Archives: Articles

By Raghavan Srinivasan

09 December, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Twenty years back, on the 6th of December, the historical monument called Babri Masjid was destroyed by an armed mob. Developments leading to the destruction were orchestrated by the BJP government of Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh with tacit support from Narasimha Rao’s Congress government at the centre. The criminal act of demolition was followed by widespread and large scale communal violence. The demolition symbolised a turning point in the Indian polity, for the worse.

Historical Context

The demolition had a historical and political context. The Babri Masjid dispute was a Machiavellian creation of the British colonialists who erected a fence in 1859 around the monument, and ordered that Hindus are to enter from the East gate and Muslims from the North gate. For the following 90 years, the British colonial courts allowed petitions from so-called Hindu and Muslim leaders, keeping the dispute smouldering, to be re-ignited whenever required.

After the partition, in the dark night of 22nd December, 1949, an idol of Ram was installed surreptitiously inside the mosque. The interim Government of Nehru immediately proclaimed the premises as a disputed area and locked the gates. The gates remained locked for the next 40 years, until Nehru’s grandson, Rajiv Gandhi, ordered it to be reopened in 1989.

The next three years witnessed a shrill campaign to build a temple for Lord Ram at the site where the Babri Masjid stood. The BJP built up a frenzied atmosphere through Rath Yatras demanding that the Ram temple should be built exactly where the 400-year old monument stood. The Central Government acted as the mediator between self-styled leaders of Hindus and Muslims, purportedly to strike a negotiated deal, but really keeping the dispute alive.

The Political Turning Point

The reason why the gates of the Babri Masjid were reopened after a 40-year hiatus can only be understood in the specific political context of the time. The decade of the eighties was tumultuous. The deepening economic and political crisis stared at us in the face. The old Nehruvian model had run its course and the decade ended with an acute crisis of government finances and external balance of payments. It was a period of intense conflicts and rivalries among different parties and the sectional interests they represented. There was tremendous pressure to push the country onto a path of economic reforms that would launch India into the superpower orbit and acquire world class status for India’s business houses.

The Congress Party headed by Rajiv Gandhi had come to power in 1985 on a communal platform, after the sacrilege of the Golden Temple and the genocide of Sikhs in November 1984. The next five years witnessed two important movements which prepared the political climate for a minority government to push through far-reaching policy reforms while people were otherwise preoccupied. Competing sectarian campaigns provided the justification for the law and order machinery to resort to blatant terror in the name of restoring order. There were agitations for and against the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations on caste-based reservation quotas for the “other backward classes” or OBCs. And in the midst of the ensuing chaos, the vehicle of Rath Yatras was used to launch a campaign for erecting a Ram Mandir at the site where the Babri Masjid stood.

It was a time when major and abrupt changes were taking place across the world, culminating with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the bipolar division of the world. In the new dispensation, with the US pushing for a unipolar world, certain prescriptions were laid down for all countries to follow. It was made clear that there was simply no alternative to liberalisation and privatisation and to multi-party representative democracy. Any country which did not follow these prescriptions would be liable to be branded as a rogue state.

These developments created a conducive atmosphere for a section of the powerful business houses in our country to seize the initiative and launch the liberalisation and privatisation program, aimed at getting India a seat at the high table of major imperialist powers of the world. This was accompanied by diversionary and divisive campaigns to neutralise the growing opposition to the aggressive drive of India Inc.

The BJP harped on the pseudo-secularism of the Congress Party and its “appeasement of Muslims” as being the main problem faced by the country. The Congress Party blamed the religious chauvinist outlook of BJP as being the main danger. The activities of these two parties, who were apparently at loggerheads with one another, tended to polarise public opinion into the Hindutva camp and the Secularist camp. While these camps seemed to have irreconcilable differences, they vied with each other to support the reforms platform.

Political Impact

The demolition of Babri Masjid typified the growing rot in the Indian polity. It meant that the two biggest parties in Parliament could get away with any sort of crime to expand their vote banks. The genocide against Sikhs in 1984, following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, had already confirmed the fact that the new economic offensive required a new method of governance as well. The communal violence of 1992-93 marked the institutionalisation of this criminal method of governance.

The Liberhan Commission, which was appointed by the Narasimha Rao government to investigate the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992, submitted its report after 17 years, in 2009! The report described how the Uttar Pradesh government of Kalyan Singh and top leaders of the BJP were directly involved in the destruction of the monument. But the equally shameful role of the Narasimha Rao government at the centre was downplayed by the Commission. In any case both the Congress and the BJP made sure, through a barrage of accusations and counter-accusations in Parliament at each other — after the Commission released (or rather leaked) its report — that the guilty at the highest levels went scot free.

The fall of the Babri Masjid symbolised not only the mindless destruction of a historical monument but a turning point in the Indian polity for worse. In the new system of governance ushered in by the economic reforms, political parties representing big moneyed interests increasingly resort to criminalisation and communalisation to capture or to retain power. They remain unaccountable to the voters who elected them. They fight proxy battles in Parliament for various business interests and are steeped in corruption.

For all men and women of conscience, the 20th anniversary of the demolition of Babri Masjid is an occasion to dedicate ourselves to see that justice is done; that the guilty of communal violence are punished; and that our polity is cleansed of communalism and communal violence, through radical political reforms to empower the people.

(The author is the President of Lok Raj Sangathan and a political commentator and writer, email: lokrajsangathan@yahoo.com)

US Officials: Washington Decided to Include Jabhet al-Nasra in Terrorist Organizations List

Dec 05, 2012

WASHINGTON DC, (SANA) – US officials said on Wednesday that the US Administration decided to include Jabhet al-Nasra, which is affiliated with Al Qaeda, on the list of terrorist organizations.

Associated Press quoted the officials as saying that this step entails freezing the funds and assets of Jabhet al-Nasra in the US and bodies that are under US judicial jurisdiction, in addition to preventing US citizens from providing this terrorist group with financial supports.

The officials who requested that their names be withheld said that the US Administration hopes that this step would encourage other countries to take similar steps and prevent people from joining this blacklisted group.

The officials said that the US Administration planned to announce this officially this week, but decided to postpone the announcement until it reassures Syrian opposition leaders that this action isn’t directed against them.

Armed Forces Eliminate Jabhat al-Nusra Terrorists, Destroy 23 Caliber Gun-Equipped Vehicle in Damascus Countryside

Dec 05, 2012

PROVINCES, (SANA) – Units of the Armed Forces continued on Wednesday pursuing Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists and destroyed a vehicle equipped with 23 caliber cannon, three motorcycles and a van and eliminated all terrorists onboard in al-Ateibeh town in Damascus countryside.

An official source told SANA reporter that a unit of the Armed Forces eliminated terrorists in Zamalka town as they were perpetrating acts of killing and sabotage.

Terrorists Hassan Bakir, Milad Khallaq, Mohammad Maghmoumeh, Khaled Abdul-Aziz and Yehya al-Iassa were identified among the terrorists who were killed.

The source said that the Armed Forces clashed with terrorist groups near al-Zaiytoun roundabout and the Finance Building, al-Kournish Square in Aqraba town.

It added that the clashes resulted in killing many terrorists, including Abdullah al-Naqib, Mahmoud Khoulani, Mohammad Ibrahim Ma’atouq and Anas Abdul-Razzaq al-Naqqab.

The source indicated that the armed forces restored security to Aqraba town and its surrounding after dealing a series of painful blows to the terrorist gatherings in the area.

In a relevant context, an army unit killed a number of terrorists in Shabaa. Terrorist Ahmad Abboud Mashhadani, Khaled Eido Shammout, Abdullah Ammouri, Zaher Abdel-Qader Diab and Yehya al-Zain were identified among the dead.

In Beit Sahm, terrorists Adel al-Asali, Samer al-Sukkari and Bassam al-Barbari were killed.

A unit of the armed forces killed all members of an armed terrorist group at al-Kshak Street in al-Hejjeira town in al-Sayyeda Zainab area, including non-Syrians.

Jabhat al-Nusra affiliated terrorist Mohammad Mustafa and another terrorist called Abu Huzaifa, from Libya, and terrorists Mahmoud Khalili, Nasr Khalifeh and Khaled al-Ajrami, the leader of the so-called “al-Golan Battalion” were killed.

In al-Tadamun neighborhood in Damascus, a unit of the Armed Forces clashed with a terrorist group, killing and injuring many of its members.

Terrorist Attack against Aleppo Gas Station Puts 1,050 Megawatt out of Service

Terrorists attacked Aleppo gas station which feeds turbines to generate electric power in the city, putting 1,050 megawatt out of service.

In a statement to SANA, Minister of Electricity, Imad Khamis, said the terrorists fired shells on the fuel depots at the station, adding that the terrorist attack led to power outage in a number of areas in Aleppo city.

He said that the power outage will continue around the clock in some areas in the city.

The Army continues its national Duty in Aleppo and its Countryside

The armed forces today continued their pursuit operations against terrorists of al-Qaeda-liked Jabhat al-Nusra and their gatherings in Aleppo and its countryside, carrying out qualitative operations leading to the killing of tens of terrorists.

An official source told SANA reporter that units of the armed forces targeted terrorists in Darert Ezza, Handarat, Banes Village, Tal Shaer in Aleppo countryside , killing tens of terrorists and injuring many others in addition to destroying their cars.

In Assfeira area, a unit of the army destroyed a number of dens for terrorists and three cars equipped with weapons and munitions in addition to destroying terrorists’ gatherings in Kfar Naha.

In the city of Aleppo, the Army destroyed gatherings of terrorists in al-Shaar, Vegetable market , Masaken Hananou, Bustan al-Qasr, al-Kalasa and Antayia Door.

Meanwhile, the armed forces pursued terrorists in Bustan al-Basha, killing tens of terrorists and injuring many others, destroying their gatherings.

Armed Forces Kill leader of an armed terrorist group and a number of terrorists in Homs

The Army today carried out qualitative operations against terrorists of Jabhat al-Nusra in Homs and its countryside, inflicting heavy losses upon them.

An official source told SANA reporter that a unit of the Army eliminated tens of terrorists in Jisr al-Qantara in in al-Qseir.

The source added that another army unit killed leader of an armed group and all its members at Jourat al-Shaiyah in Homs.

A citizen Martyred, his Son Injured by Terrorists’ Gunfire in Hasaka

Citizen Abdel-Ahad Bashoura was martyred while his son Yousef was injured by terrorists’ gunfire in Masaken al-Mahatta area in Hasaka city.

A source in the province told SANA reporter that Abdel-Ahad died of a gunshot wound to the head while his son was admitted to hospital, adding that the child is in a critical health condition.

The locals said that the terrorists blocked the way of Bashoura and his son while on their way home, opened fire on them and fled away.

The Army destroys cars carrying a group of terrorists on Qastal Maaf road in Lattakia

A unit of the Army today destroyed 4 cars carrying a group of terrorists on Qastal Maaf road in Lattakia countryside.

A source in Lattakia told SANA reporter that ten terrorists were killed in the operation.

Al-Moallem: Syria Defends its People against Armed Terrorist Attacks

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign and Expatriates Minister, Walid al-Moallem, stressed that Syria is defending its people against the armed terrorist attacks and the terrorists who come from several countries.

Meeting Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Filippo Grandi on Wednesday, the two sides reviewed cooperation between Syria and the organization in light of the attack launched against Syria.

Minister al-Moallem stressed that Syria will not delay in providing help to the UNRWA.

Al-Moallem briefed Grandi on the conspiracy hatched against Syria, indicating that the armed terrorist groups are destroying the infrastructure of the Syrian economy, terrifying civilians, killing them and committing crimes against them in line with the war they waged against the Syrian Arab Army.

He referred to the terrorist attack against al-Bteiha School in al-Wafideen Camp in Damascus Countryside on Tuesday which led to the martyrdom of nine students and a teacher.

In turn, Grandi expressed appreciation for the aid provided by the Syrian government to the Palestinian refugees.

He stressed that the UNRWA is still working in Syria, rejecting all attempts to get the Palestinian refugees involved in the crisis in Syria.

Grandi added that the Palestinians’ main cause is their adherence to the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights.

Earlier, Deputy Foreign and Expatriates Minister Fayssal Mikdad met Grandi. Mikdad stressed the importance of preserving the UNRWA services provided to the Palestinian refugees.

Information Minister: Escalation of Media Campaign against Syria is due to Armed Terrorist Groups’ Defeat

Dec 05, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Minister of information, Omran al-Zoubi, stressed that the escalation of the frantic media campaign launched by the conspirators against Syria is because their armed terrorist groups are being defeated under the strikes of the Syrian Arab army which is making progress in all areas.

Al-Zoubi’s remarks came as the Balance and Budget Committee at the People’s Assembly was discussing the Information Ministry’s report on its investment plan for the year 2013 which amounts to SYP 1,986 billion.

He pointed out to the necessity of supporting the various establishments affiliated with the Information Ministry in light of a plan to establish media centers in cooperation between the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) and the General Establishment of Radio and TV and supporting the media center in Moscow.

Al-Zoubi noted the importance of moral and financial support given to the Ministry through the People’s Assembly in spite of the economic challenges and their repercussions on the budget.

The Minister added that the Information Ministry needs more expenses currently due to the enormous damages which hit its establishments and infrastructure as a result of the armed terrorist groups’ attacks on the Syrian Arab TV and al-Ikhbariya channel, in addition to the need to produce films that suit the current stage.

He pointed out that the Government Statement concerning the Information Ministry focuses on working to change the conception of media to become “the media of the state, institutions, citizens and genuine issues of the people.”

Al-Zoubi added that the media should express the reality and aspirations of the citizens, pointing out that the current crisis imposed new standards to deal with corruption.

He reiterated that there is no ‘veto’ against anyone to appear in the public media, calling on all members of the People’s Assembly to be guests on the national media.

The Minister stressed that Syria has never been fragmented or changed throughout history, adding that the new attempts of the conspirators against Syria will not succeed in spite of the high cost of destruction and sabotage.

He pointed out that the Ministry has alternatives in case Eutelsat ceased transmission of the Syrian channels because of the sanctions imposed on the national media means, explaining that the Russian satellite EM44 will broadcast the Syrian channels without changing the dish.

Interpositions of the Balance and Budget committee members focused on the necessity of producing TV programs that face the conspiracy hatched against Syria and supporting the Syrian drama morally and financially.

They called for training media staff and increasing the number of reporters and extending TV and radio centers.

Directors of media institutions reviewed the work situation of their institutions and the challenges they are facing.

Director-General of the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) stressed that the Agency has field reporters who accompany the Syrian Arab army units in all provinces to relay the true image of what is happening.

He pointed out that the agency is working on new projects to be implemented next year concerning launching a satellite channel in cooperation with the Information Ministry and the Syrian Arab TV, in addition to establishing a new website.

For his part, Director-General of the General Commission of Radio and TV said the ministry and the commission are working to update news programs, pointing out that the sabotage which hit the radio and TV centers hindered the flow of information from these centers.

UN Secretary General Calls for Political Solution in Syria and Ending Violence and Battles in It

Dec 05, 2012

KUWAIT, (SANA) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for reaching a political solution in Syria and ceasing violence immediately in it.

In a press conference in Kuwait on Wednesday, Ki-moon said that violence and battles must stop immediately in Syria, and that the military option cannot be a sure solution, affirming that all unresolved issues must be dealt with through political means.

He said that the continuation of the crisis in Syria is utterly unacceptable, voicing concern over the escalating situation in it.

Ki-moon is visiting Kuwait as part of a tour in the region. He is due to visit Bagdhad on Thursday.

 

UN: Armed Opposition in Syria Pose Threat to Peacekeeping Forces in the Golan

Dec 05, 2012

NEW YORK, (SANA) –United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hervé Ladsous, said that the armed opposition in Syria pose a threat to the safety of the international forces stationed in the occupied Syrian Golan.

In a press conference held on Wednesday in Paris, Ladsous said that the situation in Syria “sparked a cascade of insecurity which has had consequences highlighted by the presence of armed groups belonging to the Syrian opposition in the disengagement zones.”

He added “we will reinforce security, most notably with armored vehicles and we plan to send more political advisers to analyze the situation on the ground.”

Larijani: Solution in Syria Should be through Dialogue, Halting Terrorism

Dec 05, 2012

TEHRAN, (SANA) – Speaker of Iranian Shura Council, Ali Larijani stressed that the solution in Syria should be through national dialogue among the Syrians, in addition to halting terrorism and stopping the arms and money supply to the terrorists.

Larijani remarks came during a meeting with the Syrian Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Subhi al-Abdullah, in Tehran.

He stressed that Syria is facing a huge conspiracy and it is paying the price of its stances in support of the resistance, adding that “we should support Syria because it is in the front line.

Larijani asserted the need for conducting the national dialogue away from foreign intervention, reiterating the Shura Council’s support to the Iranian government’s decisions in support of the Syrian government and people.

He pointed out to the enemies’ frustration over the steadfastness of the Syrian people in the face of the western-U.S. targeting of their country.

In turn, Minister al-Abdullah stressed the Syrian government’s determination to carry out reforms and confront terrorism which targets the Syrian people and their properties and infrastructure, adding that the government has called for holding a dialogue under the umbrella of the homeland.

Al-Abdullah reviewed what has been achieved over the past two days in terms of cooperation with Iranian institutions in the field of agriculture, food industries and livestock.

He underlined the importance of unifying efforts to push bilateral cooperation forward and strengthen Syria’s steadfastness against what it is facing.

Minister al-Abdullah and the accompanying delegation held several talks with his Iranian counterpart Sadeq Khalilian, with the two sides stressing the need for activating trade exchange in the field of agricultural fertilizers, olive oil and citrus.

Rahimi: Dialogue is the Only Way to Resolve Crisis in Syria

In a speech during the 11th meeting of the Prime Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, Iranian Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi said that the crisis in Syria can only be solved through political methods and dialogue.

Rahimi warned against the consequences of arming terrorist groups in Syria and the militarization of the crisis, affirming that is doesn’t help resolve the situation; rather it makes the situation in the region more complicated and expands violence.

Russian Foreign Ministry: Targeting Children in Syria Unjustified, Terrorists and Foreign Powers are Responsible

Dec 05, 2012

MOSCOW, (SANA) – The Russian Foreign Ministry said targeting children at school in Syria is unjustified and terrorists and the foreign powers which support them are to blame for this.

The Russian Ministry’s remarks came in a statement commenting on the armed terrorist group’s firing shells on a school in al-Wafideen Camp in Damascus Countryside yesterday.

The statement pointed out that there is no justification whatsoever for killing children and destroying schools and hospitals, adding that those who carry out these terrorist acts are criminals and deserve the harshest penalties and the foreign sides which support the terrorists are to blame.

The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed condolences to the families of all children who were martyred and condemned all forms of terrorism.

9 children and a teacher were martyred as terrorists targeted with shells a school in al-Wafideen Camp in Damascus Countryside

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Chris Marsden

05 December, 2012

@ WSWS.org

Protests Tuesday against the dictatorial powers assumed by Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi on November 22 and his efforts to ram through a new constitution via a referendum scheduled for December 15 culminated in a massive march on the presidential palace.

Outside the presidential palace protesters cut through a barbed wire and police fired tear gas in response. Mursi quit the palace amid fighting between protesters and hundreds of police.

The march began from several mosques and converged towards the Itihadiya palace in Heliopolis. “Freedom or we die,” chanted protesters. Others chanted, “Mohammed Morsi! Illegitimate! Brotherhood! Illegitimate!” Still others shouted, “Down with the sons of dogs. We are the power and we are the people,” and “The people want the downfall of the regime.”

Large numbers also gathered in Tahrir Square and a major protest was held in Egypt’s second city Alexandria.

Earlier protests had mobilised over 200,000 on Tahrir Square on November 27 and November 30. In addition, thousands of workers from Misr Spinning in Mahalla al-Kubra protested last week along with local residents in a 5,000-strong demonstration that ended in pitched battles with supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood responded with a national mobilisation on December 1, followed by a siege of the Supreme Constitutional Court December 2. That body, dominated by Mubarak-era loyalists, was expected to declare the constitutional assembly that passed the pro-Islamic draft charter illegitimate and disband the Shura Council, parliament’s upper house. The judges responded by declaring a strike.

Mursi’s November 22 decree placed his decisions beyond judicial oversight and barred any judicial body from dissolving the Islamist-dominated body that drafted and approved the new constitution.

On Monday, a rift emerged within the judiciary when top judges on the Supreme Judicial Council said they would ensure judicial supervision of the referendum. This was against demands for a boycott by a thousand judges, members of the Egyptian Judges Club, who had declared a boycott of the referendum Sunday. Al Zind from the Judges Club countered claims that the statement of the Supreme Judicial Council was proof of acceptance of Mursi’s move by insisting that 90 percent of judges were refusing to participate “but there are also Muslim Brotherhood judges.”

The Egyptian and world media also reported as a significant breakthrough for Mursi a meeting Sunday of the electoral commission, also led by senior judges. But Yousseri Abdel-Karim, a former spokesman of the electoral commission, said the meeting had to take place for legal reasons and did not mean that judges would oversee the referendum. “Judges don’t retreat and we fear nothing, and we will not change our position,” he said.

Protests were also mounted involving the refusal of at least 12 major independent newspapers and four television stations to publish or broadcast Tuesday and/or today. Article 48 of the draft constitution supports freedom of the press, but adds the caveat that “there may be an exception in times of war or national mobilization.”

The protest also spread to state-controlled media, with staff of the Internet edition of al-Ahram marching Monday to the journalists’ union in central Cairo. On Sunday, state television presenter Hala Fahmy carried a white shroud while hosting a current affairs program and was taken off the air. She told viewers, “We have to tell the truth whatever the price is.”

Despite the scale of popular opposition, Mursi has been emboldened by calculations that his liberal and secular opponents are unwilling to risk escalating a conflict that could get out of their control and threaten the interests of the entire Egyptian bourgeoisie. The eruption of an insurgent movement of the working class of the type that brought down Hosni Mubarak in 2011 is anathema to both sides of the bitter factional conflict that has erupted within ruling circles.

In a piece written for the Financial Times, Mohamed ElBaradei, the coordinator of the opposition National Salvation Front, insisted that Mursi had to rescind his decree, drop plans for the referendum and agree on a new, more representative constituent assembly to draft a democratic constitution. But ElBaradei added a warning: “If they [the Muslim Brotherhood] continue to try, they risk an eruption into violence and chaos that will destroy the fabric of Egyptian society.”

The National Salvation Front was formed by ElBaradei along with the Nasserist Dignity Party leader and presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi and the former Mubarak-regime stalwart Amr Moussa.

Emad Gad, a leader of the Social Democratic Party, spoke of plans for “a permanent coalition” of opposition groups, but added, “I’m afraid of a confrontation. I do not want to use the term civil war.”

The opposition’s official statement on yesterday’s marches stressed that their aim was confined to sending “a message to President Mohammad Mursi that he has to listen to the national opposition, who is keen to fulfil the objectives of the revolution.”

The Islamists ultimately base themselves on the tacit backing of the United States and other imperialist powers, who view the Brotherhood as a vital regional ally in Tunisia, Libya, Syria and elsewhere, as well as in Egypt, where they expect it to safeguard their substantial investments from any threat from below. To this end they all want Mursi’s constitution, with its measures safeguarding military rule and allowing for repression, to be passed, whatever their pro-forma concerns about sharia law, women’s rights, separation of powers and the like.

Even as the Supreme Court was being surrounded by protesters Sunday, Prime Minister Hisham Qandeel was announcing his policies to enhance “the business environment in the coming period and its commitment to all international agreements in all areas… thus making Egypt an ideal destination for foreign direct investments.”

He spoke by video to the National United States-Arab Chamber of Commerce, insisting that trade with the US “will be crucial for all world countries in the coming period.” He boasted that the trade exchange between Egypt and the US reached $8.2 billion in 2011 and US investments in Egypt reached $14.5 billion.

The Cairo stock market made gains on news that the referendum would go ahead despite what Mohamed Radwan at Pharos Securities derided as “all the noise and demonstrations that might take place until then.”

For its part, the mouthpiece of the British liberal bourgeoisie, the Guardian, urged the opposition parties to act in accordance with the essential requirement to return Egypt to political stability so that social unrest can be quelled and profits restored.

It called on Mursi’s opponents, “secular, liberal and Christian,” to recognise that, for all its faults, the draft constitution was “a mixed bag” that did not merit “walkouts, months of paralysis.” The commentary continued: “Both sides have forgotten what happened 22 months ago when Egyptians put aside their sectarian identities on entering Tahrir Square and waved the national flag instead. In the name of that flag, those who claim to be democrats need to rediscover the long forgotten art of compromise.”

Compromise is not what motivates the hundreds of thousands of working people who took to the streets of Cairo yesterday. Still less does it motivate Mursi and his supporters. What is urgently required is a socialist political leadership that articulates the independent interests of workers and youth rather than those of rival factions of the capitalist class, all of which seek to exploit the workers and hide their own aims behind hollow democratic and nationalist rhetoric.

Now that the explosions have stopped, we are obligated to delve into the truth behind Operation Pillar of Defense.

By Reuven Pedatzur

4 December, 2012

@ www.haaretz.com

The real story behind Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza has not yet been investigated, but now that the explosions have stopped, we are obligated to delve into the truth. The decision to kill Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari, which was the opening shot of the operation, was made even though he was involved in negotiations on signing a long-term cease-fire agreement.

A few hours before he was assassinated, he had received a draft of an agreement for a permanent cease-fire with Israel, and he was apparently expected to reply to it affirmatively. The indirect contacts with Jabari had taken place over the course of months via Hamas’ deputy foreign minister, Ghazi Hamad, with the knowledge and consent of Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

These contacts with Hamas were conducted by Gershon Baskin, who served as an intermediary in the deal for the return of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. Baskin had reported his progress toward a draft agreement to the members of a special committee appointed by Barak back in May, a panel that also included representatives of other government ministries.

In other words, our decision makers, including the defense minister and perhaps also Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, knew about Jabari’s role in advancing a permanent cease-fire agreement. Jabari was the strongman of the Gaza Strip – Israel’s “subcontractor,” as Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn characterized him – so Hamad submitted each draft prepared with Baskin to Jabari for approval.

Also party to the negotiations on a permanent cease-fire were Egyptian intelligence officials. Some of the meetings between Baskin and Hamad took place in Cairo. These Egyptian intelligence officials were in constant contact with Barak’s envoys, so one would assume that in addition to Baskin, they too were informing Israel of their impressions of the progress in the talks on a draft agreement.

At no point in the negotiations between Baskin and Hamad was the former ever told to stop.

Moreover, about a week before Jabari’s assassination, Israeli military officials asked permission from their commanders to meet with Baskin and get a briefing. This permission was denied.

Thus the decision to kill Jabari shows that our decision makers decided a cease-fire would be undesirable for Israel at this time, and that attacking Hamas would be preferable. It seems a view had developed that Israel needed to strengthen its deterrence against Hamas rather than reach agreement with it on a period of calm. In the view of the defense establishment and the prime and defense ministers’ bureaus, a cease-fire agreement might have undermined Israel’s deterrence and weakened its image of resolve. Bolstering its deterrence, in this view, would be achieved by killing Jabari, who was liable to respond affirmatively to the offer of a long-term cease-fire.

In this way, Israel’s leaders killed three birds with one stone: They assassinated the man who had the power to make a deal with Israel; they took revenge on someone who had caused more than a few Israeli casualties; and they signaled to Hamas that communications with it will be conducted only through military force.

Quite aside from the fact that the results of Operation Pillar of Defense didn’t meet the expectations of those who launched it, the decision makers must answer one important question: If they knew it was possible to reach a cease-fire agreement (whose provisions, incidentally, were better than those of the agreement reached after the operation ) without going to war, why did they assassinate Jabari, and thereby also assassinate the chances of achieving calm without shooting? Is it possible, heaven forbid, that Barak and Netanyahu feared the opportunity to conduct a military operation at the end of their government’s term would elude them, and that’s why they ordered Jabari’s liquidation?

To keep us from suspecting their motives, the prime minister and defense minister must explain their considerations and decisions in the Jabari affair.

By Noam Chomsky, Alternet

04 December 12

@ Readersupportednews.org

An old man in Gaza held a placard that read: “You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all, but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.”

The old man’s message provides the proper context for the latest episode in the savage punishment of Gaza. The crimes trace back to 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled from their homes in terror or were expelled to Gaza by conquering Israeli forces, who continued to truck Palestinians over the border for years after the official cease-fire.

The punishment took new forms when Israel conquered Gaza in 1967. From recent Israeli scholarship (primarily Avi Raz’s “The Bride and the Dowry: Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians in the Aftermath of the June 1967 War”), we learn that the government’s goal was to drive the refugees into the Sinai Peninsula – and, if feasible, the rest of the population too.

Expulsions from Gaza were carried out under the direct orders of Gen. Yeshayahu Gavish, commander of the Israel Defense Forces Southern Command. Expulsions from the West Bank were far more extreme, and Israel resorted to devious means to prevent the return of those expelled, in direct violation of U.N. Security Council orders.

The reasons were made clear in internal discussions immediately after the war. Golda Meir, later prime minister, informed her Labor Party colleagues that Israel should keep the Gaza Strip while “getting rid of its Arabs.” Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and others agreed.

Prime Minister Levi Eshkol explained that those expelled could not be allowed to return because “we cannot increase the Arab population in Israel” – referring to the newly occupied territories, already considered part of Israel.

In accord with this conception, all of Israel’s maps were changed, expunging the Green Line (the internationally recognized borders) – though publication of the maps was delayed to permit Abba Eban, an Israeli ambassador to the U.N., to attain what he called a “favorable impasse” at the General Assembly by concealing Israel’s intentions.

The goals of expulsion may remain alive today, and might be a factor in contributing to Egypt’s reluctance to open the border to free passage of people and goods barred by the U.S.-backed Israeli siege.

The current upsurge of U.S.-Israeli violence dates to January 2006, when Palestinians voted “the wrong way” in the first free election in the Arab world.

Israel and the U.S. reacted at once with harsh punishment of the miscreants, and preparation of a military coup to overthrow the elected government – the routine procedure. The punishment was radically intensified in 2007, when the coup attempt was beaten back and the elected Hamas government established full control over Gaza.

Ignoring immediate offers from Hamas for a truce after the 2006 election, Israel launched attacks that killed 660 Palestinians in 2006, most of whom were civilians (a third were minors). According to U.N. reports, 2,879 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire from April 2006 through July 2012, along with several dozen Israelis killed by fire from Gaza.

A short-lived truce in 2008 was honored by Hamas until Israel broke it in November. Ignoring further truce offers, Israel launched the murderous Cast Lead operation in December.

So matters have continued, while the U.S. and Israel also continue to reject Hamas calls for a long-term truce and a political settlement for a two-state solution in accord with the international consensus that the U.S. has blocked since 1976 when the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution to this effect, brought by the major Arab states.

This week, Washington devoted every effort to blocking a Palestinian initiative to upgrade its status at the U.N. but failed, in virtual international isolation as usual. The reasons were revealing: Palestine might approach the International Criminal Court about Israel’s U.S.-backed crimes.

One element of the unremitting torture of Gaza is Israel’s “buffer zone” within Gaza, from which Palestinians are barred entry to almost half of Gaza’s limited arable land.

From January 2012 to the launching of Israel’s latest killing spree on Nov. 14, Operation Pillar of Defense, one Israeli was killed by fire from Gaza while 78 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire.

The full story is naturally more complex, and uglier.

The first act of Operation Pillar of Defense was to murder Ahmed Jabari. Aluf Benn, editor of the newspaper Haaretz, describes him as Israel’s “subcontractor” and “border guard” in Gaza, who enforced relative quiet there for more than five years.

The pretext for the assassination was that during these five years Jabari had been creating a Hamas military force, with missiles from Iran. A more credible reason was provided by Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, who had been involved in direct negotiations with Jabari for years, including plans for the eventual release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Baskin reports that hours before he was assassinated, Jabari “received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip.”

A truce was then in place, called by Hamas on Nov. 12. Israel apparently exploited the truce, Reuters reports, directing attention to the Syrian border in the hope that Hamas leaders would relax their guard and be easier to assassinate.

Throughout these years, Gaza has been kept on a level of bare survival, imprisoned by land, sea and air. On the eve of the latest attack, the U.N. reported that 40 percent of essential drugs and more than half of essential medical items were out of stock.

 

In November one of the first in a series of hideous photos sent from Gaza showed a doctor holding the charred corpse of a murdered child. That one had a personal resonance. The doctor is the director and head of surgery at Khan Yunis hospital, which I had visited a few weeks earlier.

In writing about the trip I reported his passionate appeal for desperately needed medicine and surgical equipment. These are among the crimes of the U.S.-Israeli siege, and of Egyptian complicity.

The casualty rates from the November episode were about average: more than 160 Palestinian dead, including many children, and six Israelis.

Among the dead were three journalists. The official Israeli justification was that “The targets are people who have relevance to terror activity.” Reporting the “execution” in The New York Times, the reporter David Carr observed that “it has come to this: Killing members of the news media can be justified by a phrase as amorphous as ‘relevance to terror activity.’ ”

The massive destruction was all in Gaza. Israel used advanced U.S. military equipment and relied on U.S. diplomatic support, including the usual U.S. intervention efforts to block a Security Council call for a cease-fire.

With each such exploit, Israel’s global image erodes. The photos and videos of terror and devastation, and the character of the conflict, leave few remaining shreds of credibility to the self-declared “most moral army in the world,” at least among people whose eyes are open.

The pretexts for the assault were also the usual ones. We can put aside the predictable declarations of the perpetrators in Israel and Washington. But even decent people ask what Israel should do when attacked by a barrage of missiles. It’s a fair question, and there are straightforward answers.

One response would be to observe international law, which allows the use of force without Security Council authorization in exactly one case: in self-defense after informing the Security Council of an armed attack, until the Council acts, in accord with the U.N. Charter, Article 51.

Israel is well familiar with that Charter provision, which it invoked at the outbreak of the June 1967 war. But, of course, Israel’s appeal went nowhere when it was quickly ascertained that Israel had launched the attack. Israel did not follow this course in November, knowing what would be revealed in a Security Council debate.

Another narrow response would be to agree to a truce, as appeared quite possible before the operation was launched on Nov. 14.

There are more far-reaching responses. By coincidence, one is discussed in the current issue of the journal National Interest. Asia scholars Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen describe China’s reaction after rioting in western Xinjiang province, “in which mobs of Uighurs marched around the city beating hapless Han (Chinese) to death.”

Chinese president Hu Jintao quickly flew to the province to take charge; senior leaders in the security establishment were fired; and a wide range of development projects were undertaken to address underlying causes of the unrest.

In Gaza, too, a civilized reaction is possible. The U.S. and Israel could end the merciless, unremitting assault, open the borders and provide for reconstruction – and if it were imaginable, reparations for decades of violence and repression.

The cease-fire agreement stated that the measures to implement the end of the siege and the targeting of residents in border areas “shall be dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the cease-fire.”

There is no sign of steps in this direction. Nor is there any indication of a U.S.-Israeli willingness to rescind their separation of Gaza from the West Bank in violation of the Oslo Accords, to end the illegal settlement and development programs in the West Bank that are designed to undermine a political settlement, or in any other way to abandon the rejectionism of the past decades.

Someday, and it must be soon, the world will respond to the plea issued by the distinguished Gazan human-rights lawyer Raji Sourani while the bombs were once again raining down on defenseless civilians in Gaza: “We demand justice and accountability. We dream of a normal life, in freedom and dignity.”

By Bill Van Auken

04 December, 2012

@ WSWS.org

The Obama administration and the corporate media have cited unspecified “intelligence” about the movement of chemical weapons to issue new threats of direct intervention in Syria, where Washington and its allies have been backing so-called “rebels” in a bid to topple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both made public statements Monday alleging a danger of Syria using chemical weapons and threatening US retaliation.

Appearing before a military audience at the National Defense University in Fort McNair, Obama declared, “I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and anyone who is under his command… If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons there will be consequences and you will be held accountable.”

“This is a red line for the United States,” Clinton said earlier in the day after a meeting in Prague with Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.

“I’m not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people, but suffice it to say that we’re certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur,” Clinton warned.

Schwarzenberg told the media that Czech troops specializing in chemical weapons had been sent to Jordan and were “training” with forces there.

Citing unnamed senior officials who claim to have seen unspecified intelligence on Syrian chemical weapons, the New York Times, CNN and other media have joined forces with the Obama administration in promoting the chemical weapons justification for another US war of aggression.

What becomes clear in examining these reports, as well as the statements from the administration, is that the alleged threat from Syrian “weapons of mass destruction” is entirely concocted. Not a single piece of hard evidence is cited by any government official or any media source.

In a breathless report on Monday, CNN’s Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr quoted an unnamed “senior US official” as describing “worrying signs” of supposed activity around chemical weapons sites in Syria in “the last few days.”

“The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitiveness of the information discussed, declined to specify the exact intelligence that the United States has gathered in the past few days,” Starr said.

The CNN report quotes one US official as saying that “this puts us into the contingency of potential US action.”

The chemical weapons story was initially broken on Sunday by the New York Times in a front-page article co-authored by David Sanger, the Times’ chief Washington correspondent, and Eric Schmitt, its national security correspondent. Writing that “what exactly the Syrian forces intend to do with the weapons remains murky,” the Times correspondents cited as their source unnamed “officials who have seen the intelligence from Syria.”

Syria’s Foreign Ministry categorically denied that the country’s military is preparing to use chemical weapons. A statement released in Damascus said that Syria “would not use chemical weapons—if there are any—against its own people under any circumstances.”

What is particularly significant in the statements of Obama and other US officials is the absence of any expression of concern over the Syrian military’s chemical weapons stockpile falling into the hands of the so-called rebels whom Washington is supporting.

It has become impossible to conceal the fact that the main fighting force challenging the Assad regime is dominated by Islamist militias, including forces tied to Al Qaeda, who would be prepared to use such weapons against civilian populations in Western Europe or the United States. That this is a matter of official indifference only underscores the glaring contradiction between the official expressions of concern and the real motives underlying the US intervention.

The leaks about chemical weapons were made on the eve of a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday. The meeting will decide on Turkey’s request for the deployment of Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries on the country’s 560-mile border with Syria.

The Turkish government has claimed that the missiles are necessary to counter an alleged threat of missiles with chemical warheads being fired towards its territory by the Syrian armed forces.

Turkey has been among the most important state sponsors of the Syrian insurgency, funneling arms and supplies and reportedly providing Turkish military officers as “advisers.” It has allowed the anti-Assad forces to use its territory as a base and hosted a CIA station, where US operatives have coordinated the provision of arms, money and intelligence to the “rebels.”

The deployment of the Patriot missiles, which both US and NATO officials have indicated will be approved at this week’s meeting, will mark a major turning point in the imperialist intervention in Syria. It will place US and NATO forces in direct confrontation with the Syrian military and pave the way for a far more open intervention.

While the missile batteries are supposedly aimed against a threat of surface-to-surface missiles from Syria, a far more likely use is to deny Syrian military aircraft the ability to operate in northern Syria, effectively carving out a “no-fly zone” in which the US-NATO-backed “rebels” can operate with relative impunity. As in last year’s US-NATO intervention in Libya, such a development would likely prove the first step in a direct war for regime-change.

The claims of threats from Syrian chemical weapons also serve as a pretext for a direct ground invasion. As the New York Times article notes, the US and its allies “have long been developing contingency plans in case they decided to intervene in an effort to neutralize the chemical weapons, a task that the Pentagon estimates would require upward of 75,000 troops.”

The article also points to the Pentagon’s having “quietly sent a task force of more than 150 planners and other specialists to Jordan to help the armed forces there to, among other things, prepare for the possibility that Syria would lose control of its chemical weapons.” The phrase “among other things” serves to mask the essential mission of this force of US special operations troops, which is to aid the “rebel” operations inside Syria and serve as an advance guard for a more direct US-NATO intervention.

Debka.com, a web site with close ties to Israeli intelligence, reported that last week the “rebels” had carried out an attack that destroyed a Russian-built electronic warning radar station in southern Syria, effectively blinding the regime in the face of any attacks prepared by the Israeli military. According to a report in the Atlantic Monday, Israel has approached the Jordanian government with plans for air strikes on Syrian chemical weapons sites. Debka described the deployment of the Patriot missiles and the attacks on Syrian radar as representing “a coordinated military effort.”

Within just weeks of the US election, concerted preparations are underway for yet another war of aggression in the Middle East. The warnings about supposed threats from “weapons of mass destruction” are an unmistakable echo of the lies used to justify the catastrophic US war against Iraq a decade ago. The New York Times, the “newspaper of record” and voice of official liberalism, served as the indispensable conduit for government disinformation about non-existent Iraqi WMD, lending credibility to the propaganda used to justify the unprovoked US invasion. Clearly, the same modus operandi is being employed in Syria.

In the offing is a war with potentially far more devastating consequences than the eight-year US intervention in Iraq or the more than decade-long war in Afghanistan. In attacking Syria, US imperialism is aiming to pave the way for an assault on Iran in a bid to reorganize the entire region in its own interests.

By Don Hazen, AlterNet

03 December 12

@ readersupportednews.org

“The public would not be accepting of drones, if they knew how kill decisions are made, and how many innocents are killed in the process.”– Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films

Robert Greenwald, head of the progressive internet video and documentary film company, Brave New Films, recently traveled to Pakistan, supported financially by hundreds of BNF donors, to witness first hand the stories of families who have had innocent loved ones killed by U.S. drone attacks. Greenwald is challenging both the morality and the factual effectiveness of the U.S drone program as we learn more about the failures and questionable policies. The U.S. claims that drone missiles are aimed at potential terrorists but because the ground rules of who can be targeted is both vague and has been loosened, the number of innocents being killed has risen sharply. Furthermore, the information that is used to target people, appears to be the result of a system of bribery at the local level, which is of questionable reliability.

It wasn’t until April 2012 that John Brennan, White House counter-terrorism adviser admitted for the first time publicly, that our government has been using drones in Pakistan, and later Yemen, to attempt to kill those they consider as potential terrorists. This was the first public acknowledgment, despite the fact that the program had been going for at least several years. Still far more information was withheld in Brennan’s announcement about the the program, than was revealed.

As The Washington Post reports: “Brennan’s speech was also noteworthy, however, for what he withheld. He did not disclose how many people have been killed, list all the locations where armed drones are being flown or mention the administration’s increasing reliance on ‘signature’ strikes, which allow the CIA to fire missiles even when it doesn’t know the identities of those who could be killed.”

The CIA runs the drone program and it is shrouded in secrecy, which enables people like Brennan to characterize the program in glowing terms, which go mainly unchallenged by the media, and contribute to the public assumption that drones are accurate, safe, and taking out the bad guys. Thus Brennan is able to get away with saying, as reported in the Post : Drones’ capability to linger over targets for days enables unprecedented “surgical precision,” Brennan said, “the ability, with laser-like focus, to eliminate the cancerous tumor called an al-Qaeda terrorist while limiting damage to the tissue around it — that makes this counter-terrorism tool so essential.” This despite little evidence that active or powerful elements of Al-Qaeda are operating in the Swat area of Pakistan which has been targeted by drones.

Nevertheless, increasingly another story is emerging which raises fundamental questions about the wisdom and the morality of our policy vis a vis Pakistan, and Brennan’s effort to pretend that the drone program isn’t destructive, and hugely alienating to Pakistan. According to Greenwald, speaking to his staff in a briefing upon his return from Pakistan, people with whom he spoke ” said the Drone attacks were a great recruiting tool for the Taliban, because powerless people want to fight back for the losses they have suffered, as their communities and families are attacked. Many businesses have been destroyed in the Swat area, and schools are empty because everyone is afraid of drone attacks.

Greenwald explains: Let’s assume for a moment the drones can be technically accurate, although that is questionable. What information are they using to establish their targets? Basically it is a form of bribery, where the CIA gives former Pakistani military large sums of money to pass out to sources on the ground in Swat, where the Taliban are most active. Sometimes, — and it is impossible to tell how much — these bribes lead to the settling of old and local scores .”

So there is another painful and tragic side to the drone story — not the one of killing so called “militant targets” but rather the slaughter of innocent civilians, as stories of drone victims have emerged in the Fata area of Swat where the drones are targeted.

Greenwald recounted one situation, as told to him from people from area of the bombing that there was a group of elders were meeting in a Jirga — a kind town meeting of elders — to resolve a community conflict , this one a dispute about mining. But the meeting was interpreted by drone intelligence as a group of men with guns — obviously not unusual for the region — and it became a “signature strike” — and a missile killed between 20 and 40 of the elders.

Like with their intense efforts to work to end the war in Afghanistan, Greenwald and Brave New Films started their quest to change U.S. drone policy with heavy odds (and check out his latest efforts at WarCosts.com). But just as the public attitude toward the Afghan war shifted over time, with heavy dosages of strong factual information contrary to the administration’s line, Greenwald is confident that thee attitude toward drones will shift.

AlterNet spoke with Greenwald in his Culver City California offices on November 26th, just after his return from Pakistan.

Don Hazen: Tell us a little bit about what it was like in Pakistan, and what surprised you, and made you think you were doing the right thing by going there and pursuing the drone story.

Robert Greenwald: The first-hand experience immediately was that the people couldn’t have been more gracious, and that was surprising, given how hated the drones are — by virtue of all measure of statistics — in the great majority of the country.

Don Hazen: What was their message to you? Did they understand you to be a messenger to the public here in the US?

Robert Greenwald: Many of the people asked me to talk to the president of the United States, and to explain to him who they were — that they were not terrorists; they were farmers, they were peasants, they were poor people, they were working people, they were religious people. I heard that over and over again — to please explain this to the President how much damage this was doing. And some of them had the belief that just his understanding who they really were would force him to change his mind about the drone attacks.

Don Hazen: What is your sense of the Obama policy’s effect in Pakistan? What’s your thinking about why we have moved to the use of drones as a major policy shift, and is it working?

Robert Greenwald: After a trip to the region, is very hard to understand or justify why we’re doing it. I feel, like when I went to Afghanistan — there two minutes after walking around on the streets, and you knew this was a country that invading and occupying was not going to be a security solution. After a short period of time in Pakistan, it’s clear that drones are not a security solution either.. If you believe in drones, the original idea was to go after so-called high-value targets, which according to the NYU-Stanford study 2% of the people killed by drones are high-value targets — now, who are all the rest of the people? Well, it’s a secret program, so therefore the CIA doesn’t have to tell us anything, yet they claim that with each attack they’re getting militants. Now we have people coming forward, saying, actually, no we’re not terrorists. One man, he had a picture of a 65 year old woman with grey hair — his mother. She’s not a militant terrorist. So the notion that we’re killing terrorists exclusively is fundamentally inaccurate. It has been estimated by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that as many as 178 children have been killed in drone attacks (Read the full report on child casualties from the drone war on WarCosts.com and watch Greenwald’s related video at the bottom of this interview).

Don Hazen: Why is the CIA in charge of this? What would they say to argue with you? And Why do they think the drone policy is working?

Robert Greenwald: The CIA is in charge, because remember, we’re officially not at war with Pakistan. Tell that to the population and in Pakistan, who see this as an extreme violation of their sovereignty. The Pakistan Parliament voted three times unanimously against the use of drones. One of the original justifications by the CIA was that there was this “imminent threat” of terrorism. Well, I defy anyone to prove that the individuals attacked by drones in Pakistan pose an imminent security threat to the security of the United States. I think the CIA would say, and they have said that it’s the least-bad solution, but I have concluded it’s far from the least bad solution. Basically the CIA has decided that they can unilaterally pick who should be assassinated — No proof, no evidence, no court of law. A small group of people are deciding who should be assassinated and which countries its OK to do this in, and they are often very very wrong.

Don Hazen: And how do we fight that? As more people are mobilized to be against drones, what would be the strategy and tactics to try to change the policy; It seems like there’s no access to changing this policy in a democracy, since much of it is secret, and a “matter of national security.” Nobody is voting on it. The Congress isn’t saying — Yes , on drones; or No on drones.

Robert Greenwald: It’s somewhat analogous to Afghanistan — Congress had to have a series of votes over the years to fund that war, keep it going. I think the first step is to have investigations — It looks like they’re going to have an investigation in the UK, and also now that the United Nations is going to be conducting its own. We need to first know: what exactly is the policy, how is it being decided, and to push for transparency. There’s absolutely no reason — with the exception of avoiding outside scrutiny — for the CIA to keep this hidden. Everyone knows drones are being deployed outside the US for assassinations. Let’s say you even believe in drones. Shouldn’t we have a system that would “justify” their use? i.e. we did this attack, because these bad guys were there, and here’s what we did. We don’t even have that. So that’s where we start. We are asking for people to contact Pelosi/Boehner and push for the House Resolution that Dennis Kucinich introduced that calls for an investigation.

Don Hazen: Do you have a sense of where this is coming from beyond the CIA? Is Obama and his national security staff all pro-drone?

Robert Greenwald: Based on limited information, it appears to be primarily driven by the CIA and especially John Brennan, chief counter-terrorism advisor to Obama. But now we hear that Brennan is trying to rein the program .

Don Hazen: Moral issues aside, what do you say to the people who a. believe drones will save American lives, b. cost a lot less than the traditional model of bombers? For example there was a huge issue in Afghanistan of bombing weddings, where part of the celebration involves firing machine guns into the sky — the proponents of drones say, look we’re avoiding a lot more casualties with this approach.

Robert Greenwald: Well, the accuracy argument — whether it’s a wedding in Afghanistan or a funeral in Pakistan, it comes down to who was on the ground giving you the information telling you who the attendants were. And we know that the people who give that kind of information are being bribed. So their intelligence is going to be faulty. It’s an approach that creates doubts from the outset.

Don Hazen: All this is going on in Swat, a semi autonomous area of Pakistan right? How much of a threat are the Taliban there?

Robert Greenwald: Yes, the Swat area is part of the nation state of Pakistan, but it follows its own set of rules and regulations. It’s semi-autonomous. Highly uneducated, extreme levels of poverty as we understand the word poverty, and highly mountainous. That area is where almost all of the attacks on Pakistan have been unleashed.

As far as the he Taliban goes, it is not one unified organization Some of them are brutal to the population, some are less aggressive. But the key is that none of them pose an immediate threat to the U.S. So what’s central here, is that it’s the drone attacks that are creating the threat, as angry people may try to seek revenge against us, as has already been the case.

 

By Noel Sharkey, Guardian UK

03 December 12

The rational approach to the inhumanity of automating death by machines beyond the control of human handlers is to prohibit it

Are we losing our humanity by automating death? Human Rights Watch (HRW) thinks so. In a new report, co-published with Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, they argue the “case against killer robots”. This is not the stuff of science fiction. The killer robots they refer to are not Terminator-style cyborgs hellbent on destroying the human race. There is not even a whiff of Skynet.

These are the mindless robots I first warned Guardian readers about in 2007 – robots programmed to independently select targets and kill them. Five years on from that call for legislation, there is still no international discussion among state actors, and the proliferation of precursor technologies continues unchecked.

Now HRW has stepped up to recommend that all states: prohibit the development, production and use of fully autonomous weapons through an international legally binding instrument; and adopt national laws and policies to prohibit the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons.

At the same time the Nobel peace prize winner Jody Williams has stressed the need for a pre-emptive civil society campaign to prevent these inhumane new weapons from creating unjustifiable harm to civilian populations.

By coincidence, three days after the HRW report was published, the US department of defence issued a directive on “autonomy in weapons systems” that “once activated, can select and engage targets without further intervention by a human operator”. It “establishes … policy and assigns responsibilities for the development and use of autonomous and semi-autonomous functions in weapon systems”. But this offers no comfort.

The US forces and policymakers have been discussing the development of autonomous weapon systems in their roadmaps since 2004, and the directive gives developers the green light. It boils down to saying that the defence department will test everything thoroughly from development to employment, train their operators, make sure that all applicable laws are followed; and have human computer interfaces to abort missions. It also repeatedly stresses the establishment of guidelines to minimise the probability of failures that could lead to unintended engagements or loss of control.

The reason for the repeated stress on failure becomes alarmingly clear in the definitions section, where we are told that failures “can result from a number of causes, including, but not limited to, human error, human-machine interaction failures, malfunctions, communications degradation, software coding errors, enemy cyber attacks or infiltration into the industrial supply chain, jamming, spoofing, decoys, other enemy countermeasures or actions, or unanticipated situations on the battlefield”.

These possible failures show the weakness of the whole enterprise, because they are mostly outside the control of the developers. Guidance about human operators being able to terminate engagements is meaningless if communication is lost, not to mention that the types of supersonic and hypersonic robot craft the US are developing are far beyond human response times.

There are other technical naiveties. Testing, verification and validation are stressed without acknowledging the virtual impossibility of validating that mobile autonomous weapons will “function as anticipated in realistic operational environments against adaptive adversaries”. How can a system be fully tested against adaptive unpredictable enemies?

The directive presents a blinkered US-centric outlook. It lacks understanding that proliferation of the technology means US robots are likely to encounter equal technology from other sophisticated powers. As anyone with a computing background knows, if two or more machines with unknown programs encounter one another, the outcome is unpredictable and could create the unforeseeable harm to civilians that HRW is talking about.

The directive tells us nothing about how these devices will lower the bar against initiating wars, taking actions short of war or violating human rights by sending killing machines abroad, where no US personnel can be injured or killed, to terrify local populations with uncertainty. Autonomous killers can hover for days waiting to execute someone.

It is clear that the rational approach to the inhumanity of automating death by machine is to prohibit it. We are on the brink of a revolution in military affairs that should and must be stopped.

By Eva Bartlett

01 December, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Deaths also happened naturally during the recent Israeli attacks, as did illnesses. For the ill, most over-crowded hospitals, functioning in emergency mode, had no room for mundane everyday illnesses (however serious they would normally be considered). One of Emad’s uncle’s passed away by natural causes during the attacks. Holding the three days of mourning most families abide by becomes difficult under the bombs, particularly when the Zionist army is noted for bombing mourning tents (including in the week prior to the officially-declared Zionist attacks (Israel bombs mourning tent, Nov 10)

Walking on a Gaza backstreet parallel to the main east-west street, Omar Mukthar, I see over a low wall splatters of mud across the side of tall building. It takes me a minute to understand how the mud got sprayed there. Stepping through a space in the wall, I see the crater whose dirt was spewed onto the wall when a presumably F-16 bomb was dropped.

The space seems to be uncultivated land, save the palm and olive trees here and there. The “mini” crater whose dirt decorates the wall is roughly 8 m diameter and as deep. Across the plot, a larger crater roughly 15 m by 15 m draws passersby from Omar Mukthar street.

At least three Palestinian journalists were killed in the Nov 2012 Israeli attacks on Gaza, and at least 12 reported injured. Visiting two of the main media buildings targeted by Israeli attacks during the last Israeli assault on Gaza, the level of damage highlights the clear intent of the Israeli army in targeting media offices, antennae, and journalists. The Sharook building suffered damage on its upper floors from a number of bombings including drone and possibly Apache helicopter missiles. The building housing Aqsa TV and various other media offices likewise suffered major damage on its upper floors.

One young media worker tells me of his near-death experience: after the first couple of bombs rained down on the building, a third one struck the roof just metres from where he stood, praying out loud in the face of the missile. Somehow, it didn’t explode.

The highlight of the day is seeing Saleh again. During the 2008-2009 Israeli assault on Gaza, Saleh kept media workers (Palestinian and international alike) fed, coffeed, tead, and just generally kept everyone’s spirits up in the hardest of times. Employed by Ramattan News to work in the kitchen, Saleh lost his work when Ramattan closed down later in 2009. I am very happy to see him employed again, in a Strip where unemployment is so high.

From the roof of the Sharook building, I saw the flattened Abu Khadara ministry complex, the re-flattened Saraya complex, and the bombed stadium. Since the stadium was within walking distance, I went to see. A few months earlier, I’d met some of the paraolympians and would-be olympians who use the stadium, one of very few resources in Gaza for atheletes in general, para-athletes in particular. Perhaps the Israeli war-machine didn’t like the relative success of two of Gaza’s paralympians? Or perhaps the bombing of a place of entertainment for Gaza youths and adults alike was just another Zionist act of spite.

A trip to Beit Hanoun to join a demo on international day of solidarity with Palestine results in unintended explorations. The intended demo, against the continued Israeli policy of shooting Palestinians on their land anywhere near border, despite the “cease-fire”, is called off the government, possibly because of the UN bid for Palestine today, possibly out of worry of more injured and killed following the spate of Israeli army shootings of Palestinians.

I go instead to the Beit Hanoun hospital, meet the director, learn about Israeli shelling of hospital during last attacks, which include two tank shells fired at the hospital, also not exploding. The damage, he says, would have been severe had the shells gone off.

Since two recent border shootings occurred in Beit Hanoun, I go inside the hospital to visit a young man shot in abdomen yesterday, just shy of his heart. Thankfully “only” a flesh wound, he will recover and live. But this is beside the point: he was on Palestinian land, visibly no threat to the well-equipped Israeli army with all of their war toys, when the Israeli soldier in his concrete military occupation tower began shooting without warning, without shooting in air. Shot directly at farmers.

On the ride back to Gaza, a lively conversation ensues as Beit Hanounites discuss the upcoming bid at the UN for recognition of a Palestinian state. Some are for, some are against. Even those for it realize it will mean nothing in the end, as Palestine is still suffering under occupation, whether recognized as a state or not. A woman sitting in front of the 5 seat car dominates the conversation with her own political views. All in all, as loud and energized as the conversation is, it is light-hearted, the rapid dialect of Beit Hanoun Palestinians, along with the unending grins and joking, typical Palestinian humour in the face of… occupation.

Eva Bartlett, a 33-year-old ISM volunteer who entered Gaza on a siege-breaker boat in November 2008 — just one month before Israel launched its horrific, 22-day invasion. she is still there. Her blog is http://ingaza.wordpress.com

By Franklin Lamb

01 December, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Beirut: The United Nations General Assembly vote of 11/29/12, which some in Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian refugee camps are calling a “birth certificate for our country” is the latest of more than 400 UN resolutions on the Question of Palestine and a rare major victory for Palestinians after 65 years of resisting occupation.

The UN action, which was backed by an overwhelm majority of UN members with a lopsided vote of 138 to 9, may well force the Zionist regime to seriously consider a just peaceful resolution of the conflict.

With due respect to the nearly 50 percent of the UN members who voted against the historic Palestine Resolution on 11/29/12 at the General Assembly, which is to say the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru ( the world’s smallest republic covering just 8.1 square miles with a population of 9, 378)), and Palau, with its approximately 20,000 inhabitants, all former U.S. Trust Territories and currently “freely associated states” of the United States, with U.S. zip/postal and telephone codes much more closely resembling American states (51st, 52nd, 53rd and 54th) than sovereign countries, the World spoke clearly in favor of Palestinian self-determination. Indeed, the only reason these dissenting four “countries” are UN Members at all is due to cold war era efforts of Washington to stack the General Assembly in its favor by running up the numbers of its safe votes.

Over the past fortnight, as the US and Israel piled layers of threats onto their mantra of derision regarding yesterday’s historic UN vote on Palestine, both countries desperately tried to dissuade the Palestinians from scrapping their application for non-member observer state membership status with the United Nations.

Way too much did Israeli officials and their US lobby protest, thus drawing more international attention and curiosity as they kept dissing the “purely symbolic empty gesture and meaningless act.”

Naftali Bennett, leader of the extremist right-wing national religious Zionist party in Israel, Habayit Hayehudi (“The Jewish Home”) warned the day before the vote that “the PA bid for non-member status at the UN has very real implications on Israel, and that we must take harsh measures in response. I don’t accept the claim that this is a symbolic move,” Bennet told Israel Radio. “This is not symbolic at all. This has very practical implications. “He added: “We must tell the Arabs, if you pursue a unilateral strategy at the UN, We will pursue a unilateral strategy in annexing settlements in the West Bank.”

There is some important symbolism in the UN admitting Palestine as a non-member observer on the 65th anniversary of the November 29, 1947, adoption by the UN General Assembly of the resolution on the partition of Palestine (resolution 181 (II)). On December 2, 1977, it was recorded that the assembly called for the annual observance of November 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (A/RES/32/40 B).

Last minute appeals by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton plus a late night pre-vote visit by US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Middle East envoy David Hale to the hotel room of the Palestinian Authority hold-over President Mahmoud Abbas failed to convince him to withdraw the resolution and to include the demanded eviscerating codicils.

Secretary of State Clinton could not have been more mistaken as she insisted at her news conference on 11/28/12 that “the only path towards a Palestinian state was through direct negotiations. As I have said many times the only path to a two-state solution that fulfills the aspirations of the Palestinian people is through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not New York.” Few in the state department, according to congressional staff members who liaise with Clinton’s staff, believe that direct negotiations would ever lead to Israel voluntarily rejecting its current apartheid system or that the interminable “peace process” has ever been taken seriously by the Zionist regime and in fact constitute a hoax. In contradistinction, the growing reality in the Middle East and all five continents is the belief that only Resistance, with its scores of forms, will liberate Palestine from Zionist occupation.

Low balling the UN vote…..

Following the 138 to 9 vote, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, intimated, as did the usual Amen chorus of anti-Arab & anti-Islam zealots, from the US Israeli lobby, including the likes of ADL’s Abe Foxman, that” just as predicted, anti-Semitism was lurking behind the lopsided vote” and that it all amounted, in the words of Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev, “to nothing but cheap political theater that should not come as a surprise to anyone.”

The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as it does on any issue involving Palestine and Israel issued Talking Points for members of Congress and other Zionist organizations to be used when communicating with constituents and giving media interviews. AIPAC keeps close track of how many interviews each member gives and how closely they tow the Zionist line so as to help determine how much cash the particular member will receive for re-election as well as other perks.

For this crucial UN vote, the US Zionist lobby used U.S. Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Susan Collins (R-ME) drafted a letter from these AIPAC stalwarts to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas opposing any unilateral attempts by the Palestinian Government to pursue non-member state status at the United Nations General Assembly.

In their letter, the Senators asserted that “Palestinian statehood can only be realized as a result of a broader peace agreement negotiated with the Israelis, not through unilateral measures at the United Nations. Should you decide, however, to bypass direct negotiations and unilaterally seek upgraded status at the UN, we want to again remind you of the potential for significant consequences. As S. Res. 185 notes, any such efforts may cause consequences in regards to U.S. policy and foreign aid.”

AIPAC instructed Congress to make the following points which was included in an “urgent advisory” to every member and many staffers.

1. This UN action won’t lead to peace.

Peace will only occur through direct talks. By refusing to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and seeking recognition of a state at the United Nations, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is damaging U.S. peace efforts. (nothing in this point is accurate)

2. Recognizing a Palestinian state gives legitimacy to Hamas.

The Iranian-backed terrorist group has fired thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians and is sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state. By granting recognition of a state, the international community will reward Hamas for its terrorist actions, rather than condemn them

3. The United States has rejected the Palestinian approach.

President Obama has said that “no vote at the United Nations will ever create an independent Palestinian state” and called the Palestinian efforts at the U.N. a “mistake.”

Other talking points AIPAC told Congress to use include: while Israel Takes Steps for Peace, Palestinians run to UN , Israel Wants Talks; Palestinians Still Refuse, Palestinians Glorify Terrorists by praising the Hamas victory.

What the Zionist leaders of Israel, as they franticly try to intimidate the region by stockpiling American weapons, while grabbing more Palestinian land, fear is that the 11/19/12 UN resolution may be a game changer.

In this they are correct.

The UN action allows the Palestinians to participate in General Assembly debates and de facto grants recognition of Palestinian statehood on the pre-1967 ceasefire lines while re-enforcing the wide international consensus that the pre-1967 lines should form the basis of a permanent peace settlement.

It also opens up the 17 Specialized Agencies of the UN including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), International Labor Organization (ILO), International Maritime Organization (IMO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Universal Postal Union (UPU), the World Bank Group, World Health Organization, World Trade Organization (WTO), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) as well as related and comparable organizations.

As noted this week by Al-Haq, the Palestinian human rights organization “ Under such a strengthened position within the international legal system, the State of Palestine will be allowed to formally accede to international human rights instruments and other technical United Nations bodies, thus improving protection of Palestinian rights at the domestic and international level”.

It is also to be expected that Palestinian citizens under brutal Zionist occupation will demand to use their new status to join the International Criminal Court and might press for investigations of Zionist international crimes, crimes against humanity, attempted genocide, and a host of other practices in the occupied territories. Investigating such international crimes and bringing punishment to those convicted is why the ICC was established.

Professor Francis Boyle reminds us that Palestine can also now sue Israel at the International Court of Justice and end the illegal siege of Gaza, and join the Law of the Sea Convention and secure its fair share of the gas fields lying off the Gaza coast with enormous economic benefits. Palestine can also now join the International Civil Aviation Organization and gain sovereignty over its own airspace; join the International Telecommunications Union and gain sovereign legal control over its own airwaves, phone lines and band-widths.

These are just some of the many reason the Obama administration, slavishly joined the Zionist leadership of occupied Palestine to defeat the UN application.

The actions of the Obama Administration and its vehement opposition to the UN vote continues to diminish the relevance of the US in the Middle East as it slides further down the wrong side of history with its client state in tow. Attempting to justify its shameful opposition to the Palestinian diplomatic undertaking in the UN, the Obama administration could only offer a weak brief from the State Department legal department accusing the PLO of acting unilaterally, in breach of signed agreements are simply parroting AIPAC talking points noted above.

Deepening Palestine’s international legal personality within the United Nations system is a legitimate presence on the world stage from which to assert rights guaranteed by fundamental principles of International Law. With more access to the United Nations system, Palestinians have gained a major political and legal framework from which to work and to encourage the international community to comply with its obligation to end Israeli crimes against them and bring Israel’s serious breaches of international law to an end.

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