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By Dr Gideon Polya

09 March, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Dual Israeli and  Australian citizen and Jewish Australian father of 2, Ben Zygier, was secretly imprisoned for 11 months in solitary confinement  by the Israelis in 2010 until  he was either killed by the Israelis or, as alleged by the Israelis,  committed suicide in a suicide-proof cell. Solitary confinement for more than several weeks is regarded by experts as torture. Whether Australian citizen and father of 2 Ben Zygier was murdered by the Israelis or suicided in a suicide-proof cell, it is clear that he was secretly tortured to death by the Israelis over 11 months while the pro-Zionist Australian Labor Government did nothing.

Decent Australians want to know  what happened to their fellow Australian, but the response from the Australian Jewish community, public servants  and politicians  has been substantial and appalling silence. The Israelis imposed a news blackout on the matter for over 3 years but this scandal was eventually exposed in 2013 by the ABC ( Australia ‘s equivalent of the BBC) and Fairfax media (the most liberal of Australia ‘s mainstream media).

Ben Zygier was secretly arrested by the Israelis immediately  after the Dubai police revealed in February 2010 that the Israelis had murdered a Palestinian Hamas official in a terrorist  operation involving 20 Israeli terrorists using forged Australian, British, Irish, French and German passports. The Dubai atrocity resulted in both the British and Australian governments expelling an Israeli diplomat (spy?), albeit with craven apologies to the Israelis, both governments declaring that the passport forgeries were very disappointing  actions from such a good friend. The Israelis had forged Australian passports before, were told  to desist by the slavishly pro-Zionist Howard Government (1996-2007),  but evidently just kept on doing it and no doubt are still doing it (an appropriate anagram for ISRAEL is e-LIARS). .

The Israelis had forged New Zealand passports but New Zealand – that had callously refused entry to Jewish refugees from Nazism and which accordingly had much less Zionist subversion than Australia – responded vigorously , imposing diplomatic sanctions against Israel in 2004, and suspending high-level contacts between the two countries in 2005, after two Israeli citizens, Uriel Kelman and Eli Cara, were accused of passport fraud .

The passport forgery scandal in February 2010 was followed by the violent  Israeli kidnapping of 5 Australians in international waters after the criminal Israeli attack on a Gaza peace flotilla in which they killed 9 Turkish citizens, one of them a dual American Turkish citizen. . One Australian was tasered, one was shot, and all were robbed and illegally imprisoned in Apartheid Israel . The mild protest by the pro-Zionist Rudd Labor Government had no effect on Israeli state terrorism because they kidnapped another Australia on a subsequent Gaza flotilla  in international waters.

However these cases of Israeli state terrorism impacting Australia ultimately had a huge impact in Australia . As set out by outstanding, anti-racist Jewish Australian writer Antony Loewenstein (author of “My Israel Question”), the Australian Zionist Lobby was extremely upset by even the mild rebuke to Apartheid Israel by the Rudd Labor Government. PM Kevin Rudd subsequently went to great lengths to keep them happy but evidently to no avail. Kevin Rudd, one of Australia’s most popular PMs, was deposed in an overnight Coup in June 2010 that was approved of by the US (and no doubt by Apartheid Israel and its Zionist supporters) , backed by the foreign mining corporations (who had launched a $23 million advertising blitz to oppose Rudd’s proposed Mining Tax)  and led by a gang of extreme pro-Zionist plotters (see Antony Loewenstein, “Does the Zionist Lobby have blood on its hands in Australia?” : http://antonyloewenstein.com/2010/07/02/does-the-zionist-lobby-have-blood-on-its-hands-in-australia/ ; Gideon Polya, “Pro-Zionist-led coup ousts Australian PM Rudd”, MWC News, 29 June 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/politics/3488-pro-zionist-led-coup.html ; Gideon Polya, “50 ways racist Zionists (RZs) and Israeli state terrorism (IST) threaten Australia and your country too”, Bellaciao: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19618 ; and  “I’ve been to Israel too”, Middle East Reality Check: http://middleeastrealitycheck.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/ive-been-to-israel-too.html ).

Ben Zygier had betrayed Australia and contributed to the Dubai and other  terrorist atrocities by obtaining several fake Australian passports by repeatedly changing his name. This game was rapidly flagged by Australia ‘s intelligence agencies ASIO (the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization, involved in domestic spying) and ASIS (the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, involved in spying overseas). The Israelis having kept it all a secret for over 3 years, now admit that they informed Australian Intelligence about the arrest of Ben Zygier, and these Australian officials  in turn informed certain officials in the Australian Department of Foreign  Affairs and Trade (DFAT). However the only Australian politician to have apparently been informed about the arrest of Ben Zygier was the pre-Coup  Attorney General Robert McClelland (replaced after the Coup by Jewish-origin  Australian Nicola Roxon who in turn was replaced recently by Jewish Zionist Mark Dreyfus). PM Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith (now Defence Minister) both deny knowing anything about the affair, a circumstance that has upset the Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop. Current Australian Attorney General, Jewish Zionist Mark Dreyfus, has refused to  have an investigation in his department (that includes oversight of Australian Intelligence). Australia ‘s present Foreign Minister Bob Carr has asked the Israelis for further information and declares that he is disturbed by the lack of information to politicians in the Labor Government from its public servants.

Antony Loewenstein has exposed the extraordinary silence from the Jewish Community (including Ben Zygier’s family) , the Zionist Lobby and politicians over the Ben Zygier affair. Writing in the excellent, middle of the road,  Australian web magazine New Matilda Loewenstein says: “”New Matilda spoke to a former senior Australian ambassador who says that ASIO and ASIS work hand in glove with the Israeli government, including the assistance of grooming potential spies on Australian soil at universities such as Monash in Melbourne and military academies like Duntroon. Australia long ago outsourced much of its military and intelligence, as well as foreign affairs sovereignty, to Israel and America . “There’s little we [ Australia ] would not do to please them”, my source says…  What the Zionist lobby and its political and media courtiers don’t want to discuss is their complicity in this affair. They all believe that young Jews have the right to move, fight or spy for Israel , including during wars against Lebanon and Gaza , while Muslims who want to join their brethren in Syria , Lebanon or Palestine are labelled terrorists for doing the same thing. From a young age, the Zionist schooling system and its associated entities indoctrinate Jews to slavishly back Israel and demonise Arabs. Blindly supporting Israel may seem like a good idea to them but in reality has created a monster from which the insecure Jewish community is unlikely to recover any time soon; growing numbers of young Jews are disillusioned with an occupying Israel and no longer tolerate an Israel lobby that acts as propagandists for Zionism. The death or murder of Ben Zygier should be a wake-up call to Australian Jewry that even its own can be treated shabbily by  Israel .” (Antony Loewenstein, “ Israel ‘s public image takes another hit”, New Matilda, 18 February 2013: http://newmatilda.com/2013/02/18/israels-public-image-takes-another-hit ).

Antony Loewenstein accurately exposes the unacceptable influence of Apartheid Israel and its Zionist Lobby in Australia .  This Zionist subversion is also apparent from the analysis below.

A useful summary of Jews in Australia is provided by the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education and Training 2010 in its “Racism No Way” teaching material (see: http://www.racismnoway.com.au/index.html ): “According to the 2006 census, over 86,000 (0.4 per cent) Australians identify as being Jewish. 90% of Australian Jews live in Sydney and Melbourne. The majority of Jews in Australia are native born, being either second or third generation, but in more recent years there has been migration from South Africa, the former Soviet Union and Israel. Jews have always valued the democracy and acceptance which Australia offers, and have usually sought citizenship as soon as possible. Unlike many other migrant groups, they have not usually considered the possibility of returning to their countries of birth. Over 80% of Jewish Australians have visited Israel , with 74% having relatives living there. Approximately 10,000 Jewish Australians have immigrated to Israel since 1945… Today, less [sic] than 10% of Jews live in Europe and very few in the Arab/Muslim world. Almost 50% now live in Israel and 40% in the United States . Less [sic] than 1% of the world’s Jews live in Australia .”

Wikipedia “Islam in Australia ” (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Australia ) reports:  “According to the 2011 census, 476,300 people, or 2.25% of the total Australian population were Muslims. This made Islam the fourth largest religious grouping, after all forms of Christianity (64%), no religion (22.9%) and Buddhism (2.5%)”.

According to Wikipedia, “Australia’s Anti-terrorism Act 2005” (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_organisations_outlawed_in_Australia ): “ It becomes a crime, punishable by life imprisonment, to recklessly provide funds to a potential terrorist: funds include money and equivalents and also assets; it is not necessary that the culprit know the receiver is a terrorist, only that they are reckless about the possibility; it is not even necessary that the receiver is a terrorist, only that the first person is reckless about the possibility that they might be. ”

Under Australian anti-terrorism laws it is an offense to materially support or be supported by proscribed terrorist organizations of which there are  currently 17 listed, all of them Muslim (see Australian Government, “Listing of terrorist organizations”: . http://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/agd/WWW/NationalSecurity.nsf/

Page/What_Governments_are_doingListing_of_Terrorism_Organisations ).  The Jewish terrorist organizations like Irgun, which murdered Allied servicemen before,  during and after WW2 and was associated with genocidal atrocities against Palestinians, is not on the list. Thus an Australian innocently making a donation to an orphanage in the Gaza Concentration Camp might conceivably be subject to life imprisonment.  Conversely, donations to the Jewish National Fund that is intimately associated with the ongoing Zionist-run Palestinian Genocide are generously encouraged by being  tax deductible under Australian law.

Anti-Semitism is the verbal or physical damage to Semites for being  Semites per se, and occurs in 2 equally repugnant forms, anti-Arab anti-Semitism directed against 300 million ethnically  and culturally Semitic Arabs and 1,500 mostly culturally Semitic Muslims, and   anti-Jewish anti-Semitism against 13 million overwhelmingly culturally Semitic Jews.  Anti-Jewish anti-Semitism  is rightly condemned and indeed punished in Australia. However virulent anti-Arab anti-Semitism is entrenched in Australia, particularly since the 9-11 atrocity, and is remorselessly  promoted by racist Zionists,  notwithstanding  the irony that numerous science, engineering, architecture, aviation, military and intelligence experts say that the US did 9-11 and  quite likely with Israeli and Zionist  assistance (see “Experts: US did 9-11”: . https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ ). Indeed  the deaths of 9 million Muslims since 9-11 (half of them children)  from violence or war-imposed deprivation in the Zionist-promoted  US War on Terror has been an utterly disproportionate  response to the killing of about 3,000 Americans on 9-11 (see “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ ) but is resolutely not reported in the Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist-beholden Mainstream media (MSM) of Australia and indeed the MSM of the West in general (see “Mainstream  media lying”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/ ).

For anti-racist Jews and indeed all anti-racist humanitarians the core moral messages from the Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) and from the more general WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slav, Jewish and Gypsy dead) are “zero tolerance for racism”, “never again to anyone”, “bear witness” and “zero tolerance for lying”. However these sacred injunctions are grossly violated by the anti-Arab anti-Semitic racist Zionists running Apartheid Israel and dominating their Western backers, most obviously the USA .

Decent anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish Australians and all decent folk around the world reject the racism, genocide, warmongering, kidnapping, torture, killing, mass murder, war crimes, and treason of the Zionists (for numerous eminent opinions see “Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/ and “Non-Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/  ). Indeed John Kennedy (JFK) and his brother Robert Kennedy both tried unsuccessfully to get the traitorous racist Zionist Lobby registered as agents of a foreign power but were both assassinated, the latter by a Palestinian whose family members were held hostage by war criminal Apartheid Israel.

It is reported in Israel and Australia that Ben Zygier had been traumatized by having had to kill Arab children in a covert Israeli operation Lebanon (see “Zygier “bragged out killings”, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 February 2013: http://www.smh.com.au/world/zygier-bragged-about-killings-20130218-2em4k.html ). Thinking the best of Ben Zygier, one would like to believe that having betrayed Australia by becoming a child-killing  IDF war criminal and a Mossad spy, he eventually was repelled by complicity in IDF war crimes and his betrayal of Australia . Australians will not give up wanting to know everything about the Ben Zygier scandal and especially whether Ben Zygier was a spy who “came in from the cold” and  confessed his war crimes and his treason against Australia to Australian Intelligence.

In addition to endangering Australia and Australians, those traitorous, criminal Zionists and their supporters and fellow travelers who are complicit in the Palestinian Genocide endanger decent, patriotic, anti-racist Jewish Australians who, like all decent Australians, utterly reject such vile crimes against Australia and Humanity (see Gideon Polya, “Australian Labor’s new anti-Semitism”, MWC News, 15 March 2012: http://mwcnews.org/focus/politics/17530-new-anti-semitism.html ).

Australians will not tolerate the reality that an Australian- indeed a  Zionist Jewish Australian – could be tortured  death in secret by Israeli terrorists over 11 months while Australian public servants kept the horrible reality from Australian politicians and the Australian public for over 2 years. The best way for decent, loyal,  anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish Australians to help stop racist Zionist subversion and perversion of Australia and indeed the World is to put Labor last in the coming Federal elections and maintain this position until the  presently neoliberal,  pro-Zionist, pro-Apartheid Israel , US lackey Labor Party decides to revert to decent values. Zionism is criminal, genocidal racism and the racist Zionists and their supporters (most Lib-Lab politicians in Australia ) should be sidelined from public life as have been like racists such as the Nazis, neo-Nazis, Apartheiders and KKK.

Dr Gideon Polya has been teaching science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/ bengalfamine_programme.html ). When words fail one can say it in pictures – for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .

By Franklin Lamb

09 March, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Damascus: Students everywhere are special people and this observer has discovered that Syrian students are among the very best.

Meeting and interviewing students again this past week, before and following, a frank and enlightening discussion with Dr. Mohammad Amer Al-Mardini, the indefatigable President of Damascus University, about the situation of the students and current instruction at the University, one cannot ,even as a foreigner, fail to feel pride in Syrian students.

Good meeting places, among others on campus, include “outdoor cafes” – a ‘street student union’ of sorts- consisting of a few chairs and portable tables. They are scattered among the dozens of vendor stalls that line “DU Boulevard” outside the main DU campus in central Damascus. Here students can buy everything from school supplies to mobile phones, to snacks, and it’s a perfect place to meet and chat with students.

One learns from them about the many effects on the education system in Syria of the US-led sanctions. Some argue that the Obama administration actually fuels the current crisis with its sanctions and achieves the opposite result of what the White House and its allies claim they are seeking. These freewheeling discussions leave a foreigner with a reminder why this university and its student body ranks among the best in the World.

More than 200,000 full-time and ‘open-learning’ students at Damascus University, the 6th largest in the World and founded in 1901, are feeling some effects of the harsh Obama Administration’s civilian targeting sanctions. Iran’s millions of students are also increasingly in the cross-hairs of the “humanitarian sanctions which Washington and Brussels claim “exempt food, medicines and medical supplies” and therefore “should be considered humane.”

Among DU Faculties most severely affected by the US-led sanctions are the Science Departments and the Medical and Nursing schools according to administration and student sources. Chemicals used in various science classes, medicines and medical equipment cannot be found as before and if some are brought in from Europe or elsewhere, the University often has to pay four times the normal price.

Utah’s Brigham Young University gained the respect and appreciation of many in Syria for its shipments to DU’s nursing school of medicines and equipment and even “model doll babies” which in Syria use in baby care classes. All are now banned by the US sanctions which claim to exempt medical equipment and medicines.

Damascus University, with its 43 specialized faculties is no banking-hours institution and its proven commitment is to give the highest quality education to as many students as possible. Syria’s largest university, it is now open for classes 365 days a year minus a few holidays—partly due to increased number of students arriving from across Syria, as the Administration and faculty work with colleges in war zones to guarantee students can continue their studies without missing key exams required for semester advancement. Still, about 18% of college level students are unable to attend due to transportation and displacement problems.

One direct and predictable severe impact of the US-led civilian targeting sanctions in Syria is that the sanctions have essentially stranded approximately 700 Syrian students in Europe and half a dozen in the US, forcing some to drop out and find a job to survive. This is because, as well known among the US Treasury Department “craftsmen” who devise the sanctions, these students are no longer able to receive funds to pay for their foreign tuition or living expenses because the banking system has been essentially shut down.

If families can scrape together some money for their children studying abroad and do manage to send it via Western Union, for example, a new “sanctions surcharge” of 7 euros for every 1,000 euros sent, is demanded by WU and other money transfer agencies, suggesting another form of war profiteering. To make things even more difficult for the students, foreign Universities who might consider lending their stranded Syrian students tuition money or might even consider aiding them with scholarships or a grant have been “chilled” and are backing-off because these institutions do not want to be accused of ‘sanction-busting’ by the US Treasury hound dogs.

Few food or medicine suppliers, given the sanction regulations language and uncertain legal meanings-even for their lawyers, some of whom have declared that the language is incomprehensible, want to risk the wrath of the US Treasury Department and be slapped with severe penalties including, but not limited to, very expensive fines by dealing with anyone in Syria concerning food and medicine.

One of the US Treasury ‘hound dogs’ noted above, is David Cohen, Under -Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Mr. Cohen made a trip to the region late last month to brief allies and businesses as well as NGO’s, including discussions in Israel, “to be sure the sanctions were biting hard” to use a favorite phase of UN Ambassador Susan Rice. The Obama administration, reportedly frustrated by the fact that its multi-tiered sanctions have failed to topple the governments of Syria and Iran, has been attempting to find and plug sanction loopholes and are intensifying warnings to the international community, in no uncertain terms, not to mess with the US Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI) or the Office of Financial Assets Control (OFAC) by getting all wobbly-kneed and going soft on full sanction and complete enforcement.

Meanwhile, Syria’s Department of Education is joining the struggle to shield Syria’s education institutions and is being joined by various student associations. To date, the Ministry has not cut its substantial disbursements to colleges. Tuition remains among the lowest in the world at Damascus University, which also provides housing for 15,000 students. The DU administration is currently under pressure to find more dormitory space for those needing housing. Still, despite the conflict, even in Deraa near the Jordanian border where the current crisis started, DU’s campus continues to function.

Many DU students are also volunteering with assisting Syrian primary schools which urgently need their help. According to a December 2012 UNICEF education assessment of primary schools in Syria– at least 2,400 schools have been damaged or destroyed, including 772 in Idlib (50 per cent of the total), 300 in Aleppo and another 300 in Deraa. Over 1,500 schools are being used as shelters for displaced persons. The Damascus University community has also taken on the humanitarian challenge of assisting sister educational institutions that have been affected by the current crisis including campuses in Homs and Aleppo, among others. This observer has met several Damascus University students among the 9,000 volunteers, including Palestinian refugees, who are donating their time working with the Syria Red Crescent Society (SARCS). Many DU students are also volunteering with assisting primary schools.

The grim reality of Syrian families, hospitals and health care facilities across the country, and now its Universities, students and educational institutions, experiencing the claimed “humanitarian sanctions” which emphasize” exemptions for food, medicine and medical equipment exemptions, once again exposes Obama administration claimed humanitarian values to ridicule here and around the world.

Rather than target Syria’s future leaders, the White House would do well to cancel its student targeting sanctions and send Secretary Kerrey to Damascus to meet face-to-face with the Syrian people and government and demonstrate a real American interest in stopping the bloodshed. Armored vehicles and assorted “non-lethal aid” to one side in this conflict will only prolong the killing, as any student here will attest.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Syria and can be reached c/o fplamb@gmail.com

By Robert J. Burrowes

08 March, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Perpetrators of violence learn their craft in childhood. If you inflict violence on a child, it learns to inflict violence on others. The terrorist suffered violence as a child. The political leader who wages war suffered violence as a child. The man who inflicts violence on women suffered violence as a child. The corporate executive who exploits working class people or those who live in Africa, Asia or Central/South America suffered violence as a child. The individual who perpetrates violence in the home, in the schoolyard or on the street suffered violence as a child.

If we want to end violence, war and exploitation then we must finally end our longest and greatest war: the adult war on children. And here’s an incentive: if we don’t tackle the fundamental cause of violence, then our combined and unrelenting efforts to tackle all of its other symptoms must ultimately fail. And extinction at our own hand is inevitable.

How can I claim that violence against children is the fundamental cause of all other violence? Consider this. There is universal acceptance that behaviour is shaped by childhood experience. If it was not, we would not put such effort into education and other efforts to socialize children to fit into society. And this is why many psychologists have argued that exposure to war toys and violent video games shapes attitudes and behaviours in relation to violence.

But it is far more complex than this and, strange though it may seem, it is not just the ‘visible’ violence (such as hitting, screaming at and sexually abusing) that we normally label ‘violence’ that causes the main damage, although this is extremely damaging. The largest component of damage arises from the ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that we adults unconsciously inflict on children during the ordinary course of the day. Tragically, the bulk of this violence occurs in the family home and at school. See ‘Why Violence?’ http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence

So what is ‘invisible’ violence? It is the ‘little things’ we do every day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to itSelf thus destroying its internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what it wants (or ignore it when it does), the child develops communication and behavioral dysfunctionalities as it keeps trying to meet its own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, it is genetically programmed to do).

When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine its sense of Self-worth and teach it to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.

The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout its childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, parents and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioral responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioral outcomes actually occur.

For example, by ignoring a child when it expresses its feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when it expresses its feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing its feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing its feelings (e.g. by screaming at it when it cries or gets angry), and/or by violently controlling a behavior that is generated by its feelings (e.g. by hitting it, restraining it or locking it into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress its awareness of these feelings.

However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing its awareness of its feelings (rather than being allowed to have its feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed its awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for nature because the individual will now easily suppress its awareness of the feelings that would tell it how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and it will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviors, including some that are violent towards itself, others and/or the Earth.

From the above, it should also now be apparent that punishment should never be used. ‘Punishment’, of course, is one of the words we use to obscure our awareness of the fact that we are using violence. Violence, even when we label it ‘punishment’, scares children and adults alike and cannot elicit a functional behavioural response. If someone behaves dysfunctionally, they need to be listened to, deeply, so that they can start to become consciously aware of the feelings (which will always include fear and, often, terror) that drove the dysfunctional behaviour in the first place. They then need to feel and express these feelings (including any anger) in a safe way. Only then will behavioural change in the direction of functionality be possible.

‘But these adult behaviors you have described don’t seem that bad. Can the outcome be as disastrous as you claim?’ you might ask. The problem is that there are hundreds of these ‘ordinary’, everyday behaviors that destroy the Selfhood of the child. It is ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and most children simply do not survive as Self-aware individuals. And why do we do this? We do it so that each child will fit into our model of ‘the perfect citizen’: that is, obedient and hardworking student, reliable and pliant employee/soldier, and submissive law-abiding citizen.

Moreover, once we destroy the Selfhood of a child, it has many flow-on effects. For example, once you terrorise a child into accepting certain information about itself, other people or the state of the world, the child becomes unconsciously fearful of dealing with new information, especially if this information is contradictory to what it has been terrorised into believing. As a result, the child will unconsciously dismiss new information out of hand. In short, the child has been terrorised in such a way that it is no longer capable of learning (or its learning capacity is seriously diminished by excluding any information that is not a simple extension of what it already ‘knows’). If you imagine any of the bigots you know, you are imagining someone who is utterly terrified. But it’s not just the bigots; virtually all people are affected in this manner making them incapable of responding adequately to new information. This is one explanation why some people are ‘climate deniers’.

So if we want to end human violence, we must tackle all of its symptoms simultaneously but, as part of our strategy, we must also tackle the cause. Primarily, this means giving everyone, child and adult alike, all of the space they need to feel, deeply, what they want to do, and to then let them do it (or to have the feelings they naturally have if they are prevented from doing so). In the short term, this will have some dysfunctional outcomes. But it will lead to an infinitely better overall outcome than the system of emotional suppression, control and punishment which has generated the incredibly violent world in which we now find ourselves.

This all sounds pretty unpalatable doesn’t it? So each of us has a choice. We can suppress our awareness of what is unpalatable, as we have been terrorised into doing as a child, or we can feel the various feelings that we have in response to this information and then ponder ways forward. If feelings are felt and expressed then our responses can be shaped by the conscious and integrated functioning of thoughts and feelings, as evolution intended, and we can plan intelligently. The alternative is to have our unconscious fear controlling our thinking and deluding us that we are acting rationally.

It is time to end the adult war on children so that all of the other violence that emerges from this cause can end too.

‘This isn’t going to happen’, you might say. And you are probably right. Nevertheless, some of us are committed to working on this most critical of issues. You are welcome to join us. If you like, you can sign online ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com

Robert has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach’, State University of New York Press, 1996. His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his personal website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich’s Blog

06 March 13

@ readersupportednews.org

Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose above 14,270 – completely erasing its 54 percent loss between 2007 and 2009.

The stock market is basically back to where it was in 2000, while corporate earnings have doubled since then.

Yet the real median wage is now 8 percent below what it was in 2000, and unemployment remains sky-high.

Why is the stock market doing so well, while most Americans are doing so poorly? Four reasons:

First, productivity gains. Corporations have been investing in technology rather than their workers. They get tax credits and deductions for such investments; they get no such tax benefits for improving the skills of  their employees. As a result, corporations can now do more with fewer people on their payrolls. That means higher profits.

Second, high unemployment itself. Joblessness all but eliminates the bargaining power of most workers – allowing corporations to keep wages low. Public policies that might otherwise reduce unemployment – a new WPA or CCC to hire the long-term unemployed, major investments in the nation’s crumbling infrastructure – have been rejected in favor of austerity economics. This also means higher profits, at least in the short run.

Third, globalization. Big American-based corporations have been expanding and hiring around the globe where markets are growing fastest – even while the U.S. market is lackluster. Tax policies and trade policies have encouraged them.

Finally, the Fed’s easy-money policies. They’ve pushed investors into the stock market because bond yields are so low. On Tuesday, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note was just 1.9%.

All of this spells widening inequality in America, because the people who invest the most in the stock market have high incomes. Those who rely most on wages have lower incomes.

Corporate profits are claiming a larger share of national income than at any time in 60 years, while the portion of total income going to employees is near its lowest since 1966.

As my colleague Immanuel Saez recently found, all the economic gains between 2009 and 2011 (the last year for which data were available) went to the richest 1 percent of Americans. The bottom 99 percent has continued to lose ground.

And yet the tax code continues to give preference to capital gains over ordinary income – a huge boon to investors.

The sequestration is likely to make all this worse, since it will slow the U.S. economy and keep unemployment higher than otherwise.

It will also hurt the most vulnerable. Some $1.9 billion in low-income rental subsidies are being eliminated, affecting 125,000 people. Cuts to the Department of Agriculture will eliminate rental assistance for another 10,000 low-income rural people. Meanwhile, 100,000 formerly homeless Americans are likely to be removed from their current emergency shelters.

More than 3.8 million Americans receiving long-term unemployment benefits will have their monthly payments reduced by as much as 9.4 percent, and lose an average of $400 in benefits over their period of joblessness.

The Department of Education’s Title I program, which helps schools serving more than a million disadvantaged students, will be cut $715 million, and $400 million will be cut from Head Start, the preschool program for poor children. And major cuts will be made in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, which provides nutrition assistance and education.

The health of an economy is not measured by the profits of corporations headquartered within it or the value of its stock market. It depends, rather, on how many of people have jobs and whether those jobs pay decent wages.

By this measure, we are a long way from economic health. Rarely before in American history have public policies so blatantly helped the most fortunate among us, so cruelly harmed the least fortunate, and exposed so many average working Americans to such widespread insecurity.

By Kevin Zeese & Margaret Flowers

06 March, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

The death of Hugo Chávez is a great loss to the people of Venezuela who have been lifted out of poverty and have created a deep participatory democracy. Chavez was a leader who, in unity with the people, was able to free Venezuela from the grips of US Empire, brought dignity to the poor and working class, and was central to a Latin American revolt against US domination.

Chávez grew up a campesino, a peasant, raised in poverty. His parents were teachers, his grandmother an Indian whom he credits with teaching him solidarity with the people. During his military service, he learned about Simon Bolivar, who freed Latin America from Spanish Empire. This gradually led to the modern Bolivarian Revolution he led with the people. The Chávez transformation was built on many years of a mass political movement that continued after his election, indeed saved him when a 2002 coup briefly removed him from office. The reality is Venezuela’s 21st Century democracy is bigger than Chávez, this will become more evident now that he is gone.

The Lies They Tell Us

If Americans knew the truth about the growth of real democracy in Venezuela and other Latin American countries, they would demand economic democracy and participatory government, which together would threaten the power of concentrated wealth. Real democracy creates a huge challenge to the oligarchs and their neoliberal agenda because it is driven by human needs, not corporate greed. That is why major media in the US, which are owned by six corporations, aggressively misinform the public about Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution.

Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research writes, “The Western media reporting has been effective. It has convinced most people outside of Venezuela that the country is run by some kind of dictatorship that has ruined it.” In fact, just the opposite is true. Venezuela, since the election of Chávez, has become one of the most democratic nations on Earth. Its wealth is increasing and being widely shared. But Venezuela has been made so toxic that even the more liberal media outlets propagate distortions to avoid being criticized as too leftist.

We spoke with Mike Fox, who went to Venezuela in 2006 to see for himself what was happening. Fox spent years documenting the rise of participatory democracy in Venezuela and Brazil. He found a grassroots movement creating the economy and government they wanted, often pushing Chávez further than he wanted to go.

 

They call it the “revolution within the revolution.” Venezuelan democracy and economic transformation are bigger than Chávez. Chávez opened a door to achieve the people’s goals: literacy programs in the barrios, more people attending college, universal access to health care, as well as worker-owned businesses and community councils where people make decisions for themselves. Change came through decades of struggle leading to the election of Chávez in 1998, a new constitution and ongoing work to make that constitution a reality.

Challenging American Empire

The subject of Venezuela is taboo because it has been the most successful country to repel the neoliberal assault waged by the US on Latin America. This assault included Operation Condor, launched in 1976, in which the US provided resources and assistance to bring friendly dictators who supported neoliberal policies to power throughout Latin America. These policies involved privatizing national resources and selling them to foreign corporations, de-funding and privatizing public programs such as education and health care, deregulating and reducing trade barriers.

In addition to intense political repression under these dictators between the 1960s and 1980s, which resulted in imprisonment, murder and disappearances of tens of thousands throughout Latin America, neoliberal policies led to increased wealth inequality, greater hardship for the poor and working class, as well as a decline in economic growth.

Neoliberalism in Venezuela arrived through a different path, not through a dictator. Although most of its 20th century was spent under authoritarian rule, Venezuela has had a long history of pro-democracy activism. The last dictator, Marcos Jimenez Perez, was ousted from power in 1958. After that, Venezuelans gained the right to elect their government, but they existed in a state of pseudo-democracy, much like the US currently, in which the wealthy ruled through a managed democracy that ensured the wealthy benefited most from the economy.

As it did in other parts of the world, the US pushed its neoliberal agenda on Venezuela through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. These institutions required Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) as terms for development loans. As John Perkins wrote in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, great pressure was placed on governments to take out loans for development projects. The money was loaned by the US, but went directly to US corporations who were responsible for the projects, many of which failed, leaving nations in debt and not better off. Then the debt was used as leverage to control the government’s policies so they further favored US interests. Anun Shah explains the role of the IMF and World Bank in more detail in Structural Adjustment – a Major Cause of Poverty.

Neoliberalism Leads to the Rise of Chávez

 

A turning point in the Venezuelan struggle for real democracy occurred in 1989. President Carlos Andres Perez ran on a platform opposing neoliberalism and promised to reform the market during his second term. But following his re-election in 1988, he reversed himself and continued to implement the “Washington Consensus” of neoliberal policies – privatization and cuts to social services. The last straw came when he ended subsidies for oil. The price of gasoline doubled and public transportation prices rose steeply.

Protests erupted in the towns surrounding the capitol, Caracas, and quickly spread into the city itself. President Perez responded by revoking multiple constitutional rights to protest and sending in security forces who killed an estimated 3,000 people, most of them in the barrios. This became known as the “Caracazo” (“the Caracas smash”) and demonstrated that the president stood with the oligarchs, not with the people.

Under President Perez, conditions continued to deteriorate for all but the wealthy in Venezuela. So people organized in their communities and with Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez attempted a civilian-led coup in 1992. Chávez was jailed, and so the people organized for his release. Perez was impeached for embezzlement of 250 million bolivars and the next president, Rafael Caldera, promised to release Chávez when he was elected. Chávez was freed in 1994. He then traveled throughout the country to meet with people in their communities and organizers turned their attention to building a political movement.

Chávez ran for president in 1998 on a platform that promised to hold a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution saying, “I swear before my people that upon this moribund constitution I will drive forth the necessary democratic transformations so that the new republic will have a Magna Carta befitting these new times.” Against the odds, Chávez won the election and became president in 1999.

While his first term was cautious and center-left, including a visit by Chávez to the NY Stock Exchange to show support for capitalism and encourage foreign investment, he kept his promise. Many groups participated in the formation of the new constitution, which was gender-neutral and included new rights for women and for the indigenous, and created a government with five branches adding a people’s and electoral branches. The new constitution was voted into place by a 70 percent majority within the year. Chávez also began to increase funding for the poor and expanded and transformed education.

Since then, Chávez has been re-elected twice. He was removed from power briefly in 2002, jailed and replaced by Pedro Carmona, the head of what is equivalent to the Chamber of Commerce. Fox commented that the media was complicit in the coup by blacking it out and putting out false information. Carmona quickly moved to revoke the constitution and disband the legislature. When the people became aware of what was happening, they rapidly mobilized and surrounded the capitol in Caracas. Chávez was reinstated in less than 48 hours.

One reason the Chávez election is called a Bolivarian Revolution is because Simon Bolivar was a military political leader who freed much of Latin America from the Spanish Empire in the early 1800s. The election of Chávez, the new constitution and the people overcoming the coup set Venezuela on the path to free itself from the US empire. These changes emboldened the transformation to sovereignty, economic democracy and participatory government.

In fact, Venezuela paid its debts to the IMF in full five years ahead of schedule and in 2007 separated from the IMF and World Bank, thus severing the tethers of the Washington Consensus. Instead, Venezuela led the way to create the Bank of the South to provide funds for projects throughout Latin America and allow other countries to free themselves from the chains of the IMF and World Bank too.

The Rise of Real Democracy

The struggle for democracy brought an understanding by the people that change only comes if they create it. The pre- Chávez era is seen as a pseudo Democracy, managed for the benefit of the oligarchs. The people viewed Chávez as a door that was opened for them to create transformational change. He was able to pass laws that aided them in their work for real democracy and better conditions. And Chávez knew that if the people did not stand with him, the oligarchs could remove him from power as they did for two days in 2002.

With this new understanding and the constitution as a tool, Chávez and the people have continued to progress in the work to rebuild Venezuela based on participatory democracy and freedom from US interference. Chávez refers to the new system as “21st century socialism.” It is very much an incomplete work in progress, but already there is a measurable difference.

Mark Weisbrot of CEPR points out that real GDP per capita in Venezuela expanded by 24 percent since 2004. In the 20 years prior to Chávez, real GDP per person actually fell. Venezuela has low foreign public debt, about 28 percent of GDP, and the interest on it is only 2 percent of GDP. Weisbrot writes: “From 2004-2011, extreme poverty was reduced by about two-thirds. Poverty was reduced by about one-half, and this measures only cash income. It does not count the access to health care that millions now have, or the doubling of college enrollment – with free tuition for many. Access to public pensions tripled. Unemployment is half of what it was when Chávez took office.” Venezuela has reduced unemployment from 20 percent to 7 percent.

As George Galloway wrote upon Chávez’s death, “Under Chávez’ revolution the oil wealth was distributed in ever rising wages and above all in ambitious social engineering. He built the fifth largest student body in the world, creating scores of new universities. More than 90% of Venezuelans ate three meals a day for the first time in the country’s history. Quality social housing for the masses became the norm with the pledge that by the end of the presidential term, now cut short, all Venezuelans would live in a dignified house.”

Venezuela is making rapid progress on other measures too. It has a high human development index and a low and shrinking index of inequality. Wealth inequality in Venezuela is half of what it is in the United States. It is rated “the fifth-happiest nation in the world” by Gallup. And Pepe Escobar writes that,”No less than 22 public universities were built in the past 10 years. The number of teachers went from 65,000 to 350,000. Illiteracy has been eradicated. There is an ongoing agrarian reform.” Venezuela has undertaken significant steps to build food security through land reform and government assistance. New homes are being built, health clinics are opening in underserved areas and cooperatives for agriculture and business are growing.

Venezuelans are very happy with their democracy. On average, they gave their own democracy a score of seven out of ten while the Latin American average was 5.8. Meanwhile, 57 percent of Venezuelans reported being happy with their democracy compared to an average for Latin American countries of 38 percent, according to a poll conducted by Latinobarometro. While 81 percent voted in the last Venezuelan election, only 57.5 percent voted in the recent US election.

Chávez won that election handily as he has all of the elections he has run in since 1999. As Galloway describes him, Chávez was “the most elected leader in the modern era.” He won his last election with 55 percent of the vote but was never inaugurated due to his illness.

Beyond Voting: The Deepening of Democracy in Venezuela

This is not to say that the process has been easy or smooth. The new constitution and laws passed by Chávez have provided tools, but the government and media still contain those who are allied with the oligarchy and who resist change. People have had to struggle to see that what is written on paper is made into a reality. For example, Venezuelans now have the right to reclaim urban land that is fallow and use it for food and living. Many attempts have been made to occupy unused land and some have been met by hostility from the community or actual repression from the police. In other cases, attempts to build new universities have been held back by the bureaucratic process.

It takes time to build a new democratic structure from the bottom up. And it takes time to transition from a capitalist culture to one based on solidarity and participation. In “Venezuela Speaks,” one activist, Iraida Morocoima, says “Capitalism left us with so many vices that I think our greatest struggle is against these bad habits that have oppressed us.” She goes on to describe a necessary culture shift as, “We must understand that we are equal, while at the same time we are different, but with the same rights.”

Chávez passed a law in 2006 that united various committees in poor barrios into community councils that qualify for state funds for local projects. In the city, community councils are composed of 200 to 400 families. The councils elect spokespeople and other positions such as executive, financial and “social control” committees. The councilmembers vote on proposals in a general assembly and work with facilitators in the government to carry through on decisions. In this way, priorities are set by the community and funds go directly to those who can carry out the project such as building a road or school. There are currently more than 20,000 community councils in Venezuela creating a grassroots base for participatory government.

A long-term goal is to form regional councils from the community councils and ultimately create a national council. Some community councils already have joined as communes, a group of several councils, which then have the capacity for greater research and to receive greater funds for large projects.

The movement to place greater decision-making capacity and control of local funds in the hands of communities is happening throughout Latin America and the world. It is called participatory budgeting and it began in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989 and has grown so that as many as 50,000 people now participate each year to decide as much as 20 percent of the city budget. There are more than 1,500 participatory budgets around the world in Latin America, North America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Fox produced a documentary, Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas, which explains participatory budgeting in greater detail.

The Unfinished Work of Huge Chávez Continues

The movements that brought him to power and kept him in power have been strengthened by Hugo Chávez. Now the “revolution within the revolution” will be tested. In 30 days there will be an election and former vice president, now interim president, Nicolas Maduro will likely challenge the conservative candidate Chávez defeated.

If the United States and the oligarchs think the death of Chávez means the end of the Bolivarian Revolution he led, they are in for a disappointment. This revolution, which is not limited to Venezuela, is likely to show to itself and the world that it is deep and strong. The people-powered transformation with which Chávez was in solidarity will continue.

This article is a modified version of “The Secret Rise of 21st Century Democracy,”which originally appeared in Truthout.

Kevin Zeese JD and Margaret Flowers MD co-host Clearing the FOG on We Act Radio 1480 AM Washington, DC and on Economic Democracy Media, co-direct It’s Our Economy and are organizers of the Occupation of Washington, DC. Their twitters are @KBZeese and @MFlowers8.

By Robert Reich

05 March 13

@ Reich’s Blog

What should the President do now?

Push to repeal the sequester (a reconciliation bill in the Senate would allow repeal with 51 votes, thereby putting pressure on House Republicans), and replace it with a “Build America’s Future” Act that would close tax loopholes used by the wealthy, end corporate welfare, impose a small (1/10 of 1%) tax on financial transactions, and reduce the size of the military.

Half the revenues would be used for deficit reduction, the other half for investments in our future through education (from early-childhood through affordable higher ed), infrastructure, and basic R&D.

Also included in that bill – in order to make sure our future isn’t jeopardized by another meltdown of Wall Street – would be a resurrection of Glass-Steagall and a limit on the size of the biggest banks.

I’d make clear to the American people that they made a choice in 2012 but that right-wing House Republicans have been blocking that choice, and the only way to implement that choice is for Congress to pass the Build America’s Future Act.

If House Republicans still block it, I’d make 2014 a referendum on it and them, and do whatever I could to take back the House.

In short, the President must reframe the public debate around the future of the country and the investments we must make together in that future, rather than austerity economics. And focus on good jobs and broad-based prosperity rather than prosperity for a few and declining wages and insecurity for the many.

Robert B. Reich, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock” and “The Work of Nations.” His latest is an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

By Bill Van Auken

05 March, 2013

@ WSWS.org

The Obama administration is “markedly widening its role” in the escalating French-led neo-colonial war in Mali, according to a report published Monday in the Wall Street Journal.

According to unnamed French officials cited in the report, US Reaper drones have been utilized to track down alleged Islamist fighters in the Ifoghas mountain region of northern Mali, supplying targeting information for some 60 French airstrikes in just the past week.

A force of 1,200 French troops alongside another 800 US-trained special forces soldiers from Chad and units of Mali’s own army have engaged in fierce clashes with the insurgents, who have operated in the region for many years and are well acquainted with its terrain.

Given the new, more violent stage of the war—which as of Sunday had claimed the lives of three French Foreign Legionnaires and dozens of African troops—the French Foreign Ministry announced last week that it would not withdraw its 4,000-strong expeditionary force “in haste,” effectively signaling that a withdrawal previously scheduled for later this month would almost certainly be postponed. French officials told the Associated Press that the country’s troops would remain in Mali at least until July.

Chadian officials claimed over the weekend that the country’s troops had killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who is alleged to have led the armed group that seized the Amenas oilfield in Algeria in January. Belmokhtar is said to have links with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

“Chadian forces have totally destroyed the principal bases of the jihadists in the Adrar massif of the Ifoghas [mountains], to be more precise in the town of Ametetai,” Chad’s military command announced on Saturday. The announcement came one day after Chad’s president, Idriss Déby, claimed that another AQIM leader, Abou Zeid, had been killed in the same operation.

French and US officials were more cautious about the claims, saying that they had been unable to verify the killings. Washington has extensive experience with reporting alleged jihadists having been killed, only to have them turn up again very much alive.

 

French military commander Adm. Edouard Guillaud cautioned in an interview on Monday that while the deaths were “likely,” the French forces did not recover the bodies of the two men. Guillaud urged “extreme caution,” warning, “there is always the risk of being contradicted later by a dated video.”

The stepped-up use of US drones in the Mali war follows last month’s announcement of the deployment of at least 100 US troops to neighboring Niger, where an agreement was reached with the local government to allow Washington to set up a drone base on the country’s territory. While presently, the US claims that it is only flying unarmed surveillance drones, the establishment of the base creates the conditions for the Obama administration to spread its campaign of remote-control killings throughout West and Central Africa.

While justifying its intervention as a response to the growing presence of Al Qaeda-linked forces—which overran northern Mali only after they were utilized by Washington as ground troops in the US-NATO war to topple the regime of Col. Muammar Gaddafi in neighboring Libya—the real aims being pursued by US imperialism are asserting US hegemony over the region’s extensive oil, uranium and other mineral wealth and countering the rising economic influence of China.

The Journal article quoted an unnamed Western official as stating that the US role in Mali represented a “rare North African success story,” in which Washington had rolled out a new “counterterrorism strategy of working ‘by, with and through’ local forces.”

In other words, US imperialism is attempting to prosecute its predatory campaign in Africa by counting on the region’s servile national bourgeois elites to provide African troops as a proxy force.

“In recent years,” the Journal reports, “a Joint US Special Operations Task Force in Africa has provided Chad’s Special Anti-Terrorism Group, the unit involved in the operations last week, that allegedly killed Mr. Belmokhtar and Mr. Zeid, with equipment, training and logistical support.”

Chad has reported that 26 soldiers from the unit have been killed since the launching of the offensive in Mali.

Chadian officials acknowledged that the Chadian unit fighting in Mali, the Special Anti-Terrorism Group, had been trained by US Green Berets. According to the Journal , US officials claimed that “American forces didn’t accompany the Chadian unit into Mali.” Any such direct involvement by US forces in ground fighting in Mali would undoubtedly be carried out covertly.

In addition to the Chadian unit, other US-trained African troops are being readied for possible deployment to Mali.

Gen. Carter Ham, the chief of AFRICOM, the US military command overseeing the African continent, flew last week to Mauritania for closed-door meetings with the country’s president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, and senior military officials. He also addressed Mauritanian, US and French soldiers engaged in combined military exercises in southern Mauritania, near the border with Mali.

The exercise, known as “Flintlock 2013,” is part of an annual series organized by Pentagon since 2000, before the so-called “global war on terror” and the invocation of Al Qaeda as a pretext for worldwide interventions.

On Monday, Abdel Aziz, speaking at a joint press conference with Niger’s president, Mahamadou Issoufou, said that he was prepared to send Mauritanian troops to Mali “to provide stability and security.” He said his government would “take on this responsibility as soon as possible,” while adding that it had already deployed troops to the country’s border with Mali to block supply lines and escape routes for insurgents there.

While the US-French intervention in Mali has been cast as a humanitarian venture aimed at rescuing the Malian people from Islamists, the reality is that the war has unleashed immense human suffering.

The United Nations refugee agency has reported that some 40,000 Malians have fled the fighting, seeking safety in refugee camps in neighboring Burkina Faso. The bulk of those crowded into the refugee camps in Dijbo, in northern Burkina Faso, are Tuaregs, who left to escape the French bombing and out of fear that Malian troops would exact retribution on the minority population for having risen in revolt against the central government.

Another 4,000 have fled into Mauritania since France, backed by Washington, launched its military intervention on January 11. A week after the initiation of the neo-colonial war, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees warned that “in the near future there could be up to 300,000 people additionally displaced inside Mali, and over 400,000 additionally displaced in the neighboring countries.” This assessment is rapidly being confirmed.

“We are scared of reprisal killings,” Malian refugees told the UN news agency IRIN. “We are scared of attacks from Malian soldiers. No one dares return.” The news agency reported that farming families had been unable to tend their fields because of the fighting and had fled in fear of starvation. It also reported that, while schools have reopened in the city of Timbuktu, they are largely empty because so many students and teachers have joined the surge of refugees.

“Who can assure our safety, our security? No one. I do not have confidence in anyone,” Timbuktu school director Amhedo Ag Hamama, now volunteering as a teacher in Mbéra refugee camp in eastern Mauritania, told IRIN.

Stocks of food and water are proving inadequate to deal with the number of refugees, threatening to produce a humanitarian catastrophe.

Interview By Kourosh Ziabari

05 March, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 removed from power the U.S. ally Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the White House decided to impose economic sanctions on Iran to punish the Iranian people for the choice they had made. The only crime the Iranian people had committed was that they didn’t want to be under the umbrella of the U.S. imperialism anymore. However, in the recent decades, the United States intensified the sanctions on Iran and prodded its European allies to stop trading with Iran over the allegations that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. They couldn’t bring forward any evidence to substantiate their claim, but they’re tightening the grip on the Iranian people every day.

In order to study and investigate the impact of the sanctions on the Iranian people, the decision by some countries to evade them and the effects they’ll have on the future of Iran-West relations, we have began doing interviews with renowned academics, journalists and authors about the anti-Iranian sanctions and their different aspects.

We have sat down with the world-renowned French journalist and political activist Thierry Meyssan to discuss the sanctions. Meyssan is the founder and editor of the Voltaire Network, an independent news and analysis website which publishes articles and analyses in English, French, Deutsch and Italian. In 2002, Meyssan published his first book “9/11: The Big Lie” in which he argued that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by a fraction of the U.S. military industrial complex. The book was translated into 28 languages. He has also published 13 other books in French and English.

What follows is the text of Iran Review’s interview with Thierry Meyssan to whom we have talked about the anti-Iranian sanctions, their humanitarian impact, the effects of EU’s oil embargo on the continent’s economy, Israel’s war threats against Iran and the political treatment of international trading protocols by the U.S. and its allies.

Q: The United States and the European states pretend that their intention is to prevent Iran from getting access to nuclear weapons, but from what they’re doing in imposing sanctions on medicine, foodstuff and other consumer goods, it’s evident that they’re targeting the daily lives of the Iranian citizens. What’s your viewpoint on that?

A: I think there’s absolutely no connection between the claims of the United States and the Europeans, and what they’re doing. The claim that they want to prevent Iran from diverting to a military nuclear program is the only justification for the sanctions, but the sanctions are aimed at other purposes. There’s really no connection between the sanctions and what they claim.

Q: Are the sanctions meaningful and relevant in the context of the demands and standards of the globalized economy in the contemporary world?

 

A: Of course no. From one hand, you promote free trade, and from the other hand, you organize sanctions. But most important is that the sanctions are against the international law. The only regular sanctions are those which are decided by the Security Council. Any unilateral sanction is the violation of the human rights.

Q: Do you think that the process of passing Iran’s nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council was legal and lawful?

A: You can ask this question about Security Council’s performance on different topics. Why not about that? That’s only a way to legalize what is illegal.

Q: You already mentioned that the sanctions are against human rights. Isn’t the United States violating the essential rights of Iranian people through these sanctions while it claims that it cares for the protection of human rights across the world?

A: Sanctions are an act of war, and this is an aggression. They have also prohibited trade for medicine and it’s obvious that this is an attack on human rights and there’s no question about that. It’s very shocking to note that in the Western countries, the people don’t react to such aggressions.

Q: Some Russian officials, as well as a number of political commentators have affirmed that the objective of the sanctions is not only to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, but to create social unrest and bring about regime change in the country. Is this an accurate analysis?

A: I think that in the United States, there are some theories according to which, by imposing sanctions on a country, you will push the people to rise against their own government. This theory was first developed by the U.S. military to justify total war during the WWII. They wanted to pit the German people against the Nazi government. They continued with this stupid theory in different parts of the world, but it didn’t work all the time. However, they’re still teaching this theory in the military universities in the United States. They extended this theory to the sanctions, and now they have big sanctions against different countries, especially against North Korea with which they have already been at a war through these sanctions. They did the same to Cuba and now with Iran. But we can see that the result is always absolutely the opposite of what they expect of this theory.

Q: It can be seen that along with the expansion of the sanctions, the resistance of the Iranian nation has also increased. Do you think that the U.S. and its allies have succeeded in realizing their goal that is to bring the Iranian nation to its knees?

A: I think that there are two different aims for the sanctions. Firstly, some countries want to destroy the axis of resistance, and to prevent the expansion of the Islamic Revolution. But for other countries, the aim is only to maintain the colonial system and the big technological gap between the dominant nations and the dominated nations. So, all of them expect that the Iranian economy will quickly collapse, but what we can see is absolutely the contrary. You have to compare the situation of the economy of Iran with that of the other countries in the same part of the world. Some countries decided to make alliance with the United States to be sure they’ll not be attacked by it and expected that with the help of the United States, they will have economic progress. But now we can see that the economy of Iran is growing faster than them. And most importantly, the economy of the allies of the U.S. in this part of the world is always dependent on the West. But Iran now has its own industry and its own production in different fields. So, the U.S. allies made a bad choice. It was more difficult for the Iranians, but the results are much better.

Q: What do you think about the impact of EU’s oil embargo against Iran, especially in the wake of the current economic crisis? Some analysts believe that around 15 to 20 percent of the current price of the oil is a result of the sanctions. What’s your viewpoint on that?

A: When you decide to impose sanctions, it means that you want to stop trade between two countries. So, Iran is harmed by the sanctions, but the Western countries are also harmed by the sanctions. The sanctions mean suffering for the Western countries. You cut the hands of Iran [with the sanctions] but you also cut the hands of the other countries. Especially for the European countries which have long faced an economic crisis, the sanctions are obviously very costly. You know that the best example in France is the story of Peugeot. They decided to stop trade with Iran, while Iran was the best market for Peugeot. So, this pushed Peugeot to close some factories in France with a big problem of unemployment and what is strange in this story is that Peugeot doesn’t apply official sanctions. You have the Security Council sanctions, you have the unilateral sanctions of the EU and U.S. and now you have the private sanctions from big companies.

Q: Currently, some countries try to evade the sanctions and do trade with Iran, while a number of others prefer not to do so. So, the sanctions have turned into an opportunity for the countries which do business with Iran. What do you think about it?

A: This is absolutely true. Because all the countries are obliged to follow the sanctions of the Security Council, and the other sanctions including the unilateral and private sanctions are illegal. So, this opens up opportunities for the countries which respect the international law.

Q: It seems that through issuing repeated war threats against Iran, Israel intends to persuade the United States and EU to impose harsher sanctions against Iran and isolate the country. Is that true?

A: You can see that there’s now a big lobby called United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) which is running a campaign inside the United States and European Union for the increasing and addition of the sanctions and is campaigning for private sanctions, such as in case of Peugeot. What is surprising is that everybody says it’s an NGO. Of course it’s non-governmental in the United States, but in fact it is completely governmental. Interestingly, it’s titled United Against “Nuclear” Iran and not United Against “Military Nuclear” Iran. This group is led by former heads of intelligence services of different countries; you have Meir Dagan of Israel, former CIA director R. James Woolsey, former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove and former Director of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service August Hanning. So all this is a secret war against Iran using official legit.

Q: The United States, European states and Israel are trying to complement the sanctions with war threats and intelligence operations inside Iran, such as assassinating the nuclear scientists, and other acts of sabotage. Have they succeeded in realizing their goal that is to undermine Iran’s security?

A: This policy of targeted killing to impede the scientific and technological capabilities of Iran is a big failure. But this is really because of the reaction of the Iranian people. This technique would not work in Iran. Because in Iran, the young people have started a big movement to study high technologies to help the country; in a lot of countries, the students are undecided on what they want to learn for their future career. But here in Iran, we see the reaction of the people as a body to protect the country. So this policy won’t work.

Q: Cutting Iran’s access to such mechanisms as SWIFT, which is an international trading protocol, made some countries like the member states of the BRICS group to think of alternative mechanisms for doing business, because they think that the U.S. and its allies can overnight cut one country’s access to such mechanisms. Doesn’t the political treatment of such mechanisms endanger their credibility?

A: SWIFT and all these banking systems in the Western countries regulate the relationship between the different banks. They were organized after the World War II by General Eisenhower himself. Now if you do any big transaction between two banks in Europe, some media claim that they will be all monitored by the CIA. They know everything; every transferring of the secret money. They can blackmail the people they want; they can challenge every financial coalition. They can do everything with that. It’s a very bad idea to use SWIFT and the compensation chambers they have organized in Luxemburg and Belgium and it’s very important for the free countries to have an independent system not monitored by the U.S. and its allies.

Kourosh Ziabari is an award-winning Iranian journalist and media correspondent. He writes for Global Research, CounterCurrents.org, Tehran Times, Iran Review and other publications across the world. His articles and interviews have been translated in 10 languages. His website is http://kouroshziabari.com

By Hakim & The Afghan Peace Volunteers

04 March, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VW43_Y2qkWw

Two young Afghan boys herding cattle in Uruzgan Province of Afghanistan were mistakenly killed by NATO forces yesterday.

They were seven and eight years old.

Our globe, approving of ‘necessary or just war’, thinks, “We expect this to happen occasionally.”

Some say, “We’re sorry.”

Therefore today, with sorrow and rage, we the Afghan Peace Volunteers took our hearts to the streets.

We went with two cows, remembering that the two children were tending to their cattle on their last day.

We are those two children.

We want to be human again.

Don’t we see it? Don’t we hear it?

All of nature, the cows, the grass, the hills and the songs, crave for us to be human again.

We want to get out of our seats of pride and presumption, and give a cry of resistance.

We want the world to hear us, the voice of the thundering masses.

“We’re so tired of war.”

“Children shouldn’t have to live or die this way.”

“This hurts like mad, like the mad hurt of seeing a child being caned while he’s crying from hunger.”

“We have woken up, and we detest the method of mutual killing in war that the leaders of the world have adopted.”

We say, with due respect to the leaders, but with no respect for their or any act of violence, “We are very wrong. You are very wrong.”

“We cannot go on resolving conflicts this warring way.”

Unless we see the cattle’s submission upon being blown up to pieces, and understand the momentary surprise of the seven year old listening to music on his radio, and empathize with the eight year old who had taken responsibility for the seven year old, and weep torrentially with the mother of the children, we are at risk of losing everything we value within ourselves.

Hearing the NATO commander General Joseph Dunford say that they’re sorry makes us angry; we don’t want to hear it.

We don’t want ‘sorry-s’. We want an end to all killing. We want to live without war.

We want all warriors to run back anxiously to their own homes, and fling their arms around their sons and daughters, their grandsons and grand-daughters, and say, “We love you and will never participate in the killing of any child or human being again.”

In the days to come, we’ll remember the distraught mother and family of the two children.

We know they won’t eat, or feel like breathing or living. They will remember, yet not want to remember.

Their mother will feel like giving away tens of thousands of cows just so she can touch her two children’s faces again. No, she’ll not only touch their faces, she will shower them with the hugs and kisses only mothers can give.

Do not insult her grief or her poverty by giving her monetary compensation for her children.

If they were alive, they would say along with their mother, “We are not goods.”

We went out there with our hearts and two cows this morning. We stood in front of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, next to a trash-lined river no one wants to clean up, and we began to feel human again.

We had begun to cry for our world.

By Desmond Tutu

04 March 2013

@Guardian UK

    No nation should own nuclear arms – not Iran, not North Korea, and not their critics who take the moral high ground.

We cannot intimidate others into behaving well when we ourselves are misbehaving. Yet that is precisely what nations armed with nuclear weapons hope to do by censuring North Korea for its nuclear tests and sounding alarm bells over Iran’s pursuit of enriched uranium. According to their logic, a select few nations can ensure the security of all by having the capacity to destroy all.

Until we overcome this double standard – until we accept that nuclear weapons are abhorrent and a grave danger no matter who possesses them, that threatening a city with radioactive incineration is intolerable no matter the nationality or religion of its inhabitants – we are unlikely to make meaningful progress in halting the spread of these monstrous devices, let alone banishing them from national arsenals.

Why, for instance, would a proliferating state pay heed to the exhortations of the US and Russia, which retain thousands of their nuclear warheads on high alert? How can Britain, France and China expect a hearing on non-proliferation while they squander billions modernising their nuclear forces? What standing has Israel to urge Iran not to acquire the bomb when it harbours its own atomic arsenal?

Nuclear weapons do not discriminate; nor should our leaders. The nuclear powers must apply the same standard to themselves as to others: zero nuclear weapons. Whereas the international community has imposed blanket bans on other weapons with horrendous effects – from biological and chemical agents to landmines and cluster munitions – it has not yet done so for the very worst weapons of all. Nuclear weapons are still seen as legitimate in the hands of some. This must change.

Around 130 governments, various UN agencies, the Red Cross and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons are gathering in Oslo this week to examine the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons and the inability of relief agencies to provide an effective response in the event of a nuclear attack. For too long, debates about nuclear arms have been divorced from such realities, focusing instead on geopolitics and narrow concepts of national security.

With enough public pressure, I believe that governments can move beyond the hypocrisy that has stymied multilateral disarmament discussions for decades, and be inspired and persuaded to embark on negotiations for a treaty to outlaw and eradicate these ultimate weapons of terror. Achieving such a ban would require somewhat of a revolution in our thinking, but it is not out of the question. Entrenched systems can be turned on their head almost overnight if there’s the will.

Let us not forget that it was only a few years ago when those who spoke about green energy and climate change were considered peculiar. Now it is widely accepted that an environmental disaster is upon us. There was once a time when people bought and sold other human beings as if they were mere chattels, things. But people eventually came to their senses. So it will be the case for nuclear arms, sooner or later.

Indeed, 184 nations have already made a legal undertaking never to obtain nuclear weapons, and three in four support a universal ban. In the early 1990s, with the collapse of apartheid nigh, South Africa voluntarily dismantled its nuclear stockpile, becoming the first nation to do so. This was an essential part of its transition from a pariah state to an accepted member of the family of nations. Around the same time, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine also relinquished their Soviet-era atomic arsenals.

But today nine nations still consider it their prerogative to possess these ghastly bombs, each capable of obliterating many thousands of innocent civilians, including children, in a flash. They appear to think that nuclear weapons afford them prestige in the international arena. But nothing could be further from the truth. Any nuclear-armed state, big or small, whatever its stripes, ought to be condemned in the strongest terms for possessing these indiscriminate, immoral weapons.