Luis Posada Carriles, the most notorious and wanted terrorist in the Western Hemisphere — but one few Americans have ever heard of — has died a free man in Miami at age 90.
The Miami Herald reports Posada Carriles died peacefully in his sleep in a Hollywood, Florida hospital early on May 23 following a lengthy battle with throat cancer.
At the time of his death, Posada Carriles, a staunchly militant anti-Castro Cuban exile and former longtime CIA agent, was wanted by authorities in Cuba and Venezuela for his leading role in masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban commercial airliner over the Caribbean, an attack that killed 73 innocent people. He is also wanted for orchestrating a string of terror attacks on Cuban hotels and for repeatedly plotting to assassinate the late Cuban president Fidel Castro.
Posada Carriles and Castro were actually acquaintances during their pre-revolution college years at the University of Havana. Both equally despised the brutal US-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. However, after Castro’s revolution overthrew the Batista regime Posada Carriles was briefly jailed before fleeing his homeland for Argentina, then the United States.
When the John F. Kennedy administration decided to wage covert warfare against Castro’s Cuba, Posada Carriles was one of the young CIA-trained exiles who planned the ill-fated 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Following that colossal embarrassment, he received explosives and sabotage training at Ft. Benning, Georgia during a period of rising US support for anti-Castro terrorism, crimes which included a rocket attackon the United Nations in a failed bid to assassinate Che Guevara.
The CIA set up a stationat University of Miami, where agents plotted to kill or overthrow Castro and where operatives planned and launched countless terror and sabotage missions. Militantly anti-communist exile groups trained and operatedthroughout South Florida, with secret camps popping up in the Everglades. In the 1970s, a wave of bombings, assassinations and other attacks on pro-Castro exiles in South Florida and far beyond earned Miami the FBI nickname of America’s “terrorist capital.”
Posada Carriles would later boast that “the CIA taught us everything… they taught us explosives, how to kill, bomb, trained us in sabotage.”
He would put all of those deadly skills to use while planning, along with fellow anti-Castro exile Orlando Bosch, the brazen broad daylight car bombing assassinationof former Chilean minister Orlando Letelier in Washington, DC on September 21, 1976. Letelier’s newlywed American aide, Ronni Moffit, was also killed in the attack.
The following month, Posada Carriles and Bosch planned the bombing of Cubana Airlines Flight 455, which killed 73 civiliansincluding Cuba’s junior Olympic fencing team. It was the worst act of airborne terrorism in the Western Hemisphere until the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The CIA, under its new director George H. W. Bush, knewas early as June 1976 that Cuban exiles were plotting to blow up a Cubana airliner, but did nothing.
Police in Barbados arrested two Venezuelan operatives in connection with the bombing of Flight 455. They confessed and implicated Posada Carriles and Bosch as planners of the attack. The Cubans were arrested, tried and acquitted in a military court but civil authorities planned to retry them and they remained behind bars. Although they were acquitted in 1987, secret US government documents have since proventhe US knew Posada Carriles and Bosch were behind the bombing.
Posada Carriles didn’t wait around to learn his fate. He escaped from prison in 1985 and made his way to El Salvador where, under the alias Ramon Medina, he worked for Col. Oliver North on the Reagan administration’s illegal arming of the terrorist Contra army in Nicaragua.
In the late 1990s, Posada Carriles was behind a string of hotel bombings in Cuba, including one in 1997 that killedan Italian tourist. He later explained that his goal was to cripple the socialist economy’s burgeoning tourism industry to deprive the Castro regime of desperately needed hard currency. Posada Carriles boastedthat he “slept like a baby” after the bombings and brushed off their grisly results. “That Italian was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.
Over 40 bombings in Honduras were also attributed to Posada Carriles during the 1990s. In 2000, Cuban intelligence agents foiled a plot by him and others to bomb a Panamanian university during a visit by Fidel Castro. Posada Carriles was convicted and jailed. However, then-Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso, a close ally of the George W. Bush administration, pardoned the terrorist before leaving office. Panama’s Supreme Court later overturnedwhat it ruled an unconstitutional pardon.
Posada Carriles illegally entered the United States in 2005, returning to a hero’s welcome in Miami, a city that once celebratedOrlando Bosch Day to honor his co-conspirator. He sought asylum but was instead arrested for entering the country illegally. Although the Justice Department called him“an unrepentant criminal and admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks,” a federal judge recommended that he be released.
Incredibly, he was freed. Posada Carriles settled in Miami, where he found work as an artist. He also made frequent radio and television appearances, and once sat in the front row with Orlando Bosch at a speech by President George W. Bush, whose family is closely connected with some of the most notorious anti-Castro terrorists.
In April 2011, Posada Carriles was acquittedof immigration-related charges in a Texas court. Although he was accused of lying about his role in the deadly 1997 Cuba hotel bombing, he was never indicted for that or any other attack, even after his confessions. Critics blasted the United States for fighting a global war on terrorism, replete with threats and worse to attack countries that aid and abet terrorists, while harboring the hemisphere’s most wanted terrorists — and many otherslike them.
While many of Miami’s Cuban exiles, especially the older ones, are mourning Posada Carriles’ passing, his death was greeted with cheers throughout Cuba and much of Latin America. The Miami-based exile radio station La Poderosa hailed him as “a leader of liberty and justice… a man of real dignity,” while Cuban state media lamentedthat the “bin Laden of the West” died “without paying his debts to justice.”
One man’s terrorist may very well be another’s freedom fighter, but Luis Posada Carriles’ fight for “freedom” — which often included doing dirty, deadly work for some of the world’s worst human rights violators — claimed the lives of too many innocent men, women and children to be called anything but terrorism.
Brett Wilkins is editor-at-large for US news at Digital Journal.
The prohibition on the use of force by one state against another is one of the most fundamental principles of international law. It is set out in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which states:
“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state … .”
The UN Charter recognises two exceptions to this fundamental prohibition on the use of force. The first is the right of self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter in the face of an armed attack. The other exception is if the use of force has been authorised by the Security Council under Article 42 in Chapter VII of the Charter.
The use of force in any other circumstance constitutes aggression contrary to Article 2.4 of the UN Charter.
On 14 April 2018, the UK engaged in military action against Syria in alliance with the US and France. Together, they fired 105 missiles against targets in Syria. This action was not carried out in self-defence in response to Syrian aggression, nor was it authorised by the Security Council. So, it constitutes aggression against Syria contrary to Article 2.4 of the UN Charter.
Oliver Miles: Is it legal?
Lest there be any doubt about this, here’s what former UK Ambassador Oliver Miles had to say about the action shortly after it took place:
“Before launching an operation of this kind, you have to pass three tests. The first test is: is it legal? The second is: is it effective? And the third test is: what are the political consequences?
“It fails on the first test, because I don’t think it’s legal. I think that the Prime Minister and the Government, and the other Governments concerned, have failed to address [the fact] that the Charter of the United Nations is very clear that military action of this kind can only be undertaken in two circumstances, either in self-defence, which clearly this was not, or with the authority of the Security Council, which they did not have.
“The Government, and the other Governments concerned, have stressed very rightly the importance of strengthening the taboo on use of chemical weapons, but the trouble is that in pursuing that objective they’ve weakened the intermission – the ban – on aggressive war.”
President Putin was not wrong when he described the airstrikes on Syria by the US, UK and France as: “an act of aggression against a sovereign state … without a mandate from the UN Security Council and in violation of the UN Charter and norms and principles of international law”.
This aggression was supported by the EU. Since EU foreign policy decisions require unanimity amongst EU members, this means that all 28 EU states support a fundamental breach of the UN Charter by the US and two of its own members.
May justifies use of force
Prime Minister May justified this use of force on humanitarian grounds in a statement on 14 April. It was taken, she said, in response to the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Government in Douma on 7 April 2018, which killed “up to 75” civilians. Its purpose was to “protect innocent people in Syria from the horrific deaths and casualties caused by chemical weapons” and, to that end, it consisted of “targeted strikes to degrade the Syrian Regime’s chemical weapons capability and deter their use” in future.
The Government published a paper Syria action – UK government legal position, which attempted to argue that this use of force was legal under international law. It asserted that:
“The UK is permitted under international law, on an exceptional basis, to take measures in order to alleviate overwhelming humanitarian suffering.”
Understandably, the paper made no mention whatsoever of the UN Charter, since there is no provision in the UN Charter which permits military action on humanitarian grounds without specific authorisation by the Security Council. Without that, military action against another state is aggression in breach of the UN Charter unless it is taken in self-defence.
Russia seeking to undermine “the international rules-based system”?
In recent years, the accusation that Russia is seeking to undermine “the international rules-based system” has become a mantra for the British Government and its supporters. For example, in the wake of the nerve gas attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Prime Minister May told the House of Commons on 26 March 2018:
“This act against our country is the latest in a pattern of increasingly aggressive Russian behaviour, attacking the international rules-based system across our continent and beyond.”
The Prime Minister didn’t make clear what she means by “the international rules-based system”, but the UN system, and the rules specified in the UN Charter, must be at the heart of it. It is ironic therefore that a few weeks later Britain should drive a cart and horses through the UN Charter by taking military action without Security Council authorisation against a sovereign state that hasn’t attacked it.
The Russian veto
The Prime Minister inferred that efforts to sanction Syria in any other way for its alleged use of chemical weapons were “repeatedly thwarted” by Russia applying, or threating to apply, its veto in the Security Council.
Like it or like it not, the “international rules-based system” involves Russia having a veto in the Security Council, along with the other four permanent members: China, France, the UK and the US (see Articles 23 and 27 of the UN Charter). Russia’s status as a veto-wielding permanent member is a reflection of its outstanding contribution to the defeat of fascism in Europe in WWII.
What is more, it is impossible to take the veto away from Russia, or any of the other permanent members – because amending the UN Charter requires the support of all five permanent members (see Article 108 of the UN Charter).
So, in practice defending the “international rules-based system” involves accepting that Russia will always have a veto on the Security Council, the body which, according to Article 24 of the UN Charter, has “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”.
It is not insignificant that each of the three states which took military action against Syria on 14 April have a veto in the Security Council. They are in a position to engage in aggression against other states,as and when they like, without fear of being sanctioned by the Council for doing so, since they can veto any resolution critical of them proposed in the Council.
Did a chemical weapons attack take place?
But, did a chemical weapons attack actually take place in Douma on 7 April? All the Prime Minister has to say about the alleged attack in her statement of 14 April is that “a significant body of information including intelligence indicates the Syrian Regime is responsible for this latest attack”. This “indication” of the Syrian Government’s responsibility was sufficient for the Prime Minister to authorise the use of force and to put it into effect. For reasons that can only be guessed at, the execution couldn’t be delayed to give the OPCW inspectors (who were already on the ground in Damascus) sufficient time to gather information and make a judgment about what actually happened in Douma.
Did the Syrian Government really mount such a chemical weapons attack against civilians at this time when it is coming close to defeating the armed opposition? Such an attack was absolutely certain to provoke a military response from President Trump, since an alleged attack a year ago at Khan Sheikhoun had done so.
On that occasion, President Trump authorised the firing of 59 cruise missiles at a single target, namely, the Syrian air base from which the attack was said to have been launched. Damage to Syria’s military capabilities was limited. However, another chemical weapons attack was likely to lead to a more extensive US onslaught against Syria’s military infrastructure, which might undermine the Syria Government’s ability to finally defeat the armed opposition.
Why on earth would President Assad risk that outcome by using chemical weapons against civilians in an attack of little or no military value?
Lord West has doubts
As Lord West, former First Sea Lord and Chief of Defence Intelligence, pointed out in a BBC interview on 16 April:
“President Assad is in the process of winning this civil war. And he was about to take over and occupy Douma, all that area. He’d had a long, long, hard slog, slowly capturing that whole area of the city. And then, just before he goes in and takes it all over, apparently he decides to have a chemical attack. It just doesn’t ring true.
“It seems extraordinary, because clearly he would know that there’s likely to be a response from the allies – what benefit is there for his military? Most of the rebel fighters, this disparate group of Islamists, had withdrawn; there were a few women and children left around. What benefit was there militarily in doing what he did? I find that extraordinary. Whereas we know that, in the past, some of the Islamic groups have used chemicals [see here], and of course there would be huge benefit in them labelling an attack as coming from Assad, because they would guess, quite rightly, that there’d be a response from the US, as there was last time, and possibly from the UK and France …”
Little more than a gesture
In fact, the military response from the US, UK and France turned out to be little more than a gesture. This was because the US military accepted that missile strikes against military targets that might lead to Russian casualties had to be avoided, lest the Russians respond by striking the sources of the missiles, as they had warned in advance they might do. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explained afterwards, the US military was informed “where [the Russian] red lines are, including red lines on the ground, geographically” and “the results show that they did not cross these red lines”.
So, instead of striking significant military targets, three sites associated in the past with Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities were chosen – a research centre in Barzeh near Damascus and two weapons storage centres near Homs. On the face of it, this choice was appropriate given that the military action was, in the Prime Minister’s words, “to degrade the Syrian Regime’s chemical weapons capability”. But would these sites have been attacked if it was really thought that significant quantities of chemical weapons were stored there, given the risk to civilians nearby from toxic chemicals?
Syria became a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention on 14 October 2013 and, as required by the Convention formally agreed to destroy its chemical weapons stocks and production facilities. On 4 January 2016, the OPCW announced that all chemical weapons declared to it by Syria had been destroyed.
If Syria did not declare all its stocks to the OPCW (as the US and its allies claim), then it is highly unlikely that the undeclared stocks would be kept in known storage sites and be open to destruction from the air. A few months earlier, on 22 November 2017, the OPCW inspected the Barzeh site and didn’t discover any banned chemicals or “observe any activities inconsistent with obligations under the Convention”. Likely, the US and its co-aggressors didn’t expect to destroy any chemical weapons at these sites – there have been no reports that they did – but it made sense to target these sites in order to put a humanitarian face on the aggression.
Mainstream media turn a blind eye
The mainstream media in Britain have, almost without exception, accepted without question the Government’s narrative that the Syrian Government used chemical weapons against civilians in Douma on 7 April – and they have turned a blind eye to the growing body of evidence which suggests that there wasn’t a chemical weapons attack at all, which the Syrian and Russian Governments have claimed from the outset.
Remarkably few Western journalists have visited Douma to see for themselves. An exception to this was Robert Fisk, who has reported from the Middle East for over forty years (and is an Arabic speaker). Here is an extract from his account published in the Independent on 17 April of his conversation with Dr Assim Rahaibani, a senior doctor in the clinic where victims of the alleged chemical attack were brought for treatment. Dr Rahaibani told Fisk what had happened on that occasion:
“I was with my family in the basement of my home three hundred metres from here on the night but all the doctors know what happened. There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night – but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a ‘White Helmet’, shouted “Gas!”, and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia – not gas poisoning.”
Fisk walked freely around Douma talking to people he met but he encountered nobody who knew of a “gas” attack on 7 April. An American journalist, Pearson Sharp, from the One America News Network, had a similar experience: on 16 April he reported:
“Not one of the people that I spoke to in that neighbourhood said that they had seen anything, or heard anything, about a chemical attack on that day… they didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary.”
Russia Today has broadcast several interviews with paramedics from the clinic and with an 11-year old boy describing how he was roped into the making of the video by the White Helmets (see Interview with boy in Douma video raises more doubts over ‘chem attack’, 19 April). It has also broadcast the proceedings of a news conference organised at The Hague by the Russian Ambassador to the OPCW, when 17 doctors and paramedics, brought from Syria by Russia, testified to a complete absence of chemical weapons or victims at the clinic (see No attack, no victims, no chem weapons: Douma witnesses speak at OPCW briefing at The Hague, 26 April).
This evidence from Robert Fisk and Pearson Sharp, together with the witness testimony broadcast by Russia Today, is close to definitive proof that there was no chemical weapons attack in Douma on 7 April.
David Morrison is the co-author of “A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran” (published by Elliott & Thompson, 2013). He has written many articles on the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Fathi Harb should have had something to live for, not least the imminent arrival of a new baby. But last week the 21-year-old extinguished his life in an inferno of flames in central Gaza.
It is believed to be the first example of a public act of self-immolation in the enclave. Harb doused himself in petrol and set himself alight on a street in Gaza City shortly before dawn prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.
In part, Harb was driven to this terrible act of self-destruction out of despair.
After a savage, decade-long Israeli blockade by land, sea and air, Gaza is like a car running on fumes. The United Nations has repeatedly warned that the enclave will be uninhabitable within a few years.
Over that same decade, Israel has intermittently pounded Gaza into ruins, in line with the Israeli army’s Dahiya doctrine. The goal is to decimate the targeted area, turning life back to the Stone Age so that the population is too preoccupied with making ends meet to care about the struggle for freedom.
Both of these kinds of assault have had a devastating impact on inhabitants’ psychological health.
Harb would have barely remembered a time before Gaza was an open-air prison and one where a 1,000kg Israeli bomb might land near his home.
In an enclave where two-thirds of young men are unemployed, he had no hope of finding work. He could not afford a home for his young family and he was about to have another mouth to feed.
Doubtless, all of this contributed to his decision to burn himself to death.
But self-immolation is more than suicide. That can be done quietly, out of sight, less gruesomely. In fact, figures suggest that suicide rates in Gaza have rocketed in recent years.
But public self-immolation is associated with protest.
A Buddhist monk famously turned himself into a human fireball in Vietnam in 1963 in protest at the persecution of his co-religionists. Tibetans have used self-immolation to highlight Chinese oppression, Indians to decry the caste system, and Poles, Ukrainians and Czechs once used it to protest Soviet rule.
But more likely for Harb, the model was Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire in late 2010 after officials humiliated him once too often. His public death triggered a wave of protests across the Middle East that became the Arab Spring.
Bouazizi’s self-immolation suggests its power to set our consciences on fire. It is the ultimate act of individual self-sacrifice, one that is entirely non-violent except to the victim himself, performed altruistically in a greater, collective cause.
Who did Harb hope to speak to with his shocking act?
In part, according to his family, he was angry with the Palestinian leadership. His family was trapped in the unresolved feud between Gaza’s rulers, Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. That dispute has led the PA to cut the salaries of its workers in Gaza, including Harb’s father.
But Harb undoubtedly had a larger audience in mind too.
Until a few years ago, Hamas regularly fired rockets out of the enclave in a struggle both to end Israel’s continuing colonisation of Palestinian land and to liberate the people of Gaza from their Israeli-made prison.
But the world rejected the Palestinians’ right to resist violently and condemned Hamas as “terrorists”. Israel’s series of military rampages in Gaza to silence Hamas were meekly criticised in the West as “disproportionate”.
The Palestinians of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where there is still direct contact with Israeli Jews, usually as settlers or soldiers, watched as Gaza’s armed resistance failed to prick the world’s conscience.
So some took up the struggle as individuals, targeting Israelis or soldiers at checkpoints. They grabbed a kitchen knife to attack Israelis or soldiers at checkpoints, or rammed them with a car, bus or bulldozer.
Again, the world sided with Israel. Resistance was not only futile, it was denounced as illegitimate.
Since late March, the struggle for liberation has shifted back to Gaza. Tens of thousands of unarmed Palestinians have massed weekly close to Israel’s fence encaging them.
The protests are intended as confrontational civil disobedience, a cry to the world for help and a reminder that Palestinians are being slowly choked to death.
Israel has responded repeatedly by spraying the demonstrators with live ammunition, seriously wounding many thousands and killing more than 100. Yet again, the world has remained largely impassive.
In fact, worse still, the demonstrators have been cast as Hamas stooges. The United States ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, blamed the victims under occupation, saying Israel had a right to “defend its border”, while the British government claimed the protests were “hijacked by terrorists”.
None of this can have passed Harb by.
When Palestinians are told they can “protest peacefully”, western governments mean quietly, in ways that Israel can ignore, in ways that will not trouble consciences or require any action.
In Gaza, the Israeli army is renewing the Dahiya doctrine, this time by shattering thousands of Palestinian bodies rather than infrastructure.
Harb understood only too well the West’s hypocrisy in denying Palestinians any right to meaningfully resist Israel’s campaign of destruction.
The flames that engulfed him were intended also to consume us with guilt and shame. And doubtless more in Gaza will follow his example.
Will Harb be proved right? Can the West be shamed into action?
Or will we continue blaming the victims to excuse our complicity in seven decades of outrages committed against the Palestinian people?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he doesn’t believe Sirhan B. Sirhan, the 24-year-old Palestinian man convicted of killing his father Bobby Kennedy in 1968, had carried out the assassination and believes a second shooter did it.
In an interview with The Washington Post published this weekend, Kennedy said he had spent months reviewing autopsy results, police reports and interviewed witnesses who were there when his father was gunned down on June 6, 1968 in Los Angeles, California.
He told the newspaper that he also met 74-year-old Sirhan incarcerated in the massive Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, a California state prison complex in the desert outside San Diego.
“I went there because I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence,” said Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and the third oldest of his father’s 11 children. “I was disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father. My father was the chief law enforcement officer in this country. I think it would have disturbed him if somebody was put in jail for a crime they didn’t commit.”
He said that after his research and his meeting with Sirhan after all this he found out that he did not kill his father, but there was a second gunman who carried out the assassination.
Kennedy, now 64, was just 14 when he lost his father. He said he doesn’t know if his involvement in the case will change anything, but he wants a reinvestigation of the assassination.
Bobby Kennedy served as a Democratic senator for New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968, when he was a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
He was assassinated five years after his brother, President John F. Kennedy, was gunned down in Dallas, Texas, and two months after civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, Tennessee.
The President’s Commission on the Assassination of Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established by former President Lyndon B. Johnson in November 1963 to investigate the assassination of JFK.
The commission’s final report concluded that former US Marine Lee Harvey Oswald acted entirely alone in assassinating the president.
However, many independent researchers, including American writer and journalist Stephen Lendman, are unconvinced by the official government account and argue that Oswald was part of a conspiracy to kill the charismatic 46-year-old president.
They believe the CIA murdered President Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.
“Sirhan Sirhan is still alive, in prison. He had nothing to do with the killing of Bobby Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing to do with the killing of Jack Kennedy. The CIA killed Jack Kennedy,” Lendman told Press TV in October last year, referring to the 35th president of the United States.
“And Kennedy was not shot twice from behind as the official report said. He was shot at least four times, from the front and from the back. And there was a bullet hole in the windshield of his limousine, and that was covered up, rather poorly, but it was covered up,” he noted.
Lendman said that Oswald “was set up” and then “he was assassinated. He was assassinated by Jack Ruby, who was eliminated also.”
“And the moral of that story is: ‘dead men tell no tales,’” he observed.
Speech of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayed Hassan Nasrallah on May 14, 2018, commemorating the second anniversary of the death of Hezbollah Commander Sayed Moustafa Badreddine.
Transcript:
[…] (Finally), Palestine, (the most) important question —I will be brief because everything we said before had to do with Palestine. Tomorrow (May 15) is the 70th anniversary of the Nakba (‘catastrophe’, designating the forced exile of Palestinians in 1948), the Nakba of Palestine, or rather the Nakba of Arabs, Muslims and the (Muslim) Community, and even the Nakba of humanity. What happened 70 years ago and has continued for 70 years is a badge of shame (branded with a hot iron) in History and on the forehead of all mankind, of all States and world leaders, as well as all international organizations in the world. And it continues to this very day: what is happening today in Gaza —tens of martyrs, over a thousand injured— is a continuation of what happened 70 years ago.
The Palestinians, for 70 years, did not abandon their cause. They may have differed on some choices, but none of them has accepted that the Palestinian cause is liquidated or definitively closed, regardless of the minimum (1967 borders), median (1948 borders) and maximum (historic Palestine) terms. And their struggle, their fight, their sacrifices and martyrs have continued until what happens today.
Today we are also facing a great and very dangerous challenge to the Palestinian cause, of which I will talk briefly, ie what is known as (Trump’s) (definitively settling the Palestinian issue), and according to some information —I do not have specific insight about it, but that’s what can be read in the media—, Trump will announce in May, in the last remaining two weeks, he will officially announce this Deal. And the US project to solve the Palestinian issue is this, points 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (which I’m going to detail).
(What is the position of Trump :) “O Palestinians, O Arabs, O Muslims, if you agree (to the Deal), you’re welcome, come and sign it. If you do not agree, so long (we have nothing more to say), and we will still impose it on you.” Because I forgot something in the first part (of my speech) about the consequences (of the American withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal), it’s not only that (Trump and the United States) do not respect (the agreements nor the world) but they take (unilateral) decisions that favor their interests and just impose them (forcefully) to the world. And those who do not give in, they subject them to sanctions, even if they are their allies. They are not going to propose a settlement (of the conflict), but they will announce it (as a fait accompli). If you accept it, you’re welcome. And if you refuse it, they will wage war against you, inflict sanctions on you, impose it to you (by force). Such is the danger facing the Palestinian cause these days.
It started with the recognition of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) as the capital of Israel, and now it’s done, despite the fact that Trump had promised the Arab (leaders) it would take two or three years and that there was time before its implementation. But no, they chose a modest place of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and rushed to move their embassy (for the inauguration) today.
Well, what is this project, a clear, known project about which nothing is hidden?
1 / No Quds (Jerusalem), neither East nor West (for Palestine), it will not even be a matter of discussion. And what appears of the holy places, is that neither what is on the surface, nor what is underground (will be given to the Palestinians). No Quds (Jerusalem). Al-Quds is the eternal capital of Israel. If a Muslim wants to go to the Al-Aqsa Mosque (the third holiest site in Islam), or if a Christian wants to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, he has to ask Netanyahu. That’s the first point. This is definitely settled for Trump, he announced it.
2 / No return of Palestinian refugees. Nothing at all. Now they’re wondering what to do at the Sinai (Egyptian desert), whether they will take them there… Palestinian refugees will either take the nationality of the country in which they reside, or be sent to other places. But there shall be no return of refugees (in Palestine).
3 / The Palestinian State will be Gaza. That is all. The State of Historic Palestine, which is two or three times larger than Lebanon, will be limited to Gaza.
4 / As for the Palestinian presence in the West Bank, it will take some form: self-governance, regional autonomy, partly linked to the ‘State’ of Gaza… I do not have details on that.
5 / Treaties of comprehensive peace. And all Arab and Muslim countries will have to stand in rank, recognize Israel, establish relations with Israel, normalize relations with Israel, and those who do not accept will be subject to sanctions, blockade, pressures and plots ready to be implemented.
Such is the “Deal of the century”. What then is the “Deal of the century” (if not that)? That is to say, the liquidation of the Palestinian cause. This means that the Palestinian cause will end this way.
In this context, what should be our position? We must not be content to describe and analyze. Let’s be realistic. Trump is serious in this choice, and things take their natural course. What is happening, and what does it require from us? From us and others, every Muslim, every Arab, every Christian, every worthy man in this region (and in the world).
What is happening now is that there is a process to impose this outcome. The first step in this process, is the (considerable) pressure exerted on Iran. Currently the pressure on Iran is maximal. Perhaps we who are staying in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, are not well aware of this. Today, they are exerting maximum pressure on Iran. They work on finances and on the economy (of Iran), to bring down the Iranian currency, and to undermine the economic situation inside the country, in order to create situations of popular demonstrations against the government and against the regime, and therefore lead Iran to a (completely) different location (domestically and regarding its stance on Palestine). The ultimate pressure on Iran consists in the removal of the nuclear deal, the return of US sanctions and the threat of new sanctions. It is not just the old sanctions but also new sanctions against Iran.
Is it only a nuclear issue? They know very well that there is no military nuclear (program) in Iran. The real reason was stated by Trump himself, I do not even need to make an analysis.
He mentioned:
1 / nuclear weapons, knowing that it is a false (charge);
2 / ballistic missiles (owned by Iran) and the fact that Iran manufactures them;
3 / support from Iran to Hezbollah and Hamas. He said so explicitly. That is to say, to Palestine.
This means: “O Iran, my problem with you is not only the nuclear issue, ballistic missiles, their scope, their manufacture and their number. One of my main problems with you is your support for Resistance movements in the region.” And when Trump speaks of Hamas, in truth, it is not only Hamas. It is he who says ‘Hamas’. But the Islamic Republic stands with the entire Palestinian people and all the Resistance movements in Palestine, and supports all those who believe in the choice of Resistance in Palestine. Such is the (true cause of) the pressure against Iran.
“If you want us to go back to the (nuclear) deal, if you want us to waive the sanctions, to quit putting pressure on you with the conversion rate of your currency to the dollar, if you want us to allow European companies to continue investing in Iran and trade with you (O Iran), then leave Palestine aside, detach yourself from it (and toe the line like the others).” That’s the first point.
Second, the continuing pressure on Syria in order to monopolize and exhaust it. Syria is nearing victory. Soon they will resort yet again to the pretext of chemical weapons to come and threaten, intimidate and bomb, and if there were not some fears (for the USA), they would not content themselves with what they hit (the last time). The US wants to ensure that the Syrian leadership, President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian state, the Syrian Army and the Syrian people continue to be drained in the inner battle, in order to get Syria out of this equation (Palestine).
Third, the continuing pressure on Resistance movements in the region, especially in Lebanon. They had already inflicted banking sanctions on us, and now they threaten us with new sanctions from the Congress, they threaten anyone who has links with Hezbollah, financially, etc., etc. You know the extent of this issue, we have already talked a lot about (in the past).
But what is even more dangerous, and it had been a while that there was no such thing, is that today, every day we hear threats of launching a war against Lebanon, saying that if such and such happens, they will send back Lebanon to the Stone Age, etc., this kind of intimidation. What does it mean? This is part of this process (liquidation of the Palestinian cause), this is a way to say “Watch out you Lebanese, watch out Hezbollah, be reasonable, keep aside. Do not stand in our way by trying to help the Palestinians, give them support, backing and assistance, otherwise you’ll have all kinds of problems.” So there is also the pressure on Lebanon.
And lately, the renewal of the blockade against the Palestinians in Gaza to the point of starvation. Gaza today faces a famine situation. Over time, Gaza gets closer and closer to the situation of the Yemeni people. The situation in Gaza is difficult and (even) terrible at this point. There will come a time when people will not have money to buy food. Already, people have no money to buy food. What does it mean? “Either we bring Gaza into submission and bend its knee by famine, until they fold and sign, either we lead it to an inner explosion.” And the leaders of the Resistance in Gaza acted (very) wisely, because they turned the threats of internal explosion into an opportunity with the March of Return, which will reach its pinnacle tomorrow. But this project and vision (liquidation of the Palestinian cause) are continuing.
It’s the same with the pressure on all Palestinians, on the Palestinian Authority, the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine, inside, outside, with refugees, moral, psychological and financial pressures, blockades, etc. What they ask from the Palestinians today, and we come to the position (required), what they want from the Palestinians today, through the blockade, pressures, famine, their efforts to break them and humiliate them, all this is to obtain their signature. This signature is very expensive, it is (really) expensive.
In addition to all this, in that process, we always find more support from Arab governments and the Gulf for the US-Israeli project of “Deal of the century”. This is also part of this process. And worse, what some Gulf countries do, is two things.
The first thing, which I have already referred to several years ago, is the religious and (Islamic) Law cover, that is to say the religious justification for surrendering to Israel. You see, when Anwar Sadat went to make a peace agreement (with Israel), it was (as) a political State, a secular President who was making peace with Israel. Sadat did not give any religious cover, nor did he invoke Islamic jurisprudence. He did not claim that he was following the will of God, the Prophet, and the Prophet’s companions, no. The most we could hear in the speeches of Anwar Sadat is that he tried to take advantage of a Quranic verse, reciting it in his Egyptian dialect (thus showing a lack of deference to the Quran, which should be recited in an unaltered classical Arabic), “And if they incline to peace, then incline to it [also].” (Quran, 8, 61). End of the story.
King Hussein (of Jordan), when he officially made peace with Israel at (the border post of) Wadi Araba, he did not bring with him the religious organizations claiming that it was the will of God, the Prophet, the family of the Prophet, the Companions, nor, since he is a Hashemite King (descendant of the Prophet), did he claim that it was the will of the Banu Hashim, of his ancestors and forefathers, he did not claim that they accepted this, never. It was (only) a State concluding a peace treaty.
The great misfortune, as I said a few years ago, the great calamity is when Saudi Arabia walks this path. This is the great misfortune. This is the great calamity. Because we will then see the Grand Mufti, the Committee of great scholars, great scholars, jurists, muftis, scholars of hadith, commentators of the Qur’an, as it has already begun, (we will see them justify their surrender to Israel in the name of Islam)…
What have we just seen? It’s Mohammad Bin Salman who said it, but he first spoke with the sheikhs. This is what we heard : “O brothers, O Arabs, O Muslims, you are mistaken! Palestine is for them, O people, it is the Jews who are entitled to it. They are the legitimate owners. This is the land of their fathers and ancestors. And it is God who has given it to them. And the Quran says so.” Look how they want to lead people astray and fool them. “It is the Quran that says that.” And they cite verses from the Quran as evidence.
An imbecile from the Gulf claiming to be a strategic thinker —I saw him on television—, said: “Israel was mentioned 38 times in the Quran, but the word ‘Palestine’ is not mentioned in the Quran. So who is within his rights? Palestine belongs to the Jews. You do not have a say. Enough, give back the land to its rightful owners!”
And now what do we see? Look, now that Saudi Arabia gets (openly) involved, it would be religion, the Quran, History and God’s promise that would have granted (Palestine) to the Jews. And therefore, we Muslims, before 1948, and for hundreds of years, would have usurped Palestine, deprived its rightful owners from it, so we should apologize to them and also compensate them. And Mohammad Bin Salman is ready to pay those compensations. This is what is happening.
In a discussion with an important Sunni scholar, I told him: “If anyone has connections to Saudi Arabia, let him ask them ‘O my brothers, who came to Palestine and freed Al-Quds (Jerusalem), making it enter the great Islamic state? It is the second caliph Omar Ibn al-Khattab (revered by Sunnis). So be careful (with what you say). Who is it that would have ‘occupied’ Palestine (according to you), depriving (the Jews) of their rights (on this land) and would have taken away from them this so-called historic right?” But unfortunately, we have now arrived at a point where (we hear that) it would be their historical right.
I heard one of the important (scholars) in Saudi Arabia declare on TV that we must recognize that just as Mecca is a holy city for Muslims, just as Medina is a holy city and belongs to us, Al-Quds (Jerusalem), the House of Holiness, is a holy city for Jews, and so we should leave it to them, with respect, humility, generosity. This Arab ‘generosity’, which only manifests itself towards the enemy.
This first point is worse (than what was done by Egypt and Jordan).
And the second thing that is worse (than that) is that the Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, are leading the region against an enemy they have fashioned from scratch, and towards a war that they want to push the world to declare, namely against Iran. These governments are willing to pay the United States hundreds of billions of dollars to come and fight a war against Iran, without (any consideration) for Palestine and the Palestinian cause. This is part of the ongoing process.
(What is) the position (we must take)? To be realistic, and benefit from our experience (in Palestine) from 1948 to date, for 70 years, and from our experience in Lebanon.
O Palestinian people, O Lebanese people, O Syrian people, O peoples of the region, O Iranian people —as it is now in the heart of the challenge—, O all the peoples of the region. Pinning one’s hopes on international law, international institutions, international organizations, for any issue whatsoever, is vain, meaningless, empty talk. More than that. Pinning one’s hopes on the Arab regimes, in their great majority, for anything at all, is vain, meaningless, empty talk. I speak from our experience and from the experience of Palestinians. Where to pin our hopes, in short? On the position of our people, the position of some countries and the position of the Resistance movements. This is what brings results, and this is what changes the equation (in our favor). I do not speak to give hope. I only remind what the experiences taught us, that hope is open before us, and in very big way.
Today, a position is needed in two places.
First, with the Palestinians. Currently, it is not necessary that the Palestinians launch a war, or that they launch an armed intifada, or anything like that. This popular uprising expected from them, even if it does not materialize, only one thing is required from them, and that will be enough to dismiss the “Deal of the century”. Of course, now the Palestinians are demonstrating, and they have been demonstrating for weeks, and it destroys and annihilates (completely) the “Deal of the century”.
But there is one basic thing that will prevent the “Deal of the century” to become effective, even if the whole world is unanimous about it, even if a decision of the UN Security Council (recognizes it): that no Palestinian sign it. That neither the President of the Palestinian Authority nor the PLO Chairman, neither Fatah nor Hamas nor (Islamic) Jihad nor anyone signs it. No Palestinian who claims he is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people must sign this agreement. If they do not sign it, this Deal will have no effect whatsoever (it will be null and void).
Israel occupied Palestine, and in addition the Golan, and parts of Lebanon and the Shebaa farms so far —may God make the best out of it—, (but) the cause remained alive, Resistance movements have expanded and have become more powerful and more determined (than ever), and the awareness of the (Muslim) Community grew. As for the Arab leaders, nothing has changed, except that they took off their masks, but their essence and reality have not changed, (treachery) has been their reality for decades.
Therefore, the main position (required), from which derives the second position, is that the Palestinians do not sign. And even if a thousand Trump, a thousand Netanyahu and a thousand Mohammad Bin Salman strove to it, they could never impose on the Palestinian people the liquidation of the Palestinian cause.
And the second place is the Resistance Axis: the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Syrian Arab Republic, Lebanon (Hezbollah), Iraq, Yemen, our peoples in the region, from Bahrain to North Africa, Tunisia, Egypt, etc., etc. The Resistance Axis, with his countries, his parties (movements) and his peoples, must stand firm, enduring, not bow, not bend the knee, not give up, even if it is subjected to sanctions, blockade, even if the price of its currency is brought down, even if the war in Syria and Yemen is extended, even if (its members and supporters) are oppressed and imprisoned. It must remain firmly attached to its rights and yield nothing, and that is all that is required for us to overcome this stage (successfully). And we can overcome this stage.
In 1996, the world met in Sharm el-Sheikh, the whole world, and it was said at the time that the settlement (of the Palestinian cause) was over, that the Palestinian issue was over, and the world had made a final choice. But thanks to the battle that took place in Lebanon and Palestine, and to the endurance of Syria and Iran, (this final settlement) claimed to be “at a distance of but two bow-lengths or (even) nearer” (Qur’an 53: 9), the end of the Palestinian question in 1996, all (this) was shattered, and we are now in 2018.
The current project, as some say —these are not my words, but I borrow them— this project is based on the three vertices of a triangle: Trump, Netanyahu and Mohammad Bin Salman. In all likelihood —in order not to be categorical—, if only one of the three falls, the entire project will fall. Each of these three men, from the standpoint of political realism, (is unstable). Trump is faltering in the US because of the scandals, problems, etc., we do not know where he will lead the world and where he will lead the United States’ domestic situation. Netanyahu also because of the corruption cases which weigh (heavily) on him, and he strives to strengthen his position with political successes to save himself from all the corruption cases. As for Muhammad bin Salman, God knows what is happening in Saudi Arabia (dynastic and personal conflicts, rumors of serious injury and/or assassination attempt, etc.). Anyway, may God make the best happen. After King Salman, we’ll see what happens. None of these three is firm, solid, stable and rooted in his office.
And I add to this that all their projects in the region have fallen and failed, and they vainly wasted their resources, their allies and their instruments. And today, the Resistance Axis is stronger than ever. And after what happened in Syria several days ago, and what is happening today in Gaza, I tell you this: my brothers and sisters, do not listen to all these… Today my heart is stronger on this point. Do not listen to all the Israeli intimidation and war threats, these (claims that) they will achieve and accomplish (such and such things), strike (us) and swoop down on (us), turn our world upside down. In the vast majority, all (these rantings) are, according to me and to others —we talked about it with my brothers(-in-arms) —, I am convinced that these are empty words, vain threats. This Israel, if someone is more afraid to go to war than anyone else in this region, it is Israel. And although, as it is known, terrified people would scream louder, make threats, bomb the torso, show muscles and insult, so that nobody approaches them, but as soon as we approach him, he flees for his life. As soon as one approaches him, he will hide in his hole.
We have very high hopes. We have very high hopes. We have (real) men in Lebanon and throughout the region, similar to the martyr Mustafa Badreddine, the (Hezbollah) martyred commander, courageous, determined and lucid. We have many men like Hajj Imad Moghnieh (Hezbollah martyred commander) among his brothers and comrades in arms. We have scholars, leaders, great (men), personalities, entire generations. And I know our new generation. Our new generation has even more enthusiasm, impulse and preparation for martyrdom. There is no loss or deficit in this regard, despite everything they do (to pervert it): social networks, games, numbness, moral corruption, drugs. Our new generation is stronger than that and stronger than previous generations. That’s why (we are not pessimistic), and we have high hopes. We just have to sustain our efforts, to stand firm and maintain this position. […]
In case you haven’t heard, an Israeli singer by the name of Netta Barzilai won this year’s Eurovision song contest. The win was announced on May 12 and was much celebrated by Israeli officials at the time. A video of the somewhat obese Barzilai doing her winning “chicken dance” performance can be accessed here. The video you see below is a parody of that performance which aired Saturday May 19 on Dutch TV.
The Dutch parody has prompted the usual accusations of anti-Semitism you would expect. Aviv Shir-On, the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, complained that the performance “packages anti-Semitic stereotypes as jokes.” An article, published yesterday at Mondoweiss, quotes Shir-On additionally as saying:
“Freedom of speech, freedom of the press and satire, are important elements of a democratic and pluralistic society, as exists in the Netherlands and Israel. We cherish and respect these principles, yet in that show you went too far.”
Don’t you just love it when Zionists talk about how much they’re in favor of freedom of speech–even as they’re attempting to get laws passed limiting yours. So far as I know, Martine Sandiforte, the Dutch singer doing the parody, hasn’t been arrested for “holocaust denial” yet, but I suppose that’s a possibility that can’t be ruled entirely out.
The timing of all this, of course, probably had a lot to do with the Dutch decision to air such a parody. The Eurovision contest, on May 12, preceded by a scant couple of days the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem and also ran concurrent to the bloody massacres by Israel of Gaza protestors.
Conceivably it may additionally have had something to do with Israel’s destruction of a Dutch project in a Palestinian village in the West Bank just under a year ago. On June 30, 2017, a Dutch news site, the NL Times, reported the following:
Israel demolished a Dutch development project consisting of 96 solar panels and other equipment for supplying power to Palestinian village Jubbet Adh Dhib on the west bank of the Jordan. The Netherlands spent about half a million euros on the project last year. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is furious, AD reports.
Funny how Shir-On, the Israeli ambassador, seems to have omitted any mention of the destruction of the solar panels when he was busy accusing the Dutch TV producers of packaging “anti-Semitic stereotypes as jokes.”
Three cheers for Palestine… and three cheers also for the Dutch. An amusing parody of Israel is a service to humanity.
Featuring Edward Hasbrouck, Journalist, Consumer Advocate, Travel Expert, and Consultant, The Identity Project (PapersPlease.org), Author of the book and blog, The Practical Nomad; and Ginger McCall Director, Open Government Program, Electronic Privacy Information Center; moderated by Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies, Cato Institute. The United States government practices surprisingly comprehensive surveillance of air travel, amassing data about the comings and goings of all Americans who fly. Travel expert Edward Hasbrouck has been researching travel surveillance for many years. His findings reveal a stunning level of government surveillance, control of the traveler, and intrusion into commercial travel IT systems.
Repeat after me: Canada is seldom a force for good in the world, Canada is seldom a force for good in the world.
Thomas Walkom’s “Canada should board Korean peace train” is yet another example of how the progressive end of the dominant media has been seduced by Canadian foreign policy mythology.
The leftist Toronto Star columnist offers an astute analysis of what’s driving rapprochement on the Korean Peninsula. He points out that the two Koreas are moving the process forward and that Pyongyang believes “complete denuclearization” of the Peninsula includes the US forces in the region aiming nuclear weapons at it.
But, Walkom’s column is cloaked in naivety about Canada’s role in the geopolitical hotspot. He ignores the international summit Ottawa and Washington organized in January to promote sanctions on North Korea. In a highly belligerent move, the countries invited to the conference in Vancouver were those that fought against North Korea in the early 1950s conflict. “We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea,” General Curtis LeMay, head of US air command during the fighting, explained three decades later. “Over a period of three years or so, we killed off … twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure.”
(During another dreadful chapter in Korean history Canada supplied war materials to the Japanese army that occupied Korea before World War II.)
Continuing its aggressive diplomatic posture, Chrystia Freeland brought up North Korea at the Munich Security Conference in Germany in February and the next month Canada’s foreign minister agreed with her Japanese counterpart to send a “strong message” to Pyongyang at the upcoming Group of Seven meetings. In a subsequent get together, Freeland and Japanese officials pledged to maintain “maximum pressure” on North Korea. After “welcoming South Korea’s critical role in maintaining diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea” in March, Freeland responded gingerly to Seoul and Pyongyang’s joint announcement last month to seek a formal end to the Korean War and rid the Peninsula of nuclear weapons. “We all need to be careful and not assume anything,” said Freeland.
Walkom also ignores the Canadian Forces currently seeking to blockade North Korea. Three weeks ago Ottawa announced it was a sending a CP-140 Aurora surveillance aircraft and 40 military personnel to a US base in Japan to join British, Australian and US forces monitoring efforts to evade UN sanctions. Earlier in the year a Vancouver Island based submarine was sent across the pond partly to bolster the campaign to isolate North Korea.
Canadians are also part of the UN military mission in Korea. The first non-US general to hold the post since the command was created in 1950, Canadian Lieutenant General Wayne Eyre was recently appointed deputy commander of the UN force stationed there.
(To be fair, Walkom hints at Ottawa’s belligerence, noting that Canada is “still technically at war with North Korea” and is among countries that “traditionally take their cue from the U.S.”)
In my forthcoming book Left, Right — Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada I discuss how leftist intellectuals concede a great deal to the foreign policy establishment’s outlook. Laziness is a simple, though not unimportant, reason why these writers mythologize Canadian foreign policy. Buried amidst a mass of state and corporate generated apologetics, critical information about Canada’s role in the world takes more effort to uncover. And the extra work is often bad for one’s career.
A thorough investigation uncovers information tough to square with the narrow spectrum of opinion permitted in the dominant media. It’s nearly impossible to survive if you say Canadian foreign policy has always been self-serving/elite-driven or that no government has come close to reflecting their self-professed ideals on the international stage. Almost everyone with a substantial platform to comment sees little problem with Canadian power, finding it expedient to assume/imply Canada’s international aims are noble.
Rather than a story titled “Canada should board Korean peace train”, Walkom should have written about how “Canada must step off the belligerence bus”. His conscious or unconscious naivety regarding Canada’s role in Korea is part of a mainstream left trend that partly explains why Canadians overwhelmingly believe this country is a benevolent international actor despite a long history of supporting empire and advancing Canadian corporate interests abroad.
New revelations about Brazilian military violence offer an opportunity to reflect on Canadian support for that country’s 1964 coup and how Ottawa’s policy towards our South American neighbour is similar today.
A spate of international and Brazilian media have reported on a recently uncovered memo from CIA director William Colby to then US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, detailing a meeting between president Ernesto Geisel and three Brazilian generals. At the 1974 meeting the new Brazilian president is reported to have supported extending “summary executions” of enemies of the military dictatorship. An army officer, Geisel ordered National Information Service head João Baptista Figueiredo — who would replace him as president — to authorize the executions.
While it has long been accepted that the military dictatorship was responsible for hundreds of murders — a 2014 national truth commission blamed it for 191 killings and 210 disappearances — military backers have sought to put the blame on lower level officers. But the uncovered memo clearly reveals Geisel, who was considered more moderate than other top military leaders, was directly responsible for some deaths.
Ottawa passively supported the military coup against elected President João Goulart that instituted the 1964–85 military dictatorship. “The Canadian reaction to the military coup of 1964 was careful, polite and allied with American rhetoric,” notes Brazil and Canada in the Americas. Prime Minister Lester Pearson failed to publicly condemn the ouster of Goulart.
Washington played a pivotal role in the overthrow of Brazilian democracy. At one point President Lyndon Johnson urged ambassador Lincoln Gordon to take “every step that we can” to support Goulart’s removal. In a declassified cable between Gordon and Washington, the ambassador acknowledged US involvement in “covert support for pro-democracy street rallies … and encouragement [of] democratic and anti-communist sentiment in Congress, armed forces, friendly labor and student groups, church, and business.”
Washington, Ottawa and leading segments of Brazil’s business community opposed Goulart’s Reformas de Base (basic reforms). Goulart wanted to expand suffrage by giving illiterates and low ranking military officers the vote. He also wanted to put 15% of the national income into education and to implement land reform. To pay for this the government planned to introduce a proportional income tax and greater controls on the profit transfers of multinational corporations.
As important as following Washington’s lead, Pearson’s tacit support for the coup was driven by Canadian corporate interests. Among the biggest firms in Latin America at the time, Brascan was commonly known as the “the Canadian octopus” since its tentacles reached into so many areas of Brazil’s economy. A study of the Toronto-based company that began operating in Brazil in 1899 noted, “[Brazilian Traction’s vice-president Antonio] Gallotti doesn’t hide his participation in the moves and operations that led to the coup d’état against Goulart in 1964.” After the elected government was overthrown, Brazilian Traction president Grant Glassco stated, “the new government of Brazil is … made up of men of proven competence and integrity. The President, Humberto Castello Branco, commands the respect of the entire nation.”
Overthrowing the Goulart government, which had made it more difficult for companies to export profits, was good business. After the 1964 coup the Financial Post noted “the price of Brazilian Traction common shares almost doubled overnight with the change of government from an April 1 low of $1.95 to an April 3 high of $3.60.” Between 1965 and 1974, Brascan drained Brazil of $342 million ($2 billion today). When Brascan’s Canadian president, Robert Winters, was asked why the company’s profits grew so rapidly in the late 1960s his response was simple: “The Revolution.”
As opposition to the Brazilian military regime’s rights violations grew in Canada, Ottawa downplayed the gravity of the human rights situation. In a June 1972 memo to the Canadian embassy, the Director of the Latin American Division at Foreign Affairs stated: “We have, however, done our best to avoid drawing attention to this problem [human rights violations] because we are anxious to build a vigorous and healthy relationship with Brazil. We hope that in the future these unfortunate events and publicity, which damages the Brazilian image in Canada, can be avoided.”
The military dictatorship’s assassination program has contemporary relevance. In 2016 Workers Party President Dilma Rousseff was impeached in a “soft coup” and the social democratic party’s candidate for the upcoming presidential election, Lula da Silva, was recently jailed. The night before the Supreme Court was set to determine Lula’s fate the general in charge of the army hinted at military intervention if the judges ruled in favour of the former president and election frontrunner.
While they’ve made dozens of statements criticizing Venezuela over the past two years, the Justin Trudeau government seems to have remained silent on Rousseff’s ouster, Lula’s imprisonment and persecution of the left. The only comment I found was a Global Affairs official telling Sputnik that Canada would maintain relations with Brazil after Rousseff was impeached. Since that time Canada has begun negotiating to join the Brazilian led MERCOSUR trade block (just after Venezuela was expelled).
As many Brazilians worry about their country returning to military rule, Canadians should demand their government doesn’t contribute to weakening the country’s fragile democracy.
Family planning charities suggest helping poor women “control their fertility” will save as much CO2 as a trillion dollars of investment in low carbon technologies. But provision of family planning wrapped around a higher purpose has a long and ugly history.
Worried About Climate Change? Investing in Reproductive Health Must Be Part of the Solution
Monday, 21st May 2018
Chris Turner
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Since the invention of the contraceptive pill in the 1950’s, access to modern contraception has driven some of the key demographic and social changes in history. It has delivered improved health outcomes for mothers and babies as women are able to wait longer between births or delay having their first child. It created demographic shifts, as populations have fewer dependents and a more productive labour force. It has empowered girls and women to stay in school longer, seek higher education and participate in the formal economy. And now recent research has determined that contraception also has a key role to play in addressing climate change.
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Poverty reduction and strengthening economies
When women can exercise reproductive choice, they are more likely to participate in education and the workforce. In most developing countries, female participation in the formal economy has increased as fertility has fallen. Women’s participation in the economy promotes economic growth and economies that are strong are better able to absorb the disturbances of climate change and recover from climate-related events.
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Women’s participation and leadership
Women’s participation and leadership is important to climate change preparedness, resilience and action. Enabling women to control their bodies and reproductive health can help create opportunities for women to participate, lead and contribute to the conversation.
As a climate change mitigation strategy, family planning programs are also more cost-effective than other conventional, energy-focused solutions. One study found that $220 billion spent on providing family planning to those with an unmet need would reduce 34 gigatons of global carbon emissions, compared to $1 trillion for a similar outcome if spent on low carbon technologies.
Regardless of your position on birth control and abortion, I think we can all feel a sense of unease when efforts to provide “family planning” are offered as part of a larger mission to reduce population, rather than placing the interests of the recipients of the medical aid first.
Provision of birth control to poor people has a long, ugly history. For example, consider this Guardian story about the Bangladesh government’s recent efforts to offer sterilisation services to inconvenient Rohingya refugees displaced by ongoing political turmoil in Burma.
Bangladesh to offer sterilisation to Rohingya in refugee camps
Family planning authorities have asked the government to launch vasectomies and tubectomies for women in Cox’s Bazar, where 1m refugees fight for space.
Bangladesh is planning to introduce voluntary sterilisation in its overcrowded Rohingya camps, where nearly a million refugees are fighting for space, after efforts to encourage birth control failed.
More than 600,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar in August triggered an exodus, straining resources in the impoverished country.
The latest arrivals have joined hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who fled in earlier waves from Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where the stateless Muslim minority has endured decades of persecution.
Most live in desperate conditions with limited access to food, sanitation or health facilities and local officials fear a lack of family planning could stretch resources even further.
…
Many of the refugees told AFP they believed a large family would help them survive in the camps, where access to food and water remains a daily battle and children are often sent out to fetch and carry supplies.
Others had been told contraception was against the tenets of Islam.
Farhana Sultana, a family planning volunteer who works with Rohingya refugees in the camps, said many of the women she spoke to believed birth control was a sin.
“In Rakhine they did not go to family planning clinics, fearing the Myanmar authorities would give medicine that harms them or their children,” Sultana said.
You could reasonably argue that refugee women having 19 children each is unsustainable. But I doubt the first concern of the Bangladeshi authorities is the well-being of the Rohingya. I suspect the Bangladeshi authorities would be overjoyed if the Rohingya refugee problem just quietly disappeared.
Over zealous family planning doesn’t just occur in poor countries. The USA has experienced domestic scandals in the past related to forced sterilisation, and scandals with the practices of organisations like Planned Parenthood, including accusations of medical racism.
My point is I personally have no problem with women having access to the medical services they need to create a better life for themselves and their families. I understand some people likely have different opinions about reproductive issues, what is an is not acceptable, to myself.
But surely we can all agree that mixing family planning with another mission like reducing humanity’s global carbon footprint creates a horrifying risk that the welfare of patients will not be the top priority. There are many ugly historical examples to support this concern.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on May 16th regarding the authorization of a new Authority for the Use of Military Force 2018 (AUMF). Despite a current lack of unanimity on the committee, the draft authorization (SJ Res 59) has been brought forward as a working document despite the lack of successful back-room negotiations in recent weeks. The hearing was conducted with no quorum present, the lack of which denied the sponsors an easy vote of approval.
The AUMF 2018 would replace AUMF’s 2001 and 2002 which proponents suggest would remove the onerous Constitutional responsibility from a self-proclaimed over-burdened Congress from voting to approve every single separate act of war. While final approval of the AUMF 2018 represents a “Forever Vote,” product of a low vibration consciousness, the ACLU, which should be leading a vigorous national campaign against the proposal, appears absent from the debate.
Approval of a one-size-fits-all AUMF will greatly facilitate the Pentagon’s long held desire to ‘take out’ seven countries in five years – although somewhat behind the original timeline, military conflict is ongoing throughout the Middle East and will allow dramatic escalation in each of those countries without meaningful accountability or Constitutional Congressional oversight.
Since the Congress has already exhibited a penchant for an inability to govern, why have a Foreign Relations Committee at all if their single, most essential Constitutional reason for existence of whether to take the country to war is eliminated?
When the draft AUMF 2018 was introduced by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn) retiring Chair of the Committee in mid-April, he suggested that a strong vote in the Committee would translate into strong support on the Senate floor. After all, even members of the Senate are sensitive to not publicly dismembering their own Constitutional prerogative on a close vote.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-SC) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Or) had both previously announced their opposition to AUMF and both spoke at the hearing against the proposal. Sen. Paul opened with a spirited assault on the AUMF as “flipping the Constitution on its head” eliminating the majority vote in favor of a two-thirds vote required to override Presidential action while allowing the unfettered expansion of war throughout the Middle East.
Since the 2001 AUMF, the status quo has reigned with every President initiating war with the assumption that they had the authority to ‘stretch’ the AUMF to fit current circumstances. Paul argued that by codifying Presidential authority as the 2018 version would do, an opportunity for legal challenges to Presidential authority would be removed. Unrestrained war without the pesky need for Congressional participation is, of course, exactly what the pro-war Republicrats who control the Senate and their MIC benefactors are hoping for. As an example of how a new AUMF might function, Paul said he had not yet figured out ‘why we are chasing a herdsman in Mali?”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va) avid co sponsor of the proposal and HRC’s running mate in 2016, declared that “Congress needs to send a message to our troops, one of them is one of my kids, that the missions they are fighting and dying for, against non-state terrorist groups, has the support of Congress.” Kaine did not explain how codifying the legality of all future undeclared wars will somehow improve the morale of American troops.
One of the two hearing witnesses was Rita Siemion, Adjunct Professor of Law, Human Rights First, George Washington University who provided effective testimony which attracted Kaine to focus his laser on her.
Kaine: Do you support the need for continuing US military action against Taliban, Isis and al Qaeda?
Siemion: I think the use of military force is something that the president should be coming to Congress…
Kaine [interrupts]: Well, can I just say… we are currently engaged in military action against al Qaeda, Isis and the Taliban, do you support need for that action or don’t you?
Siemion: I think that hard questions need to be asked of the administration about what are we achieving by use of military force over the long term….”
Kaine [interrupts again]: So you are not prepared to say today whether you do or do not support the action that our troops are currently engaged in against ISIA, al Qaeda and the Taliban?
Siemion: I think that there are currently real questions that need to be answered about the efficacy of using military force…
Kaine: Let me ask a second question then. I think from your testimony that you would agree, separating this resolution, that the 2001 authorization should be rewritten/or replaced? Do I understand that to be your testimony?
Siemion: I agree that the status quo is incredibly problematic.
Kaine: So then let me be more specific…. do you think it should it be repealed with no replacement or rewritten and then replaced?
Siemion: I think if Congress agrees that use of military force is required and appropriate and it is demonstrated it can be effective for addressing particular terrorist threats, then Congress should authorize military force against those particular groups.
Kaine: I understand that. Obviously if somebody does not think we should be using military force against alQaeda, Isis or the Taliban, then they should vote no on this… they should not vote for an authorization. That’s a good reason to vote no if you do not support the military action that our troops are currently engaged in against al Qaeda, Isis and the Taliban.
In addition to his attempt to make Siemion look unpatriotic, if Kaine’s goal was to intimidate Sen. Merkley who was next to address the panel, he failed.
Merkley focused on legal contradictions and broad interpretations within the AUMF providing the President with a new legal foundation to decide or interpret particular sections that otherwise would be the purview of Congress. Merkley further cited that “the bottom line, what we have before us, codifies the existing situation, gives fresh authority for what has been done since 2001 and I fundamentally believe that delegation was not intended in 2001 and is not appropriate now.” He referred to the Federalist Papers on “how they decided to give that war making power to Congress, that it should not be in the hands of one single person; it is too big an issue, the lives of our soldiers, our sons and daughters, is too big an issue to open that door and I believe they were exactly right. There is a fundamental reason behind that and it is still relevant today.”
At conclusion of the hearing, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) the committee’s ranking member directly addressed Kaine in that he:
… reject as a false choice that voting against this, when it comes time for that if this is what the final product is, that voting against this proposal is a vote against our troops in the field. No. I reject the proposition that it’s either this or you are not with our troops. That’s ridiculous.”
Kaine replied to:
… clarify and the transcript would show this, I think, that I certainly did not suggest that if you vote against the AUMF, you are against the troops who are currently fighting. I did not suggest that. I did suggest if you are against military action, that is good reason to oppose our proposal. I was engaging in questions of the witness to see if she agreed we should be engaged in military action against these groups. She would not offer an opinion upon that.”
With Secretary of State Pompeo scheduled to testify before Foreign Relations on Thursday, May 24th to clarify the Trump administration’s position on AUMF proposal, a Committee mark up can be expected soon thereafter.
If qui bono is applied here and since the new AUMF would presumably focus on ‘terrorists’ and sovereign nations throughout the Middle East, Israel would appear to be the beneficiary of the dismantling of Congress’ Constitutional obligations. Therefore, it is instructive that fourteen out of twenty one Foreign Relations members were identified by the Center for Responsive Politics on their Top Twenty list of recipients of Pro-Israel PACs or individuals who donated over $200.
Menendez (D-NJ)2012/2016: $623,508
Rubio (R-Fl)2016: $468,307
Booker (D-NJ)2014: $434,126
Cardin (D-Md)2012/2018: $415,993
Portman (R-Oh)2016: $235,280
Johnson (R-Wis)2016: $231,814
Shaheen (D-NH)2014: $203,149
Kaine (D-Va)2018: $167,878
Coons (D-De)2014: $133,300
Udall (D-NM)2016: $110,379
Barasso (R-Wy)2018: $105,400
Corker (R-Tenn)2012: $102,950
Markey (D-Mass)2014: $100,450
Murphy (D-Ct)2018: $65,221
Either the remaining seven Committee members did not receive sufficient Pro-Israel PAC money to qualify for the Top Twenty list or they received no Pro-Israel PAC money.
Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31
… At every corner, we are urged to simply believe what we are told. Whether it is about believing Porton Down and MI6 about “novichok”, or believing the White Helmets about Sarin, or believing the FBI about “collusion”, we are presented with no facts, just assertions from authority. Those who question those assertions are deemed “bots” at best or “traitors” at worst.
Well here, fellow traitors, are the Top Ten reasons to question anything and everything the CIA – or any intelligence agency – has ever told you. … Read full article
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