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Ron Paul: Dream Candidate or Progressive Nightmare?

2012-01-04T16:59:00.000-08:00

Ron Paul: The Manic Pixie Dream Candidate
Pandagon

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

There's a temptation for progressives to entertain Ron Paul as a serious alternative to Obama, primarily because Ron Paul is very, very serious about getting rid of a couple of major federal programs that progressives tend to hate: namely, our War on Some People's Terror and our War on Some People Who Use Some Drugs.

The problem, as Ben Adler points out, is that Ron Paul's motivation for opposing these programs has nothing to do with the progressive motivation for opposing them. Most charitably, Paul just cares about limiting federal power. His administration would care little about the impact of federal policies on various populations; it would only care that the government pursued those programs at all. This means that the end of the War on Drugs would come alongside a push to end Medicare and Social Security, a push to end all forms of social welfare, a push to end everything designed to ameliorate the effects of systemic discrimination over past decades and centuries.

Ron Paul doesn't care about equality or social progress, he's just an adorable shrunken grump who has an ideological opposition to the government doing most anything. That opposition has certain incidental benefits, and it's hard not to think of him as a useful tool in achieving long-term political goals.

Less charitably (and, I think, more honestly), Ron Paul by and large only gives a shit about maximizing the freedom of white men. The War on Drugs is problematic not because it helps incarcerate truly ridiculous numbers of young black and Hispanic men, it's problematic because white guys deserve a doobie or some blow after work. The War on Terror is an outward extension of American resources and manpower, but the person whose freedom we care about isn't the little girl disfigured by a drone or the imam whose mosque was destroyed. It's the white guy who works long, hard hours to pay for that war, who would much rather be spending his money on other things, like gold bricks or gold boullion or ads trying to get people to buy his stock of gold.

What that ultimately means, though, is that the shining moments of a Paul presidency would be largely flash. Paul's libertarianism would mean an end to the War on Drugs, but it would also mean an end to enforcement of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, a push toward a future of rampant Tentherism where a state's discriminatory action would be met with a shrug and a casual bon mot about the Fed.

The appeal of Ron Paul is that he comes off as truly principled. Even when his policies may achieve a goal of racial equalization that he would seem to be otherwise opposed to, you're still assured that he'll advocate for those policies.

That allure, however, masks the dirty secret of his appeal to progressives: we're so sure that he'll pursue the policies that we like, we might be willing to compromise on the other stuff. The problem is, that other stuff is the very core of progressivism. The scant victories a Paul presidency promises are meaningless when they're the curtain hiding the abyss.

Unless, of course, you have a whole lot of gold. At that point, I can't really blame you.

Secret Meetings in Egypt

2012-01-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood: Fate of Israel peace treaty may be decided in referendum
Deputy chief of Egypt's largest party says the 'people must have their say,' rejects possibility that Muslim Brotherhood will recognize Israel.
by Jack Khoury - Ha'aretz

The Muslim Brotherhood movement may bring the fate of Egypt's peace treaty to a referendum, the Islamist factions said on Sunday, adding that there wasn't any chance that the movement will recognize Israel.

Results from Egypt's recent parliamentary vote, which saw considerable gains for Islamist factions such as the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party and the radical Salafi movement's Al-Nour Party, have caused some to question the future of Israel's 1979 peace treaty with its neighbor to the south.
Muslim Brotherhood - Reuters - 26/12/2011

Supporters of The Freedom and Justice Party of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood participating in a march in support of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's visit, Cairo December 26, 2011.
Photo by: Reuters

Addressing this issue on Sunday, the deputy chief of the Muslim Brotherhood Rashad al-Bayoumi told London's Al-Hayat newspaper that Egypt may choose to revise its peace treaty with Israel, hinting at the possibility that the pact's future could be determined through a referendum.

Al-Bayoumi emphasized that the Islamist movement would respect all of the international agreements to which Egypt is signatory, adding, however, that each side had the right to review the peace deal, and that the Egyptian people have yet to speak their mind.

"We weren't party to the peace treaty, it was signed away from the Egyptian people and thus the people must have its say," the Muslim Brotherhood official said.

Referring to the issue of recognizing Israel, al-Bayoumi said that the Muslim Brotherhood was not required to recognize Egypt's neighbor to the north, saying that Israel was an "occupying entity and we will not allow anyone of our members to meet with an Israeli."

"I won't allow myself to meet with a criminal and there's no chance that we'll cooperate with Israel," the Egyptian official said.

Last week, the Iranian semi-official Fars news agency quoted top Egyptian opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei as saying that the future of Israel's peace treaty with Egypt was at the center of a recent and secret round of talks between U.S. officials and members of the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

"The negotiations were completely secret and confidential," ElBaradei told Fars, adding that what the ruling military indicated "said was that the talks were about bilateral and mutual relations, but I believe that Americans wanted to ensure that the deals signed between Egypt and Israel will remain intact if Islamists ascend to power."

Speaking to Egyptian media on the subject last week, new Israeli envoy to Egypt Yaakov Amitai was asked if he was concerned about the political rise of the Muslim Brotherhood.

He replied that he did not wish to get involved in Egypt's internal affairs and needed to study the situation further.

Until now, the Israeli government has not attempted to open official contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Jerusalem official's comments are unusual in light of the Brotherhood's failure to recognize Israel.

However, representatives of the Islamic movement have told American diplomats that the group did not intend to seek the revocation of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.

Preparing for "Cast Lead ll"

2012-01-01T17:37:00.000-08:00

IDF confirms preparations for extensive future Gaza military action
Border heats up as IDF prepares for possible incursion into Gaza Strip; four rockets fired Wednesday from Gaza into Israel.
By Yanir Yagna and Gili Cohen

Four rockets were fired Wednesday from Gaza into Israel, with two landing in open areas in the Eshkol region and another landing in the Sha'ar Hanegev region without exploding. There were no reported injuries or damage.

The strike followed a targeted killing in which two sorties by the Israel Air Force killed three terrorists and wounded another nine overnight Tuesday in communities surrounding the Gaza Strip.

The rocket fire comes as the Israel Defense Forces' Gaza Division is preparing for a possible large-scale incursion into the Gaza Strip, now three years after Operation Cast Lead. "We are preparing and in fact are ready for another campaign, which will be varied and different, to renew our deterrence, if we are called on to restore full quiet to the communities [in the south]," said the head of the division's Southern Brigade, Brig. Gen. Tal Hermoni.

"But I wouldn't eulogize Operation Cast Lead just yet," Hermoni added, in a briefing for military reporters. "On a daily basis, it's pretty quiet here. The mild response [to Tuesday's targeted killings] is evidence that they don't want to feel the IDF's fists."

Under a plan overseen by Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, the next Gaza operation would be shorter than the one launched in late 2008, but would employ far greater firepower.

The IDF notes, however, that Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip, including Islamic Jihad, have more weapons now than they did in 2008. The Kornet anti-tank missiles have since become a threat to Israeli tanks, and this year rockets were fired for the first time at IDF troops.

Since the terror attack on the road to Eilat in mid-August, there has been a rise in targeted killings in Gaza. Southern Command officers cite a policy of attacking terrorist cells planning to strike Israel, even at the risk of rockets being fired at southern communities in response.

The officers also noted an increase in terror activity coming from Egypt, which they attribute to the weakening of government control in the Sinai Peninsula.

"We know the Gaza Strip," said an officer who is active in the region. "But over the last year there have been changes in the Middle East that brought new challenges and new realities. The loss of control in Egypt has led to an increase in hostile activity and to a different deployment of our forces."

The changes in deployment are evident in a tour of the 60-kilometer section of the Egyptian-Israeli border under the Gaza Division's authority. IDF armored personnel carriers are positioned in the area, and work on the new border fence is proceeding at a record pace.

Rather than stationing a single company of combat soldiers in the region, Battalion 932 of the Nahal Brigade is now patrolling the area and providing security for the fence work.

But it's not just terror keeping soldiers busy along what was once considered a godforsaken frontier. As work on the border fence has picked up steam, the number of infiltrations has risen sharply, with three times as many attempts recorded this year as the last.

Large sections of the border are not yet fenced, some as long as 120 kilometers, and the army is on constant alert lest hostile elements make their way into Israel from Egypt.

Meanwhile, the Gaza Division is also fighting smugglers. In recent months, it has even dug an anti-tank trench in an effort to block Israeli smugglers trying to make their way west to the Egyptian-Israeli border.
More on this topic

Israel strikes Gaza Strip for second time in hours, IDF says

This story is by:
Yanir Yagna

Confronting Global Finance in the Canadian Court

2012-01-01T17:24:00.000-08:00

PRESS RELEASE TORONTO, ON., CANADA- 19/12/2011

TWO CANADIANS AND A CANADIAN ECONOMIC THINK TANK CONFRONT THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL POWERS IN THE CANADIAN FEDERAL COURT.

THE CANADIANS PLEAD FOR DECLARATIONS THAT WOULD RESTORE THE USE OF THE BANK OF CANADA FOR THE BENEFIT OF CANADIANS AND REMOVE IT FROM THE CONTROL OF INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE ENTITIES WHOSE INTERESTS AND DIRECTIVES ARE PLACED ABOVE THE INTEREST OF CANADIANS AND THE PRIMACY OF THE CONSTITUTION OF CANADA

Canadian constitutional lawyer, Rocco Galati, on behalf of Canadians William Krehm, and Ann Emmett, and COMER (Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform) on December 12th, 2011 filed an action in Federal Court, to restore the use of the Bank of Canada to its original purpose, by exercising its public statutory duty and responsibility. That purpose includes making interest free loans to municipal/provincial/federal governments for “human capital” expenditures (education, health, other social services) and /or infrastructure expenditures.

The action also constitutionally challenges the government’s fallacious accounting methods in its tabling of the budget by not calculating nor revealing the true and total revenues of the nation before transferring back “tax credits” to corporations and other taxpayers.

The Plaintiffs state that since 1974 there has been a gradual but sure slide into the reality that the Bank of Canada and Canada’s monetary and financial policy are dictated by private foreign banks and financial interests contrary to the Bank of Canada Act.

The Plaintiffs state that the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were all created with the cognizant intent of keeping poorer nations in their place which has now expanded to all nations in that these financial institutions largely succeed in over-riding governments and constitutional orders in countries such as Canada over which they exert financial control.

The Plaintiffs state that the meetings of the BIS and Financial Stability Board (FSB) (successor of FSF), their minutes, their discussions and deliberations are secret and not available nor accountable to Parliament, the executive, nor the Canadian public notwithstanding that the Bank of Canada policies directly emanate from these meetings. These organizations are essentially private, foreign entities controlling Canada’s banking system and socio-economic policies.

The Plaintiffs state that the defendants (officials) are unwittingly and /or wittingly, in varying degrees, knowledge and intent engaged in a conspiracy, along with the BIS, FSB, IMF to render impotent the Bank of Canada Act as well as Canadian sovereignty over financial, monetary, and socio-economic policy, and bypass the sovereign rule of Canada through its Parliament by means of banking and financial systems.

A press conference will be held on Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. to answer any questions the media may have of the Plaintiffs at: 637 College Street, Suite 203, Toronto, Ontario.
A copy of the filed statement of claim is attached.

-30-

COURT SEAL
Court File No.:T-2010-11

FEDERAL COURT
B E T W E E N:

COMMITTEE FOR MONETARY AND ECONOMIC REFORM (“COMER”), WILLIAM KREHM, AND ANN EMMETT
Plaintiffs
- and -

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN, THE MINISTER OF FINANCE,
THE MINISTER OF NATIONAL REVENUE, THE BANK OF CANADA,
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA
Defendants

STATEMENT OF CLAIM

(Pursuant to s.17 (1) and (5)(b) Federal Courts Act,
and s.24(1) and 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982)

(Filed this 12th day of December, 2011)

TO THE DEFENDANT:

A LEGAL PROCEEDING HAS BEEN COMMENCED AGAINST YOU by the Applicant. The claim made against you is set out in the following pages.

IF YOU WISH TO DEFEND THIS PROCEEDING, you or a solicitor acting for you are required to prepare a statement of defence in Form 171B prescribed by the Federal Courts Rules, serve it on the applicant’s solicitor or, where the applicant does not have a solicitor, serve it on the applicant, and file it, with proof of service, at a local office of this Court, WITHIN 30 DAYS after this statement of claim is served on you, if you are served within Canada.

Copies of the Federal Courts Rules, information concerning the local offices of the Court and other necessary information may be obtained on request to the Administrator of this Court at Ottawa (telephone 613-992-4238) or at any local office.

IF YOU FAIL TO DEFEND THIS PROCEEDING, judgment may be given against you in your absence and without further notice to you.

Date: December 12th, 2011 Issued by:

Address of local office:

Federal Court of Canada
180 Queen Street West, Suite 200
Toronto, Ontario M5V 3L6

TO: Department of Justice
Ontario Regional Office
First Canadian Place
The Exchange Tower
130 King Street West
Suite 3400, Box 36
Toronto, Ontario
M5X 1K6

AND TO: Bank of Canada
234 Wellington St.
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0G9

CLAIM

The Plaintiffs claim:

(a) declarations that:

i) the Minister of Finance, and Government of Canada is required to request, and that the Bank of Canada is statutorily required, when necessary, to make interest-free loans, on the terms set out under s.18 (i) and (j) of the Bank of Canada Act, RSC, 1985, c. B-2 (the “Act”) for the purposes of “human capital” expenditures and/or municipal/provincial/federal “human capital” and/or infrastructure expenditures;
ii) that the “Government of Canada”, the Minister of Finance, and Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, with the Bank of Canada,
A/ have abdicated their statutory and constitutional duties with respect to ss. 18(i) and (j) of the Bank of Canada Act which subsections read:
18. The Bank may
…
(i) make loans or advances for periods not exceeding six months to the Government of Canada or the government of a province on taking security in readily marketable securities issued or guaranteed by Canada or any province;

(j) make loans to the Government of Canada or the government of any province, but such loans outstanding at any one time shall not, in the case of the Government of Canada, exceed one-third of the estimated revenue of the Government of Canada for its fiscal year, and shall not, in the case of a provincial government, exceed one-fourth of that government's estimated revenue for its fiscal year, and such loans shall be repaid before the end of the first quarter after the end of the fiscal year of the government that has contracted the loan;

B/ and further that the refusal to request and make (interest free) loans under s. 18(i) and (j) of the Bank of Canada Act has resulted in negative and destructive impact on Canadians by the disintegration of Canada’s economy, its financial institutions, increase in public debt, decrease in social services, as well as a widening gap between rich and poor with an continuing disappearance of the middle class;
iii) that s. 18(m) of the Bank of Canada Act, and its administration and operation, is unconstitutional and of no force and effect, in Parliament and the government, including the Defendant Minister of Finance, abdicating their duty to govern, and insofar, as monetary, currency and financial policies, per se, are concerned, and in turn as they effect socio-economic governance, have abdicated their constitutional duty(ies)and handed them over to those international, private entities, whose interests, and directives, are placed above the interests of Canadians, and the primacy of the Constitution of Canada, not only with respect to its specific provisions, but also with respect to the underlying constitutional imperatives, and which provision reads:
(m) open accounts in a central bank in any other country or in the Bank for International Settlements, accept deposits from central banks in other countries, the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and any other official international financial organization, act as agent or mandatary, or depository or correspondent for any of those banks or organizations, and pay interest on any of those deposits;

iv) that the maintaining of minutes of meetings by the Governor of the Bank of Canada, with other central bank “governors” from other states and federation(s), as secret and not open to parliamentary and public view and scrutiny, constitutes:
A/ ultra vires action by the Governor of the Bank of Canada contrary to inter alia, s. 24 of the Act;
B/ unconstitutional conduct by the Governor of the Bank of Canada;
v) that the Parliament of Canada, in:
A/ allowing the Governor of the Bank of Canada to hold secret the nature and content of his meetings with other central bank(ers); and
B/ in not exercising the authority and duty contained in 18(i) and (j) of the Act; and
C/ enacting s. 18(m) of the Bank of Canada Act;
has unconstitutionally abdicated its duty and function as mandated by ss. 91 (1a), (3), (14), (15), (16), (18), (19) and (20) of the Constitution Act, 1867, as well as s. 36 of the Constitution Act, 1982;
vi) that the Minister of Finance is required to list expenditures(s) on “human capital”, including infrastructural capital expenditures relating to “human capital”, as an “asset” and not a “liability” with respect to budgetary accounting;
vii) that the Minister of Finance is required to list, in his budgetary accounting, all revenues collected prior to the return of “tax credits” to individuals, and moreover, corporate taxpayers, with tax credits subtracted from the total revenue due, before subtracting total expenditures from total revenue, and arriving at either a budgetary “surplus” or “deficit” as required, inter alia, by s. 91(5) of the Constitution Act, 1867;
viii) that the defendants’ (officials) are wittingly and/or unwittingly, in varying degrees, knowledge, and intent, engaged in a conspiracy, along with the BIS, FSB, an IMF, to render impotent the Bank of Canada Act, as well as Canadian sovereignty over financial, monetary, and socio-economic policy, and in fact by-pass the sovereign rule of Canada, through its Parliament, by means of banking and financial systems, which conspiracy and elements of such tortious conduct are set out, in inter alia, Hunt v. Carey Canada Inc. [1990] 2 S.C.R. 959 namely:
A/ that the Defendants’ (officials), including and together with the BIS, engage(d) in an agreement for the use of lawful and unlawful means, and conduct, the predominant purpose of which is to cause injury to the Plaintiffs, and all other Canadians;
B/ that the Defendants’ (officials), including and together with the BIS, engage(d), in an agreement, to use unlawful means and conduct, whose predominant purpose and conduct directed at the Plaintiffs, and all other Canadians, is to cause injury to the Plaintiffs and all other Canadians, or the Defendants’ officials should know, in the circumstances, that injury to the Plaintiffs, and all other Canadians, is likely to, and does result;
ix) that the privative clause in s. 30.1 of the Bank of Canada Act,
A/ does not apply to the seeking of “judicial review”, by way of action or otherwise, of declaratory relief with respect to any statutory or constitutional ultra vires action and/or section of the Act, by way of declaratory relief, or any other prerogative remedy, available to hear and determine the statutory and/or constitutional limits or actions under the Act, in accordance with, inter alia, in Supreme Court of Canada’s pronouncement in Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick [2008] 1 SCR 190, nor does it apply to seeking damages for ultra vires or unconstitutional damages:and
B/ if s.30.1 of the Bank of Canada Act is interpreted to so apply as a privative clause, then it is unconstitutional and of no force and effect for breaching the Plaintiffs’ constitutional right to judicial review, as well as breaching the underlying constitutional imperatives of Rule of Law, Constitutionalism, and Federalism;

(b) damages in the amount of:
i) $10, 000.00 per plaintiff; and
ii) should the within action be certified as a class action proceeding, $1.00 (one dollar) for every Canadian citizen/resident, to be calculated based on the last population figure published in the last census, in accordance with s. 91(5) of the Constitution Act, 1867;
which damages are on account of:
iii) the constitutional breaches pleaded in the statement of claim herein; and
iv) the conspiracy pleaded in the statement of claim herein;
(c) such further declaratory and/or consequential injunctive and/or prerogative order and/or relief as counsel may advise and this Honourable Court grant;
(d) costs of this action and such further or other relief this Court deems just.

THE PARTIES
(a) the Plaintiff, Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform (hereinafter “COMER”) historically to date is an international economic “think-tank”, based in Toronto, and was established in 1970, dedicating itself to the monetary and economic reform policies of Canada and conducts research, analysis, and publication(s) on these issues. For the past 23 years it has published a monthly publication entitled COMER with articles and analysis from various authors including some of its own committee members. Its committee members have consisted of economists, academics, and published authors expert in their respective fields;
the Plaintiff, William Krehm, is and has been a member of COMER, since its inception, and has devoted much of his life to the study, research, analysis and writing on economic, monetary, and social reform, and is a published author on economic and monetary reform, included various articles, papers, as well as books as recent as 2010;
the Plaintiff, Ann Emmett, is a member of COMER, and has devoted much of her life to the study, research, analysis and writing on economic, monetary, and social reform, and is a published author on economic and monetary reform, included various articles, and papers, as recent as 2010;
the Defendant, Her Majesty the Queen, is statutorily and constitutionally liable for the acts and omissions of her officials pursuant to s. 17 of the Federal Courts Act as well as s. 24(1) and 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982;
the Defendant, the Minister of Finance, is statutorily and ultimately, with the consent of Governor-in-Council, responsible for overseeing both the Bank of Canada, as well as the Governor of the Bank of Canada, pursuant s.14 of the Bank of Canada Act, and the Minister of Finance is also, constitutionally, responsible for setting out the budgetary process, and expenditures for each session of Parliament, upon the appropriation request, through the taxing power, of Her Majesty the Queen, as set out in Her Parliamentary throne speech delivered by the Governor General for that purpose;
the Defendant, the Minister of National Revenue, is statutorily responsible for administering the Income Tax Act, and other Federal taxing statutes related to the collection of revenue through, inter alia, the taxing power, under s. 91(3) of the Constitution Act, 1867;

the Defendant, the Attorney General of Canada, is, constitutionally, the Chief Legal Officer, responsible for and defending the integrity of all legislation, as well as responding to declaratory relief with respect to legislation, including with respect to its constitutionality and required to be named as a Defendant in any action for declaratory relief.

THE FACTS

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that The Bank of Canada was established as Canada’s central bank, in 1934, and nationalized in 1938,with the intended purpose of:
(a) Asserting domestic and public control of monetary and economic control and public policy pursuant to its constitutional sources of jurisdiction contained in s. 91 and 91 A of the Constitution Act, 1867, namely:
(i) 1A. The Public Debt and Property;
…
(ii) 3. The raising of Money by any Mode or System of Taxation;
(iii) 4. The borrowing of Money on the Public Credit;
…
(iv) 14. Currency and Coinage;
…
(v) 16. Savings Banks;
…
(vi) 18. Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes;
(vii) 19. Interest;
(viii) 20. Legal Tender.
and as set out in s. 18 of the Act and its predecessor provisions;
(b) to be a vehicle to provide the Federal and Provincial governments interest-free loans for physical infrastructure as well as “human capital” expenditures (education, health, other social services); and
(c) maintain sovereign control over credit and currency with the aim to promote the economic interests of Canada in all its aspects.

The preamble to the Bank of Canada Act, upon its enactment in 1934, as a private corporation, and as re-enacted as a Crown corporation in 1938, read as follows:
WHEREAS it is desirable to establish a central bank in Canada to regulate credit and currency in the best interests of the economic life of the nation, to control and protect the external value of the national monetary unit and to mitigate by its influence fluctuations in the general level of production, trade, prices and employment, so far as may be possible within the scope of monetary action, and generally to promote the economic and financial welfare of the Dominion: Therefore, His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the current Bank of Canada Act, continues to reflect a public statutory duty and responsibility, as borne out by the preamble to the Act, which reads:
WHEREAS it is desirable to establish a central bank in Canada to regulate credit and currency in the best interests of the economic life of the nation, to control and protect the external value of the national monetary unit and to mitigate by its influence fluctuations in the general level of production, trade, prices and employment, so far as may be possible within the scope of monetary action, and generally to promote the economic and financial welfare of Canada

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the Bank of Canada is the only “public” central bank created by statute, and accountable to the legislative and executive branches, to be found in any of the G-8 nations. All other central banks are “private” banks and are not directly created nor governed by legislation nor directly accountable nor reportable to the legislative or executive branches of the governments in the nations in which they operate.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that Policies such as interest rates, and other policies set by the Bank of Canada are set in consultation, and at times, but mostly at the direction of the “Financial Stability Board” (“FSB”), established after the 2009 “G-20” London Summit in April, 2009. The FSB is a successor of the “Financial Stability Forum” (“FSF”). The current FSB, like its predecessor, is an international body of central bankers that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system. The Board includes all major G-20 major economies, FSF members, and the European Commission. The FSB is based in Basel, Switzerland.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the current FSB, like its predecessor FSF, continues to serve the same function. It consists of the major national financial authorities such as Finance Ministers, central bankers, and international financial bodies.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the FSF was and is managed by a small secretariat, which secretariat was housed at the “Bank of International Settlements” (“BIS”) in Basel, Switzerland. It was established by the Hague Agreements, in 1930, prior to the creation of the Bank of Canada.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the BIS is a so-called inter-governmental organization of central banks which purports to execute financial co-operation and purports to serve as a “bank for central banks”. The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the BIS in fact formulates policies and dictates to central banks, including the Bank of Canada.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that Canada, through its Bank of Canada, became a member of an expanded BIS in 1974. The Plaintiffs further state, and the fact is, that between 1934 to 1974 the Bank of Canada, and Canada, was completely independent, from international private interests, with respect to its statutory duties under the Bank of Canada Act, as well as its monetary and financial policies reflected in the preamble to the Act, and as it flowed through to its economic and social policies. The Plaintiffs further state, and fact is, that since 1974, there has been a gradual, but sure, slide into the reality that the Bank of Canada and Canada’s monetary and financial policy are in fact, by and large, dictated by private foreign bank and financial interests, contrary to the Act.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the BIS is not accountable to any government. It holds annual meetings, which are secret, and provides banking services to central banks, including the Bank of Canada.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the BIS is effectively in control of the FSB when it comes to credit, currency, monetary and financial policies for G-20 countries, including Canada, with far-reaching economic and social impact not in the interests of either the Bank, government, nor people of Canada.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the meetings of the BIS and FSB, their minutes, their discussions, and deliberations are secret and not available to Parliament, the executive, nor the Canadian public, notwithstanding that the Bank of Canada policies directly emanate, and are directed by these meetings.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that in its early and middle existence the Bank of Canada issued (interest-free) loans, pursuant to s. 18 (i) and (j) of the Act, and predecessor statutes, not only to the federal and provincial governments , but also directly to municipal councils. (It also printed money and bought government debt in financing the war efforts in World War II). It stopped doing so in the early 1974 in favour of loans from foreign private banks with interest, with the resulting and detrimental negative effects:
loss of the control of domestic monetary policy, including interest rate policy;
loss of control of domestic economic policy insofar as bond raters, from foreign private banks lending to Canada, would insist on the direction of Canada’s domestic economic policy under threat of downgrading Canada’s borrowing/lending worthiness;
loss of control over social policies, from foreign private banks lending to Canada would insist on the direction of Canada’s domestic social policies, under threat of downgrading Canada’s borrowing/lending worthiness;
loss of investment in human capital and infrastructure expenditures, from foreign private banks lending to Canada who would insist on direction of Canada’s domestic human capital and infrastructure expenditures under threat of downgrading Canada’s borrowing/lending worthiness;
a corresponding loss of sovereignty over decision related to banking, monetary policy, economic policy, as well as social policy;
as a result, spiralling schism between the rich and the poor in Canada with a continuing removal of the middle class and a corresponding rise in socio-economic crime related to poverty;
the bizarre, and absurd result that, while private banks can borrow money from the Bank of Canada, currently, next-to-zero interest (0.25%), Canadian citizens, through the government’s debt to private banks, and foreign private banks holding Canadian bonds and currency, relend at a higher interest rate than they borrow.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that this loss of control coincides with the Bank of Canada being a member of the BIS, FSF and FSB, without public scrutiny nor accountability with respect to the actions of the Bank of Canada, at the direction and decisions of foreign, private bodies and interests.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that in or about 1974, after Canada’s entry into the expanded BIS, an agreement or directive was reached, at which BIS , where Canada’s (central) Bank of Canada was the only publicly-created and accountable to its Parliament or Legislative body, that the central banks would not be used to create or lend-interest free money, contrary to ss. 18(i) and (j) of the Act, and its original purpose for its creation, but that governments obtain borrowed money from and through the BIS (FSF, FSB, and International Monetary Fund (“IMF”)).

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that no sovereign government such as Canada, under any circumstances, should borrow money from commercial banks, at interest, when it can, instead, borrow from its own central bank interest-free, particularly when that central bank, unlike any other G-8 nation, is publicly established, mandated, owned, and accountable to Parliament, and the Minister of Finance, and was created with that purpose as one of its main functions.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that over the years, Ministers of Finance have had requests to have the Minister make interest free loan requests from the Bank of Canada, which have been refused, examples of which are:
(a) on June 11th, 2004 the Town of Lakeshore, Ontario wrote the Minister of Finance, the Right Honourable Ralph Goodale, on Municipal Council Resolution, requesting such loans be made, which request is a document referred to in the pleadings herein;
(b) the Minister of Finance on August 18th, 2004 refused the request and in doing so did not have regard to either the nature of the request, nor the pertinent provisions of the Bank of Canada Act, which response is a document referred to in the pleadings herein.

In his response, the Minister of Finance gave the following reasons for refusing to
do so:
(a) that “…relying on the printing press to finance government expenditures results in inflation…”;
(b) “….If the Bank had to borrow the funds that it loaned to the government it would have to pay whatever interest rate prevailed in the market…”
(c) “Other nations that have relied extensively on, low-interest credit extended by central banks….have experienced very high inflation…”
(d) “It is also inadvisable for the Bank of Canada to issue low-interest loans to provincial or municipal governments. To understand why, let us consider the two approaches that the Bank of Canada could follow if it chose to issue such loans. Suppose that the Bank of Canada did not want to change the total amount of loans it had outstanding. In this case, the Bank of Canada could rearrange its portfolio of assets to provide some loans to provinces at relatively low interest rates. However, this would reduce the Bank of Canada's profits. Since the Bank is owned by the Government of Canada, this policy would result in federal taxpayers subsidizing provincial governments.”
This has been a consistent response from the government of Canada.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the Minister’s reasons for refusing what was requested from the Town of Lakeshore’s Council, is both financially and economically fallacious and not in accordance with his statutory duties under the Bank of Canada Act, nor his constitutional duties as Finance Minister. For example:
any (interest-free) loans granted under s. 18 (i) and (j) would have to be repaid within a very short period and therefore would not be “inflationary”;
the Bank of Canada does not have to acquire its money from commercial banks to pay back any (interest-free) loans under s. 18 (i) and (j) in that its is statutorily mandated to do so, has done so in that past, and in fact lends money to the commercial banks currently, at almost zero percent (0.25%);
that inflation would ensue is simply negated by the fact that currently, the U.S. Federal Reserve has a 0% interest rate while the Bank of Canada has a 0.25% rate with no inflating consequences, above and beyond the fact that, historically, such short-term (interest-free loans) have not, in and by themselves, caused inflation because they have to be repaid the next fiscal year; and
on the fact the some Provinces may get more (interest-free) loans than others, this is neither contrary to the underlying constitutional principle of Federalism, nor the explicit terms of s. 36 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the Minister’s response is financially and economically fallacious, as witnessed by the current state of affairs, such as the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank (a private central bank) printing currency and “lending” it, to the commercial banks at 0% (interest-free), while the Bank of Canada’s current lending rate is 0.25% (one quarter of one percent), above and beyond the “giving” or “bail-out” of hundreds of billions of dollars by the US and Canadian governments, as well as by the Bank of Canada, to purportedly avert a collapse of the international banking and financial systems.

The Plaintiffs further state, and the fact is, that this leads to the absurd and ultra vires result that while commercial banks obtain their money, from the Bank of Canada, at the Bank of Canada’s prime leading rate, today at 0.25%, the citizens of Canada, through the government of Canada, pay back the commercial banks, commercial lending rates which are higher than the Bank of Canada’s prime rate, on the “national debt” owed to private commercial banks, accumulated on the annual “deficit” as calculated and set down by the Minister of Finance in the annual budget, and budgetary process.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the Minister of Finance’s refusal is purportedly based on the reasoning that such loans would increase the annual deficits and public “debt”.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the Minister’s calculation of the public deficit and debt, as calculated and not amortised, is based on fallacious accounting methods, namely with respect to how expenditures directly relating to “human capital” are set out and amortised as “liabilities” as opposed to “assets”. The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that expenditures and the capital obtained through those expenditures and the capital obtained through those expenditures with respect to human capital are “assets” and not “liabilities”. The Plaintiffs further state that the Minister of Finance’s budgetary accounting is also misleading and fallacious in the calculation of “revenues” as excluding tax credits given back on collected/collectable taxes.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that it has been long recognized that investment and expenditure in human capital is the most productive investment and expenditure a government can make. This was amplified and borne out by the phenomenal success and results of the reconstruction of Germany and Japan following World War II, which was realized by a subsequent study by Theodore Shultz, a Nobel Prize Winner, from the University of Chicago, and other noted economists.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the notion and reality of “human capital” with its origins going back to Adam Smith, boil down to:
acquired competency and knowledge of individuals, through education and experience, which in turn leads to the ability to perform labour producing economic output;
along with this “human capital” attributable to individuals are the capital expenditures to make it possible such as schools, universities, and hospitals, etc;
human capital it tied to the qualitative and quantitative progress of any nation;
human capital is developed through health, education, and quality of standard of living which in turn translates to government expenditures and investments in schools, universities, hospitals, and other public infrastructures;
human capital is always central to any analysis about the welfare, education, healthcare, and retirement of individuals, which in turn is central to a person’s life, liberty, security of the person, as well as their equality within the Canadian state.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that while “human capital” expenditure, on human beings, and human capital expenditures (such as schools, universities, hospitals), while, in Canada, may not have a “marketable” or “sellable” value on the “free”, “private” market, this does not mean, as interpreted and calculated by the Defendant Minister of Finance, that it has zero value when calculating assets and liabilities for deficit/debt purposes, nor in the manner in which these capital human expenditures assets are amortised for accounting purposes in that budgetary process.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that human capital has been viewed as a means of production through which additional investment yields additional output to the economy of any nation. This investment applies both to government and the private sector investments and expenditures.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that so long as the notion of expenditures on human capital are discarded, a critical intent and purpose of the Bank of Canada Act is rendered impotent, and equally discarded, with the results of statutory and constitutional breach(es) by the Minister of Finance and the Bank of Canada.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that BIS, FSF, FSB, and IMF were all created with the cognizant intent of keeping poorer nations “in their place”, which has now expanded to all nations in that, these financial institutions attempt, and largely succeed, to over-ride governments and constitutional orders in countries, such as Canada, over which they exert financial control.

The Plaintiffs further state, and fact is, that, so long as human capital expenditures are treated strictly as “liability” and “debt”, with no corresponding asset value, the government will not be investing in human capital infrastructure, or its own infrastructure for that matter, which is manifested for example, in government paying exorbitant rents on space for such things as Ministerial Departments, such as the Justice Department, as well as the Court themselves, where building or purchasing such assets would, in the long run, reduce those costs to a negligible fraction of the actual rental expenditures which increases the “deficit” and “debt” as (mis)calculated by the current budgetary process. The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that such is the case with all sales, rentals, or disposition (“privatization”) of human capital infrastructure, including government infrastructure serving Canadians.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that with respect to the private corporate context, a company’s value is routinely calculated as an aggregate of its capital assets and its “goodwill” for accounting, valuation, and income tax purposes. The “goodwill” of the company essentially boils down its “human capital”.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the Minister of Finance’s calculation of revenue, expenditures, and surplus/deficit, on an annual basis, is also fallacious and inaccurate by the statutory slight of hand and ultra vires accounting which is effected by means of the Income Tax Act, through “tax credits”. Thus, the annual budget is presented, in simple terms, as follows:
total revenue collected (without setting out total tax credits given back to taxpayers before final payable tax is calculated);
minus government expenditures (which includes misamortization of human capital expenditures);
equals total surplus/deficit.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that on the Minister’s presentation of a budget, the calculation is, for example, set out as follows:
total revenue equals $240 billion;
minus total expenditure of $280 billion;
equals a $40 billion deficit.
When in fact, the real calculation and accounting should read, for example as follows:
(a) total revenue collected/collectable:
(i) $340 billion,
(ii) minus $100 billion returned to taxpayers by way of tax credits,
for a total of $240 billion in revenues;
(b) minus total expenditures of:
(i) $280 billion,
(ii) while not counting nor properly amortizing human capital expenditures and assets;
(c) equals a deficit of $40 billion.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the “deficit” amount of $40 billion, which is added to the annual debt every year, more often than not equals or constitutes the bulk of the “carrying charges” (interest/paid on the debt, to commercial banks, at market rate interest rates), while the Bank of Canada gives that money to commercial banks at the Bank of Canada’s lower lending rate, an amount depravingly lower than what the government pays them back on its annual “debt”.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that tax credits do not show up as government revenue, on the one hand, but are simply off-set against tax revenue and then a net figure reported as tax revenue, as out in paragraphs 34 and 35 above.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that on the other hand “refundable” tax credits, which are credits whereby monies are remitted to the taxpayer, as opposed to non-refundable tax credits which simply reduce the amount of a taxpayers’ taxable income, on the other hand, show up as “expenditures” or government spending in the budgetary process.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the above “accounting method” used in the budgetary process are not in accordance with accepted accounting practices, are conceptually and logically wrong, and have the effect of perpetually making the real and actual picture of what total “revenues”, “total expenditures”, and what the annual deficits/surplus” actually is, what the annual “deficit/surplus” actually is, in any given year, and what, as a result the standing national “debt” actually is. Moreover, and more importantly, the Plaintiffs state, and fact is, that such “accounting” methods foreclose any actual or real debate, or consideration, by elected MPs, in Parliament, as the actual financial picture is not available nor disclosed to either Parliamentarians nor the Canadian public. The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that such accounting method breaches s. 91(5) of the Constitution Act,1867 and the duty of the Defendant(s) to maintain accurate “statistics”.

The Plaintiffs further state, and the fact is, that this “accounting” has, in the past, been heavily criticized by the Auditor General.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the defendants’ (officials) are wittingly and/or unwittingly, in varying degrees, knowledge, and intent, engaged in a conspiracy, along with the BIS, FSB, an IMF, to render impotent the Bank of Canada Act, as well as Canadian sovereignty over financial, monetary, and socio-economic policy, and in fact by-pass the sovereign rule of Canada, through its Parliament, by means of banking and financial systems, which conspiracy and elements of such tortious conduct are set out, inter alia, Hunt v. Carey Canada Inc. [1990] 2 S.C.R. 959 namely:

A/ that the Defendants’ (officials), including and together with the BIS, engage(d) in an agreement for the use of lawful and unlawful means, and conduct, the predominant purpose of which is to cause injury to the Plaintiffs, and all other Canadians;
B/ that the Defendants’ (officials), including and together with the BIS, engage(d), in an agreement, to use unlawful means and conduct, whose predominant purpose and conduct directed at the Plaintiffs, and all other Canadians, is to cause injury to the Plaintiffs and all other Canadians, or the Defendants’ officials should know, in the circumstances, that injury to the Plaintiffs, and all other Canadians, is likely to, and does result;

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the proper accounting and setting out of the budgetary process, including the aggregate amount of taxes collected/collectable which is “given back” to taxpayers, and notably corporate tax payers, through tax credits, would result in the proper accountability and consequential political debate, through the elected MPs in Parliament, on the actual state of Revenues, Expenditures, Surplus/Deficit account, announced, and tabled in Parliament by the Minister of Finance, in his constitutional duty over the budgetary process.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the “accounting” employed in the budgetary process, and an inaccurate and unavailable “statistic” of the aggregate of tax credits transferred back before calculations of net revenue, as well as the absence of the “asset” value of human capital and expenditures and infrastructure, violates s.91(5) of the Constitution Act, 1867.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the Minister’s statutory and Parliamentary duty over the budgetary process, goes hand in hand with his statutory duty as ultimate authority, with the consent of Governor-in-Council, over the Bank Canada, under s.14 of the Bank of Canada Act, and the authority and duty imposed by s. 18 (i) and (j) , and other duties, which includes the exercise of the statutory duty to ensure interest-free loans to the government of Canada and the Provinces to execute and implement human capital expenditures which expenditures ought to be properly amortized and accounted, along with the proper accounting of tax credits, in the budgetary process, which process is constitutionally mandated, going back to the Magna Carta in the constitutional guarantee that the Crown can only imposes taxes, for the declared proposed expenditures, as set out in the throne speech, upon the consent (over the taxing power) of the House of Commons.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that s. 18(m) of the Bank of Canada Act, and its administration and operation, is unconstitutional and of no force and effect, in Parliament and the government, including the Defendant Minister of Finance, abdicating their duty to govern, and insofar, as monetary, currency and financial policies, per se, are concerned, and in turn as they affect socio-economic governance, have abdicated their constitutional duty(ies)and handed them over to those international, private entities, whose interests, and directives, are placed above the interests of Canadians, and the primacy of the Constitution of Canada, not only with respect to its specific provisions, but also with respect to the underlying constitutional imperatives.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that ultimate control and decision(s) under the Bank of Canada Act, are made by the Minister of Finance, with the approval of the Governor in Council, by “government directive” under s. 14 of the Act.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that the ultra vires (in)actions of both the Minister of Finance, and the Bank of Canada, as set out in the within statement of claim, have the result of breaching the rights of the Plaintiffs and all other Canadians, not only statutorily, but also their constitutional rights as follows:
their right to life, liberty, and security of the person under s. 7 of the Charter by a reduction, elimination, and/or fatal delay of health care services, education and other human capital expenditures and services;
their right to equality both under ss. 7 and 15 of the Charter, but also the underlying constitutional right to equality, as identified in, inter alia, the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Winner v. S.M.T. (Eastern) Ltd., [1951] S.C.R. 887;
the underlying constitutional principle of Federalism;
the expressed provision(s) giving effect to the underlying principles of Federalism, contained in s. 36 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
the constitutional right that statutes do not be rendered impotent in Parliament de facto abdicating its duty to govern.

The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is that as a result of the Defendants (’) officials tortious, ultra vires, and unconstitutional conduct, they have suffered damages as set out above, and in reduced services in human capital expenditures and infrastructure, as has every other Canadian citizen/resident.
The Plaintiffs state, and the fact is that as a result of the Defendants (’) officials tortious, ultra vires, and unconstitutional conduct they have also suffered damage to their normative constitutional order by irreparable harm to the constitutional supremacy required and dictated not only by s.52 Constitution Act, 1982, but also by the supremacy required and dictated by its underlying principles.

The Plaintiffs propose that this action be tried at Toronto.

Dated at Toronto this 12th day of December, 2011.

_signed_______________________________
ROCCO GALATI LAW FIRM
PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION
Rocco Galati, B.A., LL.B., LL.M.
637 College Street, Suite 203
Toronto, Ontario
M6G 1B5

TEL: (416) 536-7811
FAX: (416) 536-6801

Solicitor for the Plaintiffs

Court File No.:T-2010-11
“Proposed Class Action Proceeding”
FEDERAL COURT
B E T W E E N:

COMMITTEE FOR MONETARY
AND ECONOMIC REFORM (“COMER”), WILLIAM KREHM, AND ANN EMMETT

Plaintiffs
- and -

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN,
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE,
THE MINISTER OF NATIONAL REVENUE, THE BANK OF CANADA,
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA

Defendants
____________________________________

STATEMENT OF CLAIM

(Pursuant to s.17(1) and (5) (b)Federal Courts Act, and s.24(1) of the Charter)

(Filed this ___day of December, 2011)
____________________________________

ROCCO GALATI LAW FIRM PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION
Rocco Galati, B.A., LL.B., LL.M.
637 College Street
Suite 203
Toronto, Ontario
M6G 1B5
TEL: (416) 536-7811
FAX: (416) 536-6801

Solicitor for the Plaintiffs

Stephen Harper to US right-wing think tank

2011-12-28T19:28:00.000-08:00

Text of 1997 speech by Stephen Harper to US right-wing think tank
source

For anyone surprised by Harper's moves and plans now that he has a majority, it is enlightening to read this speech our current PM made when he was VP of the 'United Citizens Coalition' to the Council for National Policy.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by giving you a big welcome to Canada. Let's start up with a compliment. You're here from the second greatest nation on earth. But seriously, your country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world.

Now, having given you a compliment, let me also give you an insult. I was asked to speak about Canadian politics. It may not be true, but it's legendary that if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians.

But in any case, my speech will make that assumption. I'll talk fairly basic stuff. If it seems pedestrian to some of you who do know a lot about Canada, I apologize.

I'm going to look at three things. First of all, just some basic facts about Canada that are relevant to my talk, facts about the country and its political system, its civics. Second, I want to take a look at the party system that's developed in Canada from a conventional left/right, or liberal/conservative perspective. The third thing I'm going to do is look at the political system again, because it can't be looked at in this country simply from the conventional perspective.

First, facts about Canada. Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.

In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.

That is beginning to change. There have been some significant changes in our fiscal policies and our social welfare policies in the last three or four years. But nevertheless, they're still very generous compared to your country.

Let me just make a comment on language, which is so important in this country. I want to disabuse you of misimpressions you may have. If you've read any of the official propagandas, you've come over the border and entered a bilingual country. In this particular city, Montreal, you may well get that impression. But this city is extremely atypical of this country.

While it is a French-speaking city -- largely -- it has an enormous English-speaking minority and a large number of what are called ethnics: they who are largely immigrant communities, but who politically and culturally tend to identify with the English community.

This is unusual, because the rest of the province of Quebec is, by and large, almost entirely French-speaking. The English minority present here in Montreal is quite exceptional.

Furthermore, the fact that this province is largely French-speaking, except for Montreal, is quite exceptional with regard to the rest of the country. Outside of Quebec, the total population of francophones, depending on how you measure it, is only three to five per cent of the population. The rest of Canada is English speaking.

Even more important, the French-speaking people outside of Quebec live almost exclusively in the adjacent areas, in northern New Brunswick and in Eastern Ontario.

The rest of Canada is almost entirely English speaking. Where I come from, Western Canada, the population of francophones ranges around one to two per cent in some cases.

So it's basically an English-speaking country, just as English-speaking as, I would guess, the northern part of the United States.

But the important point is that Canada is not a bilingual country. It is a country with two languages. And there is a big difference.

As you may know, historically and especially presently, there's been a lot of political tension between these two major language groups, and between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

Let me take a moment for a humorous story. Now, I tell this with some trepidation, knowing that this is a largely Christian organization.

The National Citizens Coalition, by the way, is not. We're on the sort of libertarian side of the conservative spectrum. So I tell this joke with a little bit of trepidation. But nevertheless, this joke works with Canadian audiences of any kind, anywhere in Canada, both official languages, any kind of audience.

It's about a constitutional lawyer who dies and goes to heaven. There, he meets God and gets his questions answered about life. One of his questions is, "God, will this problem between Quebec and the rest of Canada ever be resolved?'' And God thinks very deeply about this, as God is wont to do. God replies, "Yes, but not in my lifetime.''

I'm glad to see you weren't offended by that. I've had the odd religious person who's been offended. I always tell them, "Don't be offended. The joke can't be taken seriously theologically. It is, after all, about a lawyer who goes to heaven.''

In any case. My apologies to Eugene Meyer of the Federalist Society.
Second, the civics, Canada's civics.

On the surface, you can make a comparison between our political system and yours. We have an executive, we have two legislative houses, and we have a Supreme Court.

However, our executive is the Queen, who doesn't live here. Her representative is the Governor General, who is an appointed buddy of the Prime Minister.

Of our two legislative houses, the Senate, our upper house, is appointed, also by the Prime Minister, where he puts buddies, fundraisers and the like. So the Senate also is not very important in our political system.

And we have a Supreme Court, like yours, which, since we put a charter of rights in our constitution in 1982, is becoming increasingly arbitrary and important. It is also appointed by the Prime Minister. Unlike your Supreme Court, we have no ratification process.

So if you sort of remove three of the four elements, what you see is a system of checks and balances which quickly becomes a system that's described as unpaid checks and political imbalances.

What we have is the House of Commons. The House of Commons, the bastion of the Prime Minister's power, the body that selects the Prime Minister, is an elected body. I really emphasize this to you as an American group: It's not like your House of Representatives. Don't make that comparison.

What the House of Commons is really like is the United States electoral college. Imagine if the electoral college which selects your president once every four years were to continue sitting in Washington for the next four years. And imagine its having the same vote on every issue. That is how our political system operates.

In our election last Monday, the Liberal party won a majority of seats. The four opposition parties divided up the rest, with some very, very rough parity.

But the important thing to know is that this is how it will be until the Prime Minister calls the next election. The same majority vote on every issue. So if you ask me, "What's the vote going to be on gun control?'' or on the budget, we know already.

If any member of these political parties votes differently from his party on a particular issue, well, that will be national headline news. It's really hard to believe. If any one member votes differently, it will be national headline news. I voted differently at least once from my party, and it was national headline news. It's a very different system.

Our party system consists today of five parties. There was a remark made yesterday at your youth conference about the fact that parties come and go in Canada every year. This is rather deceptive. I've written considerably on this subject.

We had a two-party system from the founding of our country, in 1867. That two-party system began to break up in the period from 1911 to 1935. Ever since then, five political elements have come and gone. We've always had at least three parties. But even when parties come back, they're not really new. They're just an older party re-appearing under a different name and different circumstances.

Let me take a conventional look at these five parties. I'll describe them in terms that fit your own party system, the left/right kind of terms.

Let's take the New Democratic Party, the NDP, which won 21 seats. The NDP could be described as basically a party of liberal Democrats, but it's actually worse than that, I have to say. And forgive me jesting again, but the NDP is kind of proof that the Devil lives and interferes in the affairs of men.

This party believes not just in large government and in massive redistributive programs, it's explicitly socialist. On social value issues, it believes the opposite on just about everything that anybody in this room believes. I think that's a pretty safe bet on all social-value kinds of questions.

Some people point out that there is a small element of clergy in the NDP. Yes, this is true. But these are clergy who, while very committed to the church, believe that it made a historic error in adopting Christian theology.

The NDP is also explicitly a branch of the Canadian Labour Congress, which is by far our largest labour group, and explicitly radical.

There are some moderate and conservative labour organizations. They don't belong to that particular organization.

The second party, the Liberal party, is by far the largest party. It won the election. It's also the only party that's competitive in all parts of the country. The Liberal party is our dominant party today, and has been for 100 years. It's governed almost all of the last hundred years, probably about 75 per cent of the time.

It's not what you would call conservative Democrat; I think that's a disappearing kind of breed. But it's certainly moderate Democrat, a type of Clinton-pragmatic Democrat. It's moved in the last few years very much to the right on fiscal and economic concerns, but still believes in government intrusion in the economy where possible, and does, in its majority, believe in fairly liberal social values.

In the last Parliament, it enacted comprehensive gun control, well beyond, I think, anything you have. Now we'll have a national firearms registration system, including all shotguns and rifles. Many other kinds of weapons have been banned. It believes in gay rights, although it's fairly cautious. It's put sexual orientation in the Human Rights Act and will let the courts do the rest.

There is an important caveat to its liberal social values. For historic reasons that I won't get into, the Liberal party gets the votes of most Catholics in the country, including many practising Catholics. It does have a significant Catholic, social-conservative element which occasionally disagrees with these kinds of policy directions. Although I caution you that even this Catholic social conservative element in the Liberal party is often quite liberal on economic issues.

Then there is the Progressive Conservative party, the PC party, which won only 20 seats. Now, the term Progressive Conservative will immediately raise suspicions in all of your minds. It should. It's obviously kind of an oxymoron. But actually, its origin is not progressive in the modern sense. The origin of the term "progressive'' in the name stems from the Progressive Movement in the 1920s, which was similar to that in your own country.

But the Progressive Conservative is very definitely liberal Republican. These are people who are moderately conservative on economic matters, and in the past have been moderately liberal, even sometimes quite liberal on social policy matters.

In fact, before the Reform Party really became a force in the late '80s, early '90s, the leadership of the Conservative party was running the largest deficits in Canadian history.

They were in favour of gay rights officially, officially for abortion on demand. Officially -- what else can I say about them? Officially for the entrenchment of our universal, collectivized, health-care system and multicultural policies in the constitution of the country.

At the leadership level anyway, this was a pretty liberal group. This explains one of the reasons why the Reform party has become such a power.

The Reform party is much closer to what you would call conservative Republican, which I'll get to in a minute.

The Bloc Quebecois, which I won't spend much time on, is a strictly Quebec party, strictly among the French-speaking people of Quebec. It is an ethnic separatist party that seeks to make Quebec an independent, sovereign nation.

By and large, the Bloc Quebecois is centre-left in its approach. However, it is primarily an ethnic coalition. It's always had diverse elements. It does have an element that is more on the right of the political spectrum, but that's definitely a minority element.

Let me say a little bit about the Reform party because I want you to be very clear on what the Reform party is and is not.

The Reform party, although described by many of its members, and most of the media, as conservative, and conservative in the American sense, actually describes itself as populist. And that's the term its leader, Preston Manning, uses.

This term is not without significance. The Reform party does stand for direct democracy, which of course many American conservatives do, but also it sees itself as coming from a long tradition of populist parties of Western Canada, not all of which have been conservative.

It also is populist in the very real sense, if I can make American analogies to it -- populist in the sense that the term is sometimes used with Ross Perot.\

The Reform party is very much a leader-driven party. It's much more a real party than Mr. Perot's party -- by the way, it existed before Mr. Perot's party. But it's very much leader-driven, very much organized as a personal political vehicle. Although it has much more of a real organization than Mr. Perot does.

But the Reform party only exists federally. It doesn't exist at the provincial level here in Canada. It really exists only because Mr. Manning is pursuing the position of prime minister. It doesn't have a broader political mandate than that yet. Most of its members feel it should, and, in their minds, actually it does.

It also has some Buchananist tendencies. I know there are probably many admirers of Mr. Buchanan here, but I mean that in the sense that there are some anti-market elements in the Reform Party. So far, they haven't been that important, because Mr. Manning is, himself, a fairly orthodox economic conservative.

The predecessor of the Reform party, the Social Credit party, was very much like this. Believing in funny money and control of banking, and a whole bunch of fairly non-conservative economic things.

So there are some non-conservative tendencies in the Reform party, but, that said, the party is clearly the most economically conservative party in the country. It's the closest thing we have to a neo-conservative party in that sense.

It's also the most conservative socially, but it's not a theocon party, to use the term. The Reform party does favour the use of referendums and free votes in Parliament on moral issues and social issues.

The party is led by Preston Manning, who is a committed, evangelical Christian. And the party in recent years has made some reference to family values and to family priorities. It has some policies that are definitely social-conservative, but it's not explicitly so.

Many members are not, the party officially is not, and, frankly, the party has had a great deal of trouble when it's tried to tackle those issues.

Last year, when we had the Liberal government putting the protection of sexual orientation in our Human Rights Act, the Reform Party was opposed to that, but made a terrible mess of the debate. In fact, discredited itself on that issue, not just with the conventional liberal media, but even with many social conservatives by the manner in which it mishandled that.

So the social conservative element exists. Mr. Manning is a Christian, as are most of the party's senior people. But it's not officially part of the party. The party hasn't quite come to terms with how that fits into it.

That's the conventional analysis of the party system.

Let me turn to the non-conventional analysis, because frankly, it's impossible, with just left/right terminology to explain why we would have five parties, or why we would have four parties on the conventional spectrum. Why not just two?

The reason is regional division, which you'll see if you carefully look at a map. Let me draw the United States comparison, a comparison with your history.

The party system that is developing here in Canada is a party system that replicates the antebellum period, the pre-Civil War period of the United States.

That's not to say -- and I would never be quoted as saying -- we're headed to a civil war. But we do have a major secession crisis, obviously of a very different nature than the secession crisis you had in the 1860s. But the dynamics, the political and partisan dynamics of this, are remarkably similar.

The Bloc Quebecois is equivalent to your Southern secessionists, Southern Democrats, states rights activists. The Bloc Quebecois, its 44 seats, come entirely from the province of Quebec. But even more strikingly, they come from ridings, or election districts, almost entirely populated by the descendants of the original European French settlers.

The Liberal party has 26 seats in Quebec. Most of these come from areas where there are heavy concentrations of English, aboriginal or ethnic votes. So the Bloc Quebecois is very much an ethnic party, but it's also a secession party.

In the referendum two years ago, the secessionists won 49 per cent of the vote, 49.5 per cent. So this is a very real crisis. We're looking at another referendum before the turn of the century.
The Progressive Conservative party is very much comparable to the Whigs of the 1850s and 1860s. What is happening to them is very similar to the Whigs. A moderate conservative party, increasingly under stress because of the secession movement, on the one hand, and the reaction to that movement from harder line English Canadians on the other hand.

You may recall that the Whigs, in their dying days, went through a series of metamorphoses. They ended up as what was called the Unionist movement that won some of the border states in your 1860 election.

If you look at the surviving PC support, it's very much concentrated in Atlantic Canada, in the provinces to the east of Quebec. These are very much equivalent to the United States border states. They're weak economically. They have very grim prospects if Quebec separates. These people want a solution at almost any cost. And some of the solutions they propose would be exactly that.

They also have a small percentage of seats in Quebec. These are French-speaking areas that are also more moderate and very concerned about what would happen in a secession crisis.

The Liberal party is very much your northern Democrat, or mainstream Democratic party, a party that is less concessionary to the secessionists than the PCs, but still somewhat concessionary. And they still occupy the mainstream of public opinion in Ontario, which is the big and powerful province, politically and economically, alongside Quebec.

The Reform party is very much a modern manifestation of the Republican movement in Western Canada; the U.S. Republicans started in the western United States. The Reform Party is very resistant to the agenda and the demands of the secessionists, and on a very deep philosophical level.

The goal of the secessionists is to transform our country into two nations, either into two explicitly sovereign countries, or in the case of weaker separatists, into some kind of federation of two equal partners.

The Reform party opposes this on all kinds of grounds, but most important, Reformers are highly resistant philosophically to the idea that we will have an open, modern, multi-ethnic society on one side of the line, and the other society will run on some set of ethnic-special-status principles. This is completely unacceptable, particularly to philosophical conservatives in the Reform party.

The Reform party's strength comes almost entirely from the West. It's become the dominant political force in Western Canada. And it is getting a substantial vote in Ontario. Twenty per cent of the vote in the last two elections. But it has not yet broken through in terms of the number of seats won in Ontario.

This is a very real political spectrum, lining up from the Bloc to reform. You may notice I didn't mention the New Democratic Party. The NDP obviously can't be compared to anything pre-Civil War. But the NDP is not an important player on this issue. Its views are somewhere between the liberals and conservatives. Its main concern, of course, is simply the left-wing agenda to basically disintegrate our society in all kinds of spectrums. So it really doesn't fit in.

But I don't use this comparison of the pre-Civil War lightly. Preston Manning, the leader of the Reform party has spent a lot of time reading about pre-Civil War politics. He compares the Reform party himself to the Republican party of that period. He is very well-read on Abraham Lincoln and a keen follower and admirer of Lincoln.

I know Mr. Manning very well. I would say that next to his own father, who is a prominent Western Canadian politician, Abraham Lincoln has probably had more effect on Mr. Manning's political philosophy than any individual politician.

Obviously, the issue here is not slavery, but the appeasement of ethnic nationalism. For years, we've had this Quebec separatist movement. For years, we elected Quebec prime ministers to deal with that, Quebec prime ministers who were committed federalists who would lead us out of the wilderness. For years, we have given concessions of various kinds of the province of Quebec, political and economic, to make them happier.

This has not worked. The sovereignty movement has continued to rise in prominence. And its demands have continued to increase. It began to hit the wall when what are called the soft separatists and the conventional political establishment got together to put in the constitution something called "a distinct society clause.'' Nobody really knows what it would mean, but it would give the Supreme Court, where Quebec would have a tremendous role in appointment, the power to interpret Quebec's special needs and powers, undefined elsewhere.

This has led to a firewall of resistance across the country. It fuelled the growth of the Reform party. I should even say that the early concessionary people, like Pierre Trudeau, have come out against this. So there's even now an element of the Quebec federalists themselves who will no longer accept this.

So you see the syndrome we're in. The separatists continue to make demands. They're a powerful force. They continue to have the bulk of the Canadian political establishment on their side. The two traditional parties, the Liberals and PCs, are both led by Quebecers who favour concessionary strategies. The Reform party is a bastion of resistance to this tendency.

To give you an idea of how divided the country is, not just in Quebec but how divided the country is outside Quebec on this, we had a phenomenon five years ago. This is a real phenomenon; I don't know how much you heard about it.\

The establishment came down with a constitutional package which they put to a national referendum. The package included distinct society status for Quebec and some other changes, including some that would just horrify you, putting universal Medicare in our constitution, and feminist rights, and a whole bunch of other things.

What was significant about this was that this constitutional proposal was supported by the entire Canadian political establishment. By all of the major media. By the three largest traditional parties, the PC, Liberal party and NDP. At the time, the Bloc and Reform were very small.

It was supported by big business, very vocally by all of the major CEOs of the country.

The leading labour unions all supported it. Complete consensus. And most academics.

And it was defeated. It literally lost the national referendum against a rag-tag opposition consisting of a few dissident conservatives and a few dissident socialists.

This gives you some idea of the split that's taking place in the country.

Canada is, however, a troubled country politically, not socially. This is a country that we like to say works in practice but not in theory.

You can walk around this country without running across very many of these political controversies.

I'll end there and take any of your questions. But let me conclude by saying, good luck in your own battles. Let me just remind you of something that's been talked about here. As long as there are exams, there will always be prayer in schools.

"You won't recognize Canada when I'm through with it". Heh. Indeedy. Scared yet? You should be. This is extreme stuff.

Cohen Inquiry

2011-12-19T06:54:00.000-08:00

A government email describing a potentially lethal fish virus as a public relations problem has caused a stir at a federal inquiry in Vancouver.

The federally appointed Cohen Commission was called two years ago to examine what caused the 2009 collapse of the Fraser River sockeye.

The suggestion that an influenza-like virus had penetrated B.C. waters came just as the 21-month inquiry was wrapping up, prompting the commissioner to hold three more days of hearings.

On Friday, the federal inquiry heard from an expert in infectious salmon anemia (ISA) who detected the virus in a handful of B.C. fish earlier this year, setting off a chain of alarm bells throughout the government and the West Coast salmon industry.

Fred Kibenge, who runs a prestigious lab on the East Coast, detected the virus in two of 48 sockeye smolts, and the results of his work were widely publicized in October.

The ISA virus has infected and killed millions of fish in Chile, and is believed to have originated in Norway where its own stocks were devastated.
'Turning the PR tide'

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) immediately set about retesting Kibenge's samples, and told the media several weeks later they had found no evidence of the virus.

When news media made that the headline the next day, officials celebrated in a private email that has now been made public.

"It is clear that we are turning the PR tide in our favour, and this is because of the very successful performance of our spokes at the tech briefing," CFIA B.C. manager Joseph Beres wrote.

"One battle is won, now we have to nail the surveillance piece, and we will win the war, also."

Lawyer Don Rosenbloom, who represents two groups of commercial fishermen at the inquiry, isn't buying it.

"One gets the impression they see themselves at war with parties that are pursuing the best interest of the public," he said. "I think it's ridiculous."

While food inspection managers touted the results of their tests, Fisheries and Oceans officials testified the samples they used were so degraded, the results were unreliable.
Discrediting scientists

Kibenge and another Canadian scientist also told the federal inquiry they feared their reputations were being threatened after discovering signs of ISA in B.C. salmon.

The revelation triggered an assessment of Kibenge's independent lab at the University of Prince Edward Island by inspectors from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. It's one of only two such labs for the virus in the world.

Kibenge told the federal commission in Vancouver on Friday that the way officials behaved led him to believe they were aiming to discredit his work.

"Based on the questioning I got, I sensed that the interest here was to confirm my result was the result of contamination," he said while under cross-examination.

"The second point was that probably I was doing shoddy science."

In the past several weeks, additional research has surfaced that potentially identifies the virus' presence as far back as 2002.
'Most feared threat to aquaculture'

At the inquiry, Kibenge said he felt he was being pressured, even though he considered his science to be "above question."
Sockeye salmon waiting for access to spawning grounds in Scotch Creek, B.C.Sockeye salmon waiting for access to spawning grounds in Scotch Creek, B.C. (Matt Casselman)

"Because aquaculture is a business, of course, the virus or the pathogen ... is a problem," he said. "As far as I know, the spread of diseases is the most feared threat to aquaculture."

But in later testimony, Fisheries official Peter Wright, who manages the national aquatic animal health laboratory system, said the assessment wasn't seeking to discredit Kibenge.

He said its goal was to figure out why Kibenge's test results came up positive when examination of the same fish in the government's own lab did not.

During an earlier hearing, a second scientist who works in a lab based in Nanaimo, B.C., was questioned about her own experiences with federal officials.
Findings investigated

Molecular geneticist Kristi Miller, who runs a research lab for the Fisheries Department in Nanaimo, B.C., told the commission on Thursday she has been "alienated" within the department.

She said that began in late November when she revealed to superiors she, too, had detected the virus in B.C. salmon.

On Thursday, a lawyer for the commission asked a panel of three government officials whether Miller's findings are a "game-changer."

No, it just requires further investigation, was the answer from Stephen Stephen, the director to whom Miller reported her findings.

"Although it may have merit," added his colleague Wright, as he pointed out Miller is using a different testing technique. "It needs to be proven."

Kim Klotins, who was appearing on behalf of the food inspection agency, added the agency has already begun a process of investigating Miller's findings. She said staff have run initial tests, which did not corroborate the results.

The virus found was 95 per cent similar to its European strain, Miller said. A North American strain has previously been detected in Atlantic Canada.
CFIA seizes samples

Miller also noted yet another researcher, Prof. Rick Routledge of Simon Fraser University, came under scrutiny after he made Kibenge's initial results public. Routledge had collected the fish and sent them to the P.E.I. lab for testing.

She said the CFIA removed all samples from Routledge's freezer, meaning his work could not continue.

She said Stephen told her she shouldn't conduct research if she didn't understand its potential "ramifications."

That, along with what happened to Routledge's samples, caused her to feel "some level of intimidation," she told the commission.

Miller's lab is funded by the government to conduct research on fish pathogens. She found the evidence of infectious salmon anaemia in the course of that work.
Evidence of ISA dates back 25 years

Miller has told the inquiry she's not clear whether the virus she discovered causes disease, but she noted there appeared to be some signs of damage in the fish.

Government email makes waves at salmon inquiry
Cohen Commission extended after news influenza-like virus detected in B.C.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

by cbc
But that virus isn't her greatest concern, she said.

She testified she has also found signs of another virus unknown in Canadian fish that causes a condition called heart and skeletal muscle inflammation. She said those results from migrating wild sockeye salmon came back in early testing, and have not yet been shared with officials or been made public.

Kibenge and Miller are among four expert fish scientists who have told the inquiry there is varying evidence the ISA virus may be carried in B.C. salmon, with some findings dating back 25 years.

The scientists say more research is required to know whether it could be a health risk for wild Pacific salmon.

The inquiry's final report is due by the end of June.

Before the First Snow

2011-12-04T15:10:00.000-08:00

Before the First Snow
by Walter Brasch

Sacramento, Calif. 95834 www.greeleyandstone.com

http://www.greeleyandstone.com/images/QUESTIONS.pdf

“There is in every true woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire . . . which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.”
—Washington Irving, The Sketch Book
Birmingham. Delano. Chicago. Kent State.
War. The Environment. Worker Exploitation.
Hippies. Yippies. Cops and politicians.
People were marching. People were protesting.

The news media reported, discussed, editorialized, lampooned, misreported, and cynically dismissed the new social movements forged from alienation. And then the 1960s dissolved into the 1970s, evolved into the "Me generation," began a slow descent into the “Happy Days” mentality of the 1950s, and then jerked into the reality by the fear of cultures and events the people didn’t understand.
Mixing humor and pathos, award-winning journalist Walter M. Brasch weaves an intricate psychological and social issues mystery of insight into the people and culture that is America. The places are urban Boston, suburban northern and rural California, and rural northeastern Pennsylvania. The time is January 1964 to Jan. 15, 1991, the day before the U.S. went to war in the Persian Gulf.

Major Social Issues: energy, environment, anti-war movement, First Amendment issues, government intrusion upon individual rights and government "cooperation" with corporations, labor/unions/worker rights, the alternative and mainstream media, all with a focus of music, photography, and journalism as powerful ways to record the history of a nation.

The principal characters are:

Apryl Greene (aka Rachel Greenberg), a flower child of the '60s, a musician and photographer primarily for labor unions and social issues causes, who had worked for civil rights and for peace, who experienced college and the communes, who once held an establishment job. Now, two decades after the revolution, all she wants is to build a school for peace and the arts, but powerful forces have already begun a process to legally seize her land. As we unthread some of this intrigue, we learn that Apryl's land is part of an undisclosed tract that government and a large industry needs in order to complete its purchase of land to build the nation’s largest nuclear waste disposal facility. But, there are problems with that plant, and with both the ownership and the regulators. Apryl is faced not only by trying to build a school for peace in a nation rushing to war, but also a compelling need to stop the proliferation of nuclear energy in a society that is torn by its dependence upon oil and the need for an alternative. As the novel progresses, the mystery accelerates, leading to an explosive conclusion based upon existing legislation and practices.

David Ascher, executive editor of Century, a 375,000-circulation social issues magazine. He's cynical, liberal, and burdened with the responsibilities of editorship. While it appears we are looking at Apryl through David's narrative, we are really seeing the nature of American media and, more important, David and how he has changed.

Sam Weissmann, editor-in-chief/publisher of Century. He was a newspaper reporter more than 20 years. Had the New York Herald Tribune not have been merged and then destroyed in 1967 by management incompetence and an industry that had already begun a descent into placing profit above courage and the fight for truth, he would still have been the national correspondent for what once was one of the nation’s most respected newspapers. However, the death of the Herald-Tribune would ironically lead to the birth of Century, which would become one of the major voices of social justice and the New Left.

Before the First Snow is 29 separate but inter-related short stories, each building upon the previous one. The odd-numbered chapters, literary fiction with a humor base, carry the plot as Apryl Greene tries to build her school for peace, while David tries to balance the business-management demands of a magazine with the demands of social justice. The even-numbered chapters, more non-fiction than literary fiction, are vignettes and news stories David Ascher had written for newspapers and magazines during the previous 25 years. Some of these articles focus upon major news events; some are personality profiles. Individually, these seem to be separate, but they are the thread that holds the story together, for each is an insight into the life of Apryl Greene, who sometimes is a major character, sometimes a tangential passerby.

Before the First Snow is an insight not just of a few moments in history but of lessons of contemporary American culture and values, lessons about people, attitudes, issues, and governments, all of which have become even more relevant since 9/11. The fusion of history, contemporary society, and character make this a powerful insight into the collective consciousness of a people.

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil but because of those who look on and do nothing.” —Albert Einstein

A New Strategy for Securing the Realm

2011-11-13T20:00:00.001-08:00

A Zionist plan for the Middle East
Richard Perle et al
http://radioislam.org/islam/english/zionism/zioniststrategy.htm

Here follows a document published by The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ "Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000." as a framework for Zionist Strategies for the ruling Likud Party in Israel. When reading this Zionist document compare the recommendations in this document from 1996 with the actual polititical acts of the U.S. government in 2003 - almost 7 years later - concerning Iraq and Syria. The Jewish authors Perle, Feith and Wurmser have since the conceivement of this document advanced to high positions in th U.S. Administration and were acting as Zionist moles from those positions as some of the main architects behind the so-called "U.S." led aggression och occupation of Iraq in 2003.

A Clean Break:
A New Strategy for Securing the Realm

By Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser
The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
July 8, 1996

Following is a report prepared by The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ "Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000." The main substantive ideas in this paper emerge from a discussion in which prominent opinion makers, including Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser participated. The report, entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," is the framework for a series of follow-up reports on strategy.

Israel has a large problem. Labor Zionism, which for 70 years has dominated the Zionist movement, has generated a stalled and shackled economy. Efforts to salvage Israel’s socialist institutions—which include pursuing supranational over national sovereignty and pursuing a peace process that embraces the slogan, "New Middle East"—undermine the legitimacy of the nation and lead Israel into strategic paralysis and the previous government’s "peace process." That peace process obscured the evidence of eroding national critical mass— including a palpable sense of national exhaustion—and forfeited strategic initiative. The loss of national critical mass was illustrated best by Israel’s efforts to draw in the United States to sell unpopular policies domestically, to agree to negotiate sovereignty over its capital, and to respond with resignation to a spate of terror so intense and tragic that it deterred Israelis from engaging in normal daily functions, such as commuting to work in buses.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government comes in with a new set of ideas. While there are those who will counsel continuity, Israel has the opportunity to make a clean break; it can forge a peace process and strategy based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism, the starting point of which must be economic reform. To secure the nation’s streets and borders in the immediate future, Israel can:

Work closely with Turkey and Jordan to contain, destabilize, and roll-back some of its most dangerous threats. This implies clean break from the slogan, "comprehensive peace" to a traditional concept of strategy based on balance of power.
Change the nature of its relations with the Palestinians, including upholding the right of hot pursuit for self defense into all Palestinian areas and nurturing alternatives to Arafat’s exclusive grip on Palestinian society.
Forge a new basis for relations with the United States—stressing self-reliance, maturity, strategic cooperation on areas of mutual concern, and furthering values inherent to the West. This can only be done if Israel takes serious steps to terminate aid, which prevents economic reform.

This report is written with key passages of a possible speech marked TEXT, that highlight the clean break which the new government has an opportunity to make. The body of the report is the commentary explaining the purpose and laying out the strategic context of the passages.

A New Approach to Peace

Early adoption of a bold, new perspective on peace and security is imperative for the new prime minister. While the previous government, and many abroad, may emphasize "land for peace"— which placed Israel in the position of cultural, economic, political, diplomatic, and military retreat — the new government can promote Western values and traditions. Such an approach, which will be well received in the United States, includes "peace for peace," "peace through strength" and self reliance: the balance of power.

A new strategy to seize the initiative can be introduced:

TEXT:

We have for four years pursued peace based on a New Middle East. We in Israel cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent. Peace depends on the character and behavior of our foes. We live in a dangerous neighborhood, with fragile states and bitter rivalries. Displaying moral ambivalence between the effort to build a Jewish state and the desire to annihilate it by trading "land for peace" will not secure "peace now." Our claim to the land —to which we have clung for hope for 2000 years--is legitimate and noble. It is not within our own power, no matter how much we concede, to make peace unilaterally. Only the unconditional acceptance by Arabs of our rights, especially in their territorial dimension, "peace for peace," is a solid basis for the future.

Israel’s quest for peace emerges from, and does not replace, the pursuit of its ideals. The Jewish people’s hunger for human rights — burned into their identity by a 2000-year old dream to live free in their own land — informs the concept of peace and reflects continuity of values with Western and Jewish tradition. Israel can now embrace negotiations, but as means, not ends, to pursue those ideals and demonstrate national steadfastness. It can challenge police states; enforce compliance of agreements; and insist on minimal standards of accountability.

Securing the Northern Border

Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon, including by:

striking Syria’s drug-money and counterfeiting infrastructure in Lebanon, all of which focuses on Razi Qanan.
paralleling Syria’s behavior by establishing the precedent that Syrian territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces.
striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper.

Israel also can take this opportunity to remind the world of the nature of the Syrian regime. Syria repeatedly breaks its word. It violated numerous agreements with the Turks, and has betrayed the United States by continuing to occupy Lebanon in violation of the Taef agreement in 1989. Instead, Syria staged a sham election, installed a quisling regime, and forced Lebanon to sign a "Brotherhood Agreement" in 1991, that terminated Lebanese sovereignty. And Syria has begun colonizing Lebanon with hundreds of thousands of Syrians, while killing tens of thousands of its own citizens at a time, as it did in only three days in 1983 in Hama.

Under Syrian tutelage, the Lebanese drug trade, for which local Syrian military officers receive protection payments, flourishes. Syria’s regime supports the terrorist groups operationally and financially in Lebanon and on its soil. Indeed, the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley in Lebanon has become for terror what the Silicon Valley has become for computers. The Bekaa Valley has become one of the main distribution sources, if not production points, of the "supernote" — counterfeit US currency so well done that it is impossible to detect.

Text:

Negotiations with repressive regimes like Syria’s require cautious realism. One cannot sensibly assume the other side’s good faith. It is dangerous for Israel to deal naively with a regime murderous of its own people, openly aggressive toward its neighbors, criminally involved with international drug traffickers and counterfeiters, and supportive of the most deadly terrorist organizations.

Given the nature of the regime in Damascus, it is both natural and moral that Israel abandon the slogan "comprehensive peace" and move to contain Syria, drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction program, and rejecting "land for peace" deals on the Golan Heights.

Moving to a Traditional Balance of Power Strategy

TEXT:

We must distinguish soberly and clearly friend from foe. We must make sure that our friends across the Middle East never doubt the solidity or value of our friendship.

Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria's regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq. This has triggered a Jordanian-Syrian rivalry to which Asad has responded by stepping up efforts to destabilize the Hashemite Kingdom, including using infiltrations. Syria recently signaled that it and Iran might prefer a weak, but barely surviving Saddam, if only to undermine and humiliate Jordan in its efforts to remove Saddam.

But Syria enters this conflict with potential weaknesses: Damascus is too preoccupied with dealing with the threatened new regional equation to permit distractions of the Lebanese flank. And Damascus fears that the 'natural axis' with Israel on one side, central Iraq and Turkey on the other, and Jordan, in the center would squeeze and detach Syria from the Saudi Peninsula. For Syria, this could be the prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East which would threaten Syria's territorial integrity.

Since Iraq's future could affect the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly, it would be understandable that Israel has an interest in supporting the Hashemites in their efforts to redefine Iraq, including such measures as: visiting Jordan as the first official state visit, even before a visit to the United States, of the new Netanyahu government; supporting King Hussein by providing him with some tangible security measures to protect his regime against Syrian subversion; encouraging — through influence in the U.S. business community — investment in Jordan to structurally shift Jordan’s economy away from dependence on Iraq; and diverting Syria’s attention by using Lebanese opposition elements to destabilize Syrian control of Lebanon.

Most important, it is understandable that Israel has an interest supporting diplomatically, militarily and operationally Turkey’s and Jordan’s actions against Syria, such as securing tribal alliances with Arab tribes that cross into Syrian territory and are hostile to the Syrian ruling elite.

King Hussein may have ideas for Israel in bringing its Lebanon problem under control. The predominantly Shia population of southern Lebanon has been tied for centuries to the Shia leadership in Najf, Iraq rather than Iran. Were the Hashemites to control Iraq, they could use their influence over Najf to help Israel wean the south Lebanese Shia away from Hizballah, Iran, and Syria. Shia retain strong ties to the Hashemites: the Shia venerate foremost the Prophet’s family, the direct descendants of which — and in whose veins the blood of the Prophet flows — is King Hussein.

Changing the Nature of Relations with the Palestinians

Israel has a chance to forge a new relationship between itself and the Palestinians. First and foremost, Israel’s efforts to secure its streets may require hot pursuit into Palestinian-controlled areas, a justifiable practice with which Americans can sympathize.

A key element of peace is compliance with agreements already signed. Therefore, Israel has the right to insist on compliance, including closing Orient House and disbanding Jibril Rujoub’s operatives in Jerusalem. Moreover, Israel and the United States can establish a Joint Compliance Monitoring Committee to study periodically whether the PLO meets minimum standards of compliance, authority and responsibility, human rights, and judicial and fiduciary accountability.

TEXT:

We believe that the Palestinian Authority must be held to the same minimal standards of accountability as other recipients of U.S. foreign aid. A firm peace cannot tolerate repression and injustice. A regime that cannot fulfill the most rudimentary obligations to its own people cannot be counted upon to fulfill its obligations to its neighbors.

Israel has no obligations under the Oslo agreements if the PLO does not fulfill its obligations. If the PLO cannot comply with these minimal standards, then it can be neither a hope for the future nor a proper interlocutor for present. To prepare for this, Israel may want to cultivate alternatives to Arafat’s base of power. Jordan has ideas on this.

To emphasize the point that Israel regards the actions of the PLO problematic, but not the Arab people, Israel might want to consider making a special effort to reward friends and advance human rights among Arabs. Many Arabs are willing to work with Israel; identifying and helping them are important. Israel may also find that many of her neighbors, such as Jordan, have problems with Arafat and may want to cooperate. Israel may also want to better integrate its own Arabs.

Forging A New U.S.-Israeli Relationship

In recent years, Israel invited active U.S. intervention in Israel’s domestic and foreign policy for two reasons: to overcome domestic opposition to "land for peace" concessions the Israeli public could not digest, and to lure Arabs — through money, forgiveness of past sins, and access to U.S. weapons — to negotiate. This strategy, which required funneling American money to repressive and aggressive regimes, was risky, expensive, and very costly for both the U.S. and Israel, and placed the United States in roles is should neither have nor want.

Israel can make a clean break from the past and establish a new vision for the U.S.-Israeli partnership based on self-reliance, maturity and mutuality — not one focused narrowly on territorial disputes. Israel’s new strategy — based on a shared philosophy of peace through strength — reflects continuity with Western values by stressing that Israel is self-reliant, does not need U.S. troops in any capacity to defend it, including on the Golan Heights, and can manage its own affairs. Such self-reliance will grant Israel greater freedom of action and remove a significant lever of pressure used against it in the past.

To reinforce this point, the Prime Minister can use his forthcoming visit to announce that Israel is now mature enough to cut itself free immediately from at least U.S. economic aid and loan guarantees at least, which prevent economic reform. [Military aid is separated for the moment until adequate arrangements can be made to ensure that Israel will not encounter supply problems in the means to defend itself]. As outlined in another Institute report, Israel can become self-reliant only by, in a bold stroke rather than in increments, liberalizing its economy, cutting taxes, relegislating a free-processing zone, and selling-off public lands and enterprises — moves which will electrify and find support from a broad bipartisan spectrum of key pro-Israeli Congressional leaders, including Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.

Israel can under these conditions better cooperate with the U.S. to counter real threats to the region and the West’s security. Mr. Netanyahu can highlight his desire to cooperate more closely with the United States on anti-missile defense in order to remove the threat of blackmail which even a weak and distant army can pose to either state. Not only would such cooperation on missile defense counter a tangible physical threat to Israel’s survival, but it would broaden Israel’s base of support among many in the United States Congress who may know little about Israel, but care very much about missile defense. Such broad support could be helpful in the effort to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

To anticipate U.S. reactions and plan ways to manage and constrain those reactions, Prime Minister Netanyahu can formulate the policies and stress themes he favors in language familiar to the Americans by tapping into themes of American administrations during the Cold War which apply well to Israel. If Israel wants to test certain propositions that require a benign American reaction, then the best time to do so is before November, 1996.

Conclusions: Transcending the Arab-Israeli Conflict

TEXT: Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them.

Notable Arab intellectuals have written extensively on their perception of Israel’s floundering and loss of national identity. This perception has invited attack, blocked Israel from achieving true peace, and offered hope for those who would destroy Israel. The previous strategy, therefore, was leading the Middle East toward another Arab-Israeli war. Israel’s new agenda can signal a clean break by abandoning a policy which assumed exhaustion and allowed strategic retreat by reestablishing the principle of preemption, rather than retaliation alone and by ceasing to absorb blows to the nation without response.

Israel’s new strategic agenda can shape the regional environment in ways that grant Israel the room to refocus its energies back to where they are most needed: to rejuvenate its national idea, which can only come through replacing Israel’s socialist foundations with a more sound footing; and to overcome its "exhaustion," which threatens the survival of the nation.

Ultimately, Israel can do more than simply manage the Arab-Israeli conflict though war. No amount of weapons or victories will grant Israel the peace its seeks. When Israel is on a sound economic footing, and is free, powerful, and healthy internally, it will no longer simply manage the Arab-Israeli conflict; it will transcend it. As a senior Iraqi opposition leader said recently: "Israel must rejuvenate and revitalize its moral and intellectual leadership. It is an important — if not the most important--element in the history of the Middle East." Israel — proud, wealthy, solid, and strong — would be the basis of a truly new and peaceful Middle East.

Participants in the Study Group on "A New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000:"

Richard Perle, American Enterprise Institute, Study Group Leader

James Colbert, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Johns Hopkins University/SAIS
Douglas Feith, Feith and Zell Associates
Robert Loewenberg, President, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
Jonathan Torop, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
David Wurmser, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
Meyrav Wurmser, Johns Hopkins University

The Zionist Plan for the Middle East

2011-11-13T19:58:00.000-08:00

The Zionist Plan for the Middle East

Translated and edited by Israel Shahak

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20832.htm

In his Complete Diaries , Vol. II. p. 711, Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, says that the area of the Jewish State stretches: "From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates."

Rabbi Fischmann, member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared in his testimony to the U.N. Special Committee of Enquiry on 9 Jul y 1947: "The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon."

from Oded Yinon's

"A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties"

Published by the

Association of Arab-American University Graduates, Inc.

Belmont, Massachusetts, 1982

Special Document No. 1

(ISBN 0-937694-56-8)

Table of Contents

Publisher's Note

1

The Association of Arab-American University Graduates finds it compelling to inaugurate its new

publication series, Special Documents, with Oded Yinon's article which appeared in Kivunim

(Directions) , the journal of the Department of Information of the World Zionist Organization. Oded

Yinon is an Israeli journalist and was formerly attached to the Foreign Ministry of Israel. To our

knowledge, this document is the most explicit, detailed and unambiguous statement to date of the

Zionist strategy in the Middle East. Furthermore, it stands as an accurate representation of the "vision"

for the entire Middle East of the presently ruling Zionist regime of Begin, Sharon and Eitan. Its

importance, hence, lies not in its historical value but in the nightmare which it presents.

2

The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional

power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all

existing Arab states. Sma ll here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state.

Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel's satellites and, ironically, its

source of moral legitimation .

3

This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking. Indeed,

fragmenting all Arab states into smaller units has been a recurrent theme. This theme has been

documented on a very modest scale in the AAUG publication,Israel's Sacred Terrorism(1980), by

Livia Rokach. Based on the memoirs of Moshe Sharett, former Prime Minister of Israel, Rokach's study

documen ts, in convincing detail, the Zionist plan as it applies to Lebanon and as it was prepared in th e

mid-fifties.

4

The first massive Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1978 bore this plan out to the minutest detail. The

second and more barbaric and encompassing Israeli invasion of Lebanon on June 6, 1982, aims to effect

certain parts of this plan which hopes to see not only Lebanon, but Syria and Jordan as well, in

fragments. This ought to make mockery of Israeli public claims regarding their desire for a strong and

independent Lebanese central government. More accurately, they want a Lebanese central government

that sanctions their regional imperialist designs by signing a peace treaty with them. They also seek

acquiescence in their designs by the Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian and other Arab governments as well as by

the Palestinian people. What they want and what they are planning for is not an Arab world, but a world

of Arab fragments that is ready to succumb to Israeli hegemony. Hence, Oded Yinon in his essay, "A

Strategy for Israel in the 1980 's," talks about "far-reaching opportunities for the first time since 1967"

that are created by the "very stormy situation [that] surrounds Israel."

5

The Zionist policy of displacing the Palestinians from Palestine is very much an active policy, but is

pursued more forcefully in times of conflict, such as in the 1947-1948 war and in the 1967 war. An

appendix entitled "Israel Talks of a New Exodus" is included in this publication to demonstrate past

Zionist dispersals of Palestinians from their homeland and to show, besides the main Zionist document

we present, other Zionist planning for the de-Palestinization of Palestine.

6

It is clear from the Kivunim document, published in February, 1982, that the "far-reaching

opportunities" of which Zionist strategists have been thinking are the same "opportunities" of which

they are trying to convince the world and which they claim were generated by their June, 1982 invasion.

It is also clear that the Palestinians were never the sole target of Zionist plans, but the priority target

since their viable and independent presence as a people negates the essence of the Zionist state. Every

Arab state, however, especially those with cohesive and clear nationalist directions, is a real target

sooner or later.

7

Contrasted with the detailed and unambiguous Zionist strategy elucidated in this document, Arab and

Palestinian strategy, unfortunately, suffers from ambiguity and incoherence. There is no indication that

Arab strategists have internalized the Zionist plan in its full ramifications. Instead, they react with

incredulity and shock whenever a new stage of it unfolds. This is apparent in Arab reaction, albeit

muted, to the Israeli siege of Beirut. The sad fact is that as long as the Zionist strategy for th e Middle

East is not taken seriously Arab reaction to any future siege of o ther Arab capitals will be the same.

Khal il Nakhleh

July 23, 1982

Foreward

1

The following essay represents, in my opinion, the accurate and detailed plan of the present Zionist

regime (of Sharon and Eitan) for the Middle East which is based on the division of the whole area into

small states, and the dissolution of all the existing Arab states. I will comment on the military aspect of

this plan in a concluding note. Here I want to draw the attention of the readers to several important

points:

2

1. The idea that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units, occurs again and

again in Israeli strategic thinking. For example, Ze'ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha'aretz

(and probably the most knowledgeable in Israel, on this topic) writes about the "best" that can happen

for Israeli interests in Iraq: "The dissolution of Iraq into a Shi'ite state, a Sunni state and the separation

of the Kurdish part" ( Ha'aretz 6/2/1982). Actually, this aspect of the plan is very old.

3

2. The strong connection with Neo-Conservative thought in the USA is very prominent, especially in

the author's notes. But, while lip service is paid to the idea of the "defense of the West" from Soviet

power, the real aim of the author, and of the present Israeli establishment is clear: To make an Imperial

Israel into a world power. In other words, the aim of Sharon is to deceive the Americans after he has

deceived all the rest.

4

3. It is obvious that much of the relevant data, both in the notes and in the text, is garbled or omitted,

such as the financial help of the U.S. to Israel . Much of it is pure fantasy. But , the plan is not to be

regarded as not influential, or as not capable of realization for a short time. The plan follows faithfully

the geopolitical ideas current in Germany of 1890-1933 , which were swallowed whole by Hitler and the

Nazi movement, and determined their aims for East Europe . Those aims, especially the division of the

existing states, were carried out in 1939-1941, and only an alliance on the global scale prevented their

consolidation for a period of time.

5

The notes by the author follow the text. To avoid confusion, I did not add any notes of my own, but

have put the substance of them into this foreward and the conclusion at the end. I have, however,

emphasized some portions of the text.

Israel Shahak

June 13, 1982

A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties

by Oded Yinon

This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions) , A Journal for Judaism and

Zionism; Issue No, 14--Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli

Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of

Publicity/The World Zionist Organization , Jerusalem.

1

At the outset of the nineteen eighties the State of Israel is in need of a new perspective as to its place, its

aims and national targets, at home and abroad. This need has become even more vital due to a number

of central processes which the country, the region and the world are undergoing. We are living today in

the early stages of a new epoch in human history which is not at all similar to its predecessor, and its

characteristics are totally different from what we have hitherto known. That is why we need an

understanding of the central processes which typify this historical epoch on the one hand, and on the

other hand we need a world outlook and an operational strategy in accordance with the new conditions.

The existence, prosperity and steadfastness of the Jewish state will depend upon its ability to adopt a

new framework for its domestic and foreign affairs.

2

This epoch is characterized by several traits which we can already diagnose, and which symbolize a

genuine revolution in our present lifestyle. The dominant process is the breakdown of the rationalist,

humanist outlook as the major cornerstone supporting the life and achievements of Western civilization

since the Renaissance. The political, social and economic views which have emanated from this

foundation have been based on several "truths" which are presently disappearing--for example, the view

that man as an individual is the center of the universe and everything exists in order to fulfill his basic

material needs. This position is being invalidated in the present when it has become clear that the

amount of resources in the cosmos does not meet Man's requirements, his economic needs or his

demographic constraints. In a world in which there are four billion human beings and economic and

energy resources which do not grow proportionally to meet the needs of mankind, it is unrealistic to

expect to fulfill the main requirement of Western Society, i.e., the wish and aspiration for boundless 1

consumption. The view that ethics plays no part in determining the direction Man takes, but rather his

material needs do--that view is becoming prevalent today as we see a world in which nearly all values

are disappearing. We are losing the ability to assess the simplest things, especially when they concern

the simple question of what is Good and what is Evil.

3

The vision of man's limitless aspirations and abilities shrinks in the face of the sad facts of life, when we

witness the break-up of world order around us. The view which promises liberty and freedom to

mankind seems absurd in light of the sad fact that three fourths of the human race lives under

totalitarian regimes. The views concerning equality and social justice have been transformed by

socialism and especially by Communism into a laughing stock. There is no argument as to the truth of

these two ideas, but it is clear that they have not been put into practice properly and the majority of

mankind has lost the liberty, the freedom and the opportunity for equality and justice. In this nuclear

world in which we are (still) living in relative peace for thirty years, the concept of peace and

coexistence among nations has no meaning when a superpower like the USSR holds a military and

political doctrine of the sort it has: that not only is a nuclear war possible and necessary in order to

achieve the ends of Marxism, but that it is possible to survive after it, not to speak of the fact that one

can be victorious in it. 2

4

The essential concepts of human society, especially those of the West, are undergoing a change due to

political, military and economic transformations. Thus, the nuclear and conventional might of the USSR

has transformed the epoch that has just ended into the last respite before the great saga that will

demolish a large part of our world in a multi-dimensional global war, in comparison with which the past

world wars will have been mere child's play. The power of nu clear as well as of conventional weapons,

their quantity, their precision and quality will turn most of our world upside down within a few years,

and we must align ourselves so as to face that in Israel. That is, then, the main threat to our existence

and that of the Western world. The war over resources in the world, the Arab monopoly on oil, and the 3

need of the West to import most of its raw materials from the Third World, are transforming the world

we know, given that one of the major aims of the USSR is to defeat the West by gaining control over

the g igantic resources in the Persian Gulf and in the southern part of Africa, in which the majority of

world minerals are located. We can imagine the dimensions of the global confrontation which will face

us in the future.

5

The Gorshkov doctrine calls for Soviet control of the oceans and mineral rich areas of the Third World.

That together with the present Soviet nuclear doctrine which holds that it is possible to manage, win and

survive a nuclear war, in the course of which the West's military might well be destroyed and its

inhabitants made slaves in the service of Marxism-Leninism, is the main danger to world peace and to

our own existence. Since 1967, the Soviets have transformed Clausewitz' dictum into "War is the

continuation of policy in nuclear means," and made it the motto which guides all their policies. Already

today they are busy carrying out their aims in our region and throughout the world, and the need to face

them becomes the major element in our country's security policy and of course that of the rest of the

Free World. That is our major foreign challenge. 4

6

The Arab Moslem world, therefore, is not the major strategic problem which we shall face in the

Eighties, despite the fact that it carries the main threat against Israel, due to its growing military might.

This world, with its ethnic minorities, its factions and internal crises, which is astonishingly self-

destructive, as we can see in Lebanon, in non-Arab Iran and now also in Syria, is unable to deal

successfully with its fundamental problems and does not therefore constitute a real threat against the

State of Israel in the long run, but only in the short run where its immediate military power has great

import. In the long run, this world will be unable to exist within its present framework in the areas

around us without having to go through genuine revolutionary changes. The Moslem Arab World is

built like a temporary house of cards put together by foreign ers (France and Britain in the Nineteen

Twenties), without the wishes and desires of the inhabitants having been taken into account. It was

arbitrarily divided into 19 states, all made of combinations of minorites and ethnic groups which are

hostile to one anoth er, so that every Arab Moslem state nowadays faces ethnic so cial destruction from

within, and in some a civil war is already raging. Most of th e Arabs, 118 million out of 170 millio n, 5

live in Africa, mostly in Egypt (45 million today).

7

Apart from Egypt, all the Maghreb states are made up of a mixture of Arabs and non-Arab Berbers. In

Algeria there is already a civil war raging in the Kabile mountains between the two nations in the

country. Morocco and Algeria are at war with each other over Spanish Sahara, in addition to the internal

struggle in each of them. Militant Islam endangers the integrity of Tunisia and Qaddafi organizes wars

which are destructive from the Arab point of view, from a country which is sparsely populated and

which cannot become a powerful nation. That is why he has been attempting unifications in the past

with states that are more genuine, like Egypt and Syria. Sudan, the most torn apart state in the Arab

Moslem world today is built upon four groups hostile to each other, an Arab Moslem Sunni minority

which rules over a majority of non-Arab Africans, Pagans, and Christians. In Egypt there is a Sunni

Moslem majority facing a large minority of Christians which is dominant in upper Egypt: some 7

million of them, so that even Sadat, in his speech on May 8, expressed the fear that they will want a

state of their own, something like a "second" Christian Lebanon in Egypt.

8

All the Arab States east of Israel are torn apart, broken up and riddled with inner conflict even more

than those of the Maghreb. Syria is fundamentally no different from Lebanon except in the strong

military regime which rules it. But the real civil war taking place nowadays between the Sunni majority

and the Shi'ite Alawi ruling minority (a mere 12% of the population) testifies to th e severity of the

domestic trouble.

9

Iraq is, once again, no different in essence from its neighbors, although its majority is Shi'ite and the

ruling minority Sunni. Sixty-fiv e percent of the population has no say in politics, in which an elite of 20

percent holds the power. In addition there is a large Kurdish minority in the north, and if it weren't for

the strength of the ruling regime, the army and the oil revenues, Iraq's future state would be no different

than that of Lebanon in th e past or of Syria today. The seed s of inner conflict and civil war are apparent

today already, especially after the rise of Khomeini to power in Iran, a leader wh om the Shi'ites in Iraq

view as th eir natural leader.

10

All the Gulf principalities and Saudi Arabia are built upon a d elicate house of sand in which there is

only o il. In Kuwait, the Kuwaitis co nstitute only a quarter of the population. In Bahrain, the Shi'ites are

the majority but are deprived of power. In the UAE, Shi'ites are once again the majority but the Sunnis

are in power. The same is true of Oman and North Yemen. Even in the Marx ist South Yemen there is a

sizable Shi'ite minority. In Saudi Arabia half the population is foreign, Egyptian and Yemenite, but a

Saudi minority holds power.

11

Jordan is in reality Palestinian, ruled by a Trans-Jordanian Bedouin minority, but most of the army and

certainly the bureaucracy is now Palestin ian. As a matter of fact Amman is as Palestinian as Nab lus. All

of these countries have powerful armies, relatively speaking. But there is a problem there too. The

Syrian army today is mostly Sunni with an Alawi officer corps, th e Iraqi army Shi'ite with Sunni

commanders. This has great significance in the long run, and that is wh y it will not be possible to retain

the loyalty of the army for a long time except where it comes to the only common denominator: The

hostility towards Israel, and today even th at is insufficient.

12

Alongside the Arabs, split as they are, the other Mo slem states share a similar predicament. Half of

Iran's population is comprised of a Persian speaking group and the other half of an ethnically Turkish

group. Turkey's population comprises a Turkish Sunni Moslem majority, some 50%, and two large

minorities, 12 million Shi'ite Alawis and 6 million Sunni Kurds. In Afgh anistan there are 5 million

Shi'ites who constitute one third of the population. In Sunni Pakistan there are 15 million Shi'ites who

endanger the existence of that state.

13

This national ethnic minority picture extending from Morocco to India and from Somalia to Turkey

points to the absence of stability and a rapid degeneration in the entire region. When this picture is

added to the economic one, we see how the entire region is built like a house of cards, unable to

withstand its severe problems.

14

In this giant and fractured world there are a few wealthy groups and a huge mass of poor people. Most

of the Arabs have an average yearly income of 30 0 dollars. That is the situation in Egypt, in mo st of the

Maghreb countries except for Libya, and in Iraq. Lebanon is torn apart and its economy is falling to

pieces. It is a state in which there is no centralized power, but only 5 de facto sovereign authorities

(Christian in the north, supported by the Syrians and under the rule of the Franjieh clan, in the East an

area of direct Syrian conquest, in the center a Phalangist controlled Christian enclave, in the south and

up to the Litani river a mostly Palestinian region controlled by the PLO and Major Haddad's state of

Christians and half a million Shi'ites). Syria is in an even graver situation and even the assistance she

will obtain in the future after the unification with Libya will not be sufficient for dealing with the basic

problems of existence and the maintenance of a large army. Egypt is in the worst situation: Millions are

on the verge of hunger, half the labor force is unemployed, and housing is scarce in this most densely

populated area of the world. Except for the army, there is not a single department operating efficiently

and the state is in a permanent state of bankruptcy and depends entirely on American foreign assistance

granted since the peace. 6

15

In the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Egypt there is the largest accumulation of money and oil in

the world, bu t those enjoying it are tiny elites who lack a wide base of support and self-confidence,

something that no army can guarantee. The Saudi army with all its equipment cannot defend the regime 7

from real dangers at home or abroad, and what took place in Mecca in 1980 is only an example. A sad

and very stormy situation surrounds Israel and creates challenges for it, problems, risks but also far-

reaching opportunities for the first time since 1967 . Chances are that opportunities missed at that time

will become achievab le in the Eighties to an extent and along dimensions which we cannot even

imagine today.

16

The "peace" policy and the return of territories, through a dependence upon the US, precludes the

realization of the new option created for us. Since 1967, all the governments of Israel have tied our

national aims down to narrow political needs, on the one hand, and on th e other to destructive opinions

at home which neutralized our capacities both at ho me and abroad. Failing to take steps towards the

Arab population in the new territories, acquired in the course of a war forced upon us, is the major

strategic error committed by Israel on the morning after the Six Day War. We could have saved

ourselves all the bitter and dangerous conflict since then if we had given Jord an to the Palestinians who

live west of the Jordan river. By doing that we would have neutralized the Palestinian problem which

we nowadays face, and to which we have found solutions that are really no solutions at all, such as

territorial compromise or autonomy which amount, in fact, to the same thing. Today, we suddenly face 8

immense opportunities for transforming the situation thoroughly and this we must do in the coming

decade, otherwise we shall not survive as a state.

17

In the course of the Nineteen Eighties, the State of Israel will have to go through far-reaching changes

in its political and economic regime domestically, along with radical changes in its foreign policy, in

order to stand up to the global and regional challenges of this new epoch. The loss of the Suez Canal oil

fields, of the immense potential of the oil, gas and other natural resources in the Sinai peninsula which

is geomorphologically identical to the rich oil-producing countries in the region, will result in an energy

drain in the near future and will destroy our domestic economy: one quarter of our present GNP as well

as one third of the budget is used for the purchase of oil. The search for raw materials in the Negev and 9

on the coast will not, in the near future, serve to alter that state of affairs.

18

(Regaining) the Sinai peninsula with its present and potential resources is therefore a political priority

which is obstructed by the Camp David and the peace agreements . The fault for that lies of course with

the present Israeli government and the governments which paved the road to the policy of territorial

compromise, the Alignment governments since 1967. The Egyptians will not need to keep the peace

treaty after the return of the Sinai, and they will d o all th ey can to return to the fold of the Arab world

and to th e USSR in order to gain support and military assistance. American aid is guaranteed only for a

short while, for the terms of the peace and the weakening of the U.S. both at home and abroad will bring

about a reduction in aid. Without oil and the income from it, with the present enormous expenditure, we

will not be able to g et through 1982 under the present conditions and we will have to act in order to

return the situation to the status quo which existed in Sinai prior to Sadat's visit and the mistaken peace

agreement signed with him in March 1979 . 1 0

19

Israel has two major routes through which to realize this purpose, one direct and the other indirect. The

direct option is the less realistic one because of the nature of the regime and government in Israel as

well as the wisdom of Sadat who obtained our withdrawal from Sinai, which was, next to the war of

1973, his major achievement since he took power. Israel will not unilaterally break the treaty, neither

today, nor in 1982, unless it is very hard pressed economically and politically and Egypt provides Israel

with the excuse to take the Sinai back into our hands for the fourth time in our short h istory. What is left

therefore, is the indirect option. The economic situation in Egypt, the nature of the regime and its pan-

Arab po licy, will bring about a situation after April 1982 in which Israel will be forced to act directly or

indirectly in order to regain control over Sinai as a strategic, economic and energy reserve for the long

run . Egypt does n ot constitute a military strategic problem due to its internal conflicts and it could be

driven back to the post 19 67 war situation in no more than one day. 11

20

The myth of Egypt as the strong leader of the Arab World was demolished back in 1956 and definitely

did no t survive 1967, but our po licy, as in the return of the Sinai, served to turn the myth into "fact." In

reality, however, Egypt's power in proportion both to Israel alone and to the rest of the Arab World has

gone down about 50 p ercent since 1967. Egypt is no longer the leading political power in the Arab

World and is economically on the verge of a crisis. Without foreign assistance the crisis will come

tomorrow. In the short run, due to the return of the Sinai, Egypt will gain several advantages at our 12

expense, but only in the short run until 1982, and that will not change the balance of power to its

benefit, and will possibly bring about its downfall. Egypt, in its present domestic political p icture, is

already a corpse, all the more so if we take into account the growing Moslem-Christian rift. Breaking

Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel in the Nineteen

Eighties on its Western front .

21

Egypt is divided and torn apart into many foci of authority. If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya,

Sudan or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in their p resent form and will join the

downfall and dissolution of Egypt. The vision of a Christian Coptic State in Upper Egypt alongside a

number of weak states with very localized power and without a centralized government a s to date, is the

key to a historical development which was only set back by the peace agreement but which seems

inevitable in the long run . 13

22

The Western front, which on the surface appears more problematic, is in fact less complicated than the

Eastern front, in which most of the events that make the headlines have been taking place recently.

Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precendent for the entire Arab world

including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The

dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is

Israel's primary target on the Eastern fron t in the long run, while the d issolution o f the military power

of th ose sta tes serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in acco rdance with its

ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a

Shi'ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus

hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state , maybe even in our Golan, and

certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan . This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and

security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today . 14

23

Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for

Israel's targets . Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than

Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian

war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a

wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will

shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in

Lebanon . In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Otto man times

is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and

Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that

the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization. 15

24

The entire Arabian peninsula is a natural candidate for dissolution due to internal and external

pressures, and the matter is inevitable especially in Saudi Arabia. Regardless of whether its economic

might based on oil remains intact or whether it is diminished in the long run, the internal rifts and

breakdowns are a clear and natu ral development in light of th e present political structure. 1 6

25

Jordan constitutes an immediate strategic target in the short run but no t in the long run, for it does not

constitute a real threat in the long run after its disso lution , the termination of the lengthy rule of King

Hussein and the transfer of power to the Palestinians in the short run.

26

There is no chance that Jordan will continue to exist in its present structure for a long time, and Israel's

policy, both in war and in peace, ought to be directed at the liquidation of Jordan under the present

regime and the transfer of power to th e Palestin ian majority. Changing the regime east of the river will

also cause the termina tion of the problem of the territories densely populated with Arabs west of the

Jordan. Whether in war or under cond itions of peace, emigrationfrom the territories and economic

demographic freeze in them, are the guarantees for the coming change on both banks of the river, and

we ought to be active in order to accelerate this process in the nearest future . The autonomy plan ought

also to be rejected, as well as any compromise or division of the territories for, given the plans of the

PLO and th ose of the Israeli Arabs themselves, the Shefa'amr plan of September 1980, it is not possible

to go on living in this country in the present situation without separating the two nations, the Arabs to

Jordan and the Jews to the areas west of the river . Genuine coexistence and peace will reign over the

land only when the Arabs understand that without Jewish rule between the Jordan and the sea they will

have neither existence nor security. A nation of their own and security will be theirs only in Jordan. 17

27

Within Israel the distinction between the areas of '67 and the territories beyond them, those of '48, has

always been meaningless for Arabs and nowadays no longer has any significance for us. The problem

should be seen in its entirety without any divisions as of '67. It should be clear, under any future

political situation or mifitary constellation, that the solution o f the problem of the indigenous Arabs will

come only when they recognize the existence of Israel in secure borders up to the Jordan river and

beyond it, as our existential need in this difficult epoch, the nuclear epoch which we shall soon enter. It

is no longer possible to live with three fourths of the Jewish population on the dense shoreline which is

so dangerous in a nuclear epoch.

28

Dispersal of the population is therefore a domestic strategic aim of the highest order; otherwise, we

shall cease to exist within any borders. Judea, Samaria and the Galilee are our sole guarantee for

national existence, and if we do not become the majority in the mountain areas, we shall not rule in the

country and we shall be like the Crusaders, who lost this country which was not theirs anyhow, and in

which they were foreigners to begin with. Reb alancing the country demographically, strategically and

economically is the highest and most central aim today. Taking hold of the mountain watershed from

Beersheba to the Upper Galilee is the national aim g enerated by th e major strategic co nsideration which

is settling the mountainous part of the country that is empty of Jews today . l8

29

Realizing our aims on th e Eastern front depends first on the realization of this internal strategic

objective. The transformation of the p olitical and economic structure, so as to enable the realization of

these strategic aims, is the key to achieving the entire change. We need to change from a centralized

economy in which the government is extensively involved, to an open and free market as well as to

switch from depending upon the U.S. taxpayer to developing, with our own hands, of a genuine

productive economic infrastructure. If we are not able to make this change freely and voluntarily, we

shall be forced into it by world developments, especially in the areas of economics, energy, an d politics,

and by our own growing isolation. l 9

30

From a military and strategic po int of view, the West led by the U.S. is unable to withstand the global

pressures of the USSR throughout the world, and Israel must therefore stand alone in the Eighties,

without any foreign assistance, military o r economic, and this is within our capacities today, with no

compromises. Rapid changes in the world will also bring about a change in the condition of world 20

Jewry to which Israel will become not only a last resort but the only existential option. We cannot

assume that U.S. Jews, and the communities of Europe and Latin America will continue to exist in the

present form in the future . 21

31

Our existence in this country itself is certain , and there is no force that could remove us from here either

forcefully or by treachery (Sadat's method). Despite the difficulties of the mistaken "peace" policy and

the problem of the Israeli Arabs and those of the territories, we can effectively deal with these problems

in the foreseeable future.

Conclusion

1

Three imp ortant points have to be clarified in order to be able to understand the significant possibilities

of realization of this Zionist plan for the Middle East, and also why it had to be published.

2

The Military Background of The Plan

The military conditions of this plan have not been mentioned above, but on the many occasions where

something very like it is being "explained" in closed meetings to members of the Israeli Establishment,

this point is clarified. It is assumed that the Israeli military forces, in all their branches, are insufficient

for th e actual work of occupation of such wide territories as discussed above. In fact, even in times of

intense Palestinian "unrest" on the West Bank, the forces of the Israeli Army are stretched out too much.

The answer to that is the method of ruling by means of "Haddad forces" or of "Village Associations"

(also kn own as "Village Leagues"): local forces under "leaders" completely dissociated from the

population, not having even any feudal or party structure (such as the Phalangists have, for example).

The "states" proposed by Yinon are "Haddadland" and "Village Associations," and their armed forces

will be, no doubt, quite similar. In addition, Israeli military superiority in such a situation will be much

greater than it is even now, so that any movement of revolt will be "punished" either by mass

humiliation as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or by bombardment and obliteration of cities, as in

Lebanon now (June 1982), or by both. In order to ensure this, the plan , as explained orally, calls for the

establishment of Israeli garrisons in focal places between the mini states, equipped with the necessary

mobile destructive forces. In fact, we have seen something like this in Haddadland and we will almost

certainly soon see the first example of this system functioning either in South Lebanon or in all

Lebanon.

3

It is obvious that the above military assumptions, and the whole plan too, depend also on the Arabs

continuing to be even more divided than they are now, and on the lack of any truly progressive mass

movement among them. It may be that those two conditions will be removed only when the plan will be

well advanced, with consequences which can not be foreseen.

4

Why it is necessary to publish this in Israel?

The reason for publication is the dual nature of the Israeli-Jewish society: A very great measure of

freedom and democracy, specially for Jews, combined with expansionism and racist discrimination. In

such a situation the Israeli-Jewish elite (for the masses follow the TV and Begin's speeches) has to be

persuaded . The first steps in the process of persuasion are oral, as indicated above, but a time comes in

which it becomes inconvenient. Written material must be produced for the benefit of the more stupid

"persuaders" and "explainers" (for example medium-rank officers, who are, usually, remarkably stupid).

They then "learn it," more or less, and preach to others. It should be remarked that Israel, and even the

Yishuv from the Twenties, has always functioned in this way. I myself well remember how (before I

was "in opposition") the necessity of war with was explained to me and others a year before the 1956

war, and the necessity of conq uering "the rest of Western Palestine when we will have the opportunity"

was explained in the years 1965-67.

5

Why is it assumed that there is no special risk from the outside in the publication of such plans?

Such risks can come from two sources, so long as the principled opposition inside Israel is very weak (a

situation which may change as a consequence of the war on Lebanon) : The Arab World, including the

Palestin ians, and the United States. The Arab World has shown itself so far quite incapable of a detailed

and rational analysis of Israeli-Jewish society, and the Palestinians have been, on the average, no better

than the rest. In such a situation, even those who are shouting about the dangers of Israeli expansionism

(which are real enough) are doing this not because of factual and detailed knowledge, but because of

belief in myth. A good example is the very persistent belief in the non-existent writing on the wall of

the Knesset of the Biblical verse about the Nile and the Euphrates. Another example is the persistent,

and completely false declarations, which were made by some of the most important Arab leaders, that

the two b lue stripes of the Israeli flag symbolize th e Nile and the Euphrates, while in fact they are taken

from the stripes o f the Jewish praying shawl (Talit). The Israeli specialists assume that, on the whole,

the Arabs will pay no attention to th eir serious discussions of the future, and the Lebanon war has

proved them right. So why should they not continue with their old methods of persuading other Israelis?

6

In the United States a very similar situation exists, at least until now. The more or less serious

commentators take their information about Israel, and much of their opinions about it, from two

sources. The first is from articles in the "liberal" American press, written almost totally by Jewish

admirers of Israel who, even if they are critical of some aspects of the Israeli state, practice loyally what

Stalin used to call "th e constructive criticism." (In fact those among them who claim also to be "Anti-

Stalinist" are in reality more Stalinist than Stalin, with Israel being their god which has not yet failed).

In the framework of such critical worship it must be assumed that Israel has always "good intentions"

and only "makes mistakes," and therefore such a plan would not be a matter for discussion--exactly as

the Biblical genocides committed by Jews are not mentioned. The other source of information, The

Jerusalem Post , has similar policies. So long, therefore, as the situation exists in which Israel is really a

"closed society" to the rest of the world, because the world wants to close its eyes , the publication and

even the beginning of the realization of such a plan is realistic and feasible.

Israel Shahak

June 17, 1982

Jerusalem

About the Translator

Israel Shahak is a professor of organic chemistly at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the chairman

of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights. He published The Shahak Papers , collections of key

articles from the Hebrew press, and is the author of numerous articles and books, among them Non-Jew

in the Jewish State . His latest book is Israel's Global Role: Weapons for Repression , published by the

AAUG in 1982. Israel Shahak: (1933-2001)

Notes

1 . American Universities Field Staff. Report No.33, 1979. According to this research, the population of the world

will be 6 billion in the year 2000. Today's world population can be broken down as follows: China, 958 million;

India, 635 million; USSR, 261 million; U.S., 218 million Indonesia, 140 million; Brazil and Japan, 110 million

each. According to the figures of the U.N. Population Fund for 1980, there will be, in 2000, 50 cities with a

population of over 5 million each. The population ofthp;Third World will then be 80% of the world population.

According to Justin Blackwelder, U.S. Census Office chief, the world population will not reach 6 billion because of

hunger.

2 . Soviet nuclear policy has been well summarized by two American Sovietologists: Joseph D. Douglas and

Amoretta M. Hoeber, Soviet Strategy for Nuclear War , (Stanford, Ca., Hoover Inst. Press, 1979). In the Soviet

Union tens and hundreds of articles and books are published each year which detail the Soviet doctrine for nuclear

war and there is a great deal of documentation translated into English and published by the U.S. Air Force,including

USAF: Marxism-Leninism on War and the Army: The Soviet View , Moscow, 1972; USAF: The Armed Forces of

the Soviet State . Moscow, 1975, by Marshal A. Grechko. The basic Soviet approach to the matter is presented in the

book by Marshal Sokolovski published in 1962 in Moscow: Marshal V. D. Sokolovski, Military Strategy, Soviet

Doctrine and Concepts (New York, Praeger, 1963).

3 . A picture of Soviet intentions in various areas of the world can be drawn from the book by Douglas and Hoeber,

ibid. For additional material see: Michael Morgan, "USSR's Minerals as Strategic Weapon in the Future," Defense

and Foreign Affairs , Washington, D.C., Dec. 1979.

4 . Admiral of the Fleet Sergei Gorshkov, Sea Power and the State , London, 1979. Morgan, loc. cit. General George

S. Brown (USAF) C-JCS, Statement to the Congress on the Defense Posture of the United States For Fiscal Year

1979 , p. 103; National Security Council, Review of Non-Fuel Mineral Policy , (Washington, D.C. 1979,); Drew

Middleton, The New York Times , (9/15/79); Time , 9/21/80.

5 . Elie Kedourie, "The End of the Ottoman Empire," Journal of Contemporary History , Vol. 3, No.4, 1968.

6 . Al-Thawra , Syria 12/20/79, Al-Ahram ,12/30/79, Al Ba'ath , Syria, 5/6/79. 55% of the Arabs are 20 years old and

younger, 70% of the Arabs live in Africa, 55% of the Arabs under 15 are unemployed, 33% live in urban areas,

Oded Yinon, "Egypt's Population Problem," The Jerusalem Quarterly , No. 15, Spring 1980.

7 . E. Kanovsky, "Arab Haves and Have Nots," The Jerusalem Quarterly , No.1, Fall 1976, Al Ba'ath , Syria, 5/6/79.

8 . In his book, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said that the Israeli government is in fact responsible for the

design of American policy in the Middle East, after June '67, because of its own indecisiveness as to the future of

the territories and the inconsistency in its positions since it established the background for Resolution 242 and

certainly twelve years later for the Camp David agreements and the peace treaty with Egypt. According to Rabin,

on June 19, 1967, President Johnson sent a letter to Prime Minister Eshkol in which he did not mention anything

about withdrawal from the new territories but exactly on the same day the government resolved to return territories

in exchange for peace. After the Arab resolutions in Khartoum (9/1/67) the government altered its position but

contrary to its decision of June 19, did not notify the U.S. of the alteration and the U.S. continued to support 242 in

the Security Council on the basis of its earlier understanding that Israel is prepared to return territories. At that point

it was already too late to change the U.S. position and Israel's policy. From here the way was opened to peace

agreements on the basis of 242 as was later agreed upon in Camp David. See Yitzhak Rabin. Pinkas Sherut ,

( Ma'ariv 1979) pp. 226-227.

9 . Foreign and Defense Committee Chairman Prof. Moshe Arens argued in an interview ( Ma 'ariv ,10/3/80) that the

Israeli government failed to prepare an economic plan before the Camp David agreements and was itself surprised

by the cost of the agreements, although already during the negotiations it was possible to calculate the heavy price

and the serious error involved in not having prepared the economic grounds for peace.

The former Minister of Treasury, Mr. Yigal Holwitz, stated that if it were not for the withdrawal from the oil fields,

Israel would have a positive balance of payments (9/17/80). That same person said two years earlier that the

government of Israel (from which he withdrew) had placed a noose around his neck. He was referring to the Camp

David agreements ( Ha'aretz , 11/3/78). In the course of the whole peace negotiations neither an expert nor an

economics advisor was consulted, and the Prime Minister himself, who lacks knowledge and expertise in

economics, in a mistaken initiative, asked the U.S. to give us a loan rather than a grant, due to his wish to maintain

our respect and the respect of the U.S. towards us. See Ha'aretz 1/5/79. Jerusalem Post , 9/7/79. Prof Asaf Razin,

formerly a senior consultant in the Treasury, strongly criticized the conduct of the negotiations; Ha'aretz , 5/5/79.

Ma'ariv , 9/7/79. As to matters concerning the oil fields and Israel's energy crisis, see the interview with Mr. Eitan

Eisenberg, a government advisor on these matters, Ma'arive Weekly , 12/12/78. The Energy Minister, who

personally signed the Camp David agreements and the evacuation of Sdeh Alma, has since emphasized the

seriousness of our condition from the point of view of oil supplies more than once...see Y ediot Ahronot , 7/20/79.

Energy Minister Modai even admitted that the government did not consult him at all on the subject of oil during the

Camp David and Blair House negotiations. Ha'aretz , 8/22/79.

10 . Many sources report on the growth of the armaments budget in Egypt and on intentions to give the army

preference in a peace epoch budget over domestic needs for which a peace was allegedly obtained. See former

Prime Minister Mamduh Salam in an interview 12/18/77, Treasury Minister Abd El Sayeh in an interview 7/25/78,

and the paper Al Akhbar , 12/2/78 which clearly stressed that the military budget will receive first priority, despite

the peace. This is what former Prime Minister Mustafa Khalil has stated in his cabinet's programmatic document

which was presented to Parliament, 11/25/78. See English translation, ICA, FBIS, Nov. 27. 1978, pp. D 1-10.

According to these sources, Egypt's military budget increased by 10% between fiscal 1977 and 1978, and the

process still goes on. A Saudi source divulged that the Egyptians plan to increase their militmy budget by 100% in

the next two years; Ha'aretz , 2/12/79 and Jerusalem Post , 1/14/79.

11 . Most of the economic estimates threw doubt on Egypt's ability to reconstruct its economy by 1982. See

Economic Intelligence Unit , 1978 Supplement, "The Arab Republic of Egypt"; E. Kanovsky, "Recent Economic

Developments in the Middle East," Occasional Papers , The Shiloah Institution, June 1977; Kanovsky, "The

Egyptian Economy Since the Mid-Sixties, The Micro Sectors," Occasional Papers , June 1978; Robert McNamara,

President of World Bank, as reported in Times , London, 1/24/78.

12 . See the comparison made by the researeh of the Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and research camed

out in the Center for Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University, as well as the research by the British scientist, Denis

Champlin, Military Review , Nov. 1979, ISS: The Military Balance 1979-1980, CSS; Security Arrangements in

Sinai ...by Brig. Gen. (Res.) A Shalev, No. 3.0 CSS; The Military Balance and the Military Options after the Peace

Treaty with Egypt , by Brig. Gen. (Res.) Y. Raviv, No.4, Dec. 1978, as well as many press reports including El

Hawadeth , London, 3/7/80; El Watan El Arabi , Paris, 12/14/79.

13 . As for religious ferment in Egypt and the relations between Copts and Moslems see the series of articles

published in the Kuwaiti paper, El Qabas , 9/15/80. The English author Irene Beeson reports on the rift between

Moslems and Copts, see: Irene Beeson, Guardian , London, 6/24/80, and Desmond Stewart, Middle East

Internmational , London 6/6/80. For other reports see Pamela Ann Smith, Guardian , London, 12/24/79; The

Christian Science Monitor 12/27/79 as well as Al Dustour , London, 10/15/79; El Kefah El Arabi, 10/15/79.

14 . Arab Press Service , Beirut, 8/6-13/80. The New Republic , 8/16/80, Der Spiegel as cited by Ha'aretz , 3/21/80,

and 4/30-5/5/80; The Economist , 3/22/80; Robert Fisk, Times , London, 3/26/80; Ellsworth Jones, Sunday Times ,

3/30/80.

15 . J.P. Peroncell Hugoz, Le Monde , Paris 4/28/80; Dr. Abbas Kelidar, Middle East Review , Summer 1979;

Conflict Studies , ISS, July 1975; Andreas Kolschitter, Der Zeit , ( Ha'aretz , 9/21/79) Economist Foreign Report ,

10/10/79, Afro-Asian Affairs , London, July 1979.

16 . Arnold Hottinger, "The Rich Arab States in Trouble," The New York Review of Books , 5/15/80; Arab Press

Service , Beirut, 6/25-7/2/80; U.S. News and World Report , 11/5/79 as well as El Ahram , 11/9/79; El Nahar El

Arabi Wal Duwali , Paris 9/7/79; El Hawadeth , 11/9/79; David Hakham, Monthly Review , IDF, Jan.-Feb. 79.

17 . As for Jordan's policies and problems see El Nahar El Arabi Wal Duwali , 4/30/79, 7/2/79; Prof. Elie Kedouri,

Ma'ariv 6/8/79; Prof. Tanter, Davar 7/12/79; A. Safdi, Jerusalem Post , 5/31/79; El Watan El Arabi 11/28/79; El

Qabas , 11/19/79. As for PLO positions see: The resolutions of the Fatah Fourth Congress, Damascus, August 1980.

The Shefa'amr program of the Israeli Arabs was published in Ha'aretz , 9/24/80, and by Arab Press Report 6/18/80.

For facts and figures on immigration of Arabs to Jordan, see Amos Ben Vered, Ha'aretz , 2/16/77; Yossef Zuriel,

Ma'ariv 1/12/80. As to the PLO's position towards Israel see Shlomo Gazit, Monthly Review ; July 1980; Hani El

Hasan in an interview, Al Rai Al'Am , Kuwait 4/15/80; Avi Plaskov, "The Palestinian Problem," Survival , ISS,

London Jan. Feb. 78; David Gutrnann, "The Palestinian Myth," Commentary , Oct. 75; Bernard Lewis, "The

Palestinians and the PLO," Commentary Jan. 75; Monday Morning , Beirut, 8/18-21/80; Journal of Palestine

Studies , Winter 1980.

18 . Prof. Yuval Neeman, "Samaria--The Basis for Israel's Security," Ma'arakhot 272-273, May/June 1980; Ya'akov

Hasdai, "Peace, the Way and the Right to Know," Dvar Hashavua , 2/23/80. Aharon Yariv, "Strategic Depth--An

Israeli Perspective," Ma'arakhot 270-271, October 1979; Yitzhak Rabin, "Israel's Defense Problems in the

Eighties," Ma'arakhot October 1979.

19 . Ezra Zohar, In the Regime's Pliers (Shikmona, 1974); Motti Heinrich, Do We have a Chance Israel, Truth

Versus Legend (Reshafim, 1981).

20 . Henry Kissinger, "The Lessons of the Past," The Washington Review Vol 1, Jan. 1978; Arthur Ross, "OPEC's

Challenge to the West," The Washington Quarterly , Winter, 1980; Walter Levy, "Oil and the Decline of the West,"

Foreign Affairs , Summer 1980; Special Report--"Our Armed Forees-Ready or Not? " U.S. News and World Report

10/10/77; Stanley Hoffman, "Reflections on the Present Danger," The New York Review of Books 3/6/80; Time

4/3/80; Leopold Lavedez "The illusions of SALT" Commentary Sept. 79; Norman Podhoretz, "The Present

Danger," Commentary March 1980; Robert Tucker, "Oil and American Power Six Years Later," Commentary Sept.

1979; Norman Podhoretz, "The Abandonment of Israel," Commentary July 1976; Elie Kedourie, "Misreading the

Middle East," Commentary July 1979.

21 . According to figures published by Ya'akov Karoz, Yediot Ahronot , 10/17/80, the sum total of anti-Semitic

incidents recorded in the world in 1979 was double the amount recorded in 1978. In Germany, France, and Britain

the number of anti-Semitic incidents was many times greater in that year. In the U.S. as well there has been a sharp

increase in anti-Semitic incidents which were reported in that article. For the new anti-Semitism, see L. Talmon,

"The New Anti-Semitism," The New Republic , 9/18/1976; Barbara Tuchman, "They poisoned the Wells,"

Newsweek 2/3/75.

This item is available in PDF format . Click here

Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat

2011-11-13T19:55:00.000-08:00

The "Green Peril": Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat
by Leon T. Hadar

Leon T. Hadar, a former bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post, is an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute.

Executive Summary
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-177.html

Now that the Cold War is becoming a memory, America's foreign policy establishment has begun searching for new enemies. Possible new villains include "instability" in Europe --ranging from German resurgence to new Russian imperialism-- the "vanishing" ozone layer, nuclear proliferation, and narcoterrorism. Topping the list of potential new global bogeymen, however, are the Yellow Peril, the alleged threat to American economic security emanating from East Asia, and the so-called Green Peril (green is the color of Islam). That peril is symbolized by the Middle Eastern Moslem fundamentalist--the "Fundie," to use a term coined by The Economist(1)--a Khomeini-like creature, armed with a radical ideology, equipped with nuclear weapons, and intent on launching a violent jihad against Western civilization.

George Will even suggested that the 1,000-year battle between Christendom and Islam might be breaking out once more when he asked, "Could it be that 20 years from now we will be saying, not that they're at the gates of Vienna again, but that, in fact, the birth of Mohammed is at least as important as the birth of Christ, that Islamic vitality could be one of the big stories of the next generations?"(2)

A New Cold War?

Indeed, "a new specter is haunting America, one that some Americans consider more sinister than Marxism-Leninism," according to Douglas E. Streusand. "That specter is Islam."(3) The rise of political Islam in North Africa, especially the recent electoral strength of anti-liberal Islamic fundamentalist groups in Algeria; the birth of several independent Moslem republics in Central Asia whose political orientation is unclear; and the regional and international ties fostered by Islamic governments in Iran and Sudan are all producing, as Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland put it, an "urge to identify Islam as an inherently anti-democratic force that is America's new global enemy now that the Cold War is over."(4)

"Islamic fundamentalism is an aggressive revolutionary movement as militant and violent as the Bolshevik, Fascist, and Nazi movements of the past," according to Amos Perlmutter. It is "authoritarian, anti-democratic, anti-secular," and cannot be reconciled with the "Christian-secular universe" and its goal is the establishment of a "totalitarian Islamic state" in the Middle East, he argued, suggesting that the United States should make sure the movement is "stifled at birth."(5)

The Islam vs. West paradigm, reflected in such observations, is beginning to infect Washington. That development recalls the efforts by some of Washington's iron triangles as well as by foreign players during the months leading up to the 1990-91 Persian Gulf crisis. Their use of the media succeeded in building up Saddam Hussein as the "most dangerous man in the world"(6) and as one of America's first new post-Cold War bogeymen. Those efforts, including allegations that Iraq had plans to dominate the Middle East, helped to condition the American public and elites for the U.S. intervention in the gulf.(7)

There is a major difference between the Saddam-the- bogeyman caricature and the Green Peril. Notwithstanding the Saddam-is-Hitler rhetoric, the Iraqi leader was perceived as merely a dangerous "thug" who broke the rules of the game and whom Washington could suppress by military force. Saddam's Iraq was a threat to a regional balance of power, not to the American way of life.

The alleged threat from Iran and militant Islam is different. The struggle between that force and the West is portrayed as a zero-sum game that can end only in the defeat of one of the sides. The Iranian ayatollahs and their allies--"revolutionary," "fanatic," and "suicidal" people that they are--cannot be co-opted into balance-of-power arrangements by rewards and are even seen as immune to military and diplomatic threats. One can reach a tactical compromise with them--such as the agreement with Lebanese Shi'ite groups to release the American hostages--but on the strate gic level the expectation is for a long, drawn-out battle.

Indeed, like the Red Menace of the Cold War era, the Green Peril is perceived as a cancer spreading around the globe, undermining the legitimacy of Western values and political systems. The cosmic importance of the confrontation would make it necessary for Washington to adopt a longterm diplomatic and military strategy; to forge new and solid alliances; to prepare the American people for a neverending struggle that will test their resolve; and to develop new containment policies, new doctrines, and a new foreign policy elite with its "wise men" and "experts."

There are dangerous signs that the process of creating a monolithic threat out of isolated events and trends in the Moslem world is already beginning. The Green Peril thesis is now being used to explain diverse and unrelated events in that region, with Tehran replacing Moscow as the center of ideological subversion and military expansionism and Islam substituting for the spiritual energy of communism.

Islam does seem to fit the bill as the ideal post-Cold War villain. "It's big; it's scary; it's anti-Western; it feeds on poverty and discontent," wrote David Ignatius, adding that Islam "spreads across vast swaths of the globe that can be colored green on the television maps in the same way that communist countries used to be colored red."(8)

Foreign policy experts are already using the familiar Cold War jargon to describe the coming struggle with Islam. There is talk about the need to "contain" Iranian influence around the globe, especially in Central Asia, which seemed to be the main reason for Secretary of State James A. Baker III's February stop in that region.(9) Strategists are beginning to draw a "red line" for the fundamentalist leaders of Sudan, as evidenced by a U.S. diplomat's statement last November warning Khartoum to refrain from "exporting" revolution and terrorism.(10) Washington's policymakers even applauded the January 1992 Algerian "iron fist" military coup that prevented an Islamic group from winning the elections. The notion that we have to stop the fundamentalists somewhere echoes the Cold War's domino theory.

"Geopolitically, Iran's targets are four--the Central Asian republics, the Maghreb or North Africa, Egypt and other neighboring Arab countries, and the Persian Gulf states," explained Hoover Institution senior fellow Arnold Beichman, who is raising the Moslem alarm. Beichman suggested that "the first major target" for radical Iran and its militant strategy would be "oil-rich, militarily weak Saudi Arabia, keeper of Islam's holy places and OPEC's decisionmaker on world oil prices."(11) If the West does not meet that challenge, a Green Curtain will be drawn across the crescent of instability, and "the Middle East and the once Soviet Central Asian republics could become in a few years the cultural and political dependencies of the most expansionist militarized regime in the world today, a regime for which terrorism is a governing norm," he warned.(12)

The Making of a "Peril"

The Islamic threat argument is becoming increasingly popular with some segments of the American foreign policy establishment. They are encouraged by foreign governments who, for reasons of self-interest, want to see Washington embroiled in the coming West vs. Islam confrontation. The result is the construction of the new peril, a process that does not reflect any grand conspiracy but that nevertheless has its own logic, rules and timetables.

The creation of a peril usually starts with mysterious "sources" and unnamed officials who leak information, float trial balloons, and warn about the coming threat. Those sources reflect debates and discussions taking place within government. Their information is then augmented by colorful intelligence reports that finger exotic and conspiratorial terrorists and military advisers. Journalists then search for the named and other villains. The media end up finding corroboration from foreign sources who form an informal coalition with the sources in the U.S. government and help the press uncover further information substantiating the threat coming from the new bad guys.

In addition, think tanks studies and op-ed pieces add momentum to the official spin. Their publication is followed by congressional hearings, policy conferences, and public press briefings. A governmental policy debate ensues, producing studies, working papers, and eventually doctrines and policies that become part of the media's spin. The new villain is now ready to be integrated into the popular culture to help to mobilize public support for a new crusade. In the case of the Green Peril, that process has been under way for several months.(13)

A series of leaks, signals, and trial balloons is already beginning to shape U.S. agenda and policy. Congress is about to conduct several hearings on the global threat of Islamic fundamentalism.(14) The Bush administration has been trying to devise policies and establish new alliances to counter Iranian influence: building up Islamic but secular and pro-Western Turkey as a countervailing force in Central Asia, expanding U.S. commitments to Saudi Arabia, warning Sudan that it faces grave consequences as a result of its policies, and even shoring up a socialist military dictatorship in Algeria.

Regional Powers Exploit U.S. Fears

Not surprisingly, foreign governments, including those of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, India, and Pakistan, have reacted to the evidence of U.S. fear. With the end of the Cold War they are concerned about a continued U.S. commitment to them and are trying to exploit the menace of Islamic fundamentalism to secure military support, economic aid, and political backing from Washington as well as to advance their own domestic and regional agendas. The Gulf War has already provided the Turks, Saudis, Egyptians, and Israelis with an opportunity to revive the American engagement in the Middle East and their own roles as Washington's regional surrogates. Now that the Iraqi danger has been diminished, the Islamic fundamentalist threat is a new vehicle for achieving those goals.

Pakistan, which lost its strategic value to the United States as a conduit of military aid to the guerrillas in Afghanistan, and India, whose Cold War Soviet ally has disintegrated, are both competing for American favors by using the Islamic card in their struggle for power in Southwest Asia. That struggle involves such issues as the Kashmir problem and an accelerating nuclear arms race.(15)

Even such disparate entities as Australia and the Iranian Mojahedin opposition forces are conducting public relations and lobbying efforts in the United States based on the Islamic fundamentalist threat. Colin Rubenstein recently discussed the need to maintain an American military presence in Asia to contain the power of the Moslem government in Malaysia, which according to him has adopted increasingly repressive measures at home and has been developing military ties with Libya as part of a strategy to spread its radical Islamic message in Asia. If Washington refuses to project its diplomatic and military power to contain the Malaysian-produced Islamic threat in Asia, there is a danger that the United States and Australia will soon face anti-American and anti-Israeli blocs, Rubenstein insisted.(16)

The Iranian opposition group, which in the past has subscribed to socialist and anti-American positions, is now interested in maintaining U.S. pressure on the government of President Hashemi Rafsanjani and in winning Western public support. To achieve those goals it is playing up the possi bility of a Tehran-led political terrorist campaign aimed at creating an "Islamic bloc" in Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa and suggesting that to avoid such a campaign Washington should back the Mojahedin in Tehran.(17)

Even Washington's long-time nemesis--the hard-core Marxist and former Soviet ally, former president Mohammad Najibullah of Afghanistan, against whom the United States helped sponsor Pakistani-directed guerrilla warfare--a few days before his ouster from power offered his services in the new struggle against the radical Islamic threat. "We have a common task, Afghanistan, the United States of America, and the civilized world, to launch a joint struggle against fundamentalism," he explained. Najibullah warned Washington that unless he was kept in power, Islamic fundamentalists would take over Afghanistan and turn it into a "center of world smuggling for narcotic drugs" and a "center for terrorism."(18)

The Beneficiaries and Their Motives

Growing American fears about the Green Peril are playing into the hands of governments and groups who, interestingly enough, tend to regard the Islamic threat as exaggerated. The behavior of those groups and governments recalls the way Third World countries exploited the U.S. obsession with the Red Menace during the Cold War despite their own skepticism about its long-term power.

Pakistani officials, for example, reportedly "regard with some amusement Washington's seeming frenzied concern about the spread of fundamentalism in Central Asia, fears they hope to exploit by presenting themselves as sober pragmatists who happen to be Muslims." Indeed, the Pakistani government, like the Turkish government, has expressed the hope that Washington will adopt it as a new strategic ally and is encouraging Washington "to regard Islamabad as a partner in the Central Asian republics, and in the process [limit] the influence of Iran."(19)

Similarly, India, with its growing Hindu nationalist elements, its continuing conflict with Pakistan, and its foreign policy disorientation at the end of the Cold War, has begun to present itself as the countervailing force to the Islamic menace in Asia and Pakistan.(20)

The Israeli government and its supporters in Washington are also trying to play the Islamic card. The specter of Central Asian republics and Iran equipped with nuclear weapons helps Israel to reduce any potential international pressure on it to place its own nuclear capabilities and strategy on the negotiating table. More important, perhaps, the Green Peril could revive, in the long run, Israel's role as America's strategic asset, which was eroded as a result of the end of the Cold War and was seriously questioned during the Gulf War.(21)

Israel could become the contemporary crusader nation, a bastion of the West in the struggle against the new transnational enemy, Islamic fundamentalism. According to Daniel Doron, "With the momentous upheavals rocking the Muslim World, the Arab-Israeli conflict is a sideshow with little geopolitical significance." It is a derivative conflict in which Israel is "the target of convenience for Islam's great sense of hurt and obsessive hostility towards the West."(22)

The operational message is that the United States "must refocus its policy on the basic problems facing the Islamic world rather than only the Arab-Israeli conflict."(23) Jerusalem's attempts to turn that conflict into a Jewish-Moslem confrontation and to place America on its side to help contain radical Moslem forces in the region may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The result is likely to be strengthened anti-American feelings in the Middle East and anti-American terrorist acts, which, in turn, will invite a new round of American military intervention.

Egypt's role in the Gulf War has produced some economic benefits, including forgiveness of its $7 billion debt to the United States, and its agreement with Israel has improved Cairo's position as a mediator in the peace process. However, Washington's post-Desert Storm expectation that Cairo would play an active role in the new security arrangement in the gulf has proven unrealistic. Saudi Arabia and other conservative gulf monarchies have been less than enthusiastic about Egypt's playing a military role in the region. Since it cannot become a U.S. surrogate in the gulf, Cairo is focusing on its neighbor, Sudan, as a new bogeyman, or radical threat, in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. Presumably, Cairo hopes thereby to gain new significance in the American global perspective. Exaggerating the threat also gives Cairo an environment conducive to military action against Sudan that could fulfill the historical Egyptian goal of turning that country into a protectorate of Cairo.

Sudan: A New Scapegoat

The danger of Sudan's becoming a center of subversion is greatly exaggerated. It is true that Khartoum is ruled today by a military government controlled by the National Islamic Front whose leader, Hassan el-Turabi, wishes to spread his version of fundamentalist Islam in Africa and the Middle East.(24) It is also possible that some Palestinian and Lebanese terrorists visit or even reside in Sudan.(25) But American and Egyptian denunciation of Sudan's "harboring terrorists" is hypocritical considering Washington's ties with its Gulf War "ally" Syria, home to several terrorist groups, and Cairo's current diplomatic romance with Libya, another center of international terrorism.

Iranian officials, including President Rafsanjani, did visit Sudan several times as part of Tehran's efforts to break the diplomatic isolation imposed on it by Washington. That is hardly evidence of a Khartoum-Tehran political axis, however. The Sudanese seem interested mainly in Iranian economic aid, including subsidized oil. It is not clear that the two countries have common political objectives or that either regime's goals are consistently hostile to U.S. interests. During the gulf crisis, the Iranians tried to convince the leaders in Khartoum to join them in isolating Saddam--not an "anti-American" move--but the Sudanese declined. In contrast to Tehran, Khartoum supports the Palestine Liberation Organization and the U.S.-brokered Middle East peace process. The Sudanese also supported the Washington-backed rebel groups that came to power in Ethiopia and Eritrea.(26)

Moreover, Sudan is one of the world's most miserable economic basket cases. It has a relatively weak military that is no match for the Egyptian army and is embroiled in suppressing a bloody civil war in the south. The notion that Sudan has the power to destabilize the countries of Africa and the Middle East is far-fetched.

An "Iranian Scenario" in Saudi Arabia?

As has that of Egypt and Israel, Saudi Arabia's use of the Green Peril to mobilize U.S. support has been characterized by confusion, ironies, and paradoxes, the most dramatic of which has been the kingdom's own commitment to Islamic fundamentalism. With the elimination of Iraq as a regional military power, the Saudi royal family, worried about the rise of Tehran as a hegemonic player in the gulf, has been fanning the anti-fundamentalist and anti-Iranian mood in Washington. The Saudis have indicated that they are interested in countering Iranian influence in Central Asia. Ironically, they are doing what they accuse Tehran of-- spending lavishly to establish political and religious influence. Riyadh has spent more than $1 billion to promote the Saudi brand of Islam.(27) Along with Egypt, Saudi Arabia has also been supporting the Somali president against a faction, supported by Iran, that is trying to overthrow him.(28)

The Saudi Propaganda Campaign

A series of reports about resurgent militant Islamic forces in Saudi Arabia (which also portrayed the royal family as a politically reformist regime and active supporter of the U.S.-led peace process) has been used to try to mobilize American support for the Saudis as a "moderate pillar" and anti-fundamentalist force in the gulf, the Middle East, and Central Asia.(29)

The problem with that campaign is that the legitimacy of the Saudi regime is based on its own Islamic fundamentalist principles. The Saudi government is actually more rigid in its application of Islamic law and more repressive in many respects than the one in Tehran. For example, Saudi Arabia has no form of popular representation, and political rights are totally denied women and non-Moslems. The Saudi regime has been able to stay in power largely because it has had both direct and indirect American military support, most recently during the Gulf War. To paraphrase President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Saudis are Islamic fundamentalists--but they are our Islamic fundamentalists.(30)

The recent celebrated Saudi foreign policy "assertiveness" and domestic "moderation" are little more than public relations gimmicks orchestrated by Riyadh's flamboyant ambassador to Washington and supported by King Fahd. They are intended to win brownie points with the American public. The Saudi interest in signing huge arms deals with U.S. companies, for example, could help to secure the survival of the dwindling American defense industry and provide "jobs, jobs, jobs." The administration has abetted that strategy. In spite of Bush's post-Gulf War rhetoric, the administration has announced that it is providing arms packages to the Middle East totaling $4 billion, of which close to $1 billion in aircraft-delivered bombs, cluster bombs, air-to-air missiles, and military vehicles is destined for Saudi Arabia.(31)

The participation of the Saudis in the Madrid peace conference, although it had a very marginal effect on the outcome of the negotiations, helped to strengthen Bush's political popularity at home by suggesting that the Gulf War did achieve "something." The recent meetings between Saudi officials and American Jewish leaders, including the invitation extended leaders of American Jewish organizations to travel to Saudi Arabia, must be viewed in that context. Such conciliatory gestures can also be seen as part of an effort to neutralize the Israeli lobby's Capitol Hill opposition to arms sales to the kingdom.(32)

Prerevolutionary Conditions in Saudi Arabia

There are clear indications of continuing domestic opposition to the Saudi royal family. The House of Saud has resisted any move toward serious political and economic reforms proposed by Westernized Saudi elites. That intransigence reflects a catch-22 dilemma facing the House of Saud, which was accentuated by the American military intervention in the gulf. On the one hand, the regime's raison d'àtre is its commitment to strict, anti-Western Islamic tenets, including support for Islamic fundamentalist groups in the Third World. On the other hand, to survive, the House of Saud needs the support of the West's prime power, the United States, which invites criticism from the conservative elements in the kingdom.

With Westernized opposition silenced, the only viable opposition to the royal family tends to be found in religious elements who enjoy relative autonomy in the Saudi system and focus on the discrepancy between the Saudi regime's Islamic pretensions and its ties with America. The numbers of fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia have grown considerably since the Persian Gulf crisis and, according to one observer, "are now estimated to include tens of thousands of younger radical religious leaders, Islamic university teachers and students."(33) Those leaders criticized the arrival of the American troops during the Gulf War and have attacked Saudi support for the Arab-Israeli peace process as well as the political and personal conduct of the Saudi leadership.

Washington, through its public rhetoric during the Gulf War, heightened expectations for democratic reforms in the Arab states of the gulf, only to collaborate later with the Saudis in stifling any possible moves in that direction. The Bush administration and the Saudis helped to restore the emir of Kuwait, whose government immediately resumed its harassment of proponents of democracy and launched a campaign of repression against and expulsion of the Palestinians living there. The Saudis were also apparently behind the American effort to prevent the weakening of the central government in Baghdad and the possible emergence of a Kurdish state or Iraqi Shi'ite autonomy.(34)

Washington should, therefore, not be surprised if, as the provider of the main mercenary forces for the Saudi regime and its interests in the region, it ends up being the focus of hostility for the opposition groups in Saudi Arabia and the Arab gulf states.

The cosmetic political reforms announced in early March 1991, including the creation of a Consultive Council (to be chosen by the king himself), were portrayed in the American press as signs of a Saudi version of perestroika. In reality, the new measures do not introduce any elements of Western-style democracy; they are more akin to streamlining voting procedures in the Communist party in the Soviet Union in the 1950s. They are certainly not going to solve the regime's legitimacy problem.(35)

Article 19, a London-based freedom-of-expression watchdog group, reported recently that since the Gulf War there has been no lessening of the Saudi government's control over all aspects of life. What is permissible in Saudi Arabia is synonymous with the wishes of the current ruler, King Fahd, and "anything contradicting the origins or the jurisdiction of Islam, undermining the sanctity of Islam . . . or harming public morality" is subject to censorship. Artistic and academic freedoms, for example, are severely limited or nonexistent, and the media are under total government control.(36)

Dangers to the United States

It is not the Green Peril that the United States is facing in the gulf but the peril embodied in its own policies. The pre-Gulf War Saudi debility stemmed from a willingness to secure the kingdom's interests through the preservation of an inter-Arab diplomatic framework for solving regional problems and the maintenance of a regional military balance of power. The American intervention in the gulf completely destroyed those two mechanisms. It led to the collapse of the Arab diplomatic order as a mechanism for dealing with crises and to the destruction of the balance of power in the gulf. It turned Washington into a local diplomatic hegemonic power and military "balancer." Those developments have made the Saudis not more "assertive" but more dependent for their survival, domestically and regionally, on American power. The fact that Saudi Arabia is for all practical purposes an American dependent today is perhaps one of the most dramatic results of the war. The perceived Saudi willingness to take "risks," such as attending the Madrid peace conference and refusing to subsidize the PLO, is largely based on the expectation that Washington will secure Saudi interests by, for example, "delivering" Israel to the negotiating table or deterring potential anti-Saudi Palestinian terrorism.

The current American-Saudi relationship resembles the U.S.-Iranian relationship during the shah's rule. In exchange for granting access to oil supplies and military installations and showing a willingness to make the politically correct moves on Israel, the Saudi regime receives security protection masquerading as an "alliance" with Washington. That arrangement, however, lacks the clear definitions of obligations and rules of the game that characterize formal alliances.

Indeed, the "alliance" seems to involve an open-ended commitment on the part of Washington to continue supporting the Saudis, without a clear quid pro quo on their part. As was the case with the shah's Iran (and Israel today), Saudi Arabia's chief perquisite of being America's client state is the "freedom of enjoying a commitment without paying a penalty of being an ally."(37)

The U.S.-Saudi relationship produces destructive domestic political consequences for both countries. Washington is tying its interests to the survival of the repressive Saudi regime, while allowing the latter--through the control of oil prices, the buying of American military equipment, and cooperation in U.S. covert operations--to exert leverage on American policy and politics.

The specter of Iran does hang over Saudi Arabia, but not the way Riyadh is framing it, that is, as a consequence of subversive activity by an external power. The original revolution in Tehran, which was the first mass urban uprising in the Middle East and led to the establishment of Western-derived political institutions, was very much a product of American policies. If a revolutionary regime comes to power in Saudi Arabia and subordinates its institutions and mechanics to an anti-Western theocratic expression of nationalist ideology, U.S. policy, not the "exporting of radical Islam" from Iran, will be the culprit.

Iran

The foreign policy that has been pursued since the end of the Iran-Iraq War by the leadership in Tehran, headed by the reform-minded President Rafsanjani and the so-called "pragmatic group of revolutionary clerics,"(38) has reflected an effort to advance Iranian national interest more by regaining that state's traditional role as a gulf power and strengthening its economy than by orchestrating a regional or global messianic crusade. Iranian policies have stressed diplomatic pragmatism and military caution coupled with an effort to liberalize and privatize Iran's centralized economy, expand its trade relationships, alleviate its huge foreign debt problems, and satisfy its need for infrastructure.

Signs of Moderation

While the Saudi regime has pursued very superficial political and economic reforms, the government in Tehran has removed many of the religious restrictions, especially those on women, and helped to reinvigorate a quite lively parliamentary and political debate, which culminated in the critical parliamentary election in April 1992. Iran, according to Eric Hooglund, "compared to its Arab neighbors, does appear to have some political characteristics typical of democratic governments."(39)

Rafsanjani, himself from a wealthy pistachio-growing family, has sided with the wealthy merchants who ran Iran's economy in the years before the revolution brought nationalization and state control. He has welcomed foreign investment and called on Iranian expatriates to return and invest in the country.(40)

Iran's economy after the war with Iraq was depressed and contorted by artificial controls. Since then, the government has launched a major program to demilitarize the economy. "Fortunately, we don't have any serious military threat," explained the governor of Iran's central bank. "The threat we do have is economic," he argued. "If you don't have enough food, even if you have the most sophisticated tank, how are you going to use it?"(41)

A Conventional Foreign Policy

Iran's policies during the gulf crisis and the war that followed were an example of textbook realpolitik diplomacy. The Iranian leadership was able to separate its ideological and historical baggage, including its resentment of both Washington and Baghdad--after all, Saddam invaded Iran in 1979 with a green light from the United States and the United Nations--from its vital, hard-core national interests.

Criticizing Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and rejecting the permanent presence of U.S. military forces in the gulf, Tehran remained neutral during the crisis and the war that ensued. It took advantage of the developments in the gulf to sign a peace agreement with Iraq; to reestablish diplomatic relations with the Arab countries in the allied camp, above all with Saudi Arabia; and to improve its relations with countries that supported Iraq, especially Sudan.(42)

However, during the crisis Iran refrained from exploiting the weakness of the central government in Baghdad, except in the most cautious fashion. Its support for efforts to oust Saddam among Iraq's Shi'ite majority remained surprisingly limited. Similarly, Tehran did not take advantage of the anti-American feeling in the region to incite the Moslem world against the U.S. presence in the gulf. Rafsanjani's government even offered its services as a mediator between the United States and Iraq. Iran supported American, Saudi, and Turkish policies intended to replace Saddam with a more benign Iraqi leader and, like those states, expressed its interest in preventing the disintegration of Iraq after Operation Desert Storm.

Despite its anti-Israeli rhetoric, Iran supported the U.S. position that the Palestinian-Israeli problem and gulf security issues, including the invasion of Kuwait, should not be linked (as Saddam had demanded). In addition, after years of boycotting the UN Security Council, Tehran expressed an interest in becoming a member. It also reestablished diplomatic relations with Great Britain and expanded relations with other Western countries.(43) All of those actions were consistent with a conventional state's advancing its foreign policy interests, not a messianic state's seeking to foment revolution.

Postwar Initiatives

In the aftermath of the war, Iran has played a stabilizing role in the Middle East. Tehran pressured radical Shi'ite groups to release U.S. hostages in Lebanon, dispatched diplomats to mend its relationship with Saudi Arabia, and even sent fire fighters to the oil fields of Kuwait. More significant, perhaps, Iran launched plans for reintegrating itself into the gulf security system, a move intended to strengthen its own interests while providing the Arab gulf states with a countervailing force against a future threat from Iraq. Iranian spokesmen stated the need to replace "ideological radicalism" with "pragmatic politics" and argued that the fragile balance of power in the gulf, which was responsible for the outbreak of both the Iran-Iraq war and the Persian Gulf War, should be replaced with "clear lines and frameworks for a new approach to security issues of the region."(44) The Iranians presented a far-reaching plan for a regional collective security arrangement based on cooperation between the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), noninterference of regional countries in each other's internal affairs, confidence-building measures, arms control structures, and economic reconstruction programs.(45)

Notwithstanding alarming U.S. intelligence reports, Iranian policy toward the Central Asian and Caucacus republics has been confined to efforts to gradually establish diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties with some of the newly independent states, especially with those, such as Azerbaijan, that have large Shi'ite populations. There are no indications that Tehran is engaged in political and religious "subversion" of the region, unless one considers helping set up mosques or religious schools subversive.(46)

While proposing ideas for regional security and trade cooperation, Iran has rejected efforts to exclude it from post-Desert Storm security arrangements through the creation of an exclusive Arab-dominated system there and, on a more general level, has expressed its opposition to a Pax Americana in the region. The latter is seen by Iranians as anachronistic at a time when the Soviet threat has disappeared. They believe that regional threats can be contained by regional powers and that foreign intervention is destabilizing.

Indeed, Iran's message to the Saudis and the six-member GCC has been simple and straightforward. Iran is willing to play a positive role in the security of the gulf but will reject "extraregional arrangements" involving nongulf Arab states, such as Egypt, or the continuing presence of Western, especially American, military forces in the region.(47)

Iran's position was one factor in Saudi Arabia's decision to reject a U.S.-supported proposal embodied in the so-called Damascus Declaration of early 1991. That declaration proposed that Saudi Arabia and the other GCC states base their security on the continuing presence of an Arab regional defense force led by Egypt and Syria. Tehran made it clear that it regarded such an arrangement as a hostile Pan-Arabist move.(48) The Iranian objective appears to be a Middle Eastern security system that would not be exclusively Arab but would include Pakistan and Turkey.

An Inconsistent U.S. Policy

Although Washington has never made clear its vision of a gulf security arrangement--it has supported such diverse ideas as a "Middle Eastern NATO" as well as the Damascus Declaration--its policy and statements suggest that it sees its interests in the region secured through a "strategic consensus" involving four pillars--Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and Israel. An "occasional United States presence" would supplement their efforts and ensure that the oil resources of the region would "not be controlled by somebody fundamentally hostile to our interests."(49) It is not surprising that, from their vantage point, the Iranian leadership perceives those American plans and the continued U.S. military presence in the region as directed against them.

Washington has responded to the positive signals coming from Iran with mixed messages. On the one hand, the U.S. government is gradually trying to take advantage of Rafsanjani's moves toward a free-market economy and to expand economic relations with Tehran. Initially, the Bush administration had restricted U.S. trade with Iran and had even tried to keep other countries from investing in that country. It was only last year that the administration removed some trade restrictions. The result was that trade between Iran and the United States leaped 300 percent as the United States became the sixth-largest exporter to Iran, with more than $5 million in exports. Moreover, the administration recently withdrew its objections to the sale of European-made Airbus passenger jets, which use U.S.-made engines, to Iran.(50)

On the other hand, when it comes to the diplomatic and military arenas, Washington seems to be intent on treating Iran as a pariah state, a "strategic enemy," as Patrick Clawson put it.(51) The Bush administration has rejected Iran's reintegration into the gulf security system and has denounced alleged Iranian pursuit of a nuclear military path.

The Issue of Nuclear Weapons

Washington's reports about Iranian attempts to acquire nuclear capability are denied by Tehran, and the evidence is ambiguous. Even if Iran does have nuclear ambitions, such Iranian moves are not necessarily a reflection of "radical" foreign policy goals. Avner Yaniv, an Israeli military analyst, suggested recently that "as the leaders in Tehran see it, since Pakistan for all practical purposes is a nuclear military power and Iraq, notwithstanding U.S. efforts, is moving in that direction--and the main target of Saddam's nuclear efforts is Tehran--Iran is now surrounded by a circle of nuclear threats." Rafsanjani's attempt to acquire nuclear capability is defensive in nature, and "any other regime in Tehran would have taken similar steps," concluded Yaniv (indeed, it was America's friend the shah who initiated Iran's nuclear arms program).

Yaniv raised another interesting point. Some observers expressed concern that Iran's overtures to Kazakhstan might be part of an effort to try to take advantage of that Moslem state's nuclear military capability. He argued that, if anything, a nuclear Kazakhstan--which with 1,500 nuclear warheads has a larger arsenal than France--is actually perceived by Iran as a major threat to its security, not as a source of support for its own nuclear program.(52)

Certainly, American efforts to isolate Iran only strengthen its sense of insecurity and may accelerate its nuclear drive. At the same time, Iran's ideas for regional security arrangements--rejected by Washington--have at least the potential for creating some mechanism for controlling arms, including nuclear arms.

Moreover, by continuing to try to isolate Iran, Washington is weakening the forces of Rafsanjani and the more pragmatic wing of the current Iranian regime that won a massive victory in the parliamentary elections on April 10, 1992. Without a large flow of foreign investment and in a continuing hostile diplomatic environment, Rafsanjani and his allies in the parliament will find it difficult to continue their efforts to demilitarize and reform the economy and to pursue a moderate diplomatic path.

American hostility toward Iran is understandable given the anti-Western nature of the Iranian revolution, the 1979 seizure of the American embassy in Tehran, the threat to assassinate author Salman Rushdie, and the ties between Iran and radical Moslem groups.

However, Iranian behavior should be seen in its historical context. The legacy of U.S. intervention in Iran after World War II, especially Washington's support for the repressive regime of the shah, left a residue of hostility toward American policy, not only among Islamic radicals, but also among more secular and Westernized Iranians. That hostility was only strengthened after what was seen in Iran as U.S. support for the Iraqi invasion of Iran and American efforts to prevent an Iranian victory in the war with Baghdad.

Constraints on Iranian Power

The image of Iran as the new regional bogeyman is exaggerated. Iranian foreign policy seems to project a pragmatic understanding of world and regional politics and a careful application of diplomatic and military means. Even if one assumes that Iran is intent in spreading Islamic radicalism and creating a huge monolithic bloc stretching from North Africa to India, it is obvious that Tehran does not have the power to achieve that goal and will be prevented from doing so by such powerful states as Russia, Pakistan, Israel, and Egypt, even without American prodding.

In addition to the constraints placed on potential Iranian expansionism by its powerful neighbors, Iran lacks the capabilities to carry out such ambitious game plans. The condition of Iran today resembles that of the Soviet Union at the beginning of its decline: a bankrupt economy, a dissatisfied population, ethnic rivalries, and an official ideology that does not respond to the needs of the citizens. Iran cannot serve as a "model" for other Moslem societies or as a "magnet" for Shi'ite groups in the region. There are major questions about whether it will even survive in its current condition.

Indeed, Iran, a large country with a population of more than 55 million, is itself a miniempire where a small Persian majority (a little more than 50 percent of the population) controls several ethnic and religious groups, including Arabs and Kurds who have strong ties to other states and groups in the region. Hence, the possibility of the political disintegration of Central Asia and the Caucacus into different states and nationalities may pose a danger to Iran's identity and stability.

For example, 20 million Azeris live in Iran and only 7 million in Azerbaijan itself. One Azeri faction calls for secession from Iran and the establishment of a united republic (a Soviet-sponsored independent republic that existed 45 years ago proclaimed that large areas of northern Iran were part of its homeland). Therefore, it is not surprising that the governments in Tehran and in Baku have a common interest in preserving current borders. That is also a common interest of Turkey and Iran. Both are opposed to the creation of an independent Kurdish state that would serve as a magnet for their own large Kurdish minorities.(53)

Tajikistan, whose language is close to Persian, seems to be the only Central Asian state where some sympathy for Iran's political model exists. There, the Islamic Renaissance party, banned in other republics, operates openly and claims 20,000 members. As were those of the anti-communist struggle of the Catholic church in Poland, Iranian efforts in Tajikistan have been directed mainly at weakening the Tajik Communist party. Last September, for example, Tehran covertly supported a peaceful uprising against a communist power grab in Tajikistan, allegedly paying demonstrators 100 rubles a day to lead Moslem prayers and demand the resignation of the Tajik communist leadership.(54)

In any case, Iran's Shi'ite religion is not shared by the majority of the 60 million Moslems in Central Asia (most of whom are Sunnis--with the notable exception of Shi'ite Azeris) and the Middle East. That presents a major obstacle to Iran's alleged ability to export its religious influence. Notwithstanding expectations after the revolution in Iran that a wave of pro-Iranian Islamic fundamentalism would engulf the Arab world, support for Khomeini and revolution remained limited and confined to Shi'ite communities.

Moreover, even Shi'ite groups in the region have been resistant to Iranian overtures. Shi'ite identity does not guarantee allegiance to Tehran and is in most cases weaker than national or ethnic identity. Indeed, despite the religious affinity between Iranian Shi'ites and the Shi'ite majority in Iraq, the latter fought on the side of other Iraqi Arabs during the war with Iran and rejected Iranian calls to secede from Iraq and join the fight against Saddam.(55)

The Need for a Conciliatory U.S. Approach

Iran's cautious foreign policy reflects a recognition among its leaders of the major weakness and fragility of their political rule, economy, and the state structure itself. Instead of trying to isolate Iran, Washington should take advantage of that country's need for economic investment and diplomatic acceptance and the existence of islands of free enterprise and pro-American sentiment (as opposed to pro-U.S. government policies) among some of the political and intellectual elite.

The United States could encourage Tehran's drive for integration into a gulf security structure. As Shireen Hunter explained, "Any security scheme must recognize the Gulf region's unique ethnic, religious, and cultural characteristics" and "its dual Arab and Iranian character." An attempt to exclude or isolate any country dooms any arrangement there. Hence, "any security framework that portrays Iran as the regional bully and aims to exclude it would be self-defeating" and "would be a sure recipe for pushing Iran toward extremism."(56)

However, American policy in the Middle East in general, and in the gulf in particular, is still motivated by a drive for hegemony in the region and attempts to build new "regional pillars" to support that goal. U.S. leaders seem unwilling to accept Iran's idea of an independent regional security system. Instead, Washington is trying to turn Iran into the new bogeyman whose alleged ideological and military threat necessitates American intervention in the region and the establishment of new "pillars." That policy is detri- mental to the interests of the states in the region as well as to the long-term goals of the United States.

Return of the Great Game in Central Asia

One of the pillars Washington hopes to rely on is Turkey. The perceived rising Islamic threat in the Central Asian republics has given rise to suggestions on the part of officials in Ankara that America use Turkey as a new pillar to contain Iranian expansionism. Those proposals, which range from having Turkey serve as a cultural and political- economic "model" for the new Moslem republics to having Turkey play a more active political and military role in the Middle East and Central Asia, have come at a time of growing Turkish apprehension about the future of NATO, the U.S. security role in Europe, and Turkey's value to the Western alliance.

Turkish Losses from the Gulf War

Turkish president Turgut Ozal's strategy of close cooperation with the United States during the Gulf War was intended to reaffirm Ankara's commitment to U.S.-Turkish bilateral relations and to highlight Turkey's importance to U.S. strategic interests and concerns in the Middle East. By promptly terminating the flow of petroleum from the Iraqi pipelines, Turkey made a major contribution to the effective implementation of the UN-authorized sanctions against Iraq. During Operation Desert Storm, Ankara played a key role in the coalition's war effort by permitting U.S. military aircraft access to the Incirlik air base for strikes against Iraq and by deploying near the Iraqi border 100,000 Turkish troops who pinned down an equal number of Iraqi airmen.

Notwithstanding Washington's efforts in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm to provide Turkey with increased security assistance and new trade benefits, Ankara's involvement in the Gulf War has not produced the "new strategic relationship" that Ozal expected. Nor were Turkey's NATO allies appreciative enough of Turkey's contribution to the war to give Ankara a more favorable hearing on its ap- plication for admission to the European Community. (NATO's members, especially Germany, were also opposed to what seemed to be Turkish, and by extension U.S., efforts to extend, through the defense of Turkey, the organization's out-of-area military role.)

Moreover, the Gulf War embroiled Turkey in the regional politics of the Middle East, a dramatic departure from the European orientation of the Turkish republic's founder, Kemal Ataturk. The fact that, contrary to Ozal's expectations, Saddam has remained in power has left Turkey with a major security threat on its southern border.

The war also vastly complicated Turkey's Kurdish problem. A significant percentage of Turkey's population is Kurdish, and many Turks are of Kurdish origin. Turkey shared Saudi Arabia's opposition to the disintegration of Iraq, fearing that it would lead to the establishment of an independent Kurdish state. U.S. efforts to aid the Kurds in northern Iraq via Turkey through Operation Provide Comfort allowed Kurdish guerrillas to increase their operations from Iraq against Turkey.(57)

When both violence on the part of separatist Kurdish guerrillas in southeastern Turkey and repressive measures taken against them by Turkish military forces grew, the German government imposed an arms embargo against Ankara in March 1992 and accused it of using German weapons to put down the Kurds.(58)

A U.S. Surrogate

Ozal's efforts, with U.S. support, to establish political ties with the nearly 45 million Turkic people in Azerbaijan and the former Soviet Central Asian republics can be seen as a way of countering the negative repercussions of the Gulf War by trying to find new foreign policy outlets for Turkey and revive its strategic importance to the West, especially the United States.

However, overtures to the new Moslem republics also went against another Kemalist principle: noninterference in the affairs of neighboring states on behalf of Turkic minorities. Ankara's efforts have already kindled fears of a rise of Pan-Turkism and a revival of centuries-old ambitions to establish a Greater Turkistan.

With the decline and eventual collapse of Moscow's central authority, Ankara began to expand its political and economic ties with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. A flurry of diplomatic visits has been accompanied by the signing of an economic and commercial agreement as well as cultural exchanges.(59)

Ozal and his aides did not hide their hope that Turkey would achieve a stronger regional and global status as a result of its new penetration into Central Asia. That new foreign policy orientation, which sparked interest in post- Gulf War Washington and was encouraged by the Bush administration, assumed that Turkey, together with Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, would become the four pillars of American hegemony in the region.

Under that strategy, Turkey and the other American surrogates that help the United States to control the strategic centers and oil resources of the Middle East are viewed as instruments to contain the radical Islamic forces that are supposedly led by Iran.

Islam's Limited Influence in Central Asia

Contrary to the Green Peril paradigm, Central Asia does not seem to be in danger of turning, under Iranian influence, into a monolithic "Islamic crescent." Visitors to the region find instead a complex mixture of national, ethnic, and religious groups and political and economic interests. Ties to outside nations are clearly being sought for economic deliverance rather than as a religious and cultural denominator.

Although it sometimes worked with democratic forces to undermine the old communist regimes, Islam has remained a marginal political force in Central Asia. The popular nationalist movements in those states reflect secular identities with a populist anti-Russian bent, and the more liberal ones attempt to foster coexistence among the different religious and ethnic groups.(60)

Although some of the Moslem republics established diplomatic, cultural, and economic ties with Iran, none of them appear interested in imitating the Iranian political and economic model. Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Turkmenistan, and most other republics favor Western-oriented models of development. "Iran would take us back to the Middle Ages," argued an adviser to the Azerbaijani president. Instead, "the prevailing vision seems to be economic progress in a secular society," with Turkey serving as a secular free-market model for modernization.(61)

Dangers of an Anti-Turkish Backlash

In trying to gain economic influence in the region, however, Turkey faces dilemmas similar to those Germany and Japan face in their trading zones. Any effort on Turkey's part to play a political-military role in the area as a counterweight to Iran--as part of the American strategy to become the hegemonic power in the region--could produce a backlash and reduce Ankara's influence and ability to succeed as a trading state.

Turkey has strong cultural ties to Central Asia whose people, with the exception of the Tajikistanis, speak variants of Turkish. To strengthen those ties, Turkey helped the Central Asian republic of Azerbaijan to change from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet, which has been used in Turkey since the 1920s, and which Azerbaijan formally adopted in January 1992.(62)

Although they welcome Turkey's playing a cultural role, the Central Asians are concerned that a Turkish expansionist policy in the region could easily be converted into Pan-Turkism, which has had a nonsecular Islamic character. That development could frighten non-Turkic peoples, such as the Kurds and the Armenians, and create pro-Iranian movements among the Persian-speaking population in such states as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Pan-Turkism could also produce a backlash from the Arab states, Pakistan, India, and even China. Seventy years of socialist state and nation building have produced separate notions of identity in the various Turkic-speaking republics, and it is unlikely that they will gravitate toward unity or accept Turkey as a dominating and unifying regional power. The player that would be most opposed to Turkey's assuming a leading role in the region would be Iran. An American effort to groom Turkey as the policeman of Central Asia could, therefore, have the same disastrous consequences that U.S. attempts to make Iran the gendarme of the gulf had in the 1970s or its support for Iraq as a countervailing force to Iran had in the 1980s. Turning Ankara into a strategic pillar in Central Asia could also weaken the Turkish economy, increase the political power of the military, and contribute to a growing Turkish-Iranian rift that could escalate into war.

Turkey's Resistance to Washington's Strategy

Indeed, in November 1991 Turkish voters, concerned about the domestic and regional costs involved in being Washington's cop in the Middle East and Central Asia--the economic and military burden, the erosion of Turkey's European orientation, the reentry into the dangerous politics of the Middle East--defeated Ozal's governing Motherland party and brought the Social Democratic party, with Suleyman Demirel as prime minister, to power.(63)

Demirel's policies seem to reflect the current Turkish foreign policy consensus. He is interested in strengthening Ankara's economic ties with the Central Asian republics and seems to envision Turkey as the democratic, secular, free- market-oriented "Shining City on the Hill" of the Moslem world. During his recent visit to Washington, he tried to downplay the notion of a spreading Islamic menace and rejected the idea that Ankara would play a pro-American political-military role in Central Asia. He made it clear that he is determined not to be perceived as "an American poodle."(64)

Despite the setbacks of recent years, Ankara still hopes that Turkey will eventually be invited to join the European Community. Hence, Turkish policymakers are concerned that the limited prestige Turkey gained in Washington and the West as a result of Ankara's involvement in the Gulf War is being outweighed by the possibility of military entanglement with Iraq and Kurdish groups. Along with the unresolved Cyprus problem, those difficulties complicate ankara's ties with the community.

In addition, Turkey could be drawn into regional conflicts, such as that between Christian Armenia and Azerbaijan. And certainly Turkey would gain no benefit by creating tensions with Iran. "Turkey is determined to keep good relations with Iran and knows its own economic limitations in meeting the expectations of its Central Asian cousins," insisted one Turkish official.(65)

Like those of Iran, Turkey's ties to the ethnic and religious mosaic of Central Asia and the Caucacus could create long-term problems. Indeed, the continued bloodshed in the Caucacus has demonstrated Turkey's limited ability to shape events in the region and highlighted the costs that efforts to do so involve.

The Myth of a Central Asian Islamic Bloc

Developments in Central Asia suggest that the region is not turning into a Tehran-run Islamic monolith against which Ankara should be established as a bastion. Instead, Central Asia is reemerging as the geopolitical and economic chess board it was during the 19th century--a chessboard on which regional and external powers vie for the traditional prizes of access to markets and natural resources as well as political influence.

However, that rivalry has more of the flavor of a balance-of-power game and trade competition than of the kind of religious military struggle that Washington initially envisioned. The model that Washington should use as it studies the future of the Central Asia region, as well as that of the emerging new Middle East, is not that of a new Moslem empire but that of a multinational and multiethnic mosaic, in which political, military, and economic cooperation will coexist with chaotic ethnic and religious rivalries, not necessarily between Christians and Moslems and certainly not as a result of religious subversion by one player, such as Iran.

Limits to U.S. Influence

With Russia ceasing to regard the region as a center for global political and ideological competition with the West, Washington, while attempting to penetrate the large markets of Central Asia, should remain on the sidelines of the political changes and the regional competition that can be expected to develop, not try to pick the winners or losers. Washington, after opening diplomatic missions and establishing trade ties with the new Central Asian republics, can only hope that Turkey's democratic free-market model will be imitated.

The United States should also encourage a stable balance of power as well as the cooperative economic systems that are already emerging. The administration should understand that any time it attempts to intervene directly or indirectly through surrogates it creates disincentives for the creation of a balance of power.

Any efforts to mediate local conflicts such as the one over Nagorno-Karabakh have little chance of succeeding; any mediation should be left to regional powers, such as Russia, Turkey, or even Iran, all of whom have a major stake in the outcome of that and other potential regional conflicts.

The United States should also reject all proposals for a grand Marshall Plan for Central Asia. Economically backward when they were brought into the Soviet empire, the Central Asian republics enjoyed some limited modernization. However, those republics became a net burden on Moscow's budget. As the Soviet government collapsed, their living standards fell more rapidly than those of the Slavic states. The republics of Central Asian are now dependent on Russia and the other more industrialized regions of the former Soviet Union for manufactured goods.

The idea that Washington could replace Moscow as the region's source of financial aid makes no economic or political sense. Currently, most of the governments of the newly independent states of Central Asia are in the hands of former communist officials who have very little understanding of and experience with free-market economics. Washington should refrain from creating expectations that it will deliver economic prosperity.

Unfortunately, any inclination to adopt a low-key American approach to the region could easily be undermined by an exaggerated fear of Islam that continues to distort Washington's view of the Central Asian republics' ethnic, cultural, and historical realities. Fear of the Islamic bogeyman has already resulted in the destructive idea of turning Turkey into an anti-Iranian pillar and led to an equally dangerous American policy in North Africa.

Algeria: Joining the Jackals

Many analysts used terms like "irony" and "paradox" in referring to the Bush administration's decision to support the military takeover and cancellation of democratic elections in Algeria in January 1992. At a time when Washington was calling for the establishment of a new world order and the spread of democracy and free-market economies, the Bush administration embraced a Marxist military dictatorship.

While the French government, whose stakes in the outcome of the elections were higher, remained initially silent when the Algerian army stepped in to cancel the election that would probably have brought to power the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), Washington was quick to describe the move as in accordance with the Algerian constitution. A day later the State Department backpedaled and said it had "no opinion" on the army's action.(66) That reaction stands in stark contrast to Washington's angry reaction to the recent Haitian military coup that overthrew a populist, socialist- oriented president.

U.S. Support for Democracy: The Middle East Exception

The discrepancy between the Bush administration's global democracy rhetoric and its reaction to the events in Algeria may have confused some observers, but Washington's response was consist with long-standing U.S. strategy. The same approach led to the 1953 U.S. intervention in Iran, which led to the ouster of a democratically elected leader and the restoration of the shah; the 1957 American pressure on King Hussein to abolish a popularly elected regime in Jordan; and the current U.S. support for the Arab monarchies of the gulf.

Indeed, the Bush administration's response to the Algerian coup is only the most recent manifestation of a policy that subordinates the political will of Middle Eastern populations to the preservation of a profoundly undemocratic status quo. In the name of combating the elusive threat of Islamic fundamentalism, which has emerged as one of the most important engines of change in the region, the United States allies itself with some of the most anti-democratic forces there.

The administration finds it convenient to promote elections from Moscow to Nicaragua to Kampuchea to Kenya--even though in many cases the democratic process strengthens or brings to power such unsavory players as the Pol Pot murderers of Kampuchea and pseudodemocratic groups in sub-Saharan Africa.

However, when it comes to free elections in the Moslem Middle East--Algeria being the most dramatic example--officials in Washington suddenly begin to lament the "dilemmas" and "Hobson's choices" they would face if political freedom were to sweep the region. As Gerald F. Seib argues, "Democracy could produce some messy problems for the United States and its friends."(67) Furthermore, suggests Jim Hoagland, democratic practices there might bring "anti-democratic forces to the threshold of power."(68)

Though the Bush administration intrudes on every aspect of internal Iraqi affairs, it is reluctant to demand internationally supervised elections in Algeria. Despite the administration's and Congress's vocal denunciations of human rights abuses, including massacres of demonstrators in the streets of Beijing, no displeasure is expressed when the regimes in Algeria and Tunisia take similar, if not harsher, steps against their citizens. Instead, those demonstrators are demonized as "fundamentalists" and "radicals" who supposedly deserve such treatment.

Washington's concern about the rise of democracy in the Middle East stems from the fear that free elections in Iraq, the Arab gulf states, Jordan, and North Africa will threaten the Arab regimes that help maintain strategic interests of the United States and its access to oil in the region as well as endanger American support for Israel.

The events in Algeria were quite understandable. After close to two decades of bureaucratic mismanagement, political repression, and corruption by the governing National Front (FLN), Algeria was saddled with more than $25 billion in foreign debt, and nearly 30 percent of its population was unemployed. Meanwhile, members of the elite, who continued to mouth slogans about egalitarianism, socialism, and Arab nationalism, were perpetuating their own privileges, enjoying such benefits as tax-free imports, preferential housing, and special rights to travel.(69)

The socialist leadership refused to sell its government-controlled industries and continued to impose heavy restrictions on foreign investment. In addition, worldwide recession had been depressing hard-currency earnings of Algerian tourism and petroleum exports, which magnified the economic crisis and increased unemployment.

The economic problems, including a rise in prices, led in 1988 to bloody riots, some led by Islamic fundamentalist leaders, that spread through Algeria. Soldiers gunned down hundreds of unarmed civilians. The crisis resulted in the decision by the FLN government, controlled by elderly socialist military men led by President Chadli Benjedid, to begin ambitious political reforms, including promising to legalize opposition parties and to end the political monopoly of the FLN. That decision was also spurred by the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and subtle pressure from Paris.

However, years of authoritarian rule and the emigration of many Western-educated technocrats and intellectuals to Europe had left Algeria with no alternative political outlets for expression and organization. As was the case in other parts of the Moslem World (and for that matter in Eastern Europe under communist rule), traditional and religious institutions emerged as important centers of political opposition, especially for the majority of poor and uneducated Algerians. By 1991 the FIS controlled 8,000 of Algeria's 10,000 mosques whose five daily prayers provided 40,000 daily relays for its views, which traveled by fax, word of mouth, telephone, and cassette. Moreover, during election campaigns the party was able to present a well- educated field of high-quality candidates.

"Islam has always been a key unifying factor among the Maghreb countries of North Africa," according to analyst Allan Thompson, who added that it "now is a potent political force as well--not because Arabs in those states want to live in Islamic republics like Iran, but because the existing political order has failed them."(70)

Islam in Algeria, as in other parts of the Middle East, has often thrived on the martyrdom of political oppression. One reporter noted, "When populations are fed up with a variety of elitist single-party authoritarian structures over many decades, it's not surprising that Islam should serve as a powerful vehicle of protest."(71) Although the democratic process launched by the government unleashed close to 60 parties and political associations, only the FIS was able to mobilize massive public support and translate it into election victories. It won 55 percent of the posts that were filled by gubernatorial and local elections in May 1990, which gave it control of everything from street sweeping to voter registration. That victory was followed by attempts to gerrymander constituency boundaries to favor the FLN. Those attempts led to new violent confrontations between the government and supporters of the FIS, including the jailing of a prominent FIS leader, Abbasi Madani.

However, attempts to repress the FIS only increased its popularity, and it scored a major victory in the first round of parliamentary elections on December 26, 1991, by winning 3 million votes (5 million other voters split their ballots among 20 parties), which made it almost certain that it would win a majority of the votes in the second round. That would have given the FIS a powerful claim to the right to form a government and also an excellent chance of winning the Algerian presidential election. Concern about that possibility led to the military intervention in January and to the cancellation of the runoff vote. The military also ousted President Benjedid, who apparently was willing to accept an FIS victory; postponed the elections indefinitely; declared a state of emergency; and imposed a military- controlled High Security Council on the country.(72)

Western Democratic Hypocrisy

Those moves were explicitly backed by most of the rulers in the Middle East, including the military rulers of Tunisia and Libya, who face similar opposition from Islamic fundamentalist forces, and at least implicitly by France and the United States. "By neither criticizing nor approving the Algerian army's action, Western countries cloak their real attitude--that democracy is fine, up to a certain point--in necessary ambiguity," noted Jim Hoagland.(73)

American intellectuals--including many who advocate a Wilsonian global democracy crusade--exhibit a peculiar lack of enthusiasm for democratic objectives when it comes to the Middle East. There, to secure American hegemonic power, they typically support a "realist" approach that includes a U.S. military alliance with, and support for, authoritarian Arab regimes. When U.S. policies incite popular demand for change and reform, the neoconservatives solve their cognitive dissonance by proclaiming that the demonstrators in the streets represent the forces of reaction, the Green Peril, and that the spread of democracy would be served by containing that threat.(74)

The events in Algeria highlight the weakness of the global democracy crusade and suggest that it might be nothing more than a way to rationalize, in the eyes of Americans and international opinion makers, policies that are really based on cold, calculated realpolitik considerations. To put it another way, behind the mask of the American global missionary is the American global policeman.

Washington's approach means that the United States ends up backing ruling authoritarian elites and thereby incurring a backlash from popular opposition forces that resent its interventionist policies. Those policies inherently erode America's power as a role model. The search for imaginary Jeffersonian democrats ends up as a search for enemies, and the Islamic fundamentalists are the latest candidates.

Islam and Democracy

The sense of confusion and arrogance that lies at the root of the global democracy paradigm was exposed by the U.S. reaction to the events in Algeria. The United States could have pursued a detached policy toward Algeria, where U.S. interests could have been affected only minimally, and could have encouraged France and the southern European states to take the lead. Washington could have recognized the complexity of the situation, which does not involve just good guys vs. bad guys, and welcomed the gradual moves toward political freedom. Instead, the application of the Green Peril frame resulted in a destructive knee-jerk reaction.

U.S. policies also reflected the fallacies behind the Islamic fundamentalist scare and America's image of political Islam as a monolithic anti-Western movement that will return the Middle East to the dark ages. Islamic fundamentalism, which serves as an umbrella for many variants of a number of political ideologies, has in recent years eroded the power of centralized and authoritarian political systems in the Middle East. According to Graham E. Fuller, it is a "movement that is both historically inevitable and politically `tamable,'" and "over the long run it even represents ultimate political progress toward greater democracy and popular government."(75)

Some aspects of the FIS understandably concern the United States and other Western countries. Many of the leaders are devout Moslems who seek an Iranian-style Islamic republic, and the party's program calls for the establishment of Shari'a--the rule of Islamic law. Strictly interpreted, that would require the complete segregation of the sexes outside the home; the banning of alcohol and music in public; and the introduction of stoning, flogging, and amputation as legal punishments. The possibility of the FIS's coming to power has therefore raised fears among secular Algerians, especially among educated and professional women.(76)

However, behind the slogans and the rhetoric of the FIS lies a more pragmatic approach. Many of the FIS leaders, who are more Westernized than the Iranian ayatollahs, actually have marketable skills. One of the party's leaders, Abdel Kader Hachani, who is now in jail, was an engineer for the same state oil company that the current prime minister, Sid Ahmed Ghozali, used to manage. Hachani represents a different breed of mullah. He is 35 years old, the son of a middle-class businessman, and fluent in French and English although in public he uses only English.(77)

Hachani and many of the other FIS leaders, unlike the Iranian ayatollahs, do not oppose "Western devils." They advocate deregulation of public corporations, lowering taxes, and freeing independent small businesses from state control.

Even the Wall Street Journal had to acknowledge that "some of the FIS ideas, such as support for a more open economy, could benefit the country if actually implemented by an Islamic government."(78) (Ironically, the most militant and violent of the Islamic groups are the so-called Afghans, Algerians who were trained in Peshawar to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan through a CIA-funded program.)(79)

Constraints on Fundamentalist Excesses

More important, the FIS leaders who would have come to power through democratic elections could not have overlooked the fact that many of those who voted for Islam did so out of spite--primarily to get rid of the FLN, not to establish a theocracy in Algeria. The majority of the 26 million Algerians, including those who supported the FIS, speak French, watch French television, and read French newspapers. Many Algerians have relatives among the 4 million or so Algerians who live in France, Spain, and Italy and travel back and forth to Algeria. Algeria is also economically dependent on trade with and aid from France and other southern European countries.

Therefore, any attempt by the FIS to impose a xenophobic anti-Western theocracy on Algeria would have produced a major backlash. The prospect of a fundamentalist regime, which appeared imminent after the December vote, had already awakened many of the 5 million Algerians who had not bothered to cast a vote in the first electoral round and brought out hundreds of thousands of modern Algerians for mass rallies. Some even speculated that, as a result of the growing unity of secular Algerians, it was by no means certain the FIS would emerge from the second round as powerful as the military feared.

Hence, the combination of a strong presidency, military support for the Algerian constitution, and resistance by a large proportion of the population, including the large Berber-speaking population, would have acted as a strong check on Islamic radicalism even if the FIS had managed to form a government. Moreover, "the chances are that electoral politics will profoundly moderate those absolutist tendencies latent in almost any kind of religious fundamentalism."(80) For example, in the last Jordanian elections, the fundamentalists had to temper their rhetoric on women's role in society in order to make the gains in the polls that they did.(81)

Those objective constraints would have strengthened the hands of leaders like Hachani who were interested in building up the FIS as a pragmatic and reformist political movement that could succeed in transforming the economy and creating a popular base of support for the party. Hachani and his colleagues know that by advancing a dogmatic religious agenda they would severely tarnish their future electoral prospects as well as those of other Islamic groups.

Once in power, the FIS, like any other political party, would have been judged by its ability to "deliver the goods," mainly economic opportunities for the growing number of young citizens. Religion, as King Hassan of Morocco put it, is after all not enough to run a country. "Had the Algerian elections been allowed to proceed, we would have seen [the FIS] at work," he said.(82)

Most of the Islamic groups that operate more or less freely, and run candidates in elections, in the relatively open systems of Egypt and Jordan or in the more democratic systems of Turkey and Pakistan have successfully adapted to the rules of the democratic game. Those who have resorted to violence have suffered the consequences. Not only have "Islamic intellectuals and activists tried to come to terms with the democratic ideas and process," but to implement their programs, in recent years Islamic movements in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Sudan, and Tunisia "have seen the utility of working within the political system. In so doing, they have successfully contested parliamentary seats and held cabinet positions."(83)

Moreover, once they became part of the democratic process, many of those groups moderated their positions in order to expand their electoral base and be able to form coalitions with secular groups. For example, in Egypt during the 1984 election, the Muslim Brotherhood concluded an alliance with the secular and liberal New World party and won 12 seats. In 1987 the brotherhood formed an "Islamic alliance" with the Socialist Labor party and the Liberal party and increased its parliamentary strength to 32 seats.(84)

Without the romantic image of martyrdom, and lacking any serious policy programs, Islamic parties have actually begun to lose public support. For example, the militant Moslem parties are a very marginal force in Turkish politics.

Recognizing the precarious position of the FIS, even before its possible victory in the second round, some politicians proposed a power-sharing arrangement that would have given the FIS control of the parliament and left Benjedid in the presidency. "The idea was to avoid interfering with the country's new democracy and at the same time to give the FIS enough rope to prove itself incapable of coping with the crippled economy."(85) What spoiled that plan and forced the army's hand was a meeting between Benjedid and Hachani at which the president agreed to purge some corrupt officers and officials. That was too much for the old FLN politicians and military people to swallow.

"By canceling the elections, the military has invited Algerians to settle their differences in the streets," suggested the Wall Street Journal.(86) The country is gradually moving toward civil war with potentially tragic consequences in Algeria itself and serious repercussions in Europe, especially in France where 800,000 Algerian immigrants live. It is tragic that Washington has endorsed the strategy of repression.-

Conclusion: Is Political Islam a Threat?

There is no easy answer to the question of whether Islam and democracy are compatible. As John L. Esposito and James P. Piscatori put it, "History has shown that nations and religious traditions are capable of having multiple and major ideological interpretations or reorientations."(87) The transformation of European principalities, whose rule was justified by divine right, into modern Western democratic states was accompanied by religious reform. Christian tradition, which once supported political absolutism, was reinterpreted to accept the democratic ideal.

Islam also lends itself to various interpretations and has been used to support democracy, dictatorship, republicanism, and monarchy. Some leaders of Islamic movements have adopted a negative attitude toward democracy as an expression of their rejection of European colonial influence and, more recently, of U.S. intervention in the Middle East.

Islamic fundamentalism should not be considered "a disease that spreads willy-nilly to infect whole populations." Like Protestant fundamentalism, argues David Ignatius, it is a "religious response to the confusion and contradictions of the modern world."(88) It is not inconceivable that the new Islamic force will play the same constructive political role that the Protestant reformation played in Europe.

In most Middle Eastern countries, including Algeria and Iran, Islamic fundamentalism is already sweeping away the corrupt old political order of the Arab world. Indeed, "support for the fundamentalists in Algeria, as in Iran, has come in part from the bazaar, from the merchants and small businessmen who have been ignited by the statist regime."(89)

One question that troubles many analysts is whether the Islamic movement will tolerate diversity when in power or try to impose an intolerant monolithic order on society. The record of the Islamic experiments in Iran, Pakistan, and Sudan is mixed. Those governments have used power to discriminate against minorities and women and to repress dissidents. But their record has not been worse--and in some cases it has been better--than that of secular regimes or more traditional monarchies.

"Based on the record thus far," wrote Esposito and Piscatori, "one can expect that where Islamic movements come to power in the Middle East, they will have problems similar to those of secular governments in the region." That is especially true where democratic institutions are weak and political pluralism and human rights remain sources of tension and conflict.(90)

The danger for the Western nations, in particular the United States, is that misperceptions will cloud their judgment of and produce counterproductive policies toward Islam and the Middle East. Instead of viewing Islam as a monolithic force, Western analysts and policymakers should recognize that it is a diverse civilization, divided along cultural, ideological, religious, ethnic, and national lines. Even the term "Islamic fundamentalism" should perhaps be modified to reflect the different movements and groups that are lumped into that category.

Moreover, neither Islam nor Islamic fundamentalism is by definition "anti-Western." As noted, the anti-American attitudes of Islamic groups and movements in the Middle East are not directed against Christianity or Western civilization per se. They are instead a reaction to U.S. policies, especially Washington's support for authoritarian regimes and the long history of U.S. military intervention.

American policies that stem from political, economic, and military interests are bound to lead to more incidents that pit the United States against the forces of political and economic change in the Middle East. Political players in both the United States and the Middle East fan the fear of the Green Peril as a way of maintaining public support for policies that serve their self-interest. The interests of the iron triangles are, however, not necessarily synonymous with those of the American nation.

Although it is not in America's interest to launch a crusade for democracy, neither is it in her interest to be perceived as the guarantor of the status quo and the major obstacle to reform. Now that the Cold War is over, Washington should not be searching for a new enemy; instead, it should view regional conflicts with detachment, realizing that they will rarely pose a danger to America's security.

Notes

(1) "Fear of Fundies," The Economist, February 15, 1992, pp. 4546.

(2) "This Week with David Brinkley," ABC News, December 29, 1991, transcript prepared by Graphic Journal, p. 6.

(3) Douglas E. Streusand, "Abraham's Other Children: Is Islam an Enemy of the West?" Policy Review 50 (Fall 1989). See also exchange of letters titled "Is Islamic Fundamentalism a New Red Scare?" New York Times, January 29, 1992.

(4) Jim Hoagland, "Washington's Algerian Dilemma," Washing ton Post, February 6, 1992.

(5) Amos Perlmutter, "Wishful Thinking about Islamic Funda mentalism," Washington Post, January 19, 1992.

(6) Brian Duffy et al., "Saddam: The Most Dangerous Man in the World," U.S. News & World Report, June 4, 1990, pp. 38-51.

(7) See "Gulf War Coverage: A One Note Chorus," Extra 4, no. 3 (May 1991).

(8) David Ignatius, "Islam in the West's Sights: The Wrong Crusade?" Outlook Section, Washington Post, March 8, 1992.

(9) Thomas L. Friedman, "U.S. to Counter Iran in Central Asia," New York Times, February 6, 1992; Thomas L. Friedman, "Baker's Trip to Nations Unready for Independence," February 16, 1992; and Robert S. Greenberger, "Baker Is Wooing Cen tral Asian Republics, Wall Street Journal, February 14, 1992.

(10) The diplomat, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Robert Houdek, warned the Sudanese that they would face "grave" consequences if an international terror ist act could be traced to Sudan. See Jane Perlez, "Sudan Is Seen as Safe Base for Mideast Terror Groups," New York Times, January 26, 1992.

(11) Arnold Beichman, "Iran's Covetous Glances," Washington Times, February 28, 1992.

(12) Ibid.

(13) See, for example, Barbara Crossette, "U.S. Aide Calls Muslim Militants Big Concern," New York Times, January 1, 1992; David Ignatius, "U.S. Fears Sudan Becoming Terrorists' 'New Lebanon,'" Washington Post, January 31, 1992; Perlez, "Sudan Seen as Safe Base for Mideast Terror Groups"; and Robert S. Greenberger, "Islamic Fundamentalism's Rise in Sudan Sparks Concern over Movement's Spread," Wall Street Journal, March 16, 1992; Jennifer Parmelee, "Sudan Denies 'Khartoum-Tehran Axis' to Promote Islamic Regimes in Africa," Washington Post, March 12, 1992; John J. Fialka, "For mer Soviet Republics of South-Central Asia Have Nuclear Arms, Links with Volatile Lands," Wall Street Journal, October 9, 1991; Craig Forman, "Islamic Resurgence Sweeps Soviet South," Wall Street Journal, October 9, 1991; Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, "Ignoring Tehran's Threat," Washington Post, March 2, 1992; Elaine Sciolino, "Iraqis Could Pose a Threat Soon, CIA Chief Says," New York Times, January 16, 1992; and Gerald F. Seib, "The New Order: Iran Is Re-emerging as a Mideast Power as Iraqi Threat Fades," Wall Street Journal, March 18, 1992.

(14) Crossette, "U.S. Aide Calls Muslim Militants Big Concern."

(15) See Edward A. Gargan, "The Chastened Pakistanis: Peace with U.S. Is Aim," New York Times, February 19, 1992; and M. M. Ali, "Soviet Empire's Disintegration Alters the Face of Asia and the Middle East," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs 10, no. 8 (March 1992): 49-50.

(16) Colin Rubenstein, Address before the Asian Studies Center, Heritage Foundation, February 10, 1992. Rubenstein is a lecturer at Monash University, Australia, and the editor of the Australia-Israel Review.

(17) Mohammad Mohaddesin, director of international relations of the People's Mojahedin of Iran in a briefing at the Cato Institute, March 3, 1992.

(18) Edward A. Gargan, "Afghan President Says U.S. Should See Him as Ally against Militant Islam," New York Times, March 10, 1992.

(19) Gargan, "The Chastened Pakistanis." On Pakistani strategy, also see Edward A. Gargan, "Fiscal Political Forces Move Pakistan to Seek Afghan Peace," New York Times, Febru ary 16, 1992; Edward A. Gargan, "Islam Challenges Pakistan Economy," New York Times, February 23, 1992; and Steve Coll, "Pakistan Struggles to Incorporate Both Muslim, Western Outlooks," Washington Post, February 18, 1992.

(20) A. M. Ali, "Soviet Empire's Disintegration Alters the Face of Asia and the Middle East"; and Edward A. Gargan, "Airlifted Hindu Nationalists Fly India's Flag in Kashmir," New York Times, January 27, 1992.

(21) See Leon T. Hadar, Quagmire: America in the Middle East (Washington: Cato Institute, 1992).

(22) Daniel Doron, "The Mideast's Real Troubles Aren't Arab Israeli," Wall Street Journal, October 3, 1991. Also see Joel Himmelfarb, "Islamic Republics: Danger for Israel," Near East Report, January 27, 1992, for an example of AIPAC's efforts to use the Islamic threat in the Moslem republics to gain sympathy for Israel.

(23) Doron, "The Mideast's Real Troubles Aren't Arab-Israeli."

(24) Jane Perlez, "A Fundamentalist Finds a Fulcrum in Sudan," New York Times, January 29, 1992.

(25) Parmelee, "Sudan Denies 'KhartoumTehran Axis' to Promote Islamic Regimes in Africa."

(26) Ibid.

(27) Tom Post and Melinda Liu, "The Great Game, Chapter Two," Newsweek, February 3, 1992, p. 29. On Saudi concern about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and Iran, see Youssef M. Ibrahim, "The Saudis Are Fearful, Too, As Islam's Militant Tide Rises," New York Times, December 31, 1991.

(28) Parmelee, "Sudan Denies 'Khartoum-Tehran Axis' to Pro mote Islamic Regimes in Africa."

(29) See, for example, Gerald F. Seib, "Saudis, Shedding Usual Caution, Play Bold Role in Peace Talks, Hope to Win Over U.S. Critics," Wall Street Journal, November 11, 1991.

(30) On the history and political system of Saudi Arabia, see Robert Lacey, The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Saud (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1981).

(31) Added Dawisha, "The United States in the Middle East: The Gulf War and Its Aftermath," Current History 91, no. 561 (January 1992): 4.

(32) On Saudi overtures to the American Jewish community, see "The Jewish World," in Long Island Jewish World 20, no. 43 (November 22, 1991): 2; and "Jews and Saudis Hold First Talks in Saudi Arabia," New York Times, January 22, 1992.

(33) Ibrahim, "The Saudis Are Fearful, Too."

(34) Laurie Mylroie, "Led Astray by the Saudis in Iraq," Wall Street Journal, April 10, 1991, p. A22.

(35) Indeed, in a March interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper, King Fahd made it clear that his reforms are not going to produce a democratic system in the country." The system of free elections is not part of Islamic ideology," he stated. "Democracies in the West might be good in those countries, but this [does not] suit all the people of the world." Quoted in "No Democracy for Saudis," Near East Report, April 20, 1992, p. 1.

(36) Ezra Olman, "Saudi Rights Abuses Increase," Near East Report, March 2, 1992.

(37) Moshe Efrat and Jacob Bercovitch, Superpowers and Client States in the Middle East (New York: Routledge, 1991), p. 51.

(38) Patrick E. Tyler, "Hostage Issue: Test for Iran's Presi dent," New York Times, September 13, 1991.

(39) Eric Hooglund, "Iranian Populism and Political Change in the Gulf," Middle East Report 174 (January-February 1992): 20.

(40) On liberalization efforts, see Elaine Sciolino, "Iran's Urge to Prosper Overtaking Its Islamic Zeal," Week in Review, New York Times, June 2, 1991; Youssef Ibrahim, "Iran Gingerly Tries a Bit of Pragmatism," Week in Review, New York Times, June 9, 1991; and Katayon Ghazi, "Iran Calls on Expatriate Investors to Return," New York Times, June 2, 1991.

(41) Geraldine Brooks, "Veiled Capitalists: The New Revolu tion in Iran Is Taking Place on an Economic Front," Wall Street Journal, September 16, 1991.

(42) On Iran's diplomatic overtures during and after the gulf crisis, see Shahrough Akhavi, "Iran's Comeback in the Gulf," New York Times, March 10, 1991; and "An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Ali Akbar Velayati," Middle East Insight 7, no. 5 (1991): 6-9.

(43) Alan Cowell, "Tehran Courting Western Europe," New York Times, May 7, 1991.

(44) Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, "The New Persian Gulf Security Arrangement and the Relevant Factors," Middle East Insight 8, no. 1 (July/August 1991): 2224. For the Iranian posi tion, see also "Interview with Kamal Kharrazi, Iranian Am bassador to the U.N.," Middle East Insight 8, no. 3 (January/February 1992): 6-9.

(45) Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Iran's Leaders Ask Wide Cooperation and Ties to West, Also Call for Gulf Amity," New York Times, May 28, 1991.

(46) Post and Liu, p. 29.

(47) Mahallati, "The New Persian Gulf Security Arrangement and the Relevant Factors," p. 23.

(48) Peter Ford, "Egyptians Exert Leverage on Gulf Security Issues," Christian Science Monitor, May 24, 1991.

(49) Quoted in The Soref Symposium: American Strategy after the Gulf War (Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1991), p. 53.

(50) Caryle Murphy, "U.S-Iranian Ties Mending," Washington Post, April 20, 1992.

(51) Patrick Clawson, "Iran's Rafsanjani, the New Mideast 'Darling,'" Wall Street Journal, April 22, 1992.

(52) Avner Yaniv, "The End of Moderate Facade," Ha'aretz, February 16, 1992.

(53) Most reports in the American press such as William Drozdiak, "Iran and Turkey Vie for Political, Economic In fluence in Soviet Muslim States," Washington Post, November 24, 1991, and David Hoffman, "Power Competition in Central Asia," Washington Post, February 14, 1992, have focused on the competitive nature of the two nations' involvement in the region, while totally ignoring their common interests there. In many ways, the competitive-cooperative relations of Iran and Turkey in Central Asia resemble those of Germany and Russia in Eastern Europe.

(54) Post and Liu, p. 29.

(55) On the Iraqi-Shi'ite reaction, see Elaine Sciolino, The Outlaw State: Saddam Hussein's Quest for Power and the Gulf Crisis (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1991), pp. 79-121.

(56) Shireen Hunter, "The PostWar Middle East: The Flaws in U.S. Thinking," Middle East International 393 (February 8, 1991): 23. On U.S. reaction to Iran's attempts to improve ties and Washington's continued efforts to isolate Iran, see also Elaine Sciolino, "U.S. Responds Coolly to Overture from Iran," New York Times, May 29, 1991; and R. K. Ramazani, "Future Security in the Persian Gulf: America's Role," Mid dle East Insight 8, no. 1 (July/August 1991): 25-30. For an example of the American perception of Iranian goals, see David H. Halevy, "Tehran's New World Order? Iran's Schemes in Iraq May Be the First Step toward a Fundamentalist Bloc," Outlook Section, Washington Post, March 24, 1991.

(57) On Ozal's policies, see also "Star of Islam: A Survey of Turkey," The Economist, December 15, 1991. On Turkey's postGulf War dilemmas, see Thomas Goltz, "Dealing Turkey into the Power Game," Washington Post, September 23, 1990; Philip Revizin, "Morning After: Turkey Waits in Vain for the Big Payoff from Gulf War Stance," Wall Street Journal, April 17, 1991; Clyde Haberman, "Turks Claim Some of Victors' Spoils," New York Times, March 13, 1991; Hugh Pope, "Turkey's Raids on Kurdish Rebels Raise Fears Civil War May Erupt," Wall Street Journal, September 3, 1991; and "The Forgotten Ally," Review & Outlook, Wall Street Journal, January 5, 1991.

(58) Marc Fisher, "Bonn Condemns Turkey for Attack on Kurds," Washington Post, March 27, 1992.

(59) Pope, "Wooing the Republics."

(60) For a more balanced analysis of the role of Islam in Central Asia, see Francis X. Clines, "Islamic Militancy along Russia's Rim Is Less Than a Sure Bet," New York Times, February 9, 1992; and J. Robinson West, "A New Middle East," Washington Post, December 31, 1991.

(61) Post and Liu, p. 29.

(62) Pope, "Wooing Central Asia," p. 13.

(63) Chris Hedges, "Turkish Election Results May Shift Basic Policies," New York Times, November 18, 1991; and Scott B. MacDonald, "Turkey's 1991 Elections: Condemned to Relive the Past," Middle East Insight 8, no. 3 (January/February 1992): 25-30.

(64) Lally Weymouth, "Turkey's New Leader Keeps His Dis tance," Washington Post, February 21, 1992.

(65) Pope, "Wooing Central Asia," p. 13.

(66) Quoted in Hoagland, "Washington's Algerian Dilemma."

(67) Gerald F. Seib, "U.S. Push for Democracy Doesn't Seem to Extend to Nations of the Middle East," Wall Street Journal, March 11, 1992. On U.S. opposition to the democratic drive in the region, including opposition to Shi'ite self-determi nation in Iraq, see Thomas L. Friedman, "A New U.S. Problem: Freely Elected Tyrants," New York Times, January 12, 1992; Christopher Hitchens, "Washington Watch: Tilting Democracy," Middle East Report 174, vol. 22, no. 1, (January/February 1992):33-34; Tony Horwitz, "Forgotten Rebels: After Heeding Calls to Turn on Saddam, Shi'ites Feel Betrayed," Wall Street Journal, December 26, 1991; and Daniel Pipes, "Let the Iraqis Get Rid of Saddam," Washington Post, December 22, 1991.

(68) Hoagland, "Washington's Algerian Dilemma."

(69) See Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Algerians, Angry with the Past, Divide over Their Future," Week in Review, New York Times, January 19, 1992.

(70) Allan Thompson, "Fundamental Politics," Toward Freedom, February 1992, p. 3.

(71) Graham E. Fuller, "Islamic Fundamentalism: No Long-Term Threat," Washington Post, January 13, 1992, and Hoagland, "Washington's Algerian Dilemma."

(72) See Jonathan C. Randal, "Algerian Elections Canceled," Washington Post, January 13, 1992; Peter Waldman, "Algeria Cancels Second Round of Elections," Wall Street Journal, January 13, 1992; Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Algerian Leaders Form New Council," Washington Post, January 15, 1992; Jonathan C. Randal, "Algerian Regime Names New Ruling Council," Washing ton Post, January 15, 1992.

(73) James Hoagland, "Washington's Algerian Dilemma." On the French position, see Alan Riding, "France Voices Concern on Algerian Situation," New York Times, January 14, 1992. On U.S. policy toward Algeria and North Africa, see John P. Entelis, "U.S.Maghreb Relations in a Democratic Age: The Priority of Algeria," Middle East Insight 8, no. 3 (Janu ary/February 1992): 31-35; and Fuller, "Islamic Fundamental ism: No LongTerm Threat."

(74) See Amos Perlmutter, "Wishful Thinking about Islamic Fundamentalism," Washington Post, January 19, 1992.

(75) Fuller, "Islamic Fundamentalism: No Long-Term Threat."

(76) See Youssef M. Ibrahim, "In Algeria, Clear Plans to Lay Down Islamic Law," New York Times, December 31, 1991; Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Islamic Plan for Algeria Is on Dis play," New York Times, January 7, 1992; and Youssef M. Ibra him, "Algiers Marchers Oppose Militants," New York Times, January 3, 1992.

(77) Terence Wrong, "Mullah's Day," New Republic, February 17, 1992, p. 20.

(78) "Going Wrong in Algiers," editorial, Wall Street Jour nal, January 14, 1992. For the anti-statist and pro-busi ness orientation of the FIS, see Jill Smolowe, "The Funda mentalists' Big Gain Is More a Protest against Socialist Rule Than a Mandate for an Islamic Republic," Time, January 13, 1992. For an analysis of the militant Lebanese Shi'ites' similar agenda, see Geraldine Brooks, "Changing Image: Radi cal Islamic Groups in Lebanon Tone Down Anti-Western Fer vor," Wall Street Journal, November 9, 1991.

(79) "Against Sin," The Economist, February 15, 1992, p. 46.

(80) Fuller, "Islamic Fundamentalism: No Long-Term Threat." On the difference between the Iranian model and the Islamic movement in Algeria, see Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Islam in Alge ria: An Echo of Iran, but Not a Repeat," New York Times, December 29, 1991.

(81) See "Squeezed," The Economist, May 1990, pp. 1218, on the role of the fundamentalists in the democratic process in Jordan. Unlike the Jordanian government, the Tunisian and Algerian regimes have attempted to suppress Islamic groups. See Jonathan C. Randal, "Tunisia Faces Renewed Threat from Islamic Fundamentalists," Washington Post, January 11, 1992; and Chris Hedges, "Tunisia Cracks Down Harder on Muslim Militants," New York Times, January 29, 1992.

(82) Quoted in "Fear of Fundies," p. 45.

(83) John L. Esposito and James P. Piscatori, "Democratiza tion and Islam," Middle East Journal 45, no. 3 (Summer 1991): 428.

(84) See Yahya Sadowski, "Egypt's Islamist Movement: A New Political and Economic Force," Middle East Insight 5, no. 4 (November/December 1987): 40. On the role of Islamic funda mentalism in Egyptian politics, see Chris Hedges, "Militant Islam's Conquest Stops at Egypt's Border," New York Times, January 6, 1992.

(85) Wrong, "Mullah's Day," p. 19.

(86) "Going Wrong in Algiers," Wall Street Journal. On the impact of the new military regime's repressive measures, see Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Algeria Militants Call for Uprising," New York Times, January 14, 1992; and Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Algeria Arrests a Senior Islamic Leader," New York Times, January 23, 1992.

(87) Esposito and Piscatori, "Democratization and Islam," p. 434.

(88) Ignatius, "Islam in the West's Sights: The Wrong Cru sade."

(89) Ibid.

(90) Esposito and Piscatori, "Democratization and Islam," p. 40.

chomsky

2011-11-13T19:23:00.001-08:00

[NOTE: Over time, links to more essays by Noam Chomsky will be added here.]

Posted October 30, 2003
“Bush Needs Fear for Reelection”

Posted December 3, 2002
Why Not Let Iran Institute Democracy in Iraq

Posted October 2, 2002
Chomsky on Iraq

Posted April 12, 2002
US-Israel-Palestine - observations by Noam Chomsky (summary)

Posted April 2, 2002
Znet Interview With Chomsky
In Depth Discussion on Israel/Palestine
(Noam Chomsky, April 2, 2002)
The prominent Israeli scholar Ze'ev Sternhell writes that the government "is no longer ashamed to speak of war when what they are really engaged in is colonial policing, which recalls the takeover by the white police of the poor neighborhoods of the blacks in South Africa during the apartheid era." . . . Peres comes close to Sharon as a war criminal. Furthermore, the prime responsibility lies in Washington, and has for 30 years. . . . There are many factors entering into US policies. Chief among them in this region of the world is control over the world's major energy resources. The US-Israel alliance took shape in that context. . . . The alliance became firm in 1967, when Israel performed an important service for US power by destroying the main forces of secular Arab nationalism, considered a very serious threat to US domination of the Gulf region. . . . Israel is virtually a US military base, closely integrated with the militarized US high-tech economy. . . . Within that persistent framework, the US naturally supports Israeli repression of the Palestinians and integration of the occupied territories . . . Bush planners continue to block steps towards diplomatic settlement, or even reduction of violence . . . The Arab summit led to general acceptance of the Saudi Arabian plan, which reiterated the basic principles of the long-standing international consensus: Israel should withdraw from the occupied territories in the context of a general peace agreement that would guarantee the right of every state in the region, including Israel and a new Palestinian State, to peace and security within recognized borders (the basic wording of UN 242, amplified to include a Palestinian state). . . . These are the basic terms of the Security Council resolution of January 1976 backed by virtually the entire world, including the leading Arab states, the PLO, Europe, the Soviet bloc, the non-aligned countries -- in fact, everyone who mattered. It was opposed by Israel and vetoed by the US . . . Until such elementary facts as these are permitted to enter into discussion, displacing the standard misrepresentation and deceit, discussion is mostly beside the point.

Posted March 26, 2002
Chomsky's Dýyarbakir Speech
(Noam Chomsky, Znet, March 25, 2002)
With regard to the concept of terrorism there are really two notions: one is the notion "terror," another is the notion "counter-terror." If you look in, for example, US Army manuals, they define "terror" and they define "counter-terror." And the interesting thing about the definitions is they are virtually identical. Terrorism turns out to be about the same as counter-terrorism. The main difference is who is the agent of the terrorist violence. If it's someone we don't like, it is terrorism. If it's someone we do like, including ourselves, it is counter-terrorism. But apart from that the definitions of the actions are about the same. . . . Another important difference between terrorism and counter-terrorism is that what is called "counter-terrorism" is usually carried out by states. It's the terrorism carried out by states. And states have resources that enable them to be far more violent and destructive than private terrorists. So the end result is that the terrorism of states far outweighs that of any other entity in the world. We constantly read that terrorism is the weapon of the weak. That is totally false, the exact opposite of truth. Like any other weapon, terrorism is used much more effectively by the strong, and in particular by more powerful states which are the leaders in terrorism throughout the world, except that they call it "counter-terrorism." . . . Oil was the primary reason for the concern over the Middle East. There is now a secondary reason, which is quite important. That's water, which is enormously important, and will be even more so in the future as water resources are being depleted. Here the role of Turkey becomes even more essential, because Turkey, and particularly the southeast region of Turkey, is the major source of water for the region. And control over water also provides what US planners 50 years ago called "veto power," just like control over oil. If you can terminate the flow of water to other countries, that will bring them into line. That's presumably a significant purpose of the dams and other projects: to ensure that control over water will be in hands of US clients, which will ensure control over the region and probably a veto power over recalcitrant elements.

Posted January 8, 2002
The War in Afghanistan: Excerpted from Lakdawala lecture, New Delhi (Noam Chomsky, ZNET, December 30, 2001)
“A detailed year-end review found that the U.S. war ‘has returned to power nearly all the same warlords who had misruled the country in the days before the Taliban’; some Afghans see the resulting situation as even ‘worse than it was before the Taliban came to power.’ . . . The return of warlordism is a dangerous sign, as was the announcement by the new Justice Minister that the basic structure of sharia law as instituted by the Taliban would remain in force, though ‘there will be some changes from the time of the Taliban. For example, the Taliban used to hang the victim's body in public for four days. We will only hang the body for a short time, say 15 minutes.’ Judge Ahamat Ullha Zarif added that some new location would be found for the regular public executions, not the Sports Stadium. ‘Adulterers, both male and female, would still be stoned to death, Zarif said, `but we will use only small stones',’ so that those who confess might be able to run away; others will be ‘stoned to death,’ as before. . . . As the year ended, desperate peasants, mostly women, were returning to the miserable labor of growing opium poppies so that their families can survive, reversing the Taliban ban. The UN had reported in October that poppy production had already ‘increased threefold in areas controlled by the Northern Alliance,’ whose warlords ‘have long been reputed to control much of the processing and smuggling of opium’ to Russia and the West, an estimated 75% of the world's heroin. . . . U.S. and British intellectual opinion, across the political spectrum, assured us that only radical extremists can doubt that ‘this is basically a just war.’ Those who disagree can therefore be dismissed, among them, for example, the 1000 Afghan leaders who met in Peshawar in late October in a U.S.-backed effort to lay the groundwork for a post-Taliban regime led by the exiled King. They bitterly condemned the U.S. war, which is ‘beating the donkey rather than the rider,’ one speaker said to unanimous agreement. . . . The U.S., [Afghan opposition leader] Abdul Haq said, ‘is trying to show its muscle, score a victory and scare everyone in the world. They don't care about the suffering of the Afghans or how many people we will lose. And we don't like that. Because Afghans are now being made to suffer for these Arab fanatics, but we all know who brought these Arabs to Afghanistan in the 1980s, armed them and gave them a base. It was the Americans and the CIA. And the Americans who did this all got medals and good careers, while all these years Afghans suffered from these Arabs and their allies. Now, when America is attacked, instead of punishing the Americans who did this, it punishes the Afghans.’”

Posted December 25, 2001
Terrorism, weapon of the powerful, United States, Global Bully (Noam Chomsky, Le Monde Diplomatique, December 2001)
Let us start with Afghanistan, where seven or eight million people are on the verge of starvation, and surviving on international aid since way before 11 September. On 16 September the US demanded that Pakistan stop the truck convoys providing much of the food and supplies to Afghanistan's civilian population. As far as I can determine, there was no reaction to this in the US or Europe. . . . By October Western civilisation was resigned to the idea of the death of hundreds of thousands of Afghans. . . . To understand the origins of 11 September, we have to distinguish between the agents of the crime and the reservoir of sympathy, sometimes support, from which they draw, a reservoir that exists even among people who oppose both the criminals and their actions. Let us assume the crimes' perpetrators come from Bin Laden's network. Nobody knows about their origins better than the CIA, because it helped organise and nurture them. . . . These people are angry at the US because it supports authoritarian and brutal regimes (and is in its 35th year of supporting Israel's harsh military occupation), and because its policies devastate the civilian society of Iraq while strengthening Saddam Hussein. The New York Times asked "Why do they hate us?"; on the same day, the Wall Street Journal published a survey of bankers, professionals and international lawyers, who said they hate us because we are blocking democracy, preventing economic development, and supporting terrorist regimes. . . . To combat terrorism we must start by reducing the level of terror, rather than by escalating it. When the IRA detonates bombs in London, London does not destroy Boston, although it is the source of most of the IRA finance, nor does it wipe out West Belfast. The UK hunts the perpetrators, brings them to trial and looks for the reasons for the violence. . . . There is one easy way to reduce the level of terror: stop participating in it.”

Posted November 27, 2001
What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream (Noam Chomsky)
“There is another sector of the media, the elite media, sometimes called the agenda-setting media because they are the ones with the big resources, they set the framework in which everyone else operates. . . . The real mass media are basically trying to divert people. Let them do something else, but don’t bother us (us being the people who run the show). Let them get interested in professional sports, for example. Let everybody be crazed about professional sports or sex scandals or the personalities and their problems or something like that. Anything, as long as it isn’t serious. Of course, the serious stuff is for the big guys. ‘We’ take care of that. . . . If you go through a place like Harvard, most of what goes on there is teaching manners; how to behave like a member of the upper classes, how to think the right thoughts, and so on.”

Miscellaneous quotes from Noam Chomsky
A selection of short quotes, most with references.

Terrorism Works (Noam Chomsky, Al-Ahram Weekly and Media Monitors Network)
“By far the most important question that we must ask ourselves after 11 September is what is happening right now? Implicit in this question is the question of what we can do about it. . . . It looks like what is happening is some sort of silent genocide. It also gives a good deal of insight into the elite culture, the culture that we are part of. It indicates that whatever will happen, we do not know, but plans are being made and programmes implemented on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in the next couple of weeks. Very casually, with no comment, no particular thought about it. That is just kind of normal, here and in a good part of Europe. Not in the rest of the world, though. In fact, not even in much of Europe. . . . What is the ‘war against terrorism’? The war against terrorism has been described in high places as a struggle against a plague, a cancer which is spread by barbarians, by ‘depraved opponents of civilisation itself.’ . . . I am quoting President Reagan and his secretary of state. . . . The Reagan administration responded to this ‘plague spread by depraved opponents of civilisation itself’ by creating an extraordinary international terrorist network, totally unprecedented in scale, which carried out massive atrocities all over the world. . . . It [the U.S.] now stands as the only state on record which has been condemned both by the World Court for international terrorism and has vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on states to observe international law. . . . The following year Nicaragua took its case again to the General Assembly. This time the US could only rally Israel to the cause, so two votes opposed observing international law. At that point, Nicaragua had exhausted all available legal measures, concluding that they do not work in a world that is ruled by force. . . . Terrorism, on the other hand does work, and is the weapon of the strong. It is a very serious analytic error to say, as is commonly done, that terrorism is the weapon of the weak. Like other means of violence, it is primarily a weapon of the strong -- overwhelmingly, in fact. It is held to be a weapon of the weak because the strong also control the doctrinal systems and their terror does not count as terror.”

Posted November 20, 2001

Deluded and manipulated by the system.

We're not analyzing the media on Mars or in the eighteenth century or something like that. We're dealing with real human beings now who are suffering and dying and being tortured and starving because of policies that we are involved in, we as citizens of democratic societies are directly involved in and are responsible for, and what the media are doing is ensuring that we do not act on our responsibilities, and that the interests of power are served, not the needs of the suffering people, and not even the needs of the American people who would be horrified if they realized the blood that's dripping from their hands because of the way they are allowing themselves to be deluded and manipulated by the system.

—Noam Chomsky

Posted October 30, 2001
An Evening With Noam Chomsky, “The New War Against Terror” (October 18, 2001 - Transcribed from audio recorded at The Technology & Culture Forum at MIT)
”After the first week of bombing, the New York Times reported on a back page inside a column on something else, that by the arithmetic of the United Nations there will soon be 7.5 million Afghans in acute need of even a loaf of bread and there are only a few weeks left before the harsh winter will make deliveries to many areas totally impossible. . . .Which tells us that Western civilization is anticipating the slaughter of, well do the arithmetic, 3-4 million people or something like that. . . .And if you look at the coalition that is being formed against terror it tells you a lot more. A leading member of the coalition is Russia which is delighted to have the United States support its murderous terrorist war in Chechnya instead of occasionally criticizing it in the background. China is joining enthusiastically. It’s delighted to have support for the atrocities it’s carrying out in western China against, what it called, Muslim secessionists. . . .Now we can run through the list, the list of the states that have joined the coalition against terror is quite impressive. They have a characteristic in common. They are certainly among the leading terrorist states in the world. And they happen to be led by the world champion. . . .We certainly want to reduce the level of terror, certainly not escalate it. There is one easy way to do that and therefore it is never discussed. Namely stop participating in it. That would automatically reduce the level of terror enormously. But that you can’t discuss.”

Posted October 16, 2001
Reaction to the War
”It is impossible to estimate how many miserable and innocent Afghans have already died as an immediate consequence of the threat of bombing and the closing of the Pakistan border that the US demanded at once (if we can believe the NY Times), and the failure to provide food, as could have been done from the first day, not only by air drops -- nothing has hindered that -- but also by truck convoy, as the international relief efforts demonstrated when they began.”

Posted October 9, 2001
Composite of interviews with Chomsky

“Such terrorist atrocities are a gift to the harshest and most repressive elements on all sides, and are sure to be exploited -- already have been in fact -- to accelerate the agenda of militarization, regimentation, reversal of social democratic programs, transfer of wealth to narrow sectors, and undermining democracy in any meaningful form. But that will not happen without resistance, and I doubt that it will succeed, except in the short term.” [FULL TEXT]
Chatting With Chomsky (from MSNBC)

“We should look very carefully at this anti-terrorism coalition and who is joining it and why. Russia is happily joining the international coalition because it is delighted to have U.S. support for the horrendous atrocities it is carrying out in its war against Chechnya. It describes that as an anti-terrorist war. In fact it is a murderous terrorist war itself. They'd love to have the United States support it. China is very happy to join because it wants U.S. support for its wars in western China against Muslim groups who, in fact, were part of the coalition in Afghanistan 20 years ago and are now fighting for their rights in China, and China wants to suppress them brutally and would love to have the United States supporting that. . . . And if you look around the world, those who are happily joining the coalition are doing it for reasons that should send shivers up their spine.” [FULL TEXT]

The following essays were posted on or before October 3, 2001.
Interview with Chomsky on ZNet

“The UN estimates that some 7-8 million [in Afghanistan] are at risk of imminent starvation. The NY Times reports in a small item (Sept. 25) that nearly six million Afghans depend on food aid from the UN, as well as 3.5 million in refugee camps outside, many of whom fled just before the borders were sealed. The item reported that some food is being sent, to the camps across the border. If people in Washington and the editorial offices have even a single gray cell functioning, they realize that they must present themselves as humanitarians seeking to avert the awesome tragedy that followed at once from the threat of bombing and military attack and the sealing of the borders they demanded.”

“The Reagan administration came into office 20 years ago declaring that its leading concern would be to eradicate the plague of international terrorism, a cancer that is destroying civilization. They cured the plague by establishing an international terrorist network of extraordinary scale, with consequences that are -- or should be -- well-known in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere -- while using the pretexts, as you say, to carry out programs that were of considerable harm to the domestic population, and that even threaten human survival.” [FULL TEXT]
Why Did This Happen?

The U.S. has already demanded that Pakistan terminate the food and other supplies that are keeping at least some of the starving and suffering people of Afghanistan alive. If that demand is implemented, unknown numbers of people who have not the remotest connection to terrorism will die, possibly millions. Let me repeat: the U.S. has demanded that Pakistan kill possibly millions of people who are themselves victims of the Taliban. This has nothing to do even with revenge. It is at a far lower moral level even than that. The significance is heightened by the fact that this is mentioned in passing, with no comment, and probably will hardly be noticed. We can learn a great deal about the moral level of the reigning intellectual culture of the West by observing the reaction to this demand. I think we can be reasonably confident that if the American population had the slightest idea of what is being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled. [FULL TEXT]
On the Bombings

The events reveal, dramatically, the foolishness of the project of "missile defense." As has been obvious all along, and pointed out repeatedly by strategic analysts, if anyone wants to cause immense damage in the US, including weapons of mass destruction, they are highly unlikely to launch a missile attack, thus guaranteeing their immediate destruction. There are innumerable easier ways that are basically unstoppable. [FULL TEXT]
Neocolonial Invitation to a Tribal War

Los Angeles Times, August 13, 2001

"What we feared has come true," Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling writes in Israel's leading newspaper. Jews and Palestinians are "regressing to superstitious tribalism.... War appears an unavoidable fate," an "evil colonial" war. This prospect is likely if the U.S. grants tacit authorization, with grim consequences that may reverberate far beyond. [FULL TEXT]
Prospects for Peace in the Middle East

The University of Toledo, March 4, 2001

The prevailing doctrine is that we should focus laser-like on the crimes of others and lament them, and we should ignore or deny our own. Or more accurately, we should structure the way we view things so as to dismiss the possibility of looking into the mirror-shape discourse so the question of our own responsibilities can't even arise, or more accurately, can arise only in one connection-namely the connection of how we should react to the crimes of others. [FULL TEXT]
Noam Chomsky on Intellectuals Speaking Out

It also seems beyond controversy that moral responsibilities are greater to the extent that people “have the resources, the training, the facilities and opportunities to speak and act effectively.”

Return to Opinions

Reflections of a GOP Operative

2011-09-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult
Saturday 3 September 2011
by: Mike Lofgren, Truthout

Barbara Stanwyck: "We're both rotten!"

Fred MacMurray: "Yeah - only you're a little more rotten." -"Double Indemnity" (1944)

Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests - no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.

But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.

The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel - how prudent is that? - in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.

Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. This fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the Bob Dole era in terms of its orientation. For instance, Ezra Klein wrote of his puzzlement over the fact that while House Republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal. Of course they might - the attitude of many freshman Republicans to national default was "bring it on!"

It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.

In his "Manual of Parliamentary Practice," Thomas Jefferson wrote that it is less important that every rule and custom of a legislature be absolutely justifiable in a theoretical sense, than that they should be generally acknowledged and honored by all parties. These include unwritten rules, customs and courtesies that lubricate the legislative machinery and keep governance a relatively civilized procedure. The US Senate has more complex procedural rules than any other legislative body in the world; many of these rules are contradictory, and on any given day, the Senate parliamentarian may issue a ruling that contradicts earlier rulings on analogous cases.

The only thing that can keep the Senate functioning is collegiality and good faith. During periods of political consensus, for instance, the World War II and early post-war eras, the Senate was a "high functioning" institution: filibusters were rare and the body was legislatively productive. Now, one can no more picture the current Senate producing the original Medicare Act than the old Supreme Soviet having legislated the Bill of Rights.

Far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.

John P. Judis sums up the modern GOP this way:

"Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery."

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness. Paul Krugman has skewered this tactic as being the "centrist cop-out." "I joked long ago," he says, "that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read 'Views Differ on Shape of Planet.'"

Inside-the-Beltway wise guy Chris Cillizza merely proves Krugman right in his Washington Post analysis of "winners and losers" in the debt ceiling impasse. He wrote that the institution of Congress was a big loser in the fracas, which is, of course, correct, but then he opined: "Lawmakers - bless their hearts - seem entirely unaware of just how bad they looked during this fight and will almost certainly spend the next few weeks (or months) congratulating themselves on their tremendous magnanimity." Note how the pundit's ironic deprecation falls like the rain on the just and unjust alike, on those who precipitated the needless crisis and those who despaired of it. He seems oblivious that one side - or a sizable faction of one side - has deliberately attempted to damage the reputation of Congress to achieve its political objectives.

This constant drizzle of "there the two parties go again!" stories out of the news bureaus, combined with the hazy confusion of low-information voters, means that the long-term Republican strategy of undermining confidence in our democratic institutions has reaped electoral dividends. The United States has nearly the lowest voter participation among Western democracies; this, again, is a consequence of the decline of trust in government institutions - if government is a racket and both parties are the same, why vote? And if the uninvolved middle declines to vote, it increases the electoral clout of a minority that is constantly being whipped into a lather by three hours daily of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News. There were only 44 million Republican voters in the 2010 mid-term elections, but they effectively canceled the political results of the election of President Obama by 69 million voters.

This tactic of inducing public distrust of government is not only cynical, it is schizophrenic. For people who profess to revere the Constitution, it is strange that they so caustically denigrate the very federal government that is the material expression of the principles embodied in that document. This is not to say that there is not some theoretical limit to the size or intrusiveness of government; I would be the first to say there are such limits, both fiscal and Constitutional. But most Republican officeholders seem strangely uninterested in the effective repeal of Fourth Amendment protections by the Patriot Act, the weakening of habeas corpus and self-incrimination protections in the public hysteria following 9/11 or the unpalatable fact that the United States has the largest incarcerated population of any country on earth. If anything, they would probably opt for more incarcerated persons, as imprisonment is a profit center for the prison privatization industry, which is itself a growth center for political contributions to these same politicians.[1] Instead, they prefer to rail against those government programs that actually help people. And when a program is too popular to attack directly, like Medicare or Social Security, they prefer to undermine it by feigning an agonized concern about the deficit. That concern, as we shall see, is largely fictitious.

Undermining Americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy. But if this technique falls short of producing Karl Rove's dream of 30 years of unchallengeable one-party rule (as all such techniques always fall short of achieving the angry and embittered true believer's New Jerusalem), there are other even less savory techniques upon which to fall back. Ever since Republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last November, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements (in Wisconsin, Republicans have legislated photo IDs while simultaneously shutting Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices in Democratic constituencies while at the same time lengthening the hours of operation of DMV offices in GOP constituencies); by narrowing registration periods; and by residency requirements that may disenfranchise university students.

This legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of American history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. Republicans are among the most shrill in self-righteously lecturing other countries about the wonders of democracy; exporting democracy (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the Middle East was a signature policy of the Bush administration. But domestically, they don't want those people voting.

You can probably guess who those people are. Above all, anyone not likely to vote Republican. As Sarah Palin would imply, the people who are not Real Americans. Racial minorities. Immigrants. Muslims. Gays. Intellectuals. Basically, anyone who doesn't look, think, or talk like the GOP base. This must account, at least to some degree, for their extraordinarily vitriolic hatred of President Obama. I have joked in the past that the main administration policy that Republicans object to is Obama's policy of being black.[2] Among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some "other," who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the Good, the True and the Beautiful: Subversives. Commies. Socialists. Ragheads. Secular humanists. Blacks. Fags. Feminazis. The list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.

It is not clear to me how many GOP officeholders believe this reactionary and paranoid claptrap. I would bet that most do not. But they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base with a nod and a wink. During the disgraceful circus of the "birther" issue, Republican politicians subtly stoked the fires of paranoia by being suggestively equivocal - "I take the president at his word" - while never unambiguously slapping down the myth. John Huntsman was the first major GOP figure forthrightly to refute the birther calumny - albeit after release of the birth certificate.

I do not mean to place too much emphasis on racial animus in the GOP. While it surely exists, it is also a fact that Republicans think that no Democratic president could conceivably be legitimate. Republicans also regarded Bill Clinton as somehow, in some manner, twice fraudulently elected (well do I remember the elaborate conspiracy theories that Republicans traded among themselves). Had it been Hillary Clinton, rather than Barack Obama, who had been elected in 2008, I am certain we would now be hearing, in lieu of the birther myths, conspiracy theories about Vince Foster's alleged murder.

The reader may think that I am attributing Svengali-like powers to GOP operatives able to manipulate a zombie base to do their bidding. It is more complicated than that. Historical circumstances produced the raw material: the deindustrialization and financialization of America since about 1970 has spawned an increasingly downscale white middle class - without job security (or even without jobs), with pensions and health benefits evaporating and with their principal asset deflating in the collapse of the housing bubble. Their fears are not imaginary; their standard of living is shrinking.

What do the Democrats offer these people? Essentially nothing. Democratic Leadership Council-style "centrist" Democrats were among the biggest promoters of disastrous trade deals in the 1990s that outsourced jobs abroad: NAFTA, World Trade Organization, permanent most-favored-nation status for China. At the same time, the identity politics/lifestyle wing of the Democratic Party was seen as a too illegal immigrant-friendly by downscaled and outsourced whites.[3]

While Democrats temporized, or even dismissed the fears of the white working class as racist or nativist, Republicans went to work. To be sure, the business wing of the Republican Party consists of the most energetic outsourcers, wage cutters and hirers of sub-minimum wage immigrant labor to be found anywhere on the globe. But the faux-populist wing of the party, knowing the mental compartmentalization that occurs in most low-information voters, played on the fears of that same white working class to focus their anger on scapegoats that do no damage to corporations' bottom lines: instead of raising the minimum wage, let's build a wall on the Southern border (then hire a defense contractor to incompetently manage it). Instead of predatory bankers, it's evil Muslims. Or evil gays. Or evil abortionists.

How do they manage to do this? Because Democrats ceded the field. Above all, they do not understand language. Their initiatives are posed in impenetrable policy-speak: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The what? - can anyone even remember it? No wonder the pejorative "Obamacare" won out. Contrast that with the Republicans' Patriot Act. You're a patriot, aren't you? Does anyone at the GED level have a clue what a Stimulus Bill is supposed to be? Why didn't the White House call it the Jobs Bill and keep pounding on that theme?

You know that Social Security and Medicare are in jeopardy when even Democrats refer to them as entitlements. "Entitlement" has a negative sound in colloquial English: somebody who is "entitled" selfishly claims something he doesn't really deserve. Why not call them "earned benefits," which is what they are because we all contribute payroll taxes to fund them? That would never occur to the Democrats. Republicans don't make that mistake; they are relentlessly on message: it is never the "estate tax," it is the "death tax." Heaven forbid that the Walton family should give up one penny of its $86-billion fortune. All of that lucre is necessary to ensure that unions be kept out of Wal-Mart, that women employees not be promoted and that politicians be kept on a short leash.

It was not always thus. It would have been hard to find an uneducated farmer during the depression of the 1890s who did not have a very accurate idea about exactly which economic interests were shafting him. An unemployed worker in a breadline in 1932 would have felt little gratitude to the Rockefellers or the Mellons. But that is not the case in the present economic crisis. After a riot of unbridled greed such as the world has not seen since the conquistadors' looting expeditions and after an unprecedented broad and rapid transfer of wealth upward by Wall Street and its corporate satellites, where is the popular anger directed, at least as depicted in the media? At "Washington spending" - which has increased primarily to provide unemployment compensation, food stamps and Medicaid to those economically damaged by the previous decade's corporate saturnalia. Or the popular rage is harmlessly diverted against pseudo-issues: death panels, birtherism, gay marriage, abortion, and so on, none of which stands to dent the corporate bottom line in the slightest.

Thus far, I have concentrated on Republican tactics, rather than Republican beliefs, but the tactics themselves are important indicators of an absolutist, authoritarian mindset that is increasingly hostile to the democratic values of reason, compromise and conciliation. Rather, this mindset seeks polarizing division (Karl Rove has been very explicit that this is his principal campaign strategy), conflict and the crushing of opposition.

As for what they really believe, the Republican Party of 2011 believes in three principal tenets I have laid out below. The rest of their platform one may safely dismiss as window dressing:

1. The GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors. The party has built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of America's plutocracy. Their caterwauling about deficit and debt is so much eyewash to con the public. Whatever else President Obama has accomplished (and many of his purported accomplishments are highly suspect), his $4-trillion deficit reduction package did perform the useful service of smoking out Republican hypocrisy. The GOP refused, because it could not abide so much as a one-tenth of one percent increase on the tax rates of the Walton family or the Koch brothers, much less a repeal of the carried interest rule that permits billionaire hedge fund managers to pay income tax at a lower effective rate than cops or nurses. Republicans finally settled on a deal that had far less deficit reduction - and even less spending reduction! - than Obama's offer, because of their iron resolution to protect at all costs our society's overclass.

Republicans have attempted to camouflage their amorous solicitude for billionaires with a fog of misleading rhetoric. John Boehner is fond of saying, "we won't raise anyone's taxes," as if the take-home pay of an Olive Garden waitress were inextricably bound up with whether Warren Buffett pays his capital gains as ordinary income or at a lower rate. Another chestnut is that millionaires and billionaires are "job creators." US corporations have just had their most profitable quarters in history; Apple, for one, is sitting on $76 billion in cash, more than the GDP of most countries. So, where are the jobs?

Another smokescreen is the "small business" meme, since standing up for Mom's and Pop's corner store is politically more attractive than to be seen shilling for a megacorporation. Raising taxes on the wealthy will kill small business' ability to hire; that is the GOP dirge every time Bernie Sanders or some Democrat offers an amendment to increase taxes on incomes above $1 million. But the number of small businesses that have a net annual income over a million dollars is de minimis, if not by definition impossible (as they would no longer be small businesses). And as data from the Center for Economic and Policy Research have shown, small businesses account for only 7.2 percent of total US employment, a significantly smaller share of total employment than in most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

Likewise, Republicans have assiduously spread the myth that Americans are conspicuously overtaxed. But compared to other OECD countries, the effective rates of US taxation are among the lowest. In particular, they point to the top corporate income rate of 35 percent as being confiscatory Bolshevism. But again, the effective rate is much lower. Did GE pay 35 percent on 2010 profits of $14 billion? No, it paid zero.

When pressed, Republicans make up misleading statistics to "prove" that the America's fiscal burden is being borne by the rich and the rest of us are just freeloaders who don't appreciate that fact. "Half of Americans don't pay taxes" is a perennial meme. But what they leave out is that that statement refers to federal income taxes. There are millions of people who don't pay income taxes, but do contribute payroll taxes - among the most regressive forms of taxation. But according to GOP fiscal theology, payroll taxes don't count. Somehow, they have convinced themselves that since payroll taxes go into trust funds, they're not real taxes. Likewise, state and local sales taxes apparently don't count, although their effect on a poor person buying necessities like foodstuffs is far more regressive than on a millionaire.

All of these half truths and outright lies have seeped into popular culture via the corporate-owned business press. Just listen to CNBC for a few hours and you will hear most of them in one form or another. More important politically, Republicans' myths about taxation have been internalized by millions of economically downscale "values voters," who may have been attracted to the GOP for other reasons (which I will explain later), but who now accept this misinformation as dogma.

And when misinformation isn't enough to sustain popular support for the GOP's agenda, concealment is needed. One fairly innocuous provision in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill requires public companies to make a more transparent disclosure of CEO compensation, including bonuses. Note that it would not limit the compensation, only require full disclosure. Republicans are hell-bent on repealing this provision. Of course; it would not serve Wall Street interests if the public took an unhealthy interest in the disparity of their own incomes as against that of a bank CEO. As Spencer Bachus, the Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, says, "In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."

2. They worship at the altar of Mars. While the me-too Democrats have set a horrible example of keeping up with the Joneses with respect to waging wars, they can never match GOP stalwarts such as John McCain or Lindsey Graham in their sheer, libidinous enthusiasm for invading other countries. McCain wanted to mix it up with Russia - a nuclear-armed state - during the latter's conflict with Georgia in 2008 (remember? - "we are all Georgians now," a slogan that did not, fortunately, catch on), while Graham has been persistently agitating for attacks on Iran and intervention in Syria. And these are not fringe elements of the party; they are the leading "defense experts," who always get tapped for the Sunday talk shows. About a month before Republicans began holding a gun to the head of the credit markets to get trillions of dollars of cuts, these same Republicans passed a defense appropriations bill that increased spending by $17 billion over the prior year's defense appropriation. To borrow Chris Hedges' formulation, war is the force that gives meaning to their lives.

A cynic might conclude that this militaristic enthusiasm is no more complicated than the fact that Pentagon contractors spread a lot of bribery money around Capitol Hill. That is true, but there is more to it than that. It is not necessarily even the fact that members of Congress feel they are protecting constituents' jobs. The wildly uneven concentration of defense contracts and military bases nationally means that some areas, like Washington, DC, and San Diego, are heavily dependent on Department of Defense (DOD) spending. But there are many more areas of the country whose net balance is negative: the citizenry pays more in taxes to support the Pentagon than it receives back in local contracts.

And the economic justification for Pentagon spending is even more fallacious when one considers that the $700 billion annual DOD budget creates comparatively few jobs. The days of Rosie the Riveter are long gone; most weapons projects now require very little touch labor. Instead, a disproportionate share is siphoned off into high-cost research and development (from which the civilian economy benefits little); exorbitant management expenditures, overhead and out-and-out padding; and, of course, the money that flows back into the coffers of political campaigns. A million dollars appropriated for highway construction would create two to three times as many jobs as a million dollars appropriated for Pentagon weapons procurement, so the jobs argument is ultimately specious.

Take away the cash nexus and there still remains a psychological predisposition toward war and militarism on the part of the GOP. This undoubtedly arises from a neurotic need to demonstrate toughness and dovetails perfectly with the belligerent tough-guy pose one constantly hears on right-wing talk radio. Militarism springs from the same psychological deficit that requires an endless series of enemies, both foreign and domestic.

The results of the last decade of unbridled militarism and the Democrats' cowardly refusal to reverse it[4], have been disastrous both strategically and fiscally. It has made the United States less prosperous, less secure and less free. Unfortunately, the militarism and the promiscuous intervention it gives rise to are only likely to abate when the Treasury is exhausted, just as it happened to the Dutch Republic and the British Empire.

3. Give me that old time religion. Pandering to fundamentalism is a full-time vocation in the GOP. Beginning in the 1970s, religious cranks ceased simply to be a minor public nuisance in this country and grew into the major element of the Republican rank and file. Pat Robertson's strong showing in the 1988 Iowa Caucus signaled the gradual merger of politics and religion in the party. The results are all around us: if the American people poll more like Iranians or Nigerians than Europeans or Canadians on questions of evolution versus creationism, scriptural inerrancy, the existence of angels and demons, and so forth, that result is due to the rise of the religious right, its insertion into the public sphere by the Republican Party and the consequent normalizing of formerly reactionary or quaint beliefs. Also around us is a prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science; it is this group that defines "low-information voter" - or, perhaps, "misinformation voter."

The Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding, there is now a de facto religious test for the presidency: major candidates are encouraged (or coerced) to "share their feelings" about their "faith" in a revelatory speech; or, some televangelist like Rick Warren dragoons the candidates (as he did with Obama and McCain in 2008) to debate the finer points of Christology, with Warren himself, of course, as the arbiter. Politicized religion is also the sheet anchor of the culture wars. But how did the whole toxic stew of GOP beliefs - economic royalism, militarism and culture wars cum fundamentalism - come completely to displace an erstwhile civilized Eisenhower Republicanism?

It is my view that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism (which is a subset of the decline of rational problem solving in America) may have been the key ingredient of the takeover of the Republican Party. For politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes - at least in the minds of followers - all three of the GOP's main tenets.

Televangelists have long espoused the health-and-wealth/name-it-and-claim it gospel. If you are wealthy, it is a sign of God's favor. If not, too bad! But don't forget to tithe in any case. This rationale may explain why some economically downscale whites defend the prerogatives of billionaires.

The GOP's fascination with war is also connected with the fundamentalist mindset. The Old Testament abounds in tales of slaughter - God ordering the killing of the Midianite male infants and enslavement of the balance of the population, the divinely-inspired genocide of the Canaanites, the slaying of various miscreants with the jawbone of an ass - and since American religious fundamentalist seem to prefer the Old Testament to the New (particularly that portion of the New Testament known as the Sermon on the Mount), it is but a short step to approving war as a divinely inspired mission. This sort of thinking has led, inexorably, to such phenomena as Jerry Falwell once writing that God is Pro-War.

It is the apocalyptic frame of reference of fundamentalists, their belief in an imminent Armageddon, that psychologically conditions them to steer this country into conflict, not only on foreign fields (some evangelicals thought Saddam was the Antichrist and therefore a suitable target for cruise missiles), but also in the realm of domestic political controversy. It is hardly surprising that the most adamant proponent of the view that there was no debt ceiling problem was Michele Bachmann, the darling of the fundamentalist right. What does it matter, anyway, if the country defaults? - we shall presently abide in the bosom of the Lord.

Some liberal writers have opined that the different socio-economic perspectives separating the "business" wing of the GOP and the religious right make it an unstable coalition that could crack. I am not so sure. There is no fundamental disagreement on which direction the two factions want to take the country, merely how far in that direction they want to take it. The plutocrats would drag us back to the Gilded Age, the theocrats to the Salem witch trials. In any case, those consummate plutocrats, the Koch brothers, are pumping large sums of money into Michele Bachman's presidential campaign, so one ought not make too much of a potential plutocrat-theocrat split.

Thus, the modern GOP; it hardly seems conceivable that a Republican could have written the following:

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." (That was President Eisenhower, writing to his brother Edgar in 1954.)

It is this broad and ever-widening gulf between the traditional Republicanism of an Eisenhower and the quasi-totalitarian cult of a Michele Bachmann that impelled my departure from Capitol Hill. It is not in my pragmatic nature to make a heroic gesture of self-immolation, or to make lurid revelations of personal martyrdom in the manner of David Brock. And I will leave a more detailed dissection of failed Republican economic policies to my fellow apostate Bruce Bartlett.

I left because I was appalled at the headlong rush of Republicans, like Gadarene swine, to embrace policies that are deeply damaging to this country's future; and contemptuous of the feckless, craven incompetence of Democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them. And, in truth, I left as an act of rational self-interest. Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and "shareholder value," the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one.

If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté.[5] They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked.

During the week that this piece was written, the debt ceiling fiasco reached its conclusion. The economy was already weak, but the GOP's disgraceful game of chicken roiled the markets even further. Foreigners could hardly believe it: Americans' own crazy political actions were destabilizing the safe-haven status of the dollar. Accordingly, during that same week, over one trillion dollars worth of assets evaporated on financial markets. Russia and China have stepped up their advocating that the dollar be replaced as the global reserve currency - a move as consequential and disastrous for US interests as any that can be imagined.

If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America's status as the world's leading power.

Footnotes:

[1] I am not exaggerating for effect. A law passed in 2010 by the Arizona legislature mandating arrest and incarceration of suspected illegal aliens was actually drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative business front group that drafts "model" legislation on behalf of its corporate sponsors. The draft legislation in question was written for the private prison lobby, which sensed a growth opportunity in imprisoning more people.

[2] I am not a supporter of Obama and object to a number of his foreign and domestic policies. But when he took office amid the greatest financial collapse in 80 years, I wanted him to succeed, so that the country I served did not fail. But already in 2009, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, declared that his greatest legislative priority was - jobs for Americans? Rescuing the financial system? Solving the housing collapse? - no, none of those things. His top priority was to ensure that Obama should be a one-term president. Evidently Senator McConnell hates Obama more than he loves his country. Note that the mainstream media have lately been hailing McConnell as "the adult in the room," presumably because he is less visibly unstable than the Tea Party freshmen

[3] This is not a venue for immigrant bashing. It remains a fact that outsourcing jobs overseas, while insourcing sub-minimum wage immigrant labor, will exert downward pressure on US wages. The consequence will be popular anger, and failure to address that anger will result in a downward wage spiral and a breech of the social compact, not to mention a rise in nativism and other reactionary impulses. It does no good to claim that these economic consequences are an inevitable result of globalization; Germany has somehow managed to maintain a high-wage economy and a vigorous industrial base.

[4] The cowardice is not merely political. During the past ten years, I have observed that Democrats are actually growing afraid of Republicans. In a quirky and flawed, but insightful, little book, "Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred," John Lukacs concludes that the left fears, the right hates.

[5] The GOP cult of Ayn Rand is both revealing and mystifying. On the one hand, Rand's tough guy, every-man-for-himself posturing is a natural fit because it puts a philosophical gloss on the latent sociopathy so prevalent among the hard right. On the other, Rand exclaimed at every opportunity that she was a militant atheist who felt nothing but contempt for Christianity. Apparently, the ignorance of most fundamentalist "values voters" means that GOP candidates who enthuse over Rand at the same time they thump their Bibles never have to explain this stark contradiction. And I imagine a Democratic officeholder would have a harder time explaining why he named his offspring "Marx" than a GOP incumbent would in rationalizing naming his kid "Rand."
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Mike Lofgren

Mike Lofgren retired on June 17 after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. He served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees.

Presente! John Ross

2011-08-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

John Ross dies at 72
by Tim Redmond
San Francisco Bay Guardian
http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2011/01/18/john-ross-dies-72

[GR interview with John Ross Aug. 4, 2008]

When John Ross left Terminal Island, the federal prison in Los Angeles, after serving a couple of years for refusing the Vietnam draft, the warden shook his head and said: "Ross, you never learned how to be a prisoner."

I'm not writing the epitaph for whatever gravestone he has or doesn't have, wherever it might be in the world, but that's what I'd put on it: "John Ross, 1938-2011. Never learned how to be a prisoner."

John, who died over the weekend, was a poet, author, activist, agitator and uncontrollable shit disturber, utterly and sometimes insanely fearless, pure of heart and devoted to the cause of social justice so deeply that he could never let up, even for a minute. He was also my friend.

John was a tenant organizer in San Francisco in the 1960s. He ran for supervisor once on a platform of rent control and ending the war; he was kicked off the ballot on the basis that he was a convicted felon. He never got his filing fee back.

After a while, he headed north for Arcata, back to the land, so to speak, and became something of a farmer. He wrote poetry, self-published maybe half a dozen books, most of which I have, some of which are probably lost forever. He wrote freelance for the Guardian, but he had no phone; you'd call him at a bar in Arcata (he swore later that Thomas Pynchon was one of his barmates), leave a message and he'd check in when he got it.

Then in 1984, he showed up at our office in San Francisco, fleeing the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, which had raided his plot, trashed his house, thrown his typewriter out the window and missed capturing him by a few minutes. He sold the last of the crop in the city, found a room and started writing for us regularly.

He was one of the single most talented writers I've ever met -- and a reporter willing to go anywhere for a story. He was also an absolute pain in the ass to work with. Every John Ross story I ever edited was a nightmare. He hated editors, almost as a matter of religion; every single word was sacred, and anytime I tried to mess with what he'd created he'd threaten to quit. "Take my name off the masthead; I'm never working for you again" was almost a mantra with us. It got to the point where I had to say: No, John. You can't quit. You're part of this operation forever, like it or not. And he always came around.

But it's not a surprise that he never held down a real job for long.

Sandy Close at Pacific News Service sent him to Mexico City after the big earthquake in 1985, and he wound up at the Hotel Isabel, where he lived for the next 25 years. He took on stories nobody else would do or could do; he'd go places nobody else would dare. "Tim," he'd always tell me, "you have to go where the story is."

When the Zapatistas began their rebellion, he hitched a ride south from Mexico City, then hiked into the hills in Chiapas with a bag of granola and a couple of bottles of water, found the rebels in a little hamlet, met Subcommander Marcos and got interviews and information that left the rest of the media in the dust. In the first story he sent me, he described seeing a couple of reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle zipping by in a fancy rented jeep, with about $1,000 worth of camera gear, totally befuddled. They were out of their league; John was right at home.

He called me once, late at night, to ask if I knew any doctors in town. Turns out he'd been beaten pretty badly by the Mexican authorities just before getting on a plane to SF. I asked him how it happened, and he told me that he'd decided, on his own, to stand in the Mexico City airport and make a speech denouncing the government. The cops didn't respond kindly.

He went to Iraq before the war to serve as a human shield in Baghdad (his emails were all signed "John Ross, humanshield"), left after having some clashes (imagine that) with his Iraqi government minders, travelled all over the world writing and selling his books, sent me pieces from everywhere, lost his eye to an old injury from fighting with the SFPD (his email signature became "Juan Eye"), won and refused an award from the City of San Francisco, wrote a major investigative piece on the death of journalist Brad Will and kept writing until the very end. When he was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, he started signing his emails "John Ross, not dead yet."

The last message I got was on Nov. 4. After complaining some more about the cops, he wrote:

"it appears ive written my last articles for the bay guardian -- the doctors have given me six months on the outside and then its goodbye this cruel world -- we raised some hell when i was here." It's signed: "in solidarity johnross enroute."

Yes, John: We raised some some hell when you were here. Good luck enroute. And I will miss you forever.

John Ross leaves a son, Dante A. Ross, a daughter, Carla Ross-Allen, and a granddaughter, Zoe Ross-Allen, as well as a stepdaughter, Dylan Melbourne and her daughther Honore, as well as a sister, Susan Gardner. Memorial info is pending; I'll keep you posted.

You can read some of John's recent articles here and here and a lot more here.

CAIA's Middle East Week in Review

2011-08-21T13:47:00.001-07:00

News: Like last week, only matters of longer term and greater importance will be deemed important, and the daily brutality propagated against the Palestinian people will be there to read, but not noted.
1) Israel's anti-boycott law.
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/strenger-than-fiction/the-boycott-law-and-bullshit-1.373465"http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/strenger-than-fiction/the-boycott-law-and-bullshit-1.373465
Update: How the anti-boycott law has led to greater attention to the boycott.
http://adam-keller2.blogspot.com/2011/07/balaams-curse-2011.html

2) New settlement construction, intended to cut off Jerusalem from the West Bank, will end chance of of peace.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/palestinians-ariel-construction-destroys-remnants-of-peace-efforts-1.378762">http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/palestinians-ariel-construction-destroys-remnants-of-phttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifeace-efforts-1.378762">http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/palestinians-ariel-construction-destroys-remnants-of-peace-efforts-1.378762

Update: US issues words to condemn Ariel construction, but no deeds.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-israeli-construction-in-ariel-deeply-troubling-1.378781"

http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Update 2: Envoy: World must act against 'colonization campaign'

BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 12 Aug -- Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour on Friday urged the international community to compel Israel to end its colonization campaign if it really believes in thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife two-state solution, reports said. In letters to the UN secretary-general and the presidents of the Security Council and the General Assembly, Mansour said "the international community must compel Israel to end its illegal occupation," a Kuwaiti news outlet reported. This includes Israel's "colonization campaign and must seriously begin to take further effective measures to end the Israeli occupation which began in 1967 to salvage the possibility of the two-state solution." The letter came in reaction to Israel's "arrogant" and "shameless" announcement to develop 1,600 settlement units in East Jerusalem
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412717&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update 3: Quartet condemns Israel's illegal building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/mideast-quartet-greatly-concerned-by-israel-s-recent-settlement-plans-1.378948

3) In Israel, it you justify hitting Palestinians you control, you get promoted.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/idf-promotes-colonel-who-justified-hitting-palehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifstinian-detainees-1.378749

4) Can Israelis have social justice and the Occupation of Palestine?
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-s-social-protesters-mustn-t-forget-the-occupation-1.378512

5) Netanyahu plans to punish the Palestinians for declaring that they are a state.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-will-use-palestinian-un-bid-to-restore-status-quo-1.378664

6) Nabi Saleh consumed with raids while fasting http://palsolidarity.org/2011/08/19743/?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

ISM posted 11 Aug -- Following the unusually short demonstration on the first Friday of Ramadan, the Israeli army raided the village of Nabi Saleh just before Iftar, the Muslim time for breaking fast during Ramadan, resulting in the detaining of a 14 year old boy for approximately two hours and an excessive amount of tear gas in the village ...Manal Tamimi’s child was sleeping in the living room alone where he inhaled a large amount of tear gas for half an hour resulting in him vomiting for over an hour while the army was still in the village. Tamimi states in an interview with ISM that she was scared of the thought that she may have been outside of her home, visiting her mother, and no one would have heard the scream of her child. Without her presence at home, she says, this invasion might have ended with a fatality within her family.

Update: Videohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif interview with Manal Tamimi: They try to steal our history, not just our land

ISM posted 11 Aug -- The demonstrations in Nabi Saleh started the 21 of November 2009, after the illegal settlement of Halamish expanded, costing locals in land and their source of water for home and agricultural use, a spring declared holy by the settlers ... More then 220 people have been injured since the beginning of their peaceful resistance to illegal Israeli occupation of their land. Some of the injured include an 11 year old boy who was shot with a rubber coated steel bullet in his head and is still paralyzed. http://palsolidarity.org/2011/08/19747/?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update 2: Throwing rocks at the occupation -- and Western prejudice too

By Linah Alsaafin, Nabi Saleh, 11 August 2011
I asked a few Nabi Saleh children why they throw rocks. Their responses were simple: We don't want the army here.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/throwing-rocks-occupation-and-western-prejudice-too/10263

7) Area C feels the effects of Israel's power
The Australian 13 Aug -- ONLY 5km separates the offices of two mayors on one of the planet's most contested pieces of land, but they may as well be at opposite ends of the earth. Next month, the 193 countries of the UN are set to vote on a Palestinian state. Any decision will not be binding on Israel but any pressure point that does arise will be here, in the heart of the West Bank's "Area C", which is deemed under the Oslo accords to be under full Israeli control ... David Elhaiini is a Jewish settler who is Mayor of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, which covers 21 settlements ... Area C amounts to 60 per cent of the West Bank. Israel has complete power over which Palestinian homes will be built or demolished in the area. Far more Palestinian homes are demolished than approved. Asked what he thinks about the demolitions, Elhaiini replies: "I believe in law." ... Palestinian Mayor Abed Kassab says when Israel took control of his village, Jiftlik, in 1967, the population was more than 25,000. It is now 5,000. He gives a range of reasons: lack of water and electricity; Israelis killing some of the villagers' animals; Israelis taking sheep from villagers, putting them into Jewish settlements and presenting the villagers with fees for feeding them.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/area-c-feels-the-effects-of-israels-power/story-e6frg6so-1226114006692?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

8) Racism in the Galilee Part 1: Caging in Palestinians / Sophie Crowe
PalMon 11 Aug -- Many Palestinians have been forced to leave Nazareth, the primary Palestinian city in Israel, and its satellite villages due to the absence of planning and lack of resources allotted by the government, which prohibits development and results in overcrowding. ... Upper Nazareth, the fastest growing town in the north of the country, illustrates clearly the disparity in development of Israeli and Palestinian towns. The largely Jewish city is home to fifty thousand people and was able to quadruple in size since its establishment in the late fifties by appropriating surrounding lands. According to a 2010 report by Middle East Monitor, a British-based news source, the number of Jews living in thehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif Galilee tripled between the sixties and nineties. ‘The whole city is built on land confiscated from the Palestinians of Nazareth,’ explains Sawsan Zaher, a lawyer with Adalah, a Palestinian rights NGO. Nazareth has seventy thousand people living on half the area of land as the new city and is prevented from expanding. The new town flourishes and thrives at the expense of the original Palestinian one and its villages, which are in contraction.
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/?p=1415&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

Update: Racism rampant among Israeli youth. http://electronicintifada.net/content/video-survey-racism-rampant-among-israeli-youth/10286?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=63d2de8e2e-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

9) On patrol in the streets of Hebron
PalMon 10 Aug -- A car stops in front of a house in Beit Hadassah, a part of the Israeli settlement inside the Old City of Hebron. Three settlers get out. Observers from Temporary International Presence in the City of Hebron (TIPH) stand nearby and watch closely. This is part of TIPH’s daily foot patrol of the city. In Hebron, settler violence could strike any time. Settlers are steadily expanding into new parts of Hebron, Per Enerud, an observer with TIPH says. Due to the Israeli occupation of the area, many Palestinian families have been forced out of their homes and shops and cannot return to their land. Settlers then move into their vacant property. Standing on the hillside with a good view of the Israeli settlement, Enerud points out a group of Israeli children playing on top of anhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif empty building. While seemingly harmless, Enerud explains, this is a new method of the same, aggressive settler expansion that’s been happening in Hebron since 1967. "Even though the deed to the house is Palestinian," Enerud says, "the settlers build their way into the empty houses."
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/?p=1393

10) Fanatic Jewish settlers regularly attack Palestinians at iftar time
AL-KHALIL/HEBRON (PIC) 12 Aug -- Fanatic Jewish settlers attacked Palestinian homes in the old city in al-Khalil on Wednesday evening for the second time in two days. The attacks take place when families gather at sunset to break their fast (Iftar) ...A Palestinian resident who lives at Jabal al-Rahma said that a group of settlers from the Yeshai settlement crossed lands belonging to local residents, threw stones at Palestinian homes in the vicinity and chanted anti-Arab slogans. Meanwhile, settlers in Tel al-Rumaida attacked the home of Muhammad Abu Eisheh with stones and destroyed a support wall belonging to the family of Sayyed Ahmad.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2

Update: Increased Palestinian displacement as Israeli settler violence intensifies
AIC 15 Aug -- As dozens of Israeli MKs petition Netanyahu to endorse increased settlement construction in the West Bank to address the Israeli housing crisis and the surrounding tent protests, Israeli settlement policy continues to perpetuate a housing crisis of a very different sort in the Palestinian territory. Over the past seven months, nearly 900 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, as opposed to 606 during the whole of 2010. 755 of those were displaced due to home demolitions, while the remaining 127 were forced from their homes due to settler violence ... While settlers are burning Palestinian crops, damaging property, and throwing rocks at shepherds and children, the Israeli government is using a system of permitting processes, military zones, and fines to prevent Palestinians from establishing any structural claim to their own land.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/settlers-violence/3744-increased-palestinian-displacement-as-israeli-settler-violence-intensifies?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=6c411275a8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update 2: Israeli settler violence report, May-June 2011
AIC 15 Aug -- By Ahmad Jaradat & Nikki Hodgson -- During the months of May and June, settler attacks against Palestinian civilians continued, with most of the attacks targeting agriculture land in the northern West Bank. The attacks, including damage to agriculture property, burning of olive trees and destruction of wheat crops, appear to be systematically targeting land near settlements, and many Palestinian farmers fear that the settlers are organizing attacks in order to confiscate land for the expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Numerous attacks also occurred in Hebron, resulting in at least three Palestinians needing medical attention, including a six-year-old boy. Details:
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/settlers-violence/3745-israeli-settler-violence-report-may-june-2011-?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=6c411275a8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

11 PCHR weekly report : Israeli forces injure 3, abduct 35 Palestinians this week
IMEMC 12 Aug -- In its Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for the week of 04-10 Aug. 2011, Israeli forces wounded three Palestinians with gunfire, and injured dozens more with tear gas at non-violent demonstrations. One of those injured was a Palestinian woman herding sheep in Gaza. The Israeli troops also killed some of her sheep. Two Palestinian resistance fighters were wounded by Israeli forces in the east of Gaza City. Israeli warplanes bombarded a number of civilian facilities in the Gaza Strip. Two bird farms were completely destroyed and a third one was damaged, 500 chickens were killed and a room was destroyed. Israeli attacks in the West Bank: Israeli forces conducted 31 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, during which they abducted 31 Palestinian civilians, including 5 children. 17 of the detainees were abducted in Hebron....[details follow]
http://www.imemc.org/article/61831?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

12) USAID halts aid to Gaza
AFP 12 Aug -- The US Agency for International Development is halting humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip over alleged meddling by the enclave's rulers, Hamas, a US official said Friday ... "We deeply regret that USAID-funded partner organisations operating in Gaza are forced by Hamas's actions to suspend their assistance work," the official said on condition of anonymity. "USAID assistance programs were put on hold effective August 12," he added ... Another official in Washington said he understood that Hamas has been demanding access to physically search files and records of NGOs, which would be unprecedented ... Hamas insisted on Friday that it should be able to verify the accounts of NGOs financed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the Palestinian territories..It has since been restored.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/us-warns-hamas-could-pause-aid-official-141133718.html

13) Yearning for work in a Gaza under siege / Eva Bartlett
[photos] It’s a weekday morning, the beach is yet to fill with crowds seeking a break from the heat, but already the odd-jobbers are at work selling toys, clothes and food along the coast. Shariff Abu Kass, 27, walks the stretch of seaside in Sheik Rajleen every day from morning to evening with two armfuls of lightweight sports pants to sell. "I have two young children and no other work, so I do this every day. Usually I earn around 40 shekels (13 dollars) a day, but Fridays are better because so many come to the sea." ... In Gaza’s municipal park, Issa Ghoul, 19, sells chips and chocolates to park-goers to support his family. “I quit school and started working when I was 14. My father died when I was young and no one else works in my family,” says Ghoul. Many children younger than Ghoul zig-zag between cars at traffic stops selling one-shekel items like gum, cheap chocolates and fresh mint in order to add to their families’ incomes. "I can’t find any other jobs,” says Ghoul. "My mother is ill, my three-year-old sister is ill, what can I do but hope people will buy from me?" Most Palestinians take pride in their education, and Ghoul is no different, except that his impossible situation denied him the opportunity to study. "I would have liked to have finished school like everyone, I would have liked to have been a teacher." Update: Sources of fun dwindle for Gaza's children By Eva Bartlett, Gaza City, 10 August 2011
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/yearning-for-work-in-gaza-under-siege/?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update:By Eva Bartlett, Gaza City, 15 August 2011 Throughout Gaza, children take on responsibilities of adults to help their families, and adults revert from skilled labor to doing nearly anything to bring in a salary.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/odd-jobs-help-gaza-families-scrape/10277
Update 2: Palestinian families in Gaza are keen for a change and some leisure activity in their lives encaged and under siege.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/sources-fun-dwindle-gazas-children/10253

14) Electricity crisis, heat disturb Ramadan atmosphere in Gaza
GAZA CITY (Xinhua) 12 Aug -- As soon as a hot summer day ends and the sun goes for sunset, dozens of Palestinian families set on the clean off-white sands of Gaza City's beach, not only for recuperation or enjoying a soft breeze, but also to break the fast of one of Ramadan month of fasting days. Going to Gaza seaside is like hitting two birds with one stone; first is to enjoy the beach and the less warm weather, and second is to avoid the daily ongoing electricity blackouts. The heat and the blackout had obliged the Gaza residents to temporarily flee their homes and go to Gaza beach.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2011-08/12/c_131046380.htm?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

15) Frustration simmers over Egypt-Gaza border closure / Jared Malsin
[with video] EI 11 Aug -- In late April, Egypt’s acting foreign minister Nabil el-Arabi promised to ease the closure of his country’s sole border crossing with the Gaza Strip, reversing years of policy set by the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak. But Palestinians in Gaza are still waiting for that promise to materialize.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/frustration-simmers-over-egypt-gaza-border-closure/10265?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

16) Israeli troops attack West Bank anti-Wall protests; 3 children injured
Ramallah – PNN - On Friday three children were injured and many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation as Israeli troops attacked anti-wall protests organized in a number of West Bank communities. Protests took place in the central West Bank villages of al-Nabi Salleh, Bil‘in, and Ni‘lin in addition to al-Ma‘ssara in the southern West Bank. Three children were lightly wounded as Israeli troops attacked the weekly anti-wall protest at the village of al-Ma‘sara, southern West Bank. As soon as people marched to the land where Israel is building the wall troops attacked people with rifle butts and batons injuring Abada Brijiyah, 11, Osama Brijiyah,9, and Hareth Brijiyah,10, witnesses reported.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10583&Itemid=56&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update: Demonstration in Kafr Qaddum
QALQILIYA (Ma‘an) 12 Aug -- Palestinians inhaled tear gas which the Israeli forces shot to disperse the weekly demonstration in Kafr Qaddum east of Qalqiliya on Friday, activists and witnesses said. The demonstration started after Friday prayer toward the eastern entrance of the village. Eyewitnesses told Ma‘an the Israeli forces who were on the entrance fired tear gas toward the demonstrators. The grenades started a fire in the lands of the villagers which caused damage, they said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412661&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

Update 2: September rallies to avoid confronting Israel army
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 12 Aug -- All rallies in support of the Palestinian bid for UN membership in September will be confined to areas where the Palestinian Authority has security control, thus avoiding confrontation with the Israeli army, high-ranking Palestinian Authority sources told Ma'an Thursday. "Ramallah rallies will be carried out in Manara square, Bethlehem rallies will be carried out in yard of the Nativity Church and so on," the sources said, adding "we will not give the [Israeli] occupation any excuse to abuse our children or to kill our residents." The locations are in the heart of urban areas that were designated "Area A" under the 1993 Oslo agreement -- and thus formally under full Palestinian Authority civil and security control, making up 17.2 percent of the West Bank.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412593&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

Update 3: Land stolen from Bil'lin and partly returned by Supreme Court to be reclaimed. http://www.bilin-village.org/english/videos/8697-Land-Reclamation-Project-in-Bilin-After-the-Resiting-of-the-Apartheid-Wall?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=6c411275a8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

17) Hamas: Reconciliation committees will start in September
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 12 Aug -- Hamas leader Ismail Radwan said Friday that committees established to progress the reconciliation deal between his party and Fatah would not begin work until September ... Radwan told a Ma‘an correspondent in Gaza that only the issue of freeing political prisoners, imprisoned during the years of rivalry by factions in their respective territories, is set for conclusion by the end of the month.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412604&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update: Fatah holding up reconciliation with Hamas to keep Western money.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/fatah-hamas-reconciliation-stalls-over-palestinian-statehood-bid-1.379153

18) Trying to put a price on Middle East peace / Elizabeth Dwoskin
Business Week 11 Aug -- Israeli and Palestinian economists look for solutions in hard numbers -- In July 2002 a small group of Israeli and Palestinian economists sat down for a rare meeting in the idyllic French village of Aix-en-Provence. It was the height of the violent Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada ...The economists believed they could help. They concluded that translating the conflict into the data-driven language of economics might enable the two sides to cut through the rhetoric and begin to think dispassionately about the details of what peace would look like and cost in actual shekels. The leaders of the Aix Group, as it came to be known, were two economists -- a Palestinian and a Jewish Israeli ... In the decade since, despite spotty economic data and a political environment that changes month to month, they have slowly set about trying to put a price tag on peace. Every two years, Bamya and Arnon select a new problem for the group to sort out. They meet at least twice a year to discuss their findings. The future of the 5 million Palestinian refugees recognized by the United Nations was among the most difficult issues the group tackled.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/trying-to-put-a-price-on-middle-east-peace-08112011.html

19) The greatest elected body that money can buy / Stephen Walt
Foreign Police 11 Aug -- Just when you think your contempt for Congress could not get any higher, our elected representatives manage to do something to ratchet it up another notch. After congressional shenanigans helped spark a major market sell-off and sparked fears of a double-dip recession, you'd think every single one of them would be heading back to their districts to figure out what their constituents wanted and to try to explain how they were going to help make things better. Or maybe a few of them would even spend the recess taking a crash course in macroeconomics and public finance, so that they could start exercising their public duties more responsibly. But what did 81 of them decide to do instead? You guessed it: they are off on junkets to Israel, paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation, an AIPAC spinoff that has been funding such trips for years. That's right: during the August recess nearly a fifth of the U.S. Congress will visit a single country whose entire population is less than that of New York City.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/08/11/the_greatest_elected_body_that_money_can_buy?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

20) Hundreds of international activists at Nablus peace rally
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 12 Aug -- Hundreds of international activists descended on the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday to hold a peace rally. Around 1,200 people from over 22 countries gathered in the city center, wearing white with peace written in Arabic, English and Hebrew emblazoned on their clothes. They sang songs about freedom and peace, raised Palestinian flags and were joined by Nablus governor Jibril Al-Bakri, his deputy Anan Al-Ateera, heads of security and local organization directors.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412501&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

21) Israeli intelligence tried to recruit Al-Jazeera journalist
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 12 Aug -- Samer Allawi, who is detained by the Israeli occupation authorities said that the Israeli intelligence tried to recruit him but he refused and that he was threatened with being accused of something serious. Allawi, a Palestinian journalist who works as al-Jazeera’s correspondent in Afghanistan, was visited by the lawyer of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society in Betah Tekva detention centre where he is being detained. Allawi told the lawyer that his detention is to do with his work as a journalist in Afghanistan and called on human rights organisations and international journalist bodies to pressure the Israeli occupation to release him ... He was detained on Tuesday at the Allenby Bridge on his way to Jordan after the end of a visit he made to his family in the village of Sabastya near Nablus.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcO

22) Families of [PA] political prisoners rally in Hebron
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 12 Aug -- Relatives of political prisoners organized a sit-in and rally in the West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday, protesting an escalation in arrests by Palestinian Authority security forces. Hamas officials said the rally demanded the release of prisoners and an end to arrests, particularly as Palestinian factions meet in Cairo to discuss ending the politically motivated harassment ... "With each session of conciliation, arrests and summonses increase in the West Bank," said another protester. "It’s shameful how security departments chase after the participants of peaceful sit-ins." Children of several prisoners chained themselves together during the rally, which was attended by Palestinian lawmaker Samira Halayqa and other representatives of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412543&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

23) UNRWA operations in Jenin suspended indefinitely
JENIN (Ma‘an) 12 Aug -- UNRWA announced on Thursday the suspension of its operations indefinitely in the West Bank city of Jenin and its refugee camp beginning Friday. The organization called the step "regrettable" and said it came in response to "continued threats to our employees and staff in the area" without elaborating on the nature of the threats. The statement added that suspension of its operations includes relief and social services. An employment assistance office and the office of its refugee camp manager will also close.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412510&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update: UNRWA suspends services in Jenin
JENIN (WAFA) 12 Aug -- A decision by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to suspend services in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Friday had upset local activists. Adnan Hindi, head of the popular services committee in Jenin refugee camp, condemned UNRWA’s decision, saying it was unjustified. UNRWA suspended its operations in the Jenin area refugee camps following allegation of threats received by its staff. It said that while it was suspending services as of Friday in most of its offices, this will not affect the health services. Hindi denied allegations that UNRWA staff had been threatened, stressing that UNRWA had been serving Jenin refugee camp and its 16,000 registered refugees for many years and no one had attempted to attack or harm its staff. He said, however, that camp residents have been complaining that UNRWA stopped hiring them through a special work fund that provides temporary jobs to thousands of refugees.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=16972&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

24) Abbas tells US lawmakers: NATO role in Palestinian state
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 12 Aug -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told visiting US Congressmen on Thursday that the security of the future Palestinian state will be handed to NATO under US command, his adviser said Friday. The Palestinian state must also be "empty of [Israeli] settlements," the President said, according to official Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA. Members of the US Congress and Senate delegation, headed by Democratic Senator Steny Hoyer, met with the President in Ramallah on Thursday, and quizzed Abbas on Israel's designation as a Jewish state, the status of refugees, and reconciliation between the President's Fatah party and rival Hamas, Presidential adviser Nimir Hamad said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412599&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e434f3a3c0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update: Hizb ut-Tahrir accuses PLO of betrayal
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 13 Aug -- The Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir movement has slammed as "betrayal" President Mahmoud Abbas' remarks about a possible NATO presence in a future Palestinian state. The president's "call for international forces would bring a new crusader occupation," the movement said Friday in a statement saying the plan would lead to "colonizing Palestine and desecrating the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412772&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

25) Leader of Gaza youth group said arrested by Hamas authorities on return from France
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/leader-gaza-youth-group-said-arrested-hamas-authorities-return-france

26) Unexplained Gaza communications "blackout" highlights Israeli control of networks
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/benjamin-doherty/unexplained-gaza-communications-blackout-highlights-israeli-control-networks

27) French journal of record peddles Zionist propaganda
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/david/french-journal-record-peddles-zionist-propaganda

28) BDS activists in Israel stand with Australian counterparts facing repression
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/maureen/bds-activists-israel-stand-australian-counterparts-facing-repression

29) Sweden, Israel and the banalization of evil
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/david/sweden-israel-and-banalization-evil

30) Netanyahu imposes harsher conditions on Palestinian political prisoners
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/adri-nieuwhof/netanyahu-imposes-harsher-conditions-palestinian-political-prisoners
Update: Israel uses "primitive, racist" policies against Palestinian prisoners By Mel Frykberg, Ramallah, 11 August 2011
The conditions for Palestinians held without charge under administrative detention are harsh, just as they are for all political prisoners.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-uses-primitive-racist-policies-against-palestinian-prisoners/10256
Update 2: Gazans vent anger as Israel deprives prisoners of education By Mohammed Omer, Gaza City, 12 August 2011
Access to education for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is getting worse. The 1,800 Palestinian prisoners who were supposed to complete their secondary school exams were not permitted to do so by the Israeli Prison Service.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/gazans-vent-anger-israel-deprives-prisoners-education/10268

31) Irish activists plan protest aimed at Riverdance's upcoming performances in Israel
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/nora/irish-activists-plan-protest-aimed-riverdances-upcoming-performances-israel

32) Palestinian issues shouldn't be excluded from J14
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/jalal-abukhater/palestinian-issues-shouldnt-be-excluded-j14

33) AIPAC's European cousin evades scrutiny
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/david/aipacs-european-cousin-evades-scrutiny

34) Preserving Palestinian heritage one stitch at a time By Emily Lawrence, Hebron, 15 August 2011
Palestinian women in Hebron have formed a traditional handicrafts cooperative to preserve cultural heritage and provide stable income for dozens of families hit hard by the economic effects of Israel's occupation.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/preserving-palestinian-heritage-one-stitch-time/10273

35) Film review: women footballers struggle to play (and win) By Michelle Gyeney, 12 August 2011
Sawsan Qaoud documents how the idea for a Palestinian women's football team was brought to life -- and recounts the difficulties the players face on a regular basis just to play -- in Women in the Stadium.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/film-review-women-footballers-struggle-play-and-win/

36) US Senator want to cut US financial support to 3 Israeli Army units in West Bank guilty of crimes against Palestinians.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/u-s-senator-seeks-to-cut-aid-to-elite-idf-units-operating-in-west-bank-and-gaza-1.378800
37) IDF raids same West Bank town 5 times in last 2 weeks / Alex Kane
Residents of Beit Ommar have already gotten used to military incursions and prevention of access to land, but some residents believe the increase in recent raids is connected to the army’s effort at deterrence ahead of the anticipated popular unrest in September -- Beit Ommar, West Bank 14 Aug -- The Islamic holy month of Ramadan is meant to be a time for reflection and spirituality. But for the 16,000 residents of this rural, agricultural village near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, it has been an unusually tense one. A spate of Israeli army raids at night and arrests of young Palestinians have occurred since the beginning of August, shattering any hope for calm during Ramadan ... Witnesses to the raids and local activists say that the Israeli army has been shooting tear gas, sound bombs and flares into residential areas -- in some cases causing injuries -- and have arrested fifteen young Palestinians under the age of eighteen this month ... "It just looked like a training exercise. It just looked like they were practicing coming into town tear gassing people back and practicing flares," said one international activist with the Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP) ... The Israeli army’s repression in the village has not been limited to night raids, though....
http://972mag.com/idf-raided-same-west-bank-town-5-times-in-last-2-weeks/?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update: Israeli forces arrest 4 youth in dawn raids
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 13 Aug -- Israeli forces arrested 4 minors at dawn on 10 August. They are reported to have been charged with participation in demonstrations against Israeli policy in the district. The 4 arrested are brothers Mohammed Abu Sanad, 17, Alla Abu Sanad, 15, from al-Bustan neighborhood, and Ahmed Abu Nab, 17, from al-Ein al-Fouqa and Ameer al-Qaraeen from Wadi Hilweh
http://silwanic.net/?p=19054&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update 2: Israeli forces build up heavy presence in Silwan
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 13 Aug -- A build-up of Israeli forces in Silwan has been underway since early this morning. Soldiers, deployed to all districts, have been reported to be harassing residents and stirring unrest. Several youth confronted troops this morning, with confrontations now erupting on a daily basis between local youth and Israeli forces. Tensions continue to mount as authorities pursue their policy of home demolition and settlement expansion in the region.
http://silwanic.net/?p=19052&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Updae 3: Israeli police arrest 3 children in Silwan
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 14 Aug -- An undercover unit of the Israeli forces arrested two Palestinian children and one teenager from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan on Sunday, a local committee member and Israeli police spokesman said. Abed Al-Karim, member of a local Silwan committee which protects land from annexation, said that Israeli forces arrested Musellem Mousa Auda, 11, Mohamad Auda, 13, and Kathem Abu Shafee, 17. Undercover units raided Silwan at 11.30 a.m. on Sunday morning, Al-Karim told Ma‘an radio, arresting the three boys without providing any justification.
http://silwanic.net/?p=19052&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

38) Night Video: Army invades Beit Ommar for third time in a week
2:44 minutes PSP 12 Aug -- At around 10pm on the night of the 11th August, the Israeli army once more invaded the town of Beit Ommar. Around eight jeeps and more than twelve soldiers entered the town and advanced along the main road, closing off the entrance to the village behind them, preventing residents returning to their homes. The soldiers proceeded to fire dozens of rounds of teargas into highly residential areas, accompanied by concussion grenades and flares. Several families inside their homes suffered the effects of teargas inhalation and required medical treatment, some being taken by ambulance to hospital in Hebron. The soldiers remained in the town until 1am, during which time they continued to fire rounds of teargas regularly. No arrests were made, and there remains no apparent reason for the raid. The Abu Maria family were one such household affected by the raid. Their family home was struck by two teargas canisters, forcing the family to flee the building with their 1-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. The ground floor of their house remained uninhabitable for the night due to the lingering gas.
http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2011/08/12/army-invades-beit-ommar-for-third-time-in-one-week/?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update: VIDEO: One Palestinian arrested and beaten at Beit Ommar demonstration
6:28 minutes PSP 13 Aug -- Around 40 demonstrators – comprising residents of the village of Beit Ommar, and Israeli and international activists – gathered for a demonstration against the illegal Karmei Tsur settlement. The demonstrators, carrying flags and banners commemorating the anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were met by a large and heavily armed military presence. As the protesters marched through Beit Ommar fields, the soldiers reacted violently, pushing several protesters to the ground, and others down steep rocky drops. After a short speech, the protesters decided to end their demonstration. At this point, local resident Sakhar Abu Maria was arrested by the military, for no apparent reason. He was then blindfolded for 20 minutes, placed in the back of a jeep, and driven to the Karmei Tsur settlement. Once there, he was beaten by soldiers, who threatened to raid his family home, and taunted him by repeatedly offering him food and drink after learning he was fasting for Ramadan, pouring glasses of coca cola and pushing them towards him. He was released after 90 minutes.
http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2011/08/13/one-palestinian-arrested-and-beaten-at-beit-ommar-demonstration/?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

39) Israeli forces conduct military training in Jordan Valley, continue harassing its residents
JENIN (WAFA) 14 Aug -- Israeli forces are conducting large-scale military training on Palestinian lands adjacent to residents’ houses in the northern Jordan Valley areas, in Tubas Governorate, Sunday said Ahmad Asaad, in charge of settlements file in Tubas. Witnesses said that Israeli artillery enforcements raided al-Boke’a area and al-Aqaba, a village in the valley, and carried out surveillance and inspection campaigns in addition to repeated extensive military trainings, which lead to the destruction of the infrastructure and fields as well as prevent shepherds from herding their cattle
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=16984&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

40) Israel army plants new mines along Syria border
JERUSALEM (AP) 13 Aug -- Israel's army is planting new land mines along its border with Syria in an attempt to dissuade protesters from rushing into the Golan Heights, according to a report in an Israeli military magazine. The preparations come as part of Israel's beefed-up measures ahead of rallies that Palestinians are planning to hold in September, the magazine Ba'mahaneh reported over the weekend ... The army decided to go ahead with the move after older mines failed to detonate when the Syrians crossed in June, the magazine reported ... The magazine reported that the military was taking other measures, including reinforcing fences along the Golan border, increasing infantry troop numbers, posting more snipers and digging trenches.
http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110813/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_syria?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update: VIDEO: Lebanon's female cluster bomb disposal team
6:09 minutes Guardian 12 Aug -- Five years after the Israel-Hezbollah war, southern Lebanon is still riddled with thousands of unexploded cluster bombs. A group of extraordinary women is helping to rid the countryside of this deadly legacy - formerly teachers, nurses and housewives, they have been trained by the NGO Norwegian People's Aid to clear unexploded ordnance from the fields
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/aug/12/lebanon-cluster-bomb-disposal-video?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

41) Otherwise Occupied: I'm not a cop but I play one in Jerusalem / Amira Hass
Haaretz 14 Aug -- In Walajeh, officially part of the capital, the IDF arrested a number of protesters, even though it did not have jurisdiction to act within the city ... Col. Alalouf and his soldiers apparently committed a double violation: sealing an area inside Jerusalem where they do not have jurisdiction, and arresting citizens inside the capital. The IDF spokesman: "The claim is being reviewed."
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/idf-forces-arrest-12-people-protesting-for-social-justice-in-west-bank-1.378662?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_source=Mondoweiss%20List

42) Gaza's sole power plant at risk of closure
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 14 Aug -- Gaza's electricity company may have to turn off the sole power station in the coastal enclave, a company official warned Sunday. Chief Executive Officer Walid Sad Sayel said the company would delay switching off the station until Sunday even though it needed repairs and should have been shut down on Wednesday. The company had reached an agreement with power authority officials in Gaza to delay the closure after the Hamas officials agreed to transfer $4 million to pay for spare parts, Sayel said in a statement. A further $1 million was needed to pay Ashdod port authorities to release the parts, Sayel added. He warned that if the clearance money wasn't paid in the coming hours, the generators would be shut off individually and the plant would be closed until the end of August. The electricity company official added that the management of Ashdod port were threatening to auction off the spare parts at the end of August if the storage bill and port fees for the equipment remained unpaid.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=413073&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

43) 'UNRWA Watch' looks to improve refugee agency
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 13 Aug -- Palestinian academics and others have announced the establishment of a watchdog group to observe UNRWA’s performance in the Gaza Strip, the head of the body said Saturday. At a news conference in Gaza City, Hossam Adwan said 'UNRWA Watch' would prioritize observing the performance of the Palestine refugee agency with the hope of guaranteeing refugee rights. The committees are specializing in education, healthcare, the environment, housing, projects, emergency operations, relief projects, and works, Adwan explained. They will staff six offices throughout the enclave ... UNRWA has defended itself against a series of complaints and accusations in recent months, as staff joined strikes and the heads of the West Bank and Gaza Strip divisions resigned early this year.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412854&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

44) Israeli gunboats target Palestinian fishermen in Gaza
PalTelegraph 11 Aug -- Gaza Strip, (Pal Telegraph)-Israeli gunboats opened fire on Thursday morning at Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of central Gaza Strip. No injuries were reported. Local sources said that Israeli gunboats targeted Palestinian fishermen despite being in a close area off Gaza shores, forcing them to leave the sea in order not to be hurt by Israeli intensive fire.
http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/gaza-strip/9812-israeli-gunboats-target-palestinian-fishermen-in-gaza.html?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update: Palestinians: Fisherman injured by Navy fire off Gaza coast
Ynet 15 Aug -- Palestinian sources reported that the Navy opened fire on a fishing boat off the Gaza Strip coast. According to the sources, a Palestinian fisherman was moderately injured in the incident, and was transferred to a local hospital. The IDF stated in response that the Navy fired a warning shot in the air, in order to ward off the boat.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4109088,00.html?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=6c411275a8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update 2: Why Gaza doesn't need Monsanto's Wonder Seeds
Mother Jones 15 Aug -- ...So what are Palestinian farmers doing? According to The Guardian, they're turning to a technology that has been proven to conserve water, recycle crop nutrients, and generate robust yields: diversified organic agriculture ...Already, concrete steps are being made. According to The Guardian, Palestinian farmers are barred by the blockade from buying synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, which could be used to make explosives. All they have access from the import market is "fertilisers made from Israeli waste water run-off," which is expensive—$200 per metric ton—and of "uncertain safety." But a local initiative called Palestinian Environmental Friends (PEF) is generating a homegrown fertilizer from manure and crop waste collected from local farms. It costs just $100 per metric ton to make, and profits from it stay within Gaza. Farms are also solving the fertilizer problem by setting up closed-loop aquaculture/crop systems that recycle nutrients and generate bounties of food
http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/08/gaza-monsanto-wonder-seeds?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=6c411275a8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

45) In photos: Boycott activists rally in Ramallah
Ma‘an 12 Aug -- Protesters in Ramallah's Manara square call on businesses and shoppers to boycott Israeli goods, holding signs reading "Don't pay for their bullets" and "Boycott their goods, boycott their terrorism." The campaign is part of a nationwide effort throughout the occupied territories during Ramadan to educate Palestinians about local efforts to boycott Israeli products and what they can do to help.
link to www.maannews.net

46) VIDEO: BDS brides boycott SodaStream and Ahava sales at Bed Bath & Beyond
12 Aug -- In August, 2011 a group of concerned brides held a mock wedding inside Bed Bath & Beyond in Los Angeles, CA to affirm their commitment to peace, justice, and avow to boycott SodaStream and Ahava, both illegally-made Israeli settlement products. Do you cherish human rights? Sign the pledge to boycott at: www.stolenbeauty.org
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412531&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

47) Free to be human: visit to the Aida refugee camp / Alexandra Salomon
AIC 13 Aug -- The Aida refugee camp lies between Bethlehem and Beit Jala, in Area A of the West Bank. The entrance to the camp is marked by an arch with a model of a large key propped on top. While it is difficult in most ways to differentiate between the refugee camp and its surrounding residential area, numerous plaques on the camp walls detail the villages from which the refugees came, the Israeli army units that displaced them and the number of residents exiled. We started the day, driving through the main checkpoint into Bethlehem. I observed the yellow sign warning 'No entrance to Israelis' with apprehension, but flashed my European passport like a seasoned pro, attempting not to betray the nervousness I felt inside. And then it hit me. It was like someone had just punched me in the stomach. The Separation Wall with all its weight bears down, the impact of everything it stands for immediate and overwhelming ...We were then taken to meet Faizeer, a woman who was about 12 years old when Israeli soldiers entered her village in 1948 and who now lives not far from the local UNRWA office. Faizeer is a survivor from the Ajjur village. Ajjur is now the site of the Jewish National Fund (JNF-KKL) British National park. For me, this word, survivor always had connotations attached to those who survived the Nazi holocaust in Europe. This was a new reality I was experiencing
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/3740-free-to-be-human-visit-to-the-aida-refugee-camp-?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

48) BDS action at Palestinian-Israeli controlled Bethlehem checkpoint / Emma Mancini
AIC 14 Aug -- Checkpoint 300, separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem, worsens. On the second Friday of Ramadan, Palestinian police join the Israeli army in controlling the movement of Palestinian residents from the Bethlehem district who are allowed to reach an armored Jerusalem and the Al Aqsa Mosque. In a shocking atmosphere of normalisation and uncritical acceptance, Palestinian policemen monitor the queue and communicate easily with the Israeli soldiers on the other side of the checkpoint. During Ramadan, the Palestinian security forces are the watchdog and perform the job usually done by Israeli forces ... A man, about 40 years old, bursts into tears while facing the Palestinian policemen: "I just want to pray in Al-Aqsa, I just want to pray freely".
link to www.alternativenews.orgisraeli-controlled-bethlehem-checkpoint-

49) UN bid coincides with Lebanese presidency
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 13 Aug -- The leadership in Ramallah chose to submit their bid for statehood in September to coincide with Lebanon's presidency of the UN Security Council, the Palestinian Authority foreign minister said Saturday. "We chose to submit it in September because the Lebanese envoy will be president of the Security Council and plays a pivotal role," Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki said. The minister told reporters at his office in Ramallah that President Mahmoud Abbas would submit the bid personally, adding that he would visit Lebanon on Tuesday to discuss the campaign.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412878&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update: West Bank: Palestinians determined to get more recognition
LA Times 13 Aug -- The Palestinian Authority is doubling its efforts to get as many countries to recognize it before September, when it plans to officially ask the United Nations for recognition and membership. Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Malki said on Saturday that “we have made very important breakthroughs, but we need to do more and build on what we have achieved so far.” Malki was talking about 19 countries in Central America and the Caribbean who still have not made up their mind regarding recognition. He had recently visited most of these countries, including Caribbean Sea islands with a population not exceeding 45,000 people but nevertheless sovereign U.N. member states, in an attempt to persuade them to recognize Palestine as a state. He has to wait until the Caribbean Common Market and Community (CARICOM) and the Central American SICA group convene their joint meeting Aug. 19 before he gets their final answer. So far, the situation does not look good since El Salvador, seat of SICA, has refused to place Palestine’s request on its agenda, nor invited the Palestinian Authority to attend the meeting.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/08/west-bank-palestinians-determined-to-get-more-recognitions.html?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update 2: Ambassador: Abbas to discuss UN bid in Beirut
BEIRUT (Ma‘an) -14 Aug -- President Mahmoud Abbas will coordinate efforts to seek membership of the UN during his upcoming visit to Lebanon, Palestinian ambassador in Beirut Abdullah Abdullah said ... Abbas' visit is important as Lebanon will take over presidency of the UN Security Council in September, when Palestinians will submit their bid for membership of the world body, the ambassador said. Abdullah said the issue of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon should also be discussed during the president's visit. "We respect Lebanese sovereignty […] The Palestinian presence in Lebanon is indeed temporary and we are determined to return back.
link to www.maannews.net http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=413074&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=d7be7fc726-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

50) Israel refuses to apologize to Turkey for murdering its citizens on the Mavi Marmara.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/lieberman-israel-s-rejection-of-apology-to-turkey-came-too-late-1.379178
Update: Turkey says no improvement of ties to Israel if Israel refuses to apologize
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/turkey-pm-israel-ties-won-t-improve-without-apology-for-gaza-flotilla-raid-1.379145

51) Hamas will not allow students to leave Gaza to study in the USA.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/hamas-bans-gaza-students-from-studying-in-u-s-1.379169

52) Living hell in Tel Rumeida / Alessandra Bajec
[photos] PNN 15 Aug -- ...Guiding me along the path, Hashem stopped before the access to his house noting that, between 2000 and 2007, that passage was totally blocked by military order forcing him to go via a steep climb in order to reach his home. While his wife was pregnant, Hashem had to carry her from up down that climb and put her in an ambulance to make it to the hospital. Four years ago, the main path was opened under some interesting circumstances. At that time, Hashem’s father had passed away, and holding a funeral there or inviting relatives and friends was sadly out of question, given the obstructed access to his home. Hashem then called on internationals and media to join his family and help, some of the activists were prevented to go but others managed. After carrying the father’s body down the steep path to the main street, Hashem and his supporters proceeded to a checkpoint where Israeli troops detained him for an hour and a half, and scanned the dead body. When Hashem was then let through the checkpoint, an electronic device rang and the soldiers ordered him to turn back, so he was held up for another half an hour and his father’s body was scanned again. One of the soldiers finally noticed the father had a watch around his wrist so, with the back of his gun, he destroyed the watch and also broke the bones of the dead body. Following that incident the Israeli army, to stop Hashem from filing a complaint against the soldier, ‘awarded’ him by opening the regular access to his home.
[long article, much of it nearly unbelievable - in any sane place, that is.]
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10594&Itemid=56&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=6c411275a8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

53) Reading "Anne Frank" in Gaza
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/mohammed-suliman/reading-anne-frank-gaza

54) Why was the PA hosting American Kabbalah tourists in Nablus? By Michelle Gyeney, Nablus, 17 August 2011
The Palestinian Authority cooperated with Israeli forces to host a fabricated “Peace and Freedom Day” rally in Nablus, while prohibiting local Palestinian tour guides from discussing politics with Kabbalist tourists from the US.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/why-was-pa-hosting-american-kabbalah-tourists-nablus/10285
55) Donors help keep Palestinians in cages By Charlotte Silver, Ramallah, 16 August 2011
International aid donors are using Palestine as a laboratory for a neo-liberal economic experiment.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/donors-help-keep-palestinians-cages/10283

56) UK bans Israeli settler rabbi who called for killing of non-Jews By Asa Winstanley, London, 15 August 2011
The UK has banned Rabbi Yosef Elitzur, who has incited the murder of non-Jews, including civilians and children from coming to the country. But the timing is curious.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/uk-bans-israeli-settler-rabbi-who-called-killing-non-jews/10280

57) Adam Keller on how the terrorist atttack in the Sinai helps Netanyahu avoid the big issues.
http://adam-keller2.blogspot.com/2011/08/changed-agenda.html
Update: Egypt closes Rafah crossing
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 18 Aug 18:58 -- The interior ministry in the Gaza Strip said Thursday that Egyptian authorities have closed the Rafah crossing amid a sharp increase in violence in Gaza and southern Israel. [End]
lhttp://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=414226&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e0eab95958-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update 2: Army bombards Rafah killing six Palestinians; child killed in Gaza City
IMEMC 18 Aug 20:51 -- Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported on Thursday evening that six Palestinians, including a senior resistance leader, and a child, were killed when the Israeli Air Force fired missiles into a home in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. A child was also killed and five residents were injured when the army bombarded Gaza City. The sources stated that the Israeli Air Force fired a missile at the house of one of the leaders of the Popular Resistance Committees in Al Sho’outh neighborhood in Rafah, killing six Palestinians. Three of them are leaders of the Popular Resistance committees, while one of the three was identified as Awad An-Nairab, the Secretary-General of the Committees. Adham Abu Salmiyya, spokesperson of the Emergency and Medical Services in Gaza, reported that the bodies of four of the slain residents were severely mutilated due to the blast, and that one of them is a 2-year-old child. Besides An-Nairab, the slain residents were identified as Imad Hammad, leader of the Salah Ed-Deen Brigades, Khaled Shaath, and his son Malak, 2 years old, Imad Nassr, and Khaled Al Masry. In another Israeli military escalation, a 13-year-old child was killed, and 18 other civilians were injured when the army bombarded several areas in northern Gaza and in Gaza City. The child was identified as Mahmoud Abu Samra. [Photo of Mahmoud in school] Children and women were among the wounded; they were all moved to the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
http://www.imemc.org/article/61854?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e0eab95958-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update 3: Video of Gazans carrying victims to ambulances amid fire and wreckage from bombing 18 Aug
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdPLmjA3pL4&feature=channel_video_title&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e0eab95958-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update 4: Initial photos of the bombing in Gaza tonight
uploaded about 5am 19 Aug -- Muaz Khaled -- These photos of the Israeli bombing of civilian homes in the Gaza Strip -- 1 child was killed more than 15 injured
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.143940412361477.36940.100002365566031
Update 5: Victims of Israeli strike on Gaza - in pictures
[WARNING: graphic!] Uruknet 18 Aug -- Six Palestinians were killed and two injured on Thursday in an Israeli airstrike, targeting a house in Al- Shauth, a neighborhood in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, according to witnesses. Medical sources said that six Palestinians arrived to Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital dead; bodies of four of them were torn into pieces.
http://www.uruknet.info/?new=80602&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=e0eab95958-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Update 6: More on Israel retaliation
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/30-rockets-strike-israel-day-after-coordinated-terror-attacks-kill-8-1.379518
Update 7: Arab League condemns Israel's strikes on Gaza which killed 15 including children.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/arab-league-condemns-israel-air-strikes-on-gaza-1.379838
Update 8: Cease fire agreed by militant groups in Gaza and Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/hamas-gaza-militant-groups-agree-to-cease-fire-with-israel-1.379852
Update 9: Israel must not escalate violence in Gaza. Hamas was not responsible for the terrorist attacks, but will fight back.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-must-not-escalate-the-situation-in-the-south-1.379818
Update 10: Uri Avnery on the significance of the terror attacks in the Sinai onIsraeli politics. Does it give netanyahu an out from the social problems of Israel?
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1313774705/

58) Best analysis I have seen of Israeli protests, their origins, their goals, their failures, and their possible futures.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/4/Social-Origins-of-the-Tent-by-Max-Ajl-110819-999.html

59) One "social democratic" candidate for leadership of Labour is an Israeli Zionist with no conscience.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/labor-s-shelly-yachimovich-represents-the-fake-left-1.379751

A Father's Plea: The Persecution of John Walker Lindh

2011-07-12T06:56:00.001-07:00

America's 'Detainee 001' – The Persecution of John Walker Lindh

Frank Lindh, father of 'American Taliban' John Walker Lindh, explains why his son is an innocent victim of America's 'war on terror'

By Frank Lindh

July 11. 2011 "The Guardian" -- John Phillip Walker Lindh, my son, was raised a Roman Catholic, but converted to Islam when he was 16 years old. He has an older brother and a younger sister. John is scholarly and devout, devoted to his family, and blessed with a powerful intellect, a curious mind, and a wry sense of humour.

Labelled by the American government as "Detainee 001" in the "war on terror", John occupies a prison cell in Terre Haute, Indiana. He has been a prisoner of the American government since 1 December 2001, less than three months after the terror attacks of 9/11.

John is entirely innocent of any involvement in the terror attacks, or any allegiance to terrorism. That is not disputed by the American government. Indeed, all accusations of terrorism against John were dropped by the government in a plea bargain, which in turn was approved by the US district court in which the case was brought.

Despite its proud history as a stable constitutional democracy, the US has, for 10 years, been affected by post-traumatic shock, following the horrific events of 11 September 2001. I can find no other explanation for the barbaric mistreatment and continued detention of a gentle young man like John Lindh.

John is blessed with a calm and curious nature. As a child, he was more sceptical than our other two children about such things as Santa Claus. When he was 12 years old, he saw the film Malcolm X, and was moved by its depiction of the pilgrims in Mecca. He began to explore Islam and, four years later, decided to convert.

What attracted John to Islam, I think, was the simplicity of its beliefs, and the authenticity of its source documents – the Qur'an and Hadith. It appealed to his intellect as well as his heart. To me and to John's mother, his conversion was a positive development and certainly not a source of worry. I once told him I felt he had always been a Muslim, and only needed to find Islam in order to discover this in himself. He remained the loving son and brother he had always been. There was never a breach of any kind between us.

John had always been a good student, but his study habits improved after his conversion. He immersed himself in Islamic literature, and quickly came to the conclusion that he needed to learn Arabic in order to continue his studies.

In 1998, at the age of 17, John left home in California and travelled to Sana'a, the ancient capital of Yemen, where he embarked on a rigorous course of study. He was determined not only to become fluent in Arabic, but also to pursue an education in the old traditions of Islam. He returned home briefly in 1999, and then returned to Yemen in February 2000, just before his 19th birthday. John's mother and I supported him, emotionally and financially. He remained in close contact with us and with his sister and brother while overseas.

In September 2000, John told me he intended to continue his studies in Pakistan, focusing on Arabic grammar and Qur'an memorisation. I wrote back: "I trust your judgment and hope you have a wonderful adventure." He arrived in Pakistan in November 2000 and enrolled in a Qur'an memorisation programme in a madrasa.

John's letters home showed passionate enthusiasm for both Yemen and Pakistan. He loved the cultures he discovered in both countries. He was a Muslim in a Muslim world.

In late April 2001, John wrote to me and his mother, saying he planned to go into the mountains to escape the oppressive summer heat. We had no further contact from him for seven months. Unbeknown to us, he crossed the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan, with the intent of volunteering for service in the Afghan army under the control of the Taliban government.

John's mother and I grew increasingly worried as the summer passed. John had warned us that there might be gaps in his contact with us, as there were no internet cafes in the mountains of Pakistan from which to send emails. But we did not anticipate such a complete lapse in correspondence from him. We also never guessed he was in Afghanistan rather than Pakistan. John's mother, especially, was frantic with worry as the months passed with no word from him.

At that time, the Taliban governed most of Afghanistan, and were engaged in a long-running civil war against a Russian-backed insurgency known euphemistically as the Northern Alliance. John was quickly accepted as a volunteer soldier, and received two months of infantry training in a Taliban military camp before being dispatched to the front lines.

Rohan Gunaratna, an international terrorism expert and author of the book Inside Al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, conducted a lengthy interview with John, and prepared a written report for the American court to which John was brought for trial. Gunaratna is an expert consultant to the US government itself on terrorism matters. "Those who, like Mr Lindh, merely fought the Northern Alliance," he wrote, "cannot be deemed terrorists. Their motivation was to serve and to protect suffering Muslims in Afghanistan, not to kill civilians."

John described his motivation in similar terms. "I felt," he later explained to the court, "that I had an obligation to assist what I perceived to be an Islamic liberation movement against the warlords who were occupying several provinces in northern Afghanistan. I had learned from books, articles and individuals with first-hand experience of numerous atrocities committed by the Northern Alliance against civilians. I had heard reports of massacres, child rape, torture and castration."

To the western world, and to me as John's father after I learned where he had been, this was misplaced idealism. John's decision to volunteer for the army of Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban was rash, and failed to take into account the Taliban's mistreatment of its own citizens. But his assessment of the Northern Alliance warlords was neither exaggerated nor inaccurate. The brutal human rights violations committed by the Northern Alliance were thoroughly documented in the US department of state's annual human rights reports throughout the 90s. They did indeed include massacres, rape (of both women and children), torture and castration.

John's impulse was to help. In doing so, he was responding not only to his own conscience, but to a central tenet of the Islamic faith, which calls upon able-bodied young men to defend innocent Muslim civilians from attack, through military service if necessary. This is not "terrorism" at all, but precisely its opposite.

From the time of the Soviet invasion in 1979, tens of thousands of young Muslim men from all over the world had volunteered, as John did, for military service in Afghanistan. It was comparable to the influx of young volunteer soldiers in support of the republic of Spain during the Spanish civil war.

These young soldiers performed heroically in the defeat of the Soviet Union. Their cause was openly supported by the American government itself, particularly during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, who took office two weeks before John's birth in early 1981.

In March 1982, President Reagan declared: "Every country and every people has a stake in the Afghan resistance, for the freedom fighters of Afghanistan are defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability." In March 1983, he cited "the Afghan freedom fighters" as "an example to all the world of the invincibility of the ideals we in this country hold most dear, the ideals of freedom and independence". In a March 1985 speech, he said: "They are our brothers, these freedom fighters, and we owe them our help… They are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French resistance. We cannot turn away from them."

Given the history of US involvement in Afghanistan, it would seem absurd to suggest that John Lindh was being disloyal to America when he went into Afghanistan in 2001 and joined the army there. If the march of history could be arrested in the spring or summer of 2001, John's odyssey might be regarded as quixotic and unusual for a young American, but not in the least bit sinister, and certainly not criminal in nature. In fact, John's concern about the suffering of people in Afghanistan was shared by his own government. On 21 July 2000, for example, the US department of state issued a "fact sheet" that reported that the US was "the largest single donor of humanitarian aid to the Afghan people".

The US also provided substantial economic assistance directly to the Taliban government. In May 2001, for example, the American government under President George W Bush announced a grant of $43m to the Taliban government for opium eradication. Secretary of State Colin Powell personally announced the grant himself in a press release and pledged: "We will continue to look for ways to provide more assistance to the Afghans." The New York Times called this "a first, cautious step toward reducing the isolation of the Taliban" by the new Bush administration.

This is not to suggest the US was entirely friendly with the Taliban. In 1999, President Clinton placed the Taliban government under economic sanctions as a consequence of its human rights violations, particularly against women. But there were no hostilities between the US and the Taliban, and by 2001 relations were improving.

In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell describes a nightmarish world of perpetual war, in which two massive nations, Oceania and Eastasia, are aligned against a third nation state known as Eurasia. The alliance between Oceania and Eastasia ends, and Eastasia then begins fighting alongside Eurasia against Oceania. In what Orwell famously called "doublethink", the population of Oceania then is taught to believe "we have always been at war with Eastasia".

Something eerily similar happened in the US after 9/11. Thirty years of American policy abruptly changed and America swung to the opposite side. The Taliban became our enemy. "They have always been our enemy" is what people in America came to believe.

In October 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan and aligned itself with the Northern Alliance in order to oust the Taliban government. Colin Powell's April press release was quietly removed from the state department's website.

In early September 2001, days before the 9/11 attacks, John arrived at his military post in the province of Takhar in the far north-eastern corner of Afghanistan, near the border of Tajikistan. This was the frontline in the civil war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. John was issued with a rifle and two hand grenades – standard issue for an infantry soldier. He performed sentry duty and did some cooking for the Taliban troops. He never used his weapons. He served with a number of other foreign volunteer soldiers. They were called Ansar, an Arabic term meaning "helpers".

The training camp in Afghanistan where the Ansar received their infantry training was funded by Osama bin Laden, who also visited the camp on a regular basis. He was regarded by the volunteer soldiers as a hero in the struggle against the Soviet Union. These soldiers did not suspect Bin Laden's involvement in planning the 9/11 attacks, which were carried out in secret. John himself sat through speeches by Bin Laden in the camp on two occasions, and actually met Bin Laden on the second such occasion. John has said he found him unimpressive.

After 9/11, America's intelligence agencies came under intense scrutiny for their failure to anticipate and prevent the attacks, and their apparent inability to track down Osama bin Laden. It is a curious fact of history that John Lindh, an idealistic 20-year-old Californian, suspecting nothing of bin Laden's connections to terrorism, was able without difficulty to meet this notorious figure in the summer of 2001. Why American intelligence agents were unable to do so remains unexplained. John himself did not believe he was encountering a terrorist. John knew only that bin Laden had been generous in funding the military camp, and he was able to discern that Bin Laden was not a legitimate scholar or leader in the traditions of Islam.

The American invasion of Afghanistan commenced in October 2001. Few American troops were deployed in the northern reaches of Afghanistan. The Americans relied on Northern Alliance forces as their proxy, combined with aerial bombing, to displace the Taliban forces.

The front between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance in Takhar where John was stationed quickly dissolved after the bombing commenced. Taliban troops fled in panicked retreat to Kunduz. They marched without stop for two days, covering a distance of 50 miles of harsh, desert terrain. The conditions were hellish. The Northern Alliance troops killed all stragglers who fell behind, often castrating them before killing them.

The soldiers at Kunduz who wished to surrender faced a terrible dilemma. For years it had been the practice of the Northern Alliance to torture and murder prisoners of war. These crimes were legendary and well known to both the Taliban soldiers and the US government.

John's lawyers later obtained from the American government an unclassified cable sent from the US embassy in Kunduz on 20 November 2001, to Colin Powell and the joint chiefs of staff. The cable was labelled "priority". It bore the subject line: "Kunduz representatives appeal for a bombing halt during surrender negotiations." It said that, according to local authorities in Kunduz, Taliban soldiers trapped in Kunduz "wanted to surrender to someone who would not kill them". This was described as a "sticking point" in the surrender negotiations. The Taliban, according to the cable, had "proposed surrendering to the US or the UN". The cable confirmed that the American authorities had informed their counterparts in Kunduz that "neither was a realistic option and suggested that they seek the [Red Cross's] involvement if they had not done so already".

On 21 November 2001, the regional Taliban military leader, Mullah Fazel Mazloom, entered into face-to-face surrender negotiations with General Abdul Rashid Dostum of the Northern Alliance. The pact was destined not to end well. Dostum was a notorious figure who had served as an officer in the Soviet occupation government. Troops under Dostum's command were believed responsible for the mass execution of an alleged 2,000 Taliban prisoners captured near Mazar-i-Sharif in 1997. The New Yorker magazine has referred to Dostum as "perhaps Afghanistan's most notorious warlord", a man who is "viewed by most human rights organisations as among the worst war criminals in the country".

Nonetheless, a bargain was reached in which Dostum demanded and received a large cash payment, then agreed to grant approximately 400 disarmed Taliban soldiers safe passage through Dostum-controlled territory to the city of Herat. John, in haggard condition after the march through Takhar, was among those 400 troops.

The Taliban soldiers had no sooner laid down their arms when Dostum breached the agreement. Instead of the safe passage they had been promised, the soldiers were loaded into trucks and diverted to the ancient Qala-i-Jangi fortress on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif. As the prisoners were being unloaded in the courtyard, John heard a loud explosion when one of the prisoners detonated a grenade that he had concealed. Two of Dostum's men were killed in the blast.

Dostum's soldiers quickly regained control, but they were infuriated. The prisoners were crowded into the basement of a sturdy, pink Soviet-built classroom building adjacent to a horse pasture. The "pink building", as it became known, was at the centre of the events that unfolded over the next seven days. It was dark in the basement rooms into which the 400 men were crowded. To retaliate for the earlier attack, Dostum's men dropped a grenade down an air duct that wounded or killed several prisoners, narrowly missing John, who spent the night crouched in a corner unable to sleep.

The next morning, Sunday 25 November, was sunny and warm at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress. Video footage shows a seemingly calm scene as the prisoners, with arms tied behind backs, are led out of the basement and made to kneel in rows in the horse pasture beside the pink building. The main sound on the film is the chirping of hundreds of birds. Dostum's men were rough. Some prisoners were kicked and beaten with sticks. John was hit in the back of the head and nearly knocked unconscious. Nonetheless, he hoped they would be released for the agreed upon journey to Herat.

Although there were no US or British troops at the fortress that morning, two American intelligence agents were present, dressed in civilian clothes. They circulated among the prisoners, occasionally giving instructions to Dostum's guards. One of them, Dave Tyson, was dressed in a long Afghan shirt and carried a large gun and a video camera. The other, Johnny "Mike" Spann, a former marine, was dressed in a black shirt and jeans. He was also armed. As they moved among the prisoners, they singled out captives for interrogation. They never identified themselves as American agents, and so they appeared to John and the other prisoners to be mercenaries working directly for General Dostum.

John was spotted and removed from the body of prisoners for questioning. The moment was recorded on video and later seen by millions on television.

In the video, John sits mutely on the ground as he is questioned about his nationality.

"Irish? Ireland?" Spann asks.

John remains silent.
American Among Taliban Prisoners John Walker Lindh at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress on 3 December 2001, awaiting treatment from the Red Cross, having been captured by US forces. Photograph: James Hill/Getty Images

"Who brought you here?… You believe in what you are doing that much, you're willing to be killed here?"

Still no reply.

Tyson to Spann [for John's benefit]: "The problem is, he's got to decide if he wants to live or die, and die here. We're just going to leave him, and he's going to [expletive] sit in prison the rest of his [expletive] short life. It's his decision, man. We can only help the guys who want to talk to us. We can only get the Red Cross to help so many guys."

I think it was apparent that Spann and Tyson were American agents, but because they were in the company of Dostum's forces, unaccompanied by American troops, it clearly was not safe for John to talk to them. They meant business when they said John might be killed by Dostum, and that the Red Cross could only "help so many guys". John was in extreme peril at that moment, and he knew it.

John was then returned to the main body of prisoners, while others were still being brought out of the basement and forced to kneel in the horse pasture. Then, suddenly, there was an explosion at the entrance to the basement, shouts were heard, and two prisoners grabbed the guards' weapons. According to Guardian journalist Luke Harding's account: "It was then… that Spann 'did a Rambo'. As the remaining guards ran away, Spann flung himself to the ground and began raking the courtyard and its prisoners with automatic fire. Five or six prisoners jumped on him, and he disappeared beneath a heap of bodies."

Spann's body was later recovered by US special forces troops. He was the first American to die in combat in the American–Afghan war. He was buried with full military honours at Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington.

As soon as the uprising began, the Northern Alliance guards turned their weapons on the 400 bound prisoners, killing or severely wounding scores of them. Some prisoners tried to stand and run; they were gunned down. It was a slaughter. John tried to run, but he was shot in the right thigh and fell to the ground. For the next 12 hours he lay motionless, pretending to be dead.

There were two groups of Taliban prisoners in the fortress: those who chose to fight and those who hunkered down in the basement of the pink building and tried to survive. John was in the latter group. The prisoners who fought put up a fierce resistance, looting buildings for weapons and ammunition, firing from windows, rooftops, and ditches. Using a satellite phone, Dave Tyson, who had just seen his colleague killed, telephoned the US embassy in Tashkent, shouting: "We have lost control. Send in helicopters and troops." US air controllers stationed outside the fortress walls called in air strikes, which struck with devastating impact inside the fortress.

More air raids were staged the next day, Monday, when a massive 2,000lb bomb was dropped. It missed its intended target, the pink building, and hit Dostum's soldiers. This "friendly fire" incident brought an end to the air strikes. For John and the other Taliban soldiers holed up in the basement of the pink building, the percussive effect of the bomb shook them to their bones and left them trembling.

By Wednesday, the last of the resisting Taliban fighters had been killed, and Dostum's soldiers were once again in full control of the fortress. Luke Harding was allowed into the compound along with some other journalists, and he found a horrific scene: "We had expected slaughter, but I was unprepared for its hellish scale… It was hard to take it all in. The dead and various parts of the dead… turned up wherever you looked: in thickets of willows and poplars; in waterlogged ditches; in storage rooms piled with ammunition boxes." Harding observed that many of the Taliban prisoners had died with their hands tied behind their backs.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Dostum's troops engaged in a sustained effort to kill the Taliban survivors who remained in the basement of the pink building, which they were afraid to enter themselves. More grenades were dropped down the air ducts and RPGs were fired directly into the basement. John received shrapnel wounds in his shoulder, back, ankle and calf, in addition to the bullet still lodged in his thigh. At one point, fuel was poured down the air ducts and a fire was ignited in which some fuel-drenched prisoners were burned to death. John, choking on the black smoke, lost consciousness. He awoke with the taste of gasoline in his mouth and loud explosions in the hall, as more rockets and grenades ricocheted through the basement.

On Friday, Dostum's troops tried yet another tactic. They flooded the basement with cold water. Unable to stand on his own, John braced himself on a stick and a fellow soldier for the next 24 hours to avoid drowning in the waist-deep water, which was full of blood and waste. The next morning no one inside the fortress thought it possible that anyone was still alive in the pink building, but 86 of the prisoners had managed to survive the week-long ordeal. One of them was John Lindh.

On Saturday 1 December, the Red Cross arrived at the fortress and the survivors, who for several days had been trying to surrender, were finally allowed to exit the basement. When they emerged into the bright sunlight, they encountered a confusing horde of journalists, Red Cross workers, Dostum's soldiers, and British and American troops.

That evening John and the other survivors were taken to a prison hospital in Sheberghan. Although wet and cold from the flooding of the basement, they were transported in open bed trucks in the frigid night air. At Sheberghan, John was carried on a stretcher and set down in a small room with approximately 15 other prisoners. CNN correspondent Robert Pelton came in accompanied by a US special forces soldier and a cameraman. Despite John's protests, Pelton persisted in filming John and asking questions as an American medical officer administered morphine intravenously. By the time he departed a short time later, Pelton had captured on videotape an interview in which John said that his "heart had become attached" to the Taliban, that every Muslim aspired to become a shahid, or martyr, and that he had attended a training camp funded by Osama bin Laden.

The CNN interview became a sensation in the US. By mid-December, virtually every newspaper in America was running front-page stories about the American Taliban, and the broadcast media were saturated with features and commentary about John. Here was a "traitor" who had "fought against America" and aligned himself with the 11 September terrorists. Newsweek magazine published an issue with John's photograph on the cover, under the caption "American Taliban".

Beginning in early December, President Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney, members of the cabinet and other officials then embarked on a series of truly extraordinary public statements about John, referring to him repeatedly as an "al-Qaida fighter", a terrorist and a traitor. I think it fair to say there has never been a case quite like this in the history of the US, in which officials at the highest levels of the government made such prejudicial statements about an individual citizen who had not yet been charged with any crime.

I will offer only a small sample of these statements. In an interview at the White House on 21 December 2001, President Bush said John was "the first American al-Qaida fighter that we have captured". Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defence, told reporters at a press briefing that John had been "captured by US forces with an AK-47 in his hands". Colin Powell, secretary of state, said John had "brought shame upon his family". Rudy Giuliani, New York mayor, remarked: "I believe the death penalty is the appropriate remedy to consider."

John Ashcroft, the US attorney general, staged two televised press conferences in which he accused John of attacking the US. "Americans who love their country do not dedicate themselves to killing Americans," he declared.

A federal judge took the unusual step of writing to the New York Times criticising the attorney general for violating "Justice Department guidelines on the release of information related to criminal proceedings that are intended to ensure that a defendant is not prejudiced when such an announcement is made".

Even the ultra-conservative National Review thought Ashcroft had gone too far in making such prejudicial comments about a pending prosecution. It criticised the comments as "inappropriate" and "gratuitous", stating that in the future "it would be better for the attorney general simply to announce the facts of the indictments, and to avoid extra comments which might unintentionally imperil successful prosecutions".

I am a lawyer, trained in the law, with more than 25 years of experience. Never have I seen or read about a case in which a person accused of a crime was so conspicuously deprived of what we call "the presumption of innocence". On the contrary, my son was presumed guilty, not only by government officials but by the entire mainstream journalism and media establishment in America. It was – and still is – widely reported in America that John Lindh is a "terrorist" who fought against the US.

Our lives back home were completely upturned by the sudden and pervasive notoriety of John's case. We found ourselves dodging television cameras and reporters. In the first couple of days after John's capture, I appeared on several news programmes in an effort to explain who John was and to ask for mercy. My sense of privacy and anonymity were at least temporarily destroyed.

All of us in John's family also were wracked with anxiety about John's own physical and emotional wellbeing. We had no source of information about John from within the government itself. They were holding our son incommunicado, even as President Bush and other officials made repeated statements about him. Anything we were able to learn about John came from the news media, not from the government.

Happily, our neighbours, friends, co-workers and even strangers in California were uniformly warm and supportive towards me, John's mother and our other children. One Sunday, on my way to church, a friendly stranger stopped his car and shouted to me: "How's John?"
John Walker Lindh’s father and mother John Walker Lindh’s father, Frank, and mother, Marilyn, outside the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, 2002. Photograph: Hillery Smith Garrison/AP

Another enormous source of comfort to us came from James Brosnahan, a distinguished and courageous trial lawyer in San Francisco who agreed to represent John. On 3 December, Brosnahan took up his case, and from that day forward we had a valiant defender in him and the other lawyers who worked on the defence team. It felt as if a protective shield had been constructed around John and all of us in the family.

Once John was in the custody of the US military, the US government had to decide what to do with him. The FBI has estimated that during the 90s as many as 2,000 American citizens travelled to Muslim lands to take up arms voluntarily, and that as many as 400 American Muslims received training in military camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. None of these American citizens was indicted, or labelled as traitor and terrorist. They were simply ignored by their government, which made no attempt to interfere with their travel. But the 9/11 attacks changed everything, and it was the timing of John's capture that contributed to his fate. It soon became apparent to me that, rather than simply repatriate my wounded son, the government was intent on prosecuting him as a "terrorist".

In the days and weeks that followed, John endured abuse from the US military that exceeded the bounds of what any civilised nation should tolerate, even in time of war. Donald Rumsfeld directly ordered the military to "take the gloves off" in questioning John.

On 7 December, wounded and still suffering from the effects of the trauma at Qala-i-Jangi, John was flown to Camp Rhino, a US marine base approximately 70 miles south of Kandahar. There he was taunted and threatened, stripped of his clothing, and bound naked to a stretcher with duct tape wrapped around his chest, arms, and ankles. Even before he got to Camp Rhino, John's wrists and ankles were bound with plastic restraints that caused severe pain and left permanent scars – sure proof of torture. Still blindfolded, he was locked in an unheated metal shipping container that sat on the desert floor. He shivered uncontrollably in the bitter cold. Soldiers outside pounded on the sides, threatening to kill him.

After two days in these circumstances, John was removed from the shipping container and taken into a building at Camp Rhino. When his blindfold was removed, John found himself in front of a man who identified himself as an FBI agent and then read from an advice-of-rights form. When the agent reached the part that concerned right to counsel, he said: "Of course, there are no lawyers here." John was not told his mother and I had retained an attorney for him who was ready and willing to travel to Afghanistan. Worried that he would be returned to the shipping container if he did not sign the form, John signed the waiver.

A lengthy interrogation followed, after which US military personnel put John back in the metal shipping container, although this time his leg restraints were loosened and he was no longer bound by duct tape or blindfolded. On 14 December, he was placed on board the USS Peleliu, where navy physicians observed that he was suffering from dehydration, hypothermia, and frostbite, and that he could not walk. On 15 December, the bullet was finally removed from his leg in a surgical procedure – more than two weeks after he had been transferred to the custody of the US military. The doctor who removed the bullet later told John's lawyers there had been little or no healing of the wound, which he attributed to malnutrition and cold.

In June 2002, Newsweek obtained copies of internal email messages from the justice department's ethics office commenting on the Lindh case as the events were unfolding in December 2001. The office specifically warned in advance against the interrogation tactics the FBI used at Camp Rhino, and concluded that the interrogation of John without his lawyer present would be unlawful and unethical. This advice was ignored by the FBI agent who conducted the interrogation.

Interestingly, in an 10 December email, one of the justice department ethics lawyers noted: "At present, we have no knowledge that he did anything other than join the Taliban."

The government brought 10 counts against John in its overblown indictment. "If convicted of these charges," attorney general Ashcroft boasted, "Walker Lindh could receive multiple life sentences, six additional 10-year sentences, plus 30 years." The most serious count was a charge of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the death of Mike Spann. The charge was groundless: the prisoner uprising at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress had been spontaneous and John was also a victim, not a participant.

John arrived back in the US on 23 January 2002 in chains aboard a military plane that landed at Washington Dulles International airport. The government selected Dulles so they could bring charges against John in northern Virginia, near the Pentagon (one of the 9/11 targets), where hostility against John was assured. He was flown by helicopter to the Alexandria City Jail. John's mother and I tried to visit him that night, along with the lawyers we had retained for him, but we were turned away. We finally were able to see our son the next morning in a holding cell on the first floor of the US courthouse. His lawyers met him only briefly before his first appearance in the court that morning.

The case of United States of America v John Philip Walker Lindh was set for trial before Judge T S Ellis III. On 24 January, the judge announced he was setting a trial date for late August. We were horrified, as this would ensure that John would be on trial on the first anniversary of 9/11. It would be hard to conceive of a more prejudicial circumstance for a criminal defendant, especially in the wake of the intemperate statements attorney general Ashcroft had made in his two press conferences.

John's lawyers filed a motion to "suppress" the statements that had been extracted him under duress at Camp Rhino. A hearing was scheduled in July 2001, which would have included testimony by John and others about the brutality he had suffered at the hands of US soldiers. On the eve of the hearing, the government prosecutors approached John's attorneys and negotiated a plea agreement. It was apparent they did not want evidence of John's torture to be introduced in court.

In the plea agreement John acknowledged that by serving as a soldier in Afghanistan he had violated the anti-Taliban economic sanctions imposed by President Clinton and extended by President Bush. This was, as John's lawyer pointed out, a "regulatory infraction". John also agreed to a "weapons charge", which was used to enhance his prison sentence. In particular, he acknowledged that he had carried a rifle and two grenades while serving as a soldier in the Taliban army. All of the other counts in the indictment were dropped by the government, including the terrorism charges the attorney general had so strongly emphasised and the charge of conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Mike Spann.

At the insistence of defence secretary Rumsfeld, the plea agreement also included a clause in which John relinquished his claims of torture.

The punishment in the plea agreement was by any measure harsh: 20 years of imprisonment, commencing on 1 December 2001, the day John came into the hands of US forces in Afghanistan. The prosecutors told John's attorneys that the White House insisted on the lengthy sentence, and that they could not negotiate downward.

On 4 October 2002, the judge approved the plea agreement as "just and reasonable" and sentenced John to prison. Before the sentence was pronounced, John was allowed to read a prepared statement, which provided a moment of intense drama in the crowded courtroom. He spoke with strong emotion. He explained why he had gone to Afghanistan to help the Taliban in their fight with the Northern Alliance, saying it arose from his compassion for the suffering of ordinary people who had been subjected to atrocities committed by the Northern Alliance. He explained that when he went to Afghanistan he "saw the war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance as a continuation of the war between the mujahideen and the Soviets".

John strongly condemned terrorism. "I went to Afghanistan with the intention of fighting against terrorism and oppression." He had acted, he said, out of a sense of religious duty and he condemned terrorism as being "completely against Islam". He said: "I have never supported terrorism in any form and never would."

After a brief recess, the judge granted a request by John Spann, the father of Mike Spann, to address the court and express his dissatisfaction with the plea agreement. He began by saying that he, his family, and many other people believed that John had played a role in the killing of Mike Spann. Judge Ellis interrupted and said: "Let me be clear about that. The government has no evidence of that." Spann responded: "I understand." The judge politely explained that the "suspicions, the inferences you draw from the facts are not enough to warrant a jury conviction". He said that Mike Spann had died a hero, and that among the things he died for was the principle that "we don't convict people in the absence of proof beyond a reasonable doubt".

Osama bin Laden is dead. John Lindh, now 30 years old, remains in prison. He spends most of his time pursuing his study of the Qur'an and Islamic scholarship. He also reads widely in a variety of nonfiction subjects, especially history and politics. He remains a devout Muslim.

As a father, I am grateful that John survived his ordeal, and I am pleased that he maintains his good-natured disposition. I am especially proud of the dignity he displayed throughout his ordeal overseas and in court.

Other than his lawyers, the only visitors John has been permitted during all his years in prison are those of us in his immediate family. We treasure these visits. We are not allowed any sort of physical contact with John, and are kept separated from him by a glass partition. We must speak via telephones, and everything we say is monitored and recorded by a government agent who sits in an adjoining room. Despite these constraints, our conversations are free-flowing and punctuated with humour.

A commentator at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University called this "a petty prosecution" that was "unworthy of a great country". But it was more than petty, in my view; it was brutally inhumane.

My hope and prayer is that at some point rational, fair-minded officials in the American government will see the wisdom in releasing John from prison, rather than making him serve the entire 20-year sentence. His continued incarceration serves no good purpose. Releasing John from prison would help restore America's image in the world, and particularly among Muslim people, as a humane country committed to the rule of law.

The author has donated the fee for this article to charity.

Missouri Rages, Threatening Ft. Calhoun and Cooper Nuclear Facilities

2011-07-04T15:12:00.000-07:00

Bombed levee, major flooding event above Cooper Nuclear Site (Video)

by Deborah Dupre
Human Rights Examiner

The bombed levee near Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station in Nebraska Friday caused a more than significant flood event downriver according to County Attorney Matt Wilbur, as it rose the swollen and raging Missouri River three to four inches when only "a half-inch rise is significant." Downriver 70 miles south of Omaha, Nebraska is Cooper Nuclear Facility, still online and posing a bigger threat than Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station, but no Fukushima according to CNN's interview with veteran nuclear expert, Arnie Gundersen.

Private citizens representing Vanman #30 levee detonated the privately owned levee, according to News 6 WOWT that reports that the bombing breached a half-mile stretch of the levee from river mile marker 637 to 637.5, around 10 a.m. Friday. As long as the bomber was properly licensed, it appears no laws were broken since the land is private.

Before Friday, as reported by the Examiner, "officials' efforts failed to prevent flooding the farmlands in the area. Then the levee there broke. Crops were flooded."

In the week that followed, there had been discussions with local government about lowering the new levee according to KETV News, but "no clear answers" had been forthcoming.

"These levees are saturated," said County Attorney Matt Wilbur on News 6 WOWT News, Friday evening. "We have the most water on them for the longest period of time we've ever had.

"This levee gets blown and we saw a several inch rise in the river shortly thereafter, so even a three or four inch pulse coming down the river when we're looking at every half inch as being significant, is a fairly big event."

Because of decay heat at Cooper Nuclear Plant, Gundersen told CNN Thursday that it poses a bigger threat than Fort Calhoun Nuclear. Both nuclear energy facilities are on the banks of the now swollen and raging Missouri River. (See video on page left)

Although believing Cooper Nuclear facility to be safe on Thursday, Gundersen also said on CNN that if a dam north of the facility broke, causing extra water to come downstream to Cooper, "all bets are off."

Gavin Dam - 'High risk operation'

North of Cooper Nuclear Plant is one of the nation's largest reservoir systems comprising six Army Corps of Engineer dams, each swollen and feeding into the now raging Missouri River. Eyes are on Gavin Point Dam in Yankton, South Dakota the last dam downstream. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants to know what locals downstream, especially near the two nuclear energy plants fear, "What if Gavin's Dam breaks?"
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Gavin Point Dam has been "experiencing water levels three and one half feet higher than they should be."

"Since Gavin's Point is the last dam on the Missouri before the St. Louis area – it's a high risk operation," reported Operations Manager David Becker. (KCAUTV )

"It is really important right now because we are one of the major components, we are probably the major river, so our releases are important to try and minimize flood damage," said Becker, who then explained that the flooding will last longer than previously predicted.

According to Becker, the dam releases will alleviate flooding, the public needs to expect "high waters on the Missouri until at least this fall."

Because of issues with the dams, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission regional office issued an official request on Wednesday to the Corps for its 2009 and 2010 analyses of what would happen if a dam fails, as reported by Nancy Gardner for World-Herald. (Gardner's article had been reported by Omaha World-News and was online but now, "can not be found.")

Gardner reports that Anton Vegel, director of the division of reactor safety for Arlington, Tex. office of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requested that Col. Robert J. Ruch, commander of the Omaha District of the corps supply the "what if a dam fails" information. Omaha district oversees the dams.

"The dams themselves have had some issues, according to the corps, but nothing that affects their integrity, said John Bertino, head of dam safety for the Omaha district. While the amount of water being released from them is a record, the amount of water being held behind the is not, he said."

As for the deliberately breached levee and the extra water pulse it sent downstream, it appears no law was broken since the levee is private according to County Attorney Matt Wilber reporting to News 6 WOWT.

"There are tens of thousands of citizens on both sides of the river who are affected by the flooding on the Missouri River and private activities such as this, which have the potential to affect those lives should not be undertaken without a full consideration of the consequences," Wilbur said.
Video: Arnie Gundersen Discusses Situation at flooded Ft. Calhoun and Cooper Nuclear Power Plants.

Gundersen Discusses the Situation at the flooded Ft. Calhoun and Cooper Nuclear Power Plants.

Video: Arnie Gundersen Discusses Situation at flooded Ft. Calhoun and Cooper Nuclear Power Plants.

By Deborah Dupre
Human Rights Examiner

Deborah Dupre' holds American and Australian science and education graduate degrees plus thirty years human rights, environmental and peace...

Continue reading on Examiner.com Bombed levee, major flooding event above Cooper Nuclear Site (Video) - National Human Rights | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/bombed-levee-major-flooding-event-above-cooper-nuclear-site-video#ixzz1RB38VyR3