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An American Attack On Iran Would Lead To US Collapse Says Top Russian General

By Juan Cole

It appears that, the International Atomic Energy Agency is at least allowing for the possibility that documents allegedly found on a laptop some years ago –but discounted by the US Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency as of dubious provenance and incompatible with other intelligence gathered in Iran — point to a nuclear weapons program that no one has been able to locate. Some close observers have concluded that the laptop documents are forgeries. A new IAEA report that declines to dismiss the alleged documents will certainly cause the war lobby in the United States to redouble its efforts to get up an attack on Iran.

Forged documents on the supposed purchase of yellowcake uranium by Iraq from Niger were used by George W. Bush to promote a war on Iraq. It was at that time the Intelligence and Research division of the Department of State that attempted to throw cold water on these “documents,” but was ignored by the president. Then head of the IAEA, Mohammed Elbaradei, was able to show them false in one afternoon.

The UN inspectors have a right to be frustrated with Iran, which has allowed inspections of its Natanz nuclear enrichment site, but which has not been completely transparent or adhered to the letter of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But the sum of those frustrations does not point to a nuclear weapons program, unlike the disputed laptop documents. In statements to the press this fall, US intelligence officials have said that they stand behind the conclusions first reached in 2007, that Iran has no nuclear weapons program.

The Obama administration wants stricter sanctions on Iran, and the Sarah Palin/ Daniel Pipes lunatic fringe wants a military attack on Iran.

But Russia’s General of the Army Nikolay Makarov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, warned that an American attack on Iran now, when the US is bogged down in two wars, might well lead to the collapse of the United States. He said that such an attack would roil the region and have negative consequences for Russia (a neighbor of Iran via the Caspian Sea). And, he said, the Russian military is taking steps to forestall such an American strike on Iran. Makarov made the remarks in Vzglyad on Friday, February 19, 2010, and they were translated or paraphrased by the USG Open Source Center:

‘Makarov also commented on the recent rumors about the possibility of an attack upon Iran by the United States. In his opinion, this would be complete madness on the part of the American military. He said: “Admiral Michael McMullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said that, in the United States, there is a plan for carrying out strikes against Iran but the United States clearly understands that now, when it is conducting two military campaigns, one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan, a third campaign against Iran would simply lead to a collapse. It would not be able to withstand the strain.”

Nevertheless, in proportion to the winding down of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, (the plan for) a war with the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the opinion of General Makarov, may again come out to the foreground.

General Makarov, Chief of the General Staff, said: “The consequences of such an attack will be terrible not only for the region but also for us. Iran is our neighbor and we are very carefully following this situation. The leadership of our country is undertaking all measures in order not to allow such a (military) development of events.” ‘

 

The less potentially catastrophic path, tougher United Nations Security Council sanctions, however, depend on Russia and China going along. Despite Washington’s optimism that Russia is softening toward the idea of stricter sanctions, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cast the severest doubts on that idea on Friday.

In a radio interview on Friday with Ekho Moskvy Radio, which was translated by the USG Open Source Center, Lavrov was asked, “What is the situation with Iran’s foreign policy today? And is it true that we now have as a whole a united position with the United States on Iran?”

The foreign minister replied, “I don’t think that we have a united position.” He said that both Washington and Moscow agree on the importance of not allowing “a violation of the regime of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.” He said the two countries have the same position on this issue, “although we do not coincide 100 per cent in methods of implementing it.”

So what Lavrov is saying is that the US and Russia do not actually have a common position or agree on really tough sanctions. They just both have a vague similar position that proliferation is bad.

Lavrov said that Moscow’s independent stance toward Iran is rooted in the two countries’ historical relationship as well as in Russian desire to get Iranian cooperation on such issues as the disposition of resources in the Caspian Sea. (For a quick overview of Russian-Iranian relations, see N.M. Mamedova, who also mentions Iran’s tacit support for Russia against Georgia in the Caucasus.) Lavrov said:

‘ But Iran for us, unlike the US, is a close neighbour, a country with which we have had a very long, historically conditioned relationship, a country with which we cooperate in the economic, humanitarian and military-technology fields alike and, let me note this particularly, a country that is our partner in the Caspian along with three other Caspian littoral states.

Therefore, we are not at all indifferent to what happens in Iran and around it. This applies to our economic interests and our security interests alike. This also applies . . . to the task of early settlement of the legal status of the Caspian Sea, which is not an easy task and in the approaches to which the Iranian position is close enough to ours.

Therefore, speaking of the proliferation threats, yes, we are concerned about Iran’s reaction. ‘

Lavrov is less convinced there is anything sinister about Iran’s civilian nuclear research, though he admits that questions remain:

‘ in the process of work, questions arose both from the IAEA’s inspectors themselves and on the basis of the intelligence which the IAEA obtains from various countries. They were questions that aroused suspicion as to whether there might in reality be some military aspects to Iran’s nuclear programme.

These questions were presented to the Iranians, as required by the procedures applicable in such cases. And, some time ago, Iran answered most of them. In principle, its answers were satisfactory, in a way that was considered by the professionals in Vienna normal. However, some of the questions are still on the table. ‘

So Lavrov thinks Iran’s answers are largely ‘satisfactory,’ though there remain small areas of uncertainty.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in Moscow earlier this week calling for ‘crippling sanctions on Iran.’ Lavrov’s remarks clearly indicated that Moscow disagreed that that situation was so perilous as to call for such a step.

But just to be sure there was no misunderstanding, Lavrov sent out his own deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, to denounce any such talk.

Ryabkov said, according to Xinhua, “The term ‘crippling sanctions’ on Iran is totally unacceptable to us. The sanctions should aim at strengthening the regime of non- proliferation . . . We certainly cannot talk about sanctions that could be interpreted as punishment on the whole country and its people for some actions or inaction . . . ” He said that Russia sought to settle differences with Iran through dialogue and engagement. He also pledged that Russia would honor its deal to provide Iran S-300 air defense systems. He said, “There is a contract to supply these systems to Iran and we will fulfil it. The delays are linked to technical problems with adjusting these systems . . . “

So on Friday, even as the hawks in Washington watered at the mouth at the prospect of being able to use the new IAEA report as a basis for belligerency against Iran, Russia’s foreign policy establishment was engaged in a whirlwind of activity aimed at challenging the notion that Moscow is was in Washington’s back pocket on Iran sanctions. The chief of staff predicted American collapse in an Iran conflagration, and vowed in any case to try to block any such attack. The foreign minister pronounced himself largely but not completely satisfied with Iran’s answers concerning its nuclear activities, and underlined that Russia needs Iran because of Caspian issues (and he could have added, because of Caucasus and Central Asian ones). And then the deputy foreign minister was enlisted to slap Netanyahu around a little, presumably on the theory that it would sting less coming from someone with ‘deputy’ in his title.

Those who have argued that Russia’s increasing willingness to acquiesce in tougher UNSC sanctions might influence China to go along, too, should rethink. Russia doesn’t seem all that aboard with a brutal sanctions regime. China not only has its own reasons not to want its own deals with Iran to be declared illegal, but its leaders doubt Iran has the capacity to construct a nuclear warhead anytime soon.

Postscript: The head of Iran’s nuclear program, interviewed on Aljazeera, warns the US against pressuring Iran.

21 February, 2010

Juancole.com

Saving And Sharing Food

By Devinder Sharma

26 November 2011

@ Ground Reality

World produces enough food for the year 2050. The problem is access and distribution

With the world population crosses 7 billion, feeding the teeming population is becoming a major concern. At times of diminishing land resources, and in an era of climate change, ensuring food security is the biggest challenge.

All efforts are aimed at increasing food production. Somehow an impression has been created that the world needs to increase crop production manifold if it has to meet the food requirement for the year 2050. The global population would then be 9 billion. What is however deliberately being glossed over is that there is at present no shortage of food. It is not production, but access and distribution that need immediate attention.

At present, the total quantity of food that is produced globally is good enough to meet the daily needs of 11.5 billion people. If every individual were to get his daily food requirement as per the WHO norms, there would be abundant food supplies. In terms of calories, against the average per capita requirement of 2,300, what is available is a little more than 4,500 calories. In other words, the world is already producing more food than what would be required in 2050. So where is the need to panic?

Why then is the world faced with hunger? Simply put, one part of the world is eating more and the other is left to starve. Hunger has grown over the years because of gross food mismanagement. Let me explain. At the 1996 World Food Summit, political leaders had pledged to pull out half the world’s hungry (at that time the figure was somewhere around 840 million) by the years 2015. In other words, by 2010, the world should have removed at least 300 million people from the hunger list.

Instead it has added another 85 million to raise the hunger tally to 925 million. In my understanding, this too is a gross understatement. The horrendous face of hunger is being kept deliberately hidden. But nevertheless, let’s again go back to the question we posed earlier: If there is no shortage of food than why the growing pangs of hunger?

Consider this. An average American consumes about 125 kg of meat, including 46 kg of poultry meat. While the Indians are still lagging behind, the Chinese are fast catching up with the American lifestyle. The Chinese consume about 70 kg of meat on average each year, inclusive of 8.7 kg of poultry meat. The Indian average is around 3.5 kg of meat, much of it (2.1 kg) coming from poultry. If you put all this together, the Chinese are the biggest meat eaters, and for obvious reasons – devouring close to 100 million tonnes every year. America is not far behind, consuming about 35 million tonnes of meat in a year.

When I said earlier that one part of the world is eating more, this is what I meant. Six times more grain is required to provide the proteins that are consumed by the meat-eaters. Changing the dietary habits therefore assumes importance. But still worse, Americans throw away as much as 30 percent of their food, worth $ 48.3 billion. Why only blame the Americans, walk into any marriage ceremony in India and you would be aghast to see the quantity of food that goes waste.

Food wastage has therefore become our right.

Considering FAO’s projections of the number of people succumbing to hunger and malnutrition at around 24,000 a day, I had calculated that by the year 2015, the 20 years time limit that World Food Summit had decided to work on to pull out half the hungry, 172 million people would die of hunger. These people are succumbing to hunger because both at the household and at the national level, we have allowed food to go waste.

In America, for instance, hunger has broken a 14-year record and one in every ten Americans lives in hunger. In Europe, 40 million people are hungry, almost equivalent to the population of Spain. In India, nearly 320 million people live in hunger. The International Institute for Food Policy’s Global Hunger Index 2011 ranks India 67th among 81 countries. While India ranks lower than Rwanda, what is still more shocking is that Punjab – the food bowl – ranks below Sudan and Honduras in ensuring food security.

 

Is it so difficult to remove hunger? The answer is No.

A simple act of saving and sharing food is the best way to fight hunger. It can begin at the household level, at the community level and of course at the regional and national levels. If every household were to ensure that no food is wasted, and then organise the left over to be delivered to the poor and needy, much of the hunger that we see around can be taken care of. A small initiative in Rewari town in Haryana has galvanised the township into saving and sharing food. If it can happen in Rewari, it can happen in your neighbourhood too. Try it, and you will see you too can make a difference.

Devinder Sharma is a food and agriculture policy analyst. His writings focus on the links between biotechnology, intellectual property rights, food trade and poverty. His blog is Ground Reality

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why We Need A Financial Transaction Tax: A Proposal For The G20

By Kavaljit Singh

30 October, 2011
Countercurrents.org

At the forthcoming G20 Summit (Cannes, 3-4 November 2011), the summit leaders are expected to address several policy issues concerning world economy and financial markets, many of which remained unresolved since the Toronto Summit in June 2010. Against the backdrop of a weak global economy and the ongoing eurozone sovereign debt crisis, G20 leaders will have to take some hard decisions. Failure to do so would undermine the effectiveness and credibility of G20 as the “premium forum” for international economic cooperation.

One of the key policy issues to be tackled at the Cannes Summit is the introduction of a global financial transaction tax (FTT). The Interim Report of the G-20 on Fair and Substantial Contribution by the Financial Sector (2010) had proposed a flat rate levy on all financial institutions and “financial activities tax” on profits and remuneration in order to pay for future financial clean-ups and reduce systemic risk. But the proposal got diluted at the G-20 meeting held at Busan in June 2010, which called for implementation of the levy taking into account individual country’s circumstances and options.

The policy objectives for a FTT are essentially two-fold: to raise revenue; and to restore stability and integrity in the financial markets. According to estimates made by Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft) in a forthcoming report to the G20 on new sources of finance for development, a tax on financial transactions could generate about $50 billion from G20 member-countries. Some other estimates claim that a global financial transaction tax could generate as much as $250 billion if a wide range of transactions are included. The resources raised through FTT could be better utilized to support programs to fight hunger and poverty, and pay for climate mitigation and adaptation costs.

 

The European Tax Proposal

On 28 September 2011, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso announced the adoption of an EC proposal to implement a FTT in all 27 member-states of the European Union. He also underlined the need for Europe to collectively push for a global FTT at the Cannes Summit.

The European proposal consists of a 0.1 percent tax on trading bonds and shares and a 0.01 percent tax on derivatives trading. These are minimum tax rates and member-states can impose higher rates if they wish. According to the official statement, the tax would be levied on all transactions on financial instruments between financial institutions when at least one party to the transaction is located in the EU.

It is estimated that the proposed tax could generate around $78 billion a year. If unanimously approved by all member-states, the EU-wide tax will come into force on January 1, 2014. Despite resistance from powerful financial services lobby, the proposed European tax transpired in response to growing public anger against the massive bailouts and costly public recapitalizations of banks and financial institutions since 2008.

The proposed tax enjoys considerable public support within Europe. Germany and France have strongly backed the EU proposal while the UK insists that it would only back a financial transaction tax if it were applied globally. The City of London, lobby groups (such as European Banking Federation) and conservative think-tanks (such as Adam Smith Institute) have strongly opposed the European tax proposal. The critics argue that the proposed tax would trigger a liquidity squeeze and increase the costs of trading for financial institutions and other market participants. The UK’s support to the EU-wide tax proposal is vital as City of London is the world’s leading financial center. There are apprehensions that the UK could mobilize other European countries, particularly Sweden and Ireland, against the proposed tax in the coming months.

 

The Growing Opposition

At G20, the idea of a global FTT has been strongly resisted by Canada, US and Australia. In particular, Canada has been a vocal critic of a global FTT for many years. During the Toronto Summit, the Canadian leadership did not encourage any serious discussions on the FTT.

Canada is opposed to the tax on the grounds that its banking system remained strong during the global financial crisis and no bailouts were sought. Canada also perceives that the FTT would be counterproductive during the weak economic conditions. “We will continue leading that charge against a transactions tax and I am confident that our allies on this point, who are the emerging economies, will stay with us and join us in opposing what we view as a counterproductive tax,” said Mr. Jim Flaherty (Canada’s Finance Minister) in a speech to the US financial industry in response to the European proposal. “I am actually confident that we have enough of them in the G20 that we will be successful on that initiative,” he further added.

With the tactical backing of US, Australia, China and India, Canada could generate enough political support within G20 against a global STT at the Cannes Summit.

India’s Position on FTT

At the G-20 Ministerial Meeting at Busan (June 2010), India expressed its reservations against a global FTT on the grounds that there was need for better and well-placed regulations rather than imposing taxes on the banks and financial transactions.

India also pointed out that its conservative approach towards banking regulation helped in protecting national banking system. There is no denying that India’s regulatory framework (often criticized as “outdated” and “inward looking”) acted as a key factor in protecting the domestic banking system from the global financial crisis, yet India’s official position on FTT at the G20 is questionable on three counts.

Firstly, transaction taxes are an integral part of the armoury that policymakers deploy to regulate the financial sector. No one has claimed that transactions taxes are a substitute to well-placed regulatory and supervisory measures. Rather taxation and regulations are complimentary tools used by policymakers to address externalities.

Secondly, not long ago, India had strongly argued in favor of a global financial transaction tax to meet social and developmental needs of the poor countries at various international forums. While addressing the Non-Aligned Movement Business Forum in Kuala Lumpur (2003), the then India’s Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee stated, “I believe there is another initiative, which NAM can spearhead for the reform of the international financial architecture. We know that unstable capital flows can severely disrupt developing economies. There is less ready acceptance of the idea that such flows should be regulated by an international levy. I believe this is a reform whose time has come.”

Thirdly, India itself introduced a Securities Transaction Tax more than six years ago with the twin objectives of raising additional revenue and maintaining market integrity. By not lending support to the idea of a global FTT at G20, India has lost an opportunity to build tactical alliances with the poor countries and global civil society to reforms the financial markets.

Securities Transaction Tax in India

In 2004, India introduced a Securities Transaction Tax (STT) in equity markets. Currently, STT is charged at the rate of 0.125 percent on a delivery-based buy and sell transactions and 0.025 percent on non delivery-based sale transactions. The rate is 0.017 percent on F&O sale transactions. Imposed on both foreign and domestic investors, the STT is collected by the stock exchanges from the brokers and passed on to the exchequer, thereby enabling the authorities to raise revenue in a neat and efficient manner.

Termed as “Terminator Tax,” the STT was strongly opposed by a lobby of speculators, day traders, arbitrageurs, and “noise traders.” Many of them had predicted that the introduction of STT would bring Indian financial markets to a standstill and would dry up liquidity.

Since its implementation, all apprehensions related to STT have proved erroneous. The fact that there is too much liquidity in the Indian markets is also admitted by the critics of STT. The implementation of STT has also reduced some loopholes in the existing tax regime. For instance, foreign investors who used to take undue advantage of the bilateral direct tax avoidance treaties (such as India-Mauritius tax treaty) are now taxed under the STT regime.

Since 2004, Indian authorities have collected sizeable revenue from the STT. During the fiscal year 2009-10, the government’s revenue from STT was Rs. 59940 million ($1.3 billion), a substantial amount in the present times when tax revenues are under severe pressure. The tax authorities have set a target of Rs. 75000 million ($1.6 billion) for the fiscal year 2011-12. However, the trading trends reveal that the STT did not help much in reducing the volatility in the Indian equity markets, as anticipated by many proponents.

Rather than further widening the scope of STT, Finance Ministry is planning a complete or phased withdrawal of it with the expectation that it may substantially increase market turnover.

The Rationale behind FTT

Apart from revenue potential, there are several other justifications for the adoption of a global transaction tax. Such a tax could facilitate the monitoring of international financial flows by providing a centralized database on such flows, which is the need of the hour. This could be particularly valuable to the poor and developing countries where large information gaps exist.

Unlike many other services, no value added tax (VAT) is imposed on financial transactions in many jurisdictions. By taxing diverse financial transactions, a strong message would be conveyed that private banks and financiers must share the costs of the global financial crisis.

Given the fact that majority of transactions carried out by speculators and high frequency traders are short-term and speculative, this tax can curb speculative tendencies that induce excessive volatility and fragility in the financial markets. While a small tax is unlikely to discourage long-term investors such as pension funds. The argument that the FTT would trigger a liquidity squeeze in financial markets lacks evidence. As argued by Avinash Persaud (in a recent article at Vox.EU), “During calm times, when markets are already liquid, high-frequency traders are contrarian and support liquidity, but during times of crisis, they try to run ahead of the trend, draining liquidity just when it is needed most, as we saw with the Flash Crash on 6 May 2010. If a transaction tax limits high-frequency trading it may even provide a bonus in improving systemic resilience.”

Is a FTT Feasible?

Much of the criticism of the FTT is centered on the question of its practicability and technical feasibility. It is often argued that the imposition of such a tax is a difficult proposition since the volumes traded are too high. If the modern electronic system can enable large-scale financial transactions within and across borders, why can’t the same technology be used to collect taxes?

Critics also argue it is almost impossible to get all the countries to agree on a common global tax. Nevertheless, a beginning can be made with a few countries coming together on this issue even if a strong consensus across territories is not possible immediately. Europe can take the lead and introduce the FTT at the European level. The G20 member-countries could also impose such a tax unilaterally or collectively. An agreement among the leading financial centers could also contain the threat of relocation of financial activities to other places.

The issues raised by FTT are more political than technical. Its adoption requires strong political will, particularly among the G20 member-countries. The recent experience (for instance, money laundering related to drug trafficking) shows that international cooperation among countries is possible if there is a political will. A similar cooperative initiative is required to address myriad implementation issues related to FTT.

Another common criticism of FTT is related to evasion. All taxes (e.g., income tax and property tax), for that matter, are open to evasion but this is not sound enough reason for not having them. Concerted efforts should be made to check loopholes, as no policy measure can be foolproof.

While supporting the case for a global financial transaction tax, no one argues that all problems related to global financial markets would be resolved. In the present times, no single policy instrument alone can fix global finance. Nevertheless, such a tax could serve as a first step towards building international cooperation on global financial reforms. If it is used in conjunction with other policy instruments (for instance, capital controls), FTT does offer an attractive mechanism to reform the global financial markets.

Kavaljit Singh is the Director of Madhyam, New Delhi (www.madhyam.org.in). This article is based on a recent Briefing Paper brought out by Madhyam in close collaboration with SOMO (Amsterdam).

 

 

 

Everybody’s Son

By Uri Avnery

 

22 October 2011

 

THE MOST sensible – I almost wrote “the only sensible” – sentence uttered this week sprang from the lips of a 5-year old boy.

 

After the prisoner swap, one of those smart-aleck TV reporters asked him: “Why did we release 1027 Arabs for one Israeli soldier?” He expected, of course, the usual answer: because one Israeli is worth a thousand Arabs.

 

The little boy replied: “Because we caught many of them and they caught only one.”

 

 

FOR MORE than a week, the whole of Israel was in a state of intoxication. Gilad Shalit indeed ruled the country (Shalit means “ruler”). His pictures were plastered all over the place like those of Comrade Kim in North Korea.

 

It was one of those rare moments, when Israelis could be proud of themselves. Few countries, if any, would have been prepared to exchange 1027 prisoners for one. In most places, including the USA, it would have been politically impossible for a leader to make such a decision.

 

In a way it is a continuation of the Jewish ghetto tradition. The “Redemption of Prisoners” is a sacred religious duty, born of the circumstances of a persecuted and scattered community. If a Jew from Marseilles was captured by Muslim corsairs to be sold on the market of Alexandria, it was the duty of Jews in Cairo to pay the ransom and “redeem” him.

 

As the ancient saying goes: “All Israel are guarantors for each other”.

 

Israelis could (and did) look in the mirror and say “aren’t we wonderful?”

 

 

IMMEDIATELY AFTER the Oslo agreement, Gush Shalom, the peace movement to which I belong, proposed releasing all Palestinian prisoners at once. They are prisoners-of-war, we said, and when the fighting ends, PoWs are sent home. This would transmit a powerful human message of peace to every Palestinian town and village. We organized a joint demonstration with the late Jerusalemite Arab leader, Feisal Husseini, in front of Jeneid prison near Nablus. More than ten thousand Palestinians and Israelis took part.

 

But Israel has never recognized these Palestinians as prisoners-of-war. They are considered common criminals, only worse.

 

This week, the released prisoners were never referred to as “Palestinian fighters”, or “militants”’ or just “Palestinians”. Every single newspaper and TV program, from the elitist Haaretz to the most primitive tabloid, referred to them exclusively as “murderers”, or, for good measure, “vile murderers”.

 

One of the worst tyrannies on earth is the tyranny of words. Once a word becomes entrenched, it directs thought and action. As the Bible has it: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). Releasing a thousand enemy fighters is one thing, releasing a thousand vile murderers is something else.

 

Some of these prisoners have assisted suicide bombers in killing a lot of people. Some have committed really atrocious acts – like the pretty young Palestinian woman who used the internet to lure a love-sick Israeli boy of 15 into a trap, where he was riddled with bullets. But others were sentenced to life for belonging to an “illegal organization” and possessing arms, or for throwing an ineffectual home made bomb at a bus hurting nobody.

 

Almost all of them were convicted by military courts. As has been said, military courts have the same relation to real courts as military music does to real music.

 

All of these prisoners, in Israeli parlance, have “blood on their hands”. But which of us Israelis has no blood on his hands? Sure, a young woman soldier remotely controlling a drone that kills a Palestinian suspect and his entire family has no sticky blood on her hands. Neither has a pilot who drops a bomb on a residential neighborhood and feels only “a slight bump on the wing”, as a former Chief of Staff put it. (A Palestinian once told me: “Give me a tank or a fighter plane, and I shall give up terrorism immediately.”)

 

The main argument against the swap was that, according to Security Service statistics, 15% of prisoners thus released become active “terrorists” again. Perhaps. But the majority of them become active supporters of peace. Practically all of my Palestinian friends are former prisoners, some of whom were behind bars for 12 years and more. They learned Hebrew in prison, became acquainted with Israeli life by watching television and even began to admire some aspects of Israel, such as our parliamentary democracy. Most prisoners just want to go home, settle down and found a family.

 

But during the endless hours of waiting for Gilad’s return, all our TV stations showed scenes of the killings in which the prisoners-to-be-released had been involved, such as the young woman who drove a bomber to his destination. It was a continuous tirade of hatred. Our warm admiration for our own virtue was mingled with the chilling feeling that we are again the victims, compelled to release vile murderers who are going to try and kill us again.

 

Yet all these prisoners fervently believed that they had served their people in its struggle for liberation. Like the famous song: “Shoot me as an Irish soldier / Do not hang me like a dog / For I fought for Ireland’s freedom…” Nelson Mandela, it should be remembered, was an active terrorist who languished in prison for 28 years because he refused to sign a statement condemning terrorism.

 

Israelis (probably like most peoples) are quite unable to put themselves into the shoes of their adversaries. This makes it practically impossible to pursue an intelligent policy, particularly on this issue.

 

HOW WAS Binyamin Netanyahu brought to bend?

 

The hero of the campaign is Noam Shalit, the father. An introverted person, withdrawn and shy of publicity, he came out and fought for his son every single day during these five years and four months. So did the mother. They literally saved his life. They succeeded in raising a mass movement without precedent in the annals of the state.

 

It helped that Gilad looks like everybody’s son. He is a shy young man with an engaging smile that could be seen on each of the stills and videos from before the capture. He was youngish looking, thin and unassuming. Five years later, this week, he still looked the same, only very pale.

 

If our intelligence services had been able to locate him, they would have undoubtedly tried to liberate him by force. This could well have been his death sentence, as happened so often in the past. The fact that they could not find him, despite their hundreds of agents in the Gaza Strip, is a remarkable achievement for Hamas. It explains why he was kept in strict isolation and was not allowed to meet anyone.

 

Israelis were relieved to discover, on his release, that he seemed to be in good condition, healthy and alert. From the few sentences he voiced on his way in Egypt, he had been provided with radio and TV and knew about his parents’ efforts.

 

From the moment he set foot on Israeli soil, almost nothing about the way he was treated was allowed to come out. Where was he kept? How was the food? Did his captors talk with him? What did he think about them? Did he learn Arabic? Up to now, not a word about that, probably because it might throw some positive light on Hamas. He will certainly be thoroughly briefed before being allowed to speak.

 

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS repeatedly asked me this week whether the deal had opened the way to a new peace process. As far as the public mood is concerned, the very opposite is true.

 

The same journalists asked me if Binyamin Netanyahu had not been disturbed by the fact that the swap was bound to strengthen Hamas and deal a grievous blow to Mahmoud Abbas. They were flabbergasted by my answer: that this was one of its main purposes, if not the main one.

 

The master stroke was a stroke against Abbas.

 

Abbas’ moves in the UN have profoundly disturbed our right-wing government. Even if the only practical outcome is a resolution of the General Assembly to recognize the State of Palestine as an observer state, it will be a major step towards a real Palestinian state.

 

This government, like all our governments since the foundation of Israel – only more so – is dead set against Palestinian statehood. It would put an end to the dream of a Greater Israel up to the Jordan River, compel us to give back a great chunk of the Land-God-Promised-Us and evacuate scores of settlements.

 

For Netanyahu and Co. this is the real danger. Hamas poses no danger at all. What can they do? Launch a few rockets, kill a few people – so what? In no year has “terrorism” killed as many as half the people dying on our roads. Israel can deal with that. The Hamas regime would probably not be running the Gaza Strip in the first place if Israel had not cut the Strip off from the West Bank, contrary to its solemn undertaking in Oslo to create four safe passages. None was ever opened.

 

That, by the way, also explains the timing. Why did Netanyahu agree now to something he has violently opposed all his life? Because Abbas, the featherless chicken, has suddenly turned into an eagle.

 

On the day of the swap, Abbas made a speech. It sounded rather flat. For the average Palestinian, the case was quite simple: Abbas, with all his Israeli and American friends, has got no one released for years. Hamas, using force, has released more than a thousand, including Fatah members. Ergo: “Israel understands only the language of force”.

 

 

THE VAST majority of Israelis supported the deal, though convinced that the vile murderers will try again to kill us.

 

Never were the lines of division as clear as this time: some 25% opposed it. These included all the extreme right-wing, all the settlers and almost all the national-religious. All the others – the huge camp of the center and left, the secular, liberal and moderate religious – supported it.

 

This is the Israeli mainstream on which the hopes for the future are resting. If Netanyahu had proposed a peace agreement with the Palestinians this week, and if he had been supported by the chiefs of the army, the Mossad and the Security Service (as he was this week), the same majority would have supported him.

 

As for the prisoners – another 4000 are still held in Israeli prisons, and this number is liable to grow again. The opponents of the deal are quite right in saying that it will provide Palestinian organizations with a strong incentive to renew their efforts to capture Israeli soldiers in order to get more prisoners released.

 

If all of Israel is drunk with emotion because one boy has been returned to his family – what about 4000 families on the other side? Unfortunately, ordinary Israelis don’t put the question this way. They have got used to seeing the Palestinian prisoners only as bargaining chips.

 

How to thwart the efforts to capture more soldiers? There is only one alternative: to open a credible way to have them released by agreement.

 

Such as by peace, if you can excuse the expression.

 

 

 

 

The Economy Must Function Within Nature’s Limits

The economic theories are the present reference base that global capitalism validates its economic policies, which is a circular validation. That’s why, whatever measure we propose to reduce our carbon emission and manage the planet’s depleting resources, economist evaluate it within the hybrid-laissez-faire capitalism’s requirement of growth for a successful economy. To keep the economy growing governments presently manipulate the market by using the taxation system and use taxpayer’s money to give a competitive advantage to industries that maximise growth, for the profit of corporations.

The part that competition plays as a subset of capitalist economic system is as the control-medium for the economy, but its much more than that, it also acts as a decision maker for government, corporations, and individuals. That’s why the economy has to maximise production of goods and services resulting in extraction to depletion all useful minerals and living things. In addition, it forces the maximum extortion from working people in an insidious way; and with the advertisers, shops pressure-sells to every one to attain or maintain sales leadership. Furthermore and as detrimental is the widening discrepancy of power between governments, and between people due to competition. The purpose of competition is to separate people into categories.

Measures that are essential for our survival would stem from different datum; they are, from science-based measurements, observation of our planet’s mineral resources, its biosphere, and particularly our human needs. Those observations states, how much we can take from our environment, what and how much we can dump, and what sort of requirement we need to maximise our wellbeing. Bearing in mind, that we want our descendants to have the best possible life we can leave for them.

Our primary consideration should be to manage the economy in a way we can maintain life as long as the solar system allows us. Presently we disregard the damage we are doing to the planet and the biosphere, because our leaders have to give priority to the economy, that’s for the wealthy to increase their wealth and power. The worst aspect of ignoring our dependence on a healthy environment is that we are an inseparable part of that environment; therefore, damage to the environment will harm us in many ways. Unfortunately, a small damage or just a local damage to the environment we hardly notice and as we progressively damage it, over time, we still don’t notice it. When we do become aware of problem, we think that with our incredible technology and scientific knowledge, we will surmount all obstacles but the scientific community are much more pessimistic of our ability to overcome those dangers. Its likely to end up with the dilemma, that regardless of any decision we may take, the ecosystem and of course that’s us also will keep declining as the planet keeps on warming.

The difference between businesses as usual instead of gradually moving to a no carbon economy is, with business as usual, the corporation will maintain their increasing profits for a short time but unfortunately most of us will fair badly and later we will all be annihilate by our pollutions and depleting resources. However if we stop burning carbon, life may be nearly as difficult at first as we also have to reduce the carbon already in the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels. Nevertheless, we would then gradually improve our lifestyle, the ecology, and attain sustainability.

To stop our carbon emissions and use resources in a sustainable way, we will have to start from the present market economy. The first step should be to change from where and whom government levy their tax. Because we need to reduce and then stop burning fossil fuels, our reliance on mining minerals, and destroying forests etc, we must have an increasing tax and charges on those items. In addition, we must have full employment; we can achieve that if we reduce and then remove all taxes and charges on employing labour and on wages from work. Shifting the taxes levied from the use of labour and the earning from labour to the extraction or use of all minerals, using land, infrastructures, and on company profits. Those changes will also simplify and reduce cost of small business, which employs the major part of the labour force and are less dependent on energy. Removing taxes on labour will also remove the headache that wage earned usually go through working out their superannuation and relatively small tax. Those changes must start small, but increased quickly until we stop polluting and everyone that’s able to work can.

We also must change to a very low carbon economy in a way that we lose only our affluence but gain a better quality of life. Standard of life is different from the quality of life one represents quantity and brand of stuff, while the other, the quality of our life, which includes nutritious food, safe and comfortable living space, and above all happiness, which is largely the result of secure, pleasant, safe, reliable relation with one another and the rest of nature.

It’s easy to reduce and then stop carbon emissions; all we have to do is to stop burning the stuff. When we stop burning carbon and achieve full employment with the tax changes stated above, we will not be able to produce so many things that we have to throw out because they are so cheap there not worth fixing and labour is too expensive due to the taxes and charges on it. We will be able to repair the products bolstering small businesses, which will create interesting and worthwhile jobs. We also won’t be able to afford food grown on the other side of the world or from broad acre and feedlots farming, but local family farmers will provide fresher food and become financially viable. We won’t be able to deplete the ocean of fish and turn forests into woodchip. We will then be able to obey nature’s requirement.

This means that, in future, our need for energy will have to be compatible with the ability of nature to provide it in a sustainable way, not determent by the need of a growing economy. There will be less available energy than we have now, and it may not be on tap exactly when we like to have it. To live within that constrain we will only be able to produce the goods and service that will enhance our lives and not have the surplus to overproduce or take part in activities that are destructive such as wars or simply to increase the wealth of the wealthy. How we produce and share those goods to fulfil our needs, will determine the style of life our children’s can have and even their ability to survive.

Nothing can replace fossil fuels; its flexibility, its enormous quantity, and its energy compactness, all of which has enable capitalism to provide the affluence in the industrialised countries. However, it produced the pollution, global warming, and the reason for many wars that are likely to increase as the fossil fuels run out. Oil powered machines have the ability to remove most of the world resources in a lifetime, it’s even the means to find the oil, extract, and transport it. Oil is also essential to clear fell and woodchip world forests, mine minerals without a thought for future generation, deplete most of what we find useful in the ocean.

We cannot rely on a more efficient use of energy, since this will produce cheaper products enabling a greater quantity of goods, which will use more resources, increasing demand of fossil fuels to top up renewable energy. It will defeat any idea of reducing the use of resources. Wikipedea- “In 1980 (Khazzoom-Brookes postulate) illustrated this well and early in the industrial revolution Jevons showed this phenomena.” “This idea is a more modern analysis of a phenomenon known as the Jevons Paradox. In 1865, William Stanley Jevons observed that England’s consumption of coal increased considerably after James Watt introduced his improvements to the steam engine. Jevons argued that increased efficiency in the use of coal would tend to increase the demand for coal, and would not reduce the rate at which England’s deposits of coal were running out.”

Machines didn’t cause the environmental degradation by running wild, however the competition has dictated the type of machines we made, the way we have to use them and with that system of control, better and more efficient machines will speed up the wreckage of the planet. The reason for the increase use of energy and resources is partly due to the intensity of the competition, our controlling factor. The present competitiveness will ensure that with increase efficiency, we will extract increasing quantity of stuff from the planet and have to tip more in landfill; we will end up emitting more pollutants.

Competition, especially for a very social being like us is similar to a virus infection; it’s an alien introduction into a cooperative social group. Competition is in direct opposition to cooperation; therefore, as a prerequisite for social existence, there must be some cooperation otherwise its chaos, furthermore, societies function best when there’s the most cooperation and the least competition. Maybe that is why Margaret Thatcher said “There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.” That was as far as Thatcher would allow cooperation. However, humans are genetically very social. This competitive ideology has removed most of society’s control from people to an antisocial way of interacting, where businesses are competing against each other, or dishonestly colluding. Individuals have to compete against each other and against corporation. Competition occurs in nature when there’s a shortage of food or shelter, which can bring on competition, also herd animals especially the males compete for sex. Not all primates compete, as the mating is in many cases a mutual decision. No living things seek competition, but today we use this, desperate survival technique, as a universal decision-making and control method. There’s probably more cooperation than competition in life, if we are rational, it’s better and safer not to compete, and even only few people, would compete against friends to survive during food scarcity.

In this competitive capitalist milieu, scientist evaluations are easily relegate to be less valid than opinions of political, reviewer, shock jock, and economist commentators particularly when it may have an effect on economic growth, that’s, corporation’s profits verses resources depletion and climate change. Politicians are influence and rely on common understanding derived from the Media to convey their message. This gives those people an advantage over scientist as politicians when they are talking to the public, who are also inform by the same organisation, are therefore reassured and it makes sense. While scientist, whose job is to observe, measure, experiment, and test the state of the world have made a very different assessment that contradicts the established understanding that the public have derived from the Media and, as the Media is a prior knowledge, it has a competitive advantage.

Governments world over are giving primacy to the needs of the capitalist growth economy, over future generation’s welfare, while scientist’s reports, which the governments employ to be informed of the health of the biosphere, are shelfed. Politician will make life very difficult for everyone within a few decades, regardless of the directions we then take because due to a time lag the oceans take to warm to a new stable level, it will then probably be to late and the planet will be unliveable. Business as usual could give the wealthy people in the industrial countries continuing lavish life for a short time, maybe a decade or two, until the economy collapses due to lack of resources and a more violent climate. In the ensuing chaos, money and what were the most valuable assets might become worthless while other basic resources might become priceless; it could even leave our powerful billionaires powerless, which might expose them to unpleasant retribution from their angry victims.

People expect the damage we are now doing to the planet can be fixed by our science-based technology as if its miracle -based. By the time it becomes obvious that we have depleted the planet of its vital resources and damaged the ecosystem, we will have a paralysed capitalist economy; the climate will become unbearable. Those changes will start to trigger off a chain of adjustment that is largely unpredictable and could be increasingly severe. That frightful outlook would be due to the tardiness we are expressing now to reduce our consumption, emissions of carbon, and deal with increasing population, all of which would have been an easy task two to three decades ago, but a difficult one now, and an impossible one if we leave it for a decade or two. The use of those resources has changed the ecology and the physical state of the planet, from the outer part of the atmosphere to the bottom of the deepest oceans and this is still in process.

We have two-reference point for people, the primary one is our human need of survival, security, and happiness, the other one is our external dependency on the environment and that takes in a combination of living things, the ecosystem, couple to the non-living component of the planet. Our survival requirements are; the physical one, food, water, and shelter, the other is our psychological needs. They are as vital for our wellbeing and as we are probably the most social of all living things we need company that is compassionate, and cooperative, and with our affinity for others, we experience, satisfaction, pleasure, and happiness when we cooperate and help each other.

The sun gave the biosphere practically all its energy and inturn the biosphere has provided all our subsistence until the industrial revolution. From then on fossil energy replaced the biosphere for most of our dependence for energy. That fossil energy allowed us to grow, expand our extraction of minerals, intensify the use of land, created artificial climate in gigantic buildings etc, but we are now dependent on fossil fuels like a drug. The fossil fuels will run out leaving us with infrastructures that can only function effectively with those fuels, we will then need different infrastructure but we won’t have the surplus energy we had in the pass. We’re on that dead end road.
We ignore the damage or change we are inflicting on the biosphere and how much stress we impose on ourselves because we are powerless to do much about it, while competition controls the economy and the economy adds to the controls of the world societies and its people. It should be obvious that competition prevents people from living within nature’s ability to sustain us and to interact with one another in a way that can give us security and contentment. This is because to stay viable in the economy, one must give precedence to the demands made by competition over those of nature and our longing for security.

People are psychologically very tough and can withstand extreme physical, mental strains, but the strain we exsert on the ecosystem are beyond its capacity to bear much longer, and without a healthy vibrant ecology, the climate looses its major regulator. To get to that fatal stage the economy demands more sacrifice and hard work from people to maintain the growing wealth for the corporations. Life can be easier if we reduce our wasteful and useless needs that the present faulty economy demands.

Like every one else, the intense competitive environment also controls the information Medias. Media proprietors have to maximise the number of people who use their services to maximise the income from advertisers and minimise cost for customers, if possible to nothing. The dire consequence of that financial arrangement is it gives the advertisers, the most competitive section of the economy, an undue power over the Media all through a cascade of competitive control. Competition for the Media has an added danger because it’s so intensive that we sacrificed honesty, public knowledge, and our feelings for others. The tendency to dumb down, to achieve a two-fold benefit, it reduces people’s critical ability and it’s an easy way to increase circulation. The Murdoch News Empire became a victim of that; it sacrificed its integrity. It achieved the greatest spread of ignorance and confusion of any media in the last fifty years. Murdoch thought he was in control, but the competition controlled him, as we all are, but to far less degree for most of us. Competition breeds dishonesty and even Murdoch’s News Media and his children need honesty if they are to survive.

By Lionel Anet

31 July, 2011

Countercurrents.org

Lionel Anet is a writer from Australia.

 

 

‘War on terror’ set to surpass cost of Second World War

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

Thursday, 30 June 2011

The total cost to America of its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the related military operations in Pakistan, is set to exceed $4 trillion – more than three times the sum so far authorised by Congress in the decade since the 9/11 attacks.

This staggering sum emerges from a new study by academics at the Ivy-league Brown University that reveals the $1.3 trillion officially appropriated on Capitol Hill is the tip of a spending iceberg. If other Pentagon outlays, interest payments on money borrowed to finance the wars, and the $400bn estimated to have been spent on the domestic “war on terror”, the total cost is already somewhere between $2.3 and $2.7 trillion.

And even though the wars are now winding down, add in future military spending and above all the cost of looking after veterans, disabled and otherwise and the total bill will be somewhere between $3.7 trillion and $4.4 trillion.

The report by Brown’s Watson Institute for International Studies is not the first time such astronomical figures have been cited; a 2008 study co-authored by the Harvard economist Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz, a former Nobel economics laureate, reckoned the wars would end up costing over $3 trillion. The difference is that America’s financial position has worsened considerably in the meantime, with a brutal recession and a federal budget deficit running at some $1.5 trillion annually, while healthcare and social security spending is set to soar as the population ages and the baby boomer generation enters retirement.

Unlike most of America’s previous conflicts moreover, Iraq and Afghanistan have been financed almost entirely by borrowed money that sooner or later must be repaid.

The human misery is commensurate. The report concludes that in all, between 225,000 and 258,000 people have died as a result of the wars. Of that total, US soldiers killed on the battlefield represent a small fraction, some 6,100. The civilian death toll in Iraq is put at 125,000 (rather less than some other estimates) and at up to 14,000 in Afghanistan. For Pakistan, no reliable calculation can be made.

Even these figures however only scratch the surface of the suffering, in terms of people injured and maimed, or those who have died from malnutrition or lack of treatment. “When the fighting stops, the indirect dying continues,” Neta Crawford, a co-director of the Brown study, said. Not least, the wars may have created some 7.8 million refugees, roughly equal to the population of Scotland and Wales.

What America achieved by such outlays is also more than questionable. Two brutal regimes, those of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, have been overturned while al-Qa’ida, the terrorist group that carried out 9/11, by all accounts has been largely destroyed – but in neither Iraq nor Afghanistan is democracy exactly flourishing, while the biggest winner from the Iraq war has been America’s arch-foe Iran.

Osama bin Laden and his henchmen probably spent the pittance of just $500,000 on organising the September 2001 attacks, which killed 3,000 people and directly cost the US economy an estimated $50bn to $100bn. In 2003, President George W Bush proclaimed that the Iraq war would cost $50bn to $60bn. Governments that go to war invariably underestimate the cost – but rarely on such an epic scale.

If the Brown study is correct, the wars that flowed from 9/11 will not only have been the longest in US history. At $4 trillion and counting, their combined cost is approaching that of the Second World War, put at some $4.1 trillion in today’s prices by the Congressional Budget Office