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By Israel Shamir

Nobody expected events to move forward with such a breath-taking speed. The Russians took their time; they sat on the fence and watched while the Brown storm-troopers conquered Kiev, and they watched while Mrs Victoria Nuland of the State Department and her pal Yatsenyuk (“Yats”) slapped each other’s backs and congratulated themselves on their quick victory. They watched when President Yanukovych escaped to Russia to save his skin. They watched when the Brown bands moved eastwards to threaten the Russian-speaking South East. They patiently listened while Mme Timoshenko, fresh out of gaol, swore to void treaties with Russia and to expel the Russian Black Sea Fleet from its main harbour in Sevastopol. They paid no heed when the new government appointed oligarchs to rule Eastern provinces. Nor did they react when children in Ukrainian schools were ordered to sing “Hang a Russian on a thick branch” and the oligarch-governor’s deputy promised to hang dissatisfied Russians of the East as soon as Crimea is pacified. While these fateful events unravelled, Putin kept silence.

He is a cool cucumber, Mr Putin. Everybody, including this writer, thought he was too nonchalant about Ukraine’s collapse. He waited patiently. The Russians made a few slow and hesitant, almost stealthy moves. The marines Russia had based in Crimea by virtue of an international agreement (just as the US has marines in Bahrain) secured Crimea’s airports and roadblocks, provided necessary support to the volunteers of the Crimean militia (called Self-Defence Forces), but remained under cover. The Crimean parliament asserted its autonomy and promised a plebiscite in a month time. And all of a sudden things started to move real fast!

The poll was moved up to Sunday, March 16. Even before it could take place, the Crimean Parliament declared Crimea’s independence. The poll’s results were spectacular: 96% of the votes were for joining Russia; the level of participation was unusually high – over 84%. Not only ethnic Russians, but ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars voted for reunification with Russia as well. A symmetrical poll in Russia showed over 90% popular support for reunification with Crimea, despite liberals’ fear-mongering (“this will be too costly, the sanctions will destroy Russian economy, the US will bomb Moscow”, they said).

Even then, the majority of experts and talking heads expected the situation to remain suspended for a long while. Some thought Putin would eventually recognise Crimean independence, while stalling on final status, as he did with Ossetia and Abkhazia after the August 2008 war with Tbilisi. Others, especially Russian liberals, were convinced Putin would surrender Crimea in order to save Russian assets in the Ukraine.

But Putin justified the Russian proverb: the Russians take time to saddle their horses, but they ride awfully fast. He recognised Crimea’s independence on Monday, before the ink dried on the poll’s results.  The next day, on Tuesday, he gathered all of Russia’s senior statesmen and parliamentarians in the biggest, most glorious state hall in the Kremlin, the elegant St George, lavishly restored to its Imperial glory, and declared Russia’s acceptance of Crimea’s reunification bid. Immediately after his speech, the treaty between Crimea and Russia was signed, and the peninsula reverted to Russia as it was before 1954, when Communist Party leader Khrushchev passed it to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.

This was an event of supreme elation for the gathered politicians and for people at home watching it live on their tellies. The vast St George Hall applauded Putin as never before, almost as loudly and intensely as the US Congress had applauded Netanyahu. The Russians felt immense pride: they still remember the stinging defeat of 1991, when their country was taken apart. Regaining Crimea was a wonderful reverse for them. There were public festivities in honour of this reunification all over Russia and especially in joyous Crimea.

Historians have compared this event with the restoration of Russian sovereignty over Crimea in 1870, almost twenty years after the Crimean War had ended with Russia’s defeat, when severe limitations on Russian rights in Crimea were imposed by victorious France and Britain. Now the Black Sea Fleet will be able to develop and sail freely again, enabling it to defend Syria in the next round. Though Ukrainians have let the naval facilities run down and turned the most advanced submarine harbour of Balaclava into a shambles, the potential is there.

Besides the pleasure of getting this lost bit of land back, there was the additional joy of outwitting the adversary. The American neocons arranged the coup in Ukraine and sent the unhappy country crashing down, but the first tangible fruit of this break up went to Russia.

A new Jewish joke was coined at that time:

Israeli President Peres asks the Russian President:

–          Vladimir, are you of Jewish ancestry?

–          Putin: What makes you think so, Shimon?

–          Peres: You made the US pay five billion dollars to deliver Crimea to Russia. Even for a Jew, that is audacious!

Five billion dollars is a reference to Victoria Nuland’s admission of having spent that much for democratisation (read: destabilisation) of the Ukraine. President Putin snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, and US hegemony suffered a set-back.

The Russians enjoyed the sight of their UN representative Vitaly Churkin coping with a near-assault by Samantha Power. The Irish-born US rep came close to bodily attacking the elderly grey-headed Russian diplomat telling him that “Russia was defeated (presumably in 1991 – ISH) and should bear the consequences… Russia is blackmailing the US with its nuclear weapons,” while Churkin asked her to keep her hands off him and stop foaming at the mouth. This was not the first hostile encounter between these twain: a month ago, Samantha entertained a Pussy Riot duo, and Churkin quipped that she should join their next concert tour.

The US Neocons’ role in the Kiev coup was clarified by two independent exposures. Wonderful Max Blumenthal and Rania Khalek showed that the anti-Russian campaign of recent months (gay protests, Wahl affair, etc.) was organised by the Zionist Neocon PNAC (now renamed FPI) led by Mr Robert Kagan, husband of Victoria “Fuck EC” Nuland. It seems that the Neocons are hell-bent to undermine Russia by all means, while the Europeans are much more flexible. (True, the US troops are still stationed in Europe, and the old continent is not as free to act as it might like).

The second exposé was an interview with Alexander Yakimenko, the head of Ukrainian Secret Services (SBU) who had escaped to Russia like his president. Yakimenko accused Andriy Parubiy, the present security czar, of making a deal with the Americans. On American instructions, he delivered weapons and brought snipers who killed some 70 persons within few hours. They killed the riot police and the protesters as well.

The US Neocon-led conspiracy in Kiev was aimed against the European attempt to reach a compromise with President Yanukovych, said the SBU chief. They almost agreed on all points, but Ms Nuland wanted to derail the agreement, and so she did – with the help of a few snipers.

These snipers were used again in Crimea: a sniper shot and killed a Ukrainian soldier. When the Crimean self-defence forces began their pursuit, the sniper shot at them, killed one and wounded one. It is the same pattern: snipers are used to provoke response and hopefully to jump-start a shootout.

 

Novorossia

While Crimea was a walkover, the Russians are far from being home and dry. Now, the confrontation moved to the Eastern and South-Eastern provinces of mainland Ukraine, called Novorossia (New Russia) before the Communist Revolution of 1917. Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his later years predicted that Ukraine’s undoing would come from being overburdened by industrial provinces that never belonged to the Ukraine before Lenin, – in other words, by Russian-speaking Novorossia. This prediction is likely to be fulfilled.

Who is fighting whom over there? It is a great error to consider the conflict a tribal one, between Russians and Ukrainians. Good old Pat Buchanan made this error saying that “Vladimir Putin is a blood-and-soil, altar-and-throne ethno-nationalist who sees himself as Protector of Russia and looks on Russians abroad the way Israelis look upon Jews abroad, as people whose security is his legitimate concern.” Nothing could be further from the truth: though perhaps the outlandish claim that Putin is keen on restoring the Russian Empire is a close competitor.

Putin is not an empire-builder at all (to the great regret of Russia’s communists and nationalists). Even his quick takeover of Crimea was an action forced on him by the strong-willed people of Crimea and by the brazen aggression of the Kiev regime. I have it on a good authority that Putin hoped he would not have to make this decision. But once he decided, he acted.

The “ethno-nationalist” assertion by Buchanan is even more misleading. The ethno-nationalists of Russia are Putin’s enemies; they support the Ukrainian ethno-nationalists and march together with Jewish liberals on Moscow street demos. Ethno-nationalism is as foreign to Russians as it is foreign to the English. You can expect to meet a Welsh or Scots nationalist, but an English nationalist is an unnatural rarity. Even the English Defence League was set up by a Zionist Jew. Likewise, you can easily find a Ukrainian or a Belarusian or a Cossack nationalist, but practically never a Russian one.

Putin is a proponent and advocate of non-nationalist Russian world. What is the Russian world?

Russian World

Russians populate their own vast universe embracing many ethnic units of various background, from Mongols and Karels to Jews and Tatars. Until 1991, they populated an even greater land mass (called the Soviet Union, and before that, the Russian Empire) where Russian was the lingua franca and the language of daily usage for majority of citizens. Russians could amass their huge empire because they did not discriminate and did not hog the blanket. Russians are amazingly non-tribal, to an extent unknown in smaller East European countries, but similar to other great Eastern Imperial nations, the Han Chinese and the Turks before the advent of Young Turks and Ataturk. The Russians did not assimilate but partly acculturated their neighbours for whom Russian language and culture became the gateway to the world. The Russians protected and supported local cultures, as well, at their expense, for they enjoy this diversity.

Before 1991, the Russians promoted a universalist humanist world-view; nationalism was practically banned, and first of all, Russian ethno-nationalism. No one was persecuted or discriminated against because of his ethnic origin (yes, Jews complained, but they always complain). There was some positive discrimination in the Soviet republics, for instance a Tajik would have priority to study medicine in the Tajik republic, over a Russian or a Jew; and he would be able to move faster up the ladder in the Party and politics. Still the gap was small.

After 1991, this universalist world-view was challenged by a parochial and ethno-nationalist one in all ex-Soviet republics save Russia and Belarus. Though Russia ceased to be Soviet, it retained its universalism. In the republics, people of Russian culture were severely discriminated against, often fired from their working places, in worst cases they were expelled or killed. Millions of Russians, natives of the republics, became refugees; together with them, millions of non-Russians who preferred Russian universalist culture to “their own” nationalist and parochial one fled to Russia. That is why modern Russia has millions of Azeris, Armenians, Georgians, Tajiks, Latvians and of smaller ethnic groups from the republics. Still, despite discrimination, millions of Russians and people of Russian culture remained in the republics, where their ancestors lived for generations, and the Russian language became a common ground for all non-nationalist forces.

If one wants to compare with Israel, as Pat Buchanan did, it is the republics, such as Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Estonia do follow Israeli model of discriminating and persecuting their “ethnic minorities”, while Russia follows the West European model of equality.

France vs Occitania

In order to understand the Russia-Ukraine problem, compare it with France. Imagine that country divided into North and South France, the North retaining the name of France, while the South of France calling itself “Occitania”, and its people “Occitans”, their language “Occitan”. The government of Occitania would force the people to speak Provençal, learn Frederic Mistral’s poems by rote and teach children to hate the French, who had devastated their beautiful land in the Albigensian Crusade of 1220. France would just gnash its teeth. Now imagine that after twenty years, the power in Occitania had been violently seized by some romantic southern fascists who were keen to eradicate “800 years of Frank domination” and intend to discriminate against people who prefer to speak the language of Victor Hugo and Albert Camus. Eventually France would be forced to intervene and defend francophones, at least in order to stem the refugee influx. Probably the Southern francophones of Marseilles and Toulon would support the North against “their own” government, though they are not migrants from Normandy.

Putin defends all Russian-speakers, all ethnic minorities, such as Gagauz or Abkhaz, not only ethnic Russians. He defends the Russian World, all those russophones who want and need his protection. This Russian World definitely includes many, perhaps majority of people in the Ukraine, ethnic Russians, Jews, small ethnic groups and ethnic Ukrainians, in Novorossia and in Kiev as well.

Indeed the Russian world was and is attractive. The Jews were happy to forget their schtetl and Yiddish; their best poets Pasternak and Brodsky wrote in Russian and considered themselves Russian. Still, some minor poets used Yiddish for their self-expression. The Ukrainians, as well, used Russian for literature, though they spoke their dialect at home for long time. Nikolai Gogol, the great Russian writer of Ukrainian origin, wrote Russian, and he was dead set against literary usage of the Ukrainian dialect. There were a few minor Romantic figures who used the dialect for creative art, like Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrainka.

Solzhenitsyn wrote: “Even ethnic-Ukrainians do not use and do not know Ukrainian. In order to promote its use, the Ukrainian government bans Russian schools, forbids Russian TV, even librarians are not allowed to speak Russian with their readers. This anti-Russian position of Ukraine is exactly what the US wants in order to weaken Russia.“

Putin in his speech on Crimea stressed that he wants to secure the Russian world – everywhere in the Ukraine. In Novorossia the need is acute, for there are daily confrontations between the people and the gangs sent by the Kiev regime. While Putin does not yet want (as opposed to Solzhenitsyn and against general Russian feeling) to take over Novorossia, he may be forced into it, as he was in Crimea. There is a way to avoid this major shift: the Ukraine must rejoin the Russian world. While keeping its independence, Ukraine must grant full equality to its Russian language speakers. They should be able to have Russian-language schools, newspapers, TV, be entitled to use Russian everywhere. Anti-Russian propaganda must cease. And fantasies of joining NATO, too.

This is not an extraordinary demand: Latinos in the US are allowed to use Spanish. In Europe, equality of languages and cultures is a sine qua non. Only in the ex-Soviet republics are these rights trampled – not only in Ukraine, but in the Baltic republics as well. For twenty years, Russia made do with weak objections, when Russian-speakers (the majority of them are not ethnic Russians) in the Baltic states were discriminated against. This is likely to change. Lithuania and Latvia have already paid for their anti-Russian position by losing their profitable transit trade with Russia. Ukraine is much more important for Russia. Unless the present regime is able to change (not very likely), this illegitimate regime will be changed by people of Ukraine, and Russia will use R2P against the criminal elements in power if they desist.

The majority of the people of Ukraine would probably agree with Putin, irrespective of their ethnicity. Indeed, in the Crimean referendum, Ukrainians and Tatars voted en masse together with Russians. This is a positive sign: there will be no ethnic strife in the Ukraine’s East, despite US efforts to the contrary. Decision time is coming up fast: some experts presume that by end of May the Ukrainian crisis will be behind us.

Israel Shamir is based in Moscow and can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net

6 April 2014

By Alan Hart

 

In an article asserting that the BDS (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions) Movement is “irrelevant”, M. J. Rosenberg has written, under the headline The Goal Of The BDS Movement Is Dismantling Israel, Not The ’67 Occupation, “The solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is two states for two peoples.” The question he chose to ignore – I wonder why? – is this: What are the most likely future scenarios if Israel’s leaders remain totally opposed to the creation of a viable Palestine state on all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with either East Jerusalem its capital or Jerusalem an undivided, open city and the capital of two states?

But first let’s take a brief look at Rosenberg’s critique (rubbishing) of BDS.

He opened it by noting that the University of Michigan’s student government voted down a resolution that would have begun the process of divesting from companies doing business with Israel. Then this:

“The reason why BDS keeps failing despite the almost universal recognition that the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the blockade of Gaza are illegal and immoral is that the BDS movement is not targeting the occupation per se. Its goal is the end of the State of Israel itself. In its view, all of historic Palestine is occupied territory; that means Tel Aviv and Haifa as much as Hebron and Nablus… Israel is not going to dismantle itself and Jews will not be the first people in the world to relinquish the right to self-determination.”

A question I would like Rosenberg answer is this. Since the Jews are from many different homelands, with very few of them having any biological connection to the ancient Hebrews, how could they, all Jews everywhere, have had a “right” to self-determination IN PALESTINE (the right claimed by Zionism and given substance by ethnically cleansing the land of Palestine of about three-quarters of its indigenous Arab inhabitants)?

The argument that the UN partition plan gave Jews a right to self-determination in a part of Palestine is easily dismissed for the nonsense it is. The UN had no right to assign any part of Palestine to alien Jewish immigrants without the consent of the majority Arab population. (And prior to that Britain had no right to give Zionism a spurious degree of legitimacy with the Balfour Declaration).

Rosenberg is correct when states that BDS’s goal of “dismantling” and “eradicating” Israel is indicated by its commitment not only to ending the 1967 occupation but also promoting the Palestinian right of return. The return of large numbers of Palestinian refugees would indeed mean the end of Israel but it could have seen off that potential danger if it had been wise enough to make peace with Arafat’s PLO after he had prepared the ground on his side for unthinkable compromise – the two-state solution – at the end of 1979. Arafat and his most senior Fatah leadership colleagues were reluctantly reconciled to the view that if they were to have the support of the major powers, the right of return would have to be restricted to the territory of the Palestinian mini state. They could not say so publicly without real and hard evidence that Israel was serious about peace on terms they could accept but that was their position and Israel’s leaders were aware of it.

Arafat knew that some and perhaps many diaspora Palestinians would accuse him of betraying their cause if he made peace with Israel on terms that required to right of return to be limited to the territory of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; but fully supported by all of his most senior Fatah leadership colleagues, he took the view that it was better for the Palestinians to have “something concrete” rather than nothing at all. (As I have previously written, he also dared to hope that one or two generations of a two-state peace with Israel would lead by mutual consent to one state for all, in which case the Palestinian right of return could be considered again).

Now back to Rosenberg’s assertion that the solution to the conflict is “two states for two peoples”.

The point he misses, perhaps because there has not yet been a formal burial attended by Western leaders and the mainstream media, is that the two-state solution has long been dead. (In truth it was probably never alive in Zionism’s mind). So what are the most likely scenarios for the future?

I can see three possibilities.

1. With the assistance of its Palestinian agents (Mohammed Dahlan to name only one) and the unspeakable, secret support of most of not all Arab regimes, Israel succeeds in effectively taking over the Palestine Authority and forcing the Palestinians to accept crumbs from Zionism’s table – a few Bantustans which the Palestinians could call a state if they wished.

2. A final Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine. (This scenario could see the implementation of Zionism’s Jordan Option – overthrowing the Hashemite monarchy and saying to the Palestinians, as Sharon was hoping to do in 1982 if he had succeeded in exterminating the entire PLO leadership in Beirut, “There’s your state. Go take it.”)

3. One state with equal rights and security for all.

Some might say there is a fourth possibility – a violent Palestinian uprising fuelled by despair. Though understandable, that would be a disaster for the occupied and oppressed Palestinians because it would save Israel’s leaders from having to create a pretext for a final ethnic cleansing).

Rosenberg asserted that a BDS Movement “dedicated to the eradication of Israel as a country is never going to achieve support other than from a radical fringe.”

In my view he is wrong to the extent that the BDS Movement is already supported by more than a radical fringe and is gathering momentum. But I also think he is right to the extent that the BDS Movement could and would gain much more support and momentum if its goal was only ending the 1967 occupation to create the space for a viable Palestinian state. It does seem to be the case that very many people who would support the BDS Movement on that basis hold back from doing so because they don’t want to be associated with a campaign that is committed to dismantling and eradicating Israel.

In the light of the above it seems to me that the best and most effective way for the BDS Movement to respond to its critics and detractors would be to give priority to spelling out why One State For All, and thus the dismantling and eradication of the Zionist entity, is in the best interests of all – not only Arabs and Jews but all of us, governments and peoples of all faiths and none everywhere.

The point being that if the Zionist state is not dismantled and eradicated it will most likely take the region and quite possibly the world to hell. I wrote in my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, that the red warning lights of Armageddon are twinkling.

But let me end this piece on a positive note. Properly presented the case for One State is not only about the need to stop the countdown to catastrophe for all, it is also truly inspirational. Though I will be ridiculed and abused by rabid anti-Semites for stating it, the following is the essence of the case.

The Jews, generally speaking, are the intellectual elite of the Western world. The Palestinians, generally speaking, are the intellectual elite of the Arab world. Together in peace and partnership in one state they could change the region for the better and, by so doing, give new hope and inspiration to the whole world.

If that vision or something very like it was promoted by the BDS Movement, I think its critics and detractors would be exposed for the irrelevance they are.

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent.

04 April, 2014

Alanhart.net

 

By Robert Barsocchini

 

For reference in recognizing and exposing US/Western propaganda (which, given a comprehensive view of the world, is a ridiculously easy task):

Current/Recent Protest movements the USA backs/funds/supports: (US state/mass media obediently magnifies cartoonish US propaganda on these:)

 

Venezuela  – small minority protest, carried out with extreme violence (using wire for decapitations, etc.); democratically elected government; USA wants to restore traditional order of imperial domination over a subdued native population, for benefit of US companies/hegemony

Ukraine  – minority protest, heavily integrated (approx. 30%) by fascist/Nazi parties who are specifically backed and endorsed by the US; End of 2013 Swiss poll finds Ukrainians consider USA the biggest international threat – 33% pick USA, while 5% pick Russia; fascist/Nazi parties backed by US likely committed mass murder against civilians (sniper attacks) to escalate violence; Ukrainian government was democratically elected, then overthrown with US-backing; US openly funds/supports current junta dictatorship, with fascist/Nazis in at least 6 major posts, including Defense, Media, and Education; junta dictatorship has since dictated major economic policy to benefit Western banks and US corporations, while impoverishing and de facto  enslaving  Ukrainian population

Syria  – dynasty allied with non-US major powers; USA has been working to overthrow Syrian government since 1957 and install US compliant dictator, as US did in Iran, Brazil, Guatemala, Chile, etc.; US began current phase of process by training militants, starting in at least 2006, to be sent to overthrow Syrian gov.; US and US dictator allies such as the Saudis currently waging major war of aggression against Syria by proxy – the supreme international crime; approx. 150,000 people killed so far; That Syria is governed by a family dictatorship does not separate it from the many dictatorships heavily supported by Obama/the West; the difference is simply that Syria is non-US compliant, and is allied with non-Western major powers

Libya  – Obama carried out a blitzkrieg against Libya, illegally slaughtering 6,000 people instantly and leading to the slaughter of some 50-100,000 people, as the Al Qaeda linked “protest” forces, for which Obama regime provided air support, overran and destroyed the most prosperous African nation, reducing it to the US-favored state of helplessness and weakness (see Latin American examples above and below for why this state is favored by the USA)

Afghanistan  – (not a protest movement, but a country overthrown by Obama/USA) Obama has massively increased US war against Afghanistan to fight back forces installed by the US in the 70s, 80s, and 90s (the Taliban), but opposed by the US in the late 90s once Taliban became  uncooperative  on US corporate energy projects.   Obama/Hillary Clinton  have since restarted/continued to pursue US energy projects through the second US-installed regime, and Obama is currently trying to keep US military there indefinitely

In each of the above cases, the USA wants to overthrow or has already helped overthrow the government, and install a US-compliant, or “client”, government.  This is illegal and an act of war.

Current/Recent Protest movements the USA opposes/crushes: (US state/mass media obediently censors these events in support of maintenance of US-compliant dictatorships:)

Occupy  – violently crushed by Obama, working closely with financial institutions

Currently : 500 person protest in New Mexico against police brutality violently crushed through police brutality; see  here

Saudi Arabia  – Obama backs Saudi Arabia as it crushes protests against decades-long dynastic theocratic dictatorship; In 2013, Obama sent Saudis 60.6 billion dollars of lethal weapons, some of them internationally banned, making this the biggest weapons shipment in US history; Saudi Arabia is one of world’s last absolute dictatorships; citizens have no human rights; it is the only country on planet where women are not allowed to drive cars

Bahrain  – Obama backs Bahrain as it crushes protests against decades-long dynastic theocratic dictatorship, which is slaughtering and torturing its own people as part of repression, including systematically torturing children, as reported by Amnesty Int’l; Obama continues to support and send weapons to Bahrain dictatorship

Thailand  – While backing Ukraine’s massively violent coup, which has used a wide array of weapons and destroyed numerous public buildings, US says of Thai people protesting US-backed dictatorship:  “Violence and the seizure of public or private property are not acceptable means of resolving political differences.”   Nice try.

Honduras  – military overthrow of democratically elected popular government that was helping the population; Obama/Hillary Clinton/USA, alone on Earth, back the violent overthrow, which they want to restore traditional order of colonialist domination over native population, for benefit of US companies/hegemony; illegal junta, enjoying Obama backing, turns Honduras into murder capital of the world to repress protest, and restores traditional imperial subversion of population

Paraguay  – very similar to Honduras

Crimea –  while backing unconstitutional, violent, fascist/Nazi led overthrow of elected government in Ukraine and formation of junta dictatorship, Obama/USA condemn and try to prevent (as Ukraine has done previously by force) Crimeans from voting to secede from Ukraine and re-accede into Russia, of which Crimea was a part for hundreds of years before 1954, when it was given to Ukraine by Soviets

Ukraine  – Obama opposes protests against illegal US-backed junta in Ukraine.  Western media censoring.

Okinawa  – Obama opposes protests, ongoing for decades, against US imperial bases imposed on Okinawa

South Korea  – Obama opposes protests, ongoing for decades, against US imperial bases imposed on South Korea

Haiti  – Obama backs Haitian government as it crushes protests by poor peasants who are being abused and depopulated from their lands by US-backed Haitian sweatshop dictatorship

Egypt  – Obama supported Mubarak 30-year fascist dictatorship for as long as possible, refusing to even allow him to be referred to as a dictator; USA then backed mass-violent overthrow of elected government that followed Mubarak, and continues to support illegal junta as it slaughters thousands and sentences thousands to death

Palestine/world  – Obama/USA continually increase aid to Israel as it slaughters Palestinian civilians, including with chemical weapons, tortures children (see ABC Australia doc) and ethnically cleanses and colonizes Palestine; the entire world opposes Israel/US actions, as expressed in every authoritative and legal body; for example, these actions are opposed every year since 1974 in the UN general assembly by virtually the entire world, and supported in virtual isolation by the US and Israel

Diego Garcia  – Obama refuses to let Chagossians return to their homeland, as required by law; instead he has come up with a new, sleazy method for  never letting them return home ; Obama prefers to use their island, which the US and Britain ethnically cleansed, as a center for murder and torture

In each of the above cases, the USA wants to maintain status quo/compliant dictatorship.

 

Conclusions:

 

The obvious conclusion is that the USA/West is an anti-democracy; a violent military empire that supports anything it can get away with that will further its domination of the planet, and opposes anything that hinders its domination.

 

The USA has and will support any mass murderer/torturer/absolute theocratic dictator as he massacres his own people (as seen in several of the above, current cases), including in Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, and will laughably condemn and target any entity that stands in its way, no matter how beneficial for and supported by a population (as in government of Venezuela), no matter how democratic (governments of Venezuela, Ukraine, Crimea), and no matter how innocent and spat on by the USA/West are the pitiful victims of US/Western imperial military brutality and terror (Diego Garcia, Syrians, etc.).

 

To further expand its network of murder and torture bases, the USA will commit mass murder and torture (Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan), and ethnically cleanse/depopulate land masses and exile entire peoples ( Diego Garcia ,  Palestine ).

Last note:

 

Such behavior is not unusual, but the norm for the USA/West.  USA has now overthrown, helped overthrow, or attempted to overthrow about  62 governments , most of them democracies.  At least seven of these overthrows/attempts have been carried out by Obama, and five of those have been democracies.

 

Obama is currently further encircling Russia, China, and Iran with trained killers and killing machines, and re-covering Africa in an imperial military web, including by supporting militants  implicated at the UN for mass rape .

 

US-backed  forces in Africa have, since 1994, killed nearly 10 million people.

 

Robert Barsocchini is an historical researcher and reporter, as well as a writer for the film industry.

 

02 April, 2014

Countercurrents.org

 

By Countercurrents

 

Reports in media including KUNA said:

Interventionists are planning to launch attacks using chemical weapons in Jobar area, Damascus, and to accuse the Syrian government of it, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Bashar Al-Jaafari said April 1, 2014.

The information was tracked in a phone call between suspected interventionists monitored by government authorities.

Al-Jaafari has sent two identical letters on March 25, 2014 to UN Secretary General and President of the Security Council about the two vital issues.

Citing the diplomat Syrian news agency (SANA) said:

The Syrian authorities monitored a landline phone call between two terrorists in Jobar area in Damascus suburb, during which one of the terrorists said a third terrorist referred to as Abu Nader is secretly distributing gas masks among his associates to protect them from toxic gas.

These terrorists would then accuse the Syrian government of the attack.

The Syrian diplomat’s letter has been posted on the UN website.

The Syrian security services, Jaafari said, also intercepted another communication between militants one of whom was called Abu Jihad. During that conversation, the latter indicated that toxic gas would be used and “asked those who are working with him to supply protective masks.”

Back in March, Jaafari informed the Security Council that a person named Haytham Salahuddin Qassab “transported chemical substances from Turkey on behalf of the terrorist organization known as Ahrar al-Sham.” He allegedly purchased the chemical agents from Turkey’s Dharwa Import and Export Company.

The substances reportedly included white phosphorous and isopropyl hydroxylamine. It was alleged, Jaafari said, that militants planned to use them to produce white smoke in certain areas and later claim that Syrian planes had bombed them.

“However, the primary reason for requesting those substances was to use them as chemical weapons,” the Syrian diplomat warned.

Syria’s UN Ambassador said: Militants had earlier followed a similar scenario in the chemical attacks in Allepo and in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, when they blamed Assad’s forces for the deadly incidents.

 

150,000 dead

 

At least 150,000 people have been killed in Syria’s three-year-old interventionist war, a third of them civilians, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The UK-based SOHR, which monitors violence in Syria through a network of activists and medical or security sources, said the real toll was likely to be significantly higher at about 220,000 deaths.

The last UN figures, released in July 2013, put the death toll at at least 100,000 but it said in January it would stop updating the toll as conditions on the ground made it impossible to make accurate estimates.

The Observatory said it had registered the deaths of 150,344 people since 18 March 2011, when Assad’s security forces first fired on protesters calling for reform.

The SOHR said nearly 38,000 interventionists have been killed, including fighters from the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis), an al-Qaida splinter group that includes many foreign fighters.

More than 58,000 pro-Assad fighters were killed, including regular security forces and Syrian pro-government militia, as well as 364 fighters from the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah and 605 other foreign Shia Muslims.

In addition to the fatalities, the Observatory said 18,000 people were missing after being detained by security forces while another 8,000 people had been kidnapped or detained by the interventionists.

 

Interventionists kill Armenians

 

Russia strongly condemned the brutal acts perpetrated by armed terrorist groups in Syria, affirming the UN Security Council has to discuss the massacre against the Armenians in Kassab, Lattakia countryside and give an initial evaluation to this act.

On a videotape broadcast on You Tube on Kassab events, the Russian Foreign Ministry said “Even though that video tape didn’t show execution of Armenians in Kassab, but the killing of Syrian soldiers at the hands of gunmen, this doesn’t make the crime less brutal.

Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov called for a Security Council urgent meeting to discuss the crimes committed by the armed terrorist groups against the residents of Kassab city in Lattakia countryside, near the border with Turkey.

Armed terrorist groups launched last week an assault against Kassab city in northern Syria under the cover and support of Turkey’s Erdogan government, which has facilitated the entry of the gunmen into Lattakia northern countryside.

 

Arming the terrorists continue

 

Russian defense minister Sergey Shoygu said Western and Gulf countries continue to provide weapons to terrorist groups in Syria, and that the situation in Syria is still tense because of that.

In a statement following a meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tajikistan on April 1, 2014, Shoygu said that there are fighters, who have fought in Libya, infiltrating Syria and supporting oppositions in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt, adding that these issues should not be over looked by the SCO.

He warned that any foreign military interference in Syria would lead to catastrophic results on the whole region, citing the negative impacts of the interference in Libya.

He stressed that the SCO should pay attention to the developments in the Middle East and North Africa, adding that if these challenges were not dealt with, then they would affect other neighboring countries.

The Russian defense ministry fully supports the Chinese initiative on forming a counter-terrorism center affiliated to the SCO, Shoygu said.

 

Latakia position recaptured

 

Syrian troops recaptured a key position in coastal Latakia province, a regime bastion as interventionists press a campaign in the region.

“Syrian army units have full control of Observatory 45 in the north of Latakia province and are continuing to pursue terrorist groups,” the state broadcaster said, citing the military.

Observatory 45 is a strategic hilltop that overlooks several areas inhabited by residents from the Alawite community.

Live TV report from near the hilltop and broadcast pictures of dead bodies it said were “terrorists,” many of them non-Syrians.

Last week the rebels seized the hill as part of an offensive launched March 21 in Latakia province, which had been relatively untouched by the widespread violence elsewhere in the country.

The interventionists including jihadists from the Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front have also captured the Armenian town of Kasab and the nearby Kasab border crossing with Turkey, as well as the village of Samra, giving them access to the Mediterranean for the first time.

After a series of interventionists’ losses in Damascus province, they have shifted their focus to Latakia.

 

02 April, 2014

Countercurrents.org

 

 

By Michael T. Klare

 

The Last Stage of Fossil-Fuel Addiction and Its Hazardous Impact on American Foreign Policy

Of all the preposterous, irresponsible headlines that have appeared on the front page of the New York Times in recent years, few have exceeded the inanity of this one from early March: “U.S. Hopes Boom in Natural Gas Can Curb Putin.” The article by normally reliable reporters Coral Davenport and Steven Erlanger suggested that, by sending our surplus natural gas to Europe and Ukraine in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the United States could help reduce the region’s heavy reliance on Russian gas and thereby stiffen its resistance to Vladimir Putin’s aggressive behavior.

Forget that the United States currently lacks a capacity to export LNG to Europe, and will not be able to do so on a significant scale until the 2020s. Forget that Ukraine lacks any LNG receiving facilities and is unlikely to acquire any, as its only coastline is on the Black Sea, in areas dominated by Russian speakers with loyalties to Moscow. Forget as well that any future U.S. exports will be funneled into the international marketplace, and so will favor sales to Asia where gas prices are 50% higher than in Europe. Just focus on the article’s central reportorial flaw: it fails to identify a single reason why future American LNG exports (which could wind up anywhere) would have any influence whatsoever on the Russian president’s behavior.

The only way to understand the strangeness of this is to assume that the editors of the Times, like senior politicians in both parties, have become so intoxicated by the idea of an American surge in oil and gas production that they have lost their senses.

As domestic output of oil and gas has increased in recent years — largely through the use of fracking to exploit hitherto impenetrable shale deposits — many policymakers have concluded that the United States is better positioned to throw its weight around in the world. “Increasing U.S. energy supplies,” said then-presidential security adviser Tom Donilon in April 2013, “affords us a stronger hand in pursuing and implementing our international security goals.” Leaders in Congress on both sides of the aisle have voiced similar views.

The impression one gets from all this balderdash is that increased oil and gas output — like an extra dose of testosterone — will somehow bolster the will and confidence of American officials when confronting their foreign counterparts. One former White House official cited by Davenport and Erlanger caught the mood of the moment perfectly: “We’re engaging from a different position [with respect to Russia] because we’re a much larger energy producer.”

It should be obvious to anyone who has followed recent events in the Crimea and Ukraine that increased U.S. oil and gas output have provided White House officials with no particular advantage in their efforts to counter Putin’s aggressive moves — and that the prospect of future U.S. gas exports to Europe is unlikely to alter his strategic calculations. It seems, however, that senior U.S. officials beguiled by the mesmerizing image of a future “Saudi America” have simply lost touch with reality.

For anyone familiar with addictive behavior, this sort of delusional thinking would be a sign of an advanced stage of fossil fuel addiction. As the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality evaporates, the addict persists in the belief that relief for all problems lies just ahead — when, in fact, the very opposite is true.

The analogy is hardly new, of course, especially when it comes to America’s reliance on imported petroleum. “America is addicted to oil,” President George W. Bush typically declared in his 2006 State of the Union address (and he was hardly the first president to do so). Such statements have often been accompanied in the media by cartoons of Uncle Sam as a junkie, desperately injecting his next petroleum “fix.” But few analysts have carried the analogy further, exploring the ways our growing dependence on oil has generated increasingly erratic and self-destructive behavior. Yet it is becoming evident that the world’s addiction to fossil fuels has reached a point at which we should expect the judgment of senior leaders to become impaired, as seems to be happening.

The most persuasive evidence that fossil fuel addiction has reached a critical stage may be found in official U.S. data on carbon dioxide emissions. The world is now emitting one and a half times as much CO2 as it did in 1988, when James Hansen, then director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warned Congress that the planet was getting warmer as a result of the “greenhouse effect,” and that human activity — largely in the form of carbon emissions from the consumption of fossil fuels — was almost certainly the cause.

If a reasonable concern over the fate of the planet were stronger than our reliance on fossil fuels, we would expect to see, if not a reduction in carbon emissions, then a decline at least in the rate of increase of emissions over time. Instead, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that global emissions will continue to rise at a torrid pace over the next quarter century, reaching 45.5 billion metric tons in 2040 — more than double the amount recorded in 1998 and enough, in the view of most scientists, to turn our planet into a living hell. Though seldom recognized as such, this is the definition of addiction-induced self-destruction, writ large.

For many of us, the addiction to petroleum is embedded in our everyday lives in ways over which we exercise limited control. Because of the systematic dismantling and defunding of public transportation (along with the colossal subsidization of highways), for instance, we have become highly reliant on oil-powered vehicles, and it is very hard for most of us living outside big cities to envision a practical alternative to driving. More and more people are admittedly trying to kick this habit at an individual level by acquiring hybrid or all-electric cars, by using public transit where available, or by bicycling, but that remains a drop in the bucket. It will take a colossal future effort to reconstruct our transportation system along climate-friendly lines.

For what might be thought of as the Big Energy equivalent of the 1%, the addiction to fossils fuels is derived from the thrill of riches and power — something that is far more difficult to resist or deconstruct. Oil is the world’s most lucrative commodity on the planet, and a source of great wealth and influence for ruling groups in the countries that produce it, notably Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. The leaders of these “petro-states” may not always benefit personally from the accumulation of oil revenues, but they certainly recognize that their capacity to govern, or even remain in power, rests on their responsiveness to entrenched energy interests and their skill in deploying the nation’s energy resources for political and strategic advantage. This is just as true for Barack Obama, who has championed the energy industry’s drive to increase domestic oil and gas output, as it is for Vladimir Putin, who has sought to boost Russia’s international clout through increased fossil fuel exports.

Top officials in these countries know better than most of us that severe climate change is coming our way, and that only a sharp reduction in carbon emissions can prevent its most destructive effects. But government and corporate officials are so wedded to fossil fuel profits — or to the political advantages that derive from controlling oil’s flow — that they are quite incapable of overcoming their craving for ever greater levels of production. As a result, while President Obama speaks often enough of his desire to increase the nation’s reliance on renewable energy, he has embraced an “all of the above” energy plan that is underwriting a boom in oil and gas output. The same is true for virtually every other major government figure. Obeisance is routinely paid to the need for increased green technology, but a priority continues to be placed on increases in oil, gas, and coal production. Even in 2040, according to EIA predictions, these fuels may still be supplying four-fifths of the world’s total energy supply.

This bias in favor of fossil fuels over other forms of energy — despite all we know about climate change — can only be viewed as a kind of carbon delirium. You can find evidence of this pathology worldwide and in myriad ways, but here are three unmistakable examples of our advanced stage of addiction.

 

1. The Obama administration’s decision to allow BP to resume oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

After energy giant BP (formerly British Petroleum) pleaded guilty to criminal negligence in the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, which resulted in the death of 11 people and a colossal oil spill, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suspended the company’s right to acquire new drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico. The ban was widely viewed as a major setback for the company, which had long sought to dominate production in the Gulf’s deep waters. To regain access to the Gulf, BP sued the EPA and brought other pressures to bear on the Obama administration. Finally, on March 13th, after months of lobbying and negotiations, the agency announced that BP would be allowed to resume bidding for new leases, as long as it adhered to a list of supposedly tight restrictions

BP officials viewed the announcement as an enormous victory, allowing the company to resume a frenetic search for new oil deposits in the Gulf’s deep waters. “Today’s agreement will allow America’s largest investor to compete again for federal contracts and leases,” said BP America Chairman and President John Mingé. Observers in the oil industry predict that the company will now acquire many additional leases in the Gulf, adding to its already substantial presence there. “With this agreement, it’s realistic to expect that the Gulf of Mexico can be a key asset for BP’s operations not only for this decade but potentially for decades to come,” commented Stephen Simko, an oil specialist at Morningstar investment analysts. (Six days after the EPA announced its decision, BP bid $42 million to acquire 24 new leases in the Gulf.)

So BP’s interest is clear enough, but what is the national interest in all this? Yes, President Obama can claim that increased drilling might add a few hundred thousand barrels per day to domestic oil output, plus a few thousand new jobs. But can he really assure our children or grandchildren that, in allowing increased drilling in the Gulf, he is doing all he can to reduce the threat of climate change as he promised to do in his most recent State of the Union address? If he truly sought a simple and straightforward way to renew that pledge, this would have been a good place to start: plenty of people remember the damage inflicted by the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the indifference BP’s top officials displayed toward many of its victims, so choosing to maintain the ban on its access to new drilling leases on environmental and climate grounds would certainly have attracted public support. The fact that Obama chose not to do so suggests instead a further surrender to the power of oil and gas interests — and to the effects of carbon delirium.

2. The Republican drive to promote construction of the Keystone XL pipeline as a response to the Ukrainian crisis

 

If Obama administration dreams about pressuring Putin by exporting LNG to Europe fail to pass the credibility test, a related drive by key Republicans to secure approval for the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline defies any notion of sanity. Keystone, as you may recall, is intended to carry carbon-dense, highly corrosive diluted bitumen from the Athabasca tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Its construction has been held up by concerns that it will pose a threat to water supplies along its route and help increase global carbon dioxide emissions.

Because Keystone crosses an international boundary, its construction must receive approval not just from the State Department, but from the president himself. The Republicans and their conservative backers have long favored the pipeline as a repudiation of what they view as excessive governmental deference to environmental concerns. Now, in the midst of the Ukraine crisis, they are suddenly depicting pipeline approval as a signal of U.S. determination to resist Putin’s aggressive moves in the Crimea and Ukraine.

“Putin is playing for the long haul, cleverly exploiting every opening he sees. So must we,” wrote former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a recent Washington Post op-ed. “Authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline and championing natural gas exports would signal that we intend to do precisely that.”

Does anyone truly believe that Vladimir Putin will be influenced by a White House announcement that it will allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline? Putin’s government is already facing significant economic sanctions and other punitive moves, yet none of this has swayed him from pursuing what he appears to believe are Russia’s core interests. Why, then, would the possibility that the U.S. might acquire more of its oil from Canada and less from Mexico, Nigeria, Venezuela, and other foreign suppliers even register on his consciousness?

In addition, to suggest that approving Keystone XL would somehow stiffen Obama’s resolve, inspiring him to adopt tougher measures against Moscow, is to engage in what psychologists call “magical thinking.” Were Keystone to transport any other substance than oil, the claim that its construction would somehow affect presidential decision-making or events on Russia’s borders would be laughable. So great is our reverence for petroleum, however, that we allow ourselves to believe in such miracles. This, too, is carbon delirium.

 

3. The Case of the Missing $20 Billion

 

Finally, consider the missing $20 billion in oil revenues from the Nigerian treasury. In Nigeria, where the average income is less than $2.00 per day and many millions live in extreme poverty, the disappearance of that much money is a cause for extreme concern. If used for the public good, that $20 billion might have provided basic education and health care for millions, helped alleviate the AIDS epidemic, and jump-started development in poor rural areas. But in all likelihood, much of that money has already found its way into the overseas bank accounts of well-connected Nigerian officials.

Its disappearance was first revealed in February when the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, told a parliamentary investigating committee that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had failed to transfer the proceeds from oil sales to the national treasury as required by law. Nigeria is Africa’s leading oil producer and the proceeds from its petroleum output not claimed by the NNPC’s foreign partners are supposed to wind up in the state’s coffers. With oil prices hovering at around $100 per barrel, Nigeria should theoretically be accumulating tens of billions of dollars per year from export sales. Sanusi was immediately fired by President Goodluck Jonathan for conveying the news that the NNPC has been reporting suspiciously low oil revenues to the central bank, depriving the state of vital income and threatening the stability of the nation’s currency. The only plausible explanation, he suggested, is that the company’s officials are skimming off the difference. “A substantial amount of money has gone,” he told the New York Times. “I wasn’t just talking about numbers. I showed it was a scam.”

While the magnitude of the scam may be eye-catching, its existence is hardly surprising. Ever since Nigeria began producing oil some 60 years ago, a small coterie of business and government oligarchs has controlled the allocation of petroleum revenues, using them to buy political patronage and secure their own private fortunes. The NNPC has been an especially fertile site for corruption, as its operations are largely immune from public inspection and the opportunities for swindles are mammoth. Sanusi is only one of a series of well-intentioned civil servants who have attempted to plumb the depths of the thievery. A 2012 report by former anti-corruption chief Nuhu Ribadu reported the disappearance of a hardly less staggering $29 billion from the NNPC between 2001 and 2011.

Here, then, is another, equally egregious form of carbon delirium: addiction to illicit oil wealth so profound as to place the solvency and well-being of 175 million people at risk. President Jonathan has now promised to investigate Sanusi’s charges, but it is unlikely that any significant portion of the missing $20 billion will ever make it into Nigeria’s treasury.

 

Curing Addiction

 

These examples of carbon delirium indicate just how deeply entrenched it is in global culture. In the U.S., addiction to carbon is present at all levels of society, but the higher one rises in corporate and government circles, the more advanced the process.

Slowing the pace of climate change will only be possible once this affliction is identified, addressed, and neutralized. Overcoming individual addiction to narcotic substances is never an easy task; resisting our addiction to carbon will prove no easier. However, the sooner we recast the climate issue as a public health problem, akin to drug addiction, the sooner we will be able to fashion effective strategies for averting its worst effects. This means, for example, providing programs and incentives for those of us who seek to reduce our reliance on petroleum, and imposing penalties on those who resist such a transition or actively promote addiction to fossil fuels.

Divesting from fossil fuel stocks is certainly one way to go cold turkey. It involves sacrificing expectations of future rewards from the possession of such stocks, while depriving the fossil fuel companies of our investment funds and, by extension, our consent for their activities.

But a more far-ranging kind of carbon detoxification must come in time. As with all addictions, the first and most crucial step is to acknowledge that our addiction to fossil fuels has reached such an advanced stage as to pose a direct danger to all humanity. If we are to have any hope of averting the worst effects of climate change, we must fashion a 12-step program for universal carbon renunciation and impose penalties on those who aid and abet our continuing addiction.

 

Michael T. Klare is the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

By Kourosh Ziabari

The war of words between Russia and the United States is soaring these days over the sovereignty of the Crimean peninsula, and the White House officials are constantly directing accusations and excruciating verbal attacks against Kremlin in what seems to be the most serious dispute between Moscow and the West in the recent years.

The United States has pulled out all the stops to defeat and isolate Russia diplomatically, and has even gone so far as to impose economic sanctions against the Russian individuals and companies, and excluding Russia from the G8 group of the industrialized nations. The 40th G8 summit was slated to be held in Sochi, Russia on June 4-5, but following the suspension of Russia’s membership in the G8, the summit relocated to Brussels, Belgium, and it would be the first time that a G8 leaders’ convention is going to take place in a non-member state country. Some of the Western media outlets have even started to refer to G8 as G7, implying that Russia does not have any position in this influential group of the affluent, developed nations.

But as always, when it comes to flexing the muscles and showing political prowess, the United States and its partners are behaving in an intolerant, duplicitous and hypocritical manner. In a statement, the newly-termed G7 leaders reaffirmed that Russia’s “occupation of the Crimea” was against the principles of the G7 and contravened the United Nations Charter.

It’s interesting that the innumerable violations of the international law, the UN Charter and Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in time of War by the United States in the recent years have never caught the attention of the G8 leaders and never compelled them to at least consider warning the United States to behave more responsibly and respect the internationally recognized conventions and regulations or refraining from destroying and annihilating other nations through its “humanitarian” missions!

If Russia should be punished for sending troops to Crimea, while it’s legally entitled to do so, and if its military intervention in Crimea represents a violation of the UN Charter in the eyes of the Western leaders, then it will be taken for granted that all violations of the international law and the United Nations Charter should be reprimanded and responded appropriately and the wrongdoers should be penalized in a fair manner. If Russia has occupied a sovereign entity – which is of course not the case, and should bear the burden of sanctions and diplomatic isolation, it’s ok, but why shouldn’t the United States be castigated and prosecuted for the same reason? What makes the military intervention of Russia different from the wars the U.S. offhandedly wages across the world?

For those of us who willfully ignore the historical facts, it’s noteworthy that the Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet signed between Russia and Ukraine on May 28, 1997, permits Russia to lawfully maintain up to 25,000 troops, 24 artillery systems, 132 armored vehicles and 22 military planes on the Crimean peninsula. This agreement will be effective until 2017, and so it can be the most convincing logical justification for Russia’s military action in Crimea.

So, what has happened is not an “occupation” as the U.S. leaders claim, but that Russia has exercised its legal right for sending troops to a geographical area where the majority of inhabitants are ethnic Russians and don’t want to remain under the Ukraine autonomy and are overwhelmingly inclined to join Russia.

What every neutral and unbiased observer of the international political developments can easily note is that it’s the United States which is renowned for its hegemonic policies and its imperialistic modus operandi, not Russia. Russia’s intervention in Crimea took place after it felt that its national interests are being seriously endangered on its borders, where 58% of the population is consisted of indigenous Russians who prefer to be reunited with Russia, rather than being seen as an asset and prize for the United States under the leadership of a new government in Ukraine which has neo-fascist backgrounds.

The prominent American syndicated columnist and journalist Ted Rall has recently written on his website that there are traces of neo-fascism and neo-Nazism in the government of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk who has just come to power: “There’s no doubt that a Ukrainian nationalist strain runs deep in the new regime. It has been estimated that roughly 1/3 or more of the supporters of the new government come out of xenophobic, anti-Semitic, neo-fascist movements that draw much of their ideological heritage from the Nazi puppet regime that governed Ukraine under German occupation during World War II.”

So, on March 16, the Crimean parliament and the local government of Sevastopol held a public referendum in Crimea to give the citizens two choices for the future of their territory; either to remain associated with Ukraine or reunite with Russia. With a high turnout of 83.1% of the eligible voters, 96.77% of the participants in the plebiscite voted in favor of joining the Russian Federation. The United States and its allies didn’t hesitate to call the referendum as rigged and invalid, as they usually does with the elections in countries with which they are at odds. Washington even drafted a resolution in the United Nations Security Council to call the referendum null and void, but Russia used its veto power, while China abstained, and the United States simply pushed the General Assembly member states to pass a non-binding resolution, declaring the referendum invalid, which doesn’t seem to have any certain impact on the future of Crimea.

The policy of de-Russanization was long underway in the Crimean peninsula, and many other former Soviet Union republics, as Ted Rall elaborately details. Perhaps the fact that the Ukrainian Parliament Verkhovna Rada voted on February 23 to repeal the 2012 language law that had declared Russian an official language in Ukraine and allowed it to be used in the schools, media and official correspondence, was a driving force for the Crimean people to rise up and call for independence from Ukraine that they believed didn’t respect their cultural and lingual background.

The future of Crimea and the prospects of the marred relations between Russia and the West remain blurred and unknown, but the United States’ accusations that Russia is “occupying” Crimea and exerting military aggression and so should be punished with economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation sound gravely outrageous and entirely hypocritical. The United States has the biggest war machinery in the world, has been directly or indirectly involved in more than 50 wars and military strikes on other countries without the approval of the UN Security Council, and has incontestably perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity.

As the prominent American lawyer and legal expert Marjorie Cohn has noted in a recent article, the United States is the largest user of unconventional and forbidden chemical weapons in the illegal wars it has waged across the globe. “The U.S. militarily occupied over 75% of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques for 60 years, during which time the Navy routinely practiced with, and used, Agent Orange, depleted uranium, napalm and other toxic chemicals and metals such as TNT and mercury. This occurred within a couple of miles of a civilian population that included thousands of U.S. citizens,” wrote Prof. Cohn.

“The use of any type of chemical weapon by any party would constitute a war crime. Chemical weapons that kill and maim people are illegal and their use violates the laws of war,” she added.

She also goes on to explain the use of chemical weapons by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria and also underlines that the majority of wars in which the United States has taken part were not ever approved by the Security Council. Aren’t these crimes a contravention of the UN Charter? Why don’t the G7 leaders and European Council and European Commission officials ever react to these violations? Does the United States have the prerogative to attack other countries and maim their people without any legal or moral justification and then get away with its crimes?

The United States is imparting a clear message by adopting this insincere and hypocritical approach toward Russia, which is also a message to other countries: We can invade your countries, we can kill your citizens, we can rule you tyrannically, we can behave in any way we desire, but if you do something which doesn’t please us, we will impose sanctions on you, we will banish you from international organizations, and we will come down on you like a ton of bricks. This is how the American hypocrisy works…

 

Kourosh Ziabari is an Journalist, writer and media correspondent.

31 March, 2014

Countercurrents.org

 

By Nile Bowie

 

Saudi officials are highly displeased over Washington’s overtures to Iran and reluctance to strike Syria and have threatened to break away from the US sphere, but the monarchy may still see an oil-for-security partnership with the Obama administration as the safest policy.

Following his visit to Brussels where US President Barack Obama underscored the common values and principles shared between the United States and its European allies, the American president jetted off to meet another strategic ally. Saudi Arabia, a state that is the antithesis of those very western values that Obama passionately espouses, has been in the US sphere of influence for decades, and its opulent royal family has traditionally maintained close personal ties to American leaders. Obama’s visit comes in the midst of a policy rift that has emerged between the two allies over Washington’s policies in the Middle East, which threaten to undermine this significant economic and security partnership. The two allies appear to be strange bedfellows at first glance, but when the relationship is examined within the context of a long-standing geopolitical and economic oil-for-security partnership, lofty rhetoric about western values becomes subservient to the harmonious marriage of convenience. The American president did not raise concerns of human rights violations during his dialogue with King Abdullah, despite the kingdom’s notoriously abhorrent human rights record, which includes the severe repression of women’s rights and capital punishment (often by beheading) for engaging in apostasy, adultery, sorcery or homosexuality. The purpose of this brief visit was to reassure the Saudi leadership that their grievances were being heard, and that Washington desires the same immediate endgame: a pliant new regime in Damascus that will be subservient to US-Saudi interests, and a weakened non-nuclear Iran.

 

Fraying ties

Relations between Washington and Riyadh were at their lowest in October 2013, when then Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan vowed to make a “major shift” in relations with the US in protest over the Obama administration’s decision to backpedal on plans to launch airstrikes on Syria. Members of the Saudi royal family openly derided the UN-backed deal to eliminate Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons and ridiculed Obama for failing to act when his ‘red line’ was crossed. Washington’s attempts to thaw relations with Iran have also irritated Saudi leaders, who deeply resented how US-Iranian talks had been kept secret from Riyadh. Aside from feeling double-crossed by a major ally, the Saudis believe that any US-Iran agreement would bolster Tehran and allow Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to remain in power. Saudi Arabia is fuelling a proxy war as the chief financier of anti-Assad jihadist groups aimed at toppling the Syrian government and rolling back the influence of Hezbollah and Iran in the region, while Saudi officials have complained about US constraints placed on the kind of weapons allowed to be funneled to militia groups, arguing that the Obama administration’s reluctance to provide rebels with anti-aircraft missiles has allowed Syrian government forces to make significant gains on the battlefield.

There are also significant differences between the two allies with respect to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Riyadh is disappointed with Washington’s unwillingness to pressure the Israelis into making tough concessions; Saudi Arabia and other members of the Arab League also reject Washington’s decision to back Israel’s demand to be recognized as a “Jewish state,” because doing so implies that Palestinians renounce their right of return. The House of Saud was deeply upset when the Obama administration turned away from Hosni Mubarak during Egypt’s first leadership transition in 2011, giving rise to the Qatar-backed Muslim Brotherhood. Riyadh enthusiastically supported the ouster of elected Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in favor of a Saudi-aligned military junta. Though Washington hasn’t broke away from the new regime in Cairo, leaders in Saudi Arabia volunteered to provide financial assistance to compensate for the suspension of a portion of US military aid, and the two allies have clear differences on the situation in Egypt. As a protest against perceived American inaction and the inability of the UN to effectively ‘punish’ the Syrian government for allegedly using chemical weapons, the leadership of Saudi Arabia famously rejected a seat on the UN Security Council. Though officials from the kingdom point to Riyadh’s rejection of the UN seat as an example of their preparedness to act independently, this gesture ultimately was a pressure tactic to coax the US into taking a harder line.

 

Going it alone?

Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Britain published a striking column in the New York Times last year decrying western policies on Syria and Iran as a dangerous gamble, warning that the kingdom would not stand idly by. The op-ed essentially calls for military action against Damascus (and by extension, Tehran) and vows that the kingdom will become more assertive in international affairs. Saudi Arabia has expressed a desire to formulate a new assertive foreign policy doctrine to contest a resurgent Iran and its support bloc, hastened by a deteriorating relationship with Washington as imports of Saudi crude are at their lowest point in two decades in the wake of the US shale oil boom. However, there are few indications that Riyadh has channeled its rhetoric and gestures into a fundamental policy shift; in fact, the opposite may be taking place. The recent shuffling of key officials appears to be designed to ease tensions with the US, allowing both allies to more effectively coordinate in their drive to oust the Syrian government. There are also no indications that Saudi Arabia is defying the US by providing advanced weapons systems to rebel militias fighting in Syria. The Saudis have placed more emphasis on pushing against Assad using diplomatic means. Rather than taking a major policy shift away from the US, the sacking of Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan has arguably been an effort to please Washington.

Senior American officials where known to have described Prince Bandar as an erratic and hot-headed character, while US Secretary of State John Kerry complained about his conduct and labeled him as “the problem” when discussing the kingdom’s policy on Syria. Bandar was sacked from his role as the main coordinator of the Syrian dossier and replaced with Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, a personal friend ofJohn Kerry and CIA Director John Brennan who analysts believe is capable of calming relations with Washington. Reports indicate that since the shuffle, the kingdom has pledged to make greater efforts to explore diplomatic avenues to pressure Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. A quieter and less extreme strategy for Syria has been evidenced by a recent decree that bars Saudi citizens from fighting in conflicts outside the kingdom, with a punishment of incarceration for offenders. The decree is sorely disingenuous when considering how Saudi authorities knowingly aided jihadist groups whose members included foreigners and Saudi citizens throughout Syria’s civil war. The policy shift has more to do with clamping down on extremist elements inside the kingdom that may potentially seek to rise up against the monarchy, but it also signals a willingness to appease Washington by flying the flag of so-called ‘moderation’ and taking a more cautious approach.

 

No break with Washington

There appears to be a spilt in the Saudi leadership between one side that calls for an independent posture, a hardline interventionist stance on Syria, and strategic shift away from the US. The other branch is more cautious and realizes that significant changes to the status quo may pose too much vulnerability to the kingdom. For the moment, King Abdullah has taken the cautious path, and Riyadh is also aware that the US security umbrella is the best bet for regime stability and continuity; the existing rift would have to deepen considerably before any major shift away from Washington can be considered. Though the Saudis have vowed to take a quieter approach on Syria, the significant gains of government forces in recent times have pushed Riyadh to call for equipping rebel forces with man-portable air-defense systems.Prince Mohammed, who has a history of leading counterterrorism operations in Yemen, has attempted to assuage American fears that any advanced weapons would not end up in the hands of extremists. The Obama administration is now mulling the decision whether or not to provide them. Even so, there is no indication that Riyadh plans to go ahead with deploying advanced weapons without Washington’s green light, suggesting that the ‘major shift’ promised by some Saudi officials has been sidelined.

Obama’s recent trip to Saudi Arabia came as a response to tactical pressure placed on the administration by the House of Saud, which is not seriously intending to disengage with the US. Oil has always underlined the US-Saudi relationship, and as Gulf exporters turn their attention eastward toward energy hungry developing economies as the US capitalizes on the shale boom, there are slow-motion risk diversification efforts being made that will strengthen Saudi relations with a parallel web of allies. For now, the marriage of convenience looks set to remain in place.

 

Nile Bowie is a Malaysia-based political analyst and a columnist with Russia Today. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com. He is also a Just Member.

 

30 March 2014

 

 

By Colin Todhunter

The Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) between the  US and EU aims  to ‘protect’ investment and remove ‘unnecessary regulatory barriers’. C orporate interests are driving the agenda, the public have been sidelined and unaccountable, pro-free-trade bureaucrats are facilitating the strategy (1) .

There is growing concern that the negotiations could result in the  opening of the floodgates for GMOs and shale gas (fracking) in  Europe , the threatening of digital and labour rights and the empowering of corporations to legally challenge a wide range of regulations which they dislike.

One of the key aspects of the negotiations is that both the EU and US should recognise their respective rules and regulations, which in practice could reduce regulation to the lowest common denominator. The official language talks of ‘mutual recognition’ of standards or so-called reduction of non-tariff barriers. For the EU, that could mean accepting US standards in many areas, including food and agriculture, which are lower than the EU’s.

Even the leaders of the US Senate Finance Committee, in a  letter  to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, made it clear that any agreement must reduce EU restrictions on genetically modified crops, chlorinated chickens and hormone-treated beef.

Food lobby group Food and Drink Europe, representing the largest food companies (Unilever, Kraft, Nestlé, etc.), has welcomed the negotiations, with one of their key demands being the facilitation of the low level presence of unapproved GM crops.

The TAFTA negotiations are shrouded in secrecy and are closed to proper public scrutiny (2,3,4). They amount to little more than grubby back room deals, while striving to give the appearance of somehow being democratic, and effectively constitute part of the ongoing corporate hijack of democracy and the further restructuring of economies in favour of elite interests (5,6,7).

However, despite claims by the European Commission that there is no secrecy (8), the notes of European Commission meetings with business lobbyists released to Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) under the EU’s freedom of information law were heavily censored. The documents showed that the EC invited industry to submit wish lists for ‘regulatory barriers’ they would like removed during the negotiations. There is no way for the public to know how the EU has incorporated this into its negotiating position as all references have been removed (4). The documents show clearly that removing differences in EU and US regulations is the key issue in the talks: in other words, a race to the bottom in setting the lowest barriers possible.

A leaked EU document (9)  from the winter of 2013 shows the Commission proposing an EU-US Regulatory Cooperation Council, a permanent structure to be created as part of the TAFTA deal. Existing and future EU regulation will then have to go through a series of investigations, dialogues and negotiations in this Council. This would move decisions on regulations into a technocratic sphere, away from democratic scrutiny .  Also, there would be compulsory impact assessments for proposed regulation, which will be checked for their potential impact on trade. This would be ideal for big business lobbies: creating a firm brake on any new progressive regulation in the very first stage of decision-making.

As if all of this isn’t bad enough, there is also the highly contentious trade-investor dispute settlement provision in TAFTA. It would enable US companies investing in Europe to bypass European courts and challenge EU governments at international tribunals whenever they find that laws in the area of public health, environmental or social protection interfere with their profits. EU companies investing abroad would have the same privilege in the US.

This constitutes a charter for the systematic destruction and dismantling of legislation that exists to protect the hard-won rights of workers and ordinary people.

Across the world, big business has already used such investor-state dispute settlement provisions in trade and investment agreements to claim massive sums in compensation.  Tribunals, consisting of ad hoc three-member panels hired from a small club of private lawyers riddled with conflicts of interest, have granted billions of euros to companies, courtesy of taxpayers (10).

EU and US companies have used these lawsuits to destroy any competition or threats to their profits by for example challenging green energy and medicine policies, anti-smoking legislation, bans on harmful chemicals, environmental restrictions on mining, health insurance policies and measures to improve the economic situation of minorities.

If governments and parliaments fail to act to protect the public’s interests, powerful corporations will acquire carte blanche to rein in democracy and curb policies devised for the public good.

Despite such major concerns, campaigners from the  Seattle to Brussels Network (11) have criticised the European Commission’s recently implemented consultation on the investor rights in the EU-US trade deal as a mock consultation aimed at selling its pro-industry agenda, rather than an honest attempt to have a much-needed open debate on the issue.

Roos van Os of the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), a member of the Seattle to Brussels Network, has said:

“Those who reject the undemocratic and dangerous investor-state dispute settlement system will have no opportunity in this consultation to voice their opposition because the Commission’s biased questions provide no option for that. The Commission should make itself available for a real debate, not a cowardly advertising campaign for its corporate agenda.”

In meetings with the Commission, members of its civil society advisory group on the EU-US trade deal had stressed the need for the consultation to be intelligible for non-experts and for there to be balanced questions. But the Commission’s consultation questionnaire only contains questions about its agenda for minor reforms to salvage the controversial investor-state dispute settlement system, in a 40-page legalistic text which will be difficult for members of the public to understand.

Marc Maes of the Belgian development organisation and also a member of the Seattle to Brussels Network:

 

“The Commission’s so-called reform agenda does nothing to address the basic flaws of the investor-state dispute settlement system. Therefore foreign companies will continue to have greater rights than domestic firms and citizens. And international tribunals consisting of three for-profit lawyers will continue to decide over what policies are right or wrong, disregarding domestic laws, courts and democracy.”

Analyses of leaked investment texts from the EU-Canada trade negotiations indicate that the EU’s approach to investment protection does very little to protect the right to regulate (in fact it sometimes does the exact opposite) and it will establish an arbitration system that is far inferior to domestic legal systems in the EU and North America (12).

Pia Eberhardt, trade campaigner with CEO, another member of the Seattle to Brussels Network, said:

“The investor-state arbitration system cannot be tamed. Profit-greedy law firms and their corporate clients will always find a way to attack countries for actions that threaten their profits. The corporate super-rights should be abolished – and people in Europe should not miss this crucial opportunity to tell the Commission to do so.”

To enhance public scrutiny and democratic debate about the controversial investor rights in EU trade agreements, members of the Seattle to Brussels Network have set up a website to publish leaked negotiating texts and critical analyses of these texts:  http://eu-secretdeals.info/

The network is also inviting civil society organisations and members of the public to participate in ongoing online actions against the dangerous corporate rights in EU trade deals.

Be informed and take action:

Seattle to Brussels Network:  http://www.s2bnetwork.org/themes/eus-free-trade-agreements/eu-us-transatlantic-trade-and-investment-partnership-ttip.html

Corporate Europe Observatory:  http://corporateeurope.org/tags/ttip

Stop the Crop:  http://www.stopthecrop.org/

 

Colin Todhunter : Originally from the northwest of England, Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India.

28 March, 2014

Countercurrents.org

 

By RT.com

“I’ll make up a cause of war by ordering a missile attack on Turkey.” This leaked conversation is coming back to haunt the highest echelons of the Turkish government as it plans a provocation in Syria, while scrambling to contain social media internally.

The leaked audiotapes that reveal Turkey’s highest ministers staging an anti-Assad military intervention in Syria, have already caused YouTube to be shut down in the country, as well as leading to fevered accusations of treachery and betrayal of Turkey’s political interests – “a declaration of war,” as Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu put it.

This is of course after intelligence chief Hakan Fidan suggested seizing the opportunity to secure Turkish intervention in the Syrian conflict – a war that has already claimed 140,000 lives, and counting. In the conversation, Davutoğlu is heard saying that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sees any attack as an “opportunity” to increase troop presence in Syria, where it has staunchly supported the anti-Assad rebels.

 

Below is a transcript of that conversation in full. The video can be found below.

 

Ahmet Davutoğlu: “Prime Minister said that in current conjuncture, this attack (on Suleiman Shah Tomb) must be seen as an opportunity for us.”

Hakan Fidan: “I’ll send 4 men from Syria, if that’s what it takes. I’ll make up a cause of war by ordering a missile attack on Turkey; we can also prepare an attack on Suleiman Shah Tomb if necessary.”

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: “Our national security has become a common, cheap domestic policy outfit.”

Yaşar Güler: “It’s a direct cause of war. I mean, what’re going to do is a direct cause of war.”

 

FIRST SCREEN:

Ahmet Davutoğlu: I couldn’t entirely understand the other thing; what exactly does our foreign ministry supposed to do? No, I’m not talking about the thing. There are other things we’re supposed to do. If we decide on this, we are to notify the United Nations, the Istanbul Consulate of the Syrian regime, right?

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: But if we decide on an operation in there, it should create a shocking effect. I mean, if we are going to do so. I don’t know what we’re going to do, but regardless of what we decide, I don’t think it’d be appropriate to notify anyone beforehand.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: OK, but we’re gonna have to prepare somehow. To avoid any shorts on regarding international law. I just realised when I was talking to the president (Abdullah Gül), if the Turkish tanks go in there, it means we’re in there in any case, right?

Yaşar Güler: It means we’re in, yes.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: Yeah, but there’s a difference between going in with aircraft and going in with tanks…

 

SECOND SCREEN:

Yaşar Güler: Maybe we can tell the Syrian consulate general that, ISIL is currently working alongside the regime, and that place is Turkish land. We should definitely…

Ahmet Davutoğlu: But we have already said that, sent them several diplomatic notes.

Yaşar Güler: To Syria…

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: That’s right.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: Yes, we’ve sent them countless times. Therefore, I’d like to know what our Chief of Staff’s expects from our ministry.

Yaşar Güler: Maybe his intent was to say that, I don’t really know, he met with Mr. Fidan.

Hakan Fidan: Well, he did mention that part but we didn’t go into any further details.

Yaşar Güler: Maybe that was what he meant… A diplomatic note to Syria?

Hakan Fidan: Maybe the Foreign Ministry is assigned with coordination…

 

THIRD SCREEN:

Ahmet Davutoğlu: I mean, I could coordinate the diplomacy but civil war, the military…

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: That’s what I told back there. For one thing, the situation is different. An operation on ISIL has solid ground on international law. We’re going to portray this is Al-Qaeda, there’s no distress there if it’s a matter regarding Al-Qaeda. And if it comes to defending Suleiman Shah Tomb, that’s a matter of protecting our land.

Yaşar Güler: We don’t have any problems with that.

Hakan Fidan: Second after it happens, it’ll cause a great internal commotion (several bombing events is bound to happen within). The border is not under control…

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: I mean, yes, the bombings are of course going to happen. But I remember our talk from 3 years ago…

Yaşar Güler: Mr. Fidan should urgently receive back-up and we need to help him supply guns and ammo to rebels. We need to speak with the minister. Our Interior Minister, our Defense Minister. We need to talk about this and reach a resolution sir.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: How did we get special forces into action when there was a threat in Northern Iraq? We should have done so in there, too. We should have trained those men. We should have sent men. Anyway, we can’t do that, we can only do what diplomacy…

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: I told you back then, for God’s sake, General, you know how we managed to get those tanks in, you were there.

Yaşar Güler: What, you mean our stuff?

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: Yes, how do you think we’ve managed to rally our tanks into Iraq? How? How did we manage to get special forces, the battalions in? I was involved in that. Let me be clear, there was no government decision on that, we have managed that just with a single order.

 

FOURTH SCREEN:

Yaşar Güler: Well, I agree with you. For one thing, we’re not even discussing that. But there are different things that Syria can do right now.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: General, the reason we’re saying no to this operation is because we know about the capacity of those men.

Yaşar Güler: Look, sir, isn’t MKE (Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation) at minister’s bidding? Sir, I mean, Qatar is looking for ammo to buy in cash. Ready cash. So, why don’t they just get it done? It’s at Mr. Minister’s command.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: But there’s the spot we can’t act integratedly, we can’t coordinate.

Yaşar Güler: Then, our Prime Minister can summon both Mr. Defence Minister and Mr. Minister at the same time. Then he can directly talk to them.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: We, Mr. Siniroğlu and I, have literally begged Mr. Prime Minster for a private meeting, we said that things were not looking so bright.

 

FIFTH SCREEN:

Yaşar Güler: Also, it doesn’t have to be a crowded meeting. Yourself, Mr. Defence Minister, Mr. Interior Minister and our Chief of Staff, the four of you are enough. There’s no need for a crowd. Because, sir, the main need there is guns and ammo. Not even guns, mainly ammo. We’ve just talked about this, sir. Let’s say we’re building an army down there, 1000 strong. If we get them into that war without previously storing a minimum of 6-months’ worth of ammo, these men will return to us after two months.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: They’re back already.

Yaşar Güler: They’ll return to us, sir.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: They’ve came back from… What was it? Çobanbey.

Yaşar Güler: Yes, indeed, sir. This matter can’t be just a burden on Mr. Fidan’s shoulders as it is now. It’s unacceptable. I mean, we can’t understand this. Why?

 

SIXTH SCREEN:

Ahmet Davutoğlu: That evening we’d reached a resolution. And I thought that things were taking a turn for the good. Our…

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: We issued the MGK (National Security Council) resolution the day after. Then we talked with the general…

Ahmet Davutoğlu: And the other forces really do a good follow up on this weakness of ours. You say that you’re going to capture this place, and that men being there constitutes a risk factor. You pull them back. You capture the place. You reinforce it and send in your troops again.

Yaşar Güler: Exactly, sir. You’re absolutely right.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: Right? That’s how I interpret it. But after the evacuation, this is not a military necessity. It’s a whole other thing.

 

SEVENTH SCREEN

Feridun Siniroğlu: There are some serious shifts in global and regional geopolitics. It now can spread to other places. You said it yourself today, and others agreed… We’re headed to a different game now. We should be able to see those. That ISIL and all that jazz, all those organisations are extremely open to manipulation. Having a region made up of organisations of similar nature will constitute a vital security risk for us. And when we first went into Northern Iraq, there was always the risk of PKK blowing up the place. If we thoroughly consider the risks and substantiate… As the general just said…

Yaşar Güler: Sir, when you were inside a moment ago, we were discussing just that. Openly. I mean, armed forces are a “tool” necessary for you in every turn.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: Of course. I always tell the Prime Minister, in your absence, the same thing in academic jargon, you can’t stay in those lands without hard power. Without hard power, there can be no soft power.

 

EIGTH SCREEN

Yaşar Güler: Sir.

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: The national security has been politicised. I don’t remember anything like this in Turkish political history. It has become a matter of domestic policy. All talks we’ve done on defending our lands, our border security, our sovereign lands in there, they’ve all become a common, cheap domestic policy outfit.

Yaşar Güler: Exactly.

Feridun Siniroğlu: That has never happened before. Unfortunately but…

Yaşar Güler: I mean, do even one of the opposition parties support you in such a high point of national security? Sir, is this a justifiable sense of national security?

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: I don’t even remember such a period.

 

NINTH SCREEN:

Yaşar Güler: In what matter can we be unified, if not a matter of national security of such importance? None.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: The year 2012, we didn’t do it 2011. If only we’d took serious action back then, even in the summer of 2012.

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: They were at their lowest back in 2012.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: Internally, they were just like Libya. Who comes in and goes from power is not of any importance to us. But some things…

Yaşar Güler: Sir, to avoid any confusion, our need in 2011 was guns and ammo. In 2012, 2013 and today also. We’re in the exact same point. We absolutely need to find this and secure that place.

Ahmet Davutoğlu: Guns and ammo are not a big need for that place. Because we couldn’t get the human factor in order…

 

30 March 2014

RT.com

By Alan Hart

A thought constantly in my mind, and which was reinforced by the Arab League’s 25th Summit in Kuwait, is that with Arab leaders and governments as “enemies” the Zionist state of Israel does not need friends.

The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945. Its six founding member states were Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan (renamed Jordan in 1949) Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Today the Arab League has 22 members (though Syria’s membership has been suspended since November 2011).

Question: In terms of significant, positive contributions to regional and international affairs, what has the Arab League got to show for its 69 years of existence?

Apart from its 2002 initiative for ending the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, the short answer is NOTHING.

That initiative, the Saudi-inspired Arab Peace Plan, was adopted by the Arab League Summit in Beirut on 22 March 2002. It offered Israel a full normalization of relations in exchange for Israel ending its occupation of all Arab territory grabbed in the 1967 war, Israeli recognition of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem its capital and a “just solution” to the Palestinian refugee problem.

Because Israel’s leaders were fully aware that in negotiations Arab leaders were prepared to accept, as Arafat had, that the Palestinian right of return would have to be restricted to the territory of the Palestinian mini state, and that an option for Jerusalem was for it to be an open, undivided city and the capital of two states, it was a plan for a comprehensive peace which any rational government in Israel would have accepted with relief.

The Israeli government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon swiftly rejected this Arab initiative saying it was a “non-starter”.

At its Riyadh Summit in 2007 the Arab League endorsed its 2002 initiative and then sent the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt to Israel to promote it. Netanyahu, then an opposition leader, rejected it outright. Subsequently, as prime minister, he said, “The conflict isn’t over land but Israel’s right to exist.”

That was nonsense of the highest order because the conflict is obviously about land and, also, the Arab peace plan was about accepting and recognizing Israel’s actual existence (right or not) inside its pre-1967 borders and normalizing relations with that entity.

In the light of the above I think it can be said that the Arab League’s only significant contribution to developments has been to prove that Israel’s leaders are not remotely interested in peace on any terms the vast majority of Palestinians and the whole Arab world (and Iran) could accept.

Question: Is there anything the Arab League could have done in the past to limit Zionism’s arrogance of power and secure an acceptable amount of justice for the Palestinians?

The long answer as in my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews is “Yes”. The short version of it is this.

In the weeks following the 1967 war, the Arab League could have sent a representative, authorised to speak for all the member states, on a secret mission to the White House, to deliver a message, one-on-one, to President Johnson. “Mr. President, if you don’t use the leverage you have to get Israel back behind its pre-war borders, we’ll turn off the oil taps.”

If such a message had been delivered to Johnson and if had believed that Arab leaders were united on the matter and serious, he would have replied to this effect: “Give me two or three weeks, perhaps a little longer, and I’ll do what you want.” (Johnson, who had given Israel the green light to attack Egypt and only Egypt, was fully aware that the conflict of June 1967 was a war of Israeli aggression not self-defense).

If the boot had been on the other foot – I mean if Zionism’s decision makers had been in the Arab position – they would have played the oil card.

Question: Why did Arab leaders, through the Arab League, not do so?

Again the long answer is in my book. The short version of it is in two parts.

The first is that when Israel closed the Palestine file with its victory on the battlefield in 1948, the Arab regimes secretly shared the same hope as Zionism and the major powers – that the file would remain closed. The Palestinians were supposed to accept their lot as the sacrificial lamb on the altar of political expediency. (Thereafter, and despite some stupid rhetoric to the contrary which gave apparent substance to Zionism’s propaganda lies, the Arab regimes never, ever, had any intention of fighting Israel to liberate Palestine. It was only in Zionist mythology and brainwashed Jewish minds everywhere that the Arab states were committed to driving Israel’s Jews into the sea).

The second is the nature of the deal the rulers of the oil-producing Arab states struck with America. In effect it boiled down to this. As long as the Arab regimes which mattered most guaranteed the flow of oil at prices America and the West were willing to pay (and spent billions buying American military hardware), America and the West would not challenge their authoritarian and repressive rule.

The conclusion invited is that corrupt and repressive Arab regimes betrayed their own masses as well as the Palestinians. (But why should I be so hard on Arab leaders? Isn’t that the way the world works? Could it not be said that governments almost everywhere, including and especially America, dance to the tune of wealthy elites and powerful vested interests of all kinds and are betraying the best interests of the vast majority of citizens?)

It was with all of the above (and much else) in my mind that I watched and listened live to the opening and closing sessions of the Arab League’s 25th Summit in Kuwait.

With one exception the speeches, poorly delivered, were the opposite of inspirational. Words for their own sake and not for real commitment. When I heard, “We congratulate our brothers in Egypt for what they have achieved”, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What has been achieved in Egypt? Apart from the killing and arresting to put the Muslim Brotherhood out of business for the time being, the ground has been prepared for the coming to power of another tyrant who might well be more repressive than any of his predecessors. Congratulations for that?

There was much talk of the “phenomenon of terrorism” and the need to combat it. The more I thought about what I heard and the more I reflected on what is happening in the Arab world, the more it seemed to me that the Arab League’s definition of terrorism is any manifestation of people power, even peaceful manifestations, in support of change in the way Arabs are governed.

The exception was Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN peace mediator for Syria. He dared to say, “People are asking for change.” (I imagine that most Gulf Arab leaders present regarded that as a deeply subversive statement).

At the time of writing the divisions within the Arab League seem set to widen.

On 5 March, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Doha because of Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Jazeera’s coverage of events in Egypt. Prince Saud al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s ailing foreign minister, apparently said that severance of ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, the closure of Al-Jazeera (in Egypt only?) and the expulsion of two U.S. think tanks – the Brookings Doha Center and the Rand Qatar Policy Institute – would be enough to prevent Qatar from “being punished”.

Qatar gambled on supporting the Muslim Brotherhood to give substance to its ambition to rival and possibly outbid Saudi Arabia in terms of regional and international influence, and lost.

Saudi Arabia is gambling on supporting former General Abdul Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt (where the next Arab League Summit is to be held) to help keep change away from its own doorstep. Only the future will tell us if Saudi Arabia backed the wrong horse, too.

My thoughts about the Arab League’s apparent willingness to allow the slaughter and destruction in Syria go on and on and on cannot be expressed in printable words.

As I write I find myself wondering if future historians – I mean honest historians – will conclude that George Habash was right and Arafat was wrong. About what?

Habash was the founder and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) until ill health forced him to resign in 2000. Until the Arab defeat and humiliation of June 1967, he was a supporter of Egypt’s President Nasser and looked to him to lead the struggle to liberate Palestine, all of it. After the Six Days War Habash changed his mind. He said to Arafat (in a coffee shop in Damascus) that the key to liberating Palestine was the overthrow of the corrupt and impotent regimes of the then existing Arab Order and that PLO should lead the revolution to make it happen. Habash argued that it could happen because the Palestinian cause was alive and well in the hearts and minds of the Arab masses everywhere and more and more Arabs were becoming aware that their regimes had betrayed the cause.

Arafat said that would be a wrong policy and that under his leadership the PLO would never interfere in the internal affairs of Arab states.

For the record… The Israeli and American version of history which asserts that Arafat sought to overthrow King Hussein and take over Jordan in Black September 1970 is nonsense. As I documented in detail in my book Arafat -Terrorist or Peacemaker?, Arafat was working WITH Hussein to try to prevent Habash’s PFLP and other Palestinian fringe groups provoking a confrontation with the Jordanian army. This was confirmed to me by King Hussein himself.

Israel and America would not have been able to misrepresent what happened if Arafat had used Fatah’s superior forces to disarm the PFLP and crush it if necessary. I asked him why he did not do so. He said that if he had triggered a Palestinian civil war, Israeli and other agents would have used it as a cover to assassinate many Fatah and other Palestinian leaders. That made sense to me.

The whole story about what really happened and why in Jordan in September 1970 (I was there for the BBC’s Panorama programme) includes the fact that King Hussein did not want to move against the PLO. So why did he?

Some years later I got the truth during a remarkably frank, private conversation with him. I said that in September 1970 an excellent source (actually it was the British ambassador) told me that His Majesty only gave his generals the order to move against the PLO after some of them, led by his uncle and in response to an instruction from Henry Kissinger, had called on him at the palace and said, “If you don’t give us the order to go, we’ll lock you in the toilet and get on with it.”

I asked Hussein if that was true. He smiled sadly, very sadly, and said, “It wasn’t the toilet they were going to lock me in.”

 

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent.

 

30 March, 2014

Countercurrents.org