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Last week none of us had ever heard of an Icelandic volcano called Eyjafjallajokull, and still even now, very few of us can actually pronounce its name. The volcanic dust spewn forth across Europe as a result of its spectacular eruption has had a remarkable effect, leading to, among other things, the total grounding of the UK’s aviation fleet for several days until this morning. The headline on Metro, the free newspaper the person next to me on the train is reading as I write this, is “Fly, fly again”. It will take days to clear the backlog and to get things back to normal, but let us not pass up this opportunity to meditate on vulnerability and resilience, which led to major disruption to the air freighting of produce from Kenya and other places, thousands of people stuck in their Easter holiday destinations, and Liverpool Football Club having to travel to its Europa League fixture with Athletico Madrid on public transport . But perhaps rather than seeing it as the ‘misery’ most news broadcasts labelled it as, we might see it as good practice for the near future.

Two days ago, 400,000 Britons were stranded around the world, 268,000 across Europe, the rest mainly in the US, Home Secretary David Miliband calling for the ‘great British spirit’ to be invoked by stranded tourists. The navy fleet was on standby for a Dunkirk style ‘rescuing’ of Brits from the European mainland to get them home. A Royal Navy ship picked up tourists from Spain, the captain saying “it’s a warship so the civilians won’t be used to the austere conditions, but they will get fresh rations, fish and chips for dinner tonight and curry tomorrow. We will provide as many camp beds as we can, but it’s not a 5 star hotel. An Englishman who organised a flotilla of boats to sail to Dunkirk to pick up tourists in a restaging of the Dunkirk evacuations of World War 2, was turned back by French authorities who told him that such behaviour was anti-commercial and could affect the viability of French ferries (at least that’s the story as it was told to me, true or not, it’s a great story).

Kenya’s horticulture industry, mostly flowers such as roses, grown for the UK market, has been losing $2 million a day in exports, with tonnes of roses and other fresh produce being thrown away each day (at least they were ‘composted’, according to the Guardian). One of the tabloids headlines yesterday was “TFI Flyday!” such was the media jubilation at the return to the skies. However, as Heading Out at the Oil Drum notes, this might just be the beginning of a series of eruptions, this may be just the beginning, rather than just the end of a week-long interruption to business-as-usual.

As a result of the grounding of the UK’s planes, Europe’s carbon emissions from aviation fell by 60%. This great graphic from informationisbeautiful.net answers the question of what produces more CO2, the volcano, or aviation? In spite of the huge amount of carbon pumped out by Eyjafjallajokull, aviation is still a far greater polluter.

Of course that was partly offset by the rather large amount of carbon belched forth by the unpronounceable volcano, but I spent Monday reading a fascinating piece of research by Meinshausen et.al.(1). It puts into context what ‘misery’ actually means, and it goes way beyond a few days stuck in a foreign airport or composting roses. Runaway climate change, accompanied by 2 metre sea level rise, crippling impacts on agriculture and most other aspects of modern life, would be utterly catastrophic. While not wishing in any way to denigrate the experience of those who have had a stressful, costly and disruptive few days, perhaps looking at this experience as a dry run for an oil-strapped near future might be healthier.

Of course we have had these ‘wake-up’ moments before. In 2000 the lorry drivers went on strike, blocking refineries, and the UK was a few days away from a major food crisis. The same thing was threatened a few years later when Grangemouth refinery was blockaded. Then there was the oil price spike of July 2008, and the impacts of the oil price rises. There was the snow of last winter, many communities cut off and distribution of essential goods made rather tricky. Oh and I think there was the world nearly coming to the brink of economic meltdown quite recently if I remember rightly, although I’m told that is all fine and sorted out now.

Now we have the grounding of the entire UK air fleet, and still the press coverage focused on newly-weds stranded in their honeymoon locations, or school choirs stuck in the US, rather than questioning how utterly reliant we have become on aviation, and how perilously unresilient we have grown as a culture. One minor interruption and everything starts coming unstuck at the edges rather quickly, developing countries find their agricultural sectors on the edge of bankruptcy, school exams might have to be scheduled, we will be short of fruit and other imports, etc.etc.

Meinshausen et.al. look at what level of cuts in emissions we need to make if we are actually going to avoid runaway and catastrophic climate change. They estimate that there is about a 70% chance of staying under 2°C if global emissions are cut by 50% from 1990 levels by 2050, and that emissions would need to have peaked and started to decline by 2020, and that they would need to continue being cut beyond 2050, and would need to have reached zero before 2100. A cut of 72% by 2050 would give us an 84% chance of avoiding runaway climate change.

They suggest that a programme of reductions capable of producing cuts in emissions necessary to avoid a 2°C rise, would mean that by 2050, the annual UK personal carbon allowance would need to be between 1.96 and 1.10 tonnes of CO2e per year, a cut of between 86% and 92% on 1990 levels, a level of emissions similar to that of Mozambique today. In this context, there really is little or no place for aviation, and that’s before we add in the question of what, by then, planes would even be running on.

We are talking about reducing emissions, personally and societally, by over 90%. Personally I don’t think future generations will be especially bothered that I had a few days over Easter chilling out in Rome or snorkelling in Thailand as they come to grips with the irreversible nightmare they have inherited from us. They will almost certainly look at any interruption to our “Fly, fly again” collective madness as having been a good thing, and would have hoped that we might have learnt something instructive from it.

Profoundly thought-provoking though the implications of Meinshausen’s study is, it is seen by some as being the optimistic scenario. A different study by Helm et.al. argues that even this scale of cuts is unrealistic, because presently the emissions of different nations are based on production rather than consumption, that is, they don’t factor in the carbon emissions that go into making imported consumer goods, which could be seen as ‘outsourced emissions’. If emissions were allocated to countries on the basis on consumption rather than production, the UK’s emissions would increase by 50%. Then there’s the fact, as set out so clearly in the recent Climate Safety report, that we haven’t even reached 2°C yet, we have gone up 0. 8°C and are already seeing feedbacks starting that the IPCC didn’t think we’d see for many years yet.

A re-immersion in the climate change literature is always a chilling experience (the word ‘sobering’ doesn’t somehow feel anywhere near strong enough). We are talking about a profound shift, such as that set out in the excellent forthcoming ‘Zero Carbon Britain 2030’ report, that takes as its basis the need to cut emissions to zero by 2030. In that context, in spite of all the wonders that aviation brings to our lives, whether it be 2 weeks in Rome over the Easter hols or early spring broccoli, roses and green beans airfreighted from Kenya, we are going to have to let it go.

The Department of Transport argue that air passenger numbers will have grown by 200% by 2030 (this is, of course, the same government that argues that peak oil won’t be a concern until 2030 at the earliest), and 21% of all the UK’s transport emissions come from aviation. It is, however, the key element of our transport infrastructure that defies decarbonisation. The aviation industry is already nearly as fuel efficient as it could become, electric planes are a non-started, hydrogen powered planes put 2.6 times the water vapour that ordinary planes put into the upper atmosphere, and biofuels for planes would be a humanitarian disaster, hitting food security hard. We have no option than to consciously, intentionally and urgently design for the end of the aviation industry.

Listening to 5 Live yesterday morning the speculation was all about whether or not planes would get into the air today, like a ‘which-airport-gets-planes-back-in-the-air-first’ competition. Gave me a mental picture of Boeing 737s on runways up and down the country, white knuckles clenching joysticks, revving their engines ready to reconquer the skies as soon as they get the green light. The sky with no planes is clearly seen by some as abhorrent, like a football match with no players, or, in my own case, a garden with no vegetables growing in it.

Alain de Botton wrote a beautiful piece for the BBC, a Transition Tale in effect, writing about life in 2050 with no planes, and people thinking back to the day when people flew. Writing in yesterday’s Guardian, George Monbiot wrote that “over the past few days, people living under the flight paths have seen the future and they like it”. Would it really be that bad to have a vastly scaled back aviation industry? Of course not. I haven’t flown for four years, and it has had no adverse impact on my quality of life at all.

In talks I sometimes use the analogy of the 7 League Boots, how people in the world before oil couldn’t imagine being able to travel long distances in any way other than by foot or travelling on an animal. Now we have lost any sense that distant places are, well, quite distant. The Canaries is actually a long long way from the UK, it’s an island in the middle of the sea. New York is also really a very, very long way from London. Cheap oil and not giving a toss about our carbon emissions has enabled us to shrink distances and as George Monbiot put it yesterday;

“it made everywhere feel local, interchangeable. Nature interjects, and we encounter – tragically for many – the reality of thousands of miles of separation. We discover that we have not escaped from the physical world after all”.

Rather than seeing the past few days as an interruption to our inherent right to go wherever in the world we want to whenever we want to, perhaps we ought to reflect on the awesome power that fossil fuels have brought, albeit temporarily, to our lives.

Helm et.al. argue, as does James Hansen, that the ‘tipping point’ for the Earth’s climate was a 0.5°C increase on pre-industrial levels. Given that the global climate is already committed to a 1.4°C increase, this might seem an impossible task. As Spratt & Sutton write in ‘Climate Code Red’, “the fact that we have long passed this point in no way detracts from its importance as a policy goal, and a state to which we should wholeheartedly endeavour to return the planet”. The Climate Safety Report and the forthcoming second edition of Zero Carbon Britain argue that this means nothing less than a target of zero carbon within the next three decades, a target clearly far in advance of current UK government policy, which, as set out in the 2008 Climate Change Act, is to cut UK emissions by 34% by 2020 and at least 80% by 2050.

Is such an ambition feasible without some major rethinking of many of the assumptions that underpin a business-as-usual approach? I for one struggle to imagine that aviation has any place whatsoever in a world of volatile oil prices, liquid fuel shortages, where biofuels have taken a backseat to actually feeding the world’s population and where avoiding the undermining and irrevocable destabilisation of the world’s climate systems is afforded the seriousness it deserves.

As Rosie Boycott wrote in today’s Guardian, #

“… perhaps this cloud of ash will have a genuine silver lining. Maybe we’ll wake up to where our food comes from, the real price it costs to get here, and the vulnerability of the systems in place. By ramming home the message that what we eat is now at the mercy of acts of God – as well as dwindling resources such as oil and the threat of climate change – I sincerely hope we’ll all start to reconsider how and what we eat”.

Indeed. As George Monbiot concluded yesterday in his typically forthright style:

“we have a choice. We can start decommissioning this industry (aviation) while there is time and find ways of living happily with less of it. Or we can sit and wait for physical reality to simplify the system by more brutal means”.

Designing creatively for this inevitable transition will require a shift in our expectations, shifting what we think of as being the best thing to do when the kids have 2 weeks off school, and what we expect to find on supermarket shelves.

However, as Rafa Benitez, Liverpool manager, told 5Live yesterday after expressing his disapproval with UEFA for making them play their tie in Madrid in spite of the flying ban, and contemplating a very long journey made up to coaches, trains, and at the end, a plane, “we will adapt”. Of course we will, and be healthier, leaner and better connected for it, and we may just, still avoid runaway climate change. Let’s just not have a bank style bail-out for airlines please.

References.

(1). Meinshausen, M. Meinshausen, N. Hare, W. Raper, S. C. B. Frieler, K. Knutti, R. Frame, D. J. Allen, M. R. (2009) Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 degrees C. Nature 458, 1158-1162

22 April, 2010

Transition Culture

Written by Rob Hopkins

Posted: 23 April 2010 00:00

A NUN who has been superior at a Syrian monastery for the past 18 years has warned that media coverage of ongoing violence in that country has been “partial and untrue”. It is “a fake”, Mother Agnes Mariam said, which “hides atrocities committed in the name of liberty and democracy”.

Superior of the Melkite Greek Catholic monastery of St James the Mutilated in Qara, in Syria’s diocese of Homs, which is in full communion with Rome, she left Ireland yesterday after a three-day visit during which she met representatives of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Maynooth.

She told The Irish Times she was in Ireland “not to advocate for the (Assad) regime but for the facts”. Most news reports from Syria were “forged, with only one side emphasised”, she said. This also applied to the UN, whose reports were “one-sided and not worthy of that organisation”.

UN observers in Syria had been “moderate with the rebels and covered for them in taking back positions after the withdrawal of heavy equipment, as seen so tragically in Homs”, she said.

When it was put to her this suggested the whole world was out of step except for Syria, Russia and China, she protested: “No, no, there are 20 countries, including some in Latin America” of the same view.

The reason the media was being denied easy access to Syria currently was because in the Libyan conflict journalists placed electronic devices for Nato in rooms used at press conferences in that country, she said. “So Syria didn’t want journalists,” she said.

Christians make up about 10 per cent of Syria’s population, dispersed throughout the country, she said. The Assad regime “does not favour Christians”, she said. “It is a secular regime based on equality for all, even though in the constitution it says the Koran is the source of legislation.”

But “Christians are less put aside [in Syria] than in other Islamic countries, for example Saudi Arabia,” she said. “The social fabric of Syria is very diverse, so Christians live in peace.”

The “Arab insurrection” under way in that country included “sectarian factions which promote fundamentalist Islam, which is not genuine Islam”, she said.

The majority of Muslims in Syria are moderate and open to other cultural and interfaith elements, she said. “Wahhabism (a fundamentalist branch of Islam) is not open,” she added.

Christians in Syria were “doubtful about the future if the project to topple the regime succeeded”. The alternative was “a religious sectarian state where all minorities would feel threatened and discriminated against”, she said.

There was “a need to end the violence”, she said. “The West and Gulf states must not give finance to armed insurrectionists who are sectarian terrorists, most of whom are from al-Qaeda, according to a report presented to the German parliament,” she said.

“We don’t want to be invaded, as in Aleppo, by mercenaries, some of whom think they are fighting Israel. They bring terror, destruction, fear and nobody protects the civilians,” she said. There were “very few Syrians among the rebels”, she said. “Mercenaries should go home,” she said.

What she and others sought in Syria was “reform, no violence, no foreign intervention.” She hoped for “a new, third way, a new social pact where the right to autodetermination without outside interference” would be respected.

© 2012 The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

Mon, Aug 13, 2012

The rich world is causing the famines it claims to be preventing.

I don’t blame Mo Farah, Pele and Haile Gebrselassie, who lined up, all hugs and smiles, outside Downing Street for a photocall at the prime minister’s hunger summit(1). Perhaps they were unaware of the way in which they were being used to promote his corporate and paternalistic approach to overseas aid. Perhaps they were also unaware of the crime against humanity over which he presides. Perhaps Cameron himself is unaware of it.

You should by now have heard about the famine developing in the Sahel region of West Africa. Poor harvests and high food prices threaten the lives of some 18 million people. The global price of food is likely to rise still further, as a result of low crop yields in the United States, caused by the worst drought in 50 years. World cereal prices, in response to this disaster, climbed 17% last month(2).

We have been cautious about attributing such events to climate change: perhaps too cautious. A new paper by James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, shows that there has been a sharp increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers(3). Between 1951 and 1980 these events affected between 0.1 and 0.2% of the world’s land surface each year. Now, on average, they affect 10%. Hansen explains that “the odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small”(4). Both the droughts in the Sahel and the US crop failures are likely to be the result of climate change.

But this is not the only sense in which the rich world’s use of fuel is causing the poor to starve. In the United Kingdom, in the rest of the European Union and in the United States, governments have chosen to deploy a cure as bad as the disease. Despite overwhelming evidence of the harm their policy is causing, none of them will change course.

Biofuels are the means by which governments in the rich world avoid hard choices. Rather than raise fuel economy standards as far as technology allows, rather than promoting a shift from driving to public transport, walking and cycling, rather than insisting on better town planning to reduce the need to travel, they have chosen to exchange our wild overconsumption of petroleum for the wild overconsumption of fuel made from crops. No one has to drive less or make a better car: everything remains the same except the source of fuel. The result is a competition between the world’s richest and poorest consumers, a contest between overconsumption and survival. There was never any doubt about which side would win.

I’ve been banging on about this since 2004(5), and everything I warned of then has happened. The US and the European Union have both set targets and created generous financial incentives for the use of biofuels. The results have been a disaster for people and the planet.

Already, 40% of US corn (maize) production is used to feed cars(6). The proportion will rise this year as a result of the smaller harvest. Though the market for biodiesel is largely confined to the European Union, it has already captured seven per cent of the world’s output of vegetable oil(7). The European Commission admits that its target (10% of transport fuels by 2020) will raise world cereal prices by between 3 and 6%(8). Oxfam estimates that with every 1% increase in the price of food, another 16 million people go hungry(9).

By 2021, the OECD says, 14% of the world’s maize and other coarse grains, 16% of its vegetable oil and 34% of its sugarcane will be used to make people in the gas guzzling nations feel better about themselves(10). The demand for biofuel will be met, it reports, partly through an increase in production; partly through a “reduction in human consumption.”(11) The poor will starve so that the rich can drive.

The rich world’s demand for biofuels is already causing a global land grab. ActionAid estimates that European companies have now seized five million hectares of farmland – an area the size of Denmark – in developing countries for industrial biofuel production(12). Small farmers, growing food for themselves and local markets, have been thrown off their land and destituted. Tropical forests, savannahs and grasslands have been cleared to plant what the industry still calls “green fuels”.

When the impacts of land clearance and the use of nitrogen fertilisers are taken into account, biofuels produce more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels do(13,14,15). The UK, which claims that half the biofuel sold here meets its sustainability criteria, solves this problem by excluding the greenhouse gas emissions caused by changes in land use(16). Its sustainability criteria are, as a result, worthless.

Even second generation biofuels, made from crop wastes or wood, are an environmental disaster, either extending the cultivated area or removing the straw and stovers which protect the soil from erosion and keep carbon and nutrients in the ground. The combination of first and second generation biofuels – encouraging farmers to plough up grasslands and to leave the soil bare – and hot summers could create the perfect conditions for a new dust bowl.

Our government knows all this. One of its own studies shows that if the European Union stopped producing biofuels, the amount of vegetable oils it exported to world markets would rise by 20% and the amount of wheat by 33%, reducing world prices(17).

Preparing for the prime minister’s hunger summit on Sunday, the international development department argued that, with a rising population, “the food production system will need to be radically overhauled, not just to produce more food but to produce it sustainably and fairly to ensure that the poorest people have the access to food that they need.”(18) But another government department – transport – boasts on its website that, thanks to its policies, drivers in this country have now used 4.4 billion litres of biofuel(19). Of this 30% was produced from recycled cooking oil. The rest consists of 3 billion litres of refined energy snatched from the mouths of the people that David Cameron claims to be helping.

Some of those to whom the government is now extending its “nutrition interventions” may have been starved by its own policies. In this and other ways, David Cameron, with the unwitting support of various sporting heroes, is offering charity, not justice. And that is no basis for liberating the poor.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/sport-stars-get-behind-olympic-hunger-summit/

2. http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfs-home/foodpricesindex/en/

3. James Hansen, Makiko Satoa, Reto Ruedy, 2012. Perception of climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in press. http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1204/1204.1286.pdf

4. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/climate-change-is-here–and-worse-than-we-thought/2012/08/03/6ae604c2-dd90-11e1-8e43-4a3c4375504a_story.html?hpid=z3

5. http://www.monbiot.com/2004/11/23/feeding-cars-not-people/

6. OECD and UNFAO, 2012. Agricultural Outlook, 2012-2021.

http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/agriculture-and-food/oecd-fao-agricultural-outlook-2012_agr_outlook-2012-en

7. Alessandro Flammini, October 2008. Biofuels and the underlying causes of high food prices. UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. http://bit.ly/P7V1Zt

8. Mariann Fischer Boel, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, 13th March 2008. Biofuels: not a magic wand, but a valuable policy tool. Speech to the 2008 World Biofuels Markets Congress. http://bit.ly/MTPDdZ

9. R.Bailey, 2008. Response of Oxfam GB to the Gallagher Review. Oxfam. Cited by ActionAid, 2010. Meals per Gallon: the impact of industrial biofuels on people and global hunger. http://www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/meals_per_gallon_final.pdf

10. OECD and UNFAO, 2012. Agricultural Outlook, 2012-2021.

http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/agriculture-and-food/oecd-fao-agricultural-outlook-2012_agr_outlook-2012-en

11. as above

12. ActionAid, 2010. Meals per Gallon: the impact of industrial biofuels on people and global hunger. http://www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/meals_per_gallon_final.pdf

13. PJ Crutzen, AR Mosier, KA Smith and W Winiwarter, 1 August 2007. N2O release from agro-biofuel production negates global warming reduction by replacing fossil fuels. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions 7, pp11191–11205. http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/11191/2007/acpd-7-11191-2007.pdf

14. Joseph Fargione, Jason Hill, David Tilman, Stephen Polasky, Peter Hawthorne, 7th February 2008. Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt. Science. Doi 10.1126/science.1152747.

15. Timothy Searchinger, Ralph Heimlich, R. A. Houghton, Fengxia Dong, Amani Elobeid, Jacinto Fabiosa, Simla Tokgoz, Dermot Hayes, Tun-Hsiang Yu, 7th February 2008. Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change . Science. Doi 10.1126/science.1151861.

16. “This figure may not include all emissions from direct land use change and excludes the emissions from indirect land-use changes considered in the ‘Gallagher Review’.” http://www.dft.gov.uk/statistics/releases/verified-rtfo-biofuel-statistics-2010-11/

17. Grant Davies, 2012. Removing Biofuel Support Policies: An Assessment of Projected Impacts on Global Agricultural Markets using the AGLINK-COSIMO model. DEFRA. http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/meeting-energy-demand/bio-energy/5134-removing-biofuel-support-policies-an-assessment-o.pdf

18. http://www.dfid.gov.uk/What-we-do/Key-issues/Food-and-nutrition/

19. http://www.dft.gov.uk/statistics/releases/verified-rtfo-biofuel-statistics-2010-11/

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 14th August 2012

August 13, 2012

Foreign and Expatriates Ministry Welcomes Statement Issued by Tehran Consultative Meeting

Aug 13, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said that is has followed with interest Tehran’s Consultative Meeting on Syria, held in the Iranian capital Tehran on August 9th, with the aim of enhancing international and regional efforts to help Syria find an exit to the crisis based on implementing the six-point plan of UN Envoy Kofi Annan and paving suitable ground for national dialogue within a peaceful atmosphere among the Syrian people.

In a press release, the Ministry welcomed the statement issued by the meeting and thanked the Islamic Republic of Iran and all participating countries for their efforts exerted to help Syria overcome the crisis based on the principle of defending the right against the wrong and supporting the legitimate demands of the Syrian people through peaceful national dialogue far from foreign interference in the Syrian affairs.

The Ministry stressed that it will continue building on these positive initiatives, and it will continue communicating with all countries concerned to help encourage constructive initiatives to help Syria.

Authorities Inflict Heavy Losses upon Armed Terrorist Groups in Homs, Lattakia, Idleb and Daraa

Aug 14, 2012

PROVINCES, (SANA) – A unit of the Syrian armed forces pursued an armed terrorist group in Jouret al-Shayah in Homs, killing a large number of mercenary terrorists and wounding others. The armed forces unit also destroyed a warehouse of weapons and ammunition.

Several Terrorists Killed and Wounded in Clash with Authorities in Homs

Authorities in Homs province chased a group of armed terrorists who attacked civilians and properties near Souq al-Ghanam on al-Salamiyah-Homs highway.

A source in the province told SANA correspondent that clashes resulted in killing and wounding several gunmen.

Authorities Storm Terrorists’ Den, Kill Large Number of Terrorists

With residents’ cooperation, authorities stormed a terrorists’ den in Talbiseh area in Homs Countryside and killed large numbers of terrorists.

Authorities chased armed terrorist groups that attacked citizens, cut off roads and fired on passing cars in al-Ghanto town and Telbiseh city to the north of Homs.

SANA reporter quoted a source in the province as saying that the lash resulted in killing and wounding large number of terrorists.

Authorities Destroy Den used by terrorists in Homs countryside

The competent authorities today destroyed a den which was used by the armed terrorist groups as a base for their operations at al-Eznea town in al-Qseir, Homs countryside.

A source in Homs told SANA reporter that the authorities inflicted heavy losses among the terrorists, Killing and injuring all of them.

Authorities Seize Explosive Devices Factory in Homs

Authorities stormed a den used by an armed terrorist group to make explosive devices in al-Shammas area in Homs.

SANA reporter quoted a source in the Province as saying that the authorities seized 11 explosive devices in addition to equipment and raw materials used in manufacturing explosives.

Armed Forces Seize Car Transporting Anti-Armor Rounds in Daraya, Damascus Countryside

An armed forces unit seized a car in Daraya area, Damascus Countryside, and arrested the terrorists in it who were attempting to transport weapons and ammo to an armed group.

The weapons, which were concealed inside the car, a Kia Cerato, included an anti-armor rocket launcher and rounds and charges for it.

Authorities Pursue Armed Terrorists in Lattakia, Kill and Wound many Gunmen

Authorities in Lattakia Province pursued a group of armed terrorists who attacked law-enforcement forces in al-Khadra town in Lattakia countryside and inflicted heavy losses upon them.

A source in the province told SANA correspondent that the authorities pursued last night a gang of armed terrorists who terrified civilians in al-Rihaneh town and killed all gang members.

Authorities Inflict Heavy Losses Upon Terrorists in Idleb

Authorities continued pursuing the armed terrorist groups in Areha area in Idleb, inflicting heavy losses upon them and seizing weapons and stolen cars.

Armed Forces Pursue Terrorists in Daraa Province

The Syrian Armed Forces continued to pursue armed terrorist groups in several areas in Daraa province, killing and injuring several of their members.

A source at the province told SANA’s correspondent that an armed forces units pursued a terrorist group in the town of Tafas in Daraa countryside, killing a large number of its members and arresting others.

The dead terrorists include Adhamd Bdewi al-Zoubi, Mohannad Ahmad Haza’a al-Zoubi, Qasem Mohammad al-Masri, and Mohammad Ahmad al-Zoubi.

The armed forces also pursued terrorists in Bosra al-Cham and Izra’a in Daraa, and clashed with terrorists in the town of al-Sanamin, killing a anumber of them including Khedr Qassem Abdelkader and Mufid Ahmad al-Mehdi.

Salehi: Tehran Opposes Suspending Syria’s Membership at OIC

Aug 13, 2012

TEHRAN, (SANA)-Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Monday underlined his country’s opposition to suspending membership of any member country at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation OIC.

“Any country, particularly members of the OIC, should put hand in hand to resolve the crisis in Syria in the service of the region’s security and stability, Salehi said in a statement in the Saudi city of Mecca, in response to comments by OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu on suspending the membership of Syria at the OIC.

Salehi reiterated Iran’s rejection of any foreign intervention in Syria’s domestic affairs.

Syria’s Ambassador in Tehran: Syria was first in implementing political and economic reforms

Syria’s Ambassador in Tehran Hamid Hassan underlined that Syria was first in implementing the political and economic reforms in the country.

During a meeting held by the Establishment of Mobilization at the TV& Radio Center in Iran today, Hassan said “Syria has taken its reform steps continuously and truly.. Syria has clearly announced its rejection of any foreign intervention.”

Military Source: Military Aircraft  Suffers Technical Failure during Ordinary Training Flight over Eastern Area

Aug 13, 201

DAMASCUS, (SANA)_A military source said that a technical failure that happened to a military aircraft while it was on an ordinary training flight over the eastern area caused the command devices to break down, and the pilot to leave the plane by the ejection seat.

The source added that search for the pilot is underway.

Head of UN Observer Mission in Syria: The Mission will Continue its Work according to UNSC Resolution 2059

Aug 13, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)_General Babacar Gaye, head of the UN Observer Mission in Syria, said that the mission will continue its work according to the UN Security Council Resolution No. 2059.

In a press conference held in Damascus on Monday, Gaye said that the UN observers in Syria are monitoring the increasing violence in Syria and are visiting the displaced Syrians inside the country, adding that the mission has enhanced its efforts in an attempt to reach a ceasefire to deliver humanitarian aid to those in need.

”The mission is determined to continue its work until the end of its mandate,” he said, demanding that all sides end violence and come to the negotiating table, expressing the UN readiness to back political dialogue among the Syrians.

Gaye noted that he recently held a meeting with the Syrian government and discussed holding dialogue.

He added that the mission has scaled down its presence in certain areas like Aleppo due to the developments there, indicating that it will redeploy its monitors temporarily in Damascus.

Answering a question on abducting and killing journalists, Gaye said that the UN is committed to protecting the freedom of press, adding that media in Syria is playing a pivotal role.

He condemned the violence targeting media by either side.

Terrorist Gharibo: I Issued Several Fatwas Upon which the Terrorists Perpetrated Crimes Against Civilians

Aug 13, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)-Terrorist Ahmad Ali Gharibo, one of the armed terrorist groups’ Muftis in al-Maliha, Damascus countryside, admitted that he has issued several fatwas to the armed groups that permit killing upon which terrorists have depended to perpetrate a number of crimes against civilians.

“I was born in Aleppo countryside in 1964 and live in al-Maliha, East Ghouta.. I work as the Imam and preacher of Khadija mosque,” Terrorist Gharibo said in confessions to the Syrian TV broadcast Monday.

“One day, a car came to my house at 12 midnight.. four armed men came down and asked me to go with them for one hour.. they threatened me of my son if I rejected to go with them.. they took me to Dir al-Asafeer town.. when we arrived in there, we entered a tent where a group of people were inside with drugs in front of them,” the terrorist added.

He said “After interrogating me by the armed group, I pleaded to them to inform me about the person which threatened me.. they answered that his name was Mazen Zamzamm, a leader of an armed terrorist group in al-Maliha.”

Terrorist Gharib added that those evil persons were drug addicts, and one of them has raped a married woman.

“Later, they introduced me to a man called Abu Adi from Homs who has escaped from the army in Saqba.. they told me that they will give him the leadership of the group and they will name themselves as the free army, I told them you are free, it is up to you,” terrorist Gharibo said.

He added that a fatwa has been issued on a website, known as the fatwa No. 107, because it was issued by 107 Sheikhs inside and outside Syria.. it permits to kill anyone who deals with the State if he was proven a killer, they asked me about my opinion, I answered yes, it is true.

“It was my first fault to give a fatwa to kill.. they were killing in a unnatural way.. they were mutilating the bodies.. I remember that they have killed five persons and threw their bodies in the sewage and rubbish containers,” he said.

Terrorist Gharibo went on to say that al-Qaeda and Jabhat al-Nasra in Syria are takfiris, they believe in sectarianism, they regard bloodshed as lawful and they have no problem to kill civilians during their evil acts.

People’s Assembly General Freedoms and Human Rights Committee Discusses Draft Charter

Aug 13, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The People’s Assembly General Freedoms and Human Rights Committee on Monday discussed its draft charter in preparation for approving it so that the Committee may play its intended role of tackling issues related to protecting freedoms and human rights.

The General Freedoms and Human Rights Committee is one of four new permanent committees at the People’s Assembly which joins the 12 existing committees. It is charged with looking into everything pertaining to protecting citizens’ freedoms and human rights based on article 33 of the constitution.

Chairman of the Committee, Bade’a Saqer, reviewed the draft work guide of the Committee, affirming that it is an independent entity that is subject only to the supervision of the People’s Assembly via reports.

Saqer said that human rights are inherent, not earned, and human cannot live without them as all people are born free, explaining that the Committee aims to fulfill a number of goals listed in the constitution, particularly ensuring that all executive authorities in the state establishments conform to the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in addition to formulating legislations to improve the state of freedoms.

He went on to add that other goals include preparing an annual report to the Assembly on the state of freedoms in Syria, studying the conditions of people detained for criminal and political reasons, monitoring illegal detainment, and working to spread the culture of freedoms and human rights.

Saqer said that the Committee members will establish direct and indirect contact with people to receive complaints, and that they will also work to protect cultural rights and intellectual, cultural and religious  pluralism, adding that several ministries will be work to include the issue of constitutional freedoms in their work programs and translate them in practice, while relevant ministries will be asked to present the necessary data on the implementation of human rights according to the constitution.

He also said that the Committee will coordinate with the Syrian Human Rights Network, along with relevant organizations and parliaments around the world.

On this note, the Committee addressed the world’s parliaments, saying that citizens’ rights and freedoms are being violated due to unjust sanctions imposed on Syria and the escalation of the aggressive acts carried out by armed terrorist group which reject dialogue and reconciliation and are supported by the US, some EU countries and Arab countries.

The Committee called upon these parliaments to pressure their governments into adopting the six-point program to resolve the situation in Syria and prevent it from escalation.

The Committee members stressed the need for it to begin work as soon as possible, given the exceptional situation in Syria.

They said that the Committee is a necessity, voicing hope that it will be effective and carry out its work properly through fieldwork and keeping in touch with citizens.

The members affirmed that this Committee is one of the most important of the new committees and is the first such committee in an Arab parliament, adding that there’s a distorted image of Syria being spread abroad regarding freedoms and human rights violations, and that the Committee should relay the truth about what is happening in Syria in this field.

Stand in Honor of Martyr Journalist Ali Abbas Tomorrow

Aug 13, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The Syrian Journalists’ Union organizes a stand in honor of the martyr journalist Ali Abbas and the kidnapped Syrian journalists outside the building of the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on Tuesday at 11:00 a.m.

Martyr Abbas, who was the head of the Internal News Department at SANA, was assassinated by an armed terrorist group in his home in Jdeidet Artouz in Damascus Countryside.

Kidnapped al-Ikhbariya TV Cameraman Hatem Abu Yehya Martyred

Aug 13, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The Syrian al-Ikhbariya TV channel announced that the cameraman Hatem Abu Yehya, who was kidnapped along with a press team in Tal Mnin area, was martyred.

The TV channel added that the other press team members are in good health after two days of being kidnapped while covering the events in Tal Mnin area in Damascus Countryside.

Decree on Establishing two New Faculties in Aleppo University

Aug 13, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – President Bashar al-Assad on Monday issued a legislative decree No. 301 for 2012 on establishing the Third Faculty of Arts and Humanities and the Third Faculty of Education in Aleppo University.

The decree provides for that the two new faculties to be based in Manbij city, Aleppo.

Minister Haidar: Ministry’s Doors Open to Every Possible Help that Might Contribute to Solving Problems

Aug 13, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Minister of State for National Reconciliation Affairs Ali Haidar said that the Ministry’s door are open to every possible help that might contribute to making its tasks a success and solving issues under discussion through objective viewpoints on what is taking place in Syria and embracing honesty in conveying the reality.

Following his meeting with Hungarian ambassador in Damascus Janos Budai, Haidar told reporters that he briefed the ambassador on the Ministry’s tasks and work mechanisms as well as means of potential cooperation between the two sides.

The minister stressed the importance that the Syrians be united in the current stage, indicating that any stance to support the Syrian people should fit their national interests.

Regarding the Ministry’s role in tackling the issue of the kidnapped, Haidar said that this issue is a priority for the Ministry, stressing that all kidnapping operations are condemned whatever their motives or purposes, particularly if they aimed at silencing the voice of the right just like what happened with the Syrian al-Ikhbariya TV channel.

Longtime journalist Alexander Cockburn passed away on July 21st, an enormous loss. Cockburn was a brilliant, witty, and courageous opponent of falsehoods and injustice. He stood on the side of the oppressed, the weak, and the victimized – even those victims that many writers and human rights defenders chose to ignore.

With his scathing intellect, engaging talent, far ranging knowledge, and quick humor, the Oxford-educated Cockburn could have become a celebrated, wealthy journalist – the kind whose lucrative articles are consistently published in top journals, whose best-selling books are reviewed widely throughout the media, and whose commentary is in demand by the top television and radio news programs.

Instead, he used his extraordinary abilities to skewer dishonesty, expose cruelty and hypocrisy, and spread facts that many wished to remain hidden.

Others have written remembrances that discuss the diverse topics he addressed; I will limit myself to just one.

Although he was not known as an activist on Israel-Palestine, I believe that history will show Alexander Cockburn to have been one of the most important figures in the quest for justice in Palestine.

While most others on the left were largely ignoring, obscuring, or misrepresenting the facts on this issue, Cockburn was exposing them.

In fact, he lost his first major position in the U.S., as a writer for the Village Voice, because of his articles discussing Israel-Palestine and Israel’s ruthless invasion of Lebanon. His pieces earned the enmity of both Zionists and those who claimed they weren’t, but who had what former Voice writer James Wolcott describes as a “gravitational pull to Israel.”

When Cockburn received a $10,000 research grant from the Massachusetts-based Institute for Arab Studies to investigate Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Israel partisans saw this as a way to get rid of him. (He had been recommended for the grant by Columbia professor Edward Said.)

An article published by the Boston Phoenix after Cockburn’s death, “How the Boston Phoenix Got Alexander Cockburn Fired from the Village Voice,” gives some of the details.

The Phoenix, which was then published by Israel partisan Stephen Mindich (and now by his son), reported on the grant in an article written by Alan Lupo, a writer with a record of consistent pro-Israel bias in his articles. The piece was headlined “Alexander Cockburn’s $10,000 Arab connection” and subtitled “A question of propriety.” For his story Lupo phoned Village Voice Editor David Schneiderman, who eventually suspended Cockburn because of an alleged “conflict of interest.”

Other pro-Israel journalists gleefully took up the refrain, suggesting that Cockburn had acted improperly in accepting money from “the Arabs.” Recent obituaries mentioned the incident and continued this spin.

The validity of this charge, however, is significantly diminished by the fact that receiving a grant from an American foundation is normal, acceptable, and standard practice, as evidenced by the multitude of books in which author acknowledgements thank the various foundations that have funded their research.

As James Wolcott recently pointed out in his Vanity Fair blog: “Much handwringing to-do was made at the time of the incident about the need for journalistic transparency and accountability and such but let’s be honest — if it had been a Jewish-American organization or Israel front forking off the relative piddling sum of $10 thou, there hardly would have been this gummy uproar.”

Wolcott went on to note, “Imagine how many Beltway pundits, commentators, consultants and the like are on the take today via speaking fees, serving on panels, free fact-finding trips to the Mideast, etc. Alex’s sin was in aligning with the wrong team.”

The articles in 1984 and since that focused on Cockburn’s alleged “impropriety” failed to mention the fact that, according to prominent pro-Israel journalist Michael Kinsley, numerous journalists have gone to Israel on trips financed by the Israeli government – a far sketchier proposition. *

Governmental funding of journalism, in fact, is considered so problematic that a number of Israel Lobby organizations such as Act for Israel and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy have now stepped in to finance such journalistic junkets to Israel, removing the need for the Israeli government to be directly involved.

The fact that many journalists go on these Lobby-financed junkets also went unmentioned in the articles that brought up Cockburn’s allegedly improper grant and supposed conflict of interest. Also unmentioned was the fact that many journalists reporting on Israel-Palestine have close family – and sometimes personal – ties to the Israel military.

And there is still more to the story – which also is not referenced in recent obituaries. According to a 1992 article by former AIPAC insider Gregory Slabodkin, “AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] was the source of the original Phoenix story.” AIPAC is a leading institution in the Israel Lobby.

In his article, “The Secret Section in Israel’s U.S. Lobby That Stifles American Debate” published by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Slabodkin described how AIPAC secretly monitors individuals critical of Israel and feeds negative information about them to the media.

Slabodkin, who used to work for the section within AIPAC responsible for this surreptitious activity, reported that Lupo “said AIPAC had told him the Institute for Arab Studies was ‘linked to a $100 million campaign to sway U.S. policy against Israel.’” In reality, Slabodkin reported, “the Institute had U.S. tax-exempt status and listed individual contributors within the United States until it closed down in 1983 due to a lack of funds.”

Slabodkin discussed AIPAC’S promulgation of anti-Arab bigotry as a tactic to protect Israel: “AIPAC attempted to discredit critics of Israel not by refuting their arguments, but by trying to tie them to Arab money. Making an Arab connection can damage the victim’s reputation, the pro-Israel lobby believes, so long as it can encourage a mindset in the United States that anything Arab-related is tainted.”

While Voice Editor Schneiderman at first defended Cockburn, he eventually went along with the charges, suspending him for what he claimed was a conflict of interest, and Cockburn left.

Schneiderman, who had originally been hired to edit the Voice by Rupert Murdoch, went into increasingly lucrative directions, eventually making tens of millions of dollars by turning the Village Voice and its offspring into advertising money machines, largely through classified ads, some of which eventually got the paper sued for the grotesque sex trafficking they enabled. He is currently employed at a PR firm advising global corporations on corporate communications, crises, antitrust and other regulatory matters, labor relations, and environmental issues.

Cockburn, on the other hand, continued to skewer the powerful, mendacious, hypocritical, and cruel. His biting and occasionally very funny essays were published in periodicals from the Nation to the Wall Street Journal, both of which employed him as a columnist, and collected in his book Corruptions of Empire and others.

A scan of these reveals that in the 1980s he was already exposing the neocons and their appalling agenda. In “The Gospel According to Ali Agca,” originally published in the Nation in 1985, he described the CBS documentary “Terrorism: War in the Shadows,” and reported the implied challenge by alleged “terrorism expert” Robert Kupperman** not to let TV images of “charred babies” and our guilt over Vietnam interfere with our commitment to fighting “terrorists.”

CounterPunch

Most important, in 1996 Cockburn and co-editor Jeffrey St. Clair took over CounterPunch, a small newsletter that had been started two years earlier.

In subsequent years they created an extraordinarily non-doctrinaire muckraking publication where independent writers could cover a wide variety of topics fully, accurately, and without being constrained by positions decreed by political orthodoxy.

CounterPunch has covered Israel-Palestine with a thoroughness and honesty that few if any other non-specialty publications have approached. Moreover, it has been uniquely open to pieces by writers from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives.

I am personally indebted to CounterPunch, which was the first general interest publication to publish my pieces on the topic. Without CounterPunch, I think it is quite likely that my articles on Israel-Palestine would never have made it into the small, fairly closed world of highly regarded progressive general interest publications.

While most other media were covering Israel-Palestine very little, if at all – and were frequently obscuring such central issues as the Palestinian right of return, the systemic discrimination within Israel itself, the power of the Israel Lobby in the U.S., and Israel partisans’ direct connections to the invasion of Iraq – CounterPunch contributors were exposing all in meticulous, principled detail.

When former Zionists worked on a campaign to blackball some writers, including two Israeli anti-Zionist authors, for allegedly going too far in their subject matter, CounterPunch refused to bow to the attempted party line and continued to publish their thought provoking, often highly informative pieces.

The importance of what Cockburn and co-editor St. Clair have achieved in CounterPunch cannot be overstated. Without CounterPunch, it is quite likely that essential information on Israel-Palestine would have remained largely hidden from progressive American readers. CounterPunch not only published critical facts itself; by carrying thoroughly cited articles on information that had previously been buried, it also pushed other American publications and individuals into discussing Palestine with greater depth, frequency, and honesty.

The censorship on Israel-Palestine has been far more serious and profound than most people realize. It has pervaded both the left and the right and has long worked to minimize informed discussion on the subject and prevent effective work for justice and peace.

CounterPunch ripped open the curtain.

* Kinsley’s revelation about this came in his essay “Cockburn the Barbarian: Lessons in journalistic ethics from a veteran of an infamous Israeli junket,” Washington Monthly, April 1984. Online at: http://www.unz.org/Pub/WashingtonMonthly-1984apr-00035

** Robert Kupperman was in on the ground floor of building the war against certain types of terror. He created the Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism under President Richard Nixon. This was in response to Palestinian fighters who had taken eleven Israeli athletes hostage to use in an exchange to free Palestinian men and women held (and tortured) in Israeli prisons. When Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir refused to consider such an exchange, a bungled rescue attempt resulted in the hostages being killed. The next day Israel launched air attacks against Lebanon and Syria, killing between 200 and 500 Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians, mostly civilians.”

When the UN Security Council tried to pass a resolution condemning these raids, the U.S. vetoed it, only the second time that the U.S. had vetoed a Security Council resolution in its history. This was the beginning of a long string of vetoes perpetrated to shield Israel from international condemnation of various massacres and other human rights abuses, creating extreme hostility toward the U.S. and escalating Americans’ risk from retaliatory “terror.” For more information see “The U.S. Cast the First of 29 Security Council Vetoes to Shield Israel” by Donald Neff, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Sept-Oct, 1993, p. 82. Also in Fifty Years of Israel, by Donald Neff, published by the American Educational Trust. Online at: http://www.wrmea.org/archives/150-washington-report-archives-1988-1993/september-october-1993/7306-the-us-cast-the-first-of-29-security-council-vetoes-to-shield-israel.html

By Alison Weir

13 August, 2012

@ Veteransnewsnow.com

Alison Weir is president of the Council for the National Interest and executive director of If Americans Knew. While CounterPunch published many of her articles, she did not know Cockburn personally. For information on American journalists’ ties to the Israeli military see her article “US Media and Israeli Military: All in the Family” at : http://ifamericansknew.org/media/bronner2.html

The political debate in the United States and Europe has focused attention on public financial deficits and how best to resolve them. Tragically, the debate largely ignores the deficits that most endanger our future.

In the United States, as Republican deficit hawks tell the story, “America is broke. We must cut government spending on social programs we cannot afford. And we must lower taxes on Wall Street job creators so they can invest to get the economy growing, create new jobs, increase total tax revenues, and eliminate the deficit.”

Democrats respond, “Yes, we’re pretty broke, but the answer is to raise taxes on Wall Street looters to pay for government spending that primes the economic pump by putting people to work building critical infrastructure and performing essential public services. This puts money in people’s pockets to spend on private sector goods and services and is our best hope to grow the economy.”

Democrats have the better side of the argument, but both sides have it wrong on two key points.

>> First, both focus on growing GDP, ignoring the reality that under the regime of Wall Street rule, the benefits of GDP growth over the past several decades have gone almost exclusively to the 1 percent—with dire consequences for democracy and the health of the social and natural capital on which true prosperity depends.

>> Second, both focus on financial deficits, which can be resolved with relative ease if we are truly serious about it; and ignore far more dangerous and difficult-to-resolve social and environmental deficits. I call it a case of deficit attention disorder.

To achieve the ideal of a world that secures health and prosperity for all people for generations to come, we must reframe the public debate about the choices we face as a nation and as a species. We must measure economic performance against the outcomes we really want, give life priority over money, and recognize that money is a means, not an end.

What We Borrow from Each Other

To realistically address the nature of the public financial deficits at the center of the current political debate, it is crucial to understand the nature of money and debt. Money is just a number, a system of accounting useful in facilitating economic exchange. A deficit occurs when expenditures exceed income. If, as a result, financial liabilities come to exceed financial assets, we go into debt. It is all basic accounting.

The key point, which the deficit debates rarely address, is that one person or entity’s financial debt is another person or entity’s financial asset. We can only borrow money from each other. The idea that we borrow money from the future is an illusion.

From a societal perspective, total debts and assets are always in balance. Consequently, if we say that one person or entity has excessive financial debt, we in effect say that another has excessive financial assets. Reducing the aggregate financial debt of debtors necessarily requires reducing the aggregate financial assets of the creditors.

In theory, we could instantly wipe away all financial debts through a universal forgiveness, a modern equivalent of the ancient institution of the Jubilee. The ancients recognized the significance of such action to restore the balance essential to the healthy function of the human community.

The deficit-hawks recoil in horror and assure us that we can reduce government debt while leaving the financial assets of the rich untouched. It makes perfect sense in the fantasy world of pure finance in which profits and the financial assets of the rich grow perpetually even as growing inequality and wasteful material consumption deplete the social capital of community and the natural capital of Earth’s biosphere.

A viable human future, however, must be based on living world realities rather than financial world fantasies.

What We Steal from Future Generations

Any normally intelligent 12-year-old is fully capable of understanding the distinction between a living forest or fishery and a system of financial accounts that exists only as electronic traces on a computer hard drive. Unfortunately, this simple distinction seems to be beyond the comprehension of the economists, pundits, and politicians who frame the public debate on economic policy. By referring to financial assets as “capital” and treating them as if they had some intrinsic worth beyond their value as a token of exchange, they sustain the deception that Wall Street is creating wealth rather than manipulating the financial system to accumulate accounting claims against wealth it had no part in creating.

Real capital assets have productive value in their own right and cannot be created with a computer key stroke. The most essential forms of real capital are social capital (the bonds of trust and caring essential to healthy community function) and biosystem capital (the living systems essential to Earth’s capacity to support life). We are depleting both with reckless abandon.

>> Social capital is the foundation of our human capacity to innovate, produce, engage in cooperative problem solving, manage Earth’s available natural wealth to meet the needs of all, and live together in peace and shared prosperity. Social capital is depleted as individualistic greed becomes the prevailing moral standard and the governing institutions of society deprive all but a privileged minority of access to a secure and dignified means of living. Once it is depleted, social capital can take generations to restore.

>> Biosystem capital provides a continuing supply of breathable air, drinkable water, soils to grow our food, forests to produce our timber, oceans teeming with fish, grassland that feed our livestock, sun, wind, and geothermal to provide our energy, climate stability, and much else essential to human survival, health, and happiness. It is depleted when soils are degraded, oceans are overfished, rivers and lakes are polluted, forests cut down, aquifers contaminated and depleted, and climate stabilization systems disrupted. These natural systems can take thousands, even millions of years to restore. Species extinction is forever.

According to the World Wildlife Federation’s 2012 Living Planet Report, at the current rate of consumption, “it is taking 1.5 years for the Earth to fully regenerate the renewable resources that people are using in a single year. Instead of living off the interest, we are eating into our natural capital.” This is a path to never-never land. Unlike with financial deficits, simple debt forgiveness is not an option.

When we deplete Earth’s bio-capacity—its capacity to support life in its many varied forms—we are not borrowing from the future; we are stealing from the future. Even though it is the most serious of all human-caused deficits, it rarely receives mention in current political debates.

When we assess economic performance by growth in GDP and stock price indices, we in effect manage the economy to make the most money for people who have the most money. This leads us to the fanciful belief that as a society we are getting richer. In fact, we are impoverishing both current and future generations by creating an unconscionable concentration of economic power, depriving billions of people of a secure and dignified means of living, and destroying the social and biosystem capital on which our real well-being depends.

With proper care and respect, biosystem capital can provide essential services in perpetuity. The reckless devastation of productive lands and waters for a quick profit, a few temporary jobs, and a one-time energy fix from Earth’s non-renewable fossil energy resources represent truly stupid and morally reprehensible deficit spending. Evident current examples include tar sand oil extraction, deep sea oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas, and mountaintop removal coal mining The fact that we thereby deepen human dependence on finite nonrenewable fossil energy reserves and accelerate climate disruption make such actions all the more stupid and immoral.

Financial system logic, which rests on the illusion that money is wealth, tells us we are making intelligent choices. Living systems logic tells us our current choices are insane and a crime against future human generations and creation itself.

From Built-to-Loot to Built-to-Serve

The economy of a just and sustainable society needs a proper system of money creation and allocation that:

1. Supports the health and productive function of social and biosystem capital and allocates the sustainable generative output of both to optimize the long-term health and well-being of all; and

2. Rewards individuals with financial credits in proportion to their actual productive contribution to living system health and prosperity.

The current U.S. money system does exactly the opposite. It celebrates and rewards the destruction of living capital to grow the financial assets of Wall Street looters at the expense of Main Street producers—thus concentrating economic and political power in the hands of those most likely to abuse it for a purely individualist short-term gain.

Wall Street operates as a criminal syndicate devoted to the theft of that to which it has no rightful claim. It then bribes politicians to shield the looters from taxes on their ill-gotten gains and to eliminate social programs that cushion the blow to those they have deprived of a secure and meaningful means of livelihood. This brings us back to the real source and consequence of excess financial debt.

Masters and Debt Slaves

In the big picture, the Wall Street 1 percent has divided society into a looter class that controls access to money and a producer class forced into perpetual debt slavery—an ancient institution that for millennia has allowed the few to rule the many [See inset: “Wall Street and the Ultimate Tyranny”] .The immense burden imposed on the 99 percent by public debt, consumer debt, mortgage debt, and student debt is an outcome of a Wall Street assault on justice and democracy.

The resulting desperation and loss of social trust account for the many current symptoms of social disintegration and decline in ethical standards. These include growth in family breakdown, suicide, forced migration, physical violence, crime, drug use, and prison populations.

Equality as a Crucial Variable

I grew up in America during a time when we took pride in being a middle-class society without extremes of wealth and poverty. In part, we were living an illusion. Large concentrations of private wealth were intact and systemic discrimination excluded large segments of the population—particularly people of color—from participation in the general prosperity. The underlying concept that the good society is an equitable society, however, was and still is valid. And from the 1950s to the 1970s the middle class expanded.

Complete equality is neither possible nor desirable. Modest inequality creates essential incentives for productive contribution to the well-being of the community. Extreme inequality, as exemplified by current U.S. society, is both a source and an indicator of serious institutional failure and social pathology.

British epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson has compiled an impressive body of research that demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that economic and social inequality is detrimental to human physical and mental health and happiness—even for the very rich. Relatively equal societies are healthier on virtually every indicator of individual and social health and well-being.

In highly unequal societies, the very rich are prone to seek affirmation of their personal worth through extravagant displays of excess. They easily lose sight of the true sources of human happiness, sacrifice authentic relationships, and deny their responsibility to the larger society—at the expense of their essential humanity. At the other extreme, the desperate are prone to manipulation by political demagogues who offer simplistic analyses and self-serving solutions that in the end further deepen their misery. Governing institutions lose legitimacy. Democracy becomes a charade. Moral standards decline. Civic responsibility gives way to extreme individualism and disregard for the rights and well-being of others.

To achieve true prosperity, we must create economies grounded in a living systems logic that recognizes three fundamental truths:

>> The economy’s only valid purpose is to serve life.

>> Equality is foundational to healthy human communities and a healthy human relationship to Earth’s biosphere.

>> Money is a means, not an end.

A New Political Narrative and Agenda

Runaway public deficits are but one symptom of a profound system failure. They can easily be resolved by taxing the unearned spoils of the Wall Street looters, eliminating corporate subsidies and tax havens, and cutting military expenditures on pointless wars that undermine our security.

Joblessness can easily be eliminated by putting the unemployed and underemployed to work meeting a vast range of unmet human needs from rebuilding and greening our physical infrastructure to providing essential human services, eliminating dependence on fossil fuels, and converting to systems of local organic food production. If the primary constraint is money, the Federal Reserve can be directed to create it and channel it to priority projects through a national infrastructure bank—a move that avoids enriching the bankers and does not create more debt.

In addition, we must:

1. Break up concentrations of unaccountable power.

2. Shift the economic priority from making money to serving life by replacing financial indicators with living wealth indicators as the basis for evaluating economic performance.

3. Eliminate extremes of wealth and poverty to create a true middle-class society.

4. Build a culture of mutual trust and caring.

5. Create a system of economic incentives that reward those who do productive work and penalize predatory financial speculation.

6. Restructure the global economy into a planetary system of networked bioregional economies that share information and technology and organize to live within their respective environmental means.

Within a political debate defined by the logic of living systems, such measures are simple common sense. Within a political debate defined by conventional financial logic, however, they are easily dismissed as dangerous and illogical threats to progress and prosperity.

So long as money frames the debate, money is the winner and life is the loser. To score a political victory for life, the debate must be reframed around a narrative based on an understanding of the true sources of human well-being and happiness and a shift from money to life as the defining value.

A promising new frame is emerging from controversies surrounding the recent United Nation’s Rio+20 environmental conference. Wall Street interests argued that the best way to save Earth’s biosystems is to put a price on them and sell them to wealthy global investors to manage for a private return. Rather than concede the underlying frame to Wall Street and debate the price and terms of the sale, indigenous leaders and environmental groups drew on the ancient wisdom of indigenous peoples to challenge the underlying frame. They declared that as the source of life, Earth’s living systems are sacred and beyond price. They issued a global call to recognize the rights of nature.

Thus framed, the Rio+20 debate highlights a foundational and inherent conflict between the rights of nature, human rights, property rights, and corporate rights.

In current practice, based on the same financial logic that leads us to treat financial deficits as more important than social and environmental deficits, we give corporate rights precedence over the property rights of individuals. We give property rights precedence over the human rights of those without property. And we give human rights precedence over the rights of nature.

We will continue to pay a terrible price for so long as we allow the deeply flawed logic of pure finance to define our values and frame the political debate.

There is no magic bullet quick fix. We must reframe the debate by bringing life values and living systems logic to the fore and turning the prevailing rights hierarchy on its head. The rights of nature must come first, because without nature, humans do not exist. As living beings, our rights are derivative of and ultimately subordinate to the rights of Earth’s living systems.

Human rights come, in turn, before property rights, because property rights are a human creation. They have no existence without humans and no purpose other than to serve the human and natural interest. Corporations are a form of property and any rights we may choose to grant to them are derivative of individual property rights and therefore properly subordinate to them.

The step to a prosperous human future requires that we acknowledge life, not money, as our defining value, accept our responsibilities to and for one another and nature, and bring to the fore of the debate the social and bio-system deficits that are the true threat to the human future.

Replacing cultures and institutions that value money more than life with cultures and institutions that value life more than money is a daunting challenge. Fortunately, it is also an invigorating and hopeful challenge because it reconnects us with our true nature as living beings and offers a win-win alternative to the no-win status quo.

David Korten wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. David is the author of Agenda for a New Economy, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, and the international best seller When Corporations Rule the World. He is board chair of YES! Magazine, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, president of the Living Economies Forum, and a member of the Club of Rome. He holds MBA and PhD degrees from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and served on the faculty of the Harvard Business School.

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By David Korten

13 August, 2012

YES! Magazine

Visiting Istanbul, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Washington and the Turkish government would work together on a “range of contingencies” to back the armed Syrian opposition and prepare for the ouster of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

“Our number one goal is to hasten the end of the bloodshed and the Assad regime,” Clinton said at a Saturday press conference with her Turkish counterpart, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

“What the minister and I agreed to was to have very intensive operational planning,” Clinton said, adding that US “intelligence services, our military have very important responsibilities and roles to play.”

Asked by journalists about the operations that the US might consider, Secretary Clinton confirmed that a no-fly zone over parts of Syria was a possibility that required “greater in-depth analysis.”

At the same press conference, Davutoglu stressed that his government would take steps to intervene more assertively in Syria. “The international community needs to take some very decisive steps to stop” the bloodshed, Davutoglu said.

The day before the meeting in Istanbul, the US Treasury announced that it was tightening the economic noose around Syria, with additional sanctions put in place against the state oil company, Sytrol, for trading with Iran.

This weekend, Britain and France also announced that they would send increased “humanitarian” and “non-lethal” supplies to the Syrian opposition.

UK foreign secretary William Hague described Assad as “doomed” and promised that £5 million worth of medical and communications equipment, including satellite phones and radar systems, would go to “rebel” groups.

In a clear quid pro quo for Turkey’s role at the frontline of US plans for regime change in Damascus, Clinton thanked Davutoglu for his government’s “leadership” in the region. She promised that the US would not allow the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to use Syria as a base to launch attacks into Turkey.

The PKK, a Kurdish separatist movement banned by the Turkish government and branded a terrorist organization by the US State Department, has been involved in a decades-long conflict with Ankara over the Kurdish-majority region of southeast Turkey. In recent weeks, there have been numerous reports that the PKK is assisting Syrian Kurdish militants opposed to both the Assad regime and the US-backed Free Syrian Army.

The hypocrisy of Clinton’s condemnation of the PKK as “terrorists”—following a meeting in which the US and Turkish governments had just discussed their ongoing sponsorship of Islamist militant groups in Syria, some with links to Al Qaeda—went without comment from the media assembled in Istanbul for the press conference.

Washington, its European allies, Turkey, and the Gulf sheikdoms have backed various Islamist militias in Syria with large quantities of arms, communications equipment, and funds, as well as training, intelligence and political guidance. The escalation of the opposition’s conflict with the Assad dictatorship has resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians and turned hundreds of thousands of families into refugees.

In its proxy war, Washington has relied on Sunni fundamentalist militias, including fighters from other countries. These foreign Islamist cadres reportedly include veterans of the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Libya.

A portrait of these anti-Assad “rebels” appeared in the Washington Post August 9. The piece, titled “Syrian rebels driven by religion, but on their own terms,” describes one fighter, a 29-year-old Syrian using the nom de guerre Abu Berri, who describes himself as a “committed member of the Salafists, the ultraconservative Sunni sect.”

The article then depicts an armed conflict in Syria by Salafists and other Islamists, involving a “growing number of fighters from other Arab and Muslim countries, including Iraqis who belong to Al Qaeda.”

The Post, which like every other major media outlet in the US has embraced the official rhetoric of the US “war on terror” for the past decade, reports that “[t]he black flag of al-Qaeda” flies in parts of Syria, which is “becoming a magnet for global jihadists.”

No explanation has ever been made by the Obama administration to reconcile US support for Syrian “rebels” infiltrated by Al Qaeda with the claims made since the 9/11 attacks regarding the supposed worldwide threat posed by Al Qaeda.

The rhetoric of the “war on terror” was and remains a pack of lies used by the US ruling class to justify waging wars for oil in the Middle East and Central Asia, while gutting democratic rights within the United States. Al Qaeda is only the enemy when it suits Washington’s strategic interests. Now, it acts as US imperialism’s shock troops in Syria (see: “Washington’s proxy in Syria: Al Qaeda”).

After the recent defeat of US-backed forces in the northern city of Aleppo, US planners are preparing to intensify operations, hoping that the Syrian army has already been severely weakened and its morale undermined.

Gerhard Schindler, the head of Germany’s BND intelligence agency, assessed the impact of the civil war on Syria’s armed forces, especially after the heavy fighting in Aleppo. Speaking to Die Welt newspaper last week, Schindler stated that “[t]here are a lot of indications that the end game for the [Syrian] regime has begun.”

“The regular army is being confronted by a variety of flexible fighters,” the German spy chief said. “The recipe of [the opposition fighters’] success is their guerilla tactics. They’re breaking the army’s back.”

The Assad government’s temporary victory over the militants in Aleppo has not resulted in any let-up in opposition attacks across the country. Over the weekend, Syrian state TV reported that two bombs were set off in Damascus, one in the Marjeh district and the other near the Tishrin athletics stadium.

Another alleged terrorist attack on a bus in the city of Hama resulted in the deaths of six passengers.

The US could use one of a number of flash points to justify a direct military intervention against Syria. Turkey, a member of the US-led NATO military alliance, has moved large numbers of troops and military hardware to the border region, and any instance of fighting between its troops and Syrian armed forces could trigger a full-scale war in which Ankara calls upon its NATO allies for assistance.

In addition, there were reports of fighting between the Jordanian army and Syrian troops along the border on Saturday. However, an Assad government source told Russia’s Itar-TASS news agency that the clash was between Syrian soldiers and rebel militants.

The Jordanian monarchy is a close ally of the US and Israel, and the Assad regime has claimed that foreign Islamist fighters are entering Syria from Jordan. Tensions between the two countries rose after the defection of the former prime minister of Syria, Riad Hijab, to Amman last week.

By Niall Green

13 August, 2012

@ WSWS.org

With the long awaited decision by the Obama Administration in regards to the new strategy for Afghanistan, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated to the point that the US commanders started using the word ‘defeat’ in their report to Washington. The word defeat has rarely been uttered by military; however, Afghanistan is the exception, where defeat is a realistic outcome. There, defeat is a reality that all invaders have faced since the beginning when Pashtuns have inhabited this region. The Pashtuns’ resistance is one of multiple factors characterizing the Anatomy of US’s Defeat in Afghanistan, where the inevitability of defeat for the US and NATO appears to be a certainty.

FACTORS OF DEFEAT

American Military underestimated the Afghans (Pashtuns)

When the American troops landed in Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan, they were confident that the defeat of the Taliban and take over of Afghanistan was inevitable. Their behavior was typically American characterized with excessive over confidence totally oblivious of Afghan history. Characteristically, they did not expect to suffer significant casualties either; however, much to their dismay, American causality has become quite apparent The overconfidence of American military was detailed by a reporter of IWPR:

“…in October when the Americans began deploying at the airport,

they were gung-ho, telling their Uzbek counterparts that it would take no more than a month and a half to defeat the Taleban…”

The report continues:

“Uzbek army personnel working at the air base said scores of US casualties have been arriving there. From November 25 to Decemeber [sic] 2, an Uzbek orderly working with American medical staff said he had witnessed the arrival of four to five US helicopters – carrying between them 10-15 American casualties – each day.”

The wounded soldiers that had returned from Afghanistan were frustrated by the sudden change in their self-perceived invincibility. The frustrations of the wounded soldiers on the base played out in daily occurrences of shouting and name-callings. These were the same soldiers that had heroic mentality before entering Afghanistan.

Similar experiences were reported in other parts of Afghanistan. For example, during operation Anaconda in 2002, America had used massive firepower to subdue a Taliban Commander Saifu-r-Rahman Mansoor in Shah-e-Kot in Southeastern Afghanistan. The Americans thought they could destroy the Afghan resistance by having superior airpower. They learned this to be more a wishful thinking. In the days of the fighting, Pentagon made various extravagant claims of having destroyed Mansoor’s defenses and killing more than a thousand (1000) Taliban fighters. The facts were otherwise. The US forces went to the battle with a heroic mind set, but they were bitterly surprised when they sustained heavy losses and had lost 16 helicopters ranging from apaches to Chinooks. The escalation reached a point of no return when 22 American Special Forces were caught alive. The heavy losses coupled with the captured soldiers started to take its toll on the US forces until March 10, 2002 when General Tommy Frank decided to pull back 400 troops to Bagram. The official explanation was that the conflict had ended for the most part while media reported that the troops suffered from battle fatigue. The truth was that the pull back was an attempt at building confidence aimed at convincing Taliban that American military is serious in seeking the release of the 22 Special Forces Commandos. The Taliban Commander, Maulana Mansoor demanded the release of all captives held at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for the 22 Special Forces soldiers.

Meanwhile, as the US forces encountered stiff resistance, it claimed to be fighting against a force of 1000 fighters when in reality there were 100 Afghan fighters, 120 Uzbek, and 30 Arab fighters. The US claimed to have killed 700 of 1000 Taliban/Al-Qaida fighters:

“U.S. military spokesmen estimate 700 out of roughly 1,000 Islamic extremists have been killed in the past nine days of fighting, which has cost the lives of eight Americans and three allied Afghans.”

The number of Taliban and foreign fighters killed stood at 88 (mostly Uzbek including 8 Arabs) while the number of US, British and others were much higher. Different media sources reported different numbers in regards to US losses. For example, the Russian online newspaper Strana.Ru on April 8, 2002, reported that the US lost 100 Special Forces and four Apache helicopters. However, data obtained from the battlefield put the casualty figure at 228 killed. From this figure 186 Americans killed in the battle, 22 prisoners executed when the US refused to release Guantanamo prisoners and 20 British SAS were killed when their vehicles were ambushed. The 186 killed Americans included those that were onboard helicopters. The total number of helicopters shot was 16 out of which two Chinook and 6 Apaches were totally destroyed and the remaining crash landed. The Canadians and Australians killed were reported as victims of friendly fire.

This is what happens when armed forces exhibit patronizing mentality and underestimate the enemy.

American Brutality-Excessive Use of Force and Racist View

The sheer use of excessive force coupled with individual cases of callous murder and torture could be viewed in the dichotomy of intention and reaction. The aspect of intentionality points to the way the military views the targeted population. The US military as an institution and their personnel must consider the people they bomb or murder perhaps less human, otherwise, the excessive use of force, committing murder and tortures would not be wide spread in their ranks. For example, by October 2002, the first anniversary of US invasion of Afghanistan, more than 10000 tons of bombs dropped on Afghan soil. (Socialist Worker Online, October 11, 2002) Imagine the magnitude of carnage and contamination caused by such massacre. While another report by Kate Randall on December 2001, put the number of US bombed dropped at 12000:

“Since the US launched the war on Afghanistan October 7, more than 12,000 US bombs have been dropped on the country. According to the Pentagon, about 60 percent of these bombs have been precision-guided by satellite or laser technology. However, many of these bombs—dropped by B-52s and other aircraft from tens of thousands of feet in the air—have strayed off course, hitting civilian targets.” (WSWS, December 29, 2001)

In another report, a year after September 11, 2001, Matt Kelley of the Associated Press put the US munitions statistics as follows:

“U.S. and coalition airplanes have conducted more than 21,000 flights over Afghanistan, dropping more than 20,000 munitions. About 60 percent of the ordnance dropped on Afghanistan has been precision guided, the highest percentage in any conflict.”

Similarly the Guardian reported on April 10, 2002:

“More than 22,000 weapons – ranging from cruise missiles to heavy fuel-air bombs – have been dropped on the country over the past six months…. US pilots dropped more than 6,600 joint direct attack munitions (J-dams), the satellite-guided bombs… One in four bombs and missiles dropped by the US on Afghanistan may have missed its target”

The new generations of hard target weapons whose warheads are made of uranium have contributed to the heavy contamination of land, water and general population. The carnage brought upon by the usage of these Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) would remain essentially forever. Depleted Uranium has a half-life of 4.5 Billion years. This means Afghans would be dying from cancers and other diseases for generations. For the past several years, the rate of various cancers have risen all over Afghanistan, however, the rate of this menace has been highest among the Pashtun people since they are on the receiving end of bombing raids. Imagine the magnitude of carnage and contamination caused by such barbarism.

The individual cases of slaughter are too many to list. However, I need to point out that American military shoots first and asks questions later. Many Afghans are shot on mere suspicion. In many cases, the person would be either going to work or coming from work.

The most serious of all the behaviors of the US military is their disregard for the privacy, dignity and lives of the Pashtun People. The behavior of the US military is similar to the South African police of the apartheid era entering Black African and Indian homes with no regard to their privacy. Similarly, American Soldiers enter Pashtun homes without any regard for their privacy and dignity. Moreover, they behave like thieves in the way they attack a residence at night when families are deep asleep. The entrances to peoples’ houses are blown with explosives and then men and boys are dragged from bed in full view of their children and wives. More often, before they could drag anyone from bed, they order their attack dogs to attack these families before they could leave their bedrooms. Consequently, many children are bitten to death. In many instances, after the inhabitants are bitten, the soldiers have shot indiscriminately. In Laghman Province, a man recalled the following event:

“At night, the Americans entered our homes, commandeered their attack dogs and then shot my son and my brother. I was asleep; when I woke up; a dog was standing next to me and bit me. Subsequent to that, the dogs pulled the corpse of my brother and son to the ally. We were terrified and abandoned our village.”

In another case in Khost, in mid-December of 2008, the home of Dr. Bilal was raided by the US forces. The US forces mistaken believed he was linked to Al-Qaida network while he worked for the province public health department. The AFP reported the following:

“The Americans entered without warning. They first killed one of my nephews, Amin, who was 14 years old, who was sleeping next to a rifle,” says Bilal Hassan, who works for the provincial department of health.

“My brother went out with a gun. He was shot down, like his wife who followed him,” he says.

A sister-in-law was hit in the spinal cord and paralysed [sic].

“Then they released their dogs,” the doctor remembers. The dogs attacked the bodies and bit off some of the fingers, he says. Then they bit the wounded woman and a child of five. “They took our savings, all our guns, used for self-defence [sic], and even papers for some of our properties…. Why did they do all that?”

The question is why are Pashtuns specifically targeted? One of the answers could be the racist mentality of the American military. However, the most likely explanation is that Pashtuns are the custodians of Afghanistan and they have defended Afghan independence throughout history. As long as the Pashtuns remain a potent force, US-NATO alliance would not only succeed but also face a realistic prospect of utter defeat.

In all fairness, other militaries exhibit dreadful behaviors as well. However, the US military appears to be one of the worst violators among the so-called democratic societies.

American over Reliance on Tajiks and Other Minorities

In the aftermath of 911, the Afghan Tajiks who were affiliated with the brutal and rapist organization of Northern Alliance or were supporters of these criminals stepped forward to the Bush Administration to accomplish two things. First, it was an opportunity for them to undermine the Pashtun (Afghan) majority of the country. These Northern Alliance elements were toppled by Taliban in 1996 after they carried out some of the most gruesome atrocities ever committed in Afghan history. The Northern Alliance was formed from war criminals, rapist and human rights violators. Thousands of women disappeared during the reign of the Northern Alliance. Second, by offering their services as mercenaries, the Northern Alliance wanted to take advantage of the situation to control the post-Taliban regime. Despite the massive air power and indiscriminate usage of wide array of bombs, the Northern Alliance failed to break through Taliban defenses situated 90 miles north of the Capital Kabul. After 45 days of bombing, Taliban decided to retreat to the countryside.

With the Taliban’s retreat, the Northern Alliance forces entered Kabul. The first task on their agenda was the firing of most civil servants that spoke Pashto. The imposition of minorities that constitute roughly 37% of the population on 63% Pashtun created resentment among the Pashtuns. It is worth mentioning that the CIA World Facts Book is grossly inaccurate when it comes to the percentage of Pashtuns in Afghanistan. Dr Zirakyar has traced the pattern of false statistics in this book and presented his analysis as follows:

“Until 1991, this type of “finished intelligence” registered Pashtuns as majority of the Afghan population (50% as ethnic group and as language group). Almost a year later in April 1992, the Northern Alliance (Masood-Rabani group) took over the power in Kabul. The World Factbook 1992, considerably lowered the statistical significance of the Pashtun ethnic group and their language (Pashto): 38% as ethnic group, and 35% as language group. In World Factbook 2009, statistical data for Pashtuns shows improvement as ethnic group (42%) but remained the same as language group (35%).”

He established the true number representing the percentage of Pashtuns in Afghanistan by tapping into the research of Wak Foundation:

“For the record, a six-year survey and research project (1991-1996) was conducted by WAK-Foundation for Afghanistan, the results of which was published in 1998 (1377 A.H.). According to this source, from the total population of Afghanistan, Pashtuns make up 62.73 percent as ethnic group and 55 percent as language group.”

Based on the pattern of falsehood illustrated in the CIA World Facts Book and consistently presenting false information about the Pashtuns, it would not be far fetched to state that there is an international conspiracy against the Pashtuns. That is why; Pashtuns are killed in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.

In the post US invasion, Pashtuns were cleansed from many areas in Northern Afghanistan, where majority of the minority Tajik population is living. Pashtun lands were confiscated, forcing more than 300,000 Pashtuns to become refugees to neighboring Pakistan. This group of people formed the backbone of Taliban insurgency against the US and their mercenaries of the Northern Alliance.

Incidentally, the Afghan Tajiks and other minorities were lining up to become translators and falsely claiming to speak Pashto. These individuals intentionally while others due to ignorance of Pashto language labeled every Pashtun the Americans arrested as member of Taliban and Al Qaida. That is why; the youngest inmate in Guantanamo Bay was 11 years old. The unfair mentality of the American military and the animosity of the Tajiks and other minorities toward the Pashtuns resulted in many tragedies. Many innocent Pashtun men were tortured and killed in Bagram.

The reader might ask as to why Tajiks have this type of animosity toward the Pashtuns. The answer is Tajiks were mostly artisans, musicians-entertainers and refugees from Central Asia ungrateful for the life they had in Afghanistan. Similar to most minorities in different parts of the world, they also wanted to occupy the power in the country. However, they desired power at the expense of Pashtun majority.

Consequently, Pashtuns whether they agreed with Taliban or not joined Taliban led insurgency to secure their rights. To this end, both Americans and their mercenaries have become their targets. Meanwhile, the Afghan National Army (ANA), which hardly has a national character, is dominated by Tajiks. Majority of the commanders of the ANA are Tajiks. Equally, the current President, who is from Kandahar, is more than eager to please these criminal elements of the Northern Alliance by instituting their language as the administrative language ignoring Pashto and Pashtuns. It is speculated that Karzai is half-Pashtun, hence, the influence of his maternal uncles, who are qazelbash, on him drew him away from his own language. At this point it is purely speculative; however, Pashtuns are trying to rationalize the indifference of Karzai by presenting various explanations.

This unnatural arrangement and oppression of the Pashtuns inspired Pashtuns to fight against Americans and their installed regime in Kabul.

Americans Lack of knowledge of the Pashtun Culture

Lack of knowledge of Pashtun culture is another important factor ensuring US’s defeat in Afghanistan. There are two sources wherein this lack contributes to the permanence of hostility of Pashtuns toward the US and her allies. The first issue is the tribal structure and the cohesion within the tribes in matters of self-defense. When a member of the tribe or sub-tribe is killed, the killer is not only the enemy of the family whose member he has killed, but rather he has gained the enmity of the tribe whose member he has murdered. Thus, the US forces have turned tribes, sub-tribes and villages against them by slaughtering their members in the hundreds and thousands. The second source is a tenet of the Pashtunwali—the Pashtun Code of Honor. This tenet is that of revenge, which goes hand in hand with tribal cohesion. A Pashtun father, brother, and son and tribesmen have to avenge the death of their relative. There is an old saying that after a Pashtun took his revenge after100 years, he said, “I think I rushed it.” This points to the permanence of hostility.

Surge or the Final Nails in the Coffin of US’s Defeat

With the hoopla of surge and new strategy, the US politicians and military leaders lack complete awareness of the Afghan society, especially the Pashtun culture. To the Pashtun people surge means continuation of the indignity imposed on them by the US and her allies. This means more Afghan civilians would die. This also means the continuation of the same pattern of disregard to the privacy of Pashtuns’ homes. In essence, Pashtuns view this as affirmation by the part of the political and military leaders that the crimes they have committed for the past 8 years are not crimes, but rather righteousness which adds insult to injury.

Furthermore, this would increase the resolve of the Afghan insurgency and their supporters. Meanwhile, the insurgents are working on obtaining modern Russian Rocket Propelled Grenade launchers. In the past, Afghan Mujahideen used RPG7; however, RPG7 is not effective against NATO armor. Hence, the most effective weapon would be RPG32, which penetrates all NATO and US armor vehicles and tanks. Furthermore, insurgents are also working on obtaining modern version of SAM7 anti aircraft shoulder-held missiles. This would be the final nails in the coffin of US’s defeat in Afghanistan.

I have tried in vain to get the attention of the US political and military leaders with my peace proposal to institute permanent peace in Afghanistan. But unfortunately, they showed no interest for the most part. My proposal ‘White Paper for Permanent Peace in Afghanistan’ is a comprehensive approach to a long lasting peace for Afghanistan.

After receiving cold shoulders from political and military leadership, I came to hypothesize that they must be gaining financial benefits in the form of contracts or perhaps even kickbacks. Otherwise, it would be natural to seek peace than war especially when the insurgency has gained a lot of momentum.

Conclusion

The above-mentioned factors outline a pattern of hatred and killing. This pattern contributed to the permanence of hatred and enmity of Americans and their allies. The violations outlined depict acts of righteousness on the part of the American forces and points to strong conviction on the part of the US-NATO forces to continue committing atrocities.

Finally, President Obama’s speech in Norway by referring to the genocide in Afghanistan as a ‘just war’ is adding insult to injury. The award of the Nobel Prize to the President of a country that is actively murdering Afghans and turning their environment uninhabitable with the continued usage of uranium munitions is a travesty of justice and an abomination that should be condemned worldwide. Moreover, the award of the Nobel Prize is affirmation of support on the part of the Western establishment that the murder and genocide of the Pashtun people is acceptable, and it strengthens the hypothesis that the war on terror is in part an international conspiracy against the Pashtun Nation.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2010

Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, MA, PhD

– mdmiraki@ameritech.net This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

– maidan11@yahoo.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

www.afghanistanafterdemocracy.com

22 April, 2010

Written by Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, MA, PhD

23 April 2010 00:00

Notes

1.Afghanistan: US Casualty Spiral

http://www.iwpr.net/?p=rca&s=f&o=162298&apc_state=henirca2001

2. http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=80079&page=1

3.Similar events happened one too many times

http://www.afghanistannewscenter.com/news/2009/february/feb2

2009.html#3

4. Anti-Taliban alliance composed of Afghan minorities

5.http://www.sabawoon.com/articles/index.php?page=kite_runner

6.http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KL01Df02.html

7.www.sabawoon.com/articles/index.php?page=

home and www.rense.com/general88/whitep.htm

Recently, Live Science published a chart showing that the US spends about one-fifth of its budget on the military. But this aggregate view hides how Congress prioritizes spending, when you consider what is discretionary and voted upon each year. A more salient view of these figures segregates ‘discretionary’ spending from ‘mandatory’ spending. During the severe economic downturn of the past two years, how has Congress prioritized spending?

When it comes to discretionary spending, Congress gives 58% to the military. Here are US budget charts for the years 2009 and 2010, according to the National Priorities Project (NPP):

NPP describes these charts this way, explaining the difference between ‘mandatory’ and ‘discretionary’ spending:

“[These charts show] the breakdown of the proposed federal discretionary budget for fiscal year 2010 [or 2009] by function area.

“The discretionary budget refers to the part of the federal budget proposed by the President, and debated and decided by Congress each year. The part of the budget constitutes more than one-third of total federal spending. The remainder of the federal budget is called ‘mandatory spending.’ Fiscal Year 2009 will run from October 1, 2008 to September 30, 2009.

“Note that this chart includes the war-related spending requested by the administration as supplemental to the regular budget proposal.”

Note, too, per NPP:

“Federal Discretionary and Mandatory Spending

“Congress directly sets the level of spending on programs which are discretionary. Congress can choose to increase or decrease spending on any of those programs in a given year….

“About half of the discretionary budget is ‘national defense,’ a government-defined function area that roughly corresponds in common parlance as ‘military.’ However, this category does not include foreign military financing, security assistance, and other programs commonly thought of as military. Other types of discretionary spending include the budget for education, many health programs, and housing assistance.

“Mandatory spending includes programs, mostly entitlement programs, which are funded by eligibility rules or payment rules. Congress decides to create a program, for example, Food Stamps. It then determines who is eligible for the program and any other criteria it may want to lay out. How much is appropriated for the program each year is then determined by estimations of how many people will be eligible and apply for Food Stamps.

“Unlike discretionary spending, the Congress does not decide each year to increase or decrease the Food Stamp budget; instead, it periodically reviews the eligibility rules and may change them in order to exclude or include more people.

“Mandatory spending makes up about two-thirds of the total federal budget. By far the largest mandatory program is Social Security which makes up one-third of mandatory spending and continues to grow as the age demographic of the country shifts towards an older population. [See more at National Priorities Project.]

Also see discussion at How Are Our Federal Tax Dollars Spent? which shows that, in the aggregate, the military budget is one-fifth (21%) of our budget:

But, which is the more realistic view of military spending? Which captures how Congress prioritizes spending? Which is more relevant to us?

Arguably, discretionary spending is most relevant to ordinary citizens, as we continue to suffer under rising unemployment, increased foreclosures, bankster bailouts, million dollar industry bonuses while the minimum wage remains below poverty, all amid a global financial crisis.

And what does that 58% of discretionary spending amount to? In 2010: $1,027.8 billion, or over a trillion dollars, according to Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute, at Defense Spending Is Much Greater than You Think: more than $1Trillion a year.

By Rady Ananda

25 April, 2010

Countercurrents.org

I published a paper on April 6 highlighting a recent report by the Department of Defense ( Joint Operating Environment for 2010 ) which focused on an impending energy crisis — a lack of oil production sufficient to meet global demand.

Following this paper, backed in particular by the Guardian, an American surfer [Energy Bulletin reader Chris A.] had the good idea to look at the previous report of the United States Joint Forces Command, the Joint Operating Environment for 2008 .

Surprisingly, the report published two years ago already offered the same diagnosis, word for word (p. 17):

By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.

The authors – anonymous – of the 2008 report specified:

The implications for future conflict are ominous. If the major developed and developing states do not undertake a massive expansion of production and refining capabilities, a severe energy crunch is inevitable.

We find virtually the same analysis in the new report in March 2010.

So far, neither the press nor the specialized sites had seen pass this diagnosis very worrying.

I hope I can soon tell you more about the origin of the data put forward by the Pentagon …

Editorial Notes

Translated by me from the French with help from Google Translate.

Original article in French: Le Pentagone alerte depuis… 2008 : vers une “crise énergétique sévère”.

Thanks to EB reader Chris A. who pointed out warning in the 2008 report to us, which we then forwarded to French journalist Matthieu Auzanneau.

Rick Munroe who wrote about the Joint Operating Environment (JOE) report earlier in Energy Bulletin adds:

If we think that other readers have the same impression (that the March review in EB missed the fact that most of the JOE content is re-rerun), then we should clarify things.

The previous JOE (released in Nov. 08, I believe) indeed “has the same warnings nearly word-for-word.” But Chris is incorrect in suggesting that our March 18th EB article missed that.

There are numerous references to the similarities between the two versions (paragraphs 1, 2, 7, 8 and 12).

The JOE’s reiteration of prior concerns could be viewed as simply “old news” and no longer relevant, or (more appropriately) as reminders that prior concerns have still not been addressed and may be even more pressing than they were 18 months ago.

What may be most significant in the new JOE is the inclusion of the Peak Oil text-box, which is new, and is long-awaited.

http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/04/18/le-pentagone-alerte-depuis-2008-vers-une-crise-energetique-severe/

By Matthieu Auzanneau

19 April, 2010

Petrole.blog.lemonde.fr