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Last summer sporadic protests began. By mid-February, major ones erupted. Demonstrators held firm against King Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa’s regime. Repression and several deaths were reported from live fire.

Anti-government protesters occupied Manama’s Pearl Roundabout, Bahrain’s equivalent of Cairo’s Tahrir Square. They demanded democratic elections, ending sectarian discrimination favoring Sunnis over Shias, equitable distribution of the country’s oil wealth, and resignation of the king’s uncle, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, prime minister since 1971. They also want political prisoners released and state terror ended.

For weeks, many thousands defied government demands, braving police attacks with tear gas, beatings, rubber bullets, live fire, arrests, torture, and disappearances.

On February 14, Canada’s National Post writer Peter Goodspeed headlined, “Trouble in tiny Bahrain (population 1.2 million) carries big implications,” saying:

If Bahrain becomes democratic, people throughout the region will be inspired to demand it. As a result, “the ramifications for US foreign policy could be severe. Bahrain is home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet,” the Pentagon “station(ing) 15 warships, including an aircraft battle group, in the very heart of the Persian Gulf.”

“The island state off the coast of Saudi Arabia provides Washington with a perfect base from which it can protect the (region’s) flow of oil, keep an eye on Iran and support pro-Western monarchies against potential threats.”

On March 14, fearing uprisings against their own regimes, over 1,500 Saudi Arabia-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) military and police security forces invaded Bahrain guns blazing. They attacked peaceful protesters, arrested opposition leaders and activists, occupied the country, denied wounded men and women medical treatment, and imposed police state control in support of the hated monarchy.

The Obama administration was very instrumental in their coming, to prevent the possibility of emerging democracy in Bahrain or elsewhere in the region.

News of the intervention, however, brought larger crowds to the streets. They occupied the Pearl Roundabout, set up barricades against vicious attacks, and persisted against fierce repression.

On April 1, Bahrain’s al-Wefaq party, its largest anti-government opposition, claimed security forces arrested over 300 protesters since mid-March, dozens still missing. Prominent blogger, Mahmoud al-Youssef, was among the disappeared, taken into custody on March 30.

Tanks were positioned at prominent sites. Police checkpoints were set up throughout the country. Unidentified gangs, believed to be plainclothes security forces, conducted nighttime raids on homes in poor Shiite neighborhoods. Residents reported assaults and confiscations of their property.

In short order, Pearl Roundabout protesters were violently routed. Since mid-February, perhaps dozens were killed, hundreds injured, and many more arrested, tortured, and disappeared.

Bahrain Human Rights Center (BHRC) head Nabeel Rajab said several dozen masked men raided his home in mid-March, “threaten(ing) to rape me and one man was touching my body. They hit me with shoes and punched me with fists. They were insulting me, saying things like, ‘You’re Shiite so go back to Iran.’ “

Blindfolded and arrested, he was beaten for two hours, then released. Another gang returned a few days later, threatening him and journalists present at the time. Extreme repression quelled protests and strikes, but anti-regime opposition persists. One man fired from his teaching job said:

“We cannot stop. We might go quiet for a bit to mourn the dead and treat the injured and see those in jail, but then we will rise up again.”

Journalists were also threatened, including the country’s only opposition newspaper, Al-Wasat, shut down in late March to silence it. The Bahrain News Agency called its coverage “unethical” for reporting accurately on government repression. Its editor and co-owner, Mansoor al-Jamri, said it was an attempt to suppress independent news, explaining:

“There is now no other voice but that of the state. The news blackout is so intense.” Its print and online editions are now closed to prevent vital information from being published.

Bahraini state terror got so extreme even The New York Times took note in its “Bahrain News – The Protests (2011)” section. On April 7, it said:

“Bahrain has taken on the likeness of a police state. There have been mass arrests, mass firings of government workers, reports of torture and the forced resignation of the top editor of the nation’s one independent newspaper.”

Moreover, emergency law provisions let security forces search buildings and homes with no warrant, as well as “dissolve any organization, including legal political parties, deemed a danger to the state.”

On April 6, writer Clifford Krauss headlined, “Bahrain’s Rulers Tighten Their Grip on Battered Opposition,” saying:

“The intensity of the repression is pushing some toward militancy, while others are holding back, at least for now.” Earlier mass demonstrations dwindled to smaller ones and marches, many outside Manama in villages like Saar and Shahrakkan.

Two released political prisoners said detainees are being tortured with electric shocks, beatings, sexual abuse, and other indignities. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW) researcher Dan Williams:

“They are leaving no oppressive stone unturned. They enter homes of people already detained and ransack (them). They are keeping people in detention with limited (or no) access to their lawyers and families.”

On April 12, Krauss headlined, “Hospital Is Drawn Into Bahrain Strife,” saying:

Masked soldiers “guard the front gate of Salmaniya Medical Complex. Inside clinics are virtually empty of patients, many of whom, doctors say, have been hauled away for detention after participating in protests.”

Doctors, nurses, and other medical staff have also been arrested, officials calling Salmaniya (Bahrain’s largest public hospital) and local clinics hotbeds of “radical Shiite conspirators trying to destabilize the country.”

Doctors, however, say Salmaniya and other medical facilities have been targeted by state terror. As a result, sick and injured Bahrainis have nowhere to go for treatment.

The Obama administration steadfastly supports the Al-Khalifa regime and other regional despots, saying practically nothing about their abuses, no matter how extreme, while pretending to support democratic change in Libya.

On April 11, a Washington Post editorial expressed concern headlining, “The US silence on Bahrain’s crackdown,” saying:

While condemning human rights abuses in Libya and bloody crackdowns in Syria, “the president and his administration remain mostly silent about another ugly campaign of repression underway in the Arab world, in the Persian Gulf emirate of Bahrain.”

However, instead of denouncing it, WP called it “counterproductive (and) likely to foment the very problem that its advocates seek to prevent: a sectarian uprising in the region that could be exploited by Iran.”

“Worse, Defense Secretary (Gates) appeared to bolster the (Saudi intervention) during a visit last week to Riyadh, saying that ‘we already have evidence that the Iranians are trying to exploit the situation in Bahrain.’ “

At the same time, the Bahrain News Agency (BNA) said US CENTCOM head General James Mattis and US deputy chief of mission Stephanie Williams met with Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, Bahrain’s crown prince and deputy supreme commander.

According to BNA, Al-Khalifa “hailed (Washington’s) support for Bahrain’s security and stability which epitomizes strong ties bonding the two friendly countries. He also stressed the kingdom’s keenness to further promote bilateral relations and cooperation mainly in the military and defense field….Both sides also reviewed regional developments and the need to safeguard regional security and stability.”

On April 11, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint program of the International Federation for Human Rights and World Organization Against Torture, expressed grave concern for Bahraini human rights defenders following stepped up crackdowns.

On April 9, masked police arrested and severely beat Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, former Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) president, and two of his sons-in-law, Wafi Almajid and Hussein Ahmed, at his daughter’s home.

Mohammad Al-Maskati, another son-in-law, as well as president of the Bahrain Society for Human Rights, was present, severely beaten, but not arrested.

On April 10, BCHR reported over 600 arrests and disappearances, including 30 women and children, one aged 12. No information is available on their whereabouts, status or condition. Those detained include dissidents, activists, journalists, bloggers, students, teachers, doctors, lawyers, poets, artists, sculptors, photographers, political society members, and anyone for democratic change.

On April 12, BCHR and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned Zakariya Rashid Hassan’s death in detention, six days after he was charged with inciting hatred, disseminating false news, promoting sectarian violence, and calling for regime change. His family rejected the interior ministry’s claim that he died from sickle cell anemia complications. His body showed clear signs of abuse.

BCHR and RSF also expressed concern for Nabeel Rajab, BCHR head, accused of fabricating photo evidence of injuries to Ali Isa Saqer, another detainee who died in custody, clearly from abuse.

On March 28, general decree Decision No. 5 of 2011 prohibited publication of any information relating to ongoing state investigations on national security grounds. The measure reinforces others used to silence dissent and truth, especially about human rights violations.

As a result, on April 3, charges were filed against three Al-Wasat journalists for allegedly “fabricating” news detrimental to Bahrain’s international image and reputation. Those affected include editor Mansour Al-Jamari, managing editor Walid Nouihid, and local news editor Aqil Mirza. On the same day, two Al-Wasat Iraqi journalists since 2005 were summarily deported.

Earlier, BCHR reported children being abducted, detained, and abused, saying security crackdowns arrested 76, about one-fifth of the 355 known total at the time. It noted that “special forces attack people randomly, especially children who are at risk of excessive use of force, rubber bullets and tear gas.”

As a result, many sustained serious injuries. Moreover, BCHR received many complaints from families of victims. One case, typical of others, involved Ali Abbas Radhi, aged 14. Running an errand for his father, he returned bloodstained, his clothes dusty, his head wounded, his body showing clear signs of abuse, including a fractured leg.

He told BCHR that:

“Riot police asked me to stop so I obeyed their orders, but a group of them pointed their weapons toward me which made me panic and try to flee in fear of getting killed. The riot police chased me until they caught me, and they assaulted me by beating me and kicking me with their boots or with the butts of their guns to my head and all over my body as well as cursing and insulting members of my family with dirty words.”

Numerous other random attacks against men, women and children were and continue to be similar, many resulting in arrests, detention, torture, disappearances, and an unknown number of deaths, believed to be dozens.

Since state crackdowns began last summer, many children as well as adults have been arrested and abused. Lucky ones were released far from home in their underwear, or in some cases naked.

More recently, under a state of emergency, severe crackdowns continue to terrorize government opponents, subjecting anyone to arbitrary arrest, detention, torture, and disappearance any time for any reason, or none based on bogus suspicions.

A Final Comment

On April 12, 19 human rights organizations condemned Bahraini state terror, their joint press release saying:

The undersigned “severely condemn the authorities’ crackdown on prominent human rights defenders….We are gravely concerned for (their) safety and well-being….”

“Human rights organizations estimate that over 600 individuals (including human rights activists and political opponents) remain in Bahraini prisons at high risk of torture and ill-treatment. It is a particularly alarming situation given that torture is a virtually systematic practice that has been used against activists increasingly since last year.”

In this context, we firmly believe that Bahrain’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council (should) be suspended….Furthermore, the undersigned organizations (condemn the) complicity and lack of political will from international actors, particularly the US and EU (for) turn(ing) a blind eye (to) massive and systematic human rights violations in this region of the world.”

Signed:

Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies

Arab Organization for Human Rights, Syria

Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Egypt

Bahrain Center for Human Rights

Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights

Center for Trade Unions and Workers’ Services, Egypt

Committees for the Defense of Democracy, Freedom and Human Rights, Syria

Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies

Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement

Hisham Mubarak Law Center, Egypt

Human Rights First Society, Saudi Arabia

Human Rights Organization in Syria, MAF

Iraqi Human Rights Association in Denmark

Kurdish Committee for Human Rights in Syria al-Rased

Kurdish Organization for the Defense of Human Rights and Public Freedoms in Syria, DAD

National Organization for Human Rights in Syria

New Woman Research Center, Egypt

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights

Yemeni Organization for Defending Rights and Democratic Freedoms

Other human rights groups, around 1,500 NGOs, and the International Trade Union Confederation (and its 301 affiliated members in 151 countries) also denounced Bahraini state terror.

Appealing to the international community, they called for those responsible to be held accountable. So far, daily crackdowns continue, Bahrainis still terrorized by US-backed militarized repression.

14 April, 2011

Countercurrents.org

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

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

A previous article addressed chairman Richard Goldstone’s fall from grace, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/04/richard-goldstones-fall-from-grace.html

It discussed his shameless retraction of irrefutable evidence he and other commission members found – namely, that Israel willfully committed crimes of war and against humanity by attacking Gazan civilians and non-military targets in clear violation of international law. Moreover, it was done disproportionately to cause mass deaths, injuries and destruction.

Shockingly, however, Goldstone accepted Israel’s internal investigation findings, knowing facts were suppressed and distorted to justify policies. For whatever reasons, he capitulated, selling his soul at the expense of his honor, character, dignity, and high-mindedness, erased in his April 1 Washington Post op-ed too late to retract.

Responding on April 14 in the London Guardian, Commission members Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin and Desmond Travers headlined, “Goldstone report: Statement issued by members of UN mission on Gaza war,” saying without mentioning Goldstone by name:

Recent articles and comments on the Commission’s work “have misrepresented facts in an attempt to delegitimize the findings of (its) report and to cast doubts on its credibility.”

The four-member Commission’s report “is now an official UN document and all actions taken pursuant to its findings and recommendations fall solely within the purview of the United Nations general assembly which, along with the human rights council, reviewed and endorsed it at the end of 2009.”

“Aspersions cast on the findings (however) cannot be left unchallenged.” Jilani, Chinkin and Travers dispute efforts to claim “any part of the mission’s report unsubstantiated, erroneous or inaccurate.”

As a result, no reevaluation will be reconsidered, nor is there any UN procedure or precedent to do so. The Commission’s conclusions were “made after diligent, independent and objective consideration of the information,” carefully obtained. The Commission endorses “its reliability and credibility. We firmly stand by these conclusions.”

Further, over 18 months after publication, no contrary facts have been determined. We “have yet to establish a convincing basis for any claims that contradict the findings of the mission’s report.”

In addition, the UN Human Rights Council “appointed a committee of independent experts to monitor the independence, effectiveness and genuineness of any domestic proceedings carried out to investigate crimes and violations of international law” discovered.

Observers claiming that follow-up committee members Judge Mary McGowan Davis and Judge Lennart Aspergren contradicted the Commission’s conclusions “are completely misplaced, and a clear distortion of their findings.”

Moreover, the committee said there was “no indication that Israel has opened (legitimate, independent) investigations into the actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation Cast Lead.”

In other words, “one of the most serious allegations about the conduct of Israel’s military operations remains completely unaddressed.”

The Commission dismisses “calls to reconsider or even retract the report, as well as attempts (to misrepresent) its nature and purpose, (saying they) disregard the right of victims….to truth and justice. They also ignore the responsibility of the relevant parties under international law to conduct prompt, thorough, effective and independent investigations.”

Commission members resent pressure exerted to undermine their credibility and integrity. To give in “would be doing a serious injustice to the hundreds of innocent civilians killed during the Gaza conflict, the thousands injured, and the hundreds of thousands whose lives continue to be deeply affected by the conflict and the blockade.”

The process the report initiated will continue “until justice is done and respect for international human rights and humanitarian law by everyone is ensured.”

Hila Jilani is a Pakistani human rights lawyer. Christine Chinkin is London School of Economics Professor of International Law, and Desmond Travers is a former Irish peacekeeper, knowledgeable about international law.

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

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

14 April, 2011

Countercurrents.org

14 April, 2011

WSWS.org

The Assad regime has stepped up its clampdown on demonstrators calling for democracy and an end to corruption. It is seeking to prevent the protests, as yet relatively small, from becoming a mass movement for the removal of the ruling clique, as happened in Tunisia and Egypt.

President Bashar al Assad has served notice that further rallies will not be tolerated and deployed the army with tanks to block the roads, carry out killings, including sniper shootings, and conduct mass arrests. It has shut down telecommunications, expelled foreign reporters and imposed restrictions on the movement of journalists.

According to activists, nearly 200 protesters have been killed and about 800 have been arrested since the demonstrations began in March in Dera’a protesting against the detention of school children for anti-government graffiti, and the regime’s brutal response.

On Sunday, the army and pro-government gunmen killed at least five protesters and injured dozens of people in the port and oil refinery city of Banias, 25 miles south of Latakia. Nine security officers, including soldiers, were also killed. On Monday, after more than 2,000 people broke through a security cordon to attend the funeral of four people killed the previous day, clashes broke out and government forces opened fire. The security forces also beat up men in the central square and barred the injured from getting to hospitals.

The picture is, however, confused. According to some reports, security forces shot soldiers refusing to fire on protesters after the army moved into Banias following protests on Friday. Wassim Tarif, a local human rights monitor, said that Mourad Hejjo, a conscript from Madaya village, was one of those shot by security snipers. “His family and town are saying he refused to shoot at his people,” Tarif said.

Witnesses have posted video clips showing an injured soldier who says he was shot in the back by security forces, while another shows the funeral of Muhammad Awad Qunbar, reportedly killed for refusing to fire on protesters.

The state media contradicted this, claiming that an armed group had ambushed and killed nine soldiers. It criticised “those sowing trouble, disorder and discord when Syria has already begun to address the problems and pave the road for change and reform”.

Oppositionists have since conceded that not all soldiers reported dead or injured were shot after refusing to fire. Tarif said, “We are investigating reports that some people have personal weapons and used them in self-defence”.

Workers in Banias were reported to be holding a three-day strike. The army has surrounded Banias, cutting off transport and telecommunications. Residents say that bread is running out and electricity and telecommunications were intermittent.

Troops also sealed off and attacked two villages close to Banias, 25 miles south of Latakia, in Bayda and Beit Jnad. In Bayda, Haitham al-Maleh, a veteran lawyer and human rights activist in Damascus said the troops went house to house rounding up people and marched them out to the central square and beat them up as a deterrent to others. When other villagers went out onto the street to protest, military and security forces opened fire on them, said al-Maleh. Hundreds were arrested.

On Wednesday, hundreds of women and children carrying white cloths and olive branches rallied along the main road between Tartous and Banias in protest at the arrest of dozens of people from the villages, and demanded their release.

On Monday, 200 students—largely from Dera’a, which has been the flashpoint for the unrest—rallied in support of the protesters outside the science faculty at the University of Damascus, chanting “God, Freedom, and Syria only”. Security forces moved in fast and beat up and arrested students to disperse the demonstration. Initially, there were conflicting and unconfirmed reports that one student had been beaten to death or killed by gunfire.

Fayez Sara, a well known Syrian writer and journalist, was detained at his home on Monday, while several other activists had been picked up in the past few days.

There are reports from the port cities of Banias and Latakia that pro-government thugs, mafia type gangs involved in drug trafficking and other criminal businesses linked to different members of the extended Assad family, and private militias are operating. One witness said that these “shabiha” gangs had attacked from cars plastered with photos of the president, Bashar al-Assad, on Sunday.

The Assad regime has denied this, blaming the violence instead on armed gangs, and has vowed to crush unrest. Assad issued a statement saying, “The Syrian authorities, in order to preserve the security of the country, citizens and the governmental and services establishments, will confront these people and those behind them according to the law”.

“The Ministry of Interior affirms that there is no more room for leniency or tolerance in enforcing law, preserving security of country and citizens and protecting general order,” the statement continued.

Assad has made a number of concessions aimed at dividing and appeasing different social groups, including promising an end to emergency rule and some limited reforms, sacking some officials and granting Syrian nationality to hundreds of thousands of Kurds. But the gestures are cosmetic and have failed to satisfy protesters.

By Jean Shaoul

14 April, 2011

WSWS.org

For more than a week, Israel mounted frequent aerial attacks on Gaza’s defenceless population, killing at least 25 and wounding dozens more.

Most of the casualties were civilians, and many of those injured were children. The dead included senior leaders from Hamas’s military wing and four militants from the Islamic Jihad group, killed in targeted assassinations.

The incessant aerial strikes through last weekend, which Israel said were aimed at militants, Hamas training camps, smuggling tunnels and weapons workshops, caused widespread destruction. They were the worst since Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2008-2009. Since January 2009, there has been an informal ceasefire, and rocket attacks from Gazan militants had all but stopped.

Tensions started to escalate in March, however, due to Israel’s repudiation of peace negotiations and resumption of settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Violent settler attacks on Palestinians sparked the revenge killing of an Israeli settler family, with Israel launching retaliatory air strikes that killed two Hamas members. Hamas admitted responsibility for 15 minutes of rocket fire from Gaza, its first break of its informal two-year ceasefire. A bus bomb in Jerusalem that killed one was met with numerous air strikes that month.

The Qassem rockets and mortars fired into Israel have had little impact, landing for the most part in empty fields. Last week, a number of rockets were intercepted and blown to pieces mid-air by Israel’s Iron Dome rocket interceptors, the first time they have been brought into use. Since mid-March, Israel has launched a number of deadly attacks and fought gun battles on the border, killing at least 10 people.

Israel’s provocations prompted further rockets from Gaza, one of which hit an Israeli school bus that wounded the driver and a 16-year-old boy. This was a reprisal for Israel’s attacks that killed three Hamas military leaders on April 1, which Hamas said violated an earlier ceasefire. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said that the people who fired the missile were unaware that the target was a school bus.

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said the bus attack had “crossed the line…. Whoever tries to hurt and murder children, his blood will be on his own head.”

He authorised a wide air, artillery and tank assault on targets in Gaza.

The resulting carnage was so great that on Saturday, Hamas, which rules Gaza, declared a state of emergency. On Sunday, Hamas took the unprecedented step of broadcasting in Hebrew to the Israeli public to call for an end to the violence. Ghazi Hamad, the deputy foreign minister, said in an interview on Israel Radio, “We are interested in calm but want the Israeli military to stop its operations”.

Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza’s prime minister, also contacted Robert Serry, the United Nation’s special envoy for the Middle East, Egyptian intelligence officials, and two European countries in an effort to pressure Israel to stop attacking Gaza.

On Sunday, the Arab League condemned the attacks and called for a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the crisis and impose a no-fly zone over Gaza. The UN and European Union have made a pro-forma call on both sides to cease the attacks.

Israel initially dismissed these appeals. Speaking at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that Israel would respond even more ferociously if cross-border attacks continued. “Our policy is clear, if the attacks continue on Israel’s citizens and soldiers, the response will be much harsher.”

A ministerial committee authorised the army “to continue to act against those responsible for terrorism.” Ehud Barak, the defence minister, cancelled a planned visit to Washington.

While Israel continued its attacks, by Monday it appeared to have pulled back from a major escalation, after Serry arranged a ceasefire. Netanyahu said, “We intend to restore the quiet,” but threatened, “If Hamas intensifies its attacks…our response will be much more severe.”

Israel’s cabinet is bitterly divided even in the face of such a temporary cessation of hostilities. Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister and leader of the far-right party Israel Beiteinu, on which Netanyahu’s shaky coalition depends, opposed a ceasefire. He called instead for Israel to topple the Hamas government. Lieberman told Israel Radio that a ceasefire would contradict Israel’s national interests since Hamas would use it to smuggle more weapons into Gaza. Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom of Likud likewise said in an Army Radio interview that he wanted to expand the military operation in Gaza.

These elements believe that Israel has carte blanche to do whatever it likes against Gaza thanks to US backing, particularly after Judge Richard Goldstone, who chaired a UN Human Rights Council inquiry into Operation Cast Lead, repudiated the findings of his own report. Goldstone wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, absolving Israel of criminal intent and instead castigated Hamas for intentionally targeting a civilian population with its rockets on Israel.

Israel’s provocations against Gaza follow bellicose warnings against Iran, which it accuses of arming Israel’s enemies, Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon, after Tehran sent two frigates through the Suez Canal to the Syrian port of Latakia last month.

Later, Israel seized a German-owned ship in international waters bound for Alexandria from Turkey and the Syrian port of Latakia, where the two Iranian frigates had recently docked. Israel claimed The Victoria was carrying weapons to Gaza from Iran.

On April 5, a missile attack on a car by an Apache helicopter near Port Sudan’s airport in Sudan killed two people. Initial reports suggested that the two men were arms dealers. It was similar to another attack on a convoy of suspected arms smuggled through Sudan in 2009 that killed scores of people and which was widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.

The Sudanese authorities have now identified the remnants of the rockets as having come from Israel. Sudan said that the helicopter had come in from the Red Sea, scrambled Sudan’s radar systems and followed Port Sudan airport flight paths. Sudan says that one of the two killed was a Sudanese citizen who had no links to Islamists or the government, and it was not clear why his car was targeted.

An Israeli military official told Time magazine that Israel was behind the attack, commenting, “It’s not our first time there”, implying that it had carried out the 2009 attack. Israel has long held that Sudan is an important route for smuggling arms from Iran into Egypt and ultimately Gaza, via tunnels under the border. Khartoum for its part has accused Tel Aviv of trying to scupper Sudan’s bid to get the US to remove it from its list of terrorist sponsors and normalise its relations with Washington.

13 April 2011

, NewAgeIslam.com

The French ban on the Muslim face veil that came into effect earlier this week has added new dimensions to on-going debates about secularism, democracy, religion, identity, the freedom of choice and gender justice. There is no simple answer to many of the troubling questions that the ban has provoked. Unequivocally approving or condemning the ban, to take any particular side in the fiercely polarised debate about the ban, is not an easy option.

The French government has justified the ban on the grounds that visible demonstrations of religious symbols in public are an affront to the supposedly unique brand of French secularism. That this could well be simply an excuse to single out and target Muslims, an already heavily stigmatised community, has not been lost on perceptive observers. Nor, too, is the fact that the ban is undoubtedly an assault on democracy and freedom of choice, which are meant to be cardinal principles of the Enlightenment project of which French secularists claim to be the heirs. The ban on the face veil, some critics insist, represents ‘secular fundamentalism’ at its most aggressive, seeking to efface all visible signs of religious affiliation and commitment, forcing everyone, believers included, into a single mould defined by a vision that is predicated on not just indifference, but, rather, visceral hostility, to religion. Such hostility, they contend, may have emerged from struggles against the Catholic Church in France but is now being used to target Muslims in particular. ‘If French women can be allowed to parade almost nude in public’, one commentator on a Muslim Internet chat site asks, ‘and this is considered the epitome of “liberation” and ‘”progress”, the ban on the face veil clearly suggests that hostility to religion, particularly Islam, is what is behind it.”

The media is agog with stories about irate Muslims thundering against the ban and denouncing it as an assault on Islam. Sadly, though not unexpectedly, numerous other voices, some that have welcomed the ban and others, more numerous, who have critiqued both the ban and the face veil, have been totally blacked out in the media which seems to be driven by an irrepressible urge to portray all Muslims as irredeemably misogynist patriarchs. Such voices fracture the image that some sections of the media, echoing irate conservative mullahs, ardently wish to reinforce—of the ban allegedly being perceived uniformly by Muslims as an assault on Islam itself, and, consequently, of all Muslims being up in arms against it.  The fact of the matter, however, is that not all Muslims see the ban on the face veil as ‘anti-Islamic’. This stems from the fact, quite ignored by the media, that not all Muslims believe that the face veil is indeed ‘Islamic’, and, therefore, binding and normative.

Complicating the Muslim response to the face veil ban are multiple voices, each claiming to authoritatively speak for Islam, revealing that there simply is no consensus on what precisely is the single ‘authentic’ Islamic position on the matter. It is true that some Muslims insist that the face veil is mandatory when Muslim women step out into public space. That, for instance, would be the position of conservative and viscerally patriarchal mullahs, such as those affiliated to the Wahhabi, Ahl-e Hadith, and Deobandi schools of Sunni ‘Islamic’ thought. These mullahs even go to the extent of insisting that women have to cover up not just their faces but even their voices, and refrain from speaking to ‘strange’, unrelated men. Some go so far as to insist that Muslim women should veil themselves even in front of non-Muslim women. Naturally, to these clerics and their supporters the French ban is nothing but yet another instance of what they regard as the Christian world’s sustained offensive against Islam, further ‘proof’ of what they insist are the never-ceasing ‘conspiracies’ by the ‘infidels’ against God’s chosen faith.

But such voices do not exhaust Muslim opinion, thankfully. A number of progressive Muslim scholars have argued that the face veil is not compulsory at all, and, in fact, that it is an Arab cultural relic that is not normative in (their understanding of) Islam. There is nothing in the Quran that sanctions the practice, they argue. They point out that the face veil is a symbol of Muslim women’s degradation and complete subordination that patriarchal clerics have ‘wrongly’ passed off as ‘Islamic’ in order to reinforce patriarchal rule. But such rule, in the eyes of progressive Muslim scholars, is wholly ‘un-Islamic’.

The face veil, progressive Muslim scholars note, is defended by its proponents on the grounds that it supposedly guarantees the ‘modesty’ of Muslim women. However, they point out, such appeals to ‘modesty’ are often just a crudely-disguised cover-up for women’s complete subordination to male authority. This, they explain, is premised on rendering women wholly unable to negotiate the public sphere autonomously and confidently. This inability is not biological, they insist, but, rather, constructed by men, through recourse precisely to such practices as the face veil. In other words, in the name of preserving women’s ‘modesty’, the face veil and the ideology that informs it, so such Muslim critics insist, are geared to reinforcing women’s abject dependence on and surrender to male authority.

The critique of the defence of the face veil that uses the trope of ‘modesty’ takes other forms, too. On the same Muslim online chat room referred to above, an irate Muslim woman wrote, ‘I know several married Muslim women who exploit the full burqa to flirt with their lovers, using the burqa to remain anonymous, their faces hidden from public view. Far from preserving their modesty, the face veil enables them to throw it to the winds!’ she helpfully adds.

Other Muslim critics of the face veil offer different arguments to support their stance. ‘The face veil marks women out as sexual beings, as sexually-charged objects, ironically in the name of desexualising them and protecting them from male lust,’ a perceptive Muslim observer wryly comments on the same cyber discussion portal. ‘It seeks to crush their spirit and humanity, denying them all innocent fun and joy by wrapping them in black garbs, the colour of death.’ ‘The face-veil also promotes the identity of Muslims,’ he goes on, marking them out as distinctly different from others, ‘almost like a separate species’, and, in this way, ‘reinforcing the worst negative stereotypes about Muslims.’

The face-veil, writes another Muslim man in the same cyber forum, is ‘bad for Muslim women’s health, besides denying them the possibility of studying or working outside the home and interacting normally with others.’ He cites the instance of the sister of a friend of his who was recently killed in a road accident. The woman, forced by her husband to veil from head to toe, failed to notice an oncoming vehicle, her ‘suffocating’ face veil ‘rendering her almost blind.’ ‘The face veil is calculated to make women deaf, dumb and wholly useless beings,’ he insists. ‘No wonder the mullahs, whose authority rests, among other things, keeping Muslims ignorant, are up in arms against the French ban.’

But even Muslim critics of the face veil, who insist that it has no sanction in their reading of Islam, do not necessarily support the French ban. ‘Both opponents as well as supporters of the ban are playing politics on the bodies of Muslim women. For both, the face veil is a useful tool to pursue their equally patriarchal agendas,’ notes an irate Muslim woman in a letter to a Muslim web-journal. ‘If the ban on the veil in France is atrocious, and I insist it is,’ she continues, ‘forcing women to veil, in self-proclaimed “Islamic” countries, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, is equally oppressive. Both represent an assault on the freedom of women to dress and live as they please.’

Other Muslim commentators, who do not regard the face veil as ‘Islamically’ normative and think it is enormously disempowering for women, suggest that banning the face veil is not the way to get rid of it. ‘Such a move will certainly be counterproductive,’ writes one critic. ‘It will embolden supporters of the face-veil, who will be bound to bandy the ban about as a supposed assault on Islam. That will only add to their strength, and will make people, including many women themselves, ever more wedded to the veil, using it as a symbol of defiance and assertion, a badge, as it were, of their “Islamic” identity.’ She harkens to failed attempts in the past, under Reza Shah in Iran and Kemal Attaturk in Turkey, to forcibly outlaw the face veil. ‘This only made people even more determined to resist the ban, using the veil to mobilise support against dictatorial regimes, which they portrayed as anti-Islam,’ she notes, adding that it was partially due to the efforts of the authoritarian regimes to ban the face veil that it has made such a comeback.

Banning the face veil by legal fait, such Muslim critics rightly suggest, is no way to promote Muslim women’s autonomy. It is bound to embolden patriarchal forces among Muslims, making the struggle for articulating gender-just understandings of Islam even more difficult than it is.

A regular columnist for NewAgeIslam.com, Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore.

From the April 11‚ 2011‚ issue

Joseph Eid / AFP

Less than three weeks after Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) forces, led by Saudi Arabia, entered Bahrain to aid the anti-democracy crackdown there, dignitaries from both oil-rich kingdoms did their separate rounds in Pakistan. The royal houses of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are nervous, and they need Pakistan’s mercenaries, and—if necessary—military muscle to shore them up.

This is a remarkable turn of events for Asif Ali Zardari, who had been trying since he was elected president in 2008 to secure Saudi oil on sweetheart terms. He had been unsuccessful in his efforts because the Sunni Saudis view his leadership with some degree of skepticism. It also doesn’t help that Zardari, a Shia, is big on improving relations with Shia Tehran. Riyadh now appears inclined to export oil on terms that better suit cash-strapped Islamabad. Manama, too, wants to play ball. It wants increased defense cooperation and has pledged to prioritize Pakistan’s hopes for a free-trade agreement with the GCC in return. But Zardari and his Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, should fight the urge to get mired in the Middle East.

Pakistan already has a presence in Bahrain: a battalion of the Azad Kashmir Regiment was deployed there over a year ago to train local troops, and retired officers from our Navy and Army are part of their security forces. Media estimates put the number of Pakistanis serving in Bahrain’s security establishment at about 10,000. Their removal has been a key demand of protesters in the kingdom. Last month in Islamabad, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani reportedly assured Bahrain’s foreign minister, Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, that Pakistan would offer more retired manpower to help quell the uprising against Bahrain’s Sunni rulers by its Shia majority. Gilani’s spokesman was unable to confirm the pledge.

Islamabad’s support to the tottering regime in Manama is not ideal. “It’s like our version of Blackwater,” says Talat Masood, a former Pakistan Army general, referring to Bahrain’s recruitment drive in Pakistan. “We’re doing [in Bahrain] exactly what we have been opposing here,” he says. Pakistan, he maintains, has no business in trying to suppress a democratic, people’s movement in another country. Short-term economic gains cannot be the only prism through which Pakistan views its national interests, he says.

Pakistan has a long history of military involvement and training in the Arab world. Its pilots flew warplanes in the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict, and volunteered for the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Involvement in Bahrain’s current strife would not be the first time that Pakistan has used its military might to thwart an Arab uprising against an Arab regime. In 1970, future military dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, then head of the Pakistani military training mission in Jordan, led his soldiers to intervene on the side of Amman to quash a Palestinian challenge to its rule.

Some Bahraini opposition groups have called on the U.S. to intervene to get the GCC troops out of their country, fearing it could become a battleground in a Saudi-Iranian battle for regional supremacy. They stress that they share no real affinity with the theocratic regime in Shia-majority Iran, while noting that a number of Bahraini Sunni Muslims have also come out in the streets to call for greater reforms. Pakistani involvement, therefore, could result in it being embroiled in a proxy war, with serious implications for its own security interests.

The issue of Iran is important, but there’s a deeper issue, according to author Noam Chomsky. “By historical and geographical accident, the main concentration of global energy resources is in the northern Gulf region, which is predominantly Shia,” he told Newsweek Pakistan. Bahrain, he points out, neighbors eastern Saudi Arabia, where most of the latter’s oil is. “Western planners have long been concerned that a tacit Shia alliance might take shape with enormous control over the world’s energy resources, and perhaps not be reliably obedient to the U.S.”

Bahrain, which like Pakistan was designated a major non-NATO ally by the George W. Bush presidency, is home to the Fifth Fleet. It is the primary U.S. base in the region and allows Washington to ensure the free flow of oil through the Gulf, while keeping checks on Iran. Chomsky believes that Pakistani presence in Bahrain can be seen as part of a U.S.-backed alliance to safeguard Western access to the region’s oil.

“The U.S. has counted on Pakistan to help control the Arab world and safeguard Arab rulers from their own populations,” says Chomsky. “Pakistan was one of the ‘cops on the beat’ that the Nixon administration had in mind when outlining their doctrine for controlling the Arab world,” he says. Pakistan has such “severe internal problems” that it may not be able to play this role even if asked to. But the real reason that Pakistan should avoid this role is so that it can stand on the right side of history, alongside those who are fighting for democracy.

To comment on this article, email letters@newsweek.pk

, Sunday, April 17, 11:01 PM

The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables.

The London-based satellite channel, Barada TV, began broadcasting in April 2009 but has ramped up operations to cover the mass protests in Syria as part of a long-standing campaign to overthrow the country’s autocratic leader, Bashar al-Assad. Human rights groups say scores of people have been killed by Assad’s security forces since the demonstrations began March 18; Syria has blamed the violence on “armed gangs.”

Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of Syrian exiles. Classified U.S. diplomatic cables show that the State Department has funneled as much as $6 million to the group since 2006 to operate the satellite channel and finance other activities inside Syria. The channel is named after the Barada River, which courses through the heart of Damascus, the Syrian capital.

The U.S. money for Syrian opposition figures began flowing under President George W. Bush after he effectively froze political ties with Damascus in 2005. The financial backing has continued under President Obama, even as his administration sought to rebuild relations with Assad. In January, the White House posted an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in six years.

The cables, provided by the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks, show that U.S. Embassy officials in Damascus became worried in 2009 when they learned that Syrian intelligence agents were raising questions about U.S. programs. Some embassy officials suggested that the State Department reconsider its involvement, arguing that it could put the Obama administration’s rapprochement with Damascus at risk.

Syrian authorities “would undoubtedly view any U.S. funds going to illegal political groups as tantamount to supporting regime change,” read an April 2009 cable signed by the top-ranking U.S. diplomat in Damascus at the time. “A reassessment of current U.S.-sponsored programming that supports anti-[government] factions, both inside and outside Syria, may prove productive,” the cable said.

It is unclear whether the State Department is still funding Syrian opposition groups, but the cables indicate money was set aside at least through September 2010. While some of that money has also supported programs and dissidents inside Syria, The Washington Post is withholding certain names and program details at the request of the State Department, which said disclosure could endanger the recipients’ personal safety.

Syria, a police state, has been ruled by Assad since 2000, when he took power after his father’s death. Although the White House has condemned the killing of protesters in Syria, it has not explicitly called for his ouster.

The State Department declined to comment on the authenticity of the cables or answer questions about its funding of Barada TV.

Tamara Wittes, a deputy assistant secretary of state who oversees the democracy and human rights portfolio in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said the State Department does not endorse political parties or movements.

“We back a set of principles,” she said. “There are a lot of organizations in Syria and other countries that are seeking changes from their government. That’s an agenda that we believe in and we’re going to support.”

The State Department often funds programs around the world that promote democratic ideals and human rights, but it usually draws the line at giving money to political opposition groups.

In February 2006, when relations with Damascus were at a nadir, the Bush administration announced that it would award $5 million in grants to “accelerate the work of reformers in Syria.”

But no dissidents inside Syria were willing to take the money, for fear it would lead to their arrest or execution for treason, according to a 2006 cable from the U.S. Embassy, which reported that “no bona fide opposition member will be courageous enough to accept funding.”

Around the same time, Syrian exiles in Europe founded the Movement for Justice and Development. The group, which is banned in Syria, openly advocates for Assad’s removal. U.S. cables describe its leaders as “liberal, moderate Islamists” who are former members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Barada TV

It is unclear when the group began to receive U.S. funds, but cables show U.S. officials in 2007 raised the idea of helping to start an anti-Assad satellite channel.

People involved with the group and with Barada TV, however, would not acknowledge taking money from the U.S. government.

“I’m not aware of anything like that,” Malik al-Abdeh, Barada TV’s news director, said in a brief telephone interview from London.

Abdeh said the channel receives money from “independent Syrian businessmen” whom he declined to name. He also said there was no connection between Barada TV and the Movement for Justice and Development, although he confirmed that he serves on the political group’s board. The board is chaired by his brother, Anas.

“If your purpose is to smear Barada TV, I don’t want to continue this conversation,” Malik al-Abdeh said. “That’s all I’m going to give you.”

Other dissidents said that Barada TV has a growing audience in Syria but that its viewer share is tiny compared with other independent satellite news channels such as al-Jazeera and BBC Arabic. Although Barada TV broadcasts 24 hours a day, many of its programs are reruns. Some of the mainstay shows are “Towards Change,” a panel discussion about current events, and “First Step,” a program produced by a Syrian dissident group based in the United States.

Ausama Monajed, another Syrian exile in London, said he used to work as a producer for Barada TV and as media relations director for the Movement for Justice and Development but has not been “active” in either job for about a year. He said he now devotes all his energy to the Syrian revolutionary movement, distributing videos and protest updates to journalists.

He said he “could not confirm” any U.S. government support for the satellite channel, because he was not involved with its finances. “I didn’t receive a penny myself,” he said.

Several U.S. diplomatic cables from the embassy in Damascus reveal that the Syrian exiles received money from a State Department program called the Middle East Partnership Initiative. According to the cables, the State Department funneled money to the exile group via the Democracy Council, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit. According to its Web site, the council sponsors projects in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America to promote the “fundamental elements of stable societies.”

The council’s founder and president, James Prince, is a former congressional staff member and investment adviser for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Reached by telephone, Prince acknowledged that the council administers a grant from the Middle East Partnership Initiative but said that it was not “Syria-specific.”

Prince said he was “familiar with” Barada TV and the Syrian exile group in London, but he declined to comment further, saying he did not have approval from his board of directors. “We don’t really talk about anything like that,” he said.

The April 2009 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Damascus states that the Democracy Council received $6.3 million from the State Department to run a Syria-related program called the “Civil Society Strengthening Initiative.” That program is described as “a discrete collaborative effort between the Democracy Council and local partners” to produce, among other things, “various broadcast concepts.” Other cables make clear that one of those concepts was Barada TV.

U.S. allocations

Edgar Vasquez, a State Department spokesman, said the Middle East Partnership Initiative has allocated $7.5 million for Syrian programs since 2005. A cable from the embassy in Damascus, however, pegged a much higher total — about $12 million — between 2005 and 2010.

The cables report persistent fears among U.S. diplomats that Syrian state security agents had uncovered the money trail from Washington.

A September 2009 cable reported that Syrian agents had interrogated a number of people about “MEPI operations in particular,” a reference to the Middle East Partnership Initiative.

“It is unclear to what extent [Syrian] intelligence services understand how USG money enters Syria and through which proxy organizations,” the cable stated, referring to funding from the U.S. government. “What is clear, however, is that security agents are increasingly focused on this issue.”

U.S. diplomats also warned that Syrian agents may have “penetrated” the Movement for Justice and Development by intercepting its communications.

A June 2009 cable listed the concerns under the heading “MJD: A Leaky Boat?” It reported that the group was “seeking to expand its base in Syria” but had been “initially lax in its security, often speaking about highly sensitive material on open lines.”

The cable cited evidence that the Syrian intelligence service was aware of the connection between the London exile group and the Democracy Council in Los Angeles. As a result, embassy officials fretted that the entire Syria assistance program had been compromised.

“Reporting in other channels suggest the Syrian [Mukhabarat] may already have penetrated the MJD and is using the MJD contacts to track U.S. democracy programming,” the cable stated. “If the [Syrian government] does know, but has chosen not to intervene openly, it raises the possibility that the [government] may be mounting a campaign to entrap democracy activists.”

whitlockc@washpost.com

16 April, 2011
Earlywarn.blogspot.com

The OPEC MOMR came out late yesterday, but it adds to the picture from the IEA report mentioned yesterday morning. In particular, I can now present revised graphs for total liquid fuel production. Here’s the last three year view (not zero scaled):

Note that the rise that’s been going in since last fall has now been abruptly interrupted by the Libyan situation, and total oil production has fallen by about 0.5mbd. This is about 0.6% of global production, but given that the world economy has been growing rapidly and needing about another 0.5mbd/month, the shortfall over what would have happened in a counterfactual world with no Middle Eastern unrest is more like 1.2% of global production.

In terms of the price production picture, this has put us much more into territory akin to the 2005-2008 oil shock:

We can put the situation almost entirely down to two things: the fact that Libyan production has plummeted, and that Saudi Arabia has made no significant move to compensate. In fact, Saudi Arabia slowed down production increases that it had been making in prior months. First, here’s all the Libyan data currently available:

So the world has abruptly lost something like 1.3mbd of oil production between mid February and March. Now there were a lot of news reports in the business press at the time this was first happening that Saudi Arabia was going to make up the difference. For example, according to Reuters at the time:

Saudi Arabia has increased its oil production to more than 9 million barrels per day (bpd) to compensate for disruption to Libyan output, an industry source familiar with the kingdom’s production told Reuters on Friday.

“We have started producing over 9 million barrels per day (bpd). We have a lot of production capacity,” the source said, but said he could not say when the change had taken place.

Oil prices spiked to a 2-1/2 year peak of nearly $120 a barrel on Thursday, stoked by concern the wave of revolutionary unrest gripping world No.12 oil exporter Libya could spread to big oil producing countries in the Middle East.

A report out of Washington by industry publication Energy Intelligence late on Thursday said Saudi Arabia had made the change quietly to try to avoid stoking regional tensions.

“The Saudi move has not been announced publicly, most likely because of the political sensitivities in the region and the internal dynamics of OPEC,” Energy Intelligence wrote.

Now that the stats are out, we can see that this was total bull. Will that fact be all over the business press? My bet is you’ll have to read some obscure blog called Early Warning to find out what really happened. First off, here’s all the Saudi production data I have (not zero scaled to better show changes):

Indeed Saudi production has increased to around 9mbd, but the timing makes it clear this has nothing to do with Libya. For better comparison, I have put both the Libyan and Saudi averages on the same graph (only since 2005), with the scales adjusted to allow easy comparison. In particular, note that the size of the units on both scales is the same, so similar vertical moves in both curves mean the same amount of oil, but the Saudi scale (left hand scale) has been shifted to put the Saudi curve next to the Libyan one (right scale):

I have circled the March data in each case. You can see what was going on. The Saudis were slowly increasing their production from last fall through February, presumably in response to growing global demand and rising prices. But then, in March, when Libyan production went into freefall, they put on the brakes and did almost nothing to make up for the shortage.

The burning question is: why? Back in 2006, when their production started to gradually decline from 9.5mbd even as global oil prices were in the worst spike since the 1970s, I was an advocate of the view that the decline was largely involuntary: they’d never produced more than 9.5mbd, they’d underinvested for decades, and some of their big fields were getting very tired (particular northern Ghawar and Abqaiq) and they were starting a big rash of new projects and ramping up their rig counts at the same time.

I see current events differently. The reduction in late 2008 was clearly voluntary to support prices in the face of the great recession. There’s no new projects announced, and the rig count hasn’t taken off. So my take is that the failure to increase production to compensate for Libya is deliberate. We can only speculate, but my guess is that, having watched how the west has helped to ease Mubarak and Ben-Ali out of power and is intervening in Libya to the same end, the Saudi regime is in no mood to care about our desire for more oil. Instead, they are very much in the mood to build as large a war chest as possible with which to appease their own population, strengthen their defense measures, etc.

So, instead of Saudi production increasing to compensate for Libya, total world production decreased, and oil prices went up sharply to enforce the necessary conservation on the world’s oil consumers.

If you want further evidence, I note that on February 24th, I wrote a post suggesting, based on my reading of press coverage, that perhaps the Saudis were not planning on increasing production. Looking at the spread of Saudi grades of oil to Brent prices. I said:

The real tell will come in a couple of weeks when we see what happens to these discounts once the Libyan situation comes out in the data. Will Brent spike while the prices of these Saudi grades languish, since after all, it’s only the light sweet stuff that’s in short supply?

Here’s my guess. When multiple major news sources run apparently independent stories at the same time, all propagating the same plausible but completely false line, I get suspicious and cynical. I think we are seeing the effect of someone’s (rather successful) P.R. push. Someone, probably the Saudis, wants us to think that Saudi production can’t be substituted for Libyan, and it isn’t their fault. If that’s true, then I hypothesize:

>> Saudi production is not going to increase in response to the Libyan cutoff, or not enough, anyway

>> Prices for Saudi grades of oil are going to spike in a very similar manner to Brent

So, here’s the latest data on the discount of the three Saudi grades of oil, to Brent (with a seven week moving average applied to reduce noise):

You can see that these discounts have actually fallen sharply in recent weeks to levels usually seen only in the depths of recessions when the Saudis are trying to raise prices. So rather than trying to flood the market with their oil to help supplies post Libya, the Saudis are ramping back and extracting every dollar they can get.

16 April, 2011

Countercurrents.org

I seems that this President has turned his back on everything he touted during his campaign. Yet, as mature individuals we should have expected it…after all he’s a politician and most politicians lie through their teeth, right? You must remember, closing Guantanamo, having a more “transparent” government, working for peace in the Mid-East, talking to Iran, etc., etc., etc.

I hate to shatter anyone’s bubble, but he hasn’t done anything except reward the perpetrators of the Wall Street crash, expand the War in Afghanistan and move it over to Pakistan to boot. We still have troops in Iraq and we are considering putting troops in Libya where we have no national interests at all. Funny what that “Commander-in-Chief” title can lead you to do.

Yes, since the Congress declared “The Global War on Terror”, the executive branch has almost unlimited resources and power. “Hail Caesar!” I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little bit tired of him moving our military around the World like he’s playing some kind of chess game. You can bet that the military personnel are getting a little sick of it too.

I found out that the reason we are so down on Iran is because they are the sworn enemy of Saudi Arabia. Gee, I didn’t know that. I should have figured it out. When the Saudi’s sent troops into Bahrain to put down a popular movement against the princes of the oilfields, it became quite clear that America is certainly for freedom in the Mid-East, but only in certain parts. We supply Saudi Arabia with 3.5 Billion dollars of military equipment every year. Do they pay for it? Let me guess…no. Between Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia we give them more that 10.5 Billions of dollars in military hardware.

We have a situation where we spend more on our military than all the other nations on Earth combined. We are doing it today, and what are our fearless leaders talking about in Congress? How to reduce the average Americans entitlements! They have absolutely no qualms about spending more than half the tax dollars they get, but want to cut programs that American taxpayers put money into! If what I heard tonight is true, 40 cents of every tax dollar received goes to finance the debt. If that’s true, between financing the debt and paying for our military, that only leaves 10 cents of every dollar to actually spend. Is it any wonder why we are going bankrupt?

How about Libya? Who the F**K authorized us into that war? Just what are the people of the U.S. going to gain from it? The U.S. has a new toy called AFRICOM and they want to use it. Some say that Somalia, Yemen and Sudan will be next. Just what is going on and why aren’t Americans screaming their fool heads off?

Look, I didn’t use any big words and everything I’ve said here can be easily verified. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this nation is in a fatal spiral of debt that will eventually have us go the way of the Soviet Union. Where are all the lefties? Where are the people that don’t want Medicare and Social Security cut? Why isn’t there uproar over our out of control military spending? Do you realize the two largest air forces are the U.S.Airforce and secondly the U.S. Navy? Did you know that it takes approximately 50 Billion dollars to operate one nuclear powered aircraft carrier and we have eleven of them? There are two nations; Italy and Spain the closest to us in numbers have 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_by_country

So why do we have so many carriers? Just what real good are they doing? Off the coast of Somalia American and other nations ships are routinely captured by pirates in fast boats. How do you hide a two football field long tanker from an aircraft carrier? Doesn’t this make you sit up and say WTF?

We’re fighting a war in Afghanistan to root out what the U.S. admits are only 50-100 al Qaida. The average cost of having one set of boots on the ground there for a year is One Million Dollars http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114294746 , just what are we doing? Opium production there has risen 400% since the U.S. landed troops there. Some sources say it is now over 6000 metric tons yearly. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6239734.stm There are entire families addicted to the stuff. War is hell and opium makes it less so. If we gave them a democracy (which isn’t the real mission there) they wouldn’t know what to do with it. Between depleted uranium and opium, the Afghani’s will never forget us.

Forget about the class war here in America where the top 1% of the population owns almost 40% of the wealth and the other 19% together with the1% hold 83% of the nation’s wealth, leaving the bottom 80% of us with a whopping 7% of the total wealth. Never mind that the middle class has seen wages fall steadily over the last two decades while the upper 10% have had a 13% increase. Don’t tax the rich! According to the GOP that will mean that they can’t hire anyone. (What …like an extra maid or butler?)

So when are we going to do something about it? Obama, with his minions from Goldman Sacks aren’t going to break the status quo. Anyway, he’s Commander-in-Chief! I say do something. If things progress the way they are, we will have the largest armed forces in the world, but they will all be mothballed. (And maybe that’s a good thing). The government wants to cut everything under the sun, but the military is sacrosanct. It’s about time we brought the subject up loud enough for these cowards in Washington to hear us. Don’t you think?

Timgatto@hotmail.com

15 April, 2011

Countercurrents.org

NATO aircraft are routinely equipped with anti-armor missiles fitted with depleted uranium war heads. It has been widely reported that NATO has fired hundreds of anti-armor missiles in many parts of Libya, including in the immediate environs of the Libyan capital Tripoli. This means that thousands of kilos of depleted uranium have been used in Libya in the past weeks.

Depleted uranium, or D.U., ignites when it strikes armored vehicles. Ignition causes D.U. to break down to a microscopic powder, measured in microns or millionths of an inch. Upon impact D.U. creates a fireball in many cases that rises hundreds of feet into the atmosphere where the wind helps spread it over large areas.

D.U. is a very dangerous, long term poison. It is radioactive and when ingested internally causes a host of problems to its victim. It is nonspecific and generational in impact, meaning that it does not distinguish between friend or foe and the damage it does goes on for generations into the future.

Large quantities of D.U. were used during the attack on Iraq in 1991 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The damage done by D.U. to the Iraqi population is well documented and continuing.

The use of D.U. constitutes a war crime and crime against humanity, just as poison gas and dumdum bullets were designated in their time. The Libyan people are the latest victims of this western inflicted plague.

Irradiate the Libyan people to save the Libyan people? How else could you describe the NATO attack on Libya?

Thomas C. Mountain

Asmara, Eritrea

thomascmountain at yahoo dot com

In a previous life Thomas C. Mountain was the editor of the Ambedkar Journal and is presently the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006