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By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

31 January, 2014

@ Countercurrents.org

The Geneva II conference which claims to be seeking to end the war in Syria seems designed to fail and instead to provide an excuse for military intervention by the United States and its allies.  Human rights activist, Ajamu Baraka, describes the negotiations as an ‘Orwellian subterfuge’ designed to provide justification for war and a lot of facts support his view.

The negotiations are destined to fail because of the way they have been set-up and the preconditions of the United States and its allies in the Syrian opposition demanding that President Bashar al-Assad agree to leave government before negotiations go forward.

The set-up for failure begins with the limited participation. The rigged nature of the negotiations was demonstrated when the UN had to rescind an invitation to Iran to participate at the demand of the United States and the Syrian opposition group. Iran is a close ally of Syria and keeping them out of the negotiations is an effort to weaken and isolate Syria. It is an indication of a desire by the United States for a pre-ordained conclusion rather than a fair negotiation between the parties.

The exclusion of Syrian civil society from these negotiations, beyond the militant fighters , is especially egregious.  Many of these groups were working for transformation of Syria before the terrorism and war began.  One example is the exclusion of woman, although women from across Syria have been meeting and put together a Syrian Women’s Charter for Peace, their request to be included in the talks has been denied. Women and children comprise the majority of the millions who have been internally displaced or forced to flee the country. And they have suffered in horrible ways.

Only one opposition group is included, the Syrian National Coalition, one favored by the United States but rejected by 13 key rebel groups in Syria . There are scores of others involved in the bloodshed in Syria, but these on-the-ground fighters are not included.  How can peace, even a partial peace like a cease-fire, be negotiated if those involved in the fighting are not participating?

In fact, an agreement by the participants to stop fighting would entrap Assad. Groups not included in the negotiations will continue to fight and Assad will respond. When Assad responds to attacks, he will be accused of violating the peace agreement. This will provide an excuse for outside military intervention. The U.S. and its allies will claim: ‘Assad is violating the peace agreement; there is no other choice than to enforce the agreement with military force.’

The second and most important problem with the negotiations is the precondition of the United States and the Syrian National Coalition that Assad must agree to step down before negotiations can begin.  The U.S. and its allies falsely claim that the removal of Assad has already been agreed to the “Geneva communiqué” signed by Syria’s ally, Russia.  As Shamus Cooke points out, the communiqué  does indeed call for a negotiated political transition, but nowhere does it state that such a transition must exclude Assad.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry kicked off the conference by demanding the removal of President Bashar al-Assad from power. And, this has become the central issue in the discussions so far, leading to a stalemate. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, accused the U.S. and its Middle East allies, particularly Turkey and Saudi Arabia, of supporting terrorist groups seeking to destabilize Syria and working to put forward their own plans for a new government. The Syrians put forward their own plan that would begin with ridding the nation of foreign terrorists. They argue it is up to the Syrian people to decide who their leaders are and what type of government they want.

The kick-off of the conference coincided with a propaganda campaign. A report funded by Qatar claimed the Assad government had tortured and killed 11,000 prisoners. There has been a history of torture in Syria; in fact, the United States sent people to be tortured in Syria as part of its rendition program , so on its face the claim does not seem far-fetched. But did they prove the case?

Reporter Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor points out some of the problems with the report. He writes it is “ a single source report, from an unidentified man, who is related by marriage to a similarly unidentified member of the ‘Syrian National Movement.’” The Syrian National Movement is an opposition group funded by Qatar that has been trying to remove Assad since 2011. Further, the report was rushed to publication; the source was “interviewed on Jan. 12, 13 and 18 of this year. The report was provided to reporters yesterday, Jan. 20.” This resulted in no thorough examination of the photographs. Further, Murphy reports the document actually indicates 835 individual cases were examined, not all of them were shown to have been killed or tortured, and the 11,000 figure that made headlines was an extrapolation.

Yet, this has been trumpeted in the media as fact. A Washington Post editorial published on January 22 treated the 11,000 killed and tortured by Assad without any doubt. They quote Secretary Kerry saying the report shows Syria conducting “ systematic torture and execution of thousands of prisoners .” The editorial revealed how the peace process could lead to war: “ Mr. Obama probably could force the measures Mr. Brahimi is seeking [i.e. Assad resigning] by presenting Mr. Assad with the choice of accepting them or enduring U.S. airstrikes. ”  It is notable that the Post is putting military strikes on the agenda now – even before the negotiations fail or a peace agreement is violated.

The US media had been pushing for war with Syria during the last run-up to war when Obama decided to send the decision to Congress.  Thanks to opposition across the political spectrum in Congress and among the American people, the war was prevented.  Russia’s intervention which put forward a compromise that ridded the Syrian government of chemical weapons provided a face-saving escape for the Obama administration.

Since then the claims that Sarin gas was used by the Syrian government from Syrian-held territory have been put into doubt. The New York Times, Human Rights Watch and others who favored a U.S. attack had claimed the rockets came from Syrian territory based on a vector analysis of the angle of the rockets.  But, this fell apart when experts concluded the rockets did not have the range to reach the targets.  The NY Times was forced to quietly distance itself from a front page story making these claims.

We are already seeing a media drum beat for war gearing up.  The media is consistent in repeating several lies about the Syrian negotiations, and constantly blaming Assad for refusing to abide by non-existent requirements of the Geneva communiqué. We can expect the hawkish U.S. media to escalate the drumbeat and put forward war propaganda as the failure of the peace negotiations continues.

And Reuters reports that weapons aid to Syria has been “secretly” approved by Congress.  Weapons approved include anti-tank weapons and small arms.  Reuters writes “ The weapons deliveries have been funded by the U.S. Congress, in votes behind closed doors, through the end of government fiscal year 2014, which ends on September 30. . .” How does the Congress have secret votes to approve war-making actions?  According to Reuters “Congress approved funding for weapons deliveries to the Syrian rebels in classified sections of defense appropriations legislation, two sources familiar with the matter said.”

So, on one hand the U.S. claims to be seeking peace and with the other it is fueling war with weapons. In public, the Congress opposed war with Syria, but in secret votes it provides funding for weapons for the Syrian war.

Americans who oppose war better get prepared now.  There has been a long-term agenda to remove the Assad family from power in Syria and the U.S. foreign policy establishment has not given up on that goal, nor have U.S. allies Israel and Saudi Arabia. This seems to be one more time when peace negotiations are a likely prelude to war unless the people of the United States see through these actions and prevent it.

This article was originally published on Truthout .

We discussed these matters in detail with Ajamu Baraka and Alli McCracken of CODEPINK on our radio show, Clearing The FOG, this week.  You can listen here .

Kevin Zeese, JD and Margaret Flowers, MD are participants in PopularResistance.org ; they co-direct  It’s Our Economy  and co-host  Clearing the FOG . Their twitters are  @KBZeese  and  MFlowers8 .

By Countercurrents.org

31 January, 2014

@ Countercurrents.org

Latin American and Caribbean heads of state adopted a landmark agreement pledging to make the region a “zone of peace.”

Leaders from the 33-nation Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) signed the Havana Declaration, promising not to intervene in other countries’ internal affairs and resolve disputes peacefully.

The agreement followed the two-day Celac summit and recognised “the inalienable right of every state to choose its political, economic, social and cultural system.”

It put in writing the need to resolve differences “through dialogue and negotiation or other forms of peaceful settlement established in international law.”

The declaration also reiterated the need for total global nuclear disarmament and highlighted the ongoing importance of the 1967 Tlatelolco Treaty, which established the region as a nuclear-free zone.

And it emphasised the need to work for food security, literacy, education, the development of agriculture and the achievement of universal public health services.

The brainchild of late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, Celac was set up in 2011 to counter the US-dominated Organisation of American States, which expelled Cuba in 1962 in retaliation for its rejection of imperialism.

The Declaration: Original signed by the Heads of State and Governmenent of the Community of Latin American and Caribbeans States

The Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) gathered in Havana, Cuba on January 28 and 29, 2014 at the Second Summit, on behalf of their peoples and faithfully interpreting their hopes and aspirations,

Reaffirming the commitment of member countries with the Purposes and Principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter and International Law, and aware of the fact that prosperity and stability in the region contribute to international peace and security,

Mindful that peace is a supreme asset and a legitimate aspiration of all peoples and that preserving peace is a substantial element of Latin America and Caribbean integration and a principle and common value of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC),

Reaffirming that integration consolidates the vision of a fair International order based on the right to peace and a culture of peace, which excludes the use of force and non-legitimate means of defense, such as weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons in particular,

Highlighting the relevance of the Tlatelolco Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean establishing the first nuclear weapon free zone in a densely populated area, this being a contribution to peace and to regional and international security,

Reiterating the urgent need of General and Complete Nuclear Disarmament, as well as the commitment with the Strategic Agenda of the Organization for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL), adopted by the 33 Member States of the Organization in the General Conference held in Buenos Aires in August, 2013.

Recalling the principles of peace, democracy, development and freedom underlying the actions of countries members of SICA,

Recalling the decision of UNASUR Heads of State of consolidating South America as a Zone of Peace and Cooperation,

Recalling the establishment, in 1986, of the Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South Atlantic,

Recalling also our commitment, agreed in the Declaration of the Summit of Unity of Latin America and the Caribbean, on 23 February 2010, to promote the implementation of our own mechanisms for the for peaceful conflict resolution,

Reiterating our commitment to consolidate Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, in which differences between nations are peacefully settled through dialogue and negotiations or other means, fully consistent with International Law,

Cognizant also of the catastrophic global and long-term humanitarian impact of the use of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and the ongoing discussions on this issue,

Declare:

1. Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace based on respect for the principles and rules of International Law, including the international instruments to which Member States are a party to, the Principles and Purposes of the United Nations Charter;

2. Our permanent commitment to solve disputes through peaceful means with the aim of uprooting forever threat or use of force in our region;

3. The commitment of the States of the region with their strict obligation not to intervene, directly or indirectly, in the internal affairs of any other State and observe the principles of national sovereignty, equal rights and self-determination of peoples;

4. The commitment of the peoples of Latin American and Caribbean to foster cooperation and friendly relations among themselves and with other nations irrespective of differences in their political, economic, and social systems or development levels; to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors;

5. The commitment of the Latin American and Caribbean States to fully respect for the inalienable right of every State to choose its political, economic, social, and cultural system, as an essential conditions to ensure peaceful coexistence among nations;

6. The promotion in the region of a culture of peace based, inter alia, on the principles of the United Nations Declaration on a Culture of Peace;

7. The commitment of the States in the region to guide themselves by this Declaration in their International behavior;

8. The commitment of the States of the region to continue promoting nuclear disarmament as a priority objective and to contribute with general and complete disarmament, to foster the strengthening of confidence among nations;

We urge all Member States of the International Community to fully respect this Declaration in their relations with CELAC Member States.

In witness of the undersigned having duly signed this Proclamation in Havana, on the 29th day of the month of January of 2014, in a copy written in the Spanish, English, French and Portuguese languages.

By Paul Craig Roberts

January 29, 2014

@Information Clearing House –

Last week, I explained how economists and policymakers destroyed our economy for the sake of short-term corporate profits from jobs offshoring and financial deregulation.

That same week Business Week published an article, “Factory Jobs Are Gone. Get Over It,” by Charles Kenny.Kenny expresses the view of establishment economists, such as Brookings Institute economist Justin Wolfers who wants to know “What’s with the political fetish for manufacturing? Are factories really so awesome?”

“Not really,” Kenny says. Citing Eric Fisher of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, Kenny reports that wages rise most rapidly in those states that most quickly abandon manufacturing. Kenny cites Gary Hufbauer, once an academic colleague of mine now at the Peterson Institute, who claims that the 2009 tariffs applied to Chinese tire imports cost US consumers $1 billion in higher prices and 3,731 lost retail jobs. Note the precision of the jobs loss, right down to the last 31.

In support of the argument that Americans are better off without manufacturing jobs, Kenny cites MIT and Harvard academic economists to the effect that there is no evidence that manufacturing tends to cluster, thus disputing the view that there are economies from manufacturers tending to congregate in the same areas where they benefit from an experienced work force and established supply chains.

Perhaps the MIT and Harvard economists did their study after US manufacturing centers became shells of their former selves and Detroit lost 25% of its population, Gary Indiana lost 22% of its population, Flint Michigan lost 18% of its population, Cleveland lost 17% of its population, and St Louis lost 20% of its population. If the economists’ studies were done after manufacturing had departed, they would not find manufacturing concentrated in locations where it formerly flourished.

MIT and Harvard economists might find this an idea too large to comprehend.

Kenny’s answer to the displaced manufacturing workers is–you guessed it–jobs training. He cites MIT economist David Autor who thinks the problem is the federal government only spends $1 on retraining for every $400 that it spends on supporting displaced workers.

These arguments are so absurd as to be mindless. Let’s examine them. What jobs are the displaced manufacturing workers to be trained for? Why, service jobs, of course. Kenny actually thinks that “service industries–hotels, hospitals, media, and accounting–have taken up the slack.” (I don’t know where he gets media and accounting from; scant sign of such jobs are found in the payroll jobs reports.) Moreover, service jobs have certainly not taken up the slack as the rising rate of long-term unemployment and declining labor force participation rate prove.

Nontradable service sector jobs such as hotel maids, hospital orderlies, retail clerks, waitresses and bartenders are low productivity, low value-added jobs that cannot pay incomes comparable to manufacturing jobs. The long term decline in real median family income relates to the movement offshore of manufacturing jobs and tradable professional service jobs, such as software engineering, IT, research and design.

Moreover, domestic service jobs do not produce exportable goods and services. A country without manufactures has little with which to earn foreign exchange in order to pay for its imports of its shoes, clothing, manufactured goods, high-technology products, Apple computers, and increasingly food. Therefore, that country’s trade deficit widens as each year it owes more and more to foreigners.

A country whose best known products are fraudulent and toxic financial instruments and GMO foods that no one wants cannot pay for its imports except by signing over its existing assets. The foreigners buy up US assets with their trade surpluses. Consequently, income from rents, interest, dividends, capital gains, and profits leave US pockets for foreign pockets. It is a safe bet that Hufbauer did not include any of these costs, or maybe even the loss of US tire workers’ wages and tire manufacturers’ profits, when he concluded that trying to save US tire manufacturing jobs cost more than it was worth.

Eric Fisher’s argument that the highest wage growth is found in areas where higher productivity manufacturing jobs are most rapidly replaced with lower productivity domestic service jobs is beyond absurd.

(Possibly Fisher did not say this; I’m taking Kenny’s word for it.) It has always been a foundation of labor economics that workers are paid the value of their contribution to output. Manufacturing employees working with technology embodied in plant and equipment produce more value per man hour than maids changing sheets and bartenders mixing drinks.

In my book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism And Economic Dissolution Of The West (2013), I point out the obvious mistakes in “studies” by Matthew Slaughter, a former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, and Harvard professor Michael Porter.

These academic economists conclude on the basis of extraordinary errors and ignorance of empirical facts, that jobs offshoring is good for Americans. They were able to reach this conclusion despite the absence of any visibility of this good, and they hold to this absurd conclusion despite the inability of a “recovery” (or lack of one) that is 4.5 years old to get off the ground and get employment back up to where it was six years ago. They hold to their “education is the answer” solution despite the growing percentage of university graduates who cannot find employment.

Michael Hudson is certainly correct to call economists purveyors of “junk economics.” Indeed, I wonder if economists even have junk value. But they are well paid by Wall Street and the offshoring corporations.

What the Brookings Institute’s Justin Wolfers needs to ask himself is: what is the redefinition of economic development? For my lifetime the definition of a developed economy is an industrialized economy. It has always been “the industrialized countries” that occupy the status of “developed economies,” contrasted with “undeveloped countries,” “developing countries,” and “emerging economies.” How is an economy developed if it is shedding its industry and manufacturing? This is the reverse of the development process. Without realizing it, Kenny describes the unravelling of the US economy when he describes the decline of US manufacturing from 28 percent of US GDP in 1953 to 12% in 2012. The US now has the work force of a third world country, with the vast bulk of the population employed in lowly paid domestic services.

The US work force no longer looks like the work force of a developed country. It looks like third world India’s work force of three decades ago.

Kenny and junk economists speak of the decline of US manufacturing jobs as if they are not being offshored to countries where labor is cheap but replaced by automation. No doubt there has been automation, and more ways of replacing humans with machines will be found. But if manufacturing jobs are things of the past, why is China’s sudden and rapid rise to economic power accompanied by 100 million manufacturing jobs? Apple computers are not made in China by robots. If robots are making Apple computers, it would be just as cheap to make the computers in the US. The Chinese manufacturing workforce is almost the size of the entire US work force.

US companies employ Americans to market the products that are produced abroad for sale in the US. This is why US corporations employ Americans mainly in service jobs. Foreigners make the goods, and Americans sell them.

Economic development has always been about acquiring the capital, technology, business knowledge, and trained workforce to make valuable things that can be sold at home and abroad. US capital and technology are being located abroad, and the trained domestic workforce is disappearing from disuse and abandonment. The US is falling out of the ranks of the industrialized countries and is on the path to becoming an undeveloped economy.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.

by PATRICK COCKBURN

February 12, 2014

@ Counterpunch

Damascus.

Islamic fundamentalists in Syria have started to destroy archaeological treasures such as Byzantine mosaics and Greek and Roman statues because their portrayal of human beings is contrary to their religious beliefs. The systematic destruction of antiquities may be the worst disaster to ancient monuments since the Taliban in Afghanistan dynamited the giant statues of Buddha at Bamiyan in 2001 for similar ideological reasons.

In mid-January the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis), an al-Qa’ida-type movement controlling much of north-east Syria, blew up and destroyed a sixth-century Byzantine mosaic near the city of Raqqa on the Euphrates. The official head of antiquities for Raqqa province, who has fled to Damascus and does not want his name published, told The Independent: “It happened between 12 and 15 days ago. A Turkish businessman had come to Raqqa to try to buy the mosaic. This alerted them [Isis] to its existence and they came and blew it up. It is completely lost.”

Other sites destroyed by Islamic fundamentalists include the reliefs carved at the Shash Hamdan, a Roman cemetery in Aleppo province. Also in the Aleppo countryside, statues carved out of the sides of a valley at al-Qatora have been deliberately targeted by gunfire and smashed into fragments.

Professor Maamoun Abdulkarim, general director of antiquities and museums at the Ministry of Culture in Damascus, says that extreme Islamic iconoclasm puts many antiquities at risk. An expert on the Roman and early Christian periods in Syria, he says: “I am sure that if the crisis continues in Syria we shall have the destruction of all the crosses from the early Christian world, mosaics with mythological figures and thousands of Greek and Roman statues.”

Of the mosaic at Raqqa, discovered in 2007, he says: “It is really important because it was undamaged and  is from the Byzantine period but employs Roman techniques.”

Syria has far more surviving archaeological sites and ancient monuments than almost any country in the world. These range from the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus with its magnificent eighth-century frescoes to the Bronze Age Ebla in Idlib province in north-west Syria, which flourished in the third and second millennia BC and where 20,000 cuneiform tablets were discovered. In eastern Syria on the upper Euphrates are the remains of the Dura-Europos, a Hellenistic city called “the Pompeii of the Syrian desert” where frescoes were found in an early synagogue. Not far away, close to the border with Iraq, are the remains of Mari, which has a unique example of a third-millennium BC royal palace.

Unfortunately, many of the most famous ancient sites in Syria are now held by the fundamentalist Islamic opposition and are thereby in danger. Professor Abdulkarim says that it is not just Isis but “Jabhat al-Nusra [the official affiliate of al-Qa’ida] and the other fundamentalists who are pretty much the same”.

He emphasises at the same time that he approaches his job of trying to preserve Syria’s heritage during the civil war from a politically neutral point of view. The civil war has inflicted heavy damage, notably in Aleppo, where the minaret of the Great Umayyad Mosque was destroyed along with seven medieval souks, or markets, with over 1,000 traditional shops burnt out.

Homs Old City has suffered serious damage and is still held by the rebels, while the immense Crusader fortress of Krak des Chevaliers has been battered by government air strikes. The great church at St Simeon has been turned into a military training area and artillery range by rebels.

Syria’s museums are generally secure and moveable items have been taken elsewhere for safe-keeping. Museum staff say they saw what happened in Iraq after 2003 and moved quickly. A folk museum at Deir Atieh between Damascus and Homs was taken over, but the rebels were after old pistols and rifles on display that they intended to put to military use.

The most devastating and irreversible losses to Syria’s rich heritage of ancient cities and buildings are the result of looting. Much of this is local people looking for treasure, though in many cases they are obliterating the archaeological record by using bulldozers. Two looters were killed when they used a bulldozer to excavate a cave at Ebla, causing its roof to collapse.

What worries Professor Abdulkarim and his staff is that over the last year the looting has become large scale. He says that there is “a mafia from Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon hiring hundreds of people to strip sites”. Among what are known as the Dead Cities in Idlib province in northern Syria, once prosperous and then mysteriously abandoned 1,000 years ago, there are signs that thieves have brought in antiquities experts to advise them about the best places to dig, going by the orderly nature of the excavations.

Theft of antiquities is particularly bad in the far east of Syria at Mari where an armed gang  numbering 500 has taken over the site. An official report says that the looters have been focusing on “the Royal Palace, the southern gate, the public baths, Temple of Ishtar, the Temple of Dagan and the temple of the Goddess of Spring”.

Even worse is the situation at Dura-Europos where 300 people are excavating. A report by the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums says that efforts by local communities to stop the digging here have failed and heavy machinery is being used. The report says that illegal excavations have “led to the destruction of 80 per cent of the site as perpetrators are digging holes that can reach three metres in depth”.

For some Syrians, often well-armed in war-ravaged, impoverished areas, the looting of antiquities has become a full-time job. In great stretches of the country outside state control there is total disorder with banditry and kidnapping common. Rebel commanders, even if they wanted to, are not going to give priority to protecting ancient monuments.

Professor Abdulkarim complains that he has received little international help in preventing the looting of Syria’s rich heritage. The deliberate targeting by Isis and other jihadist groups of mosaics and statues seen as profane will accelerate the speed of destruction. Antiquities that have survived invasions and wars for 5,000 years may soon be rubble.

PATRICK COCKBURN is the author of  Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq.

Muzaffar: Eric Walberg’s new book From Postmodernism to Postsecularism: Re-emerging Islamic Civilization http://www.claritypress.com/WalbergII.html is a stimulating and informative survey of both Islamic history and reformist thought, culminating in an analysis of the ongoing upheavals in WANA.

The book is an extensive exposition on Islamic Civilization itself. It covers the whole spectrum of dynasties, major episodes and personalities which is why the book should be an important reference for students of the civilization.

You are right, Eric, in arguing that for Islam the goal has always been “to nurture a morally sound community based on the Quran…” (p28). There have been endeavours in that direction in the past—some successes, many failures. In this regard, I am wondering why you did not mention specifically the moral indictment of Muawiyyah by Abu-Dharr Al-Giffari who some would view as the first major critic of the creeping injustices in early Muslim leadership?

Your central point of course is that we are witnessing the genesis of a re-emerging Islamic Civilization. I am not sure. While Judaism has been usurped by Zionism and Christianity has succumbed to secularism as you opine, Muslim societies, it seems to me, more than others, are trapped in the politics of identity.

In their reaction to Western hegemony, on the one hand, and domestic autocracies, on the other, they are articulating notions of state and society which reveal clearly that they have yet to resolve the question of what it is to be a Muslim, what it is to abide by one’s faith, in the 21st century.

The politics of identity which in a sense exposes the similarities and the dissimilarities between Al-Qaeda and Ikhwan-ul-Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood) could well hobble Muslim attempts to create a viable civilization. If I may say this, you may not have given enough attention to this critical aspect of Muslim societies today.

I am more convinced now than ever before that if Muslims are to play a role at the global level in the midst of all the momentous changes taking place today, they should not remain obsessed with the idea of an identity-based civilization characterised by Islamic knowledge, Islamic finance , Islamic attire, and so on. Universal values and principles in Islam, most of which are also at the core of other religious and ethical philosophies, should be presented—and practised—as intrinsic and integral to a new, and yet ancient, global civilization that is “neither of the East nor of the West.”

Walberg: Many thanks for your thoughtful reflections on my book. I appreciate your concerns that the dogmatism of political Islamists can be a negative factor, a stumbling block to re-emerging Islamic civilization.

Your parallels between the identity crises of Judaism-Zionism, Christianity-secularism and Islam with its own identity crisis is arresting. You state, “Muslim societies, it seems to me, more than others, are trapped in the politics of identity.” How true. An excellent topic for a conference!

Re Abu Dharr al-Ghiffari, yes he deserves more prominence today. I do mention him briefly in the context of post-independence Algeria and President Ben Bella:

“The new very secular President Ahmed Ben Bella (r. 1962–1965) tried to co-opt Islam, hammering home Islam’s socialistic message, much like Nasser in Egypt. Muhammad’s companion Abu Dharr was billed as the “father of socialism”, the revolution was the “revolution of the poor against the rich”, but the state’s overall message was secularism. In 1964, protests against an increasingly autocratic Ben Bella led to a military coup by Houari Boumedienne (r. 1965–1979), who continued the secular, state socialist policies of Ben Bella. Again, in 1970, Boumedienne, too, tried to co-opt the Islamists (as Ben Bella did before him, and Sadat was doing at the same time in Egypt), but land reforms provoked Islamist opposition similar to what had occurred in Iran in 1964. The new dictator came full circle to experience the isolation of Ben Bella, as there just wasn’t a secular mass movement supporting socialism imposed by fiat. By the late 1970s, events elsewhere would overtake this secularist-led revolution that had run out of steam.” (p136)

One of my purposes in writing my new book was to try to bridge the Islamic-secular, East-West divide which continues to cripple the popular movement to counter imperialism. The tragedy of Afghanistan and today Syria drives this home.

It is heartening to read a review by an American non-Muslim socialist, William Hathaway, who in “Forging a Socialist-Islamist Alliance” commends From Postmodernism to Postsecularism: Re-emerging Islamic Civilization for helping Westerners “understand our ongoing war on the Muslim world—from Libya to the Philippines, from growing beleaguered communities scattered across North America and Europe to South Africa and Australia—from the perspective of those on the receiving end of America’s violence today. … It is wake-up call to both sides of the anti-imperial equation, pulling together the many threads that can unite us, from Foucault’s “political spirituality,” to the Egyptian revolutionaries’ solidarity with America’s 99%, to the American Muslims’ support for the peace and ecology movements.”

By Al Manar

February 03, 2014

The Israeli occupation army established a field hospital on the Golan Heights to treat the Syrian injured militants who belong to the terrorist groups in Syria.

These groups have treated over 700 of their injured militants in that hospitals, according to Israeli media outlets.

The Zionist army prevented the media outlets from broadcasting the activities of the field hospital yet allowed the Second Channel to prepare a report about it in order to promote the “humane Israeli step towards the Syrians.”

The report mainly focused on the Israeli intentions behind treating the militants, clarifying that the Israelis aim was to strengthen and deepen their relations with the terrorist groups in Syria in order to keep the calm and stability which now prevails between these groups and Israel at Palestinian-Syrian borders.

The report also included interviews with a number of the militants who stated that “Zionism is not macabre as it has been portrayed by the Syrian regime.”

“The regime used to force us to believe that our enemy is all the surrounding world, yet after the beginning of the revolution, we recognized our real friends and  real enemies.”

 

 

Rt.com

February 01, 2014

Mass starvation, disease and hopelessness abound in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus. Although a UN agency has managed to make its first food aid delivery to the rebel-held camp in weeks, many people are on the brink of starvation.

The camp is located on the edge of the territory the Syrian government considers under its control, in a southern Damascus neighborhood, just five miles away from the capital’s center.

Rebel forces have been holding the camp for more than a year and the army started a siege in June. Nothing and no one comes in or out, as 18,000 people continue to be kept in a state of limbo.

Some of the Palestinian refugees living in the camp have been there for decades, victims of the Palestinian people’s conflict with Israel. Now they are hoping desperately for a resolution to this conflict, in Syria.

RT made it as close as possible to the edge of the camp under government supervision, to observe as the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), in league with Syrian and Palestinian authorities, delivers the much-needed food aid.

There were cases when people were let out to come back with supplies; but only women and elderly men. They knew they could not leave because their families continue to be trapped inside.

“It’s as bad as it can get, I’m desperately hungry…we have nothing to eat,” one woman told RT’s Maria Finoshina. There is no free passage deeper into the camp, as snipers are on the ready to shoot anyone who ventures in.

The UNRWA hopes it will be able to continue food deliveries. On Thursday, it managed its first delivery in two weeks, consisting of 1,000 food parcels – the biggest yet.

“The distribution is ongoing. This is the first aid to enter the camp since January 21, when UNRWA distributed 138 food parcels,” UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness said.

Another convoy entered the camp Friday.

Speaking to Reuters, Gunness said that they hope “to continue and increase substantially the amount of aid being delivered… with each passing hour, their need increases.”

Even in this climate of desperation, versions as to what exactly is going on differ massively. So much so that Reuters claims that the UNRWA has knowledged that one of its latest convoys was fired upon by government forces determined to starve the Palestinian refugees. The same tune is being sung by opposition activists, claiming that the government is using hunger as a weapon.

Yarmouk families, meanwhile, continue to perish – and seem to be rather blaming the rebel forces.

“There is no food, nothing to eat or drink, the militants are inside,” one resident told RT. “I swear by the soul of the Prophet we want this to stop. What is our guilt? We want to go out!”

“We cannot leave – the militants prevent us,” another resident said.

A total of 85 people in the camp have died since June, and many fear the number will continue to rise if the aid situation is not restored and supplies do not start running normally.

The stalemate has been going on for months now, with no end in sight – despite the Palestinian authorities stepping in.

Palestinian ambassador to Syria Mahmoud Al Khaldi told RT that the authorities “are negotiating with the militants to convince them to go out. We tell them that this is of no importance and these are just people – they’ll not gain any strategic goal. We had three rounds of talks, but we failed. And I don’t think they’ll accept this – it’s clear.”

Sieges have been a tried and tested rebel tactic for three years now. Just outside Damascus, the town of Adra has been held since mid-December 2013, with 5,000 of those who did not flee in time held prisoner in their own homes and used as human shields, just in case the government forces decide to storm the town by force. They are now encamped just outside the town – but cannot storm it for fear of causing civilian deaths.

Anwar Raja, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, sees the rebels’ tactics as an obvious move to insinuate the government’s complicity in the suffering of its own people.

“The Nusra Front and the Takfiri groups are trading on the hunger of the people. They want to say to the world: ‘See: the people are hungry.’ It’s like the residents are kidnapped inside their own camp, inside their own home, and the militants are negotiating over them, negotiating their souls,” Raja said.

“They claim that the Syrian state is besieging Palestinians in the camp. They want to invert the image and the truth, saying that the Syrian government is part of the killing force, as they don’t do anything to protect the people. They want people to hate the regime.”

According to Raja, an evacuation plan has been worked out with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to evacuate “hundreds” of Yarmouk residents. The evacuees were transported to several hospitals, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday, but the Red Crescent could not be reached to confirm the details of the operation.

Asian Correspondent

By Mark Inkey

Rohingya MP Shwe Maung has been interrogated and threatened with a defamation lawsuit after he accused local police of involvement in the burning of Rohingya homes in Du Char Yar Tan village in late January, the latest effort by the Burmese government to silence accusations of wrongdoing in the country’s ongoing sectarian conflict.

Burma’s President Thein Sein wrote to the speaker of the House, Shwe Mann, saying he said that he wanted to interrogate Shwe Maung about an interview given to Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) in which he said that he believed police were involved in the burning of 16 Rohingya homes on January 28.

Du Char Yar Tan (also spelt Duchira Dan) is a Rohingya village in southern Maungdaw Township, Rakhine State.

The incident in late January follows an alleged massacre in the village earlier in the month in which at least 40 Rohingya are believed to have been killed. There were also reports of rapes.According to the UN, which condemned the incident and called for an investigation, at least 48 people were killed.

The Arakan Project said many people were stabbed rather than shot, suggesting they were not killed by the security forces who would have used guns, but killed by the mob as the security forces looked on.

Then, on January 28, a fire tore through the village and destroyed between 16 and 22 homes, according to DVB.

In his controversial interview, Shwe Maung said that on January 27 the Rohingya men who were guarding their neighborhood were replaced by policemen. That evening, according to Shwe Maun, at around 8.45pm fire broke out in one house and quickly spread as the police looked on.

(MORE: Another Rohingya massacre, another media problem for Burma)

He said: “It happened after the police took over guard duty of that part of the village.”

“Also, I have solid information from locals in nearby villages who phoned me and said they saw the police setting the houses on fire,” he added.

He also claimed that the police prevented villagers from trying to put out the fires.

Shwe Maung is a Rohingya MP in Burma’s Lower House representing Buthidaung constituency, which is next to Maungdaw Township where the fire broke out.

He denied all the charges against him.

He said: “I never did anything to defame the State and Myanmar Police Force. What I do is for the good of my nation and people according to the Constitution and Pyithu Hlutraw Law. I always emphasize tability, peaceful existence, development, rule of law, justice and equal rights.”

The government appears intent on shutting down any reporting or discussion of the events in Du Char Yar Tan.

In January it accused AP (Associated Press), which originally broke the story of the murders, of false reporting.

Chief Minister of Rakhine State, Hla Maung Tin, also talked of “false news published and aired by foreign media that children and women were killed in the violence” on the Ministry of Information website.

The Burmese government also reacted angrily when UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called for an investigation into the deaths.

Ye Htut, spokesman for the office of President Thein Sein, told The Irrawaddy: “It was sad to see a statement issued by the UN, not using information from their local office staff, but quoting unreliable information and issuing the statement. These accusations are unacceptable.”

The US and British embassies have also called for independent investigations into the killings.

Ms. Wahyuningrum (Yuyun) I E-mail: wahyuningrum@gmail.com

By Nile Bowie

3 February, 2014

General elections are widely seen as the answer to Thailand’s crippling political impasse, though Yingluck Shinawatra’s embattled government may be removed through either judicial or extra-legal means regardless of her performance at the polls.

Protestors calling for the ouster of Thailand’s caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra have disrupted the February 2 polls by obstructing traffic and blocking access to voting sites, forcing authorities to postpone further voting until a later date is decided upon. Thailand has been marred by political upheaval since November, and the country’s two rival protest movements accuse each other of launching anonymous attacks on one another, usually by targeted shootings or by the use of small explosives, leaving several dead. The consensus of independent analysts and others who have monitored the attacks suggest that they were mostly launched by government supporters, who have used insurgent tactics in the past to support the Shinawatra political clan. Thai political movements have been characterized in recent times by color affiliations. Protestors wearing yellow shirts represent the faction aligned to the all-powerful Thai monarchy and the royal establishment that has traditionally wielded tremendous social, political and economic power over the country.

 

Yellow shirt demonstrators typically come from the established middle class, and in the present scenario are aligned with the People’s Democratic Reform Council (PDRC) protest group. Protest leader and former Democrat Party secretary-general Suthep Thaugsuban has mobilized massive numbers to clog Bangkok’s streets and occupy government ministries in a bid to force Yingluck’s resignation and purge her family’s influence from Thai politics. Protestors wearing red shirts represent supporters of Yingluck Shinawatra and her brother and former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a 2006 military coup. Thaksin, a billionaire businessman and telecommunications tycoon, lives in exile in Dubai to avoid facing criminal charges and arrest in Thailand for the deep-rooted corruption that occurred during his tenure as prime minister. Supporters of Thaksin are aligned with the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) protest group and typically come from Thailand’s rural north and northeast, regions that have benefited most from populist policies and transformative medical programs, culminating in steadfast support for Thaksin-backed political parties that have won every election since 2001.

Rule by remote control

Thaksin’s tenure as prime minister saw business interests and wealthy politicians vie for control over commercial interests as they asserted themselves against the military hierarchy, who are regarded as defenders of the monarchy. Though the military were more likely motivated to move against his government in 2006 because Thaksin was promoting his loyalists and working to reduce the military’s political and economic muscle, his style of leadership can be likened to running Thailand as a family-business, making him one of Asia’s richest men in the process. Thaksin’s family and political confidants attempted to dominate all sectors of the economy and state, and ruled as if they were above the law. While it’s true that Thaksin-backed parties are the only political force in recent times to uplift the rural underclass and give them some measure of political representation, electoral benefits were the clear motivating factor as these policies ensured the continued perpetuation of Thaksin’s family-rule through the ballot box. Red shirt supporters of Thaksin generally acknowledge his clear vested interests, but feel that they at least benefited through social policies of virtually free healthcare, attractive student-loan schemes, and land redistribution.

 

Thaksin arguably remains the de-facto prime minister despite being a convicted fugitive in exile from Thailand since 2008. Officials from Yingluck Shinawatra’s ruling Pheu Thai Party have conceded to foreign media that Thaksin formulates the party’s policies and makes most of the important political decisions by constantly keeping in contact with the government in Bangkok using Skype and various instant messenger services. The current wave of protests erupted in November, when Yingluck pushed for a blanketing amnesty bill to pardon anyone facing almost any charge arising from period of political crisis from 2004 to 2010, allowing Thaksin to return to Thailand while whitewashing his criminal corruption conviction and other pending cases against his family members and political allies. The bill was met with mass outrage from anti-government protestors and opposition supporters, reflecting how Thaksin’s return from exile is still deemed as non-negotiable by royalists and traditionalists, even considering Yingluck’s deference to royal authority and her notable non-intervention in military affairs.

The Middle Way versus Thaksin’s way

Personal and social relations in Thailand are overwhelmingly dominated by Theravada Buddhism, and by extension, notions of Buddhist philosophy have shaped political norms. The concept of the Middle Way calls on one to live moderately between the extremes of excessive indulgence and abstinence or self-abasement, which cultural analysts say has contributed to the cycle of moderately corrupt traditional elites who have come and gone without clinging to their authority or excessively enriching themselves since the end of absolute monarchy in the 1930s. Thaksin Shinawatra is so vehemently rejected by large sections of society because his rule has violated the norms that Thais have come to expect from their political leaders, primarily because of his attempts to cling to power and continually dominate the state and the economy despite his fugitive status, thereby undermining the position of the military, and by extension, the monarchy. For this reason, the suspension of democratic formalities to uproot Thaksin’s faction is more-or-less politically acceptable to a large section of society. Thaksin’s political clan has attempted to downplay beliefs that he is a perceived enemy of the king, who wields enormous influence over Thai society, acting as its moral backbone and a politically neutral (but peerlessly powerful) leader.

Followers of the PDRC and its leader Suthep Thaugsuban seek nothing less than purging Thaksin’s family from political power by forcing Yingluck into making an unconditional resignation, threatening even to detain her and fellow cabinet members if she does not quit. The opposition Democrat party – which has not won an election in more than two decades – backs the PDRC, both of whom boycotted the February 2 polls and endorsed the protest movements that disrupted it. The PDRC wants an unelected ‘people’s council’ to replace the democratically-elected government for a period of up to two years, allowing it to usher in reforms designed to permanently nullify Thaksin’s power and influence, perhaps by nationalizing Thaksin-owned businesses to send a message to Yingluck’s political allies. Suthep’s movement is extremely well funded by the anti-Thaksin business and political elite, and backed by powerful forces in Thai society that want to restore the traditional order under the guise of vague democratic reforms. Suthep also has a legacy of corruption that forced him to surrender his seat in parliament and is implicated in murder charges for a brutal crackdown on protesters in 2010 during his stint at deputy PM in a non-elected, military-supported government led by the Democrat Party. Suthep has a warrant out for his arrest after being charged with insurrection when his protesters occupied government offices, but the police have made no attempt to arrest him, an indication that powerful forces support his movement.

Are Yingluck’s days numbered?

From a macro perspective, the political stalemate in Thailand is a struggle between two business enterprises vying for political control over the lucrative national economy for personal gain, and the government side is quickly running out of options. Thaksin and Yingluck sought to counter the protest movement against their rule by opting for an immediate electoral solution, despite warnings from the country’s Electoral Commission not to hold the polls over security concerns. As expected by many analysts, the February 2 elections have ended in disarray, and even if the government can organize additional rounds of voting, establishment-aligned agencies and courts will likely declare the results null and void, fueling momentum for the PDRC and Democrat Party to force Yingluck’s resignation. In addition to facing mass opposition protests, Yingluck’s government is marred by a scandal linked to its populist rice-price support scheme, resulting in massive financial losses that prevent the government from compensating over one million rice farmers for their yields. The scandal has created resentment against the government in Thaksin’s traditional strongholds, and may very plausibly lead to Yingluck’s impeachment and the dissolution of her Pheu Thai Party.

The PDRC ‘people’s council’ would face many obstacles if Yingluck was toppled by a military coup that would prevent the new government from being internationally recknogized, so her eventual removal will come through either judicial or extra-legal means and the PDRC would likely usurp authority in the ensuing power vacuum, legitimized by mass people power. The biggest immediate concern facing Thailand is not the suspension of democratic formalities, but the backlash from Thaksin supporters, some factions of which have vowed to respond with violence to any attempt to remove Yingluck; any drawn-out insurgency campaign would threaten the integrity of the Thai state.

After years of political upheavals and attempts to cooperate, the two rival political factions appear unwilling to compromise and the Thaksin sibling pair is short on survival options. The aristocratic opposition has traditionally been unconcerned with rural uplift and the kind of social programs that Thaksin-backed parties brought to the table, and the if the royalist-establishment cannot find an answer to the rural question by introducing policies that empower the pro-Thaksin electorate, deeper class divisions may become a defining obstacle to stability in Thailand.

Nile Bowie is a political analyst and photographer currently residing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He can be reached on Twitter or at nilebowie@gmail.com