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By Countercurrents.org

29 May, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

More than two million people, marched a few days ago against Monsanto, the agro-monster, in more than 400 cities in 52 countries.

There are confusion among many regarding GMO. The following information provided by Earth Open Source* helps understand the issue:

Genetically modified (GM) crops are promoted on the basis of a range of far-reaching claims from the GM crop industry and its supporters.

They say that GM crops:

• Are an extension of natural breeding and do not pose different risks from naturally bred crops

• Are safe to eat and can be more nutritious than naturally bred crops

• Are strictly regulated for safety

• Increase crop yields

• Reduce pesticide use

• Benefit farmers and make their lives easier

• Bring economic benefits

• Benefit the environment

• Can help solve problems caused by climate change

• Reduce energy use

• Will help feed the world.

However, a large and growing body of scientific and other authoritative evidence shows that these claims are not true. On the contrary, evidence presented in this report indicates that GM crops:

• Are laboratory-made, using technology that is totally different from natural breeding methods, and pose different risks from non-GM crops

• Can be toxic, allergenic or less nutritious than their natural counterparts

• Are not adequately regulated to ensure safety

• Do not increase yield potential

• Do not reduce pesticide use but increase it

• Create serious problems for farmers, including herbicide-tolerant “superweeds”, compromised soil quality, and increased disease susceptibility in crops

• Have mixed economic effects

• Harm soil quality, disrupt ecosystems, and reduce biodiversity

• Do not offer effective solutions to climate change

• Are as energy-hungry as any other chemically-farmed crops

• Cannot solve the problem of world hunger but distract from its real causes – poverty, lack of access to food and, increasingly, lack of access to land to grow it on.

Based on the evidence presented in this report, there is no need to take risks with GM crops when effective, readily available, and sustainable solutions to the problems that GM technology is claimed to address already exist.

Conventional plant breeding, in some cases helped by safe modern technologies like gene mapping and marker assisted selection, continues to outperform GM in producing high-yield, drought-tolerant, and pest- and disease-resistant crops that can meet our present and future food needs.

Books

• The Organic & Non-GMO Report Newsletter – The Best Resource to Keep Updated on GE Foods.

• Genetic Roulette by Jeffrey Smith

The Health Risks of GE Foods

Resources

• Watch the documentary Unnatural Selection and the entire GMO Trilogy Film Series free online.

• Hazards of GE Foods and Crops – Why We Need a Global Moratorium by Ronnie Cummins

• Download this PowerPoint by Frank Kutka on the effects of the biotech industry and the call for sustainable agriculture.

• The Truth about PLU Codes

• Doctors: Pesticides Used on GMOs Are “Real Chemical Weapons”

 

* Organic Consumers Association, “GMO Myths and Truths”, http://www.organicconsumers.org/gelink.cfm

By Joseph Camilleri

29 May 2013

Will the ethics of war become collateral damage as America’s use of drone technology takes off? writes Joseph Camilleri.

In an important speech delivered last week president Barack Obama has defended the use of drones by invoking the just war doctrine.

This much awaited justification rests on two fallacies: that the United States is formally at war; and that it can be just to kill someone for a crime in the absence of a fair trial.

Why did the US president feel compelled to offer this lengthy but belated explanation of America’s drone policy? Put simply, because the use of drones is now increasingly contentious as it becomes the favoured response of the US military and intelligence establishment to the terrorist threat – from Afghanistan to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond.

A number of terrorists have no doubt been killed, but so have many others, including civilians. One estimate puts the death toll since 2004 at between 1,963 and 3,293. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham estimates the number to be 4,700.

The great attraction of the drone is that the killing appears risk free. The need to deploy US troops on distant and dangerous terrain is greatly reduced while those who direct the drone are safely ensconced thousands of miles away at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The CIA has been flying unarmed drones over Afghanistan since 2000. Drones were actually used during the air war against the Taliban in late 2001, but it was not until February 2002 that the CIA first used a drone for a pure CIA ‘kill operation’.

Since then covert unmanned target killing has become common place.

The defence of drone strikes offered by Obama boils down to three key propositions:

• terrorism is a serious and ongoing threat, therefore the US remains ‘at war’;
• when detention and prosecution of terrorists is not possible, target killing becomes legitimate;
• assassination by drones is the lesser of two evils, reducing the likely number of military and civilian casualties;

This line of argument is deeply flawed. Countries and communities are subject to all kinds of threat, including serious loss of life and property – whether it is at the hands of deranged individuals or criminal groups of various kinds. The narcotics trade and human trafficking are just two examples.

But a country is not at war with such groups except in a symbolic or metaphorical sense. In these instances countries are not strictly speaking engaged in war. They are not taking military action against the military threat posed by another state – action which is clearly subject to the laws of armed conflict.

Obama’s predecessor, George W Bush, launched the ‘war on terror’ precisely because it offered the United States a way of dealing with suspected terrorists outside the confines of the rule of law.

As a consequence, enhanced interrogation techniques (generally classified as torture), ‘extraordinary rendition’ and indefinite detention at Guantanamo became integral to the ‘war on terror’.

Now in the fifth year of his presidency, Obama is still trying to distance himself from the Guantanamo fiasco, only to find himself ensnared in another can of worms – covert targeted assassinations also conducted in the name of the ‘war on terror’.

But is targeted killing ‘war’ and, if so, is it in accord with the laws of war?

What is clear is that targeted killing does not engage the enemy in battle, since drone attacks occur in times and places where there is no armed conflict.

How, then, can we be confident that those designated for death pose an imminent, dangerous and violent threat? Who is authorised to make these decisions? And, what if the designation proves to be mistaken – something which is known to have happened more than once? Who then bears responsibility? And what are the processes by which those responsible for those mistakes can be brought to account?

It is difficult to see how surreptitious and riskless killing can be in any way regarded as war in a conventional sense, and how it can be subjected to the most basic rules of armed conflict, including hors de combat immunity and the possibility of individual surrender.

But this is just the beginning of the dilemma.

Who are these suspected terrorists? They do not represent an enemy state. They have no fixed address, and often have no clear organisational links.

While some may be thought to have prominent leadership roles in Al Qaeda, the majority do not. Some may be members of state-sponsored networks, but most are likely to be members of autonomous shadowy cells and extremist groups.

How can such a disparate and elusive group be engaged in anything approaching what we normally regard as ‘war’?

All of which has another far-reaching implication. By virtue of their mobility and effective statelessness, these suspects can move rapidly from one country to another. What happens when a particular country is opposed to the use of American drones over its territory? Will the US accept that judgment? Or will it pursue its targeting regardless, in defiance of that state’s sovereignty?

The US president cannot but be aware of these pitfalls. This is why he has attempted to limit the hostile fallout by stipulating that: there must be near-certainty that no civilian casualties will result. He has also called for a review leading to additional oversight of drone attacks.

But key questions remain unanswered: Who is authorised to make these decisions? Will the decision process be transparent? Who is to bear responsibility in the event of mistaken decisions? In what sense, if any, will US actions be subject to the international rule of law?

Beyond this, the United States needs to consider the political and strategic fallout of drone attacks. The use of the drone has already created enormous ill will towards the United States in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This is hardly surprising when a drone supposedly targeting a terrorist ends up killing members of a wedding party.

And if the United States wishes to argue that targeted killings are a legitimate instrument against enemies of the American state, what is to prevent, Russia, China, Iran, Syria or any number of other countries from using precisely the same argument in years to come.

Does president Obama intend a drone arms race to become part of his legacy?

Professor Joseph A Camilleri OAM is Professor Emeritus at La Trobe University. View his full profile here.

By DAWOOD AULEEAR

29 May 2013

@ Le Mauricien

The barbaric and horrendous knife attack on the British soldier last week should be added to the growing list of heinous crimes perpetrated by two antagonists. The killers justified their acts as a tit for tat for the crimes committed by the West in Muslim lands. “The only reason we killed this man is because Muslims are dying daily” recally a recent headline : “A British soldier has been jailed for stabbing a 10-year-old boy after getting drunk on vodka while serving in Afghanistan.”

There is little hue and cry in the West, contrary to the outbursts of violence in the Islamic world, about the West’s crimes because Media outlets in the West and particularly in the US simply keep mum. The victims of the West’s crimes are made faceless, their families nearly never appear on TV and according to SALON, Supreme Court Judges have collaborated with US Administration to bar victims access to American courts and thus deprive them of means to have their stories heard. The Patriotic Act and the threat on whistle blowers push victims into silence.

The confessions at a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, of Gen. James Cartwright and Sen. Lindsey Graham speak volumes : Americans have the right to kill enemies even while they are “asleep”, that they don’t “have to wake them up before they shoot them” and “make it a fair fight”. Michael Moore’s mockery summarizes Western reaction : “I am outraged that we can’t kill people in other countries without them trying to kill us !”

Let us face the fact : All attempts at lives are unjustifiable and must appall us. Violence caused by the deranged is known to exist from the time of Adam’s sons. Agents of the Inquisition burned heretics to death to shorten their time in purgatory. It is our duty to stop the spiral of violence. The targeting of terrorists by the West is failing to bring about a surrender of the “Islamic” Jihadis. It is important to understand the Muslim mind. A Muslim is taught that cowardice is a worst form of disbelief and all forms of injustice have to be opposed, if needs be, by force. The pool of Muslims ready to die for a “just” cause is unfathomable.

There is a glimmer of hope now to see mayhem on the decline as both President Obama and Hollande have made sober declarations, worthy of statesmen, and proposed alternative and constructive ways of tackling this evil of violence. Let us hope they live up to their words and the Jihadis respond equally as men of honour.

By Shamus Cooke

28 May, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

For a president that is executing Bush’s “war on terror” against Al-Qaeda and “it’s affiliates,” it seems odd that President Obama has targeted the secular Syrian government for “regime change.”

Equally odd is that Obama’s strongest military ally on the ground in Syria- the best equipped and effective fighting force against the Syrian Government — is Jabhat al-Nusra, a group that has affiliated itself with  al-Qaeda, and aims to turn Syria into an extremist Islamic state that enforces a fundamentalist version of Sharia law.

It’s difficult to know exactly how al-Nursa received its guns, but one can make an educated guess. For example, The New York Times explained in detail how the CIA has been in a massive arms trafficking operation that has already funneled thousands of tons of guns from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to Syria:

“The C.I.A. role in facilitating the [weapons] shipments… gave the United States a degree of influence over the process [of weapon distribution]…American officials have confirmed that senior White House officials were regularly briefed on the [weapons] shipments.”

Where are the guns winding up in this massive arms trafficking operation? An important question to ask is: which rebels in Syria have guns and which ones don’t.    The Guardian reports :

“The [secular] Free Syrian Army’s shortage of weapons and other resources compared with [jihadist] Jabhat al-Nusra is a recurrent theme… ‘If you join al-Nusra, there is always a gun for you but many of the FSA brigades can’t even provide bullets for their fighters,’…3,000 FSA [Free Syrian Army] men have joined al-Nusra in the last few months, mainly because of a lack of weapons and ammunition…Al-Nusra fighters rarely withdraw for shortage of ammunition…”

While it’s difficult to know if CIA trafficked guns are going directly or indirectly to al-Nursa, it’s extremely likely that these guns are going directly into the hands of ideological cousins of al-Nursa, since the Syrian rebels are completely dominated by Islamic extremists.

For example, when the Economist magazine was outlining the most important fighting groups in Syria, “Who’s Who in the Syrian Battlefield,”  they noted with regret that the only important non-Islamist group was in the Kurdish areas, which is virtually an autonomous zone. As far as the secular U.S.-backed fighting group, The Supreme Military Command, the Economist conceded it “has little control on the ground.” Keep in mind that the Economist is very much in favor of a U.S.-NATO military intervention in Syria.

The New York Times also confirmed the complete dominance of extremists on the rebel side:

“Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.”

Thus, the minority of secular rebel fighters are not leading the civil war and will not be in power if Assad falls. Instead, honest Syrian revolutionaries will instantly fall victim to the extremists, who will immediately proceed to a mopping-up mission of their former allies.

It’s now clear that Obama’s foreign policy in Syria is actively encouraging terrorism. Many rebel-controlled areas in Syria are now new safe havens for terrorists, and there have been hundreds of terrorist bombing attacks against the Syrian government, many of which have targeted civilian areas.

While the U.S. is pouring arms into the jihadist-controlled areas, they have also downplayed the atrocities committed by these rebels, which are well documented on Youtube and include a multitude of war crimes that include beheadings, group execution of prisoners, ethnic cleansing , and the recent episode where a famous rebel commander was videotaped mutilating a dead Syrian solider and eating his heart.

By minimizing this barbarism the Obama administration ensures that it will continue, since the extremists are empowered by U.S. support and are shielded in the U.S. media and protected from international political pressures.

One question the U.S. media never thinks of asking is: Where did all these Islamic extremists come from and why? The Sunni Islamic opposition inside Syria has long been religiously moderate, implying that many of the extremists are foreigners.

The ideological source of this extremism came from Saudi Arabian religious figures and their allies, who use Islam as a political tool to target nations “unfriendly” to Saudi Arabia and the United States. The most glaring example of this in regard to Syria was the Fatwa (official interpretation/statement) issued by 107 Islamic scholars that denounced the Syrian government and encouraged Muslims to fight against it. The statement essentially encouraged jihad, though the word wasn’t mentioned explicitly.

The statement includes:

“It is a duty for all Muslims to support the revolutionaries in Syria [against the government] “so that they can successfully complete their revolution and attain their rights and their freedom.”

The hypocrisy of such a statement is almost too glaring: the many Saudi figures who signed the document that want “freedom” in Syria are not demanding freedom in Saudi Arabia, by far the country with the least amount of freedoms in the world.

With Saudi Arabia and Qatar providing guns to the Syrian rebels — with help from the CIA — the Saudi religious figures attached to the Saudi regime give religious/political support by misleading devout Muslims to flock to Syria to attack a country of Muslims, thus creating the giant sectarian divisions we now see throughout the Islamic world.

The vast majority of this Islamic sectarian warfare is exported by Saudi Arabia, which funds radical Islamic schools all over the Middle East that attract the downtrodden of these countries by providing basic social services that the host country is too poor — or unwilling — to provide.  There is an informative chapter on this dynamic in Vijay Prashad’s excellent book, A People’s History of the Third World.

Now the debate among U.S.-NATO countries is whether to give more sophisticated weaponry to the extremist-dominated rebels in Syria. The Obama Administration is pressuring the European Union to drop its arms embargo on Syria so that a new torrent of weapons can flood the country (apparently the CIA operations haven’t yet completely drenched Syria with guns).

In response to the “drop the embargo” discussion, Oxfam intelligently responded by saying:

“Sending arms to the Syrian opposition won’t create a level playing field. Instead, it risks further fueling an arms free-for-all where the victims are the civilians of Syria. Our experience from other conflict zones tells us that this crisis will only drag on for far longer if more and more arms are poured into the country.”

One EU diplomat gave a scathing rebuke to the Obama Administration’s claim that it could ensure that new weapons wouldn’t wind up in “the wrong hands” in Syria:

“It would be the first conflict where we pretend we could create peace by delivering arms,” the diplomat said. “If you pretend to know where the weapons will end up, then it would be the first war in history where this is possible. We have seen it in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Weapons don’t disappear; they pop up where they are needed.”

In Syria the weapons are needed by those doing the brunt of the fighting. Again, the al-Nursa extremists are widely acknowledged to be the most effective fighting force against the Syrian government, the guns will thus flow to them.

Obama has taken the saying, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” to irrational heights, and in so doing is helping to produce a new generation of Islamic extremists that will help fuel the U.S.-led never-ending “war on terror.”  The real intention of the War on Terror is not to stop terrorists, but to target nation states that are opposed to U.S. foreign policy: Iraq and Libya — like Syria — were both secular countries at the time of their being invaded; Afghanistan was invaded even though the vast majority of those involved in the 9-11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia. There was no terrorist problem in Iraq before the U.S. invaded, just like there was no terrorist problem in Syria before the U.S.-backed rebels came onto the scene.

It’s blatantly obvious to most Americans that Syria and Iran are at the top of Obama’s war list, a much higher priority than any terrorist group. This is why Obama is tolerating the terrorist groups inside Syira; they are being used as tools against his real target, Syria and then Iran.

The Syrian people must be left to themselves to decide their future. The United States is utterly incapable of “helping” countries by using military means, as the fractured nations of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya painfully prove. The global anti-war movement must demand Hands Off Syria!

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

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/08/free-syrian-army-rebels-defect-islamist-group

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/05/daily-chart-12

http://www.islam21c.com/fataawa/2407-fatwa-on-syria-by-107-scholars

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/22/syria-arms-embargo-rebels

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/22/syria-arms-embargo-rebels?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20main-3%20Main%20trailblock:Network%20front%20-%20main%20trailblock:Position5

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/divided-europe-imperils-syrian-arms-embargo-8632376.html

 

By Joseph Stiglitz, Guardian UK

28 May 13

@ Readersupportednews.org

Big corporates are gaming one nation’s taxpayers against another’s: we need a global deal to make them pay their way

The world looked on agog as Tim Cook, the head of Apple, said his company had paid all the taxes owed – seeming to say that it paid all the taxes it should have paid. There is, of course, a big difference between the two. It’s no surprise that a company with the resources and ingenuity of Apple would do what it could to avoid paying as much tax as it could within the law. While the supreme court, in its Citizens United case seems to have said that corporations are people, with all the rights attendant thereto, this legal fiction didn’t endow corporations with a sense of moral responsibility; and they have the Plastic Man capacity to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time – to be everywhere when it comes to selling their products, and nowhere when it comes to reporting the profits derived from those sales.

Apple, like Google, has benefited enormously from what the US and other western governments provide: highly educated workers trained in universities that are supported both directly by government and indirectly (through generous charitable deductions). The basic research on which their products rest was paid for by taxpayer-supported developments – the internet, without which they couldn’t exist. Their prosperity depends in part on our legal system – including strong enforcement of intellectual property rights; they asked (and got) government to force countries around the world to adopt our standards, in some cases, at great costs to the lives and development of those in emerging markets and developing countries. Yes, they brought genius and organisational skills, for which they justly receive kudos. But while Newton was at least modest enough to note that he stood on the shoulders of giants, these titans of industry have no compunction about being free riders, taking generously from the benefits afforded by our system, but not willing to contribute commensurately. Without public support, the wellspring from which future innovation and growth will come will dry up – not to say what will happen to our increasingly divided society.

It is not even true that higher corporate tax rates would necessarily significantly decrease investment. As Apple has shown, it can finance anything it wants to with debt – including paying dividends, another ploy to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. But interest payments are tax deductible – which means that to the extent that investment is debt-financed, the cost of capital and returns are both changed commensurately, with no adverse effect on investment. And with the low rate of taxation on capital gains, returns on equity are treated even more favorably. Still more benefits accrue from other details of the tax code, such as accelerated depreciation and the tax treatment of research and development expenditures.

It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. It is a tax system that is pivotal in creating the increasing inequality that marks most advanced countries today – with America standing out in the forefront and the UK not far behind. It is the starving of the public sector which has been pivotal in America no longer being the land of opportunity – with a child’s life prospects more dependent on the income and education of its parents than in other advanced countries.

Globalisation has made us increasingly interdependent. These international corporations are the big beneficiaries of globalisation – it is not, for instance, the average American worker and those in many other countries, who, partly under the pressure from globalisation, has seen his income fully adjusted for inflation, including the lowering of prices that globalisation has brought about, fall year after year, to the point where a fulltime male worker in the US has an income lower than four decades ago. Our multinationals have learned how to exploit globalisation in every sense of the term – including exploiting the tax loopholes that allow them to evade their global social responsibilities.

The US could not have a functioning corporate income tax system if we had elected to have a transfer price system (where firms “make up” the prices of goods and services that one part buys from another, allowing profits to be booked to one state or another). As it is, Apple is evidently able to move profits around to avoid Californian state taxes. The US has developed a formulaic system, where global profits are allocated on the basis of employment, sales and capital goods. But there is plenty of room to further fine-tune the system in response to the easier ability to shift profits around when a major source of the real “value-added” is intellectual property.

Some have suggested that while the sources of production (value added) are difficult to identify, the destination is less so (though with reshipping, this may not be so clear); they suggest a destination-based system. But such a system would not necessarily be fair – providing no revenues to the countries that have borne the costs of production. But a destination system would clearly be better than the current one.

Even if the US were not rewarded for its global publicly supported scientific contributions and the intellectual property built on them, at least the country would be rewarded for its unbridled consumerism, which provides incentives for such innovation. It would be good if there could be an international agreement on the taxation of corporate profits. In the absence of such an agreement, any country that threatened to impose fair corporate taxes would be punished – production (and jobs) would be taken elsewhere. In some cases, countries can call their bluff. Others may feel the risk is too high. But what cannot be escaped are customers.

The US by itself could go a long way to moving reform along: any firm selling goods there could be obliged to pay a tax on its global profits, at say a rate of 30%, based on a consolidated balance sheet, but with a deduction for corporate profits taxes paid in other jurisdictions (up to some limit). In other words, the US would set itself up as enforcing a global minimum tax regime. Some might opt out of selling in the US, but I doubt that many would.

The problem of multinational corporate tax avoidance is deeper, and requires more profound reform, including dealing with tax havens that shelter money for tax-evaders and facilitate money-laundering. Google and Apple hire the most talented lawyers, who know how to avoid taxes staying within the law. But there should be no room in our system for countries that are complicitous in tax avoidance. Why should taxpayers in Germany help bail out citizens in a country whose business model was based on tax avoidance and a race to the bottom – and why should citizens in any country allow their companies to take advantage of these predatory countries?

To say that Apple or Google simply took advantage of the current system is to let them off the hook too easily: the system didn’t just come into being on its own. It was shaped from the start by lobbyists from large multinationals. Companies like General Electric lobbied for, and got, provisions that enabled them to avoid even more taxes. They lobbied for, and got, amnesty provisions that allowed them to bring their money back to the US at a special low rate, on the promise that the money would be invested in the country; and then they figured out how to comply with the letter of the law, while avoiding the spirit and intention. If Apple and Google stand for the opportunities afforded by globalisation, their attitudes towards tax avoidance have made them emblematic of what can, and is, going wrong with that system.

 

By Kathy Kelly

28 May, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

When she was 24 years old, in 1979, Fahima Vorgetts left Afghanistan.  By reputation, she had been outspoken, even rebellious, in her opposition to injustice and oppression; and family and friends, concerned for her safety, had urged her to go abroad.  Twenty-three years later, returning for the first time to her homeland, she barely recognized war-torn streets in urban areas where she had once lived.  She saw and felt the anguish of villagers who couldn’t feed or shelter their families, and no less able to accept such unjust suffering than she’d been half her life before, Fahima decided to make it her task to help alleviate the abysmal conditions faced by ordinary Afghans living at or below the poverty line – by helping to build independent women’s enterprises wherever she could.  She trusted in the old adage that if a person is hungry it’s an even greater gift to teach the person how to fish than to only give the person fish.

Last week, our small delegation here in Kabul traveled around the city with her to visit several clinics and “shuras,” or women’s councils that she has opened.

The first clinic we visited has been here since 2006. Two women, a doctor and a midwife, told us that they are part of a staff who work in three shifts to keep the clinic open “24-7.”  Not one of their patients has died while being treated at the clinic.

Next we visited two villages, one Pashtun and the other Tajik, on the outskirts of Kabul.

“Why did you pick this village?” asked Jake Donaldson, an M.D. from Ventura, CA who joined us here in Kabul about a week ago.  “I didn’t pick them,” Fahima exclaimed. “They picked me.”

A year previously, the villagers had asked her to build a clinic and a literacy center.  She had told them that if they would agree to organize a women’s cooperative and pool their resources to hire teachers, midwives and nurses, she herself would build the physical building and help with supplies.

In each village, we visited a newly constructed building which will house a clinic, a women’s cooperative for jewelry-making, tailoring, and canning, a set of literacy classes for children and adults, and even a public shower which families can sign up to use.  A young teacher invited us to step inside his classroom where about fifty children, girls and boys, were learning their alphabet in the first week of a literacy class.  Several villagers proudly showed us the well they had dug, powered by a generator. The well will help them irrigate their land as well as supply clean drinking water for the village.

Before we left, a male village elder described to Fahima how valuable her work has been for his village.  Fahima seemed to blush a bit as she gratefully acknowledged his compliment.

Such appreciative words, along with the children’s eager expressions, seem to be the main compensation for her tireless work.  “I and the board members of The Afghan Women’s Fund are 100% volunteers,” Fahima assures me.  “Our board members are people of tremendous integrity.”

On the day before our tour, Fahima had come to the Afghan Peace Volunteer home to speak to the seamstresses who run a sewing cooperative here and encourage them to hold on at all costs to their dignity.  She urged them never to prefer handouts to hard work in self-sustaining projects.  Fahima had helped the seamstresses begin their cooperative effort at the Volunteer house when she purchased sewing machines for them a little over a year ago.

“Not all of the projects I’ve tried to start have worked out,” said Fahima. “Sometimes people are hampered by conservative values and some families don’t want to allow women to leave their homes. Most often, it is war or the security situation that prevents success.”

She firmly believes that war will never solve problems in her country – or anywhere else, for that matter.

Fahima is outspoken, even blunt, as she speaks about warlords and war profiteers.   She has good reason to be bitter over the cruelties inflicted on ordinary Afghans by all those interested in filling their own pockets and expanding control of Afghanistan’s resources.  She advises the Afghan Peace Volunteers with the voice and love of a mother. “The world is gripped by a class war in which the 1% elite, irrespective of nationality or ethnicity and including the Afghan and U.S./NATO elite, have been ganging up to control, divide, oppress and profit from us, the ordinary 99%. Resist these ‘dark times’, resist war and weapons, educate yourselves, and work together in friendship.”

Fahima’s spirit of youthful rebellion clearly hasn’t been snuffed out by age or experience.  Her practical compassion is like a compass for all of us who learn about her work.

For more about the Afghan Women Fund, go to www.Afghanwomensfund.org

Kathy Kelly, ( kathy@vcnv.org ), co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence ( www.vcnv.org ). She is living in Kabul for the month of May as a guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers ( http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/ ).

By Thomas Gaist

27 May, 2013

@ WSWS.org

Escalating fighting in Lebanon along with growing efforts by the US and the European powers to arm the Syrian rebels are raising the risk of a region-wide war. Lebanon, having served as a corridor for arms shipments to US-backed Sunni opposition forces inside Syria, is itself becoming a war theater.

Fighting raged last week between Alawites aligned with Bashar al-Assad and Sunni oppositionists in the Lebanese city of Tripoli, killing at least 23 and wounding 170. As of Sunday night, the Lebanese Daily Star reported that clashes were set to continue today, for the eighth straight day. Significantly, fighting has spread to the Lebanese capital, Beirut. On Sunday, rockets struck Hezbollah–held areas of Beirut, including a residential building and car showroom, leaving at least three wounded. A Syrian rebel, Ammar al-Wawi, stated that the rocket attacks were launched in retaliation for Hezbollah’s support of Assad.

“In coming days we will do more than this,” he threatened. “This is a warning to Hezbollah and the Lebanese government to keep Hezbollah’s hands off Syria.”

Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah declared that his movement will not back away from its support for Assad. “We will continue to the end of the road. We accept this responsibility and will accept all sacrifices and expected consequences of this position,” Nasrallah said in the speech Saturday.

The fighting in Lebanon demonstrates the explosive repercussions of Washington’s policy of stoking sectarian conflict to advance its strategic aims. As the Washington Post wrote last week, “the two-year Syrian conflict has become a regional war and a de facto US proxy fight with Iran.” Iran, which is aligned with Assad and with Hezbollah, has allegedly been flying weapons to the regime in Syria with the support of the Shi’ite majority regime in Iraq.

Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that Iran, as well as Hezbollah, “have made it very clear, Assad is a red line.” The situation points to a massive, region-wide conflict.

While peace talks are scheduled, dubbed Geneva 2, the US and its regional allies are using the occasion to prepare for war. The US is using the possibility of talks to consolidate its “coalition of the willing,” which includes Britain, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

US and opposition representatives have made clear that they will accept a negotiated solution only on condition that Assad be removed and that the remains of his regime subordinate themselves to a deal with Washington’s Sunni Islamist proxies.

The imperialist powers are preparing to ramp up their indirect interventions in Syria. European leaders are meeting in Brussels on Monday, where British representatives will make the case for ending the arms embargo against Syria, opening the way for European efforts to arm the opposition.

Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 15-3 to allow Washington to arm the rebel militias. Senators Robert Menendez and Bob Corker sponsored the bill, which gives the green light for “critical support to the Syrian opposition through provision of military assistance, training, and additional humanitarian support.”

“The time to act and turn the tide against Assad is now,” Senator Menendez stated at the hearing on the bill. “The United States must play a role in tipping the scales toward opposition groups and working to build a free and democratic Syria.”

Leading Democrats supported the bill, while claiming that Obama has acted too timidly in Syria. “We’ve all been frustrated that our country hasn’t done enough to be responsive,” said Sen. Bob Casey. “I think it’s in our national-security interests to address this”––that is, arming the rebels.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio said, “I believe it’s in the national interest of the United States to ensure that the strongest, best-organized, and best-funded elements in a post-Assad Syria and even before his fall are interests that are aligned with us.”

Republican Senator Rand Paul criticized the vote, saying: “This is an important moment. You will be funding, today, the allies of Al Qaeda.” In fact, Washington, both the major US parties, and Washington’s Middle East allies have been backing Al Qaeda-linked forces throughout the US proxy war in Syria, which began in 2011.

Opposition representatives have emphasized their unwillingness to accept any settlement that leaves Assad in power despite Assad’s agreement “in principle” to attend talks.

“We are ready to enter into negotiations that are aimed towards transferring power to the people, towards a democratic transition. And that of course means Assad cannot be a part of Syria in the future,” stated Louay Safi of the opposition Syrian National Coalition. Should the regime reject such demands, as appears likely, the failure of the talks would serve as a pretext for military escalation.

“We do not have too much illusion,” said Ahmed Kamel, another opposition representative. “We know the regime, we know Assad, and we know that he would never quit power without force.”

“The international community says that they can remove Assad from power; so does the US,” Mr. Kamel added.

The Geneva talks come against the backdrop of serious defeats of the US-backed opposition at the hands of Assad’s forces. The opposition, in a sign of its precarious position, is now calling for a “humanitarian corridor” centered on the strategic town of Qusayr, which regime forces seized on May 19, in a major blow to the opposition.

Despite its supposedly “humanitarian” character, such a corridor would be carved out by means of US airstrikes and ground operations, and will serve as a safe-zone, allowing rebel militias to regroup without fear of attack by Assad’s forces. The creation of such a safe-zone would require major deployments by the US and its allies. As usual, the language of humanitarianism is being applied to cover a full-scale military incursion by the US.

By Colin Todhunter

26 May, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Two men armed with knives and gun(s) apparently hack to death an off-duty soldier outside an army barracks in Woolwich, London. As the soldier lies dead or dying in the road, one of the alleged attackers approaches a man filming the scene on his mobile phone and makes a political speech about the British state’s role in killing Muslims in foreign countries.

According to the attacker, what he and his associate have just done basically represented pay back for the lives taken by British soldiers on behalf of the British government. The two alleged assailants do not flee the scene, but, with weapons still in hands, talk to passers by. The police arrive and both men are shot and wounded as they quickly approach a police car. Later on in the area, English Defence League (EDL) supporters hold a protest and express their usual anti-Islam sentiments. The EDL has had some success in garnering support in recent years by tapping into working class frustrations by using Islam as a proxy for the economic and financial woes impacting Britain.

On just another day in an ordinary district, a heady mix of class, empire and retribution left their marks on a London street. But what made this particular attack so stark was the brutal nature of the incident and that the alleged perpetrators made no attempt to escape. They took advantage of the situation to tell the world why the incident took place.

Over the last couple of days since the attack, there has been much debate over what happened and why it happened. A dominant narrative via the mainstream media has been that of two crazed men (at least one spoke with a London accent), possibly acting on their own, who had been indoctrinated or radicalised by strands of Islam.

Questions are being asked about what can be done to stop this type of thing happening again. The media, politicians and commentators have been quick to talk about preventing the radicalisation of Muslims living in Britain. All well and good.

When certain acts of terror have taken place in Britain in the past, however, senior politicians have denied any link to British foreign policy. This time, one of the alleged perpetrators in Woolwich is on video explicitly stating his reasons for his actions and linking them directly to foreign policy. It doesn’t justify the attack, but it certainly helps to explain the motives.

Most politicians and commentators have tended to avoid the foreign policy issue by focusing on the horrific nature of the attack and ‘crazed, indoctrinated people’ who carry out such deeds. It has at times all been understandably quite emotive. The fact that the dead soldier was said to be wearing a ‘hope for heroes’ t-shirt at the time has further fuelled the outpouring of national grief and anger. Hope for Heroes is a charity offering support to soldiers returning from conflict zones.

 

Politicians and the media have been quick to shape the debate over the incident by referring to it as an act of terrorism and by asking what could be done to stop such an act ever taking place again. Perhaps they should turn to Noam Chomsky for an answer. When once asked how to prevent terrorism, he replied “stop committing it.”

Chomsky’s views on The US and NATO’s role in committing acts of terror in and on other countries are well documented. Either overtly or covertly, the British government has been involved in the ‘war on terror’ or ‘humanitarian militarism’ across the Muslim world, from Libya, Syriaand Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. At the same time it has been a staunch supporter of brutal, undemocratic puppet dictators throughout West Asia.

The notion that terrorism is simply a predictable consequence of an interventionist foreign policy, the propping up of dictators and the embrace of empire is downplayed by the mainstream media. The dominiant political and media message is that British military involvement in West and Central Asia is necessary to prevent terrorism reaching its shores. Without a hint of hypocrisy on their part, politicians and commentators use incidents like Woolwich to say to the public – look, this is what happens if we do not keep vigilant and do not go into these countries to root out such people.

The media likes to compartmentalise issues. Focus on the Woolwich attack, not civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Focus on one of our lads who was butchered by a couple of maniacs, not on drone attacks that terrorise whole communities. Focus on protecting ‘freedom and democracy’, not Guauntanamo, Palestine or actions or support for regimes that have nothing to do with either. Do not connect any of the dots for a comprehensive analysis, but focus on specific incidents and emotive platitudes.

And anyone who criticises British foreign policy and linking it to Woolwich, while even condemning the attack there, is regarded with a degree of suspicion, is regarded as ‘unpatriotic’, as not supporting the troops – the brave heroes ‘out there’ thousands of miles away protecting our freedoms..

Of course, you will never hear any TV news channel or political debate in parliament bring up the Project for a New Americam Century (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1937.htm), a plan devised by US neo-cons and which sets out the underlying reasons for the West’s ongoing wars, destabilisations, covert operations, killings, murders, death squads and torture that have nothing to do with humanitarianism or ‘fighting terror’ and everything to do with securing world domination. No mention of it or Britain’s role in supporting it. Such things are not to be discussed.

Such things are beyond the scope of ‘rational political discourse’. We must keep to the ‘facts’ – the facts as designated by those who wish to bury the real facts at every available opportunity.

In the meantime, we must stick to the story about the proper way of preventing terror at home is by stopping the indoctrination or brain washing of young Muslims. Do not focus too much (if at all) on the Western-fueled barbarity and hacked to death bodies on blood stained streets in far away lands. Out of sight, out of mind, thanks largely to the media. Just who is being indoctrinated here? And who is to protect us from the real extremism?

Colin Todhunter : Originally from the northwest of England, Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India. He has written extensively for the Deccan Herald (the Bangalore-based broadsheet), New Indian Express and Morning Star (Britain). His articles have also appeared in various other newspapers, journals and books. His East by Northwest website is at: http://colintodhunter.blogspot.com

By Medea Benjamin

25 May, 2013

@ CommonDreams.org

Having worked for years on the issues of drones and Guantanamo, I was delighted to get a pass (the source will remain anonymous) to attend President Obama’s speech at the National Defense University. I had read many press reports anticipating what the President might say. There was much talk about major policy shifts that would include transparency with the public, new guidelines for the use of drones, taking lethal drones out of the purview of the CIA, and in the case of Guantanamo, invoking the “waiver system” to begin the transfer of prisoners already cleared for release.

Sitting at the back of the auditorium, I hung on every word the President said. I kept waiting to hear an announcement about changes that would represent a significant shift in policy. Unfortunately, I heard nice words, not the resetting of failed policies.

Instead of announcing the transfer of drone strikes from the CIA to the exclusive domain of the military, Obama never even mentioned the CIA—much less acknowledge the killing spree that the CIA has been carrying out in Pakistan during his administration. While there were predictions that he would declare an end to signature strikes, strikes based merely on suspicious behavior that have been responsible for so many civilian casualties, no such announcement was made.

The bulk of the president’s speech was devoted to justifying drone strikes. I was shocked when the President claimed that his administration did everything it could to capture suspects instead of killing them. That is just not true. Obama’s reliance on drones is precisely because he did not want to be bothered with capturing suspects and bringing them to trial. Take the case of 16-year-old Pakistani Tariz Aziz, who could have been picked up while attending a conference at a major hotel in the capital, Islamabad, but was instead killed by a drone strike, with his 12-year-old cousin, two days later. Or the drone strike that 23-year-old Yemini Farea al-Muslimi talked about when he testified in Congress. He said the man targeted in his village of Wessab was a man who everyone knew, who met regularly with government officials and who could have easily been brought in for questioning.

When the President was coming to the end of this speech, he started talking about Guantanamo. As he has done in the past, he stated his desire to close the prison, but blamed Congress. That’s when I felt compelled to speak out. With the men in Guantanamo on hunger strike, being brutally forced fed and bereft of all hope, I couldn’t let the President continue to act as if he were some helpless official at the mercy of Congress.

“Excuse me, Mr. President,” I said, “but you’re the Commander-in-Chief. You could close Guantanamo tomorrow and release the 86 prisoners who have been cleared for release.” We went on to have quite an exchange.

While I have received a deluge of support, there are others, including journalists, who have called me “rude.” But terrorizing villages with Hellfire missiles that vaporize innocent people is rude. Violating the sovereignty of nations like Pakistan is rude. Keeping 86 prisoners in Guantanamo long after they have been cleared for release is rude. Shoving feeding tubes down prisoners’ throats instead of giving them justice is certainly rude.

At one point during his speech, President Obama said that the deaths of innocent people from the drone attacks will haunt him as long as he lives. But he is still unwilling to acknowledge those deaths, apologize to the families, or compensate them. In Afghanistan, the US military has a policy of compensating the families of victims who they killed or wounded by mistake. It is not always done, and many families refuse to take the money, but at least it represents some accounting for taking the lives of innocent people. Why can’t the President set up a similar policy when drone strikes are used in countries with which we are not at war?

There are many things the President could and should have said, but he didn’t. So it is up to us to speak out.

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

Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org), cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. Her previous books include Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart., and (with Jodie Evans) Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide).