Category: War and Peace

The Howling Dogs of War

On the 15th  August, Shaun Walker, a reporter for the British Guardian news paper reported that  a Russian  military  convoy had  crossed the border  into Ukrainian territory, using a rough dirt track and clearly crossing through a gap in a barbed wire fence that demarcates the border. 

The Kiev government subsequently  claimed that this Russian convoy had been partially destroyed by  Ukrainian artillery.

Mysteriously,  Shaun Walker only posted one photograph in his world exclusive on  the Russian invasion of Ukraine- a photo of the tail end of  one  armoured personnel  carrier on a road in some unidentified location. The  Kiev government like-wise produced no  photographs of the destroyed Russian military hardware or any evidence of the mauled remainder of the  Russian military  convoy.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen  subsequently accused Russia of an incursion into  Ukrainian territory,  a claim  strenuously denied by  the Russian authorities who  speculated that the  military  convoy was a Ukrainian  one which  had been hit by  friendly fire .

Like so  many of the multitude of the claims by  the Kiev Government  about Russian military  invasions over the past few months; none of them have been able to be verified by  satellite imaging , or military  personnel, or by journalists  on  the ground.

In the face of absence of  verification, it is more than likely that none of these Russian incursions occurred. The absence of Russian military  advisers and equipment  and troops appears to  be also  substantiated by the rapidly deteriorating military  situation for the rebels in Eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s demoralized and ill-equipped troops and  reluctant  conscripts,  along with the rag-tag band of neo-con funded neo-nazi brigades,  would prove no match for  Russia’s modernised military hardware and elite troops.

So  why  then  would Shaun  Walker produce such  a report; knowing full  well that his  article could have led to  Word War 3?   Shaun, despite his   fluency in Russian, is well  known for his Russophobic   and anti-Putin tendencies, along with other Guardian  reporters such  as Luke Harding.  And additionally,   was the Kiev  Government media simply responding in its less than honest  way to  more  media rumour and supposition,or was this something else?

Either way, Shaun Walker’s credibility as a reporter has been severely compromised.

But his  tendency  to play  with the facts is no by  no means unusual in Western media. In its most blatant example of media dishonesty,  Western,  and particularly US mainstream media, have for years portrayed Israel  as some tiny  vulnerable  island in a sea of hateful  hordes of Arabs. The truth  of that   nasty  little narrative is only now becoming  known  to Western  audiences, as the alternative press construction of  the real scale of systemic long -term brutality and genocide by  the Israeli  military and governmental machine  against   largely defenceless Palestinians, becomes  disturbingly apparent.   And why?; because the pressure on editorial  boards from those who  support Israel, has  over the previous 66 years eliminated the alternative and honest  narrative.  One can only assume that the  anti-Putin  and anti-Russian hysteria whipped up  reporters like Shaun  Walker is  similarly driven  by external editorial  influences.

And who  might those influences be, one wonders?

And what  should the repercussions be for media  reporters and media agencies  who  incite war and violence?

 

 

 

 

 

Open letter to Mr. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon: stand for law and Justice or resign! : Richard Falk and others..

Open letter to Mr. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon: stand for law and Justice or resign!

(what  follows is the  transcript of an open letter to  The UN Secretary-General on the Genocide in Gaza-posted by  Richard Falk,  former UN Human Rights Representative for Palestine,  on his website at  http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/palestinian-open-letter-to-unsg-ban-ki-moon-on-gaza/ )

5 August 2014

For humanity and the little remained credibility of international law:

UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, stand for law and Justice or resign!

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,

We, the under signed Palestinian human rights and community-based organizations are extremely disappointed by your performance, notably by your biased statements, your failure to act, and the inappropriate justification of Israel’s violations of IHL, which amount to war crimes. Until today, you have taken no explicit and tangible measures to address the recent Israeli attacks in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) since 13 June. Moreover, your statements have been either misleading, because they endorse and further Israeli false versions of facts, or contrary to the provisions established by international law and to the interests of its defenders, or because your words justify Israel’s violations and crimes.

You have undeniably assumed a biased position toward the current attack on Gaza and Israeli violations in the West Bank by failing to clearly condemn Israeli unlawful actions in the OPT, while, on the other hand, not hesitating to accuse – sometimes mistakenly – Palestinian combatant in Gaza of violations of international law. This bias can be noted in the following excerpts:

The Secretary-General strongly condemns the killing today of at least 10 Palestinian civilians in shelling outside of an UNRWA school in Rafah providing shelter to thousands of civilians. The attack is yet another gross violation of international humanitarian law, which clearly requires protection by both parties of Palestinian civilians, UN staff and UN premises, among other civilian facilities.

Such statement, by failing to name the perpetrator (Israel), is not only biased, but also offensive to UNRWA, itself a UN agency, as well as to other UN agencies and international organizations the struggle to provide relief and protection to Palestinians in Gaza. UNRWA, which has lost nine staff in Gaza since the beginning of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, hosts around 270,000 internally displaced (25% of Gaza’s population) in its shelters. UNRWA’s preliminary analysis on a previous attack against one of its schools has indicated that it had been hit by Israeli artillery, constituting an indiscriminate attack and likely a war crime.

Moreover, by condemning the storage of weapons in UNRWA schools without offering a complete details and a proper account on international law, your statements endorse Israeli excuses to unlawfully, indiscriminately target such civilian objects.

In addition, by condemning

the reported violation by Hamas of the mutually agreed humanitarian ceasefire which commenced this morning. He is shocked and profoundly disappointed by these developments,

the Secretary-General reveals a reckless endorsement of Israeli version of facts, blaming Hamas for violating the cease-fire, even though admitting that “[t]he Secretary-General notes that the UN has no independent means to verify exactly what happened”, and, still, demanding “the immediate and unconditional release of the [falsely allegedly] captured soldier”.

The following statement further illustrates the Secretary-General’s ignorance of facts on the ground:

The Secretary-General has learned with concern that leaflets are reportedly being dropped by the Israeli Defence Forces in the northern Gaza Strip this evening, warning tens of thousands of residents to leave their homes and evacuate to Gaza City.

If true [our emphasis], this would have a further devastating humanitarian impact on the beleaguered civilians of those areas of the Gaza strip, who have already undergone immense suffering in recent days.

The drop of leaflets had been a known practice since the beginning of the Israeli operation in Gaza, contributing to a scenario of more than 480,000 internally displaced.

In the same statement,

The Secretary-General strongly urge[d] all sides to avoid any further escalation at this time[, noting] that all sides must meet all obligations under international humanitarian law, both towards civilians ahead of impending attacks, as well as maintaining proportionality in any kind of military response,

Revealing an undue equalization of the two sides of the conflict and failing to address the greater impact of violations committed by Israel, which has killed at least 1,814 the vast majority of whom are civilians, during its operation in Gaza.

Secretary-General,

When you make no distinction between oppressors and victims, in all your statements,

When you name Palestinian combatants as perpetrators of violations and war crimes while you ignore naming Israel, as you used to do in referring to specific actions,

When you avoid codifying Israeli actions amount to war crimes, while you insist on prescribing Palestinian reactions as grave breaches of IHL,

When you always advocate unlawfully the Israel right to self-defense, while having not pointed out the Palestinians legitimate and legal right to resist occupation, colonization and institutionalized discrimination,

When you adopt and advocate Israeli false stories, while not mentioning Palestinians’ narrative,

When you disregard facts on grounds clearly resulting from Israeli attacks, while you seek the immediate and unconditional release of a falsely captured soldier who was in the battle field,

You do not maintain peace and security; nor do you ensure human rights.

By reviewing yours statements, it becomes evident you have not been fulfilling your mandate. In contrary, your statements have not only allowed the continuance of Israel’s killing our people, but also, encouraged States to continue providing Israel with impunity. As you cannot say the truth,we advise you to either drastically change your positioning – not only in words, but also in your efforts to, through the UN, effectively end the current conflict – or to resign. For us, if you continue playing this role, you prove what our people feel, that you are a partner in, or at least an enabler of, the ongoing violations of international humanitarian law committed by Israel against our, families, children, women, elders – against our people.

—————-
Signatures
—————-

Individuals:
 • Richard Falk Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
 • Luisa Morgantini Former Vice President of the European Parliament
 • Ahmad Muhaisen – President of The association for twining French cities and Palestinian refugee camps
 • Breyten Breytenbach Poet, writer, painter and activist
 • John Pilger is a journalist, film-maker and author

Palestinian and international human rights and civil society organizations:
 • BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights – Bethlehem
 • Occupied Palestine and Syrian Golan Heights Advocacy Initiative (OPGAI) – Biet Sahour
• The Alternative Information Centre (AIC) – Biet Sahour
• ADDAMEER Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association – Ramallah
• Palestinian Non-Governmental Network (Umbrella for 133 organizations)
• Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions
• General Union of Palestine Workers
• General Union for Health Services Workers
• General Union for Public Services Workers
• General Union for Petrochemical and Gas Workers
• General Union for Agricultural Workers
• Union of Women’s Work Committees
• Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions National Committee (BNC). The Committee includes the following organizations: Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine, Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), Palestinian National Institute for NGOs, Global Palestine Right of Return Coalition, Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS), Federation of Independent Trade Unions, General Union of Palestinian Workers, Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, General Union of Palestinian Women, Union of Palestinian Farmers, General Union of Palestinian Teachers, General Union of Palestinian Writers, Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE), Union of Professional Associations, General Union of Palestinian Peasants, Union of Public Employees in Palestine-Civil Sector, Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (STW), National Committee for Grassroots Resistance, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba, Civic Coalition for the Defense of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, Coalition for Jerusalem, Union of Palestinian Charitable Organizations, Palestinian Economic Monitor, Union of Youth Activity Centers-Palestine Refugee Camps, Occupied Palestine and Syrian Golan Heights Initiative.
• The Joint Advocacy Initiative of the East Jerusalem YMCA and the YWCA of Palestine (JAI) – Biet Sahour
• Baladna- association for Arab Youth – Haifa
• Hamleh – Arab center for media development – Haifa
• Al Zahra’ Society for Women Empowerment – Sakhnin
• Assiwar- The Feminist Arab Movement in Support of Victims of Sexual Assault – Haifa
• Association for the defense for the Rights of the Internally Displaced in Israel – Nazareth
• Alsebat association for heritage Preservation – Nazareth 
• The Alternative Tourism Group (ATG) – Beit Sahour
• Yabous Cultural Center – Jerusalem
• The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music – Jerusalem
• Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel
• Gaza BDS Working Group
• University Teachers’ Association in Palestine
• Medical Democratic Assembly
• Pal-Cinema (Palestine Cinema Forum)
• Youth Herak Movement
• Union of Women’s Struggle Committees
• Union of Synergies—Women Unit
• Union of Palestinian Women Committees
• Women’s Studies Society
• Working Woman’s Society
• One Democratic State Group
• Youth Against Israeli Settlements – Hebron
• Health Work Committees – Biet Sahour
• Land Research Center (LCR) – Hebron
• Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies – Ramallah
• Popular Struggling Coordination Committee (PSCC) – Ramallah
• Lajee Center, Aida Refugee Camp – Bethlehem
• The EJ-YMCA Rehabilitation Program and the Beit Sahour YMCA – Beit Sahour
• Ibrahim Al Khalil Society – Hebron
• The Palestinian Prisoners Society – Bethlehem
• The Palestinian Center of Youth Action for Community Development (LAYLAC) – Dhiesheh Refugee Camp – Bethlehem
• Palestinian Grassroots Anti-apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall) – Ramallah
• Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People – Biet Sahour
• Amaan Center for social health, Counseling and Development – Hebron
• Popular Committee for Refugees, Qalqeliah
• Popular Committee for Refugees, Salfit
• Social Youth Center, Aqbat Jaber Refugee Camp – Jericho
• Social Youth Center, Aida Refugee Camp – Bethlehem
• Social Youth Center, Al Arroub Refugee Camp – Hebron
• Al Arroub Popular committee – Al Arroub Refugee Camp – Hebron
• Progressive Youth Union – Al Arroub Refugee Center – Hebron
• The Phoenix Center – Al Arroub Refugee Camp – Hebron
• Al Fawwar Social Center – Al Fawwar Refugee camp – Hebron
• Social Youth Center, Far’a Refugee Camp – Nablus
• Shu’fat Child Center – Shu’fat Refugees Camp – Jerusalem
• Shoruq Association, Dhiesheh Refugee Camp – Bethlehem
• Al Awda Center for Youth and children Rehabilitation – Tulkarem
• Ansar Center, Al Walajeh – Bethlehem
• Center for Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights “Hurryyat”
• The Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee – Bethlehem
• Bethlehem Farmers Society – Bethlehem
• Ibda’a for the Development of Children Capacity, Dhiesheh Refugee Camp – Bethlehem
• The popular committee – Dhiesheh Refugee Camp – Bethlehem
• The women Centre – Dhiesheh Refugee Camp – Bethlehem
• The popular committee – Al Azza Refugee Camp – Bethlehem
• Al Phoenix Center – Dhiesheh Refugee Camp – Bethlehem
• Al Walaja Women Center – Al Walaja – – Bethlehem
• Not to Forget – Jenin Refugees Camp – Jenin
• Environmental Education Center – Beit Jala
• The National Charitable Society – Al Khader
• The Right of Return Committees in Bethlehem – Bethlehem
• Al Walaja Popular Committee – – Bethlehem
• Al Walaja Sports Club – Al Walaja – – Bethlehem
• Al Walaja Agriculture society – Al Walaja – – Bethlehem
• The Palestinian anti-Wall and Settlements committees – Ramallah
• MA’AN Development Center – Ramallah
• The Association of Palestinian prisoners and x-prisoners – Bethlehem
• Susya Popular Committee – Hebron
• Dair Abu Misha’al Popular committee – Ramallah
• Al Tawasul Forum Society – Gaza Strip
• The International Solidarity Movement.
• The Refugees Rights Center –‘Aidoon – Lebanon
• Association Najdeh – Lebanon
• Ajyal Association – Lebanon
• The Refugees Rights Center –‘Aidoon – Syria
• Union of Arab Jurists – Jordan
• The National Institution of Social Care & Vocational Training – Jordan
• Australians for Palestine – Australia
• Women for Palestine – Australia
• Collective urgence Palestine – Switzerland
• Palestina Rossa – Italy
• Fronte Palestina – Italy
• The Association of Humanitarian Lawyers
• International Educational Development, Inc
• International Lawyers – Switzerland
• Tamkeen-Arab group – Switzerland
• The BDS campaign in France – France
• The association for twining French cities and Palestinian refugees camp – France
• The International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD)
• International society for Human Rights
• Czech Friends of Palestine
• Initiative for a just peace in the Middle East – Czech Republic
• Nord-Sud XXI
• International Association Against Torture
• The Palestine Solidarity Allegiance South Africa
• Palestine Legal Action Network
• Russell Tribunal on Palestine
• Campaign BDS France,
• 14 Friends of Palestine (Marin, CA)
• Canada Palestine Association
• Voice of Palestine
• People for Peace, London, CA
• United States Palestinian Community Network
• Labor for Palestine NY
• Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
• US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
• Palestine Human Rights Campaign Auckland
• Al-Awda NY
• Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
• Jews Against genocide
• Palestine Solidarity Alliance, South Africa
• Assopace
• Boycott! Boycott From Within
• Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign – Vancouver
• BDS Switzerland

 

Link

http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/palestinian-open-letter-to-unsg-ban-ki-moon-on-gaza/

MH17 – A preliminary analysis (before the facts arrive)

Notwithstanding the jingoistic hysteria in  the mainstream Western press…. Putin's Missile-The Sun (and also see The Guardian’s “Vladimir Putin given One last Chance”  about who they “know” ( before the facts are in) was responsible for the destruction of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17  over Eastern Ukraine on March  8th 2014. It is important to  remember that  both  sides in  this conflict, ( the Kiev Poroshenko government, as well  as the Right Sektor (neo-nazis)  in Kiev and their Western  supporters on  one side, and the pro-separatists in  Eastern Ukraine  and their Russian   supporters on  the other)  have a lot to  gain   from  pinning the blame on the opposing forces. The first  casualty of war is truth,  as they say.  As Goebbel’s “Principles of Propaganda theory”  acknowledges, implanting information early in  people’s minds on a new situation  often results in  that  information “sticking”- regardless of its veracity. And as  Vera Graziade so  eruditely says:  When you have one big bad figure, and everything is Putin’s fault, the world is simple and you don’t need to think anymore.

Its important also  to  recognise that plane crash  investigations take time. eg the Lockerbie investigators  took  three years to  come to  their somewhat  controversial  decision as to   how the  crash  occurred and who  was responsible. What  we do  know:

      1. On entering Ukrainian  air space, MH17 was requested to lower altitude from  35,000  to 33,000  feet  because of thunderstorms.
      2. Pilots were later requested by  Ukrainian flight authorizes to fly further north -towards the Russian border and deeper into  Eastern Ukraine  ‘because of other traffic”
      3. Malaysian Airlines continued to fly over this conflict  zone where several other international  carriers  has already charted alternative routes to avoid the conflict  airspace. However there were a number of other  international passenger flights flying over the area during that  day.
      4. Single operator (MANPAD) surface to air missiles are not capable of reaching 33,000 feet  – the Russian BUK surface to air system produced and operated by  Russian and Ukrainian  armies (earlier version), are capable of reaching 33,000 feet   but require extensive  radar truck  backup  for tracking.
      5.  Separatists rebels in  Eastern Ukraine were not known to have acquired a BUK system, however possibly  could have  done so  and mistaken MH17 for a Ukraine government  transport  plane. (although unlikely as the plane’s altitude would  logically have been   considered too  high  for such  an operation within Ukrainian  airspace). If the rebels had acquired a BUK system,  where is it now?-not any easy  thing to  hide and it would have been observed by  sattelite re-crossing the border into  Russia.
      6. Several  BUK systems had been deployed to the Eastern Ukraine in the last  3 to  4 days by the Kiev government  (presumably to  shoot down Russian  military aircraft)
      7. Kiev government states that  pro-separatists initially claim  shooting down  a Ukrainian  transport plane in  the area at  the time   and then  remove that  claim.  Other bloggers claim  that experts have determined that the tweets were made the day  before the plane was shot down.
      8. The coincidence of two   passenger aircraft being destroyed  in  the air, by unknown causes, with all  passengers and crew killed,  from  the same airline within  five months of each other,  is problematic
      9. It is unlikely that pro-Russian separatist would and could operate such a system without Russian technical support,  as it requires a sophisticated accompanying radar system. -the alternative is, as the U.S. speculates, is that the Russians were providing supporting expertise to the rebels.  Note that  defensetech.org states that:A standard Buk battalion consists of a command vehicle, target acquisition radar (TAR) vehicle, six transporter erector launcher and radar (TELAR) vehicles and three transporter erector launcher (TEL) vehicles. A Buk missile battery consists of two TELAR and one TEL vehicle. So  is this not some  simple, easy  to  manoeuvre and disguise  missile system!!

Buk Missile System

    1. However it would then   be extremely unlikely that the Russians would support shooting down a high flying plane which, because of its altitude , trajectory and speed was clearly a passenger plane: -there appears to be  no strategic advantage  to the Russians to shoot down the plane, and very unlikely that its trained operators would have identified the plane as a fighter/bomber or transport plane. Additionally if there were Russian operatives there, they would have been informed of all planes coming through Eastern Ukraine from Russian airspace
    2. While the U.S.  and its Western  allies have repeatedly claimed that  Russia is providing troops and  equipment to  the pro-separatist,  they  have not been  able to  produce any evidence that  will  actually confirm  this- which  is surprising  given  the  undoubtedly huge amount of Western satellite surveillance occurring on the Russian/Ukrainian  borders.
    3. The Ukrainians  10 years previously  shot down a Russian plane in error during a military exercise
    4. An  unlikely, but still  possible scenario  of right-wing Kiev  agents (within  the department of Internal  Affairs in  the  Kiev government ) mistaking  flight MH17 for President Putin’s flight home from  the BRICS summit in  Brazil 
    5. Even  less plausible,  but still  possible, are reports from  the ground at  the time of two  fighter aircraft  trailing and then  shooting down  MH17
    6. The U.S.  government has actively  and immediately used the MH17 shoot-down  as a rationale to  further pressure EU members to increase their sanctions against   Russia before any evidence has been analysed and responsibilities for the shoot-down  factually established.
    7. The image here of the hole near the cockpit  might seem to indicate a smaller missile than the BUK- so if that was the case, likely an air to air missile or ,as has been  suggested by  the Russians  with  additional  30mm  anti-tank  bullets fired from  a Ukrainian SU25 fighter aircraft  ( The Russian  RT new network reports that  Russia had tracked two  SU25s trailing the airliner) hole in cockpit fuselage

Western media and the US government appear far too quick to attribute blame to the Russians and accuse the rebels of hiding evidence: a claim totally unsupported by OSCE observers –before any evidence is available either way. There are multiple other possible causes of the crash, including a bomb on board (Malaysian  Airlines disgruntled ex-employee?),  equipment malfunction,  Western intelligence operatives hostile to Malaysia’s  independent stance on  Western war  crimes, Kiev Government false-flag operation, Right Sektor neo-nazi activists acting independently  from Kiev’s Preseident Poroshenko?-the list goes on  and on Whether a dreadful  accident or vicious attack, why  then is the Western media  and UK and US governments so  quick  to  attribute the blame  to  the “demonic”  Vladimir Putin -an unlikely culprit at  best. I wonder…..

Postscript

If the  map  below is correct, the location of the 50 km wide crash  site provides an ideal  buffer zone between the two  separatist   Eastern Ukraine  areas;  especially if they  are policed by  armed Western  police/army units   as has been  proposed…  qui  bono?

Eastern Ukraine Crash-site
Eastern Ukraine Crash-site

It would appear that  the Kiev government military are doing their best  (as of30th  July) to ensure that  OSCE observers and crash  analysts do  not get  immediate access to  the crash-site by increasing shelling and military  assaults in  the area

An interesting take on  the shoot-down  from  Anderwelt Online (Google translation from German) ,  whose analysis of the plane’s fragments  posted online to date,  suggest   a shoot-down  by  30mm  bullets and possibly air-to  air missile.  See this also  noted at  Investment Watchblog

A screenshot  (below) from  a video of the crash-site by  a Canadian/Ukrainian OSCE observer

MH17See the video  here at  CBC Malaysia Airlines MH17: Michael Bociurkiw talks about being first at the crash site. This clearly is  machine gun  fire .Possibly by  those who came on  the scene first but unlikely-very high calbre bullets (30mm?)

Ex-“senior US Intelligence officials” are querying the U.S.  State Department’s rush to judgement on MH17

 As Wayne Masden points out at  Strategic Culture, the United States military  had Aegis equipped and operational   naval  vessels in  the Black  Sea  at  the time of the shoot-down of MH17, which  was monitoring all  civilian and military  air-traffic over a wide area of  Ukraine and Southern Russia as part of a defence drill  with Ukraine, and would have activated alarms in the Aegis system with  the radar lock-on of  a Buk21  or a fighter jet onto MH17. Strangely, those radar monitoring  records have never been divulged by  the United States…

Links
FINAL – Part II: Evidence Continues to Emerge #MH17 Is a False Flag Operation http://slavyangrad.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/breaking-part-ii-evidence-continues-to-emerge-mh17-is-a-false-flag-operation/

It was Putin’s Missile!
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-190714.html

Flight MH17 Down Over Ukraine http://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.nz/2014/07/flight-mh17-down-over-ukraine.html

What Happened to the Malaysian Airliner?
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/07/what-happened-to-malaysian-airliner.html#!biP639

Kerry’s Latest  Reckless Rush  to Judgement-Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/07/21-5

What  Did U.S.  Satellites see in Ukraine?
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/20/what-did-us-spy-satellites-see-in-ukraine/

Special Briefing by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on the crash of the Malaysian Boeing 777 in the Ukrainian air space, July 21, 2014

http://www.mid.ru/bdomp//brp_4.nsf/english/ECD62987D4816CA344257D1D00251C76
Malaysian Airlines MH370 and MH17.

A Criminologist Questions: What are the Probabilities? Is it a Mere Coincidence?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/malaysian-airlines-mh370-and-mh17-a-criminologist-questions-what-are-the-probabilities-is-it-a-mere-coincidence/5392265

Ukraine: No “Western” Interest In Investigating MH17
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/07/ukraine-no-interest-in-investigating-mh17.html

Media Bias Frames Western Reporting On Ukraine
http://cips.uottawa.ca/media-bias-frames-western-reporting-on-ukraine/

Operation “Protective Edge”- The Never-Ending Nakba in Palestine

(note that this post  is  a short updated summary  of the issues previously outlined in other posts  on  this site)

Many articles in  mainstream media  regarding the current  violence in Gaza portray  the  conflict  as a Hamas terrorist vendetta against  Israel and Jews.
The reality is somewhat different.
Al jazeera notes as of 17th  July,  that  “of the 214 Palestinians killed so far in Operation Protective Edge, at least 67 were women and children and 11 were elderly, according to Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry. Over 1,500 have been injured, and Gaza hospitals have reported severe medical-supply shortages. (In contrast)the first Israeli death was reported Tuesday, after shrapnel from a rocket hit a civilian handing out food to soldiers near the Gaza border. The disproportionate  death  and casualty rate between the two  sides in  this conflict  clearly illustrates the overwhelming destructive power of the Israeli  military  machine against  this tiny  isolated ghettoised non-state. Israel, as the occupying force, has a UN mandated obligated to protect  those people’s whose lands   it  has  occupied.
As the history  books show, Israel  has pursued a  violent and illegal  process of the elimination of the ‘Palestinian problem’  since its brutal   occupation of Palestinian lands  in 1948, when  hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were  driven from  their houses and lands by  the Israeli  Army, in what Palestinians  call the ‘Nakba’ -the Catastrophe. That  process of occupation and removal  of people who  have lived in the area for thousands of years, is ongoing.  Operation ‘Protective Edge” is just  one more step  along the way  to  finally eliminating  those troublesome Arabs who  persist in trying to  subsist  in  the homeland of their forefathers.

Shrinking Palestine

Along with  that  occupation goes an ongoing  military ever-tightening noose around Gaza and the West  Bank,  which  has seen Gaza literally strangled by  Israeli occupation  forces into  a primitive society where sewage, water and health  systems are largely nonexistent.  Palestinian  children continue on a daily basis to  be arrested, tortured and thrown  in Israeli  jails for crimes such  as  stone throwing or protesting the occupation. Since the beginning of  2000, 1407 Palestinian  children alone  have been killed by  Israeli  forces.
And this ignores the many  thousands of adults tortured jailed and murdered in Israeli prisons for daring to  resist  the occupation.  And let us  not forget  all  the Palestinian  homes and orchards bulldozed by  armoured bulldozers to make way  for Israeli  “settlers”,  on  a daily basis.
Israel  is one of the largest and most well resourced militaries in  the world (fourth largest);  courtesy  of the United States, who  since 1948  has blindly  promoted and applauded each  atrocity committed by  the Israelis in  the face of overwhelming international  condemnation.
Certainly   no  violence can be supported from  either party in  this horrendous and savage  conflict,  but readers of this post  should not need to wonder why  Hamas is angry and violent in  response to  this  brutal  and seemingly never-ending tragedy.
The only way  forward  is a  one-state solution,  where fair  compensation for lives  and lands lost  is given to  those hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forcibly expelled from  their homeland;  and all the resident populations-whether Jew, Christian or Muslim, learn to create a peaceful  and sustainable future in a new and just  Palestine.
And lastly, lets look  at  who  supports this ongoing terror by the Israeli  war machine ( note an abstention means tacit support for the status quo  of more war).
Postscript:
Note the chilling banner  at  the end of Craig Murray’s blog here on the Gaza genocide
Israeli banner
The banner reads: “There are no innocents in Gaza“

Links

 

Netanyahu’s War-What  it is Good For
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/24893-netanyahus-war-what-it-is-good-for

Human Rights Watch, taking Israel’s side (again)
http://justworldnews.org/?p=3946

 The War on Gaza and the Cycle of Impunity
http://www.thenation.com/article/180683/war-gaza-and-cycle-impunity?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email_nation&utm_campaign=Email%20Nation%20%28NEW%29%20-%20Headline%20Nation%20Feed%200717%2F2014&newsletter=email_nation#

Gaza News – “At least they wont breed”
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/07/july-16-gaza-news.html

Understanding the Gaza Tragedy
http://www.williampfaff.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=687


http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/joint-declaration-by-international-law-experts-on-israels-gaza-offensive/

The Caliphate for the 21st Century

The video (below) of “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi” (another one of the fictional “nom-de-guerre”  names so beloved of Islamic jihad fighters),  shows a  hesitant  youngish  man  delivering in  Koranic verse style the announcement that  he (in all  modesty  appropriate  to a disciple of Mohammed)  is the new caliph of Iraq, Syria and Levant  that  all  must bow down  to.

As the Angry Arab says;  When you bill yourself as a caliph you inevitably raise expectations. And as the Arabic saying goes: ‘the mountain went into labor and gave birth to a mouse’. What a lousy performance. 

While these young psychopaths  have a certain predilection  for violent murder and ignorance, they are definitely not idolised by the vast  majority of Sunni  Muslems around the world.  The sectarian violence, mysoginism   and vengeance they  espouse,  fomented largely through  Wahhabi  funds from  Saudi Arabia and Qatar and with  “special  assistance” from  U.K. and U.S. “intelligence” over the years,  fools few on the Arab street. These young violent men  are simply tools of those who  wish for nothing better than all-out  mayhem, death  and environmental destruction in  middle eastern states that do  not sufficiently support a Western view of who  should control  the world’s resources.

Desperately seeking fame on Youtube, as they behead another  infidel of whatever religious persuasion, they  are like little children given dangerous toys to play  with by  the grownups.

Their “secret” cavalcade of many miles of brand new Toyota’s through  the deserts of Iraq from Syria to  capture key  Iraqi northern towns, was somehow never spotted by  Western spy  satellites. Make no mistake, these are the “moderates”  that  Western governments have been funding to overthrow  Assad’s Syria , and now Maliki’s Iraq, for the past five years. This is a deliberate plan by  Western governments to de-stabilise and overthrow any middle eastern government that  1) doesn’t support the ongoing Israeli  destruction of Palestine and Palestinians, and 2) doesn’t  support the right of the U.S.  to  basically do  anything it wishes to.

It would be amusing if it were not so  sad that these nasty  little psychopaths  in offices in London,  Paris  and Washington who  get others to do  their killing  and torture for them, believe that  this is the way  to a  brave new future;  a “New American  Century“.  Take the former  British  Chief of Defence Lord Richards’ brilliant proposal  to train  and equip  100,000  jihadists   to  take Damascus from  Syrian Government forces, with substantial  Western  air support- (read  collateral  air damage) on the pretext  that this would reduce civilian casualties in  in Syria! . Fittingly,  the great Lord Richards  was also once Nato commander in the  brutal  fiasco  that is  the fourth  Anglo  Afghan War and is now  a senior advisor  to  the  right wing  British  International Institute of Strategic Studies,  and which  strangely enough, supported the US invasion of Iraq and is now  very  anti the current Shi-ite based Maliki government in Iraq.

And of course let’s not forget  the $500 million dollars worth of armaments and training from President Obama and Congress that will  go only  to  the ‘moderate’ extremists in Syria fighting the Syrian  government forces.

Or perhaps note the leaked ( unverified but eminently plausible )  Rand Corporation document advising the Western Ukrainians how to destroy Eastern Ukraine- these guys in  their cosy  little offices in  the city are oh-so-ruthless in  getting others to   murder and torture and destroy on  their behalf ( but only of course where it benefits their bank  accounts).

Links

SYRIAN INTELLIGENCE CHIEF ATTENDS CT DIALOGUE WITH S/CT BENJAMIN
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10DAMASCUS159_a.html#efmBraBr6BsHB6RB6UCDN

The Opportunities of the People’s Republic of Donetsk

The People’s Republic of Donestk was formed in  7th  April  2014;  breaking away from  the  state of Ukraine after a very informal  referendum of its local population. The referendum  was largely caused by  the decisions of the  Kiev interim Government, after it deposed the former elected ( but like almost every other President of Ukraine since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 – extremely corrupt) president of Ukraine,  Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych  fled from  power as a result of the  Maidan protests and threats to his life,  led by  right wing extremists.

The interim  Ukrainian government’s decision to  effectively marginalise Russian speaking Ukrainians through  banning the Russian language and subsequently calling   anti-Maidan groups in  the East, “terrorists”,  led to  the formation of  pro-Russian paramilitary groups in  the East, in  the oblasts of Donestk  and  Luhansk. Their stated aim  was to preserve their Ukrainian/Russian identity against  the threats by neo-nazi  extremists  to  “purify” Ukraine, in  the new interim Kiev government;  largely from  within the Slovoda Party and Right Sektor paramilitary groups based in  the West  of Ukraine.

It is currently unclear what level of support the “self-proclaimed” (are not all  state entities initially “self-proclaimed”?) Donestk People’s Republic has with  the local  population, with some very problematic opinion polls run out of Kiev and  funded from  the U.S. which  state pro-Russian support at less than 40%. Facts on  the ground would seem to  suggest otherwise, especially since the  killing  of 39  people in the Trades Hall  centre in Odessa on May 2  2014, apparently  by   right wing football  hooligans from  the West.

It is also  problematic whether those currently running the administration of  the Donestk  PR have the best of the local  population at  heart, or are simply opportunists , ex-soldiers and thugs. In  addition there is always the tendency  with any revolution, especially when under pressure from the outside, to  respond in  more and more draconian and violent  ways towards its own population.  Are the  Donetsk  PR officials any less  rascist,  anti-Jew  and voracious than those in  Kiev?-time will  tell.

Notwithstanding those concerns,   the creation of this ‘people’s republic’ does present a unique opportunity for  a better state  not seen  for perhaps almost a  hundred years on  this planet. The opportunity to begin  afresh, untainted by  cronyism, the powers of the corporates, the drive for “progress” at  the expense of the planet. An opportunity for a  state entity  driven by  altrusim,  responsibility   for the vulnerable and a respect  for the environment. Impossible you say?- certainly improbable  when we look at our current rapacious “growth” (read;  money-for-the-rich and baubles for the poor) driven  state entities.

What we need then, is the development of state structures that  foster:

  • Community initiative and responsiveness-  local  town  “councils” where every  citizen has a voice and a right to be heard and responded to.
  • Central  and local  policies that  recognise that  “growth  for growth’s sake’  is nonsensical  and destroys both  our own living environment and the other  living things around us- ‘growth’  is the short term path  to death
  • Central  and local  initiatives that  encourage inter-connectivity between  people- eg local  community places within  walking distance for food and product  distribution, green  spaces,
  • Town planning which  “forces” people to  mingle together to  get  their work  done: eg  small  interconnected urban areas, green  spaces and  gardens
  • Local and central  state welfare systems that  all  citizens buy into  according to  their capacity to  pay  through  taxes, and all  are recompensed equitably in times of trouble
  • Principles and policies that  create respect  for the other living beings interacting with the human population.
  • Training for all age groups in  the art of mindfulness
  • An understanding that violence to others destroys oneself
  • an inalienable obstruction to  business interests influencing  state and local  political  decisions (i.e absolutely no  capacity for corporates to  finance  politicians)

It can (and must) be done. For the sake of all  of us on  this little blue ball.

______________________________________________________________________

Links

Egalitarian Perspectives on Sustainability – Robert Paehlke
http://www.eolss.net/sample-chapters/c13/E1-45-05-06.pdf

Great  Transition Initiative
http://greattransition.org/

The Commons as a Template for Transformation
http://greattransition.org/document/the-commons-as-a-template-for-transformation

Policies for Shareable Cities
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39811237/Policies%20for%20Shareable%20Cities.pdf

On Citizenship  in the 21st Century-  Richard Falk
http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/on-citizenship-in-the-21st-century/

Global Citizenship: Plausible Fears and Necessary Dreams 
http://greattransition.org/document/global-citizenship-plausible-fears-necessary-dreams

The Ukrainian Situation-an analysis

The current  unstable and dangerous situation in  the Ukraine where  large elements of the Russian  speaking part of the Ukrainian  population in  in Eastern  and Southern Ukraine are apparently pushing  for  Russian  annexation can  be largely  attributed to Ukraine’s  turbulent and violent history.

Kiev,  the capital  city of Ukraine is considered by  many Russians to be the birthplace of Russia, or “Kievan Rus” in  the thirteenth  century. While no  longer a predominantly Russian  speaking  country, its principal connection has been  with its more powerful  northern neighbour over the last 800 years.

Ukraine ,or “the Ukraine” as it is often known, literally means “borderlands”, an indication of its status as a standalone state entity over the last  1000 years.

After the Partitions of Poland (1772–1795) (around the time of the US War of Independence), Ukraine was divided between Russia and Austria, with the largest part of Ukraine being  integrated into the Russian Empire, and  the rest under Austrian (known as the  Austro-Hungarian Empire  since 1849) control.

Gaining its independence briefly  from the Russian Empire in the chaos following the Russian Bolsehvik  Revolution of 1917 , Ukraine was forcibly incorporated under   Soviet   control in 1921 and remained a semi-autonomous republic of the Soviet  Union until  the collapse of the USSR in 1991, when it  once again  became independent.

During the rule of Stalin in the USSR in the 1930s, agrarian collectivisation policies were brutally enforced across  the  entire Soviet Union, but particularly in  what  has been referred to  as the bread-basket of Russia;  the Ukraine. Known as Holodomor, the communist collectivist   policies resulted in at least 7.5 million deaths with mass starvation occurring amongst  the peasantry  of western Ukraine particularly. Ukraine has defined the process as genocide, and the  brutal  process of starvation and loss of lands was instrumental in  the rise  of right-wing groups in  Western Ukraine, (whose populations   tend to be more Eurocentred than  the South-East),  who  supported the principles of both Mussolini’s  fascist party in   Italy and Nazi policies in Germany. The views were largely centred by  1943 in  the actions of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army led by  Stepan Bandera, in ethnic cleansing of Poles and Jews  as well  fighting with the Nazis against  the Russians . Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) was strongly supported by  Western intelligence agencies and particularly the CIA   after the second world  war .

In  addition to  those horrors,  in 1944 approximately 200,000   Crimean Tatars were forcibly  deported to other parts of the USSR because of their presumed alliance with the Nazis, where a large percentage subsequently died of starvation.  Those Tatars who  have since returned   to the Crimea remain  fiercely hostile to  the Russians and some  have been implicated in  anti-Russian warfare in  other countries and also  within Crimea and wider  Ukraine.

 

Jews and Russians were seen to be the cause of the death, destruction and dispossession which occurred in the Holodomor. In retaliation,  Ukrainian fascist and Nazi  groups were formed which both fought alongside the Nazis against  the Russians and also aided in  the Nazi’s Jewish  progroms in Western Ukraine. The Svoboda party and its activist group, the Pravyi Sekor (Right Sector), are the  current manifestations of those nationalist  movements. Members of these two  groups have  also fought alongside Chechnyan  separatists and jihadists  in Russia  in  the past few years. In addition the right -wing Ukrainian  nationalist  private army and political party,  the Ukrainian  National  Assembly – Ukrainian National Self  Defence (UNA-UNSO) ,  a violent and extreme right-wing and anti-Russian organisation, has been  implicated in  the  sniper shootings of both  police and demonstrators in  Maidan Square in Kiev.

In 1954,  Nikita Khrushchev, the  Soviet President of the day,  transferred the Crimea , to the Southeast  of Ukraine and previously part of Russia itself , to the Ukraine republic .

svoboda
The Wolfsangel, Svoboda’s first party logo (1991–2003) and now widely used as a uniform emblem by the Right Sector, is both a truncated swastika and the acronym “HH”- for “Heil Hitler”

The most defining reason  for the recent demonstrations in Maidan Square in Kiev, against the corrupt but democratically elected president Viktor Yanu­kovych, was  Yanu­kovych’s decision to  switch  from  supporting alignment and eventual   Ukrainian integration with the European Union (after IMF “re-alignment” of the economy), to alignment with Russia  and its $15 billion  no-strings loan. It is likely that many of those early demonstrators in Maidan Square  saw their chance to  escape  a Ukraine of poverty, for the wealth  and opportunity of Europe, slipping away. However the muscle on  the ground at Maidan Square and  even since the new government in Kiev was installed, has been  the Svoboda Party  (whose insignia up  until  2003 was the Wolfsangel, both a  symbol for the swastika and  the acronym  for “Heil Hitler”)  and  its hand-maiden, the ‘Right Sector’.

Alexander Muzychko (Sasha Biliy of the “Right Sector” ) “speaking”  to a state prosecutor 27th  Feb

While Svoboda  has  partially dissociated  itself from  its neo-Nazi past; its offspring, the Rights Sector or “Pravyi Sektor” regards “de-Russification” of Ukraine as its core ideology, along with  ensuring the ethnic  purity of the Ukrainian population including the exodus of Jewish populations, and good moral  values.

Global Research notes that ” Canvas, formerly Otpor, received significant money from the US State Department in 2000 to stage the first successful Color Revolution against Slobodan Milosovic in then-Yugoslavia. Since then they have been transformed into a full-time “revolution consultancy” for the US, posing as a Serbian grass-root group backing “democracy.”  While Poland under President Tusk, and Sweden have been pushing for Ukraine’s integration into the EU since the initial  “colour revolution”, with  the strong backing of the US State Department and CIA, they have perhaps inadvertently been also  supporting and subsidizing  the far right Ukrainian agenda, who have no interest in EU integration. Ostensibly EU/US support has been for the “technocrats” (ie those who  support IMF financial “reforms” ) like ex-boxer Klitschko and the newly appointed acting president Oleksander Turchinov. (of Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland’s  “fuck EU” fame”)

However one of the first  steps of the new government was to  rescind the previous government’s  recent legislation to legitimize Russian  as an official  language of the Ukraine. It is likely that  that rescindment,  more than any  other factor,  was  the key reason  for  South-Eastern Ukrainians of Russian descent, many of whom  solely speak  Russian, to  fear for their future in  a ‘Ukraine for Ukrainians’.

The other major  factor is undoubtedly the fear  by  Russia that the new Ukrainian government will  also  rescind the  lease recently extended out to  2042 for Russia’s only warm water naval  base. As the US is well  aware, the Sevastopol base allows the Russians to  re-supply  its ally  President Bashad in Syria against  US, Turkish  and Saudi funded extremists in  the Syrian  civil  war. Loss of the warm water naval  base in in the Crimea would have significant negative strategic  impacts for the Russians, as the  British and French  are also  only too  aware of, after their  battles, in alliance with  the Turks to  re-capture the Crimea  and Sevastopol from the Russians in the Crimean War in 1853.

It should be noted also  that  the  industrial base of Ukraine is predominantly in the South-Eastern parts of the country, where there are significant populations of Ukrainian ethnic Russians, and where it’s  heavy  industry  was a key  part of the Soviet economy. As with many ex-Soviet states, the factories are by  Western standards, unproductive and out of date, and hence would require massive injections of IMF capital  and machinery, along with  massive layoffs of superfluous workers;  a prospect for which   Western industrialists have been rubbing their hands in  glee  since the Ukrainian Orange  Revolution in  2004. (Post-script-see the great  analysis of the neo-con plan  for acquisition of  Ukrainian/Russian  assets  by  Michael  Hudson here )

The complex interactions of internal  Ukrainian  and international  players, create the opportunity for war. The Russian decision to  send in  more troops into  the Crimea  certainly escalates the situation. Additionally, other South-Eastern Ukrainian  cities with varying proportions  of Russian speaking populations, are now also   rising up  against  the new Kiev anti-Russian government and establishing self-protection militias against the  Right  Sector and other far-right Ukrainian groups. How much  support  those Russophiles   will  get in  the cities of Donetsk, Kharkov, Simferapol, Odessa Lugansk and Kerch, is currently unknown. Russia currently insists that  its forces have not left their Crimean bases (25,000 Russian troops  are permitted in  the Crimea as part of the Ukraine /Russia lease  agreement)  and that  all  pro-Russian forces on  the ground in  Ukraine are pro-Russian Ukrainians – a statement disputed by  the EU and the U.S.

Given the tragic history  outlined above, it would appear the only  rational  solution to  the problems exacerbated by  foreign  state  actors, is negotiation.  In the 1990s the 55-state member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (the OSCE) was created  to deal with détente in Europe and emerging post-cold war problems . The OSCE offers a unique and relatively non-partisan   pathway  to  a negotiated settlement of the complex issues facing Ukraine.  The alternative, despite the huff and puff from  NATO and the US,  may  well be  the secession of some part of what  is now Ukraine to form  a Russian  speaking autonomous or semi-autonomous state, unless the  power and hostility of  the far right groups opposed to ethnic Russians in Ukraine can be controlled.

References:

Ukraine after Yanukovych: 50 shades of brown – Autonomous Workers Union

Russia Debates: The Crimea Crisis

Meet the (real) new authorities in the Ukraine, example #1 

Are Ukraine’s Jews Screwed?

Russia, Crimea and the Consequences of  NATO Policy: Ukrainian Hangovers

Trotsky on Ukraine (1939)

Russian Sponsored Territories

Ukraine Through Putin’s Eyes-McClatchy

Between Revolution and Tyranny; a fluid and highly permeable line

 In the cat-bird seat

Propaganda, lies and the New York Times: Everything you really need to know about Ukraine

Revolution, lecturing and life in western Ukraine

Roman Shukhevych: Wikipedia

Meet the Americans Who Put Together the Coup in Kiev

Ukraine agrees to  50% gas price hike amid IMF Talks

Seven  Decades of Nazi Collaboration- America’s Dirty Little Secret

How Vladimir Putin Became Evil

The New World Order-Richard Falk

Tour of Ukraine -Russia Border Finds No  Sign of a Military Buildup- 31st March 2014

We Cannot Still Ignore the Perils of Intervention-Patrick Cockburn

What are Russia’s real motivations in Ukraine? We need to understand them

It’s not Russia that’s pushed Ukraine to the brink of war: Seamus Milne

Six Mistakes the West  Has Made in Ukraine

Pew  (U.S.) Public Opinion  Survey  Undertaken in Ukraine by Region:  April  5-23rd 2014

Conflicts Forum 25th April-2nd May: Alistair Crooke

 

 

 

 

 

Living by the Sword….

“Those who  live by  the sword,  die by  the sword”

Through its abrogation of key  elements of the Geneva Convention by  using torture, genocide and illegal  incarceration of people it thinks could  do  things to US interests that  the state might not  like, the US has  progressively negated key  aspects of the constitutional  protections for its own  citizens.  In addition, professional  bodies such  as the American Pyschological  Association and the American Medical  Association, in  tacitly    legitimizing torture and murder ( drones or otherwise)  and  random  indefinite imprisonment of people the state thinks might be a risk  to the US, have  destroyed their legal   and moral authority .

The Orwellian  legal  and  state  double-speak ( what is evil  is good,  what  is war is peace) by  US political  and legal figures,  is now accepted as truth by  the vast  majority of US citizens and many in the Western world. Many US citizens are consequently  no  longer able to differentiate between right and wrong/truth  and lies.

The US has been fighting wars to  protect  its “interests” (read  companies) for most of its existence, beginning with the genocide of the North American  Indians who  populated much of North America at  the time of European settlement and leading to the wars with Spain in  the Carribbean  and the Philippines in  order to  develop  an empire to exploit , as with  other Western powers of the time.

But it is really only in the years after the end of Second World War in 1945, that the power of the corporations in the US has finally overturned all  semblance of  human rights,  decency  and fairness  in the US . These wars, and particularly the  genocides committed  in North Korea,  Vietnam, Cambodia and Iraq, have  lead to  no  negative national consequences for the US ,   and have thus  resulted in those in power in the US believing  that they are immune to the  impact of the death  and destruction they inflict on others.

Moreover, over those intervening 65 years of constant war, the US has  steadily become a “war machine”- its raison  d’etre being to fight and kill others for what they have. Each marine that returns home brutalised  and scarred by  the reality of war;  each  soldier who  returns to  his home town finally knowing the truth of what  “the greatest nation in  the world ” really stands for, is a time bomb of death  and destruction to  that community. A culture of violence as the solution to  anything  has now  totally permeated every  aspect  of American  society.   To  quote another of those biblical  aphorisms -“what ye sow, so  shall  ye reap”

And with each  war, the targets of American state violence  become ever more  aware of the complete and viciously laughable  hypocrisy of the United States; it’s  Presidents mouthing  ghastly platitudes of the US being the ” shining city on  the hill” , the exemplar to  the world of peace and democracy,  while raining terror and death on the helpless. For the families and communities of the  millions killed by  the US military since the second world war, there remains no  justice – no resting place.

What is now desperately  needed is an international  legal body  that is truly impartial-no longer  controlled by those  rich  and powerful states who commit the the vast majority of the  terror and death  they so  loudly condemn in others.  An international  body  that  seeks justice, not vengeance,  that  ascribes appropriate  compensation to those whom  the powerful have done injustice to.

When every war-mongering state, not just as is currently ,  its head of state,  knows that, regardless of the colour of the skin of those in power, the  warring state will be punished with heavy financial reparations for the evil  it has done- only then  will the incentive for war   rapidly recede and justice prevail.

The American Psychological Association and Torture

The Guardian, in  an  article of 22nd January, notes that  the The American Psychological Association (APA) has declined to  rebuke one of its members,  Dr John Leso for his known  complicity in  the torture of  the US kidnapped suspect  Mohammed al-Qahtani, who  was ” charged” by  the Pentagon  in  2008 for his suspected  involvement in 9/11.
The Guardian notes that  “the APA did not deny Leso took part in the brutal interrogation of the suspected 20th 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed al-Qahtani, whose treatment the Pentagon official overseeing his military commission ultimately called “torture”.
The American Psychological Association describes itself as ” the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA is the world’s largest association of psychologists, with more than 134,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students as its members. Our mission is to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives.”

APA’s communications chief, Rhea Farberman has stated that a seven-year ethics investigation could not meet the burden of finding “direct unethical conduct” by Leso, and said it was “utterly unfounded” to fear the organization has condoned professional impunity.

The evidence of John Leso’s complicity in  torture is incontrovertible in creating an  inhumane environment for Mohammed al-Qahtani to  be tortured by  his “interrogators”. Dr John Leso   therefore both  unequivocally  breached the APAs code of conduct  and the universal  medical  ethic of “do no  harm” .

No  labyrinthine legal  argument can  allow the APA to  escape its responsibilities to ensure its members behave in  ethical  and humane ways to their  patients.

The APA has clearly now abrogated that  responsibility and most certainly undermined the rights of human beings to  the right to be treated humanely by  state apparatus, and has consequently eliminated any professional  credibility it may have had in  the eyes of the  global  public  and clinical  professionals around the world.

It would therefore  be  expeditious for the APA to re-consider its astounding   decision to  condone torture by  its members and to immediately and permanently  dis-bar John Leso  from its membership. However,  this is unlikely to happen.

Since the beginning of the “War on Terror” in  the United States,  and the various Western  countries who  have been complicit in  the  fictional  “war on terror”, we have seen  increasing use by  the state of  statements by  their “legal experts” to  justify  war  crimes,  torture and   murder on  an ever-expanding scale.
The APA’s excuse that the evidence about Dr Leso’s complicity in  torture did not meet the burden of finding “direct unethical conduct” is clearly at odds with the facts. It does however reflect  the fear by  a  supposedly ethical  and professional  body,  of the power of the state to inflict  harm on  even such  a prestigious professional  body  as the APA .
 Weasel  words and legal  sleight of hand  must  instead   be used by  the APA’s legal  advisors to  justify  this cowardice. However when such  a  professional body, which  in their words, exists to   “benefit society and improve people’s lives”, abrogates it’s right to instill  justice, ethics and fair play out of fear of state retribution , there  appears little hope for the foreseeable future of  a fair and just   society in the United States.

 

A Letter to the Editor-Palestine

On November 26 2013, the UN General  Assembly   voted to proclaim 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People was requested to organize relevant activities in cooperation with governments, the UN system, intergovernmental organizations, and significantly, civil society.  The seven countries who  opposed the proclamation were Israel,  United States, Canada, Australia,Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. The vote was 110-7, with 56 abstentions.

I would ask  that  readers take some time to read the accounts of what has happened to Palestine and the Palestinian people since “ The Catastrophe”,  the” Nakba, when in 1948 Israeli  troops and gangs  brutally forced out hundreds of thousands of Palestinians  from the lands and houses they  had lived  in  for centuries, killing many in  the process .

This dispossession,  65 years later,  is ongoing;  each  day  more Palestinians are  uprooted from their homes, their houses and   orchards bulldozed and new “settlements  for Israeli Jews only built over the rubble. The brutality, intensity and magnitude of the occupation is for some reason, a matter for silence by Western governments. Perhaps sharing in the guilt of the Nazis in the Jewish genocide in  Europe, they turn  a blind eye to  the ghettoization of the Palestinian people.  The victim of violence has indeed become the perpetrator. In the West  Bank, the Israeli government  have walled the population in ,  has carefully calculated the minimal  calorific intake to  keep each  Palestinian alive, and has  over many years reduced West  Bank Palestinians lives to  subsistence level, reliant on  “illegal” tunnels supplying food from  Egypt, while health , water and sewage systems crumble. This systematic policy is designed to force Palestinians to abandon their homeland to allow more Israeli settlement. What is urgently needed is for our New Zealand government to finally stand up to Israel and their US supporters and say “enough is enough” and permit international law to prevail.  A separate Palestinian state is now no longer viable after 65 years. What is required therefore is, in the spirit of peace and reconciliation, a process of restoration of justice.  Modelled on the Treaty of Waitangi  process and the South African  Peace and Reconciliation process,  a  unity government of all  religions and politics across Israel  and  the rump  of Palestine  needs to be set  up. This government would oversee the return of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who  have been  dispossessed  over the past 65 years , the release from jail  of the many thousands of  Palestinian  political prisoners (men  women and children) , and the full  compensation or return of lands lost since the occcupation.

Nelson Mandelas’ vision of reconciliation and hope for the future can result in an   Israel/Palestine state that brings a message of hope to the Middle East. The alternative is not worth imagining..

 

References:

2014: International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People: Richard Falk