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Fasting is a universal custom and is advocated by all religions of the world, with more restrictions in some than in others. The “Siy?m” should not be interpreted as “fasting” lest it may be misunderstood as mere starvation or as an act of self-denial and asceticism, and therefore, a renunciation of the world. For the purpose of this article, let us call it the “Islamic Fast”.

Readers are kindly requested to refer to Q. 2:183-185, where the main fruit of fasting is to achieve Taqw? that essentially means self-restraint.

“O ye faithful! fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you so that you may guard against evil”. This is also translated by some as “…you may learn self-restraint”, or “…you may develop Taqw?? (God-consciousness)” (Q.2:183).

Thus, the Islamic fast is for those Muslims, who are preparing to become Mu?min?n (true and firm believers in faith). Faith carries much more weight than belief or doctrine. In this verse, Allah gives an open invitation to us as: “Oh ye faithful!” Although multiple benefits accrue, Muslims in general fast because it is Allah’s command and not merely for the physical benefits.

Fasting is the most rigorous of all spiritual disciplines imposed on every adult Muslim man and woman. Fasting frees oneself from egoism, replacing it with an indescribable peace within, which makes the person accept differences in humans. The aim of this spiritual exercise is to enable man to achieve proximity to Allah and obtain His pleasure.

In Islam, fasting is obligatory in the lunar month of Ramad??n, a lunar month of 29 or 30 days. During this period there is complete abstinence from food, drink, smoke, marital relationship, and any evil thought, word or deed. The advantage of the lunar month, compared to solar, is that fasting takes place by cyclic rotation under different climatic conditions, during the life span of the individual while residing in the same geographical location.

Fasting gives us an opportunity to fine tune the body, to develop qualities of endurance, and to control anger, sensual desires and a malicious tongue. The fasting person should avoid such actions as might arouse passion in him as well as in others, such as casting lustful eyes at a woman. He should also abstain from thinking carnal thoughts and fantasizing pleasures incompatible with the spiritual regimen.

It is a well-known fact that beasts can be brought under control by keeping them occasionally hungry and then feeding them at planned intervals. Similarly, man can tame the animal within himself and become its master by fasting for one whole month. One of the objectives is to bring unruly passions under control. The man who can rule his desires and makes them work as he likes, has attained true moral excellence.

Allah puts our faith to a severe test for one month, with strict non-indulgence in physical gratifications, during long hours of a day. If we emerge triumphant in this test, more strength develops in us to refrain from other sins. Our brain then also responds by sending recurrent and frequent signals to us to protect ourselves by rejecting evil immediately. In fact, this exercise trains us to receive warning signals at all times, whether Ramad??n or not, so that we should not see evil, hear evil, utter evil or act evil. Besides abstention from food and drink, the fasting of the pious man is to curb unchaste desires, to fast from looking at the provocative, from hearing the mischievous, and from uttering the obscene. A fasting man is also required to avoid slander and from thinking about inflicting injury to others. He should never find himself in a situation which may expose whatever animal qualities in whatever form he possesses.

The effect of fasting on the human personality is dominant and decisive. It enables man to subdue the strongest worldly urges raging within him and brings a harmonious equilibrium between the temporal (the body) and the spiritual (the soul), both coming together for peaceful co-existence.

Fasting is an institution for the improvement of the moral and spiritual character of man. The purpose of the fast is to help develop self-restraint, self-purification, God-consciousness, compassion, spirit of caring and sharing, and the love of Allah and humanity. The objective of fasting is to develop our personality to a high standard of God-consciousness and maintain that standard throughout life, so that on the Day of Judgment before God, we would already be well-off to a good start, to begin our life in Hereafter.

However, for some Muslims, Ramad??n is a burst of Islamic activity in a year-long ocean of un-Islamic behavior. As soon as the fasting program is over, some Muslims throw to the wind whatever good and hard-earned qualities they might have gained as a result of that exercise, and sooner or later return to their vicious habits and practices of their pre-Ramad??n days, be they of thoughts, words or deeds. We ought to remind ourselves that we must not allow the weeds in our garden to stifle the flowers and the fruits. Islam is neither a Sunday religion nor a Ramad??n only religion. Ramad??n is not meant to be a 30-day fast ending on ‘Id with a feast to beat all feasts. Some of the greatest achievements in Islam were made during Ramad??n, e.g. the Battle of Badr. If the newly converted Muslims had gorged themselves after Ift??r parties at nights and had slept in the day, they could not have become victorious at the Battle of Badr, and we, even now, might still have been pagans.

From a moral point of view, during fasting, one becomes more sympathetic and tolerant towards those in needy circumstances. It brings about a better realization of human understanding. In this world of today, with a population explosion, where two-thirds of the world goes to sleep on an empty stomach, the quicker this realization takes place, the sooner the problems would be appreciated and solved. It is only during such time as Ramad??n that one can reflect and make an inventory of the importance of the basic moral values affecting oneself and the community.

We should remember that Allah says that fasting has been prescribed for you. It is a divine prescription from Allah Who is the Greatest Physician. It is different from a medical doctor’s prescription and hence this prescription should be duly respected and carried out in full. It is also a pre-scription i.e. it was also prescribed for religious communities before the advent of Islam. If a person fasts for temporal motives only e.g. slimming according to a doctor’s prescription, he will be far from performing his religious duty or achieving nearness to Allah or obtaining His pleasure. In order to subjugate the body with the sole purpose of developing will power and a dominant personality, it is essential to bring certain forces within the body under control and thus develop will power. Besides hunger, thirst and carnal desires, we must gain full control of the tongue, mind and the rest of the body. Hence, Muslims call Ramad??n a blessed month of compassion and mercy, a month of self-purification and re-dedication, a month of commiseration with the poor and the hungry, who are in the majority among mankind. It is a unique month of self-analysis, of taking stock of one’s moral and spiritual assets and liabilities and of examining critically one’s spiritual portrait.

Why is it that we fast in the daytime and not, for our own convenience, at nights? This is because the human personality only develops when a person is exposed to maximum social conditions. Hence, Islam puts great stress on family and community life. Islam does not advocate running away from society or becoming a monk or leaving the family to retire in a desert, with all the solitude and the solitary confinement. Personality only develops during encounters with others in a society or community. To alienate from society is not Da’wah (invitation to Islam). Religion does not become perfect without the world. We must work for the community and also with the community for the common welfare and the good of the Ummah. Islam regards the interest of the society above the interest of the individual. Service to Allah is rendered through a clean life in the turmoil of this world in the multitudes of society.

Perhaps it would be interesting to consider why fasting was not made compulsory every single day of one’s life. Allah gives us a month of compulsory fast and then gives us eleven lunar months to asses the result of this month-long effort. This 11-month grace period is the reason as to why we should not fast every single day of our lives. If we had done so, we would have remained under continuous compulsory restrictions of the Islamic fast throughout the year, and without the complete and unrestricted freedom to do as we like. Our will power would not have been given a chance to develop a strong personality. Personality grows much more when we are free to do any wrong we would like, but choose not to do it under unrestricted conditions, such as during the eleven months following the Ramad??n fast. Both during Ramad??n and after, Allah gives us the opportunity to examine our spiritual profile and see where the defect lies. Has some jealousy, hatred, malice, miserliness, tendency to give short measure, cheating and intrigue and unforgiving thoughts and actions been removed in our acquired attributes?

Fasting is an institution by which an individual and by extension a community, may benefit physically and morally. The Islamic fast strengthens the disposition of the individual to obedience of laws and respect for social order. Islam lays stress on submission to Allah and consequently, lays stress on submission to just authority, beginning with example in the home.

What are the three components of personality that we put to the acid test in the month-long exercise of fasting? They are (a) our physical cravings, (b) sensory desires, and (c) material longings. If we are successful in overcoming these, we shall pass the first part of our examination, emerging a far better Muslim within ourselves, fully laden with Taqw? (God-consciousness). We see a much better individual unfolding itself from within us, a person that was lying dormant for long. Now the same person in the month of Ramad??n, has become the captain, the master of the control room of the self, controlling and at times eliminating certain types of worldly desires. It is easy now for such a person to be “on guard” and reject evil temptations as fast as they come, even challenging and encountering more temptations without any fear of giving in to them.

The purpose of the Islamic Fast is to obey Allah’s Command with a view to becoming His vicegerent (Khal?fah). It trains all those who volunteer for service to Allah before allowing them to take on the job of His vicegerency and establish Allah’s rule on Earth.

There is no guarantee that the fasting person has definitely acquired the laudable achievement of Taqw? or God-consciousness. Some of us, who fast, often wait anxiously for Ramad??n to end so that we could resume our nefarious activities. Sometimes, during the fasting month Satan becomes more active than usual. Allah may use such situations to test a fasting person’s Taqw? if and when he makes his evil passion his god.

The English translation of Q.2:183 is usually expressed as “…you may develop taqw?”. Note the word “may”. There is no guaranty that a fasting person would definitely develop God-consciousness and piety or enough will power that he could guard against evil. In fact, the fasting person cannot develop Taqw? if he continues to backbite, slander, tell lies, harm others, deceive people and show malice, anger and hatred towards fellow beings. It is easy for any belittler, slanderer, tyrant or businessman who gives short measure or a miser who does not disburse Zak?t money, to starve himself during Ramadan days. But, how can such a person develop God-consciousness and divine qualities? Such a person, besides committing sins of commission and omission, may simply be wasting his time by fasting. Shall we spend a month every year, in which we starve and become thirsty, fast and eat, while our condition does not change – our rich remain rich and our poor remain as poor? Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) had warned that poverty may lead to unbelief. This is why a person who steals food while facing starvation is not to be punished according to the Shariah.

@ Imam Reza Network

Afrocentricity International condemns the destruction of historic monuments in the ancient city of Timbuktu and calls for an immediate response by the African Union to the Ansar Dine criminals who have chosen to bring their destruction to the heart of West African culture. Led by Ag Ghaly, a Tuareg nomad who converted to the Pakistani style Islam, Ansar Dine is allied to MUJUAO of Algeria and Boko Haram of Nigeria. Since it is not clear if the African Union has either the will power or the military capability to respond to the assault against one of the most sacred of African cities then we call upon the nations of Africa, acting in their capacity as regional powers, to arrest this destruction. However, we demand in the name of African people the immediate response of the African Union to this crisis!

Afrocentricity International does not believe it is the responsibility of NATO, the European Union, or the United States AFRICOM to save Africa.

Africa must save itself!

If Africa cannot save itself and will not save itself, then it cannot be saved. The rampant campaign against the monuments in the north represents another strand of death to African culture. Over the past millennium we have lost the indigenous treasures of some of the world’s greatest civilizations to the outrages of foreign religionists. They have even fought among themselves for the honor or dishonor of claiming to be better than the others who support these foreign invasions of Africa’s culture. In their attacks and assaults they have smashed everything of value, all treasures from the past, manuscripts, sculptures, evidences of ancient African art and culture, and stamped their feet on our ancestors’ graves. These are not men with a divine mission; they are pure and simple criminals whose ambition is to rule and they will use any ruse to destroy monuments and manuscripts that were created by Africans out of our own tradition. The people of Mali Africanized many of the symbols that came with invaders; they did not accept the idea that Africa was devoid of culture prior to the coming of the Arabs and whites.

Afrocentricity International looks at this situation as we have looked at other instances of this destruction to our culture. It is a political and mental war, carried on for ages against the best that is Africa, and in Mali we are seeing the latest, but not the last, attempt to ruin Africa.  As in Sudan, now in Mali, the attackers and the attacked are both Muslims. But in Mali we know that the ancient graves of the 333 saints include many African philosophers and thinkers who made the civilizations of Mali and Songhay the rivals to the world’s greatest cultures. But what do these Ansar Dine criminals do? They destroy the monuments of the greatest ancestors of African people and claim they are doing it in the name of Allah. But Allah has given them no such command; they must be condemned, captured, and brought to justice for their crimes against humanity.

The attackers who have sacked the mausoleums of Timbuktu allied themselves to the Tuareg MNLA, a group fighting to have the government recognize legitimate grievances of the northerners. Soon after the Taureg rebels seceded the northern part of Mali from the rest of the country in March 2012, the little known Ansar Dine group supposedly with support from Al Qaeda in Libya drove the secular MNLA out of Timbuktu and Gao and took over as the absolute rulers of the north. They have taken rights away from women, killed people they claim were violating the Koran, and imposed Sharia law. These Neanderthalian activities have plunged Mali deeper into the closet of ignorance than almost any other nation in Africa. Afrocentricity International blames Malian leadership for the crisis because that leadership did not practice equality, justice, and respect toward its own people and opened the door for this throwback gang of terrorists who have now laid hold to the land of Sunni Ali Ber.

Once again the crisis in Mali has proved what Afrocentricity International has always claimed that when you accept the religion and ideology of foreigners, you will end up fighting against your own interests. Indeed, the rumble in the ancient cities of Northern Mali, Timbuktu, Jenne, and Gao, is nothing more than a down payment on the problems that Africa will face in Burkina Faso, Senegal, Niger, Chad, Guinea, and Ivory Coast. Indeed, we have already seen this problem in Nigeria and Ivory Coast. It is yet to be resolved and will not be resolved until Africans, any Africans, some Africans, have the courage to speak up in the interest of Africa and not in the interest of Europe or the Arabs. The dilemma is real; the task is our responsibility. Afrocentricity International supports any effort to bring the crisis in Mali to an end, but we insist that the criminals who destroyed the precious historical monuments must be brought to justice. Unity is our aim; victory is our destiny!

Dr. Ama Mazama, Per-aat International

Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, International Organizer

www.Afrocentricityinternational.org

July 4, 2012

There is a moment, just before a pendulum changes direction, when it is perfectly still. It is precisely that moment that marks the end of the old way and the beginning of the new. That is what happened for divestment last week in Pittsburgh.

At the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (PC[USA]), the US Campaign and member groups Jewish Voice for Peace, the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee, and the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice rallied to support the Israel Palestine Mission Network, also a member group, in its efforts to pass a resolution to divest from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and Hewlett Packard to protest the companies’ profiting from the Israeli occupation. The effort also included a proposal to boycott settlement products Ahava Beauty Products and Hadiklaim Israel Date Growers.

Click here to read the full account on what happened and what it means.

The roller coaster week began with an historic victory in the Middle East and Peacemaking Issues Committee considering both divestment and boycott. The committee voted overwhelmingly — by a more than 3:1 margin — to recommend both measures to the GA.

The decision followed a series of moving testimonies [click for example] from Palestinians (including Palestinian Presbyterians), other Presbyterians, Jews, and others, followed by many hours of heartfelt discussion about what it meant to stand with the oppressed, to withstand bullying, and to vote according to one’s conscience rather than what others might think.

On boycott, the committee decided that boycotting only Ahava and Hadiklaim wasn’t enough. Theyamended the overture to include boycott of “all Israeli products coming from the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” and calling on “all nations to prohibit the import of products made by enterprises in Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.” The overture passed in plenary by 71%.

This is a major victory. The GA has also called for the suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel. These are the “B” and the “S” in BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions).

The boycott victory was bittersweet. I was among hundreds on the plenary floor who let out a collective gasp when a vote to substitute divestment with investment won 333 to 331. Divestment was ruled out by just one vote (a tie would have gone to considering the divestment option). One woman announced that she had accidentally voted against divestment, but by then it was too late.

Click here to read the full account on what happened in Pittsburgh.

The commissioners casting the crucial vote were split. For years, support for divestment had represented a small, albeit important, minority of the church. That day, discussion on divestment reached the end of the pendulum swing: 50/50. There’s only one way it can — and will — go now forward, towards divestment and justice.

While the commissioners were split, the majority of advisory delegates — who advise the commissioners but don’t have an official vote — voted against substituting divestment with investment. Crucially, they included the Young Adult Advisory Delegates, representing the future of the church. In addition, virtually all staff and leadership within the church have come out in support for divestment.

It can be said that the commissioners were split but the Church representation overall is for divestment.

Throughout the deliberations, it was crystal clear that the discourse has shifted. Nearly unanimous condemnation of the occupation and widespread opposition to U.S. institutional support for it has entered the highest levels of mainstream institutions. Nobody tried to defend the occupation, but only debated what should be done about it.

Ultimately the Church faced the crucial decision of whether it should listen to the voices of the oppressed (calling for divestment), or decide for themselves what is best for Palestinians (i.e. investment)? Palestinian civil society, including Christians of all denominations, is asking for divestment. In the words of Palestinian businessman Sam Bahour,

“we Palestinians don’t want a more beautiful prison to live in. We want the prison walls to come down, and that won’t happen unless pressure is placed on Israel to end the occupation.” [Click to read in full.]

The PC(USA) vote, like the United Methodist vote two months ago, garnered the attention of world, including U.S. mainstream media, showing that the BDS movement can no longer be ignored. In light of this and the recent stream of victories for divestment by major U.S. institutions, and the extraordinary success of BDS worldwide, it is clear that those defending Israel’s actions are fighting a losing battle. The pendulum is beginning to reverse and will continue to gather momentum as it swings towards justice.

The US Campaign will be there every step of the way, pushing that pendulum to keep swinging in the right direction.

By Anna Baltzer

13 July, 2012

Countercurrents.org

Anna Baltzer is national organizer for US campaign to end the Israeli occupation

Please take these actions:

1. Read the full account of what happened in Pittsburgh.

2. Watch a video from Palestinian Christians to the PC(USA) commissioners.

3. Read a global BDS wrap-up of the last two years!

4. Register for the National Organizers Conference!

It was a scene that riveted the world for weeks: The ailing Yasser Arafat, first besieged by Israeli tanks in his Ramallah compound, then shuttled to Paris, where he spent his final days undergoing a barrage of medical tests in a French military hospital.

Eight years after his death, it remains a mystery exactly what killed the longtime Palestinian leader. Tests conducted in Paris found no obvious traces of poison in Arafat’s system. Rumors abound about what might have killed him – cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, even allegations that he was infected with HIV.

A nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera has revealed that none of those rumors were true: Arafat was in good health until he suddenly fell ill on October 12, 2004.

More importantly, tests reveal that Arafat’s final personal belongings – his clothes, his toothbrush, even his iconic kaffiyeh – contained abnormal levels of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element. Those personal effects, which were analyzed at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, were variously stained with Arafat’s blood, sweat, saliva and urine. The tests carried out on those samples suggested that there was a high level of polonium inside his body when he died.

“I can confirm to you that we measured an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium-210 in the belongings of Mr. Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids,” said Dr. Francois Bochud, the director of the institute.

The findings have led Suha Arafat, his widow, to ask the Palestinian Authority to exhume her late husband’s body from its grave in Ramallah. If tests show that Arafat’s bones contain high levels of polonium, it would be more conclusive proof that he was poisoned, doctors say.

“I know the Palestinian Authority has been trying to discover what Yasser died from,” Suha Arafat said in an interview. “And now we are helping them. We have very substantial, very important results.”

Unsupported polonium

The institute studied Arafat’s personal effects, which his widow provided to Al Jazeera, the first time they had been examined by a laboratory. Doctors did not find any traces of common heavy metals or conventional poisons, so they turned their attention to more obscure elements, including polonium.

It is a highly radioactive element used, among other things, to power spacecraft. Marie Curie discovered it in 1898, and her daughter Irene was among the first people it killed: She died of leukemia several years after an accidental polonium exposure in her laboratory.

At least two people connected with Israel’s nuclear program also reportedly died after exposure to the element, according to the limited literature on the subject.

But polonium’s most famous victim was Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian spy-turned-dissident who died in London in 2006 after a lingering illness. A British inquiry found that he was poisoned with polonium slipped into his tea at a sushi restaurant.

There is little scientific consensus about the symptoms of polonium poisoning, mostly because there are so few recorded cases. Litvinenko suffered severe diarrhea, weight loss, and vomiting, all of which were symptoms Arafat exhibited in the days and weeks after he initially fell ill.

Animal studies have found similar symptoms, which lingered for weeks – depending on the dosage – until the subject died. “The primary radiation target… is the gastrointestinal tract,” said an American study conducted in 1991, “activating the ‘vomiting centre’ in the brainstem.”

Scientists in Lausanne found elevated levels of the element on Arafat’s belongings – in some cases, they were ten times higher than those on control subjects, random samples which were tested for comparison.

The lab’s results were reported in millibecquerels (mBq), a scientific unit used to measure radioactivity.

Polonium is present in the atmosphere, but the natural levels that accumulate on surfaces barely register, and the element disappears quickly. Polonium-210, the isotope found on Arafat’s belongings, has a half-life of 138 days, meaning that half of the substance decays roughly every four-and-a-half months. “Even in case of a poisoning similar to the Litvinenko case, only traces of the order of a few [millibecquerels] were expected to be found in [the] year 2012,” the institute noted in its report to Al Jazeera.

But Arafat’s personal effects, particularly those with bodily fluids on them, registered much higher levels of the element. His toothbrushes had polonium levels of 54mBq; the urine stain on his underwear, 180mBq. (Another man’s pair of underwear, used as a control, measured just 6.7mBq.)

Further tests, conducted over a three-month period from March until June, concluded that most of that polonium – between 60 and 80 per cent, depending on the sample – was “unsupported,” meaning that it did not come from natural sources.

‘It was a crime’

Doctors in Lausanne, and elsewhere, also ruled out a range of other possible causes for Arafat’s death, based on his original medical file, which Ms. Arafat also provided to Al Jazeera. Their examination ruled out many of the other causes of death that have been rumored over the last eight years.

“There was not liver cirrhosis, apparently no traces of cancer, no leukemia,” said Dr. Patrice Mangin, the head of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Lausanne University. “Concerning HIV, AIDS – there was no sign, and the symptomology was not suggesting these things.”

Dr. Tawfik Shaaban, a Tunisian specialist in HIV and one of the doctors who examined Arafat in his Ramallah compound, confirmed that there were no signs of the disease.

Their conclusions, of course, were based on documentation rather than firsthand examination. Doctors in Lausanne had hoped to study the blood and urine samples taken from Arafat while he was at Percy Military Hospital in France. But when she requested access, the hospital told his widow that those samples had been destroyed.

“I was not satisfied with that answer,” Ms. Arafat said. “Usually a very important person, like Yasser, they would keep traces – maybe they don’t want to be involved in it?”

Several of the doctors who treated Arafat said that they were not allowed to discuss his case – even with Ms. Arafat’s permission – because it was considered a “military secret.” And most of his onetime doctors in Cairo and Tunis refused requests for interviews as well.

With those avenues of inquiry closed, Arafat’s body itself would be the last remaining source of conclusive evidence. Exhuming it would require approval from the Palestinian Authority; shipping bone samples outside of the West Bank would require permission from the Israeli government.

Whatever the outcome, Ms. Arafat said she hopes further tests would “remove a lot of doubt” about her husband’s still-mysterious death.

“We got into this very, very painful conclusion, but at least this removes this great burden on me, on my chest,” she said. “At least I’ve done something to explain to the Palestinian people, to the Arab and Muslim generation all over the world, that it was not a natural death, it was a crime.”

A conclusive finding that Arafat was poisoned with polonium would not, of course, explain who killed him. It is a difficult element to produce, though – it requires a nuclear reactor – and the signature of the polonium in Arafat’s bones could provide some insight about its origin.

About the institute

The study of Arafat’s medical file and belongings was carried out at the University Hospital Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The university’s Centre of Legal Medicine is considered one of the best forensic pathology labs in the world.

It has studied evidence for the United Nations in East Timor and the International Criminal Court in the former Yugoslavia, and it investigated the death of Princess Diana, among other well-known personalities.

By Al Jazeera

4 July, 2012

@ Al Jazeera

US President Barack Obama has signed a secretive order authorizing US financial and military support for Syrian rebel forces, effectively taking sides in what many observers say has become a full blown civil war between the opposition forces such as the Free Syria Army and the ruling government of President Bassar al-Assad and its military.

According to Reuters, Obama’s order — known as an “intelligence finding” — was “approved earlier this year” and gives the CIA and other US agencies broad permissions to provide tactical support and funnel equipment to these opposition forces. The full extent of clandestine support that US agencies might be providing remains unclear.

Though the order stops short of authorizing the arming of rebels directly, it was noted that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey — all US allies in the region and beneficiaries of large US arms deals — are coordinating closely with US operatives and the Syrian opposition forces.

The news will not be received well by those calling for a diplomatic solution in Syria or those who caution against further US military intervention in the region.

“Syria’s war is erupting in a region still seething in the aftermath of the U.S. war in Iraq and the sectarian legacies it left behind,” says Phyllis Bennis, a director at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. “The fighting is also now taking on an increasingly sectarian form – and the danger is rising of Syria becoming the center of an expanded regional war pitting Sunni regimes in Saudi Arabia and Qatar against Shi’a-dominated governments in Iran and Iraq.”

US government officials also confirmed to CNN the signing of the order, but it remains unclear exactly when it was signed. The authority granted offers financial assistance, tactical advisers, and non-lethal military equipment such as satellites radios and other communication equipment.

One government source acknowledged to Reuters “that under provisions of the presidential finding, the United States was collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies.”

Also on Wednesday, in signs of the overt support the US government is offering the Syrian rebels, the Treasury Department confirmed it has granted authorization to the Syrian Support Group, a Washington-based representative of the Free Syrian Army, to conduct financial transactions on the group’s behalf. That authorization was first reported last week by Al-Monitor, a Middle East news and commentary website.

In addition, the US State Department has set aside $25 million for non-military assistance and $64 million for humanitarian aid, including contributions to the World Food Program, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other aid agencies.

Reuters concludes their reporting by saying that although US and allied government experts argue that the Syrian rebels have been “making some progress against Assad’s forces lately, most believe the conflict is nowhere near resolution, and could go on for years.”

Bennis, meanwhile, argues that only through diplomacy can this war be ended. “Accountability for war crimes, whether in national or international jurisdictions, is crucial – but stopping the current escalation of war must come first,” she said.

By Common Dreams

02 August, 2012

@ CommonDreams .org

Obama authorizes secret support for Syrian rebels

Wed, Aug 1 2012 – Reuters

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said.

So, did the White House leak this patriotically, or did a whistleblower who thought we should know what crimes our dollars and names are involved in leak it treasonously? It matters, because we have to know whether to cheer or prosecute, don’t we?

Obama’s order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence “finding,” broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad’s armed opponents – a shift that intensified following last month’s failure of the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the Damascus government.

The development of something done secretly earlier this year or the leaking of it? If the latter, then apparently this is one of the GOOD leaks we are supposed to cheer for. Why is it that Republicans always lie and threaten and bribe to get UN (and Congressional) support, while Democrats simply act in violation of the UN (and Congress) as they see fit, and we think of this as higher standards? Of course, Reagan had to be secretive about Nicaragua, but Obama’s above that. He acts, calls it secretive, then announces it as a fait accompli.

The White House is for now apparently stopping short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some U.S. allies do just that.

But U.S. and European officials have said that there have been noticeable improvements in the coherence and effectiveness of Syrian rebel groups in the past few weeks. That represents a significant change in assessments of the rebels by Western officials, who previously characterized Assad’s opponents as a disorganized, almost chaotic, rabble.

Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined.

The full extent of clandestine support that agencies like the CIA might be providing also is unclear.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined comment.

Ssshhh! Don’t tell anybody!

Here are the details:

‘NERVE CENTER’

A U.S. government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the United States was collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies.

Last week, Reuters reported that, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey had established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad’s opponents.

This “nerve center” is in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 60 miles from the Syrian border, which is also home to Incirlik, a U.S. air base where U.S. military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence.

Turkey’s moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad’s departure with growing vehemence. Turkish authorities are said by current and former U.S. government officials to be increasingly involved in providing Syrian rebels with training and possibly equipment.

European government sources said wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing significant financing to the rebels. Senior officials of the Saudi and Qatari governments have publicly called for Assad’s departure.

Well that’s a relief. At least they’re killing for democracy and freedom! And there’s virtually no chance of involving Iran or Israel or Russia or the United States in a major conflict.

On Tuesday, NBC News reported that the Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles, weapons that could be used against Assad’s helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Syrian government armed forces have employed such air power more extensively in recent days.

NBC said the shoulder-fired missiles, also known as MANPADs, had been delivered to the rebels via Turkey.

On Wednesday, however, Bassam al-Dada, a political adviser to the Free Syrian Army, denied the NBC report, telling the Arabic-language TV network Al-Arabiya that the group had “not obtained any such weapons at all.” U.S. government sources said they could not confirm the MANPADs deliveries, but could not rule them out either.

Current and former U.S. and European officials previously said that weapons supplies, which were being organized and financed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, were largely limited to guns and a limited number of anti-tank weapons, such as bazookas.

Indications are that U.S. agencies have not been involved in providing weapons to Assad’s opponents. In order to do so, Obama would have to approve a supplement, known as a “memorandum of notification, to his initial broad intelligence finding.

Because we have checks and balances, proper controls, the rule of law, and . . . Wait a minute. What if six months from now we’re told that he did approve a memorandum of notification and we weren’t notified?

Further such memoranda would have to be signed by Obama to authorize other specific clandestine operations to support Syrian rebels.

Reuters first reported last week that the White House had crafted a directive authorizing greater U.S. covert assistance to Syrian rebels. It was unclear at that time whether Obama had signed it.

OVERT SUPPORT

Separately from the president’s secret order, the Obama administration has stated publicly that it is providing some backing for Assad’s opponents.

Oh, well that’s a relief. It does sound more important and unquestionable when announced as secretive though, doesn’t it?

The State Department said on Wednesday the U.S. government had set aside a total of $25 million for “non-lethal” assistance to the Syrian opposition. A U.S. official said that was mostly for communications equipment, including encrypted radios.

The State Department also says the United States has set aside $64 million in humanitarian assistance for the Syrian people, including contributions to the World Food Program, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other aid agencies.

Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury confirmed it had granted authorization to the Syrian Support Group, Washington representative of one of the most active rebel factions, the Free Syrian Army, to conduct financial transactions on the rebel group’s behalf. The authorization was first reported on Friday by Al-Monitor, a Middle East news and commentary website.

Well, this is all OK. It’s not as if giving money to people fighting a war and desiring weapons could help them get weapons.

Last year, when rebels began organizing themselves to challenge the rule of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Obama also signed an initial “finding” broadly authorizing secret U.S. backing for them. But the president moved cautiously in authorizing specific measures to support them.

Well, I for one am glad he was cautious. Considering how many were killed and are still being killed in the disaster known as Libya, just imagine if our leader had not been so cautious!

Some U.S. lawmakers, such as Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have criticized Obama for moving too slowly to assist the rebels and have suggested the U.S. government become directly involved in arming Assad’s opponents.

Other lawmakers have suggested caution, saying too little is known about the many rebel groups.

Recent news reports from the region have suggested that the influence and numbers of Islamist militants, some of them connected to al Qaeda or its affiliates, have been growing among Assad’s opponents.

U.S. and European officials say that, so far, intelligence agencies do not believe the militants’ role in the anti-Assad opposition is dominant.

Actually, they don’t even hold a 49% stake, so this is not an al Qaeda operation at all!

While U.S. and allied government experts believe that the Syrian rebels have been making some progress against Assad’s forces lately, most believe the conflict is nowhere near resolution, and could go on for years.

Not a problem. We’re patient. Carry on. No hurry! How’s Afghanistan going?

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Warren Strobel and Peter Cooney)

By David Swanson

01 August, 2012

@ Warisacrime.org

David Swanson’s books include ” War Is A Lie .” He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org . He hosts Talk Nation Radio . Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook .

“As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan.” Former Nato Commander General Wesley Clark

“Let me say to the soldiers and officials still supporting the Syrian regime — the Syrian people will remember the choices you make in the coming days….” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Friends of Syria conference in Paris’ July 7, 2012

( Russian warships enter the Med, bound for Syria – timesofmalta.com, July 24, 2012)

While confrontation between Russia and the West was, until recently, confined to the polite ambit of international diplomacy, within the confines of the UN Nations Security Council, an uncertain and perilous situation is now unfolding in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Allied forces including intelligence operatives and special forces have reinforced their presence on the ground in Syria following the UN stalemate. Meanwhile, coinciding with the UN Security Council deadlock, Moscow has dispatched to the Mediterranean a flotilla of ten Russian warships and escort vessels led by the Admiral Chabanenko anti-submarine destroyer. Russia’s flotilla is currently stationed off the Southern Syrian coastline.

Back in August of last year, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin warned that “NATO is planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad with a long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran,…” In relation to the current naval deployment, Russia’s navy chief, Vice Admiral Viktor Chirkov, confirmed, however, that while the [Russian] flotilla was carrying marines, the warships would “not be engaged in Syria Tasks”. “The ships will perform “planned military manoeuvres”, said the [Russian Defense] ministry”

The US-NATO alliance has retorted to Russia’s naval initiative, with a much larger naval deployment, a formidable Western armada, consisting of British, French and American warships, slated to be deployed later this Summer in the Eastern Mediterranean, leading to a potential “Cold War style confrontation” between Russian and Western naval forces.

Meanwhile, US-NATO military planners have announced that various “military options” and “intervention scenarios” are being contemplated in the wake of the Russian-Chinese veto in the UN Security Council.

The planned naval deployment is coordinated with allied ground operations in support of the US-NATO sponsored “Free Syrian Army”(FSA). In this regard, US-NATO has speeded up the recruitment of foreign fighters trained in Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

France and Britain will be participating later this Summer in war games codenamed Exercise Cougar 12 [2012]. The games will be conducted in the Eastern Mediterranean as part of a Franco-British “Response Force Task Group” involving Britain’s HMS Bulwark and France’s Charles De Gaulle carrier battle group. The focus of these naval exercises will be on amphibious operations involving the (planned simulated) landing ashore of troops on “enemy territory”.

Smokescreen: The Proposed Evacuation of Western Nationals “Using a Humanitarian Naval Fleet of WMDs”

Barely mentioned by the mainstream media, the warships involved in the Cougar 12 naval exercise will also participate in the planned evacuation of “British nationals from the Middle East, should the ongoing conflict in Syria further spill across borders into neighboring Lebanon and Jordan.”:

The British would likely send the HMS Illustrious, a helicopter carrier, along with the HMS Bulwark, an amphibious ship, as well as an advanced destroyer to provide defenses for the task force. On board will be several hundred Royal Marine commandos, as well as a complement of AH-64 attack helicopters (the same ones used in Libya last year). A fleet of French ships, including the Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier, carrying a complement of Rafale fighter aircraft, are expected to join them.

Those forces are expected stay offshore and could escort specially chartered civilian ships meant to pick up foreign nationals fleeing Syria and surrounding countries. (ibtimes.com, 24 July 2012).

Sources in the British Ministry of Defense, while confirming the Royal Navy’s “humanitarian mandate” in the planned evacuation program, have categorically denied “any intention of a combat role for British forces [against Syria]”.

The evacuation plan using the most advanced military hardware including the HMS Bulwark, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier is an obvious smokescreen. The not so hidden agenda is military threat and intimidation directed against a sovereign nation located in the historical cradle of civilization in Mespotamia:

“The Charles De Gaulle alone is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with an entire squadron of jets more advanced than anything the Syrians have — is sparking speculation that those forces could become involved in a NATO operation against Syrian forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad…

The HMS Illustrious, which is currently sitting on the Thames in central London, will likely only be sent to the region after the end of the Olympics.” (Ibid)

This impressive deployment of Franco-British naval power could also include the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier, which is to be sent back to the Middle East:

[On July 16, 2912], the Pentagon also confirmed that it would be redeploying the USS John C. Stennis, a nuclear-powered supercarrier capable of carrying 90 aircraft, to the Middle East… The Stennis would be arriving in the region with an advanced missile-launching cruiser, …. The carrier USS Eisenhower is already expected to be in the Middle East by that time (two carriers currently in the region are to be relieved and sent back to the U.S.).

Amid unpredictable situations in both Syria and Iran, that would have left U.S. forces stretched and overly burdened if a firm military response were needed in either circumstance. (Ibid, emphasis added)

The USS Stennis strike group is to be sent back to the Middle East “by an unspecified date in the late summer” to be deployed to the Central Command area of responsibility:

“The Defense Department said that the early deployment had come from a request made by Marine Corps General James N. Mattis, the commander for Central Command (the U.S. military authority area that covers the Middle East), partly out of concern that there would be a short period where only one carrier would be located in the region.” ((Strike group headed to Central Command early – Stripes Central – Stripes, July 16, 2012)

Marine Gen. James Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command, “asked to move up the strike group’s deployment based on “a range of factors,” and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta approved it”… (Ibid)

A Pentagon spokesman stated that the deployment shift of the USS Stennis strike group pertained to “a wide range of U.S. security interests in the region”. “We’re always mindful of the challenges posed by Iran. Let me be very clear: This is not a decision that is based solely on the challenges posed by Iran, … ” This is not about any one particular country or one particular threat.” intimating that Syria was also part of planned deployment. (Ibid, emphasis added)

“Intervention Scenarios”

This massive deployment of naval power is an act of coercion with a view to terrorizing the Syrian people. The threat of military intervention purports to destabilize Syria as a nation state as well as confront and weaken Russia’s role in brokering the Syrian crisis.

The UN diplomatic game is at an impasse. The UN Security Council is defunct. The transition is towards Twenty-first Century “Warship Diplomacy”.

While an all out allied military operation directed against Syria is not “officially” contemplated, military planners are currently involved in preparing various “intervention scenarios”:

‘Western political leaders may have no appetite for deeper intervention. But as history has shown, we do not always choose which wars to fight – sometimes wars choose us. ‘Military planners have a responsibility to prepare for intervention options in Syria for their political masters in case this conflict

chooses them. ‘Preparation will be proceeding today in several Western capitals and on the ground in Syria and in Turkey. ‘Up to the point of Assad’s collapse, we are most likely to see a continuation or intensification of the under-the-radar options of financial support, arming and advising the rebels, clandestine operations and perhaps cyber warfare from the West. ‘After any collapse, however, the military options will be seen in a different light.’ (Daily Mail, July 24, 2012, emphasis added)

Concluding Remarks

The World is at a dangerous crossroads.

The shape of this planned naval deployment in the Eastern Mediterranean with US-NATO warships contiguous to those of Russia is unprecedented in recent history.

History tells us that wars are often triggered unexpectedly as a result of “political mistakes” and human error. The latter are all the more likely within the realm of a divisive and corrupt political system in the US and Western Europe.

US-NATO military planning is overseen by a centralised military hierarchy. Command and Control operations are in theory “coordinated” but in practice they are often marked by human error. Intelligence operatives often function independently and outside the realm of political accountability.

Military planners are acutely aware of the dangers of escalation. Syria has significant air defense capabilities as well as ground forces. Syria has been building up its air defense system with the delivery of Russian Pantsir S1 air-defense missiles.

Any form of US-NATO direct military intervention against Syria would destabilize the entire region, potentially leading to escalation over a vast geographical area, extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with Tajikistan and China.

Military planning involves intricate scenarios and war games by both sides including military options pertaining to advanced weapons systems. A Third World War scenario has been contemplated by US-NATO-Israeli military planners since early 2000.

Escalation is an integral part of the military agenda. War preparations to attack Syria and Iran have been in “an advanced state of readiness” for several years.

We are dealing with complex political and strategic decision-making involving the interplay of powerful economic interest groups, the actions of covert intelligence operatives.

The role of war propaganda is paramount not only in moulding public opinion into accepting a war agenda, but also in establishing a consensus within the upper echelons of the decision-making process. A selective form of war propaganda intended for “Top Officials” (TOPOFF) in government agencies, intelligence, the Military, law enforcement, etc. is intended to create an unbending consensus in favor of War and the Police State.

For the war project to go ahead, it is essential that both politicians and military planners are rightfully committed to leading the war “in the name of justice and democracy”. For this to occur, they must firmly believe in their own propaganda, namely that war is “an instrument of peace and democracy”.

They have no concern for the devastating impacts of advanced weapons systems, routinely categorized as “collateral damage”, let alone the meaning and significance of pre-emptive warfare, using nuclear weapons.

Wars are invariably decided upon by civilian leaders and interest groups rather than by the military. War serves dominant economic interests which operate from behind the scenes, behind closed doors in corporate boardrooms, in the Washington think tanks, etc.

Realities are turned upside down. War is peace. The Lie becomes the Truth.

War propaganda, namely media lies, constitutes the most powerful instrument of warfare.

Without media disinformation, the US-NATO led war agenda would collapse like a deck of cards. The legitimacy of the war criminals in high office would be broken.

It is therefore essential to disarm not only the mainstream media but also a segment of the self proclaimed “progressive” alternative media, which has provided legitimacy to NATO’s “Responsibility to protect” (R2P) mandate, largely with a view to dismantling the antiwar movement.

The road to Tehran goes through Damascus. A US-NATO sponsored war on Iran would involve, as a first step, the destabilization of Syria as a nation state. Military planning pertaining to Syria is an integral part of the war on Iran agenda.

A war on Syria could evolve towards a US-NATO military campaign directed against Iran, in which Turkey and Israel would be directly involved.

It is crucial to spread the word and break the channels of media disinformation.

A critical and unbiased understanding of what is happening in Syria is of crucial importance in reversing the tide of military escalation towards a broader regional war.

Our objective is ultimately to dismantle the US-NATO-Israeli military arsenal and restore World Peace.

It is essential that people in the UK, France and the US prevent “the late Summer” naval WMD deployment to the Eastern Mediterraean from occurring.

It is essential that people in the UK, France and the US prevent “the late Summer” naval WMD deployment to the Eastern Mediterraean from occurring.

The British Ministry of Defense has announced that several British warships are required “to ensure the security” of the Olympic Games. HMS Bulwark is stationed in Weymouth Bay for the duration of the games. HMS Illustrious is “currently sitting on the Thames in central London”. The deployment of British

warships including HMS Bulwark and HMS Illustrious to the Middle East is envisaged “after” the Olympic Games.

By Michel Chossudovsky

02 August, 2012

@ Globalresearch.ca

Michel Chossudovsky is professor of economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa. Chossudovsky has been a visiting professor internationally, and has been an advisor to governments of developing countries. In 1999, Chossudovsky joined the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research as an adviser. Chossudovsky is a signatory of the Kuala Lumpur declaration to criminalize war. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005) and Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011). He is the President and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Editor of GlobalResearch.ca

Email: crgeditor@yahoo.com

There is much more to the conflict in Syria than meets the eye. Syria is currently the scene of a cold war between the US, NATO, Israel, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on one side and Russia, China, Iran, and the Resistance Bloc on the other hand. Amidst the fighting between the Syrian government and anti-government forces, an intense intelligence war has also been taking place.

Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the Bundes Nachrichtendienst (BND, Federal Intelligence Service), has been pointing its finger at Al-Qaeda for the bombings in Syria. This, however, has the effect of hiding and detracting the role that the intelligence services of the US and its allies have played. By crediting Al-Qaeda, the Bundes Nachrichtendienst is helping get Washington and its allies off the hook. Albeit Al-Qaeda is far more than just a US intelligence asset, the organization and label of Al-Qaeda is a catch-all term that is used to camouflage the operations of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other affiliated intelligence services.

Syrian intellectuals and scientists have also been reportedly assassinated in Damascus. Like in Iraq and Iran, it is probably the work of Israel’s Mossad and part of Tel Aviv’s policy of crippling scientific and technological advancement in enemy states. Informed sources in Washington have already clarified that Israel is helping the Free Syrian Army and actively participating in the intelligence war against Syria. An unnamed US official has confirmed to David Ignatius that both the CIA and Mossad are involved in Syria. [1] In his own words: “Scores of Israeli intelligence officers are also operating along Syria’s border, though they are keeping a low profile.” [2] A Qatari defector in Venezuela has also been reported to have divulged that the Qataris have been outsourced intelligence work against Syria by the CIA and Mossad.

The Bombing of the Syrian National Security Headquarters and its Crisis Unit in Damascus

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the bombing of the Syrian National Security Headquarters in the northwest Damascene neighbourhood of Al-Rawda on July 18, 2012. Very little is actually known about what happened exactly. Moreover, Syrian television and media did not show scenes of the explosion as people have become accustomed to. This may be due to the security-based nature of the bombing location.

Key members of Syria’s security and military command structure, Dawoud Rajiha, Assef Shawkat, and Hassan Turkmani, were all killed on July 18. Rajiha was the Syrian defence minister, deputy prime minister, and deputy commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces. Assef Shawkat was the Syrian deputy defence minister and the husband of Bashar Al-Assad’s older sister Bushra. Hassan Turkmani was the Syrian assistant vice-president, head of Syria’s crisis management operations, and the army general that was formerly minister of defence from 2004 to 2009. Hisham Ikhtiyar (Bakhtiar/Bakhtyar), the chief of the Syrian National Security Bureau, who was also hurt by the bombing, would also die from the injuries he sustained two days later on July 20. These men all formed what was called the Crisis Unit.

A moment should also be taken to note that the biographic background of these dead high-ranking Syrian officials disproves the allegations that the Syrian government is an Alawite regime. While Skawkat was an Alawite, Raijha was a Greek Orthodox Christian, Ikhtiyar a Sunni Muslim, and Turkmani was both an ethnic Turkoman and Sunni Muslim.

The Killing of Crisis Unit Members was executed by a Foreign Intelligence Service

Saudi sources have taken the opportunity to report that the Syrian officials were killed by Maher Al-Assad, the commander of the Syrian Republican Guard and President Al-Assad’s younger brother, because of a rift between them that saw the general’s supporting a political solution over a combative solution. [3] Pakistani sources, claiming to be receiving direct reports from the perpetrators of the July 18 bombing, contradicted the report by saying Maher Al-Assad was also a target and wounded during the attack. [4] The Pakistani source published the following:

“Everyone came in time, but Maher Al-Assad did not show up. Two men responsible for the mission waited for some time and pressed the remote control button as the dreaded general took his seat,” the [Syrian Free Army] source said.

“Our men filmed the video from a safe distance which would be made public at an appropriate time,” he revealed to this correspondent [that is, Naveed Ahmad]. One of the two daredevils was an employee of the government and worked in the very office the device was planted while the other was an outsider, according to the [Syrian Free Army] source.

[…]

The [Free Syrian Army] sources said Maher had brought his best friend Ghassan Bilal to the meeting as well. Maher al-Assad, who was never seen in the funeral of the key security aides assassinated in the attack, was in fact severely injured and according to a source de-capacitated. [5]

What the Pakistani source discloses is unreliable for several reasons. One of them is that the credibility of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) is extremely questionable. The Free Syrian Army has an undeniable track-record for shoddy propaganda and lying. Syria has also rejected claims about the Free Syrian Army’s involvement and the assertions that the bomb was remote-controlled. Lebanon’s Al-Manar, which is Hezbollah’s media network, has reported that there were two bombs and the first was actually dismantled by Assef Shawkat before the second one exploded.

This was actually the second attempt to kill this gathering of Syrian military, security, and intelligence officials. The out of control Free Syrian Army, whose reign of terror has seen brutal and senseless attacks on the civilian population and various acts of lawlessness and terrorism, had claimed on May 20 to have murdered these same Syrian officials earlier, as well as Interior Minister Mohammed Shaar and Baath Party leader Mohammad Saeed Bkheitan. [6] The claims of the Free Syrian Army turned out to be false the first time as the alleged assassinated Syrian officials appeared on television and denied the SFA’s claims. This time, however, there was no immediate credit taken and there was silence about the murders.

The Free Syrian Army was most probably bypassed by the US and its allies for this targeted attack. Instead of outsourcing the attack to the Free Syrian Army, the operation was probably directly conducted either by the intelligence agency of a NATO or GCC state or a consortium of intelligence agencies trying to topple the Syrian government.

A Damascene Operation Ajax

The attack on the Syrian National Security Headquarters in Al-Rawda was a carefully coordinated event that was synchronized with the assault on Damascus by the various armed groups operating under the umbrella and banner of the Free Syrian Army. It is clear that the US and its allies more or less used the same playbook of tactics in Damascus that were used in 2011 to topple the Jamahiriya government in Tripoli. Both are modern reincarnations of the infamous Operation Ajax, which was an intelligence operation launched in 1953 by the US and British governments to topple the democratic government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossageh in Iran. Washington and London installed a brutal and repressive dictatorship under Mohammed-Reza Shah in place of Dr. Mossadegh’s government and Iran was transformed from a constitutional monarchy into a de facto absolute monarchy.

The aim of the attack on high-ranking Syrian officials, especially important figures from the military and security apparatus that has been the backbone of the Syrian regime, was two-pronged. The attack’s aim was to cripple Syria’s command structure with the objective of disorganizing resistance to anti-government forces and creating internal panic within the hierarchy of the Syrian government and military. This psychological blow was supposed to lead to fear, defections, and betrayal as anti-government forces attacked the gates of the Syrian capital.

The mainstream media, in terms of what scholar Edward Said called “image making” experts, also played a supportive role in the US-sponsored siege of Damascus. [7] Securing a monopoly over information and air waves has also been a part of the intelligence war and a goal of the US and its allies. This is why the signals of Syrian broadcasters have been banned from the Arab Satellite Communications Organization (Arabsat) and Nilesat satellite feeds. This is aimed at preventing Syria from countering the claims of the US and its allies and proxies. By the same token the US and the EU are also trying to cut and block Iranian stations, which are challenging the accounts of the mainstream media in NATO and GCC states. This is also the reason why the US and British media very decidedly condemned the Iranian, Russian, and Chinese medias in their news coverage of the Syrian crisis, which challenge the tide of misinformation from the declining networks of CNN, Fox News, France 24, and Al Jazeera. [8]

Like the original Operation Ajax in 1953, in which the state-run British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) took part, the mainstream media broadcasts from NATO and GCC states have been synchronized to shape the events on the ground. The media war intensified when the anti-government forces launched their attack of Damascus. The aim was to fuel panic and fear with the hope of getting the Syrian government and the Syrian military to scatter and lose hope instead of facing the anti-government forces. The ultimate objectives are to demoralize the Syrian population and to weaken the Syrian government’s domestic support.

The media outlets of NATO and GCC states insinuated that President Assad and his family fled Damascus to Latakia and would seek asylum in the Russian Federation. [9] Again, the aims were to cause panic and both the governments in Syria and Russia rejected the false claims. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Assad was “not even thinking about” fleeing to Russia. [10] This was a repeat of British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s 2011 lie that Muammar Qaddafi had fled from Libya to Venezuela. [11] This behaviour also falls into line with British Prime Minister David Cameron’s false claim that Vladimir Putin had told him that President Assad had to step down. [12]

A New Saudi Intelligence Boss: Return of Prince “Bandar Bush”

Shortly after the bombing of the Syrian National Security Headquarters, a July 19 royal decree was enacted in Riyadh to replace Prince Muqrin (Mogren) bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud with Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al-Saud as the director-general of the external intelligence agency of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Al-Istikhbarat Al-Amah (General Intelligence).

Since 2005, Prince Bandar has been the secretary-general of the Saudi Arabian National Security Council, but his new appointment has made heads turn and is being used to infer that Saudi Arabia has a far more aggressive foreign policy. What the appointment reflects is that Saudi Arabia is fully in the service of the US in its intelligence wars against Syria and Iran and that Washington’s men in Riyadh have a firm grip over Saudi Arabia’s intelligence, security, and military apparatus. In the words of the Saudi pundit Jamal Khashoggi and the chief of the Bahrain-based Al-Arab network: “Bandar is quite aggressive, not at all like a typical cautious Saudi diplomat. If the aim is to bring Bashar down quick and fast, he will have a free hand to do what he thinks necessary.” [13]

Prince Bandar, the son of the deceased Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, has been one of the central figures in creating Al-Qaeda and manipulating militant groups as geo-political tools for Washington since the Cold War. He was the Saudi ambassador to the US from 1983 to 2005. He has been a key figure in the intelligence war in Lebanon against Hezbollah and its allies and involved in exporting Fatah Al-Islam to Lebanon in an attempt to help the Hariri family fight Hezbollah and the March 8 Alliance.

Because he was the Saudi ambassador to Washington, he became the key figure in Saudi-US relations and developed close ties to the Bush family, which earned him the name “Bandar Bush.” It has been reported that the relationship was so close that the US Secret Service was part of his security detail. Moreover, he has had a long history with Robert Gates, starting from when Gates was a member of the CIA and helping mobilize fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviets. [14]

In 2009, Bandar may have attempted to launch a silent coup in Saudi Arabia to impose his father, Crown Prince Sultan, as the new absolute monarch of Saudi Arabia. He was not seen for several years and may have been in some form of confinement. Things changed, however, in 2011 with the Arab Spring; Prince Bandar, Washington’s man, was seen in public again.

Bandar may also be a key figure in Saudi negotiations with Pakistan to purchase nuclear bombs. [15] United Press International writes:

“As Iran becomes more dangerous and the United States becomes more reluctant to engage in military missions overseas, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia may find that renewed military and nuclear cooperation is the best way to secure their interests,” observed Christopher Clary and Mara E. Karlin, former [Pentagon] policy advisers on South Asia and the Middle East. [16]

The picture that UPI depicts actually is misleading. If anyone is pushing the Saudis to acquire nuclear weapons, it is Washington. The US has also been heavily arming the Saudi regime and the GCC for the same reasons. One dimension of the US strategy is clear: Washington aims to create multiple and ongoing contained conflicts in the Middle East to bleed the region and keep it immobilized. Like the Israelis, the US wants perpetual civil war in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and even Turkey. By being duped into burning its bridges with Syria, the Turkish government has laid the foundations for the destabilization of the Turkish republic.

A Tale of Two Security Headquarters

Days after the appointment of Prince Bandar and the attack of the Syrian Crisis Unit an attack on General Intelligence’s Headquarters in Riyadh was reported by Yemen’s Al-Fajr Press and then widely quoted by the Iranian media. The blast is reported to have killed Banadar’s number two man, the deputy director-general of Saudi external intelligence, while he was entering the building. Rumours are also circulating that Bandar may have been hurt or killed. Saudi Arabia has remained silent over the issue.

The blast in Riyadh is no mere coincidence. It is a retaliatory response to the blast in the Syrian National Security Headquarters. The chances that the Syrians executed the operation while all their energies are being spent on fighting against the US-directed siege on their country are marginal, but still possible. This is speculation, but it is most likely that one of Syria’s friends and allies retaliated against the Saudis for their involvement in the attack on the Crisis Unit in Damascus.

A remote-controlled bomb was also discovered in front of a Yemenese Intelligence building in Aden on July 22, 2012. [17] The event came shortly after a Yemenese intelligence officer died after a targeted attack in the province of Bayda. [18] What this means is a matter of speculation, but what is clear is that the intelligence apparatus of Arab states are being targeted. There is a full-out intelligence war in the Middle East and there are probably cross-cutting alliances.

The Bush Jr. Administration’s “Redirection” Policy is Manifest under Obama

In Yemen, the national military has successfully been fractured and divided, which is exactly what Washington, DC and its NATO and GCC allies want to replicate in Syria. Regime change is not their only goal, the destruction and balkanization of the Syrian Arab Republic is. They want sectarianism and balkanization to take root in Syria and across the Middle East. To paraphrase, when the so-called spiritual leaders of the Syrian Free Army and anti-government forces begin saying that “Israel and the Sunnis are allies against the Shias” or that “all Alawites must be exterminated,” it is clear that the end goal is to regionally divide and conquer the peoples of the Middle East by pitting them against one another.

This is part of the Middle East policy that the Bush Jr. White House called the “redirection” in 2007: “The ‘redirection,’ as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.” [19] Robert Gates, Bandar’s old comrade, was brought into the Pentagon to oversee this “redirection” and retained by Barak Obama, who’s “A New Beginning” Speech in Cairo is an extension of this policy. The New Yorker is worth quoting about what the “redirection” policy began to implement: “[Washington] has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.” [20]

Regardless of the political position that one takes about President Assad and his government, what has to be emphasized is that the governments of the US, UK, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are not involving themselves under the cover of the so-called “international community” on the basis of concern for the Syrian people and their well being. Because of them the words “protester” and “activist” have been hijacked by anti-government militias and foreign intelligence services. Humanitarianism and human rights are not the motive for US involvement. This is a fairy-tale for the naïve. Geo-political opportunism is at play and all the parties involved have blood on their hands at the expense of the Syrian people.

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

01 August, 2012

@GlobalResearch.ca

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is an award-winning author and geopolitical analyst. He is the author of The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press) and a forthcoming book The War on Libya and the Re-Colonization of Africa. He has also contributed to several other books ranging from cultural critique to international relations. He is a Sociologist and Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), a contributor at the Strategic Cultural Foundation (SCF), Moscow, and a member of the Scientific Committee of Geopolitica, Italy. He has also addressed the Middle East and international relations issues on several TV news networks including Al Jazeera, teleSUR, and Russia Today. His writings have been translated into more than twenty languages. In 2011 he was awarded the First National Prize of the Mexican Press Club for his work in international investigative journalism.

NOTES

1. David Ignatius, “Looking for a Syrian endgame,” The Washington Post, July 18, 2012.

2. Ibid.

3. Ali Bluwi, “Role of Russia and Iran in Syrian crisis,” Arab News, July 28, 2012.

4. Naveed Ahmad, “Failing Damascus, Aleppo campaigns expose lack of military expertise,” The News, July 27, 212.

5. Ibid.

6. “Syria: Damascus clashes prompt claims of high-level assassinations – Sunday 20 May,” The Guardian, May 20, 2012.

7. Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 25th anniversary ed. (NYC: Vintage Books, 1979), p.307.

8. “Chinese, Iranian press alone back UN Syria veto,” British Broadcasting Corporation News, February 6, 2012; Robert Mackey, “Crisis in Syria Looks Very Different on Satellite Channels Owned by Russia and Iran,” The Lede (The New York Times), February 10, 2012.

9. Damien McElroy, “Syria: Bashar al-Assad ‘flees to Latakia,’” The Daily Telegraph, July 19, 2012; Khaled Yacoub Owei,” Syrian President Assad in Latakia: opposition sources,” eds. Samia Nakhoul and Diana Abdallah, Reuters, July 19, 2012; Loveday Morris, “Hunt for Assad is on amid claims of wife Asma’s exit to Russia,” The Independent, July 20, 2012.

10. “Russia says ‘not thinking about’ asylum for Assad,” Reuters, July 28, 2012.

11. “Hague: some information Gaddafi on way to Venezuela,” Reuters, February 21, 2011.

12. “Putin no longer backs Syria’s Assad – Cameron,” Reuters, June 19, 2012; “Lavrov Denies Russia ‘Changed Stance’ on Syria,” Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), June 21, 2012.

Copyright © 2005-2011 GlobalResearch.ca

13. Angus McDowall, “Saudi Prince Bandar: a flamboyant, hawkish spy chief,” ed. Mark Heinrich, Reuters, July 20, 2012.

14. In fact, one of the reasons that Robert Gates, who was the defence secretary of the Bush Jr. Administration, was kept by the Obama Administration is tied to Washington’s objectives to remobilize the militant brigades against Arab societies.

15. “Saudis ‘mull buying nukes from Pakistan,’” United Press International, July 25, 2012.

16. Ibid.

17. Mohammed Mukhashaf and Rania El Gamal, “Yemen defuses bomb at Aden intelligence building,” ed. Tim Pearce, Reuters, July 23, 2012.

18. “Yemen intelligence officer shot dead: ministry,” Agence France-Presse, July 21, 2012.

19. Seymour Hersh, “The Redirection,” The New Yorker, vol. 83, no. 2 (March 5, 2007): p.54.

20. Ibid.

‘The challenge is not how the state can regulate the market, but how society can regulate both the state and the market.’- A response to Prof Joseph Stiglitz

Your Excellency, Mr. President; the Chair, the Honorable Minister of Finance; the Honorable Governor of the Bank of Uganda and the Honorable Deputy Governor, Bank of Uganda,

I assume that the Bank of Uganda has asked me to be a discussant hoping I would raise questions they do not feel comfortable raising. I will take a cue from them and ask Professor Stiglitz questions hoping he will give responses that I do not quite feel comfortable giving.

I shall focus on four issues and I will ask four questions. The first concerns the Clinton years. The second is about Professor Stiglitz’s definition of the problem, as one of “market failure.” The third question focuses on the contemporary global crisis; I call for a more comprehensive definition of the crisis, from the point of view of society and not just the state and market binary that frames Professor Stiglitz’s discourse. Finally, I ask that Professor Stiglitz situate our own crisis – the crisis of Uganda and East Africa – within an expanded frame.

1. THE CLINTON YEARS

Deregulation of the financial system in the US began with the Clinton administration’s repeal of key sections of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. That Act had separated commercial and investment banking since the Great Depression era. The repeal of that Act was key to the deregulation of derivatives. In 2008, Clinton denied responsibility for refusing to regulate derivatives. He changed his mind in 2010, then blaming his advisors, among whom were Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and the Chair of his Council of Economic Advisors, Joe Stiglitz. Larry Summers went on to become President of Harvard University. Joseph Stiglitz went on to be Chief economist of the World Bank and then professor at Columbia University. Summers showed little remorse for his role in the deregulation era. Joe Stiglitz, in contrast, became the best known critic of deregulation.

My first question is not new. Academic reviewers of Stiglitz have often wondered when he saw the light: did Professor Stiglitz oppose deregulation at the time or change his mind when its consequences became clear? Should we understand his critique of deregulation as foresight or hindsight, foresight in 1996 or hindsight after his time as Clinton’s senior policy advisor?

Professor Stiglitz addressed this issue in a book he wrote on the Clinton era, a book titled ‘The Roaring Nineties: A New History of the World’s Most Prosperous Decade’. The question I am interested in was posed by an academic reviewer of the book, Robert Pollin of Department of Economics at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Let me quote Professor Polin:

“… at what point did Stiglitz, in his role as a senior Clinton policy advisor, become convinced of the severe damage that would result from deregulation? … As one important example, the general tenor of the 1996 Economic Report of the President, written under Stiglit’s supervision as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, is unmistakably in support of lowering regulatory standards, including in telecommunications and electricity. This Report even singles out for favourable mention the deregulation of the electric power industry in California — that is, the measure that, by the summer of 2002, brought California to the brink of economic disaster, in the wake of still more Enron-guided machinations.”

Why is the question important? Like the rest of us, Professor Stiglitz has a right to change his mind. The point of asking him this question is to have some information about how his thinking has evolved on this subject. As the reviewer asked: “Was there a moment of epiphany, like Saul of Tarsus falling off his mule? How many possible disaster scenarios did he really anticipate, and how much has he realized only more recently, after observing and ruminating with hindsight?” Did the crisis authored by the Clinton administration of which he was a leading member just confirm his intuition or did it also teach him something new? The answer to this question would tell us something about his intellectual journey. That would allow us to pose a more contemporary question: Should not the present global crisis lead Professor Stiglitz to develop his thought further? My point is that this question is not just one that should interest Professor Stiglitz’s biographer; it is of theoretical significance. Let me explain in terms that a lay person can understand, which will also allow me to pose my second question.

II. WHY CALL IT MARKET FAILURE?

Professor Stiglitz’s theoretical work is on the economics of information. Traditional economics, both classical and neoclassical, has been dominated by two related assumptions. The first is what Adam Smith called ― the invisible hand, the assumption that free competition leads to an efficient allocation of resources. The second is a related assumption in welfare economics, that issues of distribution should be viewed as completely separate from issues of efficiency. It is this methodological “separation” between growth and distribution which allows economists to push for reforms which increase efficiency, regardless of their impact on income distribution. It is the methodological basis of what we know as the “trickle down” school in economics. Professor Stiglitz’s great contribution has been to challenge both these assumptions. As he has shown, asymmetric information is a pervasive feature of how real-world markets operate. The free market is an ideological myth. In the real world, imperfect information makes for imperfect markets.

For Stiglitz, this means that governments need to strongly and effectively regulate what goes on in markets. The point is to level the information field as much as possible so that markets may function with a modicum of efficiency and fairness. I have simplified the matter but I think it gives you an idea of the contribution for which he justly received the Nobel Prize.

In the three decades that preceded Stiglitz, economists had identified important market failures, but in limited areas, such as externalities like pollution, which require government intervention. But the case they had made was for limited government intervention in limited areas. Professor Stiglitz made a more general case. He showed that markets are always imperfect since they are always characterized by imperfect information, why government intervention has to be a constant presence in the market.

Here then is my second question: Why call this “market failure”? The term “market failure” suggests that markets normally function properly and that “market failure” is an exceptional occurrence. It is an appropriate term to describe the thought of pre-Stiglitz economists who focused on externalities like pollution to call for government intervention in select fields. But it hides the real significance of Professor Stiglitz’s contribution, which is to redirect our thinking away from failure as an exceptional occurrence to imperfection as the normal state of markets. Like its twin term “state failure,” the term “market failure” focuses our attention on the exception rather than the norm. But we are not talking of an occasional lapse in how markets function; rather, we are talking of the regular state of markets, of how imperfect markets are when they function the way they are supposed to function. Information is always imperfect and so are markets. What is involved here is a methodological shift from the exception to the norm. This is a shift of paradigmatic significance. “Market failure” is an unfortunate term because it hides the fundamental character of this shift.

III. THE PROBLEM IS NOT JUST ECONOMIC

Before discussing its limits, I will summarize Professor Stiglitz’s response to the problem he calls “market failure.” Professor Stiglitz attributes “market failure” to “lack of transparency.” He has several recommendations on how to check market failure. The first is that government needs to bridge the gap between social returns and private returns, both to encourage socially necessary investment as in agriculture and to discourage socially undesirable investment as in real estate speculation. Second, the government may set up specialized development banks. In support, he cites the negative example of America’s private banks and their “dismal performance” alongside the positive example of Brazil’s development bank, a bank twice the size of the World Bank, and its “extraordinary success” in leading that country’s economic transformation.

Finally, Professor Stiglitz cautions against liberalizing financial and capital markets as advised by the Washington Consensus. He reminds us that African countries that followed the Washington Consensus like so many faithful converts paid the price for not thinking on their own feet. To quote Professor Stiglitz: “Credit to small and medium sized enterprises went down. More broadly, credit to productive investments went down. … Not surprising, the result was that growth was lower in countries that liberalized.” The countries that succeeded were those in East Asia; unlike African countries, they regulated financial markets in the interest of their development.

Professor Stiglitz says that the Washington Consensus is an ideology. He has a term for it: he calls it “free market fundamentalism.” It was “ignored in Asia” but “has inflicted a high cost on developing countries, especially in Africa.” He says the crisis of 2008 provides a moment for reflection, on the key importance of the financial sector, and of how ideology — flawed ideas about markets — led to a global disaster.” The lessons are two-fold: first, “more than better regulation is required”; second, “the government must take an active role in providing development finance.”

I am not an economist, but I have been forced to learn its basics to defend myself in the academy and the world. Like you, I live in a world where policy discourse has been dominated – I should say colonized – by economists whose vision is limited to the economy. Professor Stiglitz derides this as “free market fundamentalism” and I agree with him. Like fundamentalist generals who think that the conduct, outcome and consequence of war is determined by what happens on the battlefield, the thought of fundamentalist economists not only revolves around the market but is also limited by it. Just as war is too important an activity to be left to generals, the material welfare of peoples is also too important to be left to economists alone.

I salute the work Professor Stiglitz has done to show the havoc caused by what he calls “free market fundamentalists.” But I have a critique. I have already argued that his definition of the problem as that of “market failure” is inadequate. I will now argue that, in light of the challenge we face today, his response to the problem is also too limited.

To illustrate how deep and pervasive this crisis is, I would like to sketch some key developments starting with the Clinton years. Let us begin with the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration urged on Russia what it called a “shock therapy,” a cocktail of recipes first perfected in African countries in the 1980s, and baptized as Structural Adjustment by the Washington Consensus. That policy practically destroyed essential consumer industries, from pharmaceuticals to poultry, and led to mass poverty in Russia. Fully backed by the Clinton administration, Yeltsin and his fellow conspirators were happy to implement this “shock therapy” as a way to acquire property at the expense of democracy. In the words of a moderate Russian paper, Literary Gazette, the “shock therapy” turned Russia into “a zone of catastrophe.” We may note that none of the architects of this policy in the Clinton administration – neither Larry Summers, nor Jeffrey Sachs nor former President Clinton himself – has every publicly apologized for this.

My second example is more current. The Eurozone was created as a single currency for Europe but without constituting Europe as a democratic polity. The result was that monetary policy was formulated outside the framework of democracy. The states in Europe have done to their own people what the

Washington Consensus did to African peoples in the 1980s. Unelected governments rule Europe; the EU ruling phalanx is not accountable to anyone. By all technical standards, what is taking shape in Europe is dictatorship. Not only are essential mechanisms of democratic systems being eroded or discarded, democracy is rapidly losing credibility. For the third time in a century, Germany is looking to turn Europe into its backyard. Germany is now achieving with banks what it failed to achieve with tanks in World War I and World War II. It is even more interesting that it is Germany that should now propose a democratic solution to the crisis of the Eurozone, calling for a political unification of Europe.

Historically, capitalism – and the market – have been kept in check by democracy. Both the Russian and the European cases show us what happens when you do away with the democratic process in the interest of economic efficiency.

In both the Russian and the European cases – and one could multiply examples – the problem has not been the absence of state activism. If anything, states have reinforced the havoc wreaked by market forces on society. Society is the missing term in the state-market equation that has defined the debate on “market failure” among economists. The tendency of the market, like that of the state, is to devour society. The challenge is to defend society against these twin forces.

Here is my point: The antidote to the market was never the state but democracy. Not the state but a democratic political order has contained the worst fallout from capitalism over the last few centuries. The real custodian of a democratic order was never the state but society. The question we are facing today is not just that of market failure but of an all-round political failure: the financialization of capitalism is leading to the collapse of the democratic order. The problem was best defined by the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US: it is the 99% against the 1%.

Thus my third question: does not this empirical acknowledgement need to be translated into a theoretical insight? Does it not call for a revised theoretical apparatus: one beyond a focus on “market failure”; one that does not limit the frame to the market and the state; one that is more interdisciplinary and more focused on the intersection of the economic, the political, and the social, both to illuminate the depth of the crisis we are faced with today and to shift focus from the state and the market to society?

IV. LESSONS FOR US IN UGANDA, IN EAST AFRICA AND IN AFRICA

I have little doubt that the audience here wants us to go beyond questions of economic theory, beyond a discussion of the global crisis. This audience would like some discussion of the Ugandan crisis. I will ask my fourth and last question on behalf of the audience: What are the lessons for Uganda, East Africa and Africa?

My first observation is that the Ugandan crisis is not really exceptional if you look at the rest of the world. In his more public and less academic observations, Professor Stiglitz has remarked on the depths of the problem in “much of the world”. Take an example from 2007 when Professor Stiglitz wrote of globalization on Beppe Grillo’s Blog in2007: “For much of the world, globalization as it has been managed seems like a pact with the devil. A few people in the country become wealthier; GDP statistics, for what they are worth, look better, but ways of life and basic values are threatened. … This is not how it has to be.”

It would be a shame if this audience is to walk away from Professor Stiglitz’s lecture with a message that the problem is just one of “market failure” and the solution is a robust state that regulates markets and provides development finance. Is the lesson of the Structural Adjustment era simply that we need strong states to defend ourselves from the Washington Consensus? Or does the experience of the SAP era also raise a second question: What happens if developing countries are forced to push open their markets before they have stable, democratic institutions to protect their citizens? Should we be surprised that the result is something worse than crony capitalism, worse than private corruption, whereby those in the state use their positions to privatize social resources and stifle societal opposition?

Social activists in Uganda increasingly argue that the state and the market are not opposites; they have come together in a diabolical pact. Like in the US where the state feeds the greed of the banks, the state in Uganda has become the springboard of systemic corruption. The use of eminent domain clause to appropriate land – from tropical rain forests to primary and secondary schools – is done in the name of development. Even parliamentarians who discuss the oil issue complain, almost on a daily basis, that instead of leveling the information field, the state uses all its resources to keep information secret and muzzle public discussion on how public resources are used. The question is simple: what happens if it is the state, and not just market forces, that hoards information?

I want to broaden our focus to the East African community. The political class in Africa is weak. Often, its vision is clouded by a single-minded preoccupation with the question of it own political survival. The result is a singular lack of imagination, marked by a tendency to borrow ―solutions from the West. The AU named itself after the EU. The East African Community adopted the European process hook, line and sinker: first a common market, then a common currency, before any political arrangement. Here is my question: Will the pursuit of this European recipe – introducing a common East African currency without first creating a common political framework for East Africa, without first solving the question of sovereignty, whether through a federation or a confederation – not invite a Europe-type crisis?

V. CONCLUSION

Let me conclude with two observations, one theoretical, the second political. When I was a graduate student, my economics professor asked me to read a great postwar classic, Karl Polanyi’s ‘The Great Transformation’. Polanyi was the first to point out that self-regulating markets are bound to lead to a social catastrophe. Polanyi began with the observation that the market is much older than capitalism. It has been around for thousands of years. Markets have coexisted with different kinds of economies and societies: capitalist, feudal, slave-owning, communal, all of them. The distinguishing feature of all previous eras has been that societies have always regulated markets, set limit on their operation, and thus set limits on both private accumulation and widespread impoverishment. Only with capitalism has the market wrenched itself free of society. A consequence of this development has been gross enrichment of a few alongside mass poverty. A corollary of this process, we may say, is that regulation is now seen as the task of the state, and not of society.

That solution is rapidly turning into a problem. Not only has the market wrenched itself free from society, the state is trying to do the same. Not only do market forces threaten to colonize society, the state too threatens to devour society. Free markets are not a solution for poverty; they are one cause of modern poverty. State sovereignty is not a guarantor of freedom; it threatens to undermine social freedom. The challenge is not how the state can regulate the market, but how society can regulate both the state and the market.

I thank you.

By Mahmood Mamdani

29 July, 2012

@ Pambazuka News

Mahmood Mamdani is Professor and Director of Makerere Institute of Social Research in Kampala and Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University, New York City.

REFERENCES

1. Stephen E. Cohen, “The Soviet Union’s Afterlife,” The Nation, New York, January 9/16, 2012

2. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation.

3. Robert Pollin, Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Review (for Challenge Magazine) of The Roaring Nineties: A New History of the World’s Most Prosperous Decade by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Political Economy Research Institute, Working paper No. 83, 2004

4. Joseph Stiglitz, “Market Failures in the Financial System: Implications for Financial Sector Policies, especially in Developing Countries,” Joseph Mubiru Lecture, Bank of Uganda, Munyonyo Conference Centre, Kampala, July 16, 2012, 28 pp.

Israel retains its ability to control the Syrian ‘Islamist’ rebels. Netanyahu is not worried about Syria’s possible disintegration. Despite the received wisdom claiming that Israelis prefer a stable and familiar Assad to the great unknown of Islamic guerrillas, the new and sensational information we received points out to the opposite, namely: Israelis prefer the Somalisation of Syria, its break-up and the elimination of its army, as this will allow them to tackle Iran unopposed.

This is implied in a secret file recently leaked by a person(s) apparently close to the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman. It contains a record of conversations between Bibi Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the latter’s recent visit to Israel. Israelis seem to have no doubts about its authenticity. Counterpunch received the original file, and here are the highlights of this conversation (in our translation from Hebrew):

Netanyahu asked Putin to facilitate Bashar Assad’s departure. “You can appoint his successor, and we shall not object , said the Israeli Prime Minister. “There is one condition – the successor must break with Iran».

Putin responded: we have no candidate for Bashar’s successor. Do you?

No, we don’t, replied Netanyahu, but we shall tell you our preference soon.

Apparently, Israel can influence the rebels, inasmuch as it can bear on them to accept a successor acceptable to Tel Aviv. This means that the rebels’ chain of command goes beyond unruly field commanders, beyond Qatar and Saudi Arabia, beyond Paris and Washington, all the way to Israel. It is well known that the rebels seekfriendship with Israel, but nobody thought that Israel was able to control them to such an extent.

It stands to reason that Netanyahu had received a green light from Washington to make such an offer. This means that the US and Israel do not mind that Syria will remain in the Russian sphere of influence, so long as it cuts its ties with Iran. And this points to Israel as being the moving force behind the rebels, for otherwise, such an arrangement would be unacceptable for the Americans.

However, it is possible that Netanyahu’s offer was just a ploy to discover Russian intentions. Anyway Putin thought so, and answered in a similar vein:

“We are not beholden to Assad,” said Putin. “Before the rebellion, he was a frequent visitor in Paris rather than in Moscow. We have no secret agenda regarding Syria. I asked President Obama, what are the US intentions in Syria; why do Americans reject Assad. Is it because of his inability to come to terms with Israel? Or because of his ties with Iran? Because of his position on Lebanon? I received no serious answer. Our reason, said Obama, is Assad’s violent repression of the Syrian people. I replied that violence is caused by Qatar and Saudi interference.”

One understands that Putin is befogged: if he has been offered keeping Syria in the Russian sphere, why does the US goes out against Syrian government? Perhaps, the US is doing Israel’s bidding? And what are Israel’s intentions?

“Israel’s goal is the Somalisation of Syria, following the Somalisation of Iraq,” said Putin, and Netanyahu did not deny his interpretation.

These hard words of Putin answer the question of the US and Israeli intentions. This was the position of Israeli strategist Yinon and of the Neocons – Somalisation of the region. Israeli leaders still follow their high-risk short-term strategy of unleashing civil war in Syria, removing Assad and turning Syria into a mess of armed groups that would not interfere with Israeli jets reaching Iran. It is certainly risky, as it was risky to attack Lebanon in 2006, but Israel has such a powerful militarist complex that it needs to take otherwise unneeded risks.

The record of the Putin-Netanyahu conversation contains two important Russian concessions to Israel: Putin promised to break their contract about supply of S-300 anti-aircraft missile complexes to Damascus (and so he did) and to stop missile information leakage to Hezbollah.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman used the meeting to complain about the audacious RT channel:

“The Israeli office of the RT outpours anti-Israeli propaganda. They broadcast talks with Hasan Nasrallah [probably a reference to Julian Assange’s interview]. We spoke to the RT reporters privately, but they won’t budge, citing instructions from Moscow. Vladimir Vladimirovitch [Putin], please lean on the editorial policy of the RT so it will become objective towards Israel.”

This complaint fits well with Israeli practice of pressuring foreign media. Recently the Israeli ambassador to Washington attempted to interfere with CBS and censor Bob Simon’s report on Palestinian Christians, causing much resentment in the US. Israelis still can’t get used to the existence of a relatively free press.

The main conclusion of the leaked protocols is that Israeli leaders retained their love to live dangerously. While some other countries, notably Russia, are seeking stability, Israelis love play, and power play. Nothing risked, nothing gained, they say. They are ready to accept short term risks for long term gains. And elimination of the Syrian army is certainly a long term gain for Israel.

By ISRAEL SHAMIR

30 July 2012

@ counterpunch

Moscow

Israel Shamir has been sending dispatches to CounterPunch from Moscow.