Just International

Attacking Libya — And The Dictionary

22 June, 2011

Tomdispatch.com

If Americans don’t get hurt, war is no longer war

The Obama administration has come up with a remarkable justification for going to war against Libya without the congressional approval required by the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

American planes are taking off, they are entering Libyan air space, they are locating targets, they are dropping bombs, and the bombs are killing and injuring people and destroying things. It is war. Some say it is a good war and some say it is a bad war, but surely it is a war.

Nonetheless, the Obama administration insists it is not a war. Why? Because, according to “United States Activities in Libya,” a 32-page report that the administration released last week, “U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve the presence of U.S. ground troops, U.S. casualties or a serious threat thereof, or any significant chance of escalation into a conflict characterized by those factors.”

In other words, the balance of forces is so lopsided in favor of the United States that no Americans are dying or are threatened with dying. War is only war, it seems, when Americans are dying, when we die. When only they, the Libyans, die, it is something else for which there is as yet apparently no name. When they attack, it is war. When we attack, it is not.

This cannot be classified as anything but strange thinking and it depends, in turn, on a strange fact: that, in our day, it is indeed possible for some countries (or maybe only our own), for the first time in history, to wage war without receiving a scratch in return. This was nearly accomplished in the bombing of Serbia in 1999, in which only one American plane was shot down (and the pilot rescued).

The epitome of this new warfare is the predator drone, which has become an emblem of the Obama administration. Its human operators can sit at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada or in Langley, Virginia, while the drone floats above Afghanistan or Pakistan or Yemen or Libya, pouring destruction down from the skies. War waged in this way is without casualties for the wager because none of its soldiers are near the scene of battle — if that is even the right word for what is going on.

Some strange conclusions follow from this strange thinking and these strange facts. In the old scheme of things, an attack on a country was an act of war, no matter who launched it or what happened next. Now, the Obama administration claims that if the adversary cannot fight back, there is no war.

It follows that adversaries of the United States have a new motive for, if not equaling us, then at least doing us some damage. Only then will they be accorded the legal protections (such as they are) of authorized war. Without that, they are at the mercy of the whim of the president.

The War Powers Resolution permits the president to initiate military operations only when the nation is directly attacked, when there is “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.” The Obama administration, however, justifies its actions in the Libyan intervention precisely on the grounds that there is no threat to the invading forces, much less the territories of the United States.

There is a parallel here with the administration of George W. Bush on the issue of torture (though not, needless to say, a parallel between the Libyan war itself, which I oppose but whose merits can be reasonably debated, and torture, which was wholly reprehensible). President Bush wanted the torture he was ordering not to be considered torture, so he arranged to get lawyers in the Justice department to write legal-sounding opinions excluding certain forms of torture, such as waterboarding, from the definition of the word. Those practices were thenceforward called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Now, Obama wants his Libyan war not to be a war and so has arranged to define a certain kind of war — the American-casualty-free kind — as not war (though without even the full support of his own lawyers). Along with Libya, a good English word — war — is under attack.

In these semantic operations of power upon language, a word is separated from its commonly accepted meaning. The meanings of words are one of the few common grounds that communities naturally share. When agreed meanings are challenged, no one can use the words in question without stirring up spurious “debates,” as happened with the word torture. For instance, mainstream news organizations, submissive to George Bush’s decisions on the meanings of words, stopped calling waterboarding torture and started calling it other things, including “enhanced interrogation techniques,” but also “harsh treatment,” “abusive practices,” and so on.

Will the news media now stop calling the war against Libya a war? No euphemism for war has yet caught on, though soon after launching its Libyan attacks, an administration official proposed the phrase “kinetic military action” and more recently, in that 32-page report, the term of choice was “limited military operations.” No doubt someone will come up with something catchier soon.

How did the administration twist itself into this pretzel? An interview that Charlie Savage and Mark Landler of the New York Times held with State Department legal advisor Harold Koh sheds at least some light on the matter. Many administrations and legislators have taken issue with the War Powers Resolution, claiming it challenges powers inherent in the presidency. Others, such as Bush administration Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, have argued that the Constitution’s plain declaration that Congress “shall declare war” does not mean what most readers think it means, and so leaves the president free to initiate all kinds of wars.

Koh has long opposed these interpretations — and in a way, even now, he remains consistent. Speaking for the administration, he still upholds Congress’s power to declare war and the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution. “We are not saying the president can take the country into war on his own,” he told the Times. “We are not saying the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional or should be scrapped or that we can refuse to consult Congress. We are saying the limited nature of this particular mission is not the kind of ‘hostilities’ envisioned by the War Powers Resolution.”

In a curious way, then, a desire to avoid challenge to existing law has forced assault on the dictionary. For the Obama administration to go ahead with a war lacking any form of Congressional authorization, it had to challenge either law or the common meaning of words. Either the law or language had to give.

It chose language.

Jonathan Schell is the Doris M. Shaffer Fellow at The Nation Institute, and a Senior Lecturer at Yale University. He is the author of several books, including The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People. To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest TomCast audio interview in which Schell discusses war and the imperial presidency, click here, or download it to your iPod here.

Copyright 2011 Jonathan Schell

Remembering Brian Haw By Stephen Lendman

 

22 June, 2011  Countercurrents.org

Early morning June 18, lung cancer claimed 62 year old UK anti-war activist Haw after a long battle, a man London Independent contributor Mark Wallinger called “the conscience of the nation grown quiescent.”

His family left a message, saying: “He left us in his sleep and in no pain, after a long, hard fight,” ending three months of treatment in Germany. His long vigil, in fact, contributed to his poor heath. It also led to a divorce and largely separated him from his seven children.

After others stopped protesting America’s Afghan and Iraq wars, Brian was steadfast against his own government’s complicity. In fact, from June 2001, months before 9/11, he camped out in London’s Parliament Square against the UN’s appalling economic sanctions. They got former UN representative for Iraq’s Oil and Food program Denis Halliday to resign for being asked to commit the equivalent of genocide, killing 5,000 children monthly.

Haw, in fact, documented horrific Gulf War depleted uranium birth defects, repeated lies and evasions of US and UK leaders, and imperial lawlessness waging unconscionable wars. Resolutely he remained tenacious against injustice, championing peace and love.

On his own, his decade-long presence pressured his government relentlessly. In return, authorities hounded, arrested, and assaulted him. In 2002, the Westminster City Council petitioned Britain’s High Court for an injunction to remove him, claiming he blocked the pavement. The Court, however, declined, ruling his presence wasn’t unreasonable.

In 2003, the House of Commons Procedure Committee recommended a law change, prohibiting unlicensed protests on security grounds. He never left.

In 2005, after Tony Blair called him a nuisance to get rid of, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) passed, legislation enacted against him, making it illegal to protest within a one km radius of Parliament without police permission.

Nonetheless, he successfully argued that his vigil predated parliamentary terrorism, winning the right to continue protesting against Britain’s lawless participation in Washington’s imperial wars.

Preaching “Love….peace….justice….for all,” he camped out night and day every day, in good and bad weather, in spite of everything authorities tried to harass, deter, and banish him.

Using a megaphone, banners, placards, homemade signs, peace flags, photos, and slogans, his message resonated in Westminster and worldwide, a testimony to his heroic spirit, dogged presence against war, and refusal to quit until illness forced him.

Wallinger called him “a unique and remarkable man,” citing his “tenacity, integrity and dignity,” then asking: “What are we going to do now there is no (Brian) there?”

A lead Independent article called him a “Rebel with a cause….(a) one-man peace camp….a mighty irritant slap in front of the seat of national government,” challenging the illegal war-making of three prime ministers.

He survived numerous arrests, dozens of eviction attempts, and the mayor of London’s failed effort to clear his pavement space for Britain’s royal wedding. His resilience made him a hero for many.

In 2007, Channel 4’s Political Awards voted him the Most Politically Inspiring Figure of the Year. By then, in fact, he was internationally recognized. In Britain, tour guides included him on their itineraries, and documentaries and docudramas on Britain’s involvement in America’s wars featured him.

On June 19, a message from supporters on his web site said:

“Brian showed great determination and courage during the many long hard years he led his peace campaign. (He) showed the same courage and determination is his battle with cancer. He was keenly aware of and deeply concerned that so many civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine did not have access to the same treatments that were made available to him.”

On June 2, 2001, police asked him how long he’d be there. He replied, “As long as it takes.” He kept his word until his deteriorating health demanded treatment in Germany.

He’s survived by his wife former Kay, seven children, and legions of global admirers, perhaps inspired enough by his courage to pursue peace in his absence.

A Final Comment

On June 20, anti-war activist former UK MP Tony Benn headlined a London Guardian op-ed, “Brian Haw gave his life for peace,” saying:

He stood for principle against lawless wars. “Every MP on the way to work would pass Brian and know he was always there and underst(ood) what he was saying.”

His activism “frightened the establishment” enough to try stopping him legislatively, mindless of his dogged determination to resist.

“The remarkable thing about Brian was not only his principle, but his determination, alone, to be effective as indeed he was; for millions of people must have seen him there or on television, and came to know of his campaign.”

Some called him “the man of peace in Westminster,” a different message from warmongering MPs, Benn never one of them.

“Brian did not stop the Iraq war” or others, “but he will be remembered as a man who stood” for peace and gave his life championing it.

“He will be sadly missed and his death marks the end of a historic enterprise by a man who gave everything to support his beliefs” – honorable ones against Washington and UK war criminals, reigning terror and destruction he valiantly tried to stop.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Freedom Riding To Gaza

 

24 June, 2011

Ssalsa.wiredforchange.com

Fifty years ago, freedom riders traveled by bus into the U.S. South.  Now American freedom riders are joining their allies from around the world on a flotilla bound for Gaza.  The U.S. ship is called The Audacity of Hope .

The heroes on this ship have pledged to sail unarmed and to refuse to use violence. The Israeli military, which continues to illegally blockade Gaza, causing endless suffering to the Gazan people, has pledged to use violent force to prevent the ships getting through.

Last May, the Israeli military, in international waters, illegally boarded another ship on a similar mission, the Mavi Marmara , killing nine people, including one American, and wounding dozens. Israel claimed, in its defense, that the Mavi Marmara carried no humanitarian aid, that all such supplies were on other ships in the flotilla.

The 36 American passengers (plus 4 crew and 10 members of the press) on board The Audacity of Hope have publicly stated that they will carry only letters: “thousands of letters of support and friendship from people throughout the U.S. to the women, children and men of Gaza.”

This selfless courage will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with these freedom riders. Some of the ones I know best and am deeply concerned for the safety of are Ann Wright, Ray McGovern, Kathy Kelly, Medea Benjamin, Paki Wieland. These are people who habitually take risks for others. One comes to expect it of them, but also to expect them to always be there doing it. Robert Naiman will be on this ship, and Alice Walker, and Hedy Epstein. Below are videos of 17 of these heroes explaining why they are going.

The Freedom Riders of 1961 asked the U.S. government to protect them. Its efforts to do so were too little too late. The Freedom Riders of 2011 have also asked the U.S. government to protect them, and thus far received no such commitment. We can ask the U.S. State Department to ask Israel (recipient of billions of dollars in U.S. weaponry every year) not to assault this flotilla, and to allow those transporting aid and letters of good will to reach the suffering people of Gaza unharmed.

CONTACT THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,

You have urged our fellow citizens not to participate in an unarmed nonviolent humanitarian mission to Gaza by sea.

But have you urged Israel not to interfere with ships in international waters?

Have you urged Israel not to harm unarmed activists engaged in an actual humanitarian mission, the very thing your government pretends its wars are?

Have you urged Israel to lift the illegal and murderous blockade of Gaza?

We encourage you to take these steps to ensure the safety of Americans on board The Audacity of Hope sailing for Gaza in the Freedom Flotilla. And we encourage you to pressure Israel in the way that only a nation providing Israel with billions of dollars worth of weapons every year can, by threatening to cut them off.

We look forward to your response.

In Peace,

_____________________________

ADD YOUR NAME TO THE PETITION WHICH WILL BE DELIVERED TO SECRETARY CLINTON

David Swanson is the author of “War Is A Lie”

http://warisalie.org

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Inspection and sealing of Freedom Flotilla II cargo

A Letter To Ban Ki-moon

24 June, 2011

Countercurrents.org

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

United Nations

New York, NY 10017 USA

Dear Mr. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,

We are writing to urge you to use your good offices in support of the humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza.

In our view, you can support the people of Gaza with two key actions. First, by appointing a representative to inspect and seal the cargo of the boats of the Freedom Flotilla II—thus assuring the Israeli government that the boats are carrying humanitarian supplies such as toys, medical supplies, cement and educational materials. Equally important, we strongly urge you to use your authority to call on all governments to support the safe passage of the Freedom Flotilla II. We are disappointed to learn of your recent efforts to persuade member governments from stopping the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza on the Freedom Flotilla II. We urge you to reconsider and instead encourage member states to lend support and ask Israel not to use force against legitimate humanitarian initiatives undertaken by civil society to help ease the suffering of the people of Gaza who are facing a humanitarian crisis of devastating scale.

The Freedom Flotilla II, organized by 14 national groups and international coalitions and carrying approximately 1500 ‘freedom riders,’ is set to sail to Gaza this month. Sailing in the spirit of promoting human rights, prosperity, and social responsibility, the aim of the Flotilla is to alleviate the humanitarian crisis faced by the citizens of Gaza.

The blockade in Gaza is clearly having a harmful impact on the people of Gaza, and indeed UNDP and other agencies report high levels of malnutrition and other disturbing health problems. According to a report by the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization, the level of “abject poverty” among the Palestinians of Gaza has tripled since the imposition of the blockade, with 61 % of households not having enough food. The blockade has crippled the Gaza economy and destroyed Palestinians’ livelihoods and homes.

We believe our requests to you are in keeping with UN Security Council Resolution 1860 of January 2009 as well as the 2010 UN Human Rights Council fact-finding mission on the attack on Freedom Flotilla I, which are calling for a lift of the blockade to allow humanitarian assistance. We urge you to do all you can to support this nonviolent international humanitarian effort, to provide UN representatives to inspect and seal the cargo, and to appeal to all governments to allow safe passage of the Freedom Flotilla II.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter. We look forward to your positive response.

Sincerely,

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate 1976

Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Nobel Peace Laureate 1992

Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Laureate 1997

Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Laureate 2003

“Anti-boycott” bill exposes hypocrisy and double standards

Gush Shalom press release,

28.06.2011

Uri Avnery: “The “anti-boycott” bill is an assault on the freedom of expression and political association, an attempt to gag the opposition. It would greatly accelerate the process of Israel’s de-legitimation in the international arena. Boycotting the settlements is not ‘a boycott of Israel’ – it is a boycott for the sake of Israel.

Following the vote in the Knesset Judical Committee, where the so-called “anti-boycott” law was approved towards the final vote in the Knesset plenum, former Knesset member Uri Avnery:of Gush Shalom stated:

“The right wing and its parliamentary representatives have demonstrated their hypocrisy and double standards. Having just praised and lauded the consumer boycott on overpriced cottage cheese, today they came out in favor of forbidding a consumer boycott of settlement products.”

Avnery added that: “A consumer boycott is a proper, democratic act by which the public can express its opinion in direct action, as we recently saw in the boycott of cottage cheese which was applauded throughout the country. Similarly, the religious community in Israel is for many years already conducting a boycott of shops and restaurants which sell non-kosher food, and they even conduct this boycott with the government funds which sustain the Chief Rabbinate and city rabbinates. Just as much as these, the community of Israeli peace seekers is entitled to conduct its own consumer action, avoid in an organized way the purchasing of products originating at settlements in the Occupied Territories – since these settlements are a negative phenomenon putting our future in jeopardy. If enacted, the law may touch upon such activities as the publishing a list of settlement products or the decision of actors to refuse performing in Ariel. These and other completely legitimate and democratic activities might be criminalized, become offenses carrying the price of heavy and draconian fines.

“The bill in question includes a completely false statement of fact, that ‘a boycott of Judea and Samaria is the same as a boycott of Israel. The exact opposite is true – a boycott of the settlement in the area named by the settlers and their accomplices “Judea and Samaria” is a boycott for the sake of Israel, a boycott seeking to ensure the country’s well-being and future.

“The initiators of this bill assert that they want to confront Israel’s de-legitimation in the international community – but this bill itself would itself greatly accelerate the process of de-legitimation, by presenting the whole word with the spectacle of an anti-democratic law being approved in Israel, specifically designed to curb the opposition’s freedom of action. This bill would not prevent artists, all over the world, from canceling performances in Israel, nor will it stop foreign academics from cutting off cooperation with Israeli universities – on the contrary, it would greatly increase and intensify such phenomena.”

I still hope that when this bill gets to the Knesset plenum, there will be found a majority to vote it down and prevent a dark stain from blotting the law books of the State of Israel. This is a test for the Kadima Party, an opportunity to prove that it constitutes an opposition to the right-wing government and not its pale copy. An opportunity for Kadima to mobilize its Knesset Members to show up at the plenum, cast a unanimous No vote, to get rid of this abominable bill once and for all .


When the Public Rises, We’ll Want an Ally in Congress

http://warisacrime.org/node/58303

For the majority of people in the United States — a majority does not vote, a majority believes the government is broken, a majority thinks our public policy is headed in the wrong direction — the fact that we call this place a democracy is apparently outweighed by the fact that our national government almost never does what a majority of us want done. Some of the things we don’t want done include the destruction of the planet’s environment, the mass slaughter of war, the spreading of violence, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny aristocracy while millions at home and billions abroad suffer horrifically for lack of readily available resources.

When the people of Egypt decided earlier this year to rise up and resist their government’s abuses, it would have been helpful for them to have more real allies already in positions of partial power within that government. The same applies to us, should we ever determine that we are not going to take it anymore. Perhaps that moment will come in October: http://october2011.org Perhaps, as momentum builds around the country for real resistance, it will come ahead of schedule this summer. Perhaps it will come a few years down the road.

When such a moment comes, we will have to face violence without employing it. We will have to counter the crimes of war makers and robber barons with the impoliteness of uncompromising refusal to allow their operations to continue. We will have to make sacrifices and steadfastly advance the struggle while resisting innumerable temptations to compromise with the unconscionable. But we will also have to lead the way forward, negotiate, unite, and synthesize.

I’m not suggesting the rather silly critique that we know what we are against but not what we are for. Those questions answer themselves. We are against making war on the world. We are for making friendship with the world. We are against coal, oil, nuclear, and gas. We are for solar, wind, tides, and all renewables. We are against legalized bribery. We are for clean elections, free media time, verified vote counting, and automatic registration. We are against ignorance. We are for investment in education and journalism. We are against secrecy. We are for transparency. We are against corporate health coverage. We are for single payer. We are against plutocracy and corporate power. We are for taxing billionaires, imposing the law equally on all, and providing human rights to all and only humans.

If we make it impossible for the banksters to fund crimes in our name with impunity, we will also need to make it possible for working people to borrow money, diplomats to negotiate alliances and trade agreements, and criminals — including the biggest and most powerful of them — to be given fair trials. It will be helpful to us if we have some friends already in official positions of governance. But who will they be?

The very idea of aligning ourselves with allies in Congress has been given a bad name. And it damn well deserves it. Allies in Congress should align themselves with us, not the other way around. But even when they do so in large numbers, they are consistently out-numbered by their colleagues and by the power of the two parties to which they answer. We don’t seem capable of electing 218 principled House members, much less 60 uncorrupted Senators. And yet, we are better off with some minority in Congress speaking — even if, for now, it is only speaking — for the majority outside of Congress. I would even say we are better off with members in Congress who sometimes represent us and sometimes cave in to corrupting influences, as compared with those who never represent us at all.

Look at the people we idolize as whistleblowers. They are usually people who have been cooperative cogs in a machine of death and destruction, often for many years, who finally decided to expose a particular abuse. We don’t reject their good deeds on the grounds that they aren’t angels. I think Congress members’ actions should be treated the same way. They stand or fall on their own merits, not the personality of the member, much less the imagined holy or hellish nature of the member’s political party.

And yet, goddamn it, wouldn’t it be nice to really have one of us in Congress? Wouldn’t that be useful if the tide began to turn, whether slowly or in an immediate upheaval?

As I write this, Republicans in Ohio are working on eliminating Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s district. They’re not trying to vote him out, but to erase his district from the map so that he has nowhere to run for reelection, at least not in Ohio. Also, as I write this, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, longtime chair of the Progressive Caucus and ally of the peace movement, is announcing her intention not to run for reelection.

Yet a possibility is opening up of replacing Woolsey with someone who clearly has the potential to be even better than Kucinich has been thus far.

No matter how Woolsey’s district is redrawn in California, it will remain a very progressive district. This means that nationally those who pay attention to and work on elections, as well as those who want their children to have a decent world to live in, ought to take some interest in replacing Woolsey with a real progressive leader, not just someone who will vote the right way most of the time, not just someone who will say the right things, not even just someone who will stick their neck out and take the lead on matters that are deemed controversial within the Beltway, but someone who will educate, encourage activism, and organize within the government.

Luckily, that candidate is available and running, and he’s running against one — possibly two — Obama followers. No Republican or independent is going to be elected to Congress from Marin County. The representative is either going to be a robotic Democratic drone who votes as the President instructs, thus inverting and perverting our system of checks and balances. Or the representative is going to be the person that progressives turn to for support from around the nation in the years to come: Norman Solomon.

If you don’t know who Norman is, read his Wikipedia page. Norman is one of the best activists I know, and one of the best book authors, possibly the very best columnist, and undoubtedly one of the easiest colleagues to work with whether we agree on something or not (we’re working together on http://rootsaction.org ). Norman may not agree with everything in this column. But I’m not looking for someone identical to myself to elect to Congress. I think Norman Solomon would make a better Congress member than I would, and than most of us would. I think he is ideally suited for it. I expect him to stay connected to the activist world, to make ideal use of independent and corporate media, and to build a caucus of Congress members that doesn’t just add members to its ranks but actually takes actions that impact our public policy. When I say I expect these things, I don’t mean that I am making these demands of Norman (though I am); I mean that we can safely predict that he will conduct himself in this manner if elected.

That’s always a big if. The forces of mediocrity are always gathering strength against the exceptional. Let’s nip in the bud the notion that California’s Sixth District should be “represented” by a run of the mill hack. We can do that by pumping thousands of small donations from ordinary people all over the country into Solomon’s campaign this week before the totals raised thus far are counted and announced at the end of June. Solomon has already raised over $100,000. If Rahm hadn’t left for Chicago, the national machine to stop Solomon would be in full gear already. But people who stand for nothing are easily intimidated. I’m doing my bit to help scare them off right now. Won’t you? Please give at least the price of a fancy coffee for the sake of having a people’s leader in Washington when we need one: http://www.ActBlue.com/page/Supportathon

David Swanson is the author of “War Is A Lie”

 

The diamond industry’s double-standard on Israel

The Electronic Intifada

23 June 2011

 

Diamonds are Israel’s number one export commodity.

(Gil Cohen MagenReuters)

All too aware of how bad association with war crimes is for business, the diamond industry has taken pains to evade questions about its connections with Israel’s human rights abuses — and so far has escaped scrutiny from watchdog organizations.

Representatives for 75 countries affiliated to the United Nations-based Kimberley Process Certification Scheme meeting in Kinshasa this week failed to reach agreement on the export of blood-stained diamonds from Zimbabwe. The elephant in the room was Israel’s burgeoning diamond exports which evade the human rights strictures imposed on Zimbabwe’s diamond exports.

A “letter of the month” that I authored and which was published in the April edition of Retail Jeweller magazine exposes these double standards in the Kimberley Process regulations that facilitate the trade in blood-stained diamonds from Israel and Zimbabwe (LettersRetail Jeweller Magazine, April 2011).

 

The letter caused “consternation” to some in the diamond industry and resulted in the withdrawal of the magazine from a major jewellery trade fair in Switzerland (“Gems editor sorry for ‘blood diamond’ boycott letter,” The Jewish Chronicle, 7 April 2011).

The letter drew the wrath of vested interests and leaders of the Israeli diamond industry. Their response via the Letters page in the May edition of the magazine demonstrated the sensitivity of the global diamond industry to any exposure of the links between Israeli diamonds and Israeli war crimes.

Three letters, signed by six prominent members of the global diamond industry, representing eight different organizations, all repeated the same mantra about the delegitimization of Israel. The writers ignored the key issue — that Israel’s cut and polished diamond exports evade the human rights strictures applying to exports of rough diamonds.

While the diamond industry continues to promote a soft-focus image of diamonds as objects of desire, the public, increasingly concerned about the ethical credentials of the goods they purchase, are no longer prepared to accept at face value claims that diamonds processed in Israeli are conflict-free.

Israel’s diamond trade funds war crimes

Israeli Diamond Industry Chairman Moti Ganz said recently: “Americans still buy diamonds to symbolize love and commitment” (“IDI plans its largest participation at JCK Las Vegas,” Diamond World, 17 May 2011). For the people in Gaza, on the receiving end of Israel’s diamond-funded white phosphorous and flechette nail bombs, diamonds are more likely to symbolize murder, mayhem and blood-soaked terror than love and commitment.

 

Israeli political economist Shir Hever, in evidence to the Russell Tribunal on Palestine stated in November 2010: “Overall the Israeli diamond industry contributes about $1 billion annually to the Israeli military and security industries … every time somebody buys a diamond that was exported from Israel some of that money ends up in the Israeli military so the financial connection is quite clear” (“Day 2, Part 1 of London Session, Russell Tribunal on Palestine,” 21 November 2010).

 

The introduction of the Kimberley Process (KP) regulations in 2003 was supposed to prevent the trade in diamonds that fund human rights violations. However, the Kimberly Process regulations’ narrow definition of a conflict or blood diamond excludes cut and polished diamonds. This anomaly facilitates the situation whereby jewelers can label cut and polished diamonds that are generating revenue used to fund the Israeli military which stands accused of war crimes, as conflict-free.

 

As a result, de facto blood diamonds from Israel contaminate the global market. The absence of a legal definition of a conflict-free diamond facilitates this deception. A public petition by a group of international Palestine solidarity activists, Global Palestine Solidarity (GPS), to the members of the Kimberley Process seeks an urgent review of the definition of a conflict diamond to include cut and polished diamonds that fund human rights violations (“Stop Israel’s Blood Diamond Trade,” accessed 1 June 2011).

 

Censorship by online retailers

To maintain the charade, a number of the world’s leading diamond retailers have resorted to censorship to avoid answering questions about the provenance of their so-called conflict-free diamonds.

Blue Nile, a Seattle-based, NASDAQ-listed company, is the world’s leading online diamond retailer. The company claims their diamonds “are warranted to be conflict-free.” Over the past six months, however, subscribers to the Blue Nile Facebook page have on numerous occasions asked how the company can justify the claim that diamonds crafted in Israel are conflict-free as they generate revenue used to fund the Israeli military, which stands accused of war crimes.

 

In response, the company censored their Facebook page, blocking scores of people and their 90,000 Facebook fans from posting new threads or pictures on their wall. Following sustained questioning from people in Ireland over a four-week period prior to 5 November 2010, Blue Nile imposed a blanket ban on all Irish IP address users.

 

This is not the only example of Blue Nile attempting to evade the issue of Israel’s blood diamonds.

In February 2011, Blue Nile filed its annual report with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the file is accessible via the Blue Nile website, accessed 21 June 2011). Blue Nile’s annual report is supposed to be a full disclosure of all the information necessary for investors to make an informed decision about the risks to the company’s future trading performance.

 

While this legally-binding statement of the company’s trading performance lists 16 pages of possible risk factors to the business, it fails to mention that the company is selling diamonds crafted in Israel that are the target of an international campaign that seeks to have them classified as conflict or blood diamonds. Nor does it state that the company took evasive action on its Facebook page to prevent people questioning the provenance of their so-called conflict-free diamonds.

Retailers attempting to evade accountability

Meanwhile, other diamond retailers have also tried to avoid scrutiny for involvement in Israel’s diamond trade.

Over the past six months, Brilliant Earth, another leading online diamond retailer, which promotes their diamonds as “ethically sourced” and “conflict-free,” has also blocked scores of people who posted questions on their Facebook wall asking if any of their so-called conflict-free diamonds are crafted in Israel.

And in April, forty members of the Independent Jewelers Organization (IJO), an 800-member American association of “jewelers with the highest ethical standards,” went on a diamond-buying trip to Israel (“IJO
makes pilot diamond buying trip to Israel
,” Israeli Diamond industry website, 1 May 2011). When subscribers to their Facebook page queried how they justify buying diamonds in a country that stands accused of war crimes, the administrators censored the page and deleted all references to their trip to Israel.

 

These are just some examples of the difficulties faced by jewelers who sell diamonds crafted in Israel claiming they are conflict-free diamonds. Jewelers want to promote their ethical practices, but if they sell diamonds crafted in Israel they are helping to fund a military regime that stands accused of war crimes. The contamination of the global diamond market with Israeli diamonds gives Palestine solidarity activists enormous leverage with the diamond industry at local, national and international levels.

Israel’s biggest export

Diamonds are Israel’s number one export commodity, accounting for between one quarter and one third of Israeli exports. In 2008, diamond exports were valued at $19.4 billion with a net value of approximately $10 billion — far exceeding even the gross value of electronic or pharmaceutical exports.

 

The diamond industry in Israel adds 5 percent to the GDP and is a significant source of the revenue needed to sustain Israel’s occupations, siege on Gazaand illegal settlements.

 

Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and the brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people places a heavy burden on Israeli government finances. According to US government statistics, Israel’s military expenditures consume more than 7 percent of the GDP, or approximately $16 billion per year (CIAWorld Factbook – Israel).

 

While American military aid of $3 billion per year is significant, the bulk of the money needed to sustain the many facets of Israeli hegemony has to be extracted from the economy in taxes of one form or another.

However, American consumers contribute more than the value of Washington’s aid package to the Israeli economy through the purchase of Israeli diamonds. According to the Israeli diamond industry website, approximately 50 percent of all diamonds bought in the US come from Israel (“The Israeli diamond industry – A leading center of the diamond world”).

 

The US is Israel’s most important diamond export market, accounting for roughly 40 percent of exports. In 2010 the net value of Israeli diamond exports to America was $5.8 billion (“IDI plans its largest participation at JCKLas Vegas,” Diamond World website, 17 May 2011).

 

Israel’s economy, to a large extent isolated from its natural markets in neighboring Arab states, is heavily reliant on the export of goods and services to Europe, the US and Asia. Israeli planners have long recognized the need for high-value, export-orientated industries that would draw in the foreign currency necessary to sustain the Zionist project in Palestine.

 

Zimbabwe vs. Israel

Israel’s overdependence on a luxury fashion commodity leaves it exposed and vulnerable to a consumer-lead rejection of Israeli diamonds. The demise of the Israeli diamond industry could have a significant impact on other sectors of the economy, on the Israeli stock market and on Israel’s ability to attract foreign direct investment.

The diamond industry is well aware how easily a brand image that has taken decades to establish can be ruined in a fraction of that time by any unsavory association. In the wake of Israel’s pre-election assault on the besieged residents of Gaza in the winter of 2008-09, a UN Human Rights Council investigation found evidence that Israel committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. The $1 billion revenue generated by the Israeli diamond industry helped fund the attack on Gaza — a clear justification for labeling Israeli diamonds “blood diamonds.”

 

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with observer status in the Kimberley Process (such as Global Witness and others) have a responsibility to ensure their support is not misused by the diamond industry.

Despite Israel’s well-documented human rights abuses, none of the NGOs have raised the issue of Israel’s continuing membership of the Kimberly Process scheme. Instead, their attention is mainly focused on diamond exports from Zimbabwe, where government forces are reported to have killed more than 200 persons in the violent takeover of the Marange diamond fields in 2008 (“Zimbabwe: End Repression in Marange Diamond Fields,” Human Rights Watch, 26 June 2009).

 

In 2008, Israel’s diamond exports were worth more than 1,200 times that of Zimbabwe’s diamond exports. NGOs cannot remain credible defenders of human rights if they continue to ignore Israel’s diamond-funded occupations, diamond-funded war crimes, diamond-funded siege, diamond-funded colonization and the diamond-funded ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Seán Clinton is a Palestine solidarity activist from Ireland. He is a member of the international group of Palestine solidarity activists, Global Palestine Solidarity, which focuses primarily on the Israel diamond industry.

 

Wealth Of World’s Richest Rose Nearly 10 Percent In 2010

 


25 June, 2011

WSWS.org

Austerity measures, wage cuts and rising unemployment have characterised the years since the crash of 2008 for working people. For the rich and super-rich, however, they have been the occasion for clawing back every penny of the initial losses made and adding a great deal more.

Today, the world’s wealthy are richer than before the crash and the number of individuals belonging to this highly exclusive club has grown.

The annual world wealth report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini identifies nearly 11 million “high net worth individuals” (HNWIs), defined as having more than $1 million in free cash, not including property and pensions. Their collective wealth reached $42.7 trillion in 2010, a 9.7 percent rise. This means that the wealth of this social layer has already surpassed the previous peak of $40.7 trillion reached in 2007.

The number of individuals worldwide who fall into this category grew 8.3 percent in 2010. This is described as a return to a “more sustainable pace,” following the 17 percent growth in the number of HNWIs to 10 million recorded in last year’s report.

To make clear the scale of individual wealth accumulation these figures represent, one needs to factor in the results for what are termed “ultra-high net worth individuals,” defined as having at least $30 million in free cash. The numbers in this group rose by 10 percent, to just 103,000. But their assets rose by 11.5 percent, giving then control of $15 trillion. That means that the top one percent of the world’s rich controls fully 36 percent of their collective assets.

The largest number of HNWIs continue to reside in the United States, followed by Japan and Germany. These countries together account for 53 percent of the world’s rich. The US has 3.1 million HNWIs, Japan 1.7 million and Germany 920,000.

The wealth of the richest 3.4 million people in North America, overwhelmingly in the US, rose by 9 percent to $11.6 trillion. The US is home to 28.6 percent of the world’s richest people.

Europe’s HNWIs fared less well generally. Nevertheless, the UK still sits at fourth in the league table, with France coming in fifth. Europe’s 3.1 million HNWIs have $10.2 trillion in free cash.

The far better performance of the HNWIs in the Asia-Pacific region has caused consternation among ruling elites in Europe and North America. The number of HNWIs in the Asia-Pacific region rose by almost 10 percent to 3.3 million in 2010. This was the largest regional growth rate, and the number of HNWIs in the Asia-Pacific region surpassed the European total as well as that of the US. It was only 100,000 lower than the total for the whole of North America. This elite layer in Asia now controls a total of $10.8 trillion in free cash.

Leading this growth in opulence are China and India. The number of mainland Chinese HNWI millionaires grew by fully 12 percent to 534,500 people, to which must be added the extraordinary growth of the wealthy elite in Hong Kong. The number of HNWIs there grew by 33.3 percent to 101,300, compared with 76,000 in 2009.

India, for its part, saw a 20.8 percent rise to 153,000 in the number of HNWIs, the highest rate of growth of any country. India for the first time placed in the top 12 in terms of the number of HNWI millionaires.

The Hindustan Times commented tellingly, “India may still have a long way to go in eliminating poverty, but high economic growth is throwing up millionaires by the thousands… The country, ranked 138th on the basis of per capita income by the IMF and 119th in the UN’s human development rankings based on indicators such as life expectancy and education, added in 2010 as many as 26,300 HNWIs…”

In the Middle East, the absolute numbers are smaller, but this only serves to underscore the scale of personal accumulation by that region’s rich. Just 400,000 people in the region control $1.7 trillion in free cash. The number of HNWIs in Kuwait and Bahrain rose by a quarter, putting these countries sixth and seventh in the table of 71 countries.

Tamer Rashad, head of Middle East operations at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, noted in Arabian Business that one aspect of the vast accumulation of wealth by the super-rich was “the significantly high ratio of savings to gross domestic product.” This ratio has reached 54 percent in Bahrain and 40 percent in Saudi Arabia, compared to the more usual single-digit rates in developed countries such as the US.

The extreme social polarisation hinted at in these figures is what ultimately gave rise to the mass movements that ended in the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and the mass protests throughout the region.

But the figures assembled by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, presented as a celebration of the good fortune of this financial elite, signal that a far broader worldwide eruption of the class struggle is being prepared.

The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US $1.25 per day, and moderate poverty as living on less than $2 a day. In 2001, some 1.1 billion people lived on less than $1 a day and 2.7 billion on less than $2 a day. Almost half of the world’s people—3 billion souls—live on less than $2.50 a day. One billion children—fully 50 percent of the world’s children—live in poverty. Six million children die of hunger every year, 17,000 every day.

The irrational and unconscionable squandering of wealth on a handful of parasites on the one hand, and the crushing burden of poverty, hunger and misery on billions of people on the other constitutes an unanswerable indictment of the capitalist system.

 

 

Amnesty questions claim that Gaddafi ordered rape as weapon of war


 
Friday, 24 June 2011

The Independent

 

Human rights organisations have cast doubt on claims of mass rape and other abuses perpetrated by forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, which have been widely used to justify Nato’s war in Libya.

Nato leaders, opposition groups and the media have produced a stream of stories since the start of the insurrection on 15 February, claiming the Gaddafi regime has ordered mass rapes, used foreign mercenaries and employed helicopters against civilian protesters.

An investigation by Amnesty International has failed to find evidence for these human rights violations and in many cases has discredited or cast doubt on them. It also found indications that on several occasions the rebels in Benghazi appeared to have knowingly made false claims or manufactured evidence.

The findings by the investigators appear to be at odds with the views of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who two weeks ago told a press conference that “we have information that there was a policy to rape in Libya those who were against the government. Apparently he [Colonel Gaddafi] used it to punish people.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week said she was “deeply concerned” that Gaddafi’s troops were participating in widespread rape in Libya. “Rape, physical intimidation, sexual harassment, and even so-called ‘virginity tests’ have taken place in countries throughout the region,” she said.

Donatella Rovera, senior crisis response adviser for Amnesty, who was in Libya for three months after the start of the uprising, says that “we have not found any evidence or a single victim of rape or a doctor who knew about somebody being raped”.

She stresses this does not prove that mass rape did not occur but there is no evidence to show that it did. Liesel Gerntholtz, head of women’s rights at Human Rights Watch, which also investigated the charge of mass rape, said: “We have not been able to find evidence.”

In one instance two captured pro-Gaddafi soldiers presented to the international media by the rebels claimed their officers, and later themselves, had raped a family with four daughters. Ms Rovera says that when she and a colleague, both fluent in Arabic, interviewed the two detainees, one 17 years old and one 21, alone and in separate rooms, they changed their stories and gave differing accounts of what had happened. “They both said they had not participated in the rape and just heard about it,” she said. “They told different stories about whether or not the girls’ hands were tied, whether their parents were present and about how they were dressed.”

Seemingly the strongest evidence for mass rape appeared to come from a Libyan psychologist, Dr Seham Sergewa, who says she distributed 70,000 questionnaires in rebel-controlled areas and along the Tunisian border, of which over 60,000 were returned. Some 259 women volunteered that they had been raped, of whom Dr Sergewa said she interviewed 140 victims.

Asked by Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s specialist on Libya, if it would be possible to meet any of these women, Dr Sergewa replied that “she had lost contact with them” and was unable to provide documentary evidence.

The accusation that Viagra had been distributed to Gaddafi’s troops to encourage them to rape women in rebel areas first surfaced in March after Nato had destroyed tanks advancing on Benghazi. Ms Rovera says that rebels dealing with the foreign media in Benghazi started showing journalists packets of Viagra, claiming they came from burned-out tanks, though it is unclear why the packets were not charred.

Credible evidence of rape came when Eman al-Obeidy burst into a hotel in Tripoli on 26 March to tell journalists she had been gang-raped before being dragged away by the Libyan security services.

Rebels have repeatedly charged that mercenary troops from Central and West Africa have been used against them. The Amnesty investigation found there was no evidence for this. “Those shown to journalists as foreign mercenaries were later quietly released,” says Ms Rovera. “Most were sub-Saharan migrants working in Libya without documents.”

Others were not so lucky and were lynched or executed. Ms Rovera found two bodies of migrants in the Benghazi morgue and others were dumped on the outskirts of the city. She says: “The politicians kept talking about mercenaries, which inflamed public opinion and the myth has continued because they were released without publicity.”

Nato intervention started on 19 March with air attacks to protect people in Benghazi from massacre by advancing pro-Gaddafi troops. There is no doubt that civilians did expect to be killed after threats of vengeance from Gaddafi. During the first days of the uprising in eastern Libya, security forces shot and killed demonstrators and people attending their funerals, but there is no proof of mass killing of civilians on the scale of Syria or Yemen.

Most of the fighting during the first days of the uprising was in Benghazi, where 100 to 110 people were killed, and the city of Baida to the east, where 59 to 64 were killed, says Amnesty. Most of these were probably protesters, though some may have obtained weapons.

Amateur videos show some captured Gaddafi supporters being shot dead and eight badly charred bodies were found in the remains of the military headquarters in Benghazi, which may be those of local boys who disappeared at that time.

There is no evidence that aircraft or heavy anti-aircraft machine guns were used against crowds. Spent cartridges picked up after protesters were shot at came from Kalashnikovs or similar calibre weapons.

The Amnesty findings confirm a recent report by the authoritative International Crisis Group, which found that while the Gaddafi regime had a history of brutally repressing opponents, there was no question of “genocide”.

The report adds that “much Western media coverage has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the regime’s security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators who presented no security challenge”.

The rising cost of war

The Nato-led air campaign in Libya will cost the UK at least £260m if it continues for another three months, Defence Secretary Liam Fox said yesterday.

The estimate stands in sharp contrast to the figures predicted by George Osborne in March, when the Chancellor said Britain’s involvement would be likely to cost “tens of millions, not hundreds of millions” of pounds.

Mr Fox told Parliament that the projected cost was “in the region” of £120m, with an additional £140m bill to replace missiles and other weapons. He said attempts to minimise civilian casualties had led to a steeper bill.

Emily Fairbairn

 

Dollar seen losing global reserve status

 

 

The US dollar will lose its status as the global reserve currency over the next 25 years, according to a survey of central bank reserve managers who collectively control more than $8,000bn.

More than half the managers, who were polled by UBS, predicted that the dollar would be replaced by a portfolio of currencies within the next 25 years.

That marks a departure from previous years, when the central bank reserve managers have said the dollar would retain its status as the sole reserve currency.

UBS surveyed more than 80 central bank reserve managers, sovereign wealth funds and multilateral institutions with more than $8,000bn in assets at its annual seminar for sovereign institutions last week. The results were not weighted for assets under management.

The results are the latest sign of dissatisfaction with the dollar as a reserve currency, amid concerns over the US government’s inability to rein in spending and the Federal Reserve’s huge expansion of its balance sheet.

“Right now there is great concern out there around the financial trajectory that the US is on,” said Larry Hatheway, chief economist at UBS.

The US currency has slid 5 per cent so far this year, and is trading close to its lowest ever level against a basket of the world’s major currencies.

Holders of large reserves, most notably China, have been diversifying away from the dollar. In the first four months of this year, three quarters of the $200bn expansion in China’s foreign exchange reserves was invested in non-US dollar assets, Standard Chartered estimates.

The prediction of a multipolar currency world replacing the current dollar dominance chimes with the thinking of some leading policymakers.

Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, last year proposed a new monetary system involving a number of major global currencies, including the dollar, euro, yen, pound and renminbi.

The system should also make use of gold, Mr Zoellick added. The results of the UBS poll also point to a growing role for bullion, with 6 per cent of reserve managers surveyed saying the biggest change in their reserves over the next decade would be the addition of more gold. In contrast to previous years, none of the managers surveyed was intending to make significant sales of gold in the next decade.

Central banks have bought about 151 tonnes of gold so far this year, led by Russia and Mexico, according to the World Gold Council, and are on track to make their largest annual purchases of bullion since the collapse in 1971 of the Bretton Woods system, which pegged the value of the dollar to gold.

The reserve managers predicted that gold would be the best performing asset class over the next year, citing sovereign defaults as the chief risk to the global economy.

The yellow metal has risen 19.5 per cent in the past year to trade at about $1,500 a troy ounce on Monday, buoyed by the emergence of sovereign debt concerns in the US as well as eurozone debt woes.