NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
CHOMSKY: The Costs of Violence
In brief, the Global War on Terror sledgehammer strategy has spread jihadi terror from a tiny corner of Afghanistan to much of the world, from Africa through the Levant and South Asia to Southeast Asia. It has also incited attacks in Europe and the United States. The invasion of Iraq made a substantial contribution to this process, much as intelligence agencies had predicted. Terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank estimate that the Iraq War “generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost; even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one-third.” … A group of major human rights organizations -- Physicians for Social Responsibility (U.S.), Physicians for Global Survival (Canada), and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Germany) -- conducted a study that sought "to provide as realistic an estimate as possible of the total body count in the three main war zones [Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan] during 12 years of ‘war on terrorism,'" … Their "conservative estimate" is that these wars killed about 1.3 million people, a toll that "could also be in excess of 2 million." A database search by independent researcher David Peterson in the days following the publication of the report found virtually no mention of it. Who cares? More
Saturday, May 14: 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Causes and Consequences of the Syrian Refugee Crisis: What We Can Do
Speakers Maha Akkeh: Syrian activist addressing the refugee crisis; Angela Kelly: Refugee solidarity volunteer at the borders of Greece; Jeff Klein: Peace activist recently back from delegation to Damascus & Palmyra, Syria. Read his article "Syria and Peace" and his report on his recent trip: What’s Left of Palmyra — and Syria Find out more »
Syria, ISIS, and the US-UK Propaganda War
With the war in Syria raging in its fifth year, and the Islamic State wreaking havoc throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it’s clear that the entire region has been made into one large theater of conflict. But the battlefield must not be understood solely as a physical place located on a map; it is equally a social and cultural space where the forces of the US-UK-NATO Empire employ a variety of tactics to influence the course of events and create an outcome amenable to their agenda. And none to greater effect than propaganda… While the war may be fought on the battlefield, it is equally fought for the hearts and minds of activists, news consumers, and ordinary citizens in the West. More
ROBERT FISK: After splitting with Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra is being presented as 'moderate'. It is not
Qatar's relations with Nusra raises questions. It denies direct ties with the group, and yet six months ago the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel interviewed Nusra’s leader, Mohamed al-Jolani, who said that it had nothing against Christians, Alawites or Americans – only that pesky president in Damascus who’s got Hezbollah, Iran and Russia on his side… Just a week ago, an essay appeared in Foreign Policy magazine, the bi-weekly co-founded by the late Samuel Huntington (of Clash of Civilisations infamy) and now owned by the Graham Holdings Company (which formerly owned the Washington Post). The author Charles Lister’s thesis, if such it can be called, is that al-Qaeda is trying to take total control of the Nusra and overshadow Isis through an unprecedented debate within its ranks to “integrate into the ‘mainstream opposition’”. More
Obama Broke Pledge to Demand Syrian Opposition's Separation From Nusra Front
The gradual erosion of the cease-fire in Syria over the past month is the result of multiple factors shaping the conflict, but one of the underlying reasons is the Obama administration's failure to carry out its commitment to Russia to get US-supported opposition groups to separate themselves physically from the Nusra Front -- the al-Qaeda organization in Syria. US Secretary of State John Kerry made the promise to separate the groups as part of the understandings underlying the February 22 cease-fire, but never delivered on it… The administration's vacillation on the issue reflects the reality that the US-supported armed opposition has no intention to withdraw from its close military collaboration with Nusra Front. It also reflects deep divisions within the administration over Syria policy. Obama has leaned toward working with Russia on a cease-fire as an alternative to reliance on the armed opposition to put pressure on Bashar al-Assad, but senior officials in the Pentagon, CIA and US State Department remain strongly committed to ramping up military assistance to anti-Assad forces. More
4-minute VIDEO: Why do 93% of Iraqi Youth think the US is their Enemy?
Saudi officials were 'supporting' 9/11 hijackers, commission member says
The comments by John F Lehman, an investment banker in New York who was Navy secretary in the Reagan administration, signal the first serious public split among the 10 commissioners since they issued a 2004 final report that was largely read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia, which was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11. “There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government,” Lehman said in an interview, suggesting that the commission may have made a mistake by not stating that explicitly in its final report. “Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia.” More
The Secret Behind the Yemen War
Interviewing pro-Saudi fighters near the central Yemeni city of Taiz, journalist Safa Al Ahmad suddenly hears shouting. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “Who are they? They don’t want me to be here?” … A soldier explains that the people making a ruckus are Ansar al Sharia, i.e. fighters for shari‘a. “And he just says quite casually, these are Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” Al Ahmad says later of the local Al Qaeda affiliate often referred to as AQAP. “And he referred to them by their local name, which is Ansar al Sharia. He revealed what is considered an open secret in the front lines, that they [AQAP] had been fighting with all the different factions, the [pro-Saudi] Yemeni factions and the [U.S.-Saudi] coalition against the Houthis.” … A non-Al Qaeda fighter says dismissively, “They are ISIS.” But a second corrects him: “No, they’re not. They’re worse than ISIS. We can’t coexist with them.” …“But you fight together at the front line?” Al Ahmad asks. “For sure. At the front, we are together.” More
Former U.S. Diplomats Decry the U.S.-Backed Saudi War in Yemen
Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states that form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have been brutally bombing Yemen for more than a year, hoping to drive Houthi rebels out of the capital they overran in 2014 and restore Saudi-backed President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
The United States has forcefully backed the Saudi-led war… “I don’t think you can restore a government, especially an unpopular one, from the air, and I don’t think the use of force in this matter does anything but create long-term enmity,” said Chas Freeman, who served as the ambassador to Saudi Arabia between 1989 and 1992. He noted that former President Hadi’s unpopularity was partly due to his deep ties to Saudi Arabia and the United States. … All of the diplomats pointed out that, contrary to administration statements that the Saudi war is serving counterterrorism objectives, the war has actually undermined U.S. national security interests. In particular, they noted that the campaign against the Houthis has allowed one of its enemies – al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) – to seize more territory. More
Urge your Rep. to support the amendment to block the transfer of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia.
Reps. Conyers (MI), Grijalva (AZ), Ellison (MN), and McGovern (MA) have introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act which would prevent any money in the bill from being used to facilitate the transfer of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has used U.S.-supplied cluster bombs in civilian areas in Yemen, killing and wounding civilians, in defiance of U.S. law. Passage of this amendment would be a step towards compliance with Human Rights Watch's demand that the U.S. stop the production and transfer of cluster bombs completely, consistent with the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It would also be a step towards fulfilling the demands of Sens. Murphy and Paul and Reps. Yoho and Lieu that U.S. weapons transfers to Saudi Arabia be conditioned on efforts to limit casualties in the Saudi war in Yemen. Urge your Rep. to support the Conyers-Grijalva-Ellison-McGovern NDAA amendment by signing our petition at MoveOn.
Of course, we shouldn’t be allied with Saudi Arabia or arming it in any way:
Senate Democrat Says It’s Time To Cut Off Support For Saudi Arabia’s War In Yemen
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called for the U.S. to cease military involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen, doubling down on his critique last week of America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told HuffPost’s Friday podcast of “So That Happened” that he hasn’t yet heard a legitimate defense of the Obama administration’s policy of providing military assistance to the Saudis in their aerial war in Yemen. That war has killed thousands of civilians and deteriorated conditions in an already unstable country. More
And Other Petitions you might consider signing
MIDDLE EAST ANNIVERSARIES. . .
What did the Sykes-Picot Agreement mean for the Middle East?
The Sykes-Picot accord was conceived at a high point in Britain and France’s imperial power. Hammered out in the midst of the first world war in anticipation of an Entente victory (the Russian Empire, France and the United Kingdom) over the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria), it was concerned with distributing the territorial spoils of Ottoman defeat… Sykes-Picot had delivered the spoils of war to Britain and France, and deferred the dreams of Arab nationalists. The accord was arguably the last gasp of unrestrained Western imperialism, or at least of the classical imperialism of the 19th century. Twentieth-century imperialism would take less direct, more pernicious forms. More
See also further background in an article I wrote last year:
Indicative of imperial haughtiness, Sykes, speaking in No. 10 Downing Street in 1915, showed how he would “like to draw a line from the ‘E’ in Acre to the last ‘K’ in Kirkuk”, while sliding a finger across a map from the Mediterranean to northern Iraq. More
This was one of the outcomes of Sykes-Picot and Empire. . .
Palestinians on Nakba Day 2016 — Defiant, Undeterred and Organizing
May 15 is observed annually as “Al Nakba Day,” and groups all around the globe hold actions and events to commemorate the fateful months of 1947-48. We name the villages that were destroyed, erased of the map, to allow for Israel to become a “Jewish homeland” in historic Palestine. We speak of the refugees, still in exile. But Al Nakba is not a memory, it is an ongoing daily reality. Sixty-eight years into our catastrophe, Palestinians in the West Bank are still losing towns, homes, land, olive groves, to the Zionist settlers. More
Next year will also mark the 100th anniversary of the BALFOUR DECLARATION, which committed the British Empire – and later the League of Nations – to create a Jewish National Home” in a Palestine, without consulting “he natives”. . .
Why Saudi Arabia Is Suddenly in Serious Trouble
Unrest is on the cards in the Kingdom. In April, King Salman fired the water and electricity minister Abdullah al-Hasin, who had come under criticism for high water rates, new rules over the digging of wells and cuts in energy subsidies. The restructured ministry was to save the Kingdom $30 billion—precious money for an exchequer that is spluttering from low oil prices. Eighty-six percent of Saudis say that they want the water and electricity subsidies to continue… The population does not pay tax, so the only way to raise funds is from oil sales. As oil prices fell from $100/ barrel to $30/barrel, oil revenues for the Kingdom collapsed. Saudi Arabia lost $390 billion in anticipated oil profits last year. Its budget deficit came to $100 billion—much higher than it has been in memory… But the entire political economy of Saudi Arabia and the culture of its Saudi subjects are reliant upon state employment for the subjects and low-wage subservience from the guest workers. To change these two pillars calls into question the survival of the monarchy. More
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WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME
On May 27th, President Obama is scheduled to become the first sitting President to visit Hiroshima’s war memorial. (Richard Nixon went in 1964, before he took office, and Jimmy Carter in 1984, after he left the White House.) The fanfare around Obama’s visit has revived the tormented debate about the Second World War’s concluding acts—the merits and morality of America’s decision to drop the first nuclear bombs, in order to force Japan to surrender and avoid a ground war on the Japanese mainland. Everyone agrees that the bombings wreaked an enormous toll on humankind. Harry Truman, who made the call, later reflected, “I have no qualms about it whatever.” General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, who later served as Truman’s Army Chief of Staff, …[wrote in his] memoir, fifteen years later, after his own stint in the White House..“Japan was already defeated and . . . dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary.” More
FBI Is Manufacturing Terror Plots Driving Divisions Between Jews and Muslims
Since 9/11, the FBI and NYPD have solved dozens of terror plots that its own agents and assets manufactured, including some against synagogues. Even if the plots were less than real, the foiled “attacks” have greatly impacted both the defendants and their alleged victims, spreading fear among Jewish-Americans and triggering panicked reports about heightened threat against Jews. The arrest this April of James Medina, a recent convert to Islam with an extensive criminal history, is the latest evidence of the disturbing practice. An FBI affidavit showed an FBI source suggesting that Medina bomb the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center in Hollywood, Florida on a Jewish holiday. More
The Political Revolution Will Continue Long After Bernie Sanders’ Campaign
In nearly every state in the nation, autonomous grassroots organizations began campaigning for Sanders months before his campaign established any official presence on the ground. Ranging from state-level organizations such as Illinois for Bernie and Team Bernie NY to city and even neighborhood groups, they brought together thousands of volunteers—many of whom had never participated in electoral politics—to work together toward a common goal. Now, those organizations are beginning to build coalitions with labor, socialist parties and progressive groups to set a post-election agenda for the political revolution. To that end, National Nurses United, which endorsed Sanders, is organizing a People’s Summit on June 17 in Chicago, while the People’s Revolution, a group founded by former Occupy organizers, is hosting a People’s Convention in Philadelphia two days before the Democratic National Convention in July. More
To Counter Trump and Far-Right, Labor Leaders call for 'Global New Deal'
Concerned about the rise of right-wing extremism and how it has preyed on the fears of working people across the world, labor leaders from nearly a dozen countries met in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to declare the need for a "global New Deal" to fight these forces. "Too many politicians in the U.S. and Europe are exploiting our differences and inciting hate and division," said Richard Trumka, president of AFL-CIO, which organized the day-long forum along with its non-union affiliate, Working America, and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a German political foundation associated with the Social Democratic Party… The global labor leaders agreed that a deeply progressive agenda is the only viable solution to counter the Far Right, whose support has largely relied on those disaffected and disenfranchised by mainstream politics—communities that for years have struggled with austerity, economic stagnation, lack of jobs, and the effects of mass migration. More
A staggering number of people with factory jobs still need government help
At the plant, Wade has the sort of job that Americans often associate with a blue-collar American Dream. But she's paid more like a low-level service worker: $9.50 an hour, with no benefits. She is officially a temporary worker, sourced through a staffing agency, and she doesn't earn nearly enough to feed, clothe and house her four children. Taxpayers help her make up the difference. “I get energy assistance, I get food stamps, I get Medicaid," she said. "Every bit of public assistance there is, I get it.” … In a new report out Tuesday, Ken Jacobs, Zohar Perla, Ian Perry and Dave Graham-Squire find that one-third of the families of "frontline manufacturing production workers" are enrolled in a government safety-net program. The families' benefits cost state and local governments about $10 billion a year on average from 2009 to 2013, the analysis found. More
Trump’s campaign just got support from one of the Republican Party’s biggest donors
Adelson's endorsement, in an op-ed in the Washington Post, matters because he's very wealthy and very willing to spend his wealth to elect Republicans. He spent as much as $150 million trying to defeat President Obama in 2012. His pro-Trump argument boils down to three points: Any Republican is better than a Democrat, Hillary Clinton in particular would be worse, and Trump's CEO experience has to count for something… And if anyone had reasons to be skeptical about Trump, it's Adelson, a hard-liner on Israeli security. More
Adelson spent over $100,000,000 in the 2012 Presidential election. . .
Hedge Funds Underwrite Political Networks to Privatize K-12 Public Education
The same big-money donors and organizational names pop up in news reports and campaign-finance filings, revealing the behind-the-scenes coordination across organizational, geographic, and industry lines. The origins arguably trace back to Democrats for Education Reform, a relatively obscure group founded by New York hedge funders in the mid-2000s. The hedge fund industry and the charter movement are almost inextricably entangled. Executives see charter-school expansion as vital to the future of public education, relying on a model of competition. They see testing as essential to accountability. And they often look at teacher unions with unvarnished distaste. Several hedge fund managers have launched their own charter-school chains. You’d be hard-pressed to find a hedge fund guy who doesn’t sit on a charter-school board. More
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ISRAEL, PALESTINE . . . and the U.S.
Water pollution reaches catastrophic levels in Gaza
Frequent power cuts in Gaza have made it impossible to provide homes with running water all day. With summer approaching, moreover, Gaza is threatened with a water scarcity crisis that has been compounded by successive Israeli military assaults and a nearly 10-year-old blockade.
Muhammad Abu Shamala, an official at the Khan Younis water plant, describes the situation as “catastrophic.” “Pollution of our water resources has reached alarming proportions and the salinity of the underground aquifer continues to increase,” Abu Shamala said. The United Nations stated that Palestinians in Gaza use on average less than half of the minimum 100 liters of water per person per day recommended by the World Health Organization. By way of contrast, Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank use 369 liters per person per day. More
Israel lobbies U.S. to soften tone of Quartet report on settlements
Israel is working to soften the tone of an upcoming report by the United States and the rest of the members of the Middle East Quartet of negotiators 
– Russia, the United Nations and the European Union. Israel is mainly concerned that the United States will take a harsher position against the settlements. The report, to be issued in the last week of May, is expected to harshly criticize Israel over construction of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to senior officials in Jerusalem. Among other things, Israel is working to prevent the report from mentioning future possible steps by the UN Security Council on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. More
Zionism’s roots help us interpret Israel today
…in 1917 when the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, a document promising for the first time to realise the Zionist goal of a “national home” for the Jews in Palestine. Only one minister, Edwin Montagu, dissented. Notably, he was the only Jew in the British cabinet. The two facts were not unconnected. In a memo, he warned that his government’s policy would be a “rallying ground for anti-Semites in every country”.
He was far from alone in that view. Of the 4 million Jews who left Europe between 1880 and 1920, only 100,000 went to Palestine in line with Zionist expectations. As the Israeli novelist A B Yehoshua once noted: “If the Zionist party had run in an election in the early 20th century, it would have received only 6 or 7 per cent of the Jewish people’s vote.” What Montagu feared was that the creation of a Jewish state in a far-flung territory dovetailed a little too neatly with the aspirations of Europe’s anti-Semites, then much in evidence, including in the British government… Israel and its supporters would prefer we forget that, before the rise of the Nazis, most Jews deeply opposed a future in which they were consigned to Palestine. More
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OTHER EVENTS
Angela Kelly with refugee solidarity volunteers greeting people from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan at the Greek-Macedonian border town of Idomeni
Jeff Klein with delegation in Palmyra, Syria, April 2016
