Archives: Articles

The media has headlined good economic news: fourth quarter GDP growth of 5.7 percent (“the recession is over”), Jan. retail sales up, productivity up in 4th quarter, the dollar is gaining strength. Is any of it true? What does it mean?

The 5.7 percent growth figure is a guesstimate made in advance of the release of the U.S. trade deficit statistic. It assumed that the U.S. trade deficit would show an improvement. When the trade deficit was released a few days later, it showed a deterioration, knocking the 5.7 percent growth figure down to 4.6 percent. Much of the remaining GDP growth consists of inventory accumulation.

More than a fourth of the reported gain in Jan. retail sales is due to higher gasoline and food prices. Questionable seasonal adjustments account for the rest.

Productivity was up, because labor costs fell 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter, the fourth successive decline. Initial claims for jobless benefits rose. Productivity increases that do not translate into wage gains cannot drive the consumer economy.

Housing is still under pressure, and commercial real estate is about to become a big problem.

The dollar’s gains are not due to inherent strengths. The dollar is gaining because government deficits in Greece and other EU countries are causing the dollar carry trade to unwind. America’s low interest rates made it profitable for investors and speculators to borrow dollars and use them to buy overseas bonds paying higher interest, such as Greek, Spanish and Portuguese bonds denominated in euros. The deficit troubles in these countries have caused investors and speculators to sell the bonds and convert the euros back into dollars in order to pay off their dollar loans. This unwinding temporarily raises the demand for dollars and boosts the dollar’s exchange value.

The problems of the American economy are too great to be reached by traditional policies. Large numbers of middle class American jobs have been moved offshore: manufacturing, industrial and professional service jobs. When the jobs are moved offshore, consumer incomes and U.S. GDP go with them. So many jobs have been moved abroad that there has been no growth in U.S. real incomes in the 21st century, except for the incomes of the super rich who collect multi-million dollar bonuses for moving U.S. jobs offshore.

Without growth in consumer incomes, the economy can go nowhere. Washington policymakers substituted debt growth for income growth. Instead of growing richer, consumers grew more indebted. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan accomplished this with his low interest rate policy, which drove up housing prices, producing home equity that consumers could tap and spend by refinancing their homes.

Unable to maintain their accustomed living standards with income alone, Americans spent their equity in their homes and ran up credit card debts, maxing out credit cards in anticipation that rising asset prices would cover the debts. When the bubble burst, the debts strangled consumer demand, and the economy died.

As I write about the economic hardships created for Americans by Wall Street and corporate greed and by indifferent and bribed political representatives, I get many letters from former middle class families who are being driven into penury. Here is one recently arrived:

“Thank you for your continued truthful commentary on the ‘New Economy.’ My husband and I could be its poster children. Nine years ago when we married, we were both working good paying, secure jobs in the semiconductor manufacturing sector. Our combined income topped $100,000 a year. We were living the dream. Then the nightmare began. I lost my job in the great tech bubble of 2003, and decided to leave the labor force to care for our infant son. Fine, we tightened the belt. Then we started getting squeezed. Expenses rose, we downsized, yet my husband’s job stagnated. After several years of no pay raises, he finally lost his job a year and a half ago. But he didn’t just lose a job, he lost a career. The semiconductor industry is virtually gone here in Arizona. Three months later, my husband, with a technical degree and 20-plus years of solid work experience, received one job offer for an entry level corrections officer. He had to take it, at an almost 40 percent reduction in pay. Bankruptcy followed when our savings were depleted. We lost our house, a car, and any assets we had left. His salary last year, less than $40,000, to support a family of four. A year and a half later, we are still struggling to get by. I can’t find a job that would cover the cost of daycare. We are stuck. Every jump in gas and food prices hits us hard. Without help from my family, we wouldn’t have made it. So, I could tell you just how that ‘New Economy’ has worked for us, but I’d really rather not use that kind of language.”

Policymakers who are banking on stimulus programs are thinking in terms of an economy that no longer exists. Post-war U.S. recessions and recoveries followed Federal Reserve policy. When the economy heated up and inflation became a problem, the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates and reduce the growth of money and credit. Sales would fall. Inventories would build up. Companies would lay off workers.

Inflation cooled, and unemployment became the problem. Then the Federal Reserve would reverse course. Interest rates would fall, and money and credit would expand. As the jobs were still there, the work force would be called back, and the process would continue.

It is a different situation today. Layoffs result from the jobs being moved offshore and from corporations replacing their domestic work forces with foreigners brought in on H-1B, L-1 and other work visas. The U.S. labor force is being separated from the incomes associated with the goods and services that it consumes. With the rise of offshoring, layoffs are not only due to restrictive monetary policy and inventory buildup. They are also the result of the substitution of cheaper foreign labor for U.S. labor by American corporations. Americans cannot be called back to work to jobs that have been moved abroad. In the New Economy, layoffs can continue despite low interest rates and government stimulus programs.

To the extent that monetary and fiscal policy can stimulate U.S. consumer demand, much of the demand flows to the goods and services that are produced offshore for U.S. markets. China, for example, benefits from the stimulation of U.S. consumer demand. The rise in China’s GDP is financed by a rise in the U.S. public debt burden.

Another barrier to the success of stimulus programs is the high debt levels of Americans. The banks are being criticized for a failure to lend, but much of the problem is that there are no consumers to whom to lend. Most Americans already have more debt than they can handle.

Hapless Americans, unrepresented and betrayed, are in store for a greater crisis to come. President Bush’s war deficits were financed by America’s trade deficit. China, Japan, and OPEC, with whom the U.S. runs trade deficits, used their trade surpluses to purchase U.S. Treasury debt, thus financing the U.S. government budget deficit.

The problem now is that the U.S. budget deficits have suddenly grown immensely from wars, bankster bailouts, jobs stimulus programs, and lower tax revenues as a result of the serious recession. Budget deficits are now three times the size of the trade deficit. Thus, the surpluses of China, Japan, and OPEC are insufficient to take the newly issued U.S. government debt off the market.

If the Treasury’s bonds can’t be sold to investors, pension funds, banks, and foreign governments, the Federal Reserve will have to purchase them by creating new money. When the rest of the world realizes the inflationary implications, the US dollar will lose its reserve currency role. When that happens Americans will experience a large economic shock as their living standards take another big hit.

America is on its way to becoming a country of serfs ruled by oligarchs.

By Paul Craig Roberts

17 February, 2010
@ Vdare.com

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com

Source: http://countercurrents.org/roberts170210.htm

 

The way things were happening for last few weeks it was not surprising that violence on such scale took place. It was, as if, in store, large scale propaganda was going on that Muslims are being killed all over the world. There is conspiracy to kill Muslims everywhere and on Bodo-Muslim clashes and about Rohingiyah Muslims in Burma prayers were being organized in every mosque and SMSs were circulating about it. Urdu papers were carrying articles saying there is world-wide conspiracy to kill Muslims articles simply appealing to emotions, not to reason.

I have not seen any sober and analytical article in the Urdu press in Mumbai. The Muslim leadership was creating a psychology of victimhood in the minds of Muslims and pent up emotions were waiting to explode with some triggering event. The photographs about killing of Muslims in Burma had greatly disturbed the Muslim youth. All photographs, I must say, were not authentic but they circulated on large scale and ignited emotions.

Muslim leadership which hardly does anything for the real welfare of the community always has an eye on such sensitive situations and wants to grab the opportunity to enhance their own interests. Also, mosques were used to announce about rally giving it further religious colour. For those who go to mosques to pray, in large numbers, particularly in the holy month of Ramadan, are gullible and the moment religious colour is given to an issue they become extra-sensitive.

These religious leaders and also some non-religious leaders of Muslims neither fully understand the problem what is the conflict about nor they care to know the facts what is going on the ground. They simply make it a case of conspiracy against Muslims. In Azad Maidan too where rally was organized despite knowing that huge crowd is there with all sorts of people, including anti-social elements, the speakers made highly emotional speeches especially attacking media for not covering killing of Muslims in Burma. Then what more do you want to incite emotions for anything to happen.

It was not only question of managing the crowd; it was utterly irresponsible act on the part of leadership of the rally. If they had expected only 1500 persons to come and 50,000 turned up the leaders should have clearly understood that situation can get out of control any time as they were simply dealing with raw emotions. A wise leadership would not have allowed highly emotional speeches in the midst of such huge crowd and fuel emotions further.

It is also not correct to say that they expected only 1500 people to turn up as they were making announcements inside the mosque on Friday and also posters were put up. It means they aimed higher and made efforts to mobilize large number of people and succeeded in it. Ideal thing would have been to have a dharna by about 1000-1500 seriously interested people for a day long dharna and then they could have met Chief Minister or Home Minister. There was no need at all for such a huge rally.

And if at all such a huge rally was organized why such emotional speeches were made? They should have understood the sensitivity of the problem. But then if they did, how can they be Muslims leadership without arousing religious sentiments? In fact as far as Assam is concerned hardly any one of those who actively organized the rally knew anything about the nature of conflict except that Muslims were killed.

What was the history of Bodo-Muslim conflict in Assam? Bodos are not killing Muslims because of their Muslimness but the fundamental problem is of land. Bodos are in conflict with other communities also like Adibashis, Santhals and others and they have come in conflict with all these communities. Though it is not true that Bangla Deshis are migrating in large numbers (this is largely the Sangh Parivar propaganda) by unfortunately Bodos, in order to fulfill their ambition of Bodo-land and for evicting Bengali Muslims and other ethnic communities from the 4 districts of Bodo Territorial Council, are using this propaganda for their own purposes. One can of course blame the Congress Government for giving Bodos BTC to buy peace with militant Bodo outfits. They should not have without taking other ethnic communities in confidence and giving them proper representation. We have dealt with this issue on our last article on Bodo-Muslim riots in Kokrajhar and other districts.

As for Rohingiyah Muslims it is the Military Government of Myanmar which is to be blamed. I visited Rangoon after the recent riots and interviewed large number of Rohingya Muslims. No such problem existed until 1981. They were treated as regular citizens and had voting rights. It was the Military Government of Myanmar which suddenly and without any proper reason, took away their papers from them and tried to expel them from Rakhine district of Western Myanmar.

It treats these Muslims as foreigners and wants Bangla Desh to settle them in its territory which is totally unjust. Rohingya Muslims have been in that province for centuries and there is no case to describe them as outsiders. Most of them had settled there with Muslim rule. But the Military Government of Myanmar has been killing Burmese of other provinces too and killed several Buddhist monks also during pro-democracy demonstrations.

It is true that some Buddhist monks have issued pamphlets against Rakhine Muslims to show solidarity with their co-religionists which they should not have done. But then like others Buddhists monks also are getting politicized as their pro-democracy demonstration also shows. But in both cases (i.e. Assam and Rohingya Muslims) it is not part of any world wide conspiracy to kill Muslims as it is being propagated.

In Mumbai violence media came under attack for no reason except that provocative speeches were made against media. It was quite ill-advise. A wise leadership would rather try to win over media rather than antagonize it this way. Also, one cannot tar the media with the same brush. Both print and electronic media has different ideological and commercial approaches. A blatant attack is totally wrong and even if a section of media is ideologically against or indifferent to Muslim problems, solution does not lie in attacking its journalists, or IB vans. It is at best foolish.

Urdu papers often write that let Ulama-kiram (Honourable Ulama) guide the Muslim ummah and give it a lead. How can one expect Ulama who hardly have knowledge of the modern world and for whom provoking religious sentiments is part of their orientation, can provide leadership. It is not to say that all Ulama are like this but a large number of Ulama – and this has been proved repeatedly in political matters – behave either in opportunistic or emotional way.

And let us remember all this happened in the holy month of Ramadan. The ulama never tire of telling us that this month of fasting so that we become more patient and able to control our anger and we must devote us entirely to ‘ibadat i.e. acts of worship, compassion and charity. What was then hurry to take out this rally in this holy month when no fresh incidents were taking place. The Assam situation had come under control and what was urgently needed was to collect money, clothes, shoes and medicines for those in relief camps in those four districts.

In this holy month of charity they could have concentrated on collecting relief for those unfortunate 4 million people who are rotting in relief camps in most unspeakable conditions. Many Bodos also have been killed in retaliatory actions and quite a few Bodos are also living in these relief camps in as bad a condition as Bengali speaking Muslims. As a good and compassionate Muslims, in this month of charity they should adopt inclusive approach and collect relief for Bodos too. This is what the Holy Qur’an also requires of them.

If instead of making it a conspiracy against Muslims, if they had condemned killing of Bodos too and prayed for all it would not have acquired such emotional proportions. Also the rally also should not have been exclusively a Muslim rally but a rally with the support of all sections of Indian society i.e. Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and all others – besides Muslims – to strengthen our secular character. It was not only exclusively Muslim but organized by Raza Academy – representing Barelvi Muslims. What a sectarian approach. Deobandis were to organize separately a day after but was postponed because of violent turn which the rally on Saturday took.

If we have to be against violence and it should be our serious commitment – we have to be more and more inclusive. When ever sectarian approach is adopted, it becomes easier to resort to violence and if it is inclusive of all sections it is not only more democratic but also likely to be more non-violent. Sectarian approach also results in competitive approach and inclusive approach is also cooperative approach.

The police is now saying the violence was pre-planned which may result in harassment of many Muslim youth. It is shameful that some rallyists molested women constables and seized revolvers from them. The police may take revenge for this. Let us hope police does not. But one must say the police had shown lot of restraint and Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik himself had come and spoken from the platform appealing Muslims to show restraint in this holy month of Ramadan.

Let us hope wiser counsel will prevail and peace would not be disturbed.

Asghar Ali Engineer

(Secular Perspective August 16-31, 2012)

Centre for Study of Society and Secularism

Mumbai.

E-mail: csss@mtnl.net.in

 

Two Toyota Land Cruisers filled with about 15 well-built gunmen in ski masks and all-black outfits appear seemingly out of nowhere. Behind them is vast, open desert. They approach a group of soldiers huddled around a simple meal as they prepare to break their Ramadan fast. The gunmen open fire, leaving the soldiers with no chance of retrieving their weapons.

This is not an opening scene of a Hollywood action movie. The massacre actually took place at an Egyptian military post in northern Sinai on August 5. The description above was conveyed by a witness, Eissa Mohamed Salama, in a statement made to The Associated Press (AP; Aug 8). The gunmen were well trained. Their overt confidence can only be explained by the fact that “one militant got out a camera and filmed the bodies of the soldiers”.

One is immediately baffled by this. Why would the masked militants wish to document the killings if they were about to embark on what can be considered a suicide mission in Israel? “The gunmen then approached the Israeli border,” with two vehicles, one reportedly a stolen Egyptian armored personnel carrier. The British Broadcasting Corp, citing Israeli officials, reported that one of the vehicles “exploded on the frontier”, while the other broke through the Israeli border, “travelled about 2 kilometers into Israel before being disabled by the Israeli air force” (BBC News Online, Aug 7). According to the BBC report, citing Israeli sources, there were about 35 gunmen in total, all clad in traditional Bedouin attire.

Their mission into Israel was suicidal, since, unlike in Sinai, they had nowhere to escape. But who would embark on such a logistically complex mission, document it on camera, and then fail to take responsibility for it? The brazen attack seemed to have little military wisdom, but it did possess a sinister political logic.

Only 48 hours before the attack, the media were awash with reports about the return of electricity in the Gaza Strip. The impoverished Strip’s generators have not run at full capacity for about six years, since Hamas was elected. The Israeli siege and subsequent wars killed and wounded thousands, but they failed to bend Gaza’s political will. For Gazans, the keyword to their survival in the face of Israel’s blockade was “Egypt”.

The Egyptian revolution on January 25, 2011, carried a multitude of meanings for all sectors of Egyptian society, and the Middle East at large. For Palestinians in Gaza, it heralded the possibility of a lifeline. The nearly 1,000 tunnels dug to assist in Gaza’s survival would amount to nothing compared with a decisive Egyptian decision to end the siege by opening the Rafah border.

In fact, a decision was taking place in stages. Hamas, which governs Gaza, was a branch of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. The latter is now the leading political force in the country and, despite the military’s obduracy, it has managed to claim the country’s presidency as well.

In late July, a high-level Hamas delegation met in Cairo. All the stress and trepidation of the last 16 months seemed to have come to an end, as Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, his deputy Musa Abu Marzouq and other members of the group’s politburo met with President Mohammed Morsi. Egypt’s official news agency reported Morsi’s declarations of full support “for the Palestinian nation’s struggle to achieve its legitimate rights”. According to Reuters, Morsi’s top priority was achieving unity “between Hamas and Fatah, supplying Gaza with fuel and electricity and easing the restrictions on the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt”.

Juxtapose that scene – where a historical milestone has finally been reached – with an Agence France-Presse photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Ehud Barak, standing triumphantly next to a burned Egyptian vehicle that was reportedly stolen by the Sinai gunmen. The message here is that only Israel is serious about fighting terror. Israeli newspaper Haaretz’ accompanying article started with this revelation: “Israel shared some of the intelligence it received with the Egyptian army prior to the incident, but there is no evidence Egypt acted on the information.” This was meant to humiliate Egypt’s military further.

Naturally, Israel blamed Gaza, even though there is no material evidence to back such accusations. Some in Egypt’s media jumped on the opportunity to blame Gaza for Egypt’s security problems in Sinai as well. The loudest among them were completely silent when, on August 18, 2011, Israel killed six Egyptian soldiers in Sinai.

Then, Israel carried out a series of strikes against Gaza, killing and wounding many, while claiming that Gaza was a source of attacks against Israeli civilians. Later the Israeli media dismissed the connection as flawed. No apologies for the Gaza deaths, of course, and AP, Reuters and others are still blaming Palestinians for the attack near Eilat last year. Then, Palestinian factions opted not to escalate to spare Egypt an unwanted conflict with Israel during a most sensitive transition.

None of that seems relevant now. Egypt is busy destroying the tunnels, continuing efforts that were funded by the US a few years ago. It also closed the Gaza-Egypt crossing, and is being “permitted” by Israel to use attack helicopters in Sinai to hunt for elusive terrorists. Within days, Gaza’s misfortunes were multiplied and once more Palestinians are pleading their case.

Israeli officials and analysts are, of course, beside themselves with anticipation. The opportunity is simply too great not to be utilized fully. Commenting in Egypt-based OnIslam, Abdelrahman Rashdan wrote that according to the Israeli intelligence scenario, “Iranians, Palestinians, Egyptians, and al-Qaeda operatives all moved from Lebanon to attack Egypt [and] Israel and defend Syria.”

In Western mainstream media, few asked who benefits from all of this – from once more isolating Gaza, shutting down the tunnels, severing Egyptian-Palestinian ties, embroiling the Egyptian military in a security nightmare in Sinai, and much more.

The Muslim Brotherhood website had an answer. It suggested that the incident “can be attributed to the Mossad”. True, some Western media reported the statement, but not with any degree of seriousness or due analysis. The BBC even offered its own context: “Conspiracy theories are popular across the Arab world,” ending the discussion with an Israeli dismissal of the accusation as “nonsense”. Case closed. But it shouldn’t be.

Before embarking on a wild goose chase in Sinai, urgent questions must be asked and answered. Haphazard action will only make things worse for Egypt, Palestine and Sinai’s long-neglected Bedouin population.

By Ramzy Baroud

15 August, 2012

Countercurrents.org

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London.)

Beirut: The Sinai Peninsula has rejoined the Arab and Islamic Resistance as this great awakening spreads inexorably across the region toppling Western imposed security states and replacing them with governments of greater popular legitimacy. Egypt and other countries in the region are contributing to righting the historic wrong done to the Palestinian people as millions around the World are employing an increasing variety of resistance strategies in solidarity with this regions central cause of liberating Palestine from the crumbling but ultra-violent Zionist colonial project.

Historically, the 23,000 sq. mile triangular Sinai Peninsula has been an area of Resistance against a series of occupiers and despots since it was joined to Egypt during in Mamluk Sultanate (1260-1517) when the Ottoman sultan, Selim the Grim, won the Battles of Marj Dabiq and al-Raydaniyya, and added Egypt to the Ottoman Empire.

Following the establishment of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty‘s rule over the rest of Egypt in 1805, the Ottoman Porte, faced with increasing resistance from Sinai, transferred administration of the restive Peninsula to the Egyptian government, by this time under the control of the colonial power, the United Kingdom. The British occupied Egypt since 1882 and imposed the border in an almost straight line from Rafah on the Mediterranean to Taba on the Gulf of Aqaba which has remained the eastern border of Egypt. At the beginning of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Egyptian forces invaded Palestine from Sinai to support the Palestinian Resistance in their struggle against the imposed State of Israel.

Last week’s Sinai operation by “terrorists in Bedouin clothing” against the occupiers of Palestine resulted in the deaths of 16 Egyptian guards protecting the Israeli border as well as several of the Fedayeen, signals again that the Sinai Peninsula has returned to its historic role in confronting colonialism on Egypt’s border. The Egyptian people, if not yet fully their leaders are returning to their historic struggle to liberate Palestine.

The regime of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would purposefully undermine relationship between the Egyptian and Palestinian people. However, over the past 18 months, much of the Sinai has become more Resistance oriented, as police stations in the Sinai were dismantled, the gas line with Israel repeated severed, and Bedouin tribes and others began to stockpile weapons arriving from Libya and from Israel’s black market and elsewhere. The area is becoming a major Resistance base with fighters vowing to repel any attempt by the US and Israel to retain control.

No proof positive has been proffered to support a number of claims being made regarding those responsible for the Sinai attacks and other recent attacks against Israeli installations that number more than 30 just since last year’s Tahrir revolution.

A spokesman for the Hamas government has claimed that the Sinai attack was an Israeli “attempt to tamper with Egyptian security and drive a wedge between the Egyptians and the residents of the Gaza Strip.” Tarek Zumar, a spokesman for the group, claimed that Israel was behind all recent terror attacks against the Egyptians “because it wants to make changes along its border with Egypt.” The day after the attack, and relying on its own intelligent sources, Hamas announced that: ”This crime can be attributed to the Mossad, which has been seeking to abort the revolution since its inception and the proof of this is that it gave instructions to its Zionist citizens in Sinai to depart immediately a few days ago.”

An American critic of Israel’s influence over the U.S. Congress, who is an Assistant Staff Director on a Congressional Committee, emailed that “We are looking into what Israeli leaders knew about the Sinai attack and when they knew it, but no definite responsibility for this operation has been established.”

The Muslim Brotherhood has also blamed Mossad for the attack.

One of the reasons the Egyptian public is increasingly calling for abolishing or at least re- negotiating the “Treaty of Shame” as the Camp David agreement is commonly known, is that Egyptian security forces in Sinai are not enough to protect the borders. Under Camp David’s “Peace Agreement” it is Israel, and not the Egyptian government who determines how many Egyptians security personnel can stand guard at Egypt’s border.

On 8/4/12, Egypt’s new pro-Palestinian President, Mohammad Morsi, responded to the attack by sacking the pro-Israeli intelligence chief Murad Muwafi, as well as the governor of Northern Sinai Abdel Wahab Mabrouk. The same day Mursi ordered his defense minister to relieve the head of the country’s military police, as his spokesman said to “turn a page” in the Palestinian struggle and also as a confidence building move in the face of a predicted Zionist campaign to blame the Muslim Brotherhood for the attack. There has been a relentless campaign by Zionist leaders since Mubaraks ouster, to weaken the Egyptian public’s determination to isolate Israel and cancel their governments relations with the occupiers of Palestine.

Supporters of Morsi’s rival in the presidential election, Ahmed Shafik, a former air force commander, have called for Egyptians to rise up against the Brotherhood and President Morsi as a result of the Sinai operation. Such attacks underscore the divide between new pro-Palestinian government and the military, which continues to hold enormous political power and has limited the president’s authority.

The Resistance operation comes only a week after Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya made a rare visit to Egypt to meet with Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi to discuss easing travel restrictions on Gaza imposed by Israel’s siege, restrictions respected by Mubarak for years. That meeting, coupled with Morsi meeting both Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and Palestinian President Abbas last month, resulted in the opening the Rafah border for 12 hrs a day and increasing the daily limit on passengers from Gaza to 1,500. By opening the border Morsi was following through on a campaign promise he made during the run up to Egypt’s hotly contested election. With the advent of the Arab Spring a number of Egyptian pro Resistance organizations demanded the complete opening of the Rafah crossing to all traffic, including commercial. During his campaign Morsi stated that “the time has come to open the Rafah crossing to traffic 24 hours a day and all year round.”

Unfortunately, following the most recent operation the Rafah crossing has been indefinitely closed just like it was under the deposed Egyptian president which will cause great hardship to Gazans and amounts to nothing less than Israeli style “collective punishment” as claimed by Musa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official.

As one Gazan young woman, Rana Baker, a member of the Gaza-based BDS organizing committee recently observed, “It is worth recalling here the official Egyptian stance on the murder of two Egyptian security guards in an Israeli raid along the Israeli-Egyptian border last year. Not one Egyptian helicopter took off in search of the assailants and not one bullet was aimed at “suspects” from the Israeli side. Not only did the SCAF bury the incident as if it had never happened, but it went as far as to quell Egyptian protestors at the Israeli embassy in Cairo almost a year ago today. Days later the SCAF erected a high wall around the embassy to “protect” it against “extremists.”

The Gaza Strip has now been closed off, as it was during the time of deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The siege is now expected to intensify following the indefinite closure of the Rafah and Karm Abu-Salem border crossings. The siege is now expected to intensify following the indefinite closure of the Rafah and Karm Abu-Salem border crossings.

Robert Satloff , Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), founded by AIPAC, presented the Zionist lobby’s reaction to the Sinai operations and the expanding geography of Resistance. He offered the following suggestions presented on their website and in Lobby publications:

“The US must undertake firm communication to Egypt’s Morsi that if he wants international support to bolster his flagging economy, he cannot pander to the worst instincts of Egyptian public opinion. Indeed, any serious effort to prevent terrorist infiltration in Sinai requires coordination with Israel, and this will not proceed in an environment of public vilification.”

“Second, U.S. policymakers should reaffirm to the Egyptian military that Washington views securing Sinai as an essential aspect of Egyptian-Israeli peace, and that continued provision of substantial military aid, which has exceeded 35 billion over the past three decades, is absolutely contingent on the investment of adequate personnel and resources to do the security job. Failure to direct the right people and resources to the peninsula will trigger an overall reassessment of the U.S. military assistance package, with an eye to updating this 1980s-era relationship for the current environment.”

Satloft’s views are reflective of the vast disconnect between reality and expectations of Zionist officials and their shills, over what the past 18 months has birthed in the Middle East with respect to Resistance to the continuing colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

With the Sinai Peninsula returning to the era and culture of Resistance the liberation of Palestine draws every nearer and more certain, perhaps sooner than later.

By Franklin Lamb

15 August, 2012

Countercurrents.org

Franklin P. Lamb is Director, Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Wash.DC-Beirut and Board Member, The Sabra Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Beirut-Washington DC Email: fplamb@gmail.com

 

Human security for global security: Demilitarization is not a dirty word, nonviolence is not inaction, and building sustainable peace is not for the faint of heart

The political, social and economic changes we all face are serious. Some might call the state of the world today chaos. The ongoing, dramatic changes in technology and communications are other elements adding to uncertainty and the feelings of insecurity that people around the globe are confronting. No one can predict the future but we can work hard to shape the outcomes.

Clearly there are huge obstacles to creating a world of sustainable peace with justice, equality and an end to impunity. A world free of militarism, armaments and the arms trade in which human and other resources are focused on meeting the needs of humanity rather than fueling conflicts and war. A world of sustainable development that nurtures our planet instead of continuing to devastate the environment and threaten life on earth. This will not happen over night. But worrying about the future is not a strategy for shaping it.

My own work, beginning with protests against the Vietnam War, has been against weapons, war and militarism. It is based on an understanding that sustainable peace is not simply the absence of armed conflict. The absence of armed conflict provides the bare minimum for the possibility of constructing sustainable peace based on socio-economic justice and equality. And to accomplish that we must change the understanding of security.

For centuries security has been defined as “national security” – which essentially has meant assuring the security of those in power and the apparatus of the state. Defending the state requires military power based on nationalism and patriotism. “Us” against “them.” How else could armies be formed that send other people’s children off to fight battles for resources, territory and to project the power of the state?

Now, with globalization where all aspects of life are increasingly and more rapidly interconnected around the world, it is time to move away from state-centric security to security based on the individual – “human security” not “national security.” The human security framework understands “security” as directing policies and resources toward meeting the basic needs of the majority of people on the planet: providing decent housing, education, access to medical care, employment with dignity, protection of civil and human rights and governments that respond to the needs of citizens. It means creating a world where people live with freedom from want and freedom from fear.

One part of being able to create that world is reclaiming and reasserting the meaning of “world peace.” It isn’t meditation, a rainbow with a dove flying over it, or singing peace songs. Nonviolence is not inaction and building sustainable peace must be understood as hard work every single day. We must all be active participants in change for the good. It doesn’t matter what issues people choose to work on – it could be global warming, an end to militarism, an end to poverty, or HIV/Aids for example.

What matters is that we all work on issues we feel passionate about and that our actions are for the benefit of everyone. By doing that our combined efforts enhance human security. We also must talk about our work in the context of human security so that people become familiar with the concept and understand the various elements that contribute to promoting and protecting human security.

Another aspect of creating a world based on human security not national security is to tackle demilitarization and the glorification of violence head on. It is an abomination that with the current global economic shake-down, countries still managed to find billions of dollars for weapons and the military while at the same time they are cutting funds for education, health care, job training, social services –the elements of daily life that are the basis of human security.

Demilitarization is not a dirty word. Civil society and national nongovernmental organization should confront demilitarization in our own countries. At the same time we must collectively press regional bodies such as the European Union, the African Union, the Organization of American States, and so on for global demilitarization. We also have another means of collective action, which is Article 26 of the UN Charter – not that we have illusions about the ability of the UN to seriously work for demilitarization. But every country that joins the UN commits to fulfilling the articles of the charter and Article 26 states:

In order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources, the Security Council shall be responsible for formulating…plans to be submitted to the members of the United Nations for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments.

In the more than six decades since the establishment of the UN, the Security Council has done absolutely nothing to fulfill its Article 26 obligation. But the member states of the UN have not done a thing to pressure the Security Council on Article 26 either.

Collectively, global civil society should begin actions to force the Security Council to “formulate plans” under Article 26 as soon as possible. Knowing that they will do everything in their formidable power to continue to ignore those obligations, global civil society should draw up its own plans and recommendations for demilitarization and how to use the resources resulting from demilitarization to enhance global human security. We can develop strategies and tactics around our plans and recommendations to pressure governments nationally, regionally and internationally to begin the process of demilitarization.

With demilitarization, the possibilities of positive change and human security in our world would be limitless. Humanity has the right to the real security of sustainable peace not the false “security” of militarism, armaments and war.

 

By Jody Williams

15 August, 2012

@Warisacrime.org

 

Jody Williams is an American political activist known around the world for her work in banning antipersonnel landmines, her defense of human rights – and especially those of women, and her efforts to promote new understandings of security in today’s world. She was laureated with the Peace Nobel Prize in 1997 for her work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines.

 

Authorities Arrest Dozens of Terrorists in Aleppo, Destroy Several Cars Equipped with DShK Machineguns

Aug 15, 2012

PROVINCES, (SANA)- The authorities on Tuesday arrested dozens of terrorists near Souq al-Hal area in Aleppo. The authorities also destroyed 7 cars equipped with DShK machineguns with the terrorists inside them in al-Bab area in Aleppo.

In the same context, units of the Syrian armed forces pursued an armed terrorist group in the areas of al-Kura al-Ardiya, the Radio and Saif al-Dawleh in Aleppo, killing and injuring a number of terrorists.

In Kafar Hamra, a group of armed terrorist was killed during an attempt to enter the city of Aleppo, and their vehicle, equipped with DShK machinegun, was destroyed.

Armed forces units cleared the area of the Science Faculty in Aleppo from terrorist and confronted a terrorist group that attempted to attack the Traffic Department, killing a large number of terrorists.

Another armed forces unit clashed with terrorists who were using Abdelrahman al-Dakhel school in Bustan al-Qaser neighborhood in Aleppo as a hideout, eliminating a large number of them.

In Aleppo countryside, armed forces units carried out two operations against terrorist groups in al-Atareb area, destroying two cars equipped with DShK machineguns and killing large numbers of terrorists.

Syrian heroic Army pursues vanquished armed groups in a number of areas in Aleppo, Killing an arresting scores of them

The Syrian heroic Army today pursued the vanquished armed terrorist groups in a number of areas in Aleppo, killing a big number of mercenaries, arresting scores of them and seizing their weapons.

A source in Aleppo told SANA reporter that a unit from the army confronted terrorists who took al-Shifaa Hospital in al-Shaar neighborhood and al-Kifah school as base for their crimes, killing a big number of them.

During its cleaning of Salah al-din neighborhood from the remnants of the mercenaries, the army dismantled 3 explosives put by the terrorists inside three  government stolen cars to be bombed in crowded areas.

The Army soldiers seized big quantities of weapons in the surrounding areas of Salah al-Din, including RPGs, Russian rifles, pistols and ammunitions.

At al-Atareb region in Aleppo countryside, a unit from the Army carried out two specific operations against the armed groups, destroying two cars equipped with Dushka machine guns, killing and injuring many mercenaries.

The army arrested scores of terrorists in Suok al-Hal, al-Ezaa and Saif al-Dawla.

The security forces also destroyed 7 cars equipped with machine guns coming from al-Bab region, destroying other cars equipped with Dushka machine guns at Kfar Hamra area in Aleppo countryside.

Assistant Director of Health Directorate in Daraa Assassinated

In Daraa, an armed terrorist group on Tuesday assassinated doctor Ma’moun al-Zoubi, Assistant Director of the Health Directorate in the city.

SANA reporter quoted a source in the province as saying that a number of terrorists waited for Dr. al-Zoubi while leaving the Directorate at the garage and opened fire on him causing his martyrdom.

The source added that the martyr’s car was stolen by the terrorists.

Security Forces Continue Pursuing Terrorists in al-Tal, Damascus Countryside

The security forces continue pursuing terrorists in the town of al-Tal in Damascus Countryside, arresting a number of them and confiscating their weapons and killing others.

Authorities Clash with Terrorists in Daraa Countryside

While canvassing the area of Tafs in Daraa countryside, the authorities clashed with terrorists, killing a large number of them and arresting others.

Among the terrorists who were killed were Maamoun al-Manbesh, Mohammad Mousa al-Ghanem, Mohammad Kiwan, Mohammad Barakat, Mohammad Horani, Ziyad al-Hourani, and Salim Ouaymer.

In the town of al-Hara in Daraa countryside, security forces clashed with a terrorist group and killed a number of its members, including the group’s leader Barakat Nayef al-Barakat.

The armed forces also continued to pursue terrorists in the areas of Izra’a and Ghabagheb in Daraa countryside.

Infiltration Attempt from Jordan Thwarted

Border patrols managed to thwart an infiltration attempt by terrorists who were trying to cross into Syria from Jordan in Tal Shihab area. A large number of terrorist were killed in the ensuing clash, one of whom was Attaf Abdelrazzaq al-Masalmeh.

Authorities Raid Terrorist Hideout in al-Qseir, Homs

The authorities raided a hideout used by a terrorist group among the farms in Tal Dosar area in al-Qseir countryside, Homs Province.

The ensuing clash resulted in the killing of a number of terrorists, including the group’s leader who is known as Abu al-Hareth, and some of the terrorists were injured.

At al-Adra bridge near Rableh in al-Qseir countryside, the authorities  ambushed a group of four terrorists who were using a pickup truck equipped with a DShK machinegun, destroying the car along with those inside it.

Also in al-Qseir countryside, the authorities took out a sniper who was attacking passersby and cars on one of the roads of Blada al-Zira’a.

Stand in Honor of Martyr Journalist Ali Abbas

Aug 14, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- The Syrian Journalists’ Union and workers in the private and public media institutions staged on Tuesday a solidarity stand outside the building of the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) in honor of the martyr journalist Ali Abbas and in solidarity with the kidnapped Syrian journalists.

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.

The participant journalists stressed that targeting the Syrian media and its cadres will not deviate them from performing their duty in conveying the truth and exposing the lies and fabrications broadcast by some misleading Arab and foreign satellite channels.

The journalists condemned targeting Syrian qualified cadres, wondering at those who raise slogans of freedom meantime they do their best to silence any opposing opinion.

Head of the Syrian Journalists Union Elias Murad said that the recent development in the conspiracy hatched by foreign powers with the aid of some tools inside Syria in is the direct targeting of journalists.

He stressed that the killing of journalists violates the religious and social values, considering it as an example of the behavior of those who claim to call for freedom and do the contrary, which proves that they have no cause as they are mere tools.

Chairman of the National Media Council, Taleb Qadi Amin said that targeting the Syrian media is because of its role in revealing the reality of the war against Syria and the media machines recruited for this purpose and conveying the real image to the Syrian and international public opinion.

For his part, Director General of the Syrian Arab News Agency, Ahmad Dawa, said that the martyr Abbas was an example of the resistant national journalist in his devotion to duty and morals.

He reiterated the Syrian journalists’ determination to continue carrying out their national duty, adding that these criminal terrorist acts will not affect them.

Dawa said that the foreign intervention in what is taking place in Syria escalates the situation and hinder finding a solution to the crisis in the country, stressing Syria’s ability to come out of the crisis thanks to its army and people.

In turn, Director General of al-Wahda Establishment for Press, Printing, Publishing and Distribution, Khalaf al-Miftah, said that the terrorists’ crimes against the Syrian people reflect their primitive culture which does not belong to the nature of the Syrian people.

He added that the assassination of journalist Abbas indicates that these criminals want to silence every voice that divulge their lies and crimes.

Ali Kassem, editor-in-chief of al-Thawra newspaper, said that the stand came in honor of the souls of our martyr colleagues and all Syria’s martyrs, adding that targeting the media is not accepted.

Managing Editor of the Syrian Al-Thawra newspaper, Mustafa Al-Miqdad, said that anyone who follow the attack against the Syrian media whether through blocking channels, targeting press teams and journalists or through imposing sanctions is aware of the real impact of the Syrian media on its audience.

Member of the People’s Assembly Omar Osi expressed solidarity with Syrian journalists against terrorist acts, adding that the Committee for Freedoms and Human Rights issued a statement in solidarity with the Syrian media in the current stage.

He hailed the Syrian media’s ability to shoulder its responsibilities against the western media and Zionist-US circles which try to destabilize Syria through its tools in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

Iranian TV reporter, Issam al-Hilali, said that targeting the Syrian journalists indicate that the enemies of the Syrian people have lost the battle, adding that the national media in Syria proved that it serves the interest of its people.

Reporter of the Cuban Prensa Latina News Agency, Luis Beaton, condemned the assassination of Syrian journalists, adding that these crimes came within the media campaign launched by western media to hide the reality of what is happening.

He called upon all western media not to fabricate news or convey information that might falsify the reality of events on the ground.

He offered condolences, on the behalf of all Cuban journalists and his own behalf, to the Syrian media institution, stressing that Cuba and Syria are in one line against the imperialism and western colonialist powers.

Solidarity Stand outside Tartous TV and Radio Center in Condemnation of Terrorism against National Media

The Teachers’ Association in cooperation with other popular and youth organizations in Tartous province staged a solidarity stand outside the TV and Radio Center in condemnation of the systematic terrorism targeting the national media, and to salute SANA’s Journalist Martyr Ali Abbas who was assassinated by terrorists.

Participants waved placards condemning the terrorist acts against the national media institutions and cadres, expressing solidarity with the Syrian media which proved credibility and capability to confront the misleading media.

They stressed that targeting the national media cadres will increase Syria’s resolve to go ahead in national work.

Prime Minister, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Discuss Cooperation

Aug 14, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Prime Minister Dr. Wael al-Halqi discussed on Tuesday with UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valery Amos cooperation between Syria and international organization in humanitarian fields.

Dr. al-Halqi reviewed the economic, political and social reforms taking place in Syria and the considerable efforts exerted by the government to provide services to citizens despite the fact that terrorists are targeting developmental sectors, affirming that Syria can persevere, overcome the crisis, achieve reconciliation and restore security and stability in all areas.

He also detailed the results of the inhumane economic sanctions imposed by the US and some European and Arab countries, which only affect innocent civilians.

Amos also met with State Minister for National Reconciliation Affairs Dr. Ali Haidar, with the meeting focusing on the humanitarian situation in Syria and the need to restore the relations which were established before between Syria and the UN.

In a statement to the press following the meeting, Haidar said that humanitarian situations in any area in Syria cannot be tackled without considering the security situation in it and stopping violence, noting that the government has an ambitious plan for returning citizens who were forced out of their homes for one reason or another to their original places of residence.

He stressed that violence is still the main element that is hindering his ministry’s fieldwork, and that the cessation of violence is a priority of his ministry and the government as a whole.

Haidar also said that the government isn’t relying on international organizations in terms of the Syrian issue as some of them have become a part in the war on Syria and proved ineffective in serving peoples’ interests over the year, adding that instead, Syria depends on friends who are honest in dealing with the Syrian people.

For her part, Amos said that her visit to Syria aims to review commitments in the humanitarian field and discuss the Syrian authorities” evaluation of what is happening on the ground.

In the same context, Deputy Foreign and Expatriates Minister Dr. Fayssal Mikdad discussed with Amos the relations between Syria and the Humanitarian Relief Coordination Office at the UN.

Mikdad lauded the progress made in the plans for evaluation and response to answer the needs of people affected by the current events, while Amos voiced satisfaction over the cooperation achieved since her visit in March, stressing that her office is working to gather as much humanitarian aid as possible to help Syria overcome this crisis in a framework of neutrality and independence.

Russian, Iranian Foreign Ministries Condemn Terrorist Acts against Journalists in Syria

Aug 14, 2012

MOSCOW, TEHRAN, (SANA)- Russia on Tuesday condemned the terrorist acts committed against the journalists in Syria, urging the concerned international organizations to exert pressures to put an end to these acts.

Russia Today website quoted Maria Zakharova, Deputy Director of the Information and Press Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry, as saying in a statement “We vehemently condemn the terrorist acts against journalists. Countries with influence on the Syrian opposition in addition to the regional and international organizations should not be neutral in not responding to these facts.”

She added that Moscow receives, with great concern, the news on the escalation of the attacks committed by the illegal armed groups against journalist in Syria.

Iran Condemns Terrorist Groups’ Killing and Kidnapping Acts against Innocents in Syria

The Iranian Foreign Ministry also condemned the terrorist acts of killings and kidnapping perpetrated by the armed terrorist groups against the innocent civilians and the journalists in Syria.

Speaking at his weekly press conference, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast offered condolences over the martyrdom of the journalist Ali Abbas, the head of Internal News Department at the Syrian Arab News Agency.

He underlined Iran’s continuous efforts with other influential countries to solve the crisis in Syria through peaceful means to ward off its repercussions on the region.

Mehmanparast said that his country has devoted all its efforts to achieve security and stability in Syria and create the appropriate atmosphere to hold dialogue between the government and the opposition.

He added that there is a US-Zionist scheme to sow sedition and undermine stability in Syria in service of the US and Zionist interests, regretting the US role along with its allies to destabilize the region, describing it as “destructive”.

The Iranian Spokesman pointed out that after the massacres committed against the people of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, the US wants to carry out such plot in Syria to ensure its interests through increasing losses of the Syrian people.

Mehmanparast said that Iran opposes suspending Syria’s membership at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, calling for taking the Islamic world’s higher interests into consideration instead of such proposals.

Regarding the kidnapped Iranians in Syria, he stressed that Tehran is working in coordination with other countries to get them released as soon as possible.

Lebanese Foreign Minister: Solution to Crisis in Syria Should Be an Internal Political One

Aug 14, 2012

BEIRUT, (SANA) – The Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour stressed that the “self-distance” policy adopted by Lebanon regarding the crisis in Syria is based on that the solution in Syria should be an internal political one.

Addressing the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah, Mansour said that the solution in Syria depends mainly on dialogue between the leadership and the opposition and on implementing reforms.

He stressed that the foreign interference will complicate the crisis instead of helping in solving it, adding that the flow of money and arms into Syria threatens its sovereignty, unity of its people and territorial integrity and escalates the killing and violence.

Mansour warned that the systematic media instigation, igniting religious discord and sectarianism and the continuation of violence will have serious repercussions not only on Syria’s people and land but also on the security and stability of all the countries in the region.

The Lebanese Foreign Minister reiterated Lebanon’s stance on the Syrian issue included in the concluding statement of the 4th Extraordinary Islamic Summit Conference on suspending Syria’s membership, distancing itself from the decision on it.

He hoped that Syria will come out of the crisis soon and restore its national and Islamic role.

Mansour criticized the concluding statement for not including a firm decision on ending and suspending all forms of political, trade and economic cooperation with the Israeli enemy and exerting practical pressure on it through tightening the economic boycott.

Russian Diplomatic Source: Bogdanov Made No Statements to Saudi Website

Aug 14, 2012

MOSCOW, (SANA) – A Russian diplomatic source on Tuesday said that the Russian President’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, Deputy Foreign Minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, made no statement to the Saudi Website al-Watan.

In a statement to Russia Today TV channel, the diplomatic source added that circulating the so-called interview of Bogdanov to al-Watan is “a new media provocation”.

“I didn’t speak to any newspaper inside or outside Russia,” Bogdanov told Russia Today reporter by phone, adding that he is on a vacation.

He stressed that what was attributed to him regarding the destiny of the Syrian President is “complete nonsense”.

The Russian Deputy Foreign Minister affirmed that he does not know any journalist at al-Watan newspaper who claimed to have called him, dismissing as baseless everything that was ascribed to him in the alleged interview.

Reuters: Libyan Fighters among Terrorist Groups in Syria

Aug 14, 2012

BEIRUT, (SANA) – Fighters of last year’s civil war in Libya have joined the armed terrorist groups in Syria, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The news agency quoted a Libyan-Irish terrorist as saying that Libyan “veteran fighters…have come to the front-line in Syria, helping to train and organize rebels.”

Hussam Najjar, who has a Libyan father and Irish mother, has entered Syria, said the agency, noting that Najjar, who goes by the name of Sam, is a trained sniper and was “part of the rebel unit that stormed Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli a year ago, led by Mahdi al-Harati, a powerful militia chief from Libya’s western mountains.”

Harati, Reuters added, now leads a terrorist group in Syria known as the Umma Brigade.

Harati’s brigade, according to Najjar, “is made up mainly of Syrians but also including some foreign fighters, including 20 senior members of his own Libyan rebel unit.”

The agency said that Harati asked Najjar to join him in Syria from Dublin a few months ago.

The Libyan fighters, Najjar told Reuters, “include specialists in communications, logistics, humanitarian issues and heavy weapons.”

He noted that thousands more fighters from the Arab world were gathering in neighboring countries prepared to join the armed groups in Syria.

First Interactive Youth Media Agency and Radio Launched on the Internet

Aug 14, 2012

TARTOUS, (SANA)- A group of youth from the coastal province of Tartous has launched a first interactive youth media agency on the internet under the title ‘Al-Aaan Agency’ to provide minute-by-minute coverage of all the activities and events taking place in the Syrian provinces.

The coverage depends on photos and footages particularly for the events happening in Syria under the current stage with the aim of confronting the campaigns of falsification and misleading undertaken by various tendentious media outlets.

‘Tartous al-Aaan’ internet radio station was also launched to contribute to bolstering the role of the agency.

Editor-in-chief of al-Aaan Agency, Tarek al-Qaht, stressed in a statement to SANA the importance of interactive and social media which depends on reporting the events and news at the moment of its occurrence and posting it on the agency’s social networking sites on the internet.

Al-Aaan Agency includes the launching of websites in a number of provinces with Tartous being first along with Lattakia, Homs and Damascus, while websites will be started soon in Aleppo and Hasaka and later in all the other provinces.

Al-Qaht, who is a student at the Faculty of Political Sciences, told SANA reporter that the main objective of the project is to uncover the fabrication and media misleading targeting the Syrian people and its national unity and back the national media in terms of honestly reporting the reality.

He noted that Tartous al-Aaan page is available in the English language with the aim to reach out to a larger number of expatriate youths.

He also highlighted that the agency seeks to bridge the gap between the citizens and officials by making it possible to receive complaints on every website which will be published transparently along with the responses after being followed up with the officials and parties concerned.

The managing editor, Ali al-Kinj, hailed the quick success achieved by Tartous website in terms of the speed and honesty in reporting the events, referring also to Homs website which was the first to succeed in entering into several tense neighborhoods and areas in the province and reporting the situation suffered by the citizens due to the practices of the armed terrorist groups.

He hailed the determination and strong will of the youth working for the agency, particularly those of the photographer of Homs website who had been shot in his leg by a sniper in a neighborhood in Homs and is continuing his duty with more persistence.

For his part, Ali Wannous, the technical coordinator at the agency, said that the number of visitors to the agency websites has reached 10,000, while the number of those communicating on the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube amounted to 23,000.

He mentioned that the number of people listening to the internet radio, which is currently broadcasting a program through which youth communicate to express their ideas and proposals to overcome the crisis in Syria, has exceeded 1500.

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

Aug 14, 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.

How Two Administrations and Both Parties Made Illegality the American Way of Life

After a decade of fiery public debate and bare-knuckle partisan brawling, the United States has stumbled toward an ad hoc bipartisan compromise over the issue of torture that rests on two unsustainable policies: impunity at home and rendition abroad.

President Obama has closed the CIA’s “black sites,” its secret prisons where American agents once dirtied their hands with waterboarding and wall slamming. But via rendition — the sending of terrorist suspects to the prisons of countries that torture — and related policies, his administration has outsourced human rights abuse to Afghanistan, Somalia, and elsewhere. In this way, he has avoided the political stigma of torture, while tacitly tolerating such abuses and harvesting whatever intelligence can be gained from them.

This “resolution” of the torture issue may meet the needs of this country’s deeply divided politics. It cannot, however, long satisfy an international community determined to prosecute human rights abuses through universal jurisdiction. It also runs the long-term risk of another sordid torture scandal that will further damage U.S. standing with allies worldwide.

Perfecting a New Form of Torture

The modern American urge to use torture did not, of course, begin on September 12, 2001. It has roots that reach back to the beginning of the Cold War and a human rights policy riven with contradictions. Publicly, Washington opposed torture and led the world in drafting the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the Geneva Conventions in 1949. Simultaneously and secretly, however, the Central Intelligence Agency began developing ingenious new torture techniques in contravention of these same international conventions.

From 1950 to 1962, the CIA led a secret research effort to crack the code of human consciousness, a veritable Manhattan project of the mind with two findings foundational to a new form of psychological torture. In the early 1950s, while collaborating with the CIA, famed Canadian psychologist Dr. Donald Hebb discovered that, using goggles, gloves, and earmuffs, he could induce a state akin to psychosis among student volunteers by depriving them of sensory stimulation. Simultaneously, two eminent physicians at Cornell University Medical Center, also working with the Agency, found that the most devastating torture technique used by the KGB, the Soviet secret police, involved simply forcing victims to stand for days at a time, while legs swelled painfully and hallucinations began.

In 1963, after a decade of mind-control research, the CIA codified these findings in a succinct, secret instructional handbook, the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation manual. It became the basis for a new method of psychological torture disseminated worldwide and within the U.S. intelligence community. Avoiding direct involvement in torture, the CIA instead trained allied agencies to do its dirty work in prisons throughout the Third World, like South Vietnam’s notorious “tiger cages.”

The Korean War added a defensive dimension to this mind-control research. After harsh North Korean psychological torture forced American POWs to accuse their own country of war crimes, President Dwight Eisenhower ordered that any serviceman subject to capture be given resistance training, which the Air Force soon dubbed with the acronym SERE (for survival, evasion, resistance, escape).

Once the Cold War ended in 1990, Washington resumed its advocacy of human rights, ratifying the U.N. Convention Against Torture in 1994, which banned the infliction of “severe” psychological and physical pain. The CIA ended its torture training in the Third World, and the Defense Department recalled Latin American counterinsurgency manuals that contained instructions for using harsh interrogation techniques. On the surface, then, Washington had resolved the tension between its anti-torture principles and its torture practices.

But when President Bill Clinton sent the U.N. Convention to Congress for ratification in 1994, he included language (drafted six years earlier by the Reagan administration) that contained diplomatic “reservations.” In effect, these addenda accepted the banning of physical abuse, but exempted psychological torture.

A year later, when the Clinton administration launched its covert campaign against al-Qaeda, the CIA avoided direct involvement in human rights violations by sending 70 terror suspects to allied nations notorious for physical torture. This practice, called “extraordinary rendition,” had supposedly been banned by the U.N. convention and so a new contradiction between Washington’s human rights principles and its practices was buried like a political land mine ready to detonate with phenomenal force, just 10 years later, in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Normalizing Torture

Right after his first public address to a shaken nation on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush gave his White House staff expansive secret orders for the use of harsh interrogation, adding, “I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.”

Soon after, the CIA began opening “black sites” that would in the coming years stretch from Thailand to Poland. It also leased a fleet of executive jets for the rendition of detained terrorist suspects to allied nations, and revived psychological tortures abandoned since the end of the Cold War. Indeed, the agency hired former Air Force psychologists to reverse engineer SERE training techniques, flipping them from defense to offense and thereby creating the psychological tortures that would henceforth travel far under the euphemistic label “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

In a parallel move in late 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appointed General Geoffrey Miller to head the new prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, and gave him broad authority to develop a total three-phase attack on the sensory receptors, cultural identity, and individual psyches of his new prisoners. After General Miller visited Abu Ghraib prison in September 2003, the U.S. commander for Iraq issued orders for the use of psychological torture in U.S. prisons in that country, including sensory disorientation, self-inflicted pain, and a recent innovation, cultural humiliation through exposure to dogs (which American believed would be psychologically devastating for Arabs). It is no accident that Private Lynndie England, a military guard at Abu Ghraib prison, was famously photographed leading a naked Iraqi detainee leashed like a dog.

Just two months after CBS News broadcast those notorious photos from Abu Ghraib in April 2004, 35% of Americans polled still felt torture was acceptable. Why were so many tolerant of torture?

One partial explanation would be that, in the years after 9/11, the mass media filled screens large and small across America with enticing images of abuse. Amid this torrent of torture simulations, two media icons served to normalize abuse for many Americans — the fantasy of the “ticking time bomb scenario” and the fictional hero of the Fox Television show “24,” counterterror agent Jack Bauer.

In the months after 9/11, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz launched a multimedia campaign arguing that torture would be necessary in the event U.S. intelligence agents discovered that a terrorist had planted a ticking nuclear bomb in New York’s Times Square. Although this scenario was a fantasy whose sole foundation was an obscure academic philosophy article published back in 1973, such ticking bombs soon enough became a media trope and a persuasive reality for many Americans — particularly thanks to “24,” every segment of which began with an oversized clock ticking menacingly.

In 67 torture scenes during its first five seasons, the show portrayed agent Jack Bauer’s recourse to abuse as timely, effective, and often seductive. By its last broadcast in May 2010, the simple invocation of agent Bauer’s name had become a persuasive argument for torture used by everyone from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to ex-President Bill Clinton.

While campaigning for his wife Hillary in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, Clinton typically cited “24” as a justification for allowing CIA agents, acting outside the law, to torture in extreme emergencies. “When Bauer goes out there on his own and is prepared to live with the consequences,” Clinton told Meet the Press, “it always seems to work better.”

Impunity in America

Such a normalization of “enhanced interrogation techniques” created public support for an impunity achieved by immunizing all those culpable of crimes of torture. During President Obama’s first two years in office, former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz made dozens of television appearances accusing his administration of weakening America’s security by investigating CIA interrogators who had used such techniques under Bush.

Ironically, Obama’s assassination of Osama bin Laden in May 2011 provided an opening for neoconservatives to move the nation toward impunity. Forming an a cappella media chorus, former Bush administration officials appeared on television to claim, without any factual basis, that torture had somehow led the Navy SEALs to Bin Laden. Within weeks, Attorney General Eric Holder announced an end to any investigation of harsh CIA interrogations and to the possibility of bringing any of the CIA torturers to court. (Consider it striking, then, that the only “torture” case brought to court by the administration involved a former CIA agent, John Kiriakou, who had leaked the names of some torturers.)

Starting on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the country took the next step toward full impunity via a radical rewriting of the past. In a memoir published on August 30, 2011, Dick Cheney claimed the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on an al-Qaeda leader named Abu Zubaydah had turned this hardened terrorist into a “fount of information” and saved “thousands of lives.”

Just two weeks later, on September 12, 2011, former FBI counterterror agent Ali Soufan released his own memoirs, stating that he was the one who started the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah back in 2002, using empathetic, non-torture techniques that quickly gained “important actionable intelligence” about “the role of KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.”

Angered by the FBI’s success, CIA director George Tenet dispatched his own interrogators from Washington led by Dr. James Mitchell, the former SERE psychologist who had developed the agency’s harsh “enhanced techniques.” As the CIA team moved up the “force continuum” from “low-level sleep deprivation” to nudity, noise barrage, and the use of a claustrophobic confinement box, Dr. Mitchell’s harsh methods got “no information.”

By contrast, at each step in this escalating abuse, Ali Soufan was brought back for more quiet questioning in Arabic that coaxed out all the valuable intelligence Zubaydah had to offer. The results of this ad hoc scientific test were blindingly clear: FBI empathy was consistently effective, while CIA coercion proved counterproductive.

But this fundamental yet fragile truth has been obscured by CIA censorship and neoconservative casuistry. Cheney’s secondhand account completely omitted the FBI presence. Moreover, the CIA demanded 181 pages of excisions from Ali Soufan’s memoirs that reduced his chapters about this interrogation experience to a maze of blackened lines no regular reader can understand.

The agency’s attempt to rewrite the past has continued into the present. Just last April, Jose Rodriguez, former chief of CIA Clandestine Services, published his uncensored memoirs under the provocative title Hard Measures: How Aggressive C.I.A. Actions after 9/11 Saved American Lives. In a promotional television interview, he called FBI claims of success with empathetic methods “bullshit.”

With the past largely rewritten to assure Americans that the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” had worked, the perpetrators of torture were home free and the process of impunity and immunity established for future use.

Rendition Under Obama

Apart from these Republican pressures, President Obama’s own aggressive views on national security have contributed to an undeniable continuity with many of his predecessor’s most controversial policies. Not only has he preserved the controversial military commissions at Guantanamo and fought the courts to block civil suits against torture perpetrators, he has, above all, authorized continuing CIA rendition flights.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama went beyond any other candidate in offering unqualified opposition to both direct and indirect U.S. involvement in torture. “We have to be clear and unequivocal. We do not torture, period,” he said, adding, “That will be my position as president. That includes, by the way, renditions.”

Only days after his January 2009 inauguration, Obama issued a dramatic executive order ending the CIA’s coercive techniques, but it turned out to include a large loophole that preserved the agency’s role in extraordinary renditions. Amid his order’s ringing rhetoric about compliance with the Geneva conventions and assuring “humane treatment of individuals in United States custody,” the president issued a clear and unequivocal order that “the CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future.” But when the CIA’s counsel objected that this blanket prohibition would also “take us out of the rendition business,” Obama added a footnote with a small but significant qualification: “The terms ‘detention facilities’ and ‘detention facility’ in… this order do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis.” Through the slippery legalese of this definition, Obama thus allowed the CIA continue its rendition flights of terror suspects to allied nations for possible torture.

Moreover, in February 2009, Obama’s incoming CIA director Leon Panetta announced that the agency would indeed continue the practice “in renditions where we returned an individual to the jurisdiction of another country, and they exercised their rights… to prosecute him under their laws. I think,” he added, ignoring the U.N. anti-torture convention’s strict conditions for this practice, “that is an appropriate use of rendition.”

As the CIA expanded covert operations inside Somalia under Obama, its renditions of terror suspects from neighboring East African nations continued just as they had under Bush. In July 2009, for example, Kenyan police snatched an al-Qaeda suspect, Ahmed Abdullahi Hassan, from a Nairobi slum and delivered him to that city’s airport for a CIA flight to Mogadishu. There he joined dozens of prisoners grabbed off the streets of Kenya inside “The Hole” — a filthy underground prison buried in the windowless basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency. While Somali guards (paid for with U.S. funds) ran the prison, CIA operatives, reported the Nation’s Jeremy Scahill, have open access for extended interrogation.

Obama also allowed the continuation of a policy adopted after the Abu Ghraib scandal: outsourcing incarceration to local allies in Afghanistan and Iraq while ignoring human rights abuses there. Although the U.S. military received 1,365 reports about the torture of detainees by Iraqi forces between May 2004 and December 2009, a period that included Obama’s first full year in office, American officers refused to take action, even though the abuses reported were often extreme.

Simultaneously, Washington’s Afghan allies increasingly turned to torture after the Abu Ghraib scandal prompted U.S. officials to transfer most interrogation to local authorities. After interviewing 324 detainees held by Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) in 2011, the U.N. found that “torture is practiced systematically in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan.” At the Directorate’s prison in Kandahar one interrogator told a detainee before starting to torture him, “You should confess what you have done in the past as Taliban; even stones confess here.”

Although such reports prompted both British and Canadian forces to curtail prisoner transfers, the U.S. military continues to turn over detainees to Afghan authorities — a policy that, commented the New York Times, “raises serious questions about potential complicity of American officials.”

How to Unclog the System of Justice One Drone at a Time

After a decade of intense public debate over torture, in the last two years the United States has arrived at a questionable default political compromise: impunity at home, rendition abroad.

This resolution does not bode well for future U.S. leadership of an international community determined to end the scourge of torture. Italy’s prosecution of two-dozen CIA agents for rendition in 2009, Poland’s recent indictment of its former security chief for facilitating a CIA black site, and Britain’s ongoing criminal investigation of intelligence officials who collaborated with alleged torture at Guantanamo are harbingers of continuing pressures on the U.S. to comply with international standards for human rights.

Meanwhile, unchecked by any domestic or international sanction, Washington has slid down torture’s slippery slope to find, just as the French did in Algeria during the 1950s, that at its bottom lies the moral abyss of extrajudicial execution. The systematic French torture of thousands during the Battle of Algiers in 1957 also generated over 3,000 “summary executions” to insure, as one French general put it, that “the machine of justice” not be “clogged with cases.”

In an eerie parallel, Washington has reacted to the torture scandals of the Bush era by generally forgoing arrests and opting for no-fuss aerial assassinations. From 2005 to 2012, U.S. drone killings inside Pakistan rose from zero to a total of 2,400 (and still going up) — a figure disturbingly close to those 3,000 French assassinations in Algeria. In addition, it has now been revealed that the president himself regularly orders specific assassinations by drone in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia off a secret “kill list.” Simultaneously, his administration has taken just one terror suspect into U.S. custody and has not added any new prisoners to Guantanamo, thereby avoiding any more clogging of the machinery of American justice.

Absent any searching inquiry or binding reforms, assassination is now the everyday American way of war while extraordinary renditions remain a tool of state. Make no mistake: some future torture scandal is sure to arise from another iconic dungeon in the dismal, ever-lengthening historical procession leading from the “tiger cages” of South Vietnam to “the salt pit” in Afghanistan and “The Hole” in Somalia. Next time, the world might not be so forgiving. Next time, with those images from Abu Ghraib prison etched in human memory, the damage to America’s moral authority as world leader could prove even more deep and lasting.

By Alfred W. McCoy

14 August, 2012

@ TomDispatch.com

Alfred W. McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A TomDispatch regular, he is the author of A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror, which provided documentation for the Oscar-winning documentary feature film Taxi to the Darkside. His recent book, Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation (University of Wisconsin, 2012) explores the American experience of torture during the past decade.

Copyright 2012 Alfred W. McCoy