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By Paul Craig Roberts
The unilateral US sanctions announced by Obama on July 16 blocking Russian weapons and energy companies access to US bank loans demonstrate Washington’s impotence. The rest of the world, including America’s two largest business organizations, turned their backs on Obama. The US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers placed ads in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post protesting US sanctions. NAM said that the manufacturer’s association is “disappointed that the US is extending sanctions in increasingly unilateral ways that will undermine US commercial engagement.” Bloomberg reported that “meeting in Brussels, leaders of the European Union refused to match the US measures.”

In attempting to isolate Russia, the White House Fool has isolated Washington.

The sanctions will have no effect on the Russian companies. The Russian companies can get more bank loans than they need from China, or from France and Germany.

The three traits that define Washington–arrogance, hubris, and corruption–make Washington a slow learner. Arrogant people wallowing in hubris are incapable of learning. When they encounter resistance they respond with bribes, threats, and coercion. Diplomacy requires learning ability, but Washington left diplomacy years ago and relies on force.

Consequently, with its sanctions Washington is undermining its own power and influence. Sanctions are encouraging countries to withdraw from the dollar payments system that is the foundation of US power. Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, said that Washington’s sanctions are driving companies and countries out of the dollar payments system. The huge sum extorted from the French bank, BNP Paribas, for doing business with countries disapproved by Washington makes clear the increased legal risks that arise from using the dollar when Washington makes the rules.

Washington’s attack on the French bank was the occasion for many to remember the numerous past sanctions and to contemplate future sanctions, such as those that loom for Germany’s Commerzbank. A movement to diversify the currencies used in international trade is inevitable. Noyer pointed out that trade between Europe and China does not need to use the dollar and can be fully paid in Euros or Renminbi.

The phenomenon of US rules expanding to all US dollar-denominated transactions around the world is accelerating the movement away from the dollar payment system. Some countries have already arranged bilateral agreements with trading partners to make their trade payments in their own currencies. The BRICS are establishing new payment methods independently of the dollar and are setting up their own International Monetary Fund to finance trade imbalances.

The US dollar’s exchange value depends on its role in the international payments system. As this role shrivels, so will demand for dollars and the dollar’s exchange value. Inflation will enter the US economy via import prices, and already hard-pressed Americans will experience more compression of their living standards.

In the 21st century distrust has been growing of Washington. Washington’s lies, such as Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction,” “Assad’s use of chemical weapons,” and “Iranian nukes” are recognized as lies by other governments. The lies were used by Washington to destroy countries and to threaten others with destruction, keeping the world in constant turmoil. Washington delivers no benefit that offsets the turmoil that Washington inflicts on everyone else. Washington’s friendship requires complying with Washington’s demands, and governments are concluding that Washington’s friendship is not worth the high cost.

The NSA spy scandal and Washington’s refusal to apologize and desist has deepened the distrust of Washington by its own allies. World polls show that other countries regard the US as the greatest threat to peace. The American people themselves have no confidence in their government. Polls show that a large majority of Americans believe that politicians, the presstitute media, and private interest groups such as Wall Street and the military/security complex rig the system to serve themselves at the expense of the American people.

Washington’s empire is beginning to crack, a circumstances that will bring desperate action from Washington. Today (July 17) I heard a BBC news report on National Public Radio about a Malaysian airliner being shot down in Ukraine. The reporting might have been honest, but it sounded like a frame-up of Russia and the Ukrainian “separatists.” As the BBC solicited more biased opinions, the broadcast ended with a report from social media that separatists had brought down the airliner with a Russian weapon system.

No one on the program wondered what the separatists had to gain by shooting down an airliner. Instead, the discussion was whether once Russian responsibility was established, would this force the EU to endorse tougher US sanctions against Russia. The BBC was following Washington’s script and heading the story where Washington wanted it to go.

The appearance of a Washington operation is present. All the warmongers were ready on cue. US Vice President Joe Biden declared that the airliner was “blown out of the sky.” It was “not an accident.” Why would a person without an agenda be so declarative prior to having any information? Clearly, Biden was not implying that it was Kiev that blew the airliner out of the sky. Biden was at work in advance of the evidence blaming Russia. Indeed, the way Washington operates, it will pile on blame until it needs no evidence.

Senator John McCain jumped on the supposition that there were US citizens aboard to call for punitive actions against Russia before the passenger list and the cause of the airliner’s fate are known.

The “investigation” is being conducted by Washington’s puppet regime in Kiev. I think we already know what the conclusion will be.

The probability is high that we are going to have more fabricated evidence, such as the fabricated evidence presented by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN “proving” the existence of the non-existent Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.” Washington has succeeded with so many lies, deceptions and crimes that it believes that it can always succeed again.

At this time as I write, we have no reliable information about the airliner, but the Roman question always pertains: “Who benefits?” There is no conceivable motive for separatists to shoot down an airliner, but Washington did have a motive–to frame-up Russia–and possibly a second motive. Among the reports or rumors there is one that says Putin’s presidential plane flew a similar route to that of the Malaysian airliner within 37 minutes of one another. This report has led to speculation that Washington decided to rid itself of Putin and mistook the Malaysian airliner for Putin’s jet. RT reports that the two airplanes are similar in appearance. http://rt.com/news/173672-malaysia-plane-crash-putin/

Before you say Washington is too sophisticated to mistake one airliner for another, keep in mind that when Washington shot down an Iranian airliner over Iranian air space, the US Navy claimed that it thought the 290 civilians that it murdered were in an Iranian fighter jet, a F-14 Tomcat fighter, a US-made fighter that was a mainstay of the US Navy. If the US Navy cannot tell its own workhorse fighter aircraft from an Iranian airliner, clearly the US can confuse two airliners that the RT report shows appear very similar.

During the entire BBC frame-up of Russia, no one mentioned the Iranian passenger airliner that the US “blew out of the sky.” No one put sanctions on Washington.

Whatever the outcome of the Malaysian airliner incident, it demonstrates a danger in Putin’s soft policy toward Washington’s ongoing hard intervention in Ukraine. Putin’s decision to respond with diplomacy instead of with military means to Washington’s provocations in Ukraine gave Putin a winning hand, as evidenced by the opposition to Obama’s sanctions by the EU and US business interests. However, by not bringing a quick forceable end to the Washington-sponsored conflict in Ukraine, Putin has left the door open for the devious machinations in which Washington specializes.

If Putin had accepted the requests of the former Russian territories in eastern and southern Ukraine to rejoin Mother Russia, the Ukrainian imbroglio would have come to an end months ago, and Russia would not be running risks of being framed-up.

Putin did not get the full benefit of refusing to send troops into the former Russian territories, because Washington’s official position is that Russian troops are operating in Ukraine. When facts do not support Washington’s agenda, Washington disposes of the facts. The US media blames Putin as the perpetrator of violence in Ukraine. It is Washington’s accusation, not any known facts, that is the basis for the sanctions.

As there is no act too dastardly for Washington to undertake, Putin and Russia could become victims of a devious machination.

Russia seems hypnotized by the West and motivated to be included as a part of the West. This desire for acceptance plays into Washington’s hands. Russia does not need the West, but Europe needs Russia. One option for Russia is to tend to Russian interests and wait for Europe to come courting.

The Russian government should not forget that Washington’s attitude toward Russia is formed by the Wolfowitz Doctrine which states:

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

18 July, 2014
Paulcraigroberts.org

 

By Dahr Jamail
For Americans, it was like the news from nowhere. Years had passed since reporters bothered to head for the country we invaded and blew a hole through back in 2003, the country once known as Iraq that our occupation drove into a never-ending sectarian nightmare. In 2011, the last U.S. combat troops slipped out of the country, their heads “held high,” as President Obama proclaimed at the time, and Iraq ceased to be news for Americans.

So the headlines of recent weeks — Iraq Army collapses! Iraq’s second largest city falls to insurgents! Terrorist Caliphate established in Middle East! — couldn’t have seemed more shockingly out of the blue. Suddenly, reporters flooded back in, the Bush-era neocons who had planned and supported the invasion and occupation were writing op-eds as if it were yesterday, and Iraq was again the story of the moment as the post-post-mortems began to appear and commentators began asking: How in the world could this be happening?

Iraqis, of course, lacked the luxury of ignoring what had been going on in their land since 2011. For them, whether Sunnis or Shiites, the recent unraveling of the army, the spread of a series of revolts across the Sunni parts of Iraq, the advance of an extremist insurgency on the country’s capital, Baghdad, and the embattled nature of the autocratic government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were, if not predictable, at least expectable. And as the killings ratcheted up, caught in the middle were the vast majority of Iraqis, people who were neither fighters nor directly involved in the corrupt politics of their country, but found themselves, as always, caught in the vice grip of the violence again engulfing it.

An Iraqi friend I’ve known since 2003, living in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad, emailed me recently. He had made it through the sectarian bloodletting of 2006-2007 in which many of his Sunni compatriots were killed or driven from the capital, and this is the picture he painted of what life is now like for him, his wife, and their small children:

“All the dangers faced by Iraqis from the occupation — arrests, torture, car bombs, and sectarian violence — those killings have become like a toy in comparison to what we are facing these days. Fighting has spread in all directions from the north, east, and west of Baghdad. Much of the fighting is between the government and Sunni insurgents who have suffered a lot from the injustice of Maliki’s sectarian government.”

As for his daily life, he described it this way:

“As a result of this fighting, we can’t sleep because of our fear of the uncertainty of the situation, and because of the random arrests of innocent Sunni people. Each day I awake and find myself in a very hard and bad situation and now am trying to think of any way I can to leave here and save my family. Most of my neighbors left back when it was easier to leave. Now, we have both the U.S. and Iran helping the Iraqi government, and this will only make the fighting that is going on across Iraq much worse.

“Life in Iraq has become impossible, and even more dangerous, and there is now no way to leave here. To the north, west, and east of Baghdad there is fighting, and with so many groups of Shiite militias in the south, it is not safe for us to go there because of the sectarianism that was never here before the invasion. The price for bus tickets has become very expensive and they are all booked up for months. So many Iraqi families and I are trapped in the middle now.”

“Every day, the Iraqi army is raiding homes and arresting many innocent people. So many dead bodies are to be found at the Baghdad morgue in the days following the mass arrests in Sunni areas.”

He concluded his email on a stark note, reminiscent of the sorts of things I regularly heard when I was in Iraq covering the brutal results of the U.S. occupation. “Horror, fear, arbitrary arrests, indiscriminate bombing, killing, an uncertain future — this is the new democratic Iraq.”

And don’t for a second think that this summer it’s just Sunni communities who are living in fear. Claims of massacres and other atrocities being carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group spearheading the Sunni revolt across the northern and western parts of the country, abound along with well-documented accounts of their brutal tactics against Shiites.

In one incident, according to witnesses, ISIS forces kidnapped at least 40 Shia Turkmen, blew up three Shia mosques and another Shia shrine, and raided homes and farms in two Shia villages near the city of Mosul. And that’s just to start down a long list of horrors. Meanwhile, the sectarianism shredding the social fabric is being stoked further by the posting of images online that show at least 10 ancient Shiite shrines and mosques destroyed by ISIS fighters.

The Disintegration of Iraq

As for myself, I can’t claim to be surprised by the events of recent weeks. Back in March 2013, on a visit to the embattled Sunni city of Fallujah (twice besieged and largely destroyed by U.S. troops in the occupation years), I saw many signs of the genesis of what was to come. I was at one point on a stage there alongside half a dozen tribal and religious leaders from the area. Tens of thousands of enraged men, mostly young, filled the street below us, holding up signs expressing their anger toward U.S.-backed Prime Minister Maliki.

Having written about the myriad human rights abuses and violations Maliki’s regime was responsible for, I was intimately familiar with the way the bodies, dignity, and rights of much of the Sunni population in Fallujah’s province, al-Anbar, had been abused. That same month, I had, for instance, interviewed a woman who used the alias Heba al-Shamary and had just been released from an Iraqi prison after four grim years.

“I was tortured and raped repeatedly by the Iraqi security forces,” she told me. “I want to tell the world what I and other Iraqi women in prison have had to go through these last years. It has been a hell… I was raped over and over again. I was kicked and beaten and insulted and spit upon.” Heba, like so many Sunnis the Maliki regime decided to detain, torture, and sometimes execute, had been charged with “terrorism.”

That very month, Amnesty International released a report that highlighted what it called “a grim cycle of human rights abuses” in Iraq. When I was in Baghdad, it was common to hear Maliki referred to in many areas as “worse than Saddam [Hussein].”

In late 2012, the young among the politically disenfranchised Sunni population began to organize peaceful Arab Spring-style rallies against the government. These were met with brute force and more than a dozen demonstrators were killed by government security forces. Videos of this went viral on the Web stirring the already boiling tempers of youths desperate to take the fight for their rights to Baghdad.

“We demand an end to checkpoints surrounding Fallujah. We demand they allow in the press [to cover the situation]. We demand they end their unlawful home raids and detentions. We demand an end to federalism and gangsters and secret prisons.” This was what Sheikh Khaled Hamoud Al-Jumaili, a leader of the demonstrations, told me just before I went on stage that day. As we spoke, he clutched a photograph of one of his nephews killed by Maliki’s forces while demonstrating in the nearby city of Ramadi. “Losing our history and dividing Iraqis is wrong, but that and kidnapping and conspiracies and displacing people is what Maliki is doing.”

As I wrote at the time, the sheikh went on to assure me that many people in Anbar Province had stopped demanding changes in the Maliki government because they had lost hope. After years of waiting, no such demands were ever met. “Now, we demand a change in the regime instead and a change in the constitution. We will not stop these demonstrations. This one we have labeled ‘last chance Friday’ because it is the government’s last chance to listen to us.”

“What comes next,” I asked him, “if they don’t listen to you?”

“Maybe armed struggle comes next,” he replied without a pause.

Maliki’s response to the Fallujah protests would, in fact, insure that the sheikh’s prediction became the region’s future.

The adrenaline-pumping energy on stage and in the crowd that day mixed electric anticipation and anxiety with fear. All of this energy had to go somewhere. Even then, local religious and tribal leaders were already lagging behind their supporters. Keeping a lid on the seething cauldron of Sunni feeling was always unlikely. When a tribal sheikh asked the crowd for a little more time for further “diplomacy” in Baghdad, the crowd erupted in angry shouts, rushed the stage, and began pelting the sheikhs with water bottles and rocks.

In pockets of that crowd, now a mob, the ominous black flags of ISIS were already waving vigorously alongside signs that read “Iraqis did not vote for an Iranian dictatorship.” Enraged shouts of “We will now fight!” and “No more Maliki!” swept over us as we fled the stage, lest we be hit by those projectiles that caught the rage of the young, a rage desperate for a target, and open to recruitment into a movement that would take the fight to the Maliki regime.

Enter ISIS

Funded by Arabian Gulf petrodollars from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, among other places, and for a long while supported, at least implicitly, by the Obama administration, radical Islamist fighters in Syria opposing Bashar al-Assad have been expanding in strength, numbers, and lethality for the last three years. This winter, they and their branches in Iraq converged, first taking Fallujah, then moving on to the spring and summer debacles across Sunni Iraq and the establishment of a “caliphate” in the territories they control in both countries.

It was hardly news that ISIS, a group even the original al-Qaeda rejected, had a strong presence in Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke of the situation defensively last fall in attempting to explain Washington’s increasingly controversial and confused policy on Syria, the rebels, and the regime of Bashar al-Assad they were trying to fell. He described the “bad guys” as radical fighters belonging to ISIS and al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, calling them the lesser part of the opposition in that country, a statement that even then was beyond inaccurate. He went on to describe those “bad guys” as having “proven themselves to be probably the best fighters… the most trained and aggressive on the ground.”

Of course, Kerry claimed that the U.S. was only supporting the “good guys,” another convenient fiction of the moment.

Fast forward to just a few weeks ago: in a meeting with Syrian opposition leader Ahmad al-Jarba, Kerry proposed arming and training supposedly well-vetted “moderate” Syrian rebels to help take the battle to ISIS in Syria but also in Iraq. “Obviously, in light of what has happened in Iraq,” he said, “we have even more to talk about in terms of the moderate opposition in Syria, which has the ability to be a very important player in pushing back against [ISIS’s] presence and to have them not just in Syria, but also in Iraq.”

The confusion of this policy remains stunning: Washington hopes to use “moderate” Syrian rebels, in practice almost impossible to separate from the extreme Islamists, “in pushing back against” those very Islamists, while striking against the Assad regime which is supporting — with air strikes, among other things — the Maliki government which Washington has been arming and supporting in Iraq. The U.S. has already invested more than $25 billion in support for Maliki — at least $17 billion of which was poured into the Iraqi military. Clearly that was money not well spent as that military promptly collapsed, surrendering a string of cities and towns, including Tal Afar and Mosul, when ISIS and other Sunni insurgents came knocking.

More aid and personnel are now on the way from Washington. The Obama administration already admits to sending at least an extra 750 Marines and Special Operations troops into Iraq, along with missile-armed drones and Apache helicopters. It is now pushing hard to sell Iraq another 4,000 Hellfire missiles. The Pentagon insists its troops in Baghdad are either guarding the huge U.S. embassy or serving in an “advisory” capacity to the Iraqis, but is also claiming that its forces need “flexibility” in order to carry out their missions. As a result, there are already plans for U.S. pilots to fly those Apache attack helicopters there.

While Washington might be at odds with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the crisis in Ukraine, the Obama administration is undoubtedly breathing a sigh of relief that Russian military aid, including fighter planes, is now flowing into Baghdad. Blurring opaque political alliances further, Iran has supplied Iraq with ground attack jets, has drones carrying out reconnaissance missions over the country, and Iranian Kurds could be joining the fight on the ground.

Considering all these twists and turns of the Iraqi situation, political analyst Maki al-Nazzal shared these thoughts with me, which are increasingly typical of Sunni opinion: “Iraq is still suffering from the U.S. occupation’s sins and now self-operating to remove the cancer the U.S. planted in its body. Iraqi nationalists and Sunni Islamists have had enough of being wasted through 11 years of direct and indirect occupation and so revolted to correct by guns what was corrupted by wrongful politics.”

Meanwhile, the ongoing crisis has sent the government in Baghdad into free-fall just as the opportunistic Kurds of northern Iraq have called for a referendum in the next two months to address a long-fostered desire to become an independent country. Given all of this, hopes for any kind of Sunni-Shia-Kurdish “unity” government that could save the country from collapse have been repeatedly dashed. Making matters worse, with thousands of Iraqis being slaughtered every month and the country coming apart at the seams, even the Shiites in the country’s parliament seem deadlocked. “Things are moving faster than the politicians can make decisions,” a senior Shiite member of parliament told a reporter.

No wonder the Iraqi army won’t stand its ground when facing ISIS fighters, who are more than willing to die for their cause. What exactly is it to die defending? And it’s not just army troops who are refusing to put their lives on the line for Nouri al-Maliki. Powerful Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq’s volatile Anbar Province are also refusing to fight for Maliki, too. In a recent interview, Sheikh Hatem al-Suleiman, head of the Dulaimi tribe, insisted that Maliki was more dangerous than the ISIS fighters, adding, “I believe that Maliki is responsible for ISIS coming to Iraq.”

Washington’s man in Baghdad for so long, Maliki himself now adds to the crisis by refusing to budge, no matter the pressure from his former patrons and Shiite religious leaders.

The Nightmare of Ordinary Iraqis

The disintegration of Iraq is the result of U.S. policies that, since 2003, have been strikingly devoid of coherence or any real comprehension when it comes to the forces at play in the country or the region. They have had about them an aura of puerility, of “good guys” versus “bad guys,” that will leave future historians stunned. Worst of all, they have generated a modern-day Middle Eastern Catch-22 in which all sides are armed, funded, and supported directly or indirectly by Washington or its allies.

Meanwhile, ISIS and other Sunni insurgent groups have effectively tapped into the tens of thousands of angry young men I saw in Fallujah last year and are reportedly enjoying significant popular support (as, in some cases, the best of a series of terrible options) in many of the towns and cities where they have set up shop.

In all of this, the nightmare for ordinary Iraqis has only been accentuated. I recently received an email from a friend in Fallujah, a city now occupied by ISIS after having been brutally shelled by the Iraqi military earlier in the year. At that time, hundreds were killed and even Fallujah’s main hospital was hit. Tens of thousands of people in the city, including my friend, had to flee for their lives. He has now been a refugee for months and summed up his life this way:

“Words cannot explain what we are suffering now. I do not believe what is happening to us. Imagine a life lived in permanent fear, with shortages of all-important services like electricity, water supply, fuel, and food in the very hot Iraqi summer and during the fasting month of Ramadan.

“The most important part of the whole story is that all of these tragedies are happening — and let me say with sadness, are happening while we are now refugees and deprived of our houses and belongings. Fleeing Maliki’s bombardment, we travelled to Anah City [northwest of Fallujah and closer to the Syrian border] seeking safety, but now Anah has become unsafe and was attacked twice by Syrian helicopters, which killed five Fallujan civilian refugees. Everything in our life is sad and difficult. We are under the control of senseless criminals.”

As Iraq’s disintegration into darkness progresses, it sickens me to think of all the Iraqis I met and became friends with, who have since been killed, disappeared, or have become refugees. What is left of Iraq, this mess that is no longer a country, should be considered the legacy of decades of U.S. policy there, dating back to the moment when Saddam Hussein was in power and enjoyed Washington’s support. With Maliki, it has simply been a different dictator, enjoying even more such support (until these last weeks), and using similarly barbaric tactics against Iraqis.

Today, Washington’s policies continue in the same mindless way as more fuel is rushed to the bonfire that is incinerating Iraq.

Dahr Jamail spent more than a year reporting, unembedded, in Iraq during several trips there between 2003 and 2014.

17 July, 2014

[This essay is a joint TomDispatch/Truthout report.]

 

By Nile Bowie

The latest meeting of the BRICS countries, held in Brazil’s northeastern city of Fortaleza last week, represents the bloc’s most significant step towards its aim of building a new, multilateral development framework.

After two years of negotiations, the geoeconomic grouping of emerging markets known as the BRICS – Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa – has broken new ground by launching a development bank intended to challenge Western-dominated multilateral lending institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.

The New Development Bank (NDB) will be headquartered in Shanghai, and will primarily serve to facilitate sustainable development and large-scale infrastructure modernization within BRICS countries, which will each allocate an equal share of $50 billion startup capital with the aim of reaching $100 billion.
NDB loans would not be exclusively for BRICS governments, but would also be extended to other low- and middle-income countries that contribute to the capital base. It is this capital base which will finance the construction of mega-projects involving electricity supply grids, telecommunications networks, roads and bridges, power stations, shipping infrastructure and ports, and water treatment facilities.

In addition to the development bank, the BRICS group will also establish a contingency reserve currency pool worth over $100 billion, enabling the bloc to raise liquidity protections and collectively hedge against economic challenges. Though member countries will contribute an equal amount of startup capital to the NDB, China will have a 41 percent stake in financing the currency pool, with other members taking on smaller percentages.

BRICS countries represent 41.6 percent of world’s total population, 19.6 percent of global GDP, and 16.9 percent of total global trade, making the five-member community the world’s largest market. Despite extensive economic clout, the BRICS countries together wield only about 11 percent of the votes at the IMF, an institution that is widely viewed as disproportionately influenced by the developed West to the detriment of the Global South.

The BRICS project is not simply about emerging economic powerhouses striving for a wider international role that traditional Western institutions have thus far denied. Rather, it is an attempt by the Global South to articulate an alternative multilateral global order intended to be more equitable, inclusive, dynamic, and suitable to 21st Century realities.

As developed economies find themselves today mired in austerity policies, and struggling to tackle unemployment wrought by hollowed-out industrial sectors, trade between economies in the Global South now exceeds trade between emerging and developed economies by some $2.2 trillion, more than one-quarter of global trade. China, Brazil, and India have also begun to displace western nations as large-scale donors throughout Africa and other low-income countries.

The growing role of developing countries in international institutions signifies how the global political landscape is shifting in favor of a multipolar order. The determination of emerging countries to independently pursue institution-building has been brought on by policies of western financial bodies that attach intrusive conditionalities to loans and deny equal voting rights to developing states.

Countries that borrow from institutions such as the IMF are forced to enact structural adjustment policies that scale back on public and social spending, and pressure countries to hurriedly reduce subsidies that would better be phased out gradually. Loan conditionalities have also been known to disproportionately favor the private sector and reduce a country’s ability to hedge against speculative capital.

The bloc’s push toward institution-building to advance an alternative development vision has been hastened in recent times by several contentious flashpoints in global politics, primarily between Russia and China on one side, and the United States and European Union on the other.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have reached their lowest point since the end of the Cold War, while the US has spearheaded punitive sanctions against Russia for its purported role in the Ukrainian conflict. China has also expressed displeasure with US efforts to refocus its naval presence to the Asia Pacific region, which Beijing views as efforts by the US to interfere in the region’s complex territorial disputes.

The increasing pressure from western capitals on Moscow and Beijing, who also take joint positions on issues in the UN Security Council, has prompted both countries to deepen their involvement in the multipolar project. Russia and China now intend to more forcefully utilize the BRICS framework to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and technology, and diversify political and trade relations with countries throughout the Global South.

The BRICS group will not be solely an economic community, but due to increasingly tense relations with the West, the five-member bloc is increasingly more disposed to cooperate politically to adopt common positions and coordinate joint efforts toward tackling regional issues at the UN level. In contrast to western leanings toward interventionism, the core principles of BRICS foreign policy thinking centers on respect for sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of countries.

In a recent interview with news agency ITAR-TASS, Russian President Vladimir Putin articulated his intentions to deepen both economic and political cooperation among the BRICS group, primarily by addressing the bloc’s common position against unilateral military interventions and economic sanctions that violate international law, pledging closer coordination and high‑level consultations between the group’s foreign ministries to jointly forge political and diplomatic settlements.

Washington’s calls for heavy economic sanctions on Russian industries and sectorial trade have been met with opposition by most EU states, which are largely dependent on Moscow for their energy needs. European states are also weary that sectorial sanctions against Russia will drastically drive up gas prices.

Putin has said that any economic sanctions on Russia will eventually boomerang back to harm US interests, and called on BRICS countries to introduce “a system of measures that would help prevent the harassment of countries that do not agree with some foreign policy decisions made by the United States and their allies, but would promote a civilized dialogue on all points at issue based on mutual respect.”

The primary interest of the BRICS countries is to begin the gradual process of reforming the international monetary and financial system, which remains heavily dependent on US monetary policy. The emerging multipolar alternative being championed by developing states, with varying degrees of antipathy toward Washington, is propelled forward by perceptions that global management on the basis of genuine and equal partnership cannot be realized under current political and economic conditions.

The BRICS countries face an uphill battle, and have yet to firmly establish internal decision-making mechanisms. There are hurdles to address before the bank begins lending in 2016. The NDB can play an important role in channeling capital into industrial assets rather than into bubbles and financial markets, thus improving investment confidence, reducing risk, and advancing a productivity-focused development agenda.

The failure of western-dominated institutions to address their asymmetric influence over global political and economic affairs is the primary factor that has given rise to an alliance of developing countries intending to correct this imbalance. One can only hope they work toward bringing about a more equitable and just world order.
Nile Bowie is a columnist with Russia Today, and a research affiliate with the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), an NGO based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

18 July 2014

 

By Abdullah al-Ahsan

I read Gideon Levy’s article “Israel does not want peace” in Haaretz (04.07.14) with immense interest. I used to read Haaretz almost regularly until a few years ago but recently I lost interest in it. A number of friends drew my attention to Levy’s article and I found it attractive because it states a fact that I have come to believe years ago. But to hear this from an Israeli journalist is admiring. I also appreciate Haaretz’s courage to publish it. I am not sure whether any other Israeli or Western newspaper would have the courage to publish such an article. This reminds me of Mearsheimer and Walt’s The Israel Lobby for which the senior American academics had to look for publisher around the world. Levy’s short and precise thesis is much more direct and revealing than The Israel Lobby. Does this mean we are at cul-de-sac? Is there no hope for peace? I don’t think so. I shall explain why. But before I explain why I hold the view that rays of hope has not absolutely vanished, I shall give my view why I believe Israel does not want peace.

In 2002 when Saudi Crown Prince, now King Abdullah, representing the Arab League and OIC countries, came up with a proposal to establish normal relations with Israel in exchange of recognition of a Palestinian state with 22 percent of the original Palestinian territory and that proposal was dashed away by the Israeli leadership, I became convinced that Israel did not want peace. I am glad to see now that there are some Israelis who also have come to the same conclusion.

As a student of history I have always found difficulty in understanding the justification of the state of Israel in Palestine. More than 95 percent authentic citizens (which exclude the Arabs) of the current state of Israel migrated there during the past one hundred years. They made their space in the territory against the will of the local population first under the League of Nations Mandate during the inter-war period, and then by terrorizing and forcefully expelling the Palestinians from their ancestral land. In the process major crimes were committed such as in Dier Yasin in April 1948. The state of Israel was then established through the intervention of the United Nations which came forward with a two-state solution of the problem on humanitarian grounds. But the Israelis assassinated the Security Council representative Count Folke Bernadotte in September 1948. The Count was president of the Swedish Red Cross and enjoyed the reputation of saving more than eleven thousand Jewish lives from Hitler’s onslaught. But one of the accused of the Count’s assassination, Yitzhak Shamir, was later elected as Israel’s prime minister. All these indicated Israeli intention about the future of the territory.

Gideon Levy has also helped me understand one very important question – why militants in Gaza fire “rockets” into Israel. This question came up in a discussion the other day in our regular meeting at JUST (www.just-international.org). According to Levy, “The only way the besieged Gaza Strip can remind people of its existence is by firing rockets, and the West Bank only gets onto the agenda these days when blood is shed there.” This makes sense. News coverage from Gaza clearly suggests that in spite of their enormous suffering the people of Gaza endorse firing of those ineffective weapons only to assert their presence. They not only make international news, but they are also able to cause Israelis run for life.

Yes it is true the Palestinians initially rejected the idea of two states in Palestine: who would like to give up claims to their ancestral lands? Will the mainstream Americans and Australians leave America and Australia if the so-called Red-Indians and Aborigines want to get them back? However one must point out that the Palestinians never demanded deportation of Jews from Palestine at any time in history. However, on its part Israel has consistently pushed Palestinians out of the territory. In fact, Israel’s membership request to the UN was rejected first time on the grounds of its boundary, the right of refugees displaced during the war to return to homeland and the status of Jerusalem. When it reapplied a few months later the Secretary General held discussions on those questions, and after having assurance from Israeli authorities that they would be fulfilled, it was granted UN membership. But Israel has not only failed to carry out UN pre-conditions, it has violated most other UN resolutions on Palestine and yet nobody challenged Israel’s continuous membership in the world body. Thanks to Israeli lobbies in Western democracies – the lobbies have already blemished democratic principles as been demonstrated by Mearsheimer and Walt in the US.

From the very inception of its life Israel has been repressing the Palestinian people with the support of those Western “democratic” governments. But it has failed to break the Palestinian determination for dignity and contain them. The Israelis have also failed to contain humanitarian voices such as of Rachel Corrie (1979-2003) who was bulldozed by the Israeli armed forces along with Palestinian houses. That is why we hope that the voices of Gideon Levy and of Haaretz, of Count Bernadotte, of Rachel Corrie and of millions around the world who care for humanity and civilization will not go in vein. Israel has to be brought to understand that the civilized world would not let the Palestinians a life without dignity. They have been pushed to the wall; the people of Gaza are fed up with years of imprisoned life.

Israel must be brought to understand that Palestinians must get at least that 22 percent of their original homeland and there must not be any Jewish settlement within that 22 percent of the land. The best option for Israel is to bring Turkey to mediate in the conflict. Prime Minister Erdugan has already demonstrated his statesmanship in his negotiations with Israel before 2008 Israeli invasion of Gaza. And in the following year he won the hearts of Palestinians by demonstrating his commitment for their cause the World Economic Forum in Davos. Israeli leaders know these facts very well.
Dr. Abdullah al-Ahsan is Vice-President of JUST.

18 July 2014.

 

By Abdullah al-Ahsan.

The News Desk of World Bulletin has reported last May 31 that “The Imam of the Ka’bah, Islam’s holiest site in Mecca, Abdullah Basfar, led thousands in a dawn prayer congregation outside of the Hagia Sofia on Saturday morning, before the congregation raised their hands in supplication asking for it to be reverted into a mosque.” This demand, in our opinion, is a blasphemous one. It is well-known to all Muslims that the second caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, declined an invitation by the church leaders to pray inside the Church when the Caliph was negotiating a peace agreement with the local Christian leaders at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. When the time for ‘asr prayer approached, he came out of the mosque and prayed outside of the church fearing that the latter Muslims might take that instance as an evidence for converting a church into a mosque. A new mosque was constructed at the site where the caliph prayed and that mosque is now known as Masjid ‘Umar bin al-Khattab or Umar Mosque. This and other instances of and practices of the immediate companions of the Prophet have been taken as a valid foundation for Islamic legal system later developed by the community. Any violation of the spirit of this system is considered sacrilegious.

However, the apparent question that arises in this context is that why Sultan Mehmet, the liberator of Constantinople, converted the Hagia Sophia or the Divine Wisdom (in Greek) into a mosque. This is a valid question which must be understood in the context of time. The liberation of Constantinople occurred at a time that witnessed centuries of anti-Muslim wars and violations by the crusading Europeans. Muslims and non-Catholics fought years of bloody wars against the crusaders. The 1453 liberation occurred at a time when the crusader Spanish Catholics were engaged in converting mosques into cathedrals in an effort to erase almost eight hundred years of Muslim rule in Andalusia. At that time it was necessary for Muslim leaders to demonstrate Muslim political, military and religious powers. Historically speaking, the Sultan’s act did significantly contribute to stabilize the Muslim presence in Europe. As for the position that the Sultan took during that specific situation, i.e. to convert the church into a mosque, one must acknowledge that this was an exception, not rule. Similar exceptions are allowed in Islamic jurisprudence and they are heavily entrenched in the Islamic tradition.

The time has changed again: Muslim places of worship are no more destroyed or converted into cathedrals in Europe. In fact, the positive approach developed by the Catholic and other denominations has allowed establishment of hundreds and thousands of mosques all over Europe during the past couple of centuries. The acceptance of the presence of Muslims has reached to the point that the Vatican, the seat of the Catholic Church has allowed calling of Muslim prayer – adhan – in its vicinity. With these developments, one may suggest that if Sultan Mehmet were alive today, he would have re-considered his own decision to convert Hagia Sophia to mosque under the changed circumstances. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s decree of 1934 might have been an immediate reaction to certain practices of some late Ottoman rulers, but to reverse that decree would be a disaster now. The younger generation led by the Anatolia Youth Association that is engaged in campaigning to revert the status of Ayasofia, as it is known in the Turkish language, into a mosque must understand universal Islamic teachings in the proper context of time. They should rather engage themselves in more constructive campaigns by participating and responding to Islamophobic expressions in this era of internet-based web media and the vibrant social media.

It is interesting to note that two Turkish opposition parties, the MHP and CHP, both claimed to be believers in secularism are reported to have demanded to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque. According to a report, “Sinan Aygun, an MP of the Republican People’s Party for Ankara has posed the question as to why the Hagia Sofia shouldn’t be turned into a mosque in the Turkish parliament, following a call to turn the museum into a mosque by a member of Turkey’s third biggest party (National Movement Party) MHP. (World Bulletin Nov. 27, 2013)” This is nothing but exploitation of religious sentiment in politics. The Hagia Sophia does not represent any civilizational glory or power anymore; today the real civilizational power must be demonstrated through the ability to stand firm on one’s own footing. Turkey’s transformation during the past decade from aid recipient to aid donor country is the real manifestation of civilizational dignity, glory and prestige.

The Economist (May 10, 2014) reported from Istanbul that, “Turkey’s pious prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, plans to lead prayers in the building to mark the 561st anniversary (May 29, 2014).” But that has not happened: the date has passed without any such incident. However, what the Economist correspondent failed to note was that the Prime Minister had stated last year that, “he would not consider changing Hagia Sophia’s status as long as another great Istanbul house of worship, the 17th Century Sultan Ahmed Mosque, remains mostly empty of worshippers. Istanbul boasts more than 3,000 mosques.” Recently Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc has described the conversion attempt as a trap. In our opinion, it is certainly a trap and sheer exploitation of emotional attachment of the Turkish masses to Sultan Mehmet – the Fatih, the liberator. The opposition and the Gulen supporters are trying to exploit this. The people of Turkey must understand this and act wisely.

Dr. Abdullah al-Ahsan is Vice-President of JUST.

18 July 2014.

 

 

By William Blum
US Secretary of State John Kerry, July 8, 2014:

“In my travels as secretary of state, I have seen as never before the thirst for American leadership in the world.”

President Barack Obama, May 28, 2014:

“Here’s my bottom line, America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will.”

Nicholas Burns, former US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, May 8, 2014:

“Where is American power and leadership when the world needs it most?”

Mitt Romney, Republican Party candidate for President, September 13, 2012:

“The world needs American leadership. The Middle East needs American leadership and I intend to be a president that provides the leadership that America respects and keep us admired throughout the world.”

Paul Ryan, Congressman, Republican Party candidate for Vice President, September 12, 2012:

“We need to be reminded that the world needs American leadership.”

John McCain, Senator, September 9, 2012:

“The situation in Syria and elsewhere ‘cries out for American leadership’.”

Hillary Clinton, September 8, 2010:

“Let me say it clearly: The United States can, must, and will lead in this new century. Indeed, the complexities and connections of today’s world have yielded a new American Moment — a moment when our global leadership is essential, even if we must often lead in new ways.”

Senator Barack Obama, April 23, 2007:

“In the words of President Franklin Roosevelt, we lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good. I still believe that America is the last, best hope of Earth.”

Gallup poll, 2013:

Question asked: “Which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?”

Replies:

United States 24%
Pakistan 8%
China 6%
Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea, each 5%
India, Iraq, Japan, each 4%
Syria 3%
Russia 2%
Australia, Germany, Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Korea, UK, each 1%

The question is not what pacifism has achieved throughout history, but what has war achieved?

Remark made to a pacifist: “If only everyone else would live in the way you recommend, I would gladly live that way as well – but not until everyone else does.”

The Pacifist’s reply: “Why then, sir, you would be the last man on earth to do good. I would rather be one of the first.”

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, 1947, words long cherished by a large majority of the Japanese people:

“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

“In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

This statement is probably unique amongst the world’s constitutions.

But on July 1, 2014 the government of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, without changing a word of Article 9, announced a “reinterpretation” of it to allow for military action in conjunction with allies. This decision can be seen as the culmination of a decades-long effort by the United States to wean Japan away from its post-WW2 pacifist constitution and foreign policy and set it back on the righteous path of being a military power once again, only this time acting in coordination with US foreign policy needs.

In the triumphalism of the end of the Second World War, the American occupation of Japan, in the person of General Douglas MacArthur, played a major role in the creation of this constitution. But after the communists came to power in China in 1949, the United States opted for a strong Japan safely ensconced in the anti-communist camp. For pacifism, it’s been downhill ever since … step by step … MacArthur himself ordered the creation of a “national police reserve”, which became the embryo of the future Japanese military … visiting Tokyo in 1956, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told Japanese officials: “In the past, Japan had demonstrated her superiority over the Russians and over China. It was time for Japan to think again of being and acting like a Great Power.” 1

… various US-Japanese security and defense cooperation treaties, which called on Japan to integrate its military technology with that of the US and NATO … the US supplying new sophisticated military aircraft and destroyers … all manner of Japanese logistical assistance to the US in Washington’s frequent military operations in Asia … repeated US pressure on Japan to increase its military budget and the size of its armed forces … more than a hundred US military bases in Japan, protected by the Japanese military … US-Japanese joint military exercises and joint research on a missile defense system … the US Ambassador to Japan, 2001: “I think the reality of circumstances in the world is going to suggest to the Japanese that they reinterpret or redefine Article 9.” 2
… Under pressure from Washington, Japan sent several naval vessels to the Indian Ocean to refuel US and British warships as part of the Afghanistan campaign in 2002, then sent non-combat forces to Iraq to assist the American war as well as to East Timor, another made-in-America war scenario … US Secretary of State Colin Powell, 2004: “If Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council, and have the kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, Article Nine would have to be examined in that light.” 3
…

In 2012 Japan was induced to take part in a military exercise with 21 other countries, converging on Hawaii for the largest-ever Rim of the Pacific naval exercises and war games, with a Japanese admiral serving as vice commander of the combined task force. 4
And so it went … until, finally, on July 1 of this year, the Abe administration announced their historic decision. Abe, it should be noted, is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, with which the CIA has had a long and intimate connection, even when party leaders were convicted World War 2 war criminals. 5

If and when the American empire engages in combat with China or Russia, it appears that Washington will be able to count on their Japanese brothers-in-arms. In the meantime, the many US bases in Japan serve as part of the encirclement of China, and during the Vietnam War the United States used their Japanese bases as launching pads to bomb Vietnam.

The US policies and propaganda not only got rid of the annoying Article 9, but along the way it gave rise to a Japanese version of McCarthyism. A prime example of this is the case of Kimiko Nezu, a 54-year-old Japanese teacher, who was punished by being transferred from school to school, by suspensions, salary cuts, and threats of dismissal because of her refusal to stand during the playing of the national anthem, a World War II song chosen as the anthem in 1999. She opposed the song because it was the same one sung as the Imperial Army set forth from Japan calling for an “eternal reign” of the emperor. At graduation ceremonies in 2004, 198 teachers refused to stand for the song. After a series of fines and disciplinary actions, Nezu and nine other teachers were the only protesters the following year. Nezu was then allowed to teach only when another teacher was present. 6

Yankee Blowback

The number of children attempting to cross the Mexican border into the United States has risen dramatically in the last five years: In fiscal year 2009 (October 1, 2009 – September 30, 2010) about 6,000 unaccompanied minors were detained near the border. The US Department of Homeland Security estimates for the fiscal year 2014 the detention of as many as 74,000 unaccompanied minors. Approximately 28% of the children detained this year are from Honduras, 24% from Guatemala, and 21% from El Salvador. The particularly severe increases in Honduran migration are a direct result of the June 28, 2009 military coup that overthrew the democratically-elected president, Manuel Zelaya, after he did things like raising the minimum wage, giving subsidies to small farmers, and instituting free education. The coup – like so many others in Latin America – was led by a graduate of Washington’s infamous School of the Americas.

As per the standard Western Hemisphere script, the Honduran coup was followed by the abusive policies of the new regime, loyally supported by the United States. The State Department was virtually alone in the Western Hemisphere in not unequivocally condemning the Honduran coup. Indeed, the Obama administration has refused to call it a coup, which, under American law, would tie Washington’s hands as to the amount of support it could give the coup government. This denial of reality still persists even though a US embassy cable released by Wikileaks in 2010 declared: “There is no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 [2009] in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch”. Washington’s support of the far-right Honduran government has been unwavering ever since.

The questions concerning immigration into the United States from south of the border go on year after year, with the same issues argued back and forth: What’s the best way to block the flow into the country? How shall we punish those caught here illegally? Should we separate families, which happens when parents are deported but their American-born children remain? Should the police and various other institutions have the right to ask for proof of legal residence from anyone they suspect of being here illegally? Should we punish employers who hire illegal immigrants? Should we grant amnesty to at least some of the immigrants already here for years? … on and on, round and round it goes, decade after decade. Those in the US generally opposed to immigration make it a point to declare that the United States does not have any moral obligation to take in these Latino immigrants.

But the counter-argument to this last point is almost never mentioned: Yes, the United States does indeed have a moral obligation because so many of the immigrants are escaping a situation in their homeland made hopeless by American intervention and policy. In addition to Honduras, Washington overthrew progressive governments which were sincerely committed to fighting poverty in Guatemala and Nicaragua; while in El Salvador the US played a major role in suppressing a movement striving to install such a government. And in Mexico, though Washington has not intervened militarily since 1919, over the years the US has been providing training, arms, and surveillance technology to Mexico’s police and armed forces to better their ability to suppress their own people’s aspirations, as in Chiapas, and this has added to the influx of the oppressed to the United States, irony notwithstanding.

Moreover, Washington’s North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), has brought a flood of cheap, subsidized US agricultural products into Mexico, ravaging campesino communities and driving many Mexican farmers off the land when they couldn’t compete with the giant from the north. The subsequent Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has brought the same joys to the people of that area.

These “free trade” agreements – as they do all over the world – also result in government enterprises being privatized, the regulation of corporations being reduced, and cuts to the social budget. Add to this the displacement of communities by foreign mining projects and the drastic US-led militarization of the War on Drugs with accompanying violence and you have the perfect storm of suffering followed by the attempt to escape from suffering.

It’s not that all these people prefer to live in the United States. They’d much rather remain with their families and friends, be able to speak their native language at all times, and avoid the hardships imposed on them by American police and other right-wingers.

M’lady Hillary

Madame Clinton, in her new memoir, referring to her 2002 Senate vote supporting military action in Iraq, says: “I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn’t alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong. Plain and simple.”

In a 2006 TV interview, Clinton said: “Obviously, if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn’t have been a vote. And I certainly wouldn’t have voted that way.” 7

On October 16, 2002 the US Congress adopted a joint resolution titled “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq”. This was done in the face of numerous protests and other political events against an American invasion.

On February 15, 2003, a month before the actual invasion, there was a coordinated protest around the world in which people in some 60 countries marched in a last desperate attempt to stop the war from happening. It has been described as “the largest protest event in human history.” Estimations of the total number of participants involved reach 30 million. The protest in Rome involved around three million people, and is listed in the 2004 Guinness Book of World Records as the largest anti-war rally in history. Madrid hosted the second largest rally with more than 1½ million protesters. About half a million marched in the United States. How many demonstrations in support of the war can be cited? It can be said that the day was one of humanity’s finest moments.

So what did all these people know that Hillary Clinton didn’t know? What information did they have access to that she as a member of Congress did not have?

The answer to both questions is of course “Nothing”. She voted the way she did because she was, as she remains today, a wholly committed supporter of the Empire and its unending wars.

And what did the actual war teach her? Here she is in 2007, after four years of horrible death, destruction and torture:

“The American military has done its job. Look what they accomplished. They got rid of Saddam Hussein. They gave the Iraqis a chance for free and fair elections. They gave the Iraqi government the chance to begin to demonstrate that it understood its responsibilities to make the hard political decisions necessary to give the people of Iraq a better future. So the American military has succeeded.” 8

And she spoke the above words at a conference of liberals, committed liberal Democrats and others further left. She didn’t have to cater to them with any flag-waving pro-war rhetoric; they wanted to hear anti-war rhetoric (and she of course gave them a tiny bit of that as well out of the other side of her mouth), so we can assume that this is how she really feels, if indeed the woman feels anything. The audience, it should be noted, booed her, for the second year in a row.

“We came, we saw, he died.” – Hillary Clinton as US Secretary of State, giggling, as she referred to the uncivilized and utterly depraved murder of Moammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Imagine Osama bin Laden or some other Islamic leader speaking of September 11, 2001: “We came, we saw, 3,000 died, ha-ha.”
Notes

1.Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1994
2. Washington Post, July 18, 2001
3. BBC, August 14, 2004
4. Honolulu Star-Advertiser, June 23 and July 2, 2012
5. Tim Weiner, “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA” (2007), p.116-21
6. Washington Post, August 30, 2005
7. Washington Post, June 6, 2014
8. Speaking at the “Take Back America” conference, organized by the Campaign for America’s Future, June 20, 2007, Washington, DC; this excerpt can be heard on the June 21, 2007 edition of Democracy Now!

William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2

13 July, 2014
Williamblum.org

 

By Palestinian Civil Society Groups

Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine–We Palestinians trapped inside the bloodied and besieged Gaza Strip call on conscientious people all over the world, to act, protest, and intensify the boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel until it ends this murderous attack on our people and is held to account.

With the world turning their backs on us once again, for the last four days we have in Gaza been left to face massacre after massacre. As you read these words over 120 Palestinians are dead now, including 25 children. Over 1000 have been injured including countless horrifying injuries that will limit lives forever – more than two thirds of the injured are women and children. We know for a fact that many more will not make it through the next day. Which of us will be next, as we lie awake from the sound of the carnage in our beds tonight? Will we be the next photo left in an unrecognizable state from Israel’s state of the art flesh tearing, limb stripping machinery of destruction?

We call for a final end to the crimes and oppression against us. We call for:

– Arms embargos on Israel, sanctions that would cut off the supply of weapons and military aid from Europe and the United States on which Israel depends to commit such war crimes;

– Suspension of all free trade and bilateral agreements with Israel such as the EU-Israel Association agreement; (1)

– Boycott, divestment and sanctions, as called for by the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Civil Society in 2005 (2)

Without pressure and isolation, the Israeli regime has proven time and time again that it will continue such massacres as we see around us now, and continue the decades of systematic ethnic cleansing, military occupation and apartheid policies. (3)

We are writing this on Saturday night, again paralyzed in our homes as the bombs fall on us in Gaza. Who knows when the current attacks will end? For anyone over seven years old, permanently etched on our minds are the rivers of blood that ran through the Gaza streets when for over 3 weeks in 2009 over 1400 Palestinians were killed including over 330 children. White phosphorous and other chemical weapons were used in civilian areas and contaminating our land with a rise in cancers as a result. More recently 180 more were killed in the week-long attacks in late November 2012.

This time what? 200, 500, 5000? We ask: how many of our lives are dispensable enough until the world takes action? How much of our blood is sufficient? Before the Israeli bombings, a member of the Israeli Knesset Ayelet Shaked of the far-right Jewish Home party called for genocide of the Palestinian people. “They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes.” she said. “Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.” Right now nothing is beyond the murderous nature of the Israeli State, for we, a population that is mostly children, are all mere snakes to them.(3)

As said Omar Ghraib in Gaza, “It was heart shattering to see the pictures of little boys and girls viciously killed. Also how an elderly woman was killed while she was having her iftar at Maghreb prayer by bombing her house. She died holding the spoon in her hand, an image that will need a lot of time to leave my head.” (4)

Entire houses are being targeted and entire families are being murdered. Early Thursday morning the entire Al-Hajj family was wiped out – the father Mahmoud, mother Bassema and five children. No warning, a family targeted and removed from life. Thursday night, the same again, no warning, 5 more dead including four from the Ghannam family, a woman and a seven year old child amongst them. (5)

On Tuesday morning the Kaware family did get a phone call telling them their 3 storey house would be bombed. The family began to leave when a water tank was struck, but then returned with members of the community, who all came to the house to stand with them, people from all over the neighbourhood. The Israeli jets bombed the building with a roof full of people, knowing full well it was full of civilians. 7 people died immediately including 5 children under 13 years old. 25 more were injured, and 8 year old Seraj Abed al-Aal, succumbed to his injuries later that evening. (6) Perhaps the family was trying to appeal to the Israeli regime’s humanity, surely they wouldn’t bomb the roof full of people. But as we watch families being torn apart around us, it’s clear that Israel’s actions have nothing to do with humanity.

Other places hit include a clearly marked media vehicle killing the independent journalist Hamed Shehab, injuring 8 others, a hit on a Red Crescent rescue vehicle and attacks on hospitals which caused evacuations and more injuries. (7)

This latest session of Israeli barbarity is placed firmly in the context of Israel’s inhuman seven-year blockade that has cut off the main life-line of goods and people coming in and out of Gaza, resulting in the severe medical and food shortages being reported by all our hospitals and clinics right now. Cement to rebuild the thousands of homes destroyed by Israeli attacks had been banned and many injured and ill people are still not being allowed to travel abroad to receive urgent medical treatment which has caused the deaths of over 600 sick patients.

As more news comes in, as Israeli leaders’ give promises of moving onto a next stage in brutality, we know there are more horrors yet to come. For this we call on you to not turn your backs on us. We call on you to stand up for justice and humanity and demonstrate and support the courageous men, women and children rooted in the Gaza Strip facing the darkest of times ahead. We insist on international action:

– Severance of diplomatic ties with Israel

– Trials for war crimes

– Immediate International protection of the civilians of Gaza

We call on you to join the growing international boycott, divestment and sanction campaign to hold this rogue state to account that is proving once again to be so violent and yet so unchallenged. Join the growing critical mass around the world with a commitment to the day when Palestinians do not have to grow up amidst this relentless murder and destruction by the Israeli regime. When we can move freely, when the siege is lifted, the occupation is over and the world’s Palestinian refugees are finally granted justice.

ACT NOW, before it is too late!

Signed by

Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions

University Teachers’ Association in Palestine

Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (Umbrella for 133 orgs)

General Union of Palestinian Women

Medical Democratic Assembly

General Union of Palestine Workers

General Union for Health Services Workers

General Union for Public Services Workers

General Union for Petrochemical and Gas Workers

General Union for Agricultural Workers

Union of Women’s Work Committees

Pal-Cinema (Palestine Cinema Forum)

Youth Herak Movement

Union of Women’s Struggle Committees

Union of Synergies—Women Unit

Union of Palestinian Women Committees

Women’s Studies Society

Working Woman’s Society

Press House

Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel

Gaza BDS Working Group

One Democratic State Group

References:

(1) http://www.enpi-info.eu/library/content/eu-israel-association-agreement

(2) http://www.bdsmovement.net/call

(3) http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.599422

(4) http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-im-on-the-brink-of-burning-my-israeli-passport-9600165.html

(5) http://gazatimes.blogspot.ca/2014/07/day-2-of-israeli-aggression-on-gaza-72.html

(6) http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=711990

(7) http://dci-palestine.org/documents/eight-children-killed-israeli-airstrikes-over-gaza

(8) http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/07/palestinian-journalists-under-israeli-fire-201471011727662978.html

13 July, 2014
Countercurrents.org

By Nora Barrows-Friedman

Israeli warplanes fired a series of “warning rockets” at the al-Wafa Geriatric Hospital in Gaza City on Friday, sending patients and nurses into a panic.

According to the executive director of the hospital, who spoke with The Electronic Intifada on Saturday morning, there is no safe place to move the patients if Israel strikes it again with the kind of weaponry it is using wantonly across the Gaza Strip.

“If we want to move them [anywhere], assuming that we find a place, it will take six to seven hours to move them, and on the road from place to place is extremely dangerous,” Basman Alashi said. He added that he and the hospital staff are doing as best they can to protect the patients and their caregivers.

International activists in the Gaza Strip stayed in the hospital overnight and into this morning in solidarity, acting as human shields to protect the hospital, its patients, caregivers and staff.

In a press release issued by the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Swedish activist Fred Ekblad said: “The civilian population of Gaza is being bombed. We will stay with them in solidarity until the international community and our governments take action to stop Israel’s crimes against humanity.”

ISM adds in their press release:

The first barrage of missiles hit the fourth floor of the hospital at 2am [Friday].

At approximately [5pm] a fifth missile hit the hospital. “Windows and doors were blown out, broken glass everywhere, damage to the stairs, there’s a big hole at the impact area and the wall is burnt,” reports Joe Catron, ISM activist, from the US.

At around [8pm], Basman Alashi, executive director of the hospital, received an unidentified call from a person with a “heavy Israeli accent,” asking if there were any injuries, whether there was any one in the top floor, and whether they were planning to evacuate the hospital.

As The Electronic Intifada reported today, the Israeli military bombed a home for people with disabilities in northern Gaza on Friday night, killing two women, Suha Abu Saada, 47, and Ola Wishaa, 30.

International aid agency Oxfam reported Friday that “An Oxfam-supported mobile health clinic that provides primary healthcare to several thousand families in northern Gaza yesterday had to suspend all its services because routes there had become too dangerous to travel. A health center run by an Oxfam partner in Beit Hanoun that specializes in pre and post natal care was badly damaged and is now unable to operate.”

And the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated that “Fears of an imminent Israeli ground operation in Gaza have been on the rise; some 300,000 people in areas close to the border have been warned to leave their homes.”

Basman Alashi, executive director of al-Wafa Geriatric Hospital in Gaza City, described the rocket strikes by the Israeli army on the hospital Friday.

Basman Alashi: My name is Basman Alashi. I am the executive director of the al-Wafa rehab hospital in Gaza City. Yesterday, we were hit by a rocket on the eastern side of the hospital. Two of our nurses went to check out the noise that came from the eastern side. One of them decided not to investigate the issue anymore, so he started walking back. A second rocket hit the same area, so they were saved by the grace of God. Then, they went back. Then, a third rocket came in at the same area; then, fifteen minutes later, a fourth rocket hit on the roof.

Many of our patients were panicking, the nurses were panicking, because they had not been in this situation before. They did not know what to do, so they started calling the management asking what to do. They were instructed to move down to the first floor. None were hurt, thank God, and they were all safe. They were moved to be hosted on the first floor, men and women in the same section. In the morning, I went to them and I saw the panicking of the nurses — and one of the patients, her name is Hiba, she’s 85 years old, she was acting normally. The minute she heard the bomb, it was if a back memory just woke up in her and she remembered things, so she started screaming, acting abnormally, and shrunk into her hands and around her, trying to hug herself, as if she was trying to hide from something.

I tried to comfort her because she knows me by voice and by face. She was comforted a little bit, but the minute I leave her or get away from her sight, she started screaming. These are the kinds of patients we are taking care of at the hospital, and many of them are in chronic situations, unable to move, unable to take care of themselves, so we have to [keep] the hospital open, and the nurses have to stay in the hospital 24 hours to take care of these patients.

By saying this, eight of the foreigners in Gaza, they heard that we are protecting these patients, so they decided to deal with us as human shields. So yesterday until this morning, they stayed with us in the hospital as human shields, they spread the word around in local media and international media that they are here in al-Wafa hospital as human shields, to tell the Israelis that al-Wafa cannot be used as a target, al-Wafa is in our hearts and do not target al-Wafa with any more bombs.

Nora Barrows-Friedman Basman Alashi is the executive director of al-Wafa Geriatric Hospital in Gaza City. Basman, can you update us on the situation of the patients, after this incredibly traumatic series of missile strikes against the hospital yesterday?

BA: We decided to move sixteen out of the thirty patients back to their homes, because they are in a condition that their families can take care of them for their safety. The other fourteen, we have to leave them at the hospital because they are in a helpless situation that they have to be maintained by nurses in terms of feeding, they have bed ulcers on their body, so we have to change these wounds and clean them every time.

The situation right now is calm but yesterday at five o’clock in the afternoon, the Israelis hit the hospital again with a larger missile, as if they’re giving us a warning. So we have to continue protecting our patients — and these foreigners are from the United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Spain, France, Switzerland, Belgium, they are right now at the hospital, showing the world that we will be joining hand by hand with our friends in the Wafa hospital to protect them and to protect the patients.

NBF: Basman, where can these patients be moved to if, in fact, the Israeli army intends to hit and strike and destroy this hospital again?

BA: We have no places in Gaza. All the hospitals are full of wounded people, people that need immediate care. So we have no choice to move the patients anywhere else. We have to keep them there, stay there, and moving them — the hospital is located at the far north-east side of Gaza, which is about less than a kilometer away from the border. So if we want to move them to anyplace, assuming that we find a place, it will take six to seven hours to move them, and on the road from place to place is extremely dangerous. Transportation is rare, so the choice of moving them out, if not there, we are not having this on the table at all.

We will stay there, we will protect our patients, we will protect our nurses, and the human shield that was built by volunteers in the hospital, its purpose is to protect these patients and the nurses and the hospital itself.

Nora Barrows-Friedman is a staff writer and editor with The Electronic Intifada, and has contributed to Al-Jazeera English, Inter Press Service, Truthout.org, Left Turn magazine, and various other international media outlets.

13 July, 2014
Electronicintifada.net

By Ali Abunimah

Sahir Salman Abu Namous was just four years old, soon to turn five.

“Everyone who saw him loved him because he was always smiling,” his first cousin Diaa Mahmoud recalls in an email he sent me from Gaza.

“One month before Sahir died, his father was sitting and talking to the boy’s aunt,” Mahmoud says.

“He looks so clever,” Mahmoud remembers the boy’s proud father saying, “even more clever than his siblings.”

Sahir was killed on Friday afternoon when an Israeli warplane bombed his family home in the Tal al-Zaatar neighborhood in northern Gaza.

“He was playing and smiling next to his mother when missile shrapnel divided his head,” Mahmoud writes.

“His father took him to the hospital screaming ‘Wake up my son! I bought toys for you, please wake up!’”

The photo that Mahmoud sent of Sahir with little left of his head, cradled in the arms of his anguished father Salman Abu Namous, is too graphic to show here.

But Mahmoud sent me some other photos of his cousin Sahir in happier times.

“He was just kid who wanted to play and be happy,” Mahmoud says, “he wasn’t just a number.”

Since Monday, Israel has targeted hundreds of private homes, banks, social institutions and mosques with relentless bombardment.

Sahir Salman Abu Namous was one of 21 children who had been killed in the onslaught by Friday.

Two disabled women among dead in unrelenting massacre

By Saturday, the toll had exceeded 130 people killed and more than 1,000 injured, almost 80 percent noncombatant civilians.

In a particularly horrifying attack, Israeli warplanes last night bombed a home for people with disabilities in northern Gaza, killing two women, Suha Abu Saada, 47, and Ola Wishaa, 30.

Residents of the home “were barely mobile,” neighbors told The Guardian, “spending their time in bed or in wheelchairs, and could not escape the building.”

None of them are just numbers.

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

13 July, 2014
Electronicintifada.net

By Megan Darby

Protest is ramping up against a transatlantic trade treaty critics say could weaken environmental protection.

The Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership is intended to boost commerce between Europe and the US , by cutting tariffs and aligning regulations.

Green groups on both sides of the ocean have expressed fears this could mean watering down environmental safeguards and increasing fossil fuel consumption.

A national day of action is planned for today [Saturday 12 July] in the UK to highlight concerns with the TTIP ahead of further negotiations in Brussels next week. This will include a protest outside the business department building in London .

The UK Green Party, which supports the protests, said the TTIP was a “corporate power grab” that “must be stopped”.

Keith Taylor MEP said: “Though huge chunks of this trade deal are shrouded in secrecy what we do know is that TTIP poses a very real threat to the quality of life of people in the UK .

“This deal, favored by multinationals, threatens to slash regulations that protect our environment and health. But, most worryingly, it represents a serious threat to democracy in our country.”

It follows an anti-TTIP demonstration in Brussels two months ago that resulted in 240 arrests.

Climate impact

One concern of greens is that loosening regulations could increase oil and gas exports from America , increasing European reliance on polluting fossil fuels.

A European position paper leaked earlier this week endorsed lifting restrictions on trade in gas and crude oil. It argued this would help with security of supply, an increasingly hot topic since tensions in the Ukraine highlighted Europe ‘s heavy dependence on Russian gas.

Natacha Cingotti, campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, said: “This leaked proposal further confirms our concerns that, while the public is being kept in the dark, the EU-US trade deal is being used to trade away regulations that protect us from dangerous climate change…

“ Europe needs to end its high import dependency and make an urgent transition to clean, renewable energy and greater energy efficiency.”

US grassroots environmental network the Sierra Club also raised concerns. Ilana Solomon, director of its responsible trade program, said: “The EU wants a free pass to import dirty fossil fuels from the US , a run-around US law that would result in more dangerous fracking for oil and gas in our backyards and more climate-disrupting pollution globally.”

Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, called the proposals “climate denial, pure and simple”. German-based Power Shift executive director Peter Fuchs said communities and the environment would suffer.

German think-tank the Heinrich Boll Foundation, in contrast, said in a report the treaty presented an opportunity to phase out fossil fuel subsidies [FFS]. That would benefit low carbon sectors.

In principle, the European Commission has argued, increased economic cooperation should facilitate greater climate and environmental protection.

In practice, the think-tank pointed out a 2013 impact assessment from Brussels predicted an 11.8 million tonne increase in carbon emissions, in the most liberalized scenario.

The report added: “In the absence of FFS reform, the TTIP will be a step in the wrong direction.”

Precautionary principle

The other core concern for European environmentalists is the treaty could erode the precautionary principle. This is the tenet, long held in Europe , that an action or policy must be proved not harmful before it goes ahead.

In America , on the other hand, it must normally be proved something is harmful before it can be banned.

The philosophical divide is one reason that shale gas fracking has been slower to take off in Europe than the US , for example.

Blogging for the European Greens’ campaigning website against TTIP, MEP Jose Bove said: “Under TTIP, big business is teaming up on both sides of the Atlantic to challenge the precautionary principal, claiming it creates unnecessary ‘technical barriers to trade’. We are fundamentally against this dangerous assumption.

“If anything, we need to do more in the EU to safeguard our citizens and our environment from untested or risky substances or processes.”

The European Commission acknowledges the different approaches on its TTIP website, but insists the high level of environmental protection in Europe is “non-negotiable”.

“Both the EU and the US are committed to high levels of protection for our citizens, but we go about it in different ways. The EU sometimes relies more on regulations, the US more on litigation. Both approaches can be effective, but neither is perfect,” it says.

“This is not a race to the bottom. Making our regulations more compatible does not mean going for the lowest common denominator, but rather seeing where we diverge unnecessarily.”

Transparency

Protestors’ concerns around the treaty have been compounded by a perceived lack of transparency around the negotiations, which are led by unelected officials.

The Corporate Europe Observatory accused the European Commission of favoring big business in its consultations around the treaty. It found that of the 560 lobbyist meetings and communications the Commission had with stakeholders, 92% were with business and just 4% with public interest groups.

Pia Eberhardt, trade campaigner at the Corporate Europe Observatory, said: “[The trade directorate] actively involved business lobbyists in drawing up the EU position for TTIP while keeping ‘pesky’ trade unionists and other public interest groups at bay.

“The result is a big-business-first agenda for the negotiations which endangers many achievements that people in Europe have long struggled for, from food safety rules to environmental protection.”

A European Court of Justice ruling last week could result in more TTIP documents being made public, but a lawyer told Euractiv it was a “modest step forward”.

The sixth round of negotiations on TTIP takes place in Brussels from 14 to 18 July.
12 July, 2014
© RTCC