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The hopes vested in last year’s uprising have ended in continued censorship, growing intolerance and unemployment, says Robert Fisk in Tunis

Want to remember what Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was like? Just walk down the Avenue Habib-Bourguiba – until a few weeks ago still cordoned off by armoured vehicles and barbed wire – and drop by your local bookshop for Z’s wonderful Révolution! Des années mauves à la fuite de Carthage. Z always painted Ben Ali’s sycophants purple; his cartoons were the joy of the revolution, Ben Ali’s bloated relatives flaunting their new shopping malls while the people – 96 per cent of whom were always said to be Ben Ali’s secret police – are beaten by thugs in black uniforms and shades. Ben Ali receives support even from his telephone, his lampshade and the national flag in his office until he does a bunk on his jet while flunkies load aboard chests of cash along with the ginger family cat. Even the press get a run for their money.

“The huge number of young people signing up for the Charter of Tunisian Youth demonstrates the support of young Tunisians for the reforming project of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, their attachment and loyalty to their country and their willingness to contribute to the development of Tunisia…” A fictional editorial from 2009 – until you realise it really is a leader from the 29 March edition of La Presse.

Thank God for freedom, then. Saloua Rachdi’s tribute to the Tunisian writers who worked courageously under the dictatorship – Plumes de mon pays – sits in the bookshop window alongside French editions of Tariq Ramadan’s Islamic scholarship.

But then I’m driving in the suburbs with an old Tunisian journalist friend. “Don’t tell me about liberal writers, Robert,” he snaps at me. “Do you know that of all the books now published in Tunisia, 92 per cent are Islamist? Outside Tunis, the bookshops just sell school notebooks and these tracts. Don’t you think we should be worried?” I tell him about Egypt – there are no military rulers like Field Marshal Tantawi in Tunisia – and the violence of Bahrain and Syria. He’s a lucky guy.

But he doesn’t think so. Nasreddine Ben Saida, the managing editor of the newspaper Attounisia, Habib Guizani, the editor-in-chief, and the journalist Mohamed Hedi Hidri have just been arrested for publishing a photograph of a German footballer of Tunisian origin holding his half-naked German wife in his arms. It’s the old story: morality versus freedom. But the elected government (with the Islamic Ennahda Party holding 40 per cent of the October 2011 vote) has used article 121 of the penal code to detain the three journalists, a law dating back to the Ben Ali era. Mongi Khadraoui, a senior member of the Tunisian journalists’ union, points out that 121 was introduced to lock up all kinds of opponents of the regime, and that, while the publication of the photo was a mistake, it “should be treated as a professional error rather than a crime.”

What happened, then, to decree-law 115 on the freedom of the press, passed under last year’s provisional administration? Two days before the arrests, the Ennahda Party was already being condemned by journalists’ groups for supporting a free press while at the same time claiming that 115 was no longer valid. Attunisia suddenly disappeared from the news-stands.

All this might be a luxury in a country of 10 million whose 3.5 million working population now boasts a terrible 800,000 unemployed, whose Central Bank announced a growth rate of zero for 2011, which 80 international companies have already abandoned, and whose government will only last for a maximum of 18 months, the time it takes to come up with a new constitution. But this is not the only legacy of the Ben Ali years. His fawning governments poured money into Tunis and starved the countryside; and this is where the Salafists – hated by Ben Ali, amnestied after the revolution – first made their appearance.

The town of Sejnane, north-west of Tunis, witnessed, briefly, the existence of an “Islamic emirate” at the end of last year when around 200 Salafists took control, turned government buildings into prisons for “sinning” – in most cases for drinking alcohol – and beat inmates. A shop selling CDs of western songs in Arabic was set on fire and a self-proclaimed Islamist “judge” announced to the owner that “if you try once more to distract Muslims from the mosque, it will be your home and all those in it who will burn”.

Women began to wear the niqab, men to grow beards and wear Afghan-style clothes. The government did nothing. Was the Ennahda Party supporting the Salafists?

Attacks on cinemas began shortly afterwards, the owner of Nessma TV, Nabil Karoui, put on trial for showing Persepolis – about the reactions of a young girl growing up in the 1979 Iranian revolution – a film deemed “contrary to the values of the people”. Two intellectuals were savagely beaten and 10,000 demonstrators marched through Tunis and other cities to protest at the increase of extremism.

In the much-underrated French magazine Jeune Afrique, Amel Grami, head of the Islamic Studies department at Manouba University, described how a dispute over a female student who insisted on wearing full head-covering to college resulted in an invasion of the campus by sword-carrying Salafists, some of whom shouted “dirty whore” when staff objected to the separation of male and female students. According to Amel Grami, the Salafists were supported by two sons of the Tunisian Interior Minister, Ali Laarayedh.

Little wonder, then, that the impending arrival in Tunisia of the Egyptian preacher Wajdi Ghanim created such anger among secular Tunisians. Ghanim supports the Tunisian Salafists, advocates a return to an older, more “genuine” Islam and – in the view of human rights groups – wants to “create hatred between Tunisians”. It all has the feel of Algeria before the army’s cancellation of the second round of elections which would have brought the Islamic Salvation Front to power in 1992. We shall not dwell on the carnage and bloodletting that followed.

But in this context, the voice of secular Tunisia sounds familiar. Tunisia has given the world great heroes – Hannibal, Jugurtha, Ibn Khaldoun, even Habib Bourguiba – the Tunisian writer Abdelhamid Gmati pointed out. “So why do we bring here these Salafists, these Islamists, these Wahabis, these Afghanists, these preachers (sexually obsessed and probably paedophiles), who speak of the mutilation (of women), who make fatwas … who have nothing to do with our civilisation, our idea of religion, our values which have developed over thousands of years? Sorry – but their beards, their niqabs, their robes, their blackness, their “Middle Ages” are not ours.” Even if they were born Tunisian, “they are not Tunisians”.

All well and good. Until, of course, one notes that Gmati is writing in that fine newspaper La Presse. Was this not, after all, the same paper Z quotes so maliciously from the days of Ben Ali. Couldn’t the Salafists claim that they, too, now represent a “Charter of Tunisian Youth”? Too awful to contemplate…

By Robert Fisk

21 February 2012

@ The Independent

The Pentagon has drawn up plans for military intervention in Syria.

A military strike would be coordinated with Turkey, the Gulf States and the NATO powers, according to reports that acknowledge such plans officially for the first time. The plan is described as an “internal review” by Pentagon Central Command, to allow President Barack Obama to maintain the pretense that the White House is still seeking a diplomatic solution.

This is considered vital, as military intervention would most likely be conducted through various Middle East proxies, which the US and NATO could then back with airpower. Turkey and the Arab League states, led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, do not want to be seen for what they are: stooges of the US. Deniability for them therefore requires the US to conceal the full extent of its involvement.

In the February 6 Financial Times, Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former director of policy planning for the US State Department, argued for “A little time… for continued diplomatic efforts aimed at shifting the allegiances of the Sunni merchant class in Damascus and Aleppo.”

As with the war against Libya last year, military intervention would again be justified citing the “responsibility to protect” civilians. But its real aim is regime change to install a Sunni government beholden to Washington, allied with the Gulf States, and hostile to Iran.

A State Department official told the UK’s Daily Telegraph that “the international community may be forced to ‘militarise’ the crisis in Syria” and that “the debate in Washington has shifted away from diplomacy.”

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said, “We are, of course, looking at humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people, and we have for some time.”

The Telegraph noted, “Any plan to supply aid or set up a buffer zone would involve a military dimension to protect aid convoys or vulnerable civilians.”

Leading US political figures have also been calling publicly for the arming of the Free Syrian Army, an exclusively Sunni force stationed in Turkey and backed and funded by Ankara, Riyadh and Doha. They include Joe Lieberman, John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

The issue was discussed this week in Washington directly with the FSA, whose logistical coordinator, Sheikh Zuheir Abassi, took part in a video conference call Wednesday with a US national security think tank.

The US, France, Britain and Arab League are already operating outside the framework of the United Nations as a “Friends of Syria” coalition, in order to bypass the opposition of Russia and China to a Libya-style intervention.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia are known to be arming the FSA and to have their own brigades and advisers on the ground, as they did in Libya.

According to the Israeli intelligence website Debka-File, both British and Qatari special operations units are already “operating with rebel forces under cover in the Syrian city of Homs just 162 kilometers from Damascus… Our sources report the two foreign contingents have set up four centers of operation—in the northern Homs district of Khaldiya, Bab Amro in the east, and Bab Derib and Rastan in the north. Each district is home to about a quarter of a million people.”

But the Gulf States do not have the firepower required to overthrow the Assad regime. For that Turkey is the key player. Debka-File notes in the report that the presence of the British and Qatari troops “was seized on by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan for the new plan he unveiled to parliament in Ankara Tuesday, Feb. 7. Treating the British-Qatari contingents as the first foreign foot wedged through the Syrian door, his plan hinges on consigning a new Turkish-Arab force to Homs through that door and under the protection of those contingents. Later, they would go to additional flashpoint cities.”

Turkey is publicly debating military intervention based on establishing “safe havens” and “humanitarian aid corridors,” with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visiting Washington this week after stating that Turkey’s doors are open to Syrian refugees.

Writing in the February 9 New Republic, Soner Cagaptay argues, “Washington’s reluctance to lead an operation may prove a blessing, leaving space for Turkey to take the reins… Turkey would support an air-based intervention to protect UN designated safe havens—as long as the mission is led by a ‘regional force,’ composed of both Turkish and Arab militaries. Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who are funding the opposition, should be happy to work with their new ally in Ankara to protect the safe havens; Washington and European powers could then remotely back the operation, facilitating its success.”

The aim of isolating Iran has become the stated aim of US and Israeli officials, backed by a media campaign prominently involving the liberal press, mixing anti-Iranian sentiment with humanitarian hyperbole professing concern with the fate of Syria’s people.

Efraim Halevy, a former Israeli national security adviser and director of the security service Mossad from 1998 to 2002, wrote in the February 7 New York Times describing Syria as “Iran’s Achilles’ Heel.”

He writes, “Iran’s foothold in Syria enables the mullahs in Tehran to pursue their reckless and violent regional policies—and its presence there must be ended … Once this is achieved, the entire balance of forces in the region would undergo a sea change.”

The New York Times’ British counterpart, The Guardian, entrusts Simon Tisdall with the task of endorsing such anti-Iranian sentiment. He cites favourably Hillary Clinton’s ridiculing of Assad’s claims of foreign intervention in support of the opposition as being “Sadly… fully justified.” Rather, he insists, “The foreign power most actively involved inside Syria is not the US or Britain, France or Turkey. Neither is it Russia, Saudi Arabia nor its Gulf allies. It is Iran—and it is fighting fiercely to maintain the status quo.”

The appalling consequences of an American war against Syria would dwarf those of its Libyan adventure. Syria is only the ante-chamber of a campaign for regime change in Iran and its targeting poses ever more clearly conflict with Russia and possibly China.

Moscow last month sent three warships, including an aircraft carrier, to its only Mediterranean naval base, the Syrian port of Tartus. This followed its blocking of the US, France and UK-backed Arab-League resolution, meant to pave the way for intervention, with the dispatch of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Damascus for talks with Assad, Tuesday, in a further show of solidarity. Lavrov was accompanied by Mikhail Fradkov, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Office.

Of greater significance still were comments made the following day by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, linking efforts to overthrow Assad with a direct Western threat to the stability of Russia through its support for opposition protests there. “A cult of violence has been coming to the fore in international affairs in the past decade,” he said. “This cannot fail to cause concern… and we must not allow anything like this in our country.”

By Chris Marsden

10 February 2012

@ WSWS.org

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that U.S. intelligence shows Iran is enriching uranium in a disputed nuclear program but that Tehran has not made a decision on whether to proceed with development of an atomic bomb.

Fears of a nuclear-armed Iran produced tough talk from Panetta and the nation’s top intelligence officials, all of whom offered insights and observations on the secretive regime in separate congressional hearings. Their testimony came amid increasing international fears of a Mideast conflagration as Iran boasted of major advances in producing nuclear fuel and threatened an oil embargo in retaliation for economic and diplomatic sanctions.

Israel has accused Iran of being behind recent attacks on its diplomats in Thailand, Georgia and India and has threatened military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“We will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. This isn’t just about containment. We will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon,” Panetta told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. “We will not allow Iran to close the Straits of Hormuz. And in addition to that, obviously, we have expressed serious concerns to Iran about the spread of violence and the fact that they continue to support terrorism and they continue to try to undermine other countries.”

The Pentagon chief delivered President Barack Obama’s oft-repeated statement that “we do keep all options on the table.”

Panetta, the former CIA director, said U.S. intelligence shows that Iran is continuing its uranium enrichment program. “But the intelligence does not show that they’ve made the decision to proceed with developing a nuclear weapon. That is the red line that would concern us and that would ensure that the international community, hopefully together, would respond,” he said.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, National Intelligence Director James Clapper said the decision on a nuclear weapon would be made by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, raising questions about the role of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the process.

“He (Khamenei) would base that on a cost-benefit analysis in terms of, I don’t think he’d want a nuclear weapon at any price,” Clapper said. “So that I think plays to the value of sanctions, particularly the recent ratcheting up of more sanctions and anticipation that that will induce a change in their policy and behavior.”

Clapper said it’s “technically feasible” that Tehran could produce a nuclear weapon in one or two years if its leaders decide to build one, “but practically not likely.”

The Obama administration recently imposed sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank, the latest round of penalties that have widespread bipartisan support in Congress. The Treasury Department announced Thursday that it was slapping sanctions on Iran’s ministry of intelligence and security, asserting that it supports global terrorism, commits human rights abuses against Iranians and participates in ongoing repression in Syria.

The first round of penalties on the Central Bank go into effect Feb. 29, and would prohibit any foreign financial institution from conducting business in the United States if Obama concludes that it has conducted or facilitated a significant financial transaction with the Central Bank or other sanctioned Iranian financial institutions.

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., a chief sponsor of the sanctions, met with David Cohen, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, and said the administration was eager to press ahead despite reservations last year that the penalties could drive up oil prices and benefit Iran’s economy.

“I have no sense that they’re looking to get an extension,” Menendez said in an interview. “The administration shares with us that this is our best hope of deterring Iranian action and their march to nuclear weapons.”

Panetta and lawmakers insist the sanctions are taking an economic toll on Iran, reflected in their erratic response. But Israel is not speaking with one voice on the issue. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the sanctions haven’t been effective yet, while his defense minister and vice premier said the penalties are strong and have the Iranians panicking.

Despite the tough talk from Netanyahu, Clapper and the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, said they do not believe Israel has decided to strike Iran.

But if Iran is attacked, Burgess said, it “can close the Straits of Hormuz, at least temporarily, and may launch missiles against United States forces and our allies in the region.”

“Iran could also attempt to employ terrorists’ surrogates worldwide. However, the agency assesses Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict,” he said.

Clapper said Iran has a “kind of shotgun marriage” with al-Qaida despite the fact that Iran is a Shia state and al-Qaida is Sunni Muslim.

“The Iranians may think that they might use perhaps al-Qaida in the future as a surrogate or proxy,” he said.

Ratcheting up the pressure, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled a non-binding resolution that rules out containment of a nuclear weapons-capable Iran and backs U.S. policy to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. Republicans and Democrats said the purpose of the measure was to show support for the Obama administration as they likened the situation to a slow-moving version of the Cuban missile crisis.

“It is a statement to Iran, the international community and President Obama that if Iran refuses to negotiate an end to their nuclear program, and President Obama decides a military strike is necessary in the interests of our national security, he can count on strong bipartisan support in Congress for that decision,” Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said at a news conference.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the message on sanctions to the administration was, “Do it faster.”

“We will end their nuclear weapons program,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.

At a news conference, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said that for the sake of Israel and moderate Arab nations, “We need to take further action.”

“We gave the president a lot of tools to use,” he said, referring to the Iran Sanctions Act. “He’s used some of them, but there are more tools available to the president to try to bring Iran into the world community.”

By DONNA CASSATA

16 February 2012

@ ABC News

Associated Press writers Kimberly Dozier, Larry Margasak, Matthew Lee and Alan Fram contributed to this report.

Russia and China made up for their shameful conduct in the Libyan tragedy by vetoing the UN ploy to invade Syria, temporarily muffling those war drums. But the crazed drumbeat about Iran continues even though cooler heads argue against military action. This while they impose punishing sanctions on Iran in order to avoid diminished funds for Obama in an election year when American Zionist money is vital for the purchase of American Christian votes.

Wikileaks documents revealed Israel behind a group that murdered several Iranian scientists and when an attack was made on Israeli diplomats in the same fashion, charges that the Iranians were behind it all but drowned out the American presidential campaign farce. In all this fantasy, mainstream media are not just stenographers but leaders in hyping information poor Americans into believing Iran, Syria, Muslims and socialists are menacing the USA. A severely damaged global economy is major reason for this epidemic of unreason and its capitalist class becomes further detached from reality as the situation grows more critical.

After a recession bordering on a depression the U.S. continues economic war on its people by cutting public spending while other nations reduce their populations to even more misery. Greece slashes its minimum wage and lays off more than a hundred thousand public employees so that private investors can collect interest on the national debt. That is the same situation all over the capitalist world, including Russia and China. Though they have only recently jumped into that economic frying pan they seem to have noticed it has become so overheated that the entire kitchen may burst into flames at any moment.

The attack on economic survival is what financial rulers call an austerity program. It means the majority is being forced to pay for the profits of a small minority. As one example, the U.S. Postal Service – the nation’s number one public employer – is under assault because it uses too many workers in an electronic age that finds profits increasing even faster for the few by loss of jobs for the many. These economic rules are a malignant social disease which is at the root of much that threatens humanity’s future.

As western people suffer this austerity assault, those in countries not yet totally under the smothering blanket of finance capital are menaced with the even more deadly threat of war.

Like Libya, Syria has played according to rules not wholly in accord with global capital’s political priests and rabbis and for this reason they are treated as aberrations. They, and nations like Cuba , Iran and Venezuela are labeled anti-democratic by perverters of language who define democracy as the minority rule which exists everywhere in the western world. Libya is now controlled by foreign capital and much less a unified state than it ever was under Kaddafi’s rule. Syria has been run by a party and dynasty for a longer time and is less dependent on a single figure but more on a bureaucracy , a military and a middle class which probably supports the regime, including many who want change but not if it’s imposed on them for the benefit of the west. The depiction of a murderous dictator is a gross simplification, as in Libya, with infiltration and financing from outside the nation helping to foment violence among people with honest grievances, dishonestly provoked. Divisions are heightened among Islamic groups and economic classes with contradictions that find America’s supposed arch enemy al-Qaida now often aligned with its program.

While Syrian people are bombarded with violence and suffering at least partly caused by the west, western people are bombarded by media with inflated death tolls seemingly coming from the only Syrian not yet murdered but whose calculator may soon need new batteries so he can keep counting the slaughters he miraculously avoids.

Bloody foreign policy is an extension of America’s domestic problems, with a billion dollar presidential race that reduces social and moral issues to a battle between religious fanatic patriarchy and secular obsessed bigotry providing a distraction from the reality of a collapsing political sham resting on a precarious economic foundation. An emerging trend towards real democracy offers hope for the future but little immediate relief.

So we continue enduring attacks on our sanity and intelligence that claim Iran is a threat to the planet, especially Israel, while we pile embargos, sanctions and hostilities short of overt war on a nation which has never done anything to the USA or Israel, except rebel against our interference in its rule and criticize that apartheid state , a crime of genocidal anti-Semitism in the mental health crisis center of USraeli misinformation.

Surrounded by American and NATO military bases, without nuclear weapons and no history of invading any nation in modern times, Iran is a threat. Israel, with hundreds of nukes and a record of assaulting its neighbors, and the U.S, with hundreds of military bases all over the world and the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons, are guardians of the peace. If you believe that, you need to take a sedative and see a mental health professional. The rest of us need to further investigate our supposed democratic reality before we allow it to be imposed on other nations.

196 individuals – less than one millionth of a percent of our population! – – have each already given 100,000 dollars or more to “our” presidential candidates, and there are still nine months to go before the election. If excrement is cuisine and war is peace, that’s democracy. We’d better Occupy our government before it destroys us and the rest of the world as well.

By Frank Scott

18 February 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Frank Scott writes political commentary and satire which appears in print in The Independent Monitor and online at the blog Legalienate http://legalienate.blogspot.com Email: fpscott@gmail.com

Aquino Aligns with U.S. Military Build-Up in Asia-Pacific, a Threat to Peace in the Region

Filipino-Americans across the U.S., under the banner of BAYAN USA, express condemnation and disgust over the efforts of Philippine President Benigno Simeon “Noy-Noy” Aquino III to accommodate the “new” U.S. defense strategy that entails a so-called “rebalance to Asia”, including an increase in U.S. military presence in the Philippines. BAYAN USA also denounces the U.S. government’s Cold War-style media offensive against economic rival China as a pretext to justify its gross expansion of U.S. military powers in the Asia-Pacific in order to increase U.S. economic, political, and military investments in the region.

Economically-Motivated

Under neoliberalism, the U.S. economy is largely dependent on the Pacific Rim, particularly because of its export position. In 2010, the 21 economies that make up the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum accounted for 61% of U.S. exports ($775 billion) and 37% of private services exports ($205 billion). The U.S. economy’s export position in the region accounts for nearly 5 million U.S. jobs. But for countries such as the Philippines, the U.S. investment and export position is at the heart of deepening crisis and poverty due to lack of sovereign claim to natural resources and territory. In line with their national interests, countries like the Philippines must wage fierce struggles against U.S. interventionism in order to assert their right to chart their own economic and political paths.

With China’s economic growth threatening U.S. dominion over the region, and with Obama’s push for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement that would outline a US-dominated free trade zone in the region, the U.S. government has announced it will shift its military focus away from Iraq and Afghanistan and renew its commitment to assert its position in Asia-Pacific. It has found a reliable stooge in the Aquino government. Recent negotiations framed as a Strategic Dialogue between top Washington security and defense officials and the Aquino administration have laid the ground work for the consolidation of the Philippines as a key U.S. military base location, serving as a permanent staging ground for U.S. military offensives, storage space for surveillance drones, resupply and refueling station for U.S. warships and aircrafts, as well as rest and recreational facility for U.S. servicemen.

In addition to violating Philippine national sovereignty, Aquino’s compliance in accommodating U.S. saber-rattling seeks to undo the 1991 landmark decision of the Philippine Senate to reject the U.S. bases treaty that essentially shut down permanent U.S. military bases in Subic Bay and Clark Air Field by once again opening these ports for indefinite and “rotational” basing of U.S. troops and throughout the archipelago.

Aquino Positions the Philippines in the Crossfire

Not only does the Aquino government reach an all-time high in the barometer of U.S. puppetry with these negotiations, it is aligning the Philippines with a military scheme that will threaten peace in the entire Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. government, driven by its war-dependent economy, is expanding its military presence in Asia-Pacific region under the rhetoric of security in the South China Sea and in particular the territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands, when in fact it seeks an excuse to provoke military aggression and create a war-like situation against China that will boost its military-industrial complex at the expense of surrounding countries. Such compliance on the Aquino government’s part will surely position the Filipino people in the middle of the crossfire.

Starting with the Philippine-American War of 1899, which marked the advent of U.S. imperialism onto the global stage at the turn of the 20th century, 113 years of U.S. geopolitical strategy in the region has left the Philippines with a tragic history and ongoing reality of U.S. military infestation whose social costs have burdened its people with untold pain and misery. From hosting the largest U.S. permanent foreign military bases to succumbing to the onerous US-RP Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT)—the mother of all unequal military treaties and agreements—to the virtually permanent Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), over one century of U.S. military presence in the country has been directly linked to the indiscriminate killings, rape and other sexual offenses, massive displacement of rural communities, waste, disease, and other forms of human rights abuses.

Call for Resistance & Solidarity

As Filipinos in the U.S., BAYAN USA sees concretely how both the Aquino and Obama governments—guardians of financial oligarchy—are acting in betrayal of the broad interest of the Filipino and American peoples. Just as the poor grow poorer in the Philippines under Aquino’s failed economic policies, so are the working people in the U.S. forced to carry the heavy burden of paying for a debt crisis they did not create. As people’s resistance to the intolerable 1% escalates amidst the crisis, BAYAN USA joins the call for greater solidarity between people in the U.S. struggling against the U.S. military-industrial complex and for economic equality and the Filipino people’s ongoing struggle for genuine national independence and democracy. This must translate to greater efforts to expose and oppose the U.S. geopolitical strategy in the Asia-Pacific region as a scheme of the purveyors of crisis and war to maintain tight control over the region’s wealth. People’s resistance and firm solidarity are key in our efforts to frustrate U.S. interventionism in the region!

U.S. OUT OF THE PHILIPPINES!

U.S. OUT OF ASIA!

JUNK THE US-RP MUTUAL DEFENSE TREATY!

JUNK THE US-RP VISITING FORCES AGREEMENT!

UPHOLD PHILIPPINE NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY!

LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!

Reference:

Bernadette Ellorin

Chairperson, BAYAN USA

chair@bayanusa.org

— BAYAN-USA is an alliance of 15 progressive Filipino organizations in the U.S. representing youth, students, women, workers, artists, and human rights advocates. As the oldest and largest overseas chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN-Philippines), BAYAN-USA serves as an information bureau for the national democratic movement of the Philippines and as a campaign center for anti-imperialist Filipinos in the U.S. For more information, visit www.bayanusa.org

JERUSALEM (JWN and agencies)—”Action must be taken before it is too late, sanctions on Iran must be intensified,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told reporters in Amsterdam on Thursday.

The Iranian threat to produce nuclear weapons is “the issue that most concerns Israel,” Netanyahu said, because Iran has already decided to become a nuclear state.

He told his host, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, that Israel and the Netherlands “stand together in opposing Iran’s feverish pursuit of nuclear weapons, while declaring its intention to wipe Israel off the map.”

“Nuclear arms in Iran are a threat to Israel, the region and the world,” he said in a speech in Amsterdam. “Sanctions should be applied to Iran’s central bank and its oil exports–and they should be applied now.”

“I want to thank the Netherlands for its support for strong sanctions on Iran,” Netanyahu added.

Turning to a conflict closer to home, Netanyahu reiterated his call to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to “start negotiations for peace with no preconditions.” He praised the Dutch Parliament for passing a motion last year calling on the PA to recognize Israel as the Jewish state. “The persistent [Palestinian] refusal to accept a Jewish state within any boundaries is the core of the conflict,” he said.

During an hour-long meeting at Prime Minister Rutte’s home in The Hague, he urged Netanyahu to freeze construction in territories beyond the pre-1967 armistice lines, saying his government “finds a freeze would be extremely beneficial.”

At a press conference after the meeting, Netanyahu responded to a question by a Dutch journalist regarding construction in east Jerusalem by pointing out that construction “was not an issue” during the 18 years since the signing of the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority is “using this as a pretext to avoid negotiations,” he said, adding that the settlements concern only 2 percent of the territories and are therefore a “side issue.”

Earlier in the day Netanyahu met with the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Dutch parliament and with Queen Beatrix.

Netanyahu’s day began with a meeting with Prof. Johan van Hulst, 101, who saved hundreds of Jewish children during the Holocaust by helping them to reach safe houses across Holland.

“We say those who save one life save a universe. You saved hundreds of universes,” Netanyahu told him. “I want to thank you in the name of the Jewish people, but also in the name of humanity.” The prime minister presented Van Hulst with a copy of the Bible.

17 February 2012

@ Jerusalem World News

The Pentagon is rushing to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East as tensions rise with Iran, al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somali pirates, among other threats.

In response to requests from U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, the Navy is converting an aging warship it had planned to decommission into a makeshift staging base for the commandos. Unofficially dubbed a “mothership,” the floating base could accommodate smaller high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEALs, procurement documents show.

Special Operations forces are a key part of the Obama administration’s strategy to make the military leaner and more agile as the Pentagon confronts at least $487 billion in spending cuts over the next decade.

Lt. Cmdr. Mike Kafka, a spokesman for the Navy’s Fleet Forces Command, declined to elaborate on the floating base’s purpose or to say where, exactly, it will be deployed in the Middle East. Other Navy officials acknowledged that they were moving with unusual haste to complete the conversion and send the mothership to the region by early summer.

Navy documents indicate that it could be headed to the Persian Gulf, where Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route for much of the world’s oil supply. A market survey proposal from the Military Sealift Command, dated Dec. 22 and posted online, states that the floating base needed to be delivered to the Persian Gulf.

Other contract documents do not specify a location but say the mothership would be used to “support mine countermeasure” missions. Defense officials have said that if Iran did attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, it would rely on mines to obstruct the waterway.

With a large naval base in Bahrain, and one or two aircraft carrier groups usually assigned to the region, the Navy has a substantial presence in the Persian Gulf and surrounding waters. Adding the mothership would do relatively little to bolster U.S. maritime power overall, but it could play an instrumental role in secretive commando missions offshore.

The deployment of the floating base could also mark a return to maritime missions for SEAL teams, which for the past decade have spent most of their time on land in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Other details of the project became public Tuesday when the Military Sealift Command posted a bid request to retrofit the USS Ponce, an amphibious transport docking ship, on a rush-order basis.

Until December, the Navy had planned to retire the Ponce and decommission it in March after 41 years of service. Among other missions, it was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea last year in support of NATO’s air war over Libya.

Instead, the ship will be modified into what the military terms an Afloat Forward Staging Base. Kafka said it would be used to support mine-clearance ships, smaller patrol ships and aircraft.

The documents posted by the Military Sealift Command in December, however, specify that the mothership will be rebuilt so that it can also serve as a docking station for several small high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEAL teams.

Among the vessels listed are Mark 5 Zodiacs, inflatable boats that can carry up to 15 passengers and can roll up into bags, and seven-meter-long Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats, which can carry an entire SEAL squad.

SEAL teams also deploy from regular warships, but most vessels in the Navy’s fleet must patrol or move around on a regular basis. A mothership can stay in one spot for weeks or months, effectively serving as a floating base for commandos as they monitor coastal areas or prepare for amphibious operations.

The U.S. Special Operations Command has sought a transportable floating base for several years, saying that a mothership would expand the range of commando squads operating from small speedboats, particularly in remote coastal areas.

Defense officials said the Ponce will serve as a stopgap measure until the Navy can build a new Afloat Forward Staging Base from scratch. In budget documents released Thursday, the Pentagon said it would fund that project starting next year.

The floating base also could be suited to the coast of Somalia, a failed state that is home to an al-Qaeda affiliate and gangs of pirates. A mothership there would give SEALs or other commandos more flexibility in missions such as Wednesday’s rescue of a pair of American and Danish hostages who had been held for months by Somali pirates.

The term “mothership” is also commonly used to describe a vessel used by Somali pirates. After hijacking a large container or cargo vessel, pirate crews often turn it into a floating base to extend the range of their skiffs or speedboats far into the Indian Ocean, Gulf of Aden and Persian Gulf.

U.S. military officials declined to say what prompted them to give the Ponce a sudden new lease on life. But contract and bidding documents underscore the urgency of the project.

One no-bid contract for engineering work states that the military was waiving normal procurement rules because any delay presented a “national security risk.” Other contract bids are due Feb. 3. The Navy wants the conversion work to begin 10 days later on the Ponce, which is docked in Virginia Beach.

By Craig Whitlock,

28 January 2012

© The Washington Post Company

Libya’s foreign minister says the interim government cannot stop Libyans from joining the Syrian uprising, as Tripoli takes the hardest line in the Arab world against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

On Thursday, Libya’s transitional government gave Syrian diplomats 72 hours to leave the country, just days after it handed the Syrian embassy in Tripoli to the opposition Syrian National Council – the first country to take this step.

This week, former Libyan rebel fighters from the city of Misurata announced the combat deaths of three Libyan comrades fighting against the Syrian regime. Many former rebel fighters speak approvingly of heading to Syria to join an increasingly armed uprising against Mr Assad.

“Actually, we cannot stop anyone from going to Syria,” Ashour Bin Khayal, the career diplomat now heading Libyan foreign affairs told the FT. “People want to go and fight with the Syrians; no one is going prevent them. Officially, we don’t have this stance; but we cannot control the desire of the people.

“Libya took a very revolutionary step to recognise the Syrian National Council,” he said. “Those who are fighting the regime in Syria, we are supporting them.

“The Syrian regime is pushing the country toward a stage that no one wants. They are doing the same as Gaddafi did. The regime will fall sooner or later.”

Libyan rebels may be motivated by the support the Syrian president gave Colonel Muammer al-Gaddafi, the former president, until the very end of his life, hosting a television channel that lambasted the former rebels as stooges of the west.

Libya barely has a functioning government and is still struggling to define itself after 40 years of one-man rule. But as it emerges from almost a year of chaos, it has already begun to reposition itself on the global stage, altering its postures toward the west, Africa and the rest of the Arab world, the foreign minister said.

Mr Bin Khayal, who spent decades in North America, sought to assure the international community that Libya would serve as a force for peace following the overthrow of Gaddafi’s regime.

“Libya now is not going to be a source of trouble,” he said. “It’s going to be a peaceful country.”

But the passions stirred by the Arab Spring uprisings that included Libya’s revolution may undermine the drive to normalise the country’s place in the world.

Mr Khayal said Libya would also reorient its approach to its southern neighbours, where Gaddafi lavished business projects. Libyans widely believe African regimes supported the former president during the uprising against his rule, supplying him with diplomatic support, weapons and mercenaries.

“The rules of the game toward Africa are going to be different,” Mr Khayal said. “The image of Africans among ordinary Libyans is not very good.”

He recently visited Niger, Chad and Mali and attended the African Union summit in Addis Ababa in part to “strengthen borders” between Libya and the rest of Africa to prevent the flow north of drugs, contraband and migrants.

But he also vowed to end the former regime’s nefarious activities in African countries. He revealed to his AU counterparts that Gaddafi was using Libyan diplomatic missions in 11 African countries to store and smuggle weapons and explosives, a practice he promised would end.

Mr Khayal predicted that the goodwill generated by Nato’s support for the Libyan uprising “is going to be translated in one way or the other” into better relations with western countries. His number one priority was to continue pushing western countries to release frozen assets held abroad. So far, restrictions on more than $100bn in assets have been lifted.

He was also trying to convince European and other international companies to return to Libya to staff oilfields and installations and to finish various construction projects, including a huge housing project in Benghazi.

Libya was “not yet at the stage” of trying to initiate debt relief or drum up new business. “We’re trying to focus on projects that are not finished,” he said.

By Borzou Daragahi in Tripoli

9 February 2012

@ Financial Times

Dear President Ahmadinejad of Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Court & the Iranian people:

*PLEA to IRAN: Please free Mr. Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, the Iranian American charged with espionage & sentenced to death in Iran. (1) Please show Islamic Mercy & compassion on behalf of Mr. Hekmati. Iran, Please show the world you are a leader in Restorative justice & that you believe in offering an Olive branch of Peace to others.

*ISLAMIC MERCY & COMPASSION: RAHMAH: (2) Mercy plays an important role in the Islamic religion; To God & the Iranian people, Please have Mercy & empathy on Mr. Hekmati; Please show Compassion & sympathy toward this Iranian American. “When God says in the Quran, ‘My mercy embraces everything’ (7:156), this means that God has mercy on the entire universe.” (3) Specifically, “The more weak & poor a human being is, the more we are required to show mercy to him & be gentle with him.” [Quran 93: 9-10] (4) May God & the Iranian people be gentle & sensitive to Mr. Hekmati’s suffering. As so beautifully said by Dr. Chittick & the Islamic religion: “The goal of love is to overcome separation, to escape from the darkness and (the) pain that define our existential plight, and to enter into the light. … It is to take advantage of the universal mercy that embraces everything”. (5) To the Iranian people, please overcome the separation, escape the darkness & pain of our existential plight, please enter into the light & please have Mercy on Mr. Amir Hekmati.

*RESTORATIVE JUSTICE:

*Dear President Ahmadinejad & the Iranian people, Please rise to a level of enlightened human consciousness: Rather than punish Mr. Hekmati – Please allow him to participate in a Restorative/Transformative Justice program [X] [Y] that focuses on a Unified justice — including dialogue between the victims, the offender & the involved community – involving the United States & Iran. Please give Mr. Hekmati the opportunity to take Responsibility for his actions, to repair any harm done with an Apology [X] & to make a commitment to an education in Peace & International Conflict studies in the United States. [Z] As Mr. Ross states regarding Mr. Hekmati & Restorative justice: “Sparing Hekmati’s life would be an act of grace on the part of Iran in accord with the inspired teachings of the world’s great religions. … It would also provide an opportunity for restorative justice”. (6) To the Iranian people, please offer Mr. Hekmati a kind, peaceful solution to this conflict.

*PRISONS, CAGES & HUMAN SUFFERING: President Ahmadinejad I believe: “Prisons are violent institutions that only perpetuate violence” (7) & which cause great suffering. (8) Prisons violate the human rights of prisoners including: the most tragic violation of civil rights: The Death penalty; Other prison human rights violations include: Prisoner isolation, poor medical care, drug abuse, rape, tuberculosis risk, etc.. (9) Prisons are: “A failed solution to social, political & economic problems”. (10) There are ways to develop (community) safety that don’t rely on “Caging … to address social, economic and political problems”. (11) Please offer Mr. Hekmati a dignified alternative to prison — Peace education.

CONCLUSION: Dear President Ahmadinejad, The Islamic Revolutionary Court & the Iranian people: Please have Islamic mercy on Mr. Hekmati; Please offer the United States & Mr. Hekmati a gesture of Reconciliation & healing; & Please free Mr. Hekmati to the United States for an education in Peace & International Conflict studies.

Thank you. Respectfully & Humbly, Mary Hamer, M.D. Florida. U.S.A.

By Mary Hamer, M.D. U.S.A.

29 January 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

REFERENCES:

theweek.com. Will Iran Execute an American citizen? 1/10/12.

en.wikipedia.org. Compassion. Islam.

www.huffingtonpost.com. Chittick, William. Ph.D. The Islamic Notion of Mercy. 12/14/10.

www.islamweb.net. Islam the Religion of Mercy. 22/12/10.

www.huffingtonpost.com. Chittick, William. Ph.D. The Islamic Notion of Mercy. 12/14/10.

Ross, Sherwood. CIA Spy Conviction Gives Iran Chance to Boost Relation. 1/10/12. Countercurrents.org.

www.criticalresistance.org. Critical Resistance.

Hamer, Mary. Prisons, Cages & Human Suffering. www.countercurrents.org. 8/16/10.

voices.yahoo.com. Human Rights Abuses against Prisoners subsequently lead to Suicide. By RmarkbleCourage.

www.criticalresistance.org. Critical Resistance.

en.wikipedia.org. Critical Resistance.

NOTES:

*X. Restorative Justice: “Restorative Justice (also sometimes called “Reparative justice”A) is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of victims, offenders, as well as the involved community, instead of satisfying abstract legal principles or punishing the offender. Victims take an active role in the process, while offenders are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, “To repair the harm they’ve done—by apologizing, returning stolen money, or community service”.B Restorative justice that fosters dialogue between victim and offender shows the highest rates of victim satisfaction and offender accountability.D … “The most important process of restorative justice, is the concept of ‘healing.’” “Various methods of restorative justice are practiced; examples include victim offender mediation, conferencing, healing circles, victim assistance,ex-offender assistance, restitution, and community service.” “Restorative justice is defined as:…a broad term which encompasses a growing social movement to institutionalize peaceful approaches to harm, problem-solving and violations of legal and human rights. These range from international peacemaking tribunals such as the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission to innovations within the criminal and juvenile justice systems, schools, social services and communities. Restorative resolutions engage those who are harmed, wrongdoers and their affected communities in search of solutions that promote repair, reconciliation and the rebuilding of relationships. Restorative justice seeks to build partnerships to reestablish mutual responsibility for constructive responses to wrongdoing within our communities. Restorative approaches seek a balanced approach to the needs of the victim, wrongdoer and community through processes that preserve the safety and dignity of all.”E. [en.wikipedia.org. Restorative Justice. Referencing: A. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research Volume 1, Number 1, 70-93, DOI: 10.1007/BF02249525 Reparative Justice: Towards a Victim oriented system. Elmar Weitekamp. B. “A New Kind of Criminal Justice”, Parade, 25 October 2009, p. 6. C. Marty Price, J.D. “Personalizing Crime,” Dispute Resolution Magazine, Fall 2001. D. Lawrence W Sherman and Heather Strang, Restorative Justice: The Evidence, University of Pennsylvania, 2007. E. Suffolk University, College of Arts & Sciences, Center for Restorative Justice, “What is Restorative Justice?”.]

*Y. Transformative Justice Definition: “Transformative justice is a general philosophical strategy for responding to conflicts. It takes the principles and practices of restorative justice beyond the criminal justice system. … Transformative justice uses a systems approach, seeking to see problems, as not only the beginning of the crime but also the causes of crime, and tries to treat an offense as a transformative relational and educational opportunity for victims, offenders and all other members of the affected community. … (Transformative justice) can be seen as a general philosophical strategy for responding to conflicts akin to peacemaking. Transformative justice is concerned with root causes and comprehensive outcomes. It is akin to healing justice more than other alternatives to imprisonment.” [en.wikipedia.org. Transformative Justice.]

*Z. Peace & International Conflict studies focuses on “The prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts by peaceful means, thereby seeking (dual) ‘victory’ for all parties involved in the conflict. This is in contrast to war studies (polemology) which has as its aim on the efficient attainment of (solo) victory in conflicts.” [en.wikipedia.org. Peace & Conflict Studies. Referencing: John D. Brewer, Peace processes: a sociological approach, p. 7, Polity Press, 2010.]

Monday. February 13. 3.54 pm. A bomb explodes in the car of an Israeli diplomat. Three people, including the defence attaché’s wife Tal Yehoshua, are grievously injured.

30 minutes later, embassy officials are examining the remains of the vehicle in an area that has been cordoned off by the police.

Within three hours, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accuses the Hizbullah and Iran: “Iran, which stands behind these attacks, is the largest exporter of terror in the world. The Israeli government and its security forces will continue to work together with local security services against these terrorist actions.”

He is pre-empting the inquiry, and the media is already talking about “Hizbullah in Delhi” and “Israel targeted in India”. We are calling ourselves a soft state when our own hardliners and security forces have been killing citizens inside the country.

The question is not whether global terror is being fought on Indian soil but how much of it is being arranged here. If it is legitimate to ask about the role of local handlers, then why has there been no concern about the incident of a planned vengeance by Israelis?

Cut to a report a few days ago when there was palpable revenge. The couple, Shneor Zalman and Yaffa Shenoi, arrived in India on a multiple-entry visa in March 2010. After the visa expired, they went back and returned within a month. What was their purpose that they paid a “disproportionately high rent” of Rs. 50,000 a month for a house in Fort Kochi, Kerala? A senior official was quoted in a report saying: “Central intelligence got an alert about a covert operation being carried out by suspected Israeli agents after the 26/11 Mumbai terror strike in which south Mumbai’s Chabad House came under attack and six Jews, including a Rabbi and his pregnant wife, were killed. We have traced the couple’s financial transactions. They will be questioned before they are deported. Preliminary investigations suggest some Israelis are camping in various parts of the country.”

This comes from official sources and all that they think of is deporting the couple. There has been complete silence from the usually active dispensers of opinion, too.

Let us return to the scene of Monday’s crime. The Indian and international media have gone ballistic about it without a shred of evidence. If the argument is that the Indian prime minister’s house is in the vicinity and reveals lapses in our security, then why is no one apprehensive about our situation? It raises questions beyond safety measures. Why are we falling in line with Israeli rules? What is the American effort in this proxy war? It is not Hizbullah that is fighting in India, but Israel.

With the top leaders’ comments, Israel is not only holding India to ransom but also trying to play its victim-aggressor game here. A bomb that went off simultaneously in Georgia was defused, for it does not resonate well with the anti-Arab/Iran narrative. One is not condoning any such attacks, but this most certainly does not look like a war against Israel, a state that has got its armour in place. Mossad is as pervasive as the CIA.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said, “It just shows that Israel and its citizens face terror inside and outside of Israel. We deal with it every day. We know how to identify exactly who is responsible for the attack and who carried it out. We will not allow this to affect our agenda.”

Has anyone questioned the agenda? The identification process assumes reprisal.

Blindly accepting the Israeli version of domestic links with groups will obviously lead to the blanket indictment of ‘jihadi’ organisations, many of them imagined entities of the right-wing parties. Is it not possible that some Hindutva terror groups now openly asserting themselves and held culpable for such activities could be used for Israel’s covert operations? Israel does not have suicide missions, but it understands the masochism paradigm only too well.

***

The revenge space is never empty. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum has written: “The primitive sense of the just…starts from the notion that a human life…is a vulnerable thing, a thing that can be invaded, wounded, violated by another’s act in many ways. For this penetration, the only remedy that seems appropriate is a counter invasion, equally deliberate, equally grave. And to right the balance truly, the retribution must be exactly, strictly proportional to the original encroachment. It differs from the original act only in the sequence of time and in the fact that it is response rather than original act – a fact frequently obscured if there is a long sequence of acts and counteracts.”

We need to look at a few examples to emphasise our vulnerability.

Members of the orthodox Jewish Chabad India Trust have moved out of Nariman House and are residing in an unknown location due to security reasons. Soon after the Mumbai attacks, six members of a group called Zaka (acronym for Zihuy Korbanot Ason – Disaster Victim Identification) arrived in the city to collect and arrange the body parts and blood of Jews so that they could be returned to family members and were afforded a dignified burial according to Jewish law. The police investigations were not completed.

More recently, Israeli national Nurit Toker was booked by the Mumbai police under the Arms Act, 1959, for carrying two live cartridges in her backpack while travelling from Mumbai to Kathmandu. In her petition she mentioned that she had completed her compulsory three-year training in the Israeli army and these were her personal ammunition, compatible with the M-16 assault rifle acquired during her military training. She had not carried the rifle, though. Sec. 3 clearly states “there is no requirement of use or intention to use the arm or ammunition” to pursue the case. Yet, the Israel Consulate intervened to say that the accused had accidentally left bullets in her bag.

This is not the first such instance. In 2006, Noa Haviv had cleared customs at Mumbai airport as well as the security agencies of Israeli airline El Al at Tel Aviv and arrived with 16 bullets and a magazine in her check-in baggage. The Israeli consul general had stated then: “We have every reason to believe that it was an innocent mistake. She had borrowed this suitcase from her brother, who is a licensed weapons holder. She was not aware of the bullets inside when she packed her bags.” Amazingly, only the airline filed a case and not the Airports Authority of India or the security agencies of the government.

In a country that arrests whole families on mere “tip offs”, this leniency is alarming. Worse, all 171 passengers on the El Al flight had walked out of the green channel and cleared customs in 15 minutes. Why this express service? Even Indians returning from a holiday take longer. The customs official at the time had said, “…this was a flight coming from Israel, where security measures are stringent.”

Are we to depend on another state’s security assurances? Israel is not above suspicion. No country is.

***

The attack on the embassy staff took place in India. We cannot allow investigations to be outsourced. Hillary Clinton offered US assistance to probe into “these cowardly acts” because the “scourge of terrorism is an affront to the entire international community”.

In an editorial, The Pioneer uses this incident for its grand-standing: “Governments around the world are mindful of such occasions when Israelis, both diplomats and civilians, are likely be targeted; sadly, the Government of India chooses to ignore them, busy as the Home Minister is defending himself in a corruption case while intelligence agencies are pre-occupied with snooping on the Congress’s political opponents and conducting ‘surveys’ in election-bound States”. It adds, with alacrity, that at least the people should be agitated “if not the Government whose Ministers are at the moment unabashedly pandering to Muslim extremism in Uttar Pradesh”.

Are we to be on our toes for Israel? Why did the papers not write editorials when suspicious activities of Israelis were noticed by these intelligence agencies? Why suppress those?

As expected, Pakistan and its Inter Services Intelligence are used as an example. There has been no proof. Israel is using Indian susceptibility with regard to relationship with Pakistan. There is an indeed an insurgency problem and the recent history of the Mumbai attacks. The fact that the Jewish Chabad House was one of the targets makes it appear as a legitimate connection. But Pakistan has closer ties with Saudi Arabia and is inimical to Iran, which is the current bone stuck in the throats of the western powers and Israel.

There are cursory references to the four Iranian nuclear scientists who were killed in the last two years. Instead, the bomb blast is being touted as revenge for the death of Hizbullah’s military chief Imad Mughniyeh in a car explosion. What is so important about the fourth death anniversary? Do also note that he was killed in Syria, so Israel has a virtual buffet meal at its disposal to point fingers at.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said. “Israel perpetrated the terror actions to launch psychological warfare against Iran.”

There are sniggers, but Israel has every reason to perpetuate such mind-numbing ideas, if not actions. In 1948, Menachem Begin’s unit slaughtered the inhabitants of Deir Yassin. In 1953, Ariel Sharon led the slaughter of the inhabitants of Qibya, and in 1982 arranged for their allies to butcher around 2,000 in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla. He had declared, “We must hit, hit and hit them incessantly – not by means of large-scale war. Suddenly someone disappears there, someone is found dead here and somewhere else someone is found stabbed to death in a European nightclub.”

The history if Israel is as damning as it is damaged. It has flouted every rule and yet got the benefit of protection.

India is most certainly not a soft power that some of our own commentators are shamelessly projecting it as. It is a bit obsessed and still suffers from a colonial hangover. It has created its cocoon of goodwill based on the flimsy delusion of being a developed nation where hybrid progress is sustained in a greenhouse. In that, it is not too different from some of the wealthy Arab states that are only concerned about how they sell their oil and for how much. Just as they have their pecking order, India maintains a stoical distance from the larger pool of South Asian countries by virtue of its “close relations” with those who matter.

Self-preservation is the goal of any society, but when it becomes opportunistic it is difficult to demarcate the lines of control and of control freaks. By a process of natural selection that imbues it as a ‘doctrinaire liberal’ society, India is being co-opted in an unholy war

By Farzana Versey

16 February 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Farzana Versey is a Mumbai-based writer. She can be reached at http://farzana-versey.blogspot.in/