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The end of U.S. military involvement in Iraq coincided with Bradley Manning’s military hearing to determine whether he will face court-martial for exposing U.S. war crimes by leaking hundreds of thousands of pages of classified documents to Wikileaks. In fact, there is a connection between the leaks and U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq.

When he announced that the last U.S. troops would leave Iraq by year’s end, President Barack Obama declared the nine-year war a “success” and “an extraordinary achievement.” He failed to mention why he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning. He didn’t say that it was built on lies about mushroom clouds and non-existent ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Obama didn’t cite the Bush administration’s “Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq,” drawn up months before 9/11, about which Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill reported that actual plans “were already being discussed to take over Iraq and occupy it – complete with disposition of oil fields, peacekeeping forces, and war crimes tribunals – carrying forward an unspoken doctrine of preemptive war.”

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also defended the war in Iraq, making the preposterous claim that, “As difficult as [the Iraq war] was,” including the loss of American and Iraqi lives, “I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world.”

The price that Panetta claims is worth it includes the deaths of nearly 4,500 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. It includes untold numbers wounded – with Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – and suicides, as well as nearly $1 trillion that could have prevented the economic disaster at home.

The price of the Iraq war also includes thousands of men who have been subjected to torture and abuse in places like Abu Ghraib prison. It includes the 2005 Haditha Massacre, in which U.S. Marines killed 24 unarmed civilians execution-style. It includes the Fallujah Massacre, in which U.S. forces killed 736 people, at least 60% of them women and children. It includes other war crimes committed by American troops in Qaim, Taal Al Jal, Mukaradeeb, Mahmudiya, Hamdaniyah, Samarra, Salahuddin, and Ishaqi.

The price of that war includes two men killed by the Army’s Lethal Warriors in Al Doura, Iraq, with no evidence that they were insurgents or posed a threat. One man’s brains were removed from his head and another man’s face was skinned after he was killed by Lethal Warriors. U.S. Army Ranger John Needham, who was awarded two purple hearts and three medals for heroism, wrote to military authorities in 2007 reporting war crimes that he witnessed being committed by his own command and fellow Lethal Warriors in Al Doura. His charges were supported by atrocity photos which have been released by Pulse TV and Maverick Media in the new video by Cindy Piester, “On the Dark Side in Al Doura – A Soldier in the Shadows.” [http://vimeo.com/33755968]. CBS reported obtaining an Army document from the Criminal Investigation Command suggestive of an investigation into these war crimes allegations. The Army’s conclusion was that the “offense of War Crimes did not occur.”

One of the things Manning is alleged to have leaked is the “Collateral Murder” video which depicts U.S. forces in an Apache helicopter killing 12 unarmed civilians, including two Reuters journalists, and wounding two children. People trying to rescue the wounded were also fired upon and killed. A U.S. tank drove over one body, cutting the man in half.

The actions of American soldiers shown in that video amount to war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit targeting civilians, preventing the rescue of the wounded, and defacing dead bodies.

Obama proudly took credit for ending U.S. military involvement in Iraq. But he had tried for months to extend it beyond the December 31, 2011 deadline his predecessor negotiated with the Iraqi government. Negotiations between Obama and the Iraqi government broke down when Iraq refused to grant criminal and civil immunity to U.S. troops.

It was after seeing evidence of war crimes such as those depicted in “Collateral Murder” and the “Iraq War Logs,” also allegedly leaked by Manning, that the Iraqis refused to immunize U.S. forces from prosecution for their future crimes. When I spoke with Tariq Aqrawi, Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations, at a recent international human rights film festival in Vienna, he told me that if they granted immunity to Americans, they would have to do the same for other countries as well.

Manning faces more than 30 charges, including “aiding the enemy” and violations of the Espionage Act, which carry the death penalty. After a seven day hearing, during which the prosecution presented evidence that Manning leaked cables and documents, there was no evidence that leaked information imperiled national security or that Manning intended to aid the enemy with his actions.

On the contrary, in an online chat attributed to Manning, he wrote, “If you had free reign over classified networks… and you saw incredible things, awful things… things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC… what would you do?”

He went on to say, “God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms… I want people to see the truth… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.“

Manning has been held for 19 months in military custody. During the first nine months, he was kept in solitary confinement, which is considered torture as it can lead to hallucinations, catatonia and suicide. He was humiliated by being stripped naked and paraded before other inmates.

The U.S. government considers Manning one of America’s most dangerous traitors. Months ago, Obama spoke of Manning as if he had been proved guilty, saying, “he broke the law.” But Manning has not been tried, and is presumed innocent in the eyes of the law. If Manning had committed war crimes instead of exposing them, he would be a free man today. If he had murdered civilians and skinned them alive, he would not be facing the death penalty.

Besides helping to end the Iraq war, the leaked cables helped spark the Arab Spring. When people in Tunisia read cables revealing corruption by the ruling family there, they took to the streets.

If Manning did what he is accused of doing, he should not be tried as a criminal. He should be hailed as a national hero, much like Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers helped to expose the government’s lies and end the Vietnam War.

By Marjorie Cohn

26 December 2011

CommonDreams.org

Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past President of the National Lawyers Guild, is the deputy secretary general for external communications of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law and co-author of Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent (with Kathleen Gilberd). Her anthology, The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration and Abuse, is now available. Her articles are archived at www.marjoriecohn.com

The poorest taxpayers are subsidising the richest people in Europe: and this spending will remain uncut until at least 2020.

What would you do with £245? Would you a. use it to buy food for the next five weeks?, b. put it towards a family holiday?, c. use it to double your annual savings?, or d. give it to the Duke of Westminster?

Let me make the case for option d. This year he was plunged into relative poverty. Relative, that is, to the three parvenus who have displaced him from the top of the UK rich list(1). (Admittedly he’s not so badly off in absolute terms: the value of his properties rose last year, to £7bn). He’s the highest ranked of the British-born people on the list, and we surely have a patriotic duty to keep him there. And he’s a splendid example of British enterprise, being enterprising enough to have inherited his land and income from his father.

Well there must be a reason, mustn’t there? Why else would households be paying this money – equivalent to five weeks’ average spending on food and almost their average annual savings (£296)(2) – to some of the richest men and women in the UK? Why else would this 21st Century tithe, this back-to-front Robin Hood tax, be levied?

I’m talking about the payments we make to Big Farmer through the Common Agricultural Policy. They swallow €55bn (£47bn) a year, or 43% of the European budget(3). Despite the spending crisis raging through Europe, the policy remains intact. Worse, governments intend to sustain this level of spending throughout the next budget period, from 2014-2020(4).

Of all perverse public spending in the rich nations, farm subsidies must be among the most regressive. In the European Union you are paid according to the size of your lands: the greater the area, the more you get. Except in Spain, nowhere is the subsidy system more injust than in the United Kingdom. According to Kevin Cahill, author of Who Owns Britain, 69% of the land here is owned by 0.6% of the population(5). It is this group which takes the major pay-outs. The entire budget, according to the government’s database, is shared between just 16,000 people or businesses(6)*. Let me give you some examples, beginning with a few old friends.

As chairman of Northern Rock, Matt Ridley oversaw the first run on a British bank since 1878, and helped precipitate the economic crisis which has impoverished so many. This champion of free market economics and his family received £205,000 from the taxpayer last year for owning their appropriately-named Blagdon Estate(7). That falls a little shy of the public beneficence extended to Prince Bandar, the Saudi Arabian fixer at the centre of the Al-Yamamah corruption scandal. In 2007 the Guardian discovered that he had received a payment of up to £1bn from the weapons manufacturer BAE(8). He used his hard-earned wealth to buy the Glympton Estate in Oxfordshire(9). For this public service we pay him £270,000 a year(10). Much obliged to you guv’nor, I’m sure.

But it’s the true captains of British enterprise – the aristocrats and the utility companies, equally deserving of their good fortune – who really clean up. The Duke of Devonshire gets £390,000(11), the Duke of Buucleuch £405,000(12), the Earl of Plymouth £560,000(13), the Earl of Moray £770,000(14), the Duke of Westminster £820,000(15). The Vestey family takes £1.2m(16). You’ll be pleased to hear that the previous owner of their Thurlow estate, Edmund Vestey, who died in 2008, managed his tax affairs so efficiently that in one year his businesses paid just £10. Asked to comment on his contribution to the public good, he explained, “we’re all tax dodgers, aren’t we?”(17).

British households, who try so hard to keep the water companies in the style to which they’re accustomed, have been blessed with another means of supporting this deserving cause. Yorkshire water takes £290,000 in farm subsidies, Welsh Water £330,000, Severn Trent, £650,000, United Utilities, £1.3m. Serco, one of the largest recipients of another form of corporate welfare – the private finance initiative – gets a further £2m for owning farmland(18).

Among the top blaggers are some voluntary bodies. The RSPB gets £4.8m, the National Trust £8m, the various wildlife trusts a total of £8.5m(19). I don’t have a problem with these bodies receiving public money. I do have a problem with their receipt of public money through a channel as undemocratic and unaccountable as this. I have an even bigger problem with their use of money with these strings attached. For the past year, while researching my book about rewilding, I’ve been puzzling over why these bodies fetishise degraded farmland ecosystems and are so reluctant to allow their estates to revert to nature. Now it seems obvious. To receive these subsidies, you must farm the land(20).

As for the biggest beneficiary, it is shrouded in mystery. It’s a company based in France called Syral UK Ltd. Its website describes it as a producer of industrial starch, alcohol and proteins, but says nothing about owning or farming any land(21). Yet it receives £18.7m from the taxpayer. It has not yet answered my questions about how this has happened, but my guess is that the money might take the form of export subsidies: the kind of payments which have done so much to damage the livelihoods of poor farmers in the developing world.

In one respect the government of this country has got it right. It has lobbied the European Commission, so far unsuccessfully, for “a very substantial cut to the CAP budget”(22). But hold the enthusiasm. It has also demanded that the EC drop the only sensible proposal in the draft now being negotiated by member states: that there should be a limit to the amount that a landowner can receive(23). Our government warns that capping the payments “would impede consolidation” of landholdings(24). It seems that 0.6% of the population owning 69% of the land isn’t inequitable enough.

If subsidies have any remaining purpose it is surely to protect the smallest, most vulnerable farmers. The UK government’s proposals would ensure that the budget continues to be hogged by the biggest landlords. As for payments for protecting the environment, this looks to me like the option you’re left with when you refuse to regulate. The rest of us don’t get paid for not mugging old ladies. Why should farmers be paid for not trashing the biosphere? Why should they not be legally bound to protect it, as other businesses are?

In the midst of economic crisis, European governments intend to keep the ultra-rich in vintage port and racehorses at least until 2020. While inflicting the harshest of free market economics upon everyone else, they will oblige us to support a parasitic class of tax avoiders and hedgerow-grubbers, who engorge themselves on the benefactions of the poor.

*UPDATE: It’s just dawned on me that the government’s list must be incomplete. It says it covers all “legal persons”, but it seems that legal persons excludes actual persons, as opposed to companies, partnerships, trusts etc. It would be fascinating to discover whose subsidies have not being listed.

References:

1. http://www.therichest.org/nation/sunday-times-rich-list-2011/

2. The average UK household contribution to the CAP is £245 (DEFRA, by email). Average household weekly expenditure on food and drink is £52.20. Average household weekly savings and investments is £5.70.

Office of National Statistics, 2010. Family Spending 2010 Edition. Table A1: Components of Household Expenditure 2009. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-225698

3. DEFRA, by email.

4. European Commission, 19th October 2011. Regulation Establishing Rules for Direct Payments to Farmers Under Support Schemes Within the Framework of the Common Agricultural Policy. COM(2011) 625 final/2 2011/0280 (COD). http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/cap-post-2013/legal-proposals/com625/625_en.pdf

5. I wanted to go to source on this, but the copies available online are amazingly expensive (there’s an irony here, but I can’t quite put my finger on it). So I’ve relied on a report of the contents of his book: http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2010/10/land-tax-labour-britain

6. The database is here: http://www.cap-payments.defra.gov.uk/Download.aspx DEFRA’s database search facility isn’t working – http://www.cap-payments.defra.gov.uk/Search.aspx – so you’ll have to go through the spreadsheets yourself.

7. The entry in the database is for Blagdon Farming Ltd. I checked online: this is one of the properties of the Blagdon Estate. http://www.blagdonestate.co.uk/theblagdonhomefarm.htm , http://www.192.com/atoz/business/newcastle-upon-tyne-ne13/farming-mixed/blagdon-farming-ltd/292e5a6d3883fe2f4a207c94d6c41e61747a8b50/ml/ and http://www.misterwhat.co.uk/company/384132-blagdon-farming-ltd-newcastle-upon-tyne

8. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/07/bae1

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/09/bae.foreignpolicy

9. http://www.guardian.co.uk/baefiles/page/0,,2095831,00.html

10. The payment is listed as Glympton Farms Ltd. I rang them – they confirmed that Glympton Farms belongs to the estate.

11. Listed as Chatsworth Settlement Trustees. This page identifies the owners: http://www.boltonabbey.com/welcome_trustees.htm

12. Listed as Buccleuch Estates Ltd

13. Listed as Earl of Plymouth Estates Ltd.

14. Listed as Moray Estates Development Co.

15. Listed as Grosvenor Farms Limited. See http://www.grosvenorestate.com/Business/Grosvenor+Farms.htm

16. Listed as Thurlow Estate Farms Ltd. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1570710/Edmund-Vestey.html and http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/fat-cats-benefit-from-eu-farming-subsidies-780192.html

17. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/07/edmund-vestey-tax-will

18. All these utility companies are listed under their own names.

19. I stopped adding the wildlife trust payments shortly after getting down to the £100,000 level, so it is probably a little more than this.

20. The CAP’s Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition rules (an Orwellian term if ever there was one) forbid what they disparagingly call “land abandonment”.

21. http://www.tereos-syral.com/web/syral_web.nsf/Home/index.htm

22. DEFRA, January 2011. UK response to the Commission communication and consultation:

“The CAP towards 2020: Meeting the food, natural resources and territorial challenges of the future”. http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/policy/capreform/documents/110128-uk-cap-response.pdf

23. European Commission, 19th October 2011, as above.

24. DEFRA, January 2011, as above.

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 29th November 2011.

28 November 2011

 

Why did the Durban climate talks fail? Ultimately, the culprit is the near-universal pursuit of economic growth. All the major players want growth: the US, because it’s still pulling out of a recession; China, because it knows 10 percent annual growth can’t go on forever, but is trying to avoid a hard landing; Europe, which is trying to pull out of its sovereign debt spiral. The US and China, in particular, know that fossil fuels have given them growth in the past, and are especially reluctant to give them up now.

The Chinese pulled a PR coup during the talks by announcing that they were willing to consider emissions cuts if the US signs onto a global binding agreement. Perhaps Beijing felt safe saying this because there is a general understanding that binding climate action is currently unthinkable in the US for domestic political reasons. If China were indeed seriously concerned about climate, then as the world’s foremost greenhouse gas emitter it could simply unilaterally cut back on emissions and then challenge the US and other countries to follow suit. But of course that’s not what we’re seeing; instead, China is leading not only in total national emissions but in rates of emissions increase, due to its phenomenal coal consumption.

Can the world decouple GDP growth from carbon emissions? To a certain extent, yes. During the 90s there was some decoupling, especially in the US, but it was mostly due to globalization and financialization. Industrialized countries outsourced much of their production, mainly to China, which burned its coal to make America’s consumer goods; meanwhile, the financial industry blossomed as debt grew faster than GDP and banks leveraged that debt through securitization and derivatives. But, as we’ve seen since 2008, growing the size of the financial industry relative to the size of the rest of the economy can have some nasty long-term side effects.

Over the past decade, most of the decoupling effect has disappeared globally, and energy use and GDP growth have moved in tandem. In 2010, greenhouse gas emissions actually grew faster than GDP. So we’re moving in the wrong direction, and accelerating.

Could we still have economic growth while transitioning to renewable energy? Perhaps, but renewables typically have high up-front investment requirements. Once one has a solar panel up and running, one gets very low-cost energy, but buying and installing the panel is quite expensive—and for the world that’s problematic at a time when investment capital and credit are scarce. So, as regular oil and coal grow more costly, countries are often motivated to solve their energy supply problems simply by digging deeper into their resource base for lower-grade fossil fuels, such as tar sands, which just make the climate problem worse.

This dynamic is only likely to change when we finally get to the point where we are concerned less about short-term economic growth than about our longer-term survival prospects. But by then it may be too late to avert catastrophic and irreversible climate change.

Here’s the bitter irony: we are postponing serious climate action for the sake of immediate economic growth. But with a flood here, a drought there; with a famine here, a mass migration there, we soon arrive at a place where economic growth is unachievable in any case.

Nobody expected much from the Durban talks. Thanks to the US and China, the negotiations fully lived down to their expectations. It’s past time for these nations to wake up and realize that even their short-term growth strategy is doomed to failure. It may be too late by now to avert serious climate impacts, but the world can still benefit by abandoning its pointless and counterproductive quest for growth at any cost.

By Richard Heinberg

10 December 2011

Post Carbon Institute

Richard Heinberg is Senior Fellow-in-Residence at Post Carbon Institute. He is the author of ten books, including The Party’s Over, Peak Everything, and the soon-to-be-released The End of Growth. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels.

 

“Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant (Ambassador to Iraq , Edward Peck). Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised…”

(Jeremiah Wright, September 16, 2001 )

Prophets fare poorly in their own country, yet countries would do well to hearken to their prophets. Scorn, ridicule, and innuendo attend their pronouncements as the righteous defend their actions as logical, existential and necessary. Jeremiah Wright suffered such scorn and mockery because he understood the consequences of revenge on the innocent and the defenceless, justified by whatever inane discourse. Wright spoke truth to power that Sunday after 9/11 and the righteous cried to heaven condemning him to perdition for defaming America, for even suggesting that revenge for the sake of revenge is the motivation of the arch fiend against the Almighty, the foulest, most ignorant, most amoral rational for action.

Prophets anticipate truth; they review a nation’s past history and can predict its future. Witness America ‘s past as the Reverend Wright did that Sunday morning, and what America is doing now repeats its ugliness. Wright said this about America ‘s past:

He pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost.”

“We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

“We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.

“We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.

“We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.

“We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock. (See Psalm 137 to understand how the righteous take revenge against the innocent and defenceless.)

“We bombed Iraq . We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.

“We bombed Hiroshima . We bombed Nagasaki , and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

“Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America ‘s chickens are coming home to roost.

That was the Sunday after 9/11, 2001 when Wright quoted Ambassador Peck. But even that list of America’s atrocities is not complete as Mark Twain would attest in his recounting of the massacre of the Moro’s at the turn of the last century 1900 and our disastrous foray into Vietnam when we lost 58,000 American soldiers and killed millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians.

This is the America that exists now: we preach righteousness, but lie with impunity; declare God’s mission to bring freedom to the mid-east, then decimate the women and children, the old and infirm as necessary collateral damage; proclaim the existence of Weapons of Mass destruction, then massively destroy a nation’s infrastructure, steal its natural resources, take control of its government replacing it with a favoured puppet; and then write the history to extol our righteousness while defaming the defenceless people decimated. Wright knew.

Perhaps our President might hearken back to a time when principles mattered, when truth mattered, when might did not make right, when the souls and hearts of people mattered, when justice and equality mattered not deceit and dominance over all. When did America become a dictatorial empire manipulated by an elite few using the Presidency like some houseboy to do their bidding? When did the founding documents get trashed, mocked and ridiculed as weak, worthless, and obsolete? When did the American people vote to become the dominant empire in the world? What interests of the people demand that this nation establish military bases in about 140 nations around the world then threaten the nations of the world with pre emptive slaughter should they dare to embark on economic or military equality with the United States ? How do the actions implicit in these questions reflect a nation based on the rule of law, on justice for all its citizens, on equity of rights and recognition of rights, on the morals inherent in the Bill of Rights and the ideals enunciated in the Declaration of Independence?

Let’s say it loud and clear, the America of our founding fathers no longer exists; America is owned in mind and pocket book by those who have purchased our representatives, propagate their news through the corporate controlled media, determine the receivers of our tax dollars salvaging those who wrought havoc with our economy, write the legislation that controls the American people orchestrated through the largest conglomerate of a police state ever assembled, Homeland Security, and in its final nail in the coffin of human rights has legislated the abolishment of habeas corpus and rule of law by installing the draconian National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA 2012). This act in the words of Jonathan Turley, expert in constitutional law ( December 21, 2011 on C-Span, gives dictatorial power to the President:

President Obama has just stated a policy that he can have any American citizen killed without any charge, without any review, except his own . If he’s satisfied that you are a terrorist, he says that he can kill you anywhere in the world including in the United States .

Two of his aides just … reaffirmed they believe that American citizens can be killed on the order of the President anywhere including the United States.

You’ve now got a president who says that he can kill you on his own discretion. He can jail you indefinitely on his own discretion

I don’t think the Framers ever anticipated that [the American people would be so apathetic]. They assumed that people would hold their liberties close, and that they wouldn’t relax…

This is the President that rejected the Reverend Wright’s prophecy, that capitulated to his new masters who demanded that he repudiate him, that now elevates himself to the role of Judge, Jury and executioner, the role that used to be played by the Sheriffs of the old segregated south when they turned a blind eye to those dragging a slave to the hanging tree. Indeed, we have turned back in time to that denunciated by a real leader of men, a man born into slavery, Frederick Douglass, when he described the America he lived in just before the Civil War:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States , at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

The American people are now in Douglass’ shoes; they have been put on notice that any pathological employee of Homeland Security, of the armed forces of the United State, of our local police and National Guard, can suspect a citizen of associating or being engaged somehow with “terrorists,” can be arrested, interrogated, imprisoned indefinitely, without charge, without review except his own. The America Douglass so graphically describes existed up through the 100 years of segregation until the Civil Rights movement of 1954 got under way. We’ve had a modicum of equality for the past 50 years brought on by national movements that made clear to the government that they were elected to serve the people, not arrest them.

But let it also be said that the America Douglass describes, the one grounded in “bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy,” still exists outclassing its past a hundred fold. Our savagery knows no bounds: we decimate people wantonly throughout the world as Dresden, the fire-bombing of Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Vietnam, the sanctions against Iraq, the illegal invasion of Iraq, the unqualified military support we provide to the Zionist government in Israel against a defenceless people, the abominable use of drones against the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the continuing development of weapons of mass savagery and our willingness to develop further atomic weapons graphically illustrates.

The numbers slaughtered in this review is in the millions–not all dressed in combat fatigues. The numbers of the defenceless and the innocent outstrips those trained to kill. All of those slaughtered happened outside the United States and every son and daughter, mother and father, sister and brother, aunt and uncle, grandfather and grandmother felt the pain of loss that was to our forces a “body count.” “Revenge is mine sayeth the Lord.” “Violence begets violence, hatred begets hatred, terrorism begets terrorism,” so rings the prophetic knell of the Reverend Wright to his congregation one of whom happened to be our current President Barack Obama. Would that he had listened, for if any man was ever elected to the office of President to change the world, this was the man and he has failed.

By William A. Cook

26 December 2011

Countercurrents.org

William A. Cook is a Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. He writes frequently for Internet publications including The Palestine Chronicle, MWC News, Atlantic Free Press, Pacific Free Press, Countercurrents, Counterpunch, World Prout Assembly, Dissident Voice, and Information Clearing House among others. His books include Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East policy, The Rape of Palestine, The Chronicles of Nefaria, a novella, and the forthcoming The Plight of the Palestinians. He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu or www.drwilliamacook.com

A longer headline would have added the words because of President Obama’s grovelling for Jewish campaign funding and votes.

On 19 December, in the Jewish Daily Forward, Josh Nathan-Kazis wrote this:

“Top-level Jewish fundraisers from President Obama’s 2008 campaign are sticking with the president in 2012.

“Despite reports that President Obama faces a loss of Jewish funders due to his Middle East policy, analysis of a list of elite bundlers from his 2008 race shows no defections among the president’s top Jewish supporters in 2012.”

That’s not good news for the would-be presidents on the Republican side who are grovelling for Jewish campaign funds and votes.

On the same day, in what the BBC’s Barbara Plett called “a highly unusual move”, all the regional and political groupings on the UN Security Council sharply criticised Israeli settlement activities. They said in their statements that “continued settlement building threatened the chances of a future Palestinian state.” They also expressed dismay at rising settler violence. (“They” were the envoys representing the European Union, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab Group and a loose coalition of emerging states known as IBSA).

It was UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant who read the statement of the EU group.

“Israel’s continuing announcements to accelerate the construction of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, (1000 new housing units tendered for last week), send a devastating message. We believe that Israel’s security and the realisation of the Palestinians’ right to statehood are not opposing goals. On the contrary they are mutually reinforcing objectives. But they will not be achieved while settlement building and settler violence continues.”

As Barbara Plett noted,

“Despite the unanimity of views, the envoys did not try to draft a single Security Council statement because they knew the US would veto it.” She also noted that the Obama administration’s stance was that “anything to do with Israeli-Palestinian peace talks belongs in a US-led bilateral process, not at the UN.”

It could be said, and I do say, that such criticism of Israel’s settlement activities is 44 years too late. So what, really, is its significance?

My answer is in three parts.

The first is that it’s a strong indication of America’s growing isolation because of the Obama administration’s unconditional support for Zionism’s monster child.

The second, related, is that it seems to confirm what I have been saying and writing for several months – that behind closed doors almost all of the governments of the world, European governments in particular, are more than fed up with Israel’s contempt for and defiance of international law.

The third is that the governments of most of the member states of the UN have come to terms with the fact that Zionism’s assertion that a Palestinian state on the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip could and would pose a threat to Israel’s existence is propaganda nonsense of the highest order. (This, of course, is only of academic interest because the two-state solution has long been dead if not yet buried).

When I am thinking about Obama’s grovelling, my memory recalls a comment made to me by Dr. Hajo Meyer, the passionate anti-Zionist Nazi holocaust survivor and author of An Ethical Tradition Betrayed, The End of Judaism.

We had shared a platform in London and over breakfast the following morning I asked him a question. I said: “Hajo, you’re well into your eighties and you are being vilified by Zionism’s verbal hit-men for your efforts to unmask the Zionist monster. Why are you continuing with your truth-telling? Why don’t you sit back in peace and quiet and enjoy what’s left of your life?”

He replied with nine little words. “The first person I see every morning is me,” meaning “I have to live with myself.”

It’s more than reasonable to assume that Obama looks in the mirror from time to time. I wonder if he can live with himself.

Footnote: My comments on Israel’s response

Israel’s response as delivered by Karean Peretz, spokeswoman for Israel’s UN Mission, included this: “The main obstacle to peace, has been, and remains, the Palestinians’ claim to the so-called right of return and its refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state,”

That, too, is Zionist propaganda nonsense of the highest order.

Israel is not a Jewish state. How could it be when about a quarter of its citizens are Arabs and mainly Muslims? Israel could only be a Jewish state after it had resorted to a final round of ethnic cleansing. Israel is a Zionist state.

Because Arafat kept them informed through a secret channel, Israel’s leaders have long known that in the event of a two-state solution, the PLO was reluctantly reconciled to the reality of the right of return being confined to the territory of the Palestinian state, which would mean that only about 100,000 refugees would be able to return, with the rest having to accept financial compensation for the loss, theft, of their land and rights.

As I explain in my book Zionism, The Real Enemy of the Jews, when they decided they had no choice but to be pragmatic, Arafat and his leadership colleagues took a degree of comfort from two hopes. One was that all Palestinian refugees everywhere could and would have a Palestinian passport. The other was that if there was a two-state solution, it could evolve over one or two generations into one state for all – i.e. because in peace and partnership enough Israeli Jews would say something like “We don’t need two states”. In the event of a one-state solution coming about by mutual consent, it was assumed on the Palestinian side at leadership level that, over time, all Palestinians who wanted to return would be able to return. So in theory the two-state solution was not necessarily the end-game on the right of return.

By Alan Hart

23 December 2011

Alanhart.net

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent. He is author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs at http://www.alanhart.net and tweets via http://twitter.com/alanauthor

 

Prominent Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi described the protests in Bahrain as a “sectarian” revolution by Shiites against the Sunnis.

Prominent Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi described the protests in Bahrain as a “sectarian” revolution by Shiites against the Sunnis. Al-Qaradawi has strongly criticized the opposition movement in Bahrain, which he considered to be very different from the protest movements in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.

Al-Qaradawi stressed that the “revolution of Bahrain is quite different from those in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, adding that” what is happening in Bahrain is a sectarian revolution, while the rest of the four revolutions were staged by the people against the unjust rulers. The Egyptian-born cleric explained that the Egyptian people came out from all classes and sects, Muslims and Christians, both young and old, men and women, liberals and conservatives.

“I mean all the Egyptian people, all the Tunisian people, all the Libyan people, as well as the Yemeni people, while in Bahrain we see a sectarian revolution,” he conveyed.

Al-Qaradawi stated that when the Sunnis in Bahrain understtod the protests have a sectarian character, hundreds of thousands of them participated in the rally, which took place near Al-Fateh Mosque in Manama.

Sheikh Qaradawi was one of the first clerics who supported the protest movements of the Tunisian people and strongly supported the Egyptian revolution to end the rule of Mubarak. He also issued a fatwa allowing to kill Libyan Leader Moammar Gaddafi for abusing for years his own people.

20 March 2011

@ Al Bawaba

 

 

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” Frederic Bastiat, French thinker (1801-1850).

The U.S. and its allies are preparing for aggression against the Syria as part of the U.S.-Israel destabilisation agenda in the region. The pretext is, as usual; the “protection of civilians” and installing of Western-style “democracy”. But in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The aim is to topple the current Syrian government and replace it with a puppet government subservient to U.S.-Israel Zionist interests.

It should be note that because of Syria’s support for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance to Israel’s terror and Syria’s ties with Iran, the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad deemed a ”threat” to U.S. and Israel interests. Hence, a Syrian regime subservient to U.S.-Israel dictates is vital to isolate Iran and ignores Israel’s Zionist expansion.

The ongoing foreign interference in Syria’s internal affairs is a reminder of the recent criminal foreign interference in Libya, which began with the imposition of a “no-fly” zone over Libya that was an illegal military invasion of Libya. Media reports show that the U.S. and Israel have hired Saudi and Lebanese elements to foment unrest in Syria and create a rift between the government and the Syrian people based on sectarian divisions.

The demonization campaign by the U.S. and its allies to delegitimize the Syrian government is similar to the demonization campaign that was carried out in Libya. On 25 November 2011, the Arab League – a collection of illegitimate despots controlled by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil fiefdoms – suspended Syria’s membership in the Arab League and called for economic and diplomatic sanctions against the nation of Syria. Like Libya, the suspension of Syria from the Arab league provides the U.S. and its allies with a fig-leaf to attack Syria and wage war against another Muslim nation.

The Arab League has a long history of betrayal and has become irrelevant. “ It is Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that have helped hijack the League. The GCC is comprised of the Arabian Gulf petro-sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. None of these countries are model states, let alone democracies. Their U.S.-installed leaders have betrayed the Palestinians, helped attack Iraq, support Israel against Lebanon, demolished Libya, and now they conspire against Syria and its regional allies”. He added; “[The Arab League] has been hijacked and serves Washington and its NATO allies instead of any genuinely Arab interests”. Like the GCC, the Arab league is a tool of U.S. imperialism. Its shameful act against Syria (a rehearsal of its shameful act against Libya) is an act of war against another Arab nation.

The most shameful of all of this is the role of the U.S.-backed Arab despots lead by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. It is ironic that these despots are motivated by concern for human rights and democracy in Syria. Decades of repression, embezzlement of the peoples’ wealth and resources by these despotic regimes led to high levels of inequality and corruption. Despite their wealth, they remain backwards indulging in Western decadence and turning away from Islam as a way of life. They espouse and practise an extremist (Islamic) sect that is destroying Islam as a great religion. They are unelected, illegitimate rulers and do not tolerate any opposition to their tyrannical rule.

Saudi Arabia, of course, is the world’s most repressive regime. It is also the U.S. closest ally. It is an absolute monarchy which sees freedom and human rights as a threat to its corrupt ruling class. Ordinary Saudi women are excluded from employment, which is very high (40%) among young men and women. Saudi Arabia’s so-called “anti-terror” law criminalises dissent as “terrorist crimes” and allows for long detention of people without charge. Dissent in Saudi Arabia is dealt with brutally. On 21 November 2011, Saudi troops opened fire on a peaceful demonstration in Qatif in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, killing more than four demonstrators and injuring more. Saudi rulers don’t even tolerate dissent in their neighbouring countries.

In March 2011, Saudi forces invaded Bahrain and brutally crushed pro-democracy protesters. The invasion was encouraged and supported by the U.S. administration. The recent report by the King of Bahrain appointed commission, Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) was an orchestrated whitewash designed to enforce the rule of the despotic monarchy. Nevertheless the report found “systematic abuses of human rights” during the government attacks on pro-democracy protests. The 500-page report outlines various abuses committed by King Hamad Bin Isa al-Khalifa’s despotic regime. According to the report, detainees – including medical staff whose only crimes were to treat injured protesters – were tortured and sexually abused. The report was immediately buried by Western media before it saw daylight.

Step by step, the Libyan model is being implemented in Syria. On 28 November, the UN – the right arm of U.S. imperialism – accused Syrian forces of “crimes against humanity” in their defence of the Syrian nation against Western-sponsored armed gangs and terrorists. The so-called ‘UN Human Rights Council’ report is entirely based on lies fabricated by expatriates in London, Paris and Washington. While the report accuses the government of “committed atrocities”, the report has completely omitted the death and torture of thousands of Syrians, including soldiers and police by the armed gangs. The report main purpose is to demonise the Syrian government and justify Western armed aggression. The report was immediately disseminated by Western propaganda organs, including the BBC, CNN, Fox News, Al-Jazeera and the print media led by the Murdoch Press.

The report was a carbon copy of the UN reports on Iraq and Libya before they were invaded and destroyed by the U.S.-NATO militaries. The same pack of lies that were used to justify U.S barbaric aggression against Iraq has been recycled against Syria. The report is a prelude to a U.S.-NATO aggression against Syria. Where was the UN Human Rights Council when the U.S. perpetrated genocide in Iraq? It is evident that the UN is playing the role of a facilitator of Western-perpetrated war crimes. Disinformation is important and effective in manipulating public opinion and creating an atmosphere of war.

While the UN is busy manipulating world’s public opinions on behalf of U.S.-NATO armies, British Prime Minister David Cameron and the Qatari despot, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, pledged to support (i.e., shipment of arms and money) the Syrian “opposition groups” in an attempt to shore up “democracy”. Of course, David Cameron and the Qatari despot love for democracy is evident in their violent destruction of Libya. Today, Libya is a mirror image of Iraq, looted, ruined and mired in violence. Tens of thousands of Libyans (and Africans) have been murdered, thousands are languishing in torturous prisons and a third of the population is displaced.

Still blood-thirsty, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for the creation of a secure “humanitarian zone” to protect civilians similar to the Libyan “humanitarian zone” where thousands of innocent civilians were murdered by U.S.-NATO armies. The pretext of “human rights” to justify war of aggression has been around since the rise of Adolf Hitler’s Germany. The German Nazis used the pretexts of “protecting civilians” to justify military invasions and violence. Indeed, since the early 1990s, the world has witnessing the rise and rise of Anglo-American fascism invading and terrorising defenceless nations and leaving them in complete ruin on the pretext of “protecting civilians”.

According to the Turkish daily newspaper, Milliyet (28 November 2011): “France sent its military training forces to Turkey and Lebanon to coach the so-called Free [Syrian] Army — a group of defectors operating out of Turkey and Lebanon — in an effort to wage war against Syria”. Foreign mercenaries have been pouring through the border with Lebanon. As mentioned earlier, they are armed and financed by the CIA, Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

It is important to remember that, the armed insurrection – financed and armed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan – against the Syrian government has been confined to smaller cities and towns along the borders with Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. (For more, see my Target Syria ). The overwhelming majority of Syrians support President Bashar al-Assad, particularly in major population centres, such as Damascus, Latakia and Aleppo . Recent pro-government demonstrations in these major cities have attracted millions of al-Assad supporters.

Meanwhile, Turkey is exploiting the violence to serve Turkey’s and NATO imperialist interests. Turkey has been promoting the creation of “a buffer zone” in Syria to train and arm the so-called “Syrian resistance” to the Syrian government. In its flagrant interfere in Syrian domestic affairs, Turkey has sponsored several conferences aimed at building an opposition to the Syrian government and Turkey was instrumental in creating the so-called Syrian National Council (SNC), a fractious coalition of expatriates and armed extremists. Their leaders have already indicated that they will cut Syria’s ties with Iran and with the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements once they are in a position of “power” in Syria. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal , the SCN spokesman , “Burhan Ghalioun, was forced (and there is no other explanation for it) to come clean about the nature of the payback required of the Syrian opposition by its US, Turkish, Gulf, and European supporters”, observed Ibrahim al-Amin , editor-in-chief of al-Akhbar news. Large quantities of weapons have been smuggled into Syria from Turkey to foment civil war in the country. Turkey is even contemplating an invasion of Syria if Ankara receives the green light from Washington. Turkey is not interfering in Syria’s internal affairs because “White Turks” suddenly began to care about human rights and democracy in the Arab World, Turkey’s interference is self-serving and on behalf of U.S.-Israel Zionist interests.

Turkey pretends to be an even-handed “mediator” in the region, a “bridge” between the West and Muslim nations. In reality, White Turks are subservient to Western imperialism and have been performing the role of an imperialist proxy since the rise of Kamal Ataturk. While Turkey prides itself of being a Muslim nation, Turkey espouses a Western-oriented “Calvinist Islam”, which clearly conflicts with Islamic principles. Turkey’s decades-long relationship with the Zionist state of Israel and Turkey’s participation in U.S.-NATO (Turkey is a NATO member) wars against Muslim nations are anti-Islam. Indeed, many ordinary Turks have condemned Turkey’s role in the U.S.-NATO destruction of Libya and the mass murder of Libyan civilians. Furthermore, Turkey’s decision to allow the U.S.-NATO to deploy nuclear missiles “shield” on its soil that is directly aimed at Iran and other Muslim nations is an outright hypocrisy and a betrayal of Islam.

Turkey’s recent posturing as a champion of Palestine is an opportunistic rhetoric designed for domestic and regional consumption. If White Turks really care about human rights, they will end Turkey’s cooperation with Israel and impose economic sanction against the Zionist state. White Turks should be concern about human rights in their own backyard. The Arabs should and must reject Turkey’s new role as a gendarme on behalf of imperialism and Zionism.

U.S. interference in the affairs of sovereign nations, including Arab nation is well-documented. The U.S. is the greatest enemy of democracy, human rights and international law. Regarding democracy, U.S. ruling class prefers what Hillary Clinton called: “The kind of democracy that we want to see”. The kind of democracy in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Iran under the torturer Shah Reza Behlavi, Egypt under the tyrannical Mubarak and Chile under the fascist regime of Augusto Pinochet. In fact, it would be very difficult to name a single murderous dictator that was not (put in power) financed and armed by the U.S. and its allies. The U.S. has long love affairs with murderous dictators and fascists.

Furthermore, U.S. agencies and think-tanks, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), George Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and many more are directly involved in financing opposition groups in the Arab world and beyond. The New York Times (14 April 2011) revealed, “ a number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the [Middle east], including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a non-profit human rights organization based in Washington”. In Syria, NED is directly involved in financing the armed insurrection in Syria through its partner, the Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies, an anti-Syrian government organisation. In the case of Egypt, the U.S. supported the Mubarak regime to the end. Once Mubarak was ousted, the U.S. switched sides and has begun promoting divisions and sectarianism. At the same time, the U.S. continues to work with its faithful client, the Egyptian Army to manipulate the “revolution” to serve U.S.-Israel Zionist interests. However, if regime change cannot be achieved through what is so-called “colour revolution” and economic sanctions, the U.S. uses military intervention (illegal aggression) to achieve its goal. It happened in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya and it is closing on Syria.

Finally, Syria is not a perfect country. Like in every country, Syria has internal oppositions of several parties. T hey are against violence and foreign interference in their country’s affairs. The Syrian people want real reforms – economic and political reforms – that serve their interests. The Syrian people have suffered greatly in the last decade. As a result of economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and more than 2 million Iraqi refugees, the Syrian economy has stagnated and living conditions have deteriorated. The Syrian people don’t want U.S.-sponsored regime change. An opinion poll conducted in March 2009 revealed that more than two-thirds of the Syrian population viewed the U.S. unfavourably. The decision to change the current Syrian government and political system remains in the hands of the Syrian people.

With powerful forces gathered against them, the Syrian people are facing violent aggression to destroy and plunder their nation. There is no excuse to remain on the sideline, complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity. The struggle to uphold international law and oppose aggression must continue.

By Ghali Hassan

8 December 2011

Countercurrents.org

Ghali Hassan is an independent political analyst living in Australia.

 

 

 

 

Africa is now one of the world’s fastest-growing regions

MUCH has been written about the rise of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and the shift in economic power eastward as Asia outruns the rest of the world. But the surprising success story of the past decade lies elsewhere. An analysis by The Economist finds that over the ten years to 2010, no fewer than six of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies were in sub-Saharan Africa (see table).

The only BRIC country to make the top ten was China, in second place behind Angola. The other five African sprinters were Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad, Mozambique and Rwanda, all with annual growth rates of around 8% or more. During the two decades to 2000 only one African economy (Uganda) made the top ten, against nine from Asia. On IMF forecasts Africa will grab seven of the top ten places over the next five years (our ranking excludes countries with a population of less than 10m as well as Iraq and Afghanistan, which could both rebound strongly in the years ahead).

Over the past decade sub-Saharan Africa’s real GDP growth rate jumped to an annual average of 5.7%, up from only 2.4% over the previous two decades. That beat Latin America’s 3.3%, but not emerging Asia’s 7.9%. Asia’s stunning performance largely reflects the vast weight of China and India; most economies saw much slower growth, such as 4% in South Korea and Taiwan. The simple unweighted average of countries’ growth rates was virtually identical in Africa and Asia.

Over the next five years Africa’s is likely to take the lead (see chart). In other words, the average African economy will outpace its Asian counterpart. Looking even farther ahead, Standard Chartered forecasts that Africa’s economy will grow at an average annual rate of 7% over the next 20 years, slightly faster than China’s.

So it should, of course. Poorer economies have more potential for catch-up growth. The scandal was that Africa’s real GDP per head fell for so many years. In 1980 Africans had an average income per head almost four times bigger than the Chinese. Today the Chinese are more than three times richer. Africa’s rapidly rising population still dampens its growth in real income per head but that, too, has risen by an annual rate of 3% since 2000—almost twice as fast as the global average.

For Western firms Africa’s economy still looks tiny, accounting for only 2% of world output. Emerging Asia’s is ten times larger. But Africa’s share is rising, not only because of brisker growth but because GDP has been seriously understated in many economies. In November the size of Ghana’s economy was revised up by a massive 75% after government statisticians improved their data and added in industries such as telecoms. Other countries are likely to revise their GDP levels and growth rates upward over the coming years.

Africa’s changing fortunes have largely been driven by China’s surging demand for raw materials and higher commodity prices, but other factors have also counted. Africa has benefited from big inflows of foreign direct investment, especially from China, as well as foreign aid and debt relief. Urbanisation and rising incomes have fuelled faster growth in domestic demand.

Economic management has improved, too. Government revenues have been bolstered in recent years by high commodity prices and rapid growth. But instead of going on a spending spree as in the past some governments, such as Tanzania’s and Mozambique’s, have put money aside, cushioning their economies in the recession.

Some ambled through the decade rather than sprinted. Africa’s biggest economy by far, South Africa, is one of its laggards: it posted average annual growth of only 3.5% over the past decade. Indeed, it may be overtaken in size by Nigeria within ten to 15 years if Nigeria’s bold banking reforms are extended to the power and the oil industries. But the big challenge for all mineral exporters will be providing jobs for a population expected to grow by 50% between 2010 and 2030.

Commodity-driven growth does not generate many jobs; and commodity prices could fall. So governments need to diversify their economies. There are some glimmers. Countries such as Uganda and Kenya that do not depend on mineral exports are also growing faster than before, partly because they have increased manufacturing exports. Standard Chartered thinks that Africa could become a significant manufacturing centre.

Formidable obstacles to Africa’s continued progress loom, among them political instability, the weak rule of law, chronic corruption, infrastructure bottlenecks, and poor health and education. Without reforms, Africa will not be able to sustain faster growth. But its lion economies are earning a place alongside Asia’s tigers.

6 January 2011

@ The Economist

The economic, political and social outlook for 2012 is profoundly negative.  The almost universal consensus, even among mainstream orthodox economists is pessimistic regarding the world economy. Although, even here, their predictions understate the scope and depth of the crisis, there are powerful reasons to believe that beginning in 2012, we are heading toward a steeper decline than what was experienced during the Great Recession of 2008 – 2009.  With fewer resources, greater debt and increasing popular resistance to shouldering the burden of saving the capitalist system, the governments cannot bail out the system.

Many of the major institutions and economic relations which were cause and consequence of world and regional capitalist expansion over the past three decades are in the process of disintegration and disarray.  The previous economic engines of global expansion, the US and the European Union, have exhausted their potentialities and are in open decline. The new centers of growth, China, India, Brazil, Russia, which for a ‘short decade’ provided a new impetus for world growth have run their course and are de-accelerating rapidly and will continue to do so throughout the new year.

The Collapse of the European Union

Specifically, the crises-wracked European Union will break up and the de facto multi-tiered structure will turn into a series of bilateral/multi-lateral trade and investment agreements.  Germany , France , the Low and Nordic countries will attempt to weather the downturn.  England – namely the City of London , in splendid isolation, will sink into negative growth, its financiers scrambling to find new speculative opportunities among the Gulf petrol-states and other ‘niches’.  Eastern and Central Europe, particularly Poland and the Czech Republic , will deepen their ties to Germany but will suffer the consequences of the general decline of world markets.  Southern Europe ( Greece , Spain , Portugal and Italy ) will enter into a deep depression as the massive debt payments fueled by savage assaults on wages and social benefits will severely reduce consumer demand.

Depression level unemployment and under-employment running to one-third of the labor force will detonate year-long social conflicts, intensifying into popular uprisings.  Eventually a break-up of the European Union is almost inevitable.  The euro as a currency of choice will be replaced by or return to national issues accompanied by devaluations and protectionism.  Nationalism will be the order of the day.  Banks in Germany , France and Switzerland will suffer huge losses on their loans to the South.  Major bailouts will become necessary, polarizing German and French societies, between the tax-paying majorities and the bankers.  Trade union militancy and rightwing pseudo-‘populism’ (neo-fascism) will intensify the class and national struggles.

A depressed, fragmented and polarized Europe will be less likely to join in any Zionist inspired US-Israeli military adventure against Iran (or even Syria ).  Crisis ridden Europe will oppose Washington ‘s confrontationalist approach to Russia and China .

The US :  The Recession Returns with a Vengeance

The US economy will suffer the consequences of its ballooning fiscal deficit and will not be able to spend its way out of the world recession of 2012.  Nor can it count on ‘exporting’ its way out of negative growth by turning to previously dynamic Asia, as China, India and the rest of Asia are losing economic steam.  China will grow far below its 9% moving average.  India will decline from 8% to 5% or lower.  Moreover, the Obama regime’s military policy of ‘encirclement’, its economic policy of exclusion and protectionism will preclude any new stimulus from China .

Militarism Exacerbates the Economic Downturn

The US and England will be the biggest losers from the Iraqi post war economic reconstruction.  Of $186 billion dollars in infrastructure projects, US and UK corporations will gain less than 5% ( Financial Times , 12/16/11, p 1 and 3).  A similar outcome is likely in Libya and elsewhere.  US imperial militarism destroys an adversary, plunging into debt to do so, and non-belligerents reap the lucrative post-war economic reconstruction contracts.

The US economy will fall into recession in 2012 and the “jobless recovery of 2011” will be replaced by a steep increase of unemployment in 2012.  In fact, the entire labor force will shrink as people losing their unemployment benefits will fail to register.

Labor exploitation (“productivity”) will intensify as capitalists force workers to produce more, for less pay, thus widening the income gap between wages and profits.

The economic downturn and growth of unemployment will be accompanied by savage cuts in social programs to subsidize financially troubled banks and industries.  The debates among the parties will be over how large the cuts to workers and retirees will be to secure the ‘confidence’ of the bondholders.  Faced with equally limited political choices, the electorate will react by voting out incumbents, abstaining and via spontaneous and organized mass movements, such as the “occupy Wall Street” protest.  Dissatisfaction, hostility and frustration will pervade the culture.  Democratic Party demagogues will scapegoat China ; the Republican Party demagogues will blame the immigrants. Both will fulminate against “the Islamo-fascists” and especially against Iran .

New Wars in the Midst of Crises:  Zionists Pull the Trigger

The ‘ 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations’ and their “Israel First” followers in the US Congress, State Department, Treasury and the Pentagon will push for war with Iran .  If they are successful it will result in a regional conflagration and world depression.  Given the extremist Israeli regime’s success in securing blind obedience to its war policies from the US Congress and White House, any doubts about the real possibility of a major catastrophic outcome can be set aside.

China :  Compensatory Mechanisms in 2012

China will face the global recession of 2012 with several possibilities of ameliorating its impact.  Beijing can shift toward producing goods and services for the 700 million domestic consumers currently out of the economic loop.  By increasing wages, social services and environmental safety, China can compensate for the loss of overseas markets.  China ‘s economic growth, which is largely dependent on real estate speculation, will be adversely affected when the bubble is burst.  A sharp downturn will result, leading to job losses, municipal bankruptcies and increased social and class conflicts.  This can result in either greater repression or gradual democratization.  The outcome will profoundly affect China ‘s market – state relations.  The economic crisis will likely strengthen state control over the market.

Russia Faces the Crisis

Russia ‘s election of President Putin will lead to less collaboration in backing US promoted uprisings and sanctions against Russian allies and trading partners.  Putin will turn toward greater ties with China and will benefit from the break-up of the EU and the weakening of NATO.

The western media backed opposition will use its financial clout to erode Putin’s image and encourage investment boycotts though they will lose the Presidential elections by a big margin.  The world recession will weaken the Russian economy and will force it to choose between greater public ownership or greater dependency on state funds to bail out prominent oligarchs.

The Transition 2011 – 2012:  From Regional Stagnation and Recession to World Crises

The year 2011 laid the groundwork for the breakdown of the European Union.  The crises began with the demise of the Euro, stagnation in the US and the outbreak of mass protests against the obscene inequalities on a world scale.  The events of 2011 were a dress rehearsal for a new year of full scale trade wars between major powers, sharpening inter-imperialist struggles and the likelihood of popular rebellions turning into revolutions.  Moreover, the escalation of Zionist-orchestrated war fever against Iran in 2011 promises the biggest regional war since the US-Indo-Chinese conflict.  The electoral campaigns and outcomes of Presidential elections in the US , Russia and France will deepen the global conflicts and economic crises.

During 2011 the Obama regime announced a policy of military confrontation with Russia and China and policies designed to undermine and degrade China ‘s rise as a world economic power.  In the face of a deepening economic recession and with the decline of overseas markets, especially in Europe , a major trade war will unfold.  Washington will aggressively pursue policies limiting Chinese exports and investments.  The White House will escalate its efforts to disrupt China ‘s trade and investments in Asia, Africa and elsewhere.  We can expect greater US efforts to exploit China ‘s internal ethnic and popular conflicts and to increase its military presence off China ‘s coastline.  A major provocation or fabricated incident in this context is not to be excluded.  The result in 2012 could lead to rabid chauvinist calls for a costly new ‘Cold War’.  Obama has provided the framework and justification for a large-scale, long-term confrontation with China .  This will be seen as a desperate effort to prop up US influence and strategic positions in Asia .  The US military “quadrangle of power” – US-Japan-Australia-South Korea – with satellite support from the Philippines , will pit China ‘s market ties against Washington ‘s military build-up.

Europe :  Deeper Austerity and Intensified Class Struggle

The austerity programs imposed in Europe, from England to Latvia to southern Europe will really take hold in 2012.  Massive public sector firings and reduced private sector salaries and job opportunities will lead to a year of permanent class warfare and regime challenges.   The ‘austerity policies’ in the South, will be accompanied by debt defaults resulting in bank failures in France and Germany .  England ‘s financial ruling class, isolated from Europe, but dominant in England , will insist that the Conservatives ‘repress’ labor and popular unrest.  A new tough neo-Thatcherite style of autocratic rule will emerge; the Labor-trade union opposition will issue empty protests and tighten the leash on the rebellious populace.  In a word, the regressive socio-economic policies put in place in 2011 have set the stage for new police-state regimes and more acute and possibly bloody confrontations with workers and unemployed youth with no future.

The Coming Wars that End America “As We Know It”

Within the US , Obama has laid the groundwork for a new and bigger war in the Middle East by relocating troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and concentrating them against Iran .  To undermine Iran , Washington is expanding clandestine military and civilian operations against Iranian allies in Syria , Pakistan , Venezuela and China .  The key to the US and Israeli bellicose strategy toward Iran is a series of wars in neighboring states, world- wide economic sanctions , cyber-attacks aimed at disabling vital industries and clandestine terrorist assassinations of scientists and military officials.  The entire push, planning and execution of the US policies leading up to war with Iran can be empirically and without a doubt attributed to the Zionist power configuration occupying strategic positions in the US Administration, mass media and ‘civil society’.  A systematic analysis of American policymakers designing and implementing economic sanctions policy in Congress finds prominent roles for such mega-Zionists (Israel-Firsters) as Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Howard Berman;  Dennis Ross in the White House, Jeffrey Feltman in the State Department, and  Stuart Levy, and his replacement David Cohen, in the Treasury.  The White House is totally beholden to Zionist fund raisers and takes its cue from the ‘ 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organization .

The Israeli-Zionist strategy is to encircle Iran , weaken it economically and attack its military.  The Iraq invasion was the US ‘s first war for Israel ; the Libyan war the second; the current proxy war against Syria is the third.  These wars have destroyed Israel ‘s adversaries or are in the process of doing so.  During 2011, economic sanctions, which were designed to create domestic discontent in Iran , were the principle weapon of choice .  The global sanctions campaign engaged the entire energies of the major Jewish-Zionist lobbies .  They have faced no opposition from the mass media, Congress or the White Office.  The Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) has been virtually exempt from criticism by any of the progressive, leftist and socialist journals, movements or grouplets – with a few notable exceptions.

The past year’s re-positioning of US troops from Iraq to the borders of Iran , the sanctions and the rising Big Push from Israel ‘s Fifth Column in the US means expanded war in the Middle East . This likely means a “surprise” aerial and maritime missile attack by US forces.  This will be based on a concocted pretext of an “imminent nuclear attack” concocted by Israeli Mossad and faithfully transmitted by the ZPC to their lackeys US Congress and White House for consumption and transmission to the world.  It will be a destructive, bloody, prolonged war for Israel ; the US will bear  the direct military cost by itself and the rest of the world will pay a dear economic price.  The Zionist-promoted US war will convert the recession of early 2012 into a major depression by the end of the year and probably provoke mass upheavals.

Conclusion

All indications point to 2012 being a turning point year of unrelenting economic crisis spreading outward from Europe and the US to Asia and its dependencies in Africa and Latin America .  The crisis will be truly global.  Inter-imperial confrontations and colonial wars will undermine any efforts to ameliorate this crisis.  In response, mass movements will emerge moving over time from protests and rebellions, and hopefully to social revolutions and political power.

By James Petras

26 December 2011

Countercurrents.org

James Petras is the author of more than 62 books published in 29 languages, and over 600 articles in professional journals.