Saudi Role in Hariri's Mysterious Departure

Did the Saudis Force Lebanese PM to Resign?

by TRNN

November 6, 2017

Scholar Rania Masri says it's clear from a number of factors -- from the dialect of his resignation speech to the location where delivered it -- that Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was forced by the Saudi Arabian government to resign.

Rania Masri is an academic, environmental science professor and social-justice activist, and has been living in Lebanon since 2005. Masri was Associate Director of the Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship at AUB (2014-2017), after nine years as professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Balamand (2005-2014). Before that, she served as the Environment and Energy Policy Specialist at the UNDP-Regional Office in Cairo (2012-2013). Prior to her move to Lebanon in 2005, she was the Director of the Southern Peace Research and Education Center at the Institute for Southern Studies in North Carolina, USA (2002-2005).

Her writings and activism have centered on the occupation of Palestine, and the struggle against apartheid and racism. She has also written and organized extensively against the sanctions on Iraq, and for civil and environmental rights.

She can be reached on Facebook

A partial listing of her writings and talks can be found on her personal website

Media Making the Lebanon Frame

Hezbollah doesn’t attack America, it’s the other way around

by Sharmine Narwani - The Sandbox

November 7, 2017

Western-backed militants are in retreat, Bashar al-Assad remains president, Hezbollah has stretched its wings regionally, Israeli power is in decline, and Iran is on the rise. Not a pretty result for Washington’s multi-billion dollar investment in the Syrian conflict, especially if it was intended to change the map of the region to favor U.S. interests.

The Trump administration is therefore moving to hit its regional adversaries on alternative, non-military fronts—mainly, employing the sanctions tool that can cripple economies, besiege communities, and stir up public discontent.

The first step was to decertify the nuclear agreement struck between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), which would open up a pathway to further U.S. sanctions against Iran.

The second step is to resuscitate the Hezbollah “threat” and isolate the organization using legal maneuvers and financial sanctions—what one pro-U.S. Lebanese Central Bank official calls “the new tools of imperialism.”

The U.S. listed Hezbollah as a “terrorist organization” 20 years ago this month. Most other states, as well as the United Nations Security Council, have not.

Two weeks ago, at a special State Department briefing on the Hezbollah “threat,” National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas J. Rasmussen tried to paint a picture of an organization that was directing “terrorism acts worldwide” and posing a threat “to U.S. interests” including “here in the homeland.”

“Prior to September 11,” Rasmussen claimed,

“I think everybody knows Hezbollah was responsible for the terrorism-related deaths of more U.S. citizens than any other foreign terrorist organization.”

This was news indeed.

A check with a State Department spokesperson confirmed that the “deaths of more U.S. citizens than any other foreign terrorist organization” claim was in reference to the following incidents:

“Hezbollah is responsible for multiple large scale terrorist attacks, including the 1983 suicide truck bombings of the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut; the 1984 attack on the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut; and the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, during which U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem was murdered,” explained the spokesperson in an email.

The 1983 attack on the Beirut barracks took the lives of 241 Americans. The 1983 U.S. embassy bombing killed 17 Americans, and the 1984 attack on the relocated embassy facilities killed two Americans.

Hezbollah has officially and consistently denied involvement in these suicide bombings and was not even established as an organization until 1985. Some write off this important discrepancy by arguing that the bombings would have been conducted by one of Hezbollah’s “precursor organizations,” albeit without providing evidence to prove the point.

The U.S. secretary of defense at the time of the bombings, Caspar Weinberger, told PBS almost two decades later, in 2001:

“We still do not have the actual knowledge of who did the bombing of the Marine barracks at the Beirut Airport… and we certainly didn’t then.”

What was the U.S. reaction to the Beirut bombings in 1982? Did it retaliate against this phantom Hezbollah or its “precursor” organizations? No. In what was the heaviest shore bombardment by a U.S. naval vessel since the Korean war, the Americans retreating from Lebanon launched 300 missiles inland, killing hundreds of Druze and Shia non-combatants. In their book Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of America’s War Against Terrorism, David C. Martin and John Walcott write about the incident:

In a nine-hour period, the U.S.S. New Jersey fired 288 16-inch rounds, each one weighing as much as a Volkswagen Beetle. In those nine-hours, the ship consumed 40 percent of the 16-inch ammunition available in the entire European theater…in one burst of wretched excess.

Meanwhile, the Beirut barracks bombing targeted servicemen from the U.S. and France. This was in the context of Israel’s illegal invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982, heavily armed and openly abetted by the United States. The victims were not non-combatants—they were military forces belonging to governments that were aiding an aggression against sovereign Lebanon.

Whatever the case and whomever the perpetrator, you don’t get to call the barracks bombing “terrorism.” It’s an irrational American narrative that time and time again confounds the Middle East: If the U.S. kills you, you are collateral damage. But if you shoot back, you are a terrorist.

Not Hezbollah

“It’s not really Hezbollah’s modus operandi,” mused former UK Ambassador Frances Guy about the massive car bomb that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri along Beirut’s seafront. We were discussing likely perpetrators during my visit to Beirut in 2010, and Guy told me that the Lebanese resistance group doesn’t really “do” high-octane car bombings in public spaces.

Nonetheless, four Hezbollah operatives stand accused of assassinating Hariri by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), a highly politicized UN investigative body that shifted its focus from one western political adversary to another, until finally settling on Hezbollah.

A revealing Wikileaks cable from 2008 shows the STL’s chief investigator begging the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon to provide the names of “leads” to pursue in Syria. “You are the key player,” he implores Ambassador Michele Sison, adding that the U.S. has “a big investment in the Tribunal.”

In a rare candid moment during an off-the-record meeting in 2011, another senior British official dropped this bombshell: “The [UN] Tribunal is useful for us to keep the Iranians in line. We don’t have too many tools left to do that.”

Shortly after my meeting with Ambassador Guy in 2010, she was raked over the coals for a blog she posted on the passing of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah—a Lebanese Shia cleric the U.S. has consistently, and incorrectly, called “Hezbollah’s spiritual leader.” She wrote:

When you visited him you could be sure of a real debate, a respectful argument and you knew you would leave his presence feeling a better person…The world needs more men like him willing to reach out across faiths, acknowledging the reality of the modern world and daring to confront old constraints. May he rest in peace.

Israelis were incensed by Guy’s admiration for the Hezbollah-supporting cleric, and her blog post was scrubbed. But the UK nevertheless sent an official to pay condolences at Fadlallah’s Hassanein mosque, followed by a procession of ambassadors from France, Belgium, Poland, and Denmark. The French and Spanish ambassadors and the UN secretary general sent condolences to Hezbollah too.

Foreign Policy magazine published a piece upon Fadlallah’s death, subtitled: “How the United States got Lebanon’s leading Shiite cleric dead wrong—and missed a chance to change the Middle East forever.” That cryptic sentence refers, of course, to the monumentally misguided off-the-books assassination attempt against Ayatollah Fadlallah organized by CIA Director William Casey in the aftermath of the barracks and embassy bombings—despite the fact that the U.S., per Weinberger’s claims, had no clue who did it.

According to an interview Casey gave to the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, the CIA chief arranged for Saudi funding for the covert operation using Lebanese militias to do the dirty work. Fadlallah escaped death, but 80 others died in the southern Beirut suburb that day, including the brother of a young Imad Mughniyeh, who went on to become a leader of Hezbollah’s security operations.

He had been only nine years old in July 1972, when the Israelis set off Beirut’s first car bomb near the southern suburb where he lived, killing Palestinian poet Ghassan Kanafani and others.

Mughniyeh, you may recall, was himself killed in a car bomb in Damascus in February 2008. In the immediate aftermath of that assassination, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell seemed to misdirect reporters: “There’s some evidence that it may have been internal Hezbollah. It may have been Syria. We don’t know yet, and we’re trying to sort that out.”

No, it wasn’t Hezbollah and it wasn’t Syria. Seven years later, a series of orchestrated leaks to Newsweek and the Washington Post revealed that the Mughniyeh car bombing came courtesy of a joint operation by the CIA and Mossad.

No Threat to Americans

“Hezbollah is not plotting against us,” former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told a small group of anti-government Syrians on the sidelines of the UN’s General Assembly plenary session a year ago.

Kerry’s comments were caught on an audio tape acquired by the New York Times. Asked why the U.S. fights extremist Sunni groups and not Shia ones, he replied:

The reason for [airstrikes against the Sunni Extremists] is because they have basically declared war on us, and are plotting against us, and Hezbollah is not plotting against us— Hezbollah is exclusively focused on Israel, who they’re not attacking now, and on Syria, where they are attacking in support of Assad.

Now, a mere year later, Rasmussen wants us to believe: “We in the Intelligence Community do, in fact, see continued activity on behalf of Hezbollah here inside the homeland.”

So which is it? Is Hezbollah targeting Americans or not? The evidence of this is extremely slim and is peppered with more use of qualifying terms—-“allegedly,” “reportedly,” “assessments,” “linkages”—than any objective journalist can comfortably swallow. So too are U.S. reports of Hezbollah’s “international terrorist activities.”

American investigative reporter Gareth Porter has done deep dives on various allegations of Hezbollah-linked “terrorism” in Argentina, Bulgaria, Washington, DC, India, Saudi Arabia and other places. The State Department lists many of these incidents as evidence of the “global threat” Hezbollah poses, but always, upon further scrutiny, the accusations ring hollow.

If there was compelling evidence of the Lebanese resistance group’s involvement in all these attacks, then why have so few nations clamored onto the Hezbollah-is-a-terrorist-organization bandwagon? Until the conflict in Syria kicked off, it was restricted to a smattering of western states and Israel. But relentless U.S. pressure, and the seismic battle currently underway in the Middle East between pro-U.S. states and pro-Iran states vying for hegemony, have produced a few recent additions.

In early 2016, the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) designated Hezbollah a terrorist group, followed a few days later by the 21-member Arab League, with Lebanon and Iraq voting against the measure.

Both organizations are heavily dominated by the immensely wealthy and sectarian (read: anti-Shia) Saudis, financial patrons to many Sunni leaders in the region, and a country entrenched in existential proxy battles in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Bahrain (against Hezbollah ally and U.S. foe, Iran).

What stands out, instead, is the European Union’s fuzzy position on Hezbollah. Despite U.S. insistence that the group in its entirely is a terrorist organization, the EU lists only Hezbollah’s “military wing” as such—and that designation was made only in 2013, when the Syrian conflict exploded and nations started taking hard sides in the Middle East. The “military wing” caveat is a critical distinction that reveals there are more layers to this onion than we see in State Department sound bites.

For Lebanon, Hezbollah is more than just the first Arab force to militarily expel the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from its territory permanently. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is a political party too, with members of parliament and seats in the cabinet. The group runs a remarkable array of social services across the country, from subsidized schools, hospitals and clinics, to agricultural centers and environmental programs.

Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan introduced a more nuanced image of the group to a Washington think tank audience in 2009:

Hezbollah started out as purely a terrorist organization in the early ’80s and has evolved significantly over time. And now it has members of parliament, in the cabinet; there are lawyers, doctors, others who are part of the Hezbollah organization … And so, quite frankly, I’m pleased to see that a lot of Hezbollah individuals are in fact renouncing that type of terrorism and violence and are trying to participate in the political process in a very legitimate fashion.

Furthermore, Hezbollah’s appeal is not limited to Lebanon’s Shia community. Since 2006, Hezbollah has been in a political alliance with the country’s largest Christian-based political party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), whose leader, General Michel Aoun, is currently president of Lebanon.

Aoun’s close association with Hezbollah is an irritant to Washington, and so the Trump administration is pushing to tighten the sanctions noose on Lebanon, too. In September, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to strengthen the 2015 Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act. Congressmen claim the new measures won’t harm regular Lebanese civilians, but there is a dangerous trend underway to punish anyone who supports Hezbollah’s civic, social, and religious initiatives.

This concern by the Lebanese is fully justified if you listen to State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism Nathan A. Sales, who insists:

Money given to a terrorist organization, even for purportedly non-terroristic purposes, ends up assisting the group’s terroristic activities. If you give money to the so-called peaceful side of an organization, money is fungible. And so that frees up resources that can then be used for malign activities that have nothing to do with charitable work or other purposes that we might regard as legitimate. And so it’s important for us to maintain that distinction as false. The distinction between political and terroristic is false.

The Lebanese resistance was formed in reaction to Israel’s illegal invasion and occupation of Lebanon. As Kerry says, that’s where Hezbollah’s real fight is—with Israel.

Washington should leave it to the two to duke it out. This is not America’s fight. Hezbollah has saved Lebanon—and much of the Levant—not once, but twice, from bloody aggressions. In fact, maybe I’ll take them out to lunch in Beirut and pay the bill. I daresay that could be regarded as a financial contribution to Hezbollah, and that would make me a “terrorist,” too.


A version of this article was originally published by The American Conservative (TAC) on November 3, 2017. Follow the author on Twitter and Facebook.

Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud's Long Knives

In Stunning Reversal, Saudi Arabia Order Arrest Of Syrian Opposition Leaders

by Adam Garrie - The Duran

November 6, 2017

Muhammad bin Salman is using his purges to change the medium and possibly long-term priorities of the Saudi regime.

 As part of the wide-scale political purges conducted by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, Riyadh has ordered the arrest of Ahmed al-Jarba and Riad Hijab, two formerly Saudi backed proxies, vying to take control of Syria and establish a Takfiri state.

While Ahmed al-Jarba and Riad Hijab never had meaningful support in Syria, Saudi had consistently backed them and their colleagues in an effort to destabilize the secular Ba’athist Arab Republic. Now though, both men are wanted in Saudi for “money laundering and smuggling.”

This is a further sign that the purges of Muhammad bin Salman are aimed at radically re-orientating the priorities of the Saudi regime. Additionally, Saudi has now all but admitted that its attempts to meddle in Syria’s sovereign political affairs have failed. 

As I wrote yesterday:

"If viewed in isolation, the Hariri resignation appears like a clear Saudi organized attempt to foment discord in Lebanon by provoking Hezbollah, with the aim of weakening the resistance in Syria and opening up Lebanon to the kind of civil crisis which in the past has led to aggressive Israeli invasions and general strife."

However, when the events of yesterday are taken in totality, a different theory springs to mind, one which ought to be taken seriously, even if counter-intuitive at first glance.

After MBS’s ‘great purge’ of highly important figures in the Saudi ‘deep state’, including the billionaire and darling of western mainstream media, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, it is fair to say that Muhammad Bin Salman has taken the first strike against any would-be challengers or political opponents as he continues to consolidate his power, even before formally taking the throne from the elderly King Salman.

This ‘great purge’ which comes after the house arrest of former Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, is a clear indication that MBS looks to turn Saudi into ‘his’ country just as Stalin turned the USSR into ‘his’ when he purged virtually all the remaining elements of the original Bolshevik leadership during the 1930s.

It is this parallel that is also important in another way. Many commentators, including contemporary Russian opposition leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky has remarked that Stalin’s purges, including of the army, left the Soviet Union less than adequately prepared to stop the fascist invasion on 22 June 1941. It should be noted at this point, that MBS’ purge includes many security officials.

MBS’ purges were clearly planned a long time in advance, even though the creation of an anti-corruption committee technically took place only hours before it issued the first degrees placing powerful Saudis under arrest. The fact that MBS sought to conduct many major purges at the same time, is indicative of a man who does not intend to give his opponents any time to regroup against him. Again, this is somewhat reminiscent of Stalin who held large scale trials which prosecuted many opponents (for Stalin, traitors) at one time.

This is significant because it is generally unwise to meddle in the affairs of countries abroad, when conducting such a deep and wide purge at home. This very phenomenon has been often used to explain why Donald Trump’s foreign policy is so chaotic. Trump’s domestic distractions have disallowed the formation of a coherent foreign policy.

Of course, if MBS’ opponents had differing views on how to handle Hariri, the purge may have been an insurance policy. The more likely scenario though is that many of the men purged would not have been able to impact the Hariri decision, not least because it would mean publicly going against the narrative that Hariri resigned because he feared an assassination attempt from Iran and Hezbollah rather than because the Saudi regime told him to go. Few in the wider Arab world believe this narrative, but in Saudi, one ‘has to’ acknowledge it as true for obvious reasons.

This therefore, forces one to consider why the Saudi regime would involve itself in the Hariri affair on the same day as the ‘great purge’?

The answer lies in exploring whether the Hariri ‘purge’ was more for domestic consumption than for international consumption. As a powerful Saudi citizen, one could think of Hariri’s apparently forced resignation as the first Saudi purge of the day, on a day that saw many powerful Saudi citizens dethroned from powerful places in society.

The message to all powerful Saudis, including to Hariri, is that no one is too big to fall at the hands of MBS, even a Saudi citizen who is the Prime Minister in a foreign democracy. The fact that both Hariri and MBS are young men in a leadership role, would indicate that for the famously politically trigger happy MBS, it was also an ego boost.

What about the geo-political repercussions?

On the surface, the move will clearly enrage Iran, Hezbollah and to a degree anger Syria while emboldening Israel and extremist Sunni movements in the Arab world including al-Qaeda.

Practically though, Israel is all too aware that Hezbollah is far more powerful today than when it expelled Israel from southern Lebanon in 2006 and al-Qaeda, although making a final push in the Golan Heights with Israeli assistance, is nevertheless a terrorist group on its last legs in the Levant and Iraq.

As for Iran, while Saudi continues to spew predictably anti-Iranian rhetoric, Saudi’s pivot towards Russia and China necessarily prohibits further Saudi aggression against Iran, except for that which is limited to rhetorical statements that will irk Iran and give Russia a headache, but do little more.

MBS sees China and Russia as crucial partners that will help realise his Vision 2030 project to diversify the Saudi economy. This means that Saudi will have to increasingly play by both Russia and China’s rules, which mean abandoning proxy imperial ambitions, abandoning military threats against nearby states and possibly move towards selling energy in the Petroyuan.

Therefore, a radically different explanation for yesterday’s events in Saudi begin to emerge. Perhaps the Hariri ‘resignation’ and the great purge are meant less to encourage Israel and provoke Iran, Syria and Hezbollah than they are events used to send subtle messages to Russia and China, possibly with communiques made behind the scenes to clarify the meaning.

Such a message is summarised as follows: Saudi has surrendered in its attempts to politically influence the Levant and will allow the chips to fall where they may. The Saudi puppet is out of Lebanon and Saudi won’t do anything meaningful to oppose Hezbollah in the post-Hariri era in Lebanon. Instead, Saudi will focus on domestic political changes to pave the way for a more ‘eastern friendly’ MBS regime in Riyadh.

Here, the implied advantage to Russia is that President Michel Aoun will be allowed to form a new government in Beirut that will be more amenable to Russian and consequently Chinese interests in the region, thus giving the eastern superpowers an unbroken chain of partners in the region stretching from Pakistan to Iran, into Iraq and Syria and finishing on the Mediterranean with Lebanon.

In return, it is implied that Russia will continue to resist any US attempts to slow down MBS’ ascent to power.

To be absolutely clear, I do not believe for a moment that this is a ‘Russian plan’. Instead, Saudi is doing something whose long term outcome is naturally in Russia’s interest and Russia, a country which does not even intervene in the affairs of its enemies, will surely not intervene in the affairs of a Saudi state which is pivoting (however awkwardly) towards Russia and her partners”.

While the MBS purges are self-serving first and foremost, they are also part of his desired pivot away from over-dependence on the US. By publicly attacking its former political proxies for Syria, Riyadh is clearly showing that its internal matters now take precedent over directly meddling in the wider Arab world.


The Duran is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

What Does Saudi Purge and Ratcheted Anti-Iranian Sabre-Rattling Portend?

Marwa Osman on Saudi Purge, Iraqi PMU’s Defeat ISIS, Paradise Papers & More

by UK COLUMN

November 6, 2017

A Saudi purge is underway. What will it lead to? Also, ISIS is nearly defeated in Iraq thanks to the brave efforts of the People’s Mobilization Units aka Hashed al-Shabbi forces.

Meanwhile, the establishment’s media arm mounts another major distraction – a paper tiger drift-out another toothless ‘journalist investigation’ of offshore paperwork under the marketing banner of the “Paradise Papers” in order to restart their calls for a global tax regime.

Watch:

UK Column co-anchor Mike Robinson is joined by guest host from 21WIRE Patrick Henningsen, along with Lebanese political analyst Marwa Osman, to discuss the top stories internationally.

Will Paradise Papers Prove Hellish for the Ruling Elite?

The Paradise Papers – Secrets Of The Global Elite

by ICIJ

November 5, 2017

Complete List Of Paradise papers ICIJ releases Paradise Papers KEY FINDINGS Reveals offshore interests and activities of more than 120 politicians and world leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II, and 13 advisers, major donors and members of U.S. President Donald J. Trump.

Exposes the tax engineering of more than 100 multinational corporations, including Apple, Nike, and Botox-maker Allergan. Reveals tax haven shopping sprees by multinational companies in Africa and Asia that use shell companies in Mauritius and Singapore to reduce taxes. 

Shines a light on secretive deals and hidden companies connected to Glencore, the world’s largest commodity trader, and provides detailed accounts of the company’s negotiations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for valuable mineral resources. 

Provides details of how owners of jets and yachts, including royalty and sports stars, used Isle of Man tax-avoidance structures. #ParadiseLeaks #ParadisePapers #icij

Starving Culture: America's Parochial Retreat from UNESCO

United States Blackmails and “Starves”: UNESCO

by Andre Vltchek - Dissident Voice

November 5th, 2017

What just used to be rumors, suddenly, became official facts.

The Government of the United States of America, which for years and decades has been sick and tired of the ‘rebellious UN agency’, decided to leave it, slamming the door behind its back.

(Photo Credit: Andre Vltchek)

In its official Press Statement, the U.S. Department of State declared:

On October 12, 2017, the Department of State notified UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova of the U.S. decision to withdraw from the organization and to seek to establish a permanent observer mission to UNESCO. This decision was not taken lightly, and reflects U.S. concerns with mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO.

“Good riddance!” several members of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization exclaimed in front of me, but, of course, off-the record. No statements of that nature were produced in public, although the Director-General Irina Bokova made sure to demonstrate her disappointment at the US decision:

At the time when conflicts continue to tear apart societies across the world, it is deeply regrettable for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations agency promoting education for peace and protecting culture under attack. This is a loss to the United Nations family. This is a loss for multilateralism.

Shamelessly, since 2011, the U.S. has been literally ‘starving’ UNESCO. Its unpaid dues have mounted to approximately half a billion dollars, sharply reducing the organization’s ability to operate effectively in some of the toughest and most devastated parts of the world, including Syria, Yemen, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Perhaps that was the goal, as UNESCO has been working closely with several countries and areas that the West has been trying to de-stabilize, and even destroy. But an official ‘justification’ of the Empire reducing and even stopping flow of funds: UNESCO member states voted to recognize Palestine as a full member of the organization.

(Photo Credit: Andre Vltchek)

Of course, the member states voted democratically and independently, and their choice had nothing to do with the leadership of UNESCO. But the Western Empire is so used to the fact that all the democratic aspiration of people and nations all over the world are regularly oppressed on its behalf, that it could not ‘forgive’ UNESCO for accepting results of the vote, and yielding to the will of its member states.

‘Untouchable’ Israel, with countless despicable crimes against humanity that it has been committing for decades, as well as its appalling apartheid regime, are fully backed by the U.S. and most of its Western allies.

UNESCO on the other hand has for decades been something of a ‘black sheep’ inside the mostly obedient family consisting of submissive (to the West) U.N. agencies. An intellectual and internationalist institution encircled by mostly technocratic organizations, it has been nevertheless ‘infiltrated’ by great Cuban and other progressive Latin American educators and thinkers (including such individuals as Argentinian writer Julio Cortazar), by socially oriented scientists, and by illustrious cultural figures from all corners of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

Its first Secretary General (since 1946) was, after all, Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, the renowned British evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist, and the brother of Aldous Huxley, the author of “Brave New World”.

It is essential to remember that Julian Huxley’s term of office, (six years in the Charter), was cut down to just two years at the request of the U.S. delegation. It was obviously because of his left-wing beliefs and internationalist principles. Before being literally ousted, Julian Huxley published a 60-page long essay “UNESCO – Its Purpose and Philosophy”, which managed to become the organization’s official document, as well as one of the great internationalist manifestos of the 21st century.

From the outset it became apparent that the United States was going to be unwilling to leave the organization ‘in peace’, and allowing it to serve its (mostly poor) member states. The West turned its policy towards UNESCO into some sort of ‘policy of revolving doors’. The U.S. left the organization during the Reagan era in 1984, claiming that UNESCO “showed hostility towards free market”, among other things; the U.K. walked out during the reign of Ms. Thatcher. The era of manipulation and Western imperialist control was far from over then, as it is far from over even now.

*****

Like parrots, most of the major US and UK-based newspapers have been reprinting the same clichés and empty lines about UNESCO being “known for designating World Heritage sites such as the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria and the Grand Canyon National Park.” I read this in 10 different mainstream publications. In fact, there are more than 1,000 places, as diverse as the Sunderbans in Bangladesh and the Complex of Koguryo Tombs in North Korea, included in the ‘world heritage sites’ list. But that is not the point! To protect and help to maintain these sites is just a tiny fragment of UNESCO’s activities.

(Photo Credit: Andre Vltchek)

The Western mainstream media patently refuses to acknowledge the main reasons why UNESCO is continuously battered by the West and its allies, including Israel and Japan. That core reason is: the organization’s attempt to break cultural hegemony of a handful of imperialist and capitalist countries that are ruling the world. And that hegemony encompasses culture, education and yes, even the science.

Following the U.S. lead and example, the state of Israel is now also threatening to leave UNESCO, soon (or is it the other way around, really?). Japan has ‘withheld’ its contribution; right after UNESCO inscribed (in 2016) the Nanking Massacre into its powerful program – “Memory of the World”.

*****

For years, I have been enjoying a professional and intellectual association with the organization.

The situation inside UNESCO is increasingly maddening. There are still dozens of great thinkers in its ranks, many true internationalists, but UNESCO is being prevented from flying, from achieving its full potential. It still manages to do great work in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, in Africa, and in many other parts of the world, but it is doing it despite regular interference from the Western countries.

To keep UNESCO at bay, the West, particularly the United States, is using money as a weapon. But UNESCO so far refuses to budge: on Palestine or on the Japanese atrocities in China. Compared to other UN agencies, it is often cash-strapped, but at least it does not seem to have blood on its hands.

Recently, the executive board of the organization elected a new Director-General. Virtually every Western country had sidelined the highly respected candidate from China. A Moroccan-French lady, of Jewish descent was elected. Rumors circulating at UNESCO are that the U.S. may wait and see how things will turn out, and only then decide whether to leave the organization after all.

“Bastards are bluffing; they will not leave after this vote for the new DG,” one of the senior staffers of UNESCO sarcastically declared. She, naturally, did not want to be identified.

“No pasaran!” proclaimed a leading educationalist of the organization, without any hesitation or any further comment.

UNESCO is perhaps ‘starved’, suffering from malnutrition, but its brain is very clear. It has still plenty to say and do. The West is horrified, thinking that the organization may get on its feet again, and snap at the Empire’s plans to brainwash the world by means of ‘culture’ and ‘education’.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are his tribute to The Great October Socialist Revolution, a revolutionary novel Aurora, and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: Exposing Lies Of The Empire. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky On Western Terrorism. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his

 Read other articles by Andre.

• First published in New Eastern Outlook (NEO)
 

What Millions of Barrels of Barged Tar Sands Dilbit Means to the Salish Sea

Millions of barrels of tar sands oil barged within the Salish Sea since 2010 

by Fred Felleman - Friends of the Earth

November 2017

Proposed expansion of Trans Mountain Pipeline exceeds the capacity of defunct KXL pipeline proposal; will result in 7x more tar sands traffic by tanker

SEATTLE, WASH. — A new report details an alarming increase in barge traffic transporting tar sands oil for refining and export between an oil port near Vancouver, BC and the U.S. Oil refinery in Tacoma, Washington.

The Westridge marine oil terminal located in Burnaby, BC is the terminus of the Trans Mountain pipeline that currently carries 300,000 barrels per day of diluted bitumen or tar sands oil — or dilbit — from Alberta, Canada for export.

This investigation was prompted by the proposed expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline and the sevenfold increase in tanker traffic exporting tar sands oil through the critical habitat of the endangered community of Southern Resident Killer Whales.

The inability to recover spills of tar sands oil with current technology, as reported by the National Academy of Sciences in 2016, led Friends of the Earth to evaluate how much tar sands oil Washington refineries receive by vessel.

“Trans Mountain is the one of the biggest threats to U.S. waters that few people have ever heard of,” said Fred Felleman, Northwest consultant for Friends of the Earth and author of the report. 

 “The expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline poses the greatest risk of a catastrophic oil spill in the Salish Sea as compared with the numerous other marine terminal proposals in the region. This project would be the final harpoon in the population of endangered southern resident killer whales.”

The report, released today by Friends of the Earth with the title “Tar Sands/Dilbit Crude Oil Movements Within the Salish Sea,” details the shipments of tar sands within Washington State waters as well as the export of crude oil from the state. Specifically, it focuses on the barge movements of tar sands crude oil between Burnaby, BC and Tacoma, Washington within the Salish Sea.

“Many people may think that the battle over tar sands exports ended with the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline by the Obama administration,” said Marcie Keever, oceans and vessels program director at Friends of the Earth.

“However, this report details that tar sands oil is currently moving over the waters of the Salish Sea, being refined at Washington refineries, and will increase sevenfold if the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion is approved. The threats from this dirty, climate disrupting oil are already apparent in the Northwest.”

Key findings from the report: 

Washington State is a major refining center where five refineries received 2,117 deliveries of crude oil totaling more than 695,000,000 million barrels over the waters of the Salish Sea between 2010 and 2014. Refineries receive an additional 180,000 bbls/day of crude oil from the Trans Mountain Pipeline as well as lesser amounts by rail that fluctuates with the price of crude.

Between 2010 and 2014 more than 10 million barrels of tar sands oil were barged on 132 occasions within the Salish Sea between the terminus of the Trans Mountain Pipeline in Burnaby, BC and the U.S. Oil refinery in Tacoma, WA.

The oil barges Commencement Bay and Drakes Bay — each with a capacity of 80,000 barrels — towed by the tug Henry Sause and owned by the Sause Brothers made this day-long trip three times per month during the 5-year study period.

The route taken by the Henry Sause was from the Trans Mountain oil terminal south across Georgia Strait and Rosario Strait into Commencement Bay in Puget Sound. Numerous tugs and tows have run into trouble along this route due to the swift currents through Rosario Strait and the lack of maneuverability of tugs with tows leading the U.S. Coast Guard to issue a voluntary Marine Safety Advisory in 2015.

The Trans Mountain Pipeline moves approximately 300,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day from the oil fields in Alberta to British Columbia. The proposed expansion would increase the pipeline’s capacity to 890,000 barrels per day of tar sands oil and increase the number of tankers exporting crude oil through the Salish Sea from one per week to one per day.


Washington’s refineries exported 9,810,200 barrels of crude oil on 80 occasions between 2010 and 2014. All five of Washington refineries have used their docks as crude oil transshipment terminals enabling crude oil tankers to leave their docks bypassing the refinery. This demonstrates the oil industry’s ability to export crude oil without dock modifications.

Recommendations:

• Establish tug escort requirements for oil barges, as required in California, especially those transporting dilbit crude oil.
• Station an Emergency Response Towing Vessel (ERTV) in the San Juan Islands to prevent and respond to oil spills.
• Update Washington State contingency plans to address the challenges of responding to a dilbit crude oil spill.
• Oppose the proposed expansion of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline due to its 7-fold increase in dilbit crude oil tanker traffic.

The report and action page can be found at www.foe.org/tarsandsreport.

Waters Lifts the Curtain

Roger Waters Lifts the Curtain

by Libby Davis - Rabble

Nov. 2, 2017

So, every time the curtain falls
Every time the curtain falls on some forgotten life
It is because we all stood by, silent and indifferent­

A few mindful lyrics from Roger Waters’ latest album, Is This the Life We Really Want?, draws us to be present and not absent from what happens around us. That's what October 26 was like in a filled-to-capacity church in downtown Vancouver as Waters spoke about his music and passion for justice. At times dismissive, charged, and fervent, he laid out loud and clear his support for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in solidarity to end the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel.

Legendary music man and original front man for Pink Floyd, Waters shared his time and energy prior to his Saturday, Oct. 28, concert in Vancouver, the final night of the North American leg of his Us + Them World Tour, to talk tough about human rights, Palestine, activism and challenges we face.

Looking a tad tired (“I gotta cold,” he said), with his grey white hair plastered forward, Waters sat in the middle of his two interviewers Itrath Syed and Martha Roth and jumped right into BDS — "let's get to it."

He proceeded to explain his planned concert 11 years ago in Tel Aviv until he cancelled it in response to those who urged him not to play in order to show support for the plight of Palestinians. He changed the concert venue to an integrated Israeli/Palestinian community and then later immersed himself in visiting occupied communities and people in order to understand the political and human rights environment for those under occupation.

Waters has remained an outspoken critic of Israeli policies and occupation ever since, earning him both accolades and respect, as well as the seemingly requisite disinformation and smear campaigns. The latest incarnation of this is in celebrity-chasing director Ian Halperin’s documentary Wish You Weren’t Here. But Waters carries on with his music and his speaking truth to power to wake up a distracted and disengaged public.

I know from my own experience in Ottawa how toxic the political environment is when it comes to BDS and criticism of Israeli policies. I was glad to see Syed in her questions to Waters shedding light on current PM Justin Trudeau’s tweet that BDS has no place in Canada: “The BDS movement, like Israeli Apartheid Week, has no place on Canadian campuses.

As a @McGillU alum, I’m disappointed. #EnoughIsEnough.”

If the Vancouver audience is any measure, there are growing numbers of people who want to hear Waters’ message and support the movement for BDS.

In addition to his concert and talk, the film Occupation of the American Mind, narrated by Waters, is showing on November 8 in Vancouver.

Libby Davies is the former NDP Deputy Leader and represented Vancouver East as an NDP MP for 18 years.

SubliminalsovietPursuasion

Don Draper Rules: Russian Ads and American Madness

by Chris Floyd  - CounterPunch

November 3, 2017

So we’ve finally seen some of the social media ads which we are told skewed the entire election in 2016 and constituted a key part of the internet assault on America launched by Vladimir Putin’s “troll army.”

Scary stuff blazoned across front pages and screen scrolls everywhere.

But before going on, perhaps we should find out what makes a social media account part of Putin’s invasion force?

Well, according to Twitter, it is ANY account created in Russia.

Or any account where the user has a Russian email address.

Photo by amira_a | CC by 2.0

Or if their name contains Cyrillic characters. Or if they ever tweet in Russian. Or if they have ever logged in from any Russian IP address — even a single time. Twitter says:

“We considered an account to be Russian-linked if it had even one of the relevant criteria.”

Not even Glenn Beck would draw so many far-fetched connections. One glance at the Twitter criteria tells you that it could enroll every single Russian dissident into Putin’s “troll army.” I personally know several people in Russia who are adamantly opposed to Putin and all he stands for — and have put their lives on the line for their beliefs. According to Twitter — and the US Congress, the mainstream media, the Democratic Party and innumerable liberal commentators — these people are also part of Putin’s “troll army.” Even a single log-in from any Russian IP address makes you part of the troll army. (What if you were visiting Russian dissident friends and checked your Facebook on their computer? Why, you’re a Kremlin stooge, pal, and don’t try to deny it.) Even people who have left Russia — maybe even fled from Putin — but still, use their native language in their tweets can now be counted as part of the troll army. Essentially, any social media post that can be remotely tied to Russia in any possible way can be seen as part of Putin’s assault on American democracy — no matter what it says, who wrote it, or where they wrote it, or why.

This is madness. Absolute madness. It demonizes and criminalizes Russians and people connected to Russians far more extensively than we saw even in McCarthyite times. At least in those days, a Russian dissident couldn’t be accused of being a Kremlin stooge for writing a communication in his or her native language. Or using the Russian postal service. But that’s where we are now.

So back to those ads. Congressional committees have released images of “Russian-linked” ads which apparently “reached” 150 million Americans. I assume that means they appeared somewhere on a social media page of 150 million Americans at some point; how many people read them or even noticed them is another matter. Of course, the social media companies like to pretend to advertisers that readers devour every ad and promoted post; that’s how they make their money, after all. But apparently no one in Congress uses social media; if they did, they would know that normal human beings ignore 99 percent of the ad crap that litters their Facebook and Twitter feeds. But anyway, after many months, we’ve at last seen some of these history-changing ads which came, according to criteria that are never quite clear, from Russia’s “troll farms.”

What did we see? Hillary Clinton in a devil costume boxing with Jesus. A Clinton-backing Satan arm-wrestling with Jesus. Pro-gun memes. Anti-immigrant memes. Memes about military-hating Democrats. Basically, the same sort of things your cranky uncle or Foxicated cousin has been sending around on email for the past 20 years.

The idea that someone could be dissuaded from voting for Hillary Clinton because of something like this is absurd. (“Ah was sure gonna vote for Mizzus Clinton until Ah saw Jeeezus didn’t like her none! Now Ah’m votin’ fer Trump!”) Anyone “swayed” by this kind of thing would already be committed to voting for Trump or any rightwing candidate. Yet we’re supposed to believe that a handful of crude ads like this were far more effective than Clinton’s hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ads. If that’s the case, then Madison Avenue should hire Putin; he’s the new Don Draper.

This has nothing to do with the Trump campaign’s obvious scheming for advantage with any dirty dealers they could find, including the Russians. (Although even the worst allegations of Trump’s collusion fall far short of the Reagan-Bush pre-election deal with the Iranians to keep holding Americans hostage until after the 1980 vote. There were mountains of credible evidence about this coming out after the equally treasonous Iran-Contra scandal –until Bill Clinton quashed the investigation, as he did other probes into Bush I. Now, of course, George Herbert Groper Bush refers to Clinton as his “son.” Yet a company I once worked for had a financial advisor who spent hours bragging how he and his cronies funneled millions of dollars in dirty money from Europe into Bush I’s secret campaign slush fund in ’92. I know we’re supposed to love the Bushes now, but the record of their corrupt collusion with dirty dealers, foreign and domestic, to subvert the democratic process could fill a library.)

And no, this is not to say Russia wasn’t monkeying around in American politics — as foreign powers have done since time immemorial, and as the US has done, to the nth degree, in the politics of other countries (including just invading them and overthrowing the government). But this seems to be a dangerous focus to me. First of all, it distracts from the very real and very vast damage that Trump’s administration is wreaking on the American system — and the natural environment — through the actions of his appointees. What Scott Pruitt is doing at the EPA, for example, far outweighs the negligible (and unprovable) effect of a few Facebook ads.

Second, it is driving us toward more and more constrictions on free speech, while also putting tech companies in charge of deciding on the political “trustworthiness” of websites, news organizations and individuals. Is this what we want? I’m not talking about open hate sites or calls for violence; I’m talking about the parameters we’re seeing used by the many groups suddenly springing up to determine “Russian influence.” Some of these guidelines include “material critical of US policy in Syria” or of US policy in general, or even stories about BLM or the pipeline protests. These groups — some of them anonymous, some of them made up of neocons and warhawks — are supplying the “information” being used in most news stories and Congressional hearings on the subject. Is this what we want? Google and a gaggle of anonymous militarists to determine whether we are following the correct political line or not? To be able to accuse anyone who questions US policy of being a Russian dupe or even a Russian agent? Is this really where we want to go? Because that’s where many Democrats are taking us.

It’s all a bit confusing. First we were told that Macedonian teenagers had swayed the election with fake news posts. Then we were told that Vladimir Putin personally directed a campaign to “hack” the election with his troll army, because he had made a deal with Donald Trump and hated Hillary Clinton. Now it turns out that many of the ads and posts from the nebulously-defined “troll army” also attacked Trump or dealt with controversial (and clickbaity) political topics — guns, BLM, etc. — from all sides of the political spectrum — so we’re told that Putin didn’t want Trump to win either, he just wanted to sow chaos in the United States. (Now, why a Russian leader — even a brutal authoritarian like Putin — would want to see a country with a thousand nuclear missiles pointed right at him break down into unstable chaos where anything might happen, including a nutball president launching a nuclear war, is hard to fathom.)

2. What really happened in 2016 is this. Hillary Clinton ran a very bad campaign (just as she did in 2008), depending on computer models and vacuous, contentless advertising and celebrity endorsements, playing fast and loose with the nominating process, and offering a nation hankering for major change little more than “it’s my turn now.” She didn’t campaign in the economically ravaged areas where a sliver of voters turned the Electoral College vote. She did have an actual public record (not the rightwing fantasy) that legitimately made actual “progressives” find her candidacy distasteful (although the overwhelming majority of them voted for her anyway). And yes, she faced an onslaught of outrageous lies and scandal-mongering and scabrous misogyny by the powerful rightwing press and rightwing Congress and on social media.

But guess what? She actually won the election anyway. If the United States was not saddled with the 18th-century elitist contraption of the Electoral College, Trump would not be president, no matter how many “Jesus” ads Vladimir Putin posted on Facebook. And if the Democrats had fought with all their might against the years-long Republican campaign to restrict voting among Democratic constituencies, which suppressed hundreds of thousands of votes in key states, then she would have won the Electoral College as well.

The Democrats have lost two presidential elections in this century due to the Electoral College — which means the actual choice of American voters has been overturned twice in past 16 years alone due to that 18th-century elitist contraption expressly designed to prevent the American people from choosing their leader by popular vote. Yet the Democrats do nothing about this. Perhaps because they’re quite willing also to take power even if they lose the popular vote. This actually would have happened in 2004 had the Republicans not illegally skewed the Ohio vote with their machinations to give the state to Bush. If Kerry, who almost certainly actually won the state, had gotten its electoral votes, then he would have been president, despite Bush outpolling him by 3 million in the popular vote.

So Clinton lost because the Democratic Party is not truly committed to the democratic process. They don’t really want to get rid of the Electoral College because it might be to their institutional advantage someday — the popular will be damned. And they apparently aren’t very concerned about the fact that millions of their potential voters have been rigorously disenfranchised, with millions more facing the same fate. Their passivity in the face of this is harder to explain; I honestly can’t understand why they haven’t made this a thundering, constant scandal year after year, or why Barack Obama didn’t use his popularity and his bully pulpit to denounce it and call for change. Trump established a presidential commission to look into the transparently bogus, totally baseless issue of “voter fraud”; couldn’t Obama have appointed a commission to look into the very real, thoroughly documented problem of voter disenfranchisement?

Again: if the US had a genuinely democratic process for electing its leader, Clinton would be president. But she is not the president, because of the anti-democratic elitist contraption of the Electoral College. She is not the president because Republicans — not Russians — have systematically disenfranchised millions of likely Democratic voters across the country over the course of several years. Without these factors, she would be president right now — which was the actual choice of the voters.

It seems to me it would be more productive to focus on these thoroughly homegrown factors — the factors that are actually costing the party these elections, the factors that are actually corroding American democracy — instead of the near-total, tunnel-vision focus on Don Draper’s super-magic Facebook ads, where a $100,000 of sporadic Jesus cartoons outweighs $500 million of all-pervasive Hollywood-produced campaign spots.

That’s not to say we should ignore Russian meddling in our elections. But here too, I would take a broader focus and also consider meddling by Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, China and other countries who also push pure propaganda through social media.

Even more importantly, I would focus on the meddling of the vast “troll farms” and propaganda mills and astroturf front groups and so-called think tanks and websites and publications controlled by our own, all-American oligarchs: our Kochs, our Mercers, our oil tycoons, etc., who spread so many lies, stoke so much division and manipulate our democratic process at every turn. Can we have some more outrage, some more focus — some more action — about that?
 

Chris Floyd is a columnist for CounterPunch Magazine. His blog, Empire Burlesque, can be found at www.chris-floyd.com.

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Documenting the Real Donald Trump Election Theft: Burning Newsman Asks, "Must I Set My Hat on Fire?"

Do I have to set my hat on fire? 

by Greg Palast

November 2, 2017

Do I have to set my hat on fire to get America’s attention?

I released a movie last year, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, that told exactly how Trump and his billionaire buddies were going to steal the election.

DID ANYONE LISTEN?

YOU did — but the Dummycrats and the pin-head media already bought their party dress for Hillary’s inauguration.

 

So I’m trying again:

Today, this moment, I’m releasing the new Trump-Stole-It update of our hit film. DOWNLOAD IT HERE NOW

I was going to sub-title it: "This time, pay attention!" But instead, the new subtitle is: The Case of the Stolen Election.

It will be released commercially next year. But you can get it right now — here, and only here, for a tax-deductible donation to the Palast Investigative Fund.

Warning: If you get "Best Democracy" on Amazon or iTunes, you’re getting the OLD version.

The NEW edition tells you exactly how Trump pulled off the heist. Follow me as I hunt for 75,355 missing ballots in the snows of Michigan. And as I find the voters from Ohio to Arizona who were shafted out of their vote. Voters of color — Hispanic, Asian-American, Black — and all "Blue."

Get the download of the feature length film right now, right here; or donate for the DVD which comes off the presses in one week — which I’ll sign and personalize for you. Note: Donate for the new DVD and you also get a download link today.

Did you already get the old DVD for a donation to the Palast Fund? If so, you’ll get the new film’s download link automatically at no charge.

We sure could use the donation: Right now, the ACLU, Brennan Center for Justice, League of Women Voters, Indivisible and NAACP have launched lawsuits and legislation based directly on the findings of our film and my Rolling Stone reports. I remain the only journalist with the actual Crosscheck purge lists, the millions of voters secretly targeted by Trump’s Vote-Thief-in-Chief Kris Kobach. We need to get our hands on new evidence for the legal teams.

But that’s not enough. We need to keep digging. Can you help us? Help us before they shoplift the 2018 and 2020 elections.

The new edition of our film retains the best stuff of the old version: The jump at the Hampton’s dinner of Steve Mnuchin’s billionaire partner, "JP The Foreclosure King," Willie Nelson as a stoner musician (he plays the part remarkably well), Rosario Dawson, Law & Order detectives Ice-T and Richard Belzer — and Shailene Woodley who takes me back to Sun Valley, California, where I grew up with my school chum, Steve Paddock. Yes, THAT Paddock.

Does our work matter? Right now, the Governorship of Virginia is in the balance — and Kobach had the state remove 79,000 voters — a list with a whole lot of Black names. That could be the election — or the Congress in 2018, or the re-election of Agent Orange in 2020. This isn’t about Republicans and Democrats, it’s about the return of Jim Crow as Dr. James Crow, database magician.

And if you can make a donation of $500 or $1,000, we can list you as a Producer (or Co-Producer) of the special Activist Version of the film commissioned by the Reverend Jesse Jackson for showing in 1,000 churches. (It’s also scheduled for showing at 67 colleges and at 13 training sessions of the ACLU).

Most important, share this note, get the film, download it now, or get the DVD (which includes an instant download link), and watch it with people prepared to laugh, to cry, to get angry enough to stand up and make America great again — because what made us great is The Vote.

And then, I can put out the fire on my hat.

- Greg Palast and the Palast investigations team.

* * * * * *

Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, out as major motion non-fiction movie: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Case of the Stolen Election (the brand new, updated, post-election edition).

Stay informed, get the signed DVD, a signed copy of the book companion — or better still, get the Book & DVD combo.

Visit the Palast Investigative Fund store or simply make a tax-deductible contribution to keep our work alive! Alternatively, become a monthly contributor and automatically receive Palast's new films and books when they're released!

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Madrid Threatening Military Action in Catalonia

Spanish army threatens to intervene in Catalonia as ministers are jailed

by Paul Mitchell and Alex Lantier  - WSWS

3 November 2017

After imposing Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to suspend Catalonia’s elected government last week, Spain, backed by the European Union (EU), is rapidly moving towards a military regime.

As High Court judge Carmen Lamela remanded into custody eight ministers of the Catalan regional government, Spanish armed forces chief General Fernando Alejandre threatened yesterday to attack Catalonia.

In the right-wing daily ABC, Alejandre affirmed that his plans for domestic military intervention are part of similar plans by NATO countries across Europe and North America.

“Just like our allies,” he said, “we are developing plans to, among other things, defend critical infrastructure, take action in response to catastrophes or crisis situations, react to external threats, fight terrorism or engage in collective defense in the context of the [NATO] Atlantic alliance.”

Apparently to assure readers that the Spanish army is not preparing a coup, Alejandre immediately added:

“Naturally, our plans take into account that the Armed Forces are tools serving the Spanish Nation, and that the executive branch must decide on the time and form of an intervention.”

Alejandre stressed, however, that Catalonia was a target of Spanish war planning. He called the Catalan independence movement “the greatest threat to our democracy.” To prepare the Spanish army for its tasks, he wrote, “I must take into account the accord adopted by the Senate on October 27, which noted ‘the extraordinary gravity of the disobedience of constitutional obligations, and the carrying out of actions gravely contrary to the general interest, by the institutions of the Catalan regional government.’”

Having singled out the threat supposedly posed by Catalonia, Alejandre continued:

“History shows that, if need be, Spain’s people and also its armed forces know how to defend our Nation.”

Hailing Spanish soldiers “of all epochs,” he declared,

“Our history is replete with examples where the Spanish military put its love for Spain before all other considerations...”

Alejandre’s claim that Catalan separatism is the greatest threat to Spanish democracy is an absurd political lie: the main threat comes from Madrid and the army.

His comments are a warning that Spain and the whole European Union (EU) are moving towards dictatorship. Alejandre’s assurances that there will be no coup are an evasion. Madrid launched an all-out confrontation with Catalonia during the October 1 Catalan independence referendum, which it sought to block through a violent police crackdown. As it decapitates the Catalan government and tries to install its unelected viceroys in Barcelona in the face of mass protests, Madrid doubtless plans to rely on the security forces even more than during the referendum.

His praise for the Spanish army’s role during “all epochs” is a chilling threat that must serve as a warning to workers across Europe. Over the last century, apart from its aggressive and bloodthirsty colonial wars in North Africa, the Spanish army has had only one target: the Spanish people.

The last time the Spanish army marched into Catalonia, in January 1939 under the command of fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco at the end of the Spanish Civil War, it carried out mass executions of its political opponents in order to crush revolutionary struggles of the working class.

The threat of domestic military intervention in Spain, amid a state of emergency in neighboring France and escalating demands for Internet censorship in Washington, is the product of a mortal crisis of capitalism.

After a quarter century of escalating militarism and austerity measures since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and particularly since the 2008 Wall Street crash, the EU is discredited. With tens of millions of workers unemployed and living standards falling in much of Europe, the ruling class is terrified of rising social anger and moving towards dictatorship.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party (PP) government is ruthlessly attacking the Catalan bourgeois nationalists to show that no opposition will be tolerated. Independence referendums had been held peacefully in Quebec in Canada or in Scotland in the UK. Nonetheless, Madrid deliberately inflamed the Catalan conflict, assaulting peaceful voters during the October 1 referendum and then rejecting Catalan president Carles Puigdemont’s suspension of a declaration of independence and appeals for dialogue.

Madrid’s main target is opposition in the working class, and in its assault on Catalonia it is acting with contempt for the Spanish people. Despite weeks of non-stop anti-Catalan propaganda in the press, polls suggest growing opposition in Spain to Madrid’s crushing of Catalan self-rule. In a recent El Mundo poll, 57 percent of Spaniards and 76 percent of Catalans wanted a peaceful Catalan independence referendum to be held, whilst large majorities opposed independence.

Nevertheless, Madrid aims to seize the Catalan regional state apparatus and impose austerity and militarism at the behest of the EU, which is has backed Madrid and demanded that—despite the Catalan crisis—it continue to cut social spending to meet EU budget deficit criteria.

Yesterday, Spanish courts jailed Catalan ministers including Oriol Junqueras (Deputy President), Jordi Turull (spokesperson), Raul Romeva (foreign affairs) and Joaquin Form (interior). Accused of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement over the October 1 referendum and the October 27 declaration of independence, they face up to 30 years in jail.

Ousted Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont and four regional ministers who fled to Belgium on Monday also face arrest. Spain’s Public Prosecutor is demanding the High Court issue European Arrest Warrants. Charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement have also been leveled at the Catalan Parliament Speaker Carme Forcadell and five members of the Speaker’s Committee.

This ruthless response was not meted out to one accused minister, Santi Vila, who resigned at the last minute before the independence vote last Friday. He was not jailed, but released on €50,000 bail. Vila was greeted with shouts of “traitor”, “coward”, and “now the police protect you” on his arrival at court. He is clearly being groomed as the contender in the December 21 election that Madrid has demanded be organized in Catalonia.

The only way forward to oppose the turn by Madrid and the EU towards dictatorship is the independent mobilization of the working class across Spain and Europe in a revolutionary, socialist and internationalist struggle—against not only Madrid and the EU, but also the Catalan nationalists.

The latter, having run pro-austerity administrations in Barcelona for decades, advance the reactionary perspective of building a separate capitalist state in Catalonia oriented to the EU.

While Madrid and the Puigdemont government are engaged in an increasingly bitter struggle against each other, they are also closing ranks against the working class. Both are seeking a deal at the expense of the workers, based on the EU’s ever more militarized austerity policy. In Brussels, Puigdemont repeated his appeals to the EU to broker a deal with Madrid, and acquiesced to Rajoy’s call for December 21 elections, calling them a “democratic plebiscite.”

A rally was organized by the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Òmnium in Barcelona. The city’s mayor, Ada Colau, councilors of her Podemos-backed BComú coalition, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) and Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT), and the petty-bourgeois Candidature of Popular Unity (CUP) attended. Colau proposed an amnesty and the annulment of Article 155 after the December 21 elections as “minimum points” for reconciliation and a return to “democratic normality” in Catalonia.

Colau’s government has voted to recognise Puigdemont’s administration as “the legitimate Government of Catalonia”, rejected the application of Article 155 and “the authoritarian and threatening response of the State.” It rejected a CUP motion to “recognize the proclamation of the Catalan Republic” on October 27.

Similar proposals are being made by strategists of the ruling class internationally. In an editorial, the New York Times wrote,

“For the moment, Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, armed with the country’s Constitution, appeared to have taken the upper hand”. 

However, it warned,

“Rajoy’s unyielding stance could backfire if the standoff continues. The violent tactics of the Spanish police in trying to break up the referendum left bitter feelings in Catalonia, and more strong-arm tactics, should Catalans defy Madrid, could further shift sympathies—perhaps outside Spain as well”.

The newspaper counseled de-escalation and relying on the bankruptcy of the union bureaucracy and its political allies, like the Podemos party, to strangle working class opposition.

“Major trade unions and many civil servants appear likely to accept Madrid’s temporary control,” it wrote.

“If Catalan parties are in fact prepared to participate in a new regional election, Mr. Rajoy should display magnanimity by apologizing for the behavior of the police on Oct. 1,” the Times advised.

The basis of such a reconciliation would be an agreement of all of the parties on stepped-up military and police deployments and austerity measures in Catalonia and across Spain.