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By Chris Hedges

14 October, 2013

@ http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_folly_of_empire_20131014/

The final days of empire give ample employment and power to the feckless, the insane and the idiotic. These politicians and court propagandists, hired to be the public faces on the sinking ship, mask the real work of the crew, which is systematically robbing the passengers as the vessel goes down. The mandarins of power stand in the wheelhouse barking ridiculous orders and seeing how fast they can gun the engines. They fight like children over the ship’s wheel as the vessel heads full speed into a giant ice field. They wander the decks giving pompous speeches. They shout that the SS America is the greatest ship ever built. They insist that it has the most advanced technology and embodies the highest virtues. And then, with abrupt and unexpected fury, down we will go into the frigid waters.

The last days of empire are carnivals of folly. We are in the midst of our own, plunging forward as our leaders court willful economic and environmental self-destruction. Sumer and Rome went down like this. So did the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires. Men and women of stunning mediocrity and depravity led the monarchies of Europe and Russia on the eve of World War I. And America has, in its own decline, offered up its share of weaklings, dolts and morons to steer it to destruction. A nation that was still rooted in reality would never glorify charlatans such as Sen. Ted Cruz, House Speaker John Boehner and former Speaker Newt Gingrich as they pollute the airwaves. If we had any idea what was really happening to us we would have turned in fury against Barack Obama, whose signature legacy will be utter capitulation to the demands of Wall Street, the fossil fuel industry, the military-industrial complex and the security and surveillance state. We would have rallied behind those few, such as Ralph Nader, who denounced a monetary system based on gambling and the endless printing of money and condemned the willful wrecking of the ecosystem. We would have mutinied. We would have turned the ship back.

The populations of dying empires are passive because they are lotus-eaters. There is a narcotic-like reverie among those barreling toward oblivion. They retreat into the sexual, the tawdry and the inane, retreats that are momentarily pleasurable but ensure self-destruction. They naively trust it will all work out. As a species, Margaret Atwood observes in her dystopian novel “Oryx and Crake,” “we’re doomed by hope.” And absurd promises of hope and glory are endlessly served up by the entertainment industry, the political and economic elite, the class of courtiers who pose as journalists, self-help gurus like Oprah and religious belief systems that assure followers that God will always protect them. It is collective self-delusion, a retreat into magical thinking.

“The American citizen thus lives in a world where fantasy is more real than reality, where the image has more dignity than the original,” Daniel J. Boorstin wrote in his book “The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America.” “We hardly dare face our bewilderment, because our ambiguous experience is so pleasantly iridescent, and the solace of belief in contrived reality is so thoroughly real. We have become eager accessories in the great hoaxes of the age. These are the hoaxes we play on ourselves.”

Culture and literacy, in the final stage of decline, are replaced with noisy diversions and empty clichés. The Roman statesman Cicero inveighed against their ancient equivalent—the arena. Cicero, for his honesty, was hunted down and murdered and his hands and head were cut off. His severed head and his right hand, which had written the Philippics, were nailed onto the speaker’s platform in the Forum. The roaring crowds, while the Roman elite spat on the head, were gleefully told he would never speak or write again. In the modern age this toxic, mindless cacophony, our own version of spectacle and gladiator fights, of bread and circus, is pumped into the airwaves in 24-hour cycles. Political life has fused into celebrity worship. Education is primarily vocational. Intellectuals are cast out and despised. Artists cannot make a living. Few people read books. Thought has been banished, especially at universities and colleges, where timid pedants and careerists churn out academic drivel. “Although tyranny, because it needs no consent, may successfully rule over foreign peoples,” Hannah Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” “it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people.” And ours have been destroyed.

Sensual pleasure and eternal youth are our overriding obsessions. The Roman emperor Tiberius, at the end, fled to the island of Capri and turned his seaside palace into a house of unbridled lust and violence. “Bevies of girls and young men, whom he had collected from all over the Empire as adepts in unnatural practices, and known as spintriae, would copulate before him in groups of three, to excite his waning passions,” Suetonius wrote in “The Twelve Caesars.” Tiberius trained small boys, whom he called his minnows, to frolic with him in the water and perform oral sex. And after watching prolonged torture, he would have captives thrown into the sea from a cliff near his palace. Tiberius would be followed by Caligula and Nero.

“At times when the page is turning,” Louis-Ferdinand Céline wrote in “Castle to Castle,” “when History brings all the nuts together, opens its Epic Dance Halls! hats and heads in the whirlwind! Panties overboard!”

The anthropologist Joseph Tainter in his book “The Collapse of Complex Societies” looked at the collapse of civilizations from the Roman to the Mayan. He concluded that they disintegrated because they finally could not sustain the bureaucratic complexities they had created. Layers of bureaucracy demand more and more exploitation, not only of the environment but the laboring classes. They become calcified by systems that are unable to respond to the changing reality around them. They, like our elite universities and business schools, churn out systems managers, people who are taught not to think but to blindly service the system. These systems managers know only how to perpetuate themselves and the system they serve, although serving that system means disemboweling the nation and the planet. Our elites and bureaucrats exhaust the earth to hold up a system that worked in the past, failing to see that it no longer works. Elites, rather than contemplate reform, which would jeopardize their privilege and power, retreat in the twilight of empire into walled compounds like the Forbidden City or Versailles. They invent their own reality. Those on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms have replicated this behavior. They insist that continued reliance on fossil fuel and speculations will sustain the empire. State resources, as Tainter notes, are at the end increasingly squandered on extravagant and senseless projects and imperial adventures. And then it all collapses.

Our collapse will take the whole planet with it.

It is more pleasant, I admit, to stand mesmerized in front of our electronic hallucinations. It is easier to check out intellectually. It is more gratifying to imbibe the hedonism and the sickness of the worship of the self and money. It is more comforting to chatter about celebrity gossip and ignore or dismiss what is reality.

Thomas Mann in “The Magic Mountain” and Joseph Roth in “Hotel Savoy” brilliantly chronicled this peculiar state of mind. In Roth’s hotel the first three floors house in luxury the bloated rich, the amoral politicians, the bankers and the business owners. The upper floors are crammed with people who struggle to pay their bills and who are steadily divested of their possessions until they are destitute and cast out. There is no political ideology among decayed ruling elites, despite choreographed debates and elaborate political theater. It is, as it always is at the end, one vast kleptocracy.

Just before World War II, a friend asked Roth, a Jewish intellectual who had fled Nazi Germany for Paris, “Why are you drinking so much?” Roth answered: “Do you think you are going to escape? You too are going to be wiped out.”

U.S. Air Force/Yasuo Osakabe

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By Jose Luis Vivero Pol

16 October, 2013

@ Shareable.net

Food is treated as a private good in today’s industrial food system, but it must be re-conceived as a common good in the transition toward a more sustainable food system that is fairer to food producers and consumers. If we were to treat food as a commons, it could be better produced and distributed by hybrid tri-centric governance systems implemented at the local level and compounded by market rules, public regulations, and collective actions. This change would have enormous ethical, legal, economic, and nutritional implications for the global food system.

A common resource versus a commodity

Food, a limited yet renewable resource that comes in both wild and cultivated forms, is essential for human existence. Over time, it has evolved from a local resource held in common into a private, transnational commodity. This process of commodification has involved the development of certain traits within food to fit the mechanized processes and regulations put in practice by the industrial food system, and it is also the latest stage in the objectification of food—a social phenomenon that has deprived food of all its non-economic attributes. As a result, the value of food is no longer based on the many dimensions that bring us security and health, including the fact that food is a:

>> Basic human need and should be available to all

>> Fundamental human right that should be guaranteed to every citizen

>> Pillar of our culture for producers and consumers alike

>> Natural, renewable resource that can be controlled by humans

>> Marketable product subject to fair trade and sustainable production

>> Global common good that should be enjoyed by all

This multidimensional view of food diverges from the mainstream industrial food system’s approach to food as a one-dimensional commodity. Even so, the industrial food system has yet to enclose, or to convert into private property, all aspects of our food commons, including:

>> Traditional knowledge of agriculture that has been accumulated over thousands of years

>> Modern, science-based agricultural knowledge accumulated within national institutions

>> Cuisine, recipes, and national gastronomy

>> Edible plants and animals created in the natural world (e.g., fish stocks and wild fruits)

>> Genetic resources for food and agriculture

>> Food safety considerations (e.g., Codex Alimentarius)

>> Public nutrition, including hunger and obesity imbalances

>> Extreme food price fluctuations in global and national markets

Our most basic human need, privatized

The industrial food system’s enclosure of food through the privatization of seeds and land, legislation, excessive pricing, and patents, has played a large role in limiting our access to food as a public good. The system now feeds the majority of people living on the planet and has created a market of mass consumption where eaters become mere consumers. As such, the industrial food system’s goal is to accumulate under-priced food resources while maximizing the profit of food enterprises, instead of ensuring food’s most important non-economic qualities, such as nutrition. Many believe this has resulted in the failure of the global food system.

We can’t rely on the market

Within the mainstream “no money no food” worldview, hunger still prevails in a world of abundance. Globally speaking, the industrial food system is increasingly failing to fulfill its basic goals of producing food in a sustainable manner, feeding people adequately, and avoiding hunger. The irony is that half of those who grow 70% of the world’s food go hungry today. Most believed that a market-led food system would finally lead to a healthier global population, yet none of the recent analyses of the connection between our global food system and hunger have questioned the privatization of food. As a result, most people believe food access to be the main problem of global hunger.

But reality proves otherwise. Unregulated markets simply cannot provide the necessary quantity of food for everyone—even if low-income groups were given the means to procure it. An industrial food system that views food as a commodity to be distributed according to market rules will never achieve food security for all. There won’t be a market-driven panacea for our unsustainable and unjust food system; rather the solution will require experimentation at all levels—personal, local, national, and international—and diverse approaches to governance—market-led, state-led, and collective action-led. We need to bring unconventional and radical perspectives into the food transition debate to develop a different narrative for our food system.

Practical implications of a common food system

A “re-commonification” of food—or, in other words, a transition where we work toward considering food as a commons—is an essential paradigm shift in light of our broken global food system. However, there would of course be practical consequences of this paradigm shift. Food would need to be dealt with outside of trade agreements made for pure private goods, and, as a result, we would need to establish a particular system of governance for the production, distribution, and access to food at a global level. That system might involve binding legal frameworks to fight hunger and guarantee everyone the right to food, cosmopolitan global policies, ethical and legal frameworks, universal Basic Food Entitlements or Food Security Floors guaranteed by the state, minimum salaries matched to food prices, bans on the financial speculation of food, or limits on alternative uses of food, such as biofuels.

Agricultural research and locally adapted, evidence-based technologies would highly benefit from crowdsourcing and creative-commons licensing systems to improve the sustainability and fairness of the global food system as well. When millions of people innovate, we have a far greater capacity to find adaptive and appropriate solutions than when a few thousand scientists innovate in private labs. There is more and more evidence today that the copyrighted agricultural sector is actually deterring food security innovations from scaling up, and that the freedom to copy actually promotes creativity and innovation, such as with open-source software.

What it might take to “re-commonify” of our food system

Collective civic actions, or alternative food networks, are key in the transition toward a more sustainable and fairer food system because they are built on the socio-ecological practices of civic engagement, community, and the celebration of local food. Based on Elinor Ostrom’s polycentric governance, food can be produced, consumed, and distributed by tri-centric governance schemes comprised of collective actions initially implemented at the local level; governments whose main goal is to maximize the well-being of their citizens and to provide a framework enabling people to enjoy their right to food; and a private sector that can prosper under state regulations and incentives. Today, in different parts of the world, there are many initiatives that demonstrate how such a combination yields good results for food producers, consumers, the environment, and society in general. The challenge now is to scale up those local initiatives. Self-governing collective actions cannot create the transition by themselves, thus there will be space for local governments, entrepreneurs, and self-organized communities to coexist, giving the state a leading role in the initial stage of the transition period to guarantee food for all.

We are just starting to reconsider the food narrative to guide the transition from the industrial food system toward an attainable and desirable utopia. It may take us several generations to achieve, but, as Mario Benedetti rightly pointed out, utopias keep us moving forward.

Jose Luis Vivero Pol is an anti-hunger and social rights activist with fourteen years of experience on food security policies and programs, Right to Food advocacy, nutrition interventions, and food sovereignty in Latin America, Africa, and the Caucasus. Additionally, he has experience in biodiversity conservation and plant genetic resources. An agricultural engineer by profession, he is a PhD research fellow at the Catholic University of Louvain, and his current interests include the ethical, legal, and political dimensions of the transition toward fairer and more sustainable food systems, the governance of global commons, and the motivations for biodiversity conservation and anti-hunger actions.

By Adfer Rashid Shah

15 October, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Now a country where even a Prime Minister in office is kidnapped that too in the capital of the country. Imagine the security apparatus of the post-Gaddafi Libya.

Prelude

The head of the transitional government, Ali Zeidan was kidnapped by ex-rebels on October 10, from a hotel amid the tight security and then freed. Imagine the security scenario of post-Gaddafi Libya today. Has Libya gained anything from the bloody uprising?

The fallouts of Arab Spring have hardly been constructive and mass friendly in almost all the regime toppled States. The Arab Spring like a massive flash flood collapsed everything that came its way, even the basic institutions of law and order, centralized State regulation, security apparatus, people’s feel secure psyche, basic human rights, etc, were not spared. As for Libya, the unceasing chaos and violence grabbed the whole oil rich state and lead to serious ramifications/fallouts be that the unaccounted and unregulated mass proliferation of weapons, continuing unrests, unceasing bloodshed, emergence of a plethora of self styled and tribal militias and their fiefdoms shaping up the prolonged chaos and uncertainty throughout. Libya today undoubtedly has proved the worst victim of Arab Spring that has lost almost everything to the 2011 uprising that proved nothing but a shapeless/mindless revolution

Introduction

This goes without saying that the post-Moammar Gaddafi Libya is purely a failed state (state governed by militia) despite the fairy tales of optimism and growth by a few Middle East and Libyan political analysts. Actually the security vacuum is such that even the former US Ambassador, Christopher Stevens was murdered in office (on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi) solely due to security crisis and issues. More than his murder, even more disturbing was that the Ambassador himself was aware about his being unsafe and of the acute security situations and uncontrolled chaos in the country. If the Ambassador of the world’s powerful country cannot feel safe and ultimately loses his life in the post-Gaddafi Libya, one can well imagine the terror/fear among the common Libyans and it also reflects the nasty fallouts of the so called Libyan revolution. The so called civilized big powers, who took pride in attacking Libya (NATO assaults) and helped/encouraged the rebels/thugs to sabotage the entire country to topple the Gaddafi regime, could not even save the credible Ambassador. If the allies could not control the post-regime situation then what was the fun of attacking Libya and execute Gaddafi- the man who changed the picture of Libya from poorest in Africa to the richest zone. Is it now merely the craze for manufacturing hegemony or maintaining/creating supremacy or the love for adventurism of the west to demolish the less powerful states one after another and then instead of rebuilding leaving these in ruins, purely to witness and enjoy the chaos, public suffering, civil wars, economic decline, emergence of uncontrolled militias, proliferation of weapons and spread of terrorism, radicalism, sectarianism and widespread bloodshed and above all the terror and the consistent feeling of insecurity among the common innocent masses.

Gaddafi’s Murder: The Beginning of an Endless Chaos

While the Gaddafi era of history ended by his inhuman murder in Sirte in October 2011, leaving the entire oil rich state in tatters for many decades to come, the pressing question remains, whether Libya in true sense has headed towards the democracy or better governance and if at all it has, at what cost? If not, then why do the world powers encourage/fund/stir up rebellions/uprisings or topple the régimes? Was destabilizing Libya or other states merely for fun or simply the west’s hunger for neo-colonialism? Why was the Gaddafi regime toppled with so much of the violence that still continues without an apparent end? Was it merely to create another Iraq or Afghanistan or impoverish the country of its rich oil resources simply to transform it to the horn of Africa? Also it is now clear to see whether Gaddafi’s execution really proved heavenly to Libyans or merely fulfilled the western interests and hijacked the entire State into the everlasting chaos, instability and uncertainty. The question remains who will reconstruct Libya now when everything has been deconstructed with the foreign might/aid by rebels? Who is safe when a plethora of uncontrolled militias are wreaking havoc day in and day out with their religion of assassinating even government officials off and on, amidst the collapsed institutions, poor security apparatus and lack of a powerful national army? Who will care of the common man who was happily leading his life in the pre-uprising era? Is the present regime virtually capable of constructing a new Libya or is simply paving the way for yet another devastated state like Iraq or Afghanistan or Mali or Somalia.

The Misuse of Power and the Costly Fallout

Noteworthy to mention that after murdering Gaddafi without caring for any trial or justice system, Libya’s self proclaimed NTC (the so called “sole representative of all Libya”) had claimed high of rebuilding and working for a united and democratic Libya but all that proved a farce because the very first blunder that they committed was killing Col. Gaddafi even after capturing him alive and when the dictator had already surrendered. Though they received a good patting by the western powers/their sponsors by then but killing a captive/a world renowned leader reflected the NTC’s political maturity, their concept of governance ahead, justice and futuristic vision. Even after Gaddafi’s murder, the tyranny or oppression has hardly gone because the new self claimed leaders/war lords and the democratic tyrants have simply replaced the slain dictator to crush the common masses a step further and put Libya to the acute political chaos. It will be apt to argue that today’s Libya can be anything but safe and growing.

The biggest challenge today is the deteriorated law and order situation along with the appalling activities by the emergence of uncontrolled militia/erstwhile fighters of the (incomplete & mishandled) revolution. The continuing bloodshed accompanied by the loss of country’s huge wealth and more importantly the collective feel secure psyche has resulted in the public dismay and panic instead of jubilation after the collapse of the Gaddafi’s tyrant regime. This entire chaotic state of affairs raises certain questions to ponder over for Libya’s future that seems too dark in the absence of the credible leaders and powerful institutions.

On one hand , Seeing the current political uncertainty and unbridled militia might now spreading in other countries to create more fuss like their role in Syria and alarming proliferation of arms, resulting in the terrified and bemused state of the common Libyans, While on the other hand, the criminal exclusion of the slain dictator’s loyalists (like Tuaregs, Sirte public & loyal belts, Gadafi’s army, etc,.) in all respects and the emergence of a new power class or rise of a new power structure is leading to nothing but mass alienation, social exclusion of particular sections of the society, unequal treatment and political rights, considerable social rupture, pathology and broken social fiber. Now even the former Gaddafi regime officials are likely to be barred from contesting elections despite of the fact that they contributed in Gaddafi’s overthrow. This is happening as even General National Congress (GNC) led by Mohmed Magarief has almost bowed down before arrogant armed militiamen that analysts describe virtually as a legal coup. Further tribal/group feuds, ethnic clashes, bloody and continuous power struggle, increasing discrimination, institutional breakdown, etc, has actually impoverished the growth and peace of the country and thus alienated the common man rather than emancipation, empowerment or democracy as being anticipated earlier and the continuing bloodshed as witnessed in post-Saddam Iraq or post Mubarak Egypt.

Libya’s Shapeless Revolution

It was rightly apprehended earlier that Libyan pro-democracy revolution may too end up in a shapeless revolution and that has proved right. Also it is a matter of concern for analysts that will NATO’s bombing, breaking role end in any of the rehabilitative measures in the post-Gaddafi era or will the devastated state sustain like Afghanistan and Iraq and turmoil will be kept deliberately alive for military adventurism and west’s neo-colonialist colony extension craze. Seeing the current growing western military adventurism under the NATO garb and their replay of Iraq drama of 2003 in Libya, Egypt, Syria, etc, Libya cannot avoid a similar fate and cannot rebuild the broken institutional mechanism back in the present crisis ridden atmosphere. In order to bring the country on a new democratic basis and to create and maintain the integrity among the institutions of power and social justice, the key issue and the major challenge before the new establishment (a bigger curiosity in fact for political analysts and social scientists round the globe right now) is to devise a workable strategy to maintain a stringent control simultaneously deliver for public welfare by the government in the centre. Seeing the situation, the fact remains that on the ground the current Libyan situation appears hardly in a settling mode.

At such a critical juncture, it is also worth pondering to assess the state of affairs in the economy of the post- Gaddafi era of the oil rich nation (worth $32 billion, 2010 estimates) though frozen assets have been released but practical appearance of normalcy is still not visible. Has it shaped Libya like the post-Taliban era way, or post war Iraq way or post sanctions Iran way and how long the clashes and massacres shall keep cuddling it. Also can the new Libyan administration fairly recover oil payments lying pending with many states and if not what will be its impact on the country’s economy and the subsequent repercussions on the 6.5 million Libyan people and safeguard their multiple ethnicity and tribal identity. Also the new challenges by Islamists at the political front remains to be seen though they (Brotherhood tributaries) are not too strong in Libya as compared to Egypt, though now their influence has started from Misrata now. Despite Islamists were defeated and National forces Alliance (NFA) secured majority party sets in last July elections. However Gaddafi’s inference about the proliferating of Jihadist agencies and their strengthening and mushrooming in north Africa is proving right after his death be it Libya itself or Mali, Algeria, Somalia, Yemen, etc,.

The public opinion which had turned decisively against the regime though had been demanding freedom from the past and expected a giant leap forward be it public security, human rights upholding, quality education, gender justice and egalitarian treatment and tribal welfare besides economic well being and proper social security. But currently the establishment is even not coming out of its own crisis, not to talk of delivery for the public welfare. Moreover, the prime focus on more efficient and enhancement in the oil production along with the gainful marketing and above all efficient accountability system which can only be realized and expected once Libyan government stabilizes politically and comes out of the contemporary fuss.

Is Post ‘Revolution Libya A Failed State?

The present Libyan social structure is in utter disorder and its populace stands a soul crushed chunk; the apprehension is whether the post uprising or post-Gaddafi times may be beleaguered with radicalism or pan-Islamism and NATO, US-Britain intervention may continue in the region. The fact is that this devastated North African oil-producing state has been shabbily exploited by all. The gimmicks like, West’s claims of working closely with the new Libya (where is that new Libya?) or Libyans have defied violence to cast ballots for a 200-member assembly (violence never ceased actually), ex-interim Prime Minister, Jibril’s political “road map”, NATO’s mission, NTC’s plan of a transitional process for constitutional declaration, Libya’s constitutional reforms, presidential elections, general elections (July 2012) and turnout of 62%,series of prime ministers coming and going seem all cruel jokes at the moment. Libya currently is worse than anything where militias, Salafi-Sufi tussle and continuing political uncertainty like terror on the streets, unceasing PM Ali Zindan Vs Magarief tussle, persistent security paralysis, collapsed institutional apparatus, the tussle between the centre and periphery, and the wide gulf between tribes and the rest, ethnic fissures, dichotomy between Gaddafians and anti-Gaddafians, etc, have endangered the lives of common the common Libyans. The west though defeating Gaddafi, has ideologically also lost its game in the country for its weapons (arms shipments given to rebels to topple Gaddafi) are now smuggled and proliferated to other vulnerable States like Syria and other terrorist safe heavens.

The Way forward: Understanding the Policy Issues being to be tacked

Undeniably, the Arab Spring has more sabotaged peace and common man’s life than proved constructive. Just regime changes for never ending instability and chaos cannot be a revolution. The most crucial and important was to stabilize the uprising states in the post uprising era, which proved a brutal failure. Arab spring’s hallow success is quite manifested in Egypt’s continuing bloodshed , saga of strifes and civil wars, the formation of new incapable and west’s puppet establishments, exclusion of women and minority voices, emergence of vulgar militias with territory politics and proliferation of terror through widespread weapons with arms smuggling, etc,. Thus everything is being witnessed as worst than the pre-spring scenario. Libya today is far weaker and insecure even than the Gaddafi era, where actualizing a centralized control mechanism and curbing arrogant tribal militias seems a project of decades and formation of a powerful national army a very difficult challenge.

The Libyan citizens are fed up with the proliferation of vulgar militias and have been demanding the departure of militias that they call the “illegitimate brigades”. Fox News (Published July 07, 2013 AFP), quotes Libyan PM, who maintains,

“We want a regular army and police force!” and “No to arms!” and “Yes to legitimacy!” cried the demonstrators amid a heavy presence of militiamen who currently enforce the law. Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, meanwhile, spoke to reporters of the necessity “to dissolve the brigades and other formations (of ex-rebels who battled the late Moamer Kadhafi) and integrate them individually into the army and police”[i].

Therefore, it can be assumed that the Libyan Government as a policy stunt seems powerless before the militias and is ready to integrate them into a national force. Can the national force comprise of such militias really safeguard the vulnerable nation is a curious question.

Strategy to be Followed

Though the efforts are on but the effective, practical and action oriented policy and planning needs to focus upon Libya’s oil and natural gas industry that makes up more than 70 percent of Libya’s economy and generates almost all the state’s revenue[ii]. Moreover it was the Libya’s oil industry that became the target of violent attacks and civil protests. The latest challenge is a lack of electricity[iii] that is an example of a worsening energy crisis in the energy rich State. Also Libya has to improve and redevelop its friendly international relations that too are not praiseworthy at the moment. Though measures are being taken to revive the oil exports, maintaining of healthy trade and international relations however roadblocks to development and reconstruction can only be tackled by improving the security situation round the country. Another issue that needs to be tackled efficiently is the issue of refugees and the provisions of their safe and secure return that government must ensure at the earliest. This goes without saying that the Post-Gaddafi Libya is in desperate need of foreign investment to reconstruct its ruined infrastructure[iv], so the policy to be tacked immediately is to seek foreign assistance and funding the rebuild the nation in tatters. Therefore efforts must be to make Libya economically stable and more importantly secure from the violence and ethnic clashes. Also the the foreign military interventions/adventures need not to be encouraged in order to build peace. Lastly, a comprehensive political, economic and technical assistance for achieving the internal stability is important and must be taken as a preferred policy initiative.

Last Word

Military in Africa has no good record as far as human rights are concerned. Libya’s transition to true democracy can prove developmental and positive however it needs patience and time. Rebuilding a new democratic Libya, improving its international relations and diplomatic skills cannot be done over night. The horrors of the so called revolution will keep haunting the state for decades even. Assessing the current situation seems too disappointing. Today’s Libya despite having Dr Ali Zendan at the PM’s Position lies nowhere in peace building and security, that he must address on priority. The functional administration has virtually gone to dogs, because of the power with everybody (that needs to be curbed immediately) and with no immediate progress or control on the holistic state as a whole.

This goes without saying that in the post-Spring and regime changed states almost everything needs reconstruction especially in Libya where even the force/army for the protection is non-existent because the army in command during the unrest has been abandoned under the pretext of being pro-Gaddafi, hence unreliable. Though we must acknowledge that devastation created by the massive uprising cannot be done away with over night, however the quest remains that will Libya really recover from such a massive and total demolition ever. The unrest initially supported by NATO’s assaults has resulted in the lifelong rupture of Libya’s social and political structure. Moammar Gaddafi’s execution has proved a historic blunder and the craze of regime toppling in the drama of Arab Spring has hardly proved functional to Libya that is still grappling with violence and unceasing bloodshed. Peace has vanished for decades and feel secure psyche among common masses has gone forever. The ripple effect of the turmoil hit Libya is visible in Mali violence or other neighboring states as well. The country has lost all its credible institutions and is currently in acute political instability.

Seeing the stolen Libyan revolution and arbitrary power with militias in the State, One can safely conclude that Libya though has moved from Colonialism to monarchy to dictatorship but not to democracy even after Gaddafi but to the democratic tyranny, uncertainty and perhaps chaos forever.

The fact remains that whosoever will try to curb unbridled militias will not be safe in Libya and the country that is currently the hub of arms smuggling is in no ways different from the tyrant Gaddafi regime. The Arab spring helped in one way-Sabotaged it completely.

Someone has rightly said,

Sooraj Hamein Har Shaam Ye Dars Deta Hai,

Maghrib Ki Taraf Jao Gay, to Doob Jao Gay…!

Notes

[i] http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/07/libya-militias-out-demand-tripoli-residents-afp/

[ii] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-08/libya-oil-output-slumps-as-power-cuts-mix-with-protests-energy.html

[iii] Ibid

[iv] http://rt.com/op-edge/libya-conflict-foreign-funds-826/

Adfer Rashid Shah (Adfar Shah) is a New Delhi based Kashmiri Sociologist and belongs to SNCWS AT Jamia Millia Islamia, Central University, New Delhi. Author is a guest columnist & Contributor at Eurasia Review, Analyst World, Kashmir Monitor,South Asian idea and also contributes in other reputed international Publications. Mail at adfer.syed@gmail.com

By Robert Stevens

15 October, 2013

@ WSWS.org

Rescuers have ended their search for the bodies of the migrants who died in the October 3 Lampedusa boat sinking. Only 155 of the 545 people, including Eritrean, Somalis, and Syrians aboard the vessel which sank in the Mediterranean survived the tragedy. Just 359 bodies have been recovered.

These deaths were followed by another boat sinking in Maltese waters, south of the island of Lampedusa, on October 11. Of the more than 200 Syrians and Palestinian men, women and children on board, at least 34 died. The boat was apparently fired upon by a military vessel carrying a Libyan flag.

Speaking to “Channel 4 News”, a survivor said, “They followed us for an hour. Then they asked the captain to stop and then started to shoot in the air. They were trying to turn the boat upside down. Then they started to shoot at the boat. They shot at the engine. They managed to hit four people as well.”

The United Nations refugee agency’s Maurizio Molina said, “Because of the hole caused by the shooting… the water started entering into the boat, causing a lot of tension among the Syrians that were on board. At a certain point the ones that were (below), around 100 people, were obliged to go upstairs, creating this unbalancing and then at the end finally causing the capsize.”

At least 500 more migrants had to be rescued Saturday in separate incidents near the Italian island of Sicily. In another incident, on Friday, 12 migrants drowned in a shipwreck off Alexandria’s coast. Egyptian state media reported that 116 survived the sinking.

The toll of deaths in the Mediterranean since October 3 will be added to the staggering figure of 25,000 who have died trying to enter “Fortress Europe” in the last two decades.

By the beginning of October, some 30,000 people had attempted to cross over the Mediterranean into Italy this year alone. Many are attempting to flee war and persecution in countries like Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria.

The vast majority of refugees, upwards of 95 percent, never get anywhere in Europe. Officially 1.6 million Syrians are now refugees, far beyond the one million predicted by the United Nations by the middle of 2013.

The UN’s Syria Regional Response Plan of December 2012 calculated that 515,061 Syrian refugees had arrived in surrounding Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, and Egypt. The refugee crisis has escalated this year, with the UN confirming in June that an additional one million refugees had arrived in these countries.

In January 5,000 per day were fleeing Syria, and by March this had reached an average of 10,000. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees stated, “Based on arrival trends since the beginning of the year, it is estimated that the number of Syrian refugees in need of assistance across the region may reach 3.45 million by the end of 2013, hosted in camps and, for the most part, in local communities.”

According to the latest figures, a further five million people have been displaced inside Syria. All told, more than seven million Syrians have been displaced from their homes—around a third of the country’s 22 million people. That figure is expected to reach 50 percent in short order.

António Guterres, the UN’s high commissioner responsible for refugees, stated, “Syria has become the great tragedy of this century—a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history.”

What Guterres will not and cannot acknowledge is that the tragedy befalling millions of Syrians is the result of a civil war engineered by the United States, Britain, and France with the assistance and funding of Turkey and the Gulf monarchies.

Even prior to the outbreak of the imperialist proxy war in Syria, sanctions against the country had wrought a devastating impact. In 1979 the US designated Syria a “state sponsor of terror” and began imposing numerous economic sanctions. In August 2011, the Obama administration imposed additional sanctions on Syria’s energy sector and froze all Syrian government assets in the US.

Last month Britain’s Independent noted that sanctions had hit Syria’s “once excellent under-fives vaccination program and brought to a standstill the MDG [UN Millennium Development Goals] targets on maternal and infant mortality, which Syria was well on the road to meeting by 2015. They have collapsed the production of essential medicines for which the country was near to self-sufficiency. Medicines for the treatment of cancer, diabetes and heart disease not produced locally are not available except at huge cost in neighbouring countries. The cost of essential food, cooking, and heating oil has increased several-fold, putting it out of reach for the majority whilst gangster-led smuggling and profiteering thrives. All this alongside the raging horrors of a war.”

Masses of Syrians are now being held in refugee camps, denied basic freedoms and citizenship. Some 520,000 Syrians are now in Jordan, increasing its population by eight 8 percent in two years. One camp, Zaatari, houses 130,000 people in appalling, overcrowded conditions. When it was established in July 2012, it contained just 100 families. It is now growing at a rate of 2,000 residents each day. Another camp, Azraq, is under construction and will also have the capacity to host up to 130,000 people.

Turkey only allows Syrian refugees to enter when there are spaces in refugee camps.

The Lebanese government allows Syrians entry, but only on the basis of recognising them as “visitors” not refugees. Around 1.3 million Syrians are now in Lebanon, with 780,000 registered as refugees by the UN.

Further tens of thousands remain in perilous conditions camped on the Syrian-Jordan border, waiting to cross over.

Many of the ships containing refugees seeking to enter Europe via Lampedusa are forced to begin a hazardous journey via Libyan ports. After the 2011 overthrow of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, in another imperialist-inspired “humanitarian” civil war, Libya was hailed as a model for regime change and the “democracy” that Syrians could expect. What has emerged is a criminal regime, fractured by rival armed militias, under which thousands remain imprisoned without charges and subjected to systematic torture.

In order to clampdown on this means of entry, the European Union is working with the Libyan regime via a €30 million-a-year deal operation named Eubam Libya. Central will be the creation of a “border management strategy” to “improve the legal and institutional framework of border management.”

Last year Amnesty International reported that Italy signed an April 2012 secret agreement with the then Libyan National Transitional Council to “curtail the flow of migrants”. Commenting on the agreement, Amnesty’s Nicolas Beger said, “For the EU, reinforcing Europe’s borders clearly trumps saving lives.”

The 34 refugees killed on October 11 as a result of being fired on by a Libyan ship will not be the last to die as a result of EU collusion.

By Jonathan Capehart,

15 October 13

@ The Washington Post

If you want to curdle the blood of an African American and send a message of menace without resorting to burning a cross on the lawn or marching around in white sheets all one need do is wave the Confederate flag. So imagine my revulsion at the sight of one outside the front gates of the White House.

Michael Ashmore of Hooks, Tex., was among the many who converged on Washington for the “Million Vet March on the Memorials” to protest the government shutdown. This was the event where former half-term governor reality television star and best-selling author turned conservative gadfly Sarah Palin said, “Our vets have proven that they have not been timid, so we will not be timid in calling out any who would use our military, our vets, as pawns in a political game.” Applauding her self-awareness would be the height of irony – and sarcasm.

The protest and some of the barricades placed at the World War II Memorial then moved to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And it was there that Ashmore waved his Confederate flag. A symbol of Southern resistance and white supremacy unfurled in front of the home of the first black president of the United States. As Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg View and the Atlantic correctly said on Twitter yesterday, “In many parts of America, waving a Confederate flag outside the home of a black family would be considered a very hostile act.”

Ashmore’s reprehensible rebel yell wasn’t the only offensive thing to happen yesterday. In front of the World War II Memorial, Freedom Watch founder Larry Klayman said, “I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up.”

Ashmore’s actions and Klayman’s words are just the latest in a series of displays of disrespect directed at President Obama. For more than four years, the president’s detractors have said they “want our country back.” But they never say from whom. They continue to say he should be impeached. But they never say what his “crimes” or, if they do, said “crimes” are not grounded in any kind of reality.

For those of you who would push back by saying we’re overreacting, that the Confederate flag is nothing more than a symbol of regional pride, save it. That flag you revere so much is no better than a Swastika, a threatening symbol of hate that has no place in American political discourse.

Ex-UN, WHO officials reveal political interference to suppress scientific evidence of postwar environmental health catastrophe

By Dr. Nafeez Ahmad

13 October, 2013

@ The Guardian

Last month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a long awaited document summarising the findings of an in-depth investigation into the prevalence of congenital birth defects (CBD) in Iraq, which many experts believe is linked to the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by Allied forces. According to the ‘summary report’:

“The rates for spontaneous abortion, stillbirths and congenital birth defects found in the study are consistent with or even lower than international estimates. The study provides no clear evidence to suggest an unusually high rate of congenital birth defects in Iraq.”

Jaffar Hussain, WHO’s Head of Mission in Iraq, said that the report is based on survey techniques that are “renowned worldwide” and that the study was peer reviewed “extensively” by international experts.

Backtrack

But the conclusions contrasted dramatically from previous statements about the research findings from Iraqi Ministry of Health (MOH) officials involved in the study. Earlier this year, BBC News spoke to MOH researchers who confirmed the joint report would furnish “damning evidence” that rates of birth defects are higher in areas experiencing heavy fighting in the 2003 war. In an early press release, WHO similarly acknowledged “existing MOH statistics showing high number of CBD cases” in the “high risk” areas selected for study.

The publication of this ‘summary document’ on the World Health Organisation’s website has raised questions from independent experts and former United Nations and WHO officials, who question the validity of its findings and its anonymous authorship. They highlight the existence of abundant research demonstrating not only significant rates of congenital birth defects in many areas of Iraq, but also a plausible link to the impact of depleted uranium.

For years, medical doctors in Iraq have reported “a high level of birth defects.” Other peer-reviewed studies have documented a dramatic increase in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the aftermath of US military bombardment. In Fallujah, doctors are witnessing a “massive unprecedented number” of heart defects, and an increase in the number of nervous system defects. Analysis of pre-2003 data compared to now showed that “the rate of congenital heart defects was 95 per 1,000 births – 13 times the rate found in Europe.”

The purpose of the WHO study was to probe the data further, but some say the project is deeply flawed.

Politicised science

Dr. Keith Bavistock of the Department of Environmental Science, University of Eastern Finland, is a retired 13-year WHO expert on radiation and health. He told me that the new ‘summary document’ was at best “disappointing.” He condemned the decision from “the very outset to preclude the possibility of looking at the extent to which the increase of birth defects is linked to the use of depleted uranium”, and further slammed the document’s lack of scientific credibility.

“This document is not of scientific quality. It wouldn’t pass peer review in one of the worst journals. One of the biggest methodological problems, among many, is that the document does not even attempt to look at existing medical records in Iraqi hospitals – these are proper clinical records which document the diagnoses of the relevant cases being actually discovered by Iraqi doctors. These medics collecting clinical records are reporting higher birth defects than the study acknowledges. Instead, the document focuses on interviews with mothers as a basis for diagnosis, many of whom are traumatised in this environment, their memories unreliable, and are not qualified to make diagnosis.”

I asked Dr. Baverstock if, given the document’s avoidance of analysing the key evidence – clinical records compiled by Iraqi medics – there was reason to believe the research findings were compromised under political pressure. He said:

“The way this document has been produced is extremely suspicious. There are question marks about the role of the US and UK, who have a conflict of interest in this sort of study due to compensation issues that might arise from findings determining a link between higher birth defects and DU. I can say that the US and UK have been very reluctant to disclose the locations of DU deployment, which might throw further light on this correlation.”

If so, it would not be the first time the WHO had reportedly quashed research on DU potentially embarrassing for the Allies. In 2001, Baverstock was on the editorial board for a WHO research project clearing the US and UK of responsibility for environmental health hazards involved in DU deployment. His detailed editorial recommendations accounting for new research proving uranium’s nature as as a genotoxin (capable of changing DNA) were ignored and overruled:

“My editorial changes were suppressed, even though some of the research was from Department of Defense studies looking at subjects who had ingested DU from friendly fire, clearly proving that DU was genutoxic.”

Baverstock then co-authored his own scientific paper on the subject arguing for plausibility of the link between DU and high rates of birth defects in Iraq, but said that WHO blocked publication of the study “because they didn’t like its conclusions.”

“The extent to which scientific principles are being bent to fit politically convenient conclusions is alarming”, said Baverstock.

Environmental contamination from the Iraq War

Other independent experts have also weighed in criticising the WHO study. The British medical journal, The Lancet, reports that despite the study’s claims, a “scientific standard of peer review… may not have been fully achieved.”

One scientist named as a peer-reviewer for the project, Simon Cousens, professor of epidemiology and statistics at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), told The Lancet that he “attended a relatively brief meeting of around one and a half hours, so just gave some comments on an early presentation of the results. I wouldn’t classify that as thorough peer review.”

Just how distant the new WHO-sponsored study is from the last decade’s scientific literature is clear from a new report released earlier this year by a Tokyo-based NGO, Human Rights Now (HRN), which conducted a review of the existing literature as well as a fact-finding mission to Fallujah.

The HRN report investigated recorded birth defects at a major hospital in Fallujah for the year 2012, confirmed first hand birth defect incidences over a one-month period in 2013, and interviewed doctors and parents of children born with birth defects. The report concluded there was:

“… an extraordinary situation of congenital birth defects in both nature and quantity. The investigation demonstrated a significant rise of these health consequences in the period following the war… An overview of scientific literature relating to the effects of uranium and heavy metals associated with munitions used in the 2003 Iraq War and occupation, together with potential exposure pathways, strongly suggest that environmental contamination resulting from combat during the Iraq War may be playing a significant role in the observed rate of birth defects.”

The report criticised both the UN and the WHO for approaches that are “insufficient to meet the needs of the issues within their mandate.”

Definitive evidence

According to Hans von Sponeck, former UN assistant secretary general and UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, the gap between previous claims made by MOH researchers about the study, and the new ‘summary document’, justified public scepticism.

“The brevity of this report is unacceptable”, he told me:

“Everybody was expecting a proper, professional scientific paper, with properly scrutinised and checkable empirical data. Although I would be guarded about jumping to conclusions, WHO cannot be surprised if people ask questions about whether the body is giving into bilateral political pressures.”

Von Sponeck said that US political pressure on WHO had scuppered previous investigations into the impact of DU on Iraq:

“I served in Baghdad and was confronted with the reality of the environmental impact of DU. In 2001, I saw in Geneva how a WHO mission to conduct on-spot assessments in Basra and southern Iraq, where depleted uranium had led to devastating environmental health problems, was aborted under US political pressure.”

I asked him if such political pressure on the UN body could explain the unscientific nature of the latest report. “It would not be surprising if such US pressure has continued”, he said:

“There is definitive evidence of an alarming rise in birth defects, leukaemia, cancer and other carcinogenic diseases in Iraq after the war. Looking at the stark difference between previous descriptions of the WHO study’s findings and this new report, it seems that someone, somewhere clumsily decided that they would not release these damning findings, but instead obscure them.”

The International Coalition to Ban Depleted Uranium (ICBUW) has called for WHO to release the project’s data-set so that it can be subjected to independent, transparent analysis. The UN body continues to ignore these calls and defend the integrity of the research.

Dr Nafeez Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development and author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It among other books. Follow him on Twitter @nafeezahmed

By Jay Janson

14 October, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Equivalent shock for Kenyans as 9/11 was for Americans. Background of these two massacres are pathetically similar. Both were blowback on US genocidal foreign policy. Osama bin Laden in his 2002 Letter to Americans, included “attacks on Muslims in Somalia” in his list of reasons for the al Qaeda 9/11 attack. Synopsis, chronology of US genocide in Somalia given. Every American should consider his or her possible involvement.

For Kenya, with a population about the same as California, the September shopping mall massacre must have been nearly an equivalent shock for Kenyans as the much deadlier 9/11 terrorist attack was for the much larger American population. The background of these two massacres are pathetically similar. They were both blowback on US genocidal foreign policy. In fact Osama bin Laden in his 2002 Letter to Americans, included “attacks on Muslims in Somalia” in his list of reasons for the al Qaeda 9/11 attack. This article will seek to explain, how most Americans and citizens of other NATO nations have some degree of involvement in the genocidal origin of this beastly, insane, barbaric,  unforgivable, murderous blowback terror within a Nairobi shopping mall.

Also, why this massacre terror attack reprisal for Kenya’s deadly invasion of Somalia has received a hundred times more US media cartel news coverage than the daily and often larger massacres going on in Iraq every month for years that receive only passing mention. The massacres of Shiites in Iran’s neighbor Iraq’s Shiite government serve the same colonial interests as the US backed opposition massacring to topple the Shiite government of Syria, whereas terror attacks against US allies in reprisal for colonially sponsored state terror are to be more widely condemned as grist for the heralded euphemistic “War on Terror.” Wall Street’s CIA has used the al Qaeda it helped create and fund more often than the al Qaeda has attacked the US or the US has had al Qaeda bombed.[1]

Somalia being from where most of the Kenyan Shopping Mall murderers came from, we begin with an overlook chronology of early US crimes against peace in Somalia, and a chronology of subsequent years of genocidal crimes, that have resulted in a million of Somali men, women and children losing their lives for the interests of capital accumulation by neo-colonialist predatory speculative investment banking.

A synopsis of American and European genocidal policies and actions in Somalia:

– When Fascist Italy invaded Somalia in 1935, the ‘fair minded’ peace guardian white Colonial Powers run League of Nations embargoed all arms shipments to both sides, which of course was no brake on well arms stocked Italy, but made it impossible for Somalia to buy arms to defend against Italian genocide.

Somali lives by uncounted thousands were sacrificed as their country after independence was allowed, as Somalia was used as a back-and-forth pawn during the ‘cold’ war between the capitalist colonial powers and communist party run socialist USSR.[2]

During the 1980s, the US backed a brutal dictatorship without regard to great starvation. 300,000 Somalis, mostly children died. [3]

In 1992 US Marines and Rangers killed many Somalis before being pulled out of danger after a lost battle since propagated as another case of American good guys in the movie Blackhawk Down .[4]

Over the next seven years, the US government attempts overtly and covertly with funding and arming and ‘diplomatic’ maneuvering to keep the warlord most cooperative for US investment banking interests in power, or at least in power enough to prevent a non-cooperative Somali-for-Somali-interests government from forming (standard US foreign policy and that of all colonial and neo-colonial powers) – life costing internecine wars between warlords  – some of the very warlords that targeted US forces in 1992-93.

– 1991-1999, After the collapse of the Somali government in 1991, a system of sharia-based Islamic courts had become the main judicial system, funded through fees paid by litigants. Over time the courts began to offer other services such as education and health care. The courts also acted as local police forces, being paid by local businesses to reduce crime. The Islamic courts took on the responsibility for halting robberies and drug-dealing, as well as stopping the showing of what pornographic films in local movie houses. Somalia is almost entirely Muslim, and these institutions initially had wide public support. They soon saw the sense in working together through a joint committee to promote security.  In 1999 the group began to assert its authority. The courts in Somalia formed a union of Islamic courts, partly to consolidate resources and power and partly to aid in handing down decisions across, rather than within, clan lines. The judges of the various courts of clans represented a wide spread of factions within Islamic scholarship from Liberal to Salafist, Salfi’i and Sufi. [ ICU, Wikipedia ]

In 2000, a group of businessmen in Mogadishu having enough of deadly violence, social degradation and the economy’s disruption, formed the Islamic Courts Government Movement, to bring the law down on the chaotic situation often sought by powerful criminal overseas investors by funding Somali warlords. Supporters of the Islamic courts and other institutions united to form the ICUP, an armed militia.  In April they took control of the main market in Mogadishu and, in July, captured the road from Mogadishu to Afgoi. Their system of government, controlled by judges, is known as a krytocracy. Christian Science Monitor, 7/13/1999, “The bandits who presided over the treacherous road from Mogadishu to Afgoi were gone. The pick-up trucks packed with gun-brandishing youths who manned some 50 roadblocks along the 20-mile stretch were nonexistent. The combined militia forces of five Islamic courts had cleared the road. [http://www.csmonitor.com/1999/0713/p1s2.html] [5]

2002, December, The United States establishes an ‘anti-terrorism task force’ in neighboring Djibouti, with 1,600 U.S. troops.

2003-2005, Increased US funding and support for the warlords being defeated by new and immensely popular  conservative Islamic Courts Union government.

– 2004, Under US guidance a unity warlord government, the Transitional Federal Government is formed in neighboring Kenya.  It did not convene on Somali soil until February 2006, when it met in a converted grain warehouse in the western city of Baidoa because security concerns kept the legislature from entering Mogadishu

– 2005 – As the courts begin to assert themselves as the dispensers of justice, they come into conflict with the foreign backed secular warlords who control most of the city. In reaction to the growing power of the ICU, a group of Mogadishu warlords formed the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), so named to seek Western backing. This was a major change, as these warlords had been fighting each other for many years.

February 2006, Agence France Presse:

“A group of powerful warlords controlling the Somali capital on Tuesday held secret talks with US agents in a provincial town. The talks between the warlords, who recently formed the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), and the US agents were held in Jowhar, 90 kilometres (55 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu. The delegates arrived in Jowhar, the seat of Somali transitional government, in two planes — one carrying the warlords and the other carrying the US agents.”

By 2006 this merchant supported moderate Islamic Courts Union, had quickly become extremely popular in the overwhelmingly Islamic population throughout Somalis, and had all but defeated the US backed warlords and were expected and awaited by the long violence suffering inhabitants of Somalia’s capital city Mogadishu, the last remaining part of Somalia not under its rule.

2006 February 18  begins battle for Mogadishu. The alliance loses battle after battle. ICU forces defeat the ARPCT and gain control of Mogadishu by June 5. Somali Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys said on Radio Shabelle, the violence was started by the people who have proclaimed themselves to be fighters against terrorism. Some warlords flee to Ethiopia.

2006, May 17, Washington Post admits, ‘U.S. Secretly Backing Warlords in Somalia’ “More than a decade after U.S. troops withdrew from Somalia following a disastrous military intervention, officials of Somalia’s interim government and some U.S. analysts of Africa policy say the United States has returned to the African country, secretly supporting secular warlords who have been waging fierce battles against Islamic groups for control of the capital, Mogadishu. [author: same warlords that drove them out of the war-torn Horn of Africa nation a decade ago.]

Clashes, last week and over the weekend, were some of the most violent in Mogadishu since the end of the American intervention in 1994, and left 150 dead and hundreds more wounded. Leaders of the interim government blamed U.S. support of the militias for provoking the clashes.

2 JUNE 2006, Large Rally Against United States Staged in Mogadishu

Thousands of people from all different districts in Banadir Region participate chanting Anti American slogans and “we don’t need those in Dollar interest, we don’t refuse our religion”

On 5 June 2006,  Warlords not captured have fled the city, abandoning most of their weapons, with the majority fleeing to Jowhar, which would be taken by the ICU militia on 14 June in spite of US involvement. This brought the ICU in control of much of the weaponry in the country, which made a resurgence by the warlords difficult without outside support. London’s Guardian Unlimited said the Bush administration funneled $100,000 to $150,000 a month to “proxies” based at a CIA-controlled base in Nairobi, Kenya. The International Crisis Group reported that the money was funneled through the Pentagon’s Joint Combined Task Force. Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso, chair of the African Union for 2006, also criticized the support given by the U.S. to the warlords, following his meeting with President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

June 8, New York Times , Efforts by C.I.A. Fail in Somalia ? “A covert effort by the Central Intelligence Agency to finance Somali warlords has thwarted counterterrorism efforts inside Somalia and empowered the same Islamic groups it was intended to marginalize.”

June 13, 2006, Aljazeera , A leading member of the US-backed Somali commanders alliance, Abdi Hassan Awale Qeidid, on advice of elders from his Sa’ad sub-clan, in order to avoid further bloodshed, defects to the Islamic courts, dealing a blow to the weakened coalition that was routed from the capital Mogadishu.

July 15, the Islamic Courts reopened Mogadishu International Airport, which had been closed since the withdrawal of the international forces in 1995. The first airplane chartered by the Arab League flew from the airport for the first time in 11 years picking up Islamic Courts delegates to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.[

June 15, Secretary-General Kofi Annan at a news conference on June 15, “it was wrong for the United States government to support warlords in Somalia.”

[http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/World_News_3/article_2716.shtml]

June 16,  10,000 people demonstrate against a proposed peacekeeping mission to Somalia.. Photo: AP

[author: Colonial powers can always resort to using the UN which it created, to enforce colonialism.] Africa News described the Alliance (of warlords) as disappearing, their regions over-run by the Islamic Courts Union.

July 20, The ICU organize a clean-up campaign for the streets of Mogadishu. This was the first time litter and rubbish is collected in the entire city since it collapsed into chaos over a decade earlier.

On August 24, 2006, the ICU capture Harardhere, some 500 km northeast of Mogadishu, which had become a safe haven for pirates, who had forced shipping firms and international organizations to pay large ransoms for the release of vessels and crews.

On August 25, 2006 the Islamic Courts reopen historic Mogadishu seaport, which had been one of the busiest in East Africa, shut down for ten years. These successes of the Islamic Courts government were achieved in spite of the US crimes against humanity described even by as Wall Street loyal a source as the New York Times owned Washington Post:

When the popular Islamic Courts Union government forces finally defeated the warlords despite foreign troops and US helping the warlords, the US trained Ethiopian Army and Air Force invaded and murderously temporarily defeated the Somalian Islamic Courts in turn. [6]

Ethiopian troops had moved into Somalian territory on July 20, 2006 and pushed northward into the semi-autonomous state of Puntland. Several Ethiopian armored convoys heading to Baidoa are destroyed in sophisticated ambushes.

December 22, 2006: 20 T-55 Ethiopian tanks, four attack helicopters in Baidoa.

December 23, Ethiopian tanks and further reinforcements arrived in Daynuunay, 30 kilometres east of Baidoa; prompting ICU forces to vow all-out war despite a commitment to an EU-brokered peace. [author: Sending in the Ethiopian Army is the white imperial way of brokering peace.

December, 2006, Open, conventional warfare breaks out between the Islamic Courts and Ethiopian forces seeking to reinstate the TFG towards the end of December. Fighting is intense, with hundreds of casualties on both sides. After several days of deadlock around Baidoa, Ethiopian armored columns, backed by air and artillery support, punch through and take Mogadishu,  The Ethiopians then pivot their columns and headed south. By New Years Day, the Islamic Courts abandoned Kismayo, the strategic southern port city and final stronghold of the ICU. The Ethiopians are reported to have executed foreign prisoners in the field and the ICU is said to have taken thousands of casualties. Stripped of almost all their territory, the ICU will pursue guerrilla-style warfare against the government.

Warlords return to fight against the ICU, resuming their places in Mogadishu following its fall to the and Ethiopian forces in December 2006. Wikipedia

On December 31, 2006, Sharif Sheik Ahmed, chairman of the Islamic Courts Union, along with other senior ICU officials in the port city of Kismayu about 500 km (310 mi) south of Mogadishu, urge Islamist supporters across the country to initiate an insurgency, to wage guerrilla war, against the Ethiopian troops. Ahmed issued the statement after the Muslim Eid prayers on Saturday: “I call on the Islamic Courts fighters, supporters and every true Muslim to start an insurgency against the Ethiopian troops in Somalia. We are telling the Ethiopians in Somalia that they will never succeed in their mission. By Allah, they will fail… We will not allow the Ethiopian troops to stay peacefully in Somalia.”

January 2007, The Islamic Courts indicate they will conduct an insurgency, and many of their fighters and all of their leaders are still unaccounted for. Kenya has closed the southern border, the United States Navy is blockading the Somali coast and Ethiopian forces are conducting operations along the Kenyan border. Al Shabaab militant youth wing of the Islamic Courts rises to leadership role. Besides al Shabaab, other hardline Islamists broke ranks with the ICU and formed other militant groups like Hizbul Islam, to continue the war against the the Ethiopian reinstalled government of warlords amenable to US investment interests. Wikipedia

The dis and misinforming ploy used in investor owned media coverage up to now is that the Islamic Courts Union government would hide Islamists wanted by US for questioning about US Embassy attacks will be hyped up to justify the next round of carnage by intervention organized and militarily supported by the US.

January 3, 2007 – Ethiopian, U.S. airstrikes force ICU withdrawal from Kismayo. Jan. 4, Ethiopian aircraft and attack helicopters struck the town of Doble near the Kenyan border. January 5–12, 2007 CNN; even six Kenyan herders killed by Ethiopian aircraft.  US airstrike hits Badmadow Island; series of Ethiopian airstrikes January 10, chief of staff to the Somali president: ”US airstrikes killed 31 civilians.” More AC-130 airstrikes were hit Ras Kamboni. CNN . US warplanes from aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in strikes ( AP ); AC-130 plane rained gunfire down on the southern village of Hayo – “many dead bodies and animals.”

January 15, British SAS team at the Kenyan border reportedly looking for the fleeing Al Qaeda suspects. Reuters [or anyone opposing invasion]

2007,  January 19, The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is created by the African Union’s Peace and Security Council upon urging by the UN Security Council on US initiative to support the Federal Government of Somalia’s (Warlord dominated) forces in their battle against Al-Shabaab militants. January 22, Christianized Malawi agrees to send 400 to 1,200 troops

January 24,  U.S. airstrike;  Nigeria pledges 770 to 1,100 troops. Reuteres

On January 31, Popular Resistance Movement releases a video warning African Union peacekeepers to avoid coming to Somalia, claiming “Somalia is not a place where you will earn a salary – it is a place where you will die.” AP

February 1, Burundi  pledges 1,000 troops BBC

On February 9, 800 Somali demonstrators in Mogadishu, burn U.S., Ethiopian, and Ugandan flags. Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi and Burundi had committed troops to the ‘peacekeeping mission’,Uganda had pledged 1,400 troops and some armored vehicles for a mission. BBC

By the end of March, the fighting intensified in Mogadishu – more than a thousand people, mostly civilians killed.

Ethiopian helicopters attack rebel positions, while the insurgents were calling on the people of the city over the mosque loudspeakers to resist the Ethiopians. 15 Ethiopian soldiers and civilians killed.

March 30, 2007, Islamic insurgents shoot down Ethiopian Mi-24 military helicopter.

April 4, 2007, [‘evenhandedly fair’ as all colonial based organizations] Amnesty International demands Somalia’s President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, ensure their forces abide by international humanitarian law [both the invaded defenders and the invaders that is]

September 2007, The Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) created, when members of the Islamic Courts Union and Somali opposition leaders met in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, and united to oppose Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and its Ethiopian allies.

On March 3, 2008, the United States air strike on Dhoble kills the leader of Al-Shabab Aden Hashi Eyrow; does nothing to slow down the Insurgency.

April 20, 2008, Al-Hidaya Mosque massacre: Ethiopian soldiers storm a mosque, 11 bodies found, some with their throat slit, others shot to death. Of the 11 dead victims, nine were regular congregants. Tabliiq official, “Ethiopians “slaughtered” clerics. Sheikh Said Yahya, Imam, killed as he opened the mosque door after soldiers knocked.

April 25, 2007, FOX. Missile hits hospital ward packed with civilians;

May 1, 2008, BBC American plane drops three large bombs on a house in the Dhuusamarreeb region in central Somalia. kills up 30 people.

On 9 June 2008. Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia split into two between those based in Eritrea, aligned with former ICU leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who are adamantly opposed to cooperation with the TFG or Ethiopia, and those who were based in Djibouti, aligned with former ICU leader Sharif Sheik Ahmed, who were open to reconciliation in spite of the Ethiopian and UN sponsored African Union invasions.

THE WORM TURNS

July 1, 2008, Battle of Beledweyne Somali opposition fighters ambush Ethiopian army convoy leaving 47 Ethiopian soldiers and 235 Islamist fighters dead.

August 22, 2008, Al-Shabaab retakes Kismayo, IRIN News (Islamic Courts Union, had been driven out of Kismayo in January 2007 when Ethiopian forces rolled into Somalia to take control of much of central and southern Somalia.)

The Islamic Courts’ Youth Wing, al Shabaab (Shabaab = ‘youth’ in Arabic), with great cost in deaths and casualties to themselves heroically pushed the  heavily weaponized Ethiopians back out of cities, though UN authorized African Union ‘Peace Keeping’ forces invaded as well to protect the remnants of a revamped warlord coalition,

In early December 2008, Ethiopia announced it would withdraw its troops after first securing the withdrawal of the AMISOM peacekeepers from Burundi and Uganda. Withdrawal of the AMISOM peacekeepers puts pressure on the UN to provide troops.

January 25, 2009 [oft defeated] Ethiopian troops completely pulled out of Somalia.

 

Situation in Somalia in February 2009, following the second Ethiopian withdrawal

Al-Shabab captured Baidoa, where the TFG parliament was based, on January 26. Following the collapse and end of the TFG, moderate Islamist leader of Islamic Courts, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed was elected to become the new President of a United Somali government including the warlords. Al-Shabab declares war on him and pledges to continue attacks on TFG.

March 25, 2009,  Five TFG soldiers shot execution style in a Mogadishu district known for rogue soldiers stealing from civilians and local shops, setting up illegal toll blocks.

2009-01-27–explosions and gunfire heard as government soldiers fight among themselves over control of the city, following the departure of Ethiopians. Police, local militia looting the presidential palace and parliament building as well as police stations; police who have splintered into clan groups. Mareeg.com-

January 5, 2010,  CNN, More than 1 million in Somalia going hungry, aid agency says

10 March 2010, Up to half the food aid in Somalia is diverted to corrupt contractors, local UN workers and Islamist militants, a leaked UN report says. It says WFP contracts are awarded to a few powerful individuals who operate cartels that sell the food illegally. US funding cut. The UN document says food aid is diverted to a web of distributors, transporters and armed groups, with some local UN workers also taking a cut in the profits, and transporters have to navigate roadblocks manned by various militias and bandits. BBC

“In May (2010), the fighting intensifies in Mogadishu; 270,000 displaced; internally displaced persons 1.5 million ” UNHCR website.

July 6, 2010, (CNN) — Anti-government demonstrators, including women dressed in full hijabs brandishing AK-47 automatic rifles, march through the streets of Somalia’s violence-torn capital accuse African Union Mission of killing people. “AMISOM killed my mummy” and “AMISOM get out of our country” said two signs. e and it will happen in Bujumbura [the Burundi capital] too.” [7]

12 JULY 2010, The Somali Islamist group al-Shabab has said it was behind Kampala Uganda blasts that killed 74 people, one American.

Somali militants recruit Americans Video CNN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e59GUaGYnaQ

10 June 2011, Somali Interior Minister killed by Niece, BBC

Three more regions of Somalia struck by famine, including the capital, Mogadishu, UN

28 Oct,    US launches drones from Ethiopia   BBC

19 November 2011,   Ethiopia troops ‘enter Somalia’  Ethiopian troops cross border into Somalia in significant numbers, eyewitnesses say. At least 20 vehicles carrying Ethiopian troops. BBC

Kenya’s intervention in southern Somalia in October 2011 had been planned for at least two years. The release of WikiLeaks cables in 2010 documented the plans and the role of the State Department.

The UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon arrived in Somalia fresh from the UN-US-NATO re-conquest of Libya for the West, and the assassination of the its revolutionary leader and Chairman of the African Union. “We are now at a critical juncture — a moment of fresh opportunities for the future of Somali people,” Mr. Ban said. The reader might Step back a moment an consider how commonplace a UN ruthless and inhumane military attack has been over the sixty odd years of the UN’s existence: [see Korean Traitor US Stooge UN ‘Terror Council’ Sec. Gen. in Somalia

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Korean-Traitor-US-Stooge-U-by-Jay-Janson-111210-798.html

(In addition to U.S. NATO and the UN involvement in Somalia and Kenya, the state of Israel has close ties with the government in Nairobi and has contracts to train the Ethiopian Armed Forces.)

Aug.14,  Rights group says all sides guilty of crime  Human Rights Watch has said all sides in Somalia’s are guilty of serious violations of international law. BBC [author notes: invaders and invaded receiving equal condemnation!

Jul.12, 2011, CNN,  CIA aiding Somalia suspect interrogations Jul.20,   U.N. declares famine in southern Somalia

August 2011, the United Nations, African Union’s AMISOM ,United States, and the TFG battling Al Shabaab claim control of Mogadishu.

Aug. 3,  Somalia’s famine reaches into Mogadishu , three more regions. UN

Aug.12,  U.N .: Not enough money to fight famine

Aug.17,   UK minister visits Mogadishu

Oct.17, Somali militants al-Shabab threaten Kenya retaliation, BBC

January 13, 2012 (CNN) — Distribution of food, seed and medical relief intended for drought victims suspended, International Red Cross announces. Aid for up to 1.1 million people held up because local authorities block distribution of ICRC food and seed relief in the Middle Shabelle and Galgaduud regions in central and southern Somalia, according to Red Cross.

7 January 2012,  BBC Kenyan troops, air strikes, ‘kill 60 al-Shabab fighters’ in Somalia

January 20, African Union forces launch offensive against Al-Shabaab positions on the northern outskirts of Mogadishu.[2]

January 24, Al-Shabaab suicide attack against an Ethiopian military base in Beledweyne.

10 March 2012, Somalia Islamists, al-Shabab ambush Ethiopia troops

Al-Shabab claimed to have killed 73 Ethiopians, most intense fighting since Ethiopian troops entered Somalia last November.

May 29, Kenyan naval forces shell Kismayo. Al-Shabaab insurgents open fire on Kenyan patrol vessels off Somalian coast. Garowa on line

July 24 Christian Science Monitor “ corrupt TFG had foreigners defeat Islamic Courts [8]

August 16, Kenyan Forces stationed in Southern Somalia engage in combat with as many as a thousand Al-Shabaab militants attempting to assault  Kenyan garrison in Fafadhun.

September 4,  offensive by AMISOM, the Kenyan navy shells the Islamist stronghold of Kismayo. Kenyan fighter jets bomb city. Aljazeera

January 11, 2013, Al-Shabaab fighters kill French soldiers trying to rescue agent Allex,  taken hostage in 2009 while training Somali government troops. In exchange for his release, Al-Shabaab had demanded cessation of French involvement and complete withdrawal of AMISOM forces.

June 19, The UN’s Development Program offices in Mogadishu attacked by Islamist militants. Four from Great Britain and South Africa dead.

July 4, UN WHO reports massive clashes in Kismayo. Raskamboni movement and Barre Adan Shire Hiiraale militia battling for control of city. Somali government blames Kenyan troops for covertly supporting rival militias opposed to the government

UN Security Council votes to increase the AU force. Kenyan soldiers fighting al-Shabab in Somalia to be integrated into the Amisom force.

Decent people everywhere are not on the side of US imperialism, but when Somalian and foreign al Qaeda praised the Islamic Courts when it was attacked by the US and began fighting alongside al Shabaab facing down the Ethiopians, Western war mongering media could easily bolster the pretext of fighting al Qaeda, the pretext the US uses elsewhere to prevent independent governments from existing in the Arab world. And as elsewhere this US use of ‘legalized’ terror has brought ‘illegal’ terror blowback. In Somalia’s case, because an American genocidal foreign policy of destroying Somalia’s popular conservative Islamic Courts Union government with continuous warfare since 2000, which brought quite naturally its more radical Youth Wing al Shabaab lead the fight against Western genocidal neo-colonialism. [9] [10]

Al-Shabaab with other militants had taken back cities conquered by the Ethiopians and the hard pressed Ethiopians withdrew when more the UN authorized African Union Force troops arrived. When again the forces of colonialism were on the verge of defeat, US proxy Kenyan Armed Forces were added into the soup of death, to accomplish what the Ethiopians had begun.

Kenyan armed forces entered Somalia two years ago, with US attack aircraft support, to combat al-Shabaab (‘Youths’ in Arabic language), who had taken up leading the fight against US supported warlords, when the popular conservative Islamic Courts Union government of their elders was overthrown by the deadly and brutal US proxy Ethiopian Army and Air Force invasion, which brought back  those defeated US backed warlords.

RESULT: More death, maiming, destruction and more importantly creating

STARVATION [Between 2010 and 2012, more than a quarter of a million people died in the famine in Somalia… ” Famines are not natural phenomena, they are catastrophic political failures” Oxfam . [11]   In Somalia’s case, because the US of genocide destroyed Somalia’s chosen government, which is normal colonial procedure. During all these above decades famine relief has taken second priority to Western exploitive business interests in Somalia with genocidal consequences. [12]

al-Qaeda has entered the fight against the US with more suicide bombings and in the last week of September came the Kenya Shopping Mall terror massacre. The reader is invited to check his or her possible involvement in the horrific neo-colonial events that have surely produced this shopping mall massacre.

The adolescent Great White Father, now quite globalized, has let the Somalian people know over and over again, through merciless gunfire, missiles and drone assassinations, that they are prohibited from choosing their own government. This of course is, again, is standard operating procedure for predatory speculative investment US imperialism: Greeks, Koreans, Guatemalans, Iranians, Congolese, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Dominicans, Salvadorians, Panamanians, Nicaraguans, Haitians and at one time or another, almost every other nation in Latin America, Iraqis Libyans, Afghanis have though calculated genocide, not been allowed to choose their own government. (An in depth investigation would show that Americans are also not allowed to choose their own government.) The Nazis did the same, but then its Wehrmacht was built by a crash investment and joint venture with America’s top fifty corporations which all made a killing during WW II and the Holocaust, and made the United States the single super Colonial Power, capable of dictating a lot more than just who governs where.

Those US victim countries will have their day in court and compensation for wrongful death in the millions, injuries in the billions, destruction of property and theft of natural resources. In the meantime mayhem that divides and destroys whichever side of any commodity, or nation worth plundering, can be made to be profitable for speculative investment bankers skilled in selling short.

Again: Reader, check your possible involvement! Have you believed in silly but vicious fairy tells of colonial powers being democratic and seeking democracy’s spread? North America was stolen from its indigenous natives, Africans enslaved for their labor, half of Mexico raped away, a million Filipinos butchered for their land? Democratically?

With US genocide still ongoing, progressive neo-colonialist journalism slaps the hands of Somali warlords in an example of back-handed support for silly but vicious fairy tales:

8/20/2012, Christian Science Monitor : “Somalia’s rulers must make the crucial step, going from being an unelected interim authority toward creating a more lasting government.”

Smooth commentating?

FOOTNOTES

1

It was Nobel Peace Prize Laureate to be President Jimmy Carter, who, in mid 1979, first encouraged and used Islamic fundamentalist terror by ordering the secret funding, arming and training of non-Pashtun Afghani warlord armies of fundamentalist men fearful of the new popular women-liberating Socialist government in Kabul, which was providing unwanted schooling for their daughters and wives. (The most infamous warlord the US funded was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, known for spraying acid on unveiled women while still a university student.) [2]”-

It is well known that the CIA funded al Qaeda during its beginning through payments to Osama bin Laden, who, along with thousands of Arabs of the strict Saudi Wahabi sect, had been invited into that part of Afghanistan controlled by the CIA, after the Soviets had entered Afghanistan to protect its ally in Kabul. There is an amazing video of Presidential Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski speaking to newly arrived, CIA imported, Arab fighters, calling for jihad against the Soviet army and the Kabul government.[3]

Thereafter, it was the US Holocaust in Iraq that produced the greatest growth of al Qaeda, which entered and further sprang up in that country to fight Americans, who again were mercilessly invading another Muslin nation that had been friendly to the US.  In the case of Iraq, even merciless to the point of CIA having helped Saddam Hussein to power and later partnering with Saddam during his horrific million death invasion of Iran, that had so gratified President Reagan and his Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld.[4]

Subsequently, the criminal speculative investment banking conspiracy, which rules most of the world from Wall Street, had its outright owned US government[5], hire battle seasoned al Qaeda recruits to fake a revolt in wealthy and prosperous Libya, which had been the poorest nation in Africa under oil plundering British and French colonial domination, only to become the 53rd highest quality of life nation in the world (higher than nine European nations, according to the 2010 UN Index), under its Arab Socialist government. For nine weeks the captive CNN world satellite audience heard obviously tough looking hombres in heavy weapons laden pick-up trucks hailed as ‘freedom fighters’ ‘from all walks of life.’

For two years now the CIA has been running another faked ‘spontaneous’ revolt in yet another previously well run, sophisticated nation in the cradle of civilization, with, as in the case of Iraq and Libya, fine free health care and education through PhD for all its citizens. (America has liberated sixty million from such benefits). With all the unnecessary gall in a world watching CIA fed CNN,

US officials proclaim their CIA’s right to hire, arm and train whomsoever to overthrow the proven popular government of Syria, no matter that al Qaeda within America’s “freedom fighter’ opposition armies executes civilians, even teenagers, and is now famous for the video of an opposition leader cutting out and eating the heart of a Syrian soldier.

As in the case of Libya, without a single really corroborating video or photo, the angel of death President of the US has the confidence to lie that President Assad (as the year before, that Revolutionary Leader Gadaffi) “is killing his own people.” Al Qaeda, a now world wide amorphous movement, can be used to butcher or as an excuse to bomb, depending on what is profitable.

After twelve years of genocidal Western occupation, the al Qaeda that the US brought into Persian speaking Afghanistan is still the excuse for the white armies to continue to turkey shoot members and adherents of Taliban, the former recognized government of what was left of Afghanistan after the US backed and armed warlords saw to infighting that brought the nation to unimaginable violent chaos, with widespread raping of women and complete lawlessness, until defeated by national-salvation minded religious Taliban (‘Taliban’ means ‘students’ in Pashun language). In spite of the tragic toll taken on these Afghani battling invaders with by superior weaponry, Taliban has remained in power throughout most of the countryside of Afghanistan.

US drone missiles continue to turn al Qaeda and whomever happens to be nearby into ‘bugsplats’ in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Do Americans, English and citizens of other white nation members of collaborating NATO and beyond, bite their tongue when reading of the US use of al Qaeda first in Afghanistan, then in Libya, now in Syria and most probably in Iraq?

Finally the super gruesome daily suicide bombings in Iraq of as many victims as ninety in a single day, going on now for a year or more, bears mention in regard to US involvement in al Qaeda.

What would the heartless automaton bankers of profitable genocide working for total globalized US hegemony not do to keep 65% Shiite Iraq from a normal and to be expected political rapprochement and cooperation with 95% Shiite Iran. (Please, don’t any reader fall for that sap about of ‘sectarian violence’ between Sunni and Shiite, who have intermarried everywhere over the last thousand years.) Notice that there are no serious US plans to help the Shiite majority Iraq government save its citizens from being slaughtered, and notice that US media which ran the story of the sixty lives lost Kenya shopping mall massacre for two weeks, devotes prime time news to no more than reporting the daily number of dead in Iraq massacres.

It is exceedingly probable that the US is somehow covertly heavily involved in the al Qaeda and other Sunni suicide attacks on Shiites in Iraq.  Even if somehow were not, Washington certainly would have the power through its satellite Saudi Arabia to mitigate this stupid, astounding loss of precious life for ordinary, read wonderful, men, women and children.

What is not being sufficiently often pointed out is these overt US atrocities, and this decades ongoing American produced genocide will only come to an end, either when there is planetary destruction, or when powerful speculative private investors calculating profit, are forced to enter a factor of possible imprisonment and seizure of assets to compensate wrongful deaths, injuries, destruction of property and theft of natural resources (as explained on the educational and stimulus to action website Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now, endorsed by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark and containing the pertinent laws, exhortations by Einstein, Helen Keller, Eugene Debs and others and featuring a country-by-country history of US crimes in nineteen (and counting) nations – and a link to the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Atrocity Wars and Covert Genocide on Three Continents for Predatory Investments International Awareness Campaign. source:

? Russian TV Asked Shouldn’t Public Sleep Better After CIA FBI Manhunt Success? VIDEO? Wall Street’s CIA has used the al Qaeda it helped create and fund more often than the US Air Force has bombed it. An awakened public will make war unprofitable by law.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Russian-TV-Asked-Shouldn-t-by-Jay-Janson-Government-sponsored-Terrorism_International-Funding-Terrorism_State-Terrorism_Terrorism-Funding-131010-196.html

2

1974, US encouraged, heavily armed and aided a bloody Somalian invasion of Ethiopia when a military coup by leftist officers topples the Ethiopian monarchy and declares the country a Marxist-Leninist state.

1976, in a reversal, US covertly supplied arms and support to all foreign based attempts to violently overthrow the 1976 founded revolutionary socialist government in Somalia for its receiving aid from the USSR; large-scale American military support of Somalia’s historic rival Ethiopia, then under the rule of the feudal emperor Haile Selassie.

3

the 1980s, despite warnings by Africa specialists, human rights groups and humanitarian organizations that continued American aid to the dictatorial government of Siad Barre would eventually plunge Somalia into chaos. US poured in more than $50 million of arms annually to prop up this disastrous Barre dictatorship while offering  virtually no assistance that would have helped build a self-sustaining economy which could feed Somalia’s people. In addition, the United States pushed a structural adjustment program through the International Monetary Fund severely weakening the local agricultural economy. Combined with the breakdown of the central government, drought conditions and rival militias disrupting food supplies, there was famine on a massive scale, resulting in the deaths of more than 300,000 Somalis, mostly children.

Just before dictator Siad Barre’s overthrow in early 1991, the U.S. sends hundreds of millions of dollars of arms to Somalia in return for the use of military facilities which had been originally constructed for the Soviets. (These bases will to be used to support American military intervention in the Middle East.)

4

1992, November, outgoing Bush administration sent 30,000 U.S. troops, primarily Marines and Army Rangers, to Somalia in what was described as a humanitarian mission to assist in the distribution of relief supplies.  In some cases, U.S. forces essentially dumped food on local markets, hurting indigenous farmers and creating greater food shortages over the longer term – few Somalis were involved in the decisions during this crucial period.

Such an overbearing foreign military presence in a country which had been free from colonial rule for only a little more than three decades leads to growing resentment, particularly since these elite combat forces were not trained for such humanitarian missions. U.S. Secretary of Defense is reported to quip to an associate, “We’re sending the Rangers to Somalia. We are not going to be able to control them. They are like overtrained pit bulls. No one controls them.” Shootings at U.S. military roadblocks became commonplace and Somalis witnessed scenes of mostly white American forces harassing and shooting their black countrymen. [Stephen Zunes, The Long and Hidden History of the U.S in Somalia]

1992, US attempts to control Somalian politics through US Armed Forces brought in under the pretext of protecting the distribution of food aid. US arming financial backing of Mogadishu warlords, who are willing to rule favoring US unjust predatory investments.

We might pick the so called Blackhawk Down incident as a point in history when of US crimes against peace, wherein weapons are supplied, their use encouraged and weapons supplied to others to attack Somalia, to Americans themselves committing crimes against humanity in Somalia that become genocidal.

In Mogadishu on October of 1993, shortly after a Blackhawk attack helicopter, seen firing down into the roof of a closed market attempting to assassinate a designated enemy Somali clan leader, is shot down by Somail militia along with a second Blackhawk.  Enraged Somalis drag the bodies of American airmen through their dirt streets. The battle resulted in 18 US deaths, 80 wounded. American sources estimate between 1,500 and 3,000 Somali casualties, including civilians.

The high casualties of this Battle of Mogadishu more commonly referred to as Black Hawk Down or, locally, as the Day of the Rangers, and other painful incidents for the US Armed Forces in Somalia,, caused President Clinton to order 5,300 additional Troops to Somalia “to protect our troops and to complete our mission and bring all American combat forces home by March 31.”

5

http://www.csmonitor.com/1999/0713/p1s2.html

Islamic clerics combat lawlessness in Somalia

By Lara Santoro, Special to The Christian Science Monitor / July 13, 1999

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA

A few weeks ago, an odd thing happened in the utter anarchy of Somalia.

The bandits who presided over the treacherous road from Mogadishu to Afgoi were gone. The pick-up trucks packed with gun-brandishing youths who manned some 50 roadblocks along the 20-mile stretch were nonexistent.

The combined militia forces of five Islamic courts cleared the road. It was the second time the courts – that view Islamic law as the only antidote to Somalia’s chaos – acted together. In April, they took control of the Bukhara market in Mogadishu. This second action reveals a unity of purpose largely unseen in the capital since the collapse of the Somali state in 1991.

“Islamic law is the only thing that will save this country,” says Sheikh Hassan Sheikh Mohammed Adde, a cleric who merged and presides over the Joint Islamic Courts.

Sheikh Hassan is clear about his political ambition and his determination to impose Islamic law over Somalia. Although it is close to stricter forms of Islam, Somalia has held fast to a tradition of Sunni religious moderation for nearly a millennium.

But beyond Sheikh Hassan’s ambitions, analysts say the issue is whether the courts will act as conduits for Islamic fundamentalism – or merely help bring about an organized state, and then compete fairly for power.

Somalia devolved into a state of near anarchy nearly a decade ago. The guns of different warlords have kept it at the bottom of the United Nations index of human development. Life expectancy is 43 years, infant mortality one of the highest in Africa, with 1 out of every 4 children likely to die before the age of five. In a country where nearly everyone is armed, crime is rampant.

Yet as recently as 1992, Somalia was at the center of the world’s attention. A colossal relief operation to feed victims of famine saved the lives of thousands, but soon became embroiled in factional warfare for the control of Mogadishu. In October 1993, 18 US Marines were killed in a gunfight by militiamen loyal to warlord Gen. Mohamed Farah Aidid. That prompted the first military intervention mounted by the UN for humanitarian purposes to haul down its flag and leave Somalia to itself.

Predictably, Somalia’s warlords prospered. But years of constant fighting and unregulated economic activity have finally taken their toll. The prolonged closure of Mogadishu’s main port and airport, the languishing banana trade, and a drop in the export of livestock have drained resources. The warlords became financially weak and increasingly vulnerable to the emerging power of the courts.

Whether the courts will succeed in challenging the factional rule of the warlords will depend largely on Somalia’s businessmen, observers say. Exasperated by the cost of lawlessness, business owners have thrown their financial weight behind the courts, providing sufficient means for them to acquire guns and set up their own militia.

Each of the five courts claims to have between 200 and 250 gunmen and an unspecified number of “technicals,” pickup trucks with machine guns and grenade launchers mounted on them, and armored personnel carriers.

The gunmen – who dress in the same torn clothes as the previous warlords – patrol the areas in which the courts operate. They round up thieves, rapists, and murderers, and deliver them to the first detention centers set up in Mogadishu since 1991.

The courts have won the loyalty of the gunmen with the guarantee of two meals a day and 30,000 Somali shillings ($30) a month. The businessmen pick up the tab.

“Without the businessmen, the courts would not exist,” says a Western observer. “The businessmen don’t care whether it’s Islamic law or Napoleonic law or Common law. Any law will do.”

That, however, is not the way others see it. According to a Middle Eastern Muslim diplomat in Mogadishu, a growing number of Islamic countries and organizations – including Somalia’s own homegrown fundamentalist At-Ittihad al-Islam group – are contributing money in the hope of seeing Somalia evolve into an Islamic state.

Somalia, though, has a history of ingratitude, as well as what appears to be a natural resistance to fundamentalism.

The court’s own interpretation of Islamic law is perhaps the most accurate measure of the sort of innate religious moderation that has made it difficult for fundamentalism to gain ground here. None of the five courts has dared resort to amputation for fear of becoming unpopular. There have been public executions of felons convicted of murder, 37 over the past 14 months.

“We don’t cut people’s hands off because they don’t like it,” Sheikh Hassan says.

The courts also have been careful to operate within the confines of Somalia’s clan structure, limiting their jurisdiction to members of the clan. The court set up by the Murosade clan, for example, is unable to prosecute members of the Suleiman or Ayr tribe, both notorious for their violence, and both with newly instituted Islamic courts of their own.

“Very simply, even though there is an Islamic component, the courts are clan-based organizations which are imposing discipline among themselves” says Mohamed Nur Gutale, Somalia’s former ambassador to the US.

Analysts say that if the courts succeed in taking over Mogadishu’s main port and airport as they have vowed to do, the era of the warlords will most likely come to an end.

[author j janson: Fat chance in a world still owned by the genocidal, amoral,criminally usurious speculative investment   banking conspiracy of the brutally barbaric, colonial, now neo-colonial powers.

6 On February 23, 2007, the New York Times reported that the US government had been secretly training Ethiopian soldiers for several years, in camps near the Ethiopia-Somalia border. Support for Ethiopia’s invasion began after a failed CIA effort to arm and finance Somali “warlords.”

7 February 03, 2009, Hiraan Online, Fishermen who fish on the Shore of the Indian Ocean near Mogadishu complain UNISOM troops often fire on them.

 

8 http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2012/0724/If-all-goes-well-Somalia-soon-may-have-a-government?International Crisis Group, “After more than 20 years of internal conflict, it is perhaps remarkable that Somalia has a government at all, even a weak one. The current Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is the fourteenth attempt to create a government after the fall of President Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991, and it spent its first three years operating in the neighboring country of Kenya. When the TFG finally finally moved to Mogadishu in 2007, following several defeats of a fundamentalist Islamic Courts Union, it did little to impress Somalis or foreign diplomats. Friendly diplomats and even government supporters call the TFG “corrupt.”

9 The Taliban (Pashto: ??????? ?aliban “students”), fundamentalist youth group rose to save Afghanistan from the murderous chaos of US backed waring factions after the Soviet withdrawal and defeat of the Socialist women liberating Kabul government two years later. Taliban had formed a government, ruling as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from September 1996 until December 2001, with Kandahar as the capital. It gained diplomatic recognition from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Mohammed Omar has been serving as the spiritual leader of the Taliban since 1994.[

10 According to the National Counterterrorism Center, the outfit’s rank-and-file members hail from disparate local groups, sometimes recruited by force.[24] Unlike most of the organization’s top leaders, its foot soldiers are primarily concerned with nationalist and clan-related affairs as opposed to the global jihad. Schaefer,, Ahren; Andrew Black. “Clan and Conflict in Somalia: Al-Shabaab and the Myth of “Transcending Clan Politics””]. Jamestown Foundation.

 

11 http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/world/africa/somalia-famine/index.html

Somalia famine killed close to 260,000 people, report says

Mogadishu, Somalia (CNN) — Between 2010 and 2012, more than a quarter of a million people died in the famine in Somalia -The study, which covered the period from October 2010 to April 2012, suggests that an estimated 4.6% of the total population and 10% of children younger than 5 died in southern and central Somalia…

International humanitarian organization Oxfam said Thursday, “Famines are not natural phenomena, they are catastrophic political failures,” it said in a statement.2, 2013

World leaders meeting in London next week to discuss the situation in Somalia, investing in long-term development, creating jobs, supporting farmers and pastoralists, and ensuring properly trained security forces. [author: by ‘world leaders’ one should understand ‘the same colonial powers which less than a century ago owned and plundered every inch of Africa and every African, by savage white terror of course.]

12 The UN definition of genocide (recognized by 142 states) is:

“…any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

The US has committed these acts many times over and in many different countries. Some people object that this is some watered down version of genocide that risks diluting the significance of this “ultimate crime”. However, bear in mind that the victims of US armed violence are not usually combatants and even if they are they are not engaged in some sort of contested combat that gives them some ability to defend themselves or to kill or be killed. They are helpless as they die of incineration, asphyxiation, dismemberment, cancer, starvation, disease. People of all ages die in terror unable to protect themselves from the machinery of death. Make no mistake, that is what it is: a large complex co-ordinated machinery of mass killing. There is nothing watered down about the horrors of the genocides committed by the US, and their victims number many millions. The violence is mostly impersonal, implacable, arbitrary and industrial

The United States of Genocide

Putting the US on trial for genocide against the peoples of Korea, Laos, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Iraq and elsewhere.

http://ongenocide.wordpress.com/

Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and the US; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Kerala, India; Minority Perspective, UK; Dissident Voice, Uruknet; Voice of Detroit; Ethiopian Review; Palestine Chronicle; India Times; Ta Kung Bao; China Daily; South China Morning Post; Come Home America; OpEdNews; HistoryNews Network; Vermont Citizen News have published his articles; 300  of which are available at: click http://www.opednews.com/author/author1723.html ; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989.  Is coordinator of the  King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign : (King Condemned US Wars) http://kingcondemneduswars.blogspot.com/ and website historian of  Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign  http://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com/ featuring a country by country history of US crimes and laws pertaining.

By Nicola Nasser

14 October, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

More than two and a half years on, Israel’s purported neutrality in the Syrian conflict and the United State’s fanfare rhetoric urging a “regime change” in Damascus were abruptly cut short to unveil that the Israeli factor has been all throughout the conflict the main concern of both countries.

All their media and political focus on “democracy versus dictatorship” and on the intervention of the international community on the basis of a “responsibility to protect” to avert the exacerbating “humanitarian crisis” in Syria was merely a focus intended to divert the attention of the world public opinion away from their real goal, i.e. to safeguard the security of Israel.

Their “Plan A” was to enforce a change in the Syrian regime as their “big prize” and replace it by another less threatening and more willing to strike a “peace deal” with Israel and in case of failure, which is the case as developed now, their “Plan B” was to pursue a “lesser prize” by disarming Syria of its chemical weapons to deprive it of its strategic defensive deterrence against the Israeli overwhelming arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. Their “Plan A” proved a failure, but their “Plan B” was a success.

However, the fact that the Syrian humanitarian crisis continues unabated with the raging non – stop fighting while the United States is gradually coming to terms with Syria’s major allies in Russia and Iran as a prelude to recognizing the “legitimacy” of the status quo in Syria is a fact that shutters whatever remains of U.S. credibility in the conflict.

President Barak Obama, addressing the UN General Assembly on last September 24, had this justification: “Let us remember that this is not a zero-sum endeavor. We are no longer in a Cold War. There’s no Great Game to be won, nor does America have any interest in Syria beyond the well-being of its people, the stability of its neighbors, the elimination of chemical weapons, and ensuring it does not become a safe-haven for terrorists. I welcome the influence of all nations that can help bring about a peaceful resolution.”

This U – turn shift by the U.S. dispels any remaining doubts that the U.S. ever cared about the Syrian people and what Obama called their “well being.”

The U.S. pronounced commitment to a “political solution” through co-sponsoring with Russia the convening of a “Geneva – 2” conference is compromised by its purported inability to unite even the “opposition” that was created and sponsored by the U.S. itself and the “friends of Syria” it leads and to rein in the continued fueling of the armed conflict with arms, money and logistics by its regional Turkish and Gulf Arabs allies, which undermines any political solution and render the very convening of a “Geneva – 2” conference a guess of anybody.

Israeli “Punishment”

Meanwhile, Israel’s neutrality was shuttered by none other than its President Shimon Peres.

Speaking at the 40th commemoration of some three thousand Israeli soldiers who were killed in the 1973 war with Syria and Egypt, Peres revealed unarguably that his state has been the major beneficiary of the Syrian conflict.

Peres said: “Today” the Syrian President Basher al-Assad “is punished for his refusal to compromise” with Israel and “the Syrian people pay for it.”

When it became stark clear by the latest developments that there will be no “regime change” in Syria nor there will be a post- Assad “Day After” and that the U.S. major guarantor of Israel’s survival has made, or is about to make, a “U-turn” in its policy vis-à-vis the Syrian conflict to exclude the military solution as “unacceptable,” in the words of Secretary of State John Kerry on this October 6, Israel got impatient and could not hide anymore the Israeli factor in the conflict.

On last September 17, major news wires headlined their reports, “In public shift, Israel calls for Assad’s fall,” citing a report published by the Israeli daily the Jerusalem Post, which quoted Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, as saying: “We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.”

“The greatest danger to Israel is by the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut. And we saw the Assad regime as the keystone in that arc,” Oren added.

And that’s really the crux of the Syrian conflict: Dismantling this “arc” has been all throughout the conflict the pronounced strategy of the U.S.-led so-called “Friends of Syria,” who are themselves the friends of Israel.

The goal of this strategy has been all throughout the conflict to change the regime of what Oren called the Syrian “keystone in that arc,” which is supported by a pro-Iran government in Iraq as well as by the Palestinian liberation movements resisting the more than sixty decades of Israeli military occupation, or otherwise to deplete Syria’s resources, infrastructure and power until it has no choice other than the option of yielding unconditionally to the Israeli terms and conditions of what Peres called a “compromise” with Israel as a precondition for the return of the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

Syria the Odd Number

This strategic goal was smoke-screened by portraying the conflict first as one of a popular uprising turned into an armed rebellion against a dictatorship, then as a sectarian “civil war,” third as a proxy war in an Arab-Iranian and a Sunni-Shiite historical divide, fourth as a battle ground of conflicting regional and international geopolitics, but the Israeli factor has been all throughout the core of the conflict.

Otherwise why should the U.S.-led “Friends of Syria & Israel” care about the ruling regime in a country that is not abundant in oil and gas, the “free” flow of which was repeatedly pronounced a “vital” interest of the United States, or one of what Obama in his UN speech called his country’s “core interests;” the security of Israel is another “vital” or “core” interest, which, in his words, “The United States of America is prepared to use all elements of our power, including military force, to secure.”

The end of the Cold War opened a “window of opportunities” to build on the Egyptian – Israel peace treaty, according to a study by the University of Oslo in 1997. A peace agreement was signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Hebrew state in 1993 followed by an Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty the year after. During its invasion of Lebanon in 1982 Israel tried unsuccessfully to impose on the country a similar treaty had it not been for the Syrian “influence,” which aborted and prevented any such development ever since.

Syria remains the odd number in the Arab peace – making belt around Israel; no comprehensive peace is possible without Syria; Damascus holds the key even to the survival of the Palestinian, Jordanian and Egyptian peace accords with Israel. Syria will not hand over this key without the withdrawal of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) from Syrian and other Arab lands and a “just” solution of the “Palestinian question.”

This has been a Syrian national strategy long before the Pan-Arab Baath party and the al-Assad dynasty came to power.

Therefore, the U.S. and Israeli “Plan A” will remain on both countries’ agendas, pending more forthcoming geopolitical environment.

Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

nassernicola@ymail.com

By Vacy Vlazna

14 October, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Warning! The Lab contains war-porn and hard-core evil; watch and weep.

Yotam Feldman’s documentary, released in August, is one of the most important exposés of the obscene rationale and execution of Israel’s hugely lucrative arms and security industries through the voices of some of its ex-military key operators: Amos Golan, Shimon Naveh, Leo Gleser, and Yoav Galant.

Israel’s armament juggernaut currently turns over $7 billion p.a. and its phenomenal success is, as Feldman reveals, due to experience, that is, the testing of weaponry on the Palestinian population in the Israeli military ‘labs’ of Gaza and the West Bank:

“I think the main product Israelis are selling, especially in the last decade, is experience. .. the testing of the products, the experience is the main thing they [customers] are coming to buy. They want the missile that was shot in the last operation in Gaza or the rifle that was used in the last West Bank incursion.”

Without blinking an eye, Benjamin Ben Eleixer, Industry Minister proudly asserts the reason for the tremendous demand for Israeli weapons and technology,

‘If Israel sells weapons, they have been tested, tried out. We can say: we’ve used this for 10 years, 15 years,”

Tested by Israeli killers on 1,398 Palestinian children murdered since 2000 and the hundreds of thousands of children who struggle with war trauma, PTSD and perpetual terror.

The Lab makes plain why the peace process, past, present and potential, is a total sham. The economy of Israel is inextricably dependent on war and the suffering of the Palestinians;

“And the other is the fact that now the Israeli economy is so much dependent on these operations. It’s 20 percent of the exports. It’s 150,000 families–not people–in Israel actually dependent on this industry. And if one day it will stop, if there will be no next operation in Gaza, so Israel will have some economic problems.”

‘The arms industry doesn’t belong to a few dealers, its owned by a whole country.’

What better justification of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which targets state and private companies as well as all Israeli universities, through their military R&D programmes, that are ‘turning blood into money’.

Which gun made the shekel accelerate when sisters Amal, 2 and Suad Abed-Rabbo, 9,who was waving a white flag, were shot by tank personnel in Gaza?

The degradation of the Israeli mind and society through the perverted normalising of state-sanctioned cruel aggression and violent criminality is apparent in the egotistic strutting throughout the film of the Israeli warmongers, politicians and arms dealers, who are oblivious that to civilised people they come across as psychopaths:

Gen (ret.) Amiran Levin,

“I want to move onto one point, speaking of Gaza, speaking of Lebanon, and other places we will occupy in the future. Since we want to maintain equilibrium, as a developed country, punishment as a strategy should be the main element…That’s the most important thing, Quantity is more important than quality. One mistake the army makes is judging each case individually, whether the person deserves to die or not. Most of these people were born to die, we just have to help them.”

Lt.Co.(ret.) Shimon Naveh, a military philosopher, yes, you read right, military philosopher, who talks like he’s swallowed a kilo of amphetamines, strolls through a bullet-riddled mock Arab village used for military exercises, moaning,

“As you can see this isn’t an Arab village. It is a dead place. Maybe in our rosiest dreams this is what a Palestinian village would look like, but it isn’t one.”

Gen.Yoav Galant, the ‘inventor’ of the 2008-9 Operation Cast Lead;

“As far as I’m concerned the enemy has 3 options either he get killed, or he surrenders, or he flees.”

Galant omits that the 1.6 million men, women, children and elderly of Gaza (for that matter all Palestinians) have nowhere to flee because Israel tightly controls Palestinian land, sea and airspace.

Thus we understand that the Israelis have the identical strategy of low intensity or asymmetrical warfare as the USA; only attack nations that are on their knees through sieges, sanctions and substandard armaments.

Naveh, in an interview in the Small Wars Journal admits as much, “When you fight a war against a rival who’s by all means inferior to you, you may lose a guy here or there, but you’re in total control. It’s nice. You can pretend that you fight the war and yet it’s not really a dangerous war.”

Apart from the Hamas freedom fighters armed with Kalashnikovs and a ‘modest stock of weapons’, Palestine has no army, navy, airforce to defend its people. There are, of course, President Abbas’ US armed and trained security forces but they brutally police their own people on behalf of Israel.

Feldman shows how Israel’s major arms companies make arms selling sexy. At a weapons trade exhibition in Paris, a perky young female rep demonstrates on screen the precision capabilities of IAI products, and at the Shivta military base, foreign officers who have come to view a missile demonstration are divided into groups led by ‘lovely’ female Israeli soldiers.

Foreign governments, like Australia, contribute generously to optimising the profits of Israel’s death merchants while simultaneously appeasing their electorates, Galant complains, “Theres a lot of hypocrisy, they condemn you politically, while they ask you what your trick is, you Israelis, for turning blood into money,” nevertheless the gains for Israel as specified by him are,

“First of all it gains security, secondly the nations and the armies of the world want to be friends with the strong, just side, and the winning side.”

Strong, yes, JUST? Not according to the parents of little 3 year old Ahmed As -Sinwar who was found under a pile of rubble and stones with a hole in his head, and not according to the parents of the other 352 children killed plus the 860 children injured and maimed in Operation Cast Lead by the sought-after Israeli air and ground missiles, artillery shelling, phosphorous bombs, flechettes, bullets and unexploded ordnance.

It is utterly macabre and beyond decent comprehension that the sales of drones were boosted by the wilful killing by drones of 116 children during Operation Cast Lead.

The highest echelon of the Israeli government has control of the business of death. All export of arms and security services are OKd by SIBAT, the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s export agency.

Amos Golan, an arms dealer who started ‘with a dream’, views himself as a ‘good guy’ not someone who kills innocent people in his spare time. He was a former commander of the Duvdevan special forces unit that conducts undercover operations disguised as Arabs and the inventor of the highly profitable Cornershot assault and sniper gun that enables the user to see around corners.

His Silver Shadow Advanced Security Systems (SSASS), listed with SIBAT, has provided security solutions and training for the dictatorships of the Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Uganda where SSASS trained the Black Mamba death squad accused of human rights violations.

Leo Gleser, a generous father and grandfather, states that since 9/11 “all defense solutions now come from Israel through Israeli companies.” Who’d have thought 9/11 would benefit Israel? His own company, International Security and Defense Systems (ISDS), listed with SIBAT, was “established in 1982 by highly experienced officers, former operatives of I.S.A. Israeli Security Agency, the MOSSAD and the Defence Forces” has among its clients the Athens, Barcelona, Beijing and Rio Olympic Games, 2014 World Cup Soccer, joint ventures in security training with China, India, Brazil, Spain and USA.

It also serves the United Nations which appears to have overlooked that Gleser’s company trained, in the 80s, the CIA backed brutal Honduran Battalion 3-16 involved in the disappearance of 191 people. (This has been documented in Andrew and Leslie Cockburn’s book Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the US-Israeli Covert Relationship.)

War criminal and child-killer, Noav Galant, once tipped to become the next Chief of General Staff, is now retired because of allegations that he appropriated public lands near his home for his private use which is irony par excellence given he is on the board of HaShomer HaChadash that helps Israeli “farmers and ranchers in the Negev and the Galilee who administer vast tracts of state-owned land to deal with the threat of illegal seizure of their land”, which is to say, to prevent the ‘ongoing encroachment of the Bedouin on state-owned land ‘ which we all know is ancestral Bedouin land seized by Israel. As we have seen, Galant knows all about hypocrisy.

The Lab’s exposition of Israel’s profiteering from its military expertise and arms dealing is nothing new as this has been well documented elsewhere such as in Jane Haapiseva-Hunter ‘s ‘Israeli Foreign Policy: South Africa and Central America’. The impact of The Lab lies in directly hearing and seeing for ourselves Israel’s deviants cheerily admit to making big bucks from ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Feldman ends The Lab with a masterstroke of irony filming, at a conference, these fat Israeli death feeding maggots, nodding and smiling to John Lennon’s beautiful and inspiring song, ‘Imagine’..

Imagine all the people,

Living life in peace…

Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 then withdrew on principle. Vacy was coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001.

 

Critique of response to EU debt crisis highlights unemployment, widening poverty gap, and growing risk of social unrest

By Ian Traynor in Brussels

10 October 2013

@ The Guardian

Europe is sinking into a protracted period of deepening poverty, mass unemployment, social exclusion, greater inequality, and collective despair as a result of austerity policies adopted in response to the debt and currency crisis of the past four years, according to an extensive study being published on Thursday.

“Whilst other continents successfully reduce poverty, Europe adds to it,” says the 68-page report from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. “The long-term consequences of this crisis have yet to surface. The problems caused will be felt for decades even if the economy turns for the better in the near future … We wonder if we as a continent really understand what has hit us.”

The damning critique, obtained exclusively by the Guardian, of the policy response to the debt crisis that surfaced in Greece in late 2009 and raised fundamental questions about the viability of the euro single currency, foresees extremely gloomy prospects for tens of millions of Europeans.

Mass unemployment – especially among the young, 120 million Europeans living in or at risk of poverty – increased waves of illegal immigration clashing with rising xenophobia in the host countries, growing risks of social unrest and political instability estimated to be two to three times higher than most other parts of the world, greater levels of insecurity among the traditional middle classes – all combine to make a European future more uncertain than at any time in the postwar era.

“As the economic crisis has planted its roots, millions of Europeans live with insecurity, uncertain about what the future holds. This is one of the worst psychological states of mind for human beings. We see quiet desperation spreading among Europeans, resulting in depression, resignation and loss of hope. Compared to 2009, millions more find themselves queuing for food, unable to buy medicine nor access healthcare. Millions are without a job and many of those who still have work face difficulties to sustain their families due to insufficient wages and skyrocketing prices.

“Many from the middle class have spiralled down to poverty. The amount of people depending on Red Cross food distributions in 22 of the surveyed countries has increased by 75% between 2009 and 2012. More people are getting poor, the poor are getting poorer.”

The survey conducted in the first half of this year “mapped” the 28 countries of the EU plus a further 14 in the Balkans, eastern Europe and central Asia.

In the EU, it found that the grave impact of the crisis was not confined to the crisis-ravaged, bailed-out countries of southern Europe and Ireland, but extended to relative European success stories such as Germany and parts of Scandinavia.

Last year the Spanish Red Cross launched a national appeal to help people in Spain, the first ever. Suicides among women in Greece have at least doubled. Many employed in Slovenia have not been paid for months. In France 350,000 people fell below the poverty line from 2008 to 2011. One in five Finns born in 1987 have been treated for psychiatric or mental disorders, associated with the economic slump in Finland in the 1990s.

Despite Germany’s vaunted success in avoiding the high levels of unemployment prevalent across much of the EU, a quarter of the country’s employed are classified as low-wage earners, almost half of new job contracts since 2008 have been low-paid, flexible, part-time so-called mini-jobs with little security and usually no social benefits. In July last year 600,000 employed in Germany with social insurance did not have enough to live on.

The problems are also affecting Europe’s wealthiest societies, such as Denmark and Luxembourg, the study found.

In the Baltic states and Hungary up to 13% of the populations have left in recent years due to economic hardship. The study reports a mounting trend of intra-European migration, mainly from east to west, in search of work.

The jobs crisis is one of the most debilitating issues facing the EU and the eurozone. Of more than 26 million unemployed in the EU, those out of work for longer than a year stands at 11 million, almost double the level of five years ago when the international financial crisis broke out in the US.

The social impact is immense, the study found. In Greece and Spain adult children with families are moving back in with their parents, several generations are living in single households with one breadwinner between them. It is now a common sight to find formerly prosperous middle-class men and women sleeping rough in Milan, Italy’s financial capital.

Youth unemployment figures in a quarter of the countries surveyed ranged from 33% to more than 60%. But as destructive to families, the report said, is the soaring jobless levels among 50-64 year-olds which has risen from 2.8 million to 4.6 million in the EU between 2008 and 2012.

“The rate at which unemployment figures have risen in the past 24 months alone is an indication that the crisis is deepening, with severe personal costs as a consequence, and possible unrest and extremism as a risk. Combined with increasing living costs, this is a dangerous combination,” the study said.

Despite the perceived success of Germany, Europe’s economic engine, the study takes the EU’s biggest country to illustrate the widening wealth gap, raising questions about the longevity of the EU’s traditional model, the social market economy. According to Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation some 5.5 million Germans have lost their middle-class social status over the past decade and fallen into the ranks of low-income earners while at the same time half a million others made the grade as high-income earners.