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Written by William Blum

Posted: 07 June 2011 11:00

When they bombed Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, El Salvador and Nicaragua I said nothing because I wasn’t a communist.   When they bombed China, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, and the Congo I said nothing because I didn’t know about it. When they bombed Lebanon and Grenada I said nothing because I didn’t understand it. When they bombed Panama I said nothing because I wasn’t a drug dealer. When they bombed Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen I said nothing because I wasn’t a terrorist. When they bombed Yugoslavia and Libya for “humanitarian” reasons I said nothing because it sounded so honorable. Then they bombed my house and there was no one left to speak out for me. But it didn’t really matter. I was dead. 1 The Targets It’s become a commonplace to accuse the United States of choosing as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns of modern times — 78 consecutive days — was carried out against the people of the former Yugoslavia: white, European, Christians. The United States is an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become a target are: (A) It poses an obstacle — could be anything — to the desires of the American Empire; (B) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack. The survivors “We never see the smoke and the fire, we never smell the blood, we never see the terror in the eyes of the children, whose nightmares will now feature screaming missiles from unseen terrorists, known only as Americans.” 2 NASA has announced an audacious new mission, launching a spaceship that will travel for four years to land on an asteroid, where it will collect dust from the surface and deliver the precious cargo to Earth, where scientists will then examine the material for clues to how life began. Truly the stuff of science fiction. However, I personally would regard it as a much greater accomplishment of humankind if we could put an end to America’s bombings and all its wars, and teach some humility to The Holy Triumvirate — The United States, the European Union and NATO — who recognizes no higher power and believe they literally can do whatever they want in the world, to whomever they want, for as long as they want, and call it whatever they want, like “humanitarian.” The fall of the American Empire would offer a new beginning for the long-suffering American people and the long-suffering world. Why is the United States waging perpetual war against the Cuban people’s health system? In January the government of the United States of America saw fit to seize $4.207 million in funds allocated to Cuba by the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the first quarter of 2011, Cuba has charged. The UN Fund is a $22 billion a year program that works to combat the three deadly pandemics in 150 countries. 3 “This mean-spirited policy,” the Cuban government said, “aims to undermine the quality of service provided to the Cuban population and to obstruct the provision of medical assistance in over 100 countries by 40,000 Cuban health workers.” Most of the funds are used to import expensive AIDS medication to Cuba, where antiretroviral treatment is provided free of charge to some 5,000 HIV patients. 4 The United States sees the Cuban health system and Havana’s sharing of such as a means of Cuba winning friends and allies in the Third World, particularly Latin America; a situation sharply in conflict with long-standing US policy to isolate Cuba. The United States in recent years has attempted to counter the Cuban international success by dispatching the US Naval Ship “Comfort” to the region. With 12 operating rooms and a 1,000-bed hospital, the converted oil tanker has performed hundreds of thousands of free surgeries in places such as Belize, Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua and Haiti. However, the Comfort’s port calls likely will not substantially enhance America’s influence in the hemisphere. “It’s hard for the U.S. to compete with Cuba and Venezuela in this way,” said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a pro-US policy-research group in Washington. “It makes us look like we’re trying to imitate them. Cuba’s doctors aren’t docked at port for a couple days, but are in the country for years.” 5 The recent disclosure by Wikileaks of US State Department documents included this little item: A cable was sent by Michael Parmly from the US Interests Section in Havana in July 2006, during the runup to the Non-Aligned Movement conference. He notes that he is actively looking for “human interest stories and other news that shatters the myth of Cuban medical prowess”. Michael Moore refers to another Wikileaks State Department cable: “On January 31, 2008, a State Department official stationed in Havana took a made-up story and sent it back to his headquarters in Washington. Here’s what they came up with: [The official] stated that Cuban authorities have banned Michael Moore’s documentary, ‘Sicko,’ as being subversive. Although the film’s intent is to discredit the U.S. healthcare system by highlighting the excellence of the Cuban system, the official said the regime knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.” Moore points out an Associated Press story of June 16, 2007 (seven months prior to the cable) with the headline: “Cuban health minister says Moore’s ‘Sicko’ shows ‘human values’ of communist system.” Moore adds that the people of Cuba were shown the film on national television on April 25, 2008. “The Cubans embraced the film so much it became one of those rare American movies that received a theatrical distribution in Cuba. I personally ensured that a 35mm print got to the Film Institute in Havana. Screenings of Sicko were set up in towns all across the country.” 6 The United States also bans the sale to Cuba of vital medical drugs and devices, such as the inhalant agent Sevoflurane which has become the pharmaceutical of excellence for applying general anesthesia to children; and the pharmaceutical Dexmetomidine, of particular usefulness in elderly patients who often must be subjected to extended surgical procedures. Both of these are produced by the US firm Abbot Laboratories. Cuban children suffering from lymphoblastic leukemia cannot use Erwinia L-asparaginasa, a medicine commercially known as Elspar, since the US pharmaceutical company Merck and Co. refuses to sell this product to Cuba. Washington has also prohibited the US-based Pastors for Peace Caravan from donating three Ford ambulances to Cuba. Cubans are moreover upset by the denial of visas requested to attend conferences in the field of Anesthesiology and Reanimation that take place in the United States. This creates further barriers for Cuba’s anesthesiologists to update themselves on state of the art anesthesiology, the care of severely ill patients, and the advances achieved in the treatment of pain. Some of the foregoing are but a small sample of American warfare against the Cuban medical system presented in a Cuban report to the United Nations General Assembly on October 28, 2009. Finally, we have the Cuban Medical Professional Parole (CMPP) immigration program, which encourages Cuban doctors who are serving their government overseas to defect and enter the US immediately as refugees. The Wall Street Journal reported in January of this year that through Dec. 16, 2010, CMPP visas had been issued by US consulates in 65 countries to 1,574 Cuban doctors whose education had been paid for by the financially-struggling Cuban government. 7 This program, oddly enough, was initiated by the US Department of Homeland Security. Another victory over terrorism? Or socialism? Or same thing? Wait until the American conservatives hear that Cuba is the only country in Latin America offering abortion on demand, and free. Items of interest from a journal I’ve kept for 40 years, part IV >> “Remember the scene in Battle of Algiers in which, after the French have ‘killed off’ the revolution, mist fills the screen and then, gradually, coming out of the mist, the Algerians appear waving their fists, ululating with that sound both thrilling and frightening? That’s how I see 9/11 for those of us who grew up believing that the US stood for something grand, despite eras such as slavery, indigenous genocide, Jim Crow, etc. Many people say ‘Everything changed on 9/11.’ I think it’s more that ‘Everything became clear, finally, on 9/11.’ The mist cleared away.” — Catherine Podojil >> From a reader in Slovakia: I used the word “democracy” and not “capitalism”, because we were told [after the dissolution of the Soviet Union] that democracy was introduced in Slovakia, not capitalism. Everything was done in the name of democracy and not in the name of capitalism. >> “If someone other than Stalin had gained ascendancy in the Soviet Union, it is likely that millions of lives would have been spared — but millions of others still would have been caught up in the maw of the state machine, because the system itself was based on violence, repression and lawlessness — all in the name of ‘preserving the Revolution,’ a phrase which served the same function for the Kremlin as ‘national security’ does for the American elite, or the ‘higher law’ of God does for religious extremists of every stripe.” — Chris Floyd >> Bill Richardson, as US ambassador to the UN, re the newly-formed International Criminal Court in 1998: The United States should be exempt [from the court’s prosecution] because it has “special global responsibilities”. >> Russia might be a target of an American invasion some day because it’s the most powerful geopolitical opponent of the United States, with the power to extinguish the US in 30 minutes. The US might want to control the Russian oil and have complete control of Central Asia. That’s what’s behind the many missile sites the US has been building in Europe, not the stated fear of Iran. >> Bolivia has South America’s largest hydrocarbon deposits after Venezuela. >> “The notion that we ought to now go to Baghdad and somehow take control of the country strikes me as an extremely serious one, in terms of what we’d have to do when we got there. You’d probably have to put some new government in place. It’s not clear what kind of government that would be, how long you’d have to stay. For the U.S. to get involved militarily in determining the outcome of the struggle over who’s going to govern in Iraq strikes me as the classic definition of a quagmire.” – Dick Cheney, when he was Secretary of Defense in 1991. >> When the plans for a new office building for the U.S. military were brought before the Senate on Aug. 14, 1941, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan was puzzled. “Unless the war is to be permanent, why must we have permanent accommodations for war facilities of such size?” he asked. “Or is the war to be permanent?” (Steve Vogel, “The Pentagon: A History” (2007) p.84) >> The combination of free trade and heavy US subsidies to American businesses has crippled the Mexican agricultural sector, causing impoverished former subsistence farmers to immigrate to the US by any means necessary. Conservative policies of supporting free trade while restricting immigration are inherently incompatible. The head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the first US occupation administration of Iraq in 2003, Paul Bremer, made free enterprise a guiding rule, shutting down 192 state-owned businesses where the World Bank estimated 500,000 people were working. (UPI, July 25, 2007) >> If an individual were behaving as Israel does as a country, that person would be removed to an institution for the criminally insane and subjected to intense drug therapy and a lobotomy. The person might find the guy next door to be named America. >> The United States threatens other states sufficient to cause those states to engage in defensive responses in order to exploit these to justify increasing “defense” expenditures. Bush, Obama and Western Europe have used criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism as a way of showing their publics how they allegedly stand up for democracy. >> US right-wingers have a desire to replace our constitutional form of government with an authoritarian theocracy, and to (militarily) spread that theocratic construct around the world. (Ironically, the exact same objective fundamentalist Muslims have!) — Kerry Thomasi, Online Journal >> “Behind the ‘unexamined nostalgia for the “Golden Days” of American intelligence’ lay a much more devastating truth: the same people who read Dante and went to Yale and were educated in civic virtue recruited Nazis, manipulated the outcome of democratic elections, gave LSD to unwitting subjects, opened the mail of thousands of American citizens, overthrew governments, supported dictatorships, plotted assassinations, and engineered the Bay of Pigs disaster. ‘In the name of what?’ asked one critic. ‘Not civic virtue, but empire’.” — Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (1999) >> … a more just world, a deeper democracy and a liveable planet … >> “Colin Powell’s presentation at the UN, February 5, 2003 seems like something out of Monty Python, with one key British report cited by Powell being nothing more than a student’s thesis, downloaded from the Web — with the student later threatening to charge U.S. officials with plagiarism.” — Bill Moyers >> “Venezuela’s well-off complain endlessly that their economic power has been diminished; it hasn’t; economic growth has never been higher, business has never been better. What the rich no longer own is the government.” – John Pilger Notes 1. Full list of US bombings since World War 2 2. Martin Kelly, publisher of a nonviolence website 3. Prensa Latina (Cuba), March 12, 2011 4. The Militant (US, Socialist Workers Party), April 4, 2011 5. Bloomberg news agency, September 19, 2007 6. Huffington Post, December 18, 2010 7. Wall Street Journal, “Cuban Doctors Come In From the Cold” (video), January 14 2011 –   03 June, 2011 Killinghope.org William Blum is the author of: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2 Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

 

 

Written by Franklin Lamb

Posted: 07 June 2011 11:02

Beirut: Perhaps historians or cultural anthropologists surveying the course of human events can identify for us a land, in addition to Palestine, where such a large percentage of a recently arrived colonial population prepared to exercise their right to depart, while many more, with actual millennial roots but victims of ethnic cleansing, prepared to exercise their right of Return. One of the many ironies inherent in the 19th century Zionist colonial enterprise in Palestine is the fact that this increasingly fraying project was billed for most of the 20th century as a haven in the Middle East for “returning” persecuted European Jews. But today, in the 21st century, it is Europe that is increasingly being viewed by a large number of the illegal occupiers of Palestinian land as the much desired haven for returning Middle Eastern Jews. To paraphrase Jewish journalist Gideon Levy “If our forefathers dreamt of an Israeli passport to escape from Europe, there are many among us who are now dreaming of a second passport to escape to Europe. Several studies in Israel and one conducted by AIPAC and another by the Jewish National Fund in Germany show that perhaps as many as half of the Jews living in Israel will consider leaving Palestine in the next few years if current political and social trends continue. A 2008 survey by the Jerusalem-based Menachem Begin Heritage Center found that 59% of Israelis had approached or intended to approach a foreign embassy to inquire about or apply for citizenship and a passport. Today it is estimated that the figure is approaching 70%. The number of Israelis thinking of leaving Palestine is climbing rapidly according to researchers at Bar-Ilan University who conducted a study published recently in Eretz Acheret, (“A Different Place”) an Israeli NGO that claims to promote cultural dialogue. What the Bar-Ilan study found is that more than 100,000 Israelis already hold a German passport, and this figure increases by more than 7,000 every year along an accelerating trajectory. According to German officials, more than 70,000 such passports have been granted since 2000. In addition to Germany, there are more than one million Israelis with other foreign passports at the ready in case life in Israel deteriorates. One of the most appealing countries for Israelis contemplating emigration, as well as perhaps the most welcoming, is the United States. Currently more than 500,000 Israelis hold US passports with close to a quarter million pending applications. During the recent meetings in Washington DC between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s delegation and Israel’s US agents, assurances were reportedly given by AIPAC officials that if and when it becomes necessary, the US government will expeditiously issue American passports to any and all Israeli Jews seeking them. Israeli Arabs need not apply. AIPAC also represented to their Israeli interrogators that the US Congress could be trusted to approve funding for arriving Israeli Jews “to be allocated substantial cash resettlement grants to ease transition into their new country.” Apart from the Israeli Jews who may be thinking of getting an “insurance passport” for a Diaspora land, there is a similar percentage of Jews worldwide who aren’t going to make aliyah. According to Jonathan Rynhold, a Bar Ilan professor specializing on U.S.-Israel relations, Jews may be safer in Teheran than Ashkelon these days—until Israel or the USA starts bombing Iran. Interviews with some of those who either helped conduct the above noted studies or have knowledge of them, identify several factors that explain the Israeli rush for foreign passports, some rather surprising, given the ultra-nationalist Israeli culture. The common denominator is unease and anxiety, both personal and national, with the second passport considered a kind of insurance policy “for the rainy days visible on the horizon,” as one researcher from Eretz Acheret explained. Other factors include: The fact that two or three generations in Israel has not proven enough to implant roots where few if any existed before. For this reason Israel has produced a significant percentage of “re-immigration” — a return of immigrants or their descendants to their country of origin which Zionist propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding, is not Palestine. Fear that religious fanatics from among the more than 600,000 settlers in the West Bank will create civil war and essentially annex pre-1967 Israel and turn Israel more toward an ultra-fascist state. Centripetal pressures within Israeli society, especially among Russian immigrants who overwhelmingly reject Zionism. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, some one million Jews have come to Israel from the former Soviet Union, enlarging the country’s population by 25 percent and forming the largest concentration in the world of Russian Jews. But today, Russian Jews comprise the largest group emigrating from Israel and they have been returning in droves for reasons ranging from opposition to Zionism, discrimination, and broken promises regarding employment and “the good life” in Israel. Approximately 200,000 or 22% of Russians coming to Israel since 1990 have so far returned to their country. According to Rabbi Berel Larzar, who has been Russia’s chief Rabbi since 2000, “It’s absolutely extraordinary how many people are returning. When Jews left, there was no community, no Jewish life. People felt that being Jewish was an historical mistake that happened to their family. Now, they know they can live in Russia as part of a community and they don’t need Israel.” No faith in or respect for Israeli leaders, most of whom are considered corrupt. Feelings of anxiety and guilt that Zionism has hijacked Judaism and that traditional Jewish values are being corrupted. The increasing difficulty of providing coherent answers to one’s children, as they become more educated and aware of their family history, and indeed honesty to oneself, on the question of why families from Europe and elsewhere are living on land and in homes stolen from others who obviously are local and did not come from some other place around the World. The recent growing appreciation, for many Israelis, significantly abetted by the Internet and the continuing Palestinian resistance, of the compelling and challenging Palestinians’ narrative that totally undermines the Zionist clarion of the last century of “ A Land without a People for a People without a Land.’ Fear mongering of the political leaders designed to keep citizens supporting the government’s policies ranging from the Iranian bomb, the countless ‘Terrorists” seemingly everywhere and planning another Holocaust, or various existential threats that keep families on edge and concluding that they don’t want to raise their children under such conditions. Explaining that he was speaking as a private citizen and not as a member of Democrats Abroad Israel, New York native Hillel Schenker suggested that Jews who come to Israel “want to make sure that they have the possibility of an alternative to return whence they came.” He added that the “insecurities involved in modern life, and an Israel not yet living at peace with any of its neighbors, have also produced a phenomenon of many Israelis seeking a European passport, based on their family roots, just in case.” Gene Schulman, a Senior American-Jewish fellow at the Switzerland-based Overseas American Academy, put it even more drastically, emphasizing that all Jews are “scared to death of what is probably going to become of Israel even if the U.S. continues its support for it.” Many observers of Israeli society agree that a major, if unexpected recent impetus for Jews to leave Palestine has been the past three months of the Arab Awakening that overturned Israel’s key pillars of regional support. According to Layal, a Palestinian student from Shatila Camp, who is preparing for the June 5th “Naksa” march to the Blueline in South Lebanon: “What the Zionist occupiers of Palestine saw from Tahir Square in Cairo to Maroun al Ras in South Lebanon has convinced many Israelis that the Arab and Palestinian resistance, while still in its nascence, will develop into a massive and largely peaceful ground swell, such that no amount of weapons or apartheid administration can insure a Zionist future in Palestine. They are right to seek alternative places to raise their families.” 04 June, 2011 Countercurrents.org Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and can be contacted at fplamb@gmail.com

 

 

Israeli troops killed 13 protesters, after opening fire on a peaceful and unarmed demonstration at the ceasefire line in the occupied Golan Heights.

After an attempt was made to cut a line of barbed wire in the Majdal Shams area, Israeli troops stopped firing warning shots and targeted protesters.

Syrian TV said 13 protesters were killed and 225 wounded.

According to AFP, its reporter saw “at least 20 people with injuries, some soaked in blood as they were evacuated from the scene”.

It noted, “On the Israeli side, Majdal Shams locals pleaded with soldiers to stop firing as troops used loudspeakers to warn demonstrators in Arabic that ‘anyone who comes close to the fence will be responsible for their own blood’”.

Fuad al-Sha’ar, an apple grower who lives in Majdal Shams, told Reuters, “This is like a turkey shoot”.

Dr. Ali Kanaan, the director of the Quneitra hospital, was reported by AP stating that five people had been killed and 94 wounded, with six in critical condition.

The Irish Times commented, “The event took on the trappings of a spectator event on Israeli television, which broadcast the scene live with running commentary from reporters on the ground. ‘Hopa!’ exclaimed a correspondent for Israel’s Channel 10 television. ‘A Palestinian youth just bolted from a trench. An Israeli sniper fired at him three times, but it looks like he missed’”.

Israel Radio reported that a large number of people were also hurt when an anti-tank mine was detonated at Quneitra, another protest site near the border.

Clashes also took place between hundreds of protesters who marched to the Qalandia checkpoint at Ramallah on the West Bank and at a Gaza march to the Erez border crossing. Troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets.

On the West Bank, a Palestinian medic said 14 Palestinians were wounded by rubber bullets. Israeli forces also deployed a ‘skunk mobile’, which sprays demonstrators with a foul-smelling liquid.

There were smaller demonstrations in Hebron and the village of Deir al-Hatab, where a march was attempted on the Israeli Elon Moreh settlement. Demonstrators gathered at a gas station near the village of Isawiyah in East Jerusalem, hurling rocks at security forces, and protesters near Mount Scopus hurled firebombs at the back of the Hadassah University Hospital.

There are numerous reports of injuries, though the numbers cited differ. Israel’s Channel 2 reported that over 50 people were wounded in clashes, while other sources cite over 100.

The protests were to mark the 44th anniversary of the Six-Day War, Naksa Day, when Israel captured the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

On May 15, Israel opened fire and killed at least 15 protesters who successfully breached the border with Syria and Lebanon—to mark the 1948 Palestinian exodus after the creation of Israel. This time, the Lebanese army banned any gatherings at its border with Israel.

The violence unleashed by the Israeli state and its treatment in the Israeli media suggest a regime that is increasingly desperate and unhinged, in the face of a wave of mass struggles now shaking the Arab world, from Tunisia and Egypt to Yemen and Bahrain. Indeed, there are growing signs of internal divisions over foreign policy, as top ex-Israeli intelligence officials publicly distance themselves from the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli government was unapologetic about suppressing both the most recent and the May 15 protests, claiming Syria was mounting the incursion in order to deflect attention from its own suppression of domestic anti-government protests. Israel’s chief military spokesman, brigadier-general Yoav Mordechai, described Israel’s response as “measured, focused and proper”.

Netanyahu told his cabinet, “Unfortunately, extremist forces around us are trying today to breach our borders and threaten our communities and our citizens. We will not let them do that”.

Israel’s military preparations were extensive. Thousands of troops were mobilised at Israeli borders with Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria and throughout the West Bank. Majdal Shams was classified as a military closed area, and a new fence and land mines were laid.

Responsibility for this latest Israeli outrage must also be laid at the door of the White House. Last month, President Barack Obama closed a week of discussion with Netanyahu by telling a May 22 meeting of the right-wing American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that the “commitment of the United States to the security of Israel is ironclad”, and that any final settlement with the Palestinians would have to take into account “the new demographic realities on the ground”.

Netanyahu has interpreted this correctly as giving him carte blanche to do whatever he sees fit to crush all resistance to Israel’s seizure of the Occupied Territories.

The Netanyahu government’s actions are so inflammatory that the former head of Mossad, Meir Dagan, who retired in January, described them as “irresponsible and reckless” in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

He stated that together with himself as head of Mossad, Yuval Diskin, the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, and IDF head Gabi Ashkenazi, the three could prevent Netanyahu and Barak from making mistakes. Now, however, all three have been replaced by men chosen by the current government. “Now I am afraid that there is no one to stop Bibi [Netanyahu] and [Defence Minister Ehud] Barak”, he said.

Dagan has warned publicly against barely concealed plans for Israel to attack Iran, warning that this would put Israel at the centre of a regional war.

His statements prompted Science and Technology Minister Daniel Herschkowitz to state that Dagan should stand trial, and Minister without Portfolio Yossi Peled to state that he had behaved irresponsibly and harmed Israel. “Israel needs to say that it will do everything to ensure its existence, and that’s it”, he said.

However, Kadima MK and former director of Shin Bet, Avi Dichter, said, “I’m glad he spoke out…. I don’t think there are any operational comments here. He didn’t discuss times or methods of attack”.

Rami Igra, a former senior Mossad official, also told the Jerusalem Post that Dagan “has a right to say what he thinks, and his view is based on many years of experience in security”.

Israel is still divided on regime change in Syria, but Barak has stated, “Assad is approaching the moment in which he will lose his authority…. I don’t think Israel should be alarmed by the possibility of Assad being replaced”.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also condemned the Western powers for not acting in support of the opposition in Syria like it has in Libya. “These inconsistencies send a damaging message to the people of the Middle East and further erode the path to peace, security and democracy for our region”, he said.

The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, has accepted an invitation from the Sarkozy government to attend a Paris conference in July seeking to revive peace talks with Israel, after French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé met with Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last week.

The PA said it accepted the invite only if both sides agree to halt unilateral actions, including Israel halting settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Netanyahu has no intention of doing so. He told the press, “We very much appreciate our French friends, and I will respond to them after weighing the matter…. We will study the proposal and also discuss it with our American friends”.

06 June, 2011
WSWS.org

 

 

What is Washington’s solution for the rising power of China? The answer might be to involve China in a nuclear war with India.

The staging of the fake death of Osama bin Laden in a commando raid that violated Pakistan’s sovereignty was sold to President Obama by the military/security complex as a way to boost Obama’s standing in the polls.

The raid succeeded in raising Obama’s approval ratings. But its real purpose was to target Pakistan and to show Pakistan that the US was contemplating invading Pakistan in order to make Pakistan pay for allegedly hiding bin Laden next door to Pakistan’s military academy. The neocon — and increasingly the US military — position is that the Taliban can’t be conquered unless NATO widens the war theater to Pakistan, where the Taliban allegedly has sanctuaries protected by the Pakistan government, which takes American money but doesn’t do Washington’s bidding.

Pakistan got the threat message and ran to China. On May 17, Pakistan’s prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, as he departed for China, declared China to be Pakistan’s “best and most trusted friend.” China has built a port for Pakistan at Gwadar, which is close to the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz. The port might become a Chinese naval base on the Arabian Sea.

Raza Rumi reported in the Pakistan Tribune (June 4) that at a recent lecture at Pakistan’s National Defense University, Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, asked the military officers whether the biggest threat to Pakistan came from within, from India, or from the US. A majority of the officers said that the US was the biggest threat to Pakistan.

China, concerned with India, the other Asian giant that is rising, is willing to ally with Pakistan. Moreover, China doesn’t want Americans on its border, which is where they would be should Pakistan become another American battleground.

Therefore, China showed its displeasure with the US threat to Pakistan, and advised Washington to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty, adding that any attack on Pakistan would be considered an attack on China. I do not think China’s ultimatum was reported in the US press, but it was widely reported in India’s press. India is concerned that China has stepped up to Pakistan’s defense.

The Chinese ultimatum is important, because it is a WWI or WWII level of ultimatum. With this level of commitment of China to Pakistan, Washington will now seek a way to maneuver itself out of the confrontation and to substitute India.

The US has been fawning all over India, cultivating India in the most shameful ways, including the sacrifice of Americans’ jobs. Recently, there have been massive US weapons sales to India, US-India military cooperation agreements, and joint military exercises.

Washington figures that the Indians, who were gullible for centuries about the British, will be gullible about the “shining city on the hill” that is “bringing freedom and democracy to the world” by smashing, killing, and destroying. Like the British and France’s Sarkozy, Indian political leaders will find themselves doing Washington’s will. By the time India and China realize that they have been maneuvered into mutual destruction by the Americans, it will be too late for either to back down.

With China and India eliminated, that leaves only Russia, which is already ringed by US missile bases and isolated from Europe by NATO, which now includes former constituent parts of the Soviet Empire. A large percentage of gullible Russian youth admires the US for its “freedom” (little do they know) and hates the “authoritarian” Russian state, which they regard as a continuation of the old Soviet state. These “internationalized Russians” will side with Washington, more or less forcing Moscow into surrender.

As the rest of the world, with the exception of parts of South America, is already part of the American Empire, Russia’s surrender will let the US focus its military might on South America. Chavez will be overthrown, and if others do not fall into line, more examples will be made.

The only way the American Empire can be stopped is for China and Russia to realize their danger and to form an unbreakable alliance that reassures India, breaks off Germany from NATO and defends Iran.

Otherwise, the American Empire will prevail over the entire world. The US dollar will become the only currency, and therefore be spared exchange-rate depreciation from debt monetization.

Gold and silver will become forbidden possessions, as will guns and a number of books, including the US Constitution.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury in the Reagan Administration, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal, Senior Research Fellow in the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and held the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University. He is the author or coauthor of nine books and has testified before committees of Congress on thirty occasions.

 

06 June, 2011
Countercurrents.org

 

 

Deepak Tripathi is a British historian, journalist and researcher who specializes in South and West Asia affairs, terrorism and the United States foreign policy. He was born into a political family in Unnao, the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. His grandfather, Pandit Vishwambhar Dayal Tripathi, was a prominent leader in the Indian independence movement and Member of the Constituent Assembly and later the Indian Parliament.

Deepak Tripathi worked with BBC for almost 23 years and ended up his cooperation with the British broadcaster in 2000. During these years, he served as a South Asia specialist and correspondent, Afghanistan correspondent and Syria , Nepal , Pakistan , India and Sri Lanka reporter. He has also been a BBC News and World Service Radio News producer.

Tripathi is a Member of the Political Studies Association and the Commonwealth Journalists Association.

His articles and commentaries on the international issues have appeared on Counterpunch, Foreign Policy Journal, Al-Ahram Weekly, Z Magazine and History News Network.

Deepak has authored several books including “Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism”, “Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan ” and “Dialectics of the Afghanistan Conflict: How the country became a terrorist haven.”

What follows is the complete text of my in-depth interview with Deepak Tripathi on the recent revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa, the civil war in Libya and the popular uprising in Bahrain .

Kourosh Ziabari: Do you consider the chained, continuous revolutions in the Arab world a result of pan-Arabist, nationalistic sentiments of the peoples of region who rose up? Well, the dictatorial regimes of the region have been ruling for so many decades, but the people in these countries revolted against them quite suddenly and unexpectedly. Has the economic factor been the main contributor to the emergence of Middle East revolutions? Was it all about paying a tribute to Mohamed Bouazizi that turned violent and became a set of revolutions ?

Deepak Tripathi: You have raised an important question. The answer is somewhat complex. Of course, from Libya to Bahrain there are similarities on the surface: repressive regimes, closed societies, ruling cliques imposing their will on the masses. Then there is the Orientalist syndrome in the West that Edward Said depicted so brilliantly in his book “Orientalism.” It is the tendency to lump all Muslims and other people in the East into one basket, and seeing them as exotic, but inferior, people who must be educated in western ways, and exploited. This is where lies the basic mistake, and it has proved disastrous.

The recent uprisings across the Arab world display two different currents. The bigger picture is that of people rising against pro-United States dictators, in Tunisia , Egypt , Yemen , Bahrain . On the other hand, we see Libya and Syria , which are not pro-US. Many in the populations of these countries are fed up and can take no more. They want to breath fresh air. Now, in an ideal world the people of each country should be allowed to choose their own destiny without outside interference, but that is not the case in the real world. Western interference is a major cause of resentment in many countries in the region.

Having said this, I believe each popular uprising has its roots in local conditions and causes. In Egypt , it was a people’s revolution, of men and women, young and old, Muslim and Christian. They succeeded in overthrowing Hosni Mubarak and his party, but the future is by no means certain; the United States , with allies, continues its interference. America has considerable power because of the huge aid it gives to the Egyptian military every year. So we will have to see what transpires in Egypt . Tunisia , which started all this, is the same – how do long-oppressed people ensure that the system changes to their liking, not just a few faces? In other places, too, things are far from certain. In Bahrain, where the pro-US Sunni ruling family, representing one-third of the population at most, is engaged in the brutal suppression of Shi‘a majority – nearly two-thirds of the population. In Bahrain, it is oil that drives Western policy of support for the ruling family; in Libya, too, oil drives policy, but there Britain, France and Italy, and to lesser extent the Obama administration in the United States, are supporting the anti-Gaddafi forces, because Gaddafi is too independent, too unpredictable. In Syria , oil is not a factor – perhaps one of the reasons why the Western response has so far been limited to condemnations and warnings. And the Yemeni president is America ‘s surrogate; Yemen is vital for the security of Saudi Arabia , America ‘s strongest ally after Israel and the most reliable oil supplier.

The last part of your question concerns the Tunisian, Mohamed Bouazizi, street vendor who set himself on fire after being harassed by corrupt police. Bouazizi certainly touched million and millions of people right across the region, because they could easily identify with his harassment and humiliation .

KZ: As you may admit, Bahrain has one of the blackest human rights records in the Persian Gulf region. Its longstanding tradition of suppressing the Shiites, persecuting the bloggers and journalists , incarcerating and torturing the political activists attest to the fact that despite being a close ally of the United States, Bahrain is not a democratic country based on American-championed values. Why does the United States support such a repressive regime? Does the United States consider Bahrain a proxy to confront the hegemony of Iran in the region ?

DT: Countering Iran is certainly the major factor behind US support for Bahrain , and explains the muted references from Washington to the brutality of Bahraini security forces – and let’s not forget many are foreign soldiers – and more recently Saudi forces who have entered the Emirate. The tactics used against peaceful demonstrators in Bahrain in recent weeks and months are some of the worst kind. How many countries are there in which hospitals are raided by security police and doctors treating wounded people are threatened?

As you know, Bahrain is a member of the Gulf cooperation Council, dominated by Saudi Arabia , and is there to prevent Iranian and Shiite influence spreading in the region. Bahrain is also the base of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which is so important for America ‘s strategy in the Gulf and the Middle East at large .

KZ: Do you agree with a military intervention in Libya ? We already know that the Gaddafi regime, before the authorization of no-fly zone over Libya by the Security Council, had massacred scores of unarmed and innocent civilians in air-strikes on different cities of the country . Is a NATO-led military expedition necessary to preclude the killing of civilians? What’s your prediction for the future of the civil war which is taking place in Libya ?

DT: The Gaddafi regime, no doubt, has been repressive over the last forty years, and I am very critical of its human rights record. It is Britain , France , Italy and the United States that have been swinging like a large pendulum: vehemently opposed to Gaddafi for decades, then friends with Gaddafi, and now enemies again.

I have several misgivings about the NATO military operation in Libya . My first and most serious objection is that NATO has gone far beyond the remit approved in the UN Security Council 1973, which authorized “all necessary measures” to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas, excluding foreign occupation forces on any part of the territory of Libya . Legal scholars have pointed out that “all necessary measures” means starting with peaceful means to resolve what seems to be a tribal civil war between pro- and anti-Gaddafi forces. In this respect, Libya is quite different from Egypt , where tens of millions of people from all sections of society rebelled against the Mubarak regime. Second, NATO military planes are now hitting government targets far from opposition-controlled areas. Tripoli and Gaddafi’s own compound have been bombed. This was not envisaged in the Security Council Resolution 1973. Regime change was not part of it. I think these are serious violations of the UN authorization. Third, NATO aircraft are now operating as if they were the air force of the anti-Gaddafi forces; British, French and Italian ‘military advisers’ have been deployed in Libya; and there is talk of sending troops. This is taking sides, and goes beyond protecting civilians. Worst of all, we now have confirmed reports that NATO planes are bombing and killing people on their own side, the anti-Gaddafi side; collateral damage in Western euphemism. Fourth, and this is very serious, the West is being highly selective in picking on an oil-rich country for military action, while its friends, Bahrain and Yemen , willfully repress their populations. I fear we will see a long war in Libya .

KZ: Many political commentators believe that whoever assumes power in Egypt following the establishment of new constitution and formation of new government will be less friendly to Israel than the regime of Hosni Mubarak was. The same analysts believe that the new government in Egypt will be necessarily less hostile to Iran compared with the Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Do you agree with them? What’s your take on that ?

DT: The climate in the Middle East has undergone a dramatic change following the Egyptian Revolution. Its effects go far beyond Egypt ‘s borders, and these effects will be long term. The people of Egypt and beyond yearn for democracy, human rights and dignity, but they are not going to be blind supporters of American policy. There will be all kinds of pressures, warnings, threats against the Egyptian military from the West that would like to indirectly control the peoples of the region. I hope that the military does not give in to these American-Israeli tactics. I believe that the ‘new Egypt’ – if it is allowed to choose its future path – will lead to a new climate that will mean better relations with Iran, Palestinians, and will be a force for good overall.

KZ: Answering to a question regarding the recent air-strikes on Libya , the White House spokesman Jay Carney said that it is not a U.S. policy to bring about regime change in Libya . It’s already clear to the international community that Gaddafi is a merciless terrorist. He massacred more than 6,500 citizens during the first three weeks of civil war in Libya . Why don’t the United States and its allies want to take action to change the regime of Gaddafi while they did the same with regards to Iraq and Afghanistan in a situation that they didn’t have any compelling excuse to do so? Is it all about American and European interests in Libya ‘s oil sector which is guaranteed by the Gaddafi regime?

DT: I have elaborated on the lack of consistency in Western policy, and the real factors behind Western and allied actions showing blatant disregard for universal human rights. Their actions amount to double standards wherever it suits them. They are not about democracy and human rights at all. Look at the reign of terror and torture under the ‘war on terror’ that President George W Bush waged, and that President Obama continues in Afghanistan , Pakistan and elsewhere.

KZ: Saudi Arabia was among the Arab countries which was somewhat encompassed by the wave of 2010-2011 protests of the Middle East and North Africa; however, it seems that strangulation and oppression , implicitly endorsed by the United States, is so intense that the people don’t have enough backbone and courage to rise up against the government and demand fundamental changes and reformations in the political structure of their country. Will the United States , as the most strategic partner of Saudi Arabia , allow the implementation of sociopolitical reforms in the structure the Saudi government? Will the sporadic movements of the Saudi people bear fruit ?

DT: Saudi Arabia is a closed society, in many ways that the Soviet Union was before 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. It took just six years for the Soviet state to collapse after the USSR began to open up. Communication and free movement are very difficult, if not impossible for the ordinary citizen, in such societies; and news of unrest does not readily reach the world. We know that Saudi citizens nevertheless do find ways to express their opposition, but they are crushed with brute force. Remember, Saudi Arabia ‘s security forces are among the best equipped in the Middle East , supplied by the Americans. They use these means to coerce their population. Despite all this, social discontent simmers under the surface. Failure to open up Saudi society and give the people their basic rights could have serious consequences.

KZ: Do you agree with the idea that the Middle East revolutions , specially the popular uprisings in Bahrain , Yemen , Jordan and Egypt , will be of Iran ‘s interests? Does the destabilization of U.S.-backed Arab regimes in the region empower Iran politically, strategically ?

DT: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to which I subscribe, a revolution in the political context is “forcible overthrow of a government or social order in favor of a new system.” Uprising is an “act of resistance or rebellion” to achieve that end. It is important not to confuse the meaning of the two terms. In the late twentieth century, what happened in 1979 in Iran was a revolution; and between 1989 and 1991 there were revolutions in what was then the Soviet bloc. In the new century in recent months, Egypt has had a revolution, in the sense that a dictator and his ruling party that had a monopoly over power, have fallen. What replaces it is not certain yet. We will have to see until after the elections at least.

Bahrain , Yemen , Jordan , Syria , perhaps Libya , are all experiencing rebellions of one kind or another. How it all ends in each case – we will have to wait and see. As of now, the ruling structures in these countries are shaking; they may be collapsing; but they are still there. Equally important, what impact does it all have on the Palestinian struggle will have to be seen.

In the wider geopolitical context, these events do indicate that the United States is losing its grip over the region. In fact, America had been losing its grip for some years. It is just that the military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and America ‘s militaristic foreign policy may have given the opposite appearance to those who fail to look beyond the immediate.

If the people of each country can decide how their country should be run, it would be a good thing. I find the idea that a big power far and away can dictate to others anywhere most objectionable. And I don’t see the events in West Asia as a victory for one country or another. The tide of history is going in its own inevitable direction; popular movements are making huge waves and contributing to that tide of history. The final outcome is not yet certain, so the struggle will need to go on.

KZ: What will be the implications of the Middle East revolutions for the Israeli regime? Will Israel suffer from the change of government in Egypt and the fundamental political reforms which are going to happen in Jordan ?

DT: I have alluded to these matters in my previous replies. I will summarize my answer here. What is happening in the Middle East at present is going to limit Israel ‘s scope for arbitrary conduct. The overthrow of the Mubarak regime in Egypt has been a huge setback to Israel , because frankly Mubarak was acting like an American and Israeli surrogate to continue the occupation of Palestinian territories, and in the broader interests of Western policy in the Middle East . In Jordan , as elsewhere, change looks inevitable, though I hesitate to predict what form it will take. I think it is never a good idea to underestimate the big players’ capacity for manipulation and deceit. In a sense, the West learned the lesson very quickly in Egypt , where it was slow to act during the anti-Mubarak protests. Eventually it dumped Mubarak when it realized he was a too big liability to carry, and then picked Libya and Syria to reestablish its pro-democracy credentials. The West, in the guise of NATO, has switched to a pro-democracy posture by siding with the anti-Gaddafi forces in Libya and with the opposition to Bashar al-Assad in Syria . But that makes Western policy in Bahrain , Saudi Arabia , and Yemen even more inconsistent, if not hypocritical .

By Kourosh Ziabari

06 June, 2011
Countercurrents.org

 

 

 

WASHINGTON, June 6 (UPI) — When a joint session of the U.S. Congress gave Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu 29 standing ovations — four more than U.S. President Barack Obama received for his last State of the Union message — there was little doubt that Israel is an integral part of the American body politic. It was a hard-line speech by an Israeli on the right of the Israeli spectrum that firmly rejected Obama’s proposal for Middle East peace: The pre-1967 war frontier with minor land swaps for both sides.

It was also a demonstration of why the United States cannot continue to pose as a “valid interlocutor” between Israelis and Palestinians. And why former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, quit as Obama’s peace negotiator after two years of long-distance commuting between the Mideast and the United States.

Former six-term U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., but more recently a Green Party candidate, told Iran’s “Press TV” she was required to sign, “as were all members of Congress, pledges of support for the military superiority of Israel and for Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” She also claimed her final term in Congress came to an end after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee “funneled money into the campaign of her Democratic Party primary opponent, Hank Johnson.

McKinney’s interview to Press TV came on the eve of the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington May 22. It was widely published over the Arab world.

AIPAC, with 100,000 members, is arguably the most powerful lobby in Washington and doesn’t have to register as a foreign agent.

The joke on Capitol Hill is that Israel doesn’t have to lobby because it’s the 51st state. Which Arab governments assume anyway.

With the new merger of the Palestinian authority and Hamas, dedicated to the destruction of Israel, along with civil wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen, as well as the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the “Arab Spring” didn’t even last till summer. Reasons enough for Netanyahu to conclude Israel has at least two more years to continue consolidating Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Complacency didn’t last long. The Syrian dictatorship, after killing more than 1,000 of its own people in countrywide anti-regime, pro-democracy demonstrations, organized Palestinian refugees to mark the 44th anniversary of the Arab defeat in the Six Day War by “peacefully” penetrating Israeli defenses on the Golan Heights. Several hundred showed up and ignored Israeli warnings to back off.

Israeli gunfire killed 22, wounded 350. This was clearly a Syrian attempt to detract world attention from its 8-week-long, bloody repression of anti-regime demonstrations. Foreign reporters were kept out but Twitter messages and cellphone news coverage kept the story center stage.

 

In the West Bank, Palestinians marked the 1967 war’s Nakba Day (“catastrophic setback”) by demonstrating up and down the separation wall; dozens were injured.

And Netanyahu faced an ugly low upon his return from a U.S. high.

The man who ran Israel’s formidable Mossad for eight years is criticizing Netanyahu for ignoring the 2002 Saudi Arabia peace plan — to which all 22 Arab governments subscribed. Israel was to withdraw to the pre-1967 war frontier with minor rectifications on either side. And all Arab governments agreed that in return they would recognize Israel diplomatically and commercially.

This, essentially, was the plan that Obama dusted off and Netanyahu shelved.

But ex-Mossad chief Meir Dagan is a dagger in Netanyahu’s body politic. And Dagan isn’t alone. Several former intelligence chiefs are lined up with Dagan. They also know first-hand how anxious Netanyahu is to detract from Palestinian pressure for their own state in the West Bank and Gaza — by bombing Iran’s nuclear installations.

As Dagan put it, “This would mean regional war and in that case you would give Iran the best possible reason to continue its nuclear program.”

And the regional challenge that Israel would then face, said the spy chief, “would be impossible.” He and his intel colleagues know that Iran has formidable asymmetrical retaliatory capabilities — from Bahrain, homeport for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, with a local population that is two-thirds Shiite, many of them pro-Iran, to the Hormuz Strait, Qatari and Saudi oil terminals, and Hezbollah and Hamas rockets and missiles.

Dagan, Yuval Diskin, head of Shin Bet, the internal security agency, and Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the military chief of staff, all stepped down this year, And Dugan made clear he and his retiring colleagues served as a brake on the gung-ho Bibi Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

According to Israeli media reports, a week before retiring, Dagan tried to send a message to the Israeli public to warn about Netanyahu’s plans for an attack on Iran. But military censorship blocked any reporting of Dagan’s views. He was no sooner officially retired than he evaded the censors.

Haaretz front-paged a commentary by Ari Shavit that said, “It’s not the Iranians nor the Palestinians who are keeping Dagan awake at night, but Israel’s leadership.”

Dagan appeared on stage at Tel Aviv University last week, where he told Shavit he is deeply worried about the next turn of the Palestinian wheel at the U.N. General Assembly in New York next September. This is when the Palestinians will request recognition of a Palestinian state with its pre-1967 war borders.

The vote is expected to be unanimous — other than two dissenters: The United States and Israel.

 

This is when Dagan expects Netanyahu to attack Iran. By going public now, he hopes to put the kibosh on the well-rehearsed plan.

Israeli media added other intelligence names against the prime minister, e.g., Amos Yadlin, also retiring as head of military intelligence.

Dagan is no wooly-headed liberal, reported The New York Times. He was first appointed by super hawk Ariel Sharon. He served under three prime ministers and was reappointed twice.

He is credited with major intel operations that destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 and organized the successful assassination of key Hezbollah operatives who were planning to kill Israelis.

Dagan detractors — and there are many in the ranks of the governing coalition — accuse him of grandstanding as he prepares a political debut. But by law, after serving as a top spy chief, he has to wait three years before entering the political arena.

6 June, 2011

 

 

 

 

Muammar Gaddafi remains hunkered down in Tripoli, ever defiant despite the the heaviest bombing of NATO’s three-month campaign. But outside Libya, the talk has moved on from war to the business opportunities offered by a post-Gaddafi Libya.

It’s hard to envision a booming Libyan economy with the country’s communication infrastructure shattered by bombs and its oil fields abandoned and idle. Yet economists and investors say that as an intensifying NATO campaign brings Gaddafi’s 42-year rule closer to its end, a bright future lies ahead — with Libya’s mammoth energy reserves capable of financing a postwar development program strong enough to serve as a growth engine for the region. “Libya has $250 billion in foreign-exchange reserves, and it can just keep on tapping into foreign currency because of its oil sales,” says Jacob Kolster, North Africa director for the African Development Bank. “The potential is huge.” (Read about what mediating in Libya could cost Medvedev.)

Gaddafi’s Libya is hardly poor, with few of the problems that beset neighboring Egypt, where about 40% of people live on about $2.50 or less a day. The average Libyan household income is more than $14,000 a year, according to U.N. statistics, and the literacy rate is about 86%.

Assuming that Libyans can find an inclusive political consensus that minimizes the risk of an Iraq-style insurgency after Gaddafi goes, Libya’s natural wealth and educated population positions it for a massive boom — if peace, stability and a business-friendly government can be established, all of which are big ifs. The country retains considerable sovereign wealth, even if much of it is currently frozen abroad at the moment. And international energy companies that have suspended their Libya operations as a result of the conflict plan to return as soon as sufficient security has been restored to begin pumping oil again. (Read “Death, Prison or Exile: Gaddafi Is Out of Options.”)

Even the war damage could, ironically, drive economic growth through the massive investment that will be needed to replace bombed-out communications infrastructure, airports and buildings. “We will need to build virtually anew the entire modern infrastructure,” Kolster told TIME in Lisbon, where hundreds of investors and bankers are gathered this week for the African Development Bank’s annual meetings. Libya is one of the 53 African members of the bank, which is headquartered in Tunis, and manages about $67 billion in capital.

The investment stakes in Libya, say the African bankers who are meeting in Lisbon — where neither the regime nor the rebels have sent representatives — are not focused on the country’s energy contracts, most of which are already accounted for. Instead, the opportunities lie in developing other potential industries. There is no tourist development along Libya’s hundreds of miles of pristine Mediterranean coastline, a short hop from Europe. And thousands of square miles of arable land lie relatively undeveloped.

Libya itself already holds major investments throughout Africa, including a chain of luxury hotels owned by Gaddafi’s regime in Mali, Sudan and elsewhere. Gaddafi’s successor will be pressed by the banking community to privatize those hotels, perhaps selling them to foreign partners. “There’s a drastic reshuffling of the decks,” says Papa Madiaw Ndiaye, CEO of Advanced Finance & Investment Group, a private-equity company in Dakar, Senegal, which invests in projects across Africa. “It’s a chance for new people to get into these countries and bring in a whole new energy.”

 

 

9 June 2011

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates declared on March 25, 2011 “ that there are 3 repressive regimes in the Middle East that must be condemned “ Syria, Libya and Iran. Why is the U.S. targeting these particular countries?

The progressive political movement must avoid being just an echo and a justification of Pentagon war policy, especially whenever any developing country is in the cross hairs of a U.S. attack.

Consider: isn’t Israel a criminally repressive regime against the Palestinian population? Aren’t Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan repressive regimes, military dictatorships and/or corrupt monarchies? All of these brutally repressive regimes have killed of thousands of their own population and could not survive one day without decades of U.S. military, economic, diplomatic and political support. Is the U.S., with the largest prison population in the world and more weapons than the rest of the world put together, a repressive regime? It is the source of repression, destabilization, dictatorships and wars.

It is within this context that progressives must view the demonstrations that have been taking place for two months against the Bashir Assad government in Syria. The regime has both acknowledged that reforms are essential and responded with force. The actual character and the social forces involved in these demonstrations remains unclear, as does the political direction of the Syrian opposition.

The events in Syria are connected to the social explosion shaking the Arab world. Washington and all the old regimes tied to it in the region are trying desperately to manage and contain this still unfolding mass upheaval into channels that do not threaten their domination of the region.

The attitude of the U.S. government towards these upheavals has varied widely. When the U.S. supports the government, it takes a hands-off or even a hostile approach to the uprising, as in Bahrain and Yemen. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia made every effort to save the Saleh dictatorship in the face of a massive uprising. But when the country has taken an independent course from that desired by the U.S., Washington supports peoples genuine grievances with intense military, political, diplomatic support, new sanctions, sabotage teams, covert actions and extensive media coverage. All focused to further destabilize and inflame the situation.

The corporate media and the U.S. State Department give the impression that most of Syria has taken to the streets against Assad. Unlike her benign attitude toward the monarchy in Bahrain, and the 32 year dictatorship in Yemen, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton constantly criticizes and attacks the Syrian government. Anyone trying to understand the developments in that region has to ask, “Why the difference?”

It is clear that the U.S. and its allies are trying to use these protests in Syria to their own advantage. This has nothing to do with any demands raised by Syrian workers, who are suffering from an austerity plan imposed by the International Monetary Fund in 2006. Despite the difficulties for many Syrian workers, many Middle East pundits, even those from the establishment, admit that the Syrian government has a strong base of support in the population.

More than 6,000 aerial sorties and 3,700 U.S./NATO bombings of Libya has clarified where imperialism stands regarding that country. But Syria is also targeted by imperialism, even if it is not yet the target of U.S.-NATO air force. Decades of Zionist occupation of Syrian land has put Syria on the front line, and Damascus has supported and is currently supporting the Palestinian resistance and its refusal to recognize the Zionist occupation. The imperialists also condemn Syria’s assistance to Hezbollah in their struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Lebanon and they condemn Syria’s strategic alliance with Iran. The NATO Powers want to stamp out all support for any form of resistance to their domination and make these countries again, as captives of Western imperialism, mere day laborers for multi-national corporations.

Wikileaks exposes U.S. role

An article entitled “U.S. secretly backed Syrian opposition Groups” by Craig Whitlock (Washington Post, April 18) described in great detail the information contained in U.S. diplomatic cables that Wikileaks had sent to news agencies around the world and posted on its web site. The article summarizes what these State Department cables reveal about the secret funding of Syrian political opposition groups, including the beaming of anti-government programming into the country via satellite television.

The article describes the U.S.-funded efforts as part of a “long-standing campaign to overthrow the country’s autocratic leader, Bashir al-Assad.” These efforts began under President George W. Bush. They continued under President Barack Obama, even though Obama claimed to be rebuilding relations with Syria and posted an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in six years.

It is not difficult to see why the U.S. and its clients in the region, including Israel and the corrupt dependent monarchies of Jordan, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, want to see “regime change” in Syria.

Syria is one of the few Arab states that have no relations with Israel. Several Palestinian resistance organizations have offices-in-exile in Syria, including Hamas. Syria has been allied closely with Iran and with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Syrian state represents contradictory forces. It has at times tried to defend the gains won in the anti-colonial struggles and upheavals by the Arab masses in 1960s and 1970s. But the regime in Syria has also harshly repressed efforts of mass movements based in Lebanon and Syria that wanted to take the struggle further in the mid-1970s.

Years of U.S. sanctions and past destabilization efforts have also had a cumulative effect. The state apparatus, facing the real threat of outside intervention, has acted conservatively to avoid change.

Syria has also had to provide for more than 500,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants for the past 63 years. Unlike in Lebanon and Jordan, Palestinians in Syria have access to health care, education and housing.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq stimulated sectarian violence, which created the refugee crisis and displaced more than 25 percent of the Iraqi population. More than 1.5 million of these Iraqi refugees have flooded into Syria. This was a huge influx for a country with a population in 2006 of 18 million.

The unexpected arrival of these Iraqi refugees has had a dramatic impact on the infrastructure, on guaranteed free elementary and high schools, on free health care, on housing availability and other areas of the economy. It has led to a rise in costs across the board. The prices of foodstuffs and basic goods have gone up by 30 percent, property prices by 40 percent and housing rentals by 150 percent. (Middle East Institute, Dec. 10, 2010 report on Refugee Cooperation) The regime’s acceptance of IMF demands also increased inequalities and suffering among Syria’s workers and poor.

The diverse nationalities, religions and cultural groupings in Syria and especially its workers and poor have every right to raise demands of the regime. But just as the other peoples of the region, what the Syrians need most is an end to constant, unrelenting U.S. intervention.

Antiwar activists, trade union and community activists and progressives fighting for social justice must take a firm stand against all forms of U.S. and European intervention in Syria and against all countries in the region.

International Action Center

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http://iacenter.org/nafricamideast/syria060811

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Governorates- Academic, religious and jurist personalities on Wednesday condemned the brutal massacre perpetrated by the armed terrorist gangs in Jisr al-Shoughor against police and security men which claimed the lives of 120 security personnel and policemen.

The jurists considered the acts of killing and mutilation as terrorist crimes, warning of the moral and psychological harm such crimes may cause to the families of the martyrs and people.

“Those heinous crimes must be punished with all means because they are considered as crimes against the state internal security… The state should use all means to protect citizens and maintain the country’s security and stability,” Dr. Issa Makhoul, Professor of the Faculty of Law at Damascus University said in a statement to SANA.

Dr. Adib Akil, Head of Sociology Department at Damascus University said the body mutilation was existed throughout history, adding “mutilation comes from a number of reasons including the malice, hatred of some terrorists to feed sedition and instigation.”

“The purpose of those heinous acts is to harm the state dignity, threat social and national security and destabilize the country where the terrorists started to target the most difficult link, which means members of the army and security personnel,” Dr. Akil said.

In Aleppo, Mufti of the northern Syrian city Mahmoud Akkam underlined that those crimes are inhuman, saying “bloodshed and targeting the properties are prohibited in Islam… our prophet Mohammad prohibited killing the innocents.”

For his part, Professor of the psychological Hygiene at Aleppo University Mohamad Abdullah described the behavior of those who carried out the massacres and acts of mutilation as unsociable behavior or anti-sociable personality.

JISR AL-SHUGHOUR, IDLEB- The Syrian TV broadcast photos of the brutal massacres perpetrated by organized armed terrorist groups against the civilians and the army, police and security forces groups in Jisr al-Shughour in the province of Idleb.

Members of the terrorist groups used government cars and military uniform to commit their crimes of killing, terrifying people and sabotaging

They filmed themselves committing vandalism acts to manipulate the photos and videos and distort the reputation of the army.

The terrorists attacked police and security centers as well as other governmental and private institutions, violated the streets, neighborhoods and houses and used rooftops to sniper and shoot at citizens and security forces.

The criminal groups didn’t stop there. They also set up ambushes for police and security forces, mutilated the bodies of some martyrs and threw the bodies of others into the Orontes River, in addition to putting barriers on the roads and terrifying people.

The groups members also kidnapped a number of the martyrs’ bodies and buried them in the ground to later promote them as if they are mass graves with the help of the channels they are working with in inciting against Syria.

The citizens in Jisr al-Shughour called for the help of the army and security forces to enter the city and protect them and their children against the crimes of those terrorist groups and punish them severely.

The number of the martyrs of police and security members exceeded 120 until Monday evening, who were killed at the hands of the armed terrorist groups in Jisr al-Shughour.

The injured members of the security forces who were attacked on Monday by armed terrorist groups in Jisr al-Shughour narrated the details of the attack.

One of the wounded security members, Murad Qadour, said “At ten o’clock and a half we were subjected to a surprise attack by armed terrorist groups and I was shot in my right foot, then I was hospitalized to Idleb Hospital at seven pm…Later, I was moved to Aleppo Hospital and my health condition is stable now…I stress that I will sacrifice my soul for the sake of my motherland and its leader.”

Another injured security member, Ahmad Ali, said “We moved to support our colleagues in Jisr al-Shughour as they were surrounded by armed terrorists…We passed through a road between the mountains where we were ambushed by armed groups and they opened fire on us.

Ali added “A number of the security members were martyred by the fire of the gunmen who were using various types of weapons such as the snipers, machineguns and rifles,” indicating that a number of the bodies were mutilated.

An injured security member, Hassan Dalou, said “We were ambushed by terrorist groups on the road between the mountains while we were in the way to support our colleagues who were cordoned off by armed terrorist groups in Jisr al-Shoghour and they opened fire on us.

Dalou affirmed that a huge number of the security members were injured and martyred, denying the news broadcast by the channels of instigation and sedition.

He indicated that the citizens of the area know the truth and they know that what the instigation channels broadcast are lies and fabrications as the task of the security forces is to protect the citizens from the armed groups.

Injured security member, Ja’afar Taher Mahmoud, said “The armed groups displaced some of citizens from their houses to booby-trap them and to prepare an ambush,” indicating that he and his colleagues thought that those who were in the houses and farms were peasants and they were surprised as they opened fire on them from four directions.

For their part, a number of Idleb citizens stressed that the members of the army and security forces are their brothers and those who attack them are conspiring against Syria, condemning the massacres perpetrated by the armed terrorist groups in Jisr al-Shoghour as 120 members of the military, security and police forces were martyred

Citizen, Abu Mohammad, said that the terrorist groups mutilated the bodies of the martyrs and buried a huge number of them behind the security detachment as they killed them to say later that they found a mass grave and to convey this news to the biased satellite channels which instigate against Syria.

 

Wednesday 08-06-2011

 

How is fabricated news exploited to propagate incitement and Zionist schemes?

On the 20th of the past March, the Syrian opposition activist, Mamoun Al-Homsi (a former Syrian MP), declared news that “upon the statement of eye witnesses, who were doctors treating those wounded during the clashes in the Amawi Mosque several days earlier, some of the wounded persons had a Lebanese accent and belonged to Hizbullah.” Commenting on this claim, Robert Danin, using the name Robert Dani this time, wrote in an inaccurate, “accented”, and informal Arabic: “Such talk is true. I’ve learned that three weeks ago; 1,500 mercenary fighters of Hizbullah arrived in Syria to support basher Al-Assad.”

Not only did Robert Dani (or Danin) post this “news” on the wall of the page entitled “Freedom for Syria’s People – We Deserve to Live in Dignity”, but also he “did a further virtue” by reporting what the Kuwaiti “Al-Siyasa(the Politics)” Newspaper had written concerning the same topic, in addition to mentioning what other Arabic newspapers, fed by the American-Zionist stream, had written. Such steps represented an attempt to confirm his “information” that he had made up in the beginning of the discussion of this topic.

What’s funny about this is that the group administration (Freedom for Syria – We Deserve to Live in Dignity) was quite interested in Mr. Robert Dani’s news, whereby the group administrator’s comment bore an obvious exclamation “Shit! Now Bashar needs Hizbullah! Why doesn’t he get the army’s help? Is he afraid of a military coup?”

So, Robert Danin’s news has affected the group owners and maybe its members too. This, in fact, shows the significance of the dangerous, provocative role this person is performing amid the groups he shares, not to forget these groups’ concentration on the issue of the current turbulences in Syria.

This “adherer” to the freedom of the Syrian people is frankly an antagonist of the Arabic Nation and its issues. Also, he is one of the propagators of the Zionist points of view as regards the regional issues. And this is, in actually, apparent through his academic writings and the political, security, and intelligence roles he’s performed throughout his carrier record.

So who’s Robert Danin?

Having monitored the position this person has held throughout his life, we can provide the following information about him:

Danin has been a former American consul in Al-Quds (Jerusalem), a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Strategic Planning Affairs of the “Israeli”-Arabic negotiations, a Head of the “Israeli”-Palestinian Department of the American National Security Council, a chief representative of the Quartet of Mideast and North Africa mediators, and a Head of the Foreign Ministry Political Committee of the Middle East Issues.

What catches your interest is that Danin has also been a researcher of the US State Department Intelligence Unit, and he has been a researcher of the Washington Institute for Near East Policies.

As for the most conspicuous diplomatic mission that Danin has undertaken has been the Head of Mission at the Office of Quartet Representative (Tony Blair), the Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Currently he works as a major researcher at the Foreign Relations Council in Washington. Moreover, the “Israeli Haaretz” Newspaper has described him as one of the key personalities of the “Peace Team” in the Middle East.

Among Danin’s “virtues” was the mentioning of his name in a “Wikileaks” cable published by “Haaretz” Newspaper, whereby he reported racial sayings by one of the commanders of the Zionist Labor Party, Isaac Hertzog, against the leader of the Labor Party at that time, Amir Peretz, since the latter is an Eastern Jewish. However, the Hebrew media means reported Danin’s denial regarding this topic, whereby he said he had never heard any talk from Hertzog against the (Moroccan) Jews or any criticism against Amir Peretz.

So far, this has been the published information concerning Robert Danin. Still, tracking him on the internet, particularly on the Social Network Facebook, will unveil that Robert Danin’s (or Dani’s) social network doesn’t show a lot of “friends”. For instance, he’s got only ten friends, two of whom are Americans, whereas the others are “Israelis”; one of these Americans works for the American Military and belongs to “the American military Channel”.

In fact, the access into this Channel is limited for the militants assigned internet tasks.

How many roles does Robert Danin play on the stage of incidents? And which “bargain” has directed him towards the anti-regime Syrian pages to stir riot against the regime through the Social Network Facebook? Why has he briefed his formal-life name, Robert Danin, into Robert Dani that appears on the Network Facebook? In regard to the ill-willed security roles he’s been performing through his “Facebook life” which bears heaps of provocation, riots incitement, and rumors propagation, it seems probable he’s avoiding imposing the burdens of these roles on his diplomatic life (which isn’t honorable anyway); is it so?

These questions are subject for research and follow-up. Nevertheless, greater questions may be posed concerning the roles the American Intelligence plays as to targeting the forces of resistance and withstanding, as to provoking peoples against these forces, and as to attempting to set these forces up.

In brief, some of our Nation’s people have been driven by personalities as Robert Danin and other sly Americans and Zionist intelligence and security officials. Some of our Nation’s people are lured and driven by the West and are working for the sake of the Western interests – even if this means great division of our countries and deprivation of the power factors we own. Such fact has inflicted injuries upon all of us. Hereupon, we can’t pose the question regarding how those people do so without their realization of the embedded purposes in these Westerners’ moves. If we pose this question, then it will remind us of our past injuries, which is something we wish to avoid.

 

Al-Intiqad

Tuesday 07-06-2011