Freedom Flotilla: ‘Tasering my friend Charlie was an act of terrorism’
By Richard Sudan | RT | July 1, 2015
Despite the Israeli authorities’ claims that the seizure of a Freedom Flotilla boat was ‘uneventful’, footage has emerged that indicated that they tasered a Swedish aid worker.
The boats making up Freedom Flotilla 3 (FF3) have been prevented from reaching the besieged people of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid. The flotilla’s flagship Marianne was boarded by the Israeli military and taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod earlier in the week. By now, some of the crew members have been released, while others remain detained.
Meanwhile, the boat I was meant to be on has not yet left a Greek port. It will head to Gaza at some point. I have been asked not to publish the details. But we will go.
The Israeli authorities claim that their soldiers were ‘non-violent’ as they took over the Marianne, which amounted to an illegal act of piracy, as the vessel was in international waters at the time it was intercepted. The Israeli authorities claimed that there were no injuries when they seized the boat which they had no right to do, legally or morally. The illegal act has been described as ‘uneventful’.
Unsurprisingly though, footage has emerged which shows that the opposite is true. The video shows Arab member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) Basel Ghattas, who I had long conversations with on my trip, first addressing the Israeli Navy before the soldiers boarded the Marianne. The footage then shows Israeli Navy thugs repeatedly tasering Swedish activist and humanitarian aid worker Charlie Andreasson.
Charlie has spent much time in Gaza. He’s a really nice guy and a genuine individual, the kind of selfless character you meet when preparing for a campaign like this. I had the pleasure of talking with him many times as we prepared for Freedom Flotilla 3, and ate dinner with him just a few days ago.
I watched the video of Charlie being tasered and knew it was him before I even read the article.
It was a sickening feeling. According to Oxford dictoniaries.com a taser is ‘a weapon firing barbs attached by wires to batteries, causing temporarily paralysis’. In reality though, tasering is an extremely violent act which can even cause death. There are campaign groups which lobby against the use of tasers by police for this very reason.
But this is how Israel routinely behaves. In typical fashion the Israeli leadership has sought to distract attention from its own crimes. Netanyahu wrote a letter published in the press and delivered to the activists on the boat. He says they must have gotten lost and perhaps should have headed to Syria. He exploits one tragedy to cynically justify another.
And here he does it again, suggesting that Israel is a beacon of light, justice, surrounded by hostile neighbors in the Middle East trying valiantly to uphold those oh so cherished values we hold dear. You can almost hear the harps playing and the angels singing when you read the letter his press office wrote for him on his behalf. He invites the readers to be “Impressed by the only democracy in the Middle East”.
Well Benjamin, we invite you to go to Gaza and to see what Israel’s democracy looks like if you happen to be a Palestinian and born in Gaza. He says that the leadership in Gaza is “using children as human shields.” Perhaps this comment is written by Netanyahu’s office to deflect attention from the fact that Israel killed hundreds of Palestinians last year including many children, and has done so since 1948.
Netanyahu claims that the people on the flotilla were bringing weapons to Gaza. This is false and nothing but an attempt by Israel to save face in the wake of yet another act of piracy committed at sea. They have to say that we are terrorists, because as it is, the world forming a much clearer picture as to the true extent and nature of Israel’s war crimes.
I’ll end here with a story that Charlie told me once when we were sitting down talking, in the company of two other activists.
Charlie told of a time he was in Gaza, and saw a young man shot by an Israeli soldier, possibly a sniper, as they found themselves under attack as is routine in Gaza.
Charlie and whoever else was there couldn’t help the Palestinian man as they were still being shot at. They had to watch him die, unable to reach him as he lay just a few feet away. They then had to inform the father that his son was dead-while the body of his son still lay in the road, unable to be recovered. The boys’ father thanked them.
I’ve never even seen the image of this happening, but yet I can’t shake it from my mind. Charlie is a brave person and didn’t deserve the treatment he got by the Israeli navy.
The Israeli soldiers are brainwashed and carrying out the work of Netanyahu’s war criminal regime. The sooner people wake up to this the better.
Richard Sudan, is a London based writer, political activist, and performance poet. Follow him on Twitter.
Tsipras and the Vampires
By Boris Kagarlitsky | CounterPunch | July 2, 2015
For five years now Europe has been troubled by the problem of the Greek debt. It all began with a relatively modest sum estimated at 15-20 billion euros, though at the time coping even with this debt seemed beyond the country’s capacity. Instead of simply writing off the debt, the “Troika” consisting of the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) offered Greece a program of economic assistance in exchange for carrying out “urgent reforms”.
The results of this program, and of the help it provided, speak for themselves. Greece’s economy contracted by 27 per cent, and the debt rose to 320 billion, despite a partial write-off. From an original 60 per cent of GDP, the debt thus reached 175 per cent. Meanwhile, neither the Troika nor the previous Greek government acknowledged the obvious failure. The Troika not only insisted on continuing and even radicalising its clearly pointless actions, but also proposed treating the economic ills of other eurozone countries (Italy, Spain and Portugal) on the basis of the Greek model.
The actions of the Troika seem far less absurd if we reflect that the billions of euros intended to “save Greece” never reached that ill-fated country but were deposited immediately in German and French banks. Under the pretext of servicing the Greek debt a huge financial pyramid was created, analogous to a Ponzi scheme or to the MMM and GKO pyramids in 1990s Russia, but on a much greater scale. Meanwhile, part of the money that finished up in the banks was sucked directly out of Greece, while a further part came from the pockets of West European taxpayers. For decisions made effectively in Berlin and Brussels, with the approval of Paris, the citizens of other Eurozone countries were forced to pay. The victims included even the inhabitants of Spain and Italy, as well as of countries such as Austria and Finland that had no relation whatever to the events concerned. A sort of all-European pipeline was constructed, and used to siphon off state funds for the benefit of German and French financial capital.
With the coming to power of the left-wing government formed by the SYRIZA party and headed by Alexis Tsipras, hopes arose in Greece that the endless series of large and small economic, social and moral catastrophes which the country had suffered since 2008 would finally come to an end. Even if the situation did not improve, things would at least proceed differently. SYRIZA had been elected with a clear mandate to end the policies of economic austerity, to put a stop to the privatisation and commercialisation of the public sector, and above all, to give Greeks back their self-respect by conducting tough, principled negotiations with the creditors who in recent years had behaved toward the country as though they were an occupation administration. SYRIZA, moreover, was considered in Europe to be pro-Russian; during the election campaign representatives of the party had repeatedly voiced disagreement with EU policy toward Russia, criticising the imposition of sanctions and condemning the new political order imposed in Ukraine following the political overturn of February 2014.
The first agreements concluded by the new Greek government with its creditors showed, however, that in practice everything was turning out quite differently. The representatives of Athens made heated declarations, and then, after securing only minimal amendments, proceeded to sign the next agreement dictated by the creditors. In part, this inconsistency resulted from the contradictions of the mandate obtained by Tsipras and his colleagues. They had promised to put an end to the economic austerity that was killing demand and production. But they also pledged to keep the country within the Eurozone and the EU, stressing that a default on foreign debts had to be avoided. This way of formulating the question handed Greeks over to the mercy of their creditors.
To pay off the debts is simply impossible.
Moreover, a re-launching of the economy is technically inconceivable unless the harsh rules imposed by the ECB are rejected, along with its insistence on a dramatic increase in competitiveness unaided by a lowering of the exchange rate. Since it has been understood from the outset that the ECB will not agree to sharply lower the euro exchange rate solely in order to save Greece, it is clear that in technical terms there is not the slightest chance of a successful exit from the dilemma without Greece quitting the Eurozone and returning to the drachma. The only real question has been whether this exit will be planned, organised and prepared in advance, or whether it will be chaotic and disastrous. The situation is very similar to the one in Argentina in 2001, when after a default the peso had to be decoupled from the dollar if economic growth was to resume.
Nevertheless, even discussing this sole realistic scenario, let alone making preparations to carry it out, has been banned; if such a course were followed, the German and French banks would stand to suffer, along with the reputations of the EU leaders. So long as the Greek government accepts these conditions, it is in the situation of a doctor who undertakes to treat a cancer sufferer without infringing on the “lawful interests” of the tumour and without placing obstacles in the way of its growth. Or, it is like a person who negotiates with vampires on how much of his or her blood they will drink. In each case, the prior interests recognised are those of the vampires.
For the sake of fairness, it should be acknowledged that to a certain degree the contradictions of SYRIZA’s position reflect those of Greek society itself. On the one hand, many Greeks are outraged and want changes, while on the other, people are afraid to risk their middle-class comforts, even though these comforts are diminishing by the day. So long as substantial numbers of the population still have savings in euros, these people are paralysed by fear that their money will be lost or devalued. It is one thing to attend demonstrations demanding that the creditors “respect the country”, and quite another to be ready, right now, to accept particular sacrifices and risks for the sake of one’s own future. It is true that there is no other way out, but both the authorities and society need to think and talk about this openly. Through making statements that try to satisfy everyone, the Tsipras government has instead driven itself into a trap.
The problem is not so much that drastic and humiliating conditions have repeatedly been imposed on Greece by its creditors, as that these agreements are not solving the dilemma but exacerbating it. The debt crisis is worsening, and the sum owed is increasing – both in absolute terms and in relation to the size of the economy as the latter shrinks under the impact of the crisis. Consequently, any new agreement simply assumes that a new crisis will arise after a few months. Each time, this new crisis is more destructive.
While lacking the resolve to answer the EU leaders with an emphatic “no”, Alexis Tsipras and his finance minister, the economist Giannis Varoufakis (an import from the University of Texas), cannot fail to understand that agreeing with the Troika will also turn out disastrously for them. Before their eyes, just such a capitulation only two years ago transformed the powerful social democratic party PASOK from the country’s leading political force into an outsider.
Tsipras has sought to manoeuvre, doing his best to please everyone. He has reassured the creditors, indulged the petty-bourgeois illusions of voters, and delivered radical speeches to meetings of left activists. While promising everyone the maximum possible, his government in practice has tried to sabotage some of the agreements signed with the Troika, particularly in cases where the signatures were affixed by earlier administrations. But the ministers have lacked the courage even to suggest that these agreements might be abrogated, or that the government might openly refuse to carry out their stipulations. A notable example of the Greek government’s diplomatic approach is the position it has taken on the question of sanctions against Russia. Under the rules of the EU, Greece could simply block these sanctions in the summer of 2015. This demand was raised by members of the SYRIZA party itself, when they voted en bloc in the European Parliament against anti-Russian resolutions. But in the heat of the next round of negotiations between the Troika and the Greeks, at a time when Tsipras himself was in St Petersburg explaining to Russian colleagues the prospects for the development of special relations with Athens, his representatives in the EU gave their backing to the sanctions. Addressing the public, Greek diplomats then stated that they had fought like lions on behalf of Russian interests, and that it was only because of their persistence and principled character that the sanctions had been extended for a mere six months, instead of twelve months as the Germans had demanded.
Tsipras’s policy of compromise can be explained in part by a desire to win time in expectation of the elections in Spain, where the left coalition headed by the Podemos party had a serious chance of success. Spain is a far more influential country than Greece, with a far stronger economy, but is suffering from a very similar if less severe crisis. If Podemos were to come to power, Athens would be able to escape from its international isolation. In addition, the Left Bloc in Portugal has a definite chance of success. In other words, an opportunity has appeared to establish an international coalition of Mediterranean countries opposing Berlin and Brussels. But among the public in Spain and Portugal, Tsipras’s own actions and his evident weakness have raised questions about the advisability of placing trust in the left alternative, thus weakening the hopes of the left in those countries.
Within the European left milieu, sympathy nevertheless remains for SYRIZA as a party that finds itself in extremely difficult circumstances. Against the background of many years of setbacks for the European left, Tsipras’s initial successes inspired hopes which people are reluctant to abandon. The SYRIZA leader’s principle, of first making radical speeches and then of giving way to the superior forces of his opponents, seemed to be justified. Not only in other parts of Europe but in Greece as well, the popularity of Tsipras’s government increased. People not only refrained from condemning him, but pitied him as the hostage of vampires against which he was time and again proving powerless.
To fool pseudo-lefts and provincial petty bourgeois is not particularly difficult, but financial vampires do not fall for such tricks. The sabotage aroused righteous indignation in the creditors, who steadily increased the pressure. The agreements which the Greeks signed with the creditors after SYRIZA came to office were no better than those endorsed by the previous government, and had the same results.
In June, when the next round of payments fell due, there turned out to be no money in the budget.
A further restructuring of the debt was essential. In exchange, the Troika demanded the acceptance of a new “reform package”, by comparison with which all the preceding austerity measures seemed mere warm-up exercises. At one and the same time wages and pensions would have to be cut, taxes would need to be raised, and all concessions would have to be stripped from tourism, which amid the destruction of industry and the decline of agriculture remained the only relatively stable sector of the economy. The country would sink inevitably into a new spiral of recession. For SYRIZA, this would mean not only abandoning all its election promises, but also submitting to public humiliation, with the obvious prospect of defeat at the next elections. This, indeed, was what the creditors were seeking.
On June 22 Greece effectively capitulated. The government agreed to extract more revenue from the Value Added Tax, raising it to 0.93 per cent of GDP, and to increase taxes on shipping companies (in other words, to make trips between Greek islands and the mainland more expensive). A cut to pensions was also promised, though the Athens authorities asked to be allowed to introduce the changes involved over time rather than immediately.
The only point on which the Greek negotiators demurred, in order to save face, was a demand that the Value Added Tax be raised to 1 per cent of GDP. In other words, the extent of their resistance was a whole 0.07 per cent. The Greek side meanwhile agreed that company tax should be levied at the rate of 28 per cent, instead of 29 per cent as it had initially suggested to the Troika. The Greeks also asked to be allowed to keep defence spending at its former level; this matched the general requirements of the NATO bloc, of which Greece is part.
The game, it might have seemed, was over. The world financial press celebrated, and prices rose on the share markets. In Athens, there was even a demonstration by members of right-wing parties supporting the creditors. Well-dressed citizens gathered in the central Syntagma Square, calling for pensions to be reduced. True, there were not many of these demonstrators, only about 1500, but the television managed to make the picture so impressive that even the well-known American commentator Paul Craig Roberts, a sharp critic of the policy of the financial institutions, expressed puzzlement at the way Greeks had apparently been brainwashed to the point of agreeing to their own country’s humiliation.
Then the unexpected happened. German representatives declared their dissatisfaction at the speed with which the European Commission welcomed the new offers from Athens. Under pressure from Berlin, Tsipras’s offers were rejected. The Greeks had surrendered, but as it turned out, the Germans were not taking prisoners.
The Eurocrats not only refused to agree to the symbolic concessions needed by Tsipras and Varoufakis if they were to save face, but like gangsters with a client who is behind in paying protection money, began making new demands. With its back to the wall, the Greek government suddenly displayed a courage born of despair. Tsipras delivered a fiery speech to the people, and called a referendum. Greeks would decide for themselves whether to agree to the demands of the creditors. The last PASOK prime minister, George Papandreou, had planned to do something generally similar, but the creditors applied pressure to him, and he renounced his attempt. The upshot was that Papandreou lost his reputation, his job as premier, and even his position at the head of his own party. Knowing the fate of his predecessor, Tsipras showed more consistency. A further inducement for him was the fact that even before the eurocrats had rejected the “compromise” he had offered, a revolt had broken out in the SYRIZA ranks, and it was clear that if the agreement with the Troika was to get through parliament, it would only be with the votes of the rightists.
This time, the deputies of the conservative New Democracy party tried to block the vote on the referendum. But eventually they returned to the chamber, and the resolution was adopted. On July 5 Greeks are to decide on whether or not to agree to the conditions of the financial vampires.
It is significant that the Troika characterised the use by the Greeks of this democratic procedure as a rejection of the agreement. Troika representatives then called off the talks and declared that “aid” to Greece would cease from June 30. This means that regardless of the outcome of the referendum, a technical default from July 1 is inevitable, and this in turn will lead almost automatically to Greece’s exit from the eurozone and return to the drachma.
The chance that the supporters of austerity would win the referendum, illusory in any case, has now vanished completely.
What was bound to occur has now actually happened, just as in Argentina in 2001, where all political forces tried desperately to avoid a default and exit from the dollar zone (the Argentinian peso was tied to the US dollar), but where this occurred anyway. In both Argentina and Russia, financial collapse was followed by a few dramatic and chaotic months, after which an economic recovery began. The situation in Greece is somewhat more complex, but in Greece as well the shift to an inevitably devalued drachma opens a range of possibilities. Cheap resorts will attract the tourists who are now in critically short supply (Russian tourism alone in Greece has shrunk this year by 70 per cent). New prospects will open up for tourism and shipbuilding. Relations with Russia could also be placed on a more solid footing.
The situation has turned out to the benefit of Greece, but despite the actions of the country’s present leaders rather than because of them. It should, though, be recognised that Tsipras, even if he dragged out his decision until the very last moment, has nevertheless shown that he has a better claim to the role of national leader than his predecessors. The Greeks were forced to bend, but they were not broken.
What, though, can have motivated the Berlin leaders, when they refused to accept the Greek capitulation? It is possible, of course, that the German leaders simply made a mistake. The situation ran out of control because each side failed to anticipate the reaction of the other. The Greeks overestimated the rationalism of the Germans, and the Germans, the opportunism of the Greeks. The more acute a crisis becomes, the more mistakes are made; this is the general logic of the historical process. It is not excluded that the leaders in Berlin misjudged the likely results of the talks between Russia and Greece, and hoped that the Russians would supply Tsipras with money that the Greeks could use to pay off the creditors. But Tsipras left St Petersburg without having received any money, though with an agreement to build a gas pipeline that for technical reasons will be impossible to implement before 2018 (it should be noted that the Russian gas corporation Gazprom then and there announced that gas transit through Ukraine would continue after 2019, placing the profitability of the highly expensive Greco-Turkish pipeline in question).
Nor can the possibility be excluded that Berlin consciously provoked the crisis.
German analysts may have calculated that the debt bubble would burst in any case, and have decided to deflate it themselves, without waiting for events to develop spontaneously. Even if agreement had been reached on the conditions set down by the Troika, new crises would not only be “predictable with mathematical certainty” (as Varoufakis stated), but much more importantly, the proportion of the funds pumped by the German banks out of Greece would diminish with every new cycle, while the share coming from the German taxpayer would increase. In other words, political risk would be added to the risk that the debt pyramid would crumble. Members of the public in northern Europe are beginning to grasp that under the pretext of “saving Greece”, they themselves are being robbed by “their own” side. Even if northern Europeans fail to understand this, they will still mount resistance, out of reluctance to part with their money. It is also worth noting the publication of the sadly notorious Charlie Hebdo issue that came out with the headline “Drown the Greek to save Europe”.
So – was it evil intent, or a collective miscalculation?
These two explanations, though logically counterposed, may in reality serve to reinforce one another. There was a degree of ill-intent, but there were also miscalculations on both sides. We may recall that it was in precisely this fashion that war broke out in 1914. All the various parties had prepared for a war, had planned it and wanted it, but events nevertheless unfolded in a fashion completely different from what they had counted on. Control over the situation had been lost.
It appears that the same happened this time. Even if the Troika intended something along the lines of “drowning the Greek”, things will now proceed in a way distinctly different from what they anticipated. The referendum called by Tsipras is sharply altering the psychological landscape not just in Athens, but throughout Europe. Willingly or otherwise, SYRIZA has raised the banner of resistance. For the other crisis-wracked countries of the eurozone, this will provide a signal that the financial vampires of the EU are not all-powerful. The vampires themselves will be forced to undertake even harsher measures, in an effort to halt the growing collapse of the neoliberal regime installed in the EU by the Maastricht and Lisbon talks. As history teaches us, such measures ultimately serve only to exacerbate a crisis, provoking more and more active resistance. This is now occurring in the countries of the European “centre” – Italy, France, and even Austria and Germany. In the present situation, however, no other road remains open to the ruling groups in Berlin and Brussels. And before the light appears at the end of the tunnel, we are bound to plunge still further into the depths of the crisis.
All of our countries will feel the direct effects, including Russia.
Translation: Renfrey Clarke.
Boris Kagarlitsky is the director of the Institute of Globalization Studies.
New Study by Leading Authority on Public Health: Fluoridating the Water “Does Not Reduce Cavities”
By Matt Agorist | The Free Thought Project | July 1, 2015
Fluoridation, Americans are told, is necessary for the prevention of tooth decay. We must drink it and we must give our children fluoridated water in order for everyone to have a healthy smile — or so we have been advised for the last 60 years.
A whopping 43 studies have linked fluoride ingestion with a reduction in IQ. A study out of the Harvard School of public Health concluded, “children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas.”
Even more independent studies have linked the associated health risks of fluoride to interfering with the endocrine system and increasing the risk of impaired brain function; two studies in the last few months, for example, have linked fluoridation to ADHD and underactive thyroid.
Dozens more studies show the ineffectiveness of fluoride ingestion in preventing dental caries; they actually show an increase in dental fluorosis instead of a reduction in decay.
Approximately 1.2 grams of sodium fluoride will kill an adult human being. That was the low estimate that Dominic Smith ingested when he died from an overdose of fluoridated water at Hooper Bay, Alaska on May 23, 1992. Approximately 200 mg will kill a small child.
Approximately 72% of all water supplies in the United States have fluoride dumped into them
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this highly poisonous substance is sourced from the waste products of the fertilizer industry.
Most fluoride additives used in the United States are produced from phosphorite rock. Phosphorite is mainly used for manufacturing phosphate fertilizer. Phosphorite is refluxed (heated) with sulfuric acid to produce a phosphoric acid-gypsum (calcium sulfate-CaSO4) slurry.
The heating process releases hydrogen fluoride (HF) and silicon tetrafluoride (SiF4) gases, which are captured by vacuum evaporators. These gases are then condensed to a water-based solution of approximately 23% FSA.
Approximately 95% of FSA used for water fluoridation comes from this process. The remaining 5% of FSA is produced in manufacturing hydrogen fluoride or from the use of hydrogen fluoride to etch silicates and glasses when manufacturing solar panels and electronics.
In other words, instead of fertilizer and electronic companies paying to dispose of their wasteful byproducts in a responsible manner, they are given your tax dollars and this once toxic waste is magically transformed into a benefit for your teeth.
If the fact that fluoride lowers your IQ, is linked to ADHD, is an endocrine disrupter, is poisonous, is a hazardous bi-product of phosphate fertilizer production, and is being given to you without your consent, doesn’t get you riled up, then maybe the fact that the most highly regarded group of scientists in the world in assessing the effectiveness public health policies putting out a study showing that fluoridating the water supply “does not reduce cavities to a statistically significant degree in permanent teeth,” will help to change your mind.
“From the review, we’re unable to determine whether water fluoridation has an impact on caries levels in adults,” says study co-author Anne-Marie Glenny, a health science researcher at Manchester University in the United Kingdom.
According to Newsweek, the authors also found only two studies since 1975 that looked at the effectiveness of reducing cavities in baby teeth, and found fluoridation to have no statistically significant impact here, either.
Newsweek reports:
“Frankly, this is pretty shocking,” says Thomas Zoeller, a scientist at UMass-Amherst uninvolved in the work. “This study does not support the use of fluoride in drinking water.” Trevor Sheldon concurred. Sheldon is the dean of the Hull York Medical School in the United Kingdom who led the advisory board that conducted a systematic review of water fluoridation in 2000, that came to similar conclusions as the Cochrane review. The lack of good evidence of effectiveness has shocked him. “I had assumed because of everything I’d heard that water fluoridation reduces cavities but I was completely amazed by the lack of evidence,” he says. “My prior view was completely reversed.”
There is no evidence supporting the purported benefits of fluoridating the water supply, but its use continues
This study is yet another blow to the unethical and immoral process of forcing individuals to consume a deadly product against their will.
The fact that fluoridation is still happening with the mounds of evidence against speaks to the incompetent nature of the state and the special interests lining their pockets in order to dump their toxic waste into the US water supply.
Even more upsetting, is the fact that when you tell people about the negative effects of consuming fluoride you are somehow labeled a conspiracy theorist; as if the mountain of evidence backing up your claims is non-existent.
Many people have no idea that their toothpaste has a poison warning!
They’ve ignored the Harvard study and the many like it, they’ve ignored the thousands of dental professionals who’ve come out against it, and they have ignored the unethical significance associated with mass medication without consent. Will the government and the naysayers finally come to their senses and stop ignoring this problem now that the Cochrane Collaboration, which is widely regarded as the gold standard of scientific rigor in assessing effectiveness of public health policies has confirmed that it’s pointless? We remain optimistic.
Africa Must Leave the ICC
By Dr. David Hoile | Black Agenda Report | July 1, 2015
It has taken Africa just over a decade to conclude that the International Criminal Court (ICC), established in 2002 by the Rome Statute, is simply unfit for purpose. That certainly is the conclusion of the South African government following the recent African Union summit in Johannesburg. The institution African countries signed up for post 1998, a court that promised to pursue injustice without fear or favor, is not the one they see before them today. They were sold a false bill of goods. The ICC’s claims to international jurisdiction and judicial independence are institutionally flawed and the Court’s reputation has been irretrievably damaged by its racism, blatant double-standards, hypocrisy, corruption and serious judicial irregularities.
While the ICC presents itself as the world’s court this is simply not the case. Its members represent just over one quarter of the world’s population: China, Russia, the United States, India, Pakistan and Indonesia are just some of the many countries that have remained outside of the Court’s jurisdiction.
A court is also only as credible as its independence. Far from being an independent and impartial court, the ICC’s own statute grants special “prosecutorial” rights of referral and deferral to the Security Council – by default its five permanent members (three of which are not even ICC members). Political interference in the legal process was thus made part of the Court’s founding terms of reference. The Court is also inextricably tied to the European Union which provides over 60 percent of its funding. The expression “He who pays the piper calls the tune” could not be more appropriate. The fact that the big five ICC funders are Africa’s former colonial masters also sits uneasily with a continent suspicious of recolonization by questionable legal diktat. The EU is additionally guilty of blatant political and economic blackmail in tying aid for developing countries to ICC membership.
Africa is also correct when it points out that the ICC is self-evidently a racist court, in that it treats one race of people differently to all others. Instead of impartially enforcing the Rome Statute, the Europeans have chosen to focus the Court exclusively on Africa. African heads of state have spoken of “race hunting.” Despite having received almost 9,000 formal complaints about alleged war crimes in at least 139 countries, the ICC has chosen to indict 36 black Africans in eight African countries. In so doing the ICC has ignored all European or Western human rights abuses in conflicts such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq or human rights abuses by Western client states. While the ICC’s key first two cases were African “self-referrals” it is now clear that the African governments were made “an offer they could not refuse”: refer yourself and we will only indict your rebels – if not we will indict both government and rebels.
The ICC has emerged very much as a European-funded and directed instrument of European foreign policy. Broader western hypocrisy is all too evident. The United States has forcefully pointed out that the ICC is a kangaroo court, a travesty of justice open to political influence and that no American citizen will ever come before it. Washington is nonetheless very happy, for its own political reasons, to demand that black Africans appear before it.
Double standards and politics aside, the ICC has shown itself to be irretrievably dysfunctional. The court’s proceedings thus far have often been questionable where not simply farcical. Its judges – some of whom have never been lawyers, let alone judges – are the result of grubbily corrupt vote-trading amongst member states. Far from securing the best legal minds in the world this produces mediocrity. At least one elected “judge” had neither law degree nor legal experience but her country had contributed handsomely to the ICC budget. The Court has produced witnesses who recanted their testimony the moment they got into the witness box, admitting that they were coached by non-governmental organizations as to what false statements to make. Dozens of other “witnesses” have similarly disavowed their “evidence.” Most recently the ICC prosecutor had to admit that one of its own star witnesses in its case against Kenyan Vice-President Ruto was “a thoroughly unreliable and incredible” witness.
And then there has also been the ICC prosecutor who was not only seemingly unaware of the legal concept of presumption of innocence but also threatened to criminalize third-parties who might argue a presumption of innocence on the part of those indicted – and as yet unconvicted – by the Court. A clearer case of Alice in Wonderland justice, along the lines of “sentence first, verdict afterwards,” is difficult to find. There has been prosecutorial misconduct, not least of which hiding exculpatory evidence, which should have ended any fair trial because they would have compromised the integrity of any legal process. The ICC’s first trial proceeded erratically because of crass prosecutorial misbehavior and judicial decisions to add new charges half-way through proceedings, a move that was subsequently overturned. Simply put, the Court and the prosecutor have been making things up as they go along.
The ICC claims to be “economical” and to bring “swift justice,” yet it has consumed more than a billion Euros in its 13-year existence and has only secured two questionable convictions. The ICC claims to be victim-centered yet Human Rights Watch has publicly criticized the ICC’s ambivalence towards victim communities. The ICC claims to be fighting impunity, yet it has granted de jure immunity to the United States and afforded de facto immunity and impunity to NATO member states and several serial abusers of human rights who happen to be friends of the European Union and United States.
Far from bringing peace to Africa, the ICC’s double-standards and autistic legal blundering has derailed delicate peace processes across the continent – thereby prolonging devastating civil wars. The court is responsible for the death, injury and displacement of many thousands of Africans. The ICC’s involvement in Uganda, for example, destroyed peace talks in that country, intensifying the conflict which then spread into three neighboring countries.”
The reality is that the ICC is an inept, corrupt, political court that does not have Africa’s welfare at heart, only the furtherance of Western, and especially European, foreign policy and its own bureaucratic imperative – to exist, to employ more Europeans and North Americans and where possible to continue to increase its budget – all at the expense of African lives. Three cheers for South Africa pointing out that the Emperor is naked.
Dr. David Hoile is the author of Justice Denied: The Reality of the International Criminal Court, a 610-page study of the International Criminal Court published by the Africa Research Centre. The book is available to read or download at www.africaresearchcentre.org. The author can be contacted by email at africaresearchcentre@gmail.com.
Obama Signs Legislation Inhibiting Boycott of Israel
IMEMC News & Agencies | July 2, 2015
President Obama has signed legislation which would tackle anti-Israel boycotts all over the world and would raise specific US priorities in roughly 150 trade objectives in its negotiations.
One of the main goals, according to World Bulletin/Al Ray, is to counter willingness to support “Boycott Divestment and Sanctions” movement against Israel within the European Union. The legislation was made by a group of congressmen and the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
The new US-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act is specifically targeted “to discourage politically motivated actions to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel by states, non-member states of the United Nations, international organisations, or affiliated agencies of international organisations that are politically motivated and are intended to penalise or otherwise limit commercial relations specifically with Israel or persons doing business in Israel or in Israeli- controlled territories.”
The new legislation was signed in spite of numerous warnings from Obama’s advisors and officials, who said that such a law can seriously harm trade relations with the European Union members that favor “Boycott Divestment and Sanctions” movement and prohibit trading with Israeli companies that operate in the occupied territories.
Britain approved £4mn Israel arms sales in the months after Gaza war
RT | July 2, 2015
The UK government approved £4 million worth of arms sales to Israel in the immediate months following the Israeli government’s military bombardment of Gaza last summer, new research reveals.
Detailed analysis published Thursday indicates that the related arms licenses cover military hardware likely to be deployed if violence in the besieged coastal strip resumes.
Among the arms sales Britain presided over were special components for military helicopters and a range of hi-tech parts for guidance and navigation systems used by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).
The former Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government also approved arms licenses for a slew of third-party states that sell weapons to Israel. These particular licenses covered the sale of components for military communications equipment, helicopters used in combat and ground-to-ground missiles.
The controversial revelations formed part of a report authored by David Wearing, a researcher at the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS). A member of Campaign Against the Arms Trade’s (CAAT) steering committee, Wearing’s work focuses on domestic and international politics.
The research, “Arming Apartheid: UK Complicity in Israel’s Crimes Against the Palestinian People,” analyses how Britain’s arming of Israel renders it complicit in grievous human rights violations.
CAAT’s Andrew Smith said the revelations published in the report showed it was “business as usual” with Israel for the UK government.
“More than 2,000 people died in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, and yet in the months immediately following the conflict it was business as usual for the UK government and the arms companies they support,” he said.
Smith said that Britain continues to sell arms to Israel, despite the Israeli administration’s continued violation of international law.
“The continuation of arms sales represents a form of political as well as material support from the UK to Israel despite the construction of the ‘apartheid wall’ in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements there and the ongoing blockade of Gaza,” he said.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Sarah Colborne said the British state is arming an “apartheid” regime. She argued Palestinians will not be freed from Israeli occupation, discrimination, and bloodshed until sanctions are imposed on Israel.
Ryvka Barnard, a senior campaigner on militarism and security at War on Want, said the Arming Apartheid study highlights Britain’s complicity in “Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.”
She argued that the global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) on Israel has become more vital than ever.
“Only a full two-way arms embargo can ensure the UK will no longer be complicit in Israeli state crimes and abuses,” he said.
Report author Wearing says ministers’ suggestion that British controls on arms exports are tightly controlled “do not stand up to scrutiny.”
“Any real restriction comes from the embarrassment of bad publicity, and then only in the wake of a conflict, too late for the Palestinians affected,” he added.
Britain has a history of unethical arms sales to Israel.
A ministerial statement issued in April 2009 by the then-Labour Foreign Secretary David Miliband confirmed that Israeli military wares used in the 2008-9 Gaza conflict “almost certainly” contained UK-supplied components.
The document was sent to the anti-arms charity after it launched a legal challenge against then-Secretary of State for Business, Innovations and Skills Vince Cable in 2014.
Last summer’s Israel-Palestine conflict culminated in the killing of an estimated 2,000 Palestinians [mostly civilians]. Israel, by contrast, suffered the deaths of 64 soldiers and three civilians during the conflict.
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Take Action
Act now to Stop Arming Israel. Help increase the pressure on the UK government to end its arms trade with Israel and its complicity in Israel’s occupation and war crimes.
1. Email your MP to demand a two-way arms embargo against Israel.
2. Order campaign materials and book a speaker.
3. Target the companies profiting from Israel’s occupation.
Find the suppliers on your doorstep
More than 100 companies supplying military and security equipment to Israel have bases in the UK. Find out about the suppliers on your doorstep.
Block the factory!
During last summer’s assault on Gaza, activists occupied Israeli arms company Elbit’s factory in Shenstone, causing its operations to grind to a halt and costing Elbit over £100,000. On 6th July, to mark the first anniversary of the assault on Gaza, groups and campaigners from across the UK are going back to Elbit’s factory to demand that the UK stops arming Israel. Join a day of creative action in solidarity with Palestine!
4. Support BDS
Support the Palestinian call for a global movement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. Visit waronwant.org/BDS
The West’s Voluntary Blindness on Syria
By Eldar Mamedov | LobeLog | July 2, 2015
Recently Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg sent a letter to the UN Security Council demanding that Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria end the use of barrel bombs. The foreign ministry of a European country that still maintains a diplomatic presence in Damascus, one of the few, asked for the opinion of its embassy on the matter. The embassy recommended to sign the letter: barrel bombs are indiscriminate and kill an awful lot of civilians. But the embassy also advised its government to condemn the opposition’s use of improvised mortar bombs (known as “hell cannons”) against the neighborhoods under government control. Diplomats say that the rebels have specifically targeted Christian areas for their perceived support for the Assad regime. Back in Europe, the foreign ministry officials admitted that they “haven’t heard anything” about the “hell cannons.”
This is only one example of how dysfunctional EU policy toward Syria has become, as a European Parliament (EP) delegation that visited Lebanon in mid-June learned. An early EU decision to cut off all ties with the Assad regime has not been vindicated by the developments on the ground. Not only has the regime survived, but radical jihadist elements have increasingly dominated the opposition to Assad. The EU, however, failed to modify its strategy accordingly. As a result, regional actors with often disruptive and sectarian agendas have taken center stage. And individual EU member states have also pursued their own policies, which are not necessarily in the interests of the EU as a whole.
The latest example of the distorting influence of the regional actors is the Syrian opposition’s failure to accept the “freeze plan” in Aleppo and surrounding areas proposed by the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan De Mistura as a first step toward a negotiated solution. In the UN assessment, the opposition´s foreign sponsors—mainly Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan—bear primary responsibility for this failure, because they have insisted on removing Assad from power as a pre-condition to any agreements.
Such a position is not new. What is new, however, is that these sponsors do not hide anymore that they work directly with Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda´s affiliate in Syria. They still pretend, however, that al-Nusra is the face of the “moderate opposition,” even though this assertion stems from a PR operation, widely believed to be Qatari-driven and carried out in Western mainstream media and think-tanks. An interview al-Nusra’s chief Al-Golani gave to the Qatar-based Al Jazeera was part of this PR campaign, but it backfired when Al-Golani made it clear that al-Nusra is al-Qaeda and expressed borderline genocidal views on Alawites.
The Dangers of Supporting Jihad
To make matters more complicated, even those rebel groups that are not part of al-Nusra, espouse deeply troubling views. According to a credible UN source in Damascus, a fighter from an obscure group Jaysh al-Ababil active in Syria´s south, has reported that “Syrian people deserve a democracy like in Saudi Arabia.” He boasted that the group “gets anything it needs” from Jordan and that a major offensive to take Damascus from the south, as well as the north, will be launched “very soon.”
If the US and EU had real strategy to end the war they would, in addition to pressuring Assad, demand that their regional allies curb the flow of weapons and recruits to terrorist groups. But they can’t credibly do that, since they are involved in this effort themselves. According to Conflicts Forum, the southern rebel front is managed from US Centcom’s Forward Command in Jordan, which is run jointly by American, Jordanian, Saudi, Qatari, and British officers. … Full article
Hillary Clinton’s emails reveal link with Qatari royal family
RT | July 2, 2015
Emails of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton published by the State Department expose that the Qatari Royal family made efforts to befriend the American politician through former British PM Tony Blair’s spouse, Cherie Blair.
Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned, a wife of the former emir of Qatar and mother of the ruling emir, Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad Al-Thani, established contact with Clinton via Cherie Blair.
The Blair and Clinton families have been political and personal friends since the 1990s.
“Sheika Moser (Sheikha Mozah) has approached me privately saying they are keen to get their relationship with the USA onto a more positive footing and she was hoping for a ‘women to women’ one to one private meeting with you,” Cherie Blair wrote to Clinton in May 2009. “I am sure the conversation would not be confined to these issues but would be about the U.S./Qatar relationship generally,” Blair wrote, mentioning joint philanthropic interests among issues Clinton and Mozah could talk about.
Blair did her best to persuade Hillary Clinton to get acquainted with “someone who has real influence in Qatar,” the newly-released documents show.
“I could make time to meet in DC during the weeks of June 8th and 15th. Would that work?” Clinton gave in on May 26, promising to rearrange her schedule to “fit her time.”
Yet Sheikha Mozah was unable to meet with Clinton on suggested dates in June 2009 “due to prior commitments” and proposed to meet “immediately after Ramadan/Eid week of September 27, 2009.”
Altogether, on Tuesday the State Department released over 1,900 of Clinton’s emails (3,000 pages). Within this bulk of information, there are 19 emails that have to do with Clinton/ Mozah getting acquainted with each other.
The royal Al-Thanis family of Qatar is known for its fabulous wealth gathered on the back of the petroleum and liquefied natural gas trade. Over the last decades, Qatar rulers spent billions on increasing its influence in Western capitals. The Al-Thanis invested particularly heavily in London, the Guardian claims.
The scale of the Qatar royal family’s investment in the British capital remains largely unknown. Al-Thanis own Harrods, the Olympic village and Shard completely, along with certain property in Hyde Park. A quarter of Sainsbury’s, large share of Barclays and 8 percent of the London Stock Exchange all belong to them, as well as the US embassy building in Grosvenor Square.
Earlier this year it emerged that the Clinton Foundation allegedly received multiple foreign donations during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
A newly-released book accused the Clinton Foundation, run by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, her husband Bill Clinton, and their daughter Chelsea, of accepting quid pro quo donations from foreign sources while Hillary was secretary of state.
It was revealed that governments that had received frequent criticism from the State Department for repressive policies – countries like Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar – had donated to the Clinton Foundation and gained State Department clearance to buy caches of American-made weapons.
In late May, the FIFA corruption scandal also cast its shadow over the Clintons, as it emerged that the Clinton Foundation received at least $50,000 and as much as $100,000 from the football governing body.
“I don’t think there’s anything sinister in trying to get wealthy people in countries that are seriously involved in development to spend their money wisely in a way that helps poor people and lifts them up,” Hillary Clinton told NBC News in May.
The Guardian reports that the Blair family has done some favors for Qatar’s rulers, too.
Although Tony Blair stepped down from his post as PM in 2007, his influence remains in place. In 2012 he brokered a $50-billion commodities deal between Glencore and Xstrata, which brought him $1 million.
Later the same year the former Labor leader assisted the Qataris in getting a share in a £1-billion-valued group owning such prestigious hotel as Berkeley, Claridge’s and Connaught, the Guardian claims.
The Blairs’ charitable Faith Foundation, aimed at combating religious extremism, does not hesitate to accept donations from anyone, be it Rupert Murdoch or Ukrainian oligarchs.
In this regard, the Faith Foundation mirrors the Clinton Foundation, set up by the former US President Bill Clinton after leaving his post in 2001.
From 2009 up to 2013, the year the Ukrainian crisis erupted, the Clinton Foundation received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, which is headquartered in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, a new report claims.
The Clinton Foundation’s donor list includes some 200,000 names, among them foreign financial institutions and Wall Street-based financial organizations, international energy conglomerates and governments, the government of Qatar included, which allegedly has given between $1 million and $5 million in donations to the Clintons.
Read more:
‘Clinton Cash’ book alleges foreign donations to family foundation linked to political favors
Ukraine oligarch ‘top cash contributor’ to Clinton Foundation prior to Kiev crisis
Von Hippel’s “Really Good Idea” to Resolve the Nuclear Impasse Was Actually Iran’s Idea First
By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | July 1, 2015
Yesterday in The National Interest, Frank von Hippel, co-director of the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, floats the possibility of opening Iran’s domestic uranium enrichment program to international investment. Doing so, Von Hippel contends, would automatically “add a multinational layer of supervision to the program,” as countries that “buy shares in its enrichment program” would do so “in exchange for having full access to all the associated facilities and a say in how they are managed.”
For those who still insist on pretending that Iran’s legal, safeguarded nuclear energy program is “a threat to regional stability” that will be summarily unleashed from the tethers of agreed-to restrictions after the imminent multilateral deal allegedly sunsets a decade from now, Von Hippel’s suggestion should inspire confidence. With foreign investment and multinational involvement in the entire nuclear fuel cycle, coupled with the IAEA’s strict monitoring and inspection regime which has already long been in place, the potential for Iran’s program to ever be secretly militarized is virtually nil.
Furthermore, according to Von Hippel, offering such foreign stake in this Iranian industry “would mitigate the pressure on Saudi Arabia and other regional rivals of Iran to assert their own rights to ‘peaceful’ enrichment programs. Indeed, the door should be open for them to buy a share in the multinational program as well.”
The article’s headline calls Von Hippel’s proposal to open up Iran’s enrichment program to multinational partnerships, “A Really Good Idea.”
And it is.
Except, while certainly a good idea, this isn’t actually a new idea. In fact, this very offer was made over a dozen years ago – by Iran.
It is true that Von Hippel, whose National Interest post is a pared down version of a longer, more detailed (and less alarmist) article he co-authored in the June 19 issue of Science magazine, does make passing reference to the fact that “[s]enior Iranian officials have expressed openness to discussing multi-nationalization.” But this is a gross understatement considering Iran’s leadership and consistency on this issue.
Since its early stages, in fact, Iran has offered specifically to restrict its enrichment program and to open it up to international cooperation, thereby making in it literally impossible for the diversion of fissile material to weaponization efforts to take place unnoticed. As I have noted before, Iran was already making such gestures nearly a quarter century ago, only to be rebuffed, denied, ignored and dismissed by the United States.
In October 1992, for instance, in response to American concern over indications that Iran was pursuing a domestic enrichment program, Iran not only “repeatedly denied any non-peaceful intentions, stating that it accepts full-scope IAEA safeguards,” but also “indicated it is prepared to accept enhanced safeguards measures on both nuclear cooperation agreements with Russia and China, as well as having no objections to the return of the spent fuel to the country of origin as a similar agreement had been concluded with Germany during the 1970s.”
On July 1, 2003 – exactly 12 years ago today – Reuters reported that none other than Hassan Rouhani, then Secretary-General of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Iran was “ready to accept the participation of other big industrialized countries in its [uranium] enrichment projects,” specifically as a means to resolve any questions over whether its nuclear program was peaceful and civilian in nature.
Following its voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment and implementation of the Additional Protocol as confidence-building measures during negotiations with the EU-3, Iran again raised the prospect of multinational collaboration. On March 23, 2005, the Iranians presented a four-phase plan to their European negotiating partners intended to end the nuclear impasse once and for all. It called for Iran to resume uranium enrichment, with EU cooperation, and for the Majlis (Iranian parliament) to begin the process of approving legislation that would permanently ban the “production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons.”
Iran’s offer came on the heels of the IAEA’s own expert endorsement of multinational investment in enrichment programs.
This was not merely the stance of the reformist government of Mohammad Khatami, either. In his first address before the United Nations General Assembly in September 2005, newly-inaugurated Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that, as a “confidence building measure and in order to provide the greatest degree of transparency, the Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to engage in serious partnership with private and public sectors of other countries in the implementation of uranium enrichment program in Iran. This represents the most far reaching step, outside all requirements of the NPT, being proposed by Iran as a further confidence building measure.”
In early November 2005 it was widely reported that “the Iranian government is allowing the country’s atomic energy agency to seek local or foreign investors for its currently suspended uranium enrichment activities.” Such investment, directed toward the Natanz facility then under construction in central Iran, would be sought “from the public or private sectors.”
Days later, Iranian state-run television stated that Iran would offer the international community “a 35% share in its uranium enrichment programme as a guarantee” that its nuclear program “won’t be diverted toward weapons.” This investment would allow “foreign countries and companies a role in Iran’s uranium enrichment programme,” providing the opportunity for such entities and organizations to “practically contribute in and monitor the uranium enrichment in Natanz.” Gholamreza Aghazade, an Iranian vice president and head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, told the press that this offer was “maximum concession” Tehran could offer for transparency. “The 35% share is not only investment,” he said. “They will have a presence in the process (of uranium enrichment) and production (of nuclear fuel).”
“It’s the best kind of international supervision totally negating any possibility of diversion (toward weapons),” Aghazade explained.
Later that month, on November 18, 2005, in yet another publicly presented proposal, the Iranian government repeated the offer set forth earlier that year, reiterating its willingness to officially ban nuclear weapons development through legislation, cap its level and scope of enrichment, immediately covert its enriched uranium to fuel rods “to preclude even the technical possibility of further enrichment” towards weapons-grade and “to provide unprecedented added guarantees” to the IAEA that its program would remain peaceful. The proposal, issued by Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations, reiterated Iran’s “[a]cceptance of partnership with private and public sectors of other countries in the implementation of uranium enrichment program in Iran which engages other countries directly and removes any concerns.”
Iran’s offers were routinely rejected by the United States government, which maintained the absurd position that Iran capitulate to its demand of zero enrichment on Iranian soil. “We cannot have a single centrifuge spinning in Iran,” declared George W. Bush’s undersecretary of state for arms control Robert Joseph in early 2006.
In an April 5, 2006 oped in the New York Times, Iran’s then UN ambassador Javad Zarif laid out a number of proposals for resolving the nuclear standoff. In addition to affirming Iran’s continued commitment to the NPT, acceptance of limitations on enrichment, and its stance against “the development, production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons,” Zarif stated Iran’s willingness to “[a]ccept foreign partners, both public and private, in our uranium enrichment program.” He continued:
Iran has recently suggested the establishment of regional consortiums on fuel-cycle development that would be jointly owned and operated by countries possessing the technology and placed under atomic agency safeguards.
In an article for the Los Angeles Times at the end of that same year, Zarif reminded readers of these overtures, none of which were ever responded to by the United States.
Multinational investment in Iran’s enrichment program was endorsed by nuclear experts and MIT researchers Geoff Forden and John Thomson in various articles and reports in 2006 and 2007, as well as by former American diplomats Thomas R. Pickering and William Luers and nuclear expert Jim Walsh in an essay for the New York Review of Books in early 2008. Wholly in line with what Iranian officials had been saying for years, Pickering, Luers and Walsh wrote that a “jointly managed and operated on Iranian soil by a consortium including Iran and other governments… provides a realistic, workable solution to the US–Iranian nuclear standoff.” Such a program, they wrote, “will reduce the risk of proliferation and create the basis for a broader discussion not only of our disagreements but of our common interests as well.”
“Given the enhanced transparency of a multilateral arrangement and the constant presence in Iran of foreign monitors that such a plan would require,” the authors added, any “diversion of material or technology to a clandestine program” would be easily detected. Senators Chuck Hagel and Dianne Feinstein both responded positively to the proposal. The Bush administration dismissed it out of hand.
Iranian officials again endorsed the concept of opening its nuclear program to international investment and collaboration in during a March 2008 conference in Tehran.
In a comprehensive package proposed to the United Nations on May 13, 2008, Iran’s foreign minister Manuchehr Mottaki wrote that Iran was still ready to consider, among a great many other things, “Establishing enrichment and nuclear fuel production consortiums in different parts of the world – including in Iran.”
Reporting on the proposal shortly thereafter, The Guardian‘s Julian Borger noted that while the consortium idea was gaining traction in American “foreign policy circles,” it was still “resisted by the US, French and British governments.” An unnamed “British official” told Borger, “We would be ready to discuss it, as soon as Iran does what it knows it has to,” that is, suspend its enrichment program, an obvious and long-known nonstarter for post-2005 negotiations.
By resurrecting the notion of multinational investment in Iran’s enrichment program, Von Hippel does the conversation over nuclear negotiations a great service. Despite past difficulties regarding Iran’s stake in the Eurodif consortium and a history of American deception and deliberate denialism in breach of its NPT obligations, the prospect of international acceptance and cooperation in Iran’s nuclear industry is still an excellent way out of this manufactured crisis.
But by leaving out the fact that Iran itself has long been the leading champion of such a proposal unfortunately doesn’t give credit where credit is due.
Both Major U.S. Parties are Plagues on Humanity
By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report | July 1, 2015
There has never been a dime’s worth of difference between the Clintons (Bill and Hillary) and Barack Obama, and less than ten cents separates the worldviews of these Democratic political twins from the Bush wing of the Republican Party.
Each has their individual quirks. Barack destroys international order and the rule of law while dabbling at song; Bill dismantled the U.S. manufacturing base and threw record numbers of Blacks in prison as he toyed with his trumpet; George W. played the fool who would Shock and Awe the world into obedience; and Hillary is the evil crone that curses the dead while screaming “We are Woman” like a banshee. But they are all the same in their corporate soullessness.
They all lie for a living, and they live to lie. Hillary Clinton commingled official and personal criminality through the medium of email. Knowing that, in a life dedicated to crime, she could never successfully sequester her private and public conspiracies, Hillary privatized all of her email correspondence during her tenure as Obama’s Secretary of State (in the perfect spirit of neoliberalism). The fate of millions of Haitians whose country’s earthquake and development “aid” are under the Clinton family thumb were doubtless bundled into the tens of thousands of messages she erased on leaving Foggy Bottom.
Republicans have harassed her ever since, seeking an electronic smoking gun to show Clinton’s cowardice or lack of resolve to “stand up for America” and “our troops” or some other nonsense. What the Benghazi affair actually proves is that the Obama administration was just as intent as the Republicans to maintain the fiction that the “rebels” put in power by seven months of NATO bombing of Libya were not various flavors of Islamic jihadists – some of whom were already turning on their erstwhile masters. The U.S.-Saudi project to create and nurture the international jihadist network is a bipartisan venture that dates back to Jimmy Carter’s presidency – and, therefore, nothing for Democrats and Republicans to fight about. However, the GOP’s churning of Clinton’s emails does provide a glimpse into her quest to run for president in 2016 as the woman who vanquished Muammar Gaddafi (“Qaddafi” or simply “Q” in Clinton’s usage).
A number of Clinton’s correspondences were with Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton family spin-master who wrote nasty things about Barack Obama while working for Hillary’s 2008 presidential campaign – which made it impossible for her to hire him at the State Department. Nevertheless, Clinton needed his talents for hype for the campaign ahead. Their emails in the summer of 2011 discussed how Hillary’s status as stateswoman could soar when the Libyan leader was finally eliminated. “This is a historic moment and you will be credited for realizing it,” wrote Blumenthal, feeding the crone’s huge gizzard of ego, according to an article in Monday’s New York Times. “You must go on camera,” wrote Blumenthal. “You must establish yourself in the historical record at this moment.” Hillary was anxious to seize the time to establish what Blumenthal described as “the Clinton Doctrine.”
The Times piece somehow concludes that Obama stole Clinton’s thunder with an 1,100-word speech, in late August, declaring: “The Gaddafi regime is coming to an end, and the future of Libya is in the hands of its people.” But Hillary best expressed the ghoulishness of America’s ruling duopoly two months later, in October, when Gaddafi was savagely butchered by screaming jihadists. “We came, we saw, he died,” cackled the banshee.
In the annals of global diplomacy, no more vulgar words have been spoken by a major power foreign minister or head of state. Yet, Clinton’s calculated quip perfectly encapsulates the bloodlust that is the common characteristic of both the governing duopoly of the United States and their suckling children in ISIS and the other proliferating al Qaida factions.
Thanks to Seymour Hersh, we now have a much more plausible scenario for the May 2, 2011, demise of Osama bin Laden, the “OG” of the U.S.-Saudi spawned global jihad, whose body will never be located. Virtually the entire U.S. account of his death is a lie, repeatedly contradicted on its own terms – another layer of fictional Americana in the age of empire in decline.
Clinton was hard-pressed to imagine how she might trump the president’s bin Laden death-watch extravaganza. Her opportunity came five months later, when she delivered her gruesome paraphrase of Julius Caesar on the occasion of Col. Gaddafi’s murder. In the context of Washington’s deeply racist foreign policy, Gaddafi and bin Laden were equally deserving of death, although Gaddafi was among the most fervent and effective fighters against Islamic jihadists: his government was the first in the world to request a global arrest warrant against bin Laden.
The Libyan Islamists were quickly transferred to the new U.S.-NATO-Saudi-Qatari front lines in Syria. The CIA station in Benghazi was at the center of the action – and got burned in the wild and unwieldy process of herding jihadists, who find it difficult to take orders from “infidels,” even when the “Crusaders” are paying the bills and supplying the weapons.
The U.S. consulate and CIA station in Benghazi were attacked on September 11, 2012. The next day, the Pentagon’s intelligence agency issued a report predicting that a “Salafist principality” – another term for an Islamic State – would likely arise in Syria as a result of the war, and that “Western countries, the Gulf States and Turkey are supporting these efforts.” Moreover, the establishment of such an Islamic “principality” would create “the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al Qaida in Iraq, which became ISIS, ISIL and the Islamic State] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi” in Iraq – events that have since transpired.
The Defense Intelligence Agency report didn’t say so, but the “Western Powers” included the United States, through its CIA.
The document was declassified this year as the result of a suit by a libertarian right-wing legal outfit. The people of the world continue to be fed the fiction that the U.S. is engaged in a long, twilight struggle against al Qaida Salafists whose international network was created by, and continues to benefit from, “Western countries, the Gulf States and Turkey.”
However, the 2012 Pentagon warning about the rise of an Islamic State may have had some effect on U.S. policy in Syria. One year later, in September of 2013, President Obama backed off from his threat to bomb Syria in “retaliation” for a chemical missile attack against civilians – a crime much more likely committed by western-backed Salafists. The conventional wisdom is that the Russians tricked a hapless Secretary of State John Kerry into agreeing to the peaceful, internationally supervised destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal; or that the refusal of Britain’s Parliament to go along with an air assault on Syria made the U.S. position untenable; or that Obama feared losing a vote on the issue in the U.S. Congress. None of this rings true to me. The United States is not easily deterred by the opinions of Europeans, who in the end accept Washington’s acts as a fait accompli. And, it was not clear that Obama would have lost the vote in Congress – a vote that he requested, while at the same time declaring that he did not need the legislature’s permission to “punish” Syria for crossing his “red line.”
I think that high Pentagon officials and elements of the Obama administration – probably including the president, himself – took the Benghazi disaster and the Defense Intelligence Agency report to heart, and decided that it was better to keep bleeding the Syrians and their Russian, Lebanese and Iranian allies through a prolonged war, than to bomb al Qaida into power. For the U.S., regional chaos is preferable to the triumph of the, ultimately, unmanageable Salafists – unchained.
The thirty-plus year war against Iran would, however, be ratcheted up. The Bush administration was snatched back from the brink of a military assault against Teheran in 2007 when – to the great consternation of Vice President Dick Cheney – all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies declared, publicly and unanimously, that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program, years before.
The spooks reaffirmed their consensus in the 2010 National Intelligence Estimate – again, that there was no evidence Iran has any intention of making a bomb. The Obama administration has since avoided asking the intelligence agencies for their analysis on the issue, knowing they would get the same answer. Instead, they rely on Israeli propaganda, pick and choose various “experts” from inside and outside the arms control “community,” or simply put forward unsupported statements on Iran’s capabilities and intentions: the Big Lie. While Bush was humiliated by facts supplied by his own intelligence experts, Obama has escalated the confrontation with Iran, applying crippling sanctions and the whole range of low-level warfare, in close collaboration with Israel – proving, once again, that Obama is the “more effective evil.”
Obama has nearly completed knocking off victims on the “hit list” of countries that George Bush was working on when General Wesley Clark ran across it in 2002. Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Somalia have been invaded since then, and Sudan was stripped of a third of its territory. Only Iran and Lebanon remain intact and outside the U.S. imperial umbrella.
The Republican-Democratic duopoly plays tag-team in promoting the Project for a New American Century – a doctrine promulgated by neo-conservatives in 1997 that has served as the guiding light of both the Bush and Obama administrations. The differences between the two teams are merely rhetorical. The Bush regime is described as “unilateralist,” although it employed the same “Coalition of the Willing” approach to aggressive war as does the Obama administration. President Obama claims the right to disregard and methodically undermine international law through “humanitarian” military intervention, whereas Bush claimed to be “spreading democracy.” Same weapons systems, same mass murder, same objective: U.S. domination of the planet.
There’s nothing democratic or humanitarian about the U.S. imperial project. Therefore, its maintenance requires the deployment of 24-7 psychological operations worldwide, but directed primarily against the U.S. public.
Republican strategist Karl Rove was far more honest than his Democratic counterparts when he explained to a reporter, back in 2004:
We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
Election seasons are reality-creation festivals, during which the two corporate parties pretend to put forward different visions of the national and global destiny – when, in fact, they answer to the same master and must pursue the same general strategy.
The continuity of GOP-Democratic rule – the near-identical depravity – is horrifically evident in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where six million people have been slaughtered by U.S. surrogates since 1996: the largest genocide since World War II. Successive U.S. administrations – Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, assisted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, the high U.S. official most deeply implicated in the entirety of the genocide – have armed, financed, and covered up the Congolese holocaust. Each administration has collaborated with its predecessor to hide the crime and obscure the question of guilt – and then to continue the killing.
Decent people do not vote for political parties that produce such fiends, who deserve Nuremburg justice of the capital kind. Any talk of “lesser evils” is both stupid and obscene.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Aletho News 