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By Garikai Chengu

This week marks the three-year anniversary of the Western-backed assassination of Libya’s former president, Muammar Gaddafi, and the fall of one of Africa’s greatest nations.

In 1967 Colonel Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; however, by the time he was assassinated, Gaddafi had turned Libya into Africa’s wealthiest nation. Libya had the highest GDP per capita and life expectancy on the continent. Less people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands.

After NATO’s intervention in 2011, Libya is now a failed state and its economy is in shambles. As the government’s control slips through their fingers and into to the militia fighters’ hands, oil production has all but stopped.

The militias variously local, tribal, regional, Islamist or criminal, that have plagued Libya since NATO’s intervention, have recently lined up into two warring factions. Libya now has two governments, both with their own Prime Minister, parliament and army.

On one side, in the West of the country, Islamist-allied militias took over control of the capital Tripoli and other cities and set up their own government, chasing away a parliament that was elected over the summer.

On the other side, in the East of the Country, the “legitimate” government dominated by anti-Islamist politicians, exiled 1,200 kilometers away in Tobruk, no longer governs anything.

The fall of Gaddafi’s administration has created all of the country’s worst-case scenarios: Western embassies have all left, the South of the country has become a haven for terrorists, and the Northern coast a center of migrant trafficking. Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia have all closed their borders with Libya. This all occurs amidst a backdrop of widespread rape, assassinations and torture that complete the picture of a state that is failed to the bone.

America is clearly fed up with the two inept governments in Libya and is now backing a third force: long-time CIA asset, General Khalifa Hifter, who aims to set himself up as Libya’s new dictator. Hifter, who broke with Gaddafi in the 1980s and lived for years in Langley, Virginia, close to the CIA’s headquarters, where he was trained by the CIA, has taken part in numerous American regime change efforts, including the aborted attempt to overthrow Gaddafi in 1996.

In 1991 the New York Times reported that Hifter may have been one of “600 Libyan soldiers trained by American intelligence officials in sabotage and other guerrilla skills…to fit in neatly into the Reagan Administration’s eagerness to topple Colonel Qaddafi”.

Hifter’s forces are currently vying with the Al Qaeda group Ansar al-Sharia for control of Libya’s second largest city, Benghazi. Ansar al-Sharia was armed by America during the NATO campaign against Colonel Gaddafi. In yet another example of the U.S. backing terrorists backfiring, Ansar al-Sharia has recently been blamed by America for the brutal assassination of U.S. Ambassador Stevens.

Hifter is currently receiving logistical and air support from the U.S. because his faction envision a mostly secular Libya open to Western financiers, speculators, and capital.

Perhaps, Gaddafi’s greatest crime, in the eyes of NATO, was his desire to put the interests of local labour above foreign capital and his quest for a strong and truly United States of Africa. In fact, in August 2011, President Obama confiscated $30 billion from Libya’s Central Bank, which Gaddafi had earmarked for the establishment of the African IMF and African Central Bank.

In 2011, the West’s objective was clearly not to help the Libyan people, who already had the highest standard of living in Africa, but to oust Gaddafi, install a puppet regime, and gain control of Libya’s natural resources.

For over 40 years, Gaddafi promoted economic democracy and used the nationalized oil wealth to sustain progressive social welfare programs for all Libyans. Under Gaddafi’s rule, Libyans enjoyed not only free health-care and free education, but also free electricity and interest-free loans. Now thanks to NATO’s intervention the health-care sector is on the verge of collapse as thousands of Filipino health workers flee the country, institutions of higher education across the East of the country are shut down, and black outs are a common occurrence in once thriving Tripoli.

One group that has suffered immensely from NATO’s bombing campaign is the nation’s women. Unlike many other Arab nations, women in Gaddafi’s Libya had the right to education, hold jobs, divorce, hold property and have an income. The United Nations Human Rights Council praised Gaddafi for his promotion of women’s rights.

When the colonel seized power in 1969, few women went to university. Today, more than half of Libya’s university students are women. One of the first laws Gaddafi passed in 1970 was an equal pay for equal work law.

Nowadays, the new “democratic” Libyan regime is clamping down on women’s rights. The new ruling tribes are tied to traditions that are strongly patriarchal. Also, the chaotic nature of post-intervention Libyan politics has allowed free reign to extremist Islamic forces that see gender equality as a Western perversion.

Three years ago, NATO declared that the mission in Libya had been “one of the most successful in NATO history.” Truth is, Western interventions have produced nothing but colossal failures in Libya, Iraq, and Syria. Lest we forget, prior to western military involvement in these three nations, they were the most modern and secular states in the Middle East and North Africa with the highest regional women’s rights and standards of living.

A decade of failed military expeditions in the Middle East has left the American people in trillions of dollars of debt. However, one group has benefited immensely from the costly and deadly wars: America’s Military-Industrial-Complex.

Building new military bases means billions of dollars for America’s military elite. As Will Blum has pointed out, following the bombing of Iraq, the United States built new bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Saudi Arabia.

Following the bombing of Afghanistan, the United States is now building military bases in Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Following the recent bombing of Libya, the United States has built new military bases in the Seychelles, Kenya, South Sudan, Niger and Burkina Faso.

Given that Libya sits atop the strategic intersection of the African, Middle Eastern and European worlds, Western control of the nation, has always been a remarkably effective way to project power into these three regions and beyond.

NATO’s military intervention may have been a resounding success for America’s military elite and oil companies but for the ordinary Libyan, the military campaign may indeed go down in history as one of the greatest failures of the 21st century.

Garikai Chengu is a research scholar at Harvard University.

19 October, 2014

Countercurrents.org

By Joaquin Flores

Cheered by tens of thousands of citizens, columns of Serbian tanks, armored cars, and thousands of infantry men paraded down Nikola Tesla Boulevard, Thursday, in New Belgrade. The parade’s destination was the Palace of Serbia, where international leaders, dignitaries and high ranking generals of foreign militaries stood in bleachers to look on. Among them, most importantly, was Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a ceremonial event surrounding this occasion, he was awarded the Order of the Republic of Serbia, the nation’s highest honor [1].

Today marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade from occupying Nazi forces. A few of the remaining WWII veterans also stood in the dignitaries section, to remember fallen comrades in the great anti-fascist war of liberation.

The event was not just one commemorative, it was in its own right quite historic. For one, it was the first Serbian military parade since 1918, and the first military parade in Serbia since 1985, when it was the core republic of the Socijalistička Federativna Republika Jugoslavija (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, or SFRY). A “Strizhi” air show of Russian MiG fighters over the Belgrade skies captivated the audience below, while Serbian armoured personnel carriers crawled in formation to the WWII partisan march, Po Šumama i Gorama (“In the Forests and Mountains”)

But the event’s significance was greater—much greater than a historical reflection and national celebration of a great victory of its people over the most powerful, aggressive, war machine in Europe at the time. This event’s significance went beyond being just a display of national resolve and remembrance. It was symbolic of a turn that Serbia was taking in the direction of its historic ally, Russia. With Putin as honored guest, Serbia seemed to be announcing a new course forward, while overtly and unashamedly celebrating the past.

In fact, To the certain dismay of NATO, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic announced in a joint press conference with Putin, after the ceremony, that Serbia would never join the EU sanctions against Russia[2] . With this we can see that Serbia is making an ‘Eastward’ turn to the Eurasian sphere.

As polls indicate, the vast majority of Serbs oppose EU policy and dictates, and entry. They would like increased trade with European nations, as long as it respects the fundamental democratic principle of national sovereignty, and self-determination of the Serbian people. Brussels dictates are, in the view of many analysts, at odds with the concept of sovereignty. EU policy, combined with the economic crisis and increased austerity measures, has led to an ever increasing rise of Euro-skepticism within EU and Eurozone countries.

One can only imagine the frustration of the US, NATO and EU Atlanticists who had hoped to coerce Serbia into eventual EU integration. It is not lost on them that, as it stands, Serbia has observer status in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), considered by NATO to be something like the reincarnation of the Warsaw Pact. It also has a free trade agreement with Russia, similar to one that Ukraine has [3]. The US backed coup in Ukraine, justified to its European partners as a necessary step to get Ukraine into an EU association agreement, has shown the world already where an increased effort upon Serbia will lead. Unlike Ukraine, however, Serbian nationalism is firmly pan-Slavic and anti-Hitlerian in its orientation.

That Thursday’s events were not merely an exercise in formalized remembrance, but were vigorous, optimistic, and militarized, which sent a stronger message in imagery than should ever responsibly be said in words. It is additionally troubling for NATO that Serbia is to hold the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE ) chairmanship next year [4]. What will that mean for the OSCE mission in the south Serbian region of Kosovo, presently under US occupation?

Indeed, Thursday’s momentous occasion were as close to a signed Russia-Serbia alliance as one could have without signing one. Responding in a condescending and paternalistic tone, European Parliament Rapporteur on Serbia, David McAllister, expressed concerns over Thursday’s events, reiterating that the EU and NATO did not look favorably upon 4,500 Serbian soldiers saluting Vladimir Putin. He also stated that he expected Serbia to stay on its path to EU accession. [5]

The Serbian state headed by Tomislav Nikolic of the Progressive Party had previously formally positioned its policy on eventual EU integration. Before his election, support for integration was at a high of 70% [6]. Apart from Serberia’s concern for a declining euro-dollar, numerous setbacks and frustrations on critical negotiating points have caused Brussels to push back further talks. In the meanwhile, Serbian support has dropped to perhaps below 40% [7]. This has left EU analysts to wonder if Serbia’s stated intention to join the EU is genuine. Serbia continues to affirm its intention to join the EU, but it simultaneously holds firm to a growing number of deal-breaking policies.

Perhaps to help clarify the confusion, Nikolic said the following at today’s event:

“I share in the glory of the history of Serbia and Russia, a permanent and unbreakable bond of brotherhood, a friendship that has always been, now and forever the pride of our countries and peoples, to the benefit of any well-intentioned man of the world.

Serbia and Russia are tied in origin, language, customs, religion, history, culture, a sublime love for freedom and heroic pride, common mounds and nameless graves, abandoned orphans and women, young lives cut short, a lost generation that remembers our joint struggle.

How many of us would there be if there were no wars that we didn’t start?” [8]

A strong majority of Serbs also support President Putin [9], many viewing him as being a surrogate president. The successes of Russia and Putin are, in the collective Serbian psyche, also theirs to share in. In part through their affinity with Russia, the Serbs feel themselves as part of a larger world of geopolitical relevance. But this majority view hasn’t until recently found an expression in their own government, even while anti-NATO sentiments are considered part and parcel of the Serbian identity.

This contradiction has been bubbling for quite some time, now finding tangible signs of a real resolution. Serbia has been slowly emerging from a neo-colonial Western occupation following several tragedies. Western powers backed a nearly decade long civil war, claiming the lives of over 100,000 people. This criminal and illegal proxy war of divide and conquer, by the US led NATO on Yugoslavia, was followed by a 76 day NATO bombing campaign in 1999 that culminated in the ouster of the democratically elected Slobodon Milosevic in October of 2000.

On the ground, this was coordinated with “Otpor!”, a US supported astroturf movement funded by George Soros’s NED. Stemming in large part from the work of Gene Sharp, it is widely considered to be one of the first modern uses of what has now been called the combined Arab Spring and Color Revolution tactic.

When the lion kills, the jackal prospers; and the following dozen years saw Serbia mis-ruled by a puppet government, supported by a corrupt pro-EU and NATO-tolerant oligarchy. Some like Kostunica were recruited directly from the same “Otpor!”. But now this regrettable story, filled with betrayal and heartache, is but the prologue of a new book about a renewed Eurasian Serbia.

Putin’s momentous and historic visit, then, are not just about the past but about the present and the future. The joint struggle against Nazism in the past finds no lack of allusion in Putin’s comments today about Ukraine and Novorossyia. During his visit, he gave a revealing interview to Serbia’s Politika newspaper. When asked about US-Russia bilateral relations , he stated

“ Washington has actively supported the “Majdan” in Kiev, and as a result of their moves in Kiev a nationalism was unleashed that provoked resentment in a significant part of Ukraine, and threw the country into civil war, (the US) began to blame Russia, that she provoked the crisis. Then President Barack Obama stands in front of the UN General Assembly and included “Russian aggression in Europe” in the list of the three main threats to mankind today, along with the deadly Ebola fever and terrorist group “ISIS”.

Together with the restrictions directed against entire sectors of our economy, such an approach is difficult to name other than hostile.” [10]

The fight against Nazism is not one of mere historical significance, but one which points clearly to the fight in Novorossiya today against a US backed junta. While Serbia has recently proposed legislation to ban individuals from volunteering in foreign conflicts, more than 200 Serbs, and growing, are actively involved on the pro-Russian side in the emergent Federation of Novorossiya [11]. It is too soon to tell whether Putin’s visit will have any effect on the outcome of this vote, or conversely if passed, its serious enforcement. The civil war in the former Ukraine has relied in part on foreign volunteers involved in an anti-Nazi or anti-Fascist resistance.

Thursday’s agreements signed between Putin and Nikolic were also notable. Among the most important surrounds a Russian governmental organization in Niš, in southern Serbia. An agreement was signed to grant full legal immunity to employees of the organization.

The Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center in Niš has been under increased scrutiny from the minority pro-western liberals, and representatives of the US embassy have urged a thorough investigation. The accusations are that the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center, also called the Emergency Situations Center, is operating today as an FSB hub, with the ultimate aim of establishing a Russian military base. This has been denied by Serbian authorities [12]. There is a growing memetic movement calling for Russian military bases in southern Serbia. Niš is 80 miles from US Camp Bondsteel, in the US occupied South Serbian region of Kosovo.

Putin also, during the visit, reiterated his unwavering position on the necessary end to the occupation of Kosovo, and its lawful return to Serbia [13].

All South-stream proposals have the pipeline traveling through, or next to, Niš.

The Emergency Situations Center has been ostensibly set up as a command center for ‘emergency responses’, such as the flash floods that rocked Serbia last May, claiming scores of lives. It is a popular conspiracy theory in Serbia that these floods were caused by the US’s HAARP program, meant to punish Serbia for ignoring EU calls to cease the South-stream gas pipeline project. The completion of the pipeline is a critical piece for Russian access to European markets, as well as a counter-measure against the US created instability in Ukraine, where presently between 65% and 70% of Russian gas to Europe travels through.

On the issue of South-stream, Putin also underlined the importance of the project during today’s visit. He said:

“The South-stream cannot be realized unilaterally. Like in Love, there is a need for two sides. We cannot build the pipeline worth several billions on our own. Similar discussion was led for Nordstream, so now everybody is satisfied. The problems with South-stream are political, and they are damaging the economy. We do not want to have an energy crisis this winter. It certainly will not be our fault.”

One can easily read between the lines of the last sentence, and what this means for Ukraine.

Other areas of talks revolved around the export of Serbian goods to Russia. Serbian exports, mostly agricultural, to Russia have increased over 60% since the NATO/EU imposed sanctions last January [14]. Discussions were also held surrounding dairy.

But this may just be the beginning, and Russian agribusiness consultants may be involved in future projects. A problem with Serbian exports involve their lack of organization, and the agricultural producers are not in a union of producers which export together. For these reasons things are not moving as fast as they could. This reflects some elements of the Serbian culture, which takes a casual approach to business matters and timelines.

Additionally, there was more detailed talks surrounding the export of Serbian made cars, under the Zastava label (formerly Yugo, using the Fiat platform), to Russia. As stated, Serbia enjoys a free trade agreement with Russia.

Germany has indicated that it too may be looking for a loophole to the EU’s sanctions and tariff regime, by having Serbia operate as a middle-man between themselves and their Russian partners. Germany has also felt stifled by EU regulations, having already openly debated leaving the EU [15]. In light of the EU sanctions imposed on Russia over Novorossiya, a serious hindrance to Germany, this may be looking more appealing than ever before. Serbia is a prime candidate due to its proximity to central Europe alongside its non-EU status. Serbia’s holding out as the ‘Lone Star State’ in the Balkans may, in fact, pay serious dividends in the end.

All of this indicates a very real and growing shift, not only for Serbia, but for all of Europe. As the conflict between the CSTO and NATO intensifies, Russia is shoring up its traditional allies and reaffirming its support for the ‘Pink Tide’ Latin American allies in MERCOSUR. Russia does not oppose Serbia’s potential to join the EU, seeing it as another asset within the EU, which can help to maintain its position in bilateral relations.

With all of this in mind, we know at least this: the pouring rain did not deter a single Serb from attending Thursday’s massive events, which caused traffic jams throughout Belgrade that, for the first time in a long time, were ones to be happy about.

Joaquin Flores is an American expat living in Belgrade. He is a full-time analyst at the Center for Syncretic Studies, a public geostrategic think-tank.

19 October, 2014
Greanvillepost.com

By Kate Randall

United Nations officials said Thursday that the UN trust fund for Ebola has only $100,000 on hand, a fraction of the nearly $1 billion the world body says is needed to contain the spread of the deadly virus. While the UN fund has received pledges of about $20 million from various governments, it has received only $100,000 in actual cash deposits, and that from only one country, Colombia.

The failure of the US, Western Europe and other wealthier nations to provide needed resources to confront the Ebola outbreak is indicative of governmental indifference, as the crisis intensifies in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and cases are diagnosed outside West Africa. While donor countries have given about $376 million in cash and non-cash contributions to other UN programs, the trust fund itself—a flexible cash resource vital to fighting Ebola—remains scandalously underfunded.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that as many as 10,000 new cases of Ebola a week could develop in the three hardest-hit West African countries by December 1. At a news conference Tuesday, WHO Assistant Director-General Bruce Aylward said the death toll now exceeds 4,400, with more than 8,900 confirmed cases since March.

Aylward said that while there were fewer cases in some of the worst affected areas, there were troubling signs that new areas of West Africa were reporting cases. There are also an increasing number of Ebola cases in the capital cities of the three countries most severely hit. The outbreak continues to wreak economic havoc on the region.

Food prices have risen by an average of 24 percent across Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, with some families forced to reduce their intake to one meal a day, the World Food Program reported Friday. In Monrovia, the Liberian capital, prices of the main staple foods, Cassava and imported rice, have risen by 30 percent.

Food producing regions in the three countries have some of the highest infection rates, and hundreds of farmers have died. Quarantines and restricted movement of the population—introduced by government authorities to contain the virus—have led to food scarcity and panic buying, further pushing up prices.

Supplies vital to fight the spread of the hemorrhagic fever are in woefully short supply. In a grim statement, the health ministry in Liberia reported that in the next six months it will need more than 85,000 body bags, which are crucial in preventing the spread of the virus, but it has less than 5,000 on hand. The country also has a severe shortage of other vital supplies, including protective suits, facemasks, gloves and goggles.

The governmental response to this dire situation in West Africa—and reports of a handful of new cases in Senegal, Nigeria, Spain and the US—has been particularly reprehensible in the US. The Obama administration is not making available the billions of dollars needed to provide human resources and supplies to the disease-ravaged region. Rather, it has seized on the humanitarian crisis as an opportunity to order the dispatch of active-duty troops to Liberia to secure a base for its African Command (AFRICOM).

On Thursday, Obama issued an executive order allowing the Pentagon to call up Reserve and National Guard troops to be sent to West Africa “to augment the active Armed Forces of the United States for the effective conduct of Operation United Assistance, which is providing support to civilian-led humanitarian assistance.”

The White House has come under increasing criticism over the authorities’ response to the first three cases of Ebola in the US. Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian, died October 6 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas. He was initially released from the hospital despite having a fever and other symptoms and telling staff he had recently arrived from West Africa.

Two nurses who treated Duncan, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, have been diagnosed with Ebola and have now been transferred to two of the nation’s four state-of-the-art Ebola treatment centers. Nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian have come forward to criticize the unpreparedness of hospital authorities to treat Ebola patients, including lack of staff training, protective suits that left nurses’ necks exposed, and reckless handling of contagious bodily fluid waste.

Before being diagnosed, Vinson contacted the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), reporting an elevated fever, and was nevertheless given the go-ahead to board a commercial airline flight. People on that flight, and others on subsequent flights on the same aircraft, may have been exposed to Ebola. Relatives of Vinson and some of those on these flights have now been placed in voluntary 21-day quarantine.

On Friday, another Texas Health Presbyterian worker, who reportedly processed Duncan’s lab specimens, was quarantined in a cabin aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean on the recommendation of the CDC. The ship can carry 3,690 passengers and 1,367 crew members. Mexico and Belize refused to allow the ship to dock and it is returning to the US.

Facing mounting criticism over his administration’s incompetent and negligent response to the virus outbreak, President Obama on Friday named Ron Klain to serve as an “Ebola czar,” in charge of coordinating the government’s anti-Ebola efforts. The choice of Klain highlights the cynical and politically-driven concerns that dominate the administration’s actions in regard to the Ebola crisis.

Klain has no experience in health care or medical science. He is a Democratic Party insider who previously served as Vice President Joseph Biden’s chief of staff. He also served as chief of staff to Al Gore during the Florida ballot recount in the 2000 presidential election, when the former vice president acceded to the decision of the US Supreme Court to halt the recount and hand the presidency to George W. Bush.

The appointment of Klain confirms that Obama’s actions are driven not by what is needed to protect the population, either in the US or Africa, but rather by a desire to cover up the criminally negligent role of government agencies such as the CDC and of hospital officials, and limit the political damage to his administration.

With the mid-term elections less than three weeks away, the White House hopes the token appointment will prevent the Ebola crisis from becoming a significant issue on Election Day. Obama is coming under pressure from leading Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner and Texas Governor Rick Perry, to impose a ban on travel from West Africa.

Leading health experts, including CDC Director Thomas Frieden, warn that such an action would lead to the economic collapse of West African nations stricken by the disease, worsening the epidemic and making its global spread more, rather than less, likely.

Obama said Friday he supports present airport screening measures but is not “philosophically opposed” to a travel ban. Federal Aviation Administration head Michael Huerta told reporters Thursday that the government was assessing whether to issue a travel ban “on a day-to-day basis.”

A serious response to the Ebola crisis requires taking control of the effort out of the hands of corporate-dominated governments. What is needed is a massive, coordinated effort mobilizing an international team of doctors, scientists and health care professionals equipped with whatever supplies and resources are required—at whatever cost—to save as many people as possible in the disease-stricken nations and prevent an outbreak on a global scale.

18 October, 2014
WSWS.org

By Colin Todhunter

The corporate jargon surrounding the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal is about ‘protecting’ investment’, reducing ‘unnecessary’ barriers and ‘harmonising’ regulations that supposedly deter free trade between the US and the EU.

In principle, the notion of trade that is free and fair sounds ideal. But, across the world, the dominant ideological paradigm allows little scope for either. Markets are rigged [1], commodity prices subject to manipulation [2] and nations are coerced [3], destabilised [4] or attacked [5] in order that powerful players gain access to resources and markets.

On 11 October, over 400 groups across Europe took to the streets to demonstrate against the TTIP, which has just ended its seventh round of talks in Washington . While some groups are accused by supporters of the TTIP of being ideologically driven in their opposition, it is not ideology that drives this opposition. It is sceptism and suspicion fuelled by the prevailing pactices and actions of powerful corporations and their brand of neoliberalism and rampant privatisation. The secrecy and lack of transparency surrounding the TTIP fuels this suspicion. The public has not been allowed to know who set the agenda for the negotiations or what specifically is being negotiated supposedly its our behalf?

The public is expected to put up and shut up and leave it all to those who know best: EU officials with their deep-seated conflicts of interest [6,7,8] and big business. It has been mainly through leaked documents and recourse to freedom of information legislation that the public has gained insight into the nature of the negotiations.

The origins of the TTIP and the absence of transparency

The deal was masterminded by the ‘High Level Working Group on Jobs and Growth’ (HLWG), which was set up in 2011 and chaired by European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht and the then US Trade Representative Ron Kirk [9]. In its final report, the Group not only recommended entering into the negotiations but went into some detail as to what should be put on the table, with the far-reaching aim of moving towards a “transatlantic marketplace.”

When questioned about the nature of the group, the European Commission (EC) said it had no identifiable members and stated that “several departments” contributed to the discussion and the reports of the (memberless) group. It even stated that there was no document containing the list of authors of the reports. A request by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) to disclose membership/report authors was met with the response: “Unfortunately we (the EC) are not in a position to provide you with the information requested.” [10]

CEO argued that the group should be subject to the transparency requirements set up in EC’s rules on ‘expert groups ‘ , including transparency about who participated.

When asked about the ‘outside expertise’ (as the EC called it) that had influenced the reports produced by the HLWG, CEO was told that the impact assessment of the proposed EU-US trade deal contained a summary of the expert evidence gathered since its inception. CEO was also directed to the Commission’s overview page for public consultations, where it is stated that more than 65 percent of the input to the first two consultations on the proposed EU-US deal came from companies and industry associations.

European Commissioner De Gucht claimed that “there is nothing secret” about the ongoing talks. In December 2013 in a letter published in The Guardian [11], he argued that “our negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership are fully open to scrutiny.”

If that was the case, why then were notes of Commission meetings with business lobbyists released to Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) under the EU’s freedom of information law heavily censored? [12]

The public is not allowed to know the positions held by the EU (unlike business interests) in these talks, who is being given access to whom and who is lobbying for what on whose behalf. High-minded platitudes referring to protecting the integrity of industry and the sensitive nature of negotiations have been used in an attempt to subvert democracy, prevent public scrutiny and secure the continued privileged positions and influence that big business has held in the talks. The arguments being used to justify the secrecy were thinly veiled disguises to try to hoodwink the public into the accepting the legitimacy of these negotiations without question.

Documents received by CEO showed that De Gucht’s officials invited industry to submit wishlists for ‘regulatory barriers’ they would like removed during the negotiations. However, there was no way for the public to know how the EU incorporated this into its negotiating position as all references had been removed.

CEO received 44 documents about the EC’s meetings with industry lobbyists as part of preparations for the EU-US trade talks. Most of the documents, released as a result of a freedom of information (FOI) request , were meeting reports prepared by Commission officials.

The documents arrived almost a full ten months (!) after the FOI request was tabled and 39 of the 44 documents were heavily censored. The documents covered only a fraction of the more than 100 meetings which De Gucht’s officials had with industry lobbyists in the run-up to the launch of the TTIP negotiations.

Were no notes taken during closed-door meetings with corporate lobbyists from, for example, the US Chamber of Commerce, the German industry federation BDI, chemical lobby groups CEFIC and VCI, pharmaceutical industry coalition EFPIA, DigitalEurope, the Transatlantic Business Council, arms industry lobby ASD, the British Bankers Association and corporations like Lilly, Citi and BMW?

In the 39 documents which were “partially released”, large parts of text (“non releasable” or “not relevant”) had been hidden. In some cases, every single word had been removed from the document.

Not only was the text of the EU’s negotiating position secret, the public was even denied access to sentences in meeting reports that referred to the EU negotiating position. These were minutes from meetings with industry lobbyists who were clearly given information about the EU’s negotiating position in the TTIP talks, unlike the public. The sharing of information about the EU’s negotiating position with industry while refusing civil society access to that same information was a case of unacceptable discrimination.

In many cases, parts of text were removed because they contained the views of industry lobby groups “on particular aspects of the EU/US trade negotiations.” “Release of that information could have a negative impact on the position of the industry”, the Commission argued. It was unclear why the views of the lobby groups should be hidden from public scrutiny.

The Commission had also removed all names of lobbyists from the 44 documents arguing that “disclosure would undermine the protection of […] privacy and the integrity of the individual”. According to CEO, this was an absurd line of argument as these were professional lobbyists who are not acting in an individual capacity. There is clear public interest in transparency around who is lobbying on whose behalf and who is getting access to EU decision-makers.

What the corporations really want

Despite being heavily censored, the documents showed clearly that removing differences in EU and US regulations is the key issue in the TTIP talks, with ‘regulatory barriers’ coming up in a large majority of the meetings. For example, in a meeting with the European Services Forum in February 2013, a lobby group for global service players such as Deutsche Bank, IBM and Vodafone, the Commission suggested various options for regulatory cooperation such as ‘compatibility’, ‘mutual recognition’ and ‘equivalence’.

In another meeting in February 2013, BusinessEurope (the most powerful business lobby in Brussels ), stressed “its willingness to play an active role in the upcoming negotiations, in particular on the regulatory front”. The Commission noted the importance of EU industry “submitting detailed ‘Transatlantic’ proposals to tackle regulatory barriers”.

A leaked EU document from the winter of 2013 showed the Commission proposing an EU-US Regulatory Cooperation Council [12], a permanent structure to be created as part of the TTIP deal. Existing and future EU regulation would then have to go through a series of investigations, dialogues and negotiations in this Council. This would move decisions on regulations into a technocratic sphere, away from democratic scrutiny. Policies could be presented to the public as ‘done deals’, all worked out behind closed doors between pro-business officials and business leaders. There would also be compulsory impact assessments for proposed regulation, which will be checked for their potential impact on trade. What about whether they protect people’s health or are good for the environment?

This would be ideal for big business lobbies: creating a firm brake on any new progressive regulation in the very first stage of decision-making.

Even without access to various sources of information, some of the main players that originally supported the deal included the biotech sector, Toyota, General Motors, the pharmaceutical industr y , IBM and the Chamber of Commerce of the US , one of the most powerful corporate lobby groups in the US. Business Europe, the main organization representing employers in Europe, launched its own strategy on an EU-US economic and trade partnershipin early 2012 [13]. Its suggestions were widely included in the draft EU mandate.

Over the past couple of years or so, an increasing number of politicians and citizens groups have demanded that the negotiations be conducted in an open way, not least because t here are concerns that the deal will open the floodgate for GMOs ( food multinationals, agri-traders and seed producers have had more contacts with the EC’s trade department than lobbyists from the pharmaceutical, chemical, financial and car industry put together [14]) and shale gas (fracking) in Europe, threaten digital and labour rights and will empower corporations to legally challenge a wide range of regulations which they dislike.

One of the key aspects of the negotiations is that both the EU and US should recognize their respective rules and regulations, which in practice could reduce regulation to the lowest common denominator: a race to the bottom. The official language talks of “mutual recognition” of standards or so-called reduction of non-tariff barriers. For the EU, that could mean accepting US standards in many areas, including food and agriculture, which are lower than the EU’s.

The US wants all so-called barriers to trade, including highly controversial regulations such as those protecting agriculture, food or data privacy, to be removed. Even the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, made it clear that any agreement must also reduce EU restrictions on genetically modified crops, chlorinated chickens and hormone-treated beef [15].

Demands include an “a mbitious liberalisation of agricultural trade barriers with as few exceptions as possible”. Similarly, food lobby group Food and Drink Europe , representing the largest food companies (Unilever, Kraft, Nestlé, etc.), has welcomed the negotiations, with one of their key demands being the facilitation of the low level presence of unapproved genetically modified crops. This is a long-standing industry agenda also supported by feed and grain trading giants, including Cargill, Bunge, ADM, and the big farmers’ lobby COPA-COGECA. Meanwhile, the biotech industry on both sides of the Atlantic is offer ing its “ support and assistance as the EU and the US government look to enhance their trade relationship.” [13]

There is also the highly contentious investor-trade dispute settlement provision. It would enable US companies investing in Europe to bypass European courts and challenge EU governments at international tribunals whenever they find that laws in the area of public health, environmental or social protection interfere with their profits. EU companies investing abroad would have the same privilege in the US .

Across the world, big business has already used such settlement provisions in trade and investment agreements to claim massive sums from sovereign states in compensation [16]. Tribunals, consisting of ad hoc three-member panels hired from a small club of private lawyers riddled with conflicts of interest, have granted billions of euros to companies, courtesy of taxpayers.

EU and US companies have already used these lawsuits across the globe to destroy any competition or threats to their profits by for example challenging green energy and medicine policies, anti-smoking legislation, bans on harmful chemicals, environmental restrictions on mining, health insurance policies and measures to improve the economic situation of minorities. Even the threat of litigation can mean governments shelving socially progressive policies.

Any form of state intervention that does not work to the advantage of big business is increasingly regarded as a ‘barrier’ to trade, a potential curb on profits.

The TTIP is therefore also designed to undermine public sector service provision. That’s right, the public sector is regarded as a ‘barrier’ too. Private corporations could gain access to the lucrative government procurement market under the banner of free trade. We could well see an irreversible privatisation fest as US private interests bid to run state services such as the UK ‘s public sector National Health Service: patient care rights would give way to corporate business rights [17].

A report published by the Seattle to Brussels Network (S2B) revealed the true human and environmental costs of the proposed deal. ‘ A Brave New Transatlantic Partnership ‘ [18] highlighted how the EC’s promises of up to one percent GDP growth and massive job creation as a result of the trade deal were not supported even by its own studies, which predict a growth rate of just 0.01% GDP over the next ten years and the potential loss of jobs in several economic sectors, including agriculture.

The report also explained how corporations were lobbying negotiators to use the deal to weaken food safety, labour, health and environmental standards as well as undermine digital rights. Attempts to strengthen banking regulation in the face of the financial crisis could also be jeopardised as the financial lobby uses the secretive trade negotiations to undo financial reforms, such as restrictions on the total value of financial transactions or the legal form of its operations.

When the report was released, Kim Bizzarri, the author of the report, argued:

“Big business lobbies on both sides of the Atlantic view the secretive trade negotiations as a weapon for getting rid of policies aimed at protecting European and US consumers, workers and our planet. If their corporate wish-list is implemented, it will concentrate even more economic and political power within the hands of a small elite, leaving all of us without protection from corporate wrongdoings.”
TTIP in context

Despite sections of the mainstream corporate media glibly presenting the TTIP as a well thought out recipe for free trade, job creation and economic growth, albeit with a few minor glitches, such claims do not stack up. The TTIP is a mandate for corporate plunder, the bypassing of democratic procedures and the erosion of ordinary people’s rights and national sovereignty. It represents a pro-privatisation agenda that enshrines the privileges of the world’s most powerful corporations at the expense of ordinary people.

Ordinary people want powerful corporations to be held to account. They want business practices regulated by elected representatives and public officials in order to protect the public good. However, why so many continue to blithely place such trust in certain EU institutions stretches the imagination: democracy in the EU has been sold to the highest bidder; the EC is a captive but willing servant of a corporate agenda [8]. And now the TTIP presents an ideal opportunity for corporations to force through wholly unpopular policies.

Ultimately, the TTIP could draw Europe even closer to the US and consolidate the power of Anglo-US financial-corporate interests centred in the City of London and on Wall Street. If events surrounding Ukraine tell us anything, it is that these interests have been instrumental in driving a wedge between Europe and Russia to prevent closer economic alignment between the two. By placing economic sanctions on Russia and, according to US Vice President Joe Biden, “embarrassing” the EU to force it go along with them, Europe ‘s trade with Russia will suffer. As a result, Europe now has added incentive to ‘embrace’ the TTIP.

The TTIP is thus part of the broader geopolitical game plan to weaken Western Europe and divide the European continent by sidelining Russia . While the TTIP may appear to have nothing to do with what is happening in Ukraine or Syria , it must be regarded as another cog in the wheel to cement US global hegemony and weaken Russia [19].

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

17 October, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Eric van de Beek Interviews Udo Ulfkotte

Exclusively for RI, Dutch journalist Eric van de Beek interviews the senior German editor who is causing a sensation with his allegations that the CIA pays German media professionals to spin stories to follow US government goals.

We wrote about this two weeks ago, and the article shot up in views, becoming one of the most read articles on our site.

Udo Ulfkotte reveals in his bestseller Bought Journalists, how he was “taught to lie, to betray and not to tell the truth to the public.”

The former editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which is one of Germany’s largest newspapers, was secretly on the payroll of the CIA and German secret service, spinning the news in a way that was positive for the United States and bad for its opponents.

In his latest interview, Ulfkotte alleges that some media are nothing more than propaganda outlets of political parties, secret services, international think tanks and high finance entities.

Repenting for collaborating with various agencies and organisations to manipulate the news, Ulkotte laments, “I’m ashamed I was part of it. Unfortunately I cannot reverse this.”

Some highlights from the interview:

“I ended up publishing articles under my own name written by agents of the CIA and other intelligence services, especially the German secret service.”

“Most journalists from respected and big media organisations are closely connected to the German Marshall Fund, the Atlantik-Brücke or other so-called transatlantic organisations…once you’re connected, you make friends with selected Americans. You think they are your friends and you start cooperating. They work on your ego, make you feel like you’re important. And one day one of them will ask you ‘Will you do me this favor’…”

“When I told the Frankfurter Allgemeine that I would publish the book, their lawyers sent me a letter threatening with all legal consequences if I would publish any names or secrets – but I don’t mind.”

“[The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung] hasn’t sued me. They know that I have evidence on everything.”

“No German mainstream journalist is allowed to report about [my] book. Otherwise he or she will be sacked. So we have a bestseller now that no German journalist is allowed to write or talk about.”

Here’s more from the interview:

“Bought journalists”, who are they?

“We’re talking about puppets on a string, journalists who write or say whatever their masters tell them to say or write. If you see how the mainstream media is reporting about the Ukraine conflict and if you know what’s really going on, you get the picture. The masters in the background are pushing for war with Russia and western journalists are putting on their helmets.”

And you were one of them, and now you are the first to blow the whistle.

“I’m ashamed I was part of it. Unfortunately I cannot reverse this. Although my superiors at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung approved of what I did, I’m still to blame. But yes, to my knowledge I am the first to accuse myself and to prove many others are to blame.”

How did you become a bought journalist?

“It started very soon after I started working at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. I learned to regard luxury invitations as quite acceptable and to write positive articles in return. Later on I was invited by the German Marshall Fund of The United States to travel the United States. They paid for all my expenses and put me in contact with Americans they’d like me to meet. In fact, most journalists from respected and big media organisations are closely connected to the German Marshall Fund, the Atlantik-Brücke or other so-called transatlantic organisations. Many of them are even members or ‘fellows’. I am a fellow of the German Marshall Fund. The thing is, once you’re connected, you make friends with selected Americans. You think they are your friends and you start cooperating. They work on your ego, make you feel like you’re important. And one day one of them will ask you ‘Will you do me this favor’ and then another will ask you ‘Will you do me that favor’. Bye and bye you get completely brainwashed. I ended up publishing articles under my own name written by agents of the CIA and other intelligence services, especially the Bundesnachrichtendienst.”

You said your superiors approved of that?

“They did. From my private point of view, in retrospective, they even sent me to spy. For instance in 1988 they put me on a plane to Iraq, where I traveled to the border with Iran. In those days Saddam Hussein was still seen as a good guy, a close ally to the US. The Americans supported him in his war against Iran. About 35 kilometers from the border, in an Iranian place called Zubaidad, I witnessed the Iraqis killing and injuring thousands of Iranians by throwing poison gas at them. I did exactly what my superiors had asked me to do. I made photo’s of the gas attacks. Back in Frankfurt it appeared my superiors didn’t show much interest in the atrocities I had witnessed. They allowed me to write an article about it, but they severely limited the size of it as if it wasn’t of much importance. At the same time they asked me to hand over the photo’s that I had made to the German association of chemical companies in Frankfurt, Verband der Chemischen Industrie. This poison gas that had killed so many Iranians was made in Germany.”

What’s your opinion on press trips? Journalists usually excuse themselves by saying they are perfectly able to follow their own judgment and that they don’t commit themselves to anything or anybody.

“I’ve been on a thousand press trips and never reported bad about those who paid all the expenses. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. That’s where corruption starts. And that’s the reason why magazines like Der Spiegel don’t allow their journalists to accept invitations to press trips unless they pay for their own expenses.”

The consequences of becoming a whistleblower can be serious. Do you have any indications people tried to prevent the publication of your book?

“When I told the Frankfurter Allgemeine that I would publish the book, their lawyers sent me a letter threatening with all legal consequences if I would publish any names or secrets – but I don’t mind. You see, I don’t have children to take care of. And you must know I was severely injured during the gas attack I witnessed in Iran in 1988. I’m the sole German survivor from a German poison gas attack. I’m still suffering from this. I’ve had three heart attacks. I don’t expect to live for more than a few years.”

In your book you mention many names of bought journalists. How are they doing now? Are they being sacked? Are they trying to clear their names?

“No German mainstream journalist is allowed to report about the book. Otherwise he or she will be sacked. So we have a bestseller now that no German journalist is allowed to write or talk about. More shocking: We have respected journalists who seem to have gone deep sea diving for a long time. It’s an Interesting situation. I expected and hoped that they would sue me and bring me to court. But they have no idea what to do. The respected Frankfurter Allgemeine just announced they will fire 200 employees, because they’re losing subscribers very rapidly and in high numbers. But they don’t sue me. They know that I have evidence on everything.”

Copyright © 2014 Russia Insider

17 October, 2014
Russia-insider.com

 

By Kirtana Chandrasekaran & Martin Drago

ROME, Italy – Today, World Food Day, we are confronted with the failure of our global food system: 805 million people are going hungry while obesity affects over 2 billion of us.

The hungry are mostly the rural poor living in developing countries, predominantly peasants and other small-scale food producers, from Africa, Asia Nearly one of every nine people go to bed hungry every night, but not Adolfo and his family, despite the fact that he is from an area devastated by the effects of climate change and flooding, the Lempe Valley in El Salvador.

Adolfo knows from first hand experience that agricultural diversity and saving traditional seeds are essential to the livelihoods of small scale food producers, who, in turn, play a vital role in feeding local people.

Governments around the world have sidelined small-scale food producers for decades, pushing millions of them into hunger. Yet, even today, most of the world’s food is still grown by them, using traditional seed varieties and without the use of industrial inputs.

Peasants like Adolfo are the primary food producers feeding the world today. And we desperately need them, not more industrial farming, if we are to feed the planet in the context of climate change and widespread degradation of natural resources.

In Africa, peasants grow almost all locally consumed food. In Latin America, 60 per cent of farming, including meat, comes from small-scale family farms. In Asia, the global rice powerhouse, almost all rice is grown on farms of less than 2 hectares.

Yet industrial farming – based on monocultures, hybrid seeds, and chemical pesticides and fertilizers – is still promoted heavily by agribusinesses and some governments as the best way to provide food for the planet.

Yet, evidence shows that industrial farming is destroying the resources we rely on to produce our food. Desertification of soils, a diminishing genetic pool, and dead-sea zones from fertilizer runoff are just some of the effects of industrial farming. Climate change is another huge challenge that could bring down agricultural productivity significantly by 2050, especially in developing countries. Ironically, industrial farming is itself a major contributor to climate change because of its reliance on fossil fuels and fertilizers.

Despite this, backers of industrial agriculture point to our growing population and the need to produce more food as a justification for ignoring its real environmental consequences.

But we know that producing more food and increasing yields are not the sole challenges. In fact, we already produce enough food to feed our population today and in the future.

The problem is not lack of food, rather its unbalanced distribution. Access to food is dictated by wealth and profit rather than need, when “free trade” is promoted over the Right to Food.

As a result, half the world’s grain now feeds factory-farmed animals and a huge proportion of food crops are turned into agrofuels to fuel cars, taking food from the hungry and diverting it to wealthy consumers.

Our real hunger challenge today is to raise incomes and sustain the livelihoods of small-scale food producers, enabling them to feed themselves and local people sustainably. Facing this challenge, the ‘food sovereignty’ movement has emerged as an incredibly effective alternative to the industrial food system.

The movement for food sovereignty is backed by more than 300 million small- scale food producers as well as consumers, environmentalists and human rights Food sovereignty is fundamentally different from food security. A country focused on achieving food security does not distinguish where food comes from, or the conditions under which it is produced and distributed. National food security targets are often met by sourcing food produced under environmentally destructive and socially exploitative conditions that destroy local food producers but benefit agribusiness corporations.

On the other hand, food sovereignty promotes community control of resources and access to land for small-scale producers. It prioritizes peoples’ ownership of their food policies. Importantly, it demands the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through agroecology – the application of ecological principles to farming.

In the past few years, new evidence from several United Nations agencies has recognized agroecology as the most effective way to tackle the multiple crises of hunger, environmental damage and poverty. A 2011 analysis of agro-ecology (pdf) found that it has the potential to double small farmers’ food production in 10 years.

Even a fraction of such a gain would go a very long way to substantially decrease world hunger.

The evidence is clear but changing the food system is difficult.

The power of seed and pesticide companies such as Monsanto and Syngenta, of gigantic supermarkets such as Wal-Mart, and of grain traders such as Cargill has grown so strong that they exert a massive influence over national food policies. This ensures that agribusinesses still receive billions of dollars in subsidies and policy support.

The solution to global hunger is within our grasp, but it requires a fundamental reform of the global food system: a wholesale shift from industrial farming to agroecology and food sovereignty.

It is Adolfo’s knowledge, and that of millions of peasants like him that we want to celebrate today with the motto of World Food Day 2014: ‘Family farming: feeding the world, caring for the Earth.’

Kirtana Chandrasekaran is food sovereignty program coordinator at Friends of the Earth International.

Martin Drago is food sovereignty program coordinator at Friends of the Earth International.

17 October, 2014
Common Dreams

By Eric Draitser

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

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

The Iran Equation

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

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

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

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

Why Kurdistan?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

16 October 2014

http://journal-neo.org/

By Ajamu Baraka

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

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

So what is the difference in the two situations?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

12 October 2014

By Mark Bergfeld

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13 October 2014

By John Wight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

14 October 2014