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By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

06 November, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

On November 4th, Iranian lawyer and the 2003 Nobel Laureate announced that the United States and Europe should ban Iran from using broadcast satellites. Censor them, is what this ‘human rights’ advocate is suggesting. Shocking as this is, given Ebadi’s track record, the call for censorship comes as no surprise. She is, after all, a former judge.

During the brutal dictatorship of the Shah of Iran, Ebadi was a judge (she managed to become a “judge” with an undergrad degree – without legal practice experience, simply by passing a ‘qualification exam to become a judge!). One can only surmise what the ‘qualification exam’ consisted of, however, a cursory look at the political environment of the time may shed light on the judgeship qualifications of Ebadi.

Ebadi, today’s ‘human rights’ activist, enjoyed the status and privileges of a judge at a time when the Shah’s secret police (SAVAK) trained by the CIA and Mossad , engaged in brutal torture. According to Amnesty International, the methods included “whipping and beating, electric shocks, extraction of teeth and nails, boiling water pumped into the rectum, heavy weights hung on the testicles, tying the prisoner to a metal table heated to a white heat, inserting a broken bottle into the anus, and rape.” As one of its many “friendly” dictators, the US covered up the crimes with censorship.

The United States did more than train torturers and keep it under wraps. But the US did much more for its pet dictator. Right up until the 1979 Iranian Revolution, “the CIA worked with SAVAK, the shah’s secret police, to destroy “antishah” elements in the Iranian student community in the United States. The CIA and SAVAK set up a front group called the International Association of Patriotic Students (IAPS), which organized demonstrations in favor of the shah and beat up students who differed with their view of the ruler.” Ebadi’s judgeship remained in tact, as did human rights violations, and the censorship of these crimes. Judge Ebadi was silent – engulfed in a culture of abuse and censorship. The 1979 Iranian Revolution put an end to her career as a judge. She was forced to practice law instead of passing judgment!

After the Revolution, Ebadi sank into obscurity – and resurfaced in 2002. She appeared in the headlines as the Founder of ‘Defenders of Human Rights Center’. Their website states: “Defenders of Human Rights Center (http://www.humanrights-ir.org/english/) was first established in Iran in 2002 at the initiative of the Nobel Peace Laureate Shiring [sic]Ebadi”. Ebadi was given the Noble Peace prize in 2003. No longer a judge, Ebadi dedicated her time to defending the rights of all those opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran at the exclusion of the rights of all Iranians and Iran. She was awarded a Nobel Peace prize in 2003.

The Nobel gave her the necessary platform to undermine the government in Tehran – at a cost to the Iranian nation. In 2010, this ‘human rights’ attorney displayed a total disregard for human life and international law as reported by Foreign Policy. Referring to sanctions, Ebadi “insisted” that “Iranians will endure considerable hardship if they think the endgame is greater respect for human rights”.

This ‘human rights advocate and attorney further opined that the United States should use VOA and Radio Farda to reach Iranians inside Iran ‘”to convince them that the sanctions are targeted at the regime and not the ordinary Iranians”. (Perhaps she is of the opinion that had VOA broadcasted into Iraq, the lives of 500,000 children would have been spared by sanctions. ) However, in spite of daily broadcast into Iran, sanctions continue to take lives. No amount of radio wave has managed to save lives.

So while Ebadi, former judge, ‘human rights’ advocate, recommends the violation of a bilateral agreement – the Algiers Accords, Point I.1 of which states: “The United States pledge that it is and from now will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs.” ( Per Article VI of the Algiers Accords, the violated party, Iran, has the right to refer the matter to the Tribunal at Hague, the Netherlands, where the International Court of Justice will have jurisdiction) by encouraging US government broadcasts into Iran, she is calling for the censorship of Iranian broadcast .

In 2010, Ebadi [wishfully] predicted the end of the Islamic Republic. Her hopes were dashed with the election of Rohani and the popular support behind him. But clearly her ambition is unchecked. As such, one has to wonder what will be the next game plan for this ‘human rights’ activist who advocates death (sanctions) and censorship.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an independent researcher and writer with a focus on U.S. foreign policy.

By Bob Dreyfuss

06 November, 2013

@ TomDispatch.com

Put in context, the simultaneous raids in Libya and Somalia last month, targeting an alleged al-Qaeda fugitive and an alleged kingpin of the al-Shabab Islamist movement, were less a sign of America’s awesome might than two minor exceptions that proved an emerging rule: namely, that the power, prestige, and influence of the United States in the broader Middle East and its ability to shape events there is in a death spiral.

Twelve years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and a decade after the misguided invasion of Iraq — both designed to consolidate and expand America’s regional clout by removing adversaries — Washington’s actual standing in country after country, including its chief allies in the region, has never been weaker. Though President Obama can order raids virtually anywhere using Special Operations forces, and though he can strike willy-nilly in targeted killing actions by calling in the Predator and Reaper drones, he has become the Rodney Dangerfield of the Middle East. Not only does no one there respect the United States, but no one really fears it, either — and increasingly, no one pays it any mind at all.

There are plenty of reasons why America’s previously unchallenged hegemony in the Middle East is in free fall. The disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq generated anti-American fervor in the streets and in the elites. America’s economic crisis since 2008 has convinced many that the United States no longer has the wherewithal to sustain an imperial presence. The Arab Spring, for all its ups and downs, has challenged the status quo everywhere, leading to enormous uncertainty while empowering political forces unwilling to march in lockstep with Washington. In addition, oil-consuming nations like China and India have become more engaged with their suppliers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq. The result: throughout the region, things are fast becoming unglued for the United States.

Its two closest allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are sullenly hostile, routinely ignore Obama’s advice, and openly oppose American policies. Iraq and Afghanistan, one formerly occupied and one about to be evacuated, are led, respectively, by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, an inflexible sectarian Shiite closely tied to Iran, and President Hamid Karzai, a corrupt, mercurial leader who periodically threatens to join the Taliban. In Egypt, three successive regimes — those of President Hosni Mubarak, Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the chieftains of the July 2013 military coup — have insouciantly flouted U.S. wishes.

Turkey, ostensibly a NATO ally but led by a quirky Islamist, is miffed over Obama’s back-and-forth policy in Syria and has shocked the U.S. by deciding to buy a non-NATO-compatible missile defense system from China. Libya, Somalia, and Yemen have little or no government at all. They have essentially devolved into a mosaic of armed gangs, many implacably opposed to the United States.

This downward spiral has hardly escaped attention. In a recent address to the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, Chas Freeman, the former American ambassador to Saudi Arabia, described it in some detail. “We have lost intellectual command and practical control of the many situations unfolding there,” said Freeman, whose nomination by Obama in 2009 to serve as head of the National Intelligence Council was shot down by the Israel Lobby. “We must acknowledge the reality that we no longer have or can expect to have the clout we once did in the region.”

In an editorial on October 29th, the New York Times ruefully concluded: “It is not every day that America finds itself facing open rebellion from its allies, yet that is what is happening with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel.” And in a front-page story on the administration’s internal deliberations, the Times’s Mark Landler reported that, over the summer, the White House had decided to scale back its role in the Middle East because many objectives “lie outside [its] reach,” and henceforth would adopt a “more modest strategy” in the region.

Perhaps the most profound irony embedded in Washington’s current predicament is this: Iran, for decades the supposed epicenter of anti-Americanism in the region, is the country where the United States has perhaps its last opportunity to salvage its position. If Washington and Tehran can negotiate a détente — and it’s a big if, given the domestic political power of hawks in both countries — that accord might go a long way toward stabilizing Washington’s regional credibility.

Debacle in Syria

Let’s begin our survey of America’s Greater Middle Eastern fecklessness with Exhibit A: Syria. It is there, where a movement to oust President Bashar al-Assad devolved into a civil war, that the United States has demonstrated its utter inability to guide events. Back in the summer of 2011 — at the very dawn of the conflict — Obama demanded that Assad step down. There was only one problem: short of an Iraq-style invasion of Syria, he had no power to make that happen. Assad promptly called his bluff, escalated the conflict, and rallied support from Russia and Iran. Obama’s clarion call for his resignation only made things worse by convincing Syrian rebels that the United States would come to their aid.

A year later, Obama drew a “red line” in the sand, suggesting that any use of chemical weapons by Syrian forces would precipitate a U.S. military response. Again Assad ignored him, and many hundreds of civilians were gassed to death in multiple uses of the dreaded weapons.

The crowning catastrophe of Obama’s Syria policy came when he threatened a devastating strike on Assad’s military facilities using Tomahawk cruise missiles and other weaponry. Instead of finding himself leading a George W. Bush-style “coalition of the willing” with domestic support, Obama watched as allies scattered, including the usually reliable British and the Arab League. At home, political support was nearly nil and evaporated from there. Polls showed Americans overwhelmingly opposed to a war with or attack on Syria.

When, in desperation, the president appealed to Congress for a resolution to authorize the use of military force against that country, the White House found (to its surprise) that Congress, which normally rubber-stamps such proposals, would have none of it. Paralyzed, reluctant to choose between backing down and striking Syria by presidential fiat, Obama was rescued in humiliating fashion by a proposal from Syria’s chief ally, Russia, to dismantle and destroy that country’s chemical weapons arsenal.

Adding insult to injury, as Secretary of State John Kerry scrambles to organize a long-postponed peace conference in Geneva aimed at reaching a political settlement of the civil war, he is faced with a sad paradox: while the Syrian government has agreed to attend the Geneva meeting, also sponsored by Russia, America’s allies, the anti-Assad rebels, have flatly refused to go.

Laughingstock in Egypt

Don’t think for a second that Washington’s ineffectiveness stops with the ongoing Syrian fiasco.

Next door, in a country whose government was installed by the United States after the 2003 invasion, the Obama administration notoriously failed to convince the Iraqis to allow even a small contingent of American troops to remain there past 2011. Since then, that country has moved ever more firmly into Iran’s orbit and has virtually broken with Washington over Syria.

Since the start of the civil war in Syria, Shiite-led Iraq has joined Shiite Iran in supporting Assad, whose ruling minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiism. There have been widespread reports that pro-Assad Iraqi Shiite militias are traveling to Syria, presumably with the support or at least acquiescence of the government. Ignoring Washington’s entreaties, it has also allowed Iran to conduct a virtual Berlin Airlift-style aerial resupply effort for Syria’s armed forces through Iraqi air space. Last month, in an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York during the United Nations General Assembly session, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari undiplomatically warned Obama that his government stands against the U.S. decision — taken in a secret presidential finding in April and only made public last summer — to provide arms to Syria’s rebels. (“We oppose providing military assistance to any [Syrian] rebel groups.”)

Meanwhile, Washington is also flailing in its policy toward Egypt, where the Obama administration has been singularly hapless. In a rare feat, it has managed to anger and alienate every conceivable faction in that politically divided country. In July, when Egypt’s military ousted President Mohammad Morsi and violently clamped down on the Muslim Brotherhood, the Obama administration made itself look ridiculous to Egyptians (and to the rest of the Middle East) by refusing to call what happened a coup d’état, since under U.S. law that would have meant suspending aid to the Egyptian military.

As it happened, however, American aid figured little in the calculations of Egypt’s new military leaders. The reason was simple enough: Saudi Arabia and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, bitter opponents of the Morsi government, applauded the coup and poured at least $12 billion in cash into the country’s near-empty coffers. In the end, making no one happy, the administration tried to split the difference: Obama declared that he would suspend the delivery of some big-ticket military items like Apache attack helicopters, Harpoon missiles, M1-A1 tank parts, and F-16 fighter planes, but let other aid to the military continue, including counterterrorism assistance and the sale of border security items. Such a split decision only served to underscore the administration’s lack of leverage in Cairo. Meanwhile, there are reports that Egypt’s new rulers may turn to Russia for arms in open defiance of a horrified Washington’s wishes.

Saudi and Israeli Punching Bag

The most surprising defection from the pro-American coalition in the Middle East is, however, Saudi Arabia. In part, that kingdom’s erratic behavior may result from a growing awareness among its ultraconservative, kleptocratic princelings that they face an increasingly uncertain future. Christopher Davidson’s new book, After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies, outlines the many pressures building on the country.

One significant cause of instability, claims Davidson, is the “existence of substantial Western military bases on the Arabian Peninsula, [which are considered] an affront to Islam and to national sovereignty.” For decades, such an American military presence in the region provided a security blanket for the Saudi royals, making the country a virtual U.S. protectorate. Now, amid the turmoil that has followed the war in Iraq, the Arab Spring, and the rise of an assertive Iran, Saudi Arabia isn’t sure which way to turn, or whether the United States is friend or foe.

Since 2003, the Saudi rulers have found themselves increasingly unhappy with American policy. Riyadh, the area’s chief Sunni power, was apoplectic when the United States toppled Iraq’s Sunni leader Saddam Hussein and allowed Iran to vastly increase its influence in Baghdad. In 2011, the Saudi royal family blamed Washington for not doing more to prevent the collapse of the conservative and pro-Saudi Mubarak government in Egypt.

Now, the Saudis are on the verge of a complete break over Washington’s policies toward Syria and Iran. As the chief backers of the rebels in Syria, they were dismayed when Obama chose not to bomb military sites around Damascus. Because it views Iran through the lens of a regional Sunni-Shiite struggle for dominance, it is no less dismayed by the possible emergence of a U.S.-Iran accord from renewed negotiations over that country’s nuclear program.

To express its pique, its foreign minister abruptly canceled his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September, shocking U.N. members. Then, adding insult to injury, Saudi Arabia turned down a prestigious seat on the Security Council, a post for which it had long campaigned. “Upset at President Barack Obama’s policies on Iran and Syria,” reported Reuters, “members of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family are threatening a rift with the United States that could take the alliance between Washington and the kingdom to its lowest point in years.”

That news service quoted Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, as saying that his country was on the verge of a “major shift” in its relations with the U.S. Former head of Saudi intelligence Prince Turki al-Faisal lambasted America’s Syria policy this way: “The current charade of international control over Bashar’s chemical arsenal would be funny if it were not so blatantly perfidious. [It is] designed not only to give Mr. Obama an opportunity to back down [from military strikes], but also to help Assad to butcher his people.”

This is shocking stuff from America’s second most reliable ally in the region. As for reliable ally number one, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has visibly decided to be anything but a cooperative partner in the region, making Obama’s job more difficult at every turn. Since 2009, he has gleefully defied the American president, starting with his refusal to impose a freeze on illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank when specifically asked to do so by the president at the start of his first term. Meanwhile, most of the world has spent the past half-decade on tenterhooks over the possibility that his country might actually launch a much-threatened military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Since Hassan Rouhani was elected president of Iran and indicated his interest in reorienting policy to make a deal with the Western powers over its nuclear program, Israeli statements have become ever more shrill. In a September speech to the U.N. General Assembly, for instance, Netanyahu rolled out extreme rhetoric, claiming that Israel is “challenged by a nuclear-armed Iran that seeks our destruction.” This despite the fact that Iran possesses no nuclear weapons, has enriched not an ounce of uranium to weapons-grade level, and has probably not mastered the technology to manufacture a bomb. According to American intelligence reports, it has not yet even militarized its nuclear research.

Netanyahu’s speech was so full of hyperbole that observers concluded Israel was isolating itself from the rest of the world. “He was so anxious to make everything look as negative as possible he actually pushed the limits of credibility,” said Gary Sick, a former senior official in the Carter administration and an Iran expert. “He did himself harm by his exaggerations.”

Iran: Obama’s Ironic Beacon of Hope

Both Israel and Saudi Arabia are fearful that the Middle Eastern balance of power could be tipped against them if the United States and Iran are able to strike a deal. Seeking to throw the proverbial monkey wrench into the talks between Iran, the U.S., and the P5+1 powers (the permanent members of the U.N. security Council plus Germany), Israel has put forward a series of demands that go far beyond anything Iran would accept, or that the other countries would go along with. Before supporting the removal of international economic sanctions against Iran, Israel wants that country to suspend all enrichment of uranium, shut down its nuclear facilities, not be allowed any centrifuges to enrich uranium, abandon the heavy-water plant it is constructing to produce plutonium, permanently close its fortified underground installation at Fordo, and ship its stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country.

In contrast, it’s widely believed that the United States is ready to allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium, maintain some of its existing facilities, and retain a partial stockpile of enriched uranium for fuel under stricter and more intrusive inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Ironically, a U.S.-Iran détente is the one thing that could slow down or reverse the death spiral of American influence in the region. Iran, for instance, could be helpful in convincing President Assad of Syria to leave office in 2014, in advance of elections there, if radical Sunni Islamic organizations, including allies of al-Qaeda, are suppressed. Enormously influential in Afghanistan, Iran could also help stabilize that country after the departure of U.S. combat forces in 2014. And it could be enlisted to work alongside the United States and regional powers to stabilize Iraq.

More broadly, a U.S.-Iran entente might lead to a gradual de-escalation of the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, including its huge naval forces, bases, and other facilities in Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. It’s even conceivable that Iran could be persuaded to join other regional and global powers in seeking a just and lasting negotiated deal between Israel and the Palestinians. The United States and Iran have a number of common interests, including opposing al-Qaeda-style terrorism and cracking down on drug smuggling.

Of course, such a deal will be exceedingly difficult to nail down, if for no other reason than that the hardliners in both countries are determined to prevent it.

Right now, imagine the Obama administration as one of those vaudeville acts that keep a dozen plates spinning atop vibrating poles. At just this moment in the Middle East, those “plates” are tipping in every direction. There’s still time to prevent them all from crashing to the ground, but it would take a masterful effort from the White House — and it’s far from clear that anyone there is up to the task.

Bob Dreyfuss is an independent investigative journalist based in Cape May, New Jersey, specializing in politics and national security. He is a contributing editor at the Nation, and his blog appears daily at TheNation.com. In the past, he has written extensively for Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, the American Prospect, the New Republic, and many other magazines. He is the author of Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam.

By Countercurrents.org

06 November 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Global efforts to prevent dangerous levels of climate change are on course to fail, says a UN report released November 5, 2013 .

The UN Environment Programme says current pledges to reduce emissions are inadequate, and likely to see options to limit warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels fade by 2020.

The 64-page report, compiled by 44 scientific groups in 17 countries, highlights the challenge faced by envoys participating at two weeks of UN talks in Poland , which start on Monday.

In this report, the UNEP has called on governments to step up action to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Jessica Shankleman for BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network, reported in theguardian.com on November 5, 2013 :

As world leaders prepare to meet in Poland for the latest UN summit on climate change, the new report has warned that the chance to limit global temperature rises to below 2C is swiftly diminishing.

The UNEP’s annual “Gap report” aims to highlight the efforts needed by governments and businesses to avoid catastrophic climate change.

The report shows that even if nations meet their current climate pledges, greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 are likely to be eight to 12 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e) above the level needed to have a good chance of remain below 2C by 2020 on the lowest cost pathway.

The report shows that emissions should peak at 44 GtCO2e by 2020 and fall to 22GtCO2e by 2050 to stay within a 2C target, but under a business-as-usual scenario, which includes no emissions pledges, emissions would reach 59 GtCO2e in 2020.

Even if countries deliver policies and investments that allow them to meet their current emissions targets, emissions would be just 3-7GtCO2e lower than the business-as-usual scenario, the report warns.

UNEP is now warning that rising emissions means it is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to limit warming to safe levels. However, it finds that it concludes it is still possible to meet a 2C target if leaders agree more ambitious targets for 2020.

The report found governments could go half way to closing the emissions gap if they tightened rules governing existing pledges in the climate negotiations, achieved the top end of their current reduction pledges and further expanded the scope of their current commitments.

The remaining gap could then be bridged by further international and national action. Energy efficiency measures, for example, could narrow the gap by a further two GtCO2e by 2020, while renewable energy initiatives could cut up to three GtCO2 from the gap. Fossil fuel subsidy reform could also reduce emissions by 0.4 to two GtCO2e by 2020, the report says.

UNEP also highlights agriculture as an industry that could slash emissions by 1.1 GtCO2e to 4.3 GtCO2e through adopting more environmentally sustainable methods, such as no-tillage practices to reduce emissions from soil disturbance and farm machinery.

Commenting on the study, Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, urged world leaders to use this year’s Conference of the Parties (COP) to make progress on reaching a global deal to tackle climate change.

“Delayed action means a higher rate of climate change in the near term and likely more near-term climate impacts, as well as the continued use of carbon-intensive and energy-intensive infrastructure,” he said.

“However, the stepping stone of the 2020 target can still be achieved by strengthening current pledges and by further action, including scaling up international cooperation initiatives in areas such as energy efficiency, fossil fuel subsidy reform and renewable energy.”

The report comes just days after consultancy giant PwC warned the world was on track to burn through the available “carbon budget” that would allow it to remain on track for less than 2C of warming by 2034.

A release by UNEP has put the issue in the following way:

“But are the pledges for 2020 enough to keep the world on track to meet the 2°C target? Or will there be a gap between ambition and reality?

“Since 2010, the United Nations Environment Programme has convened scientists from all over the world to answer these two questions.”

While discussing the issue Oliver Milman report in theguardian.com on November 5, 2013 said:

Last week, the Climate Change Authority said that Australia ‘s 5% emissions reduction goal is “not a credible option” and should be increased, possibly to 15% or 25%.

A separate analysis by WWF found that Australia has already burned through two-thirds of its share of a “carbon budget” that would keep the temperature rise under 2C.

Christiana Figueres, the UN climate chief who was recently accused of “talking through her hat” by Tony Abbott for linking bushfires to climate change, added: “As we head towards Warsaw for the latest round of climate negotiations, there is a real need for increased ambition by all countries: ambition which can take countries further and faster towards bridging the emissions gap and a sustainable future for all.

“However, increased national ambition will not be enough to meet the scientific realities of climate change, which is one reason why a universal new agreement – able to catalyse international co-operation – is urgently needed by 2015.”

 

By John Pilger

5 November, 2013

@ The Guardian

The richest land on Earth writes Aboriginal people out of history and pushes them to the margins. Like South Africa 30 years ago

The corridors of the Australian parliament are so white you squint. The sound is hushed; the smell is floor polish. The wooden floors shine so virtuously they reflect the cartoon portraits of prime ministers and rows of Aboriginal paintings, suspended on white walls, their blood and tears invisible.

The parliament stands in Barton, a suburb of Canberra named after the first prime minister of Australia, Edmund Barton, who drew up the White Australia Policy in 1901. “The doctrine of the equality of man,” said Barton, “was never intended to apply” to those not British and white-skinned.

Barton’s concern was the Chinese, known as the yellow peril; he made no mention of the oldest, most enduring human presence on Earth: the first Australians. They did not exist. Their sophisticated care of a harsh land was of no interest. Their epic resistance did not happen. Of those who fought the British invaders of Australia, the Sydney Monitor reported in 1838: “It was resolved to exterminate the whole race of blacks in that quarter.” Today, the survivors are a shaming national secret.

The town of Wilcannia, in New South Wales, is twice distinguished. It is a winner of a national Tidy Town award, and its Indigenous people have one of the lowest recorded life expectancies. They are usually dead by the age of 35. The Cuban government runs a literacy programme for them, as it does among the poorest of Africa. According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth report, Australia is the richest place on Earth.

Politicians in Canberra are among the wealthiest citizens. Their self-endowment is legendary. Last year the then minister for Indigenous affairs, Jenny Macklin, refurbished her office at a cost to the taxpayer of $331,144. Macklin recently claimed that in government she had made a “huge difference”. This is true. During her tenure, the number of Aboriginal people living in slums increased by almost a third, and more than half the money spent on Indigenous housing was pocketed by white contractors and a bureaucracy for which she was largely responsible. A typical, dilapidated house in an outback Indigenous community must accommodate as many as 25 people. Families, the elderly and disabled people wait years for sanitation that works.

In 2009 Professor James Anaya, the respected UN rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous people, described as racist a “state of emergency” that stripped Indigenous communities of their tenuous rights and services on the pretext that paedophile gangs were present in “unthinkable” numbers – a claim dismissed as false by police and the Australian Crime Commission. The then opposition spokesman on Indigenous affairs, Tony Abbott, told Anaya to “get a life” and not “just listen to the old victim brigade”. Abbott is now the prime minister of Australia.

I drove into the red heart of central Australia and asked Dr Janelle Trees about the “old victim brigade”. A GP whose Indigenous patients live within a few miles of $1,000-a-night resorts serving Uluru (Ayers Rock), she said: “There is asbestos in Aboriginal homes, and when somebody gets a fibre of asbestos in their lungs and develops mesothelioma, [the government] doesn’t care. When the kids have chronic infections and end up adding to these incredible statistics of Indigenous people dying of renal disease, and vulnerable to world record rates of rheumatic heart disease, nothing is done. I ask myself: why not?

“Malnutrition is common. I wanted to give a patient an anti-inflammatory for an infection that would have been preventable if living conditions were better, but I couldn’t treat her because she didn’t have enough food to eat and couldn’t ingest the tablets. I feel sometimes … as if I’m dealing with similar conditions as the English working class at the beginning of the industrial revolution.”

In Canberra, in ministerial offices displaying yet more first-nation art, I was told repeatedly how “proud” politicians were of what “we have done for Indigenous Australians”. When I asked Warren Snowdon – the minister for Indigenous health in the Labor government recently replaced by Abbott’s conservative Coalition – why after almost a quarter of a century representing the poorest, sickest Australians, he had not come up with a solution, he said: “What a stupid question. What a puerile question.”

At the end of Anzac Parade in Canberra rises the Australian National War Memorial, which the historian Henry Reynolds calls “the sacred centre of white nationalism”. I was refused permission to film in this great public place. I had made the mistake of expressing an interest in the frontier wars in which black Australians fought the British invasion without guns but with ingenuity and courage – the epitome of the “Anzac tradition”.

Yet, in a country littered with cenotaphs, not one officially commemorates those who fell resisting “one of the greatest appropriations of land in world history”, wrote Reynolds in his landmark book Forgotten War. More first Australians were killed than Native Americans on the American frontier and Maoris in New Zealand. The state of Queensland was a slaughterhouse. An entire people became prisoners of war in their own country, with settlers calling for their extinction. The cattle industry prospered using Indigenous men virtually as slave labour. The mining industry today makes profits of a billion dollars a week on Indigenous land.

Suppressing these truths, while venerating Australia’s servile role in the colonial wars of Britain and the US, has almost cult status in Canberra today. Reynolds and the few who question it have been smeared and abused. Australia’s unique first people are its Untermenschen. As you enter the National War Memorial, Indigenous faces are depicted as stone gargoyles alongside kangaroos, reptiles, birds and other “native wildlife”.

When I began filming this secret Australia 30 years ago, a global campaign was under way to end apartheid in South Africa. Having reported from South Africa, I was struck by the similarity of white supremacy and the compliance and defensiveness of liberals. Yet no international opprobrium, no boycotts, disturbed the surface of “lucky” Australia. Watch security guards expel Aboriginal people from shopping malls in Alice Springs; drive the short distance from the suburban barbies of Cromwell Terrace to Whitegate camp, where the tin shacks have no reliable power and water. This is apartheid, or what Reynolds calls “the whispering in our hearts”.

• John Pilger’s film Utopia, about Australia, is to be released in British cinemas on 15 November and in Australia in January

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

 

By Katrina Manson in Nairobi, James Shotter in Zurich and Jack Farchy in London

4 November, 2013

@ Financial Times

Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation into one of the country’s biggest gold refiners to determine whether it committed war crimes by knowingly buying gold from a militia group in eastern Congo.

The legal proceeding is the strongest yet by Switzerland against one of the companies key to the country’s multibillion-dollar gold industry. It is the first time that anyone has attempted to deploy against a business the charge of “pillage” – to describe stealing and illegally removing natural resources in the context of war – since the aftermath of the second world war.

Illegal armed groups that have terrorised parts of eastern Congo for decades have financed their activities through smuggling conflict minerals for years. Gold is the hardest and most valuable of all the conflict minerals to track.

The decision was prompted by a complaint from a Swiss non-profit organisation, Trial, following a nine-year investigation. It claims Swiss gold refinery Argor-Heraeus knowingly bought nearly three tonnes of gold sold by an armed group in eastern Congo via traders in neighbouring Uganda in 2005.

“The federal public prosecutor has examined the complaint and decided to initiate criminal proceedings against the company concerned for suspected money-laundering in connection with a war crime, and for complicity in war crimes,” the federal prosecutor in Bern said in a statement on Monday.

Argor-Heraeus strongly denied the claim on Monday, saying the accusation came like “a bolt from the blue”. It said an in-depth investigation by Swiss authorities had already cleared it of similar allegations dating back to 2005.

The refiner, which is part-owned by Commerzbank, was previously recommended for sanctions in 2006 by UN investigators over gold purchases the group said originated from an armed group in Congo. It was not prosecuted for any crime at the time and its name was subsequently deleted from the UN’s main report, published in 2005. Since then, investigators who work for Trial believe new evidence warrants a criminal case.

The proceeding marks a new legal effort to hold accountable any western companies that benefit from illicit trading that funds rebel groups in eastern Congo.

“The most important deterrent would be a war crime of pillage – that is what is going to make corporate actors stop doing what they’re doing,” said Kathi Lynn Austin, an investigator whose work has been taken up by Trial and who was a member of the UN team that produced the 2005 report.

UN investigators said a militia in eastern Congo, FNI, illegally mined gold in the country’s troubled Ituri province to finance its operations and buy weapons in breach of a UN arms embargo, selling it on via traders in Uganda and eventually to Switzerland. Argor said at the time it stopped buying the gold in June 2005, and claimed it had never known it came from Congo.

Ms Austin said that new evidence clearly indicated the gold came through Congo.

“The gold came through the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo]. It’s very clear on the documentation . . . which illuminates the entire chain,” Ms Austin. “I went back to collect a lot of the originals – it was a really long, exhaustive and methodical process to be sure that you have every single part of the pipeline.”

In 2003, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Congo, imposing a ban on sourcing minerals from armed groups that might trade them in for weapons.

Switzerland is intimately involved with the commodities industry. It is host to four of the world’s biggest gold refiners, as well as a number of leading trading houses.

In the past it has been criticised for not scrutinising these groups vigorously. In recent months, however, it has moved to try and deflect some of the criticisms levelled at the sector, and in March a government report recommended several measures to boost transparency. An interdepartmental group will provide an update on progress in spring 2014.

In the past two years western gold traders and refiners have introduced measures in an attempt to ensure that all the metal they handle is “responsibly” sourced. The tighter procurement system is in part a response to new US regulation under the Dodd-Frank Act.

But the gold continues to flow, often via the Middle East and Asia.

© The Financial Times Ltd 2013 FT and ‘Financial Times’ are trademarks of The Financial Times Ltd.

 

By MAUNG ZARNI

3 November, 2013

@ The New York Times

KUALA LUMPUR — With Myanmar coming out of the cold after five decades of military rule, President Thein Sein and his deputies are eager to show the world they are making progress on political reforms. The latest government ploy is to pressure minority groups — through a buildup of troops in a minority-held region — into signing a national cease-fire agreement in the coming weeks in the nation’s capital, Naypyidaw.

While minority leaders are negotiating with the government this week, many are dubious of the proposal. Government troops have failed to honor agreements in the past. And Naypyidaw’s chief negotiator makes it plain that he and his team do not have control over the military. Rebel leaders are mindful that the Burmese military has exploited earlier lulls in fighting around cease-fire negotiations for its own strategic ends.

But the main problem with Naypyidaw’s approach to peace is that government leaders and the military remain wedded to a highly centralized — as opposed to federal — vision of government that is unacceptable to the minorities.

Myanmar’s ethnic minorities make up about a third of the nation’s nearly 55 million residents and live in some of the most resource-rich areas along the borders with Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand. There are a handful of major ethnic minority groups, and dozens of smaller ones, with unique cultural and linguistic heritages. Though independent statehood was the original aim of most minorities following independence from Britain in 1948, most groups chose long ago to fight for a federal system of government, an idea the Burmese generals have been reluctant to embrace since they came to power in 1962.

Several years ago, one of the country’s highest ranking generals complained to me about the minorities’ push for a federal system. In a view typical of the leadership in Naypyidaw, he said federalism would be the first step toward disintegration of Myanmar.

The government’s military presence in ethnic minority regions is another sticking point. Government troop reduction is something all minority communities want. The army’s abysmal human rights record in the contested areas has perpetuated conflict over the decades and hardened resistance to the military.

When it comes to negotiating peace, the military has in the past used its bilateral cease-fire agreements as opportunities for troop reinforcement, or the construction of strategic roads for sending in supplies to front-line positions.

General Baw Kyaw Heh, the deputy chief of staff of the Karen National Liberation Army, told Karen News in September that despite a bilateral cease-fire between his group and the government, the Burmese Army has “continued to transport their military supplies, rotate their troops, modify and fortify all of their bases.”

Based on my experience working with the generals as an unofficial advocate for Western re-engagement with the country, I know that the military leaders who may be inclined to compromise hold an instrumentalist view of reconciliation. For them, peace is not a worthwhile goal in and of itself but a means to another end: financial reward.

Myanmar is well-known for its untapped natural resources, much of which are in the minority controlled areas. Kachin state is famous for jade; Karenni state’s tungsten deposit is one of the world’s largest; Karen state has vast virgin teak forests and potential as a source of hydropower.

A cessation of the violence in these regions is a prerequisite for commercial development. To be sure, some minority leaders would stand to benefit personally from the buildup of these areas. But many ethnic people look at the national leaders and well-connected businessmen with more skepticism, assuming they will exploit their land.

The idea of a national cease-fire has gained traction, in part, because former President Jimmy Carter led a delegation of former heads of state, known as the Elders, to Myanmar. They met with the government, civil society groups and ethnic minority leaders and threw their weight behind Naypyidaw’s cease-fire call. Locals explain the Elders’ endorsement as a case of outsiders being misinformed about the true nature of the government, which talks peace to the West while waging quiet wars against the minorities outside the media’s gaze. A version of this is under way now in the Kachin region, where the government has recently sent in troops just as cease-fire negotiations were beginning.

On the eve of independence in 1948, the Burmese nationalist leaders promised that ethnic equality would be a cornerstone of the new Burma. But equality has remained elusive.

Until the promise of equality and the vision of a federated union are genuinely pursued, the government’s offer of peace will have few local takers. No amount of aid or international cheerleading by celebrity statesmen will make it work.

Maung Zarni is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and an associate fellow at the University of Malaya.

INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES

By Vandana Shiva

01 November, 2013

@ The Guardian

An obsession with growth has eclipsed our concern for sustainability, justice and human dignity. But people are not disposable – the value of life lies outside economic development

‘Water extracted beyond nature’s capacity to renew and recharge creates a water famine’. (Photograph: Joe McNally/Getty)

Limitless growth is the fantasy of economists, businesses and politicians. It is seen as a measure of progress. As a result, gross domestic product (GDP), which is supposed to measure the wealth of nations, has emerged as both the most powerful number and dominant concept in our times. However, economic growth hides the poverty it creates through the destruction of nature, which in turn leads to communities lacking the capacity to provide for themselves.

The concept of growth was put forward as a measure to mobilise resources during the second world war. GDP is based on creating an artificial and fictitious boundary, assuming that if you produce what you consume, you do not produce. In effect , “growth” measures the conversion of nature into cash, and commons into commodities.

Thus nature’s amazing cycles of renewal of water and nutrients are defined into nonproduction. The peasants of the world,who provide 72% of the food, do not produce; women who farm or do most of the housework do not fit this paradigm of growth either. A living forest does not contribute to growth, but when trees are cut down and sold as timber, we have growth. Healthy societies and communities do not contribute to growth, but disease creates growth through, for example, the sale of patented medicine.

Water available as a commons shared freely and protected by all provides for all. However, it does not create growth. But when Coca-Cola sets up a plant, mines the water and fills plastic bottles with it, the economy grows. But this growth is based on creating poverty – both for nature and local communities. Water extracted beyond nature’s capacity to renew and recharge creates a water famine. Women are forced to walk longer distances looking for drinking water. In the village of Plachimada in Kerala, when the walk for water became 10 kms, local tribal woman Mayilamma said enough is enough. We cannot walk further; the Coca-Cola plant must shut down. The movement that the women started eventually led to the closure of the plant.

In the same vein, evolution has gifted us the seed. Farmers have selected, bred, and diversified it – it is the basis of food production. A seed that renews itself and multiplies produces seeds for the next season, as well as food. However, farmer-bred and farmer-saved seeds are not seen as contributing to growth. It creates and renews life, but it doesn’t lead to profits. Growth begins when seeds are modified, patented and genetically locked, leading to farmers being forced to buy more every season.

Nature is impoverished, biodiversity is eroded and a free, open resource is transformed into a patented commodity. Buying seeds every year is a recipe for debt for India’s poor peasants. And ever since seed monopolies have been established, farmers debt has increased. More than 270,000 farmers caught in a debt trap in India have committed suicide since 1995.

Poverty is also further spread when public systems are privatised. The privatisation of water, electricity, health, and education does generate growth through profits. But it also generates poverty by forcing people to spend large amounts of money on what was available at affordable costs as a common good. When every aspect of life is commercialised and commoditised, living becomes more costly, and people become poorer.

Both ecology and economics have emerged from the same roots – “oikos”, the Greek word for household. As long as economics was focused on the household, it recognised and respected its basis in natural resources and the limits of ecological renewal. It was focused on providing for basic human needs within these limits. Economics as based on the household was also women-centered. Today, economics is separated from and opposed to both ecological processes and basic needs. While the destruction of nature has been justified on grounds of creating growth, poverty and dispossession has increased. While being non-sustainable, it is also economically unjust.

The dominant model of economic development has in fact become anti-life. When economies are measured only in terms of money flow, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And the rich might be rich in monetary terms – but they too are poor in the wider context of what being human means.

Meanwhile, the demands of the current model of the economy are leading to resource wars oil wars, water wars, food wars. There are three levels of violence involved in non-sustainable development. The first is the violence against the earth, which is expressed as the ecological crisis. The second is the violence against people, which is expressed as poverty, destitution and displacement. The third is the violence of war and conflict, as the powerful reach for the resources that lie in other communities and countries for their limitless appetites.

Increase of moneyflow through GDP has become disassociated from real value, but those who accumulate financial resources can then stake claim on the real resources of people – their land and water, their forests and seeds. This thirst leads to them predating on the last drop of water and last inch of land on the planet. This is not an end to poverty. It is an end to human rights and justice.

Nobel-prize winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen have admitted that GDP does not capture the human condition and urged the creation of different tools to gauge the wellbeing of nations. This is why countries like Bhutan have adopted the gross national happiness in place of gross domestic product to calculate progress. We need to create measures beyond GDP, and economies beyond the global supermarket, to rejuvenate real wealth. We need to remember that the real currency of life is life itself.

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, environmental activist and eco feminist. She is the founder/director of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology. She is author of numerous books including, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis; Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply; Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace; and Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development. Shiva has also served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well as NGOs, including the International Forum on Globalization, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization and the Third World Network. She has received numerous awards, including 1993 Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) and the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize.

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited

By Nile Bowie

1 November, 2013

@ RT.com

Despite the mutual economic benefits of normalizing ties with Cuba, the unceasing and immoral embargo further emboldens the Obama administration’s diplomatic incompetence.

It is no exaggeration to say that the world is opposed to the crippling economic embargo unilaterally imposed on Cuba by the United States. 188 nations approved a resolution calling for an end to the blockade at this year’s annual vote on the issue at the UN General Assembly, with only 2 countries opposing – the United States and Israel. The outcome was unsurprising, as Washington has refused to waver from its policy for over five decades, despite immense opposition from the international community that it so often claims to represent. As a result of the embargo, Cuba cannot sell its products on the US market and cannot use dollars in its transactions, hindering foreign trade, the establishment of joint ventures, and international investment. Third countries have been aggressively fined and pursued by the US to stop them from trading with Cuba, while fines against embargo violators have risen totaling $2.5 billion to date. Cuba is also prevented from accessing medical and surgical equipment, and drugs needed for the effective treatment of tumors, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and cancer.

According to Havana, the cost of the embargo to the Cuban economy is estimated at $1.1 trillion dollars. China and Venezuela railed against the US for its reactionary stance following the recent vote, while Russia criticized Washington’s policy as being “reminiscent of the Cold War.” The rationale behind the US embargo has remained essentially unchanged since the 1960s, and is best described by Lester D. Mallory, former deputy assistant Secretary of State. “The majority of the Cuban people support Castro. There is no effective political opposition… The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection and hardship… every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba… a line of action which… makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government,” wrote Mallory, during the height of the Cold War. The stance of every US president since Kennedy has effectively been, “give it time.”

Perestroika in Havana

In an apparent justification of Washington’s defiant policy on Cuba, US envoy Ronald Godard slammed Havana as for maintaining “one of the most restrictive economic systems in the world.” It is wholly insincere of the US to maintain this position when it refuses to scale back the decades-long climate of economic hostility, which remains a critical obstacle to Cuba’s own reform process.

President Raúl Castro, who is seen to be more pragmatic and less ideological than his brother Fidel, unveiled an ongoing series of reforms in 2010 aimed at moving the island’s stagnant Soviet-style economy toward a mixed economy, with market functions similar to that of China or Vietnam. In an effort to reduce dependency on a bloated state-bureaucracy, Havana laid off some 500,000 state workers, while significantly relaxing prohibitions on small business activity and the individual hiring of labor. Former state-employees were encouraged to go into business for themselves by driving taxis, opening barbershops, clothing shops and restaurants. Farmers were allowed to sell their goods for a profit, while state-owned companies were permitted to keep 50 percent of their after-tax income to reinvest in productivity, indicating measures to attract foreign investment capital.

Recent reforms are bolder, aimed at establishing a tax-free special development zone just west of Havana where foreign companies will be able to transfer tariff-free profits abroad; contract lengths will be extended to 50 years, while full ownership will be allowed for firms operating in the zone. The zone will allow foreign companies to import raw materials, relying on cheap Cuban labor to assemble finished products for export. Companies operating in the zone will pay salaries directly to the Cuban government rather than to workers themselves. Labor will be sold at market rates, while workers are paid on a Cuban scale, allowing the state to appropriate the difference.

Critics see this as a closer integration with an exploitive capitalistic business model that will widen existing income disparities. Income inequality between those employed in the party bureaucracy or tourism sector and those who struggle to earn enough to buy goods in state-run shops has deepened in recent times. If the government is perceived as being the biggest benefactor of foreign investment without earnings being adequately channeled to efforts to foster nascent entrepreneurialism and social welfare programs, it will have negative social – and political – ramifications.

No shock therapy – we promise!

Another significant development is the announcement of an ambitious currency reform that would unify Cuba’s two-currency system. Cuba uses low-valued national pesos alongside convertible pesos tied to the US dollar, introduced for use in the tourism sector and foreign trade to protect the domestic economy from cash influxes, although many would argue these measures had the opposite effect – enriching those who had access to foreign capital while emboldening the shadow economy. State-run shops sell goods in convertible pesos, while most salaries are paid in national pesos – valued at 24 to a convertible peso – which offers much weaker purchasing power. Havana is attempting to converge the exchange rate gradually between the two peso currencies, and the government – acknowledging the potential for volatility in light of the task’s complexity – and promised to avoid imposing “shock therapy” on Cubans.

President Raúl has confirmed plans retire at the end of his current term in 2018, and these policies can be interpreted as his efforts to establish a bridge between Fidel’s central planning and the hybrid socialist-market economy that a new generation of Cuba’s Communist Party will inherit. The success of that transition depends on how effectively these experimental new policies are implemented. Raúl’s socialist-austerity policies will come to find more enemies than proponents if a privatized growth model undermines socialized health and education services – the jewels of Fidel’s revolution – and produces oligarchs who have more loyalty to foreign investors than to the values of egalitarianism promoted by the state for so long.

Despite severe sanctions and scant resources, Cuba has achieved 99.8% literacy levels through free universal education, and is one of the world’s leading exporters of teachers and doctors. Cuba’s universal health-care is among the best in the developing world; services are freely provided to citizens, and public health indicators surpass that of the United States in many areas.

The resilience of the Cuban people is astounding, and if reform policies are sensibly implemented, there will be much room for optimism. A rapprochement between Washington and Havana is not unthinkable, and would foster significant economic benefits, the beginnings of which can be seen through informal trade between Cuban-Americans in south Florida and their families in Havana.

Despite campaigning on reassessing ties with Cuba, the Obama administration has proved its diplomatic ineptitude by continuing policies that history will scorn – the world’s sole military superpower shaking its closed fist at this resilient little island.

Nile Bowie is a political analyst and photographer currently residing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He can be reached on Twitter or at nilebowie@gmail.com

By Franklin Lamb

01 November, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Damascus: Additional easing of Syrian sanctions is expected by mid-November according to staff at the US Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Asset Control (OFAC).

Pressure on Obama from Putin is part of the ‘price tag’ for Russia’s role in bailing out the American president, whose chemical weapons ‘redline’ became something of an albatross. But another reason for the relaxation is that the White House believes it needs to communicate to Damascus that prospects for better relations, and possibly even some cooperation, are not completely dead, despite the 32-month crisis still raging in the Syrian Arab Republic.

This second easing of sanctions will show more balance and neutrality than those of last June, which were perceived as supporting Saudi and Gulf aid to the rebels while weakening the Assad government just as the Syrian Army had begun gaining back ground from the rebels. At that time, licenses for exports of certain goods related to reconstruction of infrastructure were allowed in areas held by the rebels. Specifically, OFAC indicated that license applications would be accepted for commodities, technology and software related to water supply and sanitation, agricultural production and food processing, power generation, oil and gas production, construction and engineering, transportation, and educational infrastructure. Most benefited would be rebel-controlled areas.

No doubt it is with a deep patriotic spirit of wanting to help out their fellow Americans, that the US Treasury Departments heavily pro-Zionist OFAC asks US citizens to “consult our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) to find answers to your most commonly-asked questions about how Syrian and Iranian sanctions may affect your own families and your business.”

That is unlikely to be easy given the obfuscatory legalize of the sanctions texts.

There are currently three types of sanctions that the U.S. government has imposed against Syria. The most comprehensive sanction, called the Syria Accountability Act (SAA) of 2004, prohibits the export of most goods containing more than 10% U.S.-manufactured component parts to Syria. Another sanction, resulting from the USA Patriot Act, was levied specifically against the Commercial Bank of Syria in 2006. The third type of sanction contains many Executive Orders from the President that specifically deny certain Syrian citizens and entities access to the U.S. financial system due to their participation in proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, association with Al Qaida, the Taliban or Osama bin Laden; or destabilizing activities in Iraq and Lebanon.

Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act

In May 2004, the President signed E.O. 13338 implementing the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (SAA) which imposes a series of sanctions against Syria for its support for terrorism, involvement in Lebanon, weapons of mass destruction programs, and the destabilizing role it is playing in Iraq.

In addition, the Treasury Department’s Statement of Policy indicated that OFAC would consider on a case-by-case basis applications to permit certain services in the agricultural sector, as well as in the Syrian telecommunication industry, enabling private citizens better access to the Internet, while certain petroleum transactions benefiting rebel forces were also authorized. OFAC also revised Syria General License 11 and replaced it with General License 11A authorizing NGOs to engage in activities to preserve the cultural heritage of the country, including museums, historic buildings and archaeological sites.

The new lifting of sanctions, tentatively scheduled to be announced next month, will help the Assad government because international banking and trade prohibitions are expected to be reduced. At the same time, US officials are discussing with their Russian “partners” a number of proposals that would acknowledge the right of the Syrian people to choose who to support in next year’s Presidential elections without Washington insisting that Syrian President Bashar Assad step down as part of a “transition to democracy.”

In addition, the White House is telling Congressional leaders, loudly enough for all to hear, that the president’s recent waiving of restrictions on supplying arms to Syrian rebels was much more limited than depicted in mainstream media reports. In fact, the waiver—on certain portions of the Arms Export Control Act—authorizes only specific transfers to “vetted” members of the opposition and to NGOs in Syria. The defense items to be provided are described as those “necessary for the conduct of …operations inside or related to Syria, or to prevent the preparation, use, or proliferation of Syria’s chemical weapons.” Who was to be responsible for “vetting” the opposition members was not specified, nor were the particular articles detailed. But significantly the White House claims this is not a general waiver, but rather one with regard to a single specific contemplated transaction. Defense companies do not now have a blanket license to ship their wares to the Syrian opposition. This is because Section 40(g) of the Arms Export Control Act, 22 U.S.C. § 2780 (g), specifically gives the President authority to waive the provisions of the Act with respect to a specific transaction should he find that the waiver is “essential to the national security interests of the United States” and should he make the requisite report on the waiver to Congress. His determination on that finding directs the Secretary of State to make the required report to Congress.

The main opposition to White House plans to lessen the civilian targeting sanctions comes, as usual, from the US Congressional Zionist lobby. Israel’s supporters in Congress seek to prevent any lessening of US sanctions—against Iran first, and Syria second. Two days of talks are about to begin in Vienna between experts from the P5+1 (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany) and their Iranian counterparts, who will discuss technical issues relating to Tehran’s nuclear program and international sanctions. The meeting will help lay the groundwork for the next round of diplomatic negotiations, scheduled to take place in Geneva on November 7-8, and it is anticipated that the White House will accede to EU and Russian proposals to send a reciprocal good faith response to Tehran by lifting some of the sanctions targeting Iranian civilians. Although the P5+1 and Tehran have agreed to keep the contents of their negotiations secret, the general aim of the talks has been for Iran to reduce its capacity to enrich uranium and certain other nuclear activities in return for relief from the sanctions regime, which is strangling the nation’s economy. The main hurdles include verification of any concessions Iran makes and the sequencing of any reduction in sanctions.

Signs of progress were visible earlier this week in comments made after separate talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. In a rare joint statement, both sides called the talks “very productive”—a significant departure from eleven previous meetings in recent years, all of which failed to achieve progress in resolving what the IAEA has called the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program. The new joint statement also indicates that a document discussed in past meetings has been set aside and a new approach taken.

Eager as it is for negotiations to succeed, the Obama administration has also echoed the Zionist lobby’s contention that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” Yet if the talks fail, international support for sanctions will likely begin to fall apart, reducing U.S. leverage even further.

The world is watching, particularly U.S. allies in Europe and Asia, as well as regional “friends” like Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Though reportedly interested in lifting some of the sanctions on Syria and Iran, the White House is facing stiff opposition from Tel Aviv and Riyadh, with both governments criticizing the US for its lack of resolve in Syria and its presumed conciliatory attitude toward Iran.

Secretary of State John Kerry is reportedly slated to continue meetings with Saudi-Israeli officials in an attempt to tamp down their growing angst.

Franklin Lamb volunteers with the Sabra-Shatila Scholarship Program (SSSP) in Shatila Camp (www.sssp-lb.com) and is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

By Peter Symonds

01 November, 2013

@ WSWS.org

Already mired in a diplomatic crisis in Europe over National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance operations, Washington—as well as Canberra—is facing a backlash in Asia over the latest revelations that the NSA, working in tandem with Australian agencies, intercepted phone calls and data from embassies throughout the region.

The Fairfax media yesterday reported on the involvement of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) in the NSA program, codenamed STATEROOM, which gathers electronic intelligence from covert facilities inside diplomatic missions. According to a former Australian intelligence officer, the ASD operates “from Australian embassies in Jakarta, Bangkok, Hanoi, Beijing and Dili, and High Commissions in Kuala Lumpur and Port Moresby, as well as other diplomatic posts.”

Details of the STATEROOM program are contained in an NSA document leaked by Edward Snowden and originally published by Der Spiegel in Germany. US diplomatic missions and those of other members of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence alliance, including Canada and Britain, are involved. The document noted that the highly secretive “collection sites” are small in size and “their true mission is not known by the majority of the diplomatic staff” where they are located.

Angry reactions yesterday to the Fairfax and Der Spiegel articles give a glimpse of the diplomatic storm that is brewing throughout Asia. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying stated: “China is severely concerned about the reports and demands a clarification and explanation.” Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea expressed serious concerns.

Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa declared that his government “strongly protests” over the spying operation, which, if confirmed, would be “not only a breach of security, but also a serious breach of diplomatic norms and ethics.” Teuku Faizaisyah, a senior adviser to the Indonesian president, branded the “illegal ways of collecting information” as “highly unacceptable.”

While Washington has exploited the “war on terror” as the pretext for its massive spying operations on rivals and allies alike, the NSA operations are clearly broad in scope. The former Australian intelligence officer explained that the “main focus” of surveillance at the Australian embassy in Jakarta was “political, diplomatic and economic intelligence.” He explained: “The huge growth of mobile phone networks has been a great boon and Jakarta’s political elite are a loquacious bunch.”

The Fairfax press reported that a classified briefing of Australian MPs several years ago had incorporated details of “a series of intelligence scoops that included a recording of an intercepted video conference call between Malaysia’s most senior military commanders.”

A top secret NSA map published by Der Spiegel on Tuesday displayed 90 surveillance facilities in US diplomatic missions worldwide, run by a joint CIA-NSA group known as the “Special Collection Service.”

* China is the major target in East Asia, with surveillance facilities in the US embassy in Beijing, as well as US consulates in Shanghai and Chengdu, and in the unofficial US diplomatic office in Taiwan.

* The US has eight listening posts in South Asia, including in US embassies in India and Pakistan.

* In South East Asia, there are listening posts in embassies in Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia. The embassy in Bangkok also features a technical support team and monitors a remotely operated facility in the US consulate at Chang Mai in northern Thailand.

The latest revelations are a blow to the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia”—a diplomatic offensive and military build-up aimed at undermining China’s influence and strategic position throughout the region. A standard element of American propaganda has been the accusation that Beijing is engaged in large-scale cyber espionage against the US and other countries. What has now been exposed is that the NSA is engaged in illegal spying operations of unprecedented size and scope, on governments and the broader population alike, throughout Asia and the world.

The Obama administration risks alienating key allies and strategic partners that form part of its plans for the strategic encirclement of China. According to the Diplomat, news last week that the NSA was spying on world leaders prompted “some Asian nations, notably South Korea, to demand information on whether their leaders were among the 35 being monitored.” India has already announced a new policy for official emails, following revelations that it was the fifth most spied-on country by the NSA.

The latest exposures underline the central role of Australian spy agencies and bases to the NSA surveillance operations in Asia. Just as the present Coalition government, like the previous Labor government, is committed to opening Australian military bases to American forces in their build-up against China, so the ASD is completely integrated into the vast US electronic spy network.

Leaked NSA documents previously revealed that four Australian sites contribute data to an NSA program codenamed X-Keyscore, which separates data into streams of phone numbers, email addresses, log-ins and user activity for storage in massive data banks. These sites are the US-Australian Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, and three ASD facilities—the Shoal Bay Receiving Station near Darwin, the Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station at Geraldton in Western Australia, and the naval communications station HMAS Harman outside Canberra.

The Sydney Morning Herald today exposed the existence of a fifth electronic surveillance facility, known locally as “the house with no windows,” on the remote Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean. According to former Australian defence officers, the ASD post is “devoted to maritime and military surveillance, especially Indonesian naval, air force and military communications.” Australia’s Cocos Islands outpost, which has been earmarked as a potential base for US drones and warplanes, is adjacent to key strategic shipping lanes to South East Asia.

Australia also hosts vital listening posts plugged into the major undersea cables that carry the vast amounts of Internet traffic between North America and Asia. Kyodo News reported a month ago that the Japanese government rejected NSA requests in 2011 to establish similar cable facilities in Japan, citing “a lack of legislative authority.” Australian governments, however, had no such qualms about integrating the ASD and other spy agencies into the NSA’s illegal activities.

In 1999, amid the Australian military intervention in East Timor, former Australian Prime Minister John Howard notoriously acknowledged to an interviewer that Australia functioned as the US “deputy sheriff” in Asia. His remark provoked outrage throughout the region. Commenting on yesterday’s revelations, Chinese professor Zhu Feng declared: “Australia follows the US without principle and unconditionally. Australia doesn’t even deserve to be called ‘deputy sheriff’—they’re more like a subordinate.”

Despite Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s bland denials, Australia’s intimate involvement in the America’s spying operation in Asia will only reinforce the widespread view that Canberra operates as the flunkey of US imperialism in its predatory operations, not only against rival governments, but the working class of Asia and the world.