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The public discussion about the widening gap between rich and poor hasn’t been this loud since the Great Depression. Warren Buffett has condemned the disparity, Occupy Wall Street has inveighed against it, President Barack Obama cites it to justify higher taxes on the wealthy. Much of the debate, though, has focused on inequality’s moral dimension. Somehow it just doesn’t seem right that so many Americans struggle while a handful prospers. What many are missing is the actual impact rising inequality is having on the U.S. economy. Hint: It isn’t good.

Since 1980 about 5 percent of annual national income has shifted from the middle class to the nation’s richest households. That means the wealthiest 5,934 households last year enjoyed an additional $650 billion beyond what they would have had if the economic pie had been divided as it was in 1980, according to Census Bureau data.

The typical U.S. household, meanwhile, has yet to regain the ground it lost during the recession. The median income of $49,445 at the end of 2010 remains a shade below the level reached in 1997, adjusted for inflation. “Income inequality in this country is just getting worse and worse and worse,” says James Chanos, president and founder of money managers Kynikos Associates. “And that is not a recipe for stable growth.”

In the 1960s economists such as the late Arthur M. Okun, who was chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, believed that societies could emphasize equality or growth, not both. Today, when the quality of the workforce plays a larger role in determining who prospers, many economists—including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke—now believe that equality and growth are linked. As Branko Milanovic, a World Bank economist, wrote in September: “Widespread education has become the secret to growth. And broadly accessible education is difficult to achieve unless a society has a relatively even income distribution.”

Thus the growing chasm in the U.S. between the haves and the have-nots has serious consequences. Societies that manage a narrower gap between rich and poor enjoy longer economic expansions, according to research published this year by the International Monetary Fund. Income trends in the U.S. mean that future U.S. expansions could last just one-third as long as in the late 1960s, before the income divide began widening, says economist Jonathan D. Ostry of the IMF. The average postwar economic boom lasted 4.8 years, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. The current expansion, which is just 27 months old, may peter out within a few months. Goldman Sachs said on Oct. 3 that the U.S. would be “on the edge of recession” by early 2012.

Expansions fizzle sooner in less equal societies because they are more vulnerable to both financial crises and political instability. When such countries are hit by external shocks, they often stumble into gridlock rather than agree to tough policies needed to keep growth alive. Raghuram G. Rajan, the IMF’s former chief economist, says political systems in economically divided countries become polarized and immobilized by the sort of zero-sum politics now gripping Washington. “It makes the politics more difficult, and that makes it more difficult to grow,” says Rajan, now a finance professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. “There is no consensus on any of the solutions that are proposed.”

As rich and poor drift apart, the constituency that favors redistributive tax and spending policies grows. “The guys who are falling behind don’t see much hope of getting ahead and therefore are more focused on redistribution,” says Rajan. Ultimately, unbridled inequality threatens social stability as rich and poor nurse their mirror-image resentments.

Inequality is not just a problem for the have-nots. Barry Ritholtz, chief executive officer of the investment research firm Fusion IQ, says millions of potential investors may conclude, as they did after the Great Depression, that the market is a rigged game for insiders. Such seismic shifts in popular sentiment can have lasting effects. The Dow Jones industrial average didn’t regain its September 1929 peak of 355.95 until 1954. “You’re going to lose a generation of investors,” says Ritholtz. “And that’s how you end up with a 25-year bear market. That’s the risk if people start to think there is no economic justice.”

During the 1920s and the most recent decade the rich enjoyed large income gains, while politicians encouraged the poor and middle class to use credit to make up for flat-lining wage income, according to Rajan’s 2010 book, Fault Lines. Household debt nearly doubled in both periods, setting the stage for the Great Depression and the latest financial crisis, says a December 2010 paper by economists Michael Kumhof and Romain Rancière of the IMF. That increasing debt burden exposed the economy to widespread defaults when the financial shocks of 1929 and 2008 hit. “If nothing is done about income inequality, there may be recurring crises,” says Kumhof. “Leverage has not significantly improved. In terms of the danger of another crisis, we’re right back where we started.”

The bottom line: With $650 billion in income shifted to the top 5,934 households, the result could be shorter recoveries and gun-shy investors.

16 November 2011

By David J. Lynch

@ Bloomberg Businessweek

Lynch is a reporter for Bloomberg News.

 

Now that Tunisia’s elections have passed – with just minor incidents – and the Islamist Ennahda party won the largest share of votes, the country waits for the constituent assembly to be formed, and to see what changes will be effected in Tunisian politics. It will prove to be an exciting time, as the three parties with most votes look towards a coalition, and expect to face serious challenges from within and without.

In early 1994, a small Islamic think tank affiliated with the University of South Florida (USF) planned an academic forum to host Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of the main opposition party in Tunisia, Ennahda. The objective of this annual event was to give western academics and intellectuals a rare opportunity to engage an Islamically-oriented intellectual or political leader at a time when the political discourse was dominated by Samuel Huntington’s much-hyped clash of civilisations thesis. Shortly after the public announcement of the event, pro-Israeli groups and advocates led by Martin Kramer, Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson, the head of the local B’nai B’rith, and a small-time journalist for the local right-wing newspaper began a coordinated campaign to discredit the event and scare the university.

According to Arthur Lowrie, a former State Department official who was an adjunct professor at USF at the time, AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups exerted enormous pressure on the State Department to rescind its visa to Ghannouchi two weeks after it was issued in London. Consequently the university had to cancel the event, despite the strong protests by more than two-dozen scholars and academics. As a result, a valuable encounter between western intellectuals and opinion makers on the one hand, and a major figure in the Islamic world on the other, was obstructed because of a foreign agenda of a small but powerful interest group. This episode foreshadowed the anti-intellectual movement in subsequent years that sought to limit the ability of Islamic groups and figures to contribute to the national dialogue, especially after 9/11.

Since that day in 1994, Ghannouchi has never been issued a visa to enter the United States, although he had been to the country several times in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At the time, he was living in the United Kingdom after being granted political asylum and cleared by the British authorities of any links to violence. He had also won a defamation lawsuit in the UK against detractors and regime loyalists who accused him of fomenting violence and strife inside Tunisia.

Seventeen years later, Ghannouchi’s Islamically-oriented Ennahda movement won the elections in Tunisia with a commanding forty-two percent of the vote. In effect, it received three times as many seats as the next highest party. These elections were largely praised by all relevant parties and international observers as democratic, free, fair, and transparent.

But these free and fair elections could not have taken place without the popular revolution that erupted last 17 December in Sidi Bouzid following decades of repression and rampant corruption. It quickly spread throughout the country, ultimately culminating on 14 January when the long-time dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and his family fled to Saudi Arabia.

Since Tunisia’s independence from France in 1956, the country has been ruled by a one-party system that imposed its autocratic version of strict secularism. But when Ben Ali took power in a bloodless coup in 1987, he treated the country to a brief period of political openness until the security apparatus cracked down on all political opposition, particularly Ennahda and other pro-democracy and human rights groups.

So who were the major contenders in these elections? What was the main platform of each party? How did each one fair in the end? What do the results mean for Tunisia? And what happens next?

On 23 October, Tunisians went to the polls for the first time since their revolution to elect a Constituent National Assembly (CNA) consisting of 217 seats, including eighteen representing more than one million expatriates living abroad, out of 11 million Tunisians. The main role of the CNA is to write a new constitution for Tunisia that embodies the democratic aspirations of the popular revolution.

There were more than ninety party lists as well as independents distributed over twenty-seven geographical districts around the country and six districts abroad, mainly in Europe. According to the Tunisian Independent Elections Commission, the voter turnout exceeded all estimates, as nearly ninety percent of all registered voters participated, with some waiting as long as four hours to cast their votes. Amidst the dozens of lists, there were actually four major contenders. But a win of nine percent of the votes by a newly-formed party with questionable leadership was a major surprise to all political observers in Tunisia. Here is a list of the election’s major winners and losers.

1.         Ennahda Party was the successor to the Tunisian Islamic Trend Movement that was once affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1960s and has been led by Ghannouchi, 70, since the mid 1970s. In 1989 it changed its name to Ennahda or Renaissance Party and declared its commitment to democracy and pluralism. The movement considers itself a moderate Islamic party concerned with the preservation of Tunisia’s identity as an Arab and Islamic nation. For much of the past decade it has called for a political model similar to Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Reccep Tayyip Erdogan. More recently, it has advocated the accommodation of liberal and secular-humanist values with Islamic principles, especially in social and economic spheres. It also favours a parliamentary system of government.

After almost gaining a fifth of the vote in the 1989 elections, Ben Ali banned the movement and cracked down on its institutions, imprisoning around thirty thousand of its members over the span of two decades. As the main opposition group in the past three decades, Ennahda was well organised and known throughout the country. Its leaders were respected and admired not only in urban centres but also in rural areas. Consequently, in this election it won overwhelmingly in all districts but one, gaining 90 seats, including half the seats abroad.

2.         Congress for the Republic (CFR). Established in 2001, it has been led by Moncef Marzouki, 66, a charismatic physician and human rights advocate. The CFR is considered a leftist party that emphasises Arab nationalism and identity as well as mainly secular values. Moreover, it calls for public accommodation of moderate Islamic principles and groups. It also advocates for a presidential system with strong parliamentary powers. Marzouki is well-known for his fierce advocacy of human rights, democracy and transparency. CFR came in second in voting, receiving thirty seats across the country.

3.         Bloc (Takattol) for Labour and Liberties. Established in 1994 by progressive and leftist activists and professionals, Takattol rejected dictatorship and advocated for socialist and nationalist policies. Its leader is Mustafa Bin Jaafar, 71, who was named health minister in the cabinet appointed shortly after the revolution. Although very secular in its policies, it recognises the importance of Islam in society and has a moderate and accommodationist view on the inclusion of political Islam in public life. It gained twenty-one seats in the elections.

4.         The Progressive Democratic Party (PDP). Established in 1998, PDP was considered the main opposition party challenging the corrupt ruling party during the reign of Ben Ali. It advocated strict secular principles and was regarded as the main ideological nemesis of Ennahda. Its historical leader was Ahmad Nejib Chabbi, 67, a well known attorney and leftist politician. Since 2006 it has been led by Maya Jribi, 51, a biologist, human rights activist, and feminist with enormous political skills. During the campaign, PDP leaders challenged Ennahda and pledged to come first. However, it was crushed in the elections, receiving only seventeen seats. After the elections it conceded defeat and congratulated Ennahda, but vowed not to join any governing coalition and to remain in the opposition.

5.         Popular List (Al-Aridha Chabiyya). The elections result of this list was a complete surprise to all observers. This list, which has existed for only few months, was led by Al-Hashmi Al-Hamdi, the owner of a television satellite channel based in London and a former Ennahda member who broke with the group in the mid 1990s. Since then he has openly attacked Ennahda and worked closely with Ben Ali’s regime. His group gained nineteen seats in the elections.

Many political observers charge that this party was financed and supported by the remnants of the old regime and Ben Ali’s banned Constitutional Party. After announcing the results, the elections commission invalidated the seats of the Popular List in six districts, charging the party with elections violations, including bribery. The remaining seats were distributed over twenty other parties including tribal, liberal, communist, and other far-left parties.

Significantly, the main loser in the election was the coalition of eleven rigidly anti-Islamic secular parties and former communists under the Democratic Modernist Pole (DMP). The DMP could not garner more than five seats throughout the country.

The huge win by Ennahda, followed by CFR, represents a total break from the parties and political movements of the corrupt and repressive era of Ben Ali. The collective will of the Tunisian people as embodied by the results of this election was to empower the main groups that associated strongly with moderate Islamic principles and Arab-Islamic identity.

By choosing moderate political groups that were not corrupt or part of the old archaic political structure, the Tunisian people sent an unambiguous message that they want moderate Islamists and secularists to work together in establishing democratic governance and building a just socio-economic system, while preserving hard-won freedoms and liberties, as well as respecting human rights and the Arab-Islamic identity of Tunisia.

Upon winning the elections in convincing fashion, Ennahda gave assurances that it will not impose Islamic social and moral edicts on society, but rather intends to preserve the legal rights given to women with regards to personal status law. It also announced that it would not ban alcohol or bathing suits as its opponents had charged. The day after announcing the election results, Ghannouchi himself met with the leaders of Tunisia’s stock market to assure them of his party’s strong support for vigorous economic growth, especially in the tourism sector. His party’s platform calls for robust annual economic growth of eight percent.

Ennahda announced that its secretary general, Hamadi Jebali, 62, a former journalist and engineer by training, would be its candidate for prime minister. He pledged to form a national unity government within a month that will include as many of the elected parties as possible. At minimum, the three major winners with a commanding majority of 141 seats have pledged to work together for the future of Tunisia. Furthermore, in the spirit of reconciliation, Jebali announced that Ennahda’s candidate for interim president would be either Marzouki of CFR or Takattol’s Bin Jaafar.

The major challenges facing the next government are three-fold. Not only should Ennahda be able to form a unity government, but it should be an effective government that will be able to deliver to the common man and woman physical and economic security as well as public services at a moment of tremendous political turmoil and social change. Fortunately for the new government the economic challenge was softened this week when Qatar – a state that has been at the forefront of supporting the Arab Spring – pledged an immediate economic assistance package of 500 million dollars.

Simultaneously, the elected assembly must write a new constitution for Tunisia’s second republic within one year. Although the will of the Tunisian people was determined in this election by favouring a moderate Islamic movement and other moderate secular parties, translating this into a constitution that will yield a national consensus is a major undertaking and cannot be underestimated.

Perhaps the major immediate challenge facing the new government is the reaction of foreign powers, especially in the West, that for decades have been warning against the days when ‘the Islamists’ will be empowered.

The memory of the siege and boycott of Hamas following its victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections is still very vivid. So far, the US administration and its European allies have had a wait-and-see attitude, despite the noise coming from neo-conservative, Zionist, and right-wing circles. In a period of two weeks, Israeli leaders Bibi Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Shimon Peres and Tzipi Livni warned the West against the impending phenomenon of ‘radical Islamic groups’ taking charge throughout the Middle East and threatening Israel and western interests.

The same old Islamophobic voices that raised false alarms echoing Israeli-hyped fears over twenty years ago and poisoned the atmosphere between the West and moderate Islamic groups are at it again. The real question now is: have western political leaders learned anything during this time or are we about to initiate a predictable sequel to the clash of civilisations?

By Esam Al- Amin

November 2011

@ Afro- Middle East Centre

 

David Williams did not have an easy life. He moved to Newburgh, a gritty, impoverished town on the banks of the Hudson an hour or so north of New York, at just 10 years old. For a young, black American boy with a father in jail, trouble was everywhere.

Williams also made bad choices. He ended up going to jail for dealing drugs. When he came out in 2007 he tried to go straight, but money was tight and his brother, Lord, needed cash for a liver transplant. Life is hard in Newburgh if you are poor, have a drug rap and need cash quickly.

His aunt, Alicia McWilliams, was honest about the tough streets her nephew was dealing with. “Newburgh is a hard place,” she said. So it was perhaps no surprise that in May, 2009, David Williams was arrested again and hit with a 25-year jail sentence. But it was not for drugs offences. Or any other common crime. Instead Williams and three other struggling local men beset by drug, criminal and mental health issues were convicted of an Islamic terrorist plot to blow up Jewish synagogues and shoot down military jets with missiles.

Even more shocking was that the organisation, money, weapons and motivation for this plot did not come from real Islamic terrorists. It came from the FBI, and an informant paid to pose as a terrorist mastermind paying big bucks for help in carrying out an attack. For McWilliams, her own government had actually cajoled and paid her beloved nephew into being a terrorist, created a fake plot and then jailed him for it. “I feel like I am in the Twilight Zone,” she told the Guardian.

Lawyers for the so-called Newburgh Four have now launched an appeal that will be held early next year. Advocates hope the case offers the best chance of exposing the issue of FBI “entrapment” in terror cases. “We have as close to a legal entrapment case as I have ever seen,” said Susanne Brody, who represents another Newburgh defendant, Onta Williams.

Some experts agree. “The target, the motive, the ideology and the plot were all led by the FBI,” said Karen Greenberg, a law professor at Fordham University in New York, who specialises in studying the new FBI tactics.

But the issue is one that stretches far beyond Newburgh. Critics say the FBI is running a sting operation across America, targeting – to a large extent – the Muslim community by luring people into fake terror plots. FBI bureaux send informants to trawl through Muslim communities, hang out in mosques and community centres, and talk of radical Islam in order to identify possible targets sympathetic to such ideals. Or they will respond to the most bizarre of tip-offs, including, in one case, a man who claimed to have seen terror chief Ayman al-Zawahiri living in northern California in the late 1990s.

That tipster was quickly hired as a well-paid informant. If suitable suspects are identified, FBI agents then run a sting, often creating a fake terror plot in which it helps supply weapons and targets. Then, dramatic arrests are made, press conferences held and lengthy convictions secured.

But what is not clear is if many real, actual terrorists are involved.

Another “entrapment” case is on the radar too. The Fort Dix Five – accused of plotting to attack a New Jersey army base – have also appealed against their convictions. That case too involved dubious use of paid informants, an apparent over-reach of evidence and a plot that seemed suggested by the government.

Burim Duka, whose three brothers were jailed for life for their part in the scheme, insists they did not know they were part of a terror plot and were just buying guns for shooting holidays in a deal arranged by a friend. The “friend” was an informant who had persuaded another man of a desire to attack Fort Dix.

Duka is convinced his brothers’ appeal has a good chance. “I am hopeful,” he told the Guardian.

But things may not be that easy. At issue is the word “entrapment”, which has two definitions. There is the common usage, where a citizen might see FBI operations as deliberate traps manipulating unwary people who otherwise were unlikely to become terrorists. Then there is the legal definition of entrapment, where the prosecution merely has to show a subject was predisposed to carry out the actions they later are accused of.

Theoretically, a simple expression, like support for jihad, might suffice, and in post-9/11 America neither judges nor juries tend to be nuanced in terror trials. “Legally, you have to use the word entrapment very carefully. It is a very strict legal term,” said Greenberg.

But in its commonly understood usage, FBI entrapment is a widespread tactic. Within days of the 9/11 terror attacks, FBI director Robert Mueller issued a memo on a new policy of “forward leaning – preventative – prosecutions”.

Central to that is a growing informant network. The FBI is not choosy about the people it uses. Some have criminal records, including attempted murder or drug dealing or fraud. They are often paid six-figure sums, which critics say creates a motivation to entrap targets. Some are motivated by the promise of debts forgiven or immigration violations wiped clean. There has also been a relaxing of rules on what criteria the FBI needs to launch an investigation.

Often they just seem to be “fishing expeditions”. In the Newburgh case, the men involved met FBI informant Shahed Hussain simply because he happened to infiltrate their mosque. In southern California, FBI informant Craig Monteilh trawled mosques posing as a Muslim and tried to act as a magnet for potential radicals.

Monteilh, who bugged scores of people, is a convicted felon with serious drug charges to his name. His operation turned up nothing. But Monteilh’s professed terrorist sympathy so unnerved his Muslim targets that they got a restraining order against him and alerted the FBI, not realising Monteilh was actually working on the bureau’s behalf.

Muslim civil rights groups have warned of a feeling of being hounded and threatened by the FBI, triggering a natural fear of the authorities among people that should be a vital defence against real terror attacks. But FBI tactics could now be putting off many people from reporting tip-offs or suspicious individuals.

“They are making mosques suspicious of anybody. They are putting fear into these communities,” said Greenberg. Civil liberties groups are also concerned, seeing some FBI tactics as using terrorism to justify more power. “We are still seeing an expansion of these tools. It is a terrible prospect,” said Mike German, an expert at the American Civil Liberties Union and a former FBI agent who has worked in counter-terrorism.

German said suspects convicted of plotting terror attacks in some recent FBI cases bore little resemblance to the profile of most terrorist cells. “Most of these suspect terrorists had no access to weapons unless the government provided them. I would say that showed they were not the biggest threat to the US,” German said.

“Most terrorists have links to foreign terrorist groups and have trained in terrorism training camps. Perhaps FBI resources should be spent finding those guys.”

Also, some of the most serious terrorist attacks carried out in the US since 9/11 have revolved around “lone wolf” actions, not the sort of conspiracy plots the FBI have been striving to combat. The 2010 Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, only came to light after his car bomb failed to go off properly. The Fort Hood killer Nidal Malik Hasan, who shot dead 13 people on a Texas army base in 2009, was only discovered after he started firing. Both evaded the radar of an FBI expending resources setting up fictional crimes and then prosecuting those involved.

Yet, as advocates for those caught up in “entrapment” cases discover, there is little public or judicial sympathy for them. Even in cases where judges have admitted FBI tactics have raised serious questions, there has been no hesitation in returning guilty verdicts, handing down lengthy sentences and dismissing appeals.

The Liberty City Seven are a case in point. The 2006 case involved an informant, Elie Assaad, with a dubious past (he was once arrested, but not charged, for beating his pregnant wife). Assaad was let loose with another informant on a group of men in Liberty City, a poor, predominantly black, suburb of Miami. The targets were followers of a cult-like group called The Seas of David, led by former Guardian Angel Narseal Batiste.

The group was, perhaps, not even Muslim, as its religious practices involved Bible study and wearing the Star of David. Yet Assaad posed as an Al-Qaida operative, and got members of the group to swear allegiance. Transcripts of the “oath-taking” ceremony are almost farcical. Batiste repeatedly queries the idea and appears bullied into it. In effect, defence lawyers argued, the men were confused, impoverished members of an obscure cult.

Yet targets the group supposedly entertained attacking included the Sears Tower in Chicago, Hollywood movie studios and the Empire State Building. Even zealous prosecutors, painting a picture of dedicated Islamic terrorists, admitted any potential plots were “aspirational”, given the group had no means to carry them out.

Nonetheless, they were charged with seeking to wage war against America, plotting to destroy buildings and supporting terrorism. Five of them got long jail sentences. Assaad, who was recently arrested in Texas for attempting to run over a policeman, was paid $85,000 for his work.

This year the jailed Liberty City men launched an appeal and last week judgment was handed down. They lost, and officially remain Islamic terrorists hell-bent on destroying America. Not that their supporters see it that way.

“Our country is no safer as a result of the prosecution of these seven impoverished young men from Liberty City,” said Batiste’s lawyer, Ana Jhones.

“This prosecution came at great financial cost to our government, and at a terrible emotional cost to these defendants and their families. It is my sincere belief that our country is less safe as a result of the government’s actions in this case.”

By Paul Harris

16 November 2011

@ The Guardian

 

So Qatar launched Al Jazeera in order to break through the media monopoly of the House of Saud (which was imposed after 1990 when Khalid Bin Sultan toured world capitals to buy all Arab media). Iraqi and Libyan money produced rival media outlets but funding ended by the early 1990s.

Qatar also supported other media outlets (New TV and Al-Quds Al-`Arabi) in order to promote views that are opposed to Saudi Arabia. When Al Jazeera was first launched it had wide parameters of expression: and it was quite hospitable to views that are opposed to Saudi Arabia. It hosted Sa`d Faqih and Muhammad Al-Mas`ari who critiqued the royal family (the former is a constant irritant for the House of Saud).

Al Jazeera focused on the Saudi matters and even went after regional allies of Saudi Arabia. To be fair, allies of Qatar were not spared either: the climate was rather free at first. But the recent rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Qatar was the product of a marriage of convenience. Qatar would no longer use Al Jazeera against Saudi Arabia (the Emir of Qatar told me that King Abdullah used to complain about my appearances on Al Jazeera), while Saudi Arabia would end its marginalization of Qatar in the region. The nature of the deal that has been building between the two countries is still a mystery but the GCC meeting that blessed the Saudi invasion of Bahrain was crucial.

GCC countries were bent on fighting democratic change. All agreed that they would stand united against any protest movement that would target any member state. Qatar shifted its policies markedly from that point onwards and its coverage of the Arab world shifted as well.

Qatar not only became a dominant force within the Arab League, but it also became dominant in the GCC. Its chief regional nemesis, Husni Mubarak, was overthrown, and another regional enemy, Jordan’s King Abdullah, was busy protecting his increasingly precarious throne. Furthermore, there is a huge vacuum in Arab leadership due to the succession crisis in Saudi Arabia and the aging of key Saudi princes. Qatar quickly filled the void and its policies became consistent with US policies, which prevented Saudi Arabia from opposing them. And Qatar almost suddenly abandoned its previous allies: Syria, Hezbollah and Iran. Qatar became the regional enforcer on behalf of the US. It was a key actor in Libya providing NATO with token Arab cover, and it has undoubtedly served as a mediator between the various branches of the Muslim Brotherhood (and their clones) and the US.

And all of a sudden, Qatar’s most reliable cleric, tele-Islamist Yusuf al-Qaradawi, made the overthrow of the Syrian regime the most urgent matter from an Islamic point of view. (Qaradawi had in the past praised Bashar Assad but he never wavered in his loyalty to Gulf oil and gas).

But the full story of the rift between Syria and Qatar has not been told: it is not clear how and why Qatar decided to break with Bashar, who has been a close ally of Qatar. It is possible that this was part of the secret Qatari-Saudi deal. It is possible that Qatar is answering to the US now (US-Qatari relations suffered a serious crisis during the Bush years. The Emir of Qatar told me that George Tenet delivered a tough message from the US president regarding Al Jazeera’s coverage and it implied a threat. And Dick Cheney abruptly ended a meeting with the Emir when the latter refused to discuss Al Jazeera’s coverage with him).

But Qatar may be overplaying its hand. Its role far exceeds its size and its capabilities. To pose as a (selective) champion of democracy while preserving dynastic rule will pose a challenge sometime in the future. There are many rivals to Qatar, and Arab governments may feel increasingly uncomfortable in serving as US clients. Finally, the notion that the tide of the uprisings can’t hit the Gulf region has been disproven in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.

By As’ad AbuKhalil

24 November 2011

@ Al Akhbar English

Anthony Shadid—one of the best reporters on the Middle East—wrote an article recently about Qatari foreign policy. The subject has attracted a lot of interest as of late: the Emir of Qatar and his prime minister have become dominant personalities in the meetings of the Arab League. The small state has been playing a role far beyond its traditional legacy. Qatar is now a leading Middle East country and its prime minister gets to decide whether Syria stays or leaves the Arab League. This is unprecedented. This, of course, owes much more to the role of Al Jazeera than to the gas deposits in Qatar. But the various analyses of Qatari foreign policy omits a key determinant of its foreign policy orientation.

Anyone who has discussed foreign policy with the Emir of Qatar—as I have on two occasions only, the second one last year—knows that enmity toward Saudi Arabia is a key determinant of Qatari foreign policy. People were too quick to forget about the bitter Saudi-Qatari feud as soon as Qatar and Saudi Arabia reconciled last year. When I saw the Emir in the summer of 2010, my first question to him was along the lines: so I take it that you and Saudi Arabia are allies now? He laughed and quickly sarcastically dismissed the notion and went on to elaborate on his still very negative views on Saudi Arabia and its role in the region. The Emir even puts his close military alliance with the US and his hosting of the US bases in the emirate in the context of his fears of Saudi diabolical plot. The Emir reasoned that aligning with Saudi Arabia’s enemies would be a sure bet to protect his regime from Saudi plot. The Emir wanted to prove to the US that he can be a more reliable ally than Saudi Arabia: and he went along with US Congressional pressure to normalize ties with Israel (up to a point as he had difficulty reconciling his regional alliances and his professed—privately—Arab nationalist views with his relations with Israel—which have been pursued vigorously by his prime minister).

The Emir of Qatar also used Al Jazeera to pressure Saudi Arabia: anti-Saudi critics—Saudis and non-Saudis—were given ample platform to express their opposition to the House of Saud. Prince Nayef was very aware of the impact of Aljazeera on the internal stability of the kingdom and he presented the faction within the family that lobbied for rapprochement with Qatar, while Prince Salman and Prince Sultan were opposed and their mouthpieces reflected that disagreement.

Qatar’s feud with Saudi Arabia also affected Qatari relations with other GCC countries. Qatar was quick to improve relations with any GCC member , like Oman, that had a disagreement with Saudi Arabia (the most open secret about GCC members is that they all have strong feuds and conflicts, their brotherly show of affection and solidarity notwithstanding. There are even strong conflicts within the emirates of the UAE). The feud between Qatar and Saudi Arabia is the number one reason why Qatar even launched Al Jazeera. Its very creation was intended to counter the Arab media which are overwhelmingly controlled by House of Saudi and their affiliates. What happened then better explains where things stand now, something I will address in my follow up post.

By As’ad AbuKhalil

21 November 2011

@ Al Akhbar English

“We’ve walked all the way here to tell everybody that we are being treated like dogs,” said 23-year old Hamuda Bubakar, among a couple of hundred black refugees protesting at Martyrs Square in Tripoli. “I’d rather be killed here. I wouldn’t be the first, or the last.”

The refugees came to protest early this week from the barracks of Tarik Matar, a makeshift camp on the outskirts of Tripoli. “We’ve already spent more than two months in those horrible barracks,” said Aisha who preferred not to give her full name.

A few days back, she said, “guerrilla fighters from Misrata (90 kilometres east of Tripoli) entered our place and took seven young guys with them. We still know nothing about them.” Several women at the camp have been abducted and raped in recent weeks, she said.

“Raise your head, you’re a free Libyan”, the group chanted before a stage set up for the recent celebrations. That’s the very slogan that became almost an anthem for the rebels who rose against Gaddafi.

Tempers flared amid the group of armed soldiers guarding the central square. “I should kill you all for what you did to us in Misrata,” shouted a young man in camouflage fatigues. The protesters are from Tawargha, 60 km south of Misrata, that was known as a Gaddafist base.

The armed men at the square, and angry honking soon split up the group.

“Not only do they call us Gaddafists, they hate us for the colour of our skin,” said Abdulkarim Rahman. “All blacks in Libya are going through very hard times lately.”

Abdurrahman Abudheer, a volunteer worker at one of the barracks that used to house construction workers for new apartment blocks, and that are now home to refugees, estimates there are about 27,000 Tawarghis scattered between Tripoli and Benghazi.

“Just in this camp there are over 200 families, all from Tawargha,” said Abudheer. A flashy billboard at the entrance to the camp in the ghostly district Fallah still advertises the “upcoming construction of 1187 houses” by a Turkish company. But now even the grey rows of corrugated iron shacks look more comfortable than those naked and incomplete concrete structures.

The number of refugees is growing by the day, but so is the number of Tripolitanians like Abudheer who show up to help.

Amnesty International expressed concern in September over “increasing cases of violence and indiscriminate arrests against the people from Tawargha.” It said tens of thousands of former residents of Tawargha may be living in conditions similar to those in Fallah, or worse.

“Many families arrive after spending days living on the beach,” said Abudheer. “Most of them are afraid to even walk down the street.”

The scene is similar in Tarik Matar, five minutes drive from Fallah. The most recent census at this camp figures 325 families from Tawargha.

From the room she shares with eight members of her family, Azma, a refugee from Tawargha, showed a portrait of her brother. On Sep. 13 Abdullah was taken from the car he was travelling in with his three children and his sister at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Tripoli.

The last they know of what happened to him is in the autopsy report Azma keeps with her: “Died from several injuries caused by solid and flexible objects throughout the body, especially in the forehead and chest.”

Inevitably, the families of the seven young men recently dragged away from this camp fear a similar fate for them.

“We are asking for more security and for those from Misrata to be able to return to our houses without fear of reprisal,” said Mabrouk Mohammed, a former physical education teacher who coordinates entry of food and supplies to the complex, mostly from private initiatives. But return to Tawargha is forgotten dream for most.

Abdullah Fakir, head of Tripoli’s Military Council, had told IPS they would increase security at camps where the Tawarghis are staying. But with militias from Misrata showing up at the camps often, nobody feels secure.

By Karlos Zurutuza

7 November 2011

@ IPS News

Thousands of workers have returned to work at a shoe factory in the southern Chinese industrial city of Dongguan, amid allegations of police brutality to quell their protests on Thursday.

At least 2,000 workers demonstrated outside the shoe factory over the sacking of middle managers and the suspension of overtime, which in effect cut wages. The factory is owned by the Taiwanese company Pou Chen, which makes shoes for brands such as Nike and Adidas.

Workers said the firings were related to a drop in orders at the factory and a decision by management to move jobs to another factory in the inland province of Jiangxi.

Factories in southern China are struggling because of rising labour costs over the past year, and a collapse in orders from Europe since the third quarter as the eurozone debt crisis has dragged on.

Earlier this week, Zhu Xiaodan, Guangdong’s acting governor, said the province, which accounts for a quarter of China’s trade, had recorded a drop in exports of about 9 per cent in October because of a collapse in orders from Europe. He said that contrasted with the growth of imports and exports of 26 per cent in the first half of the year.

As labour costs have risen by double-digit rates this year, many companies have moved production from southern China to south-east Asia and China’s inland provinces.

Geoffrey Crothall of the China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based workers advocacy group, said he expected more labour unrest as other manufacturers shifted production.

“It’s going to be tricky convincing workers [in Guangdong] to move inland,” said Mr Crothall, who added that many young migrants preferred living in Guangdong’s bustling cities. “It’s pot luck where the relocation happens. Will workers have to sign new contracts if they are moved inland?”

About 19 workers were detained by police and later released, according to internet reports. Several posted photographs online of beatings they had sustained in the protests.

A reporter covering the protests for Southern Daily, a Guangzhou newspaper, wrote in a blog about overhearing a conversation between a child and his injured father.

“Why didn’t you call the police after being beaten?’” the child asked. The father told his child he was beaten by police, the reporter said.

Pou Chen fired 18 middle level managers and workers in late October, one of the factors that prompted the protest. One of the factory managers who lost his job wrote in a blog that the company had promoted him as recently as July.

“I have won awards every month. I love my factory and my family works here too,” he wrote in a post late last month.

Pou Chen did not respond to queries about the protests.Additional reporting by Zhou Ping in Hong Kong

By Rahul Jacob

18 November 2011

@ Financial Times

Inquiring minds scattered across the world have been pondering whether Washington elites are sneakily slouching towards Beijing – as in eventually focusing on China as the ultimate bogeyman and catalyst of the Pentagon-denominated Long War.

It’s as if Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Libya and the fight for African resources, were mere pawns in the master chess game of the 21st century featuring the US and China.

The Arab Spring, in its early Tunisian and Egyptian chapters, led to the impression that the neo-conservatives promoted ‘clash of civilisations’ was over.

But the 2012 race to the White House has revealed that it is a return of the living dead. With the troubling add-on that Washington reserves for itself the right of nuclear first strikes against any possible confrontation with competitors – China and Russia.

So it’s time to back off and examine how the leadership in Washington and Beijing is interpreting the future.

Exhibit A is China’s Peaceful Development, a white paper released by the State Council Information Office, the cabinet at the heart of the system in Beijing.

Exhibit B is America’s Pacific Century, a wittily-titled essay published by Foreign Policy magazine and written by “global superstar” (according to CNN) and smart power practitioner US Secretary of State Hillary “We came, we saw, he died” Clinton.

Readers are strongly encouraged to read both documents and draw their own conclusions.

Don’t rock my domestic boat

First a word on how Beijing works. The 370-member Central Committee – including ministers, provincial leaders, the top military brass, heads of state companies – is a sort of mega-board of directors of the Chinese Communist Party.

The Central Committee selects the 25-member Politburo. And the Politburo selects the nine-member Standing Committee, the holy of the holies. It’s fair to assume the white paper has been commissioned and approved by these gentlemen.

The Politburo and the Standing Committee are responsible for the Communist Party’s tight grip on the Chinese state, the economy, the civil service, the military, police, education, the media, and last but not least, the carefully constructed official narrative of how China finally got rid of repeated historical humiliations by foreigners and is now a resurgent civilisation.

The white paper has a crystal clear objective; to explain the Chinese model – and the mind-bending subtleties of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” – to the West.

The target audience is Washington and London, Paris, Berlin and Rome.

Yet the fact that Western corporate media barely noticed – not to mention discussed – the paper is already troubling.

The white paper stresses China’s “strong collective consciousness” and “sense of social responsibility” as much as the “multipolarity” of international relations. At the same time, in a subtle nod towards Washington, it rejects a “dangerous cold and hot war mentality”.

Three ultimate fears prevail in Beijing’s narrative. 1) A hardened Cold War mentality blinding the West; 2) The possibility of a trade war with the West; 3) Luan (“chaos”) of the political kind, provoked by outsiders who resent China’s phenomenal economic success.

Even while discussing foreign policy, the paper makes it clear China’s top priority is domestic stability.

China’s interpretation of foreign investment, for instance, is that it is welcomed as long as it enhances domestic stability.

Thus everything is subordinated to “harmonious development” – Chinese President Hu Jintao’s trademark doctrine.

That even implies, in the future, mechanisms to allow the Chinese people to “supervise the government” – something that in the West may be interpreted as democracy, even though not related to Scandinavia’s.

While Beijing endlessly worries about domestic stability, the paper also stresses how dangerously easy it would be for a global economic crisis to force countries – another nod to Washington – to go to war.

So, essentially, Beijing wants “a peaceful mainly economic development in a peaceful multipolar world”. Yet the multi-trillion dollar question is whether the ‘Atlanticist’ West will let it happen.

Hillary’s concerns

Hillary’s essay is bound to express the views of the State Department, which may not necessarily be shared by the Pentagon and the CIA.

For all the smart power rhetoric, the stress is on “continued American leadership well into this century”.

Beijing will also be slightly disturbed that “our treaty alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Thailand are the fulcrum for our strategic turn to the Asia-Pacific”.

Hillary feels obliged to nod to her “Chinese counterparts, State Councillor Dai Bingguo and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi”, as they have been engaged in “candid discussions about important challenges like North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and developments in the South China Sea.”

“Challenges” is the understatement of the century; China and the US fiercely disagree on all these dossiers.

A measure of wishful thinking is at hand, as in “we look to China to take steps to allow its currency to appreciate more rapidly, both against the dollar and against the currencies of its other major trading partners.”

It won’t happen – and Beijing has already made it clear.

As in a Freudian slip, Hillary let it know that “Europe, home to most of our traditional allies, is still a partner of first resort”. And then “we move forward to set the stage for engagement in the Asia-Pacific over the next 60 years”.

So what is it going to be; a special relationship with Europe and just “engagement” with Asia-Pacific?

Unlike Beijing in the white paper trying to address the West’s concerns, Hillary only seems bothered to address Americans.

What she does not say, but leaves implied, has more impact than the text itself. The eternal notion of the US as the indispensable nation. The barely disguised feeling of “danger” about the rise of China. The US in Asia as a benevolent outside power.

Beijing would have noticed there is not a word on Washington’s global drive to control remaining sources of oil, while trying to make life to Beijing as hard as possible.

Not a word on the Pentagon-defined “arc of instability”: from the Maghreb to – you guessed it – Western China.

Not a word on the “need of strategic stability” for the Indian Ocean – which will put the US on a collision course not only with China but also with India.

Not a word on the US Navy’s 2007 maritime strategy – “sustained, forward presence” in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. Or the US Marine Corps 2008 “Vision and Strategy” – covering up to 2025 – defining the Indian Ocean as a privileged theatre of conflict.

Unlike Washington and Tehran, who never talk to each other, at least Washington and Beijing are talking, even if past one another.

Beijing has already announced its peaceful intentions. But when it looks at Africa – and sees its trade and commercial deals being counter-acted by a Pentagon-led militarisation drive – the conclusion is self-evident.

One can only hope that the parties will keep speaking softly – while carrying no big stick.

By Pepe Escobar

31 October 2011

@ Al- Jazeera

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His latest book is named Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

 

It has been little more than a fortnight since Muammar Gaddafi was pulled from a culvert in his hometown of Sirte and shot dead.

As Libya struggles to rebuild, power effectively rests in the hands of the heavily armed militias who ousted the former dictator.

But that hasn’t stopped the British government from pushing ahead with plans to renew arms sales to the war-torn country. The Independent has learned that a defence industry trade delegation is planning to travel to Libya early next year in the hope the country’s new pro-western National Transition Council will become lucrative customers.

UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), the government department which promotes British business interests abroad, is planning to take defence manufacturers to Tripoli in February for a series of meetings with senior government officials. The news will alarm human rights campaigners, who have spent the past nine months documenting the readiness of autocratic Middle Eastern regimes to use imported equipment to violently quell popular opposition movements.

UKTI insists that plans to send the delegation are still at a discussion stage and will only involve “civil security”, not military hardware. “Libya is still under a UN arms embargo so any exports would need to go through the UN,” a UKTI spokesperson said.

“The mission would be to see where Britain could offer help on civil security such as police training and border patrols. We have not approached any British companies yet, although we hope to do so over the coming weeks.”

Last month Lord Green, minister for Trade and Investment, visited Tripoli to see what role Britain could play in rebuilding Libya’s infrastructure and economy. After months of internecine conflict in a country with vast energy reserves, international businesses are well aware of the vast sums of money to be made.

Those nations that took part in the Nato airstrikes against Gaddafi’s regime – notably Britain and France – are determined to reap the rewards of backing the National Transition Council and claw back some of the money spent on their costly bombing campaign. Some have estimated the value of contracts in oil, infrastructure and education to be worth as much as £200bn.

Kaye Stearman, from the Campaign Against Arms Trade, criticised the delegation plans and its timing. “The UK government professes to support a democratic and peaceful future for Libya, yet, even before the dead and injured have been counted, it is mounting trade missions to sell arms to a damaged and traumatised people,” she said. “They show no shame at their past record on arms sales and no willingness to change.”

During questions in Parliament this week, Trade Minister Mark Prisk revealed a list of other countries UKTI’s Defence and Security Organisation are planning to visit over the next five months. Among those listed are a number of human rights abusers including Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Kazakhstan and India. Later this month a delegation will travel to the Saudi capital Riyadh in what a UKTI flyer has advertised as “a great opportunity for UK Defence & Security companies to meet decision makers of the major Saudi organisations active in Saudi Arabia’s Defence & Security sector”.

Saudi Arabia is preparing for its first major security exhibition, IFSEC Arabia. The country is one of Britain’s largest defence customers despite concerns over its autocratic rulers and a dismal human rights record. Recently Saudi troops were sent to Bahrain to help the Sunni Khalifa dynasty quell pro-reform protests led by the country’s majority Shi’as.

Brothers In Arms

Saudi Arabia

King Abdullah’s monarchy remains Britain’s largest arms purchaser despite its dismal human rights record and involvement in suppressing protests in Bahrain earlier this year. Earlier this summer Saudi Arabia was invited to Britain’s DSEi arms fare and there are UKTI (UK Trade and Investment) trips planned for this month and March next year. In 2006 an attempt by the Serious Fraud office to investigate bribery allegations over the sale of Typhoon fighter jets to Saudi Arabia was halted by Tony Blair.

Colombia

UKTI is planning to send a defence delegation to Colombia in February. The government insists that weapon sales to Colombia are minimal and that defence contracts revolve around drug busting. But Colombia’s armed forces, who lead the fight against drugs, have been accused of a plethora of human rights abuses.

By Jerome Taylor

5 November 2011

@ The Independent

 

In the fall of 2000, twenty-five years after the end of the war in Indochina, Bill Clinton became the first US president since Richard Nixon to visit Vietnam. While media coverage of the trip was dominated by talk of some two thousand US soldiers still classified as missing in action, a small act of great historical importance went almost unnoticed. As a humanitarian gesture, Clinton released extensive Air Force data on all American bombings of Indochina between 1964 and 1975. Recorded using a groundbreaking ibm-designed system, the database provided extensive information on sorties conducted over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Clinton’s gift was intended to assist in the search for unexploded ordnance left behind during the carpet bombing of the region. Littering the countryside, often submerged under farmland, this ordnance remains a significant humanitarian concern. It has maimed and killed farmers, and rendered valuable land all but unusable. Development and demining organizations have put the Air Force data to good use over the past six years, but have done so without noting its full implications, which turn out to be staggering.

The still-incomplete database (it has several “dark” periods) reveals that from October 4, 1965, to August 15, 1973, the United States dropped far more ordnance on Cambodia than was previously believed: 2,756,941 tons’ worth, dropped in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites. Just over 10 percent of this bombing was indiscriminate, with 3,580 of the sites listed as having “unknown” targets and another 8,238 sites having no target listed at all. The database also shows that the bombing began four years earlier than is widely believed—not under Nixon, but under Lyndon Johnson. The impact of this bombing, the subject of much debate for the past three decades, is now clearer than ever. Civilian casualties in Cambodia drove an enraged populace into the arms of an insurgency that had enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began, setting in motion the expansion of the Vietnam War deeper into Cambodia, a coup d’état in 1970, the rapid rise of the Khmer Rouge, and ultimately the Cambodian genocide. The data demonstrates that the way a country chooses to exit a conflict can have disastrous consequences. It therefore speaks to contempor­ary warfare as well, including US operations in Iraq. Despite many differences, a critical similarity links the war in Iraq with the Cambodian conflict: an increasing reliance on air power to battle a heterogeneous, volatile insurgency.

We heard a terrifying noise which shook the ground; it was as if the earth trembled, rose up and opened beneath our feet. Enormous explosions lit up the sky like huge bolts of lightning; it was the American B-52s.

— Cambodian bombing survivor

On December 9, 1970, US President Richard Nixon telephoned his national-security adviser, Henry Kissinger, to discuss the ongoing bombing of Cambodia. This sideshow to the war in Vietnam, begun in 1965 under the Johnson administration, had already seen 475,515 tons of ordnance dropped on Cambodia, which had been a neutral kingdom until nine months before the phone call, when pro-US General Lon Nol seized power. The first intense series of bombings, the Menu campaign on targets in Cambodia’s border areas — labelled Breakfast, Lunch, Supper, Dinner, Dessert, and Snack by American commanders — had concluded in May, shortly after the coup.

Nixon was facing growing congressional opposition to his Indochina policy. A joint US–South Vietnam ground invasion of Cambodia in May and June of 1970 had failed to root out Vietnamese Communists, and Nixon now wanted to covertly escalate the air attacks, which were aimed at destroying the mobile headquarters of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army (vc/nva) in the Cambodian jungle. After telling Kissinger that the US Air Force was being unimaginative, Nixon demanded more bombing, deeper into the country: “They have got to go in there and I mean really go in…I want everything that can fly to go in there and crack the hell out of them. There is no limitation on mileage and there is no limitation on budget. Is that clear?”

Kissinger knew that this order ignored Nixon’s promise to Congress that US planes would remain within thirty kilometres of the Vietnamese border, his own assurances to the public that bombing would not take place within a kilometre of any village, and military assessments stating that air strikes were like poking a beehive with a stick. He responded hesitantly: “The problem is, Mr. President, the Air Force is designed to fight an air battle against the Soviet Union. They are not designed for this war…in fact, they are not designed for any war we are likely to have to fight.”

Five minutes after his conversation with Nixon ended, Kissinger called General Alexander Haig to relay the new orders from the president: “He wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn’t want to hear anything. It’s an order, it’s to be done. Anything that flies, on anything that moves. You got that?” The response from Haig, barely audible on tape, sounds like laughter.

The US bombing of Cambodia remains a divisive and iconic topic. It was a mobilizing issue for the antiwar movement and is still cited regularly as an example of American war crimes. Writers such as Noam Chomsky, Christopher Hitchens, and William Shawcross emerged as influential political voices after condemning the bombing and the foreign policy it symbolized.

In the years since the Vietnam War,something of a consensus has emerged on the extent of US involvement in Cambodia. The details are controversial, but the narrative begins on March 18, 1969, when the United States launched the Menu campaign. The joint US–South Vietnam ground offensive followed. For the next three years, the United States continued with air strikes under Nixon’s orders, hitting deep inside Cambodia’s borders, first to root out the vc/nva and later to protect the Lon Nol regime from growing numbers of Cambodian Communist forces. Congress cut funding for the war and imposed an end to the bombing on August 15, 1973, amid calls for Nixon’s impeachment for his deceit in escalating the campaign.

By Taylor Owen and Ben Kiernan

@ The Walrus, the October 2006 magazine