At UN, religious and political leaders weighstrategies to stem rising tide of intolerance, extremism 21 April 2015 – SeniorUnited Nations officials today called on the international community “in thename of our shared humanity to unite in courage and resolve” againstintolerance at a critical time when people, communities and nations aregrappling with disparity and radicalism.Opening the two-dayhigh-level meeting on Promoting Tolerance and Reconciliation, Fostering Peaceful, InclusiveSocieties and Countering Violent Extremism, General AssemblyPresident Sam Kutesa said 2015 is a year of hopeas the world formulates a new development agenda.However, with“troubling frequency” violent attacks and despicable crimes are being carriedout and claiming the lives of innocent men, women and children. From Paris toTunis, and from Garissa to Yarmouk and Johannesburg to Peshawar, “no person,society of nation is immune” from intolerance or the threat of violentextremism, he added. In places like Iraq Afghanistan and Mali, irreplaceableartefacts are being destroyed.“There is nojustification for such attacks. We must condemn all manifestations ofintolerance, including anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and racism,” and all otherforms of prejudice, harassment or violence, the General Assembly Presidentsaid.Today's gatheringbrings together leaders representing Islam, Judaism, Christianity as well asministers, academics, clerics and spiritual leaders to discuss ways to fosterpeaceful, inclusive societies and counter violent extremism. In line with thatagenda, Mr. Kutesa said that given today's globalized world it is incumbentthat world leaders –be they political, religious, or spiritual – work togetherto address serious challenges posed by violent extremism.Divisions fosterdiscontent and societies that fail to be inclusive foster radicalization.Addressing the challenges of poverty and lack of education can form a holisticapproach for peaceful society and foster the environment for futuredevelopment. Lack of the rule of law and ethnic, national and religiousdiscrimination can also contribute to intolerance, said Mr. Kutesa.On the flip side,faith and interfaith collaboration as seen throughout history can buildtrusting relationships, he said. Many religious leaders have emphasized theneed for peace and tolerance. And concerted efforts should be made to supportthese religious leaders to help them spread their message of hope and peace andstamp out bigotry, racism, and intolerance.“We must promotedialogue, mutual understanding and strengthen the principles of freedom,” Mr.Kutesa said, underscoring the role women, youth and the media play in fosteringtolerance.“In the classroomsaround the world, we should emphasize values that are rooted in the principlesof dignity and respect…and within our families, we not only have theopportunity but indeed the obligation to teach our children how to treat eachother with kindness and respect,” he added.Taking to the GeneralAssembly podium next, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that “too manycommunities have been shattered and too many people have been cynically pittedagainst each other.”As such stories becomeall too common the world must stand up toward the threat of intolerance andradicalism. “Violent extremism is a global test and our response must solve theproblem,” Mr. Ban said.D'aesh, Al Shabaab andBoko Haram are part of a new generation of terrorist groups threateninginternational peace and security but the problem goes beyond them and theregions in which they operate. Racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia exists worldwideand to protect the innocent “we must safeguard our moral compass,” he said.Abuses committed inthe face of anti-terrorism only allow terrorists to gain more ground. “Theformula for disaster is clear,” Mr. Ban continued. “When insecurities and frustrationare fuelled by leaders who exploit differences the result is mistrust” that islikely to erupt in violence and extremists take advantage of this.Member States must“honestly confront our own faults,” the UN Chief emphasized, calling on Statesto consider how their actions cause breeding grounds for brutality and anyeconomic measure that may also be at play.We cannot leave on themargins any person –women, the disabled, indigenous, poor and vulnerable. Wemust lay foundations for accountability even as we work for peace. Pastviolations must be addressed because without transitional justice tensions willdeepen just as society is heeling, the Secretary-General warned.“Throughout history,there have been brave individuals who have transcended their identity, riskedand gave their own lives for what they knew was right and in the process theyinspired others to take the same course,” Mr. Ban added.Addressing the GeneralAssembly next, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, High Representative of the UN Allianceof Civilizations (UNAOC), said that tolerance andreconciliation are values inherent in all major faiths. But “sadly for the pastfew years we have witnessed unimaginable violence, terrorism and atrocities inthe name of religious,” he pointed out.“Today, the United Nationsis writing history. This meeting is a step in the right direction,” Mr.Al-Nasser added.“The reason we arehere is to hear from you, political and religious leaders in how we can counterextreme violence and prevent relapsing whole societies into the black hole ofcultural and ethnic tensions,” Mr. Al-Nasser said.“We know from ourexperiences, from both successes and failures, that no matter how much weimprove our securities, terrorism will not go away unless we address theconditions conducive to its growth,” he added.To do so effectively,Member States need to work together across sectors and faiths, includingGovernments, Member States, religious leaders, Muslims, Christians, Jews,Hindus, and Buddhists.“We cannot makeprogress on any development without your participation,” he told the GeneralAssembly, emphasizing that to deliver on its mandate the United Nations needsthe support of the women and men who lead faith communities.“We equally needresponsible leaders of Heads of State and Governments to find durable solutionsto our various crises from water access to education and from regionalconflicts to fighting communicable diseases,” he said, adding that “no nationcan succeed alone in these tasks.”Moreover, young peopleneed space and opportunity to play a role in decision-making. Many young peoplewho are politically active are frustrated because of a lack of opportunity andjobs.“Peace, stability,intercultural harmony and Sustainable Development are closely inter-linked andmutually reinforcing,” Mr. Al-Nasser added.“We need to protectour future and our generations from the forces that fuel tensions, hatred andviolence,” he said.News Tracker: past stories on this issueAs Forum opens, deputy UN chief says 2015 a ‘critical year’ for world’sindigenous peoples
Officials giving mixedmessages on why US aircraft carrier shadowing Iranian convoy
PublishedApril 21, 2015 An American aircraft carrier and its warplanes are shadowing anIranian convoy approaching Yemen, as the U.S. beefs up its presence in theregion -- but back in Washington, officials can't seem to agree on why. Pentagon sources confirmed to Fox News that the USS TheodoreRoosevelt is tracking the Iranian convoy, and also launching F/A-18 Hornets toconduct "manned reconnaissance" of the estimated nine Iranianships. Those ships are suspected of carrying weapons to rebel fightersin Yemen. But State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf insisted Tuesdaythat the U.S. ships were "only" there to "ensure the shippinglanes remain open and safe" -- and "not to do anything in terms ofthose Iranian ships." She blasted "misreporting" that asserted U.S. shipswere prepared to intercept Iranian vessels.
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Secret Iranianunit fueling Mideast bloodshed with illicit arms shipments
"That is blatantly untrue -- so this discreetmovement of U.S. assets is for a discreet purpose," Harf said. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest also said Tuesday thatthe ships are in the region primarily to "protect the freedom ofnavigation and the free flow of commerce." However, Earnest acknowledged the U.S. is very interested intracking the movements of any potential arms deliveries to Houthi rebels. He said "any effort by Iran or anyone else to provideweapons to the Houthis would be a clear violation" of U.N. SecurityCouncil resolutions. Earnest said the U.S. and its partners are "seriousabout the Iranians not providing weapons to the Houthis," and making surethe U.N. arms embargo is taken seriously. The Pentagon also acknowledged the convoy is a factor. Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said the aircraftcarrier is there to assure the waterways are open. But, he added, "theyhave moved to that area in response to the deteriorating security situation inYemen. Many have asked me whether or not they are there because of the Iranianship convoy or flotilla that is also in the area. That is certainly one of thefactors." The mixed messages, though, leave unclear how far the U.S. wouldgo to enforce the embargo. The U.S. Navy generally conducts consensualboardings of ships when needed, including to combat piracy around Africa andthe region. So far, however, U.S. naval personnel have not boarded any Iranianvessels since the Yemen conflict began. A senior defense official at the Pentagon on Tuesday pushed backon reports that the White House has made a decision about boarding the suspectedships. "The White House is not even close to making adecision," the official with close ties to the administration said. But the movements nevertheless escalate a standoff in the watersoff Yemen, which comes as the U.S. and other world powers are trying to hammerout a diplomatic deal with Iran on its nuclear program. Navy officials first confirmed Monday that the USS TheodoreRoosevelt -- along with her escort ship, the USS Normandy, a guided-missilecruiser -- had been dispatched to the Arabian Sea to help enforce a blockade ofany Iranian weapons shipments to Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Iranian convoy consists of a mix of freighters, suspected ofcarrying those weapons, and warships. The convoy is about to cross over from waters off the coast ofOman to those off the coast of Yemen, in the Arabian Sea. The Iranian convoy issteaming toward an unknown port in Yemen. The Iranian Navy ships are characterized as "smaller thandestroyers," according to a Pentagon official with knowledge of the convoy.Asked what type of weapons the freighters are carrying, one Pentagon officialsaid, "they are bigger than small arms." The U.S. Navy has been steadily beefing up its presence in theGulf of Aden and the southern Arabian Sea amid concerns about the Iranianconvoy. There are now nine Navy warships, and three support ships, in theregion. The deployment comes after a U.N. Security Council resolutionapproved last week imposed an arms embargo on rebel leaders. The resolutionpassed in a 14-0 vote with Russia abstaining. With the U.S. Navy's only aircraft carrier now out of thenorthern Persian Gulf, the Navy's contribution to the air campaign against theIslamic State also has been temporarily halted. The U.S. Air Force has conducted 70 percent of the airstrikesagainst ISIS in Iraq and Syria to date. A spokesman from the U.S.-led coalitionsaid from its headquarters in Kuwait that, "We have plenty of resources[to strike ISIS], and we are not concerned about a loss of effectiveness."But he admitted, "More is certainly better." Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributedto this report
Pakistan,the Saudis’ Indispensable Nuclear Partner
By PERVEZ HOODBHOYAPRIL 21, 2015 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani Parliament, even whilestating its commitment to protect the territory of Saudi Arabia, recentlyadopted a resolution not to join the Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebelsin Yemen. Many Pakistanis are worn out by the Taliban insurgency at home andoppose intervention abroad, especially to fight an enemy whose name they arehearing for the first time and risk worsening relations with its backer, Iran.Theforeign affairs minister of the United Arab Emirates, Anwar Gargash, blastedthe decision as “contradictory and dangerous and unexpected,” accusing Pakistanof advancing Iran’s interests rather than those of its own Persian Gulf allies.Pakistan was choosing neutrality in an “existential confrontation,” he said, andit would pay the price.Continuereading the main story
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PakistaniLawmakers Urge Diplomacy in Yemen Conflict but Decline Combat RoleAPRIL10, 2015
Pakistan’s federal interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan,responded that it was “unacceptable” for a friendly country to be “levelingthreats.” But Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, beholden to Saudi Arabia’s rulersfor his safety after the 1999 coup that deposed him, is now under greatpressure. Millions of Pakistanis work in the Persian Gulf, sending back vastremittances. Many of Pakistan’s politicians and generals have major investmentsin the region, and some have a deep affinity for Wahhabism. Rich Arabs inPakistan are treated like royalty, allowed to flout hunting and environmentalprotection laws.Smallsurprise then that some members of the Pakistani government have scurried toRiyadh to offer explanations. Or that some backpedaling has begun. Last week,the Pakistani military agreed to commit naval vessels to help enforce an arms embargo againstthe Houthis. This, however, will not undo the damage: The recent deteriorationof Pakistan’s ties with its Arab benefactors, even if it turns out to betemporary, is unprecedented.ForSaudi Arabia, the Pakistani Parliament’s surprising assertion of independencewas especially worrisome because it came on the heels of the American-backedpreliminary nuclear deal with Iran. The kingdom has long feared rapprochementbetween Iran and the United States, as well as the development of Iran’snuclear program. The influential former head of Saudi intelligence, PrinceTurki al-Faisal, has described Iran as a “paper tiger, but one with steelclaws.” According to documents disclosed by WikiLeaks, the late King Abdullahrepeatedly urged Washington to attack Iran and “cut off the head of the snake.”And now under the recent nuclear agreement, which is to be finalized by the endof June, Iran’s breakout time — the time it would need to build a nuclearweapon if it actually set out to — would be just one year.This development undermines Saudi Arabia’s longstanding nuclearstrategy. In the 1970s, partly to extend its influence, partly in the name ofMuslim solidarity, it began bankrolling Pakistan’s nuclear program. Ingratitude, the Pakistani government renamed the city of Lyallpur as Faisalabad,after King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. When Pakistan seemed to dither after Indiatested five nuclear bombs in May 1998, the Saudi government pledged to give it 50,000barrels of oil a day for free. Pakistan soon tested six of its own bombs.Later, the Saudi defense minister at the time, Prince Sultan, visited thesecret nuclear and missile facilities at the Kahuta complex near Islamabad,which had been off-limits even to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, by heraccount.AdvertisementContinuereading the main story%s%sContinuereading the main storyIn exchange for its largesse, Saudi Arabia has receivedPakistani military assistance in the form of soldiers, expertise and ballisticmissiles. Pakistani pilots flew Saudi combat jets against South Yemen in thelate 1960s. The Pakistan Air Force helped the Royal Saudi Air Force in itsearly years. Today Saudi officers train at Pakistan’s national defense colleges.TheSaudi government has taken the quid pro quo to imply certain nuclear benefitsas well, including, if need be, the delivery at short notice of some of thenuclear weapons it has helped pay for. Some Pakistani warheads are said to havebeen earmarked for that purpose and reportedly are stocked at the Minhas airforce base in Kamra, near Islamabad. (Pakistan, which has as many as 120nuclear warheads, denies this, and to my knowledge, there is no precedent for anuclear country transferring weapons to a non-nuclear one.)The Saudis have also come to expect that they fall under thenuclear protection of Pakistan, much like, say, Japan is covered by the UnitedStates’s nuclear umbrella. Pakistan’s nuclear forces were developed to targetIndia, but they can strike farther, as was recently demonstrated by thesuccessful test launch of the Shaheen-3 missile, which has a range of 2,750kilometers.Continuereading the main story
RECENT COMMENTS
j.von hettlingen
22minutes agoAlthough Nawaz Sharifowes his safety to Saudi Arabia "after the 1999 coup", he was shrewdnot to be adamant about staying out of the...
Sameer
27minutes agoThis "shift"the author alludes to may have more to do with Pakistan's strategic decisionfrom being a "client" state of Saudi Arabia to...
SridharChilimuri
27minutes agoThe author jumped to alot of conclusions without any evidence. It reads like a gossip column. The PMwas not allowed but the Saudi Prince...· SEE ALL COMMENTS · WRITE A COMMENTBut with Pakistan now reluctant to openly support Saudi policyin Yemen, the Saudi government is starting to worry about its reliability as anuclear partner. And so even as it pressures Pakistan back into line, it ispursuing other nuclear options.InMarch, it signed an agreement with South Korea “to assess the potential” forthe construction of two nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia. It plans to build 16nuclear-power reactors over the next 20 years, with the first reactor expectedto be on line in 2022, according to the World Nuclear Association. Itinsists on having a full civilian fuel cycle, leaving open the possibility ofreprocessing weapon-grade plutonium from nuclear waste.CONTINUEREADING THE MAIN STORY10COMMENTSGiven Saudi Arabia’s continuing scientific and technicallimitations, despite major investments in education, this massive project islikely to bring in an international work force. Pakistan’s nuclear expertisewould be especially welcome. Having conducted nuclear activities for severaldecades and under difficult circumstances, its scientists know how to procurethe hard-to-get items needed in a weapons program. And they are fellow Sunnis.Exceptthat now Saudi Arabia, which is too rich to be ignored yet too weak to defenditself, has reason to fear that Pakistan, its indispensable nuclear partner,might no longer simply follow its diktats.PervezHoodbhoy is a professor of physicsand mathematics. He teaches at Forman Christian College in Lahore and Quaid-e-AzamUniversity in Islamabad.A version of this op-edappears in print on April 22, 2015, in The International New York Times. OrderReprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
8,000 Applicantsand Counting for 55 Units in ‘Poor Door’ Building
A glassy new tower in New York City attracted an outcry for featuring one entrance for condominium owners and anotherfor low-income tenants.Buthaving to walk through a so-called poor door has not deterred those seeking anaffordable place to live. As of Monday, the deadline for applying, more than88,000 people had put their name in for the 55 low-priced units, the developersaid.“Iguess people like it,” said Gary Barnett, founder and president of ExtellDevelopment Company, the tower’s developer. “It shows that there’s a tremendousdemand for high-quality affordable housing in beautiful neighborhoods.”Continuereading the main story
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‘Poor Door’ in aNew York Tower Opens a Fight Over Affordable HousingAUG.26, 2014
The separate entrances at the building, on the Upper West Sideof Manhattan, drew heavy criticism last year from some officials andaffordable-housing advocates who saw the configuration as representing unequaltreatment. The arrangement puts the affordable apartments in a segment attachedto the condo building and is allowed under zoning rules that the administrationof Mayor Bill de Blasio says it is now working to change.Continuereading the main story 1,000FeetMANHATTANHudsonRiverDETAILBuildingsiteLincolnSquareMANHATTANBy The New York TimesDespite the controversy, it is not surprising that people areknocking down the poor door to get in. Housing lotteries, which the city usesto distribute subsidized apartments in new buildings, have been drawing recordnumbers after the system began allowingonline applications in 2013 and as the rental market has gotten tighter. Thelotteries are expected to multiply after Mr. de Blasio’s pledge to produce80,000 new affordable units over 10 years. Already this year, 10 lotteries havebeen held for 698 units that received about 486,000 applications, officialswith the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development said.Mr.Barnett said 88,200 applications had been received by early Monday. Officialswith the NYC Housing Partnership, the nonprofit that will screen applicants forthe developer, said that applications could reach 90,000 by the time allsubmissions, including those mailed and postmarked by Monday, are counted.Cityhousing officials said that the HuntersPoint South Living project in Long IslandCity, Queens, has drawn the most applications so far, more than 92,000 for 924below-market-rate apartments in a lottery that closed last year.Theunits at Extell’s building are eligible to households with incomes of $30,240to $50,340, with rents listed at $1,082 for a two-bedroom, $895 for aone-bedroom and $833 for a studio in a prime location by the Hudson River. Mr.Barnett argued that the response showed that the poor door issue was a “made-upcontroversy.”“The most important thing is to provide affordable housing,” hesaid. “It’s what people really want.”Affordable-housingadvocates are divided on the issue, with some saying the focus should be onbuilding more homes rather than on where to enter them. Although many residentialbuildings in New York integrate low-cost units, developers like Mr. Barnett saythat segregating the rentals in a separate part of the building is preferablewhen market-rate units with the best views and amenities are for sale, and candraw top dollar, in turn allowing them to build more affordable units.AdvertisementContinuereading the main story%s%sContinuereading the main storyBut in the case of the Upper West Side building, that means thepoorer tenants will not have access to the pool, the gym, the bowling alley andthe private theater, among the add-ons used to entice buyers passing through the nonpoor door. (The renters will have theirown laundry room, a community room and bike storage.) There are even separate addresses:50 Riverside Boulevard for the condominiums, and 470 West 62nd Street for therentals.Mr.Barnett’s company built the low-income rentals in exchange for the freedom toconstruct more square feet than city rules would otherwise allow, a housing strategycalled inclusionary zoning. And under current rules, if the developer choosesto attach the affordable segment to the market-rate portion of the project, itis required to provide separate entrances.Butthe two-door option, adopted in a minority of new residential projects, is notin keeping with Mr. de Blasio’s liberal political stance, and officials arelooking to change a range of housing codes and programs to prohibit them.“We oppose so-called poor doors and will change the necessaryrules so that when affordable housing is provided on-site, we will not allowseparate entrances based on income,” Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for the mayor’soffice, said.The lottery process itself may soon be subject to review aswell.Abill introduced last week in the City Council would create a task force toreview the lottery system and recommend whether it should be more flexible andundergo other changes. For example, the Council might change the rules so thatapplicants would not lose their spot in line if their income or family statuschanges while they are waiting, said Councilman Mark Levine, the sponsor.Mr.Levine said he was also seeking ways to keep affordable housing developers frombeing swamped with ineligible applications, which is common amid the frenziedhouse hunting of the city.“Theidea of creating a task force is so that we can look for ways to make theprocess fairer and easier,” he said.SheliaMartin, chief operating officer of the NYC Housing Partnership, said thescreening of applicants for 470 West 62nd Street will begin next month. Afterthey are randomly ranked, the top several thousand applications are reviewed,and about 2,000 interviews conducted, to find the 55 households that meetincome and size requirements. Preferences are given to those who live in thesame community district as the new building, people with disabilities andmunicipal employees.“It’snot the number of applications that we get,” she said. “It’s the quality ofapplications.”Thefirst winners are expected to start moving in as early as August, Mr. Barnettsaid. On the other side, most of the 219 luxury condos, some of which go formore than $25 million, have sold.Aversion of this article appears in print on April 21, 2015, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline:
Crimes and Impunity': Amnesty slams US failure to act ontorture report
Published time: April 21, 2015 20:21Amnesty International has accused Washington of “sweeping underthe carpet” a December Senate report that the CIA tortured militants using theso-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” during the post 9/11 War onTerror.Naureen Shah, a researcher for Amnesty, accused the Obamaadministration of ignoring the painstaking five year investigation, whichculminated in the Senate Report.Amnesty says the US government has given de-facto impunity tothose involved in rendition and torture and “has failed to respond to the report inany way whatsoever.”“Major US agenciesimplicated in the Senate summary, including the Departments of Justice andState, have even kept the full report in sealed envelopes, and locked away,” the Amnesty report reads.The CIA torture report, published in December last year, examinedthe agency's use of torture post 9/11. The full report is 6,700 pages and isclassified. The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) onlypublished a heavily redacted 480-page summary of its investigation into CIAmistreatment and abuse of terror suspects.Read moreUncensored CIA torture report demanded by lawyers inIraq war abuse caseThe probe examined the CIA’s maltreatment of Al-Qaeda suspects insecret prisons throughout the Middle East, Europe and Asia, and detailedassistance offered by foreign allied states.Amnesty demands that the Justice Department and the White Housedisclose the names of those involved and the locations of all the secretprisons used in the program.“The US Department ofJustice (DoJ) must without further delay reopen and expand its investigationinto CIA secret detention, rendition and interrogation programmes andpractices, ensure that its scope and conduct meet international law andstandards, and bring to justice in fair trials all the persons, regardless oftheir level of office or former level of office, suspected of being involved inthe commission of crimes under international law, such as torture and enforceddisappearance,” the report says.Read moreWhite House knew CIA spied on Senate tortureinvestigators - reportThe identity of all those held either by the US government or atthe request of foreign governments must also be disclosed, says the rightsgroup.European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) confirmed Poland'scomplicity in CIA torture program in February. It ruled the Polish governmenthad to conclude its investigation and pay damages.It was then expected the ruling would putpressure on other countries to end the secrecy about their involvement in theCIA’s global torture program. It’s been known that Romania, Pakistan,Afghanistan, Morocco and Thailand also hosted CIA’s black sites.
Assad:France supporting ‘terrorists’ in Syria, acts as Washington’s satellite
Publishedtime: April 21, 2015 10:03
Edited time: April 21, 2015 16:08Get short URLSyrian President Bashar Assad has slammed France for alleged“terrorist” support in his country, saying Paris is not independent and has “noweight and no credibility” in the face of Washington.France has turned into “a kind of satellite for Americanforeign policy in the region,” and claimed Western tactics led to “terroristsinfiltrating Syria,” Assadtold France 2 TV channel."They have begun toattack civilians and destroy properties. Our role is to defend oursociety," he added.In the interview, Assad also denied having conducted allegedchemical attacks in the northwestern Idlib province last month – and accusedthe US of “creating the IS [Islamic State]” under their supervision."Is it democraticto send weapons to terrorists and to support them? So I have the right tosupport the terrorists who attacked Charlie Hebdo for example?" he added.READ MORE: Syria, Iraq turnedinto ‘international finishing school for extremists’ – UN reportAssad also accused the US-led coalition of ineffectiveness."If you compare thenumber of airstrikes carried out by the coalition composed of 60 statescompared to those by our small state you will notice we sometimes strike 10times more than the coalition in one day. Is that serious?” he said."It took them fourmonths to free what their media calls the town of Kobani on the Turkish border.How can you say this coalition is effective? They are not serious and that iswhy they are not helping anyone in the region," Assad added.Currently, Syrian and French intelligence are in touch, but thereis no exchange of information, he also said.Asked if Syria is a democracy, Assad answered that “the road todemocracy is a long process.”“You are more advancedthan us, but if you want to compare us your number one ally, Saudi Arabia, ofcourse, we are a democracy," he added.Last week, Assad gave another interview to the Swedish newspaperExpressen, stating that Europe“cannot be safe” while “the backyard of Europe, especially theMediterranean and Northern Africa, is in chaos and full of terrorists."Everything thathappened in Europe, and I mean terrorist attacks, we warned from the verybeginning of the crisis," he said."We’ve hadexperience with those kinds of terrorists for 50 years now. They don’t listen,so what happened was warned of before, and what we saw in France, in CharlieHebdo, the suicide attempts in Copenhagen, in London, in Spain 10 years ago,this is only the tip of the iceberg; terrorism is a huge mountain," he added.Read moreMost dangerous Islamic State leaders come fromScandinavia - Syrian President AssadFrench President Francois Hollande admitted last year that Francehad delivered arms to Syrian rebels “several months ago.”"We cannot leavethe only Syrians who are preparing a democracy ... without weapons,"Hollande told reporters in August 2014 while hewas on a tour of the French island of La Reunion.France has frequently ruled out any negotiations with Assad’sgovernment, closing their Damascus embassy in 2012. That goes in line with the‘Assad must go’ refrain pushed for by Washington.About a week ago, four French lawmakers traveled to Damascus tohold unofficial talks with Assad, with their visit condemned by Hollande.Hollande also blasted a group of French MPs for a "moralfailing" after they went to Syria to meet Assad in February.Over 215,000 people have been killed in Syriasince the conflict began in March 2011, according to Syrian Observatory forHuman Rights estimates last month.
Lukoileyes return to Iran after sanctions lifted - CEO
Publishedtime: April 21, 2015 11:40Get short URLRussia’ssecond largest oil and gas producer Lukoil plans to return to Iran as soon assanctions over the country’s nuclear program are lifted, according to thecompany’s President Vagit Alekperov.The company wants to return to the Anaranoil project which the company abandoned due to Iranian sanctions in 2010, VagitAlekperov told reporters at the IHS CERA Week 2015 Energy Conference on Tuesday.“We hopethat the current political dialogues will open up investment opportunities inIran in the medium-term,” Alekperovsaid, adding that his company was looking at the possibility of returning tothe Iranian market as it wanted to be ready for "the moment when the sanctions were removed.”Read moreTehran and world powersreach solutions on Iran nuclear programIran has between 20-30 million barrels ofcrude in storage that could potentially come to market in July 2015, adding tothe global supply glut.Thecountry plans to boost crude exports by as much as 1 million barrels per dayonce the sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program are lifted.Lukoil is also considering buying assets in Iran as well as inMexico after 2016, putting into operation a number of huge projects during2015-2016, according to the company head. Alekperov also said Lukoil hasalready reopened an office in Tehran.Lukoil was forced to withdraw from Iran in 2010, after the UnitedStates imposed economic sanctions against Tehran. Prior to that, it jointlyworked with Norway’s Statoil exploring the Anaran block that extends across theIraqi border and is estimated to have an oil reserve of 2 billion barrels. TheRussian company took a $63 million loss when it abandoned the project; however,in 2013 Iran reimbursed Lukoil $60 million.
Tough relations
This comes as Iran and the P5+1 group of countries- the US,Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - are working on a final agreementover the Iranian nuclear program which has a deadline of June 30. A key pointof the agreement will be the removal of a series of economic sanctions on Iran– specifically some of those that ban foreign investment in the country’s oiland gas sector.Earlierin April, Iran and the international powers reached “solutions on key parameters” after eight days of talks in Switzerland.Under the deal Tehran is obliged to refrain from creating nuclear weapons. Itagreed that the Natantz facility would remain as the only uranium enrichmentsite in the country while the Fordow facility is to be converted into a nuclearphysics center with no fissile material.Read morePutin lifts ban ondelivery of S-300 missile systems to IranIn 2006, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran afterthe country refused to suspend its uranium enrichment program. US sanctionsinitially targeted investment in oil, gas and petrochemicals, exports ofrefined petroleum products, and business dealings with the IranianRevolutionary Guard Corps. Banking and insurance transactions, including thosewith the Central Bank of Iran, as well as shipping, web-hosting services forcommercial endeavors, and domain name registration services have been alsorestricted.Tehran was accused of pursuinga clandestine nuclear weapons program by some countries, but insists that itonly wants to use nuclear energy for civilian use. Currently, the sanctionsinclude an embargo on dealings with Iran by the United States, and a ban onselling aircraft and spare parts to Iranian aviation companies.
Russianswant their country to follow independent course, poll shows
Publishedtime: April 21, 2015 09:57Get short URLOver half of Russian citizens want their homeland to pursue itsown way of development and only 17 percent think that Russia should take thesame path as Western nations, according to the latest research by independentpollster Levada Center.The share of those who prefer an independent development programfor Russia was 55 percent, significantly up from 37 percent two years back. Theshare of supporters of the European way for Russia on the decreased from 31percent in 2013 to 17 percent today, Levada’s research indicates.As many as 19 percent of respondents said that Russia shouldreturn to the ways of the Soviet Union.Sociologist Karina Pipiya from the Levada Center said in commentsto Izvestia daily that the shift towards support of ‘Russia’s own path’ was alogical consequence of past year’s major events – the political crisis inUkraine, followed by the military conflict, the reunification of Russia andCrimea and the Western policy of anti-Russian sanctions. The combined resultwas the desire of an average Russian to distance from the West, she noted.At the same time, Pipiya pointed out that when citizens were askedabout their forecast of Russia’s future, the answers were much less uniform.Twenty-four percent of Russians expect that in 50 years theircountry will be rich and developed and on the same level with Western nations.Some 23 percent said that while science in technology in Russia will be on thesame level with the West the life of ordinary people will be different (withoutspecifying if it will be better or worse).Twelve percent hold that Russia will join “the path of greatEastern nations,” like China and India.Read moreMost Russians see their country as great power – pollTen percent expect the country to return to socialism and movetowards communism. Predictably most respondents in this category were elderlypeople.As for the current economic and political situation, 50 percent ofRussians maintain that the nation faces only temporary difficulties. Eighteenpercent expect a deeper crisis and 8 percent say that the economy will slideinto stagnation. Only 4 percent described the current situation as stabledevelopment.In late March this year, the Levada Centerreleased the results of another poll that showed that 68 percent of Russiancitizens believe their homeland is a great power that plays a significant rolein international politics. The same research demonstrated that the share ofRussians who said they supported further expansion of contacts and cooperation withWestern nations was still twice as many than those who oppose it – 60 percent v29 percent.
March2Justice’rally arrives in DC seeking to end police brutality
Publishedtime: April 21, 2015 20:03Get short URL Activitscampaigning against policy brutality and racial profiling have reachedWashington DC, having marched more than 200 miles from New York City on foot.They have planned a rally for Tuesday on the west lawn of the United StatesCapitol Building.Demonstrators departed from New York, NY on April 13 and spent aweek trekking 250 miles down the East Coast before arriving at the nation’scapital on Monday. They plan to speak out against police brutality and racialprofiling near the steps of Congress.On Saturday, the activists stopped along the way in Baltimore,Maryland and joined a protest there intended to draw attention to the recentdeath of Freddie Gray. The 27-year-old black man died over the weekend as aresult of spinal injuries suffered days earlier while allegedly in policecustody.Waves of other recent officer-involved incidents have resulted infatalities across the US, with Gray’s death once again raising concerns aboutpolice tactics used against African-Americans.Online, organizers said the goal of the march was to “change thelandscape of this nation and prove once and for all that all men and women arecreated equal.”“WeMarch2Justice for Black men and women, including transgender and non-conformingindividuals, the incarcerated, undocumented people and all others in themargins and intersections who are all disproportionately impacted by policeviolence and systemic racism,” thegroup says on its website."Icommend and firmly stand behind The Gathering For Justice, Justice League NYCand the partner organizations responsible for the March2Justice," actorand humanitarian Danny Glover said in a statement published by the rally’sorganizers. "Thetime is now for action-based initiatives to supersede wishful thinking, andcollectively, their decades of experience in building more consciouscommunities is inspiring."The march officially began last Monday in Staten Island where EricGarner died in July 2014 after being placed in a chokehold by an officer withthe New York Police Department. One month later, 18-year-old Michael Brown diedafter being shot in broad daylight by an officer in Ferguson, Missouri. In bothinstances, neither man was armed.While in DC, the March2Justicemovement plans on lobbying Congress for a “Justice Package” of proposedlegislation that would install a new federal program for delinquent youths,curb racial profiling and remove militarized weaponry from local law enforcementgroups.
http://rt.com/usa/251749-march2justice-york-dc-protest/
Nobeer in space: ISS crew opens up to RT about life in orbit (VIDEO)
Publishedtime: April 21, 2015 11:11
Edited time: April 21, 2015 16:17Get short URL In a rare video call to the International Space Station onTuesday, RT asked Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Korniyenko and NASA astronaut ScottKelly questions from the channel's viewers. The crew opened up about the prosand cons of space life.RT viewers grounded on Earth were understandably curious aboutlife on the International Space Station (ISS), asking questions ranging fromthe coffee situation, to whether relations between the US and Russia affect theastronauts' relationship with one another.Perhaps the most obvious hardship faced by the ISS residents isthe fact that everyday earthly luxuries – such as hot showers and the ability tobreathe fresh air – simply don't exist in space.READ MORE: Russia-UScrew dock at ISS for near year-long missionKelly said he misses the comforts of home, including “running water,the ability to go outside...air quality varies at times, but by and large it'spretty good.”He added that there is simply no escaping work – because he can'tgo home at the end of the day.“One thing that I findleast appealing is that you're always at work. So imagine yourself, regardlessof what kind of job you have, that you never leave. So it always feels likeyou're working, that you're always on. So over the long-term that can becomefatiguing.”Read moreOut of this world: NASA spaceman posts stunning picson his 1yr ISS missionBut there is at least one luxury that will soon be enjoyed byKelly and Korniyenko – coffee.Referring to the espresso machine that was just delivered to theISS, one RT viewer was curious if the astronauts had already brewed themselvesa cup or two.While Kelly said that he and Korniyenko“definitely look forwardto the espresso machine,” he said they have notyet had a chance to enjoy it.“We have a lot ofactivity going on right now with the dragon resupply ship that just brought themachine up to the station. So with that and all the other science going on, westill haven't had the opportunity to get into the espresso machine.”But even once the machine is christened, the astronauts understandthe need to use it sparingly – because they only have 15 servings.“Unfortunately they usethe single serving cartridges...I think we only have 15 of them now so we'renot in any kind of rush to get through them and use them all up,” Kelly said.And when the coffee runs out, the astronauts also won't be able topop open a can of beer.“It would be nice [if wehad beer, but we don't]. One problem if any kind of carbonated beverage...whenyou open a beer or soda on Earth the carbonation will come to the top and outof the bottle...when we do that in space it would just stay in the liquid itself;it wouldn't rise to the top. So you'd be drinking a beverage that would have alot of gas in it, so that's not ideal,” Kelly said.Beer- and coffee-drinking aside, some of the questions posed by RTviewers were a bit more serious.When asked whether tensions between the US and Russia have anyimpact aboard the ISS, Kelly responded with a concrete “no.”“They don't. Up here onthe space station we rely on each other, literally for our lives. We are greatfriends, professionals, colleagues, and it is not something that ever comes upin conversation, or should it...these are great guys and I wouldn't want to beflying with anyone else...what we're doing is very important and we'll leavethose discussions to those that make that their job.”Speaking of jobs, the two high-fliers have one that is envied byspace enthusiasts and adrenaline junkies around the world...but one viewer wascurious how Korniyenko came to enter this line of work.“My father was a fighterpilot in the military. He welcomed the first cosmonauts back from space... Atthat time, space exploration was tremendously popular in the Soviet Union. Iremember my father bringing souvenirs from the first landings...and that’s howI got the idea in the first place. And step after step, I went...through manyhardships to this final goal, this ultimate goal in my life.”But that doesn't mean the two men don't dream of life back onEarth from time to time.“Before I got here,people asked me often about my last flight, what kind of dreams you have inspace, and whether they're dreams that you're in space or on Earth...Iremembered I dreamed in space, but not what [the dreams] were...so this time Imade an effort that now when I wake up in the morning and remember what I'vedreamt, I write it down...what I can tell you is they're sometimes about beingon the space station with people who aren't even part of crew, and other timesthey're about being on Earth...when I sleep better and I'm more tired when I goto sleep, my dreams are about when I'm here.”
Clintoncalls for ‘toppling’ 1 percenters as critics question her populist bona fides
Publishedtime: April 21, 2015 18:39Get short URL Democraticpresidential candidate Hillary Clinton is striking a populist note during herbid for her party’s nomination, saying the economy needs a “toppling” of onepercenters. But critics say her populism is strategic, not genuine.In a meeting with economists this year, Clinton looked at a chartthat showed income inequality in the US, the New York Times reported. Itgraphed how real wages, adjusted for inflation, had increased exponentially forthe wealthiest Americans, making the bar so steep it hardly fit on the chart.Clintonpointed at the top category and said the economy required a “toppling” of the wealthiest one percent, severalpeople who were briefed on her policy discussions ‒ but could not discussprivate conversations for attribution ‒ told the NY Times.It’s not the first time Clinton has taken a populist stance duringher nascent (official) campaign.“There’ssomething wrong when CEOs make 300 times more than the typical worker. There’ssomething wrong when American workers keep getting more productive, as theyhave... but that productivity is not matched in their paychecks,” Clinton said in Monticello, Iowa, lastweek.Clinton critics claim she is trying to trade in on the success ofSen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), a popular populist who many had hopedwould run for president until Warren quashed that idea.“Hillary Clinton’s fake populism is a hit,” a Rolling Stone headline for a Matt Taibbiarticle said on Thursday.“At launchshe talked a streak of anti-elitist rhetoric that was taken seriously for a fewdays, until the punditry took the temperature of her populism and declared toit be the right kind: the fake kind, the purely strategic kind,” Taibbi wrote.RepublicanNational Committee chairman Reince Priebus called Clinton’s populism “fake and phony,”according to Breitbart.Clintonis a populist in the vein of former presidential candidates John Kerry (D) andJohn McCain (R), Taibbi wrote ‒ they are all “politicians who can sound like idealistic outsidersbut have proven credentials as Beltway whores. These are the candidates who inGoldilocks terms are neither too idealistic nor too transparently come off asoligarchs, but are the ‘just right’ amount of blowhard, the kind with the ‘lookof a frontrunner’."But her supporters point to Clinton’s positions on populist issuesdating back to her time as first lady in the 1990s.“I don’tknow why we have this semicollective amnesia about her past positions,” Neera Tanden, president of the Center forAmerican Progress and Clinton’s policy director in 2008, told the NY Times.“She’sfollowing no one on these issues.”One Democratic strategist thinks people forgot about Clinton’sstances on domestic issues during her time as secretary of state.“Thisperception comes because she wasn’t involved in the discussion for so long,” Anita Dunn, a Democratic strategist, toldthe NY Times. Because in the White House “she had this reputation as being the veryleft-wing, liberal, Elizabeth Warren type,” she added.Clinton championed populists causes during her first presidential campaign,when she called for an elimination for the so-called carried interest loophole,a rollback of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, tighter regulations onderivatives and limits on CEO compensation.“Let’sfinally do something about the growing inequality that is tearing our countryapart,” Clintonsaid in June 2007, appearing at the Take Back America conference, a gatheringof liberal groups. “The top onepercent of our households hold 22 percent of our nation’s wealth. Enough withcorporate welfare. Enough with golden parachutes. And enough with the taxincentives for companies to shift jobs overseas.”
Embattled DEA chief to resign following ‘sexparties’ scandal
By Ellen Nakashima April 21 at 4:38 PM The head of the DrugEnforcement Administration is expected to resign soon, according to U.S.officials, following revelations about “sex parties” involving prostitutes overseasand other misconduct among its agents.Michele Leonhart, whohas served at the helm of the DEA since 2007, has come under heavy criticism onCapitol Hill since an inspector general report last month documented a seriesof episodes in which agents hired prostitutes. Agents were also found to havehad sex parties with some women hired by Colombian drug cartels.White House presssecretary Josh Earnest on Tuesday declined to confirm Leonhart’s pendingresignation but said officials “continue to have concerns” about issues citedin the inspector general report.[Report: DEA agents had ‘sex parties’ with prostitutes hired by drugcartels]“The president, asyou know, maintains a very high standard for anybody who serves in hisadministration, particularly when it comes to law enforcement officials,”Earnest said. “And the I.G. report raised serious concerns about that conduct.”A U.S. official,speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of thematter, said it was unclear when a formal announcement would be made.Leonhart’s plans to resign were first reported by CBS News.Over the past week,the White House has repeatedly declined opportunities to express confidence inLeonhart.Last Wednesday, afterLeonhart testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee,the panel announced it had lost confidence in her ability to lead the agency.“After over a decadeof serving in top leadership positions at DEA, Administrator Leonhart has beenwoefully unable to change or positively influence the pervasive ‘good old boy’culture that exists throughout the agency,” the committee said in a statement. “From her testimony, it is clear that shelacks the authority and will to make the tough decisions required to hold thoseaccountable who compromise national security and bring disgrace to theirposition.”The JusticeDepartment inspector general report focused on cases from 2009 to 2012 but alsocited complaints dating back to 2005.At last week’shearing, the committee released a summary of a separate report prepared by the DEA’sOffice of Professional Responsibility that found agents were having sex partieswith prostitutes paid for by Colombian drug cartels as early as 2001.The report described“literally dozens” of such parties at residences paid for with U.S. governmentfunds, according to Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), the committee’s rankingDemocrat.The reports by theinspector general and DEA show that the agents who attended the partiesreceived suspensions of two to 10 days, a penalty that committee chairman JasonChaffetz (R-Utah) said reflected an “unacceptable” lack of accountability.Leonhart told thepanel that such activity “has not and will not be tolerated.” Mark Bermancontributed to this report.Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter for TheWashington Post. She focuses on issues relating to intelligence, technology andcivil liberties.
Justice Dept. launches civil rightsinvestigation into Baltimore death
By Mark Berman April 21 at 4:26 PM
(AlgerinaPerna/The Baltimore Sun via AP)The JusticeDepartment said Tuesday it was launching a federal civil rights investigationinto the death of Freddie Gray, who died after suffering a severe spinalcord injury while in the custody of the Baltimorepolice.Gray’s death hassparked repeated protests in Baltimore, where six police officers have been suspendedas authorities there investigate what happened.[Man died of spinalinjury after being arrested by Baltimore police]The JusticeDepartment had been monitoring the situation in Baltimore and announced Tuesdayafternoon that “based on preliminary information,” it was opening a probeto see if any civil rights violations occurred, a spokesperson said.Authorities have called for calm in Baltimore,as the city became the latest flash-point in an ongoing national debate overhow police officers use force, particularly toward black men and boys.Video shows arrest of Freddie Gray(0:45)Cellphone video captures the arrest of25-year-old Freddie Gray by Baltimore police on April 12, a week before he diedfrom a spinal cord injury while in police custody (The Baltimore Sun) The city’s mayor andpolice commissioner said the results of an investigation would be given toprosecutors by May 1 to determine whether any criminal charges were warranted.Detailsare still scarce on precisely what happened to Gray. A charging documentsaid that Gray “was arrested without force orincident” on April 12. While he was able to talk and breathe when he was placed into a transport van that morning, when he came out of thevan “he could not talk, he could not breathe,” said Deputy PoliceCommissioner Jerry Rodriguez.
The War on Yemen: Where Oil and Geopolitics Mix
By Mahdi Darius NazemroayaGlobal Research, April 12, 2015RTOp-Edge 9 April 2015Region: Middle East & North AfricaTheme: US NATO War AgendaIn-depthReport: ARABPROTEST MOVEMENT, IRAN:THE NEXT WAR? 151 56 9 503Everythingabout the war on Yemen is a smokescreen. Concealed behind the smoke is a taleof geopolitics and petro-politics that aims to control the Bab-el-Mandeb Straitand the Gulf of Aden.TheHouse of Saud and a military coalition that consists mostly of anachronisticmonarchies are claiming to bomb Yemen as a means of saving the Yemenite peopleand their transition to democracy. The irony should not be lost on observersthat recognize that the Saudi-led coalition — consisting of the Kingdom ofMorocco, UAE, Kuwait, Kingdom of Bahrain, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Qatar,Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia itself — is comprised of an unhealthymixture of backward family dictatorships and corrupt governments thatessentially are the antithesis of democracy.Justas important to note, the Saudi-led war on Yemen is a criminal act. Themilitary attack on Yemen was not authorized by the UN Security Council. Nor canthe Kingdom of Saudi Arabia justify its bombing campaign under Article 51 ofthe Charter of the United Nations, because Yemen and Ansarullah (the Houthimovement) pose no threat of war to Riyadh and never had any intentions ofigniting a war in the Arabian Peninsula. This is why the Kingdom’s war on Yemenis categorically a violation of the Charter of the UN and international law.TheHouthis never wanted to aggravate Saudi Arabia let alone start a war againstthe Kingdom. Days before the Saudi-led war on Yemen, the Houthis had stealthilysent a delegation to Riyadh to establish an understanding with the Saudis andto calm them down.Instead of opposing the illegalwar on Yemen, Washington and its allies, including Britain, have thrown theirpolitical support behind the bombing of Yemen by the malfeasant Royal Saudi AirForce, which has committed war crime by intentionally bombing civilianinfrastructure, including refugeecamps and children’s schools.It is no coincidence that most ofthe victims in Yemen are civilians. This is part of a Saudi strategy ofestablishing rapid military dominance, which is colloquially called “shock and awe.” Ring any bells? This is a strategytaken right out of Uncle Sam’s playbook that intends to demoralize resistanceand scare the opponent into surrendering.
Pentagon’s not-so-hidden bloody hands
Noteager to reveal their roles in another illegal war on another sovereigncountry, the US and undoubtedly several of its NATO allies have decided to keeplow profiles in the attack on Yemen. This is why Washington has opted topublicly present itself as only providing logistical and intelligence supportto the Saudis for the war on Yemen.Thewar on Yemen, however, would not be possible without the US. Not only havecountries like the US and Britain provided military hardware to Saudi Arabia,but they are providing it with bombs for the attack, refueling its warplanes,providing intelligence, and giving the Kingdom logistical support.Doesthis sound like non-involvement? Can the US really be considered anon-combatant in the war?History— and very recent history at that too — is repeating itself in Yemen.Observers should recall howWashington deceptively claimed that it did not want to go to war with theLibyan Arab Jamahiriya in 2011. The US publicly let the British and French takethe lead in the NATO war on Tripoli while the Pentagon was actually the mainforce behind the war. US President Barack Obama called this a strategy of “leadingfrom behind.” A Saudi soldier loads ammunition at their position at SaudiArabia’s border with Yemen April 6, 2015. (Reuters/Faisal Al Nasser) TheUS strategy in Yemen is not too different from that of the NATO war on Libya.It is another case of cloak and dagger where the US does not want to be seenpulling the strings behind the aggression and violation of international law.The Saudis would never have daredattack Yemen without Washington’s green light or help. The Pentagon is evenselecting the bombing targets in Yemen for the Kingdom. “American military planners are using live intelligence feeds fromsurveillance flights over Yemen to help Saudi Arabia decide what and where tobomb,” the Wall Street Journal casually reported when the war began. National SecurityCouncil Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan, even stated that the US had established “a jointplanning cell with Saudi Arabia to coordinate” theattack on Yemen.This is why it should not come asa surprise that Saudi Arabia used Washington as the platform to announce thelaunching of its war on Yemen. The Associated Press even noticed the weirdpodium that the Kingdom had selected. “Inan unusual tableau, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States announcedthe rare military operation by his country at a Washington news conferenceabout a half-hourafter the bombing began,” the Associated Pressreported on March 25.
Double standards: Remember EuroMaidan in Ukraine?
Oneugly double-standard after another ugly double-standard sticks out. While theHouse of Saud argued that it has intervened militarily in Yemen to restoreAbd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi, who Riyadh claims is the legitimate president ofYemen, it has pushed for a war on Syria and worked with the US to topple BasharAssad’s government.Washington’s reaction is evenmore lopsided. When EuroMaidan was underway in Kiev and Ukrainian PresidentViktor Yanukovich was forced to flee in 2014, the US and its allies claimedthat Yanukovich had lost all legitimacy because he fled Ukraine. Even asrecently as February 2015, US officials have maintained this argument. “Well, let’s all refresh ourselves on the facts here. President —former President Yanukovich abdicated his responsibilities by fleeing Kievduring a political crisis,” the US Department of State’sspokesperson, Jennifer Psaki, told reportersduring a press briefing.WellMr. Al-Hadi also fled his country. Nevertheless, the same measuring stick thatwas used in Ukraine is not applied to assess Al-Hadi’s legitimacy. Unlike itsposition on Ukraine, Washington claims that Al-Hadi is still the legitimateleader of Yemen.The US is even willing to putaside its differences and work with Sudan, which the US Department of State claimsis a state sponsor of terrorism, to bomb Yemen into accepting Al-Hadi back.Thebasis for all of these contradictory positions is really a marker of USinterests and Machiavellianism. It has nothing to do with legitimacy,democracy, or human rights.
Al-Hadi’s (il)legitimacy
Whilethere some parallels between the two, there are key differences between Ukraineand Yemen. These key differences set Yanukovich and Al-Hadi apart and are whatmade Yanukovich legitimate and Al-Hadi illegitimate.Firstly,unlike President Yanukovich, Al-Hadi resigned from office. For arguments sake,however, we will not dwell on this. There are much more important points forevaluating Al-Hadi’s legitimacy.Unlike Yanukovich, Al-Hadi’s termhad actually expired. While President Yanukovich was elected into office by theUkrainian people for his term, President Al-Hadi’s term was extended through anadministrative process. To quote Reuters: “Yemen’spolitical factions extended the president’s term by a year” onJanuary 21, 2014. Al-Hadi was only kept in office to execute reforms, and thisis the criterion for his legitimacy.Underthe above context, it has to be remembered that Al-Hadi was selected as atransitional figure. He became the president of Yemen to usher democracy andhis term was extended in 2014 for this purpose. Instead, Al-Hadi dragged hisfeet on the democratic reforms — the fundamental basis for his legitimacy —that he was supposed to institute in Yemen. He was not fulfilling his mandateto share power and to enfranchise Yemen’s different political factions.PresidentAl-Hadi actually tried to concentrate power into his own hands while working toweaken Yemen’s other factions, including the Houthis, through gerrymandering byredrawing Yemen’s administrative regions. People gather on the wreckage of a house destroyed by an airstrike in the Bait Rejal village west of Yemen’s capital Sanaa April 7, 2015.(Reuters/Khaled Abdullah)
Petro-politics & Bab-el-Mandeb Strait: Another war forcontrol of oil?
Thegeopolitical significance of Yemen has weighed heavily in the equation. Thiswar is as much about oil as it is about Saudi suzerainty and the House ofSaud’s objectives to make Yemen a vassal state. Alongside Djibouti, Yemen formspart of an important maritime chokepoint, called the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (alsoknown as the Gateway of Tears/Anguish), which connects the Indian Ocean’s Gulfof Aden and the Red Sea.Itis no exaggerations to call the Mandeb Strait one of the world’s arteries. As amaritime chokepoint, the strait is just as important as Egypt’s Suez Canal —which connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea — and the Strait of Hormuz inthe Persian Gulf, because Bab-el-Mandeb overlooks one of the most strategic andimportant global corridors for the transportation of energy and internationalcommerce.Preventing US and Saudi rivalsfrom gaining a strategic foothold over the Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Adenis a major objective of the war on Yemen. The US and the House of Saud seecontrol over the Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden as strategically importantin the scenario of a conflict with Iran where Tehran closes the Strait ofHormuz to oil shipments and international shipping. As the New York Times points out, “Nearlyall Saudi commerce is via sea, and direct access to the Arabian Sea woulddiminish dependence on the Persian Gulf — and fears of Iran’s ability to cutoff the Strait of Hormuz.”Plan B in such a scenario for the Kingdomincludes usingAden and other Yemeni ports.Support for the balkanization ofYemen chimes with this and ideas about dividing Yemen have been floating aroundsince the Arab Spring. In 2013, the New York Times had this to propose about a Sauditakeover and annexation of southern Yemen: “Arabsare abuzz about part of South Yemen’s eventually merging with Saudi Arabia.Most southerners are Sunni, as is most of Saudi Arabia; many have family in thekingdom. The poorest Arabs, Yemenis could benefit from Saudi riches. In turn,Saudis would gain access to the Arabian Sea for trade, diminishing dependenceon the Persian Gulf and fear of Iran’s virtual control over the Strait ofHormuz.”Houthicontrol over Yemen, however, complicates and obscures US and Saudi plans.
Mandeb Strait and control of strategic chokepoints
As Hezbollah Secretary-GeneralHassan Nasrallah has rightly pointed out, the Houthis and the Yemeni militaryare capable ofclosing the Mandeb Strait. One of the reasons that Saudi Ambassadorto Washington Adel Al-Jubeir stressed that the Houthis should not have controlover ballistic missiles, heavy military hardware, and Yemeni bases is becausethe US and Saudi Arabia want to neutralize the potential of Yemen to close theMandeb Strait, especially if Yemen should coordinate with Tehran as an Iranianally in the future. In this regard, the Saudis have attacked Yemen’s missiledepots. The aim of the air strikes include not only preventing Yemen’s missilearsenal from being used to retaliate against any exertions of Saudi force, butto also prevent them from being on hand to a Yemeni government aligned toTehran or other US rivals.Moreover,it has to be remembered that control over Yemen is not only important formitigating the effects from a scenario where the Strait of Hormuz are closed byTehran. Control over Mandeb Strait is also important for tightening the noosearound the Iranians and in the scenario of a war with Iran. The same can beargued about a US strategy in the Indian Ocean against the Chinese.Back in 2011, when Russia’sDeputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin was serving in Brussels as Moscow’senvoy to NATO, he noted that Washington was not only planning on taking overSyria as a beachhead for a war with Iran, but that the US and its allies wouldlater try to control Yemen as the next step in preparing the grounds for an attack on Iran.At the time, RIA Novosti (now renamed Sputnik) reported that “Rogozinagreed with the opinion expressed by some experts that Syria and later Yemencould be NATO’s last steps on the way to launch an attack on Iran.”
Why did Netanyahu warn US Congress about Yemen?
Reportsthat Israel is a not-so-secret member of the Saudi-led coalition that isbombing Yemen need to be read, understood, analyzed in the above context aboutthe Mandeb Strait too. Netanyahu’s unspoken concern is that Yemen could cut offIsrael’s access to the Indian Ocean and, more specifically, its ability toeasily deploy its Dolphin class submarines to the Iranian coast in the PersianGulf. Netanyahu (L) acknowledges applause at the end of his speech to ajoint meeting of Congress in the House Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington,March 3, 2015. (Reuters/Gary Cameron) Who is threatening who? Accordingto the Sunday Times and Israeli sources, threenuclear-armed Israeli submarines are deployed near Iran’sshores at all times waiting on standby for orders from Tel Aviv to bomb Iran.In part, this is why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was ringing the alarm bells about Yemen and theMandeb Strait in the Washington Beltway when he went to speakon Capitol Hill on March 4.Israelis concerned about Yemen because an independent Yemeni government could inhibitIsrael’s nuclear-armed submarines from easily deploying from the Red Sea to thePersian Gulf to menace Iran with the threat of an attack.
Iran and the Houthis
Justlike the case with Ukraine, all the problems in Yemen are also being blamed ona nearby country. While Russia has been blamed as the scapegoat for theplethora of problems in Ukraine, Iran has been blamed for the Saudi war onYemen.TheSaudis are falsely depicting the Houthis as Iranian proxies or allies, becausethe movement is composed of Zaidi (Fiver) Shiites. The Houthis, however, areindependent from Tehran and have agency as political actors; they are notIranian proxies whatsoever. A common faith has not brought the Houthis and theIranians, who are predominately Jaffari (Twelver) Shiites, together. Politicsis what has brought the two together.Thesectarian language that falsely depicts Yemen as a battleground between ShiaMuslims and Sunni Muslims is ill informed or intended to mislead people bydesign about the actual politics and history of Yemen. This type of sectarianlanguage was never used when the House of Saud supported King MohammedAl-Badr’s Zaidi imamate against the republicans or Ali Abdullah Saleh, whohimself is a Zaidi Shiite, against the Houthis.HezbollahSecretary-General Hassan Nasrallah is very accurate when he points out thatdifferent regional players are turning to Tehran for help, because either SaudiArabia will not help them or is pushing them in the direction of Iran throughits foolish policies. This has been precisely the case for the Houthis. If itwas not for the flawed policies of the US and Saudi Arabia, the Houthis wouldnever have turned to Iran in the first place.TheHouthis also sent delegations to Moscow and Beijing to overcome US and Saudiefforts to isolate and weaken them internationally.
Will Yemen become Saudi Arabia’s Vietnam?
Historically,foreign intervention in Yemen has largely proven to be a disaster. Yemeniterrain is rugged and the elevated interior topography is perfect for guerillawarfare. Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt lost many soldiers in North Yemen duringits civil war, which was a major liability for Cairo.WhenIbn Saud was conquering Arabia, he was stopped in Yemen by King Yahya.Inmore recent history or times, when Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen to fight theHouthis in 2009 and 2010, it was effectively defeated again in Yemen. TheHouthis even ended up capturing towns inside Saudi Arabia.Groundoperations will not be a walk in the park for Saudi Arabia. Any invasion andoccupation of Yemen will prove to be a disaster for the Kingdom. There are alsocomplex tribal links between southern Saudi Arabia and Yemen. In the chaos aPandora’s Box could be ignited that would result in rebellions inside theKingdom itself.TheHouse of Saud seems to be cognizant of the dangers. This may be why it ispushing Pakistan and Egypt to send their troops.Someone should tell the House ofSaud that according to the Chinese general Sun Tzu, “The best war is the one that never has to be fought.”Thisarticle was originally published by RT on April 9, 2015.Comment on Global Research Articleson our Facebook page
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Fearing the Loss of Hegemony: The Concept of US Retreat
A hegemon is supposed to solve international crises, not causethem.” – Christopher Layne, The American Conservative, May 1, 2010Nothing upsets those drunk on imperialist virtue than the factit might end. Such romances with power do have a use-by-date, going offlike old fruit. Eventually, the crippling contradictions will win through inthe end. The days of the US empire are numbered – but then again, they alwayswere.The recent round of spring meetings at theInternational Monetary Fund and the World Bank flutter with suggestions thatAmerican economic power is being shaded, be it by the republic’s owndysfunction, or the emergence of other powers like China. “People can’tbe too public about these things,” argues Arvind Subramanian, chief economicadvisor to the Indian government, “but I would argue this is the single mostimportant issue at these spring meetings.”[1]This would come as a surprise for some. The various theorists on international theory, many slumming at The Weekly Standard, form the praetorian guard of arm chair defenders of Americanvirtue and power. Max Boot, writing a piece for the magazine in October2001, typified this by arguing that the attacks of the previous month were “aresult of insufficient American involvement and ambition; the solution is to bemore expansive in our goals and more assertive in their implementation.”[2]The problem is Barack Obama. They seethe Obama administration as a regime in retreat, which is the theme of BretStephens near fictional work. Indeed, America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming WorldDisorder already givesits readers two issues to stumble over: that there is an “isolationism” tospeak of, and that disorder would be a genuine problem.The first issue. For Stephens, the Obamaretreat is reflected by the choice made by the president when he “came tooffice determined to scale down America’s global commitments for the sake ofwhat he likes to call ‘nation building at home’.”[3] Stephens assiduously ignores thevast, expansive and dangerous robotic reach of American power, typified byremote drone strikes, the backing of proxy regimes and such negotiatingendeavours as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. If only the isolationismargument was true.President Warren Harding, in 1921, is said to have placed the USon the pathway to isolationism with his anti-League of Nations stance, and thewinding down of the post-war military machine. “Vast expenditure withoutproper consideration for results,” he warned, “is the inevitable fruit ofwar.” Wars, rather than being the efficient earners for a state, werewasteful enterprises. Avoid those security alliances that become, more oftenthan not, stifling and awkward embraces.Therein was born the myth of American insularity, one ofconsidered geopolitical withdrawal. Such an assessment would ignorecontinued US involvement in the international financial system – as indeed, thebiggest creditor economy – and its engagement in various internationalorganisations, including, to a limited degree, the League itself. Thiswas Washington without the fangs.But Stephens, like his colleagues of that most myopic brand ofhistory – the idea of empire – can see no reason for America to retreat fromanything. Take, for instance, the adventurism in the Middle East. “There was no strategic or even political requirement to get out of Iraq oncewe had succeeded in pacifying the country.”The efforts of such pacification continue to linger in theirdestructive toll, though armchair militarists get goggle-eyed when it comes tothe empirical world. Conservative columnist George Will was leftwondering what the missing factor was in the state building process and came toa simple, if impossible conclusion. “Iraq is just three people away fromdemocratic success. Unfortunately, the three are George Washington, JamesMadison, and John Marshall.”Then comes the issue of disorder, which takes the contractarianidea that, to achieve order in the international system, deals must be madewith hegemons, whether you want to or not. Stability is somethinggained by bedding the brute across the ocean, and smaller states need to cosyup to bigger ones with tarted up appeal.This system of perceived order was deemed amatter of virtue rather than good, old fashioned avarice on the part of thegreat power. “By dampening great-power competition and giving Washingtonthe capacity to shape regional balances of power,” argues Stephen M. Walt,“primacy contributed to a more tranquil international environment.”[4] Tranquillity, however, remains amatter of degree.Empires do check into the old home, get on thenon-solids and eventually die from natural causes. Yet Stephens iscautious to suggest that, while America is in retreat, it “is not indecline.” This is in stark contrast to others, like Christopher Lane ofthe George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&MUniversity, who sees the US as “increasingly unable to play the hegemon’sassigned role.”In any case, a power dedicated to causing moremayhem than policing stability doesn’t deserve any titles in the hegemonicdepartment. The otherwise war loving David Frum had to concede afterObama pushed the US into another conflict in 2011 that, “Three wars is a lot,even for the United States.” In Layne’s final summation, “The epoch ofAmerican dominance is drawing to a close, and international politics isentering a period of transition: no longer unipolar but not yet fullymultipolar.”[5]When the curtains will be finally drawn on the act that isAmerican empire is not for anybody to say, though the clock ticks with itsusual grinding music. The nature of its power will continue to change,with other powers emerging from the chrysalis. The question will bewhether such a process takes place slowly, or whether the empire agesdisgracefully.Dr. Binoy Kampmark was aCommonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMITUniversity, Melbourne. Email: bkam...@gmail.comNotes:[1]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/18/business/international/at-global-economic-gathering-concerns-that-us-is-ceding-its-leadership-role.html?emc=edit_th_20150418&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=55503776&_r=2[2] http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000/318qpvmc.asp[3] http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/america-retreat-new-isolationism-and-coming-world-disorder_820771.html[4] http://nationalinterest.org/article/the-end-the-american-era-6037[5] http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/graceful-decline/
The Globalization of NATO: Military Doctrine of Global Warfare
By Global ResearchGlobal Research, April 21, 2015 Author: Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
ClarityPress (2012)
Pages: 411 with complete indexNow Available: Order directlyfrom Global ResearchTheworld is enveloped in a blanket of perpetual conflict. Invasions, occupation,illicit sanctions, and regime change have become currencies and orders of theday. One organization – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – isrepeatedly, and very controversially, involved in some form or another in manyof these conflicts led by the US and its allies. NATO spawned from the ColdWar. Its existence was justified by Washington and Western Bloc politicians asa guarantor against any Soviet and Eastern Bloc invasion of Western Europe, butall along the Alliance served to cement Washington’s influence in Europe andcontinue what was actually America’s post-World War II occupation of theEuropean continent. In 1991 the raison d’être of the Soviet threat ended with thecollapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War. Nevertheless NATO remains andcontinues to alarmingly expand eastward, antagonizing Russia and its ex-Sovietallies. China and Iran are also increasingly monitoring NATO’s moves as itcomes into more frequent contact with them.Yugoslaviawas a turning point for the Atlantic Alliance and its mandate. The organizationmoved from the guise of a defensive posture into an offensive pose under thepretexts of humanitarianism. Starting from Yugoslavia, NATO began its journeytowards becoming a global military force. From its wars in the Balkans, itbegan to broaden its international area of operations outside of theEuro-Atlantic zone into the Caucasus, Central Asia, East Africa, the MiddleEast, North Africa, and the Indian Ocean. It has virtually turned theMediterranean Sea into a NATO lake with the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue and theIstanbul Cooperation Initiative, while it seeks to do the same to the Black Seaand gain a strategic foothold in the Caspian Sea region. The Gulf SecurityInitiative between NATO and the Gulf Cooperation Council seeks to also dominatethe Persian Gulf and to hem in Iran. Israel has become a de facto member of themilitary organization. At the same time, NATO vessels sail the Red Sea and theGulf of Aden. These warships are deployed off the coasts of Somalia, Djibouti,and Yemen as part of NATO’s objectives to create a naval cordon of the seascontrolling important strategic waterways and maritime transit routes.The Atlantic Alliance’s ultimate aim is to fix and fasten theAmerican Empire. NATO has clearly played an important role in complementing theUS strategy for dominating Eurasia. This includes the encirclement of Russia,China, Iran, and their allies with a military ring subservient to Washington.The global missile shield project, the militarization of Japan, theinsurgencies in Libya and Syria, the threats against Iran, and the formation ofa NATO-like military alliance in the Asia-Pacific region are components of thiscolossal geopolitical project. NATO’s globalization, however, is bringingtogether a new series of Eurasian counter-alliances with global linkages thatstretch as far as Latin America. The Collective Security Treaty Organization(CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have been formed byRussia, China, and their allies as shields against the US and NATO and as ameans to challenge them. As the globalization of NATO unfolds the risks ofnuclear war become more and more serious with the Atlantic Alliance headedtowards a collision course with Russia, China, and Iran that could ignite WorldWar III.AVAILABLE TO ORDER FROM GLOBALRESEARCH
The Globalization of NATO
Author: Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
ISBN: 978-0-9852710-2-2
Clarity PressYear: 2012
Pages: 411 with complete indexPrice: $22.95Click to visit the Global Research ONLINESTOREGlobal Research Editor’s NoteWe bring to the attention of our readers this important andtimely book by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, award winning author, geopoliticalanalyst and Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization(CRG).This book analyses in detail the historical evolution of NATO’spost-Cold War mandate and military interventions.The author takes the reader across the Eurasian geopoliticalchessboard, from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, to Central Asia and the FarEast, through the “military corridors” of the Atlantic Alliance, the Pentagonand the Washington think tanks, where the new post-Cold War military doctrineof global warfare is decided upon.And from the formulation of military doctrine, Nazemroayaexamines NATO’s mandate, its military campaigns, focusing on the geopoliticalregions where Global NATO has extended its Worldwide grip.The book from the outset examines the economic dimension ofNATO’s military undertakings, how the latter support the imposition of deadlymacroeconomic reforms on sovereign countries. War and globalization areintricately related. Economic globalization under the helm of Wall Streetand the IMF is endorsed by a global military agenda.Nazemroaya explores how dominant economic interests aresupported by the “internationalization” of NATO as a military entity, which hasextended its areas of jurisdiction from the European-North Atlantic region intonew frontiers. “The Globalization of NATO” endorses and sustains the Worldwideimposition of neoliberal economic doctrine.Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a man of tremendous courage andconviction. Having lived through the extensive NATO bombing raids of Tripoli atthe height of NATO’s humanitarian” war on Libya, the lives of others within hisentourage were always more important than his own life.It is within this frame of mind and commitment, having witnessedfirsthand the horrors of NATO’s “Responsibility to Protect”, that uponreturning from Libya in September 2011, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya started workingrelentlessly on his manuscript.While the conclusions of Nazemroaya’s detailed analysis andinvestigation are by no means optimistic, this globally military agenda can bereversed when people around the world, in the true spirit of internationalismand national sovereignty, join hands in dismantling the NATO killing machineand its corporate sponsors.That is why this book is an important landmark, a handbook foraction.Through commitment, courage and truth at all levels of society,across the land, nationally and internationally, this process of “globalmilitarization” described by Nazemroaya, can be forcefully reversed.At this critical juncture in our history, “the criminalizationof war” is the avenue which must be sought, as a means to instating Worldpeace.Can the objective of World peace be achieved? In the words offormer UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday, read Nazemroaya’s book“before it is too late.”Michel Chossudovsky, Montreal,October 8, 2012REVIEWS“TheGlobalization of NATO by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is simply magnificent, eruditeand devoid of the ethnocentrism to which one has become so accustomed fromWestern authors. The book deals with what doubtless are the most important andrelevant issues of the day for all those committed to saving life andprotecting Mother Earth from rampant human irresponsibility and crime. There isno other book that, at this particular time, I would most heartily endorse. Ithink Africans, Near Eastern peoples, Iranians, Russians, Chinese, Asians andEuropeans generally and all the progressive Latin American countries of todaywill find a much needed reinforcement and support for their peaceful ideals inthis excellent must-read book.”
–MIGUELD’ESCOTO BROCKMANN, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua(1979-1990) and President of the 63rd Session of the United Nations GeneralAssembly (2008-2009): Managua, Nicaragua.“Weare far away from the principles and objectives for which the United Nationswas created and the decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal stipulating that somestate actions can be considered crimes against peace. Nazemroaya’s book, inaddition to reminding us that the role of the United Nations has beenconfiscated by NATO, elaborates the danger that the North Atlantic Treatyrepresents to world peace.”
–JOSÉL. GÓMEZ DEL PRADO, Chairman of the United NationsWorking Group on the Use of Mercenaries (2005-2011): Ferney-Voltaire, France.“Throughcarefully documented research, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya analyzes the historicaland geopolitical evolution of NATO from the Cold War to the post 9/11 US- led“Global War on Terrorism.” This book is a must read for those committed toreversing the tide of war and imperial conquest by the world’s foremostmilitary machine.”
–MICHELCHOSSUDOVSKY, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Ottawaand Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG): Montréal,Canada.“Avery timely book. Yes, US-led NATO is globalizing, like the US-led financeeconomy. No doubt also for it to protect the latter, the “free market.” It is aclassical case of overstretch to help save the crumbling US Empire and Westerninfluence in general, by countries most of whom are bankrupt by their owneconomic mismanagement. All their interventions share two characteristics. Theconflicts could have been solved with a little patience and creativity, butNATO does not want solutions. It uses conflicts as raw material it can processinto interventions to tell the world that it is the strongest in militaryterms. And, with the help of the mainstream media, it sees Hitler everywhere,in a Milosevic, a bin Laden, a Hussein, a Qaddafi, in Assad, insensitive to theenormous differences between all these cases. I hope this book will be read byvery, very many who can turn this morbid fascination with violence intoconstructive conflict resolution.”
–JOHANGALTUNG, Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies and Sociology at theUniversity of Oslo and Founder of the International Peace Research Institute inOslo (PRIO), the Galtung- Institut, and the Transcend Network: Oslo, Norway.“MahdiDarius Nazemroaya’s prolific writings give us a comprehensive understanding ofthe character of the military thrust and it’s all out, no holds barredSTRATEGIC plans and moves to invade, occupy and plunder the resources ofnations, inflicting unprecedented barbaric acts on civilian populations. He isone of the prescient thinkers and writers of contemporary times who deserves tobe read and acted upon by people with a conscience and concern for humanity’sfuture.”
–VISHNUBHAGWAT, Admiral and Chief of the Naval Staff of India (1996-1998):Mumbai, India.“Thisis a book really necessary to understanding the role of NATO within the frameof long-term US strategy. The Globalization of NATO by Mahdi Darius Nazemroayanot only provides an articulate analysis on the Atlantic Alliance: it is thebest modern text devoted to the hegemonic alliance. With this book Nazemroayareconfirms his ability as a brilliant geopolitical analyst.”
-TIBERIOGRAZIANI, President of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Geopoliticsand Auxiliary Sciences/L’Istituto di Alti Studi in Geopolitica e ScienzeAusiliarie (IsAG): Rome, Italy.“Nazemroayais an unbelievable prolific writer. What has often amazed many is his almostnonstop writing on extremely important issues for the contemporary world andhis analysis about the globalization of NATO. What amazes many of us in otherparts of the world are his seemingly limitless depth, breadth and thethoroughness of his knowledge that has been repeatedly appearing in his work.We are deeply indebted to Nazemroaya’s humble, tireless and invaluablecontributions through his fearless, insightful and powerful writings.”
–KIYULCHUNG, Editor-in-Chief of The 4th Media and Visiting Professor at theSchool of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University: Beijing,People’s Republic of China.“TheJournalists’ Press Club in Mexico is grateful and privileged to know a man whorespects the written word and used it in an ethical way without anotherinterest other than showing the reality about the other side of power in theworld. Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya gives voice to the “voiceless.” He can see theother side of the moon, the side without lights.”
–CELESESÁENZ DE MIERA, Mexican Broadcaster and Secretary-General of the Mexican PressClub: Federal District of Mexico City, Mexico.“Withhis very well documented analysis, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya has conducted aremarkable decryption of the strategies implemented by NATO – in the interestsof the United States, the European Union and Israel – to expand its militarygrip on the world, ensure its control over energy resources and transit routes,and encircling the countries likely to be a barrier or a threat to its goals,whether it be Iran, Russia or China. Nazemroaya’s work is essential reading forthose that want to understand what is being played out right now on the map inall the world’s trouble spots; Libya and Africa; Syria and the Middle East; thePersian Gulf and Eurasia.”
–SILVIACATTORI, Swiss political analyst and journalist: Geneva, Switzerland.AVAILABLE TO ORDER FROM GLOBAL RESEARCH
TheGlobalization of NATO
Author: Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
ISBN: 978-0-9852710-2-2
Clarity PressYear: 2012
Pages: 411 with complete indexPrice: $22.95 Click to visit the Global Research ONLINESTORE
Hundreds of Children Brain Damaged by the Swine Flu Vaccine toReceive $90 Million in Financial Compensation from UK Government
By Mike AdamsGlobal Research, April 21, 2015Natural News 20April 2015 heswine flu vaccine caused severe brain damage in over 800 children acrossEurope, and the UK government has now agreed to pay $90 million in compensationto those victims as part of a vaccine injury settlement.Thisis the same swine flu vaccine that the entire mainstream media ridiculouslyinsists never causes any harm whatsoever. From the quack science section of theWashington Post to the big pharma sellout pages of the New York Times, everyU.S. mainstream media outlet exists in a state of total vaccine injury denialism,pushing toxic vaccines that provably harm children.“AcrossEurope, more than 800 children are so far known to have been made ill by thevaccine,” reports the International Business Times.Thevaccine caused narcolepsy and cataplexy in hundreds of children. Both are signsof neurologicaldamage caused by vaccine additives which include mercury, aluminum, MSG, antibiotics and even formaldehyde.As the IBTimes reports:Narcolepsyaffects a person’s sleeping cycle, leaving them unable to sleep for more than90 minutes at a time, and causing them to fall unconscious during the day. Thecondition damages mental function and memory, and can lead to hallucinationsand mental illness.Cataplexycauses a person to lose consciousness when they are experiencing heightenedemotion, including when they are laughing.Seethe animated educational video here: If car companies operated like vaccine companies.Children brain damaged inNorway, too“Norwayhas seen more than 170 reported cases of children developing narcolepsy afterreceiving the Pandemrix vaccine,” reports the Global Post. “The government has so far paid $13million to 86 victims, including 60 children…”Just as in the USA and everywhere else, a contrived swine flupanic campaign was launched by the WHO and the CDC, creating widespread fearthat would sell more vaccines. (Disneyland measles operation, anyone?)As the Global Post write:Backin 2009, the Norwegian health authorities urged everyone, not just at-riskgroups, to receive vaccinations after the World Health Organization designatedswine flu a pandemic.More than 2 million Norwegians, or 45 percent of the country’spopulation, were given Pandemrix in an unprecedented drive. The vaccine isproduced by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and was used to inoculate up to 30 millionpeople in 47 other European countries.Vaccine damage is Big Pharma’sroute to selling more medicationsIncredibly,even those children who are damaged by vaccines end up being big profit centers forthe same pharmaceutical companies that damaged them in the first place.In case after case being reported in the media, children who aredamaged by defective vaccines are reported to be on multiple medications. Forexample, as the Global Post reports:ToveJensen, whose son developed severe narcolepsy after receiving the vaccine, alsowants compensation from GSK.“The situation is terrible,” she says. “He’s 100 percentdisabled. We don’t know if it’s going to get better, he’s on so muchmedication. But we hope something will happen, that he will get his life back.”Similarly, as the IB Times reports:PeterTodd, a lawyer who represented many of the claimants, told the Sunday Times:“…The victims of this vaccine have an incurable and lifelong condition and willrequire extensive medication.”In other words, children who are damaged by vaccines generateeven more profits for Big Pharma by being damaged! It’s the perfect sinisterrevenue model for an industry run like a criminal mafia.GlaxoSmithKline swine fluvaccine brain damaged medical staffers, too“Among those affected are NHS medical staff, many of whom arenow unable to do their jobs because of the symptoms brought on by the vaccine,”reports the IBTimes. “They will be suing the government for millions in lostearnings.”The paper goes on to report:Among[those damaged] is Josh Hadfield, 8, from Somerset, who is on anti-narcolepsydrugs costing [$20,000] a year to help him stay awake during the school day.“If you make him laugh, he collapses. His memory is shot. Thereis no cure. He says he wishes he hadn’t been born. I feel incredibly guiltyabout letting him have the vaccine,” said his mother Caroline Hadfield, 43.Despite a 2011 warning from the European Medicines Agencyagainst using the vaccine on those under 20 and a study indicating a 13-foldheightened risk of narcolepsy in vaccinated children, GSK has refused toacknowledge a link.Pharma-controlled U.S. mediaclaims ZERO children were harmed in AmericaIf 800 children were brain damaged by the swine flu vaccine inthe UK and across Europe, how many children were damaged by the same vaccine —or other vaccines — in America?According to the pharma-controlled lamestream media, that numberis ZERO.Vaccine Injury Denialism –a particularly dangerous form of delusional junk science — is the present-daymantra of the pharma-controlled press, which includes all the usual suspectssuch as the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and so on. They simply pretendno children are ever harmed by vaccines… and they hope the U.S. public is stupidenough to believe the lie that “all vaccines are safe.”Rightnow, there are 800 children in the UK whose lives have been destroyedby the swine flu vaccine and who will neverlead a normal life again. Every year, tens of thousands more children are diagnosedwith autism. The vaccine industry is destroying a generation of children —committing what Robert Kennedy Jr. correctly compared to a “holocaust” — whilethe sellout media covers it up.How is this not a crime against children?Shame on all of those sellout editors and professional liars inthe mainstream media who cover up the truth about an industry that’s maimingand killing our children by the thousands. Do you have no sense of humanity?
Are New Vaccine MandatesDesigned to Target the Poor?
By Joshua KrauseGlobal Research, April 21, 2015The Daily Sheeple 20April 2015 ver since the measlesoutbreak in Disneyland, there has been a determined effort by legislators inCalifornia, to repeal the state’s current vaccine exemptions.If they succeed, the only way parents can skip their children’s vaccinations,is if there is an acceptable medical reason. As you can imagine, those who aredeeply concerned over the safety and efficacy of vaccines have every reason tofear these developments.Or do they?Well,yes and no. No in the sense that I don’t think we are headed towards afuture that forces everyone to take the jab, but the answer will likely be yes forfolks who don’t have a lot of disposable income. For reasons that I willexplain below, you can bet your bottom dollar that there will always be a wayto avoid vaccinations for you and your family. However, it’s going to cost you.For instance, take California’s proposed vaccine law. It doesn’tprovide any harsh punishment for failing to vaccinate your children. All itsays is that your child can’t attend school without the required vaccines. Itdoesn’t say anything about homeschooling. If you can afford to hire a personaltutor for your kids, or you make enough money to let your spouse stay home,then you can avoid this altogether.Isuspect this might become a new trend, and it won’t be restricted to the UnitedStates. In Australia, thegovernment recently stated that if any family refuses to vaccinate theirchildren, they will be denied medical benefits to the tune of $11,400. For alow-income family that’s a huge hit, but for the upper class that’s just a dropin the bucket.Mind you, they didn’t say that their children will be taken bythe state or their parents will be charged with child endangerment. It’s justgoing to cost them to keep their kids vaccine free. If these Westerngovernments truly believed that vaccines save lives and avoiding them wasdangerous, wouldn’t they be more willing imprison parents for putting theirchildren’s lives in danger? Their half-hearted attempts to stifle vaccine freefamilies, says it all.Granted,in the future there will be some heavy-handed attempts to hurt families thatdon’t want to vaccinate. Earlier this year, the Washington Department of Socialand Health Services threatened to take away a child becausetheir parents didn’t want to give her a flu vaccine. However, does anyonebelieve that social services would take away a child from a rich family, withconnections and easy access to legal help?Doyou see what I’m getting at here? They will always leave loopholes for thebenefit of the elites, but those loopholes will filter out anyone who doesn’thave the cash. To some extent, this situation already exists in America. Thereare only two states that don’t allow any personal belief or religious exemptions: Mississippi and West Virginia,i.e. two of the poorest states in America. Somehow I doubt that the financialand political elite spend a whole lot of time in those states.Onthat note, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that the elites don’tvaccinate their children at the same rate as the middle class. Jon Rappoportpointed out last month that in New Mexico, the Los Alamos schooldistrict has the highest rate of vaccine exemptions in the state. In alllikelihood, these are the children of parents who work for the Los AlamosNational Laboratory.2.3%of kids in Los Alamos public schools don’t get vaccinated. Their parents havereceived exemptions.That’sthe highest rate of non-vaccination in the state.We’retalking about parents who work at the US Los Alamos Labs.Peoplewith advanced degrees in science.Peoplewho work for the federal government.Youwould think the vaccine rate in that environment would stand at 100%, noquestions asked.Whatdo these people know? Why are they opting out of vaccinations for their kids?Thoseare hard questions to answer. Very hard.Hmm,let’s think. For example, have they done some actual research on their own, andhave they decided that vaccines are unsafe and ineffective?Let’snot forget that in California, private schools have significantly higher rates ofvaccine non-compliance than their public school counterparts. There appears tobe a large segment of America’s elite that doesn’t want to vaccinate theirchildren. Do they know something the rest of us don’t? And given the power thisclass wields in our state, federal, and local governments, how much do you wantto bet that before California passes this legislation, they will exempt privateschools from the law?Bynow, some of you might be asking yourselves why they would do this? Why wouldthe poor be forced into this while the rich get a pass? As I mentioned before,this is a growing trend that is international in scope, and the truth of thematter may lie beyond our borders. If this story from Kenya isany indication, then these laws have a truly nefarious purpose behind them.Independentlaboratory testing has confirmed that a tetanus vaccine given to over 2.3million young women in Kenya contained the HCG antigen.HCGwas developed by the WHO as a long-term contraceptive. It causes the body toattack a fetus through an antibody response, and can cause spontaneousabortions for 3 years after the woman is injected with the drug.Dr.Muhame Ngare of Mercy Medical Centre in Nairobi said:Wesent six samples from around Kenya to laboratories in South Africa. They testedpositive for the HCG antigen. They were all laced with HCG.This proved right our worstfears; that this WHO campaign is not about eradicating neonatal tetanus but awell-coordinated forceful population control mass sterilization exercise usinga proven fertility regulating vaccine. This evidence was presented to theMinistry of Health before the third round of immunization but was ignored. (source)To me, it looks like these laws have all the trappings of aeugenics agenda. Do you honestly still believe these vaccines are safe?Delivered by The Daily SheepleContributed by Joshua Krause of The Daily Sheeple.Joshua Krause is a reporter, writer and researcher at The Daily Sheeple.He was born and raised in the Bay Area and is a freelance writer and author.You can follow Joshua’s reports at Facebook or on his personal Twitter.Joshua’s website is StrangeDanger .
Blood on theirHands: Libya’s Boat Refugees and “Humanitarian” Imperialism
By Johannes Stern and Bill Van AukenGlobal Research, April 21, 2015 Thehorrific death toll of African and Middle Eastern refugees and migrants tryingto cross the Mediterranean to Europe is a damning indictment of all the majorimperialist powers, and most particularly the United States.The American president, Barack Obama, and his former secretaryof state, Hillary “We came, we saw, he died” Clinton, the presumptiveDemocratic presidential nominee, have blood up to their elbows. They set thepresent catastrophe in motion through brutal wars for regime change waged underthe hypocritical and discredited banner of “human rights.”At least three more boats packed with refugees from North Africaand the Middle East were reported to be in distress in the Mediterranean onMonday, with a minimum of 23 more people said to have drowned.This adds to the many hundreds of people, perhaps 1,400, whohave lost their lives over the past week in a desperate bid to escape militaryviolence by the US and its European allies, civil wars stoked by Washington andthe European Union, and pervasive poverty exacerbated by the machinations ofimperialism in the region.On Monday, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said distresscalls had been received from an inflatable life raft carrying 100 to 150migrants and a second boat with some 300 people aboard. The InternationalOrganisation for Migration (IOM) said a caller reported that 20 people diedwhen one of the vessels sank in international waters.In a separate incident, at least three migrants, including achild, died when a boat, apparently coming from Turkey, ran aground off theGreek island of Rhodes. Video footage showed the wooden boat, with peoplecrowded on the deck, heaving in the Aegean Sea just off the island.Eyewitnesses told the local radio station that there were many Syrians, butalso people from Eritrea and Somalia.The latest drownings follow the deaths of close to 950 people onSunday in the sinking of a refugee boat off of Libya. According to the ItalianCoast Guard, the completely overloaded boat capsized about 130 miles off theLibyan coast.“Wewere 950 people on board, including 40 to 50 children and 200 women,” asurvivor from Bangladesh told the Italian news agency ANSA. Many people were trapped in the hold of the ship and drownedunder horrible circumstances. “The smugglers had closed the doors and stoppedthem leaving,” said the man.Over 500 more people died the previous week in two separatesinkings of boats attempting to reach Europe across the Mediterranean.Since the beginning of the year, at least 1,700 peopleattempting to immigrate to Europe have died in transit, 50 times the number forthe same period last year. According to the IOM, the number of people dying inthe attempt to reach the shores of Europe rose by more than 500 percent between2011 and 2014.Of course, 2011 was the year that the US and its NATO allies,principally France and Britain, launched their war for regime change in Libya,under the fabricated pretext that they were intervening to prevent a massacreby the government of Muammar Gaddafi in the eastern city of Benghazi.This “humanitarian” mission initiated a six-month US-NATObombing campaign that killed at least 10 times the number who died in thescattered fighting between government troops and armed rebels that had precededit. This imperialist intervention, which utilized Islamist militias with tiesto Al Qaeda as its proxy ground forces, left Libya descending rapidly intochaos and destruction.Nearly two million Libyan refugees—more than a quarter of thepopulation—have been forced to flee to Tunisia to escape an unending civil warbetween rival Islamist militias and two competing governments, one based inTripoli and the other in the eastern city of Tobruk. According to the web siteLibya Body Count, some 3,500 people have been killed just since the beginningof 2014—three years after the US-NATO intervention.The escalating barbarism in Libya has included mass executions.The latest, made public in a video released Sunday by the Islamic State of Iraqand Syria (ISIS), was of some 30 Ethiopian migrants. This follows by less thantwo months the similar mass beheadings of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians at thehands of ISIS, which has seized Libya’s eastern port city of Derna as well asparts of the city of Sirte.There were no such mass sectarian murders in Libya before theUS-NATO war for regime change, nor for that matter did Al Qaeda-linked Islamistmilitias exist as any more than a marginal force. These elements were promoted,armed and backed by massive airpower after the major imperialist powers decidedto topple and murder Gaddafi and carry out a new rape of Libya.The disastrous consequences of this predatory neocolonialintervention are now undeniable. It is only one in a growing number ofimperialist wars and interventions in the oil-rich Middle East and North Africathat have destroyed entire societies and turned millions into refugees. Theseinclude the wars in Iraq, Syria and now Yemen, as well as interventions by theimperialist powers or their regional proxies in Mali, Somalia and Sudan.According to Amnesty International, the escalating conflicts inAfrica and the Middle East have “led to the largest refugee disaster since theSecond World War.” Amnesty estimates that 57 million people have been forced toflee worldwide in the last year, 6 million more than in 2012.TheAmerican press, led by the New York Times,writes of refugees fleeing poverty and violence in the Middle East and NorthAfrica without so much as mentioning the actions of the United States and itsEuropean allies that have caused the humanitarian catastrophe. What isunfolding in the Mediterranean is not a tragedy; it is an imperialist warcrime.
World Bank “Business Projects” in Developing Countries haveDisplaced 3.4 Million People
By Global Research NewsGlobal Research, April 21, 2015CounterCurrents.orgTheme: Global Economy byCountercurrents.orgAt least 3.4 million peoplehave been physically or economically displaced by World Bank-backed projectsbetween 2004 and 2013, estimates an investigative report. The true figure islikely higher, because the bank often fails to count or undercounts the numberof people affected by its projects.Nearly all of the 3.4 milliondisplaced people live in Africa or one of three Asian countries: Vietnam, Chinaand India, said the report by the International Consortium of InvestigativeJournalists (ICIJ), The Huffington Post and more than 20 news organizations.The ICIJ analyzed World Bank records.For more than three decades,the World Bank has maintained a set of “safeguard” policies that it claims havebrought about a more humane and democratic system of economic development. Itis claimed that governments that borrow money from the bank can’t force peoplefrom their homes without warning. Families evicted to make way for dams, powerplants or other big projects must be resettled and their livelihoods restored.However, the investigation found:# TheWorld Bank-funded projects forced the displaced people from their homes, takingtheir land or damaging their livelihoods.# TheWorld Bank has regularly failed to live up to its own policies for protectingpeople harmed by projects it finances.# TheWorld Bank and its private-sector lending arm, the International Finance Corp.,have financed governments and companies accused of human rights violations suchas rape, murder and torture. In some cases the lenders have continued tobankroll these borrowers after evidence of abuses emerged.# Ethiopianauthorities diverted millions of dollars from a World Bank-supported project tofund a violent campaign of mass evictions.# From2009 to 2013, World Bank Group lenders pumped $50 billion into projects gradedthe highest risk for “irreversible or unprecedented” social or environmentalimpacts — more than twice as much as the previous five-year span.More than 50 journalists from 21 countries spent nearly a yeardocumenting the bank’s failure to protect people moved aside in the name ofprogress. Thousands of World Bank records were analyzed, hundreds of peoplewere interviewed and report were collected from the ground in Albania, Brazil,Ethiopia, Honduras, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Kosovo, Nigeria, Peru,Serbia, South Sudan and Uganda.In these countries and others, the investigation found, thebank’s lapses have hurt slum dwellers, hardscrabble farmers, impoverishedfisherfolk, forest dwellers and indigenous groups — leaving them to fight fortheir homes, their land and their ways of life, sometimes in the face ofintimidation and violence.The report said:Thebank’s commitment is to “do no harm” to people or the environment.But the World Bank, the globe’s most prestigious developmentlender, has broken its promise.Over the past decade, the bank has regularly failed to enforceits rules, with devastating consequences for some of the poorest and mostvulnerable people on the planet.The investigation found:TheWorld Bank and IFC have also been boosting support for mega-projects, such asoil pipelines and dams that the lenders acknowledge are most likely to cause“irreversible” social or environmental harm.The report said:TheWorld Bank often neglects to properly review projects ahead of time to makesure communities are protected, and frequently has no idea what happens topeople after they are removed. In many cases, it has continued to do businesswith governments that have abused their citizens, sending a signal thatborrowers have little to fear if they violate the bank’s rules, according tocurrent and former bank employees.“There was often no intent on the part of the governments tocomply — and there was often no intent on the part of the bank’s management toenforce,” said Navin Rai, a former World Bank official who oversaw the bank’sprotections for indigenous peoples from 2000 to 2012. “That was how the gamewas played.”In March, after ICIJ and HuffPost informed World Bank officialsthat the news outlets had found “systemic gaps” in the institution’sprotections for displaced families, the bank acknowledged that its oversighthas been poor, and promised reforms.“We took a hard look at ourselves on resettlement and what wefound caused me deep concern,” Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank’s president, saidin a statement.Between 2004 and 2013, the World Bank and its private-sectorlending arm, the International Finance Corp., committed to lend$455 billion to bankroll nearly 7,200 projects in developing countries.Over the same span, people affected by World Bank and IFCinvestments lodged dozens of complaints with the lenders’ internal reviewpanels, alleging the lenders and their borrowers failed to live up to WorldBank and IFC safeguard rules.Studies show that forced relocations can rip apart kinshipnetworks and increase risks of illness and disease. Resettled populations aremore likely to suffer unemployment and hunger, and mortality rates are higher.Cases involving evictions have drawn the most attention, but the most commonhardships suffered by people living in the path of World Bank projects involvelost or diminished income.Following are few cases:NigeriaIn Lagos, Nigeria, the World Bank’s ombudsman, the InspectionPanel, said bank management “fell short of protecting the poor and vulnerablecommunities against forceful evictions.” Bank officials should have paid betterattention to what was going on in Badia East, the panel said, given Lagosauthorities’ long history of bulldozing slums and forcing people from theirhomes. One year after the evictions, the bank loaned Lagos authorities$200 million to support the state government’s budget.The World Bank said it was “not a party to the demolition” andthat it advised the Lagos government to negotiate with displaced people,leading to compensation for most of those who said they’d been harmed.IndiaOn India’s northwest coast, members of a historically oppressedMuslim community claim that heated water spewing from a coal-fueled power planthas depleted fish and lobster stocks in the once-fertile gulf where they maketheir living. The IFC loaned Tata Power, one of India’s largest companies,$450 million to help build the plant.In India, the IFC’s internal ombudsman found that the lender hadbreached its policies by not doing enough to protect the large fishingcommunity living in the shadow of the coal power plant it financed on the Gulfof Kutch. With Kim’s approval, IFC’s management rejected many of theombudsman’s findings and defended the actions of its corporate client.AlbaniaIn 2007, residents of Jale, a tiny Albanian beach hamlet on theIonian Sea, found themselves in the path of a coastal cleanup effort backed bya $17.5 million loan from the World Bank. More than a dozen poor familieslived in Jale, many in homes with add-ons and extra floors they rented tovacationers.Albanian authorities had other plans for the seaside. They sawJale as an ideal spot for a high-end resort to lure tourists to the country.They decided to use the coastal restoration project — which was managed by theson-in-law of Sali Berisha, Albania’s prime minister at the time — as a vehiclefor turning the plan into a reality.Before dawn one April morning, dozens of police officersstreamed into the beach community, heading for structures previously identifiedin photos taken during aerial surveys paid for by the World Bank. The policerousted residents from their beds and forced them from their homes. Demolitioncrews leveled entire houses or tore down additions that the government said hadbeen put up without proper permits.Sanie Halilaj cried as work crews pulled down half of the houseshe had shared with her husband for more than half a century.“When you lose a loved one, someone consoles you,” the74-year-old said in a recent interview. “But when you lose your home, there isno consolation.”In Jale, most residents still haven’t received payment from thegovernment for what they lost, even though the World Bank has covered theirlegal costs. At the bank, oversight remains weak.BrazilIn a drought-haunted region of Brazil, farm families pushedaside by another World Bank-backed dam say that their lives haven’t beenimproved.Thirty-five families live in a tiny, government-built relocationvillage called Gameleira, named after the dam and reservoir that forced them toleave their homes along the Mundaú River.In their old homes, they could take water from wells and theriver itself, but the relocation village has no fresh water source. A WorldBank report acknowledged a delay in getting water access for the new village,but said the village’s water issues had been solved by late 2012.The villagers say that’s not true. They are still waiting, fouryears after they were forced to relocate, for local authorities to keep theirpromise to build a small pipeline to draw water from the new reservoir to therelocation village. Meanwhile, water from the reservoir is being piped to urbanareas.A well in the village produces salty water and, even withdesalination equipment, each family is limited to 36 liters of water a day.Families supplement their supply by buying from commercial vendors, sometimesspending as much as a third of their modest incomes.These purchases provide them enough water to irrigate smallgardens of yuca, beans and corn. If they want to plant cash crops — such ascashews — they have to wait for rain, which hardly ever comes.“We feel that we are suffering so that people from the city canhave water,” 39-year-old Francisco Venílson dos Santos, a farmer and father offour boys and two girls, said. “They abandoned us here.”In a written statement, the World Bank said it is satisfied thevillage was provided an adequate supply of water “both in terms of quantity andquality.”EthiopiaThe mass evictions of the devoutly Christian Anuak people fromEthiopia were enabled by money from the World Bank, former officials say.In Ethiopia, the World Bank’s Inspection Panel found the bankhad violated its own rules by failing to acknowledge an “operational link”between a bank-funded health and education initiative and a mass relocationcampaign carried out by the Ethiopian government. In 2011, soldiers carryingout the evictions targeted some villagers for beatings and rapes, killing atleast seven.PeruVictor Mendoza, the presidentof a farming co-op near the sprawling Yanacocha gold mine in northern Peru,with his 10-year-old son. The mine, built two decades ago with the financialbacking of the International Finance Corp., the private-lending arm of theWorld Bank, is deeply unpopular in this region. Farmers like Mendoza claim itis polluting their water supply and threatening the health of their familiesand livestock. Ben Hallman / The Huffington PostPromise to do “better”“We must and will do better,” said David Theis, a World Bankspokesman, in response to the reporting team’s questions.Yet even as it promised reforms to its procedures, the bank hasproposed sweeping changes to the policies that underlie them. The bank is nowin the middle of a rewrite of its safeguards policy that will set its coursefor decades to come.Some current and former World Bank officials warn that the proposedrevisions will further undermine the bank’s commitment to protecting the peopleit was created to serve. The latest draft of the new policy, released in July2014, would give governments more room to sidestep the bank’s standards andmake decisions about whether local populations need protecting, they say.“I am saddened to see now that pioneering policy achievements ofthe bank are being dismantled and downgraded,” said Michael Cernea, a formerhigh-ranking bank official who oversaw the bank resettlement protections fornearly two decades. “The poorest and most powerless will pay the price.”Many bank managers, insiders say, define success by the numberof deals they fund. They often push back against requirements that addcomplications and costs.Daniel Gross, an anthropologist who worked for the bank for twodecades as a consultant and staff member, said in-house safeguards watchdogshave “a place at the table” in debates over how much the bank is required to doto protect people. But amid the push to get projects done, they’re frequentlyignored and pressed to “play ball and get along,” he said.In an internal survey conducted last year by bank auditors, 77percent of employees responsible for enforcing the institution’s safeguardssaid they think that management “does not value” their work. The bank releasedthe survey in March, at the same time that it admitted to poor oversight of itsresettlement policy.“Safeguards are irrelevant for managers,” said one staffer whowas surveyed for the report.A 2014 internal World Bank review found that in 60 percent ofsampled cases, bank staffers failed to document what happened to people afterthey were forced from their land or homes.Seventy percent of the cases sampled in the 2014 report lackedrequired information about whether anyone had complained and whether complaintswere resolved, indicating the bank’s mechanisms for dealing with grievanceswere “box-checking” exercises that “existed on paper but not in practice,” thein-house reviewers wrote.These “sizeable gaps in information” indicate “significantpotential failures in the bank’s system for dealing with resettlement,” thereport said. “The inability to confirm that resettlement has beensatisfactorily completed poses a reputational risk for the World Bank.”Since 2004, World Bank estimates indicate that at least a dozenbank-supported projects physically or economically displaced more than 50,000people each.Kim in the systemIn July 2012, an unconventional leader took over as the WorldBank’s new president. Jim Yong Kim, a Korean-American physician known for hiswork fighting AIDS in Africa, became the first World Bank president whosebackground wasn’t in finance or politics.Two decades before, Kim had joined protests in Washington, D.C.,calling for the World Bank to be shut down altogether for valuing indicatorslike economic growth over assistance to poor people.Human rights advocates and bank staffers working on safeguardshoped that Kim’s appointment would signal a shift toward greater protectionsfor people affected by World Bank projects.In March, Kim said he was concerned about “major problems” inthe bank’s oversight of its resettlement policies. He announced an action plancalling for greater independence for the bank’s safeguards watchdogs and a 15percent funding boost for safeguards enforcement.But while Kim and other bank officials have acknowledged generalshortcomings, they have consistently denied that the bank shares blame forviolent or wrongful evictions carried out by its borrowers.Kim said that while “we could have done more” to help theevicted communities, the bank was ultimately not at fault.United Nations human rights officials have written World BankPresident Kim to say they’re concerned that the growing ability of borrowers toaccess other financing has spurred the bank to join a “race to the bottom” andpush its standards for protecting people even lower.In both Ethiopia and India, the World Bank Group declined todirect its clients to fully compensate the affected communities.In response to complaints about the Badia East evictions inNigeria, the World Bank embraced a shortcut that fell short of its promise thatpeople affected by projects will be fully compensated for their losses.Internal emails obtained by ICIJ indicate that by early 2014,the Inspection Panel’s chair, Eimi Watanabe, was already pushing to make surethat the panel would not investigate the World Bank’s role in the case.“Pl[ease] issue notice soonest before it unravels,” Watanabewrote on Feb. 6, 2014.Watanabe’s directive didn’t immediately kill the investigation,but over the following months the panel made it clear that it didn’t want todig deeper into the World Bank’s actions.Watanabe did not respond to ICIJ’s questions about the
Lagoscase.CopyrightCountercurrents.org 2015
The Two-State Solution is Racist: We Cannot Liberate Palestinewith Colonized Minds
By Haidar EidGlobal Research, April 21, 2015Electronic Intifada 20April 2015 A Palestinian woman waves aflag in front of Israeli occupation forces during a Land Day protest in theWest Bank village of Nabi Saleh, 28 March. Land Day commemorates Israel’sviolent suppression of protests by Palestinians against government land expropriationsin the Galilee in 1976. (Shadi Hatem / APA images)Theinability — or unwillingness — of both the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and the Hamas-ledadministration in Gaza to provide a relatively acceptable example ofgood governance based on giving ordinary people a say in decisions that affectthem means that serious soul-searching is required among those holdingleadership positions in Palestine.Thealternative to the Fatah-Hamas rift is not, as both parties argue, newelections for the PA’s presidency and the Palestinian Legislative Council, within the frameworkof the disastrous Oslo accords.Rather,it is a form of mass democracy, in which all Palestinian refugees (living in the occupied WestBank and Gaza Strip, inside present-day Israel and in thediaspora) can participate by taking common action for broader goals.Israel must be clearly told that the single demand ofPalestinians is for a true, multi-party democracy throughout historic Palestinebased on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Proposals made by the main Palestinian parties until now havenot, unfortunately, been convincing to those living in the West Bank and GazaStrip — one third of the Palestinian people.
Racist solution
Thecrisis in Yarmouk, the Palestinian refugee camp in Syria,has exposed the PLO and other organizations that claim to speak onbehalf of Palestinians as inefficient, incompetent and powerless and — mostimportantly — unable to come up with a unifying political vision around whichthe entire Palestinian people can rally.Sucha vision would not coexist with Oslo and its logic of the so-called “two-statesolution.” That logic has led to a Jewish state on 78 percent ofhistoric Palestine, Jewish-onlysettlements on more than 60 per cent of the West Bank and a concentration camp in the Gaza Strip.Thisracist solution — camouflaged as the minimum that “both parties” could agreeto, regardless of the rights of more than six million refugees living in thediaspora and 1.7 million Palestinians living as third class citizensin Israel — has posed a serious challenge to the so-calledPalestinian national program.Thissolution has created a bantustan inPalestine — one that the chiefs of the infamous South African “independenthomelands” with their Pretoria-based white apartheid masterswould have found “reasonable and fair” since it guarantees the ethnonationalidentities of the parties involved.Whathas been totally overlooked is the nature of Israel as a settler-colonialentity that has, like apartheid SouthAfrica, colonized the land and obliterated the basic rights of theindigenous population. But in addition to its institutionalized apartheidpolicies, Israel has gone on to commit warcrimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, with the complicityof hypocritical Western governments and the UN.
Have Palestinians been abandoned?
Have Palestinians lost hope? Has their leadership abandoned themsince 1993, with the signing of the Oslo accords?Do Yarmouk refugees still think that the PLO is their “sole,legitimate representative?”ArePalestinians in Gaza, after three massive Israeli attacks in six years, and anongoing medieval siege, being called on to succumb to Israel and kissthe hands of the so-called international community and its aid organizationswhich have failed to rebuild a single home of the thousandsthat were destroyed by Israel seven months ago?ArePalestinians supposed to go on negotiating with the incoming fascist governmentof Israel headed by BenjaminNetanyahu, knowing very well that the next Israeli massacre is goingto be far worse than the previous ones?Itis time for the Palestinian liberation struggle to adopt tactics that have beensuccessful against racist, settler-colonial ideologies in the AmericanSouth and South Africa. Without serious intervention from freedom-lovingnations, civil society, conscientious people, and internal mass mobilization inSouth Africa, Nelson Mandela would have died in jail and SouthAfrica would probably still be an apartheid state.
Making Israel helpless
Hence,the only route we, in Palestine, can see to end Zionist atrocities committedagainst unarmed civilians is in the growing movement for boycott,divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.Israel may have one of the world’s strongest armies and be thelargest recipient of US military aid, yet it will find itself helpless againstthe will of ordinary people who have decided to boycott its products and itsracist institutions.Nogovernment can force its citizens to buy Israeli goods or its artists toperform in Tel Aviv, the Middle East’s equivalent to Sun City during South Africa’s apartheid era. ThePalestinian-led BDS movement, launched in 2005, has continued to grow and hasgained unstoppable momentum around the world.Ordinary Palestinians have realized that a colonized mind cannotand will not liberate Palestine; a decolonization of the Palestinian mind mustprecede the decolonization of the land.And that is precisely why the Oslo accords have failedPalestinians. They have kept Palestinian leaders in both the Fatah and Hamascamps trapped behind the façade of false “independence,” “dialogue,” and“coexistence” based on Palestinian subordination to the white, Ashkenazimaster.It is time for the current Fatah and Hamas leaderships to catchup with the people of Palestine who have roundly rejected the Oslo accords andremained steadfast in their determination to regain their lost land. Those whowish to lead Palestinians need to embody this determination and to represent itas the inspiring vision that it is.It is not a vision of weakness or submission at the negotiatingtable, but rather an expression of the will of a people who will not rest untilthey get back what is rightfully theirs.It is an expression of true democracy.Haidar Eid is an independent political commentator from the Gaza Strip,Palestine.
The Mother of AllMargin Calls! The Derivatives Chain May Create “A Domino Effect” which “LocksUp” the Entire Credit System
By BillHolterGlobal Research, April 21, 2015 This past Friday, Dave Kranzler of Investment ResearchDynamics put out a very thoughtful article and chart regarding the spike in“reverse repurchase agreements”RRP’s held at the Fed
http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/tag/reverse-repo-agreement/. The chart in question shows three very distinctive spikes:The first was Sept. of 2008,again in 2011 and the current spike. It is Dave’s contention that somethingbehind the scenes has or is blowing up financially.Let me explain what I believe ishappening, I do not disagree with his theory but I think he may have stoppedjust one step short of the full story. By adding one morechart in a moment, I’ll try to explain. Please read the above article asit is a good explanation of “reverse repurchase agreements” and saves me theneed for a long winded rehash.For years I have described thecurrent financial situation as a “giant margin call” waiting to happen. The derivatives market is a zero sum game where someone wins and someone loses,the danger of course is someone losing so badly they become insolvent andcannot make payment to the “winner” …which would make all parties aloser in the game. This is the fear, the derivatives chain breakssomewhere along the way and creates a domino effect both upstream anddownstream causing the entire credit system to lock up.Think about what has happenedover just the last six months alone. We have seen unprecedented FOREX movements.The dollar has strengthened close to 30% over this timeframe while oil hasdropped about 50%. The cross between the euro and the Swiss franc saw analmost 30% move in less than 10 minutes oneMonday morning inJanuary. There have been some very big gains AND some very big losseswhich would explain the need for “more collateral” which is exactly what thesereverse repo’s provide. Please look at thefollowing chart:I believe thisis “the rest of the story” as I mentioned above. You can clearly see thespikes in 2008, 2011 and again currently but “this time is different”. Itis different because of both size and the long lasting duration! Thefirst chart that Dave put out on Friday was of RRP’s with “ForeignOfficial and Institutional Accounts” whereas the chart you just looked at are“ALL” RRP’s.It is my belief the first chart’smovements are a function primarily of international FOREX movements andrepresents “collateral demand” from the likes of Deutschebank, SocGen, Barclaysetc. …AND from The Bank of England, the ECB and other central banks. Thesecond chart is of ALL players, not just foreign. This chart in myopinion is “how” the Fed has aided and abetted the system as a whole in“hiding” the losses from derivatives! The Fed places collateral intothe system which gets lent out over and over (rehypothecated) many times and“pledged” as collateral by the loser in derivatives trades… thus the systemcontinues “unbroken” because the collateral is put up to meet the margin calls.Do you see? For well over ayear I have wondered and even written in disbelief and amazement that no oneever admits to any large losses when in fact there had to be losses well intothe multiple $ trillions! Think about it, there are almost $10 trillionworth of “dollar derivatives” outstanding, a 30% move means someone won andsomeone else lost about $3 trillion. I don’t know of any firms that couldlose even 5% of this and remain solvent, do you? And this is just“dollars”, not oil, not interest rates, not equities, not iron ore, copper, goldor anything else!If you see the buildup of RRP’sover the last year+, this I believe is how the margin calls have been met andthe losses hidden …but is it even legal? In a technical and practicalsense, no it is not. However, from a practical sense, if this is what isbeing done then we now know how no one has been declared a loser and no one hashad to “book” their losses. The margin calls have been met, the positionsstay open and no one is the wiser right? I do want to point out thatunder the rule of law, if the Fed “knows” this, it is without a doubt acriminal act. If they are doing business with bankrupt institutions, onewhich they know or should have knowledge of as being bankrupt, the Fed is flatout fraudulently and blatantly breaking all banking laws on the planet.Going just a step further, ifthis is the case, what does it say about the Fed’s own balance sheet? Ifthey are doing swaps or RRP’s with bankrupt institutions, will the Fed ever gettheir collateral back? As Dave Kranzler so aptly tied together, this iswhy the “failures to deliver” have spiked. The collateral which wasoriginally lent out has been re lent 10 times more, or even 100 times more, whoknows?Please walk away from readingthis piece with one understanding, the chart above is telling yousomething very big has changed and been changing for over a year. Ibelieve it shows the system is in and has been fraudulently meeting a systemicmargin call. Maybe I am wrong but I wouldn’t bet on it. Thechart does however give you proof beyond any doubt that “stress” of some sorthas been and is building up “somewhere”. The stress is now multiples ofwhat we saw in late 2008 …when we were only hours from the system seizing up ina giant meltdown.I bounced this theory off of Jim Sinclair over the weekend andreceived a short but very enlightening reply. He said “The concept iscorrect. We have another OTC derivative explosion at hand but nopractical way to expand liquidity. Bad derivatives never die, theyjust get larger”. Think about what Jim is saying here, we againhave an Autumn of 2008 event triggering …only bigger! And no way toactually meet the margin calls. Each episode of QE was used to meet themargin calls and hide the losses. Each one expanded the risk whilepulling more and more collateral out of the system until we reached a tippingpoint, NOW!Let me finish with this one point, when thisera is looked at in hindsight, “it will all be about counterparty risk”. Do you know of anything without counterparty risk? Can you say G O L D?
“Deep Events”: TheLincoln Assassination and Cover-Up, Part of an On-Going Story
Originally published at WhoWhatWhyThe 150th anniversary ofAbraham Lincoln’s murder is one more reminder from the past of a distinctivefeature of the American system. This is that some American presidents reachoffice by assassination, not by election. More importantly, when this happens,a lot of facts are usually going to be left at best unexplained, and oftencovered up.FewAmericans know, for example, that in 1991 the body of President Zachary Taylor,who died in 1850 after a year in office, was exhumed and found to containsuspicious amounts of arsenic. But the New York Times announced thatfurther analysis showed the amounts of arsenic were no more than what isnormally found in the body, confirming that Taylor died a natural death.Same Junk Science used in JFKAssassinationWikipedia claims that this is proven by NeutronActivation Analysis (NAA) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, citing anarticle on the Lab website that is forbidden to the public. Wikipedia does notmention that NAA analysis on the same Isotope Reactor was used four decades agoto analyze the bullets killing John F. Kennedy. (The use of NAA analysis oflead in bullets, once used to bolster the “single bullet theory” of Lee HarveyOswald’s guilt, has since been decisively discredited by other U.S. Governmentexperts at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. In September 2005 the FBIannounced that it would no longer rely in criminal cases on the inaccurateevidence produced by comparative bullet lead analysis.)Evenmore mysteries surround the assistance provided Lincoln’s assassin, John WilkesBooth. In a recent article,the WashingtonPost described Booth as “embittered,” the term used by Psychology Today to“analyze” Lee Harvey Oswald. Other more scholarly studies have argued thatBooth was originally plotting not the murder but the abduction of Lincoln,Vice-President Johnson, and Secretary of State Seward. This was part of acoherent strategy to throw the determination of the next president into thehands of the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Roger Taney had already shownin the Dred Scott case that he was pro-slavery and sympathetic to the South.Speculationof a cover-up about Booth has abounded since the time that four of hisassociates in the crime were swiftly hanged. A benign explanation for thecover-up would be the desire to avoid dealing with the possibility that Boothhad been guided or at least assisted in his plotting by the Confederate SecretService. This was suspected almost immediately when a Vigenère Cipher table (acode used by the South) was discovered among Booth’s effects. At that time astrong need to restore unity to a divided nation would have been an amplemotive to present Booth, like Oswald a century later, as an embittered loner.It isnow pretty well established, by historian Thomas Goodrich and others, that Booth hadtraveled widely to Canada and elsewhere as a spy and courier for theConfederate Secret Service. Other historians have concluded, in the words ofDavid Herbert Donald, that “at least at the lower levels of the Southern secretservice, the abduction of the Union President was under consideration.”Whether Booth was following orders in his activities or wasacting on his own is less clear. But it is certain that Booth was able to eludecapture for 12 days after the assassination by using safe houses in Virginiaalong an escape route which the Confederate Secret Service had previouslyorganized.Thecover-up about Booth has long survived any original motive for it. Only in thelast half century have we begun to see books like William Tidwell’s Come Retribution: TheConfederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln.Yet from time to time we still continue to hear from authors like Jim Bishopand Bill O’Reilly, who write profitable best-sellers, one arguing that Booth,the other that Oswald, was essentially a loner.An egregious attempt to present Booth as a loner was that offormer CIA Director Allen Dulles, at an early executive session of the WarrenCommission on January 16, 1964. Dulles explained that, according to a book hewas handing out to members of the Commission, European assassinations were thework of conspiracies—but American assassins acted alone.Given that two of Booth’s targets, Lincoln and Seward, wereattacked almost simultaneously in different parts of the city (Seward wasstabbed by Lewis Powell in his bed during the Lincoln assassination), John J.McCloy promptly objected, arguing that “the Lincoln assassination was a plot.”Undeterred, Dulles shot right back: “Yes, but one man was so dominant that italmost wasn’t a plot.” Dulles was using his authority to indicate what hethought the Commission should conclude. Seven months later the Warren Reportamply fulfilled his wish and declared that the death of Kennedy was, too, thework of a loner.Same Old Story—False, Ongoing,and InterconnectedDulles’s intervention indicates to me that American cover-ups ofwhat I call “deep events”—events about which we are denied the truth—arethemselves an on-going and interconnected story. For example: in a specialsection of the Warren Report, written to discredit “Speculations and Rumors” ofa possible conspiracy in JFK’s death, Commission staffer Alfred Goldberg beganby noting that:“Mythshave traditionally surrounded the dramatic assassinations of history. Therumors and theories about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln that are stillbeing publicized were for the most part first bruited within months of hisdeath.”Goldberg is also co-author of Pentagon 9/11 whichis, possibly, another example of an ongoing coverup.Goldbergwas quite right in acknowledging the persistence of myths about assassinations.And we will never move beyond myths to a clearer understanding of what tookplace, who ultimately was responsible, what it meant, and how best to restoredemocracy to this country, until we fully grasp the role of Allen Dulles andothers like him in sustaining those myths.
TheWorld Doesn't Think Much of China’s Leaders (Literally)
China’sleaders are most popular in Africa, but face high disapproval ratings in theWest and parts of Asia.By Shannon TiezziApril 22, 2015 0 1 0 0 1 Shares0 CommentsGallup has released a new poll on global public opinionregarding the leadership of U.S., China, Russia, the EU, and Germany. Whilemost media coverage, including Gallup’s own summary,focused on the perceptions of the U.S. and Russia, the survey also containsinteresting tidbits about how the world views China’s top leadership underPresident Xi Jinping. The data mostly serves to reinforce expectations – thatChina is more popular in the developing worlds (particularly among Africancountries) and is looked on with suspicion by the West.According to Gallup’s introduction to the poll, the survey asked“people in 135 countries how they feel about the job performance of U.S.leadership… [and] how they feel about the leadership of the European Union,Germany, Russia, and China.” Data was gathered in almost all of North and SouthAmerica, Europe, and Oceania. A majority of African countries were included aswell, but Libya, Morocco, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, andZimbabwe were not polled. In Asia, notable omissions were Saudi Arabia, Oman,North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and, interestingly, China itself.“Residents in China are not asked to rate their own country’sleadership or that of other countries because of the sensitive nature of thequestion,” Gallup said. It’s safe to assume that, had Chinese poll data beentaken and incorporated, the U.S. rating would have taken a hit and Russia andChina both would likely have moved up in the rankings – but given the number ofcountries polled, the end data (based on a median ranking in all countriessurveyed) would not have been greatly affected.As of 2014, U.S. leadership has the highest approval rating at45 percent, followed by Germany (41 percent), the EU (39 percent), China, (29percent) and Russia (22 percent). International approval ratings for China havedropped significantly from a high of 40 percent in 2008 (the year Beijinghosted the Summer Olympic Games) and has held steady at 29 percent approval forthe past three years.Interestingly, however, China’s low approval ratings aremirrored by low disapproval ratings, with only 28 percent of people saying they activelydisapproved of China’s leadership. Gallup concludes that “China’s leadership isthe least well-known worldwide (the median with no opinion is 32 percent).”As the report notes, opinions of China vary wildly. From 2013 to2014, there were double-digit declines in Xi and company’s approval rating innine countries, but also double-digits gains in four countries (notably Russia, where China received just a25 percent approval rating in 2013 but scored 42 percent in 2014).China is especially popular on the African continent, whereBeijing’s leaders enjoys a majority approval rating in many countries. The 11countries giving China the highest marks are all located in western and centralAfrica. In total, 22 countries had a majority of respondents approve of China’sleadership – and 20 of these were countries in Africa, with the other two(Pakistan and Tajikistan) in Asia.At the same time, however, China’s approval ratings in someAfrican countries cratered from 2013 to 2014. In Ethiopia, approval of China’sleaders plummeted 31 percentage points, ending at 18 percent. Gabon, Tanzania,Uganda, and Guinea also registered double-digit percentage point drops inChina’s approval rating (although Beijing still enjoys a rating of 50 percentor better in Tanzania, Gabon, and Guinea).Though China doesn’t reach majority approvals in most of theworld, it does enjoy higher approval ratings in the developing world. LatinAmerican, Central Asian, and Eastern European countries generally rated Chinamore highly than did Western Europe and the U.S. The notable exception to thetrend is found in China’s own backyard, where a number of regional states(including India, Thailand, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Indonesia) gaveBeijing approval ratings roughly on par with U.S. residents’ opinions. However,China’s near neighbors are clearly split — other countries (like Pakistan,Cambodia, and Malaysia) think more highly China’s leaders.Overall, though, China’s disapproval ratings are highest inEurope and the United States. Interestingly, Germany gives China the highestdisapproval rating (78 percent), higher than either the U.S. (70 percent) orJapan (67 percent). There are 28 countries or regions where a majority ofresidents disapprove of China’s leaders, with almost all being Westerncountries. The three exceptions are all located within Asia — Japan, thePhilippines, and (worryingly for Beijing) Hong Kong.
Can Capitalism Take Off in NorthKorea?
Flirtationswith capitalism need to overcome a rigid ideology.By Hy-sang LeeApril 14, 2015 767 36 1 2 806 Shares35 CommentsNorth Korea has experienced slowly expanding spheres ofcapitalism for 20 years, including the recent decentralization of farmingdecisions down to the family level. This incongruous but enduring developmenthas aroused hopes in South Korea that the North’s economy will somehow developenough to mitigate the eventual unification costs for Seoul. The HyundaiEconomic Research Institute published in 2014 a forecast that had the Northgrowing at 7 percent a year for 10 years. Also, the Foreign Economic Policy ResearchInstitute of Seoul National University reported that if the North were to adopteither the Chinese or Vietnamese model of reform it would raise the annualgrowth rate to 6-7 percent.However, Pyongyang has merely flirted with capitalism, hoping thefamed “animal spirits” will help animate a sick economy and perpetuate the Kimdynasty. Having inherited capitalism along with communism of the Juchetype, Kim Jong-un has been doing his best to maximize thebenefits of the former, but only within the confines of the latter.Early AppearanceEven before Pyongyang began playing with capitalist ideas,private enterprise appeared in North Korea during the historic famine of the1990s, triggered by Biblical-scale floods that swept away numerous productionsites and inundated underground grain-storages. In the ensuing years of faminefrom 1994 to 1998, the North Koreans began to trade their meager possessionsfor food in the countryside and on urban street corners. The governmentcleverly responded to the subsequent growth in private commerce by putting upmarket buildings at convenient locations and making stalls available for rent.Thus began the use of capitalism means for socialist ends. Some traders and newentrepreneurs opened restaurants, hair salons, and other upscale serviceoutfits near the markets, or launched larger service ventures. One group ofbudding entrepreneurs took advantage of railway bottlenecks, buying used trucksor buses from China to offer inter-city freight or bus services. Some automobileowners even began to offer an Uber-like service.Today, images of relatively stylish shoppers and piles ofmerchandise in marketplaces might suggest that commercial and serviceenterprises are capable of pulling North Korea’s economy onto the path of self-sustaininggrowth. In reality, they have only limited power to drive sustained growth inthe North Korean context. Manufacturing cannot stimulate production withfacilities that are largely decayed, and services can expand expenditures andGDP only insofar as there are customers who can afford them. In fact, most ofthe goods being sold in North Korean marketplaces are either luxury itemssmuggled in, or electronics, cosmetics, and other imported merchandise popularwith the country’s small number of rich or middle-class consumers. The dominantproduct in markets is rice.Accordingly, private commerce and service enterprises in NorthKorea are unlikely to be an engine of significant economic growth. To besure, capitalism has boosted domestic production in the last 20 years. Thetotal increase is roughly equal to the current yearly sum of profits, bribes,stall rents, and other operating expenses. Capitalism has managed to surviverepeated crackdowns by hardliners, and eventually helped inspire thebureaucrats and Kim Jong-un to transplant some of its traits to agriculture andindustry. That transplant has produced only modest success given ideologicalhurdles and poor understanding of capitalism’s other traits.In the face of the limited locomotive power of privateenterprise in the North, what would bring significant GDP growth would befactories established by the traders and service entrepreneurs who have accumulatedcapital (donju, a recent Korean word meaning “money owner”).Manufacturing has a multiplier effect on domestic output as workers are hiredand suppliers emerge. Having money owners launch industrial plants would be theconsummate capitalism play, one that would disprove the central argument ofthis article, if they could remain free and pay bribes merely comparable toordinary corporate taxes (in a country that is proudly free of taxes as such).Of course, entrepreneurs would run into the same infrastructure deficiencies;the money owners’ own lack of knowledge about overseas markets and technology;and the compelling need for property rights. Has Kim Jong-un done anything toaddress these obstacles to North Korean industry?Power ShortagesKim presents his basic policy as promoting both the military andthe economy in tandem. This in effect means that the military will continue toget the lion’s share of capital budgets, ensuring that the same lack of capitalthat explains North Korea’s infrastructural deficiencies will continue.Regarding the pervasive problem of power shortages in particular, theconstruction of a coal-fired power plant to supplement an old station nearPyongyang has been announced. This decision came despite the obvious shortageof coal. Also announced has been an early 2013 launch of multi-tierhydro-electric plants on the Chongchon River. The latter decision came even asthe newest plants, the Huichon Hydro-Electric Stations No. 1 and No. 2, werecompleted in early 2012, some 35 years after construction began, albeitgenerating far less power than their joint capacity of 300,000 kilowatts due toshallow river flows above the dams. Hence, even if the two projects arecompleted without undue delays, they will be of little significance. The onlysign of a determined action to break the grip of power shortages would be tobuild oil-based power stations, and there has been no such move.These issues go back to the day’s of Kim’s grandfather, KimIl-sung, who faced power shortages in 1974 when advance planning for the SecondSeven-Year Plan was underway. Coal for power generation was in short supplybecause it was also used as industrial raw material via gasification. As to thehydroelectric alternative, the costs and time involved in building new dams atthose sites still available were prohibitive, as all the most obvious locationshad been built on beginning from the Japanese colonial era. The solution tothis dilemma would have been to invest in oil-fired power plants able to run independently.But the older Kim ordered the construction of more hydroelectric stationsanyway, stating: “Certain scientists recommended building oil-burning stationsbecause they can be completed in less time than hydroelectric plants. That istrue. But it will require importing oil not available in our country.” Buildingsensible power plants called for abandoning a commitment to autarky and earningexport dollars to import oil. Kim refused to compromise his own ideology andleft the power-shortage predicament unresolved, as it remains today. Notsurprisingly, Kim Jong-un’s New-Year address in 2014 called for generating moreelectricity with priority given to hydroelectric resources.Now, even if the problem with power and other infrastructure issolved, North Korea’s capitalist play would still be hard pressed to turncommercial and service money-owners into industrial capitalists, in partbecause the seclusion and autarky creeds keep them from making trips abroadthat might help them to learn about overseas markets and technologies. As aconsequence, they are bound to miss opportunities to set up simplemanufacturing operations that could pluck the low-hanging fruit that typicallyprevails in foreign consumer markets. That low-hanging fruit has nourished countlessupstart factories in poor countries since the 1950s, including South Koreanfirms exporting wigs made of the hair of rural girls. Early factories can growfor a while using cheap labor and fabricating import replacements. In his NewYear Address 2015, Kim demanded that North Korea get “rid of the disease ofimporting.” However, import substitution cannot prosper for long becausedomestic markets for most replaced goods are small in poor countries. Finally,prospective industrial capitalists want secure property rights before they sinktheir money into plant and equipment. Here again, the flirtation withcapitalism has been ineffectual, owing to a Juche-communism hurdle: All land inNorth Korea is owned by the state or collectives. So it is in China, but inthat country’s flexible interpretation of communism, industrial land is leasedto investors for up to 70 years. Pyongyang could likewise provide a degree ofinvestor security on similar terms. However, nothing like it has been broached.Hence a meaningful migration of commercial and service capital to theindustrial sector necessary for a self-reinforcing growth has not occurred, andnor is it likely to do so in the future given the rigidity of Juche communism.Property RightsProperty rights likewise are important for raising efficiency infood production, which in turn feeds urban workers and releases labor forindustrial growth. China boosted farm productivity beginning with itsproclamation of the Reform and Opening Up policy at a central committee meetingin December 1978. This led to the “family responsibility system” in farming,breaking up the communal farms and granting land-use rights to individual farmfamilies. The land-use contracts began with a three-year term in 1979, butgradually increased to 45 years. Of equal moment, the 1978 declarationstimulated manufacturing and other sectors by permitting private enterprise andopening China to the world. The ensuing capital and technology inflows andwidespread advances in industry reduced the prices of farm equipment,fertilizers, and other supplies needed for farm productivity, which could thenrise in step with increased farmer incentives.Kim Jong-un has learned from China, and modified the Juchesystem to bolster farm productivity through enhanced farmer incentives. Juchefarming imposes two debilitating features, one of which is self-sufficiency ingrain. The other is the basic work-unit on the farm called the sub-team, whichhad remained essentially the same since its 1965 formation by Kim Il Sung. Thesub-team traditionally comprised several families of about 20 members, who wereassigned a designated plot and a production quota. Kim Jong-un has stuck to thegrain dictate, but has issued instructions to downsize the sub-team to thefamily scale. Reform details were not publicized officially lest heraldedchanges hurt Juche’s “eternal” authority, but in the summer of 2012, local farmauthorities were reportedly notified of a June 28 reform reducing the sub-teamsize to 2-6 members, along with correspondingly smaller farmland allocations.This downsizing enabled most farm households to be officiallydubbed sub-teams – honoring Juche. The ruling-party mouthpiece Rodong Sinmun has used this term, and hasspeculated that the uneven capabilities of sub-team leaders caused the poorharvest in 2014. The reform also reportedly sets the family’s share of theharvest at 30 percent of its production quota plus any output above the quota,leaving 70 percent of the quota for state procurement. Since under the previouspolicy, the state set a high share that was unrelated to the harvest, the June28 measures offer significant production incentives. While these reform-relatednumbers are not verified, the thrust of Kim’s efforts has been to bolsterproduction incentives, by means of granting property rights of sorts: Landallocations of undefined timeframes coupled with a more favorable formula forcrop sharing amount to the conferring of property rights – even if primitive –on farmers. If these incentives are sustained through adherence to the landallocation and the sharing formula in the next few years, tracking the vagariesof weather and supply, farm production will rise.That said, the boost in the harvest will be modest, because incontrast to China’s reform of 1978 the North’s economy remains closed, whichmeans that manufacturing will not develop the efficiencies needed to producecheaper supplies for farmers. North Korea’s agriculture desperately needsfertilizer and herbicides, diesel fuel for tractors, and plastic sheets forcovering rice and corn seedlings in early spring. Most farm tractors aremaintained by cannibalizing parts, the newest of them manufactured in themid-1980s. Pyongyang needs to replace much of its tractor stock. All of theseneeds require robust manufacturing, electric power, and industrial rawmaterials, none of which will be readily available unless North Korea opens itseconomy. Until that happens, the benefits for agriculture will be minimal.Along with the farm decision-making at the family level, theJune 28 reform did give state enterprises a degree of autonomy, includingdecisions on product prices and wages. These changes generated some spectacularstories, such as certain workers seeing their wages rise a hundredfold in thefirst year. This was a natural outcome of allowing some enterprises producingessentials such as fertilizer, soy source or cooking oil charge market prices.Affluent buyers offered high prices and got all they wanted. Meanwhile, theselucky manufacturers continued to source their raw materials at below-marketprices, allowing them windfall profits and the scope to offer huge wage hikes.After the early publicity and enthusiasm, the manufacturingcomponent of the June 28 measures has been staggering under the weight of itsfaulty design. Repeated reports have emerged of factories making mundaneproducts such as shoes struggling to find raw materials. Raw materials have alwaysbeen in short supply for consumer-goods producers, but now they are simplyunavailable for some companies producing non-essential products. Thisdevelopment underscores the problem of attempting to introduce capitalismprinciples to some sectors and not others.ClosedMeanwhile, Kim Jong-un is doing his best to keep his countryclosed. In fact, Kim is actually tightening control over the border with China,compared with his father’s era. This is partly to prevent defections and partlyto fight the rise in smuggling, but it is also a response to the growingrealization among North Koreans that their Southern neighbors are rich. Thisrealization has been helped by propaganda being sent by South Korean activists via balloons over the North-South military line. Kim has angrilypushed Seoul to block the leaflets, free speech or not. He is enforcingnational isolation not merely in deference to Juche, but also to ensure hispersonal survival by keeping his people uninformed. That leaves little scopefor capitalism.While keeping the country closed, Pyongyang has attempted toaccess foreign capital and technology through the back door method of promotingfree enterprise in restricted territories. The first special territory,announced as early as 1991, was the Rason Zone. Then came the KaesongIndustrial Complex established jointly with South Korea in 2004. The latterprospered because Seoul promoted it. But Rason attracted little capital otherthan some money from Hong Kong targeting the hotel and gambling business forChinese patrons.Pyongyang doubled down for Rason in 2010, granting specialconcessions to Chinese interests through an agreement with Beijing to jointlyadminister and develop the zone. Then there was the dramatic 2013 announcementof an avalanche of 14 new special zones, made at an international conference inPyongyang on special economic zones organized by the University of BritishColumbia. All of this special-zone activism of recent years came under thepersonal direction of Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was notoriously executedon December 12, 2013. Part of Jang’salleged crime was granting excessive concessions. But he had no choice if hewas to make headway, because the capitalist instinct that Pyongyang overlookedis to avoid investing in an untrustworthy territory where assets can gettrapped and profits are difficult to repatriate.Seoul had to shut down the Kaesong Complex in 2013 after Pyongyang blocked workers from coming to the site as partof its escalation of politico-military tensions. Although the complex waseventually reopened, Pyongyang acted up again in 2014 by suddenly declaring ithad unilateral say over wage decisions, a move that has led to risinginter-Korea tensions. Despite these frustrations, Seoul persuaded the North toinvite foreign companies to the site, presumably to make Pyongyang think twicebefore causing trouble for the complex again. To date, though, the only foreignmanufacturer to have expressed interest is a German producer of sewing machinesthat is setting up a sales shop in the complex.Kim Jong-un appears to be committed to the Juche regime ofself-sufficiency and political seclusion. Combined with communism, these areheavy chains. Bound by them, North Korea’s flirtations with capitalism willdeliver little for the economy.Hy-sang Lee is a retired professor ofeconomics, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and author of North Korea: A Strange Socialist Fortress, 2001.
Revelationson China’s Maritime Modernization
TheU.S. Office of Naval Intelligence offers a wealth of new information on the PLANavy.By Andrew S.EricksonApril 16, 2015 623 163 14 54 854 Shares101 CommentsTo its first unclassified report on China’s navy in six years,the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) has just added sophisticatedposters detailing Chinese ships and aircraft, equipment, and leadershipstructure. ONI’s main document,“The PLA Navy: New Capabilities and Missions for the 21st Century,” alreadyoffers a cornucopia of new insights and highly vetted data points. But it iswith the supplementary reference materials that the Suitland, MD-based agencyis going where no publicly released U.S. government report has ever gonebefore. This article reviews key findings from ONI’s latest set of publicationsand assesses their significance.Unprecedented OfferingsPerhaps most exciting, for the first time ever, ONI is makingavailable publicly 148 carefully labeled silhouettesand 89 photos of China’s myriad People’sLiberation Army Navy (PLAN) and maritime law enforcement ships and aircraft.This enables systematic open source analysis to a degree simply impossiblebefore.A leadership structure chart with details on the top thirty-one individuals in the PLAN’schain of command completes the highly informative set. It offers both gradesand ranks, highlights leaders’ distinguishing characteristics, acknowledgesfrankly where key data remain ambiguous or unavailable, and even offersprojections concerning future career progression (or lack thereof). Itdescribes such vital bodies as the all-important Navy Party Standing Committee,or “Navy Politburo,” the PLAN’s senior-most decision-making organ.Principal FindingsONI makes it clear that China’s maritime forces are progressingsteadily across the board, although they remain limited in important respects.With regard to the PLAN specifically, “trends over the last few years reflectan unambiguous shift in the frequency, complexity, and distance of Chinese navaloperations.” Distant seas training and activities have become “the new norm.”Many drills emphasize a “complex electromagnetic environment.” Examples ofmajor new exercises include the October 2013 three-fleet Maneuver-5 in the Philippine Sea – thePLAN’s largest open-ocean exercise yet. New operations includeChina’s first Indian Ocean submarine deployment in 2013. Growing overseas interests, particularly concerningenergy, and sea lane security have “generated greater discussion on thepotential of overseas naval bases.” While doctrine has clearly evolved, majorremaining limitations persist in joint professional military education andoperations.ONI judges reasonably that Taiwan and the Near Seas (Yellow,East, and South China Seas) remain the “primary focus” of Chinese navalmodernization, and that “developing the capabilities to compel reunificationwill remain a central priority in the years ahead.” Here the otherwiseexcellent report makes a small but symbolic error, referring to these as“China’s ‘near seas.” But as international waters, they do not belong to China,or any other nation – that is a core tenet of U.S. policy, and that of manyother states and international organizations.Almost twenty years after the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis,“China has closed some of the capability gaps—including air defense andlong-range maritime strikes—that would support a number of Taiwan-relatedcampaigns.” While reunification with Taiwan remains the most important ChineseNear Seas objective, the report also highlights territorial disputes with Japan(Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands) and the Philippines (Scarborough Reef and SecondThomas Shoal).Dennis Blasko states that therelatively-modest 13 percent post-2009 growth in the number of submarines,major surface combatants, amphibious ships, and missile patrol craft; as wellas the nature of ships produced; suggests continued Near Seas focus. “Theintroduction of the Type 056 corvette since 2009 emphasizes the continuingimportance of Near Seas operations, while allowing the modern destroyers andfrigates to perform more distant seas missions,” he told this author. “Both theType 056 and Type 022 missile catamaran would be best utilized in a People’sWar at Sea scenario near China, not on the distant seas. No other single typeof ship has been built to match the numbers of these two types. That should saysomething by itself.”Based on U.S. policies and actions, particularly in the 1990s,however, Chinese planners assume that deterring or countering Americanintervention could be a critical component of any major effort to realizeoutstanding Chinese island or maritime claims with force. To further theseobjectives while attempting to reduce the likelihood of effective U.S.intervention, Beijing for nearly two decades has emphasized development ofcapabilities to support “non-contact warfare,” in which platforms and weaponssupport “long-range, precision strikes from outside an enemy’s ‘defendedzone’.” Ballistic and cruise missiles such as the YJ-18 outfitted onincreasingly-advanced Chinese submarines and the Luyang III (Type 052D) areaair-defense destroyer – like other systems ONI documents extensively –constitute strong evidence of precisely such an approach.ONI divides Chinese capabilities to counter intervention intothree major “defensive layers.” From 540 to 1,000 nautical miles (nm) fromits coast, China would employ anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) andsubmarines. From a distance of 270-540 nm, China would employ submarines andair assets. From its coast out to 270 nm, China would employ surface and airassets, submarines, and coastal defense cruise missiles (CDCMs).Of course, Beijing does not seek war. It would much prefer to further its claims in peacetime. To this end, likely motivatedin part by Beijing’s growing confidence in their capabilities, “China’s Navy,Coast Guard, and Chinese economic actors,” such as China National Offshore OilCorporation (CNOOC) and its HYSY-981 oil rig, “are increasingly visible throughout theregion and are increasingly proactive in asserting Beijing’s maritime claims,even when directly challenged by other claimants’ naval and Coast Guardassets.” China Coast Guard (CCG) assets can respond rapidly to perceivedchallenges to Chinese claims, but are typically either lightly armed orunarmed. “China has also utilized civilian fishing vessels to advance itsmaritime objectives,” ONI observes. “Coordinating the activities of thesedistinct organizations is an ongoing challenge that has important implicationsfor China and for the region.”As a kinetic maritime force of last resort, then, the PLAN“provides an important security guarantee with the means to intimidate smallerclaimants and deter larger ones,” ONI adds. “Friction between China and itsneighbors appears increasingly likely as Beijing seeks to deter rivalactivities and assert its own claimed rights and interests.” In crisis orconflict, China’s navy “could lead an amphibious campaign to seize key disputedisland features or conduct blockade or sea lines of communication (SLOC)interdiction campaigns to secure strategic operating areas.”The South China Sea contains Beijing’s broadest and most numerousclaims, although China “has never published the coordinates of [its Nine-DashLine or] declared what rights it purports to enjoy in this area.” To undergirdboth peacetime and wartime capabilities there, “Throughout 2014, Chinareclaimed hundreds of acres of land at the seven [Spratly] features it occupiesand appears to be building much larger facilities that could eventually supportboth maritime law enforcement and naval operations.” While other claimants havebuilt small outposts on features they occupy and have engaged in minor islandconstruction and augmentation, in a matter of months China has rapidly exceededtheir combined activities and acted on a scale that they cannot match even collectively.As with many strategic and geopolitical aspects of Chinesemaritime development, ONI does not speculate on what has motivated Beijing’stiming. Possible factors include a desire to maximize “facts in the water” in China’s favor before an arbitralTribunal issues a ruling on Sino-Philippine territorial disputes in the South China Sea; and a sense that the ObamaAdministration will not push back significantly, whereas the next U.S. presidentmight seek to do so. “China is accelerating its expansionist agenda andchanging the status quo to actualize its nine-dash line claim and to controlnearly the entire South China Sea before…the handing down of a decision of the arbitral tribunal on the Philippine submission,” chargesPhilippine Foreign Minister Albert del Rosario. Chinese government-connectedsources with whom the author has spoken state that Beijing is particularlyconcerned about the prospect of Hillary Clinton winning the White House.Vast Maritime Order of BattleAs mentioned earlier, ONI’s single most distinctive contribution is its “China People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA(N)) andMaritime Law Enforcement (MLE) 2015 Recognition and Identification Guide.”Accompanying detailed ship silhouettes are authoritative class names andbreakdowns, ship dimensions, pennant numbers, and details of change in status(e.g., some older frigates have been decommissioned and transferred toBangladesh). ONI’s “China Equipment” poster offers photos of PLANsurface combatants, submarines, fighters and bombers, maritime patrol aircraft,and UAVs; as well as CCG ships.Thank goodness dedicated professionals are handling such acomplex, thankless task! For specialists outside the U.S. government, thisenables precise tallying of hull numbers and sophisticated comparisons thatwere previously impossible with any level of certainty. For everyone else, itoffers a sense of the sheer scale and sophistication of Chinese (para)militarymaritime development, together with some interesting patterns, indications, andpitfalls.Eighty-nine classes and sub-classes of PLAN vessels aredetailed. MLE vessels are divided by organization, with the most classes ofvessels, 47 of which are depicted, belonging to the CCG. ONI notes that allunits are projected to adopt CCG names, pennant numbers, and livery markingsthis year, but consolidation initiated in 2013 remains incomplete. Thisprovides concrete support for the meticulous qualitative analysis that RyanMartinson of the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute(CMSI) has been publishingconcerning CCG development. In November2014, Martinson assessed that while coordination had improved considerably,copious evidence of “raw hybridity of the existing system” remained.ONI likewise offers specifics of ship classes serving the twoMinistry of Transport “dragons” not consolidated into the CCG: China MaritimeSafety Administration (MSA/nine classes) and China Rescue Service (threeclasses). Also detailed: ships from the PLA Maritime Transport Units(MTU)/Border Defense Force (BDF), including those that have been patrolling the Mekong River incooperation with other riparian neighbors since the horrific murder of Chinesesailors there in 2011. Several dozen smaller units, including those fromMTU/BDF, and additional CCG and MSA units, are listed without visual depiction– otherwise the chart would require a microscope to interpret.Hardware SpecificsONI also addresses hardware improvements strengthening China’smaritime forces. China’s navy has narrowed the technological gap with advancedforeign counterparts. Procurement is increasingly indigenous and efficient,with the last major foreign delivery of a naval platform in 2006.Increasingly advanced long-range ship-based air defense systemsoffer protection to ships sailing beyond range of land-based defenses. Luyang III-class (Type 052D)* destroyers are fitted with extended-rangeversion of HHQ-9. 20+ Jiangkai-II-class (Type 054A) frigatesare operational with the HHQ-16 vertically-launched ~20-40 nm-range system.PLAN Aviation has made “great strides,” albeit from a lowbaseline. Its air-to-air missiles include the long-range PL-12. Ancient H-6bombers have been upgraded yet again, with improved electronics and ability tocarry up to four anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) for strike versions; andsome converted to tankers. China’s JH-7 fighter-bomber “can carry up to fourASCMs and two PL-5 or PL-8 short-range air-to-air missiles, providingconsiderable payload for maritime strike missions.”To support operations further from shore, the PLAN is deployingincreasing numbers of specialized aircraft for maritime patrol, airborne earlywarning, and surveillance. UAVs deployed include the BZK-005. Additionally,“China operates a growing array of reconnaissance satellites, which allow it toobserve maritime activity anywhere on the earth.”ONI’s balanced assessment also details enduring Chineseweaknesses. The PLAN’s sole aircraft carrier,Liaoning, “remains severalyears from becoming fully operational, and even then will offer relativelylimited combat capability.” It remains unclear when future Chinese carrierswill upgrade to catapults and more advanced aircraft than thecurrently-deployed J-15.Welcome Contribution, Wish ListThe numerous classes and sub-classes of Chinese naval and coastguard ships, greatly outnumbering American classes, suggests a hodgepodge withlingering older equipment and resulting logistics, maintenance, and trainingchallenges. In contrast to the PLAN’s 89 classes and sub-classes of ships, theU.S. Navy has at most 27– and that’s including the USS Constitution,in a class by itself as the only sailing ship. Together with requiredadvancements in doctrine, personnel, and support systems for distantoperations, China’s maritime forces remain a work in progress – even as theyhave come a long way in a short time.Promoting common, systematic nomenclature, and baselineknowledge greatly facilitates understanding their evolution. Even thebird-watching community, whose efforts are not complicated by deliberateefforts to conceal avian origins or characteristics, benefits greatly fromeBird, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s real-time onlinechecklist program to synthesize anddisseminate information. In the China security forces-watching community, thefirst challenge is to form a foundation of basic knowledge and minimizeconfusion by sharing findings using common terminology that people willactually use (as opposed to numerical designators for Chinese ship classes,which suffer from limited popularity in Western circles outside of diehardenthusiasts). As a leading organization in this effort, ONI has made anexcellent contribution – and should be encouraged to do so more often in thefuture.Specific examples will now diffuse across the Internet, into IHS Jane’s analyses, and intoCongressional Research Service reports. The diesel submarine with a large sail– long-termed “Qing Type 043” on many hobbyist websites – has been designated Wuhan-class (Type 032), and the J-10A may also be called “FirebirdA.” In this sense alone, ONI’s report and supporting materials will truly be agift that keeps on giving.That said, it is to be hoped that important issues not addressedin this report can be covered in future iterations:· Personnel below leadership level. China’s 2013 DefenseWhite Paper credits the PLANwith 235,000, roughly 11 percent of PLA personnel. By contrast, around 325,000U.S. Navy and 188,000 U.S. Marine Corps personnel constitute about 37 percentof all active-duty U.S. armed forces. As the PLA becomes increasinglyexternally focused and sheds ground force personnel, the PLAN may continue togrow, particularly its aviation units. Meanwhile, the CCG is undergoing a manning revolution of its own. Rank-and-filenature and capabilities will largely determine what China’s maritime forces arecapable of achieving in practice. U.S. government reports would greatly benefitfrom moving beyond their traditional hardware focus to address “software” issuesmore fully, as RAND’s recent study did to great effect.· Land-based PLAN forces. Fleet CDCM and Electronic Countermeasures regiments, the SouthSea Fleet air defense brigade, the two PLA Marine brigades, and the SpecialOperations Forces regiment – which makesmajor contributions to Gulf of Aden antipiracy – merit coverage.· Maritime Militia. This under-scrutinized force plays important roles inChinese “maritime rights protection” operations. While ONI’s report is titled“The PLA Navy,” it rightly covers the CCG as well. That China’s MaritimeMilitia lacks a U.S. counterpart should not allow it to be ignoredanalytically.Andrew S. Erickson is an Associate Professor in theStrategic Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College and a core foundingmember of the department’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI). He serves on the Naval War College Review’s Editorial Board. *Corrected from 054D. Thanks to the commenter below.
SouthKorea’s THAAD Decision
Seoulis coming under pressure from all sides on the question of missile defense.By Robert E. KellyApril 13, 2015 930 Shares59 CommentsLast month, I argued that North Korea’s combined nuclear andmissile program was reaching a tipping point.Previously these systems could be defended – at the outer reaches ofrationality, to be sure – as protection against possible American-led regimechange. In practice, they were primarily tools for the extortion and blackmailof Pyongyang’s neighbors, most obviously South Korea. North Korea’s gangsterism,while objectionable, has generally been manageable. But if (when?) the Northernprogram expands into more, faster, and more powerful warheads and missiles (as seems likely), then it would morph into aserious, possibly existential threat to South Korea (and Japan). A North Koreawith a few missiles and warheads is unnerving, an obvious concern forproliferation and blackmail, but not a state- and society-breaking threat tothe neighborhood. But a North Korea with dozens, or even hundreds, of suchweapons (in the coming decades) is a threat to the constitutional and evenphysical survival of South Korea and Japan.My greatest concern then for regional stability is that at somepoint Seoul elites will be so terrified of a spiraling arsenal of Northernnuclear weapons (following the logic of the security dilemma), thatthey will consider pre-emptive air-strikes (as Israel has done in Iraq and Syria). The possibility of aNorthern response and slide into war is obvious.There is an alternative however – the deployment of robustmissile defense. While hundreds of incoming missiles would overwhelm anycurrent missile defense system, the technology is advanced enough now for atleast modest coverage. This would buy time, providing South Korea with at leasta basic “roof’’ against Northern threats.Precisely this debate has roiled South Korean foreign policy inrecent years, and it appears to be coming to head in 2015. The U.S. would liketo deploy its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defensesystem. But THAAD has become quite controversial locally, because the Chinese strongly oppose deployment.The South Korean left especially, traditionally wary of too much associationwith the Americans, has hesitated. But Beijing’s imperiousness on the issue is becoming itself an issue in Korea. At the moment, public opinion here seems to be slowly drifting toward deployment.The Chinese seem to have overplayed their hand, and the SouthKorean left has struggled recently withthe wide perception that it is too“pro-Pyongyang.” Some kind of deployment seems increasingly likely. As a sop to China perhaps, the SouthKoreans have joined its new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB),against Washington’s objections; Seoul has also publicly insisted that it will notpay for the THAAD deployment. If this mollifies Beijing, so be it,as it is a rather good deal: THAAD in exchange mild South Korean free-ridingand AIIB (which is not nearly as damaging to theU.S. as Washington seems to believe).For perspective, it is worth nothing that South Korea doesalready have some local missile defense coverage from Patriot missiles (PAC-2 and -3), but these only provide narrowand low altitude defense. Similarly, Korea has tried on and off for years todevelop its own Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD), but it has never reallypanned out. It would cost a great deal and likely simply replicate most of whatthe Americans are offering right now for almost nothing. Meanwhile the case forhigh altitude defense grows more obvious with each day that North Korea’sprograms continue. Whereas the PAC-3s would provide some defense just as theinbound missile approached its target, THAAD would reach higher up, givingSouth Korean defenders more chances to shoot down the missile.Technologically this is extraordinarily difficult. Missiledefense is often likened to “hitting a bullet with another bullet,” and neitherTHAAD, PAC-3, nor Israel’s Iron Dome provide anything close to absolute coverage. But given theobvious destructive power of nuclear weapons, even 50/50 coverage would be a massive improvement in South Korean security andreduce the paranoia that might encourage preemptive airstrikes. (For technicaldetails on THAAD, try here and here.)Korean SecurityBut China’s blunt opposition has made a political debate out ofwhat seems like a fairly obvious security decision. As that debate intensifies,and increasing takes on the character of a proxy tussle between the U.S. andChina, it illustrates a number core elements of Korean security not normallyvisible:First, as Scott Snyder and many others have noted, the objective case for some sort ofmissile defense roof is pretty clear now. North Korea’s programs continue;there is little external surveillance. North Korea is in neither theInternational Atomic Energy Agency nor the Non-Proliferation Treaty. China andnow Russia’srejection ofTHAAD in South Korea have had to rely on transparently weak excuses that THAADmight be used against their own deterrents. This is so technologicallyinaccurate that it is hard not to read this as local bullying. One extrabenefit to South Korea’s acceptance of THAAD would be to signal that it willnot knuckle under to authoritarian intrusion.Second, the South Korean left still does not believe North Koreawill use its missiles against South Korea. THAAD has really brought to lightthe deep, partisan-philosophical split in South Korea over North Korea. Foryears, I have had students and acquaintances tell me that North Korea, as afellow Korean people, would never use its nuclear weapons against the South.They are aimed at Japan or the U.S. Former President Roh Moo-Hyun once notoriously said that Japan and the U.S. were the greatest threats to regionalsecurity. If this is true, then missile defense is indeed unnecessary andprovocative. But it is a huge gamble on a regime notorious for its opacity andbrutality.Third, South Korea does not want to pay for THAAD. I noted abovethat Seoul has rejected the suggestion that it would pay. A positive spin onthis is that it is a rhetorical sop for Beijing, but it also may representgenuine opinion. South Korean and the U.S. have tussled for years overperceived Southern free-riding, and it is rather brash for South Korea to enjoyworld-class defense while so brazenly saying it should not pay for it.Fourth, Korea is an early test of Chinese “hegemonic”intentions. THAAD is not designed to shoot down intercontinental ballisticmissiles in mid-flight, so China’s formal objections are rather shallow. Expertopinion has suggested instead that the THAAD fight is a Chinese trial balloonover South Korea’s future course. Certainly this tussle is yet another markerof Chinese rise toward regional preponderance and the pressure it can bring tobear on small peripheral states such as South Korea (or Vietnam and thePhilippines in the South China Sea disputes).Finally, THAAD is yet another example of why South Korea andJapan should work together. Seoul would be better able to resist Beijing’sdomestic interference if Japan, which worries a lot about China, stood moredirectly with South Korea. Trilateral missile defense makes objective senseanyway, as North Korea’s missiles threaten Japan too.Ultimately, THAAD deployment is likely. KAMD increasingly lookslike a political move – a feint to keep all sides happy and forestall adifficult decision. But North Korea’s continuing programs make it harder andharder to put off that decision. And what South Korean president wants topublicly admit that trade with China should trump national security? For all ofChina’s economic and geopolitical leverage, the decision is actually not thatcomplicated. And the U.S. will likely keep coming back and back to this issue,to provide at least U.S. forces in Korea with greater protection, if not Koreancitizens.
Seoul seeks to hold sports, cultural events with Pyongyang
April 21, 2015· · · · Uzbekistans ShavkatjonMulladjanov kicks the ball as North Koreas Pak Kwang Ryong attempts to blockduring the first round soccer match of the AFC Asia Cup between Uzbekistan andNorth Korea in Sydney, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2015. (AP Photo/RobGriffith)SEOUL(Yonhap) — South Korea said Tuesday it will seek to hold a variety of sportsand cultural events with North Korea this year to mark the 70th anniversary ofKorea’s liberation from Japan’s colonial rule.SouthKorea plans to propose the creation of an ad hoc committee to the North toprepare for joint events to commemorate the anniversary this year, theunification ministry said in a report to the National Assembly.Aspart of such plans, Seoul will seek to hold a soccer game and “ssireum,” ortraditional Korean wrestling matches, with Pyongyang, it added.Italso plans to hold performances to be joined by the two Koreas’ musicians andacademic events involving an ongoing project to publish a joint dictionary oftheir language.TheSeoul government said it will also try to induce North Korea to attend and takepart in two international sports events to be held on South Korean soil — theGwangju Universiade in July and the International Military Sports Council WorldGames in October.Italso will push to consult with North Korea to launch the creation of a peacepark in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) bisecting the two Koreas this year.Theplan to set up the ecological park in the DMZ was first drawn up in 2013 bySouth Korean President Park Geun-hye in a bid to facilitate peace on the KoreanPeninsula.The two Koreas are the only remaining divided countries in theworld after fighting each other during the 1950-53 Korean War.
S. Korea, China open joint tech research center in Beijing
April 21, 2015BEIJING(Yonhap) — South Korea and China opened a joint research and development centerin Beijing Tuesday to forge closer cooperation in industrial and informationtechnology.Thenew center is aimed at helping private companies from the two nations make inroadsinto the Korean or the Chinese market through technology cooperation, the SouthKorean Embassy said in a statement.Thecenter is jointly set up by South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry andEnergy and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology.SouthKorea and China have been stepping up a range of economic cooperation projectsas they are set to sign a bilateral free trade agreement.Afterdeclaring the “substantial conclusion” of their free trade talks last November,South Korea and China are expected to formally sign the deal within the firsthalf of 2015, in a move that will further deepen their economic ties.
N. Korea ordered to pay$330 mln to kidnapped pastor’s family
April 20, 2015WASHINGTON(Yonhap) — A U.S. court has ordered North Korea to pay $330 million incompensation to the family of a late Korean American pastor abducted by theNorth in 2000 while trying to help North Korean defectors in China.TheWashington D.C. District Court delivered the verdict earlier this month,bringing the total amount of damages North Korea has to pay as results of aseries of lawsuits in the U.S. so far to about $777 million, according todiplomatic sources.Rev.Kim Dong-shik was taken by a North Korean kidnapping squad in 2000 from Yanbianin northeastern China, apparently due to his support for North Korean defectorsin China. Kim is believed to have died the following year.Kim’sfamily in the U.S. filed the lawsuit in 2009.“Thisis an important human rights decision that will be utilized in all politicalabduction cases going forward,” said the Israel Law Center, known as ShuratHaDin, in a statement. The Israeli civic group filed the suit on behalf ofKim’s family.Fewexpect North Korea to comply with the verdict and pay the damages, but ShuratHaDin is seeking to seize North Korean assets the U.S. government has frozen aspart of a series of financial sanctions over Pyongyang’s weapons of massdestruction development and other bad behavior.Therehas been a series of similar verdicts that found the North liable for damagesin the U.S.In2010, Pyongyang was ordered to pay $370 million in compensation to families ofvictims for helping the Japanese Red Army and Popular Front for the Liberationof Palestine carry out the 1972 Lod Airport massacre in Israel.Butit has not been known whether such victims were awarded the compensation.Diplomatic sources say such verdicts are meaningful in thatcourts clearly determined North Korea’s responsibility in terrorism and otherbad behavior, but it is legally unclear how frozen North Korean assets can beused to pay such damages.
Korean immigrant film’3,000′ screens in Chicago
April 20, 2015Afilm detailing a Korean immigrant taxi driver’s life, “3,000,” held a screeninginside Chicago’s The New 400 movie theater Saturday.“3,000″follows a struggling Korean immigrant, Ji-hyuk, as he attempts to find theAmerican Dream by traveling 3,000 miles to Los Angeles from New York via taxiwith another Korean, Sun-hee.Thefilm was inspired by the real story of a New York Korean taxi driver DirectorQueen Kim met seven years ago.Itscast includes Danovich Jonghoon Han, Helen Hwang and Alejandro Chamorro.Kimsaid the film is the first of a three-part series.Itreceived a warm reception from attendees of the screening.“[Thefilm] was emotional,” said Crystal Kim, 26. “I thought of my parents the wholetime I was watching the movie.”Shesaid she thinks the film will resonate with both Korean immigrants andnon-Koreans alike.Future screenings will be held in San Francisco, Los Angeles,New York and Seoul.
. Korea to raise defensespending by $8 billion to defend against North
April 20, 2015 SEOUL(Yonhap) — South Korea said Monday it will sharply raise the defense budgetover the next five years to beef up its capabilities against North Korea’snuclear and missile programs.Thebudget injection of 8.7 trillion won, or about $8.03 billion, is based on theassessment that Pyongyang is believed to have reached a “significant” point inefforts to master the technology to miniaturize nuclear warheads that fit atopmissiles.Itis part of the ministry’s budget plan for the 2016-2020 fiscal period, whichcalls for 232.5 trillion won ($218.8 billion) in total, a 7 percentincrease on average during the cited period compared to its 2015-2019 version.Whilecosts for maintaining troops are set at 155.2 trillion won ($143.27 billion)and the rest will be for the improvement of military capabilities, thegovernment, specifically, is to invest 6 trillion won ($5.54 billion) inbuilding the country’s preemptive strike apparatus, the Kill Chain, and 2.7trillion won ($2.49 billion) into the development of the low-tier airdefense program, the Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) system, over thenext five years.Theaggregate amount is 700 billion won ($646 million) more than the budgetplan stated in the 2015-2019 period, which reflects Seoul’s will to ensure astronger deterrence against the belligerent North.Keyassets for the Kill Chain incorporate multi-purpose satellites, Global Hawkunmanned aircraft and Taurus missiles. The KAMD system includes patriotinterceptors and mid-range surface-to-air missiles, or M-SAM.Aspart of efforts to effectively cope with North Korea’s local provocations andto prepare for all-out war with the enemy, Seoul plans to spend 1.8 trillionwon ($1.66 billion) on acquiring surveillance systems such as unmannedaerial vehicles and detection radars.Inthe face of the North’s growing security threats online, South Korea plans toearmark 100 billion won ($92.3 million) to build a multi-layer protectionsystem and to create a mock training field.“Themid-term budget plan also focuses on improving circumstances at the barracksand increasing monthly payments to enlistees by more than double,” a ministryofficial said. “We also aim to augment the investment in research anddevelopment from the current 6.5 percent of the total defense budget to 8.4percent by 2020 to further promote defense fields.
US criticizes S. Koreafor holding down value of won
April 10, 2015WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Thursday thatGermany, China, Japan and South Korea are four countries running large tradesurpluses that need to do more to combat weak global growth.Issuingits latest currency report, the administration refrained from naming anycountry as a currency manipulator. But it did say that China’s currency remains“significantly undervalued” and complained about South Korea’s efforts to keepits currency from strengthening.Theworld cannot rely on the United States to be the “only engine of demand,” thesemiannual report said. It urged nations to use all tools available toaccelerate growth and not rely solely on their central banks to boost theireconomies.Theadministration’s report is expected to form the basis for discussions at globalfinance talks next week in Washington among finance officials of the Group of20 major economic powers.Itnoted that the Chinese government has made “real progress” in allowing itsexchange rate to rise in value over the past six months. But even with thegains, the renminbi remains “significantly undervalued,” a phrase it has usedin past reports.Americanmanufacturers contend that the progress to date has been small and the Chinesecurrency remains undervalued by as much as 40 percent against the dollar. Thatmakes American products more expensive in China and Chinese goods cheaper forAmerican consumers.Theadministration is required to report to Congress every six months on whether ithas found any nations manipulating their currency to gain unfair tradeadvantages. A finding of currency manipulation would trigger talks with thecountry and could eventually lead to U.S. trade sanctions.However,no administration has used the semiannual report to label a country as acurrency manipulator in the past two decades. The last such designationoccurred in 1994 when the Clinton administration said China was manipulatingits currency to gain unfair trade advantages.Sincethen, both Democratic and Republican administrations have preferred to usediplomatic efforts to deal with China’s currency policies even as the U.S.trade deficit with the world’s No. 2 economy has continued to set new annualrecords. But there is a move in Congress to increase the ability of the UnitedStates to impose sanctions for currency manipulation as part of future tradedeals, an effort the administration is resisting.Treasuryreleased its latest report at a time when the dollar has been rising in valueagainst a number of currencies, hitting the highest level in a decade againstthe euro. That has raised concerns U.S. exports will be priced out of manymajor markets.Theadministration insists that a strong dollar is in America’s interests but atthe same time has stepped up efforts to try to pressure other nations to domore to boost their own domestic demand.“Incontrast to solid U.S. performance, global economic outcomes have beendisappointing and remain of concern,” the report said. “Not only has globalgrowth failed to accelerate, but there is worry that the composition of globalgrowth is increasingly unbalanced.”OnEurope, the administration praised the forceful action taken by the EuropeanCentral Bank to support growth and combat weak inflation. But it said thatthose policies needed to be reinforced by greater efforts of nations such asGermany to use other tools including government spending to bolster growth.The report criticized South Korea for substantially increasingits efforts to hold down the value of the won in December and January, sayingthat this approach was harming global growth prospects by increasing thecountry’s trade surplus. What Is AWar Crime?
For PDFversion click here
http://www.seamac.org/index.htm Israel commits warcrimes in the form of collective punishment, disproportionate force, targetingof civilians, and other violations of the Geneva Conventions and internationallaw. Despite these repeated war crimes and other human rights violations, theUnited States government continues to give Israel economic, military, anddiplomatic support in violation of its own laws.
Israel repeatedly violates the Geneva Conventions by:· Targeting, killing, andcollectively punishing non-combatant men, women and children· Moving its ownpopulation into an occupied zone· Imposing unnecessarycurfews and closures· Exercisingdisproportionate use of force Israel defies international law and hundreds of U.N.resolutions by:· Refusing to end over 40years of military occupation· Expanding and addingIsraeli settlements· Building the ApartheidWall to take over Palestinian land and water resources· Denying the right ofreturn for millions of Palestinian refugeesDEFINITION OF "WAR CRIME" Awar crime is defined as a grave violation of the Geneva Conventions orinternational humanitarian law. Both Israel and the United States aresignatories to the Geneva Conventions. Under our Constitution, ratification ofa treaty, such as the Geneva Conventions, makes that treaty binding U.S. law.In other words, a treaty becomes, in effect, U.S. law that our government isduty bound to uphold. Twobasic principles underlie the definition of a war crime. One is the principleof distinction, and the other is the principle of proportionality. Theprinciple of distinction means that armed forces must distinguish betweencivilian populations or targets and military forces or targets, and they areprohibited from deliberately targeting civilians. The principle ofproportionality means that the armed forces of a country cannot attack amilitary target in a way that would result in the loss of civilian life orproperty disproportionate to the military advantage to be gained. COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT Outof these principles flows the crime of collective punishment, which is definedas reprisals directed at civilians. An example is punishment meted out againstcivilians for the resistance activities of insurgents, such as the infamousNazi retributions against civilians for acts of the Resistance in France,Italy, and other countries that often involved the wholesale slaughter oftowns. The prohibition against collective punishment is spelled out in Article33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. It reads, “No protected person [that is, acivilian] may be punished for an offense he or she has not personallycommitted. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or ofterrorism are prohibited. . . . Reprisals against protected persons and theirproperty are prohibited.”
Ourown military has prosecuted soldiers who took part in or led acts of collectivepunishment. Lt. William Calley, who led the U.S. Army’s massacre of civiliansin the South Vietnamese village of My Lai during the Vietnam War, was chargedwith premeditated murder and court-martialed for taking reprisals against thevillage after his unit came under attack from nearby insurgents. Calley’s unitmurdered hundreds of women, elderly men, children, and infants.
ISRAEL’S MILITARY OFFENSIVE AGAINST GAZA DuringOperation Cast Lead, Israel’s military offensive against Gaza in 2008-9, andagain during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Israel violated both theprinciples of distinction and of proportionality. About 1,400 Palestinians werekilled during Operation Cast Lead, and 80 percent of those were civilians,according to UN figures. About 300 were children. In contrast, 13 Israelis werekilled, including 3 civilians. Four of the Israeli soldiers were killed byfriendly fire. During Operation Protective Edge, more than 2,100 Palestinianswere killed, including more than 500 children. UN, Gaza health officials, andhuman rights organizations estimated that up to 75 percent of those killed werecivilians. About 66 Israeli soldiers were killed, along with six civilians,including one child.
DuringOperation Cast Lead, Israeli forces attacked hospitals, mosques, a poultryplant, a flour mill, Gaza’s infrastructure, police stations, a prison,residential housing, ambulances, and other civilian targets, according to aUnited Nations (UN) investigation. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) droppedbombs and fired rockets, tank, artillery and mortar shells, and whitephosphorus against a virtually defenseless population, only a tiny percentageof which had fired primitive, home-made rockets at Israel. In carrying out itsattack the IDF used drones, advanced jet fighters, helicopter gunships, tanks,gunboats, and other sophisticated weaponry against a population that lacked anarmy, navy, or air force. The IDF used white phosphorus, an incendiary devicethat spreads out over a wide area and can cause severe burns, in one of theworld’s most densely populated regions. This is further evidence that the IDFdid not attempt to protect the civilian population.
FINDINGS OF THE UN MISSION ON THE GAZA CONFLICT Thefindings of the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict concluded that theIDF’s military offensive against Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead, “was adeliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate andterrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacityboth to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasingsense of dependency and vulnerability.” The ratio of deaths during OperationCast Lead, 100 Palestinians for every 1 Israeli, is evidence of thedisproportionality of the attack.
TheIsraeli government and its supporters have made numerous efforts to discreditthe UN’s findings, but Israel’s counter-claims fail the credibility test.Israel attacked a mosque during evening prayers, knowing that the mosque wouldbe crowded with worshippers. Israel claimed that weapons were being stored inthe mosque, but even if true, Israel failed to protect civilians fromdisproportionate attacks since the mosque could have been attacked whencivilians were unlikely to be present. As a result of the attack, 15 civilianswere killed and more than 40 wounded.
Boththe UN Report and Amnesty International found evidence that Israeli soldiersused Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields, and Israelisoldiers have testified that they did so. Perhaps the most damning evidence ofcollective punishment is the finding, substantiated by satellite photography,that the great majority of Palestinian housing was destroyed in the final daysof the campaign, well after it was known that Israeli forces were dominant andwere encountering little to no resistance. An Israeli tank commander told adocumentary filmmaker that he was ordered to destroy an entire neighborhood inGaza during Operation Cast Lead. The tank commander says he was ordered to fireregardless of whether his unit came under fire. “Every house gets a shell,” thetank commander says he was told.
Thevery first day of the IDF’s attack on Gaza on December 27, 2008, violated theprinciple of distinction, which holds that civilians or civilian targets cannotbe deliberately attacked. But on that day the IDF bombed a police cadetgraduation ceremony in Gaza City, killing 99 policemen. The IDF justified thisattack with the claim that police were part of Hamas’s security forces andtherefore legitimate targets. But the Geneva Conventions and internationalhumanitarian law are clear that police are regarded as civilians. The IDFkilled more than 230 Palestinian policemen during Operation Cast Lead.
TheUN fact-finding mission stated, “It is clear from the evidence gathered by theMission that the destruction of food supply installations, water sanitationsystems, concrete factories and residential houses was the result of adeliberate and systematic policy by the Israeli armed forces. It was notcarried out because those objects presented a military threat or opportunity,but to make the daily process of living, and dignified living, more difficultfor the civilian population.” According to the report, “Israel, rather thanfighting the Palestinian armed groups operating in Gaza in a targeted way, haschosen to punish the whole Gaza Strip and the population in it with economic,political and military sanctions” in violation of Article 33 of the FourthGeneva Convention.
OPERATION PROTECTIVE EDGE Accordingto numerous news accounts, the International Red Cross, and human rightsorganizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, duringIsrael’s attack on Gaza in 2014, the IDF once again bombed hospitals at least24 medical facilities, 203 mosques (73 of which were completely destroyed), 2churches, rendered uninhabitable over 20,000 civilian homes, fired on ambulances,civilian infrastructure and UN shelters. The UN Human Rights Council once againfound grounds for an investigation into possible war crimes. Among the moreshocking scenes were the artillery shelling that killed four children playingsoccer on a beach, the shelling of a UN school where people sought refuge, theshelling of a playground and a market, and the leveling of neighborhoodskilling entire families were killed in their homes.
Israel’sdisproportionate use of force shocked even U.S. military officials who toldU.S. reporters that a Pentagon report showed Israel used 11 artillerybattalions to fire 7,000 shells into the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza Cityduring a 7-hour period. Retired Lt. General Robert Gard said that if the reportwas even “half-right, Israel’s response was absolutely disproportionate.”
IDFofficials claimed that Hamas and other resistance forces used civilians as“human shields” by firing rockets into Israel from residential neighborhoods ornear hospitals. In one instance the IDF said it had video evidence of a rocketbeing fired from a hospital but the video identified a building that was not ahospital.The IDF said Israel had the right to defend itself. Yet underinternational law, as an occupying power that controls Gaza’s borders, airspace, and coastal waters, Israel has an obligation to protect the civilianpopulation. It cannot use the resistance activities of the occupied populationas an excuse to attack civilians. Moreover, in the past, Israeli officials havesaid that any threat to blockade Israel, such as Egypt’s threat in 1967 toblockade the Strait of Tiran, was an act of aggression that gave Israel casusbelli (just cause) to make war. Yet when Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza,beginning in 2007, Israel did not consider its blockade an act of aggression.
Theperiod leading up to and during Operation Protective Edge was also notable forthe open calls within Israel for genocide. Member of the Knesset Ayelet Shakedsaid “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy,” adding that in a war thedestruction of the enemy is justified, “including its elderly and its women,its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.” Article 3(c) of the International Convention on Genocide makes incitement to genocide apunishable, criminal offense, but the government of Israel failed to open aninvestigation into whether Shaked violated the convention.
COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT SINCE 1948 Collectivepunishment has been a consistent practice of the IDF, beginning in 1948,continuing through the early years of Israel’s existence, during the first andsecond Palestinian uprisings known as the intifadas in the late 1980s and early2000s, and on to the very present. In 1953, a young Israeli lieutenant namedAriel Sharon, later to become Israel’s prime minister, led a raid on thePalestinian West Bank village of Qibya, killing 67 men, women, and children anddestroying 56 houses. The raid was retaliation for a Palestinian guerrillaincursion into Israel. Sharon openly stated, “The orders were utterly clear.Qibya was to be an example to everyone.” A DELIBERATE POLICY TheIsraeli military has openly adopted the policy of collective punishment,declaring it a form of deterrence. During Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon, ittargeted civilian neighborhoods and infrastructure, particularly the Dahiyeneighborhood of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. More than 1,100 Lebanese werekilled in this attack, the vast majority of them civilians. In a October 2008interview with Israel’s leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli MajorGeneral Gadi Eisenkott defined what he called the Dahiye Doctrine:
“What happened in theDahiye Quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which shotsare fired on Israel. We will use disproportionate force against it and we willcause immense damage and destruction. From our point of view these are notcivilian villages but military bases. This is not a recommendation, this is theplan, and it has already been authorized.”
Therefusal to distinguish between civilian and military targets was alsoarticulated during the civil lawsuit brought against the Israeli government bythe family of Rachel Corrie, the American solidarity activist who was murderedby an Israeli bulldozer driver. Giving testimony at the lawsuit, an Israeliofficer directly contradicted the Geneva Conventions, declaring, “There are nocivilians in a war zone.”
TheIsraeli organization, Breaking the Silence, made up of IDF soldiers andofficers, stated in a recent report on Operation Cast Lead that the targetingof civilians was a deliberate policy and not the actions of a few bad soldiers.After taking testimony from IDF soldiers who participated in Operation Cast Lead,Breaking the Silence concluded:
“In the past few months,the IDF spokesperson has gone to great lengths to prove that if there were anymoral problems with the war at all, they were merely on the level of the‘delinquent soldier,’ rather than a widespread, systemic issue. The stories ofthis publication prove that we are not dealing with the failures of individualsoldiers, and attest instead to failures in the application of values primarilyon a systemic level. The IDF’s depiction of such phenomena as ‘rotten apple’soldiers is a tactic used to place the responsibility solely on individualsoldiers on the ground and to evade taking responsibility for the system’sserious value and command failures. The testimonies of the soldiers in thiscollection expose that the massive and unprecedented blow to the infrastructureand civilians of the Gaza strip were a direct result of IDF policy, andespecially of the rules of engagement, and a cultivation of the notion amongsoldiers that the reality of war requires them to shoot and not to askquestions.”
Bynow it is clear that Israel’s policy of deliberately targeting civilians hascontinued because Israel has been able to act with impunity and withoutaccountability. In the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge, the Israelihuman rights organization B’Tselem announced that it would no longer turn overevidence of war crimes to Israeli authorities because “there is currently noofficial body in Israel capable of conducting independent investigations ofsuspected violations of international humanitarian law.”
THE GENEVA CONVENTIONSDO APPLY Inadopting Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions following the end of WorldWar II in 1945, the international community sought to outlaw collectivepunishment to ensure that crimes like those carried out by the Nazis neveroccurred again. Israeli and Palestinian civilians deserve that protection. TheIsraeli government is virtually alone among the world’s nations in arguing thatthe Geneva Conventions do not apply to the Palestinian people in the OccupiedTerritories. But their argument only reinforces their disdain for human rightsand international humanitarian law. It is incumbent on the U.S. government touphold the rule of law. In signing the Geneva Conventions and in passing theU.S. Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act, our government islegally bound to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are not given to humanrights violators.
SOURCES:
Amnesty Internationaland war crimes in Gaza 2014:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/israelgaza-prevent-further-war-crimes-after-israeli-ground-assault-2014-07-18
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/stop-us-shipment-of-fuel-to-israel-s-armed-forces-as-evidence-of-gaza-war-crimes-mounts
Amnesty International – The ICC must immediatelyinvestigate war crimes by Israel and Hamas. Aug 1, 2014
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/019/2014/en/96f0c22b-0938-4645-83e1-7a472edb014a/mde150192014en.pdf
U.S. military declaring Israeli bombardment ofShujaiya disproportionate.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/8/26/israel-bombing-stunsusofficers.html
Israeli violations of national and internationallaw (Report by Historians Against the war.
http://historiansagainstwar.org/resources/InternationalHumanRights.pdf
Israel committed war crimes, Human Rights Watchclaims. Sept 11, 2014
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.615253
UN Human Rights Chief: Israel may be committingwar crimes in Gaza:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.606723
B’Tselem findings on Operation Protective Edge
http://www.btselem.org/accountability/20140905_failure_to_investigate
Red Cross condemns killings
http://www.ifrc.org/en/news-and-media/press-releases/middle-east-and-north-africa/palestine/red-cross-red-crescent-condemns-the-killing-of-two-volunteers-in-gaza-/
Home of Gaza police chief bombed
http://rt.com/news/172380-israel-air-strikes-gaza/
Washington Post reporter witnesses killing offour boys on beach
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/07/16/dispatch-israeli-strike-kills-four-children-at-a-gaza-beach/
Russell Tribunal findings
http://m.thenation.com/article/181858-israel-guilty-genocide-its-assault-gaza
Call for genocide
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-lawmakers-call-genocide-palestinians-gets-thousands-facebook-likes
By 2020, South Koreans will have a better standard of livingthan the French
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