Behind the Brazilian "Impeachment"

The impeachment crisis shaking Brazil: An Interview with Ana Saggioro Garcia

by Todd Chretien and Bruno Ruviaro - Socialist Worker.org

April 20, 2016

On April 17, Brazil's lower house of Congress voted by a two-thirds majority to impeach President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers' Party (PT, by its initials in Portuguese), forcing her to relinquish office pending further procedures. The presidency now passes to Dilma's (as she is widely known in Brazil) former vice president Michel Temer of the conservative Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), who only resigned from her cabinet last month. Her government will now appeal the decision to the country's Supreme Court, before the final vote proceeds to the Senate in the coming months.

The carnival of reaction on display by conservative Congressional deputies during the vote [1] only demonstrates the contempt in which Brazil's elite hold the vast majority of the population. With a GDP in excess of $3 trillion, Brazil is the seventh-largest economy in the world, approximately five times larger than neighboring Argentina. What happens in Brazil matters for all of Latin America.

Faced with a newly ascendant right in Argentina and Venezuela and a worsening continent-wide economic crisis, a decade and a half of center-left and reform-oriented governments known as the "Pink Tide" is rapidly receding. Since the 2002 election of Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, Brazil appeared to provide an alternative to neoliberal austerity, and it even seemed for a time immune to the global Great Recession. Today, the country is facing its deepest political and economic crisis in decades [2], and the PT's promise of social justice is in tatters.

Ana Saggioro Garcia teaches history and international relations at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro and is an associate of the Institute of Alternative Policies in the Southern Cone of Latin America. Along with Patrick Bond, she is the editor of BRICS: An Anticapitalist Critique [3], published last year by Haymarket Books.

Todd Chretien and Bruno Ruviaro interviewed her as the impeachment vote was unfolding in Brazil's Congress.

WE WILL come to the question of the impeachment, but let's begin with some background. Between 1964 and 1985, a brutal military dictatorship ruled Brazil. Can you describe how the Workers' Party emerged out of the struggles for democracy and became a mass party in the process? What were the party's initial political principles and goals?

THE WORKERS' Party (PT) was born in the early 1980s, along with two mass working-class organizations, the Workers' Unified Central (CUT) and the Landless Workers' Movement (MST). The foundation of the PT emerged from dissidents in other parties and political organizations involved in clandestine struggles (armed or not) against the dictatorship.

Since its inception, the PT has differentiated itself from other Communist parties of the time because it was not associated with the USSR. As such, the party did not represent the classic "Communist threat," in spite of maintaining socialism as an ideal, which the party closely linked to democracy. Therefore, socialism and democracy came to be seen as positive utopian alternatives to the dictatorship.

The PT's principle bases came from trade unions (urban and rural), neighborhood organizations, and Comunidades Eclesiais de Base (CEBs)--inclusive Christian communities connected to the Catholic Church and influenced by liberation theology. But it also came to include new social movements that were gaining strength in struggles by Afro-Brazilians and women, as well as in new arenas such as the environment, community participation, etc. Since the PT grew out of different organizations, it has always been a party that contained contending tendencies or currents, ranging from revolutionary to reformist; however, these forces existed within the same party.

The 1989 elections (the first free elections after 21years of a civilian-military dictatorship) were extremely important, as they symbolized the unification of the left behind the figure of Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, a former industrial worker and union organizer.

This unification was reflected in the fight to impeach center-right president Fernando Collor de Mello in 1992 on corruption charges. Collor had defeated Lula in a runoff in the 1989 elections, 53 to 47 percent. The left also came together in other struggles such as the fight against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and for South American economic and political integration.

As time passed, the goals of the Brazilian left became mixed up with the PT's electoral platform with the aim of Lula winning the presidency unifying left-wing forces during election periods. In this manner, those favoring electoral objectives became the majority political current within the party, with Lula and José Dirceu (Lula's former presidential chief of staff, forced to resign in the face of corruption charges) as its leaders.

The party's strategy essentially became to elect Lula, a project which guided all of its actions. Some of the more radical groups inside the PT resigned in 1994 in opposition the party's electoral turn, forming the Trotskyist Unified Socialist Workers Party (PSTU).

Later, after Lula won the presidency in 2002 (but refused to break with neoliberal economic orthodoxy), another group left in 2005 to found the Party for Socialism and Liberty (PSOL).

AFTER SEVERAL failed campaigns, Lula was twice elected president of Brazil, in 2002 and 2006, and his handpicked successor, Dilma Rousseff (who herself was tortured by the military dictatorship) won again for the PT in 2010 and 2014. During that time, the party was credited with important reforms, such as the Bolsa Família (subsidies provided to the poorest families) as well as a booming economy and low unemployment.

How were these gains achieved? And can you explain some of their limits in the overall context of South America's so-called Pink Tide?

THE SOCIAL policies of the PT governments were indeed significant. In addition to income transfer programs such as Bolsa Família, the increase in the minimum wage was very important and, as inflation remained more or less under control for some years, led to increased consumption. Moreover, there were other important programs that broke with some aspects of corporate logic, such as the More Doctors (Mais Médicos) program that sent Brazilian and international medical personnel to work in the poorest interior regions of the country where Brazilian doctors had not typically wanted to practice. With regard to universities, PT governments expanded access for low-income and black students through quotas and scholarships, while building new campuses and opening up jobs for teachers.

Overall, the PT attempted to balance social policies and income redistribution with orthodox macroeconomic measures; for example, they attempted to increase or preserve the primary government surplus in order to make interest payments on foreign debt. In other words, they sought to combine social policies with those designed to win the confidence of the international markets. In South America, Brazil represented a "moderate" model in contrast to the Venezuelan model.

Out of this, we are faced with a paradoxical situation: The largest financial and commercial groups (such as meat giant JBS, Odebrecht construction, Vale mining, and the Andrade Gutierrez, Queiroz Galvão and OAS conglomerates, as well as big banks such as Itaú and Bradesco) developed close relations with Lula, even if today they clearly favor the parties in opposition to Dilma and the PT.

PT governors aligned themselves with what became known as neo-developmentalism; that is, attempts by the state to spur economic activity. This policy envisioned an alliance between the state and private economic entities at the national level, focusing especially on infrastructure and energy projects. The state not only guaranteed commercial opportunities for business, but also secured subsidized loans with sub-market interest rates for some companies.

The Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) played this role most prominently as a major credit provider (both for domestic and foreign investments) for large-scale infrastructure projects, extractive industries and agribusiness. Some liberal economists have criticized BNDES' actions during Lula's and Dilma's governments as supposedly artificial interventions in the economy (favoring some commercial groups to the detriment of others), generating a budget deficit in the event of a crisis and for diverting investments.

However, in reality, this was a false dilemma and failed to address deeper questions about basing economic development on extraction and large-scale infrastructure project, both of which bring with them grave social and environmental consequences. In economies like Brazil that become dependent on the extraction of petroleum and other natural resources, we suffer long-lasting social and environmental consequences such as polluted water and land, the destruction of small peasant farming, and the lack of diversified production which only reinforces dependency and vulnerability.

This so-called "neo-extractive" model, adopted by various South American countries, especially Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, means that the state incentivizes extractive industries (petroleum, gas, mining) by providing assistance for large enterprises (or the developing national technology), or by luring foreign investment, providing tax relief, facilitating credits and/or accelerating exploration concessions, all in order to increase state revenues and royalty payments that come alongside increased exports.

Thus, these countries have been able to finance state activities such as social programs, education, etc., based on resources derived from petroleum and mineral exports, and in some cases also through agribusiness exports. Therefore, when the cycle of high commodity prices crashed for Brazil's main export commodities--such as oil, soy, ore, etc.--this led to a significant decline in revenues, carrying dire consequences right across the continent.

Hence, in times of prosperity, it was possible to conclude a "grand bargain" in order to meet the interests of both big business and the working class, mediated principally by president Lula. But, under capitalism, no such pact can be stable. When resources become scarce, someone has to lose out. And it's clear that the business sector doesn't want to pay for the crisis.

SINCE 2014, Brazil's economy has stalled and has now entered a sharp recession. Can you describe the outlines of the current crisis and its impact on ordinary people in Brazil? Has there been a rise in social struggle as layoffs and austerity have sharpened?

THE CURRENT crisis in Brazil has its roots in the global economic crisis that began in 2008. This crisis has been longer and deeper than was expected. Lula even stated that Brazil wasn't going to be affected. However, it has now impacted all the emerging markets.

The relative decline in Chinese growth has hit Brazil's export sectors hard, especially soy and mining. The neoliberals are arguing that the government spent too much money on stimulus and should have retreated after its first round of anti-cyclical measures. But this argument is only used to criticize the government's overall economic policy, calling it "state-ist."

The two main points raised against the Dilma government by big business are as follows: First, Dilma's government improperly used the public banks and reduced interest rates in 2011 to pressure the private banks; and, second, the state intervened to reduce energy prices by 20 percent in 2013 in anticipation of the end of certain drilling concessions. Added to this was a law written before Lula left office guaranteeing the state oil and gas giant Petrobras certain concessions for oil exploration in the pre-salt layer--a geologic formation offshore Brazil with large proven oil reserves.

These direct interventions in the economy upset some foreign multinationals and banks, as well as some multinationals headquartered in Brazil, putting "the market" on heightened alert for any actions taken by the new Dilma government that might be less conciliatory than Lula's had been. A review of the business press at this time points to a wave of "suspicion" regarding the PT government starting during the middle of Dilma's first term in office.

Ratings agencies next lowered Brazil's bond rating, leading to an increase in economic instability. Inflation began to increase (running at approximately 10 percent per year now), undermining increases in the minimum wage and negatively affecting working-class consumption. Meanwhile, unemployment is rising, especially in industry, approaching 9 percent.

All of this added pressure to Dilma's government, generating a political crisis even more dangerous than the economic crisis. The government was forced into a fiscal adjustment, raising the primary account surplus by cutting social spending, thereby adversely impacting the disproportionately working-class people who had elected her.

This represented an enormous contradiction. Dilma suffered a crisis of legitimacy as the social movements and the working classes were being sacrificed for the sake of economic stability. And long-awaited improvements in public health, education, sanitation and transport, which might signal long-term structural change, remained on the back burner.

All this signifies, therefore, the disruption of "pact," as I referred to before, that was based on granting concessions to big business and banks while providing reforms and favorable social policies for the working class.

Now, neither the working class nor big business wants to "pay the piper" (the motto of the Federation of Industries of São Paulo, FIESP, which spearheaded the impeachment campaign) for this crisis. With respect to the workers, there is a lot of resistance, especially in working-class neighborhoods on the outskirts of major cities.

One newly emerging mass movement is the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST) and there are also other expressions of resistance, such as public school student occupations and strikes by construction workers. But these examples remain scattered and have not been able to build a unified working-class movement.

TURNING TO the impeachment crisis, describe the forces behind the impeachment effort and what validity there is, if any, to the charges against Dilma, Lula and other PT leaders?

IN ORDER to understand how we got to the impeachment process, it is necessary to go back to the 2013 demonstrations. Initially, the "June Days" consisted of diffuse and general demands for better public services such as transportation, but also health and education. They also brought to light indignation against corruption, expressing a common dissatisfaction with traditional political instruments such as parties and elections.

Protesters were energized by the World Cup in 2014, when people rose up against the temporary suspension of civil rights, the favoring of big business interests, the excessive spending on "white elephant" stadium construction, and the associated widespread displacement of poor families.

However, in the 2014 elections, parties to the left of PT (the PSOL and PSTU) were not able to win over the youth who had taken to the streets, some minor exceptions aside. On the other hand, the right wing, supported by the mainstream media, steered the June 2013 demonstrations toward something that, in the end, amounted to a diffuse "anti-corruption" and "anti-PT" sentiment.

Right-wing parties gained strength by associating themselves with the most reactionary sections of society, including those with ties to evangelical and Pentecostal churches. With these new allies, topics such as drugs, same-sex marriage and abortion took center state. Based on all this, the big news in the 2014 elections was the emergence of reactionary force associated with these religious groups.

This exposed, on the one hand, a profound conservatism deeply rooted in Brazilian society and, on the other hand, a powerful political force with party cadres and religious figures being elected into public offices. In the Brazilian Congress today, the "rural" bloc (representatives directly linked to agribusiness interests) grew 33 percent, while the conservative evangelical bloc won more than 53 seats in 2014, roughly 10 percent of Congress.

This bears some resemblance with the Tea Party in the U.S., whereby reactionary positions toward women abortion, and homosexuality are combined with ultra-neoliberal economics, supporting the privatization of public services and state companies, as well as decreasing the power of unions.

Thus, Operation Lava Jato (Car Wash), the federal anti-corruption operation under the direction of investigating judge Sérgio Moro, began in the midst of a conservative backlash, both among the parliamentary parties and in the streets.

Lava Jato began by targeting corrupt networks within Petrobras and, initially, served an important purpose. For the first time, we witnessed management from major multinational corporations, such as Odebrecht and some of the banks, including the director of the financial giant BTG Pactual, going to jail! Brazilian construction firms have grown massively over the years, transformed into huge national monopolies during the military-civilian dictatorship when they established international operations in Africa and throughout South America.

These firms extend into the U.S. market (Odebrecht operates a construction business in Miami, New Orleans, Houston, etc.) and they have always operated as cartels, negotiating contract bids among themselves. This has long been the case and did not come about for the first time during the PT governments.

What came to light during the Dilma government was a modus operandi that reproduces itself in other countries like Peru and Angola: campaign financing by corporations, promiscuous relationships between these companies and local and national governments, and special advantages in contracts with big extractive multinational companies such as Vale and Petrobras.

At first, the imprisonment of businessmen and bankers scared the bourgeoisie. As professor Virginia Fontes noted in an interview, the bourgeoisie felt frightened! Therefore, Lava Jato was redirected to become more of more pointedly political investigation [4], no longer being merely "technical."

So now, combating corruption had a new name: the PT and Lula. The prosecutors wouldn't rest until they managed to produce accusations against Lula. Independently of the merits of such accusations (no doubt, the PT had adhered to the traditional nefarious way of doing politics, exchanging favors, positions, and even money, things that the right had always done), there were many conservative high-profile politicians accused of similar corruption, but so far they have been let off the hook. Why? There is no other explanation except for the goal of wresting control of the government away from the PT.

Some sectors of the bourgeoisie directly supported the impeachment, but others did not and there are certainly tensions. For example, businessmen from the Northeast were reluctant to support the impeachment. On the other hand, São Paulo businesses, represented by FIESP, took the lead in targeting Dilma, possibly in order to head off arrests of certain businessmen. FIESP openly financed the right-wing "social movements" that took the streets in São Paulo (Vem Pra Rua ["Come to the streets"] and Movimento Brasil Livre ["Free Brazil Movement"]). For their part, agribusiness organizations took a bit longer to define their stance, but ended up supporting the impeachment process. However, the banks and the financial sector have not yet publicly supported the impeachment.

It is true that there was a moment when the bourgeoisie was not yet cohesive, there were tensions and factions, but a relative cohesiveness soon coalesced around themes such as the "stabilization" of the country and "resuming economic growth." At this point, the justification for unseating Dilma became "the overall performance" of her government, as argued by former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso of the neoliberal Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB).

In fact, no specific crimes have been proven against Dilma and there is no solid evidence of any corruption charges involving the president, which is supposed to be the legal basis for an impeachment process. Instead, the charges filed against Dilma revolve around the so-called practice of "fiscal pedaling"--a long-standing governmental practice of manipulating money transfers between public banks and institutions in order to make public accounts look better than they actually are. This may be politically suspect, but it has never before been considered a constitutional crime.

That's why I believe this is a coup, because its justification is political, based on a generalized dissatisfaction with the economy, the recession, industrial stagnation, even with Dilma's arrogant and authoritarian manners, but not with a judicially proven crime. This was reflected in the absurd speeches given by anti-PT politicians in Congress during the impeachment vote on the night of April 17. There was no legal basis. It was all based on political opinions.

THE LEFT has responded to the impeachment process with mobilizations around slogans such as #NaoVaiTerGolpe ("There won't be a coup"), #FicaDilma ("Stay, Dilma"), and #ForaTodosEles ("Out with all of them"). How do you assess the impeachment?

AS I said, I believe we are living through a coup. There is a generalized sentiment of confusion regarding the rollback of social, economic, political and civil rights. Many are comparing what is going on now to the situation in 1964 just preceding the U.S.-backed military coup in Brazil.

However, in my opinion, we must situate the current political conjuncture in the regional context of other recent coups in Latin America: Honduras in 2009, Paraguay in 2012, and attempted coups in Venezuela under Chávez during the 2000s.

These coups did not establish classic political dictatorships, as in the 1960s and 1970s. Rather, they instituted a market dictatorship, a "dictatorship of capital," which means a return to "hardcore" neoliberal programs, terminating projects with a more nationalist character (even if these programs are hardly socialist or revolutionary) that, as with the PT in Brazil, sought to make alliances between the state and the bourgeoisie. Such alliances lasted longer in Brazil than in other countries, but they are very fragile and are no longer tenable.

Capitalism does not like democracy--it only tolerates it in small doses (just enough to appease popular demands). True democracy is the main enemy of capital. This is what history teaches us, just as much today as in the 1960 and '70s.

WHAT ARE the differences among current left forces in Brazil outside of the PT regarding their level of support for or criticism of the PT government? How are social movements such as MST and MTST, and trade union organizations such as CUT and [an independent union federation] positioning themselves in regards to the impeachment?

ONE OF Dilma's main problems up until now has been opposition from within her own party. The rank and file of the Workers' Party was very critical of the nomination of neoliberal Joaquim Levy as Minister of Economy. They also openly opposed Dilma's new austerity measures.

It is curious that many still believed in the potential for a "left turn" after Dilma's 2014 victory, even after 12 years of concessions to big capital. The presidential campaign was so polarized that it created expectations that Dilma would lean more strongly to the left when she began her second term. However, exactly the opposite happened: Dilma froze social spending and attempted to begin implementing austerity measures.

The obstruction of Dilma's legislative proposals in Congress led to major political destabilization. Business and financial sectors, which had amassed huge profits in recent years, were no longer being favored, while the left did not see itself represented by the government either. This created a situation of paralysis. The government had lost its grounding.

In reaction to the introduction of the impeachment process in Congress at the end of 2015, the left of the Workers' Party went back to the streets, but did so on the defensive: against impeachment, against austerity, against the attack on social and civil rights. This led to the formation of several new coalitions.

On the one hand, the Frente Brasil Popular (Brazil Popular Front) is a coalition of social mass movements close to PT: MST, CUT, and Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB). On the other hand, mobilizations that were more independent of the government also took place against the impeachment (but also against the government's austerity measures), although they were a bit fragmented.

With respect to the formal left-wing political parties, the PSOL has played a key opposition role against the impeachment inside Congress. While PSOL has only six deputies, each of them have been very active in terms of defending human rights and democracy, criticizing neoliberal policies, and promoting innovative policy proposals.

PSTU, and in particular Conlutas, decided not to support the Dilma government, but it also refused to support the impeachment process. Additionally, Conlutas played an important role in supporting the occupation of public schools in São Paulo. However, they do not have elected representatives in Congress and they did not join with other left-wing forces in the attempt to prevent the impeachment.

It is important to note that, as the PT has succumbed to the most disgusting methods of doing politics, it has unfortunately contributed to a diffuse and generalized rejection of politics, parties and democracy. A disastrous consequence of this process is the emergence of reactionary conservatism among significant sections of the Brazilian people rather than the rise of new projects pointing to left-wing solutions.

This is our greatest challenge now: to rebuild a popular project that can bring together, with a unified agenda, forces that today are fragmented. When the Brazilian people took to the streets in 2013, the right wing captured many of the demands for itself. Left social forces and parties were not able to channel and direct the mobilizations toward a cohesive movement for radical democracy and transformation of society.

Many hope Lula will be a candidate again in 2018, and that the left might unite again around his presidential bid. Perhaps this will really happen, but in my opinion, it is likely to fail.

We must now focus on how to reunite the agenda of Brazil's left forces in a post-PT government era. This agenda must be based on social struggles, by men and women from rural areas and the Amazonian forests, from cities and populations affected and displaced by mega-developments, and from the classes rendered "invisible" by national "development" projects championed by PT governments. This social struggle is going to be difficult, and it must go beyond formal political institutions.

Translated from the original Portuguese by Todd Chretien and Bruno Ruviaro.

[1] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/04/dilma-rousseff-impeachment-coup-temer-bolsonaro/
[2] http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n08/perry-anderson/crisis-in-brazil
[3] http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/BRICS
[4] http://www.epsjv.fiocruz.br/noticias/entrevista/um-processo-de-direitizacao-significa-imposicao-do-medo-a-maioria-da-populacao
[5] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
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The Last Good Arab: Israel's Establishment Palestinians Marginalized

In Israel, an Ugly Tide sweeps over Palestinians

by Jonathan Cook - Dissident Voice

April 25th, 2016

In Israel’s evermore tribal politics, there is no such thing as a “good” Arab – and the worst failing in a Jew is to be unmasked as an “Arab lover”. Or so was the message last week from Isaac Herzog, head of Israel’s so-called peace camp.The shock waves of popular anger at the recent indictment of an Israeli army medic, Elor Azaria, on a charge of “negligent homicide” are being felt across Israel’s political landscape.

Most Israeli Jews bitterly resent the soldier being put on trial, even though Azaria was caught on camera firing a bullet into the head of a badly injured Palestinian, Abdel Fattah Al Sharif.

In the current climate, Herzog and his opposition party Zionist Union have found themselves highly uncomfortable at having in their midst a single non-Jewish legislator.

Zuheir Bahloul, an accommodating figure who made his name as a sportscaster before entering politics, belongs to the minority of 1.7 million Palestinian citizens, one in five of the population.

Unlike most of Israel’s Palestinian politicians, he preferred to join a Zionist party than one of several specifically Arab parties. Nonetheless, he embarrassed colleagues by briefly pricking the bubble of unreason cocooning the country.

Attacks on soldiers were wrong, said Bahloul, but a Palestinian such as Al Sharif – who tried to stab soldiers at a checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron – was not a “terrorist” by any normal definition. Terrorists target civilians, Bahloul noted, not soldiers enforcing an illegal occupation.

Other Zionist Union MPs raced to disown Bahloul, while Herzog warned that the party was unelectable as long as it was seen as full of “Arab lovers”.

Bahloul is hardly the first Palestinian politician in Israel to find himself denounced as a “bad” Arab. But the others have mostly sinned by demanding an end to Israel’s status as a Jewish state. Israel is currently promulgating a law to oust such dissenters from the parliament.

Now the earth is shifting beneath the feet of formerly “good Arabs” such as Bahloul, the small number who cling to the belief that a self-declared Jewish state can be fair to them.

It is no longer just the state’s Jewishness that is sacrosanct. The occupation is too.

Salim Joubran, the only Palestinian judge in the supreme court, fell foul of this creed last week as the court considered an appeal from Raed Salah, leader of the northern Islamic Movement, against his jail sentence for incitement to violence.

There is almost continual incitement by Jewish political and religious leaders, but indictments are almost unheard of. Two rabbis who wrote a book, the King’s Torah, calling for the killing of Palestinian babies were investigated but not charged.

In his minority opinion, Joubran thought it reasonable to observe that Salah’s remark urging the Arab world to support the Palestinians with a “global intifada” to protect Jerusalem’s Islamic holy sites under occupation was more rhetorical than a call to arms.

He was wrong. Israelis took to social media calling for an “intifada” against both him and the supreme court.

The ugly political tide turning against the most moderate and pragmatic elements in Israel’s Palestinian minority was also exemplified by threats against Ayman Odeh, leader of the only joint Jewish-Arab party in the parliament.

Odeh’s crime was to describe the assassinations of Palestinian leaders by the Shin Bet intelligence service as “executions without trial”.

Avi Dichter, a former Shin Bet head who is now a legislator in the ruling Likud party, wondered aloud about the merits of assassinating Odeh, before concluding it was not worth “wasting the ammunition”. Dichter knows there is no danger he will face a trial for incitement to violence.

Meanwhile, a TV investigation last week turned a critical lens on the late Rehavam Zeevi, a hero of the occupation. The programme revealed that the general had serially raped and assaulted women under his command, and used underworld connections to silence critics.

Tellingly, however, while the programme highlighted his crimes against Jews, it was largely untroubled by his many well-documented abuses of Palestinians.

Zeevi once proudly boasted of killing prisoners, and famously terrorised Palestinians by flying over their villages with a Palestinian corpse hanging from his helicopter undercarriage.

Later he sat in government as head of a party calling for the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.

When he was assassinated by Palestinians in 2001, he was quickly beatified. Scores of roads and parks are named after him, and a commemoration law requires that his “legacy and values” be taught in schools.

The anti-Arab values Zeevi embodied are in no danger of being discarded. Rather, they are being entrenched. Today, the definition of a “bad Arab” stretches from those, such as Al Sharif, who take up arms against the occupation to those, such as Bahloul, who do nothing more than raise their voice against it.

The trigger-happy soldier Elor Azaria and the peace camp leader Isaac Herzog have more in common than either might wish to admit. In their different ways, both have helped to turn all Palestinians into outcasts – and crush any hope of concessions from Israel to peace.

Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth, Israel is a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books).

Read other articles by Jonathan, or visit Jonathan's website.

The Al-Qaeda Who Wasn’t: Torturing Truth in the War on Terror

The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

by Rebecca Gordon - TomDispatch 

April 24, 2016

The allegations against the man were serious indeed.

* Donald Rumsfeld said he was “if not the number two, very close to the number two person” in al-Qaeda.

* The Central Intelligence Agency informed Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee that he “served as Usama Bin Laden’s senior lieutenant. In that capacity, he has managed a network of training camps... He also acted as al-Qaeda’s coordinator of external contacts and foreign communications.”

* CIA Director Michael Hayden would tell the press in 2008 that 25% of all the information his agency had gathered about al-Qaeda from human sources “originated” with one other detainee and him.

* George W. Bush would use his case to justify the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program,” claiming that “he had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained” and that “he helped smuggle al-Qaeda leaders out of Afghanistan” so they would not be captured by U.S. military forces.

None of it was true.

And even if it had been true, what the CIA did to Abu Zubaydah -- with the knowledge and approval of the highest government officials -- is a prime example of the kind of still-unpunished crimes that officials like Dick Cheney, George Bush, and Donald Rumsfeld committed in the so-called Global War on Terror. 

Tomgram: Rebecca Gordon, Exhibit One in Any Future American War Crimes Trial

[Note for TomDispatch Readers: At this website, the book offers are coming fast and furious these days. Think of it as a late winter and spring flurry. The latest is for a new book by a TomDispatch regular we much admire: Rebecca Gordon. She’s written a particularly readable volume with a well-deserved hot-button title: American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes. Her piece today demonstrates just why such trials were justified (and why, of course, for the leaders of the “sole superpower” they will never happen). For a donation of $100 or more ($125 if you live outside the United States), you can get a signed, personalized copy for yourself and lend this website a helping hand staying afloat in a crazed universe. Check out the details at our donation page. Tom]

Let’s take a moment to think about the ultimate strangeness of our American world. In recent months, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have offered a range of hair-raising suggestions: as president, one or the other of them might order the U.S. military and the CIA to commit acts that would include the waterboarding of terror suspects (or “a hell of a lot worse”), the killing of the relatives of terrorists, and the carpet bombing of parts of Syria. All of these would, legally speaking, be war crimes. This has caused shock among many Americans in quite established quarters who have decried the possibility of such a president, suggesting that the two of them are calling for outright illegal acts, actual “war crimes,” and that the U.S. military and others would be justified in rejecting such orders. In this context, for instance, CIA Director John Brennan recently made it clear that no Agency operative under his command would ever waterboard a suspect in response to orders of such a nature from a future president. ("I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and techniques I've heard bandied about because this institution needs to endure.")

These acts, in other words, are considered beyond the pale when Donald Trump suggests them, but here’s the strangeness of it all: what The Donald is only mouthing off about, a perfectly real American president (and vice president and secretary of defense, and so on) actually did. Among other things, under the euphemistic term “enhanced interrogation techniques,” they ordered the CIA to use classic torture practices including waterboarding (which, in blunter times, had been known as “the water torture”). They also let the U.S. military loose to torture and abuse prisoners in their custody. They green-lighted the CIA to kidnap terror suspects (who sometimes turned out to be perfectly innocent people) off the streets of cities around the world, as well as from the backlands of the planet, and transported them to the prisons of some of the worst torture regimes or to secret detention centers (“black sites”) the CIA was allowed to set up in compliant countries. In other words, a perfectly real administration ordered and oversaw perfectly real crimes. (Its top officials even reportedly had torture techniques demonstrated to them in the White House.)

At the time, the CIA fulfilled its orders to a T and without complaint. A lone CIA officer spoke out publicly in opposition to such a program and was jailed for disclosing classified information to a journalist. (He would be the only CIA official to go to jail for the Agency’s acts of torture.) At places like Abu Ghraib, the military similarly carried out its orders without significant complaint or resistance. The mainstream media generally adopted the euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques” or “harsh techniques” in its reporting -- no “torture” or “war crimes” for them then. And back in the post-2001 years, John Brennan, then deputy executive director of the CIA, didn’t offer a peep of protest about what he surely knew was going on in his own agency. In 2014, in fact, as its director he actually defended such torture practices for producing “intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives.” In addition, none of those who ordered or oversaw torture and other criminal behavior (a number of whom would sell their memoirs for millions of dollars) suffered in the slightest for the acts that were performed on their watch and at their behest.

To sum up: when Donald Trump says such things it’s a future nightmare to be called by its rightful name and denounced, as well as rejected and resisted by military and intelligence officials. When an American president and his top officials actually did such things, however, it was another story entirely. Today, TomDispatch regular Rebecca Gordon catches the nightmarish quality of those years, now largely buried, in the grim case of a single mistreated human being. It should make Americans shudder. She has also just published a new book, American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes, that couldn’t be more relevant. It’s a must-read for a country conveniently without a memory. Tom

The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: 

The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

by Rebecca Gordon

So who was this infamous figure, and where is he now? His name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, but he is better known by his Arabic nickname, Abu Zubaydah. And as far as we know, he is still in solitary detention in Guantánamo.

A Saudi national, in the 1980s Zubaydah helped run the Khaldan camp, a mujahedeen training facility set up in Afghanistan with CIA help during the Soviet occupation of that country. In other words, Zubaydah was then an American ally in the fight against the Soviets, one of President Ronald Reagan’s “freedom fighters.” (But then again, so in effect was Osama bin Laden.)

Zubaydah’s later fate in the hands of the CIA was of a far grimmer nature. He had the dubious luck to be the subject of a number of CIA “firsts”: the first post-9/11 prisoner to be waterboarded; the first to be experimented on by psychologists working as CIA contractors; one of the first of the Agency’s “ghost prisoners” (detainees hidden from the world, including the International Committee of the Red Cross which, under the Geneva Conventions, must be allowed access to every prisoner of war); and one of the first prisoners to be cited in a memo written by Jay Bybee for the Bush administration on what the CIA could “legally” do to a detainee without supposedly violating U.S. federal laws against torture.

Zubaydah’s story is -- or at least should be -- the iconic tale of the illegal extremes to which the Bush administration and the CIA went in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. And yet former officials, from CIA head Michael Hayden to Vice President Dick Cheney to George W. Bush himself, have presented it as a glowing example of the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” to extract desperately needed information from the “evildoers” of that time.

Zubaydah was an early experiment in post-9/11 CIA practices and here’s the remarkable thing (though it has yet to become part of the mainstream media accounts of his case): it was all a big lie. Zubaydah wasn’t involved with al-Qaeda; he was the ringleader of nothing; he never took part in planning for the 9/11 attacks. He was brutally mistreated and, in another kind of world, would be exhibit one in the war crimes trials of America’s top leaders and its major intelligence agency.

Yet notorious as he once was, he’s been forgotten by all but his lawyers and a few tenacious reporters. He shouldn’t have been. He was the test case for the kind of torture that Donald Trump now wants the U.S. government to bring back, presumably because it “worked” so well the first time. With Republican presidential hopefuls promising future war crimes, it’s worth reconsidering his case and thinking about how to prevent it from happening again. After all, it’s only because no one has been held to account for the years of Bush administration torture practices that Trump and others feel free to promise even more and “yuger” war crimes in the future.

Experiments in Torture

In August 2002, a group of FBI agents, CIA agents, and Pakistani forces captured Zubaydah (along with about 50 other men) in Faisalabad, Pakistan. In the process, he was severely injured -- shot in the thigh, testicle, and stomach. He might well have died, had the CIA not flown in an American surgeon to patch him up. The Agency’s interest in his health was, however, anything but humanitarian. Its officials wanted to interrogate him and, even after he had recovered sufficiently to be questioned, his captors occasionally withheld pain medication as a means of torture.

When he “lost” his left eye under mysterious circumstances while in CIA custody, the agency’s concern again was not for his health. The December 2014 torture report produced by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (despite CIA opposition that included hacking into the committee’s computers) described the situation this way: with his left eye gone, “[i]n October 2002, DETENTION SITE GREEN [now known to be Thailand] recommended that the vision in his right eye be tested, noting that '[w]e have a lot riding upon his ability to see, read, and write.' DETENTION SITE GREEN stressed that ‘this request is driven by our intelligence needs [not] humanitarian concern for AZ.’”

The CIA then set to work interrogating Zubaydah with the help of two contractors, the psychologists Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell. Zubaydah would be the first human subject on whom those two, who were former instructors at the Air Force’s SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) training center, could test their theories about using torture to induce what they called “learned helplessness,” meant to reduce a suspect’s resistance to interrogation. Their price? Only $81 million.

CIA records show that, using a plan drawn up by Jessen and Mitchell, Abu Zubaydah’s interrogators would waterboard him an almost unimaginable 83 times in the course of a single month; that is, they would strap him to a wooden board, place a cloth over his entire face, and gradually pour water through the cloth until he began to drown. At one point during this endlessly repeated ordeal, the Senate committee reported that Zubaydah became “completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth.”

Each of those 83 uses of what was called “the watering cycle” consisted of four steps:

“1) demands for information interspersed with the application of the water just short of blocking his airway 2) escalation of the amount of water applied until it blocked his airway and he started to have involuntary spasms 3) raising the water-board to clear subject’s airway 4) lowering of the water-board and return to demands for information.”

The CIA videotaped Zubaydah undergoing each of these “cycles,” only to destroy those tapes in 2005 when news of their existence surfaced and the embarrassment (and possible future culpability) of the Agency seemed increasingly to be at stake. CIA Director Michael Hayden would later assure CNN that the tapes had been destroyed only because “they no longer had ‘intelligence value’ and they posed a security risk.” Whose “security” was at risk if the tapes became public? Most likely, that of the Agency’s operatives and contractors who were breaking multiple national and international laws against torture, along with the high CIA and Bush administration officials who had directly approved their actions.

In addition to the waterboarding, the Senate torture report indicates that Zubaydah endured excruciating stress positions (which cause terrible pain without leaving a mark); sleep deprivation (for up to 180 hours, which generally induces hallucinations or psychosis); unrelenting exposure to loud noises (another psychosis-inducer); “walling” (the Agency’s term for repeatedly slamming the shoulder blades into a “flexible, false wall,” though Zubaydah told the International Committee of the Red Cross that when this was first done to him, “he was slammed directly against a hard concrete wall”); and confinement for hours in a box so cramped that he could not stand up inside it. All of these methods of torture had been given explicit approval in a memo written to the CIA’s head lawyer, John Rizzo, by Jay Bybee, who was then serving in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. In that memo Bybee approved the use of 10 different “techniques” on Zubaydah.

It seems likely that, while the CIA was torturing Zubaydah at Jessen’s and Mitchell’s direction for whatever information he might have, it was also using him to test the “effectiveness” of waterboarding as a torture technique. If so, the agency and its contractors violated not only international law, but the U.S. War Crimes Act, which expressly forbids experimenting on prisoners.

What might lead us to think that Zubaydah’s treatment was, in part, an experiment? In a May 30, 2005, memo sent to Rizzo, Steven Bradbury, head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, discussed the CIA’s record keeping. There was, Bradbury commented, method to the CIA’s brutality. “Careful records are kept of each interrogation,” he wrote. This procedure, he continued, “allows for ongoing evaluation of the efficacy of each technique and its potential for any unintended or inappropriate results.” In other words, with the support of the Bush Justice Department, the CIA was keeping careful records of an experimental procedure designed to evaluate how well waterboarding worked.

This was Abu Zubaydah’s impression as well. “I was told during this period that I was one of the first to receive these interrogation techniques,” Zubaydah would later tell the International Committee of the Red Cross, “so no rules applied. It felt like they were experimenting and trying out techniques to be used later on other people.”

In addition to the videotaping, the CIA’s Office of Medical Services required a meticulous written record of every waterboarding session. The details to be recorded were spelled out clearly:

“In order to best inform future medical judgments and recommendations, it is important that every application of the waterboard be thoroughly documented: how long each application (and the entire procedure) lasted, how much water was used in the process (realizing that much splashes off), how exactly the water was applied, if a seal was achieved, if the naso- or oropharynx was filled, what sort of volume was expelled, how long was the break between applications, and how the subject looked between each treatment.”

Again, these were clearly meant to be the records of an experimental procedure, focusing as they did on how much water was effective; whether a “seal” was achieved (so no air could enter the victim’s lungs); whether the naso- or oropharynx (that is, the nose and throat) were so full of water the victim could not breathe; and just how much the “subject” vomited up.

It was with Zubaydah that the CIA also began its post-9/11 practice of hiding detainees from the International Committee of the Red Cross by transferring them to its “black sites,” the secret prisons it was setting up in countries with complacent or complicit regimes around the world. Such unacknowledged detainees came to be known as “ghost prisoners,” because they had no official existence. As the Senate torture report noted, “In part to avoid declaring Abu Zubaydah to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which would be required if he were detained at a U.S. military base, the CIA decided to seek authorization to clandestinely detain Abu Zubaydah at a facility in Country _______ [now known to have been Thailand].”

Tortured and Circular Reasoning

As British investigative journalist Andy Worthington reported in 2009, the Bush administration used Abu Zubaydah’s “interrogation” results to help justify the greatest crime of that administration, the unprovoked, illegal invasion of Iraq. Officials leaked to the media that he had confessed to knowing about a secret agreement involving Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (who later led al-Qaeda in Iraq), and Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein to work together “to destabilize the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.” Of course, it was all lies. Zubaydah couldn’t have known about such an arrangement, first because it was, as Worthington says, “absurd,” and second, because Zubaydah was not a member of al-Qaeda at all.

In fact, the evidence that Zubaydah had anything to do with al-Qaeda was beyond circumstantial -- it was entirely circular. The administration’s reasoning went something like this: Zubaydah, a “senior al-Qaeda lieutenant,” ran the Khaldan camp in Afghanistan; therefore, Khaldan was an al-Qaeda camp; if Khaldan was an al Qaeda camp, then Zubaydah must have been a senior al Qaeda official.

They then used their “enhanced techniques” to drag what they wanted to hear out of a man whose life bore no relation to the tortured lies he evidently finally told his captors. Not surprisingly, no aspect of the administration’s formula proved accurate. It was true that, for several years, the Bush administration routinely referred to Khaldan as an al-Qaeda training camp, but the CIA was well aware that this wasn’t so.

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report, for instance, made this crystal clear, quoting an August 16, 2006, CIA Intelligence Assessment, “Countering Misconceptions About Training Camps in Afghanistan, 1990-2001” this way:

“Khaldan Not Affiliated With Al-Qa'ida. A common misperception in outside articles is that Khaldan camp was run by al-Qa'ida. Pre-11 September 2001 reporting miscast Abu Zubaydah as a 'senior al-Qa'ida lieutenant,' which led to the inference that the Khaldan camp he was administering was tied to Usama bin Laden."

Not only was Zubaydah not a senior al-Qaeda lieutenant, he had, according to the report, been turned down for membership in al-Qaeda as early as 1993 and the CIA knew it by at least 2006, if not far sooner. Nevertheless, the month after it privately clarified the nature of the Khaldan camp and Zubaydah’s lack of al-Qaeda connections, President Bush used the story of Zubaydah’s capture and interrogation in a speech to the nation justifying the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program. He then claimed that Zubaydah had “helped smuggle Al Qaida leaders out of Afghanistan.”

In the same speech, Bush told the nation, “Our intelligence community believes [Zubaydah] had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained” (a reference presumably to Khaldan). Perhaps the CIA should have been looking instead at some of the people who actually trained the hijackers -- the operators of flight schools in the United States, where, according to a September 23, 2001 Washington Post story, the FBI already knew “terrorists” were learning to fly 747s.

In June 2007, the Bush administration doubled down on its claim that Zubaydah was involved with 9/11. At a hearing before the congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger, discussing why the Guantánamo prison needed to remain open, explained that it “serves a very important purpose, to hold and detain individuals who are extremely dangerous... [like] Abu Zubaydah, people who have been planners of 9/11.”

Charges Withdrawn

In September 2009, the U.S. government quietly withdrew its many allegations against Abu Zubaydah. His attorneys had filed a habeas corpus petition on his behalf; that is, a petition to excercise the constitutional right of anyone in government custody to know on what charges they are being held. In that context, they were asking the government to supply certain documents to help substantiate their claim that his continued detention in Guantánamo was illegal. The new Obama administration replied with a 109-page brief filed in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, which is legally designated to hear the habeas cases of Guantánamo detainees.

The bulk of that brief came down to a government argument that was curious indeed, given the years of bragging about Zubaydah’s central role in al-Qaeda’s activities. It claimed that there was no reason to turn over any “exculpatory” documents demonstrating that he was not a member of al-Qaeda, or that he had no involvement in 9/11 or any other terrorist activity -- because the government was no longer claiming that any of those things were true.

The government’s lawyers went on to claim, bizarrely enough, that the Bush administration had never “contended that [Zubaydah] had any personal involvement in planning or executing... the attacks of September 11, 2001.” They added that “the Government also has not contended in this proceeding that, at the time of his capture, [Zubaydah] had knowledge of any specific impending terrorist operations” -- an especially curious claim, since the prevention of such future attacks was how the CIA justified its torture of Zubaydah in the first place. Far from believing that he was “if not the number two, very close to the number two person in” al-Qaeda, as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had once claimed, “the Government has not contended in this proceeding that [Zubaydah] was a member of al-Qaida or otherwise formally identified with al-Qaida.”

And so, the case against the man who was waterboarded 83 times and contributed supposedly crucial information to the CIA on al-Qaeda plotting was oh-so-quietly withdrawn without either fuss or media attention. Exhibit one was now exhibit none.

Seven years after the initial filing of Zubaydah’s habeas petition, the DC District Court has yet to rule on it. Given the court’s average 751-day turnaround time on such petitions, this is an extraordinary length of time. Here, justice delayed is truly justice denied.

Perhaps we should not be surprised, however. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee report, CIA headquarters assured those who were interrogating Zubaydah that he would “never be placed in a situation where he has any significant contact with others and/or has the opportunity to be released.” In fact, “all major players are in concurrence,” stated the agency, that he “should remain incommunicado for the remainder of his life.” And so far, that’s exactly what’s happened.

The capture, torture, and propaganda use of Abu Zubaydah is the perfect example of the U.S. government’s unique combination of willful law-breaking, ass-covering memo-writing, and what some Salvadorans I once worked with called “strategic incompetence.” The fact that no one -- not George Bush or Dick Cheney, not Jessen or Mitchell, nor multiple directors of the CIA -- has been held accountable means that, unless we are very lucky, we will see more of the same in the future.

Rebecca Gordon, a TomDispatch regular, teaches in the Philosophy department at the University of San Francisco. She is the author of American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes (Hot Books, April 2016). Her previous books include Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States and Letters from Nicaragua.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse’s Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Copyright 2016 Rebecca Gordon

Erdogan Seeks 'Rats' to Chill Foreign Criticism

Dutch PM Seeks Answers from Ankara After Local Turks Urged to Report Those "Insulting" Erdogan

by RT.com

April 22, 2016

The Dutch Prime Minister says he’s “surprised” and will ask Ankara for clarification following allegations that the Turkish consulate in the Netherlands sent a plea to Turks living in the country to report people insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“I am surprised. It’s not clear what the Turkish government aims to achieve with this action,” PM Mark Rutte told journalists during a joint press conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Dutch city Eindhoven, according to AFP.

Rutte added that he intends for Dutch diplomatic channels to bring up the issue with their Turkish counterparts, following the Turkish General Consulate in Rotterdam making the call to its nationals to report of Ankara’s and Erdogan’s critics.

“Our ambassador in Ankara will ask for an explanation,” he said.

According to the letter which was shared on Twitter, the consulate asked Turkish citizens living in the Netherlands to report “messages from people who are insulting our president, the Turkish nation or Turkey in general,” and subsequently send the “names and the quotes” to the Rotterdam Consulate General.

The Dutch department of the Turkish opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) said a number of concerned Turks living in the Netherlands have already been in contact.

“People are afraid because they once responded to something critical on Facebook or Twitter for example. They worry about whether they can still go on holiday to Turkey with peace of mind or will they be stopped at the border,” the chairman of the CHP’s Dutch branch Axu Ozalp told the Volkskrant newspaper.

“This is very worrying and we therefore also emphatically disapprove of this call.”

The Turkish consulate in Rotterdam has issued a statement saying that the note was sent by a consular official who used an “unfortunate choice of words,” which were misinterpreted, AFP reports.

The revelations have led to an outcry in the Netherlands, with a Dutch journalist telling RT that the campaign by the Turks is “aimed against everything that’s being shared on Twitter, Facebook and even in private emails.” Frederike Geerdink, who is also an author, mentioned that Ankara is trying to “influence how Dutch Turks behave.”

“Politicians in Holland worry, they say this is what in Holland is called ‘the long arm of Ankara,’ meaning that the government in Ankara tries to get a grip on their diaspora communities in various European countries, including Germany, Britain, Belgium, and now in the Netherlands,” Geerdink said.

On Wednesday, Justice Minister Ard van der Steur announced its plans to scrap legislation which makes insulting a friendly head of state a criminal offense, Dutch News reported.

The law was last enforced in the Netherlands in 1968, when a student newspaper writer Geert Mak compared the then-US President Lyndon Johnson to a war criminal.

The incident follows outrage in neighboring Germany after the government decided to prosecute local comedian Jan Hoehmermann for performing a poem that mocked Erdogan.

Merkel bowed to pressure from Ankara to prosecute Boehmermann, who could be convicted under the rarely enforced section of the German criminal code, which makes it illegal to insult heads of foreign states.

Also on RT.com:
‘Kindly send us names and quotes insulting our president’: Ankara’s Consulate asks Dutch citizens, April 21, 2016

Read also:
German prosecutors open case against comedian Jan Böhmermann for ‘insulting’ Turkish president, Deutsche Welle, April 8, 2016

Rousseff Must Abide: What Brazil Coup Attempt Means for Democracy Everywhere

Brazil Cannot Be Allowed to Fall

by Andre Vltchek  - Dissident Voice

April 23rd, 2016

Send tanks to the streets; park them in front of the Congress, Dilma! Restore order and restore democracy.

Enough weeping! Latin America has wept incessantly, continuously, for years, decades and centuries. Its people robbed of everything since the days of Columbus, since Potosi.

Tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions have been slaughtered here, in the last five centuries; first by the conquerors, then by their descendants and serfs, and finally by the Empire of Lies as well as the treasonous local ‘elites’.

Enough weeping, comrades! It is time to use force.

Whenever people stood up, whenever true Latin American heroes liberated their lands, by reason or by force, the bloodbath was administered almost immediately, from across the seas, or from the North. Tanks rolled through the avenues and squares, and combat airplanes and helicopters sprayed bombs and bullets all over Presidential palaces, as well as the countryside. People were hunted down like animals, dragged to stadiums and factories, to underground cellars, and there they were violated, tortured and slaughtered.

That’s their democracy! Thank you, but no more of that.

Why did all those horrors take place? Because there was always a clear consensus among the rulers in Washington, in most of the European capitals, and the reigning classes in all Latin American countries: Latinos are here to serve the West, to be governed from the North. If some Latin country opted to act ‘irresponsibly’ (to paraphrase Henry Kissinger), it had to be reminded where it belongs: it had to be smashed to pieces, bathed in blood and thoroughly humiliated.

Such treatment was administered on countless occasions, and it happened virtually everywhere – from the Dominican Republic to Chile, and from Brazil to Nicaragua.

*****

During the last twenty years things changed.

Venezuela stood up. It roared, clenched its fists and won, sending tremors of hope to all corners of the World. It could be done; it really could be done after all, carajo! Bolivian people shouted in a clear, indignant and beautiful voice: this is our land and these are our indigenous colors; this is our air and our water! Then they fought, and some died but the nation won. Ecuador rose from its knees, changing the lives of millions of historically oppressed people. Argentina refused to pay unjust debts, and instead attempted to build a just and socialist society. Chile, step by step, was shedding its horrid legacy of the Pinochet era, throwing many of those responsible for its macabre rape into prisons.

In so many different ways (from the quiet and slow Uruguayan way, to the militant revolutionary way chosen by Venezuela), a once broken continent with the greatest disparities on Earth was gradually resurrected. What a beautiful mosaic! All of a sudden, it broke its shackles, and then threw them into the smelters, casting new iron and steel, so the plows and powerful foundations for new hospitals and schools could be erected.

*****

And who could forget Brazil!

Dilma Rousseff, whatever your foes are saying, whatever the Empire is uttering in its toxic and cynical voice, the Workers Party (PT) changed absolutely everything!

Just a few months ago, last year (2015), I travelled throughout your vast and beautiful land: from the capital city Brasilia to the depth of the tropical forest near Manaus. From the ancient port city of Belem, to Recife, Fortaleza and Salvador Bahia; I spent days listening to the people in Sao Paulo, and then in the countryside.

I knew the Brazil of twenty and thirty years ago, but this was an absolutely new land!

I sat with teachers at so-called floating schools, in Amazonia. They spoke about the progress and hope that had arrived to the most remote indigenous communities. I spoke to fishermen, single mothers, even smugglers. I talked to children. Had life improved since Lula took power? Yes, of course! Who could doubt it?

I went to the slums of Salvador Bahia. Like in Venezuela, in all the poor neighborhoods there was great progress, all sorts of programs designed to eliminate poverty and inequality, great optimism and activism.

The infrastructure was improving with lighting speed, from public transportation to airports. In many cities, art had become totally free. In Manaus I attended a brilliant modern ballet performance, depicting the struggle to save Amazonia’s environment. Even that stunning Opera House where Caruso used to sing in the distant days of the rubber boom was not charging any entrance fee. And in Belem I sat through yet another free performance, this time of Verdi’s opera, in a fabulously restored municipal theatre.

Once dangerous and hopeless, Belem was transformed into a city of grand public spaces, promenades and endless cultural venues.

In Salvador Bahia, near the famous lift, I stumbled into yet another cultural center, which was being taken over by vocal protesters, demanding improvement of medical care in Brazil.

I asked: “hasn’t free medical care in Brazil improved, during the last years?”

“It has,” I was told by organizers. ‘But we want it to be much better!’

The huge hall where protesters had gathered was absolutely public. Nobody had to pay rent to use it. Practically, it was almost as if the government of Dilma was actually paying for demonstrators to come and protest against her policies.

That’s our democracy!

*****

The better things got, the more violent the outbursts of the ‘opposition’ – of the ‘elites’ became. Hundreds of NGO’s, some sponsored ‘from abroad’, have been leading their well-organized campaigns of disinformation and agitation, aimed at discrediting the government and destabilizing the country.

Previously, I have witnessed the same actions in Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina and elsewhere.

Almost all mass media outlets were still in the hands of the right-wing conglomerates.

Money was shamelessly spread all around, buying votes. As a result, corrupt and right wing lawmakers continued to literally inundate the Congress.

At some point, the huge paradox became insufferable: something had to give way, to collapse:

On one hand, (and despite the recent economic decline), Brazil has been growing and improving for most of its people.

Thanks to Dilma and her PT, tens of millions are now living better, longer lives and enjoying much better education. When asked direct questions, people were readily confirming this.

On the other hand, a great number of Brazilian citizens have been claiming that ‘the government and Dilma have to go’.

There is no logic uniting these two beliefs. Except… Except that those constant negative campaigns, the Machiavellian manipulations and shameless anti-Left propaganda has finally managed to produce a decisive impact on the Brazilian psyche!

People have been manipulated into an extremely bizarre, irrational way of thinking: “We are doing better, but we don’t like those forces that have been improving our lives.”

One day, riding the brilliant Sao Paulo metro with my good Cuban friend, I uttered: “This is much better than the public transit systems in Paris or London.”

“Really?” he asked, sarcastically. “But people here think that it is absolute shit! They are being fed with constant criticism. Whatever this government does, it is always described as wrong!”

Let’s not forget where all this comes from. The propaganda is manufactured abroad, and only then modified and calibrated in Sao Paulo and elsewhere, for local consumption. All this is extremely professional, potent and destructive stuff, and it is dispersed all over Latin America. The goal is simple: to stop Latin American revolutions! To uphold the status quo.

*****

Now the Congress has opened doors for impeachment of the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff.

If this drama is allowed to go on, it may be the beginning of the end of the cautious Brazilian revolution, and of the rule of the people (the corrupt lawmakers who are trying to overthrow her government don’t really represent much more than their financial and selfish political ambitions).

Even some of the Western press couldn’t hold it back any longer. The British Daily Mail wrote on 18th April 2016, right after the vote:

The decision delivered a major blow to a long-embattled leader who repeatedly argued that the push against her was a ‘coup’.

While Rousseff herself has not been personally charged with corruption, many of the lawmakers who decided her fate on Sunday have been.

Congresso em Foco, a prominent watchdog group in Brasilia, said more than 300 of the legislators who voted – well over half the chamber – are under investigation for corruption, fraud or electoral crimes.

As they cast their vote, some lawmakers said the next politician to be impeached should be the man leading the proceedings, Speaker Eduardo Cunha. He is charged with corruption and money laundering in the kickback scandal involving Petrobras, and he also faces an ethics inquiry over undeclared Swiss bank accounts.

‘God have pity on this nation,’ Cunha said as he cast his vote in favor of impeaching Rousseff.

What did Dilma really do wrong, apart from defending the interests of the poor Brazilians (although that is already an arch crime in the eyes of ‘elites’ and the Empire!)?

‘Official’ accusations are: Rousseff was using ‘accounting tricks’ in managing the federal budget to maintain spending and shore up support. She did not steal anything, never traded cash for favors. Nobody accuses her of corruption.

Even if ‘accounting tricks’ really took place, this is hardly a crime. Some would say, every Brazilian president has done it at one point or another. Almost all Western politicians do it, constantly.

Right before this essay went to print, International The Daily Telegraph printed: “Nato target met by ‘creative accounting. Ministers have only met the Nato target on defence spending by “modifying” accounting practices, MP’s said…” No calls for impeachments in the West!

Even the International New York Times could not remain silent. On 21 April 2016 it lashed at Brazilian lawmakers in the article written by Celso Rocha de Barros:

In the hourslong televised session on Sunday, members of Congress explained their decisions as they voted for impeachment: “They voted “for peace in Jerusalem”, for the truckers”, for the Free Masons in Brazil” and “because of Communism that threatens this country”. Very few members of `Congress based their votes on the charges that have actually been brought against the president: that she violated regulations regarding public finances… real reason the president is being impeached is that Brazilian political system is in ruins. Her impeachment will provide a convenient distraction while other politicians try to get their house in order.

Yes, God have pity on Brazil if Mr. Cunha, or the corrupt Vice-President Michel Temer and his cohorts grab power! Or more precisely, God have pity on the fooled majority of Brazilian people! Who is really Mr. Cunha? He is Christian fundamentalist, a jihadist with deep roots in the darkest dictatorial past of Latin America. The Guardian described him on 21 April 2016:

Lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha, an evangelical conservative and conspiratorial mastermind, started and steered the drive to remove the country’s first female leader from power as a means of reducing the risks to himself from investigations by a congressional ethics committee and prosecutors for alleged perjury, money laundering and receipt of at least $5m in bribes.

*****

The Brazilian people elected Ms. Rousseff democratically. They voted for her so she could defend them, to improve their lives.

She should now think about her voters, only about them!

What the ‘opposition’ wants to achieve is clear. It is the same everywhere: in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Right-wingers have already succeeded in Argentina, where they are right now busy dismantling the welfare state.

They have to be stopped.

The government reasoned with them, for months and years. They opted for this coup.

Now force has to be used.

As ugly as it may look, not acting would be much more damaging and dangerous.

One lawmaker, a far-Right representative from Rio de Janeiro, openly declared that he is “dedicating his vote to the colonel responsible for torturing Ms. Rousseff” under Brazil’s dictatorship. People like him cannot govern the country. Not again!

The nation and will of the people are not some punching bags. And freedom of speech does not mean that a bunch of treasonous media outlets and politicians should be allowed to spread lies and hate, while ruining the country.

Brazil is too big. It cannot be allowed to fall. The entire Latin America relies on it, one way or another.

Send tanks to the streets; park them in front of the Congress, Dilma! Restore order and restore democracy.

Remember: Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, and the rest of the world, are watching.

More than 500 years, Comrade Dilma: more than 500 years of torment, looting and enslavement of Latin American people, by foreign invaders and local ‘elites. Tell your enemies, tell our enemies: “never again!

Do it by force, because the time for reason has just expired!

Do not surrender!

And LONG LIVE BRAZIL, DAMN IT!

André Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker, and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest book is Exposing Lies of the Empire. He also wrote, with Noam Chomsky, On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter. Read other articles by Andre.

With 90% of New Electricity Sales, Renewables Welcome End of Fossil Fuel Era

90% of world’s new electricity coming from renewables: Welcome to the end of the fossil fuel era

by Damien Gillis - Common Sense Canadian

April 18, 2016



According to the International Energy Agency, a staggering 90% of all new electrical capacity brought online around the world in 2015 came in the form of renewable energy.

That same year, China invested a record $110 Billion in clean tech – virtually 100% of its electrical capital – and in 2016, it’s set to close 1,000 coal mines.
Solar installation class (Haggerston
Community College/Flickr CC licence)

While Canada is shedding fossil fuel jobs like they’re going out of style, the world’s current economic powerhouses – China, the US, Germany, Brazil, Korea – are generating millions of new green jobs.

In other words, the bust we’re witnessing in Fort McMurray and North Dakota is no mere blip – no typical, “cyclical” downturn. Common Sense Canadian contributor and retired federal government energy innovation expert Will Dubitsky, who has been tracking and publishing these figures here for several years now and whom I draw on extensively for this article, put it to me in the following terms:

We don’t expect a return in the blacksmith business. At some point, it was simply replaced by more modern tools and trades.

Statistics don’t have feelings

 

Mark Carney in Davos, Switzerland, 2010 (Photo: Wikipedia)

Even if you dismiss the extraordinary economic opportunities emerging in the clean tech sector, the mounting costs and existential threat of climate change are proving impossible for global leaders to ignore, as Paris demonstrated. People at the very core of the so-called “establishment” – from Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England to BP Chief Economist Spencer Dale, now acknowledge that most fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground.

Based on all the available research today – and we have reams of it in our Renewable Energy section – the fossil fuel era is rapidly drawing to a close.

And here’s the cold, hard truth: Statistics and facts don’t care whether you’re a bleeding-heart tree-hugger or dyed-in-the-wool Alberta conservative. They don’t care how badly you need your old job or whether you feel persecuted or unappreciated by the rest of the country. They don’t care about your stock portfolio, your values, your moral compass, your grandchildren, vanishing caribou herds, wild salmon or spotted owls. And we, as a nation – as citizens, employers, employees, parents, youth, pensioners, taxpayers and voters must decide whether we wish to embrace these new realities or bury our heads in the sand – a particular bitumen-laden variety.

Leaping in circles

Canada’s political parties, provincial and federal, are all grappling with these realities in their own, interesting ways – a spectacle now on display from coast to coast to coast.

The NDP’s gong show of a recent federal convention is a prime example. Following his election failure last Fall, Thomas Mulcair absorbed two final nails in his coffin – both over the same issue but from completely opposite ends of the party’s political spectrum. He was too centrist for the party’s left wing, while his openness to the Lewis/Klein faction’s anti-pipeline “Leap Manifesto” angered the Rachel Notley-led provincial party in Alberta, (not to mention working the usual pundits into a tizzy over its sheer audacity, pronouncing the NDP dead upon the manifesto’s arrival). Why on earth Mulcair let the convention happen on Notley’s turf is anyone’s guess.

But Notley fully merits recrimination for her recent ultimatum on pipelines. She won’t get them through BC – even Kinder Morgan is a non-starter, which, apparently no one but we British Columbians, in the “West beyond the West”, realize. The particular blend of First Nations, court challenges, municipal government opposition, powerful coastal activists, widespread public condemnation and complete lack of economic or “jobs” case for the project means that it simply will not happen. I’m taking bets for anyone foolish enough to lay one against me. I’m already collecting on my Enbridge wagers from 5 years ago. Notley will learn soon enough.

BC or Quebec – take your pick

 

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard (Photo: facebook)

As for Energy East, well, Notley’s got another fiercely “distinct” Canadian province to contend with in the form of Quebec. Good luck with that one.

But the bigger issue is the whole “getting bitumen to tidewater” argument – i.e. that Canadian bitumen producers are getting shafted on the price for their product because of a lack of pipeline capacity and shipping opportunities. While it sounds credible enough on the surface to people who don’t know better, and it may have been true a few years ago, it no longer holds water today. Moreover, the global growth in demand for fossil fuels is flattening out, while, according to this blog from the World Economic Forum:
Petroleum consumption in the US was lower in 2014 than it was in 1997, despite the fact that the economy grew almost 50% over this period.

In this energy climate, there simply is no argument for expanding export capacity.

Trudeau singing same tune

You can lump the Trudeau government in with Notley on this one, as it continues to advocate for many of the same projects and backs BC’s LNG pipe dream. One of these days, Justin may learn that he can’t have his cake and eat it too – but we appear to be a long way away from that today. In the meantime, he would do a lot to assuage British Columbians, First Nations and the environmental community if his cabinet declined to issue the permit now before it for the controversial Lelu Island/Petronas-led LNG project near Prince Rupert.

BC NDP flip-flops on LNG

 

BC’s LNG ship may never come in

This project and many others are the brainchild of BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark, who evidently has not received the memo on all the above realities (though we at the CSC have sent her many!). Up until recently, the John Horgan-led provincial NDP was fully on board with fracking and LNG, then it showed signs of changing its tune – a welcome development that would have gone a long way to helping it get elected in May 2017, for the first time in 16 years.

That was, alas, before Horgan flip-flopped back to the pro-LNG side, kow-towing to union pressure. Besides the obvious political, moral and scientific problems my colleague Rafe Mair addressed with this catastrophic error in judgement by Horgan, even the labour justification is plain wrong-headed. Horgan and BC Building Trades boss Tom Sigurdson clearly don’t understand that there are no jobs to be had for British Columbians in LNG. Even if a single project of 21 proposed gets built – which is looking increasingly unlikely given global crash in LNG prices and steady withdrawal of capital – the BC Liberal government has already promised many of these jobs away to China, Malaysia and India in the form of cheap, foreign temporary workers!

I laid out in these pages precisely how the NDP could successfully re-brand itself, incorporating all these insights. In short, the key to their success is the following slogan and all that goes with it: “New Democrats, New Economy.” But the chances of them getting with the program are diminishing by the day.
Notley’s dilemma

Alberta Premier Elect Rachel Notley rode to victory on a wave of 

progressive policies she’s now steadily abandoning 

(Alberta NDP facebook page)

The same logic and opportunities apply in Alberta, though it’s an even steeper hill to climb there. I appreciate the bind Ms. Notley finds herself in – which explains her backpedaling on a number of more progressive energy policies she ran on last year. Her pollsters must be telling her she’s got to make these grandiose declarations on pipelines and undercut the federal party if she has any hope of getting re-elected.

She faces an electorate that is understandably anxious about its future – that only wants things to go back to the way they were in the good old days of $100-150 oil. It’s a scary thing not knowing how you’re going to feed your family. But things in Alberta aren’t going back to the way they were before, no matter how uncomfortable that reality is. And giving people false assurances will only make the problem worse. The only thing that can rescue the Alberta economy and bring jobs back is creating new ones – and there are real ways that can happen (more on that in a moment). Alas, for the moment. it’s easy to see how that may yet seem politically impossible to Ms. Notley.

Not all wine and roses

OK, to the skeptics who’ve gotten this far in the article, first of all, thank you for hearing me out. Second of all, you’re right about a lot of things.

You’re correct that we won’t suddenly replace fossil fuels with renewables across the board. There will necessarily be a transition period and quite possibly a place for fossil fuels in the mix for some time to come. We also won’t be able to sustain the level of growth, materialism and waste in our economy that relatively cheap, abundant fossil fuels have enabled over the past century. Some tough adjustments will need to be made there.

Steam rising from the Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Station in Iceland 

(Photo: Gretar Ívarsson / Wikipedia)

Moreover, not all renewables are created equally – and they all have their problems. Most are not “baseload”, meaning they’re only available intermittently. The exceptions are geothermal (a huge untapped opportunity for places like BC), and large hydro dams, which aren’t clean or green for a whole host of reasons.

The solution to the intermittency issue is multi-fold. It requires building a grid with overlapping sources which fill in each other’s gaps at different times. In places like BC, Manitoba, Quebec, and a number of US states, those large dams we already have can underpin newer, non-baseload renewables. Geothermal can do the same and has for decades in San Francisco. Iceland gets more than half its electricity from it.

There are other problems with renewables though. Aggressive incentives for renewables like feed-in-tariffs have led to soaring electrical costs and energy poverty in places like Germany and Ontario, while in BC, our disastrous private “run-of-river” sham has ravaged watersheds and put BC Hydro on the brink of bankruptcy. The renewable energy sector is no more immune to greed, corruption, foolishness, and government mismanagement than the fossil fuel sector is. Anything we choose to build must be done carefully and with the public interest in mind.

Conservation is the key

The most important piece of the puzzle is conservation – the only form of energy that carries zero environmental impact or cost. The good news is we’re already doing a great job at this. Americans are using roughly the same amount of electricity in their homes today as they did at the beginning of the millennium – despite population increases, more elaborate gadgetry, and the arrival of electric cars. It’s the same story here in BC.

Things are looking up

Now for the really good news! Once we get past the denial and difficulty of letting go of everything we’ve come to take for granted, there are huge upsides to the end of the fossil fuel era. As columnist Will Dubistsky put it in these pages recently, the above developments have resulted in “an amazing decline in energy-related CO2 in both China and the US and global emissions remaining flat since 2013! What’s more, for the first time in history emissions have declined during a period of economic growth.”

Randall Benson is a former oil sands worker who runs a successful
solar company and training program (Iron and Earth)

The message we so often get from the media and our elected leaders, particularly in Canada, is, “Sure climate change is a problem and we have to act, but we’ll get to it in 20 years.” Well, the world is already getting to it. Reducing emissions is very much achievable. So is transitioning to renewable energy, and while Canada has remained on the sidelines of the green jobs revolution thus far, there are signs that’s beginning to change.

Suncor recently announced plans to build multiple wind projects in Alberta. Meanwhile, a group of oil sands workers calling themselves Iron & Earth is pushing for resources to retool their skills for clean tech. These welders, electricians, boilermakers, pipe-fitters, carpenters, etc. are well positioned to transfer their considerable abilities towards wind, solar and geothermal. They’re calling on Rachel Notley to expand Alberta’s solar training programs to include retraining of existing electricians for solar installations. And that’s no big leap.

So, we have two choices as Canadians: 1. Accept that the end of the fossil fuel era is nigh and get on with building a new economy that puts Canadians to work in sustainable, longterm jobs; 2. Remain in denial, chasing a vanishing sector, ensuring Canadians remain out of work…and then accept that the end of the fossil fuel era.

The statistics don’t care. It will happen either way.

This Ain't Kansas: Oz MP Sets Fracked River Alight

‘People should be terrified fracking is spreading’ – Australian MP who set river on fire

by RT

April 23, 2016

Fracking should be banned as a “global threat” as it causes methane leaks contaminating water in the communities near gas wells, says an Australian MP who literally set a river ablaze to draw attention to the adverse effects of the practice.

The companies that extract coal seam gas via fracking are duping people into believing that their technology is safe, while in reality it has contributed greatly to the pollution of sites like Condamine river located in the Australian state of Queensland just near the fracking site, Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham said in an interview to RT.

Read more “Bloody crazy”: River near fracking site bursts into flames in Australia (VIDEO)

“This gas is leaking out of the ground because of the fracking. They have thousands of gas wells around this river, around this site. They drill, they frack, but the gas isn’t just flowing up their gas wells, it’s coming through the ground,” he said, stressing that Origin Energy company, that operate the wells, “should be condemned for polluting one of our most important rivers.”

Speaking of how to prevent the fracking industry from damaging the environment, he said that Australia should ban fracking as an unsafe practice altogether.

“What we are waiting in Australia is a moratorium on fracking,” he said, adding that fracking should be viewed as a global threat and its spreading should make people around the world “terrified.”