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By Nikhil Shah

06 September, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the U.S. intervention in Syria being justified as a humanitarian intervention with the Kosovo war as a precedent.  Many international commentators in the U.S. have stated that as the U.S. is unable to get Security Council authorization for a strike against Syria, international law must ‘evolve’ to allow for a humanitarian intervention to avoid prohibited chemical weapons from being used or from further atrocities from being committed by the Asad regime.  All these discussions about humanitarian interventions have conveniently avoided a discussion of whether they have been accepted as part of customary international law.  The International Court of Justice Statute defines customary international law in Article 38(1)(b) as “evidence of a general practice accepted as law.”  This is generally determined through two factors: the general practice of states and what states have accepted as law.  Widespread objections by states to a practice cannot constitute customary international law.

In the case of humanitarian interventions, most nation states have widely rejected humanitarian interventions by other states even where the death toll was higher than the Syrian conflict.  Michael Byer, an international legal scholar, in his book War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict has pointed out that in the aftermath of India’s intervention in the civil war between West and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), the international community failed to endorse India’s intervention even though it put an end to the horrific atrocities committed by Pakistan.  In his book, Byer states that in the aftermath of India’s intervention, “A Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire and immediate withdrawal of Indian troops from the country was vetoed by the Soviet Union, which at the time was a close ally of India.   The UN General Assembly adopted essentially the same resolution in a 104-11 vote with ten abstentions.  Most importantly not one country endorsed India’s humanitarian intervention claim, so no opinion juris was expressed in its favor.” [1]   Similar, distinguished international law scholar, Luis Henkin, in the book Right v. Might pointed out that military intervention by Vietnam into Cambodia which ended Pol Pot’s atrocities was similarly rejected by the UN General Assembly by a majority vote. [2]   Many nation states were very vocal in their objections to both these military interventions carried out on humanitarian grounds.  Byer pointed out that during the conflict with Vietnam and Cambodia even Bangladesh, which had benefitted from Indian intervention failed to endorse the Vietnamese intervention. [3] The International Court of Justice in the case, Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. U.S.), 1986 I.C.J. 14 (June 27), concluded that binding customary law prohibits coercive military intervention in the internal affairs of another state.

During the Kosovo war, two Security Council members, Russia and China publically condemned NATO’s intervention.  In addition, Foreign Ministers of 132 countries passed a Declaration within the Group 77 in which they “rejected the so-called right of humanitarian intervention, which has no basis in the UN Charter or in international law.” [4]  From these objections it is apparent that these types of humanitarian interventions cannot be considered legal under customary international law.

There are several legal alternatives to circumvent the U.N. charter to stop certain atrocities.  The U.N. Charter does not prevent the Security Council from intervening in matters within the domestic jurisdiction of a state when applying enforcement measures under Chapter VII. Of course, any such response would be subject to the veto or failure to obtain majority support in the Council. However, in the event of Security Council veto, authorization for at least voluntary collective action could be sought from the General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace resolution if the crisis is grave enough. [5]   Additionally, the UN can create a special international court such as was the case in Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone to prosecute any crimes committed.  If a member of the Security Council vetoes the resolution creating the court, then the International Criminal Court (ICC) may also get involved.  The ICC statue allows the court to get involved in situations where it determines that the fair and genuine prosecution of war crimes has not taken place at a national level by a country.  All of these legal alternatives would be far preferable to the alternatives suggested by the U.S. which find no justifications in international law.

Nikhil Shah is an attorney in Los Angeles, CA

[1] Michael Byers, War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict , (Grove Press, 2007) pg. 94.

[2] Louis Henkin, Stanley Hoffmann and Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Right v. Might: International Law and the Use of Force , (Council on Foreign Relations, 1991),  page 42.

 

[3] Supra note 1 at page 95. [

 

4] O. Corten, ‘Un Renouveau du ‘Droit d’Inter vention humanitaire’ ? Vrais Problèmes, Fausses Solutions’, 41 Rev. trim. dr. h. 2000, p. 698.

 

[5] G.A. Res. 377(V)A, U.N. GAOR, 5th Sess., Supp. No. 20, at 10, U.N. Doc. A/1775 (1950).

By Dr. Elias Akleh

05 September, 2013

@Countercurrents.org

The realities of the American humanitarian hypocrisy, political terrorism and warmongering have been clearly demonstrated in Obama’s August 31 st speech about his decision to punish the Syrian government for its alleged and unsubstantiated use of chemical weapons calling it the worst chemical weapons attack of the 21 st century. Obama is ignoring the fact that the US has the worst documented record of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons attacks throughout the whole human history.

The pro-Zionist US officials, the likes of Jewish Vice President Joe Biden, Senator John McCain, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, have been launching for some time a political terror campaign threatening to hit Syria, a UN country member, in violation of the international law, accusing it of slaughtering its own citizens and using chemical weapons without any definite evidence. This is an international crime since their threats are disrupting world peace and world economy.

Obama’s claim that “the US presented a powerful case that the Syrian government was responsible for this attack (chemical weapons attack of August 21 st ) on its own people” does not stand any ground since it lacks any credible evidence. Speaking to PBS NewsHour Wednesday night (8/28) Obama stressed that the US has definitively “concluded” the Assad regime used chemical weapons. Yet he did not present any evidence to substantiate this conclusion. The trove of evidence, including blood, tissue, and soil samples, the US, Britain and France had supplied to the UN as a prove that the Syrian troops used nerve agent sarin, was unverifiable and criticized by independent European experts, who questioned the nature of the physical evidence due to the secrecy of how it was collected and analyzed ( Washington Post )

It was revealed by the Guardian that “the bulk of evidence proving the Assad regime’s deployment of chemical weapons … has been provided by Israeli military intelligence…” According to the Guardian “Senior Israeli security officials arrived in Washington on Monday (8/26) to share the latest results of intelligence-gathering, and to review the Syrian crisis with national security adviser Susan Rice.”

In its August 27 th edition the Jewish-owned The Times of Israel has confirmed that Israeli intelligence has been behind the reports of Syria’s alleged chemical attack. It also revealed that “Israeli intelligence seen as central to US case against Syria” , and confirmed the Guardian’s report that “a large delegation of senior Israeli security officials is currently in Washington holding talks with top administration officials led by US National Security Adviser Susan Rice.” This senior Israeli military team is reported to consist of Israeli national security adviser Yaakov Amidror, senior Israeli defense minister Major General Amos Gilad, the head of military planning directorate Nimrod Sheffer, and the head of Israeli military intelligence research branch General Itai Brun.

This so-called evidence incriminating Syrian government has been supplied by proven Israeli liars, who had submitted in the past the fabricated evidence of Niger uranium for Iraq’s nuclear weapons and of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that led to Iraq’s invasion and devastation.

There are many evidences and proofs that the American/Israeli/British/French/Turkish/Qatari/Saudi financed, trained and armed anti-Syrian terrorists have used chemical weapons against Syrian troops as well as against civilians in an attempt to frame the Syrian government and to give the UNSC justification to authorize attacks on Syria.

It was reported by the Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper that the chemical materials used by anti-Syrian terrorist in Khan al-Assal area in Aleppo last march was transferred by two Qatari officers; Major Fahd Saeed al-Hajiri and Captain Faleh Bin Khalid al-Tamimi, across Turkey with the knowledge of Ankara. The two Qatari officials were reported killed by a suicide bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, while recruiting terrorist fighters to send to Syria.

The BBC World News had reported that “Just like Iraq: US arms butchers who use chemical weapons on civilians, and then tries to frame someone else” . In its video report the UN human rights investigator Carla del Ponte confirmed that Syrian militants had used the deadly nerve agent sarin. In another interview with Swiss radio del Ponte reiterated that “According to the testimonies we have gathered, the rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas” Sarin is a powerful neurotoxin developed by Nazi scientists in the 1930s. It was sold to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein by Donald Rumsfeld to be used against Iranian troops and Kurdish residents of the village of Halabja in 1988.

Even Israeli newspapers, such as Haaretz, had reported that “Jihadists, not Assad, apparently behind reported chemical attack in Syria” according to intelligence reports. The analysis states that “The rebels in Syria that the US has been arming and otherwise supporting are Al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood. Unfortunately, history is repeating. Specifically, the American government gave chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein … which he then used on Iran and on his own Kurdish population. The American government attempted to blame Iran for the chemical weapons attack on Iraq’s Kurds … just as the US is trying to blame the Syrian government for the attacks in Syrian.”

When the Turkish-based anti-Syrian terrorists suffered a lot of casualties last May and were not satisfied with the level of support they were receiving from Turkey and from Western countries, they resorted to false flag terrorist bombing against Turkish citizens like the twin car bombing in Reyhanli and the sarin chemical gas attack on Adana attempting to incite more anti-Syrian sentiment and to provide justification for the US/NATO military intervention against Syria. While investigating the two bombings Turkish security forces found a 2kg cylinder with sarin gas in the homes of suspected anti-Syrian terrorists from the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Nusra Front, ready to be deployed to Syria.

The US accused Syrian regime of using chemical weapons against Ghouta area, a suburb in Damascus, in August 21 st . Veteranstoday reported that Syrian rebels as well as residents of the area, who were interviewed by the humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders, indicated that Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan had provided Chemical weapons to an al-Qaeda-linked armed group, who were responsible for carrying out the chemical attack.

 

The Syrian government had many times exposed the fact, with evidence, that the anti-Syrian terrorists had used chemical weapons several times against Syrian troops as well as against civilians. Last July the Syrian Ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja’afari, had reported to the UN and to reporters that a cache of 280 containers filled with toxic chemicals such as ethylene glycol, ethanolaminem diethanolamine and triethanolamine, “enough to destroy a city” was discovered in northwestern Syrian left by the terrorists in their tunnels. Syrian officials had accused the terrorists of using these chemicals against Syrian troops in Khan el- Assal in a March attack outside of the northern city of Aleppo causing the death of 25 and injuring 86 victims.

In August, Syrian state TV broadcast footage of soldiers finding chemical agents in rebel tunnels in the Damascus suburb of Jobar. Containers of these chemical weapons were stamped with “Made in Saudi Arabia” and others were manufactured by German company for Qatar. The Syrian state TV had reported that the troops had also discovered similar chemical lab in the city of Banyas in July 7 th .

The Syrian government was the first to call on the UN to investigate the use of chemical weapons. It requested to include Russian inspectors within the team for fear of western bias similar to what had happened in Iraq. But the US had sabotaged this effort and kept postponing it until chemical evidence is lost. The US and its allies were afraid of the revelation that they are supporting and arming terrorist groups who used chemical weapons. After five months of the attack and on the insistence of the Syrian government the inspectors were sent to investigate.

On the second day of the arrival of the inspecting team the terrorists used chemical weapons again trying to frame it on the Syrian government. The western countries hastened to accuse the Syrian government without waiting for the analysis reports of the investigation team. The Syrian regime is not that stupid to commit such a suicide by using chemical weapons on the next day of the inspectors’ arrival, knowing very well that the anti-Syrian western/Gulf states alliance is waiting for such an excuse to attack Syria. Besides Syrian troops were gaining ground on the terrorist and therefore had no reason to use chemical weapons.

In his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations committee on Tuesday (9/3) the Zionist Jewish American Secretary of State John Kerry ( original family name is Kohn ) demanded the US to strike Syria and not to be “spectators of the slaughter” taking place on the ground. His assertions that the US has definite evidence that Syria had used chemical weapons against its people remind me of Colin Powell’s assertions in the UN of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. The slaughter he is talking about is not perpetrated by the Syrian regime, which is fighting terrorism in its own country, rather slaughter is perpetrated by the al-Qaeda linked terrorist groups armed and financed by the American administration itself. The massacres and war crimes of these terrorists had been very well documented by many organizations and third parties. They include mass execution of helpless citizens and captured soldiers , the rape of women and young boys and girls, the destruction of mosques and churches , the ethnic cleansing of sectarian groups , the burning alive of prisoners , the flesh-eating of corpses, the enlisting of children as soldiers, and many other war crimes, the latest, this Monday September 2 nd , was the mass beheading of 24 Kurdish bus passengers in Ras al-Ain including an infant before setting the bus on fire. These massacres were taking place during the last two years. Why didn’t Kerry (Kohn) remember them then? Why Now? What had suddenly awakened his sleeping conscious?

The use of chemical weapons is a heinous crime that deserves punishment as Zionist Vise President Biden has stated. The US has the worst documented record of using chemical and nuclear weapons that are considered the ugliest war crimes against humans and against mother earth. White phosphorous, another chemical weapon, and depleted uranium are more devastating weapons than sarin gas. Sarin gas kills individuals within few minutes or hours, while white phosphorous burns people through the flesh to the bare bones inflicting severe pain, and the DU deforms whole generations of people who would suffer for the rest of their lives.

Since the beginning of WWI the US has used the Puerto Rican island Vieques as a testing field for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons causing devastation to the inhabitants and to the environment. It was also reported that American troops were used as test subjects similar to what happened in nuclear testing in New Mexico in 1945.

The US had extensively used the chemical weapon of Agent Orange in its war in Vietnam devastating people as well as the environment. Generations of Vietnamese are still suffering from the effects of this weapon.

The US is the only country who used nuclear weapons causing a holocaust in Japan, whose ill effects are still suffered by Japanese new generations. Nuclear weapons in the form of depleted uranium were also extensively used in Iraq causing severe deformation and suffering to generations to come. The US had also used chemical weapons against civilians in Iraq in 2004 as can be evidenced   here ,  here ,  here ,  here , here , and   here . The documentary “ Fallujah: the hidden massacre” specifically examines the American use of white phosphorous chemical weapon against civilian residents of Fallujah in November 2004.

The US has financed trained and armed anti-Syrian terrorists and eventually backed a plan to launch chemical weapons attacks on Syrian civilians in order to frame Syrian in chemical weapons attack to spur international military action against the country. A leaked email exchange between two senior officials at the British-based military contractor Britam Defense; Britam’s Business Development Director David Goulding and company founder Philip Doughty, exposes a Qatari proposed deal, “approved by Washington” , for the company to deliver chemical weapons to anti-Syrian terrorist.

Israel, too, has a long record, since its inception, of using biological, chemical and nuclear weapons against Palestinians and against its Arab neighbors. According to the memoir of Moshe Dayan’s son, Assi, published in Yediot, Israel has ordered the use of chemical and biological weapons, namely typhus against Palestinians in 1948. In 1967 I, myself, witnessed the Israeli fighter planes dropping napalm bombs on Jordanian troops on the outskirt of Jerusalem a couple of miles away from my own home.

 

Israel used chemical and biological weapons against Palestinians most prominently in March 2001, October 2003, and June 2004 as investigated by these reports . Israel also used poison gas attacks against unarmed Palestinian civilians in Gaza in February 12, 2001. Israel had also used white phosphorous shells during Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009 against densely populated areas in Gaza as reported by Human Rights Watch . Israel had also used DU in its attack against Lebanon in 2006, and in its latest raids against Syrian military installation last July.

Israel maintains one of the most advanced biological and chemical weapons facility in the world at Ness Ziona . In September 1997 Israeli Mossad agents attempted to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshal by spraying chemical agents in his ears. In January 2011 Mossad agents, again, assassinated in Qatar the Palestinian activist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh by injecting him with chemical weapon before choking him. Israel is highly suspected of using nuclear poison in assassinating Yasser Arafat.

In March 2003 the BBC television presented the documentary “Israel’s Secret Weapon” investigating Israel’s development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

We should also mention here that Turkey had also used chemical weapons against its Kurdish citizens. In 1999 when head of Turkish Armed Forces, Necdet Ozel, was still the General Commander of the Gendarmerie, he was not only responsible for the death, torture and violence in the Kurdish region of Turkey, but he also ordered the use of chemical weapons against Kurdish fighters near the Ballikaya Village in Silopi, according to Turkish Radical newspaper.

When Ozel was appointed the head of Turkish Armed Forces in 2011 five members of parliament from Germany’s Die Linke party held a press conference in August of same year to condemn his appointment. Yet two months after Ozel’s appointment, 37 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters were killed in Kazan Valley of the Hakkari province during an operation by the Turkish Armed Forces. Presstv reported that accusations of use of chemical weapons during the operation prompted a European delegation to visit the area to investigate.

The Zionist-occupied American administration did not demand to bomb Israel or Turkey (or any other country that we did not mention here) as punishment for their use of chemical weapons. The overall picture, that we have to keep in mind, is that the US main goal is to protect the Zionist project of Greater Israel in the Middle East to become the center of the new world order by destroying every Arab resistance to this project, even if this requires the destruction of every Middle Eastern country in the process.

This Zionized American administration, with its Peace Prize winner President; Barak Hussein Obama, does not have the morality neither the legality to bomb Syria.

Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the “Nakba” of 1948 war during the first Zionist occupation of part of Palestine, then from Beitj-Jala after the “Nakseh” of 1967 war when Zionist Israeli military expansion occupied the rest of all Palestine. He is living now in exile in the US and publish articles on the web.

 

Joseph Camilleri

Published: September 3, 2013 – 9:55AM

The case for intervention in Syria is strangely reminiscent of the Iraq War. The planned US strike looks as if it rests on the same dubious logic. It could well have the same tragic consequences.

The British government has discovered the hard way that many of its people understand the troubling parallel. Not surprisingly, last Thursday the House of Commons firmly resisted government attempts to railroad it into giving the green light for a military strike.

Uncannily, Prime Minister David Cameron was following in the footsteps of Tony Blair. Like Blair he pressed the Obama administration to delay a strike until United Nations inspectors completed their investigation and until an attempt was made to get the necessary support from the UN Security Council.

Cameron’s failure to persuade enough of his parliamentary colleagues of the wisdom of this approach has given the international community breathing space and the US time to think again.

In deciding what to do about Syria the White House and the US Congress would do well to recall the prelude to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2013. The issue then as now was weapons of mass destruction.

A UN inspection team, headed by Hans Blix, was in Iraq investigating the situation but had yet to complete its investigation.

Having sought but failed to get authorisation from the UN Security Council, the Bush administration decided there was no point waiting any longer. The time had come to strike.

To gain international support for its decision the US produced evidence suggesting Saddam Hussein’s regime was developing – and possibly intending to use – weapons of mass destruction. Most experts and governments – and world public opinion – remained unconvinced.

And so it was that the US set out on a military adventure, based at best on shaky legal grounds.

Getting rid of Saddam proved the easy part. No WMD were found. But what was meant to be a limited intervention turned out to be a protracted one that left the US demoralised and Iraq in ruins.

Prolonged sectarian violence, which continues to this day, has generated a destabilising dynamic that now engulfs much of the Middle East.

Ten years later the Obama administration, with the support of a few European governments, is on the verge of embarking on a similarly ill-conceived expedition.

Last time it was Britain that bolstered an otherwise feeble coalition. This time the hope is that France will come to the party. Several Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan, have already indicated they oppose military intervention.

US Secretary of State John Kerry claims to have conclusive evidence that the Assad government has launched a chemical attack on its people, and argues that such actions must not go unpunished. Obama has spoken of a limited strike not aimed at regime change.

But what is the reality? The indications are that a chemical weapons attack did take place in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. But we know little about the chemicals used – though sarin gas has been mentioned frequently – the means of delivery or their provenance.

The US intelligence report released on Friday speaks of more than 1400 casualties – but this and other details given are asserted rather than demonstrated.

As for the sources of the evidence we are simply referred to general categories, much of it available on the public record, and generally regarded as less than conclusive.

As for motive, US policymakers remain remarkably silent. Why should Assad decide to use chemical weapons at a time when his forces are making considerable gains against the rebels? And why should he do it at the moment that UN inspectors are inside the country and within 10 minutes’ reach of the site of destruction?

And the possibility of one or other of the rebel groups acquiring such weapons has been all too easily dismissed. It is only three months since Carla del Ponte, a member of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria, announced she had “strong concrete suspicions” that rebels had used the nerve gas sarin.

The sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, which killed 13 people, severely injured 50 and caused temporary vision problems for nearly a thousand others, was the work of a small unaided cult group. One of the well organised and internationally supported rebel groups would, one assumes, be capable of inflicting much greater havoc.

With evidence that is still less than conclusive, Obama appears on the verge of repeating the mistakes of his predecessor – assuming he is able to persuade Congress to vote for the proposed strike.

If he does go ahead, he will, like Bush, be doing so on dubious legal grounds. Even if it is established that the Syrian army did carry out the chemical attack, the US is not under direct military threat – it is not therefore acting in self-defence. And, in the absence of UN Security Council authorisation, which will not be forthcoming, the “responsibility to protect” principle does not allow third parties to take matters into their own hands.

In any case, why not wait, at least for the UN inspection team to complete its report? Why discredit the credibility of its investigation before it has had a chance to submit its report.

The Syrian government claims it has given the UN inspectors clear evidence that it was not responsible for the attack. Why not wait to see what the inspectors make of such claims?

If it goes ahead, a US military strike on Syria will be the ninth Western military intervention in a Muslim country in 15 years. The gains thus far for peace and security have been negligible and the costs for the authors and victims of intervention nothing short of horrendous.

A US military foray into Syria will reopen Pandora’s box. What will the US do if, as seems likely, the planned “limited strike” fails to achieve its objective of intimidating Assad? In all probability, the US and its allies will be tempted to take additional military action, with incalculable consequences for Syria, and for regional and global security.

As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Pope Francis have stated in clear language, only a politically negotiated solution offers any prospect of peace in Syria and the reconstruction of that war-torn country.

An Australian government wishing to exercise the limited leverage afforded by membership of the Security Council would do well to press for this option in the difficult days and weeks ahead

Joseph Camilleri is Emeritus Professor, La Trobe University and founding director of the Centre for Dialogue.

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/us-risks-making-syria-another-iraq-20130902-2t0ya.html

By Prem Shankar Jha,

September 2, 2013, DHNs:

The US and France are about to unleash an attack upon Syria  that will open the way for 10,000 to 20,000 jihadis who form a ‘floating army of Islam’ to invade Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.

None of this seems to bother the Obama administration, because its purpose in destroying Syria, if we are to believe him and his Secretary of State, is to uphold a moral principle no matter what its political cost. This is not realpolitik, simply necessary punishment. But shouldn’t punishment follow conviction, and shouldn’t conviction be based on proof beyond reasonable doubt ? Even as the US readies for war two other far more plausible explanations have emerged for the alleged  gas attack. The first is what the Syrian government and many others are  asserting — that the rebels launched it to force Nato into the attack on Assad. The second is that it was an accident — a horrible consequence of a Machiavellian plan that went wrong.

The 1,300 word US intelligence assessment that the White House on August 30 added little to what he had said on the August 26. Its main contribution was to flesh out Assad’s possible motive for such a heinous act. “The regime has failed to clear dozens of Damascus neighbourhoods of opposition elements, including neighbourhoods targeted on August 21, despite employing nearly all of its conventional weapons systems. We assess that the regime’s frustration ….may have contributed to its decision. ”

On the surface this is not implausible. Dale Gavlak, an Amman-based correspondent of the Associated Press who speaks fluent Arabic, and is one of the very few western journalists to have visited the site of the atrocity, reported that the rebels told him they had built tunnels in which they hid from bombardments, stored their weapons and moved from one building to another, but would sleep in mosques and peoples’ house at night. So trying to penetrate the tunnels with gas would be a sound military, even though politically suicidal, strategy.

The assessment also describes the attack in greater detail. It “began at 2:30 am local time and within the next four hours there were thousands of social media reports from at least 12 different locations in the Damascus area. Among “multiple streams of intelligence” it specifically noted “the detection of rocket launches from regime controlled territory early in the morning, approximately 90 minutes before the first report of a chemical attack appeared in social media”.

Anomalies revealed

The report does not explain what it means by ‘detection’, or how many launches but the rebels uploaded at least one video which, they claimed, captured the launch of the chemical rocket. Repeated viewings of this video, however,  reveal several anomalies:

 

This video was shot at around 1.00 am. That meant that there was someone on a balcony looking towards the launch site at this unearthly hour with his phone, or a camera in hand. Could this be mere coincidence ?

 

The video starts four seconds before the rocket launch. That suggests the man knew when it would happen and had started shooting at the appointed time.

The video reveals that the man also knew the exact spot from which the rocket would rise, for when it rose, it was only slightly to the left of centre of his screen. By reflex, he corrected the camera angle to get it into the centre of the frame.

The time the sound took to follow the flash was between six and seven seconds. That placed the cameraman almost exactly a mile away from the launch site — an optimum safe distance for filming.

Contrary to the White House claim,  the rocket launch does not seem to have been a part of a salvo. The video is 34 seconds long and there is absolute silence the rest of the time.

Foreknowledge, if confirmed, will be conclusive proof that it was the rebels who launched this particular rocket. But there is another possible explanation. In the same article (August 29) Dale Gavlak and a young Jordanian colleague Yahya Ababneh, reported “from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the gas attack.”

“My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta. Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion”.

The conspiracy between the Saudi secret service, headed by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and the CIA has already been thoroughly exposed by the Wall Street Journal (August 25). Gavlak’s story therefore opens up a third possibility:  that the intense Syrian bombardment of the area (which began on August 19) penetrated a tunnel that was being used by Saudi backed jihadis to store chemical weapons supplied by Prince Bandar’s men. This would explain the panic heard in a high Syrian army official’s voice in the allegedly intercepted phone call that is the most concrete evidence that US sources have (unofficially) revealed.

Saudi supply of chemical weapons is not as far-fetched as it sounds, because on December 29 the London Daily Mail had published the hacked emails of a British ‘security contracting’ firm, Britam defence, which revealed that Qatar had offered it an ‘enormous’ sum of money to obtain a chemical warhead from Russian stock, ‘similar to what Syria has’, to supply to the rebels.

These disclosures show that there are at least two other explanations for the gas attack fatalities that are far more plausible than the one the Americans have chosen to believe.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/354924/a-saudi-conspiracy.html

 

 

By Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh

31 August, 2013

@ popular- resistance.blogspot.com

It is not difficult to understand the power-game being played in Syria and no decent human being should stand on the sideline in a conflict that will shape the future of our humanity.  The global intifada (uprising) is spreading and it is rejecting war and hegemony and now even President Obama is reeling under pressure.  It is an earthquake that is shaking the very foundation of post-WWII world order (what used to be referred to mistakenly as “the American century” when it was really the Zionist century).  The British, French and American public long exposed to Zionist propaganda have joined the revolution.  Politicians started to panic especially after the British parliament voted against war. This was the first major and stunning defeat to the US/Israel hegemony of British politics since WWII.

US President Obama was stuck after the British vote and the clear solid position of Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Russia, China and even overwhelming public opposion in the US despite the attempt to whip frenzy by Israel media stooges like Wolf Blitzer of CNN.   Obama was also stunned by what his own intelligence services told him about potential repercussions of a military strike on Syria especially without UN mandate and without US public support.  These repercussions included presence of strong defensive and offensive capabilities in Syria. There was intelligence leaks about downed “test” incursion. But repercussions discussed include strengthening rather than weakening Iran (after all, this is what happened after Iraq!).  President Obama spent countless hours talking with his Zionist and non-Zionist advisers and key government officials (there are no anti-Zionists in his group). Faced with no good option in trying to maintain Israel/US hegemony, Obama decided not to decide and shift the debate to Congress to buy time. Now it is up to the American people who overwhelmingly reject war on Syria to stand up and pressure the Israeli-occupied US congress to do what is good for US citizens not what they perceive to be good for Zionism.

The Russian president spoke of a number of key points that he called “common sense” while Obama just lied.  Russia and the US had agreed to the parameters of a political conference in which all sides were invited. Russia talked the Syrian government into attending this Geneva conference (even though most Syrians opposed a dialogue with Western backed thugs and Western backed mercenaries). Under Israeli pressure, the US administration started to rethink their agreement and their stooges announced they cannot join discussion with their opponents unless their opponents are defeated and surrender!  Syrian government forces then gained momentum against the Western and Israeli backed extremist rebels and cornered them in very few pockets.  Syria was opening up and international inspectors were coming.   Putin rightly points out that under such conditions: who has the benefit of using chemical weapons: the Syrian government or the rebels trying to provide excuses for Western defeat of a government they could not defeat themselves? It is common sense. Syria, Russia and China and all humanity ask logically: if the US has proof that the Syrian government used chemical weapons to attack its own people (including its own soldiers), then give us the proof. They rightly ask why the mandate of UN inspectors was  limited to only find out if they were used but not to explore who might have used them. After the lies Israeli and US intelligence concocted to go the war on Iraq, they now seem rather reluctant to manufacture evidence again.

Obama lied about many other things and perhaps the only part of his speech that touched on reality is when he admitted that he is part of a system and that he cannot make a decision by himself.  The military-industrial complex is now too entrenched in US politics for any president to challenge it.  In fact, no one would be allowed to become president if they were to have even a slight chance of potential to challenge it.  So Obama says: I am with the machine that was in place before I came to power and will always be with the machine.  By this he showed that his campaign retorhic about “change” was just what American call “bull-shit”.  That is why Obama is stuck.  When President Obama paid tribute to Martin Luther King Jr just a week ago, he was being hypocritical. King had famously said that the US is the greatest purveyor of violence on earth.  The US public can and must push Obama and Congress to change just like they pushed previous politicians to get civil rights, women’s right to vote, ending the war on Vietnam, ending US support for Apartheid South Africa and more.

The fact remains that the most destabilizing country in the Middle East is the one that receives unconditional billions of US taxpayer money. It is the state that caused millions of refugees and that introduced weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons to the Middle East.  It is the state that used white phosphorous and depleted uranium on civilian populations.  It is the state that started five wars and that lobbied successfully to ge the US to go to wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan that caused millions of lives lost and trillions of US taxpayer money spent. It is the state that fits all the criteria discussed in the International convention against the crimes of apartheid and racial discrimination.

The fact is that this latest Israel-inspired conflict is not about form of government in Syria. The US/Israel backed dictators in a dozen Arab countries are far, far worse than Bashar Assad of Syria. The fact remains that this is a clear attempt by the US through ist secretary of state under influence from the Zionist lobby and with the support of puppet rulers in the Arab world to liquidate the Palestinian cause.  The parameters of this are clear: liquidating Palestinian rights like the right of refugees to return to their homes and lands, limited Palestinian autonomy that Palestinian puppets can call a state in parts of the occupied West Bank in confederation with Jordan.  This will ensure the “Jewishness” of the apartheid state of Israel. Gaza would be relegated to Egyptian administration or continuing to manage it as one Israeli official said “by putting Gazan’s on a diet”.  To get this program through, resistance must be made to look futile.  Israel set-up a high-level ministerial committee to fight boycotts, divestment, and sanctions.  Israel told the US that the Hizballah-Syria-Iran axis must be destroyed. Potentially developing Arab countries will be broken up into sectarian and other conflicts (divide and conquer) beginning with Iraq.  They thought Syria is the next weak link that can be removed in the same way that Libya was disposed of. They underestimated the level of rejection to their demonic schemes of divide and conquer.

What happened actually is the opposite. A strengthening block evolved starting in Iran, Iraq and Palestine and spreading globally.  The counter-revolutionary efforts are failing and in some cases getting the opposite effect of unifying and strengthening resistance.  The attempts by some to ignite sectarian strife in Lebanon failed miserably.  The positions of China, Russia, Venezuela and other governments came to reflect the international consensus of resisting US/Israeli hegemony.  No human being and no government can claim neutrality.  Neutrality is rather meaningless when there is such an evel attempt to dominate the world for the benefit of just a few people at the expense of millions. The vast majority of people in all countries (Palestine, USA, Britain, France, Russia, China etc) stand on one side of this against the Zionist attempts to drag the world into yet one more destructive conflict.  Clearly a win here is a win for Palestine and a win for all people of the world.

Before we talk about democracy in Syria, we must respect the fact that the vast majority of people on earth insist that Western governments respect their own citizens’ will instead of trying to smother them or shape them with propaganda or bypass them to serve the Israel lobby.  Before we talk about democracy in Syria, we must end apartheid in Israel, and end the repressive regimes supported by the US especially those in the oil producing Arab countries.  Perhaps this is the reason gulf states are pouring billions to fund murderers in the so called “Syrian rebels” (most of them turn out to be mercenaries).  It is the same reason that Netanyahu and Obama are both very nervous.  When the US/Israel program of liquidating the Palestinian cause and destroying Syria fails (and it will), all bets are off.  People stand up to tyranny and stand up for human rights and that is why governments (US, Israeli, Saudi Arabia, Turkey etc) are starting to panic.  They do have good reason to worry because people power is coming and each of us must be part of it.  We ask you to join the global intifada which will liberate oppressors and oppressed alike and create a better world for all.

By Simon Barrow

30^th August, 2013

@http://www.ekklesia.co.uk

Having followed some six hours of the House of Commons debate on Syria yesterday (29 August), while channeling news, commentary and media requests for Ekklesia, it was evident to me that concern, questioning and scepticism were the dominant feelings being expressed.

Yes, there were tub-thumping speeches for military intervention by the likes of Sir Malcolm Rifkind and some of the less thoughtful back benchers on the government side. There were some strong declarations in the opposite direction from the left. But by far the most powerful interventions were by people like James Arbuthnot and Julian Lewis, Conservatives who could hardly be accused of being anti-war liberals, raising a host of questions about the propriety, legality, regional consequences and strategic sense of directly attacking the Assad regime.

David Cameron gave a confident performance, but it was style over substance: his case for moving down the military street – one that had been proceeding at breakneck speed only a few days ago – proved weak, uncertain and contradictory. He appealed to humanitarian motives (without explaining how Tomahawk cruise missiles are going to stop the cycle of atrocities), he talked about limited objectives (without spelling out what they might be), he invoked deterrence (it sounded more like wishful thinking), he spoke of “degrading chemical weapons capability” (without mentioning that a frontal attack on such facilities is out of the question) … and he endlessly reiterated how the sceptics were making “valid points”, how there were “no guarantees” about outcomes, and how “we cannot be 100 per cent certain” about who commissioned what happened around Damascus last week.

Opposition leader Ed Milliband’s message was for a pause, for proof and for perspective. But his speech was lacklustre, and his amendment offered no real alternative (unlike the rejected one by articulate Green MP Caroline Lucas). The Liberal Democrats vacillated to- and fro-, as usual. The SNP, Plaid and – tellingly – the Democratic Unionists made strong calls for restraint.

Mr Lewis set the bar necessarily high. First, was Assad responsible for the recent chemical attack “beyond reasonable doubt”? (It is hardly appropriate to go to war because it is “highly likely” that someone has done something), and he required that a military response should be based on specifiable, limited and realisable positive outcomes (the glaring hole in the government’s case).

The BBC also had a lacklustre day. It passed over some of the most telling interventions in its coverage, with political correspondent Nick Robinson falling in with the mistaken consensus that, despite moans, the government would narrowly win. The BBC website at first headlined Mr Cameron’s speech, ‘UK makes the case for Syria action’. This was entirely wrong. Polls that very morning had shown that the country was not just divided but mostly opposed, and the Prime Minister is not, in fact, the UK.

Meanwhile, Allegra Stratton, political editor of BBC Two’s Newsnight programme, seemed to think that the most powerful speeches had been pro- ones on the Tory side. One wondered which debate she had watched. A heart-rending account of a (non-chemical) attack on a Syrian school was shown immediately after reporting of the Commons debate, with Jeremy Paxman asking whether the House vote might have gone differently if MPs had seen it. In saying this, he and the Corporation’s frontline functionaries completely missed the central point: thoughtful parliamentarians were not unpersuaded of the brutality of the Assad regime. They were unpersuaded that military escalation would stop these appalling atrocities (or those of the jihadist wing of the armed opposition, for that matter), and they were concerned that missile strikes might actually make things worse for ordinary people in Syria and in the MENA region. That is why they voted as they did.

This was not an endorsement of Labour’s feeble amendment. That was lost too. The egg on Mr Miliband’s face is only less noticeable because there is so much more on Mr Cameron’s (and Mr Clegg’s, after a weak showing on Radio 4 Today in the morning, and an unpersuasive summing up). No, this vote was a severe question mark against the received tendency for Britain to act in the slipstream of the US (Mr Kerry’s response has made it clear, as had State Department spokeswomen Marie Harf (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/18914), that there is little concern for “other countries’ foreign policy”), and against the presumption that ‘action’ and ‘military action’ are necessarily synonymous.

That last point is vital. Almost all of those backing military intervention in Syria on the government benches, or among Lib Dem acolytes, addressed their remarks as if the only choice was and is between bombing, or else sitting around idly twiddling our thumbs. Labour MP Chris Bryant called the falsity of that one, but it was thereafter repeated again and again, indicating that the pro-military action camp was not listening and not learning. They were stuck in a mindset overshadowed by guns and bombs.

Mr Cameron knows that it is best not to kick yourself when you are down, and and he also knows how to play a populist card. He quickly responded to the unexpected turn of events with the “Parliament and the people have spoken” line — leaving Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, appallingly, to demean those who had voted against bombing as giving “succour” to the Syrian dictatorship, while Michael Gove stormed around like a spoilt child, calling Tories who had voted the “wrong way” a “disgrace, disgrace, disgrace.”

Mr Hammond also suggested that disillusion over the misrepresentations behind Mr Blair’s Iraq war (rightly termed a political failure, not just an intelligence one, by one Conservative MP) had “poisoned the well” of public opinion. Equating a desire not to go to war recklessly with “poison” is a potent illustration of just how far removed from humane reality some of the advocates of military strikes are in this matter, and why their arguments were robustly scrutinised and ultimately rejected last night.

But does this vote presage a larger change in UK or western policy? It is significant, certainly. But in the immediate aftermath of unexpected political events, exaggerations about change can take hold too rapidly. Over the next few days, the status quo ante will do its best to reassert itself in the shape of more political manoeuvring by the pro-intervention camp. Every development in Syria will be accompanied by an “I told you so” (presupposing that a missile attack would put it all right). If the US goes ahead with an armed response despite the UK vote and lack of endorsement from the UN Security Council, which is probable but not certain, we will be told that the Commons vote “made no difference”. The line will be pursued that “this was really a vote against the Iraq war, not a Syrian one”. And so on.

Despite such smokescreens, there should be no doubting the importance of this Commons vote, however. It shows that it is possible for a parliament to resist the drums of war (for the first time in living memory). It exposes, one way or another, the archaism of the ‘Royal prerogative’. And most important of all, it opens up the opportunity for a different course and a different policy to be developed.

That is the real challenge. Voting against a bad option is one thing. Constructing a better way forward is quite another, and it requires a continuing shift in temperament, perspective and political aptitude to achieve. A ‘steep learning curve’, in the current jargon. For the gaping void between inaction and military adventurism needs urgently to be filled. We now require moves towards, and backing for, a regional conference (more likely a series of them) in search of political and diplomatic solutions – ones coming from the Middle East itself, not ones imposed from outside. Russia and Iran need to be engaged seriously, despite the difficulties and compromises that involves. The International Criminal Court must be activated more fully in relation to war crimes and atrocities committed by the government and by asymetric armed opposition groups. Further action is needed on the MENA refugee crisis, and on supporting Syrian refugees in Britain (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/18949). Demilitarisation and negotiation, rather than sabre-rattling and arms sales, has to be taken seriously as the real realpolitik. The idea that those with the biggest arsenals (or vetos) should automatically be the world’s moral arbiters has to be ditched, in favour of radical reform within our international institutions and processes.

Meanwhile, civic organisations, faith groups and NGOs need to go on pressing the case for nonviolent methods of conflict transformation and intervention, no matter how far removed they may seem from current perceptions of what reality is. There are alternatives. A huge amount of work has gone into them over the past 25 years. But these different ways of responding require a renewed political imagination, a wider civil influence, a different calculation of the odds, and a much larger, more adaptable skill-set to bring to them to fruition. Getting a parliament to vote against militarism as the “in principle” answer to calumny and tragedy is one thing. Stopping that deadly ghost from re-entering the building by introducing new thinking and action into the equation is a much bigger task.

(c) Simon Barrow is co-director of Ekklesia. Follow him on Twitter @simonbarrow

By Pepe Escobar

29 August, 2013

@ Russia Today

Only a few days before the 12th anniversary of 9/11, Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama might be fighting side by side with… al-Qaeda, as he was foolish enough to be trapped by his own rhetoric on Syria.

The dogs of war bark and the caravan… is Tomahawked. Amid out-of-control hysteria, the proverbial “unnamed US officials” spin like demented centrifuges.

Obama’s “kinetic operation” on Syria will fall out of the sky “in the next few days.” It will be “limited,” lasting only “three days,” or “no more than two days.” It will “send a message,” a “short, sharp attack” against less than 50 sites on a list of targets.

But then long-range bombers may “possibly” join the Tomahawk barrage, and all bets are off.

A proverbial, anonymous “senior administration official” even stressed the “desire to get it done before the president leaves for Russia next week.”

That’s it; we bomb a country like dialing a pizza delivery, and then we go to a G20 summit with the world’s emerging powers hosted by no less than Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Just because we need to prove that the president of the United States meant what he said: chemical weapons are a red line. And to hell who’s responsible for deploying them.

I’m not making this up. This is the core of White House spokesman Jay Carney’s message, when he said, in faultless Newspeak: “The options that are being considered do not contain within them a regime change focus.”

So the administration of “constitutional lawyer” Barack Obama is mulling how to attack Syria, bypassing the UN Security Council – which will veto, via Russia and China, the new resolution proposed by the UK; bypassing always-docile NATO; and with 91 percent of Americans against it, just to send an (explosive) political message. And all because a US president was foolish enough to get trapped in his own rhetoric.

Remember Iraq?

Call it a 10th anniversary special: it’s Iraq 2003 all over again.

The attack dog presumably in charge of the Obama administration war brigade is Secretary of State John Kerry. Here, Gareth Porter thoroughly debunks Kerry’s game – and lies. No wonder Kerry’s “Powell moment” has gone viral – as in “deceived” Colin Powell in his infamous February 2003 UN presentation telling the world Saddam Hussein had tons of WMDs. Unlike Powell though, Kerry knows exactly what he’s doing.

The White House promises a “revelation” from above this Thursday, “above” being the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Yet the heart of the matter is that the UN chemical inspectors have had no time to identify what sort of chemical weapon is involved in the Ghouta attack (sarin or something else); where it was manufactured; how it was delivered (possibly by DIY rockets); and last but not least, who did it.

It’s imperative to remember that Russia presented an 80-page report last month to the UN Security Council detailing serious evidence about the “rebels” being behind the March 19 attack in Khan al-Assal. That’s why the inspectors are in Syria now. So the Obama administration is lying when it insists that it’s “too late” for the inspectors to investigate the latest attack.

This time though, Russia may not have collected enough evidence; it’s too early. Otherwise Ambassador Vitaly Churkin would be talking to the press, like he did last month.

These investigations take time. And the results cannot be fixed around the policy.

‘Fixing’ the facts

Let’s follow a track that is much more plausible than Washington’s official narrative.

Israeli intelligence has leaked to a Kuwaiti newspaper that Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Benny Gantz handed over to his good pal US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey “documents and pictures” as evidence of the Syrian government’s culpability. Arguably, this will be the core of the White House “revelation” this Thursday.

The evidence points to rockets launched from a “Syrian army post near Damascus” – which Finnish researcher Petri Krohn, currently conducting a meticulous investigation, conclusively placed as occupied by the “rebels” since June.

Add to it the Defense Ministry in Baghdad, one month ago, dismantling an Al-Qaeda cell in Iraq that was planning to launch attacks in Iraq and “abroad,” as in Syria, using chemical weapons.

According to Iraqi national security advisor Faleh al-Fayyadh, Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria) would have free access to these chemicals.

So here we have all the elements of a sophisticated false flag operation. Jabhat al-Nusra jihadis, mostly mercenaries, connected to al-Qaeda in Iraq, but with no connection with Syrian civilians, including women and children, use an area formerly occupied by the Syrian army to launch a chemical attack – perhaps using chlorine – under the cover of a Syrian offensive (admitted by the government). The offensive was codenamed “Operation City Shield.” Damascus had solid intel about scores of “rebels” trained by the CIA and the Saudis in Jordan converging to the area and planning a massive attack on the capital.

Then there is Saudi intel tsar Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush’s threat to President Putin in their notorious four-hour meeting earlier this month: The military solution is the only one left for Syria. Bandar, a master of the dark arts, is in charge of “winning” Syria to the House of Saud by all means available, chemical or otherwise.

Any serious UN chemical weapons inspector would be following this lead as we speak. They might not – because of US political pressure (as in “It’s too late”). They might not because Washington wants the inspections over barely after they started – as in a lightning quick remix, once again, of Iraq 2003; fixing the facts around the policy.

Deconstructing Obama’s game

So we have to come back to the policy – as in “we bomb because we want to.” What exactly is Obama’s game?

Tel Aviv’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, as I reported earlier, badly wants Washington to attack Syria’s chemical weapons sites – regardless of possible, horrible, “collateral damage”, not to mention the possibility of al-Qaeda-linked jihadi outfits taking control of some of them.

Israel’s agenda is Syria bleeding in total chaos for the foreseeable future. Which is not the same as the House of Saud’s agenda: regime change. Which is not the same as the Obama administration’s agenda. At face value, it’s regime change, but Plan B calls for “leveling the playing field,” and that melts into the Israeli agenda.

As for President Obama, establishing a hazy “red line” with no context, just to appease clueless but influential neo-cons, not to mention the liberal hawks/humanitarian interventionists that surround him, and without regard for the consequences; this has to be construed as criminal irresponsibility.

Granted, Obama’s IQ in theory would equip him to know that yet another war of choice in the Middle East is the last thing he needs. At the same time, when we look at his record, we know he doesn’t have the balls to confront the awesome War Party Hydra – also featuring the mini-coalition of the willing, ranging from nostalgic opportunists such as Britain and France to cold-blooded actors pursuing their specific agendas, like Israel and the House of Saud.

And all this after Obama announced he would weaponize the “rebels” – in fact that’s been going on for ages, now fully supervised by Bandar Bush. The infinitely fractious rebel gangs have fractioned even further into sub-gangs of looters and assassins, with the more organized jihadis promising that after the Ghouta attack, they will kill any Alawite in sight.

Obama knows these are bit players; the only factor that can deliver another one of his red lines – “Assad must go” – is a US military attack. Crucially, Assad also knows it; that’s why the notion that Assad would sanction a chemical weapons attack is beyond ludicrous.

So if we take the Obama administration at their word – at our own peril – they couldn’t care less about who deployed chemical weapons. Yet at the same time they don’t want regime change. They want a bombing to fulfill a “moral obligation,” and to boost Washington’s horrendously shattered “credibility.” American exceptionalists are even carping on “purity of intent” – as if purity was inherent to cold-blooded, hardcore geopolitical power play.

Both US and Israel assume they have perfect intel – as in knowing exactly where all of Syria’s chemical weapons are stored. Yet if anything could go wrong, it will. We all thought that the “war on terror” could not be topped as a meaningless concept. Wrong: meet the “war on chemical weapons.”

Amid all the hysteria, we’re not even talking about a counterpunch from Damascus itself, Hezbollah, Iran or, crucially, Russia. Moscow and Tehran are playing the chessboard like ninjas – as they clearly see the possibility of Washington being bogged down in a net of its own. All it takes would be a single Onyx SS-N-25, also known as Super-Sunburn SS-22, the fastest hypersonic anti-shipping missile in the world – which is part of Syria’s arsenal – to sink a US warship. Then what? Shock and Awe all over again?

So if we take the White House at its word, this “limited” kinetic whatever will end in a couple of days. Or it could spiral into something more hellish than Iraq 2003. And then, the clincher; only a few days before the 12th anniversary of 9/11, Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama is fighting side by side with… al-Qaeda. Why? Because, together, they can.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.

By Thomas Gaist & Alex Lantier

29 August, 2013

@ WSWS.org

Washington’s campaign to justify war against Syria is disintegrating, as it becomes ever clearer that the war is illegal, and that Washington has no evidence to back up charges that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime used chemical weapons in Ghouta. Despite press reports of an imminent US-NATO attack, US and British officials suggested yesterday that they might delay launching the war.

There is rising concern inside the political establishment about how to package a war in Syria modeled on the hated 2003 invasion of Iraq. Again, Washington and London are moving to launch a war based on lies about weapons of mass destruction and without legal sanction from the UN Security Council—that is, in violation of international law.

Even before war has begun, Obama administration officials are in disarray. In a PBS television interview last night, Obama attempted to back away from threats of an imminent attack: “We have not yet made a decision, but the international norm against the use of chemical weapons needs to be kept in place. If we are saying this in a clear and decisive but very limited way, we send a shot across the bow saying, stop doing this; that can have a positive impact on our national security over the long term.”

Obama’s claim that his administration has not decided to move against Assad is an absurd lie. Washington has called for Assad’s overthrow for over a year, while the CIA massively armed Al Qaeda-linked Islamist opposition militias against his regime.

A senior US official contradicted Obama yesterday, telling NBC that US moves toward intervention in Syria are “past the point of no return,” and that strikes will be launched in days.

Obama is also encountering opposition to his attempt to launch a war without a vote in Congress, in violation of the US Constitution. A petition signed by 111 House lawmakers, 94 Republicans and 17 Democrats, warns that this would “violate the separation of powers.” The petition asks that Congress be reconvened so it can back the war and “share the burden of decisions made regarding US involvement in the quickly escalating Syrian conflict.”

Yesterday the British Conservative-Liberal Democrat government retreated from its intention to take a vote today supporting war with Syria. With public support for war hovering in polls between six and nine percent and predictions of mass anti-war protests, as well as disagreements within the military and even the government, the opposition Labour Party declared that it would not support direct action by UK forces without a further vote in the Commons.

To provide a fig-leaf for its support for war, Labour insisted that the United Nations Security Council must be allowed to consider a report from weapons inspectors charged with investigating the alleged chemical weapons attack and that “every effort should be made to secure a Security Council Resolution backing military action before any such action is taken.”

The UN has said that it will be at least four days before inspectors are able to finish their work in Syria.

The motion will now leave the door open for intervention, asking MPs to agree the principle that a “strong humanitarian response” is required from the international community that “may, if necessary, require military action that is legal, proportionate and focused on saving lives by preventing and deterring further use of Syria’s chemical weapons”

The fact that the US and Britain embarked on such reckless and unpopular policies—first arming Islamist opposition militias against Assad, then moving to illegally attack Syria—testifies to the fact that they are indifferent to public opinion. With their repeated, inflammatory statements, Obama and Cameron have staked their political authority on this war. They will seek at all costs to proceed with it, despite its unpopularity and rising international pressure.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov charged this week that Washington had no proof to back up its allegations that Assad’s forces gassed Syrian civilians in Ghouta. “They cannot produce evidence, but keep on saying that the ‘red line’ has been crossed and they cannot wait any longer,” he said, pointing out that “the use of force without the sanction of the UN Security Council is a crude violation of international law.”

Concerned that the Obama administration is undermining the credibility of the UN by pressing for war before inspectors have even investigated Ghouta, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon pleaded yesterday: “The team needs time to do its job. Give peace a chance; give diplomacy a chance, stop fighting and start talking.”

Obama administration officials have told the UN to call off the inspectors, however. According to the Wall Street Journal, the administration told Ban that UN inspectors’ efforts in Syria were “pointless.” CNN reported Wednesday that “US officials are all but telling United Nations inspectors in Syria to get out of the way.”

Washington clearly does not want the truth about what happened in Ghouta to come out. The chemical weapons incident itself could have been manufactured by US intelligence, in an operation aiming to provide the pretext for war. Since the middle of this month, the areas near the chemical incident have been flooded with CIA-trained militants led by US, Israeli, and Jordanian commandos.

Previous UN investigations found the US-backed rebels responsible for other chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

State and media propaganda maintains that US attack plans are a limited response to violations of international law by Assad. These claims, dutifully disseminated by a state-controlled media, are lies intended to disorient the public. The objective of the planned US strikes is to kill Assad and cripple his military, thus changing the balance of power inside Syria between the Assad regime and US-backed Islamist opposition militias.

The US offensive is based on a carefully prepared plan to destroy the Syrian regime’s military capability. According to CNN, “there is no indication that the missiles would target stockpiles of chemical weapons.” In fact, strikes against “military command bunkers” and airfields are being planned.

The US is moving significant forces into the region, including at least one nuclear submarine and four destroyers in the Mediterranean, and two aircraft carriers in the western Indian Ocean. Together with the British build-up of fighter-bombers and military equipment on nearby Cyprus, these deployments make clear that claims in the media that the Syrian war would be a limited pinprick operation are lies. The US and its allies are preparing devastating attacks that will kill thousands and savage Syria’s infrastructure.

The offensive by the US and its allies threatens to unleash a far broader regional and even global war. US hawks and military planners have pushed for war and “regime change” against Syria for a decade, aiming to clear the way for an attack on US imperialism’s main regional target, Iran, and set the stage for a US confrontation with Russia and China.

Iran has responded to the war threats by warning that attacks will be launched against Israel in retaliation. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi said: “We want to strongly warn against any military attack in Syria. There will definitely be perilous consequences for the region. These complications and consequences will not be restricted to Syria. It will engulf the whole region.”

On Wednesday, apparently in response to the statements from Iran, Israel mobilized reservists and bolstered its missile defenses.

 

Egypt at the Rubicon

By Ranjan Solomon*

Egypt has refused to stop stunning the world for multiple reasons from the beginning of history. Ancient Egypt was a Northeastern Africa civilization, reaching the lower stretches of the River Nile in what is now modern Egypt. Egyptians in early times engaged in vocations that resulted in the epic pyramids and temples, even a system of mathematics, a practical and valuable system of medicine and agricultural production techniques, the first known ships, glass technology, and new forms of literature. Egyptian antiquities were taken to far flung places in the world. Its grand ruins have stirred the thoughts of travelers and writers for centuries. Sadly, this great nation has now achieved notoriety in recent weeks for the political convulsions that have killed and maimed tens and thousands of people.

In 2011 Egyptians joined other parts of the Arab world in abandoning decades of intimidation from dictatorships that ruled with no deference to popular wishes. With the mass protests in Tahrir Square in 2011 which drove out strongman Hosni Mubarak, Egypt was seen as a progressive place; where young activists were viewed as models for a new kind of twenty-first-century mobilization. A country once thought off as being politically stagnant inaugurated an era of rapid political transformation that captured the attention of the world. Democracy became the password and the people seemed to find a natural instinct to make things work according to their will. The ‘Arab Spring’ that offered hope for a new vision and system of governance has now given way to a summer of discontent.

Mohamed Morsi, a politician from the Muslim Brotherhood became the fifth and first democratically elected President of Egypt. During the 13 months when he held power, he began to assert his independence from western-imposed economic stereo types, even snubbing the IMF labeling their loans as being out of line with ‘Islamic finance’. The boldness indicated a line of thinking that defied the lure of easy finance and intent to depart from earlier economic policies. Morsi instead lauded the proposal for the establishment of a BRICS bank that would “support countries to achieve high growth rates and supplement the role of the IMF, World Bank and similar institutions”. He intended for Egypt to join BRICS once its own economy gets back on track.

Morsi had inherited an economy that relied heavily on USAID and drew instructions from the World Bank and the IMF and was clearly all set to assert Egypt’s distinct place and profile on the face of global economics and politics.

Somewhere the Morsi dream went erroneous. Morsi had to contend with a rotten system in which foreign powers that cared little or nothing for Egypt, propped-up Ehud Mubarak, a dummy of the West, at the expense of supporting and building democratic institutions in the country. But Morsi himself adopted political patterns of decision making that angered people. The vision of democracy collapsed in just over a year when Morsi chose to adopt dictatorial trends sparking off massive protests against his rule. He may have been under the weight of irrational expectations from people who had wanted him to reverse the corrupt practices of the previous era which had preferred the elite and their ‘crony economics’ in record time. To bring visible change in the conditions of the majority of the urban and rural poor within a year was a perverse expectation. Yet, rather than build a consensus and dialogue when protests occurred, Morsi chose a model of ruling by decree

In November 2012, Morsi had decreed greater authorities for him and effectively neutralized a judicial system that had emerged as a key opponent of his by declaring that the courts are barred from challenging his decisions. An Associate Press report points to how “Riding high on U.S. and international praise for mediating a Gaza cease-fire, Mohammed Morsi put himself above oversight and gave protection to the Islamist-led assembly writing a new constitution from a looming threat of dissolution by court order.

It stirred public alarm that his Muslim Brotherhood was confiscating excessive political power for himself as President and neutralizing the newly won democratic rights of the people. One of Morsi’s decrees gave him the power to take “due measures and steps” to deal with any “threat” to the revolution, national unity and safety or anything that obstructs the work of state institutions. Morsi embedded his actions in the dubious arguments that “he had to act to save the country and protect the course of the revolution.” The decrees were dubbed as being dictatorial and with the potential to create more political rifts in a nation already reeling from months of turmoil. Some even argued that Morsi’s steps exceeded the powers once enjoyed by Mubarak. When mass protests erupted and gained momentum, Morsi acted in defiance of the sentiment on the street. The street was packed with pro and anti Morsi supporters.

Two years of political upheaval formed the backdrop to the latest violence. When democracy was inaugurated in 2012 and Mr. Morsi won the presidency in what was considered a free and fair contest. Mubarak supporters seemed hell-bent on not giving him a chance and called for swift results. They initiated a movement to oust the government for its failures. The military gave Morsi an absurd time-bound ultimatum to quell the protest by acting on the demands of the street. Then, they unilaterally seized power in a coup that flouts all norms of democracy and governance by the will of the people. Morsi’s enemies, of course, endorse the coup seeing in it, a chance for their own preferred people to access power.

Western nations with their usual standards of double speak were reluctant to call it for what it is – a plain and brutal coup. The United States remains disinclined to call the Egyptian military’s overthrow of Morsi a coup, even though the interim government has now named generals to 19 of the country’s 25 provincial governor positions. Naming it a coup would mean that $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid would have to be cut off. That’s not likely to happen since the money is used to pay U.S. companies that manufacture tanks and planes for Egypt. Besides if the US were to lose control and influence over the Egyptian army, it would be losing yet another sphere of influence in the region where its influence is already on the wane. Obama’s speech calling on the withdrawal of emergency regulations etc appears to be more rhetoric than intended to send a stern warning. A White House statement said the interim government should “respect human rights.” Small wonder that US attempts to serve as mediator have failed to find claimants on both sides! The EU is no better. They have called for “restraint” and described it all as “extremely worrying.” That translates into nothing!

Qatar condemned the coup chiefly because it was funding the Morsi presidency. The Islamic Action Front, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, encouraged Egyptians to keep protesting to “thwart the conspiracy” of Mubarakites from the former regime. Turkey called for the UN Security Council and the Arab League to act quickly to stop a “massacre” and Iran rightly warned of the risk of civil war. If all is fair in love and war, the winners will collect their awards. They include Saudi Arabia; Israel since they will be the Egyptian army is a safer bet than the Brotherhood). Pentagon,

The Egyptian military has shown zero tolerance for protest choosing instead to brutally suppress those who dare resist their usurping of power. There have been too many deaths and even the most conservative approximations of numbers dead and injured are daunting. Estimates ranging from the low hundreds (the “interim government”) to at least 4,500 (the Muslim Brotherhood), including at least four journalists and the 17-year-old Asmaa, daughter of top Muslim Brotherhood politician Mohamed El Beltagy.

The state of emergency, and harm to the Egyptian economy, particularly tourism, continues rapidly. They must go back to the barracks. They have no mandate and it is more-than-obvious that the coup has neither legitimacy nor wide backing. Broad-based coalitions of people have condemned the coup although the mainstream media manages to obfuscate this fact and, instead, focus on the violence.

As Pepe Escobar the Brazilian investigative journalist in his article ‘Bloodbath That Is Not A Bloodbath’: Why Egypt Is Doomed says: “Egypt’s ‘bloodbath that is not a bloodbath’ has shown that the forces of hardcore suppression and corruption reign supreme, while foreign interests – the House of Saud, Israel and the Pentagon – support the military’s merciless strategy…There’s no other way of saying it; from Washington’s point of view, Arabs can kill each other to Kingdom Come, be it Sunnis against Shiites, jihadists against secularists, peasants against urbanites, and Egyptians against Egyptians. The only thing that matters is the Camp David agreements; and nobody is allowed to antagonize Israel.”

Accusations of killing Christians and destruction of churches have resonated around the world and alarm bells have sounded. Morsi’s supporters point the finger of blame on other factions and, until a full investigation happens, one will never get to the truth. But, a Facebook image of Muslims was heartening- it shows Muslims lined up holding hands to protect Catholic Christians during mass in Egypt. Even more uplifting was the image of a Coptic Pope Tawadros II and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Mosque who stood side by side to proclaim that Muslims and Christians of Egypt are sisters and brothers and will unite to protect Christian properties and rebuilding churches.

Muslims guarding a church during a mass (catholicglasses.com)

The civil war is on at full blast. For peace and political reconciliation to be achieved, the violence must end. Justice and justice alone can be the foundation of such squaring off between all parties. Mubarak has been freed and is on house arrest. This kind of rank disregard for political propriety is going to swell the crisis. It illustrates contempt for the will of the people who overthrew an utterly corrupt and compliant dictator who has blood of the Egyptian street on his hands.  The military is brazenly trying to resurrect what was discarded barely two years ago in a truly popular revolution. Worse, the military is assessing whether it should or not ban the Muslim brotherhood. They have announced their intent to arrest the spiritual leader of the brotherhood. The Egyptian General Amr has even crudely suggested that he is geared up to direct operations that would virtually use six months to liquidate or imprison the entire brotherhood. The latter steps would further split the nation and spell disaster. It could mean that the violence could spiral out of control.

Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood have failed to be a viable alternative to the Mubarak rule, but that is not license for a throwback to dictatorship of any form. Democracy must take root and, as the anti-Morsi protests reveal, it is gaining deep roots. People are unequivocally saying enough of misrule by politicians. They are claiming a say in their self-governance, desire accountability, results, and refuse to be silenced into submission when they see these become inaccessible.

If all else fails, Egyptians will be compelled to bear the consequences of the follies of the leaders and the manipulations of the international community. It would bring pain and more tragedy for the already anguished people of Egypt.

A new Egypt must emerge and that future must materialize in a mediated settlement. The military must go and the emergency must be withdrawn. If Morsi must go, then a democratic process must define the pathway for his exit. External powers- especially the US must be kept at bay even though it would itch to get a toe-hold in. Israel, the EU and other powers must also recognize that their will cannot be imposed from the outside. New and more reliable mediators must step in to restore democracy. Morsi himself will need to relent and withdraw measures which will bring back normalcy and begin to rule by consensus not with narrow and parochial interests in mind, but with an entire Egyptian aspiration under consideration.

*Ranjan Solomon, is Executive Director, Badayl-Alternatives,an international consulting agency whose mission is to support NGOs and Civil Society groups around the world that wish to effect authentic and insightful changes in global society. He works closely on the ‘Question of Palestine’ with Palestine solidarity and justice networks.

By Eric Draitser

@ RT.com

29 August, 2013

As America marks the 50th anniversary of a landmark speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, it’s fitting to ask the most important question: has the ‘dream’ of a just society built upon a foundation of morality and equality actually been fulfilled?

Or is it merely a collective delusion that all must accept?

Dr. King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, before the assembled masses on that summer day in 1963 as the United States slowly but surely charted a course for war in Vietnam.  He stirred the emotions of black Americans with his talk of freedom and brotherhood while overt and institutionalized racism in its myriad insidious forms was still the dominant force, not only in the South, but throughout the country.

He spoke of “the fierce urgency of now” at a time when the country was divided by race, class, and generation. King sought to lay out a vision of a better America and a better world while grounding his words in the harsh realities of the urban ghetto, the rural sharecropper, and the labor of the black worker.

And yet, while referring to the founding fathers and the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation, King never lost sight of the fact that his role was not simply as a man who delivered stirring speeches or led marches deemed ‘acceptable’ by the ruling establishment. Rather, he understood perhaps better than anyone that his responsibility to his people and to all people in the US and beyond, was to speak the truth with righteous indignation, and to rail against inequality and injustice in all its forms.

As the political establishment in the United States marks this momentous anniversary, it is simultaneously planning to rain death and destruction on the people of Syria. As the first black president, described by many delusional sycophants as being the “inheritor of the legacy of Dr. King,” continues to serve the interests of Wall St. and the military-industrial complex at the cost of the poor and most defenseless in society, it is fitting to re-examine King’s words in a critical light.

More than merely examining what King said, it is incumbent upon all those who today are on the same quest for peace and justice that he was on, to come together and ask the most important question: What would King say if he saw what this country has become?

The US clergyman and civil rights leader Martin Luther King addresses, 29 March 1966 in Paris’ Sport Palace the militants of the “Movement for the Peace”. (AFP Photo)

The US clergyman and civil rights leader Martin Luther King addresses, 29 March 1966 in Paris’ Sport Palace the militants of the “Movement for the Peace”. (AFP Photo)

The dream unfulfilled

As King climbed to the podium to deliver his now famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, the symbolism of the location was not lost on him or anyone else in the crowd. That he would be delivering his speech in front of the monument to ‘The Great Emancipator’ was more than fitting because he had no intention of simply glorifying the struggle since slavery. Instead, King set out to point out the stark realities of life in the so-called ‘land of the free’.

King said,

“One hundred years [after the Emancipation Proclamation] the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still badly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. So we’ve come here today to dramatize this shameful condition.”

King was not simply describing the material or social conditions of Black America, he was illuminating the inescapable fact that the inequality that all black people knew and understood as second nature was systemic, that it was built into the fabric of the institutions of the country and of society. This fact is all the more crucial today as black Americans experience record unemployment, mass incarceration, and a new and insidious Jim Crow structure which sees blacks as little more than violent criminals and cash cows for the for-profit prison industry.

What would King say when faced with the painful reality demonstrated by the Pew Research study which shows that black unemployment is nearly double that of white Americans?  Considering the fact that most economists acknowledge that the government’s statistics are considerably lower than the reality, one can see that joblessness among African-Americans is not just a problem, it is an epidemic.

As King arrived in Memphis in April 1968, not knowing that he would never leave that city alive, the main thing on his mind was to help, in whatever way he could, black sanitation workers in their quest for fair treatment and decent working conditions. It should not be lost anyone that King was always the first to side with labor, unlike President Obama, the alleged “inheritor of King’s legacy,” who has done everything in his power to crush working people in Wisconsin, Michigan, Chicago, and all over the country.

As a man of the cloth, King often spoke of justice for he believed in the true values of his Christian faith and the values purported to be the foundation of the United States – the Constitution. In calling for justice, however, there was the implication of all the injustices he and his people endured every day: injustices that seemed to simply be ‘the way it is’.

King said:

“We have come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now…Now is the time to make justice a reality for all God’s children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment…No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

And how would King react if, after delivering that emotionally charged appeal, he were told that the so-called criminal justice system of the United States is the most robust in the world, making the US by far the world’s foremost police state?

With only 5 percent of the world’s population, the US has 25 percent of the world’s prison population – numbers against which China, Russia, and all other countries pale by comparison. Knowing that the prison population is disproportionately black and brown only lends credence to the notion that, contrary to King’s dreams, justice has most certainly not become a reality for ‘all God’s children’. And, once again, the first black president is silent.

And when King spoke of his dreams for future generations of black and white children “sitting together at the table of brotherhood,” could he have imagined that that table would be brought to you by a charter school in a privatized public education system that disproportionately impacts communities of color while leaving affluent white schools mostly untouched? And would he be outraged that the first black president not only supported the privatization process, but presided over it? Would he demand that, rather than adulation at having a black man in the White House, that people should unite to stop this insidious and racist policy that benefits financiers at the cost of teachers and urban communities?

However, on this auspicious anniversary that is being treated as a victory parade for America while millions of working people are thrown out of their homes, laid off from their jobs, and made into little more than temporary workers beholden to the rich, we should remember that King’s vision was not a uniquely American vision. Rather, King saw in the struggle of his own people, that of the poor and marginalized around the world. To King, a black child in Mississippi was a Vietnamese child on the other side of the world. A young mother in Birmingham was a young mother in Ghana. And a man beaten on the streets of Harlem was a man beaten on the streets of Durban.

King the anti-imperialist

One of the most painful realities of contemporary discourse on King is the way in which he has been ‘sanitized’ by the power structure, robbed of his revolutionary spirit and indomitable anti-imperialism. For, at the core of King’s beliefs was the idea of justice. And how could there possibly be justice for his people when there was injustice and suffering on an unimaginable scale being perpetrated by his own country around the world? King could not possibly ignore the inherent hypocrisy of separating the struggle for equality in the US with the struggle for peace around the world. In his now legendary speech ‘Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence’ at Riverside Church in Harlem, on April 4th, 1967, King said:

 

“I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without first having spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent…Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over.”

Despite being an internationally-renowned civil rights leader, a Nobel Prize winner, and one of the most famous figures in the world, King spoke out. He took an unpopular position against the imperialist policies of the United States in Vietnam and, in doing so, separated himself from the so-called ‘moderates’ in his own camp who feared breaking with the Johnson administration that had, after all, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And yet, that was secondary for King, who understood that the quest for justice was not a political quest, but a moral one. He eschewed politics in favor of justice and truth.

King’s words could not ring truer today as the first black president sits in the Oval Office preparing for war against Syria, preparing to again cause the deaths of untold numbers of innocents half a world away solely because of America’s perceived ‘strategic interests’ and in the name of ‘humanitarianism’. King would speak out against not only Obama, but all those who enable him: those politicians, religious leaders, and influential personalities who prostrate themselves before power, just hoping for a chance at being ‘on the inside’.

Likewise, he would condemn all the so-called ‘liberals’ who claimed to oppose wars when they were initiated by George Bush and his right-wing, white Republican machine, but who are eerily quiet or downright enthusiastic about wars initiated by the first black president and his Democrat advisers. King would rightly call them hypocrites and impediments on the path to peace. He would not be concerned by their posture as ‘left liberals’ for, to King, labels did not matter, only actions. In his famous ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’, King wrote:

“I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice…Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

The ‘moderates’ of King’s day are today called ‘liberals’, but his analysis is as true today as it was then. The so-called liberals who are more devoted to ‘humanitarianism’ than peace, the war-making doctrine of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ more than the responsibility to love. Yes, King would attack all those who, under the guise of liberalism, find every possible justification for war in Syria, Libya, drone strikes that kill Pakistani and Yemeni women and children, and a military footprint in every corner of the globe. King would have much to say to those who chastise human rights abuses around the world while ignoring the most serious abuses taking place in their own country, in their own name, and by their own idols.

US clergyman and leader of the Movement against Racial Segregation Martin Luther King, displays 10 December 1964 in Oslo his Nobel Peace Prize medal. (AFP Photo)

US clergyman and leader of the Movement against Racial Segregation Martin Luther King, displays 10 December 1964 in Oslo his Nobel Peace Prize medal. (AFP Photo)

As King said,

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

King would look to his left and his right and would see that of those who speak in the name of peace, only a select few would be standing beside him. He would know that the hypocrisy and treachery that typified the ‘moderate’ of his day is alive and well in the ‘establishment liberal’ who rails for war in our day. King would look to Syria and Libya and Afghanistan and make common cause with the people there, rather than be a servant to power here.

America is fond of celebrating itself, and this 50th anniversary of King’s famous speech is no exception. Speeches will be made, and the president will hold his head and speak in just such a way as to mimic Dr. King. All the pomp and circumstance of a great celebration will be there. And yet, on the other side of the world, the US prepares to bomb innocent Syrian children, uses a ‘Kill List’ to rain death upon Pakistani and Yemeni civilians, and destroys the lives of millions of others in every corner of the world. And yet, America sings and rejoices in its dream of itself.

Dr. King, were he alive today, would have nothing to do with the celebration of himself. He’d be on the first flight to Damascus or Tripoli or Congo to stand with the victims of US empire. He’d be in Harlem or Oakland or South Chicago embracing the victims of police brutality and sanctioned murder. No, King was not an ‘American hero’…he was simply a hero – one who stood against the forces of oppression and subjugation, whatever form they took.

Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City and the founder of StopImperialism.com.