fosters terror and terrorism. At home, the soundtrack of fear-mongering grows louder, leading to an amplified national security state and ever-expanding justifications for the monitoring of our society.

Worst-case scenario: America’s pan-Middle Eastern war marches into its third decade with no end in sight, a vortex that sucks in lives, national treasure, and Washington’s mental breathing room, even as other important issues are ignored. And what could possibly go wrong with that?

Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during the Iraqi reconstruction in his first book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.

17 October, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Amy Goodman

The headlines shift hourly between Ebola and ISIS. The question is often asked, “Should we put boots on the ground?” The answer is yes—but not in the Middle East. We need tens of thousands of boots on the ground dealing with Ebola: boots of doctors, nurses, health professionals, dealing with this wholly preventable global health disaster.

Ebola is a small virus that is revealing very large problems with the world’s public health systems. The few known cases here in the United States have provoked a climate of fear and a growing awareness of just how vulnerable we are to a virulent illness let loose in our society. Imagine how people feel in the impoverished West African nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, where the number of cases is in the thousands, and the infrastructure is simply incapable of dealing with the burgeoning number of infected people.

“This is an international humanitarian and health crisis. It threatens the stability of the region politically, economically, and, of course, human health matters most,” said Lawrence Gostin, faculty director at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. Speaking on the “Democracy Now!” news hour, he said, “For the second time in the history of the United Nations, the U.N. Security Council called a health threat—AIDS was the first, Ebola is the second.” He was speaking as news arrived that a second health worker in Dallas tested positive for Ebola. “We should be mobilizing much, much more,” he said. “We should have done it earlier. We should do it now.”

The World Health Organization announced the latest Ebola outbreak in Guinea on March 23 of this year. The outbreak grew, spreading to neighboring countries and jumping over several to reach Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria. It killed tens, then hundreds, but largely stayed off the world stage until two white, American aid workers contracted the disease. Dr. Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol were separately flown back to the United States. With the first Ebola patients ever to set foot in the U.S. shrouded in isolation suits, the disease became the lead story across the country.

Remarkably, as people were dying en masse of Ebola in West Africa, these two Americans survived, treated to some of the few existing doses of the experimental drug known as ZMapp. These are positive outcomes made possible with a well-funded health-care system.

Enter Thomas Eric Duncan. He, too, had been infected by the Ebola virus. His illness progressed quite differently. His nephew, Josephus Weeks, summed it up eloquently in a piece published by The Dallas Morning News:

“On Friday, Sept. 25, 2014, my uncle Thomas Eric Duncan went to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. He had a high fever and stomach pains. He told the nurse he had recently been in Liberia. But he was a man of color with no health insurance and no means to pay for treatment, so within hours he was released with some antibiotics and Tylenol.”

Duncan went home to be cared for by his family, but got progressively sicker. Two days later, he went back to the hospital, where he was admitted with suspicion of Ebola. He rapidly declined and died on Oct. 8, as Weeks wrote, “alone in a hospital room.” Within days, we learned that one of his health-care workers, critical-care nurse Nina Pham, had contracted Ebola. Then another nurse, Amber Vinson, showed symptoms. Hours before she was diagnosed, she was on a plane with more than 130 people, flying back from Cleveland to Dallas. What if we had a health-care system that guaranteed thorough treatment, regardless of whether or not patients have private health insurance?

Republican Congressman Pete Sessions, who represents part of Dallas, told CNN that he wanted to block flights from West Africa from entering the U.S., though he said he would allow U.S. citizens through. I asked Lawrence Gostin for his response: “That is such a bad idea. … We live in a modern, globalized world; you can’t put a cellophane wrapper around a whole region and expect to keep germs out. It doesn’t work that way. And so, we think we’re trying to save ourselves, but actually we’re making ourselves at greater risk.”

The small island nation of Cuba has sent more than 160 doctors to West Africa to treat patients and help stem the spread of this epidemic. We should learn from Cuba. Instead, President Barack Obama sent in the Marines. They will soon be building field hospitals. But who will staff these new facilities? United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has created an emergency task force to confront the Ebola crisis. The world must come together to save lives and stop this preventable catastrophe that threatens us all.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 1,100 stations in North America.

17 October, 2014
TruthDig

 

By Colin Todhunter

Today is World Food Day . This year’s theme is ‘Family Farming: Feeding the world, caring for the earth’.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s website:

“The 2014 World Food Day theme – Family Farming: “Feeding the world, caring for the earth” – has been chosen to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farmers. It focuses world attention on the significant role of family farming in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas.” [1]

Family farming should be celebrated because it really does feed the world. This claim is supported by a 2014 report by GRAIN, which revealed that small farms produce most of the world’s food [2].

Around 56% of Russia ‘s agricultural output comes from family farms which occupy less than 9% of arable land. These farms produce 90% of the country’s potatoes, 83% of its vegetables, 55% of its of milk, 39% of its meat and 22% of its cereals [3].

In Brazil, 84% of farms are small and control 24% of the land, yet they produce: 87% of cassava, 69% of beans, 67% of goat milk, 59% of pork, 58% of cow milk, 50% of chickens, 46% of maize, 38% of coffee, 33.8% of rice and 30% of cattle [4].

In Cuba, with 27% of the land, small farmers produce: 98% of fruits, 95% of beans, 80% of maize, 75% of pork, 65% of vegetables, 55% of cow milk, 55% of cattle and 35% of rice [5].

In Ukraine, small farmers operate 16% of agricultural land, but provide 55% of agricultural output, including: 97% of potatoes, 97% of honey, 88% of vegetables, 83% of fruits and berries and 80% of milk [6].

Similar impressive figures are available for Chile, Hungary, Belarus, Romania, Kenya, El Salvador and many other countries.

The evidence shows that small peasant/family farms are the bedrock of global food production. The bad news is that they are squeezed onto less than a quarter of the world’s farmland and such land is under threat. The world is fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into the hands of the rich and powerful.

The report by GRAIN also revealed that small farmers are often much more productive than large corporate farms, despite the latter’s access to various expensive technologies. For example, if all of Kenya’s farms matched the output of its small farms, the nation’s agricultural productivity would double. In Central America, it would nearly triple. In Russia, it would be six fold.

Yet in many places, small farmers are being criminalised, taken to court and even made to disappear when it comes to the struggle for land. They are constantly exposed to systematic expulsion from their land by foreign corporations [7], some of which are fronted by fraudulent individuals who specialise in corrupt deals and practices to rake in enormous profits to the detriment of small farmers and food production [8].

Imagine what small farmers could achieve if they had access to more land and could work in a supportive policy environment, rather than under the siege conditions they too often face. For example, the vast majority of farms in Zimbabwe belong to smallholders and their average farm size has increased as a result of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme. Small farmers in the country now produce over 90% of diverse agricultural food crops, while they only provided 60 to 70% of the national food before land redistribution.

Throughout much of the world, however, agricultural land is being taken over by large corporations. GRAIN concludes that, in the last 50 years, 140 million hectares – well more than all the farmland in China – have been taken over for soybean, oil palm, rapeseed and sugar cane alone.

By definition, peasant agriculture prioritises food production for local and national markets as well as for farmers’ own families. Big agritech corporations take over scarce fertile land and prioritise commodities or export crops for profit and markets far away that cater for the needs of the affluent. This process impoverishes local communities and brings about food insecurity. The concentration of fertile agricultural land in fewer and fewer hands is therefore directly related to the increasing number of people going hungry every day and is undermining global food security.

The issue of land ownership was also picked up on by another report this year. A report by the Oakland Institute stated that the first years of the 21st century will be remembered for a global land rush of nearly unprecedented scale [9]. An estimated 500 million acres, an area eight times the size of Britain , was reported bought or leased across the developing world between 2000 and 2011, often at the expense of local food security and land rights.

A new generation of institutional investors, including hedge funds, private equity, pension funds and university endowments, is eager to capitalise on global farmland as a new and highly desirable asset class. Financial returns, not food security, are what matter. In the US, for instance, with rising interest from investors and surging land prices, giant pension funds are committing billions to buy agricultural land.

The Oakland Institute argues that the US could experience an unprecedented crisis of retiring farmers over the next 20 years, leading to ample opportunities for these actors to expand their holdings as an estimated 400 million acres changes generational hands.

The corporate consolidation of agriculture is happening as much in Iowa and California as it is in the Philippines, Mozambique and not least in Ukraine.

As indicated earlier in this piece, Ukraine’s small farmers are thriving in terms of delivering impressive outputs, despite being squeezed onto just 16% of arable land. But the US-backed toppling of that country’s government may change all that. Indeed, part of the reason behind destabilizing Ukraine was for US agritech concerns like Monsanto to gain access to its agriculture sector, which is what we are now witnessing.

Current ‘aid’ packages, contingent on austerity reforms, will have a devastating impact on Ukrainians’ standard of living and increase poverty in the country [10]. Reforms mandated by the EU-backed loan include agricultural deregulation that is intended to benefit agribusiness corporations. Natural resource and land policy shifts are intended to facilitate the foreign corporate takeover of enormous tracts of land. The EU Association Agreement also includes a clause requiring both parties to cooperate to extend the use of biotechnology. Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute states:

“Their (World Bank and IMF) intent is blatant: to open up foreign markets to Western corporations… The high stakes around control of Ukraine’s vast agricultural sector, the world’s third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat, constitute an oft-overlooked critical factor. In recent years, foreign corporations have acquired more than 1.6 million hectares of Ukrainian land.”

As World Food Day approaches in celebration of the role of the family farm in feeding the world, from India to Ukraine powerful US agritech corporations continue to colonise agriculture and undermine the continued existence of small farms. This is achieved by various means, including militarism, ‘free’ trade agreements, commodity market price manipulations, loan/aid packages, the co-optation of political leaders and the hijack of strategic policy-making bodies. As a result, food security and local/regional food sovereignty is being threatened.

Colin Todhunter : Originally from the northwest of England, Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India.

16 October, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Ali Abunimah

The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah was ecstatic last weekend after Sweden’s new center-left Prime Minister Stefan Löfven announced in his inaugural address to parliament what appeared to be a break with Western orthodoxy: his country would recognize the “State of Palestine.”

“We salute the announcement by the Swedish prime minister,” crowed Saeb Erekat, the PA “chief negotiator.”

Although dozens of countries already recognize the “State of Palestine,” including several in Europe, Israel’s staunchest backers – the US, Canada, Australia and most of the European Union states – do not.

For the PA, with no achievements – and many losses – to show for more than two decades of a “peace process,” such diplomatic recognition is a coveted prize that gives the false impression of progress.

But American objections and Israeli fury quickly pushed the Swedes to try to cool expectations.

On Friday, US State Department spokesperson Jennifer Psaki criticized the Swedish move as “premature.”

The Swedish ambassador in Tel Aviv was summoned to the Israeli foreign ministry for a scolding on Monday – but Sweden’s government would not reveal the content of his discussion with Israeli officials.

And the Swedish prime minister was subjected to the usual insults by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman who suggested that Löfven did not understand the region.

“If what concerns the prime minister of Sweden in his inaugural address is the situation in the Middle East, he would better focus on the more urgent problems in the region, such as the daily mass murder taking place in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the region,” Lieberman advised.

Publicly, the Swedes did their best to soothe Israel’s anger.

Prime Minister Löfven spoke with Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog, chair of Israel’s Labor Party, a “sister party” to Löfven’s Social Democrats.

Herzog told Haaretz that Löfven stressed that Sweden “wasn’t going to recognize a Palestinian state tomorrow morning” and “wants to speak first with all the relevant parties, including Israel, the Palestinians, the United States and other EU states.”

So much for a big, bold break.

Vague statement

Also on Sunday, Sweden’s foreign ministry tweeted out Löfven’s exact words apparently to underline Sweden’s support for the sterile “peace process” and the “two-state solution.”

And this statement was posted on the website of the Swedish embassy in Tel Aviv:

The following text is a quote from the Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s declaration on the government policy in the parliament on 3 October.

“The conflict between Israel and Palestine can only be resolved through a two-state solution, negotiated in accordance with the principles of international law. It must guarantee the legitimate demands of both the Palestinians and the Israelis for national self-determination and security. A two-state solution requires mutual recognition and a will to coexist peacefully. Therefore, Sweden will recognize the State of Palestine.”

Löfven’s commitment has no specific date attached to it, leaving, at best, confusion over his government’s intentions.

Sweden’s new foreign minister Margot Wallström added to the confusion, tweeting cryptically: “Recognizing Palestine: Important step towards a two-state solution. Both sides must be respected.”

By “both sides,” she presumably means the occupier and colonizer on the one hand, and its victims, on the other.

Sweden’s misguided motives

Wallström elaborated on Sweden’s intentions in comments to the newspaper Dagens Nyheter on Sunday.

The minister said that the strong Israeli reaction was unsurprising: “This I can understand and respect even if I do not share it.”

She said she didn’t think the planned move would “have any serious impact on relations between Sweden and Israel,” stressing “We have good relations.”

She rejected criticism that the move was too early: “I would say that the risk is that it is too late.”

But why float this step at all? “It is important that we take an initiative that hopefully will inspire other countries,” Wallström said.

Wallström is right: it is too late. It is too late to revive the dead “peace process” and there is no point talking about a “two-state solution” anymore. She’s also right to suggest that things cannot go on as they are and something must be done.

But moving from quiet complicity with Israel to antagonizing it with symbolic recognition of a Palestinian state – while maintaining “good relations” – will do absolutely nothing to change the Palestinian reality, even if other states followed Sweden’s lead (if and when it comes).

“State” harms Palestinians

As I have explained in my book The Battle for Justice in Palestine and in an article for Al-Shabaka, recognition of a Palestinian “state” in a fraction of Palestine actually negates the rights of most Palestinians and conflicts with the Palestinian right of self-determination.

While recognizing the “State of Palestine” excites and pleases many who support the Palestinian cause, people should not to get carried away with the aesthetics of “statehood” in what would amount to a bantustan.

Instead, I have argued, they should focus on the negative consequences for the right of return and the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The main purpose of the so-called two-state solution is not to restore Palestinian rights, but rather to preserve and recognize Israel’s so-called “right to exist as a Jewish state.”

As I further explain in this excerpt from my book, Israel’s claimed “right to exist as a Jewish state” can only be exercised by violating in perpetuity the rights of millions of Palestinians – Palestinian citizens of Israel who will retain second-class status if not expelled outright, and Palestinian refugees who will never be allowed back home. And even the rights of Palestinians in the so-called “state” would barely be realized since Israel insists that this state have extremely curtailed sovereignty.

So from my perspective, I do not see recognition of a Palestinian “state” in the context of the so-called two-state solution as anything to celebrate. Indeed, it may well be harmful to Palestinians in the long run.

What Sweden could do

But I do applaud Sweden’s desire to show leadership, initiative and to break with a stifling consensus. So, here are some ideas for Sweden’s new government that might actually do that:

Lead a campaign for the immediate, unconditional end to Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza, which amounts to “collective punishment.”

End Sweden’s arms purchases from Israel and call on all countries to impose an arms embargo.

End Sweden’s military collaboration with Israel.

Stop Swedish and EU financial support for Israeli occupation.

Stop EU research support to Israeli occupation.

Support efforts to bring Israeli war criminals to justice by arresting war crimes suspects who set foot in Sweden and by encouraging other countries to do the same.

Ban the import to Sweden of all Israeli settlement goods, and encourage EU countries to do the same.

Urge EU countries to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

Sweden led the way among European countries in opposing apartheid in South Africa. That included rejecting the regime’s bantustans which were designed to preserve apartheid by disguising it as “independence” for Blacks.

It is also past time for Sweden and other countries to stop concealing their complicity with Israeli apartheid behind the so-called “two-state solution” and to openly support full rights and equality for all Palestinians throughout historic Palestine.

Ali Abunimah is Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

14 October, 2014
Electronicintifada.net

 

By Garikai Chengu

On Monday, America’s government offices, businesses, and banks all grind to a halt in order to commemorate Columbus Day. In schools up and down the country, little children are taught that a heroic Italian explorer discovered America, and various events and parades are held to celebrate the occasion.

It has now become common knowledge amongst academics that Christopher Columbus clearly did not discover America, not least because is it impossible to discover a people and a continent that was already there and thriving with culture. One can only wonder how Columbus could have discovered America when people were watching him from America’s shores?

Contrary to popular belief, African American history did not start with slavery in the New World. An overwhelming body of new evidence is emerging which proves that Africans had frequently sailed across the Atlantic to the Americas, thousands of years before Columbus and indeed before Christ. The great ancient civilizations of Egypt and West Africa traveled to the Americas, contributing immensely to early American civilization by importing the art of pyramid building, political systems and religious practices as well as mathematics, writing and a sophisticated calendar.

The strongest evidence of African presence in America before Columbus comes from the pen of Columbus himself. In 1920, a renowned American historian and linguist, Leo Weiner of Harvard University, in his book, Africa and the discovery of America, explained how Columbus noted in his journal that Native Americans had confirmed that “black skinned people had come from the south-east in boats, trading in gold-tipped spears.”

One of the first documented instances of Africans sailing and settling in the Americas were black Egyptians led by King Ramses III, during the 19th dynasty in 1292 BC. In fact, in 445 BC, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote of the Ancient Egyptian pharaohs’ great seafaring and navigational skills. Further concrete evidence, noted by Dr. Imhotep and largely ignored by Euro-centric archaeologists, includes “Egyptian artifacts found across North America from the Algonquin writings on the East Coast to the artifacts and Egyptian place names in the Grand Canyon.”

In 1311 AD, another major wave of African exploration to the New World was led by King Abubakari II, the ruler of the fourteenth century Mali Empire, which was larger than the Holy Roman Empire. The king sent out 200 ships of men, and 200 ships of trade material, crops, animals, cloth and crucially African knowledge of astronomy, religion and the arts.

African explorers crossing the vast Atlantic waters in primitive boats may seem unlikely, or perhaps, far fetched to some. Such incredible nautical achievements are not as daunting as they seem, given that
numerous successful modern attempts have illustrated that without an oar, rudder or sail ancient African boats, including the “dug-out,” would certainly have been able to cross the vast ocean in a matter of weeks.

As time allows us to drift further and further away from the “European age of exploration” and we move beyond an age of racial intellectual prejudice, historians are beginning to recognize that Africans were skilled navigators long before Europeans, contrary to popular belief.

Of course, some Western historians continue to refute this fact because, consciously or unconsciously, they are still hanging on to the 19th-century notion that seafaring was a European monopoly.

After all, history will tell you that seafaring is the quintessential European achievement, the single endeavor of which Europeans are awfully proud. Seafaring allowed Europe to conquer the world. The notion that black Africans braved the roaring waters of the Atlantic Ocean and beat Europeans to the New World threatens a historically white sense of ownership over the seas.

When most people think about ancient Mexico, the first civilizations that come to mind are the Incas, Aztecs and the Maya. However, during the early 1940’s archeologists uncovered a civilization known as the Olmecs of 1200 BC, which pre-dated any other advanced civilization in the Americas.

The Olmec civilization, which was of African origin and dominated by Africans, was the first significant civilization in Mesoamerica and the Mother Culture of Mexico.

Olmecs are perhaps best known for the carved colossal heads found in Central Mexico, that exhibit an unmistakably African Negroid appearance. Ancient African historian Professor Van Sertima has illustrated how Olmecs were the first Mesoamerican civilization to use a written language, sophisticated astronomy, arts and mathematics and they built the first cities in Mexico, all of which greatly influenced the Mayans and subsequent civilizations in the Americas. “There is not the slightest doubt that all later civilizations in [Mexico and Central America], rest ultimately on an Olmec base,” once remarked Michael Coe, a leading historian on Mexico.

Africans clearly played an intricate role in the Olmec Empire’s rise and that African influence peaked during the same period that ancient Black Egyptian culture ascended in Africa.

A clear indicator of pre-Columbus African trans-Atlantic travel is the recent archeological findings of narcotics native to America in Ancient Egyptian mummies, which have astounded contemporary historians. German toxicologist, Svetla Balabanova, reported findings of cocaine and nicotine in ancient Egyptian mummies. These substances are known to only be derived from American plants. South American cocaine from Erythroxylon coca and nicotine from Nicotiana tabacum. Such compounds could only have been introduced to Ancient Egyptian culture through trade with Americans.

Similarities across early American and African religions also indicate significant cross-cultural contact. The Mayans, Aztecs and Incas all worshipped black gods and the surviving portraits of the black deities are revealing. For instance, ancient portraits of the Quetzalcoatl, a messiah serpent god, and Ek-ahua, the god of war, are unquestionably Negro with dark skin and wooly hair. Why would native Americans venerate images so unmistakably African if they had never seen them before? Numerous wall paintings in caves in Juxtlahuaca depict the famous ancient Egyptian “opening of the mouth” and cross libation rituals. All these religious similarities are too large and occur far too often to be mere coincidences.

Professor Everett Borders notes another very important indication of African presence, which is the nature of early American pyramids. Pyramid construction is highly specialized. Ancient Egypt progressed from the original stepped pyramid of Djosser, to the more sophisticated finished product at Giza. However, at La Venta in Mexico, the Olmecs made a fully finished pyramid, with no signs of progressive learning. Olmecian and Egyptian pyramids were both placed on the same north-south axis and had strikingly similar construction methods. Tellingly, all of these pyramids also served the same dual purpose, tomb and temple.

Ancient trans-Atlantic similarities in botany, religion and pyramid building constitute but a fraction of the signs of African influence in ancient America. Other indicators include, astronomy, art, writing systems, flora and fauna.

Historically, the African people have been exceptional explorers and purveyors of culture across the world. Throughout all of these travels, African explorers have not had a history of starting devastating wars on the people they met. The greatest threat towards Africa having a glorious future is her people’s ignorance of Africa’s glorious past.

Pre-Columbus civilization in the Americas had its foundation built by Africans and developed by the ingenuity of Native Americans. Sadly, America, in post-Columbus times, was founded on the genocide of the indigenous Americans, built on the backs of African slaves and continues to run on the exploitation of workers at home and abroad.

Clearly, Africans helped civilize America well before Europeans “discovered” America, and well before Europeans claim to have civilized Africa. The growing body of evidence is now becoming simply too loud to ignore. It’s about time education policy makers reexamine their school curriculums to adjust for America’s long pre-Columbus history.

Garikai Chengu is a scholar at Harvard University.

14 October, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Jon Queally

The top one percent of the wealthiest people on the planet own nearly fifty percent of the world’s assets while the bottom fifty percent of the global population combined own less than one percent of the world’s wealth.

Those are the findings of an annual report by the investment firm Credit Suisse released Tuesday—the 2014 Global Wealth Report (pdf)—which shows that global economic inequality has surged since the financial collapse of 2008.

According to the report, “global wealth has grown to a new record, rising by $20.1 trillion between mid-2013 and mid-2014, an increase of 8.3%, to reach $263 trillion – more than twice the $117 trillion recorded for the year 2000.”

Though the rate of this wealth creation has been particularly fast over the last year—the fastest annual growth recorded since the pre-crisis year of 2007—the report notes that the benefits of this overall growth have flowed disproportionately to the already wealthy. And the report reveals that as of mid-2014, “the bottom half of the global population own less than 1% of total wealth. In sharp contrast, the richest decile hold 87% of the world’s wealth, and the top percentile alone account for 48.2% of global assets.”

Campaigners at Oxfam International, which earlier this put out their own report on global inequality (pdf), said the Credit Suisse report, though generally serving separate aims, confirms what they also found in terms of global inequality.

“These figures give more evidence that inequality is extreme and growing, and that economic recovery following the financial crisis has been skewed in favour of the wealthiest. In poor countries, rising inequality means the difference between children getting the chance to go to school and sick people getting life saving medicines,” Oxfam’s head of inequality Emma Seery, told the Guardian in response to the latest study.

In addition to giving an overall view of trends in global wealth, the authors of the Credit Suisse gave special attention to the issue of inequality in this year’s report, noting the increasing level of concern surrounding the topic. “The changing distribution of wealth is now one of the most widely discussed and controversial of topics,” they write, “Not least owing to [French economist] Thomas Piketty’s recent account of long-term trends around inequality. We are confident that the depth of our data will make a valuable contribution to the inequality debate.”

According to the report:

In almost all countries, the mean wealth of the top decile (i.e. the wealthiest 10% of adults) is more than ten times median wealth. For the top percentile (i.e. the wealthiest 1% of adults), mean wealth exceeds 100 times the median wealth in many countries and can approach 1000 times the median in the most unequal nations. This has been the case throughout most of human history, with wealth ownership often equating with land holdings, and wealth more often acquired via inheritance or conquest rather than talent or hard work. However, a combination of factors caused wealth inequality to trend downwards in high income countries during much of the 20th century, suggesting that a new era had emerged. That downward trend now appears to have stalled, and posssibly gone into reverse.

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

14 October, 2014
CommonDreams.org