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Top Three Media Lies About The Syrian Peace Talks

By Shamus Cooke

25 January, 2014

Countercurrents.org

The media spin machine is again kicking into high gear, perfectly timed to accompany the “Geneva II” Syria peace talks. The lies are necessary to give the Obama administration an upper hand in the peace negotiations, which are not being used to pursue peace, but instead, to accomplish the Obama administration’s longstanding goal of Syrian regime change. Here are the top three Western media lies about the Syrian peace talks.

 1) The removal of Syrian Bashar al-Assad was an agreed upon “precondition” for the Geneva II peace talks.

This lie has been repeated over and over by government and media alike. It has zero basis. The Obama administration claims that this precondition was expressed in the “Geneva communiqué,” which was a road map agreement meant to guide the Geneva II peace talks, agreed upon by some of the major parties of the negotiations, including Russia.

The communiqué does indeed call for a negotiated political transition, but nowhere does it state that such a transition cannot include President Assad. Such a condition would have been outright rejected by Russia.

In fact, the Geneva communiqué includes this crucial statement:

“[a transition government] could include members of the present [Syrian] government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent.” Nowhere does it specifically mention or imply President Assad.

The Los Angeles Times recently stepped out of line and exposed this lie:

“[John] Kerry regularly cites the “Geneva communiqué,” a kind of peace road map hammered out in June 2012 during a United Nations-organized summit. But the document does not explicitly call for Assad’s ouster.”

The Obama administration’s constant repeating of this lie only causes divisions in the peace process, undermining the chances that the peace process will succeed.

The Obama administration is especially adamant about this “Assad must go” pre-condition because it knows that, if free and fair elections were held tomorrow in Syria — as part of a UN-backed “transitional process”— President Assad would likely win. This is the result of the ethnic and religious minorities in Syria that have rallied behind President Assad, since they’ve witnessed the consistent religious sectarian atrocities committed by the U.S.-backed rebels (which the U.S. media loves to ignore or minimize).

Assad would probably win an election since there is also simply no one else on the government side or the opposition side with his name recognition or popularity. The U.S.-backed rebel war in Syria has vastly strengthened Assad’s political hand, but you wouldn’t know it from the Western, anti-Syrian media.

Demanding Assad’s ouster also does not reflect the situation on the ground. The U.S.-backed rebels have never controlled more than one Syrian city, namely Raqaa, which is dominated by al-Qaeda and is governed under a Taliban-style interpretation of Islamic law, which includes a strict ban on music. Thus, the rebels don’t have the ground power that would even enable them to make the demand that “Assad must go”.

 2) The U.S.-backed rebel militias are “moderate” Islamic groups.

The fact that this lie can even be uttered publicly without encountering ridicule is a major success of Western media propaganda. The media narrative paints the U.S.-backed “good” rebels fighting both the Syrian government and the “bad” al-Qaeda linked rebels.

But the “good” rebels in the U.S.-backed Islamic Front share the same vision for Syria’s future as the al-Qaeda rebels: a fundamentalist version of Sharia law, where women live in virtual house arrest and where religious minorities are second class citizens (non-Sunni Muslims would simply be butchered, as they are on a regular basis in Syria, which is again minimized or ignored in the Western media.)

The “moderate rebel” lie was further exposed recently when a top leader in the most powerful militia, Ahrar al Sham, within the Islamic Front declared Ahrar al Sham to be the “real” representative of al-Qaeda in Syria, as opposed to the rival al-Qaeda faction that the Islamic Front had recently begun fighting.

Ahrar al Sham has long been known to be an al-Qaeda type Islamist extremist group; the Western media simply chose to ignore it. But when it was recently made official, the U.S. media chose to continue its ignoring stance, since actually reporting on it would destroy their “moderate rebel” lie. The Western media also continues to ignore the fact that the “moderate” U.S.-backed Islamic Front issued a joint statement that aligned itself to the extremist views of Ahrar al Sham, the “real” al-Qaeda.

 3) New Evidence of Syrian government “industrial scale” torture.

The Western media recently blasted the “breaking news” of brand new evidence showing massive “NAZI-like” torture and murder by the Syrian government, released at the beginning of the Syrian peace talks. This may or may not be true, but the lie here is that the Western media promoted the “evidence” as being unquestionably true, when the story doesn’t reach first base when it comes to evidence-based journalism.

All we really know is that there are hundreds of pictures of dead people that a “trusted source” says were killed by the Syrian government. The trusted source was designated as such by pro-Western intellectuals, who have earned professional “credibility” by helping convict war criminals in the International Criminal Court [ICC]. But as author Diane Johnstone pointed out in her excellent book “Fools Crusade,” about the war against Yugoslavia — as well as in other articles — the ICC has long been used by western powers as a tool to create a pretext for war, or a tool to justify a war after the fact.

The evidence of the “NAZI-like” atrocities was written in a study paid for by the government of Qatar, which has long funneled cash, guns, and Jihadis to Syria in aid of the anti-government rebels.

Again, we don’t know if the story is true or not. But such an important investigation should be conducted by the UN or another more objective institution. The same biased dynamic occurred in relation to the infamous chemical weapons attack, where no real evidence was provided, though an unending string of “experts” were quoted in the Western media, testifying to the guilt of the Syrian Government. But when Pulitzer prizewinning journalist Seymour Hirsch reported that the Obama administration lied about the rebels not having the capacity to perform such an attack, the Western media simply ignored the legend of journalism. The wrench in the propaganda machine was simply dislodged.

How do these lies become such permanent fixtures in the Western media? An excellent article in the Guardian newspaper recently discussed in depth the principal sources the Western media has used to understand the Syrian conflict.

The article exposed the incredible bias of some of the most important Western media sources on Syria, which is why they were handpicked in the first place to be “expert” sources: they had political agendas that were aligned with the U.S. government’s foreign policy decisions. The other side of the conflict was completely ignored, except when it was targeted for ridicule. Thus, Americans and Europeans have a completely one-sided, if not fantasy-based perspective of what is happening in Syria. This has been systematic since the beginning of the conflict, as happened with the Yugoslav, Afghan, Iraq, and Libya wars.

The result of this media-led ignorance could result in yet more unnecessary deaths in a country that now has millions of refugees and over a 100,000 dead. Obama seems like he intends to exploit these peace talks with the intention of blaming the Syrian government for their failure. Having failed to defeat Assad on the battlefield in a proxy war, the Obama administration is trying to win the propaganda war. And once peace talks have failed, talk of war will resume, since “all other options have failed.”

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com

Racism alive in India: Story of Kim Barrington Narisetti, an African-American professional

By Kim Barrington Narisetti

January 28, 2014

@ http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

 

My 12-year-old daughter gets exasperated easily. Maybe it’s because she’s 12. She gets even more exasperated because she says I seem to have a saying for everything: Patience is a virtue. You can catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.

Never judge a book by its cover. When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me. The last two seem to be the most relevant as they apply to racism and racist acts in India. It saddened me to hear about the recent attacks on Ugandan women in Delhi.

As a darkskinned African-American woman who lived in New Delhi for nearly four years, the stories quickly brought back memories of my daily experiences and the assumptions that were made about me and how I was treated. I constantly felt I was on display. I was stared at in restaurants, elevators and even in my car on the street.

Random people would come up to me when I was shopping at Khan Market (usually men) to let me know that they knew someone from Uganda, Nigeria, or the Congo. My response would be: That’s nice. I’m American. The most disturbing incident happened when my husband, Raju, and I were walking back home from a restaurant down the block from our house in New Friends Colony.

A young boy of about 8 was riding on the back of his bike with his father. As they passed us, he hurled a huge rock the size of a fist at me. It landed with a thud on my sunglasses and my head snapped back. If I weren’t wearing huge aviator sunglasses, I likely would have lost my eye. My chivalrous husband chased down the bike, pulled the boy off and gave him and his father a tongue lashing in Hindi and made him apologise.

The boy conceded that he threw the rock because he thought I was African. Therefore, his rock-throwing would certainly have been justified. Daily, I would have my cook pack up in foil any leftover breakfast, whether it were omelettes, idlis, crepes or just bread and butter. I would hand it out to the kids begging for food on the street on the way to my children’s school. When I rolled down the tinted window, the same kids who were begging for something to eat seconds earlier, would then proceed to laugh and point at me.

I easily could have gotten angry and refused to continue to do what I did or cower and have my driver do it instead, but I didn’t. That’s not the kind of person I am. They made assumptions about me and there was really nothing I could do about it. But the racist acts toward me also came at the hands of people who were obviously well educated, well-traveled and should know, well, better.

At the Oberoi Hotel in Rajasthan where we stayed when my family came to visit from Maryland, a boy started jumping up and down like a monkey and pointing in our direction as we were relaxing on the sofas in the lobby. His parents laughed. They stopped laughing when I went over to them and asked them what was so funny.

 

Surely they and their son had seen pictures of people who looked like me. Obama was my president; Will Smith was the biggest movie star in the world at the time (my apologies to Shah Rukh Khan); and “That’s so Raven” was one of the top kids’ shows on Disney in India.

Coming back to Delhi from the US after summer vacation, we were held up at customs by an official who turned my daughters’ OCI cards and my PIO card over and over and over again. The questions came fast and furious: How did we get it? How long have I been married? Where exactly in Hyderabad is my husband from. He stopped short of asking what could have compelled a Hyderabadi boy with a wheatish complexion to marry an African-American.

I drew the line when one of the men in the small crowd that had gathered proceeded to touch my youngest daughter’s hair and stroke the arm of my eldest. Did he think the colour would rub off ? Having visited India for 13 years as a tourist to meet my husband’s family and friends, before living in Delhi for the four years, I realise a lot of the behavior toward me and people who look like me stems from the infatuation that Indians have with light skin. Unless I told people I was American, the assumption was that I was African. But that is really neither here nor there.

Dark skin has a lot of negative connotations attached to it whether you’re Indian or of African descent, hence the bustling skin lightening market. I could only hope that attacks such as these don’t continue to happen. We recently celebrated Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday in America on January 20. He hoped that one day we would live in a nation where people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.

 

(Kim Barrington Narisetti is publisher of Urban Crayon Press. She also held editing positions at The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet.com; Advertising Age and The Source magazine.)

Israeli excavations in Silwan demolish Islamic antiquities

22 January, 2014

www.maannews.net/

 

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) – Israeli excavations at the entrance to Wadi Hilweh in the Silwan neighborhood are destroying deep-rooted Islamic antiquities from the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphate eras, says a Palestinian Jerusalem-based group.

The Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage highlighted in a statement that previous excavations adjacent to the area had demolished an Islamic cemetery from the Abbasid era.

“The Israeli occupation has started new excavations carried out by the so-called Israel Antiquities Authority and funded by Gilad Organization which supports settlements.

“The excavations are on Palestinian lands the Israeli occupation confiscated and has been used as a parking lot for visitors of the settlement outpost called the City of David,” the statement said.

Israeli archaeologists from the Emek Shaveh organization confirmed that there were Islamic antiquities in the area being excavated, according to the statement.

The excavations, according to the foundation, lay the grounds to construction of a giant 8-floor Jewish center to be called the Biblical Temple. It will serve as a main entrance to the tunnel network which Israel has excavated under Silwan and under the Western Wall of the al-Aqsa compound, it says.

 

USA vs. China In South Sudan

By Thomas C. Mountain

22 January, 2014
Countercurrents.org

If one asks the question “who benefits from the South Sudanese civil war?” the answer is clear. The USA is presently the ONLY beneficiary
of the ongoing horrors in South Sudan for this latest round of conflict has once again shut down the Chinese run oil fields in the
country.

The USA has determined that its in its “national interests” to deprive China of access to Africa’s oil fields and has succeeded in its goal
of again shutting down Chinese oil production in Sudan, the only majority Chinese owned oil field in Africa.

What other evidence links the USA to the South Sudanese civil war? Thanks to Wikileaks we know that the USA via the CIA has been paying
the salaries of the South Sudanese Army (SPLA) since 2009. In other words, both the soldiers (“rebels”) supporting Riek Machar and the
soldier supporting President Salva Kiir are being paid by the USA, paid to kill each other? Don’t take my word for it, go check Wikileaks.

Another question NOT being asked by the international media is how is Riek Machar funding his army? Where is he getting the funds to pay for
his soldiers ammunition, the fuel to run their trucks and equipment, to pay for their food? Where is this money coming from in a country
complete destroyed by the ongoing fighting? If its coming from funds stolen by Riek Machar while he was Vice President of South Sudan,
where are the funds deposited and how is he accessing them?

The USA prefers proxies to do its dirty work so as to keep its self insulated from charges of foreign interference and to keep its “hands
clean” so to speak. The fact that “rebels” supporting Riek Machar have been receiving weapons from Ethiopia is a matter of public record with
reports from the past year exposing what is just the tip of the iceberg in the matter.

What is Ethiopia’s interest in this, isn’t the Ethiopian regime a “neutral party” hosting “peace talks”?

The fact that Ethiopia has some 10,000 soldiers/peacekeepers on the Sudan/South Sudanese border this past year including the oil fields is
another matter being ignored by the media. Again, thanks to Wikileaks, we know that Ethiopia has an ongoing fuel crisis and spends up to 75%
of its foreign currency earnings on fuel imports. The Sudanese oil fields are the only immediately available supply for Ethiopia’s
problem and with Brazil promising to build a $1 billion railway from the South Sudanese border to Addis Ababa this would be the quickest
solution to Ethiopia’s major headache.

I for one am really, really sick of Africans being portrayed as tribalistic animals murdering each other in never ending slaughters
when the only real beneficiary of such are foreign powers, mainly the USA and its western vassals. If one does just a little research into
these holocausts one begins to see who really benefits and when it comes to the civil war in South Sudan the only party presently
benefiting from these crimes is the USA.

How this will play out will be an omen of things to come for the USA and China are certain to be at odds in the future when it comes to
exploiting Africa’s oil fields which today supply half of the USA’s oil imports.

Thomas C. Mountain is a life long revolutionary activist, educator and cultural historian, living and writing from Eritrea since 2006.

People Pressure Is Making Fast Tracking The TPP Politically Toxic

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

22 January, 2014

Countercurrents.org

The White House is calling January “TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) Month” and has made it their task to pass Fast Track. President Obama needs Fast Track to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). When Congress returned this month, a bill was quickly introduced after delays of more than a year.

The lies begin with title of the bill: “The Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities Act of 2014.” Bi-partisan?  In the House there was only one sponsor, Republican David Camp (MI).  The Republicans demanded the Democrats add a sponsor before it was introduced, but due to public pressure, they could not find one.

The only Democrat on the bill in the Senate is Max Baucus (MT) — the senator who gave us the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and who is leaving the senate to become Ambassador to China.  So, the bill is only bi-partisan until he heads off to his new job.

Baucus likes to informally call the bill “The Job Creating Bipartisan Trade Priorities Act,” but that just adds another lie since trade agreements consistently lose jobs, expand the wealth divide and increase trade deficits.

TPP Loses Momentum

After four years of secret negotiations with more than 600 corporate advisers, the once seemingly invincible largest trade bill in history, covering 40% of the world’s economy , looks very much like it can be defeated.

Why is the TPP looking like it can be stopped?  One reason is its secrecy.

Leaks are sinking the TPP like the Titanic on its way to the bottom of the ocean. Ron Kirk, the former US Trade Rep said they were keeping it secret because the more people knew, the less they would like the TPP and it would become so unpopular it could never become law.

Each leak has proven him right.

This week, Wikileaks published the Environmental Chapter.  The bottom line – there is no enforcement to protect the environment. The TPP is worse than President George W. Bush’s trade deals.  Mainstream environmental groups are saying the TPP is unacceptable.

Similarly, the leak of the Intellectual Property Chapter revealed that it created a path to patent everything imaginable, including plants and animals, to turn everything into a commodity for profit. The Obama administration was pushing it way beyond normal intellectual property law in order to increase profits for everything from pharmaceuticals to text books.

The refrain is always the same: profits come first.  The necessities of the people and protection of the planet come last.

Backlash in Congress to Fast Track

Baucus announced last March that he would deliver Fast Track by June. Pressure delayed it so that now the bill is being introduced in the beginning of an election year. Election years are a terrible time to pass anything controversial.

The TPP is becoming politically toxic. Over the last year there has been a steady stream of emails and phone calls to Congress. Members have faced constituent meetings and protests where TPP is being raised. Some examples of protests: Los Angeles, Seattle,Washington, DC, Salt Lake City,Minneapolis, US Trade Rep Office, Vancouver,  Leesburg, New York City . . . we could go on. Americans have sent a clear message to members of Congress that they better not be associated with the TPP in an election year.

When Fast Track was introduced there was a backlash, according to public reports, of angry Democrats. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) told Huffington Post: “I’m a little disappointed that something’s dropped that was never discussed with Democrats in the House. As I understand it, it wasn’t actually discussed with Democrats in the Senate.”

Five members of the Senate Finance Committee told US Trade Representative Mike Froman they will not support the Baucus Fast Track bill because Congress needs to be involved throughout the process not just in an up or down vote after it is completed.

During a hearing on Fast Track on Thursday protesters were there expressing their displeasure.

Baucus says he will not be holding a mark-up of the bill because of the divisions on the Finance Committee. Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) who will be taking Baucus’ place told Politico there was “broad frustration” with the lack of transparency. . Majority Leader Reid has put fast track on a slow track in the senate saying he does not plan to bring it to the Senate Floor, saying there was too much controversy around it.

As bad as the Senate sounds for the administration, the House is even worse. Opposition has been building in recent months with Democrats and Republicans writing President Obama opposing Fast Track.

They could not find a Democratic co-sponsor and now Politico reports that Speaker Boehner says he will not bring the bill to the floor for a vote unless 50 Democrats support it.

State of the Union: Last Stand for Fast Track of TPP?

The president’s TPA month is off to a bad start, so he has to make a big pitch in his upcoming State of the Union on January 28.  If he doesn’t, it is a sign he has given up and is distancing himself from defeat. He’s not only going to have to persuade almost every Republican to support him (that would be a first for his presidency), he’s going to have to convince every Democrat who has not taken a position, and change the minds of many who have already publicly said they oppose Fast Track.

The problem is Members of Congress know that if they get on the wrong side of corporate trade agreements, it will hurt them politically. The public is angry about this job-killing trade deal, even Minority Leader Pelosi has had her events interrupted by TPP protesters. In fact, an event in Los Angeles with President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had hundreds of TPP protesters. The social movement against corporate trade is coming across loud and clear leading top House Dems to describe it as “dead on arrival” if it does not protect labor and the environment. We know from the Environment Chapter, it does not protect the environment.  Major unions oppose the TPP because it is evident, like all corporate trade, it will be a bad deal for labor since a major goal is lower wages.

The views of many in Congress were summarized in a statement by Democratic Reps. George Miller (CA), Louise Slaughter (NY) and Rosa DeLauro (CT): “Our constituents did not send us to Washington to ship their jobs overseas, and Congress will not be a rubber stamp for another flawed trade deal that will hang the middle class out to dry.”

Members of Congress have seen the research that shows 90% of Americans will see their income go down from the TPP while the wealthiest get wealthier. Why would any Member of Congress want to sign on to something like that – especially in an election year?

Congress should oppose Fast Track because it is an Obama power grab. Under the Baucus-Camp bill the Congress will have 90 days to review the agreement. The House will have 60 days and the Senate will have an additional 30 days. The count begins when the White House decides the negotiations have been completed.

Under the Baucus-Camp Fast Track the president is also able to draft extensive implementing legislation to bring US law into compliance with the agreement. It is up to the president to decide what changes in laws or new laws are needed to comply with the TPP. Congress is not able to mark-up or amend the language of these bills.  And, these can be very significant laws.  For example, provisions like “Buy American” or “Buy Local” can be repealed as a restraint on trade. In all of these cases under Fast Track the president becomes the Congress and drafts legislation, totally destroying the checks and balances of the three branches of government.

As some anti-TPP activists in Los Angeles showed in a great street theater action in front of the offices of Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Fast Track makes Congress unnecessary. They brought the “TPP movers” to his office and outsourced him.  It is important for activists to know what is in Fast Track because the US Trade Representative has been doing its best to mislead the public.

Time to Finish the Job, Make Fast Track for the TPP Politically Toxic

The movement against the TPP has come a long way in the last year from challenging a trade agreement that no one knew about and looked like it could not be stopped; to a trade agreement widely known about in activist circles and which is becoming too toxic for elected officials to be associated with in an election year.

The reason we have come this far is because the TPP affects so many aspects of every person’s lives – food, the environment, workplaces, the Internet, banking and finance, job availability, health care, energy, the list goes on and on.  As people learn about the TPP and what it does they oppose it. While lame ducks like Obama and Baucus who do not have to seek re-election can ignore angry constituents and follow the demands of big money, those seeking re-election do not have that luxury.

Our task: We need to continue to build opposition and show elected officials they do not want to be associated with these toxic trade agreements. They need to understand that fast-tracking the TPP could end their career.

A lot is already planned. To stay informed“like” the Flush The TPP Facebook page and follow the twitter feed where we will be regularly publishing new sharable memes to continue to build the stop the TPP movement. If more TPP leaks come out, we’ll provide immediate analysis. If there are hearings we will organize protests to make sure the voices of opposition are heard and share that information.

Every Tuesday there is a TPP twitter storm at 9 PM Eastern.  Follow the hashtag #TPPMediaMarch to participate. There will be a special TPP storm during the State of the Union on January 28.

Scores of organizations have come together in a movement of movements to create a webpage StopFastTrack.org.  We’ve planned ten key days of pressure on Congress from January 22 to January 31.  During this period, people will be making phone calls to Congress through the website which will provide simple tools to call Congress.  In addition, during this period, people are organizing for the State of the Union on January 28 and an Inter-Continental Day of Action on January 31.

During the State of the Union, people opposed to the TPP plan to stand vigil outside of the Congress beginning at 8:30 PM so they can be there when the president arrives for the speech that begins at 9 PM.  During the speech a special State Of The Union TwitterStorm will be held from 9-10pm EST, follow #TPPMediaMarch to participate.

On January 31 there will be an Inter-Continental Day of Action against the TPP & Corporate Globalization.  The theme is ‘No More NAFTA’s as this month is the twenty-year anniversary of NAFTA, which has had devastating consequences for working families, small farmers, indigenous peoples, small business and the environment in all three countries and beyond. The TPP is fairly described as “NAFTA on Steroids.”

We have come an incredible distance and the likelihood of stopping the TPP is stronger than it ever has been.The president and transnational corporations will make an aggressive push to pass Fast Track this month.  It is our job to stop them and make it impossible to bring Fast Track or the TPP up again.  We can accomplish this and when we do it will be a tremendous victory of the people over transnational corporate power!

Sign up for the daily news digest of Popular Resistance, here.

This article is produced by PopularResistance.org in conjunction with AlterNet.  It is based on PopularResistance.org’s weekly newsletter reviewing the activities of the resistance movement.

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.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

By Kathy Kelly

22 January, 2014

Countercurrents.org

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. … A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. –“A Time to Break Silence (Beyond Vietnam)” Dr. Martin Luther King, April 4, 1967

This month, from Atlanta, GA, the King Center announced its “Choose Nonviolence” campaign, a call on people to incorporate the symbolism of bell-ringing into their Martin Luther King Holiday observance, as a means of showing their commitment to Dr. King’s value of nonviolence in resolving terrible issues of inequality, discrimination and poverty here at home. The call was heard in Kabul, Afghanistan.

On the same day they learned of the King Center’s call, the young members of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, in a home I was sharing with them in Kabul, were grieving the fresh news of seven Afghan children and their mother, killed in the night during a U.S. aerial attack – part of a battle in the Siahgird district of the Parwan province. The outrage, grief, loss and pain felt in Siahgird were echoed, horribly, in other parts of Afghanistan during a very violent week.

My young friends, ever inspired by Dr. King’s message, prepared a Dr. King Day observance as they shared bread and tea for breakfast.They talked about the futility of war and the predictable cycles of revenge that are caused every time someone is killed. Then they made a poster listing each of the killings they had learned of in the previous seven days.

They didn’t have a bell, and they didn’t have the money to buy one. So Zekerullah set to work with a bucket, a spoon and a rope, and made something approximating a bell. In the APV courtyard, an enlarged vinyl poster of Dr. King covers half of one wall, opposite another poster of Gandhi and Khan Abdul Gaffir Khan, the “Muslim Gandhi” who ledPathan tribes in the nonviolent Khudai Khidmatgar colonial independence movement to resist the British Empire.Zekerullah’s makeshift “bell’ was suspended next to King’s poster. Several dozen friends joined the APVs as we listened to rattles rather than pealing bells. The poster listing the week’s death toll was held aloft and read aloud.

They read:

“January 15, 2014: 7 children, one woman, Siahgird district of Parwan, killed by the U.S./NATO. January 15, 2014, 16 Taliban militants, killed by Afghan police, army and intelligence operatives across seven regions, Parwan, Baghlan, Kunduz, Kandahar, Zabul, Logar, and Paktiya. January 12, 2014: 1 police academy student and one academy staff member, killed by a Taliban suicide bomber in Kabul on the road to Jalalabad. Jan 9, 2014: 1 four year old boy killed in Helmand, by NATO. Jan 9, 2014: 7 people, several of them police, killed in Helmand by unknown suicide bombers. January 7, 2014: 16 militants killed by Afghan security forces in Nangarhar, Logar, Ghanzi, Pakitya, Heart and Nimroz.”

We couldn’t know, then, that within two days news would come, with a Taliban announcement claiming responsibility, of 21 people, 13 foreigners and eight Afghans, killed while dining in, or guarding, a Kabul restaurant. The Taliban said that the attack was in retaliation for the seven children killed in the airstrike in Parwan.

Week after bloody week, the chart of killings lengthens. And in Afghanistan, while war rages, a million children are estimated to suffer from acute malnourishment as the country faces a worsening hunger crisis.

This Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we can and should remember the dream Dr. King announced before the Lincoln Memorial, the dream he did so much to accomplish, remembering his call (as the King Center asks) for nonviolent solutions to desperate concerns of discrimination and inequality within the U.S. But we shouldn’t let ourselves forget the full extent of Dr. King’s vision, the urgent tasks he urgently set us to fulfill on his behalf, so many of them left unfinished nearly forty-six years after he was taken from us. One year to the day before his assassination, he said:

… A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.”… The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

We must never forget the full range of Dr. King’s vision, nor the full tragedy of the world he sought to heal, nor the revolutionary spirit which he saw as our only hope of achieving his vision – making do with everything we have to try to keep freedom ringing, despite the pervasiveness of the evils that beset us, and a world that needs vigorous effort to save it from addictions to tyranny and violence practiced by reckless elites.

“America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.”

Kathy Kelly (Kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (vcnv.org) While in Kabul, she was a guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers (ourjourneytosmile.com) All quotations are taken from Dr. King’s speech given at the Riverside Church on April 4, 1967

The Sharing Economy: A Short Introduction To Its Political Evolution

By Adam Parsons

22 January, 2014

Sharing.org

Can the sharing economy movement address the root causes of the world’s converging crises? Unless the sharing of resources is promoted in relation to human rights and concerns for equity, democracy, social justice and sustainability, then such claims are without substantiation – although there are many hopeful signs that the conversation is slowly moving in the right direction.

In recent years, the concept and practice of sharing resources is fast becoming a mainstream phenomenon across North America, Western Europe and other world regions. The internet is awash with articles and websites that celebrate the vast potential of sharing human and physical assets, in everything from cars and bicycles to housing, workplaces, food, household items, and even time or expertise. According to most general definitions that are widely available online, the sharing economy leverages information technology to empower individuals or organisations to distribute, share and re-use excess capacity in goods and services. The business icons of the new sharing economy include the likes of Airbnb, Zipcar, Lyft, Taskrabbit and Poshmark, although hundreds of other for-profit as well as non-profit organisations are associated with this burgeoning movement that is predicated, in one way or another, on the age-old principle of sharing.

As the sharing economy receives increasing attention from the media, a debate is beginning to emerge around its overall importance and future direction. There is no doubt that the emergent paradigm of sharing resources is set to expand and further flourish in coming years, especially in the face of continuing economic recession, government austerity and environmental concerns. As a result of the concerted advocacy work and mobilisation of sharing groups in the US, fifteen city mayors have now signed the Shareable Cities Resolution in which they officially recognise the importance of economic sharing for both the public and private sectors. Seoul in South Korea has also adopted a city-funded project called Sharing City in which it plans to expand its ‘sharing infrastructure’, promote existing sharing enterprises and incubate sharing economy start-ups as a partial solution to problems in housing, transportation, job creation and community cohesion. Furthermore, Medellin in Colombia is embracing transport-sharing schemes and reimagining the use of its shared public spaces, while Ecuador is the first country in the world to commit itself to becoming a ‘shared knowledge’-based society, under an official strategy named ‘buen saber’.

Many proponents of the sharing economy therefore have great hopes for a future based on sharing as the new modus operandi. Almost everyone recognises that drastic change is needed in the wake of a collapsed economy and an overstretched planet, and the old idea of the American dream – in which a culture that promotes excessive consumerism and commercialisation leads us to see the ‘good life’ as the ‘goods life’, as described by the psychologist Tim Kasser – is no longer tenable in a world of rising affluence among possibly 9.6 billion people by 2050. Hence more and more people are rejecting the materialistic attitudes that defined recent decades, and are gradually shifting towards a different way of living that is based on connectedness and sharing rather than ownership and conspicuous consumption. ‘Sharing more and owning less’ is the ethic that underlies a discernible change in attitudes among affluent society that is being led by today’s young, tech-savvy generation known as Generation Y or the Millennials.

However, many entrepreneurial sharing pioneers also profess a big picture vision of what sharing can achieve in relation to the world’s most pressing issues, such as population growth, environmental degradation and food security. As Ryan Gourley of A2Share posits, for example, a network of cities that embrace the sharing economy could mount up into a Sharing Regions Network, then Sharing Nations, and finally a Sharing World: “A globally networked sharing economy would be a whole new paradigm, a game-changer for humanity and the planet”. Neal Gorenflo, the co-founder and publisher of Shareable, also argues that peer-to-peer collaboration can form the basis of a new social contract, with an extensive sharing movement acting as the catalyst for systemic changes that can address the root causes of both poverty and climate change. Or to quote the words of Benita Matofska, founder of The People Who Share, we are going to have to “share to survive” if we want to face up to a sustainable future. In such a light, it behoves us all to investigate the potential of sharing to effect a social and economic transformation that is sufficient to meet the grave challenges of the 21st century.

Two sides of a debate on sharing

There is no doubt that sharing resources can contribute to the greater good in a number of ways, from economic as well as environmental and social perspectives. A number of studies show the environmental benefits that are common to many sharing schemes, such as the resource efficiency and potential energy savings that could result from car sharing and bike sharing in cities. Almost all forms of localised sharing are economical, and can lead to significant cost savings or earnings for individuals and enterprises. In terms of subjective well-being and social impacts, common experience demonstrates how sharing can also help us to feel connected to neighbours or co-workers, and even build community and make us feel happier.

Few could disagree on these beneficial aspects of sharing resources within communities or across municipalities, but some controversy surrounds the broader vision of how the sharing economy movement can contribute to a fair and sustainable world. For many advocates of the burgeoning trend towards economic sharing in modern cities, it is about much more than couch-surfing, car sharing or tool libraries, and holds the potential to disrupt the individualist and materialistic assumptions of neoliberal capitalism. For example, Juliet Schor in her book Plenitude perceives that a new economics based on sharing could be an antidote to the hyper-individualised, hyper-consumer culture of today, and could help rebuild the social ties that have been lost through market culture. Annie Leonard of the Story of Stuff project, in her latest short video on how to move society in an environmentally sustainable and just direction, also considers sharing as a key ‘game changing’ solution that could help to transform the basic goals of the economy.

Many other proponents see the sharing economy as a path towards achieving widespread prosperity within the earth’s natural limits, and an essential first step on the road to more localised economies and egalitarian societies. But far from everyone perceives that participating in the sharing economy, at least in its existing form and praxis, is a ‘political act’ that can realistically challenge consumption-driven economics and the culture of individualism – a question that is raised (although not yet comprehensively answered) in a valuable think piece from Friends of the Earth, as discussed further below. Various commentators argue that the proliferation of new business ventures under the umbrella of sharing are nothing more than “supply and demand continuing its perpetual adjustment to new technologies and fresh opportunities”, and that the concept of the sharing economy is being co-opted by purely commercial interests – a debate that was given impetus when the car sharing pioneers, Zipcar, were bought up by the established rental firm Avis.

Recently, Slate magazine’s business and economics correspondent controversially reiterated the observation that making money from new modes of consumption is not really ‘sharing’ per se, asserting that the sharing economy is therefore a “dumb term” that “deserves to die”. Other journalists have criticised the superficial treatment that the sharing economy typically receives from financial pundits and tech reporters, especially the claims that small business start-ups based on monetised forms of sharing are a solution to the jobs crisis – regardless of drastic cutbacks in welfare and public services, unprecedented rates of income inequality, and the dangerous rise of the precariat. The author Evgeny Morozov, writing an op-ed in the Financial Times, has gone as far as saying that the sharing economy is having a pernicious effect on equality and basic working conditions, in that it is fully compliant with market logic, is far from valuing human relationships over profit, and is even amplifying the worst excesses of the dominant economic model. In the context of the erosion of full-time employment, the assault on trade unions and the disappearance of healthcare and insurance benefits, he argues that the sharing economy is accelerating the transformation of workers into “always-on self-employed entrepreneurs who must think like brands”, leading him to dub it “neoliberalism on steroids”.

Problems of definition

Although it is impossible to reconcile these polarised views, part of the problem in assessing the true potential of economic sharing is one of vagueness in definition and wide differences in understanding. The conventional interpretation of the sharing economy is at present focused on its financial and commercial aspects, with continuous news reports proclaiming its rapidly growing market size and potential as a “co-commerce revolution”. Rachel Botsman, a leading entrepreneurial thinker on the potential of collaboration and sharing through digital technologies to change our lives, has attempted to clarify what the sharing economy actually is in order to prevent further confusion over the different terms in general use. In her latest typology, she notes how the term ‘sharing economy’ is often muddled with other new ideas and is in fact a subset of ‘collaborative consumption’ within the entire ‘collaborative economy’ movement, and has a rather restricted meaning in terms of “sharing underutilized assets from spaces to skills to stuff for monetary or non-monetary benefits” [see slide 9 of the presentation]. This interpretation of changing consumer behaviours and lifestyles revolves around the “maximum utilization of assets through efficient models of redistribution and shared access”, which isn’t necessarily predicated on an ethic of ‘sharing’ by any strict definition.

Other interpretations of the sharing economy are far broader and less constrained by capitalistic assumptions, as demonstrated in the Friends of the Earth briefing paper on Sharing Cities written by Professor Julian Agyeman et al. In their estimation, what’s missing from most of these current definitions and categorisations of economic sharing is a consideration of “the communal, collective production that characterises the collective commons”. A broadened ‘sharing spectrum’ that they propose therefore not only focuses on goods and services within the mainstream economy (which is almost always considered in relation to affluent, middle-class lifestyles), but also includes the non-material or intangible aspects of sharing such as well-being and capability [see page 6 of the brief]. From this wider perspective, they assert that the cutting edge of the sharing economy is often not commercial and includes informal behaviours like the unpaid care, support and nurturing that we provide for one another, as well as the shared use of infrastructure and shared public services.

This sheds a new light on governments as the “ultimate level of sharing”, and suggests that the history of the welfare state in Europe and other forms of social protection is, in fact, also integral to the evolution of shared resources in cities and within different countries. Yet an understanding of sharing from this more holistic viewpoint doesn’t have to be limited to the state provision of healthcare, education, and other public services. As Agyeman et al elucidate, cooperatives of all kinds (from worker to housing to retailer and consumer co-ops) also offer alternative models for shared service provision and a different perspective on economic sharing, one in which equity and collective ownership is prioritised. Access to natural common resources such as air and water can also be understood in terms of sharing, which may then prioritise the common good of all people over commercial or private interests and market mechanisms. This would include controversial issues of land ownership and land use, raising questions over how best to share land and urban space more equitably – such as through community land trusts, or through new policies and incentives such as land value taxation.

The politics of sharing

Furthermore, Agyeman et al argue that an understanding of sharing in relation to the collective commons gives rise to explicitly political questions concerning the shared public realm and participatory democracy. This is central to the many countercultural movements of recent years (such as the Occupy movement and Middle East protests since 2011, and the Taksim Gezi Park protests in 2013) that have reclaimed public space to symbolically challenge unjust power dynamics and the increasing trend toward privatisation that is central to neoliberal hegemony. Sharing is also directly related to the functioning of a healthy democracy, the authors reason, in that a vibrant sharing economy (when interpreted in this light) can counter the political apathy that characterises modern consumer society. By reinforcing values of community and collaboration over the individualism and consumerism that defines our present-day cultures and identities, they argue that participation in sharing could ultimately be reflected in the political domain. They also argue that a shared public realm is essential for the expression of participatory democracy and the development of a good society, not least as this provides a necessary venue for popular debate and public reasoning that can influence political decisions. Indeed the “emerging shareability paradigm”, as they describe it, is said to reflect the basic tenets of the Right to the City (RTTC) – an international urban movement that fights for democracy, justice and sustainability in cities and mobilises against the privatisation of common goods and public spaces.

The intention in briefly outlining some of these differing interpretations of sharing is to demonstrate how considerations of politics, justice, ethics and sustainability are slowly being allied with the sharing economy concept. A paramount example is the Friends of the Earth briefing paper outlined above, which was written as part of FOEI’s Big Ideas to Change the World series on cities that promoted sharing as “a political force to be reckoned with” and a “call to action for environmentalists”. Yet many further examples could also be mentioned, such as the New Economics Foundation’s ‘Manifesto for the New Materialism’ which promotes the old-fashioned ethic of sharing as part of a new way of living to replace the collapsed model of debt-fuelled overconsumption. There are also signs that many influential proponents of the sharing economy – as generally understood today in terms of new economic models driven by peer-to-peer technology that enable access to rather than ownership of resources – are beginning to query the commercial direction that the movement is taking, and are instead promoting more politicised forms of social change that are not merely based on micro-enterprise or the monetisation/branding of high-tech innovations.

Janelle Orsi, a California-based ‘sharing lawyer’ and author of The Sharing Solution, is particularly inspirational in this regard; for her, the sharing economy encompasses such a broad range of activities that it is hard to define, although she suggests that all its activities are tied together in how they harness the existing resources of a community and grow its wealth. This is in contradistinction to the mainstream economy that mostly generates wealth for people outside of people’s communities, and inherently generates extreme inequalities and ecological destruction – which Orsi contends that the sharing economy can help reverse. The problem she recognises is that the so-called sharing economy we usually hear about in the media is built upon a business-as-usual foundation, which is privately owned and often funded by venture capital (as is the case with Airbnb, Lyft, Zipcar, Taskrabbit et cetera). As a result, the same business structures that created the economic problems of today are buying up new sharing economy companies and turning them into ever larger, more centralised enterprises that are not concerned about people’s well-being, community cohesion, local economic diversity, sustainable job creation and so on (not to mention the risk of re-creating stock valuation bubbles that overshadowed the earlier generation of dot.com enterprises). The only way to ensure that new sharing economy companies fulfil their potential to create economic empowerment for users and their communities, Orsi argues, is through cooperative conversion – and she makes a compelling case for the democratic, non-exploitative, redistributive and truly ‘sharing’ potential of worker and consumer cooperatives in all their guises.

Sharing as a path to systemic change

There are important reasons to query which direction this emerging movement for sharing will take in the years ahead. As prominent supporters of the sharing economy recognise, like Janelle Orsi and Juliet Schor, it offers both opportunities and reasons for optimism as well as pitfalls and some serious concerns. On the one hand, it reflects a growing shift in our values and social identities as ‘citizens vs consumers’, and is helping us to rethink notions of ownership and prosperity in a world of finite resources, scandalous waste and massive wealth disparities. Perhaps its many proponents are right, and the sharing economy represents the first step towards transitioning away from the over-consumptive, materially-intense and hoarding lifestyles of North American, Western European and other rich societies. Perhaps sharing really is fast becoming a counter-cultural movement that can help us to value relationships more than things, and offer us the possibility of re-imagining politics and constructing a more participative democracy, which could ultimately pose a challenge to the global capitalist/consumerist model of development that is built on private interests and debt at the cost of shared interests and true wealth.

On the other hand, critics are right to point out that the sharing economy in its present form is hardly a threat to existing power structures or a movement that represents the kind of radical changes we need to make the world a better place. Far from reorienting the economy towards greater equity and a better quality of life, as proposed by writers such as Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, Tim Jackson, Herman Daly and John Cobb, it is arguable that most forms of sharing via peer-to-peer networks are at risk of being subverted by conventional business practices. There is a perverse irony in trying to imagine the logical conclusion of these trends: new models of collaborative consumption and co-production that are co-opted by private interests and venture capitalists, and increasingly geared towards affluent middle-class types or so-called bourgeois bohemians (the ‘bobos’), to the exclusion of those on low incomes and therefore to the detriment of a more equal society. Or new sharing technology platforms that enable governments and corporations to collaborate in pursuing more intrusive controls over and greater surveillance of citizens. Or new social relationships based on sharing in the context of increasingly privatised and enclosed public spaces, such as gated communities within which private facilities and resources are shared.

This is by no means an inevitable outcome, but what is clear from this brief analysis is that the commercialisation and depoliticisation of economic sharing poses risks and contradictions that call into question its potential to transform society for the benefit of everyone. Unless the sharing of resources is promoted in relation to human rights and concerns for equity, democracy, social justice and sound environmental stewardship, then the various claims that sharing is a new paradigm that can address the world’s interrelated crises is indeed empty rhetoric or utopian thinking without any substantiation. Sharing our skills through Hackerspaces, our unused stuff through GoodShuffle or a community potluck through mealshare is, in and of itself, a generally positive phenomenon that deserves to be enjoyed and fully participated in, but let’s not pretend that car shares, clothes swaps, co-housing, shared vacation homes and so on are going to seriously address economic and climate chaos, unjust power dynamics or inequitable wealth distribution.

Sharing from the local to the global

If we look at sharing through the lens of just sustainability, however, as civil society organisations and others are now beginning to do, then the true possibilities of sharing resources within and among the world’s nations are vast and all-encompassing: to enhance equity, rebuild community, improve well-being, democratise national and global governance, defend and promote the global commons, even to point the way towards a more cooperative international framework to replace the present stage of competitive neoliberal globalisation. We are not there yet, of course, and the popular understanding of economic sharing today is clearly focused on the more personal forms of giving and exchange among individuals or through online business ventures, which is mainly for the benefit of high-income groups in the world’s most economically advanced nations. But the fact that this conversation is now being broadened to include the role of governments in sharing public infrastructure, political power and economic resources within countries is a hopeful indication that the emerging sharing movement is slowly moving in the right direction.

Already, questions are being raised as to what sharing resources means for the poorest people in the developing world, and how a revival of economic sharing in the richest countries can be spread globally as a solution to converging crises. It may not be long until the idea of economic sharing on a planetary scale – driven by an awareness of impending ecological catastrophe, life-threatening extremes of inequality, and escalating conflict over natural resources – is the subject of every dinner party and kitchen table conversation.

Adam Parsons is STWR’s editor and can be contacted at adam [at] sharing.org

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No basis for US spinning Geneva communiqué to demand Assad’s resignation

January 20, 2014

By Nile Bowie

@rt.com

Preconditions placed on attending the Geneva 2 conference insisted on by the United States are detrimental to building a conducive environment for ending the fighting in Syria.

Despite months of effort by diplomats and the international community, the long-awaited Geneva 2 peace conference is in disarray. The opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) – an exiled umbrella organization supported by Western and Gulf states that represents a negligible segment of rebel groups on the ground – has agreed to attend the talks under heavy pressure from their backers. Division runs deep for many within the group who oppose the decision to attend Geneva 2, and the SNC’s presence at the talks are still in question.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s decision to extend an invitation to Iran prompted the SNC to threaten pulling out of the talks if the UN’s invitation to Tehran is not rescinded. Even if the peace talks proceed, the unpleasant prospect that nothing tangible will emerge from them due to irreconcilable differences between the two sides looks like the most plausible outcome.

 

One of the key obstacles facing the negotiations is the SNC’s lack of legitimacy and its capriciousness, and that its members are mostly exiled Syrian dissidents who are not seen as credible by the fighters on the ground, primarily among Islamist groups that dominate the battlefield. The belief that the SNC can accomplish something meaningful at the negotiating table is cast deeper into doubt by critical assessments from dissenting former members of the group.

In a recent letter explaining his resignation, former SNC Secretary-General Mustafa al-Sabbagh concedes that the organization failed to extend humanitarian relief efforts and to make any political or military progress; he describes the SNC as “a body that is entirely separate from the Syrian domestic arena.” Former member Mohammad Bassam Imadi’s description is no less critical; he stated in a recent interview that the SNC “…was only some expatriates who were living outside Syria, they lost touch with reality in Syria. They didn’t know what was going on… They thought that within a few months they will become presidents or ministers so they were not interested in doing anything other than contacting the foreign powers…”

 

‘Assad has no place in Syria’s future’

It is against the backdrop of an incapable and divided opposition coalition that US Secretary of State John Kerry’s demands that President Assad moves aside as a non-negotiable outcome of the Geneva 2 talks seem all the more untenable. The US side argues that President Assad cannot have any part in Syria’s political future, and that Geneva 2 must serve as a platform to initiate the Geneva communiqué established in June 2012, which according to Washington calls for the establishment of a transitional government tasked with facilitating free and fair elections.

Damascus has agreed to send a delegation of senior diplomats to the talks, but maintains that certain points in the Geneva communiqué are in conflict with the legal and political position of the Syrian state. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem has ostensibly set conditions for the talks by announcing that prisoner exchanges and a ceasefire in Aleppo would be on the table for discussions at Geneva 2.

Muallem claimed that the Aleppo ceasefire could be used as a blueprint for armistices in other conflict zones if proven successful, and despite this offer being the most substantive yet proposed to deescalate the crisis, John Kerry condemned it with appalling arrogance, stating, “If Assad is not discussing a transition and if he thinks he’s going to be part of that future, it’s not going to happen.”

As one of the staunch backers of Syria’s rebels, the United States has unabashedly taken positions against the Syrian government based on invalid and fallacious hearsay and false claims; it has not attempted to obscure that the toppling of President Assad remains one of its principle foreign policy aims as the CIA continues its covert programs to bolster rebel fighters. Washington cannot be seen as a meaningful peace-broker in the Syrian conflict while at the same time demanding a pre-emptive surrender of one of the two negotiating parties in the dialogue, such a notion is completely contrary to the very premise of negotiation.

 

Misreading the Geneva communiqué

The formal mandate for the conference was agreed upon in 2012 and is known as the Geneva communiqué; the Syrian and Iranian governments have not publically endorsed it.

Washington’s insistence that Assad must step down to facilitate a transitional government is couched in a misreading of the communiqué text, which contains no clauses that stipulate that President Assad or any other government official must step aside.

The text calls for “the launch of a Syrian-led political process leading to a transition that meets the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people and enables them independently and democratically to determine their own future,” and a “future that can be shared by all in Syria.” The communiqué calls for newly emerging political actors to compete fairly and equally in multi-party elections, while rejecting sectarianism and ethnic or religious discrimination. The text also mandates the creation of a neutral transitional governing body that would exercise full executive powers, which specifically could “include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent.”

Furthermore, the documents states, “The process must be fully inclusive to ensure that the views of all segments of Syrian society are heard in shaping the political settlement for the transition.”

A fair interpretation of the text infers that all segments of Syrian society should shape political outcomes, including government supporters. It is no secret that President Assad’s forces have made significant strides on the battlefield and have the upper hand at the negotiating table. There is still political division in Syria’s major cities, but the government has made inroads into rebel strongholds in the north and south. The government firmly controls the western coastal areas and an increasing amount of critical supply routes and highways between Damascus and Aleppo. As long as the opposition consists of out-of-touch exiled dissidents with dual-citizenship or hardline Sunni Islamist militias being supported from Gulf countries, the Syrian government would likely extend its mandate if elections were held. Elections cannot be “free and fair” if the candidate most likely to win is excluded.

 

Negotiations for Syria’s stability

For the vast majority of Syrians who have weathered incredible hardship and tragedy since this conflict began, restoring some semblance of security and stability takes precedent over all else.

It should be considered that even if peace talks between Damascus and the SNC produce favorable outcomes, many of the most radical groups would not honor the ceasefire and still continue to fight. Even in a scenario where Assad steps down, these groups will not yield and may even push harder if a power vacuum is created. It would be incredibly difficult to maintain ceasefires in conflict zones for extended periods of time due to a vast array of groups opposing the peace talks and opposing each other. Even so, the SNC and Syrian government should put their differences aside and attempt to negotiate measures to deescalate the fighting so humanitarian supplies can be made available to wider segments of the population where possible.

The Geneva 2 talks will be the first face-to-face meeting between the representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition since the country’s crisis began in March 2011, and to expect a transitional government to emerge at this stage is entirely premature.

The scope of these talks should not be about power politics, but focused on implementing ceasefires and making available legitimate humanitarian supplies such as food, clothing and medicine. No matter the outcome of peace talks, the Syrian government will have to continue pursuing a military solution to rid the country of radical militias and terrorist groups, and if ‘moderate’ groups are interested in peace, they should align themselves with the Syrian Arab Army and assist them in re-establishing order in the country. Due to the regional nature of the conflict, players such as Saudi Arabia and Iran should attend without preconditions to negotiate some kind of compromise that would reduce and end material support to non-state actors fighting on both sides in Syria.

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

Thailand: The British Crown Goes for Fascism

By Mike Billington

17 January, 2013

@ EIR

Jan. 5—Since 2006, three Thai governments, each elected by overwhelming majorities, have been removed from office by extra-legal means, or by courts acting under dictatorial powers granted by a military junta—and now a fourth such coup is underway, this time by an overtly fascist mob, demanding the end of democratic elections and of representative government, in favor of a return to a form of absolute monarchy, overseeing an appointed “people’s council” with absolute power.

Two issues—neither of which are mentioned in the voluminous media coverage of these illegal coups—are essential to understanding why Thailand has been subjected to this recurring chaos and dictatorial rule. First, each of the elected governments under former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra have played a leading role in bringing Thailand and most of Southeast Asia into a close collaborative role with China, and with the rest of East Asia generally—which is seen as a crime by those in the West gunning for a military confrontation with China. Just as Ukraine is today being targeted for destruction, for the “crime” of cooperating with Russia, so Thailand’s destabilization is intended to disrupt the growing cooperation for development with China by Thailand and its neighbors.

Not surprisingly, two George Soros-funded groups, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group, are on the scene of the demonstrations in Bangkok, as they are in Kiev.

The second issue which needs to be addressed is that Thailand is still a monarchy, which is essentially dominated by the British and related royal families of Europe. These monarchies have openly supported each coup, and are now determined to finish off Thai democracy altogether with the imposition of a fascist junta.

To even mention the role of the monarchy within Thailand risks incarceration under the draconian lèsemajesté laws. The feudal character of this monarchical system is finally, only now, becoming transparent to a growing number of Thais and some international analysts. Whether the Thais will mobilize to end this tyranny before Thailand descends into total destruction is a question of importance for all citizens of the world.

Great Projects and the General Welfare

The current Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, is the sister of Thaksin, the widely popular twiceelected prime minister, who served from 2001 until the royalist/military coup which deposed him in 2006. Every election since that time has returned Thaksin’s supporters to power, even though Thaksin himself is in self-imposed exile due to a contrived conviction against him over a petty corruption charge.

When Yingluck was elected in 2011, she began to reinstate the ambitious development programs initiated by her brother, along with his policies to uplift the peasantry from poverty and backwardness. These include:

• a massive water control project to end the deadly annual flooding, with primarily South Korean support;

• high-speed rail projects to connect the major cities, and eventually complete the “Orient Express” from Kunming to Singapore, with primarily Chinese support;

• universal health care, providing decent care at low cost to the rural poor for the first time;

• special credits to each village for development projects;

• university scholarships for the rural poor;

• government-supported increases in the price paid to peasants for rice.

Although it has not been officially adopted by the government, leading Cabinet ministers, and Thaksin himself, have also called for reviving the Kra Canal project (Figure 1), which has long been championed by EIR (see http://larouchepac.com/node/28237), this time with potential support from China and Japan.

After Thaksin was overthrown in 2006, all these programs were scrapped under the appointed government of Abhisit Vejjajiva, who was born, raised, and educated in Britain. Now, Abhisit’s Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban (most famous for his role in ordering the military to open fire on demonstrators supporting Thaksin in 2009, leaving dozens dead), has turned himself into the demogogic leader of “the people,” directing his middle-class mobs to occupy government buildings, and ordering a total shutdown of 38 International EIR January 17, 2014 Bangkok beginning Jan. 13, until Yingluck resigns. Not even Yingluck’s call for new elections Feb. 2 failed to head off Suthep’s action.

One Million Bottles of Beer

Suthep has made clear that, if he gains power, all major development programs will once again be scrapped—he calls them “boondoogles”—while the many programs to uplift the standard of living and health and education of the poor will be “frozen”—he calls them “bribes” by Thaksin’s supporters of the “ignorant masses” in the countryside.

One spokesperson for the fascist mobs on the street, Chitpas Bhirombhakdi, the heiress of the Boon Rawd company (brewer of Thai Singha beer), denounced the supporters of the government as ignorant country people who can’t understand democracy, and said that therefore democracy had to be suspended. The backlash was immediate.

A call for a boycott of Singha beer, issued by Pakdee Tanapura (a long-standing collaborator of EIR in Thailand, and a leading organizer for the Kra Canal), led to a collapse of Singha beer sales by 1 million bottles in one week, according to a source in Bangkok. The parents of the heiress were so astonished and dismayed, that they demanded that their daughter renounce the family name!

More Boycotts?

Tanapura also warned that if the mobs proceed with their threat to shut down Bangkok and overthrow the government, other companies which are known to fund the fascist movement should be included in the boycott. This could include the Charoen Pokphand Group, Thailand’s largest conglomerate, with interests in agriculture, telecom, and the Internet. In addition, Tanapura said that, if the military goes through with its veiled threat to carry out a coup, the public should withdraw its funds from the banks and refuse to make loan repayments, thereby hitting the London-centered international financial oligarchy which is ultimately responsible for the chaos.

Tanapura has informed the population in his regular TV appearances about the fascist nature of the royalist mobs, describing how Hitler and Mussolini came to power as “people’s power” advocates against elected governments. But most telling, Tanapura is reminding Thais of what happened in neighboring Cambodia in the 1970s, when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge seized power, denouncing industrial development, modern agriculture, and “Western” education, calling instead for “selfhelp”— leading to genocide.

Interestingly, the British intelligence leak-sheet Asia Sentinel published a warning Dec. 17, “Thaksin: The Thai Monarchy’s Savior?”, that the extreme actions of Suthep’s mobs, claiming to be defenders of the monarchy, may actually undermine the monarchy itself. The article notes that although Thaksin and his supporters have never attacked the King, their program of lifting the peasantry into the modern world is in direct contradiction to the King’s “self-sufficiency” policy—essentially keeping the peasantry well fed, but backward. The article also says that while it may be true that the Thai people revere the King (as is reported internationally, ad nauseam), that does not mean that they love the monarchy. The current King—the richest and longest-serving monarch in the world—is very ill and could die at any moment. The article concludes that the “current nationwide commitment to royalism is owed to [King] Bhumipol, not the palace or the elite cohorts.”

To these British analysts, it were better to let Thaksin Shinawatra back in the country than risk losing the monarchy!

Washington’s Terrorism Or Counterterrorism In Somalia

By Ismail Salami

19 January,2014
Countercurrents.org

Somalia has become a breeding ground for Washington’s black operations since 2001, with the African country suffering human losses due to US hegemonic policies.

Only recently, it has been revealed that the US secretly deployed two dozens of troops under the guise of military advisors. It is naïve to think that the US has no ulterior motives other than giving advisory clues to the military men in Somalia or protecting the security of the African people.

In 1993, the US embarked on a military expedition dubbed Operation Gothic Serpent in Somalia under the pretext of eliminating a Somali warlord, an operation which sadly caused massive human losses. Quite naturally, the US swiftly exonerated itself and attributed it to a misstep.

According to Charles William Maynes, editor of Foreign Policy, CIA officials privately concede that the US military may have “killed from 7,000 to 10,000 Somalis during its engagement. America lost only 34 soldiers. Notwithstanding that extraordinary disparity, the decision was to withdraw.” So, the estimates delivered by the US media have been drastically overlooked or underestimated.

The fact is that there is no justification for this human catastrophe. However, as is their wont, Washington officials barefacedly insist that their mission was to capture Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid who was openly opposed to the presence of the US in Somalia.

Later, much to the disappointment of many, this military farce was unfortunately glorified on the screen by Ridley Scott in a movie called Black Hawk Down.

Among other black operations in Somali is a series of killer drone sorties which the US had been carrying out for years without openly acknowledging the fact. It was in 2012 when the White House eventually lifted the lid of secrecy on its black ops in the Horn of Africa and admitted to the crime for the first time.

The US excuse for launching such attacks is the same old story: eradicating the al-Qaeda elements.

A count by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism claims that the US-conducted drone attacks have so far at least 112 Somali militants. This treacherously dubious number excludes the 60 civilians who were killed in the killer drone attacks. Washington’s method of distinguishing between the civilians and non-civilians is understandably strange. Those who are adults are non-civilians and those who are not, are civilians.

Interestingly, the US used to prefer a policy of denial regarding the drone attacks until a few months ago when the CIA acknowledged that the drone attacks in Somalia and other parts of Africa were carried out under the supervision of the espionage agency.

Further to this, there is an active CIA station in Mogadishu. In August, Jeremy Scahill reported on the CIA’s compound at Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport, sating, “the facility looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls and secured by guard towers at each of its four corners. At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against members of Al Shabab.”

According to Scahill, the CIA is not in the least interested in dealing directly with Somali political leaders, who they say are corrupt and untrustworthy. Instead, the United States has Somali intelligence agents on its payroll. Somali sources with knowledge of the program described the agents as lining up to receive $200 monthly cash payments from Americans. “They support us in a big way financially,” says the senior Somali intelligence official. “They are the largest [funder] by far.”

What is the US really doing in Somalia?

A look at the natural resources of this country is enough to provide an answer to this question.

An LA Times article reveals that nearly two-thirds of Somalia’s resources were allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia’s pro-US President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration’s decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multimillion-dollar investments there. Officially, the Administration and the State Department insist that the U.S. military mission in Somalia is strictly humanitarian. Oil industry spokesmen dismissed as “absurd” and “nonsense” allegations by aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts and several prominent Somalis that President Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part, by the U.S. corporate oil stake.

According to a report issued by Range Resources, there are some huge oil seeps in north Somalia (Somaliland) and in the southwest where Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia meet.

New estimates of the country’s oil reserves, onshore and offshore, run as high as 110 billion barrels. According to the reports, there are likely vast natural gas reserves in Somali waters in the Indian Ocean. Add to that a series of fields which have been found off Mozambique and Tanzania and which contain an estimated 100 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Under the banner of combating terrorism, the ghoul of imperialism intervenes and vindicates its spree killer drone attacks and other inhuman black operations and spares no efforts in reaping the ill gotten benefits of its military lust in the Muslim lands.

Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian writer, Middle East expert, Iranologist and lexicographer. He writes extensively on the US and Middle East issues and his articles have been translated into a number of languages.