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11 March, 2011

The Independent

The most popular cry in politics today is a pledge to deny reality and cut petrol prices. Give us our fix! Make it cheap! Make it now!

My name is Johann Hari, and I am an addict. If you restrict the supply of my drug, as has happened over the past month, I become panicky and angry. If you cut it off entirely, my life will fall apart. I want my fix, I want it cheap, and I want it now. My drug is called oil. I eat it: my food is driven to me. I wear it: my clothing is shipped and flown to me. I travel with it: on every bus, train and plane. But if I don’t go to rehab soon, this addiction is going to ruin me. This is the inaugural meeting of Petroleum Anonymous. We’re all going to need it now. There are four major symptoms to my addiction and yours, and in 2011 they are all getting worse.

Symptom one: unpredictable convulsions. There is a revolution happening all around the world’s biggest oil-fields, and it is getting closer to the deepest pools every day. For 60 years our governments have armed, funded and fuelled tyrants in return for them pointing the petrol pump in our direction. Just as junkies will rob their mothers and mug their grannies, we have abandoned the most basic values of our societies in pursuit of cheap oil. Initially, this created the virus of jihadism. Now some of the local populations are finally rising up in a democratic spirit against their tyrants. They are being shot at by soldiers trained at Sandhurst and with weapons stamped Made in America.

Nobody knows where this revolution will stop, but today is a declared “day of rage” in Saudi Arabia. The angriest part of the population, the marginalised and abused Shia, happen to live on top of the biggest oil-fields on Earth, and can stare across a thin patch of water to see their fellow Shia rising up in Bahrain. Sixty per cent of the Saudi population is under the age of 25, yet they are governed by an 86-year-old and half-dead “King” who bans women from driving and has rape victims whipped. It seems unlikely they can be bribed, beaten and shot into submission forever.

Even a small and brief disruption in the oil supply can cause this symptom in us. Since 1973, there have been five oil price shocks – and every single one has been followed rapidly by a global recession. A Saudi uprising would be the biggest disruption yet, triggering $200-a-barrel oil and beyond. It would be like having the 1973 oil price shock just after the 1929 Great Crash – and change all our lives.

Symptom two: fever. In the century-long party since a pair of brothers first struck oil big-time in Texas, human beings have burned up 900 billion barrels of the black gloop. Each one of them has released gases into the atmosphere that have trapped more and more of the sun’s heat here on Earth. The result is that, according to Nasa, 2010 was globally the hottest year ever recorded, tied with 2005. Don’t be fooled by local snow: the last time it was this hot was three million years ago, when the sea level was 25 metres higher. Yes, we have a planetary fever. If we burn up all the oil that remains, we will push it way beyond current levels – or any ever seen by human beings.

Symptom three: hunger. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says food is soaring in price across the world as a result of this man-made fever. Last year Russia’s wheat crop dried out and burned down in wildfires nobody had ever seen before. It caused the global price of wheat to double, and President Dmitri Medvedev to renounce his global warming denialism.

Similarly strange things are happening across the world’s most important agricultural areas. All this, in turn, helped cause the Arab revolutions. These crop failures rendered many of the Arab people unable to meet their food bills – and made them rise up in desperation.

Symptom four: denial. Petrol is finite. It takes millions of years to form under the ground: it can’t be grown, or made in factories. We all know that, sooner or later, it is going to run out. But when? The last year in which humans found more oil than we burned was the year I was born: 1979. Since then, it’s been a downward graph. But it may be plunging much faster than we think. The WikiLeaks cables revealed that the US suspects the Saudis have 40 per cent less oil than they claim, and that the country’s supply could peak as soon as next year.

There is a shrinking pool of oil in the world – and more and more people chasing it. In China, three quarters of city-dwellers understandably say they plan to buy a car in the next five years. There is not enough for everyone.

We are going to have to make the transition to fuelling our societies by the mighty power of the sun, the wind and the waves sooner or later. The technology exists today. It can be done without us regressing to caves, or any of the other ludicrous myths pumped out by the oil lobby. George Monbiot’s book Heat is a detailed roadmap of how to do it, step by step. Far from killing our economies, the work needed to build a new energy infrastructure would be a vast source of new jobs – at precisely the moment when we need a huge economic stimulus.

Every time the oil price spikes, our politicians mouth platitudes about the need to kick oil, but the change never comes. It’s worth going back to the last serious proposal because it offers a tantalising “what if?”.

On 18 April 1977, President Jimmy Carter delivered a televised address from the Oval Office. He said: “Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly.” He said the West must wean itself off oil or “the alternative may be a national catastrophe… This difficult effort will be the moral equivalent of war – except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy.”

What would the world be like today if Jimmy Carter had been listened to by the Western world, instead of being booted out of office as a “whiner”? With the US no longer backing Arab petro-tyrannies and occupying Arab territories, there would probably have been no 9/11. There would have been no Iraq war. There would have been no BP oil spill. We would not be facing an oil price shock today that could cripple our economies and leave us backing some of the worst dictators in the world.

The Copenhagen climate summit could well have established a path to dealing with global warming, rather than burying it. If we pursue Drilling As Usual, what unnecessary disasters will they curse us for 30 years from now?

Yet the most popular cry in politics today is a pledge to deny all this reality and cut petrol prices. Give us our fix! Make it cheap! Make it now! In truth we don’t have a choice about whether we join Petroleum Anonymous. Our only choice is: do we do it today, or do we do it 20 or 30 years from now, on a much hotter planet, after squabbling and fighting and killing for the last pathetic dregs of petroleum.

©independent.co.uk

Military ranking

Mar 9th 2011, 14:57 by The Economist online

The world’s biggest defence budgets

THE ten biggest defence budgets for 2010 add up to a total of more than $1.1 trillion, according to the latest Military Balance report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a think-tank. The defence budget of America alone, at $693 billion, accounts for more than 60% of the total. But when defence spending is compared to the overall size of each country’s economy, Saudi Arabia tops the list. It spends over 10% of GDP on defence, more than double the proportion spent by America. China ranks second in the world’s biggest defence budgets (spending some $76 billion) and also boasts the largest armed forces. Only America, India, Russia and North Korea (not shown) have more than 1m military personnel. Defence budgets have grown since 2005, but the balance of military power may be shifting. Western countries, many of which are engaged in Afghanistan, now face budget constrains and cuts, whilst emerging economies, such as Brazil and China, have increased military spending in line with economic growth.

11 March, 2011

Post Carbon Institute

6 energy experts address the economic impact of Middle East unrest

With instability in the Middle East driving oil prices higher, huge cracks are widening in the global economy. In an effort to broaden the conversation about Middle East unrest and its impacts on oil prices and economies, the Post Carbon Institute offers six informed perspectives on what to expect in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Individuals, businesses and policy makers are made aware of the speed with which seemingly incremental price gains can topple global dominoes.

(In what should be a startling wake up call to industrial society, the Korean government ordered power to be shut off in the bustling metropolis of Seoul to save on fuel costs. Violators face $2700 fines.)

1. THE GLOBAL ECONOMY UTTERLY DEPENDS ON CHEAP OIL

CHRIS MARTENSON (Post Carbon Institute Economy & Personal Preparedness Fellow)

The unfolding social and political unrest in the Middle East/North African (MENA) region are emblematic of changes that will be visiting the rest of the developed world in the near future. Yes, dictators, corruption, and weak justice all play into the MENA situation but underlying those insults is a deeper structural flaw that rests on the relentless math of energy depletion and its relationship to economic growth. The short version of the story is this: the global economy utterly depends on cheap oil to function. Without cheap oil, the economy will not work quite the same as it did before.

We have irreversibly slipped into a world of ever-increasing energy costs and those, predictably, are dragging down the weaker players first. By failing to appreciate the fundamental and irreplaceable role of energy in fostering economic growth, the world’s high priests and priestesses of monetary and fiscal policy have placed the developed world in the exact same situation as the MENA countries.

No, printing more money and manufacturing more debt to promote more consumption will not help anything. In fact these efforts are harmful because they distract us from what’s really at the heart of the issue; instead we should honestly admit to ourselves that we have a gigantic energy-based economic and monetary predicament on our hands. One that requires a clear-eye diagnosis, and adult-sized conversations about what sorts of intelligent responses will make sense here.

Assuming the west fails to heed the warnings and lessons being served up by the MENA region, the predictions are easy enough to make. Fiscal and monetary crises will sweep inwards from the weaker regions towards the center. Markets will violently gyrate but ultimately destroy wealth. We still have time, but not a lot, especially considering that the leadership of the developed world is, for the most part, operating with the wrong narrative in place. The right one would consider energy and other critical environmental resources equally alongside economic goals.

2. OIL SPIKES UNDERCUT ALTERNATIVE ENERGY PROGRAMS

DAVID FRIDLEY (Post Carbon Institute – Renewable Energy & Biofuels Fellow)

Since 2008, oil demand in the developed countries of the OECD has declined by 4 million barrels/day. Over the same period, oil demand in the rest of the world has risen by 4 million barrels/day. In 2011, the world has returned to the precarious balance of oil supply and demand that we faced in 2007 and 2008, when rising demand and stagnant production sent prices soaring to nearly $150.

The uprising in Libya, removing 700,000 b/d from the market, yet sending crude oil prices up 15%, reminds us both of how fragile that balance is as well as of how little has changed since 2008 in terms of our preparedness for such price shocks. If unrest were to spread to the core of the Middle East producing area in Saudi Arabia, disruption of exports from there could produce a price spike unlike any experienced in the past. And with the spike would come another economic crash.

The events since January highlight important vulnerabilities: one is the mismatch between the long lead times of our programs to develop alternatives to oil and the rapidity with which crude oil supply can be disrupted, sending markets into turmoil and undercutting the same programs attempting to mitigate such impacts. A second is reliance on strategic and critical inputs that are sourced from a small concentration of producers. As the US looks to move away from oil for transportation, it is at the same time moving to import dependence on other critical inputs such as lithium for batteries and rare earths for hybrid-car motor magnets from a small concentration of producers. This leaves our energy system open to the same types of supply and price shocks as we are witnessing today.

3. LIBYA & MIDDLE EAST UNREST WIDEN A VICIOUS CIRCLE

COLIN J. CAMPBELL – Post Carbon Institute Adviser

Oil and gas were formed in the geological past, meaning that for every gallon used, one less remains. Although the details are masked by unreliable data and ambiguous definitions, it becomes evident that Oil Age is about half over. Growing oil production during the First Half facilitated the rapid expansion of industry, transport, trade and agriculture, allowing the population to grow six-fold. Declining production during the Second Half will likely give a corresponding contraction.

Shortages appeared following the peak of Regular Conventional oil production in 2005, and led to a surge in oil price in 2008, which gave an economic recession and financial crisis, killing oil demand. Prices then fell back to 2005 levels before Governments intervened to stimulate consumerism under outdated economic principles. Oil demand recovered to again threaten the supply barrier, such that prices had risen to almost $100 by the end of 2010.

The transition to the Second Half threatens to be a time of great social, political, financial and economic tension, as recent events, ranging from student demonstrations in London to revolutions in North Africa, confirm. Some of the affected countries, including Libya, are important oil producers, run by authoritarian regimes controlling underlying tribal conflicts. Oil revenues allowed the elite to amass colossal wealth but also bred a corresponding resentment, which exploded when the people at large faced soaring food costs and rising unemployment.

Oil production will fall in Libya whatever the political outcome, and it will not be easy to replace it elsewhere. Oil prices are accordingly likely to rise again prompting a certain vicious circle: the higher the price, the greater the social tension and the risk of further cuts in supply. A critical element is of course Saudi Arabia, responsible for more than ten percent of the world’s supply of conventional oil, and it is significant that tensions have been rising in Bahrain, an island off its coast, and in the neighboring countries of Yemen and Oman.

If this vicious circle widens, it will represent a turning point for mankind of historic proportions.

4. HEY TEACHER: LEAVE THOSE AUTOCRATIC REGIMES ALONE!

RICHARD HEINBERG (PCI Senior Fellow-in-Residence)

Many in the US cheered as decrepit dictators in Egypt and Tunisia fell. But now that more democracy for North African and Middle Eastern nations seems to translate to higher gasoline prices for American motorists, the real motives for, and costs of Western nations’ decades-long support for autocratic regimes in oil-rich nations are becoming apparent. This was a strategy to control the world’s most important resource, but it was wrong-headed from the start because it could not be sustained on the backs of millions of people with rising expectations but declining ability to afford food and fuel.

If somehow the uprisings can be confined to Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain, oil-importing nations may be able to weather 2011 with minimal GDP declines resulting from $100 oil prices. But that is a big “if.” It is really only a matter of time until Saudi Arabia is engulfed in sectarian and political turmoil, and when that happens we will see biggest oil price spike ever, and central banks will be unable to stop the ensuing economic carnage.

It’s both comic and sad to see certain economists insisting that a 10 percent rise in oil prices will translate only to a certain smaller percentage of decline in GDP growth. There are thresholds—such as $5 a gallon gasoline for US motorists—that will make hash of such forecasts. Energy is not a segment of the economy; it IS the economy.

I think we’re probably in for a very nasty ride these next few months.

5. CHINA & THE INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY: BOOKS BALANCED?

TOM WHIPPLE – Post Carbon Institute Peak Oil Fellow

Prior to the unrest breaking out in the Middle East, all eyes were on China for an answer to the question of “How high will oil prices go in the next year or two?” In 2010 the demand for oil surged ahead by 2.8 million b/d, much more rapidly than had been expected. Much of this increase in demand came from China where a number of factors converged to push demand to new highs.

To avoid predicting a growth-killing price spike this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) decided that the increase in demand for oil in 2011 would be only 1.5 million b/d. This forecast assumed that the seriously overheated Chinese economy would have to cut back markedly on the annual growth of its oil consumption this year in order to control price inflation.

In order to balance the books IEA envisioned OPEC slowly increasing production in 2011 out of its spare productive capacity. The IEA now recognizes that production from newly opened oil fields is very close to balancing declines in production from older fields, so not much increase in total world oil production is expected in the future.

We have a whole new game. After working through Tunisia and Egypt, the Middle Eastern unrest came to a significant oil producer, Libya, which had been exporting circa 1.3 million b/d of the world’s best crude. Now it is exporting little if any oil and world prices are $15+ a barrel higher.

As it became apparent that the loss of Libyan crude exports was going to be a major economic problem for the European economy, the Saudis stepped in to say they would increase production from what they claim to be 3 or 4 million b/d of spare productive capacity. As the Saudi’s are reluctant to announce production above their OPEC ceiling, they have relied on leaks to get out the message that they are now producing somewhere over 9 million b/d – various reports have their output at 9.2, 9.3, or even 9.4 million b/d, up from 8.4 million in January. A few other OPEC states with spare capacity are said to be increasing production by another 300,000 b/d. All this makes it look, on paper, that should Libyan oil production remain shut-in for weeks or months, the missing oil output will be replaced and oil prices should move lower.

This happy scenario, however, does not take into account China and its voracious appetite for imported energy. Should the IEA be overestimating OPEC’s real spare capacity, or underestimating the size of China’s demand for imported oil, or should unrest force another Middle East producer to slow or halt its output, the global oil world will be a different place by the end of the year.

6. ADDICTS EVENTUALLY PAY THE PRICE

DAVID HUGHES – Post Carbon Institute Fossil Fuels Fellow

We need to prepare for the inevitable crises that will upset the apple cart on oil supply. Macondo was just an appetizer. So far, the Libyan revolt is only an unforeseen precursor that has caused indigestion in the oil importing countries. The Saudi’s are numero uno when it comes to a major case of the oil deprivation flu. If they go at it, all bets are off. And if Iran goes, watch out world.

The worst case scenario I usually toss out in my talks is the obvious: If Israel takes aggressive action against Iran, Iran will in turn shut down the Strait of Hormuz, shutting off 20% of the world’s oil supply.

If the Libyan revolt is contained and either someone sane or maybe even Gaddafi retains power, then oil prices will stabilize—for awhile.

American’s are broke and hopelessly oil addicted–this could be the wakeup call needed in terms of high oil prices and potentially even supply restrictions that will make Americans believers in the vulnerabilities of their current lifestyle.

The implications of the current unrest for the global economy and the industrialized world, which imports over half of its oil consumption, should be obvious.

11 March, 2011

Countercurrents.org

Ralph Nader calls Washington corporate-occupied territory – “every department agency controlled by the overwhelming presence of corporate lobbyists, corporate executives in high government positions, turning the government against its own people.”

Nader also said corporations don’t just control government, they are the government. “The corporation IS the government!” They bought and own it at the federal, state and local levels, running it like their private fiefdom at the expense of working Americans, systematically stripping them of hard-won rights.

They have 10,000 Political Action Committees and 35,000 full-time lobbyists. “Just imagine,” says Nader, “even the Labor Department is not controlled by trade unions – it’s (owned and) controlled by corporations.”

In 1938, Franklin Roosevelt defined the problem, saying:

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power.”

Today it’s more virulent and pervasive than anything Roosevelt could have imagined, using corrupted politicians to smash worker rights.

It’s more evidence of America’s fake democracy and the criminal class running it. Politicians are bought like toothpaste. Mock elections pretend to be real. Behind the scenes power players control everything, supported by brazen media misreporting, whether about war and peace, the rule of law, or other vital issues, including worker rights.

Overnight on March 9, fascist Republicans erased them in five minutes, in violation of Wisconsin’s open meetings law, requiring “24 hours prior to the commencement of (special sessions) unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical.”

The measure had nothing to do with budget-balancing. It’s corporate ordered union busting. Wisconsin is a microcosm of America, ground zero, now breached as well as Ohio. Expect other states to follow. Public and private sector workers nationwide are losing out – betrayed by brazen politicians and corrupted union bosses, selling out rank and file members for self-enrichment and privilege.

On March 9, New York Times writer Monica Davey headlined, “Wisconsin Senate Limits Bargaining by Public Workers,” saying:

The 23-day “bitter political standoff in Wisconsin over Gov. Walker’s bid to sharply curtail (public worker) collective bargaining (rights) ended abruptly Wednesday night as” on-the-take Senate Republicans rammed through an illegitimate bill, voting 18 – 1 – with no debate or Democrat members present.

On March 10, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (JS) writers Patrick Marley and Lee Bergquist headlined, “Maneuver ignites furious protests,” saying:

Republicans secretly “devised a plan to get around the impasse and hurriedly approved the bill late in the day.” Some financial issues were removed to be voted on separately. Included were provisions raising worker healthcare and pension contributions. Democrat Senator Bob Jauch called it ‘political thuggery,’ saying ‘it’s akin to political hara-kiri. I think it’s political suicide.’ “

The measure gives Walker dictatorial power over BadgerCare health coverage for low-paid Wisconsinites earning too much for Medicaid. It also makes 37 civil service jobs political appointments.

Moreover, state and local public employees must pay half their annual pensions cost contributions, and minimally 12.6% of healthcare premiums. In addition, future pay raises are pegged to annual CPI increases, a rigged index not reflecting true inflation. Greater ones may only be approved by statewide referendum, a cumbersome process taking time.

Further, unions must hold annual votes to let workers decide whether or not to be members, and state authorities no longer will collect union dues from paychecks.

On March 10, Wisconsin’s Republican controlled State Assembly easily passed the measure 53 – 42. Walker will sign it into law – by diktat, not democracy.

On March 10, JS writers Lee Bergquist, Jason Stein and Bill Glauber headlined, “Demonstrators crowd Capitol in wild scene after Senate vote,” saying:

“Protesters took back control of the Capitol on Wednesday night after Senate Republicans” stripped their collective bargaining rights. “Surging past security, (they) reclaimed the Capitol rotunda….”

Others outside chanted, “Let us in.” Inside, they yelled, “You lied to Wisconsin” and “Kill the Bill.” In a shocking act of betrayal, the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), representing 98,000 public education employees, instructed teachers to return to classrooms, instead of calling for a general strike to shut down the entire state until the bill is reversed. Growing numbers of teachers and other workers demand one.

Ahead of the Senate vote, email exchanges between Walker and Democrats suggested a deal, involving union certification votes triannually instead of as approved as well as other compromises. All along Democrats, like union bosses, planned capitulation, but needed enough cover to fool constituents.

On March 10, Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal gave Walker op-ed space to headline, “Why I’m Fighting in Wisconsin,” claiming:

He’s doing it “to avoid mass teacher layoffs and reward our best performers,” when, in fact, he and other Democrat and Republican governors and lawmakers are destroying public education in their states, and making public university tuitions unaffordable for millions of aspiring students with inadequate family and personal resources to afford them.

Nonetheless, Walker claimed the bill’s passage is “good for the Badger State’s hard-working taxpayers. It will also be good for state and local government employees who overwhelmingly want to do their jobs well….Our (union busting) bill is a commitment to the future so our children won’t face even more dire consequences than we face today, and teachers (won’t have to be) laid off (so) government (can) work for” everyone in Wisconsin.

It’s instructive to remember journalist IF Stone’s admonition to young journalists, telling them:

“All governments lie,” or at other times, saying, “All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” Who better than Walker and Obama prove it. Like other corrupted politicians, the president is no friend of labor.

A Final Comment

Wisconsin Republicans’ Wednesday night putch was preceded a week earlier by Walker demanding at least $1.5 billion in budget cuts, besides earlier ones enacted, including:

— $1.25 billion from schools and local governments, including $900 million in education funding (or $500 per student), exposing his real education agenda;

— $500 million from Medicaid at the expense of a million needy Wisconsinites dependent on it; and

— $250 million from the University of Wisconsin, besides sharp tuition hikes, wage and benefit reductions, separating the main Madison campus from others, and possibly privatizing the system, ruining it by selling it off to profiteers.

Now, with collective bargaining gone, all other rights are threatened, except one – a mass action general strike, shutting down the state, staying out until Walker’s coup is reversed. Protests aren’t enough. Inflicting pain on politicians and corporate interests is crucial. Nothing less can work with firm non-negotiable demands for:

— restoring collective bargaining rights;

— social spending increases, not cuts, especially for healthcare, education, and aid to Wisconsin’s most needy;

— recalling all Democrat and Republican politicians, eligible under state law, requiring one year in office before possible; and

— replacing corrupted union bosses who sold out their rank and file members for self-enrichment and privilege.

Negotiations failed. Mobilized, committed, unified mass action is essential as quickly as possible. On Wisconsin! Then take the campaign nationwide, especially to ground zero in Washington, the heart of corrupted power.

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

President Obama can choose war with Moammar Gadhafi, or he can choose to keep the U.S. military out of Libya. But, contrary to claims of Sen. John Kerry and a platoon of pundits, Obama cannot walk a middle line by imposing a “no-fly zone” or staging an antiseptic air campaign.

Imposing a no-fly zone is not a step short of war – it is war. And how many Americans are willing to go to war for Libya?

Many commentators, hoping a no-fly zone would end Gadhafi’s air attacks on protesters and rebels, point to the decade-long no-fly rules the United States enforced in Iraq. But Michael Knights, a leading expert on no-fly zones, says that the Iraq model is neither apt nor desirable. Knights, a Lafer fellow in the Washington Institute’s Military and Security Studies Program, wrote his doctoral dissertation on no-fly zones. He says enforcing a no-fly zone “is basically an act of war.”

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates seems to agree. “A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses.” This would include – as Kerry put it on CBS on Sunday – “cratering their runways” to ground their jets. “An attack on Libya,” as Gates puts it, which would mean dropping bombs or shooting rockets, is pretty hard to distinguish from war.

On Iraq, it’s crucial to remember our no-fly zone there followed Operation Desert Storm – an invasion of Iraq. Knights told me that “no-fly zones are best utilized in countries that you already have quasi-war relations with,” either following a war like Desert Storm or as “preparatory actions” for a war.

And there’s no logic behind simply stopping Gadhafi’s jets. AP quoted reports Wednesday that Libyan tanks are firing “randomly” on homes in Zawiyah. Gadhafi also has artillery – plenty of it. There’s no coherent justification for the U.S. military shutting down Gadhafi’s jets but not his howitzers and tanks. If we do no-fly, we also have to do no-tank and no-cannons. You see how things start to get sticky.

Americans could take out Libyan tanks and cannons from the air, but can pilots really tell the difference between a tank driven by a soldier still loyal to Gadhafi and one driven by a rebel soldier? U.S. pilots could easily confuse farmers’ tractors for mortars.

And does anyone doubt that Gadhafi is evil enough to put anti-aircraft weapons on the back of a school bus or the roof of a mosque. So do American pilots bomb a mosque or risk getting their jets shot down? War often involves terrible choices like that – which is one reason it’s good to stay out of war when you can.

Many of the hawks today calling for a no-fly zone admit they want war with Libya. D.B. Grady, a former paratrooper now a writer at the Atlantic, put bluntly the advantage of a no-fly zone: First the United States would have to clear the zone with attacks on air defenses. “Once the first U.S. missile strikes the first Libyan target, the shock is gone and the stage is set for continued operations. It’s far easier to launch the second missile.”

But others draw an imaginary line between no-fly and war. Kerry, after advocating the “cratering” of Libyan runways, said on CBS, “The last thing we want to think about is any kind of military intervention. And I don’t consider the no-fly zone stepping over that line,”

Some of this talk is just political spin – politicians and laptop generals hoping Americans won’t balk at a war if it’s not called a war. Iraq hawks pulled the same bait-and-switch tactic in 2002 and early 2003: promising the nation a cakewalk and then scolding President Bush and the American people for lacking the “resolve” for a bloody, protracted occupation.

But the word games also matter because of the so-called “Pottery Store Rule”: You break it, you buy it.

What constitutes “breaking” Gadhafi? At what point does the United States “own” the rebuilding of Libya in the way it has responsibility for nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can America “crater” a country’s runways, bomb its tanks, blow up its howitzers, and shoot down its jets – and then walk away from the rubble?

Gates apparently doesn’t harbor the same illusion Kerry does – that we can flex military muscle in Libya but keep our hands clean. It’s like the old saying that you can’t be a little bit pregnant. Gates knows a third war in the Muslim world would be tough for our military, tough for our budget and tough for the American people to bear.

Timothy P.Carney, The Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at tcarney@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears Monday and Thursday, and his stories and blog posts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.

11 March, 2011

The Guardian

Bradley Manning, the US soldier being held in solitary confinement on suspicion of having released state secrets to WikiLeaks, has spoken out for the first time about what he claims is his punitive and unlawful treatment in military prison.

In an 11-page legal letter released by his lawyer, David Coombs, Manning sets out in his own words how he has been “left to languish under the unduly harsh conditions of max [security] custody” ever since he was brought from Kuwait to the military brig of Quantico marine base in Virginia in July last year. He describes how he was put on suicide watch in January, how he is currently being stripped naked every night, and how he is in general terms being subjected to what he calls “unlawful pre-trial punishment”.

It is the first time Manning has spoken publicly about his treatment, having previously only been heard through the intermediaries of his lawyer and a friend. Details that have emerged up to now have inspired the UN to launch an inquiry into whether the conditions amount to torture, and have led to protests to the US government from Amnesty International.

The most graphic passage of the letter is Manning’s description of how he was placed on suicide watch for three days from 18 January. “I was stripped of all clothing with the exception of my underwear. My prescription eyeglasses were taken away from me and I was forced to sit in essential blindness.”

Manning writes that he believes the suicide watch was imposed not because he was a danger to himself but as retribution for a protest about his treatment held outside Quantico the day before. Immediately before the suicide watch started, he said guards verbally harassed him, taunting him with conflicting orders.

When he was told he was being put on suicide watch, he writes, “I became upset. Out of frustration, I clenched my hair with my fingers and yelled: ‘Why are you doing this to me? Why am I being punished? I have done nothing wrong.'”

He also describes the experience of being stripped naked at night and made to stand for parade in the nude, a condition that continues to this day. “The guard told me to stand at parade rest, with my hands behind my back and my legs spaced shoulder-width apart. I stood at parade rest for about three minutes … The [brig supervisor] and the other guards walked past my cell. He looked at me, paused for a moment, then continued to the next cell. I was incredibly embarrassed at having all these people stare at me naked.”

Manning has been charged with multiple counts relating to the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret US government cables, videos and warlogs from Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks. The charges include “aiding the enemy”, which can carry the death penalty.

The legal letter was addressed to the US military authorities and was drawn up in response to their recent decision to keep Manning on a restriction order called Prevention of Injury (PoI). It means he is kept in his cell alone for 23 hours a day and checked every five minutes by guards including, if necessary, through the night.

The letter contains excerpts from the observation records kept in the brig which consistently report that Manning is “respectful, courteous and well spoken” and “does not have any suicidal feelings at this time”.

Sixteen separate entries made from 27 August until the records stop on 28 January show that Manning was evaluated by prison psychiatrists who found he was not a danger to himself and should be removed from the PoI order.

      6 March, 2011

A FORMER Israeli ambassador to South Africa has pointedly resigned from the foreign service, citing the collapse of apartheid South Africa as an important lesson for modern-day Israel.

“For 46 years the apartheid government strove by force of arms to achieve regional hegemony,” wrote Ilan Baruch wrote to his colleagues in the Israeli foreign ministry in a parting letter. “Apartheid was supported by almost everyone in the white community, not necessarily as a racist theory but as a policy of self-defence. There was denial of the moral price.”

Mr Baruch stressed that “those who accuse Israel of South Africa-style apartheid are plain wrong. That is a vengeful and vicious calumny against Zionism… However, I do believe that the South African experience needs to be studied.” He explained in his letter that he found himself no longer able to represent Israel because the government of Binyamin Netanyahu had no interest in a peace process based on land for peace and designed to end the conflict with the Palestinians.

Government spokesmen, he wrote, had repeatedly rejected the international demand that Israel withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories. “They spurn the Annapolis process, they ignore the Road Map [two American peace initiatives from the Bush years which Israel accepted at the time]. The upshot is a malignant diplomatic dynamic which threatens Israel’s international standing and undermines the legitimacy not only of its occupation but of its very membership in the family of nations.”

He was, therefore, taking early retirement, Mr Baruch announced. He is the first and thus far the only member of the foreign service to quit since Mr Netanyahu became prime minister two years ago and installed Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the hard-right Yisrael Beitenu party, as foreign minister. He says he received dozens of e-mails and text messages from colleagues thanking him for expressing what many in the ministry think. No-one wrote condemning his action. Most of his colleagues wrote nothing at all. Perhaps, he surmises, people were not anxious to put their thoughts in traceable writing.

The foreign ministry itself issued a statement saying that Mr Baruch had applied last year to be ambassador to Egypt, had failed to get the appointment—and that was why he was leaving.

Mr Baruch dismisses that as petty and spiteful. He admits, though, that if he were younger or poorer he probably would not have left, “but rather have sought a low-profile posting where one can keep one’s head down and wait. A sort of unarticulated, internal resignation; that’s what many people do.”

In his letter, Mr Baruch cautioned that “the paternalistic depiction of Israel as a front-line fortress in a global inter-cultural and inter-religious conflict is dangerous. The depiction of the opposition within the international community to Israel’s occupation policy as anti-Semitism is simplistic, provincial and superficial.”

Mr Baruch took a stinging swipe at the foreign ministry’s efforts to change Israel’s branding as a way of improving its international standing. “The concept that the answer to the various threats to our national security lies in expanding our public advocacy and in promoting Israel’s image as a leader in world technology—that concept is an illusion.”

Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister in the previous government and now leader of the opposition, supported Mr Baruch’s critique. “Public relations without policy is no solution,” she said. “Perhaps [Mr Netanyahu] really believes that speaking in fluent English on foreign television stations creates change. But it doesn’t.”

12 March, 2011

Men who recently crossed into Tunisia from Libya walk through a United Nations displacement camp on March 10, 2011 in Ras Jdir, Tunisia

After a week of heavy fighting in the strategically oil-important town of Zawiyah rebels have finally been overthrown by Gaddafi’s forces.

At the same time, according to the local TV station reports, the port city of Ras Lanuf has been cleaned of Al-Qaeda supporters. For several days now Gaddafi’s forces have remained in control there too.

On the ground in Libya, while it certainly does seem as if Gaddafi’s men are pushing back and winning the battle there, on the international stage it is the rebels who are really coming in the front. The EU ministers in Brussels met on Friday for the second round of negotiations over the international response. Leaders of major powers discussed whether or not to go ahead with some kind of no-fly zone or foreign intervention.

The International Red Cross describes Libya as now being in the midst of a civil war. Ministers from the Gulf Co-operation Council – which represents six Arab states – have called the Libyan regime illegitimate.

However, Libyans themselves do not consider the situation being that serious. Many locals make the point that the global media’s tendency to put drama above reality is encouraging foreign intervention.

There is good deal more negotiating happening on the international stage over the merits of intervention and a no-fly zone than the bargaining taking place in the downtown Tripoli market. Shops here close early nowadays.

People are afraid and many of the Africans who used to work here have fled the country. And the argument that Libya is on the brink of civil war, so foreign intervention is needed, still seems to ring a little hollow.

“There have been several hundred people killed, but it is not a huge level of violence. It certainly is not a global level of violence that would normally merit intervention,” John Laughland from the Institute of Democracy and Co-operation.

Gaddafi has offered access to foreign media, but only if the camera lenses stay well away from any of the opposition. But it is a similar picture in the opposition strongholds.

Dr. Ramadan Breki, the director of the Quryna newspaper was forced to close the Benghazi office of his newspaper because of pressure from rebels. You have to print their version of events, he says, or nothing at all.

“The media is going to the hotspots and all these cities are controlled by the rebels and the independent people, they are afraid and they cannot tell the news what they think and what they believe,” explains Breki.

And many of Gaddafi’s supporters fear that while he may be winning the war with the rebels, he is losing the information war.

Schoolgirl Mona Jama Mohammed from Janzur, a town some 13km away from the capital Tripoli, says she is puzzled and angered by reports that mercenaries were shooting people in her town.

“It is normal: teachers come and we get the lessons, and we write the homework. Normal life,” she says.

And life certainly seems calm on the streets. As for conflicts elsewhere where the death count is climbing. There is little media coverage and even less foreign interest to intervene.

“There are events unfolding now in [Cote d’Ivoire], where there is also an armed conflict between rebels and the government, but nobody seems to be thinking of that. It is only because fashionable attention is focused on Libya,” says John Laughland from the Institute of Democracy and Co-operation.

“The only reason they are interested in Libya is about the oil. Think we will be in Iraq if the major export there was broccoli?” questions Gerald Celente, the director of the Trenda Research Institute

So as leaders met in Brussels to discuss the fate of a country hundreds of miles away, many Libyans are saying that it is their mess, and they will clean it up.

Indian air force’s Sukhoi jets India accounts for 9% of global arms imports

Continue reading the main story

US defence deals have become big business

India has overtaken China to become the world’s largest importer of arms, a Sweden-based think tank says.

A report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) says India accounted for 9% of all weapons imports between 2006 and 2010.

India will continue to be to the leading arms importer in the coming future, the report adds.

With a $32.5bn (£20.2bn) defence budget, India imports more than 70% of its arms.

It is looking to spend more than $50bn over the next five years to modernise its armed forces, including a $10bn deal to buy 126 new fighter jets.

India’s increased spending on arms also comes amid rising concerns about China’s growing power, and its traditional rivalry with neighbouring Pakistan, with which is has fought three wars.

‘Big boy’

“India has ambitions to become first a continental and [then] a regional power,” South Asian defence analyst Rahul Bedi told the Associated Press news agency.

“To become a big boy, you need to project your power.”

A senior fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said India would continue to be a top importer for the years to come.

“Just from what they have already ordered, we know that in the coming few years India will be the top importer,” said Siemon Wezeman.

He said China had dropped to second place with 6% of the global weapons as it develops its domestic arms industry.

The US remained the world’s largest weapons exporter, followed by Russia and Germany, the report says.

Last October, India announced that it would buy 250 to 300 advanced fifth-generation stealth fighter jets from Russia over the next 10 years.

The deal, which could be worth up to $30bn, is believed to be the largest in India’s military history.

14 March, 2011

Countercurrents.org

The people’s revolution is on its track; calling for the removal of the regime and performing various activities on the road to victory. In the past week several remarakable activities were undertaken with resounding success. First came the picketing of the financial harbour owned by the regime’s prime minister, Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa. It was conducted at night when hundreds of protesters moved from their base at the Pearl Square and took position near the main financial centre. Then came the massive demonstration and picketing of the main torture headquarters at Bahrain’s Fort where a human wave flooded to highlight the role that place had been playing in torturing Bahrainis over the years. It stands as a reminder of the most brutal periods of the Al Khalifa reign of terror. The revolutionaries then organised another qualitative demonstration outside the main TV station which is the mouthpiece of the repressive Al Khalifa regime. In addition to these there have been massive demonstrations nearer to the Pearl Square where hundreds of thousands took part chanting anti regime slogans and calling form a regime change. Today, one of the demonstrations was held outside the government offices in Qudhaibiya where participants called for the downfall of the regime.

Meanwhile, the mothers of the martyrs have appealed to political parties not to engage in dialogue with the regime. The mother of Ali Abdul Hadi Mushaime, the first of the martyrs of the revolution has vowed to spend her life to oppose the Al Khalifa until their downfall. Today, the mother of the martyr Mahmood Abu Taki confirmed that the family had received calls from the Al Khalifa who had killed their son offering to buy off their silence with money but they refused and insisted that we only accept the demands of the 14th February revolutionaries. Also, Nidhal the son of Karzakkan martyr Isa Abdul Hassan confirmed a similar move by the killers. He told them he has nothing to add to what the people want; the downfall of the regime and that the blood of the martyrs cannot be bought with money or promises. Similar statements have been attributed to the son of martyr Ali Khudhair who said that there is only one demand; the downfall of the regime. In light of these development s, it is now expected that the coming activities will be more serious and the regimes could use violence to suppress the people, in which case, that will be the needed fuel for the final push to oust this hereditary dictatorship.

While the revolutionary activities continue unabated, the Americans have entered the political arena forcefully. In the past week, Jeffrey Feltman , the Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East, has been lobbying the political societies to lure them to engage in what he calls “dialogue” in line with what the Al Khalifa crown prince had suggested. When these societies presented some conditions, he said that dialogue must be without conditions. There has been negative reaction to the American proposals which clearly aim at safeguarding the ruling family in the face of the collective popular decision calling for its downfall. The US is better advised not to stand again on the wrong side of history by supporting this dictatorial regime. The Al Khalifa system of government is unsustainable as has been proven by the events of the recent history. Bahrain has not been stable, and the apparent stability was only achieved with the use of violence against Bahrainis, torture , intimidation and dictatorship. If they are granted more time, the Al Khalifa will resort to the same style of dictatorship, repression and human rights violations. The US needs to fundamentally revise their strategy that has only led to regime changes at their expense.

Bahrain Freedom Movement

6th March 2011