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18 March, 2011

Countercurrents.org

The use of the American-made and supplied Apache helicopter gunships, the British-made and supplied tear gas canisters and guns and various other weapons has exposed the catastrophic moral and ethical downfall of all involved in the attack on the unarmed civilians of Bahrain. The latest episode of the all out war started at around 4.00 am GMT with massive attacks from the air and land at the peaceful protesters at the Pearl Square, many of whom were asleep. They were hit with salvo of tear and nerve gases, live ammunition and rubber bullets. Hundreds have so far been injured and many killed. Among those confirmed to have lost their lives are Jaffar Ali Salman, 31, from Karranah and Ahmad Abdulla Hassan, 23, from Hamad Town. The Pearl Square has been scorched by the invading Saudi army.

The Salmaniyah Hospital has been overstretched as the injured taken for treatment of the horrific wounds. It had already been overcrowded from yesterday as the Saudi invaders unleashed their revenge against the people of Bahrain. The private international Hospital also opened its doors for emergency treatment. Makeshift hospitals were opened by the people, one of which is in Matam Khamis in Sanabis. Calls were made for blood donation as the Saudi and Al Khalifa killers opened fire with no mercy on Bahrainis.

The past 48 hours have been amongst the worst in the history of Bahrain as Death Squads roamed the towns and villages, wielding swords, axes, iron bars and wooden sticks and attacked Bahrainis. Last night residents were attacked inside their homes in several villages, including Malikiyah, Sitra, Nuwaidrat, Bani Jamra, Masha, Daih, Karzakkan, Dar Kulaib and others. There are plenty of images clearly showing these vicious militias attacking and destroying people’s lives and property. The American and British ambassadors in Manama have failed to take moral stands against what the Bahraini natives see as genocide by the Al Khalifa.

Feelings of despair have continued as it became clear that Robert Gates, the American Secretary of State for Defence, had given the green light for the Saudis to carry out their invasion and to use the American weapons. He was in Bahrain on Saturday 12th March, once day before the bloody attack on the demonstrators near the financial harbor in which one civilian was killed and more than 1000 injured. Yesterday, Washington insisted on defending the Saudi aggression and refused to accept that it was an “invasion”. The Saudis and the Al Khalifa could not have deployed their American and British-made and supplied weapons without the approval of the American officials. There is country-wide revulsion at the indifference to the value of human life shown by those officials who had sided with the Al Khalifa hereditary dictatorship.

Bahrain Freedom Movement

16th March 2011

 

 

18 March, 2011

Countercurrents.org

This post is collated from the tweets of Democracy Now’s Sharif Kouddous @sharifkouddous, who was at the reception

Thousands outside #Aristide’s house crowding around windows to try and get a glimpse of him. #Haiti http://twitpic.com/4aqk8n

Mildred Aristide holding forth inside the house http://twitpic.com/4aqcb7

Just got inside the house. Aristide is hugging friends, speaking

People climbing walls, trees to hear Aristide speak http://twitpic.com/4aq12w

Scenes of jubilation outside Aristide’s house http://twitpic.com/4apqve

Outside Aristide’s house #Haiti http://twitpic.com/4apoq6

Thousands have crossed into Aristide’s compound. Climbing over walls and running across the lawn. http://twitpic.com/4apm1v

We’re at the gate of Aristide’s house. Massive crowd outside. people running alongside caravan #Haiti

So many people car is just inching forwards #Haiti http://twitpic.com/4apjmp

Hard to give estimate but there are thousands and thousands of people on the streets running alongside the caravan http://twitpic.com/4apbjw

In caravan with Aristides heading to his home. Outside the car the street is a river of people http://plixi.com/p/84937690

Throngs of people outside cheering http://plixi.com/p/84936597

In car with delegation that brought Aristide, including Danny Glover http://plixi.com/p/84935173

Amy Goodman reporting inside the meeting room with Aristide http://plixi.com/p/84933435

Aristide speaking with colleagues in #Haiti http://plixi.com/p/84933092

Aristide basically saying Sunday’s election is illegitimate: “exclusion is the problem. Inclusion is the solution” referring to Lavalas

Aristide: “Haiti I love you. And I will love you always.”

Aristide: “we are together. We are side by side. This is our home” #Haiti

Aristide: “exclusion of Lavalas is exclusion of the majority…We must go from exclusion to inclusion” #Haiti

Aristide: “I wish I could put everyone displaced by the earthquake in my tent” #Haiti

Aristide speaking in English now: “in 1804 Haitian people marked the end of slavery. Today we mark the end of repression and coup d’état.”

Aristide flanked by daughters, wife behind him. Lawyer Ira Kurzban and Danny Glover beside him. #Haiti

Aristide: “a big thank you to president Zuma of south Africa” #Haiti

Aristide speaking now http://plixi.com/p/84926251

One man overjoyed says, “Without Aristide there is no peace. without Aristide there is no Haiti.”

First person to emerge from plane was Amy Goodman. #Haiti Then Danny Glover, Ira Kurzban and the Aristides

Aristide smiled walking out of plane. Crowd cheered. He waved. His wife Mildred was sobbing. #Haiti

Aristide is back in #Haiti http://plixi.com/p/84920350

Aristide’s plane is here http://plixi.com/p/84918645

Some of the press waiting on the tarmac for Aristide’s plane to arrive. #Haiti http://plixi.com/p/84917542

Democracy Now’s Hany Massoud arrives in Haiti. @kimives13 is with him on a ‘mototaxi’ http://plixi.com/p/84906376

At airport a man holds up a picture of Aristide saying “this is the king” http://plixi.com/p/84903464

Hundreds of thousands of Haitians have been living in makeshift camps like this for 14 months http://plixi.com/p/84900679

Driver says streets are empty compared to normal Friday morning. “Children were kept home from school today” #Haiti

Big banner in street reads: “Welcome Back President Titide” (Aristide’s nickname) http://plixi.com/p/84899505

Morning in Port au Prince. Heading to airport early for arrival of Aristide #Haiti

 

 

 

 

 

 

18 March, 2011

Richardfalk.wordpress.com

Is it possible that the nuclear meltdown in Japan is linked to a Faustian bargain with the West?

After atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was in the West – especially the United States – a short triumphal moment, crediting American science and military prowess with bringing victory over Japan and the avoidance of what was anticipated at the time to be a long and bloody conquest of the Japanese homeland.

This official narrative of the devastating attacks on these Japanese cities has been contested by numerous reputable historians who argued that Japan had conveyed its readiness to surrender well before the bombs had been dropped, that the US government needed to launch the attacks to demonstrate to the Soviet Union that it had this super-weapon at its disposal, and that the attacks would help establish American supremacy in the Pacific without any need to share power with Moscow.

But whatever historical interpretation is believed, the horror and indecency of the attacks is beyond controversy.

This use of atomic bombs against defenceless, densely populated cities remains the greatest single act of state terror in human history, and had it been committed by the losers in World War II surely the perpetrators would have been held criminally accountable and the weaponry forever prohibited.

But history gives the winners in big wars considerable latitude to shape the future according to their own wishes, sometimes for the better, often for the worse.

Payloads for the privileged

Not only were these two cities of little military significance devastated beyond recognition, but additionally, inhabitants in a wide surrounding area were exposed to lethal doses of radiation, causing for decades death, disease, acute anxiety, and birth defects.

Beyond this, it was clear that such a technology would change the face of war and power, and would either be eliminated from the planet or others than the US would insist on possession of the weaponry, and in fact, the five permanent member of the UN Security Council became the first five states to develop and possess nuclear weapons, and in later years, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have developed nuclear warheads of their own.

As well, the technology was constantly improved at great cost, allowing long-distance delivery of nuclear warheads by guided missiles and payloads hundreds times greater than those primitive bombs used against Japan.

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki there were widespread expressions of concern about the future issued by political leaders and an array of moral authority figures.

Statesmen in the West talked about the necessity of nuclear disarmament as the only alternative to a future war that would destroy industrial civilisation.

Scientists and others in society spoke in apocalyptic terms about the future. It was a mood of ”utopia or else”, a sense that unless a new form of governance emerged rapidly there would be no way to avoid a catastrophic future for the human species and for the earth itself.

On deterrence

But what happened? The bellicose realists prevailed, warning of the distrust of ”the other”, insisting that it would be ”better to be dead than red”, and that, as in the past, only a balance of power could prevent war and catastrophe.

The new balance of the nuclear age was called ”deterrence”, and it evolved into a dangerous semi-cooperative security posture known as ”mutual assured destruction”, or more sanely described by its acronym, MAD.

The main form of learning that took place after the disasters of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to normalise the weaponry, banish the memories, and hope for the best.

The same realists, perhaps most prominently, John Mearsheimer, even go so far as to celebrate nuclear weaponry as ”keepers of the peace”, for them the best explanation for why the Soviet Union-United States rivalry did not result in World War III.

Such nuclear complacency was again in evidence when in the 1990s after the Soviet Union collapsed, there was a refusal to propose at that time the elimination of nuclear weaponry, and there were reliable reports that the US government actually used its diplomatic leverage to discourage any Russian disarmament initiatives that might expose the embarrassing extent of this post-deterrence, post-Cold War American attachment to nuclearism.

This attachment has persisted, is bipartisan in character, is shared with the leadership and citizenry of the other nuclear weapons states to varying degrees, and is joined to an anti-proliferation regime that hypocritically treats most states (Israel was a notable exception) that aspire to have nuclear weapons of their own as criminal outlaws subject to military intervention.

A Faustian bargain

Here is the lesson that applies to the present: the shock of the atomic attacks wears off, is superseded by a restoration of normalcy, which means creating the conditions for repetition at greater magnitudes of death and destruction.

Such a pattern is accentuated, as here, if the subject matter of a disaster is clouded by the politics of the day that obscured the gross immorality and criminality of the acts, that ignored the fact that there are governmental forces associated with the military establishment that seek maximal hard power, and that these professional militarists are reinforced by paid cadres of scientists, defence intellectuals, and bureaucrats who build careers around the weaponry, and that this structure is reinforced in various ways by private sector profit-making opportunities.

These conditions apply across the board to the business of arms sales.

And then we must take account of the incredible Faustian bargain sold to the non-nuclear world: give up a nuclear weapons option and in exchange get an unlimited ”pass” to the ”benefits” of nuclear energy, and besides, the nuclear weapons states, winking to one another when negotiating the notorious Nonproliferation Treaty (1963) promised in good faith to pursue nuclear disarmament, and indeed general and complete disarmament.

Of course, the bad half of the bargain has been fulfilled, even in the face of the dire experiences of Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986), while the good half of the bargain (getting rid of the weaponry) never gave rise to even halfhearted proposals and negotiations (and instead the world settled irresponsibly for managerial fixes from time to time, known as ”arms control” measures that were designed to stabilise the nuclear rivalry of the US and Soviet Union (now Russia)).

Such a contention is confirmed by the presidential commitment to devote an additional $80 billion for the development of nuclear weapons before the senate could be persuaded to ratify the New START Treaty in late 2010, the latest arms control ruse that was falsely promoted as a step toward disarmament and denuclearisation.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with arms control, it may reduce risks and costs, but it is not disarmament, and should not be presented as if it is.

The bargain in context

It is with this background in mind that the unfolding Japanese mega-tragedy must be understood and its effects on future policy discussed in a preliminary manner.

This extraordinary disaster originated in a natural event beyond human reckoning and control. An earthquake of unimaginable fury, measuring an unprecedented 8.9 on the Richter scale, unleashing a deadly tsunami that reached a height of 30 feet, and swept inland in the Sendai area of northern Japan to an incredible distance up to 6 kilometres.

It is still too early to count the dead, the injured, the property damage, and the overall human costs, but we know enough by now to realise that the impact is colossal, that this is a terrible happening that will be permanently seared into the collective imagination of humanity, perhaps the more so, because it is the most visually recorded epic occurrence in all of history, with real time video recordings of its catastrophic ”moments of truth”.

But this natural disaster that has been responsible for massive human suffering has been compounded by its nuclear dimension, the full measure of which remains uncertain at this point, although generating a deepening foreboding that is perhaps magnified by calming reassurances by the corporate managers of nuclear power in Japan who have past blemishes on their safety record, as well as by political leaders – including the Naoto Kan, who understandably wants to avoid causing the Japanese public to shift from its current posture of traumatised witnessing to one of outright panic.

There is also a lack of credibility based, especially, on a long record of false reassurances and cover-ups by the Japanese nuclear industry, hiding and minimising the effects of a 2007 earthquake in Japan, and actually lying about the extent of damage to a reactor at that time and on other occasions.

What we need to understand is that the vulnerabilities of modern industrial society accentuate vulnerabilities that arise from extreme events in nature.

There is no doubt that the huge earthquake/tsunami constellation of forces was responsible for great damage and societal distress, but its overall impact has been geometrically increased by this buying into the Faustian bargain of nuclear energy, whose risks, if objectively assessed, were widely known for many years.

It is the greedy profit-seekers, who minimise these risks, whether in the Gulf of Mexico or Fukushima or on Wall Street, and then scurry madly at the time of disaster to shift responsibilities to the victims that make me tremble as I contemplate the human future.

These predatory forces are made more formidable because they have cajoled most politicians into complicity and have many corporatised allies in the media that overwhelm the publics of the world with steady doses of misinformation.

Controlling the “unforgiving”

The reality of current nuclear dangers in Japan are far stronger than these words of reassurance that claim the risks to health are minimal because the radioactivity are being contained to avoid dangerous levels of contamination.

A more trustworthy measure of the perceived rising dangers can be gathered from the continual official expansions of the evacuation zone around the six Fukushima Daiichi reactors from 3 km to 10 km, and more recently to 18 km, coupled with the instructions to everyone caught in the region to stay indoors indefinitely, with windows and doors sealed.

We can hope and pray that the four explosions that have so far taken place in the Fukushima Daiichi complex of reactors will not lead to further explosions and a full meltdown in one or more of the reactors.

Even without a meltdown, the near certain venting of highly toxic radioactive steam to prevent unmanageable pressure from building up due to the boiling water in the reactor cores and spent fuel rods is likely to spread risks and bad effects.

It is a policy dilemma that has assumed the form of a living nightmare: either allow the heat to rise and confront the high probability of reactor meltdowns or vent the steam and subject large numbers of persons in the vicinity and beyond to radioactivity, especially should the wind shift southwards carrying the steam toward Tokyo or westward toward northern Japan or Korea.

Reactors 1, 2, and 3 are at risk of meltdowns, while with the shutdown reactors 4, 5, and 6 pose the threat of fire releasing radioactive steam from the spent fuel rods.

We know that throughout Asia alone some 3,000 new reactors are either being built or have been planned and approved.

We know that nuclear power has been touted in the last several years as a major source of energy to deal with future energy requirements, a way of overcoming the challenge of ”peak oil” and of combating global warming by some decrease in carbon emissions.

We know that the nuclear industry will contend that it knows how to build safe reactors in the future that will withstand even such ”impossible” events that have wrought such havoc in the Sendai region of Japan, while at the same time lobbying for insurance schemes to avoid such risks.

Some critics of nuclear energy facilities in Japan and elsewhere had warned that these same Fukushima reactors built more than 40 years ago had become accident-prone and should no longer have been kept operational.

And we know that governments will be under great pressure to renew the Faustian bargain despite what should have been clear from the moment the bombs fell in 1945: This technology is far too unforgiving and lethal to be managed safely over time by human institutions, even if they were operated responsibly, which they are not.

Staying the course

It is folly to persist, but it is foolhardy to expect the elites of the world to change course, despite this dramatic delivery of vivid reminders of human fallibility and culpability.

We cannot hope to control the savageries of nature, although even these are being intensified by our refusal to take responsible steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but we can, if the will existed, learn to live within prudent limits even if this comes to mean a less materially abundant and an altered life style.

The failure to take seriously the precautionary principle as a guide to social planning is a gathering dark cloud menacing all of our futures.

Let us fervently hope that this Sendai disaster will not take further turns for the worse, but that the warnings already embedded in such happenings, will awaken enough people to the dangers on this path of hyper-modernity so that a politics of limits can arise to challenge the prevailing politics of limitless growth.

Such a challenge must include the repudiation of a neoliberal worldview, insisting without compromise on an economics based on needs and people rather than on profit margins and capital efficiency.

Advocacy of such a course is admittedly a long shot, but so is the deadly utopian realism of staying on the nuclear course, whether it be with weapons or reactors.

This is what Sendai should teach all of us! But will it?

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008). He is currently serving his third year of a six year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

 

 

18 March, 2011

The Nation

At press time, the nuclear crisis in Japan is out of control: three reactors are in partial meltdown, two are leaking radiation, at least one pool full of eighty tons of “spent” uranium fuel rods may be burning, two other such pools are getting very hot. Three major explosions have destroyed much of the Fukushima plant’s basic infrastructure, like cranes, monitors and mechanical controls.

Japanese officials have prevaricated, fumbled and have now largely retreated; the distressed plant is just too hot. Their understanding of the crisis is fragmentary. What they tell the public is even more limited. In total desperation they bombed the site with water dropped from helicopters but aborted that plan when radiation exposure proved too dangerous. Radioactive fallout is already sickening people. And this is just the beginning.

Fukushima is a grave warning. The message is clear: systems fail; the unthinkable happens. Yet even in the face of this catastrophe a gang of pro-nuke zealots, like Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Republican Congressman Devin Nunes of California, are saying the crisis will actually be good for the much-hyped but elusive “nuclear renaissance.”

Nunes wants the United States to build 200 new nuclear plants! But that figure, while stunning, is largely meaningless. Why not call for 301 or 517 new plants? The fact is that the amount of private capital required to build new plants is nowhere on the horizon. Wall Street is rightly scared of such investments; nukes go over cost and present huge risks. Only governments in places like China and India—unconcerned about making a profit on investments—build new nuclear plants.

So, never mind the blather about “new” nukes. It is the old ones we must focus on. The United States has a fleet of 104 old and rickety nuclear reactors. Twenty-three of them are the same General Electric design as the Fukushima plant. Perhaps more dangerous than our old and brittle equipment is the arrogance and overconfidence of our regulators and managers. The culture of the industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is pathologically cavalier. The mix of technological hubris with the profit motive has produced a track record of slipshod management, corner-cutting and repeated lying.

As former NRC commissioner Peter Bradford put it, “The phrase ‘it can’t happen here’ is an invitation to disaster.” But remarkably, that is what the pro-nuke crew are saying. Three days into the crisis in Japan, the Nuclear Energy Association put out a statement that read, “The events at Fukushima
Daiichi show that nuclear power’s defense-in-depth approach to safety is appropriate and strong.”

The nuclear power industry is setting our country up for disaster by quietly pushing the NRC to relicense and extend the operation of our existing fleet of old reactors. Worse, they are getting “power-up rates” that allow the plants to run at up to 120 percent of their originally intended capacity. That means their systems are subject to unprecedented amounts of heat, pressure, corrosion, stress and embrittling radiation. Many of these “up-rated” and relicensed plants are leaking or have leaked radioactive, carcinogenic, tritium-polluted water. A quarter of all US reactors have such leaks.

So far more than half of America’s commercial nuclear reactors have received new twenty-year operating license renewals. In fact, the NRC has not rejected a single license-renewal application. Vermont Yankee is one of the plants up for relicensing, and it has a tritium leak that no one can seem to find or stop. At first company officials from Entergy of Louisiana just lied about the problem, telling state regulators and lawmakers that the plant did not have the sort of underground pipes that could leak tritium into groundwater. But it does.

Another problem is the accumulation of spent fuel rods that sit in pools onsite, next door to the reactors they once fed. Unlike the reactors, spent fuel rod pools are not housed in any sort of hardened or sealed containment structure. Their name—especially “spent” and “pool”—conveys calm dissipation. But the uranium in the spent fuel rod pools is highly radioactive, very unstable, extremely dangerous and, compared with reactors, not well supported, contained or looked over. When exposed to air for a day or two, the fuel rods begin to combust, giving off large amounts of radioactive cesium-137, a very toxic, long-lasting, aggressively penetrating radioactive element with a half-life of thirty years. In the environment, cesium-137 acts like potassium, and is taken up by plants and animals.

At Fukushima each reactor has between sixty and eighty-three tons of spent fuel rods stored next to it. At Vermont Yankee, with its GE reactor of the same design as the Fukushima plant, there are a staggering 690 tons of spent fuel rods onsite. What’s worse, spent fuel rod pools at Vermont Yankee are not equipped with backup water-circulation systems or even backup generators for the existing water-circulation system.

A regime of constant, careful inspection coupled with elaborate and expensive maintenance could make these old nuclear plants safer, but unfortunately the NRC’s requirements fall far short of that. During his campaign, Barack Obama called the NRC “a moribund agency…captive of the industry it regulates.” But as president he has been an utter disappointment on this front. The NRC, now run by Obama appointee Gregory Jaczko, is carrying on willy-nilly relicensing plants.

The NRC needs an overhaul—now. And our fleet of leaky old plants needs to be decommissioned. We get less than 9 percent of our total energy needs from nuclear power, so with proper conservation, we can make up that loss. Fukushima is trying to tell us something. We must heed its warning.

© 2011 The Nation

Christian Parenti, a Nation contributing editor, fellow at The Nation Institute and visiting scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center, is the author of The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq (New Press), and is at work on a book about climate change and war.

 

 

 

21 March, 2011 Countercurrents.org

On March 19, ironically on the eighth anniversary of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” a White House Office of the Press Secretary quoted Obama saying:

“Today I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States to (attack) Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians,” he, in fact, doesn’t give a damn about. “That action has now begun,” he added, claiming military action was a last resort.

In fact, it was long-planned. All military interventions require months of preparation, including target selections, strategy, enlisting political and public support, troop deployments, and post-conflict plans.

Weeks, maybe months in advance, Special Forces, CIA agents, and UK SAS operatives were in Libya, enlisting, inciting, funding, and arming so-called anti-Gaddafi opposition forces, ahead of Western aggression for imperial control. More on it below.

A March 19 Department of Defense (DOD) Armed Forces Press Service release announced America’s led “Operation Odyssey Dawn,” saying:

“Coalition (of the willing) forces launched “Operation Odyssey Dawn” today to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1973 to protect the Libyan people from the country’s ruler….Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people.”

False! In fact, Washington-led naked aggression was launched to replace one despot with another, perhaps assassinate Gaddafi, his sons and top officials, colonize Libya, control its oil, gas and other resources, exploit its people, private state industries under Western (mainly US) control, establish new Pentagon bases, use them for greater regional dominance, perhaps balkanize the country like Yugoslavia and Iraq, and prevent any democratic spark from emerging.

According to DODspeak, Libya is being attacked, its people killed, civilian targets destroyed, and a humanitarian disaster created to save it. In other words, “destroying the village to save it” on a nationwide scale like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 70s, and Korea in the 1950s since WW II alone. Besides numerous proxy wars in Central America, Africa and elsewhere. Wherever America shows up, blood spills followed by horrific human suffering, what Libyans can now expect.

Military and government targets include:

— command-and-control centers;

— air defense systems;

— Gaddafi, his sons and senior officials;

— communications systems;

— government buildings and other facilities; and

— military air fields, tanks, artillery, other weapons, munitions, fuel depots, mobile and other targets.

About 25 US, UK, French, Canadian and Italian ships are involved, 11 from America, including three nuclear submarines. The Pentagon is providing command, control and logistics support. Air and surface-launched munitions are being used, including against Tripoli, the capital and Gaddafi stronghold.

Moreover, invasion and perhaps occupation may follow, despite official denials.

Either way, widespread death and destruction is likely. Surgical war is an oxymoron. Expect considerable “collateral damage,” the Orwellian designation for war crimes against noncombatants and civilian targets.

In his 1992 book titled, “Beyond Hypocrisy,” Edward Herman referred to “nuclear chicken analysis,” defining “collateral casualties” as “civilians killed as a regrettable ‘spillover effect’ of a nuclear attack on a military target’ more generally, allegedly unintended casualties” of any type attack.

In other words, “inadvertent and tragic errors” that, in fact, constitute wanton murder and destruction of schools, hospitals, vital infrastructure and other non-military targets.

Pack Journalism Promotes War

A previous article explained how it enlists public support for imperial war, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/03/pack-journalism-promotes-war-on-libya.html

Western media, including BBC and Al Jazeera incite it, no matter how lawless, mindless, destructive and counterproductive. Smell it. It arrived again because inflammatory journalism stoked reasons to attack. As a result, America, Britain and France primarily readied strikes. Ground and submarine-launced cruise missiles inflicted widespread destruction. In addition, French jets struck “targets of opportunity,” preceded by exaggerated/unverified/inflammatory reports like the following:

On March 19, New York Times writers David Kirkpatrick and Elisabeth Busmiller headlined, “Reports Say Attacks by Regime Against Rebels Continue,” saying:

Unverified “(r)eports indicated that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces were continuing to press their attacks despite warnings that such moves would provoke military action.”

On March 19, Financial Times writer Tobias Buck headlined, “Gaddafi launches assault on Benghazi,” saying:

Forces loyal to Gaddafi attacked “in violation of the regime’s promise of a ceasefire.”

Libyan state TV channel, Al Jamahiriya, reported it differently, saying “the people of Benghazi have risen up against the rebels and raised the flag of Libya over the government building in the middle of the city.”

On March 19, New York Times writers Steven Erlanger and David Kirkpatrick headlined “Allies Open Push in Libya to Block Qaddafi Assaults,” saying:

“American, European and Arab leaders began the largest international intervention” since 2003 against Iraq, omitting the illegality of both aggressions.

On March 19, New York Times writers David Kirkpatrich and Elisabeth Musmiller headlined, “France Sends Military Flights Over Libya,” saying:

Flying reconnaissance missions, it’s “the first sign” of premeditated war, launching new hostilities against a war-torn region, without explanation why.

On March 19, Times writers Steven Erlanger and David Kirkpatrick headlined, “Allies Open Push in Libya to Block Qaddafi Assaults,” saying:

Hostilities began to stop “Qaddafi’s war on the Libyan opposition,” after a no-fly zone was established.

As a result, war arrived preemptively. French President Sarkozy said it’s to stop Gaddafi’s “murderous madness,” no matter that he responded to violence. He didn’t instigate it. So would Sarkozy, Obama or any leader against armed insurrection.

Love or hate him, Gaddafi said:

“Libya is not yours. Libya is for all Libyans. This is injustice, it is clear aggression, and it is uncalculated risk for its consequences on the Mediterranean and Europe. You will regret it if you take a step toward intervening in our internal affairs.”

Hours earlier, he pledged a ceasefire. Conflicting reports disagree if he honored it. Is he or Western intervention stoking violence? US media reports point fingers one way.

Washington, Britain, France, other NATO allies, and complicit Arab States back armed anti-Gaddafi insurrection. They’re promoting it, inciting it, funding it, arming it, with clear imperial aims. A previous article explained, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/03/washingtons-un-war-resolution-on-libya.html

On March 19, ahead of intervention, Al Jazeera headlined, “Gaddafi forces encroaching on Benghazi,” saying:

Gaddafi unleashed “a fresh act of defiance even as the United States and its allies prepared to launch military attacks on Libya.”

Unverified “(r)eports from Libya say pro-government forces have entered the western outskirts of the opposition stronghold of Benghazi, with the city also coming under attack from the coast and the south.”

Unnamed “(w)itnesses….said they heard large explosions….Government troops reportedly bombed the southern Benghazi suburb of Goreshi among other places.”

No verification was given, except to quote Mustafa Abdel Jalil, opposition National Libyan Council leader. More on him below. Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reported “a lot of jittery people…a lot of activity and a lot of firing going on.”

In contrast, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim told the BBC that “the ceasefire is real, credible and solid. We are willing to receive (international and NGO) observers as soon as possible.” He insisted no air strikes were launched.

Hours later Al Jazeera headlined, “Airstrikes begin on Libya targets,” saying:

“French warplanes hit four tanks….on a day when opposition fighters in (Benghazi) reported coming under constant artillery and mortar fire.” Expect sustained strikes to follow.

Al Jazeera and other media reports don’t explain that “opposition” officials from organizations like the National Libyan Council and National Front for the Salvation of Libya have close Western ties, pretending they’re credible. More about them below.

Headquartered in Qatar, moreover, Al Jazeera noticeably abstains from criticizing its government, now part of Washington’s anti-Gaddafi coalition-of-the-willing, complicit in illegal aggression.

On March 18, Obama stopped short of declaring war, announcing “all necessary measures” against Gaddafi without full compliance with UN Resolution terms, including an immediate ceasefire, withdrawing his forces, reestablishing essential services to all parts of the country, and letting in “humanitarian assistance,” including foreign imperial forces opposed to his leadership.

In other words, impossible terms to accept to be followed by others likely demanding he step down, permit balkanization, predatory Western investment, US bases, and free exploitation of his resources and people. Imagine comparable demands made on America – non-negtiable to be followed by military action for non-compliance.

On March 18, NATO Secretary-General Anders Rogh Rasmussen signaled war, saying the alliance was “completing its planning to be ready to take appropriate action in support of the UN resolution as part of the broad international effort.”

Launched the next day, the resources of another resource-rich Arab state will be divided among Western belligerents, to benefit Libyans, they claim.

On March 20, New York Times writers David Kirkpatrick, Steven Erlanger and Elisabeth Busmiller headlined, “Qaddafi Pledges ‘Long War’ as Allies Pursue Air Assault,” saying:

“On Sunday, American (stealth) B-2 bombers were reported to have struck a major Libyan airfield,” following initial attacks against Libya’s air defense systems, “missile, radar and communications centers around Tripoli,” Misurata and Surt.

Reuters said “US fighter planes backed by electronic warfare aircraft” attacked Gaddafi’s ground troops and air defenses. A Pentagon statement stated:

“US Navy Growlers provided electronic warfare support over Libya while AV-8B Harriers from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit conducted strikes….”

Parliamentary secretary Muhammad Zweid said attacks “caused some real harm against civilians and buildings.” According to an unnamed US official, Libya’s air defenses are now “severely disabled.”

As of Sunday morning, visible destruction also included 14 tanks, 20 armored personnel carriers, two or more trucks, rocket launchers, dozens of pick-ups, and exploding munitions. Ahead of cruise missile attacks, France initiated reconnaissance flights and aggression.

On March 19, Middle East/Central Asian analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya’s Global Research.ca article headlined, “Breaking News: Libyan Hospitals Attacked. Libyan Source: Three French Jets Downed,” saying:

Regime change-planned naked aggression was launched. “The war criminals are back at it again,” Washington, of course, in the lead. On March 19, “sources in Libya have reported that three medical facilities were bombarded. Two were hospitals and one a medical clinic. These were civilian facilities.”

Targets attacked included Al-Tajura and Saladin hospitals as well as a clinic near Tripoli, unrelated to military necessity, distant from combat areas. Moreover, civilian air facilities were struck as well as “all Libyan military bases” – air, naval and ground. In addition, “a vast naval blockade around Libya has now been imposed,” America the lead belligerent.

Further, Libyan sources report “two French jets were also shot down….near Janzour” plus another “near Anjile.” Washington and co-belligerents “are creating a real humanitarian disaster,” waging war for peace, killing civilians to save them, and destroying Libya by “humanitarian intervention.”

Moreover, Washington enlisted Egypt and Saudi Arabia to supply “opposition forces” with weapons, in violation of Resolution 1973 prohibiting any sent. Of course, international and US law forbid aggressive war, but that never deterred imperial America from preemptively attacking, invading, occupying and colonizing nations illegally, Libya its latest target.

Libya’s So-Called “Opposition”

Included are the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, its officials with ties to the CIA and Saudi Arabia. Also, Muhammad as-Senussi, Libya’s so-called heir to the Senussi Crown, concerned only for his own self-interest.

Central is the National Libyan Council (NLC), announced on February 26, established officially on March 5, led by former Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, a Western-allied opportunist.

NLC is an umbrella group of local so-called opposition leaders headquartered in Benghazi. Bogusly, it claims to represent all Libyans. Abdel-Jalil calls it a “transitional government” ahead of future elections after Gaddafi is deposed.

At the same time, Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, a Benghazi lawyer, refuted his leadership, calling himself NLC’s official spokesman. Both men, however, have similar aspirations, including controlling Libya by ousting Gaddafi.

As of now, Abdel-Jalil remains NLC’s official head, Ghoga its spokesman, and Omar El-Hariri in charge of military operations. General Abdel Fattah Younis may be another key member, his status, however, not confirmed. In total, NLC has about 30 members. Most aren’t named. Two known include, Mahmoud Jebril and Ali al-Essawi, former Libyan ambassador to India in charge of foreign affairs.

On March 5, Reuters headlined, “Rebel National Libya Council sets up (a three-member) crisis committee,” saying:

In charge of military and foreign affairs, members include Omar El-Hariri, Ali al-Essawi, and Mahmoud Jebril as leader.

Western Hypocrisy – Denouncing Violence While Backing It

At Obama’s behest, about 1,000 Saudi troops invaded Bahrain guns blazing, attacking peaceful protesters, arresting opposition leaders and activists, occupying the country, denying wounded men and women medical treatment, and imposing police state control in support of the hated monarchy.

Not an angry Western demand was heard to stop hostilities and leave. Nor against similar Egyptian army attacks or on civilians in Tunisia, Jordan, Algeria, Oman, Iraq, and Yemen, let alone daily against Palestinians.

On March 18, in fact, dozens of Yemenese were killed, scores more wounded in Sanaa, the capital, when security forces attacked thousands, demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down.

Ally turned bete noire Gaddafi was targeted for removal. In contrast, Saleh is supported because of Yemen’s strategic location near the Horn of Africa on Saudi Arabia’s southern border, the Red Sea, its Bab el-Mandeb strait (a key chokepoint separating Yemen from Eritrea through which three million barrels of oil pass daily), and the Gulf of Aden connection to the Indian Ocean.

Instead of denouncing his brutality, Obama endorsed it, calling on “all sides (to pursue) a peaceful, orderly and democratic path to a stronger and more prosperous nation.”

Friday’s massacre was the bloodiest since resistance erupted in mid-February. Security forces and plainclothes police opened fire on demonstrators, shooting to kill, hitting some in the back of the head as they fled. Afterward, Saleh imposed a state of emergency and nationwide curfew.

Demonstrations, nonetheless, persist, Yemenese wanting his 32-year dictatorship ended. Achieving it, however, entails overcoming Washington’s imperial grip on regional client states, all run by favored despots.

A Final Comment

On March 19, Professor As’ad AbuKhalil’s Angry Arab.com headlined, “Bush Doctrine revised: Obama puts his stamp,” saying:

“Western/Saudi/Qarari military intervention in Libya sets a dangerous precedent.” Under Bush, ousting regimes for democracy “was a bloody farce….” Obama’s model may be installing puppets “without having ‘boots on the ground,’ ” but don’t discount them. He expanded Bush’s Afghan war, began his own in Pakistan as well as in Somalia, Yemen and Bahrain, backing favored despots besides the Saudi monarchy.

AbuKhalil calls NLC’s Abdel-Jalil “a useful idiot.” Moreover, “Western enthusiasm for (Libyan) intervention” was never properly explained beyond nonsensical platitudes about “humanitarian intervention” to protect civilians.

In contrast, “why (didn’t) the hundreds of deaths in Egypt or Tunisia….warrant” similar outrage, let alone Israel’s Cast Lead, occupation and daily aggression against defenseless Palestinians.

Intervening militarily is Libya “is far more dangerous: it is intended to legitimize the return of colonial powers, (and) abort democratic uprisings all over the region. Bahrain (Yemen and Saudi Arabia) of today (are) the vision for Libya for tomorrow,” Western-dominated, of course.

Will it work? Love or hate Gaddafi, Libyans know what Iraqis, Afghans and Palestinians endure. Moreover, its society is fractious, divided by tribal loyalties, suspicious of Western intervention, and long-governed locally as well as nationally.

Against them is America’s military might under leaders not shy about using it. As a result, Libyans are experiencing firsthand what’s ahead under Western control, what makes Iraqis yearn for Saddam, almost saintly compared to Washington.

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/

 

 

 

 

21 March, 2011 Countercurrents.org

On March 19, ironically on the eighth anniversary of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” a White House Office of the Press Secretary quoted Obama saying:

“Today I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States to (attack) Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians,” he, in fact, doesn’t give a damn about. “That action has now begun,” he added, claiming military action was a last resort.

In fact, it was long-planned. All military interventions require months of preparation, including target selections, strategy, enlisting political and public support, troop deployments, and post-conflict plans.

Weeks, maybe months in advance, Special Forces, CIA agents, and UK SAS operatives were in Libya, enlisting, inciting, funding, and arming so-called anti-Gaddafi opposition forces, ahead of Western aggression for imperial control. More on it below.

A March 19 Department of Defense (DOD) Armed Forces Press Service release announced America’s led “Operation Odyssey Dawn,” saying:

“Coalition (of the willing) forces launched “Operation Odyssey Dawn” today to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1973 to protect the Libyan people from the country’s ruler….Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people.”

False! In fact, Washington-led naked aggression was launched to replace one despot with another, perhaps assassinate Gaddafi, his sons and top officials, colonize Libya, control its oil, gas and other resources, exploit its people, private state industries under Western (mainly US) control, establish new Pentagon bases, use them for greater regional dominance, perhaps balkanize the country like Yugoslavia and Iraq, and prevent any democratic spark from emerging.

According to DODspeak, Libya is being attacked, its people killed, civilian targets destroyed, and a humanitarian disaster created to save it. In other words, “destroying the village to save it” on a nationwide scale like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 70s, and Korea in the 1950s since WW II alone. Besides numerous proxy wars in Central America, Africa and elsewhere. Wherever America shows up, blood spills followed by horrific human suffering, what Libyans can now expect.

Military and government targets include:

— command-and-control centers;

— air defense systems;

— Gaddafi, his sons and senior officials;

— communications systems;

— government buildings and other facilities; and

— military air fields, tanks, artillery, other weapons, munitions, fuel depots, mobile and other targets.

About 25 US, UK, French, Canadian and Italian ships are involved, 11 from America, including three nuclear submarines. The Pentagon is providing command, control and logistics support. Air and surface-launched munitions are being used, including against Tripoli, the capital and Gaddafi stronghold.

Moreover, invasion and perhaps occupation may follow, despite official denials.

Either way, widespread death and destruction is likely. Surgical war is an oxymoron. Expect considerable “collateral damage,” the Orwellian designation for war crimes against noncombatants and civilian targets.

In his 1992 book titled, “Beyond Hypocrisy,” Edward Herman referred to “nuclear chicken analysis,” defining “collateral casualties” as “civilians killed as a regrettable ‘spillover effect’ of a nuclear attack on a military target’ more generally, allegedly unintended casualties” of any type attack.

In other words, “inadvertent and tragic errors” that, in fact, constitute wanton murder and destruction of schools, hospitals, vital infrastructure and other non-military targets.

Pack Journalism Promotes War

A previous article explained how it enlists public support for imperial war, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/03/pack-journalism-promotes-war-on-libya.html

Western media, including BBC and Al Jazeera incite it, no matter how lawless, mindless, destructive and counterproductive. Smell it. It arrived again because inflammatory journalism stoked reasons to attack. As a result, America, Britain and France primarily readied strikes. Ground and submarine-launced cruise missiles inflicted widespread destruction. In addition, French jets struck “targets of opportunity,” preceded by exaggerated/unverified/inflammatory reports like the following:

On March 19, New York Times writers David Kirkpatrick and Elisabeth Busmiller headlined, “Reports Say Attacks by Regime Against Rebels Continue,” saying:

Unverified “(r)eports indicated that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces were continuing to press their attacks despite warnings that such moves would provoke military action.”

On March 19, Financial Times writer Tobias Buck headlined, “Gaddafi launches assault on Benghazi,” saying:

Forces loyal to Gaddafi attacked “in violation of the regime’s promise of a ceasefire.”

Libyan state TV channel, Al Jamahiriya, reported it differently, saying “the people of Benghazi have risen up against the rebels and raised the flag of Libya over the government building in the middle of the city.”

On March 19, New York Times writers Steven Erlanger and David Kirkpatrick headlined “Allies Open Push in Libya to Block Qaddafi Assaults,” saying:

“American, European and Arab leaders began the largest international intervention” since 2003 against Iraq, omitting the illegality of both aggressions.

On March 19, New York Times writers David Kirkpatrich and Elisabeth Musmiller headlined, “France Sends Military Flights Over Libya,” saying:

Flying reconnaissance missions, it’s “the first sign” of premeditated war, launching new hostilities against a war-torn region, without explanation why.

On March 19, Times writers Steven Erlanger and David Kirkpatrick headlined, “Allies Open Push in Libya to Block Qaddafi Assaults,” saying:

Hostilities began to stop “Qaddafi’s war on the Libyan opposition,” after a no-fly zone was established.

As a result, war arrived preemptively. French President Sarkozy said it’s to stop Gaddafi’s “murderous madness,” no matter that he responded to violence. He didn’t instigate it. So would Sarkozy, Obama or any leader against armed insurrection.

Love or hate him, Gaddafi said:

“Libya is not yours. Libya is for all Libyans. This is injustice, it is clear aggression, and it is uncalculated risk for its consequences on the Mediterranean and Europe. You will regret it if you take a step toward intervening in our internal affairs.”

Hours earlier, he pledged a ceasefire. Conflicting reports disagree if he honored it. Is he or Western intervention stoking violence? US media reports point fingers one way.

Washington, Britain, France, other NATO allies, and complicit Arab States back armed anti-Gaddafi insurrection. They’re promoting it, inciting it, funding it, arming it, with clear imperial aims. A previous article explained, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/03/washingtons-un-war-resolution-on-libya.html

On March 19, ahead of intervention, Al Jazeera headlined, “Gaddafi forces encroaching on Benghazi,” saying:

Gaddafi unleashed “a fresh act of defiance even as the United States and its allies prepared to launch military attacks on Libya.”

Unverified “(r)eports from Libya say pro-government forces have entered the western outskirts of the opposition stronghold of Benghazi, with the city also coming under attack from the coast and the south.”

Unnamed “(w)itnesses….said they heard large explosions….Government troops reportedly bombed the southern Benghazi suburb of Goreshi among other places.”

No verification was given, except to quote Mustafa Abdel Jalil, opposition National Libyan Council leader. More on him below. Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reported “a lot of jittery people…a lot of activity and a lot of firing going on.”

In contrast, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim told the BBC that “the ceasefire is real, credible and solid. We are willing to receive (international and NGO) observers as soon as possible.” He insisted no air strikes were launched.

Hours later Al Jazeera headlined, “Airstrikes begin on Libya targets,” saying:

“French warplanes hit four tanks….on a day when opposition fighters in (Benghazi) reported coming under constant artillery and mortar fire.” Expect sustained strikes to follow.

Al Jazeera and other media reports don’t explain that “opposition” officials from organizations like the National Libyan Council and National Front for the Salvation of Libya have close Western ties, pretending they’re credible. More about them below.

Headquartered in Qatar, moreover, Al Jazeera noticeably abstains from criticizing its government, now part of Washington’s anti-Gaddafi coalition-of-the-willing, complicit in illegal aggression.

On March 18, Obama stopped short of declaring war, announcing “all necessary measures” against Gaddafi without full compliance with UN Resolution terms, including an immediate ceasefire, withdrawing his forces, reestablishing essential services to all parts of the country, and letting in “humanitarian assistance,” including foreign imperial forces opposed to his leadership.

In other words, impossible terms to accept to be followed by others likely demanding he step down, permit balkanization, predatory Western investment, US bases, and free exploitation of his resources and people. Imagine comparable demands made on America – non-negtiable to be followed by military action for non-compliance.

On March 18, NATO Secretary-General Anders Rogh Rasmussen signaled war, saying the alliance was “completing its planning to be ready to take appropriate action in support of the UN resolution as part of the broad international effort.”

Launched the next day, the resources of another resource-rich Arab state will be divided among Western belligerents, to benefit Libyans, they claim.

On March 20, New York Times writers David Kirkpatrick, Steven Erlanger and Elisabeth Busmiller headlined, “Qaddafi Pledges ‘Long War’ as Allies Pursue Air Assault,” saying:

“On Sunday, American (stealth) B-2 bombers were reported to have struck a major Libyan airfield,” following initial attacks against Libya’s air defense systems, “missile, radar and communications centers around Tripoli,” Misurata and Surt.

Reuters said “US fighter planes backed by electronic warfare aircraft” attacked Gaddafi’s ground troops and air defenses. A Pentagon statement stated:

“US Navy Growlers provided electronic warfare support over Libya while AV-8B Harriers from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit conducted strikes….”

Parliamentary secretary Muhammad Zweid said attacks “caused some real harm against civilians and buildings.” According to an unnamed US official, Libya’s air defenses are now “severely disabled.”

As of Sunday morning, visible destruction also included 14 tanks, 20 armored personnel carriers, two or more trucks, rocket launchers, dozens of pick-ups, and exploding munitions. Ahead of cruise missile attacks, France initiated reconnaissance flights and aggression.

On March 19, Middle East/Central Asian analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya’s Global Research.ca article headlined, “Breaking News: Libyan Hospitals Attacked. Libyan Source: Three French Jets Downed,” saying:

Regime change-planned naked aggression was launched. “The war criminals are back at it again,” Washington, of course, in the lead. On March 19, “sources in Libya have reported that three medical facilities were bombarded. Two were hospitals and one a medical clinic. These were civilian facilities.”

Targets attacked included Al-Tajura and Saladin hospitals as well as a clinic near Tripoli, unrelated to military necessity, distant from combat areas. Moreover, civilian air facilities were struck as well as “all Libyan military bases” – air, naval and ground. In addition, “a vast naval blockade around Libya has now been imposed,” America the lead belligerent.

Further, Libyan sources report “two French jets were also shot down….near Janzour” plus another “near Anjile.” Washington and co-belligerents “are creating a real humanitarian disaster,” waging war for peace, killing civilians to save them, and destroying Libya by “humanitarian intervention.”

Moreover, Washington enlisted Egypt and Saudi Arabia to supply “opposition forces” with weapons, in violation of Resolution 1973 prohibiting any sent. Of course, international and US law forbid aggressive war, but that never deterred imperial America from preemptively attacking, invading, occupying and colonizing nations illegally, Libya its latest target.

Libya’s So-Called “Opposition”

Included are the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, its officials with ties to the CIA and Saudi Arabia. Also, Muhammad as-Senussi, Libya’s so-called heir to the Senussi Crown, concerned only for his own self-interest.

Central is the National Libyan Council (NLC), announced on February 26, established officially on March 5, led by former Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, a Western-allied opportunist.

NLC is an umbrella group of local so-called opposition leaders headquartered in Benghazi. Bogusly, it claims to represent all Libyans. Abdel-Jalil calls it a “transitional government” ahead of future elections after Gaddafi is deposed.

At the same time, Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, a Benghazi lawyer, refuted his leadership, calling himself NLC’s official spokesman. Both men, however, have similar aspirations, including controlling Libya by ousting Gaddafi.

As of now, Abdel-Jalil remains NLC’s official head, Ghoga its spokesman, and Omar El-Hariri in charge of military operations. General Abdel Fattah Younis may be another key member, his status, however, not confirmed. In total, NLC has about 30 members. Most aren’t named. Two known include, Mahmoud Jebril and Ali al-Essawi, former Libyan ambassador to India in charge of foreign affairs.

On March 5, Reuters headlined, “Rebel National Libya Council sets up (a three-member) crisis committee,” saying:

In charge of military and foreign affairs, members include Omar El-Hariri, Ali al-Essawi, and Mahmoud Jebril as leader.

Western Hypocrisy – Denouncing Violence While Backing It

At Obama’s behest, about 1,000 Saudi troops invaded Bahrain guns blazing, attacking peaceful protesters, arresting opposition leaders and activists, occupying the country, denying wounded men and women medical treatment, and imposing police state control in support of the hated monarchy.

Not an angry Western demand was heard to stop hostilities and leave. Nor against similar Egyptian army attacks or on civilians in Tunisia, Jordan, Algeria, Oman, Iraq, and Yemen, let alone daily against Palestinians.

On March 18, in fact, dozens of Yemenese were killed, scores more wounded in Sanaa, the capital, when security forces attacked thousands, demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down.

Ally turned bete noire Gaddafi was targeted for removal. In contrast, Saleh is supported because of Yemen’s strategic location near the Horn of Africa on Saudi Arabia’s southern border, the Red Sea, its Bab el-Mandeb strait (a key chokepoint separating Yemen from Eritrea through which three million barrels of oil pass daily), and the Gulf of Aden connection to the Indian Ocean.

Instead of denouncing his brutality, Obama endorsed it, calling on “all sides (to pursue) a peaceful, orderly and democratic path to a stronger and more prosperous nation.”

Friday’s massacre was the bloodiest since resistance erupted in mid-February. Security forces and plainclothes police opened fire on demonstrators, shooting to kill, hitting some in the back of the head as they fled. Afterward, Saleh imposed a state of emergency and nationwide curfew.

Demonstrations, nonetheless, persist, Yemenese wanting his 32-year dictatorship ended. Achieving it, however, entails overcoming Washington’s imperial grip on regional client states, all run by favored despots.

A Final Comment

On March 19, Professor As’ad AbuKhalil’s Angry Arab.com headlined, “Bush Doctrine revised: Obama puts his stamp,” saying:

“Western/Saudi/Qarari military intervention in Libya sets a dangerous precedent.” Under Bush, ousting regimes for democracy “was a bloody farce….” Obama’s model may be installing puppets “without having ‘boots on the ground,’ ” but don’t discount them. He expanded Bush’s Afghan war, began his own in Pakistan as well as in Somalia, Yemen and Bahrain, backing favored despots besides the Saudi monarchy.

AbuKhalil calls NLC’s Abdel-Jalil “a useful idiot.” Moreover, “Western enthusiasm for (Libyan) intervention” was never properly explained beyond nonsensical platitudes about “humanitarian intervention” to protect civilians.

In contrast, “why (didn’t) the hundreds of deaths in Egypt or Tunisia….warrant” similar outrage, let alone Israel’s Cast Lead, occupation and daily aggression against defenseless Palestinians.

Intervening militarily is Libya “is far more dangerous: it is intended to legitimize the return of colonial powers, (and) abort democratic uprisings all over the region. Bahrain (Yemen and Saudi Arabia) of today (are) the vision for Libya for tomorrow,” Western-dominated, of course.

Will it work? Love or hate Gaddafi, Libyans know what Iraqis, Afghans and Palestinians endure. Moreover, its society is fractious, divided by tribal loyalties, suspicious of Western intervention, and long-governed locally as well as nationally.

Against them is America’s military might under leaders not shy about using it. As a result, Libyans are experiencing firsthand what’s ahead under Western control, what makes Iraqis yearn for Saddam, almost saintly compared to Washington.

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/

 

 

 

 

 

21 March, 2011

Countercurrents.org

20 March 2011 marked the 8th anniversary of the illegal, war criminal invasion of Iraq by the US , UK and Australia .  In post-invasion Iraq , violent deaths (1.4 million) and non-violent avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation (1.2 million) have totalled 2.6 million (so far). Yet the West ignores the carnage of the ongoing Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide and marked this dreadful anniversary by commencing a devastating high technology war on another Arab nation, Libya . A legitimate fear from the US-backed Palestinian Genocide, the Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide and the Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide is that this latest US war, the Libyan War, will likewise evolve to holocaust and genocide dimensions and to a Libyan Holocaust and Libyan Genocide.

As of 20 March 2011, the 8th anniversary of the illegal US, UK and Australian invasion of  Iraq on 20 March 2003,  the human cost  the Iraq War since 2003 involves 2.6 million violent and non-violent avoidable deaths of Indigenous Iraqis (4.5 million since 1990; see: http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/9-january-2010 ). In comparison, post-2003 US Alliance deaths in the Iraq War total 4,758 (see: http://icasualties.org/oif/ ).

According to the 2006 Revision UN Population Division data, medical literature data, and other authoritative sources, the Iraqi Holocaust has been associated with 1.2 million post-invasion non-violent avoidable deaths; 1.4 million violent post-invasion deaths; and 0.8 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths (90% avoidable and due to gross US Coalition violation of the Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War which demands that an Occupier supplies food and medical requisites to “the fullest extent of the means available to it.” In addition, avoidable deaths under Sanctions (1990-2003) totalled 1.7 million, violent deaths in the Gulf War totalled 0.2 million and under-5 infant deaths under Sanctions totalled 1.2 million. Iraqi refugees (both inside and outside Iraq ) totalled 5-6 million.

The ongoing Iraqi Holocaust (1990-2011) involves 1.6 million violent deaths, 2.9 million non-violent excess deaths, 4.5 million violent and non-violent excess deaths, 2.0 million under-5 infant  deaths, 1.8 million avoidable under-5 year old infant deaths and 5-6 million refugees – an Iraqi Holocasut and an Iraqi Genocide according to the UN Genocide Convention definition of  “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” (see: http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/9-january-2010 ).  The Iraqi Genocide – still continuing under Nobel Peace Laureate and warmonger Obama –  is of a similar magnitude to the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) (see: Gilbert, M. (1969), “Jewish History Atlas” (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London) and Gilbert, M. (1982), “Atlas of the Holocaust” (Michael Joseph, London)).

The US Coalition invasion of Iraq was illegal and a  war crime. Thus UK Deputy PM Nick Clegg told the House of Commons in 2010 that the invasion of Iraq was illegal: “I am happy to account for everything that we are doing in this coalition government, a coalition government which has brought together two parties working in the national interest to sort out the mess that he left behind. Maybe one day, and perhaps we’ll have to wait for his (Jack Straw’s) memoirs, he could account for his role in the most disastrous decision of all, which is the illegal invasion of Iraq .” (see “Clegg says invasion of Iraq was “illegal””, Reuters, 21 JHlu 2010: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2010/07/21/uk-britain-clegg-iraq-idUKTRE66K4PT20100721 .”

And in Australia , the former President of the ultra-conservative Liberal Party. John Valder, slammed his party colleague Liberal PM John Howard as a war criminal over the Iraq Invasion: “Bush, Blair, and Howard, as leaders of the three members of the coalition of the willing, inflicted enormous suffering on the people of Iraq . And, as such, they are criminals. I believe the only deterrent to a repetition of the Iraq situation is punishment in some form as war criminals” (see “Howard is a war criminal  says former colleague”, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 July 2004: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/18/1090089035899.html ).

The war criminality of the Iraq invasion and occupation extends beyond the initial criminal invasion and the estimated 1.4 million Iraqi deaths due to the US invasion ( Just Foreign  Policy: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/156 ).  Thus Iraqi avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation (1.7 million, 1990-2003, 1.2 million, 2003-2011) also constitute evidence of a  huge US Coalition war crime through imposition of sustained, deadly deprivation on a civilian population. It is worth repeating that of the 5-6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis in WW2 about 1 in 6 died from deprivation.

Articles 55 and 56 of the  Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War make clear the responsibility of an Occupier to provide life-sustaining food and medicine to its Conquered Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. These Articles are set out below.

Article 55. To the fullest extent of the means available to it the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.

The Occupying Power may not requisition foodstuffs, articles or medical supplies available in the occupied territory, except for use by the occupation forces and administration personnel, and then only if the requirements of the civilian population have been taken into account. Subject to the provisions of other international Conventions, the Occupying Power shall make arrangements to ensure that fair value is paid for any requisitioned goods.

The Protecting Power shall, at any time, be at liberty to verify the state of the food and medical supplies in occupied territories, except where temporary restrictions are made necessary by imperative military requirements.

Article 56. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.

If new hospitals are set up in occupied territory and if the competent organs of the occupied State are not operating there, the occupying authorities shall, if necessary, grant them the recognition provided for in Article 18. In similar circumstances, the occupying authorities shall also grant recognition to hospital personnel and transport vehicles under the provisions of Articles 20 and 21.

In adopting measures of health and hygiene and in their implementation, the Occupying Power shall take into consideration the moral and ethical susceptibilities of the population of the occupied territory.

Yet the US Alliance has grossly violated these Geneva Convention demands in both Occupied Iraq (1990-2011 non-violent avoidable deaths from deprivation total 4.5 million) and in Occupied Afghanistan (2001-2011 non-violent avoidable deaths from deprivation total 4.5 million). WHO (see: http://www.who.int/countries/en/ ) informs that the annual  per capita total medical expenditure in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan is US$124 and US$29, respectively, as compared to US$6,714 for the Occupier the United States. Yet under-5 year old infant deaths total 2.0 million in Iraq (1990-2011) and 2.6 million in Afghanistan (2001-2011).

The victims of cowardly Western high technology wars are mostly women and children dying from war-imposed deprivation. Thus in post-1950 US Asian wars violent deaths and non-violent deaths from war-imposed deprivation total about 23 million, the breakdown  being 1 million Korea, 13 million (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) , 4.5 million (Iraq) and 4.9 million (Afghanistan).

Now the West has marked the 8th anniversary of the war criminal invasion of Iraq by commencing to bomb Libya back to the Stone Age. The ostensible reason is to “protect civilians” and to support the legitimate desire of many Libyans for democracy but the horrible reality is that Libyan civilians  need protection from the genocidal French-UK-US (FUKUS) Coalition. The examples of Iraq and Afghanistan give an indication of the horrendous avoidable mortality that may come in a FUKUS-devastated bombed Libya and the sham of Western-imposed democracy.

Thus “American-installed democracy” in Afghanistan has meant a US Puppet Afghan President who was the only candidate in the recent presidential elections held under Occupier guns and the dominant but banned Taliban could field no candidates. In Occupied Iraq, as in Occupied Afghanistan, “American-installed democracy” has meant elections held after a major party the US did not like (the Ba’ath Party) was banned and its members were variously imprisoned, tortured and  killed on a huge scale.

Thus annual under-5 infant deaths currently total 3,000 in Libya (population 6.4 million) but are expected  to soar if the France-UK-US (FUKUS) Coalition, already bombing urban  areas and killing Libyans, succeeds in doing to Libya what the genocidal, Zionist-backed  US Alliance has achieved in Occupied Iraq (41,000 under-5 deaths yearly, population 30.7 million) or in Occupied Afghanistan (237,000 under-5 infant deaths yearly, population 28.2 million) (latest UNICEF data: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ).

Libya’s very low current pre-invasion infant mortality (2010) is about 16.9 deaths per 1000 live births (cf 5.7 in the US) as compared to 185 (1950, under British occupation) and 115 (in 1969 when Gaddafi took over from the UK-backed dictator King Idris). However, food, shelter, medicine and medical services cost money and with the oil-based Libyan economy already largely stopped by the already civilian-targetting, war criminal FUKUS Coalition, the Libyan infant mortality is expected to eventually soar to that in Occupied Iraq (32 deaths per 1,000 live  births) or Occupied Afghanistan (152) (latest UN Population Division data: http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=1 ; the Iraq and Afghanistan data are probably under-estimates from the respective Puppet Quisling regimes).

The devastation of Iraq by the US Coalition under Sanctions and US, UK and Israeli no-fly zone bombing (1.7 million Iraqi avoidable deaths from deprivation, 1990-2003) and under Occupation (1.2 million Iraqi avoidable deaths from deprivation, 2003-2011) was enabled by Mainstream media non-reportage and warmongering in the Western Murdochracies. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. On this 8th anniversary of the illegal Anglo-American invasion of Iraq , decent people must (a) tell everyone they can about the horrendous human cost, and (b) insist that the war criminals be held accountable  through sanctions,  boycotts  and criminal prosecutions.

All decent folk will have great sympathy for the desire of the Libyan people and indeed of all people and all Arab people for human rights and genuine democracy but they must oppose the cowardly, turkey-shoot destruction of Libya by the genocidal, war criminal US Alliance.  One hopes that the Libyans themselves will find a solution through dialogue before too much damage has been done in terms of Libyan lives, infrastructure and the economy on which life depends.

Dr Gideon Polya currently teaches science students at a major Australian university. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has recently published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has just published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/ bengalfamine_programme.html ). When words fail one can say it in pictures – for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The saga of the Bahasa Bible never seems to end. For more than two decades its import has generated unnecessary controversy. It is imperative that a clear policy is formulated immediately and implemented in a fair and just manner.

 

It is wrong to view the Bahasa Bible as a security issue. As a nation which has an outstanding record of upholding freedom of worship as a fundamental liberty, Christians should have easy access to their scripture. Since Bahasa Malaysia is the language of common usage for a lot of Christians in Sabah and Sarawak and is also the medium through which a substantial number of young Christians in Peninsular Malaysia today understand written literature, it should not surprise anyone that the Bahasa Bible has become an important part of the lives of the 9 percent Christian minority in the country.

 

Seen from this perspective the stamping and serializing of  Bahasa Bibles which might  be interpreted— rightly or wrongly— as a security measure has caused considerable unhappiness among a huge segment of the Christian community in  Sarawak. Unless resolved quickly, it could well become the Opposition’s silver bullet to target the ruling Barisan Nasional in the coming state election. Political repercussions aside, justice demands that the Ministry of Home Affairs takes into account the feelings of the Christian community.

 

For many Muslims on the Peninsula, it is not so much the dissemination of Bibles in Bahasa which makes them uneasy. Rather, it is the use of the concept   ‘Allah’ in a Christian scripture, a concept which they regard as exclusive to Islam. While it is true that it is Islam that has endowed meaning to the concept since the advent of the Qur’an, Muslims in other parts of the world have not taken exception to the term appearing in the scriptures of other religions. Arab Muslims have always been aware that their Christian compatriots utter the word ‘Allah’ when they read the Bible just as Muslims in the Indian Sub-Continent know that the term appears many times in the Guru Granth Sahib of the Sikhs. Indeed, the Qur’an does not prohibit anyone from using the term which is why illustrious Islamic scholars have always emphasized that it is because Allah is all-inclusive and all-embracing that Allah is described as the “Lord of the Universes.”

 

This inclusive understanding of Allah is beginning to gain some ground in Malaysia. In the midst of the present controversy over the Bahasa Bible, ulama from both the BN and the Pakatan have pointed out that it is not wrong for non-Muslims to use the term within the confines of their religion— as long as it is not misused in the public arena.

 

Manipulating and distorting the term in order to win converts to one’s religion would be an example of misuse. Muslims are in a sense protected from such nefarious activities by the Federal and various State Constitutions. Article 11(4) of the Federal Constitution for instance prohibits the propagation of other religious doctrines among Muslims.

 

This is why it is important that the government and the ulama allay Muslim fears about threats to their religious identity from the use of certain terms and the Bahasa Bible. Muslims would do well to remember that even at the height of Western colonial rule stretching from Morocco to Malaysia when Muslims were much more vulnerable, very, very few of them renounced their faith and became Christians. Even today, in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, Christian evangelization among Muslims has failed miserably. By and large, Muslims in most parts of the world remain attached to their religion.

 

Muslims in Malaysia should have more faith in themselves.

 

 

 

Chairman,

Board of Trustees,

Yayasan 1Malaysia.

 

 

Petaling Jaya.

 

 

22 March 2011.

 

 

 

Eight years after the US entered Iraq to topple Saddam and liberate the people, conditions are worse than ever.

Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis Last Modified: 21 Mar 2011 11:57

Nouri al-Maliki was strongly supported by former US president George W Bush, as was apparent in their final press conference together shortly before a shoe was launched at Bush from close range.

March 19 marks the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a nation that had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the 9/11 attacks.

It was sold to the American public as a war to defend our nation and free the Iraqi people.

US deputy secretary of defence Paul Wolfowitz said our soldiers would be greeted as liberators and that Iraqi oil money would pay for the reconstruction.

Vice president Dick Cheney said the military effort would take “weeks rather than months”. And assistant defence secretary Ken Adelman predicted that “liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk”.

Eight years on, it’s time to look back at that “cakewalk”.

4,400 US soldiers lost

More than 4,400 Americans have died as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq – more than the 3,000 killed on 9/11.

Over 32,000 US soldiers have been seriously wounded, many kept alive thanks to the miracle of modern medicine. But those numbers don’t tell the half of it.

Stanford University and Naval Postgraduate School researchers who examined the delayed onset of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) found that by 2023 the rate of PTSD among Iraq war veterans could rise to as high as 35 per cent.

And for the second year in row, more soldiers committed suicide in 2010 than died in combat, a tragic but predictable human reaction to being asked to kill – and watching your friends be killed.

Bankrupting the nation

In 2008, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University’s Linda Blimes put the cost of the Iraq war at roughly $3tn, or about 60 times what the Bush administration first said the invasion would cost.

While a staggering figure, Stiglitz and Blimes now say that their estimate “was, if anything, too low”.

In an update published last fall in The Washington Post, they note that the war not only drove up the federal debt, but helped drive the skyrocketing oil prices that contributed to the crashing of the global economy.

According to the National Priorities Project, the money the US government spent destroying Iraq could have provided annual salaries for 12.5 million teachers or paid the annual healthcare costs for 167 million Americans.

When elected officials tell us our nation is bankrupt, we should tell them to bring our war dollars home.

Hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis

The people who have suffered the most from the Iraq “cakewalk” are Iraqi citizens.

For an invasion sold as an act of liberation and of “profound morality” by propagandists like Jeffrey Goldberg, the US and its allies sure managed to kill a staggering number of those they were liberating.

The organisation Iraq Body Count (IBC) has documented at least 99,900 violent civilian deaths as a direct result of the US-led invasion.

But that’s an extremely conservative estimate based largely on deaths reported in Western media, an approach bound to undercount the massive death toll from the invasion.

Indeed, as WikiLeaks revealed last October, the US government covered up the violent killings of more than 15,000 Iraqi civilians – killings that weren’t reported by any Western paper which amounted to roughly 20 per cent of IBC’s official count at the time.

Unfortunately, the number of dead Iraqis is likely a lot higher than IBC’s count.

A 2006 study  by researchers at Johns Hopkins University published in the Lancet medical journal found that in just over three years there were 654,965 “excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war”, with Iraq’s death rate more than doubling due to gunfire – the leading cause of mortality – as well as lack of medicine and clean water.

Then a 2008 analysis by British polling firm Opinion Research Business estimated “that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003”.

Power still out

Thirteen years of bombings and sanctions crippled the infrastructure and basic services of what was once a wealthy country.

Then came the 2003 invasion, which destroyed electrical plants, sewage systems, water treatment facilities, hospitals and more.

Eight years later, the living conditions in Iraqi are worse than under Saddam Hussein, with the country plagued by a continued lack of electricity, clean water, medical care and security

Iraqis wonder why – after the most powerful country in the world invaded and spent billions on reconstruction – they are still living in the dark.

Millions fled their homes

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, since 2003 “more than 4.7 million Iraqis have fled their homes, many in dire need of humanitarian care” – hardly an endorsement of life in the “liberated” nation.

Many Iraqis fled to Iran, Jordan and Syria, while roughly 1.5 million fled to other parts of Iraq, the majority of whom “have found no solutions to their plight”, according to the UN.

In the aftermath, millions will never be able to return.

Forced into prostitution

Women in Iraq have been particularly hit by the invasion and occupation. The Iraqi government estimates there are up to 3 million widows in Iraq today.

Meanwhile, violence against women – including honour killings, rape and kidnapping – has increased, forcing many to remain at home and limiting employment and educational opportunities, according to a new Freedom House report.

“A deep feeling of injustice and powerlessness sometimes leads women to believe that the only escape is suicide,” the report notes.

Many Iraqi women who fled to neighbouring countries have found themselves unable to feed their children.

Just to make ends meet, tens of thousands of them – including girls 13 and under – have been forced into prostitution, particularly in Syria.

“From what I’ve seen, 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the girls working this business in Damascus today are Iraqis,” one refugee told The New York Times. “If they go back to Iraq they’ll be slaughtered, and this is the only work available.”

Poisoning Iraqi society

The US military dropped thousands of bombs across Iraq laced with depleted uranium, the radioactive waste produced from manufacturing nuclear fuel.

Valued by the military for its density and ability to ignite upon impact, depleted uranium bombs continue to kill years after they’ve been dropped.

In Fallujah, which was bombarded more than anywhere else in Iraq, British researchers uncovered a massive increase in infant mortality and rates of cancer, with the latter exceeding “those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” according to The Independent.

And it’s not just Fallujah facing a cancer epidemic. Al Jazeera reports that in the central Iraq province of Babil, reported cancer cases rose from 500 in 2004 to 7,000 in 2008.

And in Basra, the last 15 years have seen childhood leukemia rate more than double, according to a  study published last year in the American Journal of Public Health.

Trading one strongman for another

Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. Yet his worst crimes, including the 1980 invasion of Iran, came when he was backed by the US government, which was well aware of his penchant for torture and extrajudicial killings – talents American officials were fine with as as he was slaughtering Iranians.

Now, his US-backed successor, prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, is torturing and killing those who speak out against his rule. All he hasn’t done is invade that other, not-yet-liberated member of the “Axis of Evil”.

Inspired by the mass actions that took down US-backed strongmen in Egypt and Tunisia, thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets to protest the al-Maliki government – only to be greeted with live ammunition.

On February 27, more than 29 protesters, including a 14-year-old boy, were gunned down by the Maliki-run security forces in Iraq.

Meanwhile, four journalists in Baghdad report that they, along with hundreds of protesters, were “blindfolded, handcuffed, beaten and threatened with execution” for being insufficiently pro-regime.

The charges of abuse come after WikiLeaks revealed further evidence that Maliki has been using the power of the state – and Shia death squads – to torture and murder his political opponents.

Life in the new Iraq isn’t a whole lot different than life under Saddam. Given the protests sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, it seems invasions and foreign military occupations just aren’t as effective as nonviolent protest at promoting reform.

Recruitment ad for al-Qaeda

When it wasn’t completely sold as a humanitarian mission, the Bush administration cast the war on Iraq as a response to the 9/11 terror attacks, scaring the American public into submission with vials of faux-anthrax and concocted tales about Iraq’s ties to al-Qaeda.

Yet, as US intelligence agencies recognised after the invasion, “the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse”, in the words of one American official.

Indeed, there was no better recruitment ad for terrorists than the images the Bush administration and its allies providing foreign troops who were destroying Iraqi society.

And there’s no better way to create a committed enemy than to kill someone’s family – or in the case of Abu Ghraib, to humiliate and torture – sometimes to death – an innocent loved one.

Rewarding war criminals

Once you get past all the rationalisations, the invasion of Iraq was just like any other war. It necessitated teaching young men and women to believe that it’s morally acceptable to take kill.

And a 2007 army investigation spurred by the massacre of two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha said as much.

“Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as US lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get ‘the job done’ no matter what it takes,” wrote Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell in the report.

People typically don’t want to kill other human beings. They must be conditioned to dehumanise the enemy and believe that murdering is not just okay – but also just.

Basic training involves destroying a person’s ability to empathise with the “other” for the good of the nation (or rather, its rulers). But that ability doesn’t just suddenly reemerge when the war is over. And unfortunately, that’s evidenced by the alarming incidents of domestic violence committed by returning veterans.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq continues to affect lives after veterans of the war rejoin civilian life as police officers and husbands, as foremen and fathers. The lesson that violence is an acceptable means to achieve one’s ends is not one soon forgotten.

But violence isn’t just legitimised at base camp; it’s legitimised by the Obama administration’s failure to hold accountable those who took the country into an illegal war of aggression.

Those war criminals – the likes of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Karl Rove – are all enjoying successful book tours and reaping hefty speaking fees, while the man who allegedly exposed war crimes, Bradley Manning, is behind bars being tortured.

There’s a lesson there – one that doesn’t speak well for our system of government. And it suggests that our political establishment will continue to drag us into wars of choice in the future. After all, they won’t be fighting or paying the consequences of combat.

On this shameful anniversary, let’s not forget that despite president Obama’s promise to leave Iraq, the US still has 50,000 troops there, thousands of private mercenaries and dozens of military bases, with generals not-so-subtly hinting at a permanent presence.

We should demand the president close those bases and bring the troops home. We should prosecute those responsible for sending them. And we should apologise to the Iraqi people for the misery the US government has wrought.

The damage of war has been done. But the US must begin making amends to Iraq by leaving.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace and Global Exchange. Charles Davis has covered Congress for NPR and Pacifica stations, and freelanced for the international news wire Inter Press Service.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The peace-loving citizens of the world should regard it as their sacred duty to appeal to the governments of France, Britain, the United States of America and others who are involved in the aerial bombardment of Libya; the Muammar Gaddafi government; and the rebels fighting the Gaddafi government, to cease all military operations immediately.  Some governments have already called for a total ceasefire, among them China, India, Iran, Russia and Turkey.

 

There are at least two compelling reasons why military operations should stop at once. One, in spite of denials from the US, British and other Western military commands, some alternative media are reporting mounting civilian casualties. The ‘No Fly Zone’ that these states are attempting to impose upon Libya is supposed to save lives but what is happening in reality is something else. Two, even if Western air power destroys not only Libya’s aerial defense but also Gaddafi’s entire military machine, there is no guarantee that he and his coterie would be ousted from power, considering that he still enjoys some support among his people. On the ground, he is   stronger militarily than his opponents who are split into contending factions and are hopelessly disorganized. This could lead to a protracted civil war with dire consequences for the country and the region as a whole.

 

The cessation of military conflict would be one aspect of a much larger negotiated political settlement between Gaddafi and the rebels that must include his own departure and the exit of his family and cronies from the citadel of power in the shortest possible time. An interim government, a proper constitution and provision for a free and fair election would all be part of the deal.

 

Who can help mediate such a solution?  The Turkish leadership has the credibility and the ability to play a pivotal role. The Chinese, Indian, German, Russian and Brazilian governments can also help to bring the Gaddafi government and the rebels to the negotiating table.

 

Given the likelihood of a stalemate on the military front, it is not inconceivable that Gaddafi and the rebels will agree to talk, especially if there is sufficient international pressure. However, can the Western allies also be persuaded to end their military assault immediately?

 

The chances are remote. Since their real objective is to establish control over Libya and its oil and gas through a pliable regime, they will continue their attack until there is some certainty that such a regime will emerge. In fact, they have already begun escalating their operations. According to a media report, the French aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle joined the assault on the 22^nd of March while Belgian and Spanish war planes have begun air patrols over Libya, strengthening the American, British, French and Dutch squadrons. If the ‘No Fly Zone’ does not achieve the allies’ goal, one should not rule out the injection of ground troops into the battlefield, though there is some hesitation among the allies about such a course of action at this moment.

 

Their dogged determination to pursue their objective convinces observers that the Libyan adventure parallels in some respects the US helmed war on behalf of Kuwait in 1991 and the Iraq war of 2003. In all three instances the desire to gain control over oil emerges as the common factor. In the case of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein’s foolish invasion of a weak neighbor, and, in the case of Iraq, his non-existent weapons of mass destruction helped the US and its allies to justify their nefarious agenda. Gaddafi’s despotic rule and his brutal suppression of his adversaries serve a similar purpose in the case of Libya. Exploiting the fatal flaws of a morally depraved leader to legitimize their own insatiable greed is a tactic often employed by hegemonic powers.

 

That it is their self-interest that dominates their political machinations in West Asia and North Africa becomes even more obvious in the stance that the US and its allies have adopted towards the crisis in Bahrain and Yemen. Though the Bahraini royal family has brutally suppressed the mass uprising of its largely Shia population with the help of soldiers and tanks from neighboring Saudi Arabia, US, British and French leaders have acquiesced with their move largely because the king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, is their loyal ally who hosts the US Fifth Fleet. Similarly, when another ally, the President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Salleh, who has been in power for 32 years, mobilized his security forces and his militia to massacre 52 peaceful protesters on 18^th March 2011, all that President Obama could do was to make some innocuous  noises about the inappropriateness of violent responses to people’s demands.

 

The champions of democracy in the West, it appears, have no qualms about endorsing the suppression of peaceful democratic movements for change as long as it serves their hegemonic economic and political interests. If some popular movement succeeds in toppling an oppressive dictator who was allied to the West— as it happened in Egypt and Tunisia— then either Washington or London or Paris will try to direct the flow of change in the post- uprising phase aided and abetted by those institutions and individuals in the country in question with whom it enjoys close ties. In this regard, elements in the top brass of the armed forces in Egypt and Tunisia, it is alleged, are working hand in glove with certain centers of power in the West to ensure that their mutual interests prevail at the end of the day.

 

Managing and manipulating the people’s desire for genuine change in this manner, or endorsing the suppression of popular movements, or exploiting a rebellion in order to seize a nation’s resources, only serve to undermine the Arab uprising of 2011. The Arab masses, and indeed people everywhere, should not allow this to happen. This is why we should all oppose the meddling of Western hegemonic powers in the momentous developments unfolding in North Africa and West Asia.

 

Urging Western powers to stop the military assault upon Libya while appealing to Gaddafi and the rebels to observe an immediate ceasefire, is a plea from the heart aimed at protecting the lives of people, and ensuring their independence and their dignity.

 

 

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) and Professor of Global Studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia.

 

 

Malaysia.

 

25 March 2011.