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It is not known who perpetrated the Houla massacre. It is certain though that both sides (the Syrian regime army and the gangs operating under the banner of the Free Syrian Army) have a record of brutality and disregard for human lives to qualify them to do the job.

What is certain is that Houla was a propaganda blitz that dominated Western as well as Arab (Saudi-funded and Qatari-funded) media. The romanticizing of the so-called “Syrian Revolution” (the deeds of the Free Syrian Army and Syrian National Council and the Muslim Brotherhood deserve the label of revolution as much as George W. Bush deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and as much as Bashar Assad deserves to serve as president of Syria) clashes with the actual record of the armed groups operating under the umbrella of the FSA.

But it is time that we raise questions and we expose lies surrounding the Syrian uprising. Let us first remember that Western media basically surrender control of their editorial policies to their governments when they decide to go against a developing country. We remember that few raised questions about the wisdom of forming an army of militant Muslims in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The cause of what later produced al-Qaeda was championed. I remember Dan Rather in Afghan clothes riding a horse and reporting on the “heroes” of the fight against communism. Lies and fabrications and exaggerations were the symptom of the coverage of Afghanistan at the time. And when the communist regime fell and was later replaced by the Taliban, there were no demands for accountability and no one asked Dan Rather if he ever met Bin Laden during his media stunt in Afghanistan.

When Western governments were preparing for the invasion of Libya (you were led to believe that only Qatari forces were on the grounds in Libya by the way, given their battle-tested experience), the West’s media yet again published unsubstantiated reports and claims about what was happening in Libya.

The same media that stood silent when all Western leaders groveled before Gaddafi suddenly woke up to the reality of dictatorship in Libya. All sorts of claims were made: the number of 100,000 dead was thrown about casually (of course, it later proved to be untrue), and reports of foreign mercenary armies were a staple of the coverage (that was also untrue and the reports themselves fueled a racist anti-black campaign by the Libyan fighters after “liberation”).

Whatever happened to that woman who made that claim about being raped by Gaddafi’s soldiers? Why was she deported from Qatar and what became of her? No one asked, and the media turned the page and started another campaign.

It should be mentioned that some decent journalists may feel pressured to toe the line not only by the conventional wisdom of the establishment around them but also because the regime (whether in Libya or in Syria) is an awful dictatorial regime that does not deserve to last one day longer.

But it should be stressed that the well-funded (mostly by Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia) press offices of the exile Syrian opposition constantly and daily feed the Western media a large supply of lies, exaggerations, fabrications, and wild scenarios. These media offices (like the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – and for everything else that propaganda requires) never have to account for their information or claims.

They provide names of people inside Syria and Western correspondents merely Skype with them. Those whose names are provided by the press offices of the Syrian exile opposition merely confirm or reiterate or repeat verbatim whatever is being said by the exile offices. There have been videos shown on Youtube (since Youtube is the favorite source for Western media on Syria) in which injuries are faked and children are coached to speak about their experiences. All that never makes it into Western media.

Even the obvious lies never get challenged. From very early on, there were many lies spread that have yet to be exposed. For months, Syrian opposition exile groups insisted that there were no armed opposition groups and they stressed that their movement is purely peaceful (and when pictures of armed men were displayed, they were dismissed as enemy propaganda).

Yet, suddenly and without explanation, the same groups started to brag about and praise the armed opposition groups who ostensibly were leading a purely peaceful revolution. The propaganda agenda was clearly exhibited with the various statements (especially by exile opposition figures in Western and Saudi media) to the effect that the Syrian regime is being assisted by fighters from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah, and the Mahdi Army.

The sectarian motives were obvious, and no one asked the basic logical questions. Why would an army experienced in shooting at its own people resort to the assistance of Hezbollah fighters who are trained in fighting the Israeli army? What kind of assistance would Hezbollah fighters bring to the picture? And why would the large Syrian Army need additional men?

Furthermore, the notion that the Syrian army would need the Mahdi Army (which is always appropriately described in the Western press as the “rag-tag” army) was not dismissed. The Western media promoted those accusations although the “evidence” that was often talked about on TV never materialized, despite the kidnapping of Iranian civilians in Syria. It is likely that Russian special forces assisted the Syrian Army in Baba Amr (according to one of my sources) but that is never mentioned in the press because Russia is not a Shia country.

Similarly, the Syrian exile opposition also duped the Western press (and Western audiences in workshops, conferences, and panels) to think that the Syrian uprising is led by liberal peaceful feminists (and they would often name a woman or two), and would insist that the Muslim Brotherhood has nothing to do with the uprising in Syria.

Of course, now we know better. Various leading figures in the Syrian National Council admitted belatedly that indeed the Muslim Brotherhood is running the show, and only after a year of the uprising did some in the Western press publish articles about the influence and clout of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Houla story is still murky. No one knows what happened. We know that there are innocent civilians who were killed. We know that both sides are exchanging accusations and we know that both sides are habitual liars. But we can raise some questions:

-Why have the Western media ignored stories of kidnappings and killings of civilians by the gangs of Free Syrian Army (which is really merely a name used by a variety of gangs and bands largely with Islamist – and in some cases Bin Ladenite – ideology)?

-Why were there no attempts made at deconstructing the stories spread by the exile Syrian opposition. Initially, they claimed that the Syrian Army killed those civilians by shelling. It was only the other day when the UN stated that less than 20 were killed by the shelling (and the 20 are not a small number and they should be added to the disgraceful list of crimes committed by the regime that should be overthrown and brought to justice), and that most were killed at close range. There were claims of knife attacks but it seems that most were shot.

-Why was there an attempt to make it as though the Houla massacre was a sectarian crime (by Shia/Alawis against Sunnis) when it is emerging that maybe a third of the victims were Shia. Were there sectarian killings going on in the region in the days preceding the massacre? Why has there not been in the Western press any reference to the sectarian kidnappings (by Salafi armed groups in Daraa comprising even some Libyans according to Al-Akhbar correspondent who visited the scene) against Druze in the Sweida region (the Druze, in turn, kidnapped people from Daraa before the matter was resolved and hostages exchanged.

-Why did the media not notice that the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian National Council, and the Muslim Brotherhood all admitted that they were in touch with the sectarian group that kidnapped the Lebanese Shia pilgrims? In fact, famed liberal Syrian dissident, Haytham al-Malih, told a newspaper owned by a Saudi prince (Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat) that he supported the kidnapping and called on the kidnappers to not release the pilgrims.

Is it possible to believe the story that was told: that Shia and Alawis who reside in a predominantly Sunni area decided to suddenly turn against the majority and butcher them? And how did the surviving victims know the sectarian identity of their killers? Well, according to the Neil MacFarquhar, they bizarrely told them, “we are shabiha.” They all but left pictures of Bashar Assad behind them. Another story (wildly circulated on Twitter) has a more bizarre twist: apparently, the killers had “Shia slogans written on their foreheads [1]” (the story was written by a Western reporter and then circulated by Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (who will soon direct a news station owned by the Prince Al-Walid bin Talal).

With this you know that Nazi style bigotry is dominating the coverage and that sectarian armed groups are purposefully fanning the flames of sectarian hatred. Civil war is no more a danger in Syria. It is a matter of a policy eagerly sought by Salafi groups and their sponsors in the Gulf countries.

This does not settle it. We still don’t know what happened in Houla. But a healthy dosage of skepticism is in order in the case of Syria especially as Western governments seems to pushing in the direction of military intervention.

There are many sides of the story but the Western media is only covering one side. (Neil MacFarquhar flat out lied when he claimed twice in the New York Times that Syrian TV does not mention the armed clashes in Syria). To be sure, both sides can’t be believed and their claims can’t be taken at face value, but it is high time that real investigation of the Syrian story be undertaken by people who are not beholden to governments – East or West.

By As’ad AbuKhalil

31 May 2012

@ Al Akhbar English

Islam saved Jewry. This is an unpopular, discomforting claim in the modern world. But it is a historical truth. The argument for it is double. First, in 570 CE, when the Prophet Mohammad was born, the Jews and Judaism were on the way to oblivion. And second, the coming of Islam saved them, providing a new context in which they not only survived, but flourished, laying foundations for subsequent Jewish cultural prosperity – also in Christendom – through the medieval period into the modern world.

By the fourth century, Christianity had become the dominant religion in the Roman empire. One aspect of this success was opposition to rival faiths, including Judaism, along with massive conversion of members of such faiths, sometimes by force, to Christianity. Much of our testimony about Jewish existence in the Roman empire from this time on consists of accounts of conversions.

Great and permanent reductions in numbers through conversion, between the fourth and the seventh centuries, brought with them a gradual but relentless whittling away of the status, rights, social and economic existence, and religious and cultural life of Jews all over the Roman empire.

A long series of enactments deprived Jewish people of their rights as citizens, prevented them from fulfilling their religious obligations, and excluded them from the society of their fellows.

This went along with the centuries-long military and political struggle with Persia. As a tiny element in the Christian world, the Jews should not have been affected much by this broad, political issue. Yet it affected them critically, because the Persian empire at this time included Babylon – now Iraq – at the time home to the world’s greatest concentration of Jews.

Here also were the greatest centres of Jewish intellectual life. The most important single work of Jewish cultural creativity in over 3,000 years, apart from the Bible itself – the Talmud – came into being in Babylon. The struggle between Persia and Byzantium, in our period, led increasingly to a separation between Jews under Byzantine, Christian rule and Jews under Persian rule.

Beyond all this, the Jews who lived under Christian rule seemed to have lost the knowledge of their own culturally specific languages – Hebrew and Aramaic – and to have taken on the use of Latin or Greek or other non-Jewish, local, languages. This in turn must have meant that they also lost access to the central literary works of Jewish culture – the Torah, Mishnah, poetry, midrash, even liturgy.

The loss of the unifying force represented by language – and of the associated literature – was a major step towards assimilation and disappearance. In these circumstances, with contact with the one place where Jewish cultural life continued to prosper – Babylon – cut off by conflict with Persia, Jewish life in the Christian world of late antiquity was not simply a pale shadow of what it had been three or four centuries earlier. It was doomed.

Had Islam not come along, the conflict with Persia would have continued. The separation between western Judaism, that of Christendom, and Babylonian Judaism, that of Mesopotamia, would have intensified. Jewry in the west would have declined to disappearance in many areas. And Jewry in the east would have become just another oriental cult.

But this was all prevented by the rise of Islam. The Islamic conquests of the seventh century changed the world, and did so with dramatic, wide-ranging and permanent effect for the Jews.

Within a century of the death of Mohammad, in 632, Muslim armies had conquered almost the whole of the world where Jews lived, from Spain eastward across North Africa and the Middle East as far as the eastern frontier of Iran and beyond. Almost all the Jews in the world were now ruled by Islam. This new situation transformed Jewish existence. Their fortunes changed in legal, demographic, social, religious, political, geographical, economic, linguistic and cultural terms – all for the better.

First, things improved politically. Almost everywhere in Christendom where Jews had lived now formed part of the same political space as Babylon – Cordoba and Basra lay in the same political world. The old frontier between the vital centre in Babylonia and the Jews of the Mediterranean basin was swept away, forever.

Political change was partnered by change in the legal status of the Jewish population: although it is not always clear what happened during the Muslim conquests, one thing is certain. The result of the conquests was, by and large, to make the Jews second-class citizens.

This should not be misunderstood: to be a second-class citizen was a far better thing to be than not to be a citizen at all. For most of these Jews, second-class citizenship represented a major advance. In Visigothic Spain, for example, shortly before the Muslim conquest in 711, the Jews had seen their children removed from them and forcibly converted to Christianity and had themselves been enslaved.

In the developing Islamic societies of the classical and medieval periods, being a Jew meant belonging to a category defined under law, enjoying certain rights and protections, alongside various obligations. These rights and protections were not as extensive or as generous as those enjoyed by Muslims, and the obligations were greater but, for the first few centuries, the Muslims themselves were a minority, and the practical differences were not all that great.

Along with legal near-equality came social and economic equality. Jews were not confined to ghettos, either literally or in terms of economic activity. The societies of Islam were, in effect, open societies. In religious terms, too, Jews enjoyed virtually full freedom. They might not build many new synagogues – in theory – and they might not make too public their profession of their faith, but there was no really significant restriction on the practice of their religion. Along with internal legal autonomy, they also enjoyed formal representation, through leaders of their own, before the authorities of the state. Imperfect and often not quite as rosy as this might sound, it was at least the broad norm.

The political unity brought by the new Islamic world-empire did not last, but it created a vast Islamic world civilisation, similar to the older Christian civilisation that it replaced. Within this huge area, Jews lived and enjoyed broadly similar status and rights everywhere. They could move around, maintain contacts, and develop their identity as Jews. A great new expansion of trade from the ninth century onwards brought the Spanish Jews – like the Muslims – into touch with the Jews and the Muslims even of India.

A ll this was encouraged by a further, critical development. Huge numbers of people in the new world of Islam adopted the language of the Muslim Arabs. Arabic gradually became the principal language of this vast area, excluding almost all the rest: Greek and Syriac, Aramaic and Coptic and Latin all died out, replaced by Arabic. Persian, too, went into a long retreat, to reappear later heavily influenced by Arabic.

The Jews moved over to Arabic very rapidly. By the early 10th century, only 300 years after the conquests, Sa’adya Gaon was translating the Bible into Arabic. Bible translation is a massive task – it is not undertaken unless there is a need for it. By about the year 900, the Jews had largely abandoned other languages and taken on Arabic.

The change of language in its turn brought the Jews into direct contact with broader cultural developments. The result from the 10th century on was a striking pairing of two cultures. The Jews of the Islamic world developed an entirely new culture, which differed from their culture before Islam in terms of language, cultural forms, influences, and uses. Instead of being concerned primarily with religion, the new Jewish culture of the Islamic world, like that of its neighbours, mixed the religious and the secular to a high degree. The contrast, both with the past and with medieval Christian Europe, was enormous.

Like their neighbours, these Jews wrote in Arabic in part, and in a Jewish form of that language. The use of Arabic brought them close to the Arabs. But the use of a specific Jewish form of that language maintained the barriers between Jew and Muslim. The subjects that Jews wrote about, and the literary forms in which they wrote about them, were largely new ones, borrowed from the Muslims and developed in tandem with developments in Arabic Islam.

Also at this time, Hebrew was revived as a language of high literature, parallel to the use among the Muslims of a high form of Arabic for similar purposes. Along with its use for poetry and artistic prose, secular writing of all forms in Hebrew and in (Judeo-)Arabic came into being, some of it of high quality.

Much of the greatest poetry in Hebrew written since the Bible comes from this period. Sa’adya Gaon, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Ezra (Moses and Abraham), Maimonides, Yehuda Halevi, Yehudah al-Harizi, Samuel ha-Nagid, and many more – all of these names, well known today, belong in the first rank of Jewish literary and cultural endeavour.

W here did these Jews produce all this? When did they and their neighbours achieve this symbiosis, this mode of living together? The Jews did it in a number of centres of excellence. The most outstanding of these was Islamic Spain, where there was a true Jewish Golden Age, alongside a wave of cultural achievement among the Muslim population. The Spanish case illustrates a more general pattern, too.

What happened in Islamic Spain – waves of Jewish cultural prosperity paralleling waves of cultural prosperity among the Muslims – exemplifies a larger pattern in Arab Islam. In Baghdad, between the ninth and the twelfth centuries; in Qayrawan (in north Africa), between the ninth and the 11th centuries; in Cairo, between the 10th and the 12th centuries, and elsewhere, the rise and fall of cultural centres of Islam tended to be reflected in the rise and fall of Jewish cultural activity in the same places.

This was not coincidence, and nor was it the product of particularly enlightened liberal patronage by Muslim rulers. It was the product of a number of deeper features of these societies, social and cultural, legal and economic, linguistic and political, which together enabled and indeed encouraged the Jews of the Islamic world to create a novel sub-culture within the high civilisation of the time.

This did not last for ever; the period of culturally successful symbiosis between Jew and Arab Muslim in the middle ages came to a close by about 1300. In reality, it had reached this point even earlier, with the overall relative decline in the importance and vitality of Arabic culture, both in relation to western European cultures and in relation to other cultural forms within Islam itself; Persian and Turkish.

Jewish cultural prosperity in the middle ages operated in large part as a function of Muslim, Arabic cultural (and to some degree political) prosperity: when Muslim Arabic culture thrived, so did that of the Jews; when Muslim Arabic culture declined, so did that of the Jews.

In the case of the Jews, however, the cultural capital thus created also served as the seed-bed of further growth elsewhere – in Christian Spain and in the Christian world more generally.

The Islamic world was not the only source of inspiration for the Jewish cultural revival that came later in Christian Europe, but it certainly was a major contributor to that development. Its significance cannot be overestimated.

By David J Wasserstein

24 May 2012

@ The JC.com

Source URL: http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/comment/68082/so-what-did-muslims-do-jews

“Read well this silly propaganda piece. It’s about Syria, but written by one great FT reporter in Abu dhabi and another in Beirut. They’re quoting as “analysts” some jokers based in the UK and US. And of course the inevitable Nadim Khoury of the US-funded “Human” rights watch in Beirut.

The story says pro-government communalist militiamen, dressed in army uniforms, went and killed over a hundred civilians, sunni muslims, in Houla near Homs, shooting at close range and knifing.

The regular military wouldn’t go around knifing and shooting at close range. Out of the 9 or so divisions in the Syrian army, all but one are of sunni muslim origin. And it’s tough to make believe that sunni regulars went and butchered other sunnis! That’s where “alawi shabiba” militia come in handy. So they government gave the “shabiba” military uniforms, and put them in white sports shoes to show they’re alawite killers!!! See, the syrian regime really wants the world to believe they themselves are killing their own people. Heard that one before?

Back to reality: most likely armed islamist and related thugs, funded by the Gulf emirates and endorsed by the US and allies, put on Syrian army uniforms, but tied on those “white shoes”  as proof  they’re not army but private sector. Remember the initial lie was that the Houla massacre was caused by artillery shelling by the regular army. But the UN Danish general came out saying the killing was at close range. so they had to take out the tanks and shells and supplant them with white sports shoes!! And when repeated by propaganda, white sports shoes stick in the mind!” By Salil Sarkar

Syrian opposition’s Shaam News Network shows UN observers at a hospital morgue before their burial in the central Syrian town of Houla on May 26, 2012. The head of a UN mission warned of “civil war” in Syria after his observers counted more than 92 bodies, 32 of them children, in Houla following reports of a massacre there©AFP

The men who stormed the Abdel Razzaks’ home while carrying out a massacre in the Houla district of Syria were dressed like soldiers except for one potentially crucial detail, said a ten-year-old family member: they wore white shoes.

Hidden in a nearby barn, the boy watched as the thugs left the house and shot dead his 13-year-old friend Shafiq, who was standing across the street.

Analysts say the white shoes are one of several indicators that the murder of more than 100 people in this central Syrian cluster of villages was more than just another killing spree by the army of Bashar al-Assad.

Nadim Houry, of Human Rights Watch, said the running shoes were one of the details cited by witnesses as evidence the people carrying out the attacks were not soldiers but members of the shadowy and much-feared grouping of pro-regime militiamen known as the shabbiha, who are playing an ever-growing role in the country’s deepening conflict.

From their roots as a Mafia-style crime gang in the home region of the Assad dynasty that has ruled Syria for more than four decades, the shabbiha have, say many observers, emerged as a increasingly deadly but deniable instrument in the regime’s efforts to crush a more than year long uprising against its rule.

“With the regime basically relinquishing control over some rural areas, it’s easier to send in the shabbiha than it is to send in the regular army,” said Emile Hokayem, an analyst at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. “They are a better tool for retribution – and you are going to see them operating in the country a lot more.”

While the world – including the Assad regime and its allies in Moscow – has deplored the Houla killings, there are sharp divisions over who is responsible. The Syrian government blames armed gangs for the murders, the vast majority apparently carried out at close range against victims that included 49 children.

However, the Syrian opposition, its international allies and rights groups say the atrocity was primarily the work of shabbiha, who they say poured into the town after the military shelled it.

Most observers agree the original shabbiha were allawite ganglords who ran drugs and hot money across the Lebanese border from the region of north-west Syria around the coastal town of Lattakia, the heartland of Mr Assad’s minority Allawite religious sect.

But much else about the group remains murky, even down to its etymology: while many say the name shabbiha has its roots in the Arabic word for ghost, others say “ghost” was actually the nickname not of the gang members, but of the stolen black Mercedes some used to drive.

In the 1990s, the group’s racketeering and extortion eventually caused sufficient anger that even Mr Assad – with the approval of his father Hafez, the then president – tried to curb its activities. But the popular uprising that began in March last year put the shabbiha – and, more significantly, the militia idea they represent – firmly back in favour with the regime.

Analysts say the term shabbiha has now become a catch-all term for irregular forces fighting on behalf of the government, ranging from hardcore loyalists bussed in to trouble spots, to poor farmers in central Syria given arms and told to defend themselves against the foreign-backed terrorists whom the government says are behind the revolt.

As the shabbiha’s ranks and violence have grown and widened, groups have sprung up to counter them. Analysts say shabbiha-style militias made up of the Sunni Muslims who represent the majority of the population have also started to emerge in regions like the province of Homs, where Houla is located and where Sunni and Allawite communities sit side by side, increasing the potential for sectarian violence.

Wissam Tarif, a researcher with the anti-Assad campaign group Avaaz, said there have been tit-for-tat cycles of kidnapping and violence between religious communities in Homs city because of the presence of local shabbiha. “That’s what made the sectarian cycle of violence in Homs higher,” Mr Tarif said.

Analysts say the Houla massacre is one of the most horrific and best-documented of many signs that Syria’s conflict, like other civil wars, is increasingly becoming the domain of militiamen operating under political licence but also with increasing autonomy.

Given rein to attack a civilian population and an opposition Free Syrian Army that is itself a loosely-linked confection of localised militarised groups, many observers see the likelihood of more and greater shabbiha atrocities such as the one in Houla.

“You are creating a monster here,” said Randa Slim, a researcher at the New America Foundation, a US-based thinktank. “We have a Frankenstein in the making.”

By Michael Peel in Abu Dhabi and Abigail Fielding-Smith in Beirut

30 May 2012

@ The Financial Times

The worsening conflict in Syria and the prospect of foreign military intervention outside the mandate of the United Nations poses an immediate risk to civilian safety. The consequences of pursuing regime change in Damascus invite a broader sectarian conflict that would forever reshape the Middle East; this article analyzes the ongoing perpetuation of violence and attempts to offer non-abrasive solutions to the crisis in Syria.

For sixteen months, the people of Syria have undergone economic hardship, tremendous human suffering and the unparalleled horrors of war. As the Syrian opposition officially abandons the ceasefire and calls for foreign intervention and the imposition of a no-fly zone [1], US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced a new transition plan that would topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, signaling the increasing possibility of intervention outside the mandate of the United Nations [2].

Following clashes between militant rebel groups and government forces that claimed the lives of 80 Syrian troops [3], rebels in Aleppo have reportedly taken 11 hostages and vowed to release them only when a new state is established [4]. While Bashar al-Assad attributes the perpetuation of Syria’s crisis to outside forces [5], Iran has expressed its readiness to mount an armed resistance against foreign military forces in Syria [6]. Regardless of who perpetrated the recent killings in Qubayr and Houla, the profoundly disturbing images of lifeless children begs the question, has the Syrian crisis reached a point of incorrigibility?

Western media has largely relied on unconfirmed opposition accounts crediting the Shabiha, pro-government Alawite militias with carrying out massacres across Syria as a result of the Assad government “brainwashing the militia into believing the Sunni majority was their enemy,” as reported by The Telegraph [7]. Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has recently reported that anti-Assad Sunni militants carried out the massacre in Houla, targeting pro-government Alawi and Shia minorities, “Those killed were almost exclusively from families belonging to Houla’s Alawi and Shia minorities. Over 90% of Houla’s population is Sunni. Several dozen members of a family were slaughtered, which had converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. Members of the Shomaliya, an Alawi family, were also killed, as was the family of a Sunni member of the Syrian parliament who is regarded as a collaborator. Immediately following the massacre, the perpetrators are supposed to have filmed their victims and then presented them as Sunni victims in videos posted on the internet” [8].

Human Rights Watch has also released a report entitled “Syria: Armed Opposition Groups Committing Abuses,” documenting the outstanding cases of violence exercised by the Syrian opposition, which has been accused of kidnapping, detaining, torturing and executing of members of the Syrian military and civilian government supporters [9]. HRW reports that attacks by opposition groups are conducted largely on sectarian grounds, motivated by anti-Shia and anti-Alawite sentiments, citing abuses committed by militant Salafist groups and members of the opposition Free Syrian Army. Although UN observers admit they are unable to determine the perpetrators of the recent massacre in Qubayr with no firm evidence to inculpate the Syrian government, UN chief Ban Ki-moon has declared that the Assad government has lost its legitimacy [10], channeling calls by President Barak Obama, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Prime Minister David Cameron for Assad to step down [11].

Reports of massacres have been framed to fit a pre-determined conclusion, in line with the foreign policy objectives of Western capitals by implicating the Assad regime with orchestrating violence in order to build popular support for aggressively toppling the Syrian government. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has recently accused external forces of inciting violence by providing arms and material assistance to militant opposition forces, stating, “They want the international community to be filled with indignation and start a full-blown intervention in Syria” [12]. Following the killings in Qubayr, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called on the world to exert “maximum financial pressure” on Assad’s government through strong sanctions that “can help hasten the day the Assad regime relinquishes power,” while assuring that the US would support the use of force against Syria as authorized under Chapter 7 of the United Nations charter [13].

Although Hillary Clinton has openly acknowledged that members of Al-Qaeda and other groups on the State Department’s terror list are fighting alongside opposition rebels supported by the United States [14], countries belonging to both NATO and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have provided extensive financial and material support to the militant opposition. Former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has reported that NATO/American-affiliated troops have conducted operations on Jordanian soil near Syrian border in the village of Albaej [15], as US troops reportedly train members of the Free Syrian Army along with Jordanian forces in order to prepare them for an international military drill in the country [16]. Syrian officials report the presence of intelligence operatives from Mossad and the CIA, as well as employees of private military contractors such as Blackwater in Syria; security forces have reportedly detained French, Turkish, Gulf, Iraqi, and Lebanese gunmen operating inside Syria [17].

The Washington Post reports in their article, “Syrian rebels get influx of arms with gulf neighbors’ money, U.S. coordination,” that Persian Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar with coordination from the United States have spent millions arming and funding militant opposition groups battling the Assad government [18]. The United States has admittedly spent $6 million training opposition journalists and activists between 2006 and 2010, while funneling approximately $6.3 million to the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based dissident organization that broadcasts anti-government news into Syria [19]. As a further indication of foreign elements at work in Syria, members of the Syrian opposition have also adopted tactics seen by Al Qaeda in Iraq. Reuters reports in their article, “Outgunned Syria rebels make shift to bombs,” that rebels have adopted suicide bombing, booby-trapped car bombs and roadside explosions; Joseph Holliday of the US-based Institute for the Study of War adds “There’s no question that a lot of Syrians fought with al Qaeda elements in Iraq [against the United States] and it’s likely that many rebels today learned bombing skills fighting there” [20].

While the editorial policy of The New York Times permits the publication of pieces such as the ostentatiously titled “Assad, the Butcher,” which incongruously accuses the foreign ministries of Russia and China of living in a “fantasy world” before calling on those nations to receive “comprehensive punishments” for being complicit in “more than 12,000 Syrian deaths,” the Western and Gulf capitals’ strategy of arming militant opposition forces and extremist groups has worked to foment atrocities and further enflame regional sectarian tension, invalidating any attempt to abide by Kofi Annan’s Peace Plan [21]. Publications released by The Brookings Institution, a US think-tank noted for its influence on American foreign policy, provides further insight into the nature of Washington’s objectives in Syria. Brookings’ March 2012 Middle East Memo titled “Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change,” is a testament to the underlying politicization of the “Responsibility to Protect” in Syria, as atrocities are orchestrated as a pretext to protect civilians, to warrant toppling the Syrian government and furthering Washington’s geopolitical objectives in the region.

Brookings’ Memo meticulously theorizes ways to overthrow the Assad government, including the use of crippling economic sanctions to further incite unrest and the leveraging of human rights abuses to aggressively intervene in Syria, “Working with its Arab, regional, and Western partners, Washington can push for a more effective humanitarian response and pave the way for more aggressive intervention options to topple Asad” [22]. Due to budget restraints and a public wary of fighting wars overseas, Washington’s strategy is to lead from behind by prompting other countries to lead the charge militarily, “Israel could posture forces on or near the Golan Heights and, in so doing, might divert regime forces from suppressing the opposition. This posture may conjure fears in the Asad regime of a multi-front war, particularly if Turkey is willing to do the same on its border and if the Syrian opposition is being fed a steady diet of arms and training” [23].

While Hilary Clinton and others pay lip service to supporting the ceasefire proposed by the Annan Plan, Brookings’ advisers suggest Washington “pin down the Asad regime and bleed it, keeping a regional adversary weak, while avoiding the costs of direct intervention” [24]. The US continues pressuring neighboring countries like Jordan and Turkey to provide support for the militant Syrian opposition, “These allies would have to provide secure bases for the opposition on Syria’s borders, protected by their own armed forces. Their militaries could do much of the arming and training, in conjunction with the United States. Area intelligence services, perhaps including Israel’s, could also work behind the scenes to undermine Asad’s regime and bolster the opposition” [25]. Brookings’ Memo highlights Washington’s commitment to overthrowing the Syrian government using the most cost-effect means possible, “the hope is that the United States could fight a ‘clean’ war from 10,000 feet and leave the dirty work on the ground to the Free Syrian Army, perhaps even obviating a massive commitment to Iraq-style nation-building” [26].

The toppling of the Assad government would offer the United States and its allies in Tel Aviv and Riyadh substantial strategic advantages, as the underlying object of supporting insurgent activity against Damascus is to undermine Iranian influence in the Arab world. Syria under Bashar al-Assad is the fundamental channel that links Hezbollah with Iran, serving as a transit point for conducting training operations and distributing material assistance to the Palestinian resistance. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has theorized that the toppling of Assad would “be a major blow to the radical axis [Syria, Iran, Hezbollah] and a major blow to Iran. It’s the only kind of outpost of Iranian influence in the Arab world and it will weaken dramatically both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza” [27]. Although Syria’s opposition in power after the downfall of Assad would be a compliant entity to the foreign powers supporting it, the SNC would likely be unable to conjure the political leverage needed to enforce order, and heinous violations of human rights would no doubt occur under it; if Salafist elements were able to usurp authority, Syria’s Alawite, Druze and Christian populations would likely be subject to sectarian violence and persecution.

Israel can potentially reap significant gains from regime change in Syria by working to reduce Iran’s influence in the region and by increasing its commercial exploits in Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which supplies one-third of Israel’s water supply [28] and holds an estimated $24 million in oil and gas reserves [29]. Over time, resistance movements in Lebanon and occupied Palestinian territories may be unable to defend their territory without outside support, allowing the Netanyahu government to more effectively pursue its aspirations to create a “Greater Israel”. Saudi Arabia is motivated by the prospect of becoming a dominant regional power and the ideological aspirations of quelling the expansion of Shia identity through neutralizing the governments of Tehran and Damascus, as adherents to Sunni Islam recognize Alawites as part of the Shia sect. Turkey is also determined to increase its influence in the region and possibly expand its territory by annexing northern regions of Syria under appropriate circumstances.

While foreign military intervention would inevitably continue to produce civilian casualities and collateral damage, it is important to recognize that the Syrian people have already experienced the spoils of war at this stage in the conflict. The unspeakable nature of the killings in Syria inevitably brings one to contemplate how diplomacy can be successfully utilized given the current state of affairs. The immediate cessation of violence in Syria through diplomatic and non-abrasive means should be the ultimate objective of those individuals charged with enforcing the Annan Plan, even if it means drastically increasing the presence and financial expenditure of a neutral United Nations peacekeeping mission. For all its shortcomings and adherence to aggressive policies of the United States, Israel, and others, the United Nations is the only institution currently established to undertake such a mission in Syria.

Certain steps can be taken by the international community to ease tensions at the administrative and grassroots levels, namely by encouraging direct talks with between Bashar al-Assad and representatives of all internal opposition organizations, including members of the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian National Council, the Muslim Brotherhood and the National Coordination Committee, a coalition of left-leaning political parties staunchly opposed to foreign intervention [30]. Although both the opposition and the Syrian government have exercised inappropriate and excessive force indiscriminately throughout the conflict, the government of Bashar al-Assad is the legitimate legal authority in Syria. The Assad government has issued reforms allowing for multi-party competition, the establishment of an independent judiciary, a two-term limit on the presidency and political pluralism through inaugurating a new constitution passed in a referendum held in February 2012. If a ceasefire can be upheld through a power-sharing agreement between representatives of various opposition groups and the current government in Syria, the international community should rightfully encourage such a transition.

Furthermore, representatives of the Syrian government and its allies should have a place at future “Friends of Syria” meetings and any international mediation conference to work towards a balanced solution to the crisis. The United Nations or any other legitimate neutral institution must investigate the nation states and institutions responsible for illegally exporting arms into Syria and issue substantial fines and sanctions to those responsible parties. Neutral institutions must secure Syria’s borders and thoroughly inspect all incoming and outgoing persons and cargo; in addition, an arms embargo must be established and respected by all sides with a focus on subduing illegal smuggling. Both sides must be encouraged to use the maximum amount of restraint, no matter how severe the provocation. In the case of successful dialogue between the Assad government and representatives of the opposition, the creation of UN-administered “arms-free zones” can be established in population centers if opposition leaders can be persuaded to call for the gradual disarmament of rebel forces.

Given the degree of brutality exerted by those responsible for the atrocities in Houla and elsewhere, it is to be expected that certain individuals would not respect such a ceasefire; the motivation for their brutal actions may be sectarian, ideological, or financial. Neutral external individuals and institutions could encourage inter-faith dialogues between regional spiritual leaders, and perhaps influential clerics can be persuaded to issue fatwas or the equivalent against the further perpetuation of violence in an attempt to cool sectarian tensions. If the Syrian government and members of the opposition can come to a conducive transitional agreement where all parties have a degree of influence, joint security coalitions can be formed comprised of UN personnel, Syrian soldiers and former rebels to ensure that the ceasefire is exercised. Those who act outside the ceasefire using illegally procured arms and explosives could be individually prosecuted or dealt with by force if they pose an immediate security threat.

Outside forces must be held accountable for engaging in activities that have brought the Syrian crisis to this dismal stage, namely by paying substantial penalties that can be used to temporarily resettle Syrian refugees and fund efforts to secure Syria’s borders. All efforts must be made to transition the Syrian people into a climate of normality, including the removal of economic sanctions. At this crucial stage, the Syrian government should exercise strict curfews to ensure the safety of civilians, making it more difficult for terrorist groups to operate. Even if an agreement can be reached between Bashar al-Assad and representatives of Syria’s various opposition groups, terrorists groups would likely continue to provoke violence for whatever their purpose. Until both the Syrian government and the opposition can unite under the common goal of providing security to the people of Syria, no viable political transitions can be agreed upon.

The government of Bashar al-Assad must continue to make tangible reforms that legitimize dissent and promote expression, and the Free Syrian Army must agree to gradually disarm and come to a political compromise. The implications of both foreign military intervention and the administrative usurpation of sectarian fanatics hold unacceptable consequences for the Syrian people and the entire region. Even if internal actors agree upon a solution, it will take years for the people of Syria to recover from this conflict and begin to forgive each other. If the majority of the Syrian people desire a change in leadership, the world must respect their aspirations, however such a decision can only be reached once the domestic security situation has transitioned to appropriate levels by both sides respecting the ceasefire. Those individuals who value stability founded on the pillars of peace, compromise and conflict aversion must make their voices heard and stand with the Syrian people to help steer them out of these dark times, and eventually, help them heal.

By Nile Bowie

10 June, 2012

@ Global Research

Nile Bowie is an independent writer and photojournalist based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Twitter: @NileBowie

Notes

[1] Syrian rebels abandon ceasefire, call on UN for no-fly zone, Russia Today, June 4, 2012

[2] US post-Assad Syria plan: Intervention in the cards? Russia Today, June 7, 2012

[3] Syria rebels ‘kill 80 soldiers’ in weekend clashes, BBC, June 4, 2012

[4] Syria rebels say will free Lebanese hostages in new state, Chicago Tribune, June 9, 2012

[5] Assad says Syria faces “real war” waged from outside, Reuters, June 3, 2012

[6] Iran: Syrian intervention ‘will be defeated’, Russia Today, June 9, 2012

[7] The Shabiha: Inside Assad’s death squads, The Telegraph, June 2, 2012

[8] Abermals Massaker in Syrien, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 7, 2012

[9] Syria: Armed Opposition Groups Committing Abuses, Human Rights Watch, March 20, 2012

[10] UN mission ‘can’t say who to blame’ in Hama massacre, Russia Today, June 9, 2012

[11] UN debates Syria amid new demands Assad quits, Russia Today, August 19, 2011

[12] Annan plan ‘only chance for peace’ but stalled by intervention supporters – Lavrov, Russia Today, June 9, 2012

[13] Geithner warns Syria of UN action, as Clinton heads to Istanbul to talk strategy with allies, The Associated Press, June 6, 2012

[14] Clinton: Syria risking civil war, BBC, February 26, 2012

[15] US troops surround Syria on the eve of invasion? Russia Today, December 13, 2011

[16] Amman allows US to train Syrian rebels on Jordanian soil, PressTV, May 23, 2012

[17] Mossad, CIA and Blackwater operate in Syria – report, Russia Today, March 7, 2012

[18] Syrian rebels get influx of arms with gulf neighbors’ money, U.S. coordination, The Washington Post, May 16, 2012

[19] U.S. admits funding Syrian opposition, CBC News, April 18, 2011

[20] Outgunned Syria rebels make shift to bombs, Reuters, April 30, 2012

[21] Assad, the Butcher, The New York Times, June 9, 2012

[22] Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change, Page 4, The Brookings Institution, March 2012

[23] Ibid, Page 6, Brookings Institution, March 2012

[24] Ibid, Page 9, Brookings Institution, March 2012

[25] Ibid, Page 7, Brookings Institution, March 2012

[26] Ibid, Page 9, Brookings Institution, March 2012

[27] AMANPOUR. Latest full-length edition: Ehud Barak, CNN, April 20, 2012

[28] Shouting in the hills, Al-Ahram, June 2008

[29] Netanyahu Approves Oil Drilling In Golan Heights, AP, October 25, 1996

[30] Meet Syria’s Opposition, Foreign Policy, November 2, 2011

Nile Bowie is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Nile Bowie

As such a useful tool of exchange, money is not inherently evil. Money can be a springboard to such evil as bailout-begging banks too monstrous to fail gambling with taxpayer wealth—you know, private profits, public risk. Casino financialization with taxpayers as a backstop. The $700 billion TARP bailout actually being a $23.7 trillion bailout . But the root of all evil is the human brain.

New research has exposed, shall we say, the root of the problem. Pathocracy is its flower.

Definition: pathocracy (n). A system of government created by a small pathological minority that takes control over a society of normal people (from Political Ponerology : A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes, by Andrew Lobaczewski).

A small minority of people are born psychopaths; they inherit a genetic deviance linked to certain structural abnormalities of their social brain.

The physical dynamic that exposes psychopaths is a reduction of gray matter in the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex and temporal poles. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is able to image this deviation fundamental to psychopathy. Potential benefits to humanity are immense; imagine something like a TSA screening (without the bureaucracy, groping and humiliation) to keep psychopaths from boarding the flight to power.

Psychopaths enjoy a perverse advantage over normal people in ascending pyramids of power. Unfettered by conscience, empathy, morality…some might say, without the weight of a soul , psychopaths readily rise to the top in a society turned upside down by pathocracy. Lying, cheating, stealing, backstabbing—without remorse, psychopaths can claw for power in ways that make a person with a conscience recoil.

It’s not so much that power corrupts as that the corrupt seek power.

Politics and investment banking are prime waters for psychopaths to school. If people enjoying great power over others were screened for social-brain deviations with an MRI scan, and the psychopaths were weeded out, renaissance might occupy Capital Hill and Wall Street. Judging from our current state of politics and financialization, there certainly would be many vacancies to fill in such a furthering of the humane.

It truly is right in our hands, an opportunity we may never see again.

But…possessing the means of physically detecting psychopathy and correcting the blight of psychopathic “leadership” may be irrelevant in the face of pathocracy fully entrenched. Psychopaths in power would never volunteer to have their social-brain deviations revealed, would never allow legislation regarding a brain MRI as a prerequisite to holding any elective office.

Perhaps it’s true, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. Technology offers us the way—the key to identifying the human brain’s physical roots of psychopathy. The question becomes whether or not the American public has the will to force holders of great power over others, and seekers of such power, to bare their soul…or lack thereof.

Legislation requiring some “ newfangled, junk-science ” brain scan for leaders could only be forced from below. But our influence down here in the 99.99% is withering toward nothing but voting for a red psychopath, or a blue one, in elections controlled by unlimited corporate cash, and fraud.

And there’s: “Either with us, or against us”. Criminalization of dissent is plodding toward any questioning of entrenched pathocracy becoming “domestic terrorism”.

A most insidious aspect of psychopathy: It’s in the genes. Not only can moneypower be passed on through progeny, so can genes for psychopathy. The elite are shameless in pronouncing their gigadeath plans (95% reduction of human population) with such as Agenda 21 , Georgia Guidestones , Denver airport …though they are elusive about how billions of humans will be eliminated….

When human population is reduced to 500,000,000, will the elite in absolute control be psychopaths across the board?

Perhaps an easy way to consider our potential for furthering the humane that a simple MRI scan may offer: Imagine…Dick Cheney was screened from ultimately becoming, for eight years, the de facto president of the greatest military power Earth has ever suffered.

By Rand Clifford

30 May, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Rand Clifford’s latest novel, Priest Lake Cathedral  has been released by StarChief Press

A workshop that was organized by the Malaysian Social and Research Institute (MSRI) took place on the 30^th and 31^st of May 2012. Representatives from the International Movement for a JUST World were invited therefore, we attended the event.  The workshop satisfied its goal of providing its audience with a head-to-toe 101 on all aspects of the refugee situation in Malaysia. In order to ensure that all participants were on the same page, the audience was first of all presented with the statistical figures that currently define the refugee situation in Malaysia. The audience comprised of a variety of individuals from various Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Religious Communities, Law firms, the general public and finally, refugee communities themselves. The refugee communities discussed comprised individuals from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar Pakistan, Palestine, Somalia, Sudan, and Sri Lanka. Despite the differences that existed between each of the community’s experiences, one similarity persisted and that was the theme of struggle.

The main speaker at the event was Mr. Brian Barbour, a well-mannered and experienced lawyer currently working for the Japanese Association for Refugees (JAR). In order to describe the events that took place in the workshop in a more concise manner, the first day served as an introduction to the refugee struggle in Malaysia which assisted in preparing each and every individual both empathically and emotionally for the events that were set to take place on the second day which focused more on the application of the acquired knowledge.

Voluntary Return, Local Integration and Resettlement are the only options for refugees in Malaysia. Many refugees can never return to their homelands and therefore for the majority of the individuals, the first option is not applicable. With regards to the second option, refugees in Malaysia are not provided with very many working or education of opportunities which prevents them from obtaining a sustainable lifestyle and therefore once again, the second option is impossible. One might assume that due to how limiting the first two options are that the third option would be the most ideal. However, based on the information received from the refugees who were present at the workshop, this option was the most nerve wrecking of all.

The only organization that has the power to resettle a refugee in Malaysia is the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). As of today, a total of 98,000 registered refugees exist in Malaysia. What about those individuals who have failed to register? Brian Barbour explained the standardized registration procedure that each and every asylum seeker has to endure in order to be deemed professionally a refugee by the UNHCR.  The term ‘endure’ is not a typological error. It has been carefully selected in order to begin to describe the horrific process that each and every refugee seeking to be resettled must experience in order to be relocated.

Can one imagine what it must be like to have to flee your own country in order to avoid one form of persecution or another only to arrive at another country that you believed would serve to protect you and heal you from all of the atrocities that you had previously faced only to be confronted by a new trauma? In order to begin the resettlement process, the individual must first of all be deemed to be a refugee by UNHCR. The individual is expected to explain his or her experience over and over again, thereby causing the individual to become repeatedly exposed to the trauma. One must keep in mind that this process is very longwinded and therefore can take up to eight years. What happens if after all the waiting the UNHCR officer present on that day merely rejects the asylum seekers application? Due to the lack of recognition that the government gives to the refugees in Malaysia, it is very difficult to devise standards on how asylum seekers must be treated. Without these standards, can one imagine the amount of torture that a refugee may experience and not be able to do anything about it?

With the large number of refugees that are currently residing in Malaysia, the UNHCR can only do so much. Over recent years, many NGOs have been actively involved in improving the refugee situation; however, due to the lack of progress with regards to this issue, it is evident that this is not enough.

Despite the grim and tragic revelations made at the workshop, the event was truly eye-opening. The layperson views that we had prior to the workshop were completely demolished upon attending the event. The truth of the matter is refugees do not exist solely on the border of Malaysia; they live five minutes away from you. Refugees do not necessarily dress shabbily, they shop at the same store that you do. Refugees are everywhere and they need our help.

Jennifer Kate Tennant

Sarah Madhi

Towards Empowering Refugees

A workshop that was organized by the Malaysian Social and Research Institute (MSRI) took place on the 30^th and 31^st of May 2012. Representatives from the International Movement for a JUST World were invited therefore, we attended the event.  The workshop satisfied its goal of providing its audience with a head-to-toe 101 on all aspects of the refugee situation in Malaysia. In order to ensure that all participants were on the same page, the audience was first of all presented with the statistical figures that currently define the refugee situation in Malaysia. The audience comprised of a variety of individuals from various Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Religious Communities, Law firms, the general public and finally, refugee communities themselves. The refugee communities discussed comprised individuals from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar Pakistan, Palestine, Somalia, Sudan, and Sri Lanka. Despite the differences that existed between each of the community’s experiences, one similarity persisted and that was the theme of struggle.

The main speaker at the event was Mr. Brian Barbour, a well-mannered and experienced lawyer currently working for the Japanese Association for Refugees (JAR). In order to describe the events that took place in the workshop in a more concise manner, the first day served as an introduction to the refugee struggle in Malaysia which assisted in preparing each and every individual both empathically and emotionally for the events that were set to take place on the second day which focused more on the application of the acquired knowledge.

Voluntary Return, Local Integration and Resettlement are the only options for refugees in Malaysia. Many refugees can never return to their homelands and therefore for the majority of the individuals, the first option is not applicable. With regards to the second option, refugees in Malaysia are not provided with very many working or education of opportunities which prevents them from obtaining a sustainable lifestyle and therefore once again, the second option is impossible. One might assume that due to how limiting the first two options are that the third option would be the most ideal. However, based on the information received from the refugees who were present at the workshop, this option was the most nerve wrecking of all.

The only organization that has the power to resettle a refugee in Malaysia is the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). As of today, a total of 98,000 registered refugees exist in Malaysia. What about those individuals who have failed to register? Brian Barbour explained the standardized registration procedure that each and every asylum seeker has to endure in order to be deemed professionally a refugee by the UNHCR.  The term ‘endure’ is not a typological error. It has been carefully selected in order to begin to describe the horrific process that each and every refugee seeking to be resettled must experience in order to be relocated.

Can one imagine what it must be like to have to flee your own country in order to avoid one form of persecution or another only to arrive at another country that you believed would serve to protect you and heal you from all of the atrocities that you had previously faced only to be confronted by a new trauma? In order to begin the resettlement process, the individual must first of all be deemed to be a refugee by UNHCR. The individual is expected to explain his or her experience over and over again, thereby causing the individual to become repeatedly exposed to the trauma. One must keep in mind that this process is very longwinded and therefore can take up to eight years. What happens if after all the waiting the UNHCR officer present on that day merely rejects the asylum seekers application? Due to the lack of recognition that the government gives to the refugees in Malaysia, it is very difficult to devise standards on how asylum seekers must be treated. Without these standards, can one imagine the amount of torture that a refugee may experience and not be able to do anything about it?

With the large number of refugees that are currently residing in Malaysia, the UNHCR can only do so much. Over recent years, many NGOs have been actively involved in improving the refugee situation; however, due to the lack of progress with regards to this issue, it is evident that this is not enough.

Despite the grim and tragic revelations made at the workshop, the event was truly eye-opening. The layperson views that we had prior to the workshop were completely demolished upon attending the event. The truth of the matter is refugees do not exist solely on the border of Malaysia; they live five minutes away from you. Refugees do not necessarily dress shabbily, they shop at the same store that you do. Refugees are everywhere and they need our help.

 by Jennifer Kate Tennant and Sarah Madhi

 

The back-to-back visits to Pakistan this week by China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and the Russian president’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, are rich in political symbolism and strategic content.

The consultations came at a time when Pakistan is reeling under pressure from the United States, the future of Afghanistan remains complicated and regional security is in flux.

The timing of the consultations will draw attention – since they were sandwiched between the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Chicago on May 20-21 and the forthcoming summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Beijing on June 6-7. Afghanistan is a burning issue for both international groupings.

But there is a global context, too. China and Russia closely coordinate on regional and international issues. What stands out is that Beijing and Moscow have come forward to extend political support to Pakistan at a time when Washington is trying to isolate it and make Islamabad bend to its wishes.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari was invited to the NATO summit and then publicly humiliated. The alliance’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and United States President Barack Obama refused to meet him. Obama further showed his displeasure by omitting Pakistan from the list of countries he thanked for supporting the military effort in Afghanistan and by pointedly asking Pakistan to cooperate. Through media leaks, US officials have since publicized that in a closed-door session, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton subjected Zardari to an hour-long harangue.

A dragon cuddle …

Yang summed up his mission when he said in Islamabad, “Pakistan deserves full support form the international community.” He said Islamabad has played an important role in fighting terrorism and he called upon the international community to recognize it.

Yang stressed, “China will continue to firmly support Pakistan in protecting its sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and dignity.” He made it clear that he was in Islamabad to further strengthen and push forward China’s strategic partnership with Pakistan.

Yang said that in the evolving international situation the Sino-Pak relationship has added strategic significance for promoting world peace, stability and development. China appreciated the important and active role played by Pakistan in international and regional affairs, he said.

Yang underscored that China will unwaveringly pursue the policy of further strengthening its friendship with Pakistan and is willing to work together to deepen practical cooperation and strengthen the strategic coordination and elevate the partnership to new heights.

Xinhua news agency reported that China and Pakistan have agreed to “strengthen multilateral coordination and to safeguard the common interests of both sides.” The reference seems to be to Pakistan’s role in the SCO, whose forthcoming summit in Beijing will be attended by Zardari.

While Yang’s official visit had a broad-ranging agenda, Kabulov’s consultations were focused and purposive. He came to Islamabad primarily to discuss the situation in Afghanistan and the forthcoming visit to Pakistan by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kabulov is Moscow’s ace diplomatic troubleshooter on Afghanistan. The Pakistani accounts quoted him as saying to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani that “enormous commonalities” existed between Russia and Pakistan on regional issues and bilateral cooperation. Clearly, the reference is to the situation surrounding the Afghan problem, where both Russia and Pakistan have been seeking a bigger role while the US selectively engages them for specific roles.

Putin’s visit to Pakistan, which is expected “soon”, will be the first by a Russian head of state in the six-decade long history of relations between the two countries. It will consolidate the remarkable makeover in the two countries’ relations in the past two to three years.

The fact that Putin picked Pakistan to be one of his first visits abroad after taking over as president in the Kremlin itself testifies to the “mood swing” in the geopolitics of the region. Many trends need to be factored in here.

Russia is gearing up to play an effective role in world affairs. Its assertive stance on Syria and Iran can be expected to extend to Pakistan and Central Asia. Russia kept its participation over the NATO summit on a low-key and saw to it that none of the Central Asian leaders who were invited – from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – attended either. Meanwhile, Moscow also hosted a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Putin is undertaking visits to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan during the week ahead and is virtually launching his Eurasian project.

There are signs that Moscow expects the SCO to take common positions on regional and international issues. The Beijing summit may formalize a “mechanism” to this end. The Russian media have forecast that the summit will take a stance supportive of the Russian concerns on the issue of the US missile defense.

Meanwhile, the US-Russia reset remains in the doldrums and the probability is that it might well degenerate through the months ahead until a new administration takes over in White House early next year. The exchanges have become increasingly acrimonious at the diplomatic level. Obama’s Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, has declared Russia to be a “destabilizing force on the world stage” and the US’s “No 1 geopolitical foe” and has promised to “re-reset” Obama’s reset of US-Russia ties. Obama cannot afford to be seen “soft” on Russia. Obviously, Russia has been dragged into the vortex of the US presidential election campaign.

Disregarding Russian objections, NATO’s Chicago summit also decided to press ahead with the deployment of the US missile defense system. Moscow has already warned that it will take counter-measures. A new “fifth-generation” missile system was test-fired last week. Above all, Washington persists with an intrusive policy toward Russia’s domestic politics and is positioning itself to challenge Putin’s Eurasia project.

… and a bear hug

On the other hand, Russia and Pakistan have been closely consulting on the Afghan situation, and they recognize each other’s legitimate interests. Both put primacy on a regional approach to resolving the Afghan problem. Each side acknowledges that the other has an important role to play in the Afghan endgame. A good working relationship has developed through the past year or two. Russia works Pakistan within the bilateral framework as well as in the quadrilateral forum that includes Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

On its part, Pakistan regards Russian regional policies positively as favoring its vital interests. Most importantly, Pakistan and Russia share a deep skepticism about the US-led “transition” in Afghanistan and the Afghan security forces’ capacity to maintain security. Both assess that the NATO has lost the war but is preparing the ground for keeping a long-term military presence at affordable cost. In sum, they strongly sense the need for them to work together through the upcoming “transition” in Afghanistan and the post-2014 period.

The geopolitics of the Afghan war concerns Russia and Pakistan. Neither is willing to put faith in what the US claims to be the objectives of the war. Russia suspects the intentions of the US as much as Pakistan does. At the same time, both are conscious of the US/NATO’s vulnerability as regards the transit routes through Pakistan and the Northern Distribution Network. Pakistan isn’t alone in demanding a hike in the tariff for the transit routes.

To be sure, Pakistan eagerly seeks an ally in Russia to gain strategic space vis-a-vis the US, while Moscow sees a window of opportunity to regain its lost influence in South Asia following the defeat in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Thus, Pakistan is likely becoming a key element in the evolving Russian regional strategies. As Moscow would see it, the realization of the US objectives in Afghanistan and Central Asia is largely predicated on Pakistan’s cooperation as a willing partner.

Put differently, in order to effectively counter the US’s strategic thrust into Central Asia, Russia (and China) would do well to strengthen Pakistan’s strategic autonomy and its capacity to withstand US pressures. Pakistan, on its part, has shown remarkable grit in standing up to US pressures. The US’s so-called New Silk Road project to erode Russian and Chinese influence in Central Asia itself becomes a non-starter without Pakistan’s whole-hearted cooperation.

However, a Russian-Pakistani partnership cannot exist in a vacuum. The bilateral ties are next to nothing at present. In order for a strategic partnership to survive and gather strength over time, it needs substantive content. This is where Putin’s visit can be expected to set the ball rolling. Kabulov told Gilani that Putin looked forward to a “productive” visit that would be instrumental in enhancing multi-faceted cooperation between Russia and Pakistan.

Kabulov discussed the agenda of Putin’s visit. Gilani listed the upgrade of Pakistan Steel Mills in Karachi, defense cooperation and energy among potential areas of cooperation. (Interestingly, Kabulov’s meetings included a call on Pakistani army chief Ashfaq Kiani.) Significantly, Gilani welcomed Russian participation in the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project and pointed out that “some specific proposals” have been discussed already.

In geopolitical terms, the warming of the Russian-Pakistani ties meshes with the growing coordination between Moscow and Beijing on regional and international issues. The fact that Yang and Kabulov visited Pakistan at the same time suggests a degree of Sino-Russian coordination in their regional policy toward Pakistan. Indeed, neither Yang nor Kabulov overtly nudged Pakistan toward a “strategic defiance” of the US. But then, they didn’t have to. Suffice to say, the new paradigm already presents Pakistan with an unprecedented opportunity to negotiate with the US from a position of strength.

The prospect of Putin’s visit to Pakistan will be highly disquieting for Washington at the present juncture. In normal circumstances, Washington could have viewed the rising curve of Russian-Pakistani relations with equanimity, since both Russia and China would only have a moderating influence on Pakistan. But these are extraordinary times, with the US at loggerheads with Moscow and Beijing.

The utter failure of the US strategy in Afghanistan stands exposed in terms of its exceptionalism and the stark absence of a regional consensus. Yang and Kabulov could and should have been the US’s best allies in urging Pakistan to work with the international community for an enduring peace in Afghanistan. The paradox is that even in the prevailing situation of high volatility in the US’s relations with Russia and China they might well have done that, but without Washington’s bidding.

By M K Bhadrakumar

6 June 2012

@ Asia Times Online

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

Overall life is good and people are good. Some people do foolish things once in a while: oppress, kill, steal land, destroy trees etc. But life continues and people survive, adapt, and struggle to get to a better place. Here in Palestine, the apricots (Mishmish) are in season and they are as sweet as can be. Our village is known for Faqous (of the cucumber family) which is now also in season. While Israeli colonizers took most of the agricultural land around the area, we still have some Sahouri Faqous and we still struggle to reclaim our rights. And we are now beginning to get the first ripe figs (called Teen Dafour). The young olives and grapes are still green and growing. Like those grape vines that shed their leaves always come back with young leaves and then bear fruits. So I am thrilled that thousands of our students are graduating this month. The wedding season is on and my sister, a nurse at a maternity hospital in Bethlehem, relays how they are busier than ever. Community gatherings always have more children than adults (60% of us Palestinians are children). Nothing pleases my sight more than young children walking down ancient streets holding hands like their ancestors did thousands of years ago. 5 and 6 year old friends with their arms on each other’s shoulders whispering in each other’s ears through the narrow alleys of the refugee camp of Aida. Kids are sharing fruits and balloons in the nativity square. Young girls giggling as they go home from the “Shepherds’ field school”. They all look like little angels on earth even in the cantons/ghettos of Israeli apartheid.

Those of us who are adults may sometime lose the optimism and energy of childhood. We need to be reminded and retain our optimism. Adults sometimes try to remind us with a bit of philosophical reflections. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once stated: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”

Or our departed friend Howard Zinn who once wrote: “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places – and there are so many – where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” (You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A personal history of our times, p. 208. )

But we remain optimistic because we are human beings who believe in coexistence, equality, peace, and freedom. Pessimists are those who believe in tribalism, racism, conflict, and the need for military might. In the long run, we are more numerous than they are and we need to help them see the truth and join us. We remain optimistic because our children and grandchildren are optimistic and we should not try to dissuade them from optimism or from acting to improve their lives. As we free our minds of dark thoughts, we can see the light.

By Mazin Qumsiyeh

7 June, 2012

@ Popular Resistance

Where commemoration meets celebration (on optimism and pessimism) http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=3524&ed=199&edid=199

Images of a tour in Palestine 100 years ago

http://ireland.anglican.org/about/144

Video in English and French: Arabs of Jerusalem

Les arabes de Jérusalem, d’Israël et de Cisjordanie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT2FPIRjK0s

US Embassy to American in trouble in Israel: ‘You’re not Jewish? Then we can’t do anything to help you’

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/us-embassy-to-american-in-trouble-in-israel-youre-not-jewish-then-we-cant-do-anything-to-help-you.html

Male Israeli soldiers who speak out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd5AaxPw8gM

How Zionized is the US?

US Secretary of “Homeland Security” Defends Controversial Grant Program

“A Forward report found that the program for DHS security grants for not-for-profit organizations was tailored to the Jewish community and that almost three-quarters of its funds went to Jewish institutions.

…On another topic, Napolitano said that the DHS has decided to allow Israeli citizens to enter the United States via a special fast-track program despite Israel’s decision not to grant Americans reciprocal consideration, as the United States usually requires. …Napolitano also pointedly declined to criticize New York City’s controversial program of surveillance of Muslim organizations and individuals with no known or suspected ties to terrorism. “

http://forward.com/articles/157280/jews-face-special-risks-napolitano-says/?p=all#ixzz1x1Kh1EmL

And on May 9, 2012 House passed H.R. 4133 Unites States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012, http://tinyurl.com/7nctgj4

Genocide and/or genocidal acts clearly characterize Israel’s attempts to obliterate in part or in whole a whole group of people (the Palestinians). Palestinians should bring Israel and Israeli leaders to justice.

Read More from International Law Expert Francis Boyle

http://www.mediamonitors.net/francis1.html

and this interesting debate between a Zionist tribalist and Prof. Martin Shaw

http://martinshaw.org/2010/11/26/debate-with-omer-bartov-on-palestine-and-genocide/

for more on genocide, visit http://martinshaw.org/my-academic-papers/

A new direction for the Palestinian People (still a concise and good article)

http://www.mediamonitors.net/francis3.html

The Zionist Story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufLAitMq3zI

teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in occupied Palestine. He serves as chairman of the board of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour He is author of “Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle” and “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment” http://qumsiyeh.org

Greed leaves no place for singing birds and murmuring rivers. Maximizing accumulation is the force that drives greed. Appropriating nature and labor is the cheapest way greed finds for maximization of accumulation.

But birds sustain a living ecology. Rivers flow to the same destination: sustain life.

Birds and rivers are required also for cruel appropriators as the greedy group loves only their sustenance, and a living ecology is needed for sustenance, and birds and rivers are part of ecological system that help sustain life. But turning inconsiderate to life and ecology, to birds, rivers, air and soil is the irony of appropriation. Thus appropriators are directly in conflict with ecology.

Facts from almost all lands, from the North and the South Hemispheres reveal the trend: onslaught on ecology.

In Europe, according to a Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme survey, 36 species of farmland birds including the skylark and the meadow pipit have declined in their number: from 600 million to 300 million between 1980 and 2009. Britain is one of the worst suffering countries by losses to its farmland birds. The EU enforced farming policies are the catalysts for this catastrophe. Destroying hedgerows, wetlands and meadows has “contributed” to this bird-massacre.

What’s the “holy” reason for the destruction? It’s more and more; more profit.

Ittefaq , a leading Bangla Dhaka daily, reported on May 24, 2012: Industrial wastes, including effluent and smoke from 16 re-rolling mills, 49 brick kilns and other industrial units including paper pulp, fertilizer, textile, dyeing, battery, rubber, plastic factories, more than hundred in numbers, are threatening life and occupation of around three hundred-thousand dwellers in Roopganj, an almost industrial area near the Bangladesh capital city Dhaka. The residents are not feeling safe with air and water. There is noise pollution. Wastes are being drained into the Sitalakkhaa and Baaloo, two rivers running through the area.

These two incidents, part of a process, one from an advanced capitalist country and another from a peripheral country, are not isolated facts. Now-a-days media around the world carry thousands of similar news and facts that unravel relations between the type of economy and defacing of the ecology and environment. Now-a-days ecological crisis threatening all forms of life in this earth need no explanation. Even masters of this on-going ecocide – the owners of capital – don’t dare to publicly deny the crisis, their sin.

About two years ago, WWF, the international organization involved in the area of ecology, said in its Living Planet report: A second planet will be required by 2030 to meet our needs as over-use of Earth’s natural resources and carbon pollution have become critical. If all human being in this world used resources at the same per capita rate as the US or the UAE, four and a half planets would be needed. More than 70 countries were exhausting their freshwater sources at an alarming, unsustainable rate. About two-thirds of these countries experience water scarcity ranging from moderate to severe. In 2007, the world’s 6.8 billion humans were living 50% beyond the planet’s threshold of sustainability. The report highlighted the rich-poor ecological gap. In 1970-2007, an index of biodiversity showed a world decline of almost 30%. In the tropics, it was alarming: 60%.

No brain with logic will claim that the acts are isolated from the world economic system: capitalism. “From the outset,” Joe Bageant, author of the book about working class in America Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War , writes, “capitalism was always about the theft of the people’s sustenance. It was bound to lead to the ultimate theft – the final looting of the source of their sustenance – nature.” (“Our Plunder of Nature will End up Killing Capitalism and Our Obscene Lifestyles”, Countercurrents , July 13, 2010 )

“The main feature of capitalism is the seductive assertion that you can get something for nothing in this world.” (ibid.) Owners of this system, the capitalists, Joe continues, “hate any sort of cost.” They, he describes, “remain unimpressed by global warming, or melting polar ice caps, or Southwestern desert armadillos showing up in Canada , or hurricanes getting bigger and more numerous every year.”

These are the elites in control of the world environment in continents and countries. “Just before the economy blew out,” according to Joe, “these elites held slightly less than $80 trillion. After the blowout/bailout, their combined investment wealth was estimated at a little over $83 trillion. To give some idea, this is four years of the gross output of all the human beings on earth.”

This massive money power takes hold of political power. Owning this unimaginably monstrous money-political power system they put their footprint on ecology that is changing the planet’s environment irreversibly.

This system, the masters of the system in the center, in the periphery, in between the center and the periphery, try their best to maximize profit by minimizing cost, by appropriating labor, robbing nature, grabbing everything within their reach, putting costs on public. Pollution, destruction of ecology and ruination of nature thus creep into public domain – a human concern.

Acts of the masters are turning into crime, crime against the planet, against posterity, against humanity.

The World Future Council leaders said: “These are crimes against the future … These are crimes that will not only injure future generations, but destroy any future at all for millions of people.”

The Council has called for appointing “ombudspersons for future generations”, “guardians appointed at global, national and local levels whose job would be to help safeguard environmental and social conditions by speaking up authoritatively for future generations in all areas of policy-making. This could take the shape of a parliamentary commissioner, a guardian, a trustee or an auditor, depending on how it best fits into a nation’s governance structure.”

But questions are there: How far the ombudspersons can act where power structure, economy and political power is of, by and for polluters, grabbers, eco-murderers? If they can act, then, why do environment law/court/ministry/inspectors, depending on arrangement in countries, can’t act? What will happen if polluters grab that proposed holy post as have happened in countries by different lobbies/interests/gangs? What’s the guarantee that the proposed holy persons’ observations/edicts/verdicts will be implemented? Are not there instances of trampling/violation of all basic, fundamental, moral, ethical, human, natural, principled rights/practices/conventions/laws/rules around the world, in countries?

Out of their sense of urgency the WFC leaders’ suggestion sounds nice, but not functional. It’s detached from reality, the socio-economic-environmental -political reality.

What’s the reality?

An answer is provided by Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster in their seminal analysis What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism: A Citizen’s Guide to Capitalism and the Environment (2011): Capitalism is a system that must continually expand, a system that, by its very nature, will eventually come up against the reality of finite natural resources, a system geared to expansionist growth in the search for profits that will inevitably transgress planetary boundaries.

By its very nature the system stands against ecology and environment as its only concern is profit, nothing else. Standing for environment will lead to questioning the ever hungry system.

Pushing 1 billion persons down to extreme poverty, and enriching a few, whose consumption is threatening the planet is one of the major “contributions” of the system. Other than the hungry and starved, there are energy poor, electricity poor, water poor, information poor, basic rights poor, safety poor, they are the poor masses deprived of honor and dignity, and there are the food rich, energy rich, electricity rich, water rich, information rich, luxury rich, power and privilege rich, resource rich, consumption rich, the rich few controlling everything.

Imbalance and inequity at this level can’t sustain environment and ecology. The first one, imbalance and inequity, is linear, ever expanding while the later one, environment and ecology, demands diversity, tolerance, consideration, accommodation. Observance related to environment turns hollow and chattering if this aspect of political economy is ignored.

By Farooque Chowdhury

5 June 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

One of the books edited by Farooque Chowdhury from Dhaka is the recently published The Great Financial Crisis, What Next, interviews with John Bellamy Foster .

Here in Kabul, Voices co-coordinator Buddy Bell and I are guests at the home of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, (APV), where we’ve gotten to know four young boys who are being tutored by the Volunteers in the afternoons, having “retired” from their former work as street vendors in exchange for a chance to enter a public school.  Five afternoons a week, Murtaza, Rahim, Hamid and Sajad wheel their antiquated bicycles into the APV “yard.” They quickly shake the hand of each person present and then wash their feet outside the back door before settling into a classroom to study language, math and art, tutored in each subject by a different Volunteer. They’ve cycled here from school through heavy traffic, which worries their mothers, but the families cannot afford for the boys to take a public bus.

Today, their mothers were here to observe the class, quietly sipping tea as they watched the two youngest boys practice writing the Dari alphabet, (Dari is an official Afghan language), while the older boys, age 12 and 13, took turns reading, in Dari, a chapter about the respiratory system from an elementary school science book. The APVs hope to help the mothers learn tailoring, so they can become tailors  in the community  and earn a modest income.

Later, the boys played volleyball, and when the ball went over the wall as it often does, the three of them switched to a makeshift game of ping-pong using their plastic sandals as paddles, while Rahim climbed to the top of a tree, walked confidently on the ledge of the wall and then jumped about fifteen feet to the ground below to retrieve the volleyball.

The mothers, Fatima, Nuria and Nekbat, are overjoyed to see their children getting an education, and smiled as they expressed their thanks for a few hours of quiet, in their homes each morning, with the young and sometimes mischievous boys away at school.

 Nuria, the youngest, is mother of Rahim and Hamid.  She hopes they can escape the tragedy that has befallen her husband who has become addicted to opium. By washing clothes, she earns a small income to support the family.

Murtaza’s mother, Fatima, takes care of Murtaza’s father at home – an earlier illness left her husband paralyzed from the waist down. Most of her right hand is scarred from where she scalded it while baking bread in a tandoor oven.

Sajad’s mother, Nekbat, appears to be in her late forties.  Recalling her own years growing up in Kabul during earlier Afghan wars, she spoke about family members being without work.  There was little food and children couldn’t go to school.  Eventually, her parents, displaced by war, would take the family and seek refuge in Iran. Nuria remembers fleeing as a child from one area of Kabul to another, running from killings and attacks waged by Massoud, Gulbuddin and others

The women still hear stories of people who are fleeing attacks in the Hazarajat area, where Kuchi and Hazara groups are fighting, and they know many people who have recently arrived in Kabul as refugees from areas gripped by war. The fighting has increased in the past few years.  Previously, borders were more porous and people could flee.  Now the borders appear to be closing down.

The mothers teach their children that war is always wrong, that it brings sorrow, and that the children should find productive work rather than enlist, as so many do on all sides of this conflict, often because they want to help feed their families.

In Afghanistan, “women have a bad situation,” said Fatima.  “We are illiterate, and we can’t find work that will help us meet expenses.”

They pay one- to two-thousand Afghanis a month for rent.  Their homes are compounds where several families share one kitchen. Bread, potatoes, and tea without sugar constitute their normal daily meals.

Fatima recalls the past winter which was particularly harsh.  They couldn’t afford fuel and had to find other ways to keep warm.  But Nuria adds that all the seasons present constant problems, and it is always difficult for the family to make ends meet. Asked whether they could recall ever getting a day off from work, the women answered in unison, – “No.”

Asked about the notion that the U.S. is protecting Afghan women, Nekbat said that whatever officials claim in this regard, they are bringing no help.  These women have seen no improvement in Afghanistan, and neither, they claim, has anyone they know.  They don’t travel in the circles of those most likely to meet and speak with Western journalists, and poverty and the uncertainties of war seem to dictate their lives more surely than any government. They tell me all foreign money is lost to corruption – no one in their communities sees it going to the people.

Although no government official or journalist ever asks them about the conditions they are facing, they know the West is curious;  the mothers are aware of the drone aircraft – planes without pilots, some of them armed with missiles, with cameras trained on their neighborhoods.

The drone cameras miss a lot.   Nekbat adds that even when people come through to witness firsthand the suffering of common Afghans, she is sure this news never reaches the ears of Karzai and his government.  “They don’t care,” she said. “You may perish from lack of food, and still they don’t care. No one hears the poor.”

One hospital in Kabul, the Emergency Surgical Center for Civilian War Victims , serves people free of charge. Emanuele Nannini, the chief logistician for the hospital, reminded us, the previous day, that the U.S. spends one million dollars, per year, for each soldier it deploys in Afghanistan. “Just let six of them go home,” he said, “and with that six million we could meet our total annual operating budget for the 33 existing clinics and hospitals we have in Afghanistan.  With 60 less soldiers, the money saved could mean running 330 clinics.”

Just before leaving Chicago, while the NATO summit was convening, Amnesty International announced its intention to campaign for NATO to protect the rights of Afghan women and children.  Amnesty International should talk with the Afghan Peace Volunteers and the Emergency hospital network about caring, practically and wisely, for women and children in Afghanistan.

Surrounded by fierce warlords, cunning war profiteers, and foreign armies with menacing arsenals and wild spending habits, it’s hard for the mothers who visited us today to imagine that the situation can ever change.  And yet, before leaving us, they smiled broadly. “For us,” said Nuria, “the possibility of a bright future is over, but at least for our children there is a chance.”

By Kathy Kelly

29 May 2012

@ Warisacrime.org

( Kathy@vcnv.org ) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence ( www.vcnv.org ) which works closely with the Afghan Peace Volunteers ( ourjourneytosmile.com )