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12 February, 2011

Countercurrents.org

On February 10, indications were he’d step down. He didn’t, but now it’s official, vice president Suleiman saying he resigned, handing power to Egypt’s military. A New York Times alert said “a historic popular uprising transformed politics in Egypt and around the Arab world.”

Times rhetoric way overstated reality as resolution remains very much in doubt, though odds strongly favor continuity, not populist change. More on that below.

For the moment, however, huge Tahrir Square crowds erupted in celebratory euphoria, perhaps forgetting their liberating struggle just began. It didn’t end with Mubarak’s resignation. That was a baby step, removing an aging dinosaur Washington and Egypt’s military wanted out. Now he’s gone. Focus must follow through on what’s next, requiring sustained popular protests. Otherwise, everything gained will be lost.

Behind the scenes, Washington and Egyptian military maneuvers were involved. They’re always crucial, not visible orchestrated events. As a result, discerning reality is crucial. Hopefully, Egyptians understand, knowing the folly of letting up now and losing out.

Investigative journalist Wayne Madsen believes Obama waffled to buy time for CIA operatives to secure and purge Egypt’s torture and rendition files, dating from when Attorney General Eric Holder was Clinton’s Deputy Attorney General in the 1990s.

He also said Secretary of State Clinton wanted her husband protected, and former White House chief of staff (now CIA head) Leon Panetta had the same aim. Doing so, of course, requires keeping Washington-favorites in power, permitting no uncertain alternatives, people Egyptians need for real change.

Besides short-lived confrontations, orchestrated street violence was avoided. Whether it continues, however, is unknown as Egypt’s military is notoriously brutal, a different reality than most on Cairo streets believe. Among them were hundreds, perhaps thousands experiencing its harshness, for the moment at least lost in a sea of celebratory humanity.

Behind the Scenes Washington Maneuvering

Notably on January 31, Obama sent former US diplomat Frank Wisner (son of WW II era intelligence chief Frank Wisner) to Cairo ahead of Mubarak’s February 1 address. His mission: tell him not to resign until after September elections.

Publicly, Wisner confirmed what White House officials claimed reflected his position, not US policy. In fact, diplomats, past or present, convey only the latter.

Wisner noteworthy credentials include:

— Career Ambassador (the highest foreign service rank) after serving as Under Secretary of State for International Security Affairs, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and ambassador to India, the Philippines, Zambia and Egypt (1986 – 1991) when he and Mubarak became good friends;

— numerous corporate boards, past and present, including Enron, AIG, Ethan Allen Interiors, eogresources, Commercial International Bank (a leading Egyptian bank), Pharaomic American Life Insurance Company (ALICO, Egypt), Pangea3, and the American University in Cairo; and

— currently an international affairs advisor to Patton Boggs, an influential Washington-based lobbying firm.

High-level and well-connected, his Cairo mission showed Washington behind-the-scenes maneuvering to replace Mubarak, delay transition, and install new faces under old policies, publicly portraying change – the old bait and switch con on a world stage, though whether it works remains highly uncertain. Expect months before clarity, maybe longer.

Obama’s Public Statement on Egypt

Rhetoric always conceals policies, Obama’s February 10 statement Exhibit A, saying:

“As we have said from the beginning of this unrest, the future of Egypt will be determined by the Egyptian people. But the United States (stands for) core principles. We believe that the universal rights of the Egyptian people must be respected, and their aspirations must be met. We believe that this transition must immediately demonstrate irreversible political change, and a negotiated path to democracy (with) a roadmap to elections that are free and fair.”

Note:

— no transition timeline was mentioned, nor did Obama call for Mubarak’s immediate resignation with his entire regime popular outrage wants out;

— political change masks business as usual;

— universal rights weren’t specified nor were free and fair elections defined; Washington won’t tolerate either anywhere, including at home; and

— vague sentiments were enunciated, masking Washington’s real agenda for new regime faces under old policies – no compromises, no alternatives, no dissent, just hardline Realpolitik for unchallengeable imperial control; not just in Egypt; everywhere.

Obama’s Real Agenda

As part of Washington’s Greater Middle East Project, it includes neutralizing opponents, securing unchallengeable imperial control, preventing democracy, rigging elections to assure it, militarizing the region strategically, exploiting its resources and populations, orchestrating events covertly, and deciding how and when they play out.

In Egypt and throughout the region, they look similar to US-orchestrated color revolutions in Serbia (the 1990s prototype), Georgia (Rose), Ukraine (Orange), Myanmar (Saffron), Tibet (Crimson), Iran (Green), and currently perhaps Tunisia (Jasmine), and elsewhere in the Middle East, color-coded or not.

They all have a common thread: what the Pentagon calls “full spectrum dominance” for total global, space, sub-surface and information control. Whether it succeeds, however, remains uncertain given America’s declining world influence and stature, including on Cairo streets.

A previous article discussed past color revolutions, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/06/color-revolutions-old-and-new.html

Egypt: What’s Ahead

For sure, Washington, the Pentagon and Egypt’s military will decide, not Mubarak (an aging, now ousted dinosaur), Suleiman or other hated regime figures. Stratfor’s George Friedman believes Egypt’s military aims to save the regime, not Mubarak, suggesting three possible outcomes before he resigned:

— continuing standing aside, letting crowds assemble and march peacefully to the presidential palace and elsewhere on Cairo streets;

— blocking more protesters from entering Tahrir Square, containing those already there; or

— replacing Mubarak with temporary military rule.

Egypt’s military coup ousted him. He didn’t resign. He was pushed, the heavy shoving from Washington. It’s not clear if Suleiman will stay on. Hopefully public anger won’t tolerate him or other regime figures, given how much they’re hated.

So far, confrontations have been avoided. Doing so now “would undermine the military’s desire to preserve the regime” and its people-friendly perception. Friedman believes options one and two were unacceptable. “That means military action” unseating him. Only the timing wasn’t known until now.

On February 11 Friedman’s Red Alert update said:

“Egypt is returning to the 1952 model of ruling the state via a council of army officers. The question now is to what extent the military elite will share power with its civilian counterparts.”

“The fate of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP)” remains unknown. Without it, “the regime will have effectively collapsed and the military could run into greater difficulty in running the country,” ahead of elections whenever they’re held.

For now, Egypt’s military council comprises provisional rule. Very likely it’ll want retained NDP elements and opposition parties help in managing transition. It’s biggest challenge is “avoid(ing) regime change while also dealing with a potential constitutional crisis.”

Popular pressure, however, must demand regime change, a clean sweep, ending emergency law powers immediately, and democratic constitutional changes.

Al Jazeera: “Hosni Mubarak Resigns as President”

On February 11, Al Jazeera reported massive crowds in Tahrir Square, a day called “Farewell Friday.” Cairo and Alexandria images showed wall-to-wall humanity as far as the eye could see, by far the largest demonstrations so far after protesters called for millions to come out for “a last and final stage.”

Despite mass public anger, tensions between army forces and crowds were absent, restraint very much shown, but how long will depend on unfolding events under the new military rule.

Earlier, AP said Mubarak flew to Sharm el-Sheik, the Red Sea resort 250 miles from Cairo.

The New York Times also reported a “Western official (saying) that Mr. Mubarak had left the capital, (and that) the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces issued a statement over state television and radio indicating that the military, not Mr. Mubarak, was in effective control of the country.”

In fact, a coup d’etat replaced him, but what follows or its timeline isn’t known. What is known is that mass public anger and nationwide strikes effectively shut down the country beyond what any force could control.

The reaction following Mubarak’s address, followed by Suleiman’s, showed two officials disengaged from reality. As a result, Mohamed ElBaradei, now an opposition figure, responded bluntly, saying:

“I ask the army to intervene immediately to save Egypt. The credibility of the army is being put to the test.”

In a top-featured February 11 New York Times op-ed, he said:

“Egypt will not wait forever on this caricature of a leader we witnessed on television yesterday evening, deaf to the voice of the people, hanging on obsessively to power that is no longer his to keep….We are at the dawn of a new Egypt….We have nothing to fear but the shadow of a repressive past.”

Al Jazeera reported him saying Egypt “will explode” unless military forces intervene. They did but haven’t explained what’s ahead beyond commonplace boilerplate rhetoric – for sure no democracy according to Reuters quoting a National Security Council participant saying:

“What the US isn’t saying publicly is that it’s putting its power behind (Egypt’s) generals. The goal is to stack the deck in favor of the status quo – a scenario that removes Mubarak, yet is otherwise more about continuity than change.”

In other words, Obama’s “orderly transition democracy,” substitutes rhetoric for constructive change neither he nor others in Washington will tolerate. As a result, people power faces imperial Washington and Egypt’s military, united against populist change. However, what develops regionally remains unknown. Resolution can go either way or some unacceptable middle-ground compromise. Avoiding it is crucial, but doing so means continuing daily protests until all essential demands are met.

A Final Comment

According to Human Right Watch (HRW) and London Guardian reports, the professed neutrality and public persona of Egypt’s military belie its harshness.

On February 9, Guardian writer Chris McGreal headlined, “Egypt’s army ‘involved in detentions and torture,’ ” saying:

Military forces “secretly detained hundreds and possibly thousands of suspected government opponents since mass (anti-Mubarak) protests began, (and) at least some of these detainees have been tortured, according to testimony gathered by the Guardian.”

Moreover, HRW and other human rights organizations cited years of army involvement in disappearances and torture. Former detainees confirmed “extensive beatings and other abuses at the hands of the military in what appears to be an organized campaign of intimidation.” Electric shocks, Taser guns, threatened rapes, beatings, disappearances, and perhaps killings left families grieving for loved ones.

HRW researcher Heba Morayef said, “I think it’s become pretty obvious by now that the military is not a neutral party. The military doesn’t want and doesn’t believe in the protests and this is even at the lower level, based on the interrogations.”

Allied with Washington, the Pentagon and US intelligence, it supports power, not populist change, a dark reality street protesters better grasp to know what’s coming from a post-Mubarak regime. Unless challenged, promised reforms will leave entrenched policies in place, enforcing predatory capitalism with police state harshness, what Americans also endure under friendly-face leaders.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

12 February, 2011

Endoftheamericandream.com

Will 2011 be the year that we point to as the beginning of the great global food crisis? Food prices are soaring, supplies are very tight and already we have seen some very intense food protests flare up around the globe this year. When people don’t have enough to eat, they tend to become very desperate, and unfortunately it looks like the global food situation is not going to improve much any time soon. Right now the world is really struggling to feed itself, and with each passing day there are even more mouths to feed. It is being projected that the population of the world will reach 9 billion people by the year 2050. There are already way too many people starving to death around the globe, and unfortunately starvation is only going to become more rampant as food supplies get even tighter. Some of the key food producing provinces in China are facing their worst drought in 200 years. Flooding has absolutely devastated agricultural production in Australia and Brazil this winter. Russia is still trying to recover from the horrific drought of last summer. Global weather patterns have gone haywire over the past 12 months, and this is putting immense pressure on a global food system that was already on the verge of a major breakdown.

Food stockpiles all over the world are disturbingly low at this point. If a major global famine broke out not even the United States would be able to last for long. The U.S. government is supposed to be keeping a lot of food stockpiled in the event of an emergency, but that is just not happening.

Right now a desperate scramble for food is beginning. Quite a few nations that used to be huge food exporters are now importing a lot of their food. Prices for staples such as wheat, corn and soybeans are absolutely soaring, and the UN is projecting that they will continue to rise rapidly throughout 2011.

Unless something dramatically changes, the global food situation is only going to get tighter and tighter and tighter as this decade rolls along.

So who is going to decide who gets fed and who doesn’t?

As food prices continue to rise, will we start to see more food riots erupt all over the world as starving populations demand answers from their governments?

What is going to happen if weather patterns get even worse or if we have a string of really bad natural disasters?

What is going to happen if we experience a really bad global economic collapse?

Right now these are just the “birth pains”, but if things get much worse we could be looking at a horrific food shortage that will rock the globe.

The following are 14 facts that make you wonder if the coming global food shortage has already begun….

#1 According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. corn reserves will drop to a 15 year low by the end of 2011.

#2 The United Nations says that the global price of food hit another new all-time high in the month of January.

#3 The price of corn has doubled in the past six months.

#4 The price of wheat has roughly doubled since the middle of 2010.

#5 According to Forbes, the price of soybeans is up about 50% since last June.

#6 The United Nations is projecting that the global price of food will increase by another 30 percent by the end of 2011.

#7 Due to all of the unprecedented flooding, the winter wheat crop in Australia has been absolutely devastated.

#8 This winter Brazil was hit by some of the worst flooding that nation has ever seen. This has substantially hampered food production in that country.

#9 Russia, one of the largest wheat producers on the entire globe, is still feeling the effects of last summer’s scorching temperatures. In fact, Russia is actually importing wheat this winter to sustain its cattle herds.

#10 China is busy preparing for a “severe, long-lasting drought” that is projected to have a huge impact on several provinces. In fact, Chinese state media says that the eastern province of Shandong is dealing with the worst drought it has seen in 200 years. The provinces being affected by this severe drought grow approximately two-thirds of the wheat in China. The following is a very short video news report about the horrible drought that China is going through right now….

#11 It appears that Chinese imports of corn will be about 9 times larger than the U.S. Department of Agriculture originally projected them to be for 2011.

#12 Approximately 1 billion people around the world go to bed hungry each night.

#13 Somewhere in the world someone starves to death every 3.6 seconds, and 75 percent of those are children under the age of five.

#14 As food has become increasingly scarce around the world, many companies have started using whatever kinds of “fillers” that they can think of in their “food” products. For example, Raw Story is reporting that some companies in China have actually been mass producing “fake rice” that is made partly of plastic. According to one Chinese Restaurant Association official, eating three bowls of this fake rice is the equivalent of consuming an entire plastic bag.

Let us pray that this is not the beginning of a major global food crisis, because hunger and starvation are horrible things.

Starving to death is a fate that nobody should ever have to go through.

So, let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare as if we will be facing the worst.

13 February, 2011

Motherearthnews.com

“We have the capacity and ability to create a remarkably different economy, one that can restore ecosystems and protect the environment while bringing forth innovation, prosperity, meaningful work, and true security. The restorative economy unites ecology and commerce into one sustainable act of production and distribution that mimics and enhances natural processes.”

— Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce

Every day we hear about topics like sustainable growth and sustainable building, but what does it really mean to be “sustainable?” In broad terms, sustainability quite clearly means that each new year finds the earth in at least as good of a condition as the last one. No increasing degree of deforestation, no fewer fish in the ocean, no higher levels of toxic pollution, and the concentration of atmospheric pollutants the same or better the next year as it was the prior one. Classically, many native American tribes had a high respect for the sustainability of the world, making collective decisions about whether or not to continue a particular course of action based upon if it would have a negative effect seven generations into the future.

Two modern day thinkers, the economist Herman Daly and Swedish Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt, have given sustainability much thought, offering us clear definitions to help us along our journey towards this goal. After all, if we are to develop an effective plan and roadmap for creating a sustainable world, we must first have a clear idea of what it truly means to be “sustainable”!

Herman Daly has suggested three simple rules to help define sustainability:

1) For a renewable resource –– soil, water, forest, fish –– the sustainable rate of use can be no greater than the rate of regeneration of its source. (Thus, for example, fish are harvested unsustainably when they are caught at a rate greater than the rate of growth of the remaining fish population.)

2) For a nonrenewable resource –– fossil fuel, high-grade mineral ores, fossil groundwater –– the sustainable rate of use can be no greater than the rate at which a renewable resource, used sustainably, can be substituted for it. (For example, an oil deposit would be used sustainably if part of the profits from it were systematically invested in wind farms, photovoltaic arrays, and tree planting, so that when the oil is gone, an equivalent stream of renewable energy is still available.)

3) For a pollutant, the sustainable rate of emission can be no greater than the rate at which the pollutant can be recycled, absorbed, or rendered harmless in the environment. (For example, sewage can be put into a stream or lake or underground aquifer sustainably no faster than bacteria and other organisms can absorb its nutrients without themselves overwhelming and destabilizing the aquatic ecosystem.)

Another way of looking at sustainability comes from Swedish Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt. Robèrt’s passion for sustainability developed in the late 1980s when he was working as a medical doctor and cancer treatment researcher. He felt a deep sorrow and fear in his heart concerning the destruction of the Earth’s environment. Working with his microscope, he saw that there were environmental limits that must be maintained within and around each cell and that when these limits are breached, the cell’s death is absolutely certain. The parallels to our Earth’s perilous condition of continuous environmental degradation became obvious, and Robèrt’s passion for the issue of sustainability turned into an obsession.

As Robèrt’s ideas began to crystallize into a formula for sustainability, he wrote a scientific paper on this subject, and shared it with numerous Swedish colleagues and scientists. After something like 22 drafts, this paper was published, and their consensus for a sustainability definition and guidelines became known as, “The Natural Step.” Robèrt recognized that our world is essentially a closed system, meaning that outside of the sun’s energy streaming to Earth, there are no new materials and resources to be found on this planet other than what was here to begin with. If we are to stand a chance of modifying humankind’s practices and industry in sustainable ways, then we must first understand what it means to be “sustainable.”

In two simple sentences, The Natural Step (TNS) defines four minimum environmental conditions as necessary elements for maintaining life sustainably in a closed-system world such as planet Earth:

In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing:

1) Concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust;

2) Concentrations of substances produced by society; or

3) Degradation by physical means.

4) And in that society, people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.

These four conditions provide us with a definition to help us determine whether a society is sustainable or not. TNS also provides a collection of strategic methods and resources for helping organizations, whether they are governmental or industrial, to make genuine progress on the road to sustainability. Robèrt’s sustainability conversations expanded beyond his circle of friends and the scientific community to public television, Swedish media stars, leading politicians, and even to the King of Sweden. Robèrt’s ideas have had a profound effect on many businesses, including IKEA, McDonald’s, Electrolux, and many others.

Let’s take a closer look at the four TNS conditions for sustainability:

1) Stored deposits: In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to increasing concentrations of potentially toxic materials that have been “liberated” from where they were stored as deposits inside the Earth’s crust. Mankind has been refining natural substances, such as mercury, lead, and radioactive materials, in unnatural concentrations. These substances that were previously bound into stable, durable matrices, such as bedrock or coal, are now accumulating in the biosphere, where they are metabolized into living organisms at ever increasing concentrations. Nothing disappears from our world, and everything that is not bound into a solid, stable matrix eventually disperses into the ecosystem.

2) Synthetic compounds and other unnatural material byproducts of society: In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to increasing concentrations of unnatural synthetic compounds. If this condition is not met, eventually the concentrations of these substances will reach concentration levels where irreversible changes begin to occur, with potentially dire consequences. The solution is to proactively substitute more common compounds, or ones that break down easily, for certain persistent and unnatural compounds, and for society to use substances efficiently. Remember that even using less of a toxic compound (improved efficiency) will still add up over time to too much of a bad thing, if this compound decomposes slower than the rate at which it is inserted into the biosphere.

3) Physical degradation of ecosystems and natural resources: We must draw our resources from well-managed ecosystems. Our health and prosperity depend on the capacity of nature to restructure our wastes into new resources. Human activities need to work in harmony with the cyclic principles of nature.

4) Human needs: Unless basic human socioeconomic needs are met worldwide through fair and efficient use of resources, it will be difficult to coordinate efforts and cooperation to meet conditions one, two, and three on a global scale. In a sustainable society, human needs are met worldwide.

(Source: Adapted from The Natural Step for Business, by Brian Nattrass and Mary Altomare, 2001)

From looking at both Robèrt’s and Daly’s definition of sustainability, we see that few things in our modern world are actually built, processed, or manufactured sustainably, including what is generally referred to as “sustainable building”, and that we have a long ways to go towards actually making our modern word sustainable.

Building a sustainable world will not be easy, but it is doable!

Green tip for the day: Fix it instead of throwing “it” away! When an item is manufactured, far greater inputs in the form of energy and raw materials go into making most items than meets the eye, and far more waste is generated in manufacturing and refining these raw materials than the item that sits in front of you. For example, according to a UN University study, 1.8 tons of raw materials are used to manufacture the average PC, and most of these materials are dumped somewhere as waste. So, when you repair an item rather than throwing it “away,” you are reducing your consumption and ecological footprint on the planet. It often seems hardly worth your time to sew a split seam on an item of clothing, upgrade a computer, or repair an appliance, but fixing something yourself, or spending a few bucks for someone else to fix it, is one more way of Doing the

Right Thing. The exception to this rule is when the item is an old energy hog, such as a refrigerator that is more than ten years old, or a gas guzzling car. In these cases, the energy wasted by the old appliance over its lifetime is far more energy than what goes into making a new efficient one.

Monday 14 February 2011

|  War Is A Crime | Book Excerpt

In this age of supposedly fighting against rulers and on behalf of oppressed peoples, the Vietnam War offers an interesting case in which the U.S. policy was to avoid overthrowing the enemy government but to work hard to kill its people. To overthrow the government in Hanoi, it was feared, would draw China or Russia into the war, something the United States hoped to avoid. But destroying the nation ruled by Hanoi was expected to cause it to submit to U.S. rule.

The Afghanistan War, already the longest war in U.S. history, is another interesting case in that the demonic figure used to justify it, terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, was not the ruler of the country. He was someone who had spent time in the country, and in fact had been supported there by the United States in a war against the Soviet Union. He had allegedly planned the crimes of September 11, 2001, in part in Afghanistan. Other planning, we knew, had gone on in Europe and the United States. But it was Afghanistan that apparently needed to be punished for its role as host to this criminal.

For the previous three years, the United States had been asking the Taliban, the political group in Afghanistan allegedly sheltering bin Laden, to turn him over. The Taliban wanted to see evidence against bin Laden and to be assured that he would receive a fair trial in a third country and not face the death penalty. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Taliban warned the United States that bin Laden was planning an attack on American soil. Former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik told the BBC that senior U.S. officials had told him at a U.N.-sponsored summit in Berlin in July 2001 that the United States would take military action against the Taliban by mid-October. Naik “said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.”

This was all before the crimes of September 11th, for which the war would supposedly be revenge. When the United States attacked Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, the Taliban again offered to negotiate for the handing over of bin Laden. When President Bush again refused, the Taliban dropped its demand for evidence of guilt and offered simply to turn bin Laden over to a third country. President George W. Bush rejected this offer and continued bombing. At a March 13, 2002, press conference, Bush said of bin Laden “I truly am not that concerned about him.” For at least several more years, with bin Laden and his group, al Qaeda, no longer believed to be in Afghanistan, the war of revenge against him continued to afflict the people of that land. In contrast to Iraq, the War in Afghanistan was often referred to between 2003 and 2009 as “the good war.”

The case made for the Iraq War in 2002 and 2003 appeared to be about “weapons of mass destruction,” as well as more revenge against bin Laden, who in reality had no connections to Iraq at all. If Iraq didn’t give the weapons up, there would be war. And since Iraq did not have them, there was war. But this was fundamentally an argument that Iraqis, or at least Saddam Hussein, embodied evil. After all, few nations possessed anywhere near as many nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons as the United States, and we didn’t believe anyone had the right to make war on us. We helped other nations acquire such weapons and did not make war on them. In fact, we’d helped Iraq acquire biological and chemical weapons years before, which had laid the basis for the pretenses that it still had them.

Ordinarily, a nation’s possessing weapons can be immoral, undesirable, or illegal, but it cannot be grounds for a war. Aggressive war is itself the most immoral, undesirable, and illegal act possible. So, why was the debate over whether to attack Iraq a debate over whether Iraq had weapons? Apparently, we had established that Iraqis were so evil that if they had weapons then they would use them, possibly through Saddam Hussein’s fictional ties to al Qaeda. If someone else had weapons, we could talk to them. If Iraqis had weapons we needed to wage war against them. They were part of what President George W. Bush called “an axis of evil.” That Iraq was most blatantly not using its alleged weapons and that the surest way to provoke their use would be to attack Iraq were inconvenient thoughts, and therefore they were set aside and forgotten, because our leaders knew full well that Iraq really had no such capability.

Fighting Fire With Gasoline

A central problem with the idea that wars are needed to combat evil is that there is nothing more evil than war. War causes more suffering and death than anything war can be used to combat. Wars don’t cure diseases or prevent car accidents or reduce suicides. (In fact, they drive suicides through the roof.) No matter how evil a dictator or a people may be, they cannot be more evil than war. Had he lived to be a thousand, Saddam Hussein could not have done the damage to the people of Iraq or the world that the war to eliminate his fictional weapons has done. War is not a clean and acceptable operation marred here and there by atrocities. War is all atrocity, even when it purely involves soldiers obediently killing soldiers. Rarely, however, is that all it involves. General Zachary Taylor reported on the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) to the U.S. War Department:

“I deeply regret to report that many of the twelve months’ volunteers, in their route hence of the lower Rio Grande, have committed extensive outrages and depredations upon the peaceable inhabitants. THERE IS SCARCELY ANY FORM OF CRIME THAT HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED TO ME AS COMMITTED BY THEM.” [capitalization in original]

If General Taylor did not want to witness outrages, he should have stayed out of war. And if the American people felt the same way, they should not have made him a hero and a president for going to war. Rape and torture are not the worst part of war. The worst part is the acceptable part: the killing. The torture engaged in by the United States during its recent wars on Afghanistan and Iraq is part, and not the worst part, of a larger crime. The Jewish holocaust took nearly 6 million lives in the most horrible way imaginable, but World War II took, in total, about 70 million — of which about 24 million were military. We don’t hear much about the 9 million Soviet soldiers whom the Germans killed. But they died facing people who wanted to kill them, and they themselves were under orders to kill. There are few things worse in the world. Missing from U.S. war mythology is the fact that by the time of the D-Day invasion, 80 percent of the German army was busy fighting the Russians. But that does not make the Russians heroes; it just shifts the focus of a tragic drama of stupidity and pain eastward.

Most supporters of war admit that war is hell. But most human beings like to believe that all is fundamentally right with the world, that everything is for the best, that all actions have a divine purpose. Even those who lack religion tend, when discussing something horribly sad or tragic, not to exclaim “How sad and awful!” but to express — and not just under shock but even years later — their inability to “understand” or “believe” or “comprehend” it, as though pain and suffering were not as clearly comprehensible facts as joy and happiness are. We want to pretend with Dr. Pangloss that all is for the best, and the way we do this with war is to imagine that our side is battling against evil for the sake of good, and that war is the only way such a battle can be waged. If we have the means with which to wage such battles, then as Senator Beveridge once remarked, we must be expected to use them. Senator William Fulbright (D., Ark.) explained this phenomenon: “Power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God’s favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations — to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image.”

Madeline Albright, Secretary of State when Bill Clinton was president, was more concise:

“What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

The belief in a divine right to wage war seems to only grow stronger when great military power runs up against resistance too strong for military power to overcome. In 2008 a U.S. journalist wrote about General David Petraeus, then commander in Iraq, “God has apparently seen fit to give the U.S. Army a great general in this time of need.”

On August 6, 1945, President Harry S Truman announced: “Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British ‘Grand Slam’ which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.” When Truman lied to America that Hiroshima was a military base rather than a city full of civilians, people no doubt wanted to believe him. Who would want the shame of belonging to the nation that commits a whole new kind of atrocity? (Will naming lower Manhattan “ground zero” erase the guilt?) And when we learned the truth, we wanted and still want desperately to believe that war is peace, that violence is salvation, that our government dropped nuclear bombs in order to save lives, or at least to save American lives.

We tell each other that the bombs shortened the war and saved more lives than the some 200,000 they took away. And yet, weeks before the first bomb was dropped, on July 13, 1945, Japan sent a telegram to the Soviet Union expressing its desire to surrender and end the war. The United States had broken Japan’s codes and read the telegram. Truman referred in his diary to “the telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace.” Truman had been informed through Swiss and Portuguese channels of Japanese peace overtures as early as three months before Hiroshima. Japan objected only to surrendering unconditionally and giving up its emperor, but the United States insisted on those terms until after the bombs fell, at which point it allowed Japan to keep its emperor.

Presidential advisor James Byrnes had told Truman that dropping the bombs would allow the United States to “dictate the terms of ending the war.” Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal wrote in his diary that Byrnes was “most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got in.” Truman wrote in his diary that the Soviets were preparing to march against Japan and “Fini Japs when that comes about.” Truman ordered the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th and another type of bomb, a plutonium bomb, which the military also wanted to test and demonstrate, on Nagasaki on August 9th. Also on August 9th, the Soviets attacked the Japanese. During the next two weeks, the Soviets killed 84,000 Japanese while losing 12,000 of their own soldiers, and the United States continued bombing Japan with non-nuclear weapons. Then the Japanese surrendered. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that, “… certainly prior to 31 December, 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November, 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

One dissenter who had expressed this same view to the Secretary of War prior to the bombings was General Dwight Eisenhower. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William D. Leahy agreed:

“The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.”

Whatever dropping the bombs might possibly have contributed to ending the war, it is curious that the approach of threatening to drop them, the approach used during a half-century of Cold War to follow, was never tried. An explanation may perhaps be found in Truman’s comments suggesting the motive of revenge:

“Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, and against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international law of warfare.”

Truman could not, incidentally, have chosen Tokyo as a target — not because it was a city, but because we had already reduced it to rubble. The nuclear catastrophes may have been, not the ending of a World War, but the theatrical opening of the Cold War, aimed at sending a message to the Soviets. Many low and high ranking officials in the U.S. military, including commanders in chief, have been tempted to nuke more cities ever since, beginning with Truman threatening to nuke China in 1950. The myth developed, in fact, that Eisenhower’s enthusiasm for nuking China led to the rapid conclusion of the Korean War. Belief in that myth led President Richard Nixon, decades later, to imagine he could end the Vietnam War by pretending to be crazy enough to use nuclear bombs. Even more disturbingly, he actually was crazy enough. “The nuclear bomb, does that bother you?…I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christsakes,” Nixon said to Henry Kissinger in discussing options for Vietnam.

President George W. Bush oversaw the development of smaller nuclear weapons that might be used more readily, as well as much larger non- nuclear bombs, blurring the line between the two. President Barack Obama established in 2010 that the United States might strike first with nuclear weapons, but only against Iran or North Korea. The United States alleged, without evidence, that Iran was not complying with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), even though the clearest violation of that treaty is the United States’ own failure to work on disarmament and the United States’ Mutual Defense Agreement with the United Kingdom, by which the two countries share nuclear weapons in violation of Article 1 of the NPT, and even though the United States’ first strike nuclear weapons policy violates yet another treaty: the U.N. Charter.

The Lie of the Only Way

Americans may never admit what was done in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but our country had been in some measure prepared for it. After Germany had invaded Poland, Britain and France had declared war on Germany. Britain in 1940 had broken an agreement with Germany not to bomb civilians, before Germany retaliated in the same manner against England — although Germany had itself bombed Guernica, Spain, in 1937, and Warsaw, Poland, in 1939, and Japan meanwhile was bombing civilians in China. Then, for years, Britain and Germany had bombed each other’s cities before the United States joined in, bombing German and Japanese cities in a spree of destruction unlike anything ever previously witnessed. When we were firebombing Japanese cities, Life magazine printed a photo of a Japanese person burning to death and commented “This is the only way.” By the time of the Vietnam War, such images were highly controversial. By the time of the 2003 War on Iraq, such images were not shown, just as enemy bodies were no longer counted. That development, arguably a form of progress, still leaves us far from the day when atrocities will be displayed with the caption “There has to be another way.”

Combating evil is what peace activists do. It is not what wars do. And it is not, at least not obviously, what motivates the masters of war, those who plan the wars and bring them into being. But it is tempting to think so. It is very noble to make brave sacrifices, even the ultimate sacrifice of one’s life, in order to end evil. It is perhaps even noble to use other people’s children to vicariously put an end to evil, which is all that most war supporters do. It is righteous to become part of something bigger than oneself. It can be thrilling to revel in patriotism. It can be momentarily pleasurable I’m sure, if less righteous and noble, to indulge in hatred, racism, and other group prejudices. It’s nice to imagine that your group is superior to someone else’s. And the patriotism, racism, and other isms that divide you from the enemy can thrillingly unite you, for once, with all of your neighbors and compatriots across the now meaningless boundaries that usually hold sway. If you are frustrated and angry, if you long to feel important, powerful, and dominating, if you crave the license to lash out in revenge either verbally or physically, you may cheer for a government that announces a vacation from morality and open permission to hate and to kill. You’ll notice that the most enthusiastic war supporters sometimes want nonviolent war opponents killed and tortured along with the vicious and dreaded enemy; the hatred is far more important than its object. If your religious beliefs tell you that war is good, then you’ve really gone big time. Now you’re part of God’s plan. You’ll live after death, and perhaps we’ll all be better off if you bring on the death of us all.

But simplistic beliefs in good and evil don’t match up well with the real world, no matter how many people share them unquestioningly. They do not make you a master of the universe. On the contrary, they place control of your fate in the hands of people cynically manipulating you with war lies. And the hatred and bigotry don’t provide lasting satisfaction, but instead breed bitter resentment.

David Swanson is the author of “War Is A Lie” from which this is excerpted: http://warisalie.org

Troops and tanks lock down capital Manama after police attack peaceful demonstrators in pre-dawn assault, killing four.

Last Modified: 17 Feb 2011 22:56 GMT

Troops and tanks have locked down the Bahraini capital of Manama on Thursday after riot police swinging clubs and firing tear gas smashed into demonstrators in a pre-dawn assault, killing at least four people.

Hours after the attack on Manama’s main Pearl Roundabout, the military announced a ban on gatherings, saying on state TV that it had “key parts” of the capital under its control.

Khalid Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s foreign minister, justified the crackdown as necessary because the demonstrators were “polarising the country” and pushing it to the “brink of the sectarian abyss”.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with his Gulf counterparts, he also said the violence was “regrettable”. Two people had died in police firing on the protesters prior to Thursday’s deadly police raid.

An Al Jazeera correspondent, who cannot be named for security reasons, said that hospitals are full of injured people after Wednesday night’s police raid on the pro-reform demonstrators.

“Some of them are severely injured with gunshots. Patients include doctors and emergency personnel who were overrun by the police while trying to attend to the wounded.”

Another Al Jazeera online producer said that booms could be heard from different parts of the city, suggesting that “tear-gas is being used to disperse the protesters in several neighbourhoods”.

After several days of holding back, the island nation’s Sunni rulers unleashed a heavy crackdown, trying to stamp out the first anti-government upheaval to reach the Arab states of the Gulf since the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

In the surprise assault, police tore down protesters’ tents, beating men and women inside and blasting some with shotgun sprays of bird-shot.

‘They made us angrier’

The pre-dawn raid was a sign of how deeply the Sunni monarchy  fears the repercussions of a prolonged wave of protests, led by members of the country’s Shia majority but also joined by growing numbers of discontented Sunnis.

Tiny Bahrain is a pillar of US’s military framework in the region. It hosts the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, which Washington sees as a critical counterbalance to Iran.

Bahrain’s rulers and their Arab allies depict any sign of unrest among their Shia populations as a move by neighbouring Shia-majority Iran to expand its clout in the region.  The army would take every measure necessary to preserve security, the interior ministry said.

But the assault may only further enrage protesters, who before the attack had called for large rallies on Friday.

Tents at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama were cleared of protesters by riot police [Reuters]

In the wake of the bloodshed, angry demonstrators chanted “the regime must go,” and burned pictures of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa outside the emergency ward at Salmaniya Medical Complex, the main hospital in Manama.

“We are even angrier now. They think they can clamp down on us, but they have made us angrier,” Makki Abu Taki, whose son was killed in the assault, shouted in the hospital morgue.

“We will take to the streets in larger numbers and honor our martyrs. The time for Al Khalifa has ended.”

UK reviews arms sales

Meanwhile, Britain said Thursday it was reviewing decisions to export arms to Bahrain after anti-government demonstrators were killed in clashes with security forces.

“In light of events we are today formally reviewing recent licencing decisions for exports to Bahrain,” said Alistair Burt, a junior foreign minister with responsibility for the Middle East.

He warned that Britain would “urgently revoke licences if we judge that they are no longer in line with the criteria” used for the export of weapons.

In a statement, the minister said a range of licences had been approved for Bahrain in the last nine months.

“These include two single export licences for 250 tear gas cartridges to the Bahrain Defence Force and National Security Agency that were for trial/evaluation purposes.”

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, called Bahrain’s foreign minister to register Washington’s “deep concern” and urge restraint.

Similarly, Human Rights Watch called on Bahraini authorities to order security forces to stop attacks on peaceful protesters and investigate the deaths.

Salmaniya hospital was thrown into chaos by a stream of dozens of wounded from Pearl Roundabout, brought in by ambulances and private cars.

At least one of the bodies of the victims had signs of bloody holes from pellets fired from police shotguns.

Nurses rushed in men and women on stretchers, their heads bleeding, arms in casts, faces bruised. At the entrance, women wrapped in black robes embraced each other and wept.

Siege in the capital

The capital Manama was effectively shut down on Thursday. For the first time in the crisis, tanks rolled into the streets and military checkpoints were set up as army patrols circulated.

The Interior Ministry warned Bahrainis to stay off the streets. Banks and other key institutions did not open, and workers stayed home, unable or too afraid to pass through checkpoints to get to their jobs.

Barbed wire and police cars with flashing blue lights encircled Pearl Roundabout, the site of pro-reform rallies since Monday.

The area was turned into a field of flattened tents, and the strewn belongings of the protesters, who had camped there litter the site.

Banners lay trampled on the ground, littered with broken glass, tear gas canisters and debris. A body covered in a white sheet lay in a pool of blood on the side of a road nearby.

Bahrain’s state television aired footage from the Bahrain interior ministry showing swords, knives and other bladed instruments, as well as pistols and bullets, which police said were found in tents of the pro-reform demonstrators.

Demonstrators had been camping out for days around the landmark roundabout’s 90-metre monument featuring a giant pearl, a testament to the island’s pearl-diving past.

The protesters’ demands have two main objectives: force the ruling Sunni monarchy to give up its control over top government posts and all critical decisions, and address deep grievances held by the country’s majority Shia who make up 70 per cent of Bahrain’s 500,000 citizens but claim they face systematic discrimination and poverty and are effectively blocked from key roles in public service and the military.

The National Council of Churches in India  PRESS RELEASE

The National Council of Churches in India jubilates with the people of Egypt as they celebrate Life with Justice, Dignity and Freedom by defeating the empire-centered power structure.

We observe from this revolt that, the united nationwide 18 day people’s remonstration against the unjust and oppressive leader who deliberately did not heed the cries and pleas of the people for 30 years, forced him to hear the collective shout of the people. This happening serves as a strong lesson and historical proof that, ‘silences of the empires’ to the cries of the people will no longer be an effective political strategy but they will have to listen to the people.

The collective inventiveness of people of coming together and being together for a common societal cause made the so-called powerful dictator and his empire to fall at the feet of the people and their strength. As surveyed, this revolt is not only a historical event but also a reassuring affirmation that the power of people is stronger than the mighty emperor’s power.

NCCI joins the people of Egypt and affirms that the non-violent methods of tackling the violent forces bear fruits in history and that common people are not violence-friendly.

The NCCI recognizes the power of youth which was at the forefront in making history. The Egyptian youth have proved to be a source of strength and inspiration to the world youth at large. The UN has declared the year 2010 -11 is the ‘International Year of Youth’ on the theme ‘Our Year – Our Voice’. The young Egyptians have brought meaning to the UN’s declaration and theme. We affirm that youth power is the heart of any society. So, socially concerned youth would have a healthy democratic society.

At this point of time NCCI calls all the other empire nations and polities in the world to repent and be committed to corruption-free, Transparent, Accountable and People-friendly administration and be the agents of Just-democracy.

In Solidarity,

Rt. Rev. Dr. Taranath S. Sagar

President

Rev. Dr. Roger Gaikwad

General Secretary

Mr. A. Samuel Jeyakumar

Chairperson – CJPC

Mr. R. Christopher Rajkumar
Executive Secretary – CJPC

Reports of more than a dozen deaths as protesters heed calls for mass protests against government, despite a crackdown.

Last Modified: 17 Feb 2011 20:30 GMT

Libyan protesters seeking to oust longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi have defied a crackdown and taken to the streets on what activists have dubbed a “day of rage”.

There are reports that more than a dozen demonstrators have been killed in clashes with pro-government groups.

Opponents of Gaddafi, communicating anonymously online or working in exile, urged people to protest on Thursday to try to emulate popular uprisings which unseated long-serving rulers in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt.

“Today the Libyans broke the barrier or fear, it is a new dawn,” Faiz Jibril, an opposition leader in exile, said.

Abdullah, an eyewitness in the country’s second largest city of Benghazi, who spoke to Al Jazeera, said that he saw six unarmed protesters shot dead by police on Thursday.

He also said that the government had released 30 people from jail, paying and arming them to fight people in the street.

Opposition website Libya Al-Youm said four protesters were killed by snipers from the Internal Security Forces in the eastern city of al-Baida, which had protests on Wednesday and Thursday, AP news agency reported.

“Libya is a free country, and people, they can say, can show their ideas, and the main thing is that it has to be in the frame of the law and it has to be peaceful, and that’s it, ” Libyan ambassador to the US, Ali Suleiman Aujali, told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

Sites monitored in Cyprus, and a Libyan human rights group based abroad, reported earlier that the protests in al-Baida had cost as many as 13 lives.

When asked about the people who had allegedly been killed, Aujali told Al Jazeera “I’m really very busy here … and I have some delegations, and I don’t have time to follow up with every piece of news.”

“I am confident that Libya will handle this issue with great respect for the people,” he said.

Increasing casualties

Mohammed Ali Abdellah, deputy leader of the exiled National Front for the Salvation of Libya, said that hospitals in al-Baida were experiencing a shortage of medical supplies, saying the government had refused to provide them to treat an increasing number of protesters.

Abdellah quoted hospital officials in the town as saying that about 70 people have been admitted since Wednesday night, about half of them critically injured by gunshot wounds.

The Quryna newspaper, which is close to Gaddafi’s son, cited official sources and put the death toll at two. It traced the unrest to a police shutdown of local shops that had soon escalated.

The interior ministry fired the head of security in Al-Jabal Al-Akhdar province in the aftermath of the violence, in which protesters had torched “several police cars and citizens,” the paper said on its website.

Several hundred supporters of Gaddafi also gathered in the capital, Tripoli, to counter calls for anti-government protests and they were joined by Gaddafi himself.

‘Down with Gaddafi’

Clashes also broke out in the city of Zentan, southwest of the capital, in which a number of government buildings were torched.

Fathi al-Warfali, a Swiss-based activist and head of the Libyan Committee for Truth and Justice, said two more people were killed in Zentan on Thursday ,while one protester was killed in Rijban, a town about 120km southwest of Tripoli.

He said protesters on Thursday in the coastal city of Darnah were chanting “`the people want the ouster of the regime” – a popular slogan from protests in Tunisia and Egypt – when thugs and police attacked them.

A video provided by al-Warfali of the scene in Zentan showed marchers chanting and holding a banner that read “Down with Gaddafi. Down with the regime.”

Another video showed protests by lawyers in Benghazi on Thursday demanding political and economic reform while a third depicted a demonstration in Shahat, a small town southwest of Benghazi.

Government warning

Libya has been tightly controlled for over 40 years by Gaddafi, who is now Africa’s longest-serving leader.

Thursday is the anniversary of clashes that took place on February 17, 2006 in Benghazi, when security forces killed several protesters who were attacking the city’s Italian consulate.

According to reports on Twitter, the microblogging site, Libya’s regime had been sending text messages to people warning them that live bullets will be fired if they join today’s protests.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said that Libyan authorities had detained 14 activists, writers and protesters who had been preparing the anti-government demonstrations.

Al-Warfali said 11 protesters were killed in al-Baida on Wednesday night, and scores were wounded. He said the government dispatched army commandos to quell the uprising.

In a telephone interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Idris Al-Mesmari, a Libyan novelist and writer, said that security officials in civilian clothes came and dispersed protesters in Benghazi using tear gas, batons and hot water.

Al-Mesmari was arrested hours after the interview.

Media blocked

Late on Wednesday evening, it was impossible to contact witnesses in Benghazi because telephone connections to the city appeared to be out of order.

Social media sites were reportedly blocked for several hours through the afternoon, but access was restored in the evening.

Al Jazeera is understood to have been taken off the state-owned cable TV network, but is still reportedly available on satellite networks.

Though some Libyans complain about unemployment, inequality and limits on political freedoms, analysts say that an Egypt-style revolt is unlikely because the government can use oil revenues to smooth over most social problems.

Libya accounts for about two per cent of the world’s crude oil exports.

Companies including Shell, BP and Eni have invested billions of dollars in tapping its oil fields, home to the largest proven reserves in Africa.

If you are in Libya and have witnessed protests then send your pictures and videos to http://yourmedia.aljazeera.net

Analysts say a popular president, dreaded security forces and religious diversity make a Syrian revolution unlikely.

AJE staff writer Last Modified: 09 Feb 2011 17:18 GMT

A key factor for stability within Syria is the popularity of President Bashar al-Assad

Despite a wave of protests spreading across the Middle East, so far the revolutionary spirit has failed to reach Syria.

Authoritarian rule, corruption and economic hardship are characteristics Syria share with both Egypt and Tunisia. However, analysts say that in addition to the repressive state apparatus, factors such as a relatively popular president and religious diversity make an uprising in the country unlikely.

Online activists have been urging Syrians to take to the streets but the calls for a “Syrian revolution” last weekend only resulted in some unconfirmed reports of small demonstrations in the mainly Kurdish northeast.

“First of all, I’d argue that people in Syria are a lot more afraid of the government and the security forces than they were in Egypt,” Nadim Houry, a Human Rights Watch researcher based in Lebanon, says.

“The groups who have mobilised in the past in Syria for any kind of popular protest have paid a very heavy price – Kurds back in 2004 when they had their uprising in Qamishli and Islamists in the early 1980s, notably in Hama.”

The so-called Hama massacre, in which the Syrian army bombarded the town of Hama in 1982 in order to quell a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood, is believed to have killed about 20,000 people.

“I think that in the Syrian psyche, the repression of the regime is taken as a given, that if something [protests] would happen the military and the security forces would both line up together. I think that creates a higher threshold of fear.”

Demonstrations are unlawful under the country’s emergency law, and political activists are regularly detained. There are an estimated 4,500 “prisoners of opinion” in Syrian jails, according to the Haitham Maleh Foundation, a Brussels-based Syrian rights organisation.

‘Kingdom of silence’

As pages on Facebook called for demonstrations to be held in cities across Syria in early February, more than 10 activists told Human Rights Watch they were contacted by security services who warned them not to try and mobilise.

“Syria has for many years been a ‘kingdom of silence’,” Suhair Atassi, an activist in Damascus, says, when asked why no anti-government protests were held.

“Fear is dominating peoples’ lives, despite poverty, starvation and humiliation … When I was on my way to attend a sit-in against [the monopoly of] Syria’s only mobile phone operators, I explained to the taxi driver where I was going and why.

“He told me: ‘Please organise a demonstration against the high cost of diesel prices. The cold is killing us’. I asked him: ‘Are you ready to demonstrate with us against the high diesel price?” He replied ‘I’m afraid of being arrested because I’m the only breadwinner for my family!”

Fawas Gerges, a professor of Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics, says Syria is one of the Middle Eastern countries least likely to be hit by popular protests, because of its power structure.

He says the allegiance of the army in Syria is different than in both Tunisia, where the military quickly became one of the main backers of the president’s ouster, and in Egypt, where the army still has not taken sides.

“The army in Syria is the power structure,” he says. “The armed forces would fight to an end. It would be a bloodbath, literally, because the army would fight to protect not only the institution of the army but the regime itself, because the army and the regime is one and the same.”

Popular president

But even if people dared to challenge the army and the dreaded mukhabarat intelligence service, analysts say the appetite for change of the country’s leadership is not that big.

Many Syrians tend to support Bashar al-Assad, the president who came to power in 2000 after the death of his father Hafez, who had ruled the country for 30 years.

“An important factor is that he’s popular among young people,” Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and author of Syria Comment, says.

“Young people are quite proud of [President al-Assad]. They may not like the system, the regime, they don’t like corruption … but they tend to blame this on the people around him, the ‘old guard'”

“Unlike Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, who’s 83, Bashar al-Assad is young. Young people are quite proud of him. They may not like the regime, they don’t like corruption and a lot of things, but they tend to blame this on the people around him, the ‘old guard’.”

A Syrian student echoes these comments. “The president knows that reform is needed and he is working on it”, she says.

“As for me, I don’t have anything against our president. The main issues which need to be addressed are freedom of speech and expression as well as human rights. I believe that the president and his wife are working on that. New NGOs have started to emerge.

“Also, many things have changed since Bashar came to power, whether it has to do with road construction, salary raises, etc. Even when it comes to corruption, he is trying hard to stop that and limit the use of ‘connections’ by the powerful figures in Syria. However, he won’t be able to dramatically change the country with the blink of an eye.”

Al-Assad’s tough stance towards Israel, with which Syria is technically at war, has also contributed to his popularity, both domestically and in the region.

Multi-religious society

Analysts stress that Syria’s mix of religious communities and ethnic groups differentiates Syria from Egypt and Tunisia, countries which both have largely homogeneous populations. Fearing religious tensions, many Syrians believe that the ruling Baath party’s emphasis on secularism is the best option.

“The regime in Syria presents itself as a buffer for various communities, essentially saying ‘if we go, you will be left to the wolves’,”  Houry says. “That gives it ability to mobilise large segments of the population.”

Syria is home to many different religious sects

Sunni Muslims make up about 70 per cent of the 22 million population, but the Alawites, the Shia sect which President al-Assad belongs to, play a powerful role despite being a minority of 10 per cent. Kurds form the largest ethnic minority.

Landis says Alawites and Christians tend to be al-Assad’s main supporters.

“If his regime were to fall, many of the Alawites would lose their jobs. And they look back at the times when the Muslim Brotherhood targeted them as nonbelievers and even non-Arabs.

“Then of course the Christians, who are about 10 per cent of the population, are the biggest supporters of al-Assad and the Baath party because it’s secular. They hear horror stories of what has happened in Iraq, about Christians being killed and kidnapped.”

The proximity to Iraq, another ethnically and religiously diverse country, is believed to play a major role in Syria’s scepticism towards democracy and limited hunger for political change. About a million Iraqi refugees have come to Syria since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“The Iraqi refugees are a cautionary tale for Syrians,” Landis says. “They have seen what happens when regime change goes wrong. This has made Syrians very conservative. They don’t trust democracy.”

Parties banned

Syria is essentially a one-party state, ruled by the Baath Party since 1963. Many political groups are banned. But Landis says the lack of political freedom does not appear to be a major concern among the people.

“I’m always astounded how the average guy in the street, the taxi driver, the person you talk to in a restaurant or wherever, they don’t talk about democracy. They complain about corruption, they want justice and equality, but they’ll look at elections in Lebanon and laugh, saying ‘who needs that kind of democracy’?”

“The younger generation has been depoliticised. They don’t belong to parties. They see politics as a danger and they have been taught by their parents to see it as a danger. They look at the violence out there, in places like Iraq.”

Pages on Facebook have called for a ‘Syrian day of anger’

Tunisia and Egypt both have a longer tradition of civil society and political parties than Syria and Landis describes the Syrian opposition as “notoriously mute”.

“In some ways, being pro-American has forced Egypt to allow for greater civil society, while Syria has been quite shut off from the West,” he says. “The opposition in Syria is very fragmented. The Kurds can usually get together in the biggest numbers but there are 14 Kurdish parties … And the human rights leaders – half of them are in jail and others have been in jail for a long time.”

Facebook sites calling for protests to be held in Syria on February 4 and 5 got about 15,000 fans but failed to mobilise demonstrators for a “day of anger”. In fact, countercampaigns set up online in favour of the government garnered as much support.

Ribal al-Assad, an exiled cousin of President al-Assad and the director of the London-based Organisation for Democracy and Freedom in Syria, said the people calling for protests were all based abroad and he is not surprised that nothing happened inside Syria.

“The campaign was a bit outrageous. First, they’ve chosen a date that reminds people of the uprising of the Muslim Brotherhood [the 29th anniversary of the Hama massacre],” he says.

“People don’t want to be reminded of the past. They want change, they want freedom, but they want it peacefully. And the picture they used on Facebook, a clenched fist and red colour like blood behind, it was like people calling for civil war and who in his right mind wants that?

“But of course people want change, because there is poverty, corruption, people get arrested without warrants, the government refuses to disclose their whereabouts for months. They are sentenced following unfair trials, a lot of times with stupid sentences such as ‘weakening the nation’s morale’ for saying ‘we want freedom and democracy’. But the only one weakening the nations moral is the government itself.”

‘Not holding hands with Israel’

One Syrian who became a “fan” of a Facebook page opposed to protesting says he cannot imagine, and does not want, Egyptian-style anti-government rallies to spread to Syria.

“I love my country and I don’t want to see people fighting. I can’t imagine the events occurring in Egypt to happen in Syria because we really like our president, not because they teach us to like him,” he says.

“In the formation of ministries, he’s made use of 100 per cent talent with the multiplicity of religions. There are not Alawites only. There are also Sunnis and Kurds and Christians. The president is married to Asma and she is Sunni. He shows the people we are brothers.

“The Syrians, like any other Arab household today, have their TVs turned on to Al Jazeera. They’re seeing what’s happening in Tunisia and Egypt. Freedom is an infectious feeling and I think people will want more freedom”

Nadim Houry, Human Rights Watch

“And he is the only president in the Arab region that did not accept any offers from Israel, like other presidents. I, and most Syrians, if not all, can’t accept a president who will hold hands with Israel.”

As in Egypt and Tunisia, unemployment in Syria is high. The official jobless rate is about 10 per cent, but analysts say the double is a more realistic estimate. According to a Silatech report based on a Gallup survey last year, 32 per cent of young Syrians said they were neither in the workforce nor students.

Since the current president took office, the Syrian economic system has slowly moved away from socialism towards capitalism. Markets have opened up to foreign companies and the GDP growth rate is expected to reach 5.5 per cent by 2011.

Last year, the average Syrian monthly salary was 13,500SP ($290), an increase of six per cent over the previous year, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.

But like in some other countries in the region, state subsidies have been slashed on various staples, including heating oil, and analysts say the poor are feeling the pinch.

“The bottom half of Syrians spend half of their income on food. Now, wheat and sugar prices have gone up in the last two years by almost 50 per cent,” Landis says.

“Syria is moving towards capitalism. This has resulted in a greater growth rate but it’s expanding income gaps. It’s attracting foreign investment and the top 10 per cent are beginning to earn real salaries on an international scale because they’re working for these new banks and in new industries. But the bottom 50 per cent are falling because they’re on fixed incomes and they get hit by inflation, reduced subsidies on goods, coupled with the fact that Syria’s water scarcity is going through the roof.”

However, Forward Magazine recently quoted Shafek Arbach, director of the Syrian Bureau of Statistics, as saying there is nothing in new data to suggest a growing gap between the rich and the poor in Syria.

‘Reforms needed’

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal late January, President al-Assad acknowledged the need for Syria to reform and but also said his country is “immune” from the kind of unrest seen in Tunisia and Egypt.

“We have more difficult circumstances than most of the Arab countries but in spite of that Syria is stable. Why? Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue. When there is divergence between your policy and the people’s beliefs and interests, you will have this vacuum that creates disturbance,” he said.

But Ribal al-Assad says it is obvious that the government is worried in the light of the discontent and anger spreading in the Middle East.

“Right after the Tunisian uprising they reduced the price for ‘mazot’ for the heating. They were supposed to bring up the price of medicines but then they didn’t. They distributed some aid to over 450,000 families. And, today we’re hearing that Facebook has been unblocked. They should have started this process a long time ago but better late than never.”

Houry says the lesson from Tunisia, which has been hailed as an economic role model in North Africa, is that economic reform on its own does not work.

“It will be interesting to watch how things are going to unfold over the coming few months,” he says. “The Syrians, like any other Arab household today, have their TVs turned on to Al Jazeera. They’re seeing what’s happening in Tunisia and Egypt. Freedom is an infectious feeling and I think people will want more freedom.”

 | Friday 18 February 2011

Manama, Bahrain – Government forces opened fire on hundreds of mourners marching toward Pearl Square Friday, sending people running away in panic amid the boom of concussion grenades. But even as the people fled, at least one helicopter sprayed fire on them and a witness reported seeing mourners crumpling to the ground.

It was not immediately clear what type of ammunition the forces were firing, but some witnesses reported live fire from automatic weapons and the crowd was screaming “live fire, live fire.” At a nearby hospital, witnesses reported seeing people with very serious injuries and gaping wounds, at least some of them caused by rubber bullets that appeared to have been fired at close range.

Even as ambulances rushed to rescue people, forces fired on medics loading the wounded into their vehicles. That only added to the chaos, with regular people pitching in to evacuate the wounded by car and doctors at a nearby hospital saying the delays in casualties reaching them made it impossible to get a reasonable count of the dead and wounded.

A Western official said at least one person had died in the mayhem surrounding the square, and reports said at least 50 were wounded. The official quoted a witness as saying that the shooters were from the military, not the police, indicating a hardening of the government’s stance against those trying to stage a popular revolt.

Thousands of people gathered at the hospital, offering blood for the wounded, and doctors said they were having to work as “volunteers” because the government had issued orders against helping protesters.

The mourners who defied a government ban to march on symbolic Pearl Square were mostly young men who had been part of a funeral procession for a protester killed in an earlier crackdown by police.

Minutes after the first shots were fired, forces in a helicopter that had been shooting at the crowds, opened fire at a Western reporter and videographer who were filming a sequence on the latest violence. Two young who had been in the march said some of the fire came from snipers.

The crown prince, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa went on Bahrain TV to call for calm, saying “Today is the time to sit down and hold a dialogue, not to fight.” Reuters reported.

The violence came a day after both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged the leaders of the country, a longtime ally, to show restraint. President Clinton reiterated that message on Friday and condemned the violence here, in Libya and in Yemen.

“The United States condemns the use of violence by governments against peaceful protesters in those countries and wherever else it may occur,” Mr. Obama said. The president made the remarks in a statement read to reporters traveling with him on a domestic trip on Air Force One, according to the Associated Press.

At least seven people had died in clampdowns in Bahrain before Friday’s violence.

The chaos has left the Obama administration in the uncomfortable position of dealing with a strategic Arab ally locked in a showdown with its people.

The protests in Bahrain started Monday, inspired by the overthrow of autocratic governments in Egypt and Tunisia. The Bahraini government initially cracked down hard, then backed off after at least two deaths and complaints from the United States. But since Thursday morning, security forces have shown little patience with the protesters, first firing on demonstrators sleeping in Pearl Square early Thursday morning, killing at least five, and then shooting today at those who gathered to mark an earlier death.

The violence appeared to be transforming the demands of the protesters who early on were calling for a switch from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one. On Thursday, the opposition withdrew from the Parliament and demanded that the government step down. And on Friday, the mourners were chanting slogans like “death to Khalifa,” referring to King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.

The protests here, while trying to mimic those in Egypt and Tunisia, add a dangerous new element: religious division. The king and the ruling elite of Bahrain are Sunni, while the majority of the population are Shiites, who have been leading the demonstrations and demanding not only more freedom but equality.

The king is distrustful enough of his Shiite subjects that many of his soldiers and police are foreigners hired by the government.

On Friday, in the village of Sitra, south of Manama, a crowd of thousands accompanied the coffins of Ali Mansour Ahmed Khudair, 53, and Mahmoud Makki Abutaki, 22, both killed by shotgun fire on Thursday.

The coffins were carried on the roofs of two cars as a man with a loudspeaker led the crowd in its chants from the bed of a pickup truck, alternating between calls to the faithful — “There is no God but God” — with political messages such as “We need constitutional reform for freedom.”

In the sun-scorched, sandy cemetery with its crumbling white headstones, the bodies were laid to rest on their sides so that they faced the Muslim holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. “Have you seen what they have done to us,” said Aayat Mandeel, 29, a computer technician. “Killing people for what? To keep their positions?”

After the burials, the crowds moved off to a major mosque for noon prayers on the Muslim holy day, an occasion that has provided a focus for protests elsewhere in the region. But it was not clear whether religious leaders would urge them to continue their demonstrations.

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For the Obama administration, the violence in this tiny Persian Gulf State was the Egypt scenario in miniature, a struggle to avert broader instability and protect its interests — Bahrain is the base of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet — while voicing support for the democratic aspiration of the protesters.

The United States has said it strongly opposed the use of violence. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Bahrain’s foreign minister on Thursday morning to convey “our deep concern about the actions of the security forces,” she said. President Obama did not publicly address the Thursday crackdown, but his press secretary, Jay Carney, said that the White House was urging Bahrain to use restraint in responding to “peaceful protests.”

In some ways, the administration’s calculations are even more complicated here, given Bahrain’s proximity to Saudi Arabia, another Sunni kingdom of vital importance to Washington, and because of the sectarian nature of the flare-up here.

This has broader regional implications, experts and officials said, since Saudi Arabia has a significant Shiite minority in its eastern, oil-producing districts and the Shiite government in Iran would like to extend its influence over this nearby island kingdom. Shiite political figures in Bahrain deny that their goal is to institute an Islamic theocracy like that in Tehran.

For those who were in the traffic circle known as Pearl Square Thursday when the police opened fire without warning on thousands who were sleeping there, it was a day of shock and disbelief. Many of the hundreds taken to the hospital were wounded by shotgun blasts, doctors said, their bodies speckled with pellets or bruised by rubber bullets or police clubs.

In the morning, there were three bodies already stretched out on metal tables in the morgue at Salmaniya Medical Complex: Mr. Khudair, dead, with 91 pellets pulled from his chest and side; Isa Abd Hassan, 55, dead, his head split in half; Mr. Abutaki, dead, with 200 pellets of birdshot pulled from his chest and arms.

Doctors said that at least two others had died and that several patients were in critical condition with serious wounds. Muhammad al-Maskati, of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, said he had received at least 20 calls from frantic parents searching for young children.

A surgeon, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, said that for hours on Thursday the Health Ministry prevented ambulances even from going to the scene to aid victims. The doctor said that in the early morning, when the assault was still under way, police officers beat a paramedic and a doctor and refused to allow medical staff to attend to the wounded. News agencies in Bahrain reported that the health minister, Faisal al-Hamar, resigned after doctors staged a demonstration to protest his order barring ambulances from going to the square.

In the bloodstained morgue, Ahmed Abutaki, 29, held his younger brother’s cold hand, tearfully recalling the last time they spoke Wednesday night. “He said, ‘This is my chance, to have a say, so that maybe our country will do something for us,’” he recalled of his brother’s decision to camp out in the circle. “My country did do something; it killed him.”

There was collective anxiety as Friday approached and people waited to see whether the opposition would challenge the government’s edict to stay off the streets. The government had made it clear that it would not tolerate more dissent, saying it would use “every strict measure and deterrent necessary to preserve security and general order.” Both sides said they would not back down.

“You will find members of Al Wefaq willing to be killed, as our people have been killed,” said Khalil Ebrahim al-Marzooq, one of 18 opposition party members to announce Thursday that they had resigned their seats. “We will stand behind the people until the complete fulfillment of our demands.”

Arab leaders have been badly shaken in recent days, with entrenched leaders in Egypt and Tunisia ousted by popular uprisings and with demonstrations flaring around the region. And now as the public’s sense of empowerment has spread, the call to change has reached into this kingdom. That has raised anxiety in Saudi Arabia, which is connected to Bahrain by a bridge, and Kuwait, as well, and officials from the Gulf Cooperation Council met here to discuss how to handle the crisis.

After the meeting — and before Friday’s clampdown — the council issued a statement supporting Bahrain’s handling of the protests. It also suggested that outsiders might have fomented them, in a clear effort to suggest Iranian interference.

“The council stressed that it will not allow any external interference in the kingdom’s affairs,” said the statement, carried on Bahrain’s state news agency, “emphasizing that breaching security is a violation of the stability of all the council’s member countries.”

“The Saudis are worried about any Shia surge,” said Christopher R. Hill, who retired last year as United States ambassador to Iraq, where he navigated tensions between Sunnis and Shiites. “To see the Shia challenging the royal family will be of great concern to them.”

Still, Mr. Hill said there was little evidence that Arab Shiites in Bahrain would trade their king for Iranian rulers.

Bahrain’s king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, and his family have long been American allies in efforts to fight terrorism and push back the regional influence of Iran. In diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks, he urged American officials to take military action to disable Iran’s nuclear program.

While Bahrain has arrested lawyers and human rights activists over the last two years, it had taken modest steps to open up the society in the eight years before that, according to Human Rights Watch. King Hamad allowed municipal and legislative elections last fall, for which he was praised by Mrs. Clinton during a visit to Bahrain in December.

In the streets, however, people were not focused on geopolitics or American perceptions of progress. They were voicing demands for democracy, rule of law and social justice.

Nadim Audi contributed reporting from Manama, Robert F. Worth from Washington, and Alan Cowell from Paris.

Doctor tells Al Jazeera that at least 70 people were killed during rallies calling for the ouster of long time leader.

18 February, 2011

Crowds have taken to the streets in Libya demanding more representation and the overthrow of Gaddafi

Security forces in Libya have killed at least 70 pro-democracy protesters in the country’s second-largest city  as demonstrations demanding the ouster of Col. Moammar Gaddafi, the long time ruler, increase across the country.

A doctor in Benghazi told Al Jazeera that he saw the bodies at the main hospital on Friday in one of the harshest crackdowns against peaceful protesters thus far.

“I have seen it on my own eyes: At least 70 bodies at the hospital,” said Wuwufaq al-Zuwail, a physician. He added that security forces also prevented ambulances to reach the site of the protests on Friday.

The Libyan government has also blocked Al Jazeera TV signal in the country. And people have also reported that the network’s website is inaccessible from there.

Protesters shot

Marchers mourning dead protesters in Libya’s second-largest city have reportedly come under fire from security forces, as protests in the oil-exporting North African nation entered their fifth day.

Mohamed el-Berqawy, an engineer in Benghazi, told Al Jazeera that the city was the scene of a “massacre,” and that four demonstrators had been killed on Friday.

“Where is the United Nations … where is (US president Barack) Obama, where is the rest of the world, people are dying on the streets,” he said. “We are ready to die for our country.”

Verifying news from Libya has been difficult since protests began, thanks to restrictions on journalists entering the country, as well as internet and mobile phone black outs imposed by the government. But Human Rights Watch has reported that at least 24 protesters have been killed so far, and sources on the ground have said that number could be as high as 70.

Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters seeking to oust Gaddafi took to the streets across Libya on Thursday in what organisers called a “day of rage” modelled after similar protests in Tunisia and Egypt that ousted longtime leaders there. Gaddafi has ruled Libya since 1969.

Funerals for those killed, expected in both Benghazi and the town of Bayda on Friday, may be a catalyst for more protests.

Pro-government supporters also were out on the streets early on Friday, according to the Libyan state television, which broadcasted images labelled “live” that showed men chanting slogans in support of Gaddafi.

The pro-Gaddafi crowd was seen singing as it surrounded his limousine as it crept along a road in the capital, Tripoli, packed with people carrying his portrait.

Deadly clashes on Thursday

Deadly clashes broke out in several towns on Thursday after the opposition called for protests in a rare show of defiance inspired by uprisings in other Arab states and the toppling of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

The worst clashes appeared to have taken place in the eastern Cyrenaica region, centred on Benghazi, where support for Gaddafi has historically been weaker than in other parts of the country.

Libya’s Quryna newspaper reported that the regional security chief had been removed from his post over the deaths of protesters in Bayda. Libyan opposition groups in exile claimed that Bayda citizens had joined with local police forces to take over Bayda and fight against government-backed militias, whose ranks are allegedly filled by recruits from other African nations.

Political analysts say Libyan oil wealth may give the government the capacity to smooth over social problems and

reduce the risk of an Egypt-style revolt.

Gaddafi’s opponents say they want political freedoms, respect for human rights and an end to corruption.

Gaddafi’s government proposed the doubling of government employees’ salaries and released 110 suspected anti-government figures who oppose him – tactics similar to those adopted by other Arab regimes facing recent mass protests.

Gaddafi also has been meeting with tribal leaders to solicit their support.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies